The Jazz.com Blog
May 15, 2008
The Dollar Declines Overseas . . . And U.S. Jazz Does the Same
Paris-based jazz critic Thierry Quénum, a frequent contributor to this column, has just returned home from Mai Jazz, a Norwegian festival that is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. His report below raises interesting and controversial issues about a European jazz scene that increasingly sees itself as independent of US trends and influences. Readers are invited to share their own opinions by adding their comments or emailing them to editor@jazz.com. T.G.
The people of Stavanger, Norway have good reasons to be proud that their city was elected Cultural Capital of Europe (CCE) for 2008. This harbor city of 120,000 inhabitants, on Norway’s South Western coast, thus acquired an international recognition that supplements tourist interest in its fjords and exquisite countryside, and the economic value of its offshore oil industry.
All this was explained by the radiant deputy mayor of Stavanger to a group of some 30 jazz journalists, festival directors and club owners from around the world during a lunch held in a beautiful early 19th century royal manor overlooking the city. But why so many jazz professionals in Stavanger on this exceptionally warm and sunny spring weekend? Actually most of them come to this part of Norway every year or so, because the Vestnorsk Jazzsenter (VNJS, Western Norway Jazz Center) invites them to Jazz Norway in a Nutshell (JNN), a showcase that allows them to discover local jazz musicians that are not necessarily publicized around the world by famous labels such as ECM or Jazzland.
Last year JNN was coupled with the Natt Jazz Festival in the neighboring city of Bergen. This year it was an obvious choice to hold it in Stavanger, the newly appointed CCE, and to couple it with its home-grown Mai Jazz festival, which was celebrating its 20th anniversary.
Norway is a small, affluent country of about 4.5 million people, and it has a number of great music schools with jazz departments whose output of young, talented musicians is remarkably high. The comparatively small size of the country, and even of Scandinavia at large, compels them to look for an international career early on. The idea behind JNN is to help these musicians do so, and the generous Norwegian policy as far as culture is concerned — be it the State, the regions or the cities — allows the VNJS to contribute to this. By bringing the rest of the world to see young Norwegian musicians, it hopes to trigger some gigs abroad.
According to Bo Grønningsaeter, chief executive of the VNJS, this “export process” works fairly well. As a result, the party of some thirty jazz professionals from Asia, Europe and North America had an opportunity to hear a significant number of Norwegian musicians that haven’t traveled abroad much yet, as well as enjoy more familiar international artists. Significantly, Mai Jazz featured very few Americans – just as the difficulty foreign bands face trying to get engagements in the USA may explain the absence of promoters from the US.
Some local promoters, like Grønningsaeter who’s also in charge of Natt Jazz in Bergen, even say that they don’t need the Americans anymore since what they propose is rarely original, whereas the level and diversity of European jazz — and Norwegian jazz particularly — has enormously increased in the past few decades. One Norwegian festival promoter went so far as to declare that he and his team realized, after they had finished booking their program a couple of years ago, that they hadn’t even thought of including one single US group! For whatever reasons, this year’s edition of Mai Jazz offered a few major American artists, such as Wayne Shorter, Oregon, and John Scofield playing with the Stavanger Conservatory’s Bjergsted Jazzensemble and a Norwegian rhythm section.
One of the most impressive musicians on this last concert was certainly bass player Ole Morten Vågan. He is definitely the next man from the North to watch on this instrument, that has seen the rise of a number of talented artists made of “Norwegian wood” in recent decades. Mai Jazz also showcased famous names and rising stars from the rest of the world, such as veteran trumpeter Enrico Rava, surrounded by his latest choice of brilliant young Italian sidemen, the Neil Cowley Trio, the new piano sensation on the British scene, and Roberto Fonseca, one of the latest piano wonders from Cuba.
But most of all, when you’ve flown all the way up to Norway and are not outdoors enjoying the exceptionally warm spring weather, you and your international mates will want to listen to local bands you won’t hear elsewhere. Among them, the Zanussi Five (alto, tenor and baritone saxes, plus bass and drums) played in a former 19nth century brewery overlooking the North Sea, and displayed their fine art of arranging, drawing on the diverse timbres of their reeds and their great sense of construction and dynamics.
Trumpet player Mathias Eick — who just released his first CD for ECM — is another man to follow. His virtuoso playing differs from that of most Nordic trumpet players. He likes long phrases and has a taste for lyricism as well as for energetic blowing in an electric context, revealing that he has digested Miles Davis’s ‘70s period in an utterly personal way. The Stavangerer, a club set in a large wooden building close to the city center, was the perfect place for the intense performance Eick’s quartet delivered.
“In the Country” is the name of a ensemble comprised of pianist Morten Qvenild, bassist Roger Arntzen and drummer Pål Hausken. But this band is not just one more piano trio, since its members sometimes sing or use electronic devices and miscellaneous instruments to broaden their range. Still their approach is typically Nordic in its use of song formats as well as baroque or classical cadenzas, and in its concern for sound textures and space. Having them play in an ancient cloister about half an hour’s drive from the city was a good way to immerse the audience in the half conceptual, half organic atmosphere that this trio builds.
Apart from these already existing groups, some of Mai Jazz’s concerts were projects financed with the help of Stavanger 2008. Sax and clarinet player Frode Gjerstad could thus present three groups of improvisers from several countries on the same evening, including vibist Kevin Norton, drummers Louis Moholo and Paal Nilssen-Love, fellow reed player Sabir Mateen, bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten and cornetist Bobby Bradford. They all played together two days later, under the collective name Circulasione Totale Orchestra 2008, and their performance, featuring two bassists and three drummers, stood out as the most original and powerful event of the whole festival. It showed how lively, trans-generational and trans-national free jazz still can be, even if it doesn’t always attract huge audiences, and often has little room in festivals that are not entirely devoted to this genre.
Keyboardist Jon Balke’s composition “Siwan,” also commissioned by Stavanger 2008, was exactly the opposite. Performed in the beautiful St Peter’s Church, it brought together trumpeter Jon Hassel, some baroque strings players, Asian musicians, and Moroccan vocalist Amina Alaoui. Though some jazz hues could be felt in it, the main influence in this syncretic oratorio was Arabic-Andalusian music. It confirmed that Balke’s interests range from jazz to classical through folk music from different parts of the world. In some ways, he is following in the path of his Viking ancestors, who also traveled over many continents, centuries ago.
The final concert had to be something big, and though Jan Garbarek has often played Mai Jazz in the past, his following doesn’t seem to fade. His quartet filled a 1500 seat auditorium on the outskirts of Stavanger, and was a huge success. Garbarek didn’t rest on his laurels. Of course, Nordic and Celtic folk themes are still the main vehicle for his lyrical soprano sax. Yet perhaps because Manu Katché’s driving drums was ever present beside him, Garbarek indulged in a couple of lighthearted calypsos and delivered some fiery tenor solos that conjured up the memory a fellow horn player, the late Michael Brecker.
Mai Jazz obviously tries to reach a consensus between popular tastes and innovative proposals. The quality of local bands fully justifies the part they take in the program. On the other hand, the low profile of US jazz here suggests the spread of an attitude that views the homeland of jazz music as just one option among many, as a single aspect of what the jazz world has to offer. In truth, high quality jazz can have its roots anywhere. But while a multicultural attitude is spreading widely throughout the Europe jazz scene, many here wonder when the USA will open up its ears to jazz that is not bounded by its two oceans.
This blog article was posted by Thierry Quénum.
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May 14, 2008
Jazz's New Gold Standard: More Bull Than Bullion
Is jazz experiencing a new golden age? Certainly one journalist thinks so. But Alan Kurtz, our resident curmudgeon (who recently took on National Record Store Day in this column) tells jazz fans not to pop open the champagne bottles quite yet. He offers his dissenting views below. Readers are invited to share their own opinions by adding their comments or emailing them to editor@jazz.com. T.G.
Fifty years ago this summer, a popular men's fashion magazine began preparing its annual Holiday issue. Well-written articles and fine photographs within would document what Esquire's January 1959 cover proclaimed as "The Golden Age of Jazz." In Esquire's view, the late 1950s marked "the most exciting, most creative, and perhaps most crucial age through which our native music has ever passed."
Fifty years later, New York writer Martin Johnson reveals now on TheRoot.com that jazz is "On the Cusp of a New Golden Age." On its surface, this may seem like déja vu all over again. But Mr. Johnson counts carats very differently than Esquire did.
Esquire was effusive about the jazz audience. "Its presence is loudly attested to by the ringing of cash registers in night clubs, concert halls, record stores, and music schools; by the subscription lists of the half-dozen magazines entirely devoted to jazz, and the dozen others which feature it regularly. Its purchasing power is as much evidenced by the 12-record Encyclopedia of Jazz that was recently offered to supermarket customers across the nation … as by Norman Granz's multimillion-dollar concert-and-record empire, built wholly out of the marketing of this kind of music." Over the past year, Esquire noted, to satisfy an "enormous" and "diverse" audience, new jazz albums had appeared at the rate of one a day, with sales sometimes surpassing half a million. As for the airwaves, jazz occupied "an incalculable amount across the nation," part of "the gradual recognition, in books and television and movies, that this music is perhaps the most indigenous expression of our national life."
Occupying an incalculable amount of the airwaves was no doubt wishful thinking, and sales of half a million for a jazz album in those days seem inflated by one or two zeros. But there's no denying that the pop charts did sometimes get jazzy, as when Canadian flutist Moe Koffman's "The Swingin' Shepherd Blues" swung for three months among the Cash Box Top 60 Singles in 1958. Even TV caught the bandwagon. During 1957-59, jazz buff Steve Allen emceed four one-hour Timex all-star jams on NBC, CBS telecast its historic special The Sound of Jazz, and local stations from New York's Channel 13 to L.A.'s KABC featured weekly jazz bashes.
As Martin Johnson sees it, however, popularity is no longer the right scale upon which to weigh gold. "Sales of jazz recordings are down," he acknowledges, "making up a meager 2% of all record sales worldwide." At the same time, most young adults can't afford to attend a "high-end jazz club," where, he writes, "admission is $30, drinks are $10 and even a burger will set you back $15." Nevertheless, Johnson insists, "A new and enthusiastic audience for jazz is sprouting up." His evidence? "Several times in the last few years," he has found himself squeezing into standing room "amid a crowd full of twentysomethings" at one of Manhattan's small jazz nightclubs. If this seems less than convincing, no problem. "The new golden age," Johnson reckons, "reflects the new scaled-down economy of the music industry in general."
But again, not to worry. This downsizing of the industry and outsourcing of its audience are offset by the many "interesting and exciting new recordings and concerts" whose "run of excellence is more than a statistical blip. It is a product of structural change in the jazz world." Simply put, today's artists are "embracing and interpreting more popular repertoire." With their covers of Radiohead, Soundgarden, Oasis, Bjork, Prince and Joni Mitchell, performers are gilding "jazz the music" (as opposed to jazz the industry). "Even Wynton Marsalis, once the leading jazz purist," Johnson reports, "is about to release a pop-oriented recording of duets with Willie Nelson."
The more things change, the more they stay the same. In 1962, progressive jazz-meister Stan Kenton roped singing cowboy Tex ("Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darlin'") Ritter into recording traditional songs of ranch and range backed by Kenton's ponderous Mellophonium Orchestra. To freethinker Kenton, all music was equally valid. If he could sufficiently "Kentonize" country & western, he could lasso disbelieving fans from both sides of the musical fence.
Thus did Stan & Tex rustle up jazz versions of a dozen C&W staples such as "Empty Saddles" and "The Last Round-Up." The resulting album, released hopefully by Capitol Records as Stan Kenton! Tex Ritter!, proved to be High Noon for Kenton, not to mention Ritter's Last Round-Up in Hollywood. Forsaking Stan at the deserted corral of jazz and C&W, Tex sagely skedaddled to his country music hideout in Nashville, Tennessee. Kenton stuck to his guns—or at least to mellophoniums. But after this disgrace, he'd never again be on any real Hipster's Wanted Poster. A cautionary tale, perhaps, for Wynton Marsalis.
In any case, there is something profoundly depressing about Martin Johnson's claim that jazz is "smokin' at a level not heard in a long time." Have we really reached the point where a saturation of self-produced CDs, which serve more as polycarbonate business cards than as a medium for artistic expression, heralds a new Golden Age? Where a tiny bar crammed with twentysomethings schmoozing to jazzy chad recycled from pop has-beens signals anything other than cynical pandering?
If this be a Golden Age for jazz, then devaluation of our beloved currency has reached a new low. All of us who cherish this music—artists, fans and writers alike—need to get a grip. Jazz is more of a minority interest than ever. Fortunately, since there are more people than ever, even a diminishing market segment means that jazz still appeals to tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands across the globe. Can't we celebrate the golden anniversary of jazz's last Golden Age without scratching for the fool's gold of another such era? It ain't gonna happen.
By all means, let's enjoy and encourage jazz's latest developments. But enough already with the hype. Leave that to the pros who shill for Clay Aiken and Miley Cyrus. There really is gold in them thar hills.
This blog entry posted by Alan Kurtz.
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May 13, 2008
Chet's Children: The Legacy of a Fallen Jazz Star
Today is the twentieth anniversary of Chet Baker’s death from an apparent fall from his second story hotel window in Amsterdam. Below is the second part of Ted Gioia’s look back at the career of this talented and controversial artist. For part one of this essay, click here.
I had seen Baker perform on a number of occasions, but I never spoke to him until a gig at Kimball’s in San Francisco about a year before his death. This was around the time of his exceptional live recording in Tokyo, and he showed up on the West Coast playing at top form.
Like many in the jazz world, I always half expected Baker to lay an egg on stage. We all heard the stories of his out-of-control lifestyle, his arrests and incarcerations, his drug use. We knew he had lost his teeth in a beating. He was a guy who didn’t give a damn – just look at how he lived in his life. Why should he care what the fans thought about his playing? Why should he give it his all on stage? Yet every time I saw Chet play in person, he was totally in the moment.
I tend to think that the good Chet and bad Chet came from this same place. Baker’s obsession with immediate sensations and instant gratification, his fixation with the here-and-now, are what made him a great improviser . . . and also an easy prey for drug dealers, as well as a victim of his own worst inclinations. He lived in the present instant. He didn’t worry about tomorrow. He didn’t worry about yesterday. He exhibited a type of personality structure perfectly suited for the spontaneity of jazz . . . and for a tragic, fragmented life.
I spoke to Chet during a break at his Kimball’s gig. I told him about my research into West Coast jazz. I showed him some of my writings on jazz. I hadn’t published any books at that point, but I had some photocopies of articles which I thrust into his hands. I asked whether I could interview him during his San Francisco visit. He agreed, and told me to give him a phone call at his motel the following morning.
Once again, the stereotyped view of Chet would suggest that his mind had been burnt out on drugs, that asking him about events in the 1940s and 1950s would be a pointless and futile exercise. Yet even before I approach Chet, I had talked to people who knew him, and they reassured me on this count. Baker was a shrewd and smart guy, and I would find that he had plenty of interesting things to say – if (and this was the invariable caveat) he decided to do so. In my conversation at Kimball’s, I got the same impression. If you could get past the surface con job – and Baker was almost as good at conning you as he was playing the horn – he had a sharp and savage way of thinking, and knew the score better than anyone.
The next morning I phoned Baker at his motel. No answer. I phoned again and again. Still no answer. I decided to make the forty minute drive from my apartment on the Peninsula, and show up at the trumpeter’s motel room door. Baker had set up shop at a seedy Travelodge in a bad part of town. At first, I was a little surprised – didn’t visiting jazz stars stay at nicer places than this? But Chet probably picked this place for reasons that had little to do with French milled soap and turndown service. He wouldn’t answer the door for me, and the guy at the front desk told me that Mr. Baker had refused to let the maid come in to clean his room.
I slipped a note under Baker’s door, urging him to contact me. And he did . . . about four weeks later.
I was sharing an apartment with a former college classmate, trying to cut down on the cost of rent to support my expensive habit - going to jazz clubs and buying CDs. I came home one evening to see a note on the kitchen table. It simply read: “Chet Baker phoned.” When my roommate showed up later, I asked him whether he had written down a phone number for Mr. Baker. “No, I didn’t get one.” Needless to say, he was not a jazz fan (my room-mate was an aficionado of the Sex Pistols), and wouldn't know Chet Baker from Mary Baker Eddy. The trumpeter, for his part, never phoned again.
I had one last shot at getting an interview. Kimball’s announced a return engagement for the Chet Baker Quartet, and I showed up on opening night, determined to secure the trumpeter's cooperation for my book and research. But when I arrived at the door, the sign read: "Playing Tonight: Les McCann.” I asked the ticket seller; “What happened to Chet Baker?’ The response: “He was ill and had to cancel. I think he might be in Europe.”
I knew, in that moment, that I would never have my conversation with Chet Baker. When I read about his death from a fall a few weeks later, I was not surprised in the least. Somehow I had been expecting it. Baker had been courting disaster for years. Finally it had caught up with him.
Twenty years have now elapsed. What can we say about Chet now, with the benefit of perspective and hindsight? Where does he stand in the jazz pantheon?
First, Baker's music is probably more popular now than during his lifetime. The first time I saw Chet in person, at a small club in the San Jose area, there were fewer than twenty people in attendance. This morning, I checked on Amazon.com, and found that the on-line retailer lists more than 500 Chet Baker releases on its site. Yes, there is a glut of Baker’s music available for sale – the result, to some degree, of his haphazard approach to his own discography. But the sheer numbers also reflect the marketplace, the underlying demand for his music. These CDs wouldn’t be out there if Chet didn’t have a devoted fan base. Despite everything Baker did to saturate the market, his audience always wanted -- and today still wants -- more.
But even more striking – and surprising – is the influence Baker has exerted over later trumpeters. This is especially true in Europe. In fact, one could make a case that no trumpeter of the last fifty years has had more influence among European jazz players than Chet Baker. Check out the ECM releases of artists such as Tomasz Stanko, Enrico Rava or Nils Petter Molvaer, and you can hear how they share Baker’s aesthetic values, his preference for melodic phrasing over flashy licks and practice room patterns. Or listen to Till Brönner or Paolo Fresu or any other of a host of other outstanding European musicians. Baker, the man who couldn’t play jazz (according to his critics), is a key role model.
A great role model, too, in my opinion. If you wanted to teach young jazz players how to hear, how to play with their hearts and their ears, rather than just with their fingers and method books, Baker would be the place to send them. His range may have been limited, his technique less than virtuosic, his work ethic suspect . . . but the key to improvisation is, put simply, the ability to construct fresh and interesting phrases in real time, to build new melodies in the place of the old ones. And in this, Mr. Baker was nonpareil.
How ironic, though. Baker achieved greatness in many areas, but “role model” and “mentor” would not be the first two words he would have used to describe himself.
You wouldn't want to send your son or daughter on the road with him. You wouldn't want him to take over the advice column from Dear Abby or Miss Manners. Yet, is it possible that Baker stands, twenty years after his death, as a figure others should . . . emulate?
What a peculiar turn of events! I suspect that this troubled artist gravitated to Europe because of the easy money and fairly lax attitudes toward drugs. He performed and recorded widely – perhaps even excessively – to support a habit that had come to dominate him. But the end result was he exposed millions of Europeans, including many up-and-coming musicians of great stature, to his artistry.
They are now Chet’s children. And, strange to say, he has finally, oddly, incongruously . . . proven to be a pretty good dad.
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May 12, 2008
Could Chet Baker Play Jazz? (Part One)
This week marks the 20th anniversary of Chet Baker’s death after his apparent fall from a second story hotel window in Amsterdam. Baker was 58 years old at the time of his passing.
For more than a year leading up to this event, I had been trying to arrange a face-to-face interview with Baker. I was in the midst of researching my book on West Coast jazz, and gradually tracking down the surviving musicians who had dominated the California scene in the 1950s. I especially wanted to talk to Baker, who was one of the reasons I was writing the book.
Many of the West Coasters had been dissed by the critics, and I hoped to set the record straight. Baker, more than most, had been subjected to an unfair degree of ridicule and caustic dismissals. Even after his death, these attacks continued. Here, for instance, is a typical put-down from 2002, published by a movie critic masquerading as a jazz expert in the pages of The New Republic: “Baker, in my view, could not play jazz, and did not play it. He did torch songs on dead batteries.”
This same author’s “humorous’ take on Baker’s fatal fall was: “We are talking about Chet Baker, after all . . . he had been dead for years already.”
This is fairly typical of the 'state' of Baker criticism in certain fashionable circles.
Of course, the recordings tell a different tale. A live concert from Tokyo preserved on film and tape a few months before Baker’s death shows him playing at top form. Baker had left the hard stuff at home in response to stringent Japanese drug enforcement policies – Paul McCartney had been arrested at Narita Airport for marijuana possession a few years before, and musicians finally figured out that Tokyo was not Amsterdam. As a result, Baker stuck with methadone during this visit, and played with a fire and creativity that put the lie to those who considered him a washed-up junkie who could no longer handle the horn.
Yet Baker's soloing, even on a bad day, served as testimony to his exceptional knack for constructing melodic phrases. More than almost any soloist of his generation, Baker played what he heard in his head. He didn’t have Berklee licks to fall back on – just what his ear told him. And what an amazing ear. Here is a revealing story, as told to me by Larry Bunker:
“If you put chord changes in front of [Chet], it didn’t mean anything to him. He would say in a self-deprecating way, ‘Well I don’t know the chord changes to the song.’ . . . We would go and sit in with bands, often playing until five in the morning, and any of the songs they would play, Chet knew. But he would ask a question that would puzzle the other players. ‘What’s my starting note?’ he’d ask. They thought he was putting them on or something, but all he wanted was the first note on the trumpet so he would know where to start the piece. From there he could navigate any song by ear. Sometimes the other players would try to fool him. They might try to trick him by playing “All the Things You Are” in E or “Body and Soul” in B rather than D flat. But Chet would have no problems with doing that. It was the other musicians who ended up struggling – they had tried to give Chet problems, but they just caught up themselves.”
Grover Sales told me a similar story. Baker had been enlisted to accompany the Brazilian singer-songwriter João Donato for an engagement at the Trident in Sausalito. Chet would show up late for the gig, with little preparation . . . and Donato would rip through these fast, intricate original compositions, with all sorts of clever chord changes and modulations. Baker would fly over these pieces like he had been playing them for years. He didn’t need to see the charts – they wouldn’t have meant much to him anyway. As soon as he heard the music, he could work his magic.
Here was the letter I wrote to The New Republic in response to their public flogging of Baker’s musicianship – a letter never published by the magazine. I should add that sending letters of this sort is not standard practice for me – I haven’t sent any in the six years since I wrote this one. But I felt compelled to jump in on this issue.
Dear Editor,
I am dismayed that The New Republic provided David Thomson with a respectable forum for advocating his ludicrous position that Chet Baker "could not play jazz."
When I conducted my research on Baker for my book on West Coast jazz, I encountered numerous musicians who were lavish in their praise of Chet’s improvising skills. They told me many tales of Baker's tremendous prowess in performances and jam sessions.
When I accompanied trumpeter Art Farmer during a master class at Stanford, he held up Chet Baker as a role model to the students, calling particular attention to the brilliance of his improvisations. Recently Keith Jarrett -- an artist who does not give out praise lightly -- has also commended Baker's rare talents.
But, then again, I did not need these testimonials to verify the matter. Like Thomson, I too heard Baker perform in the San Francisco area during the 1980s. But contrary to what one might gather from Thomson's review, Baker played at a very remarkable level every time I heard him.
Thomson reminds me of those Cold War critics of West Coast jazz, who claimed that the popularity of Chet Baker and his contemporaries was simply the result of aggressive marketing by the record companies. Well, the marketing campaigns stopped decades ago, and Baker's recordings still sell in large quantities. Indeed, Baker probably has more releases available today than at any point in his lifetime.
Look at the record. A half century has passed since Chet Baker first hit the scene -- selected by Charlie Parker from among the dozens of top notch trumpeters who hoped to get into Bird’s band (not a bad recommendation for Baker there, huh?). Most of the other recordings from that era have disappeared from the bins, forgotten long ago, yet Baker’s music has only grown in popularity and influence.
One can only conclude that those who are waiting for the "hype" to die down, and for Baker's undeserved popularity to wane, like one more passing fad from the 1950s . . . well, they better dig in for the long haul, because they will be waiting for a long, long time.
Ted Gioia
Nope, they never published that one. It stayed in the dead letter office until today.
Art Farmer’s praise of Chet is particularly worth noting. The conventional wisdom is that Farmer resented Chet, and thought he was a faker who couldn’t play a horn. Yet I heard Farmer – unprompted – tell a group of students that they needed to listen to Baker if they wanted to hear how a masterful musician could construct a compelling solo without resorting to flashy high notes or pyrotechnics. So much for the conventional wisdom. . . .
Put simply, Baker was one of the greatest melodic soloists of mid-century American music. And – despite what you may have heard elsewhere – he was one of the most original stylists of his generation. Chet is one of those trumpeters who is easily identified in a blindfold test after only a few notes. Yet he has more than occasionally been dismissed by those who should have known better as some watered-down imitator of Miles Davis. True, both artists played “My Funny Valentine” (although Chet recorded the song years before Davis). True, both musicians developed a “cool” style. But their approach to phrasing, intonation, structuring a solo were markedly different. Even a single, held note – which Chet would typically play cleanly and Miles would characteristically bend -- would tell you which of the two you were hearing.
You should listen to every recording without preconceived notions of how it will sound. The received opinions are often wrong, but even when they are right, listeners need to bring their own emotional compass to the game. Baker, in particular, will distract you from the essence of his artistry if you pay too much attention to the particulars of his biography. Given the self-inflicted damage of his lifestyle, he had no right to sound as good as he did. He was, as the cliché goes, his own worst enemy. But somehow, the music managed to shine through, even as the musician showed increasing wear and tear.
This is part one of Ted Gioia’s essay on the music of trumpeter Chet Baker. For part two, click here.
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May 11, 2008
The Saga of Taylor Eigsti: A Jazz Prodigy Grows Up
I first heard about Taylor Eigsti (rhymes with “iced tea”) around the time he was in fourth or fifth grade. An acquaintance of mine, an accountant by trade, told me that his young daughter went to school with an adolescent boy who was quite a remarkable jazz pianist.
My response was . . . to ignore this unsolicited bit of musical scouting advice from the financial profession. Did I tell him how fill out the accelerated depreciation schedule? Of course, if you write about music, you will find everyone has a friend or a relative who is the second coming of Art Tatum or the next Bird. And what kind of jazz chops could a fourth grader have, anyway?
Pianist Taylor Eigsti
But I paid more attention some time later when Herb Wong told me about the young Taylor Eigsti. Dr. Wong is one of the most reliable barometers of up-and-coming jazz talent that I know. He finds artistry the old fashioned way, by listening widely and deeply – even checking out high school and college bands and indie releases that other critics simply ignore. Even better, Herb’s taste is impeccable. He jumps on no bandwagons, adopts no fashionable poses. If he tells me a cat swings, the cat will swing.
About Eigsti, he tells me: this cat swings. (Well, those weren’t his exact words. But close enough for jazz.)
He also related the tragedy Taylor had already experienced during his brief life. When he was a toddler, his sister Shannon (a promising musician herself) succumbed to cancer, and then a few years later he lost his father to the same affliction. Faced with challenges that would undermine, perhaps permanently, many youngsters, Taylor not only survived, but eventually thrived. And not just in music, but in sports and academics too.
I got my chance to hear Taylor, a few weeks after this conversation, at an outdoor jazz series promoted by Dr. Wong. Here the youngster was invited on stage to play a few numbers. Eigsti must have been twelve or thirteen years old at the time, and his poise, for that age, was striking. His playing was still a little cautious, but everything he attempted, he pulled off. Although there were several other promising young jazz artists sharing the stage that day, Eigsti was the one who seemed destined for great things.
One of the pieces Taylor played at that concert was a Dave Brubeck composition. A few days later, I wrote a letter to Brubeck telling him about Taylor, and singing the praises of this promising young musician. The ever gracious Mr. Brubeck took an interest and a short while later he invited Taylor (age thirteen) to share the stage with him during one of Dave’s West Coast jaunts.
But not all prodigies pan out – especially in the jazz world. Recently, Matt Savage has received a lot of attention, and has a personal story that (like Eigsti’s) pre-disposes us to listen sympathetically. Yet, I doubt that Savage will develop into a top notch adult pro. Old timers may remember Craig Hundley from the late 1960s, who was hyped at age fourteen as the next great jazz pianist. But he never realized these expectations, and probably is best known today for playing a bit role on the Star Trek television series. Or there is the case of Sergio Salvatore, who was recording at age 11, and had contracts with GRP and (like Eigsti) Concord. Yet I haven’t heard a whisper about him in years, and his web site indicates that his last CD was released more than a decade ago.
On the other hand, there have been former “child prodigies” who later became established jazz artists as adults. They outgrew the label, and few today call attention to their precocious younger days. Keith Jarrett, for example, began giving concerts to paying customers at the age of six. (I cannot confirm the rumor that he told people to stop coughing and put away their Polaroid cameras at this debut performance.) Hilton Ruiz graced the stage of Carnegie Hall at age eight. Steve Kuhn, as I recall, was actually the subject of a formal academic study of musical prodigies when he was a youngster. But the “prodigy” label is now merely a bullet point in the long and illustrious bios of these artists.
And what about Taylor Eigsti?
Fast forward a decade from my first encounter with this pianist, and Eigsti is no longer a child prodigy. He is young man with a fully developed command of the instrument. He is now recording for the Concord label, and his CD, Let It Come to You, was released a few days ago. He is touring actively, composing, even writing works for symphony orchestra.
Anyone who hasn’t yet heard this young artist, should track down Let It Come to You. Eigsti makes clear that he has arrived. We no longer need to talk about what levels he might reach in the future. He is playing at a world class level right now. When the discussion turns to the best jazz pianists of the new generation, his name must be in the conversation, and maybe the first one mentioned.
Eigsti has overcome the single biggest obstacle of the prodigy, which is to move beyond assimilating influences and develop a mature and up-to-date approach to the jazz tradition that goes beyond mere mimicry. In truth, many of the most talented musicians I have met over the years have been cursed by their precocious talents. It is so easy for them to imitate everything they hear, that they constantly bounce around from style to style, influence to influence, and never put their own personal mark on the music. If their talents were smaller, their artistry might actually be greater.
But Eigsti is now staking out his own territory. Listen to his reworkings of “I Love You” or “Caravan” on his new CD, and you will hear an artist who respects the tradition, but not too much. His harmonic sense is edgy without going over the edge. His technique is sure, and his sense of dynamics (a weak spot for many otherwise capable jazz musicians) is especially good. He shines as a soloist, but he is also a good listener and knows how to adjust his own pianism to what his bandmates are doing. Yes Taylor Eigsti has arrived but, from another perspective, the journey has just begun.
Click here to read the full review Eigsti’s “I Love You,” which is featured as the current Song of the Day at jazz.com.
This blog entry posted by Ted Gioia
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May 08, 2008
Weekend Track Review Roundup
Jazz.com’s team of hard-nosed critics never rest. Below are links to some of the reviews published in the last three weeks. As you will see, these encompass all eras and styles of jazz, and are part of our quixotic but noble attempt to cover all the great (and not so great) tracks recorded since Funky Butt Hall got its first taste of funk.
As always, we provide candid appraisals, and a ranking based on our proprietary 100 point scale. We also include, whenever possible, links for fast (and legal) downloading. And site visitors can play Monday morning critic, posting comments of their own at the bottom of each review.
Miles Davis: Fran Dance
Keith Jarrett; The Köln Concert: Part I
Thelonious Monk: I Surrender Dear
Abbey Lincoln: Blue Monk
John Coltrane: Aisha
Art Pepper; September Song
Louis Armstrong: Chinatown, My Chinatown
Paul Bley: When Will the Blues Leave
Eric Dolphy: Tenderly
Brad Mehldau: The Very Thought of You
Mitchel Forman: Mister Clean
Andrew Hill; Dusk
Freddie Hubbard: Here’s That Rainy Day
Charlie Haden: Ida Lupino
Tony Williams: Vuelta Abajo
Jim Hall: Frisell Frazzle
Roy Hargrove: Whisper Not
Zoot Sims: Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams
Trilok Gurtu: Ballad for 2 Musicians
Keith Jarrett & Jim Pepper: Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
Benny Goodman & Jimmy Rowles: Mean to Me
Jimmy Smith: Blues for J
The Rosenberg Trio: Minor Swing
Gianfranco Continenza: Outside That Door
Steve Kuhn: Beautiful Love
Charlie Parker: Just Friends
Ron Blake: Shades of Brown
Michael Jefry Stevens: For the Children
Fred Randolph: Ice Nine
Joe Farrell: Molten Glass
Lennie Tristano & Lee Konitz: If I Had You
Johnny Harman: These Foolish Things
Warne Marsh: Yardbird Suite
Adam Levy: Dear John
Michel Petrucciani: Contradictions
David Sanborn: Another Hand
John McLaughlin: When Love is Far Away
Jim Hall & Ron Carter: Alone Together
John Scofield: I’ll Take Les
Johnny Griffin: A Monk’s Dream
Bill Evans & Zoot Sims: Funkallero
Nicholas Payton: Fleur de Lis
Abdullah Ibrahim: Water from an Ancient Well
John Hicks: Lush Life
Gene Ammons: Hittin’ the Jug
Louie Bellson & Clark Terry: Chicago Suite 1
Birelli Lagrene: All the Things You Are
Stanley Clarke: Desert Song
Paco de Lucia: Alta Mar
Mike Stern: Swunka
Stanley Clarke: Desert Song
Sarah Vaughan: In a Sentimental Mood
This blog entry posted by Ted Gioia
Tags: track review roundup
May 07, 2008
Jazz and Cartoons: The Secret History
Jazz plays a peculiar role in the broader culture. Almost no one buys jazz records these days (roughly 2% of CD sales), yet automobile companies find that they sell cars when they put jazz music on their commercials. Walk into a Starbucks, and you will frequently hear jazz playing in the background. Channel surf the movies on cable, and you will find jazz or jazz-derived music time and time again. Wherever you look, the symbolic impact of jazz far outweighs its importance when measured by sales or concert attendance.
Even the name jazz seems to possess some magic. When radio industry folks describe their station's format as “New Adult Contemporary,” no one pays any attention. But when they call it smooth jazz (same stuff, different label), everyone takes notice, perhaps just to gripe. Even things that have little or nothing to do with music – jazzercise or a basketball team in Utah – want to usurp the majesty of the name.
But jazz and cartoons? What could be farther from the spirit of jazz than low-brow animated entertainment for kids. Yet there is a long history of mutual interaction between these two art forms. Raymond Scott’s quirky music served as inspiration both for the soundtracks of countless Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons, as well as for serious jazz musicians. Artists as diverse as Don Byron, Bob Moog, the Dave Brubeck Octet and the Kronos Quartet have reveled in its peculiarities.
And Bugs Bunny, don’t forget, was the prototypical hipster back at a time when only Lester Young was doing a better job of defining the cool ethos -- just as Elmer Fudd has long served as the prototype for all "squares," who are sometimes dubbed (in Elmer's honor) as fuddy-duddies. When I write the hidden history of the twentieth century, Bugs and Prez will play leading roles. (Don't laugh, my friends, I'm serious!)
The jazzy theme from The Flintstones was a variant on “I Got Rhythm,” and boasted a swinging chart and perfect blowing changes. Hanna-Barbera musical director Hoyt Curtin contrived this gem of contemporary Americana, a hummable melody that proved to be a major contributor to the success of the TV series. But Curtin topped this effort with his lesser known, but also classic theme for Johnny Quest, which includes some of the best -- and most difficult -- trombone writing of the era. (If you haven’t heard it, check it out here.)
Henry Mancini’s “Theme from the Pink Panther” showed that this successful marriage of a jazz sensibility with animated images was no fluke. Who can imagine the great Peter Sellers’ films without the inspired opening sequences? The animated panther with the brilliant soundtrack became a star in his own right, appearing in 124 shorts, ten television shows and three prime-time television specials.
Despite these precedents, the execs at CBS were unhappy to learn that producer Lee Mendelson planned to use Vince Guaraldi’s piano trio for the soundtrack to the 1965 special A Charlie Brown Christmas. Yet the show captured a huge audience – around half of the televisions in America tuned in – and the soundtrack became almost as popular as Charlie Brown himself. Four decades later, the recording of Guaraldi’s soundtrack music remains a perennial holiday season best-seller.
Cartoon Jam Session Runs Afoul of the Law
Top Cat, despite his name, is usually relegated to the bottom of this list. This cooler-than-thou cartoon character briefly starred as leading feline in a major network show – but lasted for only thirty episodes. His brief reign lasted from September 1961 to April 1962, not even as long as the second Elizabeth Taylor - Richard Burton marriage. But Top Cat had a winning attitude . . . and a great soundtrack. Again Hoyt Curtin, the man behind the music at Hanna-Barbera, was the composer. (Jazz trivia: If Curtin was the top cat at HB’s music department he wasn’t the only jazzcat there. Marty Paich and Ralph Carmichael also made contributions to Hanna-Barbera scores.)
Pianist Ted Kooshian has adopted the forgotten Top Cat, and features his jazzy theme song as the opening track of his new CD Ted Kooshian’s Standard Orbit Quartet. Kooshian, whom you may know from his work with Ed Palmero’s Big Band, must be a fan of cartoons and comic books, because his CD also covers themes from Spiderman, Batman and The Simpsons. All in all, this release has the most unconventional line-up of tunes that I have encountered in a long time. The eleven tracks also dip into Led Zeppelin, The Police, Captain Kangaroo, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
But I will pick Top Cat over Buffy any day . . . and especially today when the cat’s theme song has been selected as Song of the Day at jazz.com. You can read the full review here.
This blog entry posted by Ted Gioia.
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May 06, 2008
The Réunion island Sound Comes to New York
Meddy Gerville is a fascinating artist who is developing his own unique approach to world fusion. Imagine translating the ethos of Brazilian Milton Nascimento to a Mediterranean / North African setting, and you may get a sense of what this artist is all about. Gerville hails from distant Réunion Island, located east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean, but recently arrived (somewhat jet-lagged) in New York for a brief engagement. Ralph Miriello reports on the proceedings below. T.G.
Pianist and vocalist Meddy Gerville
After an enjoyable dinner of Korean barbeque in the little midtown section off Herald Square on 32nd known as Korea Town, we ventured downtown to the West Village, off Washington Square where NYU reigns supreme. Our destination here was a comfortable little club called Cachaça (pronounced ka-sa-sah). Situated at 35 West 8th Street between 5th and 6th right at MacDougal, Cachaça is a relatively new comer to the jazz club scene. The club seems to specialize in jazz, especially music with a Brazilian or Latin flavor and bills itself as the new jazz hangout in New York.
The weather outside was a relentless mist of pollen-fine rain that kept your coat damp and could leave your spirit feeling a bit soaked; but we were buoyed looking forward to a night of exciting music from Meddy Gerville and his band. I had recently reviewed Meddy’s new album “Fo Kronm la vi” favorably, and wanted to see if he sounds as good in person as he does in the studio. We arrived at the door as the opening act was finishing up. Taeko Fukao, a pretty Japanese jazz singer had just finished playing to a small but apparently grateful crowd, and we settled in to a prime seat overlooking the bandstand.
Cachaça is long and relative narrow at the front, where a bar straddles the left side as you enter, and seats approximately ten or fifteen. The room then opens up to a dozen or so tables on either side and then widens again with more densely laid out tables back to the stage area. I judged the capacity of this intimate venue to be between seventy to eighty people, a size that is comfortable for patrons and offering good proximity to the music from most locations. The stage is reasonably generous and accommodated the house grand piano and drums along with the remaining instrumentation of Gerville’s five-piece group with relative ease. The sound in the room was of good quality and could be heard from everywhere in the club.
With the weather being less than cooperative the club was not filled to capacity for the 9:00 pm schedule start of the first show, but no matter . . . the band was late in arriving. When they did appear they seemed disoriented and somewhat non-plussed by their tardy entry. I later came to find out that these guys had serious jet lag and it showed in the beginning. Meddy and two of his band mates had come from their hometown on distant Reunion Island, near Madagascar, and had been traveling for what must have been an eternity. Who could blame these travel weary musicians from succumbing to the fatigue we all have when traveling such distances without a break. When the band finally did set up and get started, the crowd of about fifty, who could have been put off, was immediately mollified.
Meddy had assembled a talented group of musicians who related brilliantly to his musical language. His fellow Réunion islanders, Jim Celestin on saxophones and young Jerome Calcine on percussion, had the obvious cultural tie to Meddy based due to their common island pedigree. The inclusion, for this date, of bassist extraordinaire Matt Garrison and super traps master Horacio “ El Negro” Hernandez was an exciting and sympathetic choice that made for a great evening of music.
There is no denying that Meddy’s unique jambalaya of sounds, that are the result of inspiration from the ethnic diversity and rhythms of his native island, draws in the listener. I find his voice, which is at times wonderfully evocative of Milton Nascimento, to be the most characteristic ingredient. Meddy’s talent as a composer and pianist are without question. He effortlessly glides over the keyboards at breakneck speed and with a percussive attack that can build great tension. But when he scats and croons in a mellifluous stream of notes he emits a tonal quality it is immeasurably pleasing to this ear.
Despite his obvious exhaustion from travel he summoned up great strength and exuberance as the set developed and it is easy to see this talented artist could steal a show with his good looks, his likeable stage presence and his charming, self-effacing style. The band’s repertoire contained songs from several of his albums dating to as far back as 1997. The set started with Meddy singing “Dansez Sor Moi “ (or “Dance for Me”), and despite the group still struggling to get up to speed and in-sync, the song signaled that this would be an engaging performance. Meddy sings exclusively in a French dialect and despite the language barrier it in no way detracted from the enjoyment of his music or my appreciation of it.
Besides the aforementioned “ Dansez Sor Moi”, which featured nice interaction between Meddy and the lilting soprano saxophone voice of Celestine, the band played “Vais Oya” which featured some flaming bass work by the talented Matt Garrison, a former John McLaughlin and Steve Coleman sideman. On “Ni dovan, ni deryer” Gerville sounded very much like Al Jarreau with Celestin on soprano conjuring an almost oboe-like tone, reminiscent of Paul McCandless from his work with Oregon. The piece dubbed “Reunion Island” had a distinctively French sound to it and by this time the band had its act together showing amazing synchronicity, executing abrupt time changes flawlessly.
It was apparent that the steady hand of the seasoned timekeeper, Horatio “El Negro” Hernandez, who has played with powerhouse performers from Santana to Pacquito d’Rivera, was deftly keeping it all together in a most professional way. When he did solo he displayed impeccable technique with a polyrhythmic attack that was never showy. On “Camila” the music had passages where they conjured up images of the band Weather Report with it’s signature soprano, keyboard and bass dialogue. The rhythmic, and at times staccato, nature of most of this music was spellbinding and Garrison, Hernandez and percussionist Calcine showed that they could execute the difficult changes with ease. The audience could not help but clap to the beat -- when they could follow it .The smiles on the bandstand were indicative that the players were also having a good time with this vibrant music.
The highlight of the first set was the closer “Barmine,” which is on Meddy’s latest album Fo Kronm la vi and is sure to become a signature piece for him. You clap your hands and if it were possible could dance for joy to this infectious driving song and to Meddy’s undulating voice. The band reveled in its rhythmic sensuality and it crescendo-building form.
Despite a late and somewhat slow start, mitigated by the circumstances of an arduous travel schedule, this was a joyful celebration of a music that speaks to the universality of jazz as a “world music”. Meddy Gerville’s short New York engagement was a note worthy performance that I am glad not to have missed and Cachaça is a club that can be expected to be a welcome new jazz hangout in New York City.
This blog entry posted by Ralph A. Miriello.
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May 05, 2008
The Future Stars of European Jazz
Stuart Nicholson must be the most indefatigable traveler among current jazz critics. He recently covered events in Dublin and Oslo for the jazz.com blog, and promises to send us reports from several other countries during the next four months. (Coming soon: a first hand account of jazz in Estonia.) Below Nicholson reports on his visit to the Jazzahead! gathering in Bremen, Germany, where he got a glimpse of some of the likely leaders of the next generation of European jazz stars. T.G.
It’s not as straight-forward as you’d think getting from London to Bremen. It’s cheaper to fly to Hamburg and go the rest of the way by train. And while Hamburg may have many claims to fame, such as playing host to President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s when he attempted to evoke memories of John F. Kennedy’s famous June ‘63 Berlin speech by declaring “Ich bein ein Hamburger” to startled civic dignitaries, Bremen has mostly kept in the shadow of its sister city.
It seems a bit unfair. After all, it dates back to at least 150 AD and is a Hanseatic city (the Hanseatic League was a powerful trading organisation in northern Europe in the Middle Ages). Today it’s the home of Becks beer, a huge Mercedes plant and a pretty good football (or soccer) team that’s well placed near the top of the German Bundesliga. There’s a lot of civic pride in this lovely, orderly city with its impressive sights such as the St. Petri cathedral, the Gothic town hall that dates back to 1400 and its picturesque market square.
But the Jazzahead! convention has well and truly put the city on the cultural map of Europe. Held in the huge Congress Centrum Bremen, built at a time when flying concrete buttresses and artsy aluminum-and-plate-glass architecture was in fashion, this three-day event attracts visitors, fans, musicians, media and music professionals from over 40 different countries for concerts, conferences, panel discussions, educational symposiums, lectures and trade exhibitions.
In the space of just three years Jazzahead! is well on its way to becoming one of the premier events in European jazz – indeed, it probably already is. The concert program began in the late morning and continued late into the night at the nearby Kulturzentrum Schlachthof. This former slaughterhouse has been converted into a well equipped performance center with good sight-lines and excellent sound. The concerts start at 10.30pm and wind-up in the wee, small hours of the morning.
The Schlachthof programme featured three one-hour concerts each night (a total of nine performances in all) of European jazz selected by a Jazzahead panel of experts. During the day, concerts at the Congress Centrum featured upcoming German jazz musicians, and in the evening a couple of international headliners such as Wallace Roney, Trilock Gurtu and Marilyn Mazur were added to the program.
Considering Germany’s enormous size, relative to the rest of Europe, its economic clout and its awesome musical heritage, it’s fair to say its jazz musicians have been somewhat under represented on the European scene. In fact, probably their most famous musical export in contemporary times has been James Last, who although once a jazz bass player, has long moved out of that line of business.
If pushed to name a couple German jazz musicians, most would probably begin and end with Albert Mangelsdorff, whilst others might add Klaus Doldinger, Heinz Sauer or Manfred Schoof at a push. But in the last three years, a generation of young musicians have emerged who have begun turning heads on the European scene. Some have made their breakthrough through the initiative of record producer Siggi Loch’s Young German Jazz series on his ACT label, such as pianist Michael Wollny’s trio [em]. This ensemble was a hit of the first Jazzahead meeting and promptly went on to considerable acclaim at festivals across Europe.
This year the ACT Young German Jazz series included Berlin trumpeter Matthias Schriefl and his band Shreefpunk. Full of awkward melodies, edgy rhythms and darting references to classical music, Shriefl projects enormous potential which is occasionally dissipated by pushing in several directions at once.
Yet Schriefl’s agitated, fragmented approach is typical of many bands from Berlin not signed to ACT, such as Hyperactive Kid and Johnny La Marama, whose music seems to reflect the changing face of the city itself – old buildings are being pulled down, new ones being erected faster than you can blink, underpasses and overpasses are being constructed here there and everywhere, old roads are suddenly diverted or closed while new ones devour houses, apartments, shops and offices in their path. Change is everywhere and this feeling of disconnect was apparent in their music – rich with quotes and parodies, odd rhythmic shifts and allusions to Weill, they made their crazy collages of sound work through a combination of deft musicianship and attitude.
While lot of young German musicians are drawn to the Berlin scene, pianist Laia Genc went the other way and settled in Cologne. She has already accumulated enough awards and prizes to fill a room in her apartment, and this highly regarded young talent is now setting about to deliver on her enormous promise. Fellow Cologne resident and pianist Anke Helfrich saw her career sidelined for six years due to illness, but announced her return with her album Better Times Ahead. This release hit the upper reaches of the German jazz charts, and it’s easy to see why. Her trio set was calm, understated and totally beguiling.
In contrast, Jazz Kamikaze was anything but. The Danes, Swedes and Norwegians who make up the band have devised an adversarial mix of rock and jazz designed to invoke shortness of breath and dizzy spells among jazz purists. Yet they were serious fun; saxist Marlus Neset is a young musician who created enough elbow room in a band of strong personalities to show he has considerable potential. He could go far.
One of the most interesting sets of the whole weekend was provided by saxist Matthieu Donarier’s trio from Paris, a city that’s often dubbed the crossroads of Europe. With Manu Codjia on guitar and Joe Quitzke on percussion, they wove mid-Eastern flavours and asymmetric rhythms into an intimate yet intense set that built and built in lyrical and rhythmic intensity, gradually bringing the late night trade at the Schlachthof bar to a standstill.
But for those who wanted a glimpse of who the future stars of European jazz might be, then three classically trained virtuoso pianists put their hands up as likely contenders to enjoy the kind of success being enjoyed across Europe by the Esbjörn Svensson Trio, (or e.s.t., as they are often known). The UK’s Gwilym Simcock impressed the international audience with his stunning technique, and by breathing new life into the standards repertoire, while the Carsten Daerr Trio seemed to have worked out their own personal jazz language.
Filling his short set with concise yet absorbing originals, each seemingly constructed to leave you wanting more, Daerr proved to be a cunning alchemist who in another life could probably make gold out of base metal. He was joined by long-time associates Oliver Potratz on bass and Eric Schaefer in drums, and the trio demonstrated that they have developed a shared musical idiom that was intense yet rich with meaning.
But it was Jef Neve from Belgium who took Jazzahead! by storm. With bassist Piet Verbist on bass and Teun Verbruggen on drums they presented a rhythmically charged set that delighted a capacity audience at the Schlachthof. Classical and jazz influences were seamless mixed into an original style that climaxed with the powerful “Nothing but a Casablanca Turtle Sideshow Dinner” from his album Nobody is Illegal. It earned the loudest ovation of the whole event as everyone sensed the arrival of a major talent.
This blog entry posted by Stuart Nicholson.
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May 04, 2008
Brooklyn Remembers Max Roach
Tim Wilkins contributes this first hand account of a tribute to the late Max Roach, part of a series of Brooklyn based events in honor of the legendary drummer. T.G.
Pianist Randy Weston (photo by Randy Waterman)
“If people don't like what you're doing, you're probably doing the right thing,” Max Roach once told trumpeter Cecil Bridgewater. “Max Roach challenged himself every night to do something that he hadn't done before,” Cecil recalled. “And obviously. he challenged the rest of us, to get up to his level.”
Cecil and other jazz greats, including pianist Randy Weston, bassists Leonard Gaskin and Sam Gill, and percussionist Montego Joe shared memories of Max with those who gathered at Brooklyn's Medgar Evers College last weekend to reflect on the drummer's legacy.
Many of these musicians grew up with Max in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvestant neighborhood. As teenagers in the 1940s, they made trips to Harlem to catch the new sounds being played by Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk at Minton's and Monroe's Uptown House. At sixteen, Max once drew himself a mustache with an eyebrow pencil to get past the doorman.
Gaskin played at Minton's, and Max soon followed. Before long, both were playing on 52nd Street - Roach with Bird, and Gaskin with Dizzy, creating the music that would come to be called bebop. But it all started in Brooklyn, with the solid musical grounding the budding boppers received in the borough's public schools and at churches like the Concord Baptist Church, where Roach, who passed away in August, was a lifelong member.
Now, movement is underfoot to bring Brooklyn's jazz history back to life. The Roach memorial was the high point of the month-long Central Brooklyn Jazz Festival, which held more than forty concerts in largely African-American neighborhoods to raise awareness about the borough's living heritage in jazz. 'We want to pass on all of the knowledge, the history, pride, and honor to a younger generation, who really doesn't know about this,' said Susie Anderson of the Andy Kirk Research Foundation, the weekend's organizers, who hope to open a jazz archive in Brooklyn. The weekend included free concerts by Weston, Bridgewater and other associates of Roach, including Fab 5 Freddy, Odean Pope, Lewis Nash and the M'Boom ensemble, which includes Ray Mantilla, Steve Berrios and Joe Chambers.
From L to R: Gil Noble, Herb Lavelle, Randy Weston,
Otto Neal, Leonard Gaskin, Sam Gill, Donald Sangster,
Montego Joe, and T.S. Monk. (photo by Randy Waterman)
The gathered musicians also shared thoughts on the fate of jazz and the challenges of bringing it to the attention of a younger generation. “Today, we don't have music in the public schools, especially in the poorer areas where blacks live,” said Gill, who started in jazz then spent nearly fifty years as bassist for the Colorado Symphony Orchestra. “So my theory is that's why rap started, because they weren't getting any music in there.”
Drummer Herb Lavelle agreed the generation gap has grown into a problem. “With jazz not being played on the radio for 25 years, young people never knew what it was,” he said. “So they're doing their own thing now, and they don't understand what we did, and we don't understand what they're doing.”
T.S. Monk, drummer and son of the bop pianist, added that Max always encouraged cooperation between the generations. “Hip-hop ain't that far from bebop, or rebop,” Monk said. “This younger generation of musicians is looking to us for validation... so it becomes our responsibility to get back, stand back and dig exactly what they're doing.”
“Are you watching the kids, these hiphop kids?” Roach once asked T.S. as they were working to create the Thelonious Monk Institute, now a leading force in jazz education. “He said, 'You have to pay close attention to them, because they're actually very similar to us.’”
“He always looking, and he was always trying to find the next thing,” Bridgewater said of Max. On hip-hop, the two agreed to disagree. Max “was really enthused about the rhythmic aspects about what they were doing,” Cecil recalled. “But I said, 'Well, but they're not really dealing with music, because they haven't had the theory, the melody, harmony, and so forth.'"
On the other hand, Bridgewater said today's jazz students today are often too academic in their approach. “There's a spirituality to the music that you just don't get from theory. Charlie Parker did not play the 'bebop scale.' Charlie Parker played music. Dizzy Gillespie played music. Unless you can lift the notes of the page and make them personal, it means nothing.”
Weston agreed about this importance of spirituality, and tradition, in jazz. As a teen, he and Roach would hang out at Brooklyn's social clubs to play cards with older musicians and listen to their stories. “When Thelonious Monk played the piano, we hear a magic -- there's something that's mysterious in those beautiful structures,” said Weston. “But some of us have become so sophisticated that the blues don't mean anything to us... and that's the foundation of all we do.”
The weekend closed with a concert of bebop classics by Weston, Gill, Rachim Sahou and others.
Roach's legacy, and his advice to future generations, can perhaps be best summed up in his own words. '“The instrument is in your mind,” he said. “You can take cardboard boxes and make them sound like dynamite. If you want to deal with the drums, you have to realize that the instrument is the human being.”
This blog entry posted by Tim Wilkins.
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