“Here are two more arrangements. One is a two horn arrangement of The Song Is
You, and I included a rhythm part per the request. The second one is hardly
a standard, but may still be fun to play in case anyone is interested. It¹s
a three horn arrangement of a re-harmonized Israeli song from the 80¹s. It¹s
got a pretty melodyŠ.”- Ben Doital
As if you’re interested, I have spent the last several weeks recording lectures onto computer files. I am teaching two classes in July: Intro to Philosophy, and Human Nature and Human Values (a course on the biological origins of political behavior). But I am going to be gone the first week of class. I am attending the Illinois Biology and Politics Institute. So my students will have to make do with canned Blanchard. Recording these lectures has been three times the work of a regular class. But I have been learning a lot of new technology.
Meanwhile I am working on a paper on Lincoln and Darwin. I can’t wait to find out what I have to say.
But just right now I feel the need to post a bit of jazz, but I am too tired to say anything interesting. That’s assuming anything I say is interesting. Anyhow I have been listening to the brilliant and unfortunately late Esbjörn Svensson. I commented on Svensson’s Monk tribute album last month.
Two other albums put me on that shadowed, cobblestone walk, damp with evening dew. From Gargarin’s Point of View is a title that suggest a genius for arrangement. Likewise with Winter in Venice. I have never been to Venice. But I cannot imagine that such a place exists in winter. Esbjörn Svensson could imagine that, and he does on this superb album. Both of these albums remind me of walking Boston, alone, on a rainy afternoon. Red stones and the smell of lobster boiling.
I will finish this damn paper if it kills me. But before it does, here are some samples from the two albums:
The last few years of Lawrence Williams’ life were fraught with health problems and financial setbacks, but he never let himself get discouraged or depressed by them. Even when he lost his leg and couldn’t play the drums anymore he treated it as a minor setback (if that). His reaction was to just compose more music and to start working with pastels. I’ve never met anyone with as much inner strength as Lawrence possessed. He was always highly grateful for everything that he experienced, even things that most people would consider tragedies. To Lawrence, these life struggles were simply opportunities to take stock of his life and to learn to grow as a person. He always had another grand musical project planned, and though these sounded like grandiose fantasies at the time, more often than naught he actually pulled them off.
I hope you appreciate the Lawrence Williams charts that I’ve been posting here. You won’t find this music anywhere else. It’s really amazing stuff.
Here is a video clip of an interview I did with Lawrence in 2002.
The problem with the majority of modern jazz singers, in my opinion, is there is a basic lack of soul. Sure, all the notes are in the right places, but whether it be a tired rehashing of some old musical warhorse for the masses, an over-polished delivery, an inability to sell the lyrics, or arrangements that sound canned, today’s vocal jazz seriously lacks what Frank Sinatra, Julie London and the like brought to the table.
What you wind up with is background music, ideal for playing when you aren’t really listening.
Compared to aficionados, my introduction to Gardot probably came late. It was due to a promotional e-mail that found its way to my inbox. The site featured a bit from her new album, My One and Only Thrill. It blew me away.
Here was a singer who didn’t sound like she was singing for the ninth grade show choir. Here was a string arrangement that caressed the vocals. Here was an original song with thoughtful lyrics, and a delivery which conveyed the emotion attached.
For the first time in a long time, I was eagerly waiting for the release of a modern jazz vocal album.
And it didn’t disappoint. Front to back, this is a very listenable album filled with fresh ideas. Vince Mendoza’s arrangements are top notch, never sounding tired or reused, poetically supporting the vocalist’s efforts. Gardot’s piano and guitar work reflect her voice. Intimate. Subtle. Not necessarily popular words these days.
And what a lyricist. It may be hard to believe someone so young could pack so much into her lyrics, but then, she has experienced a lot more that many of us in her short time here on earth.
Likely, commercial interests will lump her in with the usual suspects, the inevitable comparisons to Billie Holiday, etc., etc. Don’t be fooled. Like Madeleine Peyroux, Gardot isn’t an imitator, she’s bringing her own thing to the table.
I just read on an eMusic post that JazzTimes is suspending publication. This probably says less about jazz than it does about the publishing industry, which is deep in trauma right now. But it does worry me.
The history of jazz begins around the turn of the twentieth century, and probably ends in the 1970’s. That period constitutes a history because it has what Hegel called a dialectic: each generation establishing a statement to which the succeeding generation could reply. It is a common idea in modern aesthetics that such histories ought to go on without stop, but that is not usually how artistic genres work. Each reaches a point where further avenues of progress are limited or not available. I don’t see anything in jazz that is really new after the avant garde movement and the fusion movement.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing. It happened to classical music much earlier, and maybe it is the fate of all genres. But it means that contemporary jazz is left exploring the contours of existing jazz space.
What is to be done? Lenin’s question is answered for jazz by such works as Jim Snidero’s Standards + Plus, and pianist Ethan Iverson’s Deconstruction Zone. The latter, Iverson’s standards album, shows what is to be done. The greatness of jazz lies, it seems to this humble fan, in two virtues. First, it established a basic sound, a wide avenue in music space, that was persistantly and uniquely its own. Wynton Marsalis thinks that is rooted in blues and swing. Second, it developed a taste for mining all the riches of any music melody, and building new structures in any number of directions.
Iverson’s trio certainly exemplifies the latter virtue. He takes a number of standards, and my goodness what he does with them! Who could have guessed what realms were open from starting points like ‘I’m getting sentimental over you,’ or ‘Have you met Ms. Jones?’
Here are two Iverson samples. Reid Anderson plays bass, and Jorge Rossy is on drums.
This Jackson 5 cover of “I Was Made To Love Her” (recorded 1973) is unbelievably audacious. Michael sets out to out-Stevie Stevie, on Stevie’s own signature song, and actually succeeds.
When I was growing up, “Michael Jackson Sucks” t-shirts were popular amongst a certain segment of the childhood population. I remember feeling sorry for those kids, for having already developed such terrible taste at such a tender age.
Quincy Jones famously attributed Michael’s enormous success to his “ass power”:
At one point I asked Q what separated the great stars from the near greats he’d worked with. “Ass power” was his reply. To illustrate his point, Q compared Michael Jackson to another well-known vocalist he’d produced. The other singer, an artist with an immense voice and an insatiable appetite for cocaine, would come to the studio, maybe lay down a scratch vocal, and then wander off for hours. Jackson, in contrast, would come to the studio, record a strong lead vocal, work the stacked harmonies that distinguished his work, and practice where to place those ad-libs that were his trademark.
“His ass power,” Q said, “would keep him in the studio until he felt he’d accomplished something that day. That ability to focus, to stay in that chair in the studio, listening to playback and then going back in to record some more — that’s what separates the good from the great.”
I realize it is futile to hope that Michael Jackson will be remembered primarily for his brilliance as a musician. But now that he’s gone (it seems unbelievable), it’s up to those of us who care about music to focus on MJ’s formidable artistic legacy.
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Alphabet Soup is a Hip-hop/jazz band that was formed in the early 90’s in Oakland by some of my close friends in the Bay Area. The first Soup gigs were in a basement speakeasy called something like Captain’s Corner. This place served only beer and Jagermeister and was in an awful part of town, so bad in fact that when bands played we had to hire security to escort patrons to and from their cars. There were always voluminous clouds of weed smoke hanging in the air of this nautical themed converted basement. Several other popular ‘Nu-Jazz’ (I hate that term) and Funk got their start at this illegal club. I played there regularly, with the quintet that I co-led with tenor saxophonist Kenny Brooks for years, until one of the patrons got shot outside the club. At that point we started looking for safer venues. It was sure fun while it lasted though.
Alphabet Soup became a major force in the Groove Jazz scene that was exploding in San Francisco in the 90’s. People were calling this music Hip-Bop (Hip-Hop/Be-Bop), which eventually became Nu-Jazz (STUPID!). There were usually rappers and/or turntable-ists, funky drums grooves and modern sounding Jazz melodies and blowing. Charlie Hunter’s trio was starting to become wildly popular around then. Kenny Brooks and I played in Hunter’s Quintet D’Gengis, which was just four horns and Charlie. Pianist Dred Scott (who also plays drums), Charlie, Kenny Brooks and I would go out on Telegraph ave near UC Berkeley and busk on the street. We were always playing great sessions at Dred’s Oakland loft with players like Joshua Redman, Eric Crystal, Click Dark, Wilber Krebs, Scott Amandola, Liberty Ellman, Dave McNabb. It was kind of a thriving little East Bay loft scene.
It was an exiting time because all of a sudden Jazz musicians discovered that if they just added some Hip-Hop grooves to their music they could actually play in popular clubs for lots of young people, what a shocker that was. Of course Miles discovered this back in the 60’s, but it was a pretty big shift in the San Francisco club scene at the time. Young people are fickle about their musical tastes and soon enough the Swing dancing fad overtook many clubs. Alphabet Soup stayed together through the years, going through several different MCs, drummers and bassists. Kenny Brooks and Dred Scott kept the band working regularly through everything. When Charlie Hunter became a national act he took Kenny out on the road with him and I subbed for him for a while. Dred eventually moved to NYC and Jeff Chimenti (now with Rat Dog) took his chair while Dred was back east, though Dred would often make it back to SF for gigs.
Recently Kenny moved to NYC (he actually has cribs on both coasts) and it was only a matter of time before the Soup had their first NYC gig. Rapper CB made the trip out for the show and former West Coasters Jesse Murphy and Diego Voglino joined the band on bass and drums. Murph (who I grew up in Santa Cruz with) is one of my all-time favorite bass players. Last time I saw him play he was on Letterman playing with the Brazilian Girls. He came out wearing nothing but tight swim trunks, a bowler hat and electrical tape on his nipples!
In all the years that Soup has been together I’m sure that they have only rehearsed a handful of times, IF THAT! I wonder if they even rehearsed for this recent gig? After all, the loose weed-fueled vibe of the Soup is what made the band so special. This gig sounds great and Kenny B is absolutely KILLING it.
I just discovered a very cool site called SoundCloud that allows you to transfer, share and sell music. The basic free membership allows you to upload up to five tracks per month. There are no limits on file size and you get a nice looking page with all your tracks on it. SoundCloud allows you to easily share your audio files on Facebook, MySpace, Digg, StumbleUpon, Delicious, or by email.
They also give you a widget, which I just added to this blog, that allows other people to send you music files. All in all pretty damn cool. It would be perfect for anyone in music production who moves a lot of big files and doesn’t want the hassle of an dealing with an FTP program.
A few months ago I posted a clip of Chris Potter playing an insane solo version of All the Things. Saxophonist Ben Doherty has gone and tackled the unbelievable feat of transcribing the entire solo! No kidding, this thing is 19 pages of pure ridiculousness.
Ben, have a little too much free time on your hands buddy?!
All kidding aside, this solo is an amazing example of Potter’s mastery of the instrument, and also an example of Ben’s extreme tenacity (it took him many months to finish).
Pere Soto turned me on to a nice site that offers free downloads of solo transciptions. There are 94 saxophone transcriptions, 147 guitar transcriptions, and a handful of transcriptions for other instruments.
Born Carmine Ugo Mariano on November 12, 1923 in Boston MA died June 16, 2009 in Cologne Germany at the Mildred Scheel Hospiz. Charlie’s music career spans from 1940 when at the age of 17 his sister Colina gave him his first saxophone to 2009 when at the age of 85 he was still performing and recording music. Charlie served three years in the Army Air Corps during World War II where he met his first wife Glenna Gregory. Following his service in the military he became a student at Schillinger House (now Berklee College of Music) graduating in 1951. He became a well known alto saxophonist during his time with the Stan Kenton Orchestra and Shelly Manne through his West Coast era. In 1958 with wife and four daughters in tow Charlie returned to Boston to teach at Berklee where he immersed himself in the Boston jazz scene. Along with Herb Pomeroy and Ray Santisi he founded the Jazz Workshop which became a popular jazz club featuring many jazz greats. During this period he met and married Toshiko Akiyoshi and formed the Toshiko Mariano Quartet. Afterwards he also performed with Charles Mingus and appeared on the Black Saint and The Sinner Lady and Mingus Mingus Mingus albums. At this time his fifth daughter was born. From 1965 to 1971 he raised two of his daughters as a single father while teaching at Berklee. During that time he moved to Newburyport and formed a rock fusion band called Osmosis with local pianist Charlie Bechler. Prior to moving to Europe his sixth daughter was born with his partner Charlotte Bulathsinghala. While in Europe he played and recorded in many diverse musical genres including jazz rock fusion, South Indian music and contemporary European jazz. Charlie is considered one of the pioneers of world music.
He is remembered by his family as being a fun and loving dad who enjoyed eating lobster, ice cream and playing cards and scrabble by the beach. He also was a very deep and spiritual man who taught his children important life lessons.
He leaves behind his wife Dorothee Zippel Mariano, sister Connie Rosato, and daughters Sherry Mariano and her partner Joe Giarrrusso, Cynthia Mariano and her husband Bruce Blanchard, Melanie and her husband Albert Lamar, Celeste Mariano-Perrigo and her husband Peter and their brother Paris Mariano and his wife Lisa. Daughter Monday Michiru Sipiaguine and her husband Alex, and daughter Zana Mariano. Grandchildren Hillary Griffin, Gemma, Gwendolyn, Lila Fay and Albert Carmine Lamar and Nikita Sipiaguine; Great grandchildren Emily and Rachel Griffin. Nieces Lois Stevens and husband Gary, Pattie Mclay and husband Ken and many cousins and other relatives in Italy and the USA.
Charlie was predeceased by his parents Giovanni and Maria (DiGironimo) Mariano from Fallo, Abruzzo Italy and his oldest sister Colina (Mariano) Pauletti.
Charlie was cremated in Cologne Germany and his ashes were shipped to the family where they will be buried in the family plot in Boston. A memorial service is being planned by the family to celebrate his life but the date has not been set so please stay tuned…
In lieu of flowers the family suggests donations be made to the Charlie Mariano Scholarship fund at Berklee College of Music.
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My RSS Reader readers1 won’t notice a difference, but I have finally cleaned up the sprawling, embarrassingly out-of-date right-hand column and updated the Secret Society blogroll. I am not sure anyone ever looks at (let alone clicks through to) blogroll links anymore, but people have been politely requesting that I update mine for literally years now, and I have finally been shamed into actually doing something about it. I removed inactive blogs and blogs I don’t read anymore and all blogs that feature that damnable light text on a dark background.2 Oh, and I also folded the “musician blogs” and “non-musician blogs” into a single category. We Are One, just like in the CK ad.
However, a few of these recent additions could benefit from a more extensive introduction. Please welcome:
Createquity, one of the few blogs out there devoted to arts policy and economic issues. It’s also written by an actual artist: singer, composer, and Capital M honcho Ian David Moss, who has recently graduated from the Yale School of Management. He’s still keeping it real, though — check out this recent post on “sustainability.” No, don’t go check your Twitter feed instead — trust me, it can wait. This shit’s important, and Ian makes it engaging, accessible, and provocative.
Jason Palmer’s Blog — Jason is a fantastic and in-demand trumpet player (and now indie film star). I know Jason from our mutual NEC years — he played on the original versions of “Lizard Brain,” “Chrysalis,” and “Flux in a Box” — so it is great to see him throw himself headlong into the blogosphere, despite his already full plate of teaching and musical commitments. Jason was among the winners of the Bad Plus Blog Competition, for this heartwarming post.
The Big City, composer George Grella’s omnivorous music-in-NYC blog. Anyone who can write with insight and authority about Alas No Axis, Sonic Youth, Elvis Costello, my NewAm colleagues Missy Mazzoli and William Britelle, and the recent Boulez/Barenboim/Staatskapelle Berlin Mahler marathon is okay in my book. And, yes, I would totally be saying that even if Grella hadn’t given us this far-too-generous writeup.
Music and More, Tim Niland’s record-review-centric blog. He’s been at it since 2003 but his blog is new to me, and maybe new to you? This species of blogging is time-consuming and mostly thankless, but when done well, it’s invaluable.
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1. If you are new to RSS (and you use a Mac), I recommend NetNewsWire. It’s free and it’s way better than Google Reader.
2. Exceptions were made for Kris Tiner and Hank Shteamer, but c’mon, guys…. a disturbing number of entrants in the Bad Plus Blog Competition also inexplicably use that heinous, unreadable color scheme. Listen, kids: just say “no” to shitty blog templates. I can’t process your brilliant blogospheric pronouncements if your light-on-dark text is burning holes in my corneas.
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EI: You are a pretty rare example of someone who isn’t playing music already as a teenager but then has the willpower - because of a love of the music - to like really devote yourself to it, a bit on the late side, and then turn it around. In a few years you’ve made your first record and you’ve got your own voice coming.
TB: Yeah I was pretty strong-willed. I don’t know what possessed me. When I look back on it, it seems incredible, especially considering my overall lack of confidence. The more I learned, the less confident I felt. I would take these jazz lessons and stuff, but I didn’t really ever do sideman stuff. I think the first thing I ever did as a sideman could’ve been the Mark Helias record Split Image, where I played with Dewey Redman for a couple of tunes.
That was amazing. Mark might have given Dewey the music but I seriously doubt he looked at it. He came in from a gallery show, where he’d been drinking some wine. He’s kind of laughing and screwing around. And I’m paralyzed with fear. Not even just about him, but just recording a record in a studio. Somebody else’s music, some of the tunes have changes, you know I’m just mortified I’m gonna fuck up. And, uh, then Dewey just shows up and we play this thing and it’s like “boom.” We’re playing this tango of Mark’s, and playing it “correctly” and all this, and Dewey comes in… his solo’s killing. And then we play the other tune he’s on, and it’s the same thing. He’s not nailing the music, but all of a sudden it has a vibe. It’s like this guy is a pro in the best sense of the word. This guy’s been around the block! He just knows how to cut to the music. Get to the music quickly. You put up all these blocks: “I can’t do this, I can’t do that.” I was just fighting myself on every issue. “I’m not as good as these guys,” or whatever. All that shit’s spinning out of control in my brain. And this guy’s coming in like “I’m Dewey Redman. I play the saxophone. It’s just music. I’m gonna play some music.” He wasn’t worried about somebody saying he fucked up letter B or whatever — and if they had, he would’ve done it again, of course. But on the improvised stuff he just sort of killed it.
—–
Ethan is famous for his extended interviews, but Marc Myers of JazzWax is giving him a run for his money. This week he is publishing his 5-part(!) interview with my mentor, Bob Brookmeyer, and it is riviting. There is a lot of stuff in here I didn’t know!
So far, only the first two parts are up… parts 3-5 coming later this the week. I will update the links as needed.
JW: How did you come to play the valve-trombone? BB: The stories about me starting to play it cold with Claude Thornhill’s band are wrong [laughs]. Yeah, right, I just walked into Thornhill’s band, picked up the valve-trombone and started to play it. The truth is I started playing the instrument when I was 13. I didn’t want to play slide trombone, so I found some old baritone horn in the band room and learned to play the valves. Then friends gave me an old Czechoslovakian valve-trombone. I learned to play the instrument by watching trumpet players.
JW: Why didn’t you like the slide trombone? BB: Who likes the slide trombone? Sax players got all the girls because they were seated in the front row. Trumpeters got all the money because they were driving the band from the back row. Trombones sit in the middle and develop an interior life [laughs]. Trombonists didn’t get the money or the girls.
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I picked up a copy of this at the county library a ways back and had just finally got a chance to sit down with it. What an incredible set! Rollins plays hard on this superb bop classic released in 1960, the disc contains a combination of two different recording dates from 1956. Recorded shortly after the devastating car accident that took Clifford Brown and Richie Powell… Max Roach, Sonny Rollins and George Morrow still played powerfully as Kenny Drew filled in nicely.
The album starts off with a medium tempo, straight blues called Ee-Ah to set the flavor of the album. It is soon followed by what makes the disc truly amazing — the super fast tempo and insane improvisations of B. Quik and B. Swift. As much as John Coltrane was an innovator, I can’t help but wonder how be-bop tunes like these influenced him, especially to record such a great cut like Countdown from Giant Steps.
Max Roach equally stands as strong as Rollins, showing why he was one of the greatest drummers to have existed. Drummers like myself owe so much to him.
Things slow down for the ballad, The House I Live In. Trumpeter, Kenny Dorham, joins Rollins and Wade Legge replaces Kenny Drew on keys. This is a straight ahead tune, and even though it is strong, it stands out the least for me on the set. The fifth and final is the title track, Sonny Boy. Which displays Sonny Rollins as we know and love him. Perfectly exemplifying his sound as we can recognize in so many of his great albums.
This album screams modernity. Prestige even precariously choose a hip Abstract Expressionist-esq album cover which generates the tone contained inside the packaging. Fans of free jazz and bop should not neglect this album.
1960 - Prestige.
Sonny Rollins - Tenor Saxophone; Kenny Dorham - Trumpet; Kenny Drew, Wade Legge - Piano; George Morrow - Bass; Max Roach - Drums.
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Dave Douglas’s Brass Ecstasy — a postmodern take on the New Orleans street band, via Lester Bowie — plays live at Fern Bar HQ in about 20 minutes (3 PM EST), and there is a video stream. They band includes Vincent Chancey (horn), Luis Bonilla (trombone), Marcus Rojas (tuba), and Nasheet Waits (drums) — I caught them this Saturday at Jazz Standard and the group is killing (Marcus Rojas is literally unstoppable), so I definitely recommend tuning in. The band has a new record out, too, which like all Greenleaf releases, can be streamed in its entirety.
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