December
Questions about the
relationship between physical reality and transcendent reality no doubt go back
long before the existence of history.
All ancient cultures have myths and legends about what has commonly been
referred to as the four elements (earth, fire, water, and air). Perhaps the most famous philosophically
rooted myth about the elements in our culture is the story of Prometheus and
the consequences of his gift of fire (not counting the Creation story in Genesis,
of course). In spite of the fact that
the Periodic Table has thrown a bit of “water” on the power of such myths,
there is something in those myths that keeps drawing us to stories of elemental
truths
with ancient roots. For example, in the
past half century virtually everyone has encountered the pop band Earth, Wind
& Fire and the sci-fi adventure, The Fifth Element, a film that
effectively links the ancient past with the future in which survival depends
literally on the five elements. So leave
it to Eric Hofbauer to turn a new page on the search for special meaning
in the elements, this time sonically.
Given the fact that ancient myths about elemental powers are central to
the roots of virtually all cultures on the planet, the choices of which
myth/philosophy for Eric to pursue are endless.
Even in Chinese history there are many options. For example, the ancient Taoist gods of
heaven, water, and earth were celebrated as the Three Agents. But, for Eric, one suspects that there is
more to discover in the Chinese 5 Agents.
His recent paean to Water makes one ponder how much
better the future would be if he had pursued the 1000 Agents. After all, his band 5 Agents is named after
the roots of the philosophy rather than the number of musicians in the sextet. And this update/revision of the first in a
projected five works is quite impressive.
It is an improvement on the already impressive first presentation of The
Book of Water Suite 9/27. At the
12/2 Third Life Studio performance of 5 Agents, Eric was emphatic in his praise
of the band members and their contributions to the revision of the work. I have no doubt that those contributions were
constructive. But, like other fans of
Eric’s work over the years, I have no concerns about Eric’s prowess as an
arranger. In other words, this revision
of the work would have included improvements whether he used suggestions from
the band members or not. His celebration
of people in the band tells us more about Eric and the musicians than it does
about the music specifically. First,
Eric is so good at what he does and is so justifiably confident in the work
that he is not threatened by well-intentioned suggestions. I do not believe I need to expand on the
significance of that fact as we find leaders in business, politics, and the
arts reeking with the odor of defensiveness, and understandably so. Second, the compositional transactions that
have taken place between Eric and the musicians in the band indicate the extent
to which Jerry Sabatini, Seth Meicht, Jeb Bishop, Nate McBride, and Curt Newton
have invested themselves in the band. It
is important to note that, even if Eric had not mentioned the revised
arrangement of The Book of Water Suite is improved because of their
contributions, the investment of the musicians is quite apparent in the actual
performance 12/2. It is difficult to
describe the manifestation of that commitment, even though the evidence is
powerful. One factor is the total (joyous)
focus each band member exhibits in solo and duo improvisations. With exhilarating results. But maybe even more impressive is the extent
to which the musicians hear the music. One can see--even in facial expressions--that
each musician does not merely read or recall the written chart
effectively. Rather each musician hears
his part within the context of the moment and revels in the rightness
of what he is playing. The chart and the
rehearsals have resulted in a band of musicians who have invested in the
sonics, invested with purpose. This is
special music-making, and a good crowd at Third Life was fortunate enough to
catch it…
Recent polls suggest that a vast majority of adults in the U.S. think the
new tax bill is very bad and that the President is doing a very bad job. Nevertheless, the next Democrat who runs for
the highest office is in serious trouble.
Yes, the Democratic Party has lost its way. But I’m talking about plain old ominous
statistics. In an article in
Politico.com Michael Kruse describes his
research of more than a year down in the trenches of living and breathing Trump
Faithful, that core 30-to-35% of voters who adore Donald Trump. All of us have read that the core of Trump
Faithful on Election Day last year and today has remained pretty much the same
size. Kruse wanted to find out why. He interviewed a wide span of Trump loyalists
and found them remarkably tolerant of his failures, flip-flopping on issues,
outright lies, and 180 degrees shift in political positions. Initially these folks were hopeful that he would
bring higher-paying jobs and have the Mexicans build the wall, but they’ve seen
reality dash or delay those dreams. When
tactfully pushed about the failures or lies of the President the Faithful tend
to change the subject or shrug and offer some form of oblique praise for the
man. The practical hopes seem to be
fading but not the fervor. As Kruse
suggests, “It’s not that the people who made Trump President have generously
moved the goal posts for him. It’s that
they have eliminated the goal posts altogether.” So if getting things done to make the
Faithful happy is not what rallies the Faithful, what causes the Trump base to
remain so passionately behind him? It is
pretty much what the average Democrat dislikes most about the man. Apparently the Trump Faithful see in his
outrageous actions and statements/tweets as their own disenfranchised
voices. He expresses dramatically their
rage about the Washington
politicians who have abandoned them.
Yes, there are relevant other factors such as immigration and racism
tied up in all of this. But the key
point in all this is that the same third of the voting population who voted for
Trump in 2016 will be there come hell or high water to do the same in the next
presidential election, and they already are an organized block. If you have any fantasies about the Mueller
investigation or impeachment of the President, forget it. Yes, Mueller and his team will successfully
prosecute a bunch of men surrounding the President and it will cause Trump some
potential embarrassment (assuming Trump is capable of such a thing), but he
will remain mostly unscathed. The
prospect of Donald Trump being impeached and removed from office is about as
likely as Hillary Clinton walking across the street without putting her foot in
her mouth. In other words, the ever-bolstered
Trump Faithful will be voting in the next presidential election. For most of the presidential elections of the
past 100 years and more the “Normal ” voting
population has consisted of three voting blocks--Republicans, Democrats, and
Independents. In the next presidential
election we can look forward to four distinct voting blocks--the “Normal”
voters and the perhaps more solidified Trump Faithful. In other words, the next Democratic
presidential candidate begins his or her campaign with the knowledge that
approximately 35% of the voting population (the Trump Faithful) are off the
table, even though that Democrat will need more than 50% of all the votes to
win. To obtain that percentage the
Democratic candidate will need a vast majority of the “Normal ”
block votes (i.e., the remaining 65% of the total). For those of you who left your math crib
notes in the garbage at your high school graduation party, the Democratic
candidate will need 76.9% of the “Normal ” vote
total to obtain even 51% of the popular votes for president. And given how the Electoral College has been
operating, even that will not be enough…
It had been more than a decade since I caught a solo piano
performance by Laszlo Gardony. It is not
that I have been avoiding his solo work. In recent years he has led ensembles of
diverse instrumentation featuring some of Boston ’s
top-shelf musicians. So I had been
looking forward to the 12/17 solo gig at the Wellesley Free Library. For decades public libraries in eastern Massachusetts have been
good supporters of jazz--and not just during Jazz Week. So I’ve caught many such concerts over the
years. There are some differences among
library jazz audiences. For example,
jazz audiences at the Milford Town Library--no doubt due to the profound impact
of the late Boots Mussulli--tend to be hipper than most. But by and large library jazz audiences are
not rabid jazz fans. They are “average”
Americans who for the most part are approaching middle age or older and who
enjoy recognizing tunes and the entertainment of it all. In general the Wellesley audience was typical. A few people could not help offering a
running commentary, but for the most part the people in attendance were quiet,
attentive, and supportive. But, like
most people who attend the big name jazz concerts around the country, the 12/17
attendees were enthralled by what is shiny.
Big objects. Famous names. Eye-catchers.
Tons of technique. Stuff like
that. In this case at the Wellesley Free
Library it was technique. Most serious
jazz fans I know are somewhat suspicious of “impressive” technique as a
substitute for substantive content. Jazz
festivals are overflowing with pianists who fill the air with a million notes
per minute to great applause. As most
fans know by now Laszlo has great technical facility. He cannot help using it. But he knows (what the audience did not seem
to comprehend) that technique is a means to an end, specifically quality music. He knows it is not an end in itself. So any time there was a passage with some
sort of apparent technical challenge, there were oohs and aahs scattered
throughout the room. On the other hand,
Laszlo’s creative melding of “Naima” and “Giant Steps,” one of the highlights
of the entire performance, left the audience fidgeting pretty much throughout
that special offering. It was a strange
experience for someone who usually attends jazz gigs in which the audience
shows up to catch quality music. Win-Win. I entered the gig to see where Laszlo would
take the studio experience of his most recent CD, Serious Play, in which he spent a lot of time freely improvising
without charts. And to fine effect. The good news is that the pianist opened the
performance with three freely improvised works devoid of conventional
compositional structure but employing bits and pieces of conventional rhythms,
melodies, harmonics, and sometimes repeated chord cycles. The key thing about it is that Laszlo had to
dig down inside himself to bring up patterns and ideas that were completely of the moment. This is a process of spontaneous creativity
that is unfamiliar to most straight-ahead jazz musicians--improvising
completely without the safety net of conventional compositional architecture. In the case of the CD, he did this in the
“comfort” of the studio in which he could take chances and--if need be--discard
the results. There was no “discard”
option 12/17 in Wellesley . Therefore the free searching and digging of
the first three pieces of the performance and the successful results were well
worth showing up for. He followed that
with “Misty,” a performance in which the adventure of the first three pieces
continued. The positive impact on the
composed material is another benefit of the free pursuits. There was a brief second set in which Laszlo
played three pop music hits. Nice tunes
well played. Really something of an
encore. But it is the first set that I
carried home with me…
The 12/1 Leap of
Faith performance in Pickman Hall was “Dedicated with loving memory to Ruth
Lomon.” Ruth Lomon who died on 9/26 is
best known to Boston
area jazz fans as the mother of improvising cellist Glynis Lomon. But Ruth had an extraordinary classical music
career, first as a concert pianist and finally as a composer of note. A student of Witold Lutosławski, Ruth
composed music that includes echoes of the great composer but with her own
personal voice. I do not know how many
CDs of her music are available. I
treasure the eight I own--but no more than I treasure the conversations, live
performances of her music, and kindness she shared with me. In other words, the evening was a timely and
appropriate tribute, and it proved to be a successful tribute. There were two sets of music, the first
consisting of a quintet sub-group--Dave Peck, Glynis Lomon, Tony Leva, Yuri
Zbitnov, and Sydney Smart. It was a
relatively brief twenty minutes of improvised music that showed everyone to
good effect with the interaction of Yuri and Syd being a joyous highlight. It was a fine prelude for the 18-piece full
orchestra in the second set. There was
discrepancy between the list of musicians in the program and the people who
showed up to play. Some people in the
list were not onstage, and some people (including the guitarist) were onstage
but not in the program list. From my
balcony vantage point no doubt the following list of performers is slightly in
error, but some credit is due. I
apologize for any mistakes. The people
onstage included the opening quintet plus Charlie Kohlhase, Zack Bartolomei, Kat
Dobbins, Bob Moores, Dave Harris, Eric Goode, Matt Scutchfield, Junko Fujiwara,
Eric Zinman, Silvain Castellano, Joe Hartigan, and Forbes Graham. And they did a fine job with the graphic
score by Dave (AKA PEK). From my seat I
could not see the signature Leap of Faith big digital clock, and I did not time
the piece, but it probably ran about an hour and twenty minutes. That’s a very long time for both musicians
and audience members, particularly considering the problems in herding eighteen
people who are trying to work with completely improvised sonics. The production of arrangements by Dave for
the full Leap of Faith orchestra is an ongoing project. The good news is that the 12/1 performance is
the most successful large Leap of Faith effort that I’ve witnessed. Dave has made adjustments in the
arrangements, and they are good ones. He
exploits the group timbral qualities of different sections of the ensemble
effectively. For example, it is quite
engaging to hear emphasis on the strings who are having a great conversation as
a band within the band. And so it is for
brass or reeds or percussion. The
occasional use of non-traditional instruments and “toys” here and there
throughout the band thickens the soup and brings a generally effective element
of surprise to the performance. Finally
there is generally a greater sense of a constructively evolving sequence of
composed sections in this performance, a wonderful antidote to the common trap
of large improvising ensembles--the ongoing, endless train wreck. All of that is positive, and the maturity of
the chart and the musicians working with the material are remarkable. But this music is a project under
construction. There is still work to be
done. And being a witness to that growth
is of interest in itself. Nevertheless,
some observations may be useful. For
some time I have had problems with the big digital clock and related
matters. I have no problem with the use
of clocks in performance art. John Cage
and Merce Cunningham probably are the most famous artists to employ clock time
successfully in their work. They are not
alone. But--and I may be wrong--I sense
that Dave is obsessed with what are considered to be the two major obstacles to
successful performances of improvised music--ensemble size and length of duration
of the performance. In other words, the
larger the improvising ensemble the greater the chance for that awful train
wreck. And the greater the length of
time of the improvised performance the greater the chance for problems to arise
(such as dead spots, “endless” false endings, various manifestations of
“fatigue,” and more). And so it is quite
understandable the Dave or anyone else would like to come up with strategies
and tactics to overcome those two major obstacles. My concern about Dave’s noble pursuits is
that the problem solving might be getting in the way of the fundamental
necessity of the music. For example,
if the big clock is used as a way for musicians to know when the next part of
the chart begins, fine. But I have
sensed the clock interfering with the unfettered flow of improvisation. The music itself does not dictate the time it
takes to reach the conclusion; the clock does.
In other words, I get the feeling that one or more of the musicians look
up at the clock thinking in terms of how many “minutes to go” rather than “this
next section begins right here.” The
ultimate impact of time is not inherently a problem in itself. I sat through more than five hours of music
when I witnessed a fine performance of Feldman’s String Quartet No.2. Was it long?
You bet. Did I enjoy it? Yup.
Even though it was long, it worked.
I believe that one key reason the quartet performance worked is that the
music on the paper and the reacting musicians determined the duration of the
work, not a mechanical or digital clock.
In fact, the duration of the performance I witnessed was almost a half
hour shorter than some other performances of the work--a difference of that
specific performance not possible if it had been “overseen” by a clock. So the specifying the duration of an
improvisation is a problem in a variety of ways. And I confess that I question whether pushing
the length of an art performance apparently for the sake of problem solving
rather than aesthetic necessity is a worthwhile objective. If there is an argument for making art better
simply by causing an event last longer, I have neither heard nor read it. While I may question the necessity of
extended duration and increasing the number of improvising musicians (after
having two and a half hours to set up the band, it still was not ready until
about a half hour after the scheduled 8 p.m. start time), one cannot deny that
Dave’s charts are doing much to overcome the self-imposed obstacles of time and
size. I was not the only person in the
audience, in spite of Dave’s improved writing, who found the second set to be
too long. So there still is much to be
done. One way to create greater audience
engagement is to fix the episodic nature of the chart. For example, Tchaikovsky is a popular
classical composer, but he is not as great as Mozart or Stravinsky. One of the keys to his limitations is the
episodic nature of his works. Repeated
themes and predictable sequences of the “suite” form that he applies even to
his larger works help casual audiences follow and relate to his music. But the great--may I suggest more
durable--composers do not make travel through their works simple or
predictable. Mozart, Stravinsky, and
other of the greatest composers built music using an arc form. Their music begins somewhere, travels
somewhere else, and lands somewhere (maybe at the “beginning” or some other
place). There may be superficially
attractive music here and there and episodes not much different conceptually
from what Tchaikovsky created, but all of their music is inevitably driven
throughout that arc. There is a force
initiating the sonic journey, events sustaining and driving the music across
the arc, and inevitable resolution at the end of the arc. Dave’s charts can evolve from episodes to the
arc form (and incorporating much of the same episodic material within that
architecture). And so someday we may see
the same digital clock specifying when parts of an arrangement begin for
thousands of musicians who are working with the arc material brilliantly. Then, when the final part of the chart is
signalled by the big clock, Dave (or designee) turns off the clock while people
performing the “end of the arc” define the end of the work aesthetically rather
than mechanically. That’s how good Dave
is…
A friend sent me the image below. I do not know whether the image is real
or staged. But, in any case, it is
constructively provocative.
Sunny Murray died 12/7 in Paris at age 81. As a founding father of post-Ayler percussion
he changed the role of the trap set for the new music from time-keeping to
“painting.” Of all percussionists in the
Boston area to
employ Murray Principles, Laurence Cook most successfully developed
them into his own personal voice. James
Marcellus Arthur “Sunny” Murray
grew up in Philadelphia
and began playing drums at age nine.
Like other post-Ayler giants, such as Steve Lacy and Peter Brötzmann,
some of Murray ’s
strongest early influence was pre-bop jazz.
In the mid-1950s he performed with such musicians as Red Allen and
Willie “The Lion” Smith. But he heard a
different percussive voice--to such an extent that musicians did not want to
perform with him. Until he met Cecil
Taylor. And now I find myself jogging my
memory with Nefertiti, Spiritual Unity, and Sunshine. There is a nice Giovanni Russonello obit in
the 12/14 New York Times that includes the story about the frustrated
percussionist burning his Downbeat “New Star” award…
Sunday afternoon jazz performances are especially nice
because a greater number of people potentially (including children who are the
future) have little problem attending those gigs, the parking is free in most
cities in the area, and driving a car (or even walking) in daylight is less
stressful and safer than doing so at night.
Therefore it was a smart move by Dan Rosenthal to bring his
quintet--with Charlie Kohlhase, Rick Stone, Jef Charland, and Luther Gray--to
Third Life Studio Sunday afternoon 12/10.The event was the celebration of the
release of his first CD as a band leader.
So the gig was festive with friends, family, and attentive jazz fans
showing up to hear the music. But there
was more. The band leader provided
snacks for people who might be hungry for something besides music. Perhaps the happiest aspect of the event was the
presence of Dan’s infant daughter, Ivy.
He proudly announced that the performance was Ivy’s very first gig as a
jazz fan. It’s the future. The single-set performance focussed on music
from the new CD. The charts are rooted
in the ground-breaking music of the 1950s and 1960s, but the twists and turns
are very much of today. For example,
“Easy Money” is a rhythmically infectious work that brings to mind the work of
Izenzon and Moffett with Ornette, but Jef and Luther and horn soloists reshape
the skeleton and detail of the music for Dan’s music of today. It was quintet music all the way except for
two fine quartet settings that featured Rick and Charlie. Rick’s solo work was soaring and lyrical. Charlie was given the opportunity to
improvise (and beautifully) on Thelonious Monk’s “Introspection,” the only work
of the set by someone other than Dan. It
was only one set of music, but it was a healthy set that displayed a fine range
of Dan’s writing and the strengths of the musicians. One might think of choosing to close out the
performance with a ballad is either very courageous or ill-advised. The flag-waver is the most popular final
bow. But some readers of this Journal
may know that Dan is an especially fine ballad soloist. Fittingly he chose “Distance” (AKA “B”) as
the final work of the set. The
composition brings to mind some of the ballad work of Clifford Brown, but Dan
used this opportunity to show us his own fine lyrical solo skills while
garnering appropriate applause for the entire quintet. It was a solid conclusion to a set of
terrific sounds and good vibes on a wonderful Sunday afternoon...
During the Harvard exam period at the end of each semester
Harvard radio (WHRB-FM) puts on its Orgy series instead of its regular
programming. The Orgy programming is a
fine tradition, primarily for music fans of all sorts. Given my love for jazz and so-called
classical music, I found Orgies featuring the music of Zoltán Kodály, violist/wonderwoman Kim Kashkashian, and the
centennial jazz musicians particularly attractive. The radio hosts for the most part are Harvard
undergraduates. Therefore, listeners
should be prepared to cut the announcers some slack. Flubs of one kind or another are inevitable,
but I (and presumably other music fans) appreciate the time and effort they put
into the broadcasts. But the quality of
the discographical data offered varies considerably by music genre. The announcers for the classical music will
get some information wrong, typically pronunciations of names (but I’m
sympathetic, being one who tends to pronounce the “ch” in Cherubini as the “ch”
in “child” rather than as “K”). But the
people presenting jazz do not seem to have a working knowledge of the musician
being celebrated. I can’t get too upset
when we are told that the trumpeter’s name is Roy Copeland, but other
more serious discographical data abound.
Time and again we are told that Monk re-issues consisting of
takes from several different albums or alternate takes are “classic” Monk
albums. Occasionally tune titles or
personnel are stated incorrectly. In one
case an announcer, about twenty minutes after presenting several performances
from the Columbia/Sony catalogue, was working his way through some Prestige Monk
material and informed us that he was presenting recordings in chronological
order. One particularly frustrating
recurrence is that announcers frequently gave the date of the re-issue as the
original recording date. The problems
raise a number of questions. Perhaps
most obviously, one wonders whether any students at Harvard are real jazz fans
who also would like to present that music on the radio. Such a person would know basic information
about such giants as Monk, Gillespie, and Rich. On the other hand, even an
enthusiastic novice can learn how to read discographical data (which usually
include the place and date of the recording).
Well, at least we did get to hear some fine Monk recordings and a few
other people playing Monk’s music. Or
did we? On 12/11 we were told that we
were about to hear Monk and his band perform a couple works. They were Monk works alright, but not Monk at
the piano. After one tune the announcer
apologized explaining that he thought the band name on the cover of the album, Thelonious,
meant that it was Monk’s band rather than Buell Neidlinger’s. The Gillespie Orgy was so bad that I had to
turn off the radio. In my frustration I
did not even take a chance on the Rich Orgy…
Malcolm Goldstein is
81 years old and lives in Montreal . At one point during the intermission 12/13 at
NEC’s Williams Hall he told me matter-of-factly, “I’m too old for this.” No doubt he was referring to the grind of
travel, sometimes tricky lodging conditions, and uncertain hours. Anyone who tours for performance and/or
teaching gigs knows what he’s talking about.
That type of grind is difficult even for musicians half his age. In spite of his words, he did seem to enjoy
the enthusiasm of the audience and his students. Throughout the evening students performed a
work each by Talia Amar and Georg Friedrich Haas as well as four works
(primarily structures to guide free improvisation) by the guest artist who
applauded the students he coached with apparent satisfaction. At the conclusion of the last composition of
the evening (incorporating more conventional arrangement techniques than the
other three) his infectious Soweto Stomp from 1985 (evoking the
animus of the AACM, the World Saxophone Quartet, and others of that time), the
composer “leaped” from his chair with unbridled energy and enthusiastic
support. Before that final ensemble
performance Malcolm Goldstein brought his violin to the floor in front of the
stage to serenade the audience with his distinctive style, technical wizardry,
and (most significantly) transcendent improvisatory communications. Thankfully it was no brief offering but
rather an improvisation of span, arc, and uplifting substance. That single improvised performance is why I
showed up to the gig. I have recordings
of his performances, but you will not be surprised to read that they do not
document the live experience. Although I
have been privileged to witness performances by Malcolm Goldstein several
times, I had not done so since the 1990s.
Even for someone my age that’s a long time. The anticipation on my part was
significant. What would be different
about the artist (if anything), and what would be different about me--my ears
in particular? As far as the improvised
work was concerned, all of it was so familiar.
In superficial ways it was as if no time had passed. The amazing technique and frenetic butterfly
attack were there, just as I remember them.
But there was more. The playing
of the instrument was more integral to his very nature than I remember it to
be. The violin 12/13 was part of his
very being, as natural as the use of lips to talk. And the music was more “compositional.” I use the term “compositional” with caution
and reluctance. I believe that
improvised music at its highest level is superior qualitatively to composed
music at its highest level, and that belief applies to every great improvisor
from Armstrong to Goldstein and beyond.
In other words, the word “compositional” is somewhat metaphoric. The Malcolm Goldstein solo had architecture,
a profound unity, and an arc that, for example, the composed piece by George
Friedrich Haas failed to exhibit (to its detriment). The problem with the Haas piece caused me to
listen to a recording of the composer’s La Profondeur (2009) once again on
12/14. I was impressed by the ideas in
the performance of the Haas piece 12/13, but I never heard those ideas come
together as a unified composition. It is
significant how much Haas had grown in a little over a decade. By 2009 he had become a true composer of
musical engagement. Some lingering
aspect of his music is funny, however.
Even after that decade he still does not seem sure of how and when to
end a composition. In any case, the
shining light 12/13 was the solo performance of Malcolm Goldstein. The effect for me was the return of a master
that I missed and now certainly recognized.
In addition to that the master had grown, offering a kind of aesthetic
profundity that he could not have offered even in his early sixties when I saw
him perform last. Perhaps, as the artist
said, he is too old for the life of a touring artist. I am sympathetic with that perspective. But I also know that the rest of us never
grow too old to revel in the live performances of such a master…
NEC faculty member
Stephen Drury made the 12/13 event happen, as he does in the case of so many
fine events at the school. But I must
confess confusion over the creation and development of his Callithumpian
Consort as described in NEC program booklet notes. I looked at the write-up about the
Callithumpian Consort in the program booklet for the concert and discovered
that the ensemble was “founded… sometime in the 1980s.” There are two problems with that
statement. First, these CV type
write-ups document developments in new music chronology for historians. To be so vague in the historical context is a
serious problem for future historical studies and is problematic in very
pragmatic ways. Even something as simple
and boring as obtaining a drivers license would not occur if an applicant entered
“sometime in the 1980s” as a birth date on his application. But there’s more. My brain, fragile as it is, told me that the
Callithumpian Consort did not exist in the 1980s. It is not just a “sometime” thing. So I went to my records. They are limited. Certainly I never have attended anything like
all
of the Callithumpian Consort performances from its beginning, although I have
some Callithumpian favorites such as the Stockhausen “Seven Days” series at the
Gardner Museum June 26, 2004
performance). I can find no 1980s
programs for the Callithumpian Consort, but there is perhaps a telling November 6, 1996 program
that is remarkable for two facts. First,
the cover of the program does not focus on (or even mention) the music to be
performed, as is the case for twenty-first century performances. The large letters on the cover say, “The
Callithumpian Consort” with all the other information on the cover (such as Stephen
Drury as the director, the date, and the location) in a much smaller font. In other words, the big deal about this
performance is the ensemble itself.
Perhaps it is the first performance of the group. Maybe.
Maybe not. But there is
more. On the back of the program is an explanation
of the source of the name “Callithumpian Consort” going back to 17th
century Bimini. It is the only
Callithumpian Consort program booklet I have which specifies the origin of the
name. These facts suggest that perhaps I
attended the very first performance of the ensemble on that November Tuesday in
1996. Regardless of when the first
performance was, historians should have a clear answer. During his years at NEC
Stephen Drury has made significant contributions to music here and
elsewhere. Among my favorite memories of
the man as performer are his interpretation of Ives’ Concord Sonata 3/18/00 in
the Concord Free Public Library, the four-handed transcription of Stravinsky’s Rite
of Spring on a couple occasions in the 1990s with Yukiko Takagi, and
his justifiably highly praised performances of Cage’s early piano works. It is difficult to overstate his impact on
students at NEC, opening their ears to the fine challenging music of the 20th
and 21st centuries, perhaps most effectively in the case of the
Downtown composers of New York
and their progeny. And so Stephen
Drury’s “carelessness” regarding historical accuracy is troubling for his
legacy. First, when things happen in the
lives of important people is important.
Second, such behavior can be interpreted as disingenuousness, not a
constructive image for a celebrated artist.
For example, several Joseph Beuys “pranks” caused one lecturer at the
2007 Harvard Fluxus Symposium to react with some apparent anger as she recounted
several acts of questionable behavior on the part of Beuys, one being that he
changed the titles of several of his art works by preceding each original title
with the word “Fluxus” to give the impression that he had created several
Fluxus works in the 1940s (thus suggesting that he was the earliest of the
Fluxus pioneers). A deception, a
tongue-in-cheek prank, or a bit of both?
In any case, such incidents do not sit well on his legacy. Maybe Stephen Drury does not take his legacy
seriously, as evidenced by such flippant, vague, and contradictory historical
references. That certainly is his
right. But as a historian, I cannot help
believe that it is wrong…
There was a rare performance
of the Outsider Quartet (originally named the Boston New Music Ensemble) 11/4
in MIT’s Killian Hall. The word “rare”
applies in many ways. For example, how
many improvising bands consist of musicians all of whom are 70 years old or
older? Or, how many “working” bands have
a gap of more than a decade between gigs?
The guys in the quartet could not remember when the last gig before 11/4
occurred, some estimating twenty years.
That gap is particularly remarkable in that all four musicians have
remained active in the Boston
Before it aired on PBS 11/6
John Scheinfeld’s Chasing Trane, a documentary about the life of John Coltrane,
received some negative comments regarding the lack of a close-up view of at
least one performance. I agree to some
extent, but I found two other flaws a bit more disturbing. First, Monk’s influence on Coltrane was
enormous, but reference to the pianist is remarkably brief. Also, Coltrane’s later work with Alice
Coltrane and Rashied Ali is presented in a way that suggests the producers were
not comfortable with the groundbreaking nature of the work and offered a
relatively brief, oblique look at that period.
For many of today’s adventuresome reed players, music of the Interstellar
Space period is seminal. On the
other hand, I found the Coltrane soundtrack to be surprisingly present. Somehow the brilliance of the subject’s
improvisations cut through the foreground of talk far more effectively than I
would have imagined. Denzel Washington’s
low-key comments as the voice of John Coltrane were particularly
effective. Excerpts of interviews with
musicians constituted a broad sample and were enlightening. As a bonus it was nice to see former
President Clinton reveal genuine love for Coltrane’s music. The “competition” between Coltrane and
Rollins is the stuff of legend.
Therefore it was a joy to see good examples of Sonny Rollins’
thoughts. It almost made up for the
non-interview of Rollins in the “Sonny Rollins” portion of the Ken Burns
attempt to figure out jazz. I confess to
knowing almost nothing about the influence of Coltrane on the pop/rock world. So it was for me enlightening and uplifting
to see and hear those musicians tell of that influence. It was a particular delight to witness the
authentic enthusiasm and insight of John Densmore of the Doors and Carlos
Santana juxtaposed with the loud but academic pontifications of Wynton Marsalis
and Cornell West. Given the
extraordinary contributions of Benny Golson as a composer, band leader, and
improvisor, I never have understood why he is not more highly
regarded--perceived as a Giant.
Therefore, for me it was a high
point
It was quite a double
bill. Even though the two ensembles that
performed11/16 at the Outpost shared the same guitarist and bass player, the
personality of each band was distinctive, quite different from the other. The best news is that each set consisted of
fine music. For the first set leader
Bill Lowe (playing trombone exclusively) brought with him two Bostonians--Eric
Hofbauer and Aaron Darrell--and two out-of-town guests--Bobby Zankel and Royal
Hartigan. There were a few superficial
challenges for members of the quintet.
Royal Hartigan was not using his own drum set and the band had very
limited rehearsal time. In fact, some of
the material performed had not been rehearsed at all. But, as fans of the music know, when you have
musicians who are technically at the top of their game and who are top-shelf
improvisors, such obstacles become merely “interesting challenges.” There was a little bit of feeling things out
during the first piece, mostly to discover the aesthetic intentions of the
leader, rather than any obstacle in the chart itself. There was some non-Lowe material on the
gig--including a wonderful Bill Barron ballad--but most of the music was
composed by Bill Lowe, including a couple selections from an evolving, growing
“oratorio” inspired by Jean Toomer’s novel Cane. The overall sense of the ensemble sound was
of the soil, causing me to recall the work of Ellington and Shepp mostly, but
the music never came across as imitative, always feeling and sounding like the
instrumental voice of the leader. At the
same time, as is true of the best jazz arrangements, the musical personality of
each musician came forward, particularly when it was time for a solo. Therefore the solo and ensemble play of Aaron
and Eric remained true to who they are while executing the leader’s very
personal music. The visitors brought their
own voices with them. On alto sax Bobby
Zankel’s attractive rough edge often soared into an ethereal cry, but it always
retained what might be described as a “conventional” beauty. Quite compelling. Royal Hartigan is a “percussive”
percussionist who seemed to take great joy in exploring Curt Newton’s drum
kit. It is a delight to watch and hear
his obsession
with the rims of the drums. All of it
unique and all of it beautifully pushing the music along. And it was terrific music to push. And listen to. All set long.
The second set belonged to Charlie Kohlhase’s Explorers Club Octet, the
“big band” version of the group--Charlie, Seth Meicht, Jeb Bishop, Eric
Hofbauer, Josiah Reibstein, Dan Rosenthal, Aaron Darrell, and Curt Newton. I emphasize the “big band” nature of this
ensemble because, unlike the other incarnations of the band, the Octet is the
one that has the full-force capacity to hit you with a big band sound. And, as I have suggested in previous Journal
entries, the ensemble sound and size seems to inspire high quality
improvisations of certain shapes and colors that do not occur in equally fine
smaller versions of the Explorers. In
this context 11/16 each musician raises wonderful questions. For example, which is more wonderful to witness,
Eric’s solos or his ensemble support?
How can an advanced acoustic bass class technical display by Aaron come
across as nothing but a superbly articulated improvisation? How can someone as young as Josiah have such
veteran instincts? How far can Seth go
in simplifying while saying more? Why is
there no series of You-Tube clips for drum students to see Curt’s never-ending
searching and delightful resultant surprises?
Do local fans know how lucky we are to have Jeb land on our
doorstep? Everyone knows that the
ballads are the hardest to get right; so why is it that Dan makes playing
gorgeous ballad solos seem so natural?
With it all, the group had the upbeat aura of a happy reunion that
permeated the ensemble play and the improvisations. But that may simply be my own subjective
reaction, the sense that it had been too long since I had caught this wonderful
Octet. I have mentioned some questions
the music of the Octet raises. An award
for Charlie raises another question.
Just prior to his arrival at the gig 11/16 Charlie had been at a
ceremony during which he received the Arts Fuse award for his contributions to
music in the media. Well deserved. Charlie is a rarity among jazz radio
hosts. He has knowledge of jazz
recordings (and an impressive collection to go with that) and a knowledge of
the jazz continuum that puts most jazz radio personalities to shame. But the well-deserved award raises a relevant
question: Where is the Charlie Kohlhase award for his decades-long
contributions to the development of jazz in Boston
No doubt because it was the
day before Thanksgiving, Channel 4 in Boston Massachusetts Massachusetts New York
Eric Rosenthal’s .01 Percent
Series at the Lily Pad 11/8 opened with the Unnamed Quintet. Only this time it was a one-set demo of Nate
McBride’s abilities, because the quintet arrived as a drummerless quartet
rather than as a quintet. That fact
would be problematic for any quintet configuration, but these folks--Nate,
Jorrit Dijkstra, Jeb Bishop, and Pandelis Karayorgis--were attempting to
perform charts written specifically for a quintet. Challenging, often pensive charts in which
the drum kit is central to the buoyancy and momentum of the music. What that meant is Nate had to perform the
bass part and the drum part on the bass.
Not really, of course, but he certainly had to rethink what he was doing
to make the whole thing work. And it did
work. The contributions of everyone else
were significant also. This ensemble
performs band member originals that are thorny challenges. Even under the best of circumstances they
require a high degree of focus to execute the charts and to create
complementary improvisations to react to and exploit those charts. Therefore it was wonderful to witness Jorrit
coming off the blocks in full, confident stride, prodding and discovering. Jeb could be dropped into the middle of a fog
with his trombone and play his way into sunshine. Sometimes the lines were simple, almost
barren, and other times he offered a sweeping torrent of notes. All of it engaging and propelling the music
forward. Pandelis found himself in an
intriguing role, intriguing because it was the normal role in the quintet but
not quite. In the quintet the piano has
an important role as part of the “rhythm section,” but it is more as a narrator
than as a supporting presence, in a sense the opposite of bass and drums that
offer the narrative role as secondary to support. The difference is subtle but real. So the trick for Pandelis in the quartet 11/8
was to offer some contextual help for Nate but not abandon his narrative
role. Oh yes, he also took some
solos. You know, those
blow-your-socks-off sonic journeys.
Again, given the challenges of the charts, this instrumentation with
lesser mortals performing likely would have produced results superficially like
a sonic equivalent of Claes Oldenburg’s vinyl and foam rubber “Giant Soft Fan”
(1967) at MOMA in New York (but without the artistic impact of the sculpture). So hats off to all involved with a special
bow to Nate who was not done for the evening.
He--along with Jorrit and Eric Rosenthal--was part of the Porch Trio,
the second band of the .01 Percent Series 11/8...
According to the Denver Post, such a large number of
Walmart shoppers in Thornton ,
Colorado
The trio’s set-up time at the
Outpost 11/28 followed the usual pattern, conversations about a wide range of
subjects. This time Steve Lantner, Allan
Chase, and Luther Gray talked about everything from the University of Miami 8 p.m.
the conversation became a purely sonic dialogue of wonder. Like the verbal give and take, the music of
the first half of the first set was more pensive than usual. The pulse was slower and the solos hardly
ambled. Never was it anything but
beautiful. For example, at one point
Steve and Allan offered rolling, slow-moving chordal lines that almost
subconsciously brought to mind some of the choral work of Stravinsky’s
religious compositions. Throughout the
first set there were a couple times when the music stopped, but everyone in the
audience was aware that the music was not over.
Each quiet period was a functional silence, a great sigh of a rest. Although there was some very effective use of
artillery before the first set was over, music of sustained high energy had to
wait for the second set. It happened
soon enough in the second half of the evening, starting with a brief foray
followed by a silence as an intro to a Luther Gray solo featuring puffy-headed
mallets on toms. The brilliant work
(including silenced snare) continued into trio ensemble. And Luther kept the music churning via
consistent beat with countless variations within the beat. Thoughts of Chico Hamilton’s mallet work came
to mind. Not because the two
percussionists do the same thing on mallets (which they don’t), but because the
beauty that Luther evoked reminded me so much of how beautiful the work of the
late master is. Throughout the second
set (and the entire evening for that matter) the trio went into many different
sonic terrains to work with and create singular blocks of music that
contributed to a growing arc of a sound structure. Near the end of the evening the pace of the
music slowed and the sound level came down as the three men gradually
“deconstructed” what they had built. It
was an amazing process to “see.” The
last half minute of music worked its way into silence. I’m pretty sure that I
was not the only person in the room who held his breath during the fading
“light.”…
October
The Outpost was host to two
improvising trios 10/25, both of them featuring the work of adventuresome
cellists. The first set gave us Junko
Fujiwara in sonic conversation with two other Boston Boston Boston
Over the years I have attempted
to point out the damage that the Musicians Union (AKA the AFM) has done (and
continues to do) to the development of jazz and apparently with the best of
intentions (e.g., see the first paragraph in the November 2015 Journal
and other Journal articles). The
October 24 New York Times in an article titled “Jazzfest Dials Back Its
Festival Lineup” (page C3) presents another fine example of the Musicians Union
Local 802 doing its best to kill jazz using the trumped up argument that the
Union wants to get “higher pay” for the musicians performing on the
Festival. According to the Times’
Giovanni Russonello, “after 13 consecutive years of growth, there are signs
that New York New
York
Jacob William announced 10/18
at the Outpost that the last time all five members of the Para Quintet
performed together was in 2015.
(According to the 2015 Journal, the gig took place at the
Outpost on 9/29.) That’s a long wait for
fans. There have been quartet versions
of the band but no quintet. And we’re
still waiting. Jim Hobbs could not make
the gig. But the quartet that did show
up--Jacob, Forbes Graham, Steve Lantner, and Laurence Cook--still was Para beautiful. Jacob
obviously was excited to be back leading this fine group. He was on fire and energized everyone with
him. Steve is having a very busy month
at the piano, but he left nothing in the gas tank 10/18, feeding energy and
ideas to the rest of the band and digging up wondrous notes from the piano in
solos. Forbes continues to explore and
bring forth gems. He had been spending
home time with his new son, Putnam (3 months old), and showed up truly ready to
play. He obviously missed not being on
the bandstand. Maybe his superb
performance was notice that he and Joe McPhee would be having great fun in town
on 11/2. I confess that I was most
consumed by the performance of Laurence Cook.
It is no secret that he is my favorite living percussionist. But I have not witnessed his performances for
months. A few times he was scheduled to
play but did not make the gig. I was
concerned (in spite of reassurances from other musicians) for his health. And I missed his music. Seeing and hearing him play 10/18 made me
even more aware of how much I had been missing.
Anyone who is familiar with Laurence’s work knows that his technical
resources are extraordinary. But it is
how well he “hides” the technique that most impresses technically. Yes, there were times when his sticks or
brushes were all over the kit, bringing forth earth quakes, geysers, and
hurricanes of astounding percussion. But
it was the “nothing” minimalist work (in the Feldman sense) that knocked me out
all night long. For example, Laurence
was pushing along a happy romp with an understated pulse half carried by a
stick in his right hand tapping cymbals, frame tom-toms, and (most frequently)
the snare. Nothing busy. Just spare taps. The left hand countered with a simple tap on
the snare, over and over. It was so
deceptively “simple” that a silent video clip of his hands, sticks, and drums
might have convinced a viewer that the clip was of a child just learning to
play the drums. But the ears give away
the brilliance, and careful observation tells you the rest. Well, almost.
I suspect that a drummer could watch and listen to a video clip of what
Laurence was doing and never succeed in duplicating that Cook percussion. I could see the impossible. The left hand stick was tapping different
parts of the snare skin--the center and various points around the outer edge of
the skin. It was a slow, simple time
pattern; the only variety was the location of the tap on the skin. Superficially it looked as if the stick was
hitting each location in sequence, over and over again. One might not know whether that was an
intentional deception or that the impression on an observer is merely a
byproduct of what Laurence believes is essential for the sake of the music. I am certain it is the latter. It is true that Laurence was tapping the
center of the head with the stick in his left hand and working the stick
through specific points on the outer edge of the head. But there were two significant
characteristics to the work of his left hand.
First, he chose each point on the skin for a specific sound. Yes, the center of a drum head makes a sound
different from any point on the outer edge of the head. But most of Laurence’s left hand stick work
took place on the various points of the outer edge of the skin. Laurence--and thankfully, I hope, each person
in the audience--was reveling in the subtle timbral differences in the realm
that most drummers do not seem to care about.
And he made it work in an ensemble that was not trying to (nor did it
have to) bring the decibels down for the sake of what Laurence was doing. The second significant characteristic of his
left hand work in this instance is the fact that the apparent repeated cycle of
the pattern was not real. The
“deception” (again, not intended to deceive) of repetition was subtle. He was going through the “cycle” but without
consistent repetition. The pattern he
created was quite complex, but he was so superficially “casual” about the
execution that it came across to the casual observer as simple. At the “end” of one cycle he might hit the
same location twice and then move on.
And then he might hit another point twice or have one or more “cycles”
without striking a point twice anywhere.
The whole thing was astonishing.
It was astonishing also because this amazing harmolodic solo was taking
place without any blip in the pulse that other band members needed. In fact, just the opposite. The pulse continued for everyone in the band
as the “solo” fed and inspired their work.
The word astonishing keeps coming to mind. How about one more quite different
example? It’s the second set. The band is on fire, torching its way through
brilliant improvised art. Unquestionably
it is one of the highlights of the evening.
Needless to say, Laurence is all over the kit, pushing ideas, pushing
everyone in the band. And then something
astonishing (there’s that word again) happens.
After a fine solo, Forbes moves to the right, puts his horn down, and
ponders what follows. The remaining trio
continues where the quartet left off.
Fire and brilliance. Then
Laurence did something that no one else in the room anticipated. No audience members. No band members. Laurence stopped stoking the fires. Just a couple taps on the percussion. Nothing else.
I didn’t expect it. No one else
in the audience expected it. Quite
obviously (unless my sonic functions have failed completely) no one in the band
expected it. But here’s the kicker: Laurence was the only person in the room who
knew exactly where the music was going.
So when he STOPPED, the momentum of Steve and Jacob could not be
halted. They had to continue going where
they were going, which was perfect for the context of space that Laurence
anticipated and created. Never in my
life have I witnessed anyone spontaneously create a space so empty and yet so
perfect for momentum to encounter two simple taps of a stick. Welcome back, Laurence…
I caught the first two sets
of Paul Broadnax and Peter Kontrimas at Bullfinch’s in Sudbury Sudbury Cambridge
It was supposed to have been
a quartet, but the Steve Lantner Quintet--Steve, Allan Chase, Forbes Graham,
Joe Morris, and Luther Gray--performed 10/24 at the Outpost. The reunification of the two-horn front line
with “rhythm section” immediately became a kind of sonic party, with the piano,
bass, and drums dancing so joyously and expansively that the term “rhythm
section” was perhaps even more inadequate than usual. As a bonus, in the middle of all that Joe
offered what may have been his finest solo of the night. And it was difficult to determine whether the
inspired performances of Allan and Forbes were bolstered more by the “dancing”
or the fact that the two horns could talk to one another for a change. A brief intermission brought the band back
for the best music of the evening, an accomplishment of some note considering
how fine the music of the first set was.
There was one high energy piece in which Steve, Joe, and Luther were
going in different directions and moving the furniture at the same time, all of
it shaking the room and pushing the horns to reach even higher. There was a moment during all of this that
the blur over the drum kit gave the impression that Luther had eight arms, each
one doing something quite different.
Then at another time the piano, bass, and drums were motoring along
while Allan and Forbes played long tones over the motoring. The effect was not drone-like but rather
layers of sound built one long tone over and after the next. Quite compelling. As the end of the evening approached, Steve
raised an index finger with a question on his face, as if asking “Should we do
another one?” He hardly got his hand to
chest level when Luther began tearing into the drums. He spoke for everyone in the room…
I do not believe I’m alone in
experiencing fear about driving in a car.
During the past year or so it seems that even in parking lots it has
become an increasingly difficult task to avoid a collision with a speeding,
squirreling, or otherwise life-threatening automobile. And the recklessness seems to be worse this
year than previously. I realize that
using a phone while driving contributes to the problem. But most of the problem seems to arise from
emotionally rooted aggression. The death
toll due to automobile accidents is at record
highs in Massachusetts U.S. America
September
Three Boston area groups made their first public appearances this month. The first group kicked things off 9/20 at the Lily Pad, the second new group performed on 9/27, and the third group performed on 9/30. All three groups featured familiar and highly-regarded musicians. Therefore in all cases expectations among fans justifiably were high. The Unnamed Quintet, the new band premiering on 9/20--Pandelis Karayorgis, Jorrit Dijkstra, Jeb Bishop, Nate McBride, and Luther Gray--performed as the first part of Eric Rosenthal’s monthly Point 01 Percent Series. The original charts generally required disciplined execution and amoeba-like evolving sonic shapes with which thoroughly delightful improvised solos and duos (primarily) danced over and through the charted material. Pandelis, Nate, and Luther stoked the fires with energy and busy commentary that was responsible primarily for the wonderfully malleable context. All five musicians contributed superb improvisation. Wonderful support throughout. The set ended with “Think of One,” a tribute to the Monk Centenary. Pandelis’ fine solo was not a shock. He breathes Monk, and to our great pleasure. The bonus for me was the solos by Jeb and Jorrit who seldom work outside the the post-Ayler realm. They showed their pre-Ayler roots to great effect on their horns, revealing the fine depth of their understanding of Monk’s music. It was a terrific way to end the set and suggest how much more is to come from this impressive new group…
Note: This group
eventually would call itself Cutout.
The day after I left Chicago for Boston Ken left the U.S. for a tour of Europe. Part of that tour included performing at the Santa Anna Arresi Jazz Festival in Sardinia where he bumped into Emy Milani Fewell, widow of Garrison Fewell. They paused for a phone photo.
Former Bostonians Emy Fewell and Ken Vandermark meet in Italy on 9/3…
Eric Hofbauer is a guitarist who is an extraordinary technician and--more important--a compelling improvisor. For most jazz musicians pursuing new territory that might be enough. But Eric just can’t stop arranging music for jazz ensembles. And then rehearsing and performing with those ensembles. And we are the fortunate ones. In recent years Eric is best known as the leader of the Eric Hofbauer Quintet, an ensemble devoted exclusively to Eric’s arrangements of twentieth century composed classics--Ives to Messaien to through-composed Ellington--for jazz ensemble. Aside from Steve Swell’s recent Messaien CD (which I have not heard), Eric’s quintet performances and recordings of the reworked classics are by far the most convincing of similar ventures by others in recent years. Not content with juggling classics and improvisation, Eric has started a brand new project, this one not inspired by great twentieth century classical composers, but rather ancient and evolving Eastern philosophy. At the Lily Pad 9/27 he presented this newest pursuit and 5 Agents, his new band created to tackle the charts--Eric, Jerry Sabatini, Jeb Bishop, Seth Meicht, Nate McBride, and Curt Newton. It was a premiere for the band and the composition/arrangement, “The Book of Water” Suite. As I’ve mentioned before in this Journal, Duke Ellington’s transformations (with the fine assistance of Billy Strayhorn) of composed classics such as The Nutcracker Suite are justifiably praised, but none of those works are qualitatively at the level of Suite Thursday, a composition/arrangement inspired by the writings of John Steinbeck but created from scratch by Ellington and Strayhorn. And here we have Eric Hofbauer inspired by philosophical writings and creating a work for jazz sextet completely from scratch. You know where I’m going with this. Even at this first outing, there is the suggestion that Eric doing Eric is the best of Hofbauer. In the Lily Pad I’m sitting, listening to what’s going on. The opening is a killer with Curt’s percussion carrying the melody, showing the way. And it continues with much of the arrangement sounding improvised (always a good thing when the best people are involved) and each band member time and again bringing forth improvisations of real substance. But perhaps the most telling event of the evening was after the performance. I went up to several musicians in the band to thank them for their fine set of music. In every case the musicians responded virtually identically: “This is the first time I felt that we really have the charts down, really comfortable. The improvisations will be better next time.” So, basically I have been responding with enthusiasm about a work that is at this stage almost a rough draft and comparing it with the “classical” charts. So I guess one “formula” for through-the-roof sonic art is to gather some of the best jazz musicians in Boston and ask them to do charts by Eric doing Eric…
After the fine gig at the Lily Pad 9/27 Jeb Bishop--knowing something of my great admiration for Johannes “Hannes” Bauer--gave me a CD including work by trombonists Jeb Bishop, Matthias Müller, and Mathias Muche that was recorded 5/6/16 in Cologne, Germany. The CD is Konzert für Hannes (Not Two MW 961-2). It documents the performance of the three improvising trombonists at a concert that was supposed to feature four trombonists. The fourth trombonist, Hannes Bauer, died on the morning of 5/6/16. And so the concert became a tribute to Hannes. It is remarkable that these three musicians who loved Hannes Bauer were able to use that love (or something else remarkable) to hold back the potentially debilitating emotions and create such a fine sonic tribute to one of a handful of truly great improvisors of the past five decades…
Cambridge hates automobiles. I can speculate on why the citizens of that city hate cars, but the reasons--however well meaning--do not matter. The hatred and gentrification began booming together in earnest at least a quarter century ago and both problems have grown with the bankification of Harvard Square to the removal of parking spaces and the increase in meter fees there to the ongoing disappearance of parking spaces in Inman Square, a part of town devoid of mass transit. Yes, buses are not mass transit. I don’t know what buses are supposed to be, but they certainly are not mass transit. I should interject that I have nothing against bikes. A dear and well-loved relative of mine manufactures high-end bike frames, produces bike touring experiences throughout Europe and other continents (but mostly in MA), and supports MassBike and other worthy causes. Bikes are nice. Bike riders not always so much. But I’m not convinced that Cambridge loves bikes. It’s just a city that hates cars. My journey into Inman Square 9/20 to eat and later catch some music presented a new Cambridge problem for civilized humans. On Cambridge Street some parking places recently have been moved farther out from the curb so that a safe bike path now exists next to the curb. Yes, it makes auto traffic more convoluted and therefore more dangerous. But it is a reasonable compromise. Nevertheless, the town fathers decided that some parts of the street were a little tight (I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt). So they simply eliminated ten, twenty, forty parking spaces (I did not count the number of spaces) between Harvard Square and Inman Square. I suspect that their handiwork is not finished. Even so, the parking problem in the Inman Square area now is significantly worse than ever. Public parking lots (city operated or otherwise) are virtually non-existent. Once the new students get settled and decide to hang out in Inman Square in larger numbers we’ll get a somewhat clearer picture of just how bad the problem will be. I’m guessing that by the first snow I will have to park on Broadway or even farther away from the three jazz venues in Inman Square. No doubt a lack of parking will have a negative impact on clubs and galleries. But you would think that people who own restaurants would be the most unhappy. Now that’s a legitimate reason for people to march on to City Hall with Tiki torches. I suspect the number of people who live within walking distance if Inman Square is not great enough to keep the restaurants afloat. On the very next day I drove to Harvard Square to enjoy a nice meal at Park before driving the convoluted Cambridge Street trail to Inman Square and some jazz. Much to my delight I discovered that the anti-car establishment had made two significant “improvements” on Massachusetts Avenue between Porter Square and Harvard Square. First, along with the recent disappearance of about a dozen parking places on the northbound lane, new parking meters keep taking your money until 8 p.m. In other words, you can’t park your car at 6:15 and have a meal at Temple Bar and pay for just the meal. Now the new fee for parking becomes a meal tax. But there’s more. It is not enough that there is the familiar meal tax when you eat in or near Harvard Square and that now they have added a car-meal tax. The anti-car authorities have added insult to injury. It no longer costs $1.00 to park along Massachusetts Avenue for an hour these days. The new meters are coin meters that love quarters. So, if I want to park for two hours while I have a leisurely meal at Temple Bar, I have to dig into my quarter dispenser to come up with ten quarters. Let’s see a show of hands. How many people have a pocket or glove compartment bulging with ten quarters? So, from now on, if you want to spend some time--for a movie or food--in the Harvard Square area, you have to establish a quarter cache or park in one of those terrific Harvard Square parking lots--and potentially spend more for the parking than for the movie or food. Perhaps somewhat ironically, I was in Concord for lunch and some strolling 9/21. I say “ironically” because Concord is sort of “automobile unfriendly” also. But for very different reasons. I am aware of no evidence to suggest that the people or politicians of Concord hate automobiles. What they dislike in the extreme are tourists. You can imagine how happy people involved in the local commercial ventures feel about that. To a great extent, people who have chosen to live in Concord have done so for the very same reason tourists show up there to spend money. “Hawthorne, Emerson, Thoreau, Bronson Alcott. Knew them well. Thoreau had a wicked curve ball.” Or, if your family has lived in Concord for many generations, the commentary probably is more like, “Well, Thoreau [pronounced “thorough”] no doubt was a fine man but did spend a lot of time having conversations with Mr. Emerson at Emerson’s home at dinner time during the experiment at Walden Pond.” However new or old the blood, the good citizens of Concord do not like all the traffic interfering with the solitude of the ghosts of Sleepy Hollow. It should be pointed out that--unlike Cambridge--Concord has a fine public parking lot with free parking. On the other hand, the streets of the tourist center of Concord do have parking meters. They lag behind those of the Harvard Square area in that it costs only four quarters per hour to park. Nevertheless, local shop keepers are upset about the meters--and for good reason. Unless you are local, you are not aware of the parking lot with the free parking. And, if you do discover the parking lot, you will find quite a few parking meters in the parking lot. At first glance, the lot appears to be not free. There is one store in Concord, filled with antiques, whose windows articulate a type of entrepreneurial revolt. A number of signs in the window of the shop state the problem and the anger. Perhaps the first sign to catch one’s eye is the offer of quarters. The proprietor offers an hour’s worth of quarters (and more) for anyone shopping in the area. Other signs are more political. One of them lists Concord retail businesses that have closed during the past five years, and another specifies those that have closed during the past year. Other proprietors on the street are less outspoken but concerned. The owner of a shop a couple doors away from the antique store almost came to tears as she talked about the recent closing of one of the best kitchen supply stores in eastern Massachusetts just across the street. She raved about how nice the people who ran the shop were and the great kitchen supplies. On 10/3 (just after I wrote what you are reading) Channel 5’s Chronicle ran a segment on failing shops in Concord and a variety of causes including Amazon and parking meters. The challenges of storefront economics are many. The impact of traffic flow and parking is just one factor. But the challenges exist in Concord, Cambridge, and elsewhere. The fragility of the businesses is quite real, whether you run a kitchen store that had been in Concord as far back as I can remember or a store that now is one of the darkened doorways on Cambridge Street. And people--cooks, musicians, cashiers, and other productive humans--pay for the disappearing parking spaces and the meter games…
Update 10/14/17: I drove into Harvard Square for some music 10/13. Knowing it was a Friday, I arrived there at 7:20 for an 8 p.m. performance. I drove up and down Massachusetts Avenue and Cambridge Street for a half hour without luck. I tried the west end of Cambridge Street only once because trying to find a parking place there was so obviously futile. The bike-driven improvements have removed more than half of the original parking places from in front of the “Mona Lisa” shopping strip. Even in my personal frustration I could not help wonder about the predicament of store owners there with so little parking for their potential customers. And, in exasperation, if an owner decides to sell his store, who would be foolish enough to buy a store in that location with no parking? On the other hand, maybe that problem is part of a plan. It is a perfect location for another new ugly, cold Harvard building, maybe Roman baths for grad students. And there is no troublesome barber shop among those Cambridge Street stores as there is on Massachusetts Avenue. Speaking of Massachusetts Avenue, that’s where I did most of my hunting for parking, a process that was particularly depressing. Parking in the Harvard Square area at that time of day on a Friday or Saturday during the school year always is a problem, but this time things were even worse. Normally in such a situation, if a parking space opens, then within 30 seconds someone comes along to take the space. The space goes to the lucky and the quick. But on 10/13 there was no such thing as an open parking space. Drivers now were hunting for people returning to their cars. So there were no empty spaces, just double-parked cars waiting for people to start their engines. It’s only October. I expect the severity of the problem to creep into Thursday, Wednesday, and earlier over time. Quite by surprise I barely spotted a poorly lit parking space on Broadway and got to my destination before the first notes sounded. Without that surprise parking space, I would have had to drive home, the public parking lots being too far from the gig for me to catch the beginning of the music. I now know that the performances I will go to in Harvard Square on Friday or Saturday will be more than extraordinary, something that warrants the additional cost and inconvenience of parking lots or parking at Alewife to take the “T.” Case in point: The 11/2 Joe McPhee gig will happen on a Thursday, but I will take the “T” to Harvard Square (and get home later than I want to). But, unlike most performances in Harvard Square, Joe McPhee music is too rare a phenomenon to miss…
It was supposed to be an Explorers octet. Even Charlie Kohlhase's charts were worked out for eight musicians. But seven fine musicians--Charlie, Eric Hofbauer, Seth Meicht, Daniel Rosenthal, Jeb Bishop, Aaron Darrell, and Mike Connors--showed up and made more than fine music. There were times of some scuffling, but the results were impressive. Most of the guys in the band have worked together so long that they know how to make the holes disappear. And there was the bonus of having Mike Connors on percussion. That’s not a comment about Curt Newton (whose work always is superb) or other percussionists Charlie has had at the drum kit in recent years. No. Seeing Mike Connors in action was a fine experience both because it represented a meaningful reunion of the busy drummer with friends in a context he knows so well and because of who he is as a percussionist. There is a level of quality that the best jazz musicians reach that causes one to abandon qualitative rankings. Curt and Mike operate at that level, and so questions about which drummer is “better” are functionally irrelevant. What is functionally relevant in this case is the question, “Who is this percussionist?” Readers familiar with this Journal know I am a big fan of those rare, wonderful duo sessions featuring Curt Newton and Eric Rosenthal. It would be unthinkable for me to show up looking for an answer to questions about which drummer is “better.” I witness their work together because those superb musicians are so different, and I particularly enjoy how they work out those differences on stage. It is a marvelous journey. There was only one percussionist on the gig 9/21 at the Outpost, and he had nothing to prove. It was a reunion of sorts, and Mike was pretty familiar with much of the material. So a major treat for attentive people in the audience was watching and hearing Mike react to the updated charts, respond to the performances of a mix of old friends and new faces, and put his stamp on the music coming from the drum kit. I could point out how wonderful his sticks on the snare rim were and how unlike those moments were from what other Explorer percussionists might have offered. And on and on. But it would be an ineffectual distraction on my part. The reason I show up to these gigs is that reading what I or other observers might write--however useful those comments might be--cannot capture what is essentially Mike Connors realizing who he is as a brilliant improvising musician. And so it is for the rest of the Explorers. But the broad dynamic of the group that I find so compelling is the mix of “youngsters” and “oldsters” in the band. Each time I show up to an Explorers gig I am taken with the fact that the younger musicians in the band grow musically on each visit. Particularly when it comes to improvisation--the very heart of jazz. The growth of the younger musicians that I see with my ears on each gig is marvelous. I believe that growth is rooted in the performances of the veterans. The example of the leader and the other veterans who continue to push themselves--to grow--inspires the younger musicians, telling them by example that the never-ending growth is what it’s all about. I suspect also that the youngsters who keep pushing are giving a nudge to the veterans. It’s the way it’s always been. Just ask Coleman Hawkins…
I’ve mentioned it in passing in this Journal before, but it is quite exciting to see more females at post-Ayler jazz gigs--and mostly young females. I’m not sure what constitutes “young,” but I’m talking about college age to early thirties. I love seeing a woman of any age show up to a post-Ayler gig, but it is the young females that represent the future. We have a lot of politically correct nonsense taking over pages of jazz publications in which it is “hip” to have people of color and women write for said publications. Well, it would have been “hip” to do so in the 1950s and 1960s, but it is a little bit late now. In the 1960s Downbeat had LeRoi Jones (later Amiri Baraka) writing his “Apple Cores” for the magazine, but his writing was too controversial, and they dropped him (which was exactly why they needed his writing). So now the slick magazines bring in women and people of color to write at a time when people of color and women have virtually no interest in jazz. Yes, some of the most important post-Ayler musicians are black and/or female, but they are playing to predominantly white male audiences and they are in the minority on the bandstand. It is a cliché, but I will reiterate that females are half of the population. The music would benefit from having greater numbers of people of color and women making major contributions on the band stand. Giving these people space in magazines to write about jazz is of questionable value. However, women in general and specifically young women who are showing up at post-Ayler gigs in greater numbers in the Boston area signals real hope for the future. It is true that very few of these women will join the ranks of major improvisors. But the past suggests something powerful for the future. If we look to developments over the decades in straight-ahead jazz we can find a functional model. During the early days of jazz in Boston, such teenagers as Johnny Hodges, Tom Whaley, Charlie Holmes, and Harry Carney were off to New York to light up bands in the Apple. More recently such locals as Terri Lyne Carrington and Grace Kelly in their youth were brought by parents to witness jazz gigs and in their teens were sitting in with internationally famous musicians at local clubs. And so these women in audiences today (particularly the young ones) have the opportunity to expose their daughters to the new music and perhaps give us lucky people the Jane Wangs and Glynis Lomons of tomorrow. It’s a hope…
Joe Morris’ teaching responsibilities continued until 8 p.m. and so he was late for the 9/26 Steve Lantner Quartet gig at the Outpost. Steve announced the delay and began the evening’s music with Allan Chase and Luther Gray in a trio. The “adjustment” was not really a problem. The three of them have performed quite successfully as a scheduled trio before (e.g., see the February entry in the 2014 Journal). The three of them played well. There is a high level of quality that they never sink below. But the musicians seemed distracted, offering a couple unusually brief improvisations before Joe arrived. I get the impression that they were concerned about Joe arriving in good shape. No need for concern. Joe arrived and set up his equipment while Steve played some remarkable solo piano. I’ve enjoyed those unfortunately rare classical and straight-ahead jazz solo piano performances by Steve over the decades. But he seems to have some kind of disdain for his efforts in those realms. While Joe set up his equipment we heard a wonderful version of “Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?”, some Gershwin, and a brief snippet of stride piano. “I forget the bridge,” he said, followed by some dismissive comments about his straight-ahead playing in general. The music was not simply convincing, but it bore a distinctive Steve Lantner stamp. Of course, everyone showed up to the gig to hear Steve perform a different kind of piano, and justifiably so. But terrific piano is terrific piano no matter what kind it is. After Joe set up his acoustic bass, fans did get a chance to hear a bit of the piano--and saxes and bass and drums--that they came to the Outpost for. It was a mostly energetic piece that ran to the conclusion of the set. At the intermission Steve announced that he brought what turned out to be tomatoes from his amazing (believe me) garden for audience members to take home with them. He even provided bags. The second set was filled with music that fans of the quartet showed up to witness--piano, reeds, bass, and drums relentlessly carving out the most personal--distinctive--improvised sonics, and the entire band embracing comfortably where the art took them. Somehow I find it remarkable that these busy musicians with a variety of important sonic pursuits make time on occasion to make sure that this classic Steve Lantner Quartet keeps happening. If too rarely…
I did not know that Charles Darwin (AKA Mr. Science) claimed his evolutionary theories demonstrate that men are intellectually superior to women, stating that “man has ultimately become superior to woman” via evolution. This is just one piece of remarkable history mentioned in the 9/2 Science News review of Inferior (Beacon Press) by Angela Saini, who got tired of current-day males asking where all the women scientists are and related questions. So, if you’re tired of callous questions from supercilious male (ok, maybe that’s redundant) “intellectuals,” pick up a copy of the book and have it at the ready…
Andy Voelker decided to create a new free wheeling trio, the Free Radicals Trio, and picked the right people to do it with--Jef Charland and Luther Gray. Thankfully, they went along with the idea. The premiere performance of the new trio took place 9/30 at Third Life Studio in Somerville. For some inspired reason, Andy decided to invite a guest pianist, James Rohr, for the first performance of the new trio. As it turned out, the evening’s music did not consist of sounds of the trio with James occasionally sitting in. He was onstage for the entire two sets, in effect helping to transform a killer trio into a killer quartet. To a great extent the evening’s music was freely improvised with the occasional composed music thrown in. Typical “composed” forays could be found in the opening of the first piece of the evening in which Andy played a repeated line and then the rest of the band came in, quickly causing the piece to evolve into completely improvised music. Then near the end of the first set an insistent “blues” structure carried completely improvised music on top of it. Almost all of the rest of the evening was completely free. Later Andy explained that the intent of the group is to not have a set list, no limitations going into any set or individual piece. That idea held true even for the only “conventional” piece of the evening. Spontaneously they decided to celebrate the centennial by doing some Monk. Of course, these musicians grew up soaking in the music of Monk. I remember even into the 1990s I ran into department heads of “jazz” programs who admitted that they had no clue about the music of Thelonious Monk. Don’t be shocked. Academia has many problems. On the other hand, Monk remains for me always new. His music was there for my sonic birth (rebirth really) in junior high school. And he continues to shock (constructively) those of us with ears. If Andy, Jef, Luther, and James have anything it is ears. Ears--and wonderful responses to what they hear--so good that they should be a quartet, rather than a trio with James as a guest. I posed the idea of making the Free Radicals Trio a quartet to Andy at the end of the evening. He admitted that he had had a great time performing with his three partners 9/30. But I know that such prospects are uncertain. It is easy for me (or any jazz fan) to make suggestions, but wishes sometimes are more difficult to realize than we selfish witnesses in the audience can comprehend. But maybe we’ll get lucky…
August
A variety of demands on Glynis Lomon’s time caused her to arrive late to the gig. That late arrival then caused her to rush getting her equipment together with subsequent technical problems that kicked in and out throughout the evening. The problems did serve as a solid example of the fact that being a jazz musician is primarily a matter of problem solving. One of the results of the group adjustments to the challenge is that the low-end strings--cello with some Aquasonics (Glynis) and two acoustic basses (Silvain Castellano and Damon Smith) to a great extent functioned as a wonderful improvising string orchestra backing up the “dancing” of Dave Peck on percussion, electronics, and a wide array of single and double reed instruments. The string section was in no way static. Each string player offered a distinctive voice, and there was an array of techniques involved in the successful attempt to “balance” creativity and the tricky acoustics. It was especially rewarding to witness Yuri Zbitnov bring down his dynamic level for much of the evening for the sake of the strings while pursuing his own percussive voice as superbly as ever. Of course, throughout the seventy minutes (as always, there’s the BIG clock) there was quite a variety of activity. For example, near the end of the set there was a swell of energy throughout the group with a joyous Yuri turning the sound into several minutes of tsunami. Glynis more than made up for her late arrival with her cello on fire. My favorite Glynis offering was several stunning minutes of staccato bow work, stunning in its exhilarating beauty. It was Damon’s first outing with Leap of Faith, and it was a fine demonstration of just how good he is as an improvising bassist. Big ears and constructive ideas. It was just one more reason to be at the Outpost 8/13. Applause all around…
Right now at MassMoCA in North Adams there is an enormous number of galleries filled with contemporary art. One of the galleries features the work of Lonnie Holley, a man working on a range of artistic pursuits from improvised music to several types of visual art. Among the most impressive of his works on display is a series of sculptures that grapple with such subjects as oppression and destruction as contexts for new hope, possibilities. He says, “We have to plow and mine the worst things on this earth to make them better… so we can show the world: I can handle it… I can go on.” One such work that may resonate with jazz musicians and fans involves a pile of musical instruments that he intentionally destroyed. The title of the brand new work gives some idea of how he thinks: After the Revival (Vox Humana III: The Strength of Music Lives After the Instruments Are Destroyed).
Greg Hopkins is the local band leader/arranger best known for presenting cool school type music from the 1950s and 1960s and specifically Birth of the Cool classics. However, those special ensemble events occur all too rarely for those of us who love the voicings found in the remarkable transition from the Claude Thornhill Orchestra to the better-known later Gil Evans performances. Trumpeter Bobby Spellman attempted to remedy that lack of “cool” music by bringing eight Bostonians--Mark Zaleski, Tyler Burchfield, Tim Shneier, Nick Miller, Josiah Reibstein, Brian Friedland, Matt Stavrakas, and Phil McGowan--to Ryles 8/15 to present an array of Birth of the Cool charts as well as his own Davis Nonet-inspired arrangements. I caught only the first set (of apparently two sets), but the set presented enough music to demonstrate that everyone in the band was prepared and quite enthusiastic about performing. The musicians obviously are well schooled and have good to very fine chops. It was a treat to hear them execute “Deception,” “Budo,” “Move,” and other classics interspersed with charts influenced by that material as composed and arranged by the leader. The French horn was too low in the mix, act, one canbut that was the only serious tech problem. Josiah and Tommy were quite successful transcending mere technical facility when it came time to solo, but no one in the band stumbled. In fnot help wondering why the leader didn’t plug in at least one more solo in the Davis Nonet pieces. After all, unlike the musicians recorded at mid century, the band at Ryles was not limited to the 3-minutes-per-side that conventionally the pre-LP recordings were. All in all, the gig at Ryles was a fine historical moment in which a New York-based band leader joined forces with Bostonians to remind us that the “cool school”--rooted in performances of the late 1930s at the Savoy Café in Boston, the May 1949 recordings in Boston by the Charlie Mariano Octet, and the 1949-50 recordings by the Miles Davis Nonet--was born in Boston and New York…
I have mentioned previously in this Journal what an engaging book The Selected Letters of John Cage (edited by Laura Kuhn) is. I keep going back to it, weighing each letter and pondering implications. His letters give great insight into Cage’s connections with an astonishing array of twentieth century thinkers, power brokers, and artists. Perhaps even more compelling are his writings about the challenges of trying to present genuinely new performance art to the public. Time and again I’m struck by how consistently his challenges are echoed in the challenges faced by people trying to offer new art today. One problem faced by artists of all types today is the cultural and political isolation of people working in different realms of the arts. For example, I see an ongoing lack of aesthetic and practical empathy between people involved in the visual arts and the sonic arts. Those of you reading this who are into the sonic arts as musicians or fans of the music, how many times have you seen a schedule of upcoming music performances offered by an art museum and asked yourself, “What were they thinking?” And then there are practical matters including such factors as logistics and payment. Things weren’t very different for John Cage. In a letter dated September 15, 1953 to Charles E. Buckley, general curator of the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Cage brings up the question of appropriate payment for people presenting sonic art in a venue devoted to visual art. Near the end of his letter to Buckley Cage says,
You state in your letter that the museum is severely handicapped as far as funds for other purposes than the purchasing of works of art. My own position with regard to this or similar situations is, frankly, if someone desires something he cannot pay for, either he goes without it or arranges to have someone else pay for it. Among artists, musicians are, economically speaking, in a weak position, for the simple reason that what they have to offer is not tangible. If, for instance, I arrange a concert of music here in New York, I will be lucky to simply come out even. The concert is literally “given.” This is particularly true of my work and the work of musicians associated with me because, contrary to the seeming spirit of this letter, we are devoted to making music and not to making money from it. There is, however, as I am certain you will sympathetically understand, a limit. That limit I personally reached last season, and I am determined to follow my present procedure which is to establish prices for services rendered. This seems only natural in view of the bills from other members of society that lie unpaid on my desk.
I spent very little time in the Boston area this month, taking advantage of the weather and local resources in Vermont, northwestern Massachusetts (mostly for visual art), and the Mid-West. During a week in Chicago, taking advantage of guilty pleasures of the Loop and the Art Institute, I spent time with Ken Vandermark and Ellen Major. They were perfect hosts and even were there to share with me two evenings of the Eric Revis Quartet at the Green Mill. Generally I do not cover gigs in cities other than Boston (and I’m not really covering the Eric Revis Quartet gig here), but spending two nights at the Green Mill recently has prompted me to make some hopefully informative statements about that jazz club and the band. People who are alert to jazz activity in the U.S. generally refer to New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Boston as the current major jazz centers in the U.S. All of those cities have jazz clubs that feature “names,” and (God help us) New York and San Francisco have institutionalized the otherwise vital music. It is no secret that I thrive in Boston as a jazz fan. But I must say that I am jealous of the Green Mill. Most of the celebrated jazz clubs in the major jazz centers focus their marketing and programming on the tourist trade, presenting well-known (occasionally very well known) musicians in a schedule primarily of “hot” up-and-comers that I would not go across the street to see and listen to for free. But the Green Mill in Chicago is different and has been different for many decades. And two nights at that fine club prompted me to say something about the fact that it continues to be probably the best jazz club in the U.S., justifiably packing them in on weekdays and when the “famous” people show up to perform on weekends. Although I have witnessed the locals and the famous performing there over the years, there is a timeless set of policies that separates this club from the rest. In addition to the general management policies the booking policy is good enough that Chicagoans (and visitors) know that it is worth showing up for the music even if they never heard of the musicians scheduled to perform. How likely is that at the major clubs in Boston or New York? The closest I can come to answering that question is to suggest that the consistent quality of the music at the Green Mill is the key. But the more important point is the production policies of Green Mill owner Dave Jemilo. He demands certain unshakeable performance standards from the musicians, the key ones being starting on time and three sets of music. So on 8/25 and 8/26 the Eric Revis Quartet presented six full sets of music. On 8/25 the first set began at 9 p.m. Really. And the three sets continued with fairly brief breaks until 1 a.m. On Saturday the music began at 8 p.m. and continued with the same pattern until midnight. Those are the rules. If you don’t follow them to the letter, you don’t perform at the Green Mill ever again. Old school. Applause. But there is more. A significant more. Dave Jemilo is a passionate fan of the music and supporter of the musicians. If he hires you and your band for a gig, he takes care of you--everything from making sure you are happy with the sound check to every environmental aspect of the room to the paycheck. Because the place is packed and Dave Jemilo really cares about the musicians and the serious fans he can pay the band and charge each customer no more than $15 to get into the place. Everyone on the Green Mill staff makes sure every customer is happy and feels welcomed. But, if you are talking while the music is being performed, you are warned. Once. No pretty table cards about “please respect the musicians” crap. If you ignore the warning, you are gone. Some customer who is standing is ready to take your seat. Silently. And Dave Jemilo pays the musicians well. Six full sets in two nights is hard work, but you get paid very well for it. You can do several door gigs per month over the course of a year and during that time not make the money that each of the members of the quartet made on 8/25 and 8/26 at the Green Mill. But, if you really are a creative musician, it is even more important that you are faced with the challenge of coming up with three sets of music for a quiet, attentive, large audience. This is as good as it gets. And real bands don’t blow it. The Eric Revis Quartet is a real band. The original band with Jason Moran and Nasheet Waits performing at the piano and drum kit was good. But an amazing sequence of events has taken place during the past couple of years. Popular jazz bands with high-visibility band members tend to lose those band members because demands on their schedules make keeping a band together pretty much impossible. Leader Eric Revis had to decide to kill the band or replace half of it. He responded by doing something quite remarkable. He signed up two musicians of extraordinary ability but slightly less international visibility than the original pianist and drummer--Kris Davis and Chad Taylor. I do not know what the band leader was thinking when he invited Kris Davis and Chad Taylor to join Ken Vandermark and him in a new version of the quartet--other than the obvious need to solve the problem of a shrinking band. But his “solution” to the problem was to replace the original quartet with an even greater challenge. I saw the new quartet early in its development at the 2016 Newport Jazz Festival. I heard some suggestions of the big challenge this mix of musicians was presenting. But I confess that I did not recognize the implications of what I was witnessing. I was too “distracted” by superb contributions by the new band members and--more significantly--the fact that this new band was better than the original band. The performance was a pleasant surprise. After Newport the band went to Europe for some performances that I did not witness. But Ken sent me enthusiastic comments about the band’s progress. Sitting in the front row of tables 8/25 at the Green Mill I saw all of what I had missed and more. What I had missed was the challenge of mixed aesthetics. Knowingly or otherwise Eric Revis had brought together four musicians who are more than capable but who aesthetically are from four different planets. Think Little Richard, Mozart, Charlie Parker, and Tiny Tim on stage trying to make music together. Of course, I exaggerate for effect. But maybe you have some idea of what I’m talking about. Please do not try to match the band members individually with the cast of characters I offered for effect. But please take the example as an indicator of the challenge Eric Revis set for himself in light of that analogy. The band leader has put together four musicians from four different planets, and--to his credit--he created an ensemble that brings the best of those planets together to create extraordinary music. It is all about the quality of the contributions of each musician but mostly about Eric Revis as planetary alchemist, bringing these aesthetics as an “harmonious” whole. You have doubts? It’s a chart band, or at least it was a band of charts. It still is, but not completely. Free improvisation is all over the place. For example, each evening’s first set opened with a substantial improvisatory piece. That’s a band leader demonstrating adventuresome confidence. It was a gesture that set the stage for the rest of the evening. I tip my hat to superb leadership. And killer results…
July
Not long after my return from several days in Manhattan I was surprised to get a phone call from Korean pianist Soo-Jung Kae. It had been several years since I had seen her. So the call was a very pleasant shock. I asked her what good (or bad) news caused her to make the call. She said (with maybe a touch of “homesickness”) that she just wanted to talk and catch up a bit. I could not help asking if there is a chance that she (and/or U Chang “David” Choi) might come to Boston for a performance. She plays music often in Korea and with some frequency in Europe, but both of us are aware of how tricky it is for her to play here. In spite of Soo and Dave having a son Noah born here, she and supporters were unsuccessful in overcoming legal barriers to sustaining her green card. It was another Musicians Union-promoted “success” in ridding our country of two of the better examples of what Americans can be and undermining creative development in jazz in Boston. Today, of course, things are even worse for “outsiders.” The irony is that, with narcissistic impulsiveness and brutal greed being the driving forces at the pinnacle of our government, we need antidotes such as Soo and Dave more than ever. Not to mention the healing force of their sonic art. I continue to hope that one or both of them might land here on a tour. Soo was quite happy to hear from me that musicians she had performed with in Boston--including Allan Chase, Curt Newton, Tom Plsek, Nate McBride, Jim Hobbs, Eric Rosenthal, Charlie Kohlhase, and others--still were holding down the fort and performing superbly. Those of you reading this Journal who miss catching Soo’s playing will get a clearer idea of just how rare her few performances in the Boston area have been since her return to Korea. Son Noah is fifteen years old. I know. I know. I almost dropped the phone when she told me….
Jeb Bishop had performed with Charlie Kohlhase's Explorers Club before but primarily as a brass substitute for Josiah Reibstein on two or three occasions. Of course the word substitute really doesn’t apply any more than the idea of having Willie Mays as a “substitute” for Mickey Mantle. In this case of seasoned substitution apparently familiarity breeds ensemble cohesion. The Explorers Club gig at the Outpost 7/20 featured both Jeb and Josiah in the lineup, creating a larger brass section with a range of resources from trumpet to flugelhorn to trombone to tuba. The effect was remarkably constructive in terms of both ensemble sound and solo and interactive performances individually. The fact that Daniel Rosenthal, Jeb, and Josiah have such distinct musical personalities is one of the great strengths of this octet--Charlie Kohlhase, Daniel Rosenthal, Eric Hofbauer, Jeb Bishop, Seth Meicht, Josiah Reibstein, Aaron Darrell, and Curt Newton. The reed section, the now well-established partnership of Seth and the leader, offers everything from alto to tenor to baritone sax work that is articulated well beyond individual sax family member character. Charlie reliably weighs and transforms sonic history into his own inspiring voice while Seth bowls over fans and fellow musicians with technique and extroverted onslaughts. “Hiding” at the back of the bandstand is the only current instance in Boston I can think of in which an independent working ensemble functions as a part of another ensemble that is not a big band. The Pocket Aces--Eric, Aaron, and Curt--is one of my favorite groups, and that now mature trio brings much to the Explorers in terms of compositions, solid musicianship, and thoughtful and always surprising solos. But what those three gentlemen bring from Pocket Aces to the Explorers that is of the greatest impact is the sonic breathing of a single three-legged beast. The telepathy within Pocket Aces is its most salient feature. And these guys cannot shut that off simply because they happen to be operating within another group--all to the advantage of the Explorers. It works so well because there is no transfer of trio personality, aesthetics, or compositional thinking. What does carry over to the Explorers is brilliant individual thinking and action--everything from voices to rhythmic tension shifts to well-timed silences--spontaneously in the fire of the moment. And, amoeba-like, the trio alters its sonic shape depending on context, often with particularly fine results in conversation with Josiah. If all that is not enough, the Explorers continue to surprise in another significant way. As fans of the music know, the Explorers Club typically materializes on stage as anything from three or four members to eight. Obviously the larger the ensemble the greater the potential for ensemble miscues and “wandering” support efforts. A remarkable thing happened 7/20 at the Outpost. Throughout the evening Charlie loosened up on the reins, letting individuals and sections run free. Risk was palpable everywhere. It was wonderful. If this band ever was more impressive, I wasn’t there…
The last time I checked, there was quite a stretch of millennia during which no humans lived anywhere in North America. Even those Clovis folks were apparently late-comers among the first humans to find this place. How shocked the established inhabitants must have been to discover Columbus’ fragile sailing vessels off the coast of the continent. And now we see ourselves by right of political documents and brutal technology as the valid--only valid--citizens of this land. How difficult it almost always has been for newcomers--in spite of compassionate, welcoming inscriptions on Liberty Island in New York Harbor--to find footing here. My mother’s father brought his family here (after having a successful business life across the Atlantic) because he was energized by the dream. And, in spite of the fact that he had money and spoke English, he was an outsider who struggled to fit in. Apparently our current President’s father was so discouraged that he made thwarted plans to return to his European birth place. And yet, foreign born immigrants--“legal” or otherwise--somehow seem to find footing and become creative forces of our future. We Vandermarks arrived here in the seventeenth century, only to find ourselves--like others arriving from Holland and Belgium--vilified by the established folk and ridiculed in Washington Irving’s journals and cruel parodies (ironically still celebrated in elementary schools all over the country). You will not be surprised to find that I’m in no way bitter about that vicious author. I can be confident that people who do not like me genuinely do not like me. No one in the U.S. hates my ancestry anymore. We Vandermarks are scattered in good numbers particularly in the northeastern and central U.S. after having reproduced “like rats” (I’m sure that’s the metaphor used at the time of our arrival and survival, as it has been for other immigrant groups). And so now we are at it again. Or at least part of us is at it again. On the other hand, there are signs of sanity. Just outside the Normal B. Leventhal Map Center in the new part of the Boston Public Library there is a wonderful exhibit that celebrates the diverse roots of the people of Boston. The exhibit includes a variety of words, graphics, and handouts (including a two-sided page of resources from the Mayor’s Office for Immigrant Advancement intended to help immigrants, legal or otherwise, and others in need ). The display is truly a celebration of who we are as a city of diversity. The image below is so small and contains so much wonderful information about who we are as a city that on this Boston Jazz Scene site you can only get an inkling of what is in that display. Basically it is a graphic telling us what the top ten countries of birth are for foreign-born Bostonians. It shows these people colorfully scatted throughout a map of the city. You really have to see the graphic in person to appreciate it. And this graphic is just a small part of the entire celebratory display. The plan is for the display to remain in that location until August 27.
Bassist Damon Smith who was in the audience for the 7/25 gig at the Outpost came up to me at halftime and we chatted for a while. Almost immediately he brought up the piano-percussion CDs of the FMP set that documented the celebration of Cecil Taylor’s music in Berlin in 1988. He was struck by how much the duo performance of Steve Lantner and Luther Gray brought to mind the duos of Cecil Taylor and a variety of percussionists at that 1988 festival. During the first set I had been thinking the same thing. Damon asked me which of the Taylor-percussion duos was my favorite, an impossible question to answer. Also, unlike Damon who owns the entire box set, I have perhaps fewer than half of the CDs in the set. For me the irony of the discussion of the FMP recordings and the 7/25 performance at the Outpost is that about a month ago I began listening in a focussed way to the Taylor-percussion duo sessions from the FMP set once again. And during the afternoon of 7/25 I was focusing my attention on the recording of Cecil Taylor performing with Tony Oxley, the performance that (much to my surprise) connected in my brain most closely with the 7/25 duo sonics at the Outpost. Of course, Cecil Taylor and Tony Oxley are very different musicians from Steve Lantner and Luther Gray. But the simultaneous chatter offered with intense beautiful energy for most of the first set did bring to mind the sonic connections on 7/17/88 in Berlin. Almost exactly 29 years ago, a fact emphasizing that Steve and Luther are indeed two very different musicians operating in a very different space-time. With all that, Steve and Luther know each other musically better than the pianist and drummer did in 1988. So, except for brief moments within the eye of the storm, the duo 7/25 was a single, relentless hurricane of beautiful energy. And the rare quieter moments were not just periods of a natural force at rest but rather a living, breathing transformation of Rodin’s Thinker into sonic flesh. The second set was more of the same music of wonder but different in terms of execution. While the music of the first set was a wonderful two-headed single force of sound, the second gave us two musicians in a sonic “marriage” of sorts. For the most part the sounds produced by the musicians were simultaneous, as in the first set but not as a unity. Each musician simultaneously began and concluded sentences and sustained them as separate actions. The interaction was somewhat analogous to a couple that has been married for a half century and who start and finish each other’s sentences (only without the prescription drugs). But the analogy is superficial and ultimately fails. The stream-of-consciousness music, like that of the first set, was relentless. But the offerings of each musician were both simultaneous and sequential. There was more going on throughout the evening, but my brief glimpses into that evening may be helpful. In the broadest sense, the music performed 7/25 at the Outpost was among the finest a fan of post-Ayler jazz is likely to witness anywhere. And there are two keys to that extraordinary music. First, it would not be possible without the telepathic intimacy developed between Steve and Luther during years of completely open and passionate artistic searching. Second, it would not be possible without the musicianship and integrity that are inherent in Steve and Luther as artists. The rest is simply immeasurably good fortune for the rest of us…
Duke Ellington, initially primarily a visual artist (who eventually found himself deciding between a path of the visual or a path of the sonic arts), retained a great love for all the arts throughout his life. A clever wordsmith himself, Ellington had a special affinity for the great writers. Although as a young man I had heard music from the recording, Such Sweet Thunder (most notably “The Star-crossed Lovers”), I never owned a copy of the LP or the 1999 expanded CD. Until recently. Not surprisingly the CD contains a number of treasures including multiple takes of “The Star-crossed Lovers,” tunes not on the original LP, more discographical data than most fans need, and liner notes by four different Ellington observers (the most insightful by cornetist and former Herb Pomeroy student, Bill Berry). I had not thought about the title of the album (and first cut on the disk) very much. But eventually I woke up to its significance. On the one hand it helps reveal just how knowledgeable Ellington was about the Bard. He chose what must be the very best musical reference in Shakespearean literature for the title of his tribute to that greatest of the English language playwrights. It is of equal significance that the line is as fine a Shakespearean description as one might find of the experience a listener has while hearing new, ear-stretching music of Ellingtonian quality. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream Queen Hippolyta describes a sonic epiphany, closing with, “I never heard so musical a discord, such sweet thunder.”…
June 2017
June vacations out of town cut into my time at gigs in the Boston area. But I did witness several performances. Enjoy the rest of the summer. I will try to have fun in other cities and in jazz venues here in July.
Charlie Kohlhase's Explorers Club is a big-band sized pool of excellent musicians that shows up to perform typically as anything from a quartet to an octet. The ensemble at the Lily Pad 6/28 was a septet, but the listed reed partner for Charlie was replaced by superb Explorer Jason Robinson. Throughout the extensive single-set gig Jason offered some of the best improvised solos I’ve ever heard from him. Terrific stuff. In welcoming what turned out to be a demonstratively enthusiastic audience (comprised mostly of musicians) Charlie introduced the band--Charlie, Jason, Daniel Rosenthal, Eric Hofbauer, Josiah Reibstein, Aaron Darrell, and Curt Newton--and happened to mention that Josiah would be getting up early for a flight to New Mexico. For some reason I interpreted his statement to mean that Josiah was moving to New Mexico. The thought caused me to encounter some sort of depression. Even though I was happy about whatever opportunity he might be pursuing, selfishly I would hate to see such a fine young person and excellent musical resource leave the Boston area. Josiah’s first solo of the evening was a perfect example of how great a loss his creative sonics would be--fleet, fluid, and full of ear-grabbing melody. Almost all of the material performed 6/28--composed by Charlie, Aaron, and others including deceased greats--is familiar to both long-time fans and band members. So there is no stumbling with the charts. We in the audience had the pleasure of basking in the superb chart-inspired solos offered all around. And it is especially fine to hear how wonderfully the four-man rhythm section works together and off each other. That is one good reason to discover that Josiah did not take off for New Mexico to set up permanent residence there. He simply was scheduled to go there to perform at a festival with the terrific Revolutionary Snake Ensemble. In other words, the flight and anticipated return signal good news all around…
You don’t have to be married to appreciate the image below. A purveyor of food and drink along the Newport Harbor waterfront has covered the western brick exterior of the establishment with a lively painted mural. A portion of that mural includes this statement about “husband daycare.”
Kit Demos’ Dark Matter Series is one of the most important post-Ayler jazz gigs each month in the Boston area. He gathers musicians who do not normally perform together to discover what positive sonics might occur. It’s a type of modern day alchemy of music. That means it is inevitably a hit or miss proposition. If you bring in musicians primarily immersed in straight-ahead jazz or pop music, you are asking for trouble. I’ve seen it work, but it is likely not to work. However, as I’ve mentioned in this Journal before, just because a musician excels at one type of post-Ayler jazz does not mean that he will excel at another. Also, there is the challenge of integrating different musical perspectives. And on and on. The 6/24 Dark Matter gig at the Outpost was billed as a sextet--large enough to go anywhere musically but potentially unwieldy. As a safety net of sorts, Kit can play with anybody and two of the musicians on the bill had demonstrated over the years a solid capacity to perform in a wide range of post-Ayler music. I showed up to discover that the two “ringers” would be no-shows and the remaining quartet would be juggled into a quintet. As it turned out, there was not enough experiential stability to hold all five musicians together. Kit is an amazing musician, but there are limits. No doubt he rejected the idea of making suggestions (in effect killing the free nature of the gig). But there were two bright lights at the performance--flutist Iliona Kordova and cellist Valerie Kuehne--both of whom obviously came to play music and attempted to salvage what they could of the event. The challenge was daunting. Ms. Kordova’s responses and musical suggestions mostly went unnoticed by others on stage. Ms. Kuehne’s vocal and cello work is fortunately unlike that of the brilliant Glynis Lomon (who is less-classically rooted and less theatrical). Except for some problematic dramatics on occasion (perhaps reflecting frustration), Ms. Kuehne’s combination of resources and aesthetics served her well. At one point there was a stretch of several minutes during which she stared at the floor in front of her, neither playing nor vocalizing. Such things happen during free music events, primarily in cases in which the music is so excellent that the musician just wants to stop playing and listen. Unfortunately in this case I suspect that the cellist was waiting for an opening to say something relevant musically or come up with a sequence of sounds that would turn things around. She could have waited until sunrise without success. But there were some fine moments, mostly provided by the two women (and of course Kit). The highlight of the event was a period of duo sonic interaction between the two women. But overall that was not enough, and I did not remain for the second set. I think about Kit making the substantial trip each month from Maine to Inman Square and how that fact suggests his commitment to such an inherently problematic project. The chance for failure is great, but the prospects for discovery and success keep him working at it, even when things do not quite work. I am awed by his vision and his commitment to that vision…
June traditionally is the month of weddings. I’ve always felt that most weddings seem to be about the event itself rather than the significance of the event. The June AARP Bulletin includes the information that the average cost of a wedding today in the U.S. is more than $35,000.00. On the East Coast the average is $80,000.00. I mentioned those figures to a friend who responded, “That’s obscene.” Amen…
I write this Journal for a variety of reasons, but the primary reason is to be a witness to some of the jazz performances that take place in the Boston area (and occasionally elsewhere). I use the word “some” cautiously. For, although it is true that the word “some” does not in any way imply a specific quantity, the some gigs that I write about amount to an extremely small percentage of live jazz performances around here in a given month. There are far too many jazz performances taking place in a given month for any single person (even Clark Kent) to cover even half of them. In addition, given my technical limitations, I seldom write about even half the events that I witness. In other words, anyone who believes writers (online or otherwise) are doing a satisfactory job of covering the Boston jazz scene is seriously confused. I like to articulate something useful--perhaps insightful--about the music and musicians I witness. Sometimes the words come fairly easily, and sometimes the right language is a struggle. I’m under the impression that the ease or difficulty generally simply is a matter of how well my journalist brain functions operate as I recall and document the event. Every now and then there is difficulty, but it is not due to my sluggish facilities. It is completely the musicians’ fault. Such was the case 6/27 at the Outpost. The musicians involved--Steve Lantner, Forbes Graham, and Allan Chase--are (as readers of this Journal must know) among my favorites. I catch their music whenever I can. In addition to their wonderful exploits individually, they have an extraordinary rapport in trio and larger contexts. On this occasion they showed up as a trio. No bassist. No drummer. You know: How much damage could they do? Unfortunately for my attempts as a journalist on this occasion, plenty. For starters, there were some brief “fireworks” and staccato attacks here and there, but the first set was mostly a sequence of “ballads.” It started with a pensive dialogue between Allan and Steve followed by an opening for Forbes. Slow moving music that, if you had no ears, might have come across as boring. But I (and obviously other entranced members of the audience) happened to be blessed with ears. So I sit here now with the problem of how to articulate--even at the surface level--what happened 6/27 at the Outpost. And the words do not come. Certainly I can tell you that there was a greater variety of architecture--time, melody, etc.--in the second set. But it makes no difference. Whatever the three of them did was extraordinary. And why they read each others’ minds so well and in turn heard so well I can neither explain nor describe as process. When art as process--which is what art is--operates at its highest level it transcends logical process or interpretation. And in particular on 6/27 at the Outpost my attempting to do more than identify musicians and instruments became ineffectual. These musicians always are amazing, but on this night they found music that obviously caused both fans and improvisors at the end of the evening to pause in wonder and profound lack of understanding…
May 2017
I was not aware of the closing of the club until after I was sitting at a table watching the band set up, this time with greater care in getting a good balance from the sound board. Throughout the evening there were guests sitting in at times to acknowledge the closing and the fine history of the venue. The official word via announcements from Ryan Parker is that the 5/2s not aware of the closing of the club until after I was sitting at a table watching the band set up, this tim8 Paul Broadnax gig was the last one, but after some renovations the club would reopen in the fall. Unofficial word from various fans and musicians is that the club has been sold and its future is up in the air. In other words, it is entirely likely that the 5/28 Paul Broadnax Quartet performance was the last gig at the Press Room in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. There were guest performers, but the evening was a success for Paul Broadnax fans. The Paul Broadnax Quartet--Paul, Fred Haas, Peter Kontrimas, and Les Harris, Jr.--mostly had the evening to itself. Quite obviously that’s what the audience showed up for. And the place was packed. The presence of Fred Haas was a pleasant surprise to me. I knew he was recovering from back surgery, and there were sometimes vain attempts to hide his discomfort 5/28, but he wanted to be on the gig. When I asked Fred the obvious question, his answer was, “It’s all about the music.” How wonderful it is that there are people such as Fred who understand that fact. There are many ways to make a living, and, with rare exception, art--sonic or otherwise--is not one of them. How lucky we fans of such music are that the people in this quartet showed up to present history in the now. And the third of the audience closest to the bandstand was tuned in all night, as demonstrated by its silence except for applause. The rest of the audience unfortunately was impressed with itself--a type of boorishness that knows no boundaries of chronology or genre (or even what sonic art is). For the rest of us who fortunately could hear the music, it was an evening of jazz lightning in a bottle not to be reproduced on disk or computer software. Once again, Peter and Les held things together and offered fine improvisations (although we could have used a full Les Harris, Jr. solo). Paul and Fred more than handled their afflictions, reveling in the music. One could see real discomfort transformed by creativity into personal joy. Paul even got so animated and apparently healthy that he rose from the piano to recite his ode to Joe Williams, Joe’s Blues. He does not do that often, but it is a treat for any Joe Williams fan or Paul Broadnax fan. It is an extended recitation (with brief moments of singing) in which Paul articulates with sufficient nuance a libretto of works presented (often transformed from predecessors such as “Big Joe” Turner) on record famously by Joe Williams (including “Cherry Red,” “Roll ‘Em Pete,” “Everyday,” and other classics). The “reading” was a highlight as the first set neared its conclusion. In hindsight it was just one highlight in an evening in which four passionate and articulate musicians brought us sounds and images that resonate after the performance is concluded…
Hitler is in his bunker and he’s speaking German, but fortunately we have his words translated with English subtitles. And as a result of very creative subtitles, he is not commenting on his world crumbling around him but rather about his music tour that is falling through. Perhaps you’ve heard of the clever brief video clip. But in case you have not heard about it, I suggest you click on the URL for “Booking a European Tour.” It’s very funny. The more you know about touring with a band in Europe (or trying to do so) and the politics of the music in general, the funnier this short clip is. There is much speculation about who the clever captioneer is (hiding in Brooklyn according to some people), but understandably the author chooses to remain anonymous. Enjoy…
There is no question that James Merenda’s Tickle Juice is one of the most eclectic jazz-rooted ensembles in the Boston area. The musical diversity of the band is a product of many factors, perhaps most significantly the range of genres the band pursues--everything from straight jazz to folk to pop to blues to show tunes and beyond. The other important contributing factor is the juggling of instrumentation/personnel. To expand those possibilities the band--James, Tom Duprey, Vanessa Morris, Scott Sandvik, Jon Dreyer, and Miki Matsuki--on this night at the Outpost occasionally added the trumpet work of Cameron Small to fill out the horns. At the opposite end of ensemble size was the duo of Vanessa and Scott offering items from both the rock and musical theater legacies, the highlight being their interpretations of Weill’s “Lost in the Stars.” “Whiskey Sour,” a loving tribute to Vanessa’s mother was performed by the full band. It took full advantage of the enhanced ensemble with horn voicings in the ¾ bridge that brought to mind the wonderful waltzes in Neal Hefti’s better film scores. In other words, the 5/26 Tickle Juice gig offered something for everyone in a fashion similar to the slogan about New England weather: If you don’t like the music, wait five minutes. But the full house and the audience’s reaction to the music suggested that fans were quite taken with all of it…
I Am Not Your Negro is a film about James Baldwin and the cauldron of civil rights in the 1950s and 1960s. Of course, unless you are asleep, you realize it is very much about now. So far I have not seen the film, but I was fortunate enough to discover a book with the same title (published by Vintage International, 2017). The book is about the genesis of the film and includes some words and images from the film. I recommend the book as an antidote to the tenor of our times. Regarding those times and our times, Baldwin sees the shallow American Dream as a product of U.S. corporate marketing. He says,
The industry is compelled, given the way it is built, to present to the American people a self-perpetuating fantasy of American life.
Their concept of entertainment is difficult to distinguish from the use of narcotics.
As far as history is concerned, Baldwin takes a bit of a twist on Thoreau who tells us that “It is the province of the historian to find out, not what was, but what is,” when Baldwin says,
History is not the past.
It is the present.
We carry our history with us.
We are our history.
If we pretend otherwise, we literally are criminals.
Strong stuff. Stuff we need in our time when the fluff of social media is a substitute for televised fluff in the 1950s. And today.
The Alternate Space has been operating for a while but offers jazz approximately only once each year. Nevertheless, because the quality of the music it presents is quite high, significant numbers of die-hard fans show up to each performance. To make the logistical challenge for fans a bit greater, the producers of Alternate Space events moved the venue from Watertown to Sherborn. “Where?” must have been the reaction of some folks. Although most suburbanites seem to know where the Rte. 9 malls are (and Rte. 27 intersects Rte. 9 before travelers from Rte. 128 hit the malls), the idea that you can get to the new Alternate Space by taking Rte. 27 south to Natick Center and continuing a few miles on Rte. 27 does not come to mind when one thinks of Sherborn. The problem would not have been so great if the Alternate Space presented nothing but trad jazz. It is a stone’s throw from what used to be the Sherborn Inn, years ago the home to much trad jazz. But the paths of trad jazz and new jazz seldom meet. So I was a bit surprised when some fans showed up 5/17 at the Sherborn Alternate Space to catch Nate Wooley and Ken Vandermark play music. The audience was not as big as previous Alternate Space audiences, but I counted more than twenty heads. It was the last gig on the duo’s 2017 eastern U.S. tour. And, except for an inflamed heel in Ken’s right foot and a bit of travel fatigue for the two of them, the evening went well. Among those in the audience were Nate McBride (who made several terrific family announcements, including his shock in realizing that daughter Vivian already is eleven years old) and Curt Newton (whose daughter Georgia--accepted at every school she applied to and with significant scholarship offers--has decided to attend Harvard). There was a lot of catching up going on before and after the performance. Nate’s opening solo set featured circular breathing, an amazing “long tone,” and good evidence that this would not be an evening of light classics. One of the compelling aspects of this durable twosome is that each of those musicians has a distinct--almost contradictory--musical personality. Therefore, not surprisingly, Ken’s solo set was notable for its evolving colors. The two solo presentations perfectly opened the door for the third set of work by Nate and Ken as a duo. The setup of the two solo performances was musically functional because of the brief but useful look at the two sonic personalities, but there was more. The solo sets were completely improvised. The third set consisted of two composed vehicles by Nate and Ken respectively. Nate’s chart was a rhythmic transformation of Cage’s “Cheap Imitation,” and Ken’s vehicle was inspired by the work of Canadian sonic and visual artist Michael Snow. In each case the work was dauntingly rigorous in design while offering inspiring support for improvisation. The music suggests the impact of extended touring for the duo over a span of years. It is not unusual for duo jazz performances to be realized as “sonic conversations.” Of course, the word “conversation” generally in such instances is used metaphorically. The musicians are not literally talking to each other. But throughout the duo’s third set of the evening, this listener could not help believing the musicians’ communication has developed to such an extent that a conversation was taking place literally. But it was not a conversation of words. It was a sonic conversation about the sequences, articulation, and architecture of new music. At the same time the self-reflexive set of music was after all music at a high level. As a member of the audience I found it good to witness the sonic process, self-reflexive or not...
Dave Bryant announced 5/31 at his Outpost gig that Bern Nix had died. Bern Nix was a friend of Dave’s. Both had been part of the extensive Prime Time family. The guitarist died 5/31 at age 69 in the middle of a series of rehearsals for the scheduled Prime Time celebration in New York in July. Like Dave Bryant, Bern Nix graduated from Berklee (1975). I remember catching the guitarist in person for the first time at a gig in Cambridge in the late eighties while he still was working with Ornette but had been leading his own trio. I thought his playing was awful. Thank goodness for time. Gradually, a few years later my ears woke up, and I finally heard what a special musician he was. Because of his superficially introverted nature and a less than flamboyant guitar style (I’m sure he never heard of eleven), he never was celebrated as he should have been. Maybe someone at the July festival will light a torch…
I sit in my chair and write (sometimes in longhand and sometimes at my desktop computer) about the current, historic, and (by implication) future activity of jazz musicians in the Boston area (and occasionally elsewhere). The writing is a faltering process in which I try to capture something of the beauty of the creations of the finest jazz musicians of our fair city (while complaining about the often well-meaning deaf and in some cases heartless people who undercut the reality of the wondrous creative process). I am an observer and documentarian. Nothing more. But I believe in the value of observation and documentation. Certainly the audio and video documentation is of great value even if that documentation is fetishized at the expense of in person art. But the witness of the reality is of great significance, perhaps undervalued. I suggest that it may well be essential. The audio and video are filtered (in the same way that human connections in social media are filtered). And the human accounts of witnesses are--at least potentially--the balance that may provide insight. Vic Berton’s witness to jazz in the 1920s, Stanley Dance in the 1940s and later, and others of their time and since then bring a humanity to the documentation. And that is what I attempt, falteringly. It is important, and I have for some time taken on the task by default because the handful of jazz journalists I admire are living somewhere else or they focus on the past only or they pursue only the names--which is why I do not write about gigs featuring magazine cover artists that are likely to be presented in JazzTimes, Downbeat, or local newspapers. My goodness. I love the music of many famous people who do not live in the Boston area. For example some of the most memorable music of my life has occurred at Sonny Rollins gigs. But does he (or the jazz audience) really need another puff piece or complaint? And so I plod along. In that light I present the opening paragraph of “First Love,” a prose work written by a truly great writer, Samuel Beckett, at age 40. The piece begins in medias res, but already you know where his head is. And he articulates beautifully the problem of being an imperfect writer pursuing something elusive:
I associate, rightly or wrongly, my marriage with the death of my
father, in time. That other links exist, on other levels, between these
two affairs, is not impossible. I have enough trouble as it is in trying
to say what I think I know.
April 2017
Joe Morris returned to music
in Cambridge 4/25 after completing his stint as guest faculty
member in Calgary. It must have
been quite an ordeal, “Ten below zero at noon,”
among an array of logistical and other challenges. He was very enthusiastic about the progress
of his Canadian students. But Joe
definitely still was adjusting to his return to the East Coast. Maybe that fact had something to do with the
unusually sluggish start of the music by the Steve Lantner Quartet--Steve, Joe,
Allan Chase, and Luther Gray--at the Outpost.
But before the end of the first set the band was operating smoothly on
all cylinders. The ballad side of the
ensemble, usually highlighting the saxophone voices (alto and soprano on 4/25)
of Allan, offers a band personality perfect for the rainy weather we have been
coping with. Beautiful
of heart and bristling with constructive intellect. The ballad side of the quartet is distinctive
from the band’s medium and up-tempo music, which tends to build in roiling
waves instigated by the leader and the percussionist with cheerleading from the
bass. And the sax work soars. All combo formats and personnel in Steve
Lantner ensembles work beautifully, and this quartet is a truly classic version
of the Steve Lantner Quartet. May it
keep returning…
It was a sunny, seasonably
warm early April Sunday afternoon--a fine change from
the snow, rain, and clouds that dominated the previous week. And yet, instead of walking or running in a
park somewhere, folks showed up to catch the music at Newton South Auditorium,
almost filling the hall. Conversations
with several fans in the audience suggested that the turnout was almost an act
of desperation. Time and again the
people mentioned the lack of availability of swing/bebop-rooted jazz
performances and the fact that youngsters on the few available gigs were too
out of touch with the 1930s and 1940s to create convincing representations of
classics from that period. Nonagenarian
Paul Broadnax understandably was the primary draw 4/2 in Newton. He brought
chronologically relevant guests with him.
Vocalist Eula Lawrence is in that microtonal
stage of her career, but after a half century of experience on stage she really
knows how to put over a song. A fine story teller.
Speaking of microtones (intentional in his case), the other guest was
Ted Casher on clarinet and tenor sax. He
was filling in for Fred Haas who is recovering from back surgery (soon we
hope). Eighty years old this year (if
press clippings are to be believed), Ted has his roots in the ghost bands of
Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, and others as well as on stage appearances with
Dizzy and pre-president Bill Clinton.
And, of both historical and aesthetic significance, Ted was a regular in
the Duke Belaire Band at those weekly gigs in Bovi's Tavern in East Providence. But the
influences I hear most clearly in his playing are the great Chicago-bred
saxophonists, most notably Von Freeman.
On the other hand his formative Connecticut and Maine homes suggest something else. I suspect it is the microtonal musical roots
of his Jewish heritage. Whatever the
roots, the mature Casher is in full bloom.
Nevertheless, the largest audience contingent quite obviously consisted
of long-time Paul Broadnax groupies. And
it did not hurt the music that Paul’s primary drummer since the 1990s, Les
Harris, Jr., was at the drum kit and that an even more enduring partner, Peter
Kontrimas, held things together on bass.
The presence of that rock solid twosome was lucky for us. The leader, vocalist, and reed section go
back many decades and therefore didn’t need a rehearsal (well, maybe). So there was a bit of programming confusion a
couple times. But not
to worry. Paul exploiting some
mild comedy took the bumps in stride.
Even more significantly, the professionalism and savvy of Peter and Les
made the rough edges nearly invisible.
But such things just add to the variety and richness of the fan’s
experience--a “technical” bonus--during an afternoon of seasoned veterans
bringing forth jazz classics as only the masters can…
People who read this Journal
regularly probably are aware that I believe the Musicians Union has been and
remains an obstacle to musicians and the best interests of musicians,
particularly creative musicians. I was
looking for some information in Leo Walker’s The Wonderful Era of the
Great Dance Bands recently and came across a cartoon in the book that
made me think of Sabby Lewis. The cartoon makes a reference to James C. Petrillo who was the powerful but misguided president of
the American Federation of Musicians (AFM).
One of his “brilliant” maneuvers was the recording ban during the early
1940s. No one reading this will be
surprised that record sales in the 1930s and 1940s was a key promotional device
that was used to help bands get gigs. Petrillo took that marketing tool away from the bands. Further, big band historian George T. Simon
in his The Big Bands goes so far as to claim (quite convincingly) that
the recording ban was a primary force in the ascension of big band singers as
solo artists--Frank Sinatra, Doris Day, Peggy Lee, and countless others--at the
expense of the big bands. In other
words, according to Simon, pop singers replaced great band leaders, arrangers,
and instrumental soloists to a great extent because of the recording band. But that is not the only way in which Petrillo and the AFM smothered creativity. Sabby Lewis led one
of the two most important big bands in the history of Boston jazz (Herb Pomeroy being the other). As far as I know, Sabby
is the first band leader (1938) to use small band voicings
in arrangements to create a big band sound.
Years later the practice became common particularly in Boston and California. We now know
it as the “cool school” sound.
Unfortunately, because of Petrillo and the AFM
we never will know what Sabby’s small ensemble with the big band sound sounded like. There are no recordings of his first Boston band. During a
recorded interview with Sabby in 1988 he told me that
he got a long-term gig at the Savoy Café and was faced with a logistical
problem. At that time jazz in Boston was performed exclusively for one of two situations,
dancing (think of the great dance halls and ballrooms) or as support for
variety shows (think of Ellington at the Cotton Club). But the Savoy Café did not have enough room
for customer dancing or on-stage space for variety acts. In fact, the “stage” was so small that his
first band there consisted of seven pieces and a vocalist. His solution to the space problem was to come
up with arrangements that were exciting and engaging enough that people would
show up to listen to the music and would stay even though they could not
dance. The second problem was making
exciting arrangements with big band impact when there
are only seven musicians. Sabby and his primary arranger at the time, Jerry Heffron, did something very creative and initiated two
significant developments. Creating a big
band sound with a small group opened the door to Herman, Thornhill,
and Birth of the Cool. Sabby told me, “We started off with seven men. Wait a minute. I'm ahead of myself. We started off with five men… We opened up the harmonies to get that bottom
sound with the baritone and the top sound with the trumpet and opened it up in
the middle. We picked the important
notes in the harmonic structure of each chord and voiced it that way so that
you got the illusion of a big band sound.
You started counting heads and you'd say that it sounds like twice as
many guys up there.” The second
significant development, through the successful long-term booking in a venue in
which there was no dancing or variety acts, established the first “sit-down”
jazz club in Boston (and perhaps anywhere). Sabby referred to
the sit-down jazz club as “location jazz.”
He told me, “I can't speak for the rest of the country, but I know that
in New England there was no location jazz until we did it. Most clubs had a dance policy and a floor
show policy. Sometimes the musicians
would steal a little jazz in there, but it wasn't a policy per se until we did
it. When we played in the Savoy, there was no place to dance. They didn't even have a dance floor. You sat there and listened. It was like a concert every time you came
in. And I like to take credit for
that.” Today the “cool school” sound is
an important part of jazz history, and the most common places for people to
witness jazz performances are at sit-down venues such as the Outpost and Scullers. These
developments came out of the same kind of creativity we see in jazz musicians today
who constantly are faced with challenging problem solving. Sabby’s band was
quite successful here and in New York, often beating full-size big bands in a variety of
battles of the bands. Eventually the AFM
“caught up with” Sabby’s creativity and killed his
instrumental innovation. As he told
historian Dan Kochakian in 1985, “I began using a
full orchestra later when we started playing theaters because the union
required that so many men be hired. Many
times we felt that we didn't need the extra men, but we had to make room for
them in our arrangements and add more charts.
And, if the men were on standby, you had to pay them anyway, even if you
didn't use them.” And so he continued
with the larger ensemble in touring gigs to avoid future problems. But we have no recorded documentation of the
original small ensemble at least partially because of Petrillo
and the AFM. Sabby’s
band was too new to record in the late 1930s, and one of Petrillo’s
first acts after he became president of the AFM (1940) was to establish the
recording ban. Soon after that he
established minimum ensemble sizes for different music gigs. As a result (except for some late 1940s combo
sides) all extant Sabby Lewis Band recordings are of
his full-size outfit. And
so here is the cartoon reproduced on page 300 of the Leo Walker book.
Because additional
information about the Bandel Linn cartoon was not
available to Walker, we do not know the publication it appeared in
originally or the date in which it was published…
Update:5/6/17:
As some Boston jazz historians know, pianist/vocalist Paul Broadnax has had a
rich career in Boston including important Sabby Lewis
connections as an arranger and occasional piano sub for the leader (usually
with Jimmy Tyler taking over the band leadership role on those occasions). At a social gathering 5/6 I was talking with
Paul about his first conversation with Sabby. It happened in the late 1940s on a band break
at the Savoy Café after Paul completed his military service. Sabby had heard
about Paul and told him that he needed someone to work on charts for the
band. It turned out that among the work
that Paul carried out for Sabby was taking the
arrangements for the eight-piece band and filling them out for a larger version
of the band. The charts for a larger
band that Paul was writing were for an Apollo Theatre performance by the
band. In other words, Paul was among the
first (if not the first) to transform the Savoy Café arrangements to charts
acceptable to the Musicians Union for certain venues, such as New York’s Apollo Theatre. One of the most amazing things
about the conversation I had with Paul is that--more impressive than my
discovery that Paul wrote those large ensemble arrangements--my questions
revealed Paul did not know the reason for the “expanded”
charts. In fact, Paul never had heard of
the union requirement for different band minimum sizes for different gig
venues. The Petrillo
dictum was news to him. He was quite
young at the time. Paul did confirm
that, when the ensemble returned to the Savoy Café, the band used the original
small-band charts. The Savoy Café was
still the same cramped environment.
Because Paul loved the band and had witnessed performances at the Savoy many times before and after he wrote those charts for
Sabby, he was familiar with the small ensemble’s “big
band” sound. I had to ask about that
sound, whether it predicted “Birth of the Cool” or something else. Not surprisingly, the results were not a
“cool school” sound. It was more like a
big band sound of the 1940s created by a small ensemble. All of that description made sense, but I
wanted to know what his personal reaction to the “big sound” from the combo at
the Savoy Café was. He said, “It was
amazing. I loved it.” The breadth of sonics implied the “missing”
horns so successfully that the “impact was wonderful.” In other words, the voicings
were so effective that the impression was not merely a matter of illusion. There was definitely a different big band
sound that the band and charts created. Paul’s comments make the absence of recorded
documentation of the eight-piece band that much more frustrating…
The most recent performance
of the Eric Hofbauer Quintet 4/8 at the Concord Free Library emphasized just
how fine this ensemble is and underlined a couple facts not specific to the
quality of the music but important nevertheless. The first point is that this is one of the
first jazz ensembles to focus on ear-stretching 20th century
classical music as a basis for arrangement and improvisation. Jazz and pop music ensembles have performed
music of the classical repertoire throughout the 20th century. Bix Beiderbecke’s “In a Mist” is an open tribute to
Debussy. But almost all use of classical
music for “hip” arrangements came out of the Romantic period, and for obvious
reasons. Most pop music in the U.S. through mid-century was a danceable transformation of
music of the Romantic period. If you
understand that pop music today remains mostly dance music, then it is not
surprising that social dancing as we know it made its breakthrough with that
“light classic” music, the waltz. In
fact, there was an overlap of early “jazz” dances and the waltz at the turn of
the century. So it is understandable
that dance bands--particularly during the 1930s and 1940s--rearranged melodies
from Romantic classical music for dancers.
At the peak of popularity of the big dance bands--both sweet and
swing--many of the best-selling recordings were danceable versions of Romantic
period classical works, including “Humoresque,” “Tonight We Love,” “Barcarole,”
“Anvil Chorus,” and many more. Even
after mid-century when Ellington and Strayhorn
decided to transform classical works for the great improvisors of their
orchestra, they chose compositions by Romantics Grieg
and Tchaikovsky. In passing, it is not a
minor matter that, while the results are engaging, those transformations are
not as compelling as the music of Suite Thursday from the same period,
a work completely original from the two master composers/arrangers. What we have now--finally in the 21st
century--is a handful of bands performing works by major 20th
century composers arranged for jazz ensembles.
Obviously doing so with artistic success is not a simple matter. So far the performances of
such works that I’ve heard by ensembles other than the Eric Hofbauer
Quintet come across as intellectual exercises rather than convincing sonic
art. In other words, Eric and the band’s
pursuit of transforming challenging 20th century classical music for
jazz ensemble is almost unique and--more important--convincing. The second peripheral but significant fact
about the band is its repertoire. As far
as I know, the Eric Hofbauer Quintet is the only ensemble that performs
through-composed 20th century works re-arranged specifically for
jazz ensemble exclusively. For example,
on 4/8 the band performed Charles Ives’ Three Places in New England, Duke
Ellington’s Reminiscing in Tempo, and a Stravinsky encore. So I’ve just spent space and time discussing
two facts that are peripheral to artistic merit. I’m tempted to apologize for that, but I
won’t. Sometimes peripheral is
consequential. So artistically how was the
band--Eric, Todd Brunel, Junko Fujiwara, Curt Newton,
and Jerry Sabatini--on 4/8? Some of the problems I’ve mentioned
previously remain, but they are of less significance. The “free” section of the Ives still is
somewhat unfocussed. But the group is
figuring out how to cope with the open chatter.
The coping is quite engaging. The
Ellington still runs several minutes longer than the original recording, not
inherently a problem but nevertheless emphasizing the “repetitious” nature of
the recurrent cycle. As in the case of
the Ives, the musicians are figuring out how to manipulate improvisatory
opportunities for the sake of substantive variety. In the case of both works the process is
fascinating in itself, and, more important, the process is working. These are truly successful performances of
the transformation of Three Places in New England and Reminiscing
in Tempo. Another way of putting
it is that I have the feeling that on 4/8 for the first time I witnessed the
vision of Eric and the ensemble fully realized.
If there had been need for any additional evidence supporting that
impression it was what happened at the end of the evening that was the
clincher. The enthusiastic audience
response to the arrangement of the Ellington piece resulted in an encore. But the real evidence was in the performance
of the encore, an excerpt from Eric’s arrangement of Stravinsky’s Rite
of Spring. It is the oldest
chart in the Eric Hofbauer Quintet book.
But there was neither fatigue nor confusion in the band’s
performance. With total confidence and
conviction the quintet played the work as if they had written the source and
the rearrangement themselves. It was joy
itself. On the break at the end of the
performance of the Ives, I chatted with Jerry.
Joking, I asked him whether the arrangement was written for him. We both laughed, but the idea was rooted in
sonic reality. Every time Jerry made
sounds with his trumpet, it did seem like the piece was put together to feature
his remarkable musicality. But my
comment easily was extrapolated to everyone else in the band. How wonderful each person
sounded. And
together. For
example, the resonance of the wood of Junko’s cello and Todd’s clarinets. It makes one ponder the brilliance of Eric
deciding in the earliest stages of ensemble development that these specific
five members of the instrument families would be the best sounding and most
flexible no matter which piece of music were to be transformed. Or maybe he found four other musicians with
the insight and capabilities to make things work and just did whatever it took
to make the instruments they play sound as if they are perfect for the
task. It’s possible. It certainly is the sort of thing Stravinsky
would do…
The Aardvark Jazz Orchestra
performance spanned a lot of territory 4/29 at Kresge
Auditorium. The evening’s program, Democratic
Vistas--Ellington Extrapolations & Music of “Social Significance,”
covered everything from recent milestones in Boston jazz history to the music and cultural mission of
Duke Ellington to the first hundred days of the Trump administration. The milestones were the passing of Steve
Schwartz and Nat Hentoff and the entrepreneurial move
of Fred Taylor from Boston to Beverly because of being dumped by Scullers. Boston Jazz Week was being promoted as “Thank
You, Fred Taylor” Week, and the Aardvark performance was designated one of the
“Thank you Fred Taylor events.” The
three works written in honor of the three iconic figures were engaging and
included some fine solos. But the band
could have used a couple more rehearsals.
The problems for Mark Harvey and band members in putting together such a
full evening of music including works celebrating the milestones that occurred
since the beginning of the year are daunting (particularly considering the fact
that they had nothing else to do. Day
jobs, anyone?). But there were no such
problems the rest of the evening, even in the case of arrangements that are far
more exacting than those of the three opening works. For those of us troubled by these times in
the U.S., it is hopeful to look upon previous times where
thinking, caring people also were troubled about what seemed to be the
crumbling dream of our forefathers. Such
was the case for poet Walt Whitman who articulated so clearly the decay in
government of his time. Mark Harvey read
excerpts from Whitman’s Democratic Vistas, and those words
sounded as if they were written for the very now of our times. But it was written in 1871. Thank you for the ongoing history, Mark. Or,
as Andy Warhol put it, “Life is a series of images that change as they repeat
themselves.” One of the Mark Harvey
musical hallmarks is his unsubtle liberal politics (and the same must be true
for band members, or they would have departed screaming years ago). The political works performed 4/29 included
the finale of the half-hour long “No Walls,” a reprise of the Reagan era “Scamology,” and the dance suite “Swamp-a-Rama.” The ten
movements of the suite covered everything from Trump whiling away the first 100
days on the golf course (something unthinkable even to the golf-loving
Eisenhower) to the “fake news” uproar to the “Trumputin
Tango” (a commentary on the evolving relationship between the corrupt Russian
leader and our incompetent President).
But there was a bit of celebration in the suite including the ongoing
battles waged by Senator Warren and the closing “Democracy Street Dance.” It was a nice way to conclude the suite, but
such cheerleading in the band’s political performances is the exception. In a way it is ironic that Mark Harvey sees
Ellington as a role model politically.
Ellington’s musical tactics politically tended toward celebration of
achievements of the disenfranchised in the U.S. rather than outright attack on racist governmental
and cultural policies. While the band
leader is correct in pointing out the politically explicit meaning of “I’ve Got
a Passport from Georgia (and I’m Going to the U.S.A.),” a song from Jump for Joy, such works by
Ellington are rare. No doubt it happened
in one of his understandably “headstrong” moments. It is somewhat significant that Ellington did
not write the lyrics of the work and that the song was pulled from the show in
a vain attempt to save the production from backlash. When it came to racism in America Ellington’s
approach to fixing the problem was closer to that of Martin Luther King,
Jr. Mark Harvey’s modus operandi
(perhaps with more of an ironic wink) is closer to that of Malcolm X. The passion of Malcolm X to
fix the problem and that of Martin Luther King, Jr. no doubt were equal,
regardless of how they approached the problem.
The same might be said of Mark Harvey and Duke Ellington. The most convincing music of the evening was
Mark Harvey’s tweaked and rearranged works of Ellington and Strayhorn. Ellington is a spiritual fount for the band
leader musically and philosophically.
And by now the band members probably can play these charts from
memory. Also, the music was written for
great soloists. Individuals in the band
rose to the occasion. Among highlights
all evening were improvisations by Arni Cheatham,
Phil Scarff, and Bill Lowe. Two vocalists showed up to help. Jerry Edwards’ fine performance of “I Got it Bad and That Ain’t Good”
brought to mind the cavernous voice of Al Hibbler. His scat attempt on “David Danced” was less
successful (and surprising because there are fine versions of the work with lyrics
in recordings of Ellington’s first Concert of Sacred Music). Two other works from the 1940s that showed up
in the first Concert of Sacred Music, “Come Sunday” and “Tell Me It’s the
Truth,” featured the vocal work of Grace Hughes. She did her homework. She knows these compositions well and
undoubtedly has heard other people sing them with Ellington. In spite of the inherent difficulties for
anyone attempting to execute these works and the daunting predecessors, Grace
Hughes stayed within herself, offering completely convincing performances. Quite stunning. It’s the kind of performance that resonates after
the evening is long over. And it’s just
another reason to thank Mark Harvey and the band for their constructive passion
and fine work…
Gary Burton has announced
publicly that after 60 years of performances he is walking away from
music. Three heart operations and
related complications have convinced him to slow down a bit. So his last public performance occurred in
March, and now he pursues a life as a writer.
But he claims that his writing will have nothing to do with music. He has had an impressive career as a musician
and educator, influencing the lives of countless young musicians. We thank him and wish him the best as he
takes on a new life…
The performance was a single
event, music on a Saturday night. But it
also was several things at the same time.
It was a quartet rather than (as advertised) a quintet. Hilary Noble, long-time Full Metal
Revolutionary Jazz Ensemble band member, could not make the gig. As a result, a solid voice in the band on
reeds and percussion was absent. But
other “things” were positive. Tor Snyder, at one time a major contributor to the new
music scene in Boston, returned from his Apple haunts and played the
dickens out of his guitar on 4/22 at the Lily Pad. His contributions all evening were fire and
light. And I was among the lucky to be
there. Another terrific “thing” about
the gig is that it was a fine example of the power of the intersection of the
arts. FMRJE leader (and percussionist
extraordinaire) Dennis Warren brought with him Todd Brunel,
Michael Shea, and Tor
Snyder--superb exponents of “the Resistance via Improvisation” all. But in his maturing wisdom, Dennis brought
visual artist Jeffrey Lipsky with him to talk to and
with the music using his art stick canvas work--fencing with the evolving
images, turning the canvas 90˚ and eventually all the way to 360˚ as
he worked. It was dark in the Lily Pad,
and I never had as clear a view of what the visual artist was doing as I
wanted. But the process was quite
engaging for those of us who could get a glimpse of the visual artist at
work. Early in the evening I saw echoes
of Joseph Stella (think “Brooklyn Bridge”). Then later
Jeffrey Lipsky took me to the Matisse-influenced
master work of Diebbenkorn. At the end of the evening I saw no potential
influences, just what the artist had given us on this night. Appropriately fine work for such a tectonic
evening of sounds of resistance but also of joy in which Michael Shea found ways to ground the experience and bolster what
was happening around him. For those of
you who know the “academic” Todd Brunel (and have
misjudged his improvisatory range), this evening was a wake-up call. He pulled out all the sonics, but never for
“effect.” It was simply Todd using two different
clarinets, and at his best. Just fundamentally engaging music. And at the heart of it all was Dennis
Warren, who brought all this music (and visual art) together with the thunder
and lightning of Thor as only Dennis-the-Relentless can do. So the bad news is that this was the LAST
live FMRJE gig for too many months. The
good news is that he plans to do this live gig next year at about the same
time. I’m setting my watch…
A couple days ago I was
walking in Harvard
Square, and
I passed a guy leaning against a building and partially covered by a large
cardboard sign that articulated his homelessness and hunger. His head and shoulders were hunched over, I
assumed too burdened by the weight of his troubles to be lifted. Then I noticed that his posture was due to
his concentration as he checked out the screen of his smartphone. My first reaction as I walked by is that I’m
not worried about my next meal or where I will sleep tonight. Nevertheless there is no room in my budget
for a smartphone.
After that thought, I recalled “Digital Minds” in the 4/1 issue of Science
News (pp.18-22). The article
offers a survey of research that is being done on the effects of smartphones and similar devices (both good and bad) on
teenagers and adults. One study of 18 to
33-year-olds revealed that they spend an average of five hours per day on the
phone, and, as the article states, “When asked how many times they thought they
used their phones, participants underestimated by half.” The feature includes bar graphs, brain scan
images, and sidebar comments. Two of
those comments are particularly disturbing: 1) 90 percent of people surveyed
“reported using a technology device in the hour before bedtime” and 2) 49
percent of U.S. college students surveyed “reported checking their
phones at least once overnight.” I guess
I’m just an old fogey, but I can think of several
wonderful things to do in bed at night--and looking at a smartphone
screen certainly isn’t one of them. If
you need further evidence that these gadgets commonly are a type of social
disease, you might want to take a look at “I
used to Be a Human Being” by Andrew Sullivan. But don’t bother to go there if you refuse to
read an idea that is more than two paragraphs (exclusively words) long…
It was announced that the
Explorers at the Outpost 4/20 would be drummerless. As mentioned here before, the group without
percussion is quite fine in itself. But
the challenge for the band rose another notch 4/20
when bassist Aaron Darrell could not make the gig. In addition, there was a change in the front
line with a guest replacement in the reed section. The latter change posed no problem because of
fine musicianship and the fact that Jason Robinson and the band leader go back
together musically many years.
Everything else--Charlie, Daniel Rosenthal, Eric Hofbauer, and Josiah Reibstein--was “business” as usual (i.e., terrific). There was the predictable mix of charts by
giants (e.g., John Tchicai and Elmo Hope) and band members. But the good news--the reason I show up to
these gigs--is that the resultant music is not predictable. Even the audience was unpredictable. In this case, relatives of Dan showed up--a
mother, daughter, and two young sons.
When the music of the first set began, the very young daughter yelled,
“Loud” in disapproval, giving the impression that the word might be the only
one she knows yet. The older sons were
more than attentive, declining to leave after the first couple tunes. I’m tempted to say that the boys were
mesmerized. The older child kept
switching seats to obtain a better view of the marvelous work of Josiah and
Eric, the intricate underlying support of the band. Sometimes I get the impression that adults
attending ear-stretching gigs have difficulty following what is going on in the
front line. Experiences like the one at
the Outpost 4/20 suggest that before young people are taught sonic prejudices
they can hear the music quite clearly.
It’s just another example of why we should expose young people to
quality music--particularly new quality music--before cultural
prejudices dull their aesthetic acumen.
Very young people are born hearing…
The Outpost was full. Some people were sitting on the rug in front
of the first row 4/23 because there were no seats available. I wasn’t surprised. I had gotten to the gig early so that I could
be sitting
in the first row. The attraction was
local musicians of note--Jeb Bishop, Damon Smith, and Rakalam
Bob Moses--and rare visitor and internationally acclaimed improvisor, Joe McPhee. Because Joe
and Jeb had such an extensive history with the Peter Brötzmann Tentet and elsewhere, they opened the evening with a
captivating brass duo. The rest of the
set and evening consisted of quartet music of the best type improvisationally. Rakalam Bob Moses
can be a take-over-the-show percussionist or he can choose to play within
himself and be one of the great ensemble musicians on the planet. He chose to play within himself and offer an
example to percussionists in the audience of what it means to support when
needed and when to lift people out of their seats at solo time. An exemplary performance. Jeb is one of my favorite new music
trombonists. I have had the pleasure of
catching his performances within everything from solo and duo gigs to big
bands. Among my favorite memories are
his sonic conversations with the late trombone giant, Hannes
Bauer. On this night at the Outpost Jeb
exchanged improvisatory trombone comments with Joe McPhee
playing valve trombone and tenor sax.
The pairing was different, but the impact of the music from these
long-time partners was no less compelling.
Joe was happy to discover the percussion work of Rakalam
Bob Moses in person and to be re-united with Damon Smith and friend of decades
Jeb Bishop. You have to work
a bit to hear Joe. He does not perform
for the bleachers. He respects the
audience, assuming that they know how to hear and that they are with him. And they were. On a break I mentioned to a friend that it
was great to see such a large audience that also was hip--nobody clapped after
solos. The friend understood. An aware audience appreciates a superb solo
but is too focussed on the continuing sonics to clap. After the gig Joe and I talked about
“cabbages and kings” (a reference to Joe’s walrus recitation on the gig) and
many other wonders. When he arrived at
my home I was listening to a 2004 recording of music by that late Boston treasure, Raqib Hassan. Joe knew of
the work of John Voigt and Luther Gray.
But he did not know--never heard of--Raqib or
Forbes Graham (two musicians who play instruments in the families that Joe
tackles regularly [reeds and brass]).
True, Joe plays everything from pocket trumpet to tenor sax to valve
trombone and beyond, but he understands the challenges of focusing on the
trumpet. To cut to the chase, Joe was
blown away by what he heard from Forbes and Raqib. I hesitated but nevertheless told Joe that
Forbes is a significantly better musician today than what Joe heard on the
recording. Joe could not say enough
about Raqib.
“There are times,” Joe said, “when his sax sounds like a violin.” I loved Raqib and
his music and cherish all of our conversations--mostly on the phone. And with all that I must emphasize here that
one of the greatest problems with Boston is that we do not recognize our giants. I know Boston is not unique in that regard, and certainly the
people of New York and Chicago probably are unique in their chauvinism about their
jazz scenes. We could use a little bit
of that chauvinism here. I hope the
enthusiasm for some local musicians shown by Joe McPhee,
an internationally recognized giant, might wake us up to how lucky we are in Boston. Raqib has passed on, and he should be celebrated. But our current giants should be celebrated
while they are here, still presenting their gifts…
Every now and then something
happens that makes one wonder just how close the end time is. For some it is the election of a game show
host to the Oval Office, an event that certainly gives any politically or
historically alert person pause. But
there are other troubling things going on, most of the potential tipping points
having something do with software wizardry. If you have been following the poker-playing
exploits of DeepStack and Libratus
you probably have a good idea where this commentary is going. Most computer programs designed to beat
humans at games such a checkers and chess have been successful primarily by the
application of pure number-crunching power.
That kind of computer power is truly daunting. But what DeepStack
and Libratus do is frightening. Articles in various publications this month
have celebrated the fact that these computers have defeated professional poker
champs at heads-up, no-limit Texas Hold’em. That specific type of poker
is “more complex than chess,” according to Murray Campbell, one of the
developers of Deep Blue (the famous chess playing system). But Libratus is
even better than that. Essentially it is
unbeatable using its programming strategy, whether it is playing poker or
working to replace you at whatever your occupation is, be it financial planner
or Secretary of Defense of the United States.
As Science News (4/1, p. 12) describes it, “Libratus
computes a strategy for the game ahead of time and updates itself as it plays
to patch flaws in its tactics that its human opponents have revealed. Near the end of a game, Libratus
switches to real-time calculation, during which it further refines its
methods.” In other words, it does not
matter how good you are at what you do, as long as you continue to challenge Libratus eventually you will lose. It sounds like the ground work for Colossus,
but this is not fiction…
Newburyport is a quaint tourist town with eye-catching “ancient”
homes, relatively expensive boutiqui shops selling
everything from $5 cookies to multi-hundred dollar scarves and purses. I was able to get away with a $9 ham and
cheese sandwich at one of the many celebrated restaurants, only to discover
after the purchase that the reason (I’m speculating) the sandwich was only $9
is that it contained no cheese. The ham
was excellent. But I jest. It is a fine tourist trap, and I had a good
time there. And there was a terrific bonus,
Record Store Day being celebrated at Dyno
Records. Proprietor Richard Osborne
every year celebrates that day by bringing small (out of necessity and usually
with terrific results) eclectic groups to the shop to perform. This year (and typically each year) he
featured two jazz duos out of four groups.
The first group on the ticket was the pair of Junko Fujiwara and Forbes
Graham, musicians who have worked out duo strategies over a span of years. There was some engaging ping-pong (splitting
solos back and forth) and mostly “simultaneous” conversation in which the best
moments demonstrated a type of effortless telepathy. A bonus was the presence of Forbes’ wife
Lillian and son Silas, who behaved beautifully and briefly added “critical”
commentary. This is a good time to
mention that Forbes’ previous statement (see the March Journal entry for the 3/2
gig) that Lillian and he would be having a daughter in July is inaccurate. Anyone who knows something about pregnancy
and birth will not be surprised that Lilly is the source of the correct info
telling us that Silas will be having a brother in July. The third set of the day presented the duo of
Charlie Kohlhase and Matt Langley, a partnership that goes back to the signing
of the Magna Carta or something like
that. You will not be shocked to read
that music of this “comfortable shoes” duo was sufficient reason to drive more
than 1 ½ hours to catch the gig. I have
boundless respect for fine composed music--jazz or “classical”--but when it
comes to jazz performance I look for the music the performers create out of
what they start with more than the specific source of the sounds. This creative duo performance was a two-fold
gem. First was the banter. Anyone who is familiar with Charlie Kohlhase
gigs knows that his comments about historical context and his dry wit are
essential components of such an event.
This duo set was as much a presentation of delightful verbal wit as it
was a terrific music performance. Both
musicians relish dry humor, and they offer it in a well-timed balance of the
tongue-in-cheek raconteur and the man with the glib retort (sometimes a
one-liner but more often simply a single word or phrase). And the music was “pretty good” also. Most of the charts they used as vehicles for
improvisation came from the same wonderful sources that Charlie has exploited
to great effect over the decades, the groundbreaking masters and the performing
musicians themselves. What struck me
about the duo material they chose to perform--and that choice no doubt was
positively affected by the specific personnel involved--is how technically
difficult the charts are to perform. And the ease with which these exemplary veterans nailed the charts. If that is not enough, as fans and readers of
this Journal
know, the forte of Charlie and Matt is improvisation. In other words, you had to be there…
It was supposed to have been
the Para Quintet, but Laurence Cook was battling a bug. In spite of hopeful communications during the
day of the gig from Laurence to band leader Jacob William, the percussionist
had to miss the performance. Band
members and people in the audience missed him, too. But the remaining quartet--Jacob, Jim Hobbs,
Forbes Graham, and Steve Lantner--is a group of truly extraordinary musicians,
and they communicate with one another as superbly as anyone could wish
for. There were times when they wailed
together and times for isolated solos.
But most of the brilliance occurred in twos and threes. And the silences--the non-participating band
members--were as telling as the sonic activity.
In other words, the music of any moment was being “created” by all four
musicians, no matter what the number of “blowing” musicians might be. When any musician was not playing, just
listening to the ongoing music, typically he would be motionless in one of
several different poses that Rodin might have chosen
for “The Thinker.” The focussed
concentration implied complete involvement in the music in silence. One observes and imagines the silent
thoughts--joy and wonder while determining the timing of the moment to join the
process actively and the content to bring to that exhilarating process. It was marvelous to witness each musician
fall into that Rodin option before entering the sonic
experience. The results both visually
and artistically were as beautiful as any performance I’ve witnessed in quite
some time. Even though Laurence was
unable to perform, one could not help wish that he were there to see and hear
what they were doing--perhaps in tribute to him. In some way he was present…
March 2017
Last month in this Journal I made some comments about
differences between “working band” free improvisation and pickup band free
improvisation. I thought about those
differences 3/2 at the Outpost because it hit me that Luther Gray was the drummer
on the perfect example of the former when he performed on the 2/28 Steve
Lantner gig. And here just a couple days
later he was in the drum seat for a perfect example of the latter. The Hi-Speed Coeds is an Andrew Neuman
quartet (at least it was presented that way at the gig) consisting of Andrew,
Luther, Forbes Graham, and Junko Fujiwara.
A free improvising pickup band. It was not that the musicians were unfamiliar
with each other’s work. Andrew is a
Boston improvising veteran of many years, and the rest of the crew has worked
together in a variety of contexts over several years. But, as far as I know, the 3/2 gig was the
first time all of these musicians had been on stage together performing free
improvisation. And the music developed
like an ideal version--one quite functional version--of how a free pickup band
might work. In this case it was apparent
that the three “youngsters” had intuitively decided to feed and
build off the electronics of the leader.
It was a terrific decision that made a lot of sense. He’s the veteran and the leader. But the key thing is that there was no
“pre-game” discussion among the trio as to what to do. That would be absurd in a situation of free
improvisation. Further, I’m tempted to
say that the approach they took was not even a conscious one. Yes, there was something that might be called
“caution” in the approach of the trio performing with Andrew. But there was no intimidation. These are seasoned young lights. It was for them a matter of finding out what
would work best with Andrew’s electronics.
And so the pattern of behavior in the first set was mostly a matter of
two of the three younger musicians working their way into the music of the
electronics while the third member “observed” by listening. I’m making more of this procedure than is
warranted. It was not mechanically a
matter of musicians “finding their way.”
There was music through it all. Fine music. It was
simultaneous. And, as the music moved
forward, the “discovery process” became a lesser part of the evening. It was just four terrific musicians
communicating beautifully with a justifiably entranced audience. And, as a bonus, Luther got to show us how
fine an extended drum solo could be. If
that’s not enough to celebrate, Forbes told us that his son Silas is scheduled
to have a sister in July…
Misha Mengelberg died 3/3 at age 81. He was a music giant internationally, best known (in detail) for recording with Eric Dolphy and (grand scale) for founding
in 1967 (with Han Bennink and Willem Breuker) the ICP Orchestra and sustaining
the ensemble and its musical children.
He and the orchestra visited Boston every five or ten years until 2011
when they performed at Paine Hall 4/4 of that year. In this Journal in May 2011 I wrote about
the concert and that Misha Mengelberg was ill and after the gig returned to Holland while the
rest of the band continued the tour without him. He had been ill before the tour, but I
believe the Paine Hall gig may have signaled the beginning of the decline for
the musical force that he was.
Apparently Alzheimer’s disease was the main problem. In any event, we have lost someone who had an
enormous impact on the creative music that we love. As some readers and most friends know, I do
not have much respect for the work of people who write about jazz. Fortunately there are a few (very few) whom I
do respect and enjoy reading. With that
in mind I point to John Fordham’s obituary
of Misha Mengelberg in the 3/8 online posting of The Guardian (that’s an
English newspaper) for an intelligent, insightful statement about what Misha
Mengelberg was and what he meant. It’s
really heartening to read something that good…
The 3/25 Opensound gig featured two performances rooted in
Western classical music and one jazz set.
A few words about the non-jazz performances perhaps are warranted. The tribute performance of Pauline Oliveros’
“Teach Yourself to Fly” was a sincere effort by seventeen local musicians and
movement artists. It was fine except for
a glaring blue light that attacked my retinas (and those of others in the
audience), a terrible light that would have been fine dangling four feet from
the ceiling rather than at eye level, four feet off the floor. And that’s too bad because the body movement
art by Andrea West and Christiana Hubley (prepared by Joe Burgio) was a
highlight of the set. I had to block my
eyes from the blue glare while peeking to see what they were doing. Mostly I just shut my eyes (to save
them). The other classical-based music
was provided by violinist Pauline Kim Harris and composer/”electrician” Spencer
Topel. Ok, so I wasn’t knocked out by
every piece Ms. Harris played in her string of compositions. But she was impressive as a musician. The opening salvo floored me, and, even
through the boring parts, her technique and conviction were stunning. The program’s most compelling “ancient” work,
the “Chaconne” from one of Bach’s Partitas (no doubt BWV 1004), was totally
convincing. It was one of the most
impressive new classical music solo violin performances I’ve ever
witnessed. And I’ve been fortunate
enough to witness solo performances by great violinists, including Malcolm
Goldstein and Rolf Schulte several times.
The only negative is that the set ran too long. I do not blame the out-of-town
performers. The producers should have
explained to the two musicians beforehand that there would be three sets of
music on the gig and that each set usually runs not much longer than the
Chaconne. The whole shebang opened with
the Kevin Frenette Quartet—Kevin, David Haas, Ryan McGuire, and Joe
Musacchia. It’s kind of strange, but
each of the three sets of music had its own peculiar experiential flaw. Other sets were hampered by light
distractions and unanticipated duration.
The opening jazz set problem was weird acoustics. I say “weird” because never before have I run
into acoustics problems with a band of similar instrumentation at Third Life
Studio. It probably was a strange
combination of where I was sitting and the fact that the group was set up in
the southeast corner of the room (rather than against a flat wall). But I’m not an acoustics engineer. So I don’t know with certainty what caused
the quartet to have two no-doubt related acoustic problems. The most obvious problem was the overpowering
drums. Close to fifty percent of the
time the drums drowned out most of the music of the other three
instruments. With all that, the sound of
the whole quartet was consistently muddy.
At the same time, I would not be surprised if someone sitting ten feet
from me heard no such acoustic problems.
Nevertheless, straining to hear through the sonic distractions was well
worth the effort. Apparently band
members, experienced musicians all, had no trouble hearing each other. When David removed his hands from the
keyboard it was his functional decision that trio activity should run free for
a while. Loud as the drums were some of
the time, the support and improvisations never were anything less than
creatively constructive. Ryan always has
been a solid and creative bassist, and it was good to witness his music again
after my schedule interfered too long with my chances to catch his work. Speaking of missing people, the constraints
in non-musical parts of Kevin’s life keep him from bringing his music to those
of us who miss his ensembles and extraordinary guitar work. So we lucky people were reveling 3/25 in that
marvelous rarity known as a Kevin Frenette performance. Encore…
The rumors during the past few months were
all over the place. Until less than a
month ago the word was that John Zorn was being pushed out of Alphabet City
because of gentrification-driven greed and that the last gigs at the Stone
would take place last month. The other
part of the “solid” rumor was that before summer the replacement for the Stone
would be up and running. But the new
place would be temporary until John Zorn could find a permanent performance
space. Wrong. All wrong.
At least that’s what the 3/6 online Village Voice article by Larry
Blumenfeld, “John Zorn Is Rolling The Stone From Avenue C To
The New School,” tells us.
Including interview excerpts from John Zorn and Richard Kessler,
executive dean for performing arts at the New School, the article tells us that
there will be performances at both the Stone and the New School’s Glass Box
Theater on West 13th Street.
In other words, the music stays downtown, but the cachet is much
different over at the College of Performing Arts of the New School. I hope you are following this. Because there is more. There will be a quiz later. After a year of concert ping pong between the
two venues (i.e., March of 2018), the Stone will be shuttered and the Glass Box
Theater will become the one and only home of the Stone. The seating capacity and the musician payment
policy will remain the same. John Zorn
will continue to be an unpaid venue operator.
One nice touch is that there will be the usual entry fee for audience
members, but (in case there are unfilled seats) New School students can witness
the music for free. There is much more,
and Larry Blumenfeld has done a nice job covering the recent evolution of the
Stone. So is this the perfect resolution
to the ongoing reality of the Stone (which was not pushed out by greedy
realtors, according to John Zorn)? Ask
me a year from now. Optimistically I’m
guessing my answer will be, “Ask me in five (or ten?) years
from now.” After all, the durability of
this new and exciting relationship is the important quiz question…
Editor and journalist H.L. Mencken considered the American
middle class too ill-informed and unintelligent to fulfill the promise of the
nation’s political system. Recently a
friend sent me a quote of the curmudgeon, claiming that although Mencken died
in 1956 and never knew about Donald Trump he saw our current President coming:
"Democracy is the theory that
the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. As
democracy is perfected, the office of the president represents more and more
closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain
folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House
will be adorned by a downright moron."
and (as a joke) told him that I never had noticed just how much he looked like Mingus. He did not respond to my remark, no doubt refusing to let my silliness distract us from more important matters. The last time I saw Steve was at the artist reception for the Peter Bodge exhibit December 10 at the Fire House Center in Newburyport. He was Steve, predictably warm and generous-hearted. Pointing to his cane, I asked how he was doing. He rather convincingly told me that he was feeling better during the past couple weeks. Now in hindsight I’m sure he was trying to convince one of us that he actually was feeling better--and I’m not sure which one. In a world in which sometimes we seem to bump up against so many bad ones, it is tough to lose such a good one. For those who are interested, jazz journalist Tom Reney, who knew Steve much better than I, has written a fine piece on Steve in his NEPR blog…
Trump-driven
Republican attempts to replace a defective Obama health care system with one
that is far worse (particularly for lower and middle income people) are not
good for the physical well being of everyone except the wealthiest
Americans. And it seems that concurrent
attempts to gut federal support for arts, national parks, and humanities
programs are exacerbating the problem.
In fact, one argument for supporting such programs is that they are good
for the health of U.S. citizens.
According to the March AARP Bulletin (p. 26), U.C. Berkeley
research suggests that powerful natural and artistic experiences are good for
health. Dr. Dacher Keltner, co-author of
the study, says, “The things we do to experience these emotions--a walk in
nature, losing oneself in music, beholding art--has a
direct influence upon health and life expectancy.” So the next time I put my money in the jar,
I’ll think of it as my medical co-pay…
February 2017
The political mess is so ludicrous I thought I would brighten this month’s Journal by opening with something light. Even if you have no interest in football, if you live in New England you know something about the personality of Patriots Head Coach Bill Belichick. This month the Boston Globe published a celebration of the team’s success with a forty page tabloid titled Lords of the Rings. It includes articles and a lot of photos. Among the photos are shots of fans enjoying the success. One photo taken by Jessica Rinaldi I found particularly delightful. I hope you enjoy it.
It was one of those Eric Rosenthal Point 01 Percent gigs in which it seems almost anything can happen during two sets of music presented by two completely different ensembles. And, although I’ve never asked him about his intentions on these once-per-month events, I’m pretty sure that’s the way he wants it, exhilarating adventure or capsized boat or a bit of both. Bassist Damon Smith led the band on the first set. He landed in Boston a few months ago with a solid reputation. But adding a post-Ayler acoustic bassist to the Boston scene brings to mind references to New Castle. There may be more genuinely extraordinary post-Ayler acoustic bassists per capita in the Boston area than in any city in the world. And each of them has a strong, unique personality devoid of gimmicks. Going to a gig with the knowledge that I’m going to hear superb bass work by a special musical personality is one of the reasons I would not want to live anywhere else. To get to the point, Damon Smith fits in beautifully within the local “bass context.” He knows what he’s doing, avoids technique to impress, and has his own constructively prodding personality. So now we have another member of the local bass tribe to celebrate. But wait. This was a “01” gig. What could possibly go wrong? It was supposed to be a quartet featuring a legend on drums, the one living percussionist I’d want to see perform on my last night of existence--Laurence Cook. That’s not a slight to all the living percussionists I love. I miss so many of them from different parts of the country and around the world, and I am so happy to witness the giant percussionists in the Boston area on a regular basis. I hope you know who you are. But Laurence talks to me in a musicianship so thorough and so profound that I must refer to very different drummers of the past--Baby Dodds and Ed Blackwell among them--to come up with percussive references that make sense in trying to evoke what Laurence does--time and time again. Needless to say--due to flu or some other bug--Laurence did not make the gig. Good luck, Damon. In that circumstance what would Kit Demos, Jane Wang, Jef Charland, and other top local bassists do? Exactly what Damon did 2/8 at the Lily Pad. He convinced himself that performing with two musicians playing melodic percussion instruments would be an ideal gig. And he projected his fine musical personality through musicianship and exemplary sonic communication. When it comes to top-shelf bass players, maybe “too much is not enough.” His trio partners were up to the task. No doubt long-time band mate of Laurence, Eric Zinman, was looking forward to playing with the drummer once again. But he did not let that fact get in the way of the music. Offering supportive rhythmic attacks of his own and challenging, engaging piano runs, he made his voice known and enhanced the work of his partners to a level as fine as I’ve ever heard from him. A few years ago Andria Nicodemou arrived in Boston with a good deal of fanfare among local musicians. Sure enough, she knew her way around the vibraphone. She supported others cleanly and made useful solo comments. Promising. But warranting the celebration? No. I came to the conclusion that the fine musicians’ chatter was visionary, predictive. Andria “disappeared” from the local scene for some time, picking up gigs in New York and Europe. She continued to perform here with some regularity. I got a chance to catch up with her progress at the Lily Pad. If her performance 2/8 is a true indicator of a typical 2017 Andria Nicodemou gig, the cheerleaders around here truly were visionary. My guess is that somewhere in her travels Andria had a profound wakeup call. On 2/8 it was not simply a matter that she has discovered how to attack the instrument to produce stage-lifting sonics when needed. For the entire set she exhibited a masterly confidence I’d never witnessed in her before. More important (and this change is difficult to articulate graphically), Andria seems to have abandoned the trappings of an “aspiring artist.” She now has the kind of demeanor you see in the durable innovators: music is at the core of their being, and everything else is a distraction to be dealt with expeditiously. Busy or silent, her contributions all set long were terrific. It was one night. Here’s hoping it is a single step on the path to proving the visionaries right. All in all it was three musicians creating fine music. I had a ball. I bet Laurence would have also. The second set featured Alternative Facts, a pickup band. One heck of a pickup band--Pandelis Karayorgis, Taylor Ho Bynum, Junko Fujiwara, Bruno Råberg, and Eric Rosenthal performing at the top of their game. I call it a pickup band because I don’t believe all of the musicians have been onstage at the same time previously. Taylor and Eric have a musical relationship that goes back decades. Other band member links have materialized significantly during the past year. But the chemistry of the five musicians on this night was extraordinary. There was an effortless joy to the connections that is unusual even for the most seasoned veterans. I heard Taylor pursue sonic places I’d never heard from him before. And Pandelis played the fewest notes on a gig that I’d ever heard from him. And it was not because he was lacking in ideas. I got the feeling that he was enjoying soaking up the sounds of the rest of the group. When he did play, his contributions were near perfection. Junko and Bruno picked up their wonderful interplay where they left off on their last gig together. Junko continues to step up to improvisatory challenges with a higher level of confidence and reasons to be so confident. Her improvised support work inspires people around her, and her solos keep growing in originality and attractiveness. At one point Junko did some percussive work with her bow on the strings of the bass, initially surprising Bruno who later said he’d have to choreograph something for Junko’s physically less accessible cello. Bruno is one of those bass treasures of Boston. He has all the tools and “tricks” at his disposal but uses them sparingly, only when the music needs them. He was the anchor on a set in which different sonics were materializing constantly around him. Eric was having as good a time as I can remember, reveling in and percussively conducting the silences and extraordinary improvisations around him. And all without even the slightest facial or body language gesture. Yes, we do have trap set treasures also…
Ann Braithwaite and Scott Menhinick sent out the word that Mili Bermejo died 2/21 at age 65 after a nine-month battle with cancer. It is a great loss to the Boston music community. We in the jazz world know her best for her vocal performances, often with husband bassist Dan Greenspan, which celebrated all the music south of the border and influenced countless lucky students. She taught at Berklee for 32 years and passed on before her soon-to-be-released book, Jazz Vocal Improvisation: An Instrumental Approach (Berklee Press, 2017), could be made available. Donations in her memory may be given to the Elizabeth Evarts de Rham Hospice Home, Cambridge, Massachusetts…
A storm was coming, but it didn’t arrive until hours after the performance was over. In any case the weather threat was not enough to keep wise jazz fans from showing up 2/10 at Longy’s Pickman Hall to catch a terrific David Bryant Trio. The music included works by Dave and Eric Hofbauer as well as by the giants being celebrated with the concert--Charlie Parker and Ornette Coleman. The wide range of music was central to the engaging nature of the performance, and the three musicians--including Dave, Eric, and the too-often overseas Jacob William on bass--were perfect interpreters of such a span of jazz. In spite of the historical focus of the evening, the musicians made sure that the history has meaning primarily as a living continuum. By that I mean what each of these musicians did was pretty scary stuff. Scary in terms of the ear-stretching circuitous route through and around the original compositions/charts. And scary in terms of just how good all three musicians are technically. Fortunately each man realizes that technique is a means to a much more important end. But working on technique is of genuine value. I raved to Jacob after the concert just how wonderful it was to witness his wizardry on the bass after such a long wait to see him. There were times when I had to use both hands to pick up my jaw from the floor. He confessed that his international travels had kept him away from both performances and practice. He admitted that his technical facility has suffered (but not that I noticed) and that the music in his head that does not fade carried him through the gig. I looked at his hands and saw no blood from lack of calluses. It made no sense. He explained when I pointed out the apparent contradiction. As some fans know, a good part of Jacob’s international travel is in support of his talented (both violin and tennis) daughter. In his travels with his daughter he spent time stringing tennis rackets for her, a practice that provides sufficient stress on his fingers that they retain their toughness. It makes one ponder the extent to which child-rearing can enhance/sustain performance excellence. Eric’s “Prof Hof” guitar technique book is available. I don’t want to give a sales pitch for that performance tool, but I suspect that Eric’s performance 2/10 was one of the best sales pitches one could imagine for that document. Throughout the evening I saw him bring forth guitar sonics that I had not witnessed before, using technical manipulations that were new to me. But the thing that really caught my attention was the content of the fingerings. I hate gimmicks. I hate clever. If I had seen a silent video of what he was doing, I would have dismissed it as “clever.” But no. The thing that hit me was the content. It was all about the music. Scary. Wonderful. I have followed David Bryant’s career from the mid-1980s (May 17, 1986 to be exact). It has been and remains a fascinating ride--from those first wonderful Shock Exchange gigs to the amazing Bobby Ward group experiences at the Willow to Pittsburgh before, during, and after a fine Prime Time gig to the 2/10 trio gig at Longy. Throughout it all I have been most enamored of his acoustic piano work. I think part of that preference has to do with the musical personality limitations of electric/electronic keyboards, a sort of “is is real or is it Memo-Dave” phenomenon. There are so many “disguising” resources available with electronic keys that some people get at least partially lost in the off-the-shelf sonics. I have that problem with David. He is so brilliant (with a Steinway to help us hear him) on acoustic piano that the alternative is akin to having a beer in a bag on Cambridge Common in winter versus Woodford Reserve on the lawn of the Chanler in Newport in August. Like his 2/10 band mates, Dave’s technique (and it can be appreciated completely only on an acoustic piano) is astonishing. It’s the kind of playing that would make a student react by moving to another course of study or (much better) commit with more purpose to practice--and maybe even the music that is the goal of technique. It is early in 2017, but the concert 2/10 at Pickman Hall probably will remain with me as one of the best of the year. Perhaps inspired by the success of the gig at Pickman Hall, Dave brought Eric and Jacob to the Outpost 2/21 to pursue the muse. The musicians, sources of the music, and instrumentation (including acoustic piano) were essentially the same as on the Longy performance. But there were two significant differences at the Outpost--the aesthetics and the environment. By aesthetics I refer to the creative perspectives the musicians brought to the 2/21 gig. They were tackling the same material, but it was apparent from the contributions of each musician that the 2/21 gig was not going to be a re-do. So they were speaking the same language, but they were telling a very different story. A wonderful story. The environment was different also. The Pickman Hall gig was a concert. The Outpost gig was a “club” performance. You know the difference a context can make. Think of Charlie Parker playing in Carnegie Hall in December of 1949 and then at Birdland during the next February. And so it was for these guys. Which combination of aesthetics and environment was the more compelling, that on 2/10 or that on 2/21? A good question, but a definitive answer eludes me. The happy answer for me is that I caught both…
The cover of the March JazzTimes (published in February) celebrated among other things a feature summary of Maria Schneider’s lecture on the status of jazz, “Protecting the Power of Music,” which is for the most part a plea for greater support for the Musicians Union and the PROs so they can better do their jobs on behalf of musicians and composers. The article quotes her as listing “10 plagues we (i.e., jazz musicians) face” today. Schneider obviously is confused by the misleading claims of the Musicians Union and the PROs. As I have pointed out many times in these Journals, the Musicians Union and the PROs have noble goals but not only fail to carry out those goals but also cause harm to musicians of all sorts, particularly creative artists such as composers and performers. The Musicians Union and the PROs do not need our support as they carry out their destructive work. Perhaps the best way to state the case is to say that we should shake up the Musicians Union and the PROs so that they will end their destructive practices while pursuing the stated goals that are noble and potentially productive. It is time for the Musicians Union that passed a resolution condemning ragtime music at its convention in Denver in 1901 (i.e., committing to not performing ragtime), a silly idea, to stop shutting down jazz clubs of all kinds for the sake of the musicians who no longer can play in those non-existent clubs. It is time for PROs to stop shutting down hand-to-mouth not-for-profit venues, killing performance opportunities for this nation’s most creative musicians and young composers. As a side point but not without relevance Ms. Schneider may not understand that none of the most creative young composers, arrangers, improvisors, and other musicians are performing Ms. Schneider’s charts or downloading bootlegs of her recordings. If they are breaking genuinely new ground, they are not using Ms. Schneider’s abandoned shovel to do it. Speaking of genuinely creative people attempting to survive the ravages of the Musicians Union and the PROs, last month I mentioned that Matt Samolis’ good deeds did not go unpunished. He was one of the Boston area’s most important not-for-profit entrepreneurs, but ASCAP threatened him because of his selfless good deeds, causing him to shut down his art space. He managed to scrape together the ASCAP fees to get the PRO agent off his back and prayed that his payments would be enough to stop the harassment. Well, in a letter dated 2/28 ASCAP told Matt that his license agreement was cancelled. That’s “good news” in that ASCAP is off Matt’s back. But Matt’s days of presenting creative live music are over. Fortunately he is finding ways to help other creative presenters. My guess is that Matt’s constructive nature is such a force for good that sometime in the not-too-distant future Matt will be presenting creative artists. Yes, the wonderful music events we have come to know so well are gone. He does not want to deal with a PRO agent again. But maybe we’ll get to witness some fine new theater piece or poetry or improvised music. All of it unpublished of course. There is at least a double irony in the ASCAP letter to Matt. The last two sentences of the letter are, “In the event you resume the use of copyrighted musical works that require permission, we respectfully request you advise us so that we may make the necessary arrangements for a new license. Many thanks and best wishes.” It’s just business. Ugly business. But wait. There’s a second irony. I did not know ASCAP has a slogan. I would guess, if I had to, that it would be something like, “Destroying live music and still getting away with it.” But no. It’s beautiful in its ironic simplicity: “We create music” I’m not making that up…
Trump times are strange times for people who have some regard for the more positive aspects of civilization, such as the arts. Given the Trump administration’s disdain for any form of cultural pursuits and his recent statements about increasing our military budget by 10% while eliminating non-macho government activities, it is no wonder that arts organizations of all types are concerned. On 2/24 I received a statement via email from the directors of the major museums in Boston--MIT’s List Center, the Gardner Museum, the ICA, the Harvard Museums, and the MFA--sounding an alarm about the negative impact on museums and other cultural institutions if the federal plug is pulled. Each museum director mentions ways in which NEA and NEH funding and administration have had direct effects on programming and in stabilizing cultural organization communities. In that statement the directors mention a 2/22 op-ed piece in the New York Times by Thomas P. Campbell, director and chief executive of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. They refer to his “The Folly of Abolishing the N.E.A.” as “eloquently outlining how every museum relies not only on financial support but also on the advocacy of the NEA… ” Nevertheless these are strange times indeed. The ink had hardly dried on the op-ed page when Robin Pogrebin writing for the same newspaper told us of various complaints about the incompetence of the Met’s Director and his resignation in “Metropolitan Museum’s Director Resigns Under Pressure.” And he’s not even a member of the Trump team…
Quite commonly free improvisation performances consist of musicians who normally do not perform together. Kit Demos and Eric Rosenthal are among the band leaders in the Boston area who create such experimental encounters. On the other hand, there are free improvisation ensembles consisting of essentially the same personnel over a span of months or even years. In either case, band leaders tend to define the character or personality of the band. For example, some band leaders believe in rehearsals to improve free communications. Others see rehearsals as some sort of sacrilege. One tends to think of free improvisation somewhat generically. In other words, whether it is a pickup band or a “working” band, free ensembles are pretty much defined by the peculiarities of the musicians in the band. And certainly there is some truth to that perception. For example, something as simple as the instrumentation of the band affects greatly what an audience member will hear. And if Peter Brötzmann is in the group, his musical personality will be inescapable. But there is a functional difference between a pickup and a “working” free improvisation ensemble. I confess that I have not given much thought to the difference. But the difference is real, and that difference affects the musical experience. For example, the decades-long project AMM has had most famously three strong personalities in John Tilbury, Eddie Prévost, and (until recently) Keith Rowe. But they are not a pickup band. The communication among the three of them (and now the two of them) has evolved with its own language elements and architectural principles, an evolution that cannot occur in a one-off pickup band. The result is that pickup bands work through a set of improvisatory tactics that are different from those of an evolving “working” band. It may not seem like much of a difference, but it can be functionally significant. And so that difference revealed itself remarkably 2/28 at the Outpost. For almost two decades Steve Lantner has had a variety of free improvisation ensembles from duos to sextets employing the musicianship of a reliable group of about eight “regulars.” The regulars quite obviously like the Lantner aesthetic or they would not show up at the gigs. The fact that he attracts some of the top post-Ayler musicians in town helps a lot also. But what has happened over the years is that Steve and the regulars have developed their own unique set of music architecture and language elements. The fount of all this is Steve, but every one of the regulars buys into it and contributes to the evolution of the music. It is important to understand that there is nothing in the music that is esoteric or difficult for the typical fan of post-Ayler sonic art. Such a fan, for example, may not be able to articulate all of the musical factors--historical or conceptual--in a Laurence Cook solo, but that fan would enjoy--be blown away by--the music that Laurence makes. In the same way, the music of any Steve Lantner ensemble is quite accessible to the typical post-Ayler jazz fan. The fan may not be able to parse what is going on, but he knows that it’s terrific. But the musicians on the bandstand do not have such a simple relationship to the music. They have to parse the sonics or the crystal will shatter. That’s a rather lengthy way to get us to the music 2/28 at the Outpost provided by two Steve Lantner regulars--Steve Lantner and Luther Gray--with a “guest” band member, Andria Nicodemou. About three years ago Andria Nicodemou was part of a larger improvising ensemble that was a pickup band of fine musicians. There were no “working” band connection problems for her. At the time Andria was a different, less clearly defined musician. And relatively speaking the experience was something of a nice field trip for her. Her fine performance 2/8 at the Lily Pad was qualitatively far better than that in 2014. But again, the 2/8 gig was with a pickup band. The 2/28 gig was very different. It would be somewhat simplistic to say that because it was a trio there was no place for her to hide. The 2/8 gig was a trio performance. And Andria is not a hiding person, at least not onstage these days. No. I guess what the 2/28 performance demonstrated is that, if you want to sit in with a free improvisation working band, you had better have a clear picture of that band’s language and architecture before you drop in for a sonic visit. I’m sure the significance of that understanding varies considerably from group to group. For example, I imagine that listening to a bunch of AMM CDs might help an improvising musician prepare for the chance to sit in with Messrs. Tilbury and Prévost. Nevertheless, I would recommend witnessing the duo in person a couple times. In the same way, my recommendation to Andria Nicodemou would have been to show up in the audience to witness the music a few times before sitting in. Get a sense of the language, the architecture, and the interpersonal interactions before you jump in. The lack of such preparation was obvious in a number of ways. For example, there is a Steve Lantner ensemble convention that when Luther Gray is the drummer (and he usually is) he gets typically two extended percussion solos. These are not indulgences. Luther, at a time that is appropriate within the set, takes a solo. It is not a rata-tata “I’m a great drummer” solo. It is a profound sound sculpture of a percussion solo, something that sits by itself as a David Smith piece might but then moves back into the rest of the sonic space. Wonderful. But you just can’t walk into a Steve Lantner gig and know that is going to happen. And so it didn’t. There were such solos begun, but invariably they became drums/vibes duos. It is the first time I’ve witnessed a Steve Lantner gig with Luther on drums in which there was no extended Luther Gray solo. The end of the world? No. But it is symptomatic of the problems of even an accomplished musician walking into a free improvisation working band gig cold. The other symptoms were more specifically contextual. The first improvisation of the first set was quite noisy with the vibes louder than the other two instruments and Andria apparently not hearing the other musicians very well. Subsequent improvisations were slightly better. She listened to and reacted to the language of Steve Lantner better as the set progressed. The pattern most evident became a drums and vibes conversation interacting with the piano. I suspect that, before the beginning of the second set, Andria Nicodemou (at least subconsciously) processed what happened in the first set. She heard and reacted to Steve’s piano work more effectively during the first improvisation of the second set. The second improvisation opened with engaging pointillist chatter between piano and vibes which developed into the trio becoming a Sergio Leone steam engine slowly chugging into the station with fine work by Luther and Andria, including steam hissing from Luther’s brushed cymbals. This cymbal work moved into a Luther Gray solo that soon became a drums/vibes duo before fading into silence. The final improvisation of the evening was a flag-waver, a truly fine one followed by an effective fade out. Andria Nicodemou walked into a difficult situation 2/28, but she probed the musical context and made some effective adjustments. And when it was all over the audience responded enthusiastically…
In my youth, like many young people, I had a variety of brief fascinations. One of those fascinations was graphology. I had some books and studied it as an amateur for a couple years. I became good enough at it that I (apparently successfully) uncovered personality traits and “secrets” of both friends and strangers. At the time I was aware of basically two subsets of graphological research--handwriting and signatures. The two pursuits involved similar courses of study, but the source of the research, the “sample,” was different in each case and was interpreted differently. My focus was handwriting. I never investigated the peculiarities of interpreting signatures. I have no information about the status of graphology today, whether or not it is a popular area of research or whether or not it still is a resource in court. In any case, recently because of the proliferation of Presidential decrees of one type or another, frequently we see the signature of President Trump displayed on TV and elsewhere. The characteristics of that signature really hit home when I saw it (see below) displayed across the cover of the February 7 issue of The Village Voice. The signature primarily consists of a series of daggers, bringing to mind aggression and sarcasm. Again, signatures were not my thing, but that signature is pretty scary. If anyone reading this Journal studies graphology or knows anyone with such skills, I would love to read (and with permission pass along to readers) the findings of a practicing graphologist. Of course, we already know that the former game show host is substantially frightening. But the signature does not suggest hope.
The Explorers--leader Charlie Kohlhase, Seth Meicht, Daniel Rosenthal, Eric Hofbauer, Josiah Reibstein, Aaron Darrell, and Curt Newton--seem to be a fully committed group of musicians. No subs. Right at home with the material and each other. And the performances--as fine as they’ve been in recent months--keep reaching higher peaks with each outing. The 2/16 gig emphasized ensemble growth most obviously through the arrangements performed and what the musicians did with those arrangements. The band confidently tackled durable favorites written by the leader and John Tchicai--and never suggesting overconfidence or ennui. But Charlie opened his bag of tunes and gave us a bunch of wonderful new and seldom heard charts from a wide range of active musicians and legends. We got fine charts from Eric and Darrell and a couple from Josiah, including an engaging set of voicings in 3/4 that brought to mind the fine period of “odd time” pieces performed by bands led by Blakey and Roach. Speaking of legends, we were treated to terrific works by Elmo Hope and Makanda Ken McIntyre. McIntyre’s wonderful “Suspense” came to the group via a transcription of the big band arrangement by John Kordalewski especially for the Explorers. The work is far more challenging and engaging than most headline mainstream music performed in clubs today. John’s arrangement of “Suspense” is more than equal to the task of feeding the Explorers, and the ensemble almost literally lifted the bandstand with superb chart execution and fiery solos. The opening solo on “Suspense” by Charlie would have impressed even the composer. A fine evening of music all around that concluded with the now-traditional blues, this time titled once again, “Inauguration Blues.”…
Apparently the Berklee World Strings is a group of wonderfully hard working and talented students and faculty musicians. At least that’s what Bruno Råberg’s recent CD, Triloka, and the 2/25 performance of his Triloka Ensemble at the Piano Factory in Boston suggest, both demonstrating the skills of more than a dozen such people in different compositional contexts. Along the way Bruno had a variety of important support from Mimi Rabson. The 2/25 Piano Factory performance featured the music released on the CD performed by Bruno and string musicians Layth Sidiq, Bengisu Gokce, David Wallace, and Naseem Alatrash. The music, composed and arranged by Bruno, is rooted in many different world cultures, incorporating the varieties of time and tonality that one might expect. One advantage to the makeup of the ensemble is that the five musicians who performed 2/25 were born in five different countries--including Texas (Mr. Wallace). So they brought these wonderful sonic sensibilities to the music. On the other hand, none of the musicians were immersed in the culture and music of all the countries represented by the charts. The musicians acquitted themselves superbly in performing the charts, and their work was impressive during the improvised parts of the performance. The only time the improvisations faltered was during a portion of the evening that incorporated completely free playing as an interaction with a video sequence. The video sequence, produced by Bruno’s Chicago-based daughter, involved a fixed camera recording people in what apparently was an airport (Philadelphia?). I should point out that free improvisation is not an easily-acquired sonic art form. Within that form of music the performance of free improvisation during (typically) silent films or foreign films with sub-titles is a special challenge. Often the idea is that the individual or ensemble performs while watching a film that he/she never had seen before. The results often are stunning when performed by master musicians. For example, several years ago the DKV Trio performed completely improvised music while watching Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai. Only one of the trio members had seen the film before. I did not witness the event, but the word got out and reached me. Near the end of the film the villagers are back to “normal.” They are planting new rice shoots. Then there is a moment when Hamid Drake, who never had seen the film before, takes off on a tom-tom pattern. As he does, a character in the rice paddies begins striking a frame drum. Simultaneously with Hamid’s drum work. A one in a million coincidence? Brilliant reading of film context? I don’t know, but I’m guessing some of the former and a lot of the latter. So we in the Piano Factory are watching people tooling back and forth in an apparent airport. Suddenly a couple notices near a back wall a life-size diorama of some founders of our country. The female in the young couple discovers that she can become part of the diorama. The male friend spots the photographic opportunity and shoots the image of the young female “participating” in building the groundwork of our nation. She is joyous. He is compelled to take a selfie with female and founders. One can speculate on the meaning of it all. For me it was both a celebration of participation in creating and nurturing our government and a depressing comment on the too-busy passersby who failed to see the opportunity. Of course, my interpretation of the video scenario is colored by the realization that Americans have allowed both of the major parties to give us incompetent candidates in the most recent election, and we are beginning to see the horrific results. In any event, the video sequence certainly provided a fine opportunity for improvised sonic collaboration. As far as I know, Bruno is the only member of this Triloka quintet with extensive experience in free improvisation. Whether that is true or not, the ensemble obviously was not comfortable in that improvisational setting. As I mentioned, free improvisation is a difficult form or music to master. And improvising in reaction to unknown projected moving images is an even more specialized activity. No doubt it was a useful learning experience for the Triloka musicians. I suspect at least some of the musicians are intrigued by the free music experience and may want to pursue such opportunities. Given how well Bruno’s band mates nailed the charts and the improvised portions of the arrangements, in the future I would not be surprised to see any of those same people tackle virtually any kind of music with conviction and success. In the mean time, the 2/25 performance offered an evening of fine music demonstrating the joyous possibilities of talent combined with hard work…
January 2017
I was in Manhattan for a week at the end of the month, checking out MoMA (Picabia), the Met (Beckmann), the Gagosian on Madison Ave (Picasso), and a variety of other sights and sounds. One special aspect of the New York experience has been with me for a while, and I decided to investigate it further. A variety of tall buildings and those with unusual visual perspectives are celebrated for their excellent views of particularly two iconic New York buildings, the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building, among both tourists and locals probably the two best-known buildings in New York. Several years ago while walking in the Murray Hill section of town I noticed that it is possible to obtain excellent views at ground level of both buildings from a single street intersection. A combination of simple geometry and familiarity with the city’s street grid led me to the “other best” ground view of the two buildings. I think the Murray Hill view is the better one, but they are both pretty nice. In case you enjoy walking in Manhattan as much as I do, you might like to check out both “best” ground views of the two buildings. The fine Murray Hill view can be had from the southwest corner of the intersection of Lexington Avenue and 33rd Street. The other fine view is available from the southeast corner of the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. People visiting New York City who prefer to take the subway (as I do) may have to settle for taking cabs for a while. Unless you have the MTA subway map memorized, taking subway transportation could be tricky. Because of the planned publication of new maps to include information about the highly publicized 2nd Avenue line, officials stopped printing the old maps and ran out of them. Although the first section of the 2nd Avenue line is up and running, the new maps are not yet available. MTA employees I talked to claimed that the maps supposedly will be available any minute, but there is no specified delivery date. Maps are displayed in stations and on trains and are somewhat inconvenient but functional (at least the ones without graffiti are). We Bostonians cannot be smug about incompetent New York MTA planning. After all, it was our own MBTA geniuses who built “improved” T stops at Riverside and Woodland that moved the boarding platforms from close proximity to the parking lot to an average distance of more than a football field length from almost all parking spaces. And any T rider reading this Journal can add other examples of MBTA planning incompetence. Maybe the problem is occupationally systemic. One morning on my Manhattan visit I shared a coffee break with Steve Swell and Ken Vandermark. Ken was in town for a couple days to spend some catch-up time with Steve and to check out the Beckmann and Picabia. Steve, of course, lives in lower Manhattan. A terrific musician, he remains in demand around town and continues to teach to very lucky students. The subject of Boston came up, and Steve mentioned that he has not been to Boston since Garrison Fewell passed on. He’d love to play up here, and I’d love to put him up in my place if that would facilitate things. All we need is a Boston-based musician who can bring him up here for some superb music…
Speaking of New York, by the time you read this that city probably has seen the last jazz performances at the Stone in the Alphabet City part of Manhattan. Many Boston area improvisors already know about the venue’s demise. It is difficult to believe that Alphabet City could ever be gentrified, but it is happening fast enough that the corner space for new music is worth too much to support sonic art. One suspects that John Zorn is too intelligent, hard working, resourceful, and passionate to let this be his last performance space. It may be known by another name, but I expect there is a Son of Stone on the horizon. Let’s hope so…
The double bill 1/11 began with a quintet of superb musicianship--Pandelis Karayorgis, Seth Meicht, Jeb Bishop, Jef Charland, and Curt Newton--known as Stereoscope. These guys are so good that, in spite of having only one rehearsal of the charts for the gig, everyone performed, supported, and improvised as if it were a seasoned house band. Of course these musicians know each others music well. So offering nothing but charts by band members--except for a joyous romp through Sun Ra’s “Saturn”--makes a lot of sense. For these men even new pieces feel comfortable. One could hardly ask for a more convincing way to kick off the new year. Challenging scores pursued by all musicians with esprit. Writing that inspires solos which in turn inspire higher levels of support and subsequent solos. If this is the way Stereoscope begins the year, that fact bodes well for fans who search for artistic evolution and resultant excellence throughout the rest of the year. As a creative alternative to fine charts and improvisations, Eric Rosenthal in the second set brought with him three other noteworthy musicians--Bruno Råberg, Jorrit Dijkstra, and Junko Fujiwara--to perform completely improvised music. None of the musicians on the second set 1/11 are strangers to totally improvised music. The only question was how well the specific components of this quartet would work together. One might say that there were four (or perhaps five) improvisations on that set. The first and third, exhibiting alto sax work by Jorrit, were the most successful in terms of improvisations and particularly soli and group interactions. The alto sax is Jorrit’s instrumental strength, and the group balance was solid throughout those two improvisations. The balance problems opened the second improvisation, but fortunately it eventually improved enough so that we could hear the conversation between Bruno’s arco bass/electronics and Junko’s pizzicato cello. It was one of the highlights of the set. The fourth (or fifth) improvisation of the set mostly did not work except for the time (the fourth improvisation?) when Jorrit put his Lyricon down and worked the rest of the electronics. In those moments the sounds on stage were in balance and you had the feeling that all four musicians could hear each other. Nice. In addition to making such adventures happen, Eric time and again demonstrates why he’s one of my favorite drummers. Even though he has a strong reputation as a drummer who excels in a variety of composed musics, he’s exceptional in completely improvised contexts. He hears so wonderfully. So on this evening at the Lily Pad one of the great highlights for me was watching and hearing Eric salvage disasters and bring the highest human expression even higher…
It was more than a month after the passing of Mose Allison (11/15) that I read of the firing of Fred Taylor from his post at Scullers. I remember several decades ago when Fred was doing some invaluable consulting work for the Boston Jazz Society. During one meeting in that capacity in passing he mentioned almost in surprise that other jazz production people never seemed to understand how much Bostonians loved Mose Allison. And so he continued to book Allison to sell-out crowds. It was just another example of the fact that Fred Taylor did not merely book gigs at the second incarnation of the Jazz Workshop located at 733 Boylston Street along with Paul’s Mall. He learned from those experiences. Of course, what he learned was not merely which jazz musicians were safe money and which were perhaps worth taking a chance on. Even from the earliest days of the Jazz Workshop Fred made sure that his offerings would include some exciting non-jazz performers. It’s a practice he carried with him to Scullers. This booking policy offered two general advantages. First, it offered audiences eclectic options while maintaining the club’s jazz image and audience. Second, that policy gave Fred a built-in wider range of income options; if he needed a popular folk musician to bolster the kitty, the bread-and-butter jazz fan--even the purist--did not react in horror. It is the type of experience and policy that Fred brought with him when he began booking Scullers in 1989. Because of Fred’s booking savvy, he was able to sustain a primarily jazz policy. At the same time, the Regattabar (its only ongoing competition during the Fenton Hollander years which ended in 2004) continues to offer--with approximately semi-annual exceptions--mostly boring, young musicians unlikely to draw any serious jazz fans. It might be argued that with the departure of Fred Taylor Boston loses its last jazz club of big names--the jazz musicians that even the casual jazz fan is likely to know. Don’t expect the Regattabar to pick up the names that Fred used to book. The club had the opportunity to compete with Scullers for quality bands and chose not to. It has no reason to change its booking policy now. Each reader of this Journal may come up with his or her own perspective on the meaning of the departure of Fred from Scullers. But, given the limited amount of information available online and in print about that departure, the specifics of the firing remain unclear. We have Fred telling us that somewhat unceremoniously he was told, “We need a change” (i.e., good bye). One imagines that the management of the hotel wants to drop the jazz policy in favor of acts that will bring in more money. Given Fred’s long experience booking eclectic music, one wonders why the hotel failed to give him a chance to book more lucrative acts. But it seems that hotel management merely wanted to get rid of Fred and General Manager Annmarie Blyth. Apparently Jan Mullen from the Side Door jazz club in Old Lyme, CT will take over the booking of Scullers. In other words, we probably will be stuck with the Regattabar’s booking policy and an echo across the Charles River. Let’s hope Mose Allison is resting well. And, thank you Fred. You fought the good fight…
There was the big 70-minute digital clock sitting in the back of the Outpost for the 1/21 gig. So you knew it was a performance by one of the Leap of Faith (LOF) spin-off groups. In this case it was String Theory, consisting of cello, two acoustic basses, voice(s), reeds, Aquasonics, and various percussion instruments. Most (if not all) of the fine musicians have been working together for months (and some for decades) in the LOF context. The work is paying off. The strings are heavily weighted at the bottom end of the family. One cannot help but be suspicious of a band that features two acoustic basses and three other instruments at any given time. But Tony Leva and Silvain Castellano are so comfortable with the improvisational concept and with each other that the two bassists function as a core attraction rather than an instrumental puzzle. They communicate with each other as if they are one--so much so that their work does not suggest anyone consciously thinking of having one person bowing while the other takes on pizzicato. It’s more like Stitt and Lockjaw or Gene Ammons talking to each other at the same time or trading bars. Of course, what the two bassists were doing had nothing to do with bebop, but the interplay involved ideas that go back well before the bebop era. The other “string” was Glynis Lomon, one of the post-Ayler cello giants who enhances her string work with in-your-face Aquasonic vibrations and the most human sorts of vocalizations. She remains--and pushes her music all time--a monster of the genre who is one of Boston’s great sonic treasures. Although Dei Xhrist is a vocal performing artist, most often I have witnessed her work as a theater performance in which her vocal efforts are central to an intentionally ambiguous dramatic presentation. Although Glynis’ vocalizations are central to the LOF identity, it is Dei who carries the primary vocal load. I found it interesting to watch/hear her apparently hold back her theatrical instincts presumably to help the group sonics along. Ironically--and to my surprise--I found those moments in which Dei was most theatrical to be the most successful in terms of her interaction with and support of the rest of the group. One of the reasons her dramatics work so effectively is that her narrative vocalizations are commentary rather than storytelling. In effect, unlike the programmatic narrative of the Wood Dove in Gurrelieder for example, Dei’s contributions are about the now, the on-stage activity of the String Theory ensemble. Dave Peck/PEK brought (for him) a relatively small array of reed and percussion instruments. But the sonic diversity of his contributions was no less impressive than at other times. The only disappointment for me was the brevity of his solos on each instrument. I realize that Dave brings such a large number of instruments with him on a gig so he can distribute a constructive range of sounds throughout a set of music. But there are times when it seems that he cuts himself off in the middles of a clarinet statement, for example, when continuing with what he was offering on that instrument probably would have been more supportive of the ensemble sonics. But such a complaint is as much praise as it is complaint. And Dave and his band mates are doing fine things together on stage. The 1/21 Outpost performance was the most challenging and engaging LOF outing that I’ve witnessed in recent memory--not an achievement easy to realize given that LOF’s history is so impressive. And people in the band hardly looked at the digital clock as the numbers rolled toward 70 on this occasion…
Nat Hentoff was born in Boston on June 10, 1925 and died in New York on January 7. Love him or hate him, Nathan Irving “Nat” Hentoff was one of our own. He even titled his memoir Boston Boy. He attended Boston Latin School, Northeastern, and Harvard and was a jazz DJ on WMEX radio while in college. If Bostonians have a reputation for being cantankerous and contradictory then Nat Hentoff was as Bostonian as one gets. He championed the music of such innovators as Ornette and Cecil, hanging out with the pianist when Taylor was a student at NEC. Later Hentoff became somewhat cranky about new music, his tastes apparently reverting to more straight-ahead material. As his work moved into civil rights territory almost exclusively during the last decades of his life, the apparent contradictions continued. He was a libertarian champion of the First Amendment in particular. As a spokesman for civil liberties he argued eloquently against government abuses of the Bill of Rights since 9/11 in the name of national security. He claimed that much earlier he was fired from Downbeat because he argued too enthusiastically for the magazine to hire black writers. On the other hand, he was a pro-life libertarian who supported the Presidential ambitions of Rand Paul and was a fellow at the right-wing bastion, the CATO institute. Nevertheless, among those who praised his The War on the Bill of Rights (Seven Stories Press, 2003) was then ACLU president Nadine Strossen. And he was a proud atheist. If you are among those who would like to turn to an example of his writing on behalf of musicians in the early days of post-Ayler jazz, you might check out his original liner notes for Cecil Taylor’s Looking Ahead (Contemporary S7562). Although he became somewhat frustrated because of his reputation as a jazz critic rather than as a political philosopher, he never stopped loving the music. Aesthetically he went out in style. According to the Washington Post, Nat Hentoff died while listening to a recording of Billie Holiday…
Based on information I received, there was some question as to whether the Explorers would show up at the Outpost 1/19 as a sextet or septet. It was seven up--Charlie, Seth Meicht, Daniel Rosenthal, Eric Hofbauer, Josiah Reibstein, Aaron Darrell, and Curt Newton--all night with wonderful sounds in spite of comments sprinkled throughout the evening about being at the doorstep of gloom and doom. For example, Charlie’s brand new (I believe) arrangement of a fine blues as yet untitled was given the temporary moniker of “Election Blues.” Everyone immediately was comfortable with the chart and spread fine solos and support all around. I hope Charlie brings it back on the next Explorers outing. Soon after that a contribution by Eric sparked terrific solos, including an engaging Seth improvisation that made me think that he had been reading some Terry Riley charts over lunch and decided to transform those ideas into a steamroller of a solo. One of the highlights of the evening was Dan’s solo on Charlie’s “Winter of Our Disco Tent,” as pretty (and creative) as any ballad trumpet solo you are likely to hear all winter. Throughout the evening the million dollar rhythm section of Eric, Josiah, Aaron, and Curt was worth showing up for all by itself. And I’d push that idea harder if it were not for the fact that these guys time and again offered solos that were superbly compelling. It was a night of engaging sounds with no letdown at any time. And there was a surprise at the end of the night. No “Blues for Alice.” There was more than a suggestion that the Parker favorite may have run its course as a Kohlhase closer. He plugged in another blues as a closer and tentatively titled the work “Election Blues,” an echo back to the political blues that opened the evening. The old and potentially new cycle of closers brings to mind the durability of such a large outfit. It is rare for even a quartet to maintain the same personnel for six months. Charlie has had five of these band members show up each month for more than two years. There are many reasons for that durability. Most of those reasons have to do with Charlie’s leadership and the character of the people in the band…