Jazz Journal 2020

July 

Catalytic Sound is a group of musicians and supporters that has come together during the past decade to create better opportunities and finances for musicians and more engaging links to their fans (e.g., the musicians actually get some money every time someone buys a recording through Catalytic).  The ESS online Catalytic Sound Festival streamed from Chicago on the afternoons and evenings of July 10 through 12.  As far as I know it is the first completely online post-Ayler music festival to promote such an event with a hang-on-the-wall tangible poster.  Poster art is by Dan Gzeca. 

Each day the first set of music (2 pm Eastern time) generally featured European musicians (at a time convenient for their local audiences) and the second set of music (8 pm Eastern time) generally featured North American musicians (at a time convenient for their local audiences).   On 7/10 there were interstitial videos by Kim Alpert.  Featured performers at the opening of the first set were Terrie Ex, Ab Baars, and Ig Hennemen who performed in Terrie’s home.  Ab chose the shakuhachi as his initial instrument of choice, and then tenor sax, clarinet, and a return to the shakuhachi.  The event seemed to be particularly joyous compared to most streamed performances.  Perhaps because it was a threesome of inter-human sonic communications.  Maybe they just like the vibe of Terrie’s home and family.  Voice/language monster Jaap Blonk was up next in a solo performance of “Eight Mechanical Statements” moving in to early avant-garde works, four short poems from 1921 by Theo van Doesburg.  It was a marvelously theatrical offering as only Jaap can pull off.  He showed the “nonsense” words/characters on the screen as he pronounced them, both challenging and entertaining this viewer/listener.  Keeping in the DaDa mood, Jaap read a Hans Arp poem while showing the original accompanying tortured moving-shape film created by Paul Klee.  Next followed an apparently improvised Jaap creation as an introduction to a remarkable Mallarmé poem that evolved from meaningful words to complete gibberish, a perfect vehicle for Jaap’s genius.  There was a closing improvisation, bringing an end to one of the more engaging solo offerings of the online Covid-19 season.  Ken Vandermark then presented tributes from Chicago to musicians who influenced him most on various instruments, the major tools of his career.  He opened on tenor sax with a performance in tribute to the two musicians who gave him direction on that instrument at key, different points in his life--Sonny Rollins and Joe McPhee.  If you are a reed player and you encounter the bass clarinet music of Eric Dolphy, how can you not want to try to make that sound?  And so it was for Ken as he gave us fine, celebratory bass clarinet.  Perhaps the most intriguing tribute was to percussionist Hamid Drake.  Ken recalled that when he performed with Hamid--primarily in the DKV Trio--he felt compelled to come up with a sound that he was not obtaining with his array of instruments at the time.  The answer he realized was the baritone sax.  Thank you, Hamid.  Then he closed with a b-flat clarinet tribute to John Carter.  I enjoyed that music very much, particularly because I think it helped alert my eyes to reflections on the wall of Ken’s home of passing traffic as displayed in the upper right-hand corner of the computer screen.  The final performance of the afternoon set featured Paal Nilssen-Love and Frode Gjerstad who were interviewed (by an unidentified person) about their working relationship which began when the veteran reed player picked up a fifteen-year-old drum partner one day.  They’ve been making noise ever since.  Interviews can be wonderful.  But, given the limited amount of airtime allowed in the Catalytic Fest, I would have enjoyed less chat and more sounds.  When the fine sounds did show up (with occasional buffering and actual loss of image/sound for a time) we caught a glimpse of alto sax and percussion teamwork at the highest level.  But distressingly brief.  The concluding event of the afternoon was a discussion panel on art & music including John Corbett, Ben Hall, and Bonnie Jones with moderator Kim Alpert.  The pundits pondered finding the keys to connecting different art forms for artists and audiences.  Then we got a break until 8 p.m. when the evening sets began.  Sylvie Courvoisier opened the evening set.  It was marred by an audio level that was too low and occasional signal dropouts throughout her presentation.  I cranked up my laptop as far as it would go, and that helped a little bit.  On the other hand, the camera angle was informative, and the pianist was Sylvie Courvoisier, a musician whose technical range and focussed creativity is always a highlight.  And so it was on 7/10.  Bassist Brandon Lopez greeted us in his living room with arco work and high energy tones.  He gave us fine sonic explorations with the help of an unidentified violinist.  The two of them work really well together.  Very fine music.  Next up was the Nate Wooley-Ikue Mori duo via split screen.  It was good to see Ikue’s hands on the keyboard, a fine adjustment to the medium.  At the same time we also could see Nate on Ikue’s computer screen, a nice touch.  No doubt because they both were performing in New York City, they could hear each other in real time.  It was really enjoyable improvisation, taking advantage of the available technology simply and effectively.  The final performance of the set featured two of the greatest improvisors of our time in a gorgeous outdoor setting.  Fred Lonberg-Holm wearing a mask and Joe McPhee without one so that he could perform were in the video frame together north of NYCity.  The audio-video presentation was quite fine.  Somehow they effectively switched between a basic set shot and close-ups.  This was the closest thing to “being there” I’d seen since the beginning of the pandemic.  There even were people in the distance walking by, ignoring the sounds.  It reminded me of the experiment involving the violinist Joshua Bell in which he set up a busker spot in a subway to see what the public reaction would be.  It was not simply that no one recognized him.  The amazing thing was that people were walking by one of the great living violinists and not recognizing that the performance was note-worthy.  As I remember, the only person shown in the TV feature who was genuinely attracted to the musician was a small child.  We lose a lot as we grow up.  At any rate, apparently there were no children walking by Fred and Joe.  It was a special way to conclude the first day of the online festival.  On 7/11 there were interstitial videos by Patrick Cain.  Ken Vandermark, in his living room in front of a fine abstraction by Paal Nilssen-Love’s father, briefly introduced the second day of the Catalytic Sound Festival.  The featured performer opening the first set 7/11 (after some Luke Stewart via Patrick Cain, a director who let’s us actually see the musician, and offering interstitial videos throughout the 11th) was Elisabeth Harnik.  She emphatically made her presence known by exploding onto screen “washing” the keys of the piano and manipulating the mic into the instrument.  Obviously two or more cameras were being used, and quite effectively much of the time, helping us to see what Elisabeth was doing.  Unfortunately the camerawork often was a bit too busy and “clever.”  For someone who shows up to gigs to see and hear the music (rather than some interpretation visually or sonically of what the musicians is doing), I found that it got in the way of the music.  For example, I never go to a solo piano gig in the hope of seeing the keys and pianist’s hands reflected in the wood of the piano.  That does nothing to inform the musician’s art.  The music I did hear and see was wonderful.  So wonderful that it made me ponder how lucky I am to have caught two of my three favorite young groundbreaking new music pianists on this fest.  The other is Kris Davis.  All of them are women and all of them got their stuff together outside the U.S.  Obviously I’d love to catch an evening Three-fest of work by Mses. Courvoisier, Harnik, and Davis.  The future.  Up next we had the trio Icepick, including Chris Corsano, Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, and Nate Wooley.  Ingebrigt and Nate improvised a video clip in isolation from different locations.  Neither one of them knew what the other members of the trio would do.  It sounds a bit too much like a train wreck, less promising than the “classic” visual art practice of folding over artist 1’s work so artist 2 can continue the work without seeing the work of artist 1 and so forth.  The wreck was avoided to a great extent because Chris Corsano took the video performances of Ingebrigt and Nate, edited them together and then added his voice to the mix.  Wow.  There was more.  Both Ingebrigt and Nate wore ear pieces while they played; so it is likely that they were using some kind of click track or other device to aid timing.  The final trio recording is something like Music Minus One Squared.  Was the ghost of Teo Macero in the room?  The next music was a solo set by Mats Gustafsson, opening with in-your-face baritone sax and not much face time for Mats.  He did feature a lot of tongue and keys and air pressure percussion.  A fine display of Mr. Extended Techniques.  Near the end of his program we got a surprise of sorts when Mats offered beautiful “conventional” tones.  Obviously he can do it all.  Next we found ourselves in Terrie Ex’s home where he and band mate Andy Moor gave us an everything you ever wanted to hear from guitars travelogue.  It started out slowly, pensively and then some duck and cover sonics filled with blood, guts, and thunder.  Constant searching--and finding.  Wonderful.  It is good to note that this offering featured some really nice camera work.  The music sequences were followed by a discussion panel offering thoughts about DIY productions and Funding.  Panelists included Terrie Ex, Luke Stewart, Nate Cross, and Joe Morris with moderator Olivia Junell, director of ESS.  At the conclusion of the panel session, the Catalytic Sound Fest producers decided to run a recording of the 7/10 duo performance by Paal Nilssen-Love and Frode Gjerstad which was messed up because of a Comcast shutdown during the 7/10 streaming.  After that we got a break until the second round of performances began at 8 p.m.  The duo of Tim Daisy and Dave Rempis performed out of doors at the Sugar Maple in Milwaukee.  During the pandemic I find that online performances outdoors generally come across better than the typical living room settings.  Such was the case with the fine performance by Dave and Tim.  The ubiquitous and superb Dave Zuchowski carried out the audio engineering.  The duo played in front of an audience and you could tell (beyond the energy level) that they were happy to be doing a LIVE gig.  Unfortunately there was a blowup during the concert, but at least we got the message on the screen, rather than in the chat file (even though it came from the streaming provider, Comcast).  We got a jump from the message about the dead space to the solo bass performance by Luke Stewart with video provided by Patrick Cain, but not as an interstitial presentation.  It was good to see the bassist’s face other than in the panel discussion.  Buffering every thirty seconds ruined what he was doing.  The technical trials continue.  Joe McPhee was due up next but technical problems caused cancellation.  Marker was ready to fly, and so they did.  Again, outside is good.  Nice impact.  Ken Vandermark (baritone, tenor, and clarinet), Macie Stewart (both violin and keys), Andrew Clinkman, Steve Marquette, and Phil Sudderberg came across very well.  It was really good video coverage (with a bit of jerkiness, but not bad), focussed on what the people in the band are doing.  The camera is showing me what I as a music fan want to see.  I wish there had been some sort of “good-bye” (verbal or via imagery) on the screen.  But it was a strong musical closing.  There were abstract, engaging interstitial videos by Federico Peñalva throughout the daytime and evening portions of the festival on 7/12.  Ken Vandermark, speaking to us from his basement introduced the day’s events and told us that Joe McPhee would perform during the evening session, a final event of the festival.  On schedule at 2 p.m. Eastern Time Chris Corsano offered a range of percussion devices and techniques.  It was enhanced by effective use of two cameras, allowing us to see clearly the whole kit that Chris was playing.  One effective technique involved a metal stick trick on the drum head via mallets on an attached cymbal.  It may have been tricky, but it was not gimmicky.  It was a fine effect with quite engaging sound.  Another engaging pursuit was his use of cylindrical bells, twisting and rolling them, bringing to mind an out-of-control sleigh ride.  Again, the opening performance served as a constructive aesthetic challenge to subsequent performers.  The trio of Susan Alcorn, Macie Stewart, and Tim Daisy was presented on screen with a static three-shot of the ensemble.  Nevertheless, the music was fine, even though the balance was off--Tim the loudest to Susan the quietest.  I pushed the overall volume and that helped, but I still missed some of Susan’s fine work.  I could not see Susan’s face, but there was great coverage of her hands.  We saw about 40% of Tim’s kit and mostly the back of his head.  Macie’s camera angle generally was good, but it should have been tilted down a bit so we could see her left hand consistently.  I think it took a while for them to hear each other, but eventually they settled into a fine three-way conversation.  There was a camera tilt at one point so we could see Susan’s face.  At the end it was all faces and all smiles.  A fine ending.  The next music opened with an introduction by bassist extraordinaire Ingebrigt Håker Flaten who performed with Håkon Kornstad on tenor sax.  The bass was a bit low in the mix but not troubling.  The music’s historical references were reinforced by the “old TV” video in black and white.  The static camera coverage was fine.  Pensive and beautiful music brought to mind the pairing of Zoot Sims and Monty Budwig (in feel only).  The experience was unlike anything else on the festival.  The afternoon session closed out with the perfect sound party, featuring a brilliantly insane trio.  I say that with the utmost affection and admiration.  Mats Gustafsson is a huge Jaap Blonk fan.  Any of the too infrequent times I’ve caught Jaap and Mats on stage together, one of the great joys for me is witnessing Mats break up in pure joy and laughter.  On the 7/12 gig they were in separate locations.  So, for the most part, Mats was able to keep himself in control.  But he did laugh heartily on occasion.  Fred Lonberg-Holm on cello and guitar is by nature less flamboyant than his partners, but he is by no means less off the wall.  He was mostly content to casually strum and bow his way through the parade.  But it was fun catching him at least once break into laughter.  I have a suggestion: Covid-19 got you down?  Keep this half hour online performance at the top of your pull-down menu.  The 4:15 panel session--Where Are We Going?--included Andy Moor, Macie Stewart, Nate Wooley, and last-minute addition Joe McPhee with moderator Ken Vandermark.  From my perspective this session was the best panel session of the festival.  The people raised practical questions and answers about the history and the future of improvised music.  The fact that the people focussed on improvised music rather than several different kinds of music was perhaps the key to its success.  After that we got a break until the second round of performances began at 8 p.m.  Ikue Mori employed both audio and video electronics.  She is somewhat reserved in front of a live audience, perhaps even more so on the streaming screen.  So what could be better than augmenting her wonderful electronic sounds with marvelous semi-abstract images?  As a bonus for fans, some of the images used in her video presentation are taken from art works she created for a few of her CD covers.  It was a stunning AV performance.  A festival highlight.  Claire Rousay was up next.  On screen there was a table of toys, amplifiers, and pickup devices employed with a lot of body English, fiddling, and intermittent percussion.  Occasionally there were sips of wine.  There was even a cassette deck.  All of it is kind of nostalgic for me.  Somehow in my ancient, foggy past I know I’ve seen and heard her before… but I can’t remember where or when.  The third offering of the evening was presented by Bonnie Jones (electronics), Luke Stewart (bass), and Ben Hall (percussion).  We saw the electronics and bass performed on screen while Ben Hall replaced his image with Black Lives Matter images as well as an inverted image of Bonnie Jones performing.  The music began as repetitious and haunting and gradually more pensive.  Probing music for difficult times.  There was no Federico Peñalva video following this performance.  We went directly to Joe Morris with a nice close-up of the man in his home playing the guitar (even though some people living in the Boston area were logged on to the festival).   Brilliant stuff as only Joe can do it.  A true jazz artist.  Not originally on the 7/12 bill, Joe McPhee closed out the festival from Poughkeepsie.  The sequence opened with a close-up of Joe’s face and then the bell of his horn while he applied extended techniques on his soprano sax.  There was a nice pairing of sonics and new/recent poetry particularly dealing with current problems in out nation.  “The sun came up” in a world of racial prejudice and hope.  There were looks over the shoulder at “November 8, 2016,” Amiri Baraka, “It’s Nation Time.”  More soprano.  “Cross Currents” and more soprano.  There were road blocks and interruptions in the way of most appearances by Joe in this festival.  But it was worth waiting for this closer.  His music is a voice for the rest of us and his poetry is a language for the rest of us when everyday voices and language fall short.  The poetry he offered on 7/12 should be read at every Black Lives Matter rally.  And maybe in some places people could be lucky enough to hear his soprano voice in person also…

According to The Week (p.6, 7/24), Mississippi election commissioner Gail Welsh posted an advisory on Facebook regarding voter registration.  She wrote that she was concerned the “blacks are having lots (of) events for voter registration” and that “people in Mississippi need to get involved, too.”  Just another white supremacist up close and personal…

I got a phone call from Charlie Kohlhase on 7/23 in which we talked about a wide range of subjects, all of them with contemporary relevance.  But one thing really struck home with me, a person who loves rehearsals and recording sessions.  He mentioned that, being home so much during the pandemic, he wanted to not overdo it with practicing for the sake of his neighbors.  He said that to his surprise he got complaints because they missed his practicing.  What a lucky guy to have such neighbors.  And what lucky neighbors…

One of the unfortunate things about a pandemic is that you still need everyday things.  You have to go shopping.  So 7/15 I drove into the parking lot of a shopping mall.  I pulled into a parking space that faced a parked black jeep.  As I pulled into the spot I did a double-take.  I kept control of my vehicle as I stopped it.  But I had a difficult time processing what I saw.  The jeep had Massachusetts vanity plates that read “MAWA.”  It was really a stunner.  I never had seen MAWA before on a sign, T-shirt, or hat.  But here it was on an automobile registration plate in a mall in suburban Boston.  I did not call into question the RMV’s decision to OK it.  I can imagine how easily it could get past their censors.  Their focus is pretty much clever scatological references.  I don’t know which I found more disturbing, the brazen racism it represents or the ignorance of American history it represents.  Of course, it is difficult to have the former without the latter.  We have a long way to go, and replacing the current president with a compassionate human being should be one of the first steps.  I went through all those thoughts, and then asked myself if it is possible that MAWA represents something else.  I did the google thing and--sure enough--the letters Mawa and MAWA can represent something else.  The only viable all-caps acronym that I found in the list is an acronym for a Canadian support group for women artists, Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art.  Maybe the driver of the black jeep is a mentor or an artist who loves Canada.  I don’t know, but I remain a bit shaken by the whole thing…

June 

After the destruction of the January through June posts of this Journal due to Google/Chrome/Blogspot software enhancements I was able to cobble those six months together in somewhat workable fashion.  I hope you find the results useful.

Pianist Magda Mayas was scheduled to perform 6/1 as part of the Option concert/discussion within the ESS Quarantine Concerts series.  Instead there was a posting explaining that the evening of music and talk was postponed because of recent acts of racism in the U.S.  Host Ken Vandermark wrote in part, “Instead of the performance that was planned for today, there will be an hour of silence…”  I believe most of us have been looking for ways do deal with an ugly problem that grows instead of dies…

The White House had workers put up an eight-foot fence at the entrance to Lafayette Square during the first week in June.  But those frightening protesters caused the Executive branch team to have new fence barriers built the following week around the White House complex.  As we know, that fence turned into a combination wall of protest and outdoor art gallery.  On 6/11 workers began dismantling the fence intended to keep protesters away from the area.  If you have not seen photos of the fence and the protest works, you probably still can find them via Google.  Among my favorite signs were: 

• Racism is so American that when you protest it people think you are protesting America.

• Till we all breathe free…

• Enough is enough.  And to the little man in the WH: Thank you   This would not have happened without you!

As the fence was being taken down USA Today reporter David Jackson was told by a nearby federal employee (who requested anonymity), “He’s [i.e., Trump] only taking it down because people are putting signs on it.  He put it up to send a message.  He took it down because people sent a message back.”  Also, according to reporter Jackson, “Before the fence removal curators of local Smithsonian museums, including the National Museum of African American History and Culture, claimed some of the signs and other artifacts for their collections.”  Perhaps countless future visitors to those museums will witness clearly signal artifacts of the Trump administration…

According to Kevin Slane in the Boston Globe 6/13 the Wally’s Café GoFundMe project was so successful that the jazz club is pushing the fund-raising and the prospects to a higher level.  Initially the target was a $30K goal to establish a “Student to Student Music Café” as a learning and development resource for young students.  Because the fund-raising quickly surpassed $35K, club manager Frank Poindexter has raised the goal to $50K, enough to carry the club through the pandemic and take the first steps in purchasing the building next door (429 Massachusetts Avenue) to fully realize the Student to Student Music Café dream.  That would include virtual instruction for Boston Public School music students and apartment living for some musicians.  Wally’s is one of a very few Boston-based black-owned businesses with a liquor license.  Frank Poindexter, aware of economic fragility in Black Boston, has joined with others in the Boston Black Hospitality Coalition, a group that has received grants from both the city and the NAACP… 

USA Today claims that, when the president visited one of only two factories in the U.S. that make Covid-19 testing swabs, he did not wear a mask.  As a result, all the swabs made during his visit to Puritan Medical Products in Maine early this month were thrown away.  There is no question that his visit created a problem for the company.  But the people running the operation knew that they were dealing with a Bozo.  The company intentionally had “limited production for a day because of Trump’s visit.”  So testing swabs are in short supply in the U.S. but not as short as they might be if the decision-makers in Maine were not a lot smarter than the Disruptor-in-Chief…

Non-Event has been doing some fine online streaming during the pandemic.  On the evening of 6/13 they presented live performances to raise money for Violence in Boston, Inc.  I tuned in primarily to catch Forbes Graham who offered the final music of the evening.  He opened with a serious, pensive head shot accompanied by fine electronics.  Eventually the camera cut to a pixelated art work (painting?) before returning to the head shot of pensive Forbes.  Through all of this, the continuity was provided by a single, continuous sound work throughout the set.  At 1:55:43 of the streamed gig Forbes blocked out his face with an abstract painting filled with pseudo-geometrics and near-intersecting lines of “finger painting” evocations featuring wonderful blues and browns.  Then in a flash it was gone.  Forbes’ face returned and clicked off and on with the painting.  Near the end of the performance the painting was featured in front of a black background.  Then there was more flickering between painting and face.  Eventually the music was over and we watched Forbes’ silent face until a title card signaled the end of the set and the evening.  And not once did I ask myself, “Where’s the trumpet?”  So much talent and creativity.  It makes me that much more anxious for a live performance of Forbes’ new string quartet.  Recordings of the 6/13 event are available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2UNm5xRNmw&feature=youtu.be.  Don’t forget to tip your waitress and to contribute to the Violence in Boston group at https://www.violenceinboston.org… 

Black slaves in Mexico in the 16th century--perhaps inadvertently--got a type of revenge on white supremacists of the day and even into this century.  One of the great impacts of the George Floyd-driven protests internationally is the fact that the nations of Western Europe are being forced to examine their seminal role in the social, economic, and political disasters in the Americas and Africa that continue today.  There are no blacks as second-class citizens in Brazil without the European slave trade.  South African apartheid is only the most obvious racially-driven disaster in Africa.  No part of that continent remains untouched by the white supremacy of Europe.  While I believe it is easy to make the case that white racism in the U.S, is the worst anywhere in the world right now, that fact has been an easy distraction from the systemic white supremacist racism in Western Europe.  Statues of slave traders are tumbling all over Europe.  That may be a good thing for Europeans to help them deal with their history and legacy.  But only a first step.  So let’s return to 16th century Mexico.  According to Bruce Bower in Science News (6/6, p. 15), “Slavery proved contagious when Spain colonized Mexico in the 16th century.  Africans abducted into the slave trade and taken to Mexico may have introduced forms of two infectious diseases, hepatitis B and yaws, to the Americas.”  The DNA of three men whose skeletons were excavated near Mexico City suggests they were from western or southern Africa.  Researchers “contend that slaves brought a novel genetic form of hepatitis B to Mexico.”  Examination of another man from the excavation “yielded bacterial DNA from a yaws strain.”  The article concludes by telling us that the remains of the three men examined “lived sometime between 1436 and 1626, based on radiocarbon dating of their teeth.  The men are the oldest genetically identified first-generation Africans in the Americas.  As slaves, they likely reached Mexico in a bondage system Spain started in the early 1500s, the scientists suspect.”   Yes, Spain is a country in Western Europe, but it is only one of them that exploited black lives.  If all of us in the Western Hemisphere and Western Europe truly wake up, there is much we can accomplish.  One hundred percent of a population being productive is much better than a system of haves and have-nots--no matter whether it is the 16th century or the 21st…

As a way to help us all through the Covid-19 crisis the AARP Bulletin special pandemic issue included a page with helpful comments from celebrities.  The thoughts ranged from (in hindsight the ironically painful) words of actress Alfre Woodard--“We’re realizing how much we need each other, how we’re all in this together” to the hopefully prodding words of singer Rosanne Cash--“Just a reminder that when Shakespeare was quarantined because of the plague, he wrote King Lear.”  I can’t seem to find my genius pills right now, but perhaps I can work harder to be a more constructive human…

Along with covering a range of developments in the world of science, the 6/6 issue of Science News focusses on significant research and findings regarding the Covid-19 pandemic.  Among other coverage are four feature articles on the search for answers to the virus, contact tracing, anti-body testing, and dealing with the stress.  We see and read a lot about coronavirus-induced stress.  Laura Sanders’ “The Stress is Real” takes a close look at how the pandemic is “scrambling our brains,” everything from differences between men and women to how stress destroys the brain to the fact that there are 294 ongoing social science research projects related to the current pandemic.  If any of this information about stress is important to you, take a look at the original Science News article.  If you can use a succinct bit of relevant information to think about, you should find Laura Sanders’ sidebar to the article (reproduced below) helpful.

 

In a months-old copy of the Washington Post there is a quote from the late revered journalist, Jim Lehrer.  Even though several months have past, the quote is more relevant today than at that time.  Given the insanity of the federal government at its highest level during the beginning of this month, Mr. Lehrer’s words are worth noting: “It is fairly easy to produce heat, but very tough to produce light.” 

Students do more than play Division I sports at BC.  After all, some of my favorite people--intelligent and thoughtful people--got degrees at BC.  And they had to take tests, write papers, and otherwise demonstrate intellectual competence.  So keep your snickering quiet.  These comments are a setup for serious and potentially influential research carried out by folks who study and teach at BC.  According to Boston College Magazine (summer, p. 16) writer Ed Hayward, “States that toughened their firearm policies saw declines in the rate of workplace homicides, according to a new study by BC social work and economics researchers who looked at gun law changes during a six-year period.”  I find that finding to be good news.  I have nothing against guns, just our NRA-dictated gun laws.  The researchers, led by School of Social Work Assistant Professor Erika Sabbath, analyzed 13 categories of firearm policy changes (i.e., either tighter or looser laws) from 2011 to 2017.  They then assembled federal data on workplace homicide rates from 50 states.  “Were the states with the least restrictive gun laws to enact new policies and join those with the most restrictive laws, the researchers found, they could expect to see a 3.7 percent decline in workplace homicides…”  That would translate to preventing 15 to 16 such killings per year.  Sabbath claims that the “BC report is the first to demonstrate that workplace homicide rates can be influenced by stronger firearm laws.”  This data, according to the article, may “help companies set internal policies and restrictions.”  Maybe it is something that rational politicians could use to establish sane gun laws…

The feature article “Past plagues offer lessons for society” by Bruce Bower in Science News (6/20, pp. 24-27) begins with a half-page reproduction of Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s “The Triumph of Death” in which an army of skeletons attacks the living.  The remarkable 16th century painting offers a metaphoric statement about the ongoing ravages of war and plagues in Europe.  One of the most compelling aspects of the painting is the psychologically thin line between metaphor and horrific reality.  The article is worth pursuing.  And yet a closer bit of history also informs our current situation in the pandemic.  From time to time in the media and at press briefings we hear of similarities between our current situation with COVID-19 and the 1918 flu pandemic.  It turns out that Framingham, just a few miles west of Boston, was the locus of major forces in the battle with the flu.  In 1918 Framingham (like other municipalities) was battling on three fronts--World War I, the tuberculosis (TB) pandemic, and the flu pandemic.  In 1916 Framingham was chosen as the location for a landmark study called the Framingham Community Health and the Tuberculosis Demonstration.  (Yes, I agree; it doesn’t even offer a catchy acronym.)   The name is unwieldy, but the challenge was quite real--develop a public health model that could be used to prevent TB and reduce the death rate.  To make a long story short, the seven-year project resulted in a 55% decline in the number of TB cases and a 15% decrease in the death rate.  Practices developed by medical staff were celebrated and carried out throughout the world.  The challenge helped prepare Framingham to face the 1918 flu pandemic.  Trained teams of doctors and nurses visited every household in town. 

Headlines in the Framingham Evening News during the flu pandemic of 1918

Weekly health letters were posted in the local paper.  Residents received information on appropriate health practices--public gathering places were closed for weeks, residents were advised to go outside in fresh air and walk instead of using trains or trolleys, sick people were told to stay at home, and more.  The flu was more lethal to World War I soldiers than the war itself.  To help counter the problem, three thousand sailors were sent to the military camp at Musterfield in Framingham to be separated from the outbreak in Boston.  Not one sailor at the camp became sick with the flu.  As far as medical research is concerned, today Framingham is known internationally for the Framingham Heart Study.  It was chosen as the site for that study in 1948 because of the success of the project and the cooperation of the community in the years before, during, and after 1918.  As you can guess, there is a lot more to the story.  If you would like to pursue an online article about those events and an online video recording of a lecture on the subject by nurse Kathleen Husen and Dr. Alfred DeMaria, you can click on the article and the lecture…

During all the fallout from the murder of George Floyd, a number of questions have been raised about broad subjects such as systemic racism but also more immediately practical matters such as police department policies and the need for nation-wide licensing standards for all police officers.  Given the role and power of police officers, one would imagine that training and rigorous licensing tests would be in effect.  There is no national standard for such training or licensing.  On the other hand, hair dressers everywhere in the U.S. must pass the same test to be licensed.  Certainly everyone wants a competent hair dresser.  But, if my wife’s hair dresser screws up, I may have to deal with a few days of grumpiness.  If a local police officer screws up, I might be dead.  Recently CNN.com pointed out, “To become a barber in several states requires significantly more training time than to become a police officer.  In North Carolina, licensed barbers need 1,528 hours of training, police officers only 620 hours.  There’s a similar split in Florida between licensed interior designers (1,760 hours) and police officers (770 hours).  In Louisiana, it requires more training to become a licensed manicurist (500 hours) than a police officer (360 hours).”  There is a lot of work to be done…

One of the most significant aspects of the pandemic is the extent to which creative artists and institutions are taking on the extreme performance constraints and coming up with creative ways to overcome those constraints.  The creativity can be seen in all the performance arts (not just jazz) and everywhere around the globe (not just Boston).  Yes, the processes implemented do not always work, but failure is an important part of art as process.  And so I was happy to receive an email from Mark Redmond 6/21 in which he announced a hopeful connection between an arts support group and a presenter of creative music.  Mandorla Music is a 2020 Live Arts Boston grant recipient from The Boston Foundation.  The money will go to a worthy project.  As Mark wrote in the email, “In collaboration with arranger, bandleader and pianist Kevin Harris, I’ll be producing a concert and recording of never-before-heard compositions by Arni Cheatham, a beloved elder of the Boston jazz scene.”  Any celebration of the music of Arni Cheatham is a good idea.  A recording and a live performance are in the works.  At this time it is too early to know where or when the live performance will take place.  It’s just another challenge to be tackled by caring, creative people.  You can find out more at mandorlamusic.net…

The President and people in Congress do not have to worry about health care.  They are completely covered and they don’t go broke because of hospitalization.  Of course, according to them, giving every American the same coverage they have is out of the question.  But something should be done.  According to The Seattle Times earlier this month a Seattle man got some heavy financial insult added to his injury.  The 70-year-old man spent 62 days in the hospital recovering from COVID-19.  That’s more than enough suffering.  But then he received a bill for $1.12 million.  According to the article, “Roughly a quarter of the bill, which was 181 pages long, was for drug costs.”  Preventing the destruction of forests to allow such a bill to be printed may be sufficient cause to pass sensible health care legislation…

Ab Baars is on a constant journey as a philosopher who is one of the finest creative musicians of our time.  A good portion of that journey and his art were offered online 6/29 through the ESS Option series.  Although the format--interview sequences alternating with music--no doubt was challenging for Ab, the results for anyone tuning in with eyes and ears would find it compelling.  The multi-reed artist offered his thoughts and music from his home in Amsterdam, the same room that he and Ig Henneman performed in during Sequesterfest II on 4/18.  Interviewer Ken Vandermark, one of Ab’s biggest fans, shares some common interests with his fellow reed player--belief in the importance of the jazz continuum, the love of the music of Von Freeman and John Carter, the importance of the interactive impact of different art forms, and more.  By way of introduction to the first piece, Ab recalled initially hearing Von Freeman on a recording which confused him.  The use of microtones, unusual phrasing, and other elements of Freeman’s playing were both disturbing and inspiring to Ab.  Over the years of hearing on records and witnessing in person the music of Von Freeman, Ab also came to admire the man’s character, saying “He’s a fearless warrior.”  Following that commentary, Ab played a tribute on his tenor sax, a composition titled “Von.”  Ab then performed a few pieces on clarinet in tribute to John Carter, including Carter’s “And She Speaks.” Before playing any of Carter’s music on 6/29, Ab spoke of moving to California for a few months to study with Carter, a cherished experience.  For the first time I heard that Carter was a black belt practitioner and teacher of aikido.  According to Ab, Carter believed that the study and practice of aikido helped his musical performances.  Eventually Ab took up the martial art himself and came to the same conclusion.  One of the most usefully provocative observations that Ab offered had to do with Carter’s belief in the importance of mistakes.  There is something of a cliché in jazz that “there is no such thing as a mistake.”  My impression is that people can have a wide range of meanings when they say that.  For starters, jazz is a sonic art and practitioners in the arts generally try to improve or expand their technical prowess--a concept that is the antithesis of “mistake.”  In practice one can witness a mistake and follow the subsequent music to see how the musician took the mistake and made it fit into the piece anyway.  Another--and perhaps more engaging occasion--happens when a musician makes a mistake and uses it to take the music somewhere else, somewhere profound.  But, according to Ab, John Carter’s interest in mistakes transcended all of that.  Ab not only studied with Carter but also witnessed him teach other students.  Ab noticed that when Carter heard a student’s mistake, he would stop the student excitedly and ask the student to repeat the mistake.  He and the student would pursue the mistake and its musical possibilities.  John Carter actually reveled in a range of sonic “mistakes,” developing a type of mental catalogue that he could call upon in performance.  The other payoff to the pursuit of mistakes is that the student was not scolded; the experience turned a conventional negative into a positive.  It’s a perspective not quite alien to Cage’s application of chance operations.  Throughout the Q&A component of the set Ab discussed the value of poetry to his own instrumental phrasing and the importance of other arts to his work in general.  In the same vein of the importance of the interaction of art forms, we heard Ab talking about the connection between sound and color, similar to the way Kandinsky saw the colors of his works as sounds and his friend composer Scriabin saw his notes as having specific colors.  Ab then transformed elements of Beethoven’s “Piano Sonata, Opus 106” as both a sonic source and a “classical” inspiration for solo reworking.  Then Ab pursued a completely improvised piece, “Shakuhachi,” which he performed on the Japanese instrument of the same name.  I first witnessed Ab playing the instrument on the 4/18 streamcast.  Now on 6/29 he tells us that he loves Japanese music (another non-jazz influence on his music) because to him, “It sounds improvised.”  Although it was saved for the end of the Option set, it was inevitable that the subject of Misha Mengelberg would come up.  Ab was one of the core musicians of the ICP Orchestra and knew and performed with the maestro over decades.  Consistent with artistic intersection, Ab offered both poetry and music in the last part of the set.  Ab’s “Wardrobe” is a wonderful tribute to the life and vitality of Misha Mengelberg.  He followed with Mengelberg’s poem, “Another Day Has Passed.”  Both poems should be heard by any fan of Ab or Misha.  Wonderful stuff.  There was a beautiful closing clarinet statement.  You can hear and see it all in the ESS archives at ESS.com.  And don’t forget to say thank you with money…

One of the great comedic talents of my lifetime died on the night of 6/29.  Through his writing, directing, and acting Carl Reiner made people laugh over a span of seven decades.  He saw humor in the world around him but also pain.  On the morning of 6/29 he posted in part this message on twitter: “As I arose at 7:30 this morning, I was saddened to relive the day that led up to the election of a bankrupted and corrupt businessman who had no qualifications to be the leader of any country in the civilized world...”

May 

Here we are stuck in the middle of the pandemic with maybe as many questions as ever, with a good portion of them new questions.  It is something few of us in late childhood or older ever will forget.  Or will we?  We’ll have memories, but like all memories, they will morph over time.  Are there any words or images we can keep at the ready to help us have a clearer perception of the everyday realities?  Below are a few images that inform our current reality.  The city of Framingham has posted this sign at entrances to all city parks.  Here is one of the signs that can be found at all entrances to Centennial Park in Framingham.

Notice that all of the regulations and suggestions are presented in three languages--American English, Mexican Spanish, and Brazilian Portuguese.  It is a sign that in some form or other can be found in many parks in eastern Massachusetts and elsewhere.  The sign below can be found at the entrance to the skate board park in Farm Pond Park in Framingham.  Again, there are three languages.  The wording is slightly modified with the intent of saving the lives of skateboarders, most of whom are teenagers.

The signs found in the parks in town generally are working pretty well.  The sign for the skateboarders is less successful.  Town employees even have established blockades at the entrance and exit to the skate park parking lot, no doubt in an attempt to reduce the number of people using the skating facility.  As the image below suggests some people want to skateboard no matter what.

The skateboarder in this image is having fun all by himself, therefore having no problem distancing himself from other skateboarders.  Unfortunately, the situation of isolated skateboarders in the park even during the pandemic is uncommon.  These people are a social lot.  Currently it is common for there to be a half dozen or more skateboarders in the skate board park in Farm Pond Park.  As an adult I have to remind myself that to be truly young is to be immortal. 

Sequesterfest Volume 3 took place May 23, a Saturday afternoon.  Again, because these Sequesterfest events eventually are available to all to see, I will be brief.  I noticed more audio-video synch problems 5/23 than during other ESS online sessions.  The synch problems ranged from problematic to almost unnoticeable.  This presentation occurred in three parts--several performances from Europe, a halftime show consisting of movies, and a third part during which musicians based in the U.S. performed.  Steve Beresford gave us the first set of the afternoon, featuring a very fine shot of the piano keyboard (so we could see what he was doing).  Along with a string of engaging compositions featuring the piano, he gave us a healthy dose of whistles and percussive toys.  Cool as a cucumber.  Anna Högberg (alto sax) and Finn Loxbo (acoustic guitar & saw) gave us one of those refreshingly rare (during the pandemic) duo sets.  Minimalism with telepathic communication.  They seemed quite happy to have made the international visit.  Paal Nilssen-Love opened with a fine spoken welcome and then went right to the kit and toys.  Those of us catching Sequesterfest Volume 3 were particularly fortunate because on the bill were two of the most distinctive and exciting percussionists in the world of improvised music, Paal and Hamid.  Paal’s occasional narratives breaking up his music offerings were quite effective.  It was usefully informative to hear him talk about the fact that his set was taking place in his parents’ home.  He was performing on his father’s classic drum kit.  Although I did not hear Paal mention them, on the wall in back of the percussionist were a couple of his father’s wonderful abstract paintings.  It was a fine audio-visual connection.  Paal closed with a statement about the interruption of his performance tour of Brazil and Ethiopia.  Paal made it home, but his drums still are in Rio.  It was a vivid reminder that there are many ways in which lives in the pandemic are altered significantly.  Peter Brötzmann was scheduled to close out the first sequence of sets 5/23 but, as John Corbett announced, the music pioneer was suffering (not from Covid-19) from COPD.  It’s an ongoing battle, and on this day Peter could not perform.  Another unique reedman also with a distinctive sonic attack, Mars Williams served as both a replacement for and a tribute to the new music pioneer.  Mars opened with an articulate introduction to a Brötzmann work that he would perform.  Images is a graphic composition written for performance by the Peter Brötzmann Tentet in 2003.  It consists of a sequence of abstract and figurative paintings on cards; the paintings are works by Peter (who is as celebrated as a visual artist as he is a sonic artist).  As the piece evolves, musicians in the Tentet interpret each of the images as they see them on the cards.  Anyone interested in hearing one of the band’s interpretations of the score can check out a Tentet performance in Sweden as documented on Okkadisk CD OD12047.  Mars on 5/23, of course, was performing as a solo artist.  He made the most of it primarily with the alto sax but also with the use of toys, sopranino sax, tenor sax, and soprano sax.  It was a wonderful gift, one of the highlights of the Sequester series.  I believe the idea of offering films as a halftime show was a very good one.  It gave technicians a chance to breathe between the European and U.S. performances, and it gave people trying to focus on computer screens a chance to see and think about something else for an hour.  There were four films.  Cauleen Smith produced the first two films.  Space is the Place (2011), the first film, was an engaging and uplifting look at young South Chicago musicians performing in a marching band that celebrated the music of Sun Ra in neighboring Chinatown.  It was so good I was ready to dive back into the live music.  The second film, H-E-L-L-O (2014), I had seen before on PBS about a year ago.  I was unimpressed.  Solo musicians scattered around New Orleans pursue--piecemeal--the alien contact theme from Close Encounters of the Third Kind (you remember the Kodaly method hand gestures used to communicate with the aliens?).  Maybe it was the coronavirus environment, but I actually enjoyed the film on this second viewing.  David Hartt’s The Last Poet (2017), filled with self-indulgent rant without an exit, was so hopeless I found contemplating the devastation of the coronavirus pandemic somehow more constructive.  Christopher Wool’s Absent Without Leave  (1994) featured evocative stills and editing as well as music by Ornette.  It made me wish for the experience in a theater with a large screen.  Rebekah Heller opened the second series of live performances with bassoon and sampling.  My impression was that all the music she performed was composed.  And all of it fairly recent.  She’s really good on the instrument and has an authentic feel and enthusiasm for the work.  The half hour was too short.  Rob Mazurek gave us lights, trumpet, lights, electronics, and lights.  Did I mention lights?  Imagine one of those slowly spinning ballroom reflective prismatic balls and you are forced to stare at the ball from a distance of 2.7 millimeters.  Oh.  And yes.  There also was some music.  I think.  After that it would have been great to show a clip of Andy Kaufman lip-syncing “Mighty Mouse” with a quick cut to Hamid Drake, something closer to Superman saving the day.  A gimmick-free day.  He opened with a greeting.  Warm.  Then music.  There were some audio problems, sounding like CD recording skips and distortion.  I got the feeling that there was a loose connection that would cause the sound crack whenever the there was a sudden percussion attack.  Nevertheless that music came through.  Over the years I have known Hamid musically only as a percussionist/vocalist.  But the piano in back of him as he performed made me wonder about that percussion instrument.  Even more provocative was the booklet on the piano that seemed to contain scores for music composed by Mozart.  I have no idea what Hamid Drake would do with a Mozart sonata, but I do know I’d like to hear that happen.  Nevertheless on 5/23 I was taken with other things--his frame drum, his spiritually rooted vocals, his whistling, and of course the drum kit of endless Drake possibilities.  It was a beautifully triumphant closing set with final words of hope and peace.  It’s amazing how human the small screen can be sometimes…

On the first day of the month I was listening to some music that was popular during World War II.  Vaughn Monroe’s recording of "When the Lights Go On (All Over the World)" had great meaning for many people in the military and civilians at that time of blackouts and great sacrifices.  As I listened I got a bit choked up.  The Vaughn Monroe recording brought to mind a more recent interpretation of the song.  On February 18, 2001 I was present at a performance by the great Abbey Lincoln at Scullers.  It was a time of pain, anxiety, and confusion not long after 9/11 and just a short time before our disastrous invasion of Iraq.  Typically Abbey Lincoln’s performances featured mostly her own remarkable compositions.  At one point early in her hour-long set she talked about World War II and its emotional connection with events in 2001 as an introduction to "When the Lights Go On (All Over the World)."  She profoundly translated the song’s central image into a symbol for the predicaments of our world in February 2001.  And now, in our world of lock-downs and physical distancing and death I find the voice of Vaughn Monroe and the memory of Abbey Lincoln that night at Scullers telling my head and heart about a different kind of future lights… 

We are in the midst of a pandemic, and yet guns and police seem to be in the headlines as much as ever.  The horrific George Floyd incident (How can a black police chief not put the fear of God in the hearts of white officers to prevent a knee on the neck?).  And the Second Amendment folks who bring semi-automatic weapons to an anti-Covid-19 mask rally.  If it were not so sick, all of this would be some kind of surreal joke.  In case you are not paying attention, gun sales are soaring during the pandemic.  As CBSNews.com noted recently, unintentional shootings “by kids under age 17 claimed 21 lives in March and April.  Most of the killings came when kids found their parents’ guns and played with them.”  It’s surreal but not a joke… 

The Catalytic Sound artists presentation 5/1 was part of the ESS online Quarantine Concerts.  Like the other live music in the series, these performances are available as A/V recordings at the ESS site.  Because they are available for viewing by musicians and fans, my comments here will be brief.  This online presentation was marred by technical problems--buffering, image breakup, and even audio gaps (it is after all a brave new world)--but it offered sonics from some of the finest new music people based in the U.S.  Nate Wooley kicked things off with samples augmenting live acoustic trumpet.  The write-up for the event included a statement about Nate’s roots in Oregon, a statement not without merit.  It claims that the “place of relative quiet and slow time reference, instilled in Nate a musical aesthetic that has informed all of his music making for the past 20 years.”  He performed head-on with the bell of the trumpet front and center.  The pickup in the bell offered clear sonic representations of his non-traditional horn techniques and surely coaxed ideas.  The set ended with an emphatic in-your-face face (his own).  Apparently working the technical resources as much as the piano itself, Sylvie Courvoisier ran in and out of the monitor screen.  Then she worked silently inside the piano.  No audio.  And then a return with simultaneous keyboard and internal string manipulations.  It was such wonderful technical and substantive music.  But, if you are familiar with her extraordinary keyboard work, you know that this ESS highlight was just another day at the office for her.  Lucky office.  As a bonus she had a nice keyboard angle for the camera.  The scheduled sequence of musicians was changed.  No doubt the producers thought it would be a good idea not to program two percussionists in a row, even different as they are.  Tim Daisy opened with mallets without snares and the sticks.  Then he moved on to brushes and toys, telling sonic stories along the way.  Shifting perspective, Tim returned to sticks with cymbals on snareless heads with more toys.  And, just in case (for some strange reason) you did not know the man has a sense of humor, the set closed with a recording of applause.  A nice closing comment on physical/tech distancing.  Joe Morris was up next, and he was playing the guitar.  Did you think it would be acoustic bass?  After all, he was not performing in the Boston area 5/1.  When I saw him perform for the first few times in the 1970s in the Boston area, I became convinced that he was the most important innovator of his generation on jazz guitar.  My view hasn’t changed, but he’s even better now.  His online performance 5/1 is a fine demonstration of that fact.  There was a nice tech crash at the end of the set (with a light-up-the-screen smile from Joe).   Ben Hall’s evening closer was problematic.  He’s a researcher/performer imbued with the black music traditions of Africa and the U.S.  As fans in the Boston area know, the music department at Bennington College and particularly Bill Dixon are at the core of several important improvisors in eastern Massachusetts.  So there are connections between Ben Hall and those musicians and fans; in fact he has a Bill Dixon link at his site.  He gave us percussion, recorded music, and his own vocal work.  Unfortunately, it was difficult (in fact, for me impossible) to get a sense of where his music was going 5/1 because of buffering in search of both video and audio.  He did exhibit fine African roots, but technical obstacles were too frequent to let me into his music.  And with all that, I believe the evening was a success, at least part of which was due to a fine array of instruments and musicians… 

People who have higher incomes have other types of good fortune.  Those who have lower incomes get clobbered.  According to The Week (5/29, p. 32), “In March, 39 percent of working people whose household income is less than $40,000 either lost their jobs or were furloughed, according to the Federal Reserve.”  At the same time, 19 percent of households making $40K to $100K and 13 percent of households making more than $100K lost their jobs.  How are you doing?... 

Joe McPhee is a post-Ayler pioneer who today is both mentor and model for the current new wave of musicians.  Therefore, when I found out that relative youngster but close friend of Joe’s Ken Vandermark was going to interview Joe live on the ESS web site 5/11, I made a point to catch the conversation.  There was a third element to the presentation, recorded clips of previous video solo performances of Susan Alcorn.  The clips were scattered throughout the conversation.  The first of such music was a snippet of Susan’s wonderful transformation of parts of Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum, one of two Messiaen pieces she performed 6/14/19 at the Metropolitan Waterworks Museum.  Other offerings ranged from Piazzolla to “Broken Shadows.”  The interview offered a span of biography to musicology to philosophy.  Because the interview is available at the ESS site for anyone to witness, I will mention only a few highlights.  We did not hear any music from Joe, but we did get one of his fine poems and the statement that he and Peter Brötzmann are planning to create a book of McPhee poems with Brötzmann art work.  Ah.  If only such a thing would materialize.  Also, fans have read and heard about the funeral of John Coltrane.  Joe’s memory of the event is priceless, particularly for anyone who is an Ornette Coleman fan.  Not long after the online interview, Joe and I had an email exchange during which he wrote in part, “I’m not a virtual guy and the ‘new normal’ is driving me nuts…  I can’t wait till this social distancing [stuff} is over so I can tell you the rest of my Ornette stories up close and personal.”  Amen… 

 

April 

Since the Covid-19 pandemic really got rolling, several jazz musicians have been offering their music online for music-starved fans.  The idea is not new.  Full Metal Revolutionary Jazz Ensemble and Leap of Faith have been offering music online for years.  Nevertheless, I confess a less than great enthusiasm about such ventures.  In fact, I find even most professional film productions of jazz and classical music performances unsatisfactory.  Online video productions of music performances have additional technical problems that give the video and/or audio a “Watson, I need you” character.  Therefore, I surprised myself when I found that I was experiencing positive anticipation of Sequesterfest Volume 1, an evening of online live music.  The attraction for me was a combination of the music presented and the technical challenges of transmitting music from a half dozen locations in the northeast corner of the U.S. to the Chicago base from which the streaming would be distributed online.  The 4/6 event was co-produced by the innovative Experimental Sound Studio and what may be the most important combination art gallery/performance space in the U.S., Corbett vs. Dempsey.  John Corbett himself introduced the event briefly and to the point.  On schedule David Grubbs played wonderful guitar from his Brooklyn living room, setting the bar for subsequent performers.  I was forced to leave the room during most of his poetry reading.  No doubt it was my loss.  This type of static-image streaming is perfect for poetry.  Joe McPhee was due up next, but a technical glitch shut down the attempt.  On-the-ball Ikue Mori was waiting in the queue and jumped in without missing a beat.  I like to see the face of a performer and therefore years ago found Cecil Taylor’s antics to hide both face and hands frustrating.  Happily, I saw Ikue Mori’s face but (sadly) nothing of her hands.  It is true that watching the hands of such an electronics whiz is not as revealing as watching the hands of a pianist.  But at least it is more engaging than listening to a recording in a concert hall.  So I missed watching her work.  But I have no complaints about the results.  I am always amazed at how wonderfully predictable her performances are.  I never know what she will do, but I always know that it will be astonishing.  At the conclusion of Ikue Mori’s set from New York City, Joe still was not ready to go online, but Claire Chase in Brooklyn was ready with composed works and her flutes.  For some decades I have loved new music performed on flutes by such fine musicians as Boston’s Jessi Rosinksi.  But I admit I have not kept up with changes in the flute world.  So I was surprised and delighted to see Claire Chase play a transverse flute with a sliding embouchure, making glissandi and microtones a much simpler process.  She has a lot going for her.  Claire Chase has an engaging personality, she’s enthusiastic, and she plays the daylights out of those flutes.  She even cheered Joe McPhee on with a brief but terrific improvisation on what she calls Bertha the BIG flute.  And sure enough, Joe McPhee materialized.  Well, just barely.  Because of the slow transfer rate from Joe’s home in Poughkeepsie to Chicago we audience members got to witness something seldom seen since the earliest days of the internet, tiny square moving pixels.  It was an unexpected but strange “animated film.”  Fortunately, the audio portion of the transmission held up fairly well.  Joe mostly played tributes to other musicians, opening with a performance for Pauline Oliveros.  She has been a great influence on Joe.  His set closed with a combination of praise and chain yank for Peter Brötzmann, a giant Joe has performed with countless times.  Claiming that Peter frequently complains about Joe’s sax work, Joe performed a piece for Peter because Joe knew that Peter would hate it.  That offering was the most beautiful offering of the set.  Breathtaking.  Of course, the fact that Ken Vandermark’s set immediately followed Joe’s was not planned.  But it was a jolt of a coincidence to cut from the last notes of Joe’s Peter Brötzmann tribute to the image of Ken in his living room in front of a large, dark painting by Peter Brötzmann.  Both the audio and video of Ken’s performance were fine.  Over the years Ken has put on solo concerts in which he performs composed music (some form of architecture and/or syntax) as a basis for improvisation or he intentionally shows up without any structural devices.  Just cold.  One of the advantages to a pandemic in which all of us are sealed off from the rest of the world is that we have a chance to do some kinds of catching up.  The situation offered Ken a chance to write compositions for reed instruments.  The bonus of the set of music was that for most people it was the first (and likely the last) time they would have the chance to witness him using all four (clarinet, bass clarinet, tenor sax, and baritone sax) of his reed instruments on the same evening.  The final set of the evening took place in Brooklyn with a terrific image of Arto Lindsay and his guitar rotated 270°.  About a half century ago he taught himself to play the guitar, and he continues to push himself in different directions, even if it is a simple 270° twist.  The man is insane, and I use the term as high praise.  The perfect voice and guitar to confront Covid-19 anxiety.  And the ideal conclusion to a wonderful AV adventure.  A terrific evening in spite of the fact that Mr. Lindsay righted the image of himself and his guitar before he departed.  He’s so much more fun when he’s off kilter.  ESS makes available past new music performances online.  In that tradition, the entire 4/6 Sequesterfest Volume 1 is available for streaming.  Sequesterfest Volume 2 was every bit as engaging and impressive as Volume 1.  It should be said that the 4/18 afternoon event was even more impressive in terms of how flawlessly it took place, particularly considering the potential technical problems involved in presenting eight musicians performing in seven countries on three continents.  Because these Sequesterfest events eventually are available to all to see, I will be brief.  Thurston Moore and guitar gave us his famous bent-note messages from London.  A fine kickoff.  I had never heard of Susana Santos Silva before.  She offered quite beautiful trumpet and pre-recorded sounds to fine effect from her home in Lisbon.  Also, it was quite a treat to see the sun setting outside the window in back of her.  There was no Covid-19 shut down in the Zen monastery in Sweden in which Torbjörn Zetterberg offered an acoustic bass solo to an appreciative but small audience.  The music was pensive and affecting, but one could not shake the feeling that the “regular” gig was strange.  Next up was the only duo of the evening, partners Ab Baars (tenor sax, clarinet & shakuhachi) and Ig Henneman (viola) offered a deadpan duo from Amsterdam.  The music was wonderful and the subtle physical interplay between them--as she kept trying to prevent him from overpowering the mic--was a delight.  When it was over we got a big sigh and a beautiful smile.  Nice set.  Mats Gustafsson offered what so far has been the most engaging video presentation of the Sequesterfest series.  He had the camera set up so that his horns (bass sax, soprano sax, flute & baritone sax) were on display and at the ready.  The result was that he always was visible and moving, visually engaging.  But the best device was the use of LP album covers to open and close his set.  The camera remained stationary, but the initial image of the moving album created the illusion it was the camera that was moving.  After the illusion took hold, it became clear that it was the album that was moving.  After the set of live solo music (following the LP opening), Mats closed with a recording of Lee Konitz supported by a scan of the LP cover for MOTION.  A fine tribute.  Harp, electronics, and dog were the visual extras of a fine set of music by Zeena Parkins in New York City.  She’s been a giant on the New York scene for decades, and she demonstrated that she will be for years to come.  No nonsense music.  Moreno Veloso opened with plates, spoons, and other toys before his songs made it clear that he was serenading us from Brazil.  After an evening of off-the-wall improvisation (mostly) the vocalist/guitarist offered a nationally-rooted cleansing of the palate.  All in all it was a fine evening of various musics.  And a great opportunity witness new music from old friends and to meet new voices… 

One of the most affecting moments of Sequesterfest Volume 2 occurred when Mats Gustafsson closed his multi-reed solo set by playing recorded music of Lee Konitz while showing us the cover of the alto saxophonist’s MOTION LP.  (The LP covers certainly are one advantage of LPs over CDs.)  Lee Konitz died 4/15 at age 92.  His death was caused by the Covid-19 virus, preceded by a series of health problems for about a decade.  His career was somewhat unusual--not merely because he was an innovator and influencer--but also because he was born early enough in the twentieth century that he had active, productive careers during three major periods--swing, bebop, and post-Ayler.  Instrumentally moving through sonic fashions of the times, Konitz began performing on clarinet and then tenor sax.  He finally settled on the alto sax, the instrument he is most associated with.  His best-known recordings took place after World War II with such musicians as Gerry Mulligan, Sal Mosca, Miles Davis (Birth of the Cool), and Warne Marsh.  Beginning at about mid-century and continuing for more than a couple decades, one of the most celebrated jazz musician pairings was that of Lee Konitz and Lennie Tristano.  Via email I was communicating with Charlie Kohlhase recently and the subject of “Lennette,” his composition about a fantasy meeting in concert between Lennie Tristano and Ornette Coleman, came up.  That’s a pairing that never happened.  But, at the Umbria Jazz Festival in 1998 Lee Konitz performed with Ornette Coleman.  Most of us never caught that gig, but we can savor the idea.  After an exchange of thoughts about the passing of Lee Konitz, Charlie sent me a brief note about building music on the shoulders of giants.  His statement was about the importance of the jazz continuum: “It was only after listening to a lot of Konitz that I started beginning to hear the depth of John Tchicai’s playing; Lee was John’s idol in the 1950s.  They both have had a huge influence on me.”  And all of us are luckier for it… 

Speaking of Lee Konitz and Lennie Tristano, Henry Grimes, who passed away on 4/15 at age 84, performed with those musicians.  On the other hand, Henry Grimes performed with an impressive list of major swing, bop, and post-Ayler musicians throughout his career (Arnett Cobb, Sonny Rollins, and Albert Ayler as an example of each).  He performed with Monk at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival, as documented in Jazz on a Summer’s Day.  Moving to Los Angeles in 1968, Grimes found little work there and walked away from the music, only to re-emerge in New York in 2002 through the efforts of Marshall Marrotte, William Parker, and others.  His reactivation as bassist and violinist on the New York scene was widely celebrated, culminating in a 2016 Vision Fest tribute and subsequent other celebrations.  Cause of death was listed as Covid-19.  It is ironic that Downbeat online posted a celebratory obituary of Henry Grimes while insulting one of the giants of jazz by once again misspelling the first name of Thelonious Monk.  It is one of those rare instances in which consistency is not to be praised.  Every time Downbeat writers (and editors!) misspell maestro Monk’s first name, they use the exact same misspelling… 

Update 8/25/20: On 8/25/20 I was looking at a non-jazz online article and came across Monk’s name with the first name misspelled.  No bells went off because the subject of the article was not jazz.  But the event sparked my curiosity: What would happen if I did a google search of “Thelonius Monk”? I tried it.  My assumption was that Monk’s first name is so frequently misspelled even in articles written by jazz critics/journalists, that google would provide me with a huge list of examples of misspellings.  Wrong.  The software giant offered me an extensive list of articles about the musician, but all with the correct spelling.  At the top of the page there was the statement, “Showing results for Thelonious monk” and the sub-option, “Search instead for Thelonius monk.”  I clicked on the sub-option, and the listing results were the same including the statement, “Showing results for Thelonious monk” but without the “Thelonius” option.  Google would not let me look for the wrong spelling.  The experience gave me pause.  Here was an algorithmic, mindless piece of software designed by people who probably never had heard of Monk, and it would not consider searching for a misspelled version of Thelonious Monk’s name.  And yet, countless jazz writers and editors are getting paid as “experts” and don’t care enough to make sure the giant’s name is spelled correctly…

The $2 trillion coronavirus bill was intended to help average Americans survive the pandemic financially.  Right?  Partially right.  The President and his Republican buddies saw another opportunity to make the wealthy wealthier and jumped at the opportunity.  According to the New York Times and other sources, “Real estate tycoons such as President Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner got a provision in the $2 trillion coronavirus relief package that will let them avoid an estimated $170 billion in federal taxes over the next ten years.”  Senate Republicans inserted a change to the tax code on page 203 of the 880-page bill (where everyone would notice it, of course).  The bill signed by Trump removes a 2017 restriction on “paper losses” tax shelters.  As The Week (4/10, p. 7) noted, “An independent congressional analysis found that the rule, that applies to this year and two retroactive years, is the second-biggest tax giveaway in the $2 trillion legislation.”  How many people do you know who are better off financially because of the pandemic or the resultant congressional legislation?... 

The evening of 4/23 was a bit hectic for me, so I was delayed tuning into the Quarantine Concerts streaming from Chicago.  As a result, I was about three minutes late catching the opening of Andrea Pensado’s solo set.  I was surprised to see a black screen eventually with washes of subdued color.  It was a bit confusing, but the fine electronic and vocal sonics assured me that I was in the right place.  One aspect of Andrea’s work that I’ve always admired is her appreciation for the power of the visual in live performances.  Her primary axe is electronics.  One of the problems with most electronics onstage is that it tends to be visually boring.  That does not happen with Andrea.  In fact, of all the performances I’ve caught in the Quarantine Concerts series, hers was the most interesting/challenging on screen.  Into the mostly black screen appeared a masked face, but it was not a Covid-19 mask.  Andrea wore a party mask with eye glasses reflecting her own computer screen.  And so she offered a “night time” party with electronics and vocalizations.  Eventually joining the party were two other masks, one apparently from the film The Invisible Man and the other from some sort of pre-Columbian ritual.  The whole thing was dark, mysterious, and puzzling.  Perhaps some viewers experienced anxiety in their likely confused anticipation.  Whatever the audience was coping with, it then was faced with a silent conversation between the two guest masks.  In pantomime the two masks talked and eventually kissed, dashing all potential anxiety.  When the guest masks disappeared, Andrea brought out some black face paint.  The tone shifted as she drew vertical black lines on her face (sans mask), bringing to mind ritual body painting of so-called primitive tribes.  But that conceit did not last as she covered all of her face except her eyes with the paint.  Eyes staring out of the darkness in a way similar to that in which the Mouth in Beckett’s Not I is isolated in illumination.  Impressive.  Haunting.  And then the image was overcome with a disarming, child-like version of “Row Row Row Your Boat” as a sign-off.  The performance incorporated great sonics throughout, including a manufactured language that would have been terrific even in conversation with Jaap Blonk or the nonsense poems of the late Joe Maneri.  Wonderful…   

With the President and Congressional minions consistently hamstringing the EPA, we discover that air pollution is a Covid-19 factor.  According to The Week (4/24, p. 21), “People who live in areas with high amounts of air pollution are more likely to die from Covid-19, a new study suggests.  Harvard University researchers examined levels of the tiny, dangerous airborne particles known as PM 2.5 and coronavirus deaths in 3,080 U.S. counties.  They found that a person living for decades in a county with high levels of fine particulate matter is 15 percent more likely to die from the respiratory disease than someone in an area with one unit less of PM 2.5--that is one microgram less per cubic meter.”  The article points out that, regarding Manhattan, “The researchers noted that if the borough had lowered its average particulate matter by one unit over the past 20 years, it would have registered 248 fewer Covid-19 deaths so far in the pandemic.”  It should be noted that the death figures are relevant to Manhattan during the first half of April.  To err is human.  To ignore science means more people meet the Divine… 

Now that you are settled in for the pandemic siege, The Week (4/3, p. 25) has come up with “10 Movies to Stream” to help you through it all.  They are (in no particular order): Life in a Day, Hoop Dreams, Children of Men, Some Like It Hot, Hugo, Singin’ in the Rain, Under the Skin, Booksmart, Once Upon a Time in the West, and Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse.  Some of the picks are quite good.  Two hints: Children of Men is about a pandemic (dystopian but well done) and Some Like It Hot is classic comic escapism.  Enjoy… 

It was good to see the WGBH-TV documentary on the September 2018 Jazz Along the Charles festival (reviewed in the 2018 Journal). They squeezed quite a bit of information into 45 minutes, mostly brief snippets of musicians performing.  Glimpses of necessity were brief; there were twenty-five different bands involved.  Viewers were able to see each band at least once during the program.  It is a shame that the documentary was broadcast at 11 p.m. on 4/26, Sunday night.  Not exactly the most convenient time for most viewers.  However, I understand that the show was repeated in a more civilized time slot… 

Narcissism trumps compassion, as The Week (4/24, p. 6) points out.  According to that news publication, “President Trump ordered the Treasury Department to print his name on the $1,200 stimulus checks to taxpayers that Congress funded, slowing the checks’ mailing by several days.  It will be the first time any president’s name has ever appeared on an IRS disbursement to taxpayers.”  It’s depressing but not surprising… 

The Hotel Buckminster opened in Kenmore Square in 1897 and early this month several local publications and web sites noted that the hotel closed 3/20.  It took with it a good deal of history, including the first national radio broadcast (1929).  But of greatest significance for jazz fans and historians is that it was one of four incarnations of George Wein’s Storyville.  The club at the Buckminster opened in February 1951 and for a couple years featured mostly famous mainstreamers and the occasional trad giant such as Louis Armstrong.  In January 1982 a couple entrepreneurs opened a club in Kenmore Square and, in an attempt to exploit the fame of the 1950s jazz venue, called the place Storyville.  It closed in the spring of that year…     

March

The mechanical device shown below was first manufactured during World War I.  No doubt clever writers composed and published information and ideas using such devices to help disseminate some items that went viral.

The brand name on this typewriter (ironically first sold in 1917) brings to mind recent panic-driven actions that give one pause--everything from a president who suggests the use of medications not certified by the FDA or CDC to combat Covid-19 to otherwise intelligent Americans who because of the disease refuse to eat Chinese food or drink Corona brand beer.  It may just be that this coronavirus is smarter than we are…

The New York Times is pursuing morbidity journalism with a regular feature, “Those We’ve Lost.”  As the newspaper describes it, “This series tells the stories of people who have died in the pandemic.”  When we are at war, such pursuits seem to make sense.  Those deaths are the results of what happens when we resort to war as a solution to international problems.  But does it work in a pandemic?  Several politicians and commentators have referred to our confrontation with Covid-19 as a “war.”  But the term is metaphoric in this case, not literal.  I’m not happy with the extent to which the White House has bungled--and continues to bungle--the pandemic.  For example, the lack of pervasive testing for the virus ahead of the curve is a nightmare.  But the pandemic itself is not inherently political.  It was not the result of the intentions and actions of Republicans or Democrats or Chinese.  So when I see the 4/2 New York Times write-ups on Ellis Marsalis and Bucky Pizzarelli as victims of Covid-19, the coverage does not sit right with me.  The obituaries of those two musicians should be about who they were, not how they died.  Yes, cause of death should be in the article, but it should not be the lede…

We have no live jazz gigs right now, but there are some musicians who are streaming old and new performances online, and all of us have record collections.  It is a good time to turn to recordings of fine music.  If you are looking for something to pursue, you might check out the sounds of jazz musicians born during the first quarter of the year--January through March.  Here are a few Boston-born jazz musicians you might enjoy listening to:  Ruby Braff (3/16), Paul Broadnax (1/27), Wendell Culley (1/8), Don Fagerquist (2/6), Roy Haynes (3/13), Charlie Holmes (1/27), Howard “Swan” Johnson (1/1), Dick Nash (1/26), Ray Perry (2/25), Ray Santisi (2/1), and Mabel Robinson Simms (3/29).  That should be enough to keep you busy for a while…  

We’ve all read about the leaders of Christian churches sustaining the abuse of children by priests.  But they are not the only priests and prelates who will fry in Hell.  According to The Week (3/13, p. 6), “A New Jersey couple says their Catholic church is refusing to give their son Holy Communion because he’s autistic.”  The eight-year-old boy has been studying to receive Communion, but the couple was told by the church that “because [the boy] is largely nonverbal and cannot express ‘contrition’ for his sins, he cannot receive the sacrament.”  Sometimes it is difficult to remember that there are people who read and take to heart the words and actions of Jesus and act accordingly…

McCoy Tyner died 3/6 at age 81.  He was the last surviving member of the John Coltrane Quartet.  That fact was the most emphasized statement of every Tyner obituary that I’ve read.  It is not as if his work outside the quartet was of little consequence.  All the obituaries made it clear that his approach to the piano was unique and important.  McCoy Tyner continued to draw crowds in major Boston area clubs long after the passing of John Coltrane.  But there is no question that the Quartet was special.  I sometimes think that, if John Coltrane had been the last Quartet member to die, the opening statement of his obituaries would have stressed that the leader was the last member of the great Quartet to die.  The Quartet was special because all four members were such extraordinary individuals musically.  But, more important, the Quartet operated at much higher level than its individual parts.  Did the bells toll when the last member of the ODJB or the Summa Cum Laude Band or the Benny Goodman Quartet (with such giants as Hampton, Wilson, and Krupa) passed on?  Not to my knowledge.  But--at least metaphorically--they did when the last member of the John Coltrane Quartet died…

So you’re making $20K to $40K and you get a Republican bill “tax break” that allows you to have one extra Starbucks fake coffee per week that you could not afford under the pre-bill tax structure.  Maybe you are happy about that, but having the extra coffee does not make your day-to-day economic situation better because everything else in your life costs more.  You are competing with the wealthy people and corporations for goods and services.  It is key to understand that your competitors REALLY made out due to the tax bill, and as a result you are farther in the hole than before the Republican tax bill took effect.  How big is the difference?  According to Bloomberg.com and The Week, “The six biggest banks in the U.S. saved $18 billion from their tax bill in 2019, thanks to the 2017 tax cuts, helping them post a record $120 billion in combined net profits.”  What’s in your wallet?...

Composer Mario Davidovsky died in August, and Harvard Music Department scholars and friends got together to celebrate his life 3/8 in Paine Hall.  I did not know him personally but admired and enjoyed his compositions and respected his support of the best contemporary composers, most obviously exhibited in his role as curator of new music performances at Harvard while he was the F.P. Mason Professor of Music there at the turn of the century.  The 3/8 event opened and closed with two of the composer’s Synchronisms works. Between those fine performances we heard “reminiscences” from former colleagues and students.  It was enlightening to hear about the behavior and character of a man I know only from encounters at performance events.  Comments from eight speakers--everyone from Wellesley’s Martin Brody to Brandeis’ Eric Chasalow to the composer’s son, Matias Davidovsky--gave form to the roots of the composer’s special music and broad influence.  Time and again the speakers emphasized the moral aesthetics of the man.  As I sat listening, thoughts of my first few years in the Boston area came to mind.  I never had lived as an adult in a place in which several good music schools had jazz departments or specialized in jazz performance.  So I’d go to gigs or jam sessions and every once in a while there would be some kid who’d knock my socks off.  Not just impressive technique.  A lot of the students arrived in Boston or Cambridge with plenty of chops.  Those rare talents also exhibited originality and aesthetic courage.  In spite of having great talent and potentially a unique voice, these rare voices would disappear.  Some would teach music and others would pursue non-musical professions.  But all would end their pursuit of jazz performance excellence.  On the other hand, some of their less than spectacular classmates carried out the difficult pursuit and today they fill the clubs and galleries in Boston and elsewhere with substantive jazz.  I like to think that the survivors could not help themselves.  They are the ones who--in the parlance--did not sell out.  Of course, the dark side can sneak up on you at any time.  It is just that the people who do not have the special character that manifests itself in durability tend to be weeded out during the first five years or so after college.  I’ve seen superb jazz musicians at age 40 or more seduced by the easy path or the golden opportunity.  That is the disappointment that hurts me as a music fan the most: when the creative artist’s behavior no longer is dictated primarily by the art.  These thoughts came to mind as I listened to people talk about the moral aesthetics of Mario Davidovsky.  As some of my comments above regarding jazz wunderkinder and related matters suggest, I do have a vision of artists as people operating at a higher aesthetic level than the rest of us, and therefore their sacrifices transcend those of people of average capacities.  Because art is human expression at its highest level, the demands on the artist are unknowable to the rest of us.  As people spoke about their experiences with Mario Davidovsky, it became clear to me that he understood the work ethic and related obligations to be extreme--far beyond merely avoiding “selling out.”  It is apparent from speaker comments on 3/8 that to Mario Davidovsky creating art--composing music in his case--is a moral process.  Finding and building on the sonic core of a composition for him was to find and build on the moral core of the work.  There could be no secular distractions in the pursuit of a successful composition.  Time and again he turned his back on opportunities of self-promotion for the sake of achieving and maintaining aesthetic clarity during the demanding process of composition.  As I listened to the speakers, I began to understand the root of my biggest complaint about Mario Davidovsky’s curatorial efforts.  As wonderful as the Davidovsky-driven performances in Paine Hall were--including works by such remarkable composers as Webern, Milton Babbitt (who advised Mario Davidovsky to join him at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center), Feldman, Carter, and others--they seldom included performances of his own work.*  That would be self-promotion.  He told students and colleagues that, if they succeeded as morally-driven composers, there would be a residual moral effect that would remain with the listeners, even for a few seconds.  He certainly did set the bar high.

*One of those rare instances in which one of his works was performed was at the November 8, 2002 Paine Hall concert announcing that Mario Davidovsky would be leaving the Harvard faculty.  We got to witness a performance of his Romancero (1983)…

February

I attended very few gigs this month.  Part of my poor attendance is due to personal factors.  However, as far as jazz in the Boston area is concerned, another--and more important--reason for the lack of coverage of gigs is the significant drop in the number of gigs presented by important groups of musicians.  The Outpost was shut down from the middle to the end of the month.  It is anticipated that it will remain closed until Rob obtains required permits.  He's mentioning April as a likely time for the gallery to re-open…

In recent years all of us have received warnings about a variety of ways criminals can use personal information to steal money from our savings, checking, and credit card accounts--everything from stealing info from credit cards and automobile fobs with special readers that can be stopped only with RFID-protected envelopes or aluminum foil to fake phone calls from “the IRS” or some other scary place.  While the list of dangers grows, there is a significant new threat that targets banks and your bank accounts.  The idea is simple but potent.  A criminal organization hijacks your phone number, causing all your calls to go to their answering service.  The criminals already have all your personal information.  So it is easy for them to take money from your credit card or one of several bank accounts.  For example, assume that they withdraw $5,000 from your savings account.  Then their software is alerted to look for any of your bank’s phone numbers among all calls to your phone.  If one of your friends calls you, the call will be directed to the criminal phone facility.  The phone at the facility will ring but no one answers.  Your friend hangs up.  Banks today that are competent look for anomalous account behavior.  As a result, your competent bank will call you to question the unusual withdrawal amount (i.e., in this hypothetical case, $5,000).  If your name is Izzy Spartacus, someone at your bank may call your phone number.  But you, Izzy, do not answer that call.  The equipment at the criminal facility alerts a human criminal to answer the phone.  The human criminal says, “Hello.”  The bank person says, “Is this Mr. Spartacus?”  The criminal says, “I am Spartacus.”  And the bank person ultimately hangs up the phone, satisfied that Izzy has withdrawn $5,000.  The crooks make money, and no one is the wiser, until it is too late.  This is a current problem, and there are things you can do to prevent your bank accounts from being emptied.  One thing banks are doing is using paper notices.  For example, not long ago I received a form letter from one of my banks regarding a CD that I rolled over.  The letter said, “As part of our ongoing efforts to protect your account from misuse, we noticed that you conducted a transaction on 02-20-2020 on your account that has had no activity in more than a year.”  The letter went on to explain that several types of transactions that are valid may have “triggered this notice…”  On the list of those kinds of transactions is a “CD renewal.”  In other words, any time there is anomalous activity such a letter goes into the mail, informing the customer of a potential problem.  The procedure is not perfect, but there is no phone conversation and the warning to the customer is received in a few days.  Perfect?  No.  Nevertheless it potentially prevents financial hemorrhaging.  But the account holder is the person who can do the most to prevent such phone scams.  Installing voice mail on your phone can help.  The phone hijack bypasses voice mail.  So, if a friend who calls you frequently asks what happened to your voice mail, you should check to see if your phone has been hijacked.  You can call the friend and ask that person to call you back.  If you do not get the call, something is amiss.  Also, if no one seems to be calling you, you might have a hijack problem.  True, phone calls are not as common as tweets and such, but no calls at all should be a flag.  If such flags are raised, see your bank security person.  They are as anxious to nail these people as you are…

With so many jazz gigs cancelled at the Outpost this month it was particularly uplifting to walk into the Lily Pad to witness Charlie Kohlhase’s opening blues performed by a sextet of Explorers--Charlie, Seth Meicht, Jeb Bishop, Brian Price, Tony Leva, and Dylan Jack--tackling the music at such a high level of execution.  And fine solos all around.  Yes, there were three reeds in the front line, but Jeb can do more than hold his own in such circumstances.  The set list was familiar, but this particular lineup 2/26 had its own personality, putting a different sonic “face” on the music.  The execution of the heads was different, but the identity of this ensemble on that Wednesday night was rooted in a type of organic enthusiasm--real or imagined on my part--that seemed to be at the core of each of the solos.   More than usual I felt that the charts existed for the purpose of celebrating the improvisors.  Part of that impression came from the reduced number of solos per composition.  Don’t ask.  I did not count the number of solos and improvised duos per piece.  So the flow and execution of the improvisations seemed to occur more spontaneously and more open-ended (in a positive way).  Seth and Brian were “talking” to each other at a party.  When Tony and Dylan were sitting out and watching the fray, they were having as much fun listening as anyone in the audience--but we had the bonus of witnessing the eye contact between the bassist and drummer during the party out front.  Once again Roswell Rudd’s Pythagorean Hymn closed out the evening, this time not as impressive technically on the vocal part as usual.  But it had its own personality--something closer to party-goers joyously singing “Show Me the Way to Go Home.”  A fine sendoff…

Concert pianist Peter Serkin died on 2/1 at age 72.  He was a brilliant interpreter of the entire “classical” repertoire and a champion of great music of the 20^th century.  With open ears, enjoying improvised music, he was a fan of Cecil Taylor even before the great concert pianist became the brother-in-law of Raphé Malik…

According to USA Today, “Sales of print maps and road atlases have grown by about 10 percent per year since 2014.”  The cause of the increased sales is that “more people worry about being tracked or given erroneous directions by their phones.”  Apparently 666,000 paper maps were sold in 2019.  Given all the evidence that people no longer know how to read maps because of following step-by-step phone and auto screen directions, the growth in sales of paper maps is a surprising and positive development…

Every now and then I mention that Trump Republicans are evil and contemporary Democrats in Washington are stupid.  And evil wins.  The “economy” (i.e., the economy by certain measures) is booming.  People think they are better off than they were three years ago (i.e., ‘I have $650 more this year than before the tax cut bill,’ said the $30K per year person; ‘I have $30 K more this year than before the tax cut bill,’ said the $500K per year person--both ignoring that the income gap has widened).  If you believe you are better off (whether you are or are not), the kids in cages, the grabbing of crotches with subsequent bragging, the undermining of our national security, the rigging of elections, and narcissistic greed do not matter.  So the stupid democrats need to look at the economic lies and distortions carefully to reveal them clearly and simply.  They might start by reading CNBC Online’s “In the US, the gap between the rich and poor is bigger than ever” by Greg Iacurci (2-10-20).  Using Oscar-winning Parasite as a thematic hook, Iacurci calls upon research by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the University of California at Berkeley, Forbes, the Federal Reserve Board, the Brookings Institution, the Pew Research Center, and elsewhere to make the case.  His case is a good starting point for an attack on the Republican regime.  If you are looking for ammunition against the Game-Show-Host President, I suggest a perusal of the online CNBC article.  In the meantime, here is some fodder from that article for consideration.  First, the economic bottom-half of households has been losing ground for decades.  In 1989 the bottom 3% of wealth was found in the bottom 50% of U.S. households.  As of 2016 the bottom 50% of U.S. households had 1% of the wealth (and the top 10% had 77% of the wealth).  In other words, the bottom 50% of U.S. households has been screwed by both parties; it’s just getting worse more recently.  As far as the current situation is concerned, Jamie Court of Consumer Watchdog says, “There’s always been a divide, but it hasn’t always been an abyss…  It’s never been this bad.”  From 1989 to 2016 U.S. families’ average wealth shrunk from $21,000 to $16,000 with one in ten families having a negative net worth.  Things are even worse today as one in three consumers fear they will max out a credit card, and the Brookings Institution claims the U.S. is becoming a country in which “very small number of citizens own most of the wealth, and from which both younger Americans and the broad middle class are failing to benefit.”  It is a good start, but stupid Democrats need to do much more of this type of research and articulate the implications clearly to the potential voters who are being screwed… 

How nice it is to see local musicians in the audience at local gigs in the Boston area, and it’s been happening more frequently during the past couple years.  Maybe musicians are discovering that the best way to talk to one another is to listen to one another.  On 2/4 at the Lily Pad musicians were part of an appreciative audience for Remembering Charlie Parker.   The Quartet of Allan Chase, Phil Grenadier, Bruno Råberg, and Austin McMahon helped us remember some of Bird’s best-loved recordings and more.  There were tribute works by and reminiscences about various jazz musicians.  An Allan Chase recollection of Jaki Byard casually playing alto sax with his left hand while working right-handed piano into the performance was among the jaw-droppers of the night.  A minimalist (i.e., half the notes) “Half Nelson” became a remarkably engaging “Quarter Master.”  There were non-musical ideas to ponder, but it was after all the music that carried the day.  Fans--who obviously remember and love the music of Charlie Parker--showed up to hear some of the “original hits” and got what they wanted.  And performed beautifully.  What the four of them do succeeds so well because they have performed as a group for years.  But equally important is that time has not resulted in fatigue or boring familiarity.  One suspects they have remained active as a quartet because of the surprises.  Not big ones, but the subtle head-turners.  Such as the perfect moment for Austin to tickle the snare unexpectedly with a brush or moments when the front line of horns speak to each other in a foreign sax-trumpet dialect or Bruno’s masterful ability to push a solid two-note pattern that also is a type of sonic shape-shifting.  It is no wonder that many of the region’s musical cognoscenti showed up to listen and remember.  Soon three members of the quartet will travel to Arizona and California for a three-gig mini-tour.  Substitute drummers will be available.  They will be substitutes…  

January

Jeff Galindo, Bob Gullotti, Jim Hobbs, Charlie Kohlhase, and John Lockwood at Pickman Hall on October 16, 2011

Bob Gullotti was born in Boston on November 28, 1949.  He died on January 25, 2020.  Bob was a pillar of both straight ahead and post-Ayler jazz in Boston.  An extraordinary percussionist and teacher, Bob influenced countless students and fellow musicians.  The surprise of the passing of such a passionate and energetic musician resulted in fans and fellow musicians being torn by both compelling shock and pain.  The loss is palpable.  My experience with Bob goes back to Michael’s Pub at 52A Gainsborough Street in Boston but became personal in the early 1980s when the Fringe carried out their Wednesday night sessions at the Willow Jazz Club in Ball Square, Somerville.  The audience size was small--every week at least until the mid-1980s.  It was not unusual for me to be the entire audience.  Their music was so impressive that I could not help but show up and was confused at how apparently deaf most fans were.  The empty (or near empty) seats gave me a good chance to talk with the musicians--Bob, George Garzone, and Rich Appleman.  Bob by nature was the most gregarious of the group.  So I got to know him pretty well on breaks.  He explained that the Wednesday night sessions were not really public performances.  They were open rehearsals.  I was impressed by the psychological security of the idea.  If you are carrying out open rehearsals, it really does not matter if anyone shows up.  But it was not quite that simple.  Even before audience size at the Willow increased, there were occasions when the trio performed a couple times per week--once at the Willow and once somewhere else.  In other words, the guys had a passion to perform together.  Anyone in the audience was a bonus.  The conversations I had with Bob, George, and Rich led to the idea of an interview.  I interviewed the three of them before and after the first set of music on October 27, 1982.  The interview was published as a two-part feature in the August and September 1983 issues of Cadence magazine.  In the mid-1980s when Rich left the trio, Bob and George began looking for a replacement.  The search took a while before they were sure that John Lockwood would be the bassist.  In the meantime, Bob and George continued to work for about six months as a duo, offering some of the most compelling music they ever produced in any instrumental format.  Some time later I got the idea of putting on concerts at the Willow, concerts of music that I wished I could witness.  At that time I had more loose change and patience than I do now.  I put on about a half dozen such gigs.  The degree of aesthetic success varied, but all of the performances were inherently engaging for any adventuresome listener.  I lost money on each gig, but I knew that going into the series.  Because I paid the participants decent money, I could not break even, even if the house was full.  I had a ball.  Bob was my technical consultant  and performed on most of the gigs.  One of my favorite events was a percussion trio advertised as “Beat Generations” and featured Alan Dawson, Bob Gullotti, and Curt Newton.  The idea of three extraordinary percussionists from three different generations working together to make new music was very attractive.  As a conceptual bonus, Bob had studied with Alan and Curt had studied with Bob.  Not surprisingly, they came prepared.  They rehearsed and showed up with a set list.  Also, there was a lot of impressive improvising going on.  The Willow was packed (every drummer in town?), and no one left the club with a frown.  If all of that is not enough, when my older son returned to Boston with Geof Lipman to create a new jazz trio, Ken asked Bob if he would recommend a drummer for the group.  A strong relationship between Ken and Curt remains.  I asked Curt if he would write some thoughts about Bob.  This is what he wrote:

When I moved to the Boston area in 1986, the first jazz show I saw was The Fringe. It’s not hyperbole to say: that evening changed my life.**  Fresh out of college, I was pretty sheltered from jazz and improvised music happenings (had just been introduced to Ornette through Pat

Metheny’s “Song X,” OK?)  The Fringe and especially Bob Gullotti were playing what I had only subconsciously imagined, didn’t know actually existed. And they played every week... and Gullotti teaches private lessons...and I can study with him!

The next few years absolutely transformed my drumming, and lessons with Bob were central - both 1-1 at his house, and bearing witness week after week at The Willow. I had a lot of work to do, both drum fundamentals and big-picture creatively; thankfully Bob was simultaneously

no-bullshit direct and supportive about everything I was trying. Over  time, I’ve appreciated even more Bob’s rare gift to meet me where I was, as a guiding force and inspiration but never overbearing.

One of my favorite memories of Bob is playing with him and Alan Dawson on a three-drummers concert billed as “Beat Generations.” Suddenly I’m thinking a lot more about how I carry this drumming legacy and can connect it to the next generations. Thank you Bob, for all that you gave us.

** PS: that same first night at the Fringe, I also met the Vandermarks, but that’s a whole separate tale for another time :)

I sent an email to Ken Vandermark to let him know about the passing of Bob.  He sent me the following response to the news.  After getting his permission, I reproduce his comments here:

It’s hard to know exactly what to say, other than the obvious- that the news is very sad, and that I hope he passed peacefully, for him and the people close to him. 

But the music that Bob helped inspire me to pursue through his own work week after week for years, as my creative conscious was truly being shaped, and the gigantic gap in time and experiences since then makes the loss hard to process somehow. It raises questions about hows and whys in creative trajectory, the chances of being in the right place at the right time over and over again; though also the loss of contributions that Bob made to the music night after night, often to almost no one, with complete commitment and energy--how is that explained or even understood?

What I can say is that Bob gifted me something essential and, though he may be gone physically, that still remains with me in spirit. 

Ellwood Epps returned to Boston this month to participate in several gigs before returning to Montreal.  He was the guest fourth member of the Steve Lantner Quartet 1/28 at the Outpost.  The other members of the group, of course, are the hand-in-glove Lantner partners Allan Chase and Luther Gray.  Ellwood is becoming an honorary Bostonian, popular with both fans and musicians.  This was not his first performance with Steve, but it was his best.  Maybe it is a growing comfort level, but to my ears, Ellwood never sounded better than he did 1/28.  As fans know, the core Lantner Trio needs no help.  But Ellwood’s inspired playing added to the fine sonic pursuits.  Steve began working with moving modes to get the music rolling.  Over that movement Ellwood and Allan “commented on” the travels with motoring by Steve and engine power by Luther.  Some of the comments were solo “descriptions” and some were duo face-to-face arguments and (mostly) voices of consensus.  The second improvisation began with an exploding Lantner dance at the piano energizing solo and duo trumpet and saxophone dancers.  Power drums pushed the whole thing along.  The party continued in the second set.  There was a fine turnout for the performance, including some visitors from Essex.  At the break I had the pleasure of meeting some of Steve’s neighbors.  They know him socially and wanted to find out what his music is like.  They were very friendly and seemed to be having a great time.  All creative musicians should have such fine neighbors.  And the band will return in February.  You do not have to be a neighbor to enjoy the music…

Because the current Supreme Court upheld gerrymandering, the Democrats have a steep hill to climb as the 2020 elections approach.  But there’s more.  According to The Week (1/10, p.7), Judge Paul Malloy, a GOP appointee, has ordered the rigging of swing state Wisconsin voting rolls.  The Week claims Malloy “ordered the state Elections Commission to take about 234,000 voters off the rolls because they may have moved…  The bipartisan commission wants to hold off on removing voters until 2021, but Malloy ordered it done well before the 2020 election.”  Trump won Wisconsin in 2016 by fewer than 23,000 votes.  The voters targeted by Malloy are found in “disproportionately liberal cities like Milwaukee and Madison.  About 55% [of those targeted are in] municipalities where Hillary Clinton bested Trump.”…

Charlie Kohlhase's Explorers come in many numbers and various instrumentations.  The septet versions of the band give Charlie more options for his charts.  But the septet that for me offers the best horn voices is the one that showed up 1/29 at the Lily Pad.  The richness of two reeds (Charlie and Seth Meicht) working off the brass of trumpet (Daniel Rosenthal), trombone (Jeb Bishop), and tuba (Josiah Reibstein) is superb and really clicked on 1/29.  Of course, none of this would work without strong rhythm section support from acoustic bass (Tony Leva subbing for Aaron Darrell) and trap set (Curt Newton).  That sound is wonderful, but the group is a jazz ensemble, featuring some remarkable solos and improvised duos from everyone.  For example, Josiah Reibstein’s solo on Makanda Ken McIntyre’s “Suspense” was one of the highlights of the evening.  Typically Charlie opens and/or closes each Explorers gig with a blues of malleable title.  At the Lily Pad gig he featured the work in the middle of the single-set performance and referred to it as “Impeachment Blues.”  Seth and Jeb’s solos were particularly fine during this work, playing over both a blues cycle and cacophonous support that even included an Ivesian “small town brass band.”  Instead of closing with a blues, Charlie decided to sign off with what is almost becoming an Explorers signature piece--Roswell Rudd’s four-bar Pythagorean hymn, including the wonderful closing group vocal.  The “harmony of the spheres,” indeed…

I find that many musicians have a fascination with sound--everything from Cagean environmental sounds to all sorts of sound-creators to fundamental acoustics.  All performing musicians should be aware of room acoustics, and some musicians pursue that interest in creative ways.  One of my favorite performance memories is that of George Lewis at the Gardner Museum (11/29/88) in which he walked around the Tapestry Room, using his trombone to explore the room’s acoustics.   Therefore, I suspect there are several musicians and fans who may want to read “Saving Notre Dame’s Sound” in Science News (1/18, pp. 19-23).  Acoustics researchers Brian Katz and Mylène Pardoen are at the center of a team working on the acoustics of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.  When the fire was extinguished, Katz stood in the cathedral ruins struck by the fact that “You didn’t hear the building anymore.”  As people were deciding the best way to “restore” the physical building, Katz and colleagues were trying to figure out how to give the renovated building a sound and determine what kind of sound.  The process of physical and sonic restoration is complex and fascinating, but a couple brief notes here may give some insight into the challenges involved.  For example, when you give the cathedral its sonic signature, which one will be appropriate?  Using computer simulations and on-site research carried out in 2013, Katz’ team can resurrect Notre Dame’s acoustics over a span of centuries.  When the restoration is complete, do you want it to sound as it would have in a specific medieval period, in 1900, the day before the fire, or something else?  One of the aspects of the peculiarities of each church’s environment is that they affect what happens to the music in that environment.  As article author Emily Conover points out, “Notre Dame’s special sound may have inspired the birth of polyphonic music--in which different voices sing separate notes, instead of the same pitch--in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.”  Acoustician Damian Murphy of the University of York in England points out that “No historic building is ever completely static.  This terrible fire, which is a considerable tragedy, is just the next stage in the life of Notre Dame.”…

Update 3/5/20: In response to the feature article on the sound of Notre Dame, celebrated Boston-based vocalist Pamela Dellal wrote (Science News (2/29, p. 32), “I… had the irreplaceable privilege of performing in Notre Dame as a soloist, singing music of Hildegard von Bingen dating from the 12^th century.  When I heard about the catastrophe, my heart constricted; I felt as if I was losing a friend.”  Ms. Dellal has performed in more than 50 performance spaces around the world, and Notre Dame Cathedral “was the only space that didn’t simply spread out my sound, but actually picked out individual notes which hung in the space, creating harmony with my subsequent notes.  I was not alone; I was singing a duet with the magnificent structure.”  She closed with, “If the expertise of Brian Katz is able to restore the unique sound and response of Notre Dame, the entire world will once more be able to experience this phenomenon.”…   

As we start coping with the New Year, it may be wise to try to learn from major screw-ups of 2019.  Yes, there are so many 2019 blunders that tracking all of them may be impossible.  So I thought I’d take a stab at just one--one that speaks volumes about both human and high-tech incompetence (two faces of the same thing really).  Near the beginning of 2019, The Week (4/26, p.19) gave us a half-page story on “the ethics of algorithms.”  The article tells us that “handing over decisions to AI can result in unexpected and troubling discrimination.”  Assessment of job ads on Facebook revealed that “postings for preschool teachers and secretaries” were shown to a “higher percentage of women, while postings for janitors and taxi drivers were shown to a higher proportion of minorities.”  Even though the researchers hadn’t asked Facebook to discriminate.  Turing Award winner Yoshua Bengio claims, “AI can amplify discrimination and biases, such as gender or racial discrimination, because those are present in the data the technology is trained on, reflecting people’s behavior.”  The problem is significant and not easy to fix.  For example, Google has disbanded two “high-profile ethics councils” over protests from the outside and from within its own AI research unit.  And the hits keep coming.  More recently Science News (11/23/19, p. 6) reported racial bias in a commonly-used algorithm that helps hospitals identify patients who could benefit most from access to special health care programs.  According to the article, “Eliminating bias in that algorithm could more than double the percentage of black patients automatically eligible for specialized programs aimed at reducing complications from chronic health problems, such as diabetes, anemia, and high blood pressure.”  What’s significant about racial bias in situations described in the April and November articles (and elsewhere) is that the bias arises not from simple racial factors such as names or skin color.  That is what is so insidious about the problem.  For example, according to the Science News article, “The top 10 health care algorithms on the market use patient’s past medical costs to predict future costs.  Predicted costs are used as a proxy for health care needs, but spending may not be the most accurate metric.  Even when black patients are as a sick as or sicker than white patients, research shows, black patients pay less on health care, including doctor visits and prescription drugs.  That disparity exists for many reasons, including unequal access to medical services and a historical distrust of health care providers.”  In related health care algorithm research the basic assumption is that “patients with the same risk scores should, in theory, be equally sick.  But the researchers found that black patients with the same scores as white patients had more chronic diseases on average.”  Researcher Ziad Obermeyer at UC Berkeley says that “because of the algorithm bias, healthier white patients get to cut in line ahead of black patients, even though those black patients go on to be sicker.”  Risk scores for patients who surpassed the 97^th percentile normally would be picked for enrollment into specialized programs.  “When the research team ranked patients by number of chronic illnesses instead of past health care spending, black patients went from 17.7 percent of patients above the 97^th percentile to 46.5 percent…  Retraining the algorithm to rely on past health care costs and other metrics, including pre-existing conditions, reduced the disparity in chronic health conditions between black and white patients at each risk score by 84 percent.”  The result of this information is that these health care algorithms are (or soon will be) fixed.  However, in all these cases, racially biased algorithms can be fixed only through the intelligent assessments of the functional roots of the bias…

The Joe Hunt Quartet--with Mark Pinto, Yuka Hamano Hunt, and John Sullivan--opened with “I Remember You,” a fine kickoff to the evening.  At the end of the piece, Joe gave us the blow to the gut.  “I guess you know that Bob Gullotti died this morning.”  Well, no, I did not know that Bob died in his sleep in the middle of the night of January 25.  I never really recovered during the evening from the news.  But Joe did not know that everyone that day was not glued to social media.  So Joe could not have known that there were some of us unprotected from such shocks.  When I caught a bit of my breath I had the pleasure of witnessing music 1/26 at the Lily Pad from what may be Joe’s best current ensemble.  After Joe gave us the news, he said that the evening’s performance was dedicated to Bob.  Also, throughout the evening, between tunes Joe gave us memories of Bob, mostly emphasizing what a brilliant musician Bob was.  So, no matter how poignant the evening, the music and stories were outstanding.  There were “old” standards and Monk and other more “recent” works.  All of it was handled beautifully, and not once was there any evidence that this was the drummer’s first gig as a leader since he fractured his ankle.  When Joe announced the last work of the evening, he could not think of the Basie band mate who wrote the tune.  I could not think of the composer either.  Eddie Durham wrote “Topsy.”  Eddie Durham…  

Every now and then I go to the Museum of Fine Arts.  After all, the building does contain art.  But the lack of significant representation of quality works created since 1950 remains a sore point.  The folks at the MFA are trying.  A large gallery features one work each by Jackson Pollock and Katharina Grosse.  Both works are large and abstract, but that’s not enough to answer “Why?”  Why an early pre-drip Pollock?  It does not talk to the wandering geometrics of Grosse.  And even if one can see some kind of link between the two works, why not choose a mature Lee Krasner work instead of the Pollock?  In addition to that, the MFA presents “Contemporary Art: Five Propositions,” five small sub-galleries of works from the 1940s to the current century.  Some of the works are of high quality, but the “propositions” seem to be picked out of a hat.  For example, one of the five sub-galleries is identified as “Sculpture” and another as “Color Fields.”  At least apples and oranges fit into a category that is easily identified as fruit.  But there is some art in the exhibit.  The Hyman Bloom exhibit is a celebration of a 20^th century Boston-based artist.  It is a fine display of works.  But there is nary a word about Francis Bacon.  It’s sort of like having a Dorothea Tanning retrospective without mentioning Max Ernst or René Magritte.  Nevertheless, this exhibit suggests some kind of progress.  But there is irony in the MFA’s progress.  A perfect example is the special exhibit, “Women Take the Floor,” a celebration of women artists in seven galleries on level three of the museum.  In the exhibit we see a good range of works by women--good, bad, indifferent, and terrific.  On the one hand it is good to see fine female artists--or any fine artists--celebrated in a museum of repute.  But what is in that elaborate exhibition?  There are works by some of the most significant artists of the past century.  But.  In the exhibit there are MFA acquisitions, purchases, and gifts that are stunning.  Several wonderful Frankenthalers, an unusually fine Joan Mitchell, important early 1950s Nevelson prints, as well as fine works by Elaine de Kooning, Kiki Smith, Lee Bontecou, and more.  The great irony is that, over the past decade, these works could have been installed as essential works within the permanent collection.  Are they mostly absent from the permanent collection because they are female artists or because they are primarily post-1950 artists?  I do not know, but either answer is damning.  The problem goes beyond all that.  In the exhibit there is a “promised” gift to the museum of a work by Larry Rivers that celebrates a female artist.  Will the revelatory work end up in the attic because it celebrates a female artist or because it’s by an artist associated with the second generation New School in New York.  And don’t blink.  The MFA is on the verge of having two Max Beckmann works of significance--matching portraits--join the collection.  They are on display near the lower stairwell.  One hopes that, because Beckmann was partially a component of a recent MFA exhibit, these wonderful works will not be assigned to the attic--but celebrated permanently.  One hopes… 

Glynis Lomon, Eric Zinman, and Syd Smart go back together into the previous century, tackling the challenges of spontaneous music consistently and with true artistic courage over the years.  The three of them showed up at the Outpost 1/30, picked up their tools of choice and discovered the music--the art--anew and shared that discovery with us.  As they always do, making us in the audience feel so fortunate to be witnesses.  Joining the fray (and continuing to light fires as he goes) was Elwood Epps, coming near the end of his latest visit to the Boston area and making the most of it.  It was a celebratory time.  There was a bit of juggling between two keyboards and Glynis’ equipment, but that was transformed into a gallery dance by superb contextual music.  Everything went well, but I caught myself all evening turning my head in the direction of Syd Smart.  In some ways Syd is visually unobtrusive, anything but a ham.  He’s a time-tested master who discovered how to make music from his father and older brother, a brother who played with Albert Ayler before the eventual earth-shaking giant left Cleveland for Manhattan.  Syd grew and made important music in Boston and elsewhere during the late 1960s and early 1970s and even recorded with Jimmy Lyons, Raphé Malik, and Hayes Burnett in 1972.  Over the decades Syd would study with Makanda Ken McIntyre, Olatunji, Cecil, Bill Dixon, other masters and at a host of educational institutions.  More important, along the way he made significant music and multi-arts projects happen.  The projects that perhaps have had the greatest impact in the Boston area include establishing The Friends of Great Black Music, being Learning Center Director for Mars Music, founding the Children’s Dance Project (AKA the Cambridge Performance Project), and co-founding the annual John Coltrane Memorial Concert (the oldest annual John Coltrane tribute in the world).  And all of that (and more) is set free in the music of the man.  Syd is at a time in his life when physical burdens undermine mechanical acumen.  It is apparent to the eye that 90% of the time on stage Syd employs only three of his limbs fully.  It is apparent to the ear that he has the technical facility of a more than talented youngster.  And that facility reveals sonics that only a master percussionist can create.  The music coming from the entire bandstand was superb 1/30 at the Outpost, but how lucky I was to find my head turning so often in the direction of Syd Smart…