Hello, blog of Lawrence Miles!  

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I can't stop watching the reboot because of my sentimental attachment to the old show.  But it keeps leaving me feeling rather grubby and disgusted.

  ...long-term Doctor Who viewer, told to "go away and be a fan of something else," responds with elementary "go away and stop ruining our programme" defence: full story, page 3... [from the sidebar]

My longtime friends who were DW diehards (OK, there are only two, also from the Midwest) hate the new show; indeed, KO has called it, "The worst show in television history."  But everyone English seems to love it. A few years ago I looked around for UK blogging on DW and came away bemused by how much everyone sees the new show as a terrific flagship for British culture. 

I'm quite relieved to find someone with Lawrence Miles's perspective.  The main point is simply, Doctor Who is now like everything else.  That's not the way it used to be.

For years, the Doctor has confronted the irregularities of space and time with nothing more than his sonic screwdriver. This was all very well when stories depended on scientific inquiry and believable characterisation, but it leaves him ill-equipped to deal with the modern, action-driven, high-octane version of the series. No surprise, then, that BBC Wales has announced plans to "re-launch" the character. As a spokesperson put it: 'If he knows he's going to be fighting a giant CGI mutant or an army of heavily-armed assassins in an explosive set-piece, then what kind of idiot just carries a screwdriver? Duh! Besides, 78% of our core audience demographic consists of punters who are likely to see an X-Men movie in its first week of release or queue up to buy Tomb Raider 3-D when it comes out.'  [from this post]

At times, Miles gets incredibly personal and nasty with fellow writers, former bosses, and (especially) the current producer, Stephen Moffat.  They take the gloves off in England!

I cringe at some of the venom, but much of the humor hits a strangely satisfying mark, like in this list of altered titles.  I almost didn't make it back from "The Keith of Marinus."

(If this needs to be explained, then there's no hope it will be funny.  But, just so you don't need to start Googling:  Miles has reworked all the titles of the classic series in order.  "The Keith of Marinus" is a toothless version of an old William Hartnell story etched into my psyche since boyhood, "The Keys of Marinus."  Actually I haven't even seen it..maybe I read the book, can't remember...but that title was etched into my psyce since boyhood.)

Miles has authored some well-received DW fiction (which I haven't seen) and collaborated with Tat Wood on a mind-bendingly thorough collection of analysis, About Time (which I have). 

For Miles and Wood, Doctor Who is a way of life. I appreciate that extremism. 

It'd be glib to say that in the twenty-first century, we no longer believe in heroes. But it is true, if you take it not to mean "we don't believe in good people" (we clearly do, and rightly so) but "we no longer believe in extremists". "Extremists" is a word we've come to associate with terrorism - in itself, a term that's lost all meaning - and yet, most of the people we've come to respect were extremists. Beethoven was an extremist; Gandhi was an extremist; Luther was an extremist; the Doctor, in any phase of his existence before c. 2008, was an extremist.

Yet now, in fiction, power has become democratised. It hasn't in reality, of course. It'd be absurd to claim that real-world power is somehow more sterile and corruptive than ever, but it is more sterile and corruptive than many of us ever expected to see in our lifetimes. We no longer believe in heroes because we no longer believe in extremes. Whether this is a blessing or a curse, you can judge for yourselves. What it does mean is that we no longer believe in Special Powers for Special People. Aren't we all entitled...?

Comic-books have, as ever, been ahead of the game. Super-powers have been "leaking" into the mainstream for some time: whereas old-school superheroes tended to be individuals chosen (by grace or some intelligent god-force) to be champions of the world, there's now a tendency for large-scale world-shaping events to guarantee everyone a metahuman party trick. [from this post]

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Recently I mentioned DW and DTM together in the context of praising a post by Nick Jones.  And Miles came across the radar yesterday because I remembered someone else important to the history of this blog, Tat Wood.

Wood is one of the best authors in License Denied, a collection of fanzine writing.  As an American, I missed out on having a community of fans. In England, it would have been a different story.  Editor Paul Cornell says in License Denied that the twentieth anniversary of DW at Longleat in 1983 was "Our Woodstock." Leading up to and in the wake of that event were numerous fanzines made with love by people who cared. 

In the back of License Denied there's an address where you can get Tat Wood's fanzine, Spectrox. Of course, that was in 1997.  Most fanzines are gone now, replaced by the internet.  (Wikipedia:  Doctor Who Fanzines.) 

I freely admit that Do the Math is partly a product of License Denied.  Authors like Cornell, Wood, Amanda Murray, Ness Bishop, Colin Brockhurst, Phillip J. Gray, Daniel O'Mahony (too bad the modern production team didn't read his essay on why The Master was the worst villian in the show's history before bringing him back) took the top of my head off with their irreverent but detailed analysis.  Before reading License Denied, I probably thought a TV fanzine was something that talked about how cute the actors were.  No way -- at least not in England about Doctor Who in the '80s and '90s!  This stuff was serious.

My own writing about music owes as much to this kind of guerrilla journalism -- "You love it, so you're the expert, toss a grenade at the other experts who love it" -- as any proper jazz criticism I've ever read.

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I'm energized reading Lawrence Miles's blog.  I didn't realize how much I needed a License Denied-type fix about the new era.  Perhaps it was a timely discovery:

Sean Gough, pianist and blogger, did his valuable master’s thesis on Bill Evans.  I first suggested that he guest post it on DTM but eventually we decided to keep it over in his domain.  So, if you are interested in Evans, head on over there and check it out.

Sean asked me to use his thesis as a springboard for DTM commentary, since he knows that I have plenty to say.  I've really been stuck, though.  I can riff about Evans over drinks in a bar for hours but getting a proper essay together seems beyond my grasp.  However, maybe I need to quit being worried about academia, get in touch with my inner guerrilla, and toss some grenades. 

01/26/2012

Barry Harris (born December 15, 1929) and slightly younger Leroy Williams have been making marvelous bebop music together since 1969.  The bass chair this week at the Village Vanguard is the even younger (but still a bop master) Ray Drummond.   If you care about jazz and live in NYC, you must go.  You don't have to like it.  Go anyway.

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My masterclass tomorrow still has room.  In fact, as far as I can tell, hardly anybody is coming.  Email ethan.teaches(at)gmail for instructions.

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Peter Hum offers the first review of Live at Smalls!  I'm in great company there, Bruce Barth and Dave Kikoski, and I see that there other records by heavies like Aaron Goldberg (in a collective with Ali Jackson and Omer Avital) and Sam Yahel nearby.  Thanks Peter for giving us some space in a crowded market.  Speaking of Omer Avital, he joined me and Dave King for a hilarious "All of Me" at the Eliat jam session two nights ago.  Great bassist, of course.

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Also, thanks for everybody that responded to the "John the Rabbit" query.  I ran down all those leads and I'm still looking...

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Forumesque 9 is an opportunity to weigh in on recent posts and anything in the contents.    Factual corrections are welcomed;  general questions are fine too.   The comments automatically close after a week.

UPDATE:  Comments running to two pages.

46 Comments | 01/23/2012

Martin Porter (who is assisting me in my masterclasses) writes amusingly about TBP at the Vanguard.

I'm featured composer this week at the Liaisons: Re-Imagining Sondheim from the Piano Facebook page.

The Selected Ballads was there during the hit with Buster Williams and Ben Riley and just said some nice stuff about it.  This whole list of 2011 live gigs is very cool.  

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Hank Shteamer's interview with Bill Laswell is fascinating, for me especially the parts about Tony Williams.  Shteamer offers more context in an intriguingly honest introduction at his blog. 

I think jazz needs to learn to be more like Shteamer and Laswell discussing genre:  specific, opinionated, and searching for not just musical but political truths.  When I went to the NEA Jazz Masters celebration last week I was disappointed in how refined and ultimately boring it all was.  There was no reason for a civilian to get excited about the new "class"  (DeJohnette, Haden, V. Freeman, S. Jordan, J. Owens) or the live performances (Hutcherson, R. Carter, Golson, F. Wess, Liebman, etc.).  

As a jazz fanboy of the highest order -- I'm someone who would take a bullet for Ron Carter or Charlie Haden -- I was aware of the evening's significance.  But really, how about just a little bit more sex and charisma for the uninitiated, huh? A smooth talking and humorous MC would have made all the difference.  (Benny Golson could have done it:  during his introduction of Von Freeman, he had the audience in the palm of his hand, unlike just about everyone else.)

And enough with endlessly thanking the NEA for these paltry sums and support.  Everyone thanked them over and over!  There have only  been 124 official "Jazz Masters" since 1982, so I can think of 500 more who didn't get it.  (A punk-rockish query:  are you a cooler post-1982 jazz musician if you have been anointed by the government or if you haven't?) DeJohnette made a superb Freudian slip in the first speech, calling his award "small."  It was great moment in a night that didn't have too many of them. 

Sorry for the crankiness, probably big award nights don't bring out the best in anything.  Some of the performances were better than the context.  Listen for yourself here.  Easy highlights were Hutcherson on "In Your Own Sweet Way" (I hate that tune, though) and Golson's entrance on the blues.

(I also enjoyed the final Benny Carter composition "Again and Again" played really well by the JALC band.  This happened while a sequence Jazz Master photos unspooled above.  Typically for this wrong-way telescope of an event, the photographer was captioned, but not the Masters.  Hey, I did well, whispering probably 75% of the names to my wife.  But did everyone else have a partner that could recognize Orrin Keepnews or Gerald Wilson?  I doubt it.  Who's minding the store?)

01/17/2012

TBP in January

20 Eilat, ISR -- Hangar 6 Seaport of Eilat
27 St. Cloud, MN -- Paramount Theater
28 Kalamazoo, MI -- Dalton Center Recital Hall

The Eilat gig is On Sacred Ground: Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, the domestic hits are normal TBP shows.

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Next masterclass 

Tuesday, January 24, from 7-10, $20.  Email ethan.teaches(at)gmail if interested. 

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Blogworks

Oonaballoona put another smile on my face with her review of TBP @ Vanguard.  Um. Nice photos!  (Just like the previous installment.)  It's true I recommended Buffy to her and hers:  To my way of thinking it is the ideal home entertainment for couples. 

Belated props to The Selected Ballads;  thanks for the nice comments about Billy Hart @ Dizzy's. 

Destination: OUT!  has a wonderfully educational Sam Rivers tribute including a sizzling bootleg of Rivers with Roscoe Mitchell.

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Random fact

Did you know Grady Tate was the drummer on the Twin Peaks soundtrack? 

01/13/2012

I’ve just learned that J. Hoberman has been let go from the Village Voice.

Back in the 1990’s, the Voice was my bible. I got it and read it every week without fail. It’s fair to say that whatever progression I made from small town hick to big city culture maven was overseen by that weekly rag. 

At that time, Gary Giddins was the jazz critic, Robert Christgau was the rock critic, Kyle Gann was the classical critic, and J. Hoberman was the film critic.  Naturally, there were other excellent writers at the paper, but those were the ones I paid the most attention to.  Of the four, the one I most eagerly took at face value was Hoberman.  (Probably because film will never be my field.)  Now they are all gone, and I'm not really sure if a fresh-faced newcomer to NYC has many reasons to look at the Voice anymore. 

I probably stole a lot of the way I write about music from the way Hoberman wrote about film.   I happily watched all sorts of things from Groundhog Day to Bob le Flambeur to Bulworth to Sonatine based on his recommendation.   I was so down with Hoberman’s perspective that I even went to a book signing for the wonderful The Dream Life: Movies, Media, And The Mythology Of The Sixties and shook his hand.

At the old blog address, I celebrated Hoberman’s April 2007 cover story on Elliot Gould and his performance in Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye, writing something along the lines of, “The Village Voice shows it can still be great.” Rereading that essay online now,  I am still just as impressed by Hoberman’s moves. Before that article, I couldn’t have picked “one favorite film” without hemming and hawing.  Since then, riding the secure power of J. Hoberman’s critique, I always say, The Long Goodbye.

There’s a nice note at Hoberman’s site.  A decade of Top 10 lists is here.

01/12/2012

NY Times obit.

When I was first exploring the repertoire I acquired many terrific Alexis Weissenberg LPs, including one that remains a personal desert island disc, The Great Bach Transcriptions.

This recording is surprisingly rare now (my copy cost $2 in the early ‘90s) but some of it is on YouTube, including “Nun freut euch, lieben Christen g'mein.” When obsessing over this Bach-Busoni chorale prelude, at one point I decided that the Weissenberg was the best version I could find. It still sounds really good to me today.

The Bach-Busoni Chaconne from the same album also has a kind of granitic power.  This afternoon I stood motionless in the middle of the room as the last couple of minutes wound its way to the top of the cathedral.   (It’s better on LP:  while listening with headphones to YouTube some edits can be discerned.)

Also on YouTube are two versions of the “Russian Dance” from Stravinsky's "Three Movements from Petrushka.”  The more familiar final product by director Åke Falck is mimed to a recording (a specially built “silent” piano was made) but there is also a rehearsal with live music. There are a few finger slips in the live version but maybe it is even more exciting.  Jeremy Nicholas has more on this famous film.

At times, Weissenberg's playing was a little weird.  His phrasing could almost be monodynamic, verging even on the brutal.  Regrettably I never saw him live (as far as I know, he didn't play in New York during the last two decades), but I cherish the description of a Weissenberg recital in David Dubal's The Art of the Piano:

After intermission, the pianist offered the seldom-played thirty-five minute Rachmaninoff First Sonata. Blocks of sound roared from his piano; it was pandemonium.  He played as loud as anyone in the history of the piano. The contemplation of sonority is a complex issue.  But those chords were not merely banged, or percussive either.  Most important, this fairly problematic composition was compelling in Weissenberg’s hands because of his belief in his own playing.

I’ve never really liked his record of Rachmaninoff Sonatas; today, the First was almost excruciating, especially in the slow movement, where it sounds like the pianist is clenching his teeth and barking. 

On the other hand, the disc of the Rachmaninoff Preludes is excellent, and many mid-century collectors considered his Rach 2 and 3 Concertos essential.  Indeed, another perverse pianist, Glenn Gould, thought Weissenberg was the best interpreter of not just Rach 2 and 3 but also the two Chopin concerti! (Here, most would disagree with Gould.)

Not all the obits reported that Weissenberg was also a composer and transcriber. Marc-André Hamelin thought highly enough of an obscure collection of Charles Trenet songs rendered in high post-Godowsky fashion that he learned them from the 1950‘s recording. (Again, read Jeremy Nicholas for more details.)

Hamelin recorded these bon-bons on his album In a State of Jazz, which gets its name from Weissenberg’s most significant solo piano work, Sonate en état de jazz.  This is not jazz, of course, but does have a fascinating harmonic language.   I’m especially intrigued by the first movement, a fractured tango.  On the studio record, Hamelin plays it as well as it can be played, but a live performance on YouTube is just as good and even includes the score.

01/11/2012

New DTM guest post: "Gordon Beck" by Colm "Red" Sullivan.

I really dig the non-American spelling of some of the words.  At first I was going to edit, but then I realized that the way Red spells adds more colour.  There's no need to apologise for anything in this catalogue of deep listening.

01/11/2012

Um, can anyone help me find a deep track?

"Oh, John The Rabbit" AKA "Rabbit Oh Yes," AKA  "John The Rabbit," a particular version on a folk, children's, or educational music anthology from the '70s or '80s.  A male singer, call and response with a couple of children or female singers on the "Oh, Yes." (Not "Yes, Sir" or "Yes Ma'am.")  A fairly modern harmonization, the bass line moving in half-steps.  Electric bass I think, mellow guitar or keyboard, no drums.  Not funky or swinging, but very straight.

My brother wants to hear it again, and I wouldn't mind listening again myself.  (At one point Spencer played the tape 20 or 3o times a day.) 

The tape is long gone and it was a dub, so I just don't know anything about the source.  I did a little internet research, it isn't anything on YouTube or iTunes. Probably impossible to find...but just in case this rings any bells...

The comments won't be published, and will be privately responded on this topic only.

Update:  not this one

http://play.kindermusik.com/en/tracks/2324-john-the-rabbit/  (thanks MG)

And:  I think I've heard all the versions on the internet.  I need someone with a folk/educational music LP collection.  Or access to the right library...

0 Comments | 01/09/2012

New DTM page:  Interview with Jim McNeely.

There is a lot there but it is hardly comprehensive -- I didn't even ask Jim about any of the European big bands or Phil Woods.   

During the final edit, Bob Brookmeyer passed, so Jim inserted a thoughtful note in the middle of the interview.  At the end, the Darcy James Argue listening sessions from early last year are reposted.

01/02/2012

Nate Chinen's NY Times obit and further links.

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Jazz history would be written a bit differently if Sam Rivers hadn’t taken the young teenager Tony Williams in hand and began playing him records of European modernism.  (To the end of his life, Rivers could do a credible imitation of the Second Viennese School at the piano, which he would perversely contextualize with some Randy Weston-ish vamps.)

Like any natural avant-gardist, Williams ran with that intellectual information.  The innovations of Billy Higgins and Ed Blackwell with Ornette Coleman were less European-based, so for a few years Williams was just about the only drummer playing swinging time without a form while surrounded by complex harmony. 

Williams honored his teacher by recommending him to Miles Davis.  The Japan gigs are interesting to listen to, but the place to hear the Rivers-Williams hook-up is not with Miles.  A collection of meta hard-bop, Fuchsia Swing Song, has more of the real vibe, although according to Rivers himself those were older tunes.

Bill Frisell remembers:

When I was in high school (late 60s) I started trying to figure out was "jazz" was.  Back then, in Denver, at Woolworth's and Wallgreen's you could get Riverside and Blue Note albums ("cut outs") for 79 cents.  The first one I ever got was Wes Montgomery's first trio record.  I think one of the next records I bought was Sam Rivers Fuchsia Swing Song. I had no idea who he was at the time.  The cover looked cool and I think by then I may have heard of Ron Carter and Tony Williams.  Jaki Byard.  What a band.  All those amazing tunes. A few years ago you couldn't even get this album on CD in the US. I had to get it in Japan.  I love this album.  I was just listening to it minutes before I received your message.  Extraordinary music.  Soon after I got this one I went out and got A New Conception where he plays all standards. "I'll Never Smile Again"...there's that moment where the form get's suspended and he switches from tenor to soprano and then they all come back in.  Man alive.  I listened to these 2 albums a LOT!  And then on to the stuff with Dave Holland and Barry Altschul. Oh man.  I don't know what to say. We are so lucky he was here.

I had a similar profound experience with Tony Williams’s Spring, which along with the predecessor Life Time documents the most avant-garde Rivers-Williams collaboration.   Full credit to fiery virtuoso Gary Peacock as well.  Everyone thinks like they can play like this today, but honestly the originators, Rivers-Peacock-Williams, still set the bar.   It’s deeply swinging -- not just a learned swing, but a folkloric swing -- but can unselfconsciously go in any direction with an unplanned atonal map.

Spring was superbly recorded by Rudy Van Gelder on August 12, 1965.  I had it very young, on vinyl, but hadn’t listened to my CD copy in years.  Hearing it again now reminds me of why I play jazz in the first place.  It’s perfect music.

On “Extras,” Wayne Shorter and Sam Rivers improvise a bit of counterpoint before Shorter burns through a motivic swinging eighth-note abstraction.  After Peacock’s intelligent solo, Rivers enters with a sing-song cry and the music quickly moves through a few different feels.  These unplanned and intuitive moves are totally natural.   The two tenor “solos” (they are actually two different trios) are very different but equally successful.

“Love Song” is the only tune the album with a chordal structure for improvising, where Rivers, Peacock, Williams and Herbie Hancock try their hand at some 5/4.  I believe this is the first jazz five that doesn’t obviously state the meter in every bar like "Take Five.”  Incredibly, they aren’t worried about getting lost, but just somehow wander comfortably through the five and a few bars of three.  The form isn’t always correct, and therein lies the magic of all this era’s music with Williams and Hancock: they just don’t care if they get lost for a minute.  It’s a way of playing that happened for a few years in the sixties before being banished from the straight-ahead vernacular.  It’s too bad it’s gone, but I doubt we would have had it at all without Sam Rivers showing Tony Williams a thing or two.

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I’ve also re-listened carefully to the two later Rivers-led albums I loved in high school: The Quest, a rawly-recorded, totally free date with Dave Holland and Barry Altschul; and Contrasts, a high-end Manfred Eicher production with a few forms featuring George Lewis, Holland, and Thurman Barker. 

The first comment is:  Holland and Rivers is a classic combination. The bassist really needs a wild-card saxophonist like Braxton, Rivers, or Steve Coleman to bring out what I really love in his playing.  Next:  I want to hear gigs in 2012 with Altschul, Barker, and Lewis --- the last where he just plays great trombone, not enmeshed in electronics or large-scale scores.   For that matter, I'm ready to hear Holland on a free-form hit again, he hasn't done enough of them lately.  Finally:  For me, these records take off when Rivers plays tenor saxophone, not soprano, flute, or piano.

Live, I’m sure all the instrument-switching was fun, but to make truly excellent records, Rivers needed to play the big horn, of which he will always be in the canon as one of the greats.  On a bootleg from 2000,  his last working trio with Doug Matthews and Anthony Cole performs his most familiar work, “Beatrice.”   Rivers shows that he still play changes like a demented angel.  Aw, man!  Couldn’t you have made one recent record of tenor trio playing obvious tunes?  It would have been instantly immortal.

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I don’t know the rest of Rivers’s extensive output all that well.  In particular, I haven’t explored his big band writing enough.  Like some AACM music, it seems very “process” oriented rather than committed to delivering a finished “product.”   That’s a mode of behavior I have yet to really understand when more than four people are onstage, but then again I’ve never had the privilege of being involved in any of those scenes as a participant.  I certainly leave room for Rivers’s large ensemble music suddenly ringing all my bells someday.

I expect a DTM guest post on Rivers to land in the future but wanted to throw up something quick this week.  For now, I’m really enjoying re-listening to the above records along with Black Stars, which has one of the great recent tenor solos on the first track, “Foot Under Foot.”   I’m so glad that Jason Moran, Tarus Mateen and Nasheet Waits got Rivers for this significant disc.  Jason and Nasheet keep having the right idea:  alongside Lonnie Plaxico they worked with Bunky Green for the stunning Another Place and now Tarbaby has Nasheet with Oliver Lake (and Orrin Evans and Eric Revis).  Losing Sam Rivers is yet another wake up call to pay attention to who we have left.

12/29/2011

2011 just blew by.  For TBP, it was the year of the collaboration:  we worked with Aaron Greenwald, Cristina Guadalupe, and Noah Hutton for On Sacred Ground: Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring at Duke University; Jim McNeely and the hr-Bigband for an evening of TBP rep in Germany; Joshua Redman was our star saxophonist on stage at the Blue Note and at Saalfelden; “The Badwagon” with Jason Moran, Tarus Mateen and Nasheet Waits sent out a message of anarchic beauty from the main stage at Celebrate Brooklyn.  MMDG’s Violet Cavern came back, better than ever, for a run in Seattle.

There’s also a TBP album of new originals in the can:  It’s definitely one of our best records, coming out fall 2012.  And the Billy Hart quartet with Mark Turner, Ben Street and me recorded an album for ECM, All Our Reasons, due out early 2012. 

In full research mode, I talked Buster Williams and Ben Riley into playing a couple of nights (boy, I sweated that one) and also tried out a little east coast tour with Corcoran Holt and Steve Williams.   There were also delightful hits with the quartets of Sam Newsome and John McNeil.  More from all of these new(ish) relationships in the future (I hope).

I was surprised when two virtuoso classical pianists, Anthony DeMare and Jenny Lin, simultaneously asked for arrangements of Sondheim (“Send In the Clowns”) and Bernstein (“Tonight").  Both rude deconstructions have been premiered and are scheduled to be recorded. 

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The three best original DTM posts were on Igor Stravinsky, Bud Powell, and Paul Motian, although perhaps I’m even more proud of the straightforward Mickey Rokey interview.  Appearances by Lawrence Block and Branford Marsalis were also satisfying.

I turned “pro” by writing liner notes for the Brad Mehldau, Larry Grenadier, Jorge Rossy box and a Thelonious Monk solo DVD,  These were important assignments I took seriously. With the trio I tried to bring Larry and Jorge to the fore; with Monk I watched over and over, more astonished each time.

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You can hear some Monk in that version of “It’s Easy to Remember” with Larry and Paul I bootlegged for the Motian post. Astonishingly, Guillaume Hazebrouck of Frasques transcribed the piano part. His sardonic comment was, “Next time avoid playing sextuplets or quintuplets in low register.”  Guillaume must have very good ears indeed.

Download PDF

It's Easy to Remember

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There’s also some Monk in last year’s “Xmas Card,” a fragment I still like quite a bit.  What can I say? Monk is my main man.

Xmas Card

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Speaking of burying music on blogs, both Kyle Gann and Matthew Guerrieri recently put up jazz-influenced bon-bons, a movement of Every Something Is an Echo of Nothing and "Overchoice Rag."  The future awaits!

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One of the best things about the blogosphere is how we can honor our fallen. When someone like Bob Brookmeyer died in the past, there was one or two short obits in major publications and that was it.  Now, anyone knowledgeable has a platform to weigh in.  I’ve seen several nice things about Brookmeyer so far and expect to see more.  Jim McNeely will be the guest soloist on DTM at the top of 2012.

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As we all know, jazz blogs (and jazz Twitter and jazz Facebook) enjoyed a fair amount of controversy this past year.  Fortunately, only light jabs were landed.  After all, no one wants to take it into the ring for real.  Sarah Deming's Joe Frazier memorial suggests what that is actually like. 

Added to the blogroll:  Nicholas Payton and Angelika Beener.  Early on at the old address I complained about the lack of black jazz bloggers.  That hasn’t been true for several years now, thank god.  As Stanley Crouch always says, Victory Is Assured.

Help towards that victory is coming from Ted Panken’s corner:   I found his posts on Barry Harris and McCoy Tyner tremendously informative. 

And Willard Jenkins keeps holding it down at The Independent Ear.  If you like DTM, make sure you broaden your horizons by going over there and checking it all out.  The Walter Bishop Jr. poetry is just too much:  I bow before it, simultaneously laughing and crying.  Try No. 5, "Owed to Bird."  Hell yeah.

Presumably this is old news to DTM readers, but just in case:  I think that jazz needs to think about race.  As cool as we all are in our postmodern society, there still is room to grow.  A painless yet perspective-giving elixir  is AFRICAN RHYTHMS  -  The  Autobiography  of   Randy Weston;  
Composed by Randy Weston, Arranged by Willard Jenkins.  If you still need a stocking stuffer for your jazz fan, get this book.  (More accolades here.) 

As for my own stocking, forget it.  I have enough books and records for a lifetime already.

However, if you insist...I admit I'm patiently waiting for tapes of Weston and Ed Blackwell performing together in Africa to become commercially available.

Um, Willard?  Can you expedite this, please?

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Martin Porter is also added to the roll.  He reviewed the recent Chick Corea/Herbie Hancock duo gig from a musician’s perspective.  This is most helpful:  now I have a pretty good idea of what went down.  Sounds like it was better than that boring double LP from back in the day.  (I’ve looked in vain for some blog review of the previous night of Chick Corea and Marcus Roberts, which a qualified authority told me was incredible.)

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All this internet activity is great, but iMac is already our Big Brother.  Let’s at least give it the silent treatment once in a while.  Jeremy Denk offers some relevant thoughts. 

My own little protest against every kind of entertainment becoming digital was shamelessly displayed in my Chicago hotel room.

I encourage everyone to have the same New Year’s resolutions that I always do:  turn off the computer, go to more live shows. 

See you in 2012.

12/20/2011

Last night TBP opened at the Jazz Showcase in Chicago and will be there through Sunday.  I wrote about the Showcase and the Jazz Record Mart last year. 

Yesterday I bought a few CDs at the Mart:

Jazz from Keystone, Thunder and Rainbows This is the only trio record with Kenny Kirkland and Jeff Watts.  It's good but I wonder if any of those mid-90 nights at Zinno's were taped.  I think I have this already -- I've certainly heard it a few times -- but I don't remember this title and packaging.

Bill Easley Sextet, Easley Said  Easley is just a name to me, as is Bill Mobley, but I'm interested in the year, 1994, and the rhythm section Donald Brown, Ron Carter, and Billy Higgins.  There really aren't enough records of Ron and Billy together, and I keep wanting to learn more about Brown.  George Coleman is on it too, a musician I keep circling warily.  I'm not always a fan but not too long ago I finally heard the Elvin Jones trio stuff with Wilbur Little and was shocked.   You cannot play more saxophone than Coleman does on the post-Coltrane blues "By George."

Charles Sullivan, Re-Entry This is finally reissued, it used to be hard to find.  According to Kenny Washington, this has some amazing Billy Hart on it.  Buster Williams is on it too:  anything with Buster and Billy together is going to be incredible.

Composed and Performed by Alexander Berne is a three CD set,  The Soprano Saxophone Choir, The Saduk, and The Abandoned Orchestra. I hung out with Berne a bit about 20 years ago but we've lost touch.  I didn't even know he had any records out.  This is from 2010.  Looking quickly around I discovered this thread with biography.  Hey, Alex!  How the hell are you? 

Benny Golson, This is for You, John Recorded at the same time as Cedar Walton/Ron Carter/Jack DeJohnette, which I listened to a little bit with Walton in our interview.  I checked this out first, of course. I assumed it was a jam session but it's actually a carefully arranged set list organized by Golson.  The presence of Pharoah Sanders is fascinating!  He and Jack really go to town -- amusing to hear Cedar's comping in the middle of the madness.  Pretty awesome, really.  Golson's fabulous liner notes explain how each piece relates to his old friend John Coltrane.  I don't accept Coltrane tributes easily but this one is cool.

Starlicker, Double Demon  Nice that it's a band!  I've heard of Rob Mazurek, John Herndon, and Jason Adasiewicz -- and even met some of them on tour -- but hadn't listened to anything yet.  The first track clarifies why they would choose this unusual instrumentation.  Busy rock drums, clear harmony from the vibes, smeary trumpet. Very hip.  Later on tonight I'll keep listening. I've always got to buy some local music.

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After the Showcase, we continue with some nice traditions

23 Minneapolis, MN -- Dakota Jazz Club
25 Minneapolis, MN -- Dakota Jazz Club
26 Minneapolis, MN -- Dakota Jazz Club
27 New York, NY -- The Village Vanguard
28 New York, NY -- The Village Vanguard
29 New York, NY -- The Village Vanguard
30 New York, NY -- The Village Vanguard
31 New York, NY -- The Village Vanguard

January 2012

01 New York, NY -- The Village Vanguard
04 St. Louis, MO -- Jazz at the Bistro
05 St. Louis, MO -- Jazz at the Bistro
06 St. Louis, MO -- Jazz at the Bistro
07 St. Louis, MO -- Jazz at the Bistro
08 Wichita, KS -- Adobe Venue

Actually, we've never been to Wichita before.  See you there.

12/16/2011

Stanley Crouch is 66 today!  It’s too bad everyone can’t spend an evening hanging on his every word as he goes from jazz to the renaissance to race to Harold Bloom to Ralph Ellison to everything else.

All of Crouch is worth reading, but my standard recommendation is The All-American Skin Game, or The Decoy of Race, a sensational collection of wide-ranging essays full of poetic vigor.  Tarantino tapped Stanley to accept his Best Director award at the National Board of Review awards after reading "Eggplant Blues: The Miscegenated Cinema of Quentin Tarantino."  I can understand why: It’s some of the best film criticism I’ve seen.

Like his mentor Ellison, Stanley sees all Americans as Americans first, other ethnicities second.  Still, all good American art has race in it somehow, and no one talks about this more eloquently than Stanley.  Of course, one of the major influences in the African-American experience.  (Stanley would say Negro experience, but I'm not quite there yet.)

Stanley’s time here has been full of extraordinary occasions.  Eventually a talented biographer will fashion an essential story from his life, a life that -- perhaps even more than his great writing -- is his wild and wooly art.

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When the emphasis on traditional values stormed jazz in the 80’s, Stanley was a major force.   Ironically, at this point, Stanley knows more about avant-garde jazz than many of the musicians who followed the Young Lions’s lead.  After all, Stanley was there:  he heard Archie Shepp and the Art Ensemble of Chicago at their height.  He adores Jimmy Lyons and Julius Hemphill.   And he recommends all drummers check out Sunny Murray on Albert Ayler’s Witches and Devils.

I’ve been thinking about the scope of Stanley’s interests since learning that Adrian Ellis is stepping down as Jazz at Lincoln Center’s executive director.   I met with Ellis once and thought he was a really good guy, although that didn't stop me from tweaking JALC’s nose in “Can White Cats Play Jazz?”

In response to my DTM interviews with Wynton and Stanley Crouch, the heads of JALC invited me to a meeting last year.  I immediately demanded that JALC give avant-garde masters more gigs, arguing that they are under an ethical responsibility to present and document the music at its best, even if it wasn’t going to fill seats or be popular with staff.   And plenty of older avant-garde masters need the gigs!   Crouch loves Bobby Bradford:  why the hell hasn’t Bradford been celebrated at JALC? 

My demands haven’t been met yet, but these things take a while.  After they read this blog entry maybe I’ll get another phone call.  (UPDATE: Adrian Ellis emailed to say, "We are working on it, honest!")

I got an email from Yulun Wang of Pi Recordings last night:

Seth Rosner and I recently had a really good meeting with Adrian Ellis to discuss possibilities for JALC to widen the purview of their programming. Your name came up as someone with whom they recently had a very similar conversation. Adrian was quite encouraging, saying that they have for some time been internally discussing the possibility of converting one of their existing spaces into a venue for alternative programming. 

Wang and I are both worried that with Ellis stepping down, any momentum to get more avant-garde music a hearing at JALC will be lost.

I finally worked at JALC for the first time last week, in Billy Hart’s quartet with Mark Turner and Ben Street at Dizzy’s. It was really great: the staff were sweethearts and the soundmen were pros. It’s fabulous that JALC is there. (The day that Stanley Crouch met Rudy Giuliani and asked that New York have a major home for jazz will be a good chapter in that biography.)

Props to Will Friedwald of the Wall Street Journal for reviewing several jazz gigs a week, old-school style. Friedwald wrote of our gig, “This is some of the deepest, heaviest, most profound music I've ever heard at Dizzy's—in fact, were it not for the Christmas wreaths on the bandstand, I might have thought I was at the Vanguard or some venue even further downtown.”

That’s a dream pull quote, although I’ve regularly heard some really profound music at Dizzy’s -- Cedar Walton, Frank Wess, Mulgrew Miller, others.  The point is that the Billy Hart band played experimental music every set, and the reviewer noticed.  It’s only going to help JALC the more they open their doors to all kinds of jazz.

As JALC looks to find a new executive director, let them know on blogs and in print that it is both their ethical responsibility and in their best interest to program new music.

12/14/2011

I admit that Christopher O'Riley is a good friend of mine.  But even if he was a stranger, I'd be knocked out by his collaboration with Matt Haimovitz, Shuffle. Play. Listen.  This two-CD set is packed with astonishing cello-piano music.  Alexandra Gardner does a nice job parsing the second disc comprised of O'Reilly's vivid transcriptions of rock and fusion.  But I'm here to tell you the "classical" side is now one of my favorite records.

Leoš Janáček's Pohádka has a marvelous atmosphere, veiled and mysterious.  The score is almost underwritten:  the performers have to be fully invested in each cryptic utterance.  (I've got to listen to more Janáček.)  Bohuslav Martinů is from a similar school and his Variations on a Slovak Folksong begin with a rather bluesy piano statement.  In Stravinsky's familiar Suite Italianne Haimovitz and O'Reilly have the right kind of blustery lyricism.  I just adore the way "wrong" notes only occasionally peek out during Igor's mostly conventional harmonization of old Italian tunes.

The unquestionable highlight of the disk, however, is O'Riley's arrangement of Bernard Hermann's score to Vertigo.  I know the soundtrack well, and am astonished by how well it works as a recital piece for virtuoso cello and piano.  Chris sent me a nice note about it:

I've been doing pretty literal transcriptions of much of the Psycho music for solo piano, and so doing Vertigo was a natural consequent. Again, the real stretch had two-fold origins/ramifications: Matt and Luna were instrumental in exacting how much technical boundary-stretching was worth the eventuating sound-result, and how much could be reorchestrated vis-à-vis different octaves; and I, in turn, when things like the tumultuous and necessarily section-based kineticism of say, "The Nightmare" presented obstacles, it was again just a matter of stacking up Bernie's already suggestive and comprehensive mode-set.

In line with the title of the album, the Vertigo suite is spread out, "shuffled" between the longer classical pieces.  However, after you import to your Mp3 player, there's nothing to stop you from enjoying a playlist of just Vertigo.

Shuffle. Play. Listen. is on Oxingale Records, Haimovitz's own label.  Among many other fine releases I recommend the moving interpretation of Bach's solo cello music.  All of O'Riley's records are great, too.  But if you can find it, his older Stravinsky recital on Nonesuch is simply sensational.  

Both Matt and Chris play the standard rep as well as it can be done.  They both also challenge the notion that classical music is only for the landed gentry.  In the future they will be hailed as trailblazers.   

12/13/2011

Everywhere I go people ask me about Nicholas Payton!

Ultimately, I have to defend him, at least on matters of race.  Almost all Americans love American music but only a small percentage consider the social ramifications:  American music owes its charisma to those brought here as slaves.  Even though Civil Rights happened, inequity remains.

Some of my favorite late-‘50s and '60s jazz has an important political element. This aspect is covered in the thrilling essay “Jazz and Race, the Big Elephant in the Room” by Atane Ofiaja.

Perhaps this current internet ferment could spark some powerful music.  The avant-garde must be included, though.  You gotta have the avant-garde when making some seriously provocative jazz. Maybe it’s already happening  -- the politically aware ensemble Tarbaby (Oliver Lake, Eric Revis, Orrin Evans, Nasheet Waits) is going into the studio right around now.   Brooklyn Circle with Stacy Dillard, Diallo House, and Ismail Lawal is still bewildering the terrified populace every other Saturday late night at Smalls.

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I addressed an earlier Payton tweet in the incomplete statement that I still stand by,  “From the Ground Up.”  This essay angered some on Twitter but I’m not aware of any longer blog posts taking me to task.  However, Angelika Beener (one of those who got mad) has indirectly responded with this profile of Kris Bowers.  Almost all the names in the piece are new to me; I’m looking forward to checking them all out.

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I’ll be even more excited to check out any of these young musicians if they jettison the old leader-centric model in favor of bands.

I like Nicholas Payton’s music best when he is a superb jazz trumpet player in a jam session. He shines on some 2002 YouTube videos with Kenny Garrett, Dave Kikoski, Christian McBride, and Roy Haynes.  It's not just Payton:  Everyone in this quintet is a leader of near-miraculous skill, brought together for the elder statesman behind the drums.

But in a way this is also a missed opportunity.  Although they might have needed a younger drummer, this could have been a collective that stayed together, argued about arrangements, brought in only their best compositions, split the money evenly, and forged a band sound that evolved from high-echelon jam session to something instantly identifiable by everyone everywhere.

That was something the second generation Young Lions really missed: collectives.  Collectives are not just good artistically, they are good economically.  You stay together and build your career.  If there are no gigs, you take one for the team and wait it out until next month.

On my previous sally, I neglected this important point, but it came to mind when reading Dwayne Burno’s comments on George Colligan’s post, “Much Ado about Nicholas Payton.”

Like Payton, Burno likes to put it out there, and I support him for doing so.  A previous endorsement is buried in my own comment thread from a few months ago.  (“As I've said before: OK, you are pissed about some older black musician bitching about young white players knowing nothing about real jazz?  Fine.  First, play a medium up blues duo with Dwayne Burno and sound completely comfortable.  After that, let's talk.”)

Late in the firestorm of that amazing thread on Colligan’s blog, Burno says: "Anyone that knows, knows my name is high at the New York list and I fall within the top ten to fifteen calls and have since age 19 (1989)."

Burno is right about this. He’s a top call cat.

But what does that mean anymore?  Sure, that meant something profound in the era of Paul Chambers.  But now?  In his interview with Colligan, Burno says, "I wholeheartedly believe the music industry fucked up everything within the music and mostly through the 'Young Liars' movement. This created or exacerbated the schism between the generations which has remained and will never go away." 

I interpret this to mean that there are too many young leaders.  So if you are a young "top call,"  you go from one like-minded leader to another, making music even a die-hard fan like me can’t easily identify on WBGO.

Rather than be a "top call," Burno should be in a band of equals.  I’ve always admired George Colligan’s first record from 1995, Activism, with Burno and my hero Ralph Peterson.  Perhaps it’s even a modern classic.  I’m sure there are plenty of good reasons why this trio didn’t stay together or make any more records.   But if they had been at it since, loving and fighting each other all the way, in 2012 their music would be insane.

I’m done buying records of top call cats treating each other as sidemen.  It’s time for “top calls” to be “the only call.”  If anyone in the band isn’t available, then:  no gig.

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It’s true that the jazz industry wants leaders.  Not only that, once that leader gets off the ground, they demand fresh projects. Sam Newsome’s pointed “Are We Selling Our Music Short in an Effort to Work?” has an amazing story about an early interaction with a record label.

It’s not just Sam.  I guarantee that every successful leader has had their team beg them for new bands and projects in order to get press and gigs.

Maybe that model used to work a little bit.  Now, with so few gigs and almost no print press that means anything, that model is irrelevant.  I’d love it if some of Bowers’s generation followed a different model used by successful new rock bands:  get the fans first. Record labels and tours will follow. 

Of course, there’s no real money for anyone for years. Everyone has to pitch in to make it happen. You gotta have a band.  

12/12/2011