Do not be alarmed, but this is something like 18,000 words. Regular DTM readers who find "jazz analysis" oppressive are advised to come back next week.
1. Destination: Out! guest post.
2. Lennie Tristano/Barack Obama
3. Warne Marsh + Lee Konitz/Sal Mosca/Bill Evans
Lennie Tristano: His Life In Music by Eunmi Shim (University of Michigan Press, 2007)
Jazz Visions: Lennie Tristano and His Legacy by Peter Ind (Equinox, 2005)
An Unsung Cat: The Life and Music of Warne Marsh by Safford Chamberlain (Scarecrow Press, 2002)
Lee Konitz: Conversations on the Improvisor's Art by Andy Hamilton (University of Michigan Press, 2007)
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Barack Obama, speech in Philadelphia, March 18, 2008:
The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we've never really worked through -- a part of our union that we have yet to perfect.
And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.
Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, "The past isn't dead and buried. In fact, it isn't even past."
(The whole speech can be viewed on YouTube. A transcript is at the Huffington Post. )
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I am inspired by Obama’s wonderful speech to give a stern look at a famous example of segregation in jazz.
This is a brief look at Lennie Tristano's most famous students. (The Tristano post should be read first.)
It has been a real pleasure to get to know Warne Marsh's and Lee Konitz's discographies a little better. Marsh and Konitz will always be linked to Tristano, but the more I listen the more I notice the differences, not the similarities.
Continue reading "Warne Marsh + Lee Konitz/Sal Mosca/Bill Evans" »
(This is a digression from the Tristano post.)
The most powerful black jazz critic of our era is unquestionably Stanley Crouch. He has reservations about the Tristano school.
(This is a digression from the Lennie Tristano post.)
Big thanks to Ashley Kahn for taking these photos of TBP's recent gig at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage festival.. It was a great hit; we also met a lot of interesting fans and ate incredible food.
I am hosting a tricky one over at D: O! (Update: the site is back up.)
Next week, answers and elaborations. (Due to server problems, the follow-up post will be slightly delayed.)
The honorable tradition of surreal jazz pianists was furthered in the 1980’s by Geri Allen. She showed up on a lot of different types of gigs and was always an x-factor; unafraid of straight-ahead jazz but committed to playing her own concept.
This was a message I took to heart as a teenager. Looking over her website’s discography I am surprised to see how many of those albums I have at least heard (if not always owned) and in many cases her presence was the main reason for my interest. My peers Craig Taborn and Jason Moran also consider her work in this era to be really important.
A terrific example of her “x-factor quality” is on YouTube, performing at Newport with the Ralph Peterson quintet. She is the only musician onstage who plays with a surreal edge. Her approach here is connected to her avowed influence Eric Dolphy.
This video reminds me of my serious adolescent crush on her back then, too. I used to moon over her photo on the above Peterson disc Triangular quite a bit. When I saw her gig at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis with Anthony Cox and Pheeroan Aklaff I quit my crush; the gig was too revelatory for me to continuing to relate to her in any but the most serious way.
I am playing with two of my greatest heroes, Charlie Haden and Paul Motian, next week at the Village Vanguard. One of my main influences is Keith Jarrett, especially the Jarrett quartet with Haden, Motian, and Dewey Redman, which in turn is one of the main influences on TBP. There are no musicians who understand Charlie and Paul better than Reid Anderson and David King, and there can be no better preparation to working with Charlie and Paul than playing 150 gigs a year with Reid and Dave.
Just like Reid and Dave, I have been careful to pare away all but vestigial elements of Jarrett-quartet influences in my playing. Next week, though, it might be tougher than usual not to senselessly “Jarrett-out” except for Geri Allen, who made several terrific albums with Haden and Motian herself. She is inspired by pianists like Thelonious Monk and Herbie Nichols, pianists Jarrett has almost nothing to do with; his inspirations are Bill Evans and Paul Bley.
Of course, both Allen and Jarrett are inspired by many more pianists, especially Bud Powell. But I don’t think it is too reductionist to say that
Thelonious Monk - Herbie Nichols - Geri Allen
is one stream in the music and that
Bill Evans - Paul Bley - Keith Jarrett
is another.
At any rate, when I get onstage with Haden and Motian, I know, thanks to records like Etudes, that all my options are open.
I have paid attention to all six of those pianists; Paul Motian can boast of having played with every one. I’m really looking forward to next week.
DJA on Jimmy Giuffre (with links to more).
Kyle Gann on Henry Brant. I was also at the performance of 500: Hidden Hemisphere at Lincoln Center in 1992. One of the great things about that gig was that they played the piece twice in a row, a procedure that should happen more often for new music.
Upcoming TBP performances:
April
30 Greenville, SC -- The Handlebar
May
01 Athens, GA -- The Melting Point
02 New Orleans, LA -- New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival
03 Orlando, FL -- The Social
04 West Palm Beach, FL -- Sunfest
12 Columbus, OH -- Wexner Center for the Arts
13 Cleveland, OH -- Nighttown
14 Cleveland, OH -- Nighttown
15 San Francisco, CA -- Palace of Fine Arts Theatre
16 Visalia, CA -- The Cellar Door
17 Fallon, NV -- Oats Park Arts Center
22 Seattle, WA -- Tractor Tavern
23 Juneau, AK -- Juneau-Douglas Auditorium
24 Calgary, AB -- Quincy's
We are delighted to finish out the month at the Banff International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music from 5/25 - 6/1. Alert: there is a new Dave Douglas + Keystone recording available at Greenleaf.
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The trio of Charlie Haden, Ethan Iverson, and Paul Motian plays at the Village Vanguard from May 6 to 12. (More on this later in the week.)
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Christopher O'Riley has posted an extraordinary virtuoso arrangement of "Anthem for the Earnest" on his blog. Thank you so much, Chris! It is a real thrill hearing someone else play our music.
Broadway is usually too expensive and overproduced for Sarah and me. But we were told sternly by people who should know that we must see the current revival of Gypsy starring Patti Lupone. They were right: it was easily the most profound experience I’ve had on Broadway.
Somehow I had never seen Gypsy before; I think I was unimpressed with “Everything Is Coming Up Roses,” the only song from the show that is a jazz standard. So during the first fifteen minutes I was just horrified. It was like being at a supremely over-priced talent show or something.
But as the show moved along, I began to feel my eyes begin to water uncontrollably.
Unusually for the form, the power of Gypsy lies perhaps not in the songs (Jule Styne or Stephen Sondheim) but in the book by Arthur Laurents, which conjures the most thickly-textured emotions imaginable in musical theater.
The reviews and buzz have concentrated on Lupone, who is indeed astonishing. No praise is high enough. And the other performers, especially Laura Benati and Boyd Gaines, are great too.
But crucial to Gypsy’s powerful effect is the old-fashioned simplicity of the staging, which was done by the 90-year old Arthur Laurents himself. At some point I was aware of a strange loop beginning to happen between the foreground of the performance and the background of the actual performer’s lives. (How true this is confirmed in the cast notes, where most of the performers thank their mother.)
The production subtly encourages these meta qualities by never turning into something grandiose. The thread is gently spun out and the emotional lives of the characters grow and grow. No one is a villain and no one is a hero. It is just like life, and at the end I could barely get up from my seat.
The internet gives Doctor Who much, much love. Anything you want to know about DW is on here somewhere.
As readers of DTM know, I have a serious relationship with Tom Baker-era Doctor Who. (I keep hearing about young Americans watching the new series and loving it. This is most gratifying, although I haven't seen much of it myself yet.)
A kindly sage has notified me that Stephen Gallagher has a blog. Gallagher wrote the scripts to "Warriors Gate" and "Terminus," and also did the Target Novelisations under the name John Lydecker.
"Warrior's Gate" is famously controversial among fans (as a kid I didn't understand it at all). As soon as I have a moment I want to see it again. "Terminus" (starring not Baker but Peter Davidson) was a pretty good serial but -- as I recall from over twenty years ago -- a really great YA book. After reading his blog, I plan to acquire some of Gallagher's recent writing.
This terrific post confirms and strengthens my feelings about modern CGI technology versus old-school imagination.
TBP has spent the last week at Pachyderm, the same studio where we recorded Prog. The new album is in the can and we all feel great about it.
It was engineered by Brent Sigmeth (MySpace). Brent has been around Pachyderm for awhile; he runs the board like a virtuoso. His first day at work was Nirvana's first day of In Utero. There are scans of a great Mojo article on In Utero featuring Brent here; it is well worth downloading the scans, putting them in Preview, and zooming in to read (they aren't too pixelated).
Next week we send it off to England for Tchad Blake to mix. We aren't going to reveal more now except to say there's a big surprise on it.
(This remarkable photo is by John Crosley, appropriated from here.)
iN Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame baloonmanwhistles far and wee
and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
springwhen the world is puddle-wonderful
the queer
old baloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancingfrom hop-scotch and jump-rope and
it's
spring
and
thegoat-footed
baloonMan whistles
far
and
wee
-- e. e. c. (1894-1962)
