tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91844537047230606012024-03-18T21:11:06.081-07:00snake hornrevelations about jazzGrover T. Bicknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310133734294990979noreply@blogger.comBlogger25125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9184453704723060601.post-42062107804696751012020-05-14T06:45:00.000-07:002020-05-14T06:45:22.142-07:00Ben Webster's Uncanny Sense of Time: John Hardy's Wife (Live)<h4 style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white;">Here's some outrageous Ben Webster for hard core fans or for anyone curious to hear him stretch out in the years before LPs, during the time he was part of the </span><a class="profileLink" data-hovercard-prefer-more-content-show="1" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/group.php?id=154536548041979&extragetparams=%7B%22fref%22%3A%22mentions%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/dukeellington/?fref=mentions" style="background-color: white; cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;">Duke Ellington</a><span style="background-color: white;"> band. He recorded John Hardy's Wife with Duke, not to be missed. But this track is with Woody Herman sidemen and has far more blowing by The Brute. There are two sections that feature him--don't miss his return at about 2:19. To me, this solo is one example of how advanced he really was. (Bird gave it up for him, after all.) Listen to the way he cuts up the time during his second chorus, at 3:44. Then something weird happens: he seems to flounder on one note and the band takes over and ends the song early. I think he must have broken his reed, or his horn, because he had been playing so hard! </span><a data-ft="{"tn":"-U"}" data-lynx-mode="asynclazy" data-lynx-uri="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D4Q8jji2X4Zg%26fbclid%3DIwAR0Xu2k2-Pnl62Uojca9mJ9n2wGslOPqs9HT-RvscCKoUIB5FMZrj7PCc0U&h=AT0yq6lPOlC43rSUbPQpScbF3WCz0zNETbbSHIuSvGWlF6C-nk8mm64n_dPS43z0FAemAO3MeffrRpK9fZfuqDF7izKCPVesJ7I_8_Kp5xulOcas0gYQTswQZSgMNX0Lp5Q7xpCkCr0ih3bqco5D1-z9CUs" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q8jji2X4Zg&fbclid=IwAR0Xu2k2-Pnl62Uojca9mJ9n2wGslOPqs9HT-RvscCKoUIB5FMZrj7PCc0U" rel="noopener nofollow" style="background-color: white; cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q8jji2X4Zg</a></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilnFWst4unXNLg5w0QbG94z2zsJz3DepKGs_Oz-WRBk7Ty2CKN3gjAY6UBm9Ud4YtVmBprD-uqZD9lgQq6MKFB6MMIN8aCeGSZ22ZSrGOn_IQcrjkxrEKcIAPsyFKW49OAhsGtJp1a0Aw/s1600/Ben_Webster%252C_ca._October_1947_%2528William_P._Gottlieb_08931%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilnFWst4unXNLg5w0QbG94z2zsJz3DepKGs_Oz-WRBk7Ty2CKN3gjAY6UBm9Ud4YtVmBprD-uqZD9lgQq6MKFB6MMIN8aCeGSZ22ZSrGOn_IQcrjkxrEKcIAPsyFKW49OAhsGtJp1a0Aw/s1600/Ben_Webster%252C_ca._October_1947_%2528William_P._Gottlieb_08931%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="781" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilnFWst4unXNLg5w0QbG94z2zsJz3DepKGs_Oz-WRBk7Ty2CKN3gjAY6UBm9Ud4YtVmBprD-uqZD9lgQq6MKFB6MMIN8aCeGSZ22ZSrGOn_IQcrjkxrEKcIAPsyFKW49OAhsGtJp1a0Aw/s320/Ben_Webster%252C_ca._October_1947_%2528William_P._Gottlieb_08931%2529.jpg" width="244" /></span></a></div>
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<br />Grover T. Bicknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310133734294990979noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9184453704723060601.post-55434097900438763132018-10-28T08:05:00.001-07:002018-10-28T08:05:24.157-07:00Box. Midnight<br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Did you say you saw death and danger there? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I saw you there. You were across the room. We thought we
knew each other. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Some were drawing their magic circle and dancing. We looked
forward to see the avant-garde. Their name stood high, up to the street. Four
walls joined a club that might not have you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We went down to be there, hear, watch, be diverted. Did we fall
into a hole?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Someone could find fallen women, lost brothers, artists clinging
to the rugged ledges of their angst to keep from forgetfulness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Did you say you heard death and danger?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You surprised me with who you were. That was the only thing
I could have expected. You made the room what you are. Others there who were
not you told me who I am.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We heard about freedom from ones who had lost. They had not
even decided what they would do when they got it back. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We saw what we might be able to do, though, if we looked well ahead,
projected on the walls of our very own catacomb, before we knew we could do it.
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We escaped, we made love, and then fell upward.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You say you felt death and danger? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Grover T. Bicknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310133734294990979noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9184453704723060601.post-4242925771006821092018-06-18T14:23:00.002-07:002018-06-18T14:35:29.414-07:00A Modernist Byas<div class="Standard">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This
track shows Don Byas’ mastery of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3C-uO7v28sI">a standard of the hard bop repertoire, Jordu</a>.
He is thoroughly comfortable with the frequent chord changes and his style fits
the rapid harmonic pivoting necessary to play or imply them.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj25XU-raO0bnWQvGoiETq1CeQVu_9Qe3vkw4ZJ6ibLYxOj1TzqYj4e9aGKFuLO_qhZFNomhnMI4_E-QTa3XTFdFOeR6fTkwJooC132GnQfjwC_v0ltAZZIEP3-olDVoW6Jue81dpRQIkQ/s1600/don-byas-concertgebouw-amsterdam.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1203" height="319" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj25XU-raO0bnWQvGoiETq1CeQVu_9Qe3vkw4ZJ6ibLYxOj1TzqYj4e9aGKFuLO_qhZFNomhnMI4_E-QTa3XTFdFOeR6fTkwJooC132GnQfjwC_v0ltAZZIEP3-olDVoW6Jue81dpRQIkQ/s320/don-byas-concertgebouw-amsterdam.png" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Critics
and historians don’t know what to do with Byas. They wind up giving him short
shrift. He unsettles the narrative that modern jazz (aka bop, bebop, rebop) was
created one day in 1942. And that is a narrative many of them take as an
article of faith.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The
narrative says that swing preceded modern jazz. Don Byas is both. At the same
time. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Because
he can do both, musically. And he was part of both, historically.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Byas
cut his eye teeth in territory big bands during the 1930s—the “Swing Era.”
(Actually, he was already gigging in the late 1920s, when he was in his late
teens). Then he came to New York with Basie in 1941, just after Lester Young
left.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Byas
then participated in jam sessions at Minton’s that were supposed to have been
founding moments for the main currents of what we think of and hear as “jazz”
today. (I’m sure they were in fact, but Charlie Parker did not like Minton’s
and there has to be more to the story.) He was there with Thelonious Monk and
Charlie Christian.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Parker
heard Byas and was influenced by him. Byas probably heard Parker and in turn
was influenced by him. They were original, quick, and had their ears to the
ground. For those who do want to trace lineages, both greatly admired Art
Tatum.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And
all saxophonists to come along later knew him. When Byas played in Europe, John
Coltrane used to sit in the audience, saying nothing, and listen all night
(according to a Byas interview.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Fast
forward to 1970. Byas came to the US to tour with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers.
Hard bop. Blakey knew what Byas could do. As Dizzy said simply: "Don Byas was a master."</span></div>
Grover T. Bicknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310133734294990979noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9184453704723060601.post-46189565682550453162018-03-26T08:22:00.002-07:002018-05-06T08:18:23.780-07:00John Coltrane is Sendin’ Out Good Vibrato<br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">People say that modern jazz horn playing left vibrato
behind, left it in the fusty old pre-modern eons of ragtime and swing. That’s what they say. But it’s not true.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">John Coltrane is as progressive as you can get. He uses
vibrato. Why do they say that vibrato ended with the swing era? Charlie Parker,
bebop avatar, used a marked vibrato. Coltrane used it too—and he used it to striking effect even when he was at his
edgiest, during his brilliantly scorching last years. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">So let me say it again: Coltrane used vibrato. Coltrane
used a very distinct vibrato on his slower songs. He also used it when he
played fast, at times when he played a note long enough to hear vibrato. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgstNBNACEZl6QMxYhfkrDlRcMK3y9ikrDETxPIJa3XLhaiqiOKNhEhPhMcc5r1yCr32u3thnWHoik9Aj1mNh1Cp8c7G2E_DaapLjkfjeEl2cLfeQG1nCqSbYE_7iF57v_TNfvsfDX72KM/s1600/dizzy-gillespie-jazz-musicians+AND+COLTRANE.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="463" data-original-width="599" height="247" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgstNBNACEZl6QMxYhfkrDlRcMK3y9ikrDETxPIJa3XLhaiqiOKNhEhPhMcc5r1yCr32u3thnWHoik9Aj1mNh1Cp8c7G2E_DaapLjkfjeEl2cLfeQG1nCqSbYE_7iF57v_TNfvsfDX72KM/s320/dizzy-gillespie-jazz-musicians+AND+COLTRANE.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">You can hear it on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GozbmI5-6Zo">“Nature Boy”</a> from the LP released as The
John Coltrane Quartet Plays Chim Chim Cheree etc. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">You can hear it—on longer held notes—on “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dvp9K6K2Rl8">Transition</a>,” from
the album <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwj4Cx7Xz3A">Transition</a>. Late ‘Trane at his most cutting edge.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">You can hear it in his early years, of course, with <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCTXcUGKcw8">Johnny Hodges</a> and with <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8kf9RIBltY">Tadd Dameron</a>. (I'm saying this just in case you thought Coltrane adopted
vibrato later on in </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">his career.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Read my lips: Coltrane used vibrato. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p><br /></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmJzBO5WrpeiXm4-EMY2KAI8mif0QvpQ-SxusZbKIRKTs0Stwngm5G1qeSdvaaXVE8qiiBR69_UmFnQVNDvms3LHujkiuS6cbzc_nqJI8nnt2YGXGXqc_1dFjHjzSpi3CPL4qsAF9Ft0A/s1600/Music-tremolo.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmJzBO5WrpeiXm4-EMY2KAI8mif0QvpQ-SxusZbKIRKTs0Stwngm5G1qeSdvaaXVE8qiiBR69_UmFnQVNDvms3LHujkiuS6cbzc_nqJI8nnt2YGXGXqc_1dFjHjzSpi3CPL4qsAF9Ft0A/s1600/Music-tremolo.png" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Ahhh, but what kind of vibrato did he use?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Actually, tremolo may be closer to what Coltrane, in
particular, is using on the “Nature Boy” version linked above. Yes, it’s a
consistent, rapid wave or oscillation in tone quality, but it’s more of a
change of timbre than of pitch (or pitch and timbre). Tremolo.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">That kind of vibrato has to come more from the larynx and
the diaphragm than from the jaw or the lip itself. The latter is more
mechanical, easier, and has a correspondingly more obvious and crude effect.(It's often used to cover up intonation problems, so is frowned on.) The former has a profoundly soulful, passionate effect because it comes from
inside. The rapid pitch-variant vibrato is, in fact, more characteristic of some early jazz, and that approach is truly out of fashion. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I've heard that the rapid shivering of pitch, to the point where the tone
seems to detach into separate repeated notes, was called the “quiver” school.
That’s according to reedman Haywood Henry, who told me in the early 1990s. You
might hear it on early Fletcher Henderson records or those of other Northern bands of
the 20s. Here's one by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkHOkq7DJxw">Clarence Williams</a> featuring the otherwise excellent <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buster_Bailey">Buster Bailey</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Soloists in the New Orleans tradition, forerunners
though they may be, are not really playing in the “quiver” mode. They had vibrato
aplenty—but not in the rapid, constant mode of the quiver school, a more
Northern trend of that day. Louis Armstrong used a terminal vibrato: a strong
attack, then a widening of the note with a corresponding widening and
strengthening of the vibrato toward its end. It’s more blues oriented, I would
say. Coleman Hawkins followed Louis in this. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It’s good to bear in mind that opera had enormous prestige
in those days, and all of these jazz players in New Orleans and in New York
listened to and respected it. It's interesting that even opera at that time had adopted vibrato fairly
recently, toward the end of the 19<sup>th</sup> century, as halls grew larger,
and singers and soloists used it to project. So, yes, vibrato--or a certain kind of vibrato--is rooted in its time and an article of fashion rather than necessity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-GFKmZY-Mo">Lester Young</a> had a more subtle approach, closer to
Coltrane’s tremolo. Milt Jackson thought this was the really soulful way to
play vibrato—the slow way—and he certainly put that in practice with the vibraphone rotors he called his
“soul” and which were essential not only to his sound quality but his subtle rhythmic approach. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Coltrane, meanwhile, respected Lester Young and held that respect
throughout his career. Today, only <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Stw7sS49s_A">Pharaoh Sanders</a> has any element of
Coltrane’s transcendent, spiritual vibrato feeling. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0nRnT01fb3wmrSJdsJL_FDjZVkxgVEcMvUKRjGhltYVny0G07JU7WS03Gnftegh0uJ3BvqPDlpoOR7zEUZRjpyGPnPvmL0k3nvUC6pr8eeb_0no0lQbzcXiw00RqTfmPdXabmHI0Ias0/s1600/pharoah-sanders-jazz-musicians.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="291" data-original-width="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0nRnT01fb3wmrSJdsJL_FDjZVkxgVEcMvUKRjGhltYVny0G07JU7WS03Gnftegh0uJ3BvqPDlpoOR7zEUZRjpyGPnPvmL0k3nvUC6pr8eeb_0no0lQbzcXiw00RqTfmPdXabmHI0Ias0/s1600/pharoah-sanders-jazz-musicians.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">But those who say we are wholly past vibrato are right
about one thing: vibrato has a history, and its history parallels that of
jazz’s expressive, coloristic horn techniques. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Grover T. Bicknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310133734294990979noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9184453704723060601.post-54196279679368954242017-12-25T19:00:00.003-08:002017-12-25T19:02:53.090-08:00. . . or else listen to Ben Webster say it in his own words (Daily Toot)Don't be satisfied what I say about Ben Webster's phrasing. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gflSLpQtoQ">Listen to what he says about it himself.</a><br />
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Webster is rehearsing a Danish big band playing a transcribed arrangement of one of his solos. He wants it a certain way and they're not getting it, or not right off.<br />
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"You've got to cut it off," he says about one single note. He's saying that the how you say it is as important as the what. In this particular case, he's saying that playing one note, one very important one, shorter rather than longer is a way of emphasizing it, showing it's what you want the listener to remember.<br />
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In another clip from this rehearsal, he makes his point in a surprising metaphor, "When the bee stings you, he dies. But the stinger stays in you." Accents don't just stand out within the musical surface, they echo in our attention span, framing everything and communicating how the player feels about the notes.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaure4rVhMymvvK1x_bQGIuOKVyQBuRg8aDNW0-9-u4NkihFhYSa8oD35JO61WWJzX040Qqu42gIF03DZyFWPbxzsrFh0CYJBIiqeFv_7NKeu9brb4ANAtWI8tOYWXeMw4XWVgBjnN6zc/s1600/440px-Notation_accents1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="97" data-original-width="440" height="70" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaure4rVhMymvvK1x_bQGIuOKVyQBuRg8aDNW0-9-u4NkihFhYSa8oD35JO61WWJzX040Qqu42gIF03DZyFWPbxzsrFh0CYJBIiqeFv_7NKeu9brb4ANAtWI8tOYWXeMw4XWVgBjnN6zc/s320/440px-Notation_accents1.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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Listen to the whole rehearsal, through all the different takes. (YouTube will suggest the other takes from this session to you.) It's not only revelatory: it's entertaining.<br />
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gflSLpQtoQGrover T. Bicknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310133734294990979noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9184453704723060601.post-58375264254332710312017-12-13T10:47:00.003-08:002017-12-13T11:34:47.969-08:00Daily Toot: Ben Webster<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Ben Webster, if anyone, has that rubato, portamento quality I've tried to account for in talking about <a href="https://snakehorn.blogspot.com/2017/12/billie-holidays-emotional-life-and-words.html">Billie Holiday</a>. Particularly in both of their approach to rhythm.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqefV-Ay3Rg">This YT clip is as good as any example of Webster's style.</a> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Webster's solo, on "Did You Call Her Today"? is between 3:29 and 5:33. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-yiPUrVPhOshnBc76WZUTgy19FoSZViZtetoN-bPQUUX4oOlM9VvgP6lWhn4MV-e1OBtx7lBhBAjuP3lbrOyTnw9xV9NpdFff4ugUfE2JBlUQdzt5MA-sSy0H3aqxoIq-Owgh3Hrw4HI/s1600/Ben_Webster%252C_ca._October_1947_%2528William_P._Gottlieb_08931%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="781" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-yiPUrVPhOshnBc76WZUTgy19FoSZViZtetoN-bPQUUX4oOlM9VvgP6lWhn4MV-e1OBtx7lBhBAjuP3lbrOyTnw9xV9NpdFff4ugUfE2JBlUQdzt5MA-sSy0H3aqxoIq-Owgh3Hrw4HI/s320/Ben_Webster%252C_ca._October_1947_%2528William_P._Gottlieb_08931%2529.jpg" width="244" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Listen to how he stretches and squeezes both the note lengths and pitches. But he has a steady beat underneath. This medium tempo is a great place to hear it, because the underlying beat is stated strongly. Both by the rhythm section, and by Webster in certain accented notes.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Students ask me: how do I practice something like that? First, I'd say, you have to have a solid sense of where the time and pitch are, down to the microtones and microbeats. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">You can bend a note--but you have to have an idea about where you're bending to or from. You have to hear it, as well as lip it. Ditto for stinging or delaying a note: how can you decide when to do that if you don't have a "groove track" in your head? </span>Grover T. Bicknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310133734294990979noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9184453704723060601.post-72320043348649999682017-12-13T10:24:00.000-08:002017-12-13T10:35:52.710-08:00Announcing the Daily TootI'm going to post a link to a performance every day (or, well, regularly I hope). It will feature a wind player, probably mostly saxophone or trumpet, or vocalist.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPU67Wo0Dpr3kPrUYKjcij2IuuqeRG0UWWNrtBQO15yLHxdI6ICdklmMmmf7ufklQvfV3Kk_F2hxCM1DMG69qJTV4w1Y4ptgo2ExE_K41YQVymmjXFdNVYjGNDBBG5v3Qryta-HFkRkHs/s1600/cornu-roman-music.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="314" data-original-width="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPU67Wo0Dpr3kPrUYKjcij2IuuqeRG0UWWNrtBQO15yLHxdI6ICdklmMmmf7ufklQvfV3Kk_F2hxCM1DMG69qJTV4w1Y4ptgo2ExE_K41YQVymmjXFdNVYjGNDBBG5v3Qryta-HFkRkHs/s1600/cornu-roman-music.jpg" /></a></div>
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The breath of life, after all, runs through all our days. Highlights of the piece, as I see them, will be offered in the text, briefly.Grover T. Bicknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310133734294990979noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9184453704723060601.post-21650941557978779332017-12-11T16:34:00.003-08:002017-12-11T17:28:16.092-08:00Billie Holiday’s Emotional Life, and Words<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">We often hear of Billie Holiday’s ability to convey emotion and her freedom in how she places and paints the words of a song. Past that, there is a sense that what she is doing is ineffable: beyond words. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg74yM_6CVwQYjB371HCX8KaoHAAq3qQVIckSCXiTti1SDHNcNfqPM96r526UlnHNDpaxhpVFwfgzS80APRlcyDXbU02p_gAS4zRpO6-Ok-SnvofRJtGTbE1NpoERx0-KbS8MPo9pEtcGI/s1600/Billie-Holiday-Big-Break.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="432" data-original-width="768" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg74yM_6CVwQYjB371HCX8KaoHAAq3qQVIckSCXiTti1SDHNcNfqPM96r526UlnHNDpaxhpVFwfgzS80APRlcyDXbU02p_gAS4zRpO6-Ok-SnvofRJtGTbE1NpoERx0-KbS8MPo9pEtcGI/s400/Billie-Holiday-Big-Break.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In his truly loquacious “The Swing Era,” Gunther Schuller
says that what she does is “in the deepest sense inexplicable.” (529.) I’m not
sure if the root word “to explain” is one I would choose. Whose art, if
it’s worth speaking of, is in fact wholly “explicable"? And which, especially, “in the deepest
sense?” To hear of “explaining” something that rich and varied feels suspiciously
like an urge to fit it into a preset method or scheme, to control it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Still, I can’t accept there are no words at all for the ways
Holiday, or others of her caliber, achieves such compelling emotional effects. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Billie Holiday’s manner of interpretation comes from fully inhabiting
jazz as improvised music. She interrogates her own feelings about the song in
the moment, at nearly every moment, for almost every word, in every performance.
She uses an ample range of nuances of timbre, pitch, and timing to create a
“solo,” like a horn player’s. The effect is to mirror how emotions work, in their subtlety. <o:p></o:p>The musical surface of Holiday’s delivery of the words mirrors the dynamics of emotional life itself.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Holiday, then, does more than just convey raw emotions like happiness
or sadness, though they are there. She is certainly not just pressing musical “buttons”
to elicit them. It’s not that simple. Subtlety and nuance in her phrasing convey more complex
feelings and experiences of them. Listen to her remarkable performance of “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQlehVpcAes">My Man</a>.” Around the song’s eulogy for the lover who beats and who cheats, she
manages to convey regret, remorse, but also passion, defiance, delirium, and transcendence.
There are “mixed feelings” after all: recalled, distanced, qualified, however intense
they may be as raw experience. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">We have the sense that she has lived and
triumphed, or at least survived, ennobling those things. That is the basis for
our identification with her and feeling that she represents us. A simple transmission
of basic emotions we already experience every day would not have that artistic
effect.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">There is craft in this, and craft can be approached with
words (even “explaining” that that craft is inferior to its practice: it ultimately
has to be internalized in the mind and body of the performer). Like the great
jazz instrumentalists, and many singers and players outside of that which is
called jazz, she has uncanny timing. She’s free, but also rooted. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Free, that is, to linger on one note, and stop another short,
as speech does. To push and pull, stretch and sculpt each word or phrase like
the clay a sculptor lovingly treats. That is a singer’s particular musical vocation:
to modulate timbre as speech does in syllables. Try this: say the word “yes”
very slowly and you will hear a wide scope of timbres our tongues and lips can
shape in order to communicate. Then say “yes” that slowly to a lover and you
will know how music or sound has the possibility to re-create or re-enact emotional
life. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Added to her mastery of tone and timbre, Holiday is also firmly
rooted in the beat or groove set by her fellow musicians. For all her rubato
phrasing, she hits many notes squarely on the beat. That is her “secret.” She
places certain words, or their onset, on the quarter or eighth note, in sync
with group’s overall pulse, which anchors other syllables or tropes that delay
or anticipate wildly. She uses accents, and that is essential to swing. I have
confirmed this approach to the secrets of Holiday’s rhythmic feeling in
discussion with <a href="http://www.catherinerussell.net/">Catherine Russell</a>, who should know. (See also John Szwed’s
thorough and essential treatment of Holiday’s singing style, both from an
interpretive and technical point of view, in “<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-art-of-billie-holidays-life">Billie Holiday: the Musician and the Myth</a>,” especially chapters six and seven.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Another freedom Holiday famously allows herself is the liberty
she takes with written melodies, which is a form of improvisation like any
other. She stays fairly close to the melody, and does not scat (create a solo
out of non-verbal syllables) nor leave the meter altogether. What she
accomplishes is a tasteful rethinking of original melody, rather than a
radically different layer on top of the song structure or chords. Her ad lib on
the written song generally winds up to be one that could qualify for a publishable
song itself. An example is the nearly perfect performance of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNoHfHm0jMY">Night and Day</a>, a
masterful song she somehow comments on and does justice to at the same time. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I am not saying anyone should borrow what Holiday feels
about a song. They should be asking how they themselves feel about it, at all
times.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
Grover T. Bicknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310133734294990979noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9184453704723060601.post-2391880434021141332017-02-03T09:31:00.000-08:002017-02-04T12:33:06.696-08:00Dramatic Angles: Lester Young’s Approach to Jazz Solo Development<div class="MsoNormal">
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<b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Introduction: Approaching Lester Young</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Lester Young was a master of solo structure and development.
But, being Lester Young, he had his own approach. I will call Young’s solo structure
“dramatic” and suggest that this approach is one reason his music still sounds
fresh and fertile. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR25I0VmJ08XvCZTThMJ5446rUJP2_WByAPd0mdqmLq0KGCJcf1oWYK6O3JXiDtrZIYeKMG8dugxxNvI3atXnPQhPixFPTkuZL95jG3b29AGfSNPEywF32g9mGjcHBqvVQE29OvnbxLSk/s1600/lester-young-01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR25I0VmJ08XvCZTThMJ5446rUJP2_WByAPd0mdqmLq0KGCJcf1oWYK6O3JXiDtrZIYeKMG8dugxxNvI3atXnPQhPixFPTkuZL95jG3b29AGfSNPEywF32g9mGjcHBqvVQE29OvnbxLSk/s320/lester-young-01.jpg" width="249" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I will suggest some typical solo devices or directions Young
uses and why they can be considered “dramatic.” He is known for telling a story.
But a good story cannot rely on a mere formula to hold itself together. To
grasp the heart of a story, one needs to get at the bonds, junctures, and
transformations between the parts. It is those transitions or contrasts I call
“dramatic.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Some or all of the dramatic elements I hear in Young are
present in almost any solo in his career, early or late, short or long. A thorough, finished article on this subject,
with notated examples, would show how individual temporal devices add up to
create a solo that in some sense can be perceived as an effectively developed
“whole.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">For now, I am simply suggesting an approach to Young’s
music, and mine may be only one among many possible ones. I do not claim to have
found a single “key” to Lester Young’s greatness: that would diminish it. What
I aim to say here is inspired by Young’s music, just like a another solo might
be. Like my own derivative solo, my words have an equally humble status
alongside the richness of this horn player’s legacy. I hope they inspire more
improvisation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Backdrop: Development, Time, and Classic Drama</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I am not the first to bring up Lester Young in a discussion
about jazz solo development. George Russell claimed there are two main
approaches of generating material and building a solo: vertical and horizontal.
Russell thought Coleman Hawkins embodied the former and Lester Young the
latter. But I wish to take the idea of “horizontal” improvisation a little
further. The term horizontal is suggestive, I acknowledge, but it is poorly
defined as Russell employs it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Russell’s use of the term “vertical” is clear enough. It implies
a “harmonic” approach to an improvised solo. It means that the material is derived
from the bass movement, chord quality, and cadential sequence of the underlying
song’s harmonic form at any given moment. It is “vertical” because it is rooted
at a particular local segment of the chord progression where there is a
reasonably clear harmonic basis to be stated or embellished. The solo can be
interpreted by referring to this harmonic substructure. But what is
“horizontal” improvisation derived from?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">To say that a horizontal approach is “melodic” rather than
harmonic is redundant: a melody implies a sequence of pitches across time
rather than at the same time. “Melodic” is also an ideologically loaded word,
implying “taste” or “accessibility”. These memes do get tagged to Young and are
meant positively, but they obscure what is most remarkable about him. Moreover,
to say that Young’s horizontal approach “simplifies” the underlying structure
by avoiding stating each chord, without talking about what it is that he does
instead, implies that what he is doing is simple, which it is not.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The glory of Lester Young’s art is his control of time. When
we speak of a hypothetical horizontal axis of musical development, we are speaking
of its unfolding in time. The meaning of any particular event or idea is framed
by what has gone before. Young puts the perception of time, both in rhythm and
in overall development, in the service of his own expression. And outside of
music, the art form that yields insight into this control, the one that depends
on the skillful presentation and manipulation of events within a defined
temporal framework, is drama. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">There are other things beside the sense of dramatic time in drama:
familiar human failings embodied by noble or archetypal individuals; the
elevation of quotidian pursuits to the level of public spectacle. But drama has
a special relationship with the sense of time. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">A conventional dramatic performance like a play or opera
carries the explicit fiction that historical time can be expressed within the
space of a two-hour performance. Given that objective, expected time of any
performance from start to finish, the dramatist manipulates that expectation,
with moments that are more or less intense that will punctuate or dilate the otherwise
relentless flow of time. That is part of the heady satisfaction of attending
the theatre and a source of our identification with the characters. They have
lived: they have grown and changed through challenges and digressions from their
wants or goals (“episodes”). Any successful drama depends on some element of
deliberate control of exposition and event to convey its most central object: catharsis
does not happen at the beginning of a tragedy, after all. The feeling we
experience is tied to, even dependent on, the unfolding of the intended
structure. Perhaps that expectation of temporal development could be applied to
a three-minute solo improvisation, especially for a master “storyteller” like
Young. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Lester Young had these dramatic devices that manipulate or
confound regular time: suspense, surprise, discontinuity, ellipsis, episodic
presentation (the division of total dramatic time into discrete, diverging
units) and transfiguration (the reinterpretation of materials introduced
earlier in a new light or context). Young deftly superimposes these active
elements over the rhythm section’s more insistent regular “ride” (ostinato
figures that imply pulse within a varied framework or “groove”). The dynamism
of his varying statements depend on a sense of constant dialogue and tension
with this more regular stated pulse or time feeling (and they also depend on there being a
sympathetic, well-tuned rhythm section). Of course, Young assumes his listeners
are careful ones, and can both “hear” time, and hear across the time span of a whole solo. He knows their attention can be manipulated in artful ways—just as a
playwright assumes the theater audience will follow a plot through various
digressions, unexpected developments, and singularities. For this post, I will
simply describe each of the dramatic devices Young uses and suggest how they
might be related or intertwined. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Dramatic Angles<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Suspense. </b>Lester Young makes you wait. He is by many
accounts the original “cool” soloist. But his degree of cool is only relative.
Young starts with singable, simple motifs, often in the happy upper reaches of
the diatonic octave, and always in strong command of the basic beat. He
emphasizes intervals of a second, sixth, or ninth without ever resolving to or
stating the triadic chord tone. While not gratingly dissonant, these are also
not final or cadential (i.e., the tonic or fifth tones of the main key). They are suspensions, in other words: these intervals
as scale tones make important components of suspended chords. Young then introduces
more challenging or bizarre material later. This is presumably what Mary Lou Williams,
whose opinion ought to count, was referring to when she said that Young was the
equal of direct competitors like Ben Webster and Coleman Hawkins—but, she
claims, only after taking time to warm up. What Williams seems to have missed
about Young’s approach was that the striking portions later on in his
solos was all the more so because of the contrast with less challenging,
sanguine material he tends to open with. But exactly when he introduces this
material is not predictable. Hence the element of surprise. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Surprise.</b> Ira Gitler, channeling an eloquent boxer, said of Young
that he “floated like a butterfly and stung like a bee/Long before the day of
Muhammad Ali.” I am referring in this instance to the “sting” part. It is a
“dramatic” contrast, in the conventional usage: startlingly different. After
coasting gently, Young will suddenly play something fiercely percussive and
unrelated to what has just happened. It might be a single note, or he might dwell
on riff for 4 or 8 bars, then move on quickly to other material that is equally
distinctive. (More on that “other material” in a moment.) The point is that
there is no surprise without suspense: such startling effects would be less
interesting if the solo began with them (and often are, in the case of
musicians who borrow Young’s effects without his subtle sense of the relation
of parts to the whole). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Ellipsis.</b> One often hears in regard to Lester Young and
other economical players that “he knows what to leave out.” That is ellipsis:
leaving out something important. It is essential to theater, which is expected
to achieve its effects with limited means of bodies and props on a
circumscribed platform. But it is hard to say anything precise about what is
left out: that could be almost anything that can be played or acted or thought.
It’s more fruitful to speak instead what artists like Young leave in. This material
is what he has made the listener wait for, where the suspense is now released. It
is still more compelling, though, for what it suggests one rather than what it finishes or states
directly. Young accomplishes this by introducing a new, short motif with tense
but unresolved intervals like fourths, flatted fifths, or flatted sixths or a
combination of them (and in contrast to the comfortable consonance of major
seconds, sixths and ninths I noted in discussing “suspense” above). Those who
take Young to be simple are not fully listening if they miss these odd
harmonies that are highly wrought but work against comfortable tonal
cadence. Moreover, this elliptical motif
will be strongly rhythmic or percussive but work against the prevailing beat or
groove of the rhythm section and what Young himself set up earlier. After raising these eloquent, enigmatic items,
he then goes on to other things. I would call that a singularity: it compresses
time by commanding attention around it just as suspension distends it. I would
hazard a guess that this delicate balance between the stated and unstated was a
prime topic of conversation between Lester Young and Miles Davis during their
frequent breakfast meetings during the early 1950s. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Episodes.</b> Alongside
and around his short, tantalizing interruptions, Young also sustains longer
sections of his solo with a single distinct rhythmic and harmonic feeling, then
changes to a new one in a new whole section.
I call this approach “episodic” because these segments “digress” from
each other, yet sustain interest over a long significant “scene,” and form part
of the overall progression of the story, just as episodes do in dramatic
narratives from Greek tragedy onward.
Young’s approach is the opposite of the so-called “vertical”—and
rhapsodic—soloists like Hawkins of Coltrane, who rapidly change mood and
feeling within a very short space. He thinks instead in these fairly large
blocks of 4, 8, or 16 bars, which usually correspond very closely to the bar
length structure of the underlying song form. These blocks in turn are the
building blocks for his overall solo structure.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And if his sections have a sustained feeling, it is the
rhythmic feeling Young creates that sustains them. Young controls the groove—even to the point
of adroitly shifting grooves—over a sustained but definite period of time. It’s one thing to get a groove, or to hit a
groove with someone else: that is, to achieve that hypnotic effect of minute
changes or discrepancies in a shared, felt underlying pulse that may relate
back to the roots of jazz in dance.
Young goes further, subtly shifting patterns of rhythmic emphasis over
his solo, but sustaining a distinctive pattern, usually four or eight bar
segments that correspond neatly to the divisions of the underlying song form. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Young’s fans will surely recall his eight bars of floating,
evenly spaced eighth notes, then eight bars of stabbing, staccato or percussive
figures. Or eight bars that are busy, with space occupied by complex figures
that span a large range, then eight bars where one or a handful of notes are
sounded. Or, coupled with this variation in rhythm by section, Young will state
four bars of melodic material based on a conventional major scale emphasizing
seconds, sixths or sevenths, then shift toward four bars of blues inflections
such as flatted fifths or thirds, or bent notes to or from these chord tones. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">To control the groove is control of expectations about time.
Varying material is contrasted, but also integrated into a single whole to
sustain interest. Young’s genius is to show that rhythmic feeling or groove is
not simply a sub-layer or raw material for a horn soloist to build on, but can be right
out there in the foreground as the main material for his improvisation. He plays with the sense rhythmic expectations he
himself and his rhythm section have set up and delights in circumventing them.
Beboppers like Parker and Gillespie broke up their phrases and jumped over the
song form’s bar lines still further, but they learned first how to control the
groove and link it to the song form from Lester Young. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Transfiguration.</b> If
episodes are the larger building blocks of Young’s solos, his quality of
transfiguration points toward the relation among episodes and to a sense of
progression among these elements. Young transforms already familiar elements so
they take on new significance. He signifies on them. A section of the standard “I
Got Rhythm” chord progression that is centered around or resolves to a B flat
major triad is reinterpreted as having a sustained, insistent E flat—a
profoundly blue note to choose and a radical rejection of the underlying
tonality of the song. His very personal
habit of applying “floating” harmonies in relatively long notes, such as whole
or half notes, noted in our section of suspension above, will recur in
transformed fashion in a surprising place—such as in the bridge section of the
I Got Rhythm progression, whose cyclic motion tempts many improvisers toward
chromatic material. Young takes a different tack. His floating, long notes
recur in the last bridge of his solo, yet is now revealed to have a different
character, and different possibilities. Just as the characters we identify with
in a dramatic performance, I’m tempted to say, who are transformed by the
journey they take. Coleman Hawkins build solos to a climax, but is more
architectural, even athletic: a steady, deliberate accumulation of tightly
related, short motifs toward a peak of energy, very much following the
classical ideal of motivic unity. If we accept analogies to Western art music,
Young is closer in spirit to the poetic association and disjoined, metaphorical
contrasts of the Symbolism and Impressionism of Debussy and Ravel.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">If Young’s music can be understood as a story, perhaps any
narrative art might inspire comparison. Fiction can accomplish far more,
however, within the leisurely space of forms like novels or even short stories.
It would stretch the idea of musical story telling too far to say that a horn
player, moving ahead in real time and sounding only one note at a time, could
pull off devices a novelist uses, like atmospheric description or elaborate
commentary on a character’s psyche. So I have chosen drama, with its restricted
set of tools but elevated sense of presentation to compare with Young’s work
and to understand why it is compelling.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">By alluding to dramatic art, I am relying on Western
concepts of drama and storytelling and perhaps Western cultural baggage, like
Aristotelian ideas of unity of time and place, etc. For this exploratory piece,
I accept the risks. I would still say there are storytelling devices that might
be found in any narrative. A griot has many functions in African society, of
which telling stories is only one. It still seems that basic elements of
suspense and revelation can be found—in some form—wherever people sit still to
hear a good story. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Lester Young once backed King Oliver, who was reportedly a
fount of black folklore. It is a tantalizing lead that the younger man gained
something in his music from tales he heard from Oliver during this
apprenticeship. At any rate, Young clearly knew that people need stories as a
template to understand the brute stuff of the world—or to make sense of a
string of potentially disconnected, improvised semiquavers.</span></div>
Grover T. Bicknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310133734294990979noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9184453704723060601.post-47084319467023619452016-04-19T17:31:00.002-07:002016-10-19T13:06:34.590-07:00A Familiar Refrain: Making Meaning in GroupsI found this article on interactive learning in a journal on learning science. The article is by Gerry Stahl (full citation below).<br />
<br />
His interest is in the interactivity that online classroom technology can facilitate, though what he says is relevant for all creative enterprises in groups. I found the idea very attractive for its analogy to group improvisation:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #38761d;">"This 'sharing' is not a matter of individuals having similar understandings, but of them participating productively in a joint meaning-making discourse within a communal world. A group has achieved intersubjectivity if the members of the group interact well enough to pursue the group’s aims."</span></div>
<br />
In other words, these individuals (students, in this instance) are not just sharing information with each another, desirable as that may be: they are creating something. Making discourse within a communal world should be existentially fulfilling.<br />
<br />
The relevance for jazz and improvisation hardly needs to be underscored.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj54PvSYk7n-W78CCbprcd4Fn8pV8o7mh6e7Z7d6HXG1Z0oLcAb6x51_QQtF2ZcEN6yHclciYRRYZdGHSJoYugqPY0T1UPMRsHUQZHaUTs7dWmvzbNK3Qt0r4THz49s8CeWBTrfDgHCHbU/s1600/communication.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="153" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj54PvSYk7n-W78CCbprcd4Fn8pV8o7mh6e7Z7d6HXG1Z0oLcAb6x51_QQtF2ZcEN6yHclciYRRYZdGHSJoYugqPY0T1UPMRsHUQZHaUTs7dWmvzbNK3Qt0r4THz49s8CeWBTrfDgHCHbU/s320/communication.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Stahl's ideal, applied to performing music, would be that groups make not just music, but meaning. Think about it. We've heard the notes before, but what does it mean (to us, our audience, to future improvisations).<br />
<br />
And in the case of classroom dynamics: students are not just pooling their effort and exchanging information. They are making something that would not have been made otherwise, and is unique, and not replicable by individuals. I take Stahl to mean he will settle for nothing less.<br />
<br />
By the way, I understand "intersubjectivity" to simply mean, you know what I'm talking about, and I know what you're talking about. There is sufficient grounds for real communication. (The US House of Representatives would be a negative example.)<br />
<br />
Of course, Stahl does not see this dynamic as mere play:<br />
"Intersubjectivity must be built up gradually through interaction and repaired frequently."<br />
<br />
Fair enough. I commend you to this article, then:<br />
<br />
<div class="csl-bib-body" style="line-height: 1.35; padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em;">
<div class="csl-entry">
Stahl, Gerry. “Conceptualizing the Intersubjective Group.” <i>International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning</i> 10, no. 3 (September 2015): 209–17. doi:10.1007/s11412-015-9220-4.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="csl-entry">
A working version is available free! The magic of open access publishing. </div>
<span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft_id=info%3Adoi%2F10.1007%2Fs11412-015-9220-4&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Conceptualizing%20the%20intersubjective%20group&rft.jtitle=International%20Journal%20of%20Computer-Supported%20Collaborative%20Learning&rft.volume=10&rft.issue=3&rft.aufirst=Gerry&rft.aulast=Stahl&rft.au=Gerry%20Stahl&rft.date=2015-09&rft.pages=209-217&rft.spage=209&rft.epage=217&rft.issn=1556-1607%2C%201556-1615&rft.language=en"></span></div>
<br />
<br />Grover T. Bicknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310133734294990979noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9184453704723060601.post-28780789747434736322016-03-28T18:36:00.001-07:002016-04-24T20:16:23.248-07:00The Problem of Sonny Stitt<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The problem is not with his playing. Few would question that
he was a master of his instrument and possessed the highest musicianship. The
problem is whether people really hear—and truly recognize—Sonny Stitt. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Stitt uses melodic material that seems to have originated
with Charlie Parker. It’s hard for listeners, even knowledgeable ones, to refer
to Stitt without referring to Bird. If you sat down and transcribed enough
solos by both of them, you would surely find some of the same notes, or rather
the same melodic figures, turning up on the pages. The basic problem is one Stitt
himself may have played into by paying <a href="http://www.allmusic.com/album/stitt-plays-bird-mw0000195617">explicit tribute</a> to the slightly older
man, who was a friend and mentor. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Stitt and Parker don’t have the same tone on their
instrument, though, nor the same rhythmic approach, nor the same way of putting
phrases together, nor do they hit the same kind of groove within a combo
setting. They’re different musicians.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In fact there is a great deal, even on paper, that Stitt
plays and that Parker did not play and probably never would have. I can suggest
what those are in another post, but the point is that there are real and
important differences. Different riffs. We who can hear so much in the
discourse of jazz cannot hear these valuable and intriguing differences in the
gestalt of their playing if we are too focused on the similarity
between discrete musical figures as they might appear abstracted out of the flow of a performance. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The soul of jazz, and the root of its soulfulness, is that
it is not intended as a fixed work following the standard of paper notation. It
is not a music of texts, but of performance. European art music developed
around the idea of a finished, notated text whose existence stood outside of
any individual performance. (That idea has come under criticism from many
sides, but when true “classical” music was germinating, the idea was explicit and
normative.) Jazz motifs, licks, or tropes are not handed down from God, and then
communicated to us, qua mortals, through the vessel of Great Men like Parker,
as the notion of the "supremacy of the work" might be (and has been) applied to jazz. The idea that music
represents some absolute truth that is out there ignores the participatory and
public nature that most music thrives on, to name only one problem. The opportunity for audience members to say “amen” to a performance is a key motivation to attend. But that requires a performer. </span><br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAsh6jOGl3N7s5-VXtfhG_LtK5T69bdm6BAYi-03E0JJpaRRJjBM0CnaIheDIXvlRYz8uSfRr4gNuNsEumxG0-JPBcpBfdcyf6kyw1XsynuNwOEqo4stOPstCC_L4Ifok1GpD8nO3uvYo/s1600/51JfN7hhUQL._SY450_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAsh6jOGl3N7s5-VXtfhG_LtK5T69bdm6BAYi-03E0JJpaRRJjBM0CnaIheDIXvlRYz8uSfRr4gNuNsEumxG0-JPBcpBfdcyf6kyw1XsynuNwOEqo4stOPstCC_L4Ifok1GpD8nO3uvYo/s200/51JfN7hhUQL._SY450_.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Try instead watching the many videos that exist of Sonny
Stitt, reading first-hand accounts of his performances or his activities as a
musician, or looking at pictures of him. Then go back and listen to both Parker
and Stitt; the more solos by each one the better. I guarantee you will hear
Stitt in a new light, and in his own light, if you had not before. It happened
to me when I saw him live in 1982, which sadly is not possible today. But the
point is that I myself was converted in the way I am now preaching.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Stitt and Parker are different people, they’re different
performers. Improvisation only has its own musical value if it is viewed as a “performance,”
in the sense of the word both as an execution of a task, and of the dramatic
realization of a compelling idea. Each solo is—and should be understood as—an
action, an act, an actualization of self in the moment. It’s a performance as well in the sense of
performance art: a representation and realization of self in a dramatic setting,
in the case of jazz pitched as a heroic struggle against the onslaught of group
pulse and resulting entropy. Please allow Vijay Iyer to speak on this:
“Musicians tell their stories, but not in the traditional linear sense: an
<a href="http://jazzstudiesonline.org/files/jso/resources/pdf/IYER--Exploding%20the%20Narrative.pdf">exploded narrative</a> is conveyed through a holistic musical personality or
dramatic attitude.” Chorus by chorus, note by note, Stitt had another
narrative, and alternative explosions. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So it is not only the flamboyant Stuff Smith or Sun Ra but the suave, controlled Sonny Stitt as well who highlights the performative
dimension in jazz as music and as art form. Stitt artistic identify poses this problem for us,
and represents a critical challenge: to evaluate a jazz artist not as producer
of a fixed work, or a static set of melodic tropes, but as a performer. </span></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
Grover T. Bicknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310133734294990979noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9184453704723060601.post-50150591651219486072016-03-14T17:58:00.000-07:002016-03-19T14:58:06.501-07:00Improvising architecture: the jazz club as objet d'art<div class="MsoNormal">
Call me a sycophant. Because I have worked there and will in
future. So I have, let’s say, a certain interest in the place. But I just
really like this room. I would like to say more: that this new club in a
typical Village basement space is an art object. It’s a thing. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://www.mezzrow.com/">Mezzrow Jazz Club</a> was made by someone for an expressive
purpose, which others can enjoy and think about in turn. It expresses what he
thinks a jazz piano bar should be like. It will last. It’s an art object with a
difference, though. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is an artwork in which artists can actually go into and
create their own original, independent art. It inspires art. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you had not previously thought of a jazz club as an
artwork, think “architecture.” Like Brunelleschi’s dome or the
Guggenheim, it’s noteworthy as a construction, as a space, yet it also channels
and allows other artworks to speak for themselves and structures our experience
of art objects as some kind of continuum past the discrete item.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We need to think about venues for jazz and improvisation in
this way, as spaces that shape what can be heard and known and enjoyed. Spaces
that, unlike our conventional understanding of art venues like museums or
galleries, are specifically social spaces, that shape how we interact with each
other as patrons of the music, but also who we are, at least while we’re there.
Each venue is different as each one who comes. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We go to hear music, but we hear collectively or communally.
So this frisson of tension between the highly fluid realm of improvisation and
the supposedly stable, monumental world of architecture dissolves when you
consider a venue as a space that will be available past any one particular
gaggle of listeners, staff, and artists creating in the moment.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Others would do well, then, to think how those that built
Mezzrow (or Smalls, Smoke, FatCat and many other joints) in what was basically a
man-made cave created something, and the immense, lasting value of such
creation. <o:p></o:p></div>
Grover T. Bicknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310133734294990979noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9184453704723060601.post-88443309357778047702016-03-12T19:03:00.006-08:002016-03-12T19:03:42.943-08:00Why (you think) music can't help you: you're not doing it the old fashioned waySome musicians see their art form as a force for good in the world. It can make you a better person, soothe, make rational, etc. Music has, in this sense, an ethical effect: it is a guide and incitement to right conduct. Pharaoh Sanders and Cornelius Cardew think so, or thought so.<br />
<br />
To those who respond to this saying, "come on: music is attractive, but it's wishful thinking to suppose that it directly makes people better," musicologist Edward Lippman would say in turn that they are living in the wrong century. We're too acclimatized to abstract, specialized musical performance. In effect, we progressive moderns may, just may, have lost something--which we don't even know we've lost.<br />
<br />
We need to get back to ancient Greek philosophy of music.<br />
<br />
"Inherent in the nature of ancient music," Lippman writes," was its existence in the context of a specific social or ritual occasion, the presence of words as an intrinsic part of the music, and the prevalence, finally, of participation over listening. When these features are taken into account, the ethical and emotional force of music, together with the defned character of this force, is not difficult to understand." <i>A History of Western Musical Aesthetics</i> (Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press, 1992), 15. Grover T. Bicknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310133734294990979noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9184453704723060601.post-76281375399599551742015-11-15T08:17:00.004-08:002015-11-15T08:24:54.052-08:00An apologia, and further appreciation, for a notable trumpet player<div class="MsoNormal">
Here’s my argument in response to this view of a <a href="http://daily.jstor.org/overstate-miles-davis-genius/">canonical jazz artist</a>. It calls Miles Davis' artistry into question on the basis of ostensibly poor command of his instrument.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Miles Davis, if ever anyone did,
understood the rich creative possibilities of performing jazz. He put trumpet
in the service of that ideal. To wit:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
* Davis was strongly concerned with the lyricism, endless expressive
possibilities, and beautiful singularities produced by creating music in real
time. Perhaps moreso than other noted figures, he got bored with anything
formulaic. (See the interview where Sonny Rollins identifies with Miles on
this.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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* He thought you needed to be well prepared, in terms of
musicianship, but then challenged to react in the moment. Hence, for example,
his habit of rejecting in performance what had been rehearsed earlier. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
* He engineered situations where this would happen for his
superb groups, of whatever kind. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
* And he likewise forced himself to do so on trumpet, as
much as he challenged others. A klinker or two? That’s “part of it.” If you
listen that way, you’ll hear the beauty of accident, like with John Cage’s
music. Though his trumpet playing is much more than just happy accidents.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What was the musical result of this artistic profile? Let’s try actually listening to Miles Davis, sticking strictly to his trumpet playing. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
* Davis had incredible “chops” in the macho, conventional
sense, when he chose to. Listen to him playing in a hard bop vein on “Move”
with Lockjaw Davis and Big Nick Nicholas in ‘52. He could do that. Listen to
his lead playing on “Two Bass Hit,” the head and ending shout chorus, from
Newport Live in ’58 with Cannonball and Trane. Perfectly clear, accurate and
just “on” in a very high register. But he chose to go a different way . . . <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
* Davis had a sense of time like (almost) no one else. That
doesn’t mean just “keeping good time.” It means saying something with time,
pulse, rhythm. Listen to really any solo of his. Listen only for the way he
places his notes, not the notes themselves. Listen to the way he plays the
Harmon mute, which enhanced the percussive attack and expressive timbral “spread”
of his instrument. Listen, for example, to his solos on various live versions
of “Bye Bye Blackbird” with Coltrane in the late 50s. Listen to his “response”
to Gil Evans’ orchestra’s “calls” on “Summertime” from Porgy and Bess. Simple,
but perfectly conceived, developed—and executed as a marvel of what the
trumpet, or horn, can do. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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* Known for economy of notes, it’s because he wanted to invent
songs while playing. I'm not talking about delivering pat songs in wholesale form, like a transcribed folk song. I'm thinking more along the lines of Pres’
habit of referring to others’ solos, even their whole style, as “their songs.” Songlike, melodic (and thus not too complicated, at least outwardly). Like phrases, statements
thought over and revised, even repented. Like Billie Holiday—generating songlike
possibilities in mediating on the meaning of each song. His approach to the
trumpet, his phrasing and choice of notes, is perfect, given this aim. Listen
to . . . any 50s ballad, how about “It Never Entered My Mind,” from “Workin?”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
* Think he sounded rambling or repetitive in his solos with
the Shorter/Hancock band, for instance? Yes, he had his “clichés” by that time.
But listen again to his beat, his fire on trumpet. And listen to how closely he
listens. To what Williams and Carter, and sometimes Hancock were doing behind
him. It’s called group improvisation. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
If someone is interested
I’ll provide <a href="http://jdisc.columbia.edu/person/miles-davis">discographic information</a> and guide them to the exact tracks. I write all this knowing less about his work
after about 1972, but I believe it would apply, however different the musical
content was by then. <o:p></o:p></div>
Grover T. Bicknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310133734294990979noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9184453704723060601.post-72462792861675651532013-03-08T06:50:00.002-08:002014-04-05T06:39:06.277-07:00Modality and Freedom<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">What does it mean to embrace
modality in improvisation, as opposed to tonality or atonality?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Modality is a fertile subject
in jazz history. It was consciously and explicitly embraced by Miles Davis,
John Coltrane, and many contemporaries. They used it to find new frameworks for
improvising when they felt that following predetermined chord sequences based
on popular songs had become a limitation (though they did not abandon these
chord changes entirely, nor what they had learned.) Modal harmonic schemes
gave musicians more freedom, both in terms of spontaneity and of the latitude to introduce larger,
if undetermined, structures within the course of improvisation. Outside of the
sphere of "music itself," new freedoms were being sought in at the
highest level of the polity and national community. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">To move toward modality is to
privilege the horizontal—the unfolding of music in time--over the vertical or
harmonic as the key principle of musical organization. It spoke to the moment
because "the people" relate instinctively to modality and its related
effects. After all, modality broadly conceived is a common feature of most world music and of “folk”
music. It is arguable that one of jazz’ most fertile tributaries, the blues, is
modal, both in the sense of its pitch system and of emphasizing horizontal
development. Blues musicians only have their story to tell. They’re just not
that into harmony, or not in the sense derived from European art music of functional
tonality.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">To ask what it means to
embrace modality is prompted by my interest in Pre-Baroque European art music,
which was created within a modal system a thousand years in the making. (I
thank Susan Boynton, the medievalist in Columbia University’s Music Department,
for confirming these observations.) While there are of course differences,
medieval and Renaissance composers viewed harmony as an artifact of melody, an
incidental set of relationships produced by interwoven melodies in the distinctive
polyphony of their era. In this music as well, then, interest is sustained and
unity achieved by sequences of pitches with their own integrity, and not by
their hierarchic relationship to a single governing pitch, as in the functional
totality that Western ears became accustomed to due to the hegemony of
Classical forms from the time of Haydn and Beethoven.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Functional tonality—the
organization of harmonic and structural motion toward a governing pitch center—means
more than just being in a certain key, with the exact set of pitches given by
their position in relation to the key pitch. In classic functional tonality,
the ear is guided toward that pitch center by elaborate mechanisms, bass
movements like cycles of fifths and voice leading tones, to sense that key as
final. That is a powerful way, perhaps a necessary one, to establish tonality
in the strict sense. European art music only reached this point with Arcangelo
Corelli; it was perfected by Classical composers; and then it broke down under
repeated innovations that avoided, delayed, or confused that sense of cadence
toward a governing pitch during the Romantic and early 20<sup>th</sup> century
eras. Jazz had appropriated this tonal edifice for its purpose of improvisation,
via ragtime, Tin Pan Alley, and direct Classical influence, by the time
Coltrane and Davis embarked on their life’s work.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">In a modal system, one pitch
may define a mode. It may be the first and last note to be sounded. It may be
sounded more often than other notes. It may be sounded more or less
continuously throughout a musical work, to the point of being a drone. But it
is only first among equals. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Without elaborate mechanisms
to establish tonality, the note that gives its name to the mode is not
conclusively the “key” – the vanishing point around which the picture is
organized. Without the grid of functional tonal movement to guide the ear
toward the tonic pitch, there is ambiguity as to what choices of or groupings
of pitches, are most prominent in the handful the mode “permits.” And far from
creating chaos, it is a productive ambiguity, capable of suggesting many
directions but requiring none. Composers before Monteverdi who worked under the
modal system knew this. And so did the jazz musicians who consciously brought
modality back into improvisation during the 1950s. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Thousands of modes have been
“discovered,” and their properties parsed, across the many international
musical forms that employ then. In this post, I am simply referring to the “Greek”
modes commonly employed in jazz parlance and performance since George Russell
began using them to describe jazz practices: Dorian, Mixolydian, Phrygian, and Ionian
(the last to be distinguished from the “major key”). That said, the productive
properties of modality hold as much for medieval and early Renaissance music
as for jazz, at this broad theoretical level. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The first note of a set (or
scale) may designate the mode (E Phrygian; D Dorian, etc.) Other tones compete
for prominence, however. The lowered seventh has a mysterious pull away from
the nominal mode key, making itself a contender for final or governing pitch. Hence
its ability to evoke latent or unseen power in religious music, such as chant,
and in Latin American music and the blues. Vertical relationships are possible in
pre-Baroque modality but no sequence must be followed. Without such preset harmonic
underpinning, triadic combinations (very much used by time of the Renaissance)
may still be freely chosen from the set of permissible notes in the mode. The D
Dorian mode contains the “minor” triad D-F-A, but also the “major” G-B-A,
rendering it ambivalent as to these two classic qualities, or at least opening
the possibility of a sustained major passage. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">John Coltrane knew this and
exploited it when he performed his famous modal composition “Impressions.” The
song’s entire harmonic scheme consists of 8-bar sections of D Dorian and Eb
Dorian (forming the A and B sections, respectively, of the classic AABA popular
and jazz song form.). But he sometimes interpreted the mode as G Mixolydian (or
G dominant 7<sup>th</sup>) by playing riffs associated with it for long
sections (but not necessarily for the exact duration of the 32-bar song
structure). Fourth triads, such as D-G-C or A-D-G, both found in the simple
Dorian mode, are not only available, they are natural artifacts of selecting
this mode, due to their many compelling voice leading possibilities within it, just
as major or minor triads are in the case of tonal harmony. (See Susan McClary, “Modal
Subjectivities: Self-Fashioning in the Italian Madrigal,” especially the
chapter “I Modi.”) </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The bi- and polytonality developed
by Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock throughout the 1960s and
beyond depended on their experience with this ambivalence, or equivalence, of
alternating vertical pitch sets in the first wave of modal experimentation
during the late 50s and beginning of the 60s. Those versed in jazz argot may recall
“slash chords” which superimpose two triads or chords with non-chord bass notes.
This manner of interpreting chord sequences, now quite conventional in jazz, is at the root a more sophisticated way of handling the
ambiguity of underlying modes for each chordal scale and exploiting the
possibilities of unexpected common tones, and suspended cadence they offer that
were first developed at the time of “Kind of Blue” and “Impressions.”</span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: small;">In modality,
structure can be generated at the improvisers’ will. One can pick a melodic
cell—a handful of notes permitted in the mode—and repeat it or stress it
without regard for some changing bass line or chord structure underneath, as
Coltrane constantly does in Impressions. Insistent repetition of one “riff” or
melodic groove is a device that funk and blues musicians know well: just
stating a melodic figure, even a simple one, creates a hypnotic effect that
fuels the groove and provides opportunity for dramatic release. These ad hoc or
arbitrary melodic figures may also suggest a harmonic region as well as rhythmic
pattern—they are constitutive of melody. In either case, the other musicians in
the group may easily perceive that direction and go with it—or choose not to, but
either way the openness becomes productive of improvisational artifacts. The
soloist, perhaps pushed or pulled by the group, is free to develop these ideas
over many measures, sometimes longer than the 32-bar parameter natural to
conventional song-form improvisation.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: small;">These large structures
generated in modal improvisation are open structures. The soloist may decide
how much time will be spent in a certain region or melodic/rhythmic groove. It
is true that in adhering to one mode, one accepts the risk that it will be
monotonous, as a drone is by definition. The level of interest depends on the
skill of the improviser to forge singular events, out of rhythm, pitch
sequence, timbre, sheer unadulterated surprise (shrieks for example). Having a
compelling rhythm—an expressive statement about time, not just executed in
time—becomes paramount. The unfolding of an artistic statement in time, the drama
of surprise, accident, emergent structure, perhaps ecstatically generated
singularities are all at a premium in free or open form jazz, which dispensed
with tonal centers of modality altogether, but which the latter thus logically
anticipated. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: small;">Before the
trend toward modal jazz in the late ‘50s, the sense of drama, surprise and
suggestive ambiguity were all exploited masterfully by Lester Young (Coleman
Hawkins’ and Don Byas’ sense of structure, while masterful, was more
architectural and even physical, building to an athletic climax.) And Young
often dwelled on or ended phrases on the sixth and ninth tones, avoiding the
main triadic tones without grating dissonance. In other words, he used
ambiguity—and like many musicians deeply versed in the blues, suggested
attributes of modality.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: small;">Where is the
gold, in artistic expression, but in exploring ambiguities that create new
meanings? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Grover T. Bicknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310133734294990979noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9184453704723060601.post-33993129013654051332013-01-21T16:16:00.002-08:002013-01-21T16:19:57.561-08:00The Advent of Bebop: How Many Prophets? <br /><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
One often hears that bebop was a "revolution": that it was an abrupt break with the jazz that came before it. I can barely pick
up a new book or article about jazz these days without hearing the claim that
the "modernism" was created by the few who visited Minton's Playhouse
and that represented a radical break with the past. (Radical in more senses
than one, as I will suggest.) But the transition, musically speaking, was
actually more gradual than these commentators and authors acknowledge, and
perhaps more than they realize.<br />
<br />
One does hear of two forward looking swing players, Coleman Hawkins and
Lester Young, who not only influenced but participated directly in the bebop
movement. But these saxophonists were star soloists in the Fletcher Henderson
and Count Basie bands, respectively. So they were part of the broad-based movement
in popular music known as swing or big band that emerged to dominate American
music in the early ‘30s and cannot conveniently be reappropriated for the cause
of “bebop.”<br />
<br />
In fact, many things Parker and Gillespie perfected or became known for were
being anticipated by swing players for at least ten years before the famous jam
sessions took place at Minton’s. So many, in fact, that the ostensible rupture of
bebop loses focus.<br />
<br />
Consider these “pre-bop” achievements: the long melodic lines of Roy Eldridge.
The coloristic, tense harmonies of Duke Ellington (and yes, before 1941). The
angular melodic freedom of Nat King Cole (the pianist) and Erroll Garner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The trio format used by these same two
musicians. The musicianship, control, and beat of Benny Carter. The blues
inflection, coupled with fabulous technique, of Johnny Hodges. The speed and
fluidity of Chu Berry. The metric displacement of Charlie Christian. And of
course, the chordal substitutions of Art Tatum, transferred to the saxophone by
Don Byas before Bird took his first flight (yes, this is demonstrable in the
recorded history of jazz, but that’s another post).<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgspqyghMioDUlkhlxFTnqm5DZ4DXIolXEQpQaXIKJSQm-py6JlXrCrLJzeztmZGZrHeD_IOBaajUvFbZB59nYzruGIhtcR2LWhhDHhnloDwT_dZpjjBWtfUMkSieuF1LA15SpfiJzs1XU/s1600/zc3bcrich_byas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgspqyghMioDUlkhlxFTnqm5DZ4DXIolXEQpQaXIKJSQm-py6JlXrCrLJzeztmZGZrHeD_IOBaajUvFbZB59nYzruGIhtcR2LWhhDHhnloDwT_dZpjjBWtfUMkSieuF1LA15SpfiJzs1XU/s320/zc3bcrich_byas.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<b>Don Byas: Bird or Dinosaur? </b></div>
<br />
How many prophets can there be before the Messiah starts to seem a little
cramped in his firmament?<br />
<br />
Parker and those in his circle are important for synthesizing the work of
these swing masters. (That they were quite familiar with all of them can be
demonstrated in their music as well as their statements on record.) The bebop
insurgents had a novel and compelling rhythmic approach that was their own. But
like any musicians, their ideas were also wound up in their personal ways of
approaching their horns and their medium. Their personal styles became an
orthodoxy later—an ironic, though not unique, outcome for their “revolution”.
Fifteen or so years later, that is, with the help of critics, producers, and
retrospective discourse of musicians themselves.<br />
<br />
The claim that bebop was a new musical wave often appears in tandem with one
asserting a new political maturity. Black modernism in this narrative carries
the component of self-awareness of racial subjugation and is a form of
resistance to it. “Revolution” in this sense is not therefore not used nor
intended as a strictly aesthetic term. Yet the notion of modernism on which
this whole narrative rests depends on a pre-modern. I submit there is an
implicit condescension regarding the jazz, included its African-American strains,
of at least the 20s and 30s, and perhaps earlier.<br />
<br />
Political sympathies, then, ought not to be driven by artistic tastes
anymore than the reverse. Insofar as we are interested in jazz and modernism in
the arts, it is valid to consider swing era masters as both modern and progressive.
If we wanted to read the history of their time in their music, we would find northern
migration and growth of mass popular culture through new media to be
significant factors in its making. If we were interested in the aesthetic
outlines of modernism, we could find it in swing masters concern with
technique, awareness of their place in the development of their music and its
past, and their view of their art as autonomous from a direct social function
such as dancing or civic occasions.<br />
<br />
If we are interested in looking to music for a progressive reading of the
eventual consolidation of American rights and of racial empowerment, why should
the advent of the swing era not be subject matter? Louis Armstrong’s performative
style has been criticized as playing to white stereotypes. But perhaps the sheer
power and confidence visible in film footage could be viewed differently, as evidence
of black man in control of his own image—just as is celebrated with Miles Davis,
evident in Ellington’s manner, and arguable even in the case of John Coltrane’s
spiritualist stance.<br />
<br />
There are aesthetic implications in bringing the music of the swing era back
in to jazz studies. Techniques (both in the sense of skill and of concept) may
change with history, but they are not history itself. When fashions change,
when the zeitgeist changes, of course new techniques arrive that help give them
expression. But music is not cumulative like science: old ways may be lost
precisely in the effort to do something different. Bebop was faster than swing,
but playing slowly was not a limitation. It is a technique that must be
achieved. <br />
<br />
As mentioned, the changes are matters of personal artistic choice, and do
not necessarily imply a higher conceptual advancement. This is why no one knows
what to do with Thelonious Monk or Lucky Thompson. They were not bebop, because
they did not simply apply Parker and Gillespie’s instrumental style to their own
instruments. But they were just as advanced. Modern jazz. The techniques of any
era, past and present, are interesting intellectually and artistically
available for those who might want to change again and stand outside orthodoxy.
Especially if we, as artists or writers on the arts, don't see history as
linear.<br />
<br />
There are pedagogical reasons along with scholarly ones to take a broad view
of jazz history. Jazz performance can and should teach techniques that may be
basic but are still necessary. Are young musicians taught to play slowly and
convincingly? Is it really that simple to play guitar with four equal quarter
notes, in accompanying other musicians, as Freddie Green did? Try it. Insofar
as these techniques are simple, they have a profound simplicity: they must be achieved,
and carry insights that are lost in greater complexity. Rhythm itself, an item
of mastery from the ragtime era (to listen to Jelly Roll Morton’s recordings),
is hard to represent with notation, but can be transmitted in practice, through
mentorship within an artistic community—just as they were once developed. <br />
<br />
In the end, the retrospective assignment of “revolutionary” status to bebop is
a sign of a definite political agenda. It is not bad to have such an agenda. I
am in accord with this agenda, or its political thrust. That is one reason why I
want to make it explicit. The assignment of revolutionary status to bebop, however,
seems to be a way of justifying later radical experiments. The implicit
argument behind this self-legitimation is that change is a constant, and thus
the desired changes must happen in the present. The corollary for the need to
justify radical change is to point to radical change in the past. Part of this
view stems from the ‘sixties and its music, when revolution, or talk of it, was
actually in the air for reasons that it was not in the ‘forties.<br />
<br />
To those that take the view of history as constant, radical and still
necessary change—and the history being made now—I would only ask, do we all
change together, in one direction? That we is a question to which many
revolutionaries, and those leaders who made their revolution into an oppressive
orthodoxy, might answer “yes.” It is not the view of artists, though, who value
individual expression, however politically engaged they may be. With respect to
swing and to bebop, let us go back to their history and ask how they viewed it
themselves.Grover T. Bicknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310133734294990979noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9184453704723060601.post-59283002503035243692011-03-13T08:38:00.000-07:002011-03-13T09:14:29.695-07:00On the Aesthetics of Improvisation<span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">What part of improvisation can we hear? If it is granted that music performance with improvisation involves some structure, and foreknowledge, what is the element that is improvised--and how is it perceived?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Improvised music is often said to be legitimate by virtue of the process that go into making it. These processes are valued because the music they produce is thus original, authentic, democratic. Its creation is truly "creative" in some special or multifaceted way.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">When the performance is apprehended, by the audience, by other musicians, by consumerrs of recordings, even in close, expertly trained analysis, it makes sense that they would value the product because they are aware that the production of this music followed these principles. But they can not be merely abstract conventions, distinct from the act of hearing and interpreting the music. They must be perceptible to be truly valued.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">I believe improvisation can if fact be perceived. Insofar as an improvised performance involves indeterminacy, i.e., lack of prior determination, that element can be heard in the music. After all, randomness, or "pure" indeterminacy, can be heard; listen to wind chimes as a song. Greater degrees of prior determination of music, such as twelve-tone composition or total serialization, can also be heard. So why should the element of creation in the act of performance not be perceptible?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">I submit that the listener finds originality, authenticity, democracy in the music because, even if passive, he or she is in some sense participating. They are more or less able to sense the unstructured, or unplanned elements insofar as they are more or less familiar with the structure or a priori decisions in the music. It is easy for a well-versed listener to hear what is truly unique in a Dexter Gordon solo insofar as they are familiar with the structure Gordon agrees to and the material he tends to identify with as his own (his "licks"). But free improvisation--that is, the improvised part, can also be perceived. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">The perception of improvisation depends on familiarity with the individual composer's prior intentions, decisions, boundaries--with their identity. So the exact nature, not just the exact profile, of each improvisation, is unique. The element of improvisation that is heard depends on the improvised.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">The listener may feel, and value, these qualities of originality, authenticity, and especially democracy, insofar as they have the sense of participating in them and that they are meaningful. He or she may even perceive that it is beautiful because randomness and indeterminacy are facets of real experience, often welcome in the face of oppressive determinacy.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Pace Fred Lerdahl: we actively construct music as listeners in order to make meaning out of it. And we do so when we hear improvisation.</span></span>Grover T. Bicknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310133734294990979noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9184453704723060601.post-4548789201369611642010-08-29T10:00:00.000-07:002010-08-29T10:01:08.402-07:00Live Review: McCoy TynerMcCoy Tyner, Piano<br /><a href="http://www.summerstage.org/charlie_parker_jazz_festival.html">Charlie Parker Jazz Festival</a> – August 28, 2010<br />Marcus Garvey Park, Harlem<br /><br />It was an emotional experience seeing the last living member of John Coltrane Quartet perform (after nearly 40 years; my bad). Tyner’s bearing in pictures from the days of the classic Coltrane quartet projected Eastern asceticism and deliberate humility (contrasting a certain wild energy of Elvin Jones, both musically and personally). Yesterday he seemed more outgoing and personable than I remembered. He brought his family and introduced them with a very American down-home friendliness to the crowd in front of him.<br /><br />Those who expect to hear the complex but swinging right hand acrobatics Tyner used until the 1970s would have been disappointed. At yesterday’s concert, his playing was reminiscent of Abdullah Ibrahim or Keith Jarrett, sustaining incantatory ostinatos for whole numbers, and across numbers. In terms of the piano, it was all about how both hands work together, not melody (right hand) and accompaniment (left hand). <br /><br />His first piece was the most intriguing. He set up a counterpoint between two very regular melodies, with chords changing with each melody note. It was classic (or classical) in its strict development and balance, but African in its polytexturality and churning depth below the surface. <br /><br />Other songs included the standard I Should Care, Coltrane’s Mr. PC, and his own Blues on the Corner. On the latter two, he punctuated the ostinatos with some short, stabbing clusters. But otherwise his measured pace seemed appropriate to an elder statesman, rather than a young firebrand.Grover T. Bicknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310133734294990979noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9184453704723060601.post-2510108896261172972010-08-29T09:54:00.000-07:002010-08-29T09:55:47.776-07:00The First Thing Bird Would Have Said<span style="font-family: arial;">Revive Da Live</span><br /><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.summerstage.org/charlie_parker_jazz_festival.html">Charlie Parker Jazz Festival</a><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">(Raydar Ellis, Ben Williams, Justin Brown, Jaleel Shaw, Marcus Strickland, Marc Cary, Corey King and Ingmar Thomas)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">“It’s too loud.” </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">This all star group’s aim, according to the program, is to “explore the genius of Parker by combining music from his past with modern day interpretations” in order” to educate and inspire broader audiences about the depths and origins of today’s popular music.”</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">The funk beats, a rapper, an electronic keyboard, and the modal harmonies so compatible with the ethos of the 1960s rock generation, would have been unfamiliar to Parker. But my gut feeling is he would have understood those things, because they are musical choices and he understood that music must change. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">But the excessive volume—sensed even where I was at the other end of the park space from the stage—seems unmusical, and that, I submit, is where he would have drawn the line. These are all fine musicians, who offered very confident, interesting improvisations—no qualms there. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Why must it be so loud to appeal to “broader audiences”? (read: those unwashed multitudes who only know rock or hip-hop.) That seems to me to be caving in to corporate-backed technology and mass media as fast as Harry Reid caves in to the Tea Party. It’s one thing to use a public address system. It’s another to achieve a level of volume so electronic and alien that it subtly undermines the audience’s health. (Yes, I mean health.) </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">I’m not saying that it was ear-splitting. Just uncomfortable to body and breath. It’s about respect for nature, for public space, and the conviviality of the outdoor festival audience. An impromptu conga circle group was playing simultaneously (maintaining their regular Saturday meeting, one presumes). That sound added to the chaos. But close up, they seemed hipper, in the sense of understatement: more sensual, more about drawing you in than pushing you back. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">I don’t know whether this acoustic problem was the responsbility of the producers, rather than the musicians. This is not the only jazz concert I’ve been to with this issue. It can’t be because I am old—I grew up in the ‘60s when loud became de rigeur (in every sense of the Gallic word). Can we talk about this, please?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">The group updated a standard Bird recorded, I’ll Remember April, and his own Now’s The Time and Little Willie Leaps. The latter replaced the looping, difficult up-tempo rendition Parker chose with a much slower, straight-eighth note version made to fit a funk beat. The effect was to turn Parker’s roller-coaster into a treadmill. </span>Grover T. Bicknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310133734294990979noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9184453704723060601.post-53137847046929022942010-06-26T07:13:00.000-07:002010-06-26T07:38:38.170-07:00What Bobby Hutcherson is doing NOW<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">"You haven't heard him recently?" said guitarist Peter Bernstein. "It's really different now."</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Bernstein was referring to a change in Hutcherson's playing in the last several years. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />"He used to come on with this incredible force, playing a rush of notes. Now it's different. But I can't put it into words." Pete did say that he was using shorter phrases, but declined to say what he was doing during that shorter time. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">"Understatement?" I asked, to which Bernstein said that wasn't really it.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I'll venture to try to describe what I then heard Hutcherson do, with the hubris of one who would dance about architecture.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">It was packing a number of ideas into a short space. Not understated as much as densely compressed. Each phrase suggested several different musical directions, but did not complete or follow through with or exhaust those directions. Each direction pointed way outward, but didn't travel there before another challenge was seamlessly taken up. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">On "Nancy with the Laughing Face," for example, Hutcherson completed one arching phrase that first introduced a fairly startling whole tone scale, then went in a modal fourth pattern far from the original key. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Typical materials from the chromatic language of bop and beyond. But the phrase was only a bar long.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The effect was like vertigo, as I reacted to this surprising interruption to the lyricism of the song, then experience another swoop away from the expected so soon.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">It's like poetry. To suggest more than one says, by using ambiguity, allusion, ellipsis. Holding eternity in a grain of sand. </span></span>Grover T. Bicknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310133734294990979noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9184453704723060601.post-24567089175227142642010-01-24T08:58:00.000-08:002010-02-04T06:18:54.725-08:00Bringing the Audience Back In<meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><link style="font-family: arial;" rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5CSigrun%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:smarttagtype style="font-family: arial;" namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="country-region"></o:smarttagtype><o:smarttagtype style="font-family: arial;" namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="place"></o:smarttagtype></span><link style="font-family: arial;" rel="themeData" 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<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Who’s listening?
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">
<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">I pose this question to musicians, and especially to people writing and thinking about jazz, such as journalists, historians, educators and researchers. Those of us who are intensely involved in jazz may have been preoccupied with the production end: the music itself, the people who play it, and at times those who record or promote the artists. Without taking on any particular instances of this “productivist” bias, in this post I would like to simply suggest that there is much to learn about jazz by looking at the consumption side of the equation: how it is consumed, when it is (or was) consumed, by whom, and why.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">
<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">We have some basic data about jazz listeners’ age, income, gender or skin color, particularly in the last twenty years or so. I do not know of anyone who has gone deeper with this data to ask what trends say about the reception or development of jazz. What sort of experience are audiences or record-buyers having, and what stays with them after the set is over or the CD player shuts off? Has their profile changed since the “Golden Age” of jazz (or since various ages whose “goldenness” is perennially contested)? Whatever the data suggest, what would that mean for the trajectory of jazz since, say, 1945, 1965, or 1985?
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">
<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Information about audiences may be harder to come by the further we go into the past. But I submit that it would possible to research it by creatively looking at live performance reviews, advertisements in jazz magazines, sales data, and historic photographs and film clips. There are theses to be written, and methods to be explored, based on these research sources.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">
<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">If we knew more about them, perhaps it would be possible to view audiences, then and now, as actively shaping jazz rather than passively consuming it. After all, if jazz is truly democratic, shouldn’t the people who appreciate it be thought of as part of the creative process or evolution of jazz? There is a tendency among jazz aficionados and experts to look at audiences as naïve or susceptible to a herd mentality. But there may be things that audiences know intuitively that those of us on the “production” side may tend to forget. The ways certain performers get evaluated might change if we looked more carefully at what it is that audiences tend to respond to.
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">
<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Ahmad Jamal, Gene Ammons, and Dr. Lonnie Smith come to mind as examples. All three are masters of their music and successful entertainers. The latter, however, has been a liability for them in their critical reception. (I can cite evidence but my word will have to do in this short space.) By dismissing these artists as “second-string”, we have missed the fact that being an entertainer is not incidental to their work but is a deliberate, fully-realized part of their art. Consider Jamal’s electric mix of meticulously arranged structure and spontaneity, Ammons’ cool economy and story-telling flair, Smith’s wild and risky search for new material every set, paralleled by his own narration on the mic. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Audiences eat this stuff up. But why? We will never know if we focus only on the detailed fabric of the improvised line—its convolutions and complex harmonic layers and cross-references. (Jazz has gotten very baroque, and the details are sometimes too fleet even for experts to follow or discuss.) What Ammons, Jamal, and Smith have in common is a masterly feel for how a whole solo or set are organized (or deliberately not organized, given that we are talking about improvised music here.) Audiences respond intuitively to the pacing, larger formal patterns, and the potential for surprise and drama that control of these elements can bring. Are these structural elements something we can afford to dismiss in talking seriously about jazz?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">There are political as well as aesthetic reasons to bring audiences back in. The growing interest in jazz in academia and in popular attention in the last 20 years or so has been motivated in part to reclaim and affirm a vital piece of African-American culture. Towering figures like Ellington or Coltrane, whose voices may indeed have advanced their people, get a lot of ink. But what about the other jazz artists who sold well with “ordinary” black folks? If sales are any indication, working class black people during the 1950s preferred soul or funk jazz over hard-core bebop. (If you want to argue with this claim, you are welcome. The debate itself would further my main point that audiences matter.) </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">There have been few if any articles about jazz players with funky roots like Arnett Cobb, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, or Jimmy Smith. I can’t think of any tributes to them at Lincoln Center. Yet they not only appealed to black audiences, they were influential as artists. Is there implicit condescension to this segment of the historical black audience for these artists? Is there a class as well as racial bias in this pattern? The problem is artistic and political. Sonny Rollins loved Louis Jordan’s music and saxophone playing, yet there has never been much written about <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">Jordan</st1:country-region></st1:place>. What does the canonical Rollins see in Jordan that the critics and historians, the ones who canonized him, have missed? Have they made Rollins into an “elite” artist, a status he might reject?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">It is true that the most original, influential, and productive figures like Rollins will and should receive our appreciation as such. But isn’t the way they, too, “played” their audience, and appealed to eyes and minds as well as ears, a part of the fascination they hold? Lester Young’s angular stance matched his angular approach. Is that a mere accident of history? Miles Davis may or may not have turned his back on the audience. But who was more concerned with image and taking the pulse of the time than he was? Even the famously undemonstrative John Coltrane brought drama and meaning to performances with his feats of endurance, his spiritual motives, and his leadership of a quartet that was so free yet thought as one with him. One of jazz’ most challenging musicians is thereby also one of its best selling.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Young performers are taught to emulate these great musicians’ licks and chord changes. Are they taught, in any direct way, to engage an audience? (If anyone has examples, I would like to know.) Research and education on jazz is in some sense presenting it to an audience of readers, students, and, indeed, potential listeners. It follows that fledging jazz musicians must be the ones to promote their music in every sense if it is to have a future. And, if promoting music is the goal, one must understand the audience in question. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Being mindful of one’s audience is important even in the most challenging forms of jazz performance. Even, that is, in those often presumed to have bravely charged ahead in spite of what appeared to be limited audiences. As George Lewis notes in his book A Power Stronger Than Itself, which is about the experimental Association for the Advancement of Creative Music of his native South Side of Chicago: free or avant-garde jazz is perfectly capable of winning over audiences. The trick is in how and where it’s presented, and there may be ways of presenting specific kinds of jazz. (Big-ticket nightclubs never clicked for the Art Ensemble of Chicago, for example; they played the college circuit instead.) </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The reception of “free jazz” shows that “selling out” and “remaining pure” is a false choice. Capitulating to a “crowd” mentality on one hand, and remaining heroically, perhaps tragically, aloof from popular acceptance on the other are two sides of the same coin. If an artist is to communicate, she or he has to approach the Other, even if that meeting must be only halfway. The same is true of those who document or interpret the artists’ work. </span></p> Grover T. Bicknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310133734294990979noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9184453704723060601.post-55572024933009057342009-10-06T11:51:00.000-07:002009-10-06T17:17:46.961-07:00Live Review: Leny Andrade<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">BIRDLAND</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">August 13, 2009</span><br /><br /><br />I don't know much about Brazilian jazz, but I had the impression that Leny Andrade is it. I caught her at Birdland on the recommendation of her pianist, Brazilian expert Cliff Korman, who kindly put me on the guest list. Otherwise I must say she wouldn't be on my screen, but she is now.<br /><br />The language is Andrade's instrument. She takes full advantage of the guttural, earthy sounds of Portuguese (at least, that I hear in it) to elide, stretch, kajole, push and pull the pulse, as all great jazz singers do. Her scat singing is very rhythmic: no virtuosic swoops, like Ella, just swinging to the beat.<br /><br />She chose the Portuguese language version of familiar Jobim tunes, like "Wave", "So Nice", "Girl from Ipanema" and "Corcovado", as well as Lusitanified versions of jazz standards like "Bluesette" and "Night in Tunisia." I believe this was a means of drawing in and warming up a North American crowd. Quiet at first, they clearly needed it, but the strategy worked.<br /><br />Chiding New Yorkers for working too hard, exuding devilish fun, Andrade's flamboyantly Latin personality was on display (or at least that was the mask she chose to put on for us). Like Louis, her personality is one with her music.<br /><br /><br /></span></span>Grover T. Bicknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310133734294990979noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9184453704723060601.post-59268351686999928632009-09-16T19:24:00.000-07:002009-10-06T17:19:06.029-07:00Live Review: Joe Strasser Group<span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">SMOKE</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">SEPTEMBER 15, 2009</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Ian Hendrickson-Smith, tenor sax</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Armand Hirsch, guitar</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Barak Mori, bass</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Joe Strasser, drums</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sam Yahel, organ</span><br /><br />Put together at the last minute for this gig, Strasser's group is an incarnation of an outfit known as "Hot Pants" that was comprised of jazz musicians playing funk. They do not, however, take a passing or cynical interest in funk. They show their commitment in many ways--not least by supplying bioluminescent grooves for what seemed like two sets worth of music in one hour.<br /><br />Since they are all great jazz players, it's quite rewarding to just to listen to their solos overlayed on this funk continuum. The audience certainly listened attentively and showed their appreciation generously. The only jarring thing is that no one was dancing. That should serve as a reminder that this music, in fact all jazz, is close to movement and dance.<br /><br />They played "Maceo" by the eponymous Maceo Parker, "Jacob's New Crib" by Hendrickson-Smith, "Country Squire" by organist Adam Scone, "The Music Took Your Mind Away" by Kool and the Gang (as revised by Grant Green), and "If You Want Me to Stay" by Sly and the Family Stone.<br /><br />I knew Ian Hendrickson-Smith as an alto player, but he plays tenor with a natural feel for the instrument and great time. Bassist Barak Mori played popping melodic bass figures the whole set--as is right; some jazz players sound wistful for walking when they get involved in this type of groove. Leader Strasser was unflaggingly energetic and in control as always. Sam Yahel's organ playing was also perfect in this setting. A newcomer to watch out for was guitarist Armand Hirsch, all of 18 years old and already a veteran of work with Hank Jones. He has technique, the right kind, and superior musicianship, which invariably got the audience charged up on every solo.<br /><br /></span>Grover T. Bicknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310133734294990979noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9184453704723060601.post-8860708697510975112009-08-24T17:36:00.000-07:002009-10-25T06:23:28.140-07:00Live Review: Rob Schneiderman Quartet<span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" >Rob Schneiderman, piano</span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" >Bryan Lynch, trumpet</span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" >Todd Coolman, bass</span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" >Justin Brown, drums</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" >SMOKE<br />NOVEMBER 8, 2007<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><br /></span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" > <span style="font-size:130%;">Rob Scheiderman’s day gig is more esoteric than jazz could ever be. He’s a mathematician. It’s not just about jiggering numbers (or so he tells me). His specialty is topology, the study of spaces, and his work inhabits as many as nine spatial dimensions. To Schneiderman, who hails from the Bronx by way of San Diego, the attraction lies in the creativity you need to venture into uncharted territories in this exotic realm, and beauty of discovering and bringing back what’s “out there.” </span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" ><br />This spirit of discovery is natural for someone who is also a musician. It holds out an enormous temptation, in fact, to try grappling with the cosmic question of possible affinities between music and mathematics. I’ll leave that to the expert—Schneiderman taught a course on music and mathematics this fall at Lehman College, where he is an assistant professor of mathematics. </span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" ><br />Schneiderman’s other passion does speak volumes about what you will hear when you go to hear him. He has the daring to take us where no man has gone before and the sanity to bring us back in one piece. Schneiderman’s adventurous, can-do spirit means he’s not dependent on any single style (though Bud Powell clearly provides him with a center). He approaches very swinging material in an advanced way and makes “difficult” things sound natural. He segues comfortably between bop and bitonality. He moves through different material or songs without losing the groove. The result is that Schneiderman gets over with audiences and is also a very distinctive musician--fitting for someone who worked with Chet Baker and Eddie Harris.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" ><br />When it comes to leading his own group, Schneiderman clearly feels that four dimensions is enough to generate interest. His quartet struck a nice balance among different parts. It pitted three more seasoned musicians, Lynch, Coolman, Schneiderman against newcomer Justin Brown. The older musicians were rooted in bebop, whereas Brown, who wore dreadlocks, had a beat that tipped into a suggestion of funkiness. Coolman, the highly sought-after New York bassist, has great notes, a great beat, and a take care of business attitude. Lynch, who is now one of the most accomplished trumpet players in jazz, is always lyrical and well put together. </span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" ><br />Schneiderman’s original compositions blended well with those of jazz masters or standards. In the second set of the night, his own “Reunion” and “Juvenescence” were balanced against Bud Powell’s “Glass Enclosure” and “Buster Rides Again.” I believe it is unusual to blow on “Glass” (Powell performed it as a set piece), so it sounded very fresh and challenging in this performance. Schneiderman’s tribute to Eddie Harris, “Have You Heard Eddie Harris (Play the Saxophone) added funk to the mix. The standard “What is This Thing Called Love” served as a show-stopper ending the set.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /></span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" > I sat in during the third set. It was like sharing the cockpit of a well-conditioned Lear Jet. This was especially reassuring since my navigation was off (that is, my sightreading of untransposed, intricate bop heads after two glasses of wine, and an hour or two of hanging with Schneiderman’s piano peers in the audience, was limited). We played his “City Limits” and “Gravitation”, and Lynch’s “Tribute to Blue” (Mitchell). The standards “Beautiful Love” and “Cherokee” felt very much like they belonged in that company.</span>Grover T. Bicknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310133734294990979noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9184453704723060601.post-40158944801122222952009-08-14T11:24:00.000-07:002009-09-23T08:42:19.074-07:00Signs of Life in Small Jazz Clubs<meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><link style="font-family: arial;" rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5Ctbs3%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:smarttagtype style="font-family: arial;" namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="place"></o:smarttagtype><o:smarttagtype style="font-family: arial;" namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="City"></o:smarttagtype><o:smarttagtype style="font-family: arial;" namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" 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li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} .MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; mso-default-props:yes; font-size:10.0pt; mso-ansi-font-size:10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} </style> <![endif]--> <span style=";font-family:";font-size:100%;" ><o:p> </o:p></span> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The jazz community, facing poor record sales and declining jazz rosters on major labels, is engaged in one of its periodic panics over the <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204619004574320303103850572.html">death of jazz</a>. But I think reports of its life should be more greatly exaggerated. Those doing the reporting have only to look in the right places. In small intimate nightclubs dotting <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s urban landscape, jazz is teeming.
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">
<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">On any night of the week, one can hear people working hard at a challenging, specialized form of music for very little money. That’s a sign of an art form very much alive. Here in <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">New York</st1:place></st1:state>, the seats in these small establishments are filled, and not with cadavers or nonpersons. The average hack playing in that local dive has one major advantage over John Coltrane. (Hint: it’s not his or her high-speed internet connection).
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">
<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Live performance does not simply enhance jazz. It’s central to it. Its experience cannot be captured and transmitted through electronic media, at least not until virtual reality lives up to its name. Discussions about the future of jazz ought to ask how live performance enhances that experience and appreciation of the music. And discussions on how to develop or revive the quality of urban life ought to take into account the contribution that performing arts—jazz not least—can make to the social fabric of the city.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">
<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The jam session and the nightclub are as much a part of the aesthetic blueprint of jazz as its far more noted genius for solo improvisation. It’s hard to imagine how Louis Armstrong or Charlie Parker could have emerged without having to combine constantly with other players and get feedback from an audience only a few feet away. Small venues that allow ad hoc combinations of personnel and intimacy with the audience still are—or should be—crucial testing grounds for young players.
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">
<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">When Armstrong and later Parker learned their craft, jazz cross-pollinated with many other kinds of performance and social activities, and thus it thrived. We need not get caught up in nostalgia for that day. But we in the jazz field could go beyond our preoccupation with the “notes themselves,” and ask how contemporary jazz of any style can be enriched by <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203863204574348310291383166.html">effective presentation in live performance</a>—yet, let us unflinchingly call it entertainment. We also need to ask what concrete steps could be taken to support the demand for jazz out there and the venues that feature it.
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">
<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The more upmarket jazz clubs, though they may feature jazz of high quality, hardly fulfill the mission of sustaining a culture of live performance. Since they rely on presenting established stars, they have become more like small-scale concerts or showcases than interactive venues. Upscale clubs therefore offer few opportunities for aspiring musicians and far less of the intimacy for the audience than nightclubs used to. Smaller, less expensive clubs like Smalls and Smoke here in <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">New York</st1:place></st1:state> are a livelier alternative—and they happen to be thriving. By the way, club owners Paul Stache and Frank Christopher of Smoke and Spike Wilner and Lee Yastremski of Smalls are not the dreaded mob types of Hollywood legend, but young entrepreneurs who should be supported and encouraged. The question is how.
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">
<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">If the aim is simply to get more music in more clubs, creating a more favorable set of economic incentives is essential. The onset of high real estate prices in the mid-1980s in New York City, for example, corresponds with the demise of a flourishing live jazz culture in the 1970s (ostensibly a time of jazz’ “stagnation”). Today, the speculative bubble in real estate makes it harder to open and operate a nightclub, but we should not sit and wait for the bubble to pop. Change will have to come from the top—from the movers and shakers of urban policy. In this town, that would be the Mayor, City Council and Department of Economic Development. Urban authorities should recognize that the arts directly enhance the economic base of the city. Performing arts draw people to cities. Studies have shown that as the arts and artists grow in an urban environment, so does the cultural diversity that in turn attract other professional classes to cities, raising rents and providing a highly skilled workforce. And jazz thrives in the sites for social interaction and personal connection with the arts that are the lifeblood of the urban experience.
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">
<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">An incremental shift in the tax burden on establishments could help. Several nightclub owners have told me that small reductions in their taxes would translate into a significantly lower door charge, just enough to draw many more customers past the threshold. Favoring establishments serving liquor might be controversial, to say the least. With some kind of official cultural sanction, though, there could be changes in the rent guidelines or tax laws to favor those that present music (or any performances designated by the community to have public value, for that matter). Landmark status for venues featuring jazz is not too farfetched in a city with unique historical associations with jazz. In a similar vein, zoning laws could be created or adjusted to allow more places close together in one set of city blocks. That would give audiences more action and more choices for their bridge-and-tunnel fees or late-night cab fare. <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Tours</st1:place></st1:city> of the downtown area in the wake of the events of 9/11 might include access to live jazz performances of all kinds. (The <a href="http://www.tribecapac.org/music.htm"><st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Tribeca</st1:placename> <st1:placename st="on">Arts</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Center</st1:placetype></st1:place></a> features a “Lost Jazz Shrines” series that raises awareness of the rich history of jazz south of <st1:street st="on"><st1:address st="on">Houston Street</st1:address></st1:street>.)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">
<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Positive changes could also be made within nightclubs. Jazz clubs could offer activities besides the consumption of alcohol and music: dinner, dancing, or indoor sports in adjoining rooms, for example. All of these activities might draw extra revenue: the trick is to find a mix appropriate for jazz, or the type of jazz the club features. There may be other venues for live besides nightclubs. Coffeehouses, private subscription parties, and benefits of all kinds offer the group and audience interaction without depending on the sale of alcohol.
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">
<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Exorbitant door charges in midtown need to come down to attract more young people, and more of those who are curious about jazz but won’t pay fifty dollars to find out what they think. Venues that admit people below the age of 18 could be invaluable to jazz’ future. The “peanut galleries” that existed in nightclubs until the 1960s would not work with today’s understandably strict drinking age laws. An appropriate venue is a small afternoon concert, which is relatively easy to produce and compelling to fund with tax-exempt dollars. It could easily be conceived as a social occasion for youngsters as well as an educational one.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">
<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">None of these changes can come about without a change in the public perception of jazz and the experience of live jazz in particular. The many celebrities who like jazz—mainly actors and sports figures—might be enlisted. But there’s another segment of the cultural elite that already has the podium to spread the word: critics. They rightly see their function as educating people about the nature of the music itself and its rich history. If that is so, the sense of being in a club—the spontaneity, unpredictability, excitement, variety and romance of the “hang” as well as the music ought to be a core theme. Some critics feel jaded with writing about the same old fantastic veterans over and over; if so, young up-and-coming musicians in small establishments are always making news. Will Friedwald built an intriguing story about his own participation in a jam session at Smoke on Monday nights, where he and all the other performers were diligent, earnest amateurs.
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">
<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The most important change, and also the hardest to pull off, will have to come from the musicians playing in jazz clubs. They need to enhance the potential for drama and interaction implicit in jazz, and which can only be experienced in the intimate setting of a small establishment. It’s not just about producing sound—it’s a performance. The blend of appearances, actions and the spoken word, however minimal or supportive to the main purpose of playing music, can make the difference for average consumers of music.
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">
<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Musicians and hard-core fans need to remember that their drive to pursue jazz was already set in motion long ago, but that newcomers must still be won over. Jazz club visitors sometimes arrive curious but are put off by the barrage of notes and polyrhythms they encounter but may not be quite equipped to tune in to. They are equally put off by well-meaning but misguided efforts to “educate” them that simply rehearse musical jargon or trot out examples from revered figures of the glorious past. Adding or augmenting the element of drama helps audiences feel that they’ve not only made a connection with the musicians as human beings, but taken in something meaningful about life in a shared, real-time experience.
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">
<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">I don’t want to, nor have the right to, prescribe in more detail what musicians should do to enhance the dramatic dimension in their performances. Active veterans like Cedar Walton or Dr. Lonnie Smith hardly need to be told how to create drama. Performance can take many shapes, but that has to be an artistic choice and spring from deeply personal motivations. I will make do with an anecdote.
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">
<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">In his book, <span style="font-style: italic;">Natural Selection</span>, Critic Gary Giddins described a gig where Sonny Rollins was to perform with his group. The band came onto the stage fronted by a tenor saxophonist who looked like Rollins, but seemed to be shorter and more compact. It was really Yusef Lateef, unannounced. Rollins had let his fellow sax man play more than a few choruses before materializing. Then Rollins finally appeared behind the drummer, making musical comments at first, but gradually coming out front and giving the audience what they had come to hear. Rollins had put his own personality on display. He had been, as always, deeply inventive and spontaneous, yet somehow fully in control of the situation. He had created an unstable situation, yet resolved it in an intriguing and ultimately satisfying way. Yes, he blew some notes—but he also elevated the act of blowing into a larger public spectacle. That move is the soul of theatre, and it can help show doubters and neophytes how music can represent everyday life writ large. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> Grover T. Bicknellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310133734294990979noreply@blogger.com0