AUBADE FOR RUBY: HOWARD ALDEN, JON-ERIK KELLSO, FRANK TATE at JAZZ AT CHAUTAUQUA (Sept. 16, 2011)

This too-brief set took place at Jazz at Chautauqua on Sept. 17, 2011, at a time most jazz musicians would find uncongenial, but this trio transcended the early hour and the bright sunlight to create wonderful intimate music in honor of Ruby Braff. 

Trumpeter Jon-Erik Kellso knew Ruby and continues to be inspired by his hot lyricism, but Jon-Erik has his own approach and sound, so his work is a soulful evocation, not an attempt to imitate the Master’s dips and whorls.  Guitarist Howard Alden and bassist Frank Tate were the compact creative unit that embraced and supported Ruby in his final decades, creating small masterpieces from songs both familiar and unexpected.  Ruby drew his “aesthetic vitamins” from jazz sources — Louis Armstrong and Lester Young — but also from Judy Garland and Fred Astaire — and imbued those songs and images with his own deep romanticism, ever surprising.

Here are three performances that summon up Ruby’s eloquence and strength while giving this creative trio of individualists more than enough room to be themselves.

A Mary Lou Williams composition from the mid-Forties, LONELY MOMENTS, always seems like music for a deeply introspective film:

Ruby said he learned the seductive Gershwin song DO IT AGAIN from Judy Garland’s recording.  This performance epitomizes the lullaby-like quality of the song, drawing us ever closer:

And the set concluded with a Louis-inspired romp through a song Ruby was playing as far back as 1967, Don Redman’s NO ONE ELSE BUT YOU:

Beautiful creations at an early hour!

JAMES DAPOGNY AND FRIENDS at JAZZ AT CHAUTAUQUA (Sept. 16, 2011)

This hot chamber jazz session took place at Jazz at Chautauqua on September 16, 2011, and the estimable participants are James Dapogny, piano; Dan Levinson, clarinet and tenor sax; Andy Stein, violin; Frank Tate, string bass; John Von Ohlen, drums. 

DOIN’ THE RACCOON dates from the late Twenties, and is one of those spirited songs chronicling the floor-length raccoon coats that were the height of college fashion.  I would ordinarily hear in my mind’s ear (or mental jukebox) the Eddie South version . . . but this happy twenty-first century effusion now stands alongside it:

Frank Signorelli and Matty Malneck’s pretty LITTLE BUTTERCUP (later titled I’LL NEVER BE THE SAME) was first recorded by Eddie Lang and Joe Venuti, then by Billie Holida, Buck Clayton, and Lester Young — a beautiful rhythm ballad with a sweet yearning at its center:

And the theme song for all discussions, I MAY BE WRONG, which was also the song chosen for the Apollo Theatre productions:

Thanks to the gentlemen of the ensemble for creating and evoking music that will outlive the discourse that swirls around it.

“I’M READY, I’M READY!” or “THE TRUMPET KING OF SWING”

I can identify some of the signatures, but not all.  Where are they playing?

Thanks to Mister Glaser, Luis Russell, Sonny Woods, Midge Williams, Lawrence Lucie, Decca Records, and of course to The Trumpet King of Swing himself!

HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT: BUBBER MILEY ON FILM, 1929

Around the same time that Eddie Condon was introducing African-Americans and Caucasians to each other in front of the recording microphone, a similar experiment was taking place — although with much less directness.  James “Bubber” Miley was appearing with the Leo Reisman Orchestra on record and (I believe) in stage shows, where he would perform from behind a screen or in other guises.  When the Vitaphone Company approached Reisman to create a short sound film, it is to his credit that he included Miley — as well as an Ellington composition that we can be sure Miley brought with him.  But how to show a racially-mixed orchestra onscreen?

The answer — both gratifying and frustrating — can be found below, thanks to “vitajazz,” who posted this rare Vitaphone Varieties film on his YouTube channel.

You can see many more fascinating Vitaphone treasures here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/vitajazz.

I’ll let Vitajazz explain, although some of the commentary will only be fully understood once the film has been seen:

LEO REISMAN and his Hotel Brunswick Orchestra

Vitaphone Reel 770, March 1929

Restored about 14 years ago, film for this short was much sought-after because the surviving Vitaphone disc clearly featured African-American hot trumpeter James “Bubber” Miley. The question was, how was he presented on-screen? Showing a mixed-race ensemble on a cinema screen was completely verboten in America in the twenties and into the Thirties. This finally-located mute element resolves that conundrum…Anyone who thinks of the Leo Reisman band as tending to sweet and commercial will be completely surprised by this film, it has true jazz. The excellent vocalist is Paul Small.

Songs: “Moochie (Ellington), “Water of Perkiomen,” “If I had You,” “Hyo-Mio,” “Milenberg Joys,” “Lonely,” “Some of these days.”

It’s clear that Miley is in charge on “Moochie” (sic) and I believe he is the hat-muted trumpeter on “Some of These Days.”  I hope he was paid well, and was happy with the results.  The film, eighty-plus years after its creation, is a small sad triumph.  We can almost see Bubber Miley, and in this case “almost” does count.

DON’T BE CRUEL

Recently the French jazz critic and composer Andre Hodeir died.  The elegies I read made much of his severity, his intolerance for anything that he felt was inferior.  This discussion took me back to his famous essay about the singular trombonist Dicky Wells.  In his first book, JAZZ: ITS EVOLUTION AND ESSENCE, Hodeir praised the “romantic imagination” Wells showed in his early solos; in a later collection, TOWARDS JAZZ, Hodeir wrote the disillusioned essay, “Why Do They Age So Badly?” — which emerged from his disappointment in hearing an older Wells in the flesh in 1952.

My citations come from memory, but what sticks in my mind is the ferocity of Hodeir’s critical rancor.  Candor and critical objectivity in his hands became punitive.  For one example, when the young Hodeir wrote about the recordings of Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five, he praised Louis, but scorned the vocal efforts of Mae Alix as “among the ugliest and most grotesque things ever recorded.”  I am paraphrasing, but you get the idea.  Confronted with an aging Dicky Wells, Hodeir seemed furious at what he perceived as a disappointingly diminished musician.

Had he written, “Wells no longer sounds the way he did in 1937, and I am sorry that this is no longer possible,” I would not complain.  But his pique was so strong that it was as if he felt Wells no longer had a reason to play in public.  There was little human awareness of the ways a creative style might change over the decades, and no compassion for the great physical effort it takes to play the trombone or sing.  No, Hodeir was personally disappointed that Wells had not remained the same artist he was in 1937 — as if his favorite restaurant no longer cooked his dinner in the manner he was accustomed.

Of course we are entitled to our reactions — our subjectivity tethered to some vestiges of objective “evidence.”  But I find the harshness with which some of these “critical assessments” are delivered to spring from cruelty, not enlightenment.  “Let’s give that one no stars, and let’s click on DISLIKE while we’re at it.”  (There is something to say about the “star system” in art — where viewers and listeners have “heroes” and reject others as inept pretenders . . . but that’s another essay entirely.)

Perhaps thirty-five years ago, when I encountered the fine jazz pianist Dill Jones on a gig, he was nearly tearful when recalling the review given him by the Toronto “jazz critic” Patrick Scott.  Scott had written that Dill’s fingers should have been broken if they weren’t already.  That makes for “good journalism,” if one savors cruelty, but it still seems inhuman some thirty-five years later.

“I like the way X plays” is a statement hard to find fault with.  “X is a better player than Y” is more suspect.  By what standards?  And this variety of criticism is especially prevalent online.  A good many musical commentators — and I don’t know their basis of musical knowledge or experience — share what’s on their minds in very bold strokes.  “A’s performance is mediocre.”  “B’s band played that song too fast.”  “X was a bad player.”

Some of this criticism I will take as valid (if amusing): Sidney Bechet had a right to tell an eager Yank Lawson, “Young man, you played that song too fucking fast,” after Yank had stomped off an impetuous tempo for JAZZ ME BLUES.

But I would urge all the jazz critics — professional and avocational — to be kinder in their public judgments.  We ought to be supremely grateful for the music that we hear and see.  Were we to say, “This isn’t the tempo I prefer,” or “I like the way A sings this,” our objectivity won’t be compromised.  And generosity is always a good thing.

If we allow others to be imperfect, who knows?  They might extend us the same courtesy.

“THE ETERNAL PRESENT,” or ONWARDS TO the SAN DIEGO THANKSGIVING DIXIELAND JAZZ FESTIVAL(Nov. 23-27, 2011)

England, Summer, 2009

We all know that it’s crucial to live in the Moment — NOW — not to be looking over our shoulders at the triumphs and failures of the past, or to be “killing time” waiting for Something Good That’s Coming.  Occasionally, living in the Moment is nothing more than effectively focusing ourselves on the reality that is right in front of us: how the coffee really tastes to us, how the sunlight gleams on the red leaves outside the window.

But when it comes to the delightful and sometimes odd intersection of jazz and the internet, the Moment gets harder to pin down.  As I write this, in the background of my computer, I am downloading videos from Jazz at Chautauqua — music performed in the Past of mid-September 2011 — so that JAZZ LIVES can share them.  And in another room, videos taken just this past weekend at Mike Durham’s Classic Jazz Party at Whitley Bay (Newcastle, England) are being copied from my camera onto a presumably more durable external hard drive.  And as I write this, I am listening to a “new” CD — from 1992 — of THE YOUNG GENERATION OF SWING — including those youths Kellso, Barrett, Sandke, Alden, Allen, Allred . . . in their collective boyhoods.

Now, which one of these is the Present?

And, to complicate matters, Chris Albertson posted the third part of an interview he did with Lil Hardin Armstrong –

stomp-off.blogspot.com/2011/11/lil-armstrong-1968.html

The interviews are wonderful, but what caught my eye and stays in my imagination is a photograph that Lil saved — a portrait of her young husband Louis, which he inscribed most tenderly: “To my Dear Wife, whom I’ll love till I die, from “Hubby,” Louis Armstrong.”  Chris tells me that the photograph is from September 23, 1929.  And I read that sweet inscription, knowing that the happiness Louis and Lil shared wouldn’t last — but I imagine the romance and delight that is in that inscription, which is its own kind of Moment, not to be tarnished all that much by our knowledge of what was to come.

The flower at the top of this post is dead.  Or is it?  It seems tangibly alive through the bright colors of the photograph.

Sometimes our ability to have a rewarding Moment relies on planning for it well in advance.  Thus, while I am downloading Chautauqua and still fresh from Whitley Bay, I must remind myself and you all about what is to come at the end of November 2011: the 32nd Annual San Diego Thanksgiving Dixieland Jazz Festival.  Hot jazz in profusion, giving us all things to be deeply thankful for.  I found out that tickets are still available . . . . take a look at this schedule, and you’ll see what there is to get excited about:

http://www.dixielandjazzfestival.org/pdfs/ScheduleGrid.pdf

It’s reassuring for me to be able to see where I might be having a good time all through that weekend.  I hope to see you there — and even if I’m filming, I will smile and wave (all in silent-film fashion): tell them that JAZZ LIVES sent you!

That’s the music that we love so deeply — a series of Moments that don’t die, giving us an Eternal Present.

MARTY GROSZ’S “BIXIANA” — JAZZ AT CHAUTAUQUA 2011

Marty Grosz is known for many things aside from playing the guitar and singing.  He always looks for new ways to present what looks to some like a tradition fixed — if not in stone, then in shellac.  He reveres Frank Teschemacher’s scant recorded work, for instance, but doesn’t want living musicians to be copying and reproducing those notes from 1928.

Thus, when Marty was found himself considering a performance of music associated with Bix Beiderbecke for the 2011 Jazz at Chautauqua party, he left slow. elegiac readings of SINGIN’ THE BLUES and I’M COMIN’ VIRGINIA alone . . . and reinvented a handful of Bix-favorites in styles that didn’t always come from 1923-31.

And he certainly saw to it that any resemblances between the original recordings and what happened on the stage on Sept. 17, 2011, were coincidental.  Marty surrounded himself with players who know Bix and his world deeply, but understand that they have their own songs to sing: Andy Schumm, cornet; Dan Block and Scott Robinson, reeds; Dan Barrett, trombone; Jim Dapogny, piano; Jon Burr, bass; Pete Siers, drums.

They began with one of the happiest bits of good cheer I know (which Bix recorded with Jean Goldkette for Victor), I’M LOOKING OVER A FOUR-LEAF CLOVER.  But, Toto, it certainly doesn’t sound like that scroll 78.  Does anyone recognize the source of the romping phrase that begins this performance (somehow I think it’s a closing riff . . . which would suit Marty’s obstinate whimsies) — a performance full if little surprises:

A GOOD MAN IS HARD TO FIND has associations with Eddie Condon, Milt Gabler, and the Commodore Music Shop — but this lovely performance reminds me just as much of the John Hammond Vanguard sessions of the early Fifties, in the way it takes its time.  Up until the double-time passages (after the bass solo), you could easily be in 1953, in a Masonic Temple in Brooklyn:

OL’ MAN RIVER came from 1927, but this performance floats along from the start with borrowings from everywhere (isn’t that a mid-Forties “Keynote” riff I hear at the start — or is it the opening fidget from the ROUTE 66 television show theme, circa 1961?).  The overall feel here, with Pete Siers’ swishing hi-hat, is that of a Buck Clayton Jam Session, either the early ones supervised by Hammond or the later Chiaroscuros (thanks to Hank O’Neal for such blessings).  And the musicians float over those neat charts, sounding like themselves (or like Lester and Higgy, when the spirit moves them):

Finally, after some official Grosz-talk, we have COPENHAGEN, named for the Midwestern delicacy.  And look out for letter C!  This performance sounds more like the 1939-40 Bud Freeman band (“Summa Cum Laude” or “his Famous Chicagoans”) which doesn’t do anyone any harm:

One, two . . . they know what to do!

KEITH INGHAM PLAYS BRUBECK, ARTHUR SCHWARTZ, STRAYHORN, and MORE (Jazz at Chautauqua 2011)

Many people know Keith Ingham as a wonderful accompanist to singers — never getting in the way, but always adding so much to their work.  Others have found him a fine band pianist — going back to Stacy and boogie-woogie, forward to a swinging empathy.  But the Ingham fewer people know about is the powerful Mainstream player — someone with strong lyrical tendencies, a poet of songs others don’t play.  But there’s nothing fussy in Keith’s approach, and whether he is tracing a tender love ballad or building an improvisation from clearly-constructed rhythms and harmonies, he’s always in control without losing any essential grace.

Here are two brief recitals from the 2011 Jazz at Chautauqua party.  The first finds Keith on his own, exploring songs and composers that some in the audience might have found surprising.  But everything gleams under his fingers, beginning with this leisurely exploration of some songs by Dave Brubeck:

The compositions are IN YOUR OWN SWEET WAY, IT’S A RAGGY WALTZ, and TAKE FIVE.  Like Dave McKenna, Keith often arranges songs whimsically by the themes implied in their titles — so here are HERE’S THAT RAINY DAY, A FOGGY DAY, and SOME OTHER SPRING (although the weather was perfectly pleasant at Chautauqua):

And Keith closed this recital with an Ellington / Strayhorn medley — of PASSION FLOWER, UPPER MANHATTAN MEDICAL GROUP, CHELSEA BRIDGE, and TAKE THE “A” TRAIN — energized, not formulaic:

The next day (Saturday, Sept. 17) Keith asked bassist Jon Burr and drummer Pete Siers to join him for a serious (but light-hearted) exploration of the songs of Arthur Schwartz, including I GUESS I’LL HAVE TO CHANGE MY PLAN, DANCING IN THE DARK, MAKE THE MAN LOVE ME, BY MYSELF, and more.  Here’s that delicious recital:

Craig Ventresco told me some years back that Keith was “a real musician,” and these performances testify to that.  I hope someone lets Jonathan Schwartz know about the recital of his father’s work: I am sure that JS would be very pleased.

“OUT OF OFFICE AUTOREPLY,” or “TOO BUSY”

In case anyone might be wondering what has happened to the tireless flow of material on JAZZ LIVES — I received an email yesterday inquiring about my health — may I assure you all that both I and the blog are in fine shape.

But we are Otherwise Occupied.

Not in court or in the doctor’s waiting room.  But at Mike Durham’s Classic Jazz Party (otherwise known in past years as the Whitley Bay International Jazz Party).  And the music there has been astonishing and promises to continue at that level.  Here are some names: Josh Duffee, Nick Ward, Bent Persson, Michel Bastide, Kristoffer Kompen, Norman Field, Matthias Seuffert, Jean-Francois Bonnel, Andy Schumm, Paul Asaro, Mauro Porro, Martin Wheatley, Richard Pite, David Sager, Debbie Arthurs, Mike Durham, Rico Tomasso . . . . and that’s without my looking at the list.

And last night there was a jam session in the Victory Pub — from which I extricated myself at 1:45 AM as a nod to self-preservation.

I can promise you that you’ll see some of this on JAZZ LIVES in about two months — but the best reward you might give yourself would be to book for the 2012 party.  Then you’ll understand that TOO BUSY isn’t always a bad thing.

WHEN BECKY MET HARRY (Jazz at Chautauqua, Sept. 17, 2011)

“Becky” we know as our own Rebecca Kilgore, deeply moving but ever so natural — in pearly form for this Saturday morning set at Jazz at Chautauqua, surrounded by gentlemen with similar names: John Sheridan, piano; Jon Burr, string bass; John Von Ohlen, drums.

But the “Harry” in the title was neither Billy Crystal nor Harry Allen.  It was “Harry Warren,” born Salvatore Antonio Guaragna in 1893, author of more hit songs (musically valuable ones, as well) than almost any of his peers.  Here are five, each one its own little concerto — full of emotion and humor.

With its rarely-heard verse, here’s YOU’RE GETTING TO BE A HABIT WITH ME:

The classically pretty YOU’RE MY EVERYTHING:

NO LOVE, NO NOTHIN’ comes from a film musical, THE GANG’S ALL HERE, with Benny Goodman and Alice Faye.  It’s a classic wartime song, but it makes the vignette of fidelity-under-duress seem new:

I associate SERENADE IN BLUE with Glenn Miller and many other singers, but none bring to it the depth of casual feeling that Becky does here.  And listen very closely to what she does with the two versions of the phrase “whistling in the dark”:

Both Dick Powell and Art Tatum put their stamp on WITH PLENTY OF MONEY AND YOU, and Ms. Kilgore romps away with it here:

Thanks to our Rebecca for creating something so touching, so light-hearted, yet so deep.  I would send any singer to her work to admire, to study.  And let’s not omit the floating, on-target provided by the three gentlemen surrounding her: their melodies, their gracious accompaniment, their rhythmic embrace.  Together, they made for a memorable half-hour — sweet stylings without artifice.

Rebecca Kilgore’s gotten to be a habit with us, one we have no intention of breaking.

SOLID SENDER: JAMES DAPOGNY at JAZZ AT CHAUTAUQUA (Sept. 16, 2011)

Sixty years ago, I would have called Jim Dapogny (that’s Professor Emeritus James to some of you) a solid sender — someone we could count on to “send” us, to inspire us as soon as he began to play the piano.  The term now has the odd mustiness of archaic slang, but the praise still applies.  Whether he’s taking his time with a rhythm ballad, rocking the blues, or developing a swing cathedral-in-the-air (consider the three variations on LIZA here), he is a full-scale orchestral pianist, creating fascinating textures as he goes and always keeping the rhythm moving — a genuine treasure.

Here’s his informal concert from Sept. 16, 2011, at Jazz at Chautauqua:

I didn’t recognize his opening song, which didn’t surprise me — Jim has often found and shared obscure compositions with us (last year it was Victor Schertzinger’s MY START) but this one has a wonderful Thirties flavor.  Since I had never seen the Diana Ross “biography” of Billie Holiday, I had missed out on HAD YOU BEEN AROUND — with its oddly formal title — but I loved this Dapogny evocation.  Now I don’t have to see the film, ever:

Jim says that he is strongly influenced by Jess Stacy and Joe Sullivan (as well as a long list of pianists famous and obscure — including Hines, Morton, their colleagues and descendents) — here’s his homage to Mister Stacy, REMEMBERING JESS STACY:

Professor Dapogny’s casual erudition is always at the service of the music (I’m sorry I never got to sit in on one of his classes) — here he comments on W.C. Handy’s ATLANTA BLUES, borrowed in large part from MAKE ME A PALLET ON THE FLOOR:

Scrapper Blackwell’s melancholy I’M GOING HOME (or is it I’M GOIN’ HOME?):

And two American classics — BODY AND SOUL, played as if generations of jazz players had not yet walked through or over it:

To conclude, a taking-his-ease version of LIZA that works up a lovely head of steam:

All hail James Dapogny, poet and expert barrelhouse pianist!

DEEP HARMONY: JOEL PRESS and MICHAEL KANAN at SMALLS (October 20, 2011)

Here is the introduction I wrote for my first posting about a wonderful evening of intimate, powerful improvisation created by these two great players.  (You can hear the music at http://jazzlives.wordpress.com/2011/10/24/soul-searching-joel-press-and-michael-kanan-at-smalls-oct-20-2011/).

I told both Michael Kanan (piano) and Joel Press (tenor and soprano saxophones) that I had been waiting a few years to hear them perform as a duo. I knew that they had done this informally for twenty-five years in their respective studios and even appeared in public (probably in the Boston area) but I had always heard them in less intimate settings. Last Thursday, October 20, 2011, I had my chance, and the music was memorable.

Michael is younger than Joel, whom he met when he was only seventeen or eighteen, and he looks up to the saxophonist with love and reverence — as a great melodic improviser, someone full of surprises, able to create new things on the most familiar standard. But Joel, for his part, says he keeps learning from Michael — and hearing the depths and subtleties of Michael’s playing, it’s no hyperbole.

It would be very easy to skate over the surface of these familiar songs, but these two players know what it is to listen, to respond, to improvise. It’s lovely to witness the deep, playful interchanges of artists so attuned to one another yet so able to take off on small experimental impulses. Their friendship and telepathy imbue every note, every phrase.

Here’s the second, magical set.

Monk, cryptic and irresistible as ever — WELL, YOU NEEDN’T:

Michael offered the verse of YOU’D BE SO NICE TO COME HOME TO — with great tenderness:

SCRAPPLE FROM THE APPLE — fattening but delicious:

ALMOST LIKE BEING IN LOVE, with a sweet Lestorian bounce:

It was dark inside and outside, perhaps leading Joel to think of the Bud Powell – Sonny Still variations on THESE FOOLISH THINGS called SUNSET:

GET OUT OF TOWN — swinging, rather than abruptly dismissive:

A searching improvisation based on OUT OF NOWHERE:

Something funky and delightful — RED TOP.  Smalls doesn’t sell food, but I thought I could smell spareribs:

They ended the evening — reluctant to stop playing — while waiting for the next band to arrive — with an impromptu yet heartfelt BODY AND SOUL:

I have it on good authority that Joel will be back in New York this coming month (November 2011) and for more news about Michael, check this out:

http://jazzlives.wordpress.com/2011/11/01/michael-kanan-and-friends-are-throwing-a-party-nov-6-2011/

MICHAEL KANAN and FRIENDS ARE THROWING A PARTY (Nov. 6, 2011)

A Rent Party, to be exact.  For those who don’t know, this comes out of a Harlem tradition in the Twenties and onwards: if you needed some financial aid, you hired a friendly piano player (who brought his friends with him) and asked people to contribute what they could to keep Old Man Depression at bay.

Pianist Michael Kanan has moved into a new studio — there was a fire too close to the old one — and it’s a beauty, spacious and with lots of windows.  But the Rent . . . is . . . Higher, a fact of urban life.  So here’s Michael’s solution: invite his friends to play his beautiful piano and ask a congenial group to support this enterprise.

He writes:

To celebrate the opening of our new rehearsal studio – “The Drawing Room” – we are presenting a concert by the “Four Pianists”. Larry Ham, Tardo Hammer, Pete Malinverni, and Michael Kanan will alternate at the mint condition Steinway C grand piano. There will be some special guests sitting in as well.  As we are trying to defray some of the cost of moving into the new space, we’ll ask for donations at the door.  Please contribute whatever you’d like.

Sunday, November 6th

7:00 – until it’s done

At “The Drawing Room”

70 Willoughby Street #2A, between Lawrence St. and Bridge St.

Downtown Brooklyn

Admission: contribute what you’d like

for info: 917-836-2105

The Drawing Room is a large, comfortable space which can accommodate a large, happy crowd. Bring anyone you’d like, and spread the word!  Feel free to BYOB.  Our studio is accessible by several subway lines. From Midtown Manhattan you can get there in 30 minutes or less.  If you choose to drive, you can probably find street parking on a Sunday evening.  

I know that Michael has great plans for the new space, and I hope to be there for some of those happenings: I can’t make this one, because I’ll be at Mike Durham’s Classic Jazz Party.  But having heard these four pianists take turns at a far less congenial venue, I can guarantee that this Rent Party will be worth it.

HOWARD ALDEN’S WORLD TOUR (and A MYSTERY GUEST) from JAZZ AT CHAUTAUQUA 2011

Guitarist Howard Alden could double as a travel agent — taking us all on a musical tour.  In his recital at Jazz at Chautauqua (Sept. 16, 2011), we found ourselves in Brazil, the mountains, Japan, Kansas City — with a surprise visit from an immediately recognizable Italian virtuoso pianist.  In this first segment, Howard plays a medley of lilting Brazilian jazz tunes.  My Portuguese is very poor, so I haven’t transcribed the titles, but the music is lovely no matter what it’s called:

Then, Howard’s tribute to the Master, George Van Eps — a medley of LAP PIANO and MOUNTAIN GREENERY:

From Howard’s latest CD (on Arbors), here’s Joe Pass’ FOR DJANGO and a rocking NAGASAKI:

And, since everyone needs an Italian guide to understand Southwest swing, here’s BASIC RHYTHM with comradely assistance from Rossano Sportiello:

All of this without a heavy suitcase or standing on line at the airport.  Thanks, Howard (and Rossano)!