Many jazz listeners know Dave Brubeck primarily for his famous long-lived Quartet; for some, it was the easiest way to hear the wondrous Paul Desmond. But Brubeck and colleagues made fascinating music before TAKE FIVE.
The indefatigable saxophonist, researcher, and scholar Jon De Lucia has brought the often-thrilling music of Brubeck’s Octet to life with his own Octet. They created an intimate recital of this music, arranged and composed by Dave Van Kriedt, Bill Smith, and Brubeck, at Brooklyn’s IBeam on December 6, 2023, and I was privileged to be there with my camera.
and
They were Jon De Lucia, alto saxophone, leader; John Lake, trumpet; Scott Robinson, tenor saxophone; Becca Patterson, trombone; Jay Rattman, baritone saxophone and clarinet; Glenn Zaleski, piano; Daniel LaCour Duke, double bass; Ben Zweig, drums.
I am posting three performances from that evening, all of them based on well-known standards: admire the swirling intricacies of the arrangements and of course the eloquent solos.
THE WAY YOU LOOK TONIGHT:
LET’S FALL IN LOVE:
I HEAR A RHAPSODY (featuring Scott Robinson, always a fine idea):
And the extra-added-attraction news is that this delightful recital took place on Wednesday; the Monday after, Jon and almost the same band went into the studio and recorded this rare music for a CD. Details here!
There are a dozen people in my musical world who, if they said, “I’m going to give a concert of the music of Eustern Woodfork,” or someone equally unknown, I would say, “What time are you going to be there, so I can set up?” without hesitation. Jon De Lucia is one of those people.
I don’t quite know the circumstances that made this unusual and wonderful meeting possible, nor how this was recorded . . . but it’s a marvelous event.
Here are the 1963 performances, posted on YouTube by someone I don’t know.
First, a brisk POOR BUTTERFLY featuring Bobby Hackett, cornet, with the Brubeck rhythm section of Dave, piano; Eugene Wright, string bass; Joe Morello, drums. And you can hear Bobby express his pleasure when the song concludes. Then, Benny Goodman joins in for an eleven-minute SWEET GEORGIA BROWN, with the magical Paul Desmond adding his alto saxophone and choruses of riffing and an improvised ensemble. As an encore, SUNNY SIDE OF THE STREET, a standard the CD liner notes indicate that Brubeck had never recorded before (his solo is anything but formulaic) and that Desmond had never recorded at all, with the same unusual but congenial front line:
I’ve not been able to find out anything more about this performance. The official Brubeck website corroborates the details above, although noting that the other tracks on the CD are not all correctly labeled. As to the Rock Rimmon Jazz Festival? I saw that Rock Rimmon is in Manchester, New Hampshire, and I already knew that Benny had recorded an original called ROCK RIMMON with a small group including Ruby Braff for Capitol Records, but the trail grows cold there. At least we have the music!
Festivals make odd stage-fellows, but here the unusual combination is completely enlivening. . . .twenty-four minutes of friendly exploration of the common language of lyrical swing. Bless the players, the expert sound crew, the archivists who preserved this, and the company (Domino Records) that issued it, and the person posting it on YouTube for us to savor.
Father’s Day, where I live, is a matter of taking Pater to the Diner in the morning, after the giving of gifts. That’s perfectly nice, even though the Old Man has to pick up the bill for the pancakes and orange juice.
But we all are indebted to parents who didn’t share their DNA with us in some direct fashion. I mean no disrespect to my biological father when I write that I’ve envisioned Louis Armstrong as one of my fathers for a long time now. That brings us to the latest Mosaic Records box set, which is at once a great gift and terribly intimidating for anyone, even someone like myself, to write about. Here are the details, complete with sound clips, of this seven-CD set.
Before I presume to write about the importance of this set and of this period in Louis’ art, I will let the music speak.
and Dave and Iola Brubeck’s SUMMER SONG:
I know there are people deaf to Louis’ majesty, the grandeur of his trumpet, the intimacy of his voice, his direct appeal to our emotions. I won’t dignify their deafness by battling it: this post is for those who can, in fact, hear and be moved.
The Mosaic set delineates, in its typically loving, careful way, perhaps the last great period of Louis’ career, where the paradox of his life was most evident: an artist much loved, playing and singing to audiences world-wide, but also being criticized by those who wanted him to be someone else. Thank goodness Louis was wise enough to follow his inner light — enacting the truth that music that pleased people was inherently good and worthy.
Louis made friends by shining that honest heartfelt light, and the Mosaic set, very clearly, documents two of those friendships. (I’m not even referring to the musicians he worked with who loved him.)
The first was with the jazz fan-writer-archivist-record producer George Avakian, who began his devoted work in the service of Louis as a college student in 1939-40 helping to produce jazz records and digging out unissued masterpieces for reissue. When Avakian began to produce long-playing records for Columbia, he eventually made possible Louis’ albums focused on the music of W.C. Handy and Fats Waller, thematic creations that were both jolly effusions and masterful architecture — not just a series of lovely bricks but soaring cathedrals. George also loved to use his editing tools — in his case, scissors and splicing tape — to produce what he felt would be the Platonic ideal, the performance that should have happened — so the Mosaic set presents a mountain of previously unheard material. He was incredibly long-lived, making it to 98 in 2017, and his imprint is on this music, for which we are grateful.
The second friend is the much younger Ricky Riccardi, happily still with us (because he was born in 1980) — Louis’ most loving documentarian, author of two books on his hero with a third on the way. Born nine years too late to be Louis’ actual Boswell, he has made up for it by annotating Louis’ life in prose and by being the energetic force behind a small tower of CD reissues. His notes are funny, warm, loose, and always solidly based on evidence. Mosaic, as always, has generously packaged this music with Ricky’s — what would I call it except a small book? — their glorious sound restoration, photographs, and exact data.
For me, it is both an affirmation of Louis’ glory — not that, for me, he needs any reinforcement — and a winding trip back through my childhood. I had the W.C. Handy, Waller, and Brubeck sets; I had the Columbia 45 of CABARET and the Victor reissues. So to put any disc in the player is to hear once again the music that shaped my taste . . . but since Mosaic has also provided music that otherwise would be unheard, it is two kinds of time-travel in one.
This is a shorter-than-usual review and exhortation to purchase than you might expect. But that someone would not want to hear and rehear SUGAR, I WANT A LITTLE GIRL, LONG LONG JOURNEY from the Victor sessions, new takes from the Columbia discs, Louis singing and playing NOMAD once again: it seems unthinkable. It’s as if someone said to me, “I never look at the sky. That bores me.”
When I convinced myself that I needed more records, and would go through boxes at the yard sale, antique store, or secondhand shop, I would often encounter Dave Brubeck’s JAZZ GOES TO COLLEGE. Much rarer and never seen were Max Kaminsky’s JAZZ ON THE CAMPUS and the wonderful series of small-band recordings Billy Butterfield made on one and another college campus. Of course, going back a few decades, bands played dances. The college I once taught at had a notation in its files that a Charles Mingus group had played there in 1973: of course, the cassette that had captured the music was now missing.
I sense that college audiences, once rock came in, wanted the most “modern” music, which meant that jazz rarely was on the bill. But in 1947, a college audience was not too hip for TIN ROOF BLUES. And — if I can take the risk — “Dixieland” was popular: think of THIS IS JAZZ on the Mutual radio network. Although the players on this gig — at the Alumni Gymnasium at Hamilton College — were venerable, they were still late-middle-aged: Miff Mole had just turned fifty, James P. Johnson, fifty-four.
Late in life, Miff Mole shared what no one then called “contact information.”
So here is the popular music of ago, played with Dispatch and Vigor (a nod to Marty Grosz, now ninety-one and concertizing next week in Philadelphia) by Max Kaminsky, cornet or trumpet; Miff Mole, trombone; Tony Parenti, clarinet; Art Hodes or James P. Johnson*, piano; Jimmy Butts, string bass; Danny Alvin, drums.
BLUES / ORIGINAL DIXIELAND ONE-STEP / JAZZ BAND BALL* / PEG O’MY HEART / BALLIN’ THE JACK / BASIN STREET BLUES / MUSKRAT RAMBLE* / TIN ROOF BLUES / SQUEEZE ME* / THAT’S A-PLENTY / HOW COME YOU DO ME? / (James P. Johnson solo) BACKWATER BLUES / LIZA / SNOWY MORNING BLUES / CAROLINA SHOUT / (James P. Johnson, Parenti, Alvin) MAPLE LEAF RAG / BLACK AND BLUE / (solo) BOOGIE WOOGIE STRIDE – TEA FOR TWO //
James P. Johnson, date and location unknown
This transfer came from the collection of the late John L. Fell, who was a student at Hamilton, and someone had access to the original discs. BACK WATER BLUES and LIZA were issued on an lp compilation of James P. performances, “AIN’T CHA GOT MUSIC?” worth finding, on Bob Hilbert’s Pumpkin Records label. There was, John told me, a private party after the concert, where someone recorded James P. playing LIZA / HALLELUJAH / BOOGIE WOOGIE STRIDE – TEA FOR TWO – SQUEEZE ME / AIN’T MISBEHAVIN’ – JUST BEFORE DAYBREAK – I CAN’T GET STARTED / KEEPIN’ OUT OF MISCHIEF NOW. But James P. became inebriated and his playing was not up to his usual standard, I remember John explaining.
Here’s what we have of the concert, and of those days when hot music was in the air, on the campus, and welcome everywhere:
I looked up “May 3, 1947” in Tom Lord’s online jazz discography, and found that Bunk Johnson and Don Ewell were playing a college concert at Coffman Memorial Auditorium, the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota. A different time zone and more than eleven hundred miles away, but evidence that the kids dug the hot sounds.
And before you nostalgicize too much, remember that it you were even a precocious college student at either concert, you’d be over ninety now. Choose cautiously before you step into your home-built time machine.
The eBay seller “jgautographs,” from whom I’ve purchased several marvels (signatures of Henry “Red” Allen, Rod Cless, Pee Wee Russell, Pete Brown, Sidney Catlett, among others) has been displaying an astonishing assortment of jazz inscriptions. I haven’t counted, but the total identified as “jazz” comes to 213. They range from “traditional” to “free jazz” with detours into related musical fields, with famous names side-by-side with those people whose autographs I have never seen.
As I write this (the early afternoon of March 21, 2020) three days and some hours remain.
Here is the overall link. Theoretically, I covet them, but money and wall space are always considerations. And collectors should step back to let other people have a chance.
The signers include Benny Carter, Betty Carter, Curtis Counce, Jimmy Woode, Herb Hall, Bennie Morton, Nat Pierce, Hot Lips Page, Rolf Ericson, Arnett Cobb, Vernon Brown, Albert Nicholas, Bobby Hackett, Vic Dickenson, Sammy Margolis, Ed Polcer, Ed Hall, Billy Kyle, Sam Donahue, Al Donahue, Max Kaminsky, Butch Miles, Gene Krupa, Ray McKinley, Earl Hines, Jack Teagarden, Arvell Shaw, Barrett Deems, Buck Clayton, Babs Gonzales, Benny Bailey, Joe Newman, Frank Wess, Pharoah Sanders, Kenny Burrell, Reggie Workman, Stanley Turrentine, Louis Prima, Wayne Shorter, Tiny Bradshaw, Harry Carney, Juan Tizol, Bea Wain, Red Rodney, Frank Socolow, Bobby Timmons, George Wettling, Roy Milton, Charlie Rouse, Donald Byrd, Kai Winding, Kenny Drew, Kenny Clarke, Steve Swallow, Shelly Manne, Frank Bunker, Charlie Shavers, Ben Pollack, Jess Stacy, Ron Carter, Bob Zurke, Jimmy Rushing, Cecil Payne, Lucky Thompson, Gary Burton, Jaki Byard, Noble Sissle, Muggsy Spanier, Don Byas, Pee Wee Russell, Slam Stewart, Hazel Scott, Ziggy Elman, Buddy Schutz, Ernie Royal, Boyd Raeburn, Dave McKenna, Claude Thornhill.
And signatures more often seen, Louis Armstrong, Dave Brubeck, Marian McPartland, Ella Fitzgerald, Anita O’Day, Hoagy Carmichael, Artie Shaw, Sidney Bechet, Gerry Mulligan, Cab Calloway, Rosemary Clooney, Wynton Marsalis,Tommy Dorsey, Oscar Peterson, Billy Eckstine, Mel Torme, Chick Corea, Count Basie.
In this grouping, there are three or four jazz-party photographs from Al White’s collection, but the rest are matted, with the signed page allied to a photograph — whether by the collector or by the seller, I don’t know. And there seems to be only one error: “Joe Thomas” is paired with a photograph of the Lunceford tenor star, but the pairing is heralded as the trumpeter of the same name.
My head starts to swim, so I propose some appropriate music — sweet sounds at easy tempos, the better to contemplate such riches, before I share a half-dozen treasures related to musicians I revere.
Jess Stacy’s version of Bix Beiderbecke’s CANDLELIGHTS:
Harry Carney with strings, IT HAD TO BE YOU:
Lester Young, Teddy Wilson, Gene Ramey, Jo Jones, PRISONER OF LOVE:
Here are a double handful of autographs for your amazed perusal.
Bob Zurke:
Charlie Shavers, name, address, and phone number:
Lucky Thompson, 1957:
Jimmy Rushing, 1970:
Harry Carney:
Juan Tizol:
Bill Coleman:
Buck Clayton:
Hot Lips Page (authentic because of the presence of the apostrophe):
Joe Sullivan:
Don Byas:
George Wettling:
Frank Socolow:
Benny Carter (I want to see the other side of the check!):
And what is, to me, the absolute prize of this collection: Lester Young, whom, I’m told, didn’t like to write:
Here’s music to bid by — especially appropriate in those last frantic seconds when the bids mount in near hysteria:
Since jazz fans seem — note I say seem — to be overwhelmingly male, it’s lovely to find this collection of jazz autographs collected by the young jazz fan Audrey Arbuckle, between 1954-56 in Chicago. My guess is that “Buckles,” born July 19, 1931, is no longer collecting autographs and may no longer be with us, but I can’t prove it.
Here’s the seller’s description:
Here is a unique and amazing collection of famous jazz musician autographs on matchbooks, tickets and table cards put together during 1954-1956 by a young college student nicknamed “Buckles” who went to jazz clubs like the original Blue Note in Chicago and the Basin Street East.
Eventually Buckles had the autographs she collected laminated between a clear plastic sheet.
On one side, are the autographs of jazz legends Lester Young, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Dave Brubeck, Coleman Hawkins, Illinois Jacquet, Chet Baker, Carmen McRae, Sonny Stitt, Paul Quinichette (“Vice-Prez” to Lester’s “Prez”), Roy Eldridge, Jeri Southern and Paul Desmond. There is even the team of Kai Winding and J. J. Johnson whose combined autographs together, on the same page, from the same club date, is very hard to find.
On the other side of the laminated sheet is: Count Basie, the tragic, talented jazz singer Beverly Kenney, Bob Bates, drummer Candido, singer Chris Connor and the great Paul Gonslaves who signed his name on part of a Duke Ellington ticket. Gonsalves famously blew 27 insane bars during his sax solo on “Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue” that sent the crowd at the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival into a frenzy and put Duke Ellington’s band, which had been going through a popularity slump, back in its rightful place. Also a picture of “Buckles” who got the autographs.
The laminated page — which no doubt preserved those sixty-five year old scraps of paper, although oddly — is up for bid at $850 or “best offer,” and here is the link.
And the photographic evidence: some of these signatures (Beverly Kenney!) are incredibly rare — but to think of this young woman who saw and heard so much, it’s astonishing. The front side of the page, which takes some careful viewing:
and the reverse:
and some close-ups, the first, Dave Brubeck:
then, the two trombone team of Jay and Kai:
Paul Gonsalves, who played tenor saxophone:
then, Coleman Hawkins and Illinois Jacquet:
and Chet Baker:
Louis, Velma, Arvell, and Barrett Deems:
The Maestro:
and what is the prize of the collection (second place goes to Beverly Kenney’s neat handwriting) a Lester Young autograph. Even though it looks as though it was written on a piece of Scotch tape, such deity-sightings are rare:
and, a little music, lest we forget the point of these exalted scribbles:
Wherever you are now, Buckles, whatever names you took later in life, know that we cherish you and your devotion. Did you graduate college, have a career, get married and have a family? The laminated page says to me that these signatures and experiences were precious. But what happened to you? I wish I knew.
This just in, thanks to Detective Richard Salvucci, formerly of the Philadelphia police force, and one of this blog’s dearest readers: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/113718218 — which suggests that Audrey Ellen Arbuckle was born in 1934 and died in 2009, buried in an Erie, Pennsylvania cemetery. I wish she were here to read this, but I am sure her spirit still swings.
I’ve had many beautiful experiences in my life, but being able to hear Dan Morgenstern talk about Louis Armstrong — the man, seen at close range — is one of those I treasure now and will always treasure. We spent an early afternoon a few days ago, sharing sweet thoughts of our greatest hero. I invite you to join us for tender memories and some surprises. I have intentionally presented the video segments here without annotation so that viewers can be delighted and surprised as I was and am.
These segments are emotionally important to me, so I saw no reason to wait until July 4, July 6, or even August 1 to share them with you.
And just a small matter of chronology: Dan will be ninety on October 24, 2019. Let us start planning the parades, shall we?
a relevant musical interlude:
Part Two:
some life-changing music:
Part Three:
Dave and Iola Brubeck’s SUMMER SONG:
Part Four (and before one of the JAZZ LIVES Corrections Officers rushes to the rescue, I am sure that the funeral Dan refers to as the ideal was Ellington’s):
Part Five:
The blessed EV’NTIDE:
A very brief postscript, which I whimsically began by telling Dan I was going to throw him a curveball, which he nimbly hit out of the park:
SUN SHOWERS:
Dan and I owe much to the great friend of jazz and chronicler, Harriet Choice, who encouraged us to do this interview.
And a piece of mail, anything but ordinary:
Early in the conversation, Dan said that Louis “made everyone feel special.” He does the same thing, and it comes right through the videos. That we can share the same planet with Mister Morgenstern is a great gift.
Although this CD is rather unobtrusive, no fuss or ornamentation, it captures a truly uplifting musical event, and I do not write those words lightly: music from tenor saxophonist Ted Brown, a mere 88 at the time of this gig, and a splendidly unified, inventive ensemble.
I’ve only known Jon De Luciafor a few years, but I trust his taste completely, and his performances always reward me. Now, if I know that one of Jon’s groups is going to perform, I head to the gig with determination (and my camera). He asked me to write a few lines about this disc, and I was delighted to:
Some jazz listeners disdain “West Coast jazz,” “cool jazz,” or any music in the neighborhood of Lennie Tristano (not just East 32nd Street) as so cerebral that it’s barely defrosted. Jon De Lucia’s Octet shows how wrong that perception is: this music is warm, witty, embracing, not Rubik’s Cube scored for saxophones. Rather, the playful, tender spirit of Lester Young dances through everyone’s heart. This impassioned group swings, even when the players are intently looking at the score. For this gig, the Octet had a great spiritual asset in the gently fervent playing of Ted Brown, a Sage of melodic invention. Also, this session was recorded at one of New York City’s now-lost shrines, Michael Kanan and Stephanie Greig’s “The Drawing Room,” a sacred home for all kinds of music. I am grateful that Jon De Lucia has created this group: so delightful in whatever they play. You’ll hear it too.
Here’s what Jon had to say:
Saxophonist Jon De Lucia met the great tenorist Ted Brown in 2014, and got to play with him soon after. He was and is struck by the pure lyricism and honesty in his improvising. One of the original students of forward thinking pianist Lennie Tristano in the 1940s, Brown, along with Lee Konitz, is among the last of this great school of players. Later, when De Lucia discovered some of Jimmy Giuffre’s original scores from the Lee Konitz meets Jimmy Giuffre session of 1959, which Brown and Konitz both participated in, he knew he wanted to put a band together to play this music with Ted.
Thus the Jon De Lucia Octet was formed. A five saxophone and rhythm lineup with unique arrangements by the great clarinetist/saxophonist Jimmy Giuffre. The original charts featured Lee Konitz on every track, and the first step in 2016 was to put a session together reuniting Brown and Konitz on these tunes. An open rehearsal was held at the City College of New York, Lee took the lead and played beautifully while Ted took over the late Warne Marsh’s part. This then led to the concert you have here before you.
De Lucia steps into Lee’s shoes, while the features have been reworked to focus on Brown, including new arrangements of his tunes by De Lucia and daughter Anita Brown. The rest of the band includes a formidable set of young saxophonists, including John Ludlow, who incidentally was a protege of the late Hal McCusick, who also played on the original recording session of Lee Konitz meets Jimmy Giuffre, and plays the alto saxophone, now inherited, used in the session. Jay Rattman and Marc Schwartz round out the tenors, and Andrew Hadro, who can be heard to great effect on “Venus De Milo,” plays the baritone. In the rhythm section, Ray Gallon, one of NYC’s most swinging veterans on the piano, Aidan O’Donnell on the bass and the other legend in the room, the great Steve Little on the drums. Little was in Duke Ellington’s band in 1968, recording on the now classic Strayhorn tribute …and His Mother Called Him Bill, before going on to record all of the original Sesame Street music and much more as a studio musician.
The show was sold out at Brooklyn’s now defunct Drawing Room, operated by Michael Kanan and Stephanie Greig. Along with the music previously mentioned, De Lucia had recently acquired some of the original parts from Gerry Mulligan’s Songbook session, which featured Konitz, Al Cohn, Zoot Sims, and Allen Eager in another great sax section recording, this time arranged by Bill Holman. Here the band plays “Sextet,” and “Venus De Milo” from that session. Brown, here making the band a Nonet, plays beautifully and takes part in every tune, reading parts even when not soloing. Not included in this CD is an extended take of Konitz’s “Cork n’ Bib” and Giuffre’s piece for three clarinets, “Sheepherders.” Possible bonus releases down the line!
Since this concert, the Octet has taken on a life of its own, covering the repertoire of the original Dave Brubeck Octet, more of the Mulligan material, Alec Wilder, and increasingly De Lucia’s own material. De Lucia continues searching for rare and underperformed material, rehearsing regularly in NYC and performing less regularly.
Earlier in this post, I wrote about my nearly-obsessive desire to bring my camera to gigs, and this session was no exception. However, I must preface the video below with a caveat: imperfect sight lines and even more imperfect sound. The CD was recorded by the superb pianist Tony Melone — someone I didn’t know as a wonderful live-recording engineer, and the sound he obtained makes me embarrassed to post this . . . but I hope it acts as an inducement for people to hear more, in delightfully clear sound:
If you gravitate towards expert warm ensemble playing, soloing in the spirit of Lester, a mixture of romping swing and tender introspection, you will applaud this CD as I do.
You can buy it here, with digital downloads available in the usual places.
It continues to be a great pleasure to follow the Jon De Lucia Octet around — a saxophone orchestra with a satisfying repertoire of songs and arrangements not over-exposed: by Gerry Mulligan, Dave Brubeck (the early Octet, not the more famous Quartet), Bill Smith, and our hero Ted Brown. Some of the charts are transcriptions from recorded performances (with space for improvisations); others draw on the original arrangements. In the photograph, you can see pages from Mulligan’s charts for TURNSTILE. (Jon is a thorough researcher.)
The Octet is also that marvel of Nature, a band with a steady personnel: Jon on alto saxophone and clarinet; Andrew Hadro on baritone, clarinet, and (for this performance) announcing the songs; Jay Rattman on tenor; John Ludlow on tenor, Adam Schneit, tenor, subbing for Marc Schwartz; Ray Gallon, piano; Aidan O’Donnell, string bass; Steve Little, drums (again playing on a drumset not his own).
Here are the four performances they offered a delighted audience on the evening of March 29, 2017, at the Greenwich House Music School in New York City. First, Mulligan’s D.J. JUMP (originally created for the Gene Krupa band — as DISC JOCKEY JUMP):
VENUS DE MILO (familiar from the “Birth of the Cool” sessions, but in a different arrangement):
JAZZ OF TWO CITIES (Ted Brown’s line on PLAY, FIDDLE, PLAY — in 4/4 — arranged by his daughter Anita Brown):
WHAT IS THIS THING CALLED LOVE? (from the Brubeck Octet book):
Jon and the Octet will be performing again at Sir D’s Lounge in Brooklyn on May 29: find out about his other shows (and recordings, and see other videos) here.
This is the second half of a wonderful evening of intricate swinging melodic music played expertly by people I admire. Here‘s the first half.
And now (drumroll from Steve Little on a borrowed drumset) . . . .
Here’s PREZ-ERVATION, a tribute wrapped in another tribute: Ted Brown’s variations on TICKLE-TOE, arranged for this band by Jon himself:
Some pretty Gershwin, SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME, arranged by Jimmy Giuffre, a performance I would share with anyone disdainful of “modern jazz” or “cool jazz”:
Gerry Mulligan’s FOUR AND ONE MORE:
The Brubeck Octet’s LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME:
Bill Smith’s IPCA, variations on INDIANA:
The Encore Edition of THE SONG IS YOU, a happy reprise:
Mulligan’s SEXTET, an exhilarating romp to close off the evening:
What lovely music: propelled, sentimental, intricate yet lyrical. Bless these players.
Jon De Lucia, saxophonist, composer, arranger, archivist, brought together five saxophonists (including himself) and rhythm to play arrangements by Bill Holman, Gerry Mulligan, members of the early Dave Brubeck Octet, Jimmy Giuffre, and others. The reed players — from left — are Jay Rattman, John Ludlow, Jon, Marc Schwartz, Andrew Hadro; the rhythm is Ray Gallon, Fender Rhodes, Aidan O’Donnell, string bass; Steve Little, drums (playing on a borrowed set). All this took place on February 6, 2017, at Sir D’s Lounge in Brooklyn, New York — on the surface of it, an odd place for a jazz recital, but a comfortable room with very gracious staff.
Here is the first half of the evening, a generous helping of delicious sounds.
I know that some listeners still stereotype this music as “cool” or “cerebral,” but these performances definitely swing and the temperature is warm. Remember that the inspiration for so much of this music came from Lester Young: how chill could it be? And Jon’s leadership is very comfortable — see how happy the players are — and that pleasure conveys itself right away to the audience, with no hint of the classroom or the museum. I told someone at the end of the evening that I felt I’d been at a birthday party.
To begin, DISC JOCKEY JUMP (or DJ JUMP), composed by Gerry Mulligan for the Gene Krupa Orchestra, arranged in this version by Bill Holman:
The beautifully gauzy PALO ALTO, composed by Lee Konitz and arranged by Jimmy Giuffre:
VENUS DI MILO, which is most familiar from the Birth of the Cool sessions, although in a different arrangement:
The classic THE SONG IS YOU:
The Gershwins’ LOVE WALKED IN, via Dave Brubeck:
The eternal question, WHAT IS THIS THING CALLED LOVE?
Gerry Mulligan’s REVELATION, which concluded the first half:
I begin somberly . . . but there are more cheerful rewards to follow.
As the jazz audience changes, I sense that many people who “love jazz” love it most when it is neatly packed in a stylistically restrictive box of their choosing. I hear statements of position, usually in annoyed tones, about banjos, ride cymbals, Charlie Parker, purity, authenticity, and “what jazz is.”
I find this phenomenon oppressive, yet I try to understand it as an expression of taste. One stimulus makes us vibrate; another makes us look for the exit. Many people fall in love with an art form at a particular stage of it and their development and remain faithful to it, resisting change as an enemy.
And the most tenaciously restrictive “jazz fans” I know seem frightened of music that seems to transgress boundaries they have created . They shrink back, appalled, as if you’d served them a pizza with olives, wood screws, mushrooms, and pencils. They say that one group is “too swingy” or “too modern” or they say, “I can’t listen to that old stuff,” as if it were a statement of religious belief. “Our people don’t [insert profanation here] ever.”
But some of this categorization, unfortunately, is dictated by the marketplace: if a group can tell a fairly uninformed concert promoter, “We sound like X [insert name of known and welcomed musical expression],” they might get a booking. “We incorporate everyone from Scott Joplin to Ornette Coleman and beyond,” might scare off people who like little boxes.
Certain musical expressions are sacred to me: Louis. The Basie rhythm section. And their living evocations. But I deeply admire musicians and groups, living in the present, that display the imaginative spirit. These artists understand that creative improvised music playfully tends to peek around corners to see what possibilities exist in the merging of NOW and THEN and WHAT MIGHT BE.
One of the most satisfying of these playful groups is ECHOES OF SWING. Their clever title says that they are animated by wit, and this cheerful playfulness comes out in their music — not in “comedy” but in an amused ingenuity, a lightness of heart. They have been in action since 1997, and when I saw them in person (the only time, alas) in 2007, they were wonderfully enlivening.
This action photograph by Sascha Kletzsch suggests the same thing:
They are Colin T. Dawson, trumpet / vocal; Chris Hopkins, alto sax; Bernd Lhotzky, piano; Oliver Mewes, drums. And they are that rarity in modern times, a working group — which means that they know their routines, and their ensemble work is beautiful, offering the best springboards into exhilarating improvisatory flights. They are also “a working group,” which means that they have gigs. Yes, gigs! Check out their schedule here.
Here is a 2013 post featuring their hot rendition of DIGA DIGA DOO, and an earlier one about their previous CD, MESSAGE FROM MARS, with other videos — as well as my favorite childhood joke about a Martian in New York City here. And while we’re in the video archives, here is a delicious eleven-minute offering from in November 2014:
and here they are on German television with a late-period Ellington blues, BLUE PEPPER:
All this is lengthy prelude to their new CD, aptly titled BLUE PEPPER:
The fifteen songs on the disc are thematically connected by BLUE, but they are happily varied, with associations from Ellington to Brubeck and Nat Cole, composers including Gordon Jenkins, Rodgers, Bechet, Waller, Strayhorn — and a traditional Mexican song and several originals by members of the band: BLUE PEPPER / AZZURRO / BLUE PRELUDE / LA PALOMA AZUL / BLUE & NAUGHTY / BLUE MOON / BLACK STICK BLUES / BLUE RIVER / OUT OF THE BLUE / AOI SAMMYAKU [BLUE MOUNTAIN RANGE] / THE SMURF / BLUE GARDENIA / THE BLUE MEDICINE [RADOVAN’S REMEDY] / WILD CAT BLUES / AZURE.
What one hears immediately from this group is energy — not loud or fast unless the song needs either — a joyous leaping into the music. Although this band is clearly well-rehearsed, there is no feeling of going through the motions. Everything is lively, precise, but it’s clear that as soloists and as an ensemble, they are happily ready to take risks. “Risks” doesn’t mean anarchy in swingtime, but it means a willingness to extend the boundaries: this group is dedicated to something more expansive than recreating already established music.
When I first heard the group (and was instantly smitten) they sounded, often, like a supercharged John Kirby group with Dizzy and Bird sitting in while at intervals the Lion shoved Al Haig off the piano stool. I heard and liked their swinging intricacies, but now they seem even more adventurous. And where some of the most endearing CDs can’t be listened to in one sitting because they offer seventy-five minutes of the same thing, this CD is alive, never boring.
A word about the four musicians. Oliver Mewes loves the light-footed swing of Tough and Catlett, and he is a sly man with a rimshot in just the right place, but he isn’t tied hand and foot by the past. Bernd Lhotzky is a divine solo pianist (he never rushes or drags) with a beautiful lucent orchestral conception, but he is also someone who is invaluable in an ensemble, providing with Oliver an oceanic swing that fifteen pieces could rest on. I never listen to this group and say, “Oh, they would be so much better with a rhythm guitar or a string bassist.”
And the front line is just as eloquent. Colin T. Dawson is a hot trumpet player with a searing edge to his phrases, but he knows where each note should land for the collective elegance of the group — and he’s a sweetly wooing singer in addition. Chris Hopkins (quiet in person) is a blazing marvel on the alto saxophone — inventive and lyrical and unstoppable — in much the same way he plays the piano.
And here is what my wise friend Dave Gelly wrote: It’s hard to believe at first that there are only four instruments here. The arrangements are so ingenious, and the playing so nimble, that it could be at least twice that number. But listen closely and you will discover just a quartet of trumpet, alto saxophone, piano and drums – with absolutely no electronic tricks. The style is sophisticated small-band swing, the material a judicious mixture of originals and swing-era numbers and there is not a hint of whiskery nostalgia in any of it. It’s about time this idiom received some fresh attention and here’s the perfect curtain-raiser.
The renowned (diligent but never stuffy) scholar of jazz on film, Mark Cantor, is also a generous fellow, and he has launched a new website.
There, you can see and hear Fats Waller, Joe Marsala and Adele Girard, Louis Armstrong, Mary Lou Williams, the Washboard Serenaders, Andy Secrest, Benny Carter, Connee Boswell, Red Nichols, Lionel Hampton, Harry James, Dave Brubeck, Punch Miller, Lady Will Carr, Ethel Merman and Johnny Green, the Max Fleischer team of surrealists, Leo Watson, Teddy Bunn, Ray Eberle, Sidney Bechet, Thelma White, Buck and Bubbles, Maude Mills, Gerry Mullingan, the MJQ, Jack Teagarden, Buddy Rich, Oscar Peterson, Bill Robinson, Louis Jordan, Joe Williams, as well as groups and musicians we might never have heard about — the daring Sandra among them — and a few mysteries: unidentified players just waiting for you to recognize them. (If you are interested in footage of “the girls in the band,” you will find some here as well.)
Some of these films and excerpts are familiar, but many are rare: offered here for your viewing in the best available prints with good sound and clear images.
Then and now, jazz critics to look scornfully on “all-star” sets at concerts. Some of the musicians play to the crowd; solos go on too long or were rushed; tempos were brisk; the repertoire simplified; the gatherings weren’t always well-planned.
But now, nearly forty years after this jam session at the Nice Jazz Festival, we can only give thanks for such an assemblage. We can note mournfully that almost all of the musicians named above — with the exception of Harley White and Eddie Graham — have departed.
Here are giants.
And you’ll see delightful fashion statements as well — Norvo’s summer casual; Carter’s psychedelic trousers; Hackett’s demure mandarin collar, and more. Hines’s attire needs its own posting.
George Wein announces Hines; the stagehands move around; we see Duvivier toting his bass and Rosengarden making those preliminary percussive noises before Hines appears, smiling widely. He begins a brisk OUR MONDAY DATE with the rhythm falling in line — and all the flash, daring, and exuberance is entirely in place, forty-five years after his early bravura playing in Chicago. The ensemble that follows is cheerful although the instrumental voices seem to float to the surface and down again — perhaps because of the cinematography of Jean-Christophe Averty (usually known for his incessant cutting between shots) focuses on Hines. Carter is majestically fleet for two; Norvo cool and mobile for his, raising and lowering his shoulder as always.
But little dramas are going on. Carter is dissatisfied with his reed and is working on it; Vic looks as if he’d rather be elsewhere, at a slower tempo (although his bridge is splendid). The other all-stars seem to have decided that the way to deal with Hines’ tempo is to split choruses — Bigard / Venuti swap trademark phrases for two choruses (while Bigard plays, Venuti tidies his bow); Hackett and Carter embark on the same playful gambit, but the King looks quite surprised at a squeak and is almost ready to put his horn down for its misdemeanor. Hines returns for two exuberantly showy choruses, mixing lopsided shards of the melody with surrealistic stride, calling the band in for a final chorus (where the camera stays on them), Hackett more powerfully leading — into the leader’s showy extended ending: nine minutes later.
A year later, it is Hines (in green) with Harley White, bass; Eddie Graham, drums, paying tribute to early Ellington with BLACK AND TAN FANTASY in a reading that sticks closely to the original arrangement — then a romping C JAM BLUES which is all Hines at his flying best, with an equally flying solo by White and a half-time ending.
What follows is, for me, magic: Vic Dickenson playing a ballad, I GOT IT BAD, with no other horns.
Please note how he quietly puts the tempo where he wants it (slower than Hines has counted it off) and his amazing variety of tones and moods — exultation and pathos, sadness and near-mockery. No mutes, nothing but years of lip technique and experimenting with the kinds of sounds both he and the horn could make. The delicacy yet solid swing of the last eight bars of his second chorus; the entire solo returning to the melody but the very antithesis of “straight” playing. Vic isn’t cherished as he should be, for his mastery of “tonation and phrasing,” but his vocalized range, his soulful use of vibrato, his balancing the blues and wit . . . there should be statues of Vic Dickenson!
What comes next seems from another world, with all respects to the very excellent drummer Graham — a lengthy CARAVAN, with some reflections of Jo Jones. Appropriately.
It is a varied half-hour, and viewers will have their favorite moments, as I do. But we owe thanks to our YouTube friend (details below) for sharing this with us, and (even before this) French television for having the foresight to record such gatherings . . . against the day when the giants would no longer honor us with their presence.
The begetter of this slice of delicious French television,”belltele1,” on YouTube, seems to have a special key to the treasure chest of jazz video rarities. In a half-hour of casual browsing, I saw Eldridge, Brubeck, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Bechet, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Monk, Rollins, Mingus, Teddy Buckner, Louis, Jonah Jones, Ellington, Basie — the marvels are there for the viewing. And he offers DVDs of the programs . . . .
The best interviewers perform feats of invisibility. Yes, they introduce the subject, give some needed context or description, and then fade away – – – so that we believe that X or Y is speaking directly to us. This takes a great deal of subtlety and energy . . . but the result is compelling. Whitney Balliett did it all the time; other well-regarded interviewers couldn’t. Peter Vacher, who has written for JAZZ JOURNAL and CODA, among other publications, has come out with a new book, and it’s sly, delightful, and hugely informative.
MIXED MESSAGES: AMERICAN JAZZ STORIES is a lively collection of first-hand recollections from those essential players whose names we don’t always know but who make the stars look and sound so good. The title is slightly deceptive: we are accustomed to interpreting “mixed messages” as a combination of good and bad, difficult to interpret plainly. But I think this is Vacher’s own quizzical way of evaluating the material he so lovingly presents: here are heroic creators whose work gets covered over — fraternal subversives, much like Vacher himself. One might think, given the cover (Davern, Houston Person, and Warren Vache) that this is a book in which race features prominently (it does, when appropriate) and the mixing of jazz “schools” is a subject (less so, since the players are maturely past such divisive distinctions).
Because Vacher has opted to speak with the sidemen/women — in most cases — who are waiting in the lobby for the band bus, or having breakfast by themselves — his subjects have responded with enthusiasm and gratitude. They aren’t retelling the same dozen stories that they’ve refined into an automatic formula; they seem delighted to have an attentive, knowledgeable listener who is paying them the compliment of avidly acknowledging their existence and talent. The twenty-one musicians profiled by Vacher show his broad-ranging feeling for the music: Louis Nelson, Norman ‘Dewey’ Keenan, Gerald Wilson, Fip Ricard, Ruby Braff, George ‘Buster’ Cooper, Bill Berry, Benny Powell, Plas Johnson Jr, Carl ‘Ace’ Carter, Herman Riley, Lanny Morgan, Ellis Marsalis, Houston Person Jr, Tom Artin, John Eckert, Rufus Reid, John Stubblefield, Judy Carmichael, Tardo Hammer, Byron Stripling. New Orleanians, beboppers, late-Swing players, modern Mainstreamers, lead trumpeters and a stride pianist, and people even the most devoted jazz fancier probably has not heard of except as a name in a liner note or a discography. Basie, Ellington, and Charlie Barnet make appearances here; so do Johnny Hodges, Jimmie Lunceford, Al Grey, Charlie Shavers, Bobby Hackett, Jimmy Smith, Sonny Red, Maynard Ferguson, Lionel Hampton, Jimmy Knepper, Lee Konitz, Ornette Coleman, Papa Celestin, Don Byas, Dexter Gordon, J. J. Johnson, Sonny Rollins, Charles Mingus, the AACM, Freddie Green, John Hammond, Roy Eldridge, Dick Wellstood, Duke Jordan, Sal Mosca, Junior Cook, Bill Hardman, Art Farmer, Mary Lou Williams.
But the strength and validity of this book is not to be measured by the number of names it includes, but in the stories. (Vacher’s subjects are unusually candid without being rancorous, and a number of them — Braff, Berry, Stripling — take time to point out how the elders of the tribe were unusually kind and generous mentors.) Here are a few excerpts — vibrant and salty.
Benny Powell on working with Lionel Hampton:
He was a pretty self-centered guy. Kinda selfish. When something wasn’t right or he wanted to admonish somebody in the band, he would have a meeting just before the show. He’d get us all on stage and tell us how unworthy we were. He’d say, “People come to see me. I can get out on stage and urinate on stage and people will applaud that.” He would go on and on like this, and when he was finished, he’d say, “All right, gentlemen, let’s have a good show.” I’d say to myself, “Good show! I feel like crying.”
Pianist Carl “Ace” Carter:
. . . the drummer . . . . was Ernie Stephenson, they used to call him Mix. He said, “Why don’t you turn to music? You can get more girls.” He’s passed on now but I said if I ever see him in heaven I’m gonna kill him because to this day I haven’t got a girl.”
Trumpeter John Eckert:
I didn’t appreciate Louis Armstrong until I played a concert with Maynard Ferguson’s band, when I was. maybe, 26 years old [circa 1965]. A lot of big acts were there, including Maynard, Dave Brubeck with Paul Desmond, and three or four other modern groups. Louis ended the concert. I’d always seen him as this old guy, with the big smile, saying negative things about bebop, but I was just thunderstruck at how he sounded. I couldn’t believe how powerful he was, his timing, just the authority he played with — his group wasn’t really that impressive — but he was the king.
To purchase this very satisfying book, click here.
Yesterday, Sunday, January 27, was my first venture back into live jazz — since I lost my video equipment (a saga chronicled elsewhere on this blog) — and I was mildly worried. About me, I mean.
How would it be to come back to my this very familiar situation without a camera in my hands? (Someone at the first gig who knows me well asked me how I was feeling, and I said — without thinking — “denuded,” a telling choice of words.)
But I managed to keep my composure and enjoy myself, not thinking too much that the music was vanishing into the ether without passing through me, JAZZ LIVES, and cyberspace to you.
The first session — held at the Music Conservatory of Westchester— was very sweet and to the point, a celebration by trumpeter Bob Arthurs and guitarist Steve LaMattina of their new CD, JAZZ FOR SVETLANA (also chronicled on this blog).
Bob and Steve kept up a glorious yet understated musical conversation, switching roles — when Steve soloed, Bob gave him plenty of space for a few choruses, and then would begin to play encouraging backgrounds and riffs, his hand half over the bell of his trumpet. At times I thought I was listening to some version of the Basie band distilled down to its essences. They began with a medium-tempo BLUES FOR LONNIE, a trotting I THOUGHT ABOUT YOU (on which Bob sang in his husky unaffected way), I REMEMBER YOU (fast), and HOW DEEP IS THE OCEAN (introspective). Then Svetlana Gorokhovich and Irena Portenko took the stage — at two pianos! — to perform a tribute to the late Dave Brubeck, POINTS ON JAZZ, which began in plain-spoken elegiac simplicity and escalated in intensity before settling back down again. Bob and Steve returned for NIGHT IN TUNISIA, a “nostalgic,” slow reading of BACK HOME AGAIN IN INDIANA, with Bob’s vocal, and what was for me the highlight of the session — a beautiful one-chorus reading of Jackie Gleason’s MELANCHOLY SERENADE. Quite a lot of music packed into a small space!
The second gig was a return to old beloved haunts — The Ear Inn — to hear Jon-Erik Kellso, John Allred, Howard Alden, and Pat O’Leary — this week’s version of The EarRegulars — swing out. They began with a fast SUNDAY, then moved forwards in time for an even more vigorous FROM MONDAY ON, and secretly kept the theme going with a much more leisurely THE MAN I LOVE, which refers to Tuesday in the lyrics, a deep inside joke. Two classics of the ER repertoire concluded the set — WHEN I GROW TOO OLD TO DREAM and a key-changing HINDUSTAN. The four EarRegulars are great conversationalists — chatty fellows, you know — so the two horns kept exchanging comments (“passing notes,” if you will) on each other’s playing — with Allred providing the punchline or topper to a Kellso musical witticism. Alden and O’Leary kept up a sweet flow of rhythm that reminded me so much of the Braff-Barnes Quartet of 1974 with noble forbears Michael Moore and Wayne Wright floating the planet.
It helped me a good deal that I was among friends — Will and Pete Anderson, Emily Asher, Dan Block, Mike Gilroy, Michael Waterhouse, the talented J.P., and others . . . and many of them sweetly tendered heartfelt camera-condolences, which mean a lot. My pal Nan said, “You know, you’re much more fun without a video camera,” which I took as a compliment — I was at play more than at work, and it was a pleasure to be able to applaud freely — but I pointed out that I felt somewhat rudderless without the ability to make sure these good sounds were captured for posterity.
All of this once again posed the philosophical question, “If a band is swinging like mad or playing melodies sweetly and Michael is not recording it with a videocamera, does the music still enthrall and elate?” You know the answer to that one.
The new duo CD by trumpeter / singer Bob Arthurs and guitarist Steve LaMattina, JAZZ FOR SVETLANA, is something special. Here’swhat I wrote about it a few weeks ago. Now those of us who can get to White Plains, New York, on Sunday, January 27, 2013, have an opportunity to hear those players (and friends) live in concert.
Come to the Party!
This is an extra special CD release party/home-coming concert, and wine and cheese reception featuring Bob Arthurs and Steve LaMattina. Their new CD is called Jazz for Svetlana. There is no admission charge. A portion of the proceeds from CD sales will go to the Conservatory, a not-for-profit community music school founded in 1929. Bob and Steve are former faculty members. You will also get to meet Svetlana Gorokhovich, a Conservatory piano faculty member. She will perform as well with MCW piano faculty member Irina Portenko in a tribute to the late Dave Brubeck.
Because they give themselves to what they are creating, jazz musicians make splendid photographic subjects.
Bob Willoughby, who died in 2009, wasn’t the first to capture their intensity, lack of self-consciousness, and energy on camera. But his beautiful volume of photographs and recollections, JAZZ: BODY AND SOUL, shows on every page that his work is superbly moving. (Evans Mitchell, 2012, 192 pages, hardbound.)
Since musicians — in the act of creation — aren’t standing still, some photographs begin to look like versions of poses we have already seen a thousand times before: the horn player, face distended, sweating, looking like a runner just before crossing the finish line; the intimate relationship between the singer and the vertical microphone; the drummer, moving so quickly that the sticks blur. Other photographs entrance us because they are the only visual evidence we have that an otherwise obscure musician was ever seen.
Willoughby’s work goes well beyond these formulas, although some of his images have been reproduced so widely that they are now the way that we mentally identify the subject. But even his most famous pictures have something to offer us, a half-century after they were created.
The book is divided into two sections: one of Wlloughby’s West Coast photographs from 1950 to — Billie Holiday, Wardell Gray, Miles Davis, George Shearing, Ella Fitzgerald, Gene Krupa, Roy Eldridge, Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Ventura, Billy Eckstine, Louis Armstrong, the Stan Kenton Orchestra, Duke Ellington, Ray Nance, Paul Gonsalves, Johnny Hodges, Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly, Chet Baker, Gerry Mulligan, Paul Desmond, Dave Brubeck, Peggy Lee. Particularly absorbing is a series of dramatic photographs catching the emotional interplay between saxophonist Big Jay McNeely and a crowd in hysterical rapture. Willoughby photographed Benny Goodman, Teddy Wilson, Stan Getz, Buck Clayton, Martha Tilton and friends during the recording sessions for the soundtrack of THE BENNY GOODMAN STORY. An extended photo-essay on Frank Sinatra tells us more than any biography.
The second section of the book offers photographs Willoughby created in Germany in 1992 and 1994 — fascinating portraits of Lee Konitz, Marcus Roberts, Jon Faddis, Art Farmer, Wynton Marsalis, Pat Metheny, John Lewis, Mulligan much transformed by the years, and many others.
Having purchased many volumes of photographs of jazz musicians, I tend to look at the book with fascination immediately after their purchase . . . but not often after. Willoughby’s book has proven itself an exception. In tne month that I have had a copy, I have come back to it over and over, drawn by what his eye captured — tantalizing wordless dramas that open deeper each time I stare into the pages.
And the appeal of the book is wider than the allure of the musicians portrayed there. Without being precious or coy, Willoughby created small paintings full of feeling, emotion coming through the lovely blacks, greys, and whites. He was a master of seeing, of shaping line and angle, shape and focus. I look at these portraits and I can feel Louis’ happiness, imagine the words passing between Bing and Frank on the set of CAN-CAN, hear Billie’s voice. In addition, Willoughby’s photos are idiosyncratic master classes for photographers: what to emphasize, what to leave out. . . all the more remarkable because he captured his subjects in the moment.
Marc Myers, of JAZZ WAX, knew and spoke with Willoughby, and the essays Marc has created about the man and his work are rewarding (with photographs that will astonish): read more here and here. The book’s website — with even more beautiful pictures — can be found here. Willoughby’s photographs reward the eye.
Here’s where I’ll be on June 11. I hope you can join me!
Monday, June 11, 7:30 pm
FINDING CARLTON: Uncovering the Story of Jazz in India
Featuring a Q&A with director Susheel Kurien (who is also a jazz musician himself) and Michael Steinman, jazz aficionado and writer of the blog Jazz Lives. PLUS get a peek at rare footage of American jazz musicians performing in India!
USA, 2011, 73 min. How did jazz from America find a home in India? And how did India respond to it? Filmmaker Kurien tells the untold story that begins with Depression-era African American musicians journeying from Paris to Calcutta and Bombay. This captivating and unique film takes audiences on a richly atmospheric journey into India’s little-known jazz age–which lasted from the 1920s to the 1970s–through a portrait of the maverick guitarist Carlton Kitto, who chose to continue as a be-bop guitarist in the relative obscurity of Calcutta over emigration, commercial studio work, or Bollywood.
Tickets: $15 ($10 for students); $20 at the door: call (516) 829-2570, or click here to purchase online via PayPal.
The film will start at 7:30pm at the Clearview Squire Cinemas: 115 Middle Neck Road, Great Neck. Visit our website www.greatneckarts.org/Film for more information about the Furman Film Series!
Here’s what I had to say about FINDING CARLTON after my first viewing.
Even people who are not terribly interested in jazz in the intricate ways some of us are will also find much to admire in the portraits captured in it. And the jazz-fanciers in the audience sat up, enthralled, throughout it.
The film concentrates on two musicians: guitarist Carlton Kitto, who found himself entranced by the sound of Charlie Christian on the records his mother played at home while she cooked or cleaned — and Louiz Banks, a Grammy-nominated producer and jazz pianist. Carlton takes our attention and never lets it go, both because he swings delicately yet powerfully, and because he is a sweetly endearing character.
Unlike some documentaries I have seen where the story is compelling yet the characters are off-putting, everyone in the audience fell in love with Carlton, his sweet sincerity and his devotion to his music. It did not surprise anyone that when Carlton got pushed on stage when the Ellington orchestra played a concert in India, that Ellington himself warmed to the young guitarist, invited him to sit in, and that Carlton improvised six choruses on SATIN DOLL with the band. I’m only sorry that the Duke wasn’t able to hire Carlton on the spot and take him on tour.
FINDING CARLTON is full of the results of the most fascinating archival research, but it is not simply a film for those people whose heads are full of record labels and matrix numbers. The fruits of that research are vivid onscreen, in the photographs, sounds, colors and textures of the Indian jazz scene from the Twenties onward — with quick but telling portraits of deeply inspiring players including the world-class pianist Teddy Weatherford, the elusive trombonist Herb Flemming. The stories Sushiel has uncovered talk of Larry Coryell and Billy Taylor, of Louis Armstrong, Dave Brubeck, of jamming with Sonny Rollins in an ashram. As well as these famous names, we encounter people and players who go straight to our hearts: the first-rate singer Ruben Rebeiro, the devoted jazz fan Farokh Mehta, singers Pam Crain and Christine Correa — we watch the radiance on Christine’s face when she is able to hear a broadcast of her father’s band for the first time, music she heard as a child but never knew existed.
Kurien has a splendid eye — even though this is his first film — for the little human details that bring both individual characters and a larger world (now, perhaps no longer quite so vibrant) into focus and into our hearts. FINDING CARLTON blossoms with lovely montages of the present and the past, the aural and the visual, the moving and the still. It is respectful but never dull, informative but never preachy or didactic.
I urge you to make a small jazz pilgrimage to see it: it is fully realized, lively, and deeply moving. I came away from it with some feelings of loss: one of the later scenes shows Carlton at a gig in a hotel lounge, playing swing for an almost empty room, but I thought of his resilience and that of the music we love.
What could be simpler? The fine Louis Armstrong scholar Ricky Riccardi given room to stretch out at the National Jazz Museum in Harlem during January 2012. (The Museum is located at 104 E. 126th Street • Suite 2D • New York, New York 10035.)
Here’s Ricky’s sketch of his presentations at the Museum — and one where he’ll be joined by “the All-Stars,” David Ostwald, Dan Morgenstern, and George Avakian:
January 3 – 7 p.m. Birth of the All Stars 1947-1953
On this night, I’ll chart the birth of the All Stars, covering Town Hall, Carnegie Hall, Symphony Hall, Edmond Hall, Earl Hines, the early Decca pop hits, Louis as King of the Zulus, the bop wars and a lot more.
January 7 – 12-4 p.m. Ricky Riccardi and The All Stars
This is the one you don’t want to miss as I’ll be leading a panel comprised of David Ostwald, Dan Morgenstern and George Avakian (aka The All Stars) to talk about the last 25 years of Louis’s life: seeing Louis live, visiting with him at home, working with him in the studio, dealing with Joe Glaser, Louis the civil rights pioneers, myths about the All Stars, you name it. I’ll have my trusty iPod and a bunch of DVDs so anything that comes up (or is requested) will also be played.
January 10 – 7 p.m. Louis on film
This event will take place at The Maysles Institute (343 Malcolm X Blvd / Lenox Ave, between 127th and 128 streets). After I started my Armstrong blog in 2007, I became something of a repository for rare Armstrong footage, with collectors around the world sending me DVDs of Louis on TV and in performance. I’ll be screening some of my favorite gems this evening, spanning 1950 to 1971.
January 17 – 7 p.m. Ambassador Satch 1954-1957
Back to my chronological exploration of the All Stars, this was a very thick period so I’m going to take my time, discussing the “W. C. Handy” and “Satch Plays Fats” albums, the “Ambassador Satch” tour, the Edmond Hall edition of the All Stars, projects like “Satchmo: A Musical Autobiography” and “Porgy and Bess” and Louis’s offstage stances on Little Rock and his refusal to go back to New Orleans.
January 24 – 7 p.m. Hello, Dolly! – 1958-1964
Continuing the journey, I’ll deal with Louis’s massive European 1959 tour (I’ll show some footage, too) and heart attack in Spoleto that same year. I’ll also focus on the many great projects that Louis embarked on in the early 60s with Dave Brubeck, Duke Ellington and the Dukes of Dixieland. This evening will culminate with the recording of “Hello, Dolly” that put Louis back on top.
January 31 – 7 p.m. What a Wonderful World – 1965-1971
The final evening will close the story, opening with Louis’s triumphant tour of the Iron Curtain in 1965 and following that with his gradual decline as his health–and chops–began to fade. I’ll have plenty of rare audio and video this evening, going right up to last year of Louis’s life.
If you can’t get to the museum, you can visit Ricky’s blog here
Or you can investigate his thoroughly entertaining book here
Every month is Louis Armstrong Month, but let’s (in the words of Irving Berlin) start the New Year right!
Everyone knows John Lewis at the pianist and musical director of the Modern Jazz Quartet, and a serious composer. The aura of seriousness followed Lewis in other ways: I don’t recall any photographs of him in a t-shirt, although there are some portraits in which he is broadly smiling. But the imagined picture of that handsome man in the tuxedo is so strong that some might forget that Lewis had deep roots in Basie and Ellington and the blues, that he accompanied Lester Young and Jo Jones on some splendid small-group recordings, and that he swung. (Check out DELAUNAY’S DILEMMA on an Atlantic session — IMPROVISED MEDITATIONS AND EXCURSIONS — if you don’t believe this.)
What better pianist to honor Lewis than our own Keith Ingham, someone who is also occasionally perceived through the wrong end of the telescope as a uniquely fine accompanist to singers, someone able to swing any band or to write arrangements that make everyone sound better. But Keith is not caught in the Thirties; his new Arbors CD has (by his choice) songs he loves by Wayne Shorter as well.
So we have a meeting of two modernists with roots — Lewis creating lovely melodies on his score sheet; Keith creating his at the piano, with the inspired playing of Frank Tate, string bass, and John Von Ohlen, drums, to guide and propel — all recorded at Jazz at Chautauqua on Sept. 18, 2011.
AFTERNOON IN PARIS:
SKATING IN CENTRAL PARK:
DJANGO:
ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW:
Cerebral music with a deep soul.
And while we’re on the subject of Mr. Ingham and his subtly deep ways at the keyboard, I would like to follow up on an earlier posting — featuring Keith playing Dave Brubeck (also Arthur Schwartz and Billy Strayhorn). My friend Hank O’Neal (a member of the down-home nobility) sent the Brubeck recital to Dave himself! Dave loved it and said so in an email: “From listening to the Chautauqua concert on UTube I would say that Keith Ingham has a wonderful concept, an appreciation of jazz from the past and a look into the future. Really enjoyed it.”
I know that Keith spends far more time at the piano keyboard than the computer keyboard, but I know that Dave’s praise will get to him. Love will find a way, as Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle told us. And I hope some smart jazz booking agents will find ways to send Keith in person throughout the world of clubs and concerts.
The Brubeck post, in case you missed it, can be found here
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.
JAZZ LIVES 