Now I like Wayne Shorter's new stuff

After expressing mixed feelings about Wayne Shorter's new album, Without a Net, I've decided that I not only like it, I also like everything he's done since teaming up with Danilo Perez, John Patitucci and Brian Blade.

In this spirit, I have made plans to hear the quartet this summer in Chicago. No time like the present, and they'll never get any closer to Springfield.

I like the way Shorter integrates bits of lyricism, bombast and actual swing. He's one of the few players I'm hearing today who's trying to do something different that appeals to me. It's weird and unsettling that a dedicated jazz listener has to turn to a near-octogenarian for innovation.

I've always expected something new from jazz, even as I listened mostly to mainstream music. But I need to enjoy the innovations.

Different but dull: At this blog we've explored the disappointing "egghead" style of contemporary innovation. 

Same but exciting: Many great players are thriving in the mainstream. Tom Harrell has produced five albums with the same quintet with only small variations in concept; all are brilliant and more is better. Sonny Rollins, who's 82, seems to want to improve on his own mainstream work every time out. But I also want something different.

Different and exciting: I can't find much of that. I admire Rudresh Mahanthappa, but his continuous blowtorch approach is hard to take. I miss George Adams. He had a vocabulary on tenor that combined screeching Ayler-like leaps with Gospel and warm swing. At the very moment when his caterwauling became unpleasant, he pulled back into a groove.

I think Shorter is doing the same thing in a more expressionist way. Much of his playing is not about chops; it's about extremes of emotion ("Myrrh" on the new album is a succinct example of this). For me, this is a different and exciting approach. I like players with chops (see "same but exciting"), but I'm willing to give up chops in return for something new and appealing.

In contrast to Rollins, Shorter, 79, seems to feel that he has no obligation to verify his chops. If he wants to unleash an ear-splitting dissonant trill, he's going to do it, even though it does not require six-hour daily practice sessions to pull off. And just when your eardrums are about to rupture, he'll pull up and play a line from Mendelssohn.

Appreciating Wayne Shorter's intentionally confounding music

Wayne Shorter publicity photo from his website. Credit: Robert Ascroft

For more than a decade, saxophonist Wayne Shorter has led a quartet of Danilo Perez (piano), John Patitucci (bass) and Brian Blade (drums). This unit has always promised a lot of fiery interplay along with Shorter's singular virtuosity. The band has delivered on the interplay, but Shorter has been criticized for cryptic, hesitant playing in which he cuts off promising passages just as they seem to be gathering momentum.

Lots of barking has broken out among critics about the band's third album, "Without a Net," recently released after an eight-year recording gap. More than ever, detractors have attacked Shorter for his strange noodles and shouts. Others say he's now playing boldly and coherently — less wandering, more purpose.

Many tunes on the new album are simply blasé, but there are several I really like:

• "Pegasus," a chamber piece with the Imani Winds, somehow explains the blasé aesthetic and makes it much more enjoyable.
• "Orbits" captures the energy of the earlier years of the quartet.
• "Myrrh" begins quietly and ends with sustained screams from Shorter's soprano. The emotional intensity of this piece exceeds anything that current creative leaders in jazz — authors of deliberately ponderous and dreary sounds — would ever allow themselves to play.

I saw that Howard Mandel criticized Shorter for not taking control of his quartet with stronger playing. Such objections are useless. Maybe these mysterious detours and blind alleys are exercises derived from Buddhism, which Shorter practices. We aren't supposed to enjoy the music as conventional propulsive jazz with a 4-4 triplet pulse. The music is supposed to be occasionally or mostly confounding, with a breakthrough of enjoyment now and then. 

By the way, April is Jazz Appreciation Month, as declared by the Smithsonian Institution since 2002. This post and as many others as I can find time for this month are dedicated to appreciating jazz.

Appreciating Benny Maupin

Reed player Benny Maupin has made a lot of music since he played on Herbie Hancock''s "Thrust" album nearly 40 years ago, but I excavated that CD and cued up the song and realized how much I love his work on this tune.

His great solo on "Butterfly" is with the nasal-toned saxello, but you can also hear him overdubbed on bass clarinet in various spots. He takes the first solo, building gently, and turns from sweet to saucy on a single note at 3:10. This is one of my favorite moments of all my listening memory. 

Here's a live version of "Butterfly" from 1974, with actual video — but Maupin's solo is not as dynamic as on "Thrust" (above).

Maupin has another fine solo on the last tune of the album, "Spank-A-Lee," where he delivers a measure of skronchy freakout at the end.

Because this is Jazz Appreciation Month, I want to appreciate the full span of Maupin's work. It's interesting to hear how he sounds now (below) — classic, with a bit of a rowdy edge. Like many people who have survived the '70s, Maupin clearly has worked through the wretched excess of that decade. However, his contributions to "Thrust" are glorious, not wretched. Hancock's Headhunters group and Weather Report are the two fusion groups whose music stands up over time.

Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey

From odd to classic, ancient to future

Jacob Fred Fred Odyssey - the Race Riot Suite: World Premier from Jacob Fred on Vimeo.

The Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey came to Springfield, Mo., sometime in the early oughts. The trio played fun and spacey music, and I recall that the bass player was ill, slouching in a heap on the floor but still holding up his end. The band recorded the performance and offered to burn a CD for anyone who wanted to hang around after the music ended. I suspect they don't do that anymore, but they are generous with streaming video and audio at their website — including an embed option (see below).

I bought a couple of the group's albums right after hearing them in person, but I found the music too meandering for my taste and stopped listening. I remained on their list for e-mail newsletters and have been impressed with their expansive approach to music, including a Beethoven project, LUDWIG, and coming soon, a New Orleans project, Race Riot Suite, which should be really exciting, as the promotional video above suggests. The premier is scheduled for May 20 at the Performing Arts Center in Tulsa, Okla.

And now, the embedded Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey player. I've tested it, and I find that it spontaneously starts, but I don't see how to go to another tune or shut it off. Oh, well ...

UPDATE, 9:28 a.m. Thursday April 28: The pause button works now, and it's possible to choose different tunes. Check out "Drethoven," which is from the LUDWIG project.

Dee Dee Bridgewater's Malian journey

After Jane Monheit's performance in Springfield, Mo., I mentioned Dee Dee Bridgewater among several underappreciated singers. Here's a chance to expand your horizons for vocal jazz.

I saw Dee Dee Bridgewater and her troupe of Western Hemispherians and Malians at the American Jazz Museum in Kansas City in 2008. Her trip to Mali in 2005 to explore her roots turned into a musical revelation. This tune, "Griots (Sakodougou)," is from her album Red Earth: A Malian Journey. The Red Earth project combines her working trio with Malian singers and virtuosos of the kora, balafon, talking drum and other percussion. The soaring voices and the great musicians — especially the youngster Cherif Saumano on kora, whose plucking evoked harp, guitar, harpsichord, and piano, entirely by the power of his two thumbs — transported us to a place of spinning, floating and bouncing. Bridgewater’s scat on this tune shows how she carries a strong jazz presence as she fully throws herself into the African realm.

"JuJu" — soundtrack to blowing wind and huffing airplane

Appreciating Wayne Shorter’s Blue Note period



I associate "JuJu" by Wayne Shorter, the version on his 1964 Blue Note album by the same name, with the time I was flying through heavy weather in a prop-driven commuter plane. This experience came at a time when you could use electronic devices at any time during a flight. Back then, the most sophisticated device was a Sony Walkman. It was also at a time when pilots weren’t sealed off from passengers; I could see into the cockpit because there were no doors or partition in this little plane. As it gained altitude after takeoff, I had a pilot’s view through the windshield of the gray horizon flipping back and forth. Out my window, I saw mountains of clouds as the plane tried to climb through them toward a little hole of light. As Shorter announced the theme of "JuJu," the plane powered upward, but by McCoy Tyner’s solo, the blackening clouds seemed to have beaten the airship back downward. Just after Shorter came in again, the the plane made another attempt to break through the little hole of light, but the elements beat it downward once again. Shorter’s tumultuous solo represented not only the plane’s striving but also the atmosphere’s fierce resistance. Before Shorter was done, the plane made another attempt, this time successful, and the song faded out just as we threaded through the little hole of light into the calm air above the clouds.

Wandering into jazz in central Iowa

Appreciating Damani Phillips and Grinnell College

Over the weekend, I visited Grinnell College, my alma mater, to attend a retirement celebration for the professor who was most influential for me. A group of us wandered around the campus and the vibrant small town in the middle of Iowa, soaking up sights and sounds, meeting people, just like we did as students. With the kind of good fortune I took for granted 35 years ago, we ran into a Saturday afternoon jazz concert in the relatively new Sebring-Lewis Hall of the Bucksbaum Center for the Arts. It was a trio performance including Hammond B3 organist Pat Bianchi, drummer Jim White, and Damani Phillips, alto saxophonist and assistant professor of music at Grinnell. The afternoon event was a preview of the evening concert of the Grinnell College Jazz Ensemble, which Phillips directs, with Bianchi and White as guests artists.

Phillips stocked the hourlong program with several altoist-related tunes, such as:

• "Lisa" — Cannonball Adderley
• "Isfahan" — Strayhorn and Ellington, but also Johnny Hodges, whom I believe Phillips was channeling in the first part of this solo
• "Sing a Song of Song" — Kenny Garrett

I sensed that his solos in each tune were intended to illustrate the stylistic differences among the pieces and their contexts. In this way, I suspect that he may be a powerful and generous teacher, and the students are fortunate to have him.

Bianchi demonstrated the emotional intensity of the B3, while White showed a dynamic range, from quiet to thundering. 

I’ve included a video of Phillips leading a student combo at Bob’s Underground Cafe, a student-run coffee house on campus. Listen to the piano!

Potential jazzless wasteland

Appreciate jazz whenever it's within earshot

 

One reason why I shed my taste preferences while listening to Jane Monheit Wednesday at Hammons Hall for for Performing Arts in Springfield, Mo., is that jazz is rare here — best to sit back and enjoy. Nearby St. Louis and Kansas City have established jazz histories and several clubs. The Blue Note in Columbia occasionally programs jazz. However, during periods when all Missouri clubs are on hiatus, especially in the doldrums of August, the region becomes a jazzless wasteland — no jazz for 500 miles. Last August, I suffered such withdrawal that I willingly attended a fairgrounds performance of K.C. and the Sunshine Band, just to hear the horns. Such is life when droplets of jazz dry up in this brutal and unforgiving climate.

Kansas City: 

Gem Theater and Blue Room

Jardines

St. Louis:

Jazz at the Bistro

Columbia:

We Always Swing Jazz Series

Jane Monheit in Springfield, Mo.

Appreciating the appreciated
and the underappreciated
 

A performance form 2002, at the height of the hype

Jane Monheit brought her luscious warbling voice and her sophisticated trio to Springfield, Mo., last night for a program of standards promoting her new album, Home. Among the highlights:

• Two Fred Astaire-related tunes, "Shine on Your Shoes" and "Cheek to Cheek," with audience patter in which she ranked Daddy Long Legs among the most underappreciated of jazz singers.
• "Moon River," fortified with her soaring alternative melody in a vocalise passage that evoked the longing and melancholy that the lyrics describe. This choice was also amusing for its proximity to the tune’s champion, Andy Williams, who performs periodically at his own theater 45 miles down the road in Branson, The Live Music Capital of the World.
• "The Eagle and Me," with some blues emphasis that added a little grit to the evening.
• "Twisted," smoothed out compared to the standard set by Annie Ross with Lambert and Hendricks — but a welcomed addition to the program.

I remember the berserk marketing freak-out over Jane Monheit a decade ago. The hype greatly amplified the revulsion that hard-core jazzers have for young, white women who sing standards and get rich. I have also heard the bitterly scathing outbursts of jazz musicians as they criticize singers in general for their narcissism and lack of skills.

Such complaints would apply to bad singers, but Monheit is not a bad singer. She can improvise and she can swing. Sure, I would prefer a little less dramatic running-of-the-hands-through-the-hair and a little more grease applied to the tunes overall, as in "The Eagle and Me." But, last night, I really wasn’t thinking about complaints. It was an evening to relax, sit back, and listen.

This morning, I am thinking about Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, along with several current underappreciated singers: Dee Dee Bridgewater, Patricia Barber, and Diane Reeves.

The serene side of Rez Abbasi

Rez Abbasi was born in Pakistan and grew up in California. He first approached the guitar through the jazz tradition (George Benson, Pat Martino. He began to assimilate the music of his south Asian heritage as a young adult but only recently asserted this heritage into his music with Snake Charmer, 2006 (Source: 2009 Abstract Logix interview). Snake Charmer shows his ability to play intensely without blizzards of notes. In this video, he works with his wife, vocalist Kiran Ahluwalia, performing a piece from his 2009 album, Things to Come. This piece, which represents only a small part of his overall range of expression, always makes me stop what I'm doing and enjoy a pleasant moment of zoning out.

The jazzer — not the Floydist

Appreciating David Gilmore

The first time I heard jazz guitarist David Gilmore was on the 1992 album by the M-BASE Collective, Anatomy of a Groove. Specifically, it was his solo on "Cycle of Change," which builds with a slow burn, creating tension with the explosive drumming of Marvin "Smitty" Smith. The piece seems to be headed toward complete eruption, but, instead, Gilmore’s solo fades out. Unforgivable!

The next time I heard Gilmore was on Christian McBride’s Sci-Fi (2000) — especially the tasteful solo on "Uhuru’s Moment Returned."

Then I lost track of Gilmore once again. I have never based my interest in a musician on just two solos, but they remain for me among the best guitar solos I have heard.

By the way, I am referring to David Gilmore the jazz guitarist — not David Gilmour of Pink Floyd. Google and Amazon searches for the jazzer will direct you to the Floydist, so you have to work around the "help" that these engines are trying to provide. [As I am compiling the blog post, Amazon has already suggested that I might like the entire Pink Floyd oeuvre — perhaps another time ... ]

In any case, Gilmore released two albums in the oughts, Ritualism (2001) and Unified Presence (2006). They show his commitment to a group sound as he interacts with soprano sax and electric piano. His solos are rhythmically based and grow as the group churns.

His official website shows that he has been active since the release of Unified Presence, but no new music tracks have been posted since that album. He's about to embark on a tour of Europe with the fiery altoist Rudresh Mahanthappa. I'd love to hear some of that.

Here's a link to a video (embedding disabled by source) of the Christian McBride Band, with Gilmore, playing fusion. He can shred, too ...

Appreciating Doug Talley and Wayne Shorter

More powerful than jug Cabernet

In August 2009, I attended a performance at Jardine’s in Kansas City of the Doug Talley quintet playing the Wayne Shorter songbook. Talley, a tenor saxophonist from that city, said he’d gladly take requests, but they would be pointless, as the band intended to play just about everything Wayne ever wrote before the evening was done. The insistent delivery of one gem after another — "Yes Or No" on top of "Witch Hunt" after "Speak No Evil," "Majong," "El Gaucho," "Footprints," and beyond — knocked me loopier than the jug Cabernet I was drinking could possibly achieve. Fussy folks might dismiss Talley’s stewardship of Shorter’s music as mere "repertory" or "tribute" efforts, but it gave me a renewed appreciation for Shorter’s 60’s Blue Note period, which developed into an 18-month obsession, from which I am just emerging. I have seen in Google searches that Talley has reprised his Shorter undertaking at least twice since my revelatory experience, and maybe it’s for the best that I have missed them — I can actually listen to something else now!

Dougtalley.com
Doug Talley on Facebook

Appreciating Billy Bang

Musicianship transcends fear and suffering

Like the titles of works by Charles Mingus, this tune, "Ben Hua Blues," by violinist Billy Bang, gives you something to think about while you listen to the music. Ten years ago, Bang recorded Vietnam: The Aftermath with a group of musicians who were mostly or entirely veterans of that war. Quite a lineup in any case:

Billy Bang, violin
Ted Daniel, trumpet
Frank Lowe, tenor
Sonny Fortune, flute
John Hicks, piano
Michael Carvin, drums

The music has an authoritative presence that defies the fear and suffering that Bang and his comrades must have faced. Other tunes on this album assert much more visceral states of being that perhaps channel the horror of war, but the musicianship transcends that experience. Billy Bang had a long and rich career playing "out" music. He died on April 11 of lung cancer. It’s old news by now, but Peter Hum’s piece in the Ottawa Citizen tells Bang's enduring story of perseverance, which turns on his decision to buy a violin instead of a gun.

Appreciating Eddie Jefferson

Flapping is jaws, lips, and teeth, Eddie Jefferson spit out syllables of defiantly appropriate poetry set to great jazz solos. This piece is based on Charlie Parker's "Parker's Mood," renamed for the vocalise version as "Bless My Soul."

I once transcribed his words to "Lester's Trip to the Moon," Jefferson's version of "Paper Moon." If I can find my notes and a video of this tune, I will do a post about it. Until then, if you know where I can find either component, please share.

By the way,
why has YouTube allowed this video to stay online when it is clearly a copy of a recorded piece of music used as the soundtrack to a video that consists of a still photo? More to the point, how does the entity that has the rights to Jefferson's work stand for this appropriation? This sort of thing happens all the time on YouTube. I'm glad that it's happening, because it's the only way I know to share music without getting into trouble. If anyone shared just the audio file of this tune, the person would be sued for violation of copyright and theft of intellectual property. Can someone enlighten me?

Space is still the place

For my observance of Jazz Appreciation Month, I am extending my vacation of interplanetary travel

This performance in Berlin in 1986 is much more dedicated to the music and less on the flamboyant stage presence, as compared to my experience in the early 90s, which included space aliens.

Space in the place

Celebrating Jazz Appreciation Month with another post about Sun Ra

"Space Is the Place," the video above, is Sun Ra's theme song. Below is a video of one of my favorite Sun Ra tunes, "Rocket Number Nine Take Off For The Planet Venus."

An evening with Sun Ra: Weird, then weirder

This image of Sun Ra is a photocopy of a press-kit picture sent around 1990 to the newspaper where I worked in Springfield, Missouri. Why would a publicist send Sun Ra promotional materials to Springfield, Mo.? I asked the entertainment reporter if I could keep the photo. Of course he had no use for it. I made a bunch of copies of it in case I lost the original. Turns out, that was a good decision.

Sun Ra died in 1993. His music lives on, thanks to the dedication of saxophonist Marshall Allen, a longtime member of his band, who continues to lead the Sun Ra Arkestra.

Two decades before the discovery of the photo, I saw Sun Ra at the Auditorium Theater in Chicago, as part of a double bill with Alice Coltrane. Quite a memorable evening of spacey music. Sun Ra, who worked regularly in Chicago in the 40s and 50s, performed with his band and two tiny women dressed in one-piece, aluminum-colored, glittering body suits with scalp-clutching hoods, antennae thrusting diagonally from either side of their heads. These interplanetary pixies occasionally pranced around the stage while the band played a jaunty vamp and Sun Ra ran his palms up and down multiple keyboards, creating deafening crushes that vibrated through the building and within my head. It was liberating — a defining moment.

With Sun Ra, I often wondered whether he was serious or joking. From what I saw, I decided he must have been serious because he never cracked up, and neither did anyone in his band. I could be entirely wrong, though.

The evening ended on two dismaying notes. From my seat in the first balcony, I saw, from the corner of my eye, a man approach the railing and throw disc-shaped pieces of glass or metal toward the stage. I couldn’t tell if any of his projectiles reached the stage, or if they hit anyone in the audience. None of the musicians seemed to take notice, but a few patrons’ heads turned. The man threw three or four of these objects then ran away.

A couple of minutes later, Sun Ra interrupted the music and went into a rant, denouncing the audience and Chicago in general. He chanted:

We have transcended Chicago!
We have transcended Chicago!
We have transcended Chicago!
We have transcended Chicago!

For many years, I thought the attack from the balcony motivated Ra’s tirade, but now I see that the two events may not have been related, even though it looked that way from my perspective.

Appreciating Dexter Gordon

Elegant with the discreet suggestion of impending mischief

I learned about Dexter Gordon in the mid-70s with his album Homecoming: Live at the Village Vanguard (1976). It’s a fiery and, well, dexterous outing in which he’s supported by trumpeter Woody Shaw and his group. Later in the decade, he recorded a similar live album in three volumes, Nights at the Keystone.

At that time, he always had strong drummers, such as Louis Hayes and Eddie Gladden, who generated a lot of thrust. Gordon would float over all that energy, at times dipping into it, but mostly creating dramatic tension out of the expectation that he ought to be exploding, just like the drummer. He was a great ballad player, very expansive. His "Body and Soul" had an ebb and flow of a great novel you can't put down.

His work going all the way back to the 1940s is consistently appealing. His albums from the 60s, such as Go! and Our Man in Paris, contain shorter solos that make every phrase count.

This video archived at Dextergordon.com includes a fantastic snippet beginning at 2:46 from a jam session that includes Gordon’s antecedents, Lester Young and Coleman Hawkins, trading fours. Both tenor icons influenced Gordon, though he steered closer to Young’s lighter and more nimble approach.

Gordon presented himself on stage as a splendid gentleman and vibrant host—elegant with the discreet suggestion of impending mischief. He was throwing a sophisticated yet free-wheeling party, and he want everybody to have great time.

Appreciating Dexter Gordon's maternal grandfather

One of five African-American Medal of Honor recipients in the Spanish-American War

Edward L. Baker Jr., from Wikipedia
Commons, scanned from page 146
of the book Black Valor: Buffalo Soldiers 
and the Medal of Honor, 1870-1898
by Frank N. Schubert (1997,
Scholarly Resources Inc.).
Original image from the National Archives.

Although it's a widely reported fact, it's new to me and worth passing on:

The Official Dexter Gordon Web Site, Dextergordon.com, asserts that the elegant, hard-swinging tenor saxophonist's mother's father served as a sergeant major in the Spanish American War. Furthermore, Edward L. Baker Jr. earned a Medal of Honor for rescuing a wounded soldier from drowning while they were under fire. He was one of five African-American Medal of Honor Recipients in that war. 

Baker is the father of Dexter's mother, Gwendolyn Baker.

The only bass saxophone quartet in the universe

Appreciating the supersized saxophone

A Twitter account known as @BassSaxophone followed me today. The account corresponds to ContraBassSaxophone.org, a site with many ads and regular posts and videos about saxophone instruments, not just the contrabass. The "About" tab on the site yields no information about who is involved, and little about what the organization is about, except for this line: "ContraBass Saxophone Instument (sic) Reviews."

In any case, here's a YouTube video embedded at the site — a contrabass sax quartet! The piece, by the German group Deep Schrott, has catchy rhythmic interplay and a key moment at 0:37 when they ooze into a dissonant sonority that suggests the World Saxophone Quartet. 

Also on YouTube, you can find a video of the group performing "Stairway to Heaven."

The members of Deep Schrott and the other musicians presented at ContraBassSaxophone.org clearly are entirely serious about the bass sax. For them, it's an important tool for making music, not a novelty instrument. For me, the essence of this sax’s sound is like the end of a cup of Turkish coffee—thick, rich, muddy, desirable in small sips.