Appreciating "Let My Children Hear Music"

Is this the best album by Charles Mingus?

Can’t say. But it is a great achievement demonstrating his episodic approach to composition. The listener really gets slapped around through all the starts and stops of "The Shoes of the Fisherman’s Wife Are Some Jive Ass Slippers," "Don’t Be Afraid, the Clown’s Afraid Too," and "The I of Hurricane Sue."

The album has some great solos from James Moody and Charles McPherson, but Mingus the composer is the main event here. His ambition and passion are present at every turn.

Mingus’s explanation for his curious song titles was deceptively simple: They’re just something to think about while you’re listening to the music. The titles referenced above create a spectrum of thought possibilities: 

• "Shoes" — Inscrutable to me. No amount of thinking is likely to reveal the title’s connection to the music.
• "Clown" — Straightforward programatic title that reflects the music. 
• "Sue" — Presumably a musical essay about his tumultuous yet loving marriage.

My favorite thought-provoking title is "Remember Rockefeller at Attica," which I know from his 70s album, "Changes One." The title forces the listener, at least for a moment, to confront a political question. No matter where you stand on the issue, the title evokes images that completely ruin the experience of listening to this breezy tune — a mind game that Mingus probably enjoyed whenever he thought about it.

The music of Charles Mingus lives on through the industrious and creative work of his wife, Sue, and the multitude of bands she commissions through her organization, Jazz Workshop, Inc.

Appreciating the Crescent Double Quartet

Strings swing

Aart Van Bergen, the leader of the Netherlands-based Cresent Double Quartet, followed me on Twitter this morning. The connection led me to YouTube, where I found a video he posted on Friday of the group rehearsing their new project, "Radio Mundial," along with an earlier video of the group performing "Naima." So, within 20 minutes, I had gained a reasonably complete understanding of a group about which I knew nothing up until today, and which I intend to follow as they continue to develop their music. Moments like this one make all the noise and blather of social networking seem worthwhile.

The group’s instrumentation combines a string quartet (2 violins, viola, cello), with a jazz quartet (piano, bass, drums, tenor). Before listening, I was skeptical of the suggestion of combining jazz with classical. I have found that most such efforts result in coexistence, not synthesis, and not pleasurable as jazz. The main problems are that the classical musicians can’t improvise and can’t swing, and the jazz musicians tend to restrain themselves.

However, I had always imagined the possibility of strings playing jazz in a jazz ensemble. The opportunities for luscious sonorities and lively counterpoint seemed there for the taking, if musicians would want to try it. The Cresent Double Quartet has converted my imaginary music into reality.

The rehearsal video demonstrates how the strings enhance the gorgeous melodies that Van Bergen articulates on soprano. The "Naima" video shows how the group realizes this effect in performance — and they do so much more. The drummer breaks up rhythm into the highly engaging complex swing that I believe began with Elvin Jones. Best of all: the first violinist can really play. I would have enjoyed at least one more chorus from her. Near the end of the piece, when the band shifts from medium tempo back to slow, would have been a great place to take the music "out," at least briefly.

Congratulations to the Crescent Double Quartet for making distinctive music, and making their music known.

Appreciating the SF Jazz Collective

Tyner project taps into 70s-80s energy

One of the best listening experiences I've had in the past half-decade is the SF Jazz Collective's Live 2009: The works of McCoy Tyner Plus New Compositions.

The group is sponsored by SFJazz, the Bay Area nonprofit that presents an annual festival and performances throughout the year. Each year, the Collective plays at the festival and tours nationwide, performing the music of one noteworthy musician as well as original work by members composed especially for the group. The lineup changes every year.

The 2009 unit played the works of McCoy Tyner, whom I saw many times in the 70s. Memories of those performances remain soldered onto my hippocampus: Tyner pounding the keys, his left hand regularly rising up clawlike to pounce on another chord cluster, sweat pouring from his chin beard. The rhythmic power of the music set me up, and the water-cannon solos knocked me down.

In any case, the 2009 unit — Joe Lovano (tenor saxophone), Dave Douglas (trumpet), Renee Rosnes (piano), Miguel Zenon (alto saxophone and flute), Matt Penman (bass), Robin Eubanks (trombone) and Eric Harland (drums) — channeled that energy and found new ways to explore Tyner's compositions. There's some astonishing playing by Douglas and Zenon, and Rosnes has a great time channeling the maestro without mimicking him. And Harland on drums delivers heavy-hitting, hard driving swing throughout, with explosive accents.

The album is not cheap ($35), but it's a live, two-disc set, so you get value. It's available only at the SFJazz Web site: http://www.sfjazz.org/shop/music/collective/cd_2009.php

Appreciating Mary Halvorson

The Smithsonian is proclaiming April as Jazz Appreciation Month.



I will participate by sharing the various ways that I appreciate jazz.

In the entire scope of music, jazz represents a tiny niche. Last I noticed, jazz accounted for 3 percent of music sales. Among those 3 percentage points, Kenny G probably represents 1, the Marsalis family another 1, leaving the last 1 for everyone else.

I like the idea of tiny-ness when it comes to jazz—because it is not tiny. Within that 1 percentage point is another world of creativity too massive to hear in just one month of formal observance. The music is filled with people who occupy a niche of this tiny niche yet cultivate a meaningful following.

Today, I recognize guitarist Mary Halvorson for occupying her niche of the niche in a most distinctive way. Her fearless style of slashes, spikes, and squalls is not a new approach—Jimi Hendrix and James Ulmer were doing similar things three and four decades ago—but I have never heard this vocabulary assembled for exactly this dynamic effect. I would describe the dynamic range as discreet to thoroughly impolite, but often with no gradations in between.

The video I have embedded does not show her at her most jarring. If you have a better suggestion for a video to embed, please let me know.

For more gloriously jarring Mary Halvorson, try her recent CD, "Saturn Sings." http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?pid=8310187

Vineyard update: Harvest final

Yield skyrockets; learning curve remains gradual

The technique I used to preserve grapes through the summer worked too well. In the end, the grapes turned overripe and began to fall off the vine. This outcome is not entirely bad, though.

I managed to extend the season for my young St. Vincent grapevines by shielding them from pests with a gauzy fabric —

The famous Shroud of St. Vincent

We had no losses whatsoever from Japanese beetles, and I did not have to harvest early to preserve the yield from grape-munching birds.

In the deluges of the first half of September, at least 10 inches of rainfall soaked the vineyard, keeping sugar levels low. Throughout late September, Brix levels remained at 15-17. I held out, hoping for 22-23, corresponding to the typical wine alcohol content of roughly 12 percent. Assuming I could stand pat until I ran up against the danger of frost, I allowed plump, heavy clusters grapes to remain on the vines into October.

However, on Sunday, Oct. 3, I encountered an unexpected loss: a few clusters had fallen off the vines and gone splat on the earth below. I learned from my viticulture mentors that this behavior is typical of St. Vincent grapes, which do not necessarily reach optimum sugar levels before they become overripe.

Destemmed in minutes.

Pressing with hands and fists provides a pleasant tactile experience.

I harvested and processed the grapes immediately.
Grapes: 14 pounds
Brix: 17
Sugar added: about 2 cups
Corrected Brix: 24
Wine: 4 liters (including probably 1 liter of yeasty sludge)

These results, while puny, represent an exponential spike from last year's yield of a total of 74 grapes. Yes, we counted them (It was easy).

Next year, I will set more modest expectations for sugar values and be ready to harvest before fall-off-the-vine syndrome kicks in.

3L wine + 1L sludge.

This year, three of our plants produced grapes. Next year, three more will begin producing. Another two plants are in their first year. So, we're still at least two years away from a potential yield that will allow us to make a 19-liter-carboy batch of wine. The quest continues.

Prairie State Park

Late-summer prairie flecked with color

Not far from the rugged hills and valleys of the Ozark Mountain region, the state maintains a stretch of prairie. In late August, we visited Prairie State Park in western Missouri, about 30 miles north of Joplin (Google map).

One of the staff members at the park warned us that we were in an in-between time for flowering plants. The late-summer bloomers were burning out in the heat, and the plants that were waiting for cooler weather were still waiting.

An impatient observer might sink into boredom at the prospect of the prairie's freeform flatland expanse. Just a field of weeds, right?

Well, no. The closer we looked, the more we saw.

Flecks of color made their appearances as we approached ...

... along with exciting geometric patterns!

Even things that were rotting created interesting shapes and muted colors.

We saw this smear of white from far away. Close up, it revealed its bushy texture.

Small herds of elk and bison roam in sections of Prairie State Park. We saw a lone bison grazing in the distance (brown dot, left of center).

I remember reading Annie Dillard’s advice for nature lovers in Teaching a Stone to Talk or Pilgrim at Tinker Creek: Find a good spot, sit still, and wait for nature to come to you. As I recall, she was writing about critters. However, to discover the details of the prairie, you can’t wait for it to come to you; you have to go to it. Could this dynamic have been a factor in charging the current of the American westward movement? Just a thought ...

Considering that this is what we found during an in-between time, what could we possibly expect during peak times?

Blue is one color to expect in the fall, an expert in plants and animals at the park said. Blue asters will bloom in plain sight, and, tucked down in the grasses, blue bottle gentians will flourish. Feathery plumes of Indian grass will shoot up in autumn as the tallgrass prairie reaches its peak.

Into winter, wildlife, including deer, bison and short-eared owls, is more visible with less cover, the expert said.

After your visit, eat at the Bulldog Cafe in Liberal, about 5 miles to the northeast.

Neighborhood fireworks

The neighborhood fireworks display projects American values much more forcefully than any extravaganza orchestrated by a large organization.

The neighborhood shoot-up is spontaneous, unpredictable and self-directed. If you want to light a few firecrackers and bottle rockets and call it a night before last light, fine. If you want to spend a week’s pay recreating what Francis Scott Key saw, have at it. If you hate fireworks, close your doors and plug your ears for three hours.

Viewing the blasts from your front yard is a 360-degree around, 180-degree aloft, head-spinning experience. If you look in one direction, you will probably miss something behind you. If you look high at the colorful firebursts, you will miss the grounded sparklers. After a while, you realize it doesn’t matter where you look; something is sure to pop up.

In any case, many individuals are contributing all at once, delivering an overall effect that is more stunning than an orchestrated demonstration that forces you to look at one thing at a time. It’s the exciting one-and-many experience of American culture.

This video sort of tells a story and strives to render the spectacle. But fireworks never come off well when mediated, whether by photography or video, wobbly or still. Next year, find a neighborhood where fireworks are legal and prevalent, and see for yourself.