Archives for June 2006

Observe, please, that in the right-hand column is a new set of Doug’s Picks: two CDs, a DVD and an enchanting novel.

Yesterday, Rifftides was one year old. Thanks to all of you for keeping me interested. It has been a rewarding and broadening experience.
DR

When I wrote about Django Reinhardt on his birthday, I didn’t know about a classic piece of film showing him and the Quintet of the Hot Club of France. Earl Minor sent this from Portland, Oregon:

This one literally made me cry tears of joy.
I hope you enjoy it. It’s amazing how wonderfully
he played with two fingers burnt off his left hand.
The human spirit knows no bounds when put to good use.

Here is the link to the video, thanks to Mr. Minor.

Peter Levin writes from New York:

While (unlike, it appears, Jimmy Knepper) I love Monk’s music, Knepper was right about the childlike quality of a lot of Monk tunes. When one of our sons was three, Monk was his favorite composer. When we asked him why, he said it was because Monk’s music sounded like “our city” (which is New York, where we live a few blocks away from West 63rd Street, Monk’s home for many years). He could hear car horns and exhaust as well as playground chants in those tunes.
Interestingly, when he and his pals hit the pre-teen years, their primary allegiance was to Mingus, who is the only jazz artist many of our sons’ peers collect. The energy and swagger of Mingus is very appealing, at least to city kids.

The Commission Project’s Swing ‘n Jazz event in Rochester, New York, raises money to commission compositions, produce workshops and fund composer-in-residence programs in public schools across the United States. The four days of TCP’s ninth edition of Swing ‘n Jazz overflowed with music, most of which I heard. Here is a compact account.
Thursday, June 1: Intermittent rain nearly washed out the Community Drum Circle concert in a small public square across from the Eastman School of Music. Few listeners materialized, but a game group of drummers performed during the lulls. Some, from the Bush Mango Drum & Dance organization, played African drums. Master percussionist Bill Cahn and Eastman School professor John Beck demonstrated the precision of unison regimental drumming. Kristen Shiner-McGuire, director of percussion studies at Rochester’s Nazareth College, drummed in a jam session of a dozen or so percussionists, then improvised a dance. Good, damp, fun.
While we were sheltering from a squall, jazz trumpeter Herb Smith, who also plays with the Rochester Philharmonic, told me about his TCP project. He teaches elementary school children the blues. He has the kids create their own blues songs. “I tell them they have to write what they know,” Smith said. “It would make no sense for a fifth grader to sing, ‘Woke up this morning…and found my woman gone.'” What do they write and sing about? Here’s a new blues from a student at School No. 30.

School lunch blues
School food is so nasty it taste so bad
School food is so nasty, it taste so bad
It taste so bad, it just makes me mad
I wish I had some mashed potatoes with gravy on top
I wish I had some mashed potatoes with gravy on top
To drown out that nasty taste I need to drink some pop
I opened up the chicken patty, it smelled like French fries
I opened up the chicken patty, it smelled like French fries
It taste so nasty, I rather eat flies
I got the school lunch blues
I got the school lunch blues
It taste so nasty, I rather eat flies

Smith makes sure that his students learn not only how to apply lyrics to the blues, but that they know the form’s harmonic structure.
Friday, June 2: At the School of the Arts in a 9 a.m. class, José Encarnacion rehearsed the SOTA jazz ensemble. The band, one of several in this jewel of the Rochester school system, is mostly seniors. They tackled Jim McNeely’s tricky “Extra Credit” and nailed it. Next came “Some Skunk Funk,” transcribed and expanded from the Brecker Brothers recording. The big band dispersed, and the SOTA wind ensemble moved in. Under the tutelage and direction of Mario Belcufine, they played “Designs,” a TCP commission by composer and trumpeter Paul Smoker. The piece walks the line between jazz and classical. Smoker wrote it based on ideas suggested by the members of the ensemble. It has harmonic density, mass, wit and rhythmic variety. The youngsters played it beautifully. When I asked for a demonstration of the ideas they contributed, several of them played their seedling phrases and the whole band beamed.
Later at the Country Club of Rochester, members of the club who support TCP turned out for drinks, dinner on the lawn and Drummers Night Out. Cahn, Beck and Shiner-McGuire from yesterday’s Drum Circle were there, along with drummers Rich Thompson and Jason Wildman. The non-drum accomplices were bassist Jay Leonhart and vibraphonist Howard Potter. As at all of the major Swing ‘n Jazz events, the master of ceremonies was Rochester attorney Tom Hampson, who doubles as the city’s longest-running and best-known jazz radio host. The program consisted of a drumming retrospective beginning in Africa and ending in bebop. Cahn and Beck repeated their regimental drum duet. “Big Noise from Winnetka,” naturally, was a part of the proceeding, with Leonhart taking Bob Haggart’s role. He whistled through his teeth and played the chords with his left hand while Beck attacked the strings with sticks, a la Ray Baduc. The crowd went wild. For those who can’t get enough drums, it was quite an evening.
Saturday, June 3: The morning was devoted to the workshops reviewed here. At night, with a rainstorm pounding Rochester, musicians and listeners gathered at the Hochstein Performance Hall. Formerly the Central Presbyterian Church, the hall is domed and acoustically blessed. It is resplendent with mahogany woodwork and a pair of crème staircases sweeping down from the balcony to the main floor on either side of the stage, the balustrades accented with green baize. Among the many historical events this room has seen were the funerals of Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass.
Swing ‘n Jazz musical director Marvin Stamm was in charge of marshaling twelve musicians in what was billed as a Gala Jam Session. The evening was a tribute to the late bassist Keter Betts. A huge color photograph of Betts hung like a tapestry above the rear of the stage. Through the evening, musicians turned to gaze at the man who was with them in this session a year ago. Stamm introduced the first set by tenor saxophonist Ken Hitchcock, trumpeter John Sneider, trombonist Scott Whitfield, pianist Mike Holober, drummer Rich Thompson and bassist Phil Flanagan. Like all of the Jazz ‘n Swing musicians, they donated their talents. All but Whitfield were regulars and not taken for granted, but Whitfield’s virtuosity seemed to catch the audience unawares. I heard sharp intakes of breath and murmurs when he was a few bars into his solo on “In Your Own Sweet Way.” Whitfield flew from Los Angeles to Rochester to do a workshop and this concert and headed back the next morning.
Sneider introduced his composition “New Level” as “kind of a bossa nova.” He is a study in stillness when he plays, and the trumpet seems barely to touch his lips during his effortlessly fluid solos. I haven’t heard Hitchcock’s vigorous Coltraneish tenor since his days with Charles Mingus and Louis Bellson and knew Holober only on record. Both are fine soloists. I had been listening to Holober’s Thought Trains CD and heard in his chord voicings on the piano the wellspring of the deep harmonies in his big band writing. The set ended with a romp through “Donna Lee.”
Flanagan and Leonhart did a kaleidoscopic bass duet on “Blue Monk,” with Leonhart’s singing-bowing solo, the two alternately accompanying and soloing both arco and pizzicato, plucking the time together, and ending with Flanagan bowing and Leonhart plucking the melody in unison. Hip stuff. Then came the satirical moment that had some in the audience in tears. Leonhart accompanied himself and sang his new song, “Nukular.” Fair warning: if you follow the link to Leonhart’s website, be prepared to spend the day. Please come back.
Holober and Stamm played “My Funny Valentine.” Stamm’s solo was exquisite, ending in a note held longer than normal lungs can keep supplying air. As far as I know, he does not use circular breathing.
Drummer Anthony Pinciotti joined Holober, Hitchcock, alto saxophonist Carl Atkins and Leonhart for an uncompromising major blues, then the same rhythm section with trumpeters Sneider and Paul Smoker for an equally committed minor blues, “Birks Works.” Pinciotti drums with buoyancy and quick rhythmic adaptability, making it clear why he is in great demand in New York City jazz circles. You will find a brief biography of Pinciotti here (scroll down). Atkins, a veteran of bands led by George Russell and Jaki Byard, is the former president of the Hochstein School of Music and Dance. In everything I heard him play, his soloing was notable for cogency of line and an inclination toward the blues. Atkins, Smoker and Stamm played Kenny Dorham’s “Blue Bossa.” Stamm soloed with crystal clarity and Pinciotti executed a drum solo based on melody. The sexet followed with another jam session standard, Miles Davis’s “Four.”
Stamm brought on two youthful musicians for “Afro Blue.” Tenor saxophonist Chad Lefkowitz-Brown is a 6-foot three-inch high school student with a big sound who has mastered his instrument. His conception owes something to John Coltrane, something to Sonny Rollins, something to Michael Brecker, but not so much that he doesn’t have his own identity. It will be interesting to follow the development of this accomplished young man. Drummer Evan Smoker, Paul Smoker’s son, connected nicely with Lefkowitz-Brown.
For the finale, Stamm brought all of the musicians on stage for a long “Caravan.” It had few jam session low points and a fair share of high ones, none more amusing than the “Night in Tunisia” riff that developed among some of the horns. Thompson, Pinciotti and young Smoker alternated on drums, Leonhart and Flanagan on bass.
In the lounge of the Lodge at Woodcliff, I relaxed with Stamm, Holober, Leonhart and Pinciotti as we listened to pianist Gap Mangione and his quartet. Mangione has been a fixture at the resort hotel since he came off the road several years ago.
Sunday, June 4: This was the day of the golf tournament that gives double meaning to the “swing” in Swing ‘n Jazz. Golfers who support The Commission Project played a round or two at the Greystone Golf Club, contributing their fees–and in many cases more money than that–to help TCP carry on its work. Several of the musicians, including Hitchcock and Leonhart, hit the links. When the last putt had been sunk, everyone assembled in a huge white tent of the kind used for wedding receptions. Following an awards ceremony in which Leonhart spoke hilariously for his winning threesome, there was a buffet dinner, then Swing ‘n Jazz IX closed with another jam session. The cast of musicians was essentially the same as Saturday’s, with trombonist Mark Kellogg replacing Whitfield and drummer Akira Tana and guitarist Bob Sneider joining. Tana flew in from San Francisco just to be a part of the evening. His crisp, swinging drumming was a pleasure to hear. Sneider, John’s brother, teaches at Eastman. He plays with intensity and deep feeling. He was new to me, and I want to hear more of his work.
I won’t give you another blow by blow account. It was a jam session, a good one, a fine conclusion to an interesting and rewarding four days.

While I was in Rochester, New York, I kept busy in The Commission Project’s official Swing ‘n Jazz schedule of concerts and workshops, and the unofficial one of eating and drinking well and hanging out. Still, I managed to absorb a bit of the atmosphere of a city with remarkable historical and cultural depth. Some of the culture is the kind promoted by arts and historical preservation organizations. Some is simply in the fabric of daily life.

Kodak declined as the result of its failure to properly guage the speed of the digital revolution in photography. But George Eastman and his Eastman Kodak company influenced Rochester’s economic and cultural life for much of the twentieth century. The Eastman imprint on the city is pervasive. He founded the Eastman School of Music, an enduring institution that brought Rochester fame and has given us Howard Hanson, Renée Fleming, William Warfield, Ron Carter, Maria Schneider, the Mangione brothers, Steve Gadd and Mitch Miller, among other leaders in several areas of music.

Alec Wilder attended Eastman for a time and although his name is often connected to the school, for the most part he taught himself. Wilder gave us Wilder. A part of the University of Rochester, the Eastman School is a big physical presence and an even bigger civic one.

By 1900, George Eastman’s photographic inventions had made him one of the wealthiest men in the nation. A bachelor all of his life, he bought his mother a thirty-seven room mansion on East Avenue, which is to Rochester as St. Charles Avenue is to New Orleans or California Street was to San Francisco in its heyday. The house and grounds had a staff of forty. Eastman lived there until failing health restricted his active life. He found immobility unacceptable and shot himself to death in 1932. “My work is finished,” he wrote in his suicide note. “Why wait?” The living quarters and gardens of the George Eastman House are maintained as they appeared while he was alive. But its greater importance lies in its existence as an independent nonprofit museum devoted to photography and motion pictures.

I set aside an hour to tour the museum, spent two hours and wished that I had scheduled a day. I expected glass cases full of cameras and walls hung with pictures glorifying Eastman and his inventions, and I found them. I did not expect the stunning exhibition of modern–even avant garde–photography called Picturing Eden, which presents the ways in which thirty-eight bold photographers picture the world after the fall, mankind’s struggle to regain paradise and its despair in losing it. The overall mood is as bleak and beautiful as our times. Nor was I ready for “Project Space,” which currently allows photographer Bill Finger to experiment with ways of displaying his digital inkjet prints evocative of childhood secrets and fears. Finger’s exhibit is a work in progress, but its component pictures are finished compositions loaded with mysteries.

Seeing Ourselves: American Faces is from another region of the photographic spectrum. Mostly straightforward black and white portrayals, forty prints show us Babe Ruth, Maryilyn Monroe, Abe Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Jackie Kennedy, Igor Stravinsky, Sioux chiefs in suits and ties assembled to sign a land treaty, and ordinary people. The photographers include Edward Steichen, Matthew Brady, Gordon Parks, Richard Avedon and Alfred Stieglitz. Most of us have seen the pictures often over the years. To see them all in one room, in high-qualilty prints, is to see them as if for the first time.

I missed last year’s Gershwin to Gillespie: Portraits in American Music and I’ll miss September’s Why Look at Animals? photo exhibitions at the George Eastman House. If I lived in Rochester, I’d be there weekly.
As we drove through Highland Park, I regretted that I hadn’t been in Rochester three weeks earlier, when the Park’s acres of lilac bushes were in bloom and the city’s Lilac Festival was in full swing. Now, there were just a few faded blooms hanging on; I’m partial to lilacs. Most of this beautiful hillside park was designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, the landscaping genius who created New York’s Central Park.

The Erie Canal has been a part of Rochester’s history since the canal aqueduct over the Genesee River was completed in 1823. Its commercial traffic mde New York City the nation’s busiest port and helped Rochester thrive in the nineteenth century, but by the second half of the twentieth, the canal’s economic glory days were past. Today, it’s a tourist and recreational attraction. Runners, walkers and cyclists use its miles of towpaths. Towns along the canal celebrate its history–and drum up tourist business–with festivals like Fairport Canal Days. On Sunday, 200,000 people crowded into the little town east of Rochester. The Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra piled onto a boat and serenaded them.

Now we come to the non-historical, non-preservationist part of the local culture. I hadn’t been in Rochester more than a half hour when I was asked, “Have you been to Wegmans?” By the end of the second day, I had been asked a half-dozen times. Wegmans is a huge chain of supermarkets in the northeast. Its flagship and showplace is a gigantic store on Monroe Avenue near the town of Pittsford. It is the only supermarket I have patronized that includes a first-class restaurant and a cinema. Fortified by a bowl of clam chowder at the restaurant, I toured the market.

“I have mixed feelings about the place,” a woman had told me the night before. “I love the selection and the displays and the sort-of medieval-festival atmosphere, but, you know, when a monster like that goes in, it drives out six or seven little pharmacies and a lot of mom-and-pop stores. It’s the Wal-Mart effect.”
Not everyone has misgivings. I Googled Wegmans and came up with this on a website called Yelp! from a woman who had moved away from Rochester.

…it’s own french patisserie, beautiful produce, a candy section with bonbons piled sky high (along with a little choo-choo candy train). Just dreaming about wegmans makes my mind reel into a blissful coma. Truly one of the most extraordinary and wonderful places on the planet.

Along with Tahiti and Paris, perhaps. She was right about the displays. In the produce department–or wing–fruits and vegetables lay in perfectly organized ranks and rows, hundreds of them receding into the distance. They were lighted as enticingly as rings and bracelets at Cartier. Sumptuous meats and fishes, regiments of cheeses and squadrons of teas got the same artistic treatment. When I selected apples, it was like removing a couple of pieces from a mosaic. Shoppers cruised the aisles full of determination and intensity, piling their carts high, and they seemed to come from the full width of the social landscape.

I was wracking my brain trying to summon up what this reminded me of. Finally, it came to me: not a medieval market, but the grocery section of Harrod’s in London. The same courteous, friendly attitude of clerks, butchers and greengrocers; the same profusion of goods; the meticulous organization and display; the canny creation of an atmosphere conducive to buying. A supermarket as a tourist destination? That’s marketing.

Our penultimate stop in this scattershot tour of the Rochester area is several miles west on Ridge Road. Ned Corman, the head of The Commission Project, detecting that we shared his interest in wine, arranged for trumpeter Marvin Stamm, pianist Mike Holober and me to visit Century Wines and Liquor and have a chat with one of its owners, Michael Minsch, the son-in-law of the founder, Sherwood Deutsch. The chat quickly disclosed that Minsch has forgotten more about the intricacies and satisfactions of wine than I’ll ever learn. It came after we toured the large store, marveling at its extensive collection from every imaginable wine-producing part of the world. We were allowed into the temperature- and humidity-controlled back room where Deutsch and Minsch keep the really good stuff. We wandered along aisles between stacks of cases of wines, most of them choice Bordeaux. It is both fascinating and unnerving to see a stack of cases of vintage Petrus, Margaux or Lafitte when you know that acquiring a single case of, say, a 1955 Margaux would necessitate a second mortgage. I bought a non-mortgage-inducing Bordeaux, we had a good talk with the amiable and knowledgeable Mr. Minsch and departed for the next event of Swing ‘n Jazz.

But first, I had to find a book. I finished one on the flight east and did not want to be caught headed west in the ultimate travel horror short of a hijacking or a crash–nothing to read. As I strolled the streets around the Eastman School, I nearly walked past the solution, but something induced me to turn around and scan the stores on the far side of East Avenue. “Used, Rare & Out of Print Books,” said the sign on one. I sauntered into Greenwood books and asked the woman at the desk if she had anything by Jorge Amado. “I believe we do,” she said. She made a beeline for the back room, climbed a ladder and brought down two Amados. For fifteen bucks, I had a fine copy of the first American edition of The War of The Saints and walked out relieved. The woman, it turned out, was Franlee Frank, the owner of what City, the Rochester alternative newspaper, proclaimed the best bookstore in town.

Next posting, we’ll wrap up the Rochester visit with an account of some of the music of Swing ‘n Jazz. Coming soon to a blog near you.

Eric Felten writes from Washington, DC:

I enjoyed the Monk posts, and it reminded me of a gig I did years ago with Jimmy Knepper. He was an incredibly distinctive musician, and as quirky, interesting, and difficult as a person as was his trombone playing. Before this particular gig with Jimmy I suggested we play some Monk tune (I don’t remember which), and Jimmy just put that puzzled (and slightly dismayed) look on his face before pronouncing: “You know, nobody’s willing to say it, but lot’s of Monk’s stuff is just plain stupid.” Then, in a mocking tone, he sang “Green Chimneys” — “Na, na, na, na, n-na, na; Na, na, na, na-Nah” — emphasizing the in-your-face monotony of it. Then he gave “Straight No Chaser” the same treatment.

We didn’t do any Monk on the gig.

When Paul Desmond made his observation that jazz can be learned but not taught, he had in mind the core jazz skill of improvisation, rather than the ability of musicians to be effective in large aggregations. Marvin Stamm, the musical director of this year’s Swing ‘n Jazz, recalled that he taught himself improvisation by playing along with his brother’s collection of jazz records, memorizing solos and eventually absorbing the basics of chord changes and rhythmic competence. That happened after he had learned the rudiments of music, become an accomplished teenaged trumpet player and was mastering the classical repertoire. Some variation of that experience is how all jazz players began learning to improvise. But, Stamm insisted, the fine points of ensemble playing can be taught. In a workshop–a sort of master class–at the Commission Project’s Swing ‘n Jazz event, he and the New York City drummer Anthony Pinciotti demonstrated.
The beneficiaries of Stamm’s and Pinciotti’s education were the Rochester Music Educators’ Jazz Ensemble. The ensemble is a big band directed by Howard Potter of the Eastman School of Music. Its members are music teachers at public schools in the Rochester, New York, area. They rehearse on Monday nights, but for Swing ‘n Jazz, they assembled at the Eastman School early on Saturday morning.
Stamm and Pinciotti listened to the band run through a Sammy Nestico piece called “Hay Burner.” Passersby on the sidewalk paused to hear the music drifting through the big street-level windows of the rehearsal room. Stamm complimented the musicians, then he and Pinciotti began to work with them. Stamm asked the trumpets, in the back row, to stand so that their sound would project over the band and have greater clarity. He suggested that the two rhythm guitarists play more lightly, evoking Count Basie’s Freddie Green. Green, he said, often propelled the Basie band as much by being felt as by being heard. Pinciotti asked the drummer not to get locked into the shuffle rhythm of the piece, but to vary his approach. Later, playing air drums as he spoke, he demonstrated how the drummer could swing harder by relaxing. Stamm urged the lead alto saxophonist and the rest of the reeds to phrase Nestico’s folksy melody more loosely and lower their volume, but not to lose the intensity crucial to the piece.
Turning to the rhythm section, Stamm said, “Not once did I see you five guys look at each other. Check each other out. Get off the paper. You’ve played this enough times that you don’t have to read the changes.” To the horns he said, “Leave space in there–air–don’t overphrase.”
I had thought that the initial performance of “Hay Burner” was impressive, but the next time through, there was palpable improvement in the band’s dynamics, expression and time. Stamm’s and Pinciotti’s tutorial had not transformed the piece; Nestico’s work was still as he created it. By applying the workshop tips, however, the band advanced their interpretation of the piece, polishing it and learning principles that would help them in approaching other music. Next came “Ray Gun,” an impressive large composition by Tom Davis, a member of the trumpet section, then Charles Mingus’s “Haitian War Dance.” Both received Pinciotti’s and Stamm’s lapidary attention. During the same two-hour period, other Swing ‘n Jazz faculty members were conducting workshops at the Eastman School, elementary schools, the School of the Arts and Nazareth College. Student musicians were getting the benefit of the experience and wisdom of twenty-seven professionals who volunteered their services.
“The important thing,” Stamm told the band members at the end, “is that you take the things we have discussed back to your students. That’s what this is all about. Transmit your enthusiasm and love of this music.” Ned Corman, the founder and guiding spirit of The Commission Project, sat at the back of the room, smiling. Stamm and Pinciotti had just put his philosophy into practice.
The next gig for the Music Educators Jazz Ensemble will be on June 13 as part of the Rochester International Jazz Festival. The festival starts June 9 and headlines McCoy Tyner, Wayne Shorter, Phil Woods and Toots Thielemans.

This is my first visit to Rochester, New York, in more than twenty years. I thought in the 1980s that it was an agreeable place, slightly down at the heels in some districts but riding in comfort on the economic updraft of its biggest corporate anchors, Eastman Kodak, Xerox and Bausch & Lomb. Kodak and Xerox have cut local employment sharply in the past few years. At $28,000, the median annual income in this city of 215,000 is about $14,000 below the national average. In compensation, real estate prices are dramatically lower those of other urban areas on both coasts. As we drove near downtown through pristine neighborhoods built at or before the turn of the twentieth century, my guide from the Greater Rochester Visitors Association pointed out splendid-looking houses that she said would sell for half or less the price of comparable houses in Seattle, Miami or San Francisco. The streets, sidewalks and vacant lots of even the most economically fatigued parts of Rochester seemed to me remarkably free of litter and debris, compared with those of other big cities. “Yes,” Patti Donaghue told me, “just about everyone who comes here says that.”
Following a period of sustained civic unease generated by a long-term partisan standoff between former mayor William Johnson and Monroe County Executive Jack Doyle, the city is benefiting from unaccustomed cooperation between city and county. The new mayor, Robert Duffy, is a former police chief and a Democrat. The new county executive, Maggie Brooks, is a former television anchor and reporter and a Republican. Unlike their predecessors, they speak to one another and are working together toward solutions for the Rochester area’s problems, which include a $102-million-dollar county budget deficit over the next two years. Despite early indications that the two will continue to collaborate, the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle found it necessary to publish a recent editorial warning that differences over a tax-increase solution to the budget deficit could “develop into a recurrence of a dysfunction that was stifling for too long.” Still, Rochesterians with whom I’ve talked this week are optimistic that the new city-county government atmosphere has begun to melt the glacier of disillusion and apathy that blocked progress and enthusiasm. Among the beneficiaries of the thaw are the arts.
Encouraging as it may be that in 2006 there is at least one island of cooperative leadership in the American poliical landscape, I am not in Rochester to report on politics, but on the ninth edition of a phenomenon called Swing ‘n Jazz. It is a piece of a cultural mosaic that, for its variety and vitality, would be remarkable in many larger cities. Swing ‘n Jazz is three days of musical activities sponsored and organized by The Commission Project. TCP’s mission description reads that it shall foster “creativity through music education by bringing students together with professional composers and performers in schools and communities nationwide.” Swing (as in golf) ‘n Jazz is built around a tournament attracting well-heeled contributors who provide the money that keeps the nonprofit TCP running. Some of the musicians involved swing on both fronts. But, mostly, they work with students and those who educate students, to improve understanding of how to make jazz.
There are those–Paul Desmond claimed to be one–who believe that jazz can be learned but not taught. There are others–like trumpeter Marvin Stamm, this year’s music director of Swing ‘n Jazz–who volunteer to come here and prove that it can be learned and taught. This morning, I witnessed Stamm and a colleague in a workshop setting, helping the musicians of an already-accomplished big band with nuances and subleties that more or less instantly improved their interpretation of arrangements. Each member of that band is a public school teacher who shapes the talents of student muscians. More in the next posting on that and other aspects of this heartening event. Right now, I’m moving on to the next installment of Swing ‘n Jazz, which is described as a “Gala Jam Session,” with Stamm in charge of herding the cats.

He has to be, to withstand the abuse he’s taking. From the right, a pianist identified as Hans Groiner–who may actually be someone named Hans Groiner–castrates Monk, with results that make John Tesh sound like Arnold Schoenberg. Groiner, or the Groiner simulacrum, writes on the Myspace website, “I am from the Austrian village of Braunau, (also the birthplace of Hitler, but please don’t hold that against me!”
Then he tells of hearing Monk for the first time.

Although his music fascinated me, I had very mixed feelings. On the one hand, Mr. Monk had obvious talents, but on the other hand, his piano playing was very messy, and his songs had many funny notes and rhythms. Over the many years that I have been studying his music, I have grown to the conclusion that his songs would be much better, and much more popular, if many of the dissonances, or “wrong notes,” were removed.

So, he removes them. Go here to listen to samples of the results, which Groiner says are “from my CD, which I am planning to release worldwide, very, very soon!” You have been warned.
From the left, a heavy metal rock group calling itself Brilliant Coroners (get it?) collects the energy that Groiner extracted from Monk’s music, expands it to nuclear proportions and unleashes it without mercy. You may sample it here. Samples were enough for me, but I don’t know your taste or your tolerance level.
Somewhere in the middle is Thelonious Moog, which is beguiling at first. After a few tracks, however, its comic synthesizer simulations of explosions, sirens, animal sounds, belches and other body noises become–oh, I don’t know–whoopee-cushion humor. These cats can meter, though. I became exhausted imagining the hours of computer programming involved in contructing this electronic tower of Babel.
As Bach rose above Wendy Carlos, Monk rises above these tributes, if that’s what they are. It may help restore your faith in his genius, not to mention your sanity and your sense of humor, to listen to the real thing. There are dozens of terrific Monk CDs, but why not go back to this one, recorded years before he made the cover of TIME (“I’m famous, ain’t that a bitch?”). It is one of his best. Added attractions: Coleman Hawkins, John Coltrane and Gigi Gryce.