Reaction to Mel Narunsky’s forthright declaration that it don’t mean a thing if–well, you know–is posted following his manifesto. Frankly, I thought there would be more comment, and I hope that there will be.
There is a fortunate byproduct of this discussion. I clicked on the link in the ID at the end of DJA’s pithy comment and found that DJA is Darcy James Argue, a young composer, arranger and leader of an eighteen-piece band in New York. Argue is drawing praise from Bob Brookmeyer and attracting to his band musicians of the quality of trumpeter Ingrid Jensen, pianist Mike Holober and tenor saxophonist Donny McCaslin. I recommend site seeing, and hearing. You will find streaming demo performances at the site. Click on “Live Archive” in the right column. Be patient; the pieces take time to download, even with broadband. I’m not sure whether Mr. Narunsky will agree, but it sounds to me as if swing is being committed by Argue and his colleagues. Of course we could always argue (small a) about what swing is.
Archives for 2006
And Then There’s Ornette
Quite apart from nailing down a definition of swing, Ornette Coleman agreed to talk with Ben Ratliff of The New York Times about the nature of music itself. To his credit, Ratliff got the perenially unorthodox musician to emerge, even briefly, from the cloud of vagueness in which he has customarily hidden from attempts to get him to be specific about art in general, and his in particular. He mentioned to Ratliff his early saxophone influence, Charlie Parker.
With regard to his Parker worship, he kept the phrasing but got rid of the sequences. “I first tried to ban all chords,” he said, “and just make music an idea, instead of a set pattern to know where you are.”
The full report is in Friday morning’s Times.
Chico Hamilton
This is Chico Hamilton’s eighty-fifth birthday. I spent some of it listening to his new recordings, admiring his taste and versatility and marveling at the undiminished energy he pours into his drum set, an instrument that challenges the physical resources of players a quarter his age.
Like many listeners, I first knew of Hamilton when the Gerry Mulligan Quartet with Chet Baker, Carson Smith and Hamilton became an overnight phenomenon in late 1952. But his experience goes back to the beginning of the 1940s and encompasses work with Duke Ellington, Slim Gaillard, Lester Young, Lena Horne, Nat Cole, and Ella Fitzgerald, among others, before he joined Mulligan. In 1955, he formed his own quintet. It used cello, flute and guitar in soft textures and driving swing and set Hamilton on a course of leadership and innovation from which he has not diverged in more than half a century. He is known for discovering and developing musicians. When I heard him in Los Angeles not long ago at the helm of the latest edition of his band, Hamilton’s intensity, swing and radiant pleasure in performing made him the youngest man on the bandstand.
This morning on NPR’s Morning Edition, Ashley Kahn interviewed Hamilton, told his story and played some of his music. To hear Ashley’s piece, go here and click on “Listen.”
Happy birthday, sir.
Recent CDs, Part 5: Cryptogramophone
Bennie Maupin was on the New York jazz scene as a saxophonist and bass clarinetist in New York in the 1960s and ’70s, most famously as a member of Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew cast and of Herbie Hancock’s Mwandishi group. He worked off and on with Hancock for twenty years. In Penumbra (Cryptogramophone), he nods briefly toward those jazz fusion days, but the loveliest music on the CD is in the Castor and Pollux interrelationship of Maupin on bass clarinet and bassist Darek Oles. The highlight is “Message to Prez,” which builds langorously into a colloquy of low-register counterpoint and, finally, perfectly intoned unison on the dance-like melody.
Oles uses his unAmericanized Polish name, which is Oleszkiewicz, for his album Like a Dream (Cryptogramophone). Like George Mraz, Frantisek UhlÃÅ™ and so many other Eastern European bassists, Oleszkiewicz has prodigious technique and a full sound. He also has good time and a rich improvisational imagination. In three different combos, his sidemen include pianists Brad Mehldau and Adam Benjamin, guitarist Larry Koonse and, briefly but vigorously, Bennie Maupin on tenor saxophone. All of the tunes but “You Don’t Know What Love Is” are Oleszkiewicz’s. The mood of the CD matches its title.
Oles joins pianist Alan Pasqua and drummer Peter Erskine for Pasqua’s My New Old Friend (Cryptogramophone). Pasqua intersperses the title tune and other originals among several standards. He has a knack for ingeniously deconstructing melodies at the beginnings of the tunes and reassembling them for the final choruses. Pasqua’s sure touch and skill as a tonal colorist center the music, but the strength of Oles’ bass lines and Erskine’s restrained power interacting with the piano make this an integrated trio. Anyone inclined to doubt that Pasqua comes out of Bill Evans is invited to listen to “One More Once.”
The leader of The Jeff Gauthier Goatette is an acoustic and electric violinist, whose other instrument is listed as “effects.” In One and the Same (Cryptogramophone), guitarist Nels Cline and pianist David Witham also play effects, meaning electronics. When all of the effects and all of Alex Cline’s drums are working at once, as in a piece called “Water Torture,” the result resembles random noise of the universe, the perfect accompaniment for astral travel. Nearly everywhere else in the album, the Goatette commits melody. Even in “Water Torture,” there is an interval of lovely free improvisation between Gauthier’s violin and Joel Hamilton’s arco bass. Two pieces by the late Eric von Essen are particularly moving. Gauthier, not incidentally, is the moving force behind Cryptogramophone.
When von Essen died in 1997, he had become one of the busiest bassists in Los Angeles and a favorite of not only Gauthier and the Cline brothers but also of established mainstream musicians like Jimmy Rowles, Lou Levy and Art Farmer. In addition to bass, von Essen played guitar, piano, cello and chromatic harmonica, but his legacy to Cryptogramophone, and therefore to all of us, is that of a prolific composer. Cryptogramophone has released three CDs of songs from the dozens he left, played by musicians with whom von Essen worked. It is no coincidence that those players were–and are–at the core of the Los Angeles jazz community. Except for Bennie Maupin, they include everyone mentioned in the above paragraphs, plus Alan Broadbent, Putter Smith, Kendall Kay, Dave Carpenter, Stacy Rowles, Larry Koonse, Tom Warrington, Kate McGary and several others. The three volumes of The Music of Eric Von Essen constitute a living document of the harmonically demanding, yet intriguing and accessible compositions of this extraordinary musician.
Four years ago, Paul Conley did a substantial feature about Von Essen for National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition Sunday. You can listen to it by going to the NPR archive. Click here.
Comment: …If It Ain’t Got That Swing
Rifftides reader Mel Narunsky writes regarding
Recent CDs, Part 4:
From a modern moldy fig
I know I’m going to get a lot of flak from this, but as an old timer, let me be among the first to acknowledge that, with a few exceptions here and there, I am one of those who do not “accept that jazz values can exist apart from standard song forms and harmony, and without being tied to a steady 4/4 pulse” – the exceptions mainly being some new recordings from the older, familiar musicians – many of whom joined the “funky”, “smooth”, “fusion”, “jazz rock” , “electronic” and other types of watered-down jazz at the end of the 1960s which became so successful commercially when discovered by the non-purists.
I now approach all jazz recordings made by musicians with whom I’m not familiar with much trepidation. My old ears and brain are unable to cope with improvisations that I find impossible to follow, ergo I don’t enjoy the experience. In most cases I find the sounds very ugly. The question has been asked before, and I ask it again: whatever happened to beauty in music? Similarly, I find it difficult to listen to contemporary so-called “classical” music. I think of it as anti-music.
But the worst aspect of the jazz in question is that it simply doesn’t swing.
And Duke Ellington was quite right when he said, “It don’t mean a thing……”
Let’s hear other viewpoints on this matter. To respond, click on the “Comments” link at the end of this post.
Recent CDs, Part 4: Cryptogramophone
In its ninth year, the little Cryptogramophone label is attracting increasing attention for recordings on the forward edge of music, with good sound and imaginative packaging. Myra Melford and Nels Cline have new CDs on the label, both likely to attract listeners who accept that jazz values can exist apart from standard song forms and harmony, and without being tied to a steady 4/4 pulse.
Myra Melford
In The Image of Your Body, Melford continues her fascination with music of India. A fearless piano improviser and a composer of meticulous precision, she introduces her new five-piece band, Be Bread. She called her last five-piece band, which had nearly the same instrumentation, The Tent. The mystique of band-naming aside, Melford’s music uses the evocative capabilities of electronics and amplification to summon up the exotic atmospheres of the subcontinent and hint at the spiritual mysteries there. She employs the Indian instrument the harmonium, as she did in her previous album, The Tent, to impart a kind of folk simplicity as one layer in the complexity of “Equal Grace,” “Be Bread,” “If You’ve Not Been Fed” and the title track.
The iconoclastic trumpeter Cuong Vu is on board again. Guitarist-banjoist-vocalist Brandon Ross, bassist and electronicsician (it’s a new word) Stomu Takeishi and drummer Elliot Humberto Kavee are recent arrivals in Melford’s world, which is wide. For all of the unfettered–not to say unhinged–expressionism in the improvisation throughout a piece called “Fear Slips Behind,” Melford wraps up the track in the last twenty-six seconds with a lapidary bit of ensemble writing that might have come from Andrew Hill or Sam Rivers in the 1960s. There are too few extended passages of her piano playing, though one of them begins the long performance called “Yellow Are the Crowds of Flowers.” Then the piano melds into Ross’s keening guitar, and we seem headed into a stretch of ECM-ish floating. Before long, however, the band is generating gale-force mutual improvisation that lasts until Melford calms things down at the keyboard and the sun comes out just as it is setting. Did I mention that this is evocative music?
Cuong Vu’s own CD, It’s Mostly Residual, includes his Melford bandmate Stomu Takeishi and the always gripping guitarist Bill Frisell. It is well worth hearing.
Nels Cline
Cline, a guitarist not shy about using electronic enhancement, is one of a small stable of Cryptogramophone semi-regulars. For twenty-five years he has worked in jazz fusion, jazz rock and free jazz, and made occasional forays into folk (with Ramblin’ Jack Elliot) and country (with Willie Nelson). Cline’s New Monastery: A View Into the Music of Andrew Hill, draws on all of those genres with the exception, perhaps, of country. I say “perhaps,” because in the tidal wave of electronics and percussion that engulfs the listener in the final three minutes of “Compulsion” there could be hidden away some little allusion to C&W. That seems unlikely but, then, I’ve heard it only five or six times.
At the other end of the decibel scale, a delicate rubato duet between Cline’s guitar and Ben Goldberg’s clarinet on “McNeil Island” contains suggestions that swing may be about to break out. Sure enough, shortly before the three-minute mark, Scott Amendola’s cymbals and Devin Hoff’s bass begin sliding into the mix. Now, they are Cline’s customary band, The Nels Cline Singers, which has no vocalist, plus Goldberg. Soon cornetist Bobby Bradford is aboard, as slippery around tonal centers as he was in the late fifties and early sixties when Bradford, Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy and John Carter were enfants terribles of the Los Angeles avant garde.
They meld into “Pumpkin,” one of Hill’s beyond-boppish themes. It may not be your grandmother’s kind of swing, but now they’re swinging. On other tracks, Andrea Parkins joins on accordian. Yes, accordian. At times the cumulative sound is so dense that the ears can barely penetrate it. At others, the music is gentle, open and lyrical almost in the Viennese sense or it tends toward the kind of atmospheres generated by Miles Davis of the post-Bitches Brew period. Lack of dynamic range is not a problem here. In addition to Bradford, Goldberg and Parkins, Cline brings in his twin brother Alex on a couple of tracks to ramp up the percussion.
After decades in low profile following his success in the 1960s, Hill has begun attracting renewed attention as a pianist and composer. Cline’s treatment of his music may be part of the beginning of Hill’s rediscovery by a new generation of musicians and listeners. His approach is not to recreate Hill, but to use his compositions as launching pads for his own ideas, which have depth and complexity.
Next time, short reviews of a few other Cryptogramophone releases, among others.
Take Five Thousand
That may be a conservative estimate of the number of times Dave Brubeck has played “Take Five” since Paul Desmond’s infectious tune became a massive hit forty-six years ago. The Brubeck Quartet’s 2006 Newport Jazz Festival peformance is not the most recent; wherever Brubeck played last night, he played “Take Five.” But in July the cameras were rolling, or whatever digital cameras do (dig?) at Newport and caught a jovial 85-year-old leader and his band in good form and a beautiful setting. Notice the clouds reflected in the piano’s surface. Brubeck is laughing as the piece starts because the group had just completed an outrageously swinging “Margie,” of all things. I have seen that clip on the MSN video internet site, but can’t seem to find it again. If anyone has the url for “Margie,” please report it to Rifftides World Headquarters.
In the meantime, here’s a thirteen-minute “Take Five.” You will be treated to a short commercial going in, but from there it’s clear sailing (after all, this was Newport).
Paul Gonsalves, Continued
The Paul Gonsalves stories keep rolling in. We had them from Germany and the US. Here’s one from Canada.
The friendship of Clark Terry and Paul continued long after CT’s Ellington-time. It was Clark who introduced me to Paul when both were in Toronto, CT as a soloist at the old Colonial Tavern, and Paul with Duke, who was at the Royal York’s Imperial Room, I think it was. Probably ’68 or ’69. I was on the air live until midnight, and would run to the Colonial (or the Town Tavern) to catch a last set. One night after CT’s gig, he said “Let’s go see Paul”, and off we went to the now-gone Lord Simcoe Hotel (the band members never stayed at the Royal York– too expensive). We found one of the other band members in the lobby, who directed us to Paul’s room.
I’ve rarely seen such an open display of true affection between friends. From somewhere, a bottle of scotch appeared, but there was only one glass around, so Clark came up with a brilliant solution: you know how ice machines will make the cubes with a big ‘dimple’ in them? That’s what became our ‘glasses’ — a new twist (for me, anyway) on Scotch/ice. They held a tidy half-ounce or so, so the bottle was passed quite often during the next hour or so.
I visited Duke the next night, and seeing that I knew Clark, Paul took my word for it that we had met. He might not have remembered me, but I sure remembered him…
I believe Paul was one of the under-recognized great tenormen in jazz.
Ted O’Reilly
Mr. O’Reilly has been a jazz broadcaster in Toronto for forty-one years.
More Reviews Soon
The Rifftides staff is hard at work on that survey of recent recordings. There are so blasted many of them, and things keep intervening. But part 4 is in the works. See the archive (right column) for parts 1, 2 and 3.
Comment: The Gonsalves Video
The Video of Paul Gonsalves caught napping attracted the following comments.
The Gonsalves clip brings to mind an incident that happened when I was editing Down Beat.
Ellington was making one of his regular two-week appearances at Chicago’s Blue Note, and on opening niight, in front of a full house that included local press and celebrities, Gonsalves nodded out in then same manner we see on the video.
But to compound it all, he also fell out of his chair, got to his seat again, then promptly nodded out once more.
I went back the next night and had a chance to talk to Duke privately,and I said something to him like, “I know it is none of my business, Duke, but isn’t it of great personal embarrassment to you when something like that happens?”
Ellington simply smiled urbanely and told me that one must be able to overlook such indidents when they involve a man who served his country so well in India (as a soldier in WWII) and who, while in that service, contracted a rare tropical disease that “occasionally makes him fall asleep.”
I could only smile in rueful appreciation of his answer–I had been satisfactorily squelched and told to mind my magazine and he would mind his band.
I had been ducally euchred.
Jack Tracy
Mr. Tracy was editor of Down Beat in the mid 1950s.
There is a famous story about Paul, not quite as asleep as he is in the video, but well in his cups when Hamilton nudged him to let him know it was his solo next. Paul roused himself and stepped to the microphone. Hearing the continuing applause for the previous soloist, he thought he must have already played, so he bowed and returned to his seat.
Bill Crow
Mr. Crow is a distinguished bassist and author.
Paul Gonsalves was great, on the countless Ellington sessions as well as outside that band. Check out the “Sittin’ In” session, recently reissued by Verve, where he’s playing together with Stan Getz and Coleman Hawkins.
The whole Copenhagen 1965 concert, from which the “Perdido” clip is taken, is available on DVD.
Paul’s sleeping causes a couple more interesting scenes during the evening, like Cootie Williams coming down for his solo and saying “WAKE up Paul, WAKE up!” when passing him. At one point Ellington tells Jimmy Hamilton to wake Paul up, and Hamilton just extends his arm to hold Paul’s shoulder, with this incredibly bored look on his face. He doesn’t shake him or anything, just puts his hand on Paul’s shoulder.
Also, not Paul-related, Duke does this little juggler’s trick with the head of a mike that keeps falling off. That takes the bored look off many of the musicians’ faces for a moment: they are really surprised.
Somewhere I’ve read this Clark Terry story that Clark would always write postcards to Paul’s mother, pretending it was Paul. Like “Hi Mom, we’re in such-and-such place, love you, Paul.” And then whenever Paul would come home, the first thing his mother would ask, “how’s my boy Clarka Terry?”
Hans Doerrscheidt
(Writing from Germany)
The story about Mrs. Gonsalves is from the liner notes I wrote for the Clark Terry CD Daylight Express–DR
It’s Happening In Monterey
If you’re attending the opening night of the Monterey Jazz Festival, you’re not reading this. If, like me, you wish you were there, you will enjoy this feature by Paul Conley of KXJZ radio in Sacramento, California. The closing is priceless. Follow the link and click on “Listen.”
A year ago I was at Monterey, where I shared a signing table with John Scofield (on the left). He sold more CDs than I sold books. We had a nice chat about many things, including his days with Gerry Mullligan early in Sco’s career.
Paul Gonsalves
Paul Gonsalves, the tenor saxophone star of Duke Ellington’s band for nearly a quarter of a century, was a wonderfully warm man who had, as the jazz magazines used to euphemistically write, “personal problems.” His most obvious personal problem was alcohol. When he had overindulged, it was often Ellington’s practice to good naturedly punish him by requiring him to play extra solo choruses, sometimes dozens. In clubs, Ellington sometimes attempted to elevate Paul’s metabolism and hasten the sobering-up process by sending him into the audience like a strolling violinist to serenade the patrons at their tables.
Julius LaRosa (yes, that Julius LaRosa) just brought to my attention a 1965 video of an Ellington performance of “Perdido” in which it is clear that Paul would be playing no solo, let alone extra choruses. And there was going to be no strolling this night. So, Duke and the band worked around the problem. In the eight-minute clip, you will hear an introductory solo in which Ellington interpolates “C-Jam Blues,” then solos by Jimmy Hamilton on clarinet, Ray Nance on trumpet, Hamilton subbing on tenor sax for the indisposed Gonsalves, and a marvelously melodic drum solo by Sam Woodyard. You may observe subtle reactions to Paul’s situation from some of the band members, including Johnny Hodges. To see the performance, go here. This band was nothing if not cool.
Far from letting incidents like this sour him on Gonsalves, Ellington remained fond of him personally and musically. He once surprised Gonsalves by scheduling a recording session and informing him that he would be the only soloist on every tune. The result was the marvelous Duke Ellington and His Orchestra featuring Paul Gonsalves. Gonsalves remained with the Ellington band until the end of his career. He, of course, is the one who played the galvanizing marathon tenor solo on the interval in “Diminuendo in Blue” and “Crescendo in Blue” at the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival. Paul Gonsalves died in 1974.
On The Radio
Not me. Ornette.
Brian Wise of WNYC in New York sent an alert that Ornette Coleman will be the guest on Soundcheck tomorrow to talk “about his life and career, touching on some of his classic albums as well as his most recent one, Sound Grammar.” Soundcheck airs from 2:00 to 3:00 pm EDT at 93.9 FM and streams online here. It is also broadcast at 3 pm ET on XM Satellite Radio. This will be a rare opportunity to hear the perpetually iconoclastic alto saxophonist speak.
Comment
Thanks for gathering and posting the remarks on the Sudhalter “celebration”, for that’s what it was, as Dan Levinson and I agreed in L.A. over Labor Day. The timing of your posting is right since the AFJS is having its Washington Conference this coming weekend. I ask your permission to copy and distribute it there and to post it, with full attribution, to our website.
Jim Jones President
American Federation of Jazz Societies
Permission is happily granted. Have a good meeting. Maybe we’ll get a few new Rifftiders as a result. Follow the website link above for information about AFJS and the conference.
Sudhalter Concert Comments
The concert for Sudhalter went very well. Good attendance, and the musicians limited themselves to one or two numbers, so the evening moved along just right. Frishberg’s “Dear Bix” brought a tear to my eye, and to his, I believe, as well. Marian McPartland, Joe Wilder, Jackie Cain and Steve Kuhn were especially good, and the backstage hanging out was wonderful. Loren Schoenberg’s big band topped off the evening just right. Sud was touched and happy, and though he couldn’t speak his thanks, he stood there and beamed while a friend read a lovely thank-you statement that Dick had written. His speech and his legs aren’t working right yet, but his mind is still there, working elegantly. The room was full of love, and our hopes for his improvement are high.
Bill Crow
Mr. Crow played bass at the concert with The Biagi Band.
What a great event and congratulations and thanks to all the participants. I’ve been deeply sorry to hear of Dick’s condition. Not only was he a cornetist who greatly inspired my own efforts early on, but his writings belong in the select pantheon of Otis Ferguson, George Frazier, Whitney Balliett and a very few others. Indeed I would regularly buy an album for the pleasure of his liner-notes alone. We one mutually lamented the plight of the jazz polymath who both writes and plays but if one artist alone can restore the title to its proper honourable estate it must be Richard M. Sudhalter…as great in the cornet chair as he was – and is – at his typewriter.
Good wishes,
Digby Fairweather
Mr. Fairweather is a distinguished British trumpeter and long-model cornetist.
It was a remarkable evening, one in which I was proud to participate and will always remember. Such an outpouring of affection for Dick by so many great players! And I learned so much! Thanks to all the great musicians who performed selflessly and exquisitely.
Armen Donelian
Mr. Donelian played piano at the concert with the Bill Kirchner Trio.
As I watched the show unfold, I imagined a headlline for a news article: “LOVE AND LOYALTY” Every musician present had been touched in some way by Richard’s simply caring about them and the music we all play. Dick credits me with giving him his 1st gig (Cape Cod 1960). He more than reciprocated by getting me playing again when he came back from Europe in the mid-1970s. Appearances at Carnegie Hall (the Whiteman band) and the Smithsonian (Hoagy Carmichael show); a chance to play with legends like Al Galladoro and Eddie Barefield; a shot at being a founding member of Vince Giordano’s band in ’75, and some wonderful recording trips. I and many of our mates owe him for keeping us out there. Dick Katz got it right when he said it was a love-in. And Bill Kirchner’s set was about the loveliest music-making I’ve heard in this century. What I came away with was the enormous sense of community among us lunatics that play this music. I mean – a group of veteran stock analysts wouldn’t do it that way.
Sam Parkins
Mr. Parkins is a record producer and clarinetist. He played in The Biagi Band.
I’m utterly speechless!! You did a major major mitzvah..and just in time for the High Holidays.
muchimas gracias,
Daryl Sherman
Sie sind willkommen
Ms. Sherman played piano and sang at the concert.
Sounds Of Summer
How’s this for an eclectic playlist?
“Fancy” Julia Murney, I’m Not Waiting
“Unexpressed” Gavin Creel, John Bucchino, It’s Only Life
“Travellin’Thru” Dolly Parton, Transamerica
“Chasing Cars” Snow Patrol, Eyes Open
“Sweet and Lovely” One for All, The Lineup
“Butterfly” Corrine Bailey Rae
“Die Vampire! Die!” Original Cast, [Title of Show]
“Harvest Moon” Neil Young, Heart of Gold soundtrack and DVD
“Lonely Girl” Sandi Thom, Smile, It Confuses People
“Postcards from Richard Nixon” Elton John, The Captain and the Kid
“I Know I’m Not Alone” Michael Franti and Spearhead, Yell Fire!
Those are the pieces Ashley Foot is playing on his new Radio Allegro podcast, Sounds of Summer, most of them picked by his guests on the new show. I thought that the classical critic Greg Sandow and I might be fish out of water, but Foot’s production savvy and effervescent hosting bring it all together. Go here and click on “Listen.”
The Sudhalter Concert
I was unable to attend Sunday night’s benefit concert for Dick Sudhalter because St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in New York is 3000 miles from Rifftides world headquarters. Friends who went, some of whom performed, sent reports. By their accounts, the event was a success on all fronts.
Richard M. Sudhalter, as many of you know, is an invaluable jazz historian and a respected cornetist and trumpeter. His biography of Bix Beiderbecke is the benchmark work about that genius of early jazz. His biography of Hoagy Carmichael is a modern classic. Sudhalter’s monumental book Lost Chords: White Musicians and Their Contributions to Jazz 1915-1945 is balanced, objective, and brilliant. Many of its detractors, once they saw its subtitle, read no further or read through lenses of bias and launched vicious attacks accusing Sudhalter of racism. To anyone who knows him, that would be laughable if it wasn’t so untrue and unfair.
For a couple of years, Dick has been in the long aftermath of a major stroke. He is also battling the effects of a rare condition called multiple system atrophy (MSA). His current debts and prospective medical costs are huge. Allthough his speech and movement are limited, his brilliant mind and ability to write are not. The trumpeter Randy Sandke and the clarinetist Dan Levinson organized the concert to help with expenses. Dick’s companion Dorothy Kellog executed the planning. Judy Kahn, Bill Kirchner’s wife, was the stage manager. The Jazz Ministry of St. Peter’s cooperated in the presentation. The friends honoring and supporting Dick played to a full house. The review that follows is an amalgam of reports from Jill McManus, Dan Morgenstern, Daryl Sherman, Randy Sandke and Bill Kirchner.
This is not a short posting. I hope that it gives you a sense of the evening.
Sandke sets the scene and provides the lineup:
I thought it was a warm and very touching tribute. More than 70 musicians offered to participate. Because of some airline snafus, a few couldn’t get in on time, but below is a list of the musicians and groups who did in fact play at St. Peters last night:
OPENING REMARKS BY DAN MORGENSTERN – Director of the Institute of Jazz Studies
ED POLCER’S GANG FROM 54th STREET Ed Polcer – cornet, Tom Artin – trombone, Joe Muranyi – clarinet, Harry Allen – tenor sax, Dave Frishberg – piano, Bucky Pizzarelli – guitar, Frank Tate – bass, Jackie Williams – drums
DAVE FRISHBERG (piano solo: “Dear Bix”)
DAN LEVINSON’S LOST CHORD SEEKERS Jon-Erik Kellso – trumpet, Orange Kellin – clarinet, Dan Levinson – C-melody sax , Brad Kay – piano, Jeff Healy – guitar/vocal, Brian Nalepka – bass, Kevin Dorn – drums, Molly Ryan – vocal
DARYL SHERMAN (piano solo/vocal); one tune with Joe Wilder, trumpet
CAROL SUDHALTER BAND Carol Sudhalter – sax, Dick Katz – piano, Jim Ferguson – bass, Jackie Williams – drums, Keisha St. Joan, vocal
STEVE KUHN – piano
DAVID OSTWALD’S GULLY LOW JAZZ BAND Jon-Erik Kellso – trumpet, Tom Artin – trombone, Joe Muranyi – clarinet , James Chirillo – banjo, David Ostwald – tuba, Kevin Dorn – drums
JACKIE CAIN with Steve Kuhn – piano
HEALY’S HAPPY HARMONISTS Brad Kay – cornet/piano, Dan Levinson – clarinet, Jeff Healy – guitar/trumpet/vocal Scott Robinson – bass sax, Kevin Dorn – drums
MARIAN McPARTLAND with Frank Tate – bass
THE BIAGI BAND Jordan Sandke – trumpet, Carol Sudhalter – sax, Sam Parkins – clarinet, Andy Stein – violin , Chuck Folds – piano, Bill Crow – bass, Giampaolo Biagi – drums, Francesca Biagi – vocal
SY JOHNSON vocall and piano
BILL KIRCHNER TRIO Bill Kirchner – soprano sax, Armen Donelian – piano, Jim Ferguson – bass/vocal
RANDY SANDKE’S BIXOPHILES Randy Sandke – trumpet, Dan Levinson – clarinet, Scott Robinson – C-melody and bass sax, Mark Shane – piano, Marty Grosz – guitar, Nicki Parrott – bass, Rob Garcia – drums
LOREN SCHOENBERG BIG BAND
Daryl Sherman:
Dr. Bob Litwak (a semi-pro drummer greatly supportive of the jazz community), chief of thoracic medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital for many years, got up and spoke about Dick’s condition. There were some handouts along with the printed programs that also explained a bit about MSA. Most touching, though, were Litwak’s words of encouragment to Dick…for instance that despite being sidelined on the horn, he’s vital still with his writing ability. He mentioned Dick’s working on the Red Nichols reissue package for Mosaic–that he’s available for more writing gigs but should still keep his lip ready. And most moving, at least for me, was Litwak’s eloquent way of lauding Sudhalter as one of the great thinkers.
Jill McManus, the pianist and composer, was in the audience:
The concert was wonderful – such an affection for Dick from the 350 or so people there, educators, musicians, friends, most of them there until the end. Dick in a wheelchair, beautifully dressed, listening intently to all the various bands, from old style to swing, nodding. He got up front to say his own brief “thank you,” then called on his friend Terry Teachout to read something Dick had written, very touching, literate as ever. Dan, of course, set the warm tone of the evening with his opening comments.
Dan Morgenstern:
Great and unsusal chance to hear Frishberg on piano in the kickoff group, Ed Polcer’s Gang from 54th Street, doing “Sometimes I’m Happy.”
Jill McManus:
Then Dave did his wryly moving solo thing on “Dear Bix.”
Daryl Sherman:
My favorite group name, Lost Chord Seekers with Jeff Healey on guitar (he also had his own set and made a huge hit) and Brad Kay on piano, featured Molly Ryan singing “I Never Knew” (which included a lovely verse I never knew).
Dan Morgenstern:
Healy is a triple threat on guitar, trumpet and vocal. He’s blind. Came by
himself from Toronto, Canada.
Daryl Sherman:
It was perfect that I should follow that group since I am one of the original lost chord seekers. With a nod to Sudhalter’s little known or heralded vocalizings, I did one of his staples (stolen from Bing Crosby), Hoagy Carmichael’s “Moonburn.” (Hoagy Jr was in the audience!) I also got a chance to play for Joe Wilder on “When I Fall In Love”.
Jill McManus
Daryl and Joe played gorgeously together. Daryl reminisced briefly before her set – told a story of the night Dick’s horn was stolen from him.
Bill Kirchner relays the story:
About twenty years ago, Dick was playing a gig at the Red Blazer Too on Third Avenue and 89th. There was a front/side room where musicians would keep their horn cases, and he foolishly left his cornet in the case in that room. After the gig, he went out there to get it. It was gone. As you can imagine, he was crestfallen. The next day, he had to go out of town on a tour. So, he got in a cab and went over to the office he used to have in midtown. He had a spare horn there and wanted to try it, see if it was playable and take it on the tour.
He does that, leaves his office, goes down and hails a cab. About five cabs pass by, but he finally gets one. He gets in the cab, looks over on the back seat. There is his horn, sitting there in the case. He says to the cabbie, “This is my horn.” The cabbie immediately gets defensive: “No, no, no….” So, finally, Dick says, “Look, if I can describe the contents of this case, you can tell this is my horn.” He did, and the guy ‘fessed up that a couple of guys had hailed his cab up in the eighties and had this horn and sold it to him for fifty bucks. So, Dick says, “Okay, I’ll give you fifty bucks. I want my horn back.” Dick later went to somebody who was familiar with the art of odds-making. He determined that the odds of this happening were several trillion to one.
Jill McManus:
Dick Katz played intelligently and poignantly both in Carol Sudhalter’s band (Carol took a masterly laid-back solo, and Keisha St. Joan sang well, “Come Rain or Come Shine”) and with Loren Schoenberg’s smoothly melodic band at the end.
Dan Morgenstern:
Steve Kuhn, Dick’s oldest friend at the concert, played a ballad. They were high school classmates in Newton, Mass. (another was Roger Kellaway, who wasn’t there).
Daryl Sherman:
Steve played “Old Folks,” (which I’d never heard him do before.) Masterful and ruminative. It was clearly a nod to Dick, with his penchant for Willard Robison–and particularly that song. There’s a collector’s item photo Dick has of one of the many Newton jam sessions in his basement. Kuhn with brushcut sitting just as erect as he does now at the piano, Kellaway at the bass (also brushcut) and Sudhalter with those nerdy black glasses.
Jill McManus:
David Ostwald’s Gully Low Jazz Band had a delicately swampy New Orleans-ish feel, with James Chirillo on banjo, and Joe Muranyi’s haunting clarinet. Tom Artin subbed for Wycliffe Gordon on trombone.
Dan Morgenstern:
Chrillo was great on banjo with Ostwald. It’s nice to hear modern changes on that instrument.
Daryl Sherman:
Kuhn played for Jackie Cain. One of the vivid memories of the Hoagy Carmichael concert Dick produced for JVC around 1979 or ’80 was Jackie’s opening the evening. She came out alone and sang the verse to “Stardust” acapella. Sunday, she referred to that night, telling the audience how nervous she’d been. She chose not to do “Stardust” here and instead beautifully sang a touching song, “Music Reached Places,” by Fran Landesman and Simon Wallace (Fran’s recent collaborator.)
Dan Morgenstern:
Steve comped beautifully for Jackie C. and played a lovely solo.
Daryl Sherman
Marian McPartland has been in Dick’s corner for many years and she really came through for him last night. She’s been in constant pain with arthritis and knee problems and it was a huge schlep for her to make this–but there she was looking and sounding splendid with Frank Tate on bass. Of course, she played Carmichael: “Heart And Soul” and “New Orleans,” weaving her spell and beautiful colors as only she can do. It was a special moment for me to dig all the piano players standing around in the back reverentially digging her.
Dan Morgenstern:
The Biagi Band, led by drummer Giampolo Biagi and vocal by Francesca Biagi (no relation), had Andy Stein on fiddle; Sam Parkins, clarinet; Chuck Folds, piano; Bill Crow, bass, who brought his wife and was the most consistent listener of all the musicians present. You know how it is with hanging out backstage.
Jill McManus:
Sy Johnson played a blues tune I never got the name of and also sang “Skylark.” His piano playing and harmonization on that one were particularly lovely.
The Bill Kirchner Trio with Armen Donelian on piano and Jim Ferguson singing and on bass gave a moment of such grace that the whole place fell silent and the musicians were at rapt attention.
Daryl Sherman:
Jim Ferguson played and sang Willard Robison’s “Deep Summer Music” accompanied so sensitively by Armen Donelian and with an especially evocative soprano solo from Bill Kirchner. Sudhalter taught it to me years ago, and beneath the elegiac simplicity is a tricky melody and harmony that makes you walk on eggshells when you play and, particulalry, try to sing it. The song could not have been better served than with Jim’s treatment – a real highlight for me. In fact of all the lovely vocals last night his was my favorite -although bassist Nicki Parrott did a great job singing as well as playing “You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To” with Randy Sanke’s band. Gotta hand it to these bass players particularly since Jay Leonhart’s song laments that it’s impossible to sing while playing the bass.
Loren’s band was so terrific. Wish they had a steady spot somewhere. Barbara Lea sang the title song from her new CD (wonderfully recorded with the band and Loren also on piano), Ellington’s “Black Butterfly.” Loren had the advantage of being able to use many of the ‘veterans’ like Randy Sandke, Scott Robinson, Dick Katz, Eddie Bert, but he’s really done so well finding new younger musicians who really seem to take an interest in this music.
Bill Kirchner:
They did Mark Lopeman’s lovely chart on Dick’s tune “A Dream Deferred.” It was written especially for this occasion.
Dan Morgenstern:
Scott Robinson was heard on bass sax with Jeff Healy’s Happy Harmonists, on C melody sax with Randy Sandke’s Bixophiles, on tenor and clarinet with the Loren Schoenberg Big Band–great as usual on all his horns, but what a job to carry all that stuff! The big band, celebrating their new CD, also did “When Lights Are Low” (featuring Jon Gordon’s alto), Gerry Mulligan’s fine early Krupa chart on “If You Were the only Girl (announced as ‘Goy’) in the World”, with a splendid trumpet solo by the underrated John Eckert. Also heard from was amazing trombonist Eddie Bert, looking great now that he’s let his hair be its natural white. The band finished the night with a rousing “South Rampart Street Parade” (Scott R. on clarinet). Kevin Dorn did a nice job on drums–one of the youngest musicians on hand.
Jill McManus:
Afterwards, in the “parlor,” I was talking with Dick, he being quiet but gracious, and I mentioned that I was getting tired standing, yet I hurt from sitting through this magnificent concert. He got up out of the wheelchair and offered me his seat! Never missed a beat! I loved that. (I’m not ready for a wheelchair myself just yet!!) He said that he never felt that people had admired him, that he had a very small audience. Perhaps, I said, but what an audience of jazz history-knowers! In his writing, how arduously careful he had to be with the facts, and he was the most meticulous of almost anyone.
Daryl Sherman:
I was surprised to witness the huge turnout from both musicians and civilians. There was an outpouring of respect and admiration for Dick. After hearing from him for so long that he feels invisible and doesn’t even know himself anymore, believe me, this was the best medicine.He’s really overwhelmed by all this now and I sure hope it helps him to fight harder, cause he’s gonna need it.
Furthermore, it is a wonderful testament to the devotion to this music. Through acknowledging Sudhalter’s contribution as fervent champion in print as well as on horn, it unifies the collectors, musicians, writers, fans and believers all over the world who have dedicated their lives to this aesthetic. And interestingly enough, they all seem to know each other, if not personally, then by reputation. From Dave Frishberg to guitatist/collector Jeff Healey in Toronto to Enrico Borsetti, an ardent fan from Italy who helped initiate this benefit for Dick, it really seems like a special brotherhood (with a few sisters,too.) It may be a pinhead of the population at large, but the passion never dies.
Dan Morgenstern:
What made it special, I think, is that everybody who was there wanted to be there for Dick, not just to hear some music.
The concert is over, but Dick’s need is not. Contributions to the Sudhalter medical fund are being accepted at
Richard M. Sudhalter
Post Office Box 757
Southold, NY 11971
Tim Hagans
I had lost track of the trumpeter Tim Hagans, whose searching, edgy, extraharmonic improvisational style I admire. I did an internet search and ended up on his modishly designed and constructed website, whose style reflects his adventuresome, but centered, music. Roaming through the site, I found surprises equivalent to those a listener encounters in Hagans’ playing. Click on “Bio” and up comes a menu under the heading “Hagans Portrait.” Click on Chapter 7 and you will find a declaration of independence entitlted, “The Artist’s Role in Society.” Here is a section.
Artists are scary. They celebrate individualism. They portray the nuances and emotions of life in abstract terms. Music is the most abstract art form and improvised music creates the intangible in the moment. An artist’s mission is not to entertain although entertainment can be a desired by-product. Their mission is to give the receiver of the artistic statement emotions and impressions to reflect upon. Whether the receiver likes or dislikes the statement is secondary.
Visitors to the Hagans site get biographical, discographical and events information, cleverly produced, plus a generous audio helping of complete performances. They also get a six-part movie called Boogaloo Road. It contains many of those surprises I mentioned, not the least of which is footage of the trumpeter practicing while driving. To find the film, move your cursor down the audio player at the bottom right of the screen. The Tim Hagans website is here.
Rollins And Hall, After All
Thanks to Terry Teachout for alerting me to the existence on YouTube of video performances by the great early 1960s Sonny Rollins Quartet with Jim Hall. As I lamented in the previous exhibit, that band is absent from Rollins’s own web site. The clips are from Ralph Gleason’s Jazz Casual series on Public Broadcasting. You will see four of them, totalling more than twenty minutes of the group playing “God Bless The Child,” “The Bridge,” and “If Ever I Should Leave You,” the latter in two installments.
In his artsjournal.com About Last Nigtht blog, Terry has built a list of links to videos of music in a variety of genres, a fine public service. Scroll down his right-hand column until you come to the Videos heading. Bravo, TT.