We’re saddened to learn of the passing yesterday of Dr. Billy Taylor. He was one of the towering forefathers of jazz education and a fine pianist. An articulate spokesman for jazz, in later years he became well known for raising awareness of the genre as a television personality, notably as a regular contributor to CBS Sunday Morning.
We’re saddened to hear of the passing of jazz icon James Moody. A saxophonist, flutist, vocalist, and composer, Moody played with some of the greats of the bebop era, most notably with trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie.
Newark jazz station WBGO conducted this interview with Moody for his 83rd birthday.
Dave Brubeck turns 90 today! What’s your favorite Brubeck composition? (Don’t say Take Five – that one’s by Paul Desmond!)
I’ve been fortunate to see Mr. Brubeck live on several occasions: even in his eighties, he still played imaginatively and with assuredness. When I got the chance to talk with him after a gig at the Iron Horse in Northampton, Massachusetts, he was gracious and generous with his time: eager to talk about classical composition projects.
Here’s hoping his tenth decade is just as prolific!
Innerviews: Music Without Borders
(Extraordinary Conversations with Extraordinary Musicians)
by Anil Prasad
Abstract Logix Books; 315 pages, Published 2010
Anil Prasad has covered music on the internet longer than practically anyone. He started the website Innerviews in 1994, well before blogging, social media, and a host of other technological changes. The web has changed remarkably over the past sixteen years, but Innerviews has remained a consistent and engaging part of the internet’s musical life.
Prasad regularly publishes interviews with musicians from a plethora of genres: jazz, fusion, funk, prog, world music, electronica, etc. Innerviews the book collects some of his most noteworthy conversations with a diverse yet distinguished assortment of musicians.
Each chapter is devoted to a different artist (24 in all). Interviewees include Victor Wooten (who also writes the book’s foreword), John McLaughlin, David Torn, Björk,McCoy Tyner, and David Sylvian.
(True, the emphasis is on jazz, world, and popular music, but even the most classically oriented of Sequenza 21′s readers will likely find plenty here that speaks to the lives of concert music artists as well).
Prasad sets up the interviews with lengthy introductions, detailing the artists’ biographies and respective career trajectories. The interviews themselves feature discussions of creative process, musical inspirations, and approaches to performing and recording. Happily, Prasad avoids the sensational (PR-induced) talking points that are so often found in many recent “press interviews.” He instead favors affording the artists a more open-ended conversation, and the chance to share in depth observations about the music itself.
There’s another key component of every Innerviews interview that’s worth mentioning. Prasad doesn’t shy away from the interior life of creative artists, asking each musician to describe their spiritual journey and how it relates to their musical experiences. It’s refreshing that this open-ended line of inquiry elicits such a variety of responses. It appears that, much like the panoply of musical styles referenced in Innerviews, the question of spirituality inspires in artists an abundance of creativity.
Thelonious Sphere Monk (October 10, 1917 – February 17, 1982)
To celebrate Thelonious Monk’s birthday, Cuneiform Records is giving away a track from the Microscopic Sextet’s new CD: Friday the 13th – The Micros play Monk. Listen/download below.
Terra Incognita is woodwind quintet Imani Winds’ fifth recording for E1. It consists of three newly commissioned pieces by composer-performers primarily associated with the jazz tradition. This past year on Sequenza 21, we’ve been talking a lot about ‘indie classical’,’ a genre that incorporates rock instrumentation and signatures into a concert music context or, conversely, invites classical instruments and formal signatures into the indie rock arena. But it’s important to remember that jazz has a long and storied history of interweaving its various paths with concert music, dating back at least one hundred years (or more!).
Jason Moran’sCane reflects an awareness of this cross-pollination. A four-movement suite, it’s a tone poem based on his family’s ancestral home in rural Louisiana. And while one can certainly detect jazz signatures in its lilting rhythms and engaging harmonic palette, acknowledgement of neoclassical composers such as Stravinsky and Hindemith also abound. It’s a tip of the hat to early 20th century composers who crossed over from the other side of the stream – incorporating early jazz into their scores.
The title track is the first piece Wayne Shorter has written for an ensemble other than his own groups, but it too shows a deft awareness of scoring for winds in a concert music context. One particularly hears a tinge of Impressionism in Shorter’s language – a whiff of Ravel’s harmonies – something he’s displayed for many years in elegant jazz originals.
Paquito D’Rivera not only composed Kites for Imani Winds, but he also appears as a guest clarinetist with the group; they’re also joined by pianist Alex Brown. D’Rivera’s score pits the syncopated rhythms of Latin jazz against piquant harmonies and ostinati reminiscent of early Stravinsky. It’s a very attractive amalgam, and a tricky arrangement. The performers handle Kites’ frequent flurried runs and quick changes of mood deftly and with considerable musicality.
Terra Incognita suggest that jazz and concert music can still blend into a hybridized form of music containing considerable eloquence.
After a week in which we’ve covered all manner of keyboard duos, ranging from indie rock to avant classical, we end on a jazzy note.
Bill Charlap/Renee Rosnes
Double Portrait
Blue Note CD
Pianists and spouses, Bill Charlap and Renee Rosnes make their debut recording as a duo on Double Portrait. Though both are virtuosic jazz musicians in their own right, the emphasis here is on elegant economy.
Gershwin’s “My Man’s Gone Now” (from Porgy and Bess) is an excellent case in point. Charlap and Rosnes take it at a slow tempo, giving its sumptuous changes ample room to breath. They also don’t feel bound by the tune, exploring a wide variety of terrain during the solo sections. When they finally return to the top, there is a feeling that the pair have taken you on a fascinating journey, transforming a standby standard into something entirely refreshed.
Lyle Mays’ “Chorinho” displays another aspect of this musical alliance altogether; lithe, dance music with a Latin lilt. Speaking of dancing, the Dietz/Schwartz evergreen “Dancing in the Dark” is given supple swinging treatment with zesty yet tasty solos. The CD’s closer is a clever programming choice: Frank Loesser’s “Never Will I Marry.” More than a mere wink at these duet partners’ marital status, it serves as a suavely bop-inflected and memorable finale.
Double Portrait demonstrates that double the number of participants needn’t equal double the notes or double the volume; but where Bill Charlap and Renee Rosnes are concerned, it can equal double the fun!
Singer/pianist/composer Judith Berkson recently released Oylam, her second CD overall and debut recording for the ECM imprint. It is a reinforcement of the eclectic yet compelling musical aesthetic displayed on her first recording, Lu-Lu (Peacock); but it also displays considerable growth.
Though she’s still a young talent, I became aware of Berkson some time ago. In the early aughts, Berkson studied with microtonal maestro Joe Maneri (recently departed – terribly missed) and contemporary classical specialist soprano Lucy Shelton at the New England Conservatory of Music. In a happy instance of syncronicity, I interviewed Maneri during that same time period. During the course of our conversation, he pointed out Berkson as a special talent.
Nine years later, she’s more than confirmed his assessment. Although she plays and performs primarily in conventional tunings, Berkson retains an interest in angularity and spiky harmonies that demonstrates her thorough training in both modern music and avant jazz. Berkson’s originals are a rigorous amalgam of both of these idioms. She also displays a keen interest in Jewish liturgical and folk music. One of the standouts of the disc is a rendition of the folksong “Hulyet, Hulyet.” Here, she overdubs her voice to create a choir of Berksons: a fetching sound world, all the more inspiring because she doesn’t ‘overindulge’ in overdubbing, only doing it here.
Oylam includes unconventional yet engaging renditions of two standards – Porter’s “All of You” and Gershwin’s “They Can’t Take that Away from Me.” While she frequently reinvents the melodies of these chestnuts, one never feels that she does violence to their overall structure: quite the contrary. I enjoyed imagining the original tune in counterpoint while hearing her refreshing versions.
Berkson is a fine pianist; the album is bookended by two fine instrumentals: “Goodbye Friend No. 1″ and Goodbye Friend no. 2.” She’s also keen on exploring other keyboards, including synths and (for the first time here) Hammond organ. But often her instrument of choice is Fender Rhodes electric piano. While in other hands the Rhodes can sound a bit ‘carbon-dated’ to a particular era of vernacular music, it doesn’t appear that Berkson has selected the instrument to channel this repertory. Rather, her voice melds very attractively with the Rhodes, often creating a seamless dovetailing of instrumental and vocal lines.
The CD also includes an evocative version of Franz Schubert’s “Die Leiermann.” This lied is the final song in Winterreise and perhaps serves as a tantalizing foretaste of things to come. Berkson is currently at work on a large-scale project incorporating lieder. While I hope that she keeps the various strands of musical styles displayed here in the mix – originals, standards, Jewish liturgical/folksong – the thought of Berkson tackling a large-scale lieder project seems quite promising. Stay tuned.
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Here’s Berkson performing live one of the tracks that appears on the ECM recording, a trope on Jewish traditional music entitled “Ahavas Oylam.”
I saw Mose Allison live a couple of times in the mid-nineties. I was struck that, despite decades in the music business, the singer-pianist was so utterly at ease with being himself; without a hint of the ‘reinvention’ that many so many artists attempt. His combination of beatnik jazz patter and bluesy piano riffs was well worn, but never seemed stale.
Allison is 82 now, and hasn’t released a studio recording in a dozen years. But producer/performer Joe Henry managed to coax him out of retirement for one more set of songs. The resulting CD, The Way of the World demonstrates that Allison is still a talented performer and thoughtful songwriter. His lyrics takes an unflinching look at the vagaries of aging, the daily disappointments of the 24-hour news cycle, and the resilient power and omnipresent bewilderments of love. On the delightful blues paean to senior moments, “My Brain,” Allison sings “My brain is losing power,” but it is hard for the listener to accept this; he seems as sharp as ever.
Cosmogramma, Steve Ellison’s third LP under the Flying Lotus moniker, features a plethora of guest artists. But rather than fragmenting the release, the many voices and instruments added to the mix cohere admirably into a swirling maelstrom which Ellison styles as a “space opera.”
“Clock Catcher” is filled with glitchy effects set beside mid-tempo beats and bell-like synth passages. Elsewhere, saxophonist Ravi Coltrane and trumpeter Tod Simon blend jazz improvisations with strings and ambient synths. Thom Yorke (Radiohead) makes a guest appearance “And the World Laughs With You” – his voice soars past all too quickly! Thundercat lends bass and vocals to “Mmmhmm,” a funky trip hop cut. And Ellison recalls his aunt Alice Coltrane on “Drips/Auntie’s Harp” – with harp courtesy of Rebekah Raff. Cosmogramma evades easy categorization and its seamless polystylistic blending over the course of the entire album is an admirable achievement.
Check out Warp’s Cosmogramma page, featuring non-album tracks here.
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