Goat rodeo and a banjo player

While Mrs. S has had multiple opportunities to see the cellist Yo Yo Ma perform, until recently, I had not. But for our season ending concert at the Nashville Symphony, we were second row front and center for Yo Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer (second time to see him in two months), and Chris Thile, that is, three quarters of the Goat Rodeo, perform some Bach pieces. This was interesting and unusual for a couple of reasons.

Yo Yo Ma always looks like he is having a good time. Probably, because he is.

One was that performing in Nashville, they could have easily found a “fiddler” to fill out the quartet and perform the goat rodeo pieces. Another is, the pieces they performed were mostly not necessarily composed for trios. In fact, most of them that were announced were organ pieces that had been adapted for a trio. This of course glosses over the fact how you make a fugue work for a trio consisting of a cello, double bass, and mandolin. Second of all, I think Edgar Meyer is the only local, so even getting three fourths of the band there was no small feat. But it gets better.

This is about as casual as Edgar Meyer gets.

During the encore, they were actually joined by Stuart Duncan, who was either in the audience or was there to perform the encore. In the end, I felt a little cheated that we could have been listening to classical bluegrass and instead had to listen to Bach trios. Then again, I had a certain familiarity with the Bach pieces, so I appreciated them enough as it was.

The Goat Rodeo Team

But the real highlight might have been something else.

At intermission, we followed our customary “beer first, bathroom later” plan. As often happens, for some reason, the men’s seems to take a little longer, so even though Mrs. S was waiting for me when the five minute bell rang, I didn’t know she was already out. As I’m standing there waiting, Bela Fleck walked right by me and into the men’s room. So I’m waiting for Mrs. S and she finally shouts at me from upstairs, and I say, “It’s Bela Fleck!” and she goes, “That’s what I thought!” Just then Bela comes out, so we started to chat. We were dressed like brothers, and he seemed impressed that I even knew who he was. When I rattled off some concerts of his I’d been to while Mrs. S took pictures, he was kind of like, “Shouldn’t we be getting back to our seats?” and I was like, let’s walk and talk, and we did. Very personable friendly guy.

Brothers from other mothers: Bela Fleck in black T with jacket, me in black tee with jacket.

When we were leaving at the end of the concert, we walked right by him and the people he was there with, as he was waiting by the stage door to (I think) go backstage and hang with his musician friends. He greeted us again, and my brain fleetingly thought about pulling out one of my “Late to Jazz” business cards (which I always have with me for just such these purposes) and asking if he could get me backstage. But, I felt I’d imposed enough on the guy, so I merely bid him good night and we left.

I told the story to quite a few people, but unfortunately, Mr. Fleck is not as well known in my circle of acquaintances to make a decent impression, so I just have to share the story, and pictures, here with my late-to-jazzers.

I don't know, but they seem to be having a good time. I want to be a professional musician 

So there you go. Not a bad conclusion to another eventful concert season.

What a front row stage level seat makes you think about at the symphony

I started to think about this about a month ago, as I watched and listened to the Nashville Symphony Orchestra perform Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring”. Then, this past week, when we went to see and hear Ravel’s “Bolero”, I had the point finally driven home and decided to write about it.

Possibly the best shoes at the concert

I’m talking about, in general, all the things that have to “go right” for a symphony orchestra to pull off a two hour musical performance. The things that can go wrong are myriad and varied: broken strings, fainting spells, turning the wrong score pages, instruments going out of tune, principal soloists catching cold, and any number of imaginable mishaps, however unlikely. What goes unnoticed in waiting for something to go wrong is how many things have to go right.

A selection of men's and lady's

Shoes, for instance. 79 pairs of shoes have to comfortable, broken in, shined, and functional, enough that 158 feet go completely unnoticed and un-thought-about for the 79 owners. This is important because as anybody who has ever had sore feet or a pair of ill-fitting shoes – which is probably every person who has ever owned shoes – knows, you can’t do a damn thing or concentrate or think of anything other than your feet when they hurt. You wouldn’t think of shoes being important to a concert performance, but I would argue, it could be one of the most critical aspects to a successful performance. Then, of course, you get into the rest of the clothes and personal grooming aspects. Underwear has to be comfortable. Skin has to not be itchy. Underarms have to not be irritated. Horn players’ lips have to be moist, supple and strong. String instrument players’ fingers have to be uncut, firm, and flexible. Percussionists arms have to be loose and responsive.

Those are sharp!

Then the surroundings: The stage has to be supportive but quiet. Music stands have to be upright, straight, and adjustable. Chairs have to be firm, comfortable, secure, and also adjustable. The AC or heat has to come on. The lights need to work. The doors need to be unlocked. 79 cars have to be in good working order and have to find roads that are passable between the performers’ houses and the concert hall. They need to not have accidents on the drive in. They all need to have gas in the tank.

No surprise, these are probably my favorite

Really, given everything that has to happen and not go wrong, it’s amazing there are such things as symphony performances at all.

Worth the struggle

The musical heroes of our story, L-R: Eric Marienthal, Chick Corea, John Pattitucci

Last week, Mrs. S and I closed out our week and kicked off our symphony season with a jazz fusion concert, checking out the Chick Corea Elektric Band at the Schermerhorn Concert Hall. Despite leaving our house for the 100-mile trip two hours and fifteen minutes before our dinner reservation, we fell victim to the Predators’ opening night hockey crowd, plus, construction, plus more construction, plus the regular Friday-night-in-Nashville hullaballoo and nearly didn’t get seated at The Farm House for dinner. (Mrs. S ran two blocks to hold the table while I drove the last two blocks in fifteen minutes.) We forced ourselves on this battle because we had front row seats, right in the center, for Chick Corea's Elektric Band, making it hard not to go.

Chick Corea about to break his 0-for-4 autographs streak

To be honest, I’m only vaguely familiar with Chick’s electric stuff, and Mrs. S not at all. I remember a few issues of Keyboard magazine from the 1970’s that I may have skimmed the articles about Chick’s gear and music, but I just don’t know their songs, which are jazz to be sure, but lean heavily toward the rock side of the spectrum. After a rousing and rowdy start, where the crowd just screamed for the first thirty seconds of the show, the set sort of lulled in the middle of the show. After working fourteen hours the day before and spending an extra half hour on the road for the local high school’s homecoming parade to go past our subdivision, I too was starting to get lulled into a stupor of sorts, but the crowd continued to encourage the band, and they played some of their biggest songs to close out the set, which brought the whole crowd back to life, including me. One of the closing pieces included an audience participation call-and-response segment that The Music City crowd, along with me, pretty much nailed, no matter how challenging Chick tried to make. They even did an encore, which was exciting if only because it was so unusual for that type of concert.

Eric Marienthal gushes on, and autographs, a CD he didn't even perform on

As always, we came prepared to seek and receive autographs, but Chick has not done much in the way of autographs at other of his concerts we’ve been to, so I just had the “Now He Sings, Now he Sobs” CD at hand. This turned out to be quite lucky, because after the show, Chick lingered on stage and did in fact start signing autographs, and I was successful at getting him to sign the booklet right on the front. By the time he was finished, bassist John Pattitucci, who plays with Wayne Shorter and Danilo Perez, and the exemplary saxophonist Eric Marienthal, lead alto of the Gordon Goodwin Big Phat Band, had come out on the other side of the stage and were signing autographs. Even though neither of them played on the CD that I brought, both were kind enough to sign it and have a picture with me. Eric even said it was one of his favorite albums.

John Pattitucci and fan

Had I known that Eric and John would sign autographs, I would have brought some Gordon Goodwin and Wayne Shorter Quartet CD booklets with me. As it is, I still ended up with a Chick Corea signed CD booklet – which is a good get – along with some extra names you wouldn’t expect to find signed on that. It’s pretty cool.

The autographs, L-R: Eric Marienthal, Chick Corea, John Pattitucci

Next trip to Nashville, we are giving ourselves three hours to make the trip. If we get there early, we can always kill time in a bar, and that extra cushion should make it much less nerve racking getting to dinner and the concert on time. When Nashville gets some hotels built and gets all the construction scaffolding out of the streets and when they do something about that ridiculous roundabout that leads into and out of the city, it will really be a destination city. For now, it is a congested hellhole to get to, but truly a magical musical city once you are in.

Five happy musicians at the end of a fantastic show. Yep. That was our view from front row center.

When Sinatra is a project

A couple of years back, I read a book written by Michael Feinstein called “The Gershwins and Me”. The Wall Street Journal had a review of it and it sounded interesting and so I learned about Feinstein, who I’d never heard of prior to that. Turns out that was a gap in my jazz and music knowledge that I finally filled. Now Mr. Feinstein is traveling the country with his “Sinatra Project”, which is basically a tribute concert to Frank Sinatra to celebrate his one hundredth birthday (December 12). So, to Nashville did Mrs. S and I go, to see Mr. Feinstein in person and enjoy an evening of Frank Sinatra hits.

Feinstein in Primary Colors: Yellow 

Mr. Feinstein is a fascinating performer. He’s very straightforward, almost like a club act, but there’s lot of audience interaction. He asks a lot of trivia questions and he explains a lot about the songs, the song writers, and the approaches that Frank took to some of the songs. For instance, I didn’t know that Frank Sinatra recorded 88 of Sammy Cahn’s songs. I also didn’t know that Sinatra didn’t professionally sing the song, “What Kind of Fool Am I?” because he didn’t think he could do the song justice. He said, he knew somebody who could, though, and told fellow Ratpacker Sammy Davis Jr. to record it. It went on to become his greatest hit. (Mr. Feinstein did a fine version of it as well.)

Feinstein in Primary Colors: Red 

For a few songs, Mr. Feinstein performed on the piano, doing a great boogie-woogie imitation a la Liberace, complete with voices and, shall we say, “Flamboyance”? And the Nashville symphony not only performed with their usual panache and sensibility, but they also broke out the horn and rhythm sections to do their best impression of a 17-piece jazz orchestra. And I’ll tell you what, those horn players can blow. It’s like they’ve got the symphony to pay the bills, but they’re really jazz musicians at heart.

Feinstein in Primary Colors: Blue 

My only complaint is that the Nashville Symphony needs to get their signals straight on whether photography is permitted or not and what sort of devices are acceptable or not. The usher in our (front and center, thank you very much) section said we could take pictures all we wanted, as long as we didn’t shoot video, record sound, or use flash. So of course, Mrs. S went hog wild taking pictures. Then as we’re going back to our seats after intermission, an usher in the upper section stopped her and asked her about her “professional” camera. We basically said, don’t be dumb lady, but between that, and the other usher, and the “Photography permitted while house lights are up” statement on the tickets, it’s all very confusing. And don’t get me started about the idiots with their phone flashing and shooting in the balconies above the stage.

Feinstein in Primary Colors (Variation): Sedensky in White Jack O'Lantern Motif

Still, it was a pleasure to see Mr. Feinstein in concert, to hear some of his fascinating stories, and to hear the immortal music made famous by Frank Sinatra. I’d come fly with Feinstein again, anytime.

What I learned by watching the exact same Tony Bennett concert twice in two nights (Part 2)

If you missed part 1, here it is

Some other things I learned, kind of:

4) If you can sing a song in a four story performance hall that seats 1856 people, without a microphone and still fill the place with sound at the age of 88, you must be Tony Bennett

"Fly Me To The Moon", with guitar, without microphone. Unbelievable.

I don’t think anybody else 88 years or older anywhere can do that. It’s like a Guinness Book level feat, if you think about it.

5) The best seat in the house is the front row

This will be my space for the next two hours, thank you very much. Also, note the person with the black hair and white shirt at the very upper left. That was Mrs. S's seat on Friday night.

You can stretch out your legs (and arms, and hips, and anything else you want). You can walk right up to the stage and lean out over it and pretend you fell off the stage and are trying to climb back on. You can talk to the cello and violin players. You can hear the best. You can see the best. People think you’re important. People know you’re a patron. The ushers remember you and don’t bother you about anything. Pure and simple: If you are not in the front row, you might have good seats, but you don’t have the best seats. Period.

No, really, I'm with the band!

This is the view from our box on Friday night. Same price as front row, waaaayyyy different view.

6) The technology cannot be stopped and everyone has it in their pockets. Soon, there will be no attempt at preventing people from photographing at concerts.

View from front row on Thursday night. Yep, that's better

Note to performers everywhere, I have a high resolution camera, video recorder, and sound recorder. It’s right here, in my pocket. If you tell me I can’t take your picture, I won’t. I actually believe in the rules that keep our society livable. If you tell me I can take photos without flash, then don’t tell me I can only take photos when the house lights are up. And if you aren’t going to stop the people in the third balcony above the stage (who are actually using flash), then guess what? You’re screwed and I’m probably going to take your picture from the front row, regardless of announcements, warnings printed on tickets, or anything else. And anyway, Mrs. S is the concert photographer. I’m going to just sit here and enjoy the show. It’s her you have to worry about. (What I mean is, pretty soon, the entire planet is going to be continually photographed, for any or no reason. Performers need to embrace the technology and let their fans take photos. That’s it.)

What I learned by watching the exact same Tony Bennett concert twice in two nights (Part 1)

It’s not much, but, here goes.

1) The program in the program may or may not be the actual program

My personal concert program always includes a cocktail and wine prior to the show.

The program for the Tony Bennett concert included four pieces by the Nashville Symphony, and those were correct. For Tony’s portion, it said “Selections will be called from the stage”, which is standard jazz lingo for, “We’ll tell you what we’ll play, just as soon as we decide.” The program also listed “Featuring special guest Antonia Bennett”, who is Tony’s up-and-coming daughter. When she wasn’t there on Thursday night, I was sure she’d be there Friday. But no. Friday’s show was the exact same as Thursday’s, mistakes and all. We thought about going to the box office, telling them we came to see Antonia, not Tony, and we want our money back. Then we decided we didn’t want anyone to laugh at us that much, and even more, we didn’t want anybody to think we like Antonia Bennett better than her dad.

2) If you don’t practice out the mistakes, the mistakes don’t go away

The man himself. If you think the crowd didn't go absolutely bananas when this octogenarian strode purposefully to center stage,  you obviously don't appreciate what it means to be in the same room with a living legend. And note the big video screen prompter tilted on the front speaker. That's the one he didn't pay any attention to.

First of all, I’m not bemoaning the fact that an 88-year old guy forgot a few words of a few lines of songs he doesn’t sing all that much. And to be fair, lots of singers much younger use prompts and earphones and whatnot to help their singing and lyrical comprehension. And let’s also be clear: Tony doesn’t need any help with the songs he’s been singing for 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years. He’s got those. But on Thursday night, when he sang “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” with “..friends who are near to us, will be dear to us, once more”, you could see him looking at the prompter, trying to squint it out above the spotlight, and then look around to see if the audience caught the problem, and then (no doubt), he thought, (correctly) “they didn’t notice, and if they did, they didn’t care”. But when he made the exact same mistake on Friday, well folks, I’m sorry to call BS on a legend, but that’s just sloppy. 

3) It must be EXTREMELY hard to play the same exact set, night after night

One line that Tony Bennett can never use: "Stop me if you've heard this one before." He sings any song that made him a bajillion dollars at some point in his career, and that's like a bajillion songs.

And by extremely hard, I mean extremely easy, and by extremely easy I mean, it’s easy to hit the notes and cues and hard to make it sound interesting. If you’ve never heard it before (Thursday night), everything is fresh and lively. If you’ve heard it before (Friday night), it starts to sound flat and finished, almost artificial. It’s like the second time you watch a movie you liked and you notice the shadow of a boom mike on one of the characters in the background. From that day forward, every time you watch that movie, you’ll be waiting for the shadow of the microphone. (It also kind of explains why they didn’t practice “Have ... Christmas”, because, who wants to play from the set list when they’re practicing?)

"You're beautiful!"

There are a couple other things I learned, and some better photos coming in part 2.

How to swing Christmas

Add one freaking awesome singing group, one pair of front row tickets, and a two hour drive through a rainstorm (which was bad, but not quite the tornado level storm we drove through to see WyntonMarsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra). Then sit back and enjoy the show.

The somewhat dated (I thought) Manhattan Grinches on screen behind stage.

Manhattan Transfer has been doing this kind of show for years, but this is the first time I had the opportunity to see and hear it for myself. Despite the recent death of the group’s leader, they had a phenomenal back up who they've been singing with for years in different iterations of this group, and the harmonies were as tight as ever and the one hour forty five minute show just flew by. They sang all the Christmas standards you could want, from Mel Torme’s “The Christmas Song” to “Frosty the Snowman”. Plus they sang a bunch of their hits and a few New York themed Christmas things (which admittedly, fell dead on the Nashville crowd for the most part).

The set. They didn't even have a band, just what I would call a rhythm section. They were amazing.

Their musical director, Yaron Gershovsky, was pretty much the highlight of the show for me. Playing on a Steinway grand (a smallish one) and an occasional riff on a Korg, Kronos synth, he drove the rhythm section and could pretty much play any style and stylistic solo he had to.

No, we did not take surreptitious pictures during the show. But this is pretty much exactly what they looked like, except Janis was wearing her contacts.

I guess after all is said and done, Janis Siegel is still my favorite. Her solo bits were edgier and more complete than her band mates’, and she at least put on makeup and had her hair done before the show. (Cheryl Bentyne looked like somebody woke her up from a nap just in time for the show.) Anyway, it was a good time, and definitely worth the drive through the pouring rain to hear this legendary group while they are still together and performing.

This was Janis at the Blue Note, again highlighting a Christmas show, when we were in New York three years ago.

Next up is Tony Bennett, which Mrs S this morning informed me will be a two hour (or so) show with an intermission and Tony only singing during the second half of the show. She thought I would be disappointed, but it is pretty much what I expected. The guy’s 88, so if he gives us a good half hour and four or five of his hits, that will work for me.

As close to being on stage at the Schermerhorn as I am likely to get.

Damn, I just realized: I could have put something in the seats next to mine and played some kind of joke on whoever sits there Thursday night. Maybe. Oh well. Better to be inconspicuous down front anyway.

November’s over. Here comes my month!

Although I am not particularly looking forward to turning 51 in a couple of weeks (something about being exactly a half century old that I like), I have a lot to look forward to this month. Thanks to a quirk in the calendar, not only do I have five piano lessons this month, I get paid three times, too. As the year is winding down, I’m taking off more time to use up vacation, and of course, working in automotive means year end shutdown from December 23 through January 4. (January 5 will suck, but that's next month.) That’s not all though.

What I’ll be doing with some of those days off is spending a lot of time in Nashville, starting Friday December 5 to see Manhattan Transfer. The founder of the group may have passed away, but the show must go on. I’m looking forward to seeing this renowned group for the first time. Less than a week after that will be Tony Bennett, and we are going to catch both his shows. For the second show on December 12, we’ll be up in a loge box (right above the stage) for the first time. That will be a good experience because by comparing the two shows, I’ll get to learn a little about performance nuances from one of the greatest performers of our time.

That's front row center, front row center, stage side loge front row. It pays to be a patron of the arts!

October was a nasty month, but November was better. Now comes the best month of the year. I’m so damn happy I might even put up some Christmas lights, just for the heck of it. We can certainly decorate the inside of the house because then, I can listen to my big band Christmas CD’s while doing it.

Haul out the holly, it’s going to be a jazzy December (as always).

At the tender age of 50, my first ever song request played on the radio

 A couple of days ago, I took off work in order to escort Mrs. S to a concert in Nashville. Any day I don’t go to work is a good day, and any day I don’t go to work for a reason related to music is even better. Which is to say, I wasn't excited about driving four hours round trip to hear Il Volo, three young Italian guys sing “Memory” with a Placido Domingo take, but, I was looking to make the best of it and enjoy myself anyway. On the way up to Nashville, we were listening to Real Jazz on Sirius XM, and the DJ Mark Ruffin said he was going to play something from Roy Hargrove. Here’s where my story begins.

Il Volo: European suits, big hair, Italian shoes, and they can sing. What's not to like? Photo © Mrs. S.

When the song came on, the radio displayed “My Shining Hour” and “Roy Hargrove”. The song, however, was Milestones. Even Mrs. S, who is not all that good with the names of jazz songs but who likes “Milestones” looked at the radio with a quizzical look. “That’s Milestones”, I said. She said, yeah, what’s going on? Now, the song that was on the radio was really hot. It had some of the best solos I’d ever heard on Miles’ modal tune, and the piano work was fan-freaking-tastic. I told Mrs. S I had to have it, she agreed, and said it should be easy to find on Amazon or Google.

The next morning, I tried mightily to find a Roy Hargrove version of Milestones, but what I could find was not that song. (By the way, on my way to work, Real Jazz played “My Shining Hour” by John Roney – another coincidence.) I told Mrs. S of my travails, and she tried to work her Internet magic, but in the end, she couldn't find it either. I told her I was going to call Sirius and talk to the DJ and sort it out, because I figured they had made a mistake and would be able to direct me to the recording.

So, I waited until about 20 minutes into Mark Ruffin’s time slot, then gave the request line a ring. A human answered the phone: “Real Jazz”. I was momentarily stunned. “Real Jazz,” he said again. I sputtered something about making a request. He said, “Sure. Watcha wanna hear?” I told him I wasn't sure but it was a song Mark Ruffin had played the day before, it said Roy Hargrove My Shining Hour, but it was Milestones, definitely Milestones, and I really wanted to hear it again, but I also wanted to know who played on the track. “Okay. Hold on.” I waited about twenty seconds and when the guy came back on, he told me what he knew about that track. By this time,  I could tell it actually was Mark Ruffin, as he started to sound like himself and my shock had tapered off. I asked if he was Mark and he said, yeah. And I said, I didn't think you would answer your own phones, and he said, I do everything, man. I said, well thanks for the info, but you know, that song is Milestones. He said, hold on. Came back, said, You know, the record company f***ed up, because, the track says My Shining Hour, but you’re right, it’s Milestones, so yeah, the record company f***ed up. (I love talking with jazz people. We all talk normally, and the same language, literally.) I thanked him for the information and asked that if he could play my request, to play it between 5:30 and 6:00, because that’s when I’d be in the car. I told him I was calling from Madison Alabama, and he said, okay man, thanks, and I said thank you.

So, I’m driving to my piano lesson, and Mark’s playing one Horace Silver song after another. Uh-oh. Something going on, either it’s Horace’s birthday or he died, or something. Sure enough, it gets to seven minutes before Mark goes off and he comes on the air and says, as close as I can remember it, “It’s a sad day today in the jazz world, as the great Horace Silver has passed away. You just heard a few of Horace’s greatest songs, and Les Davis is up at the top of the hour and he’s going to play a lot more of Horace Silver’s music for you, as we've had a number of requests, but before I go, I have one more request that I can’t ignore from a listener in Madison Alabama. I had a great conversation with this guy, and he wanted to hear some Roy Hargrove, so here it is. Swing safely, this Wednesday.” And, he did, in fact, play Milestones by Roy Hargrove, although it was different from the version I was talking about and was just called “Miles”. But still, it was what I asked for.

I don't know the exact song, but something from this album woke us this morning, the day after Mr. Silver's death. 

And this morning, our alarm clock that plays from an iPod with most of our jazz collection loaded on it went off at 5AM on the dot with – wait for it – a song by Horace Silver.

It couldn't be clearer to me: I need to put jazz and music at the center of my life from now on.

And the day we lost Horace Silver, was, indeed, a sad day, even if I did get my request played. Thanks, Mark and thank you, Sirius XM. 

‘Nother Night in Nashville

A week ago Friday, Mrs. S and I made the trip to Nashville for a break from the home renovations (kind of) to see Chris Botti. We changed it up this time and ended up behind the stage, which takes a lot of walking to get to. You definitely get a different perspective up there behind the stage.

I wish I could just eat my dinner instead of photographing every plate that comes to the table. (@Etch Restaurant)

It was great to hear Chris, Billy Kilson, and a great band with a great pianist (more in a minute) and while I do enjoy the tunes, which he’s been playing in more or less this exact format for more or less ten years now, 300 days a year (according to him), I did feel things were getting just a little on the stale side. Then he changed it up.

What I could see from my seat.

He brought out Sy Smith, who I certainly didn't expect to see but who I was excited to see. She’s a tremendous singer. Just tremendous. The show was enjoyable, make no mistake about it, but I’m hoping Chris puts together a different set soon and brings back Mark Whitfield on guitar. That would be awesome.

A blurry shot of me with bassist Richie Goods

After the show we hung around and got pictures with Chris and some of his band members, plus a bunch of autographs on a bunch of CD’s and DVD’s. I got to talk with Geoffrey Keezer for a little bit. Now, I’d never heard of this guy until that night, but I’ll tell you right now: I’m going to keep my eyes open for this guy. He’s amazing. During his solo on Flamenco Sketches, I managed to catch a little bit of Waltz for Debby, and then, Fascinating Rhythm. Of course, I asked him how he managed to work those two songs, one in a different time signature, into his solo, and he gave a typical genius pianist’s answer: “I don’t know. And, you’ll probably never hear me do that ever again.” Yep, amazing.

Me and Mr. Keezer. Goodness, this guy's a fantastic pianist.

The next day was back to the renovation, picking up some IKEA furniture at an IKEA agent outside of Nashville. We even made time to stop at the Steinway Gallery and see a bunch of pianos I’m not going to buy. (The Yamaha C3 they had was excellent. I’d’ve bought it if it was 25% cheaper than the price quoted me. Sigh.)

The shot before this one included Mrs. S. I made Chris smile when she got confused and I said, "Beat it!"

Back home, it was back to the renovations, listening and thinking about jazz, and getting slowly closer to my own piano. That’s it.

Jean-Yves plays jazz, he just “Don’t think much about it!”

So last week, I wrote about Yakov Kasman, a pianist who I heard play for the Huntsville Chamber Music Guild and who, at his educational event, forthrightly told me that he doesn't play jazz. This week Mrs. S and I took a drive through rainy 40-degree weather to visit Nashville, enjoy a scrumptious dinner at Merchants Restaurant and see another classical pianist perform with the symphony orchestra, Jean-Yves Thibaudet. He performed a modern classic called Piano Concerto No. 3 “The Mysteries of Light” by James MacMillan.

This is what Merchants looks like if you eat as early as we do.

Let me be succinct and clear about what I heard. This is supposed to be some kind of theologically inspired piece about “mysteries”, but what I heard was a fantastically abstract and intricate piece that simply blew me away. There was one “movement” where Thibaudet had to play two completely different lines, in what sounded like completely different meter, that overlapped and threaded their way around each other, and I swear to God, my brain was fried trying to make sense of it. I just don’t see how you can get two hands to play such completely different lines using one brain. In fact, I would say those would have been immensely challenging  lines for two pianists to play accurately. I just never heard anything like it.

This is what Merchants looks like if you drink as much as I do.

Thibaudet, was a true master, but the orchestra was also in top form. A lot of the piece revolves around a certain amount of confusion and cacophony in the sound. There are lots of bells and chimes and while they seem to be echoing the lines coming from the piano, they didn't always match, which was obviously part of the design. Thibaudet was playing a Steinway (very cool when it rose out of the stage), and compared to the Yamaha CF6 we heard DaniloPerez play with Wayne Shorter three weeks ago, it had a duller, more uniform high-end, which I felt was exactly suited to this bit of music. In fact, I’ll go so far to say that the resonant low end, the deep, commanding middle register, and the tinkly, baby-spoon clang of the high-end on the Steinway particularly lent itself to the piece. I think the CF6’s clarity and icicle like sharpness would have broken up the MacMillan piece too much.

This is what Merchants looks like if you think too much about photo captions.

At intermission, we got some CD’s signed and spent a few minutes getting photos and chatting up Jean-Yves, who was immensely personable, smiling, and pleasant. After taking pictures with me across the counter, when Mrs. S asked for one more, he brought her around the counter with him. Just a real nice guy, class act, and superb pianist.

I can't even make my hands move separately when I'm not playing...

I was going to ask him if he plays jazz, but I’m glad I didn't  Turns out he has two “jazz” recordings out, so we went ahead and Amazoned (online purchased) them. I did ask him how he got his hands to play those two contiguous yet conflicting lines so nicely, concluding with, “I don’t see how anyone can do it.” He said simply, “I don’t think much about it.” There was a definite glimmer in his eye. Probably a tear from thinking about how many hours he sat on a piano bench to learn those lines. I don’t know. It scares me, so I don’t think much about it either.

Jean-Yves Thibaudet and me.

The question I’m asking myself is, if it is possible that I was more impressed by Jean-Yves Thibaudet because he does play jazz, keeping in mind that I didn’t know he played jazz when I first heard him last night? The answer is, I think, almost certainly. Maybe it’s jazz, maybe it’s something else, but there's a different quality and dimension to Thibaudet's playing. Regardless, I promise you: You’ll never hear that MacMillan piece performed any better anywhere else, than it was last night with the Nashville Symphony and Jean-Yves Thibuadet.

Dude sure gets a lot closer to the ladies, no?

Yakov don’t play jazz. Jean-Yves don’t think much about it.

I do (play jazz), and, I do (think much about it), but maybe I will (play jazz) and I won’t (think much about it) from now on. 

My Miles Davis “bucket list” gets Shorter, literally

I've kind of developed this fascination with Miles Davis and a while back, I set my mind to trying to see as many of the living and performing musicians who played with Miles Davis as humanly possible. So many of the greats died so young and so long ago ( I won’t even try to list them). That makes the ones that are still around that much more “valuable” to the current jazz lexicon.

The set up

Certainly, meeting and greeting Herbie Hancock was one of the highlights, and seeing Sonny Rollins fairly limp around on stage while honking his sax brings home the point of how little time is left to see these stars while they are still performing. McCoy Tyner was another one who could barely get on stage, but once he did, performed wonderfully. Chick Corea, on the other hand, still has plenty of energy and musicality left in him, which leads to diverse shows ranging from vibraphone and string accompaniment, to a duet with a banjo. Some other “Miles’ musicians” jazzing around that I have yet to see: Jack DeJohnette, Keith Jarrett, Dave Holland, Ron Carter, Marcus Miller, and John Scofield, among others.

 

Wayne Shorter's axes in front of the CF6. Check out the harp's reflection in the lid. Wow, I'll take it!

The most recent I’m now able to check off the list is Wayne Shorter, who performed some new pieces (I think) from his latest album with a killer quartet consisting of Danilo Perez on piano, Joe Patitucci on bass, and Brian Blade on drums. The quartet was really together but the star of the show, for both Mrs. S and I was Perez, who was playing an awesome Yamaha CF6. I've never heard a brighter, more dynamic piano than that one, and at intermission, I asked the stage manager (or whoever he was, the guy moving Wayne Shorter’s stuff around) what it was, and he kept turning his head so I couldn't hear him, but I did hear him when he said they couldn't get a CFX. That's why I assume the piano was a CF6, the next model down. Whatever. If I ever get a spare $100K, I’ll probably pick one up.

This is the guy who almost told me what kind of piano Danilo was playing

After intermission, the orchestra came on and joined the quartet to play some Shorter arrangements of tunes he wrote for quartet and orchestra, and Esperanza Spalding also came out to sing Gaia and played bass and sang on Midnight in Carlotta’s Hair. I enjoyed the concert fairly well, despite the fact that I would have preferred to hear some of Shorter’s bop and post-bop songs in a more intimate style. I was fairly impressed by Esperanza, too, whose voice has clarity and a soft vibrato that I favor over the more lavish voices of other jazz singers of late. (Carmen McRae comes to mind.)

Ready for the show...

Really the only disappointing thing was the rude Nashville audience. I’ve really been noticing of late that people just don’t appreciate the performing arts the way they should. After about the second song of the second half, there became a steady stream of people leaving the hall. When Esperanza came on, despite her presence making everything a lot more interesting, more and more people got up and walked out. The ones who I wished would walk out, like the couple in front of us (husband drunk and sleepy, wife just sleepy, and the two of them fighting over a bottle of water – don’t ask), kept nodding off and snipping at each other for doing so. They'd've done everyone a favor if they had left.

Still, Wayne Shorter is probably the most prolific living jazz composer, and with the exception of Duke Ellington and Miles Davis (maybe), possibly the foremost jazz composer of all time. The chance to see him live and in concert was truly worth the effort and expense. If I ever get a chance to see him in quartet format again, I will definitely do that.

Didn't even know there was a French single malt, until I drank this one. Sweet! 

Dinner by the way was at Etch, right by the symphony hall. Despite a brief allergic reaction to the Japanese short ribs (something in the oil, maybe?), Mrs. S and I still enjoyed a lovely meal, topped by a glass of single malt whiskey from France. Did that beat all? Yes it did. Nashville, we love you. Now please move 50 miles closer so we don’t have to.

And no night would be complete without some eerie coincidence: The same couple that sat one table over from us at the restaurant sat one table over from us at the concert, too. Hundreds of restaurants in the city, dozens of tables at the restaurant, dozens of tables and hundreds of seats at the concert hall, and they we are. Right next to each other at the same time at two completely separate events. I tell you, the Universe aligns for me, sometimes for a reason, sometimes for none, but at times, it's really weird being me.