A new year for jazz

Enough with the resolutions, already. Just make music!

I find it interesting that one of the greatest living jazz pianists thinks Art Tatum was the best jazz pianist ever, that Bill Evans was the last jazz piano innovator, and that Thelonious Monk, as genius as he was, simply wasn't all that good. These are sentiments that I have shared for years, basically since I took up jazz piano, and I'm pleasantly surprised to see them confirmed by a great like Dick Hyman. But don't take my word for it: listen to some recordings, read this article from the Wall Street Journal, then listen some more. You'll see what I mean.

I like that I'm able to look back and see that I've made some progress, or at least, have some awareness of things I didn't before. May 2010 continue the trend.

A book review

In case you haven't read my review on Amazon.com, here's what I wrote about Terry Teachout's new book, Pops, which is about Louis Armstrong. Teachout is a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal who doesn't write specifically about jazz, but often touches on the world of jazz in his cultural musings column, Sightings. This book was really interesting, had a lot of previously unpublished photos, and was a really keen look at the inside of the jazz world in its formative years. The sections about Louis and Miles Davis are strangely compelling and scary (they didn't get along), but cast in the light of one generation leading to another, jazz fans will see they should be thankful for both of these trumpet greats in the context in which they played and developed their own music. Anyway, it's a very good book and I highly recommend it to any jazz aficionados looking for a good way to kill a few hours of free time over the coming holidays.



"Among regular contributors to the Wall Street Journal, there are a number of jazz writers who are almost legendary in the jazz world. That makes this book by Wall Street Journal columnist Terry Teachout all the more extraordinary, as Mr. Teachout is not specifically a jazz critic. Although his "Sightings" column has been known to cover many jazz subjects, one wouldn't necessarily expect the level of scholarship and depth that Mr. Teachout achieves with "Pops". But for me, what makes this book so good is that he is able to relate the life of Louis Armstrong through the music that Louis made. Not only the when and where, but the who and the why are covered in no small detail. (If you are a fan of Armstrong or jazz and don't have his recordings, you can pick up something like The Complete Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings to listen to the songs that Mr. Teachout documents so well.) It makes for fascinating reading (and listening), and yet, the information is contains is enough to qualify it as a textbook on jazz history. Anyone who reads this book will definitely come away with a great respect and awe for Mr. Armstrong, but that reader will no doubt also have a better light shining into the dark closet of jazz that allows him to see the evolution of the music as well as the development of some of the legendary jazz performers (and producers, and wanna-be's) of Armstrong's time. Being "late to jazz" as I am, I feel like I have a lot of catching up to do to learn more about jazz music and history, but after reading this book, I feel like I not only caught up, but I might be ahead of quite a few individuals as well. Anybody who is looking for an interesting biography, or a window onto the world of music entertainment in the 20th century, or of course, jazz, would do good to buy and read this book. Mr. Teachout has written a great book that I'm sure will be enjoyed by many."

Something always worth reading...

Something always worth reading, besides this blog, is any Wall Street Journal article about jazz. Here's a link to the latest:

Terence Blanchard

Thanks for stopping by today.

Saving jazz

There was an interesting article in The Wall Street Journal yesterday, about how jazz appears to be dying and what might be needed to “save” it. The basic crux of the argument is that the clientele which listens to live jazz is not only shrinking, but also growing older, the presumption being, jazz is now akin to classical music in that it is pursued more as an art form and less as a type of music.

I’m not sure I get the distinction, because when I’m playing the piano, I don’t really feel like I’m “doing” art. Maybe somebody passing by my window might be struck by my “art”, but I doubt it. As for jazz passing into the realm of classical music with an aged, presumably affluent, fan base, well so be it. Hell, this entire blog is about the fact that I got to jazz late and now I’m trying to make up for lost time. I can’t help it if I’m in the “old” demographic. Give me a break!

For what it’s worth, I think it is way too early to push the panic button. If I can “discover” and enjoy an entirely different type of music that I never enjoyed before, it could happen to anybody at any time. Who knows? Maybe when the younger generation reaches my age, they won’t be nostalgic for the rappers and grunge and whatnot that clutters their music sphere now. And even if they are, a person’s passion is their own. I’ll not question that.

Jazz does not need to be saved, because it will never die. Trust me on that.

Me in the Wall Street Journal

I made the Wall Street Journal today, kind of, sort of.

Today, a letter in the auto column, tomorrow, a stipple pen-and-ink portrait on page 1!

I'll finish my thoughts on the jazz road (promised in yesterday's entry) in another entry tomorrow.

Starting at the beginning

These last two nights, I've found myself in between Netflix selections (last two: Vantage Point - somewhat interesting but lacked impact; The Bank Job - starts slow, but is very well done and interesting because of being based on a true story) and the jazz styles college textbook that I bought last week still hasn't arrived, all of which leaves me in a kind of limbo when I reach the end of the day and I'm worn out from playing the piano. I like to do something with my music, and sitting and listening with the Real Book in hand is usually a good choice, but again, if I've run out of energy playing, I've usually run out of energy for listening-analysis, too. That's really why I bought the textbook. Like I've said before, learning about jazz on all facets, I feel, will really help me "narrow the jazz vacuum" (as I put it), and in my own case, picking up jazz from the ripe young age of 43 or so, I've more or less started "in the middle". It's neither bad nor good, but I feel there is much to be gained by understanding the history and flow of jazz, or at least having some idea of who's music fed who as the medium developed from slaves sing-songing to guys like Evan Parker and Roscoe Mitchell blowing their brains out willy-nilly for twenty five minutes at a time.

Then yesterday, suddenly, I realized that I didn't have to wait for the arrival of the textbook I bought to start studying jazz history. I could just go online. In fact, having already read my share of jazz theory online, history would be a good next step, and it could be very general, since I'm really just beginning. (Strictly speaking, the textbook I bought isn't a jazz history book, either. More on that some other time - after I get the damn thing.) So, I used Encyclopedia Britannica (EB) online and read their entire introduction to jazz. It was just a bit shallow, I thought, and while it did tell me a few things I didn't know, it didn't enlighten me all that much. (Only two years ago, I took a music course through the University of Alabama in order to fulfill my degree requirements at University of Alabama in Huntsville, so my study of music, music theory, music history, styles, etc. is relatively fresh.) Since I own a copy of the print EB - purchased in England when I lived there in 1995 - I decided to have a look at it to see if it covered more ground than the electronic version.

Bingo! Man, the jazz entry is awesome. It is longer, more detailed, and much better written. I've only read the first few paragraphs, but it has been very informative. Two things that struck me so far:
-Thomas Edison was arguably the most influential man in the history of jazz, because jazz songs were never played the same way twice until they began to be recorded. (Some would argue they are still never played the same way twice - and I would tend to agree.)
-White evangelists' attempts to Presbyterianize the freed slaves in the late 1800's resulted in the "Africanization" of the Presbyterians' hymnbooks. (They put it a little more eloquently than that, but you get the drift.)

My Wall Street Journal didn't show up this morning before I had to leave the house for work, so I picked up volume 24 of EB (Metaphysics to Norway) to read at lunch. This is going to be a great way to prep for the arrival of my textbook.

Final note: I'm thinking about taking classes at school to study music. I recall, however, that all the liberal arts courses happen during the daytime, so I'm not sure I'll be able to make that idea work for me. We'll see.

One irritation about recorded jazz music

It happened again.

A while back, I ordered Clifford Brown's complete Blue Note recordings (4-CD set) back to back with Art Blakey's Birdland Volume 1. I was very annoyed to learn that the Art Blakey CD was part of the Clifford Brown set. A close reading of my Penguin Jazz Recordings guide probably would have given me a clue along those lines, but it is questionable that I would have been able to put two and two together that fast.

Well, back before I even started liking jazz, at the suggestion of the Wall Street Journal, I picked up a couple from their short list of "must buy" jazz CD's from an article they did, one of which was Thelonious Monk Live at the Five Spot. It is a great CD and I got a lot of play out of it, but again, I was still annoyed that it is one of the four CD's included in Thelonious Monk Complete, which I purchased last week. This duplication of CD's probably couldn't really have been avoided, since I've had the first CD for so long, and actually, Penguin told me that there would be that duplication, but wanting the Monk and having found a bargain, I just bought it. I figured I could resell the Live CD, but it's going for like $1.98 used on Amazon, which doesn't really make it worth the effort. Better just to have a "more full" collection for that price. Besides, for some odd reason, the songs are in a different order, which I can't figure out why if it was a live recording, so there is that one minor difference.

I'm finding, though, that this is one of the biggest drawbacks of jazz music. In the pop world, artists and recording companies often re-issue stuff and repackage songs, but when they do, they usually add tracks or re-mix the song, or something. They don't just throw a disc into a different jacket and sell it to you. In jazz, though, it seems like there is a lot of that. You run into a lot of trouble with that, too, because guys like Art Blakey, Clifford Brown, McCoy Tyner, to name just a few, played all over and with everybody. It's just too easy for the average jazz fan to get crossed up.

I guess the only thing to do is make friends and trade duplicate CD's when one inevitably gathers a few.

Just the same, I would prefer it didn't happen again.

Another beginner’s revelation.

Yesterday, The Wall Street Journal published two articles about Marian McPartland. She hosts a radio show on NPR called “Piano Jazz”, which itself has been running for thirty years, where she interviews and plays with most (if not all) of the greatest jazz musicians of our time. She turns 90 years old tomorrow, March 20, and there’s going to be a big tribute concert or something in New York City. She was married to a famous jazz musician and has been playing jazz professionally for more than 60 years. Many of the best episodes of her “Piano Jazz” programs have been turned into CD’s. (I noticed for example the Bill Evans episode is #4,300 or so on amazon.com today, no doubt due to The Wall Street Journal articles and the buying power of its readers. I think I’ll wait until some of those readers sell theirs before I buy it.) And if you, like me, are truly new to jazz and you’ve never heard of her, you too will be surprised to learn how prolific she was. Something tells me the CD’s of her radio show are really worth pursuing. A sampling of interviewees: Bill Evans, Dave Brubeck, Chick Corea, Oscar Peterson, Bruce Hornsby, Keith Jarrett, Teddy Wilson, Ray Charles. (Not all are available on CD. Recent episodes can be listened to, and maybe even downloaded (I’m not sure), at )

When I was traveling recently, my rent-a-car had satellite radio, and I was tuned into a jazz channel, and as I faced a longish ride to the airport, I was perturbed when there was, not music, but some guy interviewing another guy, a drummer no less, of whom I knew very little. I don’t know who the interviewer was, but the interviewee was Max Roach. For lack of attractive alternatives, I listened to the interview. I found it completely fascinating. I was sort of shocked by how much I enjoyed the program. One thing I took away from that program was that drummers, or as Max said, “good” drummers, don’t tune their set to a song – they know how to hit the drum so that it sounds in key. I thought that was pretty interesting, and it certainly was something I’d never thought about. It made me understand that jazz musicians achieve the sound or effect they want through various different ways, and I’d never considered that before. It made me think about my music, about achieving a certain sound, or certain effect, or certain feeling (call it) by ways other than just hitting notes (like playing ahead of the beat, or behind the beat, or softening some phrases and accenting others, or any number of things). There were other, less noteworthy points I took away from the interview; please don’t think I was enamored of the jazz interview just because of that one nugget. If nothing else, I learned who Max Roach is and that he is famous.

The point is: interviews of jazz musicians are a valuable resource to learning jazz, so I believe that an octogenarian or nonagenarian who’s been playing jazz for sixty years conducting an interview of a famous, respected jazz musician probably has a “plus alpha” factor to its value for a beginning jazz musician like myself. And, to find out that there really is a 90-year old woman, still performing, still doing a radio show after 30 years, still considered by many to be a living legacy of 20th century jazz piano virtuosity, who meets with, performs with, interviews, and is esteemed by, virtually every major jazz musician of the last 50 years, and I had never even heard of her… well…

I still have a long way to go.