A new approach

Since my jazz arranging kept me away from the piano for so long, I’ve found myself curiously unmotivated to sit down and play. Oh, I have sat down and played some, for sure, even making a fair go at a few tunes I remain familiar with and just enjoy hearing on occasion. But I have not done anything constructive to improve my playing in probably the last six months.

On a whim, and because it was cheap, I picked up Oscar Peterson Plays the Duke Ellington Songbook CD. And while I thought this was him soloing, it turns out to be two of Oscar’s trios playing twelve songs each. And it is simply wonderful. Now, I’ve had the Oscar Peterson Plays Duke Ellington transcriptions forever, and long since relegated it to the “when I’m concert pianist level, maybe I’ll pull this out” section of my music book library. But taking a look at it again while listening to my new CD yesterday, it didn’t look nearly as foreboding as I remember it. And while it does not appear that the transcriptions in the above-mentioned book are from any of the recordings in the above-mentioned CD, it looks like they might be similar enough that I’ll be able to get something put together by listening to the CD and then sitting at the piano.

At any rate, I’ve decided to take a new approach to learning piano over the summer, namely, I’m going to learn to play a few Ellington tunes in the style of OP. Wish me luck.

Shot by The Innkeeper’s Gun

Not too long ago, I mentioned my infatuation with Bombella, the latest work by Abdullah Ibrahim which also features the incredibly awesome WDR Big Band Cologne. As it happened, the bass player of the WDR, John Goldsby, read my review and emailed me a few nice comments. He said that if I would be interested in reviewing his trio album which was due out soon, that he would be glad to send me a gratis advanced copy. Of course, I told him I would be happy to oblige by listening to his music and writing a review.

Now, let me say (as a sort of disclaimer), when I accept stuff for free, like I do with the Amazon Vine Club, I am careful not to let the fact that I have no skin in the game affect my opinion of whatever it is I’m reviewing. If I don’t like it, I say so. If I like it, I say so. If I couldn’t care one way or the other, I say so. That is to say, I’m an honest reviewer and if anything, I tend towards being overly critical. So, I was a little nervous accepting Mr. Goldsby’s offer, because if I didn’t like his work, I was faced with the unenviable task of having to tell him that.

Surprisingly, and happily, even though Goldsby’s trio is a piano-less, sax-bass-drums band, I really liked his work. It’s called The Innkeeper’s Gun, and it is a sparse-sounding, but richly detailed work that swings. I won’t bother reprinting my whole five-star review here, so feel free to click on the link and read the review I posted to Amazon. You might even want to pick up or download your own copy of TIG while you’re there.

I’m glad I blog. Making friends and hearing new jazz is what it’s all about.

Core collection update

Long-time readers of this blog will know that I have been actively pursuing jazz music for just about three years now, using the eighth edition of the Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings’ core collection as my guide for purchasing music. There are 187 recordings listed in the core collection, and I recently acquired my 110th. Since for the purposes of the core collection, I don’t really try to discern beforehand if the recording is something that I’m going to like, I’ve ended up with a lot of recordings that, after I listen to once, I can almost never bring myself to listen to again. The most recent of these is Peter Brotzman’s Machine Gun. Christ on crutches, what a bunch of crap. I will contend to my dying day, that if you listen to a “song” and you can’t hum it afterward, it cannot even be considered music. This heretical opinion has gotten me into a lot of trouble with various jazz enthusiasts whose tastes run to the esoteric and avant-garde. I’m not going to belabor the argument here. Let me just say, I picked up Bix and Tram and Maxine Sullivan and Dick Hyman as well, and as dated as they sound, and as poor the recording technology and what have you, those are, to me, far more valuable and meaningful pieces of jazz than any well-regarded somebody blowing pointlessly into an instrument of any type, meant for blowing or not. Cast me out of the jazz world if you must, but you might want to at least listen to some of these recordings and see if you don’t agree with me.

Or, just read about them on my blog. Lots of reviews will be forthcoming as I get farther and farther into my recent purchases.

And by the way, now I’m a conductor

Here’s a little more about the “concert” where my 17-piece jazz arrangement was played.

Since I showed up first and most of the band had arrived and was ready to play, we decided to go ahead and start with my piece. The piano player hadn’t showed up, so my instructor asked me if I wanted to play on my piece. Simple fact of the matter was, I had spent so much time working on my arrangement, that I hadn’t played the piano in nearly two weeks, other than occasional relaxing plunking and a few notes here and there to work out arrangement parts. So, my instructor agreed to play the piano. The big band instructor asked if I wanted to conduct, but I told him I didn’t know how. It turned out, however, that the bass trombone player also hadn’t showed up and I needed the bass trombone, mainly for the foghorn accent sounds. So he said he would play, and I had no choice but to conduct. The instructor said, “Don’t worry. This band won’t look at you anyway.” So I explained the intricacies (?) of my piece, counted off, and away we went. It went surprisingly well. After we had played my piece twice, I gathered up the scores and sat down, but then the guitar player, who had to play on his piece and had also written piano and bass trombone parts, said, “We need you to conduct again.” Fortunately, I knew the piece pretty well from our in-class review, so I counted and pointed and away we went. Then we decided to read one of the instructor’s recently completed pieces, and of course, he wrote a fancy trombone part for himself, so I got to conduct his piece sight unseen. The first time through, he stood up and gave a few cues, but the second time through, when it came time for the cues, he was looking at me expectantly, so I gave them.

Really, it was no big deal, but at least now, I can say I have conducting experience without telling a lie.

Another realization on the road to understanding jazz

For those who have been reading this blog for more than a year, you are probably aware that I graduated from college a mere three years ago this May. I’m proud to say that at the tender age of 43, after achieving credits at 6 different colleges over a period of 26 years, I obtained my BSBA degree. Quite an accomplishment, if I do say so myself. I would say, however, that as hard as I worked, with as many solo and team projects, assignments, papers, etc. that we had to complete, no single project that I undertook toward my degree required as much time and hard work as the project I just completed for my jazz arranging class: a seventeen piece arrangement of Bill Evans’ “Peri’s Scope” with a lick from Thelonious Monk’s “In Walked Bud” thrown in for good measure (or eight good measures).

To complete the 150 bars or so, I estimate that I spent somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty hours. It required complete reworking of the saxophone soli – twenty four bars of five parts. It required at least five hours just learning the software (Finale) to compose. It required two critiquing sessions with my instructor and classmates (three if you count the one for the soli). It even took about forty-five minutes just to print out the parts, make adjustments, reprint them, etc. etc. Then yesterday evening, the big band sight read it, got some tips and insight from me (not much), then played it through once more.

Finished.

All that said, I really enjoyed it. As much work as it was, the feelings of accomplishment and completion were just exhilarating, and it makes me feel good that I can get back to my regular, non-scholastic life. First order of business is to buy myself some jazz CD’s and get all my music that’s been laying about organized. In order to do that, I’ll have to find some shelves to put it on.

And I’m looking forward to keeping up with this blog once again.

What to do the day after Herbie Hancock's 70th birthday

Listen to Cantaloupe Island.

Yoity Tot Big Band CDs

So, as I said some time ago, I thought that in order to get more CD’s on the Yoity Tot list, but to be fair to all, (that is, never have to relegate any CD from the list because I come across something I like better) I thought it expedient to break the list into two. One is for “regular” jazz CD’s, the other for big band CD’s. (I could go even farther in expanding genres, and I might someday as the list expands.) My big band CD collection is not that big (oops) yet, so the list is basically everything I own that is big band. The regular list is my top 25 as I see them today.

I still have some CD’s I haven’t even listened to yet, leftover from my crazy buying spree a month or so back. I’m having fun and enjoying them, going through them slowly, finding gems, learning things, just loving jazz.

Anyway, check out the lists over on the right.