Joshua Bell and Jazz

On Valentine's Day, Mrs. S dragged me kicking and screaming to a chamber music concert to hear the violinist Joshua Bell. (Well, not kicking and screaming, because I did buy her the front row seats that she asked for. Let's just say I was dubious.)

Even as the ladies ooh-ed and ahh-ed over his good looks (see below), Mr. Bell knocked my pink-heart socks off!



I'd never heard such violin music. His control was amazing, his stamina that of a marathoner, and his mastery of dynamics and tone was just phenomenal. He's recently been dabbling in popular music and jazz, and since Funny Valentine was on his last CD, I felt pretty sure he'd play that for the Valentine's concert encore. He decided to play something different, but it was fantastic too.

We got several autographs and talked with him for a little while at the dinner after the concert. We met some fascinating people at the concert, too.

What's the point?

The point is, one month from last Thursday, Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra will be in Huntsville Alabama for a concert, and what Mrs. S. and I have discovered is that when a big name star, like Joshua Bell or Wynton Marsalis, comes to your small home town, you'd better make the time and effort to go and see them. There's nothing quite like the relatively intimate show that consummate musicians and entertainers can put on, as proved by Mr. Bell and as Mr. Marsalis will no doubt prove in just less than a month.

For the record, Mrs. S. and I paid about $250 for season tickets so we could be guaranteed of seeing Mr. Marsalis's concert, and while tickets for that are still available, two nights after the Huntsville concert for the concert in Atlanta, Wynton Marsalis tickets are going for $165 apiece (if you can find them). That means Mrs. S and I will be seeing Mr. Marsalis in concert for a discount, and we got to see two musicals for free.

Can't beat that with a timpani mallet.

Bill Evans makes everything better

I've decided that for my semester long jazz arranging project, I will try to write a big band score to Bill Evans' "Peri's Scope". Consequently, I've been using my piano lesson to work mainly on that song, develop some voicings and alternate or substitute chords, and look at other things to make the music come alive and be more interesting in a big band arrangement. Of course, I have a brilliant recording of that song played by the Bill Evans Trio from "Portrait in Jazz", and I'm also fortunate enough to have a transcription of the song as well, allowing a deeper analysis of Bill Evans' playing and another source for ideas for the score.

So at my lesson the other night, my instructor and I listened to Peri's Scope twice through: once while looking at the transcription, once without looking at the transcription. When it got done, we talked about it a little bit, then my instructor played through it a little bit, just to experiment. He whizzed through the song with some pretty remarkable voicings and phrases and then about halfway through the second time he stopped, turned to me and said, "Everything goes better if you listen to Bill Evans first. Everything goes better if you listen to Bill Evans first. Not just piano playing, but everything!" To which I said, "So, if you listen to Bill Evans before doing your laundry, your clothes will come out cleaner." He just exclaimed, "Exactly!"

So, having trouble assembling that computer desk? Worried that your version of your mother's recipe for sloppy joes won't taste the same? Got a personnel review coming up? Listen to Bill Evans before you start. You'll be surprised and pleased by the results. My piano instructor and I promise.

How I spend my Sundays (non-Super Bowl weekends)

7:00 Wake up
7:01 Play stupid games on Facebook
7:17 Go out and get the newspaper off the sidewalk
7:18 Start cooking breakfast
7:30 Start eating breakfast
8:00 Work on the Sudoku-Triple puzzle
8:30 Make another cup of brandy tea
8:40 Play stupid games on Facebook
8:45 Write blog posting
9:15 Bury three buckets of fruit and vegetable matter in the compost pile
9:30 Start working on jazz arranging homework
10:20 Shower
10:30 Work on jazz arranging homework some more
11:20 Play stupid games on Facebook
12:00 Lunch
12:30 Read a book, nap, read, nap, repeat
14:00 Jazz arranging homework
15:30 Play the piano
16:00 Start cooking dinner, listening to jazz
17:00 Dinner
18:00 Watch a movie
20:00 Chill out
22:00 Watch the news
22:12 Read ten pages of a motivational book
22:30 Try to sleep
1:45 (Monday) Finally fall asleep
2:15 Dream of pretty Japanese girls having drinks with me in a jazz club (if I’m lucky)

How jazz is affected by an "economic stimulus"

(The following is adapted from an email that's been making the rounds for a year or two now...)

Before I tell you how jazz will be affected by the "economic stimulus", it would be helpful to define, exactly, what an "economic stimulus" is. To do that, we have a simple discussion in Q&A format:

Q. What is an 'economic stimulus' payment?
A. It is money that the federal government will send to taxpayers.
Q. Where will the government get this money?
A. From taxpayers.
Q. So the government is giving us back our own money?
A. Only a little of it.
Q. What is the purpose of this payment?
A. The plan is for you to use the money to purchase a high-definition TV set to stimulate the economy.
Q. Won't that only stimulate China's economy?
A. Shut up.

In order to help the U.S. economy with the economic stimulus, remember, if you use your economic stimulus to:
-Buy something at Wal-Mart, the money will go to China or Sri Lanka.
-Buy gasoline, your money will go to the Arabs or Hugo Chavez.
-Buy a computer, it will go to India or China.
-Buy an appliance, it will go to South Korea.
-Buy fruit and vegetables, it will go to Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala.
-Buy an efficient car, it will go to Japan or Korea.
-Buy anything at Dollar General, it will go to Taiwan.
-Pay your credit card debt or buy stock, your money will go to "management bonuses" and "management" will hide the money offshore (probably in Belize).

So, what can the average American do to keep the "economic stimulus" money in America? Simple:
1) Spend it at yard sales, or
2) Go to jazz clubs, or
3) Spend it on prostitutes, or
4) Beer, or
5) Tattoos

These are the only American businesses still operating in the U.S.

Conclusion: Go to a jazz club with a tattooed prostitute that you met at a yard sale and drink beer all day!

Your fellow Americans appreciate your patriotism!

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."

Next project

The critical listening project has not been going well. That is to say, it hasn't been going at all. I've been forced to reconsider how to approach listening to my collection of music, a problem compounded by the fact that it is constantly growing, and will continue to grow over the holiday period, since I will have more time to listen to music. So, I've decided to abandon the CLP. My new project, which will get me to sit at the piano longer, is considerably less time intensive (I think), and far more practical and achievable.

I'm going to start transcribing songs from recordings.

This is something I know I'm not very good at, having never been able to do it back when I was in rock bands in my teens and twenties. With jazz, I haven't actually attempted transcribing yet, despite reading in multiple places that this is a great way to learn jazz, improve hearing ability, improve compositional ability, improve understanding of chords and voicings, in short, improve everything and anything having to do with jazz music. The main reason I'm going to attempt this is that there are several songs I want to be able to play but I can't find the sheet music for. (At least, it's not in any of my three real books.) I doubt I will be able to reconstruct the chords and voicings just by listening to the recordings, but I did get some hints from my jazz theory class, so I might be able to come up with some. I think by putting forth some effort, I ought to be able to come up with something. Hopefully.

Anyway, that is my next project, which I will begin to tackle, probably starting this weekend but definitely in earnest over the holidays. I'll let you know how it works out for me.