Tony Bennett's Latest

I worked hard on this review, hoping to be the first to post on Amazon. Of course, this morning, there were three other reviews, that were like, "Hey this is a good recording". So I may not be first, but you can judge if I'm best. Here's the review, in its entirety:

Shadows of Ella, hints of Evans, and all the things Tony Bennett is

Last fall, Tony Bennett released a fantastic vocal jazz record together with Lady Gaga, Cheek to Cheek. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Lady Gaga said that she loved working with Tony Bennett, loved jazz, and that she planned to record “one jazz record a year, forever”. One year to the day later, Lady Gaga’s next jazz album is nowhere in sight. Instead, we have Tony Bennett, the octogenarian king of jazz, who basically reinvented the concept of the duet with his two duets albums, stretched that work with a pop diva, and now, much in the mold of his inimitable work with Bill Evans many years ago, we find him paired with one of today’s premier jazz pianists, Bill Charlap. And, as Tony has become one of the defining masters of the American songbook, he stays close to home by taking on a number of standards by Jerome Kern. The result is an eminently listenable, fascinating jazz record.

 

Understated, but classy cover

One big difference between this Bennett-Charlap recording and the Bennett-Evans recordings is that this time, they went ahead and used a full rhythm section on a number of the songs. With Peter Washington on bass and Kenny Washington on drums, the sound has more of a club atmosphere and less of the intimacy of the pure duets with Evans. Another difference is Bill calls in his life partner and fellow jazz pianist Renee Rosnes to do some fabulous piano duet work on four of the tunes. (As a jazz pianist, those tunes really stood out for me.) Throughout, the solos of Charlap tend to be more evenly constructed and hone closer to the original songs, especially so as each song is kept (for the most part) close to or under the classic three minutes twenty seconds time frame. The selection of songs is solid and includes all the “standard” standards: Yesterdays, All the Things You Are, The Song is You, and even I Won’t Dance, which Tony may have done simply because it was still fresh in his repertoire from last year’s Lady Gaga recording.

"Benedetto" is Tony's real name. Yes, this is his sketch. 

Tony sounds great, and the recording is very clean. (It was produced by Tony’s son, Dae Bennett and Bill Charlap, with another son, Danny Bennett, as executive producer.) Charlap is absolutely on top of his game here, carrying each tune along until it’s time to solo, cleverly breaking and shifting the solo while keeping the feel, then throwing it underhand back to Tony so Bennett can knock it out to the finish. It’s a formula that Tony has stuck with for five decades, and I personally am glad that he decided to not try and change it up. The CD booklet includes full liner notes and a nice background essay/exposition by WSJ columnist and jazz writer Will Friedwald. There are plenty of calm photos and a portrait of Jerome Kern to fill out the booklet.

One of the best albums to come out last year.

I don’t know how much longer Tony is going to be with us, but I hope it’s a long time and I hope he keeps singing, because treasures like this five star vocal jazz album are few and far between. Maybe he will do like Ella did with Norman Granz and work through some of the songbooks of some of the other great American composers. And if he keeps Charlap, his trio and Rosnes along for the ride, there will be lots more great music to come.

I’ll also keep my eyes open for that next Lady Gaga record, while I’m monitoring the airwaves.

At least they didn't call it "Kind of Kind of Blue"

Until just a few months ago, I’d never heard of Mostly Other People Do The Killing. As of right now, still the only thing I know about them is they recorded an exact copy of Miles Davis’s album, Kind of Blue.

If you don’t know anything about Kind of Blue, Google it now and come back when you are finished.

The cover of one of the most iconic jazz recordings of all time. No exaggeration to say it changed not just jazz, not just music, but changed the way people thought about making and listening to music.

So, why would a band want to make a copy of an album, note-for-note, second-for-second? You can Google MOPDTK and Blue and come back, if you want, but I don’t think you will find the answer in any of the interviews and articles that have been written about this “controversial” and “audacious” musical work.

Similarly, hard not to mistake this cover for something else, either, although a friend from school did have something remarkably similar for his Facebook cover photo for a while.

Of course, this didn't stop me from buying, listening to, and weighing in on the album on Amazon. Here’s what I wrote: 

Compelling in so many ways 

After first reading about this remake of the great Miles Davis album in the Wall Street Journal, I was partly scared and partly excited to hear what MOPDTK could do with the music from the album. There were just so many questions I had. Would it be indistinguishable from the original? Would it be nothing at all like the original? Would I even be able to listen to it? And, most importantly, why in the heck would a band go through all that trouble to make a note-for-note copy of the greatest jazz album of all time? The mind boggled. 

Then, maybe a month later and still before I’d gotten around to purchasing the recording, there was another article in the Wall Street Journal, this time calling the recording “controversial” and “audacious”. Really? I mean, yes, I’m still confused by the intent and purpose and the artistic value of the project, but does that make it a “controversy”? There was nothing to do but buy the thing and sit down and listen to it.

And all I can say is, this is, no matter how you cut it, an amazing piece of music, an amazing work of musicianship, and I am utterly in awe of the people who conceived and executed this work. And I must also admit that I am struggling to put into words what I thought about the whole thing. It is, first and foremost, a faithful, note for note, second for second, copy of the original album. The playing is clear and precise, and the recording is faithful to the original, in depth, tone, and overall reproduction. It swings, but it swings in a predictable, previously pioneered way. The first few times listening to it, you hear everything you are expecting to hear, so it is very difficult to put your finger on what it is different. But there’s something else there, or rather, something else missing. The “presence” of Mile Davis and Bill Evans and John Coltrane is absent (if that’s even possible). What’s left? Just the music. And the music is as interesting and as attractive and as absorbing as it has always been. The back of my brain kept saying, it’s not real, but the front of my brain kept saying, damn I love this music! I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I suddenly felt like Miles and his band had somehow transcended time and space, but I felt like I owed a debt of gratitude to Moppa Elliott, Jon Irabagon, and the other band members for achieving what is, to me, a nearly impossible feat. As a student of music, I’ve more than a few times been required to transcribe a piece of music as part of my study, and I can think of no more odious and difficult task. That multiple members of a band would spend ten years or so transcribing in meticulous detail an entire album is, as I’ve said already, mind boggling. That they achieved it at all is stunning. That they achieved it with such clarity and accuracy and musicality is nothing short of a miracle.

Purists will doubt the intent and the result of this album, probably for ever. Arguments for and against the pretext are likely to continue. Miles fans may have their hackles raised and it is obvious that not all jazz fans will appreciate this work. Regrettably, I feel a lot of people just won’t “get it”. Personally, I don’t think there is anything to “get”. This is a tremendous work, a monumental musical achievement, and its very existence hails the value of the original, heightens the enjoyment of both versions, and makes the brain work overtime in its euphoria and enjoyment. It may not be the single most compelling musical work ever recorded, but it’s worth as many stars as anyone will let you give, which in Amazon’s case is 5.

There’s more to this story, but I need some time to think about it. I am going to get to the bottom of this, one way or another.

Q&A with the late George Russell

You may be a jazz heavyweight. You may be a jazz lightweight. You may be late to jazz, or you may be steeped in jazz from before you could walk. So some of you may relate to my latest jazz learning experience, but some of you may not. But from out of nowhere, I’ve found out about this guy who’s name was George Russell. I’d only heard of him in passing for the first time a few months ago, as I noticed one of his recordings on the core collection list, my own collection of which was nearing completion and conspicuously missing his recording.

And I couldn’t find it anywhere, or at least, not anywhere for less than $75 or so. But when I started to read and learn about George Russell, like so many things jazz before this, I wondered how I’d missed him this whole time. I won’t go on about George. You can go to Wikipedia or his eponymous website to learn all you want about him.  As for me, a student in my last semester of jazz class, second straight semester of jazz improvisation, I’m a little aggravated to have all this awareness of George and his contributions to jazz sideswipe me this late in my education. So much so, I had dreams of George’s face talking to me from the psychedelic purple cover of his complete Bluebird recordings (the long version of the CD that is really hard to get).

So, to be honest, I don’t know very much about Mr. Russell, yet, but I plan to learn everything I can about him as quickly as possible. In the meantime, the little exercise below is merely for entertainment and to hopefully clear my dream state of Mr. Russell’s all-knowing, ghostly-yet-serious face. If you know about George Russell, you may even get a couple of my puns/jokes/inferences. To obtain the maximum visual effect, imagine the interview being conducted by Connie Chung in a dark suit from Chanel. (George is in black and white tweed, just like on the cover of “Jazz Workshop”, which is same as the picture above. Also, if you notice, George is not resting his head on his chin, but is, in fact, showing you his fist a good ten inches away from his body..."Watch it, buddy!")

Connie: Thank you for agreeing to talk with us, and thank God for allowing us into heaven to interview you, Mr. Russell.

George: George.

Connie: George.

George: Hmph.

Connie: So, tell us about the afterlife.

George: It sucks. Wrong kind of music, everywhere. It’s like I’m trapped in an ethereal universe above the clouds with a bunch of singing angels and every song is the Oratorio from “The Messiah”…oh, … wait…

Connie:  What’s different about the music?

George: Everything’s Ionian and straight up. I keep begging for somebody to play something in Lydian, or even Dorian, or to at least swing a little bit, but no.

Connie: It sounds positively heavenly here. What’s wrong with that?

George: Nothing, really, but I’m going to throw up if I hear the four chord resolve to the one chord one more time.

Connie: Would you explain that for the beginning jazz musicians in our audience?

George: No.

Connie: Maybe God would let you arrange an angelic choir sometime?

George: Meh! Who’s got time for that?

Connie: Don’t you have an eternity?

George: Yeah, but I’m busy working on another edition of my book.

Connie: Let’s talk about your book. I’ve noticed that on Amazon, first editions of the spiral bound, Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization, are going for anywhere from well north of a hundred dollars, all the way up to $500.

George: Really? Damn. I could’ve used some of that scratch while I was alive. But what’s my book doing in Brazil? I didn’t know they sold books in the rain forest.

Connie: Yes, … but don’t you feel that the title of your book might be a little off-putting to the average jazz musician?

George: I hope not. The editor scrapped my title for it.

Connie: What was it originally called?

George: Conceptualization of Asynchronous Harmony from Chromatic Permutations of Lydian and Mixolydian Flat-6 Tonalities Derived Using Tonal Organization of Synchronous Patterns and Sonic Causations of Melodic Structures.

Connie: That’s quite a mouthful.

George: Please, don’t say “mouthful”, Connie. Anyway, it had a subtitle.

Connie: Which was…?

George: Cool Sounding Jazz Music.

Connie: Yes, um, er, okay. So, on another subject, is Bill Evans up in heaven with you?

George: I thought this was a serious interview.

Connie: Sorry. Why do you think your CD’s are so hard to find back on earth?

George: “Kind of Blue” is hard to find? I heard it’s the most popular jazz recording ever.

Connie: It is, but that’s a Miles Davis record.

George: Yeah, right. Good one.

Connie: Okay, why do you think jazz recordings – with your name on them – are so hard to find at reasonable prices back on earth?

George: My recordings are selling at a premium, too? Goddammit! Oops. Anyway, I’m going to talk to the land Lord when this interview is over about getting a few minutes back downstairs. Got to be a few royalty checks bouncing around with my name, somewhere.

Connie: Do you need money in heaven?

George: I wouldn’t if Jesus would stop cheating at cards. He deals off the bottom, that Son of a …ah, um, God.

Connie: Do you think the average man on the street will ever be made aware of all your contributions to the field of music in general and specifically, jazz theory?

George: No.

Connie: Why not?

George: Well, how many people alive today do you think know about my work?

Connie: Well, a precious, but lucky, few.

George: Hmph. And how many people read this “Blog” magazine you’re interviewing me for?

Connie: Um, it’s a website, and well, not many.

George: Whatever. How many readers, exactly?

Connie: Well, um, basically, one. The author’s parents and siblings don’t even read it.

George: Really? Wow. Must be crap!

Connie: Well, we are interviewing you.

George: Point taken.

Connie: Well then, what would it take for people to become more aware of your contributions to jazz?

George: Let’s see... Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber doing a duet of my “Ezz-Thetics” arranged by Ozzy Osbourne on the first ever joint Grammy/Academy Awards show. Hosted by Charlie Sheen, of course.

Connie: I thought you wanted this to be a serious interview?

George: Pink and that other Justin then. I’ll do my own arranging. We can do without Charlie, too. I don’t think the folks up here are going to let him work for a while, anyway.

Connie: Ahem. Any special message for our readers?

George: Well, always remember: Don’t confuse chromatic Lydian with Lydian augmented or Lydian flat-7. The dominant chord functions as a five, but it sounds like a one, whereas in the augmented, you have the case where…

Connie: Ahhh, thank you, George, I think that’s all we have time for.

George: All you have time for, Connie. I’ve got an eternity.

Advanced Jazz CD Collecting: A Quick “How To”

The basis for my jazz music collection has always been the Penguin Jazz Recordings Guide’s “Core Collection”. Remember that I started out in jazz without owning a single jazz album, except for three culled from a Wall Street Journal article about “must have” jazz recordings and some average stuff borrowed and burned from the library (I don’t do that anymore, so don’t call the FBI.) . So using the core collection of the Penguin Guide eighth edition, I began buying jazz CD’s.

As is to be expected with a list like the core collection, probably more than half the CD’s are common, relatively inexpensive, and easily found on amazon or ebay. But as you pick what I call the low hanging fruit, you are left with high hanging fruit that gets increasingly harder to find and more and more expensive. Some of the recordings are downright rare, and as I’ve written before, some can’t be had for love or money. They just aren’t out there. Be that as it may, I am dangerously close to completing the core collection with only one or two substitutes, but no integral gaps from the 188 selections.

Notice there that I say “selections” because some are multi-disc sets and some recordings are now available either as parts of boxed sets or other compilations. That complicates matters. So here’s the “how to” for completing the core collection:

1)  Get the easy ones first. Lots of artists can be had for just a couple of bucks: Bill Evans, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, etc. Most every selection on amazon will have a “People who bought this also bought…” underneath with a bunch more of the selections you will need to complete the collection. Pick up what you need.
2)  Buy used. Used CD’s are almost always half the price of new, or less. There are some CD’s I literally picked up for the cost of shipping. 
 3)  Keep track of what you have and what you don’t. You will quickly form a mental database that will help guide your search and will alert you when you come across something rare or hard to find.
4)  If you see one of the rare ones, buy it. You have to convince yourself that money is not an issue here, because there are some that I have seen and failed to purchase because I thought it too expensive, and then I never saw the thing again. It’s frustrating. More frustrating than breaking the budget.
5)   Search ebay and amazon everyday. The foreign amazon sites are also worthwhile. I found some on amazon Japan that I couldn’t find anywhere else. Use the wishlist (amazon) and watchlist (ebay) to keep your eye on prices and availability.
6)  Spend the time and money.
7)  Listen and enjoy your collection. You deserve it.

Depending on the availability of one or two CD’s and whether I opt to substitute or not, I should finish my core collection by the end of March. I plan to take a picture of me sitting in the middle of all those CD’s. It’s going to be exciting.

Days 53 and 54 – Saturday, September 18 and Sunday, September 19: MOTHER OF ...

Goals: Stain the damn lid; work on the inlay.

Music: Eldar’s “Live at the Blue Note”; Bill Evans’ “Complete Village Vanguard Recordings 1961” (all three discs); Bill Evans’ “Portrait in Jazz”; Art Farmer’s “Portrait of Art Farmer” and “Blame It on My Youth”.

This was to be an unexciting entry, anyway, so it is about a week late. My schedule was upset by having to serve on a U.S. District Court jury last week to convict a guy who trafficked in 15-year old prostitutes who were illegal aliens to boot. (Like I said: we convicted.)

Enough about that.

I’m one coat on one side of the lid from being finished with it. When I’m finished with that, I’ll be finished with staining except for any touch-ups I have to do on the inside after I install everything. I’m looking forward to that.

The mother-of-pearl inlay work is no fun. No fun at all. It is very tedious, very time consuming, very slow, very precise, and dirty work. I’ve inhaled so much old wood and varnish I’ve developed a dry hack that is pretty serious. To make matters worse, the mother-of-pearl that I bought looks new, while the MOP on my piano does not. I’m not sure how to spruce up the antique inlay or how to tone down the modern inlay. I’m back to thinking about scrapping the inlay board all together and installing something else. Or, I may go against Mrs. S’s suggestion and just go ahead and let the modern and ancient MOP mix on that board, for better or worse.

I just want to be done.

Next session will be completing the harp and completing the lid.

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.

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.

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.

Saw on FB

According to one of my Facebook friends, Thelonious Sphere Monk would've been 92 this weekend. With the possible exception of Bill Evans, no other pianist has so defined the modern sound of the jazz piano. Here's a link for your enjoyment.

"Epistrophy"

Facing the Wall

My instructor gave me a “learn jazz” project that, so far, is not going well. I’ve been working on Someday My Prince Will Come. I tried writing out some interesting chord inversions, but that didn’t do much for me, so when I was about to ask him to help me with the chords, he goes, “Here’s what you do: make a Bach fugue using those chords.” Since I’m already trying to play a couple of Bach preludes as lead-ins to certain songs (like a prelude in G-minor prior to breaking into It Don’t Mean A Thing…), I didn’t think anything of it, but he appeared to be joking. Then, just as I realized he was probably joking, he realized I thought he was serious, and that was enough for him to decide it was a good idea and he said, yeah, do that. I worked on it quite a bit yesterday. I got a few of the chords moving around nicely, but nothing spectacular. I just can’t do much with the left hand other than comp right on the beat. It’s highly uninteresting, but not completely unsatisfying to listen to. As luck would have it, without consciously thinking about it, I put on Bill Evans’ Portrait in Jazz when I was out running errands Sunday, and of course, SMPWC came on. And of course, I realized how far away from accomplishing much of anything I am. Since I’m not doing well being creative on my own, I’m thinking I might start trying to work from my books of transcriptions, to see if I can’t gain some insight from them. I glanced at Bill Evans again yesterday, and it was really hard, but I think it is probably the way to go because Oscar Peterson is way out there and I don’t have many of his recordings. If I learn just a few of Bill’s chords and get used to some of the funkier inversions and variations, things will probably go more smoothly when I try to play something on my own.

I probably could also do with working on some drills. Oftentimes for me, working on mechanics actually brings the music back around to sounding good so that I feel like trying to do something with it. I could try that, I suppose.

The other problem all this presents is: I’m running out of time to prepare for an audition, or to prepare a recording of music to get considered as a pavement performer. It is starting to look like all that is going to go to the wayside.

Even jazz musicians run into walls.

Another jazz resource: Your local library

I used to go to the library quite often. For a while, I was renting two or three audio books every three weeks and plowing through them. In about a year, I pretty much wiped out everything of interest at our local library. (Yes, it is small.) After I got off the library kick, Mrs. S got on it. Since I developed an interest in jazz, she has often brought home a handful of jazz CD's that happened to catch her eye for me to listen to. Since she is not familiar with the jazz world, basically she just picks up any CD that has a "jazz" label on it. While this approach has not helped me to discover any unheard of musicians that I really liked (well, maybe Dave Grusin), it has helped me find some that I know I don't like, and it has also helped me find some rather different works from certain artists that I do like. If I like something, I note it down and buy it next chance I get. Right now I'm listening to Eliane Elias Sings and Plays Bill Evans. Now, I had never heard of Ms. Elias, but I figured if she was audacious enough to put out a CD of Bill Evans songs, she must be pretty good. (And actually, Bill's was a name Mrs. S recognized, which is why she brought this particular CD home for me.) Eliane plays pretty good. She has a nice mellow, full sound, and her voice is not fantastic but admirable and very well suited to jazz singing. Listening to her in my car, though, I thought I heard something funny. I listened more closely, and I noticed her pronunciation sounded foreign, maybe Japanese. Of course, with a name like Eliane Elias, I knew she wasn't Japanese (at least not pure Japanese), but what unusual pronunciation. I chalked it up to a bad recording. But then she got to Detour Ahead and I swear, I thought she'd turned into Elmer Fudd: "No twouble on the woad, no de-too...wah head." I started laughing out loud. Man, I felt sorry for the girl. Such talent. A decent voice. Not bad looking. Great piano chops. But, oh man, the lame English. Yikes. If I ever learn to compose jazz tunes, I promise to write her a song that contains no r's and only limited consonants. Maybe my Eliane vehicle can make her a true star...

Anyway, if you're new to jazz, take a trip to your library. They are likely to have a lot of standards by mainstream jazz musicians – what most people want to hear – and it is easy enough to steer clear of the popular stream stuff you might not (or might) be interested in (Kenny G, Michael Buble, that lot). You may even be able to find some Eliane.