Alone Together with Rein de Graaff and The Metropole Orchestra

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“Rein de Graaff is a man of contrasts. He is one of Europe's foremost jazz musicians, but he describes himself as "a jazz fan who happens to play the piano." He turned down many offers to go on tour with American stars like Sonny Stitt and Archie Shepp because he has not much time to travel; he is a businessman on weekdays who gigs only in the weekends.

He will explain to you at length that he considers himself a jazz musician rather than a pianist: "I don't play the piano like a pianist does. I comp like a drummer and play single-note lines like a horn player." However, he has recorded some of the most fluent, swinging and beautiful piano solos I've ever heard in the Low Countries.”

- Jeroen de Valk, Jazz author and critic

Although, the general focus of most of the postings to JazzProfiles is about Jazz musicians and Jazz styles, there are occasions in which we like to spend time with Jazz interpretations of our favorite tunes.

Or to put it another way, no tunes, no Jazz for as the late bassist Charles Mingus stated: “You’ve got to improvise on something.”

As Charles implies it’s all intertwined as one thing leads to another and I generally find myself recounting who the Jazz musician or Jazz group is that’s performed one of my favorite tunes.

Or to rework the tile of this piece a little, Alone But Together; you really can’t separate the Jazz musician from his/her music.

Which brings me to a tune that has always fascinated me - Alone Together.

These excerpts from Ted Gioia’s continually fascinating The Jazz Standards: A Guide to the Repertoire go a long way toward explaining why.

“Alone Together - Composed by Arthur Schwartz, with lyrics by Howard Dietz

“At 14, Arthur Schwartz played piano accompaniment to silent films in his native Brooklyn, and from an early age he showed a knack for writing his own songs. At his father's urging, though, Schwartz put music on the back burner and pursued a career in law. With degrees from NYU and Columbia in hand, he was admitted to the New York bar in 1924, and practiced law for four years before turning his back on the legal profession to work full-time as a songwriter. Around that same time Schwartz met up with lyricist Howard Dietz, another Columbia University alum (where Dietz had been a classmate of Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein), and the following year they launched their first Broadway production, the successful revue The Little Show. ...

Alone Together made its debut in the 1932 show Flying Colors, which closed as a financial failure after 188 performances, ...The song fared better than the show, however, and Leo Reisman enjoyed a top 10 hit with his recording that same year.

"Alone Together" has an unusual form, with a 14-bar A theme that resolves surprisingly in the tonic major, but in the last restatement is truncated to 12 bars that conclude in the minor. The form can confuse the uninitiated, and don't be surprised if you hear the pianist at the cocktail bar try to squeeze "Alone Together" into a standard 32-bar AABA form. Yet I suspect that the very peculiarities in the composition, especially the major-minor ambiguity, account for much of the appeal to improvisers.

Artie Shaw played the key role in establishing "Alone Together" as a jazz standard, recording it with his band in 1939,  … When Dizzy Gillespie recorded "Alone Together" in 1950, he followed the Shaw playbook with a somber rendition over string accompaniment. Miles Davis adopted a far more modernistic approach in his 1955 recording, with the countermelodies and shifting rhythms bearing more the stamp of Charles Mingus (who was bassist on this date) than the trumpeter.

The personality of this song would change gradually over the years, as it lost its exotic, mood music origins and emerged as a dark, minor-key song in a straight swing rhythm. In the right arrangement, "Alone Together" can sound like a hard bop chart written for a Blue Note session. In fact, given the dark, brooding quality of the tune, I'm surprised it didn't show up on more Blue Note dates, but when it did (as on Stanley Turrentine's 1966 session with McCoy Tyner for the Easy Walker date), it fit perfectly with the grit and groove of the proceedings. Sonny Rollins takes a similar tack on his 1958 performance for the Contemporary label [Sonny Rollins and the Contemporary Leaders].

The composition is still typically performed at a medium tempo, not much different from what Leo Reisman offered back in 1932 — although usually more medium-fast than medium-slow nowadays. But fast, aggressive versions are increasingly common —.”

The version of Alone Together that prompted the development of this feature is the one that Dutch Jazz pianist Rein de Graaff recorded on October 3, 1992 in Hilversum, The Netherlands with The Metropole Orchestra conducted by the renown Rob Pronk.

You can located in it on the Timeless CD Nostalgia [SJP 429] which is a compilation CD made up of five tracks with Rein performing with the Metropole in 1992, two tracks of Rein performing with Barry Harris in Groningen, Holland in 1991 with a rhythm section of Koos Serierse on bass and Eric Ineke on drums and four tracks recorded in 1994 in Monster Holland, with alto saxophonists Gary Foster and Marco Kegel and Rein, Koos and Eric.

Thanks to some visits together during his recent trips to the United States, I’ve had the opportunity to get to know Rein somewhat. In conversation - by the way, his English is better than mine, - he is soft-spoken, extremely polite and mild-mannered. He loves “a piece of bread” with all manner of food and in a conversation over a meal he is relaxed, unassuming and an attentive listener; although I suspect that on the subject of most things to do with bebop, he could finish my sentences for me, but demurrers [did I mention that he was polite?].

But all of that vanishes when he sits down at a piano keyboard and becomes a take-no-prisoners, monster improviser who is capable of unfurling line after line of dotted eighth note, syncopated melodies that are loaded with bebop licks that you’ve heard before, but never quite combined in this manner. He becomes an original by the way in which he weaves together the unoriginal as he tries to get as close as possible to the nirvana of interlacing chorus after chorus of uninterrupted improvisations [what Jazz musicians referred to as “lines”]. Sometimes, ideas seem to come to him so fast and furious that he can barely put them together before moving on to the next set of musical thoughts or suggestions. It’s like he’s managed to memorize every piece of bebop ever played in the past, deconstruct them and put them together in a new and different way - instantaneously.

And he doesn’t rush - he pushes the time because he plays ahead of the beat - but he doesn’t rush.

In listening to a lot of Rein’s recordings lately [he’s sending me more!!] - I always suspected that one of the keys to his success as an improvisor was his ability to chose the right tempo to play the tunes he favors.

And what do you know, he confirmed this in a recent conversation about his playing on the tune Flamingo on a CD that he along with Marius Beets [pronounced Bates in English] on bass and Eric Ineke on drums made with tenor saxophonist Scott Hamilton. [You can find this track in a video montage at the end of this piece.]

I was sharing with him how the sequence of choruses he plays on this eleven [11] minute track had literally reduced me to giggles they were so good when he blurted out - “It’s the tempo!”

Bingo! - the implication being that the tempo was just right in leaving him time to think and connect one well-constructed, improvised line [melody] with the next.

Of course, notwithstanding his incredible talent, I imagine it helps to have been doing this for 50 years!!

Jeroen de Valk who recently published a revised and expanded biography of trumpeter Chet Baker wrote these insert notes for the Nostalgia  CD.

“Rein de Graaff is a man of contrasts. He is one of Europe's foremost jazz musicians, but he describes himself as "a jazz fan who happens to play the piano." He turned down many offers to go on tour with American stars like Sonny Stitt and Archie Shepp because he has not much time to travel; he is a businessman on weekdays who gigs only in the weekends.

He will explain to you at length that he considers himself a jazz musician rather than a pianist: "I don't play the piano like a pianist does. I comp like a drummer and play single-note lines like a horn player." However, he has recorded some of the most fluent, swinging and beautiful piano solos I've ever heard in the Low Countries.

The most astonishing aspect of Rein's artistry is his understanding of the bebop language. He is almost entirely self-taught as a pianist and has been living most of his life in a small town in the north of the Netherlands. But when he visited New York for the first time as a young man, he felt at home right away. At a jam session in Harlem, a big fat mamma from this black neighbourhood hugged him warmly, with tears in her eyes. "You sound like a black man!", she shouted. This was obviously the highest praise that could possibly be bestowed on Rein.

Although it may sound weird, it is perhaps his jazz fan status that makes him sound so consistently inspired and professional. He makes music because he loves to do it and for no other reason. Music is for him, to quote Zoot Sims, "serious fun". He always plays with at least a hundred per cent dedication.

On this record, you hear what Rein does: playing bebop piano. While listening to the duo-tracks with Rein's favourite pianist, bebop master Barry Harris, you will notice how much they sound alike. Their solos are characterized by clarity; each phrase is a small melody with a beginning, a middle and an end.

Rein plays the first seven choruses in Au Privave, Barry the next five. Then they alternate eight choruses, followed by 'fours' until the last theme. In the next tune, you hear

Rein plays Nostalgia and Barry Casbah, two tunes based on the chords of Out of Nowhere. Barry plays two choruses, Rein the next two. Then they take half a chorus each, they alternate 'eights' for one chorus, followed by a chorus of 'fours'.

Another passion of Rein's is the musical world of Lennie Tristano, the legendary pianist, composer and guru of the cool school who died in 1978 at the age of 59. In four tracks, he plays with two alto saxophonists who know a thing or two about Tristano's concept: Gary Foster from LA (right channel) and Marco Kegel, a 22-year-old from Holland. Their collective improvisations will remind you of Warne Marsh and Lee Konitz, Tristano's great saxophone team.

As usual, the themes are complicated lines, based on standards. Tristano used to say: "That's our link to the people." Ablution is All the Things You Are. Lennie's Pennies is Pennies from Heaven (in a minor key, for a change), Dreamstepper is You Stepped out of a Dream and Subconscious-Lee is What Is this Thing Called Love. The rhythm section is once again Koos Serierse (bass) and Eric Ineke (drums). They have been working with Rein for almost twenty years.

In the first five tracks. Rein is featured soloist with the Metropole Orchestra. The arrangements, written by Dolf de Vries (Alone Together),  Rob Pronk (How High the Moon, I Cover the Waterfront), Henk Meutgeert (Afternoon in Paris} and Lex Jasper (Cherokee), are just right for this combination: relaxed and inspiring. They give the rhythm section room to swing, allow the horns and strings to phrase as one man, and Rein to improvise freely at great length.

Rein sounds as if he has been working with these experienced studio musicians for a hundred years. Listen to him playing bebop piano. He is brilliant.”

• Jeroen de Valk