ARTEMIS - Frida

‘Artemis’ Review: An All-Female Septet With Steady Aim by Larry Blumenfeld

 Larry Blumenfeld is an keen observer of the elements influencing today’s Jazz scene and it’s a privilege to have his writing grace these pages. We’ve also scheduled his review on “Monk Goes to School,” the Verve/Impulse recently released Thelonious CD, to post to the blog on Monday, October 5, 2020.

‘Artemis’ Review: An All-Female Septet With Steady Aim

The group’s self-titled debut album moves gracefully through various jazz styles.

By Larry Blumenfeld

Appeared in the September 21, 2020, print edition as 'Steady Aim From an All-Female Septet.'

Copyright ©2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 

“Back in December at Carnegie Hall, as members of the ensemble Artemis traded solos with bluesy conviction while performing Billie Holiday’s “Fine and Mellow” as an encore, many audience members rose to their feet in raucous response. Each of these seven musicians—pianist Renee Rosnes, clarinetist Anat Cohen, tenor saxophonist Melissa Aldana, trumpeter Ingrid Jensen, bassist Noriko Ueda, drummer Allison Miller and vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant—has earned individual acclaim as a bandleader, composer or sought-after partner. Together, under Ms. Rosnes’s musical direction, they revealed a shared intensity and suggested something alluring and new.

The group’s debut release, “Artemis” (Blue Note), delivers on that promise. It begins with “Goddess of the Hunt,” a piece built on an insistent pulse and featuring several unexpected harmonic detours. Ms. Miller composed it to evoke the Greek mythological figure Artemis—the paragon of female power and compassion, keen focus and steady aim for which this group is named. The following track, “Frida,” is a tense but lovely piece composed by Ms. Aldana and named for the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, whose struggles to assert herself in an arena dominated by men inspired Ms. Aldana’s 2019 album “Visions.”

Such allusions to gender dynamics are both unavoidable and meaningful. The rich history of all-female jazz groups includes, in the 1940s, the International Sweethearts of Rhythm and, more recently, a remarkable trio of pianist Geri Allen, bassist Esperanza Spalding and drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, as well as the big band Diva, in which some Artemis members have played. There is also a new context for such legacies, given recently increased opportunities for female leaders on jazz stages, more widespread recognition of their accomplishments in general, and a growing awareness of bias and inequity along gender lines. In truth, perhaps the least remarkable aspect of this group is that all of its members are female. One could argue that the demographic shift best represented by its personnel relates to jazz’s global reach: Ms. Rosnes and Ms. Jensen were born in Canada; Ms. Cohen, in Israel; Ms. Aldana, Chile; Ms. Ueda, Japan; and Ms. Salvant and Ms. Miller hail from the U.S.

The real headline here is this ensemble’s cohesion, its ability to move gracefully through various styles and moods and to sound, by turns, authoritative and playful, locked-in or loose-limbed. In the tradition of drummer Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, Artemis crafts an identifiable band sound rooted in sturdy yet flexible rhythms (which here owe greatly to Ms. Miller’s blend of propulsion and understated details) and presents an open invitation for members to compose (five of these musicians are represented by original pieces here). “Nocturno,” composed by Ms. Cohen, floats gently over a simple bass figure, its melody expressed through unison lines from clarinet, saxophone and trumpet that sometimes break apart or interlace. Ms. Ueda’s “Step Forward” is a sprightly jazz waltz in which the rhythm section calibrates its accompaniment to reed and horn solos with noteworthy sensitivity. The album’s most striking piece, Ms. Rosnes’s “Big Top,” is both challenging and funny in the manner that Charles Mingus once combined such characteristics. Ms. Jensen’s arrangement of the Lennon-McCartney classic “The Fool on the Hill” loosens the joints that bind that song’s familiar melody enough to create a more open-ended structure and darkens its mood through harmonies that occasionally dissolve into tendrils of collective improvisation.

The particular spell cast by these distinctive instrumental arrangements gets broken somewhat when Ms. Salvant sings a majestic yet relatively straightforward version of the Stevie Wonder ballad “If It’s Magic.” Nevertheless, Ms. Salvant is such a commanding and musical a presence, and Mr. Wonder’s tune so lovely in the first place, that such disruption ends up as rewarding. Better still is her knowing and bittersweet delivery on “Cry, Buttercup, Cry,” which was popularized by Maxine Sullivan in the 1940s, here complemented by glowing muted trumpet tones, moaning clarinet and throaty tenor-sax figures.

A closing version of Lee Morgan’s “The Sidewinder” doesn’t dig in hard to the song’s funky rhythm. Rather, it slithers. Meanwhile, the familiar theme is cloaked in layers of shifting close-knit harmony. Artemis means to upend expectations, gently and yet with force. Its music comes off like a nuanced argument for a fresh point of view.”

—Mr. Blumenfeld writes about jazz for the Journal.

Copyright ©2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 

Appeared in the September 21, 2020, print edition as 'Steady Aim From an All-Female Septet.'

Verve Presents: Monk Goes To School

Monk Goes to School

 The media release company Crossroads sent this promotional material to me and I thought it would be nice to share it - “as is” - with the readers of this blog. The podcast features T.S. Monk and Danny Scher talking about how it all came to be.

If you do not have one of the subscription services offered through each link, click on the YouTube icon to hear the podcast, et al.

New Podcast Tells Story of Thelonious Monk’s 1968 Visit to Palo Alto

 

featuring, T.S. Monk, Danny Scher, and Grandmixer DXT.

 

Verve Presents: Monk Goes To School

Listen Here: https://theloniousmonk.lnk.to/monkgoestoschoolPR

 

 

Verve/Impulse! Records and podcast creative studio PopCult are pleased to announce Verve Presents: Monk Goes To School, an innovative podcast that tells the story of Thelonious Monk’s storied visit, concert, and subsequent recording at Palo Alto High School in 1968. The Podcast is available on all major platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, Pandora, and more. Listen to the podcast HERE.

 

The album Palo Alto was released on September 18 and is available here: https://theloniousmonk.lnk.to/paloaltoPR

 

In the fall of 1968, a sixteen-year old high school student named Danny Scher had a dream to invite legendary jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk and his all-star quartet to perform a concert at his local high school in Palo Alto, CA. In a series of twists and turns, against a backdrop of racial tension and political volatility, that concert was recorded by the school’s janitor and finally released in 2020.

 

Verve Presents: Monk Goes To School tells this story in innovative detail, interweaving the voices of Danny Scher, Thelonius Monk’s son T.S. Monk, monk biographer Robin D.G. Kelley and engineer/mixer Grandmixer DXT with narrator Anthony Valadez from KCRW.

 

The podcast is unique in that there is no hosted interview segment – it takes the listener on an immersive journey featuring the voices of the cast, sound design and music clips from the record throughout.

 

PopCult Founder/Creative Director Dennis Scheyer says, “Once we heard the story of how the record came to be we felt that it deserved more than the usual ‘interview-based’ portrayal. It’s the kind of show we created our company to produce, and Verve fully supported us.”

 

Recorded entirely “at home” with high-quality microphones across the United States, this podcast deftly weaves through multiple voices, telling this story of Thelonious Monk, the unexpected concert, and of course, uses the music to illustrate this important part of musical history.

 

EVP of Verve/Impulse! Jamie Krents says, “We’re thrilled to collaborate with PopCult on Monk Goes to School. This podcast brilliantly captures the real story of the Palo Alto recording, and puts it in historical context with brilliant narration from all the key players.  Impulse! and Verve Records have such a rich history of music that we’re very excited to continue to illustrate in partnership with PopCult.”

 

PopCult Partner, Strategy and Marketing Lars Murray says, “We were excited to help Verve establish a leadership position among labels by creating a high-quality narrative podcast that integrates their music seamlessly and tells a great story about a landmark release. Verve demonstrated that a label's access to licensed music is a huge advantage in podcasting.”

 

Palo Alto – Thelonious Monk

1. Ruby, My Dear

2. Well, You Needn’t

3. Don’t Blame Me

4. Blue Monk

5. Epistrophy

6. I Love You Sweetheart of All My Dreams

 

About Impulse! Records:

For nearly sixty years, Impulse! Records has stood as a label of musical integrity and lasting cultural significance. Known as the “house that Trane built” in honor of its best-selling artist John Coltrane, the label produced music exciting in its experimental charge, and spiritual in its priority. Sonny Rollins, Quincy Jones, Max Roach, Ray Charles, Alice Coltrane, Keith Jarrett, Charles Mingus, Sun Ra, and Pharoah Sanders were but a few of the legendary musicians who helped define the label's sound and message. To this day, Impulse! continues to proudly wear its distinctive orange-and-black color scheme, and be home to the new vanguard of creative musicians including Shabaka Hutchings and his groups Sons of Kemet, Shabaka & the Ancestors, and the psychedelic jazz trio The Comet Is Coming. 

What Kind of Bird Is This? - The Eric Ineke JazzXpress featuring Tineke Postma

 © Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“... History fosters temporal illusions, fractured perspectives. Time, like jazz, speeds up, slows down, and circles back on itself. Growing up, I thought westerns depicted an ancient epoch until I learned that Wyatt Earp was alive to hear Louis Armstrong's Hot Seven and read about Lindbergh crossing the Atlantic. In short, Parker is our contemporary. You can speak to people who spoke to him; not nearly as many as when I wrote this book, but quite a few. Age and custom have not dimmed the brilliance of his art, which, forged virtually in secret, illumined a panicky postwar world. Charlie Parker and his peers, shoulders to the wheel, inspiration through the roof, created the bedrock of modern jazz, its aspirations and language. We hear him more than we know.”

- Gary Giddins, Celebrating Bird: The Triumph of Charlie Parker, Rev Ed. [2013; emphasis mine]

And now thanks to the recent release of What Kind of Bird Is This? - The JazzXpress featuring Tineke Postma [Challenge CR73512] we get to hear drummer Eric Ineke and alto saxophonist Tineke Postma in the company of a group of excellent musicians based in The Netherlands render their interpretation of Bird’s music as part of an international celebration of the 100th anniversary of Charlie Parker’s birth in 1920.

In addition to Eric and Tineke and JazzXpress regular members Sjoerd Dijkhuizen and bassist Marius Beets, newcomer Ian Cleaver takes on the trumpet chair and piano duties in the quintet are shared by three stalwarts of the straight-ahead Jazz scene in Holland: Peter Beets, Rein de Graaff, and Rob Agerbeek.

Of the 12 tracks on the album, seven are Parker compositions and the other five are comprised of two Jazz standards closely identified with Bird - Lover Man and Just Friends - two originals composed by Marius and trumpeter Howard McGhee’s Stupendous, a title which serves as a fitting tribute to the size of the footprint that Parker left on the development of modern Jazz in the second half of the 20th century.

The two standards are played straight-up while the remaining tracks are all arranged by either Marius Beets or Sjoerd Dijkhuizen with pianist Rob van Bavel, a long time member of previous JazzXpress quintets, doing the arranging honors on the opening cut - Relaxin’ at Camarillo.

In case you're wondering how a group of musicians so far removed - both chronologically and geographically - could do justice to the music of a Jazz Giant whose career ended with his death so long ago [1955] - start with alto saxophonist Tinke Postma rendering of Lover Man backed only by Marius on bass and Eric on drums and all your concerns about the continuity of the Parker tradition in a 21st century setting will be allayed. Bird’s gotta be up there smiling at Tineke’s marvelous reimagining of the song displays all of the risk-taking so closely associated with Bird’s soloing and the cadenza she uses to close the trio’s interpretation is as technically astute as it is heartfelt.

A lot of work went into the making of this recording; it wasn’t just slapped together and shoved into the market to capitalize on the centenary of Bird’s birth. What also helps to establish its uniqueness is the fact that:

“ ...Eric Ineke has passed by Parker's most popular tunes, like Now's The Time, Scrapple From The Apple and Bitiie's Bounce, choosing instead themes that are rarely played today such as Bongo Beep, Merry Go Round and Steeplechase.

Two of the pieces are composed by Marius Beets. Birdie Num Num is his variation on Charlie Parker's classic Confirmation. The title tune What Kinda Bird Is This? is a playful exercise in Parkeriana. The intro alludes to Moose the Mooche, but after that the performance switches to the chord changes of Cole Porter's What Is This Thing Called Love, which in turn formed the basis of Tadd Darmeron's Hot House, a linchpin in the Parker repertory.” - Bert Vuijsje, insert notes]

As one has come to expect with all JazzXpress albums, Marius Beets is the central element linking all aspects of the recording: from the driving bass lines which are essential in support of Eric central axiom for the quintet’s music - “it must always swing” - to the clever arrangements he provides for half of the tracks on the album as well as writing two original take offs on Bird tunes including the title track, to serving as the recording and mastering engineer for the project. The word “indispensable” comes to mind when one considers Marius' efforts on behalf of What Kind of Bird Is This? - The JazzXpress featuring Tineke Postma.  

If Marius is a constant presence in the JazzXpress, it was nice hear the arrival of some new faces in the group in the form of trumpeter Ian Cleaver and alto saxophonist Tineke Postma, the latter in part added to bring an E-flat sonority to the project in the form of an alto saxophone - Parker’s instrument of choice.

However, it should be stressed that Tineke is no newcomer to the Dutch Jazz scene in general. Born in 1978, she started playing saxophone, flute and piano at age of 9 and was immediately attracted to Jazz and Pop music. After finishing her Bachelor’s degree in Jazz music, she graduated cum laude in June 2003 from the Masters program at the Conservatory of Amsterdam. During her work on her Masters, Tineke received two scholarships to study at the Manhattan School of Music where she worked with Dick Oatts, Dave Lieberman, Chris Potter and Gary Dial.

Tineke’s debut album First Avenue was released at the North Sea Jazz Festival in 2004. For The Rhythm followed in 2005 and featured her with Edoardo Righini [guitar], Rob van Bavel [piano], Darryl Hall [bass] and Teri Lynn Carrington [drums]. 

I first heard her on a 2004 Dutch FM radio broadcast with The Metropole Orchestra under the direction of Dick Bakker on which she performed arrangements written by Jeff Beale, Mike Abene, Henk Meutgeert and Vince Mendoza on both soprano and alto saxophone. This was followed by Dutch FM radio broadcasts of her performances at The Bimhuis in Amsterdam in 2005 with some of the cream-of-the-crop of Jazz musicians based in The Netherlands including trombonist Ilja Reijngoud, guitarist Martijn van Iterson, pianist Ron van Bavel, bassist Jeroen Vierdag, and drummer Marcel Serierse.

What’s especially fun about listening to Tineke on this disc is hearing her improvise on bebop changes in a straight-ahead setting as she usually plays in a freer format and style similar at times to that employed by Jane Ira Bloom when she’s on soprano sax.

Another unexpected “plus” is that in the absence of Rob van Bavel from his usual place on the piano bench, Eric brought in three [!] alternating pianists: Peter Beets, Rob Agerbeek and Rein De Graaff [with whom he has worked as a member of his trio for over 50 years backing notable Jazz musicians performing at concert and club venues throughout Holland and Europe].

Peter’s approach to piano is technically in line with that of Oscar Peterson while Rein’s take on the instrument is more of a blend of the approach favored by Barry Harris, Tommy Flanagan and Hank Jones. Rob Agerbeek is featured on only one track and he lays down some soulful funk on Marius’ playful arrangement of Bongo Beep.

And then there’s Sjoerd Dijkhuizen who’s big, boastful tenor sax sound brings up memories of Al Cohn with more than a little Zoot Sims swing to lift each of the ten tracks that he plays on to exciting levels of intensity. Sjoerd is reminiscent of those big horn guys who just “plant their feet and bring it;” there's no holding back with Sjoerd.

Keeping it all together and swinging it from beginning to end is drummer Eric Ineke who personifies the drummer as accompanist. He lifts, drives, propels, pushes, supports and kicks the music forward unrelentingly in a manner that brings to mind the drummers that played with Charlie Parker including Kenny Clarke, Stan Levey, Joe Harris, Art Blakey, Shadow Wilson, Max Roach, and Roy Haynes.

Although you’ve probably heard Parker tunes such as Relaxin’ at Camarillo, Steeplechase and Ah-Leu-Cha on many occasions, the intriguing and artful arrangements by Marius, Rob and Sjoerd give them a freshness and a clarity that makes Parker’s music sound vital and vigorous once again in these interpretations by Eric Ineke’s JazzXpress.

Every aspect of this recording represents what Jazz in its best form should be - melodic, harmonic and rhythmic exploration - seeking new ways to interpret familiar tunes and songs as a basis for expressing new improvisations. Bird’s music may be the catalyst, but Eric Ineke’s band - the Jazz Express featuring Tineke Postma - puts its own mark, very distinctive on his music.

As I have previously noted, during a particularly difficult time for performing artists, it’s nice to have the opportunity to help support them by purchasing their recordings. Everyone stays safe and all of those concerned with making the recording pick up some schimolies while enriching your soul with their artistry. Maybe it’s our small way of becoming a “patron of the arts.”

In closing, a word of appreciation should also be expressed to the fine folks at Challenge Records for their continuing support of Eric and the musicians, past and present, who make up the JazzXpress. If I’m not mistaken, this is their seventh album together. 

Tineke has her own website which you can visit by going here and Eric’s URL can be located here.

Eric Ineke JazzXpress ft. Tineke Postma - "What Kinda Bird Is This?” - P...

Stan Getz & Gerry Mulligan - That Old Feeling

Dexter Gordon, Wardell Gray - The Chase

Dave Brubeck Quartet - Time Outakes

 © Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

Many visitors to these pages are great fans of the Dave Brubeck Quartet and I thought you might want to know about this new recording which will be available on December 4, 2020.

''Time OutTakes'' is Previously Unreleased Takes from the Original 1959 Sessions master tapes. Never before released.

These newly discovered recordings feature wonderful performances that are every bit as compelling as those on the original Time Out. We discovered that during the original 1959 sessions the Quartet also recorded ''I'm In a Dancing Mood'' and an unlisted trio jam with a major drum solo that included snatches of the melody from ''Watusi Drums.'' Two tracks from Time Out, ''Pick Up Sticks'' and ''Everybody's Jumpin,'' were achieved in one take so no alternates exist to include here. These 7 new performances (and bonus track) are fascinating finds.

-Chris Brubeck

We've all heard Dave Brubeck's Time Out - but never quite like this. You'll hear Dave Brubeck's signature pieces afresh and anew. Listening to this album will make you rediscover why you fell in love with The Dave Brubeck Quartet featuring Paul Desmond, Joe Morello and Eugene Wright. This is mesmerizing music.

- Kabir Sehgal, Grammy Award Winning Producer

Once the Dave Brubeck Quartet released Time Out in 1959, the world of jazz was never the same. Every note of the seven original compositions soared with wild originality and trained musical genius. ''Take Five'' became the best-selling jazz single of the twentieth century. I've often wondered how this work of genius came to fruition in the studio? How did Brubeck develop such chemistry with alto-saxophonist Paul Desmond? Now the mysteries are solved with the historic release of Time OutTakes T(alternative takes to the masterpiece that blew the hinges off the doors of jazz). What a high privilege it is to be able to be in the studio with the quartet as they innovate using 9/8, 5/4 and 2 bars of 3/4 alternating with 2 bars of 4/4 on such classics as ''Blue Rondo a la Turk'' and ''Three to Get Ready.'' All listeners of Time OutTakes will experience the Cold War era jazz revolution as it unfolded. What joyous music for the ages!

- Douglas Brinkley, CNN historian and Grammy-winning jazz producer.

Track List:
1 Blue Rondo a la Turk
2 Strange Meadowlark
3 Take Five
4 Three To Get Ready
5 Cathy's Waltz
6 I'm In A Dancing Mood
7 Watusi Jam
8 Band Banter from the 1959 Recording Sessions

Review

“''Take Five,'' a 1959 track by the Dave Brubeck Quartet, was always a musical oddity: a swinging, instantly catchy jazz piece written in the uncommon time signature of 5/4. But it was also a huge hit and the first platinum-selling single in jazz history.

Roughly 61 years after the release of ''Take Five'' on Brubeck's Time Out album, the late pianist s estate will release TimeOutTakes, a new album of previously unreleased alternate versions of pieces from the iconic LP...

On the alternate version, you can hear how the band is still acclimating to the feel of the piece's 5/4 rhythm. They play the tune faster than on the familiar take and drummer Joe Morello hadn't yet settled into the famously relaxed beat that made the five-beat structure feel so natural. You can also hear alto saxophonist Paul Desmond, who composed ''Take Five,'' getting used to improvising on the tune. In his drum solo, Morello sticks close to the rhythm of Brubeck's ''1, 2, 3; 1, 2'' piano vamp, slowly building up density and excitement as he goes. Whereas on the final, Brubeck and bassist Eugene Wright play behind Morello's feature, here the drummer takes the spotlight alone.

''It's fascinating to hear on this track that the iconic drum beat wasn't set yet and Joe Morello was playing a very syncopated Latin beat,'' said multi-instrumentalist Chris Brubeck, one of the pianist's sons and musical collaborators, in a release of the early ''Take Five.'' ''Even alto saxophonist Paul Desmond had not yet settled on a consistent melody,'' he added.

The tapes that make up Time OutTakes originally came to light while author Philip Clark was researching A Life in Time, a biography of Brubeck released this past February in honor of the pianist's centennial year. The record will be released on December 4th, two days before the 100th anniversary of Brubeck's birth.

Along with the alternate ''Take Five,'' Time OutTakes will feature previously unreleased versions of several other pieces from the original Time Out LP, including ''Blue Rondo à la Turk,'' a piece inspired by a rhythm that Brubeck heard a street musician playing in Turkey while on a State Department tour. It also includes two tunes not heard on the original album: ''I m in a Dancing Mood,'' a piece from the Thirties musical This'll Make You Whistle, and ''Watusi Jam,'' a trio performance sans Desmond based on the piece ''Watusi Drums,'' heard on the 1958 live album The Dave Brubeck Quartet in Europe.”

By Hank Shteamer --Rolling Stone, September 23, 2020
 

Take Five – Time OutTakes (Previously Unreleased Takes from the Original Time Out LP)

JLCO Big Band B 3 Joey DeFrancesco Peter and the wolf 2019

Ceora

Mulgrew Miller: “Living in the Shadows of Giants”

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

“Don’t cross a bridge to get home or to work:” I guess the expression contains more than a hint of caution and admonition, especially if you’ve lived some time in the San Francisco Bay area and seen the nightmarish traffic back-ups a closed bridge can cause on the local, television news.

Thankfully, I never experienced such a delay in all the years I lived and worked in San Francisco,

But I sure caught a taste of what such an experience would be like as I was headed north back to the Oakland, CA airport to catch a return flight to my relocated home in southern California following some business appointments in the Silicon Valley.

A major accident on the Bay Bridge between San Francisco and Oakland had caused a traffic back-up so serious that it extended south on US 880 to about 10 miles below the airport.

The was no alternative and plenty of later flights so I just relaxed and turned on the FM-Jazz station while I waited things out in the rental car that was crawling along at death-defying speed of 3 MPH.

The radio broadcast that I tuned into was an interview with pianist Mulgrew Miller who was appearing through the upcoming weekend with his trio at Yoshi’s Jazz Club located on a portion of the waterfront which the City of Oakland had reclaimed from surplus shipping docks and refurbished into a lovely commercial-cum-residential area.

I knew of Mulgrew’s work through recordings he had made during his long association with drummer Tony Williams’ quintet in the 1980s and 1990s, but I had never heard him play in person.

He sounded very warm and cordial during the radio interview and I thought, “Well, at the rate things are going with the crawling traffic, maybe I’ll just book into a local hotel and catch one of Mulgrew’s sets at Yoshi’s.”

Of all the remarks Mulgrew made during the exchange with the interviewer, one stayed with me: “It’s tough to get any recognition as a Jazz musician today because we are living in the shadow of Giants.”

This is not verbatim, but earlier in his talk, Mulgrew had said that many of the pianists  during the bebop era, for example Al Haig, Joe Albany, Dodo Marmarosa, John Lewis, and even some pianists during the later hard bop era like Sonny Clark, Horace Silver and Walter Bishop, Jr., were not original stylists.

They basically played in the manner of Bud Powell and gained a certain measure of recognition and approval for being able to do so.

But musicians like himself, who continue in this bebop piano tradition and perhaps add some of the newer influences like Ahmad Jamal, McCoy Tyner or Keith Jarrett to their approach get little respect because we are not “… the next Bud Powell or Art Tatum or Bill Evans.”

“Why? Not all of us can be giants like Bud and Art or Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. We are doing our part to keep the Jazz tradition alive and even move it forward a little, but we get little respect for what we do accomplish and put down for what we don’t.”

None of this was conveyed with animosity by Mulgrew, but you could certainly sense his disappointment and his displeasure.

The interview then trailed off and was replaced by the playing of one of Mulgrew’s recordings in its entirety.

By some miracle I was just pulling into the hired car parking lot when the interviewer returned so I did not get to hear the rest of Mulgrew’s talk.

The following year The Mulgrew Miller Trio Live at Yoshi’s was issued as a double CD on MaxJazz [[MXJ 212/208] and I picked up a copy along with the March 1, 2005 edition of Downbeat in which the following article about Mulgrew by Ted Panken appeared.

Mulgrew passed away on May 28, 2013 and the editorial staff at JazzProfiles thought it might be nice to remember him on these pages with a reprint of his Downbeat interview and the Nat Chinen obituary that was published in The New York Times.  

Copyright © Downbeat/Ted Panken/2005 Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved.

Mulgrew Miller: No Apologies 

“Ironies abound in the world of Mulgrew Miller. On the one hand, the 49-year-old pianist is, as Eric Reed pointed out, "the most imitated pianist of the last 25 years." On the other, he finds it difficult to translate his exalted status into full-blown acceptance from the jazz business.

"It's a funny thing about my career," Miller said. "Promoters won't hire my band, but they'll book me as a sideman and make that the selling point of the gig. That boggles my mind."

Miller would seem to possess unsurpassed qualifications for leadership. As the 2004 trio release Live At Yoshi's (MaxJazz) makes evident, no pianist of Miller's generation brings such a wide stylistic palette to the table. A resolute modernist with an old-school attitude, he's assimilated the pentagonal contemporary canon of Bill Evans, McCoy Tyner, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea and Keith Jarrett, as well as Woody Shaw's harmonic innovations, and created a fluid personal argot.

His concept draws on such piano-as-orchestra signposts as Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson, Ahmad Jamal and Erroll Garner, the "blowing piano" of Bud Powell, the disjunctive syncopations and voicings of Thelonious Monk, and the melodic ingenuity of gums like Hank Jones, Tommy Flanagan and Cedar Walton. With technique to burn, he finds ways to conjure beauty from pentatonics and odd intervals, infusing his lines with church and blues strains and propelling them with a joyous, incessant beat.

"I played with some of the greatest swinging people who ever played jazz, and I want to get the quality of feeling I heard with them," Miller said. "It's a sublime way to play music, and the most creative way to express myself. You can be both as intellectual and as soulful as you want, and the swing beat is powerful but subtle. I think you have to devote yourself to it exclusively to do it at that level."

Consequential apprenticeships with the Mercer Ellington Orchestra, Betty Carter, Johnny Griffin and Shaw launched Miller's career. A 1983-'86 stint with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers put his name on the map, and he cemented his reputation during a long association with Tony Williams' great cuspof-the-'90s band, a sink-or-swim environment in which Miller thrived, playing, as pianist Anthony Wonsey recalls, "with fire but also the maturity of not rushing."

By the mid '80s, Miller was a fixture on New York's saloon scene. Later, he sidemanned extensively with Bobby Hutcherson, Benny Golson, James Moody and Joe Lovano, and from 1987 to 1996 he recorded nine trio and ensemble albums for Landmark and RCANovus.

Not long after his 40th birthday, Miller resolved to eschew club dates and one-offs, and to focus on his own original music. There followed a six-year recording hiatus, as companies snapped up young artists with tenuous ties to the legacy of hardcore jazz.

"I won't call any names," Miller says, "but a lot of people do what a friend of mine calls 'interview music.' You do something that's obviously different, and you get the interviews and a certain amount of attention. Jazz is part progressive art and part folk art, and I've observed it to be heavily critiqued by people who attribute progressivity to music that lacks a folk element. When Charlie Parker developed his great conception, the folk element was the same as Lester Young and the blues shouters before him. Even when Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane played their conceptions, the folk element was intact. But now, people almost get applauded if they don't include that in their expression. If I reflected a heavy involvement in Arnold Schoenberg or some other ultra-modern composers, then I would be viewed differently than I am. Guys who do what I am doing are viewed as passé.

"A lot of today's musicians learn the rudiments of playing straight-ahead, think they've got it covered, become bored, and say, 'Let me try something else,'" Miller continued. "They develop a vision of expanding through different areas - reggae here, hip-hop there, blues here, soul there, classical music over here and being able to function at a certain level within all those styles. Rather than try to do a lot of things pretty good, I have a vision more of spiraling down to a core understanding of the essence of what music is."

This being said, Miller-who once wrote a lovely tune called "Farewell To Dogma" -continues to adhere to the principle that "there is no one way to play jazz piano and no one way that jazz is supposed to sound." He is not to be confused with the jazz police. His drummer, Karriem Riggins, has a second career as a hip-hop producer, and has at his fingertips a lexicon of up-to-the-second beats. When the urge strikes, bassist Derrick Hodge might deviate from a walking bass line to slap the bass Larry Graham style. It's an approach familiar to Miller, who grew up in Greenwood, Miss., playing the music of James Brown, Aretha Franklin and Al Green in various Upper Delta cover bands.

"It still hits me where I live," he says. "It's Black music. That's my roots. When I go home, they all know me as the church organist from years ago, so it's nothing for me to walk up to the organ and fit right in. I once discussed my early involvement in music with Abdullah Ibrahim, and he described what I went through as a community-based experience. Before I became or wanted to become a jazz player, I played in church, in school plays, for dances and for cocktail parties. I was already improvising, and always on some level it was emotional or soul or whatever you want to call it. I was finding out how to connect with people through music.

"By now, I have played jazz twice as long as I played popular music, and although that style of playing is part of my basic musical being, I don't particularly feel that I need to express myself through it," he continued. "It's all blues. The folk element of the music doesn't change. The blues in 1995 and in 1925 is the same thing. The technology is different. But the chords are the same, the phrasing is the same, the language is the same-exact same. I grew up on that. It's a folk music. Folk music is not concerned with evolving."

For all his devotion to roots, Miller is adamant that expansion and evolution are key imperatives that drive his tonal personality. "I left my hometown to grow, and early on I intended to embrace as many styles and conceptions as I could," he said. "When I came to New York I had my favorites, but there was a less celebrated, also brilliant tier of pianists who played the duo rooms, and I tried to hear all of those guys and learn from them. The sound of my bands changes as the musicians expand in their own right. I'm open, and all things are open to interpretation. I trust my musicians-their musicianship, insights, judgments and taste-and they tend to bring things off in whatever direction they want to go. In the best groups I played with, spontaneity certainly was a strong element."

Quiet and laid-back, determined to follow his muse, Miller may never attain mass consumption. But he remains sanguine.

"I have moments, but I don't allow myself to stay discouraged for long," he said. "I worked hard to maintain a certain mental and emotional equilibrium. It's mostly due to my faith. I don't put all my eggs in that basket of being a rich and famous jazz guy. That allows me a certain amount of freedom, because I don't have to play music for money. I play music because I love it. I play the music I love with people I want to play with. I have a long career behind me. I don't have to apologize to anybody for any decisions I make." -Ted Panken” 

Mulgrew Miller, Dynamic Jazz Pianist, Dies at 57

Copyright © The New York Times/Nate Chinen/May 29, 2013.

“Mulgrew Miller, a jazz pianist whose soulful erudition, clarity of touch and rhythmic aplomb made him a fixture in the postbop mainstream for more than 30 years, died on Wednesday in Allentown, Pa. He was 57.

The cause was a stroke, said his longtime manager, Mark Gurley. Mr. Miller had been hospitalized since Friday.

Mr. Miller developed his voice in the 1970s, combining the bright precision of bebop, as exemplified by Bud Powell and Oscar Peterson, with the clattering intrigue of modal jazz, especially as defined by McCoy Tyner. His balanced but assertive style was a model of fluency, lucidity and bounce, and it influenced more than a generation of younger pianists.

He was a widely respected bandleader, working either with a trio or with the group he called Wingspan, after the title of his second album. The blend of alto saxophone and vibraphone on that album, released on Landmark Records in 1987, appealed enough to Mr. Miller that he revived it in 2002 on “The Sequel” (MaxJazz), working in both cases with the vibraphonist Steve Nelson. Among Mr. Miller’s releases in the last decade were an impeccable solo piano album and four live albums featuring his dynamic trio.

Mr. Miller could seem physically imposing on the bandstand — he stood taller than six feet, with a sturdy build — but his temperament was warm and gentlemanly. He was a dedicated mentor: his bands over the last decade included musicians in their 20s, and since 2005 he had been the director of jazz studies at William Paterson University in New Jersey.

If his sideman credentials overshadowed his solo career, it wasn’t hard to see why: he played on hundreds of albums and worked in a series of celebrated bands. His most visible recent work had been with the bassist Ron Carter, whose chamberlike Golden Striker Trio featured Mr. Miller and the guitarist Russell Malone on equal footing; the group released a live album, “San Sebastian” (In+Out), this year.

Born in Greenwood, Miss., on Aug. 13, 1955, Mr. Miller grew up immersed in Delta blues and gospel music. After picking out hymns by ear at the family piano, he began taking lessons at age 8. He played the organ in church and worked in soul cover bands, but devoted himself to jazz after seeing Mr. Peterson on television, a moment he later described as pivotal.

At Memphis State University, he befriended two pianists, James Williams and Donald Brown, both of whom later preceded him in Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. Mr. Miller spent several years with that band, just as he did with the trumpeter Woody Shaw, the singer Betty Carter and the Duke Ellington Orchestra, led by Ellington’s son, Mercer. Mr. Miller worked in an acclaimed quintet led by the drummer Tony Williams from the mid-1980s until shortly before Williams died in 1997.

Mr. Miller’s survivors include his wife, Tanya; his son, Darnell; his daughter, Leilani; and a grandson. He lived in Easton, Pa.

Though he harbored few resentments, Mr. Miller was clear about the limitations imposed on his career. “Jazz is part progressive art and part folk art,” he said in a 2005 interview with DownBeat magazine, differentiating his own unassuming style from the concept-laden, critically acclaimed fare that he described as “interview music.” He added, “Guys who do what I am doing are viewed as passé.”

But Mr. Miller worked with so many celebrated peers, like the alto saxophonist Kenny Garrett and the tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano, that his reputation among musicians was ironclad. And his legacy includes a formative imprint on some leading players of the next wave, including the drummer Karriem Riggins and the bassist Derrick Hodge, who were in one of his trios. The pianist Robert Glasper once recorded an original ballad called “One for ’Grew,” paying homage to a primary influence. On Monday, another prominent pianist, Geoffrey Keezer, attested on Twitter that seeing Mr. Miller one evening in 1986 was “what made me want to be a piano player professionally.”

In the performance from the At Yoshi’s 2004 double CD that forms the sound track for this video tribute to him, Mulgrew has cleverly adopted Comes Love to the arrangement Ahmad Jamal used on Poinciana from his At The Pershing Room Argo LP, one of the most successful Jazz recordings ever issued.

The insistent rhythm is formed by Karriem Riggins use of mallets on the drum set’s tom toms and the insistent accent played by the high hat on the 2^nd and 4^th beat of each measure.

On the original version, instead of the usual “clicking” sound made by stepping on the high hat’s cymbals to close them, Ahmad’s drummer, Vernel Fournier, played the high hat cymbals open [barely touching them together] creating more of a “chinging” sound to simulate finger cymbals.

You can hear this effect in a more pronounced manner as played by Karriem at 4:21 minutes of Mulgrew’s version.