Dave Holland 5tet - Metamorphos [1999]

The musicianship on display in this video by Dave Holland on bass, Billy Kilson on drums, Steve Nelson on vibes, Robin Eubanks on trombone and Chris Potter, making a rare appearance on alto saxophone, his original instrument, is awesome to behold. Program music based around tonal points, chromaticism, motifs and riffs and rhythms. It's the way a lot of young guys hear the music these days. Stick around for Chris' solo beginning at 9:14 minutes. Charles Mingus must be smiling. The tune is Prime Detective.

Bobby, Roger and The Animals

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

Ahmet Ertegun, one of the co-founders of Atlantic Records, was a big supporter of Rhythm and Blues music as well as a devotee of Rock ‘n Roll in its fledgling years.

His brother, Nesuhi, produced Jazz recordings for the Atlantic label including the Modern Jazz Quartet’s No Sun in Venice and Pyramid, John Coltrane’s Giant Steps and Coltrane Plays the Blues, and a host of other Jazz albums by Milt Jackson, Mose Allison, Jimmy Giuffre and Shorty Rogers, among others.

Ahmet always maintained that his involvement with the commercially lucrative Rock and R & B music enabled him to subsidize his brother Nesuhi’s less-than-profitable ventures into Jazz.

One of his most successful forays into Rock was Ahmet’s decision to record Bobby Darin’s Splish, Splash. It was a record that would sell a million copies for the then, virtually unknown Darin.

Ironically, almost 10-years later, Darin, now and internationally recognized celebrity, would leave Atlantic and establish his own label [Direction Records] over a dispute with Ahmet and Arif Mardin [who had become Bobby’s producer at the label in 1963] involving Bobby’s fervent wish to record the music from Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley’s Doctor Dolittle.

As recounted by Fred Dellar in his notes to Bobby Darin Sings Doctor Dolittle:

“Bobby Darin constantly re-invented himself. Initially, he'd been a teen idol, littering the charts with the likes of Splish, Splash and Queen Of The Hop. Then he opted to become the new Sinatra, fashioning songs such as Beyond The Sea and Lazy River for a whole new set of swingin' lovers. Once, Bobby even moved into R&B to cut an album of Ray Charles songs, using Ray's own back-up singers, while in 1966 he moved on yet again, linking with the contemporary folk field, and emulating the likes of Tim Hardin. After two critically hailed albums (If I Were A Carpenter and Inside Out) filled with material mainly penned by Hardin and John Sebastian, Darin decided that it was time for a change yet again. No-one was going to classify him, place him in some 'file under' category. It was time for a return to show-biz, a time to dust down the tux, head in a Hollywood direction. But, being Darin, it would not be a mere return to former glories. Nothing as easy as that. Instead, Bobby decided to create a whole album based around his interpretations of a film score. His choice for the project was Doctor Dolittle, a musical penned by Leslie Bricusse, who'd previously collaborated with Anthony Newley on The Roar Of The Greasepaint - The Smell Of The Crowd and Stop The World -I Want To Get Off, the latter a Broadway hit that ran for 555 performances.

Doctor Dolittle, a movie that co-starred Rex Harrison, Anthony Newley, Samantha Eggar and Richard Attenborough, featured a score that had taken Leslie Bricusse 18 months to write. During that period he'd discarded 10 songs and constantly reshaped others. Darin, who'd earlier recorded Bricusse and Newley's Once In A Lifetime, heard the score and loved it. His decision to record it as a complete album pleased Arthur C. Jacobs, the film's producer who claimed: "When Bobby came to us and said he wanted to do his musical impression of Doctor Dolittle, we were flattered but felt that the musical content of our production was out of Bobby's usual style. I mean, in one scene Rex sings a tender ballad When I Look In Your Eyes to a seal! How would that sit with a chap who whirred and whirled with Mack The Knife? Bobby's reply: 'Lead me to it'."

Others were even more incredulous that Darin should want to record the score, his album producer, Arif Mardin, advising him not to go ahead with the project. But, after working on a fine set of arrangements with Roger Kellaway, Bobby made that trip to Western Recorders and shaped an album that has stood the test of time. …”

Pianist-composer-arranger Roger Kellaway summed it up best when he observed: “Bobby was a sensation to work with. He had the knack of knowing exactly what was right for him.”

See what you think as Bobby sings Roger’s arrangement of Talk to the Animals in the following video made with the assistance of the ace graphics team at CerraJazz LTD and the production facility at StudioCerra.

Our latest montage is set in HD images, a format we’ve returned after a long absence.

"Striking Up The Band" with the Kenny Clarke - Lucky Thompson Quintet

The Blue Note in Paris, 1960. Lucky Thompson on tenor saxophone, Jimmy Gourley on guitar, Alice McLeod Coltrane on piano, Pierre Michelot on bass and Kenny Clarke on drums.

Having "Cheese Cake" with Dexter, Sonny, Butch and Billy

Bring a cup of coffee or tea and enjoy a slice of Cheese Cake with Dexter Gordon and Company.  If you are a Jazz fan, it truly doesn't get any better than Dexter Gordon on tenor saxophone, Sonny Clark on piano, Butch Warren on bass and Billy Higgins on drums. Dexter's Cheese Cake is based on the changes to tenor sax legend Lester Young's tune, Tickle Toe.

Brian and Barbara

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

I have no idea if trumpeter Brian Lynch and vocalist Barbara Casini know each other or have worked together.

I doubt it because Brian is based in New York and Barbara in Italy, but given the international and cosmopolitan flavor of Jazz in the 21^st century, it’s certainly is possible.

Where there is a relationship between the two, and what prompted this posting is that both have recorded terrific versions of the tune – You’ve Changed - Brian on his Bolero Nights, Venus Jazz CD [VHCD 1029] and Barbara along with the Jazz Orchestra of Sardinia, Paolo Silvestri conducting on Agora Ta, ViaVenetoJazz [CD VVJ 076].

Okay, I’ll admit it; I’ve got a thing for Bill Carey and Carl Fischer’s tune having featured two versions on a previous blog piece with interpretations by alto saxophonist Andy Fusco and the sublime, “Sassy Sarah Vaughan.

And early this month [July 7^th], I spotlighted [bloglighted?] the version that Hammond B-3 organist Eddy Louiss recorded along with Belgian Guitarist Rene Thomas and drummer Kenny Clarke for Dreyfus Jazz [Dreyfus Disques FDM-36501-2].

The song’s poignant lyrics assume autobiographical, heart-breaking proportions when one reflects on their long association with vocalist Billie Holiday. The themes of lost love, seeking love and unrequited love were a constant in Billie’s brief and turbulent life [she died in 1959 at the age of forty-four].

What intrigued us about Brian Lynch’s rendition of You’ve Changed is that it is done in the bolero style of Latin Jazz and has a corker of a solo by alto saxophonist Phil Woods. Brian also takes a fine solo as does pianist Zaccai Curtis.

And did you know that the island of Sardinia off the western coast of Italy has a fine Jazz orchestra? As you will hear on the following video, it does, indeed, and for Barbara Casini’s vocal version of You’ve Changed, the orchestra is under the direction of Paolo Silvestri who also wrote the arrangement.  Be sure and checkout the fine trumpet solo by Giovanni Sanna Passino beginning at 2:42 minutes.

Joris Roelofs: “The Kids Are Fine”

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

“All around they see not rivals but mentors. Gravitating to living masters and young gurus, they talk not of themselves but of the greatness of others. As a result, their sound is pure, their language is concise. Although perpetually young-looking, they are the opposite of naïve. Their groove is light and precise and the smile in their eyes maintains a near-constant  sparkle.”

- pianist Aaron Goldberg commenting on Joris Roelofs

It’s hard to imagine that someone who is only twenty-eight years old could already be so proficient in today’s Jazz world.

Such is truly the case with Joris Roelofs who was born 1984 in Aix-en-Provence (France), raised in Amsterdam (Netherlands), and plays saxophones, clarinet, bass clarinet and flute. He began to play classical clarinet at the age of six, and the alto saxophone at the age of twelve.

For one so young, Joris has a considerable list of accomplishments and associations.

He was a member of the Vienna Art Orchestra from 2005-2010. Joris also plays lead alto in the Jazz Orchestra Of The Concertgebouw in the Netherlands. He graduated in 2007 as a Master of Music at the Conservatory of Amsterdam. In 2001 Joris won the Pim Jacobs Price. In 2003 he received, as a first non-American, the Stan Getz/Clifford Brown Fellowship Award in the US, organized by the International Association Of Jazz Education (IAJE). The IAJE also honored him with a “First Level” price. In 2004 Joris received the first prize of the prestigious Deloitte Jazz Award in the Netherlands, a Dutch Award for young musicians who are just about to start their international carrier. In 2008 he was selected for the Thelonious Monk International Saxophone Competition.

Among others, Joris played with Brad Mehldau, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Christina Branco, Lionel Loueke, Joshua Redman, Chris Potter, Chris Cheek, Eric Harland, Lewis Nash, Aaron Goldberg, Greg Tardy, Ralph Peterson, Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, Pete King, Sonny Fortune, Greg Hutchinson, WDR Big Band, Ari Hoenig, Matt Penman, Alegre Correa.

He was recently asked by Brad Mehldau to perform with him at the Carnegie Hall in New York and Sanders Theatre in Boston. At age 16 Joris performed the famous clarinet introduction of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue for a TV show with the Orkest van het Oosten, and in that same show was also featured as a soloist with the Jazz Orchestra Of The Concertgebouw. He also recorded as a special clarinet soloist with the Metropole Orchestra with Laura Fygi (2004). As a leader he performed several times at the North Sea Jazz Festival, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Smalls Jazz Club in NYC, among other places.

In October 2008 he did a European release tour with Ari Hoenig, Aaron Goldberg and Johannes Weidenmueller to promote his debut album Introducing Joris Roelofs. In 2009 and 2010 he did his second and third tour with Aaron Goldberg, Greg Hutchinson, Reginald Veal, Joe Sanders. Joris also plays in a trio with Jesse van Ruller and Clemens van der Feen, they released their album Chamber Tones and toured in Japan. Joris’ new CD Live At The Bimhuis will come out the end of August/2011. As a sideman Joris has been playing at a large number of international jazz festivals and jazz clubs, all over the world. He moved to New York City in March 2008.

Pianist Aaron Goldberg wrote these thoughts about Joris and Jazz in New York City for Introducing Joris Roelofs:

“New York remains an artist-magnet. The intrepid flow in from everywhere, their paint brushes or their saxophones on their back, often still searching for a place to sleep. Some show up with a point to prove, and they are usually the first to attract notice. On occasion others arrive with a different kind of special mission. Instead of a moral to teach or an agenda to push, these brave selves search for a lesson to learn. Tey are driven by the love of their art.

All around they see not rivals but mentors. Gravitating to living masters and young gurus, they talk not of themselves but of the greatness of others. As a result, their sound is pure, their language is concise. Although perpetually long-looking, they are the opposite of naïve. Their groove is light and precise and the smile in their eyes maintains a near-constant  sparkle.

Perhaps they have some metaphysical guardian, a Vajravarahi [Tibetan Buddhist diety that helps free one from suffering and gain enlightenment through meditations] to help uproot the ego?

Or maybe their meditations just focus on the truly important: line and melody, mouthpiece and embouchure, narrative and harmony, and the rest follows inevitably. These are the true faithful. From the inside they may see only detours, but their paths are straight and their bearing upright. From the outside they glow like the enlightened. More importantly, they are a joy to listen to. Joris Roelofs is one of the rare arrivals.”

With all of this by way of background, “The Kids” such as Joris, Aaron, bassist Matt Penman and drummer Ari Hoenig “are doing just fine” as you can hear for yourself on the sound track to the following video montage.

The tune is pianist Aaron Goldberg’s The Rules which is an excellent example of the kind of tension-and-release, repetitive phrases and sustained tones can create in Jazz. Aaron takes the first solo, followed by Ari on drums with Joris’s solo closing it out before the piece’s “surprise” ending.

[BTW, if the music of Lee Konitz, Warne Marsh, and Lennie Tristano comes to mind while listening to Joris' quartet, your memory is a credit to modern Jazz history].

Joris Roelofs recordings are available as audio CD’s and Mp3 downloads from a number of online retailers.

Jessica Williams – A Pianist with Taste, Touch and Temerity

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

The editorial staff at JazzProfiles was prompted to put this piece together by the arrival of the correspondence that closes it.

I first “met” Jessica around 1980. This was back in the days when one could kill a few minutes waiting for a business appointment or a luncheon while perusing the local record store.

Usually privately-owned and operated, every community in southern California seem to have one and some of these Mom-and-Pop stores even had a Jazz section.

It was during one such diversions that I noticed an LP in the cut-out bin by Jessica Jennifer Williams entitled Orgonomic Music [Clean Cuts CC703]. On the back of the album sleeve was the following quotation by Wilhelm Reich:

"Love, work and knowledge are the well-springs of our life. They should also govern it.”

I didn’t know who Reich was, nor did I know anything about “Jessica Jennifer Williams” and the only musician in the sextet featured on the album that I was [barely] familiar with was trumpet player Eddie Henderson.

But what the heck, Philip Elwood of The San Francisco Examiner said of Jessica that she was a devotee of Reich’s whose sentiments I agreed with, the LP was only a buck, so I gave it a shot.

Boy, am I glad I did. I’ve been listening to everything I can get my hands on by Jessica ever since.

However, it wasn’t until 1992, thanks to a fortuitous business trip to San Francisco, that I had the opportunity to hear Jessica in person as a part of pianist Dick Whittington’s on-going Maybeck Recital Hall series.

I “stayed close” to Jessica’s music in the 1990’s thanks to my association with Philip Barker, the owner of Jazz Focus Records for whom Jessica made a number of recordings including her Arrival CD which has the distinction of being the very first disc issued by Philip’s label [JFCD001].

Thanks to a tip from Gene Lees in one of his JazzLetters, I was also able to score one of the limited edition [1,000] Joyful Sorrow compact discs that Blackhawk Records issued as her solo piano tribute to the late, Bill Evans.

It was recorded at The Jazz Station, Carmel, CA on September 15, 1996 on the 16^th anniversary of Bill’s death.

Sadly, too, The Jazz Station in Carmel is no more, but Joyful Sorrow endures as just about my all-time favorite Jessica recording.

Thankfully, Jessica has subsequently released quite a number of solo piano and trio Jazz recordings, many of which are available as audio CD’s and Mp3 downloads.

Jessica is a powerful and pulsating pianist.  He music literally “pops” out at the listener it’s so full of energy and enthusiasm.

She records many solo piano albums, a format which can sometimes be a recipe for self-indulgence and excessive displays of technique.  But Jessica’s music is always tasteful and informed. You can hear the influences from the Jazz tradition in her playing, but you also hear innovative probing and forays into her unique conception of what she is trying to say about herself and how she hears the music.

Her touch on the instrument is such that she makes the piano SOUND! It rings clear and resonates as it only can in the hands of a masterful pianist.

As Grover Sales, the distinguish author and lecturer on Jazz has commented:

“Jessica Williams belongs to that exclusive group Count Basie dubbed "the poets of the piano" that includes Roger Kellaway, Sir Roland Hanna, Ellis Larkins, Jaki Byard, Bill Mays, Alan Broadbent, Cedar Walton, the late Jimmy Rowles and of course, Bill Evans. All share in common a thorough working knowledge of classic piano literature from pre-Bach to contemporary avant garde as well as the classic jazz tradition from Scott Joplin to the present.

All developed an astonishing and seemingly effortless technique that enabled them to venture anywhere their fertile imaginations wished to take them. All take to heart the dictum of Jelly Roll Morton in his epic 1938 interview for the Library of Congress: ‘No pianist can play jazz unless they try to give the imitation of a band.’

 And for all of their varied influences from Earl Hines to Bill Evans and beyond, all are instantly identifiable—unique in the literal sense of this often misused word.”

Writing in the insert booklet to Jessica’s Maybeck Hall CD [Concord CCD-4525], Jeff Kaliss notes:

“It's all there in the first track. Within a few choruses, Jessica Williams shows her hand, or hands: the harmonies in seconds (hit way off to the side of the piano), the punchy attack, the dust-devils in the upper octaves, the nutty quotes. It's familiar Jessica, but she's got plenty up her sleeve for the rest of this remarkable entry in the Maybeck menagerie. …

She came to my awareness as a word-of-mouth legend, a Baltimore-bred genius whose history and personality were said to be as mysterious and unpredictable as her keyboard inventions. As soon as I got to hear her, I was into the reality of her spontaneous magic and not much concerned with the legend. …

[She] has remained a best-kept secret … commanding awe and quiet in the clubs she visited … [her playing] filled with energy and imagination.”

One gets more about her sense of “energy and imagination” when one reads the following notes that Jessica wrote about herself and her music for her Intuition CD [Jazz Focus JFCD 010]:

“I'm occasionally asked where I studied to learn to do what I do; who taught me, what "tricks" are involved, what secrets enable me, how does the process occur... how does one "distill magic out of the air?" The truth is that there are no practice techniques, no miracle drugs, no mantras, no short-cuts to creativity. I tell them that I've played piano since I was four, that I've played jazz since I was twelve, that I've never taken another job doing anything except what I've always known I should be doing in this life: playing music. And maybe that's a part of the answer, if indeed there is one. It's about Castenada's PATH, Campbell's BLISS; you follow it no matter where it leads, and over many years you learn to control it, channel it, allow it to happen.

You become the bow; the arrow is the gift. You never fully own it, just as you can never explore all of its depths, because it springs from the infinite possibilities within you. In this realm, your only ally, your only guide, is intuition. It is seeing instead of looking, knowing instead of believing, being instead of doing. It is Coltrane on the saxophone, Magic Johnson on the court, Alice Walker on the printed page; it is the primary intuition of "right-brained" activity, the birthing of idea into existence.

Perhaps it cannot be taught, but it certainly can be shared...and it is in the sharing that we all experience the best parts of ourselves. We instinctively intuit our organic truth; when we learn to live it, our planet could be paradise.

Your dreams are your sacred truth. …”

You can listen to Jessica’s quite stunning pianism on the audio track of the following video from the Joyful Sorrow Bill Evans tribute CD.

As to Jessica’s temerity, let alone downright courage, it’s all here in the following notice which she sent out recently to her fans.

I hope you’ll heed and help Jessica in her time of need.

I CAN NO LONGER PLAY THE PIANO

Dear friends, critics, fans, friends of fans, anyone who loves my music or at least has enjoyed it:

FEEL FREE TO SHARE THIS WITH OTHERS, IN PUBLICATIONS, EMAIL CAMPAIGNS, PHONE CALLS, ETC. GO TO

http://www.jessicawilliams.com/donations/index.html

================

DONATE TO JESSICA WILLIAMS’ SPINAL SURGERY RECOVERY FUND VIA PAYPAL or any credit cards:

http://www.jessicawilliams.com/donations/index.html

================

SEND DONATIONS

You can opt to send personal checks or money orders to

·  Jessica Williams

·  PO Box 2391

·  Olympia, WA 98507

·  

·  

·  email: jjw1@me.com or jessica@jessicawilliams.com

·  Please make checks payable to Jessica Williams

================

BUY CDS:
http://www.jessicawilliams.com/shop.html
Every dollar counts and is deeply appreciated.

================

I CAN NO LONGER PLAY THE PIANO. NOR CAN I WALK, SLEEP, EAT WELL, STAND OR SIT. MY PAIN IS INTRACTABLE, AND 30mg daily of Vicodin (NORCO) does very little to cut it. 35 YEARS AGO I had a disc surgery (a Laminectomy, L5-S1) but many years of flying and playing music have taken their toll. I am in DIRE NEED OF RADICAL SPINAL SURGERY. MY SURGEON IS DR RICHARD ROONEY AT THE NEW MADISON ST POLYCLINIC.

This is NOT a solicitation for help to pay for the surgery as I HAVE INSURANCE: This request for donations is for the time AFTER surgery, the 6 months to perhaps a year that I won't be able to play or perform. Instead, I'll be doing physical therapy, pain management, and recuperation.

Without a spinal operation I face trunk and leg paralysis, the possible loss of renal function, and constant intractable pain. If it progresses up the spine and reaches the thoracic and cervical spine, I will lose all movement or sensation in my arms and hands. I have moderate scoliosis which increases the possibility of this happening.

Fortunately I have medical coverage. This request for donations is for the time AFTER surgery. It may be a year or more before I can play again, or it could be months - I won't know until it's done.

My surgeon - http://www.polyclinic.com/richard-rooney-md-facs - has decided to do a lateral-entry cage-fusion of L5, L4 and S1. I have had other opinions but I've chosen the premier neurosurgeon in this state (WA), and my age - 64 - rules out fancy but still unperfected alternatives like Pro-Disc©. My surgery will be scheduled soon, probably for some time in LATE JULY or EARLY AUGUST of 2012. (I presently have an viral upper-bronchial infection, so we need to wait until that clears.)

I'll be in the hospital for about 10 days, and then recuperating for 6 months to a year. I feel very lucky and very secure to have chosen the great surgeon who will do the procedure, making it possible for me to get back to my life's work.

I am so happy I can give back through my music. The music that awaits is why I am here.

And THAT, friends, is why I'm asking for help. I know that the people who love my music are the kindest, gentlest people in the world.

But a lot of us tend not to be billionaires. I, for one.

I need your help.

================

I'm sure that the results will be positive. My surgeon is the best there is, an artist of neurosurgery. He loves my music. I have a lot of NEW MUSIC TO MAKE.

Please make a donation of any size that you can afford. Each of you who makes a donation will get a signed copy of my newest CD for OriginArts - my personal favorite - Songs of Earth. And you'll get your name included in the drop-down "Life Savers Menu" on this donations page.

And if you ORDER MY CDs, that'll help too, and you can do that HERE. Every order and every extra dollar helps, as I can no longer play or pay the bills for a while.

Thank you from my heart, with peace, sanity, love, and freedom, Jessica

DONATE PLEASE!!!  You can use paypal or any credit cards: go to

http://www.jessicawilliams.com/donations/index.html

================

A message from good friend and fellow pianist and composer Richard Rodseth:
Dear friends,
Some of you have attended or played at house concerts I have hosted in my home. Some of my happiest 
and proudest moments.
I was introduced to the concept by pianist Jessica Williams, and since 2005 she has enthralled listeners in my living room once or twice a year, most recently on March 17, her birthday.
I'm sorry to report that Jessica needs our help, and is not well enough to play for us at this time. It would mean a great deal to me if you would read her heartfelt request at the following link and support her if you can: http://www.jessicawilliams.com/donations/
Whether you purchase one or more of her wonderful CDs (which make excellent gifts), or are able to make a donation, you will have supported a wonderful artist who has touched many with her beautiful music.
Thanks so much, Richard - P.S. I apologize if you receive this message more than once. Feel free to share it with others.

==========

See MRI/DICOM scans of my L5/L4 compression/degradation and my scoliosis and disc deterioration here:

http://www.jessicawilliams.com/donations/

==========

For removal from this list, click here:

http://www.jessicawilliams.com/news/remove.html

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I wish you happiness, wisdom, peace, and above all, HEALTH. Stay well and love each other, Jessica

Rotterdam Jazz Orchestra - "Bird Feathers"

I always wondered what  a big band arrangement of Charles Mingus' Bird Feathers might sound like. Thanks to this performance by the Rotterdam Jazz Orchestra, I don't have to anymore. To my ears, there nothing more exciting in Jazz than a roaring, driving big band.  This version of Bird Feathers was recorded in May, 2007 in Rotterdam, The Netherlands and features Simon Rigter on tenor saxophone, Marco Kegel on alto and Hans Vromans on piano.