A Conversation About Jazz with Gary Giddins

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

“… if Bix, Bird, and Cecil were all jazz, then this was a world without end. I had to hear everything by the artists I loved, especially Armstrong and Ellington. The lack of repetition was addictive, invigorating. I loved the fact that I might hear a few bars of, say, trumpet and know “that’s Clifford Brown,” long before I understood why I knew it….”  

“Criticism is as personal a field as singing and, beyond the fact that a lot of practitioners in both fields aren’t particularly good at it, the reasons readers respond favorably to one and not to another are just as personal…. Most of us become critics because we venerate critics. We try and measure up….”

“A writer writes about what he or she knows, wants to know, and wants you to know. I thought I had something to say about jazz and that through jazz, I could speak to every issue that interested me….”  

- Gary Giddins

There is no one on the subject of Jazz than I would rather read than Gary Giddins.

His Jazz writings are unsurpassed, they are matchless.

Reading Giddins on Jazz is like sitting down to three scoops of your favorite ice cream with a liberal topping of chocolate sauce – you never want it to end.

It has been said that God sprinkles a few artistic geniuses into each generation to inspire the rest of us.

For me, Gary Giddins has always been one such inspiration.

I asked Gary if he would consent to a JazzProfiles interview.

As you will no doubt note when you read through the following “conversation,” he more than generously responded to my request.

You can review Gary’s many awards and achievements by visiting him at www.garygiddins.com/. I have re-posted two, earlier JazzProfiles features about Gary and his work to the blog's sidebar.

- How and when did music first come into your life?

My parents bought me a plastic phonograph when I was three — they were amused that I could identify the songs on my mother’s 78s or my aunt’s 45s by the labels and print, before I could read. On a few occasions, my father and I walked to Coney Island and I’d cut a plastic record in a phone-like booth. Eventually, he bought our first hi-fi (monaural, of course) and a few LPs, mostly Sinatra-generation pop, but also the Readers Digest classical music box-sets and that really did it: I was over the moon playing my way through them. 

- Did you play an instrument?

         

Piano, accordion, clarinet, bongos, guitar, alto sax, each under a separate tutor who took my parents’ dough and stared at me balefully, wondering why we bothered to go through the motions. My instrument was turntable. I didn’t want to be Sonny Rollins or Pablo Casals; I just wanted to listen to them. On the other hand, learning the rudiments of an instrument gives you useful insights into the labors they demand.

- What are your earliest recollections of Jazz?

         

I’ve written about this, and refer anyone interested to Weather Bird, pp. xiii – xx, and pp. 208-210.

         

- Conversations about Jazz invariably turn to “impressions” and “favorites.” So let’s turn to “impressions;” who were the Jazz musicians who first impressed you and why?”

Louis Armstrong changed everything. The longer answer is in Weather Bird, but a short one is this: after years of listening to 1950s rock and roll, a limited library of 19^th century and early 20^th century classics, folk music, and blues, the one piece that absolutely owned my Jewish soul was the [Johann Sebastian Bach] B Minor Mass, and Armstrong’s 1928 recordings replicated that kind of power, a discovery that simply blew my mind. At the same time, Ray Charles, whom I adored, made a record called Genius + Soul = Jazz and that perked my curiosity about that mysterious word. Others in the first years (1963-65) were Ellington (Masterpieces, In a Mellow Tone), Dizzy (Jambo Caribe, Something Old Something New), Miles (In Europe, Walkin’), Monk (Criss Cross, Thelonious Alone) Brubeck (At Carnegie Hall) Sonny (Work Time, Our Man in Jazz), Coltrane (Ballads, Live at the Vanguard), Getz / Gilberto, Bill Evans (Waltz for Debby), Hawkins (RCA Vintage anthology and At the Opera House with Roy), Mingus (Pre-Bird Mingus, The Clown), Billie Holiday (Columbia, Commodore sets), Pee Wee Russell (New Groove), Fats Waller (the RCA Vintage sets), Eric Dolphy (Out There), and Ornette (Ornette!) There were many more, though oddly I didn’t get into bop and the big bands until a little later. Bud Powell’s “Cherokee,” on a Verve collection, was life altering, as were the Parker Dials and Savoys and Verves (in order of encounter: Bird Symbols, The Charlie Parker Story, The Essential Charlie Parker), Tatum (This is Piano), Horace Silver (Song for My Father, Sarah (+ 2, No Count Sarah), Basie and Pres (The Lester Young Memorial Album, Lester’s Keynotes), the Django set on Capitol, Gil Evans (Out of the Cool), Barney Kessel (Workin’ Out) and on and on, as I grew determined to see everyone listed in Feather’s 1960 Jazz Encyclopedia still alive, and hear all those who weren’t. The cumulative effect and answer to your question lay in the wondrous variety and individualism they represented: if Bix, Bird, and Cecil were all jazz, then this was a world without end. I had to hear everything by the artists I loved, especially Armstrong and Ellington. The lack of repetition was addictive, invigorating. I loved the fact that I might hear a few bars of, say, trumpet and know “that’s Clifford Brown,” long before I understood why I knew it.   

- For reasons which you explain in the introduction to Visions of Jazz: The First Century, you did not include a number of “major figures…personal favorites … and popularizers” in the book. Continuing with your impressions for a while longer, what comes to mind when I mention the following Jazz musicians who were excluded from Visions of Jazz?

- Benny Carter

         

One of the wisest, most brilliant men I’ve had the honor to know. The first time I saw him play, in the 1970s, I understood the awe in which older critics and musicians held him. Before then, I had not heard most of his key recordings. His playing is beyond time, no matter the context. The other day I listened to his records with Julia Lee; to paraphrase something Benny once said about Ben Webster, you instantly know who it is and who he is. Working with him in the American Jazz Orchestra and seeing him every Labor Day weekend at the Gibson Jazz Party in Colorado over more than two decades was a kind of graduate school. I’ve written a lot about Benny, if not nearly enough; see Weather Bird.

         

- Ben Webster

         

He and Bud Powell were the two guys on my Feather list I never got to see so I took his death to heart. I had tried to find him when I studied in France in 1967, but no luck, though that was the summer I became friends with Ted Curson and Nick Brignola, the most important “studying” I did that summer. Ben was the most schizoid jazz player: supreme romantic, ferocious aggressor. Is there a better improv than “Cotton Tail?” Not that I knew of. Is there a more sublime encounter than Ben and Tatum? He’s one of the musicians I wrote about early on (Booker Ervin was another), including long liner notes, so by the time I started writing the column and books, I neglected him along with too many others. Never enough time or words. Mea bloody culpa! But I listen to him all the time. 

- Jack Teagarden

         

I like everything about Teagarden, the rippling trombone triplets, the insouciant voice (even Bing sounded taut by comparison), the bemusement (just look at him looking at Chuck Berry in Jazz on a Summer’s Day), the interplay with Pops and later with Bobby Hackett, and the perfect—as in P.E.R.F.E.C.T.—rendition of “St. James Infirmary” at the 1947 Town Hall concert. (Though Don Goldie, the trumpet player in his later band, wore me the hell out.) A 1977 essay on Big T, “The Best Trombone Player in the World,” is in Riding on a Blue Note.  

- Mary Lou Williams

         

Another spirit beyond time. Her first solo piece, “Nite Life,” was one of the first historicist jazz recordings in that, as, Jaki Byard would do decades later, she isolates and unites stylistic components of early piano, from Eubie to James P. to Hines. She was a marvelous composer and a genuinely great orchestrator, but it’s her piano I relish most, the free-floating harmonies and assertive time. She helped to revive the New York scene in the early ‘70s, when she convinced Barney Josephson to install a piano at the Cookery and then “embraced” Cecil Taylor—not a complete success musically but a true cultural occasion at the time. Mary asked me to deliver the eulogy at her funeral service at St. Patrick’s, a tremendous honor. I’ve written a lot about her, little of it in my books, though I compensated a bit by expanding a section on her in the trade edition of Jazz, the textbook I wrote with Scott DeVeaux. Carol Bash is now completing a long-awaited film about Mary.

- Tadd Dameron

         

If I could hear him now, I’d feel no pain. One of the tragically under-realized talents in jazz, the rare swing figure who understood bop before the boppers did. Blending Wardell and Eager and Navarro was pure genius; and the melodies and voicings unmistakably his own. Fountainbleau has transcendent moments. He helped posthumously to spur jazz historicism in the ‘70s and ‘80s, and it’s ironic and sad to me that I wrote more about Dameronia than Dameron. 

- Mildred Bailey

         

A complex dazzling woman who, like Billie, had to completely reinvent herself. In return for helping to launch Bing’s career, when she was still an unknown working speakeasies, he arranged for Whiteman to hire her: the first woman ever to tour as a band vocalist. The combination of Mildred, Red Norvo, and the arranger Eddie Sauter is damn near sublime. She had a high girlish voice, insinuating style, occasionally arch phrasing, unwavering pitch; her taste in accompanists was beyond cavil. There is quite a bit about her in Weather Bird, but someone should write a biography. Her granddaughter Julia Rinker has been mounting a one-woman campaign to restore Mildred to the pantheon, where she ought to be. The Mosaic box is a treasure.

- Lennie Tristano

         

The early recordings are quick, surprising and provocative, a brief for free improvisation if not free rhythm, which he later attempted to cage. “Wow” is a genuine wow and “I Can’t Get Started” with Billy Bauer takes harmonic substitutions to the point of re-composition. But the Atlantics exemplify his gifts. The 1955 “You Got to My Head” is one of the great piano improvisations and “Line Up” and the later “Becoming” are endlessly mesmerizing. Just as you can hear vestigial elements of Hines in Nat Cole, you can hear vestiges of Nat in Tristano. I find myself rediscovering him, ignoring him, then finding him again, a relationship I have with several writers and with opera, but not much in jazz.

- Serge Chaloff

         

By all accounts a madman, but the two Capitols, Boston Blow Up and Blue Serge, are among the outstanding postwar albums. With due respect to Carney and Mulligan, no one explored the range of the baritone more completely and effectively than Serge, especially on ballads, of which his “Body and Soul” and “Thanks for the Memory” are incomparable masterworks.

- Django Reinhardt

         

Everyone loves Django; impossible not to — the later stuff with Hubert Rostaing as well as the classic Quintette and everything he did with visiting Americans, especially Eddie South, who never played better than he did with Django, Rex Stewart, Benny Carter, Hawk (“Out of Nowhere” is one of his very great solos, and has Benny on trumpet for lagniappe). “St. Louis Blues,” “Improvisation,” and his delirious adaptations of Bach’s D minor concerto, with South and Grappelli, are pure pleasure, and then there are his those lovely original tunes. I listen to Django a lot, but I seem to have written about him mostly en passim or by indirection, as in an essay on James Carter’s smart homage to him. (See miserable excuse under Ben Webster above.)

– Ted Heath

         

The supreme British bandleader, tremendously popular in his day, and at his best a stubborn defender of the jazz faith — though now sadly forgotten. I hadn’t played him in a while when something rekindled my interest, so I went to an old-vinyl store called Footlights and bought more than a dozen LPs, listened with much pleasure, made copious notes for an essay, and then get derailed by something else and never wrote it. You can see him and get a sense of how hip he was in the excellent 1949 Michael Powell bomb-defusing-thriller-meets-the-lost-weekend film The Small Back Room (based, incidentally, on a very good Nigel Balchin novel), when Kenny Baker and Johnny Gray were in the band and Tadd Dameron was one of his arrangers. I don’t believe Tadd wrote the music in the film, but it definitely reflects his influence. Heath, along with Louis Armstrong, recorded and had an international hit with “The Faithful Hussar,” the song that (a year later) Christiane Kubrick sang at the end of Paths of Glory.

- Dave Brubeck

         

Like countless other boomers, I found in Dave an early and irresistible conduit to jazz. I grew bored with his post Desmond, post Mulligan, post (for a very short time) Braxton band, and felt guilty about it because he was a wonderful and generous man. The first time I spoke to him, I wanted to interview him for a piece I was writing for Esquire about upcoming jazz talent. He was on tour and his office gave me the number of his hotel in Vancouver. We got into an animated conversation, when suddenly he said, “Where are you?” I said, “New York.” He said, “This is costing you a fortune, let me call you back.” He did and we spoke for an hour. When I worked on a documentary about Pops, he and Iola drove to New York to shoot an interview in the Armstrong house, though we would have been happy to do it anywhere at their convenience. (They loved Pops.) A couple of years ago, I interviewed him on stage at the Kennedy Center, and he was as forthright and funny as ever, and seemed genuinely moved when I told him afterward how much I liked his recent solo piano CD, which is all but antithetical to the usual stomping Brubeck style. I’m happy with the Brubeck essay in Weather Bird, and with one on The Real Ambassadors in my book Natural Selection. Billy Taylor once told me, “Dave doesn’t get the credit he deserves as an innovator.” He was right. Nor does he get enough credit for The Real Ambassadors, which along with Ellington’s Jump For Joy, is the closest we have to a Broadway jazz musical. Of course, neither of them got close to Broadway and they exist solely as recordings. But someday, a smart producer will see the possibilities!            

- Why were there such rapid developments in Jazz from 1946-1965? Did the speed of this revolution in the music sow the seeds for its own destruction?

         

What destruction? Every movement sows seeds of destruction and rebirth. It isn’t the fault of jazz  that people can’t or don’t want to keep up with it. That’s all to the glory of jazz. Besides, the further we get from 1965, or any other departure point, the more unified the development of jazz appears.

- Mike Zwerin has written that Jazz went to Europe to live [in many ways, literally] in the 1960s. Did you agree with this assessment?

Yes and no. It went to live there for about four years, the height of the rock juggernaut when jazz artists who knew better tried to fit it in by wearing bad haircuts, sporting funny clothes, and buying shares in Fender Rhodes. The middle ’60 were splendid years: in the space of four days in 1966, you could (and I did) hear Bill Evans at Town Hall, and Titans of the Tenor at Philharmonic Hall, not to mention the serious action at the Vanguard and Gate and Half Note. It crashed in the early ‘70s, but by 1972, the long exile was terminating and each week brought remarkable new talent from around the country—all those acronyms: AACM, BAG, AEC, WSQ—along with the triumphant returns of everyone from Ted Curson to Red Rodney, Red Norvo to George Russell, Helen Humes to Betty Carter, Dexter and Moody and McLean and Benny Carter and Don Cherry etc. Cecil came back from the academy, Mingus and Rollins ended sabbaticals, Al reunited with Zoot, Sarah re-launched herself, Phil Woods Americanized his rhythm machine. Even Don Byas came by for a snort. By 1975, jazz returned to New York to stay. Mike remained in Europe, and he made the International Herald Tribune worth reading.  

- In Rhythm-a-ning: Jazz Tradition and Innovation you wrote: "My intuition tells me that innovation isn't this generation's fate...the neoclassicists have a task no less valuable than innovation: sustenance. [M]usicians such as Marsalis are needed to restore order, replenish melody, revitalize the beat, loot the tradition for whatever works, and expand the audience. That way we'll be all the hungrier for the next incursion of genuine avant-gardists..." (161) Is this still your assessment of developments in Jazz circa, 1970-2000?

Sort of, but the phrase “the next incursion of genuine avant-gardists” now strikes me as facetious at best and perhaps just plain stupid; and, in any case, it’s okay with me — tradition isn’t the enemy of novelty or vice versa. In recent weeks, I heard a magnificent concert by Josh Redman with his superb quartet (including Brad Mehldau) and strings; and an energizing bass recital by Charnett Moffett. Three of the best albums I heard in this period are Marc Carey’s For the Love of Abbey, a pianistic exploration of Abbey Lincoln’s compositions; Bob Dorough’s lavishly produced hommage à moi Duets (likely the best album ever released by a nonagenarian); and Chucho Valdés’s stirring Border-Free. Each is obviously steeped in traditions (Valdés call his band the Afro-Cuban Messengers), yet each is startling, fresh, innovative, and audaciously, shamelessly in thrall to melody. It’s a wise music that knows its father.

- Gene Lees observed: “Writers about jazz are often notable for an ill-concealed jealousy and a sullen conviction that they alone know anything about the subject, that it is or should be their exclusive domain.” What are your views about Gene’s statement?

If I say “Gene Lees is an idiot,” do I prove his point? I don’t think so. To my left is a wall of jazz lit, about 1200 volumes, many of which I relish. Martin Williams and Dan Morgenstern made me want to listen to music I had never heard of and later made me want to write about it. Jealousy? I loved the rhythmic elation of Baraka’s writing about the avant-garde and Ira Gitler’s bebop wit, Don DeMichael’s meticulous praise, Whitney Balliett’s watercolor prose, Ralph Ellison’s musical patriotism, Max Harrison’s Olympian acuteness. I read avidly the Chicagoans like John Litweiler and Larry Kart, and the measured sanity of John McDonough alongside the measured insanity of Stanley Dance, who nonetheless documented with enormous skill the musicians he loved. I was mentored by Albert Murray’s swinging so-and-so and so-and-so locutions. When I started writing, I was delighted to be part of a generation of critics I could learn and steal from, including JR Taylor, Stanley Crouch, Bob Blumenthal, and Francis Davis. And I love attending a concert or hearing a record and later reading Nate Chinen nail it in the Times or Will Friedwald in the Journal or Doug Ramsey online. The other day I read a genuinely original and moving piece about Bill Evans and jazz racialism by Eugene Holley Jr; I read illuminating stuff all the time by Bill Milkowski, David Adler, and others. Greg Thomas brought solid jazz coverage back to the Daily News and no one should fail to subscribe to the East Stroudsburg University’s The Note for Phil Woods’s column and the interviews. Howard Mandel succeeded in creating the Jazz Journalists Association because most of us respect each other. The existence in any literary field of fools does not undermine the presence of those who write with passion, humility, discernment.

          Having said that, there are plenty of critics I find useless for reasons that invariably have more to do with me than them. I found Gene Lees’s narcissism insufferable and his self-serving, conspicuously unsourced faux-biographies of Woody Herman and Johnny Mercer offensive. I often found Benny Green’s orotund eloquence pompously insincere. I owe a tremendous debt to Andre Hodier, whose early books I read and reread with Talmudic devotion; but the more I learned about music and myself, the less meaningful his work became to me. Critics aren’t simply vendors of opinion; as I emphasized repeatedly when I taught criticism at Columbia, opinions are the least interesting aspect of criticism, which must needs represent a larger gestalt, a way of seeing and understanding the world. It’s true that many critics are paranoid. Not long ago, I saw a not-very-bright film critic praise a great film critic, after noting that he didn’t always agree with him. Of course you don’t always agree with him; if you did, you would be him.

Criticism is as personal a field as singing and, beyond the fact that a lot of practitioners in both fields aren’t particularly good at it, the reasons readers respond favorably to one and not to another are just as personal. The first time I read an issue of Down Beat, when I knew absolutely nothing about jazz, I intuited that I could trust reviews that were signed Dan Morgenstern, and not reviews by two fellows named Harvey. I respected and admired Robert Palmer, but his take on music was so foreign from mine that even when we agreed we disagreed. But I’d bet the ranch that neither of us was jealous of the other. Most of us become critics because we venerate critics. We try and measure up.  

- Staying with your thoughts about another comment by Gene, he realized very early on in his career that he “…could never be a Jazz critic,” and yet, you’ve written Jazz criticism for almost your entire writing career. Why this preference on your part?

I wanted to write from the time I was eight, and write criticism from the time (six and seven years later) I discovered Dwight Macdonald and Edmund Wilson. I fully expected to be a literary critic. Long after jazz and Mr. Armstrong happened to me, I figured my ignorance of musicology cashiered any ambition in that area. But there was something liberating about what Martin Williams used to call his “amateur status.” And so when I’d read some clown opining that Sonny Rollins lacked imagination, or that Charlie Rouse was boring, or that Garner was as predictable as canned soup, or that Ellington’s Far East Suite represented a decline, or the late Billie is merely neurotic, or that Jabbo Smith was a superior musician to Louis Armstrong, whose artistry allegedly went downhill after 1928 (I am making none of this up), I felt compelled to offer my two cents. A writer writes about what he or she knows, wants to know, and wants you to know. I thought I had something to say about jazz and that through jazz, I could speak to every issue that interested me.  

- Although you write about many topics related to the broad category of entertainment, what made you decide to become primarily a Jazz writer and is there a form of writing about Jazz that you prefer: reviews, insert notes, articles, books …?

I’ve answered the first part. As to form, I prefer the medium-track essay, 1500 to 2500 words. I never wanted to write brief newspaper accounts and when I tried, I wasn’t any good at it. The Voice gave me a page and let me fill it as I pleased for 31 years. It was the best job in the world on many accounts, not least that it afforded me short rest periods when I felt stale and longer ones when I worked on books. For most of those years, I worked with the brilliant Bob Christgau, who among many other things taught me the discipline of backing up my ideas. Before the Weather Bird column, the one format that allowed me to write at that length was liner notes, but I soon grew to hate writing them; I always felt I was whoring or compromising to sell a product, and I pretty much cut them out by the early 1980s, except for occasional historical reissues or favors to musician-friends. And it infuriates me that record companies not only own them in perpetuity but feel free to edit and even revise them without asking permission.  Since 2003, when I left the Voice, I’ve worked almost exclusively on books (also sold one unproduced screen treatment), a luxury I never thought I’d have, made possible by my work as Director of the Leon Levy Center for Biography at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. I am very lucky, and know it.

- Riding on a Blue Note: Jazz and American Pop [1981] is your first published book. What is the main theme of this work; how and why did this book come about?

At first, it had no theme. An editor asked me to consider publishing a collection of my essays. When I finished it, the editor said it was fine and took a pregnancy leave. The book then went to her colleague who hated it and demanded I return the paltry advance. Sheldon Meyer at Oxford had been asking me to do a book and we hadn’t come up with anything, so I asked my agent to send him the manuscript (originally called System of Ribbons, another Ellington phrase; my agent told me that a title with the word “system” sounds like an engineering manual). He bought it that week. What Bob taught me about newspaper writing, Sheldon taught me about book writing and over the course of 20-plus years, I did six books for him. Sheldon said I should delete two essays, one because it was the only one not centered on a particular individual. That was when I began to see the book as a book, with a unified approach and theme. We organized the pieces into four sections and underscored the jazz and pop theme. When I asked him why he wanted to cut the second piece, he said, “Because it isn’t worthy of you.” Right again. For Visions of Jazz, I wrote a better chapter on that same figure. 

  

- As stated in the introduction to Visions of Jazz, “In Rhythm-a-ning: Jazz Tradition and Innovation, [published in1985], I posed the question as it related to jazz: ‘Few educated Americans can name even five jazz musicians under the age of forty.” What Jazz musicians under the age of forty do you listen to?

As a civilian, I’m no longer quite as conscious of age, but I think Jason Moran, Ambrose Akinmusire, Darius Jones, Aaron Parks, Christian Sands, Esperanza Spaulding, Miguel Zenon, Eric Harland, Robert Glasper, Nathaniel Facey, Ryan Truesdell, Aaron Diehl, Christian Scott, Mary Halvorson, and Gerald Cleaver all make the cut.

- After Celebrating Bird in 1987 and Satchmo in 1988, why did you turn your attention to Bing Crosby as the focus for your next biography [Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams, 2001]? Why not a Dizzy Gillespie companion volume to your work on Charlie Parker; a book about Miles Davis; a biography about Gerry Mulligan – each of whom were significant shapers of the music?

You write about what you find intriguing, and I have written extensively about Dizzy, Gerry, and Miles. In any case, Dizzy had just completed an as-told-to and Jerome Klinkowitz was working on Gerry, and everyone was doing Miles. I did agree to write Stan Getz’s autobiography, but he died the week we negotiated the contract. The two short books you mention are extended biographical essays that served as a kind of apprenticeship for a serious biography, and I had no intention of doing another one. I wanted to tackle a serious biography on Ellington. However, while I was working up a proposal, the Ellington papers were embargoed at the Smithsonian for “inventory,” which left me hanging. Paul Bresnick, with whom I did Satchmo, had repeatedly asked me to consider Crosby and I said no. In the absence of the Ellington project, I began looking at Bing. I always loved his jazz sides and had covered his Uris Theater engagement in 1976 (see Riding on a Blue Note). I was astonished to find that there had not been a serious book about him since two that came out in the late 1940s. The more I researched, the more fascinated I became with the themes of fame, persona, and the doppelganger effect: the person that the public creates as opposed to the person behind closed doors. I also found that I admired his pop work in the 1930s and 1940s more than I expected, along with his more obscure movies. Then there was his virtually forgotten contribution to modern technology, from popularizing the carbon microphone to the financing of tape to his decisive role in changing radio into a prerecorded rather than live medium. Finally, I was moved by his integrity regarding Civil Rights, especially in his relationship to Louis. Suddenly he seemed a perfect subject for me. Of course, it was supposed to be a 300-page book, requiring at best three years to write. After nine years, I published the first volume, 700 pages ending in 1940; I’m now closing in on volume two.

- In Weather Bird: Jazz at the Dawn of Its Second Century [2004]you raise this question in one of its essays - “How Come Jazz Ain’t Dead?” How come it ain’t?  

         

You’ll have to read the essay to find out. Not much has changed.

- What books are you currently working on?

         

Bing Crosby: Swinging on a Star. A revised edition of Celebrating Bird will be published by the University of Minnesota Press this fall and Scott DeVeaux and I are preparing a new edition of Jazz. 

Switching to the subject of “favorites:”

- What are some of your favorites books about Jazz?

Everything by Martin [Williams], especially The Jazz Tradition, Where’s the Melody, Jazz Masters in Transition, and Jazz Panorama, which he edited. Dan [Morgenstern]’s Living with Jazz and his amazing liner essays that remain to be collected. Louis Armstrong’s Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans, Marshall Stearns’s unjustly forgotten Story of Jazz and Jazz Dance, Sidney Finkelstein’s Jazz: A People’s Music. Bernie Wolfe’s Mezz Mezzrow book Really the Blues, and, among the novels, Dorothy Baker’s Young Man with a Horn, Henry Steig’s Send Me Down, Michael Ondaatje’s Coming Through Slaughter, Nicholas Christopher’s Tiger Rag, and the glowing jazz tidbits that run throughout John Harvey’s Charlie Resnick detective novels. Albert Murray’s Stomping the Blues and Blue Devils of Nada, Gunther Schuller’s Early Jazz, Hampton Hawes and Don Asher’s Raise Up off Me, Art and Laurie Pepper’s Straight Life, Amiri Baraka’s Black Music, Laurie Wright’s King Oliver, Walter Allen’s Hendersonia, Ira Gitler’s Jazz Masters of the ‘40s and Swing to Bop, Whitney Balliett’s American Musicians, Jean Lion’s Bix, Harry Sampson’s Swingin’ on the Ether Waves, Geoffrey Ward’s Jazz, John Szwed’s Space in the Place, Anita O’Day’s High Times Hard Times, Stanley Crouch’s Considering Genius, Scott DeVeaux’s The Birth of Bebop, Jack Chambers’s Miles, Don Marquis’s In Search of Buddy Bolden, William Russell’s Oh Mister Jelly, Laurent de Wilde’s Monk, Rex Stewart’s Jazz Masters of the ‘30s and Boy Meets Horn, Jelly Roll Morton and Alan Lomax’s Mister Jelly Roll, Nat Shapiro and Nat Hentoff’s Hear Me Talkin’ to Ya, Ted Gioia’s West Coast Jazz, Ekkehard Jost’s Free Jazz, Duke Ellington’s Music is My Mistress, Joe Goldberg’s Jazz Masters of the 50s, Bobby Reisner’s Bird, A. B. Spellman’s Four Lives in the Bebop Business, Will Friedwald’s Biographical Guide to Singers, Stanley Dance’s World of series, The John Coltrane Reference edited by Lewis Porter, the 16-volume Italian discography Duke Ellington on Records, the Brian Rust discographies, Jan Evensmo’s Solography booklets, David Schiff’s The Ellington Century, Carl Woideck’s Charlie Parker, Doug Ramsey’s Take Five, the Leonard Feather encyclopedias and From Satchmo to Miles, Max Harrison’s Essential Jazz Records, Valerie Wilmer’s As Serious as Your Life, the collected Otis Ferguson, Milt Hinton’s Bass Lines, Jimmy Heath’s I Walked with Giants, Terry Gibbs's Good Vibes. and . . .  I had better stop. There’s a lot of great stuff out there. 

- What are some of your favorite Jazz recordings?

         

Surely you jest. I’ve written a dozen books in an attempt to answer that.

- Who are your favorite big band arrangers?

Ellington, Ellington, Ellington, Ellington, Ellington. Also Strayhorn, Gil Evans, Don Redman, Fletcher Henderson, Bill Challis, Mary Lou Williams, Eddie Sauter, Benny Carter, Sy Oliver (all the Lunceford writers), George Russell, Count Basie (all the Basie writers), Al Cohn, Gerry Mulligan, Bill Holman, Artie Shaw (all the Shaw writers), Gerald Wilson, Bob Brookmeyer, Thad Jones, Nelson Riddle, Ralph Burns, Gil Fuller, Tadd Dameron, Dizzy Gillespie, John Lewis, Neal Hefti, Johnny Richards, Chico O’Farrill, Frank Foster, Jimmy Heath, Gary McFarland, Horace Silver, Muhal Richard Abrams, Charles Mingus (all the Mingus writers, particularly Sy Johnson), David Murray, James Newton, Bob Belden, Uri Caine, Butch Morris, for starters.    

- Who are your favorite Jazz vocalists?

Armstrong, Crosby, Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Jimmy Rushing, Dinah Washington, Rosemary Clooney, Ethel Waters, Mildred Bailey, Frank Sinatra, Nat “King” Cole, Ray Charles, Abbey Lincoln, Helen Forrest, Bessie Smith, Big Joe Turner, Jimmy Witherspoon, Connie Boswell (and the Boswell Sisters), Fats Waller, Cab Calloway, Lee Wiley, Harry and Donald Mills (and the Mills Brothers), Bill Kenny (and the Ink Spots), Joe Williams, Jackie Wilson, Chuck Berry, B. B. King, Tony Williams (and the Platters), Louis Jordan, Maxine Sullivan, Jack Teagarden, Ivy Anderson, Billy Eckstine, Tony Bennett, Doris Day, Jo Stafford, Bob Dorough, Johnny Hartman, Bobby Bland, Anita O’Day, Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross, Betty Carter, Peggy Lee, Aretha Franklin, Etta James, Etta Jones, Julia Lee, Helen Humes, Kay Starr, Carmen McRae, Helen Merrill, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Cassandra Wilson, Mary Cleere Haran, Dianne Reeves, Jane Harvey, Fats Domino, and Herb Jeffries for starters.

- Who are some of your favorite Jazz instrumentalists?

         

Can’t do it.

- Of all your writings about Jazz over the years, which one/s are you most fond of and why?

         

I like all my books: the best are probably Bing Crosby: Pocketful of Dreams and Visions of Jazz, though I suspect my best essay writing is in Weather Bird and Natural Selection. I have personal affection for Faces in the Crowd because it was written over a four-year period beginning shortly before our daughter was born, an extraordinarily happy time and I think the book reflects that. Celebrating Bird and Satchmo were well received and fun to do, and fun to revise! (You don’t often get that second chance.) Warning Shadows: Home Alone with Classic Cinema is my first book entirely about film, though quite a bit on jazz crept into it. Jazz, the book written with Scott, is the intro we wish we had had when we started listening.   

- What are your thoughts about blogs and websites devoted to Jazz?

         

Bravo to all! But I confess I read very little that doesn’t have pages I can turn and scribble on. Until The New York Daily News penny-pinchers caught up with him, I enjoyed Greg Thomas’ online and print weekly jazz feature stories on jazz artists and events in New York City.

- If you could host a fictional “Jazz dinner,” who would you invite and why?

         

Although I’d kill for a 30-minute interview with King Oliver, my dinner parties would include only the most entertaining and convivial artists I’ve had the pleasure of knowing, now gone and sorely missed: they would include (with their spouses and significant others): Roy Eldridge, John Lewis, Rosemary Clooney, Dizzy Gillespie, James Moody, Ted Curson, Mel Lewis, Sarah Vaughan, Gerry Mulligan, Benny Carter, Gil Evans, Tommy Flanagan, Jaki Byard, Martin Williams, Lester Bowie, Julius Hemphill, Steve McCall, Mary Cleere Haran, Pops and Bing (they make the cut as I met each of them once), and my indispensable assistant of 14 years Elora Charles. I’d add Artie Shaw, but no one else would get a word in edgewise.       

- Whose music do you listen to when you want to be alone with the music, so to speak; not to analyze it for the purposes of writing about it, but allowing it to reach directly into your emotions?

         

It varies, and any month would bring a different answer. Last week I listened to a lot of Wardell, Hampton Hawes, Sonny Clarke, and 1950s Duke. Then there was a day of Cecil Taylor. Last night: Tommy Flanagan. I doubt a week goes by that I don’t listen to Tatum, Nat Cole, Sonny Rollins, Clifford Brown. Armstrong is a constant tonic. So is Bud Powell. Revising the Bird book had me digging through obscure live performances I hadn’t played in years. I often jog to Ray Charles. The Joshua Redman concert had me returning to his early work. The great thing about leaving journalism is that I listen only to what I want to hear, which includes a lot of classical music as well. One thing I can tell you with certainty: when I’m alone with the music and my wife, we listen mostly to vinyl. I am so glad I did not unload my vinyl!   

- I realize that your interests are wide-ranging, but could you please conclude this “interview” by talking a bit about what excites you as you look out over the current jazz scene?

         

The incredible number of gifted, dedicated musicians (including the children of several close friends), who want nothing more than to master and play jazz, utterly resolved and unshaken by warnings from people like me that the work opportunities may be limited.      

Badd Steve Gadd

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

I’ve shared this quotation from trumpeter, composer and band leader Wynton Marsalis before, but it bears repeating in the context of this blog feature: “Change the rhythm and you change the music.”

Drummer Steve Gadd changed the rhythm and he changed Jazz.

The revolution that he brought to Jazz drumming is akin to what Gene Krupa did for swing music, Kenny Clarke and Max Roach did for bop, Philly Joe Jones did for hard bop and the polyrhythms that Tony Williams and Elvin Jones brought to Jazz in the 1960s.

Of course, many other drummers made their contributions to changing the “time feel” of Jazz and therefore changing the music over the years but, with the exception of Tony Williams, few other drummers bridged Jazz into Rock and Salsa to the extent that Steve Gadd did.

Earl Palmer, Jim Keltner and Hal Blaine made a fortune as “in the pocket” Hollywood studios drummers for Rock sessions and while are all very fine drummers, Steve Gadd brings many added dimensions to the backbeat drumming the predominates in today’s Jazz-Rock fusion.

He wraps the backbeat in a New Orleans marching band syncopation in the manner of drummer Idris Mohammed, simplifies the right-hand cymbal beat to a straight four-four, plays a cow bell as though it is a ride cymbal to create Latin Jazz inflections which he also heightens with the addition tom toms; tunes his drums to sound flat and tubby including a tight, cracking sounding snare drum and carefully crafts sustained grooves that give the music insistence and intensity.

Steve grooves, cooks and burns; his playing is never flashy but he always envelopes you in the rhythm he lays down.

His versatility is such that he sounds equally at home backing Rock vocalist James Taylor, or the late, pianist Michel Petrucciani or making classic Jazz recordings with Chet Baker, Paul Desmond and Jim Hall.

Yet, whatever the setting, you can tell immediately that it’s Steve Gadd.

At one time in Jazz parlance, to refer to a musician as a “bad” player meant just the opposite. A “Bad” player was one who had the epitome of skills, one who sometimes left you shaking your head in disbelief over what you had just heard.

“Badd” Steve Gadd is one such musician.

Steve has a new CD out and I thought I’d call your attention to it by sharing the following media release from Chris DiGirolamo’s Two for the Show Media.

Gadditude [BFM Jazz 302 062 418 2] – Street Date: September 3, 2013

Drumming Icon Steve Gadd Leads All-Star Crew on Gadditude Grooving new session for BFM JAZZ features fellow James Taylor sidemen.

“For Gadditude, his tenth outing as a leader and second for BFM Jazz, world class drummer Steve Gadd got a little help from his distinguished friends - guitarist Michael Landau, keyboardist Larry Goldings, trumpeter Walt Fowler and bassist Jimmy Johnson. Together they had already established a high degree of bandstand chemistry as the touring band for superstar singer-songwriter James Taylor. That goes a long way in explaining the sense of comfort and ease from track to track on this relaxed session recorded in just one week at Landau's home studio. "It was like a big family affair," says Gadd. "It's fun to get together with people that you care about, that you trust musically and just share the energy and try to make the music the best that it can be."

While Gadd's inimitable touch on the kit - the same one that defined hundreds of studio sessions since the 70s - underscores these nine tracks with understated authority, the rest of the Gadd Band follows suit with a collective feel that is relaxed, economical and imbued with deep soul. Together they put their own unique stamp on Keith Jarrett's "Country" and The Windup" and Radiohead's "Scatterbrain," along with evocative originals by Landau and Goldings.

"These guys are all great players," says Gadd. "We've played together a lot in James Taylor's band and I've also played with them in other circumstances too. They're some of the best guys in the world. And my belief is, when you put people like that together, the music will sort of dictate what will happen. That's where it was at on this session. We picked some music, put our heads together and everything fell into place real naturally."

Like no other drummer on the scene over the last four decades, Gadd has an uncanny ability to get 'inside' a tune. Gadditude is yet another example of the highly respected and hugely influential drummer finding the 'pocket' and making the music feel so good. The opener, Landau's "Africa," carries a cool, mysterioso vibe that recalls Bitches Brew-era Miles Davis. With Gadd cooking on a low flame underneath, Landau offers slinky guitar lines on top of Goldings' hovering Hammond organ cushion while Fowler adds a touch of Miles on mellow muted trumpet.

Goldings' beautiful ballad "Ask Me" has the composer switching to Fender Rhodes and Gadd resorting to his signature drum 'n' bugle corps grooves. "That was like a snare drum thing," he explains. "I love the sound of the snare drum and I love that kind of playing, and it just sort of worked for this song." Fowler, a former member of Frank Zappa's band who more recently has been doing orchestrations for movies, contributes some clear, open flugelhorn on this lyrical number.

Shifting gears, they put a new spin on Keith Jarrett's "Country" by playing it in 3/4, with Gadd's alluring brushwork setting the table for Goldings' gospel-ish Wurlitzer work and Fowler's bright horn solo. "I came up with the idea of doing it in three," says Gadd. "It's such a great Keith tune and we just tried to make it feel like it was our own."

Goldings's other composition here, "Cavaliero," is paced by Gadd's ultra-relaxed, behind-the-beat second line groove and colored by Landau's Ventures-like guitar lines. The bluesy "Green Foam" is a group composition that hinges on Landau's catchy guitar riff. It is reminiscent of Junior Wells' take on "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" from his landmark 1965 album Hoodoo Man Blues (a familiar riff later 'borrowed' by Jimi Hendrix for his Band of Gypsys tune, "Who Knows"). "All of those old songs are inspiring to all of us," says Gadd, "so we just started grooving on that riff and went a little bit crazy with it. But it was all fun. We had a lot of fun throughout this whole session." With Goldings on organ, this earthy number shifts to a downhome blues midway through, and Gadd provides the momentum.

The great drummer then puts up an undulating groove under a Stax/Volt flavored interpretation of Abdullah Ibrahim's peaceful "The Mountain" (from 1985's acclaimed Water From An Ancient Well), which has Goldings on Wurlitzer and also features another potent trumpet solo from Fowler.

Landau's "Who Knows Blues" is a N'awlins flavored shuffle with Fowler on muted trumpet and Goldings providing a velvety B-3 cushion beneath him. Landau takes his time on an economical solo here that recalls Gadd's erstwhile bandmate in Stuff, the late Cornell Dupree. This moves into an energized romp of Keith Jarrett's original, "The Windup." After navigating through the tricky head, Gadd settles into a kind of calypso flavored beat as Fowler and Goldings add uplifting solos. The date concludes with the group's take on Radiohead's atmospheric "Scatterbrain" which is a nice feature for Fowler, who 'sings' through his horn with unbridled lyricism. "That was Jimmy Johnson's idea to bring in that song," says Gadd, "and I really liked the way it came out. It's one of my favorites on the record."

"I think all the grooves were pretty cool on this thing, they felt pretty comfortable," says the man whose extensive list of credits include landmark recordings with the likes of Paul Simon, James Taylor, Eric Clapton, Steely Dan, Chick Corea, Al Di Meola, Stanley Clarke and Chuck Mangione. "It's a good listening album, pretty melodies, good playing. And I hope people like it."

Gadditude, the great drummer's second album for BFM Jazz, is scheduled for release on September 3. It marks the first joint marketing venture between BFM Jazz and PledgeMusic, which will give fans the opportunity to enjoy exclusive videos that feature early versions of the tunes, behind-the-scenes clips from the recording sessions and exclusive signed CDs. "It's a rare chance to see what it's like to be in the studio with us day by day as our new album takes shape," says Gadd. "And a significant portion of your pledge will go to an incredible organization that I care about deeply, called MusiCares, which provides assistance for music industry people in great times of need."

This link will take you to YouTube where you can preview the Africa track from the CD.

David Stone Martin: Jazz In Line and Color

© -Michael Miller/Los Angeles Times/6.23.2013, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“David Stone Martin led a period when being a record-jacket illustrator seemed like an endeavor worthy of a substantial artist."

-William Wilson, Art Critic, Los Angeles Times, 1987

 “The saying goes that necessity is the mother of invention, and for Vince Gerard it ended up being the mother of a new gallery in one of Southern California's artiest areas.

The founder of Jazzartz got the idea for his project when he went shopping for fine-art prints of work by David Stone Martin, who designed more than 400 album covers for Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker, Stan Getz and others. Gerard was unable to find any, though, so he began creating them himself— buying albums on eBay, contacting the artist's estate and making digital replicas of original works.

"The thing about David is, he's by far the most highly collected album cover artist in the world," Gerard said. "People collect him all over the world, especially in Europe and Asia, where there are huge jazz fans. But no one's ever seen his art beyond the album-cover size."

Until now, perhaps. Jazzartz, which opened in spring in Laguna Beach, CA sports dozens of prints of Martin's work around its compact space, with many of the original albums propped against the wall below the replicated images. Upstairs is Gerard's print room. Each of the works on display is part of a limited-edition series, and any customer who orders one will receive a new copy — even with alterations, as Gerard is happy to adjust color schemes or superimpose personal messages.

The show, scheduled to run through Sept. 15, is Jazzartz's first exhibition and also cele­brates a milestone: Martin, who died in 1992, would have turned 100 this year.

His images are often minimalist, with fig­ures depicted in spare ink strokes and two or three colors that wash over the outlines. In a 1987 appreciation, Times art critic William Wilson wrote that Martin "led a period when being a record-jacket illustrator seemed like an endeavor worthy of a substantial artist."

Bridget R. Cooks, an art history and African American studies professor at UC Irvine, said the loose interplay between line and color in Martin's images evokes the feel of the music itself. "It's not a kind of meticulous, measured and regulated sort of stroke," said Cooks, who plans to touch on jazz album cover art in her next book. "There's a kind of ease that goes with the technique of painting in this way."

Due to the considerable interest, Gerard is considering expansion, to Palm Springs. "Peo­ple come here from San Francisco and Los Angeles," Gerard said. "Every weekend, there will be a couple dozen people who come to look at the stuff and make purchases. They actually make special trips. Jazz fans are loyal fans."

David Liebman: Lieb Plays The Beatles

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

"Liebman is among the most important saxophonists in contemporary music . . . a leader and artist of integrity and independent direction." 

- Downbeat Magazine

“While others of his ‘60s generation have fallen off their ambition, Liebman has remained dogged about composition and trying different styles…he’s a fighter.”

- Ben Ratliff-NY Times

Too many things have happened in my life so I can go either way with coincidences: I can believe in them or I can disbelieve them and go with everything happens for a reason.

So why don’t I lay the sequence of events out for you and let you be the judge?

By way of background, I came to the music of saxophonist and flutist David Liebman’s very late in the scheme of things.

To give you some perspective on that comment, I’m at the age when my life has more history to it than future.

I’m not a Jazz historian so I can’t tell you just when Dave made the scene, but by the time he did I was largely gone from it and into other stuff like building a career and a family.

I knew that Dave had a pretty extensive discography because I would hear it occasionally on Jazz radio, but I really had not listened to his music in any sort of concerted way.

Thankfully, as is often the case, Michael Cuscuna and his fine team at Mosaic Records gave me the opportunity to catch-up with some of Dave’s stuff with the issuance in 2004 of the 3 CD Mosaic Select Dave Liebman & Richie Beirach [#12].

The music on the Mosaic set is made up of two live dates done at Keystone Korner in San Francisco in 1976 and some later studio dates from Germany and Japan from 1988 and 1991, respectively.

In his insert notes to the Mosaic set, Dave pretty much sums up the way I feel about this music when he states [paragraphing modified]:

“There are, to my mind, several themes, which permeate the three settings heard in this collection. Emotional intensity was definitely a common shared trait between Richie and myself. We communicated very directly both socially and musically. This was very clear to even the casual listener [emphasis, mine].

Stylistically, we were products of the 1960s generation, when a listening/hanging session could easily cover Bartok, Hendrix, Coltrane and Ravi Shankar for example. Eclecticism was the trademark of our generation. We and others from our period pursued this aesthetic with a vengeance, more so than previous jazz generations.

On the more subtle musical level, Richie and I constantly "chased" each other around harmonically; myself sounding notes outside the stated harmony while Richie colored or instigated supportive chords. We had first heard this used extensively with Coltrane and McCoy Tyner as well as Miles and Wayne Shorter with Herbie Hancock. This interaction constituted a major part of our musical discussions, whether in duo or in a quartet setting.

Richie is a master at unifying a rhythm section into a unit to offset the soloist. He was the perfect straw boss/helmsman, focusing Billy and Ron's energies towards maximizing their potential as both a support system as well as a source for new ideas and fresh energy.

I never had to think about what was happening behind me. I trusted Richie's judgment and it enabled me to be able to employ one of the most important aspects I learned playing with Miles Davis, which was the use of space to dramatize a musical statement. It doesn't get better than that for a horn player!!” [emphasis, mine].

Emotional Intensity and Space are key concepts that come to mind while listening to Dave Liebman’s music.

Another major element in his playing can be found in the following quotation from Richard Cook and Brain Morton, The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 6^th Ed.:

“It's one of the paradoxes of David Liebman's career that an improviser who has put such emphasis (in bands such with pianist Richie Beirach as Lookout Farm and Quest) on collective improvisation and non-hierarchical musical tradition should so frequently evoke solitariness.” [emphasis, mine]

[BTW – Dave Liebman has recorded a ton of music and the Cook/Morton book is an excellent source for a large sampling of it with detailed annotations.]

When I listen to Dave Liebman’s music, I am immediately imbued with a sense of emotional intensity but one that is confined in terms of space and characterized by a feeling of solitariness.

Dave can be a very busy player. Usually a lot of notes springing forth from a complex harmonic conception such as Dave’s can result in a sense of emotional intensity, but it does not generally evoke space and solitariness.

So here I am, recently listening again to the Mosaic Liebman/Beirach 3-CD set and trying to sort through all of my newfound impressions of Dave Liebman for a blog feature I was developing when I get a note from drummer Eric Ineke asking me if I would be interested in listening to a copy of … wait for it… THE DAVID LIEBMAN TRIO: LIEB PLAYS THE BEATLES WITH SPECIAL GUEST JOHN RUOCCO [Daybreak DBCHR 74558].

I mean, how cool is that?

Talk about coincidence!

Of course, having done a previous blog review of The Ultimate Sideman: Jazz Master Drummer Eric Ineke Talks About Artists He Has Played with Since 1968 in Conversation with Dave Liebman, I knew that Eric and Dave were friends.

But I had never heard them play together.

I also have never been a fan of The Beatles, but I have a high regard for both Eric and Dave’s musical integrity so I thought the new CD was worth a listen.

And it is that and much more than that – it is a recording full of pleasant surprises.

Seventeen [17] Beatles tunes, most of which I will admit to never having even heard before, arranged singly or in medley, played to the highest musical standards.

So not only am I now awash in more of Dave Liebman’s music, Dave’s got me listening to the Beatles, too, and enjoying it.

Emotional Intensity - Space – Solitariness are all very much present in Dave’s interpretations of the Beatles music but the over-riding impression that the music on the CD created in me was a reconnection with three classic performances at the Village Vanguard by tenor saxophonists Sonny Rollins, Joe Henderson and Joe Lovano, respectively.

Sonny with bassist Wilbur Ware and drummer Elvin Jones started off the live-sax-with-rhythm-section tradition in 1957 with A Night at The Vanguard, Joe Henderson followed with a1985 date at the legendary NYC Jazz club with bassist Ron Carter and drummer Al Foster and Joe Lovano’s stint took place ten years later in 1995 with Christian McBride on bass and Lewis Nash on drums.

Listed as one of his all-time favorite recordings, Dave has said of A Night at The Vanguard:  “Once again at the Village Vanguard, which obviously was a delight for musicians to play in, along with Elvin Jones and Wilbur Ware, the sheer power and creativity of prob­ably the greatest all- around saxophonist who ever played is astounding on this recording. And you can just feel the spontaneity happening.”

Sonny’s, Henderson’s and Lovano’s Vanguard albums are the epitome of musical dialogue because the music is so uncluttered and untrammeled that one can easily hear what is being “said.”

The bass lines can be heard clearly and pulsate like a heart beat, the clicking sound of the ride cymbal with its shimmering rivets creates waves of harmonic overtones while the tenor saxophone – the instrument with a sonority that is closest to the human voice – sings out, uninterruptedly with a clarity akin to that of an operatic diva.

There’s no place to go; no place to hide in the music. Each player is a solitary sound in a clearly defined space and the emotional intensity generated by such a setting is like nothing you ever heard before.

These initial impressions are in no way intended to diminish the importance of John Ruocco to the music on LIEB PLAYS THE BEATLES.

If anything, John’s presence on tenor saxophone, clarinet and bass clarinet as the “other voice” on some of the tracks just adds to the music’s intimacy. He is a sensitive and understated player who contributes greatly to the overall texture of the music.

In arranging the music for this album, David has pared down things to allow for the space necessary for deeper things to develop in the music. His solos are explorations into the architectural possibilities of the music: at times cantilevered with phrases that trail off and hang in the air while he ducks back under them, grabs them and takes them in a new direction.

Sometimes he builds his solos vertically like a harmonically shaped skyscraper that is reminiscent of the work of tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins and the sheets of sound approach of John Coltrane

Other times, he seems to horizontally box ideas together with a languid flow of melodic inspiration and a full-bodied sound that brings to mind that ballad styling of tenor saxophonists Dexter Gordon and Sonny Rollins.

However, Lieb shapes the space, it is always full of emotional intensity; he really puts himself into the music. You can’t wait to hear the next track and where this musical adventure will lead.

Adding immensely to the structure and shape of the music on are bassist Marius Beets [pronounced “Bates”] and drummer Eric Ineke [the “e” at the end of Eric’s family name is pronounced with a hard sound – “ah”].

Marius and Eric have evolved into one of the best straight-ahead Jazz rhythmic sections in all of Jazz and both bring fire and finesse to the music.

Marius’ bass sound is big and broad which gives just the right bottom to the music. His choice of notes frames the chords so well and his time is impeccable.

Eric and Marius together form what bassist Chuck Israel has described as “a marriage between the bass line and the cymbal beat.” Whatever the tempo, they just lock in beautifully and create a vibrant and buoyant feel to the time.

Eric doesn’t overplay, stays out of the way when that’s call for in the music, and boots things along when necessary.

LIEB PLAYS THE BEATLES is a brilliantly conceived and expertly played recording. It’s so nice to know that Jazz of this caliber is still being created today.

Our thanks to Eric for hipping us to it.

More about the music and how Dave approached it are contained in the following insert notes to the CD which he wrote [I have modified the paragraphing]. They are also available on Lieb’s website along with order information for the new LIEB PLAYS THE BEATLES which you can locate at www.daveliebman.com.

LIEB PLAYS THE BEATLES

FEATURING DAVID LIEBMAN, ERIC INEKE, MARIUS BEETS AND SPECIAL GUEST JOHN RUOCCO

“After doing several recordings over the past few years with this trio playing what I call "repertoire" material, (something I have done numerous times over the decades), I want to take the opportunity to explain the process which is quite different than when I record my original compositions. "Repertoire" for me represents what the body of music commonly referred to as "standards" in two categories: songs written for Broadway, Hollywood or other popular formats (rock, opera, etc.), as well as compositions by jazz musicians that have become part of the canon.

Previous projects of mine have ranged from Puccini to Jobim, Monk to Wilder, Kurt Weill to Cole Porter, West Side Story and of course Miles, Coltrane and Ornette Coleman. Arranging the given material is the primary challenge which technically may include musical devices such as re-harmonizing, inserting vamps, changing the forms and in some cases altering parts of the melody.

On some of the projects I have done minimal re-arranging, sticking close to the original; the Monk, Wilder and Weill projects are good examples of this more "hands off" approach. Beyond what I discover about my personal aesthetic doing this kind of work, there is the information that reveals itself when one delves into the music of great artists, discovering how they thought and worked out their material. I always learn something, from Puccini's soaring melodic lines to Jobim's exquisite balance between harmony and melody, to Monk's economic use of space and so forth.

Another benefit of rearranging known material is that it relieves the onus of writing original tunes for at least a period of time. One works with a known quantity from the start, most likely the melody and harmony primarily. Also, as far as potential listeners are concerned, there is at least a bit of the recognition factor possible, depending on how far away from the original I go. Finally, there is the fact that for the most part these tunes have stood the test of time.

My process for such projects follows a similar pattern. I go through song books by the composer playing the music at the piano, searching for something in the melody or/and harmony that seems interesting and will open a line of exploration. A potential pile develops which gets whittled down and leads eventually to small musical changes written directly on the lead sheets (all hand written by the way...no computer). Soon after I write a fresh lead sheet which becomes the first draft. Over the next months I go to the piano and check these tunes over and over, sometimes altering them drastically, arriving at an arrangement and appropriate rhythmic feel, all depending upon the instrumentation and personnel that will record with me.

For my latest excursion I have chosen the Beatles' music which has a biographical tie in as they were a significant part of the back drop of my generation's story in the 1960's, both musically and socially for what they represented at the time. Elvis Presley symbolized a break from the rigid conformity of the 1950's while the Beatles personified rebellion and change for our generation, definitely in America, if only because of their hair style at the time (hard to believe in the present!) More specifically it was their lyrics which evolved as they personally and musically matured from "I Want To Hold Your Hand" to "Fool on the Hill," etc., that spoke to us. The message was at times cute, philosophical, whimsical, even spiritual, just all over the map as we all were at that time. Their melodies, though not as deep as other notable composers I have dealt with, did handily support the lyrics. As stand alone chords, the harmonies were very basic and quasi church-like (but hardly blues based) while the rhythm was quite basic. Interestingly, George Harrison's tunes, much less in the overall count than the Lennon/McCartney combination shine for their ingenuity, emotional and lyrical depth.

The bottom line was that the Beatles' music was of a whole and stylistically consistent. Even physically on the page, much like Monk or Ornette tunes, they all look more or less the same, most of the time no more than two pages with an A section, a bridge and a coda. Certainly they were incredibly prolific, writing and recording hundreds of tunes in less than a ten year period. They chronicled both their lives and those of my generation, embodying the changes and social upheavals of the times. There was no going back to the stultifying popular music of the 1950s, (some early rock not withstanding).

For this recording there was no chord instrument, though I play piano on two tracks for the sake of variety. With Eric and Marius in mind along with the wonderful John Ruocco on assorted winds, it was quite a challenge to find the right three notes (two horns and bass) for expressing the content. Most difficult was to find something interesting to improvise on as we jazz musicians are accustomed to doing. The ambiance ended up being quite lyrical, restrained and plaintive, putting the melodies front and center. I hope you enjoy this excursion into a great body of music.”

The following video draws upon Lieb’s, Maruis’s and Eric’s rendering of The Beatles While My Guitar Gently Weeps to set the perfect sax-bass-drums-at-the-Village-Vanguard tone with which to close this blog feature.

Would that it were that the Jazz Gods could get Dave up from East Stroudsburg, PA and Marius and Eric over from Holland to play a trio engagement at The Village Vanguard in New York City.

Now if I could just get Lorraine Gordon [owns the Vanguard] to return my calls.

Rahsaan Roland Kirk - The Ineffable [From The Archives]

Thanks to the largesse of the Copyright Gods, the editorial staff at JazzProfiles was recently allowed to once again use the video that forms the closing tribute to Rahsaan, so we thought we'd celebrate this event by re-posting this piece.

“… Rahsaan Roland Kirk … [used] circus like multi-instrument playing to foment his own version of an improvisational revolution.”

- Don Heckman, in Bill Kirchner, ed., The Oxford Companion to Jazz, 

[p. 610]

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

If, as Louis Armstrong said, “Jazz is who you are,” then the music of Rahsaan Roland Kirk was a pure reflection of his eclectic, eccentric and exuberant personality. 

In fairness, none of these descriptors do justice to Rahsaan for he was ineffable – beyond words.

Blind from infancy, his musical achievements were stunning in their complexity.

Perhaps the most apt representation of Rahsaan Roland Kirk is that he was a Force of Nature.

As is often the case with such larger-than-life personalities, his strengths could also be his weaknesses.

“A stellar soloist, … [Kirk] could play with authenticity and forcefulness in any jazz style, from trad to free, and on a host of instruments—not just conventional saxes and clarinets but pawnshop oddities such as manzello, stritch, siren whistle, and nose flute. Kirk's arsenal of ef­fects was seemingly endless, ranging from circular breathing to playing three horns at once. This versatility came, in time, to be a curse. Had he focused on one or two instruments, he would have been acknowledged as a master. Instead he was too of­ten dismissed as little more than a jazz novelty act.”  - Ted Gioia, The History of Jazz, p. 329

The view of Kirk as a significant innovator is one that is widely supported by a large number of notable Jazz musicians and writers as evidenced by the following anecdote involving the late, alto saxophonist, Paul Desmond as told by Doug Ramsey:

“Taking in one incredible jam session in the ballroom of the Royal Orleans Hotel [during the 1969 New Orleans Jazz Festival], we witnessed Roland Kirk surpassing himself in one of the most inspired soprano sax solos either of us had ever heard. Kirk used Alphonse Picou's traditional chorus from "High Society" as the basis of a fantastic series of variations that went on chorus after chorus. We were spellbound by the intensity and humor of it and Paul announced that henceforth he would be an unreserved Roland Kirk fan even unto gongs and whistles.” Jazz Matters, [p.151].

It isn’t easy to listen to Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s music.

You really have to want to and you have to work at it.

It’s complicated and sometimes it’s harsh and full of distress – very often, it does not lay easy on the ears.

“Kirk’s playing is all over the place from haunting blues derived themes to polytonal appendages; he executes difficult tempos with quite astonishing dexterity; he moves across chords with a bizarre, crablike motion; a heavy, sometimes massive sound, often vocalized and multiphonic; Kirk is Kirk and it would be a mistake to expect smoothly crafted Jazz. [paraphrase]”

- Richard Cook & Brian Morton, The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD

Fortunately, for those who are inclined to take-on the challenge that is Rahsaan, much of his music has been collected in two anthologies: [1] Rahsaan: The Complete Mercury Recordings of Roland Kirk [10 CDs, Polygram 846-630-2] and [2] Does Your House Have Lions? [2 CDs Atlantic Rhino R2 71406].

The Mercury compendium contains as an added benefit, a comprehensive treatment of the formative years of Kirk’s career and the defining characteristics of his early music by Dan Morgenstern, the Director of the Institute for Jazz Studies at Rutgers University.

In their Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, Richard Cook and Brian Morton said of Morgenstern’s notes that they “… afford unparalleled detail on perhaps the most significant phase of Kirk’s career.”

Here are the opening paragraphs from Dan’s extensive insert notes.

“Roland Kirk — or Rahsaan, as he preferred to be called in his later years — was a unique phenomenon in the history of music. To be sure, he was not the first to play several instruments simultaneously, Wilbur Sweatman, a pioneer of early jazz, played three clarinets at once, and so did Ross Gorman (known for the opening clarinet glissando on the first recording of "Rhap­sody in Blue") and Fess Williams. But these men used it as a showmanship trick, not for creative purposes. In that respect, Kirk came first, and his few emulators and imitators have not been serious competition.

Moreover, that was just one aspect of Kirk's total tonal personality. He mastered every instru­ment he played, and had his own approach to all of them. And every note he played or sang swung to the hilt. His imagination and energy were awesome, and he channeled all he had in him into his music. 

When he wasn't playing, he listened — to music of all kinds, to the sounds of nature, to everything around him.

When he wasn't making or listening to music, he talked about it, and when he slept, he dreamed about it — the idea of playing more than one instru­ment at a time came to him in a dream, he claimed. Of course he also had time for other things — women, children (he loved them, most of all his own), and good food and drink, which he consumed prodigiously. But in a lifetime of knowing musicians and lovers of music, I have never met anyone so totally involved in the world of sound as Rahsaan Roland Kirk.

…. He never limited his horizon to what was "in" or fashionable, and his playing reflected his deep understanding of the music's past, present and future.”

The title given to the later, Atlantic anthology is explained in the following story by its producer, Joel Dorn:

“One day in the late 1960’s, I was on the phone with Rahsaan and mentioned to him that just that day I had bought a house. He responded by asking: ‘Does your house have lions?’ I said: ‘What?’ He said: ‘Lions you know like in front of a museum or the post office. You know, concrete lions. Get a house with lions.'” – May, 1993

Joel goes on to add:

“I can honestly say that Rahsaan changed my life. When I first saw him in the ‘70s [Rahsaan died in 1977, he was only 41 years old], it was the greatest thing I’d ever seen … it was like watching a hurricane on stage. The energy was far heavier than anything I was seeing in the punk rock world. Yet it took you somewhere. The contrast of anger and beauty was incredibly affecting; it had a healing effect. … After a Kirk set, I would feel that I had taken a long journey, and it left you with hope.  This is what I always believed music could do, and I became obsessed with him. His records lived up to his live shows, yet they were all different.”

In addition to the writings of Dan Morgenstern and Joel Dorn, Garry Giddins lends his literary gifts and encyclopedic knowledge of Jazz to an excellent profile on Rahsaan Roland Kirk which you can locate on pages 431- 436 of his seminal Visions of Jazz.

Gary’s essay is entitled Rahsaan Roland Kirk (One-Man Band) and here are some excerpts:

“No one who experienced him in performance can forget the sight: a stocky blind man swaying precariously back and forth on the lip of a bandstand, dressed in a yellow jump suit, his face implacable behind black wraparounds, blowing dissonant counterpoint on three saxo­phones of varying lengths, while other instruments, some of his own invention, dangled from his shoulders, neck, ears, and, on occasion, his nose. Talk about one-man bands.”

“By now [Roland’s 1960 Chess LP Introducing Roland Kirk] , Kirk had his basic ar­senal. In addition to tenor, he played an obsolete cousin to the soprano sax that he called a manzello, a straightened alto with modified keys that he called a stritch, a siren, a whistle, and, a conventional flute. He found the manzello and stritch in the basement of an old instrument store and taught himself to finger two saxophones while using the third as a drone. In this way, he could play a variety of reed-section voicings and accom­pany his own solos with stop-time chords.”

“Kirk rejected the total immersion in protracted improvisation preached in Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz and John Coltrane's "Chasin' the Trane," but he did embody a prophetic refusal to relinquish the lusty pleasures of big bands (albeit a one-man version), swing, lilting waltzes, and nostalgic ballads, all of which he made aggressively new.”

Rahsaan Roland Kirk was a Jazz World onto himself. 

You are sure to be exhilarated when you step into it, but don’t forget to breathe as it’s like nothing you’ve ever experienced before.

The following video tribute to Rahsaan provides a mere sample, at best.