Contemporary Concepts - Bill Holman and Stan Kenton

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

In this, his 93rd birthday year, the editorial staff at JazzProfiles is doing its best to help the Bill Holman celebration along by posting a number of features about Willis on these pages.

And it’s no coincidence that when it comes to big bands, he is the composer and/or arranger for a number of our favorite big band albums which not only feature his own big band but also include the writing he did for the likes of the Terry Gibbs Dream Band, the Buddy Rich “Killer Force” Band and, of course, his orchestrations for the Stan Kenton Orchestra which is where my introduction to the music of Willis “Bill” Holman began.

Specifically, my wannabe Jazz chums and I literally devoured every note of Stan Kenton Contemporary Concepts Capitol LP when it was first issued. We could sing Charlie Mariano and Bill Perkins’ spectacular solos on Stella by Starlight and Yesterdays, respectively, note for note, and often did in the beat-up, old buggies we drove in on our way to The Gigs.

Bill Holman explains how this album all came about - and he also explains how, for a time, why it almost never came about - in the following excerpts from his insert notes to Mosaic Records Stan Kenton: The Complete Capitol Recordings of the Holman and Russo Charts [MD4-136]

HOLMAN ON KENTON

"My God, this is what Stan is looking for!"

These words, feverishly expressed by Gene Roland one night in late 1951, led to a meeting and an ensuing twenty-five year relationship with Stan Kenton.

In the course of some intense hanging out, I had played a recording of a 12-tone blues that I'd written (doesn't everybody?) while studying at the Westlake College of Music in Hollywood. According to Gene, who had been writing for Kenton for some time (JUMP FOR JOY, AIN'T NO MISERY IN ME, OPUS IN CHARTREUSE), Stan had been talking about a more contrapuntal, linear type of music, and Gene felt that my piece lay in the direction that Stan was considering.

While I was away on a short trip with Charlie Barnet, Gene took the recording to Kenton, and when I returned, Stan called. We met, talked, and he asked me to write a couple of pieces for the band. Being young and ambitious, I reached too far in the writing and exceeded my limits - the charts were disasters and never heard of again - but Stan gamely suggested that I do another. By this time I'd heard some of the things that Gerry Mulligan was bringing in, and with a slightly better idea of what was going on, managed to come back down to Earth and brought in a better effort, though it, too, was never heard of again.

Gerry wrote eight to ten scores for the band (early 1952, just before he formed the famous Quartet) and, while YOUNG BLOOD, the most linear of these, was the only one to really thrill Stan, the players (by this time I was playing tenor in the band) loved to play and hear all of them. For me particularly, being only about ten charts out of music school and with no real jazz conception of my own, Gerry's music played a great part in my finding my own voice.

For the first few months in the band, with the pressures of being on the road and trying to play well, along with an indecision as to what I would write for this band, I didn't write anything at all, although Stan was constantly encouraging me. Finally, he gave me an assignment - a piece to feature Maynard Ferguson and Sal Salvador, to be, and to be called an INVENTION FOR GUITAR AND TRUMPET. Never one of my favorites, it's probably the best known by the public of all my Kenton charts. Anyway, the drought was over. I next volunteered an arrangement of STAR EYES, which was so packed with relentless eighth-note counterpoint that Stan said it "sounded like a merry-go-round". Also never heard of again. However, I was over the hump and began writing regularly.

I must mention the high point of my two years with the band, which was Zoot joining us; what a joy to be able to hear and hang out with him everyday. And when Stan asked me to write a piece for Zoot, to actually hear him play it was heaven! This is not to minimize the contributions of the other jazz players in the band. An overall musical conception (I call it musicality) is as much a requisite for a music writer as all the mechanics of writing that we study. One of the ways to develop musicality in the jazz field is to listen to creative soloists, and I think that my association with Candoli, Konitz, Rosolino and Kamuca as well as Zoot had a positive effect on my musical conception.

Stan continued to encourage the writing, paying me for everything I turned in, and occasionally offering suggestions as to what music the band needed, or which soloist should have a feature piece. Nothing very oppressive. We had a friendly relationship, not very close, but I was always impressed by his willingness to commission and perform music that was so unlike what the band had been known for. Even so, I was shocked in 1954 when he called to say that he intended to record an album of my music, although I had left the band earlier after a lusty discussion between him and me about the band's shortcomings.

When Stan re-formed the band in 1955 with Mel Lewis, Al Porcino et al., he asked me to write as much as I could: originals, feature pieces, dance charts and vocals. I had a ball with this, writing a couple of charts a week and still learning; doing the more functional charts was a nice change too, as I'd done mostly originals to this point. In addition, I knew the band was sounding good; with Porcino and Lewis setting the phrasing and rhythmic feel. I think it was the "jazziest" of all the Kenton bands. I feel very fortunate to have had CONTEMPORARY CONCEPTS recorded by these guys.

After a time, however, Stan had a change of heart and musical direction, and my reign as Chief Arranger was over. It was a lot of fun. I learned a few things and had made a little reputation (some people only know of my work from this period in spite of my dogged efforts in the thirty years since), but there were other things I wanted to do too, so this was okay. Though not closely associated with Stan or the band after this period, I wrote occasionally for them until 1977.

In sum, it was a pretty high level for an "earn-as-you-learn" case such as mine, but, ill-equipped as I was, Stan's patience and encouragement and the help of a lot of great players enabled me to make a start in a long and rewarding career. I'll always be grateful for this, but, what the hell, we both got something out of it.”

—Bill Holman, Los Angeles November, 1990

Kandinsky and Kenton: An Artistic Accord [From the Archives]

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

“Beginning in the mid-1940’s, Kenton found an enthusiastic, ever-growing, devoted audience. His music seemingly spoke to the postwar young and veterans of World War II. The enveloping, orgasmic sound of the orchestra had a hypnotic quality. The general feeling was that Kenton was hip. And though many critics disagreed vehemently, supporters of the orchestra would have none of that. They loved with a passion this vivid, often stirring, immoderately loud music that made them feel good and seemed to promise something for the future.”

- Burt Korall, Jazz author and critic

There’s a tremendous bond between Jazz musicians.

They know how hard it is to play this music; harder still to create it.

As a result, Jazz musicians have a ready respect for others who demonstrate a facility in navigating the music’s many challenges.

The knowing look; the smile of appreciation; the nodding of the head in approval are all subtle signs accorded to a musician who can make it happen in Jazz.

Jazz doesn’t exist; it has to be brought into existence by the improvising skills of the musician, individually and in combination.

Of course, the melodies, chord structures and blues frameworks that these improvisations are based on are, for the most part, written compositions.

But this notated music only serves as a point of departure.

Jazz is almost impossible to teach, but it can be learned.

In Jazz, one of the sincerest forms of flattery is indeed imitation; copying the work of others in order to get the “feel” of how Jazz is done and to develop one’s own sensibilities for making it.

It’s like trying on our elders’ clothes until one is able to “dress” oneself with originality, assurance and style.

When it all comes together and one finds one’s own voice in Jazz, there’s a tremendous sense of satisfaction and power in what the author Arthur Koestler once described as “The Act of Creation.”

Although I am not at all practiced in other, creative arts, I am told by many who are that artists share a similar affinity with the work of each other be they painters or poets or photographers; essayists or writers or biographers; playwrights or actors or movie directors.

Sometimes these artistic accords cross lines and combine well with one another. 

Imagine viewing motion pictures with film scores by Elmer Bernstein, Jerry Goldsmith or Ennio Morricone, or listening to Leonard Bernstein or Sting read the narrative to Tchaikovsky’s Peter and The Wolf  while the symphony orchestra plays out the sounds of each of the characters or any of the multitude of multi-media experiences that we create for ourselves like viewing photographs or reading a novel while listening to music.

The arts blend and form a concurrence with one another because each in their own way takes us through perception into the world of imagination, emotion and atmospheric mood. 

Artistic expression also satisfies our need to shape our own world; our individualism, as it were.

Part of growing up is rejecting the world of our parents [without, of course, rejecting them] and seeking out our own interests and world view. Artists help us to do this by replacing the powerful ambiguity of imitation with the thrilling assurance of finding our own preferences.

Artists often pave the way for the new. In Jazz, the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band, and Louis Armstrong’s Hot Fives were followed by the big bands of The Swing Era and they, in turn, were followed by Bebop and various forms of progressive or modern Jazz.

In painting, Greek and Roman art was followed by that of Medieval Times, and then the Renaissance, Mannerism, The Baroque and the various schools of Modern Art including, Neoclassicism, Romanticism, Realism, Impressionism, Post-Impression and the many schools of Twentieth Century painting and sculpture.

Two examples of artists that strike me as constantly searching and probing for new directions while having an artistic unity based in iconoclasm are the painter Wassily Kandinsky [1866-1944] and the composer-arranger-bandleader Stan Kenton [1911-1979].

Put into a simpler form: I like listening to Kenton’s music while viewing Kandinsky’s art. Both are known for their daring.

Kandinsky died in 1944, a few years after Kenton formed his first big band in 1941. As a Russian living in Germany, Kandinsky’s art reflected the chaos of German culture before and between the two, world wars.

A leading member of a group of Munich artists known as “Der Blaue Reiter” [The Blue Horsemen], Kandinsky abandoned representational art altogether.

Using a rainbow of colors and a free, dynamic brushwork, Kandinsky created a completely non-objective style.

Whatever traces of representation his work contains are quite unintentional – his aim was to charge form and color with a purely spiritual meaning [as he put it] by eliminating all resemblance to the physical world.

Not to push the analogy between art and music too closely, but Stan Kenton in his music, as did Kandinsky in his painting, eventually eschewed representational forms of the Jazz while pursuing more abstract forms of the music.

He didn’t want his band to swing or his music to be danced to, he wanted it to be modern, contemporary, and progressive.

But most of all he wanted his music to be listened to, to have an impact, to be felt!

Big, brassy and bombastic, Kenton’s musical conception was orchestral bordering on the grandiose. His music wasn’t mainstream, if anything, it was characterized by a concerted effort to attack established Jazz “traditions.”

Can you imagine standing in front of the Kenton band when it unleashed the power and majesty of its music?

Trumpets screaming, French Horns heralding, trombones blatting, and tuba’s bellowing bass notes – what a rush!

I feel the same flash of excitement when I view Kandinsky’s paintings with their bold, bright colors, non-objective configurations and juxtaposition of shapes and patterns.

Both Kandinsky and Kenton were spurred on by the artistic urge to find their own style; to do it their way.

“Kandinsky's—or any artist's [Kenton?]—ideas are not important to us unless we are convinced of the importance of his pic­tures. Did he create a viable style? Admittedly, his work demands an intuitive response that may be hard for some of us, yet the painting here reproduced has density and vitality, and a radiant freshness of feeling that impresses us even though we are uncertain what exactly the artist has expressed.” [H.W. Janson, History of Art].

Miles Behind

7/4 with tenor sax solo by Warne Marsh; trumpet solo by Conte Candoli; Larry Bunker on drums

How a Latin Jazz Rhythm Section Works

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

Modern Drummer: What are some of the common mistakes that drummers make when performing Latin music?

Johnnie Rae : From a Latin point of view, the most common mistake is that American drummers tend to put in too many fills and change the basic beat. When you’re working with a conga and other percussion, you only play your part; you can make little changes, a note here and there, but you can’t change the basic rhythm. Jazz drummers, even though they may have a good Latin concept, tend to think in terms of fills as if they were playing jazz music. Latin rhythms have got to be more solid and settled because there’s more syncopation going on. Also, when you’re working in a multiple-percussion section, there are more things that are slotted around what you’re doing. You have to play your part in the correct place so that there is that space on either side of your beat for that bongo part, cowbell beat, or whatever.

Also, American drummers should be aware of their tonality. That means being aware of when to use the cymbals, the sides of the toms, the closed hi-hat, and the cowbell. Those types of effects are important, and they are best worked out in the arrangement, depending on the type of tune it is and who is soloing. If you’re working with a conga drummer, you should try to stay away from the toms, because you don’t want to get into the conga’s tonality. Armando Peraza showed me a way of playing a mambo on a set that works very well with conga drummers. With the snares in the “up” position on your snare drum, and playing with both hands in unison, you play the mambo beat on the snare drum and cymbals. At the same time, you play a variation of the bass figure on the bass drum; the tone of the bass drum will be below the conga drum. What I usually play on the bass drum is a “spacy” clave figure. That means I play only the two notes in the second bar and I don’t play anything on the bass drum on the first bar. It’s a simple bass drum figure, but it’s solid.

When it comes to 20th-century American pop music, "virtually all of the major popular forms--Tin Pan Alley, stage, and film music, jazz, rhythm and blues, country music, and rock--have been affected throughout their development by the idioms of Brazil, Cuba, or Mexico." So writes eminent musicologist John Storm Roberts of the often-overlooked role that Latin American rhythms, musical forms, and musicians have played in shaping American culture. The Latin Tinge: The Impact of Latin American Music on the United States [Oxford, 1979].

While it may sound like a lot of clap trap to the uninformed ear, the Latin rhythm section is actually a well-oiled machine with everything in its place.  When done correctly, the rhythms, counter-rhythms and accents played in combination by the conga and bongo drums, timbales and a variety of hand-held percussion instruments create a fluid, rippling foundation over which the melody glides.

While jazz rhythms are swung, most Latin jazz tunes have a straight eighth note feel. Latin jazz rarely employs a backbeat, using a form of the clave instead. 

Most jazz rhythms emphasize beats two and four. Latin jazz tunes rely more on various clave rhythms, again depending on regional style.

Since the underlying “feel” of Latin or Afro-Cuban Jazz relates to the clave, perhaps a word at this point as to its meaning, role and its relationship with the instruments, compositions and arrangements

Clave in its original form is a Spanish word and its musical usage was developed in the western part of Cuba, particularly the cities of Matanzas and Havana. However, the origins of the rhythm can be traced to Africa, particularly the West African music of modern-day Ghana and Nigeria. There are also rhythms resembling the clave found in parts of the Middle East.

By way of background and very briefly, there are three types of clave.

The most common type of clave rhythm in Latin Jazz is the son clave, named after the Cuban musical style of the same name. Below is an example of the son clave rhythm in Western musical notation.

Because there are three notes in the first measure and two in the second, the above is said to be in the 3:2 direction or forward clave. The 2:3 clave is the same but with the measures reversed [i.e.: reversed clave].

Another type of clave is the rumba clave which can also be played in either the 3:2 or 2:3 direction, although the 3:2 is more common.  Here is an example of its notation:

There is a third clave, often called the 6/8 clave or sometimes referred to as the Afro Feel clave because it is an adaptation of a well-documented West African [some claim Sub-Saharan] 12/8 timeline.  It is a cowbell pattern and is played in the older more folkloric forms of Cuban music, but it has also been adapted into Latin Jazz.

Below are the three major forms of clave, all written in a 3:2 position:

The choice of the direction of the clave rhythm is guided by the melody, which in turn directs all other instruments and arrangements.

In many contemporary compositions such as those recorded by Mongo Santamaria, George Shearing and Cal Tjader groups, the arrangements make use of both movements of the clave in different sections of the tunes.

As far as the type of clave rhythm used, generally son clave is used with dance styles while rumba and afro are associated with folkloric rhythms.

To re-emphasize a point, while allowing for some embellishment, these clave rhythmic patterns must be strictly adhered to by the percussionists in the playing of Latin Jazz to keep the music controlled and grounded, while at the same time, flowing.

To the uninitiated, Latin Jazz rhythm sections might sound more like controlled chaos, but when it all comes together properly it is a thing of beauty, especially as one’s ear becomes more informed.

The first time I heard the Cuban Jazz group IRAKERE’s music, I was absolutely overwhelmed by how well all of these rhythmic conventions were honored thus providing a platform for a music rich in passionate intensity and melodic intrigue.

IRAKERE is the Yoruba word for “vegetation.” And “Yoruba” refers to an ethno-linguistic group native to West Africa, but the dialect is also spoken in some parts of Cuba. I have no idea as to the idiomatic hip meaning of IRAKERE, but I certainly hope to find out what arcane symbolism may lurk behind the name of the band.

This blending of Cuban folkloric elements with indigenous Cuban and West African rhythms perhaps indicates that the 1950’s term of Afro-Cuban Jazz may be a more appropriate appellation for many forms of Latin Jazz today.

However, the influx into the United States during the last quartet of the 20th century of large populations from Puerto Rico, parts of the Spanish Caribbean and Mexico, that is to say, immigrants of ethnic Hispanic origin, may be responsible for the adoption and current prevalence of the more generic term – Latin Jazz. 

For all intents and purposes, the terms Afro-Cuban and Latin Jazz interchangeably and you can hear one example of its many rhythms in the following video featuring Lucas van Merwijk’s Cubop City Big Band performing Mulata Rumbera.

Gerry Mulligan: Then and Now

A Tribute to the Music of Stefano di Battista

Charlie Parker Tribute - Peter Herbolzheimer Big Band - "Au Privave"

Charlie Parker’s Scorching Innovations - John Edward Hasse

PHOTO: ELIOT ELISOFON/THE LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES

"Born 100 years ago this week, the saxophonist pushed bebop to jazz’s forefront and set a lasting benchmark for virtuosity and style.

By John Edward Hasse

Aug. 26, 2020 Wall Street Journal

"Charlie Parker blazed through American music like a meteor, burning out in his early 30s. Yet the alto saxophonist ranks high in the pantheon of American genius for his artistry, innovations and impact. A larger-than-life figure, he changed jazz forever.

Born in Kansas City, Kan., on Aug. 29, 1920, Parker evoked more passion, pro and con, than any of his jazz predecessors or contemporaries. Many of the negatives reflected his behavior as a societal outsider. His alcohol and drug dependency, instability, and periodic hospitalizations promoted a stereotype of jazz musicians as misfits and social deviants. But Parker’s prodigious positives are why he matters and why we still remember him.

While a teenager, Parker jumped into jazz, listening with open ears. He absorbed the blues-drenched swing of Bennie Moten, Jay McShann, Count Basie and other Kansas City notables, but sought his own musical way. He later claimed that for three or four years he practiced for 11 to 15 hours a day. Parker picked up the nickname “Yardbird,” shortened to “Bird.”

After permanently moving to New York in 1942, Parker joined late-night Harlem jam sessions, where players exchanged ideas, honed skills, and tested themselves against talented contemporaries. He bonded with the brash trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, just three years older. Like research scientists, Parker, Gillespie and a few colleagues experimented in their jamming lab. They didn’t invent a new style—bits of it were in the air—but their efforts made it whole.

Parker and Gillespie promulgated a complex new approach to improvising jazz melody and rhythm. Before them, the fundamental pulse of jazz was the quarter-note: a bar divided into four parts. The young musicians subdivided the bar into eight parts: The basic unit became an eighth-note, dramatically changing the feel of the music. In addition, they added triplets (dividing each beat into three parts) and a heavy dose of syncopation.

Parker’s 1945-49 recordings such as “Klactoveedsedstene,” “A Night in Tunisia” and “Parker’s Mood” reveal a musical innovator of the first rank, one who helped create a paradigm shift for jazz music, a fresh language for improvisation, and a new genre, dubbed “bebop” or simply “bop.” Though their sound reimagined rather than denied the past, listeners used to swing music found it startling and radical.

Parker could spew hot ideas like a geyser: fluid but knotty and asymmetrical melodies with unusual, often dissonant harmonies. He became the greatest exponent of formulaic improvisation, manipulating what jazz players call their “licks”—a repertory of motifs internalized so deeply that they can be seamlessly inserted into a solo at will. Parker wondrously employed over 100 such patterns in his playing—for example, in his milestone “Koko” of 1945. The challenges of this approach? To select and apply the formulas at the speed of thought but avoid turning them into clichés. Parker did all that.

In different iterations of the same song, the solos of more than a few jazz musicians reveal similar shapes and patterns, more habit than pure spontaneity. But listen to Parker’s two successive October 1947 takes on Gershwin’s “Embraceable You” and you marvel at how completely different they are. Seven decades later, his imagination still dazzles.

Capable of jaw-dropping speed, he could push the envelope of tempo, taking “Shaw ’Nuff” (1945) at a blistering 280 beats per minute—more than four beats per second! He raised instrumental wizardry, as epitomized by pianist Art Tatum, to a new level. Parker created a touchstone of virtuosity and velocity for succeeding generations of players. But he never used his chops just to show off—they always served the music.

Like other Black musicians, Parker faced deep, dogged systemic racism and discrimination, a white-controlled music industry that often took advantage of musicians of color, and gigs where entertainment met the underworld. That he was able to make such enduring art despite crushing constraints and personal demons is cause for veneration and gratitude.

Parker pointed the way for countless musicians, among them pianist Bud Powell, trombonist J.J. Johnson, and saxophonists Sonny Stitt, Cannonball Adderley and Phil Woods. By creating a new benchmark of excellence, Parker gave later musicians something to respond to and build on.

If the prevailing swing sound had been a dancer’s music, Parker and fellow boppers struck a blow for modern jazz as a listener’s music. Their changes furthered the growth of jazz nightclubs for listening and benefited scrappy, independent record labels such as Savoy and Dial that couldn’t muster the money to record big bands, but could memorialize quintets such as Parker’s. The boppers considered themselves artists more than entertainers.

When Parker died in 1955 at age 34, the attending physician thought he was 53. Defiant graffiti popped up all over New York and in jazz nightclubs across the country: “Bird Lives.” Parker was immortalized in sculpture, paintings, fiction, films, postage stamps in 11 countries, and an opera, “Charlie Parker’s Yardbird.”

In the cultural memory of Kansas City and Harlem, in his enduring new approach, in the standards he heightened, in dozens of compositions, in more than 1,500 recordings, in the playing of countless acolytes, and in the current centennial commemorations, truly Bird lives…and thrives."

—Mr. Hasse is curator emeritus of American music at the Smithsonian Institution. His books include “Beyond Category: The Life and Genius of Duke Ellington” (Da Capo) and “Discover Jazz” (Pearson).