Brilliant Bill... Kirchner, That Is!

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

Bill Kirchner’s distinctive approach to Jazz became even more unique on October 7, 2014 when he was joined by pianist Carlton Holmes, bassist/vocalist Jim Ferguson and vocalist Holli Ross for “An Evening of Indigos.”  

The music from this concert was released on October 16, 2015 on a An Evening of Indigos double CD [Jazzheads Records JH 1213].

The premise for this concert is contained in the following explanation:

"The mood at this remarkable concert was indeed indigo but far from monochromatic," remarks Dan Morgenstern in the package notes.

Kirchner also includes his own comments made at the New School that night in the program notes:

"Most concerts are, in a sense, variety shows. The standard idea in programming them is to come up with a multiplicity of tempos and moods, usually building to a climax. In this case, we're aiming to explore one mood, though in different facets. And to sustain that mood, we'll refrain from talking to the audience between songs. . . . Just let the music and emotions envelop you."

In essence Bill wrote seven originals, arranged six standards, and invited three of his musician friends to perform it with him in concert. What a bash that must have been.

Bill Kirchner’s music is compelling; it draws you in with its originality. By way of analogy, it’s like being in the hands of a master navigator as you explore the unchartered waters of the Amazon. Think “Jazz” instead of “Amazon” and you are ready to have Bill take your senses and soul on a voyage of discovery as he navigates the music into new and different sonorities and textures.

This is improvisational music such as you’ve never heard before: two hours of fun and adventure from the brilliant musical mind of Bill Kirchner and his well-chosen associates: Holli Ross, Jim Ferguson, and Carlton Holmes.

It’s impossible for me to improve on the insights, observations and words of praise from the many distinguished Jazz musicians, authors and other artists whose comments on the music from this concert make up a large part of the insert notes that are included with the double CD of the music.

So I thought it best to simply represent their comments “as is” within this posting along with other marketing materials that Bill sent along.

Acclaim from those who were there or who watched the video on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGgdHdpC_-E

"The mood at this remarkable concert was indeed Indigo but far from monochromatic.

There is much that could be said - about Bill's fine and varied compositions, the flawless work of his associates

but what lingers are the beautiful sounds he coaxed from his horn. I look forward to hearing them again!"

- Dan Morgenstern, author. Living With Jazz; NEA Jazz Master

"Achingly beautiful music by a great player and composer who proves that doing what you love can be done no matter what setbacks you face. An inspiration for all of us.”

- Marc Myers, JazzWax.com

“You are the warrior supreme.”

- Dave Liebman, saxophonist, composer, educator, NEA Jazz Master

"The concert is remarkable for its lyricism, musicianship, restraint, and the unity of the musicians. ....a concert of surpassing intimacy."

- Doug Ramsey, artsjournal.com/rifftides/

"When I heard of the concert of Bill Kirchner's music, I said to myself, 'I have to adjust my schedule so I can attend.' I am so happy I did, as the concert was a TOTAL joy to me. There were beautiful melodies, great emotion, and wonderful performances that took place on the New School stage. Bill has been having serious health issues over the past number of years, but he has not let that affect his composing, his performing, and his emotional projection. This concert was filled with surprises on the highest level. All the musicians taking part did a job that Bill has to be very happy with; they all performed their BUTTS OFF, all for Bill and the audience. Thank you, Bill Kirchner, for giving me a night to really remember."

- Jimmy Owens, trumpeter, composer, educator, NEA Jazz Master

"It doesn't get better than this. 'Since You Asked' is paralyzing."

- Marlyn Mason, actress/writer/filmmaker

"What a fantastic concert! The unity of mood, as you say, combined with an enchanting variety of musical and lyrical nuances, is unique. I've always appreciated Jim Ferguson, both as an instrumentalist and as a singer,

but his interpretations, here, touched me particularly: his 'Save Your Love For Me,' so different from the other versions I love (Etta Jones, Irene Reid with Oliver Nelson), and those marvelous songs of yours: 'Foolish Little Girl,' that has a deep

melancholy yearning a la Alec Wilder, and the adaptation of Yeats.

Your own playing is always so elegantly moving and profound and, I'm ashamed to admit it, I've just discovered here in Miss Holli one of the real contemporary interpreters."

- Luciano Federighi, musician/jazz writer

"Thank you, thank you, thank you. That is a beautiful document of what must have been amazing to behold in the flesh!

I can't imagine the collective thrill that your audience experienced. There were a number of moments when the sheer beauty of the sound was breathtaking. A rare treat to savor."

- Bill Bennett, jazz writer

"Thanks so much for making this real artistic and musical treasure available for us. The whole concert is touching and moving. And how the evening was sequenced is definitely a lesson from a master. Chapeau! as the French say! Perfect

interplay of all members of your group, i.e., the high artistry of how to listen. As a pianist I was especially fascinated by Carlton Holmes, whose touch and musical taste is another gem to listen to."

- Jurg Sommer, pianist/jazz writer

“You must have put an incredible amount of thought and preparation into it, and it shows. From the all-important choice musicians (who couldn't have been more sympatico) to the sequencing of the pieces, which couldn't have been any better.

The arc of the whole concert progresses beautifully, even though you're exploring the same pensive and lyrical mood throughout. It takes a lot of guts to reverse the usual 'variety' format of various moods and tempos and to ask that the audience partake of it as a whole, withholding any applause till the end (thus eliminating one of your pet peeves and mine - too much applause). Demanding this kind of attention span puts pressure squarely on the shoulders of the performers to create a spell and hold the audience, which you and the others clearly brought off."

- Steve Wallace, bassist/writer, wallacebass.com

"When Bill Kirchner enters with the theme, or variations on it, the tone of the evening becomes clearly set. There is drama in the lines: when building to a climax on changes, or at a turnaround, Bill invariably finds the expressive

color tone, and holds it for everything it's worth, projecting a very full and airy sound. Bill has developed a vocabulary that maximizes his sound, relying on careful note choices, vocal inflections, repetitive rhythmic patterns, and a grasp of the material that leads to good musical choices."

- Marc Steinberg, pianist

"Art is dangerous. It is one of the attractions: when it ceases to be dangerous you don't want it."

- Duke Ellington

"You can always simplify."

- Lee Konitz

"An Evening of Indigos," 2-CD Set by Saxophonist/Composer/Arranger Bill Kirchner, To Be Released October 16 By Jazzheads Records Recorded Live at the New School in October 2014 With Kirchner on Soprano Saxophone, Pianist Carlton Holmes, Bassist/Vocalist Jim Ferguson, & Vocalist Holli Ross September 8, 2015 Renowned as a renaissance man of jazz -- as an influential bandleader, sideman (on all of the saxophones, clarinets, and flutes), composer, arranger, record and radio producer, educator, writer, and editor -- Bill Kirchner is also one of jazz's most deeply soulful soprano saxophone stylists. He plays soprano exclusively on his forthcoming album An Evening of Indigos, a 2-CD package featuring Kirchner in the intimate company of pianist Carlton Holmes, a veteran of the leader's now-inactive nonet; Nashville-based bassist and vocalist Jim Ferguson; and longtime colleague Holli Ross on vocals. Jazzheads Records will release the set, Kirchner's fourth for the New York label, on October 16. Recorded on October 7, 2014 at a concert in the 200-capacity performance space at New York's New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, where Kirchner has taught for the past 25 years, An Evening of Indigos presents the quartet in a set of seven Kirchner compositions and six standards. "The mood at this remarkable concert was indeed indigo but far from monochromatic," remarks Dan Morgenstern in the package notes. Kirchner also includes his own comments made at the New School that night in the program notes: "Most concerts are, in a sense, variety shows. The standard idea in programming them is to come up with a multiplicity of tempos and moods, usually building to a climax. In this case, we're aiming to explore one mood, though in different facets. And to sustain that mood, we'll refrain from talking to the audience between songs. . . . Just let the music and emotions envelop you." From the album opener "Theme for Gregory," Kirchner's "simple jazz waltz with some nice chord changes," through the closing Rodgers & Hart standard "He Was Too Good to Me," the musicians explore many hues of indigo. Several of Kirchner's collaborations with lyricist Loonis McGlohon are included, among them "Gentle Voice in the Night" and "I Almost Said Goodbye," featuring Ross, and "Foolish Little Girl," with Ferguson on vocals. The vocalists take turns on a medley of Antonio Carlos Jobim's "Someone to Light Up My Life" and "This Happy Madness," both with English lyrics by Kirchner's late friend Gene Lees. Another vocal medley pairs Bacharach-David's "Close to You" (previously recorded as an instrumental on Kirchner's 1999 nonet album Trance Dance) and Buddy Johnson's blues ballad "Save Your Love for Me." Also performed are Kirchner's (both words and music) "The Inaudible Language of the Heart," sung by Ross; his solo piano feature for Holmes, "Since You Asked"; and his musical setting of a poem by William Butler Yeats, "When You Are Old," sung by Ferguson. The bassist/vocalist and Kirchner duet on Bob Hilliard and David Mann's "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning." Kirchner's concentration on the soprano, his favorite instrument, is not entirely by choice. In 1993 he suffered a major setback when he was diagnosed with a non-malignant but life-threatening tumor in his spinal cord. The tumor was removed after two major surgeries, but he was left with no feeling and only two working fingers in his right hand, a pronounced limp, and chronic pain. Forced to put aside his other reed and woodwind instruments, he gradually taught himself to play a soprano saxophone that had been redesigned and rebuilt to accommodate his disability. "There's an economy to it that's by sheer necessity," he says of his current soprano style. "It's said that we're all stylistically a product of our limitations. I'm as good an example of that as anybody I know. "It was kind of serendipitous that the only instrument that I can still play is the one I liked playing the most. I had to relearn ways of playing it, but not as much as you might think. I guess I just learned to play with fewer notes. I don't think that my conception of playing changed all that much. It's just sparer now, that's all." Born in Youngstown, Ohio, in 1953, Bill Kirchner started playing clarinet at age 7 and took up saxophone in junior high and flute in high school. While majoring in English at Manhattan College in New York in the early '70s, he studied music privately with saxophonist Lee Konitz and pianist Harold Danko. After college, Kirchner spent five years in Washington, DC, where he played and studied with arranger Mike Crotty and edited transcripts for the Smithsonian Institution's NEA jazz oral-history project. Kirchner returned to New York City in 1980 and has remained there ever since. His nonet was active from 1980 to 2001 and recorded five albums for the Sea Breeze, A-Records, and Jazzheads labels. His sideman credits include work with the Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra, Anita O'Day, Mario Bauzá, and Tito Puente. His arrangements have been recorded by Konitz, Dizzy Gillespie, Patti Austin, and the Smithsonian Jazz Repertory Ensemble. He has annotated over 50 projects for Blue Note, Columbia/Legacy, Mosaic, and other labels and was awarded a Grammy for "Best Album Notes" for Miles Davis and Gil Evans: The Complete Columbia Studio Recordings in 1996. He edited the books A Miles Davis Reader in 1997 and The Oxford Companion to Jazz in 2000. He produced and wrote four NPR Jazz Profiles and hosted 131 Jazz from the Archives radio shows for WBGO-FM. And he presently teaches jazz courses at the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, the Manhattan School of Music, and New Jersey City University. "This night is one of the highlights of my career," says Kirchner of the New School concert. "To have one's music so sensitively and beautifully performed by Holli, Carlton, and Jim is a composer-arranger's dream. And the audience was with us all the way."   Photography: Ed Berger Web Site: jazzsuite.com Media Contact: Terri Hinte hudba@sbcglobal.net 510/234-8781 For order information go to www.jazzheads.com

Tubby Hayes: A Biography, A Discography and A Documentary

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

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

Charles Thomas Davis sent the editorial staff at JazzProfiles the following message about a new discography that covers the recording career of Tubby Hayes, the dazzling tenor saxophonist who also played flute and vibes and was a composer-arranger of some originality.

We thought we’d post his announcement along with a brief annotation of Simon Spillet’s biography of Tubby and the official video trailer of a documentary entitled Tubby Hayes: A Man In A Hurry.

I met Tubby in the mid-1960’s when he appeared at Shelly’s Manne Hole in Hollywood, CA with pianist/vibraphonist Victor Feldman along with bassist Monty Budwig and drummer Colin Bailey. Victor introduced us describing Tubby as a mate from their days together on the London Jazz scene.

What was most memorable to me about that gig was the amount of pure energy that Tubby and Victor generated playing off one another with Monty and Colin booting things along.  Everyone in the audience knew how good it was, too: the waitresses stopped serving; no one talked; people started to giggle at the sheer brilliance of the music.

About eight years later, Tubby was gone; dead at the age of thirty-eight.

All deaths are tragedies, but given the genius of his art and the very short time he had to display it, Tubby’s was all the more so.

C. Tom Davis

“I'm very pleased to announce the publication of 100% Proof: The Complete Tubby Hayes Discography, a collaboration between jazz tenor saxophonist and writer Simon Spillett and me.

This new 240 page volume covers sessions for commercial album release, radio broadcasts, television appearances and private recordings made between 1951 and 1973.  It also includes an overview of Hayes's film work.

The book is published by Names and Numbers, highly regarded discography specialists based in the Netherlands, and is available direct from their website:

http://www.names-and-numbers.nl/Frameset.html

Of course, the above and enclosed are the 'official' announcements - it was in fact printed yesterday - so it's not quite 'now' but 'soon'.  Also coming soon is the film documentary of Hayes, A Man in a Hurry, launching at the London Jazz Festival in November, and earlier this year was Simon's bio of Hayes, so it's a bumper year for Tubby, the 80th anniversary of his birth.

I wonder if it might be possible to get a name check somewhere on Jazz Profiles, or perhaps you'd like to do/like us to do something more substantial? - Cheers”

The Long Shadow of the Little Giant: The Life , Work and Legacy of Tubby Hayes - By Simon Spillet

“Forty years have elapsed since the death of the British jazz legend Tubby Hayes and yet his story still continues to captivate. Beginning as a precociously talented teenage saxophonist, he took first the local and then the international jazz scene by storm, displaying gifts equal to the finest American jazzmen. He appeared with none other than Duke Ellington and proved almost single-handedly that British jazz need not labour under an inferiority complex. Hayes’ triumphs during the 1950’s and 60’s enabled still later generations of English musicians to take their music onto the world stage. However his story, distorted by the folklore surrounding his tragically early death, aged only 38, has rarely been accurately recorded. Much of what has been written, broadcast and recounted about Hayes has added only confusion to our understanding of his short but brilliant life.

In this book, award-winning saxophonist and writer Simon Spillett, widely regarded as the world’s leading authority on Hayes and his work, painstakingly outlines a career which alternated professional success and personal downfall. Using credible eye-witness recollection, drawn from conversations with Hayes’ family, partners, friends and musical colleagues, unique access to Hayes own tape, photographic and personal archives, and extensive contemporary research material, Spillett has reconstructed the trajectory of his subject’s life both candidly and respectfully. Hayes’ meteoric musical rise from boy wonder to youthfully mature virtuoso, from saxophonist to multi-instrumentalist and composer is faithfully documented, as is his struggle for relevance as rock, pop and the avant-garde took over the musical landscape in the 1960s. For the first time, the opaque world of his inconsistent and troubled personal life is recounted in full. His unsettled childhood, his battles with addiction and ill-health and his difficult personal relationships are all exposed, and the confused accounts of his final days are unravelled and made clear as never before.

The Long Shadow of The Little Giant also traces Hayes’ path through one of the most vibrant periods of history, beginning in the austerity of post-World War Two London, through the “never had it so good” 1950’s, the “Swinging Sixties” and into the privations of the “State of Emergency” early Seventies, and outlines the cultural and musical developments of the times which underpinned the life of arguably the UK’s finest ever jazz musician.”

Here’s a link to order information for Simon’s book.

"Sons of Miles - Gil Evans - The Lone Arranger" by Mike Zwerin

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

Here’s the third in Mike Zwerin’s fine series Sons of Miles which he posted to Culturekiosque Jazznet.

"He has been called "The Lone Arranger," "Duke Ellington's Son," he was a father-figure for Miles Davis and his name's apt anagram is "Svengali."

Gil Evans celebrated his 75th birthday with a concert at the Hammersmith Odeon in London; with Van Morrison, Steve Lacy, Flora Purim and Airto Moreira as guests. It was a real occasion and a happy bus. By chance I was riding on it.

Crossing the Thames on our way to the gig, one of the musicians asked him for an advance. Without hesitation, Gil dug in his pocket and handed over a 20 quid note.

His wife Anita, responsible for keeping track of details like this, raised her eyebrows and although she obviously didn't want to bug Svengali before an important concert, she also obviously thought that such fast and off-the-cuff financing could very easily be forgotten with the passing of time. Like ten minutes.

She coughed and said as close to a whisper as she could manage: "Er, um...Gil. Ahem. Don't you think you should get a receipt?" He looked abashed and took a hit on the small pipe he always carried while she wrote down the details.

Gil's 15-piece band had become a Monday fixture in New York's Sweet Basil. Although the club is small and the pay minimal, regular members included such stars as John Abercrombie, John Scofield, Jon Faddis, Jaco Pastorius, George Adams, Hiram Bullock, David Sanborn and Sting (singing "Angel," "Stone Free" and other Jimi Hendrix material in the band's library.)

The music depended on who showed up, and Gil rarely knew who until they arrived. Like Ellington, Evans was a casting director more than a leader. He affected the music by his mere presence. It sounded according to how he felt on any given night. Instructions were not required because he had already taken care of dynamics, timbre and space by who was hired. He did not choose instruments, he chose instrumentalists. He did not hire a trumpet player, he hired the late Johnny Coles; who might be said to have been playing the Colesophone. He chose musicians for their flaws as well as attributes. Coles splitting notes was just as heartbreaking as it needed to be.

"We don't even need written music anymore," Evans told Down Beat magazine. "Hiram [Bullock] or I strike a chord and away we'll go, improvising ensembles and everything for 10 or 15 minutes. I tell the players not to be terrified by the vagueness.

"If it looks like we're teetering on the edge of formlessness, somebody's going to be so panicked that they'll do something about it. I depend on that. If it has to be me, I'll do it, but I'll wait and wait because I want somebody else to do it. I want to hear what's going to happen."

Gil liked to say that "insecurity is the secret of eternal youth." The first thing you noticed about Gil, after his generosity, intelligence and good humor, were his big ears; like radar dishes. Yes, big ears. And the stone-grey hair framed a craggy face with a childlike smile that defied chronological age. He would not do anything the easy way. He also said: "The worst addiction in the world is convenience."

Born in Toronto on May 13, 1912, he moved to Southern California, where he worked as a pianist and learned the arranger's craft. He led his own band in Balboa Beach, where Stan Kenton got his start a decade later, from 1936 to 1939. He remained as arranger when Skinnay Ennis took it over to play the Bob Hope radio show. In the process he lost his "name" band. He rarely, if ever, said anything about regretting it. He was, after all, the "lone arranger."

In 1941 he went to New York to write for the Claude Thornhill orchestra, which won two successive Billboard polls in the "sweet band" category. Debussy flirted with Charlie Parker on Evans's version of "Yardbird Suite" (featuring Lee Konitz) for Thornhill's band. It was the first time bebop had ever been played by a "sweet band."

Evans described the style: "Everything - melody, harmony, rhythm - was moving at minimum speed. Everything was lowered to create a sound, and nothing was to be used to distract from that sound." He said that "the sound hung like a cloud."

The sound matured when Evans became musical director of the historic Miles Davis "Birth of the Cool" nonet in 1948. In the '50s it evolved into "Porgy and Bess," "Sketches of Spain." and "Miles Ahead," the closest thing he ever had to hits. What an all-American pair they were, Miles and Gil. Their collaborations stay in your head like Orson Welles's "Citizen Kane." Rare combinations of quality and accessibility.

When a golden-spined 6-CD box Miles/Gil retrospective was released by Columbia Records in 1996, the box's booklet said: "Like the late films of Orson Welles, too many Davis/Evans collaborations "have been misunderstood, dismissed or left unreleased." America does not treat its geniuses with much elegance.

Their collaboration can be compared to Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, Frank Sinatra and Nelson Riddle and Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. They were all odd couples - people of very different character. Most of all, there was an imbalance of ego. Gil's ego was certainly no match for Miles's. (Few were.) Miles was not at all embarrassed to take top billing.

It took 15 years for Gil to be finally granted credit for his famous "‘Round Midnight" quintet arrangement for Miles. And on the above- mentioned box's golden spine, Gil's name is tiny and barely clinging - one line from dropping off the bottom. On the sleeve, Gil's name is shades lighter than, and far behind "Miles Davis." On the replica of the LP "Porgy and Bess" inside, Evans is credited only as "orchestra under the direction of..." In reality, even "arranged by..." would be inadequate.

Evans single-handedly raised the line between arranging and composition. The booklet continues: "Evans found in Davis his ideal interpreter, an artist whose strengths served as a focus for Evans's most profound musical statements."

It would seem, then, that a more appropriate credit would be "composed by Gil Evans. Interpreted by Miles Davis." But this would not have been healthy for Miles's ego. Nobody, certainly not Miles, ever did much to (pardon the pun) help Gil balance the score. Gil was not very helpful either. He was not a complainer. To a fault. No way would he sue Miles Davis.

He preferred to take another hit on his little pipe. On a series of ‘desert-island" big band albums under his own name - "Out of the Cool," "New Bottles Old Wine," and "Priestess" in the '60s and '70s, - Svengali transmuted Jelly Roll Morton's "King Porter Stomp," Bix Beiderbecke's "Davenport Blues," Dizzy Gillespie's "Manteca," Kurt Weill's "Bilbao" and John Benson Brook's "Where Flamingoes Fly" into hanging clouds of sound.

The hanging clouds met an electric storm in 1974 when he explored the symphonic implications of rock on the album "Gil Evans Plays Jimi Hendrix." A sound cannot be copyrighted and although his was widely reproduced in film music (James Bond movies, for example), commercial jingles and by other people's bands, Evans basically lived from his U.S. Social Security check during his "golden years." He once admitted that his New York senior citizen's public transportation pass came in handy. He laughed about it, there was no evident bitterness.

Later recognition included a National Endowment for the Arts grant and soundtracks for "Absolute Beginners" and "The Color of Money." Still, his 75th birthday tour was of Europe, not the United States. And it was a Frenchman not an American who wrote the first biography of Evans. Laurent Cugny, a bandleader and arranger, called him "an angel. I can't think of a better word. He talked to me for hours about hundreds of musicians and he hadn't a bad word to say about any of them. I have never heard a musician say anything bad about Gil. Cugny continued: "The only people he had problems with were record producers. He called them greedy and they accused him of being an inefficient perfectionist."

Which was true enough. Ironically, however, his music was rarely perfectly executed. Like Ellington's, it did not require "perfection" in the sense of every note being in place. The feeling is what counted and he did know how to find musicians ready and willing to invest theirs; and how to squeeze feeling out of people who may have been otherwise too shy. But so many of his recordings beg for one more take.

"When he told you about his life," Cugny said. "You began to see he was always been a victim of the system. He wanted to record with Louis Armstrong, whom he worshipped, but it never happened. Jimi Hendrix's death ended discussions for a joint project. And he received no royalties for Miles's 'Sketches of Spain.'"

The name of this series is "Sons of Miles." But Gil Evans was more like Miles's father than a son. He was Miles's sun."