Tag: jazz

Out In the Woods

Posted on June 29, 2012 by - Columns

Summer camp is a great way to get the kids out of the house so that mom and dad can have a little quality time together. It’s also a great way for the little ones to see the world from a different perspective than the one they’d get if they went camping with mom and dad, something that could prove helpful in future forays in the “real” world.

My own experience with summer camp took two forms: (1) a one-week excursion as a boy scout at Camp Royeneh (pronounced “roy-en-ay”) and (2) five one-month long stays at the University of the Pacific’s music camp held on their Stockton, California, campus. While the music camp, with its orchestra, concert band, choir, jazz band, and composition classes, stimulated my interest in what I knew was going to be my life-long passion and career, its institutional setting in the auditoriums, class rooms, and dormitories of the university was slightly at odds with the idea of “camp.” I found myself wondering why something like UOP’s music camp couldn’t occur in the great outdoors. Of course, there were examples of music camps taking place in bucolic settings (Tanglewood, Lexington School of Jazz in the Berkshires), but I wasn’t yet aware of them.

I first heard about the Cazadero Music Camp in 1969 through a high school friend, bassist and composer Joey Holiday, but was never able to attend any of its sessions. The camp, a part of the Cazadero Family Camp network, is held in the redwoods in Northern California, not far from Camp Royeneh. The camp offers instruction in orchestral, concert band, and jazz band performance, conducting, composition, and theory training, as well as piano and guitar instruction. At one time adult and children divisions were available during the last week of its month-long session, but these fell by the wayside due to attrition (although the children’s program has been reinstated as part of a public school outreach effort). Holiday was exuberant in his description of the camp and how it had a jazz, as well as a traditional classical, component—like UOP, only out in the woods. I spent the rest of my time in high-school wondering about whether I should try to switch my music camp affiliation to Cazadero or continue with UOP, which offered me work scholarships every year. But I never did the switch, so, when I was asked to teach at the 29th session of Jazz Camp West, I jumped at the prospect. Imagine my surprise when I found out that JCW rose from the embers of the defunct Cazadero adult/children’s camp!

Dancer, visual artist, psychologist, and arts organizer Stacy Hoffman was an adult Cazadero camper who went there for jazz dance classes and, after hearing the music, became a jazz aficionado. When the adult program at Cazadero bellied up, she took action and, together with pianist/composer/educator Ellen Hoffman (no relation) and drummer Eddie Marshall and his wife, Sue Trupin, founded JCW near Santa Cruz, California. Marshall (who passed away last year) was well respected in the jazz community and was able to enlist stellar jazz artists and educators to join JCW’s rotating faculty. This year the roster has 50 instructors, which includes Stacy Hoffman, who teaches a class on performance anxiety, and JCW’s co-director, vocalist Madeline Eastman. Hoffman and Eastman have been working together on the current version of JCW for at least 18 years and have put together a fine curriculum to serve their campers. Each instructor is autonomous but well monitored by the camp’s directorship and its artist-in-residence. (This year’s is guitarist Bruce Forman.) The campers also assess their experience with instructors in end-of-camp evaluation forms. Beyond that, it’s up to the instructor to bring in something to show the campers, many of whom have been attending the camp for several years.

Because all of the camp instructors are also performers, or have performing experience, there are nightly concerts for the first four nights and student presentations for the last two. On the day between the last faculty concert and the first student presentation, there is an all-camp outing to a natural amphitheater called “Indian Bowl.” A special event is held there that includes a consecration of the site (this year by a representative of the Blackfoot nation), followed by music, theatrical presentations, and dancing. The emcee for the event, Brazilian-born pianist/composer Jovino Santos Neto, has been teaching at JCW for well over a decade. All of the music he introduced and performed at this event was programmatically, but sincerely, dedicated to the connection of humanity with the Earth. Even the comical “Trombonia,” a theatrical piece that has been evolving over the life of the camp, was based on the idea. I had requested a shot at presenting a bass trio comprised of myself and the other two bass instructors, Todd Sickafoos and Saúl Sierra, at one of the faculty concerts. I was told that all of the slots were filled, but that a bass trio performed at the Indian Bowl at JCW-28 and many of the campers and staff hoped it would become a tradition, so we performed “Witchi Tai To” by the Native American saxophonist Jim Pepper. It turned out that most of the people there knew the piece and we had a rather nice sing-along. At first I thought it was a little hokey, but something clicked the next day when one of the camp staging crew, who are also musicians and perform regularly at camp events, began to tell me about some of the history of the camp from a “hippie-dippy” humanist perspective. The gentleman is an excellent electric guitarist, playing mostly in the rock-n-roll idiom, but has been coming to JCW for the last ten years. He is currently earning his Ph.D. in physics, but intends to keep playing music as an integral part of his life after he receives the degree. He pointed out what has been staring me in the face since I arrived here; that this particular camp has a core group of campers that look at jazz, mambo, samba, funk, and spoken word music to be synonymous with living. Some of the campers I’ve spoken with are first-timers who want to learn how to perform better by taking classes with the skilled faculty. Some of them return to continue their studies, but some—the core groups—include this week as part of their reason to live. There are a few baby carriages going from class-to-class on the camp trails and at least one family has children who have spent 1/52nd of their lives at JCW. (And they play really good!)

Certainly, not all of the campers are proficient improvisers and performers. Some really need to take the classes offered, but some are very good performers who are here to gain a deeper understanding of what music, especially jazz, means to our species and how to best go about keeping the meaning of music in line with a good life. This part of JCW seems to be infectious and keeps the faculty coming back. Last year’s artist-in-residence, Allison Miller, has returned as a regular faculty member. Like Miller, many of the faculty and crew are from the East Coast and, for them, the air fare eats up far more than half of their stipend. Some of the faculty based on the West Coast, such as pianist Art Lande, trombonist Wayne Wallace, and percussionist John Santos, have been here since the camp’s inception. Others have taught at JCW a few times before, while others, like pianist Peggy Stern, guitarist Bruce Forman, bassist Todd Sickafoos, and myself, are here for the first time and hope to return as part of the camp’s rotating core faculty.

The guitarist from the crew I spoke with explained that the camp’s non-institutional environment and the lack of age limitations are what make the camp unique in this way. I would add that the lack of emphasis on jazz vs. funk vs. mambo vs. samba vs. hip-hop is a contributing factor. But probably the single most important factor in fostering this sense of community among the campers and faculty is the lack of cell phone service and difficulty in accessing the internet. We’re living in a world that, technologically speaking, lacks the most ubiquitous advances in communications in the last 25 years. If one wants to make a phone call, there are two pay phones one can walk to. I can’t even say what the stroke of luck is that allowed me an opportunity to send this entry, but I can’t send any photos or clips until I get back to “civilization,” which I enquote not to express myself as a Luddite, but to admit that I’ve found that talking to someone without having a cell phone to respond to is a bit more civil than the constant checking for messages and emails that typifies my social interactions at home.

As I mentioned last week, I’ve been teaching three courses and they’re going swimmingly well, although I was a little surprised to find myself with 10 students ranging in ages from 17 to 68! I was also surprised to see these students disappear from the class after a day or two and be replaced by new students. At first I was a little concerned, but have found out that this is the norm here. Students find what resonates with their interests and adjust their schedules accordingly. It is worth noting that the administrative staff takes special care to make sure that the course offerings are scheduled to optimize the campers’ chances.

I’m not trying to lessen the experience of summer camps like UOP or Cazadero. Their 28-day goal-oriented immersion programs centered around a schedule of rehearsal, practice, and study that could take up ten or more hours of the camper’s day (except on Sundays, when concerts took place). I wouldn’t trade a single day of my UOP experience and recommend the camp highly to anyone between the ages of 12 and 18 who has an aptitude for and an interest in pursuing the discipline of music. But Jazz Camp West has come upon a way of running a music camp that caters to learning jazz by listening to and playing jazz rather than taking classes. Jam sessions are held in two official camp locations every night and there are several “private” sessions held by campers around the site. I can’t go into too much detail about these sessions, except to say that music is made until well into the wee hours of the morning, which is what time it is now. My slot for sending this off is going to close soon, so until next week…

United We Fly!

Posted on June 22, 2012 by - Columns

As I sat, a captive of (for some reason) the highly prized window seat on a flight to San Francisco that had been delayed by two-and-a-half hours, I decided to read some of the seemingly random PDFs I’ve downloaded from various online journals in the hopes that they’ll help me kick my increasingly troublesome internet scrabble and backgammon habits. (While I’m not too proud to admit that I’m good at neither, I fervently deny this fact while I’m playing.) What I choose to read was a PDF of Scottish Church Music: Its Composers and Sources by James Love, originally published by William Blackburn and Sons of Edinburgh in 1891. It’s Love’s noble attempt to catalogue through indexes the “source and history” of over 1,300 psalm and hymn tunes, chants, doxologies, and anthems “published by the authority of the Synod of the United Presbyterian Church…the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland…[and] the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland” for “all who are interested in Church music.”

To be sure, I didn’t get far in reading the book as the drama of the delayed plane was not to be outdone by any attempt on my part to read or sleep. The part where it was revealed to the passengers that American Airlines never stocks enough food to feed everyone who buys a seat on their planes was particularly absorbing. The service staff unabashedly informed me that for our flight, which was known to be over booked at least three days before its departure, they only had twelve meals for sale. It made me think about how there was a time, and not that long ago, that airline passengers were given a free meal with their flight, served with real silverware, that had an appetizer, salad, main course (meat and side dish), desert, and coffee. Today, you’re lucky if you get peanuts with your free soda or coffee. I imagined a time when the soda and coffee would cost extra, payable by credit card only, and my lack of pride in my gaming abilities was overshadowed by what I saw as a lack of pride in customer satisfaction from the travel industry that is a hallmark of our national identity. I make this point because at the same time that this was happening, American Airlines was celebrating Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered Pride with a concert at JFK airport by “Priscilla Queen of the Desert.” (I’m not proud to say that I had to research the name to find out that Priscilla Queen of the Desert is a Broadway show and not a person or band.) I do, however, take pride in the cultural diversity that is the basis of American music, even when that diversity is given short shrift. In Love’s book, the first name in the index of “Biographical Sketches” is A. T. A., a “student who attended Dr. [George F.] Root’s Normal Musical Institute, at New York, in 1855, and who composed ‘Kedron, No. 86 S.P. [Scottish Psalter]. It was published the following year in Dr. Root’s ‘Sabbath Bell’ under the name of “Carolina.” It is wrongly assigned to Dr. Root in the S.P. As the great fire at Chicago in 1871 destroyed the Doctor’s record-book of dates and memoranda, the full name of this composer cannot now be ascertained. From the name he gave to his tune Dr. Root thinks he was probably a Southerner’” (p. 57). While I couldn’t ascertain who Love was citing in this sketch, I have a feeling that Root used the term as a euphemism for “negro”—long before Dvořák came to New York, George Root moved his school to North Reading, Massachusetts, a town close to Boston.

I had to stop reading Scottish Church Music after a while. Not because of its content, which I find fascinating, but because the service staff and the fellow sitting next to me were making remarks about my reading something that included musical notation. So I switched to American Airlines’ in-flight publication, American Way, which included an article about the music scene in Nashville, Tennessee. Although I was born in the Midwest, I never have been to Nashville. My knowledge of the city, which is a strong candidate for being the true heartbeat of American music, is, at best, second-hand and largely romanticized. But, while I might have been jumping to an unwarranted conclusion in my assessment of Love’s work, the article’s description of how “long before the…Victrola…the city…and the sound of music were inextricably linked.” Never mind that the Sound of Music is actually linked to the city of Aigen, it is the next sentence that struck me: “Arriving in the late 1700s along the Cumberland River, the city’s first permanent settlers—two groups of European descent—celebrated their landing by buck dancing to fiddle reels.” I’m guessing that the stomp dances of the Chickasaw, Shawnee, and Cherokee Indians are disincluded because of a quasi-nomadic subsistence lifestyle, while the very settling Mississippian Indians are because they didn’t have a record industry—maybe. Not that I have anything against modern Nashville music, I just wish that American reportage on the subject could attend a little more to this aspect of its historical component.

But I’m probably going to be as guilty of the same charges when I start teaching at Jazz Camp West tomorrow (Saturday, June 23). My three courses cover the fundamental concepts of improvisational bass playing, effective soloing, and extended techniques in mainstream jazz. I’m sure that I’m going to miss a lot of detail regarding these subjects. I’m hoping that I’ll be forgiven for leaving out so much of the European influence on jazz double-bass performance, but I might include a brief look at hymnal bass lines. Maybe a swinging version of “Holy, Holy, Holy.”

Sounds Heard: Mary Halvorson Quintet—Bending Bridges

Posted on May 29, 2012 by - Albums, Listen

One of the most excellent things about the music of guitarist/composer Mary Halvorson is that every composition percolates with a charming sense of unpredictability. Bending Bridges is the second release from Halvorson’s quintet, which features members of her original trio—John Hébert on bass and Ches Smith on drums (plus, of course, Halvorson on guitar)—and adds to the ensemble Jonathan Finlayson on trumpet and Jon Irabagon on alto saxophone. Although there are plenty of groups comprised of this instrumentation, Halvorson’s preference for a very dry, close recording style lends a hand in giving this album a unusual sound, and in bringing to light instrument balances that serve to highlight her quirky (in a good way) melodic and harmonic sense.

Sinks When She Rounds The Bend (No. 22) begins as a relaxed, even lounge-worthy chorale scored for the whole quintet, giving way to solos for guitar and bass. Before you know it, Halvorson has quietly flipped the distortion switch on her guitar, and busts out a series of fat, grunge-laden power chords propelling trumpet and saxophone through an altered version of that initial chorale, which transforms before our ears into full-tilt improvised chaos.

Hemorrhaging Smiles (No. 25) has a catchy opening groove, with rhythmic guitar and a repeating melodic series for sax and trumpet. The energy continues with a sax solo, and then another for trumpet, placed in front of tinkling guitar and percussion textures. The improvisation sections are contrasted with the initial musical material in a verse/chorus format. Ches Smith contributes interesting and tasteful drum set performances throughout the disc.

Four of the nine tracks on Bending Bridges set aside the brass instruments and feature the original trio of Halvorson, Smith, and Hébert. Stepping-stone style bass and drums in Forgotten Men In Silver (No. 24) follow an impressionistic opening guitar solo, and later a background wash of guitar serves as a blanket for an energetic bass and drum improvisation, rife with extended techniques on both instruments. The next trio work, The Periphery of Scandal (No. 23) features a wacky guitar melody that becomes increasingly intense and distorted throughout the course of the track. The aptly titled That Old Sound (No. 27) does indeed open with an ever so slight Western twang—I kept visualizing a dusty corral and cacti during this mellow track, which sports an elastic sensibility, with instrumental lines expanding and contracting in turn. Deformed Weight Of Hands (No. 28) is an energetic back and forth between a spunky guitar and drum figure, and noisy, frenzied improvisation.

Returning to the quintet format, Love In Eight Colors (No. 21) is one of the more traditionally “jazz” sounding composition on the disc, and there might even be some quotes lifted from other tracks to discover in this one (I will leave that part to you!). All The Clocks (No. 29) also seems to fit well within the realm of guitar-based jazz, featuring lead guitar with spinning melodic material that is complemented by the ensemble performing driving, rhythmic music.

Sea Cut Like Snow (No. 26) strikes my ear as especially thoughtfully composed, and showcases the most successful brass writing of the entire disc. A winding guitar line is offset by shifting repeated-note riffs in the brass that develop gradually and are later joined by a funky, almost Latin beat. The established groove is then again transformed into a rollickingly fast drum and sax duet, and winds up in a bending, spindly solo guitar line.

Halvorson has cited in interviews how large a role the simple element of time—spent playing and performing together—plays in her compositions for the quintet. She is gaining confidence in writing for the entire group, and they are all playing together increasingly well. Although I think the trio sounds more musically integrated (and indeed it should, since they have been together longer), the addition of saxophone and trumpet as she treats them in her compositions brings a wonderfully offbeat sound world into the music. It will be very interesting to hear how her writing for the quintet evolves in the future. Whatever form it takes, I have no doubt that there will be plenty of surprises in store.

Another Night In the Big City

Posted on May 25, 2012 by - Columns

The most valuable performance tradition in American music—more important than subscription orchestra concerts, new music series, musical theater, rock concerts, and the opera—is the jam session, where musicians of any age, stature, and stylistic bent will agree to improvise at least one song together with the intent of making the best music possible. The audiences at jam sessions are mostly musicians, aspiring musicians, or music aficionados, so the pressure to please a non-music savvy clientele is minimized, while the pressure to play well enough to attract musicians who want to play is maximized. I should mention that I’m talking about public jam sessions—where a musician can walk in off the street, put their name on a list, take care of the required cover or minimum charges levied by the hosting establishment, and, when called to play, play for as long as they’re permitted—and not the private sessions usually held in a pianist’s home or at a rehearsal studio, where a clique of musicians might audition new members, practice improvising on new and familiar material, or just try out new ideas. The latter is valuable for building relationships and for working out strategies for the artistic infiltration of the Culture Machine, while the former has a much more subtle role in the shaping of what we call music in America.

These sessions originated in American ghettos, especially early-to-mid 20th Century Harlem, as places where professional jazz musicians could play together without the stylistic restraints imposed on them by their work in “mainstream” American musical establishments (i.e., dance halls). It’s important to remember that jazz music of the ’30s and ’40s was different than what is called jazz music today and that socioeconomic restrictions based on skin color and national identity were more panoramic as well. It was the restrictions on place that made the public jam session an important part of the American musical landscape. In these sessions, musicians could play for as long as the audience would allow and, more than occasionally, they would turn into “cutting contests” where a few players would go toe-to-toe in an attempt to outdo each other. It is in these sessions that America’s National Treasure, jazz, developed stylistically as well as having the bar of technique raised to new standards. This was the inspiration for director Gjon Mili’s film, Jammin’ the Blues, the Oscar-nominated short released May 5, 1944. On July 2 of the same year, the film’s technical director, Norman Granz (who was also dating the film’s female lead, Marie Bryant) presented the first of his famous Jazz At The Philharmonic concerts. Granz (who also founded Pablo Records), kept the series touring in the United States and Canada until 1957 and in Europe and Japan until 1983. The JATP concerts were basically all-star jam sessions, with little or no rehearsal of material and a wildly varying artistic success rate. In a single tune one could hear Roy Eldridge, Flip Philips, Illinois Jaquet, Oscar Peterson, Ray Brown, Herb Ellis and Jo Jones extemporize on a blues.

This week I have the honor of taking pianist and scholar Monika Herzig on a short tour of some of the jam sessions I (in)frequent. (To use Bob Russell’s explanation, “I don’t get around much anymore.”) Dr. Herzig is a professor at Indiana University; after earning her doctorate in jazz education there in 1997, she has been engaged in producing and organizing jazz-related concerts and educational programs. She is currently working on a project with her mentor, Dr. David Baker, about the jam session, its history, its protocols, its influence, and (I assume) its future. One of the topics that their project will be surveying is the repertoire of the jam session; what tunes are used to improvise on. Although I’ve been playing at sessions as either a house player or an attendee since 1970, I had never really given this subject much thought until Dr. Herzig brought it to my attention. She was explaining how Survey Monkey works. The names of the tunes can be correlated to demographic markers such as socioeconomic status, sex, region or age. I realized that when I was starting out, my friends who attended those sessions and I never “called” tunes; I never called a tune at a private jam session until I moved to New York in 1977 and at a public one until 1989. I imagine that is explained by protocol issues that involve age, familiarity of persons, and type of instrument. (Since I play the bass, and am rarely expected to play melodies, the main concern would be whether or not I knew the tune being called.)

At the time of this writing (Thursday), we went to the jam session at Cleopatra’s Needle, a restaurant and bar that has been presenting jazz seven nights a week since at least 1989. We might go to the sessions at Smoke, Small’s and/or Somethin’ jazz clubs, or not. (We are, after all, improvisers.) I’m pretty sure I’ll be interviewed at some point, since I was a house bassist for three relatively high-profile jam sessions in New York during the early 1980s: Barbara’s, led by Jimmy Lovelace and Monty Waters; Joyce’s House of Unity, led by Mark Elf; and The Lady’s Fort, led by George Braith. These sessions were attended by the likes of Leo Mitchell, Junior Cook, Mike Gerber, John Hicks, Tom Rainey, Steve Coleman, Rashid Ali, Herman Foster, Ricky Ford, Fred Hersch, and Jack Walrath. The playing that occurred at these and other venues helped to shape the way jazz has been played ever since. The influence was subtle. We played with and listened to each other work on presenting what we thought were our best efforts. Sometimes a single tune would last over an hour because everyone was inspired by what was going on. Sometimes one soloist would chase everyone else away after five minutes.

Needless to say, this will have to be continued next week.

Reporting From Mexico

Posted on May 11, 2012 by - Columns

Monterrey is the seat of the third largest metropolitan area in Mexico and is, arguably, the most “Americanized” city in the country, allowing me the idiosyncratic sensation of comfort I get from consciously eschewing establishments offering mass-hypnosis in the form of fast-food and warehouse shopping. The daily routine, though, of Encuentro Internacional de Jazz y Música Viva makes it somewhat difficult to sightsee or go shopping for souvenirs. Every day, our group of ten musicians is scheduled to rehearse from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. with workshops being conducted from 3-6 p.m. and, since Wednesday, concerts from 8-10 p.m.

Tonight (May 11) the musicians from the United States (myself, trumpeter Herb Robertson, and drummer Lou Grassi) will be featured. Yesterday’s concert featured the music of the musicians from Europe: pianist Sophia Domancich, saxophonist Harri Söström, trombonist Conrad “Conny” Bauer, and guitarist Andreas Willers. Tomorrow is the last concert and features works presented by musicians from Mexico (guitarist and event organizer Omar Tamez and saxophonist Rémi Álvarez) and Bolivia (saxophonist Marcos Miranda). Our program, so far, consists of two compositions of mine (a cycling dirge, “The Carpenter,” and an up-tempo multiple-layer blues, “9-2”), one by Robertson (“Cosmic Child,” a 32-measure piece with chord changes that is parsed into three somewhat independent events using a varied palette of improvisational strategies), and two by Grassi (“Avanti Galoppi” and “Parallel Realities,” both comprised of single-line melodies that serve to mark the compositions’ structures and forms, which are interpretations of their titles). The promoter wanted tonight’s performance to be dedicated to the memory of Paul Motian and we were happy to oblige by adding “From Time to Time” (Motian in Tokyo, JMT, 1991) to the program.

This is the third (and I sincerely hope not the last) Encuentro in Monterrey I’ve been a part of. If my memory serves me well, the first was in 2004 and the second in 2008. The first was a two-week affair with concerts held on the weekends. The artists were housed at an elegant Howard Johnson’s in downtown Monterrey. Sadly, the hotel has not been well maintained and a hurricane that devastated much of that area of the city has turned it into a mold trap. Fortunately, a Hilton opened in Fundidora Park, where Encuentro is held, and our accommodations are better than ever. Yesterday was Mother’s Day in Mexico and the hotel’s dining facilities were decked out in grand style, complete with a strolling violinist, making lunch a gala affair. But even the added festivities couldn’t alter the bittersweet feeling that accompanies the knowledge that a unique and vital musical event is now only half what it once was. While those who are in-the-know when it comes to improvised music support the Encuentro de Jazz y Música Viva Monterrey series, even to the point of people traveling from nearby Texas and New Mexico to attend, the local tastes are more acclimated to indigenous folk, popular Latin, and dance music.

Monterrey is a major, and possibly the center of corporate culture in Mexico, which is reflected in the attitude towards music education here. So far, Tamez has been working with select local businesses and the home embassies of the musicians he brings to Monterrey for support. This year a new and surprising source of support in the person of Roberto Romero, the owner of Roberto’s Winds and Michiko Studios, has appeared at Encuentro Monterrey. Roberto is no stranger to saxophonists in New York, and a saxophonist who travels to that city inevitably winds up at his 46th Street shop. I go there often to rehearse at Michiko Studios, the most affordable high-quality rehearsal studios in Manhattan. It turns out that Romero has dealerships in Australia as well as in Mexico City. Tamez met Romero on one of his trips to New York and the two agreed that this year a nation-wide saxophone competition would be included in the list of Encuentro events with the first prize being a Roberto’s Winds signature soprano saxophone. So now, not only can you buy recordings by the various artists performing at Encuentro de Jazz y Música Viva Monterrey, but you can also try out and buy a brand new saxophone from Roberto’s Winds!

I think this could be the start of something really great for Encuentro de Jazz y Música Viva Monterrey and the world of improvised music. I’ll include pictures next week, but now I have to go rehearse…

Myra Melford Wins $75,000 Alpert Award in the Arts

Posted on May 11, 2012 by - Headlines, Ledes

Myra Melford - Photo by Valerie Truchhia

Myra Melford – Photo by Valerie Truchhia

Myra Melford has been named one of five 2012 winners of the 18th annual Alpert Award in the Arts. The award, which “recognizes past performance and future promise,” includes a prize of $75,000. In addition to Melford, the 2012 winners are Nora Chipaumire (dance), Eisa Davis (theatre), Kevin Everson, (film/video), and Michael Smith (visual arts).

Herb Alpert, the legendary musician and artist who created the Herb Alpert Foundation with his wife Lani Hall and gave the first Alpert Award in the Arts in 1995, says, “All of this year’s winners represent the essence of the Alpert Award. They take aesthetic, intellectual and political risks, and challenge worn-out conventions. They’re unafraid of the unknown.”

According to Irene Borger, director of the Alpert Award in the Arts, Melford has been honored with the award “for her ascending and expansive trajectory, and great, generous musical mind. They celebrate her willingness to dive into the deep end of the pool and her ability to take multiple musical traditions into another sphere.”

This year’s panelists include Alma Guillermoprieto, contributor to The New Yorker; Romi Crawford, Associate Professor, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago; David Wessel, Professor of Music and Director, Center for New Music and Audio Technologies at University of California, Berkeley; Daniel Alexander Jones, Head of the Playwriting Program; Acting and Theatre History Faculty, Fordham University; and David Joselit, Carnegie Professor, History of Art, Yale University.

The Alpert Award in the Arts recipients will receive their awards at a brunch today at the Herb Alpert Foundation in Santa Monica.

(—from the press release)

More on Cliques

Posted on April 13, 2012 by - Columns

I was recently at a rehearsal hosted by someone who, although a very good musician, is probably not very confident about improvising music. What led me to that conclusion was a piece of paper tacked to the wall above the piano titled “10 Steps for Practicing Improvisation.” I’m not sure if it was because playing improvised music makes up the greatest part of my professional life or that I’m conditioned to read anything posted on a wall with the word “steps” in it, but it caught my eye and I gave the note a bit more of my attention than the family pictures and postcard-size concert announcements that surrounded it.

The first thing that ran through my mind was something like, “You can’t practice improvising; you’re either improvising or you’re not,” which is pretty much what my colleagues said when I told them about it (although, to be fair, I only spoke to three). We then began rehearsing the music, comprised largely of standards from the Great American Songbook. But one tune, “Little B’s Poem” by Bobby Hutcherson, is not in the GAS, but is well known among various cliques of jazz musicians. I’ve been familiar with the tune since 1974, the year I worked for Hutcherson, so I, naturally, thought I had a “leg up” when we began rehearsing it. We ran through the chart that the singer had written out, and when we were done I pointed out that I thought some of the chart’s chords were different. I was told not to worry; that another bassist had taken the liberty of rewriting the chart with what he thought was the correct chord progression. I know the bassist and believe that I would probably agree with his version, but the singer said that the changes on the chart sounded better and I should play them.

It’s a fact that one of the ways that jazz musicians grow their craft, personally and as a community, is to reharmonize chord progressions on well-known tunes. The chord progression to George Gershwin’s warhorse, “I Got Rhythm,” has not just been used as the underpinning for thousands of melodies, but has also been reharmonized in hundreds of ways. Sometimes these reharmonizations can sound like they belong to another song entirely—something that composer, pianist, and lyricist David Lahm is known for among the clique of cabaret singers and jazz musicians (including David Baker and Randy Brecker)—and sometimes they sound just as good (or better) than the original progressions. (I learned the Bill Evans composition “Time Remembered” from pianist Kenny Werner, who had not only performed a subtle reharmonization, but added measures to the piece. Now it’s hard for me to play it the way it was originally written!) So we rehearsed it again, only this time the pianist and I took turns soloing. Because the chords were so different from the ones I remembered, I found myself asking to try soloing over them again, to familiarize myself with the voice leading—in short, I wanted to practice improvising!

Since then I’ve taken my pick-and-axe and gone spelunking down the memory hole to reexamine my own practice habits and have realized that I spend a lot of time practicing improvising. I’m sure that most improvisers do, but don’t display the knee-jerk reaction to seeing how someone else might organize their approach to practicing the technique. Maybe it was the idea of using “steps” for practicing it that bothered me, since I don’t really look at improvisation as something I can practice by degree, or something to be worked up to. I still hold to the tenet that you’re either improvising or not, and that it’s the details that are practiced (negotiating formal considerations and working on technical issues) and not the concept of improvisation. I think that’s what it boils down to, that improvisation takes one outside of the rules. The stronger one’s need to codify what one does while improvising, the less able one is to improvise effectively.

For instance, the piece of paper on the singer’s wall first suggests one practice long notes. No indication of which notes or how long they should be, just long notes. This is what most musicians do to warm up, whether they improvise or not. The rest of the sheet has become a blur, but it pretty much went on in the same vein, practicing the basics of good musical technique. The first time I saw saxophonist Joe Henderson conduct a clinic, he expressed a similar philosophy by stressing that the things he practiced the most were scales and arpeggios. The next thing he stressed was getting together with other musicians and learning solos from recordings. It’s important to note that these practicing suggestions are about technical facility and musical vernacular. Improvisation, per se, wasn’t discussed much. I would compare this with another musician’s “10 steps to Improvisation,” which has the student first just play the melody of a song, and then continually embellish it until it is no longer heard. This “tier-based” approach might lead one to think that there are levels of achievement in “real” improvisation. While the philosophy of learning the melody of a song before improvising on it makes excellent sense for an aesthetic approach to improvisation, it doesn’t acknowledge the existence of free improvisation, which is becoming an essential part of the American musical paradigm.

Looking at Henderson’s clinical discourse, the idea of belonging to a musical clique is given pedagogical weight. The idea is that improvisation is practiced at sessions while individual practice is for mastering the elements that one brings to the session. The clique was where decisions regarding the canon of the genre were established and what was learned were the musical standards that sold records. However, cliques are factions and factionalism can be detrimental to musical learning. There is, for instance, a clique of improvising musicians who look to a certain individual who codified a pedagogical methodology for jazz instruction in the 1940s. This individual was an excellent musician but was not accepted by the greater jazz community, especially during the 1960s and 1970s. As a result, many of this clique’s elder statesmen have declared a war on various artists who achieved greater success, one example being saxophonist and composer John Coltrane. While one might argue that they don’t like certain aspects of Coltrane’s playing (too many notes, too edgy a sound, etc.), his influence on American music has been profound—music before John Coltrane is very different from music after him. He left his mark on our nation’s consciousness largely by setting a standard of technical mastery that is, arguably, yet to be matched. But, in large part because of the effectiveness of what I’ll call the “non-Coltrane” clique’s pedagogical methods, there are potentially great players who eschew learning the music of John Coltrane and, thus, doggedly employ a sub-standard technique.

To be continued…

Now Hear This: The Nick Mazzarella Trio

Posted on March 30, 2012 by - Field Reports, Headlines

Nick Mazzarella Trio

Nick Mazzarella Trio: Mazzarella (alto saxophone); Anton Hatwich (bass); Frank Rosaly (drums)

To hear Nick Mazzarella play the alto saxophone is to hear a well-honed connection between his creative impulse and the horn that becomes an extension of his musical identity.  It is a creative instinct steeped in jazz history and brimming over with a passion for free improvisation.  In Chicago’s community of aggressively original talent and dedicated musicianship, his ability stands out. His trio has become an important vehicle for realizing his musical ideas, and it has become a significant presence in the local jazz circuit.

The Nick Mazzarella Trio performs often in Chicago and has achieved a rare level of near telepathic interplay between three deeply accomplished musicians that translates into sets where the trio simmers and frequently catches fire.

Nick Mazzarella’s alto saxophone playing consistently takes on the vocal and intervallic qualities of Ornette Coleman in ways that are startling when performing with his trio.  His music is not an emulation of the free jazz master as much as it is an ability to channel the energy and magnetic excitement that was present with Coleman’s trios in the 1960s,  a comparison completed by the harmolodic interplay between Anton Hatwich on bass and Frank Rosaly on drums.  It’s an influence that Mazzarella acknowledges via email correspondence:

What I find inspiring about Ornette is his genuine creative impulse. He arrived on the scene with a fully formed concept that was innovative and completely honest, playing the way he did because that was just how he heard music. The integrity of that approach, let alone the nature of the content of his art, is something I think all creative people aspire towards in some way. I’m influenced by Ornette as a saxophone player and an improviser coming from the jazz tradition, but I’m not really interested in sounding just like him or recreating what he’s already done. The truth Ornette’s sound and concept represents to me has helped me to identify what’s true within myself. If my music bears some resemblance to Ornette’s for some people, I think it can be attributed to my working through these external truths that have validated and unlocked some internal ones that are distinctly mine. As time goes on, I hear myself developing my own style, and the process of working on music like this is a lifelong pursuit.

Mazzarella has managed to make his way into the heart of that tradition and found plenty of room to develop his own identity as an up-and-coming jazz musician.  While the roots in Coleman’s music are strong, Mazzarella also cites Eric Dolphy, Henry Threadgill, Julius Hemphill, and John Coltrane as equally significant influences.  These aren’t just names for Mazzarella: the resonance with this tradition is tangible in his music.  His performances frequently draw upon the sonic language of these composers while offering an evolutionary counterpoint to the free jazz movement of the 1960s.  It is possible to close one’s eyes during a live Mazzarella performance and be transported to the same energetic sound that marked Henry Threadgill’s Air trio.  His resonance with Eric Dolphy’s harmonic approach is striking.  His ability to aurally reference these giants without laboring to emulate them is what sets him apart.  This is a living tradition and he is breathing fire into it.

Nick Mazzarella Trio

Nick Mazzarella Trio: Mazzarella (alto saxophone); Anton Hatwich (bass); Frank Rosaly (drums)

Mazzarella earned his master’s in jazz composition at DePaul University in 2009, though he brings an approach to composition that transcends his academic bona fides.  He primarily composes the music for his trio on the saxophone and occasionally at the piano, working out rough sketches and refining ideas while also leaving space for ideas to flow when they require less “working out.”  He then takes relatively fixed versions of his pieces to the trio and further refines his ideas through rehearsal, often relying on the group’s collective sensibility.

“I asked these particular people to be in my band because I want them to sound like themselves,” Mazzarella explains, noting that Hatwich and Rosaly each bring strong individual sensibilities to the music.  “They sound great individually as soloists, and they sound great together as a rhythm section. Over time, I think we three have built a unique and recognizable collective sound. The written material I provide is really just a vehicle for that collaborative effort to take place.”  Hatwich and Rosaly have developed into a creative pair that have set a new standard for rhythm sections in the Chicago scene.

The trio’s debut recording: Aviary, released in 2010 on Thought to Sound Records, offers a glimpse into the melodic constructions of Mazzarella’s pieces.  “Pistachio (for my bird)” in particular is a catchy tune that is practically an ear worm that doesn’t wear out its welcome.  Its Latin beat and circular melodic phrases that resolve into short repetitions over an understated harmonic progression become a launching pad for an approach to improvisation that balances delicately between restraint and blistering freedom.  The collaborative interaction and refined approach to this music is recorded with remarkable clarity on this studio effort.  At just over half an hour, it’s a tantalizing set that merely hints at where this trio can go.

Mazzarella album covers

The follow up release, 2011’s This Is Only A Test: Live at the Hungry Brain, explodes with a full set that reveals the electricity this group brings to their live performances.  The trio was at the top of their game for this particular performance (I was one of the lucky ones present) and their energy is remarkably well documented.  The searing, plaintive wails that make up the melodic line of “For Henry” is a particularly rewarding listening that shows off Mazzarella’s ability to channel a soulful approach to his material along with improvisations that deftly explore the extremes of register and emotional range.

Both of these recordings are highly recommended, even if they are just a hint of what’s in store as Mazzarella continues to develop his personal style and further refine his materials.  The collaborative role of his excellent rhythm section pushes this music up several creative notches, and shows The Nick Mazzarella Trio to be a creative force that should leave a lasting impression for some time to come.

What Are Our Goals?

Posted on March 2, 2012 by - Columns

Musicians live and work in every city and town in the world, not just the “meccas” where most of the music industry’s corporate headquarters have set up shop. And I would venture to say that the locations of these headquarters aren’t that important to the musician choosing to relocate to one of these urban centers. The music industry doesn’t give value to a local music community, although it does attempt to assign value by manipulating the broader musical culture. One imagines a time when the music being disseminated by the industry was stuff that musicians were already playing to their fans. The industry was merely widening that fan base and skimming lucre off the top. Now it seems that the industry has defined a variety of products to sell to demographically delineated subsectors of a marketplace.

I’m not sure how long this has been going on, probably for centuries; but I’m sure that the literate-ing of music has been an essential part of the process, which suggests origins in Ancient Sumer—about 20,000 years ago. Fortunately, not all of human civilization opted into the paradigm, and diversity of musical performance, theory, philosophy, and aesthetic has fueled the musical marketplace. Some might suggest that this diversity has kept the world’s music healthy. But we live in a world where the prominent culture pushes for “globalizing” itself, and part of that globalizing effort is narrowing down the fields of music being sold.

Without going into the how-and-why of this trend, I’ll point to my entry from two weeks ago as an indication of the effect this anti-diversification process is having on our “local” music community that represents more than 300 million people. To be real, the reinstatement of the 31 categories that NARAS eliminated last year wouldn’t begin to mirror the diversity of America’s musical palette. I don’t think artists like Elliott Sharp or Tom Hamilton could be included in any of the existing categories. The same holds true for vocalists Fay Victor, Tom Buckner, and Dean Bowman, drummers Tom Rainey and Nasheet Waits, pianists Jason Moran and Eric Lewis, or bassists Mark Dresser and Tarus Mateen, even though their work is neither new or radical. What is common to the names listed above is that the level of their musicianship is very high and the music they play is deeply personal, qualities that the music industry has little interest in. That the best jazz vocal album of the 2012 Grammy awards went to a drummer’s project that included more vocalists on it than the rest of the nominations combined is telling. That this happened to the jazz vocalists should raise an alarm because it is they, and not the music industry, who give value to music. Without words, music is so much deft manipulation of pitches and timbre. Semiologically profound on occasion, but devoid of any real meaning. It is when words are included with the notes that music moves us the most. The semiotic potential of a motive or phrase is given to it by the words attached to it. There’s a very good chance that we won’t see Michael Franti’s name any time soon in a Grammy ceremony, even if Gil Scott-Heron was given a posthumous lifetime achievement award this year. My hope is that none of the names mentioned above become marginalized to the point of obscurity. They, and so many others, work hard to better than break even in one of the toughest businesses, where operating at a loss is the norm. To categorically silence each vocalist individually is to deny their individual expression. In a sense, NARAS has denied jazz a point of view.

It’s true that many venerated and accomplished musicians who, sometimes by their own choosing, perform rarely or only play locally and are not recognized by the musical industry, despite their talents and contributions. They’re in every city where there are musicians, which is just about every one. I can think of many: the late Claude Sifferlin and Earmon Hubbard (brother of trumpeter Freddie Hubbard), both pianists from Indianapolis; saxophone genius Bert Wilson of Olympia, Washington; multi-instrumentalist Andrew White (oboist with the National Symphony and bassist with Stevie Wonder as well as the 5th Dimension, also responsible for transcribing the recorded output of John Coltrane); guitarist/educator Jerry Hahn of (recently) Witchita, Kansas. The list is endless. I mention them because the musical meccas have them, too. And many are vocalists. One of them, Anne-Marie Moss, passed away early Wednesday morning. She was an amazing vocalist who moved to New York in the early 1960s while singing with fellow Canadian Maynard Ferguson. She was adept at singing vocalise and had a huge range (rumored at five octaves) and briefly filled in for Annie Ross in Lambert, Hendricks and Moss. She spent most of her career in a duo with her first husband, singer-guitarist Jackie Paris. This was a time when the distinction between jazz and popular music was blurred. Jazz vocalists, like Peggy Lee, were the Adeles and Houstons of their time. Jackie and Anne Marie lived in a studio apartment on the Upper East Side until they divorced in the late 1980s and worked tirelessly to promote their superior vocal skills, which were appreciated by the musical community in New York, but rarely heard anywhere else. Anne Marie’s student roster is a Who’s Who of jazz vocalists, especially Roseanna Vitro (a 2012 Grammy nominee), Judi Silvano, and Jane Blackstone.

While some believe that the measure of success is how many recordings and high-profile concerts you perform in, Anne Marie Moss measured hers in how well she sang and how effectively she could instruct her students in how to sing with their “chest” or “speaking” voices. Moss was part of the faculty of The New School and Manhattan School of Music. I was fortunate to work with her and Jackie Paris from 1978 until 2004, and my wife studied with her until she retired around 2005. Still, her discography can be counted on one hand: a single solo album, Don’t You Know Me (Stash ST-211, 1981), a duo album with Jackie Paris, Live at the Maisonette (Different Drummer DD 1004, 1975), three tracks on a compilation Best of the Jazz Singers, Vol. 2 (LRC Ltd. 40050, 2008), and one song—“Let’s Fall In Love”—on a Maynard Ferguson reissue, Dancing Sesssions (Jazz Beat 514, 2007). While few in number, these recordings cover a wide range of settings, from pedal-to-the-metal big band to a voice and drum duo that displays perfect control of her range from pianissimo to double forte. Listening to these recordings has the same effect on the listener as hearing her sing in public did, leaving you wanting more.

I would offer that the number of recordings one is on should not be the measure of an artist’s success, but rather a measure of the success of the culture that artist must negotiate. A society that refers to itself as “the greatest in the world” should be able to document the careers of its greatest artists based on the merits of their work, not on how much they can hustle the music industry. Our goals as artists can be to make good art without having to pretend we admire the pablum that corporate America is hooking our children on.

After While, Crocodile!

Posted on February 17, 2012 by - Columns

It’s been almost a week since NARAS, or The Recording Academy, announced the winners of the Grammy Awards for 2012. That the 23-year-old Ms. Adele Laurie Blue Adkins of London, England, would walk away with six awards: Record, Album, and Song of the Year; Best Pop Solo Performance and Pop Vocal Album; as well as Best Short Form Music Video was no surprise. Mainstream media news had been “predicting” (as if newspersons have no inside track on a major media event like the Grammy Awards) that she would be taking away the largest amount of statuary in her purse. I figure that the Best Pop Instrumental award going to the 67-year-old Booker T. Jones (Booker T. and the MGs) and the Best Pop Duo/Group award going to 85-year-old Tony Bennett with the late Amy Winehouse is an indication of the kind of balance such Spring/Winter polarities represent to the American Culture Machine. That both of the female artists mentioned hail from England, while not pertinent in any musical sense, piqued my interest, too. The next biggest sweep was pulled off by the Foo Fighters (Best Long Form Video, Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance and Best Rock Performance, Song and Album), an “alternative” group (according to Wikipedia) founded and led by David Grohl of the iconic grunge band, Nirvana. The Best Alternative Music Album award went to Bon Iver, a folk band (as per Wiki). The Foo Fighters weren’t nominated for an alternative music award. The next biggest take-home tally went to Kayne West with four: Best Rap Album, Performance, Song, and Sung/Collaboration. To be clear, he shared the spotlight on the last three of these awards with: Jay Z; Rihanna, Kid Cudi and Fergie; and Jeff Bhashker, Stacy Ferguson, Malik Jones and Warren Trotter, respectively.

Now that NARAS only recognizes 78 categories worth bestowing the coveted Grammy Award on (down from 109), I’d like to look at some of the remaining 63. Besides Tony Bennett receiving another award, Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album (his fifth in that category to go with his six Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance awards, a Best Solo Vocal Performance (Male), a Record of the Year, Album of the Year, and a Lifetime Achievement Award—16 in all, when you count this year’s pop-duo award), several other artists received two golden gramophones. Someone I’d never heard of, Skrillex, was awarded a Grammy for Best Dance Recording and Best Dance/Electronica Album. I went online and learned the work he was recognized for forward and backward, but I’m not sure I’m “down with it” yet. It’s full of heavily processed samples that I really want to analyze. Since I don’t dance very much anymore, I really try to listen as deeply as possible to a piece until I’m sure I have an understanding of it. Taylor Swift also got two: Best Country Song and Solo Performance and Barton Hollow took the Best Country Duo/Group Performance and Best Folk Album (folk is the alternative country?).

I was totally “forgetted up” by Cee Lo Green’s Best Traditional R&B Performance, as well as Best R&B Song Awards. As much as he’s a great singer, even in R&B, traditional doesn’t really do him justice and I thought that Rapheal Saadiq’s “Good Man” and Marsha Ambrosius’s “Far Away” really should have been the takers. But their messages, over-representation of black men in prison and anti-gay violence, were possibly too gritty for the Academy this year. In fact, all the choices for R&B didn’t make much sense to me. While Corinne Bailey Rae can carry a tune, her breathy and somewhat head-voicey delivery is reminiscent of Nora Jones and seems to totally miss the chest-voiced tabernacle technique associated with R&B. I thought Kelly Price’s “Not My Daddy” was a better model, but it’s important to note that these awards are voted for by the rank and file of NARAS and their criteria for picking awardees are not mine. Besides, I’m no expert on R&B, although I grew up playing it and, on occasion, still do. And I’m only slightly better versed in opera, but it was nice to see that the topic of religious hypocrisy—Elmer Gantry by Robert Aldridge and Hershel Garfein—inspired two Grammys: Best Contemporary Classical Composition, as well as Best Engineered Album. What I am well-versed in, though, is jazz and Chick Corea was a two Grammy winner for Best Improvised Jazz Solo and Best Instrumental Jazz Album.

This category, jazz, is where the “restructuring” of the Grammy Awards really became confusing. Just the idea of recognizing a best improvised jazz solo without recognizing a non-improvised one makes my fingernails itch. While guitarist Pat Metheny’s “What’s It All About” took the Best New Age Album award, his performance on the CD, which was fantastic, is really coming out of the jazz-based sensibilities his entire career is steeped in. I can hear almost no resemblance in his playing to George Winston, but I definitely can hear a resemblance to that of Fred Hersch, a runner-up to Corea. Possibly the most damning example of this confusion is found in the absence of the “Best Jazz Vocal Duo/Group Album” award (while the distinction of “vocal duo/group” is offered in other categories). The result this year was that a drummer, Terri Lyne Carrington, took the Best Jazz Vocal Album award over veteran vocalists Karrin Allyson, Kurt Elling, Tierney Sutton, and Roseanna Vitro. While Carrington’s album, The Mosaic Project, features excellent singers—Dianne Reeves, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Nona Hendryx, Cassandra Wilson, Esperanza Spalding, Helen Sung, Tineke Postma, Geri Allen, Patrice Rushen, Ingrid Jensen, Sheila E., and Gretchen Parlato—none are mentioned in the award itself, which reads: “Terri Lyne Carrington & Various Artists.” This is not to take away from the musical integrity of Carrington’s project, but the individuality of the jazz vocalist is obscured and even divorced from the final product vis-à-vis musical industry recognition, which is highly questionable and a direct result of the Grammy Awards categories’ restructuring.

To be brief, the elimination of the Vocal Performance Male, Female, and Duo/Group categories and the Jazz Fusion Performance, Original Jazz Composition, Latin Jazz Album, and Contemporary Album categories will only help to mislead mainstream perceptions of American music, just as the elimination of Best Latin Recording and individual Best Latin Pop, Latin Rock/Alternative or Urban, Regional Mexican, Mexican/Mexican-American, Banda, Norteño, Tejano, Latin Urban, Merengue, Salsa, and Salsa/Merengue Album categories will. On Monday’s Democracy Now!, Amy Goodman interviewed Oscar Hernández and Roberto Lovato, who discussed this as well as the current protest and lawsuit spearheaded by composer/drummer/bandleader/educator Bobby Sanabria. In solidarity with his efforts, I did not watch the Grammy Awards ceremony on television.

While I was composing this blog entry, I took a break for dinner with the Mrs. (among her many talents, she cooks great Alsatian spareribs!) and we saw a special on an underwater archaeological project in the Bahamas. One of the fossils they found was a 1,000-year-old skull of a caiman-like animal that hasn’t been alive there for centuries. One of the theories presented to explain the animal’s extinction from the islands was that the indigenous human population that arrived there 800 or so years ago brought domesticated hunting animals that decimated the population until it died off. When I saw that, I immediately thought of the Grammy Awards categories being decimated by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (especially the Native American category). I also thought about a book mentioned by William Jefferson Clinton as being his inspiration when he was first elected to the presidency of the United States called Leadership Jazz by Max DePree. Depree described leading a group, especially in business, as being more analogous to playing jazz, where one is constantly improvising according to what’s going on in the moment, rather than playing in groups where all the notes are arranged beforehand. It struck me as peculiar that the corporate arm of the music industry would be restructuring the music it offers to the American public in a way that whittles away at how improvisation is included in that musical offering by eliminating those categories where it is most prevalent. Leaving jazz as the sole vehicle for improvisation makes me nervously think of the case of the hunting dogs of the Lucayan Indians. This might be something to keep in mind as we negotiate our various ways through the maze of the mainstream musical milieu we know and love. It’s a jungle out there!

Later, alligator.