Historical Image of the Day

Poster for concert by Bessie Smith, Harlem, 1924

Historical Image of the Day

The Duke Ellington Orchestra, 1945

Historical Image of the Day

Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Charles Mingus, and Max Roach, 1949

Song of the Day, Will Bernard live performance, 3/24/07

I enjoyed putting up that Tom Russell clip yesterday. I listen to music basically every waking moment anyway. So why not go for a song of the day.

This is the guitarist Will Bernard doing one of his songs, I believe off the Party Hats album, though I can't remember which one this is right now. You can buy the album here. I first learned of Bernard in the mid 90s when he was playing in TJ Kirk with Charlie Hunter. He's remained active since with quality chill west coast guitar work.

RIP - Fred Anderson

Saxophone great Fred Anderson has died at 81. In my experience, Anderson has been overlooked for the Coltranes, Colemans, Braxtons, and others, but his importance to late-20th century music is enormous. In addition to being a top-notch jazz performer and composer, he was a founder of the AACM in Chicago and continued to support rising talent by sustaining the Velvet Lounge. Anderson's death leaves a hole in music that will be hard to fill.

The State of Jazz

This NPR piece about a woman complaining that current jazz isn't exciting makes my head explode.

That it's on NPR seems typical--the NPR demographic is precisely the same demographic as the average jazz fan--middle-aged, white, and affluent. And this demographic usually sees good jazz as something that stopped in 1964, when A Love Supreme got a little to crazy. They like retro-jazz, but how much Wynton Marsalis can one person listen to? Well, some I guess. But how much Diana Krall?  Hopefully, none at all.

So it's hardly surprising that these people would find current jazz boring--nothing's happened in years. It's all retreading familiar ground, broken in radical ways by musicians from the 1910s through the 1960s. That stuff is great; you can hear the experimentation in the music. The retread stuff is by and large trite and old-fashioned, even if some of it is well-played.

Meanwhile, there is awesome jazz and jazz-related music all over the place if you look for it. Jazz has expanded in all sorts of new directions in recent years. Bill Frisell, John Zorn, Matthew Shipp, William Parker, David S. Ware, Susie Ibarra, Ikue Mori, etc., etc., etc. There is amazing players out there. They still have the spirit of jazz--the spirit of pushing the boundaries, finding new ways to express emotion through the music, etc.

New jazz isn't boring at all. But modern musicians who really want to sound like Dave Brubeck and Art Blakey are boring. Listen to Blakey and Brubeck and so many others. And then also listen to Don Byron and Darius Jones and Roy Campbell. But don't claim jazz is boring just because you're listening to retread music.

Joe Maneri, RIP

I was sad to read of Joe Maneri's death. One of the godfathers of the improvisational jazz scene, Maneri has been pushing boundaries for 60 years. His influence is at least as much in his teaching as his music, as he mentored such greats as Marty Ehrlich, Eyvind Kang, John Medeski, and Matthew Shipp. He also fathered the great violinist Mat Maneri. A real loss.

RIP - Rashied Ali

This death affects me way more than Les Paul's death, which is garnering all the press. Ali was drummer for my favorite Coltrane albums, as well as doing two of my favorite albums ever, duets with Coltrane (Interstellar Space) and violinist the Leroy Jones Duo (Swift Are the Winds of Life). So while the world mourns Les Paul today (and righlty so), hopefully it will give due respect to the loss not of just another jazz musician, but one of the greatest jazz drummers ever.

Historical Image of the Day

King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, 1921

Top 10 Jazz Albums

Here are my 10 favorite jazz albums.

I've talked before how much I loathe the jazz purists who think that the avant-garde after 1965 is "self-indulgent bullshit," to quote Branford Marsalis from the Ken Burns Jazz series. To make these kinds of statement misses the entire point of jazz and the experimentalism that dominated the medium from its beginning. At some point, that experimentalism was going to challenge the listener in ways that would drive some people away. The only other alternative is to declare to music dead and then to ossify it in a canon to be played the same way by people 100 years from now. This is what most jazz fans and many jazz artists, particularly Wynton Marsalis, are comfortable with.

Not me. An experimental album from 2008 is likely to be just as good as one from 1959. My list reflects this I think.

In no particular order:

Medeski, Martin, and Wood, It's a Jungle in Here
This album from the mid 90s came out before they got really big. I think it holds up far better than their appeals to the jam band and festival elements. This album demonstrates the best of these three players amazing skills, including some of my favorite covers of any jazz albums with some top notch originals. The album has some of the funk and groove stuff that made them popular but also a lot of more traditional jazz elements. First rate stuff.

Miles Davis, In a Silent Way
If I was ordering the albums, this would probably be #1. I think this is a much better work than Bitches Brew. I held the line at 1 album per artist, otherwise perhaps there would be more Miles here. This album captures Miles at that key transition point when he was just moving into the rock-oriented stuff. I like most of that too (especially the Jack Johnson album), but this is his music at the most beautiful.

Bill Frisell, This Land
My favorite contemporary jazz artists, Frisell is the greatest guitarist playing today. It was really hard picking one Frisell album. I went with this mid-90s album that was my first introduction to Frisell. It's a bit more uptempo than most of his albums, with great side players, including Joey Baron, Don Byron, and Curtis Fowlkes. Certainly though, one could argue for the Quartet album, Floratone, The Intercontinentals, Gone Just Like a Train or Unspeakable as a top 10 album. Frisell, like Miles, plays the silence as well as he plays the notes, painting a musical landscape of almost unspeakable beauty. Some of this has been used in what might be termed "Americana" projects, which theoretically would turn me off. This Land would be one of those projects. But it is so amazing that any inherent resistance to Americana is completely blown away. In recent years, he has turned to more production and a more international feel, which has led to a new height of awesomeness. Check him out!

Billy Bang, Vietnam, The Aftermath
No album I have heard about Vietnam blows me away as much as this. Bang, a Vietnam vet and violinist, got a bunch of other vets together to record this album about their experiences in Vietnam. Without a spoken word, this album captures the incredible sadness of the war. There's always the question of whether jazz without vocals can do politics. Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra is probably the most famous attempt to do so. Those are good albums but a) don't hold up that well sometimes because of how blatantly they romanticize revolutionary leaders and b) sometimes resort to musical cliche to express a political point. Bang never does either of these. Plus, he's an amazing violinist who has pushed the boundaries of jazz for the last 25 years.

Sun Ra, Purple Night
My favorite Sun Ra album is actually not one of his craziest ones. From the late 80s I think, Purple Night is a move back to the big band stuff of his earlier career, except it's big band with a serious touch of experimentation. The album works so well I think because it starts off fairly conventionally, with some beautiful arrangements. And then starting with his version of "Stars Fell on Alabama" things get pretty out there. Going experimental while also respecting the tradition of jazz is very appealing to me and no one did it better than Ra.

John Coltrane, A Love Supreme
What can be said about this that hasn't already? In many ways, the beginning of the modern experimental movement and the point where the more traditionally minded began to tune out, this is one of the most beautiful albums ever conceived in any genre.

David S. Ware, Surrendered
One of the most appealing things about experimental jazz is the spirituality so dominant in the music. To me, almost no album better epitomizes this than Surrendered. This is also an incredibly beautiful piece of music; in fact, listening to it and A Love Supreme back to back is something I strongly recommend as Surrendered is quite complimentary to that earlier landmark.

Lester Young, Lester Leaps Again
I like older stuff too! Lester Young is awesome, as most jazz fans know. I came to him somewhat late. What a mistake. This is my favorite album, others may disagree.

Duke Ellington, Black, Brown, & Beige
So much Ellington to choose from, but I probably listen to this more than anything else. Again, what can I say that others have not?

Wayne Shorter, Super Nova
A classic from the fusion era, Super Nova is far and away Shorter's best solo album. Beautiful and awesomely kick-ass at the same time. It makes me sad that so much of the fusion stuff died so quickly. The musicians didn't seem to know where to go. A lot of the later fusion albums are unspeakably bad. Many of the musicians either went back to their more traditional roots (Shorter, Herbie Hancock), continued with unsatisfactory and disappointing projects (Chick Corea), or just went into really bad and cheesy music (a lot of people). The job of pushing the envelope mostly went to the descendants of Coltrane's experimentalism rather than Miles. Pharaoh Sanders, Albert Ayler, Cecil Taylor, and later William Parker, Matthew Shipp, and David S. Ware have done a lot more than Hancock, Shorter, John McLaughlin, Corea and that group. The latter have made much more money but left less artistic impact, at least since 1975. I don't know why this is, but listening to Super Nova reminds me of the great potential these artists had.

I'll have at least a couple more of these lists in the new year.

Concert Review: Peter Brotzmann and Han Bennink, Victory Grill, Austin, TX

Last night, I saw two legends of free jazz, saxophonist Peter Brotzman and drummer Han Bennink. To say these two geezers put on a great show would be something on an understatement, in fact in some ways it is almost beside the point. I've been a big fan of free jazz for a very long time now and having the chance to see Brotzmann was pretty cool. I first heard Brotzmann on Last Exit albums about 15 years ago and was totally blown away.

I am generally a non-spiritual person. But I've always thought there was something incredibly and indescribably spiritual about free jazz. But I've had some hesitation over jazz's European practitioners, whether free jazz or more traditional musicians. Something always seemed to be missing. The playing is often cold and technical and seems heavily influenced by the classical tradition, something that didn't cross over well.

I'm not saying that I feel totally different now but there is at least a little evidence in the other camp. Brotzmann and Bennink played the hell out of their instruments. Brotzmann can blow like almost no other saxophonist I've seen. The energy and passion he brings to the music is pretty mind-blowing. Bennink kind of stole the show for me though. He is an amazing drummer. I am pretty unfamiliar with his work except for a pretty cool album he did with Eugene Chadbourne several years ago. Bennink is great at beating out a good rhythm and doing crazy stuff at the same time. He also likes to put a foot on the drums while he plays. I'm not sure what this is supposed to do. It looks cool. He acted kind of goofy up there too, a nice touch to the often over-serious, too-cool jazz musician personality, which Brotzmann clearly subscribes to.

What I found really interesting was the audience. First of all, it was packed. This is fantastic. It is so hard for experimental musicians to make a living. So few people come out to these shows. Even fewer buy albums. The place probably held 150 people or so and I know that there were at least a couple of dozen people turned away. Pretty shocking. The audience was also a true uber-hipster crowd. I guess only the coolest of the cool know about Peter Brotzmann and other old jazz musicians who influenced Sonic Youth and other ultimate indie bands. The fashions were classic Austin hipster. Think regular decent town hipsters, but then they have to compete with each other to see who is even more hip. So lots of waxed handlebar moustaches, asymmetrical hair, enormous glasses, and very expensive shoes. Also, really annoying conversations. These people behind me in line before the show were going on about some terrible sounding Robert Mitchum and Karen Black movie from the 70s. They were speaking properly loud about it of course so that everyone could be sure to know that they were in the presence of true urban trendsetters. It was like a mating call.

In any case, the audience was fantastic. Everyone was into the music, the energy was palpable, and each number received pretty wild applause. I love Austin's music scene but it is a horrible jazz town. Hopefully, shows like this get people to realize that an audience is here and ready for awesome creative music.

Erik's Random 10

I am going to break the rules this week. Rather than talk about song 1, I am selecting song 8. Why? Because the great Peter Brotzmann, saxophonist in the free jazz quartet Last Exit, as well as innumerable other projects is playing this week in Austin and I am freaking pumped. Anyone in Austin needs to see this. You won't see anything else like it in your life.

Last Exit was a particularly interesting free jazz band. Featuring Brotzmann on sax, Sonny Sharrock on guitar, Bill Laswell on bass, and Ronald Shannon Jackson on drums, this supergroup (if such music can really be called a supergroup) combined the noise of free jazz with an amazing blues rhythm. Jackson is the one who really held that band together. He could put down some nasty beats behind all the craziness going on. Sharrock was a jawdropping guitarist who died far too young in the early 90s. Check out his amazing album Ask the Ages. Laswell has become known as a producer and has drifted into some new agey crap but has done some pretty fantastic work in his time. What a band!

1. Vince Bell, The Fair
2. Christy McWilson, Serpentine River
3. Vampire Weekend, Bryn
4. Mande Music, Bala
5. Count Basie Orchestra, Doggin' Around
6. Jimmy Martin, Widow Maker
7. Marvin Gaye, Come Get to This
8. Last Exit, Pig Cheese
9. Tom Waits, Black Wings
10. Sufjan Stevens, The Dress Looks Nice On You

Erik's Random 10

It's not as if we haven't talked about Bill Frisell on this blog before. What's interesting about "The Gallows" and the Quartet album the song comes off of is the way this particular band handles rhythm. It is made up of Frisell on guitar, Ron Miles on trumpet, Curtis Fowlkes on trombone, and Evyind Kang on violin. No traditional rhythm instruments. But each musician adapted to create very strong rhythms off their instruments. There's just not a lot of music out there with a trombone soloing over a violin rhythm. And this kind of creativity gets to the genius of Frisell.

1. Bill Frisell, The Gallows
2. Townes Van Zandt, Brand New Companion
3. Merle Haggard, Everybody's Had the Blues
4. George Jones, Still Doin' Time
5. Jelly Roll Morton & His Red Hot Peppers, Grandpa's Spells
6. The Gourds, Blood of the Ram
7. Sonny Sharrock & Nicky Skopelitis, The Pyre
8. Matthew Shipp, Patmos
9. Bonnie Prince Billy, I Send My Love To You
10. John Lee Hooker, I Can't Quit You Baby

Historical Image of the Day

The single greatest pet-training book ever written by a jazz legend.

RIP - Teo Macero

Teo Macero, the legendary producer who worked with Miles Davis on much of his "fusion" material, has died at 82.

I'll be honest - I really don't pay attention to who produces jazz albums, because most of the time, I feel the jazz I really like (generally more avant-garde and free-improvisation) is far more a creation of the artist than the producer. But Teo Macero is the exception. I know his name because of his work with Miles Davis. While Macero had worked with Davis since the early 60s, the stuff I absolutely love is his work with Miles on In a Silent Way, Bitches Brew, Jack Johnson, Live-Evil, and On the Corner. Those albums are as much Macero's creations as they are Davis's, in the way Macero took extended sessions and edited them, molded them, and turned them into coherent albums that lost none of the energy or beauty of the extended sessions. Just one listen to any of the box sets of the complete sessions of Silent Way, Bitches Brew, Jack Johnson, or On the Corner reveals just how important Macero's work as a producer was with Davis.

Macero worked with other greats (Mingus, Monk, Brubeck, Ellington, and Fitzgerald), but to me, his work alone with Miles would have been enough to leave a lasting mark. His passing is an enormous loss to the music world, and I encourage anybody and everybody to listen to a little Miles tonight and reflect on the value, invention, and beauty of Teo Macero's production.

Erik's Random 10

I've long thought of the 1980s and early 1990s as a weak point in the creative jazz movement. The greatness of the 60s through mid 70s had long since passed. People were making some interesting music but to me it pales both to the earlier material and to the really great stuff that has come out in the last 15 years. One good band through this relatively weak period was The Jazz Passengers. Not the most experimental of groups, this relatively large band was made up at different times of people such as Marc Ribot on guitar, Roy Nathanson on sax, and Curtis Fowlkes on trombone. This tune comes off Plain Old Joe. They put together a nice sound that both pushes the envelope and remains within the recognized traditions of jazz. It's a band I haven't thought about in some time, but now I'm going to go back and listen to their albums that I have.

1. Jazz Passengers, Blues for Helen
2. Waylon Jennings, Honky Tonk Woman
3. Ali Akbar Khan & Asha Bhosle, Sadra
4. Ralph Stanley & The Clinch Mountain Boys, My Long Skinny Lanky Sarah Jane
5. Stevie Wonder, Big Brother
6. Curtis Mayfield, Superfly
7. Bruce Hornsby, Passing Through
8. La Negra Graciana, La Guacamaya
9. Iron & Wine, Muddy Hymnal
10. Material, Out of the Dreamtime

Lyrad's Random 10

"D.B. Blues" is a Lester Young song, but I don't have to tell anybody how great a bandleader Young was. This song is off of a compilation featuring trombone virtuoso Vic Dickenson, who played in virtually every major big band from the '30s into the early '50s. From Young to Sydney Bechet, Coleman Hawkins and on, Dickenson was everywhere. He was primarily a session man, but eventually led his own bands by the end of his career. The trombone has never been the most respected instrument for soloing in jazz, though the instrument was represented in most big bands, but Vic Dickenson was the exception. He was often granted extended solos that illuminated his breathy tones, much the same sound on his trombone that Stan Getz found on the saxophone, and his speedy delivery at any tempo. The solos are surprisingly emotive yet still maintain the energy level necessary for success in early big bands. I'd recommend the album this track comes from, "A True Trombone Master," from the EPM Jazz Archives label, but it is long out of print. This is too typical of jazz labels, which pull albums off the market without replacing them with viable alternatives, reissues, or the like. Especially for the more obscure artists and session players like Vic Dickenson, the market is never going to show large sales for them, but there are enough fans of early jazz to at least keep the albums marginally available to those who love it.


1. Lester Young w/ Vic Dickenson--D.B. Blues
2. Bob Dylan--The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest
3. Rodion Shchedrin--Concerto cantabile for Violin & Orchestra; 1.Moderato cantabile (Maxim Vengerov, Vn; London SO, Mstislav Rostropovich, cond.)
4. John Zorn--Worms (from the soundtrack to She Must Be Feeling Things)
5. Nour Eddine--Dar Eddamanat
6. Roy Budd--Ride on (from the soundtrack to Soldier Blue)
7. Al Cook--When a Man Gets in Trouble
8. Radiohead--Anyone Can Play Guitar
9. Johannes Brahms--Symphony No.4 in e, Op.98; 1.Allegro non troppo (Cologne RSO; Rudolph Bashai, cond.)
10. Iceburn--Drop

Concert Review--Bill Frisell

Some days, you just feel lucky. Bill Frisell with Tony Scherr and Kenny Wolleson came through town last night. Instead of playing at one of the concert halls or college facilities, instead of playing in a larger venue in Dallas or Austin where he could have charged a lot more for tickets, he came into Denton and played at Dan’s Silverleaf, the little bar that I’ve gone on and on about for a while. Because of the university (UNT was the first school to offer a jazz degree), there is a deserved reputation for music, but it still seems hard to believe that a little place like Dan’s is going to draw a world-class name like Frisell. I’m not complaining, of course. How Dan is able to get people like this to come is beyond me, but more power to him.

The place was sold out and turning people away at the door. The last time I had seen that was for the Alan Holdsworth show a couple of years ago. I didn’t make the same mistake twice: I bought tickets in advance. There weren’t a lot of seats, but I paid the extra $5 for one and, at a very reasonable $25, sat about six feet from the stage. I’d seen Frisell before at a concert hall in Santa Fe, the name of which I don’t remember, with a larger group and at Yoshi’s in Oakland with the Intercontinentals, but those shows weren’t anywhere near this small or intimate. For anybody who has seen him, to say his show is awesome is redundant. For those who haven’t seen him, his show is awesome. Guitar, bass, and drums work very well for a jazz band, though it’s not used all that often, and Frisell does it the best. His old trio with Joey Baron and Kermit Driscoll is one of the best groups I’ve ever heard, and that doesn’t slight Scherr and Wolleson, who are both amazing in their own right. What Bill Frisell does to tie everything together is so great, though I can’t really put my finger on what it is. Unlike a lot of great guitar players, he doesn’t play a lot of notes, but those he does play are some of the most expressive I’ve ever heard. His guitar speaks and, it’s one thing on an album, but live it’s really something to witness. They played a little bit of everything; from jazz standards to Amazing Grace to some stuff that reminded me of Frippatronics, and every song was great. He gave a lot of time to Scherr, who often played the lead parts with the bass, his fingers doing complex dances along the strings in his solos. Frisell always gives a lot of time for his band to shine, and they were great. In my pantheon of guitar players, he ranks right at the top with Django Reinhardt, and I feel as lucky as I possibly can to have been granted the opportunity to see him. Thanks Dan.

Lyrad's Random 10

The style of free jazz that John Coltrane popularized in the mid-60s started a string of artists whose improvisations became progressively more frenzied and spaced-out. Pharoah Sanders is the most popular outside of Coltrane, but Albert Ayler was one of the best and one of the most forgotten, especially given his extreme saxophone prowess. Challenging and often brutal to listen to, given time his music takes on a spiritual and meditative tone, even if it's sometimes hard to understand. The song below is from the masterful concert series that Impulse released as "The Complete Village Vanguard Recordings," and is one of the finest jazz albums that I own. Ayler is a time commitment but one that can prove very rewarding. Unforunately, Aylers life was cut far too short by his suicide at the age of 34 after jumping off the Statue of Liberty ferry. His body was found three weeks later. Ayler's star burned short but burned very bright.

1. Albert Ayler--Spirits Rejoice
2. Max Reger--Sonata in B-flat for Viola & Piano; 2.Vivace. Allegro (Josef Klussen, Va; Sachiko Kayahara, Pn)
3. Jim & Jesse w/Carl Story--Cripple Creek
4. Nigogos--Hicaz Sarki
5. Tom Waits--Whistle Down the Wind
6. Morton Feldman--Crippled Symmetry for Flute, Bass Flute, Piano, Celesta, Glockenspiel & Vibraphone; Region 1 (California EAR Unit)
7. Red Norvo--Hallelujah
8. Magic Slim and the Teardrops--I Got Money
9. Guns 'n Roses--Night Train
10. Digital Underground--The Way We Swing

Lyrad's Random 10

When I first got into college and first got heavily into jazz, Charlie Hunter was more accessible to me than anybody. Between the Charlie Hunter Trio and T.J. Kirk, his guitar work skirted closely enough to rock for me to understand some of what he was doing but was unique to me and helped to expand my horizons greatly on what the guitar was capable of. While the trio primarily played original songs, T.J. Kirk was the namesake of the three artists they played: Thelonius Monk, James Brown, and Roland Rashaan Kirk, all of whom I'd also become interested in at the same time (the original name, which made more sense, was James T. Kirk, but a lawsuit from the Roddenberry family ended that quick). I don't know what Charlie Hunter's been up to for the past ten years or so, but I was always extremely impressed with his play style and the 8-string guitar he used to play melodies and, at the same time, pluck out bass lines. He emulated Joe Pass in a lot of ways, but used the ideas from Pass and made them his own.

1. T.J. Kirk--Four in One
2. Nico Fidenco--Eternal Anguish (from the soundtrack to Emmanuelle in a Women's Prison)
3. Entropia--Mara's Theme
4. Chipper Thomas--Wars of High Germany
5. Charlie Barnet--You're Looking for Romance
6. Jesper Thilo--Strike up the Band
7. Scratch Acid--Holes
8. Sergei Rachmaninov--Symphonic Dances (3) for Orchestra (or 2 Pianos), Op.45, 3.Lento assai [Royal Liverpool PO; Sir Charles MacKerras, cond.]
9. Naked City--Victims of Torture
10. Chris Knight--Bring the Harvest Home