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Saturday, July 31, 2004


Nat Hentoff

Purging Jazz From Public Radio -by Nat Hentoff

vickmickunas : Vick Mickunas: "radio visionary
Please note as you peruse this archived piece from Jazz Times that Mr. Kernis is reputedly the man who wanted Bob Edwards taken off of NPR's Morning Edition. Now XM Satellite Radio has swooped in and created a new morning program that will be hosted by Bob Edwards! The new channel will feature lots of 'public radio' shows like This American Life. Local NPR affiliates are shaking in their boots. Some of these stations eliminated jazz programs on the advice of radio visionaries. Is jazz dead? I think not....

Purging Jazz From Public Radio -by Nat Hentoff

The last rites for much of jazz on National Public Radio began in February of last year when Jay Kernis, the network's senior vice-president for programming-noting that Billy Taylor's Jazz at Kennedy Center and Jazz from Lincoln Center were getting lower ratings and fewer listener donations than the news programs-declared: "We are not the arts doctors, offering medicine that will heal society? Some programs may disappear." Both the Billy Taylor and the Lincoln Center series have indeed vanished from NPR and are now distributed by other program sources. The illuminating Jazz Profiles (winner of a prestigious Peabody Award for broadcasting excellence) is now heard only in reruns, and its producer, Tim Owens-program manager for NPR's jazz division-has been let go.
A survivor is Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz, not so much because of its continuous high quality, but rather because its ratings are sufficient to remain on a public radio network that justifies its existence, when pitching to private foundations and corporate underwriters, by proudly maintaining that it offers programming unavailable on commercial radio stations.
Meanwhile, more local NPR stations around the country-which get the bulk of their financing directly from listeners who are insistently assured during pledge drives that they are supporting alternative programming, are also making jazz disappear.

In the Dayton, Ohio, listening area, WYSO-FM in Yellow Springs, the oldest public station in that part of the state, has taken all of its jazz programs off the air, including some that had been on for almost 30 years. The Dayton Daily News reported "a flood of criticism," dramatized by a "jazz funeral" in the streets.

In the Sept. 25 Wall Street Journal ("All That Jazz-Where Did It Go?"), I quoted a letter in the Yellow Springs News from Steve Schwerner, volunteer co-host of the banished jazz program Alternate Takes for 24 years: "WYSO has been the only source of serious jazz music in the Miami Valley. Public radio keeps the art form alive."

And the alternative Impact Weekly newspaper ran this threnody from Ken Katowik, who had a jazz show on WYSO for more than 27 years: "I have been featuring local jazz musiciansn my Wednesday night show. These local jazz groups will probably never have a chance to be heard by you again unless you're lucky enough to find where they are playing liveow these great artists will remain obscure and unknown, at least in the newly created void of no jazz on WYSO."

Not all public radio station managers have adopted the exclusionary practices of NPR's Jay Kernis. At WCNY-FM in Syracuse, N.Y., Leo Rayhill has been hosting The Sounds of Jazz at 6 p.m. every weekday for more than 30 years. The program had been on other stations for 10 years before moving to WCNY, which is primarily a classical music station. Station manager Paul Dunn told the Syracuse Herald-Journal: "Leo is a true treasure. He has introduced jazz to countless listeners, and his love of the music is demonstrated by the fact that he's a volunteer host of the program." (Rayhill owns a roofing and siding firm.) During the station's pledge drives, says the Herald-Tribune, "Sounds of Jazz typically draws more listener donations than any of its other programs."

The purging of jazz at other public radio stations, and at NPR, had much of its genesis-according to Dayton's Impact Weekly and other sources-in a study conducted in 1998 by American Research Analysis, a Washington, D.C., public radio consultant firm. Its founder, David Giovannoni, maintained that his research showed that jazz, blues, classical music and opera programs attracted markedly less donations than news and commentary.

Accordingly, as Impact Weekly points out, such stations as New York's WNYC-AM, after greatly reducing its music programs, "tripled its donations from underwriters and members." There is music on its FM outlet, but this premier public radio station has no all-jazz program, putting it in the ratings-driven company of all the commercial radio stations in the city.

Could it be that station managers, abandoning jazz, don't know how to promote it? Newark, N.J.'s WBGO-FM is a national model of a noncommercial, successful jazz station. The Gavin Report named it Jazz Station of the Year in 2001, and it has also received the Blues Foundation's Keeping the Blues Alive Award for Achievement in Noncommercial Radio. WBGO is affiliated with NPR, but the great majority of its programming is original, focusing on a wide spectrum of jazz. It sends its own
JazzSet With Dee Dee Bridgewater to NPR, and chooses among the very few remaining jazz offerings of that network.

Jay Kernis, the purger of jazz at NPR, should look at how WBGO promotes its reason for being, and how inviting its monthly program guide is. There is a significant radio audience for jazz, if people like Kernis don't downgrade it with self-fulfilling prophecies. NPR would be livelier if it took more WBGO creations.


Wednesday, July 28, 2004


Geri Allen 

WBGO - Jazz Radio Station > "Pianist Geri Allen Performs at Starry Nights Jazz Series

WBGO - Jazz Radio Station: "Pianist Geri Allen Performs at Starry Nights Jazz Series
Live Broadcast August 6 at 5:30 pm
The first Friday of each month true jazz lovers can be found tapping their toes at the American Museum of Natural History's Rose Center for Earth and Space . Its Starry Nights jazz concert series, held in the Rose Center's Hall of the Universe, is definitely the place to see and be seen. On August 6 at 5:30 pm, WBGO will broadcast accomplished pianist Geri Allen live from Starry Nights. "

Saturday, July 24, 2004

PRESS RELEASE: Tanglewood Jazz Festival: World-Class Jazz in a World-Class Setting

PRESS RELEASE: Tanglewood Jazz Festival: World-Class Jazz in a World-Class Setting: "Tanglewood Jazz Festival: World-Class Jazz in a World-Class Setting
Boston Symphony Orchestra presents featured performers which nclude Harry Connick, Jr., Savion Glover & Jimmy Slyde, Branford Marsalis Quartet, Dave Brubeck Quartet & Symphonette, Marian McPartland, Taylor Eigsti, Eliane Elias, Eddie Palmieri and La Perfecta II, Doug Wamble Quartet, Miquel Zenon Quartet.
PRWEB) July 24, 2004 -- The Boston Symphony Orchestra will present its annual Labor Day Weekend Tanglewood Jazz Festival to be held September 3-5 at the Orchestra's summer home in the Berkshire Mountains in Lenox, Massachusetts. Jazz greats highlighting this year's festival include Harry Connick, Jr., the Branford Marsalis Quartet, the Dave Brubeck Quartet and Symphonette, Marian McPartland, Taylor Eigsti, Eliane Elias, Eddie Palmieri and La Perfecta II, the Doug Wamble Quartet, the Miguel Zenon Quartet, and tap dancers Savion Glover and Jimmy Slyde in a special jazz tap performance. "

Sonny Simmons 

All About Jazz > Sonny Simmons

Sonny Simmons: "Sonny Simmons
Posted: 2004-07-24

By Clifford Allen
Alto saxophonist Sonny Simmons was born on Sicily Island, Louisiana. At a young age, he moved to Oakland, California with his family, bringing the budding musician into contact with touring musicians like Duke Ellington and Charlie Parker as well as local modernists. By the early '60s, Sonny had moved to LA to record and work with altoist Prince Lasha; in 1963 Simmons moved to New York to play and record with Eric Dolphy, Elvin Jones and other major figures in the new jazz. With his then wife, trumpeter Barbara Donald, Sonny recorded as a leader and in 1970 returned to the West Coast. Family and personal problems kept him out of the music in the '70s and '80s, but he was given the chance of a new career in the '90s. He is currently working with Michael Marcus in the Cosmosamatics and the Millennium Group. "

The Village Voice: Features: Crouching Stanley, Hidden Gangsta by Ta-Nehisi Coates

The Village Voice: Features: Crouching Stanley, Hidden Gangsta by Ta-Nehisi Coates: "Why the hanging judge can't keep his hands to himself
Crouching Stanley, Hidden Gangsta
by Ta-Nehisi Coates
July 24th, 2004 12:00 PM
I reserve the right to be a nigger.
Aaron McGruder
Stanley Crouch is a gangsta rapper. Throughout his career, Crouch has moved throught black nationalism, bohemia, and places we haven't yet developed the vocab to name. But if there's one thing we've gleaned from Crouch's recent assault on novelist and critic Dale Peck, it is this?e have found Crouch's muse, and his name is Suge Knight.
The backstory is simple, and for Crouch routine. On July 12, out for lunch at Tartine in the West Village, Crouch spotted Peck, who'd trashed his book Don't the Moon Look Lonesome a few years back. After greeting Peck with one hand, Crouch smacked him with the other. 'What I would actually have preferred to happen,' says Crouch, 'was that I had the presence of mind to hawk up a huge oyster and spit it in his face.' "

Friday, July 23, 2004


Illinois Jacquet 

From "The Jazzcat" :: Jazz Saxophonist Illinois Jacquet Dies

The Jazzcat :: Jazz Saxophonist Illinois Jacquet Dies

screeching and played with jazz legends including Lionel Hampton, Count Basie and Cab Calloway during a career spanning eight decades, died Thursday. He was 81.

Jacquet, who was known as much for his trademark pork pie hat as the innovative playing style, died of a heart attack in his Queens home. He played with nearly every jazz and blues legend of his time, including Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Jo Jones, Buddy Rich, Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis and Gene Krupa.

Former President Clinton, an amateur saxophonist, tapped Jacquet to play at his inaugural ball in January 1993. The duo jammed on the White House lawn, playing "C-Jam Blues." Jacquet also performed for Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.

During his heyday in the 1940s and 1950s, Jacquet recorded more than 300 original compositions, including three of his biggest hits, "Black Velvet," "Robbins' Nest" and "Port of Rico."

Born Jean-Baptiste Jacquet in Broussard, La., his mother was a Sioux Indian and his father, Gilbert Jacquet, a French-Creole railroad worker and part-time musician.


The nickname Illinois came from the Indian word "Illiniwek," which means superior men. He dropped the name Jean-Baptiste when the family moved from Louisiana to Houston because there were so few French-speaking people there.

His first exposure was a command performance by Cole, who lined up bass player Jimmy Blanton, Sid Catlett on drums and guitarist Charlie Christian from the Benny Goodman Orchestra and told Jacquet he wanted to hear what he could do.

Years later, Jacquet told an interviewer that playing in that jam session "was like playing with God, St. Peter and Moses" yet he wasn't nervous because "when you play with the greatest you play even better."

When he was 19, he performed the standout tenor saxophone solo on "Flying Home" with Hampton. He likened that performance to a religious experience and said, "Something was with me at that moment. It all came together for some reason."

Jacquet appeared with Calloway's band in the Lena Horne movie "Stormy Weather" and in the Academy Award-nominated short film "Jammin' the Blues" with Billie Holiday and Lester Young. He replaced Young in the Count Basie Orchestra in 1946 and was given the nickname "The King" by Basie.

During the 1960s and 1970s, he toured extensively in Europe. In 1983, he became the first jazz musician to become artist-in-residence at Harvard University. His stint as guest lecturer at the Ivy League school caused him more angst than any performance of his life..."When he's on stage with a horn in his hand, he's comfortable, but put him in front of a class, just talking ... that's a whole different thing," she said.

Despite his fame, Jacquet lived quietly in the St. Albans section of Queens. His wife said he followed Basie to Queens in 1947 but stayed because "the cost of parking his car in Manhattan was more than the rent on his apartment."


Jazz Saxophonist Illinois Jacquet Dies

Legendary Saxophonist Illinois Jacquet, Who Defined the Jazz Style Called Screeching, Dies at 81 - The Associated Press
NEW YORK July 23, 2004 — Illinois Jacquet, a legendary tenor saxophonist who played with nearly every jazz and blues luminary of his time and whose standout solo on Lionel Hampton's "Flying Home" became a rhythm and blues standard, has died. He was 81.
Jacquet died of a heart attack Thursday at his New York City home, said longtime friend and collaborator Dan Frank.

During a career spanning eight decades, Jacquet played with such music greats as Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Jo Jones, Buddy Rich, Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis and Gene Krupa.

When he was 19, he played the tenor saxophone solo on "Flying Home" with Hampton. He likened the performance to a religious experience. "Something was with me at that moment," he said. "It all came together for some reason."

Jacquet, who defined the jazz style called screeching, was known as much for his trademark pork pie hat as the innovative playing style.

He played tenor sax in the Count Basie and Cab Calloway bands and since 1981 performed with his own band, the Illinois Jacquet Big Band.

Jacquet played "C-Jam Blues" with former President Bill Clinton, an amateur saxophonist, on the White House lawn during Clinton's inaugural ball in January 1993. He also performed for Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.

During his heyday in the 1940s and 1950s, Jacquet recorded more than 300 original compositions, including three of his biggest hits, "Black Velvet," "Robbins' Nest" and "Port of Rico."

Born Jean-Baptiste Jacquet in Broussard, La., his mother was a Sioux Indian and his father, Gilbert Jacquet, a French-Creole railroad worker and part-time musician.

The nickname Illinois came from the Indian word "Illiniwek," which means superior men. He dropped the name Jean-Baptiste when the family moved from Louisiana to Houston because there were so few French-speaking people there.

Jacquet, one of six children, began performing at age 3, tap dancing to the sounds of the Gilbert Jacquet band. He later played the drums in his father's band but discovered his true talent when a music teacher introduced him to the saxophone.

After graduating from high school, Jacquet moved to California where he soon earned a reputation as a little guy who played a lot of sax.

His first exposure was a command performance by Cole, who lined up bass player Jimmy Blanton, Sid Catlett on drums and guitarist Charlie Christian from the Benny Goodman Orchestra and told Jacquet he wanted to hear what he could do.

Years later, Jacquet told an interviewer that playing in that jam session "was like playing with God, St. Peter and Moses," yet he wasn't nervous because "when you play with the greatest you play even better."

Jacquet appeared with Calloway's band in the Lena Horne movie "Stormy Weather" and in the Academy Award-nominated short film "Jammin' the Blues" with Billie Holiday and Lester Young. He replaced Young in the Count Basie Orchestra in 1946 and was given the nickname "The King" by Basie.

During the 1960s and 1970s, he toured extensively in Europe. In 1983, he became the first jazz musician to become artist-in-residence at Harvard University. His stint as guest lecturer at the Ivy League school caused him more angst than any performance of his life, said Carol Sherick, his longtime companion and manager of more than 20 years.

"When he's on stage with a horn in his hand, he's comfortable, but put him in front of a class, just talking ... that's a whole different thing," she said.

Despite his fame, Jacquet lived quietly in New York City's borough of Queens. His wife said he followed Basie to Queens in 1947 but stayed because "the cost of parking his car in Manhattan was more than the rent on his apartment."

Wednesday, July 21, 2004

The New York Times > National > Obituaries in the News > James Williams

The New York Times > National > Obituaries in the News: "James Williams
NEW YORK (AP) -- James Williams, a jazz pianist and professor of music who recorded with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers and in his own ensembles, died Tuesday of liver cancer, said Jenise Grice, his nephew's fiancee. He was 53.
Williams began playing piano at 13 in his hometown of Memphis, Tenn., concentrating first on gospel and soul. He attended Memphis State University and then moved to Boston to teach at Berklee College of Music from 1972 to 1977.
From 1977 to 1981, he was a member of Blakey's band, playing with such artists as Wynton Marsalis and Bobby Watson and appearing on 10 albums. He also recorded a number of albums as frontman, including ``Alter Ego'' (1984) and ``Awesome!'' (2000), with the Magical Trio.
He moved to New York in 1984 and formed the Contemporary Piano Ensemble, which included three other pianists.
In 1999, he became director of jazz studies at William Paterson University in Wayne, N.J. He taught there until he was hospitalized in April."

Jazz at Lincoln Center's Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra Dates :: eJazzNews.com : The Number One Jazz News Resource On The Net : Jazz News Daily

Jazz at Lincoln Center's Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra Dates :: eJazzNews.com : The Number One Jazz News Resource On The Net :: Jazz News Daily: "Jazz at Lincoln Center's Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra Dates Posted by: scottthompsonon Wednesday, July 21, 2004 - 12:00 AM
 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: July 20, 2004
MAMBO MADNESS TOUR HITS U.S. CITIES AND DEBUTS IN CHINA
New York, NY (July 20, 2004) Jazz at Lincoln Center (JALC) announced today the dates for the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra's (ALJO) 2004 summer tour called Mambo Madness. The tour takes the critically acclaimed Latin jazz orchestra throughout the U.S and to a debut performance in Shanghai, China. In each city, the ALJO, led by pianist Arturo O'Farrill - son of the pioneering composer and bandleader Chico O'Farrill - will expose audiences to the rich traditions of Latin jazz by performing the genre's most beloved tunes by its greatest artists as well as new works and compositions by the ALJO. During the spring leg of the Mambo Madness tour, the band, Howard Reich of Chicago Tribune said, performed with such muscularity and intellectual rigor as to announce the arrival of a potentially definitive Latin jazz band. "

Date City Venue August 11 Los Angeles, CA Hollywood BowlAugust 13 Bronx, NY El Teatro MirandaSeptember 17 Ft. Worth, TX Jazz by the BoulevardSeptember 18 San Antonio, TX Travis ParkSeptember 19 Monterey, CA Monterey Jazz FestivalOctober 6 Shanghai, China Shanghai Concert HallOctober 7 Shanghai, China Shanghai Concert HallOctober 29 Detroit. MI Orchestra HallNovember 10 Stanford, CA Memorial AuditoriumNovember 11 Stanford CA Jazz For Young People Concert in Memorial AuditoriumNovember 12 Seattle, WA Paramount TheaterNovember 13 Davis, CA Mondavi Center, University of California, Davis









James Williams Audio Tribute

this is an audio post - click to play

Tuesday, July 20, 2004


James Williams 

James Williams

James Williams

Pianist James Williams passed away today. Mr. Williams performed with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers during the early nineteen eighties before embarking on a solo career.  He recorded numerous albums during his twenty plus years as a band leader.   As more information becomes available I will post it on this site:   

              JAMES WILLIAMS - MARCH 8, 1951 - JULY 20, 2004






Ejazznews - South Africa: a Jazz Haven

Posted by: editoron Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - 08:18 AM

Nii Laryea Korley
Accra

The Bassline is a small live jazz venue in Melville, Johannesburg in South Africa. It is often jam- packed on weekends with fans who want to hear the hot stars of South African jazz. On such nights, the stage could be occupied by Zim Ngqawana, Selaelo Selota, Bekhi Khoza, Tony Cox, Pops Mohamed, McCoy Mrubata, Jimmy Dludlu, Musa Manzini, Jonas Gwangwa, Sipho Mabuse, Sipho Gumede, Hugh Masekela or any of the brilliant players who have helped project South Africa as the only country outside of America with a unique jazz sound.

The Bassline, like other well-known clubs like Green Dolphin in Cape Town, The Rainbow in Durban and Sof'town in Johannesburg, has grown into a warm nest for home grown talent.One of its managers, Brad Holmes, wrote in 1998: "In 1994 I harnessed an absolute passion for South African jazz and made a home for it at the Bassline. I dreamt of bringing South Africans their own music. I wanted them to hear the sounds of their own country singing, not the borrowed strains of some other land. The Bassline believes in South African music and local star structure." Many South Africans feel that 'jazz' is an inadequate term to express the unmatched vibrancy of the music and its people. Jazz there has absorbed a range of distintively local musical idioms including kwela, marabi, and mbaqanga. These original South African melodies are underpinned by indigenous fusion-styled rhythms. Original African instruments such as mbira, local drums and xylophones are usually combined with the normal drum-kit, saxophones, guitars, electric bass, keyboards and trumpets in a freedom of creative expression.

Monday, July 19, 2004

Upcoming.org: Charlie Parker Jazz Festival at Tompkins Square Park (Sunday, August 22, 2004)

Upcoming.org: Charlie Parker Jazz Festival at Tompkins Square Park (Sunday, August 22, 2004): "Charlie Parker Jazz Festival
Sunday, August 22, 2004
3:00 PM

Tompkins Square Park
7th St between Avenues A and B
New York City, New York Featuring:Jimmy Heath
Frank Morgan, Kenny Garrett and Teri Lynne Carrington

National Black Arts Festival

Music: "Cyrus Chestnut Trio
Featuring special guest David Fathead Newman
Presented by the National Black Arts Festival and Spivey Hall
Enter the eclectic world of pianist Cyrus Chestnut"s inventive, yet unpredictable improvisations created by the spiritual force that drives his music! Chestnut will be joined by legendary saxophonist David Fathead Newman, known for mastering seductive, soothing, and swinging sounds.
Thursday, July 22, 8:15pm
Spivey Hall"

WCLK 91.9-FM Atlanta

Welcome To 91.9-FM...: "join Latin Aura's Tomas Algarin

Wednesday July 28th @ Centennial Olympic Park
featuring
Serenata Band & Rua Six
5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Southern Company Amphitheater "

Tuesday, July 13, 2004


Jackie McLean performing at the 1991 Atlanta Jazz Festival 

I Have written an article about Jackie McLean. A biography of Jackie is linked.

Jackie McLean, New York Jazz
 
Jackie McLean or “Jackie Mac”  as he is known to his fans, was the most original alto saxophone player to emerge from that first generation of jazz players shaped by the all pervasive influence of alto saxophone player Charlie Parker.  Bebop, the style of music of which Parker was the principle innovator, became the dominant style in jazz from the nineteen forties onward.
 
Parker changed the way musicians played music.  His influence went far beyond the realm of alto saxophone players. Parker revolutionized the rhythmic concept of jazz by incorporating new and sophisticated rhythmic accents into his music. The role of the jazz drummer was forever change. Jazz players who performed older styles of the music incorporated many of Parker’s rhythmic innovations into their music. Parker completely revolutionized the manner in which jazz musicians approached harmony. His use of advanced chord structures in his music laid a foundation for jazz musicians which has inspired  every succeeding generation of musicians. Then there was Parker the brilliant alto saxophone soloist who developed a brand new blues based musical vocabulary for not just his instrument but for all jazz players. Only Louis Armstrong had caused such a change in the way a soloist played their instrument.  Given this context it is even more amazing that a young saxophone player, like McLean, who knew Charlie Parker personally, would develop such a unique and original style. Parker encouraged McLean to find his own sound and uniquely among alto saxophone players of his generation McLean successfully followed Parker’s advice.
 
Now in his seventies, Mr. McLean continues to perform in varying musical contexts, ever refining his unique and singular sound. In fact the thing that makes Jackie McLean’s music so unique is his sound.  Once heard, Jackie Mac’s sound is immediately identifiable. His sound has a piercing, penetrating quality that is so intense and filled with passion that sometimes it almost hurts. Jackie’s sound cuts right through to the core of your being where all of your emotions reside. Whether happiness or sadness or any emotion in between, McLean will touch you.  Jackie will hit notes, while he is soloing, that will make you cry with pleasure.  He makes you hurt so good.
 
McLean’s sound conveys to me the sound and feeling of New York City, probably as much as any jazz player. His sound and music are so filled with the searing pulse which is that city.  I hear the streets of Harlem in McLean’s music, even in a tune named  “Appointment in Ghana” I hear New York. The musical tempos of his music are often fleet.  Jackie traverses the complex harmonies of his tunes and jazz standards with both ease and finesse. McLean’s music draws you into its magic by being both intensely passionate and harmonically interesting.
 
Jackie McLean has had a five decade performing and recording career.  He has taught music at the Hart School of Music in Hartford Connecticut for over twenty years.  Do not pass up an opportunity to see Mr. McLean perform live. His performances are unforgettable.
 
There are many Jackie McLean recordings available for purchase. He  also performed as a regular sideman, during the nineteen sixties, on many Blue Note Records recording sessions led by musicians such as trumpeters Lee Morgan and Donald Byrd.  During the nineteen fifties he recorded with trumpeter Miles Davis and bassist Charles Mingus among others. I would recommend for an initial purchase the albums Swing, Swang, Swingin from the nineteen sixties, Old Wine, New Bottles from the nineteen seventies and Hat Trick from the nineteen nineties. These albums are representative of Jackie McLean’s mature style. These recordings convincingly demonstrate the relevance of Bebop as a contemporary musical style fully capable of serving as a vehicle for expressing a twenty first century sensibility.   Bebop lives.
 
© 2004 John H. Armwood




Lee Morgan 

Here is an article I wrote about my favorite hard bop musician, Lee Morgan. A good biography of Lee is linked to this article

Lee Morgan, The Last of the Hip Men
 
I have a vague memory of hearing Lee Morgan’s the Sidewinder while watching New York Yankee sluggers Mickey Mantle and Joe Pepitone hitting homeruns in a vain effort to defeat pitcher Bob Gibson and the Saint Louis Cardinals in the 1964 World Series.  I was eleven years old. 
 
By the time I reached the age of sixteen I owned Lee Morgan’s Sidewinder album and I knew that Lee Morgan was one of my favorite trumpet players. By the time I reached the age of seventeen trumpeter Freddie Hubbard had released his Red Clay album and everyone I knew considered Hubbard to be the main man on trumpet.  I loved Red Clay but I still could not get past Lee Morgan’s Sidewinder and the sound of Lee’s horn.  For me Lee was still my man on trumpet.
 
I remember when I first saw Lee’s album “Live at the Lighthouse” at May’s department store in downtown Brooklyn New York. I bought it along with “The Best of Herbie Hancock.  I believe this was sometime in 1970. I do clearly remember that  I could not take the tune Neophilia off of my turntable. I soon added Search For The New Land and The Gigolo to my Lee Morgan album collection. These recordings were supplemented by a number of outstanding Art Blakey albums which featured Lee Morgan. “Moanin”, “The Big Beat” and “A Night in Tunisia” are just three of the many Art Blakey albums which feature Lee Morgan.  Somehow I missed the “Cornbread” album which I did not discover until I heard it at a buddies house, Drake Colley, who liked and listened to Lee Morgan even more than I.  This was now 1975 and Lee Morgan had been dead for about three years. He had been shot in 1972 at Slugs, a Manhattan, Lower East Side jazz club which was a favorite spot for hard core jazz lovers in New York City.. I was not there the night he was shot but I went to that club many times.  I saw Stanley Turrentine there a week or so after Morgan’s untimely death. The club closed shortly after Lee Morgan’s death. Morgan was only thirty-three at the time of his untimely demise.
 
I have listened to Lee Morgan and I still listen to Lee Morgan more than any other trumpet player in jazz.  No other trumpet player comes close to garnering that size a chunk of my listening time.  I would venture to say that I listen to Lee Morgan more than any other musician. The question that I am posing to myself in this article is a simple why? Why, after thirty-five years does Lee Morgan have such staying power. I know of, listen to and possess numerous recordings by all of the great jazz trumpet players. Why has the music of Lee Morgan risen to the top of my personal listening preference.
 
Let’s start with the basics. Let’s look at Lee Morgan’s music from the ground up. 
 
Morgan uses classic African American dance rhythms in his music. The “Sidewinder”, “Cornbread” and The “Rumproller” (written by Andrew Hill) all have that boogaloo dance feel which gave Morgan’s music a direct connection with the  popular black music of his day. His trumpet playing had a soulful, conversational quality which was akin to the vocal stylings of the soul singers of his era and it was akin also to the ordinary, spoken vernacular, of everyday black folk.  His playing style was like that of a stylish dancer at a weekend house party. You know the kind  of dancer I am talking about, the one who has all of the slick moves that everbody else envies. He is the fellow with whom  all of the sharp women seek to dance.
 
Morgan could also swing, and I mean swing hard.  Just listen to “Totem” on the Sidewinder album or “Our Man Higgins” on the Cornbread album.  Speaking of Higgins, Billy Higgins is the drummer on almost all of Lee Morgan’s albums.  There is a good reason for his choice of this particular drummer. Billy Higgins could lay down a groove which set, no matter what rhythm he chose, swung  with the perfect underpinning for Lee’s soulful, speech like flights.
 
Lee Morgan’s playing technique was besides the point. Unlike many of the current crop of fashionable trumpet players whose playing screams out the message “I am a virtuoso”, Morgan’s technique never called attention to itself. Morgan had technique, loads of it,  but he used his technique in a manner which was totally subservient to the musical message he sought to express.
 
As you can see I am far from objective when it comes to Lee Morgan’s music.  For me Lee Morgan’s music breaths with the wit and humor of every day life. Maybe that is why I never let it get very far from me.  What more could anyone ask from any artist.

© 2004 John H. Armwood







Dexter Gordon 

I have linked a decent Dexter Gordon Biography I found on the web. I have written an article describing some of my remeberances of Dexter Gordon

Dexter Gordon, 1976 
 
People were saying jazz was dead.  In 1973 there was only one full time jazz club in New York City, the jazz capital of the world.  The Village Vanguard survived.  It still survives but in 1973 it stood alone.  Slugs was closed. Slugs, New York’s alternative club where hardcore jazz fans went to see the best hard bop musicians of that era perform had closed, not long after one of the greatest hard bop practitioners of the day, Lee Morgan, was murdered in that very same club by his jealous common law wife.  Jazz was in trouble.
 
The larger jazz scene was killed, in part, by the music’s avant garde wing who drove off audiences by engaging in instrumental screaming sessions on the band stand.  After the death of John Coltrane in 1967 many of his less talented followers sought to continue on the avant garde trail he blazed at the end of his lie. Long, seemingly endless, boring solos containing honks, squeals and every sort of noise with little or no harmonic variety were the norm for many of these musicians who played the “new thing”. The excesses of this period left an indelible imprint on the music of that time and on many music listeners. Jazz had changed. Nihilism ruled. The fun was gone. 
  
Veteran hard bop trumpeter Woody Shaw returned to New York from California and was signed by the Columbia Record Company circa 1973-1974. Shaw had experimented with the avant garde but he had returned to his hard bop roots. His first record for the Columbia label, Rosewood, won a Grammy award. Then in 1976 Dexter Gordon moved from Copenhagen Denmark to New York City and in the jazz world everything old became new.
 
Dexter Gordon opened the Village Vanguard fronting Woody Shaw’s band featuring Ronnie Matthews on piano, Stafford James on bass, Victor Lewis on drums, Woody Shaw on trumpet and Dexter Gordon on tenor saxophone.  This band played two engagements at the Village Vanguard in 1976.  Recordings from the first 1976 engagement were released on Columbia Records as the Dexter Gordon album “Homecoming”.  For those of us who attended those engagements this album does not capture the excitement, joy or pure fire of seeing that band live. No recording could capture that exciting and exuberant live  music. There were long lines at the Vanguard each night of the engagement with eager jazz fans waiting to hear Dexter Gordon. They wanted to find out what the buzz was about.   Most of these listeners were far to young to have seen Mr. Gordon before he had moved to Europe at the beginning of the previous decade. 
 
The back of the club near the kitchen door was where the muscians held court, both old and young, all wanting to be there, to see what Dexter had to say with his horn.  Dexter’s new and old audiences were not disappointed. 
 
Gordon had been a mainstay of the jazz mainstream jazz scene since the nineteen forties when he played tenor saxophone sitting next to tenor saxophonist Gene Ammons in the wonderful though short lived Billy Eckstine big band which also featured Sarah Vaughn as the female singer. Dexter Gordon and Gene Ammons recorded a famous duet of dueling saxophones, “Blowing the Blues Away” with that band.
 
Dexter Gordon is credited as the first tenor saxophone player to utilize Charlie Parker’s stylistic innovations, which Parker developed on the alto saxophone, on the tenor.
 
Now Dexter Gordon was playing in an even more modern style.  The man who had been a major influence on the young John Coltrane of the nineteen forties and fifties had now assimilated Coltrane’s nineteen sixties contributions to the development of playing the tenor saxophone and jazz itself.  The teacher had learned some important lessons from the student.
 
To put it simply, Dexter Gordon at the Vanguard in 1976 was the definition of what was and is hip. He was world wise, sophisticated, humorously not taking himself to seriously, and he made music making seem like fun. He was current.  He was a classic.  In 1976, Dexter Gordon was now.
 
Gordon played jazz standards and his own compositions which were familiar to jazz fans who knew his Blue Note record dates from the previous decade.  Dexter quoted from standards, popular tunes and novelty numbers in almost every song he performed.  Even the jazz novice would hear something familiar during each set.  One might hear references to “Here Comes the Bride” or Santa’s coming to town” during a single performance.  The amazing thing was no matter how corny the musical reference might seem, Dexter Gordon would make it work and make us smile and in the process.  At the end of each song Dexter wound lay the tenor saxopone across his outstretched arms as he bowed towards the audience in supplication. This simple act of humility brought Dexter and the audience together in an intimate ritual of social, musical, communion.  Dexter subtlely made his audiences part of his performances.  Dexter Gordon was a master showman, tall and handsome with a boyish grin which  belied his sixty plus years spent on his planet.  
 
Over the succeeding seven years Dexter Gordon became a fixture on the New York jazz scene.  He soon formed a new quartet with George Cables on piano followed by Kirk Lightsey, Eddie Gladen quickly became his drummer who was joined by a changing cast of bass players including David Eubanks, Rufus Reid and Lonnie Plaxico. His bands breathed fire and humor.  I remember many memorable Dexter Gordon performances.  They include  his regular, yearly Christmas two week engagement at the Vanguard, a performance on the observation deck on top of New York’s Empire State Building and an inspiring, exhilerating performance of his quartet at Grant’s Tomb with trumpeter Woody Shaw.  Grant's Tomb and the surrounding park are on New York's Riverside Drive  across the street from Riverside Church in Harlem.  On wednesday evenings in July and August Jazzmobile Inc., hosted concerts there which were a part of their free, summer jazz series which was presented in Harlem and other New York City inner city environs.  The band was on fire that evening.  The music was so hot that you could feel waves of energy pulsating through the crowd as the band wailed.
 
Dexter Gordon’s return to New York in 1976 made hard bop hip again.  New jazz clubs soon opened and the music flourished. Dexter Gordon grew in popularity, appearing in films and staring in the movie "Round Midnight" for which he was nominated for an Oscar.  Dexter Gordon made what was then old seem new.

© 2004 John H. Armwood