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John H. Armwood Jazz History Lecture Nashville's Cheekwood Arts Center 1989

Monday, December 25, 2006

James Brown, 73, Dies; ‘Godfather of Soul’ - New York Times

James Brown, 73, Dies; ‘Godfather of Soul’ - New York Times:
December 25, 2006

James Brown, 73, Dies; ‘Godfather of Soul’

Filed at 8:44 a.m. ET

ATLANTA (AP) -- James Brown, the dynamic, pompadoured ''Godfather of Soul,'' whose rasping vocals and revolutionary rhythms made him a founder of rap, funk and disco as well, died early Monday, his agent said. He was 73.

Brown was hospitalized with pneumonia at Emory Crawford Long Hospital on Sunday and died around 1:45 a.m. Monday, said his agent, Frank Copsidas of Intrigue Music. Longtime friend Charles Bobbit was by his side, he said.

Copsidas said the cause of death was uncertain. ''We really don't know at this point what he died of,'' he said.

Along with Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan and a handful of others, Brown was one of the major musical influences of the past 50 years. At least one generation idolized him, and sometimes openly copied him. His rapid-footed dancing inspired Mick Jagger and Michael Jackson among others. Songs such as David Bowie's ''Fame,'' Prince's ''Kiss,'' George Clinton's ''Atomic Dog'' and Sly and the Family Stone's ''Sing a Simple Song'' were clearly based on Brown's rhythms and vocal style.

If Brown's claim to the invention of soul can be challenged by fans of Ray Charles and Sam Cooke, then his rights to the genres of rap, disco and funk are beyond question. He was to rhythm and dance music what Dylan was to lyrics: the unchallenged popular innovator.

''James presented obviously the best grooves,'' rapper Chuck D of Public Enemy once told The Associated Press. ''To this day, there has been no one near as funky. No one's coming even close.''

His hit singles include such classics as ''Out of Sight,'' ''(Get Up I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine,'' ''I Got You (I Feel Good)'' and ''Say It Loud -- I'm Black and I'm Proud,'' a landmark 1968 statement of racial pride.

''I clearly remember we were calling ourselves colored, and after the song, we were calling ourselves black,'' Brown said in a 2003 Associated Press interview. ''The song showed even people to that day that lyrics and music and a song can change society.''

He won a Grammy award for lifetime achievement in 1992, as well as Grammys in 1965 for ''Papa's Got a Brand New Bag'' (best R&B recording) and for ''Living In America'' in 1987 (best R&B vocal performance, male.) He was one of the initial artists inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986, along with Presley, Chuck Berry and other founding fathers.

He triumphed despite an often unhappy personal life. Brown, who lived in Beech Island near the Georgia line, spent more than two years in a South Carolina prison for aggravated assault and failing to stop for a police officer. After his release on in 1991, Brown said he wanted to ''try to straighten out'' rock music.

From the 1950s, when Brown had his first R&B hit, ''Please, Please, Please'' in 1956, through the mid-1970s, Brown went on a frenzy of cross-country tours, concerts and new songs. He earned the nickname ''The Hardest Working Man in Show Business'' and often tried to prove it to his fans, said Jay Ross, his lawyer of 15 years.

Brown would routinely lose two or three pounds each time he performed and kept his furious concert schedule in his later years even as he fought prostate cancer, Ross said.

''He'd always give it his all to give his fans the type of show they expected,'' he said.

With his tight pants, shimmering feet, eye makeup and outrageous hair, Brown set the stage for younger stars such as Michael Jackson and Prince.

In 1986, he was inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And rap stars of recent years overwhelmingly have borrowed his lyrics with a digital technique called sampling.

Brown's work has been replayed by the Fat Boys, Ice-T, Public Enemy and a host of other rappers. ''The music out there is only as good as my last record,'' Brown joked in a 1989 interview with Rolling Stone magazine.

''Disco is James Brown, hip-hop is James Brown, rap is James Brown; you know what I'm saying? You hear all the rappers, 90 percent of their music is me,'' he told the AP in 2003.

Born in poverty in Barnwell, S.C., in 1933, he was abandoned as a 4-year-old to the care of relatives and friends and grew up on the streets of Augusta, Ga., in an ''ill-repute area,'' as he once called it. There he learned to wheel and deal.

''I wanted to be somebody,'' Brown said.

By the eighth grade in 1949, Brown had served 3 1/2 years in Alto Reform School near Toccoa, Ga., for breaking into cars.

While there, he met Bobby Byrd, whose family took Brown into their home. Byrd also took Brown into his group, the Gospel Starlighters. Soon they changed their name to the Famous Flames and their style to hard R&B.

In January 1956, King Records of Cincinnati signed the group, and four months later ''Please, Please, Please'' was in the R&B Top Ten.

Pete Allman, a radio personality in Las Vegas who had been friends with Brown for 15 years, credited Brown with jump-starting his career and motivating him personally and professionally.

''He was a very positive person. There was no question he was the hardest working man in show business,'' Allman said. ''I remember Mr. Brown as someone who always motivated me, got me reading the Bible.''

While most of Brown's life was glitz and glitter -- he was the singing preacher in 1980's ''The Blues Brothers'' -- he was plagued with charges of abusing drugs and alcohol and of hitting his third wife, Adrienne.

In September 1988, Brown, high on PCP and carrying a shotgun, entered an insurance seminar next to his Augusta office. Police said he asked seminar participants if they were using his private restroom.

Police chased Brown for a half-hour from Augusta into South Carolina and back to Georgia. The chase ended when police shot out the tires of his truck.

Brown received a six-year prison sentence. He spent 15 months in a South Carolina prison and 10 months in a work release program before being paroled in February 1991. In 2003, the South Carolina parole board granted him a pardon for his crimes in that state.

Soon after his release, Brown was on stage again with an audience that included millions of cable television viewers nationwide who watched the three-hour, pay-per-view concert at Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles.

Adrienne Brown died in 1996 in Los Angeles at age 47. She took PCP and several prescription drugs while she had a bad heart and was weak from cosmetic surgery two days earlier, the coroner said.

More recently, he married his fourth wife, Tomi Raye Hynie, one of his backup singers. The couple had a son, James Jr.

Two years later, Brown spent a week in a private Columbia hospital, recovering from what his agent said was dependency on painkillers. Brown's attorney, Albert ''Buddy'' Dallas, said the singer was exhausted from six years of road shows.

Brown was performing to the end, and giving back to his community.

Three days before his death, he joined volunteers at his annual toy giveaway in Augusta, and he planned to perform on New Year's Eve at B.B. King Blues Club in New York.

''He was dramatic to the end -- dying on Christmas Day,'' said the Rev. Jesse Jackson, a friend of Brown's since 1955. ''Almost a dramatic, poetic moment. He'll be all over the news all over the world today. He would have it no other way.''

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Michael Woods

Michael Woods: Tuesday, December 12, 2006 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on Humanity and the Importance of Jazz


"God has brought many things out of oppression. He has endowed his creatures with the capacity to create - and from this capacity has flowed the sweet songs of sorrow and joy that have allowed man to cope with his environment and many different situations.

Jazz speaks for life. The Blues tell the story of life's difficulties, and if you think for a moment, you will realize that they take the hardest realities of life and put them into music, only to come out with some new hope or sense of triumph. This is triumphant music.

Modern Jazz has continued in this tradition, singing the songs of a more complicated urban existence. When life itself offers no order and meaning, the musician creates an order and meaning from the sounds of the earth which flow through his instrument.

It is no wonder that so much of the search for identity among American Negroes was championed by Jazz musicians. Long before the modern essayists and scholars wrote of "racial identity" as a problem for a multi-racial world, musicians were returning to their roots to affirm that which was stirring within their souls.

Much of the power of our Freedom Movement in the United States has come from this music. It has strengthened us with its sweet rhythms when courage began to fail. It has calmed us with its rich harmonies when spirits were down. And now, Jazz is exported to the world. For in the particular struggle of the Negro in America there is something akin to the universal struggle of modern man. Everybody has the Blues. Everybody longs for meaning. Everybody needs to love and be loved. Everybody needs to clap hands and be happy. Everybody longs for faith. In music, especially this broad category called Jazz, there is a stepping stone towards all of these."

Walter Booker Obit :: eJazzNews.com : The Number One Jazz News Resource On The Net :: Jazz News Daily

Walter Booker Obit :: eJazzNews.com : The Number One Jazz News Resource On The Net :: Jazz News Daily: Obituaries: Walter Booker Obit
Posted by: editoron Thursday, December 14, 2006 - 09:57 AM
Jazz News Walter Monroe Booker, Jr., lovingly dubbed “Bookie,” was born on December 17, 1933 in Prairie View, Texas to the late Walter Monroe Booker, Sr. and the late Thomye Collins Booker. The family moved to Washington, D.C. when his father accepted a position with the Howard University Medical School and later became Head of the Department of Pharmacology. Booker was the oldest of two children, his sister, Marjorie, fifteen years his junior resides in Washington, D.C. He attended the District of Columbia Public Schools for his early education and graduated from high school at the Palmer Institute of North Carolina. Booker then matriculated and graduated from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia.

Booker was drafted into the United States Army during which period he became fascinated with and began to play the acoustic bass. He married Yvonne Blakeney with whom he had two sons, Randall and Russell. In 1959, he returned to Washington where he quickly became a member of Andrew White’s band, the JFK Quintet, who performed regularly at the Bohemian Caverns. Cannonball Adderley discovered them at the Caverns and brought them to public attention by way of their first recording, “New Jazz Frontiers From Washington.” He attended Howard University Medical School while performing with the quintet, but withdrew from school after two years to pursue his musical career full time.

He moved to New York City in 1964 and studied privately with Homer R. Mensch, Juilliard faculty member and one of the 20th Century’s greatest bass players and teachers of that instrument. Booker later married Maria Smith and had one son, Krishna. His remarkable talent gained recognition fast from notable and professional jazz musicians. He was first hired by trumpeter Donald Byrd, and later performed with both Stan Getz’ and Sonny Rollins’ bands. From 1967 to 1969, Booker recorded and toured with many jazz greats — Ray Bryant, Art Farmer, Harold Vick, Betty Carter, and, most notably, with Thelonius Monk’s last touring ensemble.

In 1969, Booker was invited to join the Cannonball Adderley Quintet, a recording, and touring relationship and friendship that lasted until Cannonball’s untimely death in 1975. That year, Booker became Sarah Vaughan’s bassist. He recorded and toured with her for the next six years.

While playing with Cannonball and Sarah Vaughan, Bookie began to explore his interest in music production and recording. He designed, constructed, and operated Boogie Woogie Studios in his Upper West Side Manhattan apartment. Booker used geodesic principles to sculpt two rehearsal and recording spaces, an ingenious concept that produced clean, pure, high-tech quality sound. For over ten years Boogie Woogie became a launching pad for musicians from all over the world, helping to shape their growth by providing a safe haven for them to develop their craft and learn at the feet of the many masters who passed through the studio doors. Artists who credit Walter Booker and Boogie Woogie Studios for their start include Nat Adderley, Jr., Rasheed Ali, Angela Bofill, Earl McIntyre, T.S. Monk, Airto Moreira, Noel Pointer, and Moroslav Vigous Ira “Buddy” Williams.

Three unions born of Boogie Woogie Studio include the young group “Natural Essence,” led by artist Rasheed Ali; “Love Carnival and Dreams,” a wonderful Brazilian jazz collaboration formed by Booker and Guilherme Vergueiro; and “Weather Report” the jazz crossover group formed by Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter.

In 1983, Bertha Hope was sent by a friend to meet Booker to investigate recording in the Boogie Woogie studio. This was the beginning of a friendship that blossomed over the next three years into a life-long relationship. They enjoyed many hours of playing and recording together.

Booker traveled and performed with the John Hicks Trio. The trio also accompanied saxophonist Pharaoh Sanders on a West Coast tour. Nat Adderley, Cannonball’s brother, asked Bookie to join his new quintet. Booker continued to play, record, and tour with other jazz artists, but he primarily recorded and toured internationally with Nat for 17 years until Nat’s demise in early 2000. Every year since its 1987 inception, Booker performed at the annual Child of the Sun Festival in Lakeland, Florida with the Nat Adderley Quintet, continuing after Adderley’s death with the remaining members.

In the early ‘90s Booker served as tutor, teacher and mentor to many, inspiring young musicians through lectures, demonstrations and performances at the Sewell Music Conservatory in Washington, D.C. This exemplified his love and dedication to music. His generosity in sharing his knowledge with others expanded his influence by reaching across generations in this “hometown” setting.

In 2000, after recording on well over 250 albums, Walter Booker produced and released his first album as bandleader forming the Walter Booker Quintet to record “Bookie’s Cookbook” on Mapleshade Records. He was anchored by Cecil Payne on baritone sax, Marcus Belgrave on trumpet, Roni Ben-Hur on guitar, and Leroy Williams on drums. He toured as part of the Bertha Hope Trio, together with drummer Jimmy Cobb. Bookie also formed ElMollennium with his wife jazz pianist Bertha Hope and guitarist Roni Ben-Hur, an ensemble dedicated to performing the music of the late be-bop pianist Elmo Hope.

“Book’s Bossa” and “Saudade,” tunes Walter Booker composed, were recorded by Pat Metheny, Donald Byrd and over a dozen others. Portions of another composition from the “Zodiac Suite” were sampled by Hip Hop artist “A Tribe Called Qwest” and Grammy recipient “Monica.” In 2004, in recognition of his music integrated into the most played song for the prior year, Booker received a Citation of Achievement from BMI for the “Monica” recording, “So Gone” which attained the No. 1 slot on Billboard’s R&B chart.

In September 2004, as a birthday tribute to Cannonball Adderley, Booker performed at the Iridium in New York City with the last rhythm section to perform with Cannonball’s band. Joining him were Michael Woolf on piano, Roy McCurdy on drums, Vincent Herring on alto sax, James Moody on tenor sax and James Carter on baritone sax. In December of that same year, La Belle Epoch restaurant hosted a special birthday bash for Booker. It was heavily attended by many world-renowned musicians and friends who came to jam and celebrate with him. It would be his last public performance.

On Friday, November 24, 2006, Walter M. Booker, Jr. left this world to journey to the next. He is survived by Bertha, his loving wife of twenty years, three children Randall, Russell, and Krishna, his sister Marjorie, niece Cecily and her husband Keith, nephew Thomas, grandnephew Victor; his stepchildren Monica, Daryl and Kevin -- whom he called his ‘brother-in-the-craft,’ a host of cousins and many loving friends and acquaintances.


“Celebration of Life”
Memorial Service
for
Walter M. Booker, Jr.

to be held on

Sunday
January 14, 2007
7:30 P.M.


Saint Peters Lutheran Church

Bebop Lives! Jazz at Lincoln Center :: eJazzNews.com : The Number One Jazz News Resource On The Net :: Jazz News Daily

Bebop Lives! Jazz at Lincoln Center :: eJazzNews.com : The Number One Jazz News Resource On The Net :: Jazz News Daily: Bebop Lives! Jazz at Lincoln Center
Posted by: eJazzNews Readeron Friday, December 15, 2006 - 09:45 AM
Jazz News Bebop Lives!

Featuring James Moody &
Charles McPherson with Roy Hargrove & Roberta Gambarini

January 26 & 27, 8pm, Rose Theater in Frederick P. Rose Hall
January 26-Friday Free Pre-Concert Lecture w/ Phil Schaap



New York, NY (December 12, 2006) Bebop saxophonists James Moody (tenor) and Charles McPherson (alto) are two of the greatest living players of this exciting style of jazz and they bring the swing to Frederick P. Rose Hall on January 26 and 27 in Rose Theater. These two will be joined by two incredible performers, Roy Hargrove (trumpet) and Roberta Gambarini (vocals). Ms. Gambarini is nominated for a Grammy ® this year for Best Jazz Vocal Album. With a rich history in the continuation of bebop, these artists bring to life the jazz style founded by giants like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk.

Tickets for Bebop Lives! are $30, $50, $75, $100, $120 and can be purchased at the Jazz at Lincoln Center box office on Broadway at 60th Street, by calling CenterCharge at (212) 721-6500 or via www.jalc.org.

Bebop Lives! Is a celebration of one of the greatest and most difficult innovations to duplicate in jazz. There will also be a Friday pre-concert lecture with Jazz at Lincoln Center curator Phil Schaap introducing all ticket holders to the breadth of bebop and the impact this innovation had on the history of jazz.

Charles McPherson says, "I'm looking forward to doing the gig with James Moody because of his association with Dizzy's big band. Just playing with somebody who was around at that time is an extra special treat for someone like me...I'm a little younger."

"Bebop is incredibly important music because it has all of the real elements of what music is," Mr. McPherson adds. "The innovators of this music were melodic, they were harmonically saavy and rhythmically very advanced. The bebop idiom exemplifies all three of those nuances."

Cadillac is the Lead New York Sponsor of Jazz at Lincoln Center.

Jazz at Lincoln Center proudly acknowledges its 2006-07 sponsors: Altria Group, Inc., Bank of America, Bloomberg, The Coca-Cola Company, Time Warner Inc., XM Satellite Radio.

BET J is proud to partner with Jazz at Lincoln Center to present the television series
Journey with Jazz at Lincoln Center.

For more information please visit www.jalc.org

# # #












--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

LISTING INFORMATION:




Producer: Jazz at Lincoln Center
Event: Bebop Lives! Featuring James Moody, Charles McPherson, Roy Hargrove & Roberta Gambarini
Date/Time: Friday-Saturday, January 26 & 27, 2007/8pm
Location: Rose Theater in Frederick P. Rose Hall located on Broadway at 60th St.
Tickets: $30, $50, $75, $100, $120 and available at the Jazz at Lincoln Center box office on Broadway at 60th St., by calling CenterCharge at (212) 721-6500 or via www.jalc.org.

For Immediate Release

December 12, 2006

For More Information Contact:
Scott Thompson, Assistant Director, Public Relations (212) 258-9807 or sthompson@jalc.org

Rifftides: Doug Ramsey on jazz and other matters


Rifftides: Doug Ramsey on jazz and other matters: "«


December 19, 2006

The Bebop Bentley

The Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter was known for her friendship with Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk and other leading musicians of the bop and post-bop periods. She was born a Rothschild -- as Jean Bach puts it, a vraie Rotschild -- of the English branch of the lavishly moneyed international banking family. She married into minor royalty, was an ambulance driver in the Free French resistance during World War Two, lived in Mexico for a time and popped up in New York in 1951. Her interest in jazz led her to become a patron of a number of musicians. She is honored in the titles of several compositions including Monk's "Pannonica" and Horace Silver's "Nica's Dream," first recorded in an unforgettable version by the original edition of Art Blakey's jazz messengers.

Nica's favorite Bentley S1, one of several Bentleys and Rolls Royces she owned, was noted for its disposition around Manhattan, often in front of jazz clubs where parking was not necessarily sanctioned by the city. The Baroness died in 1988, but her fame and that of the Bentley continue. A Rifftides reader in New Zealand who is a Bentley collector asked a while back if I had stories about Nica and the Bentley. I hadn't, but I asked Jean Bach, the filmaker of A Great Day in Harlem, who knew Nica. She replied with a letter that I forwarded to New Zealand. Jean gave permission to use it here as well. It gives a sense of Nica's personality and of her dedication to Monk in his later days. For that matter, it gives a sense of the delightful Mrs. Bach.

In the early fifties, a fashion photographer friend of our asked my late husband to round up some musicians for a party on his roof. The worlds of jazz and fashion were just beginning to fuse, and Bob came up with an assortment of stars that soon became the Jazz Messengers.

Outside the building I spotted a Bentley and a Rolls. "Must be some heavy garmentos," I thought. And then I met the driver of the Bentley - the very British, very fragrant Baroness. "You like my scent? I think it's my daughter's - Jonka's."

I think the Bentley was the band bus for the musicians, and I guess the Rolls followed with the instruments. A vraie Rothschild, she was one of several fascinating siblings. Her sister was the author of a book titled, Dear Lord Rothschild, which was the opening line of a letter from someone named Balfour - probably a first draft of the Balfour declaration. Nica's brother, Lord Victor Rothschild, was studying piano with Teddy Wilson, which is how and when she got turned onto jazz. When she immigrated to the U.S., she settled in a house just across the Hudson River from Manhattan* with several of her children and more than five or six cats. Letters from her were always datelined, "The Cat House."

I spotted the Bentley outside a nearby piano bar one night, and since I had a leg of lamb roasting slowly in the oven, I popped in to see if she'd care to join me and a couple of friends for dinner. I gave her the whole menu, which appeared to meet her approval, and we started to walk back to my house, when she suddenly said, "Good heavens, what time is it?"

Turns out she was already late for Thelonious Monk's night-time tray. As Monk had become more and more eccentric, Nica and Monk's wife, Nellie, had agreed that it would be more convenient for him to move into chez Koenigswarter, where he could spend his days and nights in his own room, where each meal would be delivered on a tray, and he could dine alone.

I once asked the pianist Barry Harris, who also had a room in Nica's house, "Does someone (usually Nica) always deliver the tray" "Yes, and they'd better not ask me to bring one," he answered. Even though Charlie Parker died in her posh Manhattan apartment, she always maintained that her favorite musician of all time was Monk.

Another jazz musician with good taste was the late saxophone/trumpet player, bandleader, composer, arranger Benny Carter. He lived in the Hollywood Hills, and negotiated those twists and turns in a Rolls Royce. When he died, the Rolls passed along to James Moody of "Moody's Mood for Love" fame.

Fondly,
Jean

*The Baroness's first New York residence was in the Stanhope hotel, where Parker died in her apartment in 1955. Then she lived in the Bolivar hotel, made famous by Monk's "Ba-Lue Bolivar Ba-Lues-Are," before buying the house overlooking Weehawken, New Jersey, on the Hudson River.

To see a picture of her Bentley S1 and read a bit about its history, go here.

Saturday, December 16, 2006

Dave Black, Ellington drummer - The Boston Globe

Dave Black, Ellington drummer - The Boston Globe:

Dave Black, Ellington drummer

WASHINGTON -- Dave Black, a jazz drummer who toured and recorded with Duke Ellington's big band in the mid-1950s and inspired composer Billy Strayhorn to write the drum showcase "Gonna Tan Your Hide," died Monday at his home in Alameda, Calif. He was 78 and had pancreatic cancer.

Mr. Black, an immensely versatile drummer, played swing, bebop, and early rock with equal skill in his native Philadelphia. After seeing him, Fred Astaire called Mr. Black "the only drummer I've seen with dancing fingers."

He joined Ellington in 1953, after beating out Ed Shaughnessy and Philly Joe Jones in a contest to replace Louis Bellson. He stayed with the band two years, until a diagnosis of polio forced his departure.

After recuperating, he became a staple of a Dixieland revival band led by trumpeter Bob Scobey and a much-admired freelance drummer in the San Francisco area, performing with singer Lena Horne, pianist Earl "Fatha" Hines, and others. He also co-led the Gene Krupa tribute band from 1966 to 1992.

Speaking of Ellington, Mr. Black told jazz writer Nat Hentoff: "Of all the band leaders I have worked for, he was very free -- letting you play your way, your style."

Monday, December 11, 2006

Bebop Lives! :: eJazzNews.com : The Number One Jazz News Resource On The Net :: Jazz News Daily

Bebop Lives! :: eJazzNews.com : The Number One Jazz News Resource On The Net :: Jazz News Daily: " Bebop Lives!
Posted by: editoron Monday, December 11, 2006 - 05:45 PM
Jazz News Featuring James Moody &
Charles McPherson with Roy Hargrove & Roberta Gambarini

January 26 & 27, 8pm, Rose Theater in Frederick P. Rose Hall
January 26-Friday Free Pre-Concert Lecture w/ Phil Schaap
New York, NY (December 12, 2006) Bebop saxophonists James Moody (tenor) and Charles McPherson (alto) are two of the greatest living players of this exciting style of jazz and they bring the swing to Frederick P. Rose Hall on January 26 and 27 in Rose Theater. These two will be joined by two incredible performers, Roy Hargrove (trumpet) and Roberta Gambarini (vocals). Ms. Gambarini is nominated for a Grammy ® this year for Best Jazz Vocal Album. With a rich history in the continuation of bebop, these artists bring to life the jazz style founded by giants like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk.


Tickets for Bebop Lives! are $30, $50, $75, $100, $120 and can be purchased at the Jazz at Lincoln Center box office on Broadway at 60th Street, by calling CenterCharge at (212) 721-6500 or via www.jalc.org.

Bebop Lives! Is a celebration of one of the greatest and most difficult innovations to duplicate in jazz. There will also be a Friday pre-concert lecture with Jazz at Lincoln Center curator Phil Schaap introducing all ticket holders to the breadth of bebop and the impact this innovation had on the history of jazz.

Charles McPherson says, "I'm looking forward to doing the gig with James Moody because of his association with Dizzy's big band. Just playing with somebody who was around at that time is an extra special treat for someone like me...I'm a little younger."

"Bebop is incredibly important music because it has all of the real elements of what music is," Mr. McPherson adds. "The innovators of this music were melodic, they were harmonically saavy and rhythmically very advanced. The bebop idiom exemplifies all three of those nuances."

Cadillac is the Lead New York Sponsor of Jazz at Lincoln Center.

Jazz at Lincoln Center proudly acknowledges its 2006-07 sponsors: Altria Group, Inc., Bank of America, Bloomberg, The Coca-Cola Company, Time Warner Inc., XM Satellite Radio.

BET J is proud to partner with Jazz at Lincoln Center to present the television series
Journey with Jazz at Lincoln Center.

For more information please visit www.jalc.org

Defusing Davis's Strange ‘Brew'

Defusing Davis's Strange ‘Brew':

Defusing Davis's Strange ‘Brew'
Jazz

BY WILL FRIEDWALD
December 11, 2006





Miles Davis's classic 1969 album "Bitches Brew" is perhaps the most outrageous hoax ever perpetrated on the world's jazz lovers: For the first time since the swing era, a great jazz instrumentalist was able to produce art and sell it in large quantities to record buyers by convincing them that it was pop music.

At the time, "Bitches Brew" was promoted by Columbia Records as the breakthrough album in the new genre of "fusion," which promised to deliver the best of both worlds — namely the rock that was so popular and the jazz that was finally reaching the mainstream. Yet in retrospect, the album has little to do with any kind of rock 'n' roll, except maybe for some variations played by such guitar gods as Jimi Hendrix, Carlos Santana, and Eric Clapton, who were deeply influenced by jazz and blues.

Just how much "Bitches Brew" is actually art music, with precious little to tie it to the pop of its period, was reinforced in a concert Saturday night at Merkin Hall featuring the saxophonist Bob Belden and his band, Animation, as part of a series called "Reissue: Classic Recordings Live."

Mr. Belden has a long history with "Bitches Brew."Since first hearing it as a freshman music student at North Texas State in the early 1970s, he has not only become one of the more important instrumentalists, composers, arrangers, and bandleaders on the contemporary scene, but a Grammy-winning producer of both new and historical albums. His specialty is the music of Miles Davis; in 1998 he produced a four-CD box entitled "The Complete Bitches Brew Sessions," which included not only the six tracks on the original 1969 double-LP, but an additional 15 different songs by more or less the same edition of the Davis ensemble at the same time.

If "Bitches Brew" was a successful "fusion," it wasn't between jazz and rock, but between the regular members of Davis's working quintet (Wayne Shorter, Chick Corea, Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette) and special guests who were added for the recording dates (Bennie Maupin, Joe Zawinul, John McLaughlin, etc). Likewise, the original tunes were a combination of material that the Quintet had been playing on the road and music spontaneously created in the studio, assembled and reworked from roughly nine hours of sessions and boiled down by Davis into a remarkably coherent double-LP.

The expanded group that recorded most of the original "Bitches Brew" included three horns, electric guitar, two keyboards, two basses (in some combination of electric and acoustic), and as many as four drummers and percussionists. By contrast, Animation consists of Mr. Belden on soprano sax, Tim Hagans on trumpet, Scott Kinsey on keyboard and various electronics, Matt Garrison on a five-string, fender-style electric bass, Guy Lachada on drums, and DJ Logic on turntables and additional electronica.

In terms of playing "Bitches Brew," Animation was well served by advances in technology. Mr. Kinsey can create as many different effects with his computerized setup as two keyboardists could 35 years ago, and DJ Logic could use his "instrument"to reinforce either the percussion or the keyboard.

On the original album, Davis experimented with electronic enhancements to his trumpet. He didn't have the raw technique of a Dizzy Gillespie or Clifford Brown, but he had a preternatural knowledge of how to coax a universe of sound from his instrument. The result was a revolutionary combination of reverb, feedback, echo, and other special effects, all of which blended with Davis's extant vocabulary of valving colorations. The novelty of these effects soon wore off, and few trumpeters have tried them since, but on Saturday Mr. Hagans unabashedly and authentically deployed electro-manipulations designed to sound like state-of-the-art 1969.

Yet the canniest imitation of Davis's trumpet timbre was created by Mr. Belden on his soprano sax, when, during the opening track, "Pharoah's Dance," he played a largely unaccompanied pentatonic passage that sounded considerably more Spanish than anything in the fourth track, "Spanish Key."

Taken as whole, Animation did more to imitate Davis's spirit of experimentation than his music. As with much of the best jazz repertory performances — such as Wynton Marsalis's reassessment of Louis Armstrong's Hot Five masterpieces and Steve Bernstein's revisiting of Don Cherry's "Relativity Suite" (to name two recent, trumpet-specific concerts) — the idea Saturday at Merkin Hall was to capture the spirit rather than the exact letter of the original "Bitches Brew." For one thing, Mr. Hagans didn't repeat the same allusion to "Spinning Wheel" that Davis threw in six minutes into the title track.

But in a more general sense, a reimagining of "Bitches Brew" rather than a note-by-note rendition is the only suitable tribute, because it is difficult to hear the original six extra-long tracks specifically as compositions: They are less about the melody than the groove, finding a specific rhythmic feeling and holding to it, slowing down occasionally to an almost painfully ad-lib tempo only for dramatic purposes. One reason this extremely avant-garde music found a more receptive audience than most forms of experimental jazz in the first place was because Davis simply kept the pulse going and the bottom (many layers of bass line) solid.

In earlier years, Davis had improvised on virtually everything: melody, harmony, modes, and scales, whereas by 1969 he seemed to be using nothing but groove and mood as a starting point. Though the music often seemed formless and rambling, it could never be accused of sounding repetitive or boring. But it was complicated, and Animation's performance helped illuminate the places in the compositions where the melodies actually reside and how they differ from one another.

The only short piece on the album, the four-minute track called "John McLaughlin," is essentially an excerpt from one of the extended jams spotlighting the rhythm on the title that Davis liked; here, as played by Mr. Kinsey, it seemed more like a distinct tune."Miles Runs the Voodoo Down" was also one of the more clearly defined melodies, an elaboration on the blues that Cassandra Wilson distilled into song form on her 1998 album "Traveling Miles." Animation's interpretation began with a powerful bass vamp, played by Mr. Garrison on a latin-style electric upright instrument, which made the piece sound like the offspring of Davis's 1959 "So What."

Animation's concert ended at the 90-minute mark, almost the exact length of the original album. The only notable absentee was the bass clarinet, played by Bennie Maupin on the original, whose presence in 1969 reinforced the idea that "Bitches Brew" was a jazz album rather than a pop album. It still has considerably more in common with the free jazz of Ornette Coleman and the avantgarde classical music of Stockhausen and Milton Babbit than it does with the Rolling Stones.

"Bitches Brew" was the catalyst for a lot of jazz that followed, but in 37 years there's been nothing to match it. Indeed, the idea that a double-LP set of abstract improvisations (some as long as 27 minutes) could sell a million copies today seems as far removed from us as the big band era.

wfriedwald@nysun.com

Friday, December 08, 2006

Jay "Hootie" McShann - in memory

Jay "Hootie" McShann - in memory:
In Loving Memory
James Columbus McShann:
January 12, 1916 - December 7, 2006
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Kansas City pianist, bandleader and songwriter Jay 'Hootie' McShann has died in hospital today (Dec. 7) after a brief illness. He was 90 years old. He was the last of the great Kansas City players, and the creator of a style that combined swing and blues and changed the course of popular music. A piano player with a unique and subtle touch, he was a bluesman at heart. His best known composition 'Confessin' The Blues' has been recorded by artists like The Rolling Stones, BB King, Little Walter, Esther Phillips, and Jimmy 'Spoon' Witherspoon among many many others. McShann was born in Muskogee, Oklahama in 1916

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Settling in Kansas City in the mid-'30s, he soon formed a small group, but by 1940 had a large band which included a young alto sax player called Charlie Parker. His links to Parker are widely known, but McShann's later role in building the career of singers Walter Brown (who co-wrote Confessin' the Blues) and Jimmy Witherspoon has been largely overlooked. Typecast as a blues band, McShann's group recorded few of his more complex jazz arrangements, but they helped build his reputation and he was able to move to New York in 1942 - however, the second World War intervened, McShann was drafted, and moved to Los Angeles after his discharge two years later. For many years, he languished in relative obscurity, but emerged again in 1969, taking up a heavy touring schedule that brought him international fame. Along the way he recorded for numerous labels, including Decca, Mercury, Vee Jay, EmArcy and Atlantic.

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Toronto was frequently on his tour schedules; jazz musician and Downtown Jazz Festival artistic director Jim Galloway brought him to the now-vanished Bourbon Street club in 1972 and he recorded close to a dozen albums in the city for the Sackville label. His last four albums, including the Grammy-nominated 2003 release "Going to Kansas City", were recorded for the Edmonton-based Stony Plain label; three of them were co-produced by guitarist Duke Robillard. Stony Plain's owner, Holger Petersen, acting as tour manager, frequently accompanied McShann to international jazz festivals in Montreal, Toronto, Monterey, and the North Sea Jazz Festival in Holland. Said Petersen: "Jay had a great uplifting smile and kind words for everyone. He was always a delight to travel with, and had a very laidback, inquisitive and cheerful attitude. I'll miss his smile, and hearing him and saying 'Everything's cool'."And Jim Galloway summed it up: "His passing marks the end of a line. He will be missed." Jay McShann leaves his companion of more than 30 years, Thelma Adams (known as Marianne McShann), and three daughters - Linda McShann Gerber, Jayme McShann Lewis, and Pam McShann.

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Funeral services will be announced shortly; plans are pending for a musical celebration of his life to be held in Kansas City early next year. For further information please contact:
Richard Flohil at 416 351-1323 Holger Petersen at Stony Plain Records 780 468-6423

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Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Behearer:Community Portal - Behearer

Behearer:Community Portal - Behearer:

Behearer:Community Portal

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I applaud Ear of the Behearer for this initiative -- there was indeed a LOT of great music in the '70s, and it has gone under-recognized for a breadth of (bad) reasons.

I'd like to humbly suggest that my book Future Jazz (Oxford University Press, 1999) addresses jazz in many forms from roughly 1975 to the mid '90s -- including chapters with interviews on the Art Ensemble, Henry Threadgill, David Murray and World Saxophone Quartet,, Don Pullen, Butch Morris, George Benson, John McLaughin, John Scofield, Blood Ulmer, Cassandra Wilson, John Zorn, Eilliot Sharp, Joshua Redman, and oh yes Wynton Marsalis (in his first Down Beat face-to-face, 1984) among many others. Future Jazz was well-reviewed when it was published in 1999, but is currently out-of-print. New hardbound and paperback editions are available from me directly and maybe from Amazon, used.

Of other books dealing with the music of the period: John Litweiler's The Freedom Principle. Bill Miilkowski's Jaco biography, in the expanded new edition last year. Alyn Shipton's New History of Jazz, with a second expanded edition being released next month. Collections of articles by Gary Giddins, Gene Santoro, Francis Davis, Greg Tate, Stanley Crouch, Doug Ramsey and W.Royal Stokes are all valuable for reports on the scene (from diverse perspectives) at the time it was happening. Most of these writers are still doing it, writing on jazz *now.*

These books and others available at the Bookstore of www.Jazzhouse.org, website of the Jazz Journalists Assocation. May I also promote the next issue of Signal2Noise, featuring my article on Dewey Redman, with particular comment on Ear of the Behearer and Coincide.

thanks for reading --

Howard Mandel

Within Howard's great list, I wish to emphasize Gary Giddins' work in Visions of Jazz and Rhythm-A-Ning. The latter is an especially good reflection of various scenes from 1980-84, from Frank Sinatra to the AACM. Howard's own book is a great one too. Graham Lock's Forces of Motion is a great bio of the 1980s Anthony Braxton quartet and a fascinating look into Braxton's universe as it stood, more generally. --Drysh 10:50, 6 December 2006 (EST)

SFJAZZ Records Announces The Release of SFJAZZ Collective Live 2006: 3rd Annual Concert Tour :: eJazzNews.com : The Number One Jazz News Resource On T

SFJAZZ Records Announces The Release of SFJAZZ Collective Live 2006: 3rd Annual Concert Tour :: eJazzNews.com : The Number One Jazz News Resource On The Net :: Jazz News Daily: SFJAZZ Records Announces The Release of SFJAZZ Collective Live 2006: 3rd Annual Concert Tour
Posted by: editoron Tuesday, December 05, 2006 - 10:13 AM
Jazz News All-star ensemble's latest limited, numbered edition release features all new original repertoire and the music of Herbie Hancock

SFJAZZ Collective Live 2006
Bobby Hutcherson - vibraphone & marimba
Joshua Redman - saxophones (artistic director)
Nicholas Payton - trumpet
Miguel Zenn - alto saxophone
Andre Hayward - trombone
Renee Rosnes - piano
Matt Penman - bass
Eric Harland - drums

SAN FRANCISCO, CA--SFJAZZ Records today announced the release of the SFJAZZ Collective's third limited edition CD set, Live 2006: 3rd Annual Concert Tour. Available exclusively from SFJAZZ--the leading non-profit jazz organization on the West Coast and the presenter of the San Francisco Jazz Festival--the deluxe, hand-numbered (3000 copies) multi-CD set is the definitive record of this all-star jazz ensemble's third year. Live 2006 features the Collective's entire 2006 repertoire recorded on their most recent international tour. The fourteen tracks on Live 2006 feature a new piece by each band member plus works by jazz legend Herbie Hancock, in new arrangements commissioned from Grammy- winner Gil Goldstein.


“Herbie Hancock was a natural choice for us to focus on this season,” said saxophonist Joshua Redman, the Collective's Artistic Director. “His music has played a critical role in defining the sound of modern jazz, and many of his songs have become veritable standards. He has hugely influenced all of us in the Collective as an instrumentalist, as a band leader, as a creative artist, and as a composer.”

The recipient of “Rising Star Jazz Group of the Year” honors in the 2006 DownBeat Critics Poll, the SFJAZZ Collective is an all-star jazz ensemble comprising some of the finest performer/composers at work in jazz today--including DownBeat Critics Poll “#1 Rising Star Alto Saxophonist” Miguel Zenn and “Best Vibraphonist” Bobby Hutcherson. Launched in 2004 by SFJAZZ--the West Coast's largest nonprofit jazz institution and the presenter of the annual San Francisco Jazz Festival--the Collective has quickly become one of the most exciting and acclaimed groups on the American and international jazz scenes.

The Collective embodies SFJAZZ's organizational commitment to jazz as a living, ever- changing, and ever-relevant art form. To cultivate its distinctive sound, the SFJAZZ Collective convenes in San Francisco each spring for a three-week residency. Throughout this extended rehearsal period--a rarity in today's jazz--the ensemble workshops the season's new repertoire and interacts with the Bay Area community through SFJAZZ's education programs. The Collective then takes to the performance stage, including home season concerts under the auspices of the SFJAZZ Spring Season and a national and international tour, with stops in a number of the world's most prominent concert halls.

Live 2006 is priced at $35 (plus tax and shipping). It is available exclusively from the SFJAZZ Store (located at 3 Embarcadero Center, Lobby Level, San Francisco, CA 94111; phone 415-788-7353) or from sfjazz.org.

About SFJAZZ
SFJAZZ, celebrating its 25th year in 2007, is the largest non-profit presenter of jazz in the western United States. SFJAZZ presents over 100 concerts a year to over 100,000 fans and is dedicated to advancing the art form of jazz and cultivating new jazz audiences through artistic and education programming, including: The San Francisco Jazz Festival, SFJAZZ Spring Season, SFJAZZ Collective, SFJAZZ Summerfest, SFJAZZ Education and SFJAZZ Membership.

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Exclusive: Cheadle Takes on "Miles" - TMZ.com

Exclusive: Cheadle Takes on "Miles" - TMZ.com

Exclusive: Cheadle Takes on "Miles"

Breaking News: TMZ has learned that Oscar-nominated actor Don Cheadle ("Hotel Rwanda") plans to direct and star in "Miles Davis," a biopic of the legendary jazz innovator.
Don Cheadle and Miles DavisWhat's more, Cheadle has hired the Oscar-nominated screenwriting and producing duo, Chris Wilkinson and Steve Rivele ("Nixon"), a pair of lit heavyweights who adapted the life story of boxing's greatest heavyweight, Muhammad Ali, for Michael Mann's "Ali."

Himself a devotee of boxing, Davis would likely have approved. When Miles was making landmark jazz fusion recordings like "Bitches Brew" and "In a Silent Way," he was also contributing extensively to the soundtrack of a 1970 documentary about legendary African-American pugilist, Jack Johnson.

The Davis project has been an idea held dear by Cheadle for the last half dozen years, but until now, a music rights issue threatened to block its progress to the screen. No more.
Producer Cary Brokaw recently enlisted the aid former Sony Pictures Entertainment Chairman John Calley to lock up the rights to much of Davis' Columbia Records catalogue, which is owned by Sony BMG. Calley and Brokaw collaborated on the 2004's feature "Closer," an adaptation of Patrick Marber's stage play. Moving highbrow material from stage to screen is Brokaw's specialty; he won an Emmy in 2001 for Best Made for Television Movie with his adaptation of Margaret Edson's Pulitzer Prize-winning stage play, "Wit," and a 2003 Emmy for producing the HBO miniseries, "Angels in America," based on Tony Kushner's Pulitzer-winner.

Brokaw will produce "Miles Davis" with Cheadle, Wilkinson and Rivele, and others. Insiders say the plan calls for the movie to be independently financed, with the possibility of taking it to a studio for distribution.

It's exactly the sort of complex drama studios have all but abandoned making these days: Davis' persona was notoriously abstruse and recondite: Addicted to heroin early in his career and an avid user of recreational pharmaceuticals for much of his adult life, Davis could be confrontational with audiences and forbidding with journalists. Nonetheless, he still managed to reform jazz three times -- changing bebop into modal jazz and modal into fusion -- and, musically speaking, never once looked back.

Rivele and Wilkinson, for their part, know a thing or two about bringing historical figures to life: They both wrote and produced this year's drama, "Copying Beethoven," which stars Ed Harris in the title role, and are currently adapting the Jackie Robinson story for producer Robert Redford.

News of Cheadle's interest in depicting the jazz icon first surfaced in March of this year, after Miles was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of fame, as usual, amid critical controversy.

At the time, Davis' nephew, Vince Wilburn, announced that there had been initial discussions with "Training Day" director Antoine Fuqua, but that's clearly passed. Perhaps, Cheadle is taking some advice from his "Ocean's 11" colleague George Clooney, who recently directed himself to twin Oscar nominations for writing and directing "Good Night, and Good Luck" in the same year he won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in "Syriana."

Either way, we are "Kind of Blue" to have to wait until next year to see this potential gem.

Thursday, November 30, 2006

: "Down in Front
Sketches of Pain
Miles Davis’s estranged firstborn son speaks, softly but angrily
by Rob Harvilla
November 27th, 2006 3:40 PM

Down in Front
Sketches of Pain
Miles Davis’s estranged firstborn son speaks, softly but angrily
by Rob Harvilla
November 27th, 2006 3:40 PM





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Listen. The greatest feeling I ever had in my life—with my clothes on—was when I first heard Diz & Bird together in St. Louis, Missouri, back in 1944.

Thus begins Miles, the (arguably) definitive Miles Davis autobiography, co-authored by Quincy Troupe and unleashed in 1989, 400-plus pages of warmly recalled terrible motherfuckers. As in "Sarah Vaughn was there also, and she's a http://wwwmotherfucker too" or "Goddamn, those motherfuckers were terrible." That's page 9. On page 10, Miles describes his first exposure to Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker—"I've come close to matching the feeling of that night in 1944 in music, when I first heard Diz and Bird, but I've never quite got there," he writes. "I'm always looking for it, listening and feeling for it, though . . . "

Gregory Davis, Miles's firstborn son, also hints at that Miles-trying-to-make-it-feel-like-the-first-time phenomenon in his own new bio Dark Magus: The Jekyll and Hyde Life of Miles Davis. But in this case, he's talking about cocaine and/or heroin.

You better hope the imminent Miles biopic isn't the same goopy Oscar-bait treatment Johnny Cash and Ray Charles endured, or you'll spend three hours watching Chris Tucker or Charlie Murphy or whoever stomp around a movie screen, abusing women, drugs, and evidently, his son Gregory in equal measure. (Actually, let's do the Charlie Murphy version.) Critical, literary odes to Miles—his own autobio especially—certainly don't skimp on the details of his mercurial, hostile "Prince of Darkness" persona. And though Gregory abhors that phrase specifically, Dark Magus has its own particularly lurid moments.

"I love my father dearly," Gregory says, chatting on the phone with the Voice. "This is not a Daddy Dearest." Nonetheless, Daddy sounds like a terrible motherfucker.

Gregory is fighting for his piece of Miles's legacy, metaphorically and legally. For years he's been brawling with the brothers, sisters, cousins, and uncles-in-law who make up the Miles Davis estate that has almost entirely shut him out: Miles mysteriously left Gregory and his second-born son, Miles Jr., out of his will. (Gregory says Miles, never too fond of such details, signed it but didn't read it.) Just recently Gregory wrangled 25 percent of Miles's future royalties out of the estate; now he's targeting back pay. "They recognize they've been robbing me for years, but they're willing to 'go forward,' " Gregory scoffs. "What kinda attitude is that?"

Dark Magus's second half largely concerns this posthumous dispute, and its early pages plod through a truncated early timeline that other accounts, the Troupe autobio especially, cover with far greater color and detail. Casual Strand browsers should grab Magus and flip directly to page 90, the Kind of Blue section. (Every chapter is assigned a classic jazz album or tune; the one detailing Miles's marital history is, of course, Bitches Brew.) Kind of Blue subheadings include "Miles Becomes a Woman Beater," "Attacking a Model," "My Little Brother Slaps My Father," "He Had Demons Inside Himself," "You're Under Arrest," and "Kinky Sex With My Wife?" (Miles apparently suggested a foursome; Gregory, and presumably his wife, declined.) Gregory recalls being present as Miles attacked a girlfriend with a splintered drumstick. Accompanying his father on drug deals and punching out vengeful dealers when Miles mouthed off. Hearing tell of a bizarre incident (subhead: "A Great Miles Story") wherein a would-be burglar inadvertently drinks Miles's urine. And after several chapters of relatively polite reminiscences about his father's parents and surrounding family, Gregory suddenly muses that Miles's dark side is entirely due to the abuse, verbal and physical, Miles endured from his mother.

"I don't remember my grandmother ever being mean to me," Gregory writes. "But my father's sister—my Aunt Dorothy May—was also a bitch, and so was my sister for whatever her reasons were. Those were the two who successfully conspired to cut me out of Miles's will."

Well, now. Miles's estate declined an interview, releasing instead a brief statement: "The family has read the book and finds no fact or merit in its contents. We will have no further comment at this time."

Gregory's account of his early years with Miles is sometimes unbearably sad, especially his early, disastrous trumpet lessons. "I was always on the verge of tears," he writes. "I was 'every kind of asshole,' a 'simple motherfucka,' a 'no-blowing piece of shit.' " But he reserves the real bitterness for the legal battles over the estate. Writing this brought up "painful memories and delightful memories too," he tells me. "He was a man with a full life, and he would go through ordinary everyday unhappiness. Everyday unhappiness for him would be five times what a normal person would go through." Gregory clings to one incident—as a small child he choked on a penny, and a shoeless, nearly naked Miles ran with him to the hospital—as emblematic of his father's underlying love. "Maybe he really did have some father in him," he writes. "After all, didn't he run down the street almost naked to save my life?"

But it's the later years that Gregory especially hopes his book will illuminate, playing up a father-son bond he says no other estate member or outside biographer can hope to match. "You don't know him as someone who lived with him, by his side," he tells me. "I'm his son, I'm his first son, I'm his number one son. I traveled with him from the age of nine or 10 years old. Whenever he called on me, when I got older, I was by his side. I was his son, his nurse, his assistant road manager, his bodyguard. Whatever he needed, I was there by my father's side." He says his family's hostilities stem from a mixture of greed and jealousy.

Dark Magus also has harsh words for the critics and biographers poaching his father's legacy, but Troupe, for one, doesn't return the enmity. "I think Gregory is unappreciated, I really do," he says in a Voice interview. "I really think you have to be able to forgive people for their past problems. This is his sister. These are his brothers and sisters and cousins. They have to be able to forgive him if he did something to them. They ought to appreciate him for taking care of his dad. 'Cause he did. There's enough money for all of them. Damn."

Gregory's most painful recollections are of his father's death and its immediate aftermath—Miles on his deathbed in Malibu and Gregory stuck in New York City with no money for a plane ticket, shunned by the rest of the family. But Dark Magus, true to Gregory's word, never reads like outright vengeance, at least not toward Miles. Instead, he attacks misconceptions about his father. Miles wasn't defiantly turning his back on the audience onstage—he was facing and leading the band. As for hints of racism, Gregory writes, "Anytime you heard Miles say, 'You White motherfucka,' it was because he had thought of something this country had done to Black people, not because he hated White people."

If Gregory blames Miles for anything, its the apathy and inattentiveness that led to the hostile family takeover, which in turn caused Gregory's estrangement in his father's final years and the legal trouble following his death. "My father actually asked for my forgiveness," he tells me, several times. On his deathbed, Miles "told my uncle, his brother, 'Tell Gregory I tried to wait on him.' He was under the impression I was coming." Dark Magus admits that Gregory and Miles Jr. (the son who slapped Miles, incidentally) were rebuked and eventually disowned by their famously mercurial father, but Gregory has found other places to lay the blame. "What father isn't angry at his sons from time to time?" he asks me. "Especially this one."

Gregory Davis holds a book signing for Dark Magus Monday at Mo Pitkin's House of Satisfaction, mopitkins.com






post to del.icio.us
post to furl


Listen. The greatest feeling I ever had in my life—with my clothes on—was when I first heard Diz & Bird together in St. Louis, Missouri, back in 1944.

Thus begins Miles, the (arguably) definitive Miles Davis autobiography, co-authored by Quincy Troupe and unleashed in 1989, 400-plus pages of warmly recalled terrible motherfuckers. As in 'Sarah Vaughn was there also, and she's a http://wwwmotherfucker too' or 'Goddamn, those motherfuckers were terrible.' That's page 9. On page 10, Miles describes his first exposure to Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker—'I've come close to matching the feeling of that night in 1944 in music, when I first heard Diz and Bird, but I've never quite got there,' he writes. 'I'm always looking for it, listening and feeling for it, though . . . '

Gregory Davis, Miles's firstborn son, also hints at that Miles-trying-to-make-it-feel-like-the-first-time phenomenon in his own new bio Dark Magus: The Jekyll and Hyde Life of Miles Davis. But in this case, he's talking about coc"

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Anita O'Day Dead at 87

By Adam Bernstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 23, 2006; 2:18 PM


Anita O'Day, 87 whose breathy voice and witty improvisation made her one of
the most dazzling jazz singers of the last century and whose sex appeal and
drug addiction earned her the nickname "the Jezebel of Jazz," died Nov. 23
in West Los Angeles, according to her Web site.

Ms. O'Day led one of the roughest lives in jazz, surpassed only by her idol,
Billie Holiday. Impoverished and largely abandoned in childhood, she left
her home in Chicago to work as a marathon walker and dancer during the
Depression. About that time, she changed her surname from Colton to O'Day,
pig Latin for "dough," slang for money.

A mental breakdown, a rape, numerous abortions, a 14-year addiction to
heroin and time in jail all contributed to her legend as a survivor over a
five-decade career. She could be cantankerous in manner and dismissive of
interviewers trying to moralize about her experiences. She seemed to live
always in the present, going so far as to claim she never read her 1981
as-told-to autobiography, appropriately titled "High Times, Hard Times."

First as a replacement singer in a nightclub, she honed a freely swinging
singing style that led to a career with some of the top bands of the period.
Critics wrote rhapsodically about her, with Nat Hentoff declaring her "the
most authentically hot jazz singer of all."

In the 1940s, when most "girl singers" were pert appendages to a featured
band, Ms. O'Day was a star attraction who often enlivened the orchestra with
her playful and inspired vocals. She said she saw herself as an
instrumentalist and was often seen wearing a band uniform, instead of an
evening gown, to publicly demonstrate her musicality over her striking
looks.

She was among the hippest women singers of the big-band period, lending rare
emotional resonance to the relentlessly uptempo and brassy big bands of Gene
Krupa and Stan Kenton. She gave both orchestras their first million-selling
hits, doing a rare interracial duet on "Let Me Off Uptown" with Krupa
trumpeter Roy Eldridge and then the novelty number "And Her Tears Flowed
Like Wine" with Kenton's ensemble.

With Verve records in the 1950s, she performed some of the most inventive
interpretations of jazz standards. Andy Razaf, who wrote the words to Fats
Waller's "Honeysuckle Rose," once said hers was the definitive version of
the tune -- even surpassing Waller's earlier recording of the song.

Ms. O'Day was sometimes compared with Holiday, with whom she shared a
tendency to project vulnerability through a calculated crack in her tone.
She also enjoyed the unpredictability of verbal improvisation and was highly
regarded for her scat singing.

As a rule, she once said, she sang the melody straight when accompanying big
bands but felt freer to mold the melody with her own ideas.

Her signature sound was to create an elasticity with words, often to break
them down to faster eight and sixteenth notes instead of the quarter notes
that were harder for her to sustain. This tendency was the result of a
childhood tonsillectomy in which the doctor had accidentally removed her
uvula, the bit of flesh that hangs from the back of the mouth and that
vibrations of which control tone.

To compensate, she would stretch single-syllable words in a playful and
often sexy manner; "you" would be "you-ew-ew-ew," love would became
"lah-uh-uh-uv."

"When you haven't got that much voice, you have to use all the cracks and
crevices and the black and the white keys," she once said.

Even during her addiction to heroin in the 1950s and 1960s, Hentoff and
Leonard Feather noted her stunning vocal talents. As jazz fell out of
popular favor, she continued to sing but in smaller venues. She was not left
with much money -- much of it having gone to support her drug habit -- and
she wrote in her 1981 autobiography that she lived for singing.

In 1984, Ms. O'Day told The Washington Post that she viewed herself as a
stylist grounded in rhythm more than a singer with showy technique. "I even
took vocal lessons and I tried to get all these tones going and I never
thought to look inside the throat," she said. "It was all from inside, from
the heart, desire."

Ms. O'Day was born Anita Belle Colton in Chicago, where her father was a
printer and her mother worked at a meat-packing plant.

She recalled in her autobiography her parents constantly fighting--when her
alcoholic father bothered to show up at all. She wrote that they married
only after her mother became pregnant. Her father later left the family and
married a total of 10 women.

As a child, she listened to the radio and sang in church. In the mid-1930s,
she dropped out of school and hitchhiked to Muskegon, Mich., to enter a
walkathon, one of the Depression-era crazes in which the contestants were
fed in exchange for the brutal entertainment. She claimed to have walked 97
consecutive days upright and did not complain because "when you are 14, you
don't hurt."

She also sang at some of the events and at other clubs and burlesque houses.

By 1939, as Anita O'Day, she was performing in a downtown Chicago club with
Max Miller's band and received a positive review in Down Beat magazine.
Krupa noticed her in Chicago and hired her and Eldridge in 1941. The jazz
writer Will Friedwald once noted that the new additions "galvanized the
Krupa men and positively transformed the band into one of the most powerful
bands of the great era, putting it in a class with Ellington, Basie, Goodman
and Dorsey. The Krupa-O'Day combination also signified the first time since
Ella Fitzgerald and Chick Webb that a great jazz singer had been extensively
featured with a great jazz ensemble."

With her hip phrasing and sex appeal, she became a national name. She left
Krupa when he was arrested in 1943 for marijuana possession and rejoined him
in 1946 when he formed a new band. It was with that expert drummer that she
had her biggest renown in the 1940s, starting with her first million-selling
record--and best-known early recording--"Let Me Off Uptown."

That tune paired O'Day's hot and sultry vocalizing with Eldridge's raspy
voice and roaring trumpet. The sexy flirting between the white O'Day and
black Eldridge was groundbreaking. "Do you feel the heat?" she asks
Eldridge, before instructing him to "blow, Roy, blow!"

They also had hits with "Boogie Blues" and "Just a Little Bit South of North
Carolina."

Ms. O'Day worked with some of the loudest, brassiest and hardest-swinging of
mainstream big bands. Besides Krupa's group, she also spent shorter and
less-enjoyable stints with Woody Herman and Kenton, whose intellectual,
"modern" sound did not mesh with her accent on easy swing. She did, however,
credit Kenton with helping her better understand chord structure.

The relentless performing on tour triggered a nervous breakdown. She decided
in 1946 to settle in the Los Angeles area and work alone.

In 1947, she received her first jail sentence, for marijuana possession. In
1953, she was convicted for heroin possession, although she told
interviewers she was framed.

She downplayed her arrests, writing in her autobiography that she "looked on
serving my sentences as a kind of vacation. . . . Rehabilitated? Hardly.
Rested? Definitely."

Despite a period of recording less than scintillating songs, such as "The
Tennessee Waltz," her drug notoriety enhanced her career. Her handlers
dubbed her "the Jezebel of Jazz."

In Chicago, she, her second husband and a third partner opened a downtown
jazz club, the Hi Note, where she was the star attraction. Guest performers
included singer Carmen McRae and trumpeter Miles Davis.

In 1956, she was signed by Verve records. The nearly 20 albums she put out
on Verve during the next decade were among her most tantalizing, including
"Anita" (with "Honeysuckle Rose"), "Pick Yourself Up," "Anita O'Day Swings
Cole Porter," "Make Mine Blues," "All the Sad Young Men" and "Travelin'
Light."

She also played with Benny Goodman (who in the early 1940s refused to hire
her because she was not disciplined enough to stick to a music chart), Stan
Getz, Dave Brubeck, Count Basie, Louis Armstrong, Lionel Hampton, Joe
Williams and Oscar Peterson. She also had a 32-year musical association with
drummer John Poole, who she credited with introduced her to heroin. She said
the drug helped her off alcohol but also kept her financially insolvent for
many years.

Her vibrant appearance in the 1959 documentary "Jazz on a Summer's Day," a
film of the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival, made her a celebrity on an
international level and brought her important musical dates in Japan and
England.

Then, in 1966, she nearly died from a heroin overdose in a bathroom in a Los
Angeles office building. The experience rattled her, and she quit heroin at
once.

Most of her money gone, she spent the rest of her life struggling to put
herself together.

In the early 1970s, she was living in a $3-a-night hotel in Los Angeles. But
by the end of the decade she had her own record label, Emily Records (named
after her dog), a series of enormously successful club dates with rave
reviews and a resurgence in popularity following her autobiography's
publication. The CBS newsmagazine "60 Minutes" broadcast a segment on her.

She alternated between seclusion--she was hesitant to appear before crowds
who came to gawk--and going abroad on well-publicized engagements. She
received her first Grammy nomination in 1990 for "In a Mellow Tone" and in
1997 was given an American Jazz Masters award by the National Endowment for
the Arts.

When interviewed, her voice indicated an unyielding distress and frequent
irritation. She told one reporter that alcohol provided a welcome relief for
her at the end of the day. In 1996, she was diagnosed with permanent
alcoholic dementia.

She played jazz dates until late in life--with embarrassing results as her
frailties overtook her talent--and ended her autobiography by saying that
was all she had left. "It's a different world when the music stops," she
wrote.

But she was to be one of the "living legends" of jazz to be honored in March
2007 at the Kennedy Center as part of its "Jazz in Our Time" festival.

Her marriages to drummer Don Carter, which she said was never consummated,
and golfer Carl Hoff, whom she called unfaithful, ended in divorce.

She said she never wanted children, telling People magazine, "Ethel Kennedy
dropped 11. There are enough people in the world. I did my part by raising
dogs."

She dedicated her autobiography to her dog.


Web-Based Email :: Mail Index :: INBOX.Miles Davis List

By Adam Bernstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 23, 2006; 2:18 PM

Anita O'Day, 87, whose breathy voice and witty improvisation made her one of
the most dazzling jazz singers of the last century and whose sex appeal and
drug addiction earned her the nickname "the Jezebel of Jazz," died Nov. 23
in West Los Angeles, according to her Web site.

Ms. O'Day led one of the roughest lives in jazz, surpassed only by her idol,
Billie Holiday. Impoverished and largely abandoned in childhood, she left
her home in Chicago to work as a marathon walker and dancer during the
Depression. About that time, she changed her surname from Colton to O'Day,
pig Latin for "dough," slang for money.

A mental breakdown, a rape, numerous abortions, a 14-year addiction to
heroin and time in jail all contributed to her legend as a survivor over a
five-decade career. She could be cantankerous in manner and dismissive of
interviewers trying to moralize about her experiences. She seemed to live
always in the present, going so far as to claim she never read her 1981
as-told-to autobiography, appropriately titled "High Times, Hard Times."

First as a replacement singer in a nightclub, she honed a freely swinging
singing style that led to a career with some of the top bands of the period.
Critics wrote rhapsodically about her, with Nat Hentoff declaring her "the
most authentically hot jazz singer of all."

In the 1940s, when most "girl singers" were pert appendages to a featured
band, Ms. O'Day was a star attraction who often enlivened the orchestra with
her playful and inspired vocals. She said she saw herself as an
instrumentalist and was often seen wearing a band uniform, instead of an
evening gown, to publicly demonstrate her musicality over her striking
looks.

She was among the hippest women singers of the big-band period, lending rare
emotional resonance to the relentlessly uptempo and brassy big bands of Gene
Krupa and Stan Kenton. She gave both orchestras their first million-selling
hits, doing a rare interracial duet on "Let Me Off Uptown" with Krupa
trumpeter Roy Eldridge and then the novelty number "And Her Tears Flowed
Like Wine" with Kenton's ensemble.

With Verve records in the 1950s, she performed some of the most inventive
interpretations of jazz standards. Andy Razaf, who wrote the words to Fats
Waller's "Honeysuckle Rose," once said hers was the definitive version of
the tune -- even surpassing Waller's earlier recording of the song.

Ms. O'Day was sometimes compared with Holiday, with whom she shared a
tendency to project vulnerability through a calculated crack in her tone.
She also enjoyed the unpredictability of verbal improvisation and was highly
regarded for her scat singing.

As a rule, she once said, she sang the melody straight when accompanying big
bands but felt freer to mold the melody with her own ideas.

Her signature sound was to create an elasticity with words, often to break
them down to faster eight and sixteenth notes instead of the quarter notes
that were harder for her to sustain. This tendency was the result of a
childhood tonsillectomy in which the doctor had accidentally removed her
uvula, the bit of flesh that hangs from the back of the mouth and that
vibrations of which control tone.

To compensate, she would stretch single-syllable words in a playful and
often sexy manner; "you" would be "you-ew-ew-ew," love would became
"lah-uh-uh-uv."

"When you haven't got that much voice, you have to use all the cracks and
crevices and the black and the white keys," she once said.

Even during her addiction to heroin in the 1950s and 1960s, Hentoff and
Leonard Feather noted her stunning vocal talents. As jazz fell out of
popular favor, she continued to sing but in smaller venues. She was not left
with much money -- much of it having gone to support her drug habit -- and
she wrote in her 1981 autobiography that she lived for singing.

In 1984, Ms. O'Day told The Washington Post that she viewed herself as a
stylist grounded in rhythm more than a singer with showy technique. "I even
took vocal lessons and I tried to get all these tones going and I never
thought to look inside the throat," she said. "It was all from inside, from
the heart, desire."

Ms. O'Day was born Anita Belle Colton in Chicago, where her father was a
printer and her mother worked at a meat-packing plant.

She recalled in her autobiography her parents constantly fighting--when her
alcoholic father bothered to show up at all. She wrote that they married
only after her mother became pregnant. Her father later left the family and
married a total of 10 women.

As a child, she listened to the radio and sang in church. In the mid-1930s,
she dropped out of school and hitchhiked to Muskegon, Mich., to enter a
walkathon, one of the Depression-era crazes in which the contestants were
fed in exchange for the brutal entertainment. She claimed to have walked 97
consecutive days upright and did not complain because "when you are 14, you
don't hurt."

She also sang at some of the events and at other clubs and burlesque houses.

By 1939, as Anita O'Day, she was performing in a downtown Chicago club with
Max Miller's band and received a positive review in Down Beat magazine.
Krupa noticed her in Chicago and hired her and Eldridge in 1941. The jazz
writer Will Friedwald once noted that the new additions "galvanized the
Krupa men and positively transformed the band into one of the most powerful
bands of the great era, putting it in a class with Ellington, Basie, Goodman
and Dorsey. The Krupa-O'Day combination also signified the first time since
Ella Fitzgerald and Chick Webb that a great jazz singer had been extensively
featured with a great jazz ensemble."

With her hip phrasing and sex appeal, she became a national name. She left
Krupa when he was arrested in 1943 for marijuana possession and rejoined him
in 1946 when he formed a new band. It was with that expert drummer that she
had her biggest renown in the 1940s, starting with her first million-selling
record--and best-known early recording--"Let Me Off Uptown."

That tune paired O'Day's hot and sultry vocalizing with Eldridge's raspy
voice and roaring trumpet. The sexy flirting between the white O'Day and
black Eldridge was groundbreaking. "Do you feel the heat?" she asks
Eldridge, before instructing him to "blow, Roy, blow!"

They also had hits with "Boogie Blues" and "Just a Little Bit South of North
Carolina."

Ms. O'Day worked with some of the loudest, brassiest and hardest-swinging of
mainstream big bands. Besides Krupa's group, she also spent shorter and
less-enjoyable stints with Woody Herman and Kenton, whose intellectual,
"modern" sound did not mesh with her accent on easy swing. She did, however,
credit Kenton with helping her better understand chord structure.

The relentless performing on tour triggered a nervous breakdown. She decided
in 1946 to settle in the Los Angeles area and work alone.

In 1947, she received her first jail sentence, for marijuana possession. In
1953, she was convicted for heroin possession, although she told
interviewers she was framed.

She downplayed her arrests, writing in her autobiography that she "looked on
serving my sentences as a kind of vacation. . . . Rehabilitated? Hardly.
Rested? Definitely."

Despite a period of recording less than scintillating songs, such as "The
Tennessee Waltz," her drug notoriety enhanced her career. Her handlers
dubbed her "the Jezebel of Jazz."

In Chicago, she, her second husband and a third partner opened a downtown
jazz club, the Hi Note, where she was the star attraction. Guest performers
included singer Carmen McRae and trumpeter Miles Davis.

In 1956, she was signed by Verve records. The nearly 20 albums she put out
on Verve during the next decade were among her most tantalizing, including
"Anita" (with "Honeysuckle Rose"), "Pick Yourself Up," "Anita O'Day Swings
Cole Porter," "Make Mine Blues," "All the Sad Young Men" and "Travelin'
Light."

She also played with Benny Goodman (who in the early 1940s refused to hire
her because she was not disciplined enough to stick to a music chart), Stan
Getz, Dave Brubeck, Count Basie, Louis Armstrong, Lionel Hampton, Joe
Williams and Oscar Peterson. She also had a 32-year musical association with
drummer John Poole, who she credited with introduced her to heroin. She said
the drug helped her off alcohol but also kept her financially insolvent for
many years.

Her vibrant appearance in the 1959 documentary "Jazz on a Summer's Day," a
film of the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival, made her a celebrity on an
international level and brought her important musical dates in Japan and
England.

Then, in 1966, she nearly died from a heroin overdose in a bathroom in a Los
Angeles office building. The experience rattled her, and she quit heroin at
once.

Most of her money gone, she spent the rest of her life struggling to put
herself together.

In the early 1970s, she was living in a $3-a-night hotel in Los Angeles. But
by the end of the decade she had her own record label, Emily Records (named
after her dog), a series of enormously successful club dates with rave
reviews and a resurgence in popularity following her autobiography's
publication. The CBS newsmagazine "60 Minutes" broadcast a segment on her.

She alternated between seclusion--she was hesitant to appear before crowds
who came to gawk--and going abroad on well-publicized engagements. She
received her first Grammy nomination in 1990 for "In a Mellow Tone" and in
1997 was given an American Jazz Masters award by the National Endowment for
the Arts.

When interviewed, her voice indicated an unyielding distress and frequent
irritation. She told one reporter that alcohol provided a welcome relief for
her at the end of the day. In 1996, she was diagnosed with permanent
alcoholic dementia.

She played jazz dates until late in life--with embarrassing results as her
frailties overtook her talent--and ended her autobiography by saying that
was all she had left. "It's a different world when the music stops," she
wrote.

But she was to be one of the "living legends" of jazz to be honored in March
2007 at the Kennedy Center as part of its "Jazz in Our Time" festival.

Her marriages to drummer Don Carter, which she said was never consummated,
and golfer Carl Hoff, whom she called unfaithful, ended in divorce.

She said she never wanted children, telling People magazine, "Ethel Kennedy
dropped 11. There are enough people in the world. I did my part by raising
dogs."

She dedicated her autobiography to her dog.