Jazz great Oscar Brown dead at 78 - Yahoo! NewsYahoo!
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Oscar Brown Jr., alegendary rhythm & blues and jazz singer,
died on Sunday at age 78 following a two-month illness, his son said on Monday.
The songwriter and playwright had been hospitalized in April and again in
mid-May complaining of pain and paralysis in his legs. He had emergency surgery
on May 16 to address an abscess on his lower spine, Napoleon Brown said.
Brown was known for such compositions "The Snake," "Signifyin' Monkey" and
lyrics for Miles Davis' "All Blues."
The son of a prosperous attorney and real estate broker, he began performing on
radio as a teenager. His first album, Sin and Soul, came out in 1960. He
appeared with such jazz greats as Dizzy Gillespie, John Coltrane and Cannonball
Adderly.
Brown wrote more than a dozen plays and musicals. He was also active in the
civil rights movement in the 1960s, running unsuccessfully twice for political
office -- first for the Illinois legislature and later for the U.S. Congress.
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Jazz great Oscar Brown dead at 78 - Yahoo! News
Monday, May 30, 2005
The New Yorker: Online Only: Content
The New Yorker: Online Only: Contenthe Jazz Giant
Issue of 2005-05-09
Posted 2005-05-02
This week in the magazine, Stanley Crouch writes about the jazz tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins, who, at seventy-four, is in the sixth decade of his remarkable career. Here, Crouch discusses Rollins, jazz, and improvisation with Ben Greenman.
BEN GREENMAN: Where does Sonny Rollins rank in the jazz pantheon?
STANLEY CROUCH: No. 1, along with Roy Haynes and Hank Jones.
You open your article by saying that a Sonny Rollins concert is a drastically hit-or-miss proposition. Is it hard for him to approach each show as an entirely new experience?
Improvisation is about a new experience, a new way of hearing something, a different perspective, a reimagining. That’s how the music works. And Sonny Rollins is almost always remarkable, which makes him a phenomenon. His is the sort of talent that we have almost no ability to address in this time, because musical performance and musical skill have dropped to such a low level. Rollins is a vital artist of this moment, but he is also a summation of all of the victories of American performance in the twentieth century. Like Armstrong, he is jazz, and jazz added a new level of performance sophistication to Western music. That addition is about all of the ways of creating order within, almost always, a harmonic structure, which is what separates it from so-called “world music,” which is never about harmony of any substance or swing. That is a Western invention and addition to music. Swing is an addition to the rhythm of the world.
In his less focussed performances, Rollins sometimes switches into calypso mode. Caribbean rhythms have always been important to his music; are there other jazz players who put lots of island music into their playing?
No, but there has always been a tendency to make use of what Jelly Roll Morton called “the Spanish tinge”—music from the islands, or South America, or the Iberian Peninsula, transformed to fit the Western Hemisphere.
At one point, Freddie Hubbard says that one of the main differences between John Coltrane and Rollins was that Coltrane took a very analytical approach to harmony, whereas Rollins was more spontaneous. Rollins and Coltrane recorded together only once, on “Tenor Madness,” in the mid-fifties. Did their approaches mesh in an interesting and exciting way?
It was O.K. I was never that impressed by “Tenor Madness.” It’s too bad they didn’t get together and do an entire album, maybe with Wilbur Ware and Elvin Jones. That would have put something on all of us.
How hard has it been for Rollins to outlive most of the other jazz luminaries of the fifties and sixties?
Well, Sonny Rollins is one of the brightest lights in the history of the music; his talent is up there next to that of Armstrong, Young, and Parker. He is a true natural and a great synthesizer. In improvising, he does the same thing that Ellington did when composing: he reinvents the entire tradition, because he understands all of the differences and all of the connections.
Are there younger players who have the same kind of power as Rollins, or has jazz changed in ways that make this unlikely?
I think that Branford Marsalis has the talent to expand upon Rollins and become a master of intimidating quality.
Much of your article discusses the mercurial nature of Rollins’s live performances, and the problem of capturing him on a studio recording. Is this problem less acute for other jazz artists?
Perhaps, yes. Sonny seems less confident about recordings than other musicians are. He more or less slid into the problem. But he seems more capable of living with a memory of a great performance than he does with the artifact of a recording.
Has Rollins ever been a big commercial success? Has most of his earnings come from live performance?
I think his 1966 recording of “Alfie” was a jazz hit, which means it sold a lot for a jazz record but might not have done much to shake up his record label. When Rollins was a master at full strength, as a man in his middle thirties, there was not much big money to be made in jazz, unless one was lucky, the way John Coltrane was with “My Favorite Things,” or had the power of a big label behind him, the way Miles Davis did at Columbia. He now says that there was not a lot of work to be had in the sixties; I saw him often and he seemed to be doing well enough, although we didn’t talk about his finances.
Most jazz novices own “Saxophone Colossus” and “Way Out West.” What other records are essential for understanding and enjoying Rollins?
“The Bridge,” “Our Man in Jazz,” “The Standard Sonny Rollins,” “Alfie,” and “Don’t Stop the Carnival,” which contains the masterpiece “Silver City” and his mostly solo version of “Autumn Nocturne,” which many writers like.
Rollins has retreated from studio recording and live performance a few times in his career. How has this affected his work?
He always returned to the scene a better player. I think Sonny Rollins is a contemplative man, and he sometimes needed to get out of the rat race of touring, the smoke-filled rooms, the temptations of drug abuse, and all of the elements that made working in those little clubs as abominable as the intimate setting could be beautiful on a good night. As a health-conscious man, Sonny Rollins also was able to recharge, work out, do his yoga, and come back in championship form.
If, as you say, an artist like Rollins “has realized his talent almost exclusively on the bandstand,” does this mean that most of his performances will be lost to history?
Not at all. The collector Carl Smith has more than three hundred bootleg performances, stretching back to Rollins playing an alto in a music store in 1949. Someday they will all be out. Hopefully, Sonny himself will benefit as much as possible.
You mention that Milestone Records is releasing one of the recordings that Smith has collected. With the way the record industry is changing—decreased sales for all genres, and an increase in online downloadable music—will there come a day when there’s a huge online archive of Rollins’s recordings available for posterity?
Why not? We know what will happen. If it all appears online, the writers will go through them and, eventually, there will be the hundred best, followed by the fifty best, followed by the twenty-five best, followed by the ten best. You know how the public is. With so many choices, it wants someone to tell it which are the best, so that time and money can be saved. At some point, the relationship of quality to money becomes the issue. Perhaps, in some utopian time, the availability of quality will be the central issue. But, then, no one can imagine that. It sounds too much like heaven.
Issue of 2005-05-09
Posted 2005-05-02
This week in the magazine, Stanley Crouch writes about the jazz tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins, who, at seventy-four, is in the sixth decade of his remarkable career. Here, Crouch discusses Rollins, jazz, and improvisation with Ben Greenman.
BEN GREENMAN: Where does Sonny Rollins rank in the jazz pantheon?
STANLEY CROUCH: No. 1, along with Roy Haynes and Hank Jones.
You open your article by saying that a Sonny Rollins concert is a drastically hit-or-miss proposition. Is it hard for him to approach each show as an entirely new experience?
Improvisation is about a new experience, a new way of hearing something, a different perspective, a reimagining. That’s how the music works. And Sonny Rollins is almost always remarkable, which makes him a phenomenon. His is the sort of talent that we have almost no ability to address in this time, because musical performance and musical skill have dropped to such a low level. Rollins is a vital artist of this moment, but he is also a summation of all of the victories of American performance in the twentieth century. Like Armstrong, he is jazz, and jazz added a new level of performance sophistication to Western music. That addition is about all of the ways of creating order within, almost always, a harmonic structure, which is what separates it from so-called “world music,” which is never about harmony of any substance or swing. That is a Western invention and addition to music. Swing is an addition to the rhythm of the world.
In his less focussed performances, Rollins sometimes switches into calypso mode. Caribbean rhythms have always been important to his music; are there other jazz players who put lots of island music into their playing?
No, but there has always been a tendency to make use of what Jelly Roll Morton called “the Spanish tinge”—music from the islands, or South America, or the Iberian Peninsula, transformed to fit the Western Hemisphere.
At one point, Freddie Hubbard says that one of the main differences between John Coltrane and Rollins was that Coltrane took a very analytical approach to harmony, whereas Rollins was more spontaneous. Rollins and Coltrane recorded together only once, on “Tenor Madness,” in the mid-fifties. Did their approaches mesh in an interesting and exciting way?
It was O.K. I was never that impressed by “Tenor Madness.” It’s too bad they didn’t get together and do an entire album, maybe with Wilbur Ware and Elvin Jones. That would have put something on all of us.
How hard has it been for Rollins to outlive most of the other jazz luminaries of the fifties and sixties?
Well, Sonny Rollins is one of the brightest lights in the history of the music; his talent is up there next to that of Armstrong, Young, and Parker. He is a true natural and a great synthesizer. In improvising, he does the same thing that Ellington did when composing: he reinvents the entire tradition, because he understands all of the differences and all of the connections.
Are there younger players who have the same kind of power as Rollins, or has jazz changed in ways that make this unlikely?
I think that Branford Marsalis has the talent to expand upon Rollins and become a master of intimidating quality.
Much of your article discusses the mercurial nature of Rollins’s live performances, and the problem of capturing him on a studio recording. Is this problem less acute for other jazz artists?
Perhaps, yes. Sonny seems less confident about recordings than other musicians are. He more or less slid into the problem. But he seems more capable of living with a memory of a great performance than he does with the artifact of a recording.
Has Rollins ever been a big commercial success? Has most of his earnings come from live performance?
I think his 1966 recording of “Alfie” was a jazz hit, which means it sold a lot for a jazz record but might not have done much to shake up his record label. When Rollins was a master at full strength, as a man in his middle thirties, there was not much big money to be made in jazz, unless one was lucky, the way John Coltrane was with “My Favorite Things,” or had the power of a big label behind him, the way Miles Davis did at Columbia. He now says that there was not a lot of work to be had in the sixties; I saw him often and he seemed to be doing well enough, although we didn’t talk about his finances.
Most jazz novices own “Saxophone Colossus” and “Way Out West.” What other records are essential for understanding and enjoying Rollins?
“The Bridge,” “Our Man in Jazz,” “The Standard Sonny Rollins,” “Alfie,” and “Don’t Stop the Carnival,” which contains the masterpiece “Silver City” and his mostly solo version of “Autumn Nocturne,” which many writers like.
Rollins has retreated from studio recording and live performance a few times in his career. How has this affected his work?
He always returned to the scene a better player. I think Sonny Rollins is a contemplative man, and he sometimes needed to get out of the rat race of touring, the smoke-filled rooms, the temptations of drug abuse, and all of the elements that made working in those little clubs as abominable as the intimate setting could be beautiful on a good night. As a health-conscious man, Sonny Rollins also was able to recharge, work out, do his yoga, and come back in championship form.
If, as you say, an artist like Rollins “has realized his talent almost exclusively on the bandstand,” does this mean that most of his performances will be lost to history?
Not at all. The collector Carl Smith has more than three hundred bootleg performances, stretching back to Rollins playing an alto in a music store in 1949. Someday they will all be out. Hopefully, Sonny himself will benefit as much as possible.
You mention that Milestone Records is releasing one of the recordings that Smith has collected. With the way the record industry is changing—decreased sales for all genres, and an increase in online downloadable music—will there come a day when there’s a huge online archive of Rollins’s recordings available for posterity?
Why not? We know what will happen. If it all appears online, the writers will go through them and, eventually, there will be the hundred best, followed by the fifty best, followed by the twenty-five best, followed by the ten best. You know how the public is. With so many choices, it wants someone to tell it which are the best, so that time and money can be saved. At some point, the relationship of quality to money becomes the issue. Perhaps, in some utopian time, the availability of quality will be the central issue. But, then, no one can imagine that. It sounds too much like heaven.
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Bebop pioneer Stan Levey dies at 79
Bebop pioneer Stan Levey dies at 79Wednesday 18th May, 2005
Bebop pioneer Stan Levey dies at 79
Big News Network.com Monday 16th May, 2005 (UPI)
Jazz drummer and bebop pioneer Stan Levey, who gave up music for photography in his later years, has died at age 79 in Van Nuys, Calif.
Levey grabbed public attention for the bebop sound he created in the mid-1940s with jazz greats Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie.
The self-taught Philadelphia native gained greater financial rewards in the Big Band era playing with Benny Goodman, Woody Herman and Stan Kenton.
Levey was a studio musician for hundreds of movies and TV shows, and wrote the music for five Walt Disney Co. documentaries.
In his 70s, however, Levey gave up music for commercial photography. His wife told the New York Times many friends never knew of his music career.
The Sherman Oaks, Calif., resident died April 19 two weeks after undergoing jaw cancer surgery, his wife said.
A documentary about his career, Stan Levey: The Original Original, has been released on DVD.
Bebop pioneer Stan Levey dies at 79
Big News Network.com Monday 16th May, 2005 (UPI)
Jazz drummer and bebop pioneer Stan Levey, who gave up music for photography in his later years, has died at age 79 in Van Nuys, Calif.
Levey grabbed public attention for the bebop sound he created in the mid-1940s with jazz greats Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie.
The self-taught Philadelphia native gained greater financial rewards in the Big Band era playing with Benny Goodman, Woody Herman and Stan Kenton.
Levey was a studio musician for hundreds of movies and TV shows, and wrote the music for five Walt Disney Co. documentaries.
In his 70s, however, Levey gave up music for commercial photography. His wife told the New York Times many friends never knew of his music career.
The Sherman Oaks, Calif., resident died April 19 two weeks after undergoing jaw cancer surgery, his wife said.
A documentary about his career, Stan Levey: The Original Original, has been released on DVD.
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
The Colossal Sonny Rollins (mp3s)
The Colossal Sonny Rollins (mp3s)
Sonny Rollins
From "The Colossus," a Profile of Sonny Rollins by Stanley Crouch in the May 9th New Yorker:
When [Sonny] Rollins was a boy, Harlem suffered--as parts of it still do--from terrible poverty. Yet there was in intellectual and artistic renaissance. Ralph Ellison described Harlem in the nineteen-thirties as "an outpost of American optimism" and "our homegrown version of Paris." Rollins recalls the period as a happy time. "I remember us kids playing in the lobbies of the old theatres," he said...
It was Coleman Hawkins, the father of the jazz tenor saxophone, who most impressed him. Around the time the family moved to Sugar Hill, Hawkins's version of "Body and Soul (mp3)" was on jukeboxes across the country. "When I was a kid, even though I didn't really know what it was, you could hear Coleman playing that song all over Harlem," Rollins said. "It was coming out of all these windows like it was sort of a theme song."...
Coleman Hawkins
Though the dictates of show business meant that Negro musicians had to tolerate minstrelsy and all the other commonplace denigrations, most jazz musicians of the era formed an avant-garde of suave, well-spoken men in lovely suits and ties, with their shoes shining and their pomaded hair glittering under the lights, artists ranging in color from bone and beige to brown and black. Their very sophistication was a form of rebellion: these musicians made a liar of every bigot who sought to limit what black people could and could not do, could and could not feel...
In December of 1951, Rollins made a surprisingly mature recording, "Time on My Hands (mp3)." His tone is big and sensual, as delicate as it is forceful. Already, at twenty-one, he had the ability to express as much tenderness as strength...in pacing, tone, feeling, and melodic development, "Time on My Hands" is Rollins's first great piece...
One of the great small-group recordings, it [Saxophone Colossus (mp3)] showcased Rollins's improvisational powers. In 1957, he made the equally extroardinary "Way Out West (mp3)," his first recording using only bass and drums...The following year, he recorded his most adventurous composition, "Freedom Suite (mp3)," a twenty-minute trio piece for tenor, bass, and drums...[it] has a stoic quality, a heroic attitude, and a grand lyricism without being stiff or cold or pretentious. It is a timeless achievement.
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
Monday, May 02, 2005
Sunday, May 01, 2005
Eddie Henderson & Tony Adamo Record Milestones :: eJazzNews.com : The Number One Jazz News Resource On The Net :: Jazz News Daily
Eddie Henderson & Tony Adamo Record Milestones :: eJazzNews.com : The Number One Jazz News Resource On The Net :: Jazz News Daily: Eddie Henderson & Tony Adamo Record Milestones
Posted by: Anonymouson Sunday, May 01, 2005 - 07:29 AM
Recording Musician For Immediate Release
Eddie Henderson & Tony Adamo Record Milestones
Roc Armani – UrbanZone Productions
The much traveled Eddie Henderson recently swung into San Francisco with the Mingus Big Band. It happened that Eddie had an open date when the Mingus Big Band took a break from the road, while preparing for their Herbst Theater gig. Bay Area soul jazz singer/songwriter, Tony Adamo and his producer, Jerry Stucker had been on the one for over a year in trying to nail Henderson to a recording date. It was a long year of waiting and talking to many top flight jazz trumpet artists, but Eddie was the one destined to play on “Milestones,” written in 1958 by Eddie’s friend and mentor, Miles Davis. Eddie’s performance was an impeccable tour de force from a man who’s as comfortable with his horn and he is with himself. Eddie’s horn style is often imitated but never duplicated.
Producer, Jerry Stucker asked Eddie to play one chorus only, but amazingly he proceeded to give a clinic on jazz trumpet virtuosity presenting five different takes. All of them were in the groove and completely uniquely brilliant. Eddie would have stayed there all day and night playing as many takes as he had in his jazz bag.
While still in the studio that day, producer Jerry Stucker played “Passport,” a song written by Adamo/Stucker. Eddie heard it and was hooked. He laid down incredible riffs over the top on this funk to the bone tune. “Passport” is not as edgy as Herbie Hancock and the Headhunters, but songwriters Adamo and Stucker have developed a smooth funk groove that’s irresistible. Legendary funk drummer, Mike Clark (Headhunters) had already recorded the drum tracks on “Passport.” Paul Jackson’s (Headhunters) unmistakable and influential bass playing will be added at a later date.
Eddie Henderson will continue to tour with the Mingus Big Band. Paul Jackson’s, new CD, FUNK ON A STICK (Backdoor Records) is being distributed through www.theorchard.com and can be bought now at www.jazznow.com For more info on Paul Jackson go to www.pauljackson.jp Watch for Adamo’s new CD to be released in August 2005. For more info on Adamo go to www.jazznow.com
Posted by: Anonymouson Sunday, May 01, 2005 - 07:29 AM
Recording Musician For Immediate Release
Eddie Henderson & Tony Adamo Record Milestones
Roc Armani – UrbanZone Productions
The much traveled Eddie Henderson recently swung into San Francisco with the Mingus Big Band. It happened that Eddie had an open date when the Mingus Big Band took a break from the road, while preparing for their Herbst Theater gig. Bay Area soul jazz singer/songwriter, Tony Adamo and his producer, Jerry Stucker had been on the one for over a year in trying to nail Henderson to a recording date. It was a long year of waiting and talking to many top flight jazz trumpet artists, but Eddie was the one destined to play on “Milestones,” written in 1958 by Eddie’s friend and mentor, Miles Davis. Eddie’s performance was an impeccable tour de force from a man who’s as comfortable with his horn and he is with himself. Eddie’s horn style is often imitated but never duplicated.
Producer, Jerry Stucker asked Eddie to play one chorus only, but amazingly he proceeded to give a clinic on jazz trumpet virtuosity presenting five different takes. All of them were in the groove and completely uniquely brilliant. Eddie would have stayed there all day and night playing as many takes as he had in his jazz bag.
While still in the studio that day, producer Jerry Stucker played “Passport,” a song written by Adamo/Stucker. Eddie heard it and was hooked. He laid down incredible riffs over the top on this funk to the bone tune. “Passport” is not as edgy as Herbie Hancock and the Headhunters, but songwriters Adamo and Stucker have developed a smooth funk groove that’s irresistible. Legendary funk drummer, Mike Clark (Headhunters) had already recorded the drum tracks on “Passport.” Paul Jackson’s (Headhunters) unmistakable and influential bass playing will be added at a later date.
Eddie Henderson will continue to tour with the Mingus Big Band. Paul Jackson’s, new CD, FUNK ON A STICK (Backdoor Records) is being distributed through www.theorchard.com and can be bought now at www.jazznow.com For more info on Paul Jackson go to www.pauljackson.jp Watch for Adamo’s new CD to be released in August 2005. For more info on Adamo go to www.jazznow.com
Saturday, April 30, 2005
JVC Jazz Festival Pays Tribute to Jaco Pastorius In All-Star Concert at Beacon Theater :: eJazzNews.com : The Number One Jazz News Resource On The Net
JVC Jazz Festival Pays Tribute to Jaco Pastorius In All-Star Concert at Beacon Theater :: eJazzNews.com : The Number One Jazz News Resource On The Net :: Jazz News Daily: JVC Jazz Festival Pays Tribute to Jaco Pastorius In All-Star Concert at Beacon Theater
Posted by: editoron Friday, April 29, 2005 - 09:25 AM
Jazz News The late great bassist-composer Jaco Pastorius, an undeniable force on contemporary jazz during the ‘70s as well as a towering influence on two generations of musicians, will be feted at the Beacon Theater in New York on Wednesday, June 22. Included in this all-star gala, produced by impresario Charles Carlini, are Pastorius colleagues and former bandmates like trumpeter Randy Brecker, percussionist Don Alias, saxophonist Ira Sullivan, guitarist Hiram Bullock, bassist Will Lee, drummers Kenwood Dennard and Lenny White, steel pans virtuoso Othello Molineaux and pianist/accordianist Gil Goldstein, who is acting as musical director for the proceedings. Featured bass players are Jeff Berlin, Richard Bona, Victor Wooten, Gerald Veasley, Christian McBride, Matthew Garrison, Oteil Burbridge, Steve Bailey and Jaco’s son Felix Pastorius. Opening the concert is a special reunion edition of Mike Mainieri’s Steps Ahead, featuring saxophonist Michael Brecker, guitarist Mike Stern, bassist Richard Bona and drummer Steve Smith.
For this special occasion at the Beacon, Gil Goldstein has worked up fresh arrangements of such classic Jaco compositions as “Come On Come Over,” “Three Views Of A Secret,” “Continuum,” “Opus Pocus” and “Liberty City” that will also prominently feature the Flux String Quartet. “Jaco's compositions are far and above the music of any of his contemporaries,” said Goldstein. “I think they are some of the best songs that have been written in the later jazz age. I also think they are going to have a history of being covered and recovered, and I’m hoping that these new arrangements are going to offer a different view of his stuff.”
Another Jaco Pastorius tribute concert in Miami on June 2 will include the Jeff Berlin Trio with Cliff Almond on drums and Richard Drexler on piano and Othello & The JP Factor featuring steel pans virtuoso and former Word of Mouth band member Othello Molineaux with pianist Sylvano Monasterious, drummer Gary Marsall and the Pastorius twins Felix on bass and Julius on percussion. This JVC Jazz Festival event will be held at the outdoor mall on Lincoln Road, just two blocks from the beach.
Although Jaco Pastorius passed away nearly 18 years ago (on September 21, 1987), his musical legacy remains as strong today as ever. Jazz artists around the world continue to cover his compositions or offer up personal tributes to the man on their recordings, all attesting to the indelible mark that Jaco made in his relatively short career. Born in Norristown, Pennsylvania on December 1, 1951, Pastorius grew up in Fort Lauderdale and as a teenager began playing around the South Florida music scene. Originally a drummer, he switched to electric bass at age 16 after injuring his wrist in a football game and adapted remarkably well to his new instrument. Within a year, it was clear to everyone on the scene that he possessed special gifts as a bassist. Growing by leaps and bounds, Jaco would quickly develop a wholly new and unprecedented vocabulary on the instrument. After performing in a series of local Florida bands, Pastorius was “discovered” by Blood, Sweat & Tears drummer Bobby Columby, who produced Jaco’s landmark self-titled debut for Epic Records in late 1975. Jaco joined Weather Report, the premier fusion band of the ‘70s, in April of 1976 and appeared on the band’s groundbreaking 1977 Columbia album, Heavy Weather. He remained with Weather Report for six years, appearing on a string of acclaimed recordings including 1978’s Mr. Gone, 1979’s Grammy Award-winning 8:30, and 1980’s Night Passage. Pastorius’ second recording as a leader, 1981’s Word of Mouth on Warner Bros., introduced such ambitious Jaco compositions as “Liberty City,” “John and Mary” and the adventurous title track along with a full big band arrangement of his most famous composition, “Three Views of a Secret.” Jaco’s 1983 album, Invitation, documented his Word of Mouth Big Band on tour in Japan. He subequently toured in a scaled-down sextet version of Word of Mouth and with the PDB trio-featuring guitarist Hiram Bullock and drummer Kenwood Dennard.
In the early, meteoric phase of his career, the charismatic Pastorius revolutionized the role of electric bass guitar. As the self-described “world’s greatest bass player,” he inspired legions of bass players around the world to push the limits on their own musicality. As one bassist so rightly put it, “There was bass before Jaco and there was bass after Jaco. He opened the door and we walked through.”
Posted by: editoron Friday, April 29, 2005 - 09:25 AM
Jazz News The late great bassist-composer Jaco Pastorius, an undeniable force on contemporary jazz during the ‘70s as well as a towering influence on two generations of musicians, will be feted at the Beacon Theater in New York on Wednesday, June 22. Included in this all-star gala, produced by impresario Charles Carlini, are Pastorius colleagues and former bandmates like trumpeter Randy Brecker, percussionist Don Alias, saxophonist Ira Sullivan, guitarist Hiram Bullock, bassist Will Lee, drummers Kenwood Dennard and Lenny White, steel pans virtuoso Othello Molineaux and pianist/accordianist Gil Goldstein, who is acting as musical director for the proceedings. Featured bass players are Jeff Berlin, Richard Bona, Victor Wooten, Gerald Veasley, Christian McBride, Matthew Garrison, Oteil Burbridge, Steve Bailey and Jaco’s son Felix Pastorius. Opening the concert is a special reunion edition of Mike Mainieri’s Steps Ahead, featuring saxophonist Michael Brecker, guitarist Mike Stern, bassist Richard Bona and drummer Steve Smith.
For this special occasion at the Beacon, Gil Goldstein has worked up fresh arrangements of such classic Jaco compositions as “Come On Come Over,” “Three Views Of A Secret,” “Continuum,” “Opus Pocus” and “Liberty City” that will also prominently feature the Flux String Quartet. “Jaco's compositions are far and above the music of any of his contemporaries,” said Goldstein. “I think they are some of the best songs that have been written in the later jazz age. I also think they are going to have a history of being covered and recovered, and I’m hoping that these new arrangements are going to offer a different view of his stuff.”
Another Jaco Pastorius tribute concert in Miami on June 2 will include the Jeff Berlin Trio with Cliff Almond on drums and Richard Drexler on piano and Othello & The JP Factor featuring steel pans virtuoso and former Word of Mouth band member Othello Molineaux with pianist Sylvano Monasterious, drummer Gary Marsall and the Pastorius twins Felix on bass and Julius on percussion. This JVC Jazz Festival event will be held at the outdoor mall on Lincoln Road, just two blocks from the beach.
Although Jaco Pastorius passed away nearly 18 years ago (on September 21, 1987), his musical legacy remains as strong today as ever. Jazz artists around the world continue to cover his compositions or offer up personal tributes to the man on their recordings, all attesting to the indelible mark that Jaco made in his relatively short career. Born in Norristown, Pennsylvania on December 1, 1951, Pastorius grew up in Fort Lauderdale and as a teenager began playing around the South Florida music scene. Originally a drummer, he switched to electric bass at age 16 after injuring his wrist in a football game and adapted remarkably well to his new instrument. Within a year, it was clear to everyone on the scene that he possessed special gifts as a bassist. Growing by leaps and bounds, Jaco would quickly develop a wholly new and unprecedented vocabulary on the instrument. After performing in a series of local Florida bands, Pastorius was “discovered” by Blood, Sweat & Tears drummer Bobby Columby, who produced Jaco’s landmark self-titled debut for Epic Records in late 1975. Jaco joined Weather Report, the premier fusion band of the ‘70s, in April of 1976 and appeared on the band’s groundbreaking 1977 Columbia album, Heavy Weather. He remained with Weather Report for six years, appearing on a string of acclaimed recordings including 1978’s Mr. Gone, 1979’s Grammy Award-winning 8:30, and 1980’s Night Passage. Pastorius’ second recording as a leader, 1981’s Word of Mouth on Warner Bros., introduced such ambitious Jaco compositions as “Liberty City,” “John and Mary” and the adventurous title track along with a full big band arrangement of his most famous composition, “Three Views of a Secret.” Jaco’s 1983 album, Invitation, documented his Word of Mouth Big Band on tour in Japan. He subequently toured in a scaled-down sextet version of Word of Mouth and with the PDB trio-featuring guitarist Hiram Bullock and drummer Kenwood Dennard.
In the early, meteoric phase of his career, the charismatic Pastorius revolutionized the role of electric bass guitar. As the self-described “world’s greatest bass player,” he inspired legions of bass players around the world to push the limits on their own musicality. As one bassist so rightly put it, “There was bass before Jaco and there was bass after Jaco. He opened the door and we walked through.”
Billie Holiday Music Festival 2005 :: eJazzNews.com : The Number One Jazz News Resource On The Net :: Jazz News Daily
Billie Holiday Music Festival 2005 :: eJazzNews.com : The Number One Jazz News Resource On The Net :: Jazz News Daily: Billie Holiday Music Festival 2005
Posted by: editoron Friday, April 29, 2005 - 09:27 AM
Jazz News Fifth Annual Billie Holiday Music Festival
Billie Holiday, born April 7, 1915 died July 17,1959 Fifth Annual Billie Holiday Music Festival is accepting jazz poems (poets), artist renditions, bands and singers who invoke the style of Billie Holiday. Please submit tapes/poems, etc. for performances Memorial Holiday Weekend May, 29-30 in various venues in Baltimore and North Arts District. The Billie Holiday Music Festival features big Bands, songwriters, and singers who have auditioned thru tapes. The singers invoke but do not imitate the music of Billie Holiday. Email: juneteenthmuseum@gmail.com for information on submitting tapes. Date April 7th 2005 Billie Holiday Birthday Time: 11:00 am to 12:00 Where: Billie Holiday Memorial Wreath Placing and Musical performance Pennsylvania and Lafayette Avenue Baltimore, Maryland Info 410 243 8882
Date: Saturday, May 28, 2005 Time 9:30 Dress: Casual Admission: free Where: New Haven Lounge 1552 Havenwood Rd Northwood Shopping Center Baltimore, MD 21218 Singers, winners in past Mayors Billie Holiday Vocal Contest, evoke the style of Billie Holiday. Featuring the Jump Street Band with special guest. The perennial question is why does the best jazz nightclub in Baltimore call a forlorn strip mall on Loch Raven Boulevard home? The New Haven Lounge doesn't seem to care. It always wins “best jazz venue” awards, and not because there's a dearth of such clubs here and everywhere. It wins by merit, attracting national acts and keeping the best local jazz cats in business. In that respect, they deserve your patronage for keeping the flame alive. Is their lonely outpost a metaphor for the status of jazz in our culture? Please. The New Haven has been dishing up our national musical treasure for years in the same location. It's a bulwark against Kenny G and other pretenders. There's never a cover charge, except for major national acts. The waiters wear elegant tuxedos. There's good soul food available and music in the spirit of Coltrane, Mingus and Miles. It's the place to go, Daddy-O. -- Penny Colston Info 410 243 8882
Billie Holiday Music Festival Date: Sunday May 29, 2005 Time 3:00 pm – 6 pm Where Eubie Blake National Jazz Institute and Cultural Center 847 N. Howard Street Baltimore, MD 21201 Special performance by jazz stylist, Ruby Glover. Enjoy the Billy Holiday Sculptural Garden Admission: Donation $10 Info: 410 (410) 235-8882 http://www.eubieblake.org/ Tuesday - Friday 11am to 4pm Saturday 11am to 5pm Exhibits the history and legacy of African-American art and culture in the Baltimore.
Posted by: editoron Friday, April 29, 2005 - 09:27 AM
Jazz News Fifth Annual Billie Holiday Music Festival
Billie Holiday, born April 7, 1915 died July 17,1959 Fifth Annual Billie Holiday Music Festival is accepting jazz poems (poets), artist renditions, bands and singers who invoke the style of Billie Holiday. Please submit tapes/poems, etc. for performances Memorial Holiday Weekend May, 29-30 in various venues in Baltimore and North Arts District. The Billie Holiday Music Festival features big Bands, songwriters, and singers who have auditioned thru tapes. The singers invoke but do not imitate the music of Billie Holiday. Email: juneteenthmuseum@gmail.com for information on submitting tapes. Date April 7th 2005 Billie Holiday Birthday Time: 11:00 am to 12:00 Where: Billie Holiday Memorial Wreath Placing and Musical performance Pennsylvania and Lafayette Avenue Baltimore, Maryland Info 410 243 8882
Date: Saturday, May 28, 2005 Time 9:30 Dress: Casual Admission: free Where: New Haven Lounge 1552 Havenwood Rd Northwood Shopping Center Baltimore, MD 21218 Singers, winners in past Mayors Billie Holiday Vocal Contest, evoke the style of Billie Holiday. Featuring the Jump Street Band with special guest. The perennial question is why does the best jazz nightclub in Baltimore call a forlorn strip mall on Loch Raven Boulevard home? The New Haven Lounge doesn't seem to care. It always wins “best jazz venue” awards, and not because there's a dearth of such clubs here and everywhere. It wins by merit, attracting national acts and keeping the best local jazz cats in business. In that respect, they deserve your patronage for keeping the flame alive. Is their lonely outpost a metaphor for the status of jazz in our culture? Please. The New Haven has been dishing up our national musical treasure for years in the same location. It's a bulwark against Kenny G and other pretenders. There's never a cover charge, except for major national acts. The waiters wear elegant tuxedos. There's good soul food available and music in the spirit of Coltrane, Mingus and Miles. It's the place to go, Daddy-O. -- Penny Colston Info 410 243 8882
Billie Holiday Music Festival Date: Sunday May 29, 2005 Time 3:00 pm – 6 pm Where Eubie Blake National Jazz Institute and Cultural Center 847 N. Howard Street Baltimore, MD 21201 Special performance by jazz stylist, Ruby Glover. Enjoy the Billy Holiday Sculptural Garden Admission: Donation $10 Info: 410 (410) 235-8882 http://www.eubieblake.org/ Tuesday - Friday 11am to 4pm Saturday 11am to 5pm Exhibits the history and legacy of African-American art and culture in the Baltimore.
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Percy Heath
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Percy Heath: "Obituary Percy Heath
Distinguished and versatile double bassist with the Modern Jazz Quartet
John Fordham
Saturday April 30, 2005
The Guardian
The American jazz musician and bassist with the Modern Jazz Quartet, Percy Heath, who has died aged 81, began his musical apprenticeship in 1946, after air force service. It was just the right time. Though the double bass had always been used sporadically in jazz, performers capable of advancing both its rhythmic and harmonic role into a distinctive jazz-bass language were arriving on the scene more slowly than trumpeters, saxophonists or pianists.
Article continues
But by the 1940s, the place of the bass had significantly changed. Swing specialists like Pops Foster, John Kirby and Walter Page had brought animation, drive and swing - as well as harmonic breadth - to bass technique, and Duke Ellington's young star, Jimmy Blanton, had added a soloistic agility that rewrote the book on the instrument. This was the bass world that Heath entered.
His playing became the quintessence of a style that suited the complex demands of a modern jazz ensemble. Like Blanton's successors, Ray Brown and Oscar Pettiford - contemporaries on the late-1940s American scene - Heath was precise in his intonation, buoyant and springy in feel and capable of spontaneous counter-melodies that enhanced the frontline's playing. He always sounded as if he was pushing the beat, rather than sitting contentedly on top of it.
If Heath had an advantage in understanding how an instrument designed for a supporting role might best coexist with partners, it was because he was raised in one of the most respected of jazz families (rivalled only by the Jones brothers, Elvin, Thad and Hank). He had worked alongside his saxophone-playing brother Jimmy in trumpeter Howard McGhee's band in 1947, and when youngest brother Al caught up on drums in the 1950s, the three sometimes performed together.
Music had been in the Heath family from Percy's earliest memories. His parents had a gospel quartet, and he began his career on violin, playing in church in Philadelphia, where the family had moved from his birthplace in Wilmington, North Carolina.
After service as a fighter pilot in the second world war, Heath began studying double-bass at the Granoff School of Music, Philadelphia. Within months, he was good enough to join the house-band at the city's Down Beat Club, where he met the bebop trumpeter Howard McGhee, who had played with Charlie Parker. By 1947, Percy and Jimmy Heath were touring with McGhee's sextet, and the following year they appeared at the first Festival International de Jazz in Paris.
By the end of the 1940s, Percy had moved to New York, and become a busy freelance bassist. He worked with many of the younger stars of jazz, including Parker, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, Stan Getz, Fats Navarro, Sonny Rollins and Dizzy Gillespie, regularly appearing with the latter's band from 1950 to 1952.
Before the end of the engagement with Gillespie, Heath had made the move that would shape the rest of his career. His principal bass model, Ray Brown, was leaving a quartet led by bop vibraphonist Milt Jackson, with drummer Kenny Clarke and the classically trained pianist, John Lewis.
Heath replaced Brown at the point when Lewis and Jackson were developing an original repertoire for their unusual instrumentation. The quartet's approach, a canny, but understated, mingling of jazz and blues phrasing with Lewis's classical enthusiasms, caught on. By 1952, the ensemble had renamed itself the Modern Jazz Quartet; three years later, Connie Kay replaced Clarke on drums.
The group became Heath's principal employment for the next 22 years, and his accuracy of pitch, sensitivity to dynamics and cool, almost fragile, sound was ideally suited to a band dedicated to making a jazz equivalent of chamber music - even down to the tuxedos. But if the MJQ did not often require the more dynamic and hard-swinging potential in Heath's playing, bands he recorded with when the quartet was not on tour were frequently the beneficiaries of it.
The MJQ stopped its softly-ticking clock in 1974 (although it regrouped later), but not before its Last Concert recording captured some of Heath's most beautifully sculpted solos, on Blues In A Minor and Bags' Groove.
Heath worked with singer Sarah Vaughan for a while, and formed a brisk, boppish quartet with his brothers and pianist Stanley Cowell. Though his compositions for that band were largely unremarkable, his solo playing was the diametric opposite. Looser and more emphatic than in his work with the MJQ, and often exploring his newly adopted cello, his improvisations became miniature masterpieces of low-register lyricism. His cello sound was just as immaculately defined and resonant as on the bass, and he retuned the instrument to bass intervals, in fourths.
In the early 1980s, following a reunion tour of Japan, the MJQ resumed playing, continuing until 1997, when they finally ended one of the most remarkable ensemble projects in jazz history.
The Heath brothers took this development as an opportunity to reunite, making the appropriately entitled album As We Were Saying ... (1997) and the excellent Jazz Family (1998), featuring some of Jimmy's best compositions and an expanded ensemble. On both bass and cello, Percy Heath sounded as irresistibly on the case as ever.
He is survived by his wife June, three sons and his brothers.
· Percy Heath, jazz musician, born April 30 1923; died April 28 2005
Distinguished and versatile double bassist with the Modern Jazz Quartet
John Fordham
Saturday April 30, 2005
The Guardian
The American jazz musician and bassist with the Modern Jazz Quartet, Percy Heath, who has died aged 81, began his musical apprenticeship in 1946, after air force service. It was just the right time. Though the double bass had always been used sporadically in jazz, performers capable of advancing both its rhythmic and harmonic role into a distinctive jazz-bass language were arriving on the scene more slowly than trumpeters, saxophonists or pianists.
Article continues
But by the 1940s, the place of the bass had significantly changed. Swing specialists like Pops Foster, John Kirby and Walter Page had brought animation, drive and swing - as well as harmonic breadth - to bass technique, and Duke Ellington's young star, Jimmy Blanton, had added a soloistic agility that rewrote the book on the instrument. This was the bass world that Heath entered.
His playing became the quintessence of a style that suited the complex demands of a modern jazz ensemble. Like Blanton's successors, Ray Brown and Oscar Pettiford - contemporaries on the late-1940s American scene - Heath was precise in his intonation, buoyant and springy in feel and capable of spontaneous counter-melodies that enhanced the frontline's playing. He always sounded as if he was pushing the beat, rather than sitting contentedly on top of it.
If Heath had an advantage in understanding how an instrument designed for a supporting role might best coexist with partners, it was because he was raised in one of the most respected of jazz families (rivalled only by the Jones brothers, Elvin, Thad and Hank). He had worked alongside his saxophone-playing brother Jimmy in trumpeter Howard McGhee's band in 1947, and when youngest brother Al caught up on drums in the 1950s, the three sometimes performed together.
Music had been in the Heath family from Percy's earliest memories. His parents had a gospel quartet, and he began his career on violin, playing in church in Philadelphia, where the family had moved from his birthplace in Wilmington, North Carolina.
After service as a fighter pilot in the second world war, Heath began studying double-bass at the Granoff School of Music, Philadelphia. Within months, he was good enough to join the house-band at the city's Down Beat Club, where he met the bebop trumpeter Howard McGhee, who had played with Charlie Parker. By 1947, Percy and Jimmy Heath were touring with McGhee's sextet, and the following year they appeared at the first Festival International de Jazz in Paris.
By the end of the 1940s, Percy had moved to New York, and become a busy freelance bassist. He worked with many of the younger stars of jazz, including Parker, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, Stan Getz, Fats Navarro, Sonny Rollins and Dizzy Gillespie, regularly appearing with the latter's band from 1950 to 1952.
Before the end of the engagement with Gillespie, Heath had made the move that would shape the rest of his career. His principal bass model, Ray Brown, was leaving a quartet led by bop vibraphonist Milt Jackson, with drummer Kenny Clarke and the classically trained pianist, John Lewis.
Heath replaced Brown at the point when Lewis and Jackson were developing an original repertoire for their unusual instrumentation. The quartet's approach, a canny, but understated, mingling of jazz and blues phrasing with Lewis's classical enthusiasms, caught on. By 1952, the ensemble had renamed itself the Modern Jazz Quartet; three years later, Connie Kay replaced Clarke on drums.
The group became Heath's principal employment for the next 22 years, and his accuracy of pitch, sensitivity to dynamics and cool, almost fragile, sound was ideally suited to a band dedicated to making a jazz equivalent of chamber music - even down to the tuxedos. But if the MJQ did not often require the more dynamic and hard-swinging potential in Heath's playing, bands he recorded with when the quartet was not on tour were frequently the beneficiaries of it.
The MJQ stopped its softly-ticking clock in 1974 (although it regrouped later), but not before its Last Concert recording captured some of Heath's most beautifully sculpted solos, on Blues In A Minor and Bags' Groove.
Heath worked with singer Sarah Vaughan for a while, and formed a brisk, boppish quartet with his brothers and pianist Stanley Cowell. Though his compositions for that band were largely unremarkable, his solo playing was the diametric opposite. Looser and more emphatic than in his work with the MJQ, and often exploring his newly adopted cello, his improvisations became miniature masterpieces of low-register lyricism. His cello sound was just as immaculately defined and resonant as on the bass, and he retuned the instrument to bass intervals, in fourths.
In the early 1980s, following a reunion tour of Japan, the MJQ resumed playing, continuing until 1997, when they finally ended one of the most remarkable ensemble projects in jazz history.
The Heath brothers took this development as an opportunity to reunite, making the appropriately entitled album As We Were Saying ... (1997) and the excellent Jazz Family (1998), featuring some of Jimmy's best compositions and an expanded ensemble. On both bass and cello, Percy Heath sounded as irresistibly on the case as ever.
He is survived by his wife June, three sons and his brothers.
· Percy Heath, jazz musician, born April 30 1923; died April 28 2005
Friday, April 29, 2005
CNN.com - Jazz Musician, Diana Krall TalkAsia Interview Transcript - Apr 29, 2005
CNN.com - Jazz Musician, Diana Krall TalkAsia Interview Transcript - Apr 29, 2005:Jazz Musician, Diana Krall TalkAsia Interview Transcript
Friday, April 29, 2005 Posted: 3:29 AM EDT (0729 GMT)
Airdate: March 16th, 2005
LH: Lorraine Hahn
DK: Diana Krall
Block A
LH: Hello and welcome to TalkAsia, I'm Lorraine Hahn. My guest today is Diana Krall, a singer whose soulful voice and musical interpretations have made her one of the bestselling jazz vocalists in history.
Born in Nanaymo, British Columbia, Diana was heavily influenced by her father's love of music from the 1920s and 30s; she started music lessons, learning to play the piano at the age of four and never looked back. Her ten year professional career has been full of awards including several Grammy's and Juno's.
And now she's turned songwriter with several original compositions in her latest album, The Girl in the Other Room.
Diana thank you very much for speaking with us, welcome to Hong Kong. You up until recently have really been known as an interpreter of songs by other people and I just mentioned you are now writing a lot of your own compositions. Why are you doing this?
DK: I met the right collaborator (LH: Being?) to write with, Elvis Costello. (LH: Right, your husband). Hm, my husband.
LH: Was it...was it something that you always wanted to do but never really got a chance to do?
DK: Yes because I think that I look at interpreting the music of great American songwriters, George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, Sammy Con, Jimmy Van Heusen and you know, like a character interpreting a great play. So you have to believe in what you are singing about, but then you have the freedom to soar and play over the harmonies that these wonderful writers...songs like "My Funny Valentine" where if you listen to Miles Davis, or Chet Baker, which is very very different. So I found it a very creative, highly creative outlet for me, and I didn't really feel it was my time to write. I didn't want to start trying to rewrite Cole Porter or these Great American Standards that I was studying so hard. So...Elvis and I weren't trying to do that we were just...we just started to write.
LH: Right. Now this latest album, The Girl in the Other Room, you seemed to have even blossomed more as a songwriter. What do you put that down to? Just working with your husband or being more confident about your abilities?
DK: Oh never confident about my abilities; that's a constant battle. I think that's what drives us, it's the divine dissatisfaction. And when you have someone who loves you and who also loves you enough...that you trust who's going to say, "You can do better" or "Don't give up" or "Don't throw it in the fire yet. Take it out of the burning embers and let's keep working on it" or "Leave it alone and...just be, not analyze it too much."
LH: This album in particular had special meaning to you correct?
DK: Every album has special meaning to me, this was more outwardly personal.
DK: For me, The Look of Love was more of a preparation for me about loss and songs like "I Get Along Without You Very Well," "I Remember You," but this was more...very very literally personal about my experiences after my mother's death in "Departure Bay," which is the song that I sort of I keep close to my heart, I think the most from this album.
LH: Was it difficult to write that song?
DK: Well difficult is not the right word. (LH: Challenging?) Well it's always challenging but it's highly satisfying, highly...I think one of the greatest experiences I've had in my life was playing at the Olympia in Paris, and playing "Departure Bay." Now you're from Vancouver so you know you take the ferry boat from Vancouver Island, Departure Bay to Horseshoe Bay, and as a kid you...wanting to be a jazz musician, that's the big city initially, from Nanaymo to Vancouver, and then Vancouver to New York. That's why I like Joni Mitchell, she talks about seaplanes and ferry boats, all things that I can relate to that are right at home. So you work so hard to be a jazz musician and go to New York City only to realize when you come home, the things that were ordinary to you are more extraordinary. And so I found it exciting to write about my hometown and then to go to Paris and play...start playing "Departure Bay" and having a Parisian audience clapping for that particular song. I thought how the hell did that happen?
LH: When you write, what is it...what is the process that goes through your mind? Is it just something that you wake up one day and you say, you hum a tune or you know is it something...a story you've seen. What's the process?
DK: The process is varied. It's the creative process so some days it comes easily to you and it's improvised and you turn on the tape recorder and you can transcribe what you've improvised and then you work with that as a basis. Or, there's no formula. Or...as an improvising piano player musician I can work it out in concerts.
DK Sometimes you sit down with a piece of manuscript paper and a pencil and it just (LH: Comes to you right?) Well not like in the movies but different ways, it's not any kind of set way. Some things are more difficult than others.
LH: You mentioned earlier about your collaboration with your husband, Elvis Costello. I wanted to ask you how he has influenced your approach to music and I guess visa versa.
DK: That's a very good question because one of the things I admire most about him is that you cannot categorize him. He is working on his ballet, he is working on a rock and roll record; he is incredibly open and knowledgeable about music and just follows his muse wherever he wants to go.
I trust him and I think when you write with somebody you must trust their judgment and...not their judgment that's hard for me to talk about. You trust somebody that they're going to tell you the truth and then you have to trust yourself and it's kind of getting a bit into sort of psychology. But I just admire him because he's a great musician and he's a great artist and it's hard for me to talk about because I'm kind of overwhelmed by the work that he's done.
LH: And what about the other way around. Have you influenced him at all?
DK: Well you have to ask him that.
LH: Alright, but he hasn't told you anything?
DK: Maybe. Whispered in my ear maybe.
LH: You have sold so many jazz albums in a fairly short span of time. What do you think...what do you put this down to really. I mean a lot of people have written about your looks and you know, the fact that you've been well marketed, etc.
DK: Yes I'm very lucky to have a record company who puts so much behind me. People ask me do you think the marketing and the album covers sell your albums -- yes, of course.
LH: I mean you've stopped all those glam poses.
DK: No I haven't. Wait until you see me tomorrow night. (LH: Oh ok!) I'm gonna be decked out baby! (LH: Ok I take that back). No I don't want to be put into that either well say, "No I'm not doing that anymore." Somebody said that she doesn't wear you know, dresses anymore. I'm like, "Uh...no!" I just do what I feel is right for me at the time. I do whatever I feel like doing and I fortunately have a record company who has stood behind me in every step of the way creatively. They've given me opportunities to do what I wanted to do creatively. I make my own decisions about my album covers. There's this kind of idea that they've made this, made me do this you know and I've always had my own concept of my covers and everything that I do is approved. And it's kind of an old topic and it's frustrating for me as you can tell to try to get around it without sounding kind of like...disingenuous you know?
LH: Right. Understood, understood. Well Diana we're going to take a very very short break. When we come back we'll talk to Diana about changing priorities and giving something back to the community.
Block B
LH: Welcome back to TalkAsia, my guest is Grammy Award winning jazz singer Diana Krall. Diana, what kind of a child were you? Were you somebody who always loved music, could play, outgoing?
DK: I don't think I can remember that far back. (LH: Oh no) Well you know, as you know growing up on Vancouver Island I was very lucky to be able to have the ocean and the mountains nearby, so I was a skier and rode horses and was very very and still am, like I prefer to be in the outdoors. But I also was very passionate about music and my dad collects seventy eight records so we listened to a lot of music like Louis Armstrong and Bix Spiderback and singers like Annette Hanshaw and Ruth Edding and Bing Crosby were singers I was listening to as a kid, and Fats Waller and Nat King Cole.
LH: Was anybody actually musical in your family?
DK: Well my dad plays piano, my uncle plays piano, my mother played piano and organ in church, sang in the choir, sang in the community choir, I couldn't you know couldn't get away from it. (LH: Could get away from it!) No and my grandmother was a really big jazz fan you know, so she loved...she loved more traditional jazz and but she loved songs and my dad collects sheet music so I'd have stacks of sheet music at home. And I just saw my dad about a month ago and we went through sheet music again and just all the original sheet music. It's really lovely.
LH: When your mother passed away I read that you had said that your priorities had changed. What did you mean by that?
DK: Did I say that? I think that dealing with loss and grief, there is not a plan, there isn't a...nobody can tell you how to grieve or how you're going to feel. And there's all these things that say, stages of anger, and priorities change...it takes a long time to process. Something that you know so well that's kind of not...touching it you know, but I think...I don't think my priorities changed but I think I'm still trying to learn how to: you can't always prevent what's going to happen to you but you can choose your response. And that you know it's ok to say no, it's ok to not do every single thing, but I'm a very driven person. I'm very driven artistically; I'm very passionate about what I do; I love playing the piano; I love singing, and finding balance is really really hard to do in this life. So my husband and I talk about it a lot. But I've always had pretty strong ideas of family and I had good examples so it's a process. (LH: That hasn't changed really right?) No no, it hasn't changed.
LH: Would you like to have family of your own sometime?
DK: Not if I keep this pace up, but yeah. I think about that. Yeah I would I would. But you know you end up being a bit...kind of like you're out here on the road for a year and a half touring a record, and it's really fun and it's really hard work and it's exhausting. It's all these wonderful things at the same time but you have to be careful you don't kind of lose track of time and feel like you're just...time just goes. So that's where the balance comes in. So I'm looking forward to taking some time off and just having...taking a creative breath and figuring out what I want to do next, yeah.
LH: You also spend time participating and sharing your work with charity organizations and you know, last time I saw you was in Malaysia for the F1 Gala, the tsunami relief. How important is that aspect to your work or to you as a person even, spending time and sharing that time with charities.
DK: Well, it's amazing what you can do in just playing the piano and singing for your own satisfaction and for you know all the wonderful things that come along with the success that I've been so blessed to experience. But I watched my mother who was a teacher, and a wonderful teacher/librarian and I watched her get well and how she had her days, definitely you know tough days, but she chose when she couldn't be a full time teacher, when she got well after her bone marrow transplant, which was for multiple myeloma, she was so impressed with the care that she received as were we, all of our family, that we started doing small benefits in Vancouver and we've kept going and she spoke at every benefit and was so inspiring by what she said and it was fun and I play the piano but I think it was my mother's words that so strongly affected people.
LH: So you do a lot of these things?
DK: I do what I can. (LH: Good) But I think it's important that you keep focused on something that is your thing and you do as much as you possibly can. But my thing is for Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation and for the bone marrow transplantation program in Vancouver. You see how it helps people so it's such a good way to do that.
LH: It is, yeah. We're going to take another very very short break. When we come back find out what it was about jazz that attracted the young Diana Krall. Stay with us.
Block C
LH: You're watching TalkAsia and my guest is Diana Krall, who has been described as a young girl who sings old songs with timeless authority. Diana why jazz? Why not pop, why not R&B, why not I don't know, some other type of genre? Why jazz?
DK: (Snapping fingers) Because of that. The indescribable swing feeling that you feel and when you listen to someone like Louis Armstrong or Oscar Peterson or Ray Brown, that's how I feel, I just feel good, I just feel like I just want to be in it. Or I listen to Carmen McRae sing or Ella Fitzgerald or you know, people that I admire that I get a chance to work with, people that I work with...the band that I work with. I'm sitting on the stage with my drummer Carine Rickens, my bass player that I'm working with Robert Hurst and great artists, Anthony Wilson playing guitar and on the bench sometimes I don't play anything at all I just listen.
LH: You're all very tight and you all exchange.
DK: We talk all the time about everything, about the music, about anything that we need to talk about. It's really open and it's a great vibe, it's a great place to be playing. And that's what you're doing; you are playing when you're up there. It's fun and it's exciting and there's lots of humour and also it can be very moving as well. And we're all telepathic with one another when we're improvising and you never know what's going to happen you have to take those risks in jazz music. That's why I love it so much because when you are, when it's right there it's like "Oh my God." And it's a great, it's a great experience to be playing this music. And it kicks my butt every night, it's challenging.
LH: Now you performed with Ray Charles, who recently got an award for lifetime achievement for his work. What was that like? I mean to get to work with a man like that?
DK: Really overwhelming and wonderful at the same time and you have to just experience the moment or else you can get so overwhelmed that you forget that you have to sing. And so it was a great experience. He really worked with me, he really had an idea of how he wanted me to phrase the ending of the piece we did together, "You Don't Know Me." And he was telling me, "Now I want you to sing 'No you don't know'" Until...just we went over and over it again and I was like, oh my God. This is an experience I'll never forget in my life and one of the most wonderful experiences I ever had in my life was to sing with Ray Charles. And it wasn't...it was in his studio and it wasn't any sort of separation we just, he just came down and he sat and played the piano and we were in the same room and I had my microphone. It was very natural and very...very (LH: Casual? Uh, no cuz it's Ray Charles! LH: So you weren't nervous?) But it was pretty exciting, it was exciting. It's definitely...I've had a chance to work with a lot of people and sometimes I can't believe it.
LH: Of all the big names that you've sung with, have there ever been any that really stand out in terms of having taught you something? (DK: Every single person I work with has taught me something) You pick out something from them? And they've taught you something?
DK: Yeah I find it. I find it sometimes not immediately, sometimes later, but I've always...because I was raised by you know father passionate about music, mother passionate about music, but also my mother was a teacher you know I was curious in wanting to learn and always have looked for that in all the people I meet. And they're not names necessarily; they're just people that you can...someone that you sit next to on a plane for five hours, who can teach you something. You know you just have to be really open to it and let it happen.
LH: When we think about jazz, we often think it's sort of an adult sort of genre, that you know teenagers wouldn't necessarily pick up a jazz album, but they are now. Why do you think...I mean there's a growing sort of acceptance of jazz, not only in a more sophisticated level but you know throughout the masses.
DK: It's just about this (snapping). I hate it when it gets too, too...it is a very complex process that when one...where you have to do your homework. If you want to call yourself a jazz musician you have to do your homework. If you're going to play with other jazz musicians they're gonna let you know, and you're gonna be out of there if you don't...I tell young singers, especially young women singers, I say if you want to be taken seriously then do your homework, learn how to play the piano, learn your keys so you can go and sit in with the band and you don't sort of say, "Ohh in this key or somewhere here." You say, "I want to play this in E-flat. Hit it."
DK: You know you have to do your homework, you have to do your homework, you have to study, but you also have to feel the swing and groove and once you're up there it's not about...it's not, it's not, you're not just in your own world. It's you listening and playing with other musicians and reacting musically from what they're doing and inspiring each other and it's complex.
LH: If I turn the clock back, rather clock forward, where do you see yourself (DK: Don't turn it too far forward. LH: How about ten years?)
DK: I don't live in the future. I try to live in the moment, I try not to think about that because it just freaks me out. And I just hope that I'm healthy and happy and still inspired and that I can still play music if I want to. You know that that's where it'll take me but I can leave you know, I mean when I go home to Vancouver Island and I'm on the ski hill or riding my horse and I can...I find...I'm so passionate about everything that I do you know, or my family or things that I like to do outside of music that are important to me that I need, you know I need to keep. It's important that that which gives you your initial strength and inspiration doing things that you don't lose some of those things.
LH: Very very true. Diana thank you so much (DK: Oh thank you)
And that is TalkAsia this week. I'm Lorraine Hahn, let's talk again next week.
Friday, April 29, 2005 Posted: 3:29 AM EDT (0729 GMT)
Airdate: March 16th, 2005
LH: Lorraine Hahn
DK: Diana Krall
Block A
LH: Hello and welcome to TalkAsia, I'm Lorraine Hahn. My guest today is Diana Krall, a singer whose soulful voice and musical interpretations have made her one of the bestselling jazz vocalists in history.
Born in Nanaymo, British Columbia, Diana was heavily influenced by her father's love of music from the 1920s and 30s; she started music lessons, learning to play the piano at the age of four and never looked back. Her ten year professional career has been full of awards including several Grammy's and Juno's.
And now she's turned songwriter with several original compositions in her latest album, The Girl in the Other Room.
Diana thank you very much for speaking with us, welcome to Hong Kong. You up until recently have really been known as an interpreter of songs by other people and I just mentioned you are now writing a lot of your own compositions. Why are you doing this?
DK: I met the right collaborator (LH: Being?) to write with, Elvis Costello. (LH: Right, your husband). Hm, my husband.
LH: Was it...was it something that you always wanted to do but never really got a chance to do?
DK: Yes because I think that I look at interpreting the music of great American songwriters, George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, Sammy Con, Jimmy Van Heusen and you know, like a character interpreting a great play. So you have to believe in what you are singing about, but then you have the freedom to soar and play over the harmonies that these wonderful writers...songs like "My Funny Valentine" where if you listen to Miles Davis, or Chet Baker, which is very very different. So I found it a very creative, highly creative outlet for me, and I didn't really feel it was my time to write. I didn't want to start trying to rewrite Cole Porter or these Great American Standards that I was studying so hard. So...Elvis and I weren't trying to do that we were just...we just started to write.
LH: Right. Now this latest album, The Girl in the Other Room, you seemed to have even blossomed more as a songwriter. What do you put that down to? Just working with your husband or being more confident about your abilities?
DK: Oh never confident about my abilities; that's a constant battle. I think that's what drives us, it's the divine dissatisfaction. And when you have someone who loves you and who also loves you enough...that you trust who's going to say, "You can do better" or "Don't give up" or "Don't throw it in the fire yet. Take it out of the burning embers and let's keep working on it" or "Leave it alone and...just be, not analyze it too much."
LH: This album in particular had special meaning to you correct?
DK: Every album has special meaning to me, this was more outwardly personal.
DK: For me, The Look of Love was more of a preparation for me about loss and songs like "I Get Along Without You Very Well," "I Remember You," but this was more...very very literally personal about my experiences after my mother's death in "Departure Bay," which is the song that I sort of I keep close to my heart, I think the most from this album.
LH: Was it difficult to write that song?
DK: Well difficult is not the right word. (LH: Challenging?) Well it's always challenging but it's highly satisfying, highly...I think one of the greatest experiences I've had in my life was playing at the Olympia in Paris, and playing "Departure Bay." Now you're from Vancouver so you know you take the ferry boat from Vancouver Island, Departure Bay to Horseshoe Bay, and as a kid you...wanting to be a jazz musician, that's the big city initially, from Nanaymo to Vancouver, and then Vancouver to New York. That's why I like Joni Mitchell, she talks about seaplanes and ferry boats, all things that I can relate to that are right at home. So you work so hard to be a jazz musician and go to New York City only to realize when you come home, the things that were ordinary to you are more extraordinary. And so I found it exciting to write about my hometown and then to go to Paris and play...start playing "Departure Bay" and having a Parisian audience clapping for that particular song. I thought how the hell did that happen?
LH: When you write, what is it...what is the process that goes through your mind? Is it just something that you wake up one day and you say, you hum a tune or you know is it something...a story you've seen. What's the process?
DK: The process is varied. It's the creative process so some days it comes easily to you and it's improvised and you turn on the tape recorder and you can transcribe what you've improvised and then you work with that as a basis. Or, there's no formula. Or...as an improvising piano player musician I can work it out in concerts.
DK Sometimes you sit down with a piece of manuscript paper and a pencil and it just (LH: Comes to you right?) Well not like in the movies but different ways, it's not any kind of set way. Some things are more difficult than others.
LH: You mentioned earlier about your collaboration with your husband, Elvis Costello. I wanted to ask you how he has influenced your approach to music and I guess visa versa.
DK: That's a very good question because one of the things I admire most about him is that you cannot categorize him. He is working on his ballet, he is working on a rock and roll record; he is incredibly open and knowledgeable about music and just follows his muse wherever he wants to go.
I trust him and I think when you write with somebody you must trust their judgment and...not their judgment that's hard for me to talk about. You trust somebody that they're going to tell you the truth and then you have to trust yourself and it's kind of getting a bit into sort of psychology. But I just admire him because he's a great musician and he's a great artist and it's hard for me to talk about because I'm kind of overwhelmed by the work that he's done.
LH: And what about the other way around. Have you influenced him at all?
DK: Well you have to ask him that.
LH: Alright, but he hasn't told you anything?
DK: Maybe. Whispered in my ear maybe.
LH: You have sold so many jazz albums in a fairly short span of time. What do you think...what do you put this down to really. I mean a lot of people have written about your looks and you know, the fact that you've been well marketed, etc.
DK: Yes I'm very lucky to have a record company who puts so much behind me. People ask me do you think the marketing and the album covers sell your albums -- yes, of course.
LH: I mean you've stopped all those glam poses.
DK: No I haven't. Wait until you see me tomorrow night. (LH: Oh ok!) I'm gonna be decked out baby! (LH: Ok I take that back). No I don't want to be put into that either well say, "No I'm not doing that anymore." Somebody said that she doesn't wear you know, dresses anymore. I'm like, "Uh...no!" I just do what I feel is right for me at the time. I do whatever I feel like doing and I fortunately have a record company who has stood behind me in every step of the way creatively. They've given me opportunities to do what I wanted to do creatively. I make my own decisions about my album covers. There's this kind of idea that they've made this, made me do this you know and I've always had my own concept of my covers and everything that I do is approved. And it's kind of an old topic and it's frustrating for me as you can tell to try to get around it without sounding kind of like...disingenuous you know?
LH: Right. Understood, understood. Well Diana we're going to take a very very short break. When we come back we'll talk to Diana about changing priorities and giving something back to the community.
Block B
LH: Welcome back to TalkAsia, my guest is Grammy Award winning jazz singer Diana Krall. Diana, what kind of a child were you? Were you somebody who always loved music, could play, outgoing?
DK: I don't think I can remember that far back. (LH: Oh no) Well you know, as you know growing up on Vancouver Island I was very lucky to be able to have the ocean and the mountains nearby, so I was a skier and rode horses and was very very and still am, like I prefer to be in the outdoors. But I also was very passionate about music and my dad collects seventy eight records so we listened to a lot of music like Louis Armstrong and Bix Spiderback and singers like Annette Hanshaw and Ruth Edding and Bing Crosby were singers I was listening to as a kid, and Fats Waller and Nat King Cole.
LH: Was anybody actually musical in your family?
DK: Well my dad plays piano, my uncle plays piano, my mother played piano and organ in church, sang in the choir, sang in the community choir, I couldn't you know couldn't get away from it. (LH: Could get away from it!) No and my grandmother was a really big jazz fan you know, so she loved...she loved more traditional jazz and but she loved songs and my dad collects sheet music so I'd have stacks of sheet music at home. And I just saw my dad about a month ago and we went through sheet music again and just all the original sheet music. It's really lovely.
LH: When your mother passed away I read that you had said that your priorities had changed. What did you mean by that?
DK: Did I say that? I think that dealing with loss and grief, there is not a plan, there isn't a...nobody can tell you how to grieve or how you're going to feel. And there's all these things that say, stages of anger, and priorities change...it takes a long time to process. Something that you know so well that's kind of not...touching it you know, but I think...I don't think my priorities changed but I think I'm still trying to learn how to: you can't always prevent what's going to happen to you but you can choose your response. And that you know it's ok to say no, it's ok to not do every single thing, but I'm a very driven person. I'm very driven artistically; I'm very passionate about what I do; I love playing the piano; I love singing, and finding balance is really really hard to do in this life. So my husband and I talk about it a lot. But I've always had pretty strong ideas of family and I had good examples so it's a process. (LH: That hasn't changed really right?) No no, it hasn't changed.
LH: Would you like to have family of your own sometime?
DK: Not if I keep this pace up, but yeah. I think about that. Yeah I would I would. But you know you end up being a bit...kind of like you're out here on the road for a year and a half touring a record, and it's really fun and it's really hard work and it's exhausting. It's all these wonderful things at the same time but you have to be careful you don't kind of lose track of time and feel like you're just...time just goes. So that's where the balance comes in. So I'm looking forward to taking some time off and just having...taking a creative breath and figuring out what I want to do next, yeah.
LH: You also spend time participating and sharing your work with charity organizations and you know, last time I saw you was in Malaysia for the F1 Gala, the tsunami relief. How important is that aspect to your work or to you as a person even, spending time and sharing that time with charities.
DK: Well, it's amazing what you can do in just playing the piano and singing for your own satisfaction and for you know all the wonderful things that come along with the success that I've been so blessed to experience. But I watched my mother who was a teacher, and a wonderful teacher/librarian and I watched her get well and how she had her days, definitely you know tough days, but she chose when she couldn't be a full time teacher, when she got well after her bone marrow transplant, which was for multiple myeloma, she was so impressed with the care that she received as were we, all of our family, that we started doing small benefits in Vancouver and we've kept going and she spoke at every benefit and was so inspiring by what she said and it was fun and I play the piano but I think it was my mother's words that so strongly affected people.
LH: So you do a lot of these things?
DK: I do what I can. (LH: Good) But I think it's important that you keep focused on something that is your thing and you do as much as you possibly can. But my thing is for Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation and for the bone marrow transplantation program in Vancouver. You see how it helps people so it's such a good way to do that.
LH: It is, yeah. We're going to take another very very short break. When we come back find out what it was about jazz that attracted the young Diana Krall. Stay with us.
Block C
LH: You're watching TalkAsia and my guest is Diana Krall, who has been described as a young girl who sings old songs with timeless authority. Diana why jazz? Why not pop, why not R&B, why not I don't know, some other type of genre? Why jazz?
DK: (Snapping fingers) Because of that. The indescribable swing feeling that you feel and when you listen to someone like Louis Armstrong or Oscar Peterson or Ray Brown, that's how I feel, I just feel good, I just feel like I just want to be in it. Or I listen to Carmen McRae sing or Ella Fitzgerald or you know, people that I admire that I get a chance to work with, people that I work with...the band that I work with. I'm sitting on the stage with my drummer Carine Rickens, my bass player that I'm working with Robert Hurst and great artists, Anthony Wilson playing guitar and on the bench sometimes I don't play anything at all I just listen.
LH: You're all very tight and you all exchange.
DK: We talk all the time about everything, about the music, about anything that we need to talk about. It's really open and it's a great vibe, it's a great place to be playing. And that's what you're doing; you are playing when you're up there. It's fun and it's exciting and there's lots of humour and also it can be very moving as well. And we're all telepathic with one another when we're improvising and you never know what's going to happen you have to take those risks in jazz music. That's why I love it so much because when you are, when it's right there it's like "Oh my God." And it's a great, it's a great experience to be playing this music. And it kicks my butt every night, it's challenging.
LH: Now you performed with Ray Charles, who recently got an award for lifetime achievement for his work. What was that like? I mean to get to work with a man like that?
DK: Really overwhelming and wonderful at the same time and you have to just experience the moment or else you can get so overwhelmed that you forget that you have to sing. And so it was a great experience. He really worked with me, he really had an idea of how he wanted me to phrase the ending of the piece we did together, "You Don't Know Me." And he was telling me, "Now I want you to sing 'No you don't know'" Until...just we went over and over it again and I was like, oh my God. This is an experience I'll never forget in my life and one of the most wonderful experiences I ever had in my life was to sing with Ray Charles. And it wasn't...it was in his studio and it wasn't any sort of separation we just, he just came down and he sat and played the piano and we were in the same room and I had my microphone. It was very natural and very...very (LH: Casual? Uh, no cuz it's Ray Charles! LH: So you weren't nervous?) But it was pretty exciting, it was exciting. It's definitely...I've had a chance to work with a lot of people and sometimes I can't believe it.
LH: Of all the big names that you've sung with, have there ever been any that really stand out in terms of having taught you something? (DK: Every single person I work with has taught me something) You pick out something from them? And they've taught you something?
DK: Yeah I find it. I find it sometimes not immediately, sometimes later, but I've always...because I was raised by you know father passionate about music, mother passionate about music, but also my mother was a teacher you know I was curious in wanting to learn and always have looked for that in all the people I meet. And they're not names necessarily; they're just people that you can...someone that you sit next to on a plane for five hours, who can teach you something. You know you just have to be really open to it and let it happen.
LH: When we think about jazz, we often think it's sort of an adult sort of genre, that you know teenagers wouldn't necessarily pick up a jazz album, but they are now. Why do you think...I mean there's a growing sort of acceptance of jazz, not only in a more sophisticated level but you know throughout the masses.
DK: It's just about this (snapping). I hate it when it gets too, too...it is a very complex process that when one...where you have to do your homework. If you want to call yourself a jazz musician you have to do your homework. If you're going to play with other jazz musicians they're gonna let you know, and you're gonna be out of there if you don't...I tell young singers, especially young women singers, I say if you want to be taken seriously then do your homework, learn how to play the piano, learn your keys so you can go and sit in with the band and you don't sort of say, "Ohh in this key or somewhere here." You say, "I want to play this in E-flat. Hit it."
DK: You know you have to do your homework, you have to do your homework, you have to study, but you also have to feel the swing and groove and once you're up there it's not about...it's not, it's not, you're not just in your own world. It's you listening and playing with other musicians and reacting musically from what they're doing and inspiring each other and it's complex.
LH: If I turn the clock back, rather clock forward, where do you see yourself (DK: Don't turn it too far forward. LH: How about ten years?)
DK: I don't live in the future. I try to live in the moment, I try not to think about that because it just freaks me out. And I just hope that I'm healthy and happy and still inspired and that I can still play music if I want to. You know that that's where it'll take me but I can leave you know, I mean when I go home to Vancouver Island and I'm on the ski hill or riding my horse and I can...I find...I'm so passionate about everything that I do you know, or my family or things that I like to do outside of music that are important to me that I need, you know I need to keep. It's important that that which gives you your initial strength and inspiration doing things that you don't lose some of those things.
LH: Very very true. Diana thank you so much (DK: Oh thank you)
And that is TalkAsia this week. I'm Lorraine Hahn, let's talk again next week.
BIG BOTTOM: The Bass And I Rodney Whitaker
BIG BOTTOM: The Bass And I:pril 27, 2005
The Bass And I
Rodney Whitaker was in middle school when he told his parents that he’d one day move to New York and become a famous bass player like his idol, the late Paul Chambers. The Whitakers, hardworking blue-collar folk, were more than a little taken aback. No one in their family had ever played an instrument, much less dreamed of becoming a star by doing it.
“They said, ‘Who is Paul Chambers and how are you going to support yourself playing the bass?’” Whitaker says. “My parents couldn’t figure out why I liked jazz. To them that made no sense because my father liked rhythm and blues and my mother liked country music.”
Well the bassist did move to New York and he did become a jazz star. And to see a Whitaker performance is to see a man moved. With eyes closed, with the instrument resting against his body, it’s as if he’s having an intimate conversation with the low notes, with the gut-deep tones, his fingers nimbly caressing the strings as if sliding on melted butter.
He’s accomplished a lot in his 37 years, having played on roughly 115 albums in addition to releasing five as bandleader (Children of the Light; Hidden Kingdom; Ballads and Blues; Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow; and Winter Moon).
Now Whitaker is back in Michigan where he’s an associate professor at Michigan State University and fronts the Professors of Jazz, a popular quintet of faculty members including pianist Rick Roe, drummer Randy Gelispie, trumpeter Derrick Gardner and saxophonist Diego Rivera. He’s also the director of the Civic Jazz Orchestra at Orchestra Hall.
Whitaker bucked familial tradition to succeed, and became a family man himself; he’s married with six children. His pop, who’s deceased, was a 9-to-5 guy.
“My father didn’t understand jazz,” Whitaker says. “To him it just didn’t make sense being a musician. In fact, one of the last things that he told my wife was, ‘You know at some point you’re going to have to make Rodney get a real job.’”
As a dreamy teen bent on becoming a pro bassist, Whitaker joined the Civic Orchestra for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and attended the Blue Lake Music Camp, performing in Europe twice. In the early ’80s, he participated in saxophonist Donald Washington’s youth jazz ensemble called Bird/Trane/Sco/Now, which included saxophonists James Carter and Cassius Richmond. Washington had an impact on Whitaker. He had everything the bassist wanted: He was a working jazz musician supporting a family and living in a large house.
Washington too saw something in Whitaker.
“There were a lot of kids in the group who were good, but Rodney was one of the most serious ones, and he kept going,” Washington says over the phone from Minneapolis, where he now teaches and plays music.
Raised on Detroit’s East Side, Whitaker is the youngest of eight children. He got his musical start on the violin and switched to bass in middle school. Whitaker didn’t own a bass then, couldn’t afford one, so he used a loaner from his music teacher. A few years later, Whitaker purchased his first four-string — a second-hand acoustic number he got from bassist Jaribu Shahid with $800 he saved from local gigs.
Around this time, a neighbor named Charles Brown hipped the budding bassist to jazz, telling him he could, with work, become part of Detroit’s rich legacy of bassists. Brown’s records and advice changed Whitaker’s life:
“He gave me a record that had Paul Chambers and Ron Carter on it. You know they were Detroiters. That made me fall in love with jazz. Then I fell in love with being part of a legacy. You know, as an African-American child, if someone comes up to you and says you can be a part of a legacy — what that meant to me was these guys were from Detroit. From that point on I wanted to be like Paul Chambers.”
Others with whom Whitaker confided didn’t share neighbor Brown’s optimism. His counselor at Martin Luther King Jr. High School gave him the old you’re-throwing-your-life-away-on-music homily, saying musicians were a dime a dozen.
Whitaker then, of course, dived into music even deeper.
“I didn’t have a contingency plan,” he says. “I wanted to be a bass player. I just knew somehow that everything that I would do with my life would come from playing the bass. I just knew that.”
In 1990, the 22-year-old Whitaker hit New York and soon replaced bassist Robert Hurst, another Detroiter, in a quartet headed by alto sax man Donald Harrison. Whitaker also did a four-year stint with star trumpeter Roy Hargrove.
Then, in 1994, trumpeter Wynton Marsalis offered the bassist a cushy, high-profile job with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. Whitaker declined.
“I have to admit that I turned him down because I was scared. He was like the Miles Davis of our generation. I regret it.”
Two years later, Whitaker quit Hargrove’s band and began freelancing, and when Marsalis hit him up again, Whitaker was ready.
“I just went for it. I just had to get over the first experience of playing with him because he was like a hero to me.”
Whitaker traveled the world with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, appearing in magazines, performing at the United Nations for Secretary-General Kofi Annan and accompanying classical vocalist Kathleen Battle at the Kennedy Center.
But there were times when Whitaker and Marsalis went at it. Whitaker admits that his big mouth would get him into trouble, and he didn’t always agree with Marsalis’ decisions concerning the band. He says he criticized the leader, not to his face, but behind his back. Then once, during a contract dispute, he publicly criticized Marsalis and promptly got the boot.
While away from the orchestra, Whitaker started a combo called Foresight with fellow New York musicians and released his first album, Children of the Light, which featured mostly Detroit musicians.
Six months later, Marsalis reconsidered his hasty decision and rehired Whitaker, doubling the coin that was initially offered when the contract negotiations soured. Although Marsalis and Whitaker butted heads occasionally after that, they always respected each other’s work, and today they’re friends, Whitaker says.
After six years of being away, Whitaker was tired of commuting from hotels in New York to his home and family in Detroit. In 2002, he left the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and accepted a jazz studies job at Michigan State University. Whitaker says that Marsalis has helped him raise money for his various programs at MSU.
In addition to expanding the jazz program there, Whitaker performs throughout Michigan with the Professors of Jazz, playing a mix of original songs and classics. Last year, they released their debut, The Third Floor.
“Music isn’t just about playing with celebrities,” Whitaker says, looking at his career thus far. “You have to develop a vibe wherever you are. I worked with these people every day, and they are like my brothers.
“I’ve been blessed,” he says. “I sit back and laugh thinking about some of the people that I’ve played with. Especially when I’m interacting with my students and they ask me what it was like playing with Dizzy, Clifford Jordan and Tommy Flanagan.”
It could easily be assumed that one day someone will ask his students how it was learning from bassist Rodney Whitaker, a kid who turned an obsession with the bass into a career.
Bassist Rodney Whitaker and his Professors of Jazz at MSU will be performing two shows with members of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, at 8:30 pm and 10:30 p.m., Thursday, April 28, at the Jazz Club inside the Max M. Fisher Music Center (3711 Woodward Ave., Detroit; 313-576-5111).
The Bass And I
Rodney Whitaker was in middle school when he told his parents that he’d one day move to New York and become a famous bass player like his idol, the late Paul Chambers. The Whitakers, hardworking blue-collar folk, were more than a little taken aback. No one in their family had ever played an instrument, much less dreamed of becoming a star by doing it.
“They said, ‘Who is Paul Chambers and how are you going to support yourself playing the bass?’” Whitaker says. “My parents couldn’t figure out why I liked jazz. To them that made no sense because my father liked rhythm and blues and my mother liked country music.”
Well the bassist did move to New York and he did become a jazz star. And to see a Whitaker performance is to see a man moved. With eyes closed, with the instrument resting against his body, it’s as if he’s having an intimate conversation with the low notes, with the gut-deep tones, his fingers nimbly caressing the strings as if sliding on melted butter.
He’s accomplished a lot in his 37 years, having played on roughly 115 albums in addition to releasing five as bandleader (Children of the Light; Hidden Kingdom; Ballads and Blues; Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow; and Winter Moon).
Now Whitaker is back in Michigan where he’s an associate professor at Michigan State University and fronts the Professors of Jazz, a popular quintet of faculty members including pianist Rick Roe, drummer Randy Gelispie, trumpeter Derrick Gardner and saxophonist Diego Rivera. He’s also the director of the Civic Jazz Orchestra at Orchestra Hall.
Whitaker bucked familial tradition to succeed, and became a family man himself; he’s married with six children. His pop, who’s deceased, was a 9-to-5 guy.
“My father didn’t understand jazz,” Whitaker says. “To him it just didn’t make sense being a musician. In fact, one of the last things that he told my wife was, ‘You know at some point you’re going to have to make Rodney get a real job.’”
As a dreamy teen bent on becoming a pro bassist, Whitaker joined the Civic Orchestra for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and attended the Blue Lake Music Camp, performing in Europe twice. In the early ’80s, he participated in saxophonist Donald Washington’s youth jazz ensemble called Bird/Trane/Sco/Now, which included saxophonists James Carter and Cassius Richmond. Washington had an impact on Whitaker. He had everything the bassist wanted: He was a working jazz musician supporting a family and living in a large house.
Washington too saw something in Whitaker.
“There were a lot of kids in the group who were good, but Rodney was one of the most serious ones, and he kept going,” Washington says over the phone from Minneapolis, where he now teaches and plays music.
Raised on Detroit’s East Side, Whitaker is the youngest of eight children. He got his musical start on the violin and switched to bass in middle school. Whitaker didn’t own a bass then, couldn’t afford one, so he used a loaner from his music teacher. A few years later, Whitaker purchased his first four-string — a second-hand acoustic number he got from bassist Jaribu Shahid with $800 he saved from local gigs.
Around this time, a neighbor named Charles Brown hipped the budding bassist to jazz, telling him he could, with work, become part of Detroit’s rich legacy of bassists. Brown’s records and advice changed Whitaker’s life:
“He gave me a record that had Paul Chambers and Ron Carter on it. You know they were Detroiters. That made me fall in love with jazz. Then I fell in love with being part of a legacy. You know, as an African-American child, if someone comes up to you and says you can be a part of a legacy — what that meant to me was these guys were from Detroit. From that point on I wanted to be like Paul Chambers.”
Others with whom Whitaker confided didn’t share neighbor Brown’s optimism. His counselor at Martin Luther King Jr. High School gave him the old you’re-throwing-your-life-away-on-music homily, saying musicians were a dime a dozen.
Whitaker then, of course, dived into music even deeper.
“I didn’t have a contingency plan,” he says. “I wanted to be a bass player. I just knew somehow that everything that I would do with my life would come from playing the bass. I just knew that.”
In 1990, the 22-year-old Whitaker hit New York and soon replaced bassist Robert Hurst, another Detroiter, in a quartet headed by alto sax man Donald Harrison. Whitaker also did a four-year stint with star trumpeter Roy Hargrove.
Then, in 1994, trumpeter Wynton Marsalis offered the bassist a cushy, high-profile job with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. Whitaker declined.
“I have to admit that I turned him down because I was scared. He was like the Miles Davis of our generation. I regret it.”
Two years later, Whitaker quit Hargrove’s band and began freelancing, and when Marsalis hit him up again, Whitaker was ready.
“I just went for it. I just had to get over the first experience of playing with him because he was like a hero to me.”
Whitaker traveled the world with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, appearing in magazines, performing at the United Nations for Secretary-General Kofi Annan and accompanying classical vocalist Kathleen Battle at the Kennedy Center.
But there were times when Whitaker and Marsalis went at it. Whitaker admits that his big mouth would get him into trouble, and he didn’t always agree with Marsalis’ decisions concerning the band. He says he criticized the leader, not to his face, but behind his back. Then once, during a contract dispute, he publicly criticized Marsalis and promptly got the boot.
While away from the orchestra, Whitaker started a combo called Foresight with fellow New York musicians and released his first album, Children of the Light, which featured mostly Detroit musicians.
Six months later, Marsalis reconsidered his hasty decision and rehired Whitaker, doubling the coin that was initially offered when the contract negotiations soured. Although Marsalis and Whitaker butted heads occasionally after that, they always respected each other’s work, and today they’re friends, Whitaker says.
After six years of being away, Whitaker was tired of commuting from hotels in New York to his home and family in Detroit. In 2002, he left the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and accepted a jazz studies job at Michigan State University. Whitaker says that Marsalis has helped him raise money for his various programs at MSU.
In addition to expanding the jazz program there, Whitaker performs throughout Michigan with the Professors of Jazz, playing a mix of original songs and classics. Last year, they released their debut, The Third Floor.
“Music isn’t just about playing with celebrities,” Whitaker says, looking at his career thus far. “You have to develop a vibe wherever you are. I worked with these people every day, and they are like my brothers.
“I’ve been blessed,” he says. “I sit back and laugh thinking about some of the people that I’ve played with. Especially when I’m interacting with my students and they ask me what it was like playing with Dizzy, Clifford Jordan and Tommy Flanagan.”
It could easily be assumed that one day someone will ask his students how it was learning from bassist Rodney Whitaker, a kid who turned an obsession with the bass into a career.
Bassist Rodney Whitaker and his Professors of Jazz at MSU will be performing two shows with members of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, at 8:30 pm and 10:30 p.m., Thursday, April 28, at the Jazz Club inside the Max M. Fisher Music Center (3711 Woodward Ave., Detroit; 313-576-5111).
Death of Jimmy Woode :: eJazzNews.com : The Number One Jazz News Resource On The Net :: Jazz News Daily
Death of Jimmy Woode :: eJazzNews.com : The Number One Jazz News Resource On The Net :: Jazz News Daily: "Obituaries: Death of Jimmy Woode
Posted by: Anonymouson Thursday, April 28, 2005 - 01:28 PM
Jazz News Dear Readers:
Please be aware that former Ellington bassist, Jimmy Woode, passed away on Aprill 22, 2005.
"
Posted by: Anonymouson Thursday, April 28, 2005 - 01:28 PM
Jazz News Dear Readers:
Please be aware that former Ellington bassist, Jimmy Woode, passed away on Aprill 22, 2005.
"
Monday, April 25, 2005
The New York Times > Arts > Music > A Jazz Discovery Adds a New Note to the Historical Record
The New York Times > Arts > Music > A Jazz Discovery Adds a New Note to the Historical Record: April 25, 2005
A Jazz Discovery Adds a New Note to the Historical Record
By BEN RATLIFF
You might reasonably think that the recorded past of American music has been mapped out - that after all the academic books and scholared-up CD reissues, we know what's between A and Z. Of the important works, anyway. Ephemera will always keep rolling in, intensifying the reds and golds of the historical picture, broadening the context.
But now this: tapes bearing nearly a full hour of the Thelonious Monk quartet with John Coltrane, found at the Library of Congress in January. The library made the announcement this month.
The tapes come from a concert at Carnegie Hall on Nov. 29, 1957, a benefit for a community center. The concert was recorded by the Voice of America, the international broadcasting service, and the tapes also include sets by the Dizzy Gillespie Orchestra, Ray Charles with a backing sextet, the Zoot Sims Quartet with Chet Baker, and the Sonny Rollins Trio. (Newspaper accounts of the concert indicate that Billie Holiday appeared as well, though she is not on the Voice of America tapes.)
But it is Monk with Coltrane that constitutes the real find. That band existed for only six months in 1957, mostly through long and celebrated runs at the East Village club the Five Spot. During this period, Coltrane fully collected himself as an improviser, challenged by Monk and the discipline of his unusual harmonic sense. Thus began the 10-year sprint during which he changed jazz completely, before his death in 1967. The Monk quartet with Coltrane did record three numbers in a studio in 1957, but remarkably little material, and only with fairly low audience-tape fidelity, is known to exist from the Five Spot engagement.
The eight and a half Monk performances found at the Library of Congress, by contrast, are professionally recorded, strong and clear; you can hear the full dimensions of Shadow Wilson's drum kit and Ahmed Abdul-Malik's bass. It is certainly good enough for commercial release, though none has yet been negotiated.
On the tapes, Monk is Monk, his pianistic style basically formed at least 10 years before, with its sudden drawls and rhythmic hesitations. He lets Coltrane solo at length with very little accompaniment; the saxophonist plays rows and rows of original licks and runs, built with blizzards of 16th notes. The notable exception is Coltrane's solo on "Blue Monk." Through 10 blues choruses, he builds an even crescendo of logic, letting down his guard and relying less on his stock phrases. (The other songs on the tape, from the evening's two sets, are "Monk's Mood," "Evidence," "Crepuscule With Nellie," "Nutty," "Epistrophy," "Bye-Ya," "Sweet and Lovely" and a truncated second version of "Epistrophy.")
The music was discovered by accident, during the routine practice of transferring tape from the Library of Congress's Voice of America collection to digital sound files for preservation. Larry Appelbaum, a studio engineer, supervisor and jazz specialist at the library, said that he was given a batch of about 100 tapes for digitization one day in January and looked to see what was there; among them he noticed a brown cardboard box for a 7½-inch reel, marked in pencil "sp. Event 11/29/57 carnegie jazz concert (#1)," with no names on it. It piqued his interest, and one of the boxes holding the Carnegie tapes - there were eight in all - said "T. Monk." "It got my heart racing," Mr. Appelbaum said. (None of the tape boxes mentioned Coltrane.)
No bootleg recordings of the concert are known to exist, because even though it was recorded, it was not broadcast. The Coltrane specialist Lewis Porter knew of the tape's possible existence and inquired about it years ago, but after an initial search yielded nothing, Mr. Appelbaum said, he forgot about it completely. He was surprised to finally find it, of course, but his sense of surprise has been worn down over the years.
"There's always more," Mr. Appelbaum said sagely, in a recent interview in his recording laboratory at the Library of Congress's recorded sound division. He repeated the phrase so often during the afternoon that it became a mantra.
The Library of Congress holds the country's largest collection of sound recordings, and jazz of course forms only a tiny part of it. The full extent of several essential collections is thoroughly cataloged; they include everything ever recorded at the library's Coolidge Auditorium, including T. S. Eliot, Robert Frost and Robert Lowell reading their work, chamber music performances by the Budapest String Quartet, and Jelly Roll Morton singing and spieling for eight hours in 1938. All of John and Alan Lomax's famous field recordings are kept there as well.
But among the collections still being cataloged are the 50,000 Voice of America tapes, which for 40 years have been housed in a dark, climate-controlled room. The tapes constitute a valuable history of radio, and of music in New York. (The Voice of America also recorded every Newport Jazz Festival from 1955, its second year, to 1976, four years after the festival relocated from Rhode Island to New York City.) The cataloging has proceeded gradually, with first priority given to the most historically important and most physically fragile material.
Michael Gray, librarian and archivist at the Voice of America, which still operates out of Washington, confirms that in 1957, and for a long time after that, the broadcast service had access to the Carnegie Hall Recording Company's services. The Voice of America was allowed to record performances at Carnegie Hall free of charge, without paying the hall or the musicians, as long as it broadcast only overseas; this was regarded as public diplomacy through music. Of course, some musicians would not consent to be recorded, which is probably why there is no Billie Holiday on the tape.
Besides satisfying jazz fans, the discovery of the Monk tape has Gino Francesconi, Carnegie Hall's archivist since 1986, excited by the idea that much more of the hall's past may be preserved than he thought. "We knew that Voice of America recorded here," he said. "But we didn't have any formal documentation of it, and it's fantastic to know that they've discovered this." There's always more.
A Jazz Discovery Adds a New Note to the Historical Record
By BEN RATLIFF
You might reasonably think that the recorded past of American music has been mapped out - that after all the academic books and scholared-up CD reissues, we know what's between A and Z. Of the important works, anyway. Ephemera will always keep rolling in, intensifying the reds and golds of the historical picture, broadening the context.
But now this: tapes bearing nearly a full hour of the Thelonious Monk quartet with John Coltrane, found at the Library of Congress in January. The library made the announcement this month.
The tapes come from a concert at Carnegie Hall on Nov. 29, 1957, a benefit for a community center. The concert was recorded by the Voice of America, the international broadcasting service, and the tapes also include sets by the Dizzy Gillespie Orchestra, Ray Charles with a backing sextet, the Zoot Sims Quartet with Chet Baker, and the Sonny Rollins Trio. (Newspaper accounts of the concert indicate that Billie Holiday appeared as well, though she is not on the Voice of America tapes.)
But it is Monk with Coltrane that constitutes the real find. That band existed for only six months in 1957, mostly through long and celebrated runs at the East Village club the Five Spot. During this period, Coltrane fully collected himself as an improviser, challenged by Monk and the discipline of his unusual harmonic sense. Thus began the 10-year sprint during which he changed jazz completely, before his death in 1967. The Monk quartet with Coltrane did record three numbers in a studio in 1957, but remarkably little material, and only with fairly low audience-tape fidelity, is known to exist from the Five Spot engagement.
The eight and a half Monk performances found at the Library of Congress, by contrast, are professionally recorded, strong and clear; you can hear the full dimensions of Shadow Wilson's drum kit and Ahmed Abdul-Malik's bass. It is certainly good enough for commercial release, though none has yet been negotiated.
On the tapes, Monk is Monk, his pianistic style basically formed at least 10 years before, with its sudden drawls and rhythmic hesitations. He lets Coltrane solo at length with very little accompaniment; the saxophonist plays rows and rows of original licks and runs, built with blizzards of 16th notes. The notable exception is Coltrane's solo on "Blue Monk." Through 10 blues choruses, he builds an even crescendo of logic, letting down his guard and relying less on his stock phrases. (The other songs on the tape, from the evening's two sets, are "Monk's Mood," "Evidence," "Crepuscule With Nellie," "Nutty," "Epistrophy," "Bye-Ya," "Sweet and Lovely" and a truncated second version of "Epistrophy.")
The music was discovered by accident, during the routine practice of transferring tape from the Library of Congress's Voice of America collection to digital sound files for preservation. Larry Appelbaum, a studio engineer, supervisor and jazz specialist at the library, said that he was given a batch of about 100 tapes for digitization one day in January and looked to see what was there; among them he noticed a brown cardboard box for a 7½-inch reel, marked in pencil "sp. Event 11/29/57 carnegie jazz concert (#1)," with no names on it. It piqued his interest, and one of the boxes holding the Carnegie tapes - there were eight in all - said "T. Monk." "It got my heart racing," Mr. Appelbaum said. (None of the tape boxes mentioned Coltrane.)
No bootleg recordings of the concert are known to exist, because even though it was recorded, it was not broadcast. The Coltrane specialist Lewis Porter knew of the tape's possible existence and inquired about it years ago, but after an initial search yielded nothing, Mr. Appelbaum said, he forgot about it completely. He was surprised to finally find it, of course, but his sense of surprise has been worn down over the years.
"There's always more," Mr. Appelbaum said sagely, in a recent interview in his recording laboratory at the Library of Congress's recorded sound division. He repeated the phrase so often during the afternoon that it became a mantra.
The Library of Congress holds the country's largest collection of sound recordings, and jazz of course forms only a tiny part of it. The full extent of several essential collections is thoroughly cataloged; they include everything ever recorded at the library's Coolidge Auditorium, including T. S. Eliot, Robert Frost and Robert Lowell reading their work, chamber music performances by the Budapest String Quartet, and Jelly Roll Morton singing and spieling for eight hours in 1938. All of John and Alan Lomax's famous field recordings are kept there as well.
But among the collections still being cataloged are the 50,000 Voice of America tapes, which for 40 years have been housed in a dark, climate-controlled room. The tapes constitute a valuable history of radio, and of music in New York. (The Voice of America also recorded every Newport Jazz Festival from 1955, its second year, to 1976, four years after the festival relocated from Rhode Island to New York City.) The cataloging has proceeded gradually, with first priority given to the most historically important and most physically fragile material.
Michael Gray, librarian and archivist at the Voice of America, which still operates out of Washington, confirms that in 1957, and for a long time after that, the broadcast service had access to the Carnegie Hall Recording Company's services. The Voice of America was allowed to record performances at Carnegie Hall free of charge, without paying the hall or the musicians, as long as it broadcast only overseas; this was regarded as public diplomacy through music. Of course, some musicians would not consent to be recorded, which is probably why there is no Billie Holiday on the tape.
Besides satisfying jazz fans, the discovery of the Monk tape has Gino Francesconi, Carnegie Hall's archivist since 1986, excited by the idea that much more of the hall's past may be preserved than he thought. "We knew that Voice of America recorded here," he said. "But we didn't have any formal documentation of it, and it's fantastic to know that they've discovered this." There's always more.
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