Jazz Beyond Jazz

House Appropriations Committee to NEA: Keep Jazz Masters

2011-07-12T21:10:51Z

The National Endowment for the Arts has been directed by the US House Appropriations Committee in its report to Interior to continue the American Jazz Masters Fellowships and dump its proposed American Artists of the Year honors. The report also supports continuation of the NEA's National Heritage Fellowships program (but not its Opera Honors) and recommends a 2012 NEA budget $19.6 million less than it got in 2011, $11.2 million below what the NEA asked for.]]> report (on page 106) published July 11. It goes on:

The National Heritage Fellowship program, which was created in 1982, has celebrated over 350 cultural leaders from 49 states and five U.S. territories, focusing national attention on the keepers of America's deep and rich cultural heritage found in communities large and small, rural and urban. Similarly, the American Jazz Masters Fellowship, also created in 1982, has bestowed appropriate national recognition on a uniquely American art form Congress has proclaimed a national treasure. Accordingly, the Committee directs the NEA to continue these popular honorific fellowships in the same manner as it has in the past.

The Committee believes the proposal to establish a separate NEA American Artist of the Year honorific award is not warranted and could be perceived as an attempt to circumvent clear, long-established congressional guidelines prohibiting direct grant funding to individual artists.

Also in the report (starting on page 105 of the pdf), the Committee asserts its support for the "longstanding collaborative relationship between the NEA and the States [Arts Agencies]," funding state partnerships with $46 million, which includes a $10 million set-aside for rural communities.

The Committee lauds the Blue Stars Museums program that gives free museum admission to "all active duty, National Guard and Reserve military personnel and their families from Memorial Day through Labor Day," as well as what it calls "cost-effective, well-managed" initiatives with "broad geographic reach" (specifically, the Big Read, Challenge America and Shakespeare in American Communities) that extend the arts to under-served communities. Furthermore, it "views the NEA's newest initiative -- known as Our Town -- as an economic development and revitalization proposal more properly aligned with the goals and objectives of the Department of Housing and Urban Development." The report cites the Committee's concern that Our Town funding would "gravitate toward large urban centers with strong existing arts infrastructures at the expense of State Arts Agencies which are better positioned to reach underserved populations."

While the Committee believes that the NEA is well-positioned to provide expertise to HUD and other Federal agencies on promoting the arts in large and small communities . . . as competition for Federal dollars grows, limited direct grant funding dollars within the NEA should be devoted to core programs with a proven record of success."

Consequently, Our Towns gets $2 million, $3 million less than the NEA requested.

The total budget recommendation for the NEA is $135,000,000. The Committee recommends the same amount of support (and equal cuts from the 2011 budget level and the 2012 request) for the National Endowment of the Humanities. For comparison: the price of one F-35 Lightning !! fighter plane from Lockheed Martin is currently estimated at $156 million.

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Urban Realism and Treme

2011-07-05T17:29:15Z

"Life is glorious and vibrant and joyous at points, but it is essentially tragic. That's not a unique David Simon perspective." So sayeth David Simon, (pictured left; right is a Mardi Gras Indian portrayed by Clarke Peters), executive producer with Eric Overmyer of Treme, in a long interview on Salon conducted by Matt Zolar Seitz. The HBO series about New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, which ended its second season last Sunday night, is unique as a musical drama for its grounding of psychologically acute and entertaining characterizations in a verifiably real social context -- an accomplishment attributable to Simon's hard-boiled yet compassionate philosophy and journalistically-influenced creative practices. It's all laid out in the interview, which also makes a strong case for the centrality of cities to the future of America.]]> Simon, in talking about New Orleans which he clearly admires, says,

[W]hat is wonderful about the city, and what works when nothing else seems to work, is the idea that people are experiencing urban life, which is the only life that America is going to have going forward. I mean, we're not going back to small-town values. Sorry! Y'know? Regardless of the rhetoric of any given politician at any moment, it's big-city values that are going to save us or thwart us. Small town values are irrelevant. Eighty-three percent of us live in metropolitan areas now, or areas that are at least oriented toward cities, and the health of those cities determine the health of metro areas. Get it straight. Jefferson lost that argument, Hamilton won.

Until we find some affection for who we are and who we're going to be, and until we become inclusive about it -- "inclusive" being the important word here -- the future is either gonna be gated communities and a lot of poor people, or we're gonna figure out how the city works. And that's going to be the new America.

I wrote yesterday of my admiration for Treme, which extends beyond Simon and Overmyer to novelist George Pelicanos, music critic Tom Piazza, restauranteur-writer Anthony Bourdain, the late David Mills, music consultant Davis Rogan, and former Times-Picayune columnist Lolis Eric Elie. They deserve kudos as does the terrific cast and superb sounds interwoven through everything, for which credit must go to music supervisor Blake Leyh and of course the extraordinarily talented musicians from NO and performing there -- in episodes 11 through 21 including Steve Earle, Mac "Dr. John" Rebennack, John Boutté, Walter "Wolfman" Washington, Kermit Ruffins, Trombone Shorty, Donald Harrison, Dr. Michael White, Jonathan Batiste, Wanda Rouzan, Deacon John, Rebirth Brass Band, the Iguanas, Little Queenie, Leroy Jones, Evan Christopher, Henry Butler, Bonerama, Galactic, Aurora Nealand, the Dirty Dozen, a raft of high school marching bands, members of the for-this-series-only Brassy Knoll and Soul Survivors . . . this highly selective list probably misses mentioning your favorites.

But one point this all suggests is that if producers, directors and viewers were brave enough, many U.S. cities could give rise to a tv series organized around their unique cultures, music and food, businesses and governance included. There doesn't have to be a natural calamity to launch the drama, almost any social conflict will do as a basis for stories of bands, their audiences and milieus toughing it out where, as Simon notes, 83 percent of Americans now live. The episodes could be held together by the soundtracks of these cities, in harmony or dissonance as plot and character require. For example:

In Chicago, blues, midwestern metal and neighborhood ethnic musics dominate while die-hard beboppers, alt. rockers and avant-garde jazzers cross paths in the night and a political heavy-weight takes over City Hall.
In Austin, the SXSW crowd runs in constant tense parallel with the Lone Star state's conservatively based legislature and constituency.
In Nashville, an entrenched but threatened country music industry deals with contradictions and change.
In New York, befuddled critics survey the rapidly morphing, boundary-less and cut-throat scene, challenged by ever-higher rents and media in transition.

I don't want to give away all my narrative arcs; suffice it to say there are ingenious ways to make stories sing and songs advance stories. Is there an audience? I guess the success of "Glee" and "American Idol" don't prove people will tune in for sophisticated musical fare. But what a boon it would be for the nation if localized activities were given their due, promoting on tv (or your preferred viewing device) the artistic distinctions and appeal of one and another of our colorful metropoli in conjunction with strong portraits of individuals representing our ever-more diverse population and a generous helping of clear-eyed yet never didactic contemporary sociology. Hold the special effects, forensic investigations and vampires. Treme demonstrates it can be done.

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Hurray for Treme

2011-07-04T18:11:55Z

"Do Watcha Wanna," the season finale of Treme, had everything I watch the series for:

Compelling characters embodied by terrific actors;
plausible and suspenseful quick-cutting across and interweaving of plot strands;
confident command of realities afflicting post-Katrina/pre-Gulf oil spill New Orleans, and
the extraordinary depiction of living, breathing, hugely enjoyable music as a central factor in peoples' lives, whether or not they're professionally involved.

]]> Leon "Kid Chocolate" Brown's trumpet playing) in collaboration with saxophonist Donald Harrison and Mardi Gras Indians at Jazz Fest; hot trad-style soprano saxophonist Aurora Nealand and the Royal Roses in a chic supper-club (the clip below is not from the program, but has Nealand soloing) --

-- weathered Lucinda Williams onstage, splintery Kidd Jordan on WWOZ and the complete recording of Louis Armstrong's "Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams" as a benediction to a montage of shots of the damaged but resilient Big Easy.

As I wrote last year at this time, when Season One had just ended, Treme sets a new standard for celebrating American roots music where that celebration should take place -- tv -- and also integrates music with story as nothing has really done before, serving simultaneously to launch. embody and resolve the series' themes. Produced by David (long interview) Simon, Nina K. Noble, Eric Overmeyer, Carolyn Strauss, James Yoshimuri, David Mills and Anthony Hemingway; written by Simon, Overmyer, crime novelist George Pelicanos, music critic Tom Piazza and chef-author Anthony Bourdain, among several others, Treme presents both a convincing, vast panorama and believable personal stories of people in crisis, carrying magnificently on.

In Season Two, the immediate aftermath of the devastating storm has receded but the lasting affects are felt all the more painfully, new wounds opened as older ones scar over. In a manner that's akin to both Hollywood cliché and clever television marketing, all's well that ends well (enough to give viewers the happy feeling of seeing characters we root for reconciled and rewarded) but the outcomes of the heaviest problems (resulting from vicious crimes, police malfeasance and political corruption) remain very much in question -- tune in next time (yes, Treme will have a Season Three).

It seems to me there's something for everyone of adult American sensibilities in each individual episode -- not only new music as it's being born but also scenes centering on sex, food, drugs, murder, real estate, politics, parent-child relations and social relations. I s'pose the right wing might accuse it of promoting a liberal agenda; the show admires adults indulging in good times, living and loving across racial/ethnic lines, doubting authority but winking at repeated misdemeanors by principals. The entire cast, staff and crew's presidential voting pasts seemed telegraphed by a shot in the finale during which the official portraits of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney grinned down on an FBI meeting that appeared to quell pursuit of an unpalatable investigation. Still, forbearance is a prime virtue and individual entrepreneurship is the word of the day.

All the male actors are impressive -- Steve Zahn as born-to-privilege funkster-by-choice Davis become less of an ass, Wendell Pierce giving his loose-goosey trombonist the gumption to work hard and seriously, David Morse emerging as a particularly sensitive and honorable cop, Jon Seda so comfortable with his cynical charm, Clarke Peters a grand mix of dignity and parochialism, Michiel Huisman sympathetic in his attempt to get straight -- but it's the womenfolk who really carry Treme. I haven't seen a clinker performance from anyone; the standouts, however, are certainly Melissa Leo as a savvy civil liberties lawyer and care-ridden mom and Lucia Micarelli as the luminous violinist willing and able to try any repertoire (Micarelli performs her own musical features and swings like mad).

Then there's Khandi Alexander, the burning presence at the moral center of this show. Her character, the deep-dyed, hard-boiled New Orleansian determined to maintain her neighborhood bar, a family heritage, despite

the dangers and suffering around her, in the middle of Season Two suffered a horrendously brutal (offscreen) attack. Her scenes of remaining trauma and painful recovery in the episodes that followed were fiercely etched, and in the season's last show she grabbed at the vengeance due her with a remarkable show of co-mingled rage, aching vulnerability and determined self-possession. Great writing gave Alexander wonderful opportunities to act, but her acting, being so indisputably real, made the writing disappear. Everything could be cut from Treme so that Alexander's story stood alone, and the show would measure tall as an artistic triumph.

Ok, I'm a fan. I love New Orleans music, I dig long-form crime-ridden narrative, I'm a boomer by birth with core social precepts influenced by the Civil Rights struggle, anti-Vietnam War protest and urban American life with special reference to our arts and culture. Treme was made for me. And I'm so glad I get to watch it, and even more that it exists to be discovered, enlighten, entertain and (I bet) inspire for decades to come. If only it gives a message now, to an immediate audience, that New Orleans is a crucible which the U.S. should protect and invest in if our country means to survive.

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Symphonic "jazz" compositions, big bands and holiday blasts

2011-07-03T14:37:20Z

The American Composers Orchestra readings of short symphonic works by jazz-oriented composers which I wrote of in my CityArts column and posted about here are now available to hear, thanks to Lara Pelligrinelli at NPR's A Blog Supreme. The 23rd annual BMI/New York Jazz Orchestra concert, featuring "New Works for Big Band" and the naming (not yet publicized) of the winner of the 11th Annual Charlie Parker Jazz Composition Prize. I'm looking for a third item regarding really large scale opportunities for jazz composers (and listeners), but the student competitions, festival appearances, and other emanations of a tradition which by the logic of the marketplace ought to be pretty much over are too plentiful to start to mention (ok, here's one: Savannah's 6th Annual Patriotic Big Band Salute on July 4 starring Jeremy Davis and the Fabulous Equinox Orchestra).]]> Will Big Bands Ever Come Back? in 1965, as the original title for an album which included this fine rendition of the American anthem by George Gershwin, "Rhapsody In Blue" (thanks to A Blog Supreme's David Brent Johnson for the heads up on this).

Too mellow? Then here's a bigger bang -- by one of Ellington's loyalist acolytes, Charles Mingus, as played by the Mingus Big Band, winners of the Jazz Journalists Association's 2011 Award for Large Ensemble of the Year.

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Jazz in Jordan: Yacoub Abu Ghosh explains and plays

2011-06-29T21:46:29Z

Jazz and its evolution goes on everywhere - as bass guitarist/bandleader/composer/producer Yacoub Abu Ghosh explained and demonstrated to me in Amman, Jordan last March. Ghosh and his Stage Heroes performed at their weekly gig at Canvas Cafe Restaurant Art Lounge. His new album As Blue As The Rivers of Amman is due to drop July 2.

]]> eyeJAZZ video project of the Jazz Journalists Association have been substantiating, too, during the past 20 weeks of webinars and Facebook tutorials. Check out the eyeJAZZ facebook page to see and hear some of what's been happening in Athens and Saratoga NY, Chicago, Washington DC, Boston, northeast Georgia (thanks, J. Scott Fugate!) --

and reports from other spots around the globe, to be posted soon.

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American Composer Orchestra: Jazz composers welcome

2011-06-28T02:07:27Z

The American Composers Orchestra gave eight jazz-oriented composers a year to work up five minute pieces and composer-mentors to help, then staged readings conducted by George Manahan during one of the busiest weeks of the jazz summer. Read about it in my latest CityArts column.

Harris Eisenstadt, drummer and composer, and his score for "Palimpset" - photo courtesy of ACO. Columbia University's Center for Jazz Studies partnered on this project.

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New NEA Jazz Masters: A classy last class

2011-06-24T13:16:20Z

The National Endowment for the Arts's final designated Jazz Masters are all worthy: drummer Jack DeJohnette, saxophonist Von Freeman, bassist Charlie Haden, singer Sheila Jordan and trumpeter-educator-organizer-gadfly Jimmy Owens have had long and profoundly influential if not broadly celebrated or financially rewarded creative careers. So much the worse that this 30 year program highlighting genuine American artistic heroes has been zeroed out in the 2012 budget, to be replaced by proposed "American Artist of the Years Awards" that will toss jazz musicians into a mix including every kind of artist working in the performing arts (defined as dance, music, opera, musical theater and theater), with a de-emphasis on long-demonstrated artistry (I've blogged about this in detail previously).

The Jazz Masters announcement was made in conjunction with announcements of new NEA National Heritage Fellowships and NEA Opera Honors recipients; both those programs have also been eliminated in the NEA's 2012 budget.

]]> Jazz Masters program which the NEA ballyhoos as "the nation's top jazz honor" and which has conferred that status on 124 people over the past three decades leaves many equally worthy candidates without hopes of the $25,000 prize and, more significantly, official U.S. governmental admiration for lives exemplifying the USA's forward-looking, democratic ideals regarding original individual expression and spontaneous collaboration. I have my own long, long list as to whom should be put on the Jazz Masters' pedestal and they are entirely subjective (Sam Rivers, age 87; Roscoe Mitchell, age 71; Henry Threadgill, 67; Eddie Palmieri, 74; Andrew Cyrille, 71; Dee Dee Bridgewater, 61; Roswell Rudd, 75; Dave Holland, 63; Dave Burrell, 70; and Reggie Workman, 74 are at the top) and you can create your own, as jazz musician and educator Noah Baerman has.

There are those who deny that the Jazz Masters program is good for jazz, and I think they're wrong. But in any case, here are listening recommendations from the recorded works of the new Masters:

DeJohnette (age 68) is not only a drummer, well-established as perfect accompanist in un-Awarded jazz master Keith Jarrett's trio (with fully deserving bassist Gary Peacock) -- he's a composer, pianist and especially fine bandleader. His most recent ensemble featuring saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa, guitarist Dave Fuiczynski, pianist George Colligan and bassist Jerome Harris is cutting edge exciting and inspires him to play hard. He's the drummer on Miles Davis' Bitches Brew, too. As an introduction to his work, try New Directions, a 1978 quartet with the late, great Lester Bowie (an unacknowledged jazz master) and the track "Silver Hollow," named for DeJohnette's home outside of Woodstock NY.

Freeman (87 -- for whom I wrote a nomination letter in 2009) is Chicago's reigning jazz father figure, who has for decades taught numerous saxophone stars (aforementioned Mahanthappa, Steve Coleman, his own son Chico Freeman, etc. etc.) from the bandstand of his modest weekly gigs on the South Side. On Lester Leaps In from 1993 he leads a Chicago quartet including vastly under-appreciated pianist Jodie Christian, stalwart bassist Eddie de Haas and the late drummer Wilbur Campbell -- all of whom are jazz masters. As is Von's brother George Freeman, a unique guitarist.

Haden (73) -- I'm proud to have known this bassist, composer and musical/political activist, who first rose to prominence for his indestructible interactions with Ornette Coleman and his Liberation Music Orchestra, for 30 years. I speak on his behalf in the documentary film bio Ramblin' Bo by Reto Carduff, and I have many favorite records among his vast output. If you haven't heard him, try Closeness Duets (now, criminally, available only as an import) in which he goes one-on-one with Ornette, Keith Jarrett, Alice Coltrane and not-yet-officially honored Paul Motian, or Ballad of the Fallen with his Orchestra, arranged by Carla Bley (another ought-to-be Jazz Master). The Blessing, Cuban born and bred pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba's 1991 North American debut, is also beautiful listening, with Jack DeJohnette in the drum chair. This is not to dis Haden's Quartet West, his work in Old and New Dreams, his special projects with not-yet-Awarded jazz master guitarist Pat Metheny and Brazilian multi-talent Egberto Gismonti, et al.

Sheila Jordan (82) is one of the warmest and most down-to-earth singers jazz has enjoyed, and is unusual in her abilities as an improvising lyricist and songwriter. Her very earliest recordings, "You Are My Sunshine" on George Russell's album The Outer View and her own Portrait of Sheila (from 1962, now out of print) are timeless, but her album Jazz Child from 1999 conveys what she's learned and earned over time. One highlight is "Art Deco," her lyrics to a lovely melody by the late, never-Jazz Master-honored trumpeter Don Cherry.

Jimmy Owens emerged in the '70s as a fire-breathing trumpeter, but his recordings as a leader have been few and far between as he's concentrated on jazz education and making music as a featured player. Considering his interest in team-play, it's appropriate to recommend listeners curious about his sound to check out One More: Music of Thad Jones on which Owens has the horn chair in an all-star octet revisiting the compositions of the late trumpeter/composer/orchestra co-leader who was named an NEA Jazz Master in 1989.

These Jazz Masters will be feted and heard at a concert next January at Jazz at Lincoln Center, which the NEA credits as a partner in the presentations. The NEA/JALC concerts have been glorious events and I look forward to the 2012 edition. But it's unclear whether some of other benefits Jazz Masters have enjoyed, such as tour and appearance support, will be offered to this group. Yes or no, it's too damn bad the United States of America will no longer have a policy of identifying, praising and higher-profiling artists who work specifically in the jazz field, which so much different in every way than the world that's available to dancers and choreographers, opera singers and orchestras, classical music composers and soloists and ensembles, theater directors and actors and musical theater participants.

It doesn't help the jazz cause that there is no concerted effort by any jazz-representative group to raise funds to supplant the NEA's Jazz Masters program. I've heard unsubstantiated rumors that the constituency for the National Heritage Fellowships has banded together and presented their case for continuing that program to congressmen, hoping they'll restore funds for that project through budget appropriations that are removed from the NEA itself. If only jazz people could try that same tactic. . .

Meanwhile, there are several National Heritage fellows who deserve mention here, since they're linked to jazz or the traditions that led up to jazz or follow from jazz or something like it. I include:

Bo Dollis, Mardi Gras Indian chief
Roy and PJ Hirabayashi, Taiko Drum leaders

Ledward Kaapana, Ukulele and slack key guitarist
Frank Newsome, Old Regular Baptist singer
Carlinhos Pandeiro de Ouro, Pandeiro player and percussionist
Warner Williams, Piedmont blues songster
Yuri Yunakov, Bulgarian saxophonist

Hail to all, and the Opera honorees, too.

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More on Scott-Heron -- artist in the American tradition

2011-05-29T19:18:49Z

I turned to the recordings of Gil Scott-Heron after writing that he should have and did known better than to abuse drugs as he did, leading to his decline and demise. They make me ever more impressed with his scope and intensity, in both long ago and recent work. His 2010 recording "Me and the Devil" fully justifies the black and white zombie pulp of the video by Coodie and Chike that accompanies it. It's a horror song of a burned out, psychotic soul, a new link in an American tradition running from Edgar Allan Poe through Robert Johnson and Howlin' Wolf to Jim Thompson, George Romero and Martin Scorsese.

]]> Scott-Heron's reading of "Where Did the Night Go" is utterly convincing, abrim with a junkie's rueful but self-justifying, fatalistic bewilderment. The singer-songwriter knows exactly what he's done to himself: "I did not become someone different/That I did not want to be" is how he the opens his final album, I'm New Here. More's the pity. He represents a vision as bleak as any in Burroughs, Jerzy Kosinksi, Cormac McCarthy, but from the streets of Harlem and by extension the south side of Chicago, Detroit, Watts, New Orleans, post-industrial America. It's as if Johnny Cash had bottomed out on Skid Row, or Elvis had gone to seed as a tweaker in a trailer camp, but blacker in every sense of the word.

Revisiting Scott-Heron's message proves he was more unflinching and highly charged than Marvin Gaye in "What's Going On?", the Temptations circa "Ball of Confusion," Curtis Mayfield in "Freddie's Dead," and the few other '70s musicians who dared to sing of the devastation of black urban working-class America. Most other black artists (one exception: Nina Simone) seemed then to romanticize conditions that social scientists and politicians such as Daniel Patrick Moynihan construed as social problems (i.e. "Papa Was a Rolling Stone," Diana Ross and the Supreme's "Love Child").

Neither Stevie Wonder nor James Brown sang of hopelessness like Gil Scott-Heron (maybe Ray Charles did). Not Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, the Clash, Springsteen or anyone else, any race, sang about the inner city in that rough, tough '70s hangover to the '60s cultural revolution, the Viet Nam defeat, Nixon's betrayal of democracy. In retrospect, one can see Scott-Heron was born of backwood blues and grim folk ballads which he married to ironically groovin' smooth jazz. His is an ultra-American troubadorism, with precedents in Simone, Oscar Brown Jr., Wilson Pickett and arguably Jimi Hendrix (what bold, bad, self-absorbed cool even when confessing to confusion).

GS-H had more than one incisive hit: "The Bottle." "Angle Dust" (refrain: "Down some dead end streets there ain't no turning back," while girls coo the title), "Winter in America" (there's some trenchant social analysis), "Johannesburg" (a virtual call-to-arms). Hear Esther Phillips sing his "Home Is Were the Hatred Is." How can such terrible stories be the stuff of great songs? Was "Strange Fruit" among Scott-Heron's touchstones? How about "Hellhounds On My Trail"?

For all the immediacy of his imagery and obvious empathy with his subjects, Scott-Heron uttered his snapshot lyrics in an ice-dry growl, seldom full-throated, sarcasm at the ready, vulnerability to flash for charm, like in his "I'm New Here" performance. Not to come down on the poet for his frailties without appreciating his gifts and acknowledging his complexities: At his end Gil Scott-Heron speaks for the American faith in the possibilities of redemption and reclamation: "You can always turn around . . .and come full circle," he says so touchingly in "I'm New Here." Maybe he had to go to hell to report back and issue urgent warnings. Those fires have their lures. Rest in peace, man. Thanks for the life, the fearlessness you embodied, and finally your unique honesty. You gave us lots to contemplate, though we shudder at the thought.

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Gil Scott-Heron, hard-eyed realist, dead of self-inflicted escapism

2011-05-29T12:41:47Z

Gil Scott-Heron, dead at age 62, was a poet, prophet and spokesperson of the black urban American experience. A merciless and unsentimental truth-teller when he emerged on the scene in the '70s, by telling Afro-identified kids dancing to Motown and grooving on psychedelic rock that "the revolution will not be televised" he meant that the real revolution in Civil Rights and human conduct was not a show, that those who wanted to make it happen or enjoy its results had to liberate themselves from sitting on the couch zoning out, that there was dirty work ahead.

I heard him in 1970 at Colgate University on a bill with the Last Poets -- one reason why the rise of poetry slams and rap didn't seem like anything new to me when they came along a decade later. I didn't listen to him much, but I heard and mostly respected what he had to say -- and anyway, Scott-Heron's message wasn't aimed at me. I admire that he reached his target audience, without compromising his vision.

]]> Scott-Heron, rather like Miles Davis in On The Corner, predicated the blaxploitation film esthetic, hardcore funk of the later '70s and ghetto lit (pace the great Chester Himes and lesser if more popular Iceberg Slim). He inspired rappers to look at the gangsterism and other real-life extremism around them, and to relate the unforgiving experiences of a still-with-us underclass to a critical, political point of view.

It's surprising to read in his obituaries about Scott-Heron had a relatively privileged (but probably no less conflicted) personal background -- but on second thought not so surprising, because only the well-read will think that words, whether poetry or prose, can change the world. Unfortunately his identification with tell-it-like-it-is analysis and gritty street life became so unrelenting he succumbed to its self-destructive escape routes, specifically the addictive crack pipe.

As big city America recovered from its '70s economic scrabble, Americans "of color" did find ways to move in greater numbers into the middleclass mainstream society, and rap turned into advertisements for bling and corporate king-making. Scott-Heron stood outside that, marginalized as a Ezekial-on-the-mean-streets. A dissenter, he scorned the complacency of the multitude. But he could not survive the ravages that have eaten away the core of old school oppositional American culture. He was no self-healing Oprah or bridge-building Obama. So he basically killed himself ~~after rendering his poetic voice irrelevant, unable to adapt, drowned in illusory sensation.~~ I've had second thoughts about this. See next post.)

Compare him to Amiri Baraka, the staunch anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, anti-racist who's managed to reap grants, prizes and honors, or the Last Poets themselves, who keep the faith as veterans of genuine and oh-so-rhythmic cutting edge black American perspectives.

Gil Scott Heron was a man who made an incontrovertible choice to cast a cold, clear eye on society, and for that he should be listened to, remembered. That he couldn't see or wouldn't do anything about his own self-imposed afflictions is rather tragic. The story of a grim realist who takes refuge personal failings rather than facing up to them seems like a subject the poet, prophet and spokesperson Gil Scott-Heron would have grasped and railed on at first glance.

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Celebrating jazz excellence -- Awards, honors and privileges

2011-05-23T17:00:52Z

The NEA zeroes out its Jazz Masters program, the Grammys cuts categories so pop best-sellers regain prominence vis a vis less obviously commercial stars, but the Jazz Journalists Association's 15th annual Jazz Awards -- to be held June 11, 2011 with an afternoon gala with all star music at City Winery, NYC, satellite parties hosted by prominent fans and grass roots organizations around the U.S. and streaming live video on the web at www.JJAJazzAwards.org -- hails loud and clear the achievements of the jazz music and media makers. (See that website for a list of all the nominees).

Pianist Randy Weston, trumpeter Wallace Roney's Sextet, soprano sax/flutist Jane Bunnett with pianist Hilario Duran, and the Hammer Klavier Trio from Hamburg will play up a storm at the gala to further demonstrate the power and beauty of what we're talking about. This photo of orchestra leader Maria Schneider the year she won four Jazz Awards shows what such honors can mean to a musician.

]]>

I've produced the JJA Jazz Awards under the auspices of the Jazz Journalists Association for 15 years as a labor of love and, I believe, necessity, since better-funded, larger and more quasi-"official" jazz lobbying entities such as the Jazz Alliance International, the International Association for Jazz Education, etc., have disappeared. Down Beat, JazzTimes, the Village Voice and other periodicals or groups in the U.S. have polls and honors about the best musicians and music, but no publication or platform other than the JJA (of which I'm also president) holds a public event, brings together musicians, presenters and journalists from the spectrum of jazz activities -- and this year (again) streams it live, free, for the world to see and hear on www.JJAJazzAwards, where you can also buy tickets to be at the event. Which is a fundraiser, by the way, for the JJA's ongoing education and audience outreach efforts. Food will be served, Brother Thelonious Ale and Celebrity Jazz cognac will flow and jazz celebrities will be there, maybe to take home a statuette.

If you can't make it in person, please make a donation (also at www.JJAJazzAwards.org), because it costs $s to honor our heroes. Speaking of such, the JJA has designated a baker's dozen Jazz Heroes this year who represent the extramusical activism that goes into making the jazz world spin. They are:

Omrao Brown, curating co-owner of Bohemian Caverns, Washington, D.C.
Peggy Cooper Cafritz, educational and cultural warrior who co-founded Washington's Duke Ellington School of the Arts
John Gilbreath, director of Earshot Jazz (Seattle) and busy radio show host
Lori Mechem and Roger Spencer, pianist and bassist, respectively but also educators who have founded and for ten years nurtured the Nashville Jazz Workshop
Don Z. Miller, festival impresario and supporter of live jazz in Arizona
Dr. Maitreya Padukone, dentist for musicians sent by the Jazz Foundation of America, and an accomplished tabla player
Mike Reed, Chicago drummer and presenter across genres, vice-chair of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM)
Ed Reed, Bay Area singer and substance abuse counselor
Elynor Walcott and her sons Paul, Frank and Lloyd Poindexter, sustainers of Wally's Café Jazz Club in Boston

These folks and all the nominees (more than 200) in 39 categories of Awards for excellence as well as, of course, the winners of the Awards, are why Jazz Awards are worth giving. In Berkeley, Boston, Nashville, Portland, Seattle, Telluride, Tallahassee and Washington D.C. local people think it's fun enough to have satellite parties the way we used to gather to watch the Academy Awards, the way people go to sports bars for big games -- to watch, schmooze, debate the event and maybe tweet about it.

Last year the JJA received tweets from the world over in real time; this year MC Josh Jackson (producer of WBGO-FM's "The Checkout") will try to read those notes from our stage, for greater interaction. Because that's one of the main things jazz is about: connection and collaboration, collective creativity, communication of the highest order. Come June 11, the JJA is having a party at City Winery, celebrating all that and more. Reserve your tickets, be with us in New York or watch us on the web with your jazziest friends or even alone, if you find yourself that way. But know that if you love jazz, there's a large population all over the globe that feels the same. Join in! Contribute! It's a privilege of those who dig this music. Play it, sing and swing, pick out a jazz hero and express your thanks, pleasure, appreciation -- maybe in the form of a Jazz Award.

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South African jazz hero Zim Nqgawana dies, age 52

2011-05-11T15:49:31Z

Neil Tesser has written an informative post about Zim Ngqawana, the South African jazz musician who died at age 52 of a stroke May 10. Ngqawana, whose name is pronounced with a glottal "click" between the "N" and first "a," performed at the 2007 Columbia/Harlem Festival of Global Jazz," curated by George E. Lewis of Columbia University's Center for Jazz Studies, Nqgawana, with his quartet, in that concert struck me as a powerful and original saxophonist and flutist, improvising with a heightened lyricism no doubt inspired by John Coltrane's late period sound, but standing on its own. (photo by Dragan Tasic).

His music that night (and on Zimology, his one album I've heard) had little overt reference to the South Africa of, say, Paul Simon's Graceland; rather, it was stately (at times as deep as that of sombre pianist Abdullah Ibrahim) and dynamic like the best of trumpeter Hugh Masekela -- with whom Nqgawana had worked -- but with no pop or commercial aspirations. The Mail and Guardian Online headlines Nqgawana as a "genius," which is a tricky term, but I have admired and can recommend his music, and be sorry that he'll play no more. (PS and full disclosure: The Columbia/Harlem Fest also hosted the first and so far only convention of international jazz journalists in the U.S." "Jazz in the Global Imagination," co-produced by the Jazz Journalists Association, of which I'm pres. . .)

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CityArts New York June jazz fests bustin' out-all-over supplement

2011-05-05T19:44:48Z

CityArts New York let me play jazz supplement editor. Read my lead feature on upcoming in June the NYC Blue Note Jazz Festival, UnDead Festival, gigs everywhere and more respect!

Also Kurt Gottschalk on the Vision Festival's backstory, David Adler on three successful, smart, younger jazzers, snapshots of Brazilian drummer Adriano Santos, Korean singer (of Portuguese Yeahwon Shin and soul-tinged singer songwriter Laura Cheadle by Ernest Barteldes, and the big band w/classical Asian instruments Project Hansori led by Jeff Fairbanks, by Emilie Pons.

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Steve Reich @ Carnegie Hall @ 75, with devotees

2011-05-01T03:13:45Z

Composer Steve Reich, age 75, knows secrets of correlating pulsating rhythms and interlocking layers of sycopated melodic patterns which he's eager to reveal in every work he writes. His musical signature is so unwavering it might veer into self-parody, but for the vigor and commitment of his performers. At Carnegie Hall last night four energized new music ensembles poured enthusiasm, precision and a sense of discovery into four recent Reich pieces, making their Master's overlays, cycles and cells variously delightful, ominous, rockin', tense, melodramatic and exotic. Reich writes music that's both reassuring and subversive, and his 75th birthday concert at Carnegie Hall provided both in delicate yet confident balance.

Reich's music is distinctive, certainly, unlike that of any of the other composers around his age he's been linked to for their common use of repetition, or seeming repetition,and consonant harmonies (as opposed to that old atonal or 12-tone stuff). Mallet Quartet (2008) played by So Percussion, WTC 9/11 (a commissioned debut) by Kronos Quartet, 2x5 performed by Bang on a Can Allstars and Friends and Double Sextet with eighth blackbird joining the Allstars may not be Reich's deepest or most ambitious pieces, but they provide pleasures, live in the moment and make the moment live -- not easy things however smoothly the music goes down, and what we hope for from all music, though in contemporary composition we (the editorial "we") are often disappointed.

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Throughout Mallet Quartet, 2x5 and Double Sextet the lengthening of Reich's tuneful lines over his characteristic churning backgrounds suggested the composer's relaxed virtuosity with his favorite materials. In the first piece, he used marimbas as richly woody bass beds upon which bell-like vibes could ring in fugue, or something like it; in the second, he made a centerpiece of electric guitars and basses and traps kits pounded in tight, dry figures, and in the third mixed woodwinds, strings and pianos (two of them) to create an internationalist array of reference points (accordion a la Piazolla, Bud Powell's "Parisian Thoroughfare," tv soap-opera cues, North African/Mediterranean motifs).

Despite superficial resemblance of Reich's pieces, they contain considerable differentiation; though they proceed like clockwork, they now incorporate dramatic moduations, "breaks" during which several instruments withdraw while those remaining restart the works' motors, parts that have the rigor of Japanese court music and in Double Sextet a langorous section which delves into Middle Eastern melisma. So Percussion played their mallet instruments like jugglers having fun by keeping bouncing balls in the air. The Allstars' guitar army, evidently led by Mark Stewart, was more twangy, less pretentious and more concise than similar formations posed by Glenn Branca, say, or Sonic Youth or La Monte Young. The Allstars and eighth blackbird excelled at giving each Reichian swipe of chord or cluster a gripping attitude, as if hitting the notes were nothing much, but hitting them just so meant the world. And phrasing together, the world was theirs.

In WTC 9/11, Kronos' strings also brought out the terseness and gripping intensity of Reich's writing, though they were rendered somewhat secondary to bits of the recorded speech of witnesses to the terrorism rained on downtown New York ten years ago. The combination evinced an Old Testament cold rage I remember Reich summoning even more chillingly in Different Trains, his depiction (performed and recorded by Kronos) of Nazi's transferring Jews to concentration camps.

Though this was the premiere of WTC 9/11, it seemed more dated than the program's others pieces. We have not forgotten the decade-old attack, but have heard many compositions in response to it, and though the trick of apparently triggering samples by bowing cello and violin (MIDI-something? -- or just adroit timing with pre-recorded tape?) was well-worked, much of the things people said were garbled, and anyway, familiar. The words might have been intended as poetic -- they were published in the concert's playbill, so presumably the audience could read along, and included bits of Psalm 121:8 and the Wayfarer's Prayer from Exodus. I was not drawn to do so. During the piece, Kronos violinists David Harrington and John Sherba and violist Hank Dutt intersected in moments as though they were indulging in a side chat, but the tone was unmistakably stark, and WTC 9/11 came to an apocalyptically abrupt end.

Reich has always credited his study of Ghanian drumming for his rhythms, has long had an ear on jazz and its greatest soloists, and on the basis of 2x5 seems aware of the Grateful Dead, too (however, in program notes he declared this was not "pop music" as it relies on musical notation and "performers who have a thorough understanding of the classical idiom as well as rock"). Regardless of acknowledging his wide-ranging influences -- or rather, references -- Reich completely subordinates them in his works, absorbing, processing and polishing his ideas, wherever they come from, into music that only he can create. Essences from the greater world are distilled into subtle scents, applied to the fundamental aspect of his art: a throbbing, expansive unfolding of interconnections, signifying coherence even while providing for individuality of gesture amid the flux. While Reich's music is being played, it fills its performance space and duration with sound the way a tapestry interweaves threads into a coherent spread. His music seems to perk with detailed physicality, and encourages listening through its surface for the telling gestures just beneath that level, which are coordinated to construct it. The individual does not stand out in this plan, but is essential to the plan and keeps it from being static. Steve Reich's music is kaleidoscopic, but all the fragments of melody are united by intricate interplay. Nothing is as simple as it appears at first exposure, and in his most affecting works (of what I've heard, Tehillim, The Desert Music, and Music for 18 Musicians) parts together produce infinite depths of warp and woof. Listening to Reich's music takes me out of myself and within, simultaneously. That perspective is illuminating, and a great gift. Here's Reich playing a relentless piano part at the end of Music for 18 Musicians, which only suggests the complexity one hears when present with, and so within, the music as it actually happens.

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Creative Music Studio, Woodstock at Columbia U and East Village

2011-04-21T22:03:25Z

My CityArts - New York column is about the Creative Music Symposium, organized by Karl Berger, pianist/vibist with his wife Ingrid Sertso, who cofounded with free-thinking Ornette Coleman of the Creative Music Studio in Woodstock NY (1972-1984). The symposium at Columbia University's Center for Jazz Studies (directed by trombonist and digital music innovator George E. Lewis, once a CMS student/participant) last weekend dipped into the history and practices of the CMS, a paradise where cross-genre visionary improvisers (Don Cherry, Anthony Braxton, Cecil Taylor, Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette, et al), composer/interpreters (Pauline Oliveros, Frederic Rzewski) and "world music" fusionists (Olatunji, Nana Vasconcelos) taught through oral transmission in an immersion setting.

Back in the day I wished I was musician enough to attend the Woodstock sessions, and as a budding writer was frustrated there was nowhere comparable to go -- so moderating a symposium panel felt like I got to CMS at last.

]]> the Stone, every Monday night for three months. If it's a success, the ensemble could be ongoing. Every 7:30 there will be an open rehearsal, followed at 9:30 by a performance of the work rehearsed -- all for one low $10 admission.

Here's hoping the new project takes hold -- as the initiative to digitize and archive CMS recordings seems to have, with Columbia U's libraries accepting some 400 boxes of quarter-inch tape and related ephemera, and non-profit Innova Records agreed to release compilation CDs of CMS music starting next fall. There are more than enough brilliant musicians in the five boroughs to fill up five such CMS orchestras, and the study of the fundamental rhythmic exercise "GamalaTiKa," the overtone series and harmonics offers a young player more direct connection to the "playing" aspect of music than does learning to read scores.

This is the kind of pedagogy that could take root all over, encouraging spontaneous, personalized music wherever it reaches. That's what happened last time, as the generation of CMS participants who emerged included percussionist Adam Rudolph, pianist Marilyn Crispell, tambin flutist Sylvan Leroux, bansuri flutist Steve Gorn, alto saxist Dan Davis, guitarist James Emery -- all of whom were at the symposium -- trumpeter Steven Bernstein, multi-instrumentalist Peter Apfelbaum and many others. More good music, mixing tradition and creativity, all the time!

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Vionlinist Billy Bang on being a "tunnel rat" in Viet Nam

2011-04-12T15:14:14Z

Violinist Billy Bang, died at age 63 on April 11 of cancer, was a composer of enduring, affecting music based on his military service in Viet Nam. Prayer for Peace, Vietnam: Reflections and Vietnam: The Aftermath deal directly, bravely and beautifully with Bang's thoughts and feelings about having been a tunnel rat -- a small soldier dropped into darkness to sniff out what, or who, was a danger underground. Go to my NPR interview with Billy and click "listen."

]]> I was pleased to get to know Billy when writing liner notes for Aftermath and Prayer, as well as Outline #12, an early experiment with conduction by Billy's friend and fellow Viet vet Butch Morris. When Billy was a kid, he'd tap-danced for spare change on New York City's subways, and that's how an image I savor of him: light on his toes, deft working a crowd.

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