First, there is the innovator/creator. This artist makes what is personal to him or her, whatever it is. At the end of last year, I argued that Terell Stafford's traditional-sounding Billy Strayhorn tribute fit this description, even though it isn't on the "cutting edge" of jazz. Vijay Iyer, who certainly is on the front line of innovation, also fits the bill.
Second, there is the follower. From Marcin Wasilewski playing like Keith Jarrett to BBNG riding along on Robert Glasper coattails (and dissing him in the process), there are tons of followers out there: cats who can't quite make music from the heart, so they just copy the heart of someone else. This is regreattable, but it's also worth noting that these people often do their copying very well, and in so doing, they often demonstrate something deeper about themselves, making it all kind of worth it.
Third, there is the musical narcissist. He's kind of like the follower, except without the redeeming qualities of good execution and that small glimpse under the surface. He follows, but he doesn't realize, or doesn't want to realize, he's following - he thinks he's innovating just as hard as the creator. His music is interesting merely as an artifact to reflect on later: "Wow, a lot of people jumped on So-And-So's bandwagon back in 1995," or whatever. If Art Tatum was the creator, then Oscar Peterson was the follower, and Benny Green is the musical narcissist.
From "Nicholas Payton Is Chillin' On Our Nutz: How One Musician Misrepresented the Facts and Bullied the Jazz Narrative Off Course," my last feature-length piece of jazz writing before I leave the jazz community more or less completely for several years:
Payton and his most vocal adherents are making much the same argument for jazz. "Some aim to nix jazz for perceived racist connotations; [Gary] Bartz is most strident on this point, comparing jazz to a plantation system with 'house' and 'field' musicians," writes Shaun Brady in the Philadelphia City Paper. [16] "Whites created the title [‘jazz’] anyway," writes saxophonist Marcus Strickland in arguing for Black American Music. [17] Because, Payton argues, “jazz” is "a label that was forced upon the musicians," [18] much like slave names, then it should be cast off and replaced. Malcolm X. Jazz X. "It’s the colonialist mentality that glorifies being treated like a slave," Payton writes on his blog, The Cherub Speaks. [19] "Go on, continue to box yourself in a label that was designed to marginalize [b]lack musicians and cut them off from their brilliance." [20]
Payton and his most vocal adherents are making much the same argument for jazz. "Some aim to nix jazz for perceived racist connotations; [Gary] Bartz is most strident on this point, comparing jazz to a plantation system with 'house' and 'field' musicians," writes Shaun Brady in the Philadelphia City Paper. [16] "Whites created the title [‘jazz’] anyway," writes saxophonist Marcus Strickland in arguing for Black American Music. [17] Because, Payton argues, “jazz” is "a label that was forced upon the musicians," [18] much like slave names, then it should be cast off and replaced. Malcolm X. Jazz X. "It’s the colonialist mentality that glorifies being treated like a slave," Payton writes on his blog, The Cherub Speaks. [19] "Go on, continue to box yourself in a label that was designed to marginalize [b]lack musicians and cut them off from their brilliance." [20]
As we have seen, however, the origins of the word “jazz” as "a label that was designed to marginalize" African-American musicians and their work are far from certain, and may be completely false, a jazz urban myth. And the above-quoted passages from some of the most creative and heritage-minded musicians in jazz show that not all, or even most, musicians would agree they're being "boxed in" by the word; or, if they are, it may not be because it's a racist, colonialist or oppressive word, but merely an outdated or too narrowly defined one.
So, the question is: Do we need to Malcolm X jazz? Does changing the name of the genre have the same symbolic power that it had, for instance, when Duke Ellington told Fletcher Henderson he wanted jazz to be called "Negro music"?
Check out the entire piece here, and feel free to leave any comments you have, or email me at jon.wertheim@gmail.com.
To be "jazz," music must carry on the core values of jazz music. It can't just talk the talk, it has to walk the walk as well. I'm all for expanding musical boundaries, but at a certain point a genre is a genre, if only for convenience, and while I found Robert Glasper's Black Radio enjoyable (Esperanza Spalding's Radio Music Society seemed like a lot of bulls**t), I just had to label it "hip hop" in my iTunes. If something looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and talks like a duck, you can't call it jazz. You have to call it a duck.
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I don't know if i agree with those who say that the only reason Glasper and Esperanza are making this music is to make more money. I think that they sincerely believe in their music as music. But I also think there's some confusion in the jazz world right now about what can and can't be done with a genre. In fact, this confusion was well described by Glasper in my interview with him for Nextbop:
Too many genres fit under Black American Music. There are too many genres that don't have a problem fit under that name. R&B... Shit! Pop, rock, blues... (Laughs) You know, hip-hop... They all fit under Black American Music, but now if you just call it that, it doesn't even have a name under that umbrella, so it makes it more ambiguous, like "Where is it? What is it? Huh?" We're having a hard enough time with a name. And trying to change the name now, I personally don't think is going to make anybody like the music any better. I think we should just change the music. Maybe change the music and then change the name of your music. If you're coming up with something kind of new, maybe call it something - you know, call that something else.
Genres, contrary to popular opinion, aren't racist or even all that constricting. If you feel constricted by jazz, don't make it any more! It worked for Herbie Hancock and Miles, who certainly didn't pretend they were making jazz when they were releasing their funk/pop records!
Note: I conducted this interview for Nextbop, and you should check it out there if you have the time. I wrote a nice little introduction and everything, so it's totally worth it, Click here. Click it. Here.
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Nextbop: Thank you very much for doing this. I know you must have a busy schedule.
Robert Glasper: No problem.
NB: Well, let's just get into it. First question is, what was your mission making Black Radio? What did you want the music community to know when they saw this record in the music store and listened to it for the first time?
RG: That I'm a man of many dimensions, and many sides. Now I'm just exploring my more hip-hop/soul side, but still jazz-infused. So really this is like a good collaboration album of hip-hop, soul, jazz... You know. I think I'm the first one to actually do it right.
Note: This piece, more of an op-ed than anything else, was originally written for Nextbop.com, but the folks there decided not to publish it. I'm proud to say I write for Nextbop, and am grateful to Sebastien Helary and Anthony Dean-Harris for giving me the opportunity. But certain aspects of Nextbop's editorial policy, such as not criticizing but also not seemingly saying no to the average or mediocre can get on my nerves. I'm a believer in assessing things based on their worth, not their aspirations (or my own), and that's how I wrote this piece.
Anthony asked me to review this album, and it seemed to me to exemplify that point, and a larger point about this newest generation of jazz musicians. John Raymond, if you're reading this, keep on truckin'. Don't give up, man. The rest of you, read on.
Ari Hoenig's latest record, a quartet effort with rising stars Tigran Hamasyan and Gilad Hekselman prominently featured, is exactly what one expects from the agile and complexity-minded drummer. That isn't to say it's boring or dull; it just isn't all that surprising, either. Hekselman sounds a little less like Kurt Rosenwinkel, but not much, and the inventive Hamasyan doesn't have many opportunities to expand into the pianistic regions we all know he should be able to reach. An effect that has seemed awkward in the past, Hoenig's Blakey-like manipulation of the pitch of his drums to play melodies, has here been turned into what is unquestionably Lines Of Oppression's set piece: a hard-swinging, soulful rendition of the Benny Golson tune "Moanin'," bracketed by Hoenig's expressive drum kit.
But elsewhere, the gimmicks seem to be just that, gimmicks, without the sense of deep musicality that elevates "Moanin'". "How High The Moon" is arranged very creatively indeed, but the tune is such a chestnut that the re-arrangement seems to be more out of obligation than a real musical necessity, and when the melody ends up obscured behind tempo and meter changes, it brings up the question of why they bothered with the tune at all (for contrast, check out Aaron Goldberg and Guillermo Klein's Bienestan, where standards were arranged similarly, but with more respect for the sound of the material). Worth buying for "Moanin'" alone, but with that said, don't come crying to me when the rest of the disc disappoints.
I review Portico Quartet's new, self-titled album to officially inaugurate Nextbop's CD review series, For Your Consideration. Read the review here.
As you may or may not know, Rehearsing The Blues will be taking a vacation, starting in May, when I leave for Army basic training at Fort Benning, GA. I wrote about my enlistment at the New York Times' At War blog, and you can read the article here.
I've got some RTB content in the pipeline, don't worry. I'll be starting with some CDs I missed in 2011, including discs from Air Hoenig, Tigran Hamasyan and Allen Lowe. Stay tuned!
UPDATE: Thanks to Mark Stryker of the Detroit Free Press, who writes via email:
Interesting question. In Thomas Owens' "Bebop" (Oxford) he brings up the quote in the context of a discussion of John Coltrane, calling it one of Trane's favorite quotes and noting that it "became one of the most commonly used quotations in bebop" (p. 89). There is a footnote associated with this passage in which he says, "Dexter Gordon, Miles Davis and others used the same quotation in the early 1950s. I thank Jimmy Rowles for remembering this 1940 Jimmy van Heusen tune." It would certainly be interesting to nail down the first usage on record. Since Bird is responsible for so many similar pop and classical quotes being absorbed into common practice material during the bebop era ("High Society," "Petrushka," the Habanera from "Carmen," etc.) I wonder if he ultimately might have been responsible, but I can't think of any recording where he plays it. Maybe he only played it a few times on a gig and Miles copped it ... Hmm, maybe this is one that didn't come from Bird. Both Dexter and Miles were Sinatra fans, so maybe one of them picked it up first.
As to why it became so ubiquitous, I think it has something to do with how simple (diatonic), ear-wormy and flexible it is. As commonly used over a ii/V progression, it outlines the first four notes of the dominant 7 scale (F to B-flat over C minor/F7). You could also play it over the tonic chord in the same key (B-flat), and you could also use it over an F major chord. Just one of those things that lays well for everyone, comes to mind easily and works well in difficult keys too since it's just a major scale pattern. (Lower the third and more possibilities open up too.)
One interesting thing about "All This and Heaven Too" is that most people who play this lick, especially today since you see it presented at face value in bebop method books absent any reference to the original source, probably have no idea that it's a quote from an old pop tune. The same is probably true of that lick from "Would You Like to Swing on a Star" that Wardell Gray plays on "Twisted" -- the top of his second chorus where Annie Ross' subsequent lyric became: "Well I heard little children were supposed to sleep tight."
On a related note, While "All This and Heaven Too" is certainly an obscure tune today, I'm not so sure the description fits back in the 1940s and early '50s. Everything Sinatra recorded with Dorsey had currency, even if didn't become a hit. This song was not a chart-topper by any stretch, and without doing research I can't say how many others did recordings. But it does show up for discussion in the Van Heusen section of Alec Wilder's "The American Popular Song" in which Wilder notes that it was a "promotional song" for the Bette Davis film of the same name -- it doesn't appear to actually be in the film, however.
It's not in the film - for some reason. Thanks, Mark, that's pretty comprehensive. If anyone else has anything to add, see below for how to get it to me.
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Check out the 1:47 mark in this video of Sonny Rollins playing "Weaver Of Dreams" in 1959:
That line you hear is a quote from "All This And Heaven Too," an obscure tune recorded by the Tommy Dorsey band in the 1940's, sung by Frank Sinatra:
I've heard that same quote Rollins plays in 1959 on jazz recordings from 1954 to 1969, by artists ranging fro Clifford Brown, Clifford Jordan, Bobby Timmons, and Hank Mobley to Rahsaan Roland Kirk, John Coltrane and Freddie Hubbard. Jackie McLean plays it the most - I've found seven instances. Why? I have no clue.
If you have any idea why so many people quoted this obscure tune, or if you know any jazz versions of the tune (other than Bud Shank's from 1954) from the 1950s or 1960s, comment here or email me at jon.wertheim@gmail.com. Any info will be greatly appreciated!
I started one series recently that, for several reasons, never got off the ground. The first, and so far only, installment can be found here. This will be continued in 2012, as will the West Coast series I floated but never realized in print. Two JazzInternet interviews have been published, and more are on the way, one a month starting in January. Up next: Anthony Dean-Harris.
I had a good year for CD reviews, and abandoned (for the most part) full-length review pieces for my Roundup series. I did do some longer pieces this year, though, and they can be found, along with all the Roundups, here.
Rivers, don of the avant-garde, was an old R&B player in a past life, one who, unlike Ornette Coleman (who also worked that circuit as a young man) steered clear of overt bluesiness. His "Downstairs Blues Upstairs," first recorded on his Blue Note debut, Fuchsia Swing Song, in 1965, is unkistakably a blues, but is defined more by Rivers' straight-shooting, vibrato-less tone - no bent notes in sight - an aesthetic continued in Jaki Byard's spiky solo and in Tony Williams' lightfooted drum feel. This isn't a "Broadway Blues" - it's Sam Rivers.
