Rehearsing The Blues

"A Man Of Many Dimensions": Interview With Robert Glasper

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.

Everybody Loves Raymond (But They Shouldn't) (Op-Ed)

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.

Roundup #8: What I Missed In 2011

Ari Hoenig, Lines Of Oppression

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.

All Around The Town

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!

And Heaven Too (Help Wanted!)

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!

2011, Part 3: A Few Things I Wrote About (Or Didn't), And Why

^ We're all hoping this doesn't happen this year.

I think this is my best writing of 2011: James Lincoln Collier on Ellington, MP3s, Jazz Is Dead, Christian McBride's duets, Jazz fame, and Wynton, Wynton, Wynton.

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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 Jazz Internet 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.

Mellifluous Cacophonies (RIP Sam Rivers)

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.

2011, Part 2: The Last CD Roundup of the Year (Roundup #7)

Bill McHenry, Ghosts Of The Sun (Sunnyside)

I'll admit that I don't buy every album that ends up in my library, but I can proudly say that I paid every penny of the price for Ghosts Of The Sun, and I did it with tears in my eyes. The disc was released on the day that its drummer, the legendary, late Paul Motian, died. It is a testament to Motian's skill and McHenry's that the loss of a key player does not, weeks on, overshadow the music: Motian's skill, even through the sorrow and memorials that followed his death, remains as restrained and music (not ego) -oriented as it ever was, and McHenry's tunes are felt strongly enough by the band (filled out by Ben Monder and Reid Anderson) that they stand on feet of stone. Like this band's previous recording, Roses, to highlight any one track over another would do a disservice to a seamlessly planned and flawlessly executed whole, so I will merely say: Get this record. And pay for it!

Common, The Dreamer, The Believer (Warner Bros.)

Common's last album, Universal Mind Control, was a Pharrell-produced, hip hop-light carbon copy of Kanye West's 808s & Heartbreak. It was a disappointing album for many reasons - most of all because it cast doubt on whether Common could continue as a strong rapper without an equally strong force behind him (collaborator and friend J Dilla died just after completing a track, one of his last, to Common's Forever Begins, released in 2007). However, Common has regained my trust by going back to 1994's Resurrection, still the strongest record in his now deacde-long discography, and hiring producer No I.D. to produce all of this new record. And despite a controversy over the use of the word "nigger" in verses on the track featuring poet Maya Angelou, Common's rapping is as strong as No I.D.'s production. "So Sweet" is reminiscent of the best moments of Kanye's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, "Gold" hits that medium-tempo Common sweet spot, and "Windows" shows the rapper's thoughtful side, as well as incorpoating more "trendy" hip hop sounds without sounding forced. Neither stuck in the past or overextended into the future, this is a welcome second coming for the rap resurrector.

2011, Part 1: What I Listened To

You may have already read the "Top Ten" list I published a few weeks ago here on RTB. If you didn't, or if you want to read it again, don't bother looking - it's gone.

Thinking about my picks (which I was dissatisfied with even as I hit "publish"), I came to the conclusion that a Top Ten list is too narrow a field. A good jazz critic listens to all kinds of music over the course of a year, and every time he hits "play" on his iPod is just as important as every other time, whether it's a new release he's hearing for the first time or an old favorite from Miles, Coltrane or Monk.

So this is my "What I Listened To" list, comprising all the albums, new or old, jazz or not, that really stayed with me over the course of the year. One criterion was that it changed the course of my listening in a major way or was listened to more than other albums. This excludes most of the CDs I actually reviewed this year- so if you want to know what I think of all the 2011 CDs people are writing about on the jazz blogosphere around this time that aren't on this list, check out this, this, this, this, this, or this. Another Roundup (#7) is about to be published.

All finished? Okay.

Benny Carter, Additions To Further Definitions (1966)

Billie Holiday, All Or Nothing At All (1957)

Stan Getz, At The Shrine (1955)

Charles Mingus, At UCLA (1965)

An English Professor's Son Reads Nicholas Payton

NOTE: Although I do take issue with some of Payton's definitions here, this is not meant to reflect on the validity or non-validity of any other statements Mr. Payton has made. A typo does not a liar make!

Great! Nicholas Payton! Love that guy!

But seriously, Nicholas Payton has written another manifesto on his blog. I'm sure it will be extensively covered in the jazz community here in this small, cozy world of the Internet, and I really don't care enough to go into it more myself. I've said my piece on the actual issues, and you can read that here. But I don't want to be left behind as Payton, jazz trending topic of the year, makes more news. I might lose blog hits, and we all know how important those are! So, to stay current but retain my sanity, I'm tackling the one thing that really, really bothers me about Payton: the guy doesn't bother to use freakin' spell check on his manifestos. Here goes:

1. "Can NOT" is technically correct (although the use of capital letters could be seen as melodramatic, and even be confused with an acronym, since Payton often uses BAM, another three-letter capitalized word). However, Payton uses "cannot" later in the post. I would suggest using one or the other. "Cannot" would probably be better, since it's easier to read and is more common. 

2. "Prejudice" should be "prejudiced." The way he has it now, Payton is saying that African-Americans can literally be prejudice, which is like saying that someone can be hunger or be microwave oven. That's pretty easily fixed, though.

3. In "President of The United States," the word "the" shouldn't be capitalized. Words such as "at," "and," "of," or "the" are usually left lowercase, because they aren't the main words of the title being written.

4. "Black." I have no problems with Payton capitalizing the word "Black" - it's a commonly accepted convention - but he should keep it consistent, as later on in the article he writes "black." Since the uppercase version appears most often, he should stick with this. 

5. "To that I say" is a bit archaic, but if Payton wants that grandiose effect, that's an aesthetic choice to be respected. However, the phrase is more commonly followed by a colon, not a comma. This helps the reader make sense of what is being said, and helps the overall flow of the words. It's a small detail, but an important one.