Rehearsing The Blues

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!

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.

(Do Jazz Critics Need To Know How To Play Jazz?)

It's been a topic on conversation in the jazz community recently. I almost got involved, but then decided not to, mainly because I hadn't yet seen this video, from an article in The Atlantic by Brian Mockenhaupt, titled "The Last Patrol":

 

A US Army patrol in Afghanistan might be just about the farthest thing from jazz and jazz critics on the planet. But Mockenhaupt is right on about those who write about medicine or courts not having to be doctors or lawyers. I don't think that critics need to be musicians to write well about jazz, or any music. But as Mockenhaupt says, it can add another dimension to that writing.

And there's my very belated two cents on that issue!

@Paynic

Maybe it's just a trumpeter thing. (above: Wynton Marsalis) 

UPDATE: Payton shows us what's really important to him: his ego, and his place at the top of some kind of authenticity hierarchy. Click here for pure bullsh*t. I hate to be publicizing this crap but someone has to be out there defending Strickland, and basic intelligence, against this stupidity and worthless bravado. Just a sampling:

When have those of you who know me, ever seen me do anything but try to support this music? Who in here knows more about the history of this music than me?  Who here is qualified to go toe-to-toe with me musically or otherwise on this subject? Any takers? I’ll answer. Not one of you. Not one.

Or this:

There is no living soul who can walk on a bandstand anywhere in the world and play more horn than me. Period. Not a single one of you shit talkers. Never has there been a musician who can represent the entire scope and tradition of this music from its inception in New Orleans through Chicago, from Basie’s idiom to Charlie Parker’s , Monk’s language, Ahmad Jamal’s, Miles’ style, Trane’s, from James Brown to Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Earth, Wind and Fire, George Clinton, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, James Williams, Bobby Watson, Donald Brown, Duck, Dilla, etc., than me.

Never.

No, totally, we're all listening, Mr. Payton. Your endearing way of stating an argument has us all on your side. Oh, no, wait, we're angry at you - why could that possibly be? Oh, and by the way, "disagreeing" is different from "assassination of character." I'd get that sh*t straightened out ASAP if I were you.

David Adler is more levelheaded about all this than I am: this is recommended.

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Nicholas Payton, alone, with no help from anyone else in the world, and in face of overwhelming odds, is singlehandedly swooping down from heaven to save jaz- I mean, to save Black American Music. 

I love this cat's music. Into The Blue would be on my top 50 list of records of the last decade, if I ever decided to make such a list. But has Payton ever considered that people don't hate him, they just don't care? He's hardly the first one to reject the word "jazz," but I think Ellington said it best, and without just being an egotistic asshole about it: "Why don't we just call this Negro music?"

If Payton just started humbly practicing what he preached without donning the crown of jaz- sorry, Black American Music - gatekeeper, people might listen harder. Instead, he throws down pointless gauntlets instead of thoroughly investigating issues. I'm not saying the dude is wrong. I'm saying that the best way to win in argument is to understand and thoughtfully refute the opposing position. Payton says his piece - loudly and angrily - then gets defensive when people get offended. Give me a f***ing break. 

In Motian (RIP Paul Motian)

Paul Motian, who died today at the age of eighty, was the first jazz drummer I ever heard, on Bill Evans's Sunday At The Village Vanguard. I never tried to incorporate his style into my own as a drummer  - it was too personal, too close to his own personality and history for me to try to emulate. Now, I'm glad I chose the way I did. Hindsight would have only made me cringe at how badly I would have approximated one of drumming's greatest artists.

For several months, I've toyed with the idea if writing a piece on Motian and Roy Haynes. Two of, when I first came up with the idea, the last living drummers from the 1940s and 1950s, their styles have evolved drastically over decades of experimentation. Play a Bill Evans record and a Jakob Bro record to a young jazz fan, and I'll bet he'd be puzzled by the obvious similarities between two drummers who are seemingly as obviously different.

Motian, in the 1970s, discarded the airy lightness of the 1960s, just as he had discarded the more conventional approach he had in the 1950s. But he never lost the space in his playing. Getting rid of the soft, light touch of his work with the Bill Evans trio cut away only distractions from his musical essence - none of the essence itself. I think of Paul as a minimalist player, one who used very few notes, but this is not in fact the case. He could often be a very busy player, filling a track with myriad sounds from his drums and punching out driving, wave-like solos.

It was his individual notes, the strike of a stick or a brush on drumhead or cymbal, that were minimal. There is no baggage on a drumbeat from Paul Motian, no needless whisper of the brush bristles, no rattle from a too-loose snare. Every note was chosen carefully to fit with every other note, but also to stand alone. Few drummers, old or young, can say as much for their own playing. Paul was no minimalist - he was a detailist, and as with a great poet or a great painter (of whatever style), specificity and care in the creation of one's art can only enhance it. Paul Motian not only enhanced his own playing this way, but the playing of dozens of other musicians, on dozens of records. Thankfully, we still have these - and the ability to click "repeat," over and over and over. RIP, Paul - you will be missed.

In The Vanguard No Longer

An oddly culturally-isolated piece from Patrick Jarenwattananon at A Blog Supreme on Wynton's Vanguard recordings. That PJ can make the assertion that Marsalis is only controversial because he's been so "effective," end of story, is a gross oversimplification. Effective at making jazz business? That's not meant to be a pejorative question - like any art form, jazz needs to have good and effective PR and good and effective business deals. But Marslis proved remarkable effective at helping the business and PR of musicians who sound exactly like him, often prematurely. Was he effective at helping, even by association, the avant-arde musicians who had been struggling for years before the Marsalises hit the scene in the 1980s? Most of them would say not. I say not. For Patrick say that:

the thrust of what he's created business-wise, and the narrative around it, has deeply impacted the way jazz is presented and generally thought of in this country

with no discussion about whether he's talking about positive or negative impact is puzzling. I know, NPR and so on, but come on. This is basic stuff.

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I happen to love the Marsalis Vanguard recordings, and even wrote an article about them at my old blog. But the truth is that Marsalis isn't much of a musician, meaning that while he possesses amazing talents, he isn't, and was never, involved in the jazz scene.

("Jazz")

UPDATE: This is interesting, but a bit of an oversimplification. Glasper is right-on about the thin line between alchemy and calculation, but I think a lot of jazz musicians out there would disagree with his "hip-hop and jazz is jazz right now" pronouncement - and at least one critic (me) raises his eyebrows at that statement being so closely followed with another: "To label jazz as one thing, like 'This is jazz,' I think when people do that they don't even understand the true meaning of jazz." Anyway, take a look:

 

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The brilliant Nate Chinen in The New York Times, in re: CMJ at Le Poisson Rouge:

The keyboardist Robert Glasper name-checked and covered J Dilla during his set, as he often does, even when leading his acoustic trio. Here he was joined by a longtime vocal collaborator, Bilal, and by Derrick Hodge on electric bass, Jahi Sundance on turntables and Mark Colenburg on drums. As usual their groove was deep but diffuse, an immersive haze. And the crowd seemed hooked, though the most enthusiastic cheers came when Mr. Glasper announced the roll call of intended guests on his next album. Expected from Blue Note next year, it is to include Erykah Badu, Lupe Fiasco, Meshell Ndegeocello, Ledisi and Lalah Hathaway, among others.

Good to see someone with a clear head about Mr. Glasper.

Untitled Sermon (New York, 1968)

My first article for Nextbop.com, on song titles, is up. Check it out here. 

Song titles are a big thing for me. Too many musicians cop out on both aspects of a tune - the name and the music - by choosing a bad title. Just like a poem's, a song's title adds another dimension to what follows. To use an irrelevant or vague title misses an opportunity to have, essentially, another melody or another stanza (...the title), as well as misses the opportunity to add some complexity to what's there anyway. To have a nice, happy hard-bop tune called "Worldwide Hunger" isn't just confusing, it's like negative creativity. It could have been called something nice and happy and had just as strong an effect, and the "Hunger" title could have enhanced a haunting ballad or a chaotic free tune (although, let's be honest, it's a little obvious). 

Anyway, I'm very happy that Nextbop is allowing me to rant on their clean and tidy website.

Two Years/Big Changes

Hello. My name is Jonathan Wertheim, and I'm a jazz critic.

There's a lot of out there in the webiverse about jazz critics and jazz criticism (Nate Chinen has just added the most recent drop of water to this ocean over at The Gig). There might be a little too much written about being a jazz critic.

This blog has been around since September 2009, two years. In that time, I've had comments from musicians I listen to and admire, I've been read by other bloggers, many of whom originally inspired RTB, and I have learned a lot about the music I love.

I've been involved in the start of an exciting new year, and that has had an impact on RTB. There hasn't been much here in recent weeks. That's about to change.