• musik
• biographie
• artikel
• blog
• projekts
• kontakt

Music Is: Play

These are from a two video series that I put together for the “Surreal Film Festival” in South Florida. I was approached and asked to make two 3 minute pieces regarding the essence of what I believe music to be about. I chose two subjects. The subject of “play,” and the subject of “vibration.” A bit high minded stuff. I’m not sure I even understand them.

Music Is: Vibration

These are from a two video series that I put together for the “Surreal Film Festival” in South Florida. I was approached and asked to make two 3 minute pieces regarding the essence of what I believe music to be about. I chose two subjects. The subject of “play,” and the subject of “vibration.” A bit high minded stuff. I’m not sure I even understand them.

Hilda

I caught up with Hilda a few days ago, and conducted a short interview with her. Her story is an inspiring one. Hilda learned to play piano at age 69 when her husband died. She is now an 86 year old professional musician.

Being a Pipe Smoker in a Cigarette Smoking World

Smoking a pipe is a slow, carefully reflective process.

My good friend, the author, came over to my house one day a few years ago, just to chat. We sat on two rocking chairs that reside on my front porch and stared off into the wilderness of pine trees. We were a part of the old world for a moment in time. We chose aged black cavendish tobacco, stuffed it into our briar pipes, and set it on fire.

As smoke rings circled his head he held the pipe out in front of him, turned it sideways, and looked at it thoughtfully. “The challenge of life,” He remarked. “Is to be a pipe smoker in a cigarette smoking world.”

Mass produced cigarettes, enriched with a slurry of chemicals, offer a quick smoke, and an easy fix. Pipes are smoked slowly, carefully, reflectively out of a carved wooden bowl. Any pipe smoker knows, you must constantly tend your pipe if you mean to enjoy it.

I’m not a smoker at all. But something in me respects the gentle art of pipe smoking. We live in a modern world where livestock is reared in factories, corn is used to make everything from books to timber, music is made on an apple computer, and wood is an archaich rare building material. It’s nice to take a glance backwards in time every once and awhile.

She’ll Be Comin’ Around

Laurnido Almeida, Charlie Byrd, and Ralph Towner

The concert guitar is hailed by many as the perfect instrument. After being perfected in the Baroque age, virtuosos believed the wooden torso to posses the variety of an orchestra. The concert guitar produces a wide range of tone, timber, color, and dynamic expression unlike any other stringed instrument, capable of projecting a delicate voice of pure emotion.

As music enters the age of electrified sound, fewer players seem to have the audacity to unplug. But amongst a mass of music technicians, there exists a small sect of quiet practitioners who seek unadulterated acoustic purity. Undistorted tones. Enter the concert guitar.

Laurindo Almeida

Laurindo Almeida

During the post-war American era, the lines between jazz and modern classical composition were blurring each and every day. Many musicians were boldly crossing the jazz boundaries with advanced technique and harmonic wisdom. Laurindo Almeida brought his classical training to the jazz realm and became an interesting patch on the quilt of American jazz music.

Originally a Rio De Janeiro native, Almeida came to America as a guitarist for Stan Kenton’s orchestra in 1947. Unusual to the period, Almeida did not play the archtop amplified guitar common to the genre, choosing, instead, to use a classical instrument. As a result, he marched the classical guitar into new territory with tender, harp-like melodies and the gentle touch of his fingertips.

Brazilliance (Blue Note, 1953), was a collaboration between Almeida and saxophonist Bud Shank, and proved to be the beginning of something very new for its listening audience, as well as the classical guitar genre. Songs like “Noctambulism,” and “Amore Flamengo” reintroduce listeners to harmonic colors reminiscent of Spanish composition. Another igniting track from the album is Almeida and Shank’s romantic, but almost heartbreaking rendition of “Stairway to the Stars.”

Charlie Byrd

Charlier Byrd

Charlie Byrd, a native of Virginia, began playing music as a child during the 1930s and 1940s. Byrd was spoon-fed a slaw of Blueridge mountain music and steel strings from his infancy but, as he progressed, he set out to pursue classical guitar studies, eventually under the tutelage of the world-renowned Andrés Segovia. It was during this time that Byrd began using a concert guitar at jazz sessions.

Byrd soon climbed the ranks of the national music scene, playing with Woody Herman, Bill Harris, and Vince Guaraldi. He quickly became a hot commodity, and soon musicians were crowding the clubs to hear his unique brand of South American-flavored music.

During a fertile musical era, Byrd was a key player in spurring the bossa nova bonfire which has yet to be doused in the music world. A defining career move, however, was his successful collaboration with tenor saxophonist Stan Getz in 1962. Jazz Samba (Verve) was a musical and commercial landmark that quickly became legendary as one of the most beloved jazz records in the pop-speaking world. Jazz Samba will forever sit alongside other classics like Dave Brubeck’s Time Out (Columbia, 1959), and Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue (Columbia, 1959).

Ralph Towner

Ralph Towner

Ralph Towner is a rarity in a world of driven guitars. With nylon-stringed sweetness, Towner peppers each performance with classical nuance and sensitivity. As a maturing young man, he studied classical guitar in Vienna and played with chamber groups throughout his time abroad. In the early 1970s, after relocating to New York, he began working with the top musicians in the jazz world, like Jimmy Garrison, Weather Report, and Gary Burton.

Towner has an unmistakable talent for creating lush harmonies and rhythmically interesting phrases. The subtle details found on his recordings are at times linked to the spirit of a composer, rather than a jazz improviser. Harmonic purity and experimental outbursts solidify Towner as a champion of the instrument.

The original approach found on Towner’s Solo Concert (ECM, 1980) is conceptually ahead of many jazz recordings on the shelf. The broad range of harmony and the compositional structure of songs like “Zoetrope” and “Train of Thought” are outside single classification. In many cases, Towner’s unrestrained music is nearly impossible to categorize at all. And yet, keeping with the spirit of modern jazz, Towner has taken the classical guitar to soaring levels, and at the same time opened a new world for an entire generation of musicians.

Unsung Heroes: Sammy Cahn, Vernon Duke, and Earl Zindars

Standards are the language of jazz. Standards represent music that have withstood the ruthless test of time. Songs built by craftsman, instead of limericks scribbled by American idols adorned in sequins and leather chaps. Music that has been constructed to last, built with the brick and mortar of harmony and melody. And yet, too often, the timeless master-song-craftsman’s names are not usually recognized by listening audiences of today.

Sammy Cahn

Sammy Cahn in the studio with Dean Martin

Few songwriters are able to weave such picturesque lyrics into a melody like Sammy Cahn. Many of his songs are played within certain circles, and yet his name is hardly spoken among uninterested virtuosos. Songs like “I Should Care,” “Teach Me Tonight,” “All the Way,” and “The Things We Did Last Summer” proved that Sammy Cahn was a musical architect.

In the early 1920s skinny young Sammy Cohen, clad in thick-lensed specs, had no interest in academic practices. He would skip school to catch local vaudevillian shows. As a child, he began playing the violin, and soon he found himself playing on the same vaudevillian stages of his childhood. It was on a night, when a fellow musician in the vaudeville band introduced a self-written song, that Cahn’s career would begin. Young Sammy became transfixed with the craft of songwriting, on that very night, and had written his first song before he arrived back home.

Later in his career, Cahn found himself writing music for a sprawling list of musicals and celebrities. Writing music for iconic Hollywood films such as “Anchors Aweigh” (1945), “The Kid From Brooklyn” (1946), and “Three Coins in the Fountain” (1954). And in 1957 Cahn’s platinum composition “All The Way” won him a statuesque Oscar from the Academy. All the way into his final years in the 1960s and 1970s, Cahn continued to churn out classics with songs like “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head,” and Sinatra’s “Let Me Try Again.”

Vernon Duke

Vernon Duke

Vernon Duke’s valuable contribution to the genre of Standards contrasts with a lack of modern popularity. Compared to the success of his well-known peers, like George Gershwin, Duke is little known. It seems a grave injustice that more of Vernon Duke’s material is not more widely explored by the jazz enthusiasts of the present age, being that he ranks as one of the era’s more richly educated song craftsman.

As a Russian immigrant living in the swelling new world of New York City, Duke studied Western classical composition, while earning his income by writing simplistic American popular music. Possessing a very broad scope, he also wrote ballet scores, orchestral scores, chamber music, poetry. And yet Duke’s music carries with it a sophistication that is unparalleled by many of his peers. Songs like “Autumn in New York” reveal his sublime melodic mind, and haunting harmonic wisdom.

Vernon Duke’s music carried a romance-era sound, and his close ties to the classical realm kept his music poignant and powerful. His music has been performed and recorded by many familiar icons of the jazz realm, solidifying him as one of the treasured prophets of the American Songbook. Songs like “I Can’t Get Started” and “April in Paris” will forever be played by musicians around the world.

Earl Zindars

Earl Zindars Album "And Then Some"

With a Master’s degree in composition, Earl Zindars brought an elegance to the collective book of American standards. Zindars studied with many of the greatest musical minds of his era. He attended Oxford on a prestigious Fulbright scholarship, as well as Columbia University. His education fortified him as a tool-clad craftsman in the competitive arena of song building. The gentle power that is conveyed in his unique music is unmistakable.

Zindars formed an unspoken partnership with pianist Bill Evans. In fact, Evans was so partial to Zindars’ songs, some of the songs were solidified as cult standards. Songs like “Elsa,” and ” “How My Heart Sings.” Evans even claimed that he kept a collection of Earl Zindars’ music transcriptions in a box near his piano for future exploration. Zindars was also experimenting with continually shifting time signatures during the 1950s, and was pioneering a tradition of skilled experimentation that had yet to be seen in that era.

As a tonal innovator, Earl Zindars helped to usher in a new harmonically interesting jazz sound with lush harmonies, and sensitive phrases. Songs like “Soiree” demonstrate a quiet emotional force within Zindars’ music. A force that exists free from the influences of cliched musical devices. He proved himself to be a tireless composer, perpetually writing new and colorful jazz material, as well volumes of classical composition, up until his death in 2005.

Unsung Heroes: Vic Damon, 30th Street Studio & The Village Vanguard

Vic Damon Transcription Laboratory

In the early 1930s Vic Damon was working as a teller for Trader’s National Bank in Kansas City, when he decided to enter the budding field of audio recording. Ignoring the disapproval of his peers, he spent his savings on a collection of costly Berliner audio recording equipment.

Vic Damon was a recording pioneer

Kansas City, in the 1930s, was a bustling scene for blossoming jazz. Union railroad station was the central hub of booming America. Railroad weary musicians from the South, were mingling with big band musicians from the North. The resulting music potpourri was undeniably rich, and Vic Damon was determined to preserve, on black celluloid records, the pulse of this newly birthed music.

Damon set up shop in 1933, and became the only audio transcription lab in the city. Soon most of the well known musicians in the region were pining to record at Damon studio. As a result, a large volume of Kansas City’s formative jazz comes from Damon’s studio, including early music from Charlie Parker, Tommy Douglas, Julia Lee, Sandra Steele, the Scamps, Jay McShann and Marilyn Maye.

Early Bird (2000 Spotlite Records), is a compilation of Charlie Parker’s very first recording sessions from Damon’s studio. Familiar standards like “Body and Soul,” and “Cherokee,” show Parker floating alongside the Jay McShann Orchestra, with an unmistakably familiar presence. Through the hissing and scratching on the recordings, the listener is whisked backwards into 1942, and is able to witness a brief exhibition of Parker’s early musical genius, thanks to Damon’s studio.

Columbia’s 30th Street Studio

1949. New York City. An era when real men smoked Lucky Strikes, and wore suits baseball games. Bebop was blazing in it’s adolescence, and musicians with high dreams were herding to the big city to test their grit. During this fertile period, Columbia Records released it’s hottest innovation yet. The long playing record. And with the rise of the LP record, came the unavoidable demand for a New York-based recording presence.

Miles Davis at Columbia's 30th Street Studio

A massive, vacant Greek Orthodox building, perched on East 30th street, became the home of Columbia’s new recording studio. The impressive Armenian room was large enough to accommodate huge symphonies for classical music, film score, and Broadway recording. The studio was equipped with cutting edge technology, and was destined to nudge American music forward into high fidelity sound.

In 1959 Columbia’s studio marched boldly into jazz history as producer of the bestselling jazz album on the time line. Kind of Blue (Columbia, 1959). The album’s modal-music approach earned it a quadruple platinum ranking, and a permanent spot in history. This triumphant collaboration between Miles Davis, Bill Evans, Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, and Jimmy Cobb, became a milestone for jazz modernism.

The 30th street studio served as a recording base for an ocean of music. Including the music of Louis Armstrong, Gene Krupa, Benny Goodman, Frank Sinatra, Teddy Wilson, and Leonard Bernstein. Columbia’s studio swiftly raised the standard for sound quality, and spearheaded American music production.

Village Vanguard

No discussion on the subject of jazz recording would be complete without mentioning the Village Vanguard in New York City. Though the Vanguard is not exactly a recording studio, the club boasts more significant live recordings than any other. The Vanguard has been mightily present throughout every developmental phase of jazz, watching the tides continually change.

The Village Vanguard is considered by many to be the ultimate jazz room

The Vanguard has functioned as a live studio for almost 150 major artists. Sonny Rollins’ album A Night at the Village Vanguard (Blue Note, 1957). Bill Evans,’ and John Coltrane’s live Vanguard records, both recorded in 1961. The tradition continues into present day with recordings like Wynton Marsalis’ Live at the Village Vanguard (Sony, 1999).

Due to its sublime acoustics, there is something extraordinary about the music recorded in the Vanguard’s small 7th Avenue South basement. Musicians and technicians alike praise the pie-slice shaped room as the ideal environment for sound purity.

Since its opening in 1935, the Vanguard has seen a slide show of American history roll past it’s front door. Witnessing the great depression, the civil rights movement, and the bombing of the twin towers. The Vanguard has withstood every economic test with the support of a more than loyal following. To this day, the Vanguard is considered the ultimate recording destination for live jazz.

Unsung Heroes: Chu Berry, Joe Harriott, Yusef Lateef

The role call for sax genius is a lengthy one. But upon briefly thumbing past names like Parker, Coltrane and Hawkins, one finds a glow beneath the surface radiating from lesser know players. Members of the vast sax community, who don’t often get the same press Young, and Rollins receive.

CHU BERRY

Chu Berry was an innovator of the modern saxophone approach

 In the late 1920′s American jazz was finally beginning to congeal. During this golden age, young Chu Berry laid aside his clarinet, and began his battle with the tenor saxophone. Quickly he developed a smooth, and chordal-strong approach that he used in combination with clever phrasing displacement. Berry’s innovative playing was developing on the edge of the unexplored saxophone frontier. Being that the very young instrument had only been patented 74 years earlier.

Berry’s style is clean, and his uptempo playing is flawless and direct. The recent released compilation album Chu Berry 1937-1941 (Classics) shines a complimentary light on Berry’s short but powerful career. His playing on songs like “Body and Soul” reveal a supreme sense of melody and harmonic knowledge. In fact, Berry’s solos often sound like miniature compositions within themselves.

As a notable composer for swing era music, as well as a soloist, Berry’s compositions are fresh, and lively. Original works like “Maelstrom” and “Chuberry Jam” represent the joyful music of an era gone by, and demonstrate Berry’s close familiarity with advanced harmony. Berry also composed the swing standard “Christopher Columbus” which is still considered an essential within the big band medium. Berry’s melodic sense, and almost ideal phrasing, represent a thrilling, formative era for Jazz, reminding modern listeners of a time when soloists were expected to play unshakably strong, and definite.

JOE HARRIOTT

Joe Harriott goes largely unheard of, yet contributed much to the art of free form jazz.

Alto saxophonist Joe Harriott goes largely unheard of in many circles today. But upon observation of Harriott’s recorded work, listeners will find that his conceptual donations to the world of free form music were monstrously valuable. Why more people are not aware of this alto sax player is a mystery, being that Harriott’s soloing style is bright enough to blind the most experienced jazz enthusiast.

Harriott was a Jamaican by birth, but began working in the London scene during the early 1950s. He became well known throughout the British jazz web, and quickly became one of the most demanded alto players in London. In his early recordings, which can now be found on Killer Joe (Giant Steps UK 2007), it’s obvious that Charlie Parker held a special influence on Harriott’s style. Listening to Harriott glide through standards like “Out of Nowhere” is like seeing a young bird take flight. And though Harriott’s early music is set at bright bebop tempos, he moves around each song with a surprisingly relaxed demeanor.

Free Form Remastered (Gottdiscs 2007 ) represents the free form movement at it’s finest. Simply put, this remastered recording of the original 1960 album is nothing short of golden. Harriott’s approach to free form music is calculated and powerful. On songs like “Straight Lines” The Harriott Quintet preserves steady tempos, and standard harmonic concepts, and then soars above them on brass wings. Harriott’s albumAbstract (Columbia (UK) 1962) is yet another landmark recording that demonstrates his brand of free form art. The album’s instrumental roars are exciting and even moving. Songs like “Tonal” again reveal Harriott’s unique communication with the other musicians in the quintet. Group interplay resembles a civil musical dialogue, when compared to the somewhat uninhibited collaborations of Ornette Coleman.

YUSEF LATEEF

Mult-instrumentalist Yusef Lateef has mastered a score of wind instruments.

Few saxophonists wander into the musical territory that Yusef Lateef calls home. And while there have been plenty of organically minded musicians who’ve tried their hand at similar forms of music, few have been able to retain Lateef’s degree of honesty. And though he is known in some circles for being skilled on a broad range of wind instruments, Lateef’s tenor sax is not often discussed among mainstream cliques.

Lateef lent his talents to many notable artists throughout his early career, and is recognized often for working with the Cannonball Adderly Quintet in the late 1960s. Lateef’s straight-ahead playing is breathlessly exciting, no matter what instrument he is featured on. However, there is something colorfully supernatural within his own conceptual music. His talents are clearly embodied on the early album Into Something(Prestige 1961) where plays the tenor sax like an underwater dance. Released the same year, Eastern Sounds(Prestige 1961) features the dawn of the ethnic sub-genre within the realm of jazz. On the unique song “Ching Miau” Lateef drifts into a cerebral form of musicianship on the tenor sax that many listeners had never heard previously.

Psychicemotus (Impulse 1964) is an exceptional album that reveals Lateef’s journey towards an even deeper and more creative musical form than found on his earlier work. “Semiocto” is a wild and sharp arrangement, featuring Lateef’s supreme technical adeptness. Standing in stark contrast to the rest of the album is “First Gymnopedie”, a classical flavored ballad, with complete restrained sensitivity.

Unsung Heroes: Roland Hanna, Tete Montoliu

Throughout the line of musical history, certain pianists have changed the way audiences hear music. Musicians who dare to peek above a sea of bobbing heads, and create something unique. These specially cursed individuals have looked within themselves, and somehow added flesh to fantasy.
While there are scores of brilliant pianists from years gone by, there are many excellent artists who aren’t typically included in pre-gig-conversation. Fantastic players who’ve slid underneath the radar of pop-jazz citation. Somehow these players of old don’t usually make it onto required listening lists.

Chosen below, are three valuable pianists who’ve contributed to the jazz genre. Exceptional pianists who don’t often receive the attention they deserve.

Pianist, and innovator Roland Hanna

 ROLAND HANNA

 Roland Hanna was a master painter trapped in a pianist’s body. He held the pia