We’re just a couple weeks out from my solo concert taking place at the Zen Center of New York City on May 3rd. The address is 500 State Street located in the Boerum Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn. It begins at 3 pm which allows for a comfortable start to your day and an entire open evening afterwards. If you’re near enough and so inclined please consider registering soon as seating is limited.
In preparation I’ve been practicing more recently, giving less time for rumination on the world which is probably a good thing. So I have nothing to offer by way of essay although not for lack of trying. The process for that usually involves haphazardly jotting down thoughts and ideas, throwing them into a pile and coming back once in a while to see if anything gels. In looking over notes from the past several months most of them found their way to the trash without much second guessing. Certain patterns emerge, repetitious to the point of annoyance. But if there were to be a discernible theme amongst them it might involve intention, as in what is the motivation for expressing oneself verbally in a more or less public forum, particularly at this current moment in time? Angst is a powerful motivator, no matter how you might try to dress it up to put a positive face on it. It might even seem trivializing to do so and yet it is undeniably important to allow for the motivation of what is positive. It’s easy to think of this in terms of opposition but that seems to create the very obstacle in allowing what is truly positive to find you. I’m not going to try and prescribe a solution for this in as much as it all has to be taken in, dynamically. As important as it is to stay informed, engage with what is meaningful and important it is just as important (if not more so) to stay with whatever it is you’re doing at the moment. For example, riding the subway can give rise to any number of anxieties. Some of them may actually be related to what I am seeing and experiencing but I habitually find myself amplifying and projecting a great deal beyond the direct experience of just riding the subway. Granted, it’s odd to be contained in a metal box clattering along a narrow tunnel under the ground. Perhaps all the more reason to actually be riding the subway while I’m on it. When I can do so there is so much more to be seen. It requires a certain amount of intention and it’s dawning on me that this kind of intention is in fact the most positive kind of motivation I can tap into. No need to deny what is clearly problematic in the world. And no need to deny ourselves of what is good, because without that there is no way to address anything or help anyone.
Having said that...in order to fill things out a bit, here are a couple of things in keeping with the theme of music making…
Further lessons learned…
Weekly early music concerts from GEMS continue to inspire and illuminate. Flutist Kelsey Burnham recently delivered a solo recital of Telemann (Fantasias 1 and 3), Bach (Partita in A minor) and Kuhlau (Fantasy for Solo Flute) demonstrating an impressive range of interpretation on music that would appear simple and straightforward when seen on the page. At least that’s been my superficial impression in looking at the scores of Telemann and Bach, pieces that I’ve been practicing on saxophone for some years now. Kelsey Burnham dispelled any notions that this music is in any way locked down.
I had the opportunity to chat briefly with Kelsey (turns out she’s from a neighborhood in Baltimore not far from where I grew up) and got some tips on how she approaches this music in practice, the first and most important being to sing it. She also pointed out how phrases tend to carry through into downbeats. The most surprising (and encouraging) revelation was that she articulates the phrases differently each time she performs them. Something I can relate to!
Interestingly, at the time this music was written the notion of the “public concert series” was almost nonexistent. Turns out it was Telemann himself who was instrumental (no pun intended) in getting the concept rolling. It makes one wonder about the effect of context over time as musical culture “accumulates” to the point that we often get to hear programs that range in time over centuries. A concentrated concert like the one Kelsey presented is all the more impressive given the amount of music we are aware of in 2026 such that compositions from three hundred years ago become just as alive as when they were written.
Bassist Melvin Gibbs has a new book out…
I first heard Melvin Gibbs at a jazz festival in Switzerland with the group “Harriet Tubman” (with guitarist Brandon Ross and drummer JT Lewis) performing for an audience that wasn’t quite ready to take in what they had to say. I was impressed both by the music and the way they handled the situation. Melvin and I chatted and soon after I called on him to play on my recording “Ten”, released in 2004.
“Ten” was a completely improvised session and if you listen to the tracks that Melvin plays on you’ll appreciate how essential the architecture he provided was to the music, not just through the role of the bass sonically but through his compositional awareness overall. It’s a perspective that comes from knowing music on a macro level as well as having expertise in one’s own instrumental domain.
His book is called “How Black Music Took Over the World”. That’s a very big title considering how much music is being considered. However, the pre-release announcements allude to an autobiographical approach to his overview which seems appropriate given Melvin’s cross-cultural involvement in a wide range of music during his life. In The New York Times he stresses that his aim was “primarily inspirational” adding that “it’s about overcoming”. This from a musician with an informed perspective. I’ve just ordered a copy and look forward to reading.
No comments:
Post a Comment