What is modern?

I just took part in a venerable New York tradition in the jazz community. I'm speaking of the weekly Wednesday evening "Musician's Show" on WKCR-FM radio at Columbia University. It's a three hour program in which a different musician is invited to essentially be the DJ, playing music of their own choosing and speaking a bit about the selections. There is also real DJ there, in this case jazz department head Kevin Crowley, who conducts the interview portions of the program. And usually the guest musician will play some of their own music as well.

This opportunity came at a good time for me given the musical trajectory that I've been undergoing in my ongoing pursuit (obsession) with sound. I realize that I’m mostly associated with the “free” aesthetic of improvisation and in fact that’s much of what I’ve been doing the past 25 years. But as I've mentioned in some of the previous posts I feel as if I'm finally able to hear beyond style and discern some of the more timeless elements of the music throughout the tradition. A question that continually pops up in my thinking is "what is modern"? Styles change and new techniques are put into play but I certainly do not see music as an ongoing progression in which the new trumps the old. Yet unfortunately there's quite a lot of music in jazz that I feel represents a lost art, or soon will be.

That’s a natural process in a way but I do feel that we can benefit greatly from retaining as much as we can and do our best to pass it along from teacher to student (recordings can’t do it all) so as to be able to use these musical elements creatively in ways that resonate for us in our time. For example, I don't think the rhythmic aspects of music from the '20s and '30s can ever really be replicated directly. And I think I'd need another lifetime to better figure out how saxophone players really played back then. But the bottom line is, if you want to learn how to play the saxophone then Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young really do need to be dealt with on some level. I understand the potential disconnect for players today. It was the same for me. Growing up in the '60s and '70s, that music was considered old fashioned. So I fully endorse diving in at whatever point in the history you have an emotional connection with. But over time we have to fill in the gaps. Fortunately, enough time has passed that I can actually hear all this music as modern. So I prefaced my interview by raising this question. What is modern? Not that I know the answer. Just that I have a much different perspective on it now. And that's quite liberating.

What follows is the playlist of tracks that I chose and spoke about. In between each set there is an audio link of the interview portion of the show which you can listen to. The tracks themselves are not difficult to find. Most of them are available on iTunes.

And one last thing. WKCR will be running a pledge drive shortly. Please consider supporting the station so that we can continue speaking about their great history in the present tense.


ELLERY ESKELIN - The Musician’s Show, WKCR-FM, New York City, September 28th, 2011

Hearing Beyond Style / What’s Modern?!?


SPOKEN INTRODUCTION - Interview with Ellery Eskelin 2:41




R&B tenor, 50’s style
Bill Doggett - “Honky Tonk part 2” with Clifford Scott, tenor saxophone 1956
Lee Allen - “Walkin' With Mr Lee” 1958
Tiny Bradshaw - “Soft” with Red Prysock, tenor saxophone and composer 1952
Count Basie with Jimmy Forrest - "Night Train"
from the film "Last of the Blue Devils" - The Kansas City Jazz Story 1979
arr. Roy Phillippe, Los Angeles

MIC BREAK - Interview with Ellery Eskelin 10:47




Rhythm (as in, can that even be done anymore?)
Fletcher Henderson (selections dating from 1931 - 1933)
“Casa Loma Stomp”, “Chinatown My Chinatown”, “Down South Camp Meetin”
Jimmie Lunceford (selections from 1935 - 1937)
“Avalon”, “Harlem Shout”, “Charmaine”

MIC BREAK - Interview with Ellery Eskelin 3:49




Early Tenors
Coleman Hawkins and Leo de la Fuente "I Wish that I Were Twins" 1935
Count Basie “Honeysuckle Rose” with Lester Young 1937
Lester Young and Nat King Cole “Indiana” 1942
Don Byas and Slam Stuart - “Indiana ” Town Hall Concert, 1945

MIC BREAK - Interview with Ellery Eskelin 15:49




The Romantic Ballad Tenor Tradition
Count Basie with Herschel Evans tenor saxophone, Lester Young, clarinet "Blue And Sentimental" 1937
Ben Webster - “Memories of You” 1944
Ben Webster - “Tenderly” (early 50’s)
Don Byas - “They Say it's Wonderful” 1946
Ike Quebec - “If I Had You” 1944
Ike Quebec - "The Man I Love" 1961

MIC BREAK - Interview with Ellery Eskelin 14:05



Hometown (Baltimore) Sounds
Mickey Fields - “Lover Man” from The Astonishing Mickey Fields, late '60s

MIC BREAK - Interview with Ellery Eskelin 6:21




A glimpse into the future?
Fess Williams and his Royal Flush Orchestra - “Playing My Saxophone” 1930
Bud Freeman & Ray McKinley - “The Atomic Era” 1945 (the first recorded tenor/drums duo?)

MIC BREAK - Interview with Ellery Eskelin 13:14




Blowing My Own Horn
Ellery Eskelin - “Memories of You”
from “Trio New York”
with Ellery Eskelin (tenor saxophone), Gary Versace (organ) & Gerald Cleaver (drums), recorded 2011

MIC BREAK - Interview with Ellery Eskelin and sign-off 10:13




Ellery Eskelin - “How Deep is the Ocean”
from “Trio New York”
with Ellery Eskelin (tenor saxophone), Gary Versace (organ) & Gerald Cleaver (drums), recorded 2011

TRIO NEW YORK Press / Plus News on some Current Releases as a side-person

"Trio New York" has been receiving some attention in the press this month.

The New York Times Sunday Arts & Leisure section
Time Out New York Feature preview
DownBeat Magazine Article
Point of Departure review

"Trio New York" is:
Ellery Eskelin - tenor saxophone
Gary Versace - Hammond B3 organ
Gerald Cleaver - drums

Just for fun I put together a promo clip containing one chorus of saxophone solo from each track on the recording:



You can listen to fuller excerpts from "Trio New York" in the April 21st post below. "Trio New York" will be heading to Europe for a tour in January (18 - 29). Keep an eye on the website as we approach that time for the tour itinerary.



New Releases as a side-person.

Based in Portugal, Clean Feed Records has managed to release quite a lot of great music since 2001. Not sure quite how they do it but I'm very glad they do. I'm on early Clean feed Releases by trumpeter Dennis Gonzáles and drummer Gerry Hemingway. This month it happens that I'm a side-person on two more Clean Feed projects.

"Riptide"
I'm proud to say that I've been playing with drummer and composer Gerry Hemingway in many configurations since the mid-nineties. Gerry has a singular style both as a drummer and composer. I think I first heard him play on a concert with Anthony Braxton's classic quartet line-up here in new York City. It was a transcendent concert, one that I'll always remember. One of Gerry's many ambitious endeavors since I've been associated with him was singlehandedly booking, organizing, managing, chauffeuring not to mention performing on a 35 gig tour in the states and Canada for his quartet back in 1998. You can read about it on his website. "Riptide" is a quintet project that Gerry has been developing over the past year or so. It features Oscar Noriega on alto saxophone and clarinet, myself on tenor, Terrence McManus on guitar, Kermit Driscoll on bass and of course Gerry on percussion and drums and all original compositions.

You can read a recent article about Gerry in the July 2011 issue of DownBeat Magazine.

You can order "Riptide" from Downtown Music Gallery.

"September Trio"
Drummer and composer Harris Eisenstadt is a more recent musical collaborator and the group that he put together along with pianist Angelica Sanchez and myself caught the attention of Clean Feed Records after only our first concert. We went into the studio last September, hence the name of the group "September Trio". This project came at a good time for me as it represents the first studio date that I've done since undergoing something of a transition with the instrument. The compositions suggest various avenues of thought and feeling while the playing contains just enough ambiguity to keep the open textures in a sort of constant slow-motion state of flux. You can read a review on the "Free Jazz" blog.

By the way, I have copies of "September" available from my website.

ETO
Satako Fujii and her husband, trumpeter Natsuki Tamura come to New York every other year or so record new music with the Orchestra New York. It's easily the wildest and most fun big band I think I've ever played in. Very spirited music. "ETO" is the title of the latest release which is now available on Libra Records. This is what Satoko writes about the project on her website:

"My husband, Natsuki Tamura will turn sixty years old this year. In Japan we have a special celebration for sixty year olds, called "Kanreki." We use the Chinese zodiac in Japan which is called "Eto," so 12 years is one cycle. 60 is a special number because it is 12 x 5 and 10 x 6. The duodecimal system and decimal system meet at 60. I wanted write some music for this, and read a bit about the Chinese zodiac. Each of the 12 animals in the zodiac has its own character and each character inspired me a lot, so I wrote a short piece for each of them to make one long suite. Each piece has featured solo player. ~Satoko Fujii

Oscar Noriega, Briggan Krauss- alto sax; Ellery Eskelin, Chris Speed - tenor sax, Andy Laster - baritone sax; Herb Robertson, Dave Ballou, Frank London, Natsuki Tamura - trumpet; Joey Sellers, Curtis Hasselbring, Joe Fiedler - trombone; Satoko Fujii - piano, Stomu Takeishi - bass, Aaron Alexander - drums

You can pick this up at Downtown Music Gallery as well.

One Great Day reissued...

One Great Day reissued...
Over the years many folks have asked me about this 1996 recording. As with a number of my projects on the hatOLOGY label it has been out of print for quite a while. So I'm pleased to announce that "One Great Day" has just been reissued (and with a new cover). Here's a short text that I wrote for the back cover of the reissue:

I'm gratified that the rerelease of “One Great Day…” coincides with its inclusion in the Penguin Jazz Guide's “The History of the Music in the 1001 Best Albums”. Of course there are countless recordings deserving of attention and reissue. This group managed to tie together the fractured reality of my musical universe at the time. The acknowledgement is appreciated.

You can order the reissue of "One Great Day" directly from my website using Pay Pal.



Here is a live video performance of the title track "One Great Day" from a 2001 appearance in Barcelona, Spain:



This was the first in a long series of recorded projects that I have done for the legendary Swiss label. hatHUT records has been operating since 1975 and the catalogue contains an immense amount of great music covering many aspects of the contemporary improvising scene. Hopefully the rest of my work (and that of many others) on the series will be reissued as well. I'm informed that there is a deal in the works to make more of the catalogue available on-line. I'll post further news of that as I know more. As for new projects, hatOLOGY will be releasing the next recorded project from "Different But the Same" (Liebman / Eskelin band) which contains my Chamber Music America commission "Non Sequiturs - for two tenor saxophones, bass and drums". Look for that in March 2012.


More on TRIO NEW YORK...
The reviews for my latest recording "Trio New York" (prime source) with organist Gary Versace and drummer Gerald Cleaver, are coming in. Point of Departure has posted the first review which you can read on their site.

And there is an article in the August issue of DownBeat Magazine about the project, available from their site about my "Organ-ic beginnings".

"Trio New York" will be touring Europe from January 18th - 29th, 2012. The website will contain the full itinerary as we get closer to the time. See some of the the posts below for more information about the band and some samples from the recording.


Recent activity in NYC…
Played the Rhythm in the Kitchen Festival with bassist Drew Gress and drummer Gerald Cleaver on May 27th. This festival is produced by a neighborhood organization called the Hell's Kitchen Cultural Center and has run for about five years now. I always enjoy this event. Here's a video clip:




I also played on the NYC "River to River Festival" on June 25th with "Future Quest", a project put together by vocalist Theo Bleckmann and drummer John Hollenbeck which plays the music of Meredith Monk. Both Theo and John have been performing in Meredith's ensemble for many years. Also on the band was fellow saxophonist Tony Malaby and keyboardist Erik Deutsch. I'm thrilled to play in this project in as much as Meredith Monk has been a key figure influencing my musical imagination since first seeing her one woman show at PS 122 in 1994. Her focus and sense of timing is incredible and was an inspiration on some of the early pieces for my band (with Andrea Parkins and Jim Black). Her materials are sometimes deceptively simple but her music is deep and never fails to move me to the core. I hope this group continues to be active and perhaps even record.

This summer I will be coming to Switzerland for a special project with bassist Christian Weber and drummer Michael Griener. And there will be a number of European tours with various projects happening into 2012. More on those things in an upcoming post...

TRIO NEW YORK OFFICIALLY RELEASED

Well, I'm very happy to announce that the TRIO NEW YORK CDs have arrived and are ready for your ears! You can sample some excerpts and if you like what you hear, by all means please visit the MAIL ORDER page of the web site and place an order using PAY PAL. Thanks for reading the blog and thanks in advance for supporting the cause. I hope you do enjoy…

TRIO NEW YORK

Ellery Eskelin - tenor saxophone
Gary Versace - Hammond B3 organ
Gerald Cleaver - drums

Memories of You (excerpt)


Off Minor (excerpt)


Witchcraft (excerpt)


Lover, Come Back to Me (excerpt)


How Deep is the Ocean (excerpt)

EARS!

It's a trend I've been leaning towards for some time. And having recently listened to interviews with Joe Henderson and Gary Bartz about how they teach/taught I've been emphasizing the aural approach in lessons more and more. Students have been learning Lester Young solos off of the recordings strictly by ear and memorizing them on their instrument with nothing written down. I've also been teaching them how to figure out the chords and harmony to tunes this way as well.

It seems like such a simple thing but "the ear" seems to be an undervalued asset in jazz education generally. Learning with the ears alone integrates every aspect of the music and music making all at once and serves for a more profound and much longer lasting impact. I can see the lightbulbs flashing on in their minds as the beauties of these solos reveal themselves in a way that the student has never experienced before. And in speaking with them afterwards I realize that their eyes are opened to the world in new ways as the ramifications of how this music was created begin to sink in. Hearing a developing musician come in and play these solos to me along with the recordings is such a beautiful experience that it lifts my spirits for days! Just had to say…

Recent News...

Trio New York Recording
I just delivered the newly mastered recording and CD artwork to the manufacturers today for "Trio New York" (the recording mentioned below with organist Gary Versace and drummer Gerald Cleaver). Should have copies in a few weeks. This project represents a year's worth of preparation and work on a number of fronts. Those of you who keep up with the blog know that I've been learning how to play some vintage horns and listening to a lot of older music in order to try and figure out just how certain players got the kind of sounds they did. In fact, I think it's taken me a full year or more to say that I have fully made the transition from the Selmer MK VI to the 1927 Conn. Add to that the Buescher (which is often my travel horn) and I feel that my sonic palette has consolidated and solidified. Of course that affects the music on many levels.

And after some months of not being in the studio there has recently been a spate of other recording opportunities which I can enumerate here. For the gear-heads among you I'll mention the horn and setup used on each. These recordings will be released at various intervals during the next three to twelve months.

Harris Eisenstadt's September Trio
Harris Eisenstadt - drums and composer
Angelica Sanchez - piano
Ellery Eskelin - tenor saxophone (1927 Conn w/ Lebayle mouthpiece)

Satoko Fujii Orchestra - ETO
(1927 Conn w/ Lebayle mouthpiece)

radioKUKAorkest
A Belgian group that I guested with for tour and recording (see entry below)
(1935 Conn w/ Lebayle mouthpiece)

ELLERY ESKELIN Trio New York
The aforementioned project (detailed entry below)
(1927 Conn w/ modified Francois Louis mouthpiece)

Different But the Same
David Liebman - tenor saxophone
Ellery Eskelin - tenor saxophone (1927 Conn w/ modified Francois Louis mouthpiece)
Tony Marino - bass
Jim Black - drums

Ben Goldberg's GO HOME
Ben Goldberg - clarinet and composer
Ellery Eskelin - tenor saxophone (1941 Buescher w/ modified Lebayle mouthpiece)
Charlie Hunter - 7 string guitar
Scott Amendola - drums

Next month I will be on a studio session led by Brooklyn based drummer and composer Devin Grey. More about that afterwards. Also just remembered a session done in December of 2009 with drummer Gerry Hemingway's Quintet. That was the last one I did on the Selmer. And as long as we are on the subject of recordings I'll mention again that the reissue of "One Great Day…" (Eskelin w/Parkins & Black from 1996) is in production by hatOLOGY records.

Professionals
I'm very indebted in the process of documenting music to the expertise and experience of folks like sound engineer Jon Rosenberg. I've worked with Jon since the early 90's and have come to value our working relationship greatly over these years. There's really no substitute for someone who knows what you're trying to accomplish and who can set the stage for any type of production, making the equipment and technology transparent in the process. Graphic design artist Scott Friedlander has worked on several of my releases and I value his attention to detail as well as his visual imagination. This new one is particularly nice.

In the process of getting this project prepared for release I've been a bit surprised to find that due to a certain amount of consolidation among businesses, such as recording studios and CD manufacturers, those that have survived seem to be doing better than might have been expected under current conditions. Seems to go against the conventional wisdom, and that appeals to me. I love recording in a great studio, being able to document the music under the best possible conditions and with the best possible resultant sound. As the music "business" veers towards the ephemeral and disposable I feel all the more strongly that projects that honor this long term aesthetic will stand out.

Switzerland
Last month I began a promising musical project with Swiss bassist Christian Weber and Berlin based drummer Michael Griener. Straight up improv. There are a few videos up on youtube. Search for "Eskelin Weber Griener". And look for us at the next Willisau Festival in Switzerland (August).

California
Clarinetist Ben Goldberg and I first began performing together in the mid nineties. I love his sound and phrasing, not to mention his compositions. Ben recently invited me to record and do some gigs with his GO HOME band (see listing above). Played in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Looking forward to more in the future.

Changing Gears
I just looked back at my schedule since December and counted at least ten different "books" of music that I've dealt with in rapid succession. Meaning projects with original music and concept, none quite like any of the others. This reflects the need to adapt to many different concepts as a working musician. Not sure exactly where the border between positive stimulation and mental disorientation lies. But as much as I loved all the musical activity I am glad to be staying put for the next few months in order to recharge the batteries.

Teaching
My teaching activities have increased over the past year (I think in part due to this blog) which has been a rewarding experience as it coincides with my own "relearning" of the saxophone. I've been reassessing old assumptions and dealing head-on with fundamental concepts of playing the horn. Along the way I've discovered that there is quite a bit of mythology surrounding the saxophone, ideas often passed around by experienced players, instrument makers and technicians. I don't pretend to hold all the answers but I do know that many of these claims cannot be defended (even if they are potentially correct). They just get passed around as "truths". I'm talking about things like the role of materials in sound production (mouthpiece materials, composition and age of metals, types of finishes). There are also physical issues (embouchure, oral cavity, air stream) and acoustic issues (understanding how the horn works) that can lead to misunderstandings if not fully dealt with. As a player I never cared about this stuff. As a teacher I'm driven to get to the bottom of these things. It's been a fascinating and on-going process.

Musically I've also noticed a rather wide open area of improvisation that seems to challenge many players no matter what their current skill level. I'm speaking about the act of spontaneously creating melodic ideas. This is a fundamental aspect of playing so it's interesting to try and figure out some of the reasons for this. When I was coming up I was told by my teachers that jazz couldn't be taught. I know that's not the case but on the other hand the codification of the art form and it's teachings since then contain certain inherent drawbacks that need to be addressed. One thing I know is that virtually every musician playing jazz today (my age or younger) has likely been enrolled in some type of university jazz program or at least has been exposed to the types of teaching methods that have been in vogue in those institutions for some years now. Most players learn the musical language by utilizing licks and patterns. That's not a new thing of course, but what's often missing is the role of lyricism and melody. Filigree is often mistaken for content. Without some spontaneous melodic direction one can wind up sounding like a musical encyclopedia. The skills that can balance that out come in large part from knowing how to "deliver" a song. At one time popular American song provided much of the bedrock material for jazz musicians to improvise upon. And because of that there was a connection to a strain of musical entertainment that held the music a bit closer to the public (even as more advanced harmonic and rhythmic concepts eventually took the music out of that realm completely). Younger players often don't have the opportunities to deliver songs (of any kind) to a public within that type of shared culture. Because of that I find myself devising ways to address the core issues involved in simply improvising from one note to another. And it's been fun for me and for my students. I know that in my own playing I've been striving daily to keep in touch with the essence of musical impulse. It's not always easy to give up learned musical information that jumps out of your fingers for something "unknown" that comes up from your subconscious. Especially in front of paying audiences. So prospective students, please know that I'm working on all the same things that I'm teaching…

Recording Session

Many thanks to those of you who purchased recordings in response to my previous post. Thanks also to New York's Downtown Music Gallery who picked up the last of my "out of print" stock. This "bump" helped with the most recent "prime source" (my label) recording project which took place just yesterday here in New York.

If you've read the post on my mother and her career in music (see below) you'll know that I have a love and affinity for the sound of the Hammond B3 organ. It only makes sense that I would one day put together an organ project and I'm thrilled to report that the recording session, with Gary Versace on organ and Gerald Cleaver on drums, was a great success. I can't say enough good things about the both of them. They have ears for for the entire swath of jazz history, right up to the moment and then some. We covered some very early standards including things like "Memories of You" and "Lover, Come Back to Me", but very loosely, using them to shape our improvisations rather than dictate them. Of course, when it was time to swing it felt great and when it was time to break everything up the feeling was just as intense. We also did quite a few complete improvisations to which I realized after listening back that "everything is in there"! To which Gerald replied "every bit of it".

It's also a good feeling to have documented this music after having worked so closely with Gary rehearsing and discussing the concept. Interestingly, we had different drummers play with us on every gig we did. That's because there are so many great drummers here and great drummers usually stay pretty busy. Every gig I booked required multiple calls to find out who was going to be around for the date. But this was also good for the music in that each musician who filled the drum chair brought with them a unique voice and sensibility. I was thrilled with everyone and in the end it was damn hard to choose. Gerald Cleaver and I first played many years ago and had not had the chance to reconnect in awhile so it was great to pick up where we left off, sharing all the new things that had developed musically over those years.

I do want to thank the aforementioned percussionists, Tyshawn Sorey, Tom Rainey, Ted Poor and Nasheet Waits for their contributions on the gigs. We'll be doing more for sure. In fact, for you NYC readers there will be a couple of performances coming up at the Cornelia Street Cafe. On February 19th Gary and I will be playing with Nasheet Waits. And then on April 22nd we'll have drummer Gerry Hemingway on board. By the way, some of you NYC folks (as well as Baltimore and Philly) may have heard some gigs I did with organist Erik Deutsch and drummer Allison Miller awhile back. I intend to pick back up on this band at some point as well as it represented a different musical path that I also want to develop. Much to do!

So rest assured that I will be making big noise about the release of this recording. Look for it this spring!

Thanks to Photography by Scott Friedlander ©2011 for photo of EE with Gary Versace and Gerald Cleaver.

Recording in 2011...

Welcome to 2011 everyone…

As I look forward to the coming year and the various projects that I'll be doing, the first order of business will be recording. I've been gigging in NYC with various new configurations over the past year and I'm in the final stages of putting a band together to take into the studio. I'll be happy to tell you all about it once it's finalized but in the meantime I'd like to ask for your help.

The business of recording and releasing music is still very much up in the air. Established labels have been hit hard and most have no budgets to produce projects. I'm no stranger to D.I.Y. and have released a number of recordings (and even a DVD) on my own label "prime source". In order to help get "prime source" "primed" for the next new project we need to move a little bit of the existing catalogue, just to get the ball rolling. I imagine many of you have one or another of my titles either from "prime source" or from the "hatOLOGY" label (the legendary Swiss label with whom I've worked closely for over fifteen years).

Well, there's never been a better time to fill out your collection and pick up those couple of titles that you never got around to. You'll help me out greatly towards getting the new band going and you'll be picking up some collectors items since most of the hatOLOGY titles are officially out of print now. I have a handful of "last copies" on a number of those releases that you won't find anywhere else.

Have a look at the website and feel free to e-mail me with any questions you might have about the music or whatever. You can order directly off the site using Pay Pal. There are some videos and sample tracks up on the NEWS PAGE. The DISCOGRAPHY PAGE page offers information about each release. And the ORDERING PAGE makes it easy.

Here is what I have at the moment:

New Release...on Gerry Hemingway's AURICLE records
INBETWEEN SPACES Gerry Hemingway & Ellery Eskelin

p r i me so u r c e R e c o r d i n g s
EVERY SO OFTEN - Ellery Eskelin & Sylvie Courvoiser
QUIET MUSIC EEw/AP&JB+JC>PG (double CD)
ON THE ROAD WITH...Eskelin, Parkins & Black...the DVD
PREMONITION-solo tenor saxophone

hatOLOGY records
ONE GREAT NIGHT...LIVE Eskelin w/Parkins & Black
TEN Eskelin w/Parkins & Black + Constable, Ribot, Gibbs SOLD OUT!
FORMS Eskelin w/Gress & Haynes
ARCANUM MODERNE Eskelin w/Parkins & Black (out of print, these are the last copies) SOLD OUT!
12 (+1) IMAGINARY VIEWS Eskelin w/Parkins & Black (out of print, these are the last copies) SOLD OUT!
VANISHING POINT Eskelin w/Maneri, Friedlander, Dresser, Moran (out of print, these are the last copies) SOLD OUT!
THE SECRET MUSEUM Eskelin w/Parkins & Black (out of print, these are the last copies) SOLD OUT!

Soul Note Records
FIGURE OF SPEECH Eskelin w/Daley & Tuncboyaciyan SOLD OUT!

Thanks for your support. I know you'll feel great about it!

Belgium

I just spent three weeks in Belgium, in a lovely town called Ghent to be exact. I was invited by RadioKUKAorkest to guest with them on a tour and recording session. Over the years I've often wished for the luxury of staying in one place for a week or so as opposed to the extended one-nighters in which one bounces from one end of the continent to the other in a matter of hours. This was pretty close. Belgium is a rather compact country and it's possible to traverse any two points within a couple of hours at most. Each afternoon I would meet the band and we would drive to whatever city we were playing in. Additionally I was given an apartment and a bicycle, of which I made daily use in spite of the snow and low temperatures. (See photo, taken at 2:30 am during a snow storm, horn on my back).

Given the players and the instrumentation (Kristof Roseeuw on bass, Lode Vercampt on cello, Philippe Thuriot on accordion and Tom Wouters on clarinet and drums) we were able to explore a "chamber" oriented sound as well as hit some high impact improv stuff as well. The tour was booked by the JazzLab Series and most of the gigs took place in cultural centers that typically present theater as well as various types of music. This was an opportunity to play for folks who might not otherwise go to a jazz/improv club. A group like this really shines when able to play as acoustically as possible. It can still be rather difficult to convince sound engineers to allow this but we persevered and the results vindicated our approach. It's a pleasure to hear everyone's true sound on stage and interact dynamically, especially in a group with such a wide pallet of sonic colors.

Additionally I did a couple of wonderful improv based club gigs, one with Teun Verbrughen (drums), Peter Vandenberghe (keyboards) and Kristof Roseeuw (bass) in Antwerp and another with Joze Dumoulin (Fender Rhodes piano), Kristof Roseeuw (bass) and Lander Ghyselinck (drums) in Ghent. Incidentally, Lander was a student at the JIMS workshop in Salzburg (where I taught) a few years back. It's a great feeling to see a young musician quickly progress and enter the gigging scene with something to say.

On one of the days off I went to Brussels to visit MIM, the Musical Instrument Museum. I particularly wanted to see the original saxophones made by Adolphe Sax but the entire museum was fascinating. Afterwards I visited legendary saxophone mouthpiece specialist François Louis. My travel horn on this trip was the Conn 10 M which plays very differently than my main horn, the earlier vintage Conn "Chu Berry". I had been thinking about getting a mouthpiece tailored to the 10 M for some time and this was my opportunity. François lives in a small town not far from Dinant, the birthplace of Adolphe Sax. I met him at the train station and we drove to his workshop. This was the first time in my entire life that I've had anyone do custom work on a mouthpiece for me. I don't know why I waited so long! We used one of François' existing blanks. I played on it for some time and spoke to him about what I wanted. He would then take the piece and file away at the baffle and I'd play some more and then try and find the words to express what I was hearing. Fortunately, with his experience he knew exactly what to do and exactly how to do it. We repeated this process a few times, then he did some work on the tip and within a couple of hours I had a new mouthpiece. The result was a somewhat denser core sound and the elimination of certain harsher frequencies in the upper range. The palm keys in particular sound rounder and more singing. Now that I see what is possible I plan to have some work done on my Lebayle LR II which I use on my main horn.

All in all it was a great trip and I want to thank everyone involved. It was a special opportunity to work on music and make some new friends. It's no exaggeration to say that every single person I met was totally friendly which made the trip a real pleasure. Oh, and before I forget, my favorite coffee bar in Ghent is the OR Espresso Bar.

Update...

I'm a tad overdue for a blog update. Got things on my mind to share but time has been a little tight as I prepare to head out on the road in a few days. I'll be in Belgium for three weeks guesting with RadioKUKAorkest. Details on the appearances page of the website. Gotta finish a new composition for the group…soon!

Speaking of composition I had the pleasure of hearing portions of Arnold Shoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire played live here in NYC by the Argento Chamber Ensemble. Each month they have been presenting a portion of Pierrot Lunaire along with music of other composers. What's great is that they have been repeating the program every Sunday in each month. Hearing the pieces a second time allowed even deeper listening. If you're in NYC in the coming weeks I recommend it. I was sitting just a few steps away from the ensemble in a rather small room with about thirty people. It was amazing to experience the power (in focus more than in force) as well as every nuance, movement and color in the music. There's something about the kaleidoscopic kinetic effect created when each player acts somewhat independently (and yet contributes to the whole) that I have always tried to emulate in my own group improvisations. And hearing the concision of ideas (as the result of composition) really reinforces my desire to continually strive for the essence of whatever improvised statement is being made.

Bizness…
Drummer Gerry Hemingway and I have been performing improvised duo music for some years and have just released "Inbetween Spaces" on Gerry's Auricle Music label.  It's just getting into the pipeline now so you may see mention of it in the coming weeks. I'll have copies available via mail order from my web site once I'm back from tour in a few weeks. Gerry will have more information on his site soon…

hatOLOGY Records informs me that my 1996 recording "One Great Day…" is slated for reissue in the coming months. Apparently The Penguin Jazz Guide has chosen this recording as one of 1000 Best Albums. I haven't yet seen the book but there's a review of it here: The Penguin Jazz Guide The History of the Music in the 1000 Best Albums

In other news…
I've deleted my MySpace account. Gotta better consolidate my on-line thing. Too much sprawl. I plan to upload some selected tracks and videos onto this blog from time to time. Like I was saying to a friend the other day, I don't mind Facebook and all that just as long as it facilitates some FaceTIME, you dig?!? Go out and support your local scenes, as I'm sure you already do...

Check back in in a few weeks for a post-tour recap. And enjoy your holidays...

Art / Music

Went to the Whitney Museum of American Art this afternoon to catch some of the Christian Marclay Festival. Electronicist Andrea Parkins and trumpeter Peter Evans performed a Marclay composition entitled "Ephemera" from graphic scores. People were free to meander in and out or sit in rapt attention. The piece moved from one musical texture to another and went well with the visual works situated in the various adjoining rooms. I've heard Peter play a number of times yet we've not yet played together. He seems emblematic of a type of up and coming improvisor that I'm noticing more and more these days. Fluent in a wide range of sonic and musical terrain he seemed to pretty much cover it all, from old to new. What's nice about improvisors who can do that is not so much the fact that they can "do that" but the fact that having a starting point inclusive of that much music allows for broad musical statements that sound as if they can only have been made today. Hearing Peter together with Andrea seemed to heighten both of their approaches. Andrea's singular voice speaks through whatever sounds she is conjuring up from her instruments, a quality I value greatly from my own experience of making music with her for the last sixteen or so years.

And so I got to thinking about the environment and context for this music. Christian's Festival seemed to speak to an issue that I've been wondering about for years. Given that I'm as much (or perhaps more) likely to hang out in a gallery as in a music club I've often been a little jealous of the fact that visual artists who can present at these institutions have their work seen by so many more people than populate the music clubs, clubs that are presenting what I feel to be the musical artistic equivalent of much of what is presented in the galleries and museums. In addition, the audience for visual art seems much more generalized than the audience that comes to the clubs. People will flock to the Whitney or to MOMA to be exposed to the work of current day artists even if they don't know much of anything about the artists or the work. I realize some of the reasons for this. These are long-time institutions that have support mechanisms in place to allow them to exist in the first place. With visual works the viewer is physically mobile, often moving from one work to another in less than a minute's time. I do wonder about the depth of experience people afford themselves but on balance spending an hour or two in that environment does provide something of an antidote to the kind of disassociated stimuli we experience every day through our ever growing media culture. Audiences for contemporary music seem to be smaller and more specialized. One has to know something about what one is getting into and make more of a determined effort to follow through. Most of this music takes place late at night and you are more or less committed to sitting in one place for an hour or so looking at one thing. It's a more concentrated experience, which of course has it's own rewards. Yet beyond any of this I do sense that most people are more accepting of challenging or provocative visual work than they are of challenging or provocative music. At least they can look away and move on if they don't like what they see. Listening to a piece of music requires extending one's attention over longer stretches of time.

So what if we had more situations in which this music were available during waking hours and made easier for the public to encounter? I gotta think it would be nothing if not completely positive. Sure, not everyone will like everything they hear. But there are few more deeply rewarding experiences for listeners and musicians alike as when someone is emotionally moved by music that they might otherwise never have even imagined. Just the act of attentive listening in and of itself seems almost a subversive act in our culture. If these types of situations are made more regular the increased exposure can only heighten public awareness of new music and enhance people's ability to make some sense out of what they are hearing. In a way, it's much like my response to the visual works I saw today. I'm not sure I have the words to talk about much of what I encountered but then it's not a verbal experience. It's an intuitive and emotional experience. The intellectualization and analyzation can come afterwards if need be. Reminds me that I often encounter this strange idea that one has to understand jazz or improvised music in order to "get it". I really, really disagree with that.

One other important consideration is that a presentation of music provides an opportunity to create a social event. For example, some years ago I did a concert with drummer Joey Baron and trombonist Josh Roseman ("Baron Down" as we were called) as part of the JVC Jazz Festival here in NYC. It was an outdoor afternoon concert at Bryant Park. The theme was drummers and we had the honor to play on the same bill as Elvin Jones and Roy Haynes. As this was a free concert people filled the park. Families, tourists, fans, commuters in transit, passers by, you name it. I'm sure that a large portion of the people there would not likely have make their way down to the Blue Note or the Village Vanguard. The social nature of the event greatly enhanced the musical experience for everyone involved. I also recall the early days of the Summer Stage series in Central Park being like this as well (a challenging program of music and dance, free to the public). Needless to say, I'd love to see more of this kind of thing. The Christian Marclay Festival provided one answer to the issue. Of course his music and visual art are intertwined. But who's to say that music and art should not come together more often?

Lee Friedlander
Also at the Whitney is a show by one of my very favorite photographic artists, Lee Friedlander. Lee is the father of NYC cellist Erik Friedlander, who's music I highly recommend. And as it happens, Erik is on a couple of my recordings (Ramifications from 1999 and Vanishing Point from 2000). I had seen Lee Friedlander's MOMA retrospective in 2005. At that time I was already familiar with some of his work (he also took LP cover photos for some classic jazz recordings back in the day) yet seeing decades worth of his materials all presented together was a transformative experience. His ability to see things in the fabric of everyday life that most of us miss and create visual compositions out of them is inspirational. This show is called "America by Car". Every photo (about two hundred) was taken from inside his car during a series of road trips from the last ten or fifteen years. (The photo above is from the exhibition). They all look as if they were taken quickly but the compositions are so strong and the details too perfect for that to be the case. At least that's my assumption. Makes me wonder how many shots were taken to have arrived at these. So many times I looked at a particular photograph and thought to myself, I wish I had done that!

Also on display were a couple of early Bruce Nauman videos. He's another of my favorites. This clip is called Bouncing in the Corner, No. 1 and dates from 1968...

Current Practice...

In September I'll be going into the studio and recording with my 1927 Conn tenor for the first time since I got it last December. Given that the sound and response is so different as compared to more modern instruments I've been provided with a wonderful opportunity to reassess everything from the ground up. Thought I might share my practicing / thinking process as of late…

Take a tune, something standard, like Cherokee for example. Figure out what key seems the hardest or least natural and practice improvising choruses in that key only, every day for at least an hour. Play very slowly, trying to find the strongest and clearest melodies you can think of. Make sure that each and every note you play is the note that you intended to play. While it is possible to play acceptable sounding notes utilizing musical phrases you've memorized or by relying on muscle memory go even slower, being obsessive about whether the note you played was really the note you heard in your head, stopping and correcting yourself as you go. You'll see that the process becomes more like composing than improvising. When we improvise we must sometimes make the best out of having played something that we may not have actually intended to play. Even accidents can work. You have myriad options from any one note to any other and if you're quick and imaginative enough you can recover and redirect from any situation. Of course you have to be able to "hear" well in order to do that. But being able to hear "really well" means having even greater accuracy so that what you intend to play is more often what actually comes out of your instrument. That's what this process is about. Try it. It's not nearly as easy as it sounds. Sometimes I'm playing so slowly I feel as if I am doing Tai Chi on the horn. But after some time practicing a tune like this I notice that I am able to "say" a whole lot more when it comes time to improvise freely. The thing is, I'm not practicing to be able to play Cherokee on a gig nor am I trying to emulate a style. It's just that this kind of material makes it abundantly clear as to whether I'm really playing what I hear. In freely improvised music with no predetermined harmonic form the difference between one note choice and another may not seem as crucial as when playing on a set of chord changes. So I need to increase my accuracy in terms of playing the note I intend to play at any given time so that I am able to say exactly what I mean to say at the precise moment I mean to say it. Just like when playing on changes. In fact, when improvising, there really is no distinction between playing on changes or playing free. The goal is to be able to play anything you can hear in your head. That's true freedom. And acquiring that type of freedom is a life long process. The entire time you are doing this stay completely committed to your sound and delivery. Rhythm is first. This can mean harmonic rhythm (if you're playing eighth notes, for example), variations in your phrasing or the use of more clearly defined rhythms. The rhythmic impulse will lead to a melodic idea which will lead to harmonic motion (either according to the harmonic form of the chord changes or leading to the possibility of implied harmonic motion when playing freely).

Observation: Personally, I don't use a lot of patterns when I improvise but I'm not against the idea either. After all, most music relies on patterns of some type. In jazz, patterns have become pretty much the bread and butter of the vocabulary. Seems that most younger players I hear have a fairly strong command over this type of vocabulary being (I assume) that it's easily teachable (and measurable) in university programs. Yet the players who inspire me the most in this area are the ones who are able to connect their patterns in the most melodic ways. The great players who developed this language all had a talent for melody. No matter how far afield they went they sounded like they were improvising in the moment even if we can see in retrospect just how much of their vocabulary was memorized. For them, melody was the starting point while I sense that the starting point for most current players are the extended lines and patterns as extracted from these past master's solos. Personally I think it pays to go as far back to basic fundamentals as possible and apply one's creativity from that point onwards, one note at a time. The acquisition of musical vocabulary through the analyzation of recorded solos and books would only be enhanced and enlivened by such an approach, in my opinion.

Again, this is not an exercise in style. I'm simply strengthening skills that need constant maintenance if I am to feel that I can truly improvise from day to day. This is simply an exercise that works well for me. I'm not one to subscribe to the notion that playing a standard is prerequisite for playing free. There are a lot of great improvisors who do not utilize this language. However, I am experiencing a renewed interest in the early players (such as Lester Young and Ben Webster) as part of the ongoing process of learning how to play the saxophone. There is much about tone quality and sound production that has collectively been lost over the years. I want to unlock a few of the more elusive aspects of the sound that have been calling out to me ever more strongly. Even as melody and harmony were for years deemphasized in free music (with some exceptions of course), by now, everything is on the table. The goal is not to be able to play everything that could be played. Just to be able to play whatever you choose to play in the moment and be able to connect to the essence of whatever musical impulse is in the air when it happens…

More on Sound…

As some of my previous posts attest, as a saxophonist I'm becoming more and more concerned with the idea of sound production. My daily practice (as well as my work with private students) continues to reinforce as well as renew the basic fundamentals that we are taught from the beginning of our musical journeys as instrumentalists.

However, a few recent concert experiences have caused me to think about how these ideas extend to the way a band or musical ensemble produces sound and how that sound is often the victim of poor reinforcement and amplification in concert settings. In most small clubs this is not such an issue although any time a PA system is employed it does change the way the musicians play and respond to each other and not always for the better.

This is something I've been aware of for quite awhile actually. I've come to feel that the more amplified sound that the listener hears (as opposed to acoustic sound) the less "live" the experience is for them. In considering the degree to which amplification has become the norm, practically taken for granted in even the most unnecessary settings, I have the feeling that listeners probably do not even realize the effect that this has on their listening experience. For a lot of years when touring with my own bands I took the attitude that I would not utilize a PA system nor would I use a microphone on my saxophone except in situations that would not be viable without amplification, which was in fact almost none. And in many instances I was thanked by members of the audience who heard the difference and appreciated a more personal concert experience. They realized that they were being drawn in and not pushed back. But given my aforementioned concern with "resonance" I decided that the effect of this often strenuous playing was deleterious to my tone. So I have been using a microphone so as not to have to strain when playing with bands that include electronic instruments or loud drums. I accept this as a compromise and do my utmost to try and make sure that the sound is not overdone. I must say however that the most rewarding playing experiences I've had of late have been ones in which the dynamic level has been rather soft.

I'm not trying to create any aesthetic divisions with respect to loud and soft. What I'm realizing is that this is more about resonance at any volume, loud or soft. Certain volumes are more conducive to revealing the fullness of sound of any given instrument and those levels do vary. Achieving a desirable balance among instrumentalists is part of the art of blending, a necessary skill for any good band. In order to accomplish this we might realize that the room in which we are playing can in fact be considered part of one's instrument. We understand that soft sounds must project to the back of the room and that loud sounds have a threshold beyond which there is a point of diminishing returns that undermine the very intentions we may have in attempting to create more musical energy through increased volume. I'm not sure every band I hear understands this.

However, no band stands a chance when all too often the sound engineers do not understand how to balance and amplify a band in proportion to the room that they are performing in. To be fair, many situations do not afford enough time for a proper sound-check. But very often when it comes to jazz or improvised music the sound engineers take a default "rock" approach which is usually not appropriate to the music. With the advent of mis-fit jazz/improv bands (which describes most of my own projects) performing in rock venues this is often the case. Some engineers seem to think that the bass drum is the "lead" instrument in the band. And it can be hard to disabuse them of that notion.

As a listener I can think of too many situations in which I felt that the musical presentation was ruined as a result of these issues. But what really surprises me is that audiences will allow themselves to be subjected to the most egregious examples of over-amplified and unbalanced music. Our ears do adjust and adapt to most situations but I'm convinced that over decades of increasing stage volume in all types of music we are becoming a bit numb to the very sounds that we seek out. Having thought about this over the years I can more easily imagine what the optimal sound would be when attending a concert and realize how much is being missed. Again, loud is fine. But balance ought not to be forgotten about. Too often I have witnessed gigs in which my fellow saxophonists are completely drowned out or there was a lack of clarity in the overall sound or the low end was too muddy or the high end too harsh and abrasive. And in most of these cases the musicians have little control over the sound coming out into the room.

These issues are especially of concern in jazz and improvised music since I know that the majority view is that this music thrives on the live experience. And yet I can think of many situations witnessing musicians standing on stage playing instruments where I could not hear the sounds coming from their instruments because they were being drowned out by the amplified version of the sound coming out of the PA system. For example, I was very excited at the prospect of hearing Wayne Shorter perform at a festival in Europe a few years ago. I did enjoy the concert. The sound was not terrible. I could tell what was going on and I walked away feeling better than when I had come in. But in no way can I say that I heard Wayne Shorter (or anyone else on stage) play live. I did not hear the sound out of the bell of his horn. In some cases that may be necessary and that just is what it is. But we should not confuse it for something that it is not.

An analogy might be in order. As we seem to be an increasingly visual society we would not put up with going to the cinema and sitting though a grainy or blurry picture. And you would likely be disappointed if your new television did not deliver the degree of high definition advertised. And yet we accept concert sound that is often so unclear that if it were speech it would be largely unintelligible. That just amounts to too many missed opportunities.

Something to think about…

More on grants and cultural funding…

In my previous post about Chamber Music America I mentioned that I had encountered some strange ideas in the jazz blogosphere with regard to grants and funding. I was surprised to find that not everyone thinks it's a good idea. We're not talking about the political right and left (at least I don't think so) as much as we seem to be dealing with a nostalgic regret over jazz having become detached from it's popular/folk music roots, apparently with the assistance of grants.

I really don't want to dredge all that up, honestly. But I responded to a recent blog post on the NPR website regarding this topic and thought I'd mention what I see as being a fundamental misunderstanding about the market for jazz or any other cultural art form in the US. Intertwined with the aforementioned lament about jazz having become an art-music there seems to be a lingering sentiment that in order to get closer to those lost roots jazz ought to be, if not dependent upon, at least tied to some degree to the so called "free market". In my view that argument is fundamentally flawed in as much as there really is no such thing as a "free market". At every level, starting with the largest of corporations, the government offers every manner of subsidy, tax break and pork-barrel spending imaginable. In spite of all the anti-socialist rhetoric from the right it's apparent that even they don't believe in free markets. So why should I? They would tell us that we in the arts need to survive in that imaginary free-market world, as if we all didn't know that the deck is heavily stacked against us.

I don't agree with everything our government spends money on. No one does. But that is in fact the true nature of our economy. And so we must continue to fight for what's left of our culture and demand that the nation's artistic and musical traditions not be left to die a slow death in the name of the almighty dollar. Despite the arguments pro and con regarding public and private support of the arts, within the political and economic structure that we live in, the music will not survive without such assistance.

Given the tone of my post I should point out that I dislike rants and negativity. However, if I see sentiments such as the ones I've described, I can't help but weigh in, especially when they come from inside the jazz world. But I don't want end on a depressing note. Let's look at the greater context. For example, in spite of all difficulties, it's amazing to me to realize how much good and positive work is currently being done by so many people under so many different sets of circumstances. I'm going to make it my business from time to time on this blog to mention and promote those people and projects that uplift my life in the hopes that they might do the same for you.

Recent and upcoming words worth mentioning…

An in-depth and thorough interview took place with the band (Ellery Eskelin with Andrea Parkins and Jim Black) on our recent European tour which will soon be published in L'art du Jazz N°2 (Francis Hofstein, Editor in Chief, Published by Éditions du Félin, Paris). Bill Shoemaker's website "Point of Departure" has posted the transcript under the heading "Parisian Thoroughfare" in their most recent edition. Curated by Alexandre Pierrepont. Interview by Cécile Even.



Also, in my previous post about the late Baltimore saxophonist Mickey Fields, I mentioned a forthcoming book on the history of the Baltimore jazz scene (my hometown). Apparently that book has been published and copies should be available from amazon.com very soon. I will certainly make mention of that when I find out more. For now here is the information I have:


Music at the Crossroads: Lives and Legacies of Baltimore Jazz
Published by Apprentice House, Loyola College in Maryland
ISBN 978-1-934074-52-7
Editors: Mark Osteen and Frank Graziano

Bobbie Lee at the Hammond organ…

This is a promotional photo of my mother taken in the early 1960's from her days playing Hammond B3 organ professionally in Baltimore nightclubs. With her organ playing days now long past the memories I have from hearing her play and teaching me standards when I began playing saxophone remain formidable. Yet in some ways the trajectory from her musical upbringing leading to my own involvement in music is just now becoming more clear to me.

Sometimes I'm asked what kind of music my mother played and I reply that while she did not regard herself as a jazz musician she did play standards in a swinging fashion. There was little improvisation involved but over the years working in clubs she would come up with arrangements and "shout" choruses to these tunes, which I then grew up hearing (and playing) at the many house parties we had. But I was always at something of a loss trying to describe exactly what this was and where it came from.

I was aware that my mother learned to play in church. But by the time I came along she was playing in nightclubs full time. This was in the early '60s at a time when socially it was a big deal not only to be a woman in this field but to have also made that break from the church to the world of secular nightlife and entertainment. The little exposure I had to church services as a kid was to be honest, quite boring. Very reserved and staid affairs. We didn't even go much at all but I'm guessing that the adults in my family thought it was a good idea for me to get some kind of religious upbringing even as my mother had pretty much left the church. But I did realize that the divide between the kind of music I was hearing in church and the kind of music my mother played on the organ was rather enormous. I never thought much about church after that. Of course I recognized certain blues and gospel elements in her sound but I never really knew exactly where she got it from. I assumed that she had somehow learned to play standards like that on her own. But a year or so ago I was talking with her about her upbringing and was surprised to find out that her church experience was very different from what I had assumed. Turns out she was brought up playing piano and organ in the pentecostal church and in her words "the music had to make you move"! Well, that made much more sense to me given the way she played. Turns out her parents left the pentecostal church at some point before I was born and so I had no experience with the type of services she described.

But it really wasn't until more recently that I heard some online clips of church organists playing hymns in a style that I immediately recognized as being very close harmonically, rhythmically and emotionally to what I grew up hearing from my mother. Lots of dominant seventh and diminished chords with a strong beat and more than a hint of gospel tinge. So now my interest is piqued and I've been reading some background information on just how this all came to be. In the early days of the pentecostal movement congregations were racially mixed. The expressive (or even ecstatic) tradition of church services was already established in southern African American churches as well as in white Appalachian services (in which some congregations went so far as to handle deadly snakes as proof of their devotion to God). Over time, white congregations and African American congregations became divided. But the musical seeds had been planted and continued to develop in spite of societal restrictions. One story my mother tells took place when she was just a teenager. She was invited by one of the African American churches in Washington DC to fill in for one of their services. Up until that time she was used to playing a few choruses of the song and that was it. But as she played, the members of the congregation all got up and came over to the organ, encouraging her to continue playing the song over and over as everyone sang and contributed to the mounting energy. As she tells it, they wouldn't let her stop. She laughs about it now, but at the time that was a formidable experience for a young person unaccustomed to that degree of social and musical intensity. My father, Rodd Keith, a keyboardist (as well as occasional saxophonist) was also musically involved in the pentecostal church (which is how my parents met). As a kid I recall my mother playing an elaborate arrangement of "Stand Up for Jesus" that he wrote and taught her back when they were playing together. From what I recall, it certainly had all the ingredients of the kind of music that surely would have gotten people on their feet. But he too had left the church.

In reading about the history of gospel music there is a general sense that white gospel traditions intertwined with southern country music while African American traditions paved the way for R & B and jazz. But my mother's approach was more towards the later as there was really no love of country music in our household. Even my grandfather (an accomplished guitarist and director of music at the church where my mother and father first met) eschewed the type of roots music (or "hillbilly" music as he called it) that he knew from his rural West Virginia upbringing. He was much more into the "pretty chords" that he loved to play on guitar which also extended into the popular tunes he played in Baltimore clubs for a time in the '40s and '50s. My mother had some jazz and R & B records in her collection and ultimately it was the sound of the great R & B tenor stylings of the day that got me into playing. In fact I quickly became a young jazz-snob. I hated rock and roll as a kid. (post script: For the record, I'm proud to say that I've overcome that snobbery. Led Zeppelin rocks and I think Ralph Stanley is one of the most soulful singers I've ever heard in my life.)

So what I'm realizing now is that my mother's organ style when playing standards was not all that different from the way she played those hymns and gospel tunes that she learned in church. It was all about delivering the melody (with a jazz and blues harmonic inflection and an infectious swing feel). Had she taken the next steps of improvising with the right hand she would have been on her way to being a jazz player. But she was all about the songs. And for that I'm quite grateful as it provided me with my own musical roots of a type that are much harder to come by now. I remember making a poster for the elementary school band room that included the names of all the major jazz stars that I gleaned from Langston Hughes' "The First Book of Jazz". At the time I didn't understand just how a scrawny, introverted white kid like myself could have been so into jazz music in the late 1960s. None of the other kids my age knew or liked jazz. Most of my heros were African American. I loved the music of Gene Ammons. Now I can see more clearly why that music resonated with me so strongly. Having heard my mother play from the time I can first remember and later having her teach me many of the songs she played gave me that foundation. And now I understand much better just how she got it.

In writing this I'm suddenly reminded of another small but noteworthy moment from when I was a teenager. I was at home listening to a Horace Silver record (I think it was "Silver and Brass"). Again, my mother never considered herself a jazz musician and in some ways had a fair degree of difficulty with much of the "progressive jazz" (in her words) that I was listening to. As she came into the room she stopped and listened for a moment during one of the piano solos and remarked upon the fact that he was quoting an old obscure church hymn (wish I could remember the title) but superimposing it rather dissonantly over the changes of whatever tune it was they were playing. She was surprised and a little puzzled to hear that tune in that context. And I was impressed and puzzled myself over the fact that she knew whatever hymn that was and could pick it out since I had no clue that was even going on in the music.

Being in no way religious myself the significance of much of this had less of an impact on me growing up than it does in retrospect years later. At that time I was striving to get a hold on post-Coltrane saxophone playing which was going strong in the '70s. (By the way, Bob Berg played amazingly on that Horace Silver record!) But it all makes total sense now. Everything comes from somewhere.

"Bobbie Lee" played the Great American Songbook night after night in the clubs but with the advent of rock and roll that scene too came to a close. I still have some old cassettes from some of our house parties. I don't know that I'll ever have the courage to let anyone else hear what I sounded like in those first few years of learning the horn. My mother still sounded good even though these recordings were made about a decade after she stopped playing regularly. Here are a couple of exceprts:

Satin Doll
Georgia

Oh, and one of the clips that I referred to earlier that got me thinking about all of this is a video of organist Eddie Howard explaining the difference between the Pentecostal style of organ playing and the style used in the "Church of God and Christ". It's rather short but as soon as I heard those chords they just knocked me over. It's the very style of playing that my mother comes from…

Upcoming....

On Monday, May 17th I'll be hitting in midtown with a new configuration that I'm really looking forward to. Roberto Romeo (of Roberto's Winds) has been producing a Monday Night series at Rosie O'Grady's on 46th Street. He's been bringing in some great bands. I saw Donny McCaslin's trio, Loren Stillman's band, Greg Osby's sextette and a quartet led by drummer Jonathan Blake that featured Mark Turner and Jaleel Shaw.

I'll be leading a trio featuring Gary Versace on organ and Tyshawn Sorey on drums. Gary and I have been playing together in drummer John Hollenbeck's "Future Quest" band performing the music of Meredith Monk. Meredith Monk is a musical icon who has inspired me deeply over the years. I'll have to make a post on her soon. Suffice it to say that Future Quest's participation in her Whitney Museum retrospective last year was a peak musical experience for me. Another peak musical experience of late involved another new project I put together last November that involved Tyshawn Sorey along with guitarist Mary Halvorson and bassist John Hébert at the Cornelia Street Cafe. We did two completely improvised sets of music that I really wish had recorded.

So Gary, Tyshawn and myself will be hitting at 8 pm in a first time performance in this configuration. We look forward to seeing our NYC friends there. For you out of town folks I'll be sure to write up a post gig report. There's always a great vibe there plus Roberto always takes good photos. Check out his Facebook page.

The 10 pm set will be saxophonist Hayes Greenfield and his trio. Looking forward...

Monday, May 17th at 8 pm
Rosie O'Grady's
Limerick Bar (2nd Floor)
Times Square / 149 West 46th Street

Chamber Music America

In my opening post I mentioned a recent writing commission I received last year from Chamber Music America. This was a grant as part of their jazz commissioning and development program funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. I wrote an extended composition for the group "Different But the Same" a quartet that fellow saxophonist David Liebman instigated in which we explore the classic two tenor lineup. In this case the band includes bassist Tony Marino (who has played in David's band for many years) and drummer Jim Black (who has played in my band for many years). So it's a sort of combined forces approach in which each member of the group is contributing material.

Much of my compositional approach over the years has been about introducing composed elements into otherwise open improvisations. At least that's how I think of it. It's sort of the opposite of the more traditional approach of inserting improvisation (or solos) into a written composition. I'm interested in the effect of introducing these events into a process with inherent unknowns. And it creates a situation in which improvisors must be more compositionally minded than soloistically minded. Structure and balance become the overriding concerns for everyone. So with form itself being manipulated in real time performance we can arrive at musical points of interest that may not have been achievable in any more of a direct fashion. Subsequently I titled the piece "Non Sequiturs (for two tenor saxophones, bass and drums)". I love the idea of musical non sequiturs. In as much as there is no literal or narrative meaning involved in the arrangement of sounds in time the whole idea of structure (from individual phrasing to overall form) is really endlessly malleable and indestructible. The piece had it's premier in NYC at the Cornelia Street Cafe back in February of this year. We had a followup performance at the legendary "Blues Alley" club in Washington DC.

So in this case, I suppose that my blog functions as a self promotional vehicle, which gives me pause. Hopefully it's not seen as being only that. But the fact is, the fragmentation of the little infrastructure that may have once existed in this corner of the music business requires us to get the word out ourselves. And I'm happy to have the opportunity to provide what I feel is a necessary focus to my work. Commercial publications have their structural limitations and so it's nice not to have to depend totally upon them. Still, it was somewhat concerning to me that the little attention this grant program did receive was in a rather negative light, as in "should there even be such a thing as jazz grants?" And actually, much of that discussion took place in the blogosphere.

The short answer to that question is, YES! And I do think that most would agree. However I do understand some of the concerns that motivated those articles. I was able to take part in some of those on-line discussions and in the end I felt that the exchanges were thoughtful and positive. My purpose here is not to restart that conversation but to recognize that this is the world we live in. We cannot always depend upon traditional networks of publicity to recognize everything that may be taking place at any given time. Rather than complain about the situation (which is really no one's fault) I am free to pick up the slack and hopefully provide something worth reading in the process.

I'm very grateful to have received the support of CMA and I would hope that these types of programs will be able to expand past the idea of rewarding those of us fortunate enough to be recognized from time to time. I'm reminded that we would not be having much of a discussion at all if it were not for the support that so many American musicians have received by working abroad, particularly in Europe. This has been going on for many decades. There is a true network of support for the arts in general and jazz in particular that has resulted in opportunities for so many of us over the years as well as providing a comparatively more healthy environment for European musicians in which to work as compared to what most American musicians deal with here.

I'd actually like to see a shift in the US away from the emphasis on a handful of artists getting some type of recognition while the vast majority have many fewer opportunities. Perhaps due to the nature of our society there is something of a "winner take all" mentality that does not seem to serve us all that well. Personally, I feel fortunate to have received the degree of recognition that I have achieved over the years. But the health of the scene at large should concern us all. It takes the dedicated work of many people to create a scene or even make the most modest of productions happen, and most of those people will never get any real recognition. It's nice to get an award or win a poll but there is the risk that a "musician of the year" mentality risks portraying the scene as even smaller than it actually is and in some ways makes things more difficult for those many deserving musicians who for whatever reasons are not fortunate enough to have their work acknowledged.

Be that as it may, I am happy to have received the recognition from an organization that is working hard to support a music that gets far too little support in the US. And at the risk of blowing my own horn, I'm happy to have the opportunity to give my perspective on it. If I had to wait for someone else to talk about it I may be waiting a very long time. As an interesting side note, just this month I received my first ever live concert review (as a leader) in any NYC publication. I've been living here for twenty seven years now. Believe me when I say, that's not a complaint. For most of that time I've been touring and recording regularly and receiving much positive support for my work. I'm happy to be in the game. But like most things, you can't wait around for s**t to happen.

I guess that's why I took the time to write this down...