Monday, August 31, 2015

John Fedchock's New York Big Band - "Like It Is"

© -  Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.




"Cheerful syncopation, served with spit-and-polish precision."
— The New York Times


"John Fedchock's New York Big Band commands your attention and holds it."
— DownBeat
"An unabashed celebration of the large band format."
— The Chicago Tribune
"Tantalizing big-band Jazz, served New York-style."
— Cadence


“Big band music has made some dramatic changes over the years, and even though many embrace this evolution, there seem to be plenty of folks who'd prefer everything just remain like it was. But truth be told, some of the best things in music have come from combining the "like it was" with the "like it is", melding the greatness of the past with a fresh perspective using today's ears, approaching each piece like a drawing of familiar images sketched in an abstract form. ….


Over these past many years, I like to think the band has evolved in many ways. Those changes may not have been dramatic, but I do believe we've always done what we could to honor both the "like it was" and the "like it is". I hope you enjoy this recording. We had a great time making it for you.”
- John Fedchock


Ann Braithwaite and her fine team at Braithwaite & Katz do a lot of nice things for Jazz, not the least of which is to own and operate a media relations firm that distributes sample music and detailed press information on behalf of Jazz artists who are releasing new CDs.


Every so often I try to return the favor by posting her narratives to JazzProfiles.


Such is the case with the following annotation which Ann sent out to accompany the August 7, 2015 release of Like It Is,  trombonist John Fedcock’s New York Big Band’s latest CD on the MAMA Foundation [MAA 1048].


You can be find out more about John and his big band at www.johnfedcock.com and sample the tracks from his new CD at www.summitrecords.com.


Order information is available through most online retailers.


If you are into big band Jazz, give yourself a treat as John’s latest effort is a corker. He is a major force in Jazz orchestration today and an arranger and composer who interposes elements of his own innovations into the Jazz tradition thereby keeping it alive and robust while at the same time helping to move it forward. Somewhere the spirits of Fletcher Henderson, Don Redman and Benny Carter are sure to be smiling and no doubt wishing him well.


© -  Ann Braithwaite, copyright protected; all rights reserved.


The John Fedchock New York Big Band's Like It Is - to be released by MAMA Records on August 7, 2015 - is the fifth album for the 16-piece ensemble and Fedchock's eighth as leader. This pristinely recorded studio session showcases Fedchock's compelling compositions and arrangements as well as the band's exceptional musicianship. The group, which has been together for over two decades and recorded four previous releases on Reservoir, sets the standard for modern, post-swing large ensembles and has brought Fedchock to the GRAMMY finals for his notable arranging skills. Like It Is features five Fedchock originals and five arrangements of jazz and American classics.


Having first made a name for himself in the 1980s as chief arranger for the legendary Woody Herman, Fedchock has continued to develop his writing style over his 35-year career, and this recording shows his inventive flair in meshing the old with the new. His comments regarding the evolution of the genre explain the album's title: "Even though many embrace the big band's evolution, there seem to be plenty of folks who'd prefer everything just remain like it was. But truth be told, some of the best things in music have come from combining the 'like it was' with the 'like it is', melding the greatness of the past with a fresh perspective using today's ears." He backs up his words with what might be his most ambitious work to date, expertly melding fresh new colors with iconic traditional elements and skillfully interweaving those sounds to underscore the progressive solo voices within the band.


There are plenty of chances to hear the band's profusion of solo talent. Eleven different soloists grace this recording, and all are New York City stalwarts. Saxophonists Mark Vinci, Charles Pillow, Rich Perry, Walt Weiskopf, Gary Smulyan and Scott Robinson; trumpeters Scott Wendholt and Barry Ries, pianist Allen Farnham, bassist Dick Sarpola and drummer Dave Ratajczak all contribute contrasting solo statements perfectly complementing the music. Bobby Sanabria's Latin percussion joins the band on three tracks, lending a strong dose of excitement.


Fedchock's multifaceted trombone playing is also showcased on six tracks, all displaying a different side of his abilities. From speedy and aggressive runs on "You And The Night And The Music" and "Ten Thirty 30," to medium-tempo post-bop forays on "Just Sayin'" and "Hair Of The Dog," to more mellow and soulful statements on the ballad "Never Let Me Go" and in his Cuban bolero original "Havana," Fedchock thoroughly covers the stylistic gamut. Through it all, flawless technique, a melodic approach, and a warm, lush tone remain the trademarks of his improvisational style. Coming on the heels of his critically acclaimed 2015 Summit Records quartet release Fluidity, about which Kirk Silsbee of DownBeat magazine wrote, "one wonders how the trombonist would have sounded next to Clifford Brown.” Fedchock confirms his status as an A-list horn stylist.


The material Fedchock chose to arrange on Like It Is represents a special balance of familiar themes and fresh, original works. The opening track, "You And The Night And The Music" embodies Fedchock's thought process in blending past and present. "My goal was to mask the original structure of the age-old classic while keeping things familiar enough to flex into a more standard context for the soloists/' the bandleader explains. Other classics that receive Fedchock's updated look include Cedar Walton's "Ojos de Rojo" as a full-fledged Latin flag-waver, a tongue-in-cheek version of the Gaines/Ellington classic "Just Squeeze Me" and a pair of lush ballads from the American Songbook: "Never Let Me Go" and "For Heaven's Sake."
Also included in this outing are five Fedchock originals.


The title track harkens back to the sound of 1960s boogaloo and funky cha-cha but is approached from a modernist's perspective, and the quirky blues, "Hair Of The Dog" creates a somewhat programmatic journey. "Havana" transports the listener to a warm Cuban evening; the jaunty "Just Sayin'" shows off an impressive brass section; and "Ten Thirty 30," commissioned for the Clifford Brown Symposium, displays thematic material drawn exclusively from Brown's music and solos updated into a compelling closer. The title comes from the simple abbreviation of Clifford's October 30,1930 birthdate.


Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Fedchock began his career in 1980 as a jazz trombonist with the legendary Woody Herman Orchestra, serving as featured soloist, musical director and chief arranger for Herman's last two Grammy nominated albums. Herman said of Fedchock, "He's my right hand man. Everything I ask of John he accomplishes, and I ask a lot. He's a major talent." Fedchock has also toured with Gerry Mulligan, T.S. Monk, Louie Bellson, and the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band, and has performed as a featured soloist, composer and conductor around the world.


With the release of Like It Is, the next chapter has been written for the John Fedchock New York Big Band. As with his previous recordings, this project showcases Fedchock as an artist who will continue to have a hand in guiding and shaping the direction of big band music for years to come.


The following video features John’s exquisite orchestral shadings on the ballad For Heaven’s Sake featuring Barry Ries on flugelhorn.




Sunday, August 30, 2015

Blues for Pablo

© -  Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.


Say the name “Pablo” in the context of 20th century Arts and Letters and the name “Pablo Picasso” springs to mind. It did for me as you will no doubt see when you view the video montage that closes this piece.


But as Stephanie Stein Crease explains in the following excerpt from her definitive Gil Evans: Out of the Cool - His Life in Music, Gil Evans had a different “Pablo” in his thoughts when he composed Blues for Pablo, the theme for the music that accompanies the video.  


"Blues for Pablo," written in tribute to a fallen fighter in the Spanish Civil War, successfully uses alternating themes and rhythmic feels — in this case, Spanish bolero and swing — a practice that would become more common in jazz as the 1950s progressed. The composition juxtaposes a Spanish-inflected minor theme and an extended major blues, swinging loosely from a half-time feel to straight 4/4 and back. The opening theme, complete with tremolo, derives from the opening measures of [Manuel de] Falla's Three-Cornered Hat (this theme also appears, somewhat altered, in the ending of Evans's arrangement of "La Paloma"). A Mexican folk song inspired the other main theme. To Gil's astonishment, the musicians found the quirky rhythm difficult for improvisation. "Now, the kind of rhythmic changes that tune went through are very common in jazz. But at that time, I remember bringing in a number in 3/4 and someone said, 'I couldn't improvise in three'—my goodness!" [The quotation is drawn from Gil’s interviews with Stephanie].


To the best of my knowledge, Blues for Pablo first appeared on Miles Ahead which was also released as Miles Davis + 19 [Columbia CL 1041; CK 40784], although with the work of Ryan Truesdell which seems to continue to “unearth” troves of Gil Evans’ earlier manuscripts, who knows, there may still be an earlier version hidden away out there. Blues for Pablo encapsulates much of what I find intriguing about Gil Evans’ writing, especially the melancholy feelings it seems to evoke.


Gil discusses his penchant for pensive sadness and other aspects of his arranging style in the following excerpts from a 1986 interview that aired on Ben Sidran’s NPR radio program [Ben’s interview with Gil along with 42 others are available both in book form an on CD as Talking Jazz: An Oral History]:


“[I joined Claude Thornhill’s band in 1946]. It was a wonderful workshop for me.
It had three trumpets and two trombones and two french horns and two altos, two tenors, baritone and a separate flute section, right? Three flute players, didn't play anything but flutes. And a tuba. So it was a big nut for him, and he finally had to give it up.


Ben: Was it Claude's idea to include the french horns and the tuba, initially?


Gil: The french horns were his idea, yeah. But the tuba, I got that in there. And the flutes. But the french horns he had quite a while. He had them before the war, too, you know.


But the band sounded like horns anyway, even before he got them. It was one of the first bands that played without a vibrato, you know. Because the vibrato had been "in" all the time in jazz, ever since, well, Louis Armstrong, you know, that vibrato. But then Claude's band played with no vibrato and that’s what made it compatible with bebop. Because the bebop players were playing with no vibrato. And they were interested in the impressionistic harmony [French composers Debussy, Ravel, et al], you know, that I had used with Claude. The minor ninths and all that.


That's how we got together, really. That's the reason we got together. Because of the fact that there was no vibrato plus the harmonic development. Because up until that time, with the swing bands, mostly the harmony had been from Fletcher Henderson, really. Where you harmonize everything with the major sixth chords and passing tones with a diminished chord, you know. So that was how things changed with bebop.


Ben: Also, the addition of the french horns and the tuba got the arrangements out of the more traditional "sections" — brass section, woodwind section — and made it more of a continuous palette for you.


Gil: Well, when Miles and I got together to do the Capitol record [Birth of the Cool] we just had to figure out how few instruments, and which ones, we could use to cover the harmonic needs of Claude Thornhill's band, you know. Naturally with a big band like that, you have a lot of doubles. But we just trimmed it down to the six horns. Six horns and three rhythm, and those six horns covered all the harmonic needs that we had. ...


We talked a lot about harmony. How to get a “sound” out of harmony. Because the harmony has a lot to do with what the music is going to “sound” like. The instruments have their “wave” form and all that, but the harmony means that you're putting together a group of instruments, and they're going to get their own independent waveform, right? You can't get it any other way except as an ensemble together. So Miles and I talked about that lots of times. And played chords on the piano. And that's how it happened.


Ben: The "sound" that you did come up with so perfectly suited Miles' sound that it almost seemed like one gesture.


Gil: That's right... 

Ben: You talk about the extension of the Thornhill sound. You once said about the Thornhill band that "the band was a reduction to inactivity, a stillness..."


Gil: Oh, it was. That's right.


Ben: And "the sound would hang like a cloud." Gil: That's right. Oh yeah. ...


Ben: When you finally went in to record Miles Ahead in 1957, again the arrangements were "seamless," and they were almost a translation of Miles' "sound" into orchestral terms. At the same time, I remember some little things that you did that were very distinctive. For example, at the end of the song "Miles Ahead," there's an ensemble trumpet figure that's used almost as an acoustic guitar, a Spanish guitar. There were a lot of things like that in your writing that were very unusual, very deceptive.


Gil: Right. People used to think there were strings in those albums. Even somebody as knowledgeable as Gordon Jenkins. Now you know he wrote for strings all the time. He called me up to tell me how he liked it, and he thought there were strings. And I thought, "Gee, that's funny. Imagine him thinking there are strings." Because he wrote for strings, wow, I've seen him. And he had such a feeling for those things. He'd have a big string section, and they'd all be playing an ensemble that he'd write for them with Louis Armstrong in mind, you know?


Ben: You said that in the interim, from 1949 to 1957, you were waiting for Miles...


Gil: I was waiting for Miles, basically, I was.


Ben: It's so romantic. It sounds like a love affair when you say that.


Gil: I know.


Ben: Much has been made in the past about how Duke Ellington would write for an individual, as opposed to just bringing different people to his notes. Is this in that tradition?


Gil: You know, I never knew Duke. But one day, he called me, you know. To tell me that I was his favorite jazz orchestrator. It was really nice. It really made me feel good. But we got some very bad reviews on that album too, you know. The Miles Ahead album, when it first came out. Wow. They called it the "anti-jazz" album. Stuff like that.


Ben: Well the Birth of the Cool sessions got the same sort of reaction too, didn't it? Critics said it was "devoid of emotion."


Gil: Yeah. We're all victims of the terrible habit of convenience, right? And when you are used to hearing a certain type of music or a certain “sound” of music, and it changes, and you are not with it, or don’t follow it any more, you’re home and you stop going out to clubs and all that … we all suffer from an overdose of convenience at the expense of passion, right?” …


Ben: … with your charts, I have to say, they don't sound dated. Whether we hear one that was done in the '40s or one that was done in the '80s, there's a continuity that relates more to the man than to the historical era.


Gil: Yeah. They're all melancholy. That's one of my characteristics.


Ben: Perhaps that's at the heart of your great compatibility with Miles. Miles is, the voice of melancholy.


Gil: That's how we got together, basically. Really. The "sound," you know. The "sound" is the thing that put us together immediately, and it's always been like that. It's still the same way today. Even if we don't see each other very often, we're still life-time friends. On account of the "sound."”


The following video features Henk Meutgeert’s treatment of Gil’s Blues for Pablo as performed in 2009 by the Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw at The Bimhuis in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Wim Both does the honors on trumpet. Henk reorchestrated Gil’s original arrangement because the JOC’s instrumentation was different than that used on the original 1957 Miles Ahead recording.


It is no less delightful.



Saturday, August 15, 2015

The Ultimate Organic Tenor Groove Experience [From the Archives]


© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.


We put this feature together essentially to pay homage to the venerable tradition of the jam session.

As defined by Gunther Schuller in The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, the jam session is:

“An informal gathering of jazz musicians playing for their own pleasure. Jam sessions originated as spontaneous diversions when musicians were free from the constraints of professional engagements; they also served the function of training young players in a musical tradition that was not formally taught and accepted in music schools and academic institutions until the 1960s.

In the late 1930s jam sessions came to be organized by entrepreneurs for audiences; this under­mined their original purpose, and by the 1950s true jam ses­sions were becoming increasingly rare.

However, in the 1970s and 1980s the concept of "sessions" has made a comeback among younger jazz musicians, especially those trained in con­servatories. An "open" session is one in which anyone who is more or less competent may take part. The so-called loft scene of the late 1970s in New York may also be seen as a quasi-commercial offshoot of the jam session. (B. Cameron: "Soci­ological Notes on the Jam Session," Social Forces, xxxiii (1954), 177) - GUNTHER SCHULLER “

And Paul F. Berliner, in his wonderfully informative, Thinking in Jazz, The Infinite Art of Improvisation, offers these observations about the jam session:

“As essential to students as technical information and counsel is the understanding of Jazz acquired directly through performance. In part they gain experience by participating in one of the most venerable of the community's insti­tutions, the jam session. At these informal musical get-togethers, improvisers are free of the constraints that commercial engagements place upon repertory, length of performance, and the freedom to take artistic risks. Ronald Shannon Jackson's grade school band leader allowed students to conduct daily lunch-hour jam sessions in the band room. "During those years, I never saw the inside of the school's official lunch room."

Ultimately, sessions bring together artists from different bands to play with a diverse cross section of the jazz community. "New Yorkers had a way of learning from each other just as we did in Detroit," Tommy Flanagan says. "From what I heard from Arthur Taylor, Jackie McLean, and Sonny Rollins, they all used to learn from just jamming together with Bud Powell and Monk and Bird. Even though Bird wasn't a New Yorker, he lived here a long time and got an awful lot from it."

Some sessions arise spontaneously when musicians informally drop in on one another and perform together at professional practice studios. Improvisers also arrange invitational practice sessions at one another's homes. Extended events at private house parties in Seattle "lasted a few days at a time," Patti Brown remembers, and they held such popularity that club owners temporarily closed their own establishments to avoid competing for the same audience. Guests at the parties "cooked food and ate, [then] sat down and played," Brown continues. Musicians "could really develop there. Sometimes they would really get a thing going, and they would keep on exploring an idea. You would go home and come back later, and it was still going on.... [Improvisers] some­times played a single tune for hours." Other sessions were similarly very re­laxed: "Everybody was in the process of learning. Some guys were better than others, but it was always swinging, and the guys went on and on playing. We played maybe one number for an hour, but nobody ever got bored with it.”

Jazz organizations such as the Bebop Society in Indianapolis and the New Music Society at the World Stage in Detroit, where Kenny Burrell served as president and concert manager, promoted more formally organized sessions. Others took place in nightclubs, especially during weekend afternoons or in the early hours of the morning after the clientele had gone. In Los Angeles, according to Art Farmer, opportunities abounded for young people. "During the day you would go to somebody's house and play. At night there were after-hours clubs where they would hire maybe one horn and a rhythm section, and then anybody who wanted to play was free to come up and play. Then these clubs would have a Sunday matinee session. We used to just walk the streets at night and go from one place to another."

Musicians distinguish some sessions in terms of the skills of participants. The New Music Society would have a group "the caliber of Elvin Jones, Barry Harris, Tommy Flanagan, and Kenny Burrell," and then they would have "the next crew of guys" like Lonnie Hillyer and his schoolmates, who rehearsed a couple of weeks in advance to prepare for their own session. The youngsters "wouldn't interfere" with those involving "the guys of high caliber." At times, the arrival of musicians from out of town intensified session activities—artists like Hampton Hawes and John Coltrane "who'd be working in some band and had that night off. It was a hell of a playing atmosphere going on there.”
.
Likewise in Chicago, musicians knew that the session "at a certain club down the corner was for the very heavy cats and would not dare to participate until they knew that they were ready," Rufus Reid recalls. As a matter of re­spect, "you didn't even think about playing unless you knew that you could cut the mustard. You didn't even take your horn out of your case unless you knew the repertoire." At the same time, naive learners did periodically perform with artists who were a league apart from them. David Baker used to go to sessions including Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray "when they came to Indianapolis." He adds with amusement, "I didn't have the sense not to play with them."

Although initially performing at sessions in their hometowns, musicians from different parts of the country eventually participate in an extensive net­work of events in New York City, "mixing in with players from everywhere." In the late forties and fifties, they made their way each day through a variety of apartments, lofts, and nightclubs, where they sampled performances by im­promptu groups and joined them as guests during particular pieces, a practice known as sitting in. In addition to having pedagogical value, the sessions served as essential showcases. As Kenny Barron points out, "That's how your name got around." Count Basie's club in particular "was like a meeting ground" during Monday evening sessions, as was the renowned club Birdland, although the latter was difficult "to break into without knowing somebody.”  There were also well-documented sessions at Minton's Playhouse and Monroe's Up­town House in Harlem.

Tommy Turrentine's fondest memories of the mid-forties concern Small's Paradise Club "in Harlem.... Everybody used to come there." Spanning four musical generations, the artists included trumpeters Red Allen, Hot Lips Page, Idres Sulieman, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, and Clifford Brown; saxophon­ists Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins, Jackie McLean, and Stan Getz; pianists Bud Powell, Walter Bishop Jr., Walter Davis, and Mal Waldron. The house band was led by Big Nick Nicholas, who knew "every tune that's ever been written." Nicholas was, in fact, an important teacher of the community for his role in challenging players to expand their repertories by constantly choosing unfamil­iar compositions on the bandstand. Within the context of such a rich and varied repertory, the improvised interplay, night after night, served as inspiring learning sessions for Turrentine and his friends. "That was Paradise University. You would hear so much good music each night that, when you went to lay down, your head would be swimming!"

Rivalry among the participants added spark to an already charged atmo­sphere. "During that time, there was somewhat of a mutual respect among the musicians, and they had cutting sessions. They would say, “I am going to blow so and so out.' It wasn't with malice. It was no put-down; it was just friendly competition." Turrentine goes on to describe actual events. "Maybe two tenor players would get up; maybe there would be about seven horn players on the bandstand. Everybody had the sense to know that saxophones was going to hang up there tonight — they was going to be blowing at each other — so we all got off the bandstand and let them have it. Maybe the next night, two trumpet players would be getting up there at each other; then there would be drummers. I have seen it many times. It was healthy really, just keeping everybody on their toes."

Interaction with an increasing number of musicians in these settings pro­vided aspiring artists with stimulus for their own growth as improvisers. Don Sickler speculates that one renowned trumpeter "became so great" because he was aware of the competition around him: "Booker Little was born just a few months before him, and Lee Morgan was just a little younger. He really had to work hard to keep up with that level of competition."

Of course, any instrument was generally welcomed in a jam session, but somehow, to my ears, at least, the tradition of the jam session is best exemplified by the sound of “battling” or “dueling” tenor saxophones.

Over the years, there have been many such pairings including Lester Young and Herschel Evans; Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster; Illinois Jacquet and “Flip” Phillips; Don Byas and Buddy Tate; Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray; Gene Ammons and Sonny Stitt; Al Cohn and Zoot Sims; Tubby Hayes and Ronnie Scott; Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis and Johnny Griffin; Frank Foster and Frank Wess; Pete Christlieb and Warne Marsh.

The title of this piece gets its name from two Dutch tenor saxophonists – Simon Rigter and Sjoerd Dijkhuizen – who along with guitarist Martijn van Iterson, organist Carlo de Wijs and drummer Joost Patocka – revived the jam session tradition with their appearance on August 18, 2006 at the Pure Jazzfest which was held at De Nieuwe Kerk in The Hague, The Netherlands.

For their performance at the Pure Jazzfest, the group adopted the name -  The Ultimate Organic Tenor Groove Experience – and I have absolutely no idea what the “organic” in the title is in reference to – sign of the times, maybe?.

By way of background, Simon and Sjoerd enjoy a major presence on the Dutch Jazz scene as both perform with The Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw and with the Rotterdam Jazz Orchestra. Sjoerd can also be heard regularly as a member of drummer Eric Ineke’s JazzXpress.

Martijn van Iterson has his own quartet and often wroks with The Metropole Orchestra in Amsterdam.  Carlo has also performed with The Metropole Orchestra, Lucas van Merwijk’s Cubop City Big Band and alto saxophonist Benjamin Herman’s group to which drummer Joost Patocka also belongs.

Both in their late thirties, Sjoerd Dijkhuizen and Simon Rigter formed their own quintet as an outgrowth from their appearance together with the late Dutch pianist Cees Slinger on his "Two Tenor Case" recording. In addition to their work in The Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw,” they are also a part of a group called "The Reeds,” a sax ensemble and rhythm section.

As  far as I can determine, Simon and Sjoerd in combination with Carlo, Martijn and Joost made only one public appearance together and that was at the 2006 Pure Jazzfest.

You can view images of all the members of The Ultimate Organic Tenor Groove Experience in the following video montage which is set to the group’s performance of Dexter Gordon’s Sticky Wicket.



As we’ve noted before, straight-ahead Jazz is alive and well – in Holland!

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Wednesday, August 12, 2015

J.J. Johnson's "Lament"

© -  Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.


I found everything about the Columbia LP Miles Ahead or Miles Davis + 19 Davis fascinating as Gil Evans’ arrangements opened up a whole new world of sonorities for me.

Sometimes referred to as the Fourth Element or Atom after melody, harmony and rhythm, sonorities or textures refer to the way the music collectively sounds to the ear.

“Texture” is the word that is used to refer to the actual sound of the music. This encompasses the instruments with which it is played; its tonal colors; its dynamics; its sparseness or its complexity.

Texture involves anything to do with the sound experience and it is the word that is used to describe the overall impression that a piece of music creates in our emotional imagination.

Often our first and most lasting impression of a composition is usually based on that work’s texture, even though we are not aware of it. Generally, we receive strong musical impressions from the physical sound of any music and these then determine our emotional reaction to the work.

On Miles Ahead, Lament by J.J. Johnson really grabbed my attention because I’d never heard it before.

Trombonist J.J. Johnson’s Lament really sounded as the word implied - sad but in a beautiful sort of way.

I think that what makes the texture or sonority of J.J.’s Lament so interesting is that its melody centers around half notes and whole notes; sustained notes that bring out the lush, deep, melancholy tones of trombone. [One of the few instruments on which Jazz is played in bass clef.].

Ted Gioia offers more insights into both J.J. Johnson’s significance and Lament in these excerpts from his masterful The Jazz Standards: A Guide to the Repertoire:

“No one did more to legitimize the trombone as a modern jazz instrument than J. J. Johnson. Not every horn survived the transition from swing to bop during the middle years of the twentieth century — the clarinet, for example, has never come close to recapturing the leading role it played in many jazz bands during the late 19308 and early 19405. Over the years, other instruments — the C-melody saxophone, the banjo, the cornet — have also struggled to retain their place in the jazz world. The trombone might easily have become another casualty, relegated to Dixieland ensembles or big band horn sections, had Johnson not shown at a decisive juncture that the big 'bone could adapt to the fleet and flashy stylings of the new idiom.

Yet as early as his high school years, Johnson also focused on writing and arranging.  … Johnson's best-known composition today is a 32-bar ballad named "Lament."

Johnson's debut recording from 1954 testifies to the emotional pungency of the piece, and despite this trombonist's reputation for virtuosity, his approach here is understated with no wasted gestures or showy theatrics. Even so, it took another horn player to establish "Lament" as a jazz standard. Three years later, Miles Davis featured "Lament" on his high-profile collaboration with Gil Evans, Miks Ahead, a project that even today remains one of the biggest-selling jazz albums in the Columbia archive (now owned by Sony). Davis and Evans returned to the song for their 1961 Carnegie Hall concert, also released on LP by the Columbia label.

Most later versions emulate Davis's treatment, offering up "Lament" as a slow, wistful ballad. Few have tried to update or reconfigure this song—a wise choice, since this composition needs to be underplayed for best effect. I consider it more a test of a performer's emotional commitment rather than a vehicle for ingenuity or pyrotechnics.”

The following video features J.J.’s Lament as performed by drummer Dick Berk’s Jazz Adoption Agency which in addition to Dick on drums, Tad Weed on piano [Tad also wrote the arrangement] and Ken Filiano on bass fittingly features two trombonists: Andy Martin on slide trombone and Mike Fahn on valve trombone. The video’s imagery is by Kura Shomali who refers to himself as an “Artiste Plasticien” and who lives in Kinshasa, République démocratique du Congo.

“Artiste Plasticien” can be loosely translated as “visual artist” one who emphasizes the abstract properties of painting especially colors, lines, and contrast.

Monday, August 10, 2015

Jazz: Body and Soul - The Photography of Bob Willoughby with a Foreword by Dave Brubeck

© -  Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.


The West Coast in the 1950s: a time of youth, exuberance and change. Nowhere was this more evident than in the music emanating from the California jazz scene.


We have been fortunate to have many great photographers such as William Claxton, Ray Avery and Bob Willoughby chronicling Jazz on the West Coast at many of the concert halls and clubs where the music was performed from 1945-1960..


BOB WILLOUGHBY is best known as the master chronicler of Hollywood in the 1950s, '60s and '70s. He shot for all the major studios and his work was carried extensively in magazines such as Look, Life and Harper's Bazaar. Willoughby’s iconic images continue to be avidly collected and are included in museums the world over, including the Museum of Modern Art and the Tate Gallery.


Before he became known as the great chronicler of Hollywood stars, photographer Bob Willoughby had produced an astonishing series on these pivotal jazz musicians. Working at night in his garage darkroom to avoid light leaks, the radio blasting, Willoughby heard all the greats from that golden era of jazz. If he heard a live broadcast from a local venue, he'd drop everything and rush down there with his cameras to shoot. Willoughby had a huge appreciation of jazz, both in its technical aspects and its ability to raise the roof in performance. He had a masterful feel for the character of the artists, and was able to convey it even in the most difficult lighting conditions of recording studios and stage.


Many of Bob’s images have been collected in Jazz: Body & Soul - Bob Willoughby Photographs and Recollections.


In Jazz: Body and Soul you'll find unrivaled images of the most famous artists of the time — Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong, Chet Baker, Gerry Mulligan, Billie Holiday — and never-before published photographs of inspired performances and backstage jitters. Accompanied by Willoughby's intimate recollections, this is a unique first-hand view of what it was like to be there, as part of what Dave Brubeck's son Darius proclaimed "the beginning of the beyond."


Fittingly, pianist Dave Brubeck wrote the following Foreword to this compilation.


“San Francisco, 1950s. I think of this period as the most exciting period in my life. It was a time of youth, exuberance, hope, and change. The arts reflected the movements shaping a post-war society. Life in San Francisco was vibrant. Radio stations still played live music. My first radio broadcasts reached audiences throughout the Western states, as far as Honolulu, out into the Pacific, and into a garage photo lab where a very young Bob Willoughby listened to the new sounds.
Improvisation was the operative word then, spilling over (literally) on to the artists' canvases, and poets' and authors' pages, and stand-up  comics'   routines.  San   Francisco nightclubs spawned satirical humorists Mort Sahl and Lenny Bruce; Sunday afternoon sessions of Jazz & Poetry with the two Kenneths, Patchen and Rexroth, Allen Ginsberg and others; while a whole generation went On the Road with Jack Kerouac. Improvisation, along with something Paul Desmond called ESP, was key to the music that Paul and   created together. Someone later dubbed it "cool" (which it was not) and gave the new movement in jazz a geographic designation, West Coast (which was also misleading, as a similar movement was afoot in New York). Whatever it was called, the music had an immediacy that spoke to the young audiences of that period.


By 1951 the trio that had broadcast on NBC had become a quartet with the addition of Paul Desmond on alto saxophone. We were making our first West Coast appearances away from home ground, San Francisco, when we met Bob Willoughby. It was a big deal. We got into our cars (mine was a Kaiser Vagabond) and drove to Los Angeles to play at a club called The Haig, a converted bungalow situated across the street from the Ambassador Hotel. Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker and I had made a trade. They would play at the Black Hawk, our San Francisco headquarters, while we took over their regular spot at The Haig. During that initial engagement Bob Willoughby took some spectacular photos of our group. When Fantasy Records was about to release our first recording with Paul Desmond, I recommended that Sol and Max Weiss contact Bob to obtain those pictures. The dramatic black and white photograph that became the cover of the first Quartet LP may have also been the first of such covers that subsequently became almost de rigueur in communicating that "cool jazz" was inside the record sleeve.


Fantasy Records, Bob Willoughby and the Dave Brubeck Quartet were all struggling at this time to launch fledgling careers. I understand that Sol and Max made a deal to pay Bob "in kind." Instead of the new jazz records he expected, he was given a stash of Chinese Opera recordings, the lucrative side of Fantasy's business at that time. Later, of course, as our careers advanced, and Bob became quite famous for his stills in the movie industry, he photographed the Quartet for Columbia Records and I trust he received just compensation.


Paul and I always felt at ease with Bob behind the camera. He not only had a good eye, he had a keen ear, and seemed to know when to snap at an inspired moment. Thank you, Bob, for your superb document of a wonderful period in jazz; a golden era that my son, Darius, a jazz educator, writing of the fifties, described as "the beginning of the beyond."