Thelonius Monk Quartet in Paris, 1969, playing “I Mean You“. Charlie Rouse on tenor is particularly strong on this performance: melodic and concise, never overpowering Monk’s composition. He reminds me a little of Dewey Redman… in fact, it would’ve been awesome to hear Redman play with the Monk Quartet!
Thelonius Monk (pn), Charlie Rouse (ts), Nate Hygellund (b), Paris Wright (d)
Salle Pleyel, Paris: 15th December 1969
John Dankworth passed away on Saturday. Here’s a recent performance of his arrangement of Duke Ellington’s It Don’t Mean a Thing, still going strong at 81 at the 2008 North Sea Jazz Festival, and only hung up his saxophone in December.
This clip epitomises a lot of what Dankworth’s music meant to me – his close partnership with his wife Cleo Laine (one of the great voices of the 20th Century), his penchant for tight, witty ensemble writing, and his consistent ability to connect with a wide audience well beyond the regular jazz public.
Thursday 14th January was trumpeter Kenny Wheeler’s 80th birthday. John Fordham in the Grauniad offers a review of the Birthday Concert that was held this week at the Royal Academy of Music in London.
Image: Juan Carlos Hernandez
It sounds like it was a predictably wonderful evening – with a monster band assembled to pay tribute to this most modest of master musicians: including Dave Holland, Evan Parker, John Taylor, Stan Sulzmann and Norma Winstone… all players with long histories of fruitful collaboration with Wheeler.
To catch some of the atmosphere, try out these recordings of Kenny Wheeler with the Colours Jazz Orchestra, recorded in Verona, Italy in February 2006.
As far as I know, the Verona date has never been released commercially, but you can pick up the superb Nineteen Plus One (recorded with the same orchestra) if you like what you hear.
Happy Birthday K.W.!
(Edit: for those of you who don’t want to download, Yann sent me the link to Kenny Wheeler on Deezer)
More student howlers, to round off the weekend…
“Jazz has the technique of classical music, the feeling of blues, and the hope of children everywhere.”
“I know what troubles musicians now when I watch and listen to them play.”
“My ties to jazz were through Bleeding Gums Murphy, a character on TV show called the Simpsons. It comes on at 8pm on Sunday nights.”
“I was surprised to find out about the different styles of jazz like hard, be, and post bops.”
“I thought that jazz was a certain amount of instruments that you played and was composed for you, not believing that it was their improvisation and the jazz musicians who made up the music on the spot doing what they wanted to do with the tunes. I know this is hard to explain but it is true.”
“When I try to play jazz, I mess around with the instruments pounding out random notes that were just me making nonsense up and it sounding like a big pile of crap.”
“Jazz is more profound when it doesn’t help pay the bills.”
“The first thing I learned in jazz history that happy birthday is the most played jazz classic. You want to hear happy birthday in swing BAM! You got it You want to hear happy birthday in classic jazz BAM! You got it. You want to hear happy birthday in be bop BAM! You got it. It’s great! The second thing I learned is free jazz is where its at. I think that I could be a free jazz musician cause it all sounds like a drunk 7 year old jamming down on some notes and making the sweet sweet music fly. Free jazz was defiantly the best part of the class but unfortunately you didn’t play free jazz enough. My one suggestion for your next class is that you start out every class with a 5 minute free jazz intro. Over all and all, I defiantly learned a lot in jazz history class.”
“Hip hop and pop are fine, going out for fame and bling bling. Jazz has been around for a while, is out of style, but can really sing.”
“Jazz musicians sing and play music because they can’t contain their passions. Their music starts in the soul radiates out in every direction.”
“Jazz is a very dynamic kind of music. Loud and Soft.”
“Swing makes you want to get up and dance and free jazz just makes you want to get up.”
“If any kind of music can calm a hectic day, its cool jazz. If you feel like going out and dancing, however there is ragtime.”
“In conclusion, jazz is music.”
“Jazz has come from the fields of New Orleans to my 2pm class, and beyond.”
“Unlike other forms of music, jazz is listened to by old people as well as us.”
“I learned what intros and outros were in this class. Now I look for them when I go searching for good music.”
“I went to do my (jazz) listening report at the house of blues.”
“Jazz has taught me a lot about the Civil War, World War I, and World War II.”
“I thought of jazz as a thing of the past, something old African American men listened to on old record players while sitting on their front porches smoking cigars.”
“Steve Turre has taught me that sea shells should be left on the ground instead of his mouth.”
“Over the course of the semester my knowledge of jazz has gone from nothing to practically nothing.”
“Even though I probably won’t listen to jazz after this semester, it has given me a greater appreciation of movies.”
“My favorite person to study was Sonny Rollins. He knew that he had to throw his saxaphone off the bridge when he heard how good Charlie Parker was.”
“Jazz to me was the shoo opps. From groups in streets downtown in the olden, golden days.”
“Happy birthday: That song is just amazing to me.”
“My all-time favorite jazz artist to listen to was Buddy Baldwin, AKA the jazz king. I think I’m going to go out and buy a couple of his CDs.”
“I was surprised to find musicians with such odd names such as Vilage Von Guard.”
“Jazz is not as popular with all of the adolescence going around.”
“I like jazz more in books than on cds.”
“I remember coming into class with no facts but a whole plate of bullshit to dish out.”
“I found myself learning about Blues, Early Jazz, Dixieland, Swing, Be Bop, Brazilian, Afro-Cuban, Cool Jazz, Hard Bop, Free Jazz, Third Stream, Japanese, Post Bop, Fusion, Smooth, Modern Jazz, and the list goes on.”
“Call and Respond is where one musician plays and the other one tries too hard to figure out what he’s doing.”
“The people in Dixie Land originated jazz music.”
“Jazz is now a part of me from 2pm-3:15pm every Tuesday and Thursday.”
“Jazz started in the fields where they used hand-me-down instruments and wore hand-me-down clothes.”
“If Wynton Marsalis said jazz was dead in the 1970’s, what was he playing at the time?”
“Weather Report was the final big band back in the day.”
“My girlfriend and I both agreed the next morning that jazz-club food was something we could’ve done without.”
“Jazz agitates me.”
“I like jazz, but I need something else besides rhythm, melody, and harmony.”
“I had no clue that so many (musicians) used drugs. Thinking about that, there is no doubt that they are living the life I dream of.”
“They are spending money on things that they don’t really need or even want.”
”I noticed that there weren’t many jazz women in our textbook until I looked to see that the author was a guy. All guys are sexist, women bashers, who don’t ever give us our credit.”
“The part I most enjoyed was studying and appreciating slavery.”
“Its hard to imagine where Winton Marsalis gets his ideas from.”
“I’d like to see midgets getting bribed in every jazz club. Not just with Birdland. I’m of course talking about the jazz club, not Charlie Parker.”
“We’ve had our share of good times and bad times over the semester. By bad times, I mean my tests.”
“Count Bassie WAS the swing era.”
“This class increased my intelligence with aptitude.”
“Duke Ellington had the ability to turn jazz compositions into pure magic.”
“Swing died in World War II when the soloists took over.”
“I could go on and on about jazz, but I won’t.”
“Tony Williams was my favorite drummer because his group, Lifetime, is the same name as my favorite channel that I watch.”
“How do the musicians know what to play when their eyes were closed the whole time? And what was with the piano player talking while played his solos. His musician friends must have been thought he was crazy.”
“I technically wasn’t in your class but I was happy to be along for the ride.”
“I was in jazz band in high school but we didn’t play jazz music.”
“Dizzie Gillespie was the one who jammed on the drumss.”
“I thought doing our listening report would be a painful sort of torture.”
“I was bummed out at the beginning of the semester because I thought Louis Armstrong was going to be one of the guest lecturers.”
Jelly Roll Morton and his band, discussing their new release BloodSugarSexMagix
I received these by email a little while ago. They are (apparently) quotes from American students in a college jazz history class, extracted from the essay topic, “What I learned over this semester in jazz history.” These are all (apparently) genuine responses, completely unaltered.
They are all 18+ year old students; not high school or middle school age kids. None of them are music students; they all took this class as a gen. ed. credit.
———–
“Free Jazz is an era that I wished I had never learned about.”
“Free Jazz. Wow; what a sound it makes. An awful, horrible sound. I don’t see how that can actually be called a sound. My 5 year old nephew could pound on the piano and make the same sound! He may even make a better sound. To be honest, that sound is one big mess.”
“With swing, it’s kind of up in the air for me. I must say I tried like hell to keep up with it.”
“My favorite jazz has a bluesy, Mexican feel to it.”
“Though Jazz started in New Orleans, it traveled all around the world picking up and dropping off things along the way.”
“One thing that confused me was Jelly Roll Morton. Did he play with the Red Hot Chili Peppers? I didn’t think that they were around back then.”
“Jelly Roll (Morton) bridged the gap between piano and ragtime.”
“My grandpa likes it, but I think scat stinks.”
“Chick Corea, Dizzie Gillespie, Bix Biderbeck, and the monk created the first cool group.”
“I wished Don Cherry would put his trumpet back in his pocket.”
“There is not enough space in my head to fit all that I learned.”
“This class taught me about a lot of things that I never knew about.”
“Some of the big jazz musicians we learned about were: Lous Armstrong, Duke, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Cillespic, T. Mark, Ken Barns, Buddy Baldwin, Jellyroll Mortin, Sydney Bichai, Fats Waller, Earl Hines, and many many more.”
“Coming into class on the first day, I assumed there would be a boring professor standing in front of the class droning on and on about jazz. Here’s where it started; this is who played it; and here we are today; blah, blah, blah. I now realize that my assumption wasn’t all that wrong.”
“I assumed that jazz had started in the African-American community only because it fulfilled a multi-cultural course that I was required to take.”
“I really enjoyed hearing the big band, Frank Foster’s Arrangement.”
“I learned in this class that, contrary to my mom’s opinion, Kenny G is a joke. A really non-funny one.”
“I fell in love with that tune, Stablemates. It really hits home.”
“Jazz musicians don’t play for women any more.”
“I learned that going to jazz concerts gets me in good with my girlfriend.”
“I learned a lot about Be Bop, Swing, Drugs, and Fusion.”
“I found new respect for Miles Davis. He was adamant about not using drugs when everyone else was trying to get him to try some.”
“I liked hearing the Original Dixieland (Jazz) Band, and how they were the original Dixieland band.
“You might want to mention to future classes that jazz brings true romance to a scene.”
“I’m glad I took this class, because I feel more comfortable to talk about jazz in its awesomeness.”
Put it back in your pocket, Don.
“Drugs caused many artists their careers in many ways.”
“Jazz is a style of music that is almost very sober.”
“I figured jazz started in the 1960s, but to my surprise, it started back in the late 18th century.”
“Smooth jazz now just plain old angers me.”
“A lot of the things that I learned were facts that I never new about, not only in jazz, but in life as well.”
“I got really excited by the tenor sax, soprano sax, baritone sax, but not so much the alto sax.”
“I can’t believe that blacks had time to invent jazz if they were hanging out in the whorehouses with Jelly Roll Morton.”
“A lot of black jazz musicians were very talented, which probably came from them not having anything else to do.”
“When blacks and whites finally decided to get together to make jazz, it was a big hit.”
“Lennie Tristano and Lee Konitz were two guys who would sit down and enjoy cool jazz.”
“Going to the club gave me jazz sensations.”
“I hear the hard-bop jazz influence on bands today such as Matchbox Twenty and Dave Matthews Band.”
“James Crow worked to bring the slaves together with the creoles.”
“Learning jazz has helped me beat my mom at Jeopardy. She had no idea who a blind pianist from Toledo, OH was for $800.”
“I learned the definition of supreme technical virtuosity is to play like Louie Armstrong.”
“Charlie Parker was a famous jazz musician who played saxophonists.”
“Getting 81% (on a test) is all well and good until you see that dumb guy next to you who picks his nose getting 91%. I then started studying and coming to class.”
“I asked the drummer what the names of the names and styles of the tunes that he played but he didn’t seem to know.”
“TV has become more jazzy to me now.”
“Studying jazz has been a coming out party for me.”
“I loved the vibrational solos of Clifford Brown.”
“When I think of tradition and instruments, I think of Fiddler of the Roof.”
“I learned a lot from the different guest speakers in class, whether they were an experienced piano player, a director of music at a major motel, or a guitar player with an oddly placed hankerchief in his pocket.”
Clifford Brown: vibrational
A short musical interlude. Icelandic pianist Sunna Gunnlaugs wrote a piece today marking the recent birthday of Thelonius Monk: interesting to read the perspectives of a contemporary jazz musician on her relationship to Monk’s music.
She also found some really nice video clips to illustrate her article. I particularly liked this one – the Bill Evans Trio playing Round Midnight in Sweden in 1970. It’s rare to see acoustic jazz of this era filmed in colour, and still in such good condition. Eddie Gomez is the bass player, Marty Morell is on drums.
For an insight into Monk’s life, music and idiosyncrancies, Leslie Gourse’s biography Straight No Chaser is highly recommended.
So it turned out that my temporary landlord in Paris is a trumpet player. And a very good one. And I was invited to his gig last night on in a basement on rue Palestro. Although I’d been told they were going to play “electro-pop-jazz”, I really had little idea what to expect, but I was not disappointed!
Image: Anne Lacomb
Ici et Lui (Here and Him) is a duo formed in 2006 by brothers Thomas and Pierre David, who both have been on the scene for quite some time (their biographies talk of previous recording contracts with Universal, various prizes from musical schools and regular gigs with orchestras and artists around Paris).
Their suprisingly effective set-up involves Thomas on guitar (a Telecaster) and Pierre on trumpet, with both brothers sharing duties on vocals, samplers and effects pedals. The performance itself, in a basement bar that squeezed in about 20 people, crossed so many stylistic boundaries that it could really only be called “music”, in the broadest sense of the word. And although it’s definitely not comedy music, Thomas and Pierre’s dry stage humour worked really well in the intimate of a Paris cellar.
Highlights included “a homage to chanson française” using melodies based on (I think) a whole-tone scale, a cover version of Desmond Dekker’s Shanty Town (complete with Jamaican English sung with French accents) and a short lecture on composer Steve Reich’s theory of voice melody.
Image: Emmanuel Schmitt
It was all slightly surrealist. They sample the continuity announcer from Radio France Inter, slip in some beatboxing, sing in Japanese, and play some mean unison bebop lines (the album includes a lo-fi hip hop version of Charlie Parker’s Ornithology). Boris Vian would’ve been proud.
Their album pop electro jazz has just been released this month (available from, among others, iTunes and fnac.com). But Ici et Lui’s live show should definitely be seen. They play every first Wednesday of the month at Les Cariatides in the 2nd arrondissement. Free entry!
Ici et Lui + guests
Wednesday 4th November and 2nd December
20h30
Les Cariatides
3, rue de Palestro
Paris 75002
Metro: Etienne Marcel
Yesterday, today and tomorrow mark the 40th anniversary of the New York recording sessions that produced Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew. The album was released in April 1970.
I really shouldn’t say much more about the record. But I still think it’s a miraculous piece of work. I found a copy in a friend’s dad’s LP collection as a teenager (the vinyl had hardly been played) and made a tape of it which I thrashed to death.
I took the tape on a school trip to the USA, and have distinct memories of playing it on a long bus trip across the high desert of Arizona. Kerouac’s Visions of Cody was in my bag, and the redness of the desert stretched out like the surface of that other planet Miles and his crew were trying to reach with this music.
As I’ve written before, it was heady times for a teenager. I’d like to think I haven’t completely lost that particularly notion of existence that formed in the apex of those three forces meeting: Wayne Shorter’s solo on Spanish Key, the vastness of the American continent with signs pointing to Albuquerque and Kerouac’s love poem to the vanished idea of a friend.
Here’s the next chapter in the story of the hip-hop boys from Oxford, GTA, who we’ve mentioned a few times on the blog. MC Chima Anya has now moved to London, where he’s working in a children’s hospital (remember Dr Anya is a trained medical professional by day, and rapper by night), and breaking into the London scene as a solo artist.
His new single is New Day, featuring Soweto Kinch, and produced by some bloke called Astronare, about whom I can find nothing on the web. The video looks a lot more slick and professional than the previous “home-grown” clips filmed around Oxford… you could say it’s a big step up.
Soweto Kinch (born in London but growing up near Birmingham) has a bit of an Oxford connection too. A pretty handy jazz saxophonist and rapper, he also has a degree in Modern History from Hertford College, Oxford. Now, whatever you think of jazz, hip hop or Oxbridge education, you’ve got to admit that that’s a pretty cool CV.
Anyway, if you’re in London in August, you can catch Chima Anya’s album preview gig at The Gramaphone, 60-62 Commercial Street E1, on Thursday 27th August.
This video (found via Jean François at Jazz Frisson) actually made me cry, it’s so good. The Count Basie Orchestra provide a lesson in ensemble articulation, and the opening trumpet solo by Thad Jones is electrifying.
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