The Jazz.com Blog
July 03, 2008
Monk in Morse Code; Bill Evans with Hiccups
Stuart Nicholson is the Indiana Jones of jazz, constantly on the prowl for hot music in hidden places. In recent weeks, he has briefed us on great jazz we might otherwise have neglected in Dublin, Bremen, Oslo, Moers and Estonia. Mr. Nicholson now returns to Norway, and fills us in on exciting happenings at Bergen, where he enjoyed salmon-on-a-bun (Stuart clearly doesn't hang out at the local McDonald's) while digging a jazz festival held in a former sardine factory.
And what an intriguing line-up. Stuart checked out performances by Close Erase, Epic and All Ears, All Scars . . . and other acts billed as “Monk in Morse code, Bill Evans with hiccups" or “the rawest desert blues on earth.”
JVC Jazz Festival, eat your heart out!
Of course, even the intrepid Mr. Nicholson knows his limits. He missed the set by Public Enema (let's hope that's just an unfortunate typo on the marquee). But I think I would have taken a precautionary rain check too. Even so, what he heard was worth emailing home about -- thank goodness Stuart makes occasional stops at internet cafés on his journeys. His full report is below. T.G.
Bergen loves its reputation as one of the wettest cities on Norway’s Atlantic coast. On my first visit there I was told how unlucky I was that it had rained the whole time I was there, “After all,” said my host, “it’s only rained twice this year. Once from January to March, and the second time from April to June.”
In fact, rain once fell every day from October 29, 2006 to January 21, 2007 – 85 consecutive days in all. In a classic case of making a positive out of a negative, precipitation is often used in marketing the city and actually features on postcards for the tourist trade. So it was something of a culture shock to return this year and find the city swathed in the kind of sunshine typical of the Mediterranean.
It transformed the city, the second largest in Norway. Instead of gray, windswept streets there was color everywhere. The Bryggen, the famous tourist attraction and World Heritage site comprising a row of waterfront houses whose seaward facing gables represent a building tradition that dates back 900 years, looked stunning in the sunshine. A matter of yards away the open fish market on the inner harbor of Vågen was a focus for locals and tourists since there is no faster food on a sunny day than a large slice of freshly smoked salmon in a bun.
The harbor is the focal point of Bergen. In the Middle Ages, the Hanseatic League established it as thriving port for international trade while today, much of its prosperity comes from the oil trade and fishing. So it is entirely appropriate that Bergen’s Nattjazz festival takes place in a former sardine factory in the old harbour district. Now converted into the USF Verftet, a multi-performance arts centre, it has an excellent restaurant with harbour-side tables that have stunning seascape views across the Bergen inlet.
Over the last ten years, Nattjazz has built up a reputation as one of the most important showcases for contemporary jazz in Europe. Its proud boast is that it has been host to several key bands when they were virtual unknowns, such as Bugge Weseltoft’s New Conception of Jazz and Supersilent. Held over eleven days, a remarkable diversity of jazz was presented, from bands such as Medeski, Martin & Wood, Sex Mob, Scott Henderson, David Binney, Mike Stern, Ray Anderson, Jon Hassell and William Parker’s Raining on the Moon from the US, and countless large and small ensembles from across Europe and Scandinavia.
I arrived for the final two nights as the festival reached its climax. Angles is a Swedish band made up of key members from Atomic, Exploding Customer and School Days under the stewardship of saxophonist Martin Kütchen (pictured above). Mattias Ståhl on vibes replaces keyboards in the rhythm section and it gave the impression that the band floated on air. However, the inclusion of a trombone alongside trumpet and sax posed some interesting questions. While it gave depth and resonance to the ensembles, it made you wonder if this is the only role left to it in jazz since very few players can play solos on the instrument that move beyond the predictable.
However, any band with Magnus Broo on trumpet comes with a certificate of quality, and he and Kütchen were risk takers in a set that never lost momentum and at times provided moments of genuine excitement. The Danish native and now Norwegian resident Maria Kannegaard (pictured on the right, between percussionist Thomas Strønen and bassist Ole Morten Vågan) has been around a while and has been refining her idiosyncratic approach to the piano keyboard. Her billing as “Monk in Morse code, Bill Evans with hiccups,” prepared you for a deconstructionist approach, but her style seemed to have its roots in Herbie Nichols. Her jump-start melodies and oblique flourishes were the product of wit and an inquisitive musical mind that almost broke free of her formative influences as she reached for her own voice.
In contrast, All Ears, All Scars didn’t mess around with oblique anything. Featuring Norwegian drum wizard Paal Nillsen-Love, a DJ and vocalsist Maje Ratke who doubled on electronics, they did what it says on the packet – an ear bursting, scar inducing free improv session. Ratke is a charming young lady who might be mistaken for a missionary nurse in another walk of life, but turns out to be a ferocious sound-freak whose concerts are a close approximation of Armageddon. Shock and awe doesn’t come into it, you’re too shocked to be awed and too awed to be shocked. I guess their soundchecks are measured on the Richter Scale by how much the earth moves, but with gradual acclimatisation they turned out to be highly sophisticated; incredibly detailed electronic textures and pulsating rhythms coalesced around Ratke’s voice, which seemed to mediate the ebb and flow of this primal, ugly yet strangely beautiful music.
The All Ears, All Scars session threw the music of Eple, a Norwegian piano trio, into sharp relief -- since the sound of a pin dropping during their set would have been considered a boorish intrusion. Pianist Andreas Ulvo owes much to the pensive melancholy of the visionary Scandinavian pianist Jan Johannson (1931-1968), who drew on folkloric influences and favored a less frantic approach to improvisation. Ulvo is clearly a talent to watch out for, his improvisations unveiled long melodic lines that were stark in their simplicity, yet came invested with great meaning. World Music wound-up the Friday concerts, but Tinariwen from Mali, “the rawest desert blues on earth,” didn’t really engage the crowd, many of whom drifted in, and drifted back out again, like me.
In contrast, there were long lines for Saturday’s headliner Beady Belle and they weren’t drifting anywhere. She continues to grow in stature combining well written originals with dynamic performances and her next step must surely be the big festival stages of Europe. Pianist Christian Wallumrød appears on six ECM recordings, including three under his own name. They are all beautifully considered works, introspective and thoughtful they repay careful listening. But he has a slightly mad alter ego who is the pianist in Close Erase whose penchant for full throttle spontaneous improvisation with bassist Ingebrigt Haker Flaten and Per Oddvar Johansen on drums is a million miles away from his ECM personna. There was no eye contact, this trio were all ears and were never in a hurry to make their point; this was music that gained its greatest immediacy by drawing out the moment. These musicians are at the top of their profession in Norway, and it showed in the exposition of their spontaneously conceived compositions that often assumed the kind of organic unity associated with formal composition.
Winding up the festival was bassist William Parker’s Raining on the Moon ensemble, which took its name from the title of a 2001 album. This was post-bop given an interesting spin by the addition of Leena Conquest’s wordless vocals, which brought to mind the ensembles of Doug and Jean Carn on the Black Jazz label in the 1970s. Enlivened by the impressive Hamid Drake in what was largely a straight ahead context, the slightly under rehearsed ensemble cohered around the forceful drumming. Eri Yamamoto comped in a wildly exotic style, often paraphrasing each soloist who had the slightly unnerving experience hearing bits of their solo flung back at them seconds later from the piano. Raining on the Moon may have been retro, but it was a stirring reminder of jazz’s core values and if at times you got the feeling that the music’s past was in danger of becoming its future, then there was enough interesting moments to suggest that this remained a promise deferred.
This blog entry posted by Stuart Nicholson.
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July 02, 2008
Buddy Bolden on the Holodeck
Recent articles on jazz.com have raised troubling questions about new technologies that not only improve the sound of old recordings, but actually recreate the music from scratch. (See previous blog articles here and here to get up to speed.) Roused from his dogmatic slumbers by these developments, jazz.com's Alan Kurtz has apparently concluded that our web site had switched from jazz to science fiction. Desperate not to be left behind, Alan has jumped into the fray. (Has Mr. Kurtz ever seen a fray he hasn't jumped into?)
We suspect that Alan's contribution below is just the result of an over-heated imagination and a troubled childhood spent with Forrest J. Ackerman as his babysitter. But one never knows, do one? Readers are invited to share their own views by adding their comments or emailing them to editor@jazz.com.
What was it Rod Serling used to say? "Submitted for your approval . . ." T.G.
Hackneyed or not, it was a dark and stormy night. My meeting with the Mad Scientist, as I'd begun to think of him, had been scheduled after hours to accommodate my day job as an actuarial archivist. Arriving 20 minutes late, I nearly drove past the secluded entrance, which under even ideal atmospheric conditions might be described as dimly lit and poorly marked. "Got an appointment?" demanded the security guard at the front gate, his face hidden beneath the hood of a yellow slicker dripping rain from every crease.
"I'm Kurtz," I hollered cheerily from the cozy confines of my sedan. The sentry motioned for me to roll down the window. "Kurtz," I reiterated against the blustery wetness now dampening my countenance but not my enthusiasm. "The jazz writer. I'm here to interview Dr. Cabman."
Without a word, the hulking figure retreated to his roadside shack, where he could just barely be seen to consult a clipboard. Momentarily, the wrought-iron fence separated automatically and he waved me through without again leaving his shelter. I never did see the man's face. For all I know, it could have been the Mad Scientist's latest experiment in reanimation.
Well, okay, that's unfair. Cabman Laboratories is a respected cutting-edge software firm, not Castle Frankenstein. Even so, something about the place gave me the creeps.
I parked as close as possible to the main building and dashed for its lobby. One advantage of after-hours meetings, I'd long ago discovered, is plentiful parking space. Since the regular receptionist had left for the day, I was met instead by a second security guard. This one had a face. After signing me in and inspecting my attaché case, he led me through several corridors and up a short staircase to the executive suite, where he transferred custody to a private secretary. With polite efficiency, she offered me a choice of coffee or tea and, once I'd served myself a cup of brisk Earl Grey, seated me on a couch while she left to inform the Director, as she called him, that I was waiting.
Ten minutes later, I was ushered into the Mad Scientist's office, a tastefully furnished but by no means sumptuous setting for an immaculately groomed, secretive man in his mid-30s who, had he ever been photographed, would've probably looked exactly like his picture. Proffering a perfunctory handshake, he motioned me to a chair opposite his desk, behind which he settled with a noncommittal assurance likely calculated to intimidate less seasoned visitors. Naturally that stuff won't work on me.
"Now see here," I got straight to the point. "What's this about reanimating Buddy Bolden?"
Dr. Cabman cleared his throat and affected a look of strained patience. "We prefer the term 'simulate,'" he corrected me.
"Fair enough," I conceded. "But what gives?" This was, after all, significant. As any schoolchild can tell you (or could if we had a half-decent educational system in this country), Buddy Bolden (1877-1931) was jazz's first truly mythic African-American cornetist, dominating New Orleans proto-jazz from the turn of the century until 1907, when he was certified insane and committed to the Louisiana state asylum at Jackson. Confined there for his remaining 24 years, Bolden died long forgotten and was consigned to a pauper's grave in The Big Easy. He left no known recording, but his loudness was legendary.
"It's true," Dr. Cabman allowed. "After years of basic research and a substantial investment in supercomputers, our team has simulated 'Buddy Bolden's Blues' to a confidence level of 97%, plus or minus 2% to account for transient anomalies."
"'Buddy Bolden's Blues,'" I sought to clarify. "You mean 'Funky Butt,' right?"
Dr. Cabman's strained patience this time expressed itself in a fleetingly perceptible wince. "That is another name for it, yes."
"But how on earth?" I honed in. "Don't tell me you found that long-lost wax cylinder he supposedly once recorded."
"Unnecessary. Historical documentation is not required, nor would it be of much use even if available. Our simulations are entirely software driven."
"You don't say! Can you be more specific?"
"Well, of course I can't reveal our trade secrets, but speaking broadly, we apply retrograde engineering. In Bolden's case, we minutely analyzed jazz cornet and later trumpet styles from King Oliver to Louis Armstrong to Roy Eldridge to Dizzy Gillespie, then mathematically extrapolated preceding styles through regression analysis and recursive algorithms directly back to Bolden. Voila!"
"So it's different, then, from what Zenph Studios did with Art Tatum."
"Child's play," Dr. Cabman said indulgently, leaving no doubt he meant Zenph, not Tatum. "Putting a high-tech player piano in the middle of a stage, no matter how dramatically lit, is like inviting audiences to look at a motion picture projector set up at the front of a theater, with no film. People want a show, not a prop."
"But how can you show them Buddy Bolden? The man died before Prohibition was repealed."
"Holography," declared Dr. Cabman matter-of-factly. "Our patented virtual reality systems offer not just audio replications, but artificially intelligent imagery to match the music's every note." After letting this sink in for a moment, he invited: "Would you care to see a demonstration?"
Would I! The doctor conducted me through a door at the far end of his office that opened directly onto a bare room where ceiling, floor and all four walls were identically paneled with a strangely glowing lattice-like surface of embedded light-emitting diodes arranged in continuous parallel sine curves. Millions of expectant little LEDs, pulsing with potential. "Our holodeck," said Dr. Cabman, proud as a papa showing off his newborn. "Welcome to the future of jazz."
Producing a remote control from his vest pocket, the doctor punched its buttons faster than I can speed dial, and the room metamorphosed into what I took to be a faithfully reproduced fin de siècle New Orleans dancehall, 3-dimensionally realistic down to its last detail. With a few more button presses, the deliciously disreputable ballroom was populated by a lively crowd of tawdry denizens, men and women in various shades of black and tan and in different stages of inebriation. I was not shocked to find that gambling was going on here, that members of opposite sexes were propositioning one another with brazenly good-natured gusto, and that the air—only a moment ago crisply and impersonally climate-controlled—had suddenly turned sultry with the odors of booze, bodies and bayou vittles. What astonished me, however, was that I could see, touch and smell this luxuriant funkiness as distinctly as if I'd been transported by H.G. Wells's time machine back to the Crescent City with everyone partying like it was 1899.
As we snaked our way to an unoccupied bench, Dr. Cabman explained in techno-babble how he'd mastered the labyrinthine maze of recombinant matter and kinetic energy for this unprecedented interactive simulation. I'm sure he mentioned interfacing replicators, tractor beams, adaptive force fields, extreme high-definition photon lenses, dynamically calibrated inertial dampers and inverse filtered graviton equalizers. But it was all geek to me. "I should add," he added, "our holodeck includes safety protocols to protect users, although we cannot completely insure against minor injuries such as muscle strain or dislocated joints sustained while dancing or—how shall I put this?—otherwise exercising."
"First do no harm," I interposed. "Asimov's First Law of Robotics."
"Primum non nocere," the doctor concurred. "And now," he announced, punching more buttons on his remote control and shifting glibly from Latin to French, "le pièce de résistance."
Right on cue, Buddy Bolden & four sidemen flashed onto the holodeck, mounting a small raised stage and brandishing authentic period instruments. To the customers' raucous cheers, the band opened with Bolden's signature "Funky Butt," a tongue-in-cheek (no pun intended) paean to flatulence that included the hilarious refrain "Funky butt, funky butt, take it away!" The crowd went wild.
On this and subsequent numbers, I found audio quality nothing less than sensational: state-of-the-art 21st-century digital fidelity as vividly true as a live performance. And as for the holographic imagery, it went beyond spectacular, rocketing into the realm of metaphysical singularity. It sure made a believer of me.
Simulated art? Bosh. This was the real deal, and purists be damned. I was particularly impressed with the programmers' canniness in seamlessly incorporating mistakes into the performance. "Verisimilitude," Dr. Cabman confirmed when I commented on the clarinetist's occasional clams. "Turing suggested as early as 1950 that the inherent perfectionism of computers would need to be deliberately impaired in virtual reality systems. Otherwise people feel so inferior, they can't enjoy the experience."
Wagging my head in amazement, I considered the legal implications of what I was witnessing. "How did you get clearances for these likenesses?" I wondered aloud. "The clientele might be fictitious, but these five musicians were real people."
"Real," Dr. Cabman somewhat testily replied, "but long dead."
"Even so," I quipped good-naturedly, "their rightful heirs and assignees may have lawyered up."
Dr. Cabman was not amused. "I was led to believe you are a serious journalist," he dourly observed. "Perhaps I was misinformed." He abruptly shut down the holodeck and guided me back to his office.
Figuring I'd better cut the crap, I inquired respectfully about his next project. Would it be King Oliver with the youthful Louis Armstrong on second cornet? Diz & Bird at Massey Hall plus Bud, Max and Mingus? Ornette, Don Cherry and Paul Bley at L.A.'s Hillcrest Club in 1958?
"J.S. Bach," the doctor looked determined, "doing the Well-Tempered Clavier at Leipzig's Thomaskirche, just atop his final resting place beneath the altar floor."
Somehow the longhairs always get the last laugh. Still, 2008 was shaping up as Buddy Bolden's best year since 1906. Not only was Cabman Laboratories set to spring this stunning holographic recreation on an unsuspecting public, but actor Anthony Mackie will star in the title role, with executive producer Wynton Marsalis providing original music, for the forthcoming indie biopic Bolden!
I thanked Dr. Cabman for his time and commended his achievement, speculating that perhaps the Pulitzer Prize in Music might be in order. Without demurring, he summoned the guard to escort me back to my car, and I was soon on my way home.
Gradually, though, after the demo's initial impressiveness wore off, something again started gnawing at me. Later that night, with storms abating, I slept uneasily, dreaming not of Anthony Mackie in Bolden! but of Boris Karloff in The Body Snatcher prowling the Louisiana state asylum at Jackson in search of fresh corpses upon whom might be visited unspeakable scientific investigations. When I awoke with a start at dawn, an accusatory couplet had lodged stubbornly in my mind.
"I thought I heard Buddy Bolden say," it went, over and again for the remains of the day. "Funky butt, funky butt, keep that Cabman away!" What do you suppose it could mean?
This blog entry posted by Alan Kurtz.
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July 01, 2008
4,000 Arts Advocates Meet in Denver
According to the National Endowment for the Arts, there are approximately two million people in the United States involved in the performing arts: in music, dance, and theatre. In fact, there are more people who list 'artist' as their profession, than lawyers, doctors or farmers.
Yet one would hardly guess this when looking at support for the arts at the national and local level. Why has involvement in the performing arts been eradicated from our elementary educational systems? Why is there so little media visibility for the performing arts? Why are the potential benefits for lifelong learning in the performing arts not being recognized and fostered? Why are many segments of our communities effectively shut out of our leading performing arts organizations? And what can those in the performing arts world do about these challenges at the national, local, individual, and group levels?
These were some of the issues dealt with at Taking Action Together: The National Performing Arts Convention (NPAC), held in Denver last month. Gene Marlow, a frequent contributor to these pages (see his interview with Andy LaVerne published earlier this week), reports on the proceedings below.
Inspiring. Productive. Energizing. . . . These are the three words that come immediately to mind following the conclusion of what was an historic gathering of approximately 4,000 performing artists, executives of 31 national service organizations in the performing arts, and exhibitors at Colorado’s Convention Center, Denver, Colorado, June 10-14, 2008. Partly what made this an historic event was the fact that this was only the second time this convention had convened. The first was in Pittsburgh four years ago. It took three years to organize the most recent convention—and it showed. We have all been to conventions of one kind or another. Some you enjoy, many you don’t. This was the first time in my recent memory that a convention was so engrossing and compelling that I didn’t want it to end.
First, take a look at some of the 31 participating organizations: American Composers Forum, American Music Center, Association of Performing Arts Presenters, Chamber Music America, Chorus America, Dance/USA, Early Music America, International Society for the Performing Arts, League of American Orchestras, Meet the Composer, Music Critics Association of North America, The National Association of Latino Arts and Culture, and Opera America.
And look at some of the guest speakers: Dana Gioia, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, prize-winning actress, writer, activist and teacher Anna Deavere Smith, Bill Rauch of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Good to Great author Jim Collins, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, internationally renown Senegal dancer and teacher Germaine Acogny, award-winning conductor Marin Alsop, and La Sistema innovator Jose Antonio Abreu of Venezuela. In between all this, participants were treated to a preliminary presentation by Joan Jeffri, Director of the Program in Arts Administration and the Research Center for Arts and Culture at Columbia University. Her report, “Taking Note,” covered some of the emerging demographics of the performing arts world. The full report will be distributed later this year.
The proceedings on the fourth day were topped off by a 15-minute performance by Diane Reeves (who lives in Denver) accompanied by guitarists Romero Lubambo (of Trio da Paz fame) and Russell Malone (of Diana Krall fame).
The centerpiece of the proceedings, however, was the consensus-building “process” organized and executed by AmericaSpeaks. For more than a decade, AmericaSpeaks has used a 21st Century Town Meeting® model to bring together more than 130,000 citizens in deliberations about critical policy issues, and then connect the results to decision-makers.
Imagine the challenge of extracting a consensus among 4,000 attendees that would lead to a statement of national and local strategies and tactics dealing with the problems and issues surrounding the performing arts in the United States, and doing this in four days! This is exactly what the AmericaSpeaks leaders, together with a host of facilitators, accomplished. At the conclusion of the four days we all stood up to acknowledge our group effort and our commitment to take action together.
The first day all attendees were divided into four large groups. Each group was divided into round tables of 6-10 people. A facilitator hosted each table. On day #1 the attendees were presented with a draft “mission” statement regarding the needs of the performing arts in the United States. We were then asked to articulate three ways the so-called performing arts community has been “. . . most successful in reaching our vision as a community” and three ways it has been “. . .least successful in reaching our vision as a community.”
Everyone at each table was encouraged to participate. Opposing views were noted. At the conclusion of the 90-minute session, the facilitators met to compare notes. That evening all the notes were summarized for presentation to the entire group the following day.
The summaries of each question contained contradictions as well as consensus. For example, at the top of the list for the first question was: “We’re getting better at demonstrating value and advocating for the arts as a public good.” But at the same time, the first answer to question two was: “Failure to communicate and connect the relevance and value of the arts to the larger community.”
At the second caucus--everyone was directed to a different room with different people-- the results of the previous day’s summaries were presented. Apparently, the AmericaSpeaks executives worked well into the night to organize the summaries and publish them into a well-edited, printed document, titled The Daily Caucus. This was done on each successive day.
At the second caucus we were all asked: “Based on where we have been most/least successful, and looking to the future, what are the three most important opportunities/challenges our community needs to address in order to better reach our vision?”
The third caucus focused on this question: “For each of the highest priority opportunities/challenges, what are up to three of the most important strategies we need to follow in order to advance our vision (including actions at national and local, and individual organization levels)?
On the last day of the conference we were all gathered into a ballroom as one group to read and talk about the summary of the summaries. While previously we were divided randomly into rooms and tables, in this room we were divided into regions, the Northeast contingent being the largest.
Over the course of four days and much discussion three issues had bubbled to the surface among the several thousand attendees. They were as follows:
#1. Our communities do not sufficiently perceive the value, benefits, and relevance of the arts, which makes advocacy and building public support for the arts a challenge at every level.
#2. The potential of arts education and lifelong learning in the Arts is under-realized.
#3. The increasing diversity of our communities creates an opportunity to engage a variety of ages, races, identities and cultures in our audiences and organizations.
For each of these three central issues, three sub-sections dealing with enacting tactics at the national, local, and organizational/individual level were articulated. In turn, under each of these three sub-sections were anywhere from five to eight very specific actions to be taken.
At this closing session we were all given push-button keypads and asked to vote then and there on the specified “action” tactics. Within moments we could all see on large screens the results of the voting and what “action” tactic seemed to appeal the most and the least.
And action was the key word. After all, the convention itself was titled “Taking Action Together.”
There is no doubt in this writer’s mind that the mere action of creating this four-day gathering was in itself an impetus for a call to arms. For example, in the middle of the convention, Chamber Music America (CMA), through the leadership of CEO Margaret M. Lioi and CMA Program Director Susan Dadian, convened a breakfast meeting of all those at the convention involved in jazz. The meeting of about two dozen or so people (only about one percent of the convention attendees were involved in jazz) presented Ms. Lioi with a laundry list of actions CMA could take to replace some of those activities now absent as a result of the demise of the International Association for Jazz Education (IAJE). In the next few months I’m certain CMA will outline what it intends to do to add to its already extant activities in the jazz area.
In addition to the speakers, caucuses, and exhibitors, the Denver convention was also a huge opportunity for networking with people whom you would not have otherwise met. It was also an opportunity to bump into friends one had not seen for some time. For me, the convention led to the realization that all performing arts groups, whether in music, dance, or theatre, need to move towards three objectives for future growth and survival: (1) internal organizational consensus building with regard to mission, (2) collaboration with other performing arts organizations, and (3) community outreach. These may seem like “duh” observations, but the focus of the NPAC provided the necessary environment and energy to get down to specific tactics that could be executed immediately at the local level—and it is at the local level that performing arts individuals and groups can do the most good, while the national service organizations (NSOs) are the ones to come together to attempt policy changes at the national level.
The NPAC was a meeting I wished many more could have attended. It was that productive, energizing, and inspiring.
During and after the NPAC I found myself making notes and writing suggestions for further action for each of the performing arts organizations I am involved with once I returned to New York in late June. They include: the Milt Hinton Jazz Perspectives concert series at Baruch College (New York City) that I curate together with a committee of my peers; the New York Composers Circle of which I am Director, Media Relations; and my own performing group, The Heritage Ensemble, a quintet devoted to the in-concert performance of Hebraic liturgical music in various jazz forms.
I had, though, another convention to attend the week following the NPAC: The JazzWeek Summit in Rochester, New York, a meeting of jazz radio programmers, promoters, and artists, which will be the subject of a follow-up article next week.
This blog entry posted by Eugene Marlow.
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June 30, 2008
The Best Jazz Tracks for June
Some of the best CDs of 2008 are releases you might be afraid to buy. The cover to Reptet’s Chicken or Beef? is unsavory enough to turn loyal burger-meisters into vegans. And today’s Song of the Day comes from a CD with the unappetizing title The Birth of Hip Bop,and featuring cover art vaguely reminiscent of what a kindergartener brings home from school.
But at jazz.com, we don’t judge CDs by their covers. We even gave a listen to Chicken or Beef, because we know some of the best jazz today comes in strange packaging. For example, my favorite CD last month arrived courtesy of a little known vocalist performing the Joe Raposo songbook.
You don’t know Joe Raposo? Ah, you are showing your years, my friend. Mr. Raposo wrote his most famous songs for Sesame Street, Electric Company and other children's TV fare from the post-Romper-Room era. Okay, I didn’t recognize the name myself until I encountered this CD, but now I am a committed Raposo-nista, and an even bigger fan of singer Yoon Sun Choi.
But we also have some familiar faces in our featured tracks for June. We gave the nod to new CDs from old friends to our turntable (or is it a turn-drawer these days?) such as Cassandra Wilson, Vijay Iyer and even Sergio Mendes. We also took a liking to new tracks from Brian Blade, Martial Solal and George Schuller. And (sad to say) there were a hundred or so CDs we checked out this month that did not make the cut.
In other words, we try to do the hard work for you, tasting the less appetizing dishes to find the culinary masterpieces you might otherwise miss. Five times each week, jazz.com highlights a Song of the Day, drawn from the best of the current crop of releases. We hunt far and wide for the finest new tracks, covering not just well known artists and major labels, but also listening to small indie releases and self-produced CDs, as well as deserving overseas projects too often neglected by the US-based jazz media. (Did I mention that our featured tracks this month cover the music of four continents?) Sometimes we even dip into world fusion or blues or (horrors!) classical music CDs that we believe would be of interest to jazz fans. But for the most part, we like our music hot and swinging and shaken (not stirred).
Below are links to the reviews for all the tracks selected as Song of the Day during the month of June. Click here, for a complete list of all the recordings featured as Song of the Day since the inception of jazz.com.
Tracks Featured as Song of the Day: June 2008
Too Blue Lou & the Groove: Blue in Green
Wadada Leo Smith: Rosa Parks
Mario Pavone: Hello Again
Reptet: Danger Notes
Franco Ambrosetti: Frasi
Orchestra Baobab: Pape Ndiaye
Sean O'Bryan Smith: Tapestry
Gene Bertoncini: You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To
Robin Nolan: Once in a While
Sergio Mendes: The Look of Love
Ben Wolfe: No Pat No
Cassandra Wilson: Lover Come Back to Me
Vijay Iyer: Comin' Up
Don Immel: Long Way Home
Yoon Sun Choi: Somebody Come and Play
Gary Morgan & Panamericana!: Moragatu
David Sánchez: Manto Azul
Martial Solal: Here's That Rainy Day
George Schuller: The Survivors' Suite
Brian Blade: Omni
Jamie Baum: Solace
Andreas Öberg: Uptown Downtown
This blog entry posted by Ted Gioia
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June 29, 2008
The Jazz Network Takes Off
The word "community" has taken on many new meanings since the rise of the Internet. Certainly the often fragmented world of jazz has benefited enormously from new media's ability to bring fans and musicians together in virtual communities. Alan Kurtz looks below at one of the more exciting jazz communities on the web, a new site that has attracted almost 3,000 members in less than a year.
Readers are invited to share their own views by adding their comments or emailing them to editor@jazz.com. T.G.
In The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier, Howard Rheingold writes: "My 7-year-old daughter knows that her father congregates with a family of invisible friends who seem to gather in his computer. Sometimes he talks to them, even if nobody else can see them." Given the Internet's ever-expanding reach, such invisible families are now multiplying faster than rabbits on fertility-enhancement drugs. While face-to-face contact remains essential for both our most intimate and our most superficial encounters, online interaction increasingly occupies the middle ground of meaningful social exchange unencumbered by proximity. Overcoming the mind/body disconnect that preoccupied worrywart humanists in times past, we have redefined the Real World to embrace mentality and materiality with equal ease.
Even that musical centenarian called Jazz has quickened its step into virtual communality, as shown by a web site launched half a year ago and already thriving with nearly 3,000 members and a homepage hit counter that recently spiraled past 150,000 with the dizzying determination of prices at your neighborhood gas pump. The Jazz Network is the brainchild of Jaijai Jackson, daughter of bassist Chubby Jackson (1918-2003). Born into show biz, Jaijai strutted her stuff at age 6 on her dad's popular kiddies show telecast locally in New York City during the early '60s. From such formative experiences, Jaijai "felt the pulse of the business," as she puts it. Adulthood found her running a recording studio and representing jazzmen through a family booking firm before joining the Willard Alexander Agency, where she coordinated tours for Count Basie, Buddy Rich, Maynard Ferguson and other big-name artists. Later, under her alias "Woman of Jazz," Jaijai conducted an Internet radio jazz show. And now, applying her expertise to The Jazz Network, she helps fledgling and established artists alike find affordable new ways to connect with fans worldwide.
Of course, you don't have to be a musician to join this dynamic virtual community, chock-full of member-posted photos, audio tracks and video clips that will delight nonprofessionals no end. The focus, though, is definitely on the artists, who have quickly made The Jazz Network's innovative showplace their own. Jazz.com contributor Marissa Dodge, for example, treats Jazz Network visitors to generous samples of her singing & keyboard playing, songwriting, poetry, stories from her ongoing memoirs, banter from admirers, and a slideshow of Marissa mugging for the camera. (Her balancing a baby grand piano on one hand – with eyes closed – is not to be missed! Eat your heart out, David Copperfield.)
Once hooked, you'll naturally want to set up your own page. No degree in computer science is required, you'll be glad to know. The Jazz Network makes it easy as cake. (Piece of pie?) Covet a slideshow like Marissa's? Simply click the Make Your Own button and be whizzed off to Photobucket, where you can drop your pix into a slideshow "100% free and 100% fun."
Or how about one of those constantly updating Maps To See How Far We Are Networking? Click the link to NiftyMaps.com to customize a map for your own web site or MySpace page that tracks your visitors' locations down to street level. Another free toy or tool, as the case may be, courtesy of The Jazz Network.
Given such an open and welcoming environment, it's no surprise that The Jazz Network has attracted such familiar names as David Benoit, Alex Bugnon, Onaje Allan Gumbs and Lenny White to its member roster, and earned accolades from the likes of fellow members Billy Cobham, Will Downing, Alphonse Mouzon and Buster Williams.
Yet it's not only established artists who hang out together over this electronic backyard fence. There are plenty of tomorrow's aspiring stars as well, such as 15-year-old jazz saxophonist and journalist Mikayla Gilbreath. "I heard Sonny Rollins," she says, explaining her passion, "and I just loved it. I loved the way it sounded, and I wanted to play jazz instead of just music." Has anyone of any age ever put it better? Jazz instead of just music.
Jazz.com takes pride in saluting an appealing, engaging and downright useful web site that has obviously struck a responsive chord in jazz's virtual community. Way to go, The Jazz Network!
This blog entry posted by Alan Kurtz.
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June 26, 2008
Radio France Pulls the Plug on Jazz
American Jazz fans might be surprised at how much the art form relies upon support from Europe for its continued health. Many musicians would struggle financially without the decent paydays from European festivals and concerts. (For an economic comparison between U.S. and Europe gigs, see Frøy Aagre sobering jazz diary, a recent and continuing feature in these pages.)
It is no coincidence that Jazz receives media attention in many of these countries far beyond what one finds in its land of origin. Check out how many YouTube jazz videos come from European television broadcasts. When is the last time you saw a major jazz artist on U.S. network TV?
But now we see the same dumbing down of coverage and marginalization of jazz in European media that long ago afflicted the American music scene. Tim Wilkins reports on a shocking move by Radio France to fire the four hosts who have provided most of its jazz coverage in recent decades. Read below for more details.
Those who wish to express their support for the Radio France jazz hosts are encouraged to sign the petition at www.martinepalme.com or send an email with the subject line "petition france musique" to Martine at initiales@martinepalme.com. T.G.
Jazz fans in France have been dealt a harsh blow. Four Radio France jazz hosts - Philippe Carles, Claude Carriere, Jean Delmas and Alain Gerber - were abruptly fired by the state broadcasting company. Together, they have produced the bulk of the network's jazz broadcasts since the seventies, thousands of hours of programs.
Why were they fired? Not because of the quality or popularity of their programs, which are high, but because of their ages: all four are older than 65. No comment yet as to whether jazz programs will continue on the network, only that Radio France wants to "be younger," according to chief executive Jean-Paul Cluzel. The announcement comes on the heels of the BBC's controversial decision to shake up its jazz programming last year.
Mind you, these four are no Moldy Figs. All have been tireless advocates for all varieties of jazz in many venues. In addition to his late-night show, "Jazz Against the Current." Philippe Carles (pictured left) is the author of a respected jazz encyclopedia and editor-in-chief of France's Jazz Magazine. Carriere, a pianist, author and record producer, has received many awards and with Delmas has broadcast live from jazz clubs across Europe every Friday night since 1982.
Their show captured classic live moments with Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz, and Kenny Barron among others, and introduced young artists such as Brad Mehldau and James Carter. Gerber's show presents classic jazz in a narrative form, which reflects his own background as a prizewinning novelist.
In contrast to the BBC, Radio France has made its jazz programs available to listeners around the world via streaming audio on the Internet.
The first the four heard of this "age limit" was via registered mail two weeks ago, which announced their forced retirements. No mention had ever been made of it in their contracts. This is ironic, given that France's government currently encourages seniors to postpone retirement and extend their working lives.
So, should there be an expiration date on jazz? Or on the lifetime one spends gaining an appreciation of it? To be sure, jazz has never been a ticket to full employment. Critics, even in France, have no right to expect this, especially when so many master musicians struggle to make ends meet. And jazz never needs critics who consider their own opinions more important than the music.
But all four of these - Carles, Carriere, Delmas and Gerber - are public intellectuals any nation should be proud of, and France is fortunate to have had national institutions like Radio France that until now have supported jazz as a cultural treasure. It would be a shame to see this support become a thing of the past.
While the network's decision to remove the four appears irreversible, blogger Martine Palmé has created an online petition to urge Radio France to continue its commitment to jazz programs. Anyone who wishes to add their name to this petition can visit www.martinepalme.com or send an email with the subject line "petition france musique" to Martine at initiales@martinepalme.com.
This blog entry posted by Tim Wilkins
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June 25, 2008
Art Pepper Lives!
The appearance of unreleased recordings by alto saxophonist Art Pepper is certainly a cause for celebration, but especially when they come from his triumphant comeback years. Art Pepper, who died in 1982, saved his best music for last. He was forced to do so, having spent much of the 1960s and 1970s in prison and rehab. Pepper was granted a short period at the end of his life to recapture his glory years of the 1950s, and he was determined to make the most of it.
I saw the band featured in the new CD Unreleased Art: The Croydon Concert May 14, 1981 during the same 1981 UK tour, at an engagement at Ronnie Scott’s. I was finishing up my philosophy degree at Oxford and getting ready to return to California. This trip to London was a good way of celebrating the completion of my program. I made the journey to London with alto saxophonist John O’Neill –- we frequently performed together in a quartet during that period, and were both excited about seeing Art Pepper in the flesh. We rustled up a sympathetic friend who had a car, a local record store owner who also dabbled in producing jazz albums, and arrived early to secure seating close to the musicians.
Pepper had come to England the previous year and had created a tremendous buzz with his performances. He was experiencing a great resurgence of popularity among US jazz fans during this same period, but his following in the UK was, if anything, even more devoted. The word of mouth reports of his 1980 appearances were extravagant in their praise. Around this time, the British magazine jazz Journal featured him on its cover and, if I remember correctly, even named him jazz musician of the year.
I know how much these honors meant to Pepper. I had the opportunity to talk with him a few days before he died – in what turned out to be his last interview. He dwelt at length on his unfulfilled hope to someday see himself on the cover of Down Beat. For this artist, who received so little validation from the US critics during his life, the accolades garnered overseas, in the UK and Japan where he felt respected and even loved, were important to his self-esteem and sense of having made his way back into the limelight. Even more than most jazz artists, Pepper wanted recognition for his body of work, for a career that he had almost destroyed through his own excesses.
Pepper could only blame himself for his almost complete absence from the New York scene, where jazz reputations are (then as now) made. His first appearance as leader in a NY club did not take place until he was fifty-one years old! (However, this Village Vanguard gig from July 1977 resulted in no fewer than three brilliant albums, one for each night of the engagement, and a later boxed set.) Of course, during the prime of his life, this altoist hardly showed up on any scene. Pepper’s drug addiction and the criminal activity it required to support – outlined with exceptional candor in his autobiography Straight Life (highly recommended) – could easily have killed him back in the 1950s. The altoist survived, but spent too many years in prison or Synanon or out on the street scuffling for drug money.
When he tried to make a comeback in the late 1970s, all the odds were against him. Art Pepper was largely forgotten in the jazz world, his best known recordings almost two decades behind him. Even old fans of his were forced to confront a new artist, who had assimilated John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman, and now leavened his sweet alto sound with anguished, angular phrases that were completely unlike anything he had ever recorded back in the 1950s. Fans of Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section (1957) or Art Pepper + Eleven: Modern Jazz Classics (1959) would hardly recognize the soloist who now stood before them. But even as Pepper’s playing changed, so had the jazz world – and not for the better. Jazz on the West Coast had been in decline during all the years Pepper was off the scene. Clubs were shutting down. The audience was shrinking. In an age of loud rock, jazz was just a whisper.
Admirers also were shocked by his ravaged looks – you could make a convincing anti-drug scare message out of a side-by-side comparison of cover photos of the 1950s-era releases, featuring a handsome and dashing young musician, with the pallid, bloated visage on the front of Art Pepper Today (1978). Stay away from heroin, kiddies, or it might do this to you!
Despite all these obstacles, Pepper made a successful comeback. And for only one reason: he was playing like a man possessed. Very few jazz artists reach new peaks in their music and solo conception beyond the age of fifty. Jazz is an art form best suited for twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings, drawing on their vitality and ambition and irreverence. Yet here was a fellow ready for the AARP playing with fire and intensity night after night, on record after record. If you only heard the records, and didn't see the beaten-down looking man who made them, you would assume it was some young lion ready to take over the scene.
Much to my disappointment, I had not seen Pepper on his 1980 UK trip. But I would not miss him on his return. From his first notes, he mesmerized the audience at Ronnie Scott’s. (Not always easy to do – I have always been surprised and frustrated by the number of noisy tables at this famous club. For some reason, people who want to jabber or close business deals are willing to pay the high cover charge for the privilege of doing so with famous jazz musicians serenading in the background.) But Pepper was showered with love, and he responded by letting down his own guard. At one point, he even pulled out his clarinet, and performed an endearing old standard on this horn, even while admitting to the audience that he was hardly ready to play it in public.
But it was on the more intense combo numbers that Pepper took full flight. Apparently the altoist thought that pianist Milcho Leviev was too forceful in his comping. But the result was that Pepper raised his own energy level in response. You can hear that on the Croydon CD, where he starts “Patricia” as a dreamy ballad, but gets tougher and rougher in response to prodding from the keyboard. Pepper liked to impart an edgy quality to this song – check out the moving coda to his 1977 studio version – but Leviev would sometimes push Pepper over the edge.
There are many aural delights in late vintage Pepper. I can’t think of another altoist who is better at mixing gentle lyricism and bitter anguish in the same solo. Pepper’s ability to shift moods in mid-chorus is almost a calling card of his work from this period. I would also call attention to his masterful phrasing. Every Pepper phrase has a clear shape, and a memorable passage from beginning to end. This may sound like a truism, but many sax players today, even well known ones, could learn from Pepper. Shaping a phrase is almost a lost art, circa 2008. For his part, Pepper never tossed out mindless strings of sixteenth or thirty-second notes, or played practice room patterns.
Above all, I was struck back in 1981 -- and still today -- by the great emotional candor in Pepper's playing. I am not sure how he achieved this. Sometimes I have speculated that he had some personal technique, much like those who studied Method Acting under Lee Strasberg, of channeling feelings from intense moments in his past into his performances. This is just my suspicion. But Pepper's potent autobiography, a searing confession that makes no attempt to prettify a seamy life, seems to suggest that he could vividly re-inhabit incidents from his earlier years. Could it be that the power of a performance like "Patricia" is due to deep emotions triggered by his relationship with the daughter after whom the song was named? Perhaps I reach too far for an explanation, but the searing intensity of Pepper's performances and his frank personal disclosures in print and in person during these years, seem to invite this very type of speculation.
In the final analysis, we only have the music now, the artist now departed from the scene for more than a quarter of a century. The arrival of The Croydon Concert brings back many fond memories to those of us who had a chance to see Pepper during this period. And for those who never got the chance, this double-CD, a complete live performance, is the next best thing to being there back in ’81.
This blog entry posted by Ted Gioia.
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June 24, 2008
Jazz Journalists Hand Out Awards
The annual Jazz Journalist Association award ceremony is an increasingly important event for an art form that recently lost the IAJE and fell off the radar screens of the major media some time during the last century. Even better, the jazz writers not only take time to celebrate the musicians, but even give themselves a few awards -- how 'bout that? For once, the pen is almost as mighty as the horn!
But not for long. The stars of jazz were out in full force, and a few celebrated performers managed to steal the show -- including one pianist who passed away more than fifty years ago. Jazz.com's arnold jay smith reports on the event. T.G.
The Jazz Journalists Association presented awards for excellence at their annual luncheon ritual at Jazz Standard in New York City on June 18. What makes these awards unique, set apart even from the annual jazz mags' critics polls is that we –in the spirit of full disclosure I’m their Treasurer— present awards to our colleagues in addition to the musicians we write about.
The Standard provides a warm informal atmosphere far from JJA’s former setting, B.B. King’s. With JJA prez Howard Mandel presiding, all the award presenters can be seen and, more importantly heard, over what was formerly not a nightclub murmur but a loud disconcerting din from the rear of B.B.’s. The Awards luncheon remains a solid hang where friends reacquaint with each other. (You may obtain the results from the JJA website www.jazzhouse.org.)
Let’s talk hanging with the audience. "Pianist of the Year" Hank Jones sat with Frank Wess and "Percussionist of the Year" Candido Camero. At the next table were Sue (Mrs. Charles) Mingus and double awardee, drummer Roy Haynes. Joe Lovano worked the room, stopping only to work the stage in duet with Hank. Their efforts silenced the throng with "Alone Together," "I’m All For You" and "How High the Moon"/"Ornithology," seriously the highlight of the afternoon despite some humor by the presenters and recipients alike. Haynes was surprised that he beat out some heavies. “So if I’m the best drummer, come out to see me,” he quipped. I don’t think he was kidding.
Sitting there minding the ceremonies were Billy Bang, A-Team (for activists, among other meanings) awardees Valerie Capers and Dana Gioia, George Wein, who toasted Gioia and Marian McPartland, this year’s Lifetime Achievement winner, Sy Johnson, Giacomo Gates, Joe Locke, Anat Cohen, multiple winner (again) Maria Schneider, Marty Sheller, Mark Soskin and Matt Wilson.
“God was in the house” is a paraphrase of an old LP title, from an utterance by Fats Waller when Art Tatum walked into a club on 52nd St. while Waller was on the stage. Art Tatum: Piano Starts Here is a recreation of a long-forgotten and badly recorded Tatum concert on a digitally enhanced piano. Alas, without the piano, or better yet the real thing, the design concept was lost to the audience. Tatum’s brilliance was well appreciated, however. (So wot’s nu?) In that regard I question the veracity of the project although mixed reviews of the Apollo Theatre playlet based on it have filtered to me.
I do not mean this to be self-serving, but a bit of a nice back story emerged some days afterward. I was asked to present the award for Excellence in Jazz Broadcasting: The Willis Conover-Marian McPartland Award. The nominees were some of the in-the-trench-workers such as Leigh Kamman in Minnesota and Linda Yohn in Michigan. Also nominated was the year-plus and loudly discontinued NPR “Profiles in Jazz with Nancy Wilson,” which won. While that was terrific for my recently back-in-harness friend, I thought it kind of odd. Upon expressing that opinion to WBGO Program Director Thurston Brisco I was informed that there has been such demand for the show that it was re-installed as a weekly prime-time-special.
Take that NPR!
This blog entry posted by arnold jay smith
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June 23, 2008
Remembering Esbjörn Svensson (1964-2008)
Few jazz writers have demonstrated a deeper understanding and appreciation of the late Esbjörn Svensson than Stuart Nicholson, a frequent contributor to these pages. Nicholson was one of the first to sing the praises of Svensson, writing about the pianist and his group e.s.t. in The New York Times and elsewhere at a time when few fans in the U.S. knew about this exciting ensemble.
Following this band from afar was not easy at first. I remember having to hunt out From Gagarin’s Point of View during a visit to Italy – intent on finding this brilliant CD which, for whatever reason, hadn’t been released in the U.S. at the time. Stuart graciously sent me other e.s.t. releases that hadn’t yet made their way across the Atlantic – recordings that I found tremendously vital and exciting. I suspect that many other jazz fans first heard about this music through his smart commentaries.
Stuart was also the first to relate the tragedy, a distraught email arriving before the news services picked up the story, that Esbjörn Svensson had died in a diving accident at age 44. The jazz world is still reeling in the aftermath of this unexpected loss.
Below Nicholson contributes an eloquent tribute to this exceptional artist, who left us when he still had so much to share. T.G.
On a warm night in May, 2006 e.s.t., which had begun life as the Esbjörn Svensson Trio, played Lyon, the third largest city in France. For the past two or three years the group, with Dan Berglund on bass and Magnus Öström on drums, had been creating a rising buzz of excitement wherever they played in Europe. Standing ovations, countless encores and wild applause had become common. But this particular night it all seemed to come to a head.
As the group walked onstage it was as if the clock had been turned back to the days of Beatle-mania. Young girls in 1,500 audience, and there were plenty, burst out screaming. The rest of the audience were whistling, shouting, stamping and applauding. The noise was deafening. And they hadn’t even played a note of music.
e.s.t. were finally entering the big time. Years of constant touring --100 to 200 gigs a year were not uncommon -- were finally paying off and there was a universal belief among those involved in the European jazz economy that it could not have happened to three nicer and more hard-working guys. They were praised for their professionalism, their unfailing punctuality, their cheerful disposition whatever the circumstances (and things can and do go wrong at festivals), their rapport with audiences, and their willingness to stay on after concerts for as long as it took signing autographs.
They had come a long way since their album E.S.T. Live '95, when as unknowns outside their native Sweden they were recorded performing during a tour of small towns such as Möndal, Nyköping, Uppsala and Århus (where Svensson plays an upright piano on two tracks). But even then the trio, which had been formed three years earlier, had already begun to forge a collective voice, a hallmark of their style.
It’s probably fair to say the success of e.s.t. may have taken some outside the jazz economy by surprise – such as the mainstream media who were forced to sit up and take notice at the remarkable success of a jazz group – but the one person who never had any doubt the band would make it was Esbjörn Svensson.
A dynamic and immensely personable young man, he was classical graduate of the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, who quickly established himself on the Swedish jazz scene as a rising star. His early influences were Thelonious Monk and Keith Jarrett (from his Facing You period) and, just as important, yet seldom remarked, were the influence of local heroes Bengt Hallberg and the visionary pianist Jan Johansson. Underpinning it all was his love and affinity for classical music – indeed, e.s.t’s 2006 album Tuesday Wonderland was inspired by Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier. All these elements together formed the basis of a wholly original style.
Svensson’s compositions often had more in common with the structure of contemporary pop tunes than the American Popular Song. Many contained beautiful, almost sensuous melodies that were imbued with the pensive melancholy of the Nordic Tone, an important if largely misunderstood voice within jazz.
A couple of years experience playing in pop and rock bands before he formed e.s.t. taught him the value of presentation, and from the very beginning they made financial sacrifices to carry sound engineer Åke Linton (known as the fourth member of the trio) with them whenever they could. Lighting was also an important consideration at their concerts, and a lighting engineer was added to their entourage when finances permitted. “Some musicians think standing in front of a microphone in a white spotlight is all that you need, and that’s okay. Not for us though,” said Svensson.
When the group signed with Siggi Loch’s ACT label and Burkhard Hopper became their manager, e.s.t. began to take off following the release of From Gagarin’s Point of View in 1999. With fresh, original material and imaginative presentation, the group began to win fans beyond the usual jazz constituency. As they built a broad fan base in Europe, the buzz surrounding them began to spread to the United States.
In 2002 they embarked on a three week tour of the US which was followed in 2003 by a tour playing support for k. d. lang. Subsequently, they toured annually, prompting Down Beat magazine to proclaim in 2006 that "Europe Invades": “The Esbjörn Svensson Trio Leads The Breakthrough Of New, Adventurous Jazz Musicians Coming From Across The Pond.” It was the first time in Down Beat’s entire 72 year history that a European jazz group had been featured on the magazine's cover.
On 21 June this year e.s.t. was due to appear at the JVC Jazz Festival in New York. At 44, Svensson had accomplished so much, yet he offered so much more. One of the most influential artists in recent jazz history, Jon Newey, editor and publisher of the UK magazine Jazzwise called him “The single most important artist to emerge in jazz in the last ten years.” A new album Leucocyte had been completed and plans were already in hand for extensive touring to support its release.
A devoted family man Esbjörn Svensson is survived by his wife and two young sons.
This blog entry posted by Stuart Nicholson
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June 22, 2008
Behind the Scenes at the Jazz Encyclopedia Project
Regular site visitors to jazz.com are probably familiar with our Encyclopedia of Jazz Musicians. But they might not be aware of the constant flurry of activity behind the scenes at the Encyclopedia. Under the leadership of editor Tim Wilkins, this on-line reference work is constantly evolving, expanding its scope and improving its coverage.
The encyclopedia was founded by Dr. Lewis Porter, and originally focused on currently active jazz musicians. Porter made great strides by actually approaching the musicians themselves, and thus achieved a level of accuracy and depth of coverage that set his work apart. When the encyclopedia moved to jazz.com this last December, it was comprised of around 1,500 entries, and included many artists not covered adequately – or sometimes not dealt with at all – in other reference works. In short, the encyclopedia was a unique and valuable resource, and we were delighted to be able to share it with jazz.com's visitors.
The web allows publishers to constantly tinker and improve in a way that would not be possible with a printed work, and we were determined from the out-set to continue to develop and expand Porter's pioneering project. In particular, we planned to expand the focus beyond currently active jazz musicians. To help in that effort, jazz.com has enlisted the assistance of a team of outside scholars and experts to help us fill these gaps. Tim and his crew are now gradually covering important historical figures as well as current day artists who, for one reason or another, had not provided biographical info for inclusion in earlier versions of the encyclopedia. This group has added around one hundred entries so far this year, and Tim hopes to incorporate 200-300 more over the next 12 months.
The team’s goal is to provide more than just standard biographical sketches. We are especially excited by the potential benefits of integrating the encyclopedia material with the thousands of reviews, interviews, photos, paintings and other content on the jazz.com site – seamlessly linking everything together to provide an unique overview of artists. In other words, a visitor to the entry on Billie Holiday will find that songs mentioned in the entry link to our various critics' analyses of the specific tracks; or that other relevant material on jazz.com is just a click away.
Below are links to a small sampling of the recently published entries in the Encyclopedia of Jazz Musicians. Feel free to send your comments or queries to Tim Wilkins, at reference@jazz.com.
Albert Ayler by Eric Wendell
Count Basie by David Tenenholz
Tina Brooks by Eric Novod
Jaki Byard by Jared Pauley
Charlie Christian by Darren Mueller
Stanley Clarke by Jared Pauley
Nat King Cole by Jared Pauley
John Coltrane by Darren Mueller
Peter Erskine by Jared Pauley
Bill Evans by Jared Pauley
Maynard Ferguson by Dave Krikorian
Bill Frisell by Eric Novod
Stan Getz by Jonathan Dryden
Dizzy Gillespie by Mark Lomanno
Benny Goodman by Jared Pauley
Grant Green by Scott Homewood
Herbie Hancock by Jared Pauley
Andrew Hill by Eric Novod
Earl Hines by Jared Pauley
Keith Jarrett by Eric Wendell
Elvin Jones by Eric Novod
Carmen McRae by Sue Russell
Brad Mehldau by Jared Pauley
Thelonious Monk by Jared Pauley
Wes Montgomery by John DeCarlo
Lee Morgan by Dave Krikorian
Paul Motian by Eric Novod
Jim Pepper by Ratzo B. Harris
Sam Rivers by Matt Miller
Archie Shepp by Brad Farberman
Cecil Taylor by Jim Allen
Henry Threadgill by Greg Campbell
Cootie Williams by Dave Krikorian
Teddy Wilson by Jared Pauley
John Zorn by Eric Wendell
This blog entry posted by Ted Gioia
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