Our music is a Secret Order.
—Louis Armstrong, 1954 (John F. Zwed, Space Is The Place: The Lives And Times Of Sun Ra [1997], epigraph)
Von Freeman (tenor saxophone, with Ed Petersen, tenor saxophone; Willie Pickens, piano; Brian Sandstrom, bass; Robert Shy, drums), live, Chicago (Green Mill Lounge), 12/31/10
Vodpod videos no longer available.Whatever I’d say would be an understatement. I can only say my life was made much better by knowing him. He was one of the greatest people I’ve ever known, as a man, a friend, and a musician.
—John Coltrane
Eric Dolphy (alto saxophone, bass clarinet, flute)
June 20, 1928-June 29, 1964
John Coltrane Quintet (JC, tenor saxophone; Eric Dolphy, alto saxophone; McCoy Tyner, piano; Reggie Workman, bass; Elvin Jones, drums), “Impressions,” live, Germany (Baden-Baden), 1961
Vodpod videos no longer available.(For whatever reason, this clip sometimes seems to play better, on my Mac, with Safari than Firefox.)
More Eric Dolphy? Here. And here.
More John Coltrane? Here.
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lagniappe
reading table
Leviathan
Truth also is the pursuit of it:
Like happiness, and it will not stand.Even the verse begins to eat away
In the acid. Pursuit, pursuit;A wind moves a little,
Moving in a circle, very cold.How shall we say?
In ordinary discourse—We must talk now. I am no longer sure of the words,
The clockwork of the world. What is inexplicableIs the ‘preponderance of objects.’ The sky lights
Daily with that predominanceAnd we have become the present.
We must talk now. Fear
Is fear. But we abandon one another.
When I was in my 20s, this wouldn’t have appealed to me at all—
too “light,” too “cool,” not “adventurous” enough. But to borrow from
Bobby D., “I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.” Most of what I liked then I still like. But I like a lot of other things, too. It helps,
I’ve found, if you listen, closely, to what is there—not what isn’t.
George Shearing, August 13, 1919-February 14, 2011
George Shearing Quintet (GS, piano; Chuck Wayne, guitar; Joe Roland, vibes; John Levy, bass; Denzil Best, drums), 1950s
“Conception”
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
“I’ll Be Around”
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
“Swedish Pastry”
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
“Move”
Vodpod videos no longer available.**********
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reading table
Dean and I went to see Shearing at Birdland in the midst of the long, mad weekend. The place was deserted, we were the first customers, ten o’clock. Shearing came out, blind, led by the hand to his keyboard. He was a distinguished-looking Englishman with a stiff white collar, slightly beefy, blond, with a delicate English-summer’s-night air about him that came out in the first rippling sweet number he played as the bass-player leaned to him reverently and thrummed the beat. The drummer, Denzil Best, sat motionless except for his wrists snapping the brushes. And Shearing began to rock; a smile broke over his ecstatic face; he began to rock in the piano seat, back and forth, slowly at first, then the beat went up, and he began rocking fast, his left foot jumped up with every beat, his neck began to rock crookedly, he brought his face down to the keys, he pushed his hair back, his combed hair dissolved, he began to sweat. The music picked up. The bass-player hunched over and socked it in, faster and faster, it seemed faster and faster, that’s all. Shearing began to play his chords; they rolled out of the piano in great rich showers, you’d think the man wouldn’t have time to line them up. They rolled and rolled like the sea. Folks yelled for him to “Go!” Dean was sweating; the sweat poured down his collar. “There he is! That’s him! Old God! Old God Shearing! Yes! Yes! Yes!” And Shearing was conscious of the madman behind him, he could hear every one of Dean’s gasps and imprecations, he could sense it though he couldn’t see. “That’s right!” Dean said. “Yes!” Shearing smiled, he rocked. Shearing rose from the piano, dripping with sweat; these were his great 1949 days before he became cool and commercial. When he was gone Dean pointed to the empty piano seat. “God’s empty chair,” he said. On the piano a horn sat; its golden shadow made a strange reflection along the desert caravan painted on the wall behind the drums. God was gone; it was the silence of his departure. It was a rainy night. It was the myth of the rainy night. Dean was popeyed with awe. This madness would lead nowhere.
—Jack Kerouac, On the Road (1957)
Comedy, like jazz, is an art of syncopation.
Lenny Bruce, 1959 (with Cannonball Adderly, saxophone; Bill Evans, piano; Teddy Kotick, bass; Philly Joe Jones, drums)
Vodpod videos no longer available.(Yeah, I could do without all the extra blah-blah-blah, too.)
More Lenny? Here.
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lagniappe
radio
Today WKCR-FM (broadcasting from Columbia University) is remembering George Shearing, who passed away Monday at the age of 91, with a memorial broadcast that runs until 9 p.m. (EST).
My favorite tenor player?
A while back, I said that if I had to name my favorite alto player, there would be days where I’d say Art Pepper.
Tenor players?
Some days this’d be the guy.
Like Pepper, he has a sound that’s immediately identifiable. It’s a sound that, like Pepper’s, holds both joy and heartbreak. And like Pepper, he’s hard—no, impossible—to pigeonhole. Swing, bebop, free: the label that’s capacious enough to contain him hasn’t been invented.
Von Freeman, “Lester Leaps In,” live, Chicago (New Apartment Lounge), 2010
Vodpod videos no longer available.More? Here.
clear, adj. bright, luminous; transparent; free from obscurity. E.g., alto saxophonists Rudresh Mahanthappa and Bunky Green.
Rudresh and Bunky, talking and playing (with Jason Moran, piano; Francois Moutin, bass; Jack DeJohnette and Damion Reid, drums)
Vodpod videos no longer available.Listening to these guys, who’d ever guess that one is nearly twice as old as the other? (Rudresh is 39, Bunky 75.)
*****
Here’s a track from their recent album (Apex, 2010), “Playing with Stones,” featuring Rudresh (Bunky sits out).
Vodpod videos no longer available.*****
My favorite moment in this next clip comes at 2:24, when alto saxophonist Greg Osby, listening to Bunky, tilts his head, as if to say, “Did you hear that?!”
Bunky Green (with alto saxophonists Greg Osby and Steffano di Battista), “Body and Soul,” live, Germany, 2008
Vodpod videos no longer available.**********
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reading table
In the is-this-a-great-country-or-what department, how delicious to learn
that two great American artists—trumpeter Roy Eldridge and poet Elizabeth Bishop—were born, one hundred years ago, within days of each other. (Eldridge was born on January 30, 1911, Bishop on February 8th.)
Sandpiper
The roaring alongside he takes for granted,
and that every so often the world is bound to shake.
He runs, he runs to the south, finical, awkward,
in a state of controlled panic, a student of Blake.The beach hisses like fat. On his left, a sheet
of interrupting water comes and goes
and glazes over his dark and brittle feet.
He runs, he runs straight through it, watching his toes.—Watching, rather, the spaces of sand between them
where (no detail too small) the Atlantic drains
rapidly backwards and downwards. As he runs,
he stares at the dragging grains.The world is a mist. And then the world is
minute and vast and clear. The tide
is higher or lower. He couldn’t tell you which.
His beak is focussed; he is preoccupied,looking for something, something, something.
Poor bird, he is obsessed!
The millions of grains are black, white, tan, and gray
mixed with quartz grains, rose and amethyst.—Elizabeth Bishop
Music, like people, comes in all kinds. Some is easy to embrace, some thorny. I wouldn’t want to live without either.
Milton Babbitt, May 10, 1916-January 29, 2011
About Time, Alan Feinberg, piano
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
String Quartet No. 2, Composers Quartet
Vodpod videos no longer available.**********
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His music can be playful, too.
Semi-Simple Variations, The Bad Plus
Vodpod videos no longer available.*****
If you know anybody who knows more popular music of the ’20s or ’30s than I do, I want to know who it is. I grew up playing every kind of music in the world, and I know more pop music from the ’20s and ’30s, it’s because of where I grew up. We had to imitate Jan Garber one night; we had to imitate Jean Goldkette the next night. We heard everything from the radio; we had to do it all by ear. We took down their arrangements; we stole their arrangements; we transcribed them, approximately. We played them for a country club dance one night and for a high school dance the next.
Roy Eldridge, January 30, 1911-February 26, 1989
No you, no me.
“I Can’t Get Started,” live (TV broadcast), 1958
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
“After You’ve Gone,” 1937
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
“Wabash Stomp,” 1937
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
“Let Me Off Uptown” (Gene Krupa Orchestra with Anita O’Day), 1942
Vodpod videos no longer available.**********
lagniappe
radio Roy Eldridge
WKCR-FM’s centennial birthday celebration, mentioned yesterday, continues until midnight.
They don’t just sing about—they take you on—a journey.
“Heavenly Home (Got to Take a Journey),” live, Langrun Branch Baptist Church, York, South Carolina
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lagniappe
Happy (100th) Birthday, Roy!
For two full days—all day today and tomorrow—WCKR-FM (broadcasting from Columbia University) celebrates the birthday of trumpeter Roy Eldridge. (I’m listening as I type this—delicious!)
Thirty-four years ago, on a cold Saturday night, in a church about
thirty miles north of Chicago, tenor saxophonist Von Freeman played this, unaccompanied, at our wedding.
Sonny Rollins (tenor saxophone) with The Modern Jazz Quartet (John Lewis, piano; Milt Jackson, vibraphone; Percy Heath, bass; Kenny Clarke, drums), “In A Sentimental Mood” (Duke Ellington), 1953
Vodpod videos no longer available.
music clip of the day 