At least one day out of the year all musicans should just put their instruments down, and give thanks to Duke Ellington.
—Miles Davis
Duke Ellington and His Orchestra
“C Jam Blues,” 1942
*****
“Mood Indigo,” “Sophisticated Lady,” “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing),” “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore,” 1943
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It is becoming increasingly difficult to decide where jazz starts or where it stops, where Tin Pan Alley begins and jazz ends, or even where the borderline lies between between classical music and jazz. I feel there is no boundary line.
If I could listen to only one singer for the rest of my life, she’d be the one.
No one gives you more of life.
Inessentials? No one offers fewer.
Moment by moment, no one is more enthralling.
***
Billie Holiday
“The Blues Are Brewin’,” with Louis Armstrong (New Orleans, 1947)
*****
“Fine and Mellow,” with Ben Webster (ts), Lester Young (ts), Vic Dickenson (trbn), Gerry Mulligan (bs), Coleman Hawkins (ts), Roy Eldridge (trmpt), live (TV broadcast), 1957
*****
“What A Little Moonlight Can Do,” with Mal Waldron (p), live (TV broadcast), 1958
BILLIE HOLIDAY BIRTHDAY BROADCAST : APRIL 7th, 2010
Ninety-five years after her birth, on April 7th, 2010, WKCR will dedicate all programming to Billie Holiday. Born Elinore Fagan in Baltimore, Holiday learned songs by Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith despite the instability and tragedy of her childhood. In 1929, she teamed up with tenor sax player Kenneth Hollan, slowly building her reputation as a vocalist. She replaced Monette Moore at a club called “Covan’s” on West 132 Street in 1932. When producer John Hammond came to see Moore, he was instead captivated by Holiday. He secured a record deal for her, and she recorded two tracks with Benny Goodman. She soon began to record under her own name, collaborating with the greatest artists of the swing era. With pianist Teddy Wilson, she manipulated the melody of dull pop songs for jukeboxes, transforming them into jazz standards, and she courageously recorded “Strange Fruit” with Commodore records when Columbia rejected the sensitive subject matter. Though her career was strained by substance abuse and heartbreak, her voice did not deteriorate. As she inscribed the catastrophes of her life on the texture of her voice, it became only more powerful, more haunting. On April 7th, we will examine the life of this great, mysterious artist, but most importantly, we will listen to her voice.—WKCR-FM
The Loose Marbles is a sort of Amalgamated Jazz Corporation that creates subsidiaries around the city, to maximize tips and minimize boredom. The fifteen musicians play clarinet, trumpet, banjo, washboard, accordion, trombone, guitars, sousaphone, standup bass, and guitars, but you’re likely to see only seven or eight performers at any given gig. And since you rarely see the same configuration of instruments twice in a row, you rarely hear the same kind of jazz. If Patrick McPeck is there with the accordion, you’ll hear the Marbles’ repertoire of spooky, minor-keyed, Gypsy-influenced songs. If Alynda Segarra is there, with her banjo or washboard, and Jason Jurzek is on string bass instead of tuba, they’ll be playing songs that sound as if they were first performed in a hobo jungle during the Hoover Administration. In Washington Square, in New York, they split into two groups, one anchored by the tuba and the other anchored by the bass, and they play on opposite sides of the park. Halfway through the day, they’ll mix up the configurations to give both the musicians and the crowd a change of pace. At the end of the day, they pool all the tips and divide them equally. I’ve seen days here in New Orleans where they have a stack of bills that’s so thick it can’t be held in one hand, and that contains a lot of portraits of Hamilton and Jackson.
***
The Loose Marbles look like street urchins, and at least a few of them are. The goat-bearded guitar and tuba player, Barnabus Jones; Ruth’s boy, Kiowa Wells; and the banjo and washboard player Alynda all come from a subculture of rail-riding, outdoor-living hobos that was beautifully documented a couple of years ago by the photographer James Heil in Time. . . . But the trumpeter Ben Polcer is a University of Michigan music-school graduate, and the clarinetist Mike Magro, from suburban Philadelphia, is a virtuoso who can hold forth at length about the rare and antiquated Albert fingering of his clarinet.
In addition to their song selection and their remarkably tight and vibrant musicianship, two things particularly excite me about the Loose Marbles. One is how carefully thought out their act is; their inter-war, Mitteleuropean flavor is somehow more than accidental and less than shtick. The other is how much, and how obviously, they all love each other.
***
I asked Ben why he and his friends aren’t playing rock and roll like proper twenty-somethings. What is the attraction, I wanted to know, of music his grandparents listened to?
“I’ve played in a lot of rock bands,” he said. “I like rock and roll. We all like rock and roll. But jazz is special. To play it well, you really have to listen to each other.”—Dan Baum
God the poet, the master of metaphor, wanting to comment on what a big, open, unruly country this is, put the birthdays of Ornette Coleman, born in 1930 in Fort Worth, Texas, and Bix Beiderbecke, born in 1903 in Davenport, Iowa, back to back.
Bix Beiderbecke, cornet, with Frankie Trumbauer and His Orchestra, 1927
“I’m Coming, Virginia”
*****
“Singin’ the Blues”
*****
“Riverboat Shuffle”
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Speaking of Bix’s playing, Louis Armstrong said:
Those pretty notes went right through me.
*****
Radio Bix: all Bix, all the time
As they did with Ornette’s birthday yesterday, WKCR-FM is celebrating Bix’s birthday by playing his music all day.
Jimmy Cliff, “King of Kings,” live, Jamaica (Kingston [Sombrero Club]), 1962
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The Sound System was and is an integral part of the Jamaican social scene especially the working class who rely on this for their entertainment and social life. The middle and upper class fly to Miami and N.Y while the working class depend on the Sound System, which had an impact on my life from my boyhood days in the countryside of Jamaica where I could listen the Sound System at the big upstairs house that was beside the little house where I lived with my Father and my Brother.
This big upstairs downstairs house had a bar called ” Money Rock Tavern ” where the Sound System called “Pope Pius” would play and this was my me only opportunity to hear different kinds of music especially Latino.
My parents were staunch Christians so I was not permitted to associate with those kinds of music so I had to hide and steel away to go to the fair grounds where dances and fairs were held. I could see and learn the latest Dance moves and hear the latest, Rumba, R’n’B, Calypso, Merengay etc…
A little later in my youth life my Father managed to buy a little battery powered radio so I had another opportunity to tune in to American radio particularity New Orleans and Miami, and of course Cuba which is close to Jamaica only 90 miles away. On the local radio station I learned of local Artists writing and recording their own songs so I decided to write my own while still in school, quite a fete for a little country boy but I had high ambitions. Among the locals that inspired me wave Derrick Morgan, Prince Buster and Monty Morris.
After leaving primary school at Somerton my father took me to the capital of Jamaica Kingston to go to Kingston technical school, with a few songs in my head I had written. Where I was going to live was unknown but I ended up in East Kingston. Miss Gwen a stranger Lady said she would cook and wash my clothes while I slept with my cousin in his one rented room.
I was happy to be in Kingston to fulfil my dreams. I tried many producers while still going to school studing radio and tv trying to get the songs recorded without much luck. I entered talent shows and won some and was cheated on some. One night I was walking past a record store and restaurant as they were closing, I pushed myself in and sang for the Chinese owners of the store and convinced one of them Leslie Kong to go into the recording business starting with me.
My second recording with him Hurricane Hattie became a number one hit in Jamaica. I followed that hit up with Miss Jamaica, One Eyed Jacks, King of Kings and Leslie Kong went on to become King Kong among the producers in Jamaica.
This was the ska era of Jamaican Music.—Jimmy Cliff
This guy—one of my all-time musical heroes (someone I’ve been listening to for over 30 years)—makes you move. He makes you feel. He makes you think. What more could you ask for?
Henry Threadgill, alto saxophone
With His Very Very Circus, live, New York, 1995
*****
With his Society Situation Dance Band (featuring Craig Harris, trombone), live, Germany (Hamburg), 1988
Like a lot of live performances (especially ones where the musicians haven’t had many chances to play together [as no doubt was the case here]), this gets better as it goes along. At first, things are a bit tentative and raggedy. Then, at around 1:50, trombonist Craig Harris starts to find his way. By around 2:15, the horns and strings begin to sound more cohesive. By around 3:30, the drummers, having gotten more comfortable with the tempo and structure, start to push the groove harder. At around 8:00, with everything going full steam, Threadgill, feeling Harris feeling it, suddenly breaks things down, leaving just the ’bone and the electric guitar. And with that, the performance jumps out of its skin.
*****
With Judith Sanchez Ruiz (dancer), live, New York, 2008
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Music should go right through you, leave some of itself inside you, and take some of you with it when it leaves.—Henry Threadgill
music clip of the day 