On Friday, July 10, as tenor saxophonist David Murray reached the last of several emotional peaks during a blissful yet intense version of “Flowers For Albert,” audience members both young and old whooped and raised hands as if they were at a church revival.
Here was the annual Vision Festival in full swing, asserting its spiritual heft, sounding echoes of deep legacies and a displaying its power as in-the-moment entertainment of an exalted sort.
In fact, this was a church: After two decades of shifting venues, owing to the vagaries of New York City real estate, this year’s event, marking the event’s 20th anniversary, was held from July 7-12 at Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village.
Murray first recorded “Flowers for Albert” nearly 40 years ago, in dedication to the pioneering saxophonist Albert Ayler, who is one of this community’s dear departed masters. At Judson Church, Murray performed it with his “Class Struggle” band, which includes his son, Mingus Murray, whose electric guitar solos leaned forward stylistically while also honoring his father’s personal history.
The Vision Festival has long stood as this country’s essential gathering of avant-garde improvising musicians—yet that description is neither entirely accurate nor complete. First off, the festival involves dancers, poets and visual artists. Also, even the sloppy signifier “avant garde” fails to sum up even a single night of the event. Any given five hours at the Judson Church—each night presented a half-dozen or more performances—ranged wildly in sound and texture.
“The aesthetic isn’t so easy to define,” Continue reading “Twenty Years On, The Vision Festival's Enduring Vision”
Cutting Ornette Loose
It’s hard to describe how it feels to stand at the podium of Riverside Church, to look down at a coffin that holds Ornette Coleman’s body, and to look out at a large crowd including Yoko Ono, Sonny Rollins, Henry Threadgill, John Zorn and Jason Moran, along with so many musicians and artists and friends from all corners of New York’s cultural world and from a much wider world, too.
An hour earlier, I’d attended the viewing. Lying in state, Coleman looked resplendent in one of his customary silk suits; he looked happy, bathed in his own glowing light, much as he’d always seemed when I saw him.
Early on in the 3 1/2–hour celebration on Saturday, June 27—which began with a procession led by two musicians from the Master Musicians of Jajouka, the Moroccan brotherhood that collaborated with Coleman several times in his career—I had the honor and the challenge of finding words with which to help do justice to Coleman’s life and legacy, and that might help raise everyone up. Continue reading “Cutting Ornette Loose”
Drummer Shannon Powell's Brilliance Shines in Louis Armstrong's Light
At any given moment, there are sounds of New Orleans in New York City’s air—lately, a little more than usual.
Last week, pianist Jon Batiste, who will lead the band for Stephen Colbert’s “Late Show” come September, had melodica in hand as he led something like a second-line parade out of Union Square Park (see my account and an interview here.) He’ll hold court during what he calls a “social music residency” at Manhattan’s NoMad Hotel June 23-26.
On Saturday, June 20, the Rebirth Brass Band, who pretty much authored present-day brass-band style, brought their parade-honed sound to the mainstage of a festival called “Louis Armstrong’s Wonderful World” in Flushing Meadows Corona Park. Around that same time Saturday, the New Breed Brass Band, full of bright young upstarts, performed on Governor’s Island, within the Nalofunk Crawfish and Music Festival. On Friday, June 26, the Soul Rebels, who’ve slid brass-band tradition comfortably into Afro Latin and hip-hop territory during the past two decades, make their debut at the Blue Note jazz club with a late set featuring rappers Rakim and Slick Rick.
For those who didn’t let Saturday’s persistent spray of light rain dampen their enthusiasm, the “Wonderful World” festival brought Armstrong’s spirit and legacy to life in several ways not far from the legendary trumpeter’s former home, which is now a terrific landmark, the Louis Armstrong House Museum. Ricky Riccardi, that museum’s archivist and the author of an essential book on Armstrong, “What a Wonderful World: The Magic of Louis Armstrong’s Later Years,” was over at the nearby Queens Museum, sharing insights and pleasures from his research.
The day’s highlight, the essential heartbeat of the event, was a set from drummer Shannon Powell’s Traditional All-Star Jazz Band. Powell, who headlines too infrequently in New York City, is rightly revered in his hometown, where he’s known as “The King of Tremé” for his prominence in a neighborhood that has nurtured traditional jazz culture and which he still calls home. Continue reading “Drummer Shannon Powell's Brilliance Shines in Louis Armstrong's Light”
The Puzzle Ornette Coleman Left Us
On Saturday, June 27, at 11am, I’ll be at Manhattan’s Riverside Church for a funeral to celebrate the life, mourn the loss and revel in the spirit of Ornette Coleman.
Coleman, who died at 85 on June 11, delivered on the promise of the title to his 1959 album, “The Shape of Jazz to Come.” The flow of jazz ever since in fact has been redirected, its course widened and altered.
Yet Coleman gave us no template or mold. Rather, he offered liberation from these things while suggesting—no proving—that such freedom did not mean forfeiture of aesthetic purpose or historical grounding. No one has or likely will make music quite like his, but few serious and searching jazz musicians have ignored the possibilities suggested by the doors he blew open. Continue reading “The Puzzle Ornette Coleman Left Us”
Colbert Taps Pianist Jon Batiste For New "Late Show"
As Dave Itzkoff reported in yesterday’s New York Times, Stephen Colbert has named pianist Jon Batiste to be his bandleader when he begins hosting “The Late Show” for CBS on Sept. 8.
Colbert stuffs a lot of sugary beignets into his face and packs a lot of funny into the 43-second video introducing Batiste .
Meanwhile, Batiste flashes his pianism and his affection for his other favorite instrument, the melodica. He mugs like a good sidekick but also a subversive one: he utters the word “jazz,” and features tambourine, two things well understood in New Orleans, where Batiste first came of age as a musician, but generally alien on network TV.
Batiste isn’t the first jazz musician raised in Kenner, Louisiana and trained at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts to be a late-night TV star. That would be saxophonist Branford Marsalis, who was Jay Leno’s “Tonight Show” bandleader from 1992 to 1995. Marsalis and Leno never achieved the type of on-air banter late-night TV needs (Jay just wasn’t cool enough nor was Branford willing to pander) and ultimately, Marsalis’ estimable musicianship seeemed watered down, his musical inclinations hemmed in.
That’s unlikely to happen to Batiste: Colbert’s show will probably skew more hip and open-minded. Continue reading “Colbert Taps Pianist Jon Batiste For New "Late Show"”
Come Celebrate the National Jazz Museum in Harlem, Where It Gets Done Right
Early in my career, the idea of institutions and museums dedicated to jazz, then a new thing, was met with consternation and fear. Jazz is organic, not dead, some said. It doesn’t belong in a museum.
Depends on the museum. Like most things, it’s all in how you do it. And where.
The National Jazz Museum in Harlem has been doing it right and in an appropriate place since 1997, when it was founded by Leonard Garment, counsel to two U.S. Presidents and accomplished jazz saxophonist, with the help of a $1 million Congressional Appropriation. It waves jazz’s banner smartly and warmly, with wisdom and coolness.
The museum’s 2015 benefit concert on June 10 at Hunter College’s Kaye Playhouse in Manhattan—highlighted by performances by saxophonist Joe Lovano and singer Dianne Reeves, and featuring award presentations to bassist Reggie Workman and the late filmmaker Albert Maysles—should be a glittering event. Go here for more information or scroll down this post.) It will help support year-round programs, most of which are far more modest in scale but bold in the ways they truly live up to this statement, from the museum’s website: Continue reading “Come Celebrate the National Jazz Museum in Harlem, Where It Gets Done Right”
Jazz Loses a Prolific Artist and Restless Dreamer: RIP, Bob Belden
Yesterday, one day after the passing of Blue Note Records chairman emeritus Bruce Lundvall, came the untimely death of Bob Belden, at 58. Bob and Bruce notably crossed paths at Blue Note, which Bob had served as an A&R executive and recording artist.
Then again, there are few paths that didn’t cross Bob’s. His work as a musician, producer, arranger, bandleader and annotator ranged widely across genres, decades and borders. His grooves and his smiles were infectious. His rhythms and his opinions could hit hard. On and off the bandstand, in and out of the recording studio, his ears and his mind were wide open.
An obituary by Jeff Tamarkin in JazzTimes begins with a summary that touches on the broad strokes of Bob’s work:
Bob Belden, a multi-instrumentalist, producer, arranger, bandleader, label executive, historian and writer, died today, May 20, in New York City after suffering a massive heart attack in his Upper West Side apartment. Belden was removed from life support after being non-responsive for more than 24 hours. He was 58.
A true jack-of-all-trades in the jazz world, Belden recorded as a leader and in various band and sideman situations, playing soprano saxophone and other instruments and composing; produced recordings by other artists; conducted, orchestrated and wrote arrangements (for McCoy Tyner, Herbie Hancock, Joe Henderson and others); created and coordinated multi-artist theme albums including Indian and Latin music tributes to Miles Davis as well as tributes to Prince, the Beatles and Sting; compiled historical releases and box sets (on Miles and others) for major record labels; wrote liner notes and articles for jazz publications; and served as an A&R executive for Blue Note Records.
Belden won Grammy Awards for his work on 1996’s Miles Davis and Gil Evans: The Complete Columbia Studio Recordings (Best Historical Album, Best Album Notes) and 1998’s Miles Davis Quintet set 1965-’68: The Complete Columbia Studio Recordings(Best Album Notes). He and trumpeter Tim Hagans were also nominated for Best Contemporary Jazz Album in 2000 for ANIMATION/Imagination and in 2001 for Re-ANIMATION: Live!. Miles From India, which Belden conceived and produced, was nominated for Best Contemporary Jazz Album in 2009.
And Tamarkin points out:
Belden was known within the jazz community as something of a raconteur—always outspoken, funny, never afraid to speak out on any topic, even when (especially when) his view was not the popular one. He was a vocal critic of the state of the music industry, music education and other aspects of the world in which he traveled. Yet he traveled easily within it because he understood it so well, and was loved and respected for his individuality and the sheer magnitude and breadth of his talent.
The last time I communicated with Bob, in March, he was emailing from Tehran, Iran, where he was leading his Animation band at the FAJR International Music Festival. There’s a fascinating interview with Bob about that trip in JazzTimes. The trip inspired coverage in The New York Times, CNN and Tehran Times, among other outlets. Bob, who I’d known for half my life, had been reading my articles about New Orleans and Cuba. He said that he thought we shared “a strong desire to illuminate,” and that he’d found that same spirit in Iran. I was on the road at the time, but I held on to Belden’s nearly breathless emails, which I think reveal a bit about all that he railed about as well as all that he found true and beautiful. Here’s some of what he wrote, exactly as it spilled out, which I think forms a better epitaph than I could create:
Continue reading “Jazz Loses a Prolific Artist and Restless Dreamer: RIP, Bob Belden”
Jazz Loses a Class Act: Bruce Lundvall, Who Revived Blue Note Records, Dies at 79
Tuesday night, I was saddened to hear of the passing of Bruce Lundvall, perhaps the last of the great jazz music-business executives, who, among his other credits, led Blue Note Records back from dormancy to a period of profoundly influential activity.
Bruce, who died on Tuesday at 79 from complications of Parkinson’s Disease, was a gentleman, a scholar, a true music lover and a friend whose stories kept me enraptured and taught me a great deal. He always looked dapper in his well-tailored suits and he lent positive meaning to the term “suit” as used by musicians.
In an obituary in today’s New York Times, Nate Chinen summarizes Lundvall’s impressive half-century in the recording industry and gets it right with this comment:
In an industry rife with egos and sharp elbows, Mr. Lundvall generated an unusual amount of good will.
I’m sure to write more about Bruce soon. For now, I’ll post again, below, this excerpt from Bruce’s introduction to “Playing by Ear,” Dan Oulette’s Lundvall biography published by ArtistShare last year. My interview with Oulette about Lundvall and that project can be found here. Continue reading “Jazz Loses a Class Act: Bruce Lundvall, Who Revived Blue Note Records, Dies at 79”
U.S-Cuba: Freedom, In Two Languages
I’ve been following the coverage of the Minnesota Orchestra’s trip to Cuba, and thinking that the cultural exchanges among classical musicians resulting from a changed political landscape will likely be as powerful as the ones in the jazz world.
Michael Cooper’s most recent New York Times piece about that trip ended this:
After the break, Guido López-Gavilán, the conductor of the Youth Orchestra, took to the podium to lead the two orchestras in one of his own compositions, “Guaguancó,” a symphonic rumba. This time it was the students who taught the Minnesotans a thing or two.
At first the rhythmic foundation of the piece — the five-beat repeated pattern called the clave, the basic building block of Cuban music — confounded some of the American players. They had all played clave rhythms before, explained Sam Bergman, a viola player in the orchestra, but the Cubans played it a little differently — delaying the third beat a bit.
Mr. Bergman said that at first the Minnesotans were off. “The kids were looking at us like, what’s the problem here?” he recalled. But the Minnesotans were able to follow the youth players and soon got it.
Wendy Williams, a flute player in the orchestra, said that she loved the piece so much that she hoped the orchestra would play it at some point when it returns to Minneapolis. “I just want to share it with our audiences back home,” she said.
I know that pianist and bandleader Arturo O’Farrill is in Havana right now, working on plans for a U.S.-Cuba educational exchange. Below is my recent Wall Street Journal piece about his Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra’s collaboration with Cuban musicians in Havana and New York City. Continue reading “U.S-Cuba: Freedom, In Two Languages”
All The Things Roy Nathanson Is
If you see Roy Nathanson on the Q train, head down and pen out, he’s working on a poem. If you see him with his saxophone raised, he’s exulting in song or free improvisation.
More and more, the two activities have merged for the 64-year-old Brooklynite.
From June 2-7, Nathanson’s residency at The Stone, the tiny club John Zorn founded in Manhattan’s East Village, will explore the words and sounds and, most of all, the friendships that fuel Nathanson’s restless and genre-bending creativity. His duet partners will include guitarist Marc Ribot, pianists Myra Melford, Anthony Coleman and Arturo O’Farrill, and trombonist Curtis Fowlkes, Nathanson’s fellow founder of the Jazz Passengers group. His bandmates include the members of his unusual Sotto Voce ensemble, in which everyone sings and a beatboxer rules the rhythm section, and all-stars from Manhattan’s Institute for Collaborative Education, where Nathanson runs the music program.
Nathanson has an uncanny knack for translating words into music and vice versa. His poem inspired by the tune “All the Thing You Are” contains this verse:
Today when we were cooking oatmeal
I heard Sonny Criss drive his Selmer
through the “Angel glow that lights a star” line
and I marveled at the metaphorical power of stars
How they rise above the bridges of all these old tunes
Nathanson also has a way of drawing great musicians into his own world regardless of the material. But this week, such communion will focus very much on one song: “The Nearness of You.”
Nathanson shared with me his enthusiasm for the program, and for that song:
This week of concerts feels particularly emotionally powerful since somehow, at 64, I’ve fallen back totally in love with my saxophone. Reed craziness and all. These last 10 years or so I’ve been concentrating almost entirely on connecting text and words—particularly on understanding how poetry, metaphor, voice and saxophone work together as language. This has also corresponded to the period I’ve started the ICE music department and involved my students in much of my artistic exploration.
A combination of aging, life troubles and changes, and diving again into Eric Dolphy’s language for Russ Johnson’s “Out To Lunch” project made me remember how my saxophone itself can tell a story without words. How just breath moving from note to note is a magical thing to savor. That a singing note is just a crazy cool thing.
For this Stone residency, I’m exploring duo conversations with old collaborators and friends whose language I know well: Marc Ribot, Curtis Fowlkes, Anthony Coleman, Arturo O’Farrill, Myra Melford, Claire Daly and Napoleon Maddox. These are people with whom I’ve spent years playing concerts with and sharing life experiences with. Anthony and I recorded 3 CDs and worked with musical gesture, words, free improv and composition. Curtis and I started the Jazz Passengers with this duo process. Marc and I have played together for over 35 years. The duo with Anthony hasn’t been heard in years, and others like the duos with Myra and Arturo are projects I’ve always wanted to do. If words come out of this duo process at the Stone, fine; but mostly the improvisations will be an older kind of storytelling for me. I will also have the pleasure of playing with the groups I’m most associated with: The Jazz Passengers, Sotto Voce and the recent Out to Lunch project.
While rehearsing last week with Arturo, he had the idea of playing “The Nearness of You,” a song I always loved. Arturo discussed how the song always seemed full of ambiguity, and I felt that too. That ambiguity was part of what I always found beautiful about it. Musically I remember both my dad [also a saxophonist] playing it, and how it in organ bars while I played in Charlie Earland’s band, I felt it swing in ways that were almost oblivious to the lyrics. So I’m going to do a version of that song in every single duo.
Photo: Charna Meyers
Full schedule below:
6/2 Tuesday
8 pm
Roy Nathanson and Curtis Fowlkes Duo
Roy Nathanson (sax) Curtis Fowlkes (trombone)
10 pm
The Jazz Passengers
Curtis Fowlkes (trombone) Roy Nathanson (sax) Brad Jones (bass) Bill Ware (vibes) Sam Bardfeld (drums)
6/3 Wednesday (RJP)
8 pm
Marc Ribot and Roy Nathanson duo
Marc Ribot (guitar) Roy Nathanson (sax, poetry)
10 pm
Roy Nathanson Organ quartet feat. Marc Ribot
Marc Ribot (guitar) Greg Lewis (Hammond B3 organ) Nasheet Waits (drums) Roy Nathanson (sax)
6/4 Thursday
8 pm
Myra Melford and Roy Nathanson duo
Myra Melford (piano) Roy Nathanson (sax, vocal)
10 pm
Russ Johnson’s Still Out to Lunch
Roy Nathanson (sax) Myra Melford (piano) Brad Jones (bass) George Schuller (drums) Russ Johnson (trumpet)
6/5 Friday (SC)
8 pm
Roy Nathanson and Anthony Coleman duo (Lobster and Friend)
Anthony Coleman (piano) Roy Nathanson (sax)
10 pm
Roy Nathanson’s Sotto Voce
Roy Nathanson, Napoleon Maddox (beatbox) Tim Kiah (bass) Curtis Fowlkes (trombone) Jerome Harris (guitar) Sam Bardfeld (violin)
6/6 Saturday
8 pm
Arturo O’Farrill and Roy Nathanson duo
Arturo O’Farrill (piano) Roy Nathanson (sax)
10 pm
Institute for Collaborative Education All Star Band
Roy Nathanson, Isaiah Barr (saxes) Leo Hardman-Hill (trumpet) Sean Sondregger (sax) Max Balton (guitar) Nadeghe Giraudet (vocals) Zuri Gordon (poetry) Pete Karp (drums) Zara Acosta (clarinet)
6/7 Sunday
8 pm
Roy Nathanson, Napoleon Maddox, Claire Daly Trio
Roy Nathanson (alto and soprano saxes) Napoleon Maddox (beatbox) Claire Daly (baritone sax)
10 pm
Roy Nathanson with Zack O’Farrill Trio