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February 10, 2017

Nicholas Payton's Emancipation Proclamation

Through more of a decade writing about the lives and careers of musicians born and raised in New Orleans, I’ve been fascinated by how the best of these artists have not been weakened by their experiences since the floods that resulted from the levee failures following Hurricane Katrina, nor by the indifference and outright racism that persists in their native city.
Rather they’ve grown bolder.
Nicholas Payton, more than any other musician I know, speaks truth to power, and to anyone who will listen. He can be relentless, which I’ve come to regard as one of his charms.
As I wrote in an earlier post about Payton:

Payton is an intense and restless soul, and his thoughts and feelings spill forth with self-assuredness and defiant pride through both his music and his online posts. His music should probably raise more eyebrows than it does because, aside from its integrity and range, it generally doesn’t respect the party line heeded by many so-called jazz musicians. Payton’s blog posts—in which, among other stances, he refuses to wear the term “jazz,” and instead favors the acronym BAM (for Black American Music)—perhaps shouldn’t raise as many eyebrows as they have. At least, these missives can’t be dismissed as rants, which they’re not, or even radical, which they’re also not. The musicians involved in Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) said pretty much the same things 50 years ago.
I’ll not get into a long catalog of what Payton has written online and what was then written about him and what he then wrote in response (though it’s easy enough, and illuminating, to follow that chronology). Yes, it’s about race as much as music, as it should be: Yet whereas, say, the comments appended to articles in the Times Picayune of Payton’s hometown discusses race in a lowest-common-denominator who-can-hate-more style, Payton channels his own feelings (sometimes, yes, rage) into the sort of truth-telling that black trumpeters born and raised in the United States have long done. Amstrong and Miles Davis weren’t enamored with the term “jazz” either.

As I wrote in my Wall Street Journal review of Payton’s brilliant new 2-CD release, “Afro-Caribbean Mixtape” (Paytone/Ropeadope):

This new album lends more graceful expression to his argument—for an enduring black aesthetic that bows to jazz masters without implying servitude, and that embraces African influence across several genres. Words prove critical here, too. In the mix—sometimes buried, other times clear—are sampled snatches of spoken-word sources, manipulated by the turntablist. On “Jazz Is a Four-Letter Word,” the voice of Max Roach (from a 1993 interview that Mr. Payton found on YouTube) describes an unbroken line of ingenuity from Charlie Parker to Michael Jordan to Michael Jackson. On the title track, Greg Kimathi Carr, head of Howard University’s Afro-American Studies Department, explains “African ways of knowing.

“I use these audio clips the way the great beatmakers use their samples,” Payton told me in an interview. “I have a repository at my disposal, and I know what’s in there.” The music itself was formed in similar fashion. “I stopped writing songs 10 years ago,” he says. “When I hearmotifs or melodic fragments, I record them into voice memos and I stockpile ideas.”
Payton combined these elements the way he might have made a cassette mixtape for a friend decades ago—“selecting the best moments I could find in my mental databank,” he writes in his liner note, and “considering exactly where to pause a track if you wanted to beat match or make a transition between songs seamless.” The album begins with the sound of a tape reel fast-forwarding and then finding its place.
Here’s my full review below: Continue reading “Nicholas Payton's Emancipation Proclamation”

February 1, 2017

Celebrating Ornette

20150617_Ornette11-640x380 — Ornette Coleman plays at a JVC Jazz Festival concert at Carnegie Hall, June 20, 2004. His son, Denardo Coleman (rear) plays drums. (Photo by Jack Vartoogian/Getty Images)

After Ornette Coleman died in 2015, I was shaken. It’s not that I didn’t know he was frail. It was that I could no conceive of a world without him. I posted one hasty piece that began like this:

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.

I wrote in a later post about Coleman’s funeral—about how it felt ot be among those eulogizing him:

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….
I looked out over that diverse and deeply focused crowd, and began like this:
“Let’s put it this way. On this planet, there is human expression, which has been related through art for many years. But this expression has not been free of categories or preconceptions.”
Ornette Coleman told me that 20 years ago.
This community, here today, celebrating Ornette, is distinctly free of categories and preconceptions. This community is among the many wondrous things that only Ornette could have shaped. It’s humbling in a transformative way to be part of it.

I didn’t realize that my words, along with those of many others who spoke, as well as all the wonderful music played that day would be captured on DVD, within “Celebrate Ornette,” a loving tribute of a boxed set, produced by Denardo Coleman, that documents Ornette’s final live appearance at a concert in 2014, and his funeral service.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/celebrate-ornette-review-live-performances-timeless-influence-1485469989
You can find my Wall Street Journal review here, and below. Continue reading “Celebrating Ornette”

January 23, 2017

Radicalized, Part 3: Remembering Nat Hentoff, The Itinerant Subversive

With each passing day, I keep thinking of Nat Hentoff, who died two weeks ago.
I keep thinking Nat would know what to write…
Onstage the a few nights ago at Symphony Space, emceeing a “Musicians Against Fascism” concert, I invoked Nat’s legacy and felt his presence through a sense of purpose that linked ideas, action and music.
Here’s how I began my own remembrance of Nat at The Daily Beast:

The death of Nat Hentoff at 91 on Jan. 7 was, to me, one final act of defiance.

According to his son Nicholas, Hentoff left us in the company of that which he loved dearly—surrounded by family, listening to Billie Holiday recordings.

And I suppose that Hentoff, who wrote with as much passion and insight about the Constitution as he did about Holiday’s music, simply refused to stick around to see Donald Trump take the presidential oath of office.

I imagined Hentoff whispering something like: “I fought against the Vietnam War. I spoke out during the Reagan administration, against George W. Bush’s Iraq invasion, and in defense of true liberalism and the Bill of Rights. This fight is yours.”

As an author, journalist, jazz critic, and civil libertarian, Hentoff’s intensity was matched by his productivity and range. He inspired me early on through his voluminous essays and books. And I was lucky. I got to know the man, who, by then, had a weathered face bordered by greying hair and beard, his piercing eyes softened only by his easy smile.

And here’s a 2004 interview I did with Nat for Wax Poetics:
Here’s the pull-quote I’d use now:
“I was an itinerant subversive from the start.”
Some of the references are dated but Nat’s messages—about music, cultural identity, fundamentalism, and the Supreme Court—are timely as ever.
Continue reading “Radicalized, Part 3: Remembering Nat Hentoff, The Itinerant Subversive”

January 23, 2017

Radicalized, Part 2: Musicians Against Fascism

Arturo O’Farrill addresses the crowd at a Musicians Against Fascism concert/ photo by Scott Friedlander

On the flight home from Havana last month after the Jazz Plaza Festival, pianist Arturo O’Farrill and I talked about the country to which we were returning.
Donald Trump would soon take the oath of office as president. We each felt uneasy (scared , really), not to mention indignant and insulted. We both also felt motivated—to speak up more forcefully and with greater focus about what we believed in, and to try to strenghten our sense of community with musicians, writers, thinkers and the decent people who read and listen and care.
O’Farrill called me up the next day. He was putting together a concert a Manhattan’s Symphony Space, he said, scheduled for the night before the presidential inauguration, under the banner, “Musicians Against Fascism.”
“Anything I can do to support this?” I asked.
“Yeah, you can emcee.”
I told him that I’d certainly write about the concert, and that maybe I could step up and say a few words. We talked a bit more and then hung up.
I called right back. “Of course I can emcee. I should do it. I’ll do it.”
I’ve been political on the page for at least a decade, writing about, among other things: jazz and American identity; the relationship between the U.S. and Cuba; about indignity, rights and the promise of culture in New Orleans after Hurrican Katrina, and about Islam as heard through music after 9/11.
I’ve spoken truth to power in public at panel discussions and conferences. It seemed high time to quite literally step up and speak out.
It was good to do. I wanted and needed to do it. I’d do it again. I will do it again.
You can stream the whole thing here.

Continue reading “Radicalized, Part 2: Musicians Against Fascism”

January 20, 2017

Bohemian Trio Leaps Across Borders

Bohemian Trio: from left, Yosvany Terry, Yves Dharamraj and Orlando Alonso. PHOTO: LAURA RAZZANO

In the midst of Havana’s Jazz Plaza festival in December, I took a break with Yosvany Terry, who has lived in New York City since 1999 and whose music helps define a cutting edge there. He grew up in the Camagüey province, where his father, Eladio “Don Pancho” Terry, was a violinist with Maravilla de Florida’s Charanga Orchestra and a master of the chekeré, the beaded gourd used for percussion. Yosvany and I drove to Havana’s Mariano neighborhood, a quiet, almost rural area where his father and mother now live. There, Don Pancho sang old boleros while Yosvany played piano. Don Pancho demonstrated the “ritmo guiro,” an innovation of his that lent a more folkloric flavor to the charanga sound by the highlighting the raspy sound of the guiro, a serrated gourd that is scraped with a stick. “All of this music,” Yosvany said, “has influenced my music.”
And much more, not to mention Terry’s work with saxophonist Steve Coleman.
Bohemian Trio, Terry’s latest endeavor, is a collective with pianist Orlando Alonso and cellist Yves Dharamraj, in which Terry plays soprano and alto saxophone and chekeré.
Here’s my Wall Street Journal review of the group’s genre-defying debut CD, “Okónkolo.” Continue reading

January 16, 2017

Radicalized, Part One: Resist Trump—Inaugurate Something Better With Me, Arturo O'Farrill & Many Great Musicians at Symphony Space on Jan. 19!

When pianist and composer Arturo O’Farrill (pictured above) asked me to help mount an event at Manhattan’s Symphony Space on Jan. 19—the night before the presidential inauguration—to express resistance to all that the coming Trump administration represents, and to help build community along those lines I said yes first and asked questions later.
“Musicians Against Fascism“—the banner here is “No, We Refuse to Accept a Fascist America!”—will feature a dazzling lineup of artists, along with O’Farrill: I’m told the list thus far includes: Vijay Iyer, Matthew Shipp, Jen Shyu, Claudia Acuña, Fabian Almazan, Lakecia Benjamin, Stephan Crump, Peter Evans, Mary Halvorson, Amirtha Kidambi, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Roy Nathanson and the jazz passengers, Arturo O’Farrill, Somi, The Westerlies. More surprises to come, I’m sure.
I’ll be up there, helping direct traffic as well as trying to inspire positive action and incite resistance against the many ways in which a Trump presidency threatens all that I write about and believe in—honesty, decency, humanity, responsibility, democracy, and, yes, artistry of the type that will be on display.
I will not watch what goes on in Washington, DC on Jan. 20, when Donald Trump lays his hand (which may or may no be unnaturally small) on a Bible. Much that is unnatural and unholy should flow from that moment.
Jan. 19 is OUR inauguration. Each of us can determine what we will individually inaugurate—what we will swear to uphold and protect, and how.
Let’s gather to begin building community and a common sense of resistance and commitment.
And if that F-word scares you, it should. This is a benefit for #RefuseFascism.org, and, well, I thought twice about that word, too. But what’s promised by this new administration—what’s already in process befits the term. And it should scare you.
Spread the word. Show up.
http://www.symphonyspace.org/event/9581/Music/no-we-refuse-to-accept-a-fascist-america
Tickets: $30.00 (For those who cannot afford a ticket, 15 minutes prior to the concert, any unsold tickets will be made available on a pay-what-you-can basis.)

January 10, 2017

Back From Cuba: In and Around Havana's Jazz Plaza Festival

Trumpeters Jesús Ricardo and Adam O'Farrill play during a reception at the U.S. ambassadorial residence in Havana, th night before the opening of the Jazz Plaza festival. Photo by David Garten — Trumpeters Jesús Ricardo and Adam O’Farrill play during a reception at the U.S. ambassadorial residence in Havana the night before the opening of the Jazz Plaza festival. Photo by David Garten

In November, I ended a four-part conversation-and-music series at the National Jazz Museum in Harlem titled, “NYC: The Afro-Cuban Beat.”
My animating ideas were that to cover great music in New York City means, as much or more now than ever, listening closely to Cuban musicians who live here and to many other musicians who mine Afro-Cuban traditions—and that these rhythms, of hand drums and folklore and dance, course underneath the current New York City jazz scene as surely as the subway courses beneath the city.
Sometimes, my editors ask me why I write so much about Cuban musicians and Afro-Cuban music.
There are the obvious answers: Great music and superior musicianship, period.
Yet also, and more importantly, I’ve worked hard to unravel storylines that say: This is not exotic. There is no “Latin jazz” if there ever was. There is a long and deep cultural history that glues together an entire hemisphere and is still both largely untold and developing new chapters. The section of that story involving the U.S. and Cuba is yet more fascinating (though also disturbing) for its strange and estranged politics, which make it good to write about, and a good metaphor for politics of exclusion and the cultural truths of inclusion.
Also, Cuba (like New Orleans) is one great example of the African root of nearly all music from this hemisphere.
That’s a very long way of saying: My recent trip to Havana woke me up and taught me more. Here’s how I began my piece in The Daily Beast. Continue reading

December 24, 2016

Best Jazz of 2016

First, my contrarian uncool confession: I don’t love lists. I just don’t think music is a competition. Nor is writing about it, for me, a ratings game. (I prefer telling stories and reviewing each recording in its own context.) Still, I see the point, know the drill and have my choices, which honor worthy recordings and form a guide to satisfying listening. And this time of year is about giving: What readers want is lists, so critics need give accordingly.
Truth is, I’ve found that the making of these lists—the consciousness, conversations, even arguments they generate in the context of the many other lists made by critics, bloggers and even musicians—does in fact add up to meaningful context. That point was best driven home or me by actual public conversation at a “Year in Jazz” panel hosted by my colleague Nate Chinen and presented by the National Jazz Museum in Harlem a few years ago.
Most of colleagues love lists—especially year-end ones. Few have gone about compiling lists with the rigor and passion of Francis Davis, who, a decade ago, corralled 30 writers to create a list of the finest jazz albums of 2006 for the Village Voice. Now, Davis’s poll lives on as the NPR Music Jazz Critics Poll, and he has more than quadrupled his forces — 137 voters.
Im honored each year to answer Davis’s call.
You can find this year’s results here. Continue reading “Best Jazz of 2016”

December 14, 2016

Back to Cuba, Through a Door I Hope Doesn't Slam Shut Again

fb1c7c40-95a9-4ff5-ad45-c3579e347adf — Chucho Valdés (left) first played the Jazz Plaza Havana Festival in 1980, leading his legendary band, Irakere. He is the music director of this 32nd edition. Pianist Roberto Fonseca was just 15 at his Jazz Plaza Havana debut. He sis artistic director of the first edition of a sister event, Jazz Plaza Santiago.

Hard to believe I’m at JFK airport waiting to fly to Havana. Hard to believe I’m going back (haven’t been since 2010). Hard to believe I can fly direct, and for less than it costs to visit my folks in Jacksonville. Hard to believe that this sudden ease, and the renewal of cultural exchange that was missing during the Bush years may soon get shut down again by a brutal Fascist.

Fidel, of course, is gone. Trump will be president. Among the things these two men have in common: they rose to power surprisingly, and by making promises quickly abandoned; they mastered the dark arts of fearmongering and propaganda. Among the things they don’t share: One of them was exceedingly literate and recognized the meaning and value of culture.
Not sure I’ll bring back rum or cigars when I return from the 32^nd annual Havana Jazz Plaza Festival, but I will come back to with stories to write. Stories about pianist Arturo O’Farrill, who travels back this time with the ashes of his father, composer/bandleader Chico O’Farrill, to repatriate to an abandoned homeland. About trumpeter Terence Blanchard, who makes his first trip to the island, with a band that includes pianist Fabian Almazan, who left Cuba at age 9 and hasn’t yet returned. About pianist Chucho Valdés, a towering presence among Cuban musicians and the longtime music director of this festival. And about other Cuban musicians, such as trumpeter Yasek Manzano, who we rarely get to hear in the U.S.
And about the long embrace between U.S. and Cuban musicians, and the issues of identity and politics that swirl around it.
Here’s some background—a piece I wrote for The Wall Street Journal (also pasted below), after Presidents Barack Obama and Raúl Castro announced a path toward normalized relations.

Continue reading “Back to Cuba, Through a Door I Hope Doesn't Slam Shut Again”

December 13, 2016

David Virelles: A Finely Tuned Antenna

My pick hit right now comes from pianist David Virelles, who I’ve been following closely and writing about for quite some time.
“Antenna” (ECM) is a 6-track, 22-minute EP released exclusively on vinyl and digital download. Drop what you’re doing and thinking and submit to this recording.
This dense swirl of sound from Virelles, who was born and raised in Santiago, Cuba and who has made Brooklyn, New York home, makes for riveting listening without any context at all. It would hard not to hear suggestions of ancient rhythms and rituals as well as urban modernism, of jazz and Afro-Cuban pedagogies as well as wild electro-acoustic dreams.
It’s all yet richer with some backstory, though… Continue reading “David Virelles: A Finely Tuned Antenna”