Were I in New York City on March 19, I’d head to Town Hall for the world premiere of John Zorn’s “Masada Book Three: The Book Beriah.” It’s the final installment in a 20-year project, bringing Zorn’s total number of Masada compositions to 613 (the number of mitzvot, or commandments, contained in the Jewish Torah).
Masada is just one element of Zorn’s musical identity, one frame within his composite portrait. Taken as a whole, it has made profound suggestions about both Jewish identity and musical possibility. Zorn will present this third book in a marathon “shuffle” concert at Town Hall, featuring 20 different bands and more than 50 musicians from wildly divergent backgrounds.
Here are some relevant excerpts from a feature story I did for The Saturday Paper, an Australian newsweekly, pegged to the last of Zorn’s 60th-birthday events, and his first-ever trip Down Under.
(You can find that story, which includes some of Zorn’s reflections on turning 60, on inane interview questions, and on General George S. Patton, here.)
….By the time Mike Patton’s trademark screams punctuated the high-voltage tremors of John Zorn’s Electric Masada group at Lincoln Centre’s David H. Koch Theater in Manhattan, it was past 11pm. A Masada Marathon, drawn from Zorn’s immense body of compositions employing the often-mournful sounding scales characteristic of Jewish music, had lasted more than three hours, with 12 bands delivering an equal number of musical styles and ensemble configurations. Among other things, we’d heard the Bar Kokhba sextet’s singular blend of violin, cello and guitar; surf-rock grooves as conjured by the guitar, vibraphone and electric keyboard of The Dreamers; a devastatingly elegant String Trio; and the Masada Quartet, which includes Zorn on his customary alto saxophone, trumpeter Dave Douglas, bassist Greg Cohen and drummer Joey Baron, and stands among the most expressive and cohesive small ensembles in modern jazz. That was 2011, when Zorn, an American composer of restless energy, had just completed his second book of Masada works. He recently finished Book Three, bringing the total of these compositions alone to more than 600, and culminating some 20 years of musical and personal discovery. And the Masada project is just one strand of Zorn’s story….
The massive Masada project began as simply “an attempt to write new tunes that I could play”. Yet it was also his “personal answer to what new Jewish music is”. At that 2011 Masada Marathon, I felt a genuine sense of ritual enacted. When Zorn sat onstage directing (conducting isn’t quite the right word), his hand movements fleetingly reminded me of my grandmother kindling Sabbath candles on Friday evenings. It dawned on me that each half of the concert presented six bands playing three pieces each: That’s 18, a number that, in Jewish tradition, carries life-affirming mystical properties. Continue reading “John Zorn Closes the Book on Masada with "The Book Beriah"”
Mary Lou Williams' Harlem Salon Goes Digital
Anytime stride piano, swing, bebop and yet further developments in jazz styles intermingle, which is to say most times a living jazz pianist plays, the influence of Mary Lou Williams gets felt.
Anytime jazz’s purpose—its essential connection to African American history and culture and to social justice in general, its intellectual search, it spiritual legacy and potential, there is Williams too.
When we speak of Kansas City or Pittsburgh or Greenwich Village or, especially, Harlem, when we talk about how jazz legacies get passed on, how women were always right there, or how any jazz player today might best follow her or his heart, there also is Williams.
I’ll say more about all that in tomorrow’s Wall Street Journal, though a story tied to a fascinating two-week celebration of her legacy at Manhattan’s Harlem Stage, and a three-night theatrical production with Geri Allen at the piano.
Allen is perhaps the clearest inheritor today of Williams’s influence and her music, into which she has delved deeply and for decades.
Wednesday morning, March 12, she convenes a rare, wide-ranging and fascinating national symposium that draws upon her touch at the piano, her network of fellow musicians and scholars and online technology.
LINK TO IT LIVE HERE, from 11am-2pm EST. (It will also be archived.) Continue reading “Mary Lou Williams' Harlem Salon Goes Digital”
Harry Belafonte, Long a Healer, Declared Doctor at Berklee
No American should need an introduction to singer, songwriter, producer and activist Harry Belafonte.
But a good one can be found in the documentary, “Sing Your Song.”
An even better one can be found in Belafonte’s autobiography (written with Michael Shnayerson), “My Song,” which is among the best books I know of for contextualizing 20th-century African American music and culture within social and political revolution, and which contains a riveting (and if Belafonte is to be believed, transformative) moment in which Robert F. Kennedy essentially gets told off (pages 267-68).
I bring up Belafonte because I just got an email informing me that he was recently presented with an honorary doctor of music degree at Boston’s Berklee College of Music. According to a press release, the degree was awarded “in recognition of Belafonte’s inspiring musical and humanitarian achievements, exposing America to world music and challenging and overturning racial barriers across the globe.”
Read the entire article at ARTINFO.
Pianist Danilo Pérez Opens a Jazz Club, and a Conversation About Culture
Were he not a brilliant pianist and composer, an insightful educator and a forceful advocate for culture as a primary means of transnational relations and economic development, Danilo Pérez would still be the kind of guy you’d want to hang around—for his charm, positivity and seriousness of purpose. He looks you squarely in the eye while conversing—to engage, not to challenge—yet is willing to talk about challenging things.
Read the full article here.
Now Playing (new & forthcoming CDs)
Matthew Shipp Trio Root of Things (Relative Pitch, March 18): Here’s what I wrote about pianist Matthew Shipp in a 2010 Wall Street Journal piece: “Shipp’s style knows no single pattern…. Even on his earliest recordings, some 20 years ago—specifically those in a quartet led by the powerhouse saxophonist David S. Ware—Shipp stirred up fervent rhythmic propulsion and wove fresh, web-like harmonic patterns. His playing sounded new then, and does still.” Update: Still does. Continue reading “Now Playing (new & forthcoming CDs)”
Sport of Jazz, Jazz of Sport
Bassist Christian McBride has been scoring big lately.
Last year, he released two acclaimed CDs—“People Music,” from his Inside Straight septet, and “Out Here,” which introduced a sharply refined trio with pianist Christian Sands and drummer Ulysses Owens, Jr. (both on Mack Avenue Jazz). In 2013, he also assumed a post as jazz advisor for The New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC), where he serves as artistic director for the annual TD James Moody Democracy of Jazz Festival.
Still, McBride’s got to feel a bit like a loser.
His beloved 76ers, the basketball team from his hometown, Philadelphia, are a mess, posting the second-worst record in the NBA.
That’s got to hurt for McBride, who is a true sports guy—enough so to contribute to the popular sports website The Bleacher Report. (Here’s a piece he wrote about Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb.)
So it makes perfect sense that on Sunday, March 2, at NJPAC’s Victoria Theater, McBride will host “Jazz Meets Sports.” Continue reading “Sport of Jazz, Jazz of Sport”
Bruce Lundvall On Playing By Ear
My January Wall Street Journal Cultural Conversation with Don Was, president of Blue Note Records, began with a sincere tip of the hat—via onstage hat-tips from pianist Jason Moran and Robert Glasper—to Bruce Lundvall, who ran that company for 25 years and who continues to provide guidance as chairman emeritus.
Lundvall’s story is a great one, about a singular man, maybe the last of his breed of music executive, whose work spanned a few important eras at a few major record labels, companies that also may be the last of their breeds.
In a July post, I interviewed writer Dan Ouellette, who was then working on “Playing by Ear,” a book documenting Lundvall’s half-century career.
Now that book is available. You can find it at Amazon, or by going to the ArtistShare page.
As he did with a previous biography of bassist Ron Carter, Ouellette pursued an interesting path, developing this book through the fan-funded Artistshare website. Besides forgoing a traditional publisher and offering readers various forms of participation in the process, Ouellette worked in a nontraditional biography form, he says, inserting “snapshot” chapters within the narrative of Lundvall’s life story. “A reader can choose to read the entire story on Bruce’s Elektra experience,” he says, “or choose to read the focused sections on Bobby McFerrin or Whitney Houston or Ruben Blades. This whole setup offers the reader options. Most people read a book cover to cover without skipping around. This format allows people to skip around at their leisure, kind of like someone listening to a CD and selecting different tracks to play versus the entire album.”
Here’s a brief excerpt, courtesy of the author: Continue reading “Bruce Lundvall On Playing By Ear”
Whole Gritty City
It’s not often that a documentary about how real culture transforms actual lives airs on Saturday-night network TV.
I’m not talking about a lucky aspirant getting plucked out of ordinary existence and voted into stardom by a celebrity panel (though I suppose that’s a form of transformation, too, and maybe even a vehicle for someone’s idea of culture).
What I mean is the way that rigorous and deep training by musicians steeped in both excellence and jazz culture offers boys and girls in New Orleans a path away from danger and despair and toward something admirable, promising and, yes, frequently swinging.
That’s the story told by “The Whole Gritty City,” a poignant, feature-length documentary that goes behind the scenes with three dedicated New Orleans marching band directors— Wilbert Rawlins Jr., Lonzie Jackson and Derrick Tabb—and that airs this Saturday, Feb. 15 (9pm EST, 8 Central). No narration. No voiceover commentary. Just real life, real music and the connections and contrasts between the two. And sometimes the camera is held by one of those young musicians. (You can find a trailer here, and another website with useful links here.)
The film is billed as “48 Hours Presents: The Whole Gritty City,” and the link to the true-crime newsmagazine program makes sense, not just because the school-based marching-band programs in New Orleans may be among the city’s most effective safeguards against violent crime, but due to the genesis of the film itself.
I first met Richard Barber, a “48 Hours” editor-producer (who created this film with cinematographer and photojournalist Andre Lambertson) in early 2007, in New Orleans. Barber was researching a “48 Hours” episode investigating two murders that sent shock waves through New Orleans. Continue reading “Whole Gritty City”
When Nicholas (Payton) Met Philip (Seymour Hoffman)
That headline is intentionally misleading.
Yet not as misleading as this one, from New York’s Daily News: “Jazz saxophonist Robert Vineberg, arrested for heroin dealing in Philip Seymour Hoffman net, has A-list recording credits”
And neither is as clever or cynical as this one, from trumpeter Nicholas Payton‘s website: “Another Shot in the Arm for Jazz,” which ran atop Payton’s riff in response to the Daily News piece.
Through his music, Payton has attracted a wide range of listeners and consistent acclaim: His most recent CD, “Sketches of Spain” (BMF Records), revisits the classic Miles Davis-Gil Evans collaboration of the same name, expanding his working group into a 19-piece ensemble conducted by Dennis Russell Davies.
Though his website, Payton has angered a great number of people during the last few years, mostly through a series of blog posts beginning with one on November 27, 2011 titled, “On Why Jazz Isn’t Cool Anymore.” His prose style can veer toward anger, his posts sometimes sounding like rants. Yet he nearly always has good and necessary points to make, not least that to talk about the word “jazz” and about whatever music you associate with that word is also, at some point (if you’re honest and well-educated) to consider the issue of race. Payton’s 2011 post, which was structured almost like a poem, contained these lines: Continue reading “When Nicholas (Payton) Met Philip (Seymour Hoffman)”
What The Songwriting World Needs Now
Burt Bacharach‘s music has resonated through every generation and genre since he first started composing hit songs more than a half-century ago. His memorable and distinctive music, along with the words of his longtime collaborator, lyricist Hal David, gets a focused celebration six nights each week at the New York Theater Workshop, through “What’s It All About?—Bacharach Reimagined” (which has been extended through Feb. 15th.)
I’ve not yet seen the show, but Charles Isherwood, writing in The New York Times, assures that it isn’t “another jukebox musical manufactured to supply baby boomers with a sweet rush of synthetic nostalgia.” Instead, Isherwood writes, “the musical reinvigorates the staged-songbook genre by stripping familiar pop songs of their shiny veneer, and by digging into the melancholy and yearning that suffuses so many of the hits Mr. Bacharach wrote.”
Aside from his compositions and David’s lyrics, Bacharach’s own words commanded attention recently, lending a different sort of context to his catalog of hits on the Opinion page of The Wall Street Journal. In an essay titled “What The Songwriting World Needs Now,” he implored the U.S. Justice Department to revise the consent decrees that govern licenses (and therefore, pay, for composers, lyricists and musicians) in order to align with a digital world that, under the current scheme, amounts to a badly rigged game (with artists coming out the losers). Bacharach began by describing his humble beginnings: Continue reading “What The Songwriting World Needs Now”