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Jazz Beyond Jazz

Howard Mandel's Urban Improvisation

Jazz, blues & beyond in Amman: Pops, Bird, Diz, Lady Day @ UJordan

I spoke on jazz and blues at the University of Jordan, a modern 45,000-student institution, in an event sponsored by the American Embassy while in Amman on family matters a couple weeks ago. About 50 avid students of music, arts and literature and their informed faculty watched videos of Louis Armstrong at age 32 doing “Dinah,” Charlie Parker & Dizzy Gillespie playing “Hot House,” Billie Holiday with all-stars singing “Fine and Mellow” and Muddy Waters among other immortals from the American Folk Blues Festival, 1962-69, vol. 3. I talked about blues and jazz being one in essence, but different in practice. Then second-year Jordanian student Nabil Gonzalez played banjo, harmonic and sang two original numbers in a U.S. folkie style. “I’m passionately in love with bluegrass music!” Gonzalez told me. Other of the young people were eager for jazz and blues, but said they had little access to the music or information about it.


One composer in attendance, Nabil Benabdeljalil from Morocco, asked if jazz musicians are conscientiously intentional when they improvise or if they just do whatever. I assured him the best players know what they’re doing, though they may also seek to transcend the limits of their preparations. He send me an MP3 of a recent through-composed piece, “Ombre d’une flamme” (“shadow of a flame”) for piano, oud, drums/percussion, perhaps kanun (a zither) and soprano sax. Twelve and a half minutes long, it starts at a stately pace, develops through  polytonality into jazz-like energy and instrumental interaction and sax, and ends by returning to its initial moody mystery. Sadly, I can’t post that piece, but here’s Nabil playing piano on his work “Consolación” for soprano voice, cello and soprano sax, in an irresistible setting:

And here are photos drawn from the Embassy’s newsletter “Public Affairs Highlights, Feb. 24 – March 24,” which describe me as a “visiting jazz expert” and says the event’s result was “improved understanding of American culture, society and arts.”
  hm bird diz jordan.jpg

nabil gonzalez jordan.jpg

Thumbnail image for hm w students jordan.jpg

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Howard Mandel

I'm a Chicago-born (and after 32 years in NYC, recently repatriated) writer, editor, author, arts reporter for National Public Radio, consultant and nascent videographer -- a veteran freelance journalist working on newspapers, magazines and websites, appearing on tv and radio, teaching at New York University and elsewhere, consulting on media, publishing and jazz-related issues. I'm president of the Jazz Journalists Association, a non-profit membership organization devoted to using all media to disseminate news and views about all kinds of jazz.
My books are Future Jazz (Oxford U Press, 1999) and Miles Ornette Cecil - Jazz Beyond Jazz (Routledge, 2008). I was general editor of the Illustrated Encyclopedia of Jazz and Blues (Flame Tree 2005/Billboard Books 2006). Of course I'm working on something new. . . Read More…

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