music: July 2007 Archives

Were I still in New Orleans, tonight I'd be at a slamming jam session (the likes of which there are too few) celebrating, and raising funds for, a great New Orleans musical tradition: Satchmo Summer Jazz Camp.

For the past seven years, I've driven up to Downeast Maine for the last weekend of July to serve as volunteer-producer of the Deer Isle Jazz Festival at the Stonington Opera House. I fell into this role naturally. Erica and I happened upon this place and fell in love with the charming coves, the pink-and-blue sunsets, the unparalleled lobster, the chilly nights, the warm unassuming atmosphere, and the creativity that seemed to bubble up everywhere we went. One afternoon, we made a left turn and right in front of us stood a once-grand then-decrepit opera house. "Hey, let's quit our jobs," I said dreamily (I had one at the time), "buy this place, fix it up, and turn it into a nonprofit arts center!'

We didn't, but a group of enterprising women did. (You can read more about them and their Opera House Arts here.) Soon, we got to talking: Let's bring jazz musicians up here, create a festival that celebrates not just music but improvisation and its connections to creativity of all types, someone said. Before long, saxophonist Dewey Redman was onstage, opening the inaugural event. Matt Wilson, then his drummer, played a separate set: a forty-minute duet with slide guitarist David Tronzo. Tronzo meanwhile, had spent two weeks at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts (in a festival-related residency): a glassblower had created a series of custom slides that Tronzo used in performance. At one point in the set, Tronzo coaxed tiny squeals from his guitar by rubbing a plastic up against his strings, coaxed along by Wilson's skittering beat. The audience stuck with it, dug it: I knew we were on to something. Since then, the 250-seat former vaudeville house has played host to Brazilian singer Luciana Souza in duets with guitarist Romero Lubambo and pianist Fred Hersch; saxophonist Greg Osby's quartet with pianist Jason Moran; my own favorite male jazz vocalist, Andy Bey; French horn player Vincent Chauncey; free-jazz hero bassist William Parker; and 80-year-old master pianist Randy Weston.

Listening to Abbey Lincoln's latest recording, Abbey Sings Abbey (Verve), I'm struck by how, in terms of trappings and production, it's the least jazzy recording in her catalog -- yet it may be the truest to her identity as a singer and songwriter. The power and purity of her achievement may be enough to free up jazz singers and listeners previously enslaved to narrow visions of what a song can be or how it can be sung. At 76, Lincoln outdoes all those thirtysomethings who thrive on vibe, slow-strummed accompaniment, and well-turned phrases.

She's also a liberating presence for those fortunate enough to know her. Below is an excerpt from my recent piece on Lincoln in the Wall Street Journal:

Please let me share my enthusiasm for the publication of Music in the Post-9/11 World (Routledge). It's a collection of essays on musical responses to the World Trade Center attacks and the changing cultural contexts shaped by our continued "war on terror". Subjects range from John Adams's Pulitzer Prize-winning piece "On the Transmigration of Souls" to Bruce Springsteen's "Rise Up" to, in the case of my chapter, expressions of Sufism through a Moroccan arts festival and the recent work of African singer Youssou N'Dour.

The year I spent at as a National Arts Journalism Program Fellow at Columbia University was transformative, not least because it began in September 2001: The World Trade Center attacks took place on the second day of the second week of the fall academic semester. My contribution to this book grew directly out of that experience and, not coincidentally, from my writing for two editors who are NAJP alumni. Here, I'm in the company of a distinguished list of scholars, who let me play in their sandbox despite my lack of obvious credentials.

It's a scholarly book -- $95 for the hardcover, $25 for the paperback. But I think the theme and particular subjects essayed are of broad and even popular appeal, footnotes notwithstanding.

Here's are some brief excerpts from my chapter, "Exploding Myths in Morocco and Senegal":