Archives for December 2006

The question is no doubt as old as artistic expression. Imagine a viewer of the first paleolithic paintings in the Great Hall of the Bulls in the Cave of Lascaux:

Well, of course Zog is brilliant, but have you seen how he drags his mate around by her hair? It’s hard to see how such a rotten guy can make those beautiful pictures.

Can you hate Wagner’s Teutonic superman beliefs and love “Siegfried Idyll,” abhor Ezra Pound’s fascist propaganda and admire The Cantos, be appalled by Stan Getz’s gratuitous cruelty and be enchanted by his ballads?
The Rifftides item about a video performance by the Israeli saxophonist and political polemicist Gilad Atzmon prompted Marc Edelman, the proprietor of Sharp Nine Records, to send a communique raising the ancient conundrum of disjunction between art and its maker and accusing me of (yikes!) equanimity:

If you’re interested in getting a better idea of what’s been coming out of Gilad Atzmon’s mouth when he doesn’t have a saxophone stuck in it, you might want to check out fellow blogger David Adler. David is a knowledgeable writer on music (and a guitarist, as well) and politically is one of the most reasonable people I’ve come across on the web. A secular, left-of-center Jew – and not shy in the least about criticizing Israel – he does not share your equanimity about Atzmon’s pronouncements. Here’s a link to start – and you can follow the embedded links as well.

Atzmon’s web site includes a section entitled “Politics,” in which he discusses his controversial beliefs about Israel and Palestine. If you Google his name, you will find plenty of disagreement with his accusations against his native Israel.
David Adler edits Jazz Notes, the journal of the Jazz Journalists Association, and writes about music for a number of other publications. Sharp Nine is the label of Joe Locke, David Hazeltine, Dena DeRose, Brian Lynch, and the cooperative group One For All, among others.

Back home after a warm, sunny nine-day Christmas visit with our son at his house on a Southern California beach, I cleared a path through the snow to reach the house. We rested a day, then piled into the car. Today, we drove south, crossed the mighty Columbia River, rendezvoused for lunch in Oregon with a cousin I hadn’t seen in twenty years, then drove the hundred miles back. It was all terrific, but that’s enough travel for a while, thank you. I am making my way through the accumlated letters, packages, e-mail and telephone messages. If your correspondence is among them, you’ll have a reply next year.
A happy 2007 to all.

Gilad Atzmon, the fiery Israeli multi-instrumentalist, is sometimes identified as a purveyor of world music when he is not being attacked or praised for political activity that involves aggressive criticism of Israeli policies. Neither of those facets of his existence is involved in a video clip called to our attention by Rifftides reader Don Emanuel, who posted it on YouTube.
Here, Atzmon is a stunning post-bop alto saxophonist with a profound appreciation of John Coltrane. Listen to his occasional variations on the main theme from Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme” in this live peformance.

There are two types of people — those who come into a room and say, “Well, here I am!” and those who come in and say, “Ah, there you are.”

— Frederick L. Collins, author (1882-1950)

Mark Stryker, the music critic for the Detroit Free Press, writes:

I really appreciated your post about David Berger – a gifted and underrated musician. Now, guess where he lives – on a street on the Upper West Side named “Duke Ellington Boulevard.” It’s really 106th Street, but it’s also named for Ellington. Berger didn’t know this when a real estate agent showed him the apartment. He called his girlfriend at the time and she said, “Take it. It’s an omen.” The relationship didn’t last but, as I once put it in a story, perhaps too obviously, Ellington’s music remains Berger’s mistress.
Something else I remember Berger telling me. When he was a teenager, he used to go hear the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Band every week at the Vanguard. Thad was his idol and mentor. One night in the late ’60s he was in the kitchen when some Ellington veterans came in to say hello. (I think one was Jimmy Hamilton). After they left, Thad says to Berger, “Duke Ellington – greatest band in the world. ” Berger protested: “But your band’s the greatest!” And Thad says, “No, no, no. My band’s not one-tenth of what Duke Ellington and Count Basie are.”
I think Thad was selling himself a bit short, but I know what he meant.

In the right-hand column, you will find a new set of Doug’s Picks, none having to do with Christmas or Hanukah but satisfying for holiday listening, viewing or reading. Enjoy.

David Berger, leader of the Sultans of Swing, is an esteemed arranger who might be called a Duke Ellington specialist except that he is expert in all areas of big band jazz. He created The Harlem Nutcracker, incorporating new arrangements of Tchaikovsky pieces that Ellington and Billy Strayhorn didn’t get around to in their Nutcracker suite. For the Essentially Ellington project of Jazz At Lincoln Center, Berger wrote a set of guidelines for the playing of Ellington’s music. They cover the esoteric–“Blues inflection should permeate all parts at all times, not just when these opportunities occur in the lead.”–to the practical: “the notation of plungers for the brass means a rubber toilet plunger bought in a hardware store.”
The paper has eighteen sections and a glossary. Here are sample passages.
From # 4:

In Ellington’s music, each player should express the individuality of his own line. He must find a musical balance of supporting and following the section leader and bringing out the character of the underpart. Each player should be encouraged to express his or her personality through the music.

From # 13:

This is acoustic music. Keep amplification to an absolute minimum; in the best halls, almost no amplification should be necessary. Everyone needs to develop a big sound. It is the conductor’s job to balance the band.
The bass should not be as loud as a trumpet. That is unnatural and leads to over-amplification, bad tone and limited dynamics. Stay away from monitors. They provide a false sense of balance.

God bless you, David Berger. May every engineer indoctrinated in rock and roll amplification be forced to memorize and swear to uphold # 13. However, I must point out that jazz is not always played in the best halls and that it is possible for an engineer with ears undeafened by years of exposure to rock, and with sensitivity to music, to discreetly enhance the balance and mix of a band, even to provide monitoring that helps soloists hear the rhythm section. Rarely, though, can he correct for drummers who play too loud or bassists with amplifiers as powerful as radio stations.
Although Berger’s paper is intended for musicians who play Ellington scores, it uses little technical jargon and has value for listeners who may posess no formal knowledge of music. To read all of Berger’s guidelines, go here. Keep them in mind next time you listen to a big band play Ellington, or anything else, and see if they help sharpen your hearing.
If you would like to know more about David Berger, read his biography by going here.
Thanks to Agustín Pérez Gasco, a musicologist in Madrid, Spain, for calling Berger’s paper to my attention by way of a message to a group of jazz researchers.

Rifftides reader Jim Sofra writes:

Excellent topic, enjoyed it immensely!
We were recently listening to ‘Nicas Dream’ and Monk and the stories started coming out about how Nica was devoted to the musicians in her life.
Heres a pic of her with Theolonius Monk, one of my favorite pix of him as well.

During the next week or so of travel, family activities and general holiday merriment, the Rifftides staff will post as often as possible, but you may note a diminution of blogtivity. Rifftiders and Rifftidings will be on our minds, and we hope to hear from you by way of the Comments function at the end of each item or the e-mail address in the right-hand column. All the best to each of you for the holidays.

Count Basie was college, but Duke Ellington was graduate school.
–Clark Terry
At least one day out of the year all musicans should just put their instruments down, and give thanks to Duke Ellington.–Miles Davis
Music is my mistress and she plays second fiddle to no one.–Duke Ellington

The Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter was known for her friendship with Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk and other leading musicians of the bop and post-bop periods. She was born a Rothschild — as Jean Bach puts it, a vraie Rothschild — of the English branch of the lavishly moneyed international banking family. She married into minor royalty, was an ambulance driver in the Free French resistance during World War Two, lived in Mexico for a time and popped up in New York in 1951. Her interest in jazz led her to become a patron of a number of musicians. She is honored in the titles of several compositions including Monk’s “Pannonica” and Horace Silver’s “Nica’s Dream,” first recorded in an unforgettable version by the original edition of Art Blakey’s jazz messengers.
Nica’s favorite Bentley S1, one of several Bentleys and Rolls Royces she owned, was noted for its disposition around Manhattan, often in front of jazz clubs where parking was not necessarily sanctioned by the city. The Baroness died in 1988, but her fame and that of the Bentley continue. A Rifftides reader in New Zealand who is a Bentley collector asked a while back if I had stories about Nica and the Bentley. I hadn’t, but I asked Jean Bach, the filmaker of A Great Day in Harlem, who knew Nica. She replied with a letter that I forwarded to New Zealand. Jean gave permission to use it here as well. It gives a sense of Nica’s personality and of her dedication to Monk in his later days. For that matter, it gives a sense of the delightful Mrs. Bach.

In the early fifties, a fashion photographer friend of our asked my late husband to round up some musicians for a party on his roof. The worlds of jazz and fashion were just beginning to fuse, and Bob came up with an assortment of stars that soon became the Jazz Messengers.
Outside the building I spotted a Bentley and a Rolls. “Must be some heavy garmentos,” I thought. And then I met the driver of the Bentley – the very British, very fragrant Baroness. “You like my scent? I think it’s my daughter’s – Jonka’s.”
I think the Bentley was the band bus for the musicians, and I guess the Rolls followed with the instruments. A vraie Rothschild, she was one of several fascinating siblings. Her sister was the author of a book titled, Dear Lord Rothschild, which was the opening line of a letter from someone named Balfour – probably a first draft of the Balfour declaration. Nica’s brother, Lord Victor Rothschild, was studying piano with Teddy Wilson, which is how and when she got turned onto jazz. When she immigrated to the U.S., she settled in a house just across the Hudson River from Manhattan* with several of her children and more than five or six cats. Letters from her were always datelined, “The Cat House.”
I spotted the Bentley outside a nearby piano bar one night, and since I had a leg of lamb roasting slowly in the oven, I popped in to see if she’d care to join me and a couple of friends for dinner. I gave her the whole menu, which appeared to meet her approval, and we started to walk back to my house, when she suddenly said, “Good heavens, what time is it?”
Turns out she was already late for Thelonious Monk’s night-time tray. As Monk had become more and more eccentric, Nica and Monk’s wife, Nellie, had agreed that it would be more convenient for him to move into chez Koenigswarter, where he could spend his days and nights in his own room, where each meal would be delivered on a tray, and he could dine alone.
I once asked the pianist Barry Harris, who also had a room in Nica’s house, “Does someone (usually Nica) always deliver the tray” “Yes, and they’d better not ask me to bring one,” he answered. Even though Charlie Parker died in her posh Manhattan apartment, she always maintained that her favorite musician of all time was Monk.
Another jazz musician with good taste was the late saxophone/trumpet player, bandleader, composer, arranger Benny Carter. He lived in the Hollywood Hills, and negotiated those twists and turns in a Rolls Royce. When he died, the Rolls passed along to James Moody of “Moody’s Mood for Love” fame.
Fondly,
Jean

*The Baroness’s first New York residence was in the Stanhope hotel, where Parker died in her apartment in 1955. Then she lived in the Bolivar hotel, made famous by Monk’s “Ba-Lue Bolivar Ba-Lues-Are,” before buying the house overlooking Weehawken, New Jersey, on the Hudson River.
To see a picture of her Bentley S1 and read a bit about its history, go here.

Tom Sancton writes from Paris about the death of Kenny Davern:

Beautiful piece.
I am very saddened by Kenny’s death. I met up with him this summer at a JVC concert called “Clarinet Marmalade.” Hadn’t seen him in a couple of years, but it was a warm, good-humored reunion. I gave him a signed copy of my book, which he appreciated. He played beautifully, and was gracious enough to praise my rendition of “Burgundy Street Blues” with George Wein on piano. It was a memorable occasion and now it’s the last memory I will have of this wonderful friend and exceptional musician.
I learned a lot from Kenny, listening to him, watching him, and especially talking to him about clarinet playing. He was a serious student of the instrument, its history, its repertoire. He had dozens of clarinets, and delighted in trading or selling them to someone who appreciated them and wanted to give them the love and attention he thought they deserved. Among the musicians who have wound up with some of Kenny’s horns are Woody Allen, Evan Christopher, and myself–and doubtless many others. I still use a case he gave me years ago. When I met him backstage at the JVC concert in June, he recognized it and, with that devilish grin of his, caressed its surface as if it were still one of his mistresses.
His relationship to the clarinet was, in fact, a sensual and loving relationship. Which is why he was able to coax so much feeling and sensitivity out of the instrument. It is true that there will never be another Kenny Davern, either as a musician or as a personality, or, in my case, as a friend. Thanks for giving him the credit he deserved and did not always receive.
Best,
Tommy Sancton

One of the hippest and most eclectic programs dealing with music and other cultural matters is Sound Check on WNYC-FM, New York. Monday, December 18, at 2:15 p.m. EDT I will be with Sound Check‘s host John Schaefer to discuss the best jazz recordings of 2006. To join us in the New York metropolitan area, go to 93.9 on your radio. Elsewhere, listen on WNYC’s streaming internet audio.
As we discussed procedure for the broadcast, I told Allison Lichter of the Sound Check staff that my list of “best” CDs is subjective and might have been considerably different if I had compiled it a week earlier or a week later. When it comes to art, the concept of “best” is shot through with the philosophy of popularity contests and should probably be avoided. But, surely, you don’t expect an old broadcaster to turn down a chance to be on the radio.

The ferocious storm that disabled much of Seattle and other parts of western Washington state last night roared across the Cascades and into our valley, only slightly diminished. It was so powerful that the house shook when the first blast hit. The windows howled for hours as the wind tried to pry them out of their frames. The awning over the doors to the deck flapped like the mainmast of a schooner in a high gale. I expected to find it a tangle of canvas and metal in the next block this morning, but it rode out the maelstrom and our only damage was the loss of a couple of roof shingles and a few small tree branches. Doug McLennan, the commander-in-chief of artsjournal.com, was drastically less fortunate.
Doug McC. tells the story on his blog, interrupting his exchange with John Rockwell of The New York Times about standing ovations, a topic Rifftides has visited from time to time. You may read about both — the attack of the tree and standing O’s — in this item from McLennan’s blog, Diacritical.
I observed recently,

If everything deserves a standing ovation, nothing deserves one.

To read that in context, go here.

Like virtually everyone who knew him or his music, I was shocked by Kenny Davern’s death on Tuesday. A heart attack–sudden and massive–took him at the age of seventy-one. The New York Times obituary by Dennis Hevesi offered the perfect description of Davern: “a radically traditional jazz clarinetist and soprano saxophonist.”
I listened to and enjoyed Davern for years, but met him only once, introduced in passing by pianist Dick Wellstood, the clarinetist’s alter-ego in musical taste and off-kilter humor. He shared with Wellstood a preference for older jazz styles but fondness for many musical eras and the ability to work into his improvisations inspiration from all periods. He admired Thelonious Monk, for instance, and avant gardists like John Coltrane and Steve Lacy. The spirit Davern and Wellstood shared is captured in their duo album, Dick Wellstood And His All-Star Orchestra Featuring Kenny Davern. The wryness of the title carries over into the music, beginning with their joint composition “Fast as a Bastard.” In that 1973 encounter, Davern played soprano sax, passionately. Later, he devoted himself solely to the clarinet.
In his long career Davern played with Red Allen, Jack Teagarden and an array of traditional artists, but one of his most memorable collaborations was with the swing tenor saxophonist Flip Phillips. Another was with an orchestra led by bassist Bob Haggart, the composer of “My Inspiration,” the album’s title song, and “What’s New.” With Haggart’s arrangements for strings, Davern gave some of his warmest performances. In the notes, another clarinetist, Tommy Sancton, wrote, “Since Benny Goodman disappeared from the scene, Kenny has had no peer in the swing-mainstream mode.” The CD of My Inspiration is out of circulation except for used copies. You may be able to order the vinyl LP from this web site.
In the past couple of days, many musicians and others in the jazz community have expressed sorrow at Davern’s death, none more eloquently than in this messsage from the trumpeter and composer Randy Sandke:

Kenny was a true original — on and off the bandstand. He was one of very few players who was able to take a pre-existing style and make it totally his own. He sounded fresh every time he played, even if it was his 10,000th rendition of “Royal Garden Blues.” How many people can you say that of? What saddens me, beyond the personal loss, is that his sound is gone forever. As with the passing of Ruby Braff or Milt Hinton there is no one to take his place; no one with that sound and conception. As they say in England, he was a one-off, which should be the goal of every jazz musician but which few attain.
For all the talk of preserving the “jazz tradition” it also saddens me how few people were really aware of him and his astonishing talent. When he moved away from the East Coast he was heard around here very infrequently, and I doubt that the people at Lincoln Center even knew who he was (they haven’t yet discovered John Bunch who lives practically next door). Thankfully Matt Domber of Arbors Records gave him opportunities to record over the last decade.
Kenny could hold a room spellbound, with the audience hanging onto every note. He was one of those players whose intensity extended into his personal life. You had to accept him on his terms, but if you did he was own of the sweetest, smartest, funniest people you’d ever meet. He was very stubborn about his smoking- the last of his vices that he refused to give up, and which undoubtedly did him in.
I miss him already and can’t believe he’s gone. Kenny didn’t do things half-way so I guess it’s appropriate that as far as life was concerned it had to be all or nothing, no lingering illness. As George Avakian said last summer at Bix’s grave, with Kenny present, “You were here for just a little while but we’re all the better for it.”
RandySandke