Archives for April 12, 2011

Jazz historian, composer, arranger, bandleader, educator and short sleeper Bill Kirchner writes:

You’ve probably seen—or will see—the new “Jazz” U.S. postage stamp just issued. A year ago, I was a paid consultant on the design of it. The graphic artist’s original design included a trumpeter, saxophonist, pianist, and bassist—no women, no singer. I successfully lobbied for a female singer–my foremost contribution to American culture (smile).

This was the stamp being introduced in New Orleans on the day it was issued, March 25. The man in the light suit is Paul Rogers, who designed it.

On his website, Rogers wrote about the project.

Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, and about a dozen others have been honored with stamps in the past, and in 2008 Michael Bartalos designed a wonderful Latin Jazz stamp, but there has never been a single stamp to pay tribute to America’s original art form, jazz. It’s always an honor to design a postage stamp, and because I love jazz and have great respect for the history of the music, this one was very special to me.

To read about and see the stages of Rogers’ creation of the design, including detail about how the singer became part of the scheme, go here.

The Treme Brass Band was part of the stamp’s unveiling ceremony, so why not let them end our story?

Now, I’m homesick. And I miss Ed Bradley.

The violinist Billy Bang, who created himself as a jazz musician out of the trauma of the Vietnam war, died yesterday at 63. Inhabited by his combat experiences, his emotions wounded, Bang found relief and rehabilitation by returning to the violin he had studied as a child. He pursued an intensity of expression that helped him evade his demons. He became one of the most centered players in the free movement, inspired by John Coltrane and by the violin playing of Ornette Coleman and Leroy Jenkins. The great swing violinist Stuff Smith also influenced him. For complete obituaries of Bang, go here and here. Below is an encore of the Rifftides review of Bang’s last album.

Billy Bang, Prayer For Peace (TUM). In an album mostly of his own compositions, the violinist opens with Stuff Smith’s “Only Time Will Tell.” Bang and trumpeter James Zollar might be summoning the spirits of the seminal jazz violinist Smith (1909-1967) and his Onyx Club sidekick of the 1930s, Jonah Jones. The rest of the CD is redolent of the music Bang has made with Sun Ra, Don Cherry, the bassist Sirone and others in the avant garde, and of his love for John Coltrane. That is not to say that it is experimental or inaccessible. Even at its most daring, Bang’s music has always had an engaging old-timey quality that he transmits to those who play with him, including Zollar, bassist Todd Nicholson, pianist Andrew Bemkey and drummer Newman Taylor-Baker, the band of young musicians he has employed for some years. The title tune, just short of 20 minutes, runs in a tranquil modal course that reflects the quest for peace that Bang has promoted with music since his experience in the Viet Nam war. Bang’s danceable version of “Chan Chan,” the Afro-Cuban anthem made famous by the Buena Vista Social Club, is among the pleasures here. The Finnish record company TUM lavished commendable care on the sonic production and packaging of this CD.

Also see artsjournal.com colleague Howard Mandel’s remembrance of Bang.

The first section following the introduction of my 1989 book Jazz Matters is titled “A Common Language.” It ends with this:

Like every art form, jazz has a fund of devices unique to it and universally employed by those who practice it. Among the resources of the jazz tradition available to the player creating an improvised performance are rhythmic patterns, harmonic structures, material quoted from a variety of sources and “head arrangements” evolved over time without being written. Mutual access to this community body of knowledge makes possible successful and enjoyable collaboration among jazzmen of different generations and stylistic persuasions who have never before played together. It is not unusual at jazz festivals and jam sessions for musicians in their sixties and seventies to be teamed with others in their teens or twenties. In the best of such circumstances, the age barrier immediately falls.

If I were to write that today, I’d change “sixties and seventies” to “eighties and nineties.” The aging population contains a number of active jazz octogenarians and nonagenarians. Jimmy Heath at 85, Joe Wilder at 89 and Dave Brubeck at 90 are three cases in point. Toots Thielemans, 89, is another. Thielemans recently played a duo gig at Sculler’s in Boston with Kenny Werner, who is 59. One evening, they asked Grace Kelly to sit in. She is 18. This is what happened.

If I’d known I was going to live this long, I’d have taken better care of myself.—Eubie Blake (1887-1983) on his 96th birthday.

Age is not a particularly interesting subject. Anyone can get old. All you have to do is live long enough.—Groucho Marx

To me, old age is always 15 years older than I am.—Bernard Baruch