Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...
We in the Western world suffer from too many categories and classes; we’ve forgotten that we all still have diapers on. We’ve separated music from life.—Ornette Coleman
If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn.—Charlie Parker
What we play is life.—Louis Armstrong
To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.—Emily Dickinson
Ron Miles: Quiver (enja yellow bird)
Miles’s playing on “There Ain’t No Sweet Man Worth the Salt of My Tears” draws 21st century Denver and 1928 Chicago close. Some of his flurries of wildness on this album are as daring as the work of any modern trumpeter, but the Bix Beiderbecke lyricism in Miles’s soul extends into everything he plays. With just Bill Frisell’s guitar and Brian Blade’s drums, Miles may seem to be operating lean. No, there is richness in their harmonic inventiveness and rhythmic compatibility. The nine pieces are not officially a suite, but unity of conception runs through the performances. This is a satisfying album.
Heather Masse And Dick Hyman: Lock My Heart (Red House)
With The Wailin’ Jennys and the Wayfaring Strangers and appearances on radio’s Prairie Home Companion, Heather Masse has attracted a following among folk and bluegrass fans. This album of duets with master pianist Dick Hyman discloses the jazz foundation that has long been evident in her singing. Their treatments of Strayhorn’s “A Flower is a Lovesome Thing” and Buddy Johnson’s “Since I Fell For You” are ballad perfection. In their delightful “I’m Gonna Lock My Heart and Throw Away the Key,” she manages to combine Billie Holiday and Marilyn Monroe. Hyman’s accompaniments and solos are reminders that this 86-year-old wonder is one of the most interesting pianists alive.
Miles Davis Quintet Live In Europe 1969: The Bootleg Series Vol. 2 (Columbia/Legacy)
This three-CD, one-DVD set finds the trumpeter fomenting even more dramatic change than usual. The first volume in the so-called bootleg series of Davis concert recordings found his primarily acoustic 1967 quintet already tending toward electronic music and rock. Saxophonist Wayne Shorter remains from that band. Here, the transition intensifies. Electric pianist Chick Corea, bassist Dave Holland and drummer Jack DeJohnette accelerate the shift Davis initiated with In A Silent Way. The repertoire is redolent of Davis’s Bitches Brew period. We hear the headiness, excitement and—sometimes—the aimlessness of newfound freedom. The DVD’s superb sound and picture bring the band alive.
Bill Frisell, The Disfarmer Project (La Huit)
Belgian filmmaker Guillame Dero captures the eclectic guitarist Frisell, violinist Carrie Rodriguez, guitarist Greg Leisz and bassist Viktor Krauss in a live performance set to portraits by the 1950s Arkansas photographer Mike Disfarmer. Some of the music was on a 2009 CD mentioned in this Rifftides post. Hearing it in new versions with Disfarmer’s eccentric and vaguely disturbing photos looming over the band is an adventure. Watching interaction and reaction among the quartet increases the fascination. Frisell salts his original compositions with songs by Hank Williams, Arthur Crudup and Cliff Friend.
Paul de Barros, Shall We Play That One Together? The Life and Art of Jazz Piano Legend Marian McPartland (St. Martin’s Press)
The nonagenarian pianist presented de Barros with every biographer’s hope, unrestricted access to his subject’s personal papers and nearly unrestricted access to her private thoughts. He made the most of it, turning exhaustive research and hundreds of hours of interviews into a true story with the sweep of a novel. From the early discovery of McPartland’s musical gift through her wartime service, her ecstatic and stormy marriage to Jimmy McPartland, her growth as a pianist, her deep affair with Joe Morello, and the radio show that made her a national figure, she has had a fascinating life. It makes a splendid read.
Gerry Mulligan and the Concert Jazz Band, Santa Monica 1960 (Fresh Sound)
Mulligan’s Concert Jazz Band had three fewer musicians than most big jazz outfits. Its size permitted precision, flexibility and subtlety, yet the band had the power of sprung steel. In this concert from a half century ago, the CJB is as fresh as yesterday. Arrangements by Mulligan, Bob Brookmeyer, Al Cohn and Johnny Mandel set standards to which big band writers still aspire. Bassist Buddy Clark and drummer Mel Lewis inspired Mulligan, Brookmeyer, Conte Candoli, Gene Quill and Zoot Sims to some of the best soloing of their careers. This beautifully produced issue of the complete concert is a basic repertoire item.
Maurice Sendak [1928-2012] (“Where the Wild Things Are” and other classics for more than just children) in a conversation with Bill Moyers that re-aired this week, mentioned that he carried in a shirt pocket a small booklet of Emily Dickinson poems. He said that he found her frighteningly courageous and inspiring.
I might add George Gershwin’s true and immortal words:
“Life is a lot like jazz.. it’s best when you improvise.”
“The artist should call forth all his energy, his sincerity, and the greatest possible modesty in order to push aside during his work the old cliches that come so readily to his hand and can suffocate the small flower which itself never turns out as one expected.”
HENRI MATISSE from Jazz
OK folks, this’ getting too heavy, so I’ll throw in the obvious:
“Life is a Cabaret, old chum,
Come to the Cabaret!”
“It’s taken me all my life to learn what not to play,”
said the immortal Dizzy; wise man, indeed.
Monday, for me, will bring a Requiem Mass and other celebrations related to the life of Terry Steward who was, at varying times, a mortgage salesman, a banker, a recruiter in a factory, a top level business manager and, throughout all of that, a great jazz saxophone player and composer/arranger in London and the South of England. In his latter years he studied for the Church and became a Lay Preacher.
On his one LP he says “My Philosophy has been to Work enough to Live.” In reality he did very much more – his “Life” will be fondly and gratefully remembered on Monday and for a long time to come by many who derived benefit from it.