WEST Coast culture vultures know the name Ted Gioia for his fabulous West Coast Jazz, which looked at the scenes in LA and San Francisco starting with Dexter Gordon on Central Avenue and moving through the cool school and Dave Brubeck. Not only is the book a great read, it provoked a reconsideration of what was then a criminally overlooked time and place. Gioia -- who has since written a very … [Read more...]
Remembering Jazz Guitarist Lenny Breau
COULD one of the most inventive and technically gifted jazz guitarist of the last half century be an obscure Canadian raised by country musicians? That's what I often think listening to the mighty Lenny Breau. Readers of this blog know that we try to uncover West Coast culture overlooked by the rest of the nation's media and critical establishment, and Breau was an overlooked West Coast artist par … [Read more...]
Brad Mehldau’s LA Years
ACCLAIMED jazz pianist Brad Mehldau, who has become, probably, the most celebrated jazz instrumentalist of his generation, was in town this weekend, performing at Disney Hall. (Quite a good concert - Chris Barton's review here -- with both a chamber orchestra and a percussion-heavy combo, though I think he's best in a club in a trio format.) He made a brief mention, in between songs, to his years … [Read more...]
The Enigma of Artie Shaw
One of the orneriest musicians in history, swing-era bandleader and clarinetest Artie Shaw is the subject of a new biography by Tom Nolan. What a character Shaw was -- rising to great heights, dropping out of music when his fame and talent were at their highest, provoking no less than THREE of his many ex-wives to write memoirs about him. He spent his last four decades in the west Valley.Nolan is … [Read more...]
The Many Moods of Keith Jarrett
As a longtime fan of idiosyncratic jazz pianist Keith Jarrett, I would have been disappointed if I'd seen him perform without reaming out at least one audience member. And I was not disappointed.Last night Jarrett made one of his rare appearances at LA's Disney Hall, and this show was devoted to solo improvisation -- pure Keith, unalloyed. He began the performance with a strange, gentle kind of … [Read more...]
The Return of The Blue Moods of Spain
How often you arrive at a club and kick yourself for having missed the opening band? Not bloody often I'll bet. But when I got to Spaceland on Saturday to find I'd arrived too late to see a rare (and barely announced) show by LA indie kings Spain, my heart sunk into the kind of melancholy the group conjures so well in song.Spain, which is led by Josh Haden (son of legendary jazz bassist Charlie … [Read more...]
Our Favorite Guitarists
SOME of you -- especially if you are a musician, music writer, or serious listener -- have already taken part in my informal poll of favorite guitarists. This was conceived not exactly as a historically rigorous greatest-of-all-time but the work you'd grab either if your house was burning down, or to take to the proverbial desert island. (I'm aware that these are two slightly different categories, … [Read more...]
Jazz, 1959 and Today
ONE of the exciting things in music this year was the excuse a 50th anniversary gave to us jazzheads to return to what I consider the best year ever in the history of the art form. Okay, I know that sounds like something between an advertising slogan and a gloomy denial of the ensuing 50 years. But in a year when Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Art Blakey, Dave Brubeck, Ornette Coleman, Bill Evans, … [Read more...]
The Birth (and Death) of the Cool
NOT long ago, I attended a lively discussion at LA's Book Soup about the origins and demise of cool. Ted Gioia, the author of "West Coast Jazz" and "Delta Blues," was talking about a seismic, beneath-the-surface cultural shift. The cool detachment --sometimes spiked with irony or cryptic gestures -- originated by Bix Beiderbecke, Lester Young and Miles Davis is reaching its sell-by date. How can … [Read more...]
Ken Burns vs. His Critics
AS a former (and very minor) member of the nation's conspiracy of jazz critics, i remember quite well the vitriol hurled at ken burns for his "Jazz" documentary. the UK's guardian, for instance, called the series, for its treating jazz like an art form that died with ellington, "a jam session in a mausoleum."in some cases the charges were fair, in other cases not.in any case it struck me that … [Read more...]