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Jazz Beyond Jazz

Howard Mandel's Urban Improvisation

Holidays with music, in person or not

Despite my avowed abhorrence of Christmas music, I enjoyed maestro Kurt Elling leading his hometown quintet in a holiday-themed performance at Chicago’s City Winery last Sunday.

Kurt Elling © Marc PoKempner

My entire evening — accompanied by best friends, and including the surprise discovery after the Winery show of a heartening young trumpeter at the Hungry Brain — was a reminder that hearing music in person with others is a key experience, even if the potential for spreading disease makes us stay home.

[What I’ve been listening to at home: Favorites of ’21]

A seasoned and complete performer at age 54, Elling is a canny and original vocalist with a unique approach and seemingly genuine persona. Singer-songwriter-bandleader-storyteller-character actor– well-tailored, a good mover, a model of sophisticated masculinity — he ought to be in movies! I felt lucky to hear Kurt charm a full house (150-200 attendees for an 8 pm second show, maybe 95% masked, seated at socially distanced four-tops), stirring his vocal resources and fellow music-makers’ skills into a flowing entertainment of thoughtful depth and inclusive warmth. True jazz.

Elling has carved a place for himself between bel canto balladeer and husky-throated songster. He’s able to sustain ringing high tones dramatically and also growl or cast an aside as if under his breath yet still remain audible and understandable). Most often he starts casually then ramps up to a swinging stance, like a smart pal with something valuable to say. Consider him in the lineage of regular (but talented!) guys like Fred Astaire, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Gene Kelly, Chicago’s own Mel Tormé, Joe Williams, Oscar Brown Jr. and Nate “King” Cole. Guitarist-singer John Pizzarelli is another currently working in this vein (and I won’t rule out Patricia Barber, haven’t listened enough to say), but unlike any of them other than Cole during his piano combo days and maybe Barber — almost like Betty Carter, come to think of it — Kurt directs the energy of his group from within it. He sets up and, after making a

from left: Stu Minderman, Clark Sommer, Kurt Elling, Dana Hall, John McLean © Marc PoKempner

definitive statement, passes his musical ball to lyrical pianist Stu Minderman or unusually telegraphic guitarist John McLean as if by impulse rather than pre-arrangement, with bassist Clark Sommers solid, alert, flexible and pairing well with drummer Dana Hall’s assertive push. They cohere as an ensemble, so the music flows. This band was ending a two-week tour, yet everyone appeared to be fully engaged, refreshed by being onstage.

Their onstage teamwork, clear to see as well as hear, drew me into the holiday vibe. Never mind being a committed secularist, cynical about virgin births, uneasy about imposition of any public religious celebration on the entire body politic, believers or not — I realize this is America! As long as I’ve been alive Christmas has been an uncontrolled cultural behemoth, a day draped in a ancient, holy story actually advancing consumer capitalism. As a Jewish kid, I reasoned why fight it? Well, that manger stuff. And, uh, Hanukah. But ok, then, also Yule, Saturnalia, Festivus, Kwanza, Diwali. I’ve come to accept if not embrace all humanity’s collective reactions to the sun withdrawing, and hopes for its return.

Although Kurt Elling sang “We Three Kings” and with Hall worked the miracle of turning the odious “Little Drummer Boy” into a driving scat-drums duet, the focus of his message was not Jesus’s arrival but the world’s annual experience of rebirth, with a particular appeal to the clear-eyed spirit of children which, he assured us, we all still contain. No “Silent Night,” though he did enact a “T’was the night before Christmas” parody, and for an encore — yes, “The Christmas Song” (aka, “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire. . . ” words by Tormé, music by Robert Wells, née Levinson — and yes, Kurt mentioned that in his research for popular Christmas songshe’d been struck by how many were written by Jews, Communists and Jewish Communists. As his father was Kapellmeister at a Lutheran church, that seems like a nice ecumenical acknowledgement).

The other dependable confluence of so-called “holiday music” with music that has actually brings a smile to my wintry mind is saxophonist Mars Williams‘ inspired Ayler Christmas program, the Chicago manifestation, held again

at the Hungry Brain. Five recorded volumes of this project exist, so we can anytime we care to hear the ingenious inspiriting of carols and hoary Xmas staples with ecstatically freed improvisations by all-stars Williams has enlisted on his road trips with it — such as electronica cellist Helen Gillette in NOLA, bassist Luke Stewart in DC, trumpeter Jaimie Branch and trombonist Steve Swell in NYC. Here Mars featured his bandmates in Extraordinary Popular Delusions keyboardist Jim Baker, multi-instrumentalist Brian Sandstrom and drummer Steve Hunt as well as cornetist Josh Berman, guitarist-violinist Peter Maunu and others. I missed it.

BUT — after Elling my little party went to the Brain (like a dive bar, run by Berman and drummer Mike Reed, who were hanging out) where drummer Matt Wilson, known to be an acute talent scout,

Jamie Breiwick and Matt Wilson © Marc PoKempner

was backing up New Orleans-born trumpeter Jamie Breiwick, who we’d never heard of before. And was he fine! With the kind of melody-spinning ability I admire in Don Cherry, offering Sun Ra’s “Love in Outer Space” as a natural standard, in league with a complementary alto saxophonist and stalwart bassist, whose names I regret not taking. The music was so sweet, I had trouble leaving. I wouldn’t have known about him if I hadn’t been there. Might have checked out a recording, but. . .

Over the past 18 months I’ve gone out infrequently, only for what I’ve most wanted to attend. Herbie Hancock’s return to performance at Symphony Center; singer Josie Falbo, whose liner notes I wrote, at the Jazz Showcase; Joanie Pallatto‘s cabaret act at the Mercury Theater; trumpeter Orbert Davis’s Chicago Jazz Philharmonic; bassist Tatsu Aoki with AACM collaborators at the Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Hyde Park Jazz Festival (both the latter outdoors). Seeing the musicians interact and audiences respond adds so much more value to the music, obviously, than observing from a remote location or listening to even the utmost audio equipment that music lovers usually don’t think it’s worth mentioning. But over this period of going without, after more than 50 years of taking in music where and when it happens as a habit, I appreciate the immediacy, context and company of live, in-person music now more than ever. Best for the new year, so partaking of live performance becomes commonplace again.

Jazz Autumn: Returns, galas and even awards

If all “jazz” shares a single trait, it’s that nothing will stifle it. Adjusting to covid-19

Ari Brown greets fan at Hyde Park Jazz Festival; photo by Michael Jackson for Chicago Reader

strictures, Chicago (just for instance) in the past two months has been site of:

  • A stellar Hyde Park Jazz Festival;
  • Herbie Hancock’s homecoming concert at Symphony Center;
  • audiences happily (for the most part – no reported incidents otherwise) observing appropriate covid restrictions in intimate venues where I’ve been — including Constellation, the Jazz Showcase, Hungry Brain and Fitzgerald’s;
  • a heartening multi-kulti success — Japanese taiko drums and shamisen hooking up with Brazilian percussion trio and guitarist, Ukrainian bandura improviser, string quartet, jazz rhythm team all led by brassman Orbert Davis in the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic‘s return to in-person (as well as streamed, and free of charge) performance;
  • the fourth annual Afro-Futurism weekend at Elastic Arts;
  • An AACM 55th Anniversary concert by the Great Black Music Ensemble at the Logan Center;
  • the Jazz Institute of Chicago staging a “projection promenade” featuring performers in front of large-scale digital photo exhibits, in three lots along south side Cottage Grove Avenue.

Most of those events were free of charge to attendees (not the jazz clubs of course, but prices haven’t risen and are low by, say, New York City standards), simply required advance registration, and have benefitted from generous arts support from the City of Chicago, which has truly stepped up to bat in terms of channeling funds to small and dispersed organizations as well as major central ones. As I understand it, commercial enterprises as well as not-for-profits have received financial support.

Kudos to Mark Kelly, who has just retired as director of the City’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) for energetic, creative responses to the challenges of his tenure — pandemic included. But it should be made clear that the efforts mentioned above resulted from efforts of many actors across a broad and deep, if under-heralded, local artistic ecosystem. And I barely scratched what’s happening here, just glossing over music highlights, not addressing the Film Fest, Humanities Fest, Lyric Opera’s MacBeth, re-opening of Steppenwolf and other theaters, the Art Institute’s Kertész exhibit, and so on.

Guess I’m sounding boosterish. Be that as it may, financial insecurities are ever-present for arts

presenters, non-profit or commercial, and so fundraising events continue, sometimes in unusual formats. Another for instance: The Jazz Institute, of which I’m secretary of the board, holds its annual fundraiser November 4 — and all the world is invited to attend free of charge.

It’s wholly virtual, offering insiders’ perspectives and on-site videos hosted by reedsman Rajiv Halim and vocalist-educator Bobbi Wilsyn, singer Meagan McNeal, trumpeter Corey Wilkes and more. Of course donations are strongly encouraged; it takes ever more cash to produce music free of charge in Chicago Park district facilities city-wide, to run Artists-in-Residence programs in local schools, a high school big band competition, and after-school programs (which have graduated successive waves of exciting new musicians). But the JIC will be happy if you simply tune in to watch fresh videos of the student jam sessions held at the Jazz Showcase; Awards being presented to Chris Anderson of the Fulton Street Collective loft venue and Joan Colasso, director of the Timeless Gifts Youth Program; a tour of local jazz shrines with voice-over by Maggie Brown (daughter of Oscar Brown, Jr.). Check it out. Get acquainted.

Will it raise a sou? We shall see. The distinctly different Chicago Jazz Philharmonic, co-led until just recently by trumpeter Davis and his business partner Mark Ingram, held its all-online, not-cheaply-ticketed virtual gala back in June with Kurt Elling as a collaborative guest (Rhapsody Snyder was introduced as new Executive Director on the webcast), and announced income from it of $85,000, $10k over its goal. So yes, these can be important sources of unrestricted funds.

Orbert Davis leads Chicago Jazz Philharmonic in Chicago Immigrant Stories III, with Tatsu Aoki (shamisen) and his daughters playing taiko drums and flute, and (not in this photo) Geraldo de Oliveria with Dede Sampaio and Luciano Antonio; and Ivan Smilo, bandura and vocals. Photo from CJP

Speaking of which — >>DIGRESSION WARNING<< — congratulations to all 52 jazz and improvised music practitioners receiving support of between $25,000 to $40,000 for creative residencies from Jazz Road, a South Arts initiative funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. This round reaching many artists I’ve long admired, including Chico Freeman, Ernest Dawkins, Mars Williams, Josh Abrams, Adegoke Steve Colson, Craig Harris, Elio Villafranca, Nasheet Waits, Kip Hanrahan, Michele Rosewoman, Meg Okura, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Melvin Gibbs and Jason Moran. Congrats also to pianist Kris Davis, eminent composer, saxophonist and band-leader Wayne Shorter, and pianist Danilo Perez (a principal in Shorter’s long-running, now suspended quartet), named Doris Duke Performing Artists ($275,000 comes with this honor).

Not to overlook rare recognition (not from the Jazz Journalists Association) for music journalists. The 52nd annual ASCAP Foundation Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Awards for outstanding print, broadcast, liner notes and new media coverage of music honored (among others) Daphne A. Brooks for “100 Years Ago, ‘Crazy Blues’ Sparked a Revolution for Black Women Fans,” published in The New York Times; Fat Possum Records and No Sudden Movements for their release of the documentary Memphis ’69, with performances by Sleepy John Estes, Bukka White and Fred McDowell; Ted Gioia for his appreciation of jazz critic Whitney Balliett, “The Music Critic Who Tried to Disappear,” published by City Journal; Frank J. Oteri of New Music USA’s New Music Box for the podcast, “Valerie Coleman: Writing Music for People” and John Kruth for his article, “Ceremonies Against the Virus: Bachir Attar of the Master Musicians of Jajouka,” published by the online journal, Please Kill Me. Monetary awards of $250 to $500 accompany this recognition. As a two-time Deems Taylor Award-winner, I can attest to its value as an uplift.

Jazz beats the virus online

Chicago presenters of jazz and new music, and journalists from Madrid to the Bay Area, vocalist Kurt Elling, trumpeter Orbert Davis and pianist Lafayette Gilchrist discussed how they’ve transcended coronavirus-restrictions on live performances with innovative methods to sustain their communities of musicians and listeners, as well as their own enterprises were in two Zoom panels I moderated last week .

The Show Goes On – Online on February 18 convened Chris Anderson of the Fulton Street Collective, trumpeter Davis of Chicago Jazz Philharmonic, vocalist extraordinaire Elling and his business partner Bryan Farina, Marguerite Horberg of HotHouse, Olivia Junell of Experimental Sound Studio and Steve Rashid of Studio 5 under the auspices of the Jazz Institute of Chicago. They’ve all produced live-streams, pitched to international as well as local audiences, achieving unprecedented results.

ESS started quickly last March with its Quarantine Concerts, and Fulton Street Collective’s Jazz Art Record Collective quickly followed suit; HotHouseGlobal has mounted five nights of music connecting Havana and Chicago musicians, among other far-reaching programs; Chicago Jazz Philharmonic engaged eager music students from the Cuban province Matanzas and launched and International Masters of Improvisation Workshop; Studio 5 conceptualized and has realized the very entertaining Into the Mist, an unique combination of website design and real-time, interactive Zoom play as a 90-minute immersive and interactive event, offered once a week (next on March 5);

Elling sang from his porch and the otherwise locked-down Green Mill, one of his performances from isolation reaching 180,000 listeners!

The Jazz Journalists Association (of which I’m president) followed up on Feb. 21 with Reviewing “Live” in the Age of Covid. Are these live-streams being reviewed? Do special techniques apply? Is there a market for such analysis? Is live-streaming changing jazz journalism, and here to stay?

This panel comprised freelance writers Jordannah Elizabeth (Baltimore-based), Paul de Barros (Seattle) and Andy Gilbert (Berkeley — both those latter two JJA board members); Seattle Times news editor/former features editor Melissa Davis; publicist Ann Braithwaite (of Boston-area Braithwaite & Katz Communications); Henry Wong, director of the Baltimore listening room An die Musik, which in past months has produced some 200 live-stream performances, and Gilchrist, who has live-streamed from An die Musik (video remains available for $5) as well as the Village Vanguard. Also speaking up were Spanish jazz journalist Mirian Arbalejo, MinnPost Artscape columnist Pamela Espeland, KNKX Jazz Northwest program host Jim Wilke and Amsterdam News writer Ron Scott, who said he felt it imperative to report more than ever on issues regarding social justice for Black Americans.

We learned that coverage of live-stream performances from mainstream media almost entirely consists of advance listings rather than reviews; that traditional print publications continue to grapple with declining revenues and content wells (there’s more news than can fit) besides digital platform challenges; that live-streams, unlike in-person performances, give reviewers the opportunity to re-watch but may also be judged on video production values; that individuals, professional or not, use social media to comment on live-streams in real time — and that news of the pandemic, social and political turmoil throughout 2020 have led many writers as well as musicians and indeed people in all professions to refocus, as best they can.

Panelists in these Zooms discussions were unfailingly candid and thoughtful (there may be something about staring at yourself in a grid with your peers that encourages best self-projection). No one indulged in whining about how life’s so different now that we’ve been victimized by Covid-19. Everyone was intent on people over profits, creating, producing, promoting and commenting seriously on musicians’ and venues’ online efforts in order to serve the art form in its many dimensions, most specifically addressing its local/global communities and constituents.

Almost a dozen presenters, more than half a dozen music journalists and media-purveyors, three musical artists (and special thanks to Lafayette for representing the concerns of many on the Show Zoom — view the JJA 2020 Awards Winners Live-Streaming party to hear others’ takes on the issues). They represent the grit, imagination, energetic devotion to their labors and the spirit fundamental to keeping not just jazz but all our arts alive today. Without exception they predict that hybrid models of presentation melding some sorts of live-streaming with some sorts of live, in-person shows (when those can resume), are the future. Hear them out! Or in the more urgent onscreen-version of radio/tv’s “Stay tuned” — Keep close watch!

Branford Marsalis and Kurt Elling in New Orleans, ready for recording

unnamed

At Snug Harboer, NOLA, from left.: Nicholas Payton, Eric Revis, Branford Marsalis, Justin Faulkner, Kurt Elling. Photo by Marc PoKempner

Saxophonist Branford Marsalis’s quartet and singer Kurt Elling prepared for their upcoming recording in a rare four-night stand at Snug Harbor in New Orleans last week, and photo-journalist extraordinaire Marc PoKempner went each night, enthralled.

“It was sort of an open rehearsal for the recording, so the set list was the same every night,” PoKempner reported by phone, “but it changed a lot, too. The first night Kurt asked the crowd, ‘Does anyone here speak Portuguese? If so, you’re going to want to leave now,’ because he sang a lyric in Portuguese, reading it

kurt sinatra

Kurt Elling, photo by Marc PoKempner

phonetically off some paper, and slaughtered the language. But by the fourth night, he had it down.”

PoKempner knows Elling from Chicago, but he says in NOLA, Kurt learned he had to almost holler for attention. “He isn’t known here, he doesn’t perform here. People had come to hear Branford, who’d start out each night with what I gather was the Tonight Show theme. He’s got a very energetic, swinging, fun band [Joey Calderazzo, piano; Eric Revis, bass; Justin Faulkner, drums] and though he himself isn’t the most physically expressive, he blows his ass off, has a very strong tone, and gets up to play. He blew some very abstract stuff, even like something Fred Anderson would have played — but always brought those breaks  back to the swinging, melodic hook. Branford’s band did a couple of songs before Kurt came out.

“After the first two sets, in which he was kind of subdued, Kurt started to

branford kurt hand on hip

Brandford Marsalis, Justin Faulkner, Kurt Elling, photo by Marc PoKempner

hit the audience hard; he even did some scat-singing, in full register. They did a song Sting wrote for Broadway show The Last Ship called ‘Practical Arrangement.’ It’s like a little movie, about an older guy making a proposition to a woman, ‘We cold share a roof, I’d be father to your boy, we could sleep in separate beds, you wouldn’t have to cook for me,’ and then there’s a point where he proposes ‘Would it be so bad to be my wife?’ — and the first time I heard ‘wife’ the way Kurt did it was a total surprise to me. It wasn’t as much of a surprise after I heard it eight times, but it was very powerful every time.

branford dee dee kurt

Branford Marsalis, Justin Faulkner, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Kurt Elling; photo by Marc PoKempner

“The pianist, bassist and drummer were each terrific in their own ways. On the  last night, Dee Dee Bridgewater sat in with Kurt for a duet on ‘Teach Me Tonight,’ Delfeayo Marsalis played trombone on one tune, and Irvin Mayfield played flugelhorn.

“I told both Kurt and Branford, ‘It’s fun to watch you guys do something you don’t already know how to do,’ and they looked pleased, acknowledging they challenged themselves. It was really interesting to hear the music develop and deepen over these four nights.”

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Howard Mandel

I'm a Chicago-born (and after 32 years in NYC, recently repatriated) writer, editor, author, arts reporter for National Public Radio, consultant and nascent videographer -- a veteran freelance journalist working on newspapers, magazines and websites, appearing on tv and radio, teaching at New York University and elsewhere, consulting on media, publishing and jazz-related issues. I'm president of the Jazz Journalists Association, a non-profit membership organization devoted to using all media to disseminate news and views about all kinds of jazz.
My books are Future Jazz (Oxford U Press, 1999) and Miles Ornette Cecil - Jazz Beyond Jazz (Routledge, 2008). I was general editor of the Illustrated Encyclopedia of Jazz and Blues (Flame Tree 2005/Billboard Books 2006). Of course I'm working on something new. . . Read More…

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