SÃ¡nta IstvÃ¡n Csaba

Revered jazz elders, deceased: portraits by SÃ¡nta IstvÃ¡n Csaba

As a generation of jazz elders leaves our world — some hastened by the pandemic — their faces as photographed by SÃ¡nta IstvÃ¡n Csaba become even more luminous, haunting, iconic.

Guiseppi Logan, multi-instrumentalist (May 1935 – April 2020)

Henry Grimes, bassist (Nov 1935 – April 2020)

Pianists Geri Allen (June 1957 – June 2017) and
McCoy Tyner (Dec 1938 – March 2020)

Wallace Roney, trumpeter (May 1960 – March 2020)

Lee Konitz, alto saxophonist, improviser (Oct 1927 – April 2020)

Bucky Pizzarelli, guitarist (Jan 1926 – April 2020)

Originally from Transylvania and currently living in Turin, the northern Italian area with heaviest covid-19 infections, SÃ¡nta reports that he is healthy, employed at the reception desk of a nearby school, and has recently been honored with a Hungarian Press Photo Award. However, with the lockdown, that Awards ceremony has been indefinitely postponed.

Cecil Taylor, dead at 89, as celebrated when he’d turned 80

Cecil Taylor in 2014, photo by SÃ¡nta IstvÃ¡n Csaba

The brilliant, challenging, perplexing and incomparable pianist/improviser/composer Cecil Taylor died April 5, 2018, at age 89. Here’s what I wrote of him to celebrate his 80th birthday:

Cecil Taylor, unique and predominant, 80 years old 3 27 09

Cecil TaylorÂ is the world’s predominant pianist by virtue of his technique, concept and imagination, and one of 20th-21st Century music’s magisterial modernists. A figure through whose challenges I investigate the avant garde inÂ Miles Ornette Cecil — Jazz Beyond Jazz,Â he turned 80 on March 25 (or maybe on the 15th), and tonight, Saturday, March 28, “Cecil Taylor Speaks Volumes”Â — and presumably performs solo — Â at Merkin Concert Hall.

Taylor belongs to no school but his own yet has influenced and generated a legion of followers on piano and every other instrument, too. HeÂ identifies with the jazz tradition, many of whose most ardent adherents have regarded him since his 1950s debut insultingly, incredulously, quizzically, disdainfully, reluctantly, regretfully or not at all. But he does not limit himself, or his defininition ofÂ the jazz tradition: he draws from all music’s history and partakes of the whole world’s culture.

He hasÂ earned significant critical acclaim —

“…Cecil Taylor wants you to feel what he feels, to move at his speed, to look where he looks, always inward. His music asks more than other music, but it gives more than it asks.”Â – Whitney Balliett

— and an international coterie of serious listeners, yet he has been ignored, feared or rejected by most people. Many pianists with more conventional approaches to their instrument, composition, improvisation and interpretation enjoy greater acceptance and financial reward.

Jazz, at least, has tried to come to terms with Taylor, whereas America’s contemporary classical music world, to which he has has just as much claim of status, has shown not a bit of interest. Taylor embraces atonality but bends it to grandly romantic purposes; he is a master of polyrhythms, counter-rhythms, implicit and suspended time, which he deploys in lengthy, complicated yet spontaneous structures; he is a bold theorist and seldom acquiescent, though frequently collaborative. There is simply no other musician like him, although he has a few peers — with most of whom he’s concertized and recorded.

It seems inadequate to merely wish Cecil Taylor “happy birthday.” How should we celebrate?Â Here,Â from Ron Mann’s 1981 documentary Imagine the Sound, is a fine clip of the Maestro.

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International Jazz RIPs, 2017

Photographer-writer-authorÂ Ken Franckling has painstakingly compiled a compendium of more than 400 jazz artists and associates from around the world who died in 2017,Â with links to obituaries of most of them. Posted at JJANews.org.

Muhal Richard Abrams – Â© SantÃ¡ IstvÃ¡n Csaba

It’s a striking document and useful resource, though Franckling says, sadly, “The list seems to get depressingly longer each year.”

Maybe that’s because jazz itselfÂ — at least as so recorded and promoted — is now more than 100 years oldÂ and the

Roswell Rudd Â©SantÃ¡ IstvÃ¡n Csaba

post-WWII generations that gave the art form its fervent audiences and inspired players for the past 70 years are inevitably thinning.

But as Franckling depicts in his recent book Jazz in the Key of Light, energy and brilliance yet abound. My own 2017 experiences

Willie Pickens, photo by Marc PoKempner

of jazz in schools, nightclubs, festivals and grassroots events across the country, in Europe, Asia, South and Central America, in general media manifestations and the stubbornly independent underground suggest the music is everywhere, really, if often overlooked and underfinanced.

That said, I’m going to miss a lot of those creative artists who died during the past 12 months — especially Muhal Richard Abrams, Geri Allen,Â Nat Hentoff, Bern Nix, Roswell Rudd and Willie Pickens, all of whom I’ve often listened to, enjoyed and learned from.

Luckily, as their unique expressions and ideas have been documented, we will be able to summon something of them, spirits and thoughts, again and again. A primer —

- Muhal Richard Abrams, Â Mama and DaddyÂ Compositions with improv take surprising turns, as played by aspontaneous, multi-hued ensemble.

- Geri Allen,Â Eyes in theBack of Your HeadÂ The pianist’s themes launch intuitive explorations by a quintetfeaturing her one-time husband trumpeter Wallace Rooney and a mentor, alto saxist Ornette Coleman.

- Nat Hentoff and Nat Shapiro,Â Hear Me Talkin’ To YaÂ Lovingly collected and edited oral history anecdotes from greatÂ players of the ’30s to the ’60s. The Nats heard them talkin’, and made sure we could, too.

- Bern Nix, Body MetaÂ A guitarist variously quizzical, humble, contrary and lyrical, contributing most memorably to Ornette Coleman’s peerless electric Prime Time.

- Roswell Rudd, Numatik Swing BandÂ The trombonist tenderly blustered and moaned across a spectrum of styles, Dixieland to Tuvan, always as himself; his 1973 Jazz Composers Orchestra suite is joyful,Â vivid, playfully rough and tumble, modernistic fun.

Willie Pickens It’s About TimeÂ The Chicago pianist was under-recored as a leader, just this full of warmth and drive plus three albums of religious and Christmas music. There’s also a duet with Marian McPartland, an album with Elvin Jones on tour, and his contribution to Eddie Harris’ hit version of “Exodus.” Time rewarded.

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Spring break with Budapest jazz, photos

I went to Budapest for spring break — to introduce a photo exhibit by my Transylvanian-bornÂ friend Â SÃ¡nta IstvÃ¡n Csaba and help jury theÂ 10th annual MÃ¼pa Budapest Jazz Showcase/Talent Exchange,Â held in the modernist musemÂ and multi-theater complex on the east bank of the icy Danube Feb 3 – 5.

Viktor TÃ³th played alto briefly to open theÂ photo exhibition – (and SaturdayÂ night at the Budapest Jazz Club) – photo by Janos PosztosÂ MÃ¼pa Budapest

As I wrote in my Â DownBeat article, the sound of the 12 sets I heard was jazz as we think of itÂ now — virtuosic horns, piano/keyboards and/or guitar, upright or electric basses and drums; vocalistsÂ singing standards, spicing upÂ r&b grooves, toying with electronics; popular rhythmsÂ addressed through personal perspectives.

There was a faint aura of the music of the Roma — gypsies — in the air, emanating not only from the quartetsÂ led byÂ pianist Gyula Balogh and drummer Toni SnÃ©tberger, withÂ members from that community. It was hard to define — no overtÂ Django Reinhardt,Â figurations or repertoire, but a tinge ofÂ darkness and interiority in those bands, and what I imagined was witchy wailing by singer Petra KÃ©sz with her performance art-like trio Cymbal Rush (video of thatÂ show below).

On walls, from left: Anthony Braxton, Chico Hamilton, Charles McPherson . . . Carla Bley, Charles Lloyd, Frank Wess. Photos by SÃ¡nta IstvÃ¡n Csaba

Still, as in the Saturday night jam session at the Budapest Jazz ClubÂ – a very cool hangout which advertised Jeff “Tain” Watts, Joe Lovano and Steve Coleman as coming attractions supplementing local groups, the vibe was familiar from my travels in Armenia, the Azores, Berlin, Cuba, Denmark, Gambia, Italy, St. Petersberg, Tampere, Trinidad, Ukraine as well as the States. Whatever a community’s resources, there are commonalities in the jazz world everywhere, this capital of Central Europe most definitely included.

Second grouping of Jazzonance portraits in MÃ¼pa

The singing in English, allusions to Monk (as I took the approach of alto saxophonist GÃ¡bor Baris’s Version), reverence for Coltrane (especially by alto/soprano saxist TamÃ¡s LudÃ¡nyi) and interest in Herbie Hancock bleeding over to pop stars such as J Dilla (by drummer David Hodek, grooving with American pianist Paul Cornish and bassist Joshua Crumbly) and Betty Wright (smoldering singer Janka VÃ¶rÃ¶s’ finale), with Santa’sÂ 2.5 x 2 meterÂ closeups of U.S. jazz masters on the walls Â –“Jazzonance” was MÃ¼pa’s exhibit title Â — and companionable journo/juristsÂ from Sofia, Slovenia, London, plusÂ Budapest-basedÂ freelancer KornÃ©l Zipernovszky and the generously great Hungarian guitaristÂ Gyula Babos – letÂ me feel almostÂ at home, while refreshed by particular differences.

Such as the architecture — 19th and 20th century glories, variously preserved, restored or abandoned. Proud museums, palaces and six-story apartment buildings with ground-floor retail shops and cafÃ©s, on concentricÂ circular boulevards. The Gellert Hill Cave,Â thermal baths and church in St. Ivan’s grottos. Trams running up each side of the river, the Danube’sÂ bridges rebuilt since Nazi destruction in WWII. The old market, stalls hung with paprika-colored sausages, an instructive display of wild mushrooms tucked in a corner. Â The Castle District of hilly Buda, overlooking the plain of Pest.

Past winners of the Talent Exchange in the Gala Concert finale, singing and blowing on a swinging arrangement of Lerner and Loewe’s “Almost Like Being in Love” backed by the Franz Liszt Academy of Music’s Senior Big Band, directed by Attila LÃ¡szlÃ³. Photo by SÃ¡ntÃ¡ IstvÃ¡n Csaba

All contrasting with but complementary to the Jazz Showcase/Talent Exchange (wherein some of the Hungarians travel to perform at London’s 606 Club, and others are booked into events via the Hungarian Jazz Federation, part of the European Jazz Network). MÃ¼pa’s decade-old program struck me as an effortÂ rooted inÂ an artistically sophisticated city, one cognizant of its complex, conflicted past and evidently eager to thrive in the present, the better for whatever’s to come.

Muhal Richard Abrams, portrait in Jazzonance exhibit by SÃ¡nta IstvÃ¡n Csaba

As usual, creative music with drive and feeling seems to well up asÂ a significant if not essential ingredient in aÂ culture, with such ambitions embraced towards those very ends. The basics of individual expression amidÂ group collaborations performed for the entertainment and enlightenment of general audiences have been well established here. The integration of attractive, useful ideas coming from myriad sources is, at least superficially, high. I had just a quick visit, and no doubt experiencedÂ a mereÂ slip of what’s happening in Budapest. But I liked what I heard and saw.

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