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Jazz Beyond Jazz

Howard Mandel's Urban Improvisation

Jazz Congress, Winter JazzFest, shape of jazz to come

The first Jazz Congress co-hosted by Jazz at Lincoln Center and JazzTimes magazine Jan 11 and 12, 2018 and the 14th annual Winter JazzFest Marathon produced in downtown Manhattan Jan 12 and 13, offered contrasts and prompted crosstalk. It wasn’t like these were conventions of different parties, but different narratives were going down.

The Congress’s sessions included JALC managing and artistic director Wynton Marsalis speaking on race and jazz, women in jazz announcing “yes, we’re here,” and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar keynoting about his love of the music. It was a schmooze fest for managers, publicists, presenters, musicians, writers, photographers, recording company execs and die-hard fans, who enjoyed themselves in JALC’s comfortable and scenic spaces.

The WJF produced by Bryce Rosenbloom’s Boom Collective presented some 100 concerts in 11 venues, showing rather than telling who’s doing what in the marketplace of rhythmic-driven vernacular songs and improvisation. It was flush with fervor, attended by folks with obviously wide-open ears.

Here’s Marsalis despairing that black people don’t support jazz, that the young are ashamed of the swing beat, that black music is willfully ignored by music  conservatories, that white people can’t dance. Pianist/writer Ethan Iverson mostly nods in agreement, announcing that jazz is black music but we’re all Omni-Americans (the late Albert Murray’s admirable assertion).

Jazz And Race: A Conversation – Jazz Congress 2018 from Wynton Marsalis on Vimeo.

No single clip can encompass the creative/political/sonic thrust of 2018 WJF — which after Marathon weekend continued another five days, with star-heavy tributes to Alice Coltrane and Geri Allen, for instance — but here’s a taste from the WJF appearance of singer Jose James at le Poisson Rouge, revisiting Bill Wither’s 1972 folk-rock-r&B hit “Use Me” (which Esther Phillips covered that same year,

and the Portuguese-Australian-Netherlandquintet Mn’Jam Experiment has more recently, with improvised video). A purist might disavow any of these three versions as jazz. Whatever. I like it.

The best WJF sets I heard were —

  • an artfully conceived and unusually well-realized melding of spoken word with unconventional music in “Art and Anthem: For Gwendolyn Brooks,” by WJF artist-in-residence flutist Nicole Mitchell, with pianist Jason Moran, poet Erica Hunt, singer Shana Tucker, bassist Brad Jones and drummer Shirazette Tinnen in brilliant ensemble (Rashida Brumbray also did some emphatic dancing);
  • hot new vocalist Jazzmeia Horn, advancing the approach of Betty Carter, at the commanding center of her tough, blowing band (and with two Grammy nominations for her debut album A Social Call;
  • scabrously sarcastic and nobly tender songs of resistance by Marc Ribot, playing a beat-up old acoustic guitar and ukelele, with loose accompaniment from powerful tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis, acidic altoist Briggan Krauss, supporting singer and flutist Domenica Fossati;
  • a 1:30 am – 2:30 am hit by ultra-charged electric bassist Jamaaladeen Tacuma’s Brotherzone with electric guitarist Ronnie Drayton and drummer Darryl Burgee, members of the original ’70s Last Poets and their protégé, poet Wadud Ahmad.

Pace Wynton Marsalis, who truly does travel the spaceways trying to stir up mainstream audiences for “jazz” and has been singing his downbeat tune for a while, here was considerable evidence “jazz” is healthy, provided we allow “jazz” to be defined by people interested in (as well as artists exploring) what its variable parameters suggest it might be. “Jazz,” our most immediately engaged of art forms is, from my experience at WJF, my usual perspective in Chicago and global correspondence, responding with openness, daring, unbowed energy and spirit to  social, economic and technological developments in real time, virtually everywhere.

The acts I cite above and others at the Marathon — flutist Jamie Baum’s Septet introducing new material; the Sun Ra Arkestra interacting with its 40- 

year-old soundtrack on the Ra-on-film spectacle Space Is The Place; a clangorous attempt by out-jazz/black rock trio Harriet Tubman plus ringers to update Ornette Coleman’s iconic suite Free Jazz — as a matter of course featured multi-racial/religious/ethnic/gendered personnel. Exception proving the rule: saxophone terror James Carter’s Electrik Outlet, four guys who didn’t get the memo re: backing off on sexual innuendo.

 I walked the Marathon route from the New School’s Tishman Auditorium to Subculture on Bleeker and Lafayette, in New York University territory, and everywhere were audiences of wide age span and diverse ancestry. Perhaps not as many, not as young or diverse, not as easily drawn in as we of the hardcore would like, but it’s not a scene in downturn, either — except maybe financially. Which is, of course, a catastrophe, since even jazz musicians (and jazz journalists) have to eat.

Of course, this was Manhattan during a special week in musical presentation, facing an international audience. The convention of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters — those who book artists for your elite venues — was going on, and globalFEST, and other showcases like the club Birdland’s multi-night stand of Vijay Iyer’s sextet of heavies from his critically hailed ECM album Far From Over were scheduled with this in mind. True, ching-ching-a-ling swing as established in the 1930s was not the predominant WJF beat. But I did hear drumming — by Tyshawn Sorey, Matt Wilson, J.T. Lewis and Ms. Tinnin, check ’em out — that swung hard, informed by Art Blakey, Max Roach, Dannie Richmond, Tony Williams, and others of the tradition.

Jamaaladeen Tacuma, photo by Mitch Myers

I prefer music that takes its momentum from the bottom up, rather than float moodily and ethereally, so that’s what I pursued. There were probably WJF sets that didn’t grip or groove, but everyone I heard was thinking about form and substance, and hoped to engage listeners rather than assume their attentions.

There was music at the Jazz Congress. The JALC’s rotunda stage, with floor-to-ceiling windows viewing Columbus Circle and Central Park, had student groups mostly serving as backdrops. But then the Congress was meant to be a venue for bringing up if not working out issues affecting the music’s current ecosystem. The emphasis was on hot topics and casual bump-intos.

So I heard NPR and DownBeat contributor Michelle Mercer moderate a panel on “Women in Jazz” (as distinct from the one she moderated for the JJA’s Jan. 13 Jazz Media Summit on women in jazz journalism). On it, trumpeter/teacher/activist Ellen Seeling explained what it’s taken to get Marsalis’s Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra to institute blind auditions and published notification for jobs. Trumpeter Ingrid Jensen and writer John Murph commented on their work lives, being mostly positive but reporting fulltime awareness that biases about gender, race, sexual orientation, class, etc. might affect professional relationships. Drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, honored by the Congress with its Bruce Lundvall Visionary Award, spoke of mentoring middle school girls learning to play jazz as well as later — and perhaps even earlier — students.

Abdul-Jabbar, beloved for his basketball prowess and unforced charm, in his keynote address (starting in this video at 42 minutes in), told of loving the music. Nothing new there, but he got a standing ovation. There were also presentations by producers of the NPR/WBGO/Jazz at Lincoln Center radio-and- video show Jazz Night in America and independent programmers forums organized by JazzWeek. It’s good to see people from all across the US — Randall Kline of SFJazz, John Gilbreath of Earshot Jazz in Seattle, Tom Guralnick out of Albuquerque, Terri Pontremoli from Cleveland’s Tri-C Jazz Festival, Mark Christman of Ars Nova Workshop, Philadelphia as well as colleagues from France (journalist/broadcaster Alex Duthil), Zurich (Intakt Records producer Patrick Landolt), Toronto (Jane Bunnett and Larry Cramer), London (John Cummings), Bremen (Peter Schulze of JazzAhead!), and lots of East Coast-based associates.

The Jazz Congress replaced the Jazz Connect conference formerly run by JazzTimes and the Jazz Forward Coalition. Coalition principals such as Don Lucoff (DLMedia, PDX Jazz/Portland OR) and Peter Gordon (Thirsty Ear Records) addressed the Congress, too. A good time was had. And then to hear music in New York City! With jazz of the WJF calibre available to record and tour, listenership could grow, if the sector figured out a business model. For all the talk at the Congress, little of it focused on tapping new income streams. At the JazzFest, the plan was, “We’ll play, you’ll come.” Yeah, if folks find out about it, and the show’s not too far from home.

howardmandel.com

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Is NYC (still) capital of jazz?

The early January concurrence of the Jazz Connect conference, the annual convention of APAP (Association of Performing Arts Presenters), Global Fest and Winter JazzFest makes a good case for Manhattan being the capital of jazz-and-beyond.

Shabaka and the Ancestors, London-South African band breaking out via Winter JazzFest at (le) Poisson Rouge; photo by Jati Lindsay

It’s inarguably true that creative sound-organizing with improvisation and rhythm is world-wide, and our native version — jazz and its derivatives – thrives throughout in the US, even in places it’s overlooked. And the record biz centralized in NYC, which fed this music’s market segment from the ’20s into the ’00s, is a blip of its past. But still, New York City . . .

The annual Jazz Connect conference ran Jan. 5 and 6, with some 1000 musicians, their managers, agents, labels, publicists, presenters, broadcasters and critics filling meeting rooms and even the chapel of St. Peter’s Church. Produced by the Jazz Forward Coalition (Peter Gordon of Carmel CA’s Thirsty-Ear Records, director) in partnership with JazzTimes (principally via Lee Mergner, publisher of the Braintree MA-based magazine and website) with special assistance from Don Lucoff of DLMedia (of suburban Philadelphia and the PDX Jazz Festival in Portland OR), Jazz Connect is the sole US get-together for jazz professionals who aren’t educators (they met the same weekend, this year in New Orleans, via the Jazz Education Network (JEN)).

I must have schmoozed with half of those at Jazz Connect, including friends and associates from Albuquerque (Tom Guralnick of the Outpost), Austin (pianist Peggy Stern, splitting her time in Kingston NY), the Bay Area (promotions and public relations specialist Marshall Lamm), Baltimore (writer Geoff Himes, JJA board member Don Palmer), Boston (Berklee student and JazzBoston newsletter editor Grace-Mary Burega), Boulder (Peter Poses, dj at KRFC), Columbia MO (Peter’s brother Jon Poses, of the We Always Swing jazz series),  Honolulu (Stephanie Castillo, filmmaker, director of Night Bird Song about the late Thomas Chapin), Los Angeles (Zev Feldman of Resonance Records), New Haven (musician and writer Allen Lowe), Richmond VA (broadcaster Josh Jackson), Rochester NY (Derrick Lucas, Jazz90.1), Paris (journalist and radio show host Alex Dutilh), Pittsburgh (journalist Mike Shanley), Portland OR (Matt Fleeger of KMHD), Seattle (Earshot’s John Gilbreath), Tucson (Yvonne Ervin; the Charles Mingus Festival and Memorial Park in Nogales, AZ is among her many works), Washington DC (Rusty Hassan of WPFW,  Willard “Open Sky Jazz” Jenkins, NEA jazz specialist Katja von Schuttenbach), Wilmington (writer Eugene Holley), Ypsilanti (WEMU’s Linda Yohn) —

— and of course many New Yorkers (journalist/educator David Adler, producer Todd Barkan, singer E.J. Decker, Jim “JazzPromo Works” Eigo, Barney Fields of HighNote/Savant Records, Albany/Nippertown jazz journo J Hunter, baritone sax star Howard Johnson, Jeff Levenson of Half Note Records, Village Voice and JazzTimes writer Aidan Levy, Jason Olaine of Jazz at Lincoln Center, pianist Roberta Picket (hanging out with saxophonist Virginia Mayhew), Mark Ruffin of Sirius/XM Radio, singer Kendra Shank, trumpeter-producer David Weiss, pianist-educator Eli Yamin, . . way too many to name) and fellow Chicagoans (saxophonist/AACM chair Ernest Dawkins, Hot House presenter Marguerite Horberg, writer/radio producer Neil Tesser) . . .

Many attendees, after hours of concentrated schmoozing, went directly to play or hear music, at one of the couple dozen venues detailed in the admirably comprehensive performance calendar of The New York City Jazz Record.

Harlem party — Wayne Escoffery holding his tenor sax. Photo by Alain Biltereyst.

On the Thursday night I went with fellow Jazz Journalists Association members Angelika Beener and Ted Panken to hear L.A.-based pianist-composer-arranger John Beasley‘s star-studded Monk’estra at Dizzy’s Club in Jazz at Lincoln Center — beautifully detailed, original expositions of centennial celebrant Thelonious Monk‘s indestructible melodies (chatted with heir/drummer T.S. Monk there, as well as alto saxist Ted Nash — hear his Presidential Suite (Eight Variations on Freedom) and Jazzweek publisher Ed Trefzger)– then cabbed to the Harlem apartment of Azerbijian-born pianist-composer Amina Figarova and her husband flutist Bart Platteau, originally from Belgium for a party/jam session that included tenor saxist Wayne Escoffery, pianist Bertha Hope, bassist Ark Ovrutski, guitarist Roni Ben-Hur and 15-year-old singer Alexis Morrast giving lustrous voice to “My Funny Valentine.” Talked at length to Jim Wadsworth, presenter at Cleveland’s Nighttown, and photographer Gulnara Khamatova, one of the photographers for Winter JazzFest.

Friday Jan 6 was the first night of the WJF marathon, performances from dozens of new and emerging artists/ensembles from 6 pm to 2 pm simultaneously in 13 downtown venues. The clubs and concert halls are no longer grouped all on or near Greenwich Village’s main drag Bleecker Street — they’re now dispersed as far east at NuBlu on Ave. C, as far south as Bowery Ballroom at the edge of Chinatown, and west to S.O.B.’s on 7th Avenue South. Getting everywhere might be possible by bike, scooter or Segway but I ping-ponged only from 13th Street, where buildings of the New School offered variously sized stages, to (le) Poisson Rouge and Subculture on Bleecker, 10 blocks down.

My aim was to hear music not likely to be in Chicago soon, and I started with trombonist/composer/conductor Craig Harris‘ Breathe, which collected some 35 players to embody the JazzFest’s stated mission to “explicitly support social and racial justice by presenting socially engaged artist who have urgent and beautiful musical messages to share.”

Singer Alexis Morrast, photo by Alain Bilteryst

Harris did this in a suite-like structure by featuring soloists – first up, Zusaan Kali Fasteau on ney — and spontaneously conjured backdrops, sometimes drawing from his established compositions (the finale has been recorded as “Lovejoy”). Individualistic expression was implicit in this plan, a diversity of personal statements that did not detract from overall unity of purpose. Closeup portraits projected behind the ensemble emphasized the humanness of those imperiled by racial discrimination — which is everyone.

On the advice of publicist Matt Merewitz, I hurried to Subculture for trombonist Jacob Garchik’s Ye Olde, with guitarists Mary Halvorson, Ava Mendoza and Jonathan Goldberger, plus drummer Vinnie Sperrazza. Garchik has earned his reputation as a skilled and witty composer-arranger. In this very loud setting, he outlined minimalisticly short riffs familiar from rock/r&b/pop classics, freeing the guitars to rampage wall-of-sound style. Mendoza is a find, and Ye Olde, which seeems highly tourable, may appeal to audiences that aren’t used to or interested in “jazz” per se. Maybe even for some who are. I stayed for a tune by singer Somi, accompanied by a quartet fronted by guitarist Liberty Ellman — also not for me.

Craig Harris conducts Breathe; photo by Gulnara Khamatova

Back in New School land, I caught trumpeter Paul Smoker with pianist Uri Caine, bassist Mark Helias and drummer Clarence Penn reeling a far abstraction back into its basis in the standard “All the Things You Are,” and then a highlight: Chicago drummer Mike Reed’s Flesh and Bone septet, with wild spokenwordsman Marvin Tate, alto saxophonist Greg Ward, bass clarinetist Jason Stein, cornetist Ben Lamar Gay, tenor saxist Tim Haldeman and bassist Jason Roebke showing how high energy blowing can be framed by riffs and rhythms for fun in balance with frenzy. Hot stuff — look for Flesh and Bone’s album in March-April. Nightcap was Arturo O’Farrill’s quintet with saxophonist Roy Nathanson, new-to-me trumpeter Billy Mintz, bassist Brad Jones giving a lot of juice to Monk music.

Shabaka Hutchings at (le) Poisson Rouge, photo by Jati Lindsay

Saturday began at ECM Records‘ stage, with bassist Michael Formanek’s quartet of alto saxophonist Tim Berne, pianist Craig Taborn and drummer Gerald Cleaver. Their interactions struck me as densely detailed, kinetic and self-referential. Hastening through slush to (le) Poisson Rouge, I caught Shabaka & The Ancestors, based in London, rooted in South Africa, and poised to emerge from their North American debut opening a sold-out show for Pharoah Sanders as next to enjoy the new audience popularity of, say, Kamasi Washington. Tenor saxist Shabaka Hutchings has a big yet essentially easy-going affect, matched and poked by altoist Thunzi Mvubu, with Siyabonga Mthembu providing vocals, often wordless. There was an appealing aspect of chant to their tunes, which flowed from calm to intensity and back; rhythm by bassist Ariel Zomonsky and drummer Tumi Mogorosi was strongly African in tone — authentically so, never outlandish. Subsequently I’ve listened to they album Wisdom of Elders, distinguished by warm, swinging soulfulness, the addition of a trumpeter and a fine keyboardist Nduduzo Makhathini, and spare use of electronic effects.

As I’d written a DownBeat record review of Cuban pianist Harold Lopez-Nussa‘s El Viaje and was only six snowy blocks from Subculture, I went to hear him live. His trio had his brother Ruy Lopez-Nussa on drums and electric bassist Julio Cesar Gonzalez — “Lopez-Nussa always has the best bassists,” connoisseur of Cuban culture Ned Sublette remarked before they went on, and by reference to Gonzalez, he’s right. The three were spirited, but their material seemed anodyne — a reaction which tells me I’ve heard enough music. And having spoken in passing with folks including percussionist Adam Rudolph, drummer Hamid Drake, guitarist Kenny Wessel, Kent Devereaux (ex-Cornish Institute, now president of New Hampshire Institute of Art), Seattle music journalist Paul deBarros, writer Bill Milkowski, composer-orchestra leader Darcy James Argue, ECM publicist Tina Pelikan, storyteller Mitch Myers, former film producer Bill Horberg (now working with Karl Berger’s Creative Music Studio), photographer Alan Nahagian, Tom Greenland (author of Jazzing: New York City’s Unseen Scene) and Vancouver Coastal Jazz festival’s Rainbow Robert, among others, I was exhausted so called it quits early, missing much. Didn’t even try Sunday for Globalfest, the showcase of international acts eager to tour our country, at Webster Hall. By then I was eager to fly home.

The capital is, after all, where people come together for business. It’s not necessary to live there. I lived in NYC for more than 30 years, and it’s fun to return but I don’t miss being there daily now. Is it the capital? Despite its considerable challenges — costs of travel, accommodation, transportation, meals, at the very least —  no other place seems so hospitable for the gathering of jazz people. Yet we are everywhere, and it’s vital we listen to what surrounds us.

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Jazz conventions, conferences, celebrations, memorial Jan 6 – 11

The jazz world convenes in two U.S. cities this weekend, as high school and college bands + directors gather at the JEN Conference in New Orleans, jazz presenters focus themselves at the APAP convention in New York City and jazz journalists get together on topics vital to better and continued music coverage at the JJA’s “New Media for New Jazz” conference, in APAP-provided spaces at the Sheraton New York, Jan 7 – 11. Concurrently, 60 new jazz ensembles  showcase in five NYC Greenwich Village clubs for Winter Jazzfest, the NEA celebrates its newly enrolled Jazz Masters at Jazz at Lincoln Center (with live streaming! — see below) and the entire community mourns/celebrates at the memorial service for Dr. Billy Taylor at Riverside Church.

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Jazz journalism & beyond weekend

Jazz journalists conferenced in New York City last weekend as arts presenters, National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters and musical showcases galore (including an audience-happy Winter Jazzfest and the debut of drummer Jack DeJohnette‘s hot new band) justified the very existence of the profession.

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Parameters of jazz now

The Winterjazzfest held at three venues in Greenwich Village last Saturday, a smorgasbord of almost two dozen acts offered up to attendees of the Association of Performing Arts Centers conference, gave a hint of some sounds to be heard around the U.S. in the months to come. What I witnessed was diverse, engaging, virtuosic but not didactic. The musicians seem to know they’ve got to be audience-friendly, or go without. So they’ve tailored their acts for clarity, balancing familiarity and novelty but not dumbing down. 

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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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