Archives for November 2005

The tenor saxophonist and composer Alex Coke wrote me from his home in Austin, Texas, asking if I would listen to his new CD. After going to his website, I replied, with misgivings, that if he sent the album, I would. Music advertised as being on a social mission is almost certain to end up on the stack of CDs that I might some day get around to. I find that few such pieces are in a league with certain works of Ligeti, Schulhof, Penderecki, Sonny Rollins’ “Freedom Suite,” Ellington’s “Black, Brown and Beige,” a couple of songs by Woody Guthrie and Beethoven’s “Eroica.”
Coke’s IRAQNOPHOBIA/Wake Up Dead Man is on VoxLox, a small label explaining that its “documentary sound art advocates for human rights and acoustic ecology. Our human rights recordings present exile, refugee, disaporic, and indigenous voices muted or censored by mainstream media.” That kind of description would ordinarily guarantee an album a reservation on the some-day stack. But a promise is a promise. I listened. The creed the company wears on its sleeve did not prepare me for what I heard—music that needs no mission statement to be effective as music. It has variety, melodic and harmonic interest, humor and depth. I reacted to it much as I did to Witness, a Dave Douglas album of a few seasons ago whose music was “about” profit-oriented greed, environmental irresponsibility, “rampant poverty” and protest of “a system that co-opts and marginalizes almost every unique and original thought that confronts it.” Not that I discount protest music. In a Jazz Times review of Witness, I wrote, in part:

Songs are effective vehicles for the delivery of outrage, and the history of protest music is only slightly shorter than the history of music itself. Musical expression of political protest reached its greatest concentration in the 20th century, which provided not only inexhaustible fodder for it but also the technical means of delivering protest messages to the masses. From Joe Hill and the I.W.W. through Woody Guthrie to Billie Holiday, Bob Dylan and Rage Against the Machine, music has shaped the way that populations think about issues. Can anyone doubt the influence of popular music on America’s civil-rights struggle or its turn against the Vietnam War? Further examples abound in Pakistan, Czechoslovakia, Indonesia and dozens of other countries.

Nonetheless, as I listened to Coke’s music, the messages about domestic ills (prisons and social justice) and foreign-policy mistakes (the Iraq war) receded. They were not lost but were superseded by accomplished writing, improvising and ensemble playing. The pieces incorporate elements of Southern blues, modern mainstream jazz, avant garde classical music, free jazz and middle-Eastern songs. There are intentionally jarring notes, but only a few incongruous ones, most of them in a silly unbridled trombone solo in the “Iraqnophobia” section. Even the track’s title, “The Shreik of Araby,” is out of keeping with the overall seriousness of the project. But that is a mercifully brief blemish on an album that is impressive for its quality, music that can stand on its own, aside from the message.
For a profile of Alex Coke go to this story in the Austin Chronicle.

Early tomorrow, I’m headed back to Seattle and the Earshot Jazz Festival to cover the Bill Charlap Trio for Jazz Times. I’ll be traveling light; that is, without the laptop, so the probability of new Rifftides posts is small for the next couple of days. Unlike some foresightful bloggers, this one has no contributing editor backing him up. So, enjoy all of the arts journal.com mavens listed in the right-hand column, and come back soon.

If Beethoven had been killed in a plane crash at the age of 22, it would have changed the history of music… and of aviation—Tom Stoppard

Bob Brookmeyer periodically posts Currents, his reflections—not all of them ascerbic—on music, life, love, war and other matters. The next one is often a long time coming. The last one was on July 5, shortly after a club gig in New York.

The Jazz Standard is a very fine place and the people who work there are unfailingly gentle and helpful. However, they — and all jazz clubs — suffer from the fear of silence. The minute we stop playing, ON comes the music from somewhere, and it won’t stop until we get on the stand — sometimes not even then. It’s an established tradition and a vile one.

To read the whole thing, go here.
Serious musicians generally share Brookmeyer’s irritation with canned music in clubs and other public places. In my experience, most of them are distracted by it and incapable of closing their ears to it. This has come up before on Rifftides.

The truth is, I don’t want to hear Desmond, or any other music, in the Safeway, at the gas station, in Starbucks, the Mexico City subway, The Gap or the dentist’s office, certainly not on the street, and not often in my car. I don’t have an Ipod and don’t want one. I want a little peace and quiet now and then.

To read the whole thing, go here.
And to read a followup, go here.

In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness—Mahatma Ghandi

Rifftides reader Doug Freeman reports from Los Angeles that he has finished reading Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond.

Perhaps more than any biography I’ve read, yours leaves me wanting to know this man, to hang with him as you were fortunate enough to do.

Mr. Freeman has a question.

The regret I’m most left with after finishing your wonderful book, though, is not to be able to hear his speaking voice. I’m wondering if any of the on-air interviews you cited are hearable anywhere. Or any other evidence of his vocal pattern. We know his musical rhythm so well, and thanks to your book I have a decent sense of his life rhythm, but given his gift for the English language, it sure would be nice to know his speaking rhythm.

We’re in luck. On his web site, the San Francisco saxophonist Mel Martin has a Real Audio clip of Paul’s interview with Charlie Parker on disc jockey John McClellan’s program in Boston in 1954. To listen to it, go hereTake Five.

My problem is that I appeal to everyone that can do me absolutely no good—Rodney Dangerfield

They say you should be nice to everyone on your way up because you might need them on your way down. I haven’t seen anyone I know on the way down—Jack Sheldon