Archives for May 2008

Chet Baker’s life of beauty and pain ended twenty years ago tonight on an Amsterdam sidewalk. He may have killed himself. That is unlikely, in my opinion. He may have fallen from his hotel window. He may have been thrown or pushed. Either way, as hard as Baker was on nearly everyone else in his life, he was even harder on himself. Far from the first gifted artist to burn himself out, Chet did it rather slowly compared with Charlie Parker, Bix Beiderbecke, Oscar Wilde and Edgar Allan Poe. It is a tribute to the toughness of his Oklahoma country genes that despite decades of self-abuse, he lived nearly fifty-eight years.

 Jazz is an art most of which disappears at the instant of its creation. We can be perversely grateful that Baker supported his destructive habit by recording whenever anyone asked him to. There may be a major jazz artist with a larger body of recorded work, but I can’t think who it might be. An astonishing percentage of it is good. He did some of his best playing on record in his final years, when the conventional wisdom was that he was a creative shadow of his young self. He made the brilliant Chet Baker in Tokyo  in concert less than a year before he died. It includes the ultimate version of his signature piece, “My Funny Valentine.”

Because YouTube has withdrawn most of its clips of Baker under threat of legal action, there is little internet video of him. This brief clip from a performance of “Nardis” is an exception. This web site is a grab bag of things Baker and has links to several clips, including scenes from his dreadful 1950s movie Hell’s Horizons. Be patient; the site has maddening buffering problems as the clips come up. This Jazz Icons DVD is the best bet for extended exposure to Baker playing on camera.

The best biography of Baker is probably yet to come because Jeroen de Valk is revising his substantial 1989 account of the trumpeter’s life. Those who think that Baker was trashed in James Gavin’s hateful Deep In A Dream: The Long Night of Chet Baker are looking forward to a more balanced treatment in de Valk’s new edition.

The Chet Baker Foundation’s web site contains a touching remembrance of Baker by his former drummer and loyal friend Artt Frank, who is at work on his own book about Baker. Its background music is a wonderfully intimate version of Chet playing “My Funny Valentine.”

If I had the speed and fluidity of, say, Terry Teachout, I might have finished a spate of non-Rifftides writing assignments sooner–and a book or two on the side. As it is, there’s a good chance that I’ll return to blogging this very week.

 

Learn to write well, or not to write at all.–John Dryden, Essay on Satire

Coleridge was a drug addict. Poe was an alcoholic. Marlowe was killed by a man whom he was treacherously trying to stab. Pope took money to keep a woman’s name out of a satire then wrote a piece so that she could still be recognized anyhow. Chatterton killed himself. Byron was accused of incest. Do you still want to a writer – and if so, why?–Bennett Cerf

A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.–Thomas Mann

Nine years ago, the clarinetist, improvisational whistler and musical educator Brad Terry hosted in the United States three young musicians he had worked with in Poland. I mean young.

Mateusz Kolakowski, the pianist, was thirteen. In this picture from that period, we see him with Terry. Bassist Michal Baranski and drummer Tomek Torres were fifteen. Terry toured the country with them in his old Dodge van, overnighting in RV parks and driveways and playing whenever they could, sometimes in paying gigs. They even stopped in Montana and jammed with Buddy DeFranco. Here is some of what I wrote about them in the November, 1999 Jazz Times:

Baranski and Kolakowski have facility, harmonic acuity and solo skills that would do credit to players ten years older. The steadiness and propulsiveness of Torres’ timekeeping complements his partners’ imaginative playing. Torres has been a pianist since the age of seven. He also plays guitar. He won first place in the 1997 Polish national Young Drummers competition. Baranski started on piano when he was seven, moved to cello and was laureate of Poland’s National Chamber Competition in 1993. He started playing bass at the age of 12. Kolakowski, born in 1986, has won prizes in several classical piano competitions devoted to the music of Chopin and Paderewski.

“The most astounding thing about these kids is that at 13 and 15, they already have a sense of ensemble,” pianist Roger Kellaway says. “They really listen to each other. And look out for the bass player.”

Look out, indeed. The other day, Brad Terry sent me a link to a video clip of Baranski, who is now twenty-four, playing in Prague with the trio of the young Czech guitarist David Doruzka. To see and hear his development by way of an intriguing treatment of Gershwin’s “Who Cares,” click here.

As for Baranski’s former trio mates, Kolakowski is still pursuing Chopin, Paderewski and jazz. Torres, though he is Polish, is exploring his Latin heritage.

As a bonus, here is more of Baranski, this time with the excellent Polish singer Aga Zaryan.

Now, back to work on my long essay about Oscar Peterson. It will show up with the next batch of Jazz Icons DVDs. Have a good weekend. 

One of the pleasures of my trips to New York has been to drop in to the Waldorf-Astoria during
the cocktail hour to hear Daryl Sherman. She has perfect taste in songs, seems to know every good one ever written, plays the piano with a repertoire of satisfying and often surprising chord changes, and sings like an angel. I mentioned the experience in this post early in the life of Rifftides.

Well, the rule of all good things has caught up with Daryl and those who became addicted to her at the Waldorf. Stephen Holden broke the news in this morning’s New York Times.

As of Sunday evening, those sounds will be stilled. A few weeks ago, Ms. Sherman received word that for economic reasons her tenure at the cocktail terrace between the Empire and Hilton Rooms would end. Saturday and Sunday’s performances are four-hour laps, from 3:30 to 7:30 p.m.

Last year, the Hilton hotel chain, which owns the Waldorf-Astoria, was sold to the Blackstone Group of investors. Such sales almost always entail streamlining the operations and cutting back expenses.

To read Holden’s entire story, go here.

If other New York hotels aren’t beginning vigorous bidding to be Sherman’s next stand, they’re nuts. Listen to this CD to understand why the Waldorf’s self-inflicted loss should be somebody’s gain.  

While the staff at Rifftides world headquarters labors over outside writing obligations, Washington, DC correspondent John Birchard fills the gap with his impressions of a concert by a major pianist and his new trio.

KENNY BARRON TRIO AT THE KENNEDY CENTER

May 3, 2008

Review by John Birchard

Any lingering suspicion that jazz is a purely American art form could have been wiped away last night (May 3), as the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC, presented the Kenny Barron Trio, made up of Philadelphia’s Barron at the piano, Kiyoshi Kitagawa of Osaka, Japan on bass and the drummer Francisco Mela from Bayamo, Cuba. We caught the first of two sets in the Center’s Family Theater, an intimate box that features excellent acoustics and steeply-angled seating with good sight lines throughout.

Barron eased into the program with Luis Bonfa’s “Manha de Carnaval”, first as an unaccompanied solo, then with a comfortable medium bossa nova rhythm. The pianist moved through the changes, making marvelous, unexpected chord
substitutions as he explored the familiar tune. Mela is an interesting drummer. His time is loosey-goosey and he plays around the beat but never loses it. He has a light but firm touch and uses humor in his fills and solos. Bassist Kitagawa reminds this listener of Charlie Haden in that he usually keeps to the lower register on his instrument, playing firm time with occasional, tasteful decorations inserted in appropriate spots. As for the international aspects of their backgrounds, the two could well have come from Detroit or Central Avenue in L.A. Their playing reveals no “foreign” accents.

The standard “How Deep is the Ocean” followed, taken at a medium tempo. Barron seemed to be thoroughly warmed up, as he spun out a number of finger-busting runs during his solo. The leader introduced each tune with remarks that displayed a warmth and sense of humor, but were not long-winded. Rather like his piano work, his ad libs got straight to the point. An original came next – “Lullaby”, a waltz with interesting twists and turns in the melody. Barron followed that with a Monk tune, “Ask me Now” played as a ballad. In so doing, he gave the tune a chance to breathe and he played Monk without trying to sound like Monk. That was refreshing.

In the only “commercial” note of the evening, Barron mentioned that the original titled “Calypso” will be found on his new CD, The Traveler, coming out later this month. This Calypso is one of the few that doesn’t sound like “Saint Thomas”. It has surprising hesitations built into the melody, but the rhythm is pure infectious Caribbean. Barron exercised his considerable Latin chops on this one.

Inspired by a wedding anniversary visit to Tahiti – the Barrons’ 45th, he pointed out – he expressed another attractive original known as “Cook’s Bay”, with a light Latin beat. The piece has the sort of lilting sound that makes one want to visit that part of the world to see what caused Barron to come up with it. “Cook’s Bay” rounded out the set and prompted a loud and long ovation from the sold-out house.

Barron returned to the stage alone and, for an encore, performed the old Eubie Blake-Andy Razaf standard “Memories of You” in what might be described as a delicate stride. It was a captivating performance that demonstrated just how much jazz history Kenny Barron has at his fingertips. He is not an overwhelming player in the manner of Oscar Peterson. But think of all the great players who have hired him over the years and sung his praises, from Dizzy Gillespie to Stan Getz. He is in the middle of the mainstream, but his touch at the keyboard, his rich knowledge of chords, his taste, inventiveness and subtle soul make him, in this listener’s book, a national treasure. It was a joy to spend a couple of hours in his company.

Mrs. Rifftides and I spent her birthday far from the madding crowd–and from blogging. We arrived at the Sleeping Lady Mountain Retreat just after a hundred or so conferees had checked out. The sixty-seven enchanted acres on Icicle Creek in the foothills of the
Cascades were almost exclusively ours for a day and night. Winter–several feet of it–was still evident on the peaks above us, but down below we had spring and no obligations.

We wandered the paths, played horseshoes (badly), climbed the hills among clumps of yellow flowers, briefly tested the elliptical trainer in the exercise room, and had a world-class dinner. The entrée was ono, the fish whose name means “delicious” in Hawaiian, brilliantly prepared by the young chef Rene Nuňez. From our table at the Kingfisher Dining Lodge, we had the unexpected treat of seeing Sleeping Lady’s founder and grande dame, Harriet Bullitt, alight from the cable tram that carries her over the creek between her house and the retreat. Later, Mrs. R and I chatted for an hour in the Grotto Bar over a Three Rivers syrah. Back in our room, rustic in its three-star way, we drifted off to sleep to a bullfrog serenade from the pond next door.

There is no television in the rooms at Sleeping Lady. Smoking is not allowed inside or out. Good. Background music at breakfast included recordings by Oscar Peterson, Kenny Burrell and a pretty good trumpet player with a Harmon mute (Sal Marquez?) imitating Miles Davis.
We would rather have done without it. The music intruded on the nature that surrounded us. We were glad to leave it behind, stroll along the creek and see the morning sun illuminate
 Dale Chihuly’s nine-foot glass sculpture, “Icicle,” mounted atop a boulder. One does not need music every hour of the day. I remember once asking Jim Hall, “What are you listening to these days?” “Silence,” he said. Bravo. Nearly three years ago, we had a Rifftides discussion about the virtues of silence. To read it, click here.

Before we crossed the Cascades for home, we shopped amid the kitschy Bavarian charm of the village of Leavenworth. An hour was enough.

Back at my desk, I’m facing deadlines for three pieces of work that, as of today, are officially overdue. That means blogging will have to take a back seat for a while. Until it resumes, please check out the archive. You’ll find the link to it in red, in the center column.

Silence is a source of great strength.–Lao Tzu

One of the greatest sounds of them all – and to me it is a sound – is utter, complete silence.–Andre Kostelanetz

Choose silence of all virtues, for by it you hear other men’s imperfections, and conceal your own. –George Bernard Shaw