The Rifftides discussion about the size of the jazz audience moves along as comments continue to come in. Most them are posted following the original item, which you will find here. We’re adding the following communique from the pianist and composer Vijay Iyer, who goes beyond the effect of formal music education to questions of commerce and cultural health. Pandora’s box is now officially open.

1) Why does something have to be commercially successful to be judged as meritorious? Jazz was rarely ever commercially successful except on a very small scale. Soundscan changed everything, because then music was assessed not by its merits but by its absolute sales figures. The slippage between monetary and cultural value is typically American and it lies at the heart of this issue.
2) The entire market for music (not just jazz) is crumbling because of new technologies and unprecedented levels of access to the entire recorded archive. Meanwhile, however, more and more musicians of all levels of accomplishment are able to create, record, and distribute their own music. There are difficult repercussions here, but let’s not blind ourselves to what’s undeniably positive about both of these new realities.
3) There is essentially no jazz radio of any kind here. Gone are the days when Miles, Stevie Wonder, Weather Report, and Sam Rivers were played on the same station. This is Clear Channel country; we have been divided and conquered.
Anyway, why should artists or audiences take any blame for any of this?
This is a music that requires nurturing and noncommercial support at all levels. There should be no stigma here; the same is true of classical music, even more so, and nobody doubts its merit or cultural value. In fact, individual patrons shell out big bucks to preserve classical and “new” music.
It takes vision to make this happen for jazz. Having toured all over the world, I must say that there’s very little of it in this country. One of the few glowing examples in the US is Outpost Performance Space in Albuquerque. Look at their web site, especially this page, and ask yourself: how many other jazz presenters in the US are willing to pursue such a combination of fundraising, partnerships with community organizations, local businesses, and academic institutions, strong curatorial vision, and audience development over such a long term? You can count them on one hand.
What if we had one or two such upstart venues in every state? The entire scene would be different.

My Jazz Times review of the Lionel Hampton International Jazz Festival is published in full on the magazine’s web site. It includes most of what I reported in Rifftides and some festival background added for JT.

When I listen to the two-track analog stereo tape recordings Roy DuNann (pictured) made for the Contemporary label shortly after the perfection of stereo in the 1950s, I curse the boneheads who, because they could, introduced multi-track, multi-microphone recording. Digital capability then came along with 587-channel mixing boards and made post production a sci-fi adventure that compounded all of the engineering wizards’ sins. Red Mitchell was right; simple isn’t easy. That applies to everything in life, especially audio engineering. Rudy Van Gelder, nominated by acclamation as the god of jazz recording, was better in early stereo than after he got all the toys. For one thing, in the fifties his pianos sounded more like pianos.

Roy DuNann is most likely a genius. Listen to his recording of Double Play! with Andre Previn and Russ Freeman at two pianos and Shelly Manne playing drums. DuNann recorded it in Contemporary’s studio in Los Angeles in 1957. The little company’s studio was the shipping room.

If you want another example of what DuNann could do with minimal high-quality equipment in a tiny space, try Sonny Rollins’ Way Out West. Rollins, Ray Brown and Manne played side by side, not in isolation booths, captured cleanly with just enough separation, plenty of depth and no cute tricks. There are dozens of other DuNann recordings in the OJC catalogue, still available. If it was recorded for Contemporary in the 1950s or ’60s, chances are DuNann was the engineer.

It is worth the frustration of navigating the confusing Concord Records web site in search of DuNann gems by Previn, Manne, Art Pepper, Art Farmer, Hampton Hawes, Lennie Niehaus, Shorty Rogers, Benny Carter, Benny Golson, Duane Tatro and Red Mitchell, among others. Click on the pull-down menu titled Original Jazz Classics Artists. Be aware that Concord has the strange practice of listing artists alphabetically by first name.

Last I heard, Roy DuNann was still with us, living in Seattle.

It’s taken me all my life to learn what not to play.
-Dizzy Gillespie-
It’s not the mistakes that count, it’s what you do after them that counts.
-Thelonious Monk-

I know, I know. I promised a survey of recent CDs. But a couple of writing assignments materialized, the kind that bring more than the psychic rewards associated with blogging, and I must meet the deadlines. In the meantime, here’s a link to an informal performance of “Sweet Lorraine” by Zoot Sims, Red Mitchell and Rune Gustafsson. It’s a good way to start your week: relaxed, swinging and happy. It will help you understand what Paul Desmond meant when he said that going to the Half Note and listening to Zoot was like getting your back scratched. Mitchell’s eight-bar introduction is a gem.

There has been interesting response to the Rifftides musing a few postings ago about jazz audiences decreasing at the same time that jazz education programs are burgeoning. Here is an excerpt from one comment:

A lot of talented high school and college band directors never program anything more adventurous than Thad Jones — or worse, third-rate Thad Jones knock-offs. [This is not to knock Thad, of course — I love Thad.] Many of them are completely unaware of any developments in jazz since, say, 1967, and aren’t even aware of what’s going on locally. They never take their students to jazz clubs or bring in local musicians to do workshops and sit in with the students.

For the original item and all of the readers’ comments, go here.

Reports from New York are that the benefit for pianist Larry Willis last week at St. Peter’s Church raised more than $5,000. That won’t build Willis a new house, but it will help him replace some of what he lost in a January fire. More than two dozen pianists, including some of the most prominent in jazz, played for Willis. One of them, Deanna Witkowski, sent her impression of the event:

I thought that the evening was beautiful, and there really was a lot of love in the room! The concert lasted for about three and a half hours.

Another of the pianists, Lenore Raphael, wrote:

It was warm and thrilling to be part of such a benefit and tribute. We played on a 9 foot Fazioli dream of a piano and everyone got as much out of it as one could get from such a great instrument. I wish you could have been there.

Willis himself played at the benefit, a duet with trumpeter Jimmy Owens. Total attendance through the evening was about 250. For a recommended CD by Larry Willis, see Doug’s Picks in the right-hand column.

Please note that in the right-hand column under Doug’s Picks are five new recommendations. At the end of the Picks selections, you have the option of going to the Picks archive for previous CDs, DVDs and books.
Have a good weekend.

The classic Dave Brubeck Quartet (Brubeck, Desmond, Morello and Wright) frequently opened their concerts with Billy Strayhorn’s “Take The ‘A’ Train.” At a 1966 concert, German television caught back-to-back performances of “‘A’ Train” and Brubeck’s “Forty Days.” They have surfaced on the Daily Motion web site. Audio quality is good, black and white video quality acceptable. Camera work and direction are excellent. The lengthy clip–nearly sixteen minutes–provides a reminder of the Brubeck rhythm section’s finely attuned empathy, of Paul Desmond’s melodic ingenuity and of his imperative to make each solo a fresh statement. To see and hear the video, go here.

To jazz fans, Annie Ross will always be a third of the nonpareil singing group Lambert, Hendricks and Ross. But she left L-H-R in 1962. Ever since, she has been up to her ears in a variety of music and entertainment ventures. Will Friedwald caught up with the indefatigable Ms. Ross in New York and talked with her about her kaleidoscopic show business life and current singing career. She told Will about Bob Weinstock of Prestige Records asking her in 1952 if she could write lyrics to a group of instrumental solos.

I took the records home to my little one-room flat and the one that caught my ear was Wardell Gray’s “Twisted” — that suggested a whole mess of things to me.

Ross’s recording of “Twisted” became a jazz hit and led to her teaming with Dave Lambert and Jon Hendricks. To read more about Annie Ross In Friedwald’s New York Sun column, go here.