Red Sea Jazz Festival

Bassist Arlid Andersen has been a presence on the European jazz scene since the late 1960’s leading his own bands and performing with the likes of Jan Garbarek. Long associated with the ECM label, he pushes against the notion of music on that label having a particular airy and light “sound” with a burning live album of post-bop jazz. Along with Andersen (who also adds some electronics) are Tommy Smith on tenor saxophone and Paolo Vinaccia on drums. The album has a four part suite called “Interdependency,” part one of which opens with percussive bass and probing sax looking for an opening into the music, saxophone building and the bass getting an appealing elastic tone. Part two was the highlight of the album for me, an awesome performance featuring Smith on an emotional overblown saxophone solo. His strong burning post-bop exploration is complemented by an excellent bass and drums interlude. Part three slows things back down and makes the music spacier, with some long form sax lines and bass augmented by electronics which provide a framework for the music. Part four ends the lengthy suite with swinging saxophone, dynamically adding some overblowing before moving back to swing. Duke Ellington’s “Prelude to a Kiss” follows with Smith exploring the song and improvising at a nice mellow pace before slowly increasing the tempo. “Outhouse” opens with percussion, before the bass and saxophone build in. Sax bursts forth like blinding sun through clouds, strong and fast with an awesome solo. Smith is just on fire throughout this album, he is someone I would really like to investigate more, he has a very exciting tone and the dramatic and dynamic way in which he organizes his solos is very appealing. “Dreamhorse” concludes the album with a melodic and folk-like performance featuring mellow bass and melodic and elegiac saxophone. I liked this album a lot, the music was very exciting and fresh, and the variety was quite compelling. The openness of the trio setting allowed all three musicians adequate space for soloing and for collective playing. But it was Mr. Smith that was the revelation for me, hopefully this will be a springboard for him getting some recognition and recording opportunities.

With his large physical stature and trademark Flying-V guitar, bluesman Albert King cut an imposing figure who was very influential in rock, blues and soul circles. This album collects King at the height of his powers, recording for Stax Records in the late 1960’s and backed by the incomparable Booker T. and the MG’s. This music is a fine melding of blues and soul - King’s booming, yet subtle voice and great guitar are on display throughout the album. King was never flashy and he rarely overplayed, but always seemed to play the right not at the right time. Among the influential performances on this album is “Born Under a Bad Sign” and “Crosscut Saw,” two compositions that would be envied and covered by countless rock ‘n’ roll bands of the time. King’s stinging guitar is notably featured on some very cool instrumentals like “Funk Shun” and “I Love Lucy.” Also notable are the songs “Personal Manager” and the dark ballad “As the Years Go Passing By” which mark the emotional epicenter of the collection. The music found here is almost all excellent, some of the finest of King’s career. If there is any criticism to be made it is with the muddy sound of the CD, which at 20 years is due for an overhaul to give it the presence and quality that music of this stature richly deserves. But that is a small quibble - if you are interested in blues or soul music, you should find much joy here.

It’s often said that there aren’t that many really impressive new recordings being made today in jazz, at least compared to the “golden era” of the music. I generally agree with that statement. It’s likely something to do with the quantity over quality issue - the number of new jazz recordings has exploded over the past 20 years, but in most cases, the music isn’t all that memorable.

One of the things that impressed me the most after hearing pianist Ahmad Jamal’s trio several years ago was the use of dynamics. The group could go from a whisper to a roar, often quiet quickly. It added an element that I often find lacking in many jazz groups both live and on cd.

Creative use of dynamics is another color in the musical pallete. So why do so many jazz musicians play like they only know two volume levels - on and off? I suspect a lot of it has to do with the way bands are mixed, both live and on record. Musicians often aren’t in the loop - the mix is often the responsibility of the sound guy, who quiet often isn’t the most musical person in the room. Groups today don’t really worry about how they blend as a group naturally - because its all “in the mix”. Most CDs are dynamically compressed (altered so that the loud parts quieter and the quiet parts louder) some so much so that the whole recording is all of one volume! Once you realize what’s actually going on and what a good less, or moderately compressed recording can sound - it really becomes annoying.

IT’S KIND OF LIKE READING SOMETHING IN ALL CAPS!

That said there are some jazz artists today who understand the power of dynamics, and that quiet can be as intense as loud. Just looking through my top 10 list of 2007 a couple of the CDs stand out as excellent examples. Bill Charlap’s trio is a great example of the creative use of dynamics in a small group which can be heard to great effect on his new live at the village vanguard cd. For a large group there is no one better at exploiting the dynamic range of a big band than Maria Schneider (though John Clayton comes close). Her new cd Sky Blue is likewise a fine example of that - she uses dynamics almost as another instrument in her arrangements. And while I wasn’t specifically thinking about dynamics when I selected these two as part of my ten best CDs of 2007, I can’t help but think it’s not just a coincidence that they rose to the top partly because of their use of dynamics.

[I love the MIDI orchestral arrangements Scott Hill shares with as at Macjams. They show elegance and a growing command of how to get the most out of software orchestral instruments. I also enjoy his choice of music. In fact, I have begun a long term collaboration with him that might result in an original piano concerto. I was very pleased to see that mark Holbrook interview Scott during my absence last autumn.

This is a reprint of an interview by Mark Holbrook for the Macjammers Blog. For comments attached to the original blog, please go here.]

One of the things I am enjoying about doing the MacJammer inteviews is getting to know more about the various artists present on MacJams. It is easy to hit refresh and see the list of music and artists on MacJams but what do you really know about their backgrounds, their motivations?

The names (tags) we pick for our artist names on MacJams often obscure what is really happening with a particular artist. In the case of Scotty, also known as MidiOrleans, at first glance one would guess that he is a guy that tinkers with MIDI and lives in New Orleans. Even that last part can be tricky these days. For all you know he could be somewhere overseas.

I can think of several nominations for this award, but the first one that comes to mind right now is saxophonist & clarinetist Anat Cohen. She has three new records out this year (two under her own name) and I’m really excited by all of them, as they’re all very memorable.

Born in Tel Aviv, and now a New York resident, Anat started out like many musicians do on clarinet, and has great chops and a rich, full tone on that most difficult of woodwinds. The same can be said of her work on saxophone. Her tenor playing (tenor seems to be her predominant horn) is both lush and muscular, full of inventive ideas, highly lyrical, and remarkably refreshing, in the way it stands out from the cookie cutter tenor players that are all over jazz today. And while she is clearly informed by everyone from Ben Webster to Sonny Rollins, but her sound is totally contemporary. She also is very well versed in everything from Brazilian choro to Argentine tango rhythms, and she incorporates those influences into her work, as well as some hints of her own heritage and her early exposure to Dixieland. Her brother Avishai (not the bass player) is also a first rate jazz trumpet player in New York.

Lucky Ghost is the brainchild of singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Seth Berkowitz, formerly of Aaron Hill & The Crimson Guard, Conquistador, and Skabba the Hut. Synthesizing influences from ’80’s pop, ’70’s prog and modern indie rock, Lucky Ghost emerges with a crisp sound, laden with hooks, melody, and strong arrangements.

I was listening to sports talk radio the other day, and the topic was how no one really cares about the Stanley Cup Finals. (I’m not here to argue either way on that one) The conversation continued to other sports that don’t get much TV attention, and thus big fan bases here in the US. Lacrosse was mentioned, and so was soccer. We all know that soccer has grown in popularity here in the US over the past few decades, but it hasn’t truly taken off. And much of the growth can be attributed to a changing population, and changing demographics, with new immigrants who are already futbol fans.

Then one of the hosts brought up the disconnect between of the number of kids playing soccer, versus the size of the adult soccer audience. It’s hugely popular, right up there with basketball, and baseball, and has been for some time. Millions of kids are in soccer leagues. I drive past a major soccer complex often on the freeway, and it’s always PACKED at night with various teams playing, hundreds if not thousands of people. But despite the HUGE numbers of kids playing soccer, most don’t go on to be soccer fans. This CNN Money article (a bit old, from 2002) talks about this issue. This of course is of concern to many in soccer, and presumably to the MLS, which is hoping its product will catch on and be as mainstream as baseball or football someday (with the revenues that follow).

Yesterday I mentioned the controversy surrounding a new 10th anniversary CD from the venerable Oakland jazz club Yoshi’s - a CD that didn’t include any music by black artists. Well, in today’s San Francisco Chronicle, word comes that the club has decided to pull the CD, and is working on putting together a more diverse compilation. They had sold about 500 of the 1000 CDs printed, before they decided to pull them from their website and club store.

As I pointed out in my post yesterday, and as Peter Williams of Yoshi’s explained in The Chronicle tooday, Yoshi’s simply went through the Concord Records archives (a label formerly based in the Bay Area, and still with some Bay Area ties through the Fantasy Studios and archives) and selected tracks by Concord artists who had been recorded live at Yoshi’s. Two additional tracks (Madeleine Peyroux and Robben Ford) were added from broadcast airchecks from San Francisco radio station KFOG.

In the same article Orrin Keepnews chimes in with the following insult to all of the artists on the CD:

“With all due respect to the venerable Marian McPartland, whom I love and have always loved, there’s nobody on that record of major current importance,” said Keepnews. “The club put out an anniversary record that was thoughtless and not very well put together. They limited themselves to material recorded live at the club. You have a half-dozen things here that don’t have the making of a significant or representative record, regardless of what color anybody is.’

Questioning why a “Live at Yoshi’s” CD would only include performances recorded at the club, makes one wonder what sort of relevance Keepnews has in today’s record industry. Of COURSE they limited themselves to material recorded at the club - that was the concept of the album. And it’s nice of Keepnews to insult musicians like Poncho Sanchez (jazz snobs will always look down upon any music that actually encourages people to dance) and Joey DeFrancesco as not being of “major current importance.” (whatever that means - Keepnews must have a direct line to the jazz police).

Bottom line: Yoshi’s should have tried to include recordings from other labels as part of their CD. But they went with Concord, and it just so happened that the artists on Concord who recorded at Yoshi’s weren’t as diverse as Yoshi’s normal lineup. But Yoshi’s lineup IS diverse, always has been, and I’m sure will continue to be.

However, in the jazz world, there are still problems of diversity in many areas. The world of institutionalized jazz education is much less diverse than jazz as a whole. There are several record labels that I can think of (mostly small ones though, as almost all jazz labels are small) that don’t feature any, or maybe only one or two releases by artists of color.

When I’m on the air, I don’t pay attention to the race of the musician in selecting what I play. On occasion I’ll look back at a playlist, and I’ll notice that it was a pretty diverse mix. Other times, I’ll say “wow, in this hour, I didn’t play any music by white musicians,” or “wow, in this hour, I didn’t play any music by black musicians,” or “wow, in this hour I didn’t play any music by Latino musicians.” I think this is what happened with the Yoshi’s CD. I think it was an honest omission, (not a mistake) but an omission, and given Yoshi’s track record in booking diversity, I think they should be given the benefit of the doubt.

California’s premier jazz venue, Yoshi’s at Jack London Square in Oakland, just celebrated its 10th anniversary at its current location, and released a CD to go along with the celebration. The CD has tracks by Poncho Sanchez, Marian McPartland, Joe Pass, Joey DeFrancesco, Robben Ford, and Madeleine Peyroux. Sounds good, right? The problem - no black artists. This has many in the Bay Area jazz community concerned, according to the San Francisco Chronicle (link). Yoshi’s has apologized for the oversight. But then last week another issue came up: the Berkeley Downtown Jazz Festival, which presents music at a number of venues, didn’t have any black artists performing at one of their venues, Anna’s Jazz Island, though a number of black artists are performing at other BDJF venues.

I don’t have time to weigh in too much on the whole issue, other than to make a few comments, first about this particular situation and then the issue at large.

1) I see that most of the artists on the Yoshi’s CD have other commercially available “Live at Yoshi’s” albums available. Peter Williams mentioned the recording rights issue with the Chronicle, and I imagine this played a big role in who wound up on the CD. However, just off the top of my head, Mulgrew Miller, Dee Dee Bridgewater, also have “Live at Yoshi’s” discs. Both are African-American artists.

2) With the exception of Madeleine Peyroux and Robben Ford, all of the other artists on the Yoshi’s 10th anniversary CD are affiliated with Concord Records. It might have been an issue where Concord was easy to negotiate with regarding these tracks, other labels weren’t, and these tracks and artists were chosen accordingly.

3) I don’t think anyone has any justification to question Yoshi’s overall booking policy and artist lineup based on race. I’ve seen many other jazz venues which seem to present only white artists, but not Yoshi’s.

4) I don’t think it so much applies in the BDJF case, as they do have a diverse artist roster, just not at the festival events at Anna’s Jazz Island.

5) I think this is a legitimate issue which jazz presenters and educators need to pay attention to. Maybe this incident will spark some further discussion on this issue in the jazz community, even if the criticism in these cases isn’t entirely justified.