The great bop-to-free drummer Tony Levin died on February 3rd.
A few memories:
A gig he played with a remarkable pick-up band at our club in the early 80s- Ian Carr on trumpet, my friend and jazz educator Conrad Cork on alto, music teacher Ron Reah on piano, free-jazz pioneer and now composer Gavin Bryars on bass and Tony. It shouldn't have worked, and in truth there are some rough patches, but I'm glad it was recorded and still play the cd with pleasure. *
A performance in Birmingham at Tony's club with Evan Parker and a tuba player (Melvin Poore) where Tony and Evan got into what Evan described as 'that Coltrane and Elvin at the Vanguard' thing. We ate afterwards at a Balti place which had a hypnotist and magician who worked the tables, dropping customers to the floor and making money disappear under our nose. Maybe I dreamt the whole thing.
When Evan was teaching at de Montfort University he played a series of duo gigs in the tiny cafe underneath my bookshop - you remember bookshops? There was a disco in the cellar next door and the noise pollution started around 10pm. No problem the night Tony played.
Tony did a short tour last year to celebrate his 70th birthday and one date was in Leicester; first he played with Aki Takase and John Edwards, then with Mujician- Keith Tippett, Paul Dunmall, Paul Rogers. I can't fault John Fordham's Guardian review.
And what must have been one of his last gigs- with Peter King's quartet- Steve Melling, Geoff Gascoyne at the Y in Leicester on January 19 this year. It was clear Peter was pacing himself- each set had a piano feature and he sat at the back of the stage when not playing- but Steve Melling was on steaming form and the music was driven and forceful; no sign that Tony was struggling to keep up though he looked a bit frail at the end of the gig.
So the news of his death was a shock; we'll miss him.
* Conrad Cork adds:
This gig almost didn’t happen.A few weeks before it was due, the regular drummer’s wife left him, and he took himself off to be consoled by friends in Bangkok.Fortunately Tony Levin stepped in.Then the day before the gig, it turned out that the promised grand piano was not forthcoming, so there was a scramble to find anything, and anything turned out to be a low quality Wurlitzer electric job.
Bryars barely made it to the gig (minutes to spare) because he came in from Paris where he was in the course of overseeing the run of his opera Medea, produced by Robert Wilson.Bryars and Rhea, incidentally, comprised the entire fulltime staff of the (classical) music department at the then Leicester Polytechnic.
There was no time for rehearsal or prior discussion, and Ian called the tunes and keys as the evening went on.
I wrote in 2008 of my admiration for Stan Tracey and Bobby Wellins, and expressed the hope that I might one day hear them play live the music from Stan's Under Milk Wood suite.
That day came last Wednesday at the Y in Leicester, and I'm proud of my small part in making the gig happen.
I was emailed by one of the organisers of a short Leicester literary festival asking if I knew a band who could play the UMW music to accompany a reading of Thomas's radio play. I jokingly replied that he could always ask Stan & Bobby and quoted a fee (too low as it happened!) which I was sure would be beyond their budget. To my surprise and delight he contacted Sylvia Rae Tracey (who handles Stan's bookings) and booked the quartet (Andrew Cleyndert & Clark Tracey) paying 25% more than the sum I'd conjectured.
It was worth every penny. Having recently heard Stan, Bobby and Guy Barker at the Scarborough festival playing Stan's usual live repertoire of standards, show tunes and blues I knew how committed and driving the band could be at its best, but I suspected that a performance of the UMW music would be special; in the event the two readers had little to do and most of the evening was devoted to music, so inevitably most of the pieces were extended past their recorded length. The performances that night won't displace my recall of the 1965 recording; the purity of Wellins' tone now has a burred edge and Andrew Cleyndert's bass-playing- fine though it is- lacks the late Jeff Clyne's exquisite note choices; listen to his first phrase after the piano introduction to Starless and Bible Black, just before Wellins jumps in to play the melody- at the Y Andrew made an ostinato of his first figure and Bobby paused a couple of beats before entering.
But it was a delight to hear those compositions played so well. As an aside I read a report that audiences during Stan's recent American tour were surprised to hear him playing show tunes, assuming he'd play his own compositions. The writer wondered: did he play them to ingratiate himself with a US audience? - not realising that he's always much more likely to play Body & Soul than Pluck's Gutter. (Francis Davis, in the book from which I stole the title of this blog tells of Muhal Richard Abrams' reluctance to play any of his compositions more than once- he'd rather move on to something new.) In Stan's case something old made new, and I'm not complaining.
I recently heard that Stan's started composing again; I know the details of the new project but I'll keep them under my hat- I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise.
I've written about the Nantes Jazz Festival before (in 2007); I'm returning to the subject because it still does not have the recognition it deserves.
2010 was the 24th year of a festival which has expanded to include 8 main 'scenes' in the city along the banks of the river Erdre, plus other 'scenes off' including concerts in hospitals and a prison. Add to that gigs in neighbouring villages, a record fair and a round table on promoting jazz. And a regatta of sailing boats, old and new. There are food stalls from the francophone culinary world- the big hit this year was the fouée, a Breton variation on pita with sweet or savoury filling, some excellent bieres artisanales and Muscadet, and all the concerts (80+) were free of charge.
The organisers' aim is to present 'tous le jazz' - including music this old jazz snob finds hard to recognise as jazz at all- but that's ok, there's always something of interest going on, and at least the 'did I really pay good money to listen to this?' feeling is absent!
The Scene Nautique is the largest, holding 10000 people and always filled to overflowing; it's a large platform in the middle of the river- the audience sits on the bank facing the band, with the overflow on the other side. It's for big stars - disappointing like Charles Lloyd's Coltrane-lite 2008 performance and last year's phoned-in Ron Carter gig, exciting like the Henri Texier Strada Sextet with Roswell Rudd, and engaging like the Louis Sclavis Trio. This year's stars included the Roy Hargrove Quintet- I wasn't sure I'd come to the festival this year until I saw they were appearing, but I loved their cd 'Ear Food' and I was knocked out 2 years ago to hear the Hargrove Big Band corseted into the tiny Jazz Gallery in NYC. In the event they were great to hear, though all the time you longed to be there with them in the confines of a club. Saturday night was Django night, with Daniel Givone, Romane, Angelo Debarre & Christophe Lartilleux, but by the time we got to the 'scene' it was overflowing, so we had an early night.
We did arrive in time on Sunday to hear Le Gros Cube- a band comprising some of the big names of the regional scene playing the music of Queen (honestly!). No less than 3 singers attempted to invoke the spirit of Mr Mercury, and they and the band were obviously amusing themselves enormously. Much of the huge crowd seemed to be having fun also, but after 2 numbers ( no solos) we made our excuses and left. Not so much 'tous les jazz' as 'pas de tout le jazz'.
The heart of the festival is the Scene Sully, a sloping area holding up to 3000 people, around 1000 seated on chairs whose devilishly uncomfortable seats are still imprinted on my cul. It's worth it though for the quality of the music, from the quiet classicism of trombonist Yves Robert to the Mingus-like Andy Emler MegaOctet. China Moses channeled the spirit of Dinah Washington, Sophie Alour (ex-Rhoda Scott tenorist) played a brave set with just bass and drums which was perhaps a little under-powered, though my colleague had to be restrained from storming the stage when she announced one number as 'When Ah Meuve Ma Beudy.' Well, he's a fan, and he likes her saxophone playing too.
The best music at Sully was the quartet of Helene Labarriere, a virtuoso bassist whose quartet played an uncompromising set of enormous power. The worst was a silly set by the Trio D'En Bas, whose leader played approximate tenor and sang Zappa songs badly, although he apparently didn't realise it.
There's also an Electro-Jazz scene- but my ears can no longer stand p a turned up to eleven so I missed Bristol's Get the Blessing.
To conclude, it was a mixture as always- I'll certainly be back next year when I'm sure there will be something special for the quarter century. See you there.
I'd hoped to meet up with the formidable Gérard Terrones at the festival- he runs the wonderful Futura-Marge record labels- but we missed each other. We caught up in Paris and I stocked up on his recent cds, then went to hear the Franck AvitabileTrio at Sunset- as a jazz club promoter it was encouraging to see a club completely full for the gig, though as an audience-member I would have preferred not to sit with my arms pinned to my side while breathing into Franck's collar. He's been compared to Michel Petrucciani and Martial Solal; although he lacks Petrucciani's steely touch and Solal's free-flowing melodic imagination. But he has a lyrical power of his own, and Henri Texier and Aldo Romano were predictably superb.
I prefer not to stay in hotels when visiting foreign cities.
Hotels, at least the ones I can afford, are mostly under-lit, overheated, cramped and impersonal. No doubt I could pay more and stay in better-lit, well ventilated andspacious places, but I prefer to spend my cash in other ways- jazz clubs, concerts, books, restaurant meals – and used to be happy to treat my hotel room as a box with a bed, nothing more. But I’ve realised that, with the help of the internet, it’s not hard to find alternatives.
So in recent years I’ve stayed in apartments in Budapest, Krakow, Paris and Barcelona- all humble places but offering more space, facilities and privacy than any hotel room, and at comparable cost.
A few years ago a friend introduced me to Craig’s List, an online classified ads service covering the major US cities and including vacation rentals. So for my last trip to New York I found a room in an apartment house on E 3rd St owned by a religious organisation that did good works around the city; a modest room modestly priced, and including a ‘make-your-own’ breakfast in a communal kitchen-cum-sitting room. The rooms were decorated ecumenically with pictures of Jesus, Buddha and Hindu deities, but the owners did not proselytise and the religious music they played in the breakfast room in the mornings was quite soothing.
And it was in an interesting neighbourhood- the East Village- made more interesting by the presence of the New York Chapter of the Hell’s Angels next door. ‘Please do not sit on our neighbors’ bench’ read the sign in out hallway. As if we’d dare.
The previous year I’d found- also through Craig’s List- a 2-bedroom apartment on Suffolk St (just south of E Houston on the Lower East Side) for myself, my daughter and her man. It was owned by an artist and was decorated with his paintings and his thoughts on art, life & commerce- on the walls and ceiling. We never got to meet Zito- he moved into his friend’s place whenever he had tenants & was by his own admission ‘not a morning person’- but we communicated adequately by message and text. The apartment was certainly a more individual experience than any anonymous midtown hotel. Just down the street once stood the anarchist café where Emma Goldman first met Alex Berkmann. And just round the corner is Yonah Schimmel’s Knishes.
During my first trips to NYC I never ventured out of Manhattan- there was just too much to experience on that small island to think of visiting the other boroughs. More recently I’ve been exploring Brooklyn, so decided to find some accommodation in Williamsburg (a hip Brooklyn neighbourhood) for my next trip- planned for the first week in July.
A room in the apartment of a young couple in the fashion business, 2 subway stops from Manhattan, seemed ideal. My own entrance, use of the kitchen and bathroom, and a great coffee shop down the road. No deposit required.
A week before my flight they emailed me to say they had been offered work in LA and sorry, the room was no longer available. Time to consult Craig’s List again, quickly.
This is where this post changes direction – no longer in praise of NYC apartment living, more caveat emptor.
The standout offer was for a studio apartment at 105 E 9th St- advertised with photographs- and yes, it was available for my dates. Please sign this 3 page agreement. Please send a 50% deposit by Western Union only, and to the owner’s daughter in Virginia. Alarm bells should have rung, but I was anxious to secure the
apartment, and sent the money. I was emailed that the money had been received, and the booking was confirmed.I wrote to ask how I would recognise the apartment when I arrived at the building; no reply. I looked on Street View and saw there indeed was an apartment building at 105, with a keypad at the entrance, so wrote to ask what numbers I should enter; no reply. Still my flight was booked, and surely everything would be clear when I arrived.
Clear it certainly was; none of the tenants in the building know anything of my apartment- owner, and there were no studio apartments in the building. It had been a con, elaborate, professional. I booked a couple of nights in a nearby hotel to give myself some time to think, but by the end of the first night I’d decided to come home as quickly as possible- the shine had been rubbed off the holiday with a vengeance.
The airline took pity on me and only surcharged me $105.
How was I conned so easily? Leaving aside the saying containing the words ‘no’, ‘fool’ and ‘old’ and the fact that I needed to book somewhere in a hurry, I’ve concluded that the honesty of the jazz community is to blame. (Poor joke, I know.)
Each year hundreds of customers send me cash in advance, trusting that I’ll be honest and send them the goods they’ve ordered. Each year I send out hundreds of packets with invoices, trusting my customers will pay up. No-one has ever been let down.An expectation of honest dealing develops; I’m not ashamed of my naivety, but furious at this breach of trust.
Some advice and practical matters: never send money by Western Union to someone you don’t know- they have none of the anti-fraud procedures of Paypal. And please don’t book an apartment (in NYC or elsewhere) from sherri.gordon@gmail.com (who may well not exist) aka Unique-Suite Vacation Rental or from Wendy Accurso, 12 Aunt Lilly Lane, Annandale VA 22003 (who presumably does exist, because you have to take valid ID to the Western Union office to collect cash.)
I intend to pursue these crooks as far as I can, with Craig’s List, Google, Western Union and the Annandale VA police department. I’ll let you know how I get on.
Since making the original post I've learned that this is a large, well-organised scam covering several US cities and involving several individuals- or more likely one individual using several names and email addresses. I'm clearly not the only person who's been conned- not that I feel any better for that.
At the Royal Festival Hall in London last Saturday we were warned several times, by posters fixed to the doors, by a disembodied voice over the pa & most genially by John Cumming of Serious during his announcement that we were to turn off our mobiles and refrain from taking photos- fair enough. Similar warnings occur at most concerts, but the slightly pleading tone here carried the subtext: we don't want to upset Keith. At a London concert last year some miscreant had approached the stage to take a snap; his punishment was to be condemned by Jarrett to banishment before the gig could resume.
It was a thoroughly enjoyable concert by a brilliant trio, referred to throughout as 'The Standards Trio', though there was no doubt the pianist was firmly in charge, playing a nicely varied set of standards both familiar and (to me at least) obscure; in particular Jack De Johnette's playing was superb, beautifully shaded and appropriate to the mood of each piece - when Jarrett fell into one of his lengthy vamps De Johnette's drumming ensured tedium never resulted. And when Jarrett left some space Gary Peacock's scampering fills were beautiful.
Jarrett's playing showed his many virtues- a beautifully varied touch that moved from delicacy to barnstorming, a vivid melodic imagination, a formidable technique and a good sense of swing.
My reservations are about the organisation of the concert rather than its content; the first set was 3 pieces in 35 minutes- Jarrett seemed keen to get through the set list and depart, cutting short two of Gary Peacock's solos, the second a few minutes more. After a lengthy standing ovation the trio played the first of 4 encores; the pattern was this: the trio leaves the stage to standing ovation, returns, bows, leaves again. Applause continues, trio returns, plays encore, ovation, leaves, returns, leaves, plays. The encores were nicely chosen, each shorter and quieter than its predecessor. But I became increasingly dissatisfied with the game Jarrett was asking us to play: you want more, but I'll only give it to you if you prove how much you love me. I demand your adulation.
It made me respect him less, and I kept recalling a solo piano gig by Martial Solal I'd heard at Kings Place in London a few weeks before. The octagenarian had played a piano repertoire much more hackneyed than Jarrett's- I Got Rhythm, Caravan, Satin Doll- a piano bar tinkler's set in fact- transforming them with his unequalled combination of technique (more than a match for Jarrett's) and taste into something very special. His playing was both spontaneous and completely assured- a little phrase from Bebop appeared in one song, reappeared and was developed in the next. Towards the end of the second set he pulled a scrap of paper from his pocket and studied a list of tunes. And when he returned for the first encore joked: I've found a new list.
I would have gladly stayed longer, and regretted the passing of the after-hours club. Solal: a rich couscous, Jarrett: sushi.
This post was planned as a diary of a week of jazz in NYC in May; returning to it in September I've decided to delete the majority and concentrate on the most interesting gig of the week. The diary can wait until next time.
Thursday 21: One my my earliest posts mentioned my liking for the music of saxophonist Bill McHenry; since hearing him with pianist Ethan Iverson at Jazz Standard on one of my 1st visits to NYC I've tried to catch him whenever I'm in the city (& helped organise a short UK tour for him a few years ago). I emailed him before flying & found that his quartet- with Duane Eubanks on trumpet- had a gig at the Tea Lounge in Park Slope, Brooklyn (not listed in any of the jazz press.) It was the most interesting and challenging music I heard all week.
They played all new material- Bill told me he'd been working on it for weeks, but I think it was the first time Duane and the the rest of the band has seen the music; it was I guess a rehearsal for his week's gig at the Vanguard. Despite his somewhat approximate readings of some of the heads- not surprising given the serpentine nature of some of Bill's melodies- Duane Eubanks played confidently in a Cherry-like style that suited the music perfectly.
His music is sometimes bleak and unsettling; the intensity of his improvising is remarkable, long-held notes alternating with rapid runs played with a tone that's hard with a crumbly edge, and with rare but effective growls and cries; sometimes he held the tenor straight out in front of him like Rollins, sometimes tucked it into his side like Gonsalves. He addressed the microphone like a matador approaches a bull, leaning forward to attack, then crouched almost to his knees, then moved the mike around on the the stage area as if finding the perfect spot. And all this with no sense of contrivance. Is the music inside or outside?- hard to say on a first hearing- like Ornette he uses written heads that set the mood of the improvisations that follow; when he gets round to recording this new material it will be clearer, but perhaps not relevant- in an interview last year he told Jazz Times“The stuff around me might be a lot different but the way I deal with melody and harmony is not going to be that different, whether it’s on a structure or not on a structure. It’s based around what kind of notes and what kind of ideas I think sound good. And the clearer conception you have of that, then the less effect a structure will have on you.”
An exciting, exhilarating, thought-provoking evening.
You don't need to be a Futurist to find uncomfortable the idea of a jazz museum. Despite the attempts to redefine the role of the institution- a quick Google search brought me: Reinventing the Museum, Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on the Paradigm Shift by Gail Anderson & Making Museums Matter by Weil Se- I don't feel inclined to consign West End Blues or Ghosts to what Marinetti called 'museums, graveyards' Jazz is too alive, too lively (pace Frank Zappa & Edward Vesala), too unofficial. Anyway, haven't Wynton Marsalis and Jazz at Lincoln Centre got that covered already?
Despite such reservations, let's praise the Jazz Museum in Harlem both for its attitude & its location; although the museum does not yet exist, for now there's a visitors' centre on 126th St - just a couple of rooms with a small library, a cd collection and a small gallery of photographs. If it were just a building, it would be worthy but unimpressive, but it's far more than that. The museum- see http://www.jazzmuseuminharlem.org declares itself concerned as much with future of jazz as with its past and its range of activities supports the assertion.
Their Harlem in the Himalayas sessions bring 1st class concerts to the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art on W17th St ( your ticket gets you admission to the exhibitions too). The acoustics are so good in the subterranean theatre that all the gigs are presented without pa. I've heard the Marcus Strickland quartet and the Charles Davis quartet there, and recent gigs have included the great Henry Grimes in a duo with Marc Ribot, and Billy Bang with William Parker.
Jazz for Curious Readers has talks by and interviews with jazz writers as diverse as Ira Gitler, George Lewis, Nat Hentoff, Garry Giddins and Stanley Crouch, while Jazz for Curious Listeners is currently examining classic albums- Speak No Evil as well as Armstrong Plays WC Handy, with Common's Like Water for Chocolate later this month.
And Harlem Speaks presents conversations with musicians- I was lucky enough to be there for the discussion between Cedar Walton and drummer Kenny Washington, whose knowledge of the postwar jazz scene was comprehensive enough for him to be able to prompt Cedar over details he'd forgotten. There were some very funny Art Blakey anecdotes- asked about Blakey's bandleading style he replied: Military- and fond memories of Kenny Dorham, who gave Cedar the nickname 'Steep'- short for 'Steeplehead' because of his high forehead. The audience - mostly Harlemites I'd guess- contributed also; a discussion of how David Newman got his nickname was interrupted authoritatively by: Because he had a big fat ego, that's why- from a woman behind me.
There's more- free concerts in the parks, Saturday panel discussions, an education programme for young people- and most of the museum's activities are free of charge & well-supported. And where better than Harlem as a location?- the site of so much jazz history in the city that still presents more jazz nightly than any other. (My next post will describe a week in NYC last month.)
There's not so much live jazz in Harlem now- the Lenox Lounge, the reopened Minton's, Bill Saxton's Place- but this could change if the jazz museum does move into a building on Harlem's main drag- 125th St- as reported here.
Incidentally, while leafing through a 1972 issue of Down Beat (while updating my website- who says men can't multitask?) I noticed a news piece about a New York Jazz Museum about to open in midtown- does anyone know what happened to that project? There's nothing in the Down Beat online archive. In any case, the Jazz Museum in Harlem appears too well organised, too well-grounded to repeat its fate. If they get the funding...
