Race In Jazz: Early, Gillespie and Sudhalter

A great recent essay on race by a black American jazz critic is Gerald Early’s “White Noise and White Knights: Some Thoughts on Race, Jazz, and the White Jazz Musician”. I found it through Ken Burn’s “Jazz: A History of American Music”, a companion book to the more well-known documentary.

In this essay, Early attempts to show how the white jazz musician both perceives himself and is perceived by both the critical community and general listening public. He asks some very difficult questions about race in jazz and indeed the very definition of jazz itself in an open and honest way that I find refreshing. Specifically, he is willing to engage a book dedicated to informing the public of all the white jazz musicians that have been neglected over the years. The book in question is Richard Sudhalter’s “Lost Chords: White Musicians and Their Contribution to Jazz, 1915-1945”. Unlike other black critics who might take the opportunity to start “driving the thresher” (to quote Stanley Crouch), Early simply acknowledges the “unavoidable anger” that inevitably surfaces about such a book, and moves on to the bigger questions.

Sudhalter and Early each bring up questions about the nature of jazz. Can any one race be said to have invented it? Are blues and swing essential elements of the music? Who contributed them? Can we make generalizations about race in this music? I am relatively new to Gerald Early as a critic, so I was a bit surprised at some of his opinions. Early detects a shift after World War II toward increased critical reception to jazz music that saw itself as “an expression of major black aesthetics.”

I am a little more lost when he claims that most jazz fans and critics are most suspicious of music played by whites. “Cool” or “West Coast” jazz always struck me as quite popular, and is it really held today in lower esteem than the black avant-garde music of the 60s? Early seems very aware of the fact that jazz has largely lost its black audience, a very crucial point. Without an enthusiast black listening public, can we really be certain we are getting the whole story?

This is a major reason why I love Dizzy Gillespie’s autobiography To Be or Not to Bop. Stan Kenton is discussed a great deal in the book, though seldom is the content of his music engaged. This is Al McKibbon:

“I think had Dizzy been white—Here it is a guy comes along with a new style of playing, a new style band, a new style of dressing, a new way of talking. Now, man, suppose Stan Kenton had all those things? Dizzy would have been a rich man.” (pg. 334)

And later (this is Dizzy himself now):

“Progressive jazz came after our music, bebop. You see you can’t leave out the fundamentals like Stan Kenton did. The major fundamental of our music is rhythm, a great and definite rhythm. If you leave out these fundamentals it’s just as if you took a tree with a trunk and something crept out on a limb and kept going until it fell off.”

It’s clear to me that Dizzy felt passionately about this, since it is within the last ten pages of his autobiography. Dizzy also claims a number of other offenses for Stan Kenton throughout the book. These include the assertions that white bands like Kenton’s were more commercially successful in America, and that Kenton put a conga drummer in his band after hearing Chano Pozo with Gillespie.

There’s even a story about Kenton drunkenly telling Gillespie he can his music better than him!

So I guess I shouldn’t have been that surprised to learn that Kenton angrily wrote in to protest the exclusion of white jazz musicians in a 1956 Downbeat Critics Poll, and there is plenty of discussion of Kenton’s right-wing political and racial views throughout the article. Hilariously, we are also told that the Stan Kenton Fan Club wrote “KKK”, “Keep Kenton Kicking” on all their letters!

This may be an extreme case, but no doubt these conflicts are still being played out to this day. It makes me sad that these two great musicians let skin colour get in the way of enjoying each other’s music.

Le Mepris

Well there's been a lot of changes in life in the past little while, the biggest being that I am back in Vancouver after 14 months in Montreal. It was fun to experience a different city and come back maybe a bit wiser and travelled.

One of the things I'll miss most about Montreal is the french speaking culture. By the end of my stay I was pretty close to fluent, teaching guitar lessons in the east end of the city en francais. One of the ways I practiced was by watching great French movies.

To celebrate my return, I'm going to try to post about my favourite French New Wave films. I've only been interested in them for a couple years so I'm no expert, but I do enjoy them. The first movie is Jean-Luc Godard's "Le Mepris":

Le Mepris (usually translated as "Contempt") is one of Jean-Luc Godard’s best known films. The plot of the movie revolves around a screenwriter Paul and his wife Camille, who get caught in a cycle of contempt and suspicion while the audience is never aware of the degree of infidelities (if there are any at all) going on.

Always intent to let his audience know they are watching a movie, Godard uses a voiceover to recite the credits while a cameraman is seen shooting a woman walking. To emphasize the point, the narrator recites a quote attributed to film theorist Andre Bazin (a big influence on the French New Wave) while the camera points directly at the audience, letting them know they are entering its world.

One thing I love about Godard’s movies is his use of process. The opening scene uses a progression of red filtered lens to open lens to blue filter while the music starts and stops throughout the scene, corresponding to the sudden changes. Godard uses this technique in many of his films, sometimes cutting out the soundtrack completely (see the famous “silent scene” in Bande a Part).

Indeed, the music starts and stops often throughout the film, rarely corresponding to the beginning or end of a scene. Even more striking is the fact that the same music recurs throughout the entire film, oblivious to the emotion being portrayed by the dialogue. This act of stasis is strangely fitting and though the music itself may be derivative, the score remains one of my favourites.

Famously, this film corresponds very closely to Godard’s own life at the time. He was going through marital troubles with actress Anna Karina and collaborated with an Italian film producer (rendered into Jeremy in the movie) who insisted he cast Bridget Bardot as the lead to draw in an audience, Bardot being the infamous “sex kitten” from And God Created Women. As a result the opening scene features female lead Bridget Bardot sprawled out naked on a bed, asking Paul whether he loves specific parts of her body. According to Everything is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard by Richard Brody, Godard shot this opening scene last, after he considered the film complete. In any case, it is hard not to read it as a thumb of the nose to his producer, who Godard surely had no patience for. It’s almost as if he is saying to audience “Ok, we’ve seen the naked girl. Now can we get on with what’s really important?” (A similar moment occurs at the beginning of Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut.)

And get on to what’s important he does, with a brilliant improvised fantasy on love, lust and the integrity of the artist. Just try to get tired of it; it remains fresh every time.

Vancouver

I'm spending the very first two weeks of October in Vancouver. Coming back to Vancouver from Montreal always feels like a breth of fresh air, even if sometimes it feels like "where is everybody?". All the musicians I came up listening to are here, and I always try to see as many of them as I can.

Tonight I'm going to check a band at a certain loft venue called "the big much". The band features bari saxophonist Chad Makela, drummer Bernie Arai and guitarist Dave Sikula. I saw them back in May when I was here last and it was very cool. It's always so cool to see Chad play the saxophone because he really embodies many qualities I am trying to get into my own playing. I've studied with Chad and I hope to take a lesson with him while I'm here.

I've always been able to set up a few of my own playing situations. Next Thursday I'll be playing at a bar called El Barrio where my friend Cole Schmidt is curating a weekly gig. I'll be playing with Mike Kennedy on bass and Cam Stephens on drums. I know Mike from playing in a children's band led by Gord Grdina called the "Bluesberries". There was a very memorable tour we did to Kelowna where we stayed at a Bed and Breakfast complete with tennis courts and our own barbeque.

Then Friday I'm playing improvised music with two musicians I owe a lot too, guitarist Jared Burrows and drummer Stan Taylor. I'm really looking forward to next week.

Happy Birthday Roscoe Mitchell

There are a certain number of concerts I could have easily gone to, but didn't. These concerts include Tim Berne's Caos Totale, Jim Black's AlasNoAxis, a Bill Frisell concert, a Kurt Rosenwinkel concert and Drew Gress's 7 Black Butterflies band. I also wish I had gotten tickets to both sets of a mindblowing Sonny Fortune and Rashied Ali duo hit but maybe that would've just been too much.

At any rate, the concert I regret missing most is Roscoe Mitchell at the Vancouver Jazz Festival. Roscoe turns 69 today and I still don't know that much about his playing, though I have been making a conscious effort to listen to alot of his and other AACM music. (One day I will read George Lewis' book, "A Power Stronger Than Itself")

Here is a list of the records I enjoy that feature Roscoe Mitchell's playing:

Roscoe Mitchell - Sound, Noonah
Art Ensemble of Chicago - Reese and the Smooth Ones, Nice Guys

There is much, much, much more. Getting into this music took time, though it surely rewards thorough listening. Nonetheless, I can't but feel that getting into it would've been easier after seeing the man live and in the flesh. This music just makes more sense that way. I don't know whether I'll ever get a chance to see Roscoe Mitchell and once he's gone, decoding his message will be that much harder, for both future improvisors and myself.

There is a great interview with the man here.

Le Spectacle, Tim Berne and the Saxophone

Today I saw a concert featured in the L'OFF Festival de Jazz de Montreal. This city has two very fine jazz festivals that run basically back to back, the next being the International Montreal Jazz Festival, where I will be seeing Wayne Shorter's Quartet at what I'm told is a nice, intimate, good-sounding theatre.

The concert I saw tonight was a quartet of four famous Quebecois jazz musicians. They were:

Michel Cote - Tenor Saxophone
Alexandre Grogg - Piano
Pierre Cote - Bass
Pierre Tanguay - Drums

I had heard all kinds of things about Pierre Tanguay before coming here, and I'm not too sure why I hadn't seen him play until tonight. I could tell by the way the musicians walked onstage that it was going to be a great concert. There is a certain kind of authority and "This is going to music" type attitude that really comes across (at least to me).

The music consisted of simple but memorable compositions strung together with various levels of free playing. There was atleast a vague resemblance of Keith Jarrett's American Quartet (especially in the styles of Alexandre and Pierre Cote) but the music was clearly their own. One of the striking things about the band was how content Michel Cote seemed to be to play his own melodies, blow a little bit and step back and see what would happen. His sound was beautifully personal and reminded me of Charlie Rouse at times (it took a while to figure this out). The other interesting thing was the use of recordings of French people speaking, often several overlaid on top of each other, which Michel initiated as interludes, several times during Pierre Tanguay's drum solos and once over a piano drone created by striking mallets against the strings on the inside of the piano. This effect could've been tiresome but instead felt perfectly authentic and uncontrived.

All in all I was very inspired by this concert and must make an effort to see more jazz on this level in Montreal (it's clearly out there).

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I check Ethan Iverson's blog a little more than I'd like to admit (probably every day). Often I feel like quite a nerd for doing this, but not today when he posted a gigantic interview with Tim Berne, one of my favourite saxophonists ever.

I've already read this interview twice and it is incredibly illuminating. Highlights for me include knowing that Julius Hemphill used Sigurd Rascher's book Top Tones for the Saxophone.

In Vancouver I took not many more than a few lessons with a great baritone saxophonist Chad Makela. Chad definately believes in playing the saxophone in a very specific way that is definately "the real deal", for lack of a better way to describe it. This comes from his teacher Stan Karp, who studied with Buddy Collete and Joe Henderson among others. Many saxophonists from Vancouver have studied with Stan and everyone I've talked to has praised his methodical teaching methods (I also studied with Stan for about a year).

I remember telling Chad after seeing Bloodcount at the last Vancouver Jazz Festival that I saw Tim Berne playing with some kind of mouth guard in his mouth (This is true. I'd be curious to know if it's a regular or one-time thing. It isn't mentioned in the interview). Chad immediately replied: "Oh really? Suddenly I'm anti-Tim Berne. You can't play the saxophone with that shit in your mouth." I pushed the topic a bit further by saying that surely since studied with Julius Hemphill he must be legit. Chad replied by saying he had never heard Julius Hemphill play a straight long tone in his life and made some disparaging remark about the World Saxophone Quartet.

Now I respect Chad's position. Anyone who has heard him play the bari will attest that he knows what he is talking about. He also knows these Tim Berne records (though I doubt he has listened to much of Julius Hemphill or the World Saxophone Quartet.) Even though I will always aspire to play the saxophone as legitimately and with as much dedication as him, I can't deny the authenticity of Tim Berne and the pure bravado it takes to go your own way at any expense. I also believe that Chad too would acknowledge this on some level.

But the fact that Julius Hemphill was fully aware of and taught out of the Top Tones book (the same book Stan and Chad swear by; I also practice out of this book everyday) seems to refute the assertion that Julius Hemphill never played a "straight long tone" in his life (Tim Berne also admits to practicing long tones for 45 minutes every day religiously.)

As much as Stan and Chad value a strong tone (and they do), Stan once told me that as much as he is a stickler about sound, he is an even bigger stickler for time. (I never studied with him long enough to get as much time information from him, though the sound information was invaluable.)

Though I can assert that Tim and Julius practiced long tones, it is harder for me to assert that they would've practiced playing with the metronome in any serious way. (There is no mention of the metronome in the interview). Indeed, it seems that both Julius and Tim's sense of groove, which Tim admits to having a huge thing for, comes through osmosis from listening to soul and R and B music, music that has very little to do with jazz. It seems like this lack of a serious jazz beat is what would make Chad skeptical of Tim Berne and Julius Hemphill more than anything.

One of the records I bought when I was in Vancouver last month was Branford Marsalis' Contemporary Jazz, which features Tain Watts on drums. It's a good record; i hope to study it in greater depth at some point. One of the highlight tracks is the third, Elysium. It begins with 15 seconds of the most "out" Branford I would guess you would ever hear, complete with overblown multiphonics. After those fifteen seconds though, this idea is abandonned for straight ahead lines in a rubato Coltrane quartet setting, before moving towards a more complicated compositional structure in time. The free playing does return several times, admittedly, but never as blatantly as in those first fifteen seconds.

The track is fifteen minutes long and I'm not sure I understand what's really going on structurally, but I don't doubt that that (and Tain and Branford playing some fierce up-tempo swing) is what is important about this track. The free, or outside playing, just sounds tame to my ears, in a way that I know it wouldn't if Julius Hemphill were playing. I will probably always love this track though because to me it declares that this type of (free) music is going on 50 years old and even the so-called conservative axis of the music accepts it.

Related to this point is the part of the Tim Berne interview where they are discussing Julius Hemphill's famous Dogon AD record (which I have only this past year begun to study thanks to the McGill Library's vinyl collection complete with many Arista Freedom records) and Tim Berne states that it "probably wouldn't be as interesting with someone who plays the shit out of 11." There is some tribal element to that record where even though I feel that Julius and Baikida never really outline the 11 at all (Chad Makela might go as far as to say they aren't hearing it), their playing is still strongly authentic. I certainly wouldn't want to trade out Hemphill for Chad Makela (who CAN play the shit out of 11) on Dogon AD.

Interestingly, Chad Makela plays a Tim Berne-like role in bassist Tommy Babbin's band, Benzene. He definately sounds good, no question. Check out your body is your prison on his myspace.

There's definately more I could say about this but honestly I wasn't expecting to even write this much. There is plently more juicy material in that interview though, including Tim Berne's account of Dewey Redman and his thoughts about lifting solos and consciously trying to copy someone else.

Over the past few months I have been trying to explore Tim Berne's earlier music and his collaborations with Herb Robertson and Hank Roberts more since I was introduced to his music through Bloodcount. It's taking a big of adjustment but recently his stellar tribute to Julius Hemphill, Diminuitive Mysteries, has really clicked, but there is still lots more to investigate.

Books:

Stanley Crouch - The Artificial White Man: Essays on Authenticity
Kyle Gann - American Music in the 20th Century
Richard Brody - Everything is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard
James Joyce - Ulysses (in small chunks)
Homer - The Odyssey (prose translation by W. H. D. Rouse)

Movies:

Hiroshima Mon Amour
Vivre Sa Vie
The 400 Blows
Jules and Jim
Down by Law
The Seventh Seal
Wild Strawberries
True Romance

Music:

Muhal Richard Abrams - Mama and Daddy
Leroy Jenkins - Space Minds New Worlds Survival America
Yusef Lateef - Into Something
Keith Jarrett - Surviver Suite
Lee Morgan - The Sidewinder
Joni Mitchell - Don Juan's Reckless Daughter
Warne Marsh - Warne Marsh
Dave Holland - Seeds of Time

Practice Regime

I'm trying to step up my practicing this summer. I've always been a terrible sightreader and don't have very good ears so I'm hoping to focus on sightreading and ear training alot as well as my sound and time-feel.

One of the things I'm doing to try to make this happen is keeping a practice journal. In celebration of this I'm posting my first entry here for all to see:

June 3rd, 09

10:50-11:30 Saxophone Warm-up
Mouthpiece blowing 5 mins F major Scale
Long tones middle C going to F above and G below trill “Hee”
Terrace Dynamics 4 different notes of varying register 4 different dynamic levels
“Finger Twisters” Phrygian all 12 keys three times
Overtones played with half step bends below in this order:
Fundamental-12th-Octave-2nd Octave
Then the same with three strong articulations
Overtone scales
Joel Miller Exercise Overtone Matching with metronome Octave Only mm=80 bpm
11:30-12:30 Transcribing Hank Mobley’s “Workout” Solo
12:50-1:30 Bebop Scales (3 parts) MM = 90
Scales with Metronome on 1 and 3 starting on the 6th degree on the and of 3
Pattern 3rds to 7ths w/ passing tone through cycle of dominants
Joel Miller Bebop Scale exercise Metronome on quarter notes MM= 100
Start on third, descend over an octave to seventh
Passing tone between 7th and root desc. Between 9th and 3rd asc.
1:40-2:10 Singing with Metronome Phrygian Scale and Two Phrygian Melodies from “A New Approach to Sight-Singing”
2:45-3:00 Sight-reading (3) in “Encyclopaedia of Improvisational Rhythms and Patterns” by Charles Colin
MM=100 for quarter notes and half notes, read as both concert pitch and Bb part
3:40-3:55 Etude from the Universal Method Eighth Note = 100 (Quick Breaths)
4:45-5:10 Sight-reading from the Omnibook

My chops are pretty much done after this. In the end, this isn't that much. 2 hours and 15 minutes with the saxophone, an hour lifting solos and half an hour singing.

This isn't very impressive, the hard part will be keeping it up. We'll see how I do.

Back Home

I spent the last three weeks of May visiting my hometown in Vancouver. Aside from seeing family and friends, I got to play a duo gig with one of my favourite guitarists, Ron Samworth, at the Illuminate Restaurant in Tsawwassen. Ron was my guitar teacher at Capilano College (now Capilano University) when I went there for two years. He was a revelation, and we talked about everything from reharmonizing standards to Ornette to the music business and what being an artist in the present day really means. He was also the first to introduce me to artists as varied as Ligeti, Paul Bley and Lenny Breau. To this day, he remains an inspiration. Ron is up teaching up at Banff right now alongside Dave Douglas and Tony Malaby.

I also had the pleasure of playing at 1067 Granville Street, a fairly well known artists loft in Vancouver. I played original music and free improvisations with two future roommates and good friends, James Meger (bass) and Omar Amlani (drums). We did some recording after that seemed to turn out well so I will properly have some of that up.

Upon getting back to Montreal I've moved into my third and definately nicest place so far at 1968 Sherbrooke. The biggest plus is the record player and vinyl collection that my friend James left here while he spends his summer in Vancouver. His collection includes some of the very best jazz records. A few that have been on constant rotation are:

John Coltrane - Coltrane's Sound
Keith Jarrett - The Survivor's Suite
Paul Bley - Fragments
Charles Mingus - Let My Children Hear Music
Wayne Shorter - Night Dreamer
Ornette Coleman - Broken Shadows

I'm not sure if this music (which I've listen to quite a bit already on cd) sounds better on vinyl, but it sure sounds good.

Coda: Thanks to Ethan Iverson for mentioning me in his recent Blog Competition. Ethan's blog is a model for all future jazz blogs on the internet and I have learned so much just by reading his interviews and analysis. More importantly, his playing is great as is his band The Bad Plus. If you haven't checked out his blog, do it now!