Emptying the Mental Spit-Valve: July 29

Before my old compadre Arun headed out of town after the gig Tuesday, we were able to sit around and chew the musical fat for a while over some chicken tikka masala. It was good to be able to talk jazz nerd-ese again; I guess I usually assume my current musical associates have better things to discuss than flat-6th pentatonic scales and practice techniques, but Arun and I have been talking about this stuff since 1994, so it comes naturally. And it's always helpful to bounce ideas off someone and see if what I'm thinking makes sense outside the confines of my own brain.

Additionally, it was good to be reminded of the days when I was new to New York City and Arun and I spent many hours practicing running Charlie Parker tunes through all twelve keys on his Upper Broadway rooftop, surrounded by steaming chimneys and screaming neighbors. Those were some quintessential New York moments for me.

Meanwhile, the Quintet has set a tentative date for our first recording session as a group, which is long overdue, since we've been playing together pretty consistently for over a year. The idea, of course, is that I can use this recording to get us some more diverse work, and have a chance to hear the group outside the friendly but geometrically challenging confines of the House of Shields. Since this will be a demo recording, it will most likely be available for download on this site. I'm also working on getting some live MP3s ready to post, which I'd eventually like to make a regular part of this website--a sort of "Best of Last Tuesday" feature. Stay tuned.

Random Jazz Reference of the Day

[Penn] Jillette likens the improvising done by the comedians [in The Aristocrats] to improvising jazz music. "There's really not much of a difference between Gilbert Gottfried and Coltrane in terms of what goes on in their heads," he said.

Coltrane would be so proud.

Remembrances: Steve Lacy

Originally written 6/7/2004.

The Rent
In lieu of drowning myself in the rampant hero-worship of someone whose greatest accomplishment was spending the Soviet Union into bankruptcy and scattering their still-deadly nuclear arsenal to the four winds, I'm going to imagine that all those flags are flying at half-staff for the inimitable Steve Lacy, who passed away Friday at 69.

If Sidney Bechet was the godfather of the soprano saxophone, Lacy was its best friend, and the man who brought that instrument into the modern era; he was also one of the dwindling few improvisers who truly transcended any instrument.

During the course of studying and appreciating his music, I started to believe that Lacy's use of this relatively obscure horn helped him to forge his own path through the wilderness of jazz in the fifties. While many other improvisers were content to follow in the footsteps of the avatars of their respective instruments—Charlie Parker on the alto sax, Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young (and later, Coltrane) on the tenor, Dizzy Gillespie and Roy Eldridge on the trumpet, etc.—Lacy’s choice of the soprano allowed him to avoid the competitive stylistic arms race and focus on developing his own individualistic sound.

Further removing Lacy from the growing trend toward post-Parker bebop orthodoxy was his devotion to the music of Thelonious Monk, who admonished his sidemen not to "play bebop on my tunes." And from the late 1950s to the present the listener can hear his mastery of the instrument increase and his personal vision mature, until he and the saxophone burned away, and all that remained was "the voice." When watching him perform, as with a select few other master improvisers, one got the impression that even if Lacy was standing on stage with no instrument in his hands, somehow the same sounds would be coming out.

My only conversation with him came at an overpriced, dingy basement of a jazz club in New York, during one of his all-too infrequent stateside visits—this was before he returned from his decades-long stay in Europe to Boston, which unfortunately coincided with my own move to the West coast, so I wasn’t able to take advantage of his increased U.S. performances.

Lacy was performing with his longtime trio—Jean-Jacques Avenal on bass and John Betsch on drums—and had just spent the past hour spinning webs and "scramblin' eggs" on his own compositions and a handful of Monk’s tunes.

As he left the stage and began to field questions and compliments from his many admirers, I waited for my opening and jumped in, aware that I was keeping him from a seat and presumably needed rest—so I hoped to be succinct.

I asked him if he ever gave private lessons during his time in the States; he told me that it was difficult since he never stayed long; but he recommended that I first work with his book, Findings, which he said contained most of what he would tell a prospective student anyway, and said, "when you finish working through that, let me know and we'll get together." (Four or five years later, I'm not finished working through it, and unfortunately it's now all I'll get.) Then he asked me what instrument I played.

"Trumpet," I said.

"Ah, trumpet. That's good." I hesitated for a second, then decided this might be my only chance to clarify this, and asked him why it was good. He smiled. "Well, because it's a discursive instrument—you know, it tells a story."

For an improviser, that’s really something to remember, amidst all the necessary technique and theoretical knowledge that goes into learning to play jazz—it tells a story. I ask myself this question as often as I can: Am I telling a story? Or am I just playing notes? Am I saying something, or just speaking words?

In the liner notes to his album The Rent, Lacy talks about the title composition, written in the 1990s for a departed friend (the critic Laurent Goddet). He explains, "the title 'The Rent' is a play on words. When Laurent died, it left a rent - a rent meaning a tear, a hole or a gap. And now, we pay the rent with it."

This really is a terrible loss.

Reviews: Keith Jarrett Trio

Originally written 11/14/2003.

I managed to get a ticket last weekend to see Keith Jarrett, Jack DeJohnette, and Gary Peacock (the "Trio at 20") as the closing headliners of the SF JazzFest; I've never seen the group live before, so I don't know what the standard etiquette is, but I was surprised when His Keithness began speaking after the band had been introduced (since he has a reputation as something of a "difficult" performer). "Twenty years," he said, "is not really enough." He spoke haltingly, in choppy phrases that suggested this wasn't something he'd prepared; he closed his remarks by saying (and this is only my best recollection), "I feel like we should thank... I don’t know, whoever we need to thank, certainly not us. We sometimes sit backstage and think, 'What is it exactly, that we do?' People come to hear us, I guess, and we show up on the stage, and... something happens."

Something then proceeded to happen for the next few hours—based on the large swaths of time I've devoted to listening to the Trio’s recordings over the years, I would say they had a hell of a night. The second set was especially good, opening with the rarely-played "Golden Earring" (not the rock band), a fast and rollicking version of "All the Things..." (with a long sheets-of-sound-y solo intro from Keith), and a re-creation of the funky rendition of "God Bless the Child" as heard on their very first studio recording twenty years ago. The crowd was relentlessly appreciative, and wouldn't leave until they were placated with two encores (a muted "When I Fall in Love" and a wild, quick version of "When Will the Blues Leave?", complete with frightening fills from Jack played on those little bowls attached to his cymbals). It made me think, "Oh yeah... this was why I got into this business."

Remembrances: Elvin Jones

Originally written 5/19/2004.

Elvin Jones has died.

I'm grateful that I did get a chance to hear him once. I had just arrived in New York, and a friend of my dad's decided to take me out to a real Big City Jazz Club—in this case, the Metropolitan (now Blue Water Grill), which happened to be in the basement of the building that housed my overpriced 8-man dorm apartment at the corner of W 16th and Union Square West. I was appropriately stoked when I learned that I'd be seeing and hearing the engine behind A Love Supreme and Speak No Evil, 8 stories below the room I (barely) slept in.

The group was pretty good, it was Cecil McBee, Delfeayo "the Non-Famous" Marsalis, Greg Tardy, and some pianist whose name I don't recall. The only tune I remember is "Misterioso." But Elvin was phenomenal, despite the intrusive TV crew that was filming the entire show.

After the set was over, I was finishing my Shirley Temple or whatever, when I suddenly sensed a commotion behind me and heard, "Hey there! Yeah!" I turned around, and there stood the master himself, in his bathrobe and looking like he'd just stepped out of the sauna. He came right over to our table and shook everyone's hand ebulliently, then moved on to work the rest of the crowd. Maybe he felt disconnected from the audience during the performance due to the film crew and wanted to literally reach out and touch us, or maybe he did that at every show. In any case, I contemplated not washing my hand, ever again.

Eventually I did, because, you know, drummers are kind of dirty.

4-Bar Intro

This is a website where I'll be announcing any performances I have coming up, as well as posting occasional music-related thoughts, reviews and reminiscences, and hopefully MP3s as they become available. Thanks for visiting.

Announcements: Quintet +1, 7/26/05

Seven Lies I Will Tell You to Get You to Come to My Gig Tuesday

• The first 50 guests will receive complimentary hammerhead shark chowder in a sourdough bread bowl.
  
  
• A dazzling pyrotechnic and laser-light display is being assembled for the last tune, a musical tribute to the non-Star Trek acting career of the late James "Scotty" Doohan.
  
  
• This week we will be playing only music written by gay or transgendered dwarfs of Slavic descent in solidarity with their cause.
  
  
• Arun Luthra, who is visiting from New York and will be sitting in with the band, is actually fourth in line for the throne of the Kingdom of Southwest Norway (in exile).
  
  
• All proceeds from drink sales will be donated to relief efforts for next week's catastrophic volcano eruption in New Jersey.
  
  
• Miles Davis once said, "Ian is a bad !#$@f*&% who never #$%* no $@#^ off nobody and %$#@ his *$&@! #$&@* all the $%&* time."
  
  
• It's not my birthday.

WHO: Ian, trumpet, with
Adam Shulman, piano
Joe Cohen, saxophone
Kurt Kotheimer, bass
Jon Arkin, drums
...and special guest Arun Luthra on saxophone, direct from Noo Yawk!

WHERE: The House of Shields, 39 New Montgomery St. (betw. Market & Mission)

WHEN: Tuesday, July 26, 5:30-8:30 p.m.

HOW MUCH: Just pennies a day.

Announcements: Quintet, 7/12/05

Ian's Gig Announcement: The Mad Libs Edition
Howdy [plural noun]! I'd like to [verb] you about my big [adjective] hour show coming up TONIGHT at the House of [plural noun], a quaint little [noun] nestled in San Francisco's [adjective] District where everybody knows your [noun], and you're always [adjective] you [past-tense verb]! [Exclamation] yeah!

You'll hear the [noun] play some of my [plural noun] as well as plenty of old [plural noun]. We also have [very large number] special guests including the [adjective] Dayna Stephens, who's back from [geographical location] and sounding really [adjective]—and I mean REALLY [adjective]—along with newcomers [name of person in room] on drums and Kurt [German-sounding last name] on [musical instrument]. It's going to so be [adjective] you'll shout "[exclamation]", or my name isn't [celebrity]!

I don't give a [animal]'s [part of the body] whether you have tickets to the [name of sport] game, or a date with [female celebrity] (and her [adjective] [part of the body]—hubba hubba!) or even an appointment to get your [part of the body] waxed... you better get your [part of the body] down to the [noun] of Shields tonight. You'll be really [adjective] you did, you [relative] of a [noun]!

And remember, on Tuesdays, ladies [verb] free!

WHO: Ian [nonsense word], [musical instrument], with
Adam Shulman, piano
Dayna Stephens, saxophone
Brian Bowman, drums
Kurt Kotheimer, bass

WHERE: The House of Shields, 39 [adjective] Montgomery St. (betw. Market & Mission), San [Spanish name].

WHEN: TONIGHT, Tuesday, July 12, 5:30-8:30 p.m.

HOW MUCH: Not [number] [color] [monetary unit].