I Am the Giant Head of Charlie Parker! Photo by Alan Watt.

"Oakland? That hellhole!"

This was the reaction of the bass player after I answered his middle-of-the-tune question of where I was from, as we slugged through "Confirmation" at 3:20 a.m. But let me back up a moment.

My girlfriend and I were in Kansas City last week for a friend's wedding, but since we were in the town which produced so many jazz giants--Charlie Parker (of the giant green head above), Jay McShann, Count Basie, and many others--I decided to throw in a pilrgimage to what's believed to be the oldest jam session in the country: the Mutual Musician's Foundation, which has been hosting late-night sessions since 1930, give or take a few years for renovations. The session was listed as beginning at 11 p.m., but when we arrived after midnight the man behind the bar said, "music starts at one." So we sat in the arctic air-conditioned chill, surrounded by framed photos of Kansas City legends past, and waited.

A trio began to play a little after 2 a.m.--unfortunately I didn't get anyone's names, but they were very good, playing mostly standards. I was wondering if they played a set before opening up the session, but there didn't seem to be anyone else waiting to sit in, and after listening for five or six tunes and hearing some ruckus coming through the ceiling, I finally asked someone, and was told that the session was upstairs, and downstairs was for performances. But it worked out well, since I would've missed out on hearing the good music downstairs if I'd gone straight up to the session.

Downstairs at the M.M.F. Photo by Alan Watt.

We made our way upstairs, and found three musicians playing in a much larger (and less freezing) room, surrounded by oblivious drinkers. I played three or four tunes with the group, which featured a great pianist named Oscar Williams II (who according to a Google search studied with Bobby Watson at UMKC), the aforementioned bassist with the anti-Oakland bent, and a pair of drummers including a nice guy who told us he'd toured with the Ojays. (Linda said he approached her while I was playing and politely said, "Excuse me miss, are you waitin' on someone?") Unfortunately we had to split around 3:30 a.m., though a lot of drinkers were starting to show up as the bars closed. I don't know whether more musicians joined them, although I've since heard that the session really only picks up after 3--next time, I guess.

We also made it to the American Jazz Museum and Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, which are in opposite sides of the same building, but could not be further apart in terms of content and execution.

The baseball museum had a ton of material, but seemed to think it needed everything to be visible at once. The result was overwhelming, and not in a good way. Overall, I'd recommend it, however, since the exhibits managed to present many of the compelling stories of the Negro Leauges days (even if in a somewhat cluttered way). Unfortunately they didn't have the throwback-N.Y. Cubans hat that I wanted to buy, but I suppose I have enough hats as it is.

The jazz museum was another story, unfortunately. The space was set up well, and it's connected to what looks like a nice jazz club called the Blue Room (where a saxophonist was just finishing up a little improvisation demonstration on "When the Saints"--too bad he wasn't around when that tune was requested at the House of Shields)--but the exhibit was pretty short on substance. Other than Charlie Parker's plastic alto (as used for the famous Massey Hall concert where Mingus had to redub his bass lines) and a few contracts, there wasn't much to look at: lots of record sleeves which could've been seen at a record store, some photocopied gig contracts, and a late-model trumpet with the label "A Trumpet and Mouthpiece. Louis Armstrong was a famous trumpeter" or something like that. They also had a listening library with a couple of hundred in-print CDs--nice, I suppose, but probably no better than the average university or library collection. In fact, the most interesting thing I saw was a container of "Louis Armstrong Lip Salve," which Linda suggested would probably sell pretty well today. Hell, I'd buy some (although God knows what people rubbed on their chops in the thirties).

Although the museum was a little bit sad, it was luckily only a few blocks from the world-famous Arthur Bryant's, where we were able to smother our disappointment with ribs, "burnt end" sandwiches, and cole slaw the color of lime jello. (We also made it to Gates Barbecue but preferred Bryant's in pretty much every way). Other highlights included catching an entertaining K.C. T-Bones baseball game--the T-Bones' mascot is a bull named "Sizzle," who is, as far as I know, the only mascot in professional sports whose name celebrates his own death. (We also made multiple trips to Sheridan's Frozen Custard, which is so damn good that I can't believe it hasn't yet made its way to the Bay Area.)

Anyway, it was a nice short visit, and I'd like to go back and meet some more of the local musicians, since it seems like there's still a pretty vibrant scene for such an otherwise economically-depressed town. We kept thinking that any moment thousands of Bay Area refugees were going to come over the hill hungry for lower rent, backyards, and custard. It could happen any day, so you better snatch up one of those $50,000 houses fast.

Sitting at work, suddenly the phone rings--it's my old friend Jemilla, calling from New York. "Can you get WKCR on your computer there? They're playing this new recording they found of Monk and Coltrane." Sure enough, in a few clicks, I'm there, wondering how I managed to avoid hearing about this until now.

And GOD DAMN.

As soon as I can buy this, it'll be Subway Tape material for months to come. Interestingly enough it was co-discovered by Lewis Porter, my old jazz history professor, sometime employer, and a nice guy, who also had a hand in finding some of the outtakes for the Atlantic Coltrane box, although they put the alternate take of "Blues to Elvin" on there a half-step too slow. (He'd disagree, of course.)

[UPDATE, 5/9/06: Dr. Porter recently contacted me to voice a concern that what I wrote above ("He'd disagree, of course") implied that he and I had discussed my theory (that one of the two takes has a tape-speed problem) and he had rejected it. To clarify, we never discussed it, and I shouldn't have presumed to know what his response to my thoughts about it would be. Sorry for the confusion.]

[UPDATE 2, 5/15/06: Dr. Porter looked into my theory, and his research team presented some pretty convincing evidence (alternate takes and studio chatter) which now leads me to believe that the original release was correct, and Coltrane really did record the takes in two different keys. So that's that!]

In other news, the recording (my recording, I mean) is officially done and mixed. As soon as I decide how to handle the packaging, it will be available right here for sampling and--perish the thought--purchasing? Stay tuned.

Back when I was living in New York and taking the subway every day, I started making "mix" tapes for myself with stuff I really wanted to absorb; this was based on some advice I got from Dave Liebman that "you're not in the business of listening to music 'for fun' anymore. You need to listen in a focused way."Liebman's somewhat overbearing asceticism aside—this was right after he'd told us that the air column in a saxophone looked like a "johnson," which was why "chicks [counldn't] play"—I thought he had a good point, since this was during a time when I was in a literal deluge of sound, from recorded music to live performances to street noise, and narrowing down the variety into more digestible pieces seemed like a good idea. And since it had never been easy for me to memorize recorded solos by ear, I had a certain amount of envy and perplexity toward those smartasses who'd strut by the equipment room at my school singing along with whatever record I was listening to. (Note to music students: this is always annoying. Nobody cares that you can sing Coltrane's solo on "Oleo." Go show off somewhere else.)Anyway, Liebman suggested listening to no more than three tunes at a time—that seemed a little extreme to me, so I gave myself one 45-minute side of a 90-minute tape, or about eight tunes. The "Subway Tape" was born.I'd usually start with some classic prewar jazz—Louis Armstrong and/or Lester Young, then always some Charlie Parker, then into the later masters whose language I was trying to soak up (Miles, Trane, Woody Shaw, Joe Henderson, Steve Lacy, and Ornette Coleman made frequent appearances), and often on to snippets and short works of "classical" composers, from the Rennaissance (Gesualdo's madrigals) to Baroque (Well-Tempered Klavier was a staple) and on to the 20th century (Stravinsky's L'Histoire Du Soldat was there for months, and later, Bartok and Schöenberg string quartets, although I learned that Webern was often way too quiet for the subway).Anyway, I found that it really worked—I was soaking up these tunes on a much deeper level than I ever could have if I only heard them once every so often and along with all the other cuts on whatever albums they came from. And for the first time, I was able to sing along just like those jerkoffs at school (though I didn't do it in public). And when I felt like I was ready for some new blood (usually after a month or two), I'd make a new one, often keeping some of the cuts from the previous tape that I thought needed more attention.Over the years, the Subway Tape became the Subway CD, which became the Subway MP3 playlist—and even though I don't live on the same coast as the Subway anymore, the idea's the same. So since this site has become a kind of musical journal, it seems like a good place to post my Subway Tape/CD/Playlist, in case anybody was interested. If not, have a nice day.Subway Playlist: August '05

1. J.S. Bach: Contrapunctus II (from Die Kunst Der Fugue). I'm working my way through Die Kunst one fugue at a time.
2. Charlie Parker: Warming Up a Riff (from a really good import 4-CD box set I got for $25). This is a slower, incomplete rehearsal take of Cherokee, but it gives you a chance to hear his lines really clearly.
3. Art Farmer Quartet Featuring Jim Hall: Loads of Love (from Interaction). This is one of my all-time favorite bands and the inspiration for a lot of the ideas I try out with my own group. And Art is one of my favorite improvisers—melody trumps athleticism every time.
4. Lennie Tristano: Line Up (from The New Tristano). To create this track, Tristano recorded a "playalong" featuring bass and drums, then slowed it to half speed and recorded himself soloing over it in the very low register of the piano, then doubled the speed of his solo track (so it was now in the middle register, albeit sounding a little tinny and weird), and sync'ed it with the original drum & bass track. This annoys some purists, but I don't care—this is one of the baddest solos ever recorded; it's been on my Subway playlists for months, and it still freaks me out every time I hear it.
5. Don Ellis: Out of Nowhere (from Out of Nowhere, with Paul Bley and Steve Swallow). I got into this album through my friend Jacob Varmus, and I've never gotten tired of it. Ellis and Bley send consistent shivers up my spine, all over a background of overplayed standards.
6. John Coltrane: Resolution (from A Love Supreme). I was off Coltrane for a while, but lately my interest has been rekindled--this is a great example of language (lots of pentatonic scales in this case) really being subservient to what's being said, rather than running the show, as it unfortunately sometimes can.
7. Steve Lacy: Hoot (from Bye-Ya). A group I was fortunate enough to see, playing the hell out of a simple blues. I wonder what they're laughing about at the end of the tune. (Lacy was another of my favorite improvisers. More on him here.)
8. Miles Davis: Water Babies (from Water Babies--note: worst album art ever?). Really nice, sweet and subtle cut from the great quintet. I listen to Miles for his sound—the notes are almost irrelevant.
9. Larry Young: The Moontrane (from Unity). A formative record for me, with the amazing Young (who I'm appreciating more and more as I get older), JoHen and the goddamn 21-year old Woody Shaw, who I see as almost an anti-Miles, in that I love his language but was never that crazy about his sound or delivery. Still, damn.
10. Steve Swallow: Bite Your Grandmother (from Real Book). DeJohnette, Lovano and a gorgeous Tom Harrell solo on a fast rhythm changes tune. One of the great, unpretentious albums of the 90s, I think.

So that's it. If this is of interest to anybody, I'll post new lists as I change them.

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.

[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.

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.