The Independent Ear

Dillard Interviews

The last week of July and first week of August were busy times for the Dillard University interview series mentioned previously in Independent Ear profiles of Harold Battiste, and Dr. Michael White.  Last week I had the great pleasure of interviewing some Crescent City legends: Bennie Jones and the inimitable dapper dan and man-about-town Uncle Lionel, the drumming duo and founding fathers of the Treme Brass Band; New Orleans leading jazz singer Germaine Bazzle; a session with New Orleans oldest living active jazz musician, 97-year old trumpeter Lionel Furbos, who continues to lead the band at the Palm Court, and concluding with a New Orleans modernist, trumpeter Clyde Kerr, frequent bandmate of the city’s free jazz icon saxophonist Edward "Kidd" Jordan.  More from those interviews later…

 

Satchmo Summerfest

Last week — and every week for that matter when you’re talking about the man I often refer to on-air at WWOZ as the Heavyweight Champion of New Orleans music — was surely Louis Armstrong week in the Crescent City.  As detailed below it was the culminating week of the annual Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong Summer Jazz Camp for youth which was capped off by some reportedly stellar performances from the youngsters at UNO on Pops August 1 birthday. 

 

As part of the weekend’s 8th annual  Satchmo Summerfest in the French Quarter there was a visual arts exhibition and good friend Rick Holton, who has painted some amazing jazz master collages, was in town to represent his wonderful piece on Pops.  Satchmo Summerfest kicked off in grand style with a keynote address at the Old U.S. Mint from the great record man George Avakian, who produced some important Armstrong discs, including the champ’s separate treatments of W.C. Handy and Fats Waller’s music.  Friday’s action began with a grand Satchmo Birthday Party at Louis Armstrong Park (home of historic Congo Square) with cake (where you gonna go in New Orleans without refreshments?), and music provided by Kermit Ruffins and Japanese Satchmo fanatic Yoshio Toyama.  Later Friday evening was the annual Satchmo Club Strut in the Marigny on poppin’ Frenchman Street, with live jazz in every club as well as on certain balconies (Geraldine Wycoff reports that the New Orleans Saxophone Quartet was a particular highlight).  As I remarked on WWOZ the preceding Wednesday drivetime show when Jason Patterson, ace impressario of key Satchmo Club Strut participant Snug Harbor (see below), was on for an interview — other burghs call such activities Pub Crawls; but in NOLA it was surely a "Club Strut" ("we don’t have pubs here," Jason said).

 

I had to head off to the Litchfield Jazz Festival in Litchfield, Connecticut for a NEA site visit so I missed the Club Strut and Saturday festival hits, but got back on Sunday in plenty of time for some good festival-closing sounds on the Traditional Jazz Stage, the Brass Band Stage, the Contemporary Jazz Stage, and the Children’s Stage.  The entire Satchmo Summerfest is free and some of NOLA’s finest representing the various stage genres, graced the grounds of the Louisiana State Museum.  New Orleans audiences ain’t shy about getting up to shake ‘em down at these events, and strolling around the grounds I experienced the Algiers Brass Band, Treme Brass Band, trumpeter James Andrews & The Crescent City Allstars, and the irrepressible Kermit Ruffins & The Barbecue Swingers encouraging just that.  Over on the Traditional Jazz Stage, whose proceedings were broadcast live over WWOZ (www.wwoz.org), trumpeter Randy Sandke and a crew of New Orleans finest including pianist Steve Pistorius, drummer Shannon Powell, and the ubiquitous bassist Roland Guerin encouraged some fox trotters and free formers, as did stage closer Dr. Michael White (see our previous blog entry on him), with Guerin, Pistorius, and Powell reprising their roles and Detroit Brooks on banjo.  Brooks and Guerin proved once again the exceptional versatility of so many New Orleans musicians (see Snug Harbor below), both in entirely different contexts from other recent sightings, but no less effective.  Musically there was much ado about Pops on every stage; by evening’s end I’d heard "What a Wonderful World" on every stage!  And while that might sound a bit redundant, not to mention maudlin as that song can be, each time the tune was delivered with carloads of heart & soul, befitting the memory of Pops.  Both Sandke and White were quite generous in their Armstrong tributes.

 

Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong Summer Jazz Camp

Without question one of the summertime jewels of New Orleans is the annual Louis Armstrong Summer Jazz Camp.  This year approximately 100 aspiring musicians (age 10-18) bristling with youthful enthusiasm participated in this two-week intensive at Medard Nelson Charter School on St. Bernard Avenue.  They come mainly from New Orleans-area public schools, but through a cooperative agreement with Columbia College in Chicago several Chicago-area youngsters are attending this session, including one young clarinetist I met who was fortunate enough to stay at flutist Kent Jordan and his wife Christine’s lovely West Bank home. 

 

The Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong Summer Jazz Camp is a project of the New Orleans Arts and Council Host Committee, whose good work was represented at their press conference by member Mark Samuels, familiar from his other hat as CEO of Basin Street Records.  The heart & soul of this wonderful undertaking however is the executive director Jackie Harris and her spiritual godmother, or "sister" as she referred to herself in her warm remarks, the indomitable Phoebe Jacobs keeper of the Louis Armstrong flame through her Louis Armstrong Foundation.

 

Today’s press event was primarily in recognition of the kick-off of a week with this year’s Artist-in-Residence, the versatile keyboard wizard-producer George Duke.  The camp’s faculty is an exceptional assemblage of some of New Orleans finest, including the taskmaster with a heart of gold and a saxophone of pure steel, artistic director Edward "Kidd" Jordan, who was recently honored by this year’s Vision Festival in New York for his steadfast journey on the cutting edge of the music.  Other camp faculty included Kent Jordan, Maynard Chattters (trombone), Jonathan Bloom (percussion), Clyde Kerr (trumpet), Roger Dickerson (piano), Nicholas Payton (trumpet), Herman Jackson  (drums), Germaine Bazzle (voice), and an impressive crew of other teachers.  By way of introduction, the Jordans and Chatters are part of one of New Orleans’ most distinguished musical clans, as detailed in an earlier Independent Ear entry detailing violinist Rachel Jordan’s superb concert earlier this summer, a clan that also includes the late clarinet master Alvin Batiste.  

 

In addition to instrumental and vocal music the camp also boasts a dance program inspired by this year’s other artist-in-residence legendary Savoy Ballroom Lindy Hopper Norma Miller, who delighted those of us old enough to recall her references to working with Pops, and hopefully inspired the youngsters with her spinning of history.

 

Further information:

Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong Summer Jazz Camp

124 Roselyn Park Place

New Orleans, LA 70131

504/392-2002  or  212/987-0782

jazzcamp@louisarmstrongjazzcamp.com

 

Snug Harbor Joys

There simply is no better place for jazz in NOLA than Snug Harber, one of the jewels of the entertainment strip on Frenchman Street in the Marigny, the bustling neighborhood just below the French Quarter.  Much like Blues Alley in DC, Snug Harbor enjoys the tourist trade phenomenon.  At one point during last Saturday’s superb performance a woman two tables up leaned over and asked who that marvelous alto saxophonist was on stage who was delighting her so much.  Well, on this particular evening that saxophonist was Wessell "Warmdaddy" Anderson.  Though a native of Brooklyn, Wes Anderson is something of a homeboy, having prepped under Alvin Batiste at Southern University in Baton, Rouge.  The big man was clearly right at home, deep in the swinging shed with guitarist Detroit Brooks, who quite successfully and soulfully recalled vintage Wes Montgomery through the filter of George Benson but decidedly in his own sweet way; drummer Herman Jackson, pianist Larry Sieberth, and one of the most versatile, hardest working bassists on the scene today, Roland Guerin — who we’d just seen two weeks prior on bass guitar bottoming out a New Orleans R&B review at Harrah’s, the first weekend in May as the busiest bass player in town at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival where he played no fewer than six varied gigs throughout the second weekend, and a week prior to that as bassist with the Marcus Roberts Trio. 

 

Soulful and swinging straight out of the gate, Warmdaddy wasted no time diving headlong into "Billie’s Bounce."  From there it was on to Stanley Turrentine’s familiar "Sugar" and beyond.  There was no pretense, no grasping for some elusive newness, no sense of trying to confuse his audience, just pure, heartfelt jazz in its highest form, all served up with Anderson’s optimistic bounce.  In that respect, and also with the purity of his tone and adroit facility, not to mention his physical form, Wes Anderson has always reminded me of Cannonball Adderley, but his is very personal sound and approach.

 

Celebrating A Living Legend

It’s always a wonderful thing when deserving folks are celebrated while they can still smell the figurative roses.  Such was the case on Sunday, June 22 when a spirited crowd gathered at the Christian Unity Baptist Church to celebrate the legacy of saxophonist-composer-arranger and record man Dr. Harold Battiste (see our earlier Independent Ear profile for details of his rich life).  Dr. Battiste, who was bestowed an honorary doctorate degree by his alma mater Dillard University, was honored by several presentations, including music from the Treme Brass Band, Ellis Marsalis, vocalist Philip Manuel,  vocalist Germaine Bazzle, and a tribute from poet Kalamu ya Salaam.  Marsalis, Manuel, Bazzle, and Salaam have all recorded for Harold Battiste’s AFO (All For One) New Orleans modern jazz record label.  The program opened, appropos for a New Orleans tribute, with selections from the crack Edna Karr High School Band.  (Where else but New Orleans would a high school marching band have to excuse itself early from a Sunday program because they "had another gig"!)  There was also a rousing African drum and dance processional and heartfelt remarks from many, including Pastor Dwight Webster.  It was a beautiful afternoon, including the reception repast that followed — which we, despite alternate dinner plans, were implored to take part of in typical New Orleans parlance, by a kind sister who virtually blocked the door to prevent us from leaving without filling our plates.  As a good friend once remarked, you can’t go anywhere in New Orleans without there being food… good food… and lots of it!

KENDRICK SCOTT: Interview with a real self-starter

 

I’m always interested in the efforts of artists who aren’t sitting around longing for some elusive record deal but who are putting their music on the marketplace themselves; and not just the vanity project purveyor but those who show real entrepreneurial spirit.  Such an artist is the very promising young drummer Kendrick Scott, another in a growing line of musicians out of Houston (see our earlier Q&A with pianist Helen Sung) who were trained in part by renowned high school educator Bob Morgan.  Over the last year Kendrick has been steadily growing his World Culture Music (WCM) imprint, releasing not only his own music but also those of exceptional colleagues as well.  I recently caught up with the busy Mr. Scott for a Q&A on the whys & wherefores of World Culture Music.

 

Willard Jenkins: Generally young artists like you when they do start their own imprint they do it purely to support their own releases.  Why and how did you determine to record other artists as well as your own music on the label?

 

Kendrick Scott: When I first decided to record my own CD it was going to be for a small label.  The deal essentially was they would give me a nominal fee, with no future returns in sight, and I would give them a record… period.  After deep thought I realized how ludicrous that was.  So I decided to do it on my own so that I will have total control over the whole process and own my master.  While I was in the process of doing my CD I found myself recording three other CDs with friends of mine who I felt have strong voices.  These musicians possessed a very important trait, they are strong composers as well as players.  I developed World Culture Music (WCM) as an artist collective so that we might bring our creative expression and vision to the listener in an honest and sincere way that could also benefit the artists.

 

WJ: What is your mission for WCM?

 

KS: Our mantra is "Progress The Music and Expand The Culture."  Through the artist collective effort we want to empower our peers of younger accomplished jazz musicians.  In today’s society we are missing a sense of community, which is why on another level you see our country coming together this election season.  It takes a strong collective of people to make things flourish as well as strong will to act on your dreams and not leave it in other hands.  WCM is a part of that community that says it’s our turn.  And that’s the type of label we want to create, a gathering of minds.  We want to continue that sense of community by not only catering to our established jazz fans but tapping into a younger audience of our peers who may not listen to jazz.  And we adamantly want to develop a fresh new marketing model.

 

WJ: How have you gone about developing your label?

 

KS: We’ve done a lot of market anaylsis on the jazz industry.  We have looked at a great deal of things from record sales and trends to market development and beyond.  Next we set up a Board of Directors which includes the artists in the collective and also an advisory board of young professionals in the music industry, business, and other ventures.  Both of these structures aid us in our decision making while developing our various revenue streams, marketing model, and returns for the artists.

 

WJ: What have you done about tackling the distribution question — even though the business paradigm has shifted with the near demise (or at best the diminshment of importance) of traditional 4-wall retail record stores?

 

KS: We had been in negotiations to partner with another established label in order to get our product into stores.  The reality was that brick and mortar stores are on the way out and it wasn’t cost effective for us right now.  However, we do want to be in stores.  For young musicians presenting debuts on their own, 4-wall distribution can be a rough undertaking.  Right now we are concentrating our efforts in online distrubution and later in 2009 we plan to be in stores.

 

WJ: How do you get your releases to the press and electronic media?  And given the fact that the media receives a blizzard of new releases, what steps have you taken to try and make your releases stand out from the pack?

 

KS: The first thing that I wanted to stand out from the crowd is the music itself.  We want to release music that will touch people’s life in a great way.  We try to make everything from the record concept and the recording quality, to the art top notch.  I feel if that is the basis for everything that we do, then we are headed in the right direction, whether it stands out now or down the line, which is the ultimate goal.  Each of the artists in the collective has been blessed to play, as a sideman, with many of today’s leading artists and visionaries, as well as our many exceptionally talented peers.  This has been great for us in piquing interest in our music to those who may never have heard of us.  Our publicist, Jason Byrne from Red Cat Publicity, has helped tremendously in introducing our names and music to the jazz world individually and as a solid collective.

 

WJ: How effective have your early efforts with the label been so far?

 

KS: WCM has been doing very well so far.  Each of the artists has released a CD for a total of four.  We have been blessed that they have been well received and have had critical acclaim by writers (New York Times, All About Jazz, Downbeat, JazzTimes), musicians, and listeners alike.  My record The Source received 2007 end-of-year poll wins in the Village Voice and All About Jazz, and (guitarist) Mike Moreno’s record has been chosen by JazzTimes as one of the top 50 CDs of 2007.  Julie Hardy’s CD The WIsh was also well received.  Downbeat magazine said "[vocalist] Julie Hardy interacts as a skilled, challenging improviser and vocalist, leading the way melodically and rhythmically."  Trombonist Nick Vayenas’ release is doing very well too.  We had a record release performance with Nick’s band at the Tribeca Performing Arts Center in May.  And in June we had a WCM weekend celebration at the Jazz Gallery.  Our music is doing the talking for us and if we keep that up we will be on our way in following the masters in terms of developing a strong body of work and continuing their legacy; that’s our marker.

 

WJ: Will you always be concerned with making hard copy releases or do you ever foresee a day when your whole catalogue will be purely downloadable?

 

KS: I think the music industry is headed toward being totally digital, but I think that most jazz fans are also collectors in some way.  I am a young guy but I do remember seeing the eight track in my parents’ car and I have a nice collection of [vinyl] records.  For me nothing can replace the feeling of having a record like Barry Harris’ Live At the Jazz Workshop in your hands.  It’s really a romance I don’t think people will totally get away from in the long run.

 

WJ: What else do you see as the ongoing benefit of hard copy releases besides that tactile need?

 

KS: For those of us who have had computers crash and lost everything on our hardrive, there is the obvious reason for having the hard copies.  As I stated in the previous answer I think listeners across the board still have somewhat of a love/hate romance with the hardcopy, at least when the music moves them.

 

WJ: What kinds of artists are you interested in recording and releasing on your label?

 

KS: Our interest is in artists who have a strong vision for their music; artists not just in the now but who have the drive to develop their craft over the long haul like all of the great masters have.  I believe now we are in a one hit culture and I think we should represent the opposite… but we should also make hits!  We want to have not only strong players but strong composers on the label.  We want artists with an attitude to promote the collective. 

 

WJ: Talk about your future plans for the label and for your own playing career.

 

KS: I plan for the label to develop a strong catalog of what is happening in the present.  Jazz is undergoing a revival.  It’s so great to be in New York right now and to play with my peers that many people don’t know about… at least for now.  My goal for the label is to get those voices heard.  The next WCM CD will most likely be my own.  I am in the process of writing right now and plan to release it in the first quarter of 2009. 

 

As far as my playing career I’ve been extremely blessed.  I am really saddened that many of the masters are passing away.  That’s one thing I feel our generation needs, we need to be around the masters on the bandstand and off, at the bar and on the plane, on the street, at rehearsal, etc.  Those are valuable lessons.  I was on a three month tour with the Monterey Jazz Festival All-Stars earlier this year.  One of the most memorable moments for me was when James Moody was at rehearsal and he asked ME how he should play my music!  He’s James Moody!  That really caught me off guard and taught me a great lesson.  If he is 83 and his thirst is that heavy, that’s all I want to wish for my own future.  I never want to be stagnant.  My future plan for my playing is to have as many of those experiences as I can get of playing with the greats and continuing their legacy through carrying on the tradition, not in style but in spirit.

 

Catch up with Kendrick Scott at www.kendrickscott.com and www.myspace.com/kendrickscottoracle.

 

Learn more about WCM at www.worldculturemusic.com.

 

World Culture Music Discography

Kendrick Scott, The Source

Julie Hardy, The Wish

Mike Moreno, Between the Lines

Nick Vayenas, Synthesia

A profile in today’s Times Picayune weekly Lagniappe arts & entertainment section identifies the erudite clarinetist Dr. Michael White as Renaissance Man.  That’s a dead-on descriptor and comes on the heels of a very revealing interview sit-down I had with the man just yesterday.  The setting was the spacious trad jazz club The Palm Court on Decatur Street in the French Quarter, and the occasion was another in a series of New Orleans artist interviews I’m conducting that are being video taped for Dillard University’s infant Institute of Jazz Studies.

 

In the Lagniappe White is pictured head skyward in full-throated laughter, lovingly grasping his clarinet.  On the National Endowment for the Arts web site (www.arts.endow.gov) announcing his selection as a 2008 National Heritage Fellow, big smile in place, again he’s cradling that clarinet as if to pronounce ‘this is really what its all about…’ 

 

So it was no surprise that before sitting down for our interview, fresh from a gym session but neatly clad in a handsome brown business suit and crisp striped sport shirt, he carefully assembled his instrument and grasped it throughout our session.  The impulse was irrisistable: would he be so kind as to provide our interview with a musical invocation?  So Dr. White proceeded to blow not just any few bars, but a clarinet adaptation of Louis Armstrong’s monumental cadenza intro to "West End Blues"!

 

At 53 years old Dr. Michael White is a bit of an anomaly — at least outside the singular confines of the Crescent City he is — a middle-aged African American who is fully-committed to performing traditional New Orleans jazz.  Although he is not single-minded in his scholarly pursuits of all forms of jazz and various musics of the world — including confessed listens to the work of NOLA rapper ‘Lil Wayne - it seems that all music that comes into his consciousness is at some point filtered into his various original composition-based meditations on the traditional New Orleans jazz form.

 

As I queried how it is that an African American musician of his age group was so immersed in traditional New Orleans jazz and not hotly pursuing the next evolution of modern jazz or settled down into some modern jazz comfort zone, I could see a big smile playing across Dr. White’s expressive face; he’d been asked this many times before.  Traditional New Orleans jazz – most definitely separate from that homogenized, lilly-white form known as "dixieland" — has for Michael White "a function that defies limitations and embodies the black New Orleans experience."  Quite simply at bottom it is the social aspects of the music that most appeal to him.  He detailed how people in New Orleans have a unique cultural upbringing, immersed in African ways of celebrating and protesting… all of which is embodied in traditional New Orleans jazz, which for Michael epitomizes democratic traditions and freedom of expression.

 

Although he achieved his PhD in Spanish language studies and taught Spanish for years at Xavier University (he currently occupies an endowed chair in African American Music at Xavier), music is Dr. White’s DNA.  He came up through New Orleans customary music ranks.  As a high schooler he was a member of the notable St. Augustine School Marching Band.  He prepped in NOLA’s rich brass band tradition, including coming under the wings of two of the city’s music patriarchs, the late trumpeter-bandleader Doc Paulin (see our earlier NOLA Diary entry on his traditional New Orleans funeral), and guitarist-banjoist Danny Barker’s noted Fairview Baptist Church Brass Band for youth. 

 

Today New Orleans is blessed with a wealth of modern-day brass bands, more brass bands than ever before which White applauds.  However he did say that most of today’s younger brass band musicians, who are as likley to be as conversant in George Clinton and Mary J Blige as they are in "Just a Closer Walk With Thee", don’t play marches or play collectively in the traditional manner he was taught.  Not a bad thing, just a reality of life in 2008.

 

As he mused on bits of traditional New Orleans jazz history –  relating such anecdotes as the fact that the unassuming black man one might have encountered and patently overlooked cutting hedges on Prytania Street at the turn of the 20th century was Louis Armstrong’s mentor Joe "King" Oliver, a house-wrecking trumpeter of few peers — one couldn’t help but consider the terrible loss that Katrina and the resulting failure of the federal levees wrought on this erudite, gracious and unassuming man.  A resident of the flood-ravaged middle class black neighborhood known as Gentilly, White lost priceless instruments and artifacts in his one-story house, including one of Sidney Bechet’s mouthpieces, irreplaceable historic sheet music, and thousands of video and audio recordings.  He’s in recovery, is building back his collection in a new abode after evacuating first to Houston then sheltering for months in a FEMA trailer, and sharing a wealth of new compositions in the tradition he loves on his brilliant new disc Blue Crescent on Basin Street Records (www.basinstreetrecords.com). 

 

Carefully balancing tradition and innovation is the watchword for Dr. Michael White.  He filters a vast musicological knowledge that ranges out to John Coltrane and Albery Ayler through a prism that is squarely in a very spiritualized context of New Orleans traditional jazz, exclaiming quite simply that "the music I play comes from the black experience" of New Orleans.  "There’s nowhere like New Orleans — a spirit center, a place where the flame and spirit of Africa has existed and transformed itself in many ways and that has contributed to the uniqueness of New Orleans." 

 

With his clarinet was so conveniently perched, we were treated to an interview benediction — a completely improvised impression of how his day had gone so far: full of telephone calls, a trip to the gym, high heat and humidity outside, and a hurried arrival at our interview — sweat beading on his forehead.  The resulting improvisation did indeed encompass it all.  Catch up to Dr. Michael White’s bio on the Basin Street site or at www.nea.gov/honors/heritage/fellows.  As with our earlier Harold Battiste interview for the Dillard archives (see a previous installment of our NOLA Diary), I’m hopeful of including installments of the full text of our interview with Dr. White on The Independent Ear.

 

In addition to his own growing discography, for those wishing to delve more deeply into New Orleans traditional jazz Dr. Michael White recommends the following listening investigations:

 

            - (trumpeter) King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band recordings

            - (bandleader) Clarence Williams Blue Five recordings

            - (clarinetist) Johnny Dodds recordings 

               (particularly his Black Bottom Stompers) 

            - (clarinetist) Jimmy Noone recordings

            - the revivalist 1940s and 1950s recordings of

             (trumpeter) Bunk Johnsonand one of Dr. White’s primary     

             idols (clarinetist) George Lewis

            - And for a strong dose of traditional New Orleans brass band

            music he recommends anything by the Eureka Brass Band

           

 

In New Orleans, the great majority of live music performance is either club or festival-based.  There’s very little in-between particularly when it comes to actual concert presentations.  In DC one is accustomed to the equation being either concert or club, with not early as much festival action; the major exception being the ongoing development of the Duke Ellington Jazz Festival (www.dejazzfest.org).  Landing here in NOLA last Fall we were told by many and it became quickly apparent that the local club and bar scene was bread & butter for music performances of a sometimes staggering variety.  And it also became clear that rarely was that a matter of joints that one might characterize as actual listening rooms, or places where the music performance was the primary action.  Outside of the French Quarter and it’s adjacent cousin The Marigny and vibrant Frenchman Street (home to NOLA’s most consistent modern jazz venue, Snug Harbor, and such other big-fun rooms as Ray’s Boom Boom Room), the town boasts all manner of music rooms that in some other parlance might simply be labeled "neighborhood joints".

 

A nice taste of this New Orleans vibe last was served up last Tuesday.  Crossing Claiborne Avenue on St. Bernard we turned right onto A.P. Tureaud St. and smack dab in the midst of an otherwise residential boulevard (with a green grass dividing strip which in other locales might be a mere median strip but which in NOLA parlance is dubbed a neutral ground) sat a corner joint called Bullets Sports Bar.  Though there were ample pick-ups and SUVs parked on the neutral ground, we were a bit parking shy, having been stung by a few $20 parking tickets (as they say in DC, the most (only?) efficient department of city government is parking enforcement, I’m here to report likewise about New Orleans), so we chose a side street and parked across from the all-too-typical storm-wrecked structure pile (mind you we’re approaching the 3 year anniversary of Katrina).

 

It was time for Game 6 of the NBA Finals and I’d been assured that Bullets was a sports bar suitable for getting my NBA on.  Indeed the walls and over the bar were festooned with no less than 3 big screens showing the game, but that need was quickly allayed by other attractions.  The bar and tables alongside one wall and to the back of the bar area were jammed with folks from this and some other neighborhoods; translation: these were just plain folks, black & white, out for a good time and a few brews; check your pretense at the door.  Oh, and did I mention the barbecue smoker at the side of the building where one could grab some sizzle-to-go?  As a friend once remarked, you don’t go anywhere in the Crescent City of an arts & culture, entertainment, reception, meeting, informal gathering, etc. nature and there be no food.

 

The game was purely secondary, occasional eye candy to the funk that Kermit Ruffins & the Barbecue Swingers were laying down at the front of the joint; no stage, just a simple amplification hook-up and they were on!  Kermit Ruffins is a true heir to the New Orleans trumpet tradition, more from the good-time and entertainment side of that equation than the high-artistic pursuit side.  He blows a roof-rocking horn and sings in a wry, raspy manner also befitting his place in that lineage.  Buoyed by his discographical efforts on NOLA’s most viable imprint, Basin Street Records (www.basinstreetrecords.com), Ruffins has also become a New Orleans musical ambassador of sorts and a bit of a celebrity around town.  Name me another jazz-based musician who gets recognized on the Jumbotron to significant applause at his or her local NBA games.

 

A modern-day NOLA brass band musician, Kermit evolved from the Rebirth Brass Band as one of those "colorful" character players steeped in marching band music, traditional New Orleans songs, all things Pops, and a hustler’s mentality that finds him working somewhere in town several days a week.  He’s as conversant with "The Big Butter and Egg Man", "Struttin’ With Some Barbecue" and "Besame Mucho" as he is with James Brown, George Clinton and "Hide The Reefer".  Beers festooning every table, sometimes in prodigious numbers — Bullets offers them by the bucketful if you’re really in the mood for some brews — this was a good-times scene in every sense.

 

Ruffins and his skilled, streamlined quartet blew a set that journeyed from a raucous "Little Liza Jane" to one of Rebirth’s signatures "I Feel Like Funkin’ It Up", to permutations of Ray Charles and Sly Stone, to full-out funk.  So when you come to NOLA look for Kermit Ruffins, and look beyond the WWOZ Live Wire reports on who’s playing in town because chances are neighborhood joints like Bullets Sports Bar won’t be reporting, but you can bet they’ll be jammed with good-timers and unpretentious surroundings.

One of the best illustrations of the family music tradition that enriches New Orleans’ culture arrived on a warm and sunny Sunday afternoon recently.  The University of New Orleans, another institutional victim of the failure of the federal levees in August ‘05, played host to a free program dubbed "Jazz meets Classical" by the Music Alive Ensemble in its comfortable recital hall on May 25.

 

The Jordans, including patriarch and free jazz saxophone titan Edward "Kidd" Jordan (who is being honored for Lifetime Achievement in New York at the cutting edge Vision Festival June 10-15 -www.visionfestival.org),  flutist Kent Jordan, vocalist Stephanie Jordan, violinist Rachel Jordan, and trumpeter Marlon Jordan are well-chronicled recording and touring artists and educators.  Their extended family, via the Chatters sisters including Kidd’s spouse and the late clarinetist and master educator Alvin Batiste’s poet-wife Edith, is one of New Orleans richest music clans, which on this particular afternoon also included cousin and music educator Jonathan Bloom, son of another Chatters sister, on percussion.

 

The program was produced largely by Rachel Jordan, a wonderfully expressive violinist who is a professor of music at Jackson State University, has taught at several New Orleans universities and is a member of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra.  The afternoon opened with six very nuanced selections performed by Rachel’s string quartet, a sparkling repertoire that included Ravel, Bartok, Philip Glass, and Astor Piazzolla.  To close the first half the strings were joined by Kidd, Bloom, pianist Mike Esneault, bassist Peter Harris, 

and Kidd’s longtime cohort, the exceptional boundary-defying drummer Alvin Fielder for a rousing essay of John Coltrane’s prayerful "Acknowledgement," which inspired the tenorist’s keening upper register exaltations.

 

The second half of the program, which opened with Earl King’s Mardi Gras Indian anthem "Big Chief" with Kent on piccolo and brother Marlon’s trumpet swagger (why isn’t someone recording these two — both at the top of their game?)  was largely the jazz portion, though some beautiful cross-pollination occurred between jazz ensemble and  string quartet, partcularly when the elegant Stephanie, heir to Nancy Wilson, eased onstage for a lovely jazz-laden arrangement of Dvorak’s "Going Home."  The closing set also included Kent’s lovely rendition of "My Favorite Things."

 

You can hear Marlon, Stephanie, and Rachel Jordan to great effect on their lustrous record You Don’t Know What Love Is (Lousiana Red Hot Records www.louisianaredhot.com), produced by the exquisitely talented Rachel.

New Orleans peerless line of great trumpet players stretches all the way back to the native son whose fabled horn according to legend could be heard clear across the Mississippi.  Though no recorded evidence exists of his brilliance, the legend of Buddy Bolden as the original jazzman — or at the very least the beginning of the city’s long line of 3-valve kings — endures over a century later.  Then there are the legends whose grand mastery is well-documented: Freddie Keppard, Joe "King" Oliver, and the greatest of them all, Louis Armstrong.  And though he arrived from ‘cross the river in Algiers, Henry "Red" Allen bore the rich New Orleans trumpet standard proudly as well in that early line of contributors.

 

That rich New Orleans trumpet tradition lagged a bit during the development of modern jazz — or at least as far as what’s well-documented — though such often overlooked players as Melvin Lastie continued to uphold the line during the 1950s and ’60s.  When Wynton Marsalis arrived on the scene with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers in the 1980s he hailed the beginning of a new line of New Orleans trumpet modernists, all with at least one foot in the rich firmament that is the enduring mark of distinction of Crescent City trumpeters, no matter how advanced their eventual direction.

 

This succeeding generation all came from certain aspects of New Orleans music legacy tree; several as members of music families, some matriculating from the city’s exceptional arts high school the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts or NOCCA, most from the city’s signature brass and/or marching band cadres, and most touched by older mentors around the city.  The latter invaluable resources including such teachers as Alvin Batiste, Edward "Kidd" Jordan, Ellis Marsalis, Harold Battiste, Roger DIckerson, Clyde Kerr Jr., Dr. Michael White, and assorted bandleader-mentors.

 

One of the latest links in the New Orleans trumpet tradition continuum is Shamarr Allen, a coffee-complected 20-something man of boundless energy and enthusiasm with flowing locks, innate curiosity for a rich variety of music, and an optimistic personality that will serve him well in his pursuits.  Portions of our interview with the trumpeter, conducted at his West Bank condo earlier this spring, appeared in the Players section of the May ‘08 issue of Down Beat magazine. 

 

Our conversation took place a few months after the release of Allen’s debut recording, Meet Me on Frenchman Street (Pome Music), a date which ranges from his updates of "St. James Infirmary," "Milenvurg Joy," "It’s Only a Paper Moon,"  and War’s anthem "The World is a Ghetto" to an original rap, the latter two hinting at future directions.  The record is also notable for the selfless inclusion of cameos from two other of NOLA’s 3-valve searchers, the ubiquitous throwback Kermit Ruffins and the ambitious Irvin Mayfield.  Here’s the unexpurgted conversation…

 

Willard Jenkins: [Remarking on a nearby coffee table photo of Shamarr’s young son proudly toting a trumpet.]  How old is your son?

 

Shamarr Allen: Seven…

 

WJ: That’s another part of New Orleans’ music legacy, people pick up instruments at a young age.

 

SA: Music is everywhere!  If you and your parents jump in the car and drive to the grocery store you’re liable to see a second line passing; or if you go eat dinner somewhere there’s gonna be a band playing, so music is always in your face.  Eventually you keep seeing it so much you say ‘I want to try that.’

 

WJ: It seems nearly inevitable for so many youngsters around here.

 

SA: Pretty much… something in the water or something (laughs).

 

WJ: When I consider some of the timeless old songs on your first record, would it be correct to say you’re the proverbial young man with an old soul?

 

SA: I wouldn’t say that.  Some people say that but that’s just where I was at the time I decided to record [July 2007].  I was doing a lotta stuff with [drummer] Bob French and Anthony Bennett [Treme Brass Band; Original Royal Players]; that music was to pay homage to a lot of the people that opened doors for me.  Right now I’m working on a new record that’s totally different from [Meet Me on Frenchman Street].

 

WJ: What’s different about it?

 

SA: It’s more about now, more me and who I actually am today.  It’s gonna be the rebirth of Shamarr!  I don’t want to be limited.  I don’t want somebody to say ‘well Shamarr Allen, he’s a traditional jazz trumpeter…’  I want them to say ‘I saw Shamarr play country music over here with this band, I saw him playing jazz over there, I saw him playing straight ahead over here, I saw him playing funk over there…’  I don’t want to be limited, and that’s what happens to a lot of people out here.

 

WJ: Do a lot of musicians down here in New Orleans get pigeonholed like that?

 

SA: Yeah, pretty much…  It’s not a bad thing if it’s working for you, but if that’s not really what you’re focused on doing then it could be a pigeonhole.

 

WJ: It’s interesting that you would invite folks like Kermit and Irvin on your record, musicians who some folks might view as your competition.

 

SA: I don’t look at them as competition.  [Kermit Ruffins and Irvin Mayfield] are older than me and along the way they taught me a lot.  When I was about 12 we started a brass band and Kermit Ruffins used to come down and teach us songs like everyday after school.  He was living further uptown closer to Canal Street in the 6th ward and we were staying way down in the Lower Ninth Ward.  We’d call him and he’d jump in his truck and come down to show us songs.  So I really don’t look at [Ruffins and Mayfield] as competition, I look at it as my paying respect to the people who showed me so much along the way.

 

WJ: There’s such a long tradition here of older musicians nurturing and mentoring young musicians.  Who were some of your other mentors?

 

SA: Aw man, there are so many of them — Tuba Fats, [trumpeter] Leroy Jones, [saxophonist] Tim Greene, Joe Terragano…  I don’t want to forget anybody because I was always playing with older people so I always listen and learn, even to this day.  You can never learn everything there is to know, somebody can always teach you something.  My first inspiration was my father Keith Allen, but my first teacher was Mrs. Yvette Best.  She’s a flutist who used to play in the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra and is responsible for a lot of my growth.  Mr. WIlbert Solomon taught me in high school and gave me five dollar music lessons just because he thought I had talent.  He had me practicing out of the Arban book and made sure my technique was tight.

 

WJ: How would you say the tutelage of older traditional musicians like Bob French assisted you in developing the other sides of your music?

 

SA: I always say you have to dig into the past in order to push the future onward.  Bob French’s Original Tuxedo Jazz Band has been around forever and it’s more of a historical thing for me to be able to play with those guys; more of an honor and a privelege than anything.  I’ve been playing with Bob for over a year now and being in that band I’ve learned so much about the traditional music. 

 

WJ: What have you learned about the traditional music as far as expressing yourself on your horn?

 

SA: One thing Bob always tells me is ‘man, you don’t have to play so many notes when you’re playing.’  It’s like a whole different style of music that you have to learn; you can’t go to school and learn it you have to actually have on-the-job training.

 

WJ: At that Battle of the Bands with Kermit Ruffins at Ray’s Boom Boom Room the Sunday prior to Mardi Gras Day, shortly after I walked in ya’ll immediately struck up "A Night in Tunisia" with a wicked hit of funk, which immediately showed me something beyond what I’d heard on "Meet Me on Frenchman Street."  Is that the kind of thing you’re working on for your next record?

 

SA: I actually did something that few bands do; when you look at brass bands people say ‘well brass bands are brass bands, you can get anyone and all of them play the same stuff.’  But I’ve actually recorded "A Night in Tunisia" with the Soul Rebels Brass Band — that was the first thing I recorded for the new record — and I’ve also recorded a few new tracks with my own band.  But that arrangement of "A Night in Tunisia" is different from any version you’ve ever heard, it has hip hop lyrics and it’s real, real funky but the musical content is still there and it’s still real tight.  The music is there before anything else; the rest is lagniappe [New Orleanian expression for icing on the cake, a little something extra or an unexpected treat]. 

 

WJ: So if Dizzy were to have walked in that room he’d have enjoyed it?

 

SA: Dizzy would love it; if Dizzy were alive today that’s the way he’d [play "A Night in Tunisia"].

 

WJ: Talk about your band The Underdawgs.

 

SA: The majority of The Underdawgs are the same people in my jazz band; so today you might see us in suits going to a jazz gig and tomorrow we might have on jeans and t-shirts doing a funk gig.  When I left Rebirth that was the first thing I started playing is hard funk.

[Editor’s note: One musical element peculiar to New Orleans is that funk bands are not purely rhythm instrument-based units; they are often driven by those same horns that may show up one day improvising and the next day leading a second line down Louisiana Avenue.]

 

SA: I started really digging into [hard funk] and listening to all kind of people… Jimi Hendrix, Sly & The Family Stone…  And that’s how the band name came about, from one of Sly’s songs "The Underdog."  Playing music around the city it’s kinda like I’m the underdog of everything, never had nothing handed to me.  I didn’t have an extensive family history in the music, it’s like I’m just coming from nowhere.  The attitude was like ‘we’re not going to take him seriously because he doesn’t have the family [music] history and he’s coming from all the way downtown in the Lower Ninth Ward…’ where everybody else who plays music comes from another area…  Treme, that’s where they think the music is supposed to come from… and that’s where the majority of the music has come from.  There’s always something that you can learn, I want to always dig into something that I’ve never done before.

 

WJ: What role did your brass band experiences play in your musical evolution?

 

SA: It helped me a lot with entertaining, like being able to entertain people and not just stand in one place and play.  It’s given me a part of my playing that you can’t get from anywhere else because before I actually started learning the music I was playing with brass bands and it’s more of what you feel and not what you’ve learned when you play [with brass bands]; it’s more of what you feel on the inside.  That particular music taught me that.

 

WJ: Which brass bands have you played in?

 

SA: I’ve played recently with the Rebirth Brass Band for 6 years before I ventured off and started doing my own thing.  I’ve played with the Original Royal Players Brass Band, the Treme Brass Band, the Soul Rebels — I played trombone with the Soul Rebels — the Little Rascals Brass Band… pretty much all of them.  I still play off and on with the Hot 8 Brass Band.

 

WJ: How do you find people respond to New Orleans brass bands outside the context of the city?

 

SA: They love it!  There are places where you have to do 2 and 3 shows because there’s not enough space to hold all the people who want to experience that music.  A lot of people think ‘oh this is just something that goes on in New Orleans…’, but there’s actually a [global] market for brass band music.

 

WJ: Do you find brass band music being more accepted now as concert music?

 

SA: Yes, from particular bands like the Hot 8, Soul Rebels, Rebirth, Dirty Dozen… they’ve been touring this music for years.

 

WJ: There’s a couple of ways of looking at brass band music — there’s the fun factor, Second Line kinda street music, then there’s what some might refer to as the "serious" music factor for staged performances.  In your work with the brass bands where does your experience fall in that equation?

 

SA: The serious music factor?  That’s a sticky question because certain bands take it seriously; like certain bands practice and practice and you can tell when you hear them, but certain other bands don’t [practice much] so everybody doesn’t take it seriously.  Some people are content with being able to pay their bills and when you listen to certain [brass] bands you can hear that.

 

WJ: That’s almost a correlation to what I’ve heard is a complaint from New Orleans grade school music educators that they can’t get their marching band musicians to get serious about music beyond being able to be proficient enough to march stylishly in the Mardi Gras parades.

 

SA: I don’t think it’s actually because of the students, it’s like [they’re] becoming a product of their own environment.  If you’re going to a school that has a marching band and that band is only doing that particular thing and there’s nothing else to look forward to as far as a jazz band or concert ensemble [in school] or anything like that, and you’re constantly around saying ‘I’m going to march in the band and I’m gonna go to band practice and learn these songs so I can march’ because everybody else around them is saying the same thing, if that’s all that you see at that present time you’re going to feel like that’s the limit.  It’s not a bad thing but it can hurt you.  I marched from 7th grade to 12th grade and I went to Alfred Lawless High School and became drum major my 11th and 12th grade years, then I left and went over to Sarah T. Reed and became drum major over there as well.

 

WJ: I understand you’re doing some teaching now yourself.

 

SA: Yes.  My son plays the drums and he can read music but they won’t let him in the band because he’s too young.  So what I’ve done is set up a program where all of the kids from 2nd grade on — they don’t let them in the band until 4th grade — all the way up to 12 or 13 years old can come out and learn music.  It’s every Tuesday at the Sound Cafe on Port and Chartres Street.  Any kid is invited, we do a whole demonstration for them to see which instrument they like the most and if they’re able to deal with that instrument.  The last session I did had about 15 kids that didn’t have instruments, some of them were 5, 6… different ages, and I took it upon myself to make sure that they had instruments; I bought a lot of them brand new instruments and the Threadheads helped.  [The Threadheads] are a bunch of friends that come down to jazzfest every year and throw a big party.  [Editor’s note: read about the Threadheads on their My Space page.]  This year they had a fest for kids, so they collected money and all the kids that go to Music Clinic got to go to jazzfest for free.

 

WJ: Here’s the inevitable question: How was your life affected by the storm?

 

SA: Katrina was a major setback — or a minor setback for a major comeback.  The storm kinda put the eye on the city and a lot of the things that have been going on around the city, like the corruption… the good stuff and the bad stuff, which all needed to be seen.  It affected me in a lotta ways.  My parents just moved back here last year; they were in Oklahoma.  We were spread out — my son was in Houston, I was working in Atlanta producing some hip hop tracks… everybody was just scattered all over the place.  But now everybody’s back, everybody’s getting settled. 

 

At the time of Katrina I was living in the Lower Ninth Ward directly in front of the levee breach.  When we got home [after the storm], both our houses were empty lots — the houses were totally washed away.  The porches were still there but everything else was gone.  I had an Oldsmobile that was smashed and I had a Pinto and that car was just up in the air.  We had evacuated about two days before the storm.  My dad didn’t want to leave.  He was like ‘man I’ve left two times already this year, I’m not gonna keep leaving, ain’t nothing gonna happen.’  I’ve got a lotta respect for my dad but it took so much for me to get him to leave. 

 

I wasn’t gonna leave at first, I said to myself the water is just gonna get high because in past years’ storms passed and all the kids would just go to the wall overlooking the levee and look over and see the water is higher than your house.  We would just go over there and watch the water and fish off the levee.  But when you look at it now we say we’re lucky.  I really didn’t want to leave but I saw the storm coming from a different way than all the rest of them.  It still didn’t hit us directly.

 

WJ: So everybody in your family decided to come back home as opposed to those who have since relocated elsewhere.

 

SA: Because they know I’m not leaving [New Orleans], my brother is 11 and he wants to be a musician… he plays the guitar.  I wanted him to be here to learn the music because playing here gives you something different from playing anywhere else in the world.  No one can tell you what it is, you can’t really explain it.  Musicians from here that have played around the city and dealt with the music and performed elsewhere… even if they don’t know [New Orleans] music people might think they know the music.  If you take somebody from elsewhere, say New York, and they come down and try to play in a brass band or a traditional jazz band here, you could actualy hear the difference in the sound of what they’re doing.

 

WJ: So you’re confiming that there’s something about being here in New Olreans that you can’t get musically anywhere else.

 

SA: Yep, but I can’t put my finger on it.  I guess it’s just the fact that everywhere you go [in New Orleans] there’s music; turn on the TV and you see music playing on local cable access; drive down Canal Street and bands are playing… music is just everywhere around here.  Every night of the week you can find some kind of music somewhere.  [Editor’s note: an excellent barometer of that is WWOZ’s "Live Wire" music performance listings, which run throughout the day at the top of each odd hour.  Go to www.wwoz.org and see what I mean.  For a city whose post-Katrina population is still under 300K (down from just over 350K pre-storm), the sheer number of nightly performances by a wide variety of exceptional resident musicians and bands is extremely impressive… and heartening if you’re on your way down here.]

 

WJ: So even though you were doing some studio things in Atlanta it was always a matter of you coming back?

 

SA: For awhile I was like ‘man I’m not coming back, I’m not gonna deal with that stuff down there…, my family is safe, everybody is alright… we might be scattered but everybody’s alright and I don’t want to go back to the city while it’s [devestated]…’  But then I thought about it and I was like everything that I’ve built so far has been because of the city, everything that I have gotten has been because of coming from New Orleans.  I took it upon myuself to say the city needs me.  

 

A lot of people come to New Orleans for the conventions, but it’s the food and the music that people really come for.  Recovery is a slow process but it’s coming back, and it’s not because of the city that it’s coming back, it’s because of individuals who’ve said ‘I’m going back, I’m going to build my house and that’s it.  They don’t have to give me no Road Home money, I’m going to just do it myself.’  That’s the kind of stuff that’s happening.

As with all things New Orleans, the incomparable New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival has been in steady recovery mode.  If the second ‘08 weekend is any example, at least that very important part of the New Orleans jazz, culture, and social calendar is all the way back.  Duties at our own excellent Tri-C JazzFest Cleveland (TCJF) (see the Plain Dealer daily newspaper web site for several laudatory reviews of the proceedings) prevented attendance at NOJ&HF weekend #1, which generally overlaps TCJF weekend #2; the weather gods weren’t kind that weekend anyway, thoroughly drenching the first Saturday.

 

So our return to the Crescent City from TCJF was spiced with eager anticipation for NOJ&HF weekend #2, including the return of Thursdays to the schedule.  Thursday has long been unofficially designated as a big day for "locals" to invade the Fairgrounds and sample Jazzfest; the legions of Jazzfest visitors generally arrive for Friday-Sunday.  This year also brought a new view of Jazzfest as I eagerly volunteered for stage announcement duties in the WWOZ Jazz Tent and for WWOZ broadcast stints, which began with the Thursday proceedings.

 

After catching some lunch at the Louisiana foodfest that accompanies Jazzfest (yes folks, when you’re at Jazzfest the eats are a major part of the fun) — in this case a de rigeur soft shell crab po’boy washed down with the ever-refreshing strawberry lemonade and followed by some red velvet cake that was unfortunately a bit on the dry side (scratch that one for the weekend), I ambled over to the WWOZ Jazz Tent to catch the second half of NOLA diva Topsy Chapman’s tribute to Dinah Washington, then intro’ed Phillip Manuel’s potent tribute to Nat King Cole and headed over to the broadcast tent.  Via broadcast headphones I got a big earful of trumpeter Maurice Brown Effect’s set followed by Big Chief Donald Harrison’s Mardi Gras Indian-funk & bop informed brand of alto madness to close the day.

 

Getting to the Fairgrounds, which due to post-Katrina construction doesn’t offer general parking facilities, is a tad adventurous by car.  The parking matter was solved by the many enterprising neighbors and businesses in the vacinity of the Fairgrounds who are more than willing to sell you a parking spot on their property.  Arriving on Friday in time for the (Dirty Dozen Brass Band veteran) Kirk Joseph Tuba Woodshed set featuring fellow tubist Matt Perrine, was an exceptional immersion into the low end of New Orleans’ rich brass tradition.  Later that day we broadcast The Bad Plus, who remain much more rewarding live than on record where their dry humor is not the same as they explore their unusual repertoire.  One thing I’ve always appreciated about The Bad Plus is how they bring a new audience element to what is in essence a standard acoustic piano trio landscape.

 

Friday’s closing sets offered tough choices — broadcast responsibilities aside; one had to choose between Stevie Wonder on the big Acura stage, John Prine on the Gentilly Stage, Michael Franti & Spearheard on the Congo Square stage, Terence Blanchard & the Louisiana Philharmonic in the Jazz Tent, NOLA’s blues queen Marva Wright (who WWOZ broadcasted) in the Blues Tent, a tribute to Clifton Chenier on the Fais Do Do Stage, "All a Part of God’s Family" in the Gospel Tent, the Soul Rebels Brass Band on the Jazz Heritage Stage… you get the idea.  A late afternoon rain shower simplified my choice: remain in the ‘OZ broadcast tent; a quick dash over to the Acura Stage, where the audience is uncovered, proved less than satisfying as the Stevie hordes had spilled onto the track in a sea of umbrellas.  From most reports Stevie didn’t disappoint.

 

With no broadast responsibilities, Saturday Jazz Tent highlights included the lush-voiced Stephanie Jordan (daughter of free jazz saxman Edward "Kidd" Jordan, sister of flutist Kent, trumpeter Marlon, and violinist Rachel, one of NOLA’s most gifted musical families), a brilliant and well-produced tribute to Max Roach delivered by drummers Herlin Riley, Jason Marsalis, Shannon Powell + band, big fun Bobby McFerrin/Chick Corea duo, and closing with trumpeter Irvin Mayfield (see our @ Home piece in the current issue of JazzTimes) and his New Orleans Jazz Orchestra.  Among the many NOJO delights of their NOLA-proud set was the revelatory and joyous clarinet playing of Evan Christopher.  They closed the Jazz Tent with actor Jude Law eagerly joining a second line onstage.

 

The festival closed on Sunday with all manner of musical delights, topped by Dianne Reeves on fire in the Jazz Tent.  At one point when I eased away from the Jazz Tent for one of the weekend’s highlight eats — luscious banana bread pudding (other weekend gastronomic delights included the duck po’boy, and the succulent crochon du lait — I hope I got that right — po’boy, chicken & tasso over creole rice) — as I crossed the grounds lazily lingering at several stages inhaling my treat, there was the unique experience of hearing Big Chief Bo Dollis & the Wild Magnolias Mardi Gras Indians chanting out "Iko Iko OBAMA" over the blistering trumpet solo of Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews, at the same time the Derek Trucks Band was wailing Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s anthem "Volunteered Slavery" in the Blues Tent.  The weekend happily proved once again that there ain’t nothin’ like the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival!

Peace,

Willard Jenkins

The Independent Ear

Now that the deed has been done and the International Association for Jazz Education has seemingly folded it’s tent and significantly filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection — a filing quite different from the more familiar Chapter 11 which would at least leave the door ajar for some form of organizational recovery as Ricky Schultz pleads in his intelligent Comment left on this site — the big question is what’s next. 

 

From the many Comments posted in response to our original Woe is IAJE rant from April 7, one surmises that there is abundant energy out there in the jazz community for the formation of some kind of national organization designed to fill the percieved void…  But what exactly? Who out there is willing to at least lead the discussion?  What’s the next step(s)?  Can/will the Jazz Improv convention fill the cavernous void left by the demise of the annual IAJE conference?

 

One key element of Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing is a state appointed investigation into the causal factors behind the organization’s demise.  That should be an interesting process if the many ills and examples of malfeasance that have been suggested by IAJE intimates is true.  I was struck — dumbstruck might be a more apt description — by two recent examples of questionable journalism.  A few weeks ago the New York Times and the Chronicle of Philanthropy separately reported on the IAJE endgame.  I can’t for the life of me figure how NYT writer Ben Ratliff considered it anywhere close to good journalism to allow former IAJE director Bill McFarlin to get away scott free (again!) with his breathless declaration to the effect that if only I had known the depths of IAJE’s fiscal problems I wouldn’t have left (bailed is more like it) and would have remained to right the ship… or words to that effect.  Mr. Ratliff allowed that ludicrous statement to stand; no challenge, no follow-up question, no shocked exclamation along the lines of how is it humanly possible that after serving the organization for 24 years as its executive director, you could have the stones to tell me and my readers that if only you had known… if you didn’t KNOW, who the hell did???

 

In the Chronicle of Philanthropy IAJE legal counsel Alan Bergman, himself a wannabe drummer, amazingly blamed the demise of IAJE on the organization’s musician leadership; cavalierly dismissing the causal factors as if to say, what could you expect from an organization led by mere jazz musicians.  I for one found that to be extremely insulting to the many brilliant and capable jazz musicians it has been my good fortune to be around for my forty years writing about jazz, volunteer broadcasting jazz, producing jazz concerts and festivals, running jazz organizations, and consulting with countless jazz musicians.  To impugn jazz musicians in this way is specious at best coming from someone who held both IAJE board positions, was the organization’s legal counsel, and continues to represent jazz musicians for goodness sakes!

 

We can only hope the court-appointed independent investigator will at last bring some transparency to the sad demise of IAJE.  One can dream…  In the meantime, what next…?  Your Comments, questions, suggestions, ideas, etc. are more than welcomed they are encouraged on this site.  Please weigh in with your take since all this stuff hit the fan.

Peace,

Willard Jenkins

The Independent Ear

Saxophonist-composer Virginia Mayhew, a slender woman of great warmth and a ready smile, is by no means a physically imposing person, but the depth and breadth of her tenor saxophone sound — big, full & rich with nuance — has always been impressive.  I first heard Virginia in the DIVA big band, was struck by her prowess and was immediately impressed with her as a person after a backstage encounter at the Mary Lou Williams Jazz Festival at the Kennedy Center a few seasons back.  The confidence and forthrightness she expressed from her horn with DIVA were borne out by her initial release, Nini Green (Chiaroscuro), which featured the great Kenny Barron and her longtime trumpet foil Ingrid Jensen; the same was true with her 2000 follow-up No Walls for the Foxhaven label. 

 

Mayhew’s ‘02 follow-up Phantom, took the hang-fly, no chordal instrument route with Jensen and a rhythm section and further illustrated her developing composer chops.  She succeeded Phantom with Sandan Shuffle, which featured a horn section and guitar.  Virginia’s latest is A Simple Thank You, a full-blown expanded ensemble recording that was a happy spin-off from a performance she gave at Tribeca Performing Art Center’s annual Lost Jazz Shrines concert series, curated by the undersigned.  That coupled with her DIVA history and some current work she’s been engaged in led to a recent conversation with the San Francisco Bay Area native that began on the subject of her obvious enthusiasm for large ensemble work.

 

A Simple Thank You, your latest recording, is your first large ensemble record as a leader.  Talk about the development of this project.

 

Virginia Mayhew: I’ve loved big bands since I first heard the Maynard Ferguson Big Band in the mid-70s.  Since then, I have played in many great big bands, including the John Coppola/Chuck Travis Big Band in San Francisco (with Herbie Steward on lead alto), the Gene Gilbeaux Jazz Orchestra, also in SF… I got to play 3rd alto to my teacher, Kirt Bradford, for several years, then he moved to Hawaii and I took over the lead book… a great way to learn!

 

Once I moved to NYC, I was very fortunate to play a number of gigs with Toshiko Akiyoshi’s big band… what a thrill!  I was also the lead alto player for the Sahib Shihab D.U.E.S. big band.  In the early 90s I was the lead tenor player for the original DIVA big band, and have been a regular in Howard Williams Big Band every Monday for over 11 years.  In short (long, actually), I’ve played in a lot of big bands.  I’ve also played in a lot of salsa and merengue bands which feature a horn section.

 

My own groups have always had one or two horns, with the exception of a 4-night gig with Slide Hampton in the early 90s.  I had wanted to write for a larger ensemble for many years and then you presented me at Tribeca in April 2005.  That gig paid enough for me to hire a larger group, and I took that opportunity to write 90 minutes of music for septet.

 

Once I decided to do [A Simple Thank You], I asked some of my favorite players to join the band.  In addition to my working quartet (the band on Sandan Shuffle… Kenny Wessel on guitar, Harvie S on bass, and Victor Jones on drums), I invited Marvin Stamm to play trumpet, Lisa Parrot to play alto and baritone saxophone, and Luis Bonilla to play trombone.  (The horn section has since changed trumpet and trombone players… we now have Scott Harrell on trumpet and flugelhorn, and Noah Bless on trombone.)  I write the music and arrangements for the band, but the players are what make it great.  Each person brings their personal sounds to the group, and everyone plays together like the real band they are.  The gig at Tribeca PAC was really a lot of fun and I was very excited about the Septet.  Then I found out I had breast cancer and had to put the band on hold for a while.  We started playing again in 2006 and recently had a very successful weekend at Sweet Rhythm in NYC.

 

You took the bold and refreshing step of being photographed with your hair shorn for the cover of A Simple Thank You while you were in the midst of your health crisis; given how hung-up we are collectively when it comes to cosmetics that took some courage!

 

My hair had fallen out from the chemo.  My friend, master photographer Paul Aresu, said he wanted to photograph me like that.  I really loved what he came up with.  Then Harvie S, my dear friend and bass player for 12 years, wrote a beautiful song for me "A Simple Thank You".  It just seemed to go together so well.

 

When some women go through chemo and lose their hair, they wear wigs and try to look like they are not sick.  I didn’t want to do that.  I don’t think it ever works… you can always recognize that chemo look.  I tried to have as much "fun" as possible, wearing wild wigs (blue or red or long brown tresses).  I really liked the way the bald head felt and I kept it bald a little longer than I had to.  Once it started getting cold though, I started to grow it back.

 

It didn’t feel like "courage" to have that [bald] shot on the cover… it just seemed like the natural thing to do.  Many of my previous recordings (since Paul Aresu started photographing me) have had to do with my life.  My next CD after September 11th, Phantoms, featured a very dark cover with me looking down; shot at 125th and Park in NYC.  The next CD, Sandan Shuffle, featured my karate grandmaster Kaicho Tadashi Nakamura and myself.  I was going through black belt promotion around the same time as recording that CD and wrote the tune "Sandan Shuffle."  I asked Kaicho Nakamura to pose with me for the cover. 

 

My mother wasn’t thrilled about [the bald photograph on the cover of A Simple Thank You], but I am very happy with the entire project.  At this point, I am very appreciative of all the wonderful people and experiences I have in my life.

 

How has that breast cancer challenge informed your music?

 

I’ve always tried to follow my own path, but now I am more committed than ever to doing what I hear musically.  I am very fortunate to have an incredible co-producer, Amy Hirsch, to help me with this recording work.

 

As you mentioned, your previous recording Sandan Shuffle, featured you and your martial arts master on the cover.  How does that discipline interact with and affect your musical pursuits?

 

Music and my karate training have affected each other tremendously.  Coming from music to karate, the idea of trying to perfect each technique was natural to me.  Studying karate with Kaicho Nakamura has come to inform my life in many ways outside of the physical training.  He stresses many important values, such as never giving up, constant polishing of techniques, treating people with respect, getting rid of ego and keeping a beginners’ mind.  Kaicho and the students at Seido karate were tremendously supportive when I was sick.  I was actually quite shocked by that, although Kaicho has always spoken of Seido as a "family" I didn’t realize the extent that people had absorbed that philosophy.  Of course, the physical training of karate helps me to be physically strong, and my focus, breathing, and self-esteem have improved dramatically.

 

Talk about your current activities and what’s next for Virginia Mayhew.

 

In addition to my Septet, my primary projects right now are the Duke Ellington Legacy, which is a 9-piece group put together by Ellington’s name-sake grandson, and featuring the arrangements of Norman Simmons and the incredible singing of Nancy Reed.  The group has 3 horns and is a lot of fun.  We just released our debut CD, Thank You Uncle Edward and hope that will lead to more lucrative work for the band.  The Ellington Legacy is a very refreshing take on Ellingtonia… we play all original arrangements by Ellington and Strayhorn (and a few others).  Again, it’s classic yet contemporary.  Norman Simmons has created so many wonderful arrangements for us!

 

I also have two quartets, one featuring the Sandan Shuffle group, and the other featuring pianist Norman Simmons.  These groups are all very distinct and I’ve been able to work a wider variety of gigs because of that.  I work with Brazilian jazz trumpeter Claudio Roditi on occasion, and every Sunday with Carl Thompson and Friends, every Monday with the Howard Williams Big Band.  I also freelance and do a little bit of teaching. 

 

I am hoping that one or more of these groups will really take off.  The Septet fills a niche for places that want the excitement of a big band, but don’t have the budget.  It is a classic jazz group, yet it has modern elements such as the guitar, the odd meters, and the original compositions.

 

Considering how each of your recordings stands alone as a distinctive project, do you have what you might consider any thus far unrealized "dream" projects?

 

I’m pretty much doing what I want to be doing!  As far as "dream" projects, I’d like to be playing more gigs with these groups and also do more recording.  I’m sure as time goes along I’ll have some new projects to explore.  Eventually, I plan to turn the septet arrangements into big band charts… not because I want to have a big band, but so that other people can play them and I can make some money!  I am so lucky to be able to live the life I am living!

 

Peace,

Willard Jenkins

The Independent Ear

 

 

 

Well folks the deed is done.  With yesterday’s anticipated announcement from International Association for Jazz Education president Chuck Owen, the doors have been officially closed on IAJE’s offices in Manhattan, KS, the 2009 Seattle conference has been cancelled, and the whole shebang is about to be turned over to receivership.  The one hopeful note in that avalanche of bad and disappointing news is that an independent investigator will now be assigned to determine how this all transpired.  I for one remain astounded that fiscal malfeasance of this magnitude could only have been revealed in the full light of day to the IAJE board just last Fall — as characterized in an earlier ‘we’re as surprised and dismayed as you’ memo from the board.  How could that be?  How could this level of incompetence have gone on so long, so thoroughly unchecked.  As a 25-year NAJE/IAJE member I for one want some answers — not a pound of flesh mind you — just some legitimate answers as to how the membership and volunteer support of so many of us in the jazz community could have been so thoroughly betrayed.  Have the chickens come home to roost?  WHAT’S YOUR TAKE?