Do Jazz Artists enjoy longer artistic lives?

              AHMAD JAMAL

         SONNY ROLLINS

Years ago when Suzan Jenkins was the exectutive director of the Rhythm & Blues Foundation, which at the time was based in DC, their major annual event was the Pioneer Awards.  This was the annual occasion on which the giants of R&B were given well-deserved recognition in the form of Pioneer Awards, accompanied by a check, which was more times than not much-needed.  In the beginning the RBF limited its Pioneer Awards consideration to those R&B artists who had an impact (i.e. hits) in the 40s, 50s, and 60s.  More recently the RBF has expanded that stipulation to award artists of the 70s as well.

    Several things were always quite striking about those awards.  Looking around the room and surveying the stage when the various awards recipients and awards presenters as well would happily bound up on stage to receive their awards and perform their signature songs to the strains of a great house band (often led by Maceo Parker and including such masters of the form as Steve Cropper on guitar, himself a Pioneer Award winner the year Booker T & The MGs copped, and the funky drummer James Gadsen; the band also included "ringers" like Hamiet Bluiett on bari sax), I always had to chuckle to myself a bit at the vanity factor; despite the fact that we were exclusively talking about artists who by then were card carrying senior citizens, there wasn’t a gray head in the house!  But these were the artists who gave wing to so many of our teenaged years that we forgave them that vanity.  I remember one singing group member actually had on such a bad hairpiece that its shape comically resembled a Kangol cap!  The women came decked out as if they were about to put on a Vegas show and it often resembled a wig convention on the female side.

    This constant quest for the youthful appearance of yesteryear underscored one sad but salient fact: these were artists whose flames were extinguished in their relative youth, long before their artistry had an opportunity to ripen.  These were artists whose work had once almost exclusively served a youth audience, who once they either surpassed the youth of their audience or the hit factory dried up were simply cast aside for the next flavor of the moment.  And as I listened to the various heartbreaking trials & tribulations of so many of these artists whose rocket ascent to the "top" was just as suddenly accompanied by an even swifter descent to the bottom, I saw how fleeting fame can be in our throwaway society.  The truly heartbreaking pathos would come when I’d hear about some supposed giant or other who I had assumed must have lived the figurative life of Riley in a rarefied air most of us can only dream of on the wings of those million sellers, gold and platinum records alike, needing to have their funeral and burial costs paid by the RBF because they wound up broke and relatively destitute.  I can also remember how we’d awaken the next morning to persistent telephone calls from Pioneer Awards recipients looking to hungrily cash those awards checks. 

    Artists whose major hits might take two hands to count needed bailing out when the Grim Reaper called!  I’ll never forget the melancholy story of a fallen diva from my dance party youth whose family insisted that the RBF not only fund her services and burial, but that she must have several changes of clothes for her funeral home viewing services!  We’re talking about someone who has passed, not some poor soul needing a new suit to make a job interview!  These elements just brought to mind the fleeting aspects of what we think of as fame; the fact that such artists’ fortunes are tied to a youth culture and a youthful existence (and appearance) that cannot and does not last; artists who are just as quickly kicked to the figurative curb as their sudden rocket to fame.  This is the pop life I’m afraid; here today, gone tomorrow.

    I’ve often thought of that as my work with the NEA Jazz Masters program proceeds and as I communicate with so many senior jazz artists.  In jazz we are perpetually wailing about our relative lack of recognition, the constant struggles of artists making this music, and about the second class citizenship of the beloved art form in the larger scheme of the music industry.  However the fact does remain that for those who are blessed with perseverance and longevity, the rewards of jazz mastery can sustain.  Fortunately we in the jazz community are not about casting aside our legends once they’ve gone gray and are no longer producing "hits."  We tend to honor longevity, youth has to prove itself over time in this music; the attrition rate may be significant, but elderhood does have an honored place in jazz, so unlike the pop forms.

    I thought about that on two life-affirming recent occasions when being in the company of a couple of jazz masters was truly uplifting.  The week prior to Thanksgiving the occasion was a site visit for the NEA Jazz Masters Live program component.  The site was Baton Rouge, LA for the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge’s engagement of Ahmad Jamal, 79.  Its been a real pleasure and a privilege visiting some of the sites of NEA Jazz Masters Live-supported programming, but the first evening of Jamal’s two days in Baton Rouge was rather unique.  The CEO of the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge is Derek Gordon, formerly of the Kennedy Center and Jazz at Lincoln Center.  As a prelude to Ahmad’s arrival Gordon presented a program consisting of student ensembles from Southern University, Louisiana State University, and the famed New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA) playing some of Jamal’s compositions and music associated with the pianist in their own arrangements.

    On the Wednesday evening of Ahmad Jamal’s visit Gordon arranged for those student ensembles to reprise their performance of his music for Jamal himself.  I watched intently as Jamal quietly studied their performances, taking notes and observing patiently.  At the end of each piece he gave his cordial approval in a fairly non-commital way.  If you know Ahmad Jamal you know he’s a man of great conviction and strong opinion.  So I kept waiting for some broader response.  Instead Jamal surprised us all at the end by generously requesting that each band director provide him with the email address of each student musician so he could send them a personal email with his response to their playing!

    The next night Jamal played two shows before full houses at the intimate and shiny Manship Theatre.  Being in Louisiana gave Jamal a chance to further reflect on how important New Orleans drumming has been to his music, considering that New Orleanians Vernel Fournier, Idris Muhammad, and Herlin Riley were his longest-tenured trapsmen.  Don’t forget, what truly made "Poinciana" the monumental hit it was for Jamal was Fournier’s distinctive New Orleans drumming.  On this evening Jamal renewed that Crescent City connection by employing another New Orleans-bred slickster, the ever-youthful vet Troy Davis, on the tubs.  This was the first time Davis, currently living and teaching in Baton Rouge, had locked up with Jamal but one would hardly have known it given the loose-limbed lockstep he fell into with Ahmad’s characteristic use of open space, keen sense of rhythm and pacing, and distinctive brand of bandleadership.  That evening’s obligatory performance of "Poinciana" felt as fresh as it must have when Jamal first hit it at the old Pershing Lounge.

    Afterwards I asked Davis, who was visibly uplifted by the connection (and Jamal plans on engaging Davis again)  how he was so quickly in synch with Jamal.  Troy Davis: "I’ve been playing drums for 40 years, even though I’m still young (laughs), but that doesn’t mean anything when you’re playing with Ahmad.  You just have to watch him, it’s as simple as that, you just have to watch him and pray… anticipate and pray…  You know what makes it easy?  He gives you cues, he’ll tell you when to start and when to stop, but then you have to fill in everything else in the middle.  But his time is impeccable…"

    The week after Thanksgiving came another senior sighting when the Saxophone Colossus Sonny Rollins, also 79, touched down at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall through the auspices of the Washington Performing Arts Society (WPAS).  No longer the road warrior he once was, Sonny picks & chooses his dates and frankly commands a fee (God bless him!) that is beyond the reach of many jazz presenters.  So when Rollins comes around it is event programming, and this evening was no exception.  The huge KC Concert Hall was jam packed with anticipation and one sensed that the audience was there in appreciation of royalty; a fact substantiated by the standing ovation when Sonny ambled onstage, before he’d even played a note.  And his 90-minute+ performance did not disappoint.  Years ago critic Ira Gitler famously characterized John Coltrane’s tenor improvisations as "sheets of sound".  In Rollins’ case that would be torrents of sound, a different approach to tenor mastery than his old friend Trane, but no less potent.  The closing de riguer "Don’t Stop The Carnival" (one of only two calypsos on this evening, for those who keep score and look askance when in their estimation Sonny dips in the calypsonian well once too often), was truly ecstatic, with many in the audience dancing at their seats.  Sonny was perhaps more gregarious and expansive with his audience, eliciting shouts of recognition when he reminisced about his boyhood times in nearby Annapolis, MD and his unrequited 12-year old crush on a 19-year old.  One piece I’d not heard previously was an original he wrote in tribute to J.J. Johnson, at the end of which he raised his arms and sang a vocal coda!

    These two rich experiences simply served to bolster the sense that in the right hands, and given the right life circumstances, the jazz crusade is a lifetime quest for the persevering practitioner — and thank goodness the jazz audience is not about throwing away the flavors of yesteryear!  So to all of you young musicians struggling with your music, and struggling even harder to attain jobs and a healthy audience, remember… perseverance can pay off in jazz music, and indeed have its rewards.

Like most of the participants in our ongoing dialogue with African American music writers, Gregory Thomas, has both feet and hands in several camps.  Greg’s byline has been featured in numerous publications, including Salon.com., Guardian Observer (London), American Legacy, Africana.com, BlackAmericaWeb.com, Daily News (NY, NY), TBWT.com, Callaloo and others.  He was the founding editor-in-chief of Harlem World magazine. 

Additionally Gregory Thomas has taught jazz education at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Thurgood Marshall Academy, and the Frederick Doublass Academy for the Jazz Museum in Harlem’s Harlem Speaks Education Initiative.

As an electronic journalist Greg details his web-television exploits below.  He has hosted radio specials on WBAI (99.5 FM, Pacifica Radio in New York City), where he hosts a regular jazz show the first Monday each month from 9:00-11:00 p.m.

Writer-Producer-Broadcaster

Gregory Thomas

What motivated you to write about this music?

The foundation was the music my parents listened to which included jazz, and my deep study and enjoyment of the giants of jazz I’d been listening to very intently since high school.  Inspired by a high school stage band concert, I began to play the alto sax at 15 years old.  I took lessons with a local Staten Island legend, Caesar DiMauro; studied music theory and saxophone method books; played in various classical and jazz ensembles; tuned in regularly to WRVR and WBGO; and minored in music at Hamilton College, where I also hosted a jazz radio show for three years.  Sharing a melody line with trumpet icon Clark Terry there, on April 17, 1984 in the college chapel, was an epiphany, a mystical experience of musical ecstasy.

    A few years after graduating from Hamilton I met Keith Clinkscales and Leonard Burnett, later of Vibe and Savoy, who launched their first publication, Urban Profile, in the late ’80s.  I was more troubled by how relatively few black folk attend live jazz performances than by the dearth of black writers about jazz.  So Keith and Len published my very first professional piece: "Why Black Folks Should Listen to Jazz."  I became a staff writer for the Brooklyn-based City Sun a few years later, and wrote about jazz and other subjects.  Since then I’ve free-lanced for many publications.

    My initial goals as a jazz journalist were to report accurately, and educate readers gently, while describing a recording or a concert so the reader felt that he or she had experienced it too.  Usually if I don’t like a performance, live or on record, I just don’t write about it.  I’m not into bashing artists to feed my ego or further my career.  My major objective now is to share my knowledge and adoration of the music on as many platforms to as many people as possible — in print, on radio, on stage at the National Jazz Museum in Harlem, and on the internet and mobile through the TV series I host, Jazz It Up!

When you started covering the music were you aware of the dearth of African Americans writing about serious music?

Well it wasn’t as bad then as it seems to me now.  I’d read pieces on jazz by Stanley Crouch and Greg Tate in the Village Voice, Gene Seymour in the Nation and New York Newsday, as well as jazz writings by Harlemite Herb Boyd, and a contemporary of mine, Eugene Holley, in various publications.  Playthell Benjamin wrote about jazz (and a whole lot more) for the Voice and other periodicals.  All of these guys were in New York in my early years as a writer, as were the ever-looming presence of the elder grand masters — Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray.

Why do you suppose that’s still such a glaring disparity — where you have a significant number of black musicians playing this music but so few black jazz media commentators?

I suppose that most black commentators who focus on music generally deal with more popular genres.  And in 2009, there are less and less publications that even cover "serious music" anymore.  The glaring disparity has to do with black musicians being acculturated early on to the cultural power and appeal of jazz expression, particularly since their ancestors founded and innovated the blues idom vernacular called jazz, versus black media commentators who privilege popular forms (and the career benefits that could bring) over jazz, a fine art that they may not even like or feel qualified to write about.

      Pop and youth culture hold a powerful sway.  You have to go deep in the woodshed to write about jazz with substance.  Most black commentators, even those in the academy, apparently aren’t ready, willing or able to go that deep in the shed about the musical form at the very pinnacle of their culture, as developed in the United States.  With some notable exceptions, this has been the case through the entire history of the music.

{Editor’s note: on that academy tip, one wonders if we will ever see the likes of such leading black scholar-intellectuals as Henry Louis Gates, Cornell West, or Michael Eric Dyson write extensively on the subject of jazz music, with the same degree of vigor with which at least West and Dyson have taken up the pen to wax rhapsodic on black pop.  Still waitin’…]

    But hey, on the other hand, perhaps writing about the fine arts, about "serious music," considering our difficult history in this land, was aptly viewed as a luxury until more recent times.

Do you think that disparity or dearth of African American writers contributes to how the music is covered?

    Sure, but I think we can only take that point so far.  Most writers covering jazz readily admit the black American roots of the music, so that’s a commonality.  But there are different views on the value of certain styles or sub-genres, and so different emphases arise based on stylistic preferences.  These and other factors such as those I detail later play an important role in how the music is covered as much or more than race.

    As in politics, where race doesn’t necessarily determine whether one is, say, liberal or conservative, African-American writers won’t share the same opinions about the music based solely on their cultural identification.  Anyway, white and other writers who don’t identify as "black" still share in the values and expressive content of black American culture by a sort of cultural osmosis, because that blues idiom is in the very fabric, the fiber, of American society and culture writ large.  If you consider yourself American… you part black too!

Since you’ve been writing and broadcasting about serious music, have you ever found yourself questioning why some musicians may be elevated over others and is it your sense that has anything to do with the lack of cultural diversity among the writers covering this music?

Yes, I have at times questioned why some musicians may be elevated over others.  And though the back story is usually more complicated than a simple "race" analysis, race being an omnipresent cancer in the body politic, does play a role.  It’s important to note that race and cultural diversity are actually two different things — the confusion between race and culture has been deadly — but I think it better to confront race in jazz to best move beyond it.  Race is ultimately trivial and stupid but to transcend it we must face the illusion/delusion of race squarely; this is especially true in the era of Obama.

    Record label and public relations support factor in such elevations, as does a need for some writers to find the "next hot artist."  So many good jazz artists labor in relative obscurity that when they get some attention, I usually don’t have a problem with it.  Cultural diversity among writers will flower more perspectives, but not a consensus on which artists deserve to be elevated over others.

    However, I don’t agree with certain musicians being called "jazz" artists when they themselves will say, for instance, that they play "instrumental R&B."  The way the term "jazz" has been marketed is problematic too, especially by festival promoters and the radio industry (i.e. "smooth jazz").  They endeavor to profit from the veneer and sophisticated brand of jazz while pulling in other genres to make more money than they could with jazz proper.  That’s business.  Kenny G, for instance, is a popular pop/R&B instrumentalists, but when he is elevated by the mainstream press as a "jazz" artist due to record sales and radio play over, say, Kenny Garrett, the most influential jazz alto of his generation, that’s hype, not an accurate evaluation of genre or of artistic weight and authority.

    Furthermore, I think there is an undercurrent of race in why artists such as Diana Krall, Chris Botti, and Norah Jones become popular performing a mellow, soothing, less-experimental style of music.  They fill a niche in the music and radio industries and for certain market segments.  But I don’t criticize those artists for that, it’s not their fault as individuals that the dumb idea of race is so entrenched that they benefit from white privilege as well as their musical style and talent as artists.

What’s your sense of the indifference of so many African American-oriented publications towards this music, despite the fact that so many African American artists continue to creat serious music?

Jazz is a fine art and most black publications focus on popular music.  As Albert Murray says, the quality and range of aesthetic statement can be grouped into folk, pop, and fine art categories, for pedagogical purposes.  Our celebrity and profit-driven society overall doesn’t value fine art based on intrinsic or long-term value.  If it doesn’t have a big audience, then it won’t be considered relevant to most black publications because they compete in a media field where popularity and celebrity trumps all.

    This is especially sad and tragic because elder masters such as Hank Jones, Roy Haynes, Clark Terry, Wayne Shorter, Sonny Rollins, Phil Woods, Barry Harris, Charles McPherson, Jimmy Heath, Reggie Workman, Louis Hayes, Jimmy Cobb, Ben Riley, Benny Golson, Buster Williams, Jon Hendricks, Melba Joyce, Gloria Lynne, Ahmad Jamal, and Grady Tate are still on the scene.  I could easily name 20 more living legends unknown to a wider black audience, or to the general public.  The audiences consuming black publications are aware of Quincy Jones and Herbie Hancock, and even Wynton Marsalis, but they usually aren’t hip to the just-mentioned senior giants.  To re-phrase Carter G. Woodson, this is the mis-education of the black American.  These artists should be revered and honored by black publications and media outlets as a cultural and ancestral imperative.

    American Legacy magazine, for which I’ve written features on Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray, is one of the few African American periodicals I can point to that delves into the historical and cultural depths beyond pop culture and contemporary hype.

    Oprah’s fame and world-wide celebrity is larger than just a black audience, so she could reach that demographic and more.  I wrote an open letter to Oprah in All About Jazz inspiring her to have more jazz musicians on her show, not just as performers, but as commentators.  Jazz musicians are some of the most worldly, sophisticated and smart people I know.  Exposing wider audiences to jazz musicians as artists and as thinkers is one way to address the low cultural moment in which we find ourselves.

    The public education system and the music industry are largely at fault for the current state of affairs, where a vicious cycle of mediocrity predominates.

    It’s incumbent upon those of us who love and value this music’s contribution to this nation and the world to be more entrepreneurial.  [The Independent Ear] is an exampole of this.  My online jazz news and entertainment series Jazz It Up! is another.

How would you react to the contention that the way and tone of how serious music is covered has something to do with who is writing about it?

How serious music is covered is a matter of individual taste, depth of historical, aesthetic, literary and musical knowledge. native talent and disciplined application of all the above.  These factors fluctuate, of course, among writers of varying backgrounds.  How the music is covered also has to do with how the writer views his or her social and cultural function.  I recently produced and moderated a panel discussion at the National Jazz Museum in Harlem that brought together jazz critics and scholars (Gary Giddins, Howard Mandel, John Gennari) and jazz musicians (Steve Coleman, Lewis Nash, Jon Gordon and Vijay Iyer) for a dialogue.  I ventured a definition of the role of jazz criticism: to be a bridge between the artists, the art form and the public for the sake of publicity, education, and aesthetic evaluation.  That’s how I see my role, so that orientation grounds the tone and approach I take when I write about the music.

In your experience writing about serious music what have been some of your most rewarding encounters?

Getting to meet, interview and even become friends with musicians who play the music that most moves my soul has been extremely rewarding.  Of course hearing great music live that I otherwise may not have been able to afford is another.  When a reader says to me "I felt like I was there," I say to myself: "mission accomplished"!  There is also a community of academics and scholars with whom I’ve interacted as a member of the Jazz Study Group at Columbia University.  I’m grateful to Robert O’Meally for asking me to join in 1999, as I worked towards a doctorate in American Studies at NYU.  (I decided not to pursue academia as a career.)

    Last, but far from least are friendships and mentor relationships I’ve nurtured over the years that have jazz, and an abiding appreciation of black American culture, at the root.

What obstacles have you run up against — besides difficult editors and indifferent publications — in your efforts at covering jazz?

The main obstacle, other than those you’ve mentioned, is making a living covering jazz.  So, like many others, I’ve had to supplement coverage of jazz with other work to support my family.  Another obstacle has been getting due recognition in the jazz press about Jazz it Up!  Though we had a little coverage in Downbeat and JazzTimes when we launched in 2007, since then the coverage hasn’t been commensurate with what we’ve accomplished.  Jazz it Up! is the only online TV series devoted to this music, and over the course of 18 half hour episodes we’ve garnered close to 3 million viewers online.  That’s jazz news that warrants coverage.

    Ironically, the organization that produces and presents the Emmy Awards has recognized Jazz it Up! in fall 2008, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences nominated Jazz it Up! for a Global Media Award in the Long Form Entertainment category.  Not one jazz publication — online or otherwise — covered this achievement.

If you were pressed to list several musicians who may be somewhat bubbling under the surface or just about to break through as far as wider spread public consciousness, why might they be and why?

Jonathan Batiste, a young pianist from New Orleans, is a charismatic, fresh voice on jazz piano.  I’m also excited about pianist Gerald Clayton, who comes from a great family of musicians; his touch, taste and technique are superb.  Dominick Farinacci and Theo Croker (Doc Cheatham’s grandson) are two young trumpeters who deserve wider recognition for their fidelity to the tradition while attempting to forge new pathways.  Vibraphonist Warren Wolf plays jazz andd other genres of music with deep integrity and verve.  He’s a favorite of Christian McBride, so that speaks for itself.  Edmar Castaneda is an incredible harpist on the verge too; he plays the harp with a percussive virtuosity that is a wonder to hear and see.

What have been the most intriguing new records you’ve heard this year so far?

Benny Golson, New Time, New ‘Tet

Bobby Broom, Boby Broom Plays for Monk

Christian McBride & Inside Straight, Kind of Brown

Cyrus Chestnut, Spirit

Roy Hargrove Big Band, Emergence

Vijay Iyer, Historicity

Take 6, The Standard

You can check out Greg Thomas’ Jazz it Up! internet TV series and catch up with his latest exploits at www.jazzituptv.com.