The Independent Ear

He just keeps gettin’ up: Pianist/Composer/Bandleader Orrin Evans

Posted on July 16, 2010 by The Independent Ear

 Last Tuesday evening at the Jazz Standard, fortified by a plate of succulent ribs and amidst an appreciative audience, sonic rewards were plentiful from pianist Orrin Evans once again offering ample evidence that his arc continues on the rise.  That evening and the next at the agreeable East Side joint, Evans piloted a rough & ready quartet with Eric Revis on bass, that Buddah of zest-for-life drumming Ralph Peterson, and the too often overlooked, ever-dapper tenor man Tim Warfield. Casually dressed for the heat & humidity, newsboy topper in place amidst his be-suited bandmembers, Evans delivered as always.

 

(Faith in Action on the Polytone label is Orrin Evans’ latest effort.  He’s working towards a big band date that’ll feature musicians from New York and his home base Philadelphia.)

The first set was built amidst on-the-fly thoughtful improvisation so rigorous that by the second piece Revis – the heartbeat of this quartet and the one who seems to have the most telepathic connection to the leader – had already sweat through his suit jacket by the time they finished the piece "Miles", dedicated to Evans’ young son.  A trickster arrangement of Mingus’ seldom interpreted "Scenes in the City" found Warfield circling the theme then darting to the bullseye essence of that typically enchanting Mingus melody as the piece unfolded. 

Orrin Evans consistently challenges himself and his mates, ever mindful of the traditional values, but prodding and plotting originality all along the watchtower.  Contemplation begat some swinging business as the family guy’s fine tribute to his mother-in-law "Dita" unfolded.  Now how often do you hear warm, sincere in-law tributes? 

 

 

Posted in That's What They Heard | 3 Comments

The Case for Hubert Laws

Posted on July 16, 2010 by The Independent Ear

The 2011 class of National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters, the highest honor this country bestows on living jazz artists and advocates, is not without controversy.  There’s been much conversation about the unprecedented elevation of the entire Marsalis Family; and just the other day while doing some research at the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University’s Newark campus, I overheard two musicians debating the merits of Johnny Mandel being named a NEA Jazz Master to represent the composer/arranger’s art on this occasion.  Their words were to the effect that Mandel’s merits otherwise are without question, but as a jazz master(?).  From my perspective Mandel’s wizardry on NEA Jazz Master Shirley Horn’s striking album Here’s to Life, with strings, alone would bear this consideration; evidence: the title track and especially the heartbreaking string arrangement on "If You Love Me."

But the name from this year’s class that took me back a bit, in a fit of warm nostalgia, was flutist Hubert Laws.  In jazz there have been few absolutes, despite decades of all manner of popularity polls.  Sure, there are a handful that standout; for example the greatest living tenor saxophonist is without question NEA Jazz Master Sonny Rollins; and the three pillars of jazz history remain Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Charlie Parker, the fourth being a tossup between NEA Jazz Master Miles Davis and John Coltrane. 

 

Another of the few certainties is that Hubert Laws is the greatest living flute specialist in jazz history.  Notice I said specialist; certainly his peers on the instrument include such worthies as fellow NEA Jazz Masters Yusef Lateef, James Moody, and the late Eric Dolphy, (who unfortunately passed prior to the inception of the program in ’82) — doublers all.  The case for Laws is admittedly weakened by several choices of recorded material, including a soft underbelly of flyweight fluff from his CTI days.  But it is precisely that segment of the Laws discography, bordered by a couple of fine earlier dates for the Atlantic label, that is the core of his recorded work to consider.  Those CTI dates, which carry me back to my formative college years in the late 60s/early 70s, were also notable for ample displays of Hubert Laws’ enormous classical chops.  And there’s where some may get stuck in their consideration of Laws jazz credentials.

There are some who dismiss Laws for the crystal clarity of his dexterity, or his rich and pristine tone on the instrument — ‘lacks grit’ some might declare.  But for serious consideration of Hubert Laws considerable jazz bonafides, don’t sleep on the following performances:

"Airegin" from In The Beginning (CTI)

"Equinox" from Wild Flower (Atlantic)

"Windows" from Laws Cause (Atlantic)

"Moment’s Notice" from In The Beginning (CTI) (also available on a "Best Of" compilation on Columbia)

   

Posted in NEA Jazz Masters | 5 Comments

Stormy Weather: The Life of Lena Horne

Posted on July 5, 2010 by The Independent Ear

 Though still in progress with James Gavin’s thick new volume on the life & times of the recently departed ancestor Lena Horne, several in-progress observations give high marks to the writer’s thorough, detailed efforts.  Gavin, who penned the equally-rewarding Chet Baker bio The Long Night of Chet Baker, details La Horne’s vivid and often troubling life, a life full of seemingly equal measures of heartache & triumph from the moment of her life’s inception in Brooklyn, pulls no punches in telling it like it was, and delivering a balanced sense of Lena’s life through the lens of someone possessing deep admiration coupled with the often gritty realities of her life.

I’ve lifted a couple of sample paragraphs to give some sense of Gavin’s craft, beginning with this passage on Horne’s early chorus-girl days:

    "But in their attic dressing room, Webb’s chorines [dancer-choreographer Elida Webb] faced the tawdry realities of show business seven nights a week.  They were crowded into a long, narrow space, one side occupied by racks of costumes, the other by dressing tables and mirrors.  The dingy walls were hung with mirrors and the dancers sat elbow to elbow, budget cosmetics and overflowing ashtrays spread out in front of them.  Outfits were slung over chairs, and the air reeked of perfume, cigarettes, and sweat.  It was a typical backstage chorus-girl scene; dancers at most of the big white nightclubs had it no better."

Throughout the book Gavin repeatedly takes the reader back to the scene of Horne’s various exploits, pratfalls and all, with an unerring eye to detail; the kind of detail that makes the reader a veritable fly on the wall of 20th century show business history, in "sepia" tonalities. 

Here’s a later passage from Horne’s earliest Broadway star turn, as part of the determined integrationist impressario Lew Leslie’s doomed show "Blackbirds of 1939":

    "Finally, on  February 11, Lew Leslie’s Blackbirds of 1939: A Harlem Rhapshody opened at Broadway’s Hudson Theatre.  After all the turmoil, the results reeked of haste and desperation.  The show looked like a bus-and-truck version of a Cotton Club review [The notorious, tough-on-black-asses Cotton Club was Ms. Horne’s show biz entry point, as a teenaged chorine].  Its dancers executed a cyclone of punishing moves, but the sketches seemed pale and cliched.  There were a few entertaining songs by the team of Johnny Mercer and Rube Bloom (who would soon write "Fools Rush In"), and some memorable scenes.  In the opener, "Children of the Earth," hands pushed up through the ground and wriggled like snakes.  "Frankie and Johnny," the old folks song about a murderous woman, was spun inot a fully staged courtroom scene; this time Johnny was tried for shooting Frankie, and jurors, lawyers, and defendant sang their testimony."

This is one of many examples of how Gavin turns back the hands of time and places the reader squarely in a box seat at the Hudson Theatre for this vivid glimpse of one of Horne’s earliest tribulations, prior to the great triumphs of her hall-of-fame career. 

The book is Stormy Weather – The Life of Lena Horne by James Gavin (pub: Atria), and it is highly recommended.   

 

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JJA Marches On

Posted on June 16, 2010 by The Independent Ear

 Monday, June 14 marked the annual Jazz Journalists Association Jazz (JJA) Awards event.  The venue City Winery proved to be quite the ambient locale for what has become a jazz community tradition.  As the tribes gathered to schmooze, catch-up on news, hugs and air kisses, and just generally revel in the greatness of jazz music (and the auspicious list of jazz greats on hand), I was reminded not so much of the actual birth of the JJA as it’s conception. 

JJA was actually conceived at A Jazz Media Symposium, May 20-22 at the University of Illinois-Chicago.  The symposium was produced by Arts Midwest, co-sponsored by DownBeat magazine, and at the time I was Jazz Program Coordinator at that Arts Midwest, a regional arts rganization (a relationship I’ve happily renewed more recently with my work as coordinator of the NEA Jazz Masters Live project for Arts Midwest via the National Endowment for the Arts).  As Wayne Self, a fellow writer who at the time was also on staff at Arts Midwest, and I hammered out the details for the symposium our primary goal was the development of a jazz writer’s association and a concurrent jazz radio programmers association; the former proved much more successful (i.e. the JJA), while the latter remains in the we’ll-see category.  There have been various collectives of jazz radio stations and programmers, but nothing approaching the success or longevity of the JJA; and for that the primary thanks goes to the JJA’s tireless and longtime Pres. Howard Mandel. 

Our symposium featured general sessions on "Record Companies & the Media"; "The Future of Jazz: Hope or Hype?"; and jazz writer-specific sessions on "Plugging into Outlets: Jazz Writing Opportunities Today & Tomorrow"; "Jazz Journalism: Responsibility & Function;" and a Day 1 closing general session on "Musicians & the Jazz Media: A Dialogue" between writers, programmers and musicians.  Our closing general sessions on Sunday included separate feasibility studies on "Establishing an American jazz radio network and a jazz writer’s guild" — thus the eventual birth of the Jazz Journalists Association, whose first president was writer Art Lange, who at the time was concluding a stint as editor of DB.

On the writer side the panelists for those sessions included Mandel and Lange, Paul Baker, Leslie Gourse, the late Gene Lees, Bill Millkowski, Don Palmer, Neil Tesser (who wore both his writer and radio hats for the occasion), and Kevin Whitehead (Stanley Crouch, scheduled to appear, stiffed — another story/another time).  Other symposium participants included musicians Bunky Green, Ernie Krivda, Ben Sidran (also wearing his radio syndication hat), Bill Smith (ditto his Coda magazine hat), and Douglas Ewart.  Radio folks included the late Oscar Treadwell ("An Oscar for Treadwell"), Bob Porter (also wearing his writer hat), Sandy Ratley (NPR at the time), and Linda Yohn.  The record industry was repped by such panelists as Terri Hinte, Don Lucoff (pre-DL Media), and Ricky Schultz.  The evening hits were provided by the annual UIC Jazz Festival, including Dizzy Gillespie, and the Count Basie Orchestra, and of course the ever-lively Chicago jazz scene.

And a productive time was had by all, particularly the assembled journalists.  So there you have the conception of the JJA.  For membership, complete details on this year’s Jazz Awards, and other timely & useful jazz news & views, be sure to visit (and bookmark) WWW.JAZZHOUSE.ORG.

— Willard Jenkins, Founding Member, Jazz Journalists Association

 

Posted in General Discussion | 1 Comment

On the road with Weston

Posted on June 13, 2010 by The Independent Ear

 Coming this fall: African Rhythms, the autobiography of Randy Weston, composed by NEA Jazz Master Randy Weston, arranged by Willard Jenkins (Duke University Press).

 

Geographically, ranking third only to Africa and Brooklyn in the odyssey of NEA Jazz Master Randy Weston, is the idyllic, green-mountain Berkshires region of New York and Massachusetts.  The past Memorial Day weekend was a particularly joyous time for Randy to renew his Berkshires connection.  A collective of Berkshires jazz enthusiasts presented Randy in concert at the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield, MA.  The evening was preceded by an afternoon panel discussion featuring journalist-broadcaster Seth Rogan, veteran writer Milton Bass (who wrote tellingly in his concert preview in the May 27 edition of Berkshires Week: "I first encountered Randy more than 50 years ago in Lenox [MA]") at the Music Inn, and writer-professor (Boston University) Jeremy Yudkin, author of the important book The Lenox School of Jazz ("A vital Chapter in the History of American Music and Race Relations"; Farshaw Publishing), and Weston, which I had the pleasure of moderating.

The evening’s concert was a sublime duo performance by Randy Weston and his longtime bassist Alex Blake.  One of the highlights was a pungent, obligatory essay on Weston’s enduring waltz "The Berkshire Blues."  The journey was a particularly nostalgic one for Weston as numerous friends and associates came out to celebrate his return, including one of the former chefs at the Music Inn, whose culinary magic inspired a Weston tune "Willie’s Blues."  Randy’s granddaughter, filmmaker Rebecca Farella, captured Weston’s reminiscences for a future film.

The Sunday following the concert we took a drive through various of Weston’s former haunts, including the resort formerly known as Avaloch where Weston began to establish his 10-year Berkshires piano residency.  This vital chapter in Randy Weston’s odyssey is chronicled in great detail in our forthcoming book, which will be released by Duke University Press in October.  As they say in radio land, Stay Tuned… and don’t sleep!

African Rhythms, the autobiography of Randy Weston; composed by Randy Weston, arranged by Willard Jenkins (Duke University Press, October 2010).

                                — Willard Jenkins

 

Posted in Weston Chronicles | 1 Comment