Lazaro Vega

During a recent Jeremy Pelt "Before and After" he pointed to Clark Terry's solo on "In A Mist" from the "Happy Horns of Clark Terry" as being one of the key places Wynton comes from. When the WM Quartet played Grand Rapids right after that Blue Note Quartet album was issued, the one with "Free to Be" on it, he played "Cherokee" and used a long verbatim quotation of Clifford Brown's solo on "Cherokee" as the "head" on the end of the tune.

I was on that cruise. Had a chance to interview Clifford Jordan who left us soon after. Also recorded interviews with Milt Hinton, Doc Cheatham, Leonard Feather, Jackie McLean, Charlie Persip and Randy Weston. That was a bittersweat sail.

Across the Tracks on Concord.

Herbie Hancock Statement On The Passing Of Freddie Hubbard Freddie Hubbard was, I believe, the greatest jazz trumpet stylists of my generation. His influence is still being felt in the sound of many young trumpeters today. His warm tone and formidable technique will be considered marvels well into the future. Personally, I was so fortunate in that Freddie played on my very first album as a leader "Takin' Off". He was exactly the person I wanted and his contribution was groundbreaking. On a tune called "One Finger Snap" on a subsequent album of mine, his beginning improvised solo line worked so seamlessly that it became a kind of generic "melody" that most musicians still believe was the composed melody, when in fact it was not. He and I crossed paths musically in several albums. In the group VSOP he was a founding member who's artistry helped propel that project, which began as a one time tour, to a decade of memorable musical inspirational moments for me. His legacy is secure in that he played a seminal role of the shaping of the evolution of America's foremost contribution to the musical arts, jazz. Herbie Hancock

Ottawa Citizen article: http://communities.canada.com/ottawacitize...ner-update.aspx and pianist Aaron Park's blog: Saturday, December 20, 2008 Good News (update on Mark Turner) Some very encouraging news regarding Mark Turner and his injury. It's looking like his recuperation is going much faster than anticipated, and he may be back to playing gigs again sometime in the next couple of months. Much better than the six months of recovery time that was initially expected. Let's all wish him continued healing through the rest of 2008 and into 2009...

He actively encourages listeners to submit ideas about his programming. If anyone who listens to Bob Parlocha on Blue Lake Public Radio wants to write him and say, "There's this great band here in Michigan we'd like to hear on your show and it fits with the "mainstream" idea of your programming" and then mention the station you listen on I don't think that's out of bounds.

an e-mail campaign is in order: bob@jazzwithbobparlocha.com to write directly to bob parlocha

Nice to hear your thoughts on KD, Mr. Weiss. As to JALC and "regional" survival...from personal experience in and around Grand Rapids, MI...can't say that it is directly true. There are tiers to hiring touring groups and the venues that would have previously hired, say, a Columbia Artits Touring Package with Joe Williams and George Shearing and Joe Pass all on the same bill, for instance, The Gathering of Friends tour, would now be hiring JALC Big Band, as they have: Congo Square played Grand Rapids in '08 (DeVos Hall) and Branford in '06, maybe, Meijer Gardens . But that level, that price and audience size, never really impacted what went on at the mid-sized theaters around town, or the non-profits, let alone restaurants. Local musicians could manage to mount a larger concert if they had the gumption and hustle to make it happen, if they could talk The West Michigan Jazz Society into it. JALC wouldn't really effect that. Right now there are two big bands that play nothing but a jazz book in West Michigan and at least two more who play a swing book with jazz. Can't say that's much changed over the last 25 years. If fact, it is an improvement. There was always The Grand Rapids Jazz Orchestra, essentially, and The Truth in Jazz Orchestra is a great addition to Muskegon. The Beltline Big Band has been going for 9 years now thanks in large part to the swing dance revival. I mean, while serving on the music committee/board at both the Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts and St. Cecilia Music Society that wasn't/isn't an issue. UICA is a small venue flexible enough to grab avant garde jazz bands -- Steve Lacy, Vinny Golia, Rova, even Lee Kontiz -- while on the road and give them a Thursday night or weekend afternoon and I was able to pull musicians out of Chicago for shows here over a 15 year period, which ended when we had kids and that type of volunteerism became impossible. Other producers there who took it more mainstream would be presenting Patty Barber or Fred Hersch. The non-profit, 120 seat theater and artists who were affordable for that scene had nothing to do with JALC. Randy could bring his craziest music in there, or The Northwoods Improvisers from Mount Pleasent could make a go of it. The JALC musicians often played in local college or high school concerts over the same period. The educators especially champion them. St. Cecilia, which is primarily a classical music venue with a 600 seat theater, has one big expensive concert a year that occurs outside of their classical and jazz series concerts, and that's where you'll find JALC or Branford's band playing, or the Julliard String Quartet. The trouble with St. Cecilia bookings is that there just aren't as many jazz "stars" a place such as Grand Rapids recognize or know enough about to fill the place. It takes an across the board appeal to make a jazz audience: old/young, black/white, well off and working class. If you're just getting one aspect of that mix, that just won't make it. So artists who appeal in the broad sense and have any commercial value are harder to come by. Joe Lovano and Kurt Elling recently did ok, not sell outs, but close. Bill Frisell and Jim Hall were scheduled this fall (Hall was replaced at the last minute by Russell Malone) and there may have been 300. Now in the past Ramsey Lewis, Billy Taylor, Ahmad Jamal and even Oliver Jones could fill the place up, but as they age and their fees rise, there aren't as many musicians with a "name" who can step in and fill the house who are affordable (say $10,000 - $12,000 for everything: fee, hotel, travel). The State Theater in Kalamazoo seemed un-affected by this aspect of JALC, too. Yes, I don't doubt they've sucked the air out of a lot of places which in part explains this phenomenon of fewer jazz "stars," yet at the same time, without that -- without Wynton and Branford and their activities pulling in all the school kids, as well as middle of the roaders who know about them from television, plus the black audience -- it's tough to find jazz instrumentalists with "star" power these days. Rollins, Herbie, Brubeck -- very expensive now. Was pretty shocked by the audience pianist Marcus Roberts drew up in Sutton's Bay, Michigan, a year ago. Big, for a small resort town, and wildly enthusiastic. Mentioned to Jason Marsalis that I was M.C.ing then joked they might not be able to trust me up there because of my love of Cecil Taylor's music. We talked about that a bit and Jason basically said, after admitting his respect for Taylor and Ornette etc., that they're from "another generation." It's within this generation, musicians in their 40's or so, that they were most concerned with knowing who James P. Johnson was, for instance. In any case... This is not the best time to judge audience size in Michigan. The state's been in recession since 2000 and now...the Lions can make it 0-16 today, the perfect metaphor for Goldman Sacks Socialism.

LK on Dizzy: "virtuosic ... terms, fail me here, but how about virtuoso surrealism for DG? " Idiosyncratic virtuosity?

I pulled him out of Lake Michigan once. Close one. Nice article. Funny...the quote on not hanging out with academics. I'm sorry I missed the boat on That Devlin' Tune. Sounds like a fascinating project.

The trouble with this point of view are the careers of Miles Davis and John Coltrane, Sun Ra and Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman and Roscoe Mitchell, Muhal Richard Abrams and Steve McCall, even Coleman Hawkins. They all in one form or another and to a greater or lesser degree started out "in the tradition" and found it lacking something for their own musical development. So it isn't an us vs them evolution as much as it was a creative need being filled by opening up forms and rhythms. Which is not much different than the guys playing in Bull Moose Jackson's band or the swing bands wanting to play a more soloistic role in bebop. Fats Navarro played some great lead AND jazz trumpet with Eckstine. It would have been a great loss, however, if that's all he did. Playing with Tadd Dameron gave us all those great recorded Navarro solos. There came a time when some musicians heard more musical choices available in the world around them and applied them to their music. That's how the music evolved as well as by the hipness quotient. That David Lee book about Ornette at the Five Spot would be good to mention at this point..... http://www.svirchev.com/features/l/lee-5spot.html

Well, not just economically: when was the last time we heard a "jazz standard"? Tony Williams "Sister Cheryl"? Band's can't seem to agree on, "Hey that's the shit" anymore and play a tune, in whatever style, that they feel is cool.

That said on Buster, o.k., yet his importance was in bringing, along with Armstrong, the southern blues sense to NYC in the period. In the expressiveness of his clarinet, the ability to moan and bend notes as well as to swing. The New Yorkers were ragtimers -- Buster, at Armstrong's invitation, left King Oliver's band in Chicago to play with Henderson.

It's an avenue for taking the easy way out, not a phenomenon restricted to jazz.

Yes, a chemist. And Betty Boop was a reefer fiend? Boo-boop-a-doop indeed Miss Betty. Thanks for wearing the polkadots. Last Spring during a "Live From Blue Lake" program, Phil Ogilvie's Rhythm Kings (http://www.porkjazz.com) led by pianist James Dapogny played a version of "Radio Rhythm" on the air. With a gong and everything. Last night we played the Henderson original and then PORK's version Blue Lake recorded. Dapogny could help you to find out more, if anyone could. There's a page on him at the University of Michigan School of music with his e-mail address: http://www.music.umich.edu/faculty_staff/dapogny.james.lasso Good to hear from you, Fass.

In that sidebar from Do the Math about the Long Feud between Wynton and the AACM are the parts in italics Wynton's words or are those Iverson's from another piece he wrote? In any case, you guys are touching on the crux of the musical matter. If Wynton says this is about how "we" are going to play "together" but then leaves off "free" rhythm because it isn't "jazz" then there's a problem there. He talks about it right at the onset. It isn't that he as an artist has chosen to play time. Who could have a problem with that? And it isn't that he's ignorant of Kidd Jordan's music, for instance, as he says. It is that he has chosen to devalue the evolution of musical systems that have made choices away from playing strict, agreed upon, fixed, "conventional" meter. Playing a fixed time sense with Cecil Taylor does not work -- the drummer had to evolve a role for that music to "swing." And on and on through a couple of generations now -- musicians who've basically said, Roach, Blakey, Joe Jones, Jimmy Cobb, Elvin, Tony Williams: who's going to play in that musical language better than those players who invented it? As to playing together there are musicians the world over, black and white, who can interact with "free" rhythms the way changes players could hit "Cherokee." And the subtext of the conversation which says free time isn't jazz is that it isn't "black" is used to dismisses too many creative musicians in what Lewis calls the black experimentalist tradition. Braxton had it right in the above quoted passage. Though in Lewis's book Braxton also acknowledges Wynton and the New Orleans musicians ability to stick together and promote each other. It was also good to read in Lewis's book how he dealt humorously with the '80's (pg. 526 note 15): "Newer histories of the period often uncritically recapitulate the corporate-supported tale told by the heavily funded Ken Burns Jazz series, a story which goes something like this: John Coltrane went mad in 1965, and a mysterious virus that he and others were carrying killed hundreds of musicians until Wynton Marsalis arrived in 1983, carrying a powerful mojo from the birthplace of jazz that put the deadly germ and its carriers to flight."

Driggs mentions that in the earliest period Henderson's was still an ensemble band, trying to hit a standard in ensemble playing represented in that era by Paul Whiteman. Dicty Blues, though, has a roaring tenor solo by Hawk, and this cool walking bass part for the bass sax and tuba, maybe, that made it a bit different. The Club Alabam years, or year. What a great bunch of trumpet players, soloists, he had down through the years. Damn. Pops, Rex Stewart, Joe Smith, Tommy Ladnier for a long time, the underrated Bobby Stark, the great Red Allen, Roy Eldridge. Great improvisors in Hawk and Buster Bailey, too, but man those trumpets!

The Study In Frustration box on Legacy, a few from the Classics label and one on Decca (Tidal Wave). Only one from 1923, Dicty Blues.

Henderson's music will be heard in the first 20 minutes to half hour of each hour in the five hour program. 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. eastern time. Includes King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band doing "Dippermouth Blues" as well as Jelly Roll Morton and Oliver doing "King Porter Stomp" followed by versions by Henderson's bands. Trad-o-licious. Streaming live, http://www.bluelake.org/radio Hope you can join us, Lazaro

Thanks Aggie.

Go here http://images.google.com/hosted/life and type in Jazz or Blues or Gjon Mili and you'll discover treasure trove of amazing jazz photographs.

http://thebadplus.typepad.com/

That's the one I want to get.

Blue Lake is featuring McCoy Tyner tonight on Jazz From Blue Lake, 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. eastern time streaming live from http://www.bluelake.org/radio, although the Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz by Feather and Hentoff lists his birthday as Saturday: December 13, 1938.

Presented a five hour radio special on him last night, and another hour this morning, including in both excerpts of a nearly hour long face to face interview taped in 1993. Happy birthday Dave Brubeck! In a sense his solo piano recording "Indian Summer" is like playing himself off the stage.