Jazz

Guitarist, singer and radio personality John Pizzarelli, 52, is one of the most entertaining and engaging performers on today’s jazz scene. In his new book, co-written with longtime collaborator Joseph Cosgriff, he recounts his life in music, and that life is indeed a storied one. He started playing guitar shortly after he began walking, and alternately cut his teeth performing the pop music of his youth and gigging with his swing-loving father, guitar great Bucky. It was a schizophrenic upbringing that he eventually resolved by creating his own modernist takes on standards. But being an outstanding performer doesn’t automatically mean you’ll write an effective autobiography. The challenge for the autobiographer is tone, a subtle but complex factor when it comes to self-expression. If you talk too boastingly about your accomplishments you come across as self-aggrandizing; minimize those same achievements and it seems like false modesty. Case in point: In the chapter describing his recording session with Paul McCartney, Pizzarelli struggles with balancing those contradicting tones. But it’s Pizzarelli’s reliance on comedy that stumbles most on the written page. Jokes and quips do not a book make. Humor writing is hard. Pizzarelli, a natural comedian onstage, simply doesn’t have those writing chops yet to sustain whole chapters, much less a book, and he seems to be trying so hard to entertain us. When writing funny, less is more—much, much more. Even worse, when you try hard to be funny over and over with quip after quip, it can be tough to sell a deeper or more emotional...

“Jazz Dispute” by Jeremiah McDonald, a film-maker and actor who identifies himself as the “Weeping Prophet,” has been going viral on YouTube since 2006.  If you haven’t seen it, now’s the time.  Starting with the Charlie Parker/Dizzy Gillespie recording, “Leap Frog,” McDonald creates a brilliantly mimetic, one-man musical pantomime.  And in doing so he captures the essence of spontaneously improvisational jazz at its best.  While adding his own oddball humor. Here it is:

I know that beauty and worth cannot be quantified by the amount of public appreciation they receive; in simpler terms, the most rewarding painting in the museum may not have the longest line of people who wish to stare at it. But here is a very brief reposting of something both beautiful and honest.  My motivation, and it may be a crass one, is that I saw that this video had been seen by 22 people on YouTube.  Twenty-two seems like a small number . . . so I hope that JAZZ LIVES readers will forgive me for saying, “If you missed this, you owe it to yourselves to take a few minutes and watch and listen calmly.” It is a medley of two love songs performed by singer Marianne Solivan and pianist Michael Kanan at Smalls on April 21, 2013.  The first, I’LL FOLLOW YOU, is — to my mind — inescapably associated with Bing Crosby circa 1932; the second, THEN I’LL BE TIRED OF YOU, is an Arthur Schwartz / Howard Dietz classic* that I first heard in Fats Waller’s jovial but loving version. Marianne introduces them by noting that most of the love songs she knows are about new love (“Oh gee, oh gosh, oh golly, she’s a great great girl, I can’t wait until we go to the preacher!” — to conflate three or four Twenties songs) and, having listened to Marianne as often as possible, I know she is one of the most wrenching explorers of love that has failed. But here she and Michael pay living subtle moving tribute to love that lasts, commitment without phobia, devotion.  It’s not the aging idea of Darby and Joan — I sense that the lovers dramatized in Marianne’s versions are still able to get up and do the hokey-pokey without making an appointment well in advance — but I so admire this presentation of music that dramatizes the idea that real love isn’t microwaveable. And I would also like us all to bow low in the direction of Michael Kanan, soulful and generous — at the piano and away from it. Please listen again, or for the first time.  Or send this posting as a love-token to your Beloved . . . perhaps even to someone you’d like to audition as one? May your love be as rewarding as that Marianne and Michael bring to us. *I sent a link to this video to Jonathan Schwartz: I hope he is able to observe and admire, too. May your happiness increase! Filed under: "Thanks A Million", Bliss!, Generosities, Irreplaceable, Jazz Titans, Pay Attention!, The Heroes Among Us, The Real Thing, The Things We Love Tagged: Arthur Schwartz, Bing Crosby, Fats Waller, Jazz Lives, Jonathan Schwartz, love, Marianne Solivan, Michael Kanan, Michael Steinman, Smalls, tenderness

Jenny Hval, Vortex 2013. Drawing by Geoff Winston. © 2013. All Rights ReservedJenny Hval(Vortex, 14 May 2013. Review and drawing by Geoff Winston) John Peel would have loved singer/composer Jenny Hval. One of a diverse wave of Norwegian musicians making an impact on the international scene that includes Paal Nilssen-Love and The Thing to Jaga Jazzist and Tord Gustavsen, she draws strength from a heritage where music, art and poetry overlap, and positively references key figures from Kate Bush to The Cocteau Twins and Patti Smith. Her latest album is produced by PJ Harvey's collaborator John Parish. Harvey was, of course, championed by Peel, and Bush was the subject of Hval's Masters thesis in Melbourne. She described her English accent as 'jelly-like', reflecting her global itinerancy, yet expressed mild alarm at having stepped out of the plane and seemingly straight onto the Vortex stage! Petite, fine-featured and articulate, she cuts a gamine figure onstage. Her distinctive performance was emotionally assured, highly personal and expressively idiosyncratic. With Norwegian compatriots, long-term accomplice, guitarist Håvard Volden, and drummer Kyrre Laastad, the immediate resonance was with Nico's 'Desert Shore'. Humming organs, anxious guitar and hints of the dark side of The Velvet Underground. Hval's voice is enticingly elastic, and like her lyrics, full of surprise and contradiction. From a crisp whisper to the declamatory, the enveloping flow derived from a combination of precision and informality. The spoken word gave way to waves of vocal colour which touched wingtips with Elizabeth Fraser's tonal delivery and the attacking strategy of Patti Smith, hovering abstractedly as the words let go of their meanings and the sonic impact took over. The main focus was the new album, Innocence is Kinky, following her much-lauded 2011 recording, Viscera (both on Rune Gammofon). She has described the earlier album as being 'set in the body' and 'composed and arranged by improvising'. The title, she recounted, is not what it seems, and derives from her time in Perth (Australia) where her neat, casual appearance and attire eschewed local norms, branding her as 'kinky' in the minds of the locals. The poetic edginess of her lyrics looks to Kate Bush's feigned innocence and the discomfort nourished by the Surrealists. Reflective intelligence and a propensity to explore areas which others avoid lends power to her streak of musical independence. A watery ambience and a natural Romanticism seep into her lyrics. Expressions of intense need blend with quirky narratives and the mirror of self-portrait. Her geographical roots and meanderings find their way into the songs. "In Oslo, it's warm and people walk through the city like friendly zombies." "Joan of Arc follows me around Australia ... Rotting leaves, bird shit, mud, flood water. I can smell what's there ..." Volden's tense, spare guitar provided a supple backdrop, harking back to his live and recorded collaborations with Toshimura Nakamura (whom we have reviewed previously), gliding from grainy minimalism to driven, Fender intent. Laastad flicked from clipped, paintbrush accents with tambourine and mallet to energetic injections of rolling post-punk thrash. The delivery had something of the contradictions of the raw, riffy rock and delicate poeticism of French female cult singer, Anthony Adverse. Time and distance blended with washes and breaths in a process of construction and deconstruction. Tempos were expertly lost and found. A door was gently opened to Hval’s vision which has the potential to translate from the art-house to the grand scale and invites a tangential comparison with Björk. This was a coup for the Vortex, who must also be warmly congratulated for their recent, long overdue recognition as a winner at the Parliamentary Jazz Awards. Actively looking to broaden their programming and their appeal they drew in many first timers to experience an exemplary setting where the

Liane Carroll - Ballads (Quiet Money Recordings QMR0002CD. CD review by Chris Parker) From the hushed reverence of its opening track, ‘Here’s to Life’, to the rueful melancholy of its closer, the Felice and Boudleaux Bryant classic ‘Raining in My Heart’, Liane Carroll’s Ballads is so deeply felt, so intensely personal, that all assumptions that previous versions – whether by (as with these two), Shirley Horn or Buddy Holly respectively, or even Frank Sinatra (‘Only the Lonely’) and (‘You’ve Changed’) Billie Holiday – would forever remain ‘definitive’ are simply blown away. For Carroll does not merely interpret these songs, she inhabits them, intimately confiding in her listeners, so that everything from Todd Rundgren’s ‘Pretending to Care’ and Carole King’s ‘Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow’ to more conventional jazz standards (‘Mad About the Boy’, ‘My One and Only Love’) is imbued with unaffectedly sincere, heartfelt emotion. Entirely eschewing the vocal pyrotechnics that disfigure so much contemporary balladry, Carroll’s singing wrings the heart in a manner achieved by a precious few, and with beautifully judged instrumental contributions from the likes of Gwilym Simcock, Julian Siegel and Kirk Whalum, not to mention the supremely tasteful string arrangements of Chris Walden, this is a gem of an album that should, if there is any justice in the world, become an instant classic.

Album Release Performance May 17-19 at The Blue Note (131 West 3rd St, NY) with Marc Cary and Charnett Moffett with Special Guests Donald Harrison and Nicholas Payton (18 & 19 only) Before he became famous as a member of the groundbreaking hard rock group Living Colour, Will Calhoun was an ...

This week, our video spotlight focuses on the New Orleans brass band the Soul Rebels, who will be in St. Louis this coming Thursday, May 23 for a gig at the Old Rock House. Formed in the mid-1990s by ex-members of the Young Olympia Brass Band to offer an updated take on the brass band tradition, the Soul Rebels perform weekly at a local spot called Le Bon Temps Roulé when they're home in New Orleans. In recent years, though, they've also traveled quite a bit, becoming regulars on the festival circuit both stateside at events like Bonnaroo and Electric Forest as well as overseas in Europe, Asia and Australia. The Soul Rebels have recorded a total of seven albums, with their most recent (and first nationally distributed) release, Unlock Your Mind, coming out in 2012 from Rounder Records. One of the most notable things about them is the degree of hip-hop influence in their sound - they seem to use solo vocals, both singing and rapping, in their music much more often than other brass bands, and frequently have been known to serve up live cover versions of hits from the likes of Jay-Z, Kanye West and Outkast. You can see and hear some examples of the Soul Rebels in action today in a half-dozen video clips, starting up above with a version of their song "Showtime," which, interesting enough, would seem to share some musical DNA with the theme from the old syndicated TV program Showtime at the Apollo). That track and "Let It Roll," heard down below, both were recorded last year at an in-store show at a record store in Orlando, FL and do a good job of demonstrating the influence of hip-hop on the Soul Rebels. Below that, it's a medley of "Turn It Up" and "Roll, Rebel, Roll," also from 2012, which serves to further elucidate the connection between hip-hop and the traditional chants of a New Orleans street band. Next up, the Rebels show off some other influences with a somewhat improbable yet effective cover version of "Sweet Dreams Are Made of This," which was a hit for the 1980s synth-pop band Eurythmics. Judging from the number of clips found on YouTube, the song seems to be a staple of their live show; this version was recorded in 2012 in Manchester in the UK. The final two clips find the Soul Rebels back in their hometown, with a cover of Kanye West's "Touch The Sky" filmed at a place called DBA this past New Year's Eve, and three more songs - Stevie Wonder's "Living For The City," the original tune "Let Your Mind Be Free" and a reprise of "Showtime" - recorded earlier in 2012 at the Louisiana Music Factory. For more of the Soul Rebels, check out their SoundCloud page and this interview published last year in, of all places, the Anchorage (AK) Daily News.

Hank Shteamer has an excellent essay on the new boxed set by the New York Art Quartet: "We've come to know and love the so-called "energy music" designation, but we've also learned that it's been a double-edged sword in the long term, this notion of free-jazz as some sort of quasi-religious expressionism, some heroic shout to the heavens that inevitably takes at least an hour to exhaust itself." Destination-Out has a post with mp3 from the great trumpet player Woody Shaw: "Moving from open atmospherics to funky back-beat and back again, the tune ebbs and flows under the masterly hand of bandleader Shaw, who does most of the soloing."Innerviews features a lengthy discussion with Nik Bartsch:"Bärtsch’s aesthetic is informed by an interest in Japanese martial arts. He’s an avid practitioner of Aikido, a practice steeped in the idea that trust, commitment and humility serve as the underpinnings for distinctive individual life paths."Jazz Club Jury has a video interview with Vijay Iyer. Send comments to Tim.

Towards The Centre Of Everything (Whirlwind Recordings WR4632) There is a book review in today’s Guardian which is headlined “How pop culture sold out”. In it John Harris asks: “Why do music and TV no longer challenge the establishment?” If … Continue reading →

All About Jazz is celebrating Kai Winding's birthday today! Kai Winding - trombone (1922 - 1983) Trombonist Kai Christen Winding (pronounced ki-win-ding) was one of the founding fathers of be-bop music and truly one of the finest-ever jazz trombonists. As a sideman to bopa€(TM)s reigning kings " Fats Navarro, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Tadd Dameron " he was more a bridesmaid than a bride... Read more...