Category Archives: Jazz

Learning "rootless" voicings for jazz piano from Earl MacDonald

Posted on by

[Understanding this post probably requires a basic knowledge of seventh and related chords and extensions and alterations as used in "straight-ahead" (swing, bebop) jazz and mid-twentieth century American popular song harmony.  The highlighted (and recommended) links will tell you what they are, and something of how they function in jazz harmony, though not the full story.]

A basic component of most jazz pianists' toolbox is the so-called "Bill Evans" or "rootless" or sometimes "left-hand" voicings.  Each of the three terms is inaccurate.  These were to some extent used before Evans came on the scene in the late 1950s/early 1960s, but he perhaps used them more extensively than others.  (Wynton Kelly, Red Garland, and Ahmad Jamal are among those also cited as inclined to use them.)  Along with McCoy Tyner, Evans also was a pioneer in using quartal voicings, which would probably be equally good candidates for associating with his name, but are not our topic here.   A few of the "rootless voicings" contain the root of the chord, though most do not.  And although they are commonly used in the left hand while the right plays melody, they may also appear in the right hand.  "Four-note voicings" might be another term one sees used, though I'm not sure if that's as specific.

In some of the classic books on jazz piano playing (like Mark Levine's highly recommended "The Jazz Piano Book"), these may be introduced a bit too early, and some teachers may overemphasize them early on (especially to students who are already fairly aware of the basics of jazz harmony).  Working pianists, who usually play in a rhythm section in which the bass takes care of stating the roots, like to use these voicings in order to stay out of the way of the bass line, and because they allow for more "color" tones, as found for example in standard extensions of 7th chords to include 9ths, 11ths, 13ths.  (Some of these may be called "alterations", a term whose appropriate application I'm not completely clear about and am not going to get into here; it usually refers to a #11, b5 (enharmonically the same as a #11), b6=b13, b9 or #9, but precisely which notes are "altered" and which are just extensions depends on (what is considered to be) the harmonic context.)  For learning jazz theory in a way that gets it into your ear (and fingers, if playing piano and not just hearing jazz harmony is your ultimate goal), I think it's best to practice four-note voicings with roots first.  These can work for elementary solo piano playing, and for getting the sound of a tune including the roots fixed in your mind (play the "rooty" voicings in the LH, and the melody or an improvisation (yours, or a transcribed one) in the RH).  Of course you can use these same possibilities with the Evans voicings, and you will find that many of them are the same as "rooty" four-note voicings for chords a third higher, so practicing the rooty ones first also helps with the Evans ones.  I'll post on rooty voicings at some point, but here I'll discuss learning the more advanced Evans voicings, something I am in the middle of doing.

I'm using pianist Earl MacDonald's excellent post on how to learn these voicings.  I recommend printing out both his post, and his pdf file with music notation and taking them to the piano.  I won't go into detail, but just say a few things that might be a useful supplement.  Two voicings, labeled "A" and "B", are given for each chord type.  Frequently, though not always, the B voicing just involves taking the bottom two notes of the A voicing and making them the top two notes.  For example, the first two chord types he considers (minor 9th, and  [dominant] 13th) work that way.  I tend to think of these kinds of four-note voicings as a pair of intervals (that between the bottom two notes, and that between the top two), separated by the interval between notes 2 and 3 (top of the bottom interval, and bottom of the top interval).  Then I just think of the move to the other voicing as moving the bottom interval up an octave (or the top one down an octave, depending which way I'm moving it).  It can help to keep in mind how the middle interval will change when you do that:  e.g., for the minor 9th voicings, from a minor third for the A voicing (I don't think explicitly about this in this case, because the A voicing here is just a root position major seventh starting on the third of the chord we are voicing, e.g. Cm9 is voiced as EbMaj7)  to a half step, or vice versa.  The cool thing about these voicings is that when you want to move from, say, a B voicing  to a voicing for the same type chord with the root down a fifth (very common root movement, with or without a change in chord type), you just keep the top two notes the same and move the bottom ones down a half step or a whole step.  So again, thinking about the chord as a pair of intervals helps.  Of course ultimately you want to get this into your fingers, and not "think" too explicitly.  For example, to move the minor 9th B voicing to a minor 9th a fifth down, you go to the A voicing of the new chord, by keeping the top two notes the same as in the previous chord, and dropping each of the bottom two by a whole step.  When you start incorporating the voicings into chord progressions, the chord type will often change, but since root movement down by fifths is common and important, you can frequently negotiate these progressions effectively by going from an A voicing for the first chord to a B voicing for the second, or vice versa, keeping track of which notes change and which stay the same.  Often  you will just move the bottom interval, or just move the top interval, which is nice.  And if you've practiced root-included 7th-chord progressions, you might find some of the movements are similar, or the same, just used over a different root.  I haven't done much along these lines yet, but obviously ii V7 I  or the minor homologue, iiø V7 i, are the first ones to work on.

The basic construction principle for most of the voicings can be understood starting from the example of the minor 9th chord.  The chord tones used are 3, 5, 7, and 9 (3 and 7 of course refer a minor third and minor seventh relative to the root, since this is a 9th chord; the 9th here is major).  The A voicing is [3 5 7 9], B voicing is [7 9 3 5] (left to right going low to high in pitch).  When a voicing has a natural 11th (enharmonically, 4th) it appears instead of the 3rd.  (This happens with one chord type, the half-diminished chord with natural 11th.)   When it has a 13th (= 6th) it usually appears instead of the 5th, in the above constructions.  There is an exception to the 5 goes to 6 rule for the A form of the standard major (no 11th) voicing:  the A form is a 6 9 voiced [3 5 6 9] (so one can think of the 6 as having been substituted for the 7th).  A #11th, on the other hand (one chord type: the Maj7#11), is substituted for the 5 (the boppers used to think of the sharp 11 as a flatted fifth; thinking that way there is no substitution going on here; then again I don't think the boppers often added a sharp 11th to major chords).  The Maj7#11 is also an exception to the rootless rule: it is voiced  A: [1 3 11 7] and B: [11 7 1 3].  The other exception to the rootless rule is the B form of the standard (eleventh-less) major chord: it is a Maj7 with root, voiced [7 1 3 5], i.e. the major 7th and then the root-position triad, starting a half-step above the 7th.  This pair of major voicings is the only one that doesn't obey the rule of putting the bottom interval on top while keeping the top interval as the bottom of the new voicing, to go from A to B voicing.  Rather, the bottom goes on top, but the formerly top interval shrinks (if you must think this way) from 6 9 (a fourth) to 7 1 (a half-step) as it becomes the new bottom interval.

One could probably understand a bit more about the choice of particular types of voicings from the voice-leading properties they give rise to in common progressions (primarily major and minor ii V I or i type progressions).  Curious is the omission of a voicing for the dominant 7th #11.  This was a very important chord starting with bebop.  If this reflects Evans' practice and not just MacDonald's predilections, I wonder if it's because Evans usually used a different type of voicing (quartal?) for this chord type?

If MacDonald's exercises seem time-consuming and difficult, let me just say that you can progress fairly quickly, and it's worth it.  Here's a point from MacDonald that I really appreciate his emphasizing; it's crucial to remember, not just about this but about many, many exercises involved in learning to play jazz (and other musics, for that matter, e.g. scale practice):

Learning voicings is similar to learning to ride a bike.  At first it is difficult, frustrating, and at times, painful.  But once it is learned correctly, you never look back, and you can do it instinctually ever after.

A few comments on MacDonald's suggested learning routine. For all of the exercises, I've done them sometimes without sounding the root, but frequently with the root sounded in the bass. I think this is important to get the proper harmonic function of the voicing in your ear. Less crucially, I've done some of them with the right hand as well. Exercise number 8, taking the voicings down the circle of fifths with metronome (he refers to it as the circle of fourths; up a fourth is down a fifth, modulo octaves) is particularly crucial; I think this is where you'll really get the voicings memorized. Besides sometimes doing it with sounded roots, when I don't sound the root, I've been saying its letter name out loud. This also helps in better memorizing the circle of fifths, which anyone playing any music with essentially Western tempered harmony will want to do. Another point is that before working on each chord type, it is good to sound out the full chords, in root position, stack-of-(usually)-thirds configuration, and then compare this sound to the rootless voicing sounded with the root in the bass. You'll really start getting an idea of how extensions and alterations sound by doing this (especially if you sound out the lower seventh chord before adding extensions). You don't have to do this for every root (I haven't been), but it might be worthwhile too.

I have not yet made flash cards and done the "random roots"  exercise.  I've tried going up by fifths, as preliminary step toward getting away from the reliance on "muscle memory" and explicit thinking about the "lower the bottom two notes" trick for moving the root down a fifth while going from an A to B voicing, and I recommend it, as it's a cool sound as well.  I'm ignoring his suggestion about completely mastering one chord type before going on to the next, in that I've worked quite a bit on the 13th chord without complete mastery of the minor 9th, but I think that's OK as long as you don't mix things up to much and really push on each type focusing primarily on one at a time.

Finally, the observation he asks you to try to ignore, that five of the chord types share the same voicing (just with a different root), is quite neat and important, an example of the general phenomenon that putting a different bass note under a given set of pitches in the middle or upper register can make an enormous change in the way they sound. Not only could it be used for reharmonization of a given melody, but I imagine it could be used (and probably is used) in composition, not just jazz but classical composition (many of these 7th, 9th, 13th, 11th, and 6th chords appear in classical music, especially Ravel, Debussy, Stravinsky, and Copland) to effect modulations, by changing the root under a given voicing and then treating it as if it has the new harmonic function, resolving it in some standard way. It would be neat to find---or create---examples of this.

Ethan Iverson plays Hall Overton's Polarities #1

Posted on by

Via Ethan Iverson's blog Do the Math, a panel discussion at The Jazz Loft Project, of jazz and classical composer, arranger and pianist Hall Overton. Iverson kicks it off with a superb performance of Overton's classical piece "Polarities #1" (begins around 2'00 in the video).  A performance that should not be missed. Some more of my thoughts follow the video.

The Jazz Loft Project presents "Hall Overton: Out of the Shadows" from Center for Documentary Studies on Vimeo.

This is a wonderful piece of music and a superb performance of it. To my ear there are hints of jazz, especially at the beginning. The first two measures definitely sound like they could be the opening of a jazz ballad with relatively "advanced" harmonies, and the descending figure in the bass in the third measure sounds very Monkish.  [Update: this figure reminded me of a specific phrase in a Monk composition, which I suspected was "Nutty".  Sure enough, it's the first part of the falloff that Monk sometimes adds to the end of one of the first phrases in "Nutty".  Not only that, but the opening of Polarities seems related to the phrase to which Monk adds this falling line.  Though very different harmonically, there's some similarity in melodic profile and rhythm.]  A few other spots have that "advanced jazz ballad" feel.  While Overton was on the faculty at Juillard and apparently also taught at Yale and the New School, most of us jazz fans know Overton primarily as the arranger for the Town Hall big band concert featuring Monk, so a Monk reference is hardly a farfetched supposition.  The piece is roughly atonal or at least in very unstable tonality, but not twelve-tone, and very expressively balances atonal features with what seem to me passages with stronger harmonic implications.  The musical language often seems to me poised between Debussy and Schoenberg.  The sequence of chords around 3'19 to 3'33 in the video remind me of Debussy in his more declamatory frame of mind, while some of the passages preceding and following it remind me of his lyrical side.  I was quite surprised to be strongly reminded, around 3'39-4'00,  especially in the chord alternation at 3'44, 3'50 and 3'56 and melodic line connecting these bits, of Cecil Taylor's fantastic 1973 solo piano performance "Indent".  To my mind, Indent is some of the most important and enjoyable music to come out of the twentieth century, and if you don't know Taylor or have listened to other pieces and not "gotten" him, I'd say Indent or the early-60's band-as-jazz-orchestra side "Into the Hot" (the other side of the Impulse LP is Gil Evans' "Out of the Cool"), are the places to start.  Accessible but building in intensity and complexity.  I recall reading that Taylor intensely studied twentieth-century classical scores early in his career, so I guess it's not impossible that there was some direct influence of Overton's classical work on Taylor's composition or vice versa, especially since Overton was active in jazz circles in New York at just this time (mid to late 50s), but accidental convergence is just as likely.  (Though Indent is from 1973, the "vice versa" possibility is because Taylor might have developed some of these ideas very early even though they may not have been appearing in his performances at the time, which in the late 50s were still often based on jazz standards.)  Iverson recently linked the transcipt of a 1964 panel discussion between Overton, Taylor, and others that grows somewhat contentious, making this perceived momentary connection between their musics even more startling to me.

Iverson also points out that this piece appears, played by Robert Help, on a collection from the 1960s, "New Music for the Piano", available from New World Records, and he suspects this is the only appearance of Overton's classical music on CD.  Based on this performance of Polarities, that is a real shame and I hope it is rectified soon.  Also based on this performance, Iverson would be a fantastic pianist to do it.  He's not just playing the notes here, he has gotten inside the music and it's gotten inside him: each phrase is expressed as if he composed the music himself.  He gets a fantastic, bright and ringing but not harsh tone out of this piano, and can give it nuances to bring out or contrast different lines. The clarity and control are astonishing too.  Really beautiful music-making from both Overton and Iverson.  I hope we can hear more of this combination sometime.

CD Review: "Made Possible" by The Bad Plus

Posted on by

The Bad Plus

Made Possible (eOne records, 2012)

Reid Anderson  bass/synths/electronics
Ethan Iverson piano
David King drums

 

The Bad Plus' newly released CD, "Made Possible" (see the end of this review or this link for a video preview of it) is hard to categorize, but the important thing is that it's innovative, interesting to listen to, often beautiful and inspired music.  They're typically characterized as a jazz trio, and that's what you'll find in the metadata on an mp3 and where you'll find their stuff filed in CD store bins.  The instrumentation is the classic trio of piano, acoustic bass, and drums.  Not only is this kind of piano trio a standard jazz configuration, but it is usually present as the rhythm section in larger jazz groups.  So that is one reason to think of the music in jazz terms.  Here, a bit of electronics and electronic keyboard is mixed in on occasion.  But the overall musical language is wide-ranging, touching not only on a wide range of jazz styles but also on aspects of classical music and rock, and even stuff that might be considered New Age or generic mellow.  To my ear there are definite echoes of the Windham Hill Records sound, and although I've never been an avid follower of that sound, I emphatically do not mean that as a criticism.

Classical: you may hear something of Glassy minimalism in Anderson's "Seven Minute Mind" or King's "Wolf Out", impressionistic or even Bartokian harmony in Iverson's lovely "Sing for a Silver Dollar", which melds it with some classic jazz gestures, as well as avant-gardisms that almost form a continuum with the further-out reaches of jazz, as in the out-of-tempo interlude beginning around 2'25 in "Silver Dollar", or some of the piano in "Wolf Out": the block chords following 3'28, morphing into medusa-like writhing lines worthy of (but more organic than) a Conlon Nancarrow player piano piece, at 4'14 and again, in a nice touch, to end the piece.

Rock: Dave King's drumming on this CD also draws not only on jazz but on influences that are fairly nonstandard for jazz of either the straight-ahead or avant-garde persuasion, though probably more apparent in jazz fusion.  Quite a few of the beats he sets up have a definite rock flavor, like the one he keeps going under the lyrical theme (this one of the places on the CD where there are shades of Windham Hill, and also, one of the places of great beauty) of Anderson's "Pound for Pound", which kicks off the record.  Something similar, both with the drumbeat and the shades of Windham Hill in the piano is going on in the opening of King's "For my eyes only", which also has hints of some kind of prairie church-choirish Americana thing, a bit of bluesiness, and even Satie.

There is not all that much ride-cymbal ching-cha-ching going on on this CD, and plenty of backbeat and thwacky snare reminiscent of Stax/Volt soul or Led Zeppelin, even if it's sometimes done at a much slower tempo and in support of music in a very different mood.  But King mixes this kind of thing up with episodes of very interactive and inventive dialogue with the piano and bass.  "Silver Dollar" is a good example, in which the opening beat, which returns periodically through the piece, is a slowed-down version of a classic rock beat in which the kickdrum and snare take alternate---if you jammed with a drummer in somebody's garage in high school, you've probably heard a close relative of this beat---and then the second subject features free commentary using all elements of the drumset.  King's playing is an important part of the musical mix throughout, far from simple timekeeping.  Take time to focus on it occasionally during your listening.

The pianism is also surprisingly far from your more conventional jazz outing, which might spin out a lot of long lines, hopefully, but not always, at a high level of inspiration, or pile on a lot of highly colored chords voiced in a variety of ways, again to variable effect. Compared to a typical jazz record of whatever subgenre, a much larger fraction of the music on this CD sounds relatively thoroughly composed, even if not explicitly written out; or if not composed in full detail, relatively carefully planned, with detail filled in spontaneously in performance.  I don't know if that's how it was actually done; the point is that it comes out as carefully and effectively constructed, and relatively low on extended solo effusions.  There is perhaps slightly too much ostinato on this CD for my taste, but I have to admit that it's very effectively used. And in the parts that seem repetitive, just listen to the details of what's going on over the ostinato... they are usually not static, they evolve, and add quite a bit of musical interest.

I've touched on some of the particular bits I've enjoyed, but let me just mention a few other highlights.  After the relatively reiterative and not so jazzy (these are not criticisms!) opening pair of pieces by Anderson, Iverson's "Re-elect that" puts us squarely in contemporary somewhat-avant-garde jazzish territory with limpid jets of piano notes from Iverson over agile brushwork from King.  Then over a more propulsive but still quite flexible beat from Anderson and King, Iverson solos playfully, toying with stock pentatonicisms and turning them on their sides, throwing in a bit of uncategorizable avant-classical stuff, then shading things toward more beboppish or chromatic lines, hints of Bach, a contrapuntal episode, and tying things up gracefully by alternating a couple of closely voiced, high chords.  This may be the only thing on the CD you could really begin to categorize as a classic jazz piano solo, and it's a gem.  There are plenty of other places where Iverson's inspired pianism is in evidence, but in a less traditionally linear manner.  For example, the opening chords of "Silver Dollar" ... kind of dark-sounding voicings, in an unusual but compelling progression (or maybe it's the voice-leading that gives an unusual sound).  Around 0'36, the darkish harmonic elements continue as what would otherwise be more conventional-sounding (in a jazz context) melodic gestures are unfurled, subtly transfigured by the harmony.  Inspired indeed, but not in an in-your-face virtuosic or emotive way.  The record's most extended piano passage starts around 5 minutes into the lengthy "In Stitches" ... a long ruminatively lyrical stretch, slowly building momentum (propelled by incredible, restrained high-hat and rimshot work from King that you may not even notice at first, but which is crucial) which I suspect contains much improvisation from Iverson, then fixating on an ascending line that is almost a bebop cliché, which Iverson worries, transposes, develops, extends, fragments, but in a way that is not like a typical jazz solo but more cyclical, more textural, though still building constantly in complexity and intensity, largely by adding voices and harmonic depth and rhythmic complexity as well as by the old device of modulating or moving gradually upward on the keyboard.  It's your call whether the final buildup of this ends up being too grandstandy or not... I think it's fantastic.  This whole passage is major music-making.  And then listen to the discreet groove the rhythm section sets up to move on from this peak to finish the piece, the quiet as that groove dies down for a lyrical slow piano statement again, and then --- unexpectedly, and totally effectively --- the almost samba beat it sets up under that lyricism as the piano slowly subsides and the bass takes it out, and you're hearing just one example of why this is a great ensemble, much more than just three excellent players.

Despite what I've described as eclecticism, the record doesn't sound like a patchwork; these guys weave the elements they draw on into a language of their own that has its unity; there is plenty of variety within and between the pieces, but it's not scattershot, it's musically compelling.

I strongly recommend this CD; the musical approach is quite fresh, the musical content varied and often fascinating.  The overall mood is relatively reflective and calm, with little or nothing in the way of heavy minor-key emotivism or in-your-face spirituality, but plenty of lyrical beauty, fascinating detail, and sincere but relatively calm feeling, along with some more intense passages.  Despite the eclecticism, the pieces are well-structured, not rambling.  I might have liked to hear a few more episodes of extended improvisation...but I suspect that if you want that too, you might get it at one of their gigs, so check out their schedule (they are in Europe for the next two weeks as of this post, and there will be plenty of opportunity to hear them in the US in December and on into next year).  A very successful bout of music-making and a very enjoyable listen.  Although it's hard to predict what a piece of music will end up meaning to one over the long run, I suspect that I will keep coming back to this CD over the years.

Howard Barnum

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Raw listening notes follow, but first, the official video preview of Made Possible; it kicks off with an excerpt from Seven Minute Mind, then a bit of Pound for Pound, and so on.  You can already find many tracks from this on Youtube, but I'm not linking them without checking with the band first.  The official preview might be considered kind of corny, but that doesn't bother me.  Plus I love the neologism/solecism "on a guttural level".

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I recommend that you now just buy the CD and listen to the whole thing
to find your own high points, but for those who want a guide to some
other things they might find particularly interesting, I'm pasting in
as an appendix to this review some pretty raw listening notes, written
during a listen-through on a cross-country plane flight and re-edited
on another listen-through at home.

1- Pound for Pound  (Anderson)

drums as often on the record have something of a rock beat

Almost Windham Hill kind of lyrical sound.  Nice.  Fairly repetitive.
Some variation of voicing, decoration etc...
almost unnoticeable synths but they're there (noticed on 3rd or 4th
listening)

Record overall has a lot of theme, not that much improv

2- Seven Minute Mind (Anderson) Minimalism, scales and ostinato, excellent,
maybe goes on a bit long.

3- Re-elect That (Iverson) After the two ostinato-ey, mellow pieces,
it's easy to imagine that this one is self-consciously reestablishing
some contemporary avant-ish jazz cred.  (Of course the main point of
everything on the record is musical, not anything to do with
establishing cred; this is just an incidental impression.)  Iverson's
solo is a gem.  It starts by referencing modal/pentatonic cliches,
then turning them inside out.  Then it brings in bop, chromatic
post-bop, developing playfully but logically.  Then we get a nice bass
solo, then a drum solo (brushes).  I.e., the standard jazz routine.
But the overall impression is anything but standard jazz.  And then...
the last section is kind of a electronic/synthy version of some kind
of tweaked view of say 19th century band music amalgamated with an
off-kilter chorale. Given the title one imagines it might be aurally
alluding to some kind of 19th century electioneering event with
music...  Musically I dig what came before this much more, but have to
admit that this coda does work with the rest of the piece, in an
Ivesian kind of way...

I interpret the title of this piece in the light of Iverson's blog
post urging jazz musicians to vote for Obama...

4 Wolf Out...

Ostinato again, over a funkier bass line at first, static for a little
while but then starts modulating... and still later moves to more
chromatic stuff... Iverson with chromatic lines and chromatic
block-chords bits, enjoyable but not as deep or distinctive as some of
the stuff on the previous cut...  Nice theme... interesting chord
movement over the ostinato...  important to listen for detail...  B
section (?) ... descending piano line, kind of ominous in itself and
with each descent capped by somewhat ominous-sounding chords... then
the A theme starts getting mixed in ... continued development with
3'10 nice figure in the piano, q ... written or improv?  3'30 here is
the chromatic line in (clustery?) block chords I mentioned.  quiets (C
section tho related?)  ... & one hears electronics in background.
Nice.  Then gets busier again.  4'17 or so main theme again but with
writhing high register piano lines over it, excellent.  More of an
overall sound than line that can be followed.  "Medusa-like".  Then
more straight ostinato, straight repetition, drums eventually join in
with a major beat.... a short bit of Medusa piano is added to the mix
and that's it.  Nice one.

5-- Sing for a Silver Dollar (Iverson).... spare post-bop (?) jazz
balladry meets Debussy kinda...  nice.  Superb, in fact.  Right from
the top, a very distinctive, I've-heard-this-someplace-before drumbeat
is from, nice relentless trashy (? but w/ a fair bit of sustain)
cymbal beat... Jack de Johnette-ish?  Really a superb track.  Kind of
a couple of jazz ballad gestures, but done almost in classical style.
Segue into an electronic section.  Nice kind of atonal thing in this
section; prepared and straight piano kinds of sounds, and bass,
blending with the electronics.  Not sure about the jackhammer
drum-machine bit, though the bell-like accompaniment to it is fine.
Back to theme w/ "the beat" again.  Nice last note from the bass...

6 For My Eyes Only (King) .... again a kind of autumnal midwestern
kind of sound, very nice, between classical and Windham Hill
again... Yeah!  nice blues touch ... which echoed lower somehow gives
it a tinge of oh I don't know, cowboy soul maybe...  Excellent
composition.  Windham Hill meets Satie?  So far quite arranged.  New
section... piano arpeggios mostly triadic .... with bass tremolo and
windchimes.... nice interlude.  3'40 ... related to main theme but
still a different episode.  Or just in a different key, I think that's
it.  (Yup, the bluesy bits again just as before but transposed
(?)....)  Maybe goes on just a bit long...  4'48 ish nice bass work
under it all! good stuff.

7 I Want to Feel Good pt 2 (King) ... I like this one too.  A bit
singsongybackground, slightly off-kilter melodies.

8 In Stitches (Anderson) ... quite a long piece (14--15' or so?!)
starts a bit slow and avant-garde sparse noodly... quite moody
... nice.... around two minutes starts moving a bit more, still quite
pensive... 2'30 more crystalline... almost classical
figures.... digging the drumming...  6' picking it up on mellow
rippling chords from Iverson, nice...possibly a bit slow to
develop....  but really gets into its groove just over 1/2 way through
(about 7'26) with a beboppy figure that's varied and becomes the basis
for fantastic elaboration by Iverson, steadily increasing in
intensity.  Still quite a bit of repetition with textural development
rather than linear improvisation.  11'18 texture thins out.  Theme
again, at some point.  Then at 13' almost a samba beat, but still the
theme .... then the piano drifs on into silence, as bass and drums
soldier on.  Standout piece.

9 Victoria (Paul Motian) Starts as almost a bit of baroque
voice-leading. Continuing fairly classical in mood.  Nice.  Again not
a lot of improv.

Free concert in NYC: The Bad Plus play the Rite of Spring

Posted on by

For readers, if any, in New York City today, definitely check out jazz trio The Bad Plus playing their arrangement, "On Sacred Ground", of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring.  It's free and outdoors at Lincoln Center at 8:30 PM.  The Brandt Brandauer Frick ensemble, with which I am not familar, opens at 7:30.

If you're wondering to expect, at WBGO's The Checkout you can stream a recording of the whole thing, as well as their radio show on the piece.  TBP pianist Ethan Iverson discusses piano arrangements, transcriptions, and reworkings of the Rite here.

More on upcoming doings by TBP and some of its members here.

I am in New Mexico, so unfortunately won't be able to attend.  I will be going to Rossini's Maometto II at the Santa Fe Opera. Report to follow.

 

Billy Hart quartet Live at the Village Vanguard in 2009

Posted on by

Jazz fans should not miss the opportunity to download an mp3 of a 70 minute set by the Billy Hart quartet playing live at the Village Vanguard in New York on Sept. 23, 2009.  I really enjoyed a couple of sets from this run at the Vanguard, possibly including this one.  If I find my listening notes I may post some impressions of the live gig.  Billy Hart, drums, Ethan Iverson, piano, Ben Street, bass, Mark Turner, tenor sax.  Lots of thanks to the group for making this available, and not just as a stream but as a free download.  Reward them by buying one or more of their CDs...I'll post a review when mine arrives.

All four of these guys are fantastic players, with very individual approaches.  They listen to each other and interact a lot, too.  A bit of silly trivia is that I thought Ben Street looked like a dead ringer for House (of the TV show), though he's a bit less so in photos.

Incidentally, Iverson's blog, Do the Math, is essential for jazz fans, especially jazz piano fans.  He is willing to stick his neck out about what he likes and doesn't, the perspective of a player is fascinating and invaluable, and the interviews with musicians (like Keith Jarrett, Jason Moran, Wynton Marsalis...) and others are fantastic and create irreplaceable first-hand anecdotal documentation of parts of jazz's history.

Tete Mbambisa "Black Heroes" CD release concert, University of Cape Town

Posted on by

At the showing of "Mama Goema: the Cape Town Beat in Five Movements", I was alerted by Calum MacNaughton to a concert concert by South African pianist Tete Mbambisa, celebrating the release of his new solo piano CD "Black Heroes", on April 22nd. We missed the first few numbers, as we were driving up from Cape Point after a day spent watching surfers at Muizenberg, watching penguins at the Boulder Beach unit of Table Mountain National Park, and walking to Diaz Beach and the Cape of Good Hope. And finding the school of music at UCT took a little while. What a finish to a fantastic day, though. Tete wrapped up a number with a crack rhythm section consisting of Ivan Bell on drums and Wesley Rustin on bass, and then his wife Vuyiswa Ngcwangu/uMambisa joined the band, in great voice, singing a standard whose name I've let slip, then Key Largo, then an excellent blues with refrain "I need a mellow man", really rocking the place.

It was great to talk to Calum, Gregory, and Vuyiswa at intermission, and Gregory gave me the info about the local jam Monday night jam session at Swingers' in Wetton. After intermission Tete came back on solo piano, playing a beautiful piece made up on the spot and titled "Gregory" for Gregory Franz, who has been photographing and blogging about the Cape jazz scene recently. Tete lamented the fact that since he had just made it up, he might not remember it---so he played it again. (Someone had been doing a video, so the tune is probably recorded.) More excellent solo piano including selections from the new CD, and then the rhythm section, along with saxophonist Sisonke, joined for Emavundleni, from the new CD, dedicated to his ancestors ("not mine", Tete's wife had earlier joked). Then a sanctified-sounding tune, with excellent sax work, segueing toward the end into a fantastic free-bop kind of interlude.

Mbambisa's piano style seems to me to mix mostly straight-ahead bop/hard bop with a bit of a more African sound, maybe influenced a bit by the repetition-with-slowly-evolving changes and additions of Mbira music. He has a very solid, round, ringing touch that can also be delicate when needed---and the sound he got from the Steinway (I think it was a D, the 9 foot concert grand) on stage was superb. He also has a good melodic sense, and tends to avoid cliche, often putting together short bits of melodic line in surprising but logical ways, leaving space, varying and developing rather than always running on.

A very informal concert, with very high-calibre music-making. At one point Tete was calling out the changes, teaching the bass-player one of his tunes on the spot---it sounded great as this went on, and after a chorus everything was locked in.

The last two were a slow, very pretty song, with lovely sax work, and (on the insistent request of, I think, relatives in the audience) Paul Desmond's "Take Five", the sax player sitting out. This was absolutely the most cooking version of that tune I've ever heard---with its ostinato in 5 (or a measure of 3 followed by a measure of 2) laid down in hard-rocking, hard-swinging style with changing harmonic colors, and piano lines and chordal interludes reminiscent of McCoy Tyner or mid-1960s Herbie Hancock (but all Mbambisa's) spun out over it, building a long, rollicking solo. Lines ringing out, then repeated up a half step, then punctuated by some block chords. I had never realized that Take Five was basically a hard-charging 1960s modal rave-up avant la lettre (well, barely), but Tete, playing with power but still relaxed, left no doubt about it. A fantastic closer. I bought the CD, which I will review in more detail soon; it's highly recommended and you can buy it at the link at the top of the post, and listen to excerpts here.

To wrap things up, from Youtube here's Inhlupeko from the out of print 1969 record of the same name by the Soul Jazzmen, Mbambisa on piano with Duku Makasi, saxophone, "Big T" Ntsele, bass, and Mafufu Jama, drums.

John Rangel / Michael Anthony ---- jazz duet at El Meson, Santa Fe

Posted on by

El Meson has excellent tapas and excellent live music, often jazz, in its bar and jazz room, ¡Chispa!.  (I've never eaten in the main dining room.)  For a long time Thursdays were given over to local pianist John Rangel (who moved to Santa Fe a few years back from Los Angeles) playing duets with different guest musicians.  I've enjoyed John's playing in a variety of settings, and I heard him with Albuquerque-based guitarist Michael Anthony (another LA transplant with lots of film recording credits to his name) last Nov. 17 (2011).  It was a very enjoyable evening of jazz, with the musicians playing close attention to each other and creating different moods and interludes on the fly.  Exchanges of "fours" and such were especially interesting.  I didn't take notes, and a run-through would be pointless anyway, but the repertoire was a lot of standards, jazz classics, some bossa and samba, and blues.   Fairly straightahead bop and post bop, played with a sophisticated harmonic sense and plenty of chromaticism on the part of both players, but nothing too far-out.  I definitely recommend going to any gig John is playing on... he is frequently to be heard with the Tribute Trio (w/ Michael Glynn on bass, Cal Haines on drums), either on their own or with guest horn players.

Tapas at El Meson are often superb---the Cordoban style fried eggplant ($9.50) is very fresh-tasting, almost sweet, and practically melts in your mouth---it is especially good in late summer when eggplant is in season, but always worthwhile.  House-roasted peppers in a little earthenware terrine with Spanish goat cheese ($7.50) are also superb.  I like fried oysters with Romesco sauce ($9.50) as well.  Setas a la Parilla ($9.50), oyster mushrooms grilled with garlic, parsley, and olive oil, are also excellent, if less exotic.   The sherries by the glass have all been excellent as well.

Highly recomended for both food and music.

Samuel Blais, Jean-Nicolas Trottier, Fraser Hollins quintet at Dièse Onze, Montréal

Posted on by

Heard a quintet of alto saxophonist Samuel Blais, trombonist Jean-Nicolas Trottier, bassist Fraser Hollins with Rafael Zaldivar on piano and Jim Doxas on drums, at Dièse Onze jazz club and restaurant in Montréal, last Saturday December 10. A fantastic couple of sets. Although Zaldivar and Doxas aren't listed in the name of the quintet (perhaps the drummer and piano change at times?), Doxas in particular was, I think, one of the keys to the group's smashing success in this gig. He plays an almost hyperactive, yet always tasteful, kind of drums... not falling frequently into the ching ching-a-aching implied triplets on ride cymbal that is a standard of bop and post-bop mainstream jazz drumming (though he doesn't entirely eschew it, either). He seemed to me to be more flexible about dividing the beat by twos or threes, but playing lots of fast, and hard-hitting, patterns implying a lot of subdivision of the beat, whether on ride, hard hat, snare, snare rim, or whatever. The drumming behind you can make a lot of difference to an improvisor, and I think energy was surging through Doxas into saxophonoist Blais and trombonist Trottier in particular. They both played intense solos in the area between bop and post-bop, the latter mostly not so much in highly colored, modal areas but in a more angular, major and chromatic sounding, and perhaps a bit free-jazz influenced bag...consistent with lots of bop influence, as mentioned. Some standards but given unique treatments, lots of very interesting compositions by band members. Excellent piano playing and bass too. Although I suspect this band is less well-known than the (apparently well-known in Canada, and certainly excellent) François Bourassa quartet I heard the previous night at Upstairs, it was at least equally exciting---in some ways more intense, probably due to Doxas' unique drumming. I had a decent Loupiac and a nice Armagnac at the bar, and enjoyed a conversation with Philippe, a computer programmer with a physics degree from McGill and a lifelong jazz fan. I was having trouble figuring out why the place was named "Dièse Onze" until he translated it "Sharp Eleven". Now that's hip, eh?

Happy Birthday, Dizzy Gillespie! And thanks for your gifts.

Posted on by

Thanks to Google's homepage artwork, I find that today is Dizzy Gillespie's birthday.  Here are a few glimpses of him, from youtube. First, one of the first Diz tracks I ever listened to:  Long Long Summer, by Lalo Schifrin, Argentine composer/arranger and Diz's pianist for several stretches in the early 60s and the 70s.  Live in 1962 (see below the embedded video for details). Nice montage of B&W stills and album covers in the youtube video.

This version is live from "Dizzy on the French Riviera" (and apparently on a budget Compact Jazz compilation as well).  I'm not certain whether it was this live track, or a May 1962 version recorded in New York, also for Phillips, that I listened to (borrowed from the Dartmouth College music department library) in high school. This live version is from a Verve reissue "Dizzy on the French Riviera", of the Phillips LP "Dizzy on the Riviera", recorded at a jazz festival at Juan les Pins, July 24, 1962. I'm guessing this is a bonus track for the CD as the discography at the end of Dizzy's fantastic memoirs "To Be or not to Bop" doesn't list the track as on the original LP. Besides Diz on trumpet, the Juan les Pins concert featured Leo Wright on alto sax, Lalo Schifrin, piano, Chris White on bass, Rudy Collins on drums, and Pepito Riestria on additional percussion, and Elec Bacsik (not heard on this track) on guitar. (There's a possibility that the New York date is the source of this bonus track, or that the two albums were combined for the CD. I'll find out when it arrives in the mail.)

Very nicely structured solo from Diz on this, showing his increasingly bluesy bent that developed through the 50s and early 60s, and a few of the complex fast passages that were a trademark as he and others pioneeered bebop in the 1940s. Dizzy's in total command of the horn here, getting a brassy, golden, slightly blaring tone when he wants to, a more suave and neutral tone in some fast legato passages that reminds one of Miles Davis on open horn (of course we know who was a key influence on Miles!), or a slightly more brittle and very agile tone in complex bebopish passagework. He's also in total command of the structure of the solo, making his phrases respond to and build on each other, telling a story, getting into slightly different bags as he goes along. His solo's followed by an ensemble interlude after which he repeats a beautifully played latin riff, reminding us that he was one of the most important --- probably the most important --- forces bringing latin rhythms into jazz, and probably also in bringing bebop into latin music.

Next, one of a couple of tracks that got me to understand bebop, again early in high school, is the 1950 Bloomdido from a Charlier Parker / Dizzy Gillespie reunion "Bird and Diz" on Verve. Parker, who Gillespie sometimes referred to as "the other half of my heartbeat", and Gillespie were the star soloists as bebop developed in the 1940s, and their collaboration, as well as the work of each with his own groups, was a major force in creating this music. I first came to dig Parker on the blues Parker's Mood (which I knew through the best alternate take, from the Charlie Parker Memorial Album, which is as great as but different from the master take), but the blues is easier to get into than fast bebop. Bloomdido bridged the gap for me. Again, a nice photomontage for the vid.

Parker, Gillespie, and pianist Thelonious Monk are masterful on this. Amazingly inventive phrasing, well-structured solos. Critics often lament that the drummer on this is the "rhythmically inappropriate" Buddy Rich rather than a bop drummer like Max Roach, but it doesn't seem to bother the soloists one bit on this track. I'd even say that his somewhat more foursquare, slightly less swinging beat here might help drive the soloists to some taut, edgy, quick-thinking statements. Getting away from the setting you're most comfortable in can spark invention, if you can handle it, and it goes without saying that these guys could. And inventions's not in short supply here. The Verve reissue contains alternate versions of this and other tracks that are strongly recommended; the solos are different and usually just as good as on the issued versions. This is some of the world's greatest music by any standard.

Finally, a great Youtube find; this is what they looked and sounded like in action: Gillespie, Parker, Dick" Hyman on piano, Sandy Block on bass, play Tadd Dameron's bop classic "Hothouse" on television in 1952:

Nipozzano Chianti Rufina Riserva 2006

Posted on by

Here's a wine available (as of a few weeks ago) at LCBO that I can wholeheartedly recommend:  the 2006 Nipozzano  Chianti Rufina Riserva, produced by the Marchesi de Frescobaldi.  (Don't know what LCBO is?  Lucky you.  But they deserve some credit for stocking this.)  This is the third vintage I've had of this wine, and I've been happy with all of them, but this one's the best.  Dark fruits, soft full flavors but definite tannic backbone to keep it together, some nice chalky minerality behind it all showing up on the longish finish with some slight hints of mintiness, and hints of bitterness.  A clear, clean, leafy version of  "Tuscan funk" lurks barely perceptible behind this, perhaps ready to contribute some heady, perfumy, but unpredictable, notes with age.  In short, fairly complex, and mixing classic Chianti characteristics with notes--including the slightest, but pleasant, hints of greenness or vegetality---that are definitely characteristic of Cabernet.  I could imagine this wine repaying 5, perhaps even 10, years of cellaring by evolving into something stunning, but this is always unpredictable, the more so as I don't have any experience cellaring this wine.  (Comments invited from anyone who does.)

Chianti Rufina is, if I recall correctly, one of three main zones for higher-end Chiantis, the largest being Chianti Classico covering a hilly area between Florence and Siena, with Chianti Montalbano and Chianti Rufina, each much smaller than the Classico area, being the other significant DOCG's. (I've also had very good Chianti from the Colli Fiorentini, i.e. the "Florentine Hills".)

Victor Hazan's superb, extremely well written and observed 1982 book "Italian Wine" (yes, he's Marcella's husband) reports Frescobaldi as "the most celebrated producer" of the area, with the Nipozzano Chianti "nearly as fine" as their single-vineyard, limited production Montesodi, but "much more accessible in price and quantity".  At $21.55 Canadian at LCBO, that "accessible in price" still seems right 27 years on, given the quality of the wine.  I acknowledge that's a heck of a lot to pay for a bottle if you're not a wine geek like me, but I'm much happier paying it for this wine than the $15 to $20 CDN I've paid for many a mediocre bottle from LCBO (or the $10-15 US I've paid for some mediocre bottles in the States).

I'll probably raise expectations too high if I quote Victor Hazan further on Chianti Rufina: "A choice Rufina can match in authority, and sometimes surpass, Chianti Classico at its finest.    In character it is closest to a Chianti from Radda [...], making forceful first impressions that precede layer after layer of unfolding flavor." One of my best wine experiences ever (involving quantum physics, as well, so perhaps I'll post about it at some point) involved a wine from Radda, the Monte Vertine Riserva (I don't even recall seeing the word Chianti on the bottle), from the early 1980s.  1981 sticks in mind but at this remove---I had the wine in Turin in 1995 or so---who knows.  And this wine, though less aged, reminds me of how that Monte Vertine might have tasted in its youth.  So I think Hazan is right on in this comparison, and it says good things.  Now this is just wine, for chrissake---if you want revelation, for less money you could go out and buy the remastered deluxe edition of John Coltrane's A Love Supreme.   But still, good stuff.  If you have the money, and the inclination, and you've already got a copy of A Love Supreme, give it a try.  OK, try it even if you don't have a copy of A Love Supreme---but you really should get one of those, too.

Notes on previous editions of this wine:

2001, half bottle with dinner at Mövenpick, Zurich airport, August 2005:  "Excellent---has dark fruits and some complexity/silkiness.  Balanced."

2002 (tasted 2004 or 2005): "Even better than the 2001, probably.  Velvety, fairly rich, notes of cocoa in the nose.  Good with George's deep fried "little pizzas" from Campania, with red pepper, cayenne, tomato sauce.  Stands up to it.  Hints of minerality.  Superb!"  George is my son;  he likes to cook on occasion, especially Italian.  Perhaps it's his Italian heritage from my wife, who is 100 percent Italian-American; perhaps it's  his food-obsessed (though not more so than your average Italian) heritage from my side of the family.