September 2012 - The New York City Jazz Record

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ENCORE Rahn Burton by Matthew Miller “I’m just amazed at the way destiny works,” Rahn Burton explained, midway through a conversation that traced his musical journey from part-time pianist in the clubs, beer halls and juke joints of ‘50s Louisville to the world stage as a long-standing member of multi-instrumentalist Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s ensemble. “I’m sure that if I had tried to plan all of this,” he continued, “it would have been a big flop.” Born in 1934, Burton’s interest in music developed early, fostered through the myriad sounds wafting from open windows throughout his community. “I asked my mother if I could take piano lessons, just so I could learn to read music - that was all I wanted to do - so I did that and it paid off.” The teenage Burton began haunting clubs like the Top Hat, one of Louisville’s premier music venues in the ‘40s-50s. By the time he completed high school, Burton was an in-demand pianist with a wide cross section of Louisville musicians. “It was a music scene,” Burton recalled with emphasis on the word “music”, “because we didn’t make any designation between Jazz and Rhythm and Blues and Gospel, you know, it was just entitled black music, or some other term.” Burton soon settled down in Louisville. “I was a mailman at the time,” he recalled, “because it never occurred to my mind that I would be able to raise a family playing music.” That would change when he heard an exciting new saxophonist on a visit to Columbus, Ohio. “He was known as Ronnie Kirk,” the pianist recalled. “He was playing with the singer Big Maybelle and they had a little jam session, so Roland got on the mic and said ‘are there any musicians who would like to come up and play?’ And I - after some apprehension - put my hand up. We played ‘Pennies From Heaven’. Nothing much was said and the next day, I drove back to Louisville.” As the pianist recalls it, destiny reasserted itself a year later when his mail route took him by the Top Hat and he recognized a familiar face. “I saw this sign in the window, ‘Jazz Phenomenon Ronnie Kirk, playing two horns at one time’ and it had a picture of him and I said ‘oh, I know him.’ I think I went probably three or four nights in the two-week stint,” Burton remembered. One night, after a late show, the pianist was hanging LEST WE FORGET Wilbur Ware (1923-79) by Donald Elfman Bassist Wilbur Ware’s art consisted of rock-solid time, natural and authoritative swing and an inspired sense of harmony. He supported many of the most original and complex soloists in bebop and beyond and did so being somehow both unflagging and flexible. He was born in Chicago on Sep. 8th, 1923. One of Ware’s earliest professional musical contacts was saxophonist Von Freeman. Ware was playing gigs around Chicago by the time he was 10 and then worked around the Midwest through his teenage years. At 15, Ware recorded with blues artist Big Bill Broonzy. After a brief stint in the military, the bassist returned to Chicago in 1946 and soon was playing with Stuff Smith, Roy Eldridge, Hot Lips Page and Sonny Stitt. Ware came to be known as a musician who loved 10 September 2012 | THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD around with Kirk and his band when an argument broke out. “It was a falling out over some money,” the pianist recalled, “and in the end, the band quit right in the middle of the engagement.” The band’s departure was a setback for Kirk, but a remarkable opportunity for the young Burton. “He [Kirk] asked me on the night they quit if I would go with him to Nashville, TN,” Burton recalled, “so I took a leave of absence from the Post Office and went with him.” Unfortunately, the newly formed band with Burton in the piano seat only got to play one gig in Nashville before the tour came to an abrupt end at the hands of Jim Crow, when the entire band was arrested for consorting with a group of white women. Despite the briefness of the tour, Burton made a lasting impression on Kirk and the two toured extensively throughout the ‘50s. In the early ‘60s, Burton made the move to New York City after the Kirk group recorded a session for Argo records, released as Introducing Roland Kirk (1960). Following a string of well-received gigs in New York, Kirk left for Europe without the band and Burton was back to a freelance life. “I played with a guy named Chris Powell in Syracuse before heading back to Louisville,” the pianist explained, to work with touring musicians coming through town. One of those was the great saxophonist George Adams, who enlisted Burton in his band and convinced him to move to Atlanta in the mid ‘60s. By 1968, Burton was back in New York City and “got a call from Rahsaan Roland Kirk to come to Kongsberg, Norway to play with him. After that tour, I was a member of the nucleus of his rhythm section with the bassist Steve Novosel and drummer Jimmy Hopps.” As a core member of Kirk’s band well into the ‘70s, Burton recorded on seminal Kirk albums like Volunteered Slavery, The Inflated Tear and others. Following the extended stint with Kirk, Burton returned to New York to play with Marvin Hannibal Peterson, Beaver Harris, Michael Carvin, Charlie Rouse, Archie Shepp and Art Blakey among other jazz luminaries over the ensuing decades. The pianist also began leading ensembles, including a group with bassist Walter Booker and drummer Jimmy Cobb that recorded the pianist’s stunning album The Poem. After more than 40 years, Burton continues to call New York home, spreading the jazz gospel with every bracing run and propulsive phrase. “Nothing will ever take away from my desire and love for the music, because I know the importance of it,” Burton intoned. “That’s enough for me.” v Burton is at Cleopatra’s Needle Sep. 29th and 449 Lounge Thursdays, Saturdays and the third Sunday of each month. to play and sit in with bands whenever he got the chance. His enthusiasm and tenacity earned a spot leading the house band at the famous Beehive Club. In 1955 Ware first performed with Thelonious Monk. This led to an association in the later ‘50s with the pianist - notable is the 1957 live recording at the Five Spot for Riverside - as well as work on the Blue Note label with Sonny Rollins and others. It was during this period that there was some question about Ware’s reliability (there were drug issues) but he did make it for the Great Day in Harlem photo shoot in 1958. The early ‘60s seemed promising - the bassist played with Kenny Dorham, in a group led by Charles Mingus, with John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy and with a number of the avant garders including Albert Ayler and Don Cherry - but moved back to Chicago in 1963 to contend with tuberculosis. His poor health - aggravated, it seems, by his drug use - kept him off the scene for much of 1963-68. By 1968, Ware was back, meeting up with some of See Calendar and Regular Engagements. Recommended Listening: • Roland Kirk - Introducing Roland Kirk (and featuring Ira Sullivan) (Chess-GRP, 1960) • Roland Kirk - The Inflated Tear (Atlantic, 1967) • Dick Griffin - The Eighth Wonder (Strata-East, 1974) • Beaver Harris 360 Degree Music Experience - Beautiful Africa (Soul Note, 1979) • Rahn Burton Trio - The Poem (DIW, 1992) • Michael Marcus - Sunwheels (Justin Time, 2000) September 11th Russ Kassoff Orchestra with Catherine Dupuis September 18th Warren Chiasson September 25th Santi Debriano Quartet New York Baha’i Center 53 E. 11th Street (between University Place and Broadway) Shows: 8:00 & 9:30 PM Gen Adm: $15 Students $10 212-222-5159 bahainyc.org/nyc-bahai-center/jazz-night Chicago’s New Music folks - Andrew Hill, Roscoe Mitchell, Thurman Barker - and then moving to New York where he joined Archie Shepp’s group. He also worked with Clifford Jordan, Elvin Jones, Philly Joe Jones and Hank Mobley. As the ‘60s closed, Ware found it harder to get work; some, including Ware himself, noted that his inability to read was the root of the problem. He moved to Philadelphia in 1972 and did some work with members of Sun Ra’s Arkestra but he had an advancing case of emphysema and, on Sep. 9th, 1979, died in the Germantown section of Philadelphia. The encyclopedia of great names Ware played with attests to his brilliance. Listen to his playing with Rollins (Blue Note) to Monk (Riverside) or Chicago Sound (Riverside), his leader debut. The bassist’s second session as a leader, a 1968 date with Clifford Jordan, Don Cherry and Ed Blackwell, will be released for the first time this month. v A Ware Tribute is at Merkin Hall Sep. 8th. See Calendar.
MEGAPHONE Composing...always forward, but looking back by Mario Pavone In the last 18 months or so, I have been getting out and hearing music all over Manhattan and Brooklyn. It’s been wonderful and enlightening. And while our small part of the music industry may be experiencing paradigm shifts, downturned economics and possibly decreased opportunities to perform, I am happy to report that the MUSIC itself is in great shape and is being performed at a very high level. Today, almost all young and mid-career creative musicians also compose and the playing and the writing together make for unique and successful performances. It wasn’t always this way! I have been a bassist in the music for almost 48 years now (beginning at the relatively late age of 24 in 1964). Before that, I spent eight years pursuing an engineering degree, fulfilling my military service obligation and falling in love with jazz. I was a fan, an avid listener. In my early years of playing I was aware of the Jazz Composers Orchestra Association (JCOA), yet it had not occurred to me to write music. I was too busy playing 8 to 10 hours a day and all night long, at what was to be called the “first wave” of Loft-Era jam sessions. The music was totally open and free with an endless array of musicians jumping in and out of the music. It was somewhat of an endurance test (there were no bass pickups yet invented), incredible fun and, partly due to the political protest climate in the country at the time, somewhat angry and rebellious in tone. No compositions were brought in, no composing was involved. Then, 13 years into my bass playing life, I began to write down some short, horizontal lines, little sketches and ideas about texture, sounds and silence. The inspiration to ‘start composing’ came about through the direct power and influence of trumpeter/composer Wadada Leo Smith. During this time frame (1977-83) I was deeply involved in an organization formed in New Haven called the Creative Musicians Improvisers Forum (CMIF), a self-generating musicians collective spearheaded by Leo and modeled on some of the precepts of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), which came into being in Chicago some 15 years earlier. The AACM’s importance in musical history has been well documented by composer/improviser/technologist (and amazing by Katie Bull VOXNEWS If you are walking down a New York City street on a balmy September night of jazz listening, a kiss of sharp cool air might brush against your skin. As you feel it you might say, “Oh, here’s the fall again.” Stop in your tracks. Look up. The stars are the same yet not the same. The displays are familiar, yet within the familiar, the sky is evolving. That’s true in vocal jazz; there is invention, nuanced reinvention and everything in between. This September, let’s enjoy vocal projects that are rooted in the familiar yet are their own constellations. “We’ve always believed that if Django Reinhardt were alive today, he wouldn’t play the same way he always did. In his short lifespan you can see how much evolution and vision he had. To pay tribute to him is to continue pursuing our own ideas.” This statement about the familiar and the new comes from guitarist Evan Perri, as the Hot Club of Detroit releases the trombonist) George E. Lewis in his great book A Power Stronger Than Itself. The New Haven offshoot, however, remains undocumented and under the radar, but recently there are stirrings of interest in writing the CMIF story. In the 1977-83 era, New Haven was a cauldron of creativity. The original members of the CMIF - Leo, Gerry Hemingway, Bobby Naughton, Wes Brown, Dwight Andrews, myself and others - organized many concerts at Yale and other venues, providing me with opportunities to develop my compositional skills. I constantly recorded myself playing open and free and played the tapes back repeatedly, to discern and develop my personal voice. I was unencumbered by preconceptions; the blank sheet of music paper was a wide-open invitation to create a world of notes and/or symbols and pictures for musicians to play. The influences that were present came from watching Leo conduct his pieces, studying the unusual and visually colorful graphic scores written by Leo and Anthony Braxton. The cauldron of creativity taking place with musicians living in and around New Haven and/or attending Yale University at the time was extremely stimulating (they included, among others, Jane Ira Bloom, Mark Helias, Anthony Davis, Pheeroan akLaff and Ray Anderson). 20 minutes up the road in Middletown at Wesleyan University lived Mr. Braxton, Marion Brown, Bill Barron, Joe Fonda and Bill Lowe. Among the more significant events organized by the CMIF in 1981-82 were several 25-piece large orchestra concerts, with veteran masters conducting their own compositions. They included Muhal Richard Abrams, Leroy Jenkins, Braxton, Carla Bley, Wadada, Slide Hampton and others. The members of the orchestra included virtually all of the musicians mentioned above as well as New York stalwarts Andrew Cyrille, Oliver Lake, Amina Claudine Myers, Frank Gordon, Marty Ehrlich and JD Parran. These epic events were sponsored by one of the oldest mainstream jazz organizations in the country - The Hartford Jazz Society. One wonders if such collaboration could occur today. Throughout the existence of the CMIF organization and particularly during the extensive preparation for these large orchestra concerts, I experienced what I believe was a unique process. To quote a recent Nate Chinen article in the New York Times – “jazz’ natural cycle of mentorship and apprenticeship, that guidelike process, by which young musicians absorb invaluable lessons from their elders.” Our process offered mentoring and apprenticeship within a musicians collective! In describing why jazz apprenticeships are so vital, Mr. Chinen has captured the essence of this Reinhardt-inspired, multi-genre-influenced Junction (Mack Avenue). The lively album features the spritely young French singer Cyrille Aimée on three tracks. Aimée has lightning fast, pitch-perfect chops, yes. She’s shining bright, however, because she is her own jubilant self in Django’s songs. Hear Aimée at Iridium (Sep. 7th-8th), Birdland (Sundays, starting Sep. 9th) and The Cupping Room (Saturdays). “Life’s a repetition. It’s an action of repeat. Act of doing. Act of saying. Something bitter. Something sweet...” Abbey Lincoln’s lyrics say it all. Hear Lincoln’s songs sung in tribute by the deeply relaxed, beautifully swinging Teri Roiger on Dear Abbey (Inner Circle); the CD release is at Dizzy’s Club (Sep. 3rd). Lincoln’s familiar unrushed phrasing and fluid note bending is embodied in Roiger’s own temperament and vocal nuance; through Roiger, kindred Abbey lives on. Speaking of relaxed, the flowingly layered Luciana Souza revisits her Brazilian duos format with Duos III and reanimates Chet Baker on The Book of Chet (both on CMIF experience - “…a community with every ensemble thriving on communication, a code of ethics and an implicit grasp of roles.” Today I am looking back at having written music for some 23 CDs over the last 30 years. It’s great to have a body of work. Recently I have gone back to some of my early and mid-career writing to remind myself of the basic elements that laid the foundation. Often I will deconstruct some of the components of these early works, reversing the order of written notes, stacking one line on top of the other, as well as writing new pieces. I still write exclusively from the bass and have also been blessed to collaborate with wonderful arrangers, whose great musicianship and generosity have colored my work. They include saxophonist/ composer Marty Ehrlich, trumpeter/bandleader Steven Bernstein and more recently trumpeter/ educator Dave Ballou and guitarist/composer Michael Musillami. Finally, it’s always been about the work - and composing is hard work. Writing has saved my life as a musician, providing a framework for my performances. To young players entering this music world: I believe we have an obligation to contribute something to the music by adding to it. Write early and often. v For more information, visit mariopavone.com. Pavone is at Cornelia Street Café Sep. 29th. See Calendar. Bassist/composer Mario Pavone has collaborated with both legendary innovators and today’s most respected young musicians to define the cutting edge of jazz for the past 40 years. He has anchored the trios of Paul Bley (1968-72), Bill Dixon (‘80s) and the late Thomas Chapin (1990-97) and co-led a variety of notable ensembles with Anthony Braxton, Wadada Leo Smith, Marty Ehrlich and Michael Musillami. His list of sidemen past and present includes Steven Bernstein, Dave Douglas, Tony Malaby, Joshua Redman, Craig Taborn and Matt Wilson among many others. And, unlike most artists whose careers span five decades, his most recent recordings are his most widely acclaimed, appearing on best-of-the-year lists from AllAboutJazz.com, Slate.com, Coda, Village Voice and New York Times, among others. Since 1998, Pavone has recorded almost exclusively with his own bands. His discography now features numerous recordings as a leader/co-leader, including seven on Playscape Recordings, the label he has called home since 1999. In addition, Pavone’s artwork and photography have graced the covers of dozens of recordings since the mid ‘90s and he currently serves as an educator, administrator and board member for the Litchfield Jazz Festival and Litchfield Summer Jazz Camp. Sunnyside), capturing his luscious internal solitude with her nearly hushed, long and gentle tones. Hear Souza’s dual release at Joe’s Pub (Sep. 12th). Now, if you are more avant-leaning, the vocal comet named Shelley Hirsch is streaking through the skies yet again. On her new CD, Where Were You Then? (Tzadik), Hirsch has created a powerfully personal sung/spoken story arc in a semi-absurdist style; a passionately delivered elegant fusion of avant- Victorian/new-jazz/art-songs - all originals. The exciting album is co-composed and arranged with Simon Ho and is in its own jazz galaxy. Hear Hirsch collaborate with choreographer Melanie Maar and visual artist/performer Kenta Nagai at Roulette (Sep. 29th). From Aimée’s Django to Roiger’s Abbey to Souza’s Chet, to the Hirsch ghost of “Then” - the night is like a lovely tune and the singers croon under a constant moon. In the New York City vocal jazz dome, the sky’s the limit. v THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD | September 2012 11
Page 1: September 2012 | No. 125 B O B B Y
Page 4 and 5: NEW YORK @ NIGHT SMOKE ® JAZZ&SUPP
Page 6 and 7: Photo by Geoffrey Creighton INTERVI
Page 8 and 9: SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 22 | 7:30PM |$3
Page 12 and 13: Inner Circle by Alex Henderson Greg
Page 14 and 15: IN MEMORIAM Lol Coxhill - a great i
Page 16 and 17: Plays Toninho Horta Duduka Da Fonse
Page 18 and 19: GLOBE UNITY: BRAZIL Piano Masters S
Page 20 and 21: Alive at the Vanguard Fred Hersch T
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Page 24 and 25: Fortune Songs Jasmine Lovell-Smith
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Page 28: Live at Smalls Jesse Davis (smallsL
Page 31 and 32: Yesterday and Today Toots Thieleman
Page 33 and 34: Loverly Lenore Raphael/Howard Alden
Page 35 and 36: New York City’s most famous jazz
Page 37 and 38: Conduit Greg Diamond (Dot Time) by
Page 39 and 40: Golden Child Jared Gold (Posi-Tone)
Page 41 and 42: (INTERVIEW CONTINUED FROM PAGE 6) a
Page 43 and 44: Wednesday, September 5 êPeter Brö
Page 45 and 46: Friday, September 14 êDan Tepfer
Page 47 and 48: Sunday, September 23 êFONT: Natsuk
Page 49 and 50: CLUB DIRECTORY • 449 Lounge 449 L
Page 51: BUCKY ADAMS - As an 11-year-old tru

September 2012 - The New York City Jazz Record

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