Respect for the Masters

Two recent dates at the San Francisco Jazz Festival (SFJAZZ) show that the jazz tradition continues to thrive and change with the times. On October 10th, pianist Benny Green paid a  birthday tribute to the music of Thelonious Monk with a concert called “Monk’s Dream: 50 Years Fresh.” He was joined by the regular members of his trio, Peter Washington on bass and Kenny Washington on drums, along with a guest saxophonist, the venerable Donald Harrison.

They played tunes from the aforementioned 1963 Monk album, Monk’s Dream, such as “Five Spot Blues,” “Bye-Ya,” and the title tune, as well as other music from the master. Green, who looks considerable younger than his 48 years, is a talented and engaging pianist, bring bop and stride sensibilities to his playing. He has played with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and in Betty Carter’s band. All the band members seemed to be thoroughly enjoying themselves while playing Monk’s music, and they showed that his quirky music can be played afresh without falling into mere imitation.

A week ago, October 23rd, I saw a master in the flesh, guitarist Jim Hall, who is now 80 and still going strong. Hall has been active on the jazz scene since the mid-1950s, playing with the likes of Chico Hamilton, Jimmy Giuffre, Sony Rollins, Paul Desmond, Bill Evans, Ella Fitzgerald, Ben Webster, Lee Konitz, and on and on. He has recorded over 30 albums as a leader and almost as many as a sideman.

His current group includes Greg Osby on saxophone, Steve LaSpina on bass, and Terry Clarke on drums, and all contributed significantly to the evening of standards, originals, and free-floating improvisations. Hall, sitting on a folding chair, sits hunched over his Gibson - the guitar almost seems to have replaced the mid-section of his body - and he shakes out baby powder on his fingers between songs. But he still produces a beautiful, rounded sound from his guitar and seems to have lost little in dexterity. Hall is a quiet presence on the stage but the music he produces is magical.

Sarah the Tame

I am a big fan of the Jazz Icons series of DVDs, which has uncovered some of the classic jazz performances of all time. I was looking forward to viewing Sarah Vaughan: Live in ’58 and ‘64 with great anticipation. So, I am sorry to say that I found it a major disappointment.

The first set, filmed in Sweden, is the strangest of the three. Apparently filmed for television, Sarah ends each number by thanking the audience, yet there is no sound of applause. I’m not sure if they later added canned applause or what, but it’s a bit disconcerting as presented here. And Vaughan’s vocals, while lovely and always musical, are simply tame and uninspired. The other set from 1958, filmed in Holland, is clearly in front of a live audience, but the effect is the same: lovely but bland. In the third set from 1964, we see Vaughan in a bad wig and sweating profusely through a somewhat livelier vocal delivery.

While the material she’s chosen - “Misty,” “Lover Man,” “Tenderly,” “Sometimes I’m Happy,” “Maria” (from West Side Story), among others - is impeccable and the group behind her is terrific, the overall effect of the whole is something less than the parts.

The Embodiment of Jazz Violin

Stéphane Grappelli: A Life in the Jazz Century (DVD, 2003) presents a fascinating look at the life of the great Stéphane Grappelli (1908–1997), who, one could argue, was the Louis Armstrong of the jazz violin.

Born in Paris, Grappelli was thrust out into the world at a young age. His mother died when he was four and his father went off to fight in World War One, and the young Grappelli was left at the Isadora Duncan dance school, where he became enamored of the French impressionistic music popular at the time. He went on to study music and busked on the streets of Paris to support himself. He soon gained fame as a violin virtuoso.

It was hearing Joe Venuti play violin in the late 1920s that turned Grappelli to jazz. In the 1930s, he teamed up with guitarist Django Reinhardt to form the famous Quintette du Hot Club de France. His work with the Quintette was to cast a shadow over the rest of Grappelli’s career, particularly after the Django’s death in 1953. He could never quite live up to the legend.

During World War Two, he played in England with George Shearing. He continued to record during his entire life, producing an extensive discography that is impressive in its breadth and variety. He recorded with the likes of Duke Ellington, Oscar Peterson, Martin Taylor, classical violinist Yehudi Menuhin, Dave Grisman, cellist Yo Yo Ma, Paul Simon, and Pink Floyd.

Grappelli’s violin sound is instantly recognizable - a tone pure as a birdsong. He never played a bad note. But his wide range of collaborations and the fact that he played the cocktail hour at the Paris Hilton in the 1960s has left Grappelli with an unjustified lightweight reputation. I would say that his life embodies the history of the jazz violin.

Some might balk at the comparison to Armstrong. Grappelli was certainly not in the ranks of Armstrong as an innovator - Armstrong was a force of nature in jazz without peer. However, Grappelli’s time with the Quintette ranks as one of the high points in jazz history. There is also a parallel with Armstrong in the fact that Grappelli maintained his playing style throughout his life (lack of innovation) and had a reputation as an entertainer, which the jazz cognoscente sniffed at.

This film presents a thorough look at Grappelli’s life, including extensive interviews with the man himself and considerable concert footage. Thoroughly enjoyable.

New Dog, Old Tricks

I just enjoyed an evening of mellow jazz at the San Francisco Jazz Festival with the duo of Roy Hargrove and Cedar Walton. Trumpeter Hargrove, 41, has experimented with a lot of different sounds during his career, including funk and hip hop, but tonight he sounded like the traditionalist. On both trumpet and flugelhorn, he generally stuck to a quiet but incredibly warm sound and the set of quiet jazz tunes. He stands still when he plays, legs slightly apart, mostly leaning back when he blows. But the tone that he generated has a classic grace to it - very appealing to the ear. He ought to consider more singing as well - his whispery solo turn on "Never Let Me Go" was riveting.

Walton, 77, also has a quiet manner while addressing the piano, but he was up to his old tricks. He played with the famous Benny Golson-Art Farmer Jazztet in the late 1950s before moving on to The Jazz Messengers in the 1960s. A hard bop pianist, he's always had an angular approach to both harmony and rhythm. He's still got it as evidenced tonight, but he holds it all together with his own sense of the blues.

A piano-trumpet duo is certainly an uncommon jazz grouping, but these two jazz greats made some wonderful music together.

Oscar Worthy

Oscar Peterson: Music in the Key of Oscar (2004) is a terrific documentary about the legendary jazz pianist. Shot in 1992 during a reunion tour with members of the original Oscar Peterson Trio, Herb Ellis and Ray Brown, the best thing is the generous amount of time we get to spend watching and listening to these greats play. Though all are long in the tooth at this time, they are still playing at a very high level, as cohesive a group as they were in the 1950s.

Interspersed between the song sets are brief snippets of commentary from producer Norman Granz, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Quincy Jones, and, of course, Oscar himself. The film looks at his “boy genius” rise to prominence in Montreal, Canada, where he was discovered by Granz in what sounds like an apocryphal story but is apparently true. Granz was in a taxi heading to the airport to fly back to the States when he heard Peterson, then 24 years old, playing on the radio. When he asked the driver who the recording was by, the driver told him it was a live broadcast from a local club. Granz had him turn the taxi around and take him immediately to the club. Shortly thereafter, Peterson was introduced as a surprise performer at a Jazz at the Philharmonic concert at Carnegie Hall.

The film briefly covers the highlights of Peterson’s career, his influences, his experiences with racism while out on tour, and the recognition he finally receives at the time the film was made. It even looks at criticism of Peterson, particularly the charge that he was not an innovator or trendsetter on the piano. The point is tacitly acknowledged, but Peterson never saw this as his role, and the sheer artistry on display makes the point moot. Oscar Peterson is simply one of the greatest to ever tickle the jazz ivories.

A Treasure Trove of Jazz from Norman Granz

Norman Granz was the producer of the famous Jazz at the Philharmonic concert series, a constantly changing all-star jazz band that toured the United States and Europe from 1945 to 1959 and at one time or another included just about every significant jazz artist of the day. He was also a record producer and founder of Verve Records, among other labels.

Granz was born in Los Angeles of Jewish immigrant parents, a background that may help explain his lifelong battle against racism, particularly as it manifested itself in the jazz world of the 1940s and 1950s. He was known for his generosity, both in dollars and spirit, paying his musicians very well and insisting they be treated fairly regardless of the color of their skin. Finally, he was the long-time personal manager of Ella Fitzgerald and Oscar Peterson.

If that wasn’t enough of a curriculum vitae, Granz also made jazz films, many of which are gathered together on Norman Granz: Improvisation. This DVD presents a cornucopia of terrific jazz performances spanning the period from 1950 to 1977. The earliest snippet shows Charlie Parker performing with one of his heroes, Coleman Hawkins, and smiling like a little kid as he listens to The Hawk. Other highlights include Ella Fitzgerald and Lester Young from the same early session, Dizzy Gillespie and Clark Terry battling it out on trumpet backed by the Oscar Peterson Trio, Duke Ellington playing for the sculptor Jean Miró on the Côte d'Azur, Joe Pass playing a couple of guitar solos, and Count Basie backing soloists Al Grey, Vic Dickenson, and Roy Eldridge.

The film begins with a short and pretentious featurette about Granz and the artistry of jazz improvisation, intoned with great seriousness by jazz critic Nat Hentoff. Once you get past this bit of fluff, the rest is a feast for the ears and the eyes.

Ellis Marsalis Live in San Francisco

Ellis Marsalis is the patriarch of one of the most prominent jazz families in America. He has played piano and taught jazz in his native New Orleans for decades, but it is only since his more famous sons, particularly Wynton and Branford, have come to prominence that he has started to gain some well-deserved recognition. (Marsalis and his sons are group recipients of the NEA Jazz Masters Award for 2011.) His former pupils include well-known jazz artists Terence Blanchard, Donald Harrison, and Nicholas Payton. Despite coming from New Orleans, Ellis was never a Dixielander, and back in the day he played with the likes of Cannonball and Nat Adderley.

On March 17, he played at the San Francisco Jazz (SFJAZZ) Festival in a quartet that was a bit of a family affair, as it featured youngest son Jason on vibes. The elder Marsalis plays with a gentle elegance and sureness of touch that speaks of the years spent below the radar in New Orleans. One can see where his sons absorbed so much music and musical history from. Jason, who is known primarily as a drummer, is a terrific and lively vibes player. Father and son showed a wonderful sense of playfulness as they made music together.

The program featured a lively dose of Thelonious Monk tunes taken from Ellis’s 2008 album, An Open Letter to Thelonious, including “Evidence,” “Round Midnight,” and “Straight, No Chaser.” The interpretations were both faithful to the originals and updated too. The group also played a wonderful version of an old King Oliver tune called “Doctor Jazz,” with Ellis starting out on solo piano, attempting to adhere to a 1920s playing style, then the group coming in for an extended and swinging modern version. The evening was a class act all the way.

Art Blakey in Paris, 1959

Drummer Art Blakey had a knack for attracting the best young talent to his ever-changing groups, collectively known as The Jazz Messengers. Over the 1950s, 1960s, and beyond, this was a proving ground for musicians to show their stuff. Blakey was often the biggest cheerleader as well as the one setting a perfect backbeat to showcase his soloists.

Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers: Paris 1959, a brief (51-minute) film of a concert date at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, features Wayne Shorter on saxophone, Lee Morgan on trumpet, Walter Davis Jr. on piano, and Jymie Merritt on bass. (The Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, by the way, was the site of the premiere of Igor Stravinsky’s ballet The Rite of Spring in 1913; the choreography by Nijinsky caused such consternation among attendees that the audience rioted.) The group is a study in contrasts in playing style: Shorter stands almost motionless while playing sax and Davis looks almost as if he has fallen asleep at the keyboard. Morgan is much more animated on the trumpet and Blakey is in ecstasy at the drum set.

The playlist includes a couple of Benny Golson tunes - the oft-recorded classic “Blues March” and “Are You Real?” - along with a hectically paced “A Night in Tunisia,” the standard “Close Your Eyes,” and Lee Morgan’s “Goldie.” The standard was the highlight for me, with some wonderful solos from everyone. Merritt is the real surprise, playing some aggressive, rhythmic solos on the double bass. One wonders why he is not better known, but he seems to have recorded with The Jazz Messengers and others for a brief period from 1958 to about 1962 and then disappeared.

The visual quality of the film is nothing to write home about - very contrasty - but it is still a pleasure to watch and listen to this fine group play.

Coltrane’s Poor Cousin

John Coltrane’s 1960 Album Coltrane Plays the Blues is often overshadowed by its more famous companion LP, Coltrane’s Sound. This is unfortunate, because Plays the Blues is a consistently strong album from Coltrane and even contains a few surprises for listeners.

All the songs on the original releases were recorded over two days, October 24 and 26, 1960. The tunes used on Coltrane’s Sound have a darker hue to them, particularly “Liberia” and “Equinox,” with its dirge-like rhythmic underpinning beneath Coltrane’s soaring solo. This was probably intentional as this album followed hard on the heels of My Favorite Things, which was all standards. (Even the artwork for the album was dark, a painting of Coltrane’s face in which the smears of paint make it appear that he is melting. Apparently, even Coltrane was upset by the image.)

Coltrane Plays the Blues is of a different order. The playing is more approachable, and Coltrane plays both the soprano and tenor sax, accompanied by McCoy Tyner on piano, Steve Davis on bass, and Elvin Jones on drums. It opens with the terrific “Blues to Elvin,” in which we hear Coltrane dig into the tune with a kind of simplicity of approach that is often lacking elsewhere. Yet, he is exploring harmonically with as much creativity and interest as ever. In two of the tunes, “Mr. Day” and the slowly swinging “Mr. Syms,” one hears premonitions of “Equinox” (recorded two days later) from both Coltrane and Tyner, as if both were taking the opportunity to explore motifs and variations for the later tune.

The surprises I mentioned earlier are two tunes without Tyner, the first time that Coltrane had recorded with a trio since his Prestige Records days. On “Blues to Bechet,” he plays soprano sax in tribute to its master, Sidney Bechet, and on “Blues to You,” he plays tenor. This is a refreshing, uncluttered format for Coltrane, and one wishes he had returned to it more often in his career.

While no Coltrane recording can be said to be lost in obscurity at this point, I recommend that you take a listen (or re-listen) to Coltrane Plays the Blues - it deserves to come out of the shadows.

Vintage Dizzy

Dizzy Gillespie: Live in '58 & '70 (2006), part of the Jazz Icons series of DVDs, presents another gem with these two concerts of Dizzy Gillespie. In the earlier date from Belgium, Gillespie is in a small group setting - a fantastic quintet with Sonny Stitt on sax, Lou Levy on piano, Ray Brown on bass, and Gus Johnson on drums. The hip repertoire includes “Blues After Dark” (penned by Benny Golson), “Blues Walk” (Clifford Brown’s ultra-cool favorite), and the standard “Cocktails for Two.” Gillespie is his ebullient self throughout, but it is Stitt who gets the chance to shine, blowing some powerful solos on tenor. He is featured on a wonderful torchy version of “Lover Man.” Dizzy and Sonny belt out a comical vocal on “On the Sunny Side of the Street.”

The 1970 date is from Denmark, where we see Dizzy fronting the Francy Boland/Kenny Clarke Big Band. In addition to Boland on piano and Clarke on drums, the group included, among others, Billie Mitchell and Ronnie Scott on tenor sax; Art Farmer and Idrees Sulieman on trumpet; Jimmy Woode on bass; and Sahib Shihab on baritone. The band may be big, but they produce a wonderfully tight sound on some complex blues and bop arrangements. Gillespie is at ease blowing on all. A couple of Gillespie originals are featured, his Afro-Cuban influenced “Con Alma” and “Manteca.” A special highlight is a smoky, noirish version of Jimmy Woode’s “Now Hear My Meanin’.”

Throughout, the visuals are excellent and intimately close to the performers. The sound is crisp and crackling. Here's a sample - "Blues After Dark" from the 1958 gig.

Blast From the Past: Mark Cantor’s Jazz Films

I had the pleasure of attending Mark Cantor’s “Jazz on Film” presentation on January 22nd here at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco and it was a blast from the past. Cantor is a jazz film archivist who has collected over 4,000 reels (yes, actual film) of vintage jazz performances. He shares programs of these rare films at presentations all over the world, including The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, The International Association of Jazz Record Collectors, Monterey Jazz Festival, Academie du Dance (Paris, France), Festival de Popoli (Florence, Italy), and even the Playboy Mansion.

The San Francisco presentation included twenty-four jazz films from the 1920s up to the 1970s, all presented on the big screen with terrific sound. Sort of puts YouTube to shame. And these are films you’ll see nowhere else. Highlights included violinist Joe Venuti sawing out a swinging version of “Sweet Georgia Brown,” a prancing Lucky Millinder conducting his band in “The Hucklebuck,” and Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers doing “Moanin’” and featuring the song’s composer, Bobby Timmons, on piano. Lowlights (but fun nevertheless) included stripper Ann Corio singing “Pistol Packin’ Mama” backed by the Red Norvo Orchestra and an odd animated Prudential Life Insurance commercial from the 1950s featuring music written by Duke Ellington specifically for the commercial and played by his orchestra. The program also featured a couple of “Soundies,” which were the first “music videos” - filmed in the 1940s, they were played on special film juke boxes.

Cantor has served as a consultant on a large number of music documentaries and feature films. His footage was included in A Great Day In Harlem and Ken Burns’s monumental Jazz. (Burns said that Cantor was an “invaluable asset” to his film.) If you get a chance to catch one of his film presentations, I highly recommend it. You’ll discover some hidden treasures of great jazz that you won’t be able to see or hear anywhere else.

(For those in San Francisco, Cantor will be giving two more presentations at the JCC. Visit their website for more information.)

Miles Plays Miles

Dingo is a little Australian-French film released in 1991 that would probably be lost in obscurity except for one fact - it stars Miles Davis. In the first image of the film, we see John “Dingo” Anderson (played by Colin Friels) playing his trumpet in the Australian outback, which sets up the tension between his life in the middle of nowhere and his dreams of playing jazz. We then see a flashback to John’s childhood in 1969, when a plane carrying legendary trumpeter Billy Cross (played by Davis) lands on a nearby runway and he gets to hear an impromptu jazz concert. John is mesmerized by what he hears and, after he approaches Cross after the concert, Billy tells him to “look me up” if he ever gets to Paris.

Two-thirds of the film is then taken up with John’s current life, twenty years later. He scratches out an existence hunting wild dogs and taking odd jobs to support his wife and two daughters. John also plays the trumpet and leads a band - “Dingo and the Dusters” - that plays a mix of jazz, country, and blues. But Dingo is still not satisfied with his life and he still dreams of going to Paris and playing with his idol, Billy Cross. He has been periodically writing to Cross over the years and sending him tapes of the music he’s playing in Australia. His dissatisfaction with his current life builds - spurred by the visit of a childhood friend who has gone on to financial success in Perth and starts hitting on Dingo’s wife - and he uses money he’s been saving up to fly to Paris.

After initially having trouble locating Cross, and ending up in jail, Dingo finally meets his musical hero. He ends up staying at his house and playing at a small jazz club with Cross, who has essentially retired but is coaxed back on stage. Dingo is a hit and he returns to Australia knowing that he has the musical chops to make it if he wants to.

The story is a little too good to be believed - it's every jazz musician's aboriginal fantasy, to be acknowledged by a master, come true - and the strange mix of hardscrabble outback struggles and big city jazz dreams is jarring to say the least. The real interest is Davis, who basically is playing himself. His character, Billy Cross, is a reticent and world-weary recluse. But when he is on screen, you can’t take your eyes off of Davis. The atmospheric music - by Davis and Michel Legrand - is quite good throughout: more late 1950s Miles than what he was playing at the time the film was made. The playing in the climactic club scene shows that Miles still had it. (Dingo’s playing was overdubbed by trumpeter Chuck Findley, who has played with Buddy Rich’s band, among others.) Miles died the year the film was released.

A Cool Ocean Breeze of Jazz

For anyone who hasn't seen Bert Stern's jazz documentary, Jazz on a Summer's Day (1960), go rent it immediately. This immensely enjoyable film, shot at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival, is visual and aural candy. It is equal parts great jazz and people watching and both prove fascinating. The jazz audience of fifty years ago is like an exotic species under Stern's filmic microscope, and you can't take your eyes off the hats and sunglasses, the drunken dancing, the children playing, and the rapt listening. The musical performances are also stellar, with the likes of Thelonious Monk, Mahalia Jackson, Sonny Stitt, Chico Hamilton, Jimmy Giuffre, Dinah Washington, Gerry Mulligan, Anita O'Day, Louis Armstrong, and even Chuck Berry - all filmed with an intimacy that brings you right on stage with the performers. The way the film is put together - cutting between the performances and the people, along with the languorous pacing - make it a kind of work of abstract art come to life. This classic jazz documentary is highly recommended.

Here is a sample of the film - Anita O'Day singing "Sweet Georgia Brown" and "Tea for Two."

The Story Behind the Smile: Terry Teachout's "Pops"

I just finished reading Terry Teachout's biography of Louis Armstrong, Pops, which is now out in paperback, and can recommend it wholeheartedly. Teachout, the drama critic of the Wall Street Journal, had access to a lot of previously unavailable material on Armstrong, including over 650 reels of tape recordings made by "Satchmo" during the last two decades of his life. This provides a very intimate and fascinating look at the man behind the very public persona: his dope smoking, his marriages, his run-ins with the mob, his generosity, and his unadulterated joy in music.

     Armstrong was universally recognized as an artist who changed everything about jazz when he burst on the scene in the late 1920s. And he was also roundly criticized over the years for his on-stage and on-screen antics - a kind of fawning or clowning to please the audience - which many people, including other jazz musicians, considered demeaning or even "Uncle Tomming."

     What we see in the book is that Armstrong was very much a product of his time. He grew up in poverty in the New Orleans of the early twentieth century and he lived in a time when race was an everyday issue. Armstrong also grew up without the presence of a father, so he often had a father-like figure in his life that he relied on - other musicians such as Joe Oliver or his long-time manager Joe Glaser. So, there was an aspect to his personality that wanted to please others, but it was not some kind of showmanship he put on.

     We also see Armstrong the savvy career man. He made the conscious decision in the early Thirties to try to become more mainstream and, frankly, appeal to white audiences. This led to more emphasis on his singing and less on his trumpet playing and to a string of mostly forgettable movie appearances. His bands and musical arrangements for much of the decade were also primarily mediocre. It worked, and "Pops" became a crossover star.

     But the jazz world was moving along while he stood still. The Big Band era came and went and bebop came along in the Forties. Armstrong had a revival in the late Forties and Fifties when he switched to a small-group format. He toured relentlessly, but often played the same tunes every night. And then he had his biggest hit of all with "Hello, Dolly!" in the Sixties, which beat the Beatles' "Can't Buy Me Love" to be the most popular tune in America.

     Through it all, he played and audiences around the world fell in love with the sheer joy that came through in his performances. Armstrong never made a differentiation between art and showmanship - he was an unapologetic entertainer. But this is why his critics were so off the mark: there was nothing phony or fawning about "Pops"; it just wasn't in his DNA.

In the Mood for James Moody

On hearing of the recent death of saxophonist and flutist James Moody, many casual jazz listeners may be seeking out his music for the first time. One of my personal favorite albums of his is At the Jazz Workshop (GRP, 1961), recorded here in San Francisco, which I believe serves as a wonderful sampling of Moody's many talents. The recording is a live date that emphasizes the blues but also incorporates some fine ballad playing. The ensemble is a septet - Moody, Musa Kaleem (baritone saxophone), Howard McGhee (trumpet), Bernard McKinney (trombone), Sonny Donaldson (piano), Steve Davis (bass), Arnold Enlow (drums) - with Eddie Jefferson chiming in on three vocal numbers. The band plays with a terrific full sound and Moody is the featured soloist throughout, playing on alto and tenor sax as well as flute. Particularly fine tunes include the swinging "Bloozey," "The Jazz Twist," and "Bunny Boo." Ballads include "It Might As Well Be Spring" and "Round Midnight." And the album finishes with a remake of Moody's surprise hit "Moody's Mood For Love," with a playful vocal from Jefferson. Highly recommended.

A Look at Mingus the Composer

Charles Mingus: Triumph of the Underdog (1997) is a fascinating look at the life and legacy of bassist Charles Mingus. It combines concert footage, interviews with fellow musicians and family, and bits of a noirish documentary of Mingus made in the late 1960s. It was directed by Don McGlynn and co-produced by the composer’s widow, Sue Mingus.

     The film is hardly a complete portrait, however. It barely touches on Mingus’s troubled early life. For his own take on this - growing up in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles as a mixed-race child whose mother died when he was very young and whose father was abusive - I recommend his autobiography, Beneath the Underdog, which is told partly in stream-of-consciousness quotations and partly in a curious, disembodied third-person point of view. The fractured perspective is disconcerting, but one gets the feeling throughout that Mingus, rather than falling apart, is putting the pieces of his life together. Unfortunately, insights into his musical thinking are few and far between. While one must certainly view his sexual braggadocio in the book with a prophylactic skepticism, Mingus emerges as an intelligent and sympathetic character, someone who had to overcome a great deal to become a great musician.

     In many ways, the film picks up where the book left off. The point it attempts to make is that Mingus should be ranked among the great American composers, and the evidence it presents is pretty convincing. Throughout his career, Mingus had an amazing ability to incorporate ideas and musical influences (classical included) into his own complex tunes. The concert/television footage in the film, from the 1950s to the 1970s, provides tantalizing glimpses, although one wishes that more extensive cuts had been used. None of his songs are heard in totality. Interviewees include his wives Sue and Celia Mingus, musicologist Gunther Schuller, and musicians John Handy, Eddie Bert, Wynton Marsalis, and Randy Brecker.

     His difficult personality is also on display. Mingus was a volatile personality, who could be extremely articulate on almost any topic, a lover and sentimentalist, or a raging and angry man. In one scene, we see him being literally run out of his New York City apartment in the mid 1960s and taken away in a police cruiser. There are also snippets of a documentary (made in 1968 by Thomas Reichman) in which the camera follows Mingus from behind (a la Samuel Beckett’s Film), and he appears as an ominous and shadowy figure wandering down trash-filled streets in the dark of night. I’m not sure what the point of this was, although I have to admit it was evocative.

     Finally, at the end of the film, Mingus’s music gets a little airing out with extended excerpts from “Epitaph,” his posthumous magnum opus. This two-hour orchestral piece was discovered after Mingus’s death from ALS in 1979 and first performed in 1989.

     Although somewhat scattered in its approach to Mingus (who was scattered himself), Triumph of the Underdog is definitely worth viewing for its insights into this troubled genius.

See also: Charles Mingus - "So Long, Eric" (1964) 

Roy Haynes - Live at SFJAZZ

One can only bow to the master. Drummer Roy Haynes has played with a who’s who of jazz greats over the course of his long career: Lester Young, Bud Powell, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Sarah Vaughan, Sonny Rollins, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Stan Getz, Chick Corea. Now 85, he shows no signs of slowing down.

     Haynes was born in Boston in 1925 and made his professional debut at the age of 17. He came out of the bebop era, but in the 1940s played with both Lester Young and Charlie Parker, so he was hardly defined by any single style. He spent five years with Sarah Vaughan in the 1950s, but he also worked with those on the more experimental edges of jazz, such as Coltrane, Andrew Hill, and Eric Dolphy.

     As a sideman, Haynes appeared on Vaughan’s In the Land of Hi-Fi (among others), Monk’s Live at the Five Spot, Rollins’ Brass & Trio, Dolphy’s Outward Bound, Getz’s Focus, Oliver Nelson’s The Blues and the Abstract Truth, Jackie McLean’s Destination... Out!, Coltrane’s Newport ’63, and on and on. He’s also recorded as a leader since 1954’s Busman’s Holiday. Two of my favorites are We Three (with Phineas Newborn and Paul Chambers; 1958) and Out of the Afternoon (1962). There’s also a recently released (2007) 3-CD career retrospective - A Life in Time: The Roy Haynes Story - which is highly recommended.

     His playing modes range from hard swinging to bebop to jazz fusion and the avant-garde, but he is always identifiably Roy Haynes. He has a percolating effect on the drums: popping on the snare, sometimes implying the beat more than playing it (playing with the time), and bringing the cymbal playing to the foreground. He’s long been known as “Snap Crackle” in acknowledgment of this electric and pulsing sound.

     On November 6, Haynes made a stop at the San Francisco Jazz Festival with his band, the aptly named Fountain of Youth: Jaleel Shaw on alto and soprano sax, Martin Bejerano on piano, and John Sullivan on bass. There were very few showy drum solos during the evening, but Haynes made everyone in the band sound better with his constantly inventive playing. One gets a very strong sense of Haynes listening to what the others are playing and reacting instantaneously - he’s the group’s central nervous system, sending out rhythmic pulses of energy across the synapses to keep everyone swinging. You are always aware of what he’s rapping out on the drums, and he keeps your rapt attention.

Curtis Fuller - Live in Chicago

Photo courtesy of T. Leasenby.

While on vacation last week, I had the pleasure of catching legendary hard bop trombonist Curtis Fuller at Andy’s Jazz Club in Chicago on September 16. Andy’s, just north of the Loop, was founded in 1951 by Andy Rizzuto and it is still one of the best places to hear jazz in Chicago, every day of the week. My friend Tim and I were sitting at a table literally abutting the front of the stage, with Fuller and his quintet playing a few feet in front of us.

     Trombonists rarely become famous, as they are not frequently leaders on recording sessions. Fuller, born in 1934, is one of a handful of recognized trombonists in the jazz world and is still going strong. He was born in Detroit and orphaned at a young age. Growing up, he was friends with fellow Detroit musicians Paul Chambers and Donald Byrd. During a stint in the Army in the early 1950s, he played in a band with Nat and Cannonball Adderley. He then was a member of Yusef Lateef’s quintet, made the move from Detroit to New York, and began recording.

     Influenced by J.J. Johnson, among others, Fuller was (and is) known for the lovely sonority of his trombone playing as well as his dexterity and speed. And it seems that 1957 was his breakout year, during which he recorded with a who’s who of jazz greats: Sonny Clark (Dial S for Sonny), John Coltrane (Blue Train), Clifford Jordan (Cliff Jordan), and Bud Powell (Bud! The Amazing Bud Powell, Volume 3). Listeners were impressed with this newcomer to the scene, as were his fellow musicians. As Bud Powell exclaimed, “Man, that cat can blow!” He also recorded as a leader that year on New Trombone (with Red Garland) and on my personal favorite of his albums, The Opener.

     Clearly, he was busy. Fuller continued to record prolifically over the next five years, including stints with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and the Art Farmer/Benny Golson Jazztet, as well as under his own leadership on Blues-Ette (1959) and Soul Trombone (1961). Later in the 1960s, he played with the big bands of Dizzy Gillespie and Count Basie. Recordings became less frequent in later decades, but he is still heading to the studio, with a new album this year, I Will Tell Her.

     Fuller was obviously enjoying himself at Andy’s, his playing energized by his young rhythm section and the trumpet of Pharez Whitted. The interplay among the musicians, and the concentrated listening that is necessary to play jazz - something often missed in more formal concert settings - was clearly on display in the intimate surroundings of Andy's. Fuller had some terrific solos on the slower ballads and nimble plunging on the fast numbers such as Oscar Pettiford’s “Oscarlypso” (also called “Oscalypso”; from The Opener). Catch this living legend in action if you get the chance.

A Fine Vintage Wein

George Wein knew and/or worked with just about everyone in jazz over the last half century. His autobiography, Myself Among Others (Da Capo, 2004), written with Nate Chinen, is a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the life of a jazz producer and sometime performer.

     Wein grew up in the Boston area and opened the Storyville Club there in 1950. But he is the creator, most famously, of the Newport Jazz Festival, which helped take the popularity of jazz to a whole new level in the 1950s and launched the careers of numerous jazz greats. Wein’s book shows the struggles, financial and otherwise, in putting on a jazz festival. Local politics, money problems, and artist egos all make for numerous headaches. But Wein’s dedication to jazz and jazz musicians shines through.

     Over the subsequent years, from the 1960s to the present day, Wein also produced the Newport Folk Festival, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, Newport Jazz Festival - New York, the Ohio Valley Jazz Festival, KOOL Jazz Festivals, the Grande Parade du Jazz (in Nice, France), the JVC Jazz Festival, and more. He also produced the foreign tours of numerous artists, including Thelonious Monk and Miles Davis. In many ways, he was a lifeline for jazz musicians (and the jazz tradition itself) during some difficult times, when rock ‘n’ roll was on the rise and jazz was superceded in importance in American culture.

     The later parts of the book become a bit repetitious, as we get yet more lists of musicians at yet another concert. Nevertheless, Myself Among Others is a great look past the stage at the people in the wings putting on the show. Wein has some great anecdotes and insights into many of the musicians he numbered among his friends, and enemies. For example, Wein tried to recruit Josephine Baker for a 1974 tribute concert, and spent several days fruitlessly scouring Manhattan for two Russian wolfhounds, which were stipulated in her contract. She canceled her appearance anyway. Tidbits like this make the book a highly enjoyable read.

Bill Evans in Oslo

Bill Evans Trio: The Oslo Concerts (2006) presents two Bill Evans dates, one filmed at the Oslo Munch Museum in 1966 and the other at the Molde Jazz Festival in 1980. Evans is one of the least dynamic of performers, so filming him playing is almost a waste of film. But the music is a different matter.

     On the 1966 date, we see the younger, nerdy Evans: slicked-back hair, clean cut, glasses with black plastic frames. He plays with his head drooping to the right or with his whole body hunched over the keyboard, almost to the point of making you wonder if he doesn’t have a long-term vitamin deficiency. (He did have drug problems from the late 1950s onward.) He barely acknowledges the audience. But the music displays all the magical, impressionistic lyricism - an almost liquid quality to his playing - that one has come to associate with Evans. Among the highlights are versions of “Stella By Starlight” and “Autumn Leaves.” The interplay among the trio (Eddie Gomez on bass and Alex Riel on drums) seems to be accomplished by mind-reading.

     By the 1980 date, Evans’s diet seems to have improved, and his posture when addressing the piano is merely kyphotic. But like the Beatles did earlier, he has transformed from clean cut to scruffy, now sporting longer, Bee Gees hair and a beard. Here, there is a sense of more warmth and connection with the audience, and this version of the trio (Marc Johnson on bass and Joe LaBarbera on drums) also displays some wonderful interplay. Highlights of this date include “Days of Wine and Roses” and “Nardis.” This was one of Evans’s last dates, because he died in September of that year - from complications due to chronic drug use - at the age of 51.

     While I can’t say much for the visual impact of a Bill Evans concert, the music is absolutely top-notch and not to be missed.