Hexatonics? Is that an absinthe drink?

Things will be quiet here for a day or so as I prepare for my pilgrimage to Toronto, but watch this space as I will be blogging as coherently as two to three hours of sleep will allow from the IAJE International Conference beginning Wednesday.

Tonight though, I am already typing so...  The woodwind piece is beginning to take shape.  One movement is pretty much done and I have serious sketches for a second.  Elliot Carter's writing continues to influence the writing, but I have also been experimenting with some hexatonic structures.  Jerry Bergonzi's book Hexatonics is providing some great compositional raw material and I'm really curious about how it will translate to the "modern classical" vernacular.  I can honestly say that I don't know where this piece will end up but I'm really excited about it!  Of course, the piece will go into a holding pattern while I venture into the world of sleep deprivation.  Anyone have coffee recommendations in Toronto?  Please...

Interesting Interview

I came across this today.  A very well done interview with Jerry Bergonzi that covers many topics including transcription and study of the tradition.  Bergonzi explains the idea of following your passion in a way that makes a lot of sense.

From http://www.marcopignataro.com/writings.htm...

J.I.:  That brings me to my next question. You are mentioning the linkage to the jazz 

tradition and when I interviewed Branford Marsalis he made a very strong point about the 

fact that jazz education in the universities generally neglects the necessary attention due 

to the jazz tradition before Charlie Parker and players such as Lester Young, Ben 

Webster, for instance, are not taken in consideration by the young generations. What is 

your opinion on this common approach to jazz education? Where should we start? 

 

J.B.:  That’s a great question. When I started listening to Sonny Rollins and John 

Coltrane, that was my passion. Joe Henderson, Wayne Shorter, Dexter and Hank Mobley, 

Stanley Turrentine.... That was my passion, which eventually led me to listen to the older 

guys like Charlie Parker, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young. Then I realized the lineage. 

So I always tell young players to follow their passion and if they are really passionate 

about it, they will realize the lineage all the way back, and all the way forward.  So if you 

love Joe Lovano, for example, you’ll realize that Joe Lovano loves John Coltrane, John 

Henderson and Lester Young and you’ll see his lineage all the way back. So I think that if 

you follow your passion you’ll get all of the information. I think that this is better than 

say: “Don’t listen to who your passion is, don’t listen to ‘so and so’, go back and listen to 

Lester Young”. But maybe he is not ready to listen to Lester Young. Lester Young is 

deep, you know; maybe they are not ready for that. 

 

J.I.: That’s interesting. So you don’t think that the students need to be required to listen to 

the tradition but allowed to discover the lineage by themselves.... 

 

J.B.: They will discover it. A great musician is going to discover it, there is no way that 

he can’t, it’s not possible. 

I think his comments about allowing a student to follow his passion are important.  I was trying to decide if what I wrote yesterday conflicts with this, and I don't think it does.  It is great to start with who you love. No one ever had to convince me to listen to Trane for instance.  I have always had a passion for his playing, he was one of the first tenor players I ever heard (through my dad's record collection).  Bird, on the other hand, took some prodding.  I tried to get into him early, mainly because everyone said he was important, but his playing just wouldn't grab me the way others would.  I'd come back to him every so often with the same results.  It wasn't until I was into Dexter Gordon's playing (gotten to through Trane) that Bird's playing clicked for me.    

Reading Bergonzi's interview made me think of that and reminded me that evolution is not always a straight line and is not always forward.  I like Bergonzi's approach because the student gets the information when he or she is ready for it.  I couldn't "hear" Bird's music until I was ready for it.  Once I was, I heard it and it grabbed my passion.  If I would have forced the issue, I probably would have a very unhealthy relationship with Bird's music.

As a as a teacher it is important to remember that a student is going to get more out of studying a player that he or she is passionate about while guiding him to check out the lineage that informs that player's vocabulary.

As a student, it's important to remember that it is ok to like who you like.  The artistic road is long and in a creative life one will trace connections forward and backward forever.

Primary Sources

I mentioned in a previous post that I am currently transcribing some Hank Mobely.

I was organizing some of my recent transcriptions (read: avoiding work on my woodwind piece) and as I was looking at my work here is what I saw:

 - Sonny Rollins

 - Stan Getz

 - Hank Mobley

 - John Coltrane

 - Wes Montgomery

A respectable list, of course, but also they are all 50s-60s era solos.   That time period is still considered to be the gilded age for the codification of the modern jazz lexicon, but when I compare what I have been listening to to who I am transcribing, a bit of a dichotomy appears, at least at first glance.

I am a big believer in studying Primary Sources.  While I love David Liebman's playing, for instance, I have not yet transcribed one of his solos.  It was ingrained in me pretty early in my development that "if you want to sound like "X", don't study "X" but study who "X" studied". This has served me very well in my development and, while I acknowledge that there are many schools of thought on this, this remains my modus operandi as well as the basis of my pedagogy.  

This works for me because this is where my passion is.  It took me a bit to get there.  When I really began to get serious about this music, my sun rose and set on Branford Marsalis.  I had all of his records, I begged my dad to take me to hear him whenever he came to Chicago, and I think I still have an old VHS tape of him on "Night Music" with Jools Holland and David Sanborn.  As I followed his work I began to learn of his influences.  I was already pretty familiar with Trane, Newk and Wayne.  But through Branford, I got to Joe Henderson, Lester Young, Ornette Coleman, Lucky Thompson, Chu Berry and many more.  I actually got to hang with him for a couple of hours once in Chicago, it's a funny story.  I may share it sometime.  Suffice it to say he was a very patient and generous cat to a very naive 15 year old.  But what I took away from the experience was something along the lines of, "I play the way I do because I studied X, Y and Z."  

This was deeply reinforced several years later at David Liebman's Saxophone Masterclass. 

Lieb is big on transcription and he devotes a substantial amount to time during the week to it.

This way of learning is very time tested.  I have heard accounts of authors copying out entire sections of Hemingway or Steinbeck. At the Picasso Museum in Paris, I saw some early sketchbooks in which he was clearly copying another's work.  I have also seen it first hand.  When I lived in the Chicago area, a favorite way to spend an afternoon was at The Art Institute of Chicago.  A wonderful collection, and Chagall's America Windows ranks around #3 on my reasons to stay alive list.  But as I would walk through the museum I would see student after student sitting before the masterworks copying...all disciplines transcribe! 

The way I see it is that the Primary Sources are the tea leaves and the current scene is the hot water.  You need both to make tea.  I'm going to have some now...

 

Some Brookmeyer for a Friday Evening...

This has been up a YouTube for a month or two.  Make Me Smile always has...

Original Jazz Classics

One of my many gift card purchases arrived today.  The OJC 2003 remaster of Tom Harrell's Sail Away.  

Sail Away and Form were two of my favorite LPs when I was In college.  Great compositions, burning soloists (On Sail Away: Harrell of course, but also Lovano, Liebman, Abercrombie et al.) very nice small ensemble playing (use of backgrounds, sectional writing etc..).  The drag was that they belonged to one of my housemates and when we all went our separate ways, his records went with him.

Listening to this again was a great treat, especially now that I now own it.  Next I need to get Form...

Yesterday's post has sparked some great conversation.  I will have more thoughts along those lines soon...right now it's back to Tom...

You're Doing It Wrong...

I am something of a process nut.

I love reading about process, talking about process, hearing about process and applying processes to problems.  So much, that I think it may be a problem sometimes.  I was reading the first couple of chapters of Twyla Tharp's book "The Creative Habit" (I just started, I'll report more as I finish...) and she writes about some of the fears that can potentially shut down the creative act before it begins.  I began thinking, a big one for me is "I may not do it right".  This is subtly different than "I don't know how to do it".  "Do it" implies ignorance while "do it right" implies fear.  

I can take the idea of "doing it right" to the nth degree sometimes.  There was a time when I would spend hours trying to design a practice routine and never practice because I was concerned that my routine was not "right".  I am happy to say that I have gotten past a lot of this (knock Mac...) with regards to practicing and playing the saxophone, but I still run up against it in composing.  When I start a new piece (or tune) my mind will always begin putting up parameters:  Modal thing, Rhythm Changes thing, ECM thing, Tune on a standard's changes etc.  Now, very often this is a wonderful tool and I get good results from using it but what I dislike about it is that it puts my mind into a judgmental place:  "that line doesn't fit", "it's not hip enough".  Very often, it doesn't and it's not but a teacher of mine told me that we should write the music that catches our interest (or words to that effect).  The short of it is I let myself get caught up in the world of "should" instead of the world of what is.  If I hear and like something that is of a major tonality - I should write a major tonality, not try to force the idea into a preconceived idea of what the tune "should" be.   

I will always use processes and rituals (more on that later) but I have to be careful not to force or bully the music in the guise of "following the process".

  

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to all.  

I am starting the year off by being as non-productive as possible.  That way there is only one way to go...

In that spirit here are some things that have been occupying my browser today:

You Tube video of the Jazz String Quintet.

I heard a great interview on On Point this morning, Junot Diaz was speaking with Tom Ashbrook about his book "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao".  I have not read this but I intend to shortly...

Jason Crain's Website has some great interviews, links, etc...I'm listening to his interview with Joel Frahm (I love this guy's playing!!!) via his Podcast  as I write this.

Maybe I'll get inspired and do some work later....