The Jazz Exchange

Wynton Marsalis testifies before a Congressional Committee on Vimeo on Vimeo

Say what you will about Wynton, I can’t think of a better person to talk to senators about Jazz.  The man might as well go into politics himself he is so charismatic.

CD Baby: How to Legally Sell Downloads of Cover Songs

This is a link to the best description of how to legally record and sell covers I have ever heard.  I have been wanting to know how to do this for so long because it is obviously a important part of being a jazz musician.  I hope this helps many other people out there that have been confused by this issue in copyright law.

Jazz Exchange contributer Paul Brady writes about a recent experience in New York City, and deems it still the best place on earth to check out a show.

Jelly Roll Morton once referred to it as “that cruel city.” Kurt Vonnegut nick- named it “Skyscraper National Park.” It is crowded and expensive. Did I mention it’s expensive? We can say what we want about it, but New York City is still one of the best places on earth to see and hear music, if not the best.

In February of this year I spent five days there both for business and leisure. My nights were all free. I had done no planning, bought no tickets, nor made any reservations for any clubs or concerts. Since there are never any less than about 15 different concerts going on each night in New York that interest me, I wanted to keep my options open. Risky, given the fact that in said town the big name performances usually do sell out. Maybe so, but as my friend and travel companion, the Chicago-based guitarist and recording-engineer Joe Darnaby, explained to me, “There is no such thing as a sold out show.” I think I believe him.

Our first successful attempt at catching a sold out show in New York involved an indie rock band I had never heard of called The National. They were performing in a hall on the NYU campus our first night in town which was a Thursday. The show was to start at 8:00 p.m. with two opening bands. We stood out in front of the venue along with several other students and young west village hipsters desperately asking if anyone had extra tickets while frequently checking at the door to see if anyone had returned any. No one had. As the 8:00 hour approached, I was becoming impatient. I did not want to spend my evening standing in the cold looking for tickets throughout the length of two opening bands’ sets with no guarantee of getting in. It was looking grim and the warmth of countless New York City pubs was calling my name, but my friend’s persistence paid off and about one minute before the show was to begin, he scored us two tickets. Ten bucks each.

I owe him one. The National was fantastic and is now one of my favorite bands. Fronted by unique baritone Matt Berninger, the group also includes versatile guitarist Bryce Dessner. When not with The National, Dessner can sometimes be seen performing with the Bang on the Can All Stars (a contemporary music ensemble that performs some of the most complicated music ever written) and as a member of the touring group for the multi instrumentalist singer/song writer Sufjan Stevens . The National’s sound is a harmonious blend of New York minimalist and contemporary indie rock. They creatively use sections of horns and strings both live and on their records. The group is completed by Dessner’s brother Aaron on bass and the brothers Scott (guitar) and Bryan (drums) Devendorf.

I spent Friday auditing jazz history lectures at Rutgers University unknowingly awaiting what was to be one of the best jazz performances I have ever seen. Kurt Rosenwinkel, the Philly-born guitarist who now makes his home in Berlin, was performing all week at the Village Vanguard with his quintet. Rosenwinkel has possibly received more accolades and praise from critics and musicians than any other young working jazz musician today. Over the years he has shared the stage with Joshua Redman, Brad Mehldau, Larry Grenadier, Jeff Ballard, Mark Turner, and Ethan Iverson, to name a measly few. Since no longer living on American soil, the ex-NewYorker generates quite the buzz when returning to the states for performances. Knowing this, I was shocked when I was able to reserve two places for his Friday night show that same morning. The cover charge was $35, $10 of which goes toward a drink minimum. To compare, I have never payed more than $12 at the Green Mill jazz club in Chicago for shows, which have included the Dave Douglas quintet and Kenny Werner’s trio. However, this $35 “New York” cover charge was a steal. The group included Turner on tenor saxophone and together, the two improvised in a very intervalic way, often phrasing with large leaps between notes. They beautifully push tonality toward the limit. This was music at the highest level. The rest of the quintet was made up of pianist Aaron Parks, bassist Ben Street and drummer Obed Calvaire.

With rock and jazz shows checked off my list, my next priority was an orchestra concert. The greater New York area is a paradise of local and visiting orchestral ensembles. This weekend the Vienna Philharmonic was fulfilling their annual residency at Carnegie Hall. The Saturday night show had been sold out for weeks, but after Thursday’s triumph, I was optimistic we would be able to get tickets. I had toyed with the idea of buying one on craigslist.com for $200 (still cheaper than going to Vienna), but held off. No matter what the price, I was determined to see what many consider the best orchestra in the world. We took our chances on the street in front of Carnegie Hall, and at around 7:45 P.M. an older gentleman who was not going to be able to attend the show sold us a pair of main floor seats for $50 a piece. These were $150 seats. Valerie Gergiev conducted the Vienna Phil in Debussy’s “ Prelude a l’apres-midi d’un faune,” Tchaikovsky’s 6th symphony, and Prokofiev’s 2nd Piano Concerto with pianist Yefim Bronfman. It was interesting to hear the Vienna Philharmonic live for the first time performing French and Russian repertoire. This ensemble is an extension of the Vienna State Opera Orchestra and has built a reputation around its superior ability to perform the music of the Viennese composers: Hayden, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Mahler, Strauss, even Schoenberg. I admit I would have preferred to hear something from the Viennese canon, but nonetheless, it was an unforgettable evening.

After this trip to New York, it is hard for me to conceptualize all the horror stories I hear from people who live there about how expensive it is to see shows and just New York living in general. I was introduced to an incredible indie rock band and without a doubt saw two of the most stellar jazz and classical ensembles in the world for a total $95. That is less than what I have paid for a decent seat to Chicago Symphony Orchestra concerts, and paying $35 for the music I heard at the intimate Village Vanguard made me feel is if I was ripping them off.

Let’s be honest, New York City is insanely crowded to the extent that anyone with even the mildest case of claustrophobia probably should not go there. It is completely overridden with traffic, pollution, and rat-infested subways. But for what remains of the fine arts, it is worth putting up with all the other obstacles that lie in the way of getting there, or living there. My friend Todd Whitelock, a Grammy Award winning Engineer and 20 year veteran of New York recording studios and live remote recordings, who remains at work there to this day, shares a New York horror story: “An independent Jazz Label approached me about recording a big band in a very famous venue, which shall remain nameless. Even though I had recorded there numerous times, I bid the job out of a remote truck to avoid sitting in the kitchen with a laptop, headphones and miscellaneous gear because I had heard from a fellow engineer that after returning from a recent gig at the same club, he unpacked his road cases to find them infested with NYC’s nefarious cockroaches. Needless to say, so was his car and garage which carted and stored that gear. The truck idea was nixed so I opted out in order to spare myself the same fate. I’ve got lots of interesting “load-in and load-out” stories through the back-alleys, docks and kitchens of New York City. But there’s no place like it!”

Episode 4 is an interview with Jazz guitarist Howard Alden conducted by jazz exchange contributor Paul Brady. Paul is a member of the Hot Club of Detroit which records for Mack Avenue Records. Howard Alden is a celebrated jazz musician, well known as the man behind the guitar parts to the music from Woody Allen’s film “Sweet and Low Down”, which starred Sean Penn.

© Illustrator: Helen Gorrill
© Cover design: Bogdan Popescu

Kaleidoscope Trio – Map to the Ocean

Tracks:
1.Horizon, 4:44
2.Rain, 7:07
3.Neptune, 6:40
4.Wind, 3:26
5.Holiday, 5:49
6.Snow, 5:25
7.Map to the Ocean, 7:23
8.Heart, 4:32
9.19th Century Photograph, 6:51

Download Entire Album

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It is interesting to see how jazz musicians reach new heights while maintaining a link to the past. Some of the most important and popular jazz musicians of recent years have achieved what they have by understanding and respecting history, while knowing the importance of progressiveness. Unlike a certain administration running (or ruining) this country. Take some of the popular and exquisite quintet records of Dave Douglas. The instrumentation mirrors that of the 1960’s Miles Davis quintets. And the addition of Bill Frisell’s guitar on Douglas’s “Strange Liberation” recalls the instrumentation of Miles’ “In A Silent Way” sessions which included John Mclaughlin. While these records are traditional in instrumentation, Douglas’ compositional style harmonically cuts to the edge of modernism. Additionally, pianist Brad Mehldau has given new meaning to the word “trio”. The concept of the piano trio in and of itself takes us back to the romantic days of Wynton Kelly and Bill Evans. However, Mehldau has re-invented that romanticism and rightfully titled a series of his records “The Art of the Trio”. In 2005, the Kaleidoscope trio began something deeply rooted in the traditional jazz sense. In 2008, they’ve given us something demonstrating their knowledge and appreciation for the great jazz trios of the past, updated by a unique take on an instrumentation usually remembered by the records of its practitioners predating 1960.

The Kaleidoscope trio began a steady bi-weekly gig at a hip sushi/mandarin restaurant in Chicago’s Lincoln Park. By hip I mean that the place actually has a grand piano! In the beginning, their style developed out of a love for the early Oscar Peterson “drummerless” trio records. The group played mostly American song book standards as well as songs by the great jazz composers. The resident pianist, Kevin Fort, eventually began bringing his original compositions to the gig. Over time, the trio broke from its hard swinging “four on the floor” rhythm guitar based style into a much freer, sharper, original sound, which is what we hear today with their debut recording.

The group, still in its original lineup with Fort at piano and fender rhodes, Kells Nollenberger on bass, and Dave Miller on guitar, has presented us with nine of Fort’s original compositions. The opener, “Horizon”, and the bossa nova, “Map to the Ocean”, welcome their good friend, tenor saxophonist Chris Madsen, as guest soloist. The second cut, “Rain”, begins a suite of four songs scattered throughout the sequence and includes the through-composed “Wind”, as well as “Snow” and “Heart”. “Neptune” demonstrates Fort’s ability as an arranger. Also an accomplished big band arranger, he gives “Neptune” dense counter point, an interlude and a shout chorus. “Holiday”, a Bill Evans-esque waltz includes both piano and bass solos reminiscent of the early Evans/Lafaro trio. The closer, “19th Century Photograph”, is perhaps Fort’s most perfect composition. It gives Miller an opportunity to demonstrate his superb ability to accompany a keyboardist. For young guitarists and keyboardists constantly fighting the battle over who should comp and when, here is your answer! During the second chorus of the guitar solo, Miller pushes the tonality of his improvisation by using colorful harmonic extensions in chord clusters.

These musicians have collectively come together to create something that is not easy to forget after even just one listen. You’ll take pleasure in not being able to get out of your head the fulfilling rhythmic foundation set up by Nollenberger’s bass playing, or the incredibly advanced knowledge of harmony expressed by Miller’s guitar solos. And the intelligence of Fort’s improvisations and compositions will remain in your musical thoughts, as they do in mine, long after you hear them.

Notes by Paul Brady

Credits:
Artist: Kaleidoscope Trio
Total Tracks: 9
Musicians:
Kevin Fort: Piano, Fender Rhodes
Kells Nollenberger: Double bass
Dave Miller: Guitar
Chris Madsen: Tenor Saxophone (Tracks 1 and 7)

Producer: Paul Brady and Kells Nollenberger
Recorded at: Spank Music and Sound Design
Engineer: Brian Bullard
Mixed at : Spank Music and Sound Design, Chicago IL.
Engineer: Brian Bullard

**** Special thanks to Todd Whitelock****

Mastered at: Spank Music and Sound Design
Mastering engineers: Brian Bullard and Joe Darnaby

Songwriters/Publishing
All songs written by Kevin Fort

If you enjoy this music please consider making a donation through PayPal. Also feel free to spread the music across cyberspace and the real world too.

My good friend Paul Brady wrote a really nice article about his experience one night on the Detroit music scene. Paul is the rhythm guitar player with Hot Club of Detroit pictured above (Paul is on the left):

Jazz and Emotions

by Paul Brady

A few weeks ago I attended a Detroit Symphony Orchestra concert, as I do almost every week during their regular season. However, I had been looking forward to this particular program since its announcement, and I was not the only one. Why the anticipation? The DSO is arguably a top ten orchestra in the U.S., but they don’t quite have the drawing power to bring in the top tier maestros every weekend, like their neighbor in Chicago. Actually, it’s a bit refreshing to see the lesser known and up and coming conductors coming through town. However, the weekend in discussion brought to Detroit one of the worlds most celebrated conductors, Charles Dutoit.

The French-speaking Swiss conductor was employed to perform an all French program, which included Ravel’s piano concerto for left hand only, featuring the French pianist Jean-Phillipe Collard, Berlioz’s Overture to “Beatrice et Benedict,” and the Symphony Fantastique. The response from the audience could only have been overshadowed by the response from the orchestra. In the last three years I have attended nearly every major program the DSO has performed, not to mention being dragged there week after week by my father who had a subscription from the time I was about 10 years old until I turned sixteen. This time, I witnessed something new. While Maestro Dutoit was taking his final curtain call for the performance of the Symphony Fantastique , the orchestra members all put down their instruments and applauded him.

Orchestral musicians do not impress easily. Even after the most powerful ending of a Shostakovitch symphony, that would have NFL football players in tears, I have seen poker faces. Not this time. The performance was that good. At that moment, I truly felt that for me, this was the center of the musical universe. It wasn’t.

Usually after DSO concerts I hurry to one of a fewwatering holes for a drink and to reflect on what I have just heard and seen. That night, I chose Dylan’s Raw Bar and Grill, an east side seafood restaurant and piano bar. The piano bench that night, and every Wednesday through Saturday night, was occupied by Marty Ballog. Marty is a great performer and very good at his job, which usually consists of playing piano and singing over a noisy smoke-filled bar, often with patrons sharing the piano bench and singing (out of tune) along side him. He is a capable jazz improviser, with a vast repertoire of standards from the American songbook. He is not the best pianist in Detroit by any means, but his abilities far exceed those of the basic saloon player. He has a reliable technique and a more than adequate harmonic vocabulary.

This Saturday happened to be less busy than usual for Marty, as it was blisteringly cold with several inches of snow on the ground. These are the nights where you want to catch him. If he knows you, he’ll likely play one of your favorite songs minutes after you’ve entered the bar. I was sitting close to the piano, and received pretty much a private concert. I sipped my drink while Marty played and sang many of my favorites: My Romance, I Should Care, My Heart Stood Still (we share a common interest in Bill Evans), Call Me Irresponsible, Poinciana, Gone with the Wind. He capped it off with Chicago, my former city of residence. At some point during that set, I forgot completely where I had just come from. I was totally absorbed in the moment. How did the sounds from a closed baby grand piano and the voice of an under-the-weather pianist completely knock out of my head thoughts of a classical masterpiece performed by a top level orchestra, one with a history of performing French music, with none other than the leading French music maestro at the helm?

I’m obsessed with classical music (and long sentences; hey, it worked for James Joyce). I’ll outlast anyone in marathon discussions about the minutest of details having to do with the genre and then I’ll insist that we keep talking about it when someone has tried to change the subject three times. I drive my friends and family crazy. And yet, jazz, in its most basic form, stirs up my emotions even more, with all due respect to Maestro Dutoit and the DSO. How is it that a cocktail pianist with a few jazz chops is able to stir more of me than classical music performed at the highest level?

For almost everything that I find unique about jazz, I can find a counterpart in classical music, so it’s not just that jazz “grooves” harder. It goes deeper than that. I’ll listen to any number of pieces by the great ballet composers and find myself “grooving” in my seat just the same way I groove to a Wes Montgomery side, but I find a romanticism in jazz that I can not find anywhere else, even in the most romantic of the Romantic era symphonies, with all due respect to Maestro Berlioz. What is it that gives jazz this seductiveness?

I don’t know for sure, and maybe that in itself is the answer. Historically, there has always been an exotic, rebellious, risque tinge surrounding jazz, giving it some uncertainness. There are still ongoing debates as to whether jazz should be taught in conservatories. Maybe the concept of improvisation, which is to create something out of nothing, frightens music administrators. Maybe it is the setting that we so often associate with jazz, the bar and the night club, that contributes to its forbidden fruit-like lure.

What do you think?

Check out the first installment of an interview I did with Steve Rodby of the Pat Metheny Group.

Pat Metheny Group

This seems to have come out of left field. Victor Goines, the current head of Jazz at Juliard and member of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra is going to be the new head of Jazz at Northwestern University. I remember talking to a member of the jazz faculty this summer and he had basically been let go along with the rest of the jazz faculty. It seemed to be a dark time with jazz ending at Northwestern and the Showcase and Hothouse, two of Chicago’s best known jazz venues closed. Now Jazz is back at NU and the showcase is suppose to be reopening sometime soon in the Loop somewhere. It will be really interesting to see what happens with the new program. Goines is suppose to continue playing and touring with Lincoln Center so we will see what effect it has on the local scene and I have no guess as to what the faculty is going to look like now that he is running the show.
Press Release Nov 27 2007, General News, News, School of Music …

Tags: jazz, education, music

Hello Episode 2! We are moving along hear on the Jazz Exchange with an interviews with Kevin Fort. I have known Kevin for years. He was one of my first musical collaborators. Kevin is a really great trombone and piano player in Chicago and also a great composer/arranger. I really hope you enjoy it!

I will soon be releasing an interview that I did with Kevin Fort. Kevin performs around Chicago on Piano and Trombone and is an active composer for small and large jazz ensembles.

I also completed an interview with bassist Steve Rodby (Pat Metheny Group) and will be releasing that soon too.

There are many more development coming to the Jazz Exchange as I gain some more time in the coming months. I hope you have enjoyed the first episode!