everything's great when you're over 98

Marc Myers discusses Benny Carter, who was born 100 years ago this month. Rifftides has more information and recommended recordings. Carter's not someone I know much (I don't even have what seems to be his magnum opus, Further Definitions), so I did a little searching. The oldest footage I could find of him on saxophone is a couple of JATP performances with Coleman Hawkins, from 1967. The tenor saxophonist isn't in the best of shape, but Carter is brilliant and fluid. They were born only three years apart, yet Carter seems far more modern than Hawkins, which perhaps has something to do with his knife-sharp phrasing and tone. I don't know if that's a testament to the pace at which jazz evolved in its early years or to Carter's searching mind. Hawkins is in better form on the second video, a blues, and Carter is equally delightful.

Bellson blues - Louie Bellson
Uploaded by boberwig

Carter played many instruments, one of which was trumpet. Here, he plays plays back-up in an awesome Fats Waller music video from 1943:



The rhythm section on this 1975 Montreux date is rather heavy-handed, which every soloist (Carter, Clark Terry, Zoot Sims) demonstrates by not being heavy-handed. Doesn't Sims kind of look like Bill Clinton?



Rifftides links to more videos of Benny Carter performances.

From Brett Primack comes a public conversation between Carter and fellow saxophonist Mel Martin. The promo video for a CD of their subsequent performance together shows that Carter retained considerable powers at the age of 87.



In the conversation with Martin, Carter declares Cannonball Adderley to have been his favourite player. I chose the 1963 German TV session below in part because I love the studio's set, but also because in the first of the three songs performed, you can hear some of what the latter inherited from the former (and having Yusef Lateef, Nat Adderley, Jozef Zawinul, Sam Jones and Louis Hayes in the band doesn't hurt either).

Cannonball Adderley - German TV 1963
Uploaded by madafonka2

Carter's compositions have also left their mark. Stan Getz and Kenny Barron made "People Time" a staple of their duets:

Stan Getz & Kenny Barron
Uploaded by rl666st

pierre van dormael

[I initially planned to put this in the Zéro DB post, but since that turned out to be more about Nic Thys, this didn't fit in any more. I hate to lose an opportunity to gush about Pierre Van Dormael, so here it is, in its own post.]

In the late '80s and early '90s, Pierre Van Dormael (myspace) led Nasa Na, a quartet made up of Fabrizio Cassol, Michel Hatzigeorgiou and Stéphane Galland. It is an almost mythical ensemble, as no recordings were ever officially issued. Its legacy partly lives on, however, in a little trio his sidemen went on to form, called AKA Moon.

Like Nasa Na, Pierre's career is great, yet mostly obscure: he seems to often be hidden at the root of things. He claims that it is after seeing him in concert that Steve Coleman started employing multiple tempos. He also wrote or played on a number of pop hits, as a session guitarist. A couple of years ago, he even toured in Canada with the Québecois version of Star Academy (Fame Academy in the UK, or American Idol + the reality TV element of all contestants living together and being filmed 24 hours a day).

In 2002, Pierre released Vivaces, a masterpiece that went pretty much unheard. In it he laid out his worldview: complex rhythmic superpositions perfected during a 3-year stay in Senegal and esoteric harmonic relationships are balanced with sweeter, almost sugary melodic elements. A few years ago, he told me that he stopped being a session guitarist because it had sucked all enjoyment out of music. He then had to rediscover the "degree zero" of being able to take pleasure in the sound of a single note.

The result of that rediscovery is visible: on stage, he's just as likely to tear through a harmonically idiosyncratic and fascinating run as to let a single note ring out and throw his head back in the ecstasy of simplicity. Djigui, his album with electric bassist Otti Van Der Werf and kora player Soriba Kouyate included a supremely relaxed "Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone" recorded in the hotel bar after the show that constitutes the bulk of the music. When Bo Van Der Werf, the leader of Octurn, commissioned a composition from him, he replied "Is it okay if I write something that can be popular?"

De Werf has just released the result of that commission, Octurn's North Country Suite. You can hear some of it on Pierre's MySpace page. I haven't heard the album yet, but judging by the samples, it picks up where Vivaces left off, and leavens Octurn's more sour pre-Magic Malik style with references to his own pop loves. Pieces are anchored by a lush, repeated sequence of piano chords and an unobtrusive rhythm section, but the lines played by the guitar and horns above that criss-cross at odd angles and speeds. The melodies are affecting, yet twist in improbable directions.

That kind of sums up Pierre himself. A conversation with him can veer off into deep topics, stop abruptly and resume at any point. Or he'll just down a few Orvals and ask the audience to sing along.

bojan z

Bojan Z's Xenophonia is easily among the best and, especially, most pleasurable recent albums (jazz or otherwise) I've heard in a good long while. It's bursting with imagination and sure to be on a number of 2006 lists. I don't have his previous album, Transpacifik, but I've heard it a few times and it's another lovely record, more of an acoustic trio, despite the presence of a Fender Rhodes. Here's an interview in English I'm happy to see:

In general that's where I find my inspiration, in life. One thing I know for sure my inspiration is life and not death. It's interesting, that I know for sure from those few years of war [in Yugoslavia], you know, there was death all over the place—nothing artistic was coming out of this. But life! Ahhh! You know, colors, people, food and nature, smells, the sounds of course. I'm very, how do you say, sensitive to it?
(...)
[For Xenophonia] I just took more time to work on the sound—the vertical dimension—the colors, the profundity, which sound goes where. For example, on some of the instruments I play, I had this set-up which was acoustic piano, Fender Rhodes and customized Fender Rhodes which gives me quite a lot of possibilities sound-wise— mixing the piano with Fender Rhodes... In general, about the performance, we were all working on textures and sounds more than who's going to be the fastest, that's where the difference for me is.
(...)
I bought my first Fender Rhodes in ' 81 in a bar in a village next to Belgrade and the funny thing is that a few years ago, knowing that in Belgrade I can eventually find a Fender Rhodes cheap I called my brother to try to find something there and he found actually the same village. But he found just the shell of a Fender Rhodes and just a few keys.
(...)
[W]hat I did was I started buying all the parts on e-bay and basically I had different vintages and different years and while I was putting this thing together I kept all the imperfections. I actually wanted every note to sound different because it was not the point to have to have just another Fender Rhodes—I was dreaming about having an instrument that I could tamper with for Arabic scales or scales coming from cultures other than European for quite some time.

With a piano you cannot do it because you have to have your own tuner. It's impossible. But I thought finally, that's what I'm going to do with this guy; it's easier to learn how to tune it, instead of having to find some effects, distortion, treating it like a guitar and thing like this you know. That's why I call it “xenophone.” Why? Besides the connection to the name of the record—it's the reaction I get every time I plug it in and play something on it and I observe the reaction from most of the people—it’s like some stranger, some naked stranger has walked in. Ahh!! What is this?!

The xenophone is key to the record's success. It does sound something like a guitar (albeit a strange one), actually, but in a natural way. No cheesy modulator wheel note-bending, for instance. Rather, the instrument isn't tempered like a piano and notes come out a bit unpredictably, mirroring the slight imprecision of the motion of a guitarist's hands. There's the sound and, of course, the way Bojan integrates it with the other two keyboards. At times he manages to make the piano sound just as weird: sometimes by preparing, but the miraculous moments are when, suddenly you think "what's that strange sound?" and it ends up just being the regular old piano.

Generally speaking, I'm more attracted to the Keith Jarrett school of Fender playing: the guys who hate the instrument and do everything in their power to destroy it. Jarrett on the Cellar Door? That "broken key" solo is one of my favourite Fender Rhodes moments ever. The "oooh, those vintage Fender Rhodes sounds are so pretty" school can be nice, but is often quite toothless. Bojan Z loves the instrument, but manages to turn Jarrett's destructive urge into a reconstructive one (quite literally, as described above) and the result is great.

Scott Colley told me a few years ago that before each set in the Village Vanguard Jim Hall would take a mike and say something, you know, good old man, decent, jazz guitar legend and saying things like: “I’m listening to so many different styles of music and find myself still discovering things. Recently I bought a record of the Dixie Chicks. It’s amazing what they do.” And the people die laughing. And then: “Seriously, I am not used to living in a fascist regime.” This at the Village Vanguard. But you’ll never hear a word about it in any of those “jazz” newspapers, but what you will see is “My Favourite Things’ questionnaires to Kenny Barron. It’s like an interview:

Q: Which is your favourite watch?

Kenny Barron: Well, I have a Rolex…

Q: “What’s your favourite color?”

Can you imagine this? Toshiko Akiyoshi and Lew Tabackin!

Q: What is your favourite wine?”

A: Oh, Chateau Ikan, 1929—they never let you down.

They are serious! You guys are serious, one bottle is $6,000!...

Besides that then you have the thing that middle class gigs are non-existent. You know most of us, we live from the gigs which are financially speaking from $1,000 to $10,000 range, you know it depends where you are, smaller or bigger hall, bigger venue. You know I’m speaking about bands, band price. And this doesn’t exist; they have from zero to $1,000, which is….pay a band with this! And then you have these tremendous numbers of thousands of dollars from $10,000 on for Sonny Rollins and Keith Jarrett and people like this.

So this has completely killed the economy that the music can generate... The reverse side of the coin is if you find yourself in front of saxophonist Joe Lovano, he is going to blow your mind! You’re going to get scared. So that’s the other side of the coin, music artistry, the giants that are still alive and kicking. That’s not just a legend, it is true. It’s happening.
(...)
I just love hearing all these different things piano-wise, just on the one hand to remember the lost colors of this instrument because there is a tendency nowadays growing into a certain pattern of piano playing that most of the pianist are using and they just forget about these things for example, Errol Garner or Earl Hines and guys like this, the way they were using this instrument—so all these colors are a bit left aside. So, Duke Ellington is one of my favorite piano players because he's the one I like listening to at almost any moment of the day, so fresh and so mysterious and his attitude so...hip!

the man on the hill #1: beginnings?

[The first in a series (?) of posts on Andrew Hill]

The man on the hill is necessarily detached: from the round mound of earth beneath him, from the people below him, from the grey sky behind him. Andrew Hill is detached, an anomaly, shrouded.

It starts right at the beginning(s): his made-up Haitian birth, Blue Note claiming "Black Fire" as Hill's debut recording, conveniently forgetting "So In Love," the general lack of commercial success that enveloped him. Later, there's the disastruous I-wanna-get-paid album, "Grassroots," which may well be a case of auto-sabotage. It was supposed to be a self-concious new beginning, it turned into a dead end (cf. the incredibly plodding first track of "Grassroot"'s first draft on the Connoisseur edition. The album proper is better, but not by much). Hill states in those liner notes that he doesn't play out much, that he lives off the generosity of patrons: not exactly the jazz hustler trying to break onto the scene. The latest beginning ("Dusk," "A Beautiful Day," the JazzPar Prize album, the upcoming third Blue Note stint, after a spate of re-issues) is still hopeful and promising.

Of course, all of this would mean nothing if Andrew Hill played obvious music: obvious swing, obvious blues, obvious avant-garde (cf. the hilarious epistolary liner note debates between AB Spellman, Leonard Feather and Bob Blumenthal (the latter in the new liners appended to the RVG editions) as to whether or not Hill is avant-garde) or even obvious solos.