Playing Hookie

I'm going to be on a solo trip to India next week, and consequently will be separated from Her Radiantness on our anniversary.

So as a substitute, we decided to take last Friday off to loaf about in San Francisco, and paint the town a frivolous shade of 0xff0000. After mangling a spot of dim-sum, and wandering about Chinatown during the afternoon, we caught some nice late light up at Coit Tower, on Telegraph Hill.

Dinner was at this little Senegalese restaurant that we've been dying to try out for the longest time. And since we'd planned to spend the night in SF, it provided the perfect opportunity to grab tickets on Saturday morning for SFJazz's 2008 Spring Season. Here's what's on the agenda:

• March 8: Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock, & Jack DeJohnette
• March 14: "Tyner & Taps"; McCoy Tyner Trio with Savion Glover
• March 15: SFJazz Collective
  
• April 11: Wayne Shorter Quartet with Imani Winds
• April 13: Ana Moura
• April 17: Bobby McFerrin, Chick Corea, & Jack DeJohnette
• May 31: Miles from India
• June 8: Fiesta Venezuela
  

We've even got Coeman coming up for Tyner and the Collective, which means I've inadvertently contributed to The Grand Procrastination...

Collective Mediocrity

The Live 2007 double-CD of the SFJazz Collective turned up yesterday. Consistent with the previous 3 offerings, this is another really polished performance from one of the tightest live acts I've seen.

But sadly, this year that's about the only compliment I can pay it.

One of the reasons this group was put together was to force a severely modern rethinking of jazz that we have become too comfortable with. However, with the exception of Miguel Zenón's two arrangements of Monk's Epistrophy and San Francisco Holiday/Worry Later, I was a trifle disappointed with the rest of the band's all-too-delicate handling of Monk's work. They sorely could've used Miles Davis' advice:

When you play music, don't play the idea that's there, play the next idea. Wait. Wait another beat, or maybe two, and then maybe you'll have something that's more fresh. Don't just play from the top of your head, but listen and try to play a little deeper.

Newcomer Dave Douglas saved my flagging attention on the second CD of original compositions with his three-movement San Francisco Suite which, along with Eric Harland's Union seemed to be the only pieces that really provided a platform for interesting musical discussion. Admittedly I've only listened to the album a couple of times since yesterday, and while it does take a couple of listens for me to grok a tune, with the rest of the pieces I had the feeling that I was simply embedded in a stream of somewhat incoherent background conversation. Nothing on the album had the sweeping vision of Collective Overture (on the Live 2006 album), or the joy of Development (on Live 2005).

Hopefully the injection of new blood this year with Joe Lovano replacing Joshua Redman, and Stefon Harris replacing Bobby Hutcherson will revitalize this group in the coming season.

Monk 'n' Trane --- Straight, No Chaser

In early 2005, a recording engineer named Larry Appelbaum discovered a set of 8 acetate-tape reels while mucking about at the Library of Congress, which were labeled "Carnegie Hall Jazz 1957" with a handwritten note hinting "T. Monk" along with some song titles. As it turns out, this was a hitherto unpublished recording by Voice of America of the Monk/Coltrane date at Carnegie Hall.

You see, Monk and Coltrane worked together for a very brief period --- just over a year (April 1957 to September 1958) --- and while they performed together extensively during that time, there is a devastating paucity of recorded evidence of their work, which made Appelbaum's excavations all the more stunning.

Monk would've turned 90 this year, and as part of what they're calling the Monk Project, SFJazz's Spring Season yesterday featured a reimagining of that historic Carnegie Hall concert with Joshua Redman, Brad Mehldau, Christian McBride and Brian Blade taking on the mantles of John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Ahmed Abdul-Malik and Shadow Wilson respectively.

When signing up for the tickets earlier this year, I was initially a little skeptical of attending one of those reenactment concerts which usually feature too much replication and very little imagination. I'm glad I ignored those initial anxieties. While they stuck closely to the original set list with a lot of Monk's standards like "Crepuscule with Nellie" and "Monk's Mood", this was truly a "reimagination". Blade and Redman were particularly inspired, while Mehldau anchored the quartet in Monk's trademark harmonic eccentricities. I was a tad disappointed in McBride's showing --- he tended to play in a detached sort of way, which was unlike the previous times I've seen him as a bandleader.

For cute irony, they rounded off the night with an encore performance of Straight, No Chaser. Awesome! :)

You know, anybody can play a composition and use far-out chords and make it sound wrong. It's making it sound right that's not easy.

--Thelonious Sphere Monk

Avishai Cohen @ Yoshi's

Peter and I caught Avishai Cohen's trio at Yoshi's last night. Normally, when it comes to attending live shows, I'm somewhat risk-averse, and tend to go with musicians of whose music I've already heard (and liked) a significant chunk. In that sense, this show departed from that ethic, since I've only ever heard his playing on one album --- the Chick Corea New Trio's Past, Present and Futures.

My leap of faith wasn't misplaced. While his band isn't as tight as some of the other acts that I've gotten used to seeing (like the SFJazz Collective), the energy that pours out of these young guys is astounding, and made for quite an exhilarating evening. Both Peter and I are convinced we should attend more of these when we can.

Btw, the setlist was primarily from his As Is... Live At The Blue Note album. Sidemen on this date: Shai Maestro (piano), Mark Guilliana (drums).

Bassically...

It's turned out to be the season of The Bass.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Stanley Clarke kicked some serious (b)ass over at Yoshi's last month. It turns out that San Francisco is practically seething with bass-masters this Spring. On Saturday, Peter and I caught the legendary bassist Ron Carter's quartet. This was probably the most polished act since The Modern Jazz Quartet --- they even wore matching ties! Attire aside, I haven't seen a musically tighter group in a long time.

In two weeks we'll have Avishai Cohen in town. The first time I heard this guy was on Chick Corea's Fingerprints (off the Past, Present and Futures album) where his bass lines simply astounded. Other than samples off his website, I've heard very little of his own music, but the fact that he blends some Middle Eastern motifs into his work intrigues.

On a smoother-jazz note, Richard Bona will also be at Yoshi's next month. I quite enjoy his music for light listening, and Jayita's a fan too since he plays the kind of jazz that doesn't make her "tense". I've caught him in concert once back at USC, back in the days when the Fall jazz festival organized by Spectrum actually had some really awesome artists perform, and he could pluck a pretty pleasant string. As a side-benefit, he has an ethereal voice.

Here's to the low notes...

Jazz and the Other Woman

It's been a while since we gave Eric some guilt; both about not graduating, and about his wild-and-wondrous life. And missing us as much as we missed him, up to the Bay Area he came for another weekend of sake and song.

On Saturday we caught Stanley Clarke at Yoshi's. Stunning performance from the reigning master of the electric bass. As a bonus, towards the end of the evening he even did a couple of numbers on the upright bass, finishing off with a mindbending encore performance of the piece Touch from his latest album 1, 2, To The Bass.

Sunday was reserved for the SFJazz Collective's study of the legendary Thelonious Monk. I was initially a little anxious about the replacement of Nicholas Payton with Dave Douglas, but this diminutive New Jersey horn player showed some seriously larger-than-life chops. And although the name of the piece escapes me, Miguel Zenón's arrangement of one of Monk's tunes was one of the best of the night. Watch this guy's career with considerable interest. He has consistently produced some of the most stimulating music in jazz in the last 2 years.

Collective Anticipation

It's just about that time again. The SFJazz festival is on, and the latest CD of the SFJazz Collective has just been released, which chronicles their work over the Spring season, when they interpreted works by Herbie Hancock, and chipped in with their own original compositions.

Now I haven't received the disk mind you. I did pre-order it earlier this year, but they've only mailed out the copies this week, so you can understand my drooling jitteryness. In preparation (one must prepare, of course), I've been listening to their live 2005 CD, and for the last 4 days I simply haven't been able to keep my ears off it.

Most engaging are the original contributions by Joshua Redman ("Half Full"), Matt Penman ("Sega Games"), and Eric Harland ("Development"), but I was particularly impressed by Miguel Zenón's "2 and 2". The man is truly a master of his meter. Hats off to the rest of the band for being able to play along. After playing it about 30 times so far, I think I've figured out that the initial segment is something of a 21-beat cycle, but beyond that I'm left stymied*. In the interests of preserving my marriage, I'm going to desist and simply concede defeat.

In the meantime, while I wait for the imminent arrival of their next installment, I present to you, gentle reader, my interpretation of one of jazz's most revered standards:



*Update (2006-11-19): Joshua Redman's solo in the middle of the song is done to a 11-11-11-10 meter.

Next Week

It's an SFJazz week with:

1. Thursday: Joe Zawinul Syndicate
2. Friday: Charles Lloyd, Zakir Hussein, Eric Harland (Sangam)
3. Saturday: Alice Coltrane, Ravi Coltrane, Charlie Haden, Roy Hanes

Mercy, mercy, mercy!

Opening Night

It's a measure of the excellence of the San Francisco Jazz festival, that they have the audacity to open with the saxophone colossus himself: Sonny Rollins.

Orrin Keepnews introduced him, it being almost exactly 50 years since they met during a recording date for Thelonious Monk's Brilliant Corners album. Orrin said that since there was very little creative control that anyone could ever exert over Monk, he just accepted Monk's choice of this new tenor saxophonist without question. One of his better decisions.

Sonny is one of the few living jazz masters in the world who can command a 3-minute standing ovation before playing a single note. And last night showed us exactly why he deserves such reverence. Through the 110-minute performance, this 76-year old infused his audience with a joi de vivre that most improvisers a third of his age don't have. He was just so happy!

5 years ago, when I saw him perform for the first time, I was too untrained to realize what a brilliant mind was behind those improvisations. His charm lies in the fact that he can take even the most banal motif through 12 choruses (an average number for all his solos last night), and find a distinctly engaging way of presenting it in each cycle.

And the man has chops. He may not have the intensity or angst of Miguel Zenón but I'd be willing to bet that in just sheer inventiveness, he'd leave him in the dust.

He didn't do an encore, but at the end of the night he got a 10-minute ovation anyway. We would've happily made it 110.

'Tis the Season

It's upon us again! No, not the next round of "Pirates of the Caribbean" with the swashbuckling Jack Sparrow. Johnny Depp can buckle all the swash in the world if he dares, and I really wouldn't bat the uninterested eyelid.

No, I speak of that other annual wonder: The San Francisco Jazz Festival. Jayita and I wandered into the city this morning (at 8:30am on a Saturday, mind you) to pick up tickets. Here's what we're attending:

• Listening party with Zakir Hussein
• Planet Drum: Mickey Hart, Zakir Hussein, Sikira Adepoju, Giovanni Hidalgo
• Sonny Rollins
• Joe Zawinul
• Sangam: Charles Lloyd, Zakir Hussein, Eric Harland
• Alice Coltrane, Ravi Coltraine, Charlie Haden, Roy Haynes

Good, no? I thought so too.

Now that in itself would be good enough to pour a spot of sunshine into spirits of the poor sod who woke up one morning to find he had no e-mail access with his morning caffeine. But we don't stop there. Jayita and I wandered into the Ferry building across the street from the Embarcadero, and spent the next couple of hours wandering the aisles of the farmers' market, people-watching, picture-taking, sample-nibbling, and generally doing nothing in particular. One of the most productive mornings of my week, if you ask me.

Recap

It's been a while since I gave the blog some love. That's because... oh yeah, I've been swamped. It hasn't all been work though. Here's a recap:

• 5/2-5/5: The workplace sent us off to the Seascape resort in Santa Cruz for 2.5 days for a workshop.
• 5/6: Danilo Perez opens for Kenny Barron. I preferred Danilo Perez (and got my CD signed!).
• 5/13-5/14: Arjun (a roommate from USC,) visits the Bay Area with his folks.
• 5/20: We hang out with Rick and Kathy in Japantown. Izumiya has awesome sushi.
• 5/27: Hike at Russian Ridge with a couple of docents to show us the last of the wildflowers.
• Right now, I'm in London speaking at SES, and hanging out with childhood friends.
  
• Oh yeah, and I've lost 7 pounds and I'm now running 3.1mi in 30 minutes. Body fat is down from 18.5% to 15.5%. Finally being sub-150lb again is goooood!
  

SFJazz Collective

Jayita and I just returned from attending the members-only concert of the SFJazz Collective. Outstanding performances all around, especially from Nicholas Payton (trumpet) and Eric Harland (drums). One of Payton's compositions -- "Sudoku" -- captured the spirit of the game perfectly. The arrangement had a pecking staccato melody, broken up into intervals of two or three notes performed by each instrument, with each leading into and weaving around the other. One immediately felt the hunt-and-peck nature of the game's solution, while the sections which had flurries of simultaneous chords alluded to the cascade of solved cells that usually results from a breakthrough.

The most awesome part of the evening? Getting to meet the band members after the concert. Oh yeah, those are the autographs I got on my CD :)) Jealous yet??

(Not Just) Jazz by the Bay

On Saturday, Keith (my cousin) calls up and says "Hey, do you want to come to a concert at JbtB this evening? We're performing." (I should mention he's a bassist). Of course, I jump at the chance since:

1. It gets me out of the house.
2. I get to listen to some good music.
3. I'm going to be in one of the nicer clubs in Bombay surrounded by really hot women.

A most excellent evening. I got to hang out and chat with Gary Lawyer who was performing. I've never liked his original stuff, but he did some nice renditions of a couple of Frank Sinatra and Al Jarreau standards. And he seems to be quite a likeable guy. The evening eventually wound down at about 2am, by which time I was thoroughly exhausted.

Btw, Indian women do sizzle.

Tags: music, family, travel

The Poet: Bill Evans

I've always regarded Bill Evans as my dream jazz pianist. The following quote from an article by Gene Lees sums up how I feel about his music:

Oscar Peterson raised the level of playing the piano in jazz to the proficiency long the norm in classical music. One musician made his apt observation: "It was said in their own time that Liszt conquered the piano, Chopin seduced it. Oscar is our Liszt and Bill is our Chopin." The poetry of Bill's playing compels the comparison to Chopin, whose music, incidentally, Bill played exquisitely.

...from the 1988 collection Meet Me at Jim and Andy's.

NicNac, jazz, and a Coezy weekend

The Coeman was in town for the weekend. Spent Friday evening at Nacho's celebrating his engagement to the lovely Nicole. One can't have Coe in town and not go to a jazz concert, so we caught Roy Hargrove at Yoshi's. I thought the pianist's solos were awesome with several shout-outs to Monk. Another point of mention: the sake at Yoshi's was exceptionally good. Too bad I can't drink for another 8 months.

Next week Ron Carter comes into town, but with the amount of work I have to get done this week, I see little hope of catching him.

The Real McCoy

Last night I attended a concert which has to take the top spot. It was all-time best concert I've attended.

The great McCoy Tyner does a 2-week residency at Yoshi's every year; each week playing with a different lineup. This year:

• Week 1: Lewis Nash (drums), Joe Lovano (tenor), Dave Holland (bass)
• Week 2: Eric Harland(drums), Bobby Hutcherson (vibes), Ravi Coltrane (soprano), Charnett Moffet (bass)

Week 1 was an outstanding performance. This was the first time I'd seen Dave Holland, and the guy's got some amazing skills. He complemented Joe Lovano's screaming tenor really well. McCoy was a little subdued; letting the rest of the band do their thing. While I left that concert pretty impressed, nothing could've prepared me for what was to come the following week.

Eric Harland has to be one of the most intuitive drummers in jazz today. I've never seen any drummer gel with the other performers as well as he did. And his solos lit up the stage. Rick mentioned that apparantly when this guy was a kid, he weighed in at 300lb. Now he's a bloody rail. Being so large he didn't have much of a social life as a kid, so he just stayed home and practiced.

Also the first time I'd seen Charnett Moffet. Talk about a virtuoso. This guy's all the way up there with Stanley Clarke and Charles Mingus. He started playing bass (his 3rd instrument) at the age of around 8, and by now, his technique is unstoppable.

Old man McCoy's looking older each year, but this evening the man could've been 20. He was just so energized. It was awesome to see the effect of having great people to play with.

Rick and I almost attempted to get tickets for the next set, or for the next day, but we should've guessed; they were sold out. I'm really looking forward to catching the SFJazz Collective this season; if only to see Eric Harland and Bobby Hutcherson perform together again.

SFJazz Pre-Season Listening Party

Yesterday Jayita and I attended the SFJazz pre-season listening party at the Herbst Theatre. It was supposed to feature Joshua Redman (the artistic director and front-man for the SFJazz Collective) talk about some of the music we'd be hearing in the coming season. Instead we were pleasantly surpised when the master vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson took his place after he came down with the flu.

As we listened to some of the Collective's music, Bobby chimed in with one story after another about the music, and the people making it. A couple of cool bits:

• Bobby's sister Peggy (on whose passing he composed the song "Psalm for Peggy") was one of the Raylettes. She also happened to date the pilot of the plane that flew them between cities for their gigs. Once night during the flight she decided to go up to the cockpit to meet her beau, and found Ray Charles at the plane's controls (uh huh... yeah... the blind guy). And he (very matter-of-factly) told her that he did that every night after everybody had gone to sleep so it wouldn't alarm them. Oh yeah!!
• Besides being an awesome drummer whose style Bobby likened to that of a "fencer", Brian Blade apparantly plays guitar really well.
• Danilo Perez once said "Bobby and Brian... beans and rice!"
  

It was a wonderful evening just for the stories. This year, the Collective will be featuring the music of Herbie Hancock, and it even includes a song from the Fat Albert series. It's going to be a good season :)

Tags: jazz

Vacation Retrospective

A couple of things I've discovered in the last 10 days or so:

• I like to run. Ever since I saw the reduced gut on the other woman, I've been all inspired and stuff. Even better, I'm starting to lose all the weight I gained from the damned eye-medications.
  
• Used-book stores rock. A few days ago I found a nice little hardcover copy of Reading Jazz.
• I can't ever really stop working. Even when I'm taking a break. I seem to be most productive on my days off.
• The little Venezuelan coffee shop in Palo Alto has awesome spiced hot chocolate.
• No other game (FPS) comes close to being as playable as Half Life 2.

Mike Stern@Yoshi's

Peter and I caught these guys at Yoshi's yesterday. Here's my take on the performance:

1. Mike Stern's music is really quite uninteresting.
2. Dennis Chambers can bang a drum alright, but doesn't know the meaning of subtlety. He should take a lesson or two from Brian Blade.
3. Victor Wooten is probably the most accomplished electric bassist I've ever seen. His solo was the highlight of the evening.

Overall, both Peter and I came away with the impression that the performance wasn't as interesting musically as it was technically. Still, after good sushi, and much hot sake, one can have fun listening to just about anything.

Save the carols!!

A week or so ago, Jayita and I were in some department store like Macy's or J.C. Penny or something (they all look/sound the same to me), and they'd already started doing the Christmas carol thing, and I heard one of these "experimental" renditions of "Silent Night" clatter out of the speakers.

Now, friends and enemies who know me well enough will testify without a flicker of hesitance that I'm a jazz fan. Hell, I've even tortured a few friends into attending an Ornette Coleman concert. But where I draw the line, is when you turn a mood-piece like Silent Night, into some allegro-1930's-it's-prohibition-so-all-I-can-do-is-swing number. I mean "Siiilent Niiiiight, ba boo be dee DAP pa DOO!" is just not kosher.

But maybe that's just me.

Tags: holidays, jazz, rant