Thou Shalt Not Play Jazz.. Matt Lavelle.

Everybody has Jam session stories,.me being no exception.Some times good things go down,sometimes bad,.sometimes necessary,.and sometimes,..unnecessary..I've Haunted a few,.and one particular one really stands out as above and beyond what can go down in these
random attempts of people who may not know each other at all try to make music together in front of other musicians,tourists,and maybe some really tired,but hardcore,.listeners of Jazz..

Yes,..SMALLS,.in NYC was the spot in the early 90's for early 20-something musicians from anywhere on Earth to come and test themselves playing Jazz in the Jazz capitol of the world.
I have not been there since the mid 90's,.so I can't say what it's like now.When I was going,.It was to the all night jam session,.held every night.Maybe it's still going down.

I was living at a YMCA in Jersey city and used to crash Smalls as often as I could,.or as Long as I could stay awake.I had a 40 hour day gig at Tower records that started at 9am.I used to go to play at Smalls and sometimes sleep there from like 6:30-8am,.and then go to work.(hey,.when your like 23 you can pull off shit like this)..Smalls was not far from the Village Vangaurd.

The protocol was pretty whack.Wait until whatever band is playing finishes up around 2am,.and then get on the List,.or just try and get to know who's running the session and wait for the call.This means it might be 4am when you get 2 choruses on All the Things You are,.or that you might be able to get down and pick the tune,.or maybe,.you wont even play it all.Yes,.who you knew that was present was a major factor,.and the guys running the session had their crew up-front.If a celebrity cat showed up,.everything was out the window and they took over the session so everybody could experience how great they where.Do I sound bitter? Well,.here's where I'm going..

There's a Drummer that is fairly well known that is revered as part of what made Smalls great to those who really made this scene part of their lives long term,.his name? Jimmy Lovelace.Google him to find some Loving tributes about he's recent departure to the great Jam session in the sky.

Mr.Lovelace was an original,.and had some cred,.recording with Wes and was with Benson for over a decade.

However this is also the man that tried to get me to Quit Music outright.

During this time,.I was a so-so straight ahead trumpet player with a small list of tunes I had ready to go for Jam sessions.I'm not sure I had much of my sound.As I recall I had a big question at the time for myself,..which was,.what if I stepped outside the changes? Everybody there was on some tight-rope play by the rules type shit.Play IN and don't start no shit.My changes playing then was I said,.so-so.I had to play free for years to get good at playing changes I would learn later.I heard they asked Daniel Carter to leave Smalls once,.which he confirmed.."That's not what we do here",.he was told.(I didn't meet DC until years later.)

So one night I decided to find out what would go down,.more for my own quest of what music was than anything else,.and I went as OUT as I could.Just Played WILD and shit,.Think it was "There will never be another you",.which I actually was quite good at swinging on..But Not Tonight,..I just went for outer space,.My free Jazz peeps now would be proud of what I tried to do..

Jimmy Lovelace,...was not impressed...

"Come here man,.I want to talk to you",..

I had no idea who Jimmy was at the time,.except for the White suit he had on all the time.He was an older cat,.which to me meant Respect.He asked me to sit down so he could explain some things,.which I did..Jimmy then told me he was going to do me the biggest favor of my Life,.and tell me what I needed to hear.

"Music is not for you...You don't have it...the best thing you can do for your life right now is quit the trumpet and quit Music.I'm doing this for your own good"..

I listened and didn't know what to think.I didn't see that coming.I told Jimmy I appreciate that he would step to me like this,.that he was looking to help me.I tried to explain to him that I was trying to play outside of what the "rules" where,.that I liked to play IN sometimes to.He said he heard me play like that and still felt the way he did,..and that HE HAD THE RIGHT to tell me to walk away from Music forever..Hard not to think of AMERICAN IDOL,.JAZZ style..I went home.

That night I thought about what He asked me to do....QUIT MUSIC...Was he trying to get me to just get serious? Teachers sometimes brutalize students like boot camp to challenge or force them to get to their core.This violent method of teaching sometimes kills people's music.I've seen that happen in students from Berklee and the New School.

Arnie Lawrence,.the first Live Jazz Musician I ever saw play in person,.came into Smalls once and was cool,.telling me to study with Art Blakey trumpet man Valery Ponomerev,.but then Valery would decide to get Brutal as well,.saying that I should also "go to the new school or quit",.because my trumpet warm-up wasn't up to speed.(I've had an obsessive compulsive thing with warming up ever since)..I never asked Jimmy Lovelace for a lesson,.this was his "Gift" to me..

The next night,.what could only be my spiritual power,.still dormant,.sent me a message: "To take somebody away from their own music can cause Profound damage if that person's music is attached to their core development in a spiritual sense.Art or music can be part of a transformational process which has a direct hand in the evolution of someones soul.Don't walk away from your Music unless your SOUL asks you to change direction,.and decisions like that are usually made between Lives"

So the next night after that,.I went back to Smalls and Jimmy was there.I played a few choruses on "There is no greater Love",.and then Jimmy started walking over with that,."I thought I told you you couldn't play vibe"..

I told him with my horn in my hand,.."Step the Fuck away from me man,.or were going to Fight."

I was dead serious,.and felt that I was protecting my music,.protecting my soul.Jimmy backed off,.but as he did he said again,.."I was trying to help you"..He was frustrated..

Needless to say,..my time at Smalls was coming to an end..Another trumpet player wanted to fight me outside,.and I don't remember why,.all I remember is he had a big trumpet medallion hanging around his neck,.and he was actually a free cat. Before it was time to go however,. it was time for my Bright Moments,..kind of.....here they are in quick succession,..a top 10 list like no other..

1) Frank Hewitt,.a great Piano player,.stopping the session and telling everyone,.."Clifford Brown needed 3 choruses tops to say what he had to say,..If you need more than 3,.You don't have anything to say".

2) Tommy Turrentine,.a great trumpet player cursing out the whole place,."Nobody here is playing shit!!",.,(Tommy may have Lived there for a minute)

3) Nicholas Payton playing GIANT STEPS at 4am with no piano,.then playing Bass,.and then drums! I was half asleep and didn't know Giant Steps anyway..

5) The great bassist Victor Gaskin playing longer than anybody and refusing to give up..He was yelling at me on "moments Notice",.COME ON MAN!,.(i got Lost on the bridge),.around 5am
We had no Piano on that one.

6) Playing a blues with Andy Bey on Piano...Andy was really listening and working with me.I left some space and then dropped the flat six and held it out,..Andy waited and then played the PERFECT CHORD AT THE PERFECT TIME,..I'll never forget it..

7) On a long train of Horn players on Bb rhythm,.having the 3rd bass player already,.I just FORCED a whole tone improv on everybody and got away with it! the rhythm section hooked up with me and afterwords Roy Hargrove was like,..Yeah man!"..Roy had forgotten that he DESTROYED me on Confirmation across town at Yarbird Suite,.and also on Mr.P.C. at the Blue note.Roy was cool.

8) arguing about what tune to play when some kid wanted to play Wayne Shorter's "Miako",.ending up on "What is this thing called Love",..and then the Piano player playing like Cecil Taylor to fuck with all the horn players on purpose

9) Calling Four in a key I didn't know it in,.and then being forced to play chromatic like crazy,.and then some tourists thinking I was playing my ass off..(maybe this happened at Mo' betters on the upper west side,.not sure)

10) Cherokee battles,.of course.Tempo and Key unknown till the downbeat..B sucks.

The Last time I Played at Smalls was with a Guitar player on Have You Met Miss Jones,.and I remember I got a lot of people to Listen,.and the owner,.a cool cat named Mitch,.said,."yeah Matt",.as I worked my way through the bridge.It was around 5am and the session ended after I stopped playing.I knew It was time to go.

After that I ran my own Jam session in Chelsea at a place called the Rainy Daze for about a year and half,.and started writing my own tunes and exploring 60's Miles.I met Francois Grillot,.who I still play with to this day on the free Jazz tip.My music found a way through that maze,.but It wasn't until I studied with Ornette and played with Sabir Mateen that it CRYSTALLIZED.Years,.and a Bass Clarinet Later..Oh yeah,..with a few Free Jazz Jam sessions to along the way,.(very dangerous)

The best Jam session I ever went to was run by Roy Campbell at the Lenox Lounge in Harlem.
After a scorching set of Woody Shaw tunes with his great band TAZZ,.the session started and
EVERYBODY WAS COOL...

Can somebody in please Boston Write about WALLY's?

Anyway,..thanks Mr.Lovelace,..for trying to show me the light,.and that..

thou,...shalt,...

PLAY.



Next week,.I'll try to get back on schedule,.with Drums Unlimited.I want to explore the real story behind free jazz drums.If I can find it,,

Peace

Matt

Retail Foray and Other Delights.

(Scepter of My Office)

Mr Melnick got me thinking as I found myself at the Cambridgeside Galleria Mall a bit after 9 this morning looking to solve my CD player problem. Let me preface this by asserting that I'd probably prefer stringing wire runs in a crawl space infested with spider webs and dessicated rat carcasses over going to any mall. I wrote Slob Chic for a reason and live it.

Trench war at Verdun is probably more appealing to me than a visit to Ikea. Still, at the onset of the dreaded holiday quarter it is a good chance to read sign. The place was pretty dead and I'm so clueless about malls, I forgot about the 10 am opening but Best Buy, my first stop, was open early.

I had to get your basic Sony 'Disc Man' before it slides into antiquehood. The shitty boom box I got at a Bedford Radio Shack in late 2006 was dying and it was making music description near impossible as cds pile up from Fay Victor, Mr. Morris, Mr. Shipp and countless others. It is all great, fun amazing work and I am increasingly avid to describe it.

Duck Baker just sent me four all the way from the UK and the best part, he used a mailer recycled from something Bernard Stollman sent him. I didn't even know Bernard was still that active and he is famously elusive and probably in his 80s. God,.. that is a talisman. Frank Wright used to call him 'Stove man' and did a tune for him.

Now I got to hit retail corporate slime part 1. None of the dickhead outfits who still sell these things also have the AC adaptor. It is a scam to sell batteries. They pretend that the stepped down power input isn't there so they can spread more heavy metal waste around for fun and profit.

Fortunately I prepare for these treks like it's a three day hike in the Pemi Wilderness and was ready for corporate slime part 2, the adapter mix. Best Buy flatly doesn't carry them so I chowed a bit of slime part 3, a Burger King breakfast thingie,in the ghastly food court where the edibles probably should be tried and hung, while I waited for Radio Shack to open.

There, the best buy choice poverty was contrasted by choice largesse from hell and the final bit of corporate slime. I managed to squint my way to a 4.5 volt adapter but then there are dozens of pins because gadget makers now must be special. That would have to wait for the clerk.

Next it is off to find something to do a stereo feed from the 1/8 inch output on the Disc Man to my other found boom box, a old Pansonic dubbing deck with radio, an eq, decent little speakers and off board RCA inputs.

Once again there was a bit of bewilderment but the harmless staff didn't seem to mind me sitting on the floor for another squint fest, ( I hate bothering hapless retail employees or anyone else who has to deal with the toxic public for a living).

The clerk, a young woman, rocked. She looked among the 20 or so tiny adapter pins and nailed the right one first time with aplomb. We tested it and ..done. I hustled out of that sterile hell pit as fast as my squat old legs could carry me.


'Shack' Dave Peterson at his Oregon shack.

I took the 69 bus back to Outpost land flushed with excitement at my successful sortie into Retail Hell and immediately tested the thing with an old burned cd of a recording of a Bessie Smith vinyl remnant made for me back in Seattle by the wonderous Shack Dave, a dear friend who now lives in the shack above near his daughter in Eugene where he works in a caulking goop factory.

Dave gave me a fat pile of discs he burned of people like Townes Van Zandt, Nils Cline, Mike Watt, Chrome and so on. If these old things work, the player is perfect. It even made it through a slightly mangled Serge Chaloff release flawlessly..woo hooo!!

Stanley Jason Zappa.

Once I settled in I noticed Stanley finally got some new pieces out now that he's back out west and he has some interesting thoughts about the problems attending leaderless group improvisation. It is a handful. And I imagine those who embark on it are probably far more astute than the clowns doing 'Jazz Management' seminars. New Stanley pieces, Dan Melnick bestirrs himself, it must be some seasonal thing. Life is good.

Oddities and End Runs. The Jazz Code.

In the course of looking for a visual, I came across a strange consulting biz that seems like a cocaine pipe dream only large firms evidently buy into it. It is a whole other layer of jazz weirdness.

Evidently, the biz does presentations in which the interaction dynamics of ensemble playing are somehow distilled into bizarre management babble with help from a Harvard Biz School pest.

You know, the peeps who gave us George W and who lost a fat chunk of endowment chasing high risk investments.

The proprietor evidently uses a presentation involving a jazz performance but the artists are mainly obscure Norwegians. There is no presence whatever of any African American artist nor anyone of note from anywhere. This would indicate a lack of cred.

On one hand, why not bring, say, Randy Weston, around or William Parker to these things and explain leadership, team work and negotiation? I know Morris would rock at it but I also suspect none would likely touch it.

This is just bizarre in a bad way. Management consulting firms are up there with conventional marketing shills as some of the most toxic and ridiculous pests in the mindscape of modern work life.

My friend Bill White worked at Borders in Seattle for a while and left shortly after some management consultant jackasses sold the place on a strange stepford employee training plan that would utterly undermine the quality of the place while eliminating all the useful secondary things the floor employees generally do like keeping bins stocked.

Update note: Borders fell to a dollar and seventy five cents a share today, (11/24), and probably won't make it through the coming year. I guess it's a fine testimony to the efficacy of consultants. The stepford routine probably drove customers away.

Corporate culture is riddled with these useless pipe dreams and it reflects the parasitic nature of a system nearing its end game regions. Firms fork over stupid fees that are huge for mumbo jumbo that differs only in kind from any other culture's absurd superstitious codifications. Jeeze, it's time to reread Culture Against Man by Jules Henry.

Dan at Sound Slope is up to some first rate thinking that puts him on a par with Gerard as a truth seeker, problem solver and philosophical skeptic.

And Mr Lavelle sent me a listings for Brecht Forum shows this coming weekend. His piece for this week will be on Jam Sessions at Smalls back in the day..yikes!

Saturday,November 28th
7pm
Matt Lavelle/Michael Wimberley
8pm
Ras Moshe/Christine Bard
9pm
Jean Carla Rodea/Gerald Cleaver Ensemble

Sunday,November 29th
7pm
The Music Now Quartet
with Ras/Chris/matt Lavelle
Forbes/David Miller
8pm
The Chris Kelsey Quartet
with Chris DiMeglio/Francois Grillot
Jay Rosen

The Brecht Forum
451 West St (West Side Highway Btwn Bank & Bethune sts)
NYC

212-242-4201
$10

Freddie and Ilhan.

Jason Crane directed me to a well made overview of 'political' or as he describes it 'Conscious' jazz There is a whole world of it out there and much is very good as music theater. You got me thinking about one very beautiful and controversial recording by Freddie Hubbard, of all people. It is called 'Sing Me a Song of Song My.'

The year was 1971 not long after after My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War. Nixon's in the White House.

So Freddie goes and does a project with a musique concrete or tape composer, Ilhan Mimaroglu from Turkey and a friend of the Erteguns at Atlantic.There are also poets involved, one from Turkey and one from Vietnam. Freddie narrates.

It was a theme of African American men doing a lot of the heavy combat lifting in that war, disproportionately so. And a big question in the community turned on: 'why are we involved in a war helping white people kill Asians in their own homeland?'

It is a suite with amazing sounds and his ensemble consists of top notch session colleagues like Kenny Barron. It didn't have a predictable cast of 'Free Jazz' peeps. Naturally, it went over like a lead balloon and may have impacted decisions by the community.

It is evidently available as a cd and I'll ferret it out....a real document and an audio movie way ahead of its time.

In general, the evolution of the political in the US turns on property arguments as noted by Richard Hofstadter in his watershed work, The American Political Tradition.

It makes sense as the onslaught of Euromutts from the Old Country were either speculators with land charters as in the Mid Atlantic colonies or landless peasant things driven by poverty or tossed on a prison ship for stealing pigs in Nottingham to become good citizens of Georgia.

Content Europeans tended to stay there and remain yet. We are the dregs with arrogance and feudal nostalgia.

Once upon a time, African Americans were a property issue.

I often wonder if the national posture of disparagement for the French might be due to their more avid embrace of the liberty, egalitarian and fraternal parts of the program that have long gotten shorter shrift here

Jazz Inc Bubbles Bursting Everywhere.

The bubble burst of Jazz.com finally gave me the big picture arc I've been looking for. The suffocating embrace of jazz by corporatist suits with a right wing lean made yet another speculative bubble of a piece with the broader froth that left a wrecked economy. It began with crackpot Marsalis ideology and bloated as the ideology morphed into a sales pitch and finally, a con.

It really was of a piece with other cons like family values.Once upon a time the Music biz was content to just figure out what the street cared about and provide recorded examples for the market. Of course it would follow the money but it wasn't foolish enough then to imagine it could contrive something and have it amount to much. Early 60s pop like Frankie Avalon, Pat Boone and Chubby Checker was an attempt at a contrived reality and the numbers sucked compared to the rise of street based boomer pop whether from Motown or Liverpool.

The 90s ushered in the zenith of contrivance and corporatism in all aspects of life with the rise of faith in marketing as a secular biz religion. This may have been due to the example of Microsoft and Windows. The company grew preposterously huge from a triumph of marketing over product value.

Branding became the epicenter of this mystique and the golden cow on the altar. It was the operating assumption. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that a convergence of crackpot marsalists and corporatists would result in a wildly contrived narrowly defined 'brand' that would appeal to right leaning suits. They no doubt envisioned practical biz advantages.

For example, if the idiom is reduced to Art Blakey reenactments in suits/costumes, it makes A&R functions robotic and eliminates all the messy experimentation labels made with different releases. You could replace a Cuscuna or a Michel with an accountant and a spread sheet, maybe a pie chart. Everything else, sales and profits, would be covered by the holy application of marketing. Entire cadres of free floating writers could be replaced by recruits from the world of corporate boiler plate and other dodges and the regular press could be conned into thinking this was the version needed to keep the thing going.

This was further exacerbated by all these ridiculous mergers I've lately been boring you with. Each ridiculous pipe dream deal meant that the acquiring chump drove up the cost without necessarily adding to the value. This pattern has turned many aspects of our lives to shit but this is a jazz blog. The purchasing boob had to mess with the thing to justify his idiot decision. Some labels have changed hands several times over the past few decades with a frequent pattern of ridiculous overpayment at each transaction .

But all this churning turned on sets of assumptions that didn't imagine a web2 impact and how could they as these MBA fossils were mainly tech illiterates and are still flailing. It was further exacerbated by the preference for crypt keeping and artificially inflated sales as the result of the Burns effect. By 2005 or so the sales of dead jazz icons were heading south and the living, in all their diversity, were all but invisible except to the younger web savvy seekers.

And the concentration of focus on a small array of icons also left money on the table for lots of bygone artists whose work makes following the music interesting. Jazz is such a fascinating mosaic of associations and contributions that a fan can easily be drawn in to a vast world.

You hear a Trane record and then wonder about other things Jimmy Garrison did. A Max Roach Clifford Brown release leads to to Percussion Bitter Suite, Booker Little or Dolphy. A Miles interview snippet makes you wonder about Freddie Webster.

People who like having the music around will often get drawn into these explorations as Jazz is a portal.

By eliminating vast areas of the catalog from availability, you are leaving steady money on the table. The old music biz types knew this but the newer MBA pinheads don't and saw all this extra stuff as slow moving inventory clutter in a just in time logistical world.

Now, of course, it can all be bit streams with physical storage reduced to server farms but heads remain deep in asses as a likely final destination before they roll from all this compounded arrogance and stupidity.

Hapless Jazz.com was funded by just such a dumb shit tycoon from Vegas and he threw the dice on being able to foist a very narrow Marsalist version of the thing in a deranged corporatist marketing context with the added twist of utter failure at monetization.

In some delightful twist of irony Mr Tycoon and much of Jazz Inc were lured to their implosion by a Marsalist con or resultant swindle. I don't presume to imply it was intentional. Wynton no doubt really believes in his crackpot model as much as W probably really believed there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq or people really believed that home prices always go up.

And, intended or unintended, the resulting swindle and diversion of capital and resources made the legendary Sex Pistols 'Great Rock and Roll Swindle' look like a minor purse snatching. It hasn't done much for my friends, either.

Wynton surely has done well by it but the cult of selective aggrandizement and nearly obscene JLC ostentation are of a piece with gaudy skyscrapers in Dubai, now mainly as empty as the assumptions that made Jazz Inc.

I thought out some remedies for Jazz.com back when I was helping Ted and other site owners seek ways to squelch Hines but I got distracted and never sent them. I did send him my web marketing ace friend and good old Triple Double let me know there wasn't much evidence of decisiveness or a clue even though he projected a likely basic daily income flow of up to 20 grand based on a traffic and back link assessment.

So the thing really doomed itself by becoming an expensive vanity project probably micro managed from Vegas, that preposterous greed shrine in the middle of a water challenged desert. Sure the people who got Mr. Tycoons checks probably loved it but the broader potential audience, not so much.

Anyway, my recommendations summary I never sent,(in part because I was confident it couldn't be embraced), is below and I believe it is useful for anyone trying to make a good biz model that works with web2.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

It all turns on changes in the meaning of 'content'. In earlier phases of web world, 'content' meant actual code structures, page layouts and so on. Now it means what regular people think it means the articles and images and stuff people read, listen to and watch.

The structures can be pre fab, out of the box templates, that's what a blogspot is. So web design, while important, is less significant than aiming for the broadest array of material on a site's given subject matter.

They needed:

1. More connection to African Diaspora elements, Blues elements, Cumbia stories, African Pop and so on as it increases the number of people who have a reason to go there. An Oumou Sangare story would work very well.

2. Substantive improvements in the presence of Free Jazz. There is a fat demographic of Gen X, Gen Y and upcoming Millenials who don't get the 'jazz wars' thing that us boomers made, (in retrospect, 'jazz wars' is misnomer as one side hardly knew they were being attacked beyond the usual malign neglect, it was more like 'jazz raids', corporate raids). But they do get the idiom emotionally.

3. Enhanced utility. More 'how to' and resource stuff like information on grant givers, business issues, festival operations, besides just Wein, radio trends, music software, etc. More involvement by scholars, a piece on John Gilbreath and how he puts Earshot together etc. The return of Esp disk to active status is a fascinating story. Also papers on method from the most advanced practitioners you can find.

A good summary on the concept of 'fluidity' in improvisation from Joe Morris would be valuable or Matt Lavelles research into trumpet techniques. Gerard Cox excels on philosophical issues.

This makes it more of a resource for musicians.

Hat tips to Mr. Crane and Mr Kelsey.

Jazz vs Baseball. Matt Lavelle.

1978

My Father has taken my brother and I to the Bronx for a regular season match up against the Brewers and the NY Yankees.We had already already acquired our main targets,.2 solid plastic Yankee Batting helmets,.which were crap,.but to me the real deal.I had the entire Yankee roster memorized,.and Jazz simply doesn't exist.Goose Gossage and Louisiana Lightning,.existed instead of BIRD..This was the year I think their catcher Thurman Munson died in a plane crash,.which created a temporary weird connection of baseball to "Higher Forces".

The FIRST PITCH of the game,...POW!! to Right field!! Right in the hole between the 2 fielders,..Base hit,.right?

WRONG..Here comes REGGIE JACKSON,.at Top speed!! He Dives head first and slides on the ground right to where the ball comes down right into his glove.He holds up the ball to show the crowd he caught it,.and we ERUPT,..REGGIE was THE man.(Kind of like FREDDIE HUBBARD)

Not long after that I got a ball signed by GRAIG NETTLES,.and while I waited on line to get the ball signed,.I thought my head might EXPLODE just meeting this cat.He seemed to demonstrate super-natural abilities to catch balls no one else could.Doing something no one else could do. (maybe like ERIC DOLPHY)..My point here is to validate Baseball before I try and DESTROY it...(This from the kid who even had the Burger King free Yankees give away poster on his wall)

I was EIGHT years old,.and Baseball meant everything to me then.It was also the first time I saw people that were not white really kicking ass,..Like Mickey Rivers and Willie Randolph.I was feeling something in regards to this already.(Stanley Slouch wrote a book on this phenomenon)These guys were part of a team,.everybody working together,.like a big band I would discover,.when I was in a good one.By about 1980,.baseball would already worm it's way out of my soul so I could confront the death of my grandfather,and survive My Mother's Brain surgery.(staying 10 years old might be good for some,.me,.not so much) JAZZ simply did not exist.I played Trumpet and Tuba in Middle school,.but It had nothing to do with JAZZ.More stage bandish,.I made the all-state orchestra,.where I played 3rd trumpet on "March of the 3 Oranges",.(yup,.I still have the record)

Once I started to realize Baseball was just a game,..I grew up and Discovered JAZZ in High School,(see previous blogs) The more I grew up,.the more Honest with myself I could be about BASEBALL.The paradox of how it gets treated vs Jazz in Today's world would crystallize later on.America's "Past times",.hmm,...2 really different ways of how to pass the time..sit around for 3-4 hours while these dorks run around a field in stupid uniforms? or listen to ART BLAKEY show the world just what can be done with TIME when he's sitting at the DRUMS..(cue:Night in Tunsia,..CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!)..The sound of a rim shot sounds better than the sound of a bat hitting a ball into the parking lot to me.

2003

Cbgb's Gallery in NYC.I'm playing with my quintet that made a record on the CIMP label,.My first record as a leader.I have the bare bones of my musical personality.There's about 25 people Listening.It's the night of Game 6 of the world series.It's playing on a big TV in an adjacent room.

I decide to tell the people how I feel,.and before we play the first tune I take the microphone and say,..

"Man,..Fuck the World Series!,..y'all ready for some free jazz?!"

"Fuck You!",..Is the only response I got.

(I never found out who said it,.but my friend Richard said afterwords,."yeah man,.I enjoyed that comment about Baseball,.I was ready to throw that guy out")

2009

the Yankees have just won the world series and I could give a shit,.as to me,now grown up,.I see what Baseball REALLY is vs what JAZZ is not.Am I jealous? Hatin? Hell Yeah! **Disclaimer:Mad successful Jazz Musicians will not understand what I'm saying.I understand Branford Loves Baseball.**

The YANKEES,..represent everything that's WRONG with people in America.They represent Money and Power,.the ability to stay on top because your rich,.and also,.somehow,.they represent the dignity of representing that kind of lifestyle,.even a "tradition",.(a favorite word in Jazz circles.) I see a direct thread between them,.Hip Hop,.Jay Z,.and Mike DOOMberg.They all think that this kind of shit is important,.and that somehow you can take your money with you to heaven,.or that if your wearing a Yankee hat at heaven's gate,.they might let you in right away.(Don't put me at the door)..((To this day,.although I'm no longer a fan,.watching the Yankees win 3 and then lose 4,.getting swept out by the Red Sox a few years back,..man,.that was sweet.I saw that as a defeat of what they stand for.)) I'm a FANatic,..of Jazz,.now.You have to be to play it.Right,.It's a game vs Art,.but Baseball freaks treat it like it's more than that,.praying to Jesus for strike-outs and shit..I've never prayed for a good night on the bandstand,.I would rather try to Testify directly with my horn when the music comes through.

What takes More SKILL?

THROWING A BALL? or handling an Acoustic Bass during "Have you met miss Jones?"

CATCHING A BALL? or playing lead trumpet in a big band?

RUNNING AROUND THE BASES? or running down Coltrane's COUNTDOWN?

OK,..they have people gifted with arms that can throw Really fast,.and it takes a fast hand-eye thing to CRACK! a ball into the stands,..but compared to the gifts,efforts,and hard work of Jazz? nah,..it clearly takes MORE OF EVERYTHING to be a Jazz Musician.Especially HEART.(Who's that Yankee that put out that tired smooth Jazz record a few years ago? Man,.it was weak,.and I had to sell it at Tower.It was a Guitar player)

My real BEEF is that we treat these people in baseball Like GODS.They get paid MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of dollars to play a freaking game that kids play in the school yard.In One game,..one player makes more money I'll make in this entire. year. BASKETBALL? same shit,..You have to be gifted with the height and skill to Crash the Boards,.but I still say it takes more Skill and Talent to reach the heights in playing Jazz music.The only positive thing I can think of in Baseball is some Latin Brothers getting some respect,.(unless your Pedro Martinez),.and that Derek Jeter is a rich and famous Bi-racial cat,.like OBAMA,..cant front On being cool with that.(Say,.what the hell did Sammy Sosa do to his face?!) The successful Latin thing is mis-leading though,.leading Latin Brothers to buy into the so called american dream,.currently on Life Support.(I hope Latin hip hop goes away forever) As for the The NBA,.Some people call those guys Clowns.Wynton had a contract with the NBA to connect Jazz to it somehow,.when He wasn't pushing Movado watches on the back page of Jazztimes.(Looks like his relationship didnt last with the NBA).Did anybody see that ARSENIO HALL show where Wynton cursed on live TV dissing rappers,."for grabbing their Dicks?",.(I saw it go down live,.Elis was sitting right there) Sidney Slouch called NBA guys and especially Hip-hoppers clowns on OPRAH once,.and they had to go to commercial before some shit went down.But Back to Baseball,..It does seem to provide a way for people from all over to get together on something,.but what if what there getting together on is LAME? Why Poor people in Jackson Heights represent the Yankees for example,.I don't get.Because being Rich is all we can hope to achieve in Life? Please..Can Jazz bring the people together in a better way? Sidney Slouch recently claimed that Jazz was no longer for the people,.but for the cultural elite only.That's Low.I don't see it like that.Back in those JATP concerts we hear really big crowds losing it over PRES.The people can still feel us right? Are WE feeling us? I need Charles Mingus phone number..

Oh yeah,..Baseball also has some cats that do steroids to...Maybe they took a cue from us shooting THE BIG H,.and thought they would go along for,..the ride..Shocking as it may be,.Jazz has not yet put the BIG H DEMON to sleep,.but You have to Laugh seeing us on STEROIDS.Some of really play that way! BIG CHOPS NO SOUL.Maybe a certain tenor player gets shot up in the ass right before he hits the stage.
Don't ask,..Don't tell.

Yes,..This is entertainment vs ART.but,..is it wrong to expect ART to pack stadiums instead of Sports? Why is it wrong to think that maybe the MILLIONS of Dollars might be better spent? (props to Chris Kelsey's recent blog on JALC) Oh yeah,..my bad,..I forgot that were all really very simple,.and we don't even believe we can reach above a stolen base in life..One of these days,..were Gonna catch up.

Maybe we should get two of those goofy announcers to talk and explain Jazz as it happens for those that need help understanding it.

"Well Dan,.It Sounds Like Matt decided to use the Flat 5 on that turn around,.but he chose not to resolve it.."

"You know Scott,.Matt likes to resolve ideas in a way you may not get,.but according to Pianist Chris Forbes,.the band is OK with what he's doing.Let's Listen and see where this goes.."

Baseball and Jazz Both have an American History,.and Both have legends,..but along the way they really went in different directions.Didn't Baseball get the memo from MILES? Maybe it's Jazz that was Born under a Bad time.Course,.if it didn't happen then,.It never would have happened.Jazz and Baseball are supposed to be the greatest things America has achieved,.(This guy Ken Burns told me)...Funny though,.How we treat Baseball like its Apple Pie,.and Jazz like its a happy meal small Fry.

2007

Sonny Rollins is playing outside in front of Lincoln center.It's been raining all day,.and the sky has a look,.a menacing,complex,.almost Violent vibe,.going on.I'm sitting in a huge crowd that has braved the elements regardless to see master Rollins,.Our greatest Living Improviser.I'm sitting in a rarity,.with Master Daniel Carter without his Horns.Sonny is a Legend,.no different than like a Babe Ruth.

Sonny starts trading fours with a percussionist on a Ballad!,.Me and DC looked at each other like,."what?",..We knew it was coming..

Sonny started taking his solo cadenza,..and I swear to you,..

THE SKY OPENED UP..

Sonny hit a Zone so high,.so pure,.it was nothing short of a miracle..

Had a few thousand people hanging on his every note..

TIME STOPPED.

Could have been a Stadium..

JAZZ,.. was KING..

and BASEBALL,...

was in a galaxy..

far,

far,

away..



*for William Hooker


coming soon:DRUMS UNLIMITED,.and later,."the Free Jazz awards show"..(We need a Host,.If anyone has a suggestion..)


Peace.

Matt

Merger Mania Jazz Havoc Continued.

I did some more digging over the weekend to see how music retail is doing and spent a lot of time at Amazon looking at pricing patterns. I also spotted a piece in Bloomberg about some Vivendi horse trading with NBC and Comcast where it was noted as an aside that Vivendi is the largest music conglomerate in addition to all the other stuff it glommed.

This is now suggesting a pattern born of witless faith in the merits of conventional MBAs and management that began when Ford hired McNamara.

Now, before eye glaze sets in, I'd best tell you that Vivendi owns Impulse.

It started as a water utility. That's right, a water works firm, that ended up with a French Boomer CEO who decided to barge into the entertainment biz in a big way. The music holdings were, as usual, small potatoes to the bigger monstrosity.

So we have a strange pattern, conglomerates run by MBA airheads who have no core competence in the treacherous, fickle music biz and pathetically thought it was a big money maker as it was coasting into its twilight.

Bronfman Jr., the booze mogul was in on this deal at some point and David Grusin, the fusion bore must have cashed in, essentially making a speculators play on the 'house that Trane built' even though his own lackluster slop is a flaccid antithesis of everything Coltrane ever stood for.

In the birth phase of this biz, it was small companies started by music people just as car companies were started by car people and so on. That was the pattern for music more or less until the Reagan rising began the unprecedented run of corporate give aways that made this long run of merger churns and ridiculous deals.

Richard Bransen seems to be the guy these dimbos want to emulate but he went in the utterly opposite direction, leveraging a record company into an airline and a mobile communications biz. He was bailing on the music biz as these boobs were jumping into it.

It probably looked great on paper but Google came along and web2 and the whole thing is coming unglued. They still maintain a 16 buck retail list price in the worst recession since the 1930s and a dozen ways, legal and illegal, to undermine them and cut them out.

I don't download free music. I want someone to get some money and apply a Slob Chic hierarchy.

If it is an artist or small label, I like to give them money directly and that is increasingly easier.

If it's a major then it is the after market and I either give the money to a local store or some other one on line. Paying list to a corporation is only a last resort and is easy to dodge.

The trend I saw in the stores here is carried through at Amazon. Free Jazz has more value than that Prestige reissue. Stuff Columbia bailed on like M'Boom is way more valuable than the stuff they kept. Miles Columbia stuff is cheaper than dirt and about as omnipresent.

Roy Campbell's Pyramid Trio cd is going for more than a hundred and forty bucks. Roy, if you read this, check up on it man. Aum Fidelity titles hold their edge as does much of Thirsty Ear. Most other stuff is under 7 bucks. Younger people are the active music buyers and they appear to value free jazz.

The price deflation is wonderfully robust in the after market and will likely hit the main market before long. And this value retention of free jazz happens despite its near invisibility. Maybe it is because of that. From what I can tell the febrile efforts of the music biz shills is mainly driving people away in droves. Funny that.

Overview of Skycap.

Note, this is a repost after the original got spammed.


Jeff Platz left me a small pile of CD's when he performed at the Outpost earlier in July and it may take me a while to describe them all individually, so I thought it might be helpful to just summarize the contents and link to any useful reviews done by others thus far in an excercise of giving due credit as a break from my usual carping on critics carping.
Skycap is a sweet label based in Munster with a number of recordings of Boston area people. I'm working on a more detailed piece with label people soon so for now I'll just cover the assortment.

"Skull Sessions" Rise Above. CAP 010 is the eldest and is a quintet involving Jeff Platz on guitar with Scott Getchell on trumpet, Timo Shanko on Tenor Sax, Joe Morris covering bass with his telepathic alter ego, Luther Gray on Drums. All aquit themselves very well and it will be fun to write about. Someone reviewed it competently so it'll wait. It dates back to 2003.

My old quasi roommate Timo Shanko put together a project called "Freedom Right Now" (CAP 011) that gleaned a few tail wags but nothing good enough to link to. It is a trio core with Taylor Ho Bynum manning brisk and crisp cornet flow on several tracks. Luther is once more on drums and two bassists are present, Keala Kaumeheiwa on most and Gary Wicks on "Goes Around Comes Around." I'll get to it sooner. It came out in 2004.

Steve Lantner's Trio joins several others Steve and Joe Morris gave me earlier in the year, all distinct and compelling and "Blue Yonder" (CAP 018) is an earlier outing with Joe and Luther once more as his rhythm section. It hews to Mr. Lantners standards of excellence well and also lacks a notable review.

Natural History's "Fur" (CAP 021), is also from 2005 and a trio introducing Croix Galipault and Joe Sexton on drums and tenor with their teacher, Joe Morris, on bass. This one got an unusually and atypically impressive review and other scribblers should take notes on how to do a good job.

Unplayable's 1000 (CAP 041) is a quartet of Jan Klare on reeds, Bart Maris on trumpet with a bass/drum foundation provided by Wilbert De Joode and Michael Vatcher on drums. It has a very dense texture, lots of energy and hasn't much in the way of scribbles to show for the effort.

Jeff also gave me "Platz Quintett Live at Internationale Jazz Festival Munster 2007." from the Konnex label, (KCD 2516) and came out last year. This includes Blaise Siwula on tenor, Scott Getchell on trumpet with John Mc Lellen on drums and Kit Demos on Bass. It has a very expansive sound. Imagine an ECM sound without crappy saccherine Eberhard Weber noise and you are getting close, an interesting paradox.

Stef at Free Jazz did a fine and useful job at description. Note to Konnex: uuh, you''ll sell more if you have an english version of your site. I realize years of George Bush made us very unpopular in your neck of the woods but we didn't much like him either.

Music Retail in a Doom Spiral.

I finally resumed buying cd's after a three year hiatus that followed my departure from Seattle. I hit the Harvard Square Newbury Comics and an utterly decrepit In Your Ear...Yikes.

Newbury has a fire sale on stuff from the world of Keepnews, now owned by the dogshit Concord label. The impact of vile mergers on key labels is it's own strange story. Consider Impulse, it is an icon of a thing but was bought by GRP. That's a fugly consortium of David Grusin and Larry Rosen who made their money pandering fusion and smooth jazz which are now dead or dying.

They put their leverage on Impulse which suggests, they at least saw long term value. Their situation is like Goldman Sachs. First wreck something vital until its value gets driven down to fractions, then swoop and scoop.

From what I can tell, there is next to no basic inventory upkeep for catalog at Newbury. The place is morphing into a hipster gift shop or something. The pricing is the tell. The hagiography stock is in the toilet. I got The Trance by Booker Ervin, Rollins+4, a repackaged Brown/Roach date highlighting Sonny, Inside Betty Carter to replace one I loaned to a feckless trust fund chick, Outer View from George Russell and a Biograph Jabbo Smith compilation further enhanced with impeccable liner notes from Chris Albertson.

Gawd the Gitler liner notes on '+4' have to be the dumbest worst writing ever. Then he has a 'table' on sax lineage that could be an office hack crib sheet on March Madness bets.

Everything save the Betty was around 5 bucks and most were new. This is the great die off. Now one striking thing is that William Parker and others from the actual current phase of the idiom are holding value quite well at 9 bucks. The Newbury people are shrewd about value and know what's left of their game. As for the wealth of artist produced work that people give me, no presence whatsoever. There isn't much of a supply chain left.

I ddn't buy anything at In Your Ear, it is a disheveled wreck of a dump with some poor addled beadle behind the counter who looks shell shocked. Boxes of unsorted 'product' stacked everywhere make store navigation a bit of a challenge and there was just one other customer sifting through vinyl. I might go back and grab a Sonny Criss cd for 2 bucks.

Once upon a time these music hipster hubs throbbed with activity but now they look forlorn. A bunch of these stores just died. The wonderous Pat McGrath had to close his Cambridge Looney Tunes this fall but his Boston version hangs on.

Brick and Mortar retail has been pounded by two waves, Amazon first and now I tunes which I basically despise as I don't like Apple stepping in to confiscate music wealth as a ploy to sell a gadget. I need to eventually get an Ipod but will find an older hard drive version as it's just a stationary thing to play mp3 files at home.

I can't stand walking around in the world with some personal sound track blaring in my head so I can get flattened by a car I don't hear coming. I need to learn more about the I tune biz model as part of it seems stupid. Do they really sell a 19 minute tune like Booker Ervin's 'The Trance' for the same price, ninety nine cents, as they would sell a 2 minute tune like 'Drinkin Ink Splink' by Andrew Tibbs?

This seems dumb. Something will eventually kill them. For now it looks like I'll be doing online buys of used music as I can at least find stuff. I'll visit the other stores here to see if this is a trend and give the poor souls some money.

I'm thinking an inside account from Mr. Lavelle about his days at Tower will become a priceless contribution to understanding.

the JaZz cRoSsRoAdS. Matt Lavelle.

where blues guitar players discuss payment plans with the devil..

Times Square in new york USED to be the crossroads of the world,.now its just some tourist Vegas wanna-be bullshit.People from every corner of the globe come by the millions to get in double Decker buses and drive around looking at everything Like it's some really important shit,.and spend alot of money just to prove they were there.(New Years Eve is the sickest time of year,.since thousands and thousands of people jam it up who aren't even from the United States.) Jazz is represented by the IRIDIUM jazz club,.which is actually adventurous,.(booking the Cecil Taylor Big Band!),.and also now,.the Hawaiian Tropic has Jazz.(yes,.the restaurant where the waitresses must wear Bikini's).Besides the statues of jazz musicians in all the gift shops,.and maybe an occasional sax player making change on the street,.that's it,..unless you head to what was once called "Music Row",..48th st,.the Music store block.Since the 70's,.its been the spot,.and has a history,.inside the history.(Kenny Dorham worked at Mannys!)

the latest incarnation of my in order to survive drama landed me right there,.at one of the main joints,..Sam Ash,.for about a year.(I left a few months ago before I lost my mind completely).Sam Ash may indeed be,.. the Jazz Crossroads of the world,..and in 2009,.Things Ain't what they used to be.(people have been saying that phrase all the way back to bebop I've been told)..((shit,.after 10 years at tower records,.maybe I can put Retail Jail behind me))

Sam Ash is the equalizer.(I heard the NYC bike path called that once to).All sax players need REEDS,.violin players,.STRINGS,.and brass heads,.we need OIL,.(or Hot sauce,.used by Clark Terry)..Rich and famous or street Musician on the edge,.You might have to come on down and get what you need.Standing there trying to sell shit,.(sometimes really expensive horns),.I was able to stand right at these crossroads and observe NYC jazz today from a unique perspective.The free paper ALL ABOUT JAZZ that comes out every month does this to,.but not IN PERSON...

With my SUN in the 3rd house,.I can communicate with just about anyone,.even people that don't speak English,.and I rolled with the street cats up to the Big Dogs,.Except for a few people that I just didn't want to talk to,.((after what they did to a Love Supreme...I'll never forget the feeling in my stomach when I heard what JALC did to Trane's masterpiece.My SOUL told me,..that it was just WRONG...REALLY WRONG..Did these guys make a deal with the devil at the Jazz crossroads I wondered?))

At Sam Aah,.It was harder to relate to the real successful guys,Myself trying to Live a Career of Music since Jumpstreet.Part of me wanted to see if they were still down,.as people,.or if they placed themselves above everyone.Some people were still people,.and cool.Some others,..were straight up arrogant,.and yeah,.ignorant to.((I'll never forget when James Carter Dressed down a European guy trying to look big in front of his girlfriend by dressing down a Mark 6 alto I was showing him because of key extensions..."Melt this down,.It is not worth my time",.he told me.James was standing nearby,.and really went off on him for insulting the horn,.and the guy ran out of there with his tail between his legs!!)).There was this somewhat famous guitar player who dismissed Giuseppe Logan as an irrelevant street cat,.(man,.that got me tight.) I asked Giuseppe if he wanted to go see Ornette one time and he said,.."Rich man,.Poor Man,.what would I be supposed to say to him?",.That messed me up,.and I dropped the subject,.and had to reflect.There are people who have Lost everything chasing music.Some people wouldn't make a deal with the devil.Some People did,.and then paid the price.

Have some people figured out how to make a deal at the crossroads and come out ahead? There's a tenor player I know working a major NYC Jazz club damn near EVERY night,.for years,.when scores of guys are out there LOST in DOOR GIG land.(I found one of the Devil's cards there once)

Can trying to play creative music and survive drive you insane? I cant count the amount of people that came into Sam Ash that were actually MENTALLY ILL.I noticed that for some people like this,.music is all they have left to hold on to before they really just Lose their mind completely,.so they come by every day and Look at Music,.but they don't engage it.It's freaky,.but not deaky.Many people love to go right up to the point of getting an instrument and starting to play,.and then stopping,.where they just look at Music and talk about it for years.

jazz has been called,.."cRaZy people music,..and trying to be a jazz musician today is enough to push anybody towards the edge.want to be a new york jazz musician on HEROIN and LIVE THE DREAM? Try to do that shit in new york TODAY.the way new york is going,..any musician without some form of the hustle is going to find it harder and harder to get by at all,..and the truth is that the money people behind it all couldn't give a F***.its culture-destruction,..as the media and money people create the music AND musicians and then tell the people who to listen to with a media campaign.The same way that Mike DOOMberg just purchased a third term as mayor,.when there's only supposed to be 2 terms..The retail record business is now an abyss..(I saw TOWER go down in person).watch out barnes and noble,..BOOKS are next in line to get burned next to the GIANT CD PILE.like Mat Maneri said one time,.."there gonna call in an air strike on the knitting factory".(which kind of did happen to the knit,.jazz wise)..Here's thought,..IMAGINE all the money spent on YANKEE HATS went to Jazz? We might be able to turn this around,.or at least give Jazz a bath,.since somebody said recently,."Jazz ain't dead,.but it sure smells funny.."

What are you to do when you find yourself at the crossroads anyway? ((Like Sabir Mateen sings in TEST,."Are you gonna be ready?!,.when the moment comes?!,.are you gonna be there?!" )) Albert Ayler spoke of having to defeat demons that were after him,his Mother,and his brother.(DO find Albert Aylers record GOIN' HOME,.where he and Henry Grimes played in the DEVILS FACE.)

(((ill NEVER forget this FLAMENCO DANCE BATTLE i saw,..where a woman with breast cancer first DEFEATED the surgeons who wanted her breast,.only to have to then OUT-DANCE DEATH.a bottle was placed on a stool,..with the objective of DANCING closer and closer to the bottle.the bottle stays you live,...the bottle falls,.you DIE.When you step to the crossroads,.Death is watching,.believe it.)))

As for me,..I've spent almost 20 years working in jobs where I meet and see people that actually live quite well of off their own music.How does this go down? Is it meant to be? Are the people and the people with power,."just not into me?",.or just not ready for me? I'm cool,.Like Nelson Mandela said,."I'm not bitter.".(That eats you alive anyway).Still,.When I ask these questions,.all I get are instructions to head over to the crossroads..

"Hey Matt,..when your ready,.meet me at the crossroads.
come ALONE,.bring your TRUMPET.",..he whispers..(the address wasn't that far from where Bird used to live near the park).

ONE time he started talking right off the DEVIL TAROT card.

"Matt,...i know you can hear me..Stop talking all this shit
and come see me when you want to get SERIOUS".

"but i AM SIRIUS,"....i replied.

"you're are a clever moth*rfu**r* arent you? keep talkin SHIT."
(he felt like the emperor from star wars).

Me: "Tell you what man,.Let me get your cell phone number,.and maybe I'll send you a text..

"Tell me one more time,..about that BLUE NOTE CONTRACT."




**dedicated to CUICA master CAFE'.

**for Music to Listen to while you read this,.I might suggest,."Psychic Blues",.from my myspace player..Peace..