"Coltrane on Coltrane" by Steve Provizer

I just received a copy of the book Coltrane on Coltrane, edited by Chris DeVito. There are a number of interviews here-especially European and Japanese-that I'd never seen. Also, some good candids that I don't think had been published. Chris included an interview I did with Isadore Granoff, who ran the Granoff Studios in Philadelphia, where Trane got early musical training. Aside from an ego stake, I don't have a piece of the action and have no trouble shilling for it. The book is worth picking up.


In this post, I'll put "Coltrane On Coltrane" in the context of a previous posting about Jazz Neurosis.


Like many people-not just musicians-I have always felt as though I had an intense emotional bond with Trane. It might sound trite, but when I heard "A Love Supreme" at age 15, I had the first inkling of why someone-anyone-might understand the reason they've been put on the planet. I know many of you have similar stories.
"A Love Supreme" certainly presented a heightened version of the person John Coltrane, but it seemed to me, as I learned more about Trane's life, that it was not a trumped up public-image-conscious package. It was representative of who the man actually was. Interview after interview in "Coltrane On Coltrane" reaffirms that.


Music was obviously the core and driver of Trane's life, but despite romantic projections, that does not mean that his life was any less fraught than yours or mine. Apart from all the concerns of running a band, responsibility for recordings, touring and dealing with a family, he had to deal with an incessant barrage of often inane questions by the media. Throughout all of that, Trane's grace and humanity reassert themselves over and over. One simply marvels at Coltrane's patience and humility. Long after I know I would have thrown a mic stand at one of these interlocutors, Trane continues to find a way to respond that rescues them from the embarrassment of realizing how idiotic they are.


So, referring back to my post on neurosis and jazz-Yes, Coltrane was afflicted in a similar fashion. At the beginning of his career he emulated others, Bird and Lester especially, but by the mid-late 1950's, he'd begun the task of trying to clarify and externalize a sound inside his own head. And, wherever that sound moved, he had the courage to follow.


The miraculous aspect is that Coltrane was able to undertake this titanic psychic struggle seemingly without projecting any crap onto those around him-even after the deification process had begun. As history and many clay-footed gurus have shown us, that ain't easy.

Jung Man With A Horn- by Steve Provizer

When it comes to Hollywood doing jazz bio-pics, I prefer hagiography: The Goodman story, the Dorsey Story, the Miller story-they're just the Lindburgh story, Curie and Young Abe Lincoln stories with swing music. Fonda coulda been Miller and Stewart could been Lincoln. Greer Garson as Marian McPartland? Anyway, it's a nice, comfortable roll in the nostalgic hay. Why do those nut jobs in L.A. go all pseudo-egghead on us and decide they have to "explain" jazz? It's a formula for disaster.

Remember your initial excitement when you heard about "Round Midnight," and about "Bird"? Remember your disappointment after you saw them? Why didn't they let Dexter play anything up tempo!! Why did they make Bird a man-child!! Is every black man a tragic figure and every white man a dolt?

Possibly the most exasperating example of the genre is "Jung Man With a Horn." Sorry-Young Man. The insane ilk of psycho-babble that floats through this movie like celluloid arteriosclerosis is unmatched. Kirk Douglas/Bix Beiderbecke has "one wing" then falls for the broken pseudo-shrink Bacall who has a pet macaw? She smashes your 78's? I hate to see that; even if they're just Caruso on VIctor. You're right, Kirk/Bix, she is "dirty and twisted inside," while you-were-born-to-play-the-trumpet-and-can-only-communicate-through-that-damn-horn. Why, oh why do they try and foist off that juvenile premise: "I want to play the note that no one else has ever played?" Bejasus.

Don't ask me if the same 4th-class Freudianisms befoul the "Dorothy Baker novel of the same name." I can only deal with psychic effluvia in one genre at a time.

"Based on the life of Bix Beiderbecke"? My moldy toenail. Harry James, a fine player, is the film's "music adviser" and dubs the trumpet parts. Kirk Douglas pushes the trumpet valves convincingly and has the appropriate unyielding embouchure and convincing semi-ecstatic gleam in his eye. Unfortunately, Harry James' style bears as much resemblance to Bix's as, well-you finish the analogy. I don't want to sound churlish. Happily, the movie is quite informative for all you trumpet players out there, as there are at least 4 mentions of the loathsome "roll" in this movie. You know, where the mouthpiece gets too low on your lower lip? You better correct it pronto, or I will strap you in this comfy chair and force you to listen to cinematic dialogue about trumpet rolls until your chops fall off. There are good documentaries about jazz. Why is this music such an lousy fit in feature films?

A "Bad" Embouchure

The Voice and the Horn in Jazz--By Steve Provizer

Props to @JoshSinton for asking the question: "When did jazz musicians stop emulating singers and begin to emulate other instrumentalists?" It calls for more than a 140 character response...

The short answer is that they never stopped. It's an admixture and always has been.

Look at the popular music strains in America as they led to 20th century jazz. First, the vocal lineage. You're talking about minstrelsy, formal spiritual choruses with solos, theatre music, indigenous 'ethnic' folks songs, blues, shouts and 'parlor' singing, a la Stephen Foster. On the instrumental end, you had the banjo, guitar and piano accompaniment for that music. Then you had brass bands, pit bands, concert bands, plus the whole line of virtuoso pre-rag and ragtime pianists, as well as other instrumentalists whose enduring reputations bespeak a technical ability that clearly surpassed the norm.
For the sake of having to start somewhere, let's choose Buddy Bolden as the first (non pianistic) jazz exemplar of our premise. If I try to imagine myself back in that uncharted musical territory, standing in Bolden's shoes. it seems to me that the variations I played would be based on what I'd heard vocalists do, what I'd heard cornet or other (single-line) instrumentalists do and what the trumpet in my hands wanted me to do-what its technical parameters were.
From descriptions of his playing-and listening to the style of those who learned from him-Bunk Johnson, Freddie Keppard-what Bolden played was clearly elaborations on the blues and you know what? To this day, that's what horn players starting out continue to do.

The world ain't the same as it was then. The resources for anyone who would learn to improvise are like the difference between hitchhiking and climbing on the Space Shuttle. But were the decisions that Buddy Bolden had to make really that much different than the decisions anyone picking up the horn has to make right now-100 years later? We hear singers, we hear virtuoso instrumentalists. The instruments we play imprint themselves and create tendencies of interaction.

The human voice, for most of us, still has a compelling quality-and jazz pays homage to that through the truism that you can't play a ballad if you don't know the words.

Jazz and the Healthy Neurotic: How Can it Be Any Good if it Ain't That Hard?-by Steve Provizer

Hey! You with the dirty mind: I'm not talking about sex. I'm talking self-torture here-masochism, not sadism. In this jazz life, we are plagued by a foundational neurosis-to be revealed below-but let's start off with the happy thought that we have found-albeit unconsciously-healthy ways to try and de-fuse or re-articulate this neurosis. Here's what we say to ourselves: "No one gives a shit about this music. This society sucks." Then, if we do get a few people to care, the whole thing shifts a bit and we think: "I should be making a living out of this. No one really understands my genius, the sweat I've given. This society really sucks." But, swearing under the breath and bemoaning the rock-headedness of your fellow sapiens is good. It's solid sublimation; a healthy way to deal with what's underneath it all, the crux, the root neurosis: "Why can't I play like Clifford (Brown)? Why should I have to play like Clifford? I don't have to play like him. I can play like myself. Self-expression-yea, that's where it's at....Why can't I play like Clifford? Why should I have to play like Clifford? I don't have to play like him. I can play like myself. Self-expression-yea, that's where it's at...." Unending, unto eternity-the masochistic need to spend your days, your years, in pursuit of the chimera of creative resolution when there will never be a resolution. My observation is that-in or out of music-most jazz musicians aren't happy doing anything they can easily do. Ours is a personality type that must be wrestling with something just beyond our grasp. Any job we can do without a struggle is a job not worth bothering with. Any club that will let us join ain't worth the time. We work for years to make the high G and as soon as we get it, we gotta have a high Bflat. It's good that our partners force us to do things we can actually do-like hanging curtains, or figuring out on the bank checks which is the account number and which is the, you know, the other number. Of course these paltry victories inflate our egos to abominable dimensions, to the point that the distaff side tells us to just go away and get back to our damn practicing. The usual self-medications-scotch, pills, dope-have unpredictable side-effects. But fear not, friends and fellow sufferers. Even as you read this, Brilliant Corners jazz neurologists are sequestered in our gleaming lab, synthesizing a fool-proof 12-step plan, guaranteed to turn that bed of nails into a bed of roses---and 100,000 $.99 downloads of your latest masterpiece.

Abbey Lincoln-"Throw It Away"-by Steve Provizer

I've been a real intellectual yente for the last several posts. I hope those posts have not been without emotional weight, but the death of Abbey Lincoln makes me want to write a piece where emotion leads and analysis creeps along far behind. In the late 1960's, I went to the old WGBH studios to see her then-husband Max Roach record a TV show. I didn't think twice about the fact that she was also performing. I was dazzled initially by her looks, but her voice was much more charismatic than I expected, given the recordings I'd heard. The voice was cloudy, but not smoky; carrying some vibratto, but not a heavy load. Sometimes the edges were sharp, sometimes rounded. She gave songs character and obviously chose material that could handle that investment. Soon after, she went into a period of seclusion, and re-emerged in the 1990's. Then, in 1995, she released the lp "Turtles' Dream." On that album was a song called "Throw It Away" which caught me completely off guard and which remains sui generis in my life. You've heard me say that concerts have made me scream. Movies can sometimes bring a tear, but I never cry to music; except for that damn song. Incredibly, 15 years later, it still has the power to evoke the same intense reaction. Most of the time, I actually try to avoid it, because if I hear it, the rest of the day becomes mere prelude or postlude. On the other hand, when something intense is happening in my life, and I can't get to the emotional root, I seek it out. It burns away the bullshit. You can find the song here and the lyrics here.

The Cortex and The Booty-by Steve Provizer

This is Your Brain on Music

The brass band I play with has been talking about the Asphalt Orchestra. In their videos, they seem to be having a great time, engaging the crowd, playing interesting, offbeat music (apart from New Orleans stuff, arrangements of Zappa, Bjork...). On the other hand, a band-mate saw them on the plaza at Lincoln Ctr. over the weekend and described them as "appealing more to the intellect than wanting to make you dance."

Meanwhile, back in Boston, I was sitting in on trumpet with a friend's rock band. I only knew one song we played: The Weight, by The Band. The others were songs that I'd either heard once or not at all. I was "the horn section," which is how trumpet or sax is thought of in that context. In each song, the band made a few bars space for me to solo- I liked being forced to think in bite-sized chunks. Otherwise, I just played little back-up riffs. It was Rock, people danced to it. I loved the response.

So, Rock and the Asphalt Orchestra; music leaning toward the body or the mind, with one organ still waiting to be put in the scenario. Right. The heart. Where does that little muscle fit? What's the delicate balance between the cortex and the booty that needs to be achieved so that each gets the orgasm it deserves?

Probably the moment of most intense musical mind/body fusion for me was a show I heard in the 19?'s with Pharoah Sanders at the Village Vanguard. After a while, you just stopped listening and surrendered, as Pharoah pulled you at 90 miles an hour down a sandpaper highway. The more you released, the more joyous the trip. The energy of the audience was raised to the point where the only thing we could do was start pounding on the tables, howling like banshees.

I know that some construct of "mind" must have been present or my body would not have responded-I'm too hard-headed (or too "schooled")-but it's the response of my body that remains vivid.

Why is that unity so elusive? In the pursuit of complexity in harmony and form, what, if anything, has jazz sacrificed in terms of its appeal to the body? Is "swing" just another word for the right balance?

Tyner-In-Amber or: Jazz and the Kali Yuga-by Steve Provizer

Hindus break up history into extremely long time spans. We're nearing the culmination of the Kali Yuga, an era of dissolution and breakdown that sets the stage for the next cycle of rebirth. It's always easy to believe you're living in a period of dissolution-it's part of a golden age/nostalgia spiral that's very appealing to the homo sapiens. But even if you don't buy the Hindu cycle concept, it seems reasonable to assume there are larger forces at work. "A divinity that shapes our ends"? Maybe. I think of it as an accretion of cultural/political/biological/cosmological details that dwarf us and our hair-brained diversions. This concept, at the least, offers another way into questions such as why jazz tools, like McCoy's particular use of harmony, pentatonics, etc. no longer seem, for lack of a better word, applicable.

The old saw is that an artist has to be "of his time." This is particularly an active principle in the world of painting, which puts "newness" near the top of the value scale. For me, a better idea is "rootedness;" the illusory quality that makes art seem both of its time and timeless.

How do you know what has or lacks this quality of rootedness? Maybe start by noting when you don't see, hear or feel it. Watching great young musicians who have worked thousands of hours mastering this incredibly complex harmonic and rhythmic music jazz (yes, I left out melodic-that's a different post)), I marvel, even wallow vicariously, in their technique, but I say to myself: poor bastards. This is not their time. It's not, as some of my friends say, an issue of education or exposure and it's certainly not to insult the honest effort of jazz musicians. I'm simply saying that the tools they draw on-such as those developed by Tyner-appear to be impotent in the face of the power, energy and momentum of this epoch-whether or not you call it the Kali Yuga. Like all of us, these musicians are suspended in a magnetic field; one that seems to consign their music to the margins, but which is simply dancing its way through destruction to re-emergence. I know a piece as ambiguous as this will be subject to wide misinterpretation. Some will say: "is he telling us jazz musicians should sell out? No. Frankenstinian attempts to graft on the kind of music that many people do like are ludicrous. Or: "are you saying the Jazz Blog Industry should shut down?" Shoot no-I'd be out of a non-job. And if you say to me: "Alright, smart guy, what resources and tools are you then asking musicians to draw on," I can only say: self-awareness, which is no kind of answer at all. Then again, I'm just the guy who's standing in a dark room, with enough insight to know he's in there, but who is too stupid or riven by habit to know how to do anything except continue to confuse a rope for a snake.

What, Me Worry? McCoy Tyner and the Pentatonic Scale-by Steve Provizer

It may be the most ubiquitous scale in the world and arguably the oldest. Anywhere in the world, when someone carves a flute, plucks a string or twangs a piece of metal they inevitably stumble into some variation of a 5-note-pentatonic-scale. It sounds good. It offers simplicity, yet potential for tension and relaxation. You can use it to create chants, melodies and twist it to suit your fancy. The blues, early jazz, then rock, are all about the pentatonic, with a few altered notes for good effect. But kids, in the early 1960's, something happened to pentatonic and its name was McCoy Tyner. The change was rooted in necessity-an uneasy adaptation to 'free' jazz, as I'll describe below. But 45 years later, reverberations from the changes wrought by the gifted Tyner are still ringing and for me, a re-evaluation, fresh ears and new adaptations are called for. Back in the 1960's, the question McCoy had to ask himself was: What do you do if you're playing a fixed-pitch instrument with someone(Coltrane) who has left the diatonic and chromatic restrictions of Western music behind; who has essentially bid adieu to the harmony that underlay jazz for the last-say-50 years. The answer, of course, is to find a way to fit in. McCoy's approach, his strategy, his solution, was to alter his playing so that the harmony he played was based on "perfect" intervals-4ths and 5ths-and yes, in this most sophisticated of musics, the musical scale this most accommodated was our old friend, the 'primitive' pentatonic scale. In McCoy's"open" harmony, almost anything could happen. Notes "not on the horn," as they say, could be at least partly accommodated. There was a transitional period when it seemed to work for Coltrane and other times when he asked McCoy to lay out. As the texture of Trane's music grew even denser, just changing the harmony wasn't enough and McCoy used another creative approach: shift the weight of the piano from melody and harmony to percussion. Pedal tones were one good way to do that-you could really land on those suckers-but it meant harmony was still in the mix. McCoy pushed percussiveness as far as he was comfortable, but he was not Cecil Taylor. Eventually, the fabric of Trane's music grew so dense that accompaniment as usually understood became superfluous. Ok-I've strayed. Pushing the piano's percussive envelope is a question for another time. It's the widespread leakage of McCoy's harmonic approach into the general language of jazz that feels off; like the kid who's too old, but shows up at the playground anyway and doesn't fit in the swing; kinda like Jelly Roll Morton's "Spanish Tinge" run amok. Come to think of it, let's play a Latin tune; Blue Bossa, maybe.

The Jazz Seduce-O-Meter (PG-17)-by Steve Provizer

Friends, I have seen the error of my ways and apologize for the sarcastic tone of my recent post on the scientific link between sex and jazz. Looking back at my own experience dispassionately, I see there is in fact a clear link between people's sex lives and their musical taste. "Getz-Gilberto" is guaranteed to get anyone into your bed faster and more efficiently than, say, Black Flag. That is statistically indisputable. 

So, in the spirit of stretching this scientific inquiry to the breaking point, I have created "The Jazz Seduce-O-Meter"-JSOM-designed to help you maximize your musical dollar in order to fully leverage the sexiness of the jazz mystique. Your goal is to reach 10 points. Ten points guarantees results. Understand that each Jazz Seduce-O-Meter must be tailored to your specific demographic**. Here is the Boomer version (abridged): Bossa Nova: +4 Miles Davis Birth of the Cool: +3 Miles Davis Kind of Blue: +4 Miles Davis muted, playing ballads: +3 Any other Miles: -4 Sinatra w. Dorsey: +3 Sinatra w. Stordahl: +3 Sinatra w. Paul Anka: -10 Coltrane w. Johnny Hartman: +4 Coltrane Ballads: +3 Any other Coltrane: -5 Organ Trios: -2 ECM Records: +2 Bill Evans: +3 Anything "With Strings:" -1 Third Stream Music: +-0 Avant-garde jazz of any kind: -10 **Keep your eye on your demographic. A knowledgeable source sends this warning: Gilberto doesn't work with punker chicks - "what is this shit? I'm supposed to like this? or what?" 

Mix and match as much as you like, just stay away from the negative numbers and please! Avoid those screeching saxophones at all cost. Let us know whether the Jazz Seduce-O-Meter has worked for you! All we ask here at Seduction Central is that you not name your first born "Cannonball."

"Operators" Are Standing By-by Steve Provizer

Some have castigated the recent alliance between Sony and the Miles Davis estate which offers "A mouthpiece replica of exactly the 'Gustat' Heim 2 model used by Davis especially created by Kanstul," t-shirts and other fascinating items. They even throw in 43 cd's. In fact, those corporate giants don't go nearly far enough in offering a package that can truly bring fans closer to their favorite artists. I have therefore forged a metaheuristic liaison with certain Ukranian businessmen and am delighted to be able to offer the Deluxe Louis Armstrong Simulacrum Kit, composed of:

1. A copy of the gun Armstrong shot off to get sent to the Colored Waif's Home for Boys.
2. A facsimile of the original sisal belt Armstrong used to hold up his pants while delivering coal.
3. A lump of coal.
4. Two half-used packages of Swiss Kriss.
5. A set of 10 designer "do-rags" created in honor of Satchmo's 100th anniversary.
6. An "I Hate Bebop" pin, allegedly worn by Armstrong at an Elks Club meeting in Sept. 1952.
7. A glassene envelope containing a half ounce of muggles that Armstrong forgot he even had.

Act today and we will throw in a re-engineered recording of Armstrong's solos with the King Oliver band, with the rest of that rickety group stripped off and replaced by the same excellent studio musicians Eastwood used to replace Potter, Roach and Haig in the movie "Bird." So act now. Our 'operators' are standing by. It's not re-animation, but it's pretty damn close.

Safety In Numbers-by Steve Provizer

The trigger for this was reading that today is Annie Ross' birthday. As far as I'm concerned (and it's a safe bet no one else is), there has never been a greater female 'parts' singer than Annie. Not just parts, but the vocalese solos she sang with Lambert and Hendricks. Fantastic range, intonation and phrasing. I never saw her live, but her recorded work isn't in the same league. There's a lot of ancillary reasons-inferior accompaniment and repertoire among them, but her voice was her voice and, in the end, she simply stopped compelling attention when she sang on her own. Jazz history is full of people who could arguably be put into that category. Does their work suddenly lose all merit when they step out and take on a heavier career burden? Of course not. But, ironically, their identities as musicians were the result of playing relationships with other, more "leader"-type musicians, or found within the safety of a larger ensemble. Here are some possibilities: A number of people away from Ellington-Webster, Cootie, Hodges, Cat Anderson; Basie people fared a bit better, I think (Did Herschel ever record on his own?); Junior Cook away from Horace Silver; some Mingus guys-Knepper, Curson, Hillyer; did Wynton Kelly ever sound as good as he did with Miles? Art Farmer worked less well without the Jazztet... For each, there's a different set of explanations for why they achieved some kind of synergy with a person or group and why moving away from that, to some degree, seemed to dissipate their musical power. I'm curious to see how the Royal Readership responds to those I've mentioned as well as its suggestions about others who fit this pattern.

All Hail the Jazz Super-Stud-by Steve Provizer

Lana and Artie

Pity the poor jazz musician. For about 75 years we were branded with a kind of anti-hero cultural status. To live up to that, we coughed up scores of booze-soaked and heroin-riddled deaths. Some-Artie Shaw, Harry James-were forced to march-step through scores of glamorous divorces. After that, the pressure eased off a bit. When people paid any attention at all, they saw us as only minor cultural anomalies, with a soupcon of romanticism; just enough to use in cigarette ads. Today, there's something new to deal with. A recent study says we're Kings of the Sexual Jungle. Actually, the study says King Stud would be an agnostic, butt-smoking, black, jewish, atheist jazz musician. But is that what people are seeing? No. They only see the jazz musician part. Quelle burden. Now, all those darlint servers are gonna be so distracted by our fauvist magnetism they will start spilling whiskey sours over the clientele right in the middle of our steamy renditions of Cherokee. I hope my fellow jazzers don't buy into the hype and start actually having more sex. Or worse still, playing more ballads. So please, out there in cyberspace, stop burdening us with the label of superstud. Wait. What's that you say? It's only jazz tweeters and jazz websites that are actually talking about this? Well, that's a relief. Then it's just wish-fulfillment; like that study due out soon about jazz musicians as big earners.

Dexter's Swingin' Lifestyle

Life, Death, Resurrection and the Cornet-by Steve Provizer

--> During a recent Nat Adderly listening session, I thought “Why play this style on cornet and not trumpet?” I was thinking of the cliched perception of the cornet, as personified by cornet greats Oliver, Bix, Bobby Hackett, Jimmy McPartland et al. The cornet sound is theoretically mellower and rounder than a trumpet’s. The horns have the same length of tubing, but the cornet is squashed together a little more and most important, has more conical tubing than a trumpet, which has a cylindrical bore until it flares approaching the bell. The cornet mouthpiece emphasizes this difference. No scientist I, but I assume the acoustic difference may be that the wave form is less sawtooth and more sine. But think Adderly, Ruby Braff, Thad Jones and Warren Vache. Think Olu Dara and Graham Haynes if you want. To some degree, these guys have all broken the bounds. When they play long tones, you hear the difference in the horns (especially with Vache's vibrato), but essentially, these guys play the cornet like it was a trumpet, with brilliance, fire and a lot of upper register. Adderly emphasizes the blues and funk, Ruby the swing, Thad newer harmony, Daru and Graham the sonics and Vache facility all over the horn.

Herb

The evolution of a horn is an interesting thing. The cornet was the locus of technical innovation through the 19th c. while the trumpet was still thought of as it was in the Baroque period: a long tube with holes and little else. In 19th c. concert bands-feeder for brass-centric jazz-the cornets played the melody (The star was Herbert Clarke, whose technique books trumpet players still use) and the trumpets essentially played fanfare parts. Trumpet manufacturers began to catch on and applied cornet innovations around the turn of the century, but Jazz was an ensemble music and cornet worked better. Louis and Bix both played the cornet, but eventually, Armstrong stretched the limits of the cornet to the breaking point and switched to trumpet in 1927 for the Hot Seven recordings. The cornet lost ground and never caught up, except for "Dixieland" or "trad" players. For brass doublers, the pendulum swung hard to the hyper-mellow fluegelhorn. Me, I would rather hear a cornet. So, in a bizarre way, Nat, Ruby, Thad and company brought the cornet-trumpet cycle all the way back around. Where once Armstrong broke through the limits of the cornet to get to the trumpet, they did the reverse.

The Infernal Vuvuzela, Scarcity and The Breath-by Steve Provizer

The World Cup has resuscitated the vuvuzela, formerly known to us boomers as "can I have one of those big horns?" These horns (always red) stuck out the top of the 2-wheeled carts dragged along by guys working the crowds at parades and ballparks. They also had banners, mylar balloons and the industrious ones had cut deals with other vendors to sell popcorn. But the horns were the most expensive and highly-prized tchochkes. Browbeating a parent into buying one was an all-day effort. To quote myself on Facebook: "I'm sure now that people have experienced the melodic limitations of the vuvuzela, they will flock to study the trumpet." Of course, this is the same category of cluelessness inhabited by people who are sure that sampling say, Michael Henderson, in your hip hop track will bring the kids around to listening to jazz. But this infernal device did evoke thoughts about the power of limited means. Wha? Listen: I had a friend who played the piano. He came from a rich family. He refused to go to a gig where they wanted him to play any kind of piano but a grand. No electric, spinet or upright for him...I'll just sit here for a few minutes steaming as I remember all the music I've heard made on crappy pianos by Tatum, Bud, James P.-basically any great jazz pianist. It stands to reason you don't want to sit down to play a piano with no F# above middle C, with the top octave sounding like the broken works of a cheap music box, or with a sustain pedal that sounds like it's harboring a family of mice. But that's what you got. You take it as a challenge to figure out work-arounds. Maybe it forces you to use new patterns and you discover a riff you never knew existed. Maybe it pisses you off so much you give up trying. Of course, that would mean no payday-and no music. People act amazed at the great music played by people who made banjos out of cereal boxes, or drums out of spackle containers or oil drums. Not me. The investment almost pre-determines that if the music's in you, you'll work hard enough to get it out. Now, you ain't making great music with the infernal vuvuzela, but you are putting enough breath into a column to agitate the standing waves and engage the harmonic series. That puts you closer to the many musicians who made somethin' from nothin' than to the people who buy Martin Committee horns and hang them on their den walls. Breathing is always a good thing. And you gotta breathe to work the vuv.

Sweet, Hot and Smooth@-by Steve Provizer

Sometimes people don't know a good, no, a brilliant idea when it bites' em on the tweet. Alex W. Rodriguez @arodjazz was looking for advice on how to write a "smooth jazz" chapter for his jazz curriculum and I suggested he trace its roots back to the age-old dichotomy between "sweet" and "hot" jazz (Notice the copyright mark on the title-shows what a good idea it is). He didn't bite on it, but I am. It's a potentially juicy area for exploration: Bert Williams-hot or sweet? James Europe wasn't sweet, but could you really call him hot? George Benson: when did it happen?) Of course, it's also an impossibly large question for the likes of me, but Gap-toothed sitemaster Chris would pop me in the chops if I didn't run with it (This is all good insider stuff, by the way, but you're paying big money for access, so why not). In the pop world, there was probably always a definable split between sweet and hot. You had parlor music/popular song (sweet), blues (hot), ragtime/cakewalk/minstrel/vaudeville/black theatre (in-between), marches (more or less sui generis). Then, by the teens, "jazz" (hot). Note the large category not easily defined as either one or the other. No doubt musicians were aware of what their audience wanted (their "demo" we modern hucksters would say) and were fluid as necessary. Sometimes a person sang some folk; sometimes some blues-stands to reason. Vaudeville billed itself as family-friendly, but hot performers came out of there. Did they wait until they left to start being hot? Seems doubtful. With the over-generalized style practiced by a blogger who wants to hold his audience, I mean, given our space limitations, it's not possible to parse what happened before "jazz." It seems more reasonable to tackle the issue of Sweet, Hot and Smooth@ by starting in the late teens, when the word 'jazz' began to stick and denote something pretty specific. Sidebar to researchers: It would be interesting to know the extent to which the use of the label "jazz"was media-driven or a collective decision-spoken or unspoken-on the part of its practitioners. Until that time, we shall struggle ahead, picking up our investigation next time with: "Jazz Cage Match@ Part the First: Fletcher 'Hatchet' Henderson vs. 'Grapplin' Guy Lombardo."

Sweet, Hot and Smooth Roots-by Steve Provizer

Now, ladies and gents, the promised jazz cage scrap between Fletcher 'Hatchet' Henderson and 'Grapplin' Guy Lombardo, or should we say, the familias Henderson and Lombardo. It's tag team, as both come brothered-up, but Fletcher and Horace are outgunned by the Lombardo mob: Guy, Carmen, Liebert and Victor.

Henderson does higher ed. and pledges Alpha Phi Alpha at Atlanta U. At the same time, the Lombardos rehearse a grammar school orchestra in the back of their dad's tailor shop. That puts them ahead in the early rounds, as they turn pro in the teens.

Henderson, however, comes on strong and is the first to score in NYC, forming an orchestra in 1922 and getting good gigs at Club Alabam and the Roseland.

The sweet and hot waters are muddy.

Henderson's arrangements at this point are as much Whiteman as anything else. His is a social dance band with a blues tinge. Meanwhile, Lombardo records for jazz label Gennett in early 1924 and there's not a hell of a lot of difference between those recordings and early Henderson. Late 1924 marks the real split. The Lombardo boys start "The Royal Canadians" and Louis Armstrong joins the Henderson crowd. First knockdown goes to the Royal Canadians, as they implement a strong PR strategy, using the tag line: "The Sweetest Music This Side of Heaven." Even if the sobriquet 'sweet' has been in general use, it starts to get burnished to a high cultural gleam by the Royal Canadians. When Armstrong joins Henderson in 1924, he brings the heat. Henderson and fellow arranger Don Redman respond by creating arrangements that allow the Armstrong fire to shine in a large ensemble context. Soloists like Hawkins hear Louis and join the fray. As the boys in the quarterlies would say, this is the juncture at which Henderson and Lombardo self-differentiate; in the process, creating more distinguishable sweet and hot streams in popular music. A quick retrospective follow-up reveals the following: Henderson's band nurtured jazz stars and the new idea of what large-ensemble jazz arranging could be. He couldn't keep the band together and mostly lived off arrangements he'd originally done for his 20's band that the Goodman band scored big with a decade later. The Royal Canadians go on to sell somewhere between 100-300 million records and become the musical face of New Year's Eve in America. Just sayin'. Next Time on JazzGrudgeMatch2010@: All in the Family-"Dorsey vs. Dorsey."

A Cylindrical Paper Cup Filled with Booze-by Steve Provizer

John Coffey

Way back in the Lost Hang post, I said I'd fill in the details about my trumpet lessons with John Coffey. Here goes.

My first trumpet teacher came to the house. A big jolly man, he reached down, patted his butt and said to me, "Now, you can tell your jughead friends this, but don't tell your mother. When you play, you gotta press down like you're fartin'. See what I mean?"


After this, my parents got the name of John Coffey and off I went. The MTA (then MBTA, then T) stop near Coffey's studio was "Symphony." The smell of urine, decades of grime and bums laid out on the benches told you that no one expected the chi-chi crowd going to Symphony was gonna get there by subway.

Coffey's studio was on the second floor of a building on Huntington Ave., right across the street from Symphony Hall. On the first floor was a clothing store that sold yellow shoes, wide brimmed hats and pleated pants. I don't think the boys in the BSO were frequent shoppers; maybe the guys who played around the corner at Wally's.

Coffey looked like one of the presidents you couldn't identify. He was robust a la Grover Cleveland, had a shock of white hair, trombone-player jowls, Tommy Dorsey glasses and a voice that combined the sweetness of the southerner with the growl of the lifelong smoker. His studio was vast, with a large entry room, a small "warmup" room on one end, and an unseen office at the other. Every room had shelving squeezed into every available space and squeezed into the shelving were instruments for sale. Lining the walls were hundreds of photographs of John with Koussevitsky (for whom he played), with Jack Benny (for whom he played and to whom he passed his violin from the pit in vaudeville); John with every mythical creature that a knowing 12 year old could imagine. In the middle of the space was a small room for lessons. 

Coffey's trombone sat on a stand, an ancient encrustation of congealed saliva covering his mouthpiece; the wooden floor beneath stained by decades of emptied spit-valves. The lessons were supposed to be half an hour. In fact, we were usually interrupted at least 4 times. I was glad. I stunk and every minute of the lesson, I was embarrassed by my ineptitude. Usually the interruption was a musician who was in the neighborhood and just wanted to say hi or check out a horn. Occasionally something more august, like the entire trombone section of the BBC Orchestra, would come in. On those occasions, John would light up a smoke, reach under his seat, pull out a bottle and fill the little paper cups at the water fountain with a snort for the boys.

My fate, it seems, was sealed. Don't misunderstand me. I'm on record as being anti-nostalgia (except w. Fats Navarro), so I propose the preceding as a cautionary tale. Parents: Don't hyper-investigate the musical influences in your kid's life. And kids-whatever you do, don't go home and tell your parents how cool your lesson was. You'll never get back there again. Your lifetime earnings may go up, but your life will be poorer.