Getting on the Jason Moran Bandwagon, Part II

So just about the time I was really getting into Jason Moran's Bandwagon, another friend noted in a post I wrote on jazz resources that she had run into Moran's Modernistic via the New Yorker and it was beautiful. Coincidence? I think not. So that was the next album to try out and it was a great next step as we moved from the more aggressive live sound to a more intimate solo album which contains a number of the pieces off Bandwagon, although in a very different form.

Now to take a slight detour, David Alder (who is someone to follow if you don't) recently started a bit of a debate with his post on Covers vs. Standards when he argued that we shouldn't dismiss jazz players who focus on "covers" which are an important component of both keeping the form alive and of mastering the form. Alder suggests that currently the pendulum of tradition vs. innovation might be swinging too far toward the modern, experimental music--at least in terms of who is getting recognized. It was funny as I read the post because I was thinking how well Moran keeps a foot in each camp and that Modernistic was a perfect example of this.

I am not disagreeing with Alder (although the discussion about artists like Moran not playing standards seemed a miss, at least in Moran's case) but rather to say that his post highlighted something I love about Moran--and noted in the first part: his breadth. But not just that he ranges across genre and style, but that he is so clearly grounded in jazz and plays with both beautiful technique and skill.

Modernistic opens with a wonderful arrangement of Jame P. Johnson's "You've Got to be Modernistic" which shows of Moran's wonderful stride piano work, followed by a beautiful rendering of "Body and Soul"--hello! We then shift into the more funky part of the album, starting with a brilliant version of the 80's Afrika Bambaata's rap tune "Planet Rock." and then back into an introspective section, and so it continues. Originals mixed with "covers," stride to funk, standards to classical, but all tied together in an absolutely beautiful album all laid out on just piano and mini piano.

To give you a sense of the album, which you can pick up straight from Blue Note, here are three tracks. First the opening title track if you will--just because I love when he does the stride thing and this is such a fabulous opening track. Then we skip to later in the album for a pair of tunes that show the other two main styles on the disc. First in "Gangsterism on a Lunchtable" you get an spacey, funky exploration--with the help of some interesting instrumentation that someone will have to explain to me--that is Copeland-esque in both tune and phrasing, but all jazz. This is followed by a beautiful take on Robert Schumann's "Auf Einer Burg/In A Fortress" that makes you realize Moran could be a wholly different type of piano player if he chose to be. In short, it is all good.

You've Got To Be Modernistic

Gangsterism On A Lunchtable

Einer Burg/In A Fortress

This is an album that should be in everyone's collection and made me wonder if Jason Moran might not be the best young pianist and composer out there right now. A question I leave to those with more knowledge and awareness of all that is out there, but it is hard to not see him up there near the top of the list.

Friday Haiku

Winter weekend comes

Luxurious anticipation . . .

Friday, coffee, bliss

Fantasy SOTU

It really is less about last night's speech and more about the whole enterprise that is the state of the union address colored by my current attitude about where we are at as a country and what is being done about that. With that caveat, here are a few things I would have liked to have heard as part of the address.

• Dear members of congress: Sit down and shut up. If you haven't noticed, things are pretty shitty out there for a lot of Americans and we continue to not be able to do enough to help them, so I don't think we have a lot to be applauding--especially not every 30 seconds.
• Oh, and can we all take the smug looks off our faces. We had enough of that for the last eight years and besides it just makes people think we're assholes--I'm talking to you mister curiously tan minority leader.
• This is supposed to be a report on the state of the union, not the potential state of the union, so I am not going to announce a whole set of new ideas implying that just because I said them here they are going to ever happen given how long it takes us to do anything. Instead I am going to focus on what is at hand and what needs done. Did I mention things are pretty shitty out there right now?
• Hey ladies, what did you think of that new Apple iPad? Nice name, huh?
• Speaking of ladies, I am going to give a nod to the first lady tonight without cracking flirty little jokes that frame her as a high schooler who can't handle the spotlight like her man can.
• Also thought it might be interesting to acknowledge the need for a strong union movement in this country since the work of their members is what led to my administration and this Congress and as far as I can tell we haven't really acknowledged that or done anything legislatively to improve the right to organize.
• Wow, there really is a lot of red and purple going on tonight--did we change our colors and nobody told me?
• To my colleagues in the Senate. Since most of you are millionaires already--would you mind sharing a little of the wealth so at least a few folks could eat and see a doctor? Mighty white of ya.
• Oh and yo, white people, I am now going to drop a little dialect on you so Chris Matthews remembers I am an African-American.

Enough for now. Perhaps more later.

Getting on the Jason Moran Bandwagon, Part I

Somewhere about a year ago, a friend from college days noted that he had been listening to Jason Moran and, in fact, had seen him in concert. He said "not to be corny, but it was more like a journey than a concert." Now, this is a person who is a musician, was a composition major in college and, most importantly, was the guy who once gave me a similar description of Keith Jarrett before he dropped The Köln Concert on me. Yeah, so given that track record, who isn't going to go buy a Jason Moran album? But what album I asked. "Well," says musical friend, it "was a piece called Intermezzo off his album Bandwagon" that got him interested.

And so, that is where I began--although I have subsequently picked up several others, so I am going to write about these in the order I experienced them rather than in the order in which they were released.

When I first got the disc and put it in and the intro played followed by the first track "Another One" which is a pretty raucous affair, I had my doubts. Then comes "Intermezzo" which is actually a piece by Brahms--which is beautiful--followed by a whole host of tunes nothing like it. Now granted, I wasn't really attending to the disc as I should have been the first time thourgh, but I was left with the impression that the Brahms piece was the exception and reminded of the fact that my musical friend also loves the modern, dissonant stuff and I feared this was just not going to be my cup o' jazz.

But, I let it sit a couple weeks and then started playing it in places and at times when I could listen more carefully and a very different impression emerged. Here was someone who could range from Brahms to hip-hop oriented tunes, to beautiful delicate jazz ballads, to straight up bop, to swinging jazz standards. And the range and variation somehow manages to work in a way that produces an album that manages to not only hang together but also create, yes, a journey.

This is someone who uses voice and recordings in a way that makes the music rich and textured not gimicky. Moran is someone who not only has wonderful articulation on the right hand as skips across the keys, but who has wonderful left hand work that almost always has a stride feel to it or on more lyrical pieces big deep chords that resonate throughout the whole piece. That left hand rhythm work is aided by two talented musicians, Tarus Mateen on bass and Nasheet Waits on drums, both who drive the upbeat tunes primarily on the low ends of their respective instruments and delicately float through the softer pieces.

Bandwagon is a live affair so it has more pieces that are boppin' than chilled, but the balance is still wonderful. Just to give you a sense of that, here are two samples. I have to give you the Intermezzo, right, which speaks for itself. That is followed (here and on the record) by "Ringing My Telephone (Straight Outta Istanbul)" which exemplifies Moran's great use of voice.

Intermezzo, Op. 18, No. 2

Ringing My Telephone (Straight Outta Istanbul)

There is a whole lot more to say, but since, as I noted above, my experience with this album led to several other Moran albums, I will save some commentary for my discussion of those. If you like this one, you can buy the album here, or an autographed copy here.

Happy 5th Birthday Captain!

Tomorrow the Captain has a birthday that we have been celebrating all weekend and I didn't want to miss it here in the mess that will be tomorrow (otherwise known as Monday). Captain, how old did you say you were going to be?

Oh right, 5.

A high five!


Say goodbye.


Friends and family know where to get the details.

What Is My Body Telling Me?

It started yesterday morning--a hint of a sore throat, feeling a little tired, but there was still hope that having committed to getting back on a running schedule after metaphorically falling of the treadmill for a few months, my body was just saying slow down a bit, your old and out of shape.

But it got worse by mid-day. Again, perhaps just needed a bit more fuel and some hot tea. That lasted for about a nano-second and by late afternoon I was pretty miserable--tired, constricted throat, etc. I tried to to blame it on another dreadful planning meeting for an upcoming conference, but even after limping home, seeing the family, watching a few Hitler movies (that usually does the trick), nursing myself with a little of the usual and getting some dinner, nothing had improved. I was toast. My body was simply saying, your sick dude.

Great.

Then again perhaps my body knew that this news was coming out today and it just was trying to keep me off the roads for the sake of my mental health since really sleeping of a sickness really is in some ways preferable to commuting to attend irritating meetings, right?

Nap time.

Special Delivery: Prefab Sprout Exposed

So back during the holidays, College Roomy delivered, not 1, not 2, not 3, but 10 discs to my mailbox. This wasn't just a delivery of a lot of music, but a lot of music that is right in my listening wheel-house (I guess no real surprise given how well CR knows me). The delivery included classic jazz artists like Thad Jones, Eddie Harris and Steve Kuhn (amazingly three artists I had nothing by); Joe Henry's jazz infused Scar which I might have mistakenly chosen to not go back and get (it is a wonderful effort); a couple great solo piano albums, one by Richie Beirach at Maybeck the other Gabriela Montero's Piano Recital; and a few others including Van Morrison's wonderful Live Astral Weeks at the Hollywood Bowl.

But the album that took me by most surprise in someway, probably because I thought I knew (even owned) the album, was a classic 80's disc, Steve McQueen by Prefab Sprout. The original, which was released in the U.S. as Two Wheels Good, came out at a time that might not be thought of as the height of good music. Prefab's style, in some ways, fits into that less-than-memorable era of smooth-wave, British techno-pop, but this album stands out despite the musical tendencies of that era. That said, this disc might have been relegated to the shelves along with many fine memories of college music were it not for CR's special delivery.

The key here is that in 2007, Prefab re-masters and re-releases McQueen, but this time with a bonus disc of frontman Paddy McAloon, playing and singing most of the songs accousticly. The originals are all wonderfully jazzy tunes that are better than most pop (aided by Thomas Dolby's production of the original album), but these acoustic versions drive that point home. As Pitchfork points out:

One thing the new versions do highlight is the astonishing maturity of the songs. Coincidentally, almost all of Dolby choices dated from 1979, when Paddy was 22. Yet they sound all the more appropriate sung by a man of 50.

The point here is that this was a very good album in the 80's, still is, and these bonuses brought me back to the album as more than just an album from college days. And the reissue is well worth your while if you don't already have this one.

Here are a couple originals paired with the acoustic versions. The opening track of the album Faron Young isn't my favorite, but it is a great first track and gives you a sense of one type of song on the album. Appetite is the more common type song on the album and shows off what I believe are the strengths of the album. Enjoy!

Steve McQueen: Legacy Edition / Prefab Sprout: Buy the Album

Faron Young

Appetite

Faron Young (acoustic version)

Appetite (acoustic version)

Avett Brothers Backwards, Part II (long overdue)

To say that I have a backlog of potential posts on music in my mind would be quite the understatement. When I re-formulated the blog to include more than just music, I thought this would allow me to post more regularly with music mixed in, but somehow music posts always take longer and I don't seem to get to them. But I will not give in! Post even shorter, even less-insightful posts about music? Sure. Give in? Never!

So let's start with the fact that it has been since last Halloween (as in two and a half months, several blizzards, and a host of holidays ago) that I posted Part I of this supposed two part post on the Avett Brothers. (As The Engineer would say: sheesh!) If you can recall that far back, I noted that I had not owned any music by these fine musicians and was in the process of exploring them startng with their most recent album first and working backwards. Payton commented (back on the dreaded WordPress blog) that he hoped the next album I was listening to was Emotionalism as every song on it was a gem.

It was, and he is right.

I know this sounds silly, but part of the beauty of this album is that it is so, well, emotional. And not just any emotions, but a lot of different ones--love, shame, anger, anticipation, remorse, sadness and on and on. Many of them are connected with growing up, learning and self-reflection, which anyone who has read anything I have written about music knows is one of my favorite themes. Here for instance is a favorite verse from "The Weight of Lies":

I once heard the worse thing
A man could do is draw a hungry crowd
Tell everyone his name, pride, and confidence
But leaving out his doubt
I’m not sure I bought those words
When I was young I knew most everything
These words have never met so much to anyone
As they now mean to me

Verses such as that are made all the more powerful by great song construction and singing with beautiful harmonies. The songs invite you in, envelop you and take you for their own individual rides. They make you ache, but leave you hopeful.

The album is also put together really well in terms of song order and theme. It moves nimbly from ballad to blues to upbeat bluegrass. Even the "Pretty Girl from Chile" which moves from country-flamenco (is that a genre? or redundant in some way?) to a minute and a half of rocking metal falls just right in the midst of the other songs. And as usual with albums that I find so compelling as albums it is hard to know what to sample to really reflect the effort as a whole. It is also a bit difficult because many of these songs speak directly to me and so it is not hard to get all personal about them.

So here are three from later in the album to give you a sense. Suffice it to say that I wish I had written "All My Mistakes" (on a regular basis). Following that "Living of Love" is perfectly time and beautifully crafted and "Pretty Girl from SD" gives you a sense of the fun side of this album.

All My Mistakes

Living Of Love

Pretty Girl From San Diego

The bottom line here is that if there happens to be anyone else out there who managed to not notice this album when it came out a couple years back, just pick it up already.

And for those who are already AB connoisseurs, what is the next album I should sample?

May This Always Be The Case

Tonight, as I watched the Artist and Engineer read books to their little bro, The Captain (and loving, as best as I can, all the chaos of that), I was thinking about all the talk about parent/children relationships. And while I hope we will always have a great relationship with our boys (or perhaps continue to cultivate one would be a better description), what I most hope is that these three are inseparable. Play, fight, whatever, I simply hope that these guys will always have each other's back.

Technology and Friends: A Final Note

I seem to find myself in numerous conversations with friends about how much technology is in our lives and to what extent we use technology, particularly social media, to communicate and put ourselves "out there" in the e-world. I have friends who are pretty ready to share just about anything on their blog or Facebook of Twitter and I have other friends who see the whole social media scene as anything from mindless to the near end of privacy. I am somewhere in between, perhaps leaning toward the willing to share a fair amount side, but about to move a bit back to the more private side of the scale in practice--and this after considerable deliberation (and you wondered what I was doing while I wasn't blogging).

I don't have any coherent thesis here, just some random thoughts from where I sit.

1. I know some feel like online communications is impersonal, but I actually find the ongoing discussion over time online to be quite personal and often in our busy lives allows for connections to be maintained in a more than occasional way. One of Neats' friends once wrote (on Facebook, I note) that she is a better communicator on email than by phone and I thought that was a simple but very good observation that I connected with. There are relationships that I maintain now via email, blog, social media that simply would not happen via phone or in person due to time and space. Does that make them less important than other relationships--perhaps, but I don't tend to think so. I think of them as merely different both in type and in how they are attended to. Bottom line is that I am both happy to have those relationships and with maintaining them primarily on-line--although, I admit, that these are all relationships formed in person and that friendships that evolve only online are just not workable for me (more below).
   
   
2. It seems that everyone has some sort of technology stop-point. For instance, I know a lot of friends and colleagues who use the web and email is a normal part of life, but the jump to social media like Facebook or Twitter is literally a mystery. I feel like I am about to or am hitting that point for me. I am way more happy spending significant time blogging than surfing around Facebook or Twitter (or even on an RSS reader) despite the fact that blogging takes more time and effort--at least for me--both in terms of writing and reading. Stop-point or not, I am going to start trying to spend more time on blogging and less time distracted by other platforms--not that it seems that I have that much time to do any of it.
   
   
3. From a technology standpoint, I have over the last two years done things to centralize my on-line presence and also to syndicate posts on music. The result of that though is that people who would never visit my blog, say, see what I am writing either on my Facebook page or through an aggregater site like Elbows or HypeMachine. Interesting sure (and it seemed efficient), but I don't really write a blog post thinking of the general public or even a casual acquaintance--it is a way to share what I am thinking with those interested enough (read: friends). Consequently, I have not connected the new site to the big music aggreagators and as of this post, I am disconnecting the blog and Facebook (rather than purging my Facebook friend and Twitter followers list--well maybe a little). In other words, this will be my final FB Note.

Bottom line here is that just as in teaching the medium impacts the interaction, but the players and their attitudes toward communication and relationships impact how they will use the media and how effective it will be for those involved. For me I am just not someone who really likes walking into a big room of mainly strangers and chit-chatting with folks I haven't seen before or are likely to see again (or haven't seen in forever and probably won't see in forever again). I am much more of a close-circle of friends and colleague person and someone who prefers that circle to expand slowly and deliberately--and I am quite sure that generally applies to my technology mediated relationships as well.