After Notes
It's all about After Hours... Tri States Public Radio's own home for swing, straight-ahead jazz, and The Great American Songbook... wherein host Ken Zahnle spins a few stacks of albums from our own collection every Saturday night at 8:00.
The Jazz Women Who Think Big
August 27 marked the 90th anniversary of the signing of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. constitution, a day marked by Congress in 1971 for observance each year as Women’s Equality Day. In that spirit, I’ll use the next few posts to introduce a few great big things--- Big Bands--- achieved by great jazz artists who happen to be women.
The first woman to win Down Beat magazine’s readers’ polls for Best Composer, Best Arranger, and Best Big Band (topping that magazine’s critics’ polls in those categories as well, plus Jazz Album of the Year)--- her orchestra nominated for the Grammys 10 times--- the first Japanese student of the famed Berklee College of Music--- Toshiko Akiyoshi led (with husband and tenor sax soloist Lew Tabackin) big bands in L.A. and NYC that were pointed to by critics as worthy successors to the jazz world of Duke Ellington. Yet, those bands from 1973-2003, though well-recorded, are hardly ever heard: label RCA/BMG always (and bizarrely, noting critical and fan reception) treated Akiyoshi as some kind of Asian novelty act, refusing to issue the majority of her albums in the U.S. That’s still as it stands today, as they continue not to re-issue the substantial back catalog. Due to frustration with her recording contract and a desire to return her time to playing piano in small groups, Toshiko hung up leading and writing for big bands, The best way to hear her work? Head to YouTube. I recommend Road Time--- perhaps one of the finest live big band albums ever.
These Festivals be Jammin’
This is all going down in the Midwest. Pack the lawn blanket, the picnic basket, and the wine caddy. The artists are on the bandstand already.
Bix Beiderbecke Memorial Jazz Festival (August 1-3)
Honoring quad-cities-raised early jazz legend cornetist Leon ‘Bix” Beiderbecke, it’s the regional granddaddy of jazz fests (with roots in 1971). It may no longer be the sprawling riverfront lawn event it used to be, but it soldiers on in fine style with a plethora of traditional jazz performers at the air-conditioned Rhythm City Casino in Davenport, Iowa. And speaking of tradition, there is a riverboat jazz cruise on Friday, and the annual graveside jazz service Saturday morning at Oakdale Cemetery.
Chicago Jazz Festival (August 29-September 1)
The Chicago Labor Day weekend tradition continues, this year featuring singer extraordinaire Catherine Russell and Kenny Garrett and his band Sounds from the Ancestors. Four days, multiple venues in and around Millennium Park (including the Frank-Gehry-designed Pritzker Pavilion), all still FREE. The Jazz Institute of Chicago puts it all together.
Alton Jazz & Wine Festival (August 31)
Jazz and Wine meet up at the birthplace of Miles Davis. St. Louis trumpeter and bandleader Jim Manley, a regional stalwart known for his run of sold-out shows at jazz St. Louis (formerly known as The Bistro) will be the headliner at Alton’s riverfront Amphitheater.
Indy Jazz Festival (September 17-28)
This year including a tribute to Indianapolis native and bebop trombone pioneer J.J. Johnson. It’s set up as a weeklong all-around-town affair, with shows at the Jazz Kitchen, the Cabaret, and a grand finale at White River State Park with singer Chaka Kahn and bassist, composer, producer, and Sirius/XM radio host Marcus Miller.
Hyde Park Jazz Festival (September 28-29)
Chicago’s number 2 (but not by much) jazz festival, held annually (this is number 18) with events around the neighborhood. The main stages are set up on Chicago’s Midway Plaisance, and there is a focus on home-town talent, including a few names familiar to Galesburg’s Rootabaga Jazz Festival attendees: bands led by Victor Garcia and Jon Irabagon.
Jazz Desert?
The agricultural flyover lands we call home may seem unfertile ground for jazz. Nevertheless, the region was originally home for at least one notable musician in each of this uniquely American art form’s history. Here are a few notable recording artists of our midwestern land around and amidst the rivers.
Early Jazz --- We often mention cornetist Leon Bismarck “Bix” Beiderbecke… here’s a bit more about him. Born in 1910 in the Quad Cities (on the Iowa side of the Mississippi in Davenport), he is perhaps the only white jazz musician mentioned in the same breath as greats King Oliver, Louie Armstrong, Sidney Bechet and Jelly Roll Morton. His distinctive self-taught style mixed the New Orleans riverboat musicians he heard as a child with the French impressionist piano music his mother taught him to play by ear. The battle cry “Bix Lives!” still resonates with traditional jazz players today, especially at the annual Bix Beiderbecke Memorial Festival, held every August in his home town.
Swing --- The ranks of jazz include few who favored the xylophone as their chosen instrument, but Kenneth “Red Norvo” Norville handled it so well that he and his wife, the singing great Mildred Bailey, became known as “Mr. & Mrs. Jazz.” Born and raised in the Illinois River port of Beardstown, Norvo traded a pony to buy his first xylophone. He played that instrument--- as well as its cousins the marimba and the vibraphone--- with Paul Whiteman, Benny Goodman, Frank Sinatra, Charlie Parker and Charles Mingus (among others), always looking toward the future and never slowing down, despite near deafness, until a stroke in the 1980’s.
Jump Blues ---- Al Sears, born in Macomb, Illinois in 1910, actually had three amazing careers in music. During the swing era he spent a half decade as a featured tenor saxophone player in the great Duke Ellington Orchestra. After World War II he spent a half decade playing the “Jumpin’ Blues” (the precursor to modern R&B) both in the recording studio and live for famed DJ Alan Freed, as “Big Al” Sears. Finally, he broke the management color barrier of the major record labels as an executive at ABC/Paramount. He not only sported a big, impressive tenor sound, but was also a bona fide civil rights activist.
Modern Big Band ---- The father of Luigi Paulino Alfredo Francesco Antonio Balassoni (Louie Bellson) owned a music shop in Moline, and his son took up the drums at the age of 3 1/2. Little Luigi would become one of the greatest jazz percussionists, pioneering the use of two bass drums, playing with the Ellington Orchestra, serving as music director for his wife (legendary singer Pearl Bailey) and leading and composing for his own high-powered modern big band. In later years he would celebrate his birthdays at the Quad Cities’ River Music Experience, now known as Common Chord.
Contemporary --- The creative Knoxville, Illinois native Matt Wilson is one of the most respected drummers and band leaders in jazz today. In demand by a wide variety of artists--- Lee Konitz, Charlie Haden, Jane Ira bloom, Herbie Hancock, Elvis Costello--- his album project “Honey and Salt” is a jazz and spoken word tribute to poet and fellow Knox County native Carl Sandburg.
And--- don’t forget--- just downriver, Alton, Illinois, is the birthplace of the foremost figure in the birth of cool jazz, modal jazz and jazz fusion, trumpeter Miles Davis.
What's YOUR "surfing" music?
What is Jazz?
According to Merriam-Webster: “American music developed especially from ragtime and blues and characterized by propulsive syncopated rhythms, polyphonic ensemble playing, varying degrees of improvisation, and often deliberate distortions of pitch and timbre.”
According to trumpet great Louis Armstrong: "Jazz is music that's never played the same way once."
And according to Ella Fitzgerald, the art’s first lady of song: "I don't know. You just swing!"
Sure, the online world has given us plenty of ways to obtain and listen to jazz, but I’m going to give you a buffet of internet sites to learn more about the music--- so you can then craft your own definition. Who knows--- perhaps yours will be the same as another of Armstrong’s attempts to explain: "Jazz is MY idea of how a tune should go!"
We’ll start from the early days (of both Jazz and Web sites) with the excellent encyclopedia-slash-music streaming source, The Red Hot Jazz Archive (A History of Jazz Before 1930) (redhotjazz.com). The original site at that address is gone, but the online Syncopated Times has been reconstructing it and once again making this invaluable resource available. The heart of the site is its impressive collection of 78 rpm tracks available for audio streaming.
Another oldie-but-goodie is PBS’s site for Ken Burn’s classic documentary series “Jazz” (pbs.org/jazz). It includes some jazz history and musical concepts 101, a guide to the episodes, and a gateway to viewing the series.
Nextbop.com, essentially an online publication, is a blog fest of articles on many jazz styles, written so that it’s accessibility by new fans while still chock full of details for seasoned listeners. Another continuing magazine-style site is allaboutjazz.com. Articles, reviews, podcasts, news, and be sure to look for the ever-expanding pages of “Building a Jazz Library.”
(And Hhere’s a bonus link for teachers: a good source for classroom prep is jazzinamerica.org from the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz. Style sheets, syllabi, study guides, audio snippets, much of it compiled by legendary jazz educator Dr. David Baker.)
It's Jazz Appreciation Month!
But don’t just take my word for it, take the Smithsonian Institution’s word for it:
By act of Congress, signed by the President in August 2003, Public Law 108-72 declared “(1) the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History should be commended for establishing a Jazz Appreciation Month; and (2) musicians, schools, colleges, libraries, concert halls, museums, radio and television stations, and other organizations should develop programs to explore, perpetuate, and honor jazz as a national and world treasure.”
So let’s explore two grand old jazz standards about April, and then mention one more (international) jazz celebration this month.
April in Paris
Written for a Broadway show in the 30’s, Vernon Duke’s tune is probably best known as a flag-waver for the postwar Count Basie Orchestra. The Wild Bill Davis arrangement was the title track of the 1955 album that proved to be one of Basie’s biggest musical and commercial triumphs. The Count’s shout of “one more time” is iconic, and the chart (and orchestra) provided one of the great cinematic sight gags of all time in the 1975 Mel Brooks comedy Blazing Saddles.
I’ll Remember April
This standard had an inauspicious start as a throwaway romantic number buried in a 1942 Abbott and Costello western comedy. It got one more shot in the movies in a 1945 mystery/romance named after the song. The tagline on the poster: IT'S THE SWEET and LOW-DOWN (...and how they swing it!) ON THE NATION'S NO. 1 SONG!
Fortunately for posterity, the tune’s unusual shape and structure attracted the bebop crowd, and it quickly became a favored vehicle for improvisers. A few notables: Miles Davis’ recording on Prestige, Bird’s version on the famed Charlie Parker with Strings, and the Clifford Brown/Max Roach Quintet with Sonny Rollins a few months before Brownie’s passing.
And… International Jazz Day is April 30th!
Created by UNESCO in 2011, this year’s host city is Tangier, Morocco, with an All-Star Global Concert at the new Palace of Arts and Culture of Tangier. On hand will be Dee Dee Bridgewater, Billy Childs, Kurt Elling, Herbie Hancock, Marcus Miller… and those are just some of the Americans.
The show will be broadcast on April 30 via YouTube, Facebook, the United Nations, and UNESCO, to millions of viewers worldwide.
You win a Grammy… and You win a Grammy... and You win a Grammy…
The nominating committees filed their recommendations, the members of the Recording Academy voted, and the golden itty-bitty old record players were handed out. Here, then, are the winners of this year’s jazz-division Grammys!
Last year’s Best New Artist (overall, regardless of genre!) and Best Jazz Vocal Performance winner Samara Joy scored again, this time with her self-produced single “Tight”, to take home the award for Best Jazz Performance.
Meanwhile, the Best Jazz Vocal Album award was picked up by a well-known denizen of the New York scene, classically-trained-singer-turned-jazz-stylist Nicole Zuraitis, for her hard-charging How Love Begins.
The trophy for Best Jazz Instrumental album went to a jazz pianist’s pianist, straight-ahead jazz veteran and 5-time Grammy winner Billy Childs, for The Winds of Change, his second win for Best Album.
The biggest name of the big bands once again takes home the Large Jazz Ensemble award, the Count Basie Orchestra, now led by Scotty Barnhart, for their album of collaborations with contemporary blues singers named (what else?) Basie Swings the Blues.
The winner for Best Latin Jazz Album may seem locally familiar to you… that’s because just over a year ago saxophonist Miguel Zenon and his quartet were the artists in residence for the Mirza Jazz Residency at Knox College in Galesburg. He and pianist Luis Perdomo’s album is a follow-up to their 2020 live (but without an audience) pandemic-response album El Arte Del Bolero. Their take two on bolero material? El Arte Del Bolero Vol. 2, of course.
Taking the top honors for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album, another fresh young face (and another classical music convert… she was already a promising concert soloist on the cello), the Icelandic 24-year-old Laufey. Her best-selling second album of jazz-pop ballads--- Bewitched--- did the trick.
And here’s a new category this year: the long-awaited Best Alternative Jazz Album. Longtime singer/songwriter/rapper/bassist/ and merger of funk/soul/jazz/hip-hop/reggae/rock Meshell Ndegeocello nabbed the honor for her The Omnichord Real Book.
Matt Wilson Cometh
“There are a few more emphatically dazzling drummers working today, but almost nobody in Wilson’s peer group with a broader sense of jazz history, or a more natural sense of time, or a stronger signature as a bandleader, or more goodwill among his fellow players.” - Jazz Times
Jazz drummer (actually, if the more refined term “percussionist” ever were warranted, it is in the case of this artist) Matt Wilson will be back in his native region this week… and that’s good news for all of us, since west-central Illinois IS his native region! Wilson will be guest artist at Western Illinois University’s Jazz Festival, joining the school’s well-known Jazz Studio Orchestra on Friday night February 9th at 7:30 p.m. ( in the W.I.U. campus’ COFAC Recital Hall).
The Knoxville, IL born-and raised Wilson grew up attending Galesburg’s Carl-Sandburg-College-then-Knox-College-hosted Rootabaga Jazz Festivals… only to return decades later as headliner and frequent chief cheerleader. You may have caught him at the Orpheum, or heard about his genre-bending album of Carl Sandburg poems, or heard him on NPR’s Jazz Night In America with his annual Christmas Tree-O (recorded at Dizzy’s Club in NYC’s Lincoln Center), or swinging NPR Music’s Tiny Desk Concert. He plays set with the ear and creativity of an orchestrator and is a force of nature as a bandleader. But don’t take my word for it…
“Any time you get a chance to hear Matt Wilson play drums—whether he’s a leader or sideman—take it, and be sure to sit front and center. He exemplifies the idea of the artist’s instrument and music being an extension of who they are as a human being. You can hear Wilson smiling behind the drum kit.” -DownBeat Magazine
“Drummer Matt Wilson is one of the friendliest guys in jazz, and his music, even at its most complex, reflects that. It's unpretentious and full of easygoing swing.” - National Public Radio
Happy... 1924?
Let's start the new year by turning the book back to the new year of 100 (!) years ago. The classical blog already mentioned the centenary of Gershwin's iconic moment for the piano, Rhapsody in Blue, but here we'll talk about a different ebony & ivory.
1924 was a big year for two of jazz's most famed and influential trumpeters as they both (separately) made the transition from the Chicago scene to The Big Apple. And the two could not have been more different.
Louis Armstrong came from a chaotic New Orleans upbringing, learning cornet in a Waif’s Home, worked with bands up and down the Mississippi on riverboats, and landed in Chicago as the right-hand man and disciple of the great cornetist and front man King Oliver.
Bix Beiderbecke grew up in white middle-class Davenport Iowa, the son of a lumberyard owner, and dropped out of a Lake Forest, Illinois private school to hang out in the Chicago clubs, becoming the star cornet soloist of the Wolverine Orchestra.
Armstrong started out the year by marrying pianist and bandmate Lil Hardin, who had big plans for him. By June she convinced him to leave the second banana role under Oliver, and after some scrapping about, they were off to New York City at the end of September. There Armstrong joined Fletcher Henderson's Orchestra at the Roseland Ballroom, switching to trumpet to better fit in with that powerhouse ensemble's sound, and getting noticed as a major soloist.
Meanwhile, Beiderbecke and The Wolverines started the year with a recording session for Gennett Records in Indiana (where Oliver & Armstrong had recorded just months before). The Wolverines, too, pulled up stakes in Chicago and headed for NYC, and in October they were in the thick of things at the Cinderella Ballroom. By December Bix was ready to head back to the Midwest for a bigger band, Jean Goldkette's Orchestra in Detroit, but not before taking enough of a liking to his 17-year-old replacement and buying the youngster... Jimmy McPartland... a brand-new cornet.
Peter, Billy, and The Duke
In 1960, legendary bandleader Duke Ellington and his co-writer/arranger Billy Strayhorn cooked up a pretty tasty jazz confection based on Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker. It’s now a holiday jazz staple, enjoyable without any backstory. But, if like me, you miss the age of albums with liner notes, I’m serving up below the original notes written by session producer Irving Townsend. So whether you Spotify it, Apple Music it, Amazon Prime it, or just plain hear it on the radio 😊, you’re set uo to be an instant expert.
“Overture” — The Suite begins, naturally enough, with an overture based on the first of many famous themes Duke and Billy Strayhorn arranged for this album. Soloists are Paul Gonzalves, "Booty” Wood on trombone con plunger, and Ray Nance, playing a beautiful solo on open horn. The ensemble last chorus gives a first taste of the kind of driving band sound that characterizes the Ellington version of The Nutcracker.
“Toot Toot Tootie Toot (Dance of the Reed-Pipes)” — You will by now have noticed that titles of the various dances have undergone an Ellingtonian change. Duke and Billy devoted many hours to retitling, mainly because Duke, having adapted the Suite to his style, felt the titles were also in need of "reorchestrating." (The full title for this piece, for instance, is “Caliopatootie toot toot tootie Toot”, but none of us could spell it, so we shortened it.) It features reed duets by Jimmy Hamilton and Russell Procope and by Paul Gonzalves and Harry Carney, a toy pipe foursome if ever there was one.
“Peanut Brittle Brigade (March)” — This is one of the fine examples of the full Ellington band turning a four-sided march theme into a great jazz performance. After the ensemble, Ray Nance and Jimmy Hamilton take solos, and there is a piano solo, one of the few in this Suite. Duke devoted so much time to the band during this recording he rarely had time to sit at the piano. The ensemble following the piano interlude features a five-octave sax figure from the bottom of Harry Carney's baritone to the top of Jimmy Hamilton's clarinet, and, the March ends with Paul Gonzalves' solo to an ending that even Tchaikovsky could hear.
“Sugar Rum Cherry (Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy)” — This famous delicacy opens with a drum figure leading to Harry and Paul on baritone and tenor saxes. Paul continues the melody while the Ellington pep section, made up of Ray Nance and Willie Cook, trumpets, and Booty Wood, trombone, wail the background. The melody returns to Paul and Harry again and fades, and the Sugar Plum Fairy, now a West Indian beauty, disappears into the cane fields.
“Entr’acte” — The entr'acte returns to the overture in a freer form and introduces Johnny Hodges, while Harry Carney and Paul Gonzalves join in the build-up. Lawrence Brown then takes over on muted trombone a wonderfully welcome sound. Jimmy Hamilton's clarinet and Lawrence's trombone complete the intermission music.
“Chinoiserie (Chinese Dance)” — This is a duet by Jimmy Hamilton and Paul Gonzalves with the assistance of drums and bass and a touch of trombones. It is played straight, although not straight-faced, and after another piano interlude, the two soloists reverse the music and play each other's solos for the last chorus. Naturally, the pianist has the last word.
“Danse of the Floreadores (Waltz of the Flowers)” — What-ever Floreadores are, they are not waltz lovers, and this one-time waltz now jumps. Booty has the opening plunger statement. Ray Nance plays the first plunger trumpet solo, following by Hamilton and then Nance again. Lawrence Brown sails into his solo, and the danse concludes with Booty and Britt Woodman.
“Arabesque Cookie (Arabian Dance)” — Russell Procope has been practicing on a bamboo whistle for months for his debut on records. This is it, and he has made the most of it. Juan Tizol, a tambourine expert, sets the rhythmic color with Sam Woodyard and Aaron Bell, and then Harry Carney on bass clarinet and Jimmy Hamilton on the regular kind, play the Arabian Dance. Willie Cook plays with the reed section on this number, and as the Moorish flavor turns into a swinging beat, Johnny Hodges plays. The dance returns to the original for the ending, and Tizol has the last shake.
Duke Ellington's first brush with the classics is successfully completed. It is a tribute, I think, to Duke and Billy and to Tchaikovsky. The Ellington forces have proved once again that in any setting, this great band and its strong personality pervade all the music it plays. But that Tchaikovsky has also triumphed is an indication of the perennial strength of his music. As Duke commented, “That cat was it."
(Columbia Records - 1960)
Jazz goes Live in Forgottonia and beyond
Coming up in Macomb, the Western Illinois Museum continues its partnership with the Western Illinois University School of Music for another year of Jazz Night on Our Front Porch. Every concert in the series features a professional guest artist backed by WIU’s own faculty HAT trio. This month, on Friday the 10th, the Museum welcomes tenor saxophonist Jon Irabagon. winner of the 2008 Thelonious Monk Saxophone Competition, winner of the Rising Star award in Downbeat Magazine for both alto and tenor saxophones, and the recipient of a Philippine Presidential Award, the highest civilian honor an overseas Filipino can receive in commemoration for their contributions to the perception of Filipinos worldwide. The doors and bar open at 4:30 with music at 5:30 and 6:30. To close out the evening, WIU Students will take the stage at 7:30. There is a $5 suggested donation at the door.
In the ‘Burg, Knox College’s weekly Jazz Night features the Cherry St. Jazz Combo in a jam session every Thursday night at 7:00 (when the college is in session) at the Galesburg Community Arts Center on Main Street. Bonus: on November 9th, that includes the full Knox College Jazz Ensemble in concert.
And, In the Tri-States, Wednesday night means--- Jazz! It’s all over the place in the form of monthly big band performances, and there’s one near you. Let us explore:
Keokuk – the Bullis-Rutter Big Band plays the first Wednesday of most months at The Hawkeye Restaurant on the west side.
Quincy – the Big River Swing Machine can be found the 2nd Wednesday of most months at the State Street Theater downtown.
Macomb – the Post 6 Big Band holds the stage the last Wednesday of most months at American Legion Post 6, just south of the courthouse square.
The Little Label That Could
When we think of the hot spots in the history of jazz, we think New Orleans. Chicago. New York. Philadelphia. Richmond, Indiana? Not so much. But the Indiana/Ohio border town is not only the ‘Eastern Gateway to Indiana”… it’s the “Cradle of Recorded Jazz.”
In the 1920’s, Richmond’s Starr Piano factory began a side business to its side business of making phonographs… they started recording phonograph records under the Gennett label. And for a few years their factory by the Whitewater River became a destination for the most famous names in early jazz: King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, Duke Ellington, Bix Beiderbecke, and, coming from not quite as far, Hoosier Hoagie Carmichael.
The factory is now long gone, save one towered building open to the elements that serves as a shelter for picnickers. But the groundbreaking music recorded there lives on. And that’s the history that Indianan composer and co-bandleader Brent Wallarab wanted to honor with a major concert work for jazz big band, his Gennett Suite.
In four movements, each focused on one great Richmond visitor (Armstrong, Beiderbecke, Carmichael, and Morton), the suite revisits and updates famed tunes first recorded on the label, in a sprawling performance by the Buselli/Wallarab Jazz Orchestra.
It’s now out in album form, and the CD package is sumptuous, issued as a small bound booklet with extensive and insightful program notes with historical photos and record label graphics (including, coincidentally, both a label...as seen above... and a sheet music cover that serve as my computer monitor desktops here at TSPR).
What's coming up... and a Chicagoan you may not know was a Chicagoan.
This week on After Hours, we’ll kick off each hour with classic songs done the Tony Bennett Way. We also have a trio of tunes focused on Prez… the President of the Tenor Saxophone, that is. Lester Young… he plays, he writes, he inspires Charles Mingus, Jon Hendricks, and Larry Vuckovitch.
And we’ll have a set involving Chicagoans, including a cover of a popular Benny Goodman tune, ‘Airmail Special.”
Most people probably connect bandleader Goodman with New York… the “Let’s Dance” radio show, the Carnegie Hall concert… but he was a native of the bustling immigrant Maxwell Street neighborhood of Chicago, taking music lessons at the local synagogue and from a Chicago Symphony Orchestra clarinetist, playing in a boy’s club band at Hull House, working in dance halls and on Lake Michigan excursion boats, and hanging out with the group of young jazzers known as the Austin High School gang. He got his union card (an important point on Labor Day weekend), made his first recordings, and played with Bix Beiderbecke in Chicago… all of that before moving to NYC in 1927.