Building the future for jazz, one student ticket at a time

George Wein

George Wein remembers an evening back in the early 1940s when, as a high school student, he got a chance to hear Duke Ellington live for the first time. It was at Roseland State Ballroom in Boston, and he was in high school. Wein says memories of that night likely planted the seed for his career as a jazz pianist, club owner and festival producer.

A golden career is being honored this week

Larry Monroe
(Photo by Phil Farnsworth)

Larry Monroe helped shape and expand the reach of Boston-based Berklee College of Music over the past 50 years in many ways. Most notably, Monroe helped establish Berklee’s international network of schools in 12 countries, including Berklee Valencia, the college's new campus in Spain.

His Berklee ties are strong - as a student, teacher, dean, vice president and global ambassador. As an educator, he influenced saxophonists Branford Marsalis, Miguel Zenon, Donald Harrison and countless others. Early in his career, alto saxophonist Monroe performed with Lou Rawls, Buddy Rich and Dizzy Gillespie.

The college will celebrate Monroe’s many contributions, but in some ways likely mourn his retirement, with a Berklee Performance Center concert on Thursday night, October 18, featuring students and faculty, former Monroe student Donald Harrison and Italian bassist Giovanni Tommaso, who helped Monroe create Berklee's 27-year partnership with the Umbria Jazz Festival.

It’s a fitting sendoff. What a run it has been.

A sad day for jazz in Boston (updated)

I expect the protests to start rapidly, accompanied by a severe fall off in the checks and pledges that fund Boston's premier public radio station.

Word came from broadcaster Steve Schwartz this afternoon that WGBH-FM in Boston is dropping his Friday night show, and it is eliminating jazz programming on weeknights as well. It is moving longtime host Eric Jackson (of Eric in the Evening fame) to weekends only. These changes take effect in July.

Melissa Morgan - retro romantic at Scullers

In her Tuesday night debut at Scullers jazz club in Boston, singer Melissa Morgan proved that she's an ambassador for romance. Her voice is strong, confident and polished, reflecting a maturity that extends far beyond her chronological years.

Her material was drawn in part from her Telarc debut CD, Until I Met You (released two years ago) and reflected the many facets of love and romance - as penned by the great songwriters of the 1950s and '60s principally, but stretching a decade in either direction.

The selection and the delivery were impeccable. The baker's dozen songs included "Our Love is Here to Stay," "A Sleeping Bee," "The Very Thought of You," "The Lamp is Low," "Dancing Cheek to Cheek," a Brazilian take on "No More Blues," as well as "Save Your Love for Me" and "Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby?"

The coolest moment of the evening? Morgan mentioned that she had begun a telephone and email friendship with bassist and composer Richard Evans, whose tune "He Loves Me I Think" is on her debut recording. She told the crowd they'd never met in person but she knew he was there that night. It turned out the Berklee College of Music professor was sitting at a front table an arm's length away from Morgan. They hugged, he waved, and - with a lump in her throat - she nailed the tune Evans wrote for Dinah Washington.

Morgan is working on her second CD. I can't wait to hear it.

I've been frequenting Scullers for 25 years and still consider it the finest club in Boston, and one of the finest environments in the land for singers. I'll miss it dearly as I continue to prepare for a move to Florida later this month. With some scouting around, I hope to find other venue treasures.

A Must Read

John Swenson, my music writing collaborator for many years at UPI, is out with a gem. “New Atlantis: Musicians Battle for the Survival of New Orleans” (Oxford University Press) captures the determination of New Orleans’ stylistically varied music makers to survive after Hurricane Katrina and to help keep the city’s soul alive.

John has been writing almost exclusively about New Orleans and its musicians since the late 1990s, principally for Offbeat magazine, and has come to understand his adopted city well. (He splits his time between New York and the Crescent City.) As you dig into this book, you’ll fast appreciate the depth of his keen understanding of the city’s contemporary music scene (jazz, R&B, brass band, rock, and hip hop), as well as the music’s deep roots.

The city’s problems are far from solved post-Katrina (or as John repeatedly calls it, “the federal flood”) in August 2005. But through John’s insightful perspective and to-the-point writing, we get an appreciation of just how important music and its makers are to its continued rebirth.

There is more than just a cultural phenomenon at play here, in a city where music is so much more than mere entertainment. As John reflected in an interview with The Beachcomber: “New Orleans musicians treat music like a sacred trust, handed down from their ancestors. It’s different from the commercial pop world.”

It is so very different, and the United States, and indeed, the world, are so much richer because of it.

Metheny's starry homecoming

Two nights before concluding phase one of his Orchestrion tour, Pat Metheny stopped by Boston to provide a glimpse of his project to make ambitious, multi-layered music in which he is responsible for every note.

There’s Metheny and a few of his custom guitars and an Orpheum Theatre stage filled with four levels of instruments triggered either by pneumatics or electronic solenoids that are controlled by a MIDI system. Metheny keys it all with foot pedals, guitar knobs and a small electronic touchpad.

In a city where he has been revered as a guitar god since the early 1970s, the crowd was fascinated – and riveted to his playing and his explanations/demonstrations of how it works. Sort of a musical Mr. Wizard.

Metheny described the project as “my brain at 9 years old taken to the 21st century,” a reference how as a youngster he was fascinated at the mechanics involved when he crawled under his grandfather’s antique player piano to see how it worked. Today’s technology enabled him to develop the possibilities into a new reality.

Metheny opened his set with a half-hour of music from his songbook on solo guitar, including his 46-string Pikasso hybrid. Then he shifted to guitar plus one robotic drum, before the curtain rose on the entire Orchestrion.

He worked his way through the entire five-part suite that comprises his Orchestrion CD (Nonesuch). All of those works featured Metheny playing his distinctive guitar work on top of the MIDI-programmed tunes he had developed. Close your eyes, and it sounded like Metheny playing dozens of instruments at once. Beautiful, complex, deeply layered.

He had twinkling white lights added to each instrument, so we in the audience could visualize what had been triggered. It was a starry night – indoors.

To give the audience a sense of how it all works, he played three pieces that were improvised on the spot. He’d set a melody with one pedal, play a melody or counter melody on his MIDI-guitar, then assign it to one or more instruments (There were two Yamaha Disklaviers, countless percussion pieces, four guitarbots, two cabinets full of blown bottles that created B-3 like tones, marimbas and vibraphones in his arsenal.) Then he’d add more layers…. Then when he liked the backing, he soloed over it.

It was all Metheny - a blend of melodicism and intensity - and it was all good. He even took his older tune “Unity Village” and played multiple guitar layers – something he had to do by overdubbing when it was first recorded.

Metheny stretched this show to more than two hours. “There are more than a million reasons why it’s always special to be here,” he said of his Boston stop. “Primarily it is you people.”

Metheny is not going solo with this project all the time. In fact, he’s taking Pat Metheny Group back on the road in June. This was just a new chapter in his musical imagineering.

Two splendid singers honor a legend

Singer, actress, dancer and civil rights activist Lena Horne turns 93 this June 30. She hasn’t performed since the early 1990s and has been out of the public eye for the past 10 years. But she isn’t out of the hearts of singers - or music fans who loved her work.

That was clear Saturday night (April 24) when “Stormy Weather,” a multi-media tribute show about Horne, premiered at Scullers jazz club in Boston. It featured singers Rebecca Parris and Paula West, and pertinent narrative from author James Gavin, whose book, “Stormy Weather: The Life of Lena Horne,” was published in hard cover last year and is just out in soft cover. The premiere was also scheduled in tandem with the launch of a new Verve CD, Lena Horne Sings: The MGM Singles Collection.

Boston-based Parris and San Francisco-based West had never performed together before but worked well in this setting, with the superb support of pianist George Mesterhazy and bassist Peter Kontrimas. The two-instrument accompaniment provided the intimacy that this sort of show required. Musical director Mesterhazy, an excellent accompanist and arranger who spent more than a decade with Parris before joining Shirley Horn in the last phase of her career, now works regularly with West.

The evening touched on the full scope of Horne’s musical career with appropriate – and often poignant - material from various phases, with the singers alternating tunes for the most part. “As Long As I Live” (Parris), “Ill Wind” (West), “Honeysuckle Rose” (Parris), “Why Do I Try?” (West), “It’s Alright With Me” (West), “Come Sunday” (Parris ), “A Lady Must Live” (West), “Yesterday When I Was Young” (Parris), and “Stormy Weather” (West). As an encore, Parris and West teamed up on “That Man of Mine.”

There were several mesmerizing moments, and the audience was spellbound by what it heard throughout the evening. Parris and West have that effect. West was particularly powerful on “Why Do I Try?” and “A Lady Must Live.” These tunes really spoke to Horne’s determination.

“Yesterday When I Was Young” was a tune that Horne featured in her two sold-out Carnegie Hall concerts in 1993, telling the crowd: “I think that song belongs to a lot of us.” This night, it belonged to Parris’s poignant interpretation and Mesterhazy, whose extended solo revealed the breadth, depth and passion of his playing.

Gavin shared a bit of insight here and there - particularly the racial challenges that Horne faced - in housing, in travel, and even in multi-racial marriage. The tunes often mirrored what she was going through as she struggled with and against her persona - an elegant black woman who sang songs people adored, but was treated less kindly out of the spotlight.

The night also had humor, particularly with “Bein’ Green,” the Kermit the Frog-associated tune that Horne chose to sing in an appearance as herself on “Sesame Street” in the 1970s. She identified with its hopeful and uplifting message about being different. Parris has been battling health issues over the past decade, which, thankfully have not diminished her voice or spirit. She drew much laughter when she improvised a bit, throwing in the line “or tall - like I used to be” - without missing a beat.

Horne made two brief appearances via recording - one in song, one in archived interview about her life and times.

From Boston, Parris, West, Gavin, Mesterhazy and Kontrimas headed to Maine’s Camden Opera House for a late Sunday afternoon performance and have two nights scheduled at Blues Alley in Washington D.C. There will be a video element in larger venues.

Many attendees at Scullers lingered long after the show Saturday to urge the singers to take it on the road on a more ambitious scale. We’ll watch with interest to see how that develops. Scullers entertainment director Fred Taylor, a longtime Boston jazz impresario, said this was the first show of this scope in the club’s 20-year history. He was thrilled by the full house - and the reactions to the performance. Consider it a Jazz Week highlight in greater Boston.

April showers us with jazz appreciation

Just as we emerge from the winter doldrums, there’s a lot of jazz appreciation going on throughout April.

In 2001, The Smithsonian launched Jazz Appreciation Month, which has grown to include celebrations in all 50 states and 40 countries that the music as a living treasure. It is designed to spotlight the music and, one would hope, extend the depth of that appreciation to casual listeners, and introduce it to fresh ears that have been tuned elsewhere. It is a movement that has a lot of variations and offshoots.

Last June while meeting here in Rhode Island, the U.S Conference of Mayors proclaimed April 9 as Jazz Day. Jazz at Lincoln Center is using that day for its inaugural A Taste of Jazz event in Manhattan, which will feature music and food at the Time Warner Center to celebrate the cuisine of some of the country's greatest jazz cities, including New Orleans. The musical set and discussion that night will feature a septet led by saxophonist Walter Blanding.

Oh, but there is much more here and there. As they say in the TV genre, check local listings.

From April 23 to May 2, the nonprofit JazzBoston is celebrating Jazz Week with 230 events at more than 80 venues to celebrate the special role the Boston jazz scene plays as incubator and stage for a lot of creative musicians. Only in greater Boston, it seems, can a “week” have 10 days. But that 10-day period, Made in Boston, Played in Boston, will include a lot of great programming, including rare films, jazz dance, and children’s events. Here is the schedule.

But wait, there’s more

SIRIUS XM Radio is paying tribute to the rich history of jazz with a lot of Jazz Appreciation Month programming. Its Real Jazz channel, SIRIUS channel 72 and XM channel 70, kicked off the month on April 1 with bassist Christian McBride hosting a three-hour JAM preview, and to introduce the debut of his SIRIUS XM show, The Lowdown: Conversations with Christian, which premiered yesterday and will air every Saturday at 1 p.m. ET on Real Jazz.

Also on April 9 - Jazz Appreciation Day - on Sirius, Jazz at Lincoln Center Artistic Director Wynton Marsalis will unveil the 2010-2011 season of Jazz at Lincoln Center at 3 p.m. ET on RealJazz, and Nancy Sinatra will present a special edition of Nancy For Frank, showcasing the jazz side of American Songbook legend and her father, Frank Sinatra, on April 9 at 3 p.m. ET on Siriusly Sinatra, SIRIUS channel 75 and XM channel 73. There is much more to discover on the Sirius channels. (For more information, visit http://www.sirius.com/ or http://www.xmradio.com/.)

Jazz Day, Jazz Week, Jazz Appreciation Month. (The latter may have the only acronym I can tolerate.) All of this is admirable. It also begs the question - How much of this is just preaching to the choir? Some of us would argue that in our in our hearts, in our psyches, in our ears, and in the venues to which we go... every day is jazz day. And that’s just the listeners. It certainly is true for the musicians, at least as a goal.

If the April spotlight in some way brings more serious listeners to the music - and more opportunities for musicians to play jazz - these initiatives are doing what their creators and supporters are seeking.

The best jazz night in town

Anyone with a solid interest in the music who is within an hour of Providence RI ought to make a visit to a neighboorhood knotty-pine bar in East Providence any Monday night – and be rewarded with what is consistently the best jazz night of the week. And anyone planning a weekend visit to southern New England ought to stretch the trip to include a Monday night - and experience Bovi’s Tavern.

For 41 years, Bovi’s has hosted big band jazz as its Monday fare. The John Allmark Orchestra draws from an exceptionally strong and talented cadre of players from Rhode Island, Massachusetts and sometimes Connecticut, depending on who’s available to play on a normally slow weeknight for beer money.

Trumpeter Allmark, stylistically tied to the Freddie Hubbbard lineage, has a thick book of big band charts that add a hard-bop edge to swing. And he is a formidable brass arranger in his own right. Any Monday, the material can vary from tunes by John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie, Hubbard, Oliver Nelson, Clifford Brown Thad Jones and many more, including more than a few Buddy Rich Band charts. Even when a song is revisited, you noticed that Allmark has tweaked the arrangement since the last time you heard the band do it.

The Allmark band’s mainstays when they’re in town and available, include tenor aces Dino Govoni and Bill Vint, alto saxophonists Mark Zaleski and/or Bob Bowlby, electric bassist Bill Miele, pianist Eugene Maslov and drummer Vinny Pagano.

This week, on a nasty rainy night when even waterfowl didn’t want to be out traveling, the JAO still drew two-thirds of a house. As the downbeat hit for the band’s theme song, George Gershwin’s “Soon,” the 16-piece outfit was barely outnumbered by audience. But that soon changed. Soggy latecomers made their way in, forking over the $6 cover. At that price, or some would argue any price, the gig is a musical bargain.

Those who braved the weather were rewarded towards the end of the 90-minute first set with stunning version of Trane’s “Central Park West” and a friendly alto sax battle between Zaleski and Mark Pinto on Buddy Greco’s “The Rotten Kid,” a Buddy Rich band staple.

Allmark formed his band 17 years ago and worked at a variety of clubs - some less than memorable - before succeeding the Duke Belaire Orchestra at Bovi’s 11 years ago. “I think we’ve got the gig now,” he said with a chuckle. “The band keeps changing and sounding better. As soon as we start playing, it’s all good. I’m still finding new players - and great players.”

Can’t get there on a Monday anytime soon? Opt for the next-best thing. At least 20 of the band’s performances can be savored on youtube.

A jazz piano plus

When some things in jazz have been in retrenchment mode this year - festivals, magazines - here's a positive note for the future.

Randy Weston will be featured in a solo piano concert October 12 at the Somerville Theater in Somerville MA, kicking off a series of annual concerts celebrating the legacy of Thelonious Monk (who would have been 92 on October 10).

Pennsylvania-based World Piano Summit (worldpianosummit.com) is sponsoring the metropolitan Boston jazz series, which it says will continue until the centennial of Monk’s birth on October 10, 2017.

September spirit

There is a lot of programming diversity going on near and far for jazz and jazz venues in September. These caught my interest. I know I will catch at least one of them in person. And it is a great time to confirm that jazzlives#

September 2 - Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles - The original members of Return to Forever reunite for a concert that will open Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke and Lenny White’s first worldwide trio tour. For this one show, they will be joined by RTF’s original guitarist Bill Connors, as well as special guests Chaka Khan and Jean-Luc Ponty. Connor's appearance will mark the first performance of Return to Forever's original electric lineup since 1974.

Labor Day Weekend

September 4, 5 and 6 - Tanglewood Jazz Festival, Lenox MA - This year, in addition to several straight-ahead performances, is blending some classical works into some of its sets at Ozawa Hall. See this earlier post for details.

September 4, 5 and 6 - Chicago Jazz Festival - This annual free event takes place on three stages in Grant Park. The Dave Holland Big Band is Saturday night’s headliner at the Petrillo Bandshell.

September 4, 5, 6 and 7 - Detroit International Jazz Festival. This huge free, outdoor event is marking its 30th year with events on five downtown stages. It opens with a concert by Hank Jones as the festival honors one of the great families in jazz. the Clayton Brothers, Dave Brubeck and the Brubeck brothers, John and Bucky Pizzarelli, Larry and Julian Coryell, The Heath Brothers, Pete and Juan Escovedo, Brian Auger’s Oblivion Express, and T.S. Monk in “Monk on Monk” - a performance honoring the musical legacy of his father, Thelonious Monk.

September 18 to 26 - Boston’s Berklee Beantown Jazz Festival will showcase more than 20 bands at various clubs and venues. The free, six-block-long outdoor extravaganza along Columbus Avenue on Saturday the 26th will include Donald Harrison, Joe Louis Walker, Jane Bunnett, and the Defenders of Groove with Melvin Sparks, Ernie Andrews and Plas Johnson.

September 26 - Singer Barbra Streisand performs at New York’s historic Village Vanguard - the world’s most famous jazz basement - for a performance three days before the release of her new jazz/cabaret album Love Is the Answer, which features the singer with the Diana Krall quartet and Johnny Mandel. According to her Web site, this will be Streisand’s first club appearance since 1961, when she opened at the Vanguard for Miles Davis. There is a catch. This is a free show for winners of a contest for those who pre-ordered the CD from her site.

Adventure revisited

The Boston jazz scene has a tradition of adventurous bands - George Russell’s Living Time Orchestra, the Fringe and the Either/Orchestra to name but a few. Another, Your Neighborhood Saxophone Quartet, was created in 1980 and active into the 1990s, making one LP and five CDs, countless appearances around New England and New York, and forays into the Midwest, as well as touring Europe's club, concert and festival circuit 11 times. In the process YNSQ built a solid book of nearly 200 original compositions and arrangements.

Your Neighborhood Saxophone Quartet - featuring Allan Chase and Cercie Miller on alto and soprano saxes, Joel Springer on tenor sax and Tom Hall on baritone sax - is making a reunion appearance on Sunday, April 5 at The Lily Pad in Cambridge, Mass. “I'm really excited about this rare reunion of Your Neighborhood Saxophone Quartet,” Miller said, calling the band “one of my favorite groups I've ever played with.” In addition to dusting off its old charts, the YNSQ also plans to play some new pieces that evening.

It ought to be quite an interesting, and improvisational, evening.

Big numbers in a January without IAJE

A jazz-related gathering in Boston next weekend will be a hang of sorts for thousands, but not on the wide range of levels as the gone-but-not-forgotten IAJE conferences.

Saturday, January 31 brings the Berklee College of Music's 41st annual High School Jazz Festival, with some 3,000 musicians in 200 bands competing for $175,000 in Berklee scholarships.

In addition to the student competitions, the Hynes Convention Center event will feature concerts and clinics (free and open to the public), featuring brothers Delfeayo (trombone) and Jason Marsalis (vibes), and drummers Gregg Bissonnette, John Blackwell and Terri Lyne Carrington.
Berklee says the festival, originally called the New England High School Stage Band Festival, is the oldest and largest competition of its kind in the United States. That longevity is remarkable - and laudable.

Plaque on the wall honors the musical history and promise inside

Move over Faneuil Hall, Old South Meeting House and other designated historic sites in Boston. You have company. Company with a jazz connection that dates to the 1940s.

On January 30, Wally’s Café Jazz Club, originally known as Wally’s Paradise, will be recognized by the Boston Historical Society for its contributions to the city’s cultural fabric.

Among many other notables, Charlie Parker and Billie Holiday performed there, as did native son Roy Haynes in the 1940s and ‘50s. Haynes was back to sit in on occasion after Wally’s moved across the street to its current location at 427 Massachusetts Avenue and became a fertile performance space for young student players from the nearby Berklee College of Music, New England Conservatory, Boston Conservatory and other area schools, many of whom became part of subsequent generations of jazz greats.

That mission continues today under the management if brothers Frank, Lloyd and Paul Poindexter, and their mother, Elynor. The Poindexters took the reins after Elynor’s father, Joseph “Wally” Walcott, died in 1998. Walcott was the first African American to own a nightclub in New England. The club still presents live music nightly.