Oh, Ive forced myself to listen to some rock during this ride - but since summer, Jazz has really taken hold (Fearnought - I am a Punk Rocker till I die) and the incessant need to try to capture what I'd never appreciated before (Well, besides a love of "Hello Dolly", but everyone loves that song). So, tonnes of jazz listened to, on CD, Mp3, Lp, Internet, and 90.9.
A learning experience , it is. Enjoyable as well.
But the key is to watch the shit live. And for me, a neophyte, really not knowing who is good these days. Yes, I know all the historical names - Armstrong, Morton, Basie, Ellington, Webb, Dizzy, Bichet, Coleman, Roach, Davis, Rollins, Coltrane, Mingus, etc etc etc... Even SAW MILES DAVIS in his last show ever - but had no appreciation for it (Girls were the reason iwas @ that Jazzfest that year) But all these greats (Rollins lives, actually) are all dead and gone. Comme 52d street.
So, who do I see?
Been to a few show w. Mothers.
In San Francisco, went to Yoshi's and saw an 'open Mike' sorta show - Yoshi's supplied the Bassist and the drummer, and horn players came up themselves. Amateurs. No slite on them , but....so bad.
Saw a nice duet between a Brazilian guitarest and a Polish singer @ The Jazz Showcase on a Wednesday nite. One sang, one sang and played the acoustic.
Saw two experimental shows @ the Cultural Centre. Experimental.
Dave Brubecks sons @ the Old Town - a trombone on one song, no horns elstwise.
And,,,,other,,,,shows,,,,,
Great times all, but still something was wanting in me : I wanted to experience a drummer, a sax, a bass, a trumpet (or close approximation) - a more or less classical jazz concert. I mean, I just want to experience expert jazz musicians in a somewhat traditional enviroment w. trad. instruments, swinging. And - yay!-last nite, finally, got it. Mothers and I went to see a "Charlie Parker with Strings" homage @ the Harris Theatre featuring alto saxman Miguel Zenon backed not just by the Chicago Jazz Emsemble but also a string section- and it was brilliant. Even, beyond...
Strings?? Parker is mainly id' w/ the bop revolution in Jazz music that occurred during WW2 and totally exploded after the war. First, history: during the 20's thu' the end of the war, Swing music, played by big bands and featuring the audience dancing, was the big deal. When you thought jazz in the 30's - excuse me: 'when you thought "jazz" in the 30's (because the music was called swing @ that moment)', you thought of massive ballrooms (The Aragon!!) and hundreds of people dancing - dancing was SUCH a major motif of seeing/jazz in that period - and 16-24 players on the bandstand.
AND THEN: basically, after 20 years or so of Swing being the thing, many of the musicians themselves began to feel superstifled in the bigband/play every song like the recordtype/straitjacket type deal - and began to change things. Now, I'm a little weak on this - bop is such a bizarre thing - but what the really frustrated musicians started to do was change the nature of the songs that they had always played.
Jazz musicians previous to bop tended to cover the same songs all of the time, but they would arrange them differently. So, a song may be chorded, say, A A Em D , but whereas a song played by one group may play the A section in one way, another group may play it differently - say, faster, or more emphasis on the first A, or one group may use the trumpets in the section while another group would use that as a place where the piano could go... It's funny - you listen to a song done by by two or three groups, and unless it's arraigned the same - they are different songs totally.
And then, bop. This up here is all confusing? Gets worse.
Chords are collections of individual notes. The A chord, f.ex, is made of the individual notes E A and C#. Bop musicians took those individual notes and played them where the chords were - so, instead of an A, they'd quickly play some combo of E,A, or C#. Or something like that. Bop musicians had to stuff all of those individual notes where before they played a full chord, so Bop - when it started - sounded like outofcontrol speeding musicians racing through these songs.
To me - bizarre!! Who thought of this??
But also:
Kool!!
And so as swing disappeared, so did the big bands and the ballrooms and all the dansing. Jazz- as it is now called - performances transformed into no dancing, no ballrooms, and no big giant bands - what you now had were small smokey clubs where there mite be a trumpet, a sax, a piano, a drummer, and a bass player, or some combo like that.
And, as Mothers and I sat in our seats, that's exactely how the concert started. Not a smokey club - but sax, trumpet, bass, piano, and drums were featured in the first song "Ornithology" Tho' this concert centered on 'Parker w. Strings' - and a huge big band and string section - the organizers wanted to give us a taste of the small combo structure. And, "Ornithology" was such a joyous moment for me. They just sounded so good, pro's, and it was a treat to hear a familier song done brilliantly. But the best moment - that first solo, given to the piano player - when he solo'd, it just sounded so good, so good. So good, man. Just good. And then to just revel in the trumpet , then the sax solo, bass, drums, and then they all solo'd off the drummer.
Again, what I'd been waiting for these last, say 9-10 months. A pure joy.
And then ..... they added strings. Charlie Parker had wanted to record an LP of standards songs - again, think of the same recycled songs again and again - but now with 4 fiddles, 2 violas, a Harp, a cello, and English (sometimes she played an oboe) and French horns (not strings, but). What he wanted to do was combine the strings w. his playing his alto sax over it bop style. Nice vision. And the instant it hit - BAM. Strings, sounding so kool, so funny recreated onstage too.
There were two leaders in the band . One was the director of the whole Ensemble, Dana Hall. He'd give a brief background to each song - I didn;t learn much new- but I enjoyed his emphesis. And the superspecial guest was Miguel Zenon, a superior Alto saxman who has piles of credentials. It would not be good to say that he was superior in this show - because everyone onstage was superior. Just good.
And just pile that shit on. With the strings still onstage with the small combo, out came the big band of the Chicago Jazz Ensemble - sax's, both alto and tenor, trombones, and trumpets. So, there we were, watching maybe 25 musicians rock the shit out of the place.
I'm so cheap. 2h before the show I was still debating on whether to spend the $18/tix. Was it worth it? Well, worth much more.
Took no foto's. Mothers took a few, and I'lla ttach them sometime. So good. Trib review.
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