Newport Jazz Festival is August 7-8, live feed planned

Looks like I'll miss the Newport Jazz Festival for the 52nd year in a row. Too bad.

This year's edition, in Newport, Rhode Island August 7-8, will have folks like Wynton Marsalis, Dave Brubeck, Ahmad Jamal and the Chick Corea Freedom Band with Roy Haynes. Great lineup.

Jazz impresario George Wein started the festival in 1954, Wein is still around and promoting though he's about 900 years old.

But the Festival is probably the largest jazz gathering in the United States. Just check out the honor roll of folks who released albums from their live Newport sets:

- Duke Ellington

- John Coltrane

- Count Basie

- David Brubeck

- Ray Charles

- Muddy Waters

- Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday and Carmen McRae

- Nina Simone

Half of Rahsaan Roland Kirk's Volunteered Slavery album was from a live Newport set and ... well, you get the idea. Too numerous to mention. If your favorite jazz musician is of any significance, he's played Newport.

Back in the earlier days of the festival, the Voice of America carried Newport live, giving households their annual jazz fix.

It was in 1956 that a tired-sounding Duke Ellington and his band lit the stage up. An oldie from their songbook, Diminuendo and Crescendo In Blue, featured Paul Gonsalves on tenor sax, and before his 27-chorus, six-and-a-half minute solo was over the audience got crazy. If you listen to the live portions of that album you can hear Duke trying to quell the audience before a riot broke out.

Here's what I wrote a year ago about that solo:

"It's one of those moments that every human being should experience. It's crunch time, and you're called to perform at something -- a job, dealing with family, facing the outside world. And you're performing at a level that you didn't know you had and you don't remember how you did it. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar described one of those moments during the closing seconds of a playoff game when he was at the baseline, in the corner, those seconds ticking away. Abdul-Jabbar said time just slowed down for him, kind of like you're watching the world in slow motion. A teammate got him the ball, Kareem put up the hook shot, it went right in, and immediately the world went back to real time. I'm sure it was that kind of moment for Duke Ellington and his band."

Enough history. But here's the good news. If you can't make it to Newport, check out the NPR site this year. They plan a live Internet feed so you can listen to at least some of the music, real-time.

I know where I'm going to be this weekend: In front of the computer, speakers blaring, listening to some great jazz.

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Singer Al Jarreau hospitalized in France

Can't believe he's 70. I always liked Al; he always sounds so joyful when he's singing.

Singer Al Jarreau hospitalized in France

(AP): "AP - Singer Al Jarreau has been taken to a hospital in France with breathing problems."

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Clarke's bass a bridge between jazz, fusion and funk

Happy 59th birthday to bassist Stanley Clarke.

He's got the background. Played with guys like Art Blakey, Horace Silver, Gil Evans and Stan Getz, was probably best know for his work for Return To Forever, Chick Corea's band. Playboy Magazine chose him as top jazz bassist 10 years in a row. He helped bridge the gap between jazz and fusion, along with all the genres that sprung from there.

That slap-and-pop technique, really more a funk sound than a jazz sound, is something that Victor Wooten, that killer bassist with Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, does so well. 

Here's another vid, with Clarke sharing bass time with Wooten and Marcus Miller. It's interesting hearing the bass take a lead guitar role here. So kick the bass up and rip the knobs off:

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Happy Father's Day!

Horace Silver's "Song For My Father."

It's your day, Dad. Enjoy it.

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Everyone needs some Rahsaan in their lives

Something from one of the greatest, all-time:



That's Rahsaan Roland Kirk on tenor sax, manzello, stritch, flute, nose flute, siren, and who knows what else he has in his pockets.

You'd think a blind guy who plays this kind of style must be more novelty than anything else, until you listen. That's when you realize he was the real deal. Rahsaan was the total musical package.

This clip is from a concert in Bologna, Italy in 1973. He's doing the songs "Three For The Festival" and "Volunteered Slavery." In the first cut he's also playing a passage from "One Mind/Seasons."

Did solve a mystery here. The clip ends with the intro to "Passion Dance," and I recognize it. That version shows up on Kirk's "Dog Years In The Fourth Ring," and a guy named Kenny Rogers (no, not the same one) was playing baritone sax there. And he kicks butt.

Anyway, enjoy! Had to spread a little Rahsaan into people's lives.

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More Rahsaan:

At 82, groundbreaking Konitz still holds his own

Not long ago, through an NPR music site, I downloaded a Lee Konitz concert recorded earlier this year, and just about wore out my headphones listening to it.

What's amazing is that Konitz is 82 years old now, playing with guys in their 20s and -- well, if he's pacing himself more, he's showing no real shortage of ideas. But Konitz's entree in the jazz world was always in his ability to think on his feet.

Konitz, who plays alto sax, was a contemporary of some of the real giants -- Charlie "Bird" Parker in particular, but while Parker went toward the fast, harmonically challenging genre of bebop, Konitz was clearly in the early "cool jazz" camp. Their instruments were identical, but while Parker went for a full-throated sound, Konitz' tone was a lot thinner and more exacting. More surgical. In a time when every altoist in the world tried to sound like Bird, Konitz didn't even try. But both were amazing improvisers.

On the opening track of this one-hour, 10-minute set, you can almost see the ideas shifting around in Konitz' brain. Admittedly he's a little slower on the musical uptake, and he started a little tentatively to 28-year-old pianist Dan Toepfer's "Green Dolphin Street" intro. His lip isn't as strong as it once was. But by the end of the first song he showed he still has enough gas -- and ideas -- in the tank.

Out-there musical ideas were his calling card. Although he was one of the nine-piece band Miles Davis fielded for "Birth Of The Cool," Konitz is probably best known for his association with pianist Lennie Tristano, one of the great thinkers in jazz. Tristano and his crew played really cerebral stuff, even headier than anything Dave Brubeck ever played. And it was in the late 1940s that Tristano and a few friends decided to try what was probably the most audacious experiment of 'em all.

They decided to make something out of nothing.

I've known musicians who can pick up on a few notes from a bass -- or even a drum pattern -- and improvise on the fly, and build something new from the head arrangement on up. I've been able to do this a couple of times, including an unforgettable set with the late guitarist Chuck Bigbee, where we totally made stuff up for about 45 minutes. I can't think of anything more exciting than coming up with something off the top of your head in a musical context. But even those moments, rare as they are, come about almost accidentally, in the excitement and energy of the moment. But the Tristano/Konitz session was deliberate.

In 1960, Ornette Coleman put together a double quartet, two full bands on opposite sides of the room, and recorded the 36-minute-long "Free Jazz." Nearly all of this was composed on the spot; about the only pre-written parts were some of the transitions between each section. This stuff was so out there -- at the time, anyway -- that trumpeter Freddie Hubbard sounded lost. Coleman's album was one of those that no one was neutral about; it was either a bunch of disconnected skronks on vinyl, or a revelation.

Of course I have "Free Jazz" on CD. It's packaged with an earlier take, one that's kind of a rough draft. The first take was half the length of the released version, and there are plenty of differences between the two. Bass clarinetist Eric Dolphy in particular approached each version as a tabula rasa; it's intriguing to listen to both and hear Dolphy playing two completely different sets of ideas on the same theme.

But the Tristano/Konitz effort, part of which was released on an album called "Intuition," predated "Free Jazz" by nearly 15 years.

Tristano's been dead for years now, and their bassist, Arnold Fishkin, wasn't exactly a household name. But back when I was in college, a local guy named Mac McReynolds had a big band that played World War II vintage stuff, with an Air Force motif. McReynolds' band was called the Planes Of Fame band, and his bassist was named Arnold Fishkin. I wasn't aware of the Tristano/Konitz connection back then so I didn't ask the obvious question, but there can't be two guys with a name like Fishkin.

But Konitz today, he may have lost a lot off his fastball by now, but it's hard to tell from listening.

If you've got the time and want to hear some good playing from an old guy, hop on over to the NPR site and grab the concert. It's free, and it's a treat. The old guy can still bring it.

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Happy Birthday, Stan Getz

Enjoy that great tenor sax. Stan Getz would have been 83 today.

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Getz on allmusic.com

Getz on amazon.com

31 years past his death, Mingus is still great

Bassist and band leader Charles Mingus passed away 31 years ago today, on Jan. 5, 1979.

Simply put, he was one of the greatest in jazz -- particularly if you could stand to work with him. There are plenty of stories about that aspect of Mingus' personality.

Here's a twofer from Mingus: "Moanin," a song that first showed up on his Blues And Roots album (love that baritone sax there), and his version of Duke Ellington's "Take The A Train."

Right around 1960 Mingus had his own Ellington phase, switching over to the piano, going with slightly larger bands, and deploying trombonist Jimmie Knepper more frequently, in a role similar to what Lawrence Brown played for The Duke.

Knepper and Mingus later had an altercation and Mingus punched his trombonist in the mouth -- unforgivable stuff given Knepper needed a good lip to play. Knepper later sued Mingus but admitted from the stand that he did his best work ever under that lunatic.



But this video is from later, probably around 1964. That's when Mingus used one of his best-ever touring bands, with Jaki Byard on piano and Eric Dolphy on alto sax/bass clarinet/flute. Dolphy's featured here.

Mingus is definitely one of my favorites.

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Hendrix' 'Voodoo Child' chosen as best guitar riff

What's rock music without a guitar to set things up?

Rock has been a haven for fast-fingered guitarists since Chuck Berry, and many of the guitar riffs stick in a person's mind decades after the song was first laid down on vinyl. From the relatively-primitive Berry and Bo Diddley riffs, the music has evolved in the decades since. But you can listen to part of a song, hear someone on guitar, and identify the song at 50 paces. Eric Clapton's “Layla” (which featured Duane Allman on the out solo), Lynrd Skynrd's “Freebird,” and Deep Purple's “Smoke On The Water” are among the most easily-recognized tunes just from the guitar licks.

But Jimi Hendrix' “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” was recently chosen as the song with the best guitar riff by a poll at musicradar.com – edging out “Sweet Child O'Mine” by Guns N'Roses.

According to The London Telegraph:

When the site's sister magazine Total Guitar last conducted the survey five years ago, the list was headed by the G N'R song ... the list shows that the older riffs are the best. Just two from the past decade make it into the top 20 - Muse's Plug In Baby at 11 and The White Stripes' Seven Nation Army at 15 ... Michael Jackson's Beat It, with its Eddie Van Halen guitar part, props up the top 20 ... Voodoo Child - with its distinctive 'wah-wah' opening - was first released on Hendrix's Electric Ladyland album and led on from an earlier track, Voodoo Chile, which was a 15-minute blues jam ... confusingly, by the time it was released as a single in 1970 it too had been named Voodoo Chile.

No surprise there. Hendrix was a monster, and Voodoo Child was just part of his body of work.

A few years ago, Guitar Player Magazine chose Hendrix the best guitarist ever, beating out the Claptons, the Stevie Ray Vaughans, the David Gilmours, and the Eddie Van Halens. So many choices, so many choices ...

Hendrix was an oddball in the guitar-playing world. A southpaw, he played a guitar strung for a right-hander – meaning he had to flip his guitar upside down and use his thumb to form part of his chords – something no sane guitar teacher would allow. But, like fellow lefty blues guitarist Albert King, he had his own immediately-recognizable sound that, I think, could only be done on an upside-down guitar.

Really, the only one I can think of who came close to Hendrix's sound was Ernie Isley of the Isley Brothers (a really underrated guitarist – check out some of his stuff in the late 1970s and early 80s). But there's a reason for that. One of Hendrix' first regular gigs was as a touring guitarist with the Isley Brothers. It wasn't Isley building his sound from what he heard Hendrix play, but it might have been the other way around.

Some years ago, a band I was in played “Little Wing,” one of my favorite Hendrix songs. It's a heavy, bluesy piece, with lots of sustain and serious note-bending. We did it in E minor, and our guitarist (Stef Rodman) took his solo on it. Then signaled me to take a lead. Man, I remember telling myself, you don't know what you're getting into here.

Apparently I didn't screw it up too badly; that song became a staple of our set list. Years later, I did “Little Wing” with local guitarist Everette Bigbee at a jam session. Ol' Ev is a real beast on guitar and has probably heard everything twice, but he blew his mind at the thought of someone “doing Hendrix” on harmonica.

One hoary Internet rumor I've heard floating around was that, shortly before he died in 1970, Hendrix came friendly with jazzman Rahsaan Roland Kirk, and they played together informally a few times. Now, this is entirely plausible. Hendrix was definitely headed in a jazz direction, and Rahsaan was, well, Rahsaan. A totally singular performer who could play three saxophones at one time, sing over the mouthpiece of his flute, and shift from Dixieland to avant-garde without using a clutch. Jimi had often cited Rahsaan as his favorite musician, so such a meeting was not only possible -- but likely.

Shoot, if the two recorded anything together – even a tape of them tuning up in someone's apartment, it would be worth moving heaven and earth to get.

Check out: The musicradar.com site -- cool slideshow!

Hendrix on last.fm, All Music Guide.

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You tell me: What was your favorite guitar lick? Have you ever been able to “do Hendrix” successfully? Use the comment section for feedback.