Ornette Has Left the Planet

Sad day if somewhat inevitable. Ornette Coleman passed yesterday in New York, aged 85. I can't think of anything profound to say about Ornette that hasn't been said before. He has been praised up and down, called everything from genius to legend, recognized financially with a MacArthur fellowship. Thousands of student musicians will hear him but none can imitate him because he did not play by the numbers; there are no pattern book exercises you can memorize and play at high speed that will teach you harmolodics.

I found seven different articles about Ornette on The Guardian today while searching his obit. Some choice snippets:

"Having bought his first saxophone with money he had earned from shining shoes, Coleman learned to play it as if it were a toy. “I didn't know you had to learn to play,” he told the Guardian. “I didn't know music was a style and that it had rules and stuff, I thought it was just sound. I thought you had to play to play, and I still think that."

"Coleman was given an alto saxophone by his mother at the age of 14, but there was no money for lessons. It did not occur to the boy that this might matter. As Coleman once put it: “I thought music was just something human beings done naturally, like eating. I thought [the saxophone] was a toy and I just played it. Didn't know you have to learn something to find out what the toy does.”"

"His playing was by now a partly planned, partly serendipitous mingling of tonal, atonal and microtonal music (the exact pitch of Coleman’s notes defy the tuning fork), infused with the blues."

How about that? Music as sound? Something human beings done naturally? You mean you don't have to painfully kvetch out years of lessons, exams and competitions to become a player? You have to play to play? Defy the tuning fork? Blasphemous. One of a kind. Irreplaceable. Listen to his records.

Here are links to the full articles:

http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2015/jun/11/ornette-coleman-ourage-and-rightness
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jun/11/jazz-great-ornette-coleman-dies-aged-85
http://www.theguardian.com/music/gallery/2015/jun/11/ornette-coleman-life-in-pictures
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/jan/24/ornette-coleman-seb-rochford
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jun/11/ornette-coleman
http://www.theguardian.com/music/from-the-archive-blog/2015/jun/11/ornette-coleman-ronnie-scotts-jazz-1966
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jun/11/harmolodics-and-ham-sandwiches-meeting-ornette-coleman

Coming to America (Shola Version, 2015)

I just heard from Nigerian saxophonist extraordinaire Shola Emmanuel, who is currently fulfilling a lifelong dream by travelling to the U.S. with horn. He spent a few weeks in Atlanta and is currently jamming away in D.C.

Shola's impression is that "Jazz Musicians work so hard but most time struggle everywhere." The more things change, the more they stay the same. I trust the U.S. meets Shola's expectations musically and he earns some lasting international recognition while there, because many I know define success by the mere act of relocation to a more developed economy.

2014 was musically fruitful for Shola, evidenced by a baker's dozen of links to YouTube videos he's done over the last year. Here is an improvisation on clarinet backed by bass which has a montage of stills in the background (pay particular attention to the photo of Shola with a certain tenorist which shows up at the 1:05 mark):

And here are the other dozen links for your listening enjoyment. Comments are welcomed and will be passed on to the musicians:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQbwnh26zAE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiUlX66ke_o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFpqbrLV_Uo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9qI1664ups

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w2Vy4LeTaM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDUqwIzdZMo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40pN4K1CAcQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjBoL1E1esk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BE-h09zFQf8

http://youtu.be/RHhelh9ogAg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rn36DLTXFxQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qecFHrRjU4

I'm told a new song is on the way and will post it as soon as received. Be on the lookout.

Quick Trip to Madagascar

Deux chevaux rounds a corner in 'Tana

Last week, I had the opportunity to spend a few days in one of the world’s less-visited backwaters, Madagascar − probably better known for the eponymous cartoons than for anything going on there these days. The Red Island is a quiet throwback to 1962. Antananarivo, the hilly capital, is one of the last remaining outposts of colonial France, evidenced by the ubiquitous presence of bald-headed, board-shorts-wearing 80-year-old Frenchmen sporting desperate local nieces in every hotel lobby. The city has a grungy charm despite obvious deep poverty. The taxis are mostly deux chevaux that have long seen better days, now kept alive with wire and duct tape, usually started with a push. Unfortunately, visitors to ‘Tana have no chance to see Madagascar’s iconic lemurs and baobabs in their natural habitat, as those few that remain on the largely deforested 21st century island are far from the city.

Two popular modes of transport in Madagascar

Happily, Madagascar does have some jazz, unlike much of nearby East Africa; there is even a jazz radio station in ‘Tana (granted, playing mostly tinkling lounge music and doobie-doo vocals). The popular outdoor restaurant Buffet du Jardin in Place de l´Independance posted handbills for an upcoming live “Madajazz” event which featured photos of a local altoist. I can only hope he’s advanced his listening beyond 1980’s David Sanborn since I had to leave before I heard the show. A lively venue, although every time I visited the police stopped me and shook me down for ‘tea money’ upon departure. On the positive side, one beneficial legacy of French colonialism is that great food is everywhere.

The trademark instrument of Madagascar is the valiha, a stringed instrument belonging to the zither family, constructed from a large bamboo tube with strings of various lengths from end-to-end around the circumference. Valihas of various sizes are available in local markets for around $10; I am certain that more are sold to tourists to hang on the wall than are actually played by locals these days. As in most of today’s Africa, rappers with big sunglasses dominate the local music scene, with nary an instrument to be heard beyond guitar, electronic keyboard or drum machine when you turn on the TV or radio. Nonetheless, last summer I picked up bootleg DVDs of Dexter, Hawk and Rahsaan as I strolled through the park near Place de l´Independence. Somebody in Madagascar knows the good stuff.

Remembering Keystone Korner

Picked up the book Keystone Korner: Portrait of a Jazz Club yesterday, although I still have trouble calling any e-version a proper book. I was attracted to the book because it reminded me of visiting the famous San Francisco music haunt a few times back in late 1977 or early 1978, when I was newly out of college and hanging out with my engine-nerd brother in the Bay Area. Last laugh is on him, I guess, as he is an early-retired millionaire while I am still down at the steel mill chucking steel like a slave.

I remember it as a relatively small, unremarkable space where I could always manage to get front row seats. Cover must’ve been about 8 bucks then since it was before both jazz and San Francisco became exclusive domains of the upper crust. At that price I was able to see and hear some great acts, usually either going alone or with my long-lost friend Dave, another young jazz-obsessed white guy saxophonist who played some tenor. I played alto in those days. Wonder what ever happened to Dave? I can’t even remember his last name or I could Google him up. What I do remember is the rat on the floor under the bed when I stayed over at his Oakland apartment after one late night performance.

Back at Keystone Korner:

Cecil Taylor on solo piano. Cecil played that piano like he had three hands. I am not a big piano fan but he was amazing. Last I heard of Cecil, now an octogenarian, is that he was 419’d last year out of something like half a million dollars.

Max Roach, the greatest jazz drummer in history, with his second great quintet featuring smokin’ Billy Harper on tenor and Cecil Bridgewater on trumpet. This band is relatively unsung but probably second only to the Clifford Brown-Sonny Rollins group of the mid-50’s (kind of like Miles’ mid-60’s Wayne Shorter band in comparison to his late-50’s group with Trane). Max was professorial. Billy Harper never played a bad note then and still hasn’t, one of the best tenors alive and one of my perennial favorites.

Dewey Redman, at the peak of his creativity. This was Ear of the Behearer-era, all originals before he (like many masters who must get frustrated with their own creativity) regressed to playing standards. At the time he was at the top of my list of active tenor players and I really looked forward to hearing him live. Unfortunately, Dewey was not friendly.

Dave, where are you now? Do you still play tenor?

Jackie Hits the Daily Mail

Not quite music, but Jackie's first month at St. Andrews has been memorialized in the UK tabloid The Daily Mail:

Keep Calm and Listen to Jazz

Shola Emmanuel - Paris Recording Session

I awoke in the middle of the night to a rooster call from my fancy new hand phone, a call from an excited Shola Emmanuel announcing that he had just returned from a recording session in Paris. In the fog of sleep I couldn't catch too much detail, but in the morning I found a link to a professionally-produced YouTube video in my email. Here it is, kind of a chamber-jazz thing with a French rhythm section. I am promised that there is more to come; a new album is being mixed.

The musicians in the video are:

Shola Emmanuel : Alto Saxophone

Matteo Pastorino : Clarinet

Jean-Baptiste Pinet : Drums

Rafael Paseiro : Double Bass

Recorded at Bopcity Jazz-Studio, Paris, June 2014.
Other tunes were recorded at the same session with additional musicians and instruments:

Bertrand Beruard - Double Bass
Femi Paul - Alto Sax
Michèle-Anna Artiste - Vocals

Michael Williams - Drums

Johan Blanc - Trombone

Ruairidh - Bagpipe

Shola also played tenor sax, baritone sax, clarinet, trumpet, and piano.

In this day and age where every music school student has more recordings under his belt than some of the historic saxophone legends, I truly hope that Shola's European adventure gets  him some international exposure and leads to some gigs outside of Nigeria. He is one of the only contemporary Nigerian saxophonists playing original improvised music as well as music in the tradition of the Parker-Coltrane axis, swimming against the tide of crappy hip-hop and African MTV big-sunglass videos. I've known Shola for more than six years now and he was already introduced to me as "the best saxophonist in Abuja" on day one. I will update with more video and sound files as I get them.

Tempus Fugit

“We know you've got talent, but do you have the natural ability?”

Soloing on Tenor with
Dalat's Concert Band

Jackie garnered three major all-school awards at Dalat International School’s end-of-year awards ceremony this morning – two in the performing arts plus an academic one – along with two course awards. Later in the evening she was awarded a scholarship for the performing arts, completing ten awards today overall. Talk about proud dad (and no doubt engendering some green glances...).

Jackie was honored with the Band Director’s Award as Dalat’s outstanding instrumentalist for her saxophone performances in both concert band and jazz band; she started on alto five years ago and progressed to learn both tenor and baritone, tenor being her instrument of choice these days. She then won the school’s Fine Arts Award for her triple – no quadruple – threat in singing, dancing, and acting on top of playing mean horn. She recently played and sang the lead in Dalat’s musical theatre production Boardwalk Melody, not only acting but also contributing to the original script and music. I actually think she is more talented as a vocalist. To cap off the day she was named the recipient of the school's Doug Brokaw Memorial Scholarship for further study in the performing arts, presented by one of her musical mentors, Valeri Brokaw. One of the course awards was in digital media which means she understands how to use technology as well as create quality content. Wow.

Out on a Gig on Alto

I started taking Jackie out on gigs when she was 14 and she just started to improvise on stage in performance situations. She never did have stage fright and has become a comfortable if self-critical performer. I've never had to force her to practice, she just likes to play. She already understands that the journey is its own reward.

Some heavy duty rites of passage happening at the moment as she graduates high school and moves on to university, probably in the UK. But I really believe it is onward and upward for this girl who has always been good at everything she does but humble and in-touch as a person.

It’s nice for her to be recognized so highly but I truly believe you ain't seen nothing yet, and I'm looking forward to watching her flourish in a wider, higher level environment with even more creative performance possibilities in both theatre and music. 

Bud Powell’s crazy tempo 1949 piano composition nails it: time flies. Just yesterday she was first picking up the instrument. I'm looking forward to jamming with her later today. Go girl!

Jazz in Transit - Zurich

May 12, 2014, 8:00am Central European Time. Getting most of my jazz in transit these days. On my way from Africa to Europe, transiting through Zurich this time. Like a different world in cleanliness, orderliness, efficiency and population density from the day-to-day world I inhabit. “Africa Rising” has a long way to go.

Stuck in an early morning change of planes, the only place to get a coffee was the “Montreux Jazz Café” in Terminal D. Only airport I have ever been to that has a 3-meter-high photo of Miles on the wall (granted, a near-death Miles in a track suit and big sunglasses caught eating a sandwich). I sat down and had a $25 latte and baguette. Am I really out of it or has money lost its value – particularly the dollar?

There was a wall-sized TV playing video from the 2012 Montreux Jazz Festival. Most of the acts were far from my idea of “jazz”, but I did manage to catch one clip of Dave Liebman playing a Trane tribute with Swiss pianist George Gruntz. Liebman looked like Bad Grandpa on soprano but sure sounded sweet. Almost everything else I saw consisted of middle aged white men wearing black, lots of vocals, stuff I would call pop/lounge with little improvisation (other than the memorized kind of course), swing, or dissonance/blue notes.

Well what do I know? Picked up the program for the upcoming 48th Montreux Jazz Festival in July and Stevie Wonder is one of the headliners. A couple of decent acts – Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette with John Coltrane’s and Jimmy Garrison’s “kids” in his band (both now older than their fathers when they tore up the sky), Dr. John – great but not jazz. But about 50 other rock, pop, and lounge acts. Ugh.

Aha – a jump-suited Herbie Hancock now on the video playing Chameleon on some kind of toy-looking shoulder-slung electronic keyboard. I guess he knows what side his bread is buttered on because what I am watching is far from groundbreaking. Bar band music for a big paycheck. Borderline embarrassing. Herbie – Nooooo!

I am carrying my horn today for the first time in a while so somehow feel compelled to stand up for the music for its own sake. A ticket for Montreux this year? An All Music Pass “valid for standing room access during the entire festival”  is a mere CHF 2,000 – more than $2,200! Festival sponsors include SOCAR – the state oil company of Azerbaijan, a friendly family dictatorship (where is Rain Sultanov, then, Azerbaijan’s premier horn man?), and UBS, the bank famous for assisting money launderers worldwide that has paid huge sums to the US Government to settle tax evasion charges.

Has jazz just become another way the self-appointed elites of the world express their exclusiveness and erudition? Another form of classical music? So far from its roots in exactly the opposite – the cry of freedom. Where is the cry of freedom in jazz today? How do we purge the music of its conservatory-trained enfants terrible, doobie-doo vocalists and middle aged men cashing their checks? How can auditorium-loads of human beings sit through this pap – especially at ticket prices higher than the annual GDP per capita of most of the countries I work in? How did these acts get on the bill in the first place? And I just read that last year’s Montreux Jazz Festival attracted 250,000 visitors. George Clinton might ask, where is the funk?

Brief Encounter with Guitarist Nels Cline at Istanbul Airport

Standing in the passport queue at Istanbul Airport - modelled after a Disneyland switchback and just as crowded - I noticed a group of four or five arty-looking Americans in the row in front of me, two of them carrying guitar gig bags on their backs. It is easy to spot Americans when travelling internationally these days, not because of their loud mouths as in days of yore, but because we are few and far between in airports bursting at the seams with first time travellers from the so-called 'emerging world'. Anyway these Americans truly looked like artistes among the crowd of laptop, hand-phone and iPad twiddling tourists and businessmen.

The queue stalled endlessly and the tallest of the lot, a thin 50-something guitar-carrying traveller, stopped in front of me with the name tag on his gig bag dangling in my face: "Nels Cline. New York, NY". Nels Cline - Nels Cline Singers - guitar not my musical bag but he is known for creativity and my Google search a day later showed him playing alongside Ellery Eskelin and William Parker, Julius Hemphill and Tim Berne. Apparently he has hooked up with a rock band called Wilco (whom I have neither heard of nor heard), apparently a big deal which has exposed him to a much larger audience than his avant-garde jazz playing ever did. I've listened to his music without paying enough attention.

Ron: I see being a famous guitarist doesn't help you get through the passport line any faster.

Nels: No.

Ron: Its not easy travelling carrying your instruments and stuff.

Nels: Its not too bad.

Ron: Well anyway, congratulations on making it to this point in life playing music for a living.

Nels: Its the only thing I've ever wanted to do. Thank you.

Security opened the gate and let the line pass; he was gone.

Well, maybe I have to give his music a serious listen now. Humility and talent seldom go together. As Jackie said when I told her about the incident, "reasons to like musicians 101".

Shola Eml – Jazz Africa Fusion

I phoned my sax playing buddy Shola Emmanuel in Abuja a few days ago to wish him Happy New Year and he asked me if I got the link. Link to what? A mystery until this morning when his email arrived.

The link inside led to an excellent three-minute video of Shola and his music shot by French filmmaker Libero Films. I don’t know too much about the clip’s genesis – possibly waiting for TV – but wanted to get it out as soon as possible. Apparently there is a second part in the works. If you are not familiar with altoist Shola from previous posts, we first met in Nigeria six years ago and have been on the same musical wavelength ever since. He is gifted with one of the quickest ears I've ever come across.

View Shola Eml – Jazz Africa Fusion below, or watch it in your browser by clicking the link here.

Shola’s web site Rhythm and Sax has a contact form if you'd like to get in touch with him directly.

You can read about Marseille-based Libero films here (French language site).

Au Revoir, Yusef Lateef

I’m seriously getting tired of this. Seems like every horn man I admire has passed on. Maybe it is a function of the fact that I do not especially like neo-con jazz and do my best to avoid those young conservatory players who approach the music in the same way a classical violinist does, following the rules, loaded with technique but void of creativity and innovation. This week Yusef Lateef left the earth. At least Yusef made it to the advanced age of 93 – unlike most musicians of his generation, he must have had some health care.

Jackie mentioned to me last week that her high school concert band was chock-a-block with saxophonists and as one of the seniors she was asked to diversify and play either oboe or bari. At one time I played oboe in school and told her that my inspiration to do so was Yusef Lateef, maybe the only jazz player in history to do anything worthwhile on that cool-sounding but testy and inflexible double reed. I asked her to seek out some of Yusef’s music on YouTube. A premonition?

Yusef came up in 1940s bebop and blues when cities like Detroit had a thriving scene of their own; he was a tenor player at the core, but by the 1950s he began to introduce other instruments to his repertoire, pioneering what came to be labeled as “world music”. Unlike many pioneers, however, he was not shot dead in his tracks and survived to play music that nobody else had in their head. Like contemporary Rahsaan Roland Kirk, many admired him but nobody copied him. And he stood out from Trane’s mighty shadow.

In reading obits in the Detroit Free Press and New York Times, I find it ironic that Yusef gained academic music degrees only after he had already been one of jazz’ leading hornmen for decades. Who could possibly have been good enough to teach him? And subsequently, what became of his own students? Apparently he turned to academia to eat well, teaching at U. Mass. Amherst in the 1970s, a period when luminaries like Archie Shepp and Max Roach were on the faculty.

Although Yusef’s music took off for outer space, he was rooted in the blues, no better shown than in the 1960 recording 'Teef under Louis Hayes’ name on VeeJay, a straightahead workout which is a favorite of mine. I also particularly like Live at Pep's Vols. 1 and 2 on Impulse from the mid-60s. Yusef continued recording until earlier this year, his last, Light by the Universal Quartet, done in Denmark just this past spring at age 92.

One less legend around to inspire us. Jackie ended up choosing baritone.

Unfortunately, I Was Right About Stan Tracey

I wish there would be some news in the jazz world other than the greats leaving us one-by-one. My premonition last July was correct in the case of Stan Tracey, as I went out of my way while in Scotland last summer to see him at the Edinburgh Jazz Festival, only to be disappointed when he was a no-show at his own gig. I thought it perhaps my last chance to see the legendary house pianist from Ronnie Scott’s, and unfortunately I was right; Stan passed away this week. No more to be heard from the man for whom accompanying the likes of Dexter Gordon and Ben Webster every night for seven years was like "Christmas every day" (shades of Elmo). See his lengthy Guardian obit here.

Jim Hall left us this week as well. Most notable in my book for joining Sonny Rollins’ 1962 re-entry-from-outer-space album The Bridge, Jim played subtle guitar with virtually everybody in jazz, proving that you don’t have to be a million-note-a-minute twiddler to be a great player. If only more would listen and adopt his approach. From his New York Times obit: Mr. Hall never took his mastery of the guitar for granted. “The instrument keeps me humble…Sometimes I pick it up and it seems to say, ‘No, you can’t play today.’ I keep at it anyway, though.”

To think that someone whose mastery of the instrument appeared so effortless was actually still intimidated by it after playing for 73 years. I don't feel so bad now on those days when practice seems like work and I feel like a small child picking up my horn for the first time.

Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre, R.I.P.

A fallow period for me musically and a shame to break the blogging silence with a report on the passing of yet another one of my favorites, A.A.C.M. tenor saxophonist Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre, at the age of 77. I found the news in an obtuse reference on a music blog I occasionally visit, but haven’t seen an official obituary yet. Kalaparusha was the subject of the great Guardian video “That’s Not a Horn, It’s a Starvation Box” in 2010, which I have previously referenced in my rants about true musical creators being underappreciated. I've told my own stories about Kalaparusha on this blog before.

Kalaparusha, "Humility in the Light of the Creator", rest in peace. Your sound and your message did touch those who paid attention, and they live on.

Blue Lester

In Penang to see Jackie perform at Short + Sweet Theatre 2013, I phoned journalist-cum-harpist Kim Gooi and asked him to come watch the show at Penang Performing Arts Centre. Kim came down and we talked music of course; blues, blues, and more blues. Kim had the idea to invite guitarist Joe Goh up from KL for one of our epic jams. The Penang Blues Brothers ride again.

The Penang Blues Brothers jump and wail: Joe Goh, Kim Gooi, Ron Ashkin

Joe caught the Katy up from Kuala Lumpur last Friday. I dropped by Kim’s and the three of us spent the afternoon working out on only three tunes – T-Bone Shuffle, Kidney Stew, and Blue Lester – all from the mid-to-late-1940s. I was on a roll a couple of weeks ago in Lagos and transcribed T-Bone Shuffle and Blue Lester from the original records and this was my chance to play them with others.

I particularly have had an ear worm for Blue Lester and I just can’t get that 1944 slow F-blues out of my head, Count Basie on piano backing Lester Young just prior to his military nightmare. I had first admired the tune on Von Freeman’s The Great Divide, where he calls it Blue Pres, and had half-transcribed it at the time – Vonski plays it at an even slower pace than Pres. A few weeks back I pulled up the original on my iTunes and re-discovered 10 choruses of pure bliss – Pres blows two choruses on the head, a single solo chorus, back to the head again, then Basie enters for three and Pres takes it out with three more, not bothering to return to the theme. Freddie Green anchors the proceedings with his steady rhythm guitar. Not a sound wasted. Nobody plays like that these days, when apparently both pianists and saxophonists are paid by the note. I can’t get the theme and Lester’s first solo chorus out of my head. I've transcribed that chorus and find Lester’s note choices deceptively simple, making me feel like I've been over-thinking my own improvisations.

PPAC echoes (literally) with the sound of 1944.

Unfortunately I left my trusty Zoom recorder back in Lagos and couldn't catch our version on tape. But on Saturday night, the three of us were invited to play for the cast party after Short + Sweet closed and we had a chance to perform Blue Lester in public for the first time. The tempo was set a bit fast and a young crowd more attuned to hip-hop got up and danced. Lester Young’s 16 bars connected with 2013 ears in Malaysia just as they had almost 70 years earlier in WWII-era America. It was not just me with the ear worm.

As Kim is fond of saying, if blues was money, I’d be millionaire.

Jackie Awarded Best Supporting Actor (Female)

Best Supporting Actor (Female) 2013
...also Playwright and Director

Short + Sweet Penang 2013 culminated in an awards ceremony on Saturday night and Jackie won the judges' prize for Best Supporting Actor (Female) for her role in Mark Sasse's 'No' In Spite of Itself, despite her limited on-stage time. Congrats! Jackie's behind-the scenes role as director helped that play win Best Script for the series, helped out immensely by Ciera Nash and Joseph Stoltzfus doing strong work as the leads. Congrats to all.

The Penang Blues Brothers entertained with some jump and urban blues both before the performance and afterwards at the cast party. Special thanks to KL guitar hero Joe Goh and harpist Kim Gooi for the down home sound.

Here is the final night's performance of 'No' In Spite of Itself on YouTube:

Short + Sweet Theatre 2013 @ Penang

Joseph Stoltzfus and Jackie Ashkin
"You talkin' to me?"

Short + Sweet Theatre has returned to Penang Performing Arts Centre for the second year, with Faridah Merican and Joe Hasham overseeing production of a series of ten original short plays for a four-night run. Jackie’s original script Noticed was selected as one of this year's ten plays, and Jackie chose to direct another play and act in it as well. Her script Smart Phones Stupid People, which was so popular at last year's Short + Sweet in Penang, is being produced independently in Kuala Lumpur this year.

Ironically, although scripts were selected anonymously, the script Jackie chose to direct turned out to be written by her Dalat International School drama coach Mark Sasse, and Mark’s choice as a director turned out to be Jackie’s script.

Director Jackie takes a bow

This year's run began on Wednesday, September 11 and finishes on Saturday, September 14. Jackie made her directorial debut with ‘No’ In Spite of Itself and also plays a supporting role, with Dalat friends Ciera Nash and Joseph Stoltzfus as the leads. Hope to have some YouTube clips up before long.

Biodun & Batik Afro Jazz Band at Freedom Park - Audio Tracks

On Stage at Freedom Park in Lagos
with Biodun & Batik Afro Jazz Band

I was invited to Freedom Park on Lagos Island on Friday night to perform as the guest of trumpeter Biodun with his Batik Afro Jazz Band. Freedom Park is a relatively new venue on the site of the former colonial prison, an open air stage inside a walled prison courtyard that has been converted into a green space – an urban performance place in a sculpture garden surrounded by food stalls. I had heard of Freedom Park as the site of occasional Seun Kuti gigs, but it is relatively far from where I stay and I had not previously ventured down there. It is a very nice spot to spend an evening and I recommend it to music fans in Lagos. Biodun met me at the gate and introduced me to the park director, who turns out to be Fela Kuti’s son-in-law.

Biodun is a fine Hugh Masakela-influenced trumpeter – I wrote about him when we first met in May of this year. His pedigree includes stints with Fela and Lagbaja. At Freedom Park, he fronted his Batik Afro Jazz Band of keyboards, guitar, bass, drums, and occasional girl singer. I had met bass player Mike before at Biodun’s home studio, but the rest of the rhythm section was new to me, fairly young but highly competent players. When Biodun phoned me to make the gig, I asked for a set list. He said not to worry, no set list, they probably would not play any standards, just some pop tunes and highlife in I-IV-V progression, and I could just jam along.

Two Tenors -
With Saxophonist Seun Olota

I realized the morning after the gig that Biodun and Batik play an incredible diversity of music – from jazz tunes by John Coltrane and Wayne Shorter to reggae, Fela's afrobeat, Igbo and Yoruba highlife, Afro-pop, originals, 60’s rock, and even some requisite smooth jazz hits and pop covers by the likes of Whitney Houston. I played tenor on the jazz tunes, most of the highlife, and had my first experience performing a Fela tune live – Water No Get Enemy, which I learned from Showboy last year and actually remembered. During the second set, another tenor player, Seun Olota, joined the group, making it an octet. He and Biodun looked to be old friends and Seun fronted the band on two Fela tunes, singing and dancing Water and Lady to the crowd’s delight.

I have posted a few audio tracks from my Zoom: here are links to Water No Get Enemy, Footprints, an Igbo highlife of unknown title, and Equinox (320 kbps MP3 sound files). That’s the good. The bad is that the sound system was not great, with the bass dominating, the snare drum too loud, and the piano down in the mix. The lead instruments were somewhat buried all night – especially the tenor sax, of course, which particularly gets drowned out by loud bass guitar since their frequencies overlap. But the music itself is nice.

There was no ugly.

Saxophone Colossus

My tenor-playing compatriot Alan Breen, now located in Phnom Penh, sent me the link to this noteworthy article about Sonny Rollins. Rather lengthy in this short-attention-span world, but definitely worth the read.

One of the first jazz LPs I bought when I was a college student was Saxophone Colossus, and I remember playing it sparingly because it was so great I was worried about wearing it out. Sonny is just the best ever. Imagine jamming with Bird while still a teenager and keeping up, and now at age 82 still having the urge to practice every day – to get better. One of the only times Bird recorded on tenor was alongside young Sonny on Serpent's Tooth in 1953 (try to pick out who is who on that record). Sonny has produced just too much good music through the years to credibly say that one piece, or one era, or one band, or one album is his best. I particularly love the story about the classic Tenor Madness session with John Coltrane in 1956 where Trane reputedly grumbled that Sonny was just messing with him.

Reviews of Sonny’s 1960s RCA recordings – including the article in the link above – usually focus on his comeback album The Bridge, which is a jewel but ultra-conservative for 1962. I prefer the band from later that year with Don Cherry on trumpet, and the album from the following year alongside founding father Coleman Hawkins, which I find incredible. Sonny took some unique approaches during that session – some reviewers describe them as odd – merely to emphasize that he was not Hawk. Not long ago I came across some bootlegs from Ronnie Scott’s in the mid-60s that are undiscovered fun, where Sonny shares the stage with Ronnie himself (recently-discussed master Stan Tracey is on piano).

I've had the chance to see Sonny live twice through the years; once in 1981-82 in Philly in a club where I sat so close I could have shined his shoes. That night he was smokin’. In the mid-90’s I caught Sonny at Symphony Hall in Chicago. The venue was just wrong, the sound was bad, and the tickets were expensive. That gig was a disappointment, an off night.

2011’s Road Shows Vol. 2, where fellow octogenarians Sonny and Ornette Coleman have their first-ever meeting, is notable because Sonny mirrors Ornette’s style when they play together. Unbelievable that they never performed on the same stage before this.

There is a wonderful photo of Sonny on Ellery Eskelin’s blog from about a year ago where Ellery met Sonny sitting in the waiting lounge of Detroit airport. Here is the living link to every major jazz player since Coleman Hawkins and a player who is on absolutely everyone’s best-tenor-saxophonist-in-history list flying coach class and sitting on a hard seat in the public area. This man should be up in First Class and in the VIP Room. A sad commentary on the economics of a playing horn for a living, even at the top.

According to Mark Jacobson’s article, Sonny is suffering from a lung ailment and hasn't touched his Mark VI for a couple of months. Not good news at age 82. Here’s a prayer that he makes it back. We can’t do without him.

Bands With Horns

Before I forget, a few words about the live music scene in Glasgow, which appears like a foggy memory now that I have been back to the hustle of Lagos for a few weeks. Glasgow is a town of pubs and many of them support live bands. While in Glasgow I stayed in the city centre district known as Merchant City, serendipitously the hub of the live bar band scene. There was a pub called Maggie May’s right downstairs from my hotel room with live music (where I watched a stand-up comedy show one night and confirmed that we are indeed two nations separated by a common language); on the next corner was Blackfriar's, where I saw a rockabilly band on a Tuesday night replete with lead singer in red cowboy hat.

Not all the live music in Glasgow is precisely to my taste but live music in pubs has an inherent value of its own, and Glasgow is a great place to visit if only for a sampling of one of the world’s best bar band scenes. Local music in 2013 is all the more valuable in light of today’s article in The Independent about so-called big name acts using pre-recorded backing tracks during their (well-paid) “live” performances…

My best memory of Glasgow’s bar scene came about on a night when Blackfriar’s was dark; I asked the mountainous bouncer where there might be live music and he directed me a few blocks away to McChuill’s Public House. It didn't look too promising from the outside, like just another neighborhood pub, but when I entered and turned the corner two tenor saxes and a trumpet were staring me in the face. One of the tenors was a Mexi-Conn. Bar band heaven. The group was Republic of Soul and they put down two sets that took me back to Chicago. Almost an entire set of Wilson Pickett. Wicked.