(Almost) Saw Legendary Pianist Stan Tracey in Concert

Brian Kellock (piano), Bobby Wellins (tenor sax), Clark Tracey (drums) in Edinburgh

I am currently in Glasgow, Scotland for a couple of weeks. Last Wednesday I brought my ailing Mark VI to nearby Edinburgh for overhaul by Bryce Ferguson, Scotland’s top woodwind tech. It has had a spring broken off in the Eb post since last September and was in general need of maintenance attention. Hope to have it back later this week. Bryce promises it will play amazing. If I thought it played well before...

Edinburgh positions itself as the world’s festival city and luckily this week is the Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival. As such festivals go these days, it is large, well-produced, and well-marketed – but hardly any of the acts suit my taste in music. Wacka wacka.

Of all the acts on the bill over ten days, my choice was to see pianist Stan Tracey, legendary leader of the house rhythm section at Ronnie Scott’s club in London during the halcyon days of the 1960's. Stan has backed a virtual pantheon of saxophonists: Sonny Rollins, Ben Webster, Roland Kirk, Dexter Gordon, Zoot Sims, Al Cohn, Stan Getz, Don Byas, Lucky Thompson, and Ronnie Scott himself (quite a mean tenor player). Stan is 86 now and I figured I’d better see him now while I can. His regular quartet features tenor saxophonist Bobby Wellins, one of Britain’s finest and up in years himself.

I took the 50-minute train ride from Glasgow to Edinburgh after my business was done for the day and went straight to the venue at 3 Bristo Place, a church converted to performance space. When I arrived, the doorman informed me that Stan had cancelled due to illness and pianist Brian Kellock would substitute, leading Stan’s quartet for the evening’s show. Hmph. Not my day. I heard that the organizers actually knew Stan has been ill for the last month and were hoping he would get well in time for the festival gig. Not to put Brian down, since he is a fine musician, but I stayed anyway, having travelled to Edinburgh specifically for the gig. Unfortunately the box office sold me a ticket for the same £17.50 that I would have paid to see Stan himself.

Age Mates:
Bobby Wellins and his BA

The show started and ended with Monk – Monk’s Mood was the opener and Blue Monk the encore. The highlight of the first set was Lover Man done as a fast samba. Bobby Wellins sounded his best and got the best audience response when he played a couple of straight-ahead blues shuffles. Bobby and his Selmer Balanced Action look to be about the same age.

The music was nice but frankly a bit too conservatory-perfect for me – well done, professional, enjoyable, musically correct, but it didn't get me up out of my seat despite the fact that I have been starved for good live jazz for ages. Maybe a bit too perfect. 8 out of 10. Bobby didn't even break a sweat, perhaps a function of playing for such a sedate and well-mannered audience. I was one of the youngest people in the crowd. Kudos to the sound engineers – the sound was finely balanced and crystal clear. Bassist Andrew Cleyndert was a standout. Well done.

Sitting In at Bogobiri, Ikoyi – Audio Tracks

After a year, I finally found a decent place to play in Lagos – Bogobiri House in Ikoyi*, one of the most interesting and friendly spots in this too-harsh environment. Bogobiri is a small boutique hotel tucked in a residential neighborhood that features an in-house art gallery and at least three live music venues on premise, decorated throughout with one-off Africanisms. Bogobiri celebrates Nigeria in a way that many of today’s consumption-driven wannabe hipsters wish to ignore. I found the place refreshing. Check out the web site at http://www.bogobiri.com (admittedly, more hotel- than music-oriented).

Last Sunday night, I was invited to sit in at Bogobiri’s outdoor rooftop stage with Jagger and his rock band. There was a local jazz event going on simultaneously downstairs. I came with my tenor at 4 to rehearse but a private party had booked the space and that didn't happen. I sat around for a couple of hours and simply took my chances when the gig started at 7. I haven’t gigged much at all this year but have taken Monk’s advice to Steve Lacy to heart, “Stay in shape! Sometimes a musician waits for a gig, + when it comes, he’s out of shape + can’t make it.”

I had neither met nor played with Jagger before; there was no rehearsal, no sheet music, no set list, no notes at all. His music was rock, pop, highlife, reggae, and blues. I didn't know what the tunes were until I heard them. No pre-determined solos, no patterns to fit, no memorized parts; I had to find the key, listen to the tempo, the rhythm, the form, the cadence, the drummer’s signals, watch the eye contact. Spontaneous creation, I had to listen with my ears. The music only existed in that moment and can’t be repeated. After the gig, I thought about an interview I had read with the late saxophonist Bob Berg, where he expressed that no matter how good a musician he was, he constantly lived in fear of being discovered as a fraud since he was essentially “faking it” every time he improvised. But Sunday night, the feedback was good. 

This was the first time in ages that I actually liked some of the recordings. I've posted two tunes from Sunday that you can download and listen to – Kuchi Kuchi, a highlife tune, and Bob Marley’s Turn Your Lights Down Low. Although the equipment wasn't great and there were typical problems with mikes and cables, Jagger’s set up was clear and well balanced, and I also solved some technical problems with my Zoom recorder. In retrospect, it is like the music was playing itself for a change. 

* Shades of Fela’s Ikoyi Blindness from 1976 – Ikoyi is an expensive up-scale neighborhood in this nation of 90% poverty – Ikoyi Blindness refers to those social climbers whose behavior is oblivious to the situation all around them.

Lucky Thompson Wasn’t

One of the most under-appreciated tenor saxophonists in the history of jazz, and one of its saddest parables, is Lucky Thompson, born Eli Thompson in 1924. Lucky recorded with Charlie Parker at the birth of bebop in 1946 when he was only 22, is on Monk's 1952 Blue Note sessions, is the tenor saxophonist on Miles Davis' original Walkin’ from 1954 which still sounds so fresh it could have been recorded yesterday, but retired from recording by 1973 and died homeless in 2005 having not touched his horn for decades.

Lucky was just too honest for his own good. He never recorded an album with a string orchestra or backing choir, didn't have a disco-funk explosion in the 70’s, and wasn’t chosen as the favorite of any young lion during the neo-con bebop revival. But every note he recorded between 1946 and 1973 is worth seeking out and listening to. Lucky doesn't sound like anyone else and nobody else sounds like Lucky. As powerful and important a saxophonist as he was, there are no books of Lucky Thompson transcriptions for sale, you can’t practice Lucky Thompson patterns, and you can’t learn to play like Lucky at any university’s music performance degree program.

Lucky played from the heart, not bebop, not swing, beyond category. Story has it that he was difficult to deal with…name me someone who is not difficult to deal with. I think maybe Lucky was just too honest in a world that values honesty only when it is profitable. Just as Monk is revered much more highly 30 years after his death than he was when he was composing his best work, just as Fela was subject of a Broadway play long after his death after suffering imprisonment and debilitating beatings during his lifetime, maybe the time is now ripe for a Lucky Thompson revival and posthumous recognition of his greatness. I’m going to quit writing and go practice Walkin’ for my next gig.

My Musical Biography, Part 6 (Conclusion for Now)

I am never satisfied with my own music – I know every mistake I make – but I also know that you are not taking creative chances if you don’t make some mistakes. The literature about high performance and innovation in every field, not just music, agrees that you have to take chances to advance and that mistakes are part of the learning process. However, street reality is that mistakes are usually penalized. 50 years after Ornette, the thing about 'wrong notes' is still going around...like Monk said as he stared at the piano keyboard, "Show me which note is wrong."

I read a lot about music and get a kick out of academic critics who earn their living by making brilliant statements like “Dexter came in a beat too soon on this phrase” or “Bud played a clashing note while comping in measure 4” or “Sonny hit a clam”. Ha ha, you dimwit. You get behind the horn at 200mph and do something you have never done before, in company of players as good as or better than you who are also creating in the moment. All that said I can’t hardly stand listening to my own playing once I finish mastering the recordings (that’s one thing I have in common with Sonny anyhow). I love playing with other horn players who are better than me. I tend to favor blues and riff tunes and minor scales and disfavor Tin Pan Alley standards (which I never listened to the original of in the first place), although if Pres or Dexter played it, it can’t be all bad. I try to expand my repertoire continually and always introduce new tunes on gigs. My recent repertoire comes from Sam Rivers, Horace Silver, Trane, Rahsaan, Sonny, Monk of course, Cleanhead Vinson, Eddie Harris, Mingus, Cannonball…

Bless the guys who are keeping the music alive. I know you are starving.