Jazz Notes

Last month i wrote about three cities, New Orleans, Vienna and London. This month I’ll add two more, Norwich in England and Odessa, Texas, as different as chalk and cheese except for one thing they have in common: a Jazz Party.

Around the 5th century, Anglo Saxons had a settlement on the site of present-day Norwich. By the 11th century, Norwich was the largest city in England after London. This year it was announced that Norwich would become England’s first UNESCO City of Literature. It is also home to the Norwich Jazz Party which was held on the first weekend of May and featured a line-up of prominent mainstream jazz musicians, including Harry Allen, Houston Person, Bucky Pizzarelli, Rossano Sportiello and Warren Vaché.

One of the welcome aspects of the jazz party is that musicians can make suggestions about what they would like to do. For example, Alan Barnes, a wonderful British reed player, presented a set of Ellington compositions arranged for 14 musicians; Ken Peplowski gave us a program of Benny Carter’s music, arranged for four reeds and rhythm; trumpeter Enrico Tomasso organised a tribute to Billy Butterfield; and I acknowledged the music of a lesser-known trumpeter, Al Fairweather, with a set of his original compositions. All of that plus the usual casual jam sessions made for a very special three days of jazz.

By contrast, Odessa, Texas was founded in 1881 as a water stop and cattle shipping point. Right beside it is Midland — with an airport separating the two towns — originally founded as the midway point between Fort Worth and El Paso on the Texas and Pacific Railroad in 1881. The discovery of oil in the early 1920s transformed the area and Odessa was a boom town. Things turned sour when the price of oil didn’t justify keeping the rigs going and the area fell on hard times.

But that has all changed with the price of oil now around $100 a barrel, bringing with it wealth and a major influx of workers. It has also brought with it a huge shortage of accommodation, so serious that there are even some workers making very good money but sleeping in their cars or trucks! No amount of money can pay for housing that doesn’t exist.

However, for some jazz musicians the raison d’etre for Odessa/Midland is a Jazz Party. The First Annual Odessa Jazz Party was held in 1967. Then in 1977 a group of Midland jazz enthusiasts formed the Midland Jazz Association and their Jazz Classic was born. In 1998 the two jazz parties merged under the umbrella of the West Texas Jazz Society and this year marks the 46th Annual Jazz Party. Held in May, it is now the longest-running jazz party in the United States and this year featured among others — yes, Harry Allen, Houston Person, Bucky Pizzarelli, Rossano Sportiello and Warren Vaché, as well as your resident scribe. Over the years they have presented a veritable Who’s Who of jazz musicians — Vic Dickenson, Herb Ellis, Milt Hinton, Flip Phillips, Ralph Sutton, Joe Venuti, Teddy Wilson, Kai Winding, and on and on.

Incidentally, film buffs might be interested to know that part of the Coen Brothers’ Oscar-winning film No Country For Old Men is set in Odessa. Midland/Odessa is also the home of the Commemorative Air Force, formerly called the Confederate Air Force until it was decided that the word Confederate was politically incorrect. Its home used to be in Harlingen, Texas, and I remember one year when I was playing at the Jazz Party, a couple of friends from Toronto, Joy and Billy Ray Blackwood, talked me into going off to the  annual C.A.F. air show, after the party. So we took off, literally, for Harlingen and the air show. Well, as a certain Scottish poet wrote, “The best laid schemes … gang aft agley,” — come unstuck — for when we got there the air show had already started and we couldn’t land! So we saw fragments of the air show, but from above! (I did get to see the planes on the ground another time, and it really is an impressive collection of WW2 aircraft, mostly American, but also R.A.F., Japanese and German Luftwaffe craft. And you can find them in Midland/Odessa — as well as a great jazz party.

So there you have it: two somewhat unlikely places 5,000 miles apart in which to find great jazz once a year.

And speaking of planes in general, and WW2 aircraft in particular, I have another story or two from the Norwich weekend.

Train travel to London for my trip home had been arranged giving lots of time to make the 6pm flight, the last Air Canada flight of the day. About a half-hour into the journey we stopped at a little town calles Diss — no jokes please about diss and dere — and that’s when the day took a nosedive. A disembodied voice, (no pun intended), on the intercom informed us that the train ahead had mechanical trouble and we all had to get off, taking our luggage with us because they had to move our train out of the way so that a rescue engine could come up from Norwich to move the disabled one.

An hour and a half later we were still standing on the platform and I was beginning to worry about that 6pm flight; we were still a two hour train ride from London, never mind Heathrow.

To cut a long story short, what started out as a comfortable train trip from Norwich ended up as a taxi ride from Diss to Heathrow at a cost of the equivalent of $240!

Here’s where the story gets interesting. The driver, whose name is Barry, was very friendly and talkative. He mentioned that he quite often drove a lady who had been Winston Churchill’s secretary. I immediately knew who he was talking about and responded by saying, “Her first name is Chips, isn’t it?” The driver looked at me in the rear mirror with a look of surprise. “And her last name is Bunch,” I continued. “How do you know?” “Because her husband was John Bunch who was a wonderful pianist and he and I were friends.” A small world.

There is another twist to the story, though. During the Second World War, John was a bombardier in B17 bombers. On his 17th mission he was shot down and miraculously survived but spent the remainder of the war as a P.O.W. Fast forward many years. John and Chips inherited their house near Norwich and the first time they used Barry’s taxi service they drove past Duxford Air Museum. John asked Barry if there was a B17 in the collection. In fact they had two of them and he said he’d really like to see them some day. Well, for the next ten years he said the same thing! Finally Barry said, “All these years you keep saying you want to go to Duxford and it never happens. Let’s do it!”

So they got to the base and there sat a B17 in all its glory, with a film crew around it. They were making a documentary about the plane and our faithful taxi driver called one of the crew over and said, “Do you realise that this gentleman with me was a B17 bombardier during the war?” End result? John was interviewed and included in the documentary.

By the way, good old Barry made it to Heathrow by shortly after 4pm, giving ample time to check-in. And that was when I found out that the flight was late and there would be a two hour delay!

Some days it just doesn’t pay to get out of bed.

Don’t forget that the TD Toronto Jazz Festival kicks off on June 22 and the celebration goes on until July 1, Canada Day. Lots of programming information can be found in this issue.

Enjoy your jazz and make some of it a live experience.

Jim Galloway is a saxophonist, band leader and former artistic director of Toronto Downtown Jazz. He can be contacted at jazznotes@thewholenote.com.

Since last month I have been in three cities, New Orleans, London and Vienna. Of the three, New Orleans is the least representative of the country where it is located. London is unmistakably British, Vienna with the Danube and echoes of the Hapsburg Empire is as Austrian as Wiener Schnitzel. But N.O. or “The Big Easy” is unique among American cities with its background of European, African and Caribbean influences and is far from one’s image of a typical American city.

In case you are not familiar with its history, the territory of Louisiana was claimed for the French in the 1690s. In 1718 the city of New Orleans was founded and in 1803 Napoleon sold Louisiana to the United States, (828,000 square miles for less than three cents per acre!).

The most famous street is Bourbon Street, the focal point of night-life in the French Quarter. Once a hub of New Orleans jazz with bands playing in clubs and bars along the length of the street, the tide of progress has washed that away, with the exception of a few places, making way for souvenir shops, clubs, bars and strip joints. There is still some jazz but you have to seek it out.

I have to mention Fritzel’s which lays claim to being New Orleans’ oldest operating jazz club. It is one of the last venues on Bourbon as you head toward the Marigny and features traditional jazz. They welcome sit-ins which can be a mixed blessing — it certainly was the night I was there when a tenor player who couldn’t play his way out of a paper bag joined the resident musicians. But a fun place, nevertheless. At one time the wall opposite the bar was adorned with a large portrait of Field Marshal Rommel. The picture is still in the club, but has been moved round a corner away from open view, probably to avoid giving offence, although my understanding is that he was respected both by his troops and the allies.

Preservation Hall at 726 St. Peter St. in New Orleans’ French Quarter, is probably the most well known of all the jazz clubs in the city. Here you can hear the traditional acoustic New Orleans jazz.

Some other hot spots include Irvin Mayfield’s Jazz Playhouse (in the Royal Sonesta Hotel on Bourbon Street), Snug Harbor and Vaughan’s.

I caught up with a couple of friends during the visit. Jon Cleary first played Toronto when I booked him into Café des Copains and more recently at the jazz festival when John Scofield brought Jon to play organ with his group. I found him at a club called dba on Frenchman St. at the down-river end of the French Quarter. I also enjoyed an evening on the Natchez, the last authentic steamboat on the Mississippi River, where the band, Dukes Of Dixieland, is led by trumpeter Kevin Clark, who spent some years in Canada and will certainly be remembered by Toronto audiences.

But before leaving The Crescent City I have to comment on this year’s New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival taking place at the end of April. Herbie Hancock, Mavis Staples, Al Green and the Dirty Dozen are among the headliners — but so are Bruce Springsteen, the Beach Boys and Eagles! Oh, well.

Next port of call was London which seems to be doing relatively well in terms of “name “ players. Michel LeGrand, Pat Martino, Scott Hamilton, David Sanchez, Alan Broadbent, Al Di Meola, Howard Alden and Manhattan Transfer were among the musicians coming into town over the following few weeks. Most of them were scheduled to appear at Ronnie Scott’s, which means a pretty expensive night out. Nearby is the Pizza Express Jazz Club, plus two or three dozen pubs and clubs scattered throughout the city, some only presenting jazz once a week.

But talking to musicians, the general reaction when asked how the work scene is was pretty negative, with fewer gigs available and poorly paid at that. (It had been very much the same story in New Orleans — fewer gigs and very often paid by passing a jar round the room.)

Next, I waltzed over to Vienna. It is known as the City Of Music because of its strong connections with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig Van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Johannes Brahms and Gustav Mahler.

Where does it stand today as a jazz city? There are some names which most of the insiders will mention when asked, “Where is the jazz?” Jazzland and Porgy and Bess are the leading clubs in the city. I have a special place in my heart for Jazzland since I have been going there for 35 years and photos of musicians who have played there line the walls — everyone from John Lee Hooker to Art Farmer. The night I arrived Branford Marsalis was playing at Porgy and Bess and Lew Tabackin had been at Jazzland a couple of weeks before.

There are also a number of smaller venues, Blue Tomato and Miles Smiles Jazz Cafe among them catering to the more avant-garde, Reigen featuring blues and Lustiger Radfahrer with blues to bebop. But again, talking to local players, the common thread in our conversations was lack of work. Like every place else, one of the major problems is with the mass media and their lack of interest — make that almost complete disregard — for jazz. Radio pretty well ignores it and there is not a single newspaper with a weekly jazz column (does that sound familiar?).

Where they do much better than we do in Toronto is in the measure of support from government bodies. The following figures for Porgy and Bess are at least ten years old but make the point. They received almost $90,000 from the culture office and more than $130,000 from the state! That said, Porgy gets a much larger piece of the pie than any other club and that certainly causes some resentment among other club owners who get little or nothing. But at least the music is acknowledged as having cultural significance.

So it would seem that “name” touring acts, which make up a tiny proportion of what is out there trying to make a living, have some sort of a circuit going for them, but the thousands “in the trenches” have a hard go of it. Sound familiar?

Back to New Orleans where we began. While there, I tasted a freshwater fish called drum and very nice it was. But I use this only as an excuse to end with that most familiar topic, a jazz joke about a drummer:

A quartet out on the town in Amsterdam winds up in the heart of the Red Light District, where the working girls sit in windows seductively displaying their wares.The drummer of the band approaches one of the windows and knocks on the glass.

“How much?” he asks.

“Fifty euros,” replies the girl.

“Really?” says the drummer looking surprised, “that’s pretty cheap for double glazing.”

Happy listening right here at home.

Jim Galloway is a saxophonist, band leader and former artistic director of Toronto Downtown Jazz. He can be contacted at jazznotes@thewholenote.com.

I’m not sure why, but when April rolls around I find myself thinking about songs. (Of course, I think of songs every day of every month, but there is something about April that triggers a reaction within me. Maybe it’s the promise of spring.

And there is quite a clutch of songs out there to sing about this month — April Showers, April In Paris, I’ll Remember April, April Love — an integral part of each being the lyric, which brings us to the topic of singers: Bessie Smith, Alberta Hunter, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and Blossom Dearie were all born in April (as were some very significant musicians — Lionel Hampton, Charles Mingus, Joe Henderson, Count Basie and Duke Ellington to name only a few).

By the way, one of my favourite April songs is April In My Heart from 1937, composed by Hoagy Carmichael and with lyrics by Helen Meinardi who was Hoagy’s sister-in-law at the time. There is a great recording of it by Billie Holiday. If you don’t know the song you should check it out.

I regularly have spoken about the importance of melody. Add to that the significance of a song’s lyric. Most of the great standard songs had a verse, chorus and lyric. Great players like Lester Young and Sonny Rollins are on record as stating that it is important to know what the lyric is about. Without that understanding, the interpretation of the song will be less than it might be. Rollins would even sometimes recite the lyrics to a song for his musicians.

If you look at this month’s concert listings you will find a strong presence of the vocal art, with jazz and jazz-based music more than pulling its weight.

On April 15, as part of SING! Toronto Vocal Arts Festival, two a cappella groups, the Swingle Singers and Countermeasure, a Toronto group in the same mould, will be at Harbourfront Centre’s Enwave Theatre at 8pm. Also on the 15th, at Koerner Hall, Adi Braun and her trio present “Noir,” a concert of music from the era of film noir, with Jordan Klapman, piano, George Koller, bass and Daniel Barnes, drums. Then on the 16th, Bobby McFerrin will bring his vocal pyrotechnics to Roy Thomson Hall. Nikki Yanofsky will be at Massey Hall on April 21 and on the 27th Kellylee Evans will be at Glenn Gould Studio.

And we are not finished yet. On April 28 at Walter Hall, it is time for the Toronto Duke Ellington Society’s 15th Annual Scholarship Concert featuring the Brian Barlow Orchestra with Robi Botos, piano, Heather Bambrick, vocals and tap dancer David Cox.

So, you see, quite the month for pipes — no, Jock, not that kind, I mean vocal pipes!

But let’s not forget instrumental jazz. On Apr 14 at 8pm Joshua Redman and Brad Mehldau will be at Koerner Hall; and looking ahead on May 5, also at Koerner Hall, the Hilario Durán Latin Big Band, with guest saxophonist Paquito D’Rivera, will perform.

If I may, while I’m still on my “trumpeters should know the lyrics” soapbox, let me add one more element, and that is tempo. I learned a huge amount from some of the great swing veterans with whom I was lucky enough to work. Choosing the correct tempo for a piece was so important to them and could make all the difference in finding just the right “slot” for a tune. Too slow or too fast and something was lost. For example, in my opinion, All The Things You Are is a beautiful ballad. The words say it all :

“You are the promised kiss of springtime

That makes the lonely winter seem long.

You are the breathless hush of evening

That trembles on the brink of a lovely song.”

It begs to be played as a ballad, and yet so many musicians play it at the speed of light. It might be a wonderful exhibition of technique, but it sure as hell loses the meaning of the song. Please don’t misunderstand me — technique is important; it’s just that it isn’t all-important. I am not laying down a hard and fast rule. For example, Indiana is a song that lends itself to a bright tempo, but I also love to play it as a ballad. If you are a player, try it some time.

I’ll stick my tongue firmly in my cheek and tell the story about the music teacher who says to a student who has just played a long solo containing many notes but no substance: “I’ve got some good news and some bad news. The good news is you’ve got a lot of technique. The bad news is you’ve got a lot of technique.”

To end with, here’s a quote from Paul Desmond: “I tried practising for a few weeks and ended up playing too fast.”

Happy listening and please try to take in some live jazz. Our club listings starting on page 56 are the best around. So no excuses.

Jim Galloway is a saxophonist, band leader andformer artistic director of Toronto Downtown Jazz. Hecan be contacted at jazznotes@thewholenote.com.

Some years ago Petula Clark had a hit called Downtown. Part of the lyric is “The lights are so much brighter there. You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares and go Downtown.” But for jazz fans, is downtown losing some of its appeal?

When I arrived in Toronto, anywhere north of Bloor St. you were heading for the suburbs. All the major jazz clubs in Toronto were in the downtown core and, as I’ve said before in this column, going out to hear jazz meant going to The Colonial and the Town Tavern (who were bringing in “name” American players), George’s Spaghetti House, Castle George above the spaghetti house, Friars Tavern, The Golden Nugget, The Rex and later Bourbon Street, Basin Street, Cafe des Copains. And that is only a partial list of the south of Bloor venues.

But with the demise of the club scene The Rex is the only club from the above list still presenting jazz all week long.

The Reservoir Lounge does have a six-nights-a-week schedule of mostly jazz and blues and there are a number of clubs programming jazz part-time, to which this magazine’s club listings, starting on page 52, well attest. With its Friday evening sessions, Quotes immediately comes to mind. And for fans of New Orleans jazz, Grossman’s Tavern still has Saturday afternoon sessions which began over 40 years ago!

But, why so few full-time jazz clubs left?

Economics played a large part. Travel costs soared, accommodation was more expensive and fees went up. Some of the artists who used to play clubs moved to the concert stage. Dizzy Gillespie, Gary Burton, George Shearing, Thelonious Monk, to name only a few who played in Toronto clubs, all became concert artists. The audience for straight-ahead jazz was aging and very often there was only a handful of people for the last set: no more hanging and drinking late — there was work next morning.

Another factor, I believe, is that people who don’t live in the downtown core go home after work and the thought of driving back to the city is a deterrent. Perhaps starting the music earlier would have helped. In Tokyo I went to a jazz club where the music started at 5pm and people went there straight from work. In New York many clubs have jazz from 7:30pm and it seems to work. For example, if you get to Dizzy’s Club at 11pm you will have missed the headliner.

(To be a little less serious it reminds me of the joke: “Hey buddy, how late does the band play?” “Oh, about a half a beat behind the drummer.”)

But back to the demise of jazz clubs. The music has largely moved to the concert hall which understandably tends to showcase only performers who have drawing power, leaving a host of talented jazz players looking for work.

Insofar as concert halls are concerned, it’s interesting to note that there are events coming to the outlying areas which normally you would have expected to find only at a major concert hall in downtown Toronto.

The Markham Theatre for the Performing Arts on March 3 presents Arturo Sandoval in “A Tribute to My Friend Dizzy Gillespie,” and the following night he is at the Sean O’Sullivan Theatre, Centre for the Arts, Brock University. Michael Kaeshammer plays the Rose Theatre, Brampton on March 7 and on March 8 he is at Brock. Then on March 22, also at Brock University, Dee Dee Bridgewater appears the night after an engagement at Markham Theatre with “To Billie with Love: A Celebration of Lady Day,” which is, of course, a tribute to Billie Holiday. Looking ahead, on April 3 in Markham it will be Chick Corea, solo jazz piano.

If all of that is a bit confusing the following summary by venue will help:

• Markham Theatre for the Performing Arts: March 3, Arturo Sandoval; March 21, Dee Dee Bridgewater; April 3, Chick Corea

• Sean O’Sullivan Theatre, Centre for the Arts, Brock University: March 8, Michael Kaeshammer; March 22, Dee Dee Bridgewater

• Rose Theatre, Brampton: March 7, Michael Kaeshammer

Not bad for the ’burbs.

Better Get It In Your Soul

Looking over the concert listings for this month, I was struck by the number of “jazz vespers” at various churches. That got me thinking about how attitudes have changed over the years.

In New Orleans, where many people say that jazz was born, a large number of early jazz performers played in what were euphemistically called “sporting houses.”

Jazz started to get a reputation as being immoral and many members of the older generations saw it as threatening the old values in culture and promoting the new decadent values. In fact, in 1921 Anne Shaw Faulkner, head of the Music Department of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, claimed the following: “Never in the history of our land have there been such immoral conditions among our young people, and in the surveys made by many organisations regarding these conditions, the blame is laid on jazz music and its evil influence on the young people of to-day.”

Professor Henry van Dyke of Princeton University wrote: “It is not music at all. It’s merely an irritation of the nerves of hearing, a sensual teasing of the strings of physical passion.” Pretty harsh words for a music which one day would be regarded as America’s only truly American art form.

But in history there have been several great periods when music was declared to be an evil influence, and certain restrictions were placed upon the dance and the music which accompanied it. Genteel and proper society condemned the sensuousness of Strauss waltzes because the intimacy of waltz dancing was considered to be immoral.

Jazz then was given little respect, but over time it captivated the intellectual and cultural elites of America and Europe and eventually was accepted by the world at large. Part of that acceptance as a legitimate art form opened a much wider range of venues for the music and that included places of worship. Some churches opened their doors to jazz vespers. In Toronto, for example, there are this month four jazz performances at Eglinton St. George’s United Church, two at Christ Church Deer Park and a couple at St. Philip’s Anglican Church, all certain to be well accepted by the congregations.

So, in the evolution of jazz, it has gone from houses of sin to houses that forgive sin.

Enjoy your music this month and make some of it live jazz.

Jim Galloway is a saxophonist, band leader and former artistic director of Toronto Downtown Jazz. He can be contacted at jazznotes@thewholenote.com.