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.

This month’s article is a bit more serious than most of my contributions. The year began with the loss of a friend when Ian Bargh died on January 1. And with him went a treasure trove of musical know-how, a knowledge of the great standard song repertoire, including rarities that hardly anyone else knew, and the ability to interpret them, turning them into musical gems.

He also had that most desirable of qualities in a jazz musician: a sound of his own, a personal stamp that he put on everything he played.

A Scot and, like myself, born in Ayrshire, Ian in many ways was typical of the breed: careful with money, hard working, a bit of a rough diamond, but under it all, generous and sentimental.

In the last few years he and I talked quite often about death and we always agreed that we would not want a lingering end to life. Well, the end did come quickly for Ian. We came home at the beginning of last December from a cruise on which my band, the Echoes Of Swing, was playing. Ian, as they say, played his buns off and the smile on his face told us all just how much he was enjoying himself.

A month later and he was gone from us, but not in spirit, for a part of him will always be there for those of us who knew him, and his music will live on through his recordings.

Like the rest of us, Ian did have his idiosyncrasies and he certainly could have his grumpy moments when he saw the world through dark coloured glasses. I remember one occasion when, for a joke, I gave him a bottle of Famous Grouse scotch whisky. Somehow it seemed more appropriate than a sweet sherry!

I mentioned that Ian had “a sound.”

No single musical element identifies jazz musicians more than their personal sound — a sound that represents the individual. In the arts, a personal identity is something that any artist should strive for whether it be in the visual arts, literature, theatre or, of course, music. In jazz, Armstrong, Bechet, Lester Young, Bud Freeman, Miles Davis, Clifford Brown, Jack Teagarden, Pee Wee Russell and “Red” Allen are only a few who had a personal sound that makes them instantly recognizable.

The American composer, author, historian and musician, Gunther Schuller, had this to say on the subject: “It is up to the individual to create his sound, if it is within his creative capacities to do so — one that will best serve his musical concepts and style. In any case, in jazz, the sound, timbre, and sonority are much more at the service of individual self-expression, interlocked intimately with articulation, phrasing, tonguing, slurring, and other such stylistic modifiers and definers.”

In simpler terms, be your own person.

The late veteran trumpet player Sweets Edison also had his views on the subject when speaking about the early jazz greats. In his opinion, most of the musicians in those days were artists. They were individualists and had a sound of their own. If Billie Holiday sang on a record you’d know it was nobody but Billie. Louis Armstrong could hit one note on a record, and you’d know it was Louis Armstrong. Nobody sounded like Lester Young, like Coleman Hawkins, like Bunny Berigan, like Benny Goodman, Chu Berry, Dizzy Gillespie. They all had a recognizable sound.

More recently, Gary Smulyan, winner of the Downbeat critics’ poll in 2009 and 2011 for baritone sax, said that sound comes before everything ... If you listen to just the tenor saxophone — John Coltrane, Johnny Griffin, Joe Lovano, Chris Potter, Don Byas, Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins — they all play tenor saxophone but you know who they are immediately. And to Gary, that’s the defining thing. “I’ve given a lot of thought and a lot of practice to try to really develop a sound that’s personal and unique to me” he says. “I mean you could be a great technician but if you don’t have a good sound no one’s going to want to hear you … And it’s really the identifying characteristic of who you are as a musician. And your sound is not in the instrument … The sound is something that you carry within your very being and that’s what comes out. So take someone like Sonny Rollins. I think that if you gave Sonny Rollins 50 different tenor saxes, 50 different reeds and 50 different ligatures, he’s going to sound like Sonny Rollins, with some variation because maybe the instruments aren’t comfortable … But essentially what’s going to come out is Sonny Rollins … and I tell that to my students. I say, ‘Don’t look for the magic instrument, because there’s no magic instrument.’”

I don’t mean to suggest that one should slavishly imitate one musician. As the saying goes, when you copy from one person that’s plagiarism, but if you copy from everybody it’s called research and every jazz musician is a product of what he or she has listened to and absorbed. Some musicians say they get ideas about their sound from players who don’t even play the same instrument as they do. It’s more about concept, phrasing and note choices.

It’s the same magic that makes a melody stick in our head, and the same magic that makes a particular improvised solo a classic.

And that takes us back to Ian Bargh and the very elusive personal touch he brought to his music.

Finally, if we look ahead to the beginning of next month, on March 7 at 5:30pm in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre, Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, one of our great Canadian musicians who has the magic in his music will be performing. His name? Guido Basso. He, along with another master musician, Don Thompson, will present a free concert of jazz classics and originals. If you are lucky enough to be there you will hear what the words in this month’s column have tried to describe.

Meanwhile, happy listening and try to make some of it live music.

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

Mark miller is probably the finest author of jazz books that this country has ever produced. There. Having stated my case right off the top, I am pleased to say that there is a new addition to his now substantial body of work. It is called Way Down That Lonesome Road, the story of Lonnie Johnson in Toronto, where he lived for the last five years of his life from 1965 to 1970.

There might well be a lot of readers who would ask “Who was Lonnie Johnson?”

Well, he was born into a musical family in New Orleans, in 1899, and was destined to be a pioneer jazz guitarist, credited with being the first to play single string solos on that instrument. In his early career he was pretty well regarded as a blues player although he wasn’t happy to be pigeon-holed as such. But he went on to make recordings in 1927 with Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five as a guest on I’m Not Rough, Savoy Blues and Hotter Than That, and in 1928 with Duke Ellington on Hot and Bothered, Move Over, and The Mooche.

The book covers in some detail the early career of Johnson, but the meat of this work deals with the years spent in Toronto and no one is better qualified than Mark Miller to tell that story.

But in the grand scale of things, Lonnie Johnson is overlooked, like so many other musicians. And therein is a clue as to what makes Mark Miller, the author, click.

He is drawn to the stories of musicians who made significant contributions, but have been neglected because they weren’t “stars.”

Who else would have so diligently researched and written an informative and entertaining book on the life and music of Valaida Snow or an equally rewarding look at the life of Herbie Nichols — again, hardly household names. He likes to look for the overlooked.

It came as no surprise when I learned that Miller was researching a book on Lonnie Johnson’s final years when he called Toronto home. It is a fascinating read set at a time before Yorkville became fashionable and traditional blues and jazz were relatively popular. To those readers who were around in the days of “flower power” and hippies, the book is a nostalgic trip down memory lane and a detailed study of Johnson’s life in a town where he felt welcome.

Another important side of Miller’s life was his time as a reviewer and critic. He was the sometimes controversial jazz columnist for Toronto’s Globe And Mail newspaper from 1978 to 2005. His reviews showed the same insightful and well-crafted standard of writing which is now so clearly evident in his books.

His views were at times open to question with some of his readers, but nobody could ever deny the quality of his writing.

Some of those same readers were of the opinion that Miller had a definite preference for the more contemporary and “avant-garde” players and are surprised, for example, that he would devote the time and energy to a book on the aforementioned Valaida Snow or Lonnie Johnson. A look at the contents of A Certain Respect For Tradition, a volume of his selected writings, will in fact show a knowledge and appreciation of a broad spectrum of the music. Mr. Miller does indeed have a refreshingly open mind to his chosen craft.

He eventually elected to give up writing his pieces for the newspaper. By way of explanation he had this to say: “The business of jazz, the media in general and the Globe in particular have all moved in new directions. Their various interests, and mine, simply diverged.”

Perhaps he saw the writing on the wall, given that nowadays the mainstream media have by and large abandoned coverage of jazz. In the last few years more than half of all arts journalists were either dropped or moved to other positions. On the other hand there are arts blogs now competing for attention online by the hundreds of thousands. But the lack of arts coverage in conventional newspapers speaks volumes about where we are culturally right now.

When asked to name some of his favourite musicians the list ranged from contemporary bassist Renaud Garcia-Fons to Jelly Roll Morton’s Red Hot Peppers via Django Reinhardt, Thelonious Monk and Gil Evans – it was a Gil Evans recording that first opened his ears and mind to jazz – showing a healthy open-minded approach which is reflected in the subject matter of the ten books he has had published.

Looking at the evolving nature of the music, Miller sees a future in which jazz will be seen as a small period of time in the overall development of improvised music in which melody, rhythm and a melding of musical influences from other cultures played an essential part and after which the texture of jazz changed radically, evolving and reinventing itself while still retaining its creative force.

If there is a tougher way of making a living in jazz by playing, then it surely is surviving as a writer about jazz. It is also a lonely occupation with no instant feedback from an audience, no applause for a well written chapter or a well-placed turn of phrase.

The loneliness isn’t necessarily a hardship. Some writers enjoy the solitary working life and I suspect that Miller fits the description. But that sits quite comfortably with his personal life in which he admits to enjoying tv, sports and the company of friends.

He might also have included his interest in photography, but since his next project is likely to be a book of his own photographs, perhaps that now goes into the “work in progress” category, eventually to become book number 11 in the ongoing tale of this Miller.

As always, happy listening and, I might add, enjoy some reading. (In fact, you might want to start with a short excerpt from the preface to Mark Miller’s Way Down That Lonesome Road.below.)

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

Here is an excerpt (from the internet) from the preface to Mark Miller’s Way Down That Lonesome Road: Lonnie Johnson in Toronto, 1965–1970. It gives a taste of Johnson, and just as importantly of what makes Mark Miller tick.

I want all you people to listen to my song

I want all you people to listen to my song

Remember me after all the days I’m gone

— Mr. Johnson’s Blues, 1925

So sang Lonnie Johnson on the very first recording that he made under his own name, 86 years ago in St. Louis, mindful even then of his own mortality. If he has indeed been remembered after all the days, and now decades, since his death, 41 years ago in Toronto, it has been largely for his early and essential contribution to the histories of both blues and jazz.

… These, at least, are among the memories of some of the many people whose paths he crossed in Toronto between 1965 and 1970, the final years of his life — the years that serve as the time frame of this book. As much, however, as Way Down That Lonesome Road is a biographical study of Lonnie Johnson in this period, it is also a social and cultural history of the scene that he encountered in Toronto. As such, it takes its lead from my book Cool Blues, which found in the visits of the legendary alto saxophonist Charlie Parker to Montreal and Toronto in 1953 an opportunity to bring the modern jazz communities in each of those cities back to life. And like Cool Blues, Way Down That Lonesome Road (which takes its title from a song that Johnson recorded in 1928) is populated by a cast of secondary characters — musicians, critics, friends and fans — who have stories of their own to tell.

… The story of his years in Toronto combines both — the happiest of times and the hardest, a Dickensian sort of paradox, albeit in a tale of just one city. This is that tale; here is that city.

— Published October 19, 2011 by The Mercury Press/teksteditions © Mark Miller 2011

A topic i haven’t touched on in this column is the relationship between jazz and ships. As I write this, Guido Basso is about to take a band for an eleven day cruise on the “Seven Seas Navigator.” I’ll be doing the same later this month with my Echoes Of Swing band on Holland America’s “Noordam.” And we are certainly not the only ones sailing off into the sunset; there are jazz cruises galore all over the world taking jazz fans and musicians out on the deep blue sea.

This led me to doing some research into the early days of jazz and the riverboats which cruised the Mississippi. The first steamboat to cruise the entire length of the lower Mississippi was the “New Orleans” in December 1811 and steamboats, as a feasible means of transportation, lasted until the early part of the 20th century.

So where does jazz come into the picture? Enter a pianist named Fate Marable, because the story of jazz on the Mississippi steamboats can’t be told without him. Many of the bands had been integrated, but not the passengers, and Marable, hired by the Streckfus Line had led a mixed band in 1916. He subsequently organised a band of black musicians to play on one of the excursion boats–not ragtime players, but jazz musicians. The year was 1919 and the band included drummer Baby Dodds and an 18 years old Louis Armstrong! Other musicians who were, at one time or another, members of Marable’s band included Henry “Red” Allen, saxophonist Tab Smith, who subsequently played with Count Basie, Gene Sedric, who later joined “Fats” Waller and bass player Jimmy Blanton who was destined to find fame with Duke Ellington. According to trumpeter Bill Coleman, Jelly Roll Morton was hired for a short time by Marable and it is perhaps worth noting that one of Morton’s compositions was called Steamboat Stomp.

Marable was not always easy to get along with and was a stern taskmaster, demanding a high level of professional conduct from his musicians. Woe betide any player who screwed up on the bandstand and if it happened too often he was fired. Sometimes Fate delivered the bad news by placing a fire axe on the offender’s bunk!

But there is no doubt that Fate Marable was an important figure in the spread of jazz from New Orleans, and river boats helped to float the careers of many a musician.

On a smaller scale I can remember the “Jazz On The Lake” cruises in the 60s right here in Toronto when hundreds of fans would descend on the waterfront and crowd onto one of the Toronto Island ferries for an evening of jazz when more than the water was flowing.

Many of the cruises in Toronto were presented by a promoter called Ron Arnold and in the course of digging for some information, I came across the following, from Pro Tem, then the student weekly of York University, and dated October l5, 1965:

“JAZZ CANADIANA with the Nimmons ‘n’ Nine orchestra has begun its 1965-66 season on CBC radio. One of the few jazz programmes broadcast on the AM band, Nimmons ‘n’ Nine welcomes an audience at the CBC studio, 509 Parliament Street. Doors open at 8:00pm and the performance goes from 8:30 to 9:30pm.

“NO TICKETS ARE REQUIRED — all you do is walk in. As a bonus, the management offers door prizes of Phil Nimmons’ latest LP. Concert dates for the next two months are October 15 and 29, November 12 and 26.

“Ron Arnold, Toronto jazz entrepreneur is bringing the second annual Canadian Jazz Festival back to Casa Loma, much to the delight and interest of this writer. Once again seven bands will be playing in the medieval cloisters of the dungeon, library and great hall of the castle, and the concert masters will be Dave Caplan, Toronto Star’s Man About Jazz, and CKFH announcer Phil Mackellar.

“The feature attraction is going to be a panel discussion at seven o’clock. This should be of particular significance since it will set traditional against mainstream when Pat Scott of the Globe is met in public by his archrival, Phil Mackellar. Frank Kennedy of the Star and John Norris of CODA magazine round out the panel which will be augmented by guest composer and teacher Gord Delamont.”

Note: The featured bands at the 1965 Casa Loma event mentioned here were Moe Koffman, Rob McConnell (big band), Rob McConnell (sextet), Don Thompson, Paul Hoffert, Jim McHarg and Jim Scott. I find it interesting that the writer of the article described a panel discussion as being the feature attraction of a jazz evening that featured so many important musicians!

Back to the present: the November meeting of the Duke Ellington Society will be held on Friday November 18 at the Toronto Reference Library, 789 Yonge St. The evening will be titled “The Duke in Canada” and I’ll be there with a quartet playing the music of Ellington and Strayhorn. You don’t have to be a member to attend and admission is free.

Earlier the same week on Tuesday, November 15, from 6pm to 9pm, there will be a “Jazz Party” at Quotes Bar & Grill, 220 King St. W., Toronto, with an all-star line-up of musicians and it is sure to be a memorable evening. Regular readers may remember that three months ago I wrote about Kate Weich who passed away June 16 of this year. The event is a celebration of her life and there will be a $20 cover charge at the door, all of which will go towards a bursary to be established in her name at York University

As always, happy listening.

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

A legend is a person, extremely well known, whose fame and achievements make him a source of sometimes glamourized tales or exploits. Well, this article is about two musical legends, the late George Gershwin and, still with us and going strong, Herbie Hancock.

On October 22, at Massey Hall, Hancock will perform Gershwin’s Rhapsody In Blue with the Massey Hall Orchestra, led by Alain Trudel, Canadian musician, composer and conductor who began his career playing the trombone, but has more recently turned to conducting. He is currently artistic director and principal conductor of the National Broadcast Orchestra and Orchestre Symphonique de Laval. He is also conductor of the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra.

Rhapsody In Blue has an interesting history. In 1923 Paul Whiteman, leader of the most popular orchestra of the day, approached George Gershwin about composing an orchestral jazz work. Gershwin sketched out some themes but took it no further than that. He was, to say the least, somewhat surprised when the New York Tribune of January 4, 1928, contained an article announcing that a jazz concerto by George Gershwin would be premiered by Paul Whiteman at the Aeolian Hall on February 12.

The evening was billed as “An Experiment in Modern Music.” Although at the time he had Broadway commitments, and a jazz concerto was farthest from his thoughts, he rose to the occasion, once more demonstrating that very often the deadline is the ultimate inspiration. And so, on February 12, 1934, towards the end of the programme, George Gershwin’s first large-scale work was performed with the composer himself playing the piano solo. The audience included Jascha Heifetz, Fritz Kreisler, Leopold Stokowski, Serge Rachmaninov and Igor Stravinsky.

It was a huge success; over the next ten years it earned Gershwin over $250,000, and this was during the Great Depression! Gershwin later said that the inspiration for Rhapsody’s title was James McNeill Whistler’s painting Nocturne in Black and Gold.

Fast forward to Massey Hall, Toronto, on January 19, 1934.

It was indeed a gala evening with Gershwin at the piano and Charles Previn, yes, the father of André, conducting the Reisman Symphonic Orchestra. The programme included Catfish Row, Symphonic Suite from Porgy and Bess and, of course, Rhapsody in Blue for piano and orchestra.

Gershwin signed a programme that evening as a memento for a fortunate member of the audience. Through the Independent Online Booksellers Association, I found a programme for that evening boldly signed by the composer over his printed name. You can have it for a mere $2866.18.

Like many musicians, Gershwin was something of a wit, but probably no match for his good friend, fellow composer and pianist Oscar Levant. At a Manhattan party in the 30s Levant said, “George if you had to do it all over, would you fall in love with yourself again?” Gershwin’s barbed response was, “Oscar, why don’t you play us a medley of your hit?”

After Gershwin’s, death an admirer with musical aspirations wrote an elegy for him and took it to Oscar Levant. Levant reluctantly agreed to hear the piece. After the man had finished playing it, he turned to Levant, looking for his approval. “I think,” said Levant, “it would have been better if you had died and Gershwin had written the elegy.”

Herbie Hancock, the principal performer on October 22, hardly needs any introduction. He started with a classical music education and was regarded as something of a child prodigy. When he was 11 years old, at a young people’s concert with the Chicago Symphony, he played the first movement of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 5.

His early jazz work was with Donald Byrd and Coleman Hawkins and later with Oliver Nelson and Phil Woods.

In 1963 he joined Miles Davis’ “second great quintet” with Ron Carter on bass, a 17-year-old drummer named Tony Williams and, eventually, Wayne Shorter on tenor. From this point on his career blossomed and is still flowering five decades later. His Empyrean Isles (1964) and Maiden Voyage (1965) were two of the most influential jazz LPs of the 60s and throughout the intervening years he has remained a creative force, being recognized as one of today’s major voices in contemporary jazz. More recently The Imagine Project, released in 2010, was recorded in many locations throughout the world, features collaborations from various artists, was complemented by a documentary and was released in CD, digital download and vinyl.

In a career spanning five decades there are few artists in the music industry who have had more influence on acoustic and electronic jazz than Herbie Hancock. In his autobiography Miles Davis said, “Herbie was the step after Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk, and I haven’t heard anybody yet who has come after him.”

Given his classical background and his creative genius, he is an ideal choice for this very special evening of the music of George Gershwin.

It is worth remembering another Gershwin quotation: “Life is a lot like jazz … it’s best when you improvise.”

And the concert will, of course, be acoustic. Happy listening.

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

SOUND JUDGEMENT

With the Toronto International Film Festival coming up I thought it would be good timing to have a look at some aspects of jazz on film.

It would seem that even back in 1927 there was some confusion about what constitutes jazz. Why else would they have called the movie The Jazz Singer when its star, Al Jolson — certainly a great entertainer — was no more a jazz singer than W.C. Fields was a spokesman for the temperance movement.

But long before that, a less well-known fact is that the group known as The Original Dixieland Jazz Band showed up in a rare 1917 film titled The Good For Nothing. It was, of course, a silent movie so the ODJB could be seen but not heard; but pianist Eubie Blake and singer Noble Sissle made some experimental short sound films in the early 1920s.

The remarkable video collection At The Jazz Band Ball (Yazoo Video) has some of the best clips of the 1925–1933 period. The most famous so-called jazz film of the period is Paul Whiteman’s The King Of Jazz. There is a short sequence showing violinist Joe Venuti and guitarist Eddie Lang, but overall the movie is disappointing. Also worth looking for is the pioneering 1929 black movie Hallelujah which in one nightclub segment features Curtis Mosby’s Blue Blowers on had purchased a Panoram machine, a full 1,889 soundies were released. Add to this number the jukebox shorts made by the producers of other presentation systems and the number of shorts is well over 2,000. It is the most complete audiovisual picture available of popular music in the 1940s. Obviously a sound investment.

But the first merging of a motion picture projector within a jukebox device was developed in 1938 by Los Angeles dentist Gordon Keith Woodard and tested in several Los Angeles area taverns. In fact, over the next few years close to 30 projection systems and/or film products were on the market.

Along with television came Snader telescriptions in 1950, made specifically as fill-in programming — TV’s very first music videos. They were around for three or four years and all of the top jazz/pop/country stars made these three and four minute films in the thousands and almost all of them were filmed with multi-cameras and live mics. No playbacks or lip-syncing!

Moving into the 40s, Hollywood gave us Birth of the Blues (1941) which features the Jack Teagarden band; Cabin in the Sky (1943) with Ethel Waters and Lena Horne, Duke Ellington’s music and Louis Armstrong; and Stormy Weather (1943) with Lena Horne, Bojangles, Cab Calloway, Fats Waller and the Nicholas Brothers.

In the 50s along came the bio-pic: Young Man with a Horn (1950), loosely based on the life of Bix Beiderbecke; The Glenn Miller Story (1953); The “Benny Goodman Story (1955); The Five Pennies (1959), about Loring “Red” Nichols; and The Gene Krupa Story (1959). They were all highly fictionalized but probably did introduce a lot of people to jazz.

Somewhat closer to reality were The Gig (1985) with Warren Vaché, Round Midnight (1986) and Bird (1987).

Limitations of space mean that I can only scratch the surface of this fascinating topic, but mention should be made of a few of the many significant documentaries: The Last of the Blue Devils, a feature-length portrait of Kansas City’s old-time jazzmen made by Bruce Ricker, who died in May of this year; and a couple by Toronto filmmaker Brigitte Berman, BIX (1981) and Time Is All You’ve Got (1986), about Artie Shaw, which received an Academy Award for Best Documentary. Nowadays, there is a vast amount of jazz available on the internet. All you need is time.

Mention of The Gig and Warren Vaché gives me a natural lead-in to the fact that Vaché and an all-star line-up of Canadian and US musicians will be in Toronto for The Ken Page Memorial Trust Gala on September 15. The KPMT supports Canadian jazz and jazz musicians with an emphasis on education. It will be held again at The Old Mill and you can find all the details in the ad in this issue of The WholeNote. Please check it out and I’ll hope to see you there for this worthy cause.

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

More and more I am convinced that, with very few exceptions, the place to enjoy the jazz experience is in a small performance space. There are the few exceptions — Dave Brubeck, Keith Jarrett, Sonny Rollins, to name three — who can fill a large concert hall and play jazz. But when they are gone, what then?

Forget the days of touring bands — the glory days of places like the Colonial Tavern and The Town Tavern. I can remember when I first arrived in Toronto I could shuttle between The Colonial and The Town in the sure knowledge that whoever was appearing, the music would be good — and sometimes unforgettable. In any case, that all but ended years ago, when rising costs made touring bands pretty well a thing of the past and bringing in a guest artist to perform with a local group was the solution. At least for a while. Now we are left with fond memories of clubs like Bourbon Street, The Montreal Bistro and The Top Of The Senator.

Festivals are committed, if they want to survive, to presenting less jazz and more widely based music, much of it by groups often past their “best before” date who have no more than a passing reference to jazz.

So, more and more it seems to me that friendly watering holes and relatively small concert venues will be the future of jazz.

The Not So Merry Month Of June

Summer came in with a cold blast of bad news. We lost Dave McMurdo, who had been ill for some time with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, but it was a heart attack that eventually felled him at age 67. It is a sad loss to the jazz community. McMurdo, originally from Vancouver, where he studied music at the University of British Columbia, was a dedicated man and took life very seriously as a musician and as a devoted teacher. He moved to Toronto in 1969, was for some years a member of Rob McConnell’s Boss Brass, and the lead trombone player in Nimmons ‘N’ Nine Plus Six. The Dave McMurdo Jazz Orchestra was formed in 1988, giving McMurdo the opportunity of having his own compositions and arrangements performed. He also invited contributions from such other prominent musicians as Mike Malone, Reg Schwager, Don Thompson and Phil Nimmons.

His death leaves a hole in the fabric of the Canadian jazz world. I shall miss his sartorial elegance and dry wit.

We also lost one of my favourite piano players and a friend when Philadelphian Ray Bryant died on June 2, at the age of 79, after a long illness. Bryant was part of a very musical family. His mother played piano in the local church, his brother, Tommy, was an accomplished bass player while his younger brother, Len, is a singer/drummer. Not only that, his sister, Vera Eubanks, is the mother of three sons who have each made their mark in music — trombonist Robin, guitarist Kevin and trumpeter Duane.

After a few years with local bandleader Mickey Collins, Bryant joined Tiny Grimes and His Rocking Highlanders, an African-American rhythm and blues group which sported the full kilt and tam o’shanter!

His break came in the 50s when, as house pianist at Philadelphia’s Blue Note club, he had the opportunity to play with artists such as Charlie Parker, Lester Young, Sonny Rollins and Miles Davis. From there on his career was soon established.

Bryant had an extremely personal sound on piano, making him instantly recognisable after only a few bars of music — a rare talent, but then Ray Bryant was just that — a rare talent.

Kate Weich

This next part of my column is about a well-loved member of the jazz community who was not a musician, but for a number of years was behind the bar of the Montreal Bistro. Kathleen Weich was her name, but everybody knew her simply as Kate and I don’t know anybody among the regulars at what was for a long time, our favourite watering hole in town, who didn’t like Kate.

Kate was born in Victoria, British Columbia. She completed the Visual Arts Program, with Honours, at Grant McEwen College in Edmonton and did her BFA at York University in Toronto where she made her home.

She was efficient, hard working and ran a tight ship, but was a warm and caring person with a dry sense of humour. But at the same time, like so many workers in the restaurant business, Kate’s job running the bar at the Bistro was a means to an end. I don’t mean that she didn’t enjoy her work at the Montreal Bistro, but her real love was painting.

She wanted to be able to support herself from her painting — and that’s even tougher than being a jazz musician — but eventually she did, becoming in the process a highly respected member of Canada’s art community. I’m happy to have one of Kate’s paintings hanging in my house. That painting which I see every day, is even more meaningful now. Kate fell prey to cancer and passed away on June 16. She will be missed.

Speaking of her own work she said, “My aim is not to present a finalized view of a given subject. I hope to offer a place where you can contemplate and bring your own visions.”

And that is not so different from the goals which jazz musicians set for themselves.

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