< Back to Intervals Index INTERVALS #5 April 2006 RECENT EVENTS WE THREE TOUR IN EUROPE What a pleasure to play twelve consecutive concerts all over Europe in the company of such pros, Steve Swallow and Adam Nussbaum. The biggest impression I walk away with when I do such a tour, especially in a demanding situation like a trio meaning a lot of actual playing time, is how good the horns feel to me by mid tour-how warmed up you are-how smooth and oiled the process. As I have said numerous times, it is the serious jazz listener who suffers alongside the performer these days, meaning they rarely get to hear us at full throttle because of the working situation. There is no remedy unfortunately. You cannot practice playing in your basement or in the classroom. It is the best you can do, but not really a close substitute for the daily demands of hitting the music every day. Ahhh, the old world!! MIRO COMMISSION I will be performing a piece commissioned by the Philadelphia Museum of Art on April 28th. The assignment was to find something in the collection to inspire original music. Like a child in a toy store, I walked the museum and was drawn to the work of the Catalan artist, Joan Miro. Though I have done projects like this in the past with recordings of "The Tree," "The Seasons," "Colors" and other similar programmatic concepts, these were all spontaneously improvised based on a feeling arising from the literal image in my mind. In this present case, actually sitting down, staring at a photo of a painting and hearing something is quite an interesting process. One can relate to the shapes and textures, the colors, the significance of whatever figures appear, etc. I love the process since it is so personal. What appears to sound like something to one person quite possibly would never be heard that way by anyone else in the universe. You have to make some cold, hard judgments and then commit them to the compositional process. My program notes follow as a good description of what I did. I will be using my regular quartet with Vic Juris, Tony Marino, Marko Marcinko and as well my wife, Caris Visentin on oboe. We do the performance for about twenty minutes two times in the early evening playing directly in the ante room entrance of the museum, followed by a set of our normal repertoire. PROGRAM NOTES: I chose three paintings by Joan Miro whom I have always admired, for their sense of space, humor and brevity. The music I composed in suite form is based on these paintings in order: The Hermitage -1924 Head-1927 Dog Barking at the Moon-1926 I feel a Japanese sense of line for the Hermitage which has a very prevalent red circle in it and little lines or figures throughout. This will be implied through my use of the shakuhachi (Japanese traditional flute) at the very beginning, followed by a recitative section featuring the oboe, evolving into a group "free" conversation by the band. The second movement features a more prominent role for the bass and oboe again colored by a changing rhythmic ostinato which becomes a bit more abstract harmonically as the Head painting depicts quite a prominent abstract looking mass (head?) on the canvas. Finally, for the Dog painting the music moves into the straight jazz realm with solos by guitar and myself on tenor sax, conveying a sense of motion I see in the painting. The following that I found about Miro's work is a good summary as I see it: "....transcends his deliberately restrictive vocabulary. It is the broad variety of spatial structure, unprecendented textures and overt or hidden references to simple, yet universal situations--either existential or imaginary--that conveys other meanings an another level of discourse. And it is the poetic process of free associations and the poetic model of compound, ambiguous images that gives significance and resonance to Miro's oeuvre defining his contribution to 20th century art." JAZZ STANDARD Finally a really nice room in New York that doesn�t cost a small fortune to get into. With the Dave Liebman Group we played three nights at the Jazz Standard which I thoroughly enjoyed, though you have to get used to playing the first set at 7:30 followed by a second at 9:30, which is a bit early for me. The room is comfortable, not too big, with decent sound and most of all a staff that respects the musicians (generous guest list, food and drink included-GREAT food) and the customer as well. Highly recommended and hope to be back soon. PASSINGS: DON ALIAS Don was known as "Lungs" to friends and was a ubiquitous presence on the New York scene for decades, mainly as a conga player but for some of us who had the opportunity, also a fantastic drummer. He played with everyone in jazz including several of my recordings from the 70s. Don brought a spirit and fire to the bandstand that was one of a kind. He spent nearly a year playing congas in the Elvin Jones "Lighthouse" Group with Gene Perla and Steve Grossman which says it all. If Elvin allowed a conga player on the bandstand on a nightly basis, enough said!! He will be terribly missed by many people from all walks of the entertainment world. Rest in peace Lungs. Gene Perla has put together a wonderful tribute at: www.donalias.com JACKIE MCLEAN Though I didn't know Jackie personally, having only shared a panel discussion on Miles with him on one occasion, I loved his energy and sound. He was a visceral player who knew the bebop language from the bottom up and forged his own unique style and approach. One of the giants of jazz for sure. CHROMATIC MASTER CLASS Just a reminder if you are interested in the Chromatic Approach to Jazz Harmony and Melody Master Class that I will be doing in late July at East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania, you must get a tape of your composition to me asap as I am filling up. All the pertinent info is on my site under Saxophone/Chromatic Master Class. MIKE BRECKER Michael is continuing to build his strength and health at home. Though the immediate medical future is still in transition, his spirits are good and he is practicng as well as preparing music for a new recording. RECOMMENDED JAZZ IMPACT INSTITUTE Saxophonist Michael Gold has created a very interesting presentation that he does for corporations and the like relating jazz to business techniques and philosophy. On his web presentation he makes very credible analogies between jazz and what I will refer to as the "real world." The site address is: www.Jazz-impact.com/jii.shtml The following are some of the thoughts noted on the site: "We believe that the jazz ensemble is a high performance team rooted in a tradition of innovation, based on the collaboration of individual experts who are willing to take risks and express their passion in a form meant only to enhance self understanding and bring pleasure to the listener while dedicated to the public good; and this team-based organization that has thrived for over 100 years as a unique American art form, now adopted by the world over has enormous, potential to apply their skills and learnings to the deficiencies of complex, mainstream corporations and social organizations to the benefit of those engaged." Passionate about exploring open and often un-chartered spaces; Willingness to forego planning in favor of acting in real time; Well developed understanding of internal resources and the materials that are at hand; Proficient in organizational vision and goals without dependence on blueprints and action plans; Able to identify or agree on minimal structures for action and exploration; Open to move in and out of routines; High confidence in skill to deal with non-routine events; Recognizes the relevance of mixing the expected with the novel; Views errors as opportunities rather than threats; Presence of associates similarly committed to and competent at improvisation; Proficient at moving back and forth between leading and supporting roles; Skillful at paying attention to the performance of others and building on it in order to keep the interaction going and to set up interesting possibilities for one another; Able to maintain the pace and tempo at which others are operating; Willingness to change perspective and suspend judgment; Preference for and comfort with process rather than structure, which makes it easier to work with ongoing development, restructuring, and realization of outcomes. JET LAG Some new studies about jet lag which are quite useful: www.Britishairways.com/travel/drsleep/public 911-MUST SEE!! This movie is going around the internet and is quite disturbing, if even 10% of it is true. You must check this out about what happened on Sept 11, 2001. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8260059923762628848 BOOK:AMOS OZ-TALES OF LOVE AND DARKNESS What a fantastic book, first of all about the early days of life in Israel as it was settled by European Jews after Hitler wiped out their history. It is basically an autobiography of the writer's life, full of both tenderness and tragedy. Oz, like Phillip Roth and Dostoevsky, knows how to describe people and events that puts you right there. I quote from the book his thoughts on the process of writing which is from my experience completely accurate: "On writing: If you write an eighty thousand word novel you have to make about a quarter of a million decisions, not just decisions about the outline or plot, who will live or die, who will fall in love or be unfaithful, who will make a fortune or a fool of himself, the names and faces of the characters, their habits and occupations, the chapter divisions, the title of the book (these are the simplest, broadest decisions);not just what to narrate and what to gloss over, what comes first and what comes last, what to spell out and what to allude to indirectly (these are also fairly broad decisions); but you also have to make thousands of finer decisions, such as whether to write, in the third sentence from the end of that paragraph, "blue" or "bluish.". Or should it just be "pale blue?" Or "sky blue?" Or "royal blue?" Or should it really be "blue-grey?" And should this "greyish blue" be at the beginning of the sentence, or should it only shine out towards the end? Or in the middle? Or should it just be caught up in the flow of a complex sentence, full of subordinate clauses? Or would it be best to just write the three words "in the evening light," without trying to colour it in, either"grey-blue" or "dusty blue" or whatever?" (page 259) UPCOMING SCHEDULE May is Europe month with performances as part of the George Gruntz Big Band(quite illustrious lineup) and then a French tour with violinist Michael Nick and two nights at the Sunset in Paris with the small big band of Christophe Del Sasso with whom I recorded a wonderful CD. He is a fine writer and even took a few of my more "chromatic" pieces that I recorded with Richie Beirach years ago, transforming them into very interesting arrangements. Peace Lieb