I am tentatively planning to write a book on jazz piano. It would basically cover the 20th century. Cowell and his fantastic Juneteenth suite would be a fantastic addition to the final chapter. a kind of summation of certain compositional attitude. If I don’t get around to the book, then I will just write it up for TT at some point. The main thing I need to do is transcribe some of the themes.
Wow thanks for reply! It sounds really interesting. I'll be looking forward to that book. As a Cowell fan, I appreciated your tribute piece at DTM after his death.
Junteenth is enormous masterpiece! Don't know if you already knew, the main theme of 'Proclamation' is derived from his song 'Sienna: Welcome to this new world'(which was dedicated to his first daughter Sienna) from album 'New World'- very beatiful solo piano indeed. Later he revisited the song as trio and duo. Mr. Cowell deserves to have more appreciations.
Anyway I just saw Fred Hersch last week in Seoul. It was great night. Hope you will come to S. Korea soon. Thank you and many blessings to you.
Hi, Ethan! I love all your writing, and have learned of so many great crime writers through your posts. I’m curious, do you have an interest in horror, or ‘weird’ fiction more broadly? I’m particularly engrossed by Thomas Ligotti’s work at the moment.
I have a certain amount of familiarity of the biggest horror and "weird" names... Lovecraft is in my pantheon. Also Stephen King...other bits and pieces here and there. Certain Ambrose Bierce things are untouchable. Fredric Brown has a touch of that sometimes.
Oh, cool! Penguin reissued Ligotti’s first two collections in one book -- Tales of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe. I’d start there, but the later work is just as compelling to me.
No doubt, Charlie was a complicated/contradictory person. Like you, though, I'll always hold his memory dear, as he was a wonderful teacher and mentor to those of us who spent time with him at Cal Arts in the mid 1980s. (Ralph Alessi, Rob Block, James Carney, Scott Colley, Ravi Coltrane, Mark Miller, Nedra Wheeler). Magical time.
Greetings from Miami. I'm doing some research on Charlie Haden's "Song for Ché," particularly the performance with Ornette's band that led to his arrest in Portugal in 1971. In a broader sense, I'm looking at how/where folks determine if a performance is "political." Did you ever discuss or play that tune with Charlie? Any other thoughts you'd care to share on that tune/topic? Thanks, DA
I never played that tune with Charlie. He liked telling the story of the arrest...
...my feelings about the story changed a bit when I talked to a Portugal jazz promoter. They worked for years trying to bring a jazz festival to a dictatorship, then Haden make headlines with a protest and put everyone connected in jeopardy.
Yeah, I'd heard that the promoter was upset about Charlie's actions at that festival. Even so, if I understand correctly, a number of folks in Portugal view Charlie as a hero. I suppose that mixing music, politics, and commerce will always result in a variety of responses, interpretations, outcomes. Anyway, best wishes . . . and thanks for the quick reply! DA
I remain a committed Charlie Haden fan, he'll always be one of my favorites, but also he was certainly the kind of person who 1) pens socialist rhetoric for album liner note in the afternoon before 2) complaining bitterly about there not being enough blueberries in a $40 salad in the evening
Wanted to ask you a question about your playing if that's ok - I love your collaborations with Martin Speake and saw your quartet a couple of times before COVID. The opening of your duo rendition of 'Everything Happens to Me' always stood out as a totally wild and inventive moment, a kind of texture from the piano that I don't think I've really heard much before or since in a jazz context (and, to my ears, sounds highly virtuosic and hard to do!). You generally seem to have a knack for coming up with these highly abstract and surreal moments which really make the performance memorable (I guess another example would be your 'Darn that Dream' from 'The Purity of The Turf'). Are these things that you spent a lot of practice time working on/through-composed in any way, or did you kinda just wing it? Are there any musicians in particular that influenced you to chase these kinds of bizarre turns? Cheers!
Well, this is very nice to read! I had a moment where I was doing that kind of thing of a lot, but dialed it back to focus on swinging more. It still exists within me, though, and I expect it to be more visible in the future. FWIW I think "Darn that Dream" is about as good as I got it so far.
As far as practice, nice question, actually I don't practice that sort of thing much. I practice classical repertoire, and jazz things like rhythm changes and the blues, and then, yeah, I kinda "wing it." In "Darn that Dream" there are a couple of pre-planned harmonic moves, somewhat like my version of Stravinsky I guess.
Hi Ethan. Currently listening to a Cecil Taylor album (The Light of Corona) which the liner notes describe as being at the limits of what's bearable in music. What are at the limits of what's bearable in music for you you?!
I probably have reached a limit with Cecil Taylor myself once in a while, but in general I give a pass to weird or experimental music. Go ahead with the wild sounds!
What I don't like is corporate or commercial music. I saw Cream on their money-grab tour at Madison Square Garden, that was pretty unbearable LOL
Hello Ethan, I highly enjoy all your posts and usually attempt to play the transcriptions, with varying degrees of success! But, as a big fan of Warne Marsh (and I have reason to believe that you may share my enthusiasm), I would very much appreciate a piece from you
on his music, which is so richly inventive. Has any jazz improviser ever repeated himself less, in his improvisations, than Warne?
Warne Marsh is great of course. When I first started trying to write longer jazz criticism, I attempted a huge post about Tristano, Marsh, and Konitz. That was a multi part thing, maybe 20,000 words, and there was a substantial Marsh section. The Marsh solos I transcribed included "It's You Or No One" with Peter Ind + Dick Berk and "Confirmation" with NHOP + Al Levitt. In time I thought my work was immature, and the comparatively slim Tristano post on DTM is what's left. https://ethaniverson.com/tristano-at-100/
I’d love to know more about the history of *recording* great jazz. Each decade seems to have such a different sound. Obviously the technology places a major role, but would love some details (e.g. 2 track vs multi track, open drums vs. muffled drums, direct bass, iso booths, etc.).
Since we late-borns perceive the history of jazz mainly through recordings, we should take a look at how much recording technology changed the actual music and our perception of it. I'm also sure that the studio recordings from the sixties (Van Gelder, etc.) don't represent the reality of how bands sounded live back then either. Not to mention the bad habit that started in the seventies of putting musicians in individual booths.
I've loved your comments about the foundational importance of African-derived rhythm to American music and feel like oddly this remains kind of under appreciated and incompletely understood. (is that wrong?) Would you consider discussing further?
I'm currently working on learning Armstrong's solo on the Hot Fives recording off Wild Man Blues, in part inspired by your writing (and in large part just by the sheer rhythmic invention of those 40 bars)! Both he and Johnny Dodds give great performances on both recordings of that song.
I would love to hear your thoughts on Michael Brecker, especially his later work! I feel like as a player, he is very easy to take at face value without acknowledging his deeper artistic side. The group Saxophone Summit with Lovano and Liebman (and Billy Hart) makes for a very interesting dynamic, as does the Herbie Hancock Directions in Music tour with Hargrove and Brian Blade (where we get to hear Brecker in a more open-ended context). I'm also curious your own thoughts on how he relates to the modern history, for better or worse.
Yes, later Brecker was great. I enjoyed him with Sax Summit, and also he shone on live gigs with Elvin Jones or McCoy Tyner. His own music and concept as a leader never did much for me, but those I respect credit his work with Claus Ogerman as nonpareil. He's definitely "too influential" but that is the case with many great musicians.
Would love to get your take on non-profit independent radio stations and the importance of keeping younger folks aware that there are extraordinary opportunities available to have one’s ears and mind exposed to new music and the older music upon whose shoulders the newer music stands. I host Outbound Express on WCNI out of New London, CT but there are countless others, all over the US and internationally. Being unpredictably exposed to music one has never heard, curated by folks who deeply love the music they’re sharing, can be a pivotal moment in the musical education of anyone—and it’s just out there, for everyone to access…that’s how I learned to love music I would have never encountered anywhere else. All best!! Thanks for writing about the music and sharing your insights! Ted
Truthfully I never listened to the radio much myself, but of course a place like Outbound Express is where creative surprises await. Thanks for what you do!!
aw thank you. Well I need to push through and get this Billy Hart memoir to the finish line. After that I have an idea...we'll see. Nice to hear positive feedback!
Any chance of you sitting down with Steve Kuhn? Goes all the way back to Madame Chaloff in Boston in the 1950s. Lots of history and piano and stature there...
Please contact Robin Bell-Sevens of Jazzmobile , who is planning a book of Dr Billy Taylor compositions to advise her about which ones have particular educational value for students , and why .. Thank you
Hi, Ethan. Greeting from South Korea.
I've read your writing about Juneteenth Suite by Stanley Cowell about a year ago. Do you have any plan on writing further review?
I am tentatively planning to write a book on jazz piano. It would basically cover the 20th century. Cowell and his fantastic Juneteenth suite would be a fantastic addition to the final chapter. a kind of summation of certain compositional attitude. If I don’t get around to the book, then I will just write it up for TT at some point. The main thing I need to do is transcribe some of the themes.
Wow thanks for reply! It sounds really interesting. I'll be looking forward to that book. As a Cowell fan, I appreciated your tribute piece at DTM after his death.
Junteenth is enormous masterpiece! Don't know if you already knew, the main theme of 'Proclamation' is derived from his song 'Sienna: Welcome to this new world'(which was dedicated to his first daughter Sienna) from album 'New World'- very beatiful solo piano indeed. Later he revisited the song as trio and duo. Mr. Cowell deserves to have more appreciations.
Anyway I just saw Fred Hersch last week in Seoul. It was great night. Hope you will come to S. Korea soon. Thank you and many blessings to you.
I didn’t know that about the song!! VERY helpful!
Oops, I'm sorry. Cowell actually intepreted 'Sienna: Welcome to this new world' as solo, trio, quartet(not duo)!
Hi, Ethan! I love all your writing, and have learned of so many great crime writers through your posts. I’m curious, do you have an interest in horror, or ‘weird’ fiction more broadly? I’m particularly engrossed by Thomas Ligotti’s work at the moment.
Thanks so much!
I have a certain amount of familiarity of the biggest horror and "weird" names... Lovecraft is in my pantheon. Also Stephen King...other bits and pieces here and there. Certain Ambrose Bierce things are untouchable. Fredric Brown has a touch of that sometimes.
You probably saw, I wrote about Peter Straub when he passed. https://ethaniverson.com/fiction-lets-me-get-the-facts-right-peter-straub/
I learned about Ligotti when I got into TRUE DETECTIVE but never actually read anything, what's the best Ligotti book to start with?
Oh, cool! Penguin reissued Ligotti’s first two collections in one book -- Tales of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe. I’d start there, but the later work is just as compelling to me.
Ok thanks!
No doubt, Charlie was a complicated/contradictory person. Like you, though, I'll always hold his memory dear, as he was a wonderful teacher and mentor to those of us who spent time with him at Cal Arts in the mid 1980s. (Ralph Alessi, Rob Block, James Carney, Scott Colley, Ravi Coltrane, Mark Miller, Nedra Wheeler). Magical time.
Greetings from Miami. I'm doing some research on Charlie Haden's "Song for Ché," particularly the performance with Ornette's band that led to his arrest in Portugal in 1971. In a broader sense, I'm looking at how/where folks determine if a performance is "political." Did you ever discuss or play that tune with Charlie? Any other thoughts you'd care to share on that tune/topic? Thanks, DA
I never played that tune with Charlie. He liked telling the story of the arrest...
...my feelings about the story changed a bit when I talked to a Portugal jazz promoter. They worked for years trying to bring a jazz festival to a dictatorship, then Haden make headlines with a protest and put everyone connected in jeopardy.
Yeah, I'd heard that the promoter was upset about Charlie's actions at that festival. Even so, if I understand correctly, a number of folks in Portugal view Charlie as a hero. I suppose that mixing music, politics, and commerce will always result in a variety of responses, interpretations, outcomes. Anyway, best wishes . . . and thanks for the quick reply! DA
I remain a committed Charlie Haden fan, he'll always be one of my favorites, but also he was certainly the kind of person who 1) pens socialist rhetoric for album liner note in the afternoon before 2) complaining bitterly about there not being enough blueberries in a $40 salad in the evening
Hey Ethan, thanks for your music and writing!
Wanted to ask you a question about your playing if that's ok - I love your collaborations with Martin Speake and saw your quartet a couple of times before COVID. The opening of your duo rendition of 'Everything Happens to Me' always stood out as a totally wild and inventive moment, a kind of texture from the piano that I don't think I've really heard much before or since in a jazz context (and, to my ears, sounds highly virtuosic and hard to do!). You generally seem to have a knack for coming up with these highly abstract and surreal moments which really make the performance memorable (I guess another example would be your 'Darn that Dream' from 'The Purity of The Turf'). Are these things that you spent a lot of practice time working on/through-composed in any way, or did you kinda just wing it? Are there any musicians in particular that influenced you to chase these kinds of bizarre turns? Cheers!
Well, this is very nice to read! I had a moment where I was doing that kind of thing of a lot, but dialed it back to focus on swinging more. It still exists within me, though, and I expect it to be more visible in the future. FWIW I think "Darn that Dream" is about as good as I got it so far.
As far as practice, nice question, actually I don't practice that sort of thing much. I practice classical repertoire, and jazz things like rhythm changes and the blues, and then, yeah, I kinda "wing it." In "Darn that Dream" there are a couple of pre-planned harmonic moves, somewhat like my version of Stravinsky I guess.
Hi Ethan. Currently listening to a Cecil Taylor album (The Light of Corona) which the liner notes describe as being at the limits of what's bearable in music. What are at the limits of what's bearable in music for you you?!
I probably have reached a limit with Cecil Taylor myself once in a while, but in general I give a pass to weird or experimental music. Go ahead with the wild sounds!
What I don't like is corporate or commercial music. I saw Cream on their money-grab tour at Madison Square Garden, that was pretty unbearable LOL
Hello Ethan, I highly enjoy all your posts and usually attempt to play the transcriptions, with varying degrees of success! But, as a big fan of Warne Marsh (and I have reason to believe that you may share my enthusiasm), I would very much appreciate a piece from you
on his music, which is so richly inventive. Has any jazz improviser ever repeated himself less, in his improvisations, than Warne?
Warne Marsh is great of course. When I first started trying to write longer jazz criticism, I attempted a huge post about Tristano, Marsh, and Konitz. That was a multi part thing, maybe 20,000 words, and there was a substantial Marsh section. The Marsh solos I transcribed included "It's You Or No One" with Peter Ind + Dick Berk and "Confirmation" with NHOP + Al Levitt. In time I thought my work was immature, and the comparatively slim Tristano post on DTM is what's left. https://ethaniverson.com/tristano-at-100/
I’d love to know more about the history of *recording* great jazz. Each decade seems to have such a different sound. Obviously the technology places a major role, but would love some details (e.g. 2 track vs multi track, open drums vs. muffled drums, direct bass, iso booths, etc.).
Great topic. Beyond me but there’s a study to be done for sure
This is a good starting point to see how recording technology changes our perception of music:
https://drumsinthetwenties.com/2021/03/20/library-7-drums-and-acoustic-recording-technology-an-experiment/
Since we late-borns perceive the history of jazz mainly through recordings, we should take a look at how much recording technology changed the actual music and our perception of it. I'm also sure that the studio recordings from the sixties (Van Gelder, etc.) don't represent the reality of how bands sounded live back then either. Not to mention the bad habit that started in the seventies of putting musicians in individual booths.
Write about what you most like about playing the pianol
Hi Jane! I like everything about the piano. The only flaw is that it cannot imitate the human voice well enough, although certain masters get close.
"Everything" is not specific enough.
apologies
I've loved your comments about the foundational importance of African-derived rhythm to American music and feel like oddly this remains kind of under appreciated and incompletely understood. (is that wrong?) Would you consider discussing further?
Yes we are on the same page. I’ll keep trying to make that point. It is the jumping off for the Louis Armstrong essay I’m working on
I'm currently working on learning Armstrong's solo on the Hot Fives recording off Wild Man Blues, in part inspired by your writing (and in large part just by the sheer rhythmic invention of those 40 bars)! Both he and Johnny Dodds give great performances on both recordings of that song.
What are your top five Armstrong solos?
Nice! I can sing Potato Head Blues, Muskrat Ramble, and Struttin’ With Some Barbecue. Two more? Cornet Chop Suey and Mahogany Stomp
I would love to hear your thoughts on Michael Brecker, especially his later work! I feel like as a player, he is very easy to take at face value without acknowledging his deeper artistic side. The group Saxophone Summit with Lovano and Liebman (and Billy Hart) makes for a very interesting dynamic, as does the Herbie Hancock Directions in Music tour with Hargrove and Brian Blade (where we get to hear Brecker in a more open-ended context). I'm also curious your own thoughts on how he relates to the modern history, for better or worse.
Yes, later Brecker was great. I enjoyed him with Sax Summit, and also he shone on live gigs with Elvin Jones or McCoy Tyner. His own music and concept as a leader never did much for me, but those I respect credit his work with Claus Ogerman as nonpareil. He's definitely "too influential" but that is the case with many great musicians.
Hi Ethan,
Would love to get your take on non-profit independent radio stations and the importance of keeping younger folks aware that there are extraordinary opportunities available to have one’s ears and mind exposed to new music and the older music upon whose shoulders the newer music stands. I host Outbound Express on WCNI out of New London, CT but there are countless others, all over the US and internationally. Being unpredictably exposed to music one has never heard, curated by folks who deeply love the music they’re sharing, can be a pivotal moment in the musical education of anyone—and it’s just out there, for everyone to access…that’s how I learned to love music I would have never encountered anywhere else. All best!! Thanks for writing about the music and sharing your insights! Ted
Truthfully I never listened to the radio much myself, but of course a place like Outbound Express is where creative surprises await. Thanks for what you do!!
@outboundexpressWCNIradio
Hi Ethan. Your writing is golden. When can we expect a full length book from you? Soon I hope.
aw thank you. Well I need to push through and get this Billy Hart memoir to the finish line. After that I have an idea...we'll see. Nice to hear positive feedback!
Any chance of you sitting down with Steve Kuhn? Goes all the way back to Madame Chaloff in Boston in the 1950s. Lots of history and piano and stature there...
Thanks!
It’s a great idea. Steve Kuhn is amazing
Please contact Robin Bell-Sevens of Jazzmobile , who is planning a book of Dr Billy Taylor compositions to advise her about which ones have particular educational value for students , and why .. Thank you
Interesting. Thanks