Tag Archives: jazz piano

Roberts performs dizzying jazz tribute to Jelly Roll Morton

Somewhere out there, Jelly Roll Morton is smiling

by Mark Hinson
Tallahasee Democrat
February 18, 2013

Everything old really is new again.

Jazz piano great Marcus Roberts started his tribute to New Orleans jazz pioneer Jelly Roll Morton on Sunday night at Seven Days of Opening Nights with introductory remarks that also served as fair warning to what was about to happen on the stage.

Marcus Roberts performing at the Ruby Diamond Concert Hall in Tallahassee“When people think of Jelly Roll Morton, they think, ‘old,’ ” Roberts said as he got comfortable at his grand piano. “He is not old. We are not going to let that happen. His music is new. Especially if you have never heard it.”

During the first half of the concert, The Marcus Roberts Trio and a seven-piece horn section tore through new arrangements of Morton tunes such as “Doctor Jazz” and “The Pearls” with an enthusiastic precision that was, at times, jaw-dropping.

The highlight of the first half was “New Orleans Bump,” which featured a new arrangement by Roberts’ trumpet player Alphonso Horne (yes, horn is in his last name). The song may have been written in the Roaring Twenties but it sounded fresh and new as Horne pumped it full of strutting swagger. The arrangement also left plenty of room for Roberts to take off on a wild improvisation that was so full of charging rhythms and counter-rhythms that it could cause dizziness.

Remember the name Horne, who studied jazz at Florida State College of Music with Roberts as one of his professors. Horne has a big future in front of him.

The crowd of 710 in Ruby Diamond Concert Hall let out whoops and “wows” throughout the evening, whether it was for trills on the clarinet or a mind-bending improv from Roberts that sounded like boogie-woogie from another planet. Anyone expecting a stodgy museum piece or dry recreation of a Dixieland band was sadly mistaken.

Marcus Roberts performing at the Ruby Diamond Concert Hall in TallahasseeThe band lineup included Jason Marsalis on drums, Rodney Jordan on bass, Tim Blackman Jr. on trumpet, Jeremiah St. John on trombone, Joe Goldberg on clarinet, Tissa Khosla on baritone, Ricardo Pascal on saxophone and Stephen Riley on tenor saxophone. The concert had been billed as an octet but, hey, who cares if you add a few more players when they are this good?

Morton, who got his start playing in the brothels in his hometown of New Orleans, was a flamboyant figure who claimed he invented jazz. That may or may not be true, but he certainly was the first musician to sit down and notate the rambunctious new music of the 20th century. He also rubbed a lot of the other musicians the wrong way with his bragging and his flash (he had a diamond tooth), so that is probably why he was not well remembered when he died in near-poverty in the early ’40s.

While the party-hearty Morton may not have made it to the Pearly Gates after his death, he was definitely smiling his diamond-tooth smile somewhere in the great beyond on Sunday night.

Roberts, who turns 50 this year, is no stranger to the Seven Days. He and his group put on a memorable show with jazz singer Dianne Reeves a few years ago. Anyone who saw his reinvention of George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” at Seven Days probably wondered how he could top that performance.

He just did.

The Seven Days of Opening Nights continues today with a screening of a film that was hand-picked by Tribeca Film Festival honcho Geoffrey Gilmore. The title is being withheld until showtime at 8 p.m. It is sold out.

Jason Marsalis redux

(more thoughts on jazz nerds, nerdy jazz, and jazz history)

by Peter Hum
Ottawa Citizen
June 15, 2010

On the Los Angeles Times‘ music blog, writer Chris Barton yesterday shared a lengthy message he received from drummer Jason Marsalis, who was keen to move forward in the discussion he sparked with his now-infamous and entertaining Jazz Nerds International rant.

If the whole Jazz Wars topic interests you, I’d advise you to read all that Marsalis wrote — it is strong and opinionated, but more nuanced, thoughtful and stimulating than his detractors might expect. I’ll limit myself to excerpting two passages, and in each case I’ll offer a bit of support for what Marsalis wrote.

First, Marsalis clarifies what he means by jazz nerds in this passage (which I’ve adorned with some bolding for emphasis):

Let’s define a jazz nerd. A jazz nerd, or JNA for short, is a jazz student who reduces all music to notes and concepts only. JNA worships complexity while ridiculing simplicity. JNA will hear groups lead by Dave Holland and Wayne Shorter and will marvel at the complex musical structure but ignore the historical substance behind their music. JNA saxophonists will listen to and worship the music of Mark Turner, Chris Potter, Michael Brecker, and other modern players but ignore the musicians that have influenced their music such as John Coltrane, Dexter Gordon, Warne Marsh, and Sonny Rollins. JNA will hear the music of James Brown and say that it’s no big deal because it only has two chords. JNA looks down on blues as “simple” while wanting to play endless non-melodic eighth and sixteenth notes over All the Things You Are in 7/4 straight feel. By the way, a slow blues is boring. Better yet, swing is actually uninteresting and straight feel is actually more “challenging” and “exciting.” Instead of embracing both, the JNA worships one while ridiculing the other. Speaking of that, 4/4 is “old” while 9/8, on the other hand, is “new.” A basic drum groove is boring unless you fill it with lots of notes. To the JNA, that’s modern music. So to recapitulate, JNA reduces music to as many complex notes as possible while ignoring the simple elements and history behind the notes.

The bolded parts of Marsalis’ essay are consistent with comments I’ve heard from other seasoned jazz musicians, including ones who don’t fall into the neo-conservative camp that many would place Marsalis in.

For example, Canadian saxophonist Jane Bunnett has commented on the historical short-sightedness of jazz students she had encountered. She told me that today’s students “don’t know the history of the music. They know Brad Mehldau, but they don’t know Teddy Wilson. They know Joshua Redman, but they don’t know Dewey Redman.”

Almost identically, Fred Hersch in an interview last week told me that every young pianist he knew wanted to sound like Mehldau, but was not interested in delving deeper into roots of jazz piano, learning about musicians such as Teddy Wilson or Jess Stacy. Hersch said that younger players don’t need to sound like the old giants, but they do need to “internalize” their playing, understand why they played what they did, why they thought they way they thought, and so on.

I’ve had one Canadian jazz educator express similar thoughts in a recent conversation with me. He says he has noticed that especially in the last few years, jazz students are increasingly disinterested in older jazz, which he suggested meant jazz before 1970.

And then there’s my most recent encounter with jazz ignorance. It’s not quite the same thing, in that the musicians were not complexity-loving, straight-8th playing, odd-meter worshipping jazz nerds. However, these young musicians, who are in fact reasonably accomplished, played Invitation at a jam session and because their knowledge of the tune was based on how it appears in The Real Book, they got the form wrong over and over, neglecting to take the book’s so-called coda with every chorus. For their edification, here is Invitation, played correctly.

When Marsalis refers to “nerdy” music that is complex and does not acknowledge the appeal of simplicity and the grounding principles of traditional jazz, I’m reminded of what pianist Frank Kimbrough told me, namely:

One thing I’ve noticed in recent years is music that sounds like it’s conceived and composed with computers, and I’m usually not very fond of it. Much of it is overly clever, and requires musicians to be tied to the paper, which is anathema to me. I want to hear cats listen to each other, not struggle to play a part and not get lost, playing in their own little world, too busy trying to read to listen to anything going on around them. The upside to it is that there are some ridiculously good musicians out here, many of them quite young, who are able to play anything that’s put in from of them, even if they can’t look up from their music stands. But do they listen? If so, great; if not, it doesn’t matter how “good” they are.

Similarly, Hersch last week expressed his disdain for music that he arose when “hip cats are playing hip shit for hip cats.” By that, I think he meant music students playing what Marsalis would regard as jazz-nerd music for music students. I’ve also read a DownBeat article in which Kurt Rosenwinkel, the hero of many a jazz-guitar nerd, make similar statements about what he called “insider jazz.”

How does one get beyond whether the music on the page is nerdy or not? Consider what drummer Matt Wilson told me last year:

My stuff is not too hard… I’m proud of it, actually, they’re easy. I like ‘em easy so that I can see what people can do with them. I’m big into how people can look at something and go with it. And go from there.

Sometimes I’ve played some music that’s more difficult and I find it really satisfying and more challenging…

As long as the music doesn’t get in the way of the musicians, I think it’s pretty cool. But when the music inspires the musicians and gets stuff out of them, it’s really great. That’s what all the good writers and arrangers, all those conceptualists do. They know how to usher people  into an environment and allow them to play with it and see what can occur. I dig that part of it.

Further to his reflections about the lack of interest in jazz history, Marsalis coined another phrase — one that may not be as catchy as “Jazz Nerds International,” but which resonates with me. That phrase is “innovation propaganda,” and Marsalis explains:

if you don’t study the history of jazz, or music for that matter, the good news is that you have an out clause. Jazz magazines and writers created this flavour of Kool-Aid named “innovation,” and when a musician drinks “innovation kool-aid,” you believe the following principles:

1. Jazz has to move forward into the future.
2. We can’t get stuck in the past with hero worship.
3. Swing is old and dated. We have to use the music of today.
4. Jazz is limiting. You must take a chance by bringing in current styles.
5. I don’t care about the past. I have to do my own thing.
6. We’re past playing American songbook standards. That’s yesterday’s music.

To be very brief: I agree with 1 and 2 and the last half of 5, but disagree with 3,4, the first half of 5 and 6. But a few months ago, I wrote this very long post in which I argued that innovation in itself is not the alpha and omega of jazz, and that self-expression and a commitment to beauty on one’s own terms are at least as important for good jazz.

In a related post, I’ve argued that in jazz, personal authenticity matters more than cultural relevance.

The last words (for now) go to two Canadian musicians who gave the Marsalis missive a read and commented on my Facebook page:

Manitoba pianist Michelle Gregoire wrote me:

“OK I read it – I’ve been trying to figure out why the older I get, the more I feel drawn to the earliest pianists and I can just never get enough of the Blues. I find more and more in it, and I can’t get enough…. My music needs to say something, and I think at this age I know what my voice is, and I want it to speak. I’m not worried about the kids too much, cause to me they are just getting some tools together. As they hopefully continue to grow and develop as people, I think their sense of musicality could grow as well. Jason is about the same age as me, so his point of view is certainly interesting. I totally agree — inclusiveness is the trick. Because the more tools the kids have, the more they’ll have to find their voices…each person is a total and unique individual, and not everyone will fit into the boxes people like to create….everyone has the right to find themselves in some way and have the same experience all the greats had when they truly did their thing.

Ottawa-raised, Montreal-based guitarist Steve Raegele, whose beyond-jazz CD, Last Century, I reviewed, wrote:

I think this only matters if you worry about whether people think your music IS jazz. Beyond the pragmatism of playing with musicians with training (which for me means people who at one point played “jazzy jazzer jazz”) I have no need for the jazz litmus test. I can’t really get into his concerns. It’s more of a marketing issue.

Music is has the potential for infinite variation. Worrying about whether it carries the proper number of signifiers of an increasingly vast checklist of past musics is just as ridiculous as asserting that your music need not have any signifiers at all. Music can do whatever the hell it wants. Artists can blend however much or little of the past they choose to. Whether anyone cares to listen is another question, but if the only concern is pleasing people, I think it’s pretty clear what to do. What does one do, however, when this attempt to curry favour with a fickle public falls flat?

Summit in Savannah

Insights about organizing effective and efficient practice sessions

by James Ketch
IAJE Jazz Education Journal
April 2007

During the weekend of March 29-30, 2006 Rob Gibson, Executive Director of the Savannah Music Festival hosted a weekend workshop for high school jazz bands from Georgia and South Carolina. The line up of clinicians included the Marcus Roberts Trio (Marcus Roberts, piano; Roland Guerin, bass; Jason Marsalis, drums), trombonist Wycliffe Gordon, tenor saxophonist Don Braden, and trumpeter Jim Ketch. The schedule for the two days was busy and productive. During the “down time” between band sessions I asked each artist to respond to the following question:
What is the one thing you have learned about practicing most effectively and efficiently?
Fortunately for all of us, the musicians were generous with their time and answers. Here are paraphrased reports of the responses rendered by the artists listed above.

Marcus Roberts
The comments offered by Marcus reveal a keen intellect at work. The relaxed freedom Marcus exhibits on stage and on recordings emerges after the practicing is done.

* You must always create a very clear vision of why you are practicing what you are practicing. Ask yourself: What are the technical skills I am trying to improve in this practice session? What musical problems am I trying to solve in this practice session? What principles in the composition am I trying to unlock and understand in this practice session?

* Know that we practice something so that the concepts involved in the assigned task become things that we completely understand and know in our mind.

Every artist seeks to create pathways for visualizing success in performance. Here’s a glimpse of the attitudes Marcus carries into both practice sessions and performances.

* I seek to teach myself to see the music in my head.

* I imagine the music is circling round me and through me.

* As a performer, I view myself as just being there, manipulating the moments in the music as the form of the composition goes by.

* I have a vision of what came before, knowledge of what is happening in the chord progression at the present, and a sense of where I might like to take the music in the future.

In his final comments, Marcus begins to outline concrete elements that must be developed through training.

* I practice very tangible things; I must understand what is going on rhythmically, melodically, and harmonically in the music. So I create exercises to specifically understand these elements. I must develop the muscular control over the piano in each of the categories mentioned above. To enable this mastery, I practice with a very clear tempo while using jazz syntax at all times. I make sure that I use clear tempo and jazz syntax to unravel all practice challenges.

The final step for Marcus is to commit everything he has practiced and studied to memory.

* Finally, I try to memorize everything so that at some point I no longer have to consider notes and rhythms. I want it in my head so that I don’t have to think about it in terms of notes and rhythms.

Wycliffe Gordon
Wycliffe is a commanding presence in a clinic. He is an amazing trombonist and a very accomplished pianist. His comments connect strongly to his roots in gospel music and to connecting the singing voice to the physical instrument. His unmistakable voice on trombone lends immediate authority to his comments.

* The most important element is to develop a consistent practice schedule. This schedule should include work for at least six days per week.

* If you can sing something, you can play it. Regardless of level, the more you develop your singing, the more devices you will develop when you are playing. Through the singing of melody you will begin to develop a better way of hearing how to phrase something you wish to play. For wind players, singing helps us focus more on our breathing. I find that singing phrases helps me connect phrase to phrase on my instrument more efficiently. If you work to articulate something through singing (high to low, low to high; soft to loud, loud to soft; single tongue legato/staccato; double/triple tongue, etc.) you will increasingly discover that these skills will transfer to your instrument.

* In summary: Create a consistent daily practice schedule and stick to it. Sing to play.
Two months after our Savannah Music Festival Workshop, I was fortunate to have Wycliffe visit the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for several days. He offered several clinic sessions and I took notes at both. Here are some additional thoughts he shared about the music.

* Work on specific items intently for periods of say, five minutes. As an example, work on being able to accurately sing the melody to a tune. Concentrate on time and intonation. Learn to sing very accurately.

* In ensemble work, bands must learn to breathe together. Bands that breathe together, articulate together, and release notes together, always sound better.

* The best tools we have for practice sessions are the metronome, tape recorder, and piano. Use them each and every day. Wind players should practice in front of a mirror a bit each day. We need to observe what we are doing.

* On piano, start with voicing the chords to a tune in root position.

* For singing, sustain the roots of each chord as you sing the melody of a tune.

* Our singing goals should include: The melody of the tune, the roots of the chords, and the quality (arpeggios) of each chord.

* Words we need to eliminate from our music and practice vocabulary: Can’t and hard.

* Work on your weaknesses. Don’t be complacent and practice only to your strengths.

Don Braden
I have known Don through our work on the faculty of the Jamey Aebersold Summer Jazz Workshop. Don has a magnificent sound on tenor saxophone. He is a most articulate speaker. It is easy to view the parallels between Don’s command of the English language and the jazz language.

* I view practicing as involving three Ps: Prioritize, Plan, and Prepare.

* To prioritize, one must determine the most important elements to practice, and which element (or elements) will serve as the focus for any individual practice session. For example, elements for a saxophonist may be: sound (the practicing of long tones); rhythmic practice (metronome use); articulation practice (gaining command of various tonguing and slurring patterns); or chord/scale language.

* Planning involves the organization of those priority items into the time frames available. The dedicated musician should think in terms of daily, weekly, and monthly time segments. Planning should also include the establishing of goals and perhaps even the rewards for the attainment of those goals.

* Preparation links the above two elements to the professional world. Preparation may include the woodshedding of charts that will be called on an upcoming gig. This will involve working on solo parts as well as on demanding ensemble sections. By doing this, a player also prepares for public performances of unrehearsed music.

As Don finished his comments, and as we were preparing to work with the next band at the Savannah Music Festival, he added, in conclusion, a fourth “P”: Passionate playing.

* Every practice session needs to involve moments of real passionate playing. We must practice creating the emotional plateaus to which we wish to climb in our performances.

Roland Guerin
Roland is a wonderfully talented bassist working with the Marcus Roberts Trio. He was forthcoming in his comments and supportive of the notion of sharing important information with students and educators. These are the natural attributes of a great bassist: Supporting the ensemble and the music at all times with great time, a strong groove, and wonderful lines.

Roland strongly embraces the notion of multi-tasking. He increases the value of any single practice unit by identifying all the elements of musicianship that he can seek to further refine in that practice session.

* I begin by selecting a composition that I want to study and practice. Within that composition, I will: a) learn the melody, b) play the melody with the bow to improve my Arco technique, c) focus on intonation as I learn the melody with the bow, d) play the melody pizzicato, 5) play the melody in all three registers (low, medium, high/thumb position) of the bass, 6) play this melody at a variety of tempi to work hard on my time, 7) play the melody at different volume levels, and 8) play the melody with a variety of rhythmic feels including: straight, swing feel, strong 2 and 4 backbeat feel etc.

* Tone and intonation is the focus of all the above.

Roland then begins to explore the harmonic elements of the composition.

* I sit down at the piano and play through the chord root motions.

* I then play the roots in the left hand, while I play the melody in the right hand.

* On the bass, I begin to learn the chord progression and chord qualities by building triads on each chord. Initially, I move through the tune using root position triads (arpeggios on 1-3-5). Then I use 1st inversion triads (3-5-1), followed by 2nd inversion triads (5-1-3). Once again, I take the time to do these three sets of triadic exercises in each of the three registers on the bass (multitasking principles again emerge).

After practicing triads, Roland intimated that he is really eager to start walking bass lines. This methodical work through all the triadic structures in all registers, and at a variety of tempi, has served to feed his ears imaginative bass line possibilities.

* I use a number of digital ideas for creating and connecting bass lines. Ideas flow from the root or the 3rd of the chord. I can connect these chords with whole step or half-step motion (either ascending or descending).

* I practice bass lines in all three registers so that I open my ears to hearing these sounds as options at any given moment in time.

Roland also spoke on soloing.

* I enjoy practicing phrase motions in which I identify a) where I wish to start (the 3rd of the chord, for example), b) where I wish to have the line go (up to the 11th, for example), and c) where I might wish that phrase idea to land (resolving to the 9th of the next chord, for example).

Although Roland did not state this, I felt that he was describing how he could work with solo materials in the manner of a composer, creating shapes that had some logical architectural structure and design.

In concluding, Roland stated that practicing should have a beginning and an end.

* I want to outline my practice session, get to the work, and then move on to the next event in my life, whether it be mowing the lawn, or cooking, or taking care of my two sons. I set my goals and complete the work.

Jason Marsalis
Sharing time in conversation with Jason is an absolute delight. He is one of the most intellectually curious musicians I have ever known. He listened very intently to each musician in clinic sessions and often commented after the session about some specific element of a clinic teaching moment. I was impressed with how eager he was to develop a very comprehensive pedagogy of teaching and learning devices. It is an attribute to be admired.

* Practicing is about identifying and solving problems. The goal of a practice session is to create and execute effective solutions to identified problems.

Jason next spoke of what I have labeled “practice groups and multi-tasking.”

* I like to create time blocks where I focus intently on detailed practice elements. Some examples: a) I could focus for a 10-minute period just on my snare drum, practicing my rudiments, b) I could isolate on foot skill for 10 minutes by working on bass drum and hi-hat cymbal techniques, and c) I could create a third time block and work on the clarity of my swing on my ride cymbal. In a concise 30-minute practice block I have fashioned three 10-minute units on very specific drumming elements/skills. If I have more time available, I have the option of increasing the amount of time in some or all of the groups.

This first response led Jason to speak about organizing the practice session.

* The performer must develop the skill to assess, based on the available time for an individual practice session, just how much material can be examined in that practice period. You must start the session knowing what can be adequately covered in the allotted time.

* By using time effectively and by identifying and creating needed practice groups of materials, a performer can efficiently maximize the outcomes of daily practice sessions.

Jim Ketch
It is clear from reading the ideas on efficient and effective practicing placed forth by Marcus, Wycliffe, Don, Roland, and Jason, that each artist embraces practicing as an essential, regular, and ongoing responsibility. The animation with which each artist spoke left me with the notion that to these musicians, practicing is an opportunity, not a chore. Practice sessions for artists of this level serve to solve problems, expand musical horizons, and unlock creative potential. It is a way of life!

The collective wisdom of our artists might be summarized as follows:

* Develop the ability to organize a practice session where specific problem areas or musical elements are addressed. Take time to think about your skill levels and use that time to ascertain areas that need addressing. Craft specific studies and exercises that deal with the identified issue areas.

* Practice in the manner you wish to perform. Muscular habits form quickly. Use a metronome to reinforce good time and use jazz syntax to develop an authentic voice on your instrument.

* The singing voice and piano are amazing tools to accelerate your progress. Use them daily in your practicing. Allow your singing voice to elevate the conception of what you seek to create on your instrument.

* Concentrate during practice sessions. Your preparation before a session and your execution during a practice session will ultimately reveal how well prepared you are to perform publicly.

* Multitask whenever possible in your practice sessions. Identify the elements of great musicianship you admire in artists (sound, intonation, subdivision of time, swing, flexibility, etc.) and incorporate these into exercises and studies you practice.

* Divide your practice time into useful and logical practice groups. The intensity of these sessions will increase resulting from the specific focus you have created as a learning outcome for that session.

In closing, I would like to acknowledge jazz piano master Harry Pickens for coaching me to ask very specific questions of artists during interviews. I would also like to thank my colleagues Marcus Roberts, Roland Guerin, Jason Marsalis, Don Braden, and Wycliffe Gordon for their time, expertise, and above all, their great music.

James Ketch is Director of Jazz Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is a faculty member for the Jamey Aebersold Summer Jazz Workshop, a faculty member and consultant for the Savannah Music Festival, a clinician for Bach trumpets and Conn-Selmer, and Music Director of the North Carolina Jazz Repertory Orchestra.