Tag Archives: drums

Youngest Marsalis brother brings his jazz vibes and quartet to Berea

by Walter Tunis
LexGo
November 8, 2014

Jason Marsalis received his formal introduction to the drums at the age of 3. That’s when his parents, the household heads of the famed Marsalis family that changed the face of jazz beginning in the early ’80s, bought him a toy kit.

He also studied violin at 5 years old. But Marsalis’ current instrument of choice, the supremely cool vibraphone, was still years away from making an entrance into his life.

“I first got a set of vibes while in high school but I didn’t seriously start to do performances on it until around 2000,” said the youngest of the Marsalis brothers, who performs a free convocation concert with his Vibes Quartet on Thursday at Berea College. “It’s an instrument I’ve worked on bit by bit.

“The first appeal, honestly, was the fact that there have not been a lot of vibraphonists in jazz music compared to the number of horn players. The second appeal was that there were a lot of possibilities that just haven’t been explored with the instrument. Also, there’s the fact that it’s a percussion instrument, just like drums. But now we’re dealing with an instrument that produces actual notes and melody.

“Since I had already studied violin and already studied music to that level, I thought it would be great to play an instrument that expresses my understanding of melody and harmony.”

One would think jazz music of any style would have surrounded Marsalis during childhood, especially with older siblings Branford (a saxophonist), Wynton (a trumpeter) and Delfeayo (a trombonist) in the house. But the reality is that for much of his upbringing, they weren’t around.

“Because I was born so late, they were all out of the house by the time I was 6 years old. My brothers were all musicians who were serious about their craft and learning as much as they could. So what I learned from my brothers and my father (veteran New Orleans pianist Ellis Marsalis) was to learn all the music I could to become a better musician as well as a more knowledgeable one.”

Although the youngest Marsalis had racked up considerable roadwork experience by the age of 9, it was his role as drummer in the trio of pianist Marcus Roberts beginning in 1994 that garnered attention from jazz audiences around the world. Marsalis still plays regularly with Roberts around his own band projects.

“I met Jason when he was 7 or 8,” said Roberts prior to his September concert at the Opera House. “He started working with me, I think, in November of ’94, so it’s now been 20 years. So I just think the world of Jason. He is a brilliant mind. He’s also a fantastic drummer, in my opinion, the greatest in a generation.

“Jason represents what you want to see when you mentor somebody. What you really want to see is that one day they end up knowing more about what you thought you taught them than you do. In other words, at this point, he’s teaching me about drums.”

Of course, on Thursday, Marsalis won’t be playing drums. He will be manning the vibes for the sleek new tunes from his quartet’s new album, The 21st Century Trad Band.

“Really the sound and concept of the group started to gel about six years ago and has been evolving ever since. But the reason why the group spirit is so strong is really quite simple. It’s because the musicians want to play this music. They believe in working together and achieving the highest level possible to play music. But they also just love to play live.”

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.

“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.

The 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.

A Fireside Chat With Jason Marsalis

by Fred Jung
Jazz Weekly

Having the last name Marsalis amounts to having the distinction of being a Kennedy in American politics. There is a good deal of pressure that comes with being a Marsalis and a certain amount of preconceived biases and expectations. It comes with the territory being the son of Ellis and the younger brother of Branford, Wynton, and Delf. But Jason, the drummer in the family, seems to be handling it all in stride. I spoke with the young Marsalis from his home in New Orleans about being a Marsalis and his new album on Basin Street. It is a portrait of a Marsalis, unedited and in his own words.

FRED JUNG: Let’s start from the beginning.

JASON MARSALIS: I got started playing jazz as a kid when I was six years old. That is when I started playing drums. Jazz music was always something I loved. I loved listening to it and knew that it was something I wanted to play as well. Plus, I had great family support. That was how I really started out playing in New Orleans.

FJ: Was it by process of illumination, with your father Ellis playing piano, Wynton playing trumpet, Branford, saxophone, and Delf, trombone?

JASON MARSALIS: Well, that had nothing to do with it, as far as what my other family members were playing (laughing). The first instrument I played with the violin. That was really my first instrument. My father got some sort of deal through the elementary school that I was attending at the time. When I was three, my mother and father used to play this game with me. They actually had a toy drum set. They had a toy drum set and they would always introduce me like I was on some performance stage or something. They would say, “Ladies and gentlemen, we now present to you, the great, wonderful Jason.” I would start banging away. I guess that maybe stuck in my mind somehow, but I eventually choose that instrument a year after playing the violin.

FJ: In a past life, I played the violin, so I am empathetic to your switch.

JASON MARSALIS: Well, when I first started playing the violin, it was hard to play, but I kind of liked playing it. I wasn’t the most serious musician, but I liked playing it. Years later, when I was about twelve years old, a lot of things happened. The instrument got more difficult and I was losing interest and I was also more interested in classical percussion. That had to do with us moving to Richmond, Virginia for three years, which had no jazz scene. I had always played in these student orchestras and I believe it was my last year in Richmond. I was in this youth orchestra and I believe it was the first orchestra that I was in that actually had a percussion section. I was upset that I wasn’t in the percussion section because that is where I wanted to be. To make matters worse, one of the guys playing timpani didn’t know what he was doing. He was playing all kinds of wrong notes and the conductor couldn’t hear it. The violin was getting more difficult as far as playing second position and I was getting less and less interested in playing the violin. I wanted to pursue percussion and so when we moved back to New Orleans, which was the summer of ’89, that is when I decided that I was not going to play violin anymore. However, Fred, I did want to study percussion in classical music.

FJ: Did you feel any pressure at all from the expectations of being a Marsalis?

JASON MARSALIS: Nope. None what so ever. The only time when there is pressure is if I was doing music and I didn’t want to and I only felt like I did it just to either please the family or I felt like I had to live up to something, but that wasn’t happening at all. I loved playing music. Music was something I loved doing. The only pressure that could be possible is maybe living up to a certain legacy and even then, that didn’t affect me at all.

FJ: You worked with your father’s trio for a lengthy period of time, what knowledge did he impart upon you?

JASON MARSALIS: The first thing I learned playing in his trio was how to play on a ballad and how difficult playing on a ballad was. That was one of the first things. The second thing was how to play in a jazz trio, which took me a minute to conceptualize. I also gained a certain respect for standards.

FJ: Is that an aspect many younger musicians are ignoring?

JASON MARSALIS: Oh of course, absolutely. That is a lot of the problem with a lot of younger musicians today is that there is a lack of knowledge as far as jazz history is concerned across the board. I have to do more work on it myself, just learning drum solos and learning more drum vocabulary. You find musicians now who don’t know a lot of standard songs.

FJ: Why do you feel that is?

JASON MARSALIS: The reason that is, is because those standard songs were the popular songs of my father’s day, which is why it is that he and my mother, who does not play music, knows those songs better than I do. Those were the popular songs of their day, coming from those musicals. I learn part of this from playing with my father. A lot of the younger musicians don’t know a lot of those songs.

FJ: Is that detrimental to their progress overall as musicians?

JASON MARSALIS: It can be. You have to have some sort of historical background in order to really play the music. If not that, than definitely learn the vocabulary of the music and the history of the music. Even when learning the vocabulary of the music, eventually, you will have to learn standards. Those are the songs and tunes that those musicians play. Be it Louis Armstrong or Bud Powell or Charlie Parker, the songs that they were playing were all standards anyway.

FJ: Let’s touch on Los Hombres Calientes.

JASON MARSALIS: First off, I want to make that straight off the bat because there are a lot of misunderstanding that it is my band, which it really isn’t. It was a band that was put together by Irvin Mayfield. He was the one who put the band together. I remember he called me one day. It was like January of ’98 and he told me about this gig that he was going to do. When he told me about it, “I said that is great.” Bill Summers would have these percussion meetings every Saturday at his house and other percussionists would get together and play Cuban rhythms and I learned a lot from those meetings. When Irvin called me about that gig, I asked him if he had been to Bill’s house and he said, “No.” I said, “Well, that is something you need to go check out before you even do the gig.” He went over there and he was really the one that put the band together.

FJ: Let’s touch on the two volumes you recorded for Basin Street.

JASON MARSALIS: Well, I hated Volume One and I still do to be honest with you, Fred. The reason for that was because that record was done straight out of the band’s first gig. We did one gig and bam, we were recording. At the time, I thought it was a little rushed and I was like, “Hold on. We just got started. We can’t just start recording.” The way recorded it, a lot of the musicians we not comfortable. We did a lot of overdubbing more so than live playing. Also too, the sound wasn’t that great either, which I think had to do with the equipment that was being used. Also, the spirit of the band was not captured on Volume One. That is something that a lot of people did hear when they heard the band live and then heard the record. They would always comment on how the band was better live and how we needed to do a live record and I would say, “No, we just need to get better. That is all it is.” So when we did the second record, which is much better, the band had been playing for a long time and we were more prepared to do the second album. Also, another thing is that we explored more genres. The first record is mostly Cuban based. So I told him that for the next record, we need to expand on that. We need to have a reggae tune, some samba stuff, funk tunes, and expand beyond the Cuban sound.

FJ: And your own debut, Year of the Drummer.

JASON MARSALIS: There was still some experience that I still needed to gain in working in the studio, which comes through time. Other than that, I was comfortable in some aspects because I had done some studio work and so I was pretty prepared. As far as how the album came out, I thought it came out pretty good. There were still some things that needed to be worked on, such as sound production and so forth. That is something you learn over time.

FJ: Let’s talk about your latest, Music in Motion.

JASON MARSALIS: My new album is coming out tomorrow. That record is also better than Year of the Drummer as far as sound production and as far as the band is concerned. The band on the last record wasn’t quite as prepared as the one on the new one. The difference is we had a lot of chances to play it and we did a lot of gigs.

FJ: It is comprised entirely of your own compositions.

JASON MARSALIS: One of the advantages that I had is fortunately I have had brothers who have made a lot of records and they can do whatever they want. On Basin Street, I was able to do whatever I wanted. Mark, the owner of the label, trusted me and so I did do that. But I did want to go in and record original music.

FJ: You also produced the recording. What were some of the non-musical tick tacks you had to concern yourself with?

JASON MARSALIS: Well, I had to oversee the sound. What order the tunes went in. The artwork and so forth. The actual putting together of the CD.

FJ: Do you enjoy producing?

JASON MARSALIS: Yes, I do. I learned a bit about if, obviously from Delfeayo. I do think that as far as producing goes, there is still some things about the sound and technical things that I am still not as quite knowledgeable with. The engineer would run the board and I would guide him as to how I wanted it to sound.

FJ: What is the role of a good drummer?

JASON MARSALIS: The role of a drummer is to keep the groove. The drummer supports the band. This is the same thing whether it is jazz, rap, R&B, whatever. The drums is what supports the group. The drums is what drives everything. In jazz music, the drums can go beyond that role. In order to go beyond that, you have to understand it. You have to understand the original role. There are things that the drummer can do within that role that can change. Sometimes, there have been instances that drums can be really flexible with the time and as far as one, two, three, four and as far as the pulse is concerned. There are some people, particularly horn players who don’t like that. There are horn players out there who want you to keep everything the same. They just want something that is comfortable for them to solo over.

FJ: How would you describe New Orleans?

JASON MARSALIS: The music. I will give you one example, Fred. I was watching Boomerang in North Carolina, visiting some friends and there was a scene where Eddie Murphy is at a club and the Rebirth Brass Band was playing. I was like, “Rebirth, oh man, OK.” The people that were watching were like, “Who?” Rebirth is big in New Orleans, but they don’t know what I am talking about. The funny thing is, the next day, I was at a CD Superstore and one of the guys that worked there and said, “You have seen the movie Boomerang. What was that band?” I said, “Rebirth Brass Band. Their records are on Rounder Records.” That has happened again, with that same band. In New Orleans, they are just really big and that is how it is in New Orleans, period.

FJ: What is the coolest thing about being a Marsalis?

JASON MARSALIS: I never thought of that as meaning anything. To be honest, Fred, family is just family. That is all that is. And plus, there are people that identify things with “Marsalis,” that frankly, doesn’t make much sense and is a waste of time. Especially like philosophical views in music. This whole nonsense about being a purist musician and what not. Some people associate that with Marsalis and that is really stupid, but there are fools out there doing it. I remember when I was in college, I was listening to some fusion records, the real fusion not that Eighties trash, like Return to Forever and Weather Report. Some other college student, who was a jerk to be honest with you, he says, “Yeah, man, it is good to see that you are into fusion.” I asked him why that was and why that was an issue. He said, “You are from a purist family.” I was like, “What with people like Branford? He is a purist?” There are these views that people associate with Marsalis and family. That is really just a waste of time. The family is full of individuals.

The politics of Jazz

by Bill DeYoung
Connect Savannah
August 31, 2010

In New Orleans music circles, if your last name is Marsalis (or, for that matter, Neville) you have a reputation to live up to.

Jason Marsalis is well aware that his family name carries certain expectations. The youngest of Ellis and Delores Ferdinand Marsalis’ six sons, the spotlight swung to him when he began playing jazz professionally at the age of 12. He’s 33 now, and clear of the shadow of his famous dad – and of his brothers Wynton, Delfeayo and Branford.

He’s an expressive, innovative drummer, and composer, and a restlessly creative musician, and on Sunday he’ll introduce a new quintet at a concert inside the Mansion on Forsyth Park. With this group, Marsalis plays the vibraphone.

(The Jason Marsalis Quintet also has a gig Friday and Saturday nights at the Jazz Corner in Hilton Head.)

Recently, heads turned and eyes bugged when Marsalis made a tongue–in–cheek “public service announcement,” in the form of an online video, in which he railed against “Jazz Nerds International,” young musicians who are into pushing the boundaries of jazz for what he believes are all the wrong reasons.

Your mantra has always been “jazz has got to keep moving forward.” What do you mean?

Jason Marsalis: If anything, there are probably those who are accusing me of trying to move it backwards right now!

I’ve caused a lot of buzz lately in the jazz world because of this Internet video. The thing about it is, the music is always going to move forward. It may not be in mainstream culture right now, but it’s always going to move forward, and there’s always going to be people bringing in other ideas. So it’s going to happen whether we want it to or not.

The video has to do with music students who reduce the music of jazz to an intellectual exercise. And they’re only attracted to the abstract elements of the music. That’s all it is.

For example, if a nerd was to hear the music of James Brown, their response would probably be “Oh, this has two chords. So what?” They’re not gonna get that there’s a strong groove, and that there’s people dancing to it. All they want to hear is the complex elements while ignoring the simple elements.

There’s music students like that all the time.

That’s the opposite of what music is, don’t you think? It’s supposed to make you feel.

Jason Marsalis: Exactly. My whole point is that there’s a lot of things that jazz music can do, and will do. Whether it has to do with swingin’ out, or a groove, or a ballad, or mellow or angry, there’s a lot of emotions that the music has. My view is that all of those moods should be explored.

But the nerd tends to look at one thing: How can we play as abstract and innovative as possible, and we’re not interested in anything else. Because it’s already been done, and we need to move on as quick as possible.

Why did you start playing vibes? You’ve described the instrument as “melodic percussion” – was it a logical step from the drums?

Jason Marsalis: I wanted to do it because there was a lot with vibes that hadn’t been said. There’s a lot that has been contributed, but there’s much more to be done. There haven’t been as many jazz vibraphonists as there have been jazz trumpet players, or jazz saxophonists, or jazz pianists.

There’s other possibilities with that instrument that you cannot explore on drums. Now I will say that on drums, there’s vocabulary that can be contributed in terms of rhythm, and in terms of space – which not a lot of drummers are really addressing.

But with vibes, there’s a lot that you can do with a melody that you can’t do with drums. A lot of the songs that I write for my vibes group, it’s different from the music I write if I’m playing drums leading a group. Because I have the melody, and I have to be sure I’m playing the melody correctly. With drums, that isn’t the case.

Why do you think some people find a direct line to music, as opposed to, say, dreaming of becoming a doctor or some other career?

Jason Marsalis: The stories I’ve heard are that I was into music as a kid, I mean age 3. According to my parents, I was just loving music as a toddler.

As I grew up, my brothers were making records – and I actually liked those records – and after a while I started to love the drums. And I wanted to play the drums.

I was around it a lot, but I believed it and I wanted to contribute something to it.

And being in the city of New Orleans, there’s a lot of music and culture that isn’t available in other places. In defense of those jazz nerds, they don’t get a lot of access to jazz as a fun music; jazz as a way to make people dance.

You had a family name to live up to. Did your parents ever say “Aw, you’re just the little brother”?

Jason Marsalis: Not in the music sense. Now, in the life sense, that’s a little bit of a different story!

I think it’s because I played a rhythm section instrument. So if anything, that was seen as being different from Wynton and Branford. From what I was told.

That’s one. Two, I had the belief and talent in music at a very early age.

School Jazz Band Gets Its Groove On

Music master Jason Marsalis helps students hone chops for competition

by Kia Hall Hayes
New Orleans Times-Picayune
March 6, 2008

Gearing up for a national competition next month, the Fontainebleau High School Jazz Band on Wednesday got a visit from a music master and a lesson on “the groove.”

The band has been invited to compete with 11 other bands in the Swing Central Jazz Band Competition, which is being held April 3-5 during the Savannah Music Festival in Georgia. Band Director Lee Hicks said it will be biggest competition in which the 20-member band has participated.
“Some of (the schools) are very well-known,” Hicks said, citing the New World School of the Arts in Miami, Fla. “We’re not going up against lightweights.”

To help the participants, the festival organizers dispatched professional musicians to rehearse with the various bands and offer constructive criticism. Jason Marsalis — a son of jazz great Ellis, brother of fellow musicians Wynton, Branford and Delfeayo, and a member of the Marcus Roberts Trio — was assigned to Fontainebleau.

A jazz drummer, Marsalis has played with world-renowned musicians such as Joe Henderson and Lionel Hampton and co-founded the Latin jazz group Los Hombres Calientes. In addition to playing on numerous group recordings, Marsalis has two albums under his name and continues to play with his famous family.

Hicks, who plays professionally with the John Mahoney Big Band in New Orleans, said he hoped Marsalis, who also is one of the competition judges, would help “improve the groove.”
“Just to get another opinion on how to make the music feel better,” he said.

Hicks said competing with accomplished music programs and receiving feedback from musicians such as Marsalis will be a valuable learning experience for the band, which won the Fiesta-Val Music Festival in Chicago, Ill., last year. The winning band will receive up to $5,000 for its school’s program.

To raise money for the trip, the Fontainebleau Jazz Band will perform with local musicians in a benefit concert at the high school on March 14 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $10.

Jazz pianist Ben Alleman, 17, said he was excited about Marsalis’ visit. He has seen the world-renowned drummer and his father perform in New Orleans and bought the Ellis Marsalis Quartet compact disc.

Alleman was grateful for the performance advice from someone of Marsalis’ pedigree.
“The groove,” he said, is very important for jazz bands. “That’s what gets the people up and gets them dancing,” he said.

Jazz guitar player Sam Chin, 16, said “the groove” is kind of like “the Force.”

If you feel it, you feel good,” he said. “It’s like ‘clean.’ It’s something you feel when you play well.”

Marsalis wasted no time getting band members attuned to his directives.

Bobbing his head along as the band rehearsed Jerome Richardson’s “Groove Merchant,” Marsalis had the different sections of the band work on shortening and then broadening their notes. He encouraged “flexibility with the rhythm” that they embraced.

“The name of the piece is ‘Groove Merchant,’ and that’s what you guys are going to have to do, is groove,” he said.

After having the reed, brass and percussion sections go through the piece separately, and at one point jumping on the drums and playing with band, Marsalis had the young musicians play the song together.

Heads bobbed, and toes tapped. The 1968 song was full of swing, bounce and brass.
In a word, it grooved.

Marsalis said the song sounded better, and that the broadening of the notes had helped.
Hicks said he noticed a definite improvement.

“I mean the groove wasn’t bad before, but I think the groove is going to get even better,” he said.

Jason Marsalis’s T.O. headlining debut

Career delayed by Hurricane Katrina, brother Jason back on track with vibes, drums

by Ashante Infantry
Toronto Star
January 10, 2008

His home only suffered minor damage, but 2005’s Hurricane Katrina had a more consequential impact on Jason Marsalis’s career.

The drummer-vibist, the youngest of the four performing Marsalis brothers, had big plans that fall for the record label he runs with his pianist-educator dad.

“He was going to put a record out, I was going to come out with something; Katrina just wiped all that out,” said Marsalis, 30, in a recent phone interview from his renovated New Orleans home.

Even if the devastating storm hadn’t uprooted them – Marsalis to Jacksonville, Fla., then New York, his parents to Baton Rouge, La. – and focused their attention and finances elsewhere, recording just wasn’t feasible.

“Musicians and engineers that I was going to use, they were all over the place. The studio we used to record at was gone. Fortunately, none of the music got lost, but that kind of delayed things for a few years.”

With only a couple CDs under his own name, Marsalis, who has proven an adept sideman, accompanying the likes of pianist Marcus Roberts, saxist John Ellis and trombonist brother Delfeayo, makes his Toronto headlining debut at Trane Studio tomorrow night to kick off the inaugural Fair Trade Organic Coffee Jazz Concert Series.

The musician, who teaches fulltime at the renowned New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, began playing drums professionally at 14 and has also been performing on vibes since 2000.

“It was actually my father’s idea to explore it, because it was melodic percussion. It’s a very challenging instrument. If you miss one note it sticks out a lot more than any other instrument.”

He’ll play two separate Toronto shows, one on drums, the other on vibes, in sets comprised of standards and originals.

“One of the things I’m going to try to develop over time is music that has not been played on vibes, but sounds great on the instrument,” he said, citing compositions by drummer Winard Harper and a Brazilian musician.

The Crescent City resident credits his hometown for nurturing his musical explorations.
“In New Orleans, I could just start doing a gig every Monday and this is when I was not good at all. I could just do a gig at a small place on a Monday night with not a lot of publicity, no major reviews … just start playing, and then after while I started gigging with other people in the city.”

He describes a small, vibrant music enclave that he’s never felt the need to decamp for bigger parts to benefit his music or career.

“There was always a lot of opportunity in New Orleans for me. Plus, I was already travelling a lot anyway, so I was never interested in living somewhere else,” he says.

“I’m going to be honest, and this is probably controversial, but someone needs to say it: Really, New York being the big time as far as jazz music is concerned is actually over, because the major labels aren’t signing jazz and a lot of the jazz legends that were in New York, unfortunately, have died off now.

“It’s a great city and there’s a lot of music, but it’s not what it used to be. Ironically enough though, New Orleans is a better learning town. The community is a little smaller and it’s easier to get around and there’s other music that you can learn, like a lot of the traditional jazz music, R&B, Brazilian and Afro-Cuban music. Those kinds of things go on here. New Orleans has always been a great learning town.”

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.