Tag Archives: jazz

Lots of New Jazz: Some Eclectic, Some Restrained, Some Unrestricted

by Ben Ratliff
New York Times
March 23, 2008

“Dance Like There’s No Tomorrow,” the new record by the saxophonist John Ellis and his band Double-Wide, is a New York-New Orleans collection of jazz: something intrinsically promising and, in this case, worth a listen. Rhythmically it has that New Orleans duality of being full of funk and lighter than air. Jason Marsalis, a New Orleanian, plays tidy backbeats, with brilliantly arranged little solos; replacing the thump of the bass is the cool puffing of the sousaphone, from Matt Perrine, who’s become known around New Orleans in the band Bonerama. Gary Versace of New York plays Hammond organ and a little accordion. For his part Mr. Ellis is a hybrid. He grew up in North Carolina, now lives in New York, but he spent four years working in New Orleans. He wrote all the warm, sweet, humorous songs here and plays with an easy flow but careful control over his tone; the arrangements are tamped down around the edges, a severely edited kind of party music.

On CBC Radio TODAY, Commenting On “Jason Marsalis says…” video, and a shout out to OVER THINKERS.

by James Danderfer
May 15, 2010

Hello, good morning, and welcome to the Saturday Morning News Post!

First off, if you’re reading this SMNP on Saturday before 5pm PST then you’re invited to listen to some of that CBC commissioned, Jelly Roll Morton tribute music I wrote/performed for CBC Radio last January. You can find it on Radio One 690 AM or 88.1 FM at 5pm and it will include some music from all the great artists featured that night we recorded live at the Patricia Hotel!

Moving on, let me give a quick shout out to all the over-thinkers out there! If thinking about shit was a job, we’d all be making bank in over-time. But it’s not, and unless you have a somewhat 9-5 job to distract you then you may just be thinking about much too much all at once. Probably nothing brilliant mind you, just… thoughts.

Anyways, that’s where I’m at these days,…over-thinking. And everything ties into something else, such as,…hmm, I don’t know,… let’s say your friend is releasing an electroacoustic EP pretty soon. Well that person starts thinking about how to release the EP (digital download cards vs. CDs, free streaming albums vs. sound bites) but first he’s gotta work out lots of details with his yet to be created record label, and then he thinks about the CD release show which should line-up with the CD release but he doesn’t know how on Earth to perform this music live!… etc, etc.

And then I get a request to think about and comment on this YouTube video of Jason Marsalis (jazz drummer extraordinaire and proponent of traditional jazz values). Why would anyone bother to do this you ask?

The request came from a great jazz pianist (and blog enthusiast) Josh Rager. Now Josh, if you’re reading this, let me just say; I love giving my opinion on anything, the problem is I’m an over-thinker who will think about it, and think about it, and waste more time and think,… until I can come up with THE answer, only there is no definitive answer so my mind will just run around in circles! It’s infuriating,. Okay?… I mean seriously!

So allow me to simplify my opinion on the view which Jason expressed. He believes that institutionalized jazz has lost touch with humanity and students no longer appreciate the value of playing for audiences but instead have learned only to play for themselves or other musicians.

First of all, I hope this guy has a sense of humour because I found the video kinda hilarious. Jason’s poorly edited, Cronkite-esque barroom sermon about “Jazz Nerds International” which, by the audio/video quality, I’m guessing was delivered to somebody’s old cell-phone camera. … Awesome.

So yeah, on one hand I completely agree, institutionalized jazz music hasn’t placed nearly enough emphasis on the core element of expressing emotion to audiences.

On the other hand, it’s music dude! People should be allowed to do whatever the hell they want to! If some guy wants to play jazz music for himself (possibly in 5/4 too) then let him. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s art.

If there’s any solution here it’s to be done by better categorizing the many styles of jazz music. I mean, how is it that jazz came to be a cover all term for any kind of music from Louis Armstrong to hip hop to the Doobie Brothers? It is kinda frustrating when audiences go out to hear a jazz show expecting something swinging and end up with some sort of through-composed, intellectual, new music performance,… and vice versa of course. I know what some of you are saying: “Who knows? You don’t know that they won’t enjoy hearing something different Danderfer!” Yeah, sure, they might, but they probably won’t; just like when I go to eat at an Italian restaurant I probably don’t want to be surprised with pan-Asian fusion dishes.

I don’t know, is it just me? I love labels and relish the opportunity to express this to any musician who considers themselves far too “open-minded” to have use for such things.  Labels are great, they don’t limit anything, instead they serve as a tool towards identifying someone’s likes and dislikes.  Labels help me find the right section in a library, just like they help me find the right aisle in a grocery store, just like the “list of ingredients” helps me determine whether to choose this jar of pasta sauce or the other.  Why hell, that’s an idea right there! ”Jazz Festivals” (which, in my world, would hereby be called “Music Festivals”) could include an ingredient list next to all “fusion” artists, listed in order of greatest percentage, ie:  The Joe Blow Fusion Collective:  Contemporary European Classical, American Folk, Jazz, Blue Grass.

You see? Somebody looks at that and they can say “You know what, I’m not a big jazz fan but I love American Folk and so I’m going to give Joe Blow a chance.” Likewise, they won’t leave Joe Blows show saying “Wow, I kinda thought jazz was more swinging. I guess jazz isn’t my thing.”

OK, I’m done thinking about this. Josh, I hope that was worthwhile, keep up the blogs!

Thanks for reading everybody and have a great week!