From the archives: Jazz

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International Not-Jazz Festivals

Monday, 30 June 2008 — 4:19pm | Jazz, Music

I make it well known that unlike most of my compatriots, I read Paul Wells more for the jazz criticism than the political insight; he has a keen ear for the form and a literacy in its recent developments far vaster than my own.

Wells makes some grudging remarks on the Montreal International Jazz Festival’s lineup which, as I see it, strike out at the genre’s great existential paradox:

But it took me a while to figure out what’s so utterly deflating about this year’s schedule, and it’s this: there is very close to no space for the possibility that jazz, real jazz, might be an object of curiosity and a source of surprise. Dave Brubeck? Really? Golly, do you suppose he might play Take Five? As for the series of concerts devoted to the 90-year-old Hank Jones, is it churlish to react by wishing he had been invited to host a series of concerts when he was 75? Or that some 50-year-old pianist at the height of his powers might be able to regard the Montreal festival as a prospect sometime before 2048?

This is something I think about a great deal. I’d like to think that I have an omnivorous appetite for improvised music at its most pretentious and experimental, but in practise, when it comes to assigning a finite number of ticket purchases to a conflict-ridden concert schedule, I am often guilty of gravitating towards the established international acts over the rewarding risks of sampling lesser-known talents. I am naturally inclined to comment.

Continued »

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The song is ended, but the melody lingers on

Monday, 14 January 2008 — 10:58am | Jazz, Music, Pianism

Saturday’s Oscar Peterson tribute concert is now available online. You can listen to it in segments, but I obviously recommend sitting through the whole thing; if you do have to pick and choose, though, make it Herbie Hancock’s speech and performance. (More on him later.) Having just returned to school after three weeks out of the country, I wasn’t able to make the pilgrimage to Hogtown, but after listening to some of the heartfelt eulogies I’m beginning to think I should have stood out in the cold for ten hours on the steps of Roy Thomson Hall with the rest of the throng of ladies, gentlemen and music-lovers all who, like me, would not have the sense of personal identity they possess today were it not for the inspiration of the greatest jazz pianist there ever was or ever will be—and my favourite musician of any stripe, period.

The myriad tributes in O.P.’s honour, both in print since his passing and in the concert, offer a personal underscore to something I always knew about, but only on paper—that he was not only an exemplary musician, but an extraordinary role model in every respect: someone who demonstrated that you can have your cake and eat it too—that great jazz doesn’t have to come at the price of drug addiction or poisoned race relations. The real condition of its production is the will to be the calibre of artist you want. And the kind of man who realizes that is the kind of man who will play his way through a debilitating stroke and live to the ripe old age of 82.

I’m not a sucker for biography. I like to imagine that you can appreciate art apart from its creator, and that in the majority of cases, you should. But sometimes, I have to wonder how much of that is a matter of burying my head in the sand—not wanting to acknowledge that Bill Evans’ sentimental figurations were paying the tab for the heroin coursing through his left arm—and it’s a relief to look up to someone like Oscar Peterson and not have to make a single excuse.

That’s when you know you’ve picked a hero. For Nicholas Tam, that moment came at the age of fifteen.

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Royal Blue (or: Nick and the King of Siam)

Friday, 11 January 2008 — 5:02pm | Adventures, Classical, Jazz, Music

I can’t seem to mention my favourite developing country without saying a few words about the musical compositions of its presiding Philosopher King, so perhaps I’ll take a moment to devote an entire post to the subject. For those of you who are new to the show: do familiarize yourself with the Rama IX Art Museum Foundation’s comprehensive online exhibit, which I’ve only just had the pleasure to discover myself. It comprises a biographical overview of His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej’s musical background, audio samples of forty of his songs, historical notes on specific compositions, and even lead sheets of the melodies and chords.

And if you want to hear something exceptionally cool: there’s always a lot of talk about how the King once played alongside America’s own King of Swing, Benny Goodman (indeed, that’s the subject of the photograph atop the musical archive’s introductory page), but now I’ve found some aural proof—samples from Benny Goodman’s 1955 concert in Bangkok, in which he plays several of the King’s signature compositions, including the Thai Royal Anthem. I’ve linked to my personal favourite, “Sai Fon” (“Falling Rain”); the song is written as a waltz, but the band plays it in 4/4.

My own interest in King Bhumibol’s music originates from my first visit to his realm in December 2003, when I first heard that he was a noted saxophonist and big band composer in addition to everything else he did (painting, translating Economist articles, ending military coups with a single command, and so on). It wasn’t until after the adventure that I actually listened to some of his music and fell in love with a number of the tunes. But this time around, I went to Thailand prepared—and after traipsing around the country for nearly three weeks, I can absolutely confirm that the King’s music is as ubiquitous as the documents about it claim.

I also returned with a handful of compact discs, all of which I will discuss below.

Continued »

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Regarding Oscar

Tuesday, 8 January 2008 — 5:22pm | Jazz, Music, Pianism

I left Canada 21 December and returned this afternoon; only a minute ago did I find out that Oscar Peterson passed away on the 23rd, the day I was stranded in China while my Siamese destination made its way back to democracy. I have a lot to write down, but I think I may have to set everything aside to compose a lengthy and personal obituary.

Oscar Peterson was without question one of the most important figures in my life, and has been since I was old enough to discover the myriad human wonders of the world for myself. On only two other occasions have I been so affected by the passing of a celebrated individual whom I never met (Douglas Adams, Charles M. Schulz), and in both of those cases, I found out as soon as the story broke and shared in the mourning with those who remembered their lives and works with a fondness of similar profundity.

I never did get to see him play.

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Further adventures of an accompanying picaro

Monday, 17 December 2007 — 5:25pm | Jazz, Music, Pianism

Music can take you to some interesting places and unexpected situations, and its predilection for adventure is as evident as ever in the Christmas season. As my readers know, every now and then I hit black things and white things and make a lot of noise that might just resolve into the coherent pattern of a convenient overtone series (if I’m lucky). On the odd occasion I even get to do it while somebody else is singing.

This weekend, I had the opportunity to do just that with a local fantasy author of my acquaintance. It was not an especially public gig—only a Christmas-themed recital by the students of a vocal teacher—but one of the experiential benefits of being an instrumentalist in an auxiliary role, rather than the centre of attention, is the opportunity to communicate musically with people who are not there to see you.

The voice teacher in question already had a dedicated and polished accompanist, but the vocalist hired me on anyway for my apparent versatility—that I can read music straight up, but also improvise blues licks over a gospel groove if need be. From my perspective, this was a fairly routine procedure and nothing out of the ordinary—which is why I was so surprised at how well received my playing was, especially because it was honestly a tad sloppy (tripped up, no doubt, by the fact that I had to turn pages, something I never learned to do properly).

The compliments were beyond the layman’s usual polite appreciation, to boot: at least one of the students’ parents approached me after the concert, passed me a business card, and asked me in earnest to send her a CD. I had to tell her that regrettably, I don’t have one ready at the moment. In truth, for some time now I’ve been mentally drafting some ideas for a well-produced solo studio recording on a proper pianoforte, ideas I won’t reveal until the time is ripe. If I start telling people that I’m sketching an impressionistic suite of spontaneous meditations on the poetry of J.R.R. Tolkien, they might develop unreasonable expectations.

Whoops.

Nevertheless, the reaction at the concert drew my attention to the prevailing gap of perception regarding improvised music that persists even among trained musicians. There is a notion, among many developing instrumentalists, that you need the guidance of sheet music in order to play; indeed, that is often the first thing they ask for when they watch something on the order of an impressive YouTube video. How does one imitate that, they want to know? The first step, I think, is to realize that regardless of whether or not one is reading off the page, playing music is not a mechanical process, but a matter of the imagination.

When it comes to musical accreditations, we don’t just impose requirements of scale technique and basic harmonic theory to make you sweat: we do it to encourage thinking on higher levels of abstraction. You can’t solve a Rubik’s Cube if you only proceed twist by twist; you need to think of corner swaps and edge rotations. And the only real trick to improvised music is to stop thinking note by note. It’s the trivium at work: from grammar to logic to rhetoric.

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