Upcoming Events: The Chocolate Stroll

Audiences make the occasion. That has to be true because I just said that.

We will be playing this Saturday, June 2nd, as part of Mount Vernon’s Chocolate Stroll.

We will be in the Gazebo in Mount Vernon’s memorial Park from 2:00-4:00.

We have played this event twice before. This picture was taken last year.

It is always a fun day for the town. I enjoy it, of course, because I see friends and neighbors in the crowd. I also enjoy it because it gives young kids a chance to hear–and see–music live and swinging.

I have to confess that I have a small sense of mission in this connection. A few such events that I was taken to when I was a kid added a lot of its shape to my life.

Here are people having fun--in the Gazebo in Mount Vernon.  Hope we see a lot of Mount Vernon and Cedar Rapids friends there Saturday.

Sideman Solos

Love Being Here with You

Distinguished Guests

Audiences make the occasion for jazz performances. It’s always fun to see long-time friends come in. Here are a couple of good pairs to see arrive:



Betty Rogers, Dallis Piccard, Sideman, John Rogers

Jean & Carey J. Hahn

A couple of blogs ago I mentioned seeing Ron DeWitte and his band. This last Friday there was the man himself, sitting there listening. Seeing a good musician quietly sitting there listening is good for my nerve-ends. It puts them on high alert. One becomes very aware of just what notes one is playing.

Here’s another guitar player who showed up at the last gig. Francis McMahon (I hope I’ve spelled his name correctly) is 92, he tells me, and has been a member of the musicians union for 68 years.

Francis McMahon & Eddie Piccard

Eddie introduced Francis to Ron DeWitte. Audiences do indeed shape performances. The two guitarists had such a good conversation about the beautiful song "Laura" that Eddie decided to play it the next set.

About Jazz Solos

Since I started playing again, it has struck me frequently that "Things Ain’t What They Used to Be." People are not as exposed to jazz as they once were, so it can seem mysterious and exotic. Audiences like what we are doing but at the same time many are a little bewildered by what we are doing. Old and new friends have asked whether there is any plan to what we play. Or do we just play whatever we want and it somehow magically sounds good. I was even asked once to talk to a Rotary meeting and explain how what I am doing is possible.

This puzzlement is not a friend to the art and it does not help us attract audiences. So here is a quick and simple summary of what we are doing.

Each song has a form. It has a defined length (so many measures). As we go through those measure we also move through a sequence of chord changes. If we go through the song again, we are going through the same measures and the same chord sequence. When we come to the solos in jazz, each soloist is improvising on the same sequence of chords.

I certainly do not mean that musicians are thinking as mechanically as that sounds. Those are the givens. They are internalized, more felt than thought about.

What each soloist does with those givens and how others respond–that will vary every night. And in that variation, that controlled freedom, is the beauty and the wonder of the art. The solo may be shaped by what the preceding soloist just played, by how the song feels at the moment, by how the musician feels, by how life is going, by any number of things. Sometimes I will improvise a melodic phrase at the end of my chorus and hear Eddie pick up that phrase to start his own solo.

Enough talk. Here is the art itself in one of television’s finest moments. The song "Fine and Mellow" is a twelve bar blues (that is, there are twelve "bars" or measures in each chorus, four beats to each measure). In this performance (from 1957) the singer is Billie Holiday, and she is working with some of the greatest people in jazz history. The trumpet playing in the background is Doc Cheatham. The soloists in order are

Ben Webster, tenor sax
Lester Young, tenor sax
Vic Dickenson, trombone
Gerry Mulligan, baritone sax
Coleman Hawkins, tenor sax
Roy Eldridge, trumpet

Notice how individual each solo is and how each contributes to the over-all feeling of the performance. I hope you all enjoy this as much as I do: "Fine and Mellow."

On Drummers

When I was a kid (yes, it was quite a while ago) I started out as a drummer. Partly for that reason, I find that I am frequently watching the drummer when I see a band. I enjoyed seeing Greg Kanz play in the Ron DeWitte band. Greg didn’t take any solos, but he is a superb supportive player both musically and visually.

There used to be a bad joke. Asked about the size of his band, the leader would say "we have five musicians and a drummer." The drummer is a musician, of course, and plays a very important role. First, he (or she) must make the arrangement swing. A jazz drummer has a more difficult role, though, in that he must intuit where the improvising soloist is going and augment or punctuate what the soloist is doing–and must do this tastefully and tactfully, without getting in the soloist’s way and disrupting the flow.

Jon Wilson, the drummer with the Eddie Piccard Quartet, is very good at backing the wide variety of songs that Eddie plays. I also enjoy his strong support when I am soloing. And Jon is himself a very musical soloist. Listen to his work when we play Samba De Orfeu.

And while we’re talking about drummers, here’s a solo from the guy I first saw when I was about 14: Buddy Rich.

Support Live Music

Editorial comment: Support Live Music. Go hear somebody.  Have some fun yourself and at the same time help make it a good night for everybody. A good audience is critically important in making for a good performance.

What’s more, live music needs support. We are lucky in the Quartet because we are working steadily, but a lot of good musicians are not.

We caught a good show recently. Jackie and I went with Dallis and Eddie Piccard to the ARA Gallery to see Ron DeWitte and his band, along with his wife, singer Lynne Rothrock, in concert. I didn’t know it at the time, but learned later that Eddie had played for their wedding.

We have played ARA ourselves and it is a nice venue–comfortable for audience, good for acoustics. This night drew a responsive crowd. The band--Ron DeWitte lead guitar, Gerard Estella keyboard, Dave Ollinger bass, Greg Kanz drums–has a solid, tight sound. We really enjoyed the music.  

We had a good audience ourselves at the Longbranch last Friday–a nice mix of dancers and listeners. Jackie got a picture of Eddie framed by dancers.

Thinking about comping

In my teaching days, I had a craving for questions, for people to ask about what we were doing. That craving hasn’t left me. I would still love to hear from readers.

On the job I often have people ask why we don’t have any music in front of us. Sometimes people say "I really like what you’re doing but I don’t have any idea what’s going on."

I was lucky in that I grew up surrounded by music. Lots of people didn’t, and these days the opportunities to see music in live performance are getting more rare. So jazz may seem puzzling.

Today I’m going to make up my own question: what is the piano player in this band doing when he’s not singing and not soloing? The answer is he’s "comping," a delicate art in itself and a very important part of a jazz performance.

All songs have patterns and chord structures (I’ll be happy to expand on that if invited). The soloist–me on vibes, for example–is improvising over the pattern. The comping pianist is doing three things: keeping the chord structure in the minds of both soloist and audience, complimenting or "decorating" what the soloist is doing, and providing some of the rhythmic drive.

Clark Terry is one of the greatest trumpet players in jazz. In "Mumbles," though, he is not playing. He’s singing. In his way. Enjoy the song. Then listen again and concentrate on what the pianist Oscar Peterson is doing behind Terry.

When you see us at the Longbranch or wherever, listen for our version of Lionel Hampton’s "Midnight Sun." You will hear how important the interplay is between my solo and Eddie’s comping.

Route 66

Last Friday we played "Route 66" (full title: "Get Your Kicks on Route 66.") The song was composed in 1946 by Bobby Troup and recorded that same year–and made famous–by Nat "King" Cole.

I get kicks from "Route 66."I love the "drive" the song has, the way it moves along. Anyone who asks Eddie to play it will be doing me a favor. Like "Flying Home," it brings back a lot of memories and they become part of what I’m thinking when I solo.

When I was twelve, my parents took me and my brother Bernard to Purdue University to see a two-part program: Duke Ellington and his Orchestra and the Nat "King" Cole Trio. Yes, that was quite a night.

I still remember being transfixed by Ellington’s "Mood Indigo" And I saw Davenport’s own Louis Bellson, surely one of the greatest drummers of all time, play "Skin Deep." Bernard pointed out the fascination with which Ellington’s musicians watched their own drummer.

And Nat "King" Cole sang "Route 66." One does not forget that man.

The song showed up at the Blue Note a few years ago. My wife Jackie and I had been hoping for a long time to see Manhattan Transfer, and we finally caught up with them in New York. It was one of those lucky nights that brings a fringe benefit. They stopped the show because they had spotted a familiar face in their audience: George Benson, singer and guitarist. And they insisted that he join them for a very swinging rendition of "Route 66."

Here’s another great version of the tune performed by one of my favorites on the contemporary scene: Diana Krall. The guitarist who opens the tune is Russell Malone. Back when Eddie and Dallis had their Club Jazz going, Russell Malone played a concert at Kirkwood and then headed immediately to Eddie’s club on Mount Vernon Road to sit in with Eddie Piccard. I missed that night, but Eddie told me later that they "burned until four in the morning."

Some kicks!

Flying Home--and Conti Milano

Mentioning "Flying Home" brings back something I wrote a few years ago. It is about one of my favorite memories of a musical performance–and about the way the music works.

____________________________________
[from 2010]

"The past is never dead. It’s not even past."

So said Faulkner. He was talking about the South, about history, but he could have been talking about music, about jazz. He could have been talking about my own experience recently when we played "Flying Home."

"Flying Home" was Lionel Hampton’s signature song. It was usually the last number on the program, and it was a thrill to hear it start because you knew that there was a wild tenor sax solo on the way, that the band would keep building, that whatever was left of the roof would blow off.

So it was exciting to me when Eddie called Hamp’s song.

But there are also memories inside of songs, and they all lead to what happens when one solos. Sometimes we don’t remember even what the memory is, but in this case I’m lucky. I do.

There are two parts to this story. Somewhere in the late 40s a young tenor sax named Illinois Jacquet became part of Hampton’s big band. One night it was time to play "Flying Home." There are many versions of what happened to Jacquet, but it went something like this. As he was rising from his chair to solo, fellow-saxman Marshall Royal tugged on his sleeve. "I’ve heard you sound like Prez," he said, "and I’ve heard you sound like Hawk. Now–go for yourself."

Jacquet’s solo made such a mark that some musicians have called it "Flying Home, Part Two."

And here’s Part Two of my story. A few years ago on a gig in Kalona, I met Conti Milano, an old friend of Eddie Piccard’s. Conti sat in with our band on bass. He once played bass with the Buddy Rich band. That will tell you what a strong bass he was.

On a break, he and I started talking about music and about "Flying Home." I was enough younger than Conti that he didn’t think I would know who originated that great tenor sax solo. He didn’t think I would know even after I named Jacquet. "Do you know the solo I mean?" he asked, and began quietly singing it. And there we sat, in the outdoor lounge of the Tuscan Moon, at a nicely decorated table, under the patio umbrella, singing together Illinois Jacquet’s solo.

When I launched into my first chorus on "Flying Home" last week, I found myself playing something like Jacquet’s solo. But I wasn’t thinking of Jacquet. I was thinking of Conti Milano, in the outdoor lounge of the Tuscan Moon, at a nicely decorated table, under the patio umbrella, singing Illinois Jacquet’s solo.

My second chorus was something of my own. The out-riff was all Hamp’s.

"The past is never dead. It’s not even past."

__________________________________________

　

After I wrote the above, I got a copy of The Chicago Music Scene, 1970s. The book was written and the pictures compiled by Dean Milano, Conti’s nephew. There is a picture of Conti Milano as a young man on p. 76. Incidentally, there is also a picture of Eddie Piccard–on p. 91.

And here’s a still more recent discovery–Eddie playing at Conti's Memorial Service. The drummer is Rusty Jones, the bassist Dean Milano. Dean sings "Lady be Good," Mark Milano sings "How About You," and a few people share some memories of Conti.