Jazz and the Sense of Community

Yeah, I know, I said that I was going to talk about listening. I will. But something else struck me the other night.

Jazz establishes, in many ways, a rich and powerful sense of community. First, the music carries its own connections. To play "Satin Doll" is to think of Duke Ellington. And the music raises a shared wave of feeling in musicians and audience. The blues makes us all happier. Ballads hit our emotional side. And swinging is–swinging.

I get a vague feeling of kinship with people I will never know through intermediaries. I have been in sessions with Conti Milano and Ira Sullivan, both of whom played with Charlie Parker. Earlier, I mentioned the couple from Copenhagen who listen to our CD. One of my brothers and one of my students heard my name mentioned on a Chicago radio station (by Eddie–I wasn’t on what they were playing). I was on the song played on an Arkansas station (thanks to another brother).

And the music brings in friends and renews old ties. At the Mount Vernon Chocolate Stroll we played recently, Dallis Piccard talked with Pat Korzendorfer, a woman she worked with several years ago. Wes and Riella Rich showed up at the Coralville Marriott last week. They used to run the Fireside Grill in Kalona and had Eddie’s trio appear regularly. It is always a joy to see them.

Also at the Marriott, two of the women who worked for Eddie and Dallis in Club Jazz.  Eddie played for Heather's and Jeff's wedding.  Sarah sings with the Diplomats of Solid Sound and has gigs on her own around eastern Iowa.

Heather and Jeff Messer

Sarah Cram

And sometimes the music makes a strange and wonderful connection over time. Some years ago, I was in a jam session at the Piccard house where I met Jack (guitar) and Lisa Frost (bass). Jack asked if I knew the song "Marie."

Yes, I did. It was my mother’s theme song.

Dancers

Ah, the wonders of the Internet. This blog has brought me back into contact with some high school friends of many years ago. And among other readers are Jon and Janet Reed from right across the street. Jon recently suggested several things I might write about–among them, what makes a good audience.

The first and most essential point about a good audience is that it is an audience. People are there. As I said before, live music really needs support. That is especially important for bands playing some place regularly. Bands making one appearance have to publicize that single event and people see that it is a one-time, one-chance thing. Bands playing every week–well, it’s too easy for people to say we’re going to come and catch you one of these days. The people who run clubs and lounges are generally very supportive but they do need a good business to sustain live music.

Enough editorial comment. I think of audiences as either dancers or listeners (not different people necessarily, just different activities).

"It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing"–so said Duke Ellington. Dancers help put the beat in motion. They give it a physical, dramatic presence in the room. They not only feel the beat themselves; they help others feel it. In subtle ways, I find that it makes a difference in the way I am playing when the dancing begins.

And the range in dancers, the variety, is wonderful.

Visitors from Denmark

This woman told me that they have a copy of our CD in their home in Copenhagen and they play it almost every day. One nice comment like that sets me up for the night.

Sometimes dancing is a very spontaneous thing. It just has to happen. One young blond leapt to her feet and started the famous Duke Ellington at Newport eruption in 1956. And here is what happened when we played at Mount Vernon’s Chocolate Stroll.

I love seeing people go into motion. And I have something in common with them. I’m not much of a dancer, but I can’t hold still when the music starts to roll.

Next time: listeners.

Upcoming appearances: the Longbranch on Friday (6/15) 7:00-11:00; the Marriott in Coralville on Saturday (6/16) 7:00-10:00.

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.