Listening in the town square

Live music venues are like a town squares where people gather to have a good time--to catch up on each others lives, to hear the songs we love. If we don't go out and support live music these town squares will disappear.

We had a good time Sunday at Sip and Stir.  Some old friends came and we met some new ones, too.  Nice night, except that the Sip and Stir is closing.

Friday at the Long Branch is always fun, but last Friday wasn’t quite what we expected.

        The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
        Gang aft agley.

The poet should have said “o’ mice an’ men an’ musicians in particular.”

We had planned for “The Second Set” to feature the songs of Duke Ellington and Bobby Darin.  But you never know about band leaders.  Eddie decided to get bronchitis instead, which means that he couldn’t sing and it’s tough to do much with Darin in those circumstances.

Fortunately for us, Craig Dove was playing bass and Craig is a good singer himself (along with being a good bass, good piano, good guitar).  We didn’t do Darin, but Craig provided some good vocals.

We are hoping to do Ellington and Darin this coming Friday, but that depends on Eddie’s medical progress.  If he can sing, “The Second Set” will bring Ellington and Darin.  If not, “The Second Set” will offer bring a selection of songs from the Big Band Era. Either will feature some songs you know and love and some songs you are glad to learn about.

Because I needed a laugh, our drummer Jon Wilson sent me Bill Cosby’s description of his own early days as a drummer.

Duke Ellington: We Love You Madly

In “The Second Set” this week we are going to feature some of the music of the immortal Duke Ellington.

To use the phrase he himself used to describe really good performances, Duke Ellington was “Beyond Category.”

He was a distinguished composer.  Working on his own or with others in the band, he wrote or helped shape many of the tunes which have become classic standards: “Mood Indigo,” “Satin Doll,” “In a Mellow Tone,” “Do Nothing Til You Hear from Me,” “Prelude to a Kiss,” “Perdido,” “Take the A Train,” “Satin Doll,” “Sophisticated Lady.”  He wrote well over a thousand songs.

He also led one of the most distinctive of the big bands.  Ellington had a knack for gathering individual stylists.  Some of them–Jimmy Blanton on bass, Bubber Miley on trumpet, Tricky Sam Nanton on trombone–influenced the way their instrument came to be played by other musicians.   Many of his musicians stayed with the band for a long time.  Harry Carney, baritone sax, was with Ellington for about 45 years.

These artists were great in their own right, but they worked together so well that their collective sound became the Ellington sound.  Some times Duke didn’t write out the individual parts of an arrangement, but let his artists find their own role.  And several of his songs were actually composed with a particular soloist in mind: “Concerto for Cootie” (which later became “Do Nothing Til You Hear from Me”) for the trumpeter Cootie Williams, “Jeep’s Blues” for Johnny Hodges.

When I was about 12, my parents took me to see Duke Ellington.  That was a lasting gift.  I still think of the leading alto sax of the incomparable Johnny Hodges.  

We also like to feature the songs associated with a particular singer in “The Second Set.”  This week we have picked Bobby Darin.

Like Ellington, Bobby Darin was both a composer and a performer.  It was a confusing time in music when Darin launched his career.  Musical tastes were changing.  There was soon to be a “British Invasion” (four young guys from England–can’t remember their name).  Consequently, Darin tried several different modes–rock, folk, standards.

He seems most interesting now in the way he took over the big band style and made a place for himself.  He did both standards and originals.  He had a very strong, contagious sense of the beat, and he drew strong responses from his audience.


His most famous record was “Mack the Knife.”  One of my own favorite songs, which I first heard when Eddie sang it, was on the flip side of that record: “Was There A Call For Me?”



I enjoy every song we play, everything we do.  But “The Second Set” is a special moment for me.  It reconnects me to my personal past and all of us to our common musical past.  And it gives us a chance to pay tribute where it is fully deserved. 

Something new

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. I'm not preparing for a wedding, so call this a reverie, a chain of reflections. It will lead to an exciting announcement.

1. I have three--much--older brothers. They listened to music which actually came from even before their own time, and that music is what I heard when I was very small. I still have some of the energy I picked up from this group.

2. I am currently working on a song called "Zoot Walks in." It used to the "The Red Door," but somebody added words to honor the great tenor sax Zoot Sims.

3. Thinking about Zoot made me in turn remember the last blog I wrote on Doc Tenney, an Iowa sax great, and the way musicians live in our memories and in our playing. We who love and play this music today owe a lo to those who were here before.



The Eddie Piccard Quartet is going to start honoring some of them in our appearances.

Each Friday night "The Second Set," the actual second set of our night, will be devoted to the music associated with two or three of these people--musicians who made their mark and left us something of real worth. That doesn't mean we're going to imitate them, of course. We will do our thing with some of their songs.

This week "The Second Set" will be devoted to the music of two great performers who actually once appeared together: Frank Sinatra and Count Basie. Sinatra once said that he learned about breathing in music by listening to the horns in the band. He had the great gift, which Eddie certainly shares, of understanding that every song is also a story. Singing means getting into the story. When It's Quarter til Three, it really feels like quarter til three.

Count Basie--well, for me it's not possible to think about the rich history of this music without thinking of Count Basie. That band had it all--the great soloists, the driving, compelling rhythm section, and the Count himself as the presiding officer and guiding spirit.

This Friday--June 27--The Second Set belongs to Frank Sinatra and Count Basie. I hope a lot of people will join us as we play music from their songbooks.

Incidentally, the blond woman dressed in white watching the Goodman group in the link above is one of Eddie's favorites, the great singer Peggy Lee. I hope one of these nights she will be one of the people we honor in "The Second Set."

Paul "Doc" Tenney

Here are some of the horns which belonged to Paul "Doc" Tenney.

The horns are sitting on the stage at the Hearst Center for the Fine Arts in Cedar Falls.  They are there because Doc died June 9.

When a jazz musician dies, jazz musicians come together.  They come together to celebrate a life.  They do that by celebrating the art they shared.  Some of the musicians who participated: Eddie Piccard, Bob Dunn, Rich Martin, Bob Crumley, Tim Crumley, Bob Washut, Chris Merz, Al Naylor, Dick Kriz, Craig Dove, Nick George, Gail Williams, Paul Rider, Stuart Wood.

Doc Tenney frequently sat in with the Eddie Piccard group when I first started playing with them. His solos were always melodic, inventive, fitting to the song, thoroughly musical.
  His friends remember that he didn't like to waste or mince words.  He was meticulous in his speech, in all of his work.  Doc thought that calling something "good enough" meant that it wasn't. 

  
                                                   








But Doc was always very kind to me, very supportive.  He helped me believe that I could learn something about playing this music, about taking part in sessions like the one held in his honor and pictured here.

 

These are wonderful occasions because they bring to life the old paradox of jazz.  There is joy to be found in sadness.  Playing the blues can make you happy.

 

I miss Doc and the sound of his sax, but, as his wife Jan said, we don't have to speak of this man in the past tense.  He is present while our memories are present.

 

"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.  We remember.  When we played "In a Mellow Tone," we  played a riff I first heard from Doc Tenney.

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

Jazz and Chocolate

Yes.  Some time has passed since I was last heard from. My computer went the way of all flesh and mechanical thing. Down. Crash. And a lot of stuff got lost. And I was forced to utter some appropriate invective.

Now let's move on to the good side of life.

Mount Vernon's Chocolate Stroll has once again come around. In the past we have played in the Gazebo in the park, but this year we moved inside--into the Community Center. Rick and Trude Elliott and community volunteers have made the old middle school auditorium into a great performance venue. Sound was great. And no rain, no bugs.

Jon Wilson had to be out of town so Nick George took over on drums.

This was an absolutely wonderful day. We saw some old friends and made some new ones. Among the old friends, I especially noticed Wes and Riella Rich, former owners of the Fireside Grill, sitting in the front row. Among the new friends: our neighbors from right across the street who brought their baby to catch the act. 

We played songs from our regular book and some  numbers we are adding. One of my favorites of the afternoon was Eddie's version of  the jazz standard "Where or When."

Special treat: Eddie's son E.P. and his partner Martha came from Chicago for the occasion.

What you see in these pictures is four musicians having a very good time.

Songs of Autumn

Ah, autumn, the fall. I like all of the seasons. There is joy enough to go around. But I confess it is the autumn which most touches me.

In my teaching life, in the early years, there was Hopkins "Spring and Fall" and Keats’s "Ode to Autumn." Later, I taught a course in American Nature Writers. I was profound in the classroom, of course, but it was really the woods that provoked reverie in members of the class.

When I was a kid, it was still legal to burn leaves–and roast marshmallows. There is no better smell than that fire, no better taste than those marshmallows.

But there is still a glory in the season.

 

In my present life, though, it is especially the songs which reach me. There are great songs you can play any time at all. Some you can play only at certain times–Winter Wonderland, for example, and many Christmas songs.

But Autumn has some of the greatest. Eddie sings Henry Nemo’s "‘Tis Autumn," first recorded by Nat "King" Cole. And we play the song made famous by Woody Herman and his sax section–"Early Autumn." Beautiful.

Last week-end Scott Barnum couldn't be with the band so Eddie asked Craig Dove to play bass.  We had a good crowd and a great night.

And the band played a tune I have loved all of my life--"September Song."  Only one week-end left for that one.

Visitors from Far Away

Speaking of friends stopping by, there are old friends and new ones.

Blanca and Javier Alejandro Flores have been married for two weeks.  I'm not sure how they happened to be in Cedar Rapids or how they discovered us, but it was great having them in the room.  People who like the music always add to the flavor of what is going on.


And in this case Javier added something more.  He joined us to sing "New York, New York" with Eddie.

Blanca and Javier are from Mexico!  I was going to give them our "Came a Long Way to Hear You" Award--until I remembered the couple who came from Copenhagen.

Near or Far--friends are always welcome.