More Madness

On the final day of The Madness, I was able to slip away from the Garritan booth for about 90 minutes in the morning to check out a one-on-one chat with Maria Schneider and Bob Brookmeyer, hosted by NARAS (aka "the Grammy people"). It was sparsely attended -- for some reason the event wasn't on the convention schedule, otherwise it would have been packed -- but there were several video cameras, so hopefully this conversation will be released on the web at some point.

Before the discussion got underway, Maria played for us an audio collage she'd assembled, snippets of Brookmeyer's work spanning from the Concert Jazz Band charts, through the recently reissued small group recordings with Clark Terry, right up to his latest New Art Orchestra CD. There were some well-known career highlights as well as some obscurities that even I didn't recognize.

[EDIT: I had a lesson with Maria today, and I asked for the playlist. I realize now in my initial verison of this post, I reported hearing some tracks that weren't there. Isn't that weird? My mind's ear must have retrospectively filled in some of the things I'd been thinking of, but that Maria didn't have room to play, like the Mulligan and Giuffre small group recordings. Anyway, here's what was actually part of the compilation:

• "Manoir de Mes Rêves (Django's Castle)" (comp. Django Reinhardt, arr. Brookmeyer), from Gerry Mulligan and the Concert Jazz Band (1960).

• "Where, Oh Where" (comp. Cole Porter, arr. Brookmeyer), from Brookmeyer's Gloomy Sunday and Other Bright Moments (1961).

• "Don't Smoke In Bed" (comp. Willard Robison, arr. Brookmeyer), from Jack Teagarden's Think Well Of Me (1962).

• "Haig & Haig" from the Clark Terry-Bob Brookmeyer Quintet's Gingerbread Men (1966).

• "Willow Weep For Me" (comp. Ann Ronell, arr. Brookmeyer), from Presenting Thad Jones, Mel Lewis and the Jazz Orchestra (1966).

• "Willow Tree" (comp. Fats Waller), from Thad Jones & Mel Lewis at the Village Vanguard (1967).

• "Hello And Goodbye" from the Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra's Bob Brookmeyer Composer, Arranger (1980).

• "Body and Soul" from Jim Hall and Bob Brookmeyer: Live at the North Sea Jazz Festival (1979).

• "Missing Monk" from Dreams, w/the Stockholm Jazz Orchestra (1988).

• "Say Ah" from Electricity, featuring John Abercrombie and the WDR Big Band (1991).

• "Celebration Jig" from New Works: Celebration, featuring Scott Robinson and the New Art Orchestra (1997).

• "Fireflies" from Waltzing With Zoe, w/the New Art Orchestra (2001).

• "Cameo" from New Works: Celebration (1997).

• "Get Well Soon" from Get Well Soon, w/the New Art Orchestra (2004).]

I have to admit to getting a touch misty near the end -- it's a little overwhelming to survey to the scope and depth of such an incredible career all at once, especially when the creative momentum continues undiminished at age 76… and of course it's impossible not to be moved by the love Maria poured into this all-too brief retrospective.

Listening to the two of them talk, especially about the compositional issues that are so important to both of them (large-scale development and narrative, use of solo space, learning to be patient with your music, giving ideas enough room to breathe, etc) took me right back to my own lessons with Bob up in the NEC practice rooms. He also talked about his early days as a staff arranger at an NYC music service [EDIT: Emile Charlap's office, for the record], and about how the last-minute, all-night, cold-sweat panic that necessarily comes with this gig is actually good for composers -- because it forces you to make choices quickly, instead of agonizing over every little thing.

We heard an unmixed version of one of the tracks from Bob's just-recorded ArtistShare album Spirit Music -- a beautiful, heartfelt piece that really makes you wait for the first "event," and uses range and register very effectively -- especially taking away certain registers at key moments.

He elaborated on and clarified a controversial argument I've heard him make many times before -- that John Coltrane single-handedly ruined tenor sax playing in jazz -- by  pointing out that Coltrane's music was his life's journey, and for subsequent tenor players to glam on to a brief moment of that journey and attempt to appropriate it wholesale does a real disservice to Trane's legacy. (He tactfully left unsaid some of the other points he usually makes here, for instance that he thinks "Giant Steps" is a lousy composition and a terrible vehicle for improvisation... perhaps out of respect for Maria's brilliant arrangement of that tune.)

Not so tactfully, he encouraged the jazz community to dismantle the Jazz at Lincoln Center complex brick by brick, with Wynton still in it. Of course, Wynton is one of the principal advisors to the NEA Jazz Masters program which just honored Bob with a $25,000 fellowship. (Bob has always had a taste for the hand that feeds him.)

Near the end of the chat, Maria brought on Clark Terry as a special guest. At 85, Clark is as sharp as ever, and as soon as he sat down, he and Bob launched into an improvised high speed back-and-forth routine worthy of Abbott and Costello. It took a while for us to catch on to what they were up to, but at the end, they had the entire room in stitches. Clark mostly uses a wheelchair to get around these days, but he couldn't resist standing up and demonstrating how he and Bob used to literally run into each other on the street. They talked about how they used to stage shouting matches in elevators to freak out the white people, perfectly timed so that they appeared to be on the verge of landing blows just as the doors opened -- and then they'd give each other a big hug and walk out. Clark brought up Brookmeyer's infamous "To Do" lists, which always went something like this:

• Get a haircut
• Pick up dry cleaning
• Kill a midget

They talked about their amazing hookup, playing those long lines of beautiful eighth notes in glorious improvised counterpoint -- how, according to Bob, he would have his share of scuffles and clams, but night after night, Clark was never anything short of perfect. They talked about growing up in the St. Louis/Kansas City jazz scene, how players in other cities had more harmonic sophistication or better chops, but for the Missouri cats it was all about the feel. In short, they basically ignored all of us in the audience, and carried on like old war buddies. It was beautiful.

Comments

[mwanji]

1.

I assume you read the Currents on Brookmeyer's site? Also, his gruff contributions to the old Jazz Corner forums are legendary.

I come across some of his albums occasionally, but never know which ones to get. What would you recommend as essential (perhaps especially in the "important/progressive big band" category)?

[DJA]

2.

Hey Mwanji,

The "Currents" column on Bob's old website was actually the catalyst for me studying with him. I was living in Montreal at the time and teaching arranging at McGill to students barely younger than I was. I ran into Bob's site when doing research for the arranging class, and since Bob had posted his contact info on-site, I emailed him some questions I had, including (IIRC) "What specifically do you have against Dave Douglas?" (Bob had compared him unfavorably to Kenny Wheeler in a "Currents" column.)

Anyway, one thing led to another, Bob asked me to send my music to him, I obliged, and he liked it enough to invite me to come study with him at NEC.

[For the record, I did eventually find a Dave Douglas tune that Bob would admit to liking a great deal -- "Dark Sky" from Stargazer.]

Bob's still keeping up the Currents on his ArtistShare site, although they are not quite as in-your-face as the old ones.

I heard about the infamous JazzCorner entries, but I knew enough to steer well clear of those, for my own good. I'd had my fill of online music flamewars back on rec.music.bluenote and the good old days of Salon's Table Talk. The last thing I needed was to get sucked into another reflexively acrimonious forum while I was trying to get the most out of my time at NEC.

[DJA]

3.

I come across some of his albums occasionally, but never know which ones to get. What would you recommend as essential (perhaps especially in the "important/progressive big band" category)?

Oy… they're all so strong and so varied. Keeping in mind that someone else could make an equally good list that contained none of these, I'd go with the following (in order of recommendation):

Mel Lewis & The Jazz Orchestra, Make Me Smile & Other New Works by Bob Brookmeyer -- hard to find but if you see it, GET IT. Recorded in Jan 1982, amazing lineup of soloists, most of them virtual unknowns at the time (Dick Oatts, Tom Harrell, Joe Lovano, Jim McNeely, Kenny Garrett), very dark and atmospheric record -- "The Nasty Dance" is blistering. Brookmeyer eventually wrote himself out of the band (his words) with even darker material -- charts like "Ezra Pound" and "Sad Song," which are as far as I know still unrecorded. He has mellowed considerably since then, and his more recent recordings are actually much more approachable (though still brilliantly innovative), but Make Me Smile remains a high-water mark for jazz composition in the past 25 years.

Bob Brookmeyer and the New Art Orchestra, Get Well Soon -- his most recent recording with his working big band. They have been playing his music for almost ten years now and are ideally suited for the demands of his current language. A couple of years back, they did a double-bill with the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, and as good as the Vanguard band is, the New Art Ensemble totally cut them. Bob has been simplifying and paring down his harmonic language of late, and the result is an emotional immediacy and textural clarity that's sometimes missing from his mid-1980s stuff. John Hollenbeck is on drums -- as you might imagine, he tears it up.

Bob Brookmeyer and the New Art Orchestra, New Works: Celebration -- Celebration is a suite Bob wrote for Gerry Mulligan, but Gerry passed away before he could record it. Scott Robinson takes his place on this record, and with all respect to Jeru, it's hard to imagine it now without Robinson. Bob's challenge here was to balance his formal, structural, and rhythmic adventurousness with solo settings that Mulligan would feel comfortable in, and the result sounds something like the distilled essence of the past 70 years of big band music. And Scott Robinson shows why every saxophone player in NY worships the ground he walks on.

The Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra, Bob Brookmeyer Composer, Arranger -- Bob's "comeback" record (after he sobered up and returned to New York in 1979). Amazingly fun album. "Hello and Goodbye" is just pure rhythmic joy, one of Bob's most infectious and enduring charts. The record also includes his suite for Clark Terry, "El Co." In terms of mood, it could not be more different from the followup, Make Me Smile. The darkest thing on this record is his Gil Evans-esque arrangement of "Skylark" -- and granted, it's pretty dark, especially bookended by bursts of joy like "Hello and Goodbye" and "El Co" -- but it's nothing compared to the wrist-slitting bleakness of Bob's chart on "My Funny Valentine" from Make Me Smile. Hard to believe these two records are separated by less than two years.

Not big band, but the complete studio recordings of the Clark Terry-Bob Brookmeyer Quintet were just reissued on a 2 CD set this fall. Absolutely mind-blowing improvised counterpoint, with both Clark and Bob constantly superimposing bars of 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, etc over the rhythm section's basic 4/4. The communication between the two of them is as telepathic as anything the '60s Miles Davis Quintet did -- in a very different stylistic context, of course, but Clark and Bob really do seem able to read each other's minds. The music swings like a motherfucker, too, but that kind of goes without saying.

[mwanji]

4.

Thanks a lot for that mouth-watering list, Darcy. Since you put so much effort into it, it seems a shame to let it be buried in the comments. Do you mind if I give some more light in an "acrimonious" :) forum?

Though it's kind of a random thing to say here, I'll say it anyway: reading your blog, Dave Douglas's blog, The Bad Plus's blog is hugely interesting, stimulating and heartening in terms of the possibility of having strong "jazz +" discussion in 2005-2006.

[DJA]

5.

Do you mind if I give some more light in an "acrimonious" :) forum?

Hey, so long as my name stays attached to it, anything I write here is fair game for distribution. I ask only that people include a link back here.

Though it's kind of a random thing to say here, I'll say it anyway: reading your blog, Dave Douglas's blog, The Bad Plus's blog is hugely interesting, stimulating and heartening in terms of the possibility of having strong "jazz +" discussion in 2005-2006.

Well, damn, that's some pretty heady company, and high praise from a first-rate jazz blogger such as yourself. All I can say is, glad you enjoy, Mwanji, and many thanks for reading and commenting.