Secret Society

Know your Co-conspirators: Laurie Frink

(Photo: Lindsay Beyerstein)

I realize I have been rather negligent with resuming these profiles of the musicians who contributed to the recording of Infernal Machines. To be honest I have been so involved with mixing the record that there has been time for little else. But today we return with a focus on the Society's most recently inducted co-conspirator, Laurie Frink.

Laurie is new to this band but she is hardly a neophyte. She has been a freelance trumpet player in New York City since the 1970’s. She has performed and recorded with an amazing array of musicians: Benny Goodman, Gerry Mulligan, Mel Lewis, Bob Mintzer, John Hollenbeck, Dave Liebman, Andrew Hill, and Kenny Wheeler, and of course she is a regular member of the Maria Schneider Orchestra. In addition to her active private studio, she is a member of the faculties of New York University, New School University and the Manhattan School of Music. She and (frequent Pulse collaborator) John McNeil co-authored FLEXUS --Trumpet Calisthenics for the Modern Improvisor, and she is well known for her insightful ability to solve physical difficulties experienced by many brass players.

It would be hard to overstate Laurie's reputation among trumpet players, especially for her teaching. Here's what no less a figure than Dave Douglas recently wrote about Laurie on the Greenleaf Music blog:

Laurie has been my trumpet teacher for over a decade, and I know many other trumpeters who rely on her for advice and counsel. She is the kind of gifted teacher who takes a personal interest in her students, crafting exercises specifically to their needs. She has also made herself available in emergencies -- I once called her for advice from Zurich, in panic on the day of a recording session. She called right back and listened to me play over the phone. She gave me several exercises to do to work out the issues. Something about it really clicked, though I would be hard pressed to tell you how... I did go into the studio with Tiny Bell Trio that day to record Constellations.

In recent years she has been teaching me how to figure out the solutions for myself, and she has had a major influence on the way that I teach and craft the program at Banff. [...] And recently Laurie started a new practice, taking appointments for private lessons via the internet using ICHAT/video or SKYPE/video. I have seen her do it and it is pretty amazing.

When I found myself needing to find one more trumpet player for the recording, I knew it would have to be not just a great player -- someone which great time and great intonation who could be relied on to nail the parts cold -- but also someone with tons of recording experience, a player who would not be fazed by the inevitable frustrations of the recording process. I was delighted when it turned out Laurie was available. She didn't know this at the time, but I was hoping she'd act as a stabilizing influence when the long stressful days in the studio inevitably began to take their toll on everyone (most definitely including me). She didn't disappoint. Anyone who has hung out with Laurie knows about her bone-dry sense of humor, and on several occasions her cutting wit turned out to be the perfect thing to defuse a tense moment on the studio floor.

As part of our fundraising efforts for our upcoming recording, Infernal Machines, we are offering you the opportunity to sponsor a Secret Society musician. Click here if you would like to sponsor Laurie's appearance on our debut album. 

IMPORTANT: The deadline for sponsoring a musician (or becoming our Executive Producer) is February 15, 2009. However, you can continue to make individual donations (and have your name listed on our Thank You Page, if you wish) right up until the album is released in May.

We are also very pleased to announce a new sponsorship! Sam Sadigurksy has been sponsored by Suzi Beyerstein. It is individual contributions from supporters of independent music that are making this recording possible, and we are grateful beyond words to all of our generous supporters.

PREVIOUSLY...

Rob Wilkerson
Matt Clohesy
Jennifer Wharton
Mike Holober
Ingrid Jensen
Josh Sinton
Mike Fahie
Sam Sadigurksy
Sebastian Noelle
Nadje Noordhuis
Ryan Keberle
Erica vonKleist

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Darcy James Argue's Secret Society is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions in behalf of Darcy James Argue's Secret Society may be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

RIP David "Fathead" Newman

Remember our long-ago feature on the Top 4 Most Tolerable Rock Sax Solos of All Time? There's a reason why David Newman's work with Ray Charles was excluded from "consideration" in this category. If every rock sax solo was as consistently good as Newman's playing with Ray, there would be no need for sites like this one. Of course, there's much more to Newman's work... see the links below for more on his life and career:

NYT obit (Ratliff)

Rifftides (Doug Ramsey)

WBGO (Josh Jackson)

And via Peter Hum, a great reminiscence from Vancouver-based pianist Tilden Webb, whose trio recorded and toured with Newman.

Yo, expert in this profession, the session

Nerdpocalypse 2: The Nerd Ascendancy: a "horribly hung over" John Hodgman appears as a guest on Rachel Maddow's radio show. Topics under discussion include the end of Get Your War On, the brouhaha over Yo Yo Ma & co's finger-synched inauguration "performance" (including a digression on Anthony McGill's hunkiness), Governor Paterson's terrible NY senate pick, an upcoming sports competition of some kind, and, of course, cocktails.

I have uploaded the audio of this segment for your listening pleasure. You're welcome.

MP3: John Hodgman on the Rachel Maddow Show, 23 Jan 2009

NEXT GIG

Darcy James Argue's

SECRET SOCIETY

at the

JAZZ GALLERY

Friday 06 February, 2009

9:00 PM & 10:30 PM

Part of the Search and Restore Series

more info...

MLK 2009

The best non-fiction book I read last year -- probably the best book of American political history I have ever read -- is Rick Perlstein's Nixonland. As a transplanted Canadian, there is a lot of recent American history that I am only dimly aware of. Learning about certain emblematic incidents -- the  Newark Riots, for example -- really helped clarify a lot of things about why America is the way it is. Obviously, events such as these still resonate incredibly strongly for the people who lived through them.

One of the best things about Nixonland is how unflinchingly it looks at race as a shaping force in American politics. Viewed from the lens of today -- especially in light of the impending inaugural --  it's easy for Americans of all races and all political stripes to see Martin Luther King as a unifying figure, a universally admired beacon of hope and harmony.

This is not how he was viewed at the time.

In Chicago on July 29 [1966], Martin Luther King led what was supposed to be an all-night vigil in front of F.H. Halvorsen Realty in the Bungalow Belt [i.e., all-white] neighborhood of Gage Park. The police rescued his group from an advancing mob. They returned to the same spot the next morning and were met by a hail of rocks.

[...]

Five hundred marchers first moved out into the Bungalow Belt on Sunday, July 31, daring the mob of four thousand to attack as if it were Selma, to offer the spur to a nation's conscience that might deliver up transcendence.

A fusilade of rocks, bottles, and cherry bombs came. Priests and nuns ("Whores!") were singled out. A first-grade teacher, Sister Mary Angelica, was pummeled to the ground. A cheer went up: "We've got another one!"

"White Power! White Power!"

"Polish Power! Polish Power!"

"Burn them like Jews!"

Marchers returning to their cars found them torched, overturned, or rolled into the muddy Marquette Park lagoon. Dante's inferno, right there in the Bungalow Belt.

A neighborhood newspaper called it "the blackest day in the history of the Southwest Community," but also found the violence "understandable." The attackers, after all, had "earned their way into the community by hard work and expect others to do the same."

[....] 

[B]ack in Chicago, Mayor Daley met with Bungalow Belt civic leaders, who looked forward to solidarity with one of their own.

But Daley was in a difficult spot. Arrest Martin Luther King and Daley would become an international pariah. A committee of Chicago VIPs was shuttling back and forth from D.C. to lobby for the Democratic Party's 1968 convention. Hosting it was Mayor Daley's dream. Winning elections for the Democratic Party was the focus, the meaning, of Richard J. Daley's entire life. Here before him was the heart of his machine. Black Chicago had, meanwhile, given him 90 percent of their vote in 1963 -- and his margin of victory. This was perfect agony: his constituencies were at war with each other. And so he did something extraordinary: he lectured the stunned white ethnics. Told them not to demonstrate. And ordered the police to offer King's marchers safe passage.

August 5. Six hundred open-housing activists, ten thousand counter-demonstrators. Some wore Nazi helmets. Other waved Confederate battle flags, carried George Wallace banners, swastika placards that helpfully explained THE SYMBOL OF WHITE POWER.

Martin Luther King, Mahalia Jackson by his side, led his legions forth: "We are bound for the promised land!"

"Kill those niggers!"

"We want Martin Luther Coon!"

Police trying to keep the two sides apart were screamed at: "Nigger-loving cops!" "God, I hate niggers and nigger-lovers," a reporter overheard an old lady say.

Martin Luther King walked past.

"Kill him! Kill him!"

"Roses are red, violets are black, King would look good with a knife in his back."

Instead he got a baseball-size rock above his ear. He slumped to the ground -- the Gandhian moment of truth. "I think everybody in that line wanted to kill everybody that was on the other side of that lie," a marcher later recalled. King got up and kept marching. We shall overcome.

On the approach to Halvorsen Realty, someone did throw a knife at King's back. It caught some white kid in the neck instead. King had marched six weeks earlier through the Mississippi town where the civil rights workers Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner were murdered. He had called it the most savage place he had ever seen. Now he revised his opinion. "I think the people of Mississippi ought to come to Chicago to learn how to hate."

(Nixonland, 117-120)

There's been a lot of talk since Obama's election about how we are now living in "post-racial America." It would be hard to overstate how incredible it is that just forty years after MLK's assassination -- a few days after what would have been King's 80th birthday -- America is about to inaugurate its first black president. It's worth celebrating how far we've come. But it's also worth remembering where we've been, and how far we have yet to go.

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See also Pam Spaulding. And Andrew Golis on the Santa Clausification of MLK. And Matt Yglesias about the radicalism of nonviolence. And (via Alex) Wynton's pre-inaugural thoughts. And, once again, Mr. Jay Smooth with "Ten OTHER Things Martin Luther King Said":

Organ donor needed

Saxophonist David S. Ware is in need of a compatible kidney donor. More info here.

First thing you learn is you always gotta wait

Fuck Lexington and 125, the best place to cop in New York is clearly West 41st & 8th. Otherwise, I don't really know how to account for my inclusion in this list of jazz artists who "might well be important in 50 years."

I mean, you don't need me to tell you that those other people are all total badass musicians. Many of them are personal heroes of mine and have been for years. It's unbelievably humbling to be mentioned alongside them. Especially since our first record is not even out yet.

But listen, when it drops this May, do me a favor, okay? Don't wait 50 years to listen to it.

Fractured in the echo and sway

You know Fractured Atlas -- they are the organization that, via the magic of fiscal sponsorship, enables you to make a tax-deductible contribution to Secret Society to help us fund albums and stuff (like the one we started mixing today).

As it turns out the good folks at Fractured Atlas have a blog and now we are all up in it.

Together we'll wreak havoc on the throne

Society photographer/consort Lindsay Beyerstein has been nominated as a finalist in the 2008 Weblog Awards -- she is nominated in the category of Best Individual Blogger.

Vote early and vote often. No seriously, vote often -- ideally once every 24 hours. (It is allowed and encouraged.)

UPDATE: The poll is now embedded right here. Click the "continue reading" link below to vote. Polls close January 12, so get your votes in now.

Read all the pamphlets and watch the tapes

Time Out New York's 2009 Music Forecast recommends five artists to watch in the year ahead:

• iconoclastic troubadour Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson
• prolific hiphop artist Charles Hamilton
• blog-darling indie rocker Nathan Williams, AKA Wavves
• violin-playing singer-songwriter Christina Courtin
• ... and, ah, yrs trly  

Also, in case you missed it over the holidays, my malignant overlords benevolent and munificent partners at New Amsterdam Records received year-end shout-outs from two NYT scribes -- Allan Kozinn and Steve Smith.