CD Review: Dan Aran: Breathing

Smalls Records SRCD-0045, released September 2009

It’s rare (for me) to open a new CD by an artist I don’t know, pop it in the player, and leave it in for most of the day, backing up to hear tunes over again, not wanting to skip anything. I did that with Dan Aran’s Breathing, one of the most beautiful recordings I have heard in a long time.

Who’s Dan Aran? A New-York-via-Jerusalem drummer, one of that fascinating crowd of serious, well-educated, grown-up Israeli musicians who have moved to NYC in recent years. (Read more about that here.) Born in 1977, a drummer since 11, educated at the Rubin Academy of Music high school in Jerusalem and the New School University in NYC (from which he graduated in 2004 with a BFA in performance), he has played with bassists Avishai Cohen and Omer Avital, jazz vocalist Stacey Kent, pop singer Natalie Merchant, and many others. He seems to divide his time between NYC and Israel; I don’t believe he has made it to the Midwest yet, unlike Avital and Cohen, guitarist Gilad Hekselman, pianist Omer Klein, and trombonist Avishai Lubovitch. (Note to all JCCs and synagogues who bring Israeli jazz musicians to Minneapolis/St. Paul: Put me on your mailing list and I’ll show up.)

Breathing is Aran’s first CD as leader, just out on Smalls Records, which Chris Kelsey reports is “surviving, but just barely.” Smalls, the NYC jazz club in the West Village with which the label is associated, has been a home-away-from-home for many Israeli musicians.

For Breathing, Aran gathered a fine group of mostly compatriots: trumpeter Avishai Cohen (no relation to the bassist, but brother to clarinetist/saxophonist Anat and pianist Yuval), saxophonist Eli Degibri, trombonist Jonathan Voltzok, flutist Itai Kriss, guitarist Nir Felder, trumpeter Ben Holmes, pianists Art Hirahara and Uri Sharlin, bassists Tal Ronen and Matt Brewer, and bassoonist Gili Sharett. They don’t all play together or this would be a big band recording, but appear in various combinations on various tracks.

Ah, the tracks. Four out of ten are originals by Aran, including the opener, “Sun Bath,” which begins with a gentle summons by Cohen’s trumpet, layers on instruments (soft piano, plashy cymbals, bass, trombone, guitar), builds in intensity, digresses into a conversation between trumpet and trombone, then pauses, takes a breath, and moves into a ruminative piano-bass-guitar section that picks up speed (but not much) when Aran and the rest return. Another crescendo, another diminuendo, another digression, this time into big, chordy guitar. I’m never sure where this piece is going but it pulls me along. It’s more of a sunrise than a sun bath, changing colors moment by moment.

“Sun Bath” gives way to “Shnozel,” an odd name for a slow, measured work of real beauty that sounds at first as if it might turn into “Moanin’.” The spotlight is on Hirahara’s piano.

“I’m So Blue” shifts the mood to saucy and swinging. Degibri’s tenor sax takes the lead on this tune I know I've heard before--by someone named Lawrence?--but can't find anything about. (If you know this music, please comment.) By now I’m completely won over by pianist Hirahara. Aran takes his first notable solos and I’m reminded that this is his CD as leader. Throughout, he seldom asserts himself; this is a group effort. [Note: Dan Aran wrote to tell me that "I'm So Blue" was written by his former teacher at the New School, Arnie Lawrence.]

“Riva,” an Aran original with a Middle Eastern flavor, features Degibri on soprano sax, who turns it over to Hirahara et al. midway and comes back to bring it home. Nice. “Para Ezequiel” by bassist Ronen is tuneful and lovely, Aran’s drums laying down a sweet Latin groove for Hirahara’s piano to dance on, and later Ronen’s bass in a moody solo. And here—five tunes into the ten on this CD—is where I know this is music I will likely play again and again. I won’t insult Aran and his bandmates by calling it “easy listening,” but it’s oh so easy to listen to.

(Meanwhile, my husband has wandered into my office twice to say "What's that?" "Who's that?" and "I like that.")

Ornette Coleman’s “The Blessing” comes as a surprise, simply because I didn’t expect to hear it in this particular mix. Any rough edges and occasional squawks from the pretty-tame-for-Coleman original on Something Else!!!! have been polished out, leaving the melody in the hands of Cohen and Voltzok—no sax on this track. The tempo is slower, more deliberate, giving the tune more space. (This version is also twice as long as Coleman’s.)

Cole Porter’s “I Concentrate on You” (which more jazz artists seem to be playing these days) is a showcase for Gili Sharett’s bassoon, which I would have liked to hear more of. You could (and should) slow-dance to this tune, at home on a Friday night, with the kids in bed and a candle or two flickering and the phone turned off and cocktails sweating on the coffee table…. Excuse me. Where was I?

Jack Lawrence and Walter Gross’ “Tenderly” begins with Brewer plucking the melody on his bass. Brewer leads on most of the 7-plus-minutes track, which resolves into a riff that cushions a playful extended solo by Aran.

“Gul Lihibib” is probably Breathing’s farthest-out track, the most exotic-sounding and least straight-ahead. I wasn't able to learn anything about this tune or its composer, someone named Amram—perhaps David Amram? Comment if you know more. This is the only track to feature Uri Sharlin, who plays both piano and accordion above Aran’s deep, driving percussion. [Note: Dan Aran wrote to tell me that "Gul Lihibib" was written by Israeli composer Aharon Amram.]

In closing: Aran’s “Yemini Pne.” At the start, a loose and lazy meditation. More nice work by Cohen/Voltzok and Hirahara/Brewer. A brief, exploratory solo piano transition into a lively second half and a spirited back-and-forth between the horns. Bright calls from the trumpet, closing thrums and rumbles from the bass and drums, a final exhalation from the trumpet, and it’s time to start over at track 1.

Let's hope that Smalls Records doesn't die, that Breathing gets air play, that Aran ventures west of the Hudson before too long, that good things happen for this deserving new release. It's a CD many people will enjoy if they have the chance to hear it.

Photo of Dan Aran by Hanoyo Takai

Jazz reads

Writer/musician Chris Kelsey read Terry Teachout's obituary for jazz, went on vacation, mulled things over, and loaded his shotgun. I don't share Kelsey's views on Wynton Marsalis as the jazz destroyer, but I really like a lot of what he has to say, specifically:

"A trip of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and our first step should be to consciously revise our attitude about what is or isn't jazz.... Jazz suffered when we allowed the conservatives to narrow its definition. Make the decision that those days are over, and act on it. From this moment, let's drop the admissions test and let in anyone who wants to be a member. Jazz is whatever it wants to be.... Dismiss the idea that if music doesn't sound like something Pops or Duke or Bird might've played during their lifetimes, it can't be jazz. A better approach would be, if it sounds like something those guys might play if they were alive and in their creative prime today, it is most definitely jazz."

Read the whole thing here.

Two old favorites from my bookmarks:

James Carter Ruined My Life. I came across this a few years back and have passed it on to several people. It's funny, it's generous, it's bittersweet.

How to Be a Jazz Critic. Uh-oh.

Will tweet for jazz

Jazz fans, Howard Mandel is asking us to tweet. Specifically, he proposes an "online, viral campaign...to see what kind of numbers of jazz fans will tweet that they've heard live jazz." This is, of course, in direct response to the NEA's 2008 survey on arts participation, which concludes (in part) that the audience for jazz is shrinking and aging, and to Terry Teachout's recent article in the Wall Street Journal, which predicts a bleak, depressing future for jazz, a sort of Mad Max but without motorcycles or Mel Gibson.

Hey, I'll tweet for jazz. If you already know your way around Twitter, so should you. If you don't, it's easy-breezy and kind of fun. Open an account (it's free), search for people/organizations who share your interests (like, for example, jazz clubs, jazz presenters, jazz artists, jazz writers, and arts organizations), then follow them and their followers. Follow lots and lots of people; in the beginning, it's all about numbers. Then tweet something interesting--no "I'm in line at Starbucks" or "I just bought broccoli" banalities. People you follow will generally follow you back. In time, you can sort through them and toss the ones whose tweets you don't want to read. (Believe me, you will know who they are.) Meanwhile, keep tweeting. And when you hear live jazz, be sure to tweet about that.

Mandel asks:

1) If you're at a big jazz event (Charlie Parker Fest, Tanglewood, Chicago, Detroit, Aspen, LA, Vail, Philly, Chapel Hil, Monterey, Beantown), tweet from there.

2) Tweet about stand-alone concerts and gigs you're at, live-jazz broadcasts you hear on the radio or online, live jazz you hear on the street or at parties. Tweet whenever, from wherever you hear live jazz. Include who you're hearing/heard and where (venue, locale). Just don't tweet from Orchestra Hall.

3) Include #jazzlives in each tweet. (It's called a "hashtag.") Examples:

I heard Vanguard Orch at Tanglewood, super! #jazzlives

I heard Hank Jones solo at Detroit JF, mighty fine #jazzlives

4) If you want, include links to your own blog or website. Like this:

I heard Eubanks 5 be great at Blue Note NYC, full revu at www.HowardMandel.com #jazzlives

5) Don't use #jazzlives to publicize upcoming events or comment on recordings you're listening to, but to report on LIVE jazz you've actually heard recently or are hearing right now.

Check out the "JAZZ LIVES" widget on Mandel's website. It's fascinating to watch the tweets roll by.

CD Review: Frank Glover: Politico

By Larry Englund

Larry Englund is a freelance writer and host of the weekly radio program Rhythm and Grooves on KFAI Radio Without Boundaries. bb

Clarinetist Glover has created an intriguing recording. While many of the songs may perk your interest, Politico (Owl Studios, 2009) is an album whose rewards may only come with repeated listening to it as a whole. The playing, by Glover, his band-mates, and all involved, is superb. He uses Latin rhythms, notably the tango and the Cuban/Brazilian baion, in an often implied, rather than explicit manner. The arrangements are challenging, whether Glover is using a quartet, jazz orchestra, or string orchestra.

The first two numbers are performed by Glover’s quartet, with Steve Allee on piano, Jack Helsley on bass and Bryson Kern on drums. Allee’s insistent comping, even during his solo, provides the foundation for the opener, "One Way Ticket." Glover plays in the upper registers and has fun with glissandos, while Kern and Helsley quietly push the song along. "Politico" slowly builds from Kern’s use of brushes on cymbals, through double-time solos by Glover and Allee, climaxing with Glover trilling over the others, until the song slows completely, setting up the next tune. "The Last Blue Tang" is a pastoral melody, with Glover accompanied only by strings.

Then it’s back to the quartet for "Concierto Para Quarteto" in three movements. The melody from "One Way Ticket" is used in the first movement, though executed at a much slower rhythm. The quartet’s playing is very seductive, from the deliberate bass solo that opens, to the warmth of Glover’s tone. Kern provides a march-like rhythm to the second movement, with Glover reaching upper registers once again. During the third movement, Kern ably matches the quickening and excitement of Glover’s solo, until all bring the song to a rousing climax.

Glover uses a fourteen piece jazz orchestra for "Plastic Plants." It opens with a repeated note from Allee, followed by Glover stating the melody, which is then repeated by the orchestra. What follows is a strong arrangement that keeps things interesting, whether with a few bars of counterpoint, or the use of bass clarinets and muted trumpets against Glover’s high notes.

Glover again opts for a string section as his accompaniment for "A Thousand Ships," which serves as an epilogue. The melody is simple, with romantic overtones. Glover’s arrangement once again seems pastoral, though this time leavened by a somewhat bittersweet touch. It is over all too soon.

In an age where we are too often electronically tethered to the world around us, this is a recording that deserves attention in the old fashioned sense. Turn off the computer, let your phone calls go to messaging, sit down, and listen to an album that integrates complex compositions, arrangements, and playing into a rewarding experience.

Photos courtesy OWL Studios

Dean Magraw benefit, Sunday, August 30: Silent Auction items, email bidding open

A benefit for Twin Cities guitarist Dean Magraw will be held on Sunday, August 30, with live music all day. Go here to learn the where, when, and who.

The benefit will include a silent auction. You can bid in person during the benefit, or by email starting now. Email bidding continues through 2 p.m. on August 30.

Email your bids to: Sales1@acmediaonline.com

Be sure to include the name/description of the item(s) you are bidding on, along with your name, contact information, phone number, and email address.

Silent Auction Items

CDs
Signed CDs by New Folk Records artists
--Gabrielle Angelique (2): $30 value, minimum bid $5
--Daith Sproule: $15 value, minimum bid $5
--Todd Menton: $15 value, minimum bid $5
--Lehto & Wright: $15 value, minimum bid $5
Set of 4 New Folk Wellness CDs including Dean Magraw's latest: $50 value, minimum bid $15

Restaurants
--$30 gift certificate to the School II Bistro and Wine Bar in Chanhassen: $30 value, minimum bid $10
--$50 gift cards to the School of the Wise restaurant in Victoria: $50 value, minimum bid $20
--$50 gift certificates (2) to the Black Dog Restaurant: $50 value (each), minimum bid $25 (each)
--$50 gift card to Spoonriver: $50 value, minimum bid $25

Art
--“Miles Davis” print by artist Sidney Randolph Maurer, signed by the artist: $100 value, $30 minimum bid
--B&W photograph of Donovan by artist Sidney Randolph Maurer, signed by Donovan: $50 value, $20 minimum bid

6 “Star Wars” characters prints, signed by the actors: $75 value (each), minimum bid $30 (each)
--Darth Vader with David Prowse, signed by David Prowse
--Darth Vader, signed by David Prowse
--R2D2 with Kenny Baker, signed by Kenny Baker
--R2D2, signed by Kenny Baker
--Boba Fett with Jeremy Bulloch, signed by Jeremy Bulloch
--Boba Fett, signed by Jeremy Bulloch

2 prints by artist Junpei Sekino, signed by the artist
--“Fractal Mountain” print, #6 of 20, signed and numbered: $100 value, minimum bid $50
--Untitled print: $50 value, minimum bid $25

3 “Flintstones” and “Jetsons” character sketches by Hanna Barbera cartoonist Tony Benedict: Original pencil drawings by Benedict, signed and dated. $50 value (each), minimum bid $25 (each)
--“Wilma Flintstone”
--“Barney Rubble”
--“Astro the Dog”

2 signed prints by artist Jim Fraher: $50 value (each), minimum bid $25 (each)
--“Books”
--“Co Silgo”

2 “North Shore” signed prints by photographer Joel Bahma: $50 value (each), minimum bid $25 (each)

--Liz Welch Framed Giclee Print: $150 value, minimum bid $75
--Nick Lethert Framed Giclee Print: $185 value, minimum bid $100

Signed and matted print by Sheralyn Barnes-Ritchie: $40 value, minimum bid $25

Five canvas prints signed by Dean Magraw: $100 value (each), minimum bid $50 (each)
More details later.

More Really Great Stuff
--Café Brenda Cookbook by Brenda Langton: $20 value, minimum bid $10
--4 hours of studio time at Innovative Multimedia Studio: $300 value, minimum bid $100
--Studio time at Creation Audio: $500 value, minimum bid $200
--Pilates Beginning Mat Series: 12 classes at Core Pilates in St. Paul starting Sept. 8: $150 value, minimum bid $75
--2 Adult Weekend Passes to the 2010 Winnipeg Folk Festival: $400 value, minimum bid $150
--3 Savage Amps T-Shirts: Green, Pink, Blue: $10 value (each), minimum bid $5 (each)
--Fender Telecaster guitar (used) with Custom Relic finish, stand, strap, tuner, gig bag: $500 value, minimum bid $400
--12 crystal “St. Paul Beer” glasses. Ritzenhoff crystal, made in Germany: $50 value, minimum bid $15
--Hand-knit, custom-made “Hats for Cats” hat: $45 value, minimum bid $15

2 tickets each to the following concerts at the Cedar Cultural Center
--Ralph Stanley & His Clinch Mountain Boys, 8 pm Friday, Sept 11, 2009: $80 value, minimum bid $40
--Vasen CD Release Concert, 7:30 pm Sunday, Sept. 20, 2009: $36 value, minimum bid $18
--Warsaw Village Band, 7:30 pm Thursday, October 29, 2009: $40 value, minimum bid $20
--David Grisman and John Sebastian, 7:30 pm Thursday, Dec. 10, 2009: $80 value, minimum bid $40
--Global Roots Festival 2009 (standing room only): $36 value, minimum bid $18
--Watcha Clan and Huun Huur Tu with Carmen Rizzo, 8 pm Sunday Set. 27, 2009: $36 value, minimum bid $18

Stupid blog spam

Earlier this month I changed Bebopified's comments setting so anyone can comment, but I kept comment moderation so I could screen out the wackies. Or try. At least one watchful reader suggested I delete a comment that seemed innocent but turned out to be a window into the mind of a genuine nut job. Seriously, this guy is scary.

Then a few weeks ago I got a comment from someone named Sara, who wrote:

"I recently came accross your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I dont know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often."

Except for "accross" and "dont," how sweet. The comment included a link to a website, something about piano lessons, with more misspellings.

Earlier today I received a comment from someone named Aileen, who wrote:

"I recently came accross your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I dont know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often."

The comment included a link to another lame website.

So the point of this particular parasitic spam is to get people to maybe click on a link at the end of a comment on a blog about jazz?

Good luck with that.

Jazz, not dead

The publication of the NEA survey on arts participation, followed by critic Terry Teachout’s article, “Can Jazz Be Saved?” in the Wall Street Journal, caused a lot of consternation among jazz lovers. The gists:

NEA: "[B]etween 1982 and 2008, attendance at performing arts such as classical music, jazz, opera, ballet, musical theater, and dramatic plays has seen double-digit rates of decline…. audiences for jazz and classical music are substantially older than before…. Since 1982, young adult (18-24) attendance rates for jazz and classical music have declined the most, compared with other art forms."

Teachout: "Nobody’s listening…. it’s no longer possible for head-in-the-sand types to pretend that the great American art form is economically healthy or that its future looks anything other than bleak…. [P]op-loving listeners…have no more use for Wynton Marsalis than they do for Felix Mendelssohn."

Ow.

Ted Gioia weighed in on his website jazz.com. So did a lot of other people. Patrick Jarenwattananon linked to several responses on his blog for NPR, "A Jazz Supreme." I mentioned the survey on MinnPost, sent out an email asking for suggestions on how to grow the jazz audience, and got some good ones. Ramsey Lewis wrote a letter to the editor of the WSJ and Jarenwattananon responded to that.

[Patrick, I don’t entirely disagree with Lewis’s suggestion that jazz musicians dress up a bit. Not meaning to sound too, like, shallow, OMG, but I’ve seen jazz musicians (Lewis and his trio, JALCO, James Carter, Jeremy Pelt, etc.) who look as if they stepped off the pages of GQ, and jazz musicians [no names] in grody T-shirts, do-rags, and trailer-trash attire, and I prefer the first. Who wouldn’t? I’m not saying jazz musicians should dress like models. In between those two extremes, most everyone else looks just fine, tattoos and all.]

Anyway, I’m glad to read yesterday’s piece by Nate Chinen for the New York Times. He briefly reprises the conversation so far, dips into the NEA survey, gives his own anecdotal evidence that jazz is still alive and kicking (and sweating), turns, as usual, some lovely phrases (“Jazz has long been a porous genre”), and considers, as the survey didn't, how jazz is defined, what it is called or not called, how much music it encompasses.

I’m reminded of something Kelly Rossum once said during a class at MacPhail: “Jazz is the only music big enough to include all other kinds of music.” And Jeremy Walker: “Add a jazz musician to any group and it’s like adding a drop of blue food coloring to a bucket of clear water. The water turns blue.”

Chinen mentions NPR’s coverage of the Newport Jazz Festival on the radio and online, then notes, “Considering that live jazz is hard to come by outside of a handful of major cities, efforts like this may be the most promising news for the jazz audience.”

By “a handful of major cities,” I can only assume he means to include Minneapolis/St. Paul, where jazz is not at all hard to come by. Somewhere around 90 live jazz events will take place over the next week alone, and those are just the ones I know about.

In October we’re going to Fargo to hear Kurt Elling. During a break between sets at the Dakota last night, a friend mentioned that Fargo has quite the jazz scene.

Jazz by any other name?

In today’s Minneapolis StarTribune, theater critic Graydon Royce asks, “Does the old-school definition of opera as ‘drama set to music’ require a fresh look?” Ben Krywosz, artistic director of Nautilus Music-Theater, says, “There would have been a whole different hoopla around [Tony Kushner’s] ‘Caroline, or Change’ if they [the Guthrie Theater] were positioning that as an opera…. There are many people who wouldn’t come if they called it an opera.”

I didn’t go to see “Caroline, or Change” because they called it a musical. This despite the raves it earned from the press and the many friends who urged me to go. I don't like musicals. I can’t help it. I don’t want to help it. I suppose I feel about musicals the way Tabatha Southey feels about jazz, a confession that makes me kind of blue.

But opera, I love.

And jazz, of course. Something a lot of people won’t go to because they call it jazz, even though that four-letter word encompasses a vast universe of sounds and styles. I know better than to talk about jazz with some people I care about very much, including my own offspring. I say the word and their eyes glaze over and their ears slam shut. They don’t want to hear "jazz" like I don’t want to hear “musical.”

So, what if we call jazz something else? I realize (duh) I'm not the first person to ask this question, but I'm curious to hear what people think.

Ahmad Jamal has called it “American classical music” since the early 1980s. During an interview last November, he explained: “That gave expression to what I was thinking for years. I didn’t just think of it out of the blue. It was a culmination of thinking about what this music is, and the terminology that is used to refer to this music…. I’m not paranoid about the word ‘jazz.’ But what happened is that we sophisticated a very unsophisticated term, and…the word is used very loosely. What we have done is made the world accept something that was not even acceptable at one time. ‘Stop jassing it up’ was an affront.”

Jamal believes that musicians, not audiences (or critics) should coin the terms used to describe their music: “If you want to change the lingo, the language, in any direction, it should be done by the practitioners.”

Ah, but Willard Jenkins has come up with an interesting phrase to describe the music, and he’s not a musician, though he is almost everything else one can be in the world of jazz: consultant, producer, writer, journalist, planner, teacher, broadcaster, fundraiser, educator, artistic director, and “arranger” of Randy Weston’s autobiography, African Rhythms, to be released by Duke University Press in 2010. Jenkins calls it “serious music.” Read his blog and see how that term works its way into your awareness and makes itself very comfortable.

But would people go to hear something called “serious music”? Or “American classical music”? Or “improvisational music”? Or “free music”? (Only if that always meant no cover charge.)

What else do people call jazz? What else can they call it? What else should they call it?

What if we called it simply “live music”? Come on in, take a chance. If you like it, stay. If you don’t like it, leave.