Westlake Records Blog

THE ANSWER IS easy: Jazz died because it stopped being fun and expressing happiness. Given today’s mood, it would seem melodic, upbeat jazz is long past due for a comeback.

In the mid 1940s, when Bebop began its systematic dismissal of Swing and other traditional forms of jazz, its heart was intellect and its message rebellion and chaos. As jazz critics continued to demand something “new” almost monthly the music twisted and contorted, instrumentation changed, and harmonies extended. But nothing really “new” evolved after bop because western music has only twelve tones, we can combine them in a limited number of ways, and most humans respond positively to only a few of those combinations. So Bebop and other “modern” jazz sounded disturbing to most people and they looked elsewhere for fulfillment.

They found it in early rock, a combination of boogie-woogie rhythm and the good old fashioned twelve bar blues progression. It was raucous and rebellious but had a strong beat, was fun, and average Joe could understand it. It actually was fairly close to the blues jazz musicians had played since the 1920s.

Then things changed.

The underlying emotion of American popular music beginning in the late 1960s was anger. Sure, some tunes may be lustful, the occasional tune may be sad, and a tiny fragment either humorous or beautiful. But beauty in popular music today almost invites ridicule. Anger and lust prevail, at least in America.

My father told me people were more cheerful in the Swing era. Think about that. The Swing era spanned the Great Depression and World War Two, when you would least expect people or music to express happiness. People had more to be angry about between 1930 and 1950 than at any time since. But the music was upbeat and folks thought that was just swell.

Then it became stylish to be sophisticated and cynical. (After war, style is man’s most idiotic invention.) Happiness gave way to anger and love to lust. Popular music’s emotion soured and its beauty withered. Cold, loud, distorted, electronic sounds replaced the warmth, humanity, and beauty of acoustic instruments.

Most contemporary popular music epitomizes lack of taste. Much is primitive and appeals to an ever lower common denominator. Yet such music shapes our attitudes and reflects our culture. And we think it’s cool.

I have discussed the fate of “modern” jazz elsewhere. It became cerebral and impressionistic. It is now a parlor game for college music departments and is commercially dead.

But what if people again heard happy music? What if the rebellion in music again were upbeat and melodic and celebrated life? That was the kernel of traditional jazz.

What if good natured, blues oriented, swinging four-four big band jazz were to return? And acoustic instrumental music? How would that affect our undercurrent of anger? Do you suppose it might dissipate a little?

What if music were happy and jazz were more as it was at the height of its popularity in the 1930s and ’40s? What if its message were hope and its sound pleasing? What if music made people want to smile and dance? What if jazz and popular music had remained true to their intent?

Jazz possesses an immense power to bring anyone to a level of profound joy. Isn’t beauty preferable to discord and joy preferable to anger?

We can stop the entropy affecting culture by taking a stand. Folks, it’s time to get jazz back on track. Don’t just sit there; do something.

IF YOU WERE to scour the world, you would find a handful of terrific jazz musicians whose names and recordings are unknown to all but their families and colleagues. They live and perform in relative obscurity. Festival directors and club owners reject them. Record companies ignore them. Even aficionados are unaware of them. The reason for that is simple: The people who create reputations chose to overlook them.

I’ll tell you something about jazz: By the time I was two years old I had fallen in love with it. Only classical music could compete but I find jazz a more creative means of expression.

I live for playing jazz, yet it is completely frustrating to be a musician. Being a professional is analogous to being married to a beautiful alcoholic: She puts you through 360 days a year of absolute hell but you stay with her for the remaining five days of bliss.

My background may be comparable to those of some other musicians: Live television shows, concerts, telethons, the occasional festival, and the list goes on. But those were as a featured sideman. When I asked our agent to help me launch a band of my own he told me he could do nothing; neither talent, artistry, technique, nor experience count.

How about the frequent standing ovations? No. They are immaterial.

The only marketable quality is fame.

Then how do you acquire fame?

In music, somebody else has to create it for you, usually a record company, by spending a lot of money on advertising and promotion. If you are a jazz musician, that opportunity is unavailable today.

For years I did everything I could to promote myself but time passed and, just as many others, I remained anonymous.

One day in 1988 the Los Angeles radio station we know today as KJAZ asked me to head a couple of concerts featuring the Concord Jazz All Stars (Scott Hamilton, Dave McKenna, Bill Berry, Jake Hanna and others.). The concerts were the most successful in the station’s history and I played very well. Nobody ever called me to perform again.

At that point I was 40 and needed to earn some money so I had to give up music to start a publishing company. I put my clarinet in the closet for twelve years. The case collected dust as I earned a good living publishing magazines.

It was painful even to think about music in those days. My musician pals stopped calling because I no longer played (or hired them) and they had little to say when I called them. I could barely listen to music, except maybe a little classical now and then, because it was too disturbing. At least once a week I would dream about playing but, when I woke up, the dreams would fade and the pressures of survival in business silenced the music inside me until late at night.

In 2000, when I met my wife, she wanted to watch Ken Burns’ PBS series about jazz. As it went along I would tell her, “Listen to this guy’s solo. It’s a classic.” Or, “I worked with that guy. And that one. That guy, too.” She asked how I knew so much and I told her I used to play professionally. She insisted I go back to it. I resisted for a few months and tried to explain she wouldn’t like it. She won and, little by little, I began to extend my practice time until I was cranking out my standard three hours a day, seven days a week.

Then, in 2003, I called my former guitar player, Larry Koonse; the bass player from the 1988 Concord concert, Dave Stone; and a great drummer named Ray Brinker. We recorded an album, Blue Scarlett. The reviews were excellent. The sales were dismal.

The title track and three other tunes on that CD are originals. Half of everything I have recorded is original, including all nineteen tunes on my latest album, Wistful. A generation ago some of those tunes might have become standards. A few people like or even love them and buy an album. But only a handful. After the recording session the music fades into obscurity, along with every other melodic tune these days.

But, in the movie, a voice said, “If you build it, they will come.” Sorry; that was a fairytale.

Southern California has few jazz clubs where I want to perform. There is no point; nobody launches a “career” at a jazz club. The pay is terrible. The acoustics are dreadful. The audiences rudely jabber through the performances. And it is almost impossible to present original tunes at such places because that would require rehearsal for a “club date”, something all but anathema to most Los Angeles area jazz musicians.

The phone rings six or ten times a year, never anyone or anything new. I fall back on the “featured soloist” status with Swing and Dixie bands that play for dancers who neither listen nor care and for older people who typically pay little attention to the quality of what they hear because they are busy recalling the better days of their youth.

An international clique of accomplished jazz players exists. I work with many at gigs in Southern California and elsewhere. Many have come up afterwards to ask, “Where the heck did you come from? What’s your name?” Yet I remain “unknown” so never receive an invitation to festivals.

And if I did? I might be disappointed.

A lifetime of seeing the quality and creativity of “traditional” jazz players decline has made me realize I’d rather lead my own group and do something more unique than run through Jumpin’ at the Woodside for the 1,309,997^th time with throw-together groups that, on their best day, are unable to play it or other popular jazz tunes as well as the original band did in an average performance.

I presume you realize this blog is only one part of my website: www.westlakerecords.com. A big feature of the site is its free “radio” shows, each with about twenty minutes of original, contemporary, live recordings. Many thousands of people worldwide listen to the shows each month. But the phone never rings and the albums never sell.

What does all of the above tell you?

People like the music but refuse to pay for it; they would rather listen to an inferior free performance than buy a much better album. It tells you no events exist for relatively unknown jazz players, even brilliant ones. It tells you the only important things in “music” today are how you look, how cool you are, and how famous somebody else has made you by spending millions of corporate dollars. It tells you the business of creating music, as opposed to “glitzy sonic entertainment”, is dead. It tells you jazz is now unpopular, incestuous, cliquish, and a commercial disaster.

One thing I learned a long time ago: It ain’t how good you are; it’s what you do. A lousy porn producer earns more than a brilliant artist. An incompetent and dangerous doctor earns infinitely more than a genius ukulele player. Years ago my oldest friend compared being a great jazz clarinetist with being a great archer: Commercial or popular success is impossible today because each discipline is obsolete.

To enjoy success in the arts only two things matter: Exploiting contemporary taste and finding an investor to make you famous.

What a world.

WHAT A HOOT! On Monday night, June 26, 2011 I was fortunate to perform with the Jonathan Stout Orchestra again, this time at New York City’s Lincoln Center. It was an inspirational two hour concert and the opening event for a series called A Midsummer Night’s Swing.

Jonathan carefully planned each set and hand picked the musicians. He brought most of his Los Angeles rhythm section to New York along with three wind instrument players. He filled out the band with some excellent New York jazz musicians. The band has never sounded as good as it did that night.

Here’s the lineup: The sax section included the consistently excellent Albert Alva on tenor along with 19 year old Chloe Feoranzo. A couple of rising young stars from New York, Will and Pete Anderson, were on altos. The trombone players were Harvey Tibbs (who also transcribed and arranged some tunes) and the irrepressible Dan Weinstein, who doubles on violin. The trumpet section was very strong with Bria Skönberg, Dave Brown, and Jon-Erik Kellso. The rhythm section consisted of Mark Shane on piano, Wally Hersom on bass, Josh Collazzo on drums and, of course, Jonathan Stout on guitar. Hilary Alexander did the singing. Jonathan featured me on clarinet.

Only one thing stood between an excellent program and a superb one: The band recreated old swing tune arrangements; it offered nothing original except solos. While that approach may be just right for some people, I prefer a band to do more than recreate a tune somebody else wrote, arranged, and performed.

No matter how fantastic a contemporary group or individual musician may be, the original recording of a tune and arrangement typically will trump the recreation. First, the original version of a well known tune has become iconic so any deviation from it, no matter how small, becomes distracting. Second, Swing era bands never played tunes at random; leaders hired composers to write music consistent with the band’s style and arranged the tunes to make the best use of specific soloists. Duke Ellington’s band was a perfect example of that. Benny Goodman, Count Basie, and all the others did the same thing.

Contemporary bands playing Swing era arrangements usually lack musicians capable of expressing them properly. Their best results may be close but very rarely equal to or better than the original. That is because contemporary tastes, styles, attitudes, education, and peer pressure combine to influence a musician’s concept. Today’s solos infrequently reflect the way players in the early 1940s thought about music. Playing classic tunes in a more modern style detracts from their impact no matter what a jazz educator or bop snob might think. (That is primarily because Swing era bands played for dancing while later jazz is for listening.)

Contemporary Swing bands, by necessity, consist mainly of musical jacks of all trades rather than masters of one. They don’t work together six nights a week and rarely rehearse, so they play like a group of individuals rather than as a single unit. Today’s instrumentalists have no hope of becoming stars and their audience often consists of the same several dozen dancers or listeners so the performance often is just another gig.

Add to that the factor of personality. Nobody ever will play transcriptions of, for example, Artie Shaw’s or Lester Young’s solos as well as Artie or Lester did, even if the contemporary player has a better command of the instrument, a better instrument and mouthpiece, more musical talent, and the ability to express it. The reason is that those were Artie’s and Lester’s spontaneous solos, springing from their hearts and minds. When they played them their solos expressed something immediate. When we recreate them they are, at best, well crafted interpretations and reflections.

Therefore, to stand out and to play meaningful music, a band and musician not only must be excellent themselves but also must make each tune their own. That means new and better arrangements or, preferably, mostly new and excellent material. Each band needs a unique identity and a good leader determines that based on who is in the band and how each soloist plays.

So as well as a good big band, on its best night, may perform Swing era recreations, I wonder how much more exciting it might sound and how much more personality it might display with a terrific original repertoire.

LAST WEEKEND, APRIL 15-17, 2011, was the tenth anniversary of an annual east coast Swing dance event, the Washington, D.C. Lindy Exchange, or DCLX. I was very fortunate to perform there with Jonathan Stout’s Campus Five and full Orchestra. It was one of the most outstanding experiences of my performing career.

Most Swing dance events are fun but, from a musical standpoint, can be a little disappointing. The tunes we play tend to be very similar melodically, the acoustic environment ranges from horrible to mediocre (the sound guys often make things worse), the musicians’ performances can be inconsistent, and most of the 20 to 30 year old participants would just as soon dance to a metronome. A live band, even a good big band, is more a status symbol for the festival promoters than a critical attraction. After all, the dancers listen mostly to rock, rap, and hip-hop in the car, not vintage jazz. But they always are polite enough to thank us with applause at the end of the night because most are good hearted.

Jonathan rarely calls me to play clarinet with the small group—only when all of his tenor sax players are unavailable. Once before, last March, he included me on a traveling gig. So I was stunned when he asked me to fly to Washington and also, at the end of June, to perform at Lincoln Center in New York City. As it turned out both are big band gigs and, on those, he features me on clarinet.

I almost turned down the DCLX trip. Jonathan forgot to book my flight until two days before the departure date. I asked him whether he really needed me and he said a couple of his usual guys were unable to go so, yes, he needed me. Typically that kind of “admission” is his way of manipulating me into doing what he wants but this time I knew he was being truthful; his arsenal of soloists was pretty thin.

We flew into Baltimore because it’s less expensive than flying to Washington, D.C. and, at 12:30 a.m., we drove an hour to Rockville, Maryland. On the way Jonathan explained we would participate in a so-called battle of the bands. As he described it, the “competition” would be very indirect and the other band was nothing we should worry about; just a group of young upstarts from Seattle who played music from the late 1920s, a passing fad and less than ideal for serious dancers. “No problem”, he said. “We’ll mop the floor with them.”

***

The two small groups performed Friday night. We went first and played for ninety minutes, then we packed up as Glenn Crytzer and his Syncopators held forth. Well, yes, Glenn is younger than 30 and, yes, his group did play some tunes from the late ‘Twenties. But they also played tunes from the ‘Thirties and early ‘Forties. And his musicians were of about the same age as ours. And they were tight and rehearsed and musical and sounded good.

Our trumpet player, Jim Zeigler, drummer, Paul Lines, bass player, Wally Hersom, and I stuck around to listen. We stayed for an hour. And, as Glenn’s musicians had done with us, we poked our heads through the stage curtain and applauded and cheered them on. They deserved it.

The next day it rained so both big bands rehearsed in a large wooden school building in a beautiful wooded neighborhood near Glen Echo, Maryland. Crytzer’s band already was at work in another room when we arrived.  They sounded very good and played a wide variety of music.

Both big bands consisted of half local musicians and half regulars. Jonathan spent 45 minutes running down a few of our more critical numbers. The lack of dynamics and sloppy section work in the horn and sax sections left him unfazed; the guys would pull it all together at the performance that evening. As for dynamics, well, Jonathan’s band performs at two levels: Loud and louder. He says that’s what dancers want.

So we went back to the hotel as Glenn’s musicians continued to rehearse in the other room.

An hour later Jonathan and I went out for a quick dinner. He seemed preoccupied; he was thinking about the upcoming performance. I asked how serious he was about competing. He said, “I want blood.”

“Blood is good,” I answered. It was clear Jonathan was dead serious despite his casual approach to preparation. I would try to add excitement to our group.

***

Both big bands set up on the same stage. The dance began at 9 o’clock and the Syncopators went first and played very well. Then it was Jonathan’s turn and our first set was, well, adequate. We were lucky because the Syncopators’ second set was little more exciting than our first and Jonathan’s choice of material for our second set was much stronger, varied, and melodic. Mercifully the horns and saxes remembered to bring down the volume behind the many clarinet solos. I was able to nail my parts and help get things swinging. The whole band started to cook. Musical excitement is contagious and I was counting on that. I suppose judges might have scored the two groups about even at that point but Jonathan had the momentum.

And then the event spokesman declared the battle was on; Glenn’s band would play a tune, Jonathan’s would answer, then Glenn, then Jonathan, and finally both bands would duke it out on Jumpin’ At The Woodside and Fats Waller’s Honeysuckle Rose.

At that point the music took on an intensity I never have experienced at a dance festival. All the musicians played harder and the vocalists sang better and the dancers began to notice. About fifty had stopped dancing during Jonathan’s second set and crowded up to the stage. As the music swung on, more and more couples stopped dancing and moved toward the bandstand. Soon hundreds, all but a couple of dozen people at the very back of the hall, had stopped dancing and began to cheer for the soloists. That was unprecedented. Today’s Swing dancers go to dance, not listen. Music is merely fuel for their feet.

The music pounded on. Glenn had found a young blond guy from Wisconsin who played tenor and baritone sax. His solos on both instruments knocked me out and, on that final tune, Honeysuckle, he really belted out a winner on tenor. I doubt more than a few people realized it.

But Glenn’s secret weapon was his bass player because he doubled on Sousaphone. So, in the middle of Honeysuckle, Glenn traded his guitar for a banjo and the bass player picked up the Sousaphone. The crowd went nuts. They always are suckers for unusual instruments like tubas, washboards, bones, and spoons; it’s a cheap old trick from Vaudeville dog acts. But then half of Glenn’s band dropped out and the rest slid into a Dixieland chorus: Trumpet, trombone, clarinet, and rhythm section. Now that was showmanship!

Jonathan roared back with an unrehearsed sax section riff and the section played it slightly wrong. Somewhere along the line he tossed me a second solo. Then the drummers went head to head and our drummer, Paul Lines, played a final volley that took down the house. Glenn’s band answered with a great riff from Benny Goodman’s Fletcher Henderson arrangement they had practiced that afternoon. Jonathan shot back with a riff from Count Basie’s The King and, at the bridge, I threw in Benny’s short 1938 solo. Both bands together blasted out a final chorus and the place broke out into hysteria.

Who won the battle?

Does it really matter? Music is not a competitive sport.

My father was at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles that famous night in August 1935 when Benny Goodman made history and launched the Swing era. Our experience in Glen Echo, Maryland came as close to that as is possible today. It was an electrifying night for the musicians and the dancers.

I have played many times on the Johnny Carson Show and several other TV shows. I performed several times at Carnegie Hall. I’ve played jazz festivals. I have worked with genuine jazz stars. My groups usually received standing ovations. But Saturday night in Glen Echo was one of only two occasions where I experienced that surge of electricity you feel when you know your music has impacted an entire venue. It will stand out in my memory as a unique example of the immense power jazz possesses to bring anyone to a level of profound joy.

I FINALLY REALIZED how I could demonstrate the difference between the kind jazz (and orchestral music) I usually prefer and the other kinds. I chose a random photo I had taken and modified it.

Here is the original photo.

Here is the modified photo.

They are identical except for one thing: The color balance. The original photo shows the colors as we see them in nature. The modified photo exaggerates certain colors in the orginal photo much as a musician might modify the chords of a tune to stress extended harmonies.

I like both photos but prefer the original because it is what I saw when I was at the waterfall. The second photo conveys an impression of the scene some might consider more interesting. Even though I like it, I perceive the second photo’s exaggerated coloration as sophomoric: It is as though a photographer learned some new tricks and insists on showing them off.

If the photos were jazz, a vast majority of musicians and listeners might think the modified photo’s “artistry”, and the education necessary to create it, would set it far above the original photo. They might dismiss the original photo as uninteresting, lacking in creativity, and even primitive.

So “natural” becomes primitive while “unnatural” and surreal become “art”.

Taste, or lack of it, is very subjective and personal. One man’s treasure might be another’s garbage. But the inability to appreciate substance over form demonstrates intolerance and even stupidity. Good music is good music regardless of style. And a child remains a child no matter how elegantly you dress him.

The point of my visual analogy, then, is to encourage the cliquish, political, exclusive, snobbish, and pretentious among us to recognize and appreciate substance regardless of its form. But, of course, that is impossible because nobody can be all those things and also open minded.

We can stop the entropy affecting culture by taking a stand. Folks, it’s time to get jazz back on track. Don’t just sit there; do something.

AS A PHOENIX rises from ashes, sometimes it takes a tragedy to reveal one’s greatest talent. If that is true, my clarinet teacher, John Neufeld, would be a good example. He began his career as a young clarinet prodigy. At 25 he was the victim of a devastating automobile accident and, as a consequence, in his mid 40s had to begin a new career as a largely self-taught composer whose superb arrangements and orchestrations actually eclipsed his instrumental superiority.

John taught me for about two and a half years, when I was in high school. He must have found me a frustrating student. My parents rigidly forbade me to be a professional musician. That limited my practice time, my exposure to music, and John’s ability to bring out whatever potential I had. I graduated from high school at the age of 16, already had taken a class at UCLA and, as I faced another four years of rigorous undergraduate classes and was expecting a few more years in graduate school, John explained he could be of no further help to me. I lost touch with him for almost fifteen years. I spent those years trying to find my place in the world and realizing I was a poor fit. At the age of thirty I became a professional jazz clarinetist and was able to earn a meager and inconsistent living.

So one day in 1983 I was at the clarinet repair shop and ran into John, the first time we had seen one another since he’d given me my final lesson. We both had some time to kill so he suggested we get a lemonade at a restaurant up the street. When I asked him what he had been doing John answered in his usual evasive fashion, “Oh, you know. The usual.” What that meant was he had been playing clarinet and other woodwind instruments for countless television shows and movies and performing at the occasional high level concert. When I told him I had turned pro, he showed mild surprise and asked me some tough questions, the most important “music lesson” of my life.

I followed him to his house and we continued our visit. That is when he dropped the bomb: He had been having trouble with his left hand. Some kind of nerve damage. He was going to have to give up his career as an instrumentalist and try to compose, arrange, or orchestrate.

Some months after that my own work as a clarinetist all but ended; I had to move to another state and earn a living as a TV reporter. I returned to Los Angeles a few years later and ran into John during the holiday season at a model train store. We had little time to talk. He was working as a composer and arranger; I had started a publishing company.

A couple of months ago I was practicing the clarinet and watching a movie, Seven Years in Tibet. As the credits rolled I noticed two familiar names: Score by John Williams; orchestration by John Neufeld. Two days later I picked up the phone and called John. We talked a long time. A couple of weeks later I went to visit him and we continued our conversation for another six hours. That is when I learned how the phoenix rose from the ashes.

The injuries John had sustained in that car accident gradually had destroyed his ability to play an instrument at a professional level. He said his hands were never the same after the accident; things he once had done easily had become difficult. He lived with a chronic fear that he might be unable to play the music in front of him. By the time he was about 44 it became necessary to find another way to earn a living.

John asked everybody he knew to give him a chance to compose, arrange, or orchestrate and one after another dismissed him as nothing more than a washed up clarinetist. As he developed his writing skills and exhausted his savings a succession of fools refused to consider him. Finally a few composers gave him a little work but far less than he needed to earn a living.

One day, a few years later, a colleague and prominent studio pianist, Artie Kane, hired John. Artie had moved from playing to composing music for movies and network television. Artie and John had compatible personalities and, as Artie listened to John’s approach to music, everything fell into place. John began to earn a living as Artie’s assistant and co-composer. Time passed. Synthesizers began to limit the use of acoustic instruments in television orchestras. Artie found himself with fewer assignments, each with fewer minutes of music, and no longer able to employ John as a composer. John continued to work as an orchestrator in television but that provided too little income for a living. Fortunately Artie’s wife, Jo Ann, was very influential in the music industry and recommended John to the very successful movie composer, John Williams. Williams liked what John showed him and offered him some work.

John Neufeld ultimately orchestrated every movie John Williams worked on between 1988 and Neufeld’s retirement in 2005. At first John spent countless hours working against the clock because he was still learning. Raw talent and good taste produced top results and an increasing flow of work. Word spread. Others hired John and, over the next twenty years, he became one of Hollywood’s top orchestrators. John Neufeld himself may never have thought so but he had evolved into something of a bigshot.

After John retired he remained active in music. He plays flute and composes. In the middle of 2009 he collaborated with a friend to produce an album of movie and television themes. Its title is Silver Screen in Blue and that friend, and clarinetist, is another former Neufeld student, Marty Kristal. John arranged and conducted the entire album. He gave me a copy.

Although he began with other composers’ basic melodies John expanded and developed them into something unique, almost as though they were original compositions. The way he extrapolates a theme and weaves it into an instrumental tapestry seems to advance the original concept into a new dimension.

My reaction? I think John Neufeld is a genius.

“Genius” is a term I rarely use and nobody else I know has earned that status. The substance of John’s music transcends its form with the help of a superior string section and Marty Kristal’s virtuosity.

So that is the story of John Neufeld, musician, teacher, intellectual, philosopher, composer, arranger, orchestrator, occasional lunatic, genius, and an inspiration to us all.

But wait. By coincidence John called just as I was ready to post this story so it may require another chapter: He casually mentioned an interest in creating an album of his original compositions.

Schools, Teachers, and Bop Snobs

A FRIEND TOLD me a horror story about when he was a student at USC. He was a music major and had put together a vintage Swing sextet for a jazz concert. The concert director was a jazz teacher from USC’s music department. Prior to the actual performance each group went on stage to run through its tunes and, when it was time, my friend’s group began by playing All The Things You Are. About eight measures into the tune the director became very agitated. He impatiently ordered them to stop playing and to go home.

My friend was bewildered and asked what was wrong. The director sputtered, “You forgot the intro! What about the intro?”

My friend asked, “What intro?”

The director barked, “What do you mean, ‘what intro?’ The intro. Da-DA-da. Da-DA-da, da-DA-da, da-DA-da….”

My friend replied, “I don’t know that intro.”

The director yelled, “How can you not know Charlie Parker’s intro? Nobody plays All The Things You Are without that intro. And don’t ever get on a stage again until you know something about jazz!”

Stop and think about that little drama:

My friend was playing Jerome Kern’s 1939 tune in an authentic 1939 Swing style. Charlie Parker had yet to conceive his intro at that time and, when he finally did (in 1947), he never played the melody of All The Things You Are. Instead, he fashioned his own tune, Bird Of Paradise, around the same chord changes.

The intent of my friend’s group was to play Swing, not Bebop. Parker’s intro would have been completely out of place both historically and stylistically.

The music director was aware of neither the facts nor the chronology. He was unable to judge my friend’s music for what it was; he could see it only in the context of what he thought it should be. And, even had he been correct, he had no right to throw a student ensemble off the stage. The man is an idiot and, instead of berating well intentioned music students, should be collecting garbage.

Such scenarios and behavior are characteristic of Bop snobs. Bop snobs are pseudo intellectual nitwits who judge music mainly on its form and rarely on its substance. To them, any musical style prior to the emergence of Bebop in the mid 1940s is primitive and unworthy of serious listening; it was merely a stepping stone to the Great Epiphany of Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. In fact, most Bop snobs consider any form of music failing to make use of Bebop’s arcane artificiality to be beneath them. The same kind of thinking is rife among orchestral music snobs.

More than once I have devoted space on this blog to revealing the damage that attitude has caused. But when I heard my friend’s story it really enraged me. That music director is an ignorant, prejudiced tyrant, yet continues to bully young musicians and stifle creativity.

We can stop the entropy affecting culture by taking a stand against such self-important nincompoops and I have just taken mine. Folks, it’s time to get jazz back on track. Don’t just sit there; do something!

Two New Jazz Albums Available:

PLEASE BUY THEM

(A Rather Vitriolic Tirade)

EVERYDAY I CHECK the statistics of this website to see what visitors do when they come here. The vast majority simply listens to our free podcasts. A few bother to visit the New Releases page. And a few of you read my ramblings.

What do you suppose pays for those free podcasts? Album sales.

What percent of visitors buys an album? Fewer than one-percent.

Is that because you folks in the vast majority dislike the music? Of course not or you wouldn’t be here. No, the reason is that you are thoughtless and cheap. You apparently are happy to take something for free but are unwilling to support those of us who produce it by purchasing a $15.00 CD every few years. That is something to be proud of, isn’t it?

You see, we have tried the “catch more bees with honey” approach since 2007 and that has failed dismally. Those reading this now suffer the “vinegar” approach where we simply tell the unadorned truth. (If the customer is always right, then logic dictates the non-customer always must be wrong!)

So listen up: Not only do we need you to buy albums but we also need you to urge your friends to buy them.

The musicians drive an hour or two to the studio and record for free. Nobody earns a penny to engineer, record, edit, mix, and master the shows you have enjoyed for the past three years at no charge. We all donate our time and energy in the hope that most of you will buy an album or, if you are in a position to do so, hire us to perform at an event.

Why not return the favor and support us?

We can stop the entropy affecting culture by taking a stand and I have just taken mine. Folks, it’s time to get jazz back on track. Don’t just sit there; do something!

Discuss it on our Forum

LAST WEEK I saw a want ad for jazz by a motion picture company. The last sentence caught my attention: “NO INSTRUMENTALS — please!” That’s analagous to saying, “WANTED: Doctor of internal medicine. No physicians — please!”

When did jazz transition from instrumental to vocals only? While vocals always have been part of jazz, the entire basis for the genre is instrumental improvisation. What has happened to our culture?

Wait. Don’t tell me. Remember when I wrote about the death of instrumental music? Looks as though I was right.

So, on a somewhat related subject, I was visiting the website of a very good computerized “music minus one” program called Band-In-A-Box. They have a new development, RealTracks, where they record phrases by actual jazz musicians and the program stitches them together coherently. Let me tell you how good it is: The online samples are nearly indistinguishable from recordings by everyday professional jazz musicians. That includes the solos.

The playing naturally lacks personality but that is no drawback because many of today’s jazz musicians perform with just as little personality. After all, that is how they learn to play in school. Other problems exist with the computerized performances but, in a few years, the company probably will have solved them. Yes, within my lifetime jazz has disintegrated from a vital, personal, and popular form of music to a computer generated replica.

No wonder the want ad said “no instrumentals”!

And now for the question you have been dying to ask: “Doesn’t quality count anymore? Isn’t musical emotion important?”

Does your question really need an answer? Music, just as most things we see, hear, and use today, has become a disposable commodity. Why bother to repair a pair of shoes (or anything else) when it is less expensive to buy a new pair? Why bother to buy good music when you can download other music online for free? Even if the fidelity is worse, even if the musicians are third rate, even if it is a pale facsimile of real music, it’s close enough and its FREE. Or it costs 99-cents.

Why bother to hire real musicians when a computer program costs less and sounds close enough?

Why bother to buy steak when flavored cardboard tastes nearly as good?

The problem, you see, starts with the consumer — with you and me. Business simply provides the lowest quality the majority will accept. Of course, if you refuse to accept it, they provide it anyway and remove the alternative.

So where do YOU draw the line? Or does flavored cardboard really hit the spot?

We can stop the entropy affecting culture by taking a stand. Folks, it’s time to get jazz back on track. Don’t just sit there; do something!

Discuss it on our Forum

THE PHONE RINGS on Monday afternoon. The bandleader I often work with, Jonathan Stout, is in trouble. His small group has a weekend job in Houston and the tenor sax player has just canceled. Will I do him a big favor and take the gig? I need to fly out on Friday. I cancel a family dinner and a recording session to say yes.

Jonathan calls back. The festival people in Houston are handling the travel and hotel arrangements and will send a flight schedule. On Wednesday morning I discover I have a 6 a.m. flight from Los Angeles to Phoenix, a 90 minute layover, and a two-and-a-half hour flight into Houston. That means I must leave my house at 3 o’clock in the morning and, if I’m lucky, will get an hour or two of sleep.

Then I come down with the flu. Fever, chills, aches, nausea. It lasts until early Friday morning.

I drag myself to the airport and the TSA Nazi seizes my toothpaste. I am so thankful; I never realized that, for the past month, I had been brushing my teeth with a bomb. I am semi-comatose as I wait to board the plane, find myself in a center seat between a couple of big guys on a full flight, manage to stay awake at the Phoenix airport until we board a rickety old jet for the flight into Houston, and then lose consciousness for the next couple of hours.

Nobody has provided transportation between the airport and the hotel so I find a shuttle for the “bargain” price of $25.00 one way. When I arrive at the hotel, the clerk refuses to check me in because the musicians’ rooms are in somebody else’s name. She does give me some toothpaste.

But remember the four word law: Ain’t no free lunch. The hotel gets more than even. Dinner for one (frozen fish and a small green salad, no dessert, and nothing to drink but tap water) costs nearly $50.00. They get away with that because the nearest mini-mart or any other place where you could buy food is beyond walking distance and, of course, we have no transportation. Did I mention there is no compensation at all for meals or any other incidental expense?

The gig itself is really rather pleasant. The musicians are excellent and the crowd is young and appreciative and appears to enjoy the music. We play two nights but the second night we start very late and work straight through the change to Daylight Time so we lose an hour. By the time we get to sleep it is 4:45 a.m. and checkout is at noon sharp.

Everybody has an evening flight out of Houston and all flights are oversold. A rather pretty friend of the bandleader drives us to a place downtown for brunch and after that it is every man for himself for the hour long trip to the airport. Somebody has provided me with a shuttle ride because mine is the earliest flight out and I arrive on time. But, because the airline has oversold the flight and the plane is old and small, there is insufficient room for carry-on luggage. We must check our bags. I remove my clarinet and hope my suitcase will arrive at Los Angeles when I do.

And then the passengers enjoy a flight from hell. Folks, if you have a choice, avoid flying on U.S. Airways. They cram as many seats as possible into their planes. You have no leg room; the distance from the front of your seat to the rear of the seat in front of you is about eleven inches. Even someone with no leg beyond the knee would feel cramped. Hip room is similarly limited. I am in a row with two big guys; it is very uncomfortable for all of us. Nobody can even doze let alone sleep.

I arrive home Monday morning sometime after midnight. I have caught a cold in Houston.

Things certainly were different in the 1980s when Cadillac limousines used to pick us up from the airport and whisk us to premium rooms in deluxe hotels, when our meals at top restaurants were part of the travel arrangements, when our flight schedules were humane, and when the paranoid airport Gestapo was still a quarter-century in the future. I have learned my lesson about what out-of-town gigs to accept. And perhaps you have gained new insight into the glamorous life of the itinerant jazz musician.