One hundred years ago today, 136 NYC factory workers, mostly young women, were forced to leap to their deaths from the 9th floor of a building in flames. In the absence of enforced government regulation, the factory owners denied union demands for sprinklers, hired goons to beat up organizers, and locked the only exit that might have let the workers out. Since that time, laws have been enacted which protect workers’ rights, and it is THESE laws which are currently being threatened by the willfully-ignorant-of-history, “every-man-for-himself-but-put-CEOs-first” charade which so-called “Libertarians” continually defend. Bells will commemorate the victims all around the country at 4:41pm today, but let’s remember that they did NOT die in vain.

Incidentally, I’m on the list-serve of NYC-based singer/songwriter Allison Scola, and I thought I’d just copy and paste news of an event she’s participating in which is being held in NYC today to commemorate the victims. This strikes me as just one more example of how artists can (and should) connect to larger societal issues. Wish I could be there to show my solidarity!

I’ll be spending this day walking the paths of victims of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911.

The morning will begin early. I will be “chalking” the sidewalks of of victims Josephine Carlisi (31 years old) and Frieda Velakofsky (20 years old) both who lived around the corner from my old apartment in the East Village (a Sicilian enclave 100 years ago).

At 10:30 AM I will be part of a procession of ceremonial shirtwaists (blouses) in honor of victims. I will be carrying a shirtwaist representing Michelina Nicolosi (21 years old) who lived in a tenement directly behind my old building and next to the East Village’s Shrine to the Black Madonna on East 13th Street. Michelina was from a small town in the hills of Sicily, about 2 hours away from where my grandparents were born. She had been in the United States for just over two years before the fire.

The procession will make its way from Union Square down Broadway to the Brown Building, formally the Asch Building, at Greene Street and Washington Place, where at noon there will be a memorial ceremony and reading of the victims’ names.

At 4:41 PM bells will ring throughout the United States in recognition of the time the fire broke out and reminding all of us of the deep legacy left by this tragedy–safer working conditions, increased fire regulations, and so many other benefits to us in the workplace and beyond.

Saturday, March 26th, 2011
Labor of Love: A Story with Music Based on the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911 – 4:00 p.m.
Westchester Italian Cultural Center

One Generoso Pope Place
Tuckahoe, NY 10707
914-771-8700

Price: Members $25, Non-Members $30; Fa

LABOR OF LOVE
A story with music based on the Triangle Factory Fire of March 25, 1911
Presented by Ti Piace, Italian American Presentations, Inc.

A collaborative effort by and performed by the Ti Piace Performers featuring Tre Bella with Allison Scola, Anthony Tolve, Mary Ellen Toomey, Deborah Longino, and Dimitri Minucci

All of us who are passionate about jazz LOVE that feeling when acquaintances come to us for music recommendations – a few of us obsess over yearly lists – and we want people to understand and get hooked by these sounds. And in a very real sense, Esperanza winning “Best New Artist” last night over the tween-phenomenon, multi-million selling, music industry-funded, now-starring-in-his-very-own-movie-so-apparently-he-can-act-too, Justin Bieber, gives me a glimmer of hope that artistically challenging music forms like jazz might have a slightly better shot at reaching people today than it did yesterday. It’s all about incremental progress, right? And it’s also, importantly, about not making this unfamiliar music come off as elitist or unapproachable, or gloating about Bieber’s loss (even though his fans vandalized our girl’s Wikipedia page within minutes after her upset, which if nothing else, points to the absolutely dictatorial vice grip of loyalty the music industry has managed to manufacture within their creation’s “fans.”) And I’m guilty of a bit gloating myself – it seems the most instinctive reaction is to make fun of the tweens (in the great post-Grammy Twitter-fallout last night, I called them “sheep”), rather than figure out a way to leverage a legitimate jazz artist’s newfound cred and name recognition into a greater awareness of this music we believe in. When you believe in something, you want to share it, and though we might not reach the angry Beliebers (yikes, can’t take credit), convinced that an eternal injustice has been perpetuated upon the universe, we could get quite a lot of the folks in the middle who might be curious about jazz but find the whole enterprise intimidating. And FWIW, for all of the hype placed on Bieber’s hair, I think we win that battle too.

And I think Esperanza’s music is positioned at the perfect nexus for this – it’s hip and funky enough to grab the people who “need a beat,” but challenging and complex enough to pull hardcore listeners up out of their chairs.

I mean, for Chrissake… on her debut record, this woman sings and scats over a pulsating, smooth-as-silk version of Body and Soul. In Spanish. While playing the bass. In freaking 5/4 time. If we can’t get behind this woman, jazz fans, there’s no hope and we should resign ourselves to decoding Anthony Braxton’s geometrical compositions amongst our dusty, out-of-print LPs down in the basement. Look, as much as I wish Keith Jarrett’s wishes would magically come true – that American audiences might simply wake up one day with high artistic expectations – I also know that’s not (and won’t ever be) realistic, and that if jazz is ever going to gain any traction in the mainstream, it’s almost certainly going to happen by way of a gateway figure.

In that light, a quick story. Over the course of a few semesters, I’ve played this video of Esperanza covering, no transforming, Stevie Wonder’s Overjoyed, recorded in front of the First Family (they’re big fans of her music) for my audio production classes, in front of kids who’s knowledge of music extended mostly to Top 40 and the “boxes” that the music industry had put them in based on race and socio-economic factors. (Meaning: for the most part, the white kids liked punk and metal, the black kids R&B and rap. The very rare mention of jazz as a “like” usually came from the influence of a parent who played it in the house.)

But everybody dug Esperanza (just like they dig Bach, incidentally); after I played the video, most students reached for pen and paper and wrote down her name. But why, I asked, why doesn’t this music receive airplay on mainstream commercial radio? I mean, clearly, everyone was into it! Most seemed to think that though they liked it, it was either too complex for the masses (as if somehow they weren’t an accurate sample?), or, importantly, it didn’t sell sex and image in the way that popular black female artists are expected to. (Love ya, Beyonce, but it ain’t just your voice selling those records.) Esperanza has stated outright that she wants her music to speak for itself; although she presents a fashionable and distinctive “look,” it’s ultimately her musical voice which makes her such a compelling figure.

So as advocates for this music, how do we leverage this rare mainstream recognition into a safe space where the other infinite varieties of jazz might be explored by more people? Cuz if you can hook people up with Esperanza, then other fascinating jazz-based modern singers are a very short step away: Gretchen Parlato, Jo Lawry, Madeleine Peyroux, Melody Gardot, Diana Krall, local gems on-the-rise like Lena Seikaly, and many, many more. And another thing: it’s been my experience that after proper exposure, most college students absolutely adore Billie Holiday and Louis Armstrong; after our section on Billie (and Ella too!), I often hear students sound annoyed and confused that no one has ever taken the time to introduce them to this music. My response is that the industry has absolutely zero interest in exposing them to anything outside of what the latest hit record is, and sadly because the industry has such unchecked, unprecedented control over American culture, these are the only messages they’re receiving. (The industry’s entire musical philosophy might be summarized in the following two words: KEEP CONSUMING!) Though perhaps our community is guilty of missed opportunities in other areas? I mean, does anyone know what the hell goes on in high school music classes? I took an informal poll of 60 students last week, asking how many people could tell me what instrument either Miles Davis or John Coltrane played. (Not tell me about their style, or what their best album is… just what instrument did they play?) Miles and Coltrane are unarguably two of the most important musicians in American history. Out of 60, exactly one person knew. Exactly one person had even heard of them. So, my friends, this is what we’re up against. And though my heart sank, I wasn’t terribly surprised; young people today are absolutely drowning in advertising and corporate-sponsored pop culture, but my experience tells me that many long for something richer. And I understand that arts classes are shamefully being slashed in every direction, but if the teachers we do have aren’t teaching the basic figures of American art music, it’s no wonder there’s such a lack of awareness and appreciation.

But I digress. Perhaps there’s unrealized synchronicity in the fact that “esperanza” means “hope” in Spanish. So I’m happy this morning, and yes, hopeful: hopeful for our community, happy for the listeners who will now get turned on to these exciting, new sounds, and maybe most of all excited for a girl who has worked her tail off not on her image, but on creating and developing a very original, very fun musical voice. What a thrill to see that rewarded in the mainstream. (And y’all know, by the way, that the jazz savvy Q-Tip is producing her next record, right? I thought you did.) Obviously, I’d love to hear what readers think about any of this dynamic, or about how we can help jazz reach more ears, so comment away. Cheers and congrats to Esperanza, to whom I wish all the esperanza I can muster!

2010: THE YEAR IN MUSICAL FINDS
(the inaugural edition of a yearly tradition!)

Track 1: Jo Lawry – Lôro

Track 2: Deep River – Hudson River

Track 3: Iarla Ó Lionáird – Cu-Cu-In

Track 4: Pietro Tonolo – Your Song

Track 5: Sarah Siskind – Say It Louder

Track 6: Session Americana (feat. Ry Cavanaugh & Jennifer Kimball) – Lighthouse Light

Track 7: Ralph Alessi – Buying, Selling

Track 8: Laura Veirs – Freight Train

Track 9: Eef Barzelay – Take Me

Track 10: Scala and Kolacny Brothers – Colorblind

Track 11: Luke Kelly – Raglan Road

Track 12: Yaron Herman – And the Rain

Track 13: Caoimhín O’Raghallaigh – It’s All About the Rhythm of Her Toes

Track 14: Sam Sadigursky – Love

Track 15: Keith Jarrett/Charlie Haden – Don’t Ever Leave Me

Track 16: David Lang – Have Mercy, My God (from “The Little Match Girl Passion”)

Track 17: Fred Hersch – A Wish (Valentine)

Track 18: Patty Griffin (with Buddy Miller) – Never Grow Old

Track 19: Stefano Bollani – Maple Leaf Rag

Track 20: Stile Antico – Ave Maria (William Byrd)

Track 21: Kennedy Center Honors (with James Taylor & Mavis Staples) – Let It Be/Hey Jude

Honorable mentions:
It was a gargantuan task trimming this list down to fit onto an 80-minute CD, and a few contenders got left off. I’m pretty sure I first heard Gretchen Parlato and Darrell Scott in the last days of 2009, so sadly, that gave me justification for slicing them off. Also, quick plug for this new record which I just heard the other day, available to YOU as a free download, and it most likely represents everything you hate about pop music of the past five years getting beat up by everything you love about it times a thousand. And finally, this was very much a Mahler year for me; hearing the barnburning 5th Symphony conducted by Christoph Eschenbach in Prague last summer, and hearing the majestic, life-affirming 2nd Symphony in October (James Levine conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra) with friends and family, were without question two of the most profound live musical experiences of my life. As was going way out of my way to sit unaccompanied at his grave outside Vienna in July, pondering how one man and his obsession with music might have such an enormous impact on the world.

Hope you enjoyed. Here’s to 2011 and all its yet-unheard music which through the eternal laws of happenstance, will make itself known!

My two cents, or twenty-five cents, starts here: I think artists of the future will have to wear multiple hats in order to remain successful and relevant – the art of promoting art is a tricky one, and generally isn’t something taught in art, theater, or music school. Yet let’s consider the possibility that confronting these issues is in itself a fundamental part of what it means to be an artist in the world, ca. 2010! Where I went to school (Eastman), this notion that we might actually have to worry that audiences wouldn’t automatically fall into our laps was just starting to catch steam when I graduated, and thankfully art schools seem to be tackling this problem more and more within curricula. Due in part to the pervasiveness of mass-mediated culture, it now seems there’s a full-on crisis in terms of reaching out to audiences – especially younger folks – and getting them involved and engaged. So how must an artist operate within that system?

I’m of the mindset that if we want our audiences to come in and stay engaged, we first and foremost MUST be making relevant work. Apart from producing rather bland art, the old paradigm of “appreciate art because it’s good for you” isn’t cutting it in the marketplace anymore – we have to be able to demonstrate and articulate to audiences WHY our work is relevant to their lives. Many young people don’t attend theatre because they don’t feel connected to the world of artists and the creative process – I think that “cliquey-ness” can be a big turnoff – so we need to find new ways to MAKE them feel welcome and involved in the process. So I don’t think a passive audience who just sits and “receives” art – the paradigm of the past – is the way to go. Shouldn’t being in the theatre feel like a truer, richer experience than lining up for the latest Hollywood blockbuster? Sadly, often times it just isn’t, and we can’t blame audiences for that. Mass-mediated culture succeeds partially due to mega-advertising budgets, certainly, yet it also provide a sense of shared community and currency that I think we lust for in the theater. How do we create that within our local communities? We want our work and our ideas to be discussed at that proverbial water cooler, and I think presentational ideas which challenge standard forms (flashmobs come to mind, even if they can get gimmicky) might open some of these avenues.

Ultimately we need to be willing to ask ourselves the tough questions about what it means to make art amidst what might appear to be an unconcerned citizenry. Yet as artists we must believe we’ve been entrusted with the responsibility to tell the stories and weave the myths of our generation. It’s a tough position, yet therein lies the challenge.

Some fairly random thoughts, sure. Anyone have further ideas they’d like to share?

And let’s talk about this so-called “Ground Zero mosque,” shall we?

FREEDOM AND OTHER LOOSE NOTIONS
I think first off, we need to ask ourselves whether all these slogans and cliches we’re always hearing about our country actually mean anything. Like, do we “actually” have freedom of religion in the US? ‘Cause if we did, that would mean that any religion could be practiced by anyone, at any time, anywhere, so long as laws weren’t being broken. And to their credit, I think most of the conservative commentators have admitted this – Sarah Palin isn’t going around trying to say that its “illegal” or “unconstitutional” to build a mosque close to the towers, only that she finds it “distasteful.” Yet aren’t there also fast food joints, bars, and even strip clubs (!) that are closer to the site than this proposed center would be? Would she find the World Trade Center Memorial Strip Club “tasteful?” (It’s not really called that, but it is closer to Ground Zero than this proposed center would be.) I think more accurately, she – and other conservative politicians gearing up for the upcoming elections – are using this as a wedge issue to mobilize voters to get to the polls. We’ve seen this happen in the past (gay marriage, abortion, gun rights, to name but a few), and it’s really scary.

THE ‘RELIGION’ THING
But why would this issue be so important, so emotionally compelling for people? Clearly it touches a nerve and re-opens a nine-year old wound that won’t ever quite heal, but what is it specifically about the issue that irks people? Without question, it’s the religious element, more specifically the fear of the unfamiliar. (Isn’t it always?) It’s the assumption that somehow this “mosque” would be a tribute to the evil, fundamentalist lunatics who commandeered those planes, and that the families of people who died that day who visit the site might have some strange, foreign religious clerics wearing turbans celebrating behind them as they mourn. Nothing could be further from the truth. The man who is proposing this center, blocks away from Ground Zero, has repeatedly denounced the tactics of the fundamentalist terrorists, and wants to set up this center as a reminder that real Islam is a peaceful religion, and that Muslims who seek to kill “in the name of Allah” are blaspheming the Koran. Which is a claim made by none other than George W. Bush (to his credit!), who repeated it numerous times after 9/11. Sadly, we’ve barely heard anything along those lines from Republicans since those days. Why? It’s simple: because it might cost them votes.

THE TRUE DANGER: FUNDAMENTALISM IN ANY FORM
And it’s worth repeating: what the 9/11 terrorists were to the Muslim faith are equivalent to what the KKK is to Christianity – a tiny, extreme, whacko-fundamentalist, fringe minority who happen to shout very loudly and use violence to achieve their goals. And sadly, because of how the media tends to present only the loudest voices, what many Americans who might not know any Muslims personally believe is that 9/11 was caused by “the Islamic faith.” (I have Muslim friends and have worked alongside Muslims, and the shocking revelation I’ve come to is that they’re just as boring as the rest of us!) Psychologists and sociologists have proven many times – as human beings we fear the “unknown,” and to millions of people who don’t live in cities where multi-culturalism is an expectation of daily life, the “unknown” poses a major psychological threat. But the reality is that the vast, vast majority of Muslims want the same things Christians want – to provide for their families, the ability to worship in peace, and to maintain their traditions. But again, because most images which the media presents of Muslims amount to scary terrorists hiding in mountain caves with automatic weapons, many Americans who don’t personally know any Muslims take these images and use them to fill in the empty image spaces for that “Muslim other” in their minds. It’s an entirely mistaken, “straw man” assumption. Not surprisingly, American history reveals this very same “image plug-in” has occurred in many manifestations: the struggles of both African-Americans and gay Americans, and the battle over Latin-American immigration all offer strikingly parallel examples.

What is a danger, and one which extends across cultural and geographical boundaries, however, is fundamentalism. Timothy McVeigh was “supposedly” a Christian, yet did anyone “blame Christianity” for this so-called “Christian’s” heinous acts in blowing up the federal building in Oklahoma City? (No, in fact thousands of people prayed to their Christian God immediately after!) The vast majority of Christians would respond by saying that McVeigh wasn’t a very good Christian, right? Just as the vast majority of Muslims would (and have) denounced the September 11 attacks. So the more accurate issue at hand is the dangers of fundamentalism, be it Christian OR Islamic, and the insistence that “my way is the ONLY way”… which in fact, is not very far from Sarah Palin’s way of thinking. So if you’re going on the assumption that “Islam” caused 9/11, the protesters might have a point, but that’s not only an entirely mistaken assumption, but also playing directly into what the terrorists (who sought holy war against the West) wanted! Fundamentalism caused 9/11, just like fundamentalism caused the Oklahoma City bombing. Yet in that case no one started protesting Timothy McVeigh’s Christian church, because Christianity is infinitely more familiar to Americans, and somehow Christian fundamentalism is seen as “safer” than Islamic fundamentalism, which is patently ridiculous. Either way, innocent people died, and I bet the innocent victims of the Oklahoma City bombing could care less which brand of religious fundamentalism ended their lives.

THE ‘ACTUAL’ MOSQUE
And let’s talk about this “mosque” a bit. In fact, let’s stop calling it that! What is actually proposed is closer in intention to a YMCA, to a community center (remember, language matters!) with a basketball court and swimming pool, than some sort of terrorist training camp. This center is no more a “mosque” than a YMCA is a “church,” even if both are affiliated with religious faiths. One of the intentions of this center is to foster positive dialogue and peaceful discussion between Muslims and non-Muslims. Seems to me that’s a GOOD thing, right? What’s more, if the center gets nixed on the grounds that its “offensive,” imagine what an incredible recruiting tool that becomes for the actual fundamentalist terrorists, who are convinced that they’re fighting a holy war with the West, and that America at best finds Islam “offensive,” and at worst hates the entire religion and its followers. Let’s not hand them that easy ammunition.

WHAT SAY YE, NEW YORK?
Yet another angle, and one which I remember well from my days living in the world’s craziest, most intense city. I experienced 9/11 on the island of Manhattan, scared out of my wits, not sure if we were all going to be blown to bits or going to trample each other in a rush to the bridges. I turned down a temp job which would have put me in the tower that day. And I’ve seen the bumper stickers on vehicles (mainly large trucks with plates far from New York) driven by people who I’m guessing weren’t there. (Obviously 9/11 was a national event, yet I think the major reason it gets “claimed” by folks who live outside of New York is that it allowed people to have a concrete event on which to pin their confusion and mistrust over a world spinning out of control. But that’s another blog post.) Look, no one needs to “remind” me to “remember” that day; it is seared into my memory, as it is in the memories of millions of New Yorkers. Yet in all of this discussion over the Islamic center, no one – least of all Sarah Palin or Glenn Beck – seems very concerned about what New Yorkers themselves (and their leaders) think – the people who actually experienced this tragedy quite literally in their own backyards! Shouldn’t their voices count at least as much, if not more, than those of the Kansas housewives? After all, it’s THEIR city? (How much say do New Yorkers have over monuments in Topeka? Very little, and frankly, they don’t make monuments in Kansas their business!) And of course, the reason why Palin and Beck don’t touch this is that many New Yorkers are in favor of the center. Which isn’t surprising, given the open-minded and tolerant nature of the world’s most multi-cultural city.

THE ‘RESPECT’ THING
So ultimately it comes down to a question of taste, or “respect,” right? I don’t think it’s being “disrespectful” for people to want to practice their faiths in a peaceful manner, and to demonstrate to people that Islam is in fact a peaceful religion. (In fact, what could be MORE respectful?) As Americans, what could be more “tasteful” than demonstrating to the terrorists and to the rest of the world that ours is a loving nation, one borne of acceptance and not hatred, of true freedom, not popularity contests, of multi-culturalism and acceptance of foreign cultures, not fear of the unknown, and that the very things which these fundamentalists fight to death to end are the very things which we embrace. Let us never underestimate the power that symbolic gestures carry. After the calamities of the Bush years, we certainly have some damage control to do to restore our standing in the world, and I can’t imagine a more “tasteful” tribute to the thousands who lost their lives on that day than erecting a purposeful, living monument to religious tolerance and peace.

Also, here’s a terrific piece by Nick Kristof in the New York Times discussing how the anti-mosque protesters are in fact ‘taking bin Laden’s side’ which underscores a lot of what I’ve said. So… enough for now. Thanks for keepin’ tabs, campers.

My apologies for not posting for so very long. Not that I haven’t been writing, however – I’ve been on a whirlwind 2-week adventure through Europe, almost at its end, and have been posting about it at this site. I’ve been to London, Amsterdam, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Paris, and am back in London again. Please check in! Cheers!

In a desire to discover what goes into the construction of our personal “tastes,” Wilson took it upon himself to spend a year with the very music he found the most “tasteless” (namely, Dion and her legions of fans), and the results are both hysterical and illuminating. I haven’t come across a more entertaining explication of the socially constructed nature of “taste,” and Wilson’s tone combines a taut mixture of academic analysis and journalistic page-turning. For a further goof, click here to view Wilson’s equally funny public dismemberment by that acute social critic Stephen Colbert.

One afternoon early in our relationship, my future ex-wife and I were lazing around her small apartment, listening to music. Testing boundaries, I began teasing her a bit about her music collection, mostly thrift-shop copies of 50s crooner and rock’n'roll records, a quaint-seeming fixation for a twenty-four-year-old downtown novelist. She went over to the suitcase record player and put “Oh Boy” by Buddy Holly under the worn-out needle:

“All of my life I’ve been a-waitin’
Tonight there’ll be no hesitatin’–oh boy!
When you’re with me…”

And she sang along:

“Stars appear and shadows are fallin
You can hear my heart a–calling
A little bit of lovin’ makes everything right
I’m gonna see my baby tonight!”

She loved it, she said, because it was the truth. There was nothing more layered or contradictory to say. “Oh boy!” expressed exactly how she felt, right there and then, about me.

I don’t think I have ever been more moved, even in our wedding vows, by a profession of love. I’ve seldom felt so honored, so human, so sure that merely human was enough. That it did not remain enough, that there would be a sadder side to the story, does nothing to mar it, nor to diminish one watt in my memory the soft autumn light that fell across her face as she sang Buddy Holly’s words to me.

What do I love about this passage? For starters, its simplicity. His use of imagery. Specificity of language. But mostly, the way Wilson uses storytelling to illuminate a major analytical point – that music has the potential to cut through to a core of emotion like few things in our lives can. In class, I often bring up that oft-cited writing rule “show, don’t tell,” and I still don’t know of a better way to connect emotionally with readers, regardless of the nature of your audience. The mild, sad snark of “my future ex-wife” – I love how Wilson’s mastery of language allows him such a wide range of tone and subtext, while expending a mere 3.5 words. And that deft, poignant turn at “that it did not remain enough” – a subtle nod toward the universality of love and loss.

One of the points I attempt to impress upon students – and continually remind myself – is that pop music can color the context of our lives as much any other cultural influence, and that writing about music from this perspective is far more interesting than dry biography. It’s about relevance, and I think relevance comes most directly from a) lived experience and b) speaking honestly about that experience. Without that thrift store-bought Buddy Holly record, Wilson’s bittersweet story loses its meaning and impact, and ultimately this is one of music’s great gifts to us: its ability to penetrate layers of emotion, experience, and memory which might otherwise remain unpassable.

Cheers, all.

Now let me do what I can to spread the good word on the thrillingly hip and vital, LA-based (really?) jazz-funk-new music aggregate Kneebody, collectively dropping unprecedented sounds and exciting audiences in a way I’ve rarely witnessed. Dust off the Encyclopedia Jazztanica and find Kneebody listed under “Future of jazz, hope for the…” As part of a 4-night booking at the new and impossibly cool NYC music venue 45 Bleecker, presented by finger-on-the-pulse, please-let’s-show-them-some-follow-love new jazz series Search & Restore, Kneebody presented two sets last Saturday night: the first featuring vocalist Theo Bleckmann singing unorthodox, jarringly gorgeous avant-jazz renditions of songs by that often-namechecked-but-rarely-understood, Spiritual-Forefather-of-American-Iconoclasticism, Charles Ives, all from a recent Grammy-nominated album; the second, a remarkably heated, intense-yet-loose, set of Kneebody originals. If music is, as Keith Jarrett claims, like nutrition, I feasted in New York. (And not only on Mahmoun’s Falafel.)

In fact, I drove up to NYC from DC with the sole purpose of hearing this show. Having also graduated from that ballyhooed (and much-discussed on this blog, go figure) late 1990s Eastman School of Music jazz program, I remembered the Eastman-bred Kneebodiers well (80% of them, at least – drummer Nate Wood’s playing was a new revelation), and the chance to hear Ives (probably my favorite composer) in a jazz context sold the deal. Neither set disappointed, and the fact that the energy from the two sets felt radically dissimilar is a testament to Kneebody’s musical flexibility.

Y’all know I’ve been trying to write about this “new current” in jazz, about the direction certain modern players are taking in an attempt to keep this music fresh and relevant, and not, as most schools would have it, a mere copy of something that sounded better 50 years ago. I’ve described this as “that Brooklyn sound” – but as discussed with Jason Parker previously, as well as old friend Brian Drye on the phone the other night – this new flava is not geographically bound to NYC – it’s springing up all around the country and even the world. (So who wants to come up with a catchy new name? Jazz needs new branding! Incidentally, the fantastic Rachel Maddow recently ran a fun competition to rebrand the boring “filibuster,” and decided on “The Tarantino” – as in the maneuver that “kills a bill.” Not sure if I buy it, frankly. And “Tarantino jazz” seems a non-starter.)

The new jazz (whatever we call it) Kneebody plays seems to have little to do with academic, textbook approaches (or at least, transcends mere technical matters) and lots to do with tapping into a dual trajectory of unstoppable innovation and contemporary relevance. In the context of jazz history, the ability to touch both of these poles stands as perhaps the sole, consistently unifying characteristic of all of jazz’s major voices; at least up until the 1980s “media darling” phase, the cobwebs of which mainstream jazz seems just beginning to shake off. (The ascendance of Dave Douglas comes to mind.) Kneebody presents one of the most concrete, distilled representations of this new energy, and their whopping artistic and even commercial success (how many avant-jazz groups have been nominated for a Grammy?) proves that this new thing is connecting with listeners. Let’s talk numbers for a second here, not generally something we get to do in jazz circles: over a four-night residency collaborating with a remarkably diverse array of improvising artists, Kneebody packed in close to 200 PER NIGHT. For a music whose harmonic and rhythmic complexity quite simply has no business attracting those sorts of numbers, not to mention young hipsters with cultural cache (and cash) to burn. Take this photo as my Exhibit A.

So what’s going on? We’ve discussed the idea that people want to feel included in the art of their day, and similar to a few daring and commercially successful classical ensembles, this is where the new jazz stands a chance to compete in the cultural marketplace. That said, I can’t imagine 200 people a night coming out to hear someone regurgitating Bird licks, which remains the primary pedagogical approach toward jazz within the academy. (OK, OK, I’ll stop harping on the schools, I swear. It’s just that I think there could be so much potential in well-funded institutions lighting a fire under this music, while in reality I’ve witnessed attitudes that actually extinguish musical innovation and exuberance.)

To its benefit, there’s something in the new jazz which encourages collaboration across multiple artistic platforms. (I recall learning Indian ragas in improvisation classes with Ralph Alessi, and listening to rapper Ice Cube in the first day of Michael Cain’s graduate jazz history class at Eastman.) Kneebody has tapped into this and embraced it as part of their aesthetic. Each evening of their four-night residency at 45 Bleecker featured a different collaboration with a wide range of artists. I saw the Ives show, but was informed about their Friday night show (featuring skullslappingly virtuosic rapper Busdriver) by a former student of mine who had driven up from Virginia solely to see one of his rapping heroes, who, accordingly to Endsley, “cordially meets us more than halfway on our jazz-nerd turf.” Notably, the exposure to new jazz came to my student as an unexpected bonus, and jazz gained a new fan in that transaction. How many modern jazz groups are collaborating with such a wide and diverse array of creative musicians, regardless of whether their music comes from the so-called “jazz” world? Too often today, jazz musicians play within a cocoon of familiarity, seemingly uninterested in expanding their music beyond the safety of their swing and bebop models, yet jazz, historically the ultimate pluralistic music, must compete within a pluralistic society, and I think modern jazz which draws upon non-jazz sources is a very good thing for all involved. And from a historical perspective, if Charlie Parker can play alongside Stravinky’s Firebird, and Coltrane can fall hard for Indian raga, why would jazz musicians NOT be expanding the parameters of their art beyond the limited scope of bebop and hard bop? Regardless of the milieu, collaboration is (or should be) the very purpose of the artistic transaction – connection, community, co-existence. As an actor and director, I experience this in theater all the time, yet all too often, jazz musicians insist on a stultifyingly insular, navel-gazing musical world for themselves.

Enough jazz politics. What of the music?

What struck me during the Charles Ives set was the ways improvised music might mirror that great universal cacophony which Ives loved, perhaps, to a more precise degree that classical musicians forced to play “the notes on the page” could approach. Apart from its blistering polytonal soundscapes, Ives’s musical aesthetic plays most poignantly with psychological memory and the passage of time. (For Ives uninitiates, a good place to start is “The Unanswered Question,” which superimposes musical statements of “the Silences of the Druids—who Know, See and Hear Nothing” with “The Perennial Question of Existence” and “The Invisible Answer.” Obviously, deeply conceptual stuff, and way ahead of its time in terms of innovation.) Forward-thinking classical musicians and musicologists like myself are drawn to Ives – as Kyle Gann offered, “Like flies to roadkill are the musicologists to Ives” – yet notwithstanding an excellent, largely unheralded recording by the NYC-based, avant-jazz group Sideshow a few years back, instances of jazz musicians covering Ives are rare. Thus, forgive my over-spilling of words on this portion of the evening – hearing Ives alongside the creative music of college friends presented a sort of overload of musical interests for me. If Ives was, as his excellent biographer Jan Swafford contends, “the Walt Whitman of sound,” then certainly his aesthetic could be a natural fit for the free-ranging, Whitman-esque sampling found in modern jazz. But how does it sound?

Bleckman’s set opened with the Ives song “Serenity,” featuring glacially moving, repetitive chordal accompaniment from pianist Adam Benjamin, hewing close to Ives’s original arrangement. Sort of a bold choice to begin the set with such a lugubrious song, but I think it helped the audience to become immediately immersed into Ives’s strange, winter-like sonic landscape. “The Cage” quickly turned funky, transforming Ives’s already serpentine melody into a pseudo Middle-Eastern sounding repetitive groove, assisted by Bleckmann’s use of a filter which doubled his voice a 4th above. Though they never got around to playing the gorgeous early Ives song “Feldeinsamkeit” (it’s on the CD!), they did play “Weil’ auf mir.” This song, written by Ives as a student exercise, allowed Bleckmann to display his mastery of German, one of many indications that this singer’s aesthetics borrow as much from classical training as from jazz. Accompanying Ives’s sinewy melody were the bulbous electric bass tones of Kaveh Rastegar, polytonal insinuations from Shane Endsley’s muted trumpet, and light mallet fills from Wood. Perhaps most “Ives-ian” of any of the pieces was Kneebody’s arrangement of Ives’s hymn-based “Shall We Gather At the River,” where Bleckmann’s use of a processing sampler enabled a stunning reflection of Ives’s fascination with non-linear dreamscapes of memory. Beginning the piece by recording himself singing wordless open vowels, Bleckmann deftly blended the tones through his processor into a polyphonic stew, then continued with the strangely disembodied hymn melody, stark in its simplicity. The musicians picked up with portions of the original Ives accompaniment behind the hymn, and the piece ended with Bleckmann reprising the initial loop (-soup?). Hearing this non-linear, inescapable “playing with memory” within the timeframe of one song in a way allowed the audience to experience time tumbling back upon itself – a perfectly modern microcosm of Ives-ian re-interpretation. Similar to the snakey funk treatment of “The Cage,” Kneebody’s madcap version of “The New River” took advantage of the already modern harmonic implications of Ives’s original piano accompaniment, turning the piece into an exploratory free-jazz romp. (Do take in my shoddy camera work on this one.) Nate Wood’s arrangement of “In the Mornin’” (the only Ives song of the set not included in his infamous 114 Songs) began with Endsley’s imaginative off-stage trumpet soloing, then dropped into a slow, fairly standard pop groove, the ease of which allowed the old “Give Me Jesus” hymn to shine through via Bleckmann’s stellar singing. “The See’r” presented a fun, metrically off-kilter exploration of the range of Bleckmann’s “bag of tricks.” Although a lesser singer might easily allow this to easily slip into gimmickry, Bleckmann’s performance aesthetic is always buttressed by a great musical sensitivity and flexibility. “The Housatonic at Stockbridge” (or, “Who’s a Tonic?” in Bleckmann’s jokey dog voice?!) pushed the boundaries of polytonality in a way the cranky Yankee Ives, who once said “You won’t get a wild, heroic ride to heaven on pretty little sounds!,” might have approved of. (Though the jury’s still out on how much Ives actually fancied the jazz contemporaneous to his own time; musicologist Charles Hiroshi Garrett recently wrote a fascinating study of how Ives borrowed elements of ragtime, while at the same time denigrating the genre in published comments.) Ben Wendel’s arrangement of “Songs My Mother Taught Me” began by superimposing Bleckmann randomly tuning the dial on a small transistor radio to various FM stations (perhaps consciously inviting Ives’s great conceptual heir John Cage to the musical seance?), set over Adam Benjamin’s lullaby-inspired waltz accompaniment. The piece built in intensity by Nate Wood’s propulsive, martial snare drum work in ¾, reminiscent of Ravel’s Bolero (anyone remember this great performance?), later assisted contrapuntally by Shane Endsley on cymbals, and sounding for all the world like a march to the gallows. Bleckmann continued to fiddle with the random sounds of the radio while singing the melody, creating a Ives-ian mélange of R&B wailing, Top 40, talk radio, and I swear at one point a man speaking “the planets are with us.” As an encore, the group played Ives’s “Waltz,” which splattered each and every musical technique we’d heard so far into a grand Charles Ives meets Jackson Pollack, Franz Schubert, Stephen Foster, and Ornette Coleman promenade.

Kneebody continued the second set with original compositions, all impressively memorized and internalized by each member of the group. Packed with dissonances, horns smacking around like snare drums, snare drums smacking around like gunfire, drop-on-a-dime changes of feel, meter, and tempo, all abounding. (More shoddy camera work here.) This ain’t your Grandma’s swing music. Yet again, there’s that connection to modern sensibilities – I might offer that rhythm is jazz’s most outwardly underdeveloped component (notwithstanding innovations in swing feel, etc.) – but modern players like Steve Coleman (certainly a major influence on this group) have stretched the boundaries of the ways music can flow over time, and in this sense, the new jazz shares much with hip hop, arguably the most compelling and dynamic pop music around today from a rhythmic perspective. What’s more, the fresh, easy virtuosity of the sort of improvisation practiced by the Kneebodiers draws listeners in via its very newness; although these players most likely grew up on 1950s-60s era jazz, they’ve transcended those influences to create what is very much music of today, and I think that’s a very appealing characteristic for potential listeners.

Each musician within Kneebody brings a highly distinctive voice to the music, and I’m reminded of the ways musicians trained within the Eastman jazz program were encouraged, above all else, to develop an individual perspective and sound. Shane Endsley’s focused, precise trumpet sound, crinkling and snapping like a rattlesnake opening a bag of chips. Comparisons might be made with the intervallic prowess of fellow trumpeters Booker Little or Woody Shaw, but perhaps even more fruitfully, outside of the realm of trumpet players; the polyrhythmic percussiveness of a drummer like Elvin Jones, translated to the horn, comes to mind. (Endsley also switched off to play some fierce drums during the set.) Birthday boy Ben Wendel’s tenor saxophone shrieks with passion and commitment, sharing much with modern players (Bennie Maupin, perhaps?), his rich harmonic vocabulary extending throughout all ranges of the horn. Nate Wood bringing the thunder on the drums, dropping metronomic landmines, rhythmic complexity like dropping a bag of marbles on a porcelain counter. Adam Benjamin’s keyboard playing, groovy and supple, in-the-pocket bursts of smooth energy, extending the vocabulary of Herbie Hancock’s 1970s-era funk. And blogging. (Do check out his legendary, hilarious, tongue-in-cheek standards record, a bullet aimed directly at the hearts of anyone who would dare take this music too seriously.) And finally, Kaveh Rastegar’s unusually prominent electric bass, providing a rudder to the ship, kinetic authority and a deeply felt presence throughout all phases of the music.

As should be expected, the new jazz makes new demands on listeners, yet a distinct, perhaps richer way of hearing and experiencing music is beneficial for both the future of the music and for audiences who (whether consciously or not) actually do want to be challenged. One friend of the acquaintance I brought to the show said that initially she hadn’t wanted to come to the show, which had been billed to her as “experimental” jazz, yet she enthusiastically mentioned she wasn’t finding any of the music “experimental” – which, of course, it unquestionably was! Cloaking this experimentalism amidst forward propelling grooves, rock-solid ensemble lines, and virtuosic, daring improvisation seems to provide an anchor which allows non-specialists to groove right along. Dig?

Phew, long entry. But lots to say. We’re almost done.

Finally, kudos to Nate Chinen of the New York Times for coming out to hear some of this music, and writing about it. And to TimeOut NY. If this music is to prosper, it will need not only institutional support (which if major outlets like Lincoln Center are any indication, tend to be years behind the artistic curve) but mainstream media coverage as well. Kudos to Kneebody for helping to point the way toward an unlimited, thrilling future for this music we all love so dearly. And finally, kudos to you, gentle reader, for reading this far. I imagine you might be the only one?

OBAMA’S PERFORMANCE?
Let’s discuss what one commenter called “the extremely dismal performance of the Obama administration to date.” But here’s some context: President Obama, who was elected on a platform of change, hope, and vision, has had literally every major agenda point which he ran on, which most Americans supported to an overwhelming degree, deliberately stymied by anti-American, lowest-common-denominator Republicans who spread fear and lies to obstruct the goals of this administration. Let’s remember, Repubs have no vision of their own to pursue – their sole motivation and marching orders are to BRING THIS MAN DOWN. Whatever Obama says, they will oppose. (Many of them don’t even believe he’s actually an American!) This is their only plan right now, because a strategy of turning the country against Obama (which obviously is working) is the only thing which will lead to them regaining the White House. Which obviously is their end goal. Republicans have zero interest in “progress” or “change” or any other wimpy liberal catch-phrases. SO… trying to engage and mollify them (i.e. what Obama has been doing) is a zero-sum game… these people just aren’t interested.

A LOSING STRATEGY…
Sadly, this single-minded, obstructionist strategy has worked, is working, and will continue to work. With no strong motions coming out of the White House to counteract conservative rhetoric, we’re witnessing a tremendous shift in public attitudes toward Obama, who has committed a tactical mistake which he absolutely could have avoided. Unlike his predecessor, Obama does listen to those with alternate viewpoints, however rather than proceed forward with strength (like GWB) on the agenda which he was elected to enact, he’s made the crucial error of trying to appease these people. (Remember, people who are not interested in being appeased!) Which is why we’re ending up with a healthcare plan which isn’t worth the paper its printed on, tied up with bows and ribbons to the insurance companies. Obama – or perhaps more accurately, weak-kneed, apologetic Congressional Democrats – have had to make so many concessions to the minority party (whose know-nothing agenda during the Bush admin directly caused the state of the job market and current economy), that the hope and vision he once promised now seems unreachable. And make no mistake, this is a direct result of Republican intervention and the spreading of fear and lies, and it’s the most anti-American, anti-progress agenda I’ve ever witnessed.

GREAT ARTISTS DON’T BORROW, THEY STEAL.
What Obama needs to do is learn from GWB. To realize that when it comes to implementing large-scale policy, catering to the other perspective doesn’t help – it just gets in the way. (In Bush’s case, these policies were evil, e.g. invading a country preemptively; in Obama’s case the policies are more along the lines of “what can we do to help Americans who can’t get a break?” Which conservatives have been very successful at contorting into some sort of evil, foreign brand of Socialism.) Obama needs to say “Don’t like it, conservatives? Fuck off. You guys messed things up beyond belief, and now it’s our turn.” But going halfsies on this doesn’t work; Obama just looks like a waffler who can’t back up his vision with rhetorical leadership.

If Obama weren’t doing so much appeasing, we might begin to recognize the guy so many of us worked so hard for during the campaign. Did GWB ask permission of the liberals when he marched off to war? No, he fucking DID it, and the country followed. Clearly GWB was misguided, ignorant, and evil, but he knew how to lead with strength, and Obama desperately needs to heed this lesson. I appreciate that Obama is trying to appeal to Republican citizens; it’s admirable and obviously his political gregariousness was one of the things that many of us found most appealing about him. But Obama is losing the war of rhetoric, in inexorable, catastrophic fashion. And time is running out. The end result of this (after the inevitable blowback of the swiftly approaching midterms) is that Obama will not be re-elected, and all of that “hope and change” stuff is going to be shuffed off as impossible idealism – unless our president starts making some bold moves, and soon. Right now he’s coming off as Republican-lite, and this is shocking to those of us who believed he would do what he promised to do.

On a related note, my friend Jen passed on this excellent clip of Rachel Maddow and Michael Beschloss discussing Obama’s first year. I used to watch Rachel every night, before my free MSNBC tragically went away with the digital transition. (Still get dumbass Fox though.)

And finally, if you haven’t read Arianna Huffington’s MASTERLY article (“Hope” Has Been a Bust, It’s Time For Hope 2.0), you MUST read it. I label very few things as “essential” reading, but this absolutely qualifies. Cheers, all.

Dan McCool will be making a 400-mile round trip journey to vote for Martha Coakley in Massachusetts on Tuesday. This is not merely a vote for Coakley, or for the Democratic Party, or for Massachusetts, but for my country, for Ted Kennedy’s legacy as a ferocious defender of progress, justice, and equality for half a century, and for my president, whose promise of change will take more than a year to institute after the horrific policies of the last decade. This is not the perfect candidate. But politics is the art of the possible and it is possible right now to make a difference in people’s lives by allowing Obama to do the hard work he pledged to do during his campaign. Brown has pledged to filibuster the health care bill and will be THE deciding vote in the Senate, thereby killing any possibility of reform. We have a long history in this country of countless political figures espousing faux populism for the sake of maintaining the status quo. Don’t believe Brown when he cynically spouts “it’s us against the machine” as if he’s Zack de la Rocha. If he wins on Tuesday, make no mistake, tens of millions of Americans will continue to be denied medical and mental care in the most powerful country in the the world, which is embarrassing as an American. Don’t let your impatience get the better of you. The bill is not perfect, but the arguments you are now hearing against it are the same ones that were made against public schools, child labor laws, social security, Medicare, and a host of other programs that aren’t perfect either, but which have undoubtably advanced the lives in some way of you, your parents, your grandparents, and your friends. If you have a few minutes before Tuesday and you care about slowly eradicating the damage done by the Bush years, if you care about progress, if you recognize that lasting change that benefits the lives of millions requires hard, grueling, incremental steps, please do your part and make some calls. I’ll be doing the same. Get out and vote in Massachusetts Tuesday and bring some friends to vote too. Let’s stop whining about her campaign and get to work:

http://www.marthacoakley.com/get_involved/Neighbor-to-Neighbor