Jazz at Netflix

I have been listening to a lot of Jazz now for a couple of years. Beyond my own collection, I hear great Jazz at WBGO, Jazz 88, Newark, NJ and WPRB, Public Radio in Princeton, NJ. What a joy it is now to be able to see some of my favorite artists in concert. The source of a lot of what I can find to view is Netflix, the video rental giant.

Here is a list of really good videos.

Al DiMeola “Live at Montreux 1986-1993″. Al DiMeola is wonderful on both acoustic and electric guitar.
Al DiMeola “One of These Nights”, recorded in Ludwigsburg, Germany, with a kick-ass band.

Calle 54 which means 54th St, is a wonderful exploration of Latin Jazz. It includes performances by sax player Gato Barbieri, Jerry Gonzalez, trumpet and fluglehorn, and his Fort Apache Band, Paquito D’Rivera, sax and clarinet, pianist Eliane Elias, Flamenco pianist Chano Dominguez, father Bebo and son Chucho Valdez both pianists, pianist Michel Camillo. So, lots of piano. This disc also includes “Side B”, a separate video in which the players are seen more in a documentary style. In this video, we learn the history of Latin Jazz and many of African and Carribean origins of the different rhythms are explained.

Charlie Haden and the Liberation Music Orchestra at the Festival International De Jazz De Montreal. Charlie Haden actually began as a bass player in Country music. But he is one of the most important Jazz bassists. He spent time with Ornette Coleman. He was part of Keith Jarrett’s American Quartet with Paul Motian and Dewey Redman.

Clark Terry Quintet at the St Lucia Jazz Festival. Trumpeter Clark Terry is just a joy to watch and to hear. Clark Terry has devoted a great deal of time to music education for young school age hopefuls.

Gato Barbieri:Live from the Latin Quarter. Ageless. That is all I can say about this wonderful sax player, so important in the world of Latin Jazz.

World of Rhythm:Live. This is a concert performance by the one and only Herbie Hancock, with bassist Ron Carter and drummer Billy Cobham. This will put a smile on your face, just watching and hearing these three giants of Jazz.

Keith Jarrett: The Art of Improvisation. This is a wonderful documentary with lots of concert footage and good commentary. We see the Standards Trio, The American Quartet, The European Quartet, and a bit of Keith playing with Miles Davis. Keith speaks of not only improvisation but also about his life in general, and his bout of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. There is possibly the only footage of his concert in Japan with Chick Corea in the Mozart Double Concerto.

There are a number of videos of the Modern Jazz Quartet. I have not gotten to them yet, but they are on my list.

One Night with Bluenote: the All-Star Reunion Concert. This video comes from a 1985 Town Hall concert celebrating the resurrection of the Bluenote jazz label. The players include Freddie Hubbard, Joe Henderson, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Tony Williams, Grady Tate, Reggie Workman, Johnny Griffin, Art Blakey, McCoy Tyner, Jackie McLean, Jack DeJohnette, Jimmy Smith, Stanley Turrentine and Cecil Taylor. What an outstanding collection on one stage – of course not all at the same time. These are just some of the people who made Bluenote so important in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Many of them were then involved in the rebuilding of this legendary label under the umbrella of EMI Music.

Sonny Rollins: Saxophone Colossus. This is a documentary about the great sax player with a great deal of performance footage. There is commentary from three important Jazz critics.It includes what seems to be the only record of his “Concerto for Saxophone and Orchestra”.

Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser. There is no more mysterious figure in the history of Jazz than Monk. This film is a 1968 documentary which should not be missed.

This is just the stuff I have already seen, except the MJQ. While all of these videos are available on DVD disc, some can be viewed on the computer, some can be streamed direct to the big screen TV via the Roku box.

Leonard Cohen anyone? You bet.

This post has taken some time to develop. I have been immersing myself in Cohen’s music for about three weeks. Of course, I do not miss Nadia Sirota’s new gig at WQXR’s Q2; Dan Buskirk and Will Constantine spinning Jazz at WPRB; or Marvin Rosen’s “Classical Discoveries” and “Classical Discoveries Goes Avantgarde”, also at WPRB. But, beyond these, it has been pretty much Leonard Cohen steadily.

The genesis of this post was the NPR presentation of the 2009 Leonard Cohen concert at the Beacon Theater in New York City. Unfortunately, NPR has not renewed the rights to keep the audio of this concert available in their archives.

As an aside, I believe that NPR is not nearly proactive enough in keeping some archival material available. I wanted to begin listening to the NPR archives of the stellar Marian McPartland “Piano Jazz” series. I found that some of what I most wanted to hear was no longer available. I believe that this is short sighted on the part of NPR.

But, the text article about Leonard Cohen is still available at NPR and it is worth reading. There is also a very good article about Leonard Cohen in Wikipedia. I am not going to repeat what is there. For anyone seriously interested, I recommend this well constructed biography.

All I really knew of Leonard Cohen was his song “Suzanne”, on the 1968 album “The Songs of Leonard Cohen”. But listening to the concert on NPR stimulated my interest. Cohen was 74 years old at the time of this concert. His voice, deepened with age, is actually more interesting than what we hear on the early albums, from 1968 through 1979. The early voice is sweet, winsome, and somewhat fragile. There is greater depth beginning with the 1985 album “Various Positions”.

Also, when one listens down through the early albums, the songs begin to take on a sameness that can get boring. Part of this might be Cohen’s parallel career as a writer of poetry and fiction. Sometimes, a wordsmith can fall in love with his own creations. Often, what works as a poem does not work in a song.

Somewhere, I cannot any longer find it, Cohen was described as a reaction to the Beatles’ amped up musical productions. I see him as rather a sort of reaction to Bob Dylan. Both Cohen and Dylan are first and foremost lyricists. Where Dylan’s lyrics are topical, political and complex, Cohen’s are personal, deeply emotional and quite simple.

Cohen is often placed in the genre of folk music. I do not think that this does him justice. I see him as a singer-songwriter, a troubadour. Cohen writes about the whole spectrum of human emotion, love, hate, sadness, loss, depression, the end of life.

As Cohen recorded more material in his career, more instrumentation replaced the solo performances as I show below my present collection. I think that my collection is close to complete.

After the NPR concert, my next experience was with the 2008 “Live in London” concert. The video was presented at some point on PBS. I caught a late night repeat by New Jersey Network. Of course, this presentation is not anywhere close to the complete concert. I now own the complete 2’36” concert. The PBS presentation was 1’30”, and some of that was taken up with pitching.

A second aside: PBS stations are constantly hauling out musical concerts at pledge time. They tell us they are the place for us to come for this music, that they support this music, egad, they are insufferable. They practically never give us a complete concert. They want us to join and give them gobs of money and in return they will send us the CD’s, the DVD, a combo package, whatever. In this case, here is part of what NJN offered: The DVD of the concert for US$70.00. The two-disc CD set for US$90.00. Now, really, what would you want? They both contain the identical 26 songs. More to the point, you can buy the DVD for US$18.93, and the two-disc CD set for US$13.99. You can buy the .mp3 album of both CD’s for US$14.99, so NJN could have bought the materials at Amazon and used them for fulfillment and still turned a tidy profit.

I do not mean to pick on little NJN. They are just this most recent case and involved in the music and the artist which and who are the subject here. WLIW, and its parent WNET, much larger than NJN, are just as guilty of this, sorry, just my opinion, this scam.

I heartily recommend the music of Leonard Cohen. And, I recommend all of it. The way I do this is to get the music in .mp3 and put it on my Zune. I chronologize the music by placing the year of issue ahead of the title of the album. Then, I listen down through a cycle on my exercise walks, plane trips, visits to the dentist, wherever. Regarding the “Live in London” concert, I recommend both the DVD and the album in .mp3. The band, shown below, is really worth watching, especially Javier Mas on a series of twelve-string acoustic instruments.

Here is my collection, complete with personnel:
1968 The Songs of Leonard Cohen

Solo performance

1968 Songs From a Room

Leonard Cohen, Ron Cornelius guitar, Bubba Fowler bass, banjo, violin, guitar, Charlie Daniels bass, violin, accoustic guitar, Bob Johnston keyboards

1971 Songs of Love and Hate

Leonard Cohen (vocals, acoustic guitar);Ron Cornelius (acoustic guitar, electric guitar);Bubba Fowler (acoustic guitar, banjo, bass instrument);Charlie Daniels (acoustic guitar, fiddle, bass instrument);Bob Johnston (piano);Carolyn Hanney, Susan Mussmano (background vocals).

1973 Live Songs

Leonard Cohen, Jennifer Warren, Charlie Daniels and unnamed others

1974 New Skin for the Old Ceremony

Leonard Cohen (vocals, guitar, harp, Jew’s harp);Leonard Cohen (acoustic guitar);John Lissauer (vocals, woodwinds, keyboards, background vocals);Emily Bindiger, Janis Ian (vocals, background vocals);Erin Dickins, Gail Kantor, Gail Kantor (vocals);Jeff Layton (guitar, banjo, mandolin, trumpet);Ralph Gibson, Ralph Gibson (guitar);Gerald Chamberlain, Gerald Chamberlain (trombone);John Miller , Don Paune bass.

1977 Death Of A Ladies’ Man

Leonard Cohen (vocals); Clydie King, Gerald Garrett, Oma Drake, Julia Tillman Waters, Billy Diez, Lorna Willard, Ronee Blakley, Venetta Fields, Bob Dylan, Brenda Bryant (vocals, background vocals); Sneaky Pete Kleinow (guitar, slide guitar); Dan Kessel (guitar, organ, keyboards, synthesizer, background vocals); Phil Spector (guitar, keyboards, background vocals); David Kessel (guitar, background vocals); Art Munson, Art Blaine, David Isaac, Jesse Ed Davis , Ray Pohlman (guitar); Al Perkins (slide guitar); Bobby Bruce (violin, fiddle); Don Menza, Steve Douglas (flute, saxophone, wind); Jay Migliori (saxophone); Conte Candoli (trumpet); Jack Redman, Charles Loper, Jack Redmond (trombone); Don Randi, Michael Lang , Mike Lang, Mike Long, Pete Jolly, Tom Hensley, Barry Goldberg , Bill Mays (keyboards); Devra Robitaille, Bob Robitaille (synthesizer); Terry Gibbs (vibraphone, percussion); Ray Neapolitan (upright bass, electric bass); Hal Blaine, Jim Keltner (drums); Emil Radocchia, Gene Estes, Robert Zimmitti (percussion); Sherlie Matthews, Gerry Garrett, Allen Ginsberg, Oren Waters, Bill Thedford, Julia Tillman (background vocals).

1979 Recent Songs

Leonard Cohen (vocals); Julia Tillman Waters, Roger St Kennerly, Jennifer Warnes, Jim Gilstrap, Maxine Willard Waters, Stephanie Spruill (vocals); Ricardo Gonzalez, Everado Sandoval, John Bilezikjian, Mitch Watkins (guitar); Earl Dumler (oboe); Paul Ostermayer (saxophone); Jose Perez, Pablo Sandoval (trumpet); Garth Hudson, John Lissauer, Randy Waldman, Bill Ginn (keyboards); Steve Meador (drums).

1985 Various Positions

Leonard Cohen (vocals, guitar); Jennifer Warnes (vocals); Sid McGinnis (guitar); Kenneth Kosek (fiddle); Ron Getman (harmonica, background vocals); John Lissauer (piano, keyboards, background vocals); John Crowder (bass, background vocals); Richard Crooks (drums); Lani Groves, Erin Dickins, Merle Miller, Yvonne Lewis, Anjani Thomas, Crissie Faith (background vocals).

1988 I’m Your Man

Leonard Cohen (vocals, arranger, various instruments); Anjani, Jennifer Warnes, Evelyine Hebey, Mayel Assouly, Elisabeth Valletti, Jude Johnstone (vocals); Jean-Philippe Rykiel, Jeff Fisher (arrangers, various instruments); Michel Robidoux (arranger, keyboards, drums); Roscoe Beck (arranger); Bob Stanley (guitar); Sneaky Pete Kleinow (steel guitar); John Bilezikjian (oud); Raffi Hakopian (violin); Richard Baudet (saxophone); Larry Cohen (keyboards); Peter Kisilenko (bass); Vinnie Colaiuta, Tom Brechtlein (drums); Lenny Castro (percussion).

1992 The Future

Leonard Cohen (vocals); Dean Parks (guitar, mandolin); Bob Metzger (guitar, bass); Paul Jackson Jr., Dennis Herring (guitar); Bob Furgo (violin); Brandon Fields, Lon Price (tenor saxophone); Greg Smith (baritone saxophone); Lee R. Thronburg (trumpet, trombone); Steve Lindsey (piano, organ, Mellotron, keyboards); Jim Cox, Greg Phillinganes (piano); Randy Kerber (keyboards, synthesizer); Jeff Fisher (keyboards); Bob Glaub, Lee Sklar (bass); James Gadson, Ed Greene, Steve Meador, Vinnie Colaiuta (drums); Lenny Castro (percussion); Bill Ginn, Steve Croes (programming); Anjani Thomas, Tony Warren, Valerie Pinkston-Mayo, LA Mass Choir, Peggy Blue, Edna Wright, Jean Johnson, Jacquelyn Gouche-Farris, David Morgan (background vocals).

2001 Ten New Songs

Leonard Cohen (vocals); Sharon Robinson (vocals, keyboards, synthesizer, programming); Bob Metzger (guitar).

2004 Dear Heather

Leonard Cohen (vocals, guitar, Jew’s harp); Leonard Cohen (piano); Sharon Robinson (vocals, various instruments); John Crowder (vocals, bass guitar); Raffi Hakopian, Raffi Hakopian (violin); Paul Ostermayer, Paul Ostermayer (flute); Sarah Kramer, Sarah Kramer (trumpet); Roscoe Beck (bass instrument); Stan Sargeant (bass guitar); Johnny Friday, Johnny Friday (drums); Mitch Watkins (vocals, guitar, electric guitar); Ron Getman (vocals, steel guitar); Anjani Thomas (vocals, piano, background vocals); John Bilezikjian (oud); Garth Hudson (accordion); Bob Sheppard (tenor saxophone); Bill Ginn (piano); Richard Crooks (drums).

2008 Live in London

Leonard Cohen (vocals, guitar, keyboards); Bob Metzger (guitar, pedal steel guitar); Charley Webb, Charles Webb (guitar, background vocals); Javier Mas (12-string guitar, bandurria, lute, archlute); Javier Más (12-string guitar, bandurria, archlute); Hattie Webb, Hattie Webb (harp, background vocals); Dino Soldo (harmonica, keyboards, wind, background vocals); Neil Larsen (keyboards); Roscoe Beck (upright bass, electric bass, background vocals); Rafael Gayol (drums, percussion); Sharon Robinson (background vocals).

Jazz is Dying? Not at WPRB, Princeton

So, there is all of this dire stuff about Jazz just shrinking away. Nonsense.

at WPRB, Princeton, NJ, I just discovered another really great Jazz program. On Wednesdays from 1:00PM-3:00Pm, Lemmy Caution has Jazz Planets and I love what he is doing.

Of course, WPRB has for a long time had great Jazz with Dan Buskirk Mondays, Emmanuel Ferritis Tuesdays and Will Constantine Thursdays all from 11:00AM-1:00PM, and Jeannie Becker on Sundays 10:00AM-12:00PM.

Lemmy’s program started last September, and it is my loss that I just caught up with it.

Nadia Sirota on Q2 every weekday 12:00-4:00 AM and PM

I am supposed to be working, but this would just not wait. Nadia Sirota, the wonderful new violist on the New York City New Music scene, and a member of the group Acme will be hosting on the New WQXR’s 24/7 eclectic web stream Q2, every week day from 12:00-4:00 AM and PM.

Nadia is the best thing to happen to serious music radio in New York City in a long long time. She was very involved in WNYC’s John Cage project, and also the recent Q2 project “Maximum Reich: A Celebration of Steve Reich”

Nadia is capable of mixing the new with the old. We will hear plenty of both.

Classical Boston’s Little Secret

On December 19, 2009, I posted about the differences and similarities of the WQXR takeover by WNYC and the WGBH takeover of WCRB.

The subject of the events in Boston has been covered in a variety of places: Scanning the Dial, boston.com, and Doc Searle to mention the most salient.

The debate about the events in Boston have been characterized by some of the negativity which we have experienced in New York. But one place where there has been no discussion is on the web site of WGBH. At WQXR’s web site, we have the advantage of “blogs” in which we can vent our spleens and insult each other. Instead, the Boston thing is being thrashed out at the sites listed above, and on some forums like The Good Sound Club and Hub Arts.

In both Boston and New York, there have been many complaints about the diminished range of the transmitters. This is a serious problem. Listeners, and probably members, are being lost. Suggestions about listening on the computer have been dismissed by many.

But, here is the topic that is most important to me and no one seems to be even aware of it.

Of the ten on air hosts that one finds on the weekly schedule, fully seven of the hosts are actually Minnesota Public Radio people. You can find them listed at Classical24’s web site, just click on Host biographies.

So, what this means is that the Classical music listenership and membership in Boston, one of the great cultural meccas of the world, is being fed the pabulum of Classical 24, a subscription service (read “rental”) offered by Minnesota Public Radio. One noted Classical music critic described services such as Classical 24 as “musical wallpaper” designed not to intrude.

At Scanning the Dial, Marty Ronish posted about a meeting to discuss the whole situation. Checkout Marty’s post. I really like the line about “a Minneapolis syndicate”. Sounds sort of like The Mob.

I am very thankful that things have not come to this in New York at WQXR. I hope that we can stay afloat without recourse to such happenings. I think that the listeners and members in Boston deserve better.

Christmas Eve at Farley’s Bookshop

Last night, we made our annual Christmas Eve pilgrimage to Farley’s Bookshop in Hew Hope, PA. We have been doing this now for about fifteen years. On Christmas Eve, I need to say hello to Jim Farley, the proprietor.

Farley’s is the best book store I have ever visited.

On Christmas Eve, Farley’s is open late and is festive. There are always quite a few of Jim’s regulars there. We might be classed as the irregulars.

Years ago, I started buying the works of John McPhee there, because Jim had his books on the shelf. Any other book store I visited looking for this author would tell me they could order up what I wanted.

When I began studying Western Theology and Mysticism, Farley’s was the shop with the widest variety of the most important books in print.

These days, I am buying books on Classical music and Jazz. Again, Farley’s is the right place to go.

Jim Farley has an engaging personality. He dreams of far away places and the finer aspects of a well lived life. But he knows that his heart is and always will be in New Hope.

I hope that Jim has an alert set and might see this post.

THIS IS A TEST

Well, I was not going to do this, but I see that Peter Hum’s Jazzblog.ca did it.

Probably not for the same reason.

I need to run a test. I need to see how long this post is going to take to get on my Facebook page. WordPress has not seen fit to give us a simple Facebook application like so many other sites. WordPress has several procedures for the owner of the weblog to put a Facebook thingy on the page. But they are all pretty technical. I write about PubRadio, Classical music, and Jazz. I do not do really technical stuff.

WordPress is free. So are all of the other pages where the owners have seen fit to use the power of Facebook to spread their gospels by making it easy for us to get their stuff on our Facebook pages.

Just today, Innova.mu put a notice in their Google Group that we could link to them so that their news would get out. Previously, when I got news of a release by an Innova artist, I would have to do it myself.

WBGO also set up a similar thing.

All kinds of my RSS feeds on news, tech, Jazz, computing, and Classical music have Facebook or “Share” blocks that contain Facebook as a choice.

Even World Community Grid has come up with a Facebook link.

This is not a WordPress problem as such. One of the procedures that gave us, putting a feed link into our Settings, does work. But it takes forever.

So, now let’s see what happens…
WordPress could help us out with a real Facebook application.

Paul Winter Consort – Winter Solstice 2009 Concert is now available for listening.

This concert is given annually in New York City at The Cathedral of St John the Divine. This is the 29th year of this festival of international sound, a reunion for many of Paul Winter’s musical associates.

The host, as usual, is none other than John Schaefer of WNYC New York Public Radio, where he hosts New Sounds and Soundcheck

Give yourself a treat and listen to the two parts of this concert.

Boston and New York

Recently in Boston, WGBH took over the operations of WCRB, a commercial Classical Music station and shipped off to this outlet all of its musical programming.

At first blush, this looks like a repeat of what has recently happened in New York City. WNYC purchased the operations of WQXR. To recap events in New York City, while certain music related programming like Soundcheck and New Sounds have remained at WNYC 93.9 FM and the 93.9 web stream, music qua music is aired at WQXR FM 105.9 and the 105.9 128kbit web stream. WNYC2, the 24/7 music web stream, has become Q2, streaming at 128kbit stereo, and has remained as eclectic as was WNYC2.

Back to Boston. First, I cannot even find a link for WCRB, everything I try, including a search, brings me back to WGBH. Maybe someone can correct me on this, and give me a link to WCRB.

Second, while we at WNYC/WQXR are able to express our opinions in comment pages provided by parent WNYC, I found no such facilitiy at the WBGH web site. Searching for comments on the changes in Boston, I wound up at boston.com, a service of the Boston Globe newspaper. I found nothing at WGBH. Maybe someone can point out the error in my search.

At another weblog, someone wrote that the citizenry in Boston appeared to be less irritated than the citizenry of New York City. But that is not how the comments at the Boston.com article seemed to me. They were in the main negative, but, I must admit, without the vitriol of the comments I have read at WQXR.

What needs to be understood is that these two situations are but the tip of the iceberg, examples in cities big enough to draw a crowd. This shipping off of Classical music programming to HD radio (for cars?) and the internet (generally the same stream as HD radio) is going on all over the country because of reduced listenership at commercial stations, reduced membership at PubRadio outlets, just an overall diminution of availability for a variety of reasons. A great place to read about this is in the archives at a great weblog, Scanning the Dial. There is nothing new in the Boston or New York situations.

I am a Public Radio zealot, WNYC fanatic, and now a WQXR cheerleader. I think that we in New York City, and I have to say also, the Classical music listeners in Boston, are fortunate that our local institutions, WNYC and WBGH, have found ways to keep Classical music on FM. This is the hard choice, the choice which may or may not pay for itself. The easy choice, taken by so many of the outlets discussed over the passed year at Scanning the Dial, is the internet, with its obvious limitations of tethering to the house or office.

I think that WQXR will be okay, and I certainly hope the same is true for WCRB.

Search for Internet Radio Streaming Music

Public Radio Program Directors Association presents a web site by which you can search for music being streamed on line in a variety of ways: Composer, genre, stations. Check it out.

http://radiotuna.com/