A Great Sunday Morning at WPRB

What a terrific surprise!! Marvin Rosen substituting for the regular host, Jeannie Becker (?) and doing a Jazz program.

This is great listening. I would encourage Marvin to bring out some of these other sides of himself to the weekday audience. While Marvin is today featuring Jazz for Poland, I know he is very widely erudite in American Jazz of all periods. By the way, if Marvin chose to do a program of early Rock and Roll, it would really be a sensation. Marvin Rosen is just plain Mister Music. We are lucky to have him.

Marvin’s regular programs, “Classical Discoveries” and “Classical Discoveries Goes Avantgarde” can be heard on WPRB on Wednesday mornings. Be there, Aloha.

Invitation to the Ghost

This is an invitation to the ghost of the old wnyc and wqxr to come here and comment to me directly his concerns about my posts at the “blogs” provided by WQXR .

You will see the reply button in the upper right hand portion of the weblog template.

I hope to hear from the ghost.

The Digiteria Gets a Makeover

Last Saturday it was rainy. So, no cycling. Leaves pretty much down, so no hiking. So, I decided to head for the cellar and see if I could get rid of junk. We really do not have any junk anymore. I visit the cellar regularly for this purpose.

But, I did cast my eye on two tables for which I have yearned for quite some time. I decided that the time had come to get these two tables up to the second floor and into the Digiteria. The tables are too heavy for me at my advanced age. I got a couple of friendly neighbors to help.

So, how does this fit in with the core theme of this weblog? Only tangentially. One needs to be happy with a room if one spends a lot of time in it trying to be creative. That’s the connection.

The problem with the old tables was that they had bracing underneath which precluded any drawers. So, with no storage, the place was generally a mess. The brackets came up from the legs to the top at an angle. So, here are the results:

So, the tables were in the cellar; the large white open cubes, one under each table, were from my daughter’s room. The vertically stacked drawer/shelf combos to the left under the netbook were also from my daughter’s room. Even the white shelf on the cube under the dask table was cut from a shelf from our old kitchen.

The only money I spent was for the two sets of drawers under the desk table. I was surprised that I could not find anything like them in Staples or Office Depot. They are from Ikea.

I am extremely pleased with the results.

The weblog in Facebook?

Over at WordPress, I found a script to put my new weblog entries into Facebook. So, the original registration put in the last post. Now, this is just a test to see if it works on any new post or posts.

Conundrum – Who is responsible for genres at Amazon on .mp3 albums?

Let me say at the outset, I love Amazon’s .mp3 “store”. My purchases there run something over I think ten pages, artists like Harry Partch, Conlon Nancarrow, and the two discussed below, and everything in between. I am also an Amazon stockholder.

Some time ago, I purchased an .mp3 album, First Things First by Nadia Sirota, a phenom young violist, on New Amsterdam

This is solo viola, best classified as Classical. But it was classified as “Alternative Rock”.

About this error, New Amsterdam said,

“From: Judd Greenstein [mailto:judd@juddgreenstein.com]
Sent: Tuesday, May 26, 2009 3:17 PM
To: mitrich@optonline.net
Subject: Re: Nadia Sirota “First Things First”
Hi Richard,
We didn’t make that assignment. It should have been listed as classical (obviously).
Thanks for bringing this to our attention and we’ll see what we can do.
Judd”

Now, recently, I purchased another .mp3 album, Monkey King by Barry Schrader, on Innova

This album might best have been classified as electronic, maybe ambient. But it was classified as something like DJ Dance.

About this error, Innova said,

“From: Chris Campbell [mailto:ccampbell@composersforum.org]
Sent: Thursday, October 08, 2009 9:56 AM
To: Richard Mitnick
Subject: [Monkey King] [subject edited, was "Re: Naxos]

Ah man.
I’ll Iook into the Schrader stuff and thanks for buying it. I hope you dig it.
Thanks very much Richard.
Best to you,
Chris Campbell
Operations Manager
innova recordings
innova.mu

In an email to another artist, I commented about the problem with Nadia’s album, laying the blame at the door of New Amsterdam. This artist came back and said,

“dear richard mitnick -
as someone who has had many running (and never resolved) problems with amazon I wouldn’t be too hard on new amsterdam….”

So, I went to Amazon with the question, who is responsible for genre classifications?

Their first reply was insufficient:

“Hello,

Thanks for letting us know about the error in the genres listed in the detail page for “Monkey King”, “First Things First.” We use many sources to build our website information, and we really appreciate knowing about any errors which find their way into our catalog. I’ll notify our catalog team about this and will ask them to correct the error….”

So I went back:

CUSTOMER: Richard Mitnick
COMM ID:yguaderg3479643228
EMAIL: mitrich@optonline.net
COMMENTS: I received an inadequate reply to a complaint.

“Here, again, is my question:
Your Name:Richard S. Mitnick
Comments:I purchased mp3 albums by two artists. In both cases, the genres were very incorrect. I contacted the artists, who said they had no input in naming the genre. I contacted the producers of the music, who again said, not their call. That leaves, I believe, only Amazon.
The artists and albums were:
Nadia Sirota, “First Things First”, New Amsterdam, the genre given on the download was alt rock. The correct genre is classical.
Barry Schrader, “Monkey King”, The genre given was something like “DJ Dance”. The correct genre would have been either electronic or ambient.
A third composer, when I mentioned the New Amsterdam thing to him, commented that he had “Had trouble in this area with Amazon in the past”, but did not give me specifics of his problem.
I have purchased a fair amount of mp3 downloads from Amazon. I have had very little trouble. But this kind of thing should not be happening.
I will be discussing this situation in my weblog “Whither Public Radio and serious music” at http://richardmitnick.wordpress.com. I will be writing by the end of the week. I certainly could not accuse Amazon of any impropriety, and I would not – hey, I am a stockholder. But I certainly will raise the question.
So, I would like a response from Amazon on this two specific albums and this whole question of assigning genres.
Thanks….”

And, finally their just received reply:

“Hello,
The content available in our Amazon MP3 Store is provided by record labels and their distributors. The agreements to provide this content were arranged with these companies. Any questions you have regarding content should be directed to the record label or distributor.
Thank you for your interest in Amazon MP3 Music Downloads.
Please let us know if this e-mail resolved your question:..”

So, what are we to think? It would seem to me that certainly the information should come from the record label. But I have the highest respect for the artist who said that I should not be too hard on New Amsterdam. I mean, you know, I have a great deal of respect for all of these organizations. New Amsterdam is an important part of the ‘New Music” scene, Innova is a huge resource for young artists and composers, and Amazon has been a wonderful provider of .mp3 albums, everything from the Partch and Nancarrow to Nadia and Barry.

I think that the only conclusion I can reach is to not take at face value what I see listed as a genre on a download, regardless of the source. Maybe the best thing would be to make this a really big problem by buying lots of new and wonderful music from New Music composers, especially on the Innova, New Amsterdam and Bang On A Can labels. Especially are they bringing to the public what will hopefully become the Classical Music of tomorrow.

What’s the deal with Gustav Mahler?

I don’t get it. Mahler is one of the most popular composers with the WQXR audience and with the New York Philharmonic audience. I do not understand it.

10.17.09 This post will be a running journal of my time spent with the Mahler symphonies.

I note at the outset, I have zero musical training, not even music appreciation courses. I had my father’s introduction to Classical music; back in the 1960’s, I had Sid Mark and Joel Dorn at WHAT Jazz in Philadelphia.

Today, I have John Schaefer, David Garland, Terrance McKnight and Nadia Sirota for classical teachers at the new WQXR, and for Jazz I have Dan Buskirk and Will Constantine at WPRB, Princeton, NJ. For Jazz I also have everyone at WBGO, Jazz 88, Newark, NJ. And, especially these days for New Music, Marvin Rosen, also at WPRB.

When I want to immerse myself in some composer’s music, I put it in some order in my Zune software, and then sync it to one of my four 120 gig Zune .mp3 players. I take the player with me on my exercise walks, on planes, to the dentist, wherever. And I listen down through a cycle. If it is Jazz or Rock, Keith Jarrett or Bob Dylan; if it is Philip Glass, or Steve Reich, then I have them in chronological order by year. I just put the year in front of the album name in the ID-3 tagging in Zune or Windows Media Player. If it is one of the older classical greats, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, or, in this case, Gustav Mahler, then I just put the symphonies and concerti in number order. I also have the album art in Zune, icons do help the memory.

So, I am starting in with the Mahler Symphonies.

So, up to date I am through just the 1st and 2nd symphonies, and one movement of the 3rd. I repeat, I just do not get it. First, for me, too much brash brass carrying the main theme. The strings seem secondary. Too almost militaristic. And, no “hooks”, no melodic themes that just grab at you.

Back in 1993, Stephen Hill at Hearts of Space presented Program No. 332, “Deep Forest: Music of the Rainforest Pygmies”. About this music, he said,

… From sweet child-like solo pieces to angelic group choruses, the Pygmies’ music is intensely melodic and filled with natural hooks….”

Beethoven is full of hooks. So is Tchaikovsky, Edvard Grieg, Philip Glass, Arvo Part. Wagner’s Ring Cycle and Howard Shore’s music for Lord of the Ring – all hooks. From Mahler I remember nothing. When my friend and I are in the car on the way to go cycling or hiking, we listen – in his car – to Classical music. Very often I can say at least who the composer is, because they seem to have a “footprint” in terms of voicing, rhythm, harmony. All I can think of about Mahler – so far – is LOUD. BRASS. THE WEST POINT PARADE GROUND.

So, what I would like is for someone, anyone out there who can type and who knows Mahler and enjoys his work, tell me for what I should be listening, help me navigate my way into Mahler.

I will be continuing this post as I go through the Mahler.

10.23.09 Well! Into and through the fourth symphony, and viva viva Mahler!! What a difference. Lyric, lilting, a veritable ditty after the first three. Much more do the strings come to the fore and carry the melodies, instead of being almost drowned out by the brass. In the second movement I even heard a short violin solo.

This was such a surprise that I figured something wonderful must have happened in Mahler’s life. Composers have to have it all in them; but some thing or things must act as a stimulus to bring it out. Did he get married? Divorced? Maybe a new child? Did someone who oppressed him go on to the great beyond?

So, I hotsied myself over to Wikipedia to compare the chronology of the symphonies with the Maestro’s life. Alas, nothing is apparent.
I am just happy that I found something more to my liking, and now I can go on with a positive attitude.

10.30.09 Well, not much outdoor exercise; but a fair amount of the Mahler. The last several days, I was stuck inside in rainy weather. So, Tuesday, I decided to redo the Digiteria.

While I did this, I listened to the Symphony No 5 and Symphony No6. The one movement I loved was the slow fourth movement of the No 5. I recognized it right away, from, I think, a Sarah Brightman concert. Today, I got out for a walk with Symphony No 7. It was not as bombastic as the first three; but, alas, nothing to grab me.

11.4.09 This is just a sad quickie update. I have now been through the first nine Mahler symphonies. I quit. It turns out I do not have the complete tenth symphony. I must say – I am sure it is my loss – Mahler is wasted on me. I just do not get it. I said up above that nothing sticks. For me, there is nothing to stick. No hooks, no repetitions of melodious themes. So, on to to other things.

I do believe that this is the way to immerse oneself in a composer or performer. Get a lot of the work, it could be Bach, Jimmy Smith, Emerson Lake and Palmer, John Coltrane, Philip Glass, EmmyLou Harris, Miles Davis, Steve Reich. Put them into some sort of date order (easily done for Zune or Windows Media Player by going into Edit in Zune, or Advanced Tag Editor in WMP11 and putting the year in front of the name of the album. Put symphonic works, concerti, etc., in number order.) Then listen on down. Look for the growth. Look for the dynamic. Look for the shifts in compositional style.

Any comments, please, do not hesitate.

MyYahoo! a great RSS feed reader is shooting itself in the foot.

10.17.09 MyYahoo! a great RSS feed reader is shooting itself in the foot.

I have been using MyYahoo! as an RSS feed reader for quite some time.
I have seven subscriptions, six of which have as many as 20-30 feeds.

For me, the most important subscription I have deals with exactly the subject(s) of my weblog, Public Radio and serious music, Classical and Jazz. I have feeds from many “bloggers” (I despise that shortened form of the word and try to never use it.), e.g. Sequenza 21, Scanning The Dial, and Arts Journal/music and many critics, e.g. Greg Sandow , Alex Ross, and Alan Rich I also have feeds from NPR/music for concerts, especially from WBGO, Jazz 88, Newark, NJ and Jazz weblogs and critics, eg Jazzblog.ca, Peter Hum’s baby, and one of the very best, and Howard Mandel’s Jazz Beyond Jazz, another great source of knowledge (Hey Howard, if you are reading me, how are you?).

This feed reader could be great. It is configurable for the number of days of feed, for what one sees prior to clicking on a feed, for moving feeds around and organizing one subscription by the use of tabs.

But, alas, in my case it is broken, and often all I see is “Oops – There was a problem loading this content. Please check back later.”

Boy, that took forever, it sucks, sorry, but it shows what happens. In this pictograph, just two, but often as many as 20-30, the whole thing. Not good. If I cannot get my feeds, of what use is MyYahoo!?

I took this to them and they said that I needed to cut down my demand, use no “short summaries”, put the feeds into tabs, use an older template (which just reduced the color palette). I tried what they said with the tabs and only got 50% satisfaction. I got all of the music and none of the critics.

This is nonsense. Yahoo should make their tools work. What happened to the “cloud”?

So, I migrated the whole thing, all seven subscriptions to Google Reader. It works. It just plain works. Too plain. Too many days, no limit of days. If I have not looked at a subscription for three days, then I am not interested in those last three days, even so far as to mark them read. But, I am getting my content, my critics, news of music, concerts and the like.

I hope that Yahoo, now advertising their whole big new self all over at least cable television, I hope that they can straighten this mess out. Believe me, if I am having this trouble, so are many others. MyYaoo! has been by far the most popular feed reader because when it has worked it is so very very good.

I hope that some of these people I have mentioned, Peter Hum, Howard Mandel, Steve Janssen, Marty Ronish, Mona Seghatoleslami, Alex Ross, Alan Rich, and Greg Sandow, I hope that they have alerts set for their names (Google does that also). I really respect their work. From Peter, you can get links to a whole bevy of other bloggers and critics, the same and way more from Alex Ross.

By the by, I am now working in an unsung but superb web browser, SeaMonkey, the latest iteration of the internet suite that began as Netscape, oh so many years ago. It is “feature complete” with browser, email, a composer. I use only the browser, but it is fantastic. You know, like that old television commercial said, “try it, you’ll like it”.

10.21.09 Here is the latest from MyYahoo!
A wee bit harder to read, take it from me, they all read “Oops”.

MARVIN ROSEN – MINI MARATHON WED 10.14.09

Marvin Rosen will be having a very special mini-maration on October 14, 2009 (next week) on WPRB during the fund drive. The program will be on from 5:30AM (egad!!) until 1:00PM.There will be some very special music aired and streamed and some very special guests. Here is Marvin’s description right from the Classical Discoveries web site:

“…Classical Discoveries will present a “Membership Mini Marathon” which will begin at 5:30am next Wednesday, October 14, and run till 1:00pm There will be many one-of-a-kind surprise CD premiums for Classical Discoveries/Avant Garde listeners personally donated by Marvin, available only during the Mini Marathon. Please check the listing of available CD’s below.

If you like “Classical Discoveries” and the “Avant-Garde Edition” as well as WPRB’s unique and varied programming, please call at 609-258-1033 with your pledge anytime,
however, if you donate during the “Classical Discoveries Mini Marathon” on Wednesday, October 14, you will show your appreciation and support of Marvin’s unique programming.
No donation is too large or too small. Everything helps. Thank you all for your support.

This year guests visiting the studio include; at 09:30 AM Derek Bermel, Composer and artist-in-residence at Princeton University’s Institute for Advanced Study, at 10:00 am composer Paul Moravec, winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize in Music and at 11:30 am Andrew Rudin, composer of the first large scale, original serious composition for the Moog synthesizer….”

If you have heard Marvin before, you know how special all of this is. If you have not heard Marvin, please take this opportunity to tune in to FM 103.3 in the Princeton-Central New Jersey area, or stream the programming from WPRB.

The John Zorn Experience

John Zorn is a thing of beauty. I mean, you know, John Zorn is an extraordinary person. He has taken the sax to unknown and immeasurable heights. Sun Ra would probably approve.He has taken it all over the world. You can read all about him in Wikipedia. He has over the years had a number of different bands, probably at least two or three at the same time doing different music. Masada, the music of which is based in the Jewish shtetls of pre-World War II Eastern Europe; Naked City, a “punk” band; Pain Killer, described in Wikipedia “…as a mix of avant-garde Jazz and grindcore (whatever that is) ; Hemophiliac, an experimental music group.

John Zorn is a player, a composer, a record producer through his Tzadik label.

Although labels and genres are misleading, he is considered to be part of the avant-garde “Downtown New York New Music” scene. He is primarily a Jazz saxophonist.

So, with that wee introduction, I can recount that I got a video from Netflix, “John Zorn: Masada Live at Tonic 1999”. This was, for a bit over an hour, the John Zorn Experience In The Safety Of My Own Home. Masada was in 1999, John Zorn, sax, Joey Baron drums, Greg Cohen double bass, and the very competent Dave Douglas, trumpet. Hey they are all very competent. I think that the bass gets lost in a lot of the music, but Mr Cohen also has some longish solos in which to show his talents. If I were to compare Masada with any other group, which I am not competent to do, it would be Keith Jarrett’s Standards Trio. This is in the sense that the basic “standard” in both cases is used as a reference frame off of which to improvise and embellish. It is just that Masada’s frame of reference is a shtetl somewhere in Poland, Odessa, Lithuania, Russia, the Ukraine.

The first thing Zorn does as the film opens is to fix down parts of his totally tarnished sax with rubber bands. He has long hair, which is gone today. He wears fatigue pants, which he still does today. He is wearing tzit-tzit (pronounced tsis-tsis among Ashkenazic Jews, or as it is spelled among Sephardic Jews). These are a rule of Torah law (Numbers 15:37-41) for observant Jews. I could find nothing about Zorn’s personal life, so I do not know if he is in fact an observant Jew.

Wikipedia says that the band Masada is based in Klezmer music. I do not think so. There are no clarinets, as in Klezmer. The clarinet replaced the violin as the lead instrument maybe already in the mid-nineteenth century. So, maybe Zorn is replacing the clarinet with the sax. I said above that I felt Masada’s music to be based in the shtetl experience. Not all shtetl music qualifies as Klezmer.

I highly recommend this video.

At Netflix, one can also find videos of Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, Miles Davis, Bill Evans, Cannonball Adderley, Charlie Parker, probably many more, I just do not have time. The footage is probably uneven, but, hey many of these guys who still bring so much pleasure are no longer with us.

Jazz Is Very Serious Music

Jazz is hard work.

Classical music is, at least for me, not so hard. I learned to love Classical music as a child. My father had a very large collection of LP’s, Beethoven through maybe Sibelius and some Aaron Copland. French Impressionists. The Russian Big Five. Some Opera. I recently rebuilt what was essentially the core of his collection, but in digital form. I go from, now, Bach, through the Romantics and into the 20th century, Nancarrow, Partch, Varese, and Antheil. Part and Messiaen. Glass, Reich, Riley, Young, and Adams. Mark O’Connor and Osvaldo Golijov. After my father, my best teachers have been John Schaefer and David Garland at WNYC. The element of Ambient music I learned from Stephen Hill and Hearts of Space.

But, none of this has been really difficult. If I am buying the Beethoven symphonies, does it really matter among Bernstein and the NY Philharmonic, Von Karajan or Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic? Violin concerti, I want Hilary Hahn. Terry Riley’s “In C”, Bang On A Can. Reich’s Music for Eighteen musicians, The fabulous Grand Valley State University players (Innova).

My knowledge in all music is five miles wide and a half of an inch thick. Anyone reading this that is really knowledgeable will see that immediately.

If you like Bach, Bartok, Sibelius, and Stravinsky, you might just take well to Jazz.

Jazz is really hard. Everyone has their own starting point. My father started in Classical at Beethoven, but I have some Bach, by Glenn Gould AND Keith Jarrett.

My starting point in Jazz is Bop, MDD (Miles Dewey Davis), and John Coltrane. I use MDD really to honor Michael Tilson Thomas, known as “MTT”. If this great conductor can be MTT, then Miles is for me MDD. My first teacher was Steve Rowland. Steve has two radio projects, “The Miles Davis Radio Project”, and “Tell Me how Long ‘Trane’s Been Gone”. I bought these two series in .mp3, put them on my Zune .mp3 player and listened to them on walks, on planes, at the dentist. Wherever. Over and over. I started to acquire their music. Amazon’s Jazz library is just literally huge.But, what was it? Bop? Bebop? Post-Bop? West Coast? Who was it? Which quartet or quintet? Each had two great bands, known by various names. Miles had The First Quintet and the Second Quintet. Coltrane had the Classic Quartet and the Second Quartet. Who was in each band? It matters.

Coltrane played with Miles. Twice. Everyone played with Thelonius Monk.

You cannot study this music and these people without immersing yourself in the work of Eric Dolphy. You need to hear Ornette Coleman and Sonny Rollins, himself a saxophone colossus.

You need to pay attention to the producer Rudy Van Gelder. Why? Everyone wanted to work with him.

You need also to read about these people. Wikipedia is a very good resource. Gary Giddins’ books, Visions of Jazz – The First Century (1998) and Weatherbird (2004), are very worthwhile. The first is basically portraits in word of artists. The second is a collection of the writer’s reviews of concerts and albums.

Terry Teachout wrote recently in The Wall Street Journal that Jazz, taken out of the club and into the concert hall, is dying a slow death. . If Terry were to listen to Jazz on WPRB, WBGO, any of the countless outlets in the database of Public Radio Fan or the niche streams at AccuRadio and Live365; if Mr. Teachout were to give a listen to the Jazz Calendars presented by WPRB and WBGO, he might change his tune.

Bill Evans and Gil Evans matter. Differently. Bill was the consummate piano virtuoso. Gil was Miles’ other half as an arranger. There is a short film, “The Sound of Miles Davis, with Miles’ quintet (which one?) playing with the Gil Evans Orchestra. In this video, Coltrane’s solo in “So What” (from Kind of Blue)blows the whole group away.

To understand McCoy Tyner, you need to hear Paul Hindemith. Dave Brubeck studied with Darious Milhaud and wrote Jazz fugues for The Octet. It matters. Miles studied at Juilliard. John Coltrane studied Bela Bartok.
“The Birth of the Cool” really matters. Miles and Gerry Mulligan tried to emulate the sound of the Claude Thornhill Orchestra in nine instruments, a nonet. This matters big time. Some consider this the most important album ever produced.

MDD’s “Bitches Brew” matters because of Jazz Fusion. The work was one of the first projects in Jazz Fusion. Wayne Shorter played with Miles in the Second Great Quintet. But, he also played with Joe Zawinul in Weather Report which was a Jazz Fusion band. But Joe wrote Mercy, Mercy, Mercy for Cannonball Adderley’s quintet. This is not Fusion.

I am just going through my collection as I write this. Chick Corea is an incredible pianist, as is Keith Jarrett. Both can write and both can improvise. Chick has had the Elektric Band and the Akoustic Band. And, the Fusion band, Return To Forever, with especially Al DiMeola. Keith has had the Standards Trio, The American Trio, The American Quartet, the European Quartet. He also has himself in all of the solo albums and solo concerts. The Koln Concert album is one of the best selling piano solo albums of all time. All of this matters. It matters also that Keith recorded Bach’s Goldberg Variations on harpsichord. It matters that Keith and Chick concertized and recorded the Mozart Double Concerto. Master musicians. Who they are and what they do matters.

Who is Percy Heath? Jimmy Heath? Albert Heath?

I have some Thelonius Monk, some Charlie Parker and some Dizzy Gillespie. But I have not yet gotten well educated enough to appreciate them.

But, I go further back with a very modern band. I go to Dixieland with the Revolutionary Snake Ensemble, Ken Field’s very able crew from Boston, Mass. I love this band. They are so hip, so cool in the modern sense of the word.

Since Steve Rowland, my best support has come from Will Constantine and Dan Buskirk at WPRB, Princeton; Josh Jackson and the concerts from WBGO, Newark, and NPR/music. At NPR, there are the Jazz Profiles, over seventy biographic accounts of great Jazz composers and players. These are available for download. Again, I put them on my Zune and took them with me everywhere. NPR also features concerts from WBGO at The Village Vanguard and J&R Music.

Latin Jazz matters very much. The movie “Calle 54” is the best introduction one can have for this sub-genre. I got it from Netflix. Latin Jazz, Jerry and Andy Gonzalez, Paquito D’Rivera, Chano Dominguez, Michel Camilo, Gato Barbieri, Eliane Elias, Bebo Valdez and Chucho Valdez, all very important.
The Modern jazz Quartet began, in a sense like David Byrne’s “Music for ‘The Knee Plays” at Philip Glass’ “Einstein on the Beach”, as a sort of intermission entertainment. It was, first, The Milt Jackson Quartet, and they played as part of the Dizzy Gillespie orchestra. When the orchestra took a break, this quartet filled the time. Look what happened. It is important.

Singers like Mose Allison and Nina Simone are very important.

Pat Metheny and Al DiMeola are consummate Jazz guitarists.

I just watched a video, “Keith Jarrett – The Art of Improvisation”. The video goes way beyond improvisation. It is a valuable biographical story of Keith’s oerve. One piece, played by the European Quartet- they matter a lot – is called “The Windup”. I recognized it immediately. I searched my hard drive. I could not find it. I got the album, “Belonging” (1974), so I could listen a few times. Actually, it was not as good as I remembered. This arrangement (8’22”) is too fast. Then, I remembered that I had an album, “Fort Yawuh” about which I learned from Dan Buskirk. Maybe it was there under another name. These days, I have a large library of Keith Jarrett’s recordings. But, for some time, this album had been my only Keith Jarrett work beyond the well known “Koln Concert”. Sure enough, the first track of “Fort Yawuh”, ‘(If the) Misfits (Wear It)’ (1973) is the same melody, but the exposition is for me much better at 13’15”.

I am done. I could go on forever here. Here are some things which are important. There are three other important Coltrane’s: Alice, Ravi, and Oran. Steve Gadd is all over the place as a drummer. Cyro Baptista who I first encountered with Paul Simon, is all over John Zorn’s work. John Zorn: he deserves a huge weblog post all for himself. Some players have been around for a long time and deserve respect. None more than Brian Blade. Cedar Walton is still making music.

Whoops, I never mentioned Duke Ellington. There are no words. His big orchestra is not my style. But I did get his “Black, Brown & Beige”, “The Far East Suite”, “Latin America Suite”, and the absolutely fantastic “Such Sweet Thunder”. Somehow, for me, The Duke is a Classical composer.

This is not anywhere near complete. No mention of Kenny Clark the drummer, Philly Joe Jones, Connie Kay, also drummers. Stanley Clark, Ron Carter, two bassists extraordinaire. Or Kurt Rosenwinkel, Stanley Turrentine. Sun Ra, off somewhere in a world of his own creation. There are just so many people, each unique in what they bring to the music.

If you give Jazz a go, expect to be very serious about it and expect to work very hard.