Jazz Now

By Howard Mandel

Year 2001, it was devoutly hoped if less than universally assumed, would be a banner year for jazz, the American-born international music of democratic virtuosity and soul-to-soul collaboration. Jazz-both the music as music and the disparate, decentralized, but devoted creative and consuming community who participate in it most directly-certainly needs a banner year. As a 20th-century art form that has evolved in the uncharted territory wedged between the crassest popular entertainments and most noble reaches of personal expression, it is endangered. Jazz has become engaged in a struggle to establish itself in the 21st century as an enduring, purposeful, and, not incidentally, profitable medium.

The popularity of jazz, as evidenced by its pervasive if unobtrusive presence throughout contemporary Western culture, is widespread. Yet the bottom-line returns of jazz, if measured by the teensy percent of total record sales attributed to the genre and the modest fees paid to all but its very top rung of practitioners, sometimes seems to make the music little more than a vanity item. Even as jazz, a sensual music born in the context of gritty, gutsy outsider life, has become more welcome in our best concert halls and academic groves, its listenership is thought to have substantially declined. Within memory, jazz was the sophisticated soundtrack of the general population. Today it is regarded as music of choice for a somewhat cultish elite.

Year 2001 was supposed to have changed that, after the launch of video-documentarian Ken Burns's 10-part, 19-hour series Jazz, initially broadcast over PBS in January. With blanket hype, major underwriting from General Motors allowing for an extensive primary and secondary school education component, and cross-marketing with Columbia and Verve Records collaborating on compilations of hits by the music's greatest heroes, there was potential for seeding a new crop of young blues, swing, and bop listeners. Even before it was shown, Burns's project enjoyed rampant support. Through his lens and text, kids and jazz non-fans would become at least aware of Louis Armstrong (whose centennial celebration continued through his documented birthday of August 4), Duke Ellington (profile still high, as a result of his 1999 centennial celebration), Miles Davis, and almost a hundred years' further heroes. The riches that would spring from such exposure were anyone's guess!

Furthermore, in Year 2001 certain musical trends seemed likely to crest, plateau, and prosper. Latin jazz-that is, jazz mixing various ethnic and/or aesthetic elements from a bounty of Hispanically tinged, African diaspora-destinations in the Caribbean and South America-was on the rise, with the independently produced, well-distributed film Calle 54 capturing vivid performances by the late Tito Puente and recently deceased Chico O'Farrill, the Fort Apache Band, Eliane Elias, Michel Camilo, Gato Barbieri, and father/son pianists Bebo and Chucho Valdes, among others. A handful of maturing talents, including alto saxophonist Greg Osby, vibist Stefon Harris, guitarist Russell Malone, and violinist Regina Carter, emerged as relative stars from the pack of large and small labels' last several years of signings. Revered, undiminished elders, such as saxophonists Sonny Rollins and Jackie McLean and drummers Roy Haynes, Paul Motian, and Elvin Jones, continued their preternaturally productive lives. The institution of the jazz festival-founded with the tobacco fortune of the Lorillard family by impresario George Wein in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1953, and since then spread as far as Australia, Brazil, China, Havana, Monterey, Moscow (Idaho and Russia, both), the Red Sea, and San Francisco-gained significant acceptance, attention, and attendance.

All that occurred. JVC for the first time extended its annual U.S. jazz festivals produced by George Wein to Miami Beach; Verizon initiated jazz-influenced fests in New York, Tampa, and Los Angeles (also Wein-produced); and the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival reported 160,000 attendees at the Fairgrounds Racetrack on the second of its two Saturday extravaganzas, May 5, to hear the Dave Mathews Band, Celia Cruz and Johnny Pacheco, and local rap hero Mystikal among the dozens of performers on 11 separate stages, running simultaneously from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Yet jazz can hardly be said to have enjoyed the boost anticipated by the hype.

First off: Burns's vid-doc proved to be a more exhausting than exhaustive history, a treasury of classic photos and film footage dulled by a banal historical concept, hyperbolic talking heads, and numbing textual clichés. It did little to sustain increased record sales. (It's no help that overall sales of recordings were down 4.7 percent in 1999-2000, the most recent year for which figures are available, nor that new means of cyber-distribution threatened retail record outlets.) The series' early episodes engagingly detailed the unexpected birth of a genuinely revolutionary sound that captured many moods and movements of the United States. But as it progressed, Jazz failed to follow its announced themes of social and racial change past the mid 1960s. By dwelling on the decline of jazz's initial stars, it became increasingly downbeat.

The mid 1960s might alternatively be the era of jazz's second wind; those years witnessed the origins of where we are now and, true enough, remain subject to heated debate. But by shirking the responsibility to engage their complexities, Jazz further en-shrined jazz now as an anticlimax of the fast receding (however excellent) past, a Golden Era starting in New Orleans post-World War I and essentially culminating in the big swing bands that served jitterbug dancers up until WWII. Oh yes, there was bebop (according to Burns, a development over- shadowed by the drug addictions of its proponents), the cool school (though the increase of white musicians in jazz is generally downplayed), and a few highlights since the `50s, but that's about it. The price of Burns's skimming over explorations of the latter half of the 1900s-from Stan Kenton's "progressive jazz" to Stan Getz's bossa nova to Grover Washington Jr.'s soul/r&b jazz-pop instrumentals to the post-modern re-evaluations of Chicago's AACM and similar artists' collectives outside of New York to the exportation of jazz values and strategies to Europe, Brazil, Japan, etc.-is the further dismissal of realities most living musicians, listeners, and presenters encounter.

Make no mistake: It's great to hear how Jelly Roll Morton's canniness, Armstrong's joyful genius, and Ellington's grand eloquence endure. Yet it was a major bummer to follow in closeup the deaths of Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, Lester Young, Pops, and Duke, as if potentially potent new voices did not spring up in their wake. For all the beauty and wisdom of early jazz titans, they didn't speak with firsthand experience of the world today. By contrast, the restorations and first releases of Miles Davis's adventures in electronic jazz and John Coltrane's excursions into far-flung spiritual realms (most set for autumn 2001 release but available to reviewers months ahead), sounded like the longed-for jazz breakthroughs.

Davis, a life-long iconoclast dead 10 years as of September 2001 (he would have been 75 in May), and Coltrane, a relentless trailblazer of sonic extremes who died in 1967 (and also would have been 75, in September), loom larger than any other figures over the course of serious jazz now. Davis's music following his attempt to re-energize jazz with r&b, rock `n' roll, exotica, and new technology and Coltrane's quest to transcend musical conventions he'd outgrown-along with Ornette Coleman's "free jazz" and Cecil Taylor's high-intensity de- and re-constructions-were quickly dismissed if not directly dissed by Burns's on-camera consultants.

This was unfortunate, as more forward-thinking advisors might have highlighted the fonts of fresh energy and ideas derived from those giants' discoveries, both in the States and abroad. The power of the Davis legacy in particular was proven by one unforgettable concert of 2001: Wall-to-Wall Miles, a 13-hour, 26-band spectacular held at New York City's Symphony Space on March 24, brilliantly produced by Bill Bragin (who has since moved on to Joe's Pub, the cabaret-club of Manhattan's Public Theater), admission-free, and broadcast/webcast live via Newark, New Jersey, public radio station WBGO. Gil Evans's Orchestra, conducted by Maria Schneider, and Ben Allison's Jazz Composers' Ensemble, trumpeters Wallace Roney, Jon Faddis, Tom Harrell, Tim Hagans, Russell Gunn, Olu Dara, Graham Haynes, Jimmy Owens, Ingrid Jensen, Frank London, and Steve Bernstein, saxophonists Jane Ira Bloom, Paquito D'Rivera, Bob Belden, Antonio Hart, Joe Lovano, and Bobby Watson, guitarists Bill Frisell and Vernon Reid, vocalists Melba Joyce and Nora York, drummers Bobby Previte and Jimmy Cobb-this is just to skim the list of participants brilliantly interpreting Davis's oeuvre, spanning four decades and spawning countless works in its wake.

Further proof of Davis's lasting impact raged in 2001, as many of the best touring ensembles were headed by alumni of Davis's bands from the big bang and heyday of electric jazz-rock fusion. Former Davis keyboardists Herbie Hancock (with saxophonist Michael Brecker and trumpeter Roy Hargrove), Chick Corea (with his New Trio), and Keith Jarrett (with longtime trio mates Gary Peacock on bass and Jack DeJohnette on drums) mounted major concerts and recordings. Soprano saxophonist Wayne Shorter assembled a promising quartet comprising young pianist Danilo Perez, bassist John Pattitucci, and drummer Brian Blake. Bassist Dave Holland advanced his surface-calm, center-torrid refinements, expanding his established quintet to something like a conventional big band (Holland's 13-man group, daunting to transport and lodge, premiered at the Montreal Jazz Festival in summer 2000, performed at Birdland in New York City in January 2001, recorded within days for ECM with a scheduled spring 2002 release, and performed a newly commissioned composition at the September Monterey Jazz Festival). Guitarists John Scofield and John McLaughlin maintained their road warrior status, the former heading a funk-oriented quartet and the latter revisiting Shakti, his improvisatory, acoustic, Eastern Indian-inflected ensemble of the '80s.

Where was Miles Davis's heir apparent as prince of jazz, Wynton Marsalis, during 2001? At first, he was beleaguered by a sudden changing of the guard, when Jazz at Lincoln Center executive director Rob Gibson, with whom artistic director Marsalis liked to shoot hoops, left with little satisfying explanation just before New Year's. Laura Johnson, director of J@LC's impressive educational programming, filled in until Bruce MacCombie, Dean of the School of the Arts at Boston University and former Dean of the Juilliard School, was named to the post. (Johnson remains J@LC general manager.) Then, Marsalis appeared to be without a record label, as Columbia Jazz, a division of Sony Music, did not immediately renew his contract at the end of its term.

At least J@LC's programming was secure: After a spring season that succeeded in celebrating the career of pianist-composer-Modern Jazz Quartet founder John Lewis just prior to his demise, Marsalis kicked off the fall's Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra "United In Swing" tour of 46 cities over nine months with a Los Angeles Philharmonic performance of his opus All Rise, featuring a 100-voice choir, Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting. Philip Morris Companies Inc. promised major sponsorship to the Orchestra for three years, Brooks Brothers announced themselves as official clothier of the LCJO (each bandmember receiving several suits, gratis), and the Cadillac division of General Motors signed on as sponsor of the J@LC homebase concerts in Alice Tully Hall. Meanwhile, the Big Dig-a multi-use music facility Marsalis calls "the house that jazz built," situated in the AOL/Time Warner building under construction in Manhattan's Columbus Circle-proceeds, with only $30 million left to raise toward its completion.

Sadly, other significant funding for jazz has become scarce, with no major initiatives in sight as of September. The biggest financial honor for a jazz-identified artist was the $125,000 Praemium Imperiale given to Ornette Coleman (also to American playwright Arthur Miller, Korean painter Lee Ufan, French sculptor Marta Pan, and French architect Jean Nouvel) by the Japan Art Association. The Jazz Foundation of America, a not-for-profit association providing emergency health care, housing, and career assistance to musicians in need, turned to Absolut Vodka for underwriting of their ambitious benefit, "A Great Night In Harlem," at the Apollo Theatre in late September, with jazz stars including Kenny Barron, Ray Barretto, Ron Carter, Lou Donaldson, Nnenna Freelon, Ahmad Jamal, Clark Terry, Cassandra Wilson, and many more.

What jazz musicians need most to keep out of emergencies is work, places to play, people to perform for, opportunities. Consider the very different forms of employment that most of 2001's dearly departed experienced in the course of their careers-for instance, the Chicago neighborhood theater pit orchestras that bassist Milt Hinton apprenticed in before joining swing era big bands and becoming a television-studio mainstay in the `50s. Big traveling bands and numerous, widespread small clubs provided the bread and butter of many musicians come to final rest in the past months, including saxophonist Flip Phillips, who made his reputation in Norman Granz's groundbreaking Jazz at the Philharmonic concert tours; Chico O'Farrill, who composed and arranged for Dizzy Gillespie and Afro-Cuban jazz orchestras decades prior to his late career resurgence; saxophonists Buddy Tate and Billy Mitchell of Count Basie's band; Tex Beneke, who helped forge the Glenn Miller sound; "band of renown" leader Les Brown; Herbie Jones and Willie Cook, lead trumpets for Ellington (as well as trombonist Britt Woodman and singers Anita Moore and Al Hibbler, who got their starts with the Duke).

In most U.S. cities, the surviving clubby but non-exclusionary, intimate, and inexpensive nightspots that were the haunts of other recently deceased greats-Joe Henderson and Harold Land, vocal stylists Lorez Alexandria, Teri Thornton, Susannah McCorkle and Jeanne Lee, trumpeters Al Hirt and Nat Adderley, trombonist J.J. Johnson, bluesman John Lee Hooker, avant-garde reedist Makanda Ken McIntyre, drum master Billy Higgins, and guitarist Joe Puma-are relics of earlier days and different economies. As summer 2001 began, New York City, long identified as jazz's world capitol, suffered the closing of one important venue, Sweet Basil (planned to re-open with an "adult music" policy encompassing blues, rhythm `n' blues, and "world music," as well as some jazz). Another, Iridium, moved from its art deco basement across the street from Lincoln Center to a new midtown Broadway address. The Jazz Standard suspended its activities while it underwent renovations. And the Knitting Factory, a haven of youthful experimentalism, had a rocky time recovering from its investment in the construction and opening of a glitzy Los Angeles branch. The New York site was a fine host, however, for more than a week of the annual Vision Festival produced by a coalition of artists chaired by choreographer Patricia Parker.

Hard-blowing, freedom-loving players-sometimes lumped together as the "new ecstatics"-headlined this community-oriented labor of love; bassist William Parker, pianist Matt Shipp, trumpeter Roy Campbell Jr., and German saxophonist Peter Brotzmann are among the stalwarts of the movement devoted to improvisation as a nearly religious and overtly interactive vocation. In general, they and their fellow would-be transcendentalists demonstrate scant interest in conventional standards, and their fires sometimes result in more smoke than light. Nonetheless, these are committed musicians, earnest in their efforts, dedicated to high ideals even when their realizations fall short. Considering how the first brutal strike of international terrorism on the U.S. homeland sent everyone in the Big Apple into a dispirited funk, the overarching humanism and uncompromising immediacy of the new ecstatics represent a valuable alternative to the insipid, frivolous irrelevance of much more popular jazz.

Not that there's anything wrong with the lush revivalist chanteuses or the groove-til-you-drop tactics of jam bands modeled on the electric trio Medeski, Martin & Wood and guitarist Charlie Hunter's Band. Listeners deserve their private comforts, and the impulse to dance, to celebrate life by living, is at the heart of jazz. But in trying times-and at this writing, it's impossible to predict just what trials await us-a bit of gravity is rather welcome. Gravity, too, is a jazz essence. Without it, there is no swing, and Americans have devised no medicine more effective against pain than the unflinching expression of it, resulting in our mastery over it. The jazz world has known that for 100 years. We call it the blues.

Howard Mandel is the author of Future Jazz (Oxford University Press, 1999) and producer of the CD Future Jazz (Knitting Factory Records). He contributes to Down Beat, Jazz Times, Signal to Noise, www.Jazzhouse.org, and The Wire. He is also president of the Jazz Journalists Association.