Downbeast - music blog

Lisa Simpson: Oh, Dad, why did he have to die?
Homer Simpson: Well, it's like the time that your cat Snowball got run over.
Lisa: Uh huh.
Homer: Remember, honey?
Lisa: Yeah.
Homer: What I'm saying is, all we have to do is go down to the pound and get a new jazzman.
Lisa: (wailing) Oh, Dad!

By complete accident, we found this interesting site called the Occupational Information Network, which breaks down -- in almost excruciating detail -- the quantifiable tools one needs for a wide-ranging number of professions, from "Able Seaman" to "Zoologist." So we typed in "Jazz Musician" and although it didn't give us anything THAT specific, it still offered us a breakdown of the skills deemed most/least important for working musicians as a whole. Hmmmm...

[Photo by William Claxton]

Wait, is it that time already? Why, I do believe it is! Next week, October 23, is drop-day down here at the Crypto Nerve Center with the release of our Fall 2007 offerings: Trio M's Big Picture and Alan Pasqua's The Antisocial Club.

The World Stage, Leimert Park's world-famous jazz performance space, has announced its guest roster for Fall 2007. If you're not familiar with World Stage Stories, it's sort of like living, breathing oral history interviews -- filmed and recorded in front of live audience -- with local jazz greats. It's produced/hosted by music historians (and kool kats to boot) Jeffrey Winston and Chet Hanley and coordinated by World Stage Executive Director Clint Rosemond. Some giants who are planning to pass though are drummer Sonship Theus on Oct. 26, saxophonist Michael Session on Nov. 9, percussionist Bobby Matos on Nov. 16, multi-instrumentalist Onaje Murray on Nov. 30 and our old friend, bassist/educator Roberto Miguel Miranda (pictured below) on Dec. 14. Check this series out if you haven't already. It's an unmissable feast of little-told tales and intimate discussions -- and a little woodsheddin' to boot -- all for just a $10 suggested donation.

Hey, everytime we turn around, new Nels Cline stuff pops up like a Whack-A-Mole game. First, there's today's review of The Nels Cline Singers Draw Breath on Pitchfork Media. Then, there's a new interview for the Italian music mag Rockerilla. And finally, there's Duo Milano, Nels' new improvised guitar drop with Mr. Elliott Sharp.

(In the time it took for us to write this, Nels appeared on a Japanese cooking show, recorded 14 albums in 28 minutes (on a bet with Ryan Adams), popped up as part of a wedding band in Natchez, Mississippi, and hang-glided over the Battersea Power Station. Oh yes, and answered the question "So, how did you hook up with Wilco?" for the 10,001th time.)

In addition to the launch of World Stage Stories (see Oct. 18 entry) this coming Friday, you might want to return the following night -- Saturday, October 27 -- to catch epic sax blower Azar Lawrence (pictured) in performance at the World Stage, starting around 9:30pm. In addition, we've heard it through the jazz-vine that the non-profit Stage is in need of light bulbs, so bring some extras down and let 'em shine while Azar tears the roof off the mutha.

We feel a little weird getting all excited about our new releases while half of Southern California burns, but we would like to mention that Trio M's Big Picture and Alan Pasqua's The Antisocial Club are out today -- AND WE'RE VERY EXCITED!!! (OK there, we've said it.) We already previewed Big Picture in one of our previous posts, but we'd like to focus on Mr. Pasqua's first Crypto drop since 2005's My New Old Friend.

Well, The Anti Social Club is finally out. I can just hear people talking after they listen to it for the first time. "Wow, I didn't know Alan Pasqua played Fender Rhodes. It must be something new he's been working on..." The Anti Social Club is not a new branch of my creative tree, rather a return to it's roots. All that nice, pretty introspective piano trio and quartet music that I recorded (Milagro, Dedications, Live at Rocco, Badlands, My New Old Friend, Body and Soul, Standards, etc) is certainly music that I love.

But The Anti Social Club is conceptual music that I evolved with in my early years. I never played in a piano trio in Boston. I never played in an acoustic quartet there either. Everything I did was ELECTRIC. I played in a band whose leader was a great trumpet player/ composer named Stanton Davis. That is where is learned the ropes. Stanton was a protege of George Russell, and like George was many years ahead of his time. Stanton Davis and Ghetto Mysticism. 1974. Here's what we looked like:

Well, we're nearing the end of our little tour...Gilbert Isbin, Scott Walton and me...and after a successful concert with Vinny Golia at deWerf in Brugge, Belgium, we managed to stumble into a most amazing situation. Bennie Maupin had recommended that we try to get a gig at a little jazz club called "A Love Supreme" in the basement of a guest house, in Zakopane, Poland, and through Bennie's good graces, we managed to secure one. Zakopane is a tiny resort town in the Tatras mountains about an hour and a half outside of Krakow. It was the home of the great Polish composer Karol Szymanowki, and a place where Poles and knowledgeable European tourists (mostly from Ireland) come to relax and recreate. The mountains are magnificent, and the situation at the guest house is idyllic. Here's a link to the guest house and club.

In conjunction with The Orange County Museum of Art's ongoing Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury exhibition, the Getty Research Institute will present Coast to Coast: Art and Jazz in France and California, three days of events (Nov. 13-15) exploring the intersection of jazz music with postwar art and culture. Moving beyond the investigation of traditional jazz histories, the events focus on the development of West Coast jazz and France's unique jazz culture.

The series includes scholarly presentations as well as film screenings, conversations with artists and musicians, poetry readings, and performances, and culminates in a concert with West Coast (including our old friends Vinny Golia and Bobby Bradford) and French musicians playing well-known jazz favorites and new interpretations of jazz classics.