Downbeast - music blog

Hey there, welcome to Downbeast. Check in for the latest in avant-garde, improvisational jazz music rants, musings, reviews, and more. From Cryptogramophone Records, Downbeast.com is a new music blog concept we hope you enjoy.

Why Downbeast? Because we're tackling the beast of the music industry and pummeling it into submission. Downbeast is the home of music lovers, industry haters, and everyone in between. Heard a great CD or concert lately? Give us your review. Got an idea of where the industry is heading? Please share it with us. We've started a category entitled CD vs. Download, which I'm sure will spark some interest. Let's create a community with whom to share good music and good ideas. In the meantime, grab a whip and a chair, and let's tame the beast!

It's been almost two months since Wilco released Sky Blue Sky, and our man in the field Nels Cline has been getting a lot of great mentions in the various reviews that have appeared since then (not that we're surprised).

Here's a smattering:

Sorry for the long wait between this and last posts. We were just plain lazy and there's no A/C in the "bloggin' office." Kudos to those 'nards over at Pitchfork Media for breaking the news of Nels Cline's chicken pox, which has sidelined our friend for a few Wilco gigs.

Just hours after his moving tribute to the late Joe Zawinul, our rez keyboard wiz David Witham sent us this bizarre quasi-hip hop video he put up on YouTube called Timeswitch.

(We're not sure who the unidentified lead rapper is, but you can spot Mr. W's disembodied head bobbing right behind him. Yikes. For a more serious side of David, check out his latest CD Spinning The Circle.)

Several writers have been talking in the blogs lately about the "stinginess" of record companies when it comes to sending promos to the press (Tom Hull, Scratch My Brain and be.jazz). Many small jazz labels have stopped sending jewel cases or Digipaks to reviewers in favor of CDs in slimline cases, wallets or envelopes. There is even a movement afoot to stop sending promos altogether while making the music and artwork available to writers digitally.

This is a sensitive issue for all concerned. We know that writers are not paid nearly enough (or at all) for the good work that they do, and of course everyone associated with jazz is struggling these days. And before all the wailing starts, let me just say up-front that if a writer wants a full Digipak of a particular title, just let us know and we'll send it to you. We love you, and we want you to have the real deal if it is something that seriously interests you and you want to write about it.

For 8 years Cryptogramophone dutifully sent full Digipaks to writers to show off our beautiful packages, and reward reviewers for their diligence. However, 500 digipaks (which is about how many we send to radio and press) is about 1/4 of our average sales on a title these days, and most of these end up on Amazon and in the used bins before a title is even released. Since Amazon is now our biggest customer, we’re just shooting ourselves in the foot by giving away so many finished Digipaks.

Then there is the issue of cost. The wallets we send out cost about a quarter apiece, as opposed to the Digipaks which can cost as much as $1 or more. It also costs twice as much in postage to send full packages as it does to send CDs without the Digipaks. With six releases annually, that's a cost of about $5,000 per year. With the loss of retail outlets like Tower, and sales down 20% each year for the last three years, independent jazz labels have to find ways to cut back just to keep our heads above water. We really can't afford to make beautiful, expensive packages anymore, but we love them, and we're reluctant to let go of the dream.

And finally, we know our music isn't for everyone. Someone who loves a Nels Cline CD, may not love a Myra Melford or Bennie Maupin title, so we know that even the most responsible writer will trade-in some of our promos. Plus, our percentage of reviews vs. CDs sent is about 5%. So, what's the sense in sending out full CDs when most of them will just be resold, thereby wiping out two sales for every CD we give away (the sale we lost, and the CD we can't sell), while having to pay $5,000 per year for the privilege!

By now writers should know that Cryptogramophone is committed to beautiful (and expensive) packaging as well as great music. They should also know that we will always send a finished copy to a writer if they ask for it. We understand the writer’s perspective on this issue, and hope they will try to understand ours. We will never deny a legitimate reviewer access to our Digipaks if they ask for it. It’s kind of like sex. We’ll even give it up on a first date, but you have to ask!

Kasper Collin's acclaimed jazz documentary My Name Is Albert Ayler opened this week in Los Angeles (in ONE rather hard-to-get-to movie theatre downtown). We caught Saturday's matinee -- yes, it was a beautiful day outside, but we like the dark.

Donald and Albert Ayler

Collin's film fills in some of the blanks for those whose interest in the out-out-OUT there free jazz saxophonist was piqued a few years ago by the Revenant label's monumental 10-disc retrospective Holy Ghost, which was quite the appropriate title. Ayler’s greatest compositions ("Spirits," "Witches and Devils," "Ghosts") were haunted by so many ghosts: children’s rhymes, army-band marches, Mexican folk songs, church hymnals, not to mention the deepest earth of the blues and the occasional set of bagpipes. (Seems fitting that Ghost should be packaged in a replica of a carved-wood spirit box, augmented by a mysterious smattering of dried flowers.)

Whewie. We've just started to come out of the fog of SXSW. We thought'd we'd be blogging every day from the epic music bash in Tejas -- what the bleep did we know?

"No I don't have a laminate. I do, however, have this coin..."

As expected, music was squeezed out of every orfice of Austin. We're not exactly the type to walk around with a laptop strapped to our hips; instead we took barely legible Lester Bangsish notes in a sweaty black leather "Hilton Hotel" writing pad. (Sample entry: "there is an uneasy faceoff between pedestrians and traffic -- always sketchy in college towns even during the off season, but brought to a lather for SxSW -- as streams of one constantly threaten to halt the other.") We avoided the night parties in favor of the day parties -- and man, we hit 'em all: The Garden Party, The AP Party, the Bust Party, The Filter Party, I Heart Comix, the Fader Party, the Whig Party. We felt like crying when we missed the Lou Reed Tribute at Fader that featured Thurston Moore, Yo La Tengo and J Mascius. #@@$%&&&!!!!! We even missed the panel discussion where Thurston Moore interviewed Steve Reich -- probably the one happening that related most to what we all are doing here at Crypto. But we got nothin people, nothin'.

We did happen to catch Mr. Moore with his acoustic combo at the old French embassy, which included Steve Shelley on drums. That was quite a thrill. We wanted to say something to Thurston afterwards, you know, a good icebreaker along the lines of "Nels Cline says hi" or "You look just like Rusty from National Lampoon's European Vacation."
But no.

Thing is, constant motion in the hot Texas sun (it was 92 degrees on Friday) mixed with constant beer drinking and loooooong Port-A-Potty lines and endless stream of cigarettes and very little food equals heat stroke mixed with exhaustion yielding...you guessed it: THE FLU!!! (BTW: if you ever have the flu AND heat exhaustion, I can't recommend more hanging out in airports...really the perfect place to be ill and vulnerable, especially when all you want is for it to end as quickly as possible and you hear that voice over the intercom: "this flight has been oversold...we are offering bus rides to the Houston airport." We made the flight, but those ten minutes of fevered terror will last me a lifetime. The only saving grace was that we almost collided with Janine Garofalo near our gate.)

Anyhoo, this is just a very circuitous explanation for why we haven't blogged all week. We are ingesting chicken soup and OJ at an assembly-line rate and should be up and ranting next week like nothing happened.

CRYPTOGRAMOPHONE: WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE'RE NOT ON THE GUEST LIST?

An interesting -- if not exactly surprising -- report published last month by researchers at John Hopkins University's School of Medicine and the National Institute on Deafness demonstrates the almost rapture-like dream state the brains of jazz musicians enter when they are "in the zone" of improvising. Check out a good article on the study here. For a cool 5-minute interview with the interestingly named Dr. Charles Limb M.D., who headed the study with Dr. Allen R. Braun, M.D., and also a studied jazz saxophonist himself, go here. To read their actual report, go here.

If anything, this study is a refutation of that classic National Lampoon bit between Christopher Guest (playing Mr. Rogers) and a VERY young Bill Murray (as a hungover jazz bassist) when the former asks the latter what he thinks of when he is soloing. "I think of candies -- fresh little candies," Mr. Rogers ventures. After an awkward pause, the jazz musician admits: "Well, mostly I think about my financial situtation..."

Chet Hanley, Clint Rosemond and Jeffrey Winston, our friends down at Leimert Park's World Stage Performance Gallery, just sent us the new Spring schedule for World Stage Stories, their next round of live oral history interviews with local jazz luminaries:

March 28: drummer Fritz Wise
April 11: author Steve Isoardi
May 2: vocalist Barbara Morrison
May 9: singer/washboardist Sweet Baby J’ai
May 30: cornetist/bandleader Bobby Bradford
June 6: pianist Harold Land, Jr.

Fritz Wise

All WSS interviews include a formal interview with the artist, then a Q&A with the live audience, followed by a short "woodsheddin'" segment where the artist blows the roof off the mutha. WSS takes place on Fridays at 8pm at the World Stage (4344 Degnan Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90008). A $10 donation is suggested. For more information, call Clint Rosemond at (323) 290-6565.

Ted Goia's Jazz.com website features an extensive list of what recordings our friend drummer Peter Erskine -- who plays tomorrow at the Swedish Jazz Celebration in dear ol' Stockholm -- would take with him to a desert island. Check it out here.

Yes, we realize that the word "legendary" -- especially in jazz and blues circles -- is tossed around to the point where it nearly becomes meaningless, but it sure doesn't apply when it comes to multi-reedist/composer/bandleader Bennie Maupin.

The Maestro

For anyone who wants to see the master in action, Mr. Bennie will celebrate the release of his new recording Early Reflections on Cryptogramophone Records, Friday, April 18th at Catalina Bar and Grill in Hollywood, CA. There will be two sets, at 8:00 PM and 10:00PM.

As anyone with a modem should know by now, Bennie Maupin's "comeback" (one might argue the man never left) came in a one-two punch with the release of the critically lauded Penumbra in 2006 and the re-release of his classic 1974 album The Jewel in the Lotus last year. Early Reflections is a beautiful recording of Maupin's Polish quartet featuring Michal Tokaj on piano (Tomasz Stanko's pianist), and guest vocalist Hania Rybka on two tracks. Joining Maupin, Tokaj and Rybka for this performance will be bassist Darek Oles, drummer Michael Stephans, and percussionist Munyungo Jackson. The ensemble will also be performing in New York City at the Jazz Standard, April 26-27 as a part of Cryptonights at Jazz Standard. Early Reflections will be released April 22nd.

Well, CryptoNights 2008 at Jazz Standard NYC has concluded, and as a (not so) independent observer I'd have to say it was a smashing success. Every night was well attended, everyone played great, and the Crypto way was perpetrated in fine fashion. It was wonderful to see old friends in attendance (the family Bendian, Bonnie Wright, Lisle Ellis, et al), and make some new ones as well. The guys who came from Louisville, Nels' wild and interesting pals, they all made me really happy.

This week's issue of The New Yorker features a profile of jazz nerd Phil Schaap of Columbia University's WKCR radio and his ornithological-leaning show Bird-watchers, a program that, in writer David Remick's words "places a degree of attention on the music of the bebop saxophonist Charlie Parker that is so obsessive, so ardent and detailed, that Schaap frequently sounds like a mad Talmudic scholar who has decided that the laws of humankind reside not in the ancient Babylonian tractates but in alternate takes of 'Moose the Mooche' and 'Swedish Schnapps.'"

Remick asks Schaap to compile his top 100 Essential Jazz Albums (assumed, Of All Time), "more as a guide for the uninitiated than as a source of quarrelling for the collector" and Schaap responds with an eminently quotable commentary on the sad state of Music Lists as a whole. (Bravo.) For a little perspective of Mr. Schapp, we found this interesting Bulletin Board debate on All About Jazz entitled "Phil Schapp drives me crazy!".

AAJ also has a timely feature this week on the recent fiduciary woes of the International Association for Jazz Education (IAJE). -- although one doesn't usually read an investigative piece that beigns with the line: "The truth is, we don't really know."

If you're like me -- a freelance writer beginning a long and involved slog through what he hopes will be a comprehensive view of L.A. jazz from 1965 on -- you are simultaneously consumed with feelings of pre-accomplishment ("I'm finally embarking on my life's work!") and feelings of abject failure ("Who the hell's going to buy -- much less publish -- this thing?"). A friend of mine (OK, it's my main squeeze) recently sent me this somehwat hopeful, somewhat depressing memoir of jazz-book publishing by the late Leslie Gourse, author of the 1998 Thelonius Monk bio Straight, No Chaser.

I remember it was 1987 when my college roommate asked me straight out: "Why do you like Bo Diddley so much?" We had just smoked a few bongloads and we were engaged in one of our weekly "CD Duels," in which we would square off with five of our recent favorite albums each, playing them in entirety, back-and-forth. My roomie, God Bless Him, kept choosing records that sounded great when you were stoned: XTC's Skylarking, Peter Tosh's Legalise It, The Beatles' Revolver. I, like an idiot, actually choose records I liked regardless of one's mental state. One of them was the Original Chess Masters Twofer of Bo Diddley and Go Bo Diddley. At about thirty seconds into the first track, "Bo Diddley," my roomie looked seriously annoyed at the muffled analog recordings that -- like most of early rock 'n' roll -- sounded like it was recorded in a basement Men's Room.

"There's a whole lotta dead copycats..."

Which is why I loved it. The echo-chamber muzz. The distorted vocals and woozy tremolo. The slashing percussive guitars. The hambone beat. The weirdness. (Album titles: Bo Diddley's a Twister, Surfin' with Bo Diddley.) I loved Bo Diddley because he reminded me of Howlin' Wolf: a true primal eccentric with a strange, private sense of humor and a bawdy twinkle in his eye. His music came out in the 1950s and yet sounds so unlike anything that came out of that period. It didn't sound like Elvis or Jerry Lee or even Mr. Berry. It sounded like Africa. It was music that acted as if the stylistic gentrification represented by Elvis never happened. And who else played electric violin on his records? Who else kept Jerome Green employed for so long? Who else used his half-sister "The Duchess" as a second guitarist? Who else went after Ed Sullivan like a scrappy Chicago street fighter?

"Ed Sullivan did everything in his power to shut Bo Diddley down, because he claimed that I double-crossed him on that song. What happened was, they had my name written on a piece of paper; my name is Bo Diddley, and I had a song called "Bo Diddley." He heard me singin' "Sixteen Tons" and wanted me to sing it on the show. So I thought I was supposed to do two tunes. I went out there and sang "Bo Diddley" first — that's what I was there for, y'understand? — and he got mad. He says to me, "You're the first colored boy ever double-crossed me on a song," or a show, or somethin' like this. And I started to hit the dude, because I was a young hoodlum out of Chicago, and I thought "colored boy" was an insult. My manager at the time grabbed me and said, "That's Mr.Sullivan." I said, "Who is that?" I didn't know who the hell he was, man. Shoot."

This quote was one of many from a memorable 1987 interview in Rolling Stone (conducted by, er, Kurt Loder), where Bo Diddley sort of became the poster dude for bitter rock legends who got screwed out of royalties as well as respect from those who came after:

"Well, Bo Diddley ain't got shit. My records are sold all over the world, and I ain't got a fuckin' dime. If Chess Records gave me, in all the time that I dealt with them, if they gave me $75,000 in royalty checks, I'll eat my hat. Boil it and eat it. Somebody got some money — everybody in this business has big mansions and stuff, you know? I got a log mansion. When I left Chess Records, they said I owed them $125,000."

The whole interview reads like an acrimonious meeting between B-Diddley and his financial planner. But it was one of the first pieces I've read that tried to disentangle the claims about the early days of rock and roll and the terrible price played by young black musicians at the hands of savvy record execs. "If the musical copyright laws of the United States more accurately reflected the way American vernacular music is created and disseminated, Bo Diddley would be a wealthy man," critic Robert Palmer wrote in his classic essay that accompanied Bo Diddley: The Chess Box.

But hey, it was always about the music, wasn't it?

HEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY BO DIDDLEY!
OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH BO DIDDLEY!
HEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY BO DIDDLEY!
OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH BO DIDDLEY!

And last but not least: the great vibraphonist Walt Dickerson, 1928-2008.
Rest In Tempo.

TEN NEWS NUGGETS POR ALL OF VOUS:

Todd Sickafoose's Tiny Resistors and the Jeff Gauthier Goatette's House of Return both drop this Tuesday, June 10th! Check out John Kelman's review of Tiny Resistors and Troy Collins' review of House of Return at All About Jazz. Jeff Gauthier will celebrate House of Return's release with a special night of music at the Palmer Room in West L.A. on June 26th. The performance will be filmed, so get there early to get yer mug in the frame!

On the heels of Crypto's triumphant weeklong stint at NYC's Jazz Standard, drummer Scott "Pops" Amendola has just released Live in NYC, six tracks recorded on the eve of April 25th, 2008 and featuring Jenny Scheinman, "Gnarls" Cline and special guest Charlie Hunter (whose spooky 7-string guitar is a highlight of "Buffalo Bird Woman"). It's available for download here.

Down in the heart and lungs of L.A. jazz, Leimert Park, World Stage Stories has added on an extra special night with the formidable bassoonist/bassist/accordionist Jesse Sharps, formerly of Horace Tapscott's Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra. This is a rare treat: Jesse lives in Germany and rarely ever comes back to L.A., so see him while you can and bask in the man's deep wisdom and intense, sonorous voice -- not to mention his scary chops. Sharps will be sitting down to talk with hosts Jeff Winston and Chet Hanley on the night of June 13, 2008, at 8pm. Suggested donation is $10. Hella bargain! Jesse will also accompany the young bassist Nick Rosen tonight at Cafe Metropol in an esoteric ensemble that incudes Katisse Buckingham on woodwinds, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson on viola and piano and Tony Austin on drums.

Jesse Sharps is also the main image on the cover of Leimert Park: The Story of A Village In South Central L.A., a recently released documentary DVD by first-time filmmaker Jeannette Lindsay. It's a terrific film (read a review of it here by an incisive and very studly young writer) and worth a place in any jazz collectors', uh, collection.

Speaking of tonight (as in: "Why didn't I find out about this sooner?"), there will be a Tribute to John and Alice Coltrane at the Coltrane Estate in Woodland Hills (7pm-12am). It's a fundraiser for the Coltrane Foundation, so be prepared to part with some dinero. But the lineup is simply unbeatable: Azar Lawrence on sax, the killer Nate Morgan on piano, Jeff Littleton on bass and Roy McCurdy on drums. Undoubtedly there will be many surprise guests; so far Ravi and Oran Coltrane have been confirmed, as well as Mr. Bennie Maupin, whose new album Early Reflections was just released on Cryptogramophone. For more details, call (818) 226-9991. (We'll be featuring another one of our "famous" Downbeast Interviews with Mr. Maupin, so we'll definitely ask him how it all went. Stay tuned!)

Next week will be Eric Dolphy's 80th Birthday. Trombonist Phil Ranelin, whose successful lobbying convinced the city and county of Los Angeles to declare June 20 Eric Dolphy Day, will be honoring the virtuoso from South L.A. at the Brasserie Lounge of the LAX Crowne Plaza Hotel (5985 W. Century Blvd.; 310-642-7500). As our pal Brick Wahl of the L.A. Weekly mused: "But they really should have a parade." Aye-men!

We were lamenting having to drive downtown to that impossible-to-park-at Laemmle Theater across from the World Trade Center to see the Ferus Gallery doc The Cool School -- but Lo, PBS's Independent Lens will be running the film (check local listings). Our interest in Ferus stems from the scholarship of Seattle University's Ken Allan, who also has been doing research into L.A.'s infamous art gallery (curated by Ed Keinholz and Walter Hopps) and how the worlds or avant-garde art and jazz intermingled with similar agendas in the late 1950s.

We were out and about last week and came across a mysterious flyer for something called Make Music Pasadena ("A Fête De La Musique Event"). We were just about to ask: "What the hell is this?" when Pitchfork Media answered our question.

We were at the Greek Theatre last night, listening to Bonnie Raitt and Richard Thompson dueting on a stunning version of the latter's "The Dimming of the Day", when we caught a banner for the L.A Jazz & Music Festival on July 26, 2008. We haven't been able to find any info on what this is or who is playing. Anybody out there know? Pitchfork, I'm looking in your direction...

Through the grapevine we've heard rumblings about a group photo being planned of L.A.'s jazz elite at UCLA's Royce Hall, apparently to happen on July 31 to commemorate the birthday of Kenny Burrell. It's being organized by trumpeter Bobby Rodriguez -- who like Burrell is on the UCLA faculty -- in the spirit of Art Kane's famous Great Day in Harlem photograph. Shot in 1958 for Esquire and featuring 58 jazz masters from Lester Young and Thelonius Monk to Art Blakey and Mary Lou Williams on a Harlem staircase, the photo later became the subject of a book and a documentary film. True to such Herculean endeavours -- who on Earth would brave trying to get that many jazz musicians to show up at the same time? -- there's already been some grousings and grumblings about the overall concept of the L.A. photograph. Apparently, the organizers are aiming for all-inclusiveness -- meaning, Kenny G would be standing next to Vinny G. What would those two have to say to each other? Would Vinny's nose start to bleed? Of course, This Music We Love is based on all-inclusiveness, so it is a fitting notion. But the very jagged and Balkanized tapestry of L.A. jazz virtually assures that there will be some very strange company present indeed -- unlike the 1958 photo, many may have never even met each other until the Great Day comes. Another complaint, which I overheard from a purist fan, was about the chosen location of a college campus: "Jazz belongs in the street, not the Ivory Tower!" Hopefully, the final product will be an epoch-defining mixture of both -- although we do tend favor The Street 'round these parts...

Well, OK, it's not exactly a profile as it is an interview culled from the website of Resonance Records, founded by local jazz producer/engineer George Klabin, who recorded many future jazz legends (Gary Burton, Bill Evans, Bob James, Keith Jarrett, Roger Kellaway) when he headed the College Radio Jazz Department at Columbia University in the mid-1960s.

Klabin is the man behind the Rising Stars Jazz Foundation, which among many other activities mounts home jazz salons that take place in the Beverly Hills estate he purchased next door to his own. He converted the estate into a sumptuous high-tech performance space and recording studio. Klabin's salons feature out of town artists not just from the U.S. but from England, Brazil, Sweden and Italy. Guests have included Gerald Clayton, Elaine Elias, Peter Erskine, Mike Garson, Anglea Hagenbach, Tamir Hendelman, Christian Howes, Christian Jacob, Kathy Kosins, Romero Lubambo, Josh Nelson, Enrico Pieranunzi, Ron Satterfield, Annie Sellick and Ernie Watts. Klabin also just released the Great Moments in Performance Volume 1, a DVD culled from the salons.