tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8534280503056482152024-02-20T19:17:58.475-08:00jazzfluteweinsteinThe story of a dreammark weinstein, jazz flutisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09347260434409789512noreply@blogger.comBlogger36125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853428050305648215.post-49141559258100544722016-06-26T14:49:00.003-07:002016-10-13T06:18:21.534-07:00wake up!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This blog is the story of a dream, and sometimes you get a wake-up call. Those were the days, you had a phone service and you could put in for a wake up call. Someone would 'pull your coat' as the saying goes and then sometimes it takes 40 plus years for reality to set in. My last record is my last record as the saying might go. And IN JERUSALEM is most likely my last record. It is a fitting end, something I wanted to do and was given the opportunity to do. Go to Israel and make a record. I had a logic conference to go to in Corsica and an argumentation conference to go to in Amsterdam and 10 days in between. So I went to visit my friend Menachum in Jerusalem. Menachum introduced me to Steve Peskoff. Steve is an ex-pat New York guitar player and he was watching over an old Arab house in the German Colony and using it as a studio. We played a few times in this idealic setting and gave a performance for an audience of one, my very old and dear friend Lisa Levine. It was wonderful. The music flowed and I decided to come back and make a record. I got a small grant from my university to do some work with Arab and Israeli educators and asked Steve to put together a quintet. Steve's son was a great drummer and a percussionist I knew from New York, Gilad Dobrecky, was living in Israel. Add one bass player and we have a band. I asked Steve to chose some Hasidic tunes and write originals. I would contribute half of the album and Steve half. We listened to some music together and we both felt there would be no problem recording, as usual with little rehearsal and long days in the studio.<br />
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As is usual with such disconnected projects we didn't come fully loaded, Steve contributed one original and 2 nigunim (Hassidic melodies). I contributed two originals, one dedicated to my parents and a tune I called Meir's Nigun (Meir is my Hebrew name) and I picked a classic Nigun, "Mizmor L'David." that is generally sung at the Yizkor service, the service to remember the dead. We played it as a pulsating 6/8 with modern chords. When my Rabbi heard the track he asked if we couldn't put spaces between the notes to slow it down. The date was a hard one. We were underrehearsed and the tunes were complex harmonically and rhythmically. We had to develop a solution to the basic concept of the tune and how it was to be laid out. This is something I have done with most of my recordings, but the musicians I generally record with are selected to make the process of creating a recording in the studio easy. I recorded most of my albums with little more than some tunes selected. Given the musicians I record with, Pedrito Martinez and his crew on Timbassa, making an album right there, on the spot, is a long and intensely joyful effort, (16 hours straight for Timbassa), recording that way is not only possible with the guys I use but an inspiration to creating great music. The guys I hire, have years of playing together in countless performances and recordings. Romero Lubambo, Nilson Matta, Paulo Braga, Cyro Baptists. the greatest Brazilian musicians playing in New York. Going into the studio with them, letting myself luxuriate, feeling the magnificence of such players, playing freely, music that they love, and at my disposal. That is heaven. Although my recording session are sometimes stressful, mainly because I have to play at my best to be up there with these great musicians, they go like clockwork. You put in the musicians and the music comes out. My job is to give them the opportunity and motivation to play their best. The basic problem of constructing an album out of whole cloth is, as they say, no problem.<br />
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Not so in Jerusalem. The guys were great players, but everything took too long. Too long to set up the studio (the engineer used a dozen mikes on the drums and then put the acoustic bassplayer with one mike right next to the drummer). Too long to get the arrangements together. Too many pit stops for 'inspiration,' just like the good old days. You rehearse, take a break, someone smokes a joint, you come back, you forget the arrangements. Too many false takes. And so by the time each tune was credibly recorded things had gotten a bit stale.<br />
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I left Jerusalem unhappy. I moved on to another project, Latin Jazz Underground with Aruan Ortiz. That project had its problems. The concept, free jazz with an Afro-Cuban percussionist was in interesting one and Aruan had put together an exquisite group of musicians. Roman Diaz is the mentor for all of the great Cuban drummers in New York and has has a depth that should have been able to integrate with the expressive drumming of Gerald Cleaver. But despite it all I didn't feel that the album swung. We spent hours in the studio with Roman, overdubbing percussion over the tracks, searching for a way to play with the free drums, and creating conversations among the layers of percussion he developed. We had multiple tracks of percussion to play with in the mix and Aruan and I searched for the best possible combination. But although the playing on Latin Jazz Underground is superb, I felt it never got off the ground. And what's more, my choice of soloing strategy, playing long rhythms across the time let me give in to my inner Miles Davis, but didn't help the swing situation.</div>
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So here was my last two albums. I had gone to another record company Zoho records, and Jochen the owner was happy with both records and they got decent reviews. Here is a review to In Jerusalem with a track you can hear:</div>
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<a href="http://latinjazznet.com/reviews/cds/5-star-albums/mark-weinstein-in-jerusalem/">http://latinjazznet.com/reviews/cds/5-star-albums/mark-weinstein-in-jerusalem/</a></div>
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It also has a link to a video I made some time ago for the NFA competition. Going along with the mood of blog entry, it is not among my best efforts.</div>
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After I recorded Latin Jazz Underground, I met my wife Dasha.</div>
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That is not where I met her, although she is Mongolian. I can tell sad stories about music, but I don't have a kick coming when it comes to my wife. She is an Angel that fell from the reaches of Outer Mongolia right into my waiting arms. But that is a digression, but a great picture and a great wife; unbelievable that at 72 years old I could be gifted with such an amazing women. But on with the story. Dasha had come to New Jersey to be with her daughter who was on a Fulbright at my college. She had to return to Mongolia to teach (she is a professor of genetics). But we had fallen in love and she decided to come back the next year and Glory Be To God, she remained in the US and married me.</div>
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The year she was gone I had to deal with In Jerusalem. I asked Jochen if he would be interested in an album recorded in Jerusalem and played him my Jewish record Shifra Tanzt to convince him that I could put a working band together even though the Israeli musicians were not available to me (Jochen's contract required a good faith effort to have a working band). So I took that tracks recorded in Jerusalem and went into the studio with Phil Ludwig, the only engineer I have recorded with for the last decade. He worked on the tracks until he got a decent rhythm section sound and I started working. I rerecorded every note I played on the date with the exception of one bass flute line on the free track that ends the album. It is a nigun that I sing with my Rabbi and his class before we begin to study Zohar. I lay tracks on top of that to give the feeling of a group singing, so even that track isn't as it was recorded. So everything I played, the final attempt to reach my inner voice, playing the music of the religion that has increasingly occupied my life for the last 30 years, music that I got to play in Erezt Yisroel, is a studio reconstruction. But if truth be told I played as good as I have ever played. My sound was together and I had plenty of time and material to find just the right takes to present myself as a great flute player. How can I ever show my face. I am a total illusion.</div>
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After I redid my playing I had to confront the rest of the music. I cut solos, including my own, spliced sections with miraculous success given Phil's genius and the joy of working with pro-tools. The music felt right but the album still didn't sound right. We figured it out, the bass was pitchy and so the actual sound of the music was compromised. The bass player, Gilad Abro was a young player of virtuoso potential, but sadly his pitch was not reliable. Pro-tools to the rescue, we put automatic tuning on an acoustic bass and eureka the sound came alive. I have never done that before, because the bass has slides, but for whatever reason the bass sounded fine. </div>
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I think the album is a good album, and shows all of the players in their best light. All of the musicians and I include Phil contributed to a record that turned out just fine. Chris White, a great bass player and master teacher who I knew in Brooklyn in the 1950's and later when we both taught at my university, gave me a crucial insight at a formative stage of my flute playing. He said that when you make a record it is a record. And In Jerusalem is a record of me and those guys trying to make music, with all its travails and studio reconstruction. Jerusalem was a good hang with great guys and I deeply appreciate their contributions. But like so many of my recordings my real work was done alone with Phil, Phil's home studio where I overdub, edit and mix is the place where I lived the fullest. It was the place where my music was created. The long sessions when I frolicked or fumbled with those great rhythm sections was the place where I tasted everything I missed. Hanging out with the guys and being a musician. But my music, my flute playing, was created alone with my friend Phil Ludwig. </div>
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That isn't the way it was supposed to be, not according to me. I'm supposed to be a total master of my craft. And I have really high standards. But there it was, or better, there it is. For better or for worse. And so my last record is out and I think it is time to wake up. I'm married to a women I dearly love and have financial responsibilities that make recording a burden I can no longer afford. I'll be 76 in a few days. My first album on flute, Seasoning, came out when I was 56, so that's twenty years of chasing my dream. I recorded a bunch of records and did everything I possibly could to make the music as good as it could be. I swallowed my pride and over-dubbed. Me and Phil created my playing mix and match. The best statement of the melody and multiple takes of my solos, always finding the best shit so that my solos were as excellent as they could be using the raw materials of a number of versions. Generally I would use a second take as the basis, but I'd usually record 4 or more takes of each tune, then sit with Phil and put together my solo, while I rested my chops. Then on to the next tune. Whatever it takes!</div>
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And so I'm left with a closet full of CD's that I can't give away. A number of years of recognition, reviews and radio play, Down Beat Rising Star, Jazz Journalists Association nomination, 'best latin jazz' for a number of my albums and hopefully a sense among musicians that I existed and that I played. Musicians, I really haven't felt like one of them since I was a a trombone player in the 60's. The best guys would record with me, but that was that. Everyone was always glad to see me. But I wasn't really there doing the musician thing, 'doin' our thang' as it was said. At the end I realized that being a musician isn't only making good music, it is living a musician's life, with other musicians. You need a minyan to pray effectively, a prayer community. And musicians form a community and I was an outsider.</div>
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So wake up and smell the roses!</div>
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I still practice and play in my synagogue a few times a month. But I turned down performance opportunities for the first time in my life and I think I'll sit the rest of the dance out.</div>
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mark weinstein, jazz flutisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09347260434409789512noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853428050305648215.post-16411419439520773372015-07-28T10:44:00.000-07:002017-05-05T11:19:02.383-07:00high hopes<br />
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That's Aruán Ortiz and me after we recorded <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Z2JVxAW9n8">El Cumbanchero</a> (the hot link takes you to the title track). The picture was from a photo shoot, Aruán's idea. Aruán had great hopes for El Cumbanchero. I had given him the opportunity to created a modern charanga sound, that was both consistent with the tradition and uniquely creative. The album included classic compositions by such notables as Rafael Hernandez, Isreal Lopez (Cachao) and Cesar Portillo and reflected the original settings of a number of recordings by Arcaño y Sus Maravillas, the most progressive Cuban charanga ensemble in history. Reimagining the charanga tradition in his terms gave Aruán a unique vehicle for his creative talents and he saw great possibilities for performing with the ensemble. The photo shoot was the beginning of what Aruán saw as our connecting to move the music forward. That sadly was not to be. </div>
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There were a number of reasons, a reflection of my entire career as an aspiring jazz flutist. There was the existential issue. I was 72 years old, financially comfortable, but with no money to spare after the expense of recording (musicians, studio, mixing, promotion, purchases of discs). And the money stream from my previous CD's was minimal in terms of my real life requirements. I am a college professor, tenured in a department of education (not music) have a nice house with a big mortgage in New Jersey and the usual obligations of middle class living. Music was my creative outlet, but was irrelevant, except as a drain on resources, to the practical exigencies of my life. Then there is the psychological issue, over the twenty odd years that I have tried to be a jazz musician I made a number of attempts to perform. And local clubs like Cecil's gave me a chance to play with from time to time.</div>
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Playing at Cecil's was always great, especially when Aruán was free to take the gig, but the gigs ended up costing me money. And many of the gigs I played in other clubs were a total drag. The local club that replaced Cecil's after it closed, the Hat City Kitchen, was noisy and unappreciative, and my long time local venue, Trumpets, was always a hassle, times changed, gigs cancelled and very little money. I could never figure out how to ramp up my performances and get gigs in the city. I didn't have a following to speak of and at my age didn't give the impression of being able to generate one. But the truth is I hadn't put any real effort into getting gigs in recent years and so I was not geared up mentally to join with a young hungry Cuban musician who was getting noticed both internationally and on the New York creative music scene. Despite the real warmth between us as is clear from the picture, my spirit was not strong enough to join with Aruán's. I did the photo shoot, would have been open to anything Aruán presented, but did not get involved with his musical life. Had I been younger, hungrier and especially braver I would have gone to his gigs, sat in, get to the meet the guys etc. Been there, done that! And it didn't do much good when I has in my fifties, nor did the albums I recorded when I was in my sixties lead to the kind of performance opportunities that would sustain a career. And so I didn't do it; I didn't follow up on his initiative. But Aruán was motivated. He was convinced that our CD would get recognition in Cuba (it had hit the top of the Jazz and world radio play charts). But there were practical problems as well. There was no realistic way to recreate El Cumbanchero as a working ensemble.</div>
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We had recorded the CD in four sessions. We played through half of the tunes with just the rhythm section. Mauricio Herrera, playing timbales, Yunior Terry on bass and Aruán and me. That was a great time, magical, musical and full of rewarding moments,. Aruan's changes were exquisite to play on and although difficult in spots, the music flowed easily. Here are the guys.</div>
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But the center of the arrangements, the raison d'etre of the album, was the string writing that would extend the classic charanga tradition using a string quartet. And Aruan's interest was in classical string quartet writing rather than the more simple string writing associated with the Cuban dance bands. I had left town, when he recorded the string quartet, but was in touch with Aruán by phone. I called when the session was in its third hour and they hadn't finished one song. The strings finally managed to record two credible version of each of the tunes we had recorded, but none were adequate as they stood and so a job of picking and choosing, editing and pro-tools machinations was clearly in the cards. The same was true with the second half of the album. The session with me and the rhythm sections went well, but the strings were a slog. This of course impacted on Aruán's dreams of performance. There was no way we could perform this live without enormous amounts of rehearsal, and even then, the likelihood of getting it together to meet the demanding standards of even modest venues in New York was nil. To perform the music we would need three percussion players (Mauricio did multiple overdubs) and a string quartet, eleven musicians in total. The whole thing was prohibitively expensive and Aruán had a classical string and flute project that he was moving ahead with. And so, like the rest of my dream of being a jazz flutist, what I had to show for my efforts was a CD. But Aruán didn't give up on me. Jazzheads, the company I recorded for, was having a small festival and Aruán had an idea for another album. </div>
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His idea fit with a long-time wish I had. When I was just beginning to play flute in the early 1970's, I would walk by Sam River's loft on the lower east side, but although I was making jam sessions and playing small gigs, I never had the nerve to go in. But I had touched that scene when I was a trombone player, playing at jam sessions where that music was being defined and I now had the flute chops to make a contribution to the music that I missed in the free jazz scene of the 1970's. Music, that to me, was the epitome of what it meant to play jazz. Sam Rivers had just died as had Andrew Hill. Aruán's idea was to make a tribute album to the 70's jazz scene, mixing heavy Afro-Cuban drums with free jazz. We put a group together and did the Jazzheads festival. By the time we got to play the room was almost empty except for the musicians from Bobby Sanabria's band that played before us and the general sense was that we were doing something different. The drummer on the date, Francisco Mora- Catlett, couldn't make the recording, so we went into the studio with another drummer, Gerald Cleaver, and recorded Latin Jazz Underground.</div>
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Now the practical problems associated with the large ensemble needed to perform El Cumbanchero disappeared. A quintet was easily booked, we were close, but as it turned out, still no cigar. The music Aruán brought to the date the was frightfully difficult. The tunes were complex and the concept of playing Afro-Cuban percussion, which is always rooted in a pulse, with a free drummer had never been tried before. And as always in my recordings, there was no real rehearsal. Instead we had to work things out in the studio. The solution we came up with was for Aruán to play all heads on piano in unison with me so that the heads would not cause problems as I tried to lock in with him on the intricate and technically demanding music. That way, as in all my previous recording we could focus on the rhythm section and the groove and relying on my isolation to permit over-dubbing where required. But even that was not enough. The lines were so difficult that even Aruán had to first play with the section and then overdub the lines in order to articulate them adequately. Laying the heads against the complex pulse that was both in the arrangements and in the concrete musical realization was a real challenge. Gerald Cleaver was playing free. Román Diaz was playing just about everything he could think of and Rashaan Carter was holding them together while playing free himself. Just to give you an idea what the music looked like, check out one of Aruán's originals.</div>
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Now imagine that played against a clave, at double time. It works, check out the album. Aruán is a genius. Needless to say Latin Jazz Underground required significant overdubbing on my part. Could I reproduce it without the studio 'do-overs' not to mention pro-tools? I'll never know. Aruán's career is marching ahead. The concept of the album give birth to a band called Afro-horn that is making the circuit. The rhythm section is from my Jazzheads festival gig, but with three monster sax players including one of my local favorites, Bruce Williams playing alto. No 75 year old flute player required.</div>
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Latin Jazz Undrground was picked up by Zoho records and it has received strong <a href="http://jazztimes.com/community/articles/135645-latin-jazz-underground-mark-weinstein">reviews</a> as you can see by going to the link. Zoho required a CD release party. But I never had the nerve to try to set one up. I just don't think I can play that music live. The record company understood and accepted another album from me, 'In Jerusalem.' But that is a story for another time.</div>
mark weinstein, jazz flutisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09347260434409789512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853428050305648215.post-8137557780024817282014-01-03T12:50:00.001-08:002015-07-28T10:56:37.141-07:00a new year <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This is my first post in a long time and as usual it marks an event. My next record, Latin Jazz Underground, is coming out in May. The photo is of the guys at the session. Left to right, Aruán Ortiz, who co-produced, arranged the date and, of course, played piano, Rashaan Carter, bass, Gerald Cleaver, drums and Román Diaz, percussion. This record is a landmark in many ways and it reflects the complexity of my relationship to music on many different levels. On a musical level it is a radically departure from my recent albums, starting with Jazz Brasil my records have been increasingly lyrical. Jazz Brasil is a more mainstream album than the Brazilian jazz albums the I had already recorded and El Cumbanchero was a luscious transformation of my Cuban recordings, from percussion heavy quintets to the lush string quartet settings of charanga melodies. This lyrical phase reached a climax with Todo Corazon, a romantic offering to my sweet wife Dasha (more of that in a minute). I really loved Todo Corazon, a poured my heart in soul into unabashed romanticism and it was well received as you can see from one of its many reviews.<br />
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<a href="http://latinjazznet.com/2013/07/09/features/album-of-the-week/mark-weinstein-todo-corazon/">http://latinjazznet.com/2013/07/09/features/album-of-the-week/mark-weinstein-todo-corazon/</a><br />
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But although I had been moving up in the world, making the Downbeat Rising Star list, I felt that I needed to make a stronger statement if I was to get the attention of the reviewers who write for the major jazz periodicals. Aruán had a suggestion. If I did something completely different that extended my records in a more provocative dimension people might see me as more than a flute player who makes lovely Latin jazz recordings. His idea was prompted by his own interest in the avant grade of the 70's and the potential, rarely explored, to marry free jazz attitudes with deep Afro-Cuban roots. I had tried that in 1967 with the original Cuban Roots. As a trombone player in the 60's I was part of the developing free jazz movement, playing with Bill Dixon, among the freest of the free jazz musicians and playing at jam sessions with some of the giants experimenting in New York at the time. I had always loved Sam Rivers, and his recent passing, along with the passing of Andrew Hill, for whom Aruán had deep respect, suggested to both Aruán and myself that an album moving Latin jazz into a free harmonic and rhythmic environment might be worth doing at this point in my career.<br />
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The result, Latin Jazz Underground, is a radical departure from everything I have recorded so far, and it is unique as far as I know, the first real attempt to merge free jazz with clave. The music on the album includes tunes by Sam Rivers, Don Cherry, Andrew Hill, two originals by Aruán, one of my tunes and a standard. It contrasts complex unison melodies with free improvisation, changing time signatures that somehow get reconciled with Afro-Cuban patterns and virtuoso performances by all of the guys. The album is coming out on Zoho records who captured the concept of the album perfectly with the album cover.<br />
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I had originally offered Algo Mas to Zoho in 2004 and they turned it down. Jochen Becker, the owner of Zoho records liked it at first and offered to release it. But then he called back and asked me whether it was possible to remove Pedrito's vocals. I said I couldn't. The vocals were prayers and were crucial to the concept behind the project. I sent the recording to Jazzheads and that became the first of 9 albums I recorded for the company. I kept running into Jochen at various music happenings and he know about my recent recordings. In fact it was his suggestion that I record a tango album, which turned out to be my 2013 release, Todo Corazon. And he suggested that I contact Pablo Aslan who records for Zoho; Pablo co-produced and arranged the album for me. I was worried about how Jazzheads would respond to the record of experimental Latin jazz after my last three records. And in any event I felt I needed a different level of exposure than I was getting with Jazzheads. I wanted more of a focus on press and less on radio and I especially wanted strong exposure in Europe, where Zoho had very strong market presence. And then there was my perennial battle with my lack of a performing career, the reality of my age (73) and the pressing professional and academic commitments that constituted my other life.<br />
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If you have been following my blog my ambivalence about not being a working musician has been an undercurrent throughout the ongoing saga of my 'dream' to make a contribution as a jazz flutist. This culminated with my last post, where I exposed my other life and admitted to the strong attraction to academic work that my recent book represented. Since my book was published I have cut way back on my psychological involvement with music. I have been practicing a lot less and writing philosophy with real engagement. I have written a number of papers and a chapter for a book on the periodic table that is being offered to Oxford University Press. I was invited to submit the chapter and was both surprised and pleased at the invitation from two exceptionally gifted scholars who are editing the volume. Writing academic papers has a strong attraction to me and has a calming effect, contrary to music which is always a source of strong anxiety and often even stronger regret as I face the reality of all that I have missed by not being a working musician. The camaraderie, sheer joy of performing and the shared sense of sacrifice makes jazz musicians one of the strongest psychical communities I have ever been a member of. Being a musician among musicians is one of the great joys of life and being a jazz musician is a great gift, whatever the price that jazz musicians have to pay for the privilege of playing the music. The taste of it that I get when I record is just enough to make my ache for what I'm missing, and going to Zoho offers me the hope that I may yet get a chance to perform, since, among other things, Zoho expects it of me. But I'll have to see how the record is received and if my relationship with Aruán can develop into performance opportunities. Although I am happy to just put out the record and enjoy life, since my life has recently become exceptionally enjoyable.<br />
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Last April my sweetheart Dasha came back from Mongolia and decided to stay with me in the US. We were married August 28th.<br />
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So things are looking bright for the New Year.mark weinstein, jazz flutisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09347260434409789512noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853428050305648215.post-57468251900903726332013-03-20T14:47:00.001-07:002013-03-20T17:56:33.542-07:00my other life<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Well there it is, my other life on display. The book is something that has taken an enormous amount of energy over the past year and a half. I started working on it around that time I finished Todo Corazon and was involved with it the whole time I was recording my next album with Aruan Ortiz. The working title of the album is FREE. It is Afro-Cuban free jazz, 70's style, with tunes by Sam Rivers, Don Cherry, Andrew Hill plus originals by Aruan and some surprises. Like most of my albums it is me and a rhythm section. Aruan played piano, Rashaan Carter, bass, Gerald Cleaver, drums and Ramon Diaz on conga. It is a strange album, especially after my last three which have been increasingly pleasant to listen to.<br />
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My tendency is to go back and forth between albums that are more familiar and albums that try to stretch the music in the direction that reflect my aspirations since the late 60's towards the avant garde. After all, the original Cuban Roots (1967) was way ahead of its time. After my first album on flute, Seasoning, (1996), I recorded Jazz World Trios (1998) which in many respects is still among my most adventurous albums, followed by Three Deuces (2000) which is mainstream. Another example of my switching back and forth are O Nosso Amor and Lua y Sol (Brazilian, inside and out) and Con Alma and Timbasa (Latin jazz, mainstream and cutting edge). But getting back to my last three albums, Jazz Brasil with Kenny Barron was certainly very much in the pocket and although El Cumbanchero is strikingly original in many respects it still references the charanga tradition in available ways. And Todo Corazon, whatever its novelty is luscious and easy to listen to. That built up a lot of musical gravity on the side of me that likes to make music that people want to listen to. And so there was a lot of pressure building on me to bolster my avant garde credentials with something to counteract all the sweetness of my recent work. Well, for better or for worse, that is my latest, FREE, hopefully to be released next year (Jazzheads hasn't heard it yet). FREE is even hard for me to listen to. When I played the rough mix for some musician friends I prefaced it by saying it is the kind of music that makes people hate jazz. <br />
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But, whatever my anxieties about the album being accepted I felt it was necessary to make a statement that situated my music back towards the direction of artistic riskiness. And there is a risk. Both Jazz Brasil and El Cumbanchero were at the top of the radio play charts, while Lua y Sol and Timbasa, although well received, never got as much play or attention. And my most innovative album, Tales From the Earth with Omar Sosa, received little or no play and has pretty much disappeared from view (it is a great album and I am very proud or it, nonetheless). So my next album is "out there." What has that to do with my new book?<br />
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Well I'm going through a really strange period and I am afraid that my attitude towards my life and music has been impacted. For the past 20 years I have been balancing my musical aspirations with my professional commitments as an academic. I published lots of papers, made a reasonable reputation in the field in which I published and was well enough respected that I was asked to write the book for a new but prestigious press that is publishing important work in logic. But although I think I have something important to say about logic, my heart and and my ego has been all tied up in music. I defined myself as a musician. That is where I felt I had to prove myself and that is where I saw the real value of my my life, my contribution -- what made my almost 73 years on this planet more than just taking up space. But then I wrote that book. The first thing is that it is really fun to do. I mean fun! I really enjoyed the process of pulling my thoughts together and I had to read some modern logic that stretched my abilities in ways that are more common to logicians in there 20's, not some old guy in his 70's who hasn't kept up with the field for a really long time. But I managed. I read some really hard stuff, figured it out and incorporated it into my ideas and came up with some interesting results. I really like my book. And for the past 6 months, while I was putting the finishing touches on the book, after if had been accepted for publication (even though I was asked to submit a manuscript, it had to go to readers who review it for the publisher) something really strange happened. I started to practice less and less.<br />
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Ever since I started to play the flute and no matter the ups and downs of my life playing the flute was my first priority. I was notorious at academic conferences because I always found a place to practice, frequently outside of the conference residence (conferences are frequently on college campuses). There is a major conference in my field (argumentation theory) in Amsterdam every four years and I spent more time playing the flute in Vondelpark then I ever did at conference events. Playing in Vondelpark is one of my all time favorite things to do and whatever the value of presenting at the conference for my academic career, it was getting nicely toasted and playing the flute that was the main attraction of the Amsterdam conference for me. But when I was writing the book, I would wake up, put my flute in the stand and get ready to practice, but the book would grab me. And once I started working on it the day was finished. I would put up to 8 or more hours of steady work into the book without even realizing it. And the day would go by without my touching the flute. I would then force myself to play for a few hours, but even that got less and less. And for the first time in over 40 years I went to days without touching the flute. The irony is that I started having a little flurry of gigs during the last 6 months, so I was preforming more than usual, but something had changed in my head. The flute was not the most important thing in my life.<br />
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But then it got even crazier. After the book was finished, I still didn't practice all that much and I had another conference paper to write. Instead of just putting something together I got deeply involved and wrote something really special. And I started to practice less. I really don't know what is going on. And I am writing this blog to come clear to myself. With FREE I think I may have said everything I want to say as a musician. I'm sick of looking at boxes of unsold CD's. I'm sick of fighting for space in a field crowded with great musicians for whom being a musician is all that there is. They struggle to make a living, the successful ones (the guys I record with) are on tour all over the world and their music is taken seriously. I'm a weird out-sider, a professor who makes records. The <a href="http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=44046#.UUotvqXt4Rz">latest review</a> for Todo Corazon even identifies me as a logician. And maybe that's what I am. Maybe I'm a professor who plays that flute, rather than a flute player who supports his music as an academic, like so many jazz musicians and other creative artists for whom a full-time teaching gig is the ticket to artistic independence. Well we will see. Anyway the book is available <a href="http://www.collegepublications.co.uk/logic/sla/">here</a> in case you are interested.<br />
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Meanwhile I have to put the finishing touches on FREE and get it ready to present to Jazzheads. And I have another album almost finished. The album of Jewish music I recorded in Jerusalem last summer. That still needs a lot of work so I will remain engaged with music. Meanwhile I'll have to see what is happening in my head. I guess it is time to stop writing my blog and practice for a few hours.</div>
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<br />mark weinstein, jazz flutisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09347260434409789512noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853428050305648215.post-78029457465138533392012-11-15T14:18:00.000-08:002012-11-16T12:05:33.106-08:00Todo Corazon<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Well there it is. The tango album, or at least the cover. The album itself will be out early in 2013. I finished mastering yesterday and have to listen to it once more before it is official. But going through all of the tracks, doing a bit of final adjustments to the mix and then balancing the entire CD for volume gave me a chance to really listen to what me and the musicians accomplished. For those of you who don't want to dig through earlier blogs on the project a quick review.<br />
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The idea of the tango album goes back a few years when Jochen Becker of Zoho records met me at a conference and in conversation recommended that I think about doing a tango album. I have had a long friendship with Jochen, surprisingly based on his turning down my album Algo Mas, recorded in 2004. I have approached Zoho at the suggestion of Bobby Sanabria who played an important role in that record by suggesting that I contact Pedrito Martinez who ended up co-producing the record with me. I had asked Bobby who was the guy in NYC that knew the most about folkloric Cuban music and who had the most open mind. Bobby told me that Pedrito was the guy, and he couldn't have been more on target. Pedrito organized the drummers, sang and played and picked the toques de santo that constituted half of the album (the other half was rumba).<br />
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In any event, when Jochen heard the music he loved it, but felt that with the folkloric vocals is wasn't right for the label. That's when I connected with Jazzheads, forming the productive relationship that has resulted in 8 CD's on the label so far, with more to come. Jochen was very friendly with me ever since, which reflects what a great guy he is and who supportive many of the independent record company's are of each others efforts to survive in the abysmal music market of recent years. I asked Jochen who he knew that could facilitate a tango recording and he suggested one of his recoding artists, bassist Pablo Aslan. Pablo has had a number of successful tango albums, winning nomination in both the Grammy and the Latin Grammy.<br />
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Pablo agreed to the project and selected classic tango material including tangos written in the early 1900's. I've discussed the process in earlier posts and included some photos from the session that I hope you will check out. But for now I just want to post the liner notes which give you another perspective on the material. They are by jazz critic and tango historian Fernando Gonzalez.<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Mark Weinstein <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Todo Corazón</i><o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
Mark Weinstein does things his way.</div>
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Even a cursory look at his personal story and professional
career suggests a mix of a curious, restless mind and the talent and
determination to build on his choices.</div>
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Not surprisingly, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Todo
Corazón</i> is not a conventional tango album. </div>
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It is framed by the tango tradition. It features a classic,
unimpeachable repertoire and a terrific ensemble comprised of musicians who not
only know the vocabulary<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>of tango
but its old ways and backstories. And the settings echo the very beginnings of
this music — the first ensembles at the turn of the 20<sup>th</sup> century
featured flute, violin and guitar — but also play to its present, as tango
continues to open up to the harmonies and improvisation in jazz.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And then, to all this, Weinstein brings his own vision and
his own sound.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“When I play music, I want to feel I have the absolute
freedom to put myself into that music, whatever the style,” he explains. “I
never try to copy or mimic what other people do. I try to get inside the music
and take ownership as an improviser.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As he once explained to Chip Boaz in an interview: “I don’t
play Cuban music; I play jazz to Cuban music. I don’t play Brazilian music; I
play jazz to Brazilian music. … I don’t play Jewish music; I play jazz to
Jewish music. What I mean is that I keep the form completely intact, but then
have the freedom to do whatever I want.”</div>
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As for his flute playing, Weinstein, a former bass and
trombone player, picked up the instrument at 34, at a time he was transitioning
from full-time musician to g<span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">raduate student for his PhD in Philosophy. He is completely
self-taught.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“</span>In
those days I was playing the flute to take a break from writing my
dissertation,” he says. “I never took a flute lesson. Nobody showed me the
fingerings. I just did it.”</div>
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He doesn’t have the rounded, tightly focused classical sound
or a conventional jazz approach. If anything, his sound is closer to that of
Jeremy Steig, one of his role models, than Hubert Laws or James Moody.</div>
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“I haven’t been able to get that classical sound. I wish I
could — but I can’t,” he says. “But because of it, what I do when I record is
play with a range of sounds and a generally warmer sound.”</div>
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After years of exploring African, Brazilian and Caribbean
music, Weinstein saw an opportunity in tango. Playing and recording drum- and
percussion- heavy genres inevitably limits flute players to the high register
and takes away the more nuanced, expressive possibilities of the instrument. </div>
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On the other hand, playing in a drum-less setting has its
own challenges.</div>
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It’s not only that there’s a different way of setting the groove
and driving the music but, in tango, the melodies and the dancing, true or
implied, are often what sets the tempo and its variations.</div>
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Still, for Weinstein, recording a tango album was a chance
for the flute to be heard.</div>
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“For better or for worse, it was an opportunity to put my
flute sound for people to hear and approach the songs in different ways, with
different sounds.”</div>
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<span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">As
a showcase, bassist, arranger, co-producer and </span>Grammy<span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"> and Latin </span>Grammy<span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"> nominee Pablo Aslan
chose a rich program.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">It
includes gems such as “La Viruta,” written by Vicente Greco in 1912, or “Los
Mareados,” a 1940s classic by Juan Carlos Cobián and Enrique Cadícamo, but also
“Onda Nueve,” a piece by New Tango master Astor Piazzolla composed in 1972. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">And,
smartly, Weinstein is set here with a mixed approach: some tracks are craftily
arranged and some are <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">a la parrilla</i>,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(literally “grilled”), which is tango’s
version of a head arrangement and, in the limited way of the traditional style,
improvising.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Weinstein
plays off his</span> strong supporting cast featuring pianist Abel Rogantini,
Latin Grammy winner bandoneonist Raul Jaurena, guitarist Francisco Navarro and
Aslan.</div>
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Their tango playing sounds grounded, lived-in, and Weinstein
lets them account for the tradition, not only when presenting the pieces but in
their improvisations. Meanwhile, he takes a personal tack: not quite staying
strictly within the boundaries of the tango vocabulary, but not forcing bebop
on it either.</div>
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He plays it close to idiomatically on the title track and
“El Llorón,” taken here with a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">canyengue</i>
feel, a hard-driving approach that goes back to the rough, early tango dance
styles. He builds a delicate filigree in “Cristal” and whispers darkly on the
bass flute in “Gricel,” a rare love-story-gone-right. </div>
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As a whole, his playing is distinct and hard to classify. </div>
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What this recording is not is an intellectual exercise.</div>
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This is all about the heart. It´s about the permission for
“unabashed romance,” as Weinstein puts it, that tango grants. It’s right there
in the title.</div>
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What you hear, front and center, is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Todo Corazón.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fernando Gonzalez<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fernando Gonzalez is a
writer and critic whose work appears regularly in The Miami Herald, JazzTimes
and The International Review of Music. He is the translator and annotator of
Astor Piazzolla’s autobiography A Memoir (Astor Piazzolla: A manera de
memorias) as told to Natalio Gorín.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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Once again I have to begin by apologizing for the long gap between posts but given my rather bleak post in the last blog, happily, I have moved past my existential funk and am getting back to a more positive attitude. To a great extent that is due to the enormous support I have been getting from Jazzheads records and from my ongoing collaboration with Aruan Oritz who co-produced El Cumbanchero and wrote the amazing arrangements, some of which you can hear at <a href="http://www.myspace.com/markweinstein">myspace</a> along with complete tracks from Jazz Brasil, Timbasa, Tales From the Earth, Lue e Sol and Straight No Chaser. That's Aruan with his back to the camera at the recent Jazzhead's Festival in New York City at which I got to perform with some amazing musicians, Rashaan Carter on bass, Francisco Mora-Cattlet, drums and Ramon Diaz, congas. We played a number of tunes from my recent albums as well as some new material that signals my next expansion of my musical vocabulary-- playing free jazz but with an underlying Afro-Cuban pulse. More of that in a bit. But before I move on to that exciting venture, a word about Jazzheads. </div>
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Randy Klein, the president of Jazzheads, and a fine pianist and composer, decided to feature some of the artists on the label in a two-day festival. Getting to perform with such great musicians in a beautiful setting and with a warm and appreciative audience was a tonic for my perpetual gripes about not performing. I have been playing more, including at Trumpets jazz club in Montclair and in a series of library concerts. I have been getting help with bookings from a great flutist, Jessica Valiente, who has started a contracting business, <a href="http://www.706Music.com/">706 Music</a>. She has a great line-up of artists and you should check out the webpage. Here is the flyer for the festival, just so you can see what you missed.</div>
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But a lot more has been going on thanks to Jazzheads and Chris DiGirolamo who does the publicity for my Jazzheads recordings. I got a great review in Downbeat magazine, still the most important music publication in jazz.</div>
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In addition, I am putting the finishing touches on my next album, to be released this Fall. It is the album of tangos I recorded with multiple Grammy nominee Pablo Aslan and an all star cast of South American musicians. You can read about the details in an earlier blog with the label 'todo corazon,' which will be the title of the CD. It is a totally romantic album, which shows off another side of my playing. It is lush and relies heavily on the sound of the flute rather than the powerful percussion driven music that characterizes so much of my records for Jazzheads. Todo Corazon has no drummers, just bandeleon (the Argentinian button accordian), piano, classical guitar and acoustic bass </div>
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Todo Corazon sets the stage for my next project with Aruan, which will be in the words of Monte Python, 'something completely different.' Todo Corazon, like El Cumbanchero, is a re-imagining of two contrasting but equally romantic traditions in Latin American music, the Argentinian tango and the Cuban charanga. Both of these albums reflect my love for the total lack of embarrassment of those traditions in tugging at the heart strings by sheer romanticism. And getting to play basically diatonic solos as required by the tango genre was both a challenge and a great pleasure. But romantic and diatonic music is not where I was coming from in my original incarnation as a trombonist in the 60's, nor is it typical of a great deal of my playing since. And in my next project with Aruan I am returning to my 60's roots as a free jazz player. </div>
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My notorious album, Cuban Roots, was cutting edge in the late 60's and beyond, to a large extent because it integrated a 'new thing' concept rooted in Charlie Mingus' ensemble writing and the free jazz soloing of that period. I was very much into that scene, playing at the Mingus workshop at the Cafe Wha in Greenwich Village and playing free jazz with Bill Dixon and with musicians like Pharoah Sanders at East Village jam sessions. I have always wanted to do a record with a free jazz concept and a number of my recordings, particularly, Tales From the Earth, Timbasa and Lua e Sol use aspects of free jazz. Tales From the Earth was recorded with no written music, and all of the improvisations grow organically. But the African elements, particularly the balafone, which is diatonic, kept the music from having the sound and texture of the 60's experiments that had such an influence on my musical development. Similarly, although both Timbasa and Lua e Sol stretched the usual boundaries of Latin and Brazilian jazz, they were constrained by the material and the genre so that free elements did not predominate. But a conversation with Aruan after a photo shoot gave me the impetus of take my music back to my roots in free jazz while taking Latin jazz in a very different direction. Since Aruan's back is to the camera in the photo above, here is a photo of us from the shoot, The photograph is by the wonderful music photographer Michael Weintrob.</div>
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We were driving back from the shoot and Aruan started pushing to do another project. El Cumbanchero had won both he and I awards, Best Latin Jazz Arranger and Best Latin Jazz Flautist for 2011 and he was anxious, as was I, to continue our productive relationship. But I was a bit more hesitant. I had the tango album coming out and had recorded an album's worth of music in Jerusalem that I had only begun to deal with. And for a number of personal reasons my finances where a stretched more than usual. So jumping into a project at this point seemed unwise. So my response was basically that I wouldn't record unless he had a compelling concept. Without a moment's hesitation he reminded me that two giants of free jazz, Sam Rivers and Andrew Hill, had recently passed away and that since Sam Rivers was a magnificent flutist and Andrew Hill an equally great pianist, doing a recording in recognition of their music was a natural. He got my attention! Now the problem was one that has been often discussed in Latin jazz circles. How Afro-Cuban music, with its commitment to not only a steady pulse but to the underpinning of the clave, the asymmetric two bar phrase that underlies Cuban music, could be combined with the free rhythmic conception of free jazz drumming. Aruan said not to worry he had the guys who could do it. And the band at the Jazzheads Festival were those guys.</div>
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So just one week later I was in the studio with Aruan and the other musicians (with Gerald Cleaver on drums, replacing Francisco who had to leave town) recording some of the most difficult music I have ever had to deal with in my life. Aruan, true his classical training, transcribed a number of tunes by Sam Rivers, Andrew Hill and Don Cherry, put in a few originals of his own and with an original of mine put me through my paces. Two days of recording and I think we have squared the circle. Aruan had discovered that behind time signatures like 5/8, 3/8 and even some bars of, believe it of not, 11/8, was the clave, and Ramon Diaz (who recorded Timbasa under his legal name Ogduarte Diaz) was just the musician to find it and keep it, no matter where the melody and drums went. It is a breath-taking combination of musical genres, but yet another indication of the deep roots that forge the common ground for all of the music of the African diaspora.</div>
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So although my existential crisis is still with me, as I delve deeper into my confrontation with mortality, religion and the human condition, I keep on making music and expanding my horizons. And to make matters worse I have to work on my revision of a book manuscript in logic and argumentation theory, a task that I have been putting off for an entire semester under a heavier than usual teaching load and that I have to get to complete during my 6 week break before I start teaching summer school. But it keeps me off the streets, so no complaints this blog.</div>
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<br /></div>mark weinstein, jazz flutisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09347260434409789512noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853428050305648215.post-87100155015842397992011-12-13T11:29:00.001-08:002011-12-13T21:27:13.958-08:00Really Cool!!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqDQhVicS8tKJGaWYTay9VjknzNJkxjfqhRQXP4txpkWNOHxvuWFiv8w8c9fy-LPI5zwuJGN2e3QGeRwjpvHDr8S3Xi2AXzrHKGipJIVE0GMX5G57KoPsoiZ4m3Li4XgF-WY-M82myxkU/s1600/jazzweekcover.jpeg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 380px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqDQhVicS8tKJGaWYTay9VjknzNJkxjfqhRQXP4txpkWNOHxvuWFiv8w8c9fy-LPI5zwuJGN2e3QGeRwjpvHDr8S3Xi2AXzrHKGipJIVE0GMX5G57KoPsoiZ4m3Li4XgF-WY-M82myxkU/s400/jazzweekcover.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5685697531163802402" /></a><br /><div>My daughter Rebecca has a way of saying 'Really Cool!!' that never fails to warm my heart. And when Dr. Jazz, my radio promoter sent me the cover of this weeks Jazzweek radio chart, that's what I heard: Really Cool!!. So I'm back at number one on the charts (Jazz Brasil hit #1 as did Con Alma). So why do I feel like such a failure. I can tell myself that it's because I rarely perform, or because I'm 71 and feel time running out or because I still long for a relationship with a woman. But I think time running out is up there as the reason for my persistent negativity. </div><div><br /></div><div>I've been thinking about the philosopher Heidegger despite disregarding him for both professional and personal reasons. I'm a logician and trained in analytic philosophy rather than in continental philosophy, which Heidegger dominated, and he was a Nazi, belonged to the party and etc. But in checking out Wilkepedia, which embarrassingly I rely on more than any self-respecting academic should, I came upon one of his central ideas that I can relate to, as they say.</div><div><br /></div><div>The basic idea is that we (all of us, even Jews) come into existence with a relationship to the world, that world that manifests itself as the condition for our being-in-the-world as we are concerned with it through our interactions. Our engagement with the very stuff of our existence: the existence that we care for. But being-in-the-world is conditioned by its temporality, our present draws upon its past as we move ahead into the unfolding future. And at 71 it seems that I can't count on very much future at all. </div><div><br /></div><div>It's not that I think I haven't accomplished anything. My recent interest in Heidegger is sparked by a doctoral student I'm working with who is writing a dissertation on math and ontology. Just being able to say that should shut me up. For god's sake I have doctoral students and built a successful career as an academic after a really shitty start in the 1970's that included being fired when I got my degree, going bankrupt and having to reinvent myself as an educational consultant and getting my first tenure-track position at 47. But I was associate director of an institute for critical thinking, department chair and as a full-professor have a great job, a reliable income and have been able to live out my dream to create a body of work as a jazz musician.</div><div><br /></div><div>And dammit, I have a #1 record! Again! But somehow it doesn't do it for me. I still miss the life that didn't happen. Being a working musician and celebrating the success of my music with an audience and with other musicians. The life! I know it is a crappy life. Being on the road, not hearing yourself on stage. Not knowing where your next gig is coming from. Feeling your musical worth loosing purchase as younger musicians are called instead of you. Not to mention that there are very few gigs, that jazz is geriatric in its appeal and as Nicholas Payton has recently said in defense of his move into jazz-fusion (as it used to be called) playing jazz requires you to be a necrophiliac. One step beyond Frank Zappa's infamous gibe that jazz wasn't dead, it just smelled funny.</div><div><br /></div><div>But boy when I look at the photos on my facebook page from the hundreds of musicians that I am friends with, I crumble at the thought that I am not doing it, and it is overwhelmingly probable that I never will. Those photos of smiling guys in airports with their instruments at their feet, or sitting around tables with their arms on each others shoulders. Boy I miss being a musician among musicians. I have lots of recent photos of myself with musicians, a few from every record date. And when I record it is a short trip to musician heaven. Hangin' out with the guys. The being-in-the-world of musicians. I did it for 15 years starting when I was a kid and lasting until my early-thirties. And even though my rotten personality kept me from enjoying it as much as I should have, I look back to that period as a period of intense engagement with life. And I long for the chance to do it some more. Just like I long for the possibility of one more great romance, one more chance to love someone. </div><div><br /></div><div>I guess that what happens when the future futures seem be closing off. As the limit from above meets the limit from below (think of calculus) defining the vanishing point of existence. As all past pasts meet all future futures in the obliteration of life, everything vanishing, including especially all future possibilities. </div><div><br /></div><div>Holy shit! You won't believe it, but I'm not depressed, just telling it like it is. Life is the result of choices and contingencies. And every actuality crowds out all of the unactualized possibilities of roads not taken. As Popeye used to say: I am what I am, and as I might add, I done what I done. I stopped playing trombone, I stopped being a musician. I became a philosopher and started playing the flute. But I sat on two chairs, each with a halbe tuchus (yiddish for half an ass) and so didn't end up doing either with a whole heart or with complete dedication. And I'm stuck with it.</div><div><br /></div><div> </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>mark weinstein, jazz flutisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09347260434409789512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853428050305648215.post-22744366583591555632011-09-08T19:39:00.000-07:002011-09-15T19:28:17.695-07:00ups and downs<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8owM6WQ_Gz4T2pa5yNFt7nyZiirD8Rra4h1OXWRKnwGO7utOJyzwg8HLhxbObNlhFP4zDaQPMrr_hSaWOQoZ-9Ef0E-aEn1KWmfHso4v7UrrGYuiUh9tEMAT737A6i1OZGXkwhKLOWYY/s1600/IMG_0343.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8owM6WQ_Gz4T2pa5yNFt7nyZiirD8Rra4h1OXWRKnwGO7utOJyzwg8HLhxbObNlhFP4zDaQPMrr_hSaWOQoZ-9Ef0E-aEn1KWmfHso4v7UrrGYuiUh9tEMAT737A6i1OZGXkwhKLOWYY/s400/IMG_0343.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5650184918811222770" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC3Z_3ltfuenQTCFjlGqQFE-bKImmS8cWvLCBw9D9qYW7FK1190M8f7PZLXR4R1S-5Z0O_XgMGCQHz3oN8Bj8eWoFtJro8B8-Yom1p_dSAOjtY20vfZMW5jt579QRZMVaMsUl1eKIQuX8/s1600/Mark-cover+%2528Hi-res%2529-1.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"></a> </span></span><!--StartFragment--><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: 18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Once again, I've let a lot of time go between posts. But things have been complicated. It started with my trip to Israel in June on a grant to work with Arab and Jewish Israeli educators to develop critical thinking in teacher education. This refers back to what I did during the '80's and 90's when I was deeply involved in critical thinking, both in New York where I directed a program called the Reasoning Skills Project and in New Jersey where I was the Associate Director of the Institute for Critical Thinking at the University I teach at. The idea of getting back into the hard work of developing critical thinking programs that promote change is not all that attractive to me at this point in my life. But the idea of trying to do some good in Israel across the Arab-Jewish divide is very compelling. Anyway everything will depend on getting funding and in this economic climate I am not particularly optimistic.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: 18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="color:#333333;"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span></o:p></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Anyway, I went Israel in June and stayed a few extra days to record an album. That's the guys in the picture. Steve Peskoff, the guitarist who put it together for me is on the left. Steve is the head of the jazz program in a conservatory in Jerusalem. Originally a New Yorker, Steve has been on Israel for about 25 years. I’m next to him, then Steve's son Chaim who played drums, and Gilad Dibrecky a percussionist I played with quite often in the states, who has moved back to Israel. On the right is the bassist Gilad Abro who rounded out the quintet.</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: 18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">We recorded for two days after one day of rehearsal and things went rather well. I put it on a hard drive and took it home. I finally got a chance to pick takes and do a rough mix, which prompted the post. The music is like my other albums, playing jazz in response to world music traditions. We recorded a number of Chassidic tunes (niggunim), three originals (two by me and one by Steve) and a waltz from the 1930's. The engineer says the music is 'Jewish, retro, contemporary' but I guess so are all of my albums. My Cuban, retro, contemporary album El Cumbanchero is mastered the cover is done and going into production. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: 18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: 18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); line-height: normal; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC3Z_3ltfuenQTCFjlGqQFE-bKImmS8cWvLCBw9D9qYW7FK1190M8f7PZLXR4R1S-5Z0O_XgMGCQHz3oN8Bj8eWoFtJro8B8-Yom1p_dSAOjtY20vfZMW5jt579QRZMVaMsUl1eKIQuX8/s400/Mark-cover+%2528Hi-res%2529-1.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5650184304107826658" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 351px; " /></span></span></p><div><span style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); line-height: normal; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></span></span></span></div> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: 18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="color:#333333;"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: 18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">El Cumbanchero might be the best album I have ever recorded. It certainly has the most beautiful cover, as you can see. I've mentioned this in previous blogs, but it is worth saying again. Aruan Ortiz who wrote the arrangements for string quartet and contributed three original compositions has written one of the most amazing pieces of music I have ever had the pleasure of playing. The fact that he gave this music to me and permitted me to respond with complete freedom is one of the greatest gifts I have ever received. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: 18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="color:#333333;"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: 18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Although I have complete confidence in the result, I was a bit anxious as to how the music would be received. Since it uses both a traditional Cuban form, the charanga, and recasts the form in contemporary terms. The first test was when I asked Danilo Lozano to write the liner notes. Danilo is a fine classical flutist working out of LA and a serious student of charanga music. His father Jose Rolando Lozano is one if the legendary Cuban charanga flutists along with Fajardo and Richard Egues. For those of you who don't know much about the music, it is played on a 5-key wooden flute that was the basic flute before the Boehm system became available at the end of the 19th century. It is a flute that is favored in many folk kinds of music and is still used by Irish flutists. It was the instrument of choice for Cuban charanga flutists who played it in the extreme high register. Not only did they play the highest notes with a beautiful tone, but they used a fast operatic vibrato, something that requires enormous strength and control. I on the other hand, am a jazz flutist, use a metal flute (a Powell Aurumite) play mainly in the low and middle register, using high notes only to extend the range of my lines, and use a wide harmonic vocabulary. But I have been playing Cuban-based music for 50 years and have a deep respect for the melodic sweetness and rhythmic power of Cuban music. So I hoped that those who love the charanga would be willing to accept my reconfiguring the charanga flute tradition around my strengths as a jazz flutist. Happily I can report that Danilo was happy to write the liner notes, and without tooting my flute too much was quite positive about my flute playing and how I approached the form.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: 18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="color:#333333;"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: 18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">But to be honest I take much less credit for the beauty of the album, which I owe to Aruan. My only instructions to him was to listen to number of tracks from a CD compilation of the legendary charanga Arcaño and su Maravillas and to 'extend the music from the inside.' I knew I was on the right track when for his first arrangements he choose to rearrange were two of my most favorite compositions, 'Doña Olga' and 'Armoniosos de Amalia.' Choosing to recast these classics, originally arranged by Israel Cachao Lopez, was both a tribute and an enormous risk. The way I approached playing the flute presents an even greater challenge, both to the musicians and to the listener. In the liner notes Danilo focuses on the tension between what we did and the expectations for the audience who is deeply engaged with the charanga tradition. And he sees it as ‘a risk well worth taken.’’ I hope his acceptance is any indication of how others will feel and I have great optimism about the success of the album. But acceptance aside, I think it is truly wonderful music and I know it will be a welcome addition to my work over the past 6 years with Jazzheads records. Needless to say, Randy Klein, the president of Jazzheads is supportive of this latest effort and is planning a significant promotional campaign including branching out internationally. I have already seen some success in this regard. Timbassa was licensed by Japanese label and I get quite a bit on play outside of the US.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: 18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="color:#333333;"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: 18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Speaking of international connections. I got a chance to play at the Quebec Music Festival in July, thanks to a wonderful woman Jocelyn Michaud who has been promoting my music in Canada. I played with a sextet, two sax players and a rhythm section. I played the parts originally written for flugelhorn. It was quite a different musical context for me, but it was a lot of fun. And I did a few features with the rhythm section that were very well received. All ups so but the downs started the night I got back from Quebec. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: 18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="color:#333333;"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: 18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">When I got back I had no electrical power. I microburst took out a tree which took down all of my external cables. Little did I know that in a few weeks many people would suffer much worse as storms, floods and fires would result in far greater catastrophes. But at the time, I was feeling pretty sorry for myself, even though I was up and running in a few days. I started teaching my usual two section of a graduate course in research methods. Three weeks into the semester I had one of the all-time pain experiences of my life, and I have a few, diverticulitis that led to major surgery in 2000 followed by a large kidney stone a few months later. The kidney turned out to be a lucky break, since when they did a procedure to see how big the stone was they saw a sponge that was left in me when I lost a foot and a half of colon to the diverticulitis. More recently I had a glaucoma attack that was one of the worst headaches I ever experienced. I had disregarded sign of glaucoma for some time, and by the time I got to the emergency room I was very close to losing the sight in my right eye. You think I would have learned not to disregard pain. Anyway, back to the my recent travails. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">I had been having stomach aches for several months and even after finding out on Google that there is no disease called a stomach ache or even one called indigestion, and that people over 55 should take frequent stomach pain seriously, I didn't pay much attention, assuming it was something I had eaten. Until the third week of my class, on a Sunday I sat with crippling pain for an entire afternoon telling myself I had food poisoning from the smoked salmon omelet I had for breakfast. Then all of a sudden the pain went away and I set down in a room without an air conditioner to watch television. In about a half hour I started shivering violently. I checked my temperature and it was normal, but the shivering got worse. I took my temperature again and it was starting to climb. When it hit 102.4 I went to the emergency room. After 9 days I was finally allowed to leave, without a gall bladder. It was a simple laparoscopic surgery that usually gets you out and about in 24 hours. But not when you have been disregarding stomach pain for several months. I was badly infected with a blocked bile duct, the resulting jaundice and liver malfunctions, plus blood pressure off of the scale. Plus my poor students didn't have classes for the rest of the semester but still had to produce a semester project. Fortunately I could read their papers on the Internet and get them comments by email. I gave lots of A's so nobody got hurt.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: 18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Those are the downs. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: 18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="color:#333333;"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: 18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">One more up. I got through Irene with just a damp basement and no trees down despite the fact that I am surrounded by big trees and I thought it was great that my house is covered with English ivy. Unfortunately so are the biggest trees in my back yard and the tree lady says it is only a matter of time before the ivy kills them. But if I don't take warnings seriously about my self, how can I be expected to worry about ivy. There is nothing like being a critical thinking expert who is a complete damn fool. </span></span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->mark weinstein, jazz flutisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09347260434409789512noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853428050305648215.post-60452103662438690692011-04-29T09:11:00.000-07:002011-04-30T22:36:38.979-07:00hope conquers all<img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 294px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ6bBBQz-A991c2ByeEkvCW9BbyXQkDsmYQVEAweXsAhAPEX1hsS54P8HZNKDz5bzD1G-8oIxG9qSRsZJhJxFVEPRt3KATKlGduksvDBD8Gopn7uyInReNwrKWaqQPTQOEFce56jEfJls/s400/Picture+1.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5601039230397841746" /><p class="MsoNormal">Well my best chance for an end run around the music scene towards recognition has been seriously compromised. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">NARAS</span>, the folks who give you the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Grammys</span> got rid of the Latin Jazz category. That was a funny category in a way, the only subdivision by genre. Jazz was divided into instrumental, vocal, big band, contemporary and Latin jazz. But there was no free jazz, no mainstream jazz, no Dixieland, only Latin jazz. So in a typical year there would be hundreds of entries into instrumental jazz and only dozens in Latin jazz. So you could always hope that you could sneak in at the bottom (the nominations are for the top 5). But with hundreds of jazz records to compete with, everyone from Chick <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Corea</span> to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Vijay</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Iyer,</span> getting a nomination for a recording on a small independent label (most Latin jazz comes out on small labels) looks pretty bleak.</p><p class="MsoNormal">But anyway, a Grammy nomination would have been the one way to move up in the consciousness of the jazz scene, although talking to guys who got nominated, it <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">doesn</span>’t change things that much. In fact for a long time I thought that was the only way, given my limitations. Teaching full time I can't afford to take tours that would make me have to cancel classes. They know about my music at the university, put since I do my job they disregard it. But if I was making money as a musician in a way that was a detriment to my teaching I’d be out on my ear. No professor’s salary, no recording. So the only way I’ll be known is if my records are taken seriously and a Grammy nomination would have been perfect. But there is no point in crying over spilled milk. And to top it all off, my last record Jazz <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Brasil</span> debuted at #1 in the country and has been at the top of the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Jazzweek</span> World chart and top 10 in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Jazzweek</span> Jazz, for 10 weeks. With Kenny Barron on the record, this was my shot for a nomination, but there is no easy way without the Latin jazz category. I’ll put it in the Latin Grammy (if they don’t do something weird) and as instrumental jazz in the regular Grammy (and get to compete with <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Wynton</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">Marsalis</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">et</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">al</span>).<span> </span>It’s like they took a target away and I got a quiver full of arrows. I guess I’m stuck with the big target in the sky. I have to make records just to make a record of my music. I have to think enough of my music to make it real, and for me real has always meant recordings. As my ex-wife Joyce used to say, it is all about making art objects. But I’<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">ve</span> always been hungry for recognition, never secure enough in my musical abilities to rely on doing the best I could. I wanted the world to tell me how good I was. I’m 70 years old and still as hungry for approval as I was when I was 25. Damn, when will I ever grow up.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">But I’m stuck with it. I have another record finished, the modern <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">charanga</span> album, El <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">Cumbanchero</span>, written by <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">Aruan</span> Ortiz (scroll down a few entries) and the tango album with Pablo <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">Aslan</span> (2 nominations, Grammy and Latin Grammy, in 2010 for Latin Jazz) is just about done. And I’m going back to Israel in June to make a record there. And I’m going into the studio tomorrow to work on the tangos and I’m writing the blog as a bit of occupational therapy. I have to get past the Grammy crap (me and everyone else have been on <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">facebook</span> and twitter, signing petitions all day) and get into the head to play music.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">The picture above is from my trip to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">Isreal</span> last June. I’m sitting in a park overlooking the old city. I videotaped myself playing and have still not gotten around to editing it down (I recorded about an hour). <span></span>I have to stop, and get ready for a day in the studio tomorrow.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii6VbZlFr14jQF19T9H3KWeyX2VibJmVztnoJvnpR_GKm_dqK674QMQhenEkIa2Sb1SomLcxpPD-HT7-S5YjhJP9pUuI1gCixWJyloNZjM_7z_VhBc9lzDsCUeSsL08JyMw3mQClTnmus/s1600/DSC_1156.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"></a><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii6VbZlFr14jQF19T9H3KWeyX2VibJmVztnoJvnpR_GKm_dqK674QMQhenEkIa2Sb1SomLcxpPD-HT7-S5YjhJP9pUuI1gCixWJyloNZjM_7z_VhBc9lzDsCUeSsL08JyMw3mQClTnmus/s1600/DSC_1156.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="text-align: left;display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii6VbZlFr14jQF19T9H3KWeyX2VibJmVztnoJvnpR_GKm_dqK674QMQhenEkIa2Sb1SomLcxpPD-HT7-S5YjhJP9pUuI1gCixWJyloNZjM_7z_VhBc9lzDsCUeSsL08JyMw3mQClTnmus/s400/DSC_1156.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5601040237471411730" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">I'm back! The photo above is the trio that recorded the last half of the tango album, guitarist Francisco (Pancho) Navarro on my right and on my left, Pablo <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">Aslan</span>, who managed 2 GRAMMY nominations in 2010 for the same album, one on the Latin Grammy and for Latin Jazz in the Grammy. That is the 3rd album I recorded with Grammy nominees (the others were Con Alma with Mark Levine and Tales From the Earth with Omar Sosa). Well who knows, the Latin jazz community is up in arms with petitions to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">NARAS</span> to reinstate the Latin Jazz category, and all sorts of theories about why it is being dropped (all focused on the rise of the indie labels and backlash from the pop establishment, since Esperanza <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">Spaulding</span> got the big prize in 2010). If any of you want to get involved, here is a link to the <a href="http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/latinjazzatthegrammys/">petition</a>.</p><p class="MsoNormal">I was obsessed with the Grammy controversy when I started this post and since then I have been taught an object lesson in why negativity is a meaningless response to disappointment. The Grammy awards are open to every one who is a member of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">NARAS</span> and the scuttle-butt is that that majors make everyone who works for the label join so that they can swamp the voting without doing campaigning, which is actually in violation of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25">NARAS</span> rules. So among us small-fry the word is that it is all 'politics' with music taking second place to connections. Not that anyone complains when they beat the system and get a nomination. But the real test of your status in the jazz cosmos was always the Downbeat critics poll (and I can't even get a review in Downbeat, so that's out) and the Jazz Journalists Association. The <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26">JJA</span> is a group of jazz writers who represent the most informed group of individuals, including musicians, since they represent all of those who focus on jazz through an intellectual and critical perspective. Every year they vote in a broad number of categories, including flute. And, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27">mirabilis</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28">dictu</span>, I have been nominated as Flutist of the Year for 2011. I'm one of five, and I don't think I'll win, since some flute stalwarts are in the running. To get a sense of how prestigious the group of nominees is check out the <a href="http://www.jjajazzawards.org/">2011 nominee list</a>. So I'm back up off the floor after a glancing blow to the heart from <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_29">NARAS</span> and full of hope that somehow my music will survive. That is the point of recognition after all. When I was younger a big part of being a musician was the hope that it would yield romance. It did in a way. I met my first wife playing bass in a pre-hippie illegal club called the Jazz Zoo, a block away from Brooklyn College during my freshman year. And that was a disaster, since I was married shortly thereafter, and that put a stop to my romantic aspirations. I was not happily married to say the least. Playing trombone got me a few cherished affairs, being on the road has fringe benefits for unhappily married musicians and I met Souix, my teenage sweetheart playing the flute in the park. But generally speaking, it has been my experience that playing music is over-rated as a seduction strategy. For most guys the major fringe benefit of being a musician is getting to 'hang' with the guys. It certainly was for me, and the recognition that you get from the musicians you play with is as good as it gets. But at 70 years old, and only starting recording at 56 my main fear was that my recordings wouldn't make enough of an impact so that they would be part of the consciousness of musicians and music lovers after I have moved on to the proverbial green pastures. Getting good reviews and radio play was a sign that my fears were somewhat less than reasonable. Getting the JJA nomination gives me a real sense that I am making an impact with my recordings and that my music well be seen as a contribution to that ethereal world, distributed among the artifacts and minds of human beings that is the only world for which artists have concern. Wouldn't it be a gas if the Lord liked jazz, according to the Good Book, He certainly loves singing. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <!--EndFragment--> </div>mark weinstein, jazz flutisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09347260434409789512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853428050305648215.post-41020736616988090102011-01-02T15:30:00.000-08:002011-02-10T14:48:56.063-08:00new year, new music<img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 353px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhWAIHZaCGj5Xz0XG_uFbz5my4V00PrG40NJq55VENkzX8MsnSCaaMe6Vh_GlqejZW8Y-v1LCYLUE_zNl9E8acigp1Y_8nH9vxb2bo2_l0HFgYb4s8iocWcSPK_A2WTUZp0M7jdMQc-YQ/s400/altjazzbrasilcover.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5557736588908310162" />Happy New Year to all! Well it's official. Jazz <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Brasil</span> is officially released; promotion starts in the next few week with albums sent out to reviewers and radio stations and if it works out I'm finally moving into the 21st century with twitter. I'm trying even harder to get my music noticed and I'm going to work to build more of a presence through social media. This is partly the idea of the record company. To try to broaden my fan base, mainly people who listen to Latin jazz, to other groups that might appreciate what I'm trying to do. A few blogs ago I mentioned my performance at the National Flute Association (<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">NFA</span>), and I still see flute players as a group that I want to reach out to. Jazz <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Brasil</span> is going to be included in an article on jazz flute players who performed at the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">NFA</span> in the groups very classy periodical, The Flutist Quarterly, but if I am going to keep the attention of classical flute players, many of whom are flute teachers, I'm going to have to do something that relates to their needs and interests.<div><br /></div><div>From what I pick up from flute lists, a few more school jazz ensembles are using flute players, and the general increase in interest in jazz at all educational levels should be able to be connected to the literally thousands of kids, teens and college students who play flute. My idea is to start another blog geared to aspiring jazz flutists and to introduce classical flutists to the possibility of playing and teaching others how to play jazz on flute. What I'm planning, although I'm not sure whether it will prove technically or financially feasible is to have a place where aspiring jazz flutists can post links to their recordings or videos and where others can listen and comment on the music. Sort of a virtual master class for jazz flute. That will be supported by jazz flute discussions including responses from more experienced jazz flutists and flute teachers to start to build a community of support and awareness of the potential for flute as a major contributor to jazz.</div><div><br /></div><div>Among the incentives to put up the blog is my desire to make my early (<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">pre</span>-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Jazzheads</span>) recordings more available so that my own development as a musician is acoustically available to those who are interested in my music. This blog tells the on-going story, but it is, after all, about the music. That brings me back to Jazz <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Brasil</span>. Jazz Brazil is my fourth significant effort to record Brazilian music. It is preceded by <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Lua</span> e Sol and O <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Nosso</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Amor</span>, both of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Jazzheads</span> and a number of earlier efforts. Jazz <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">Brasil</span> is probably my most 'inside' album. As I mentioned in the previous blog, playing with Kenny Barron landed me right in the center of my bebop roots. I came up in Brooklyn in the late 50's and early 60's and the musicians I was connected with, especially the African-American musicians like Ronnie Matthews, who was part of a group of musicians centered around Red Hook Projects (where I lived as a toddler) had a distinctive perspective on where to take bebop (white musicians who came out of the Brooklyn scene included the brilliant clarinetist and saxophonist Eddie Daniels). I was an undergraduate at Brooklyn College (as was Eddie) which supported a community orchestra in which I played trombone that included Jimmy Garrison in the bass section. But the strongest influence on me was composer and pianist Coleridge-Taylor <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">Perkinson</span>, who was probably best known in the jazz world for his work with Max Roach. 'Perk' as we called him, was the orchestra conductor and on the side he had a jazz sextet that he wrote for in which I played trombone from time to time. I wish I could remember all the musicians in it. But it was a 'rehearsal band' and so different guys played at different times. I was the only student in the group and I was in awe of the music and the musicians. Booker <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Ervin</span>, who I played with later in a sextet led by a very talented but obscure pianist-composer Paul Knopf around the same time, sometimes played tenor, also alto player Bobbie Brown, who also played with me and Paul Knopf as well. But I digress!</div><div><br /></div><div>Anyway, playing with Kenny was pure bliss, although the record date had some tensions (both Nilson and I were very much aware of the fact that we were recording with a jazz master). And since there were no rehearsals, the session was intense. So intense that we didn't take any pictures (nobody wanted the intrusion of photographs while we were recording. But we did take pictures during a break. I like this one (Phil Ludwig my engineer is standing next to Kenny Barron, with Nilson Matta and drummer Marcello Pelliterri on the other side):</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSPH3n8h0fDx80y5pI1NX7OS51l0s3ZoCvzY1_s292vToatWYLf7X_DrUzKqs3sRpLW9hLaHU9NETTpGNGJC_2P-jtkbd9RjYQtobh7AVtijArKsqU7Rk4Nu1hh_TkrlT52sXEKrcZe_I/s1600/Studio.JPG"></a><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSPH3n8h0fDx80y5pI1NX7OS51l0s3ZoCvzY1_s292vToatWYLf7X_DrUzKqs3sRpLW9hLaHU9NETTpGNGJC_2P-jtkbd9RjYQtobh7AVtijArKsqU7Rk4Nu1hh_TkrlT52sXEKrcZe_I/s1600/Studio.JPG"><img style="text-align: left;display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px; " src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSPH3n8h0fDx80y5pI1NX7OS51l0s3ZoCvzY1_s292vToatWYLf7X_DrUzKqs3sRpLW9hLaHU9NETTpGNGJC_2P-jtkbd9RjYQtobh7AVtijArKsqU7Rk4Nu1hh_TkrlT52sXEKrcZe_I/s400/Studio.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5558024796649577506" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div>My playing on Jazz <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">Brasil</span> is in interesting contrast to both the records that preceded it, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">Timbasa</span> and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">Lua</span> e Sol. Both of the earlier albums were very much cutting edge. The young Cuban musicians (Axel Tosca <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">Laugart</span> and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">Panagiotis</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">Andreou</span> both won Best Latin Jazz of 2010 awards for their work on <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">Timbasa</span> on piano and bass, respectively) were playing beyond anything I have heard. That album, in its own way, is so far in advance of what is going on in Latin jazz that I expect it to be years before the musicians integrate what those guys were doing with the music. And my playing of the album drew upon everything I knew and more. Playing up to those guys was a challenge and I am very pleased with the result. Similarly for <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">Lua</span> e Sol. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">Cyro</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">Baptista</span> is probably the most innovative percussionist in Brazilian music. His own music (Beat the Donkey and other ensembles) reflects the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">avant</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25">garde</span> scene both in Brazil and New York. Using him on the record, with no drummer, freed Romero <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26">Lubambo</span> and Nilson <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27">Matta</span> to experiment with form and texture. Again, my playing in response to them pushed beyond the standard idea of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28">bossa</span>-nova flute playing and enabled me to freely explore melodically and harmonically. But then came Jazz <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_29">Brasil</span>.</div><div><br /></div><div>You can hear three complete tracks from the record on my <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_30">myspace</span> page:</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.myspace.com/markweinstein">www.myspace.com/markweinstein</a></div><div><br /></div><div>In particular check out my version of 'Brazil,' the most classic of all of the Brazilian tunes, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_31">Ary</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_32">Barroso's</span> anthem. My statement of the melody is as pure as it can be. And the solo is right on the pocket, nothing fancy just those great changes and the sweet spots to make clear and musical statements. My approach to playing the melodies of great tunes is based on hours of listening to Frank Sinatra on AM-radio. I was working as a consultant in the New York City public schools, running something called the Reasoning Skills Project in the mid-80's and I had half-ownership of of 76 Dodge Dart with my ex-wife (it had been her father's car) She had it weekends and I had it to drive around from school to school throughout Bronx, Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn. I was in the car a lot and it only had an AM radio. And there was a program that played Frank Sinatra, and only Frank Sinatra, all day long. Like everyone else on the planet I had heard Frank Sinatra, but is was only in the Dodge Dart that I really learned to listen to him. And what struck me was the care and precision with which he just sang the notes 'as written.' That become my model for playing great melodies and 'Brazil' is certainly as great a melody as anyone could hope for.</div><div><br /></div><div>How far my performance on Jazz <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_33">Brasil</span> is from my earlier attempts a playing Brazilian music is best looked at in comparison to the other extreme. In 1998 I recorded an album of trios, playing Afr0-Cuban, Brazilian and post-bebop with three different groups of guys. The trio that did Brazilian music was Romero <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_34">Lubambo</span> and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_35">Cyro</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_36">Baptista</span>, and what we did there makes <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_37">Lua</span> e Sol look timid by comparison. Each group played two extended <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_38">improvizations</span>. When I played the first trio for Romero (Jean-Paul <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_39">Bourelly</span> on guitar and Milton <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_40">Cardono</span> on percussion) Romero suggested we record a classic <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_41">baião</span>, basically a 16-bar blues, probably by the master of the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_42">baião</span>, Luis <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_43">Gonzaga</span>. We play the tune for close to 16 minutes. It is a serious composition, improvised completely (the only prearranged part is the figure it ends with). It moves through 3 distinct sections and includes some of the best playing by Romero on any of my records. Check it out, track 2 on the album):</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.myspace.com/markweinstein/music/albums/jazz-world-trios-16142410">http://www.myspace.com/markweinstein/music/albums/jazz-world-trios-16142410</a></div><div><br /></div><div>Here is where I have to take it on faith that you listened to it. And this goes back to my earlier discussion of my proposed new blog. I want to talk to musicians about that piece of music. I want to engage in a technical discussion of its form, its use of structure, its use of harmonic motifs, it's use of contrasting acoustical environments and especially how it is possible to create such long forms through improvisation. That is, I want to start taking my music seriously and engaging with jazz theoretician and teachers using my music and their music as the basis for the discussion. Such a discussion includes how artists, change and develop. To give you an idea of where it came from and some other places I went check out two other early Brazilian recordings. The first is from my first album, Seasoning, recorded two years before Jazz World Trios in 1996. It is flute and two acoustic guitarists, Vic <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_44">Juris</span> and his student Robert Reich. It is a recording of my favorite tune from my favorite movie, '<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_45">Felicidades</span>' from the movie 'Black Orpheus,' track #8:</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.myspace.com/markweinstein/music/albums/seasoning-16142428"> http://www.myspace.com/markweinstein/music/albums/seasoning-16142428</a></div><div><br /></div><div>After I recorded Jazz World Trios (and returned from California where I recorded Cuban Roots Revisited for <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_46">Cubop</span> records) I recorded an album of duos, Three Deuces, with three different guitarists, Vic <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_47">Juris</span>, Ed Cherry and Paul Meyers. Paul contributed an original tunes called '<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_48">Andando</span>.' Here it is (track #2):</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.myspace.com/markweinstein/music/albums/three-deuces-16142441">http://www.myspace.com/markweinstein/music/albums/three-deuces-16142441</a></div><div><br /></div><div>But is was a collaboration with guitarist, singer and composer Richard <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_49">Boukas</span> that consolidated my interest in Brazilian music and introduced me to Nilson <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_50">Matta</span> who would co-produce all of my Brazilian recordings on <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_51">Jazzheads</span>, eventually reconnected me with Romero <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_52">Lubambo and Cyro Baptista</span>. The album with <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_53">Boukas</span> was his concept throughout. First, suggesting that we record all <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_54">Hermeto</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_55">Pascoal</span>, compositions, then settling on tunes from <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_56">Hermeto's</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_57">Calendario</span> do <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_58">Som</span>, writing all of the arrangements, playing a myriad of guitar-like instruments, singing, booking the musicians, running the sessions and mixing. The album is called <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_59">Tudo</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_60">de</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_61">Bom</span> and is well worth checking out.</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.myspace.com/markweinstein/music/albums/tudo-de-bom-16142498">http://www.myspace.com/markweinstein/music/albums/tudo-de-bom-16142498</a></div><div><br /></div><div>If you would like more, there are two sets of videos of duo's with Paul Meyers, one in concert in 1999, right after I recorded Jazz World Trios and another group that I recorded for the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_62">NFA</span> competition a few years ago. They are to be found at:</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.youtube.com/jazzflute41">http://www.youtube.com/jazzflute41</a></div><div><br /></div><div>They include my least favorite <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_63">bossa</span>-nova, 'Wave' ( a requirement of the competition) which I learned as a trombone player playing club dates the last year I played professionally before taken a few years break from music to earn my PhD. And which I played endlessly when I was broke, playing flute on the street for spare change in the late 70's (I was fired from my full-time teaching gig at <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_64">CUNY</span> when I got my PhD, since they had to promote me, but all promotions where cannibalized due to the budget crisis of 1976).</div><div><br /></div><div>Such is life! Let us all wish for peace, health and happiness in 2011 (and a little prosperity wouldn't hurt). </div></div>mark weinstein, jazz flutisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09347260434409789512noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853428050305648215.post-43597835559352712422010-10-12T13:52:00.000-07:002010-10-12T17:53:20.426-07:00this and that<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAxHgr3Y-QOsRM8vVuIoBGVrBF4ioQpgKiJIVXZvuwRejiOfUBWjfsdcYG3MSxPi_cFnn8p60xWWB9_rPiVwBPvE_Sd4ucsDFvfYtO_khJ5xng2n9HviNGW5obR5ylZ5AkIcBTdvQVAto/s1600/IMG_1454.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAxHgr3Y-QOsRM8vVuIoBGVrBF4ioQpgKiJIVXZvuwRejiOfUBWjfsdcYG3MSxPi_cFnn8p60xWWB9_rPiVwBPvE_Sd4ucsDFvfYtO_khJ5xng2n9HviNGW5obR5ylZ5AkIcBTdvQVAto/s400/IMG_1454.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5527271149390022482" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>I've been losing readers by not updating the blog, so I guess I have to get back into if I want the blog to stay alive. I generally post when I have a new album coming out, and I do. It is called "Jazz Brasil" and features 2010 NEA Jazz Master Kenny Barron, along with Nilson Matta, who co-produced it, on bass and Marcello Pellitteri on drums and percussion. The picture is of the guys at the session. That's Nilson to my right, Marcello up front and the jazz master, in fact as well as in name, Kenny Baron on other side of me. The timing couldn't be better. The album was actually recording in 2009 before I recorded "Timbasa." After listening to both recordings, Randy Klein the president of Jazzheads, decided to put "Timbasa" out first since my last album for the company "Lua e Sol" was Brazilian jazz. I agreed with him since I was sure that "Timbasa" would be well-received and reconnect me with the Latin jazz radio stations that had pushed "Con Alma" up to number one on the radio play charts. Waiting to release "Jazz Brasil" ended up being perfect timing. Hopefully the album coming out soon soon after Kenny got the Jazz Master award will give it that extra boost.<div><br /></div><div>Not that it needs is. I think the music stands on its own two feet. I felt a lot of pressure playing with Kenny, but you would never know it from the finished product. The album is relaxed, swinging and musical throughout. Playing with Kenny Barron enabled me to return to my bebop roots and he loves playing Brazilian jazz, a motivating factor in his doing the date with me. Kenny is a complete professional as was everyone else and the session went like clockwork. Once again, no rehearsals, head arrangements in the studio and a natural blending of very compatible players. We played a mixture of jazz standards by Thelonious Monk, Wayne Shorter and Joe Henderson, some originals and tunes by the best of the Brazilian composers, Ary Barroso and Jobim. We also did a cover of one of Herbie Mann's biggest hits, "Memphis Underground." I spent few years playing with Herbie when I was a trombone player and Nilson played with and loved Herbie Mann. It was his idea to play a Herbie cover, something I would have never thought of doing. It's worth remarking that the Brazilian musicians who played with Herbie really love him . Romero Lubambo calls him 'my American father.' Both he and Nilson say that I remind them of Herbie when I play. I can't see the similarity; my concept, playing world music with the best musicians I can get is straight out of Herbie's playbook. I see him as the source of how I see the flute in jazz, but honestly, I don't see myself as sounding like him at all. Part of it is that I can't swing as hard as he did. Very few people can. Herbie could swing and bring an audience to its feet. The album I recorded with him called "Standing Ovation at Newport" is a case in point. <div><br /></div><div>One of big crowd pleasers we played was called 'Mushi, Mushi,' which is how you say 'hello' on the phone in Japan (Herbie was very big in Japan). It featured Patato on conga and the two bones. It was the last tune on our set at Newport. But instead of stopping the tune when it was finished, Herbie kept on playing by himself. The band had ended big, but before the people could applaud, there is Herbie standing in front of microphone, doing his patented hip-movements, and playing air. That's right AIR. He is just blowing into the flute, making no sound other than the percussive effects of his tongue and the air into the microphone. Actually Jimmy Guiffre, the clarinetist, did that on a few recording, using air, tonguing and key clicks in a very subdued and almost hypnotic way. Herbie, on the other hand, was kickin'. Patato went to the apron of the large Newport stage and started clapping on 2 and 4. The audience picked it up, a perfect rhythm section of thousands of people, and not with a rock drummer slamming back-beats, but with Herbie Mann swingin' the shit out of air. They wouldn't let us off of the stage, which was slightly embarrassing as the next act was an all-star band led by Earl 'Fatha' Hines, and featuring greats from the 30's and 40's. Herbie certainly could swing.</div><div><br /></div><div>I on the other hand am obsessed with what I call 'saxophone' standards, to play changes and make a harmonic as well as melodic contribution. I recorded "Memphis Underground" on bass flute to keep comparisons with Herbie to a minimum. Another tune we recorded also has a strange history. Nilson played with Joe Henderson and he suggested we play "Isotope," a favorite of his when he played with Joe. I also played with Joe when he had a big band in New York in the 60's It was right after Thad Jones/Mel Lewis became a big Monday night draw at the Village Vanguard and another west village club, the Half Note, started to use big bands one night a week as well. I played with a number of big bands there, Clark Terry, Duke Pearson and Kenny Durham but playing with Joe Henderson's big band was something else. For one thing we only had about a half dozen arrangments so to play a whole night, Joe had to figure something out. For one thing he played duets with Lee Koenitz, when of the all-time most transcendental experiences of live music I have ever experienced sitting on the bandstand (another was Chick Corea accompanying Johnny Hartman when Herbie's band played the Apollo Theatre). Joe's charts were all tenor sax features and Joe would open them up the last set, letting other members of the band be the featured soloist. My feature was on "Isotope." What goes around comes around.</div><div><br /></div><div>The album with Kenny Barron will be available shortly (its release date is November 9th) although we won't be doing promotion until after the first of the year. I'll talk more about the date when I have the recording and put up some tracks on myspace. </div><div><br /></div><div>The other reason that I have for writing another blog is that a live video of me surfaced. I played a concert at Montclair State University with Jeff Kunkel who is head of the jazz department there. Bill Mooring is on bass and Rogerio Boccatto is on drums. I'm playing the melody on bass flute and solo on alto. The tune is an original by Jeff. </div><div><br /></div><div>There may be something weird with the video on your screen. I noticed that although the entire video shows on the preview page, the right side (with me) is cut off on the webpage itself. If you double-click on it it goes to myspace and you get to see me as well as the other guys.</div><div><br /></div><div><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica"><object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/VfFWP5PfCrw?fs=1&hl=en_US"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess"><p></p></object></p></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>I have something else to report, although it is not related to my music. I finished a first draft of a book based on my recent work in logic and reflecting a number of earlier publications. The reason I'm mentioning it is that it is a significant accomplishment and one that I have been putting off for years. Pressure from my job gave me the basic incentive and my son Jack, the philosopher, showed me how to do it. He said, 'guys who publish aren't smarter, they just do the work.' And so I did the work. The funny thing is that I get totally into writing when I do it. Basically, when I'm home I'm at my desk practicing. I keep the computer on, occupying myself during endless long-tones and scales by reading the news and etc. I keep track of emails that way so that they don't build up, using small tasks like answering mail to break up the practicing into reasonable units without taxing my chops. But what has been happening since I got back from giving logic papers at conferences this summer is that I sit down at the computer in the late morning with my flute on a stand next to me and if I open a file for a book chapter I get completely engrossed. When things were coming to a head with a chapter I would find myself in the evening without having touched my flute. I have completely lost track of time for over 8 hours in the past several weeks while I became totally absorbed in writing. I find myself not even having started to practice at 10pm or later, having spent a whole day in 'logic land.' It is a strange place to be in. Totally absorbing. And strangely, no matter how difficult it is, and I have been dealing with technical stuff far above my pay grade (catching up with the latest developments in logic with skills from the 1970's), it is far less of a struggle than articulating in the lowest half octave on the flute. Philosophy comes very naturally to me, and music has always been hard work. Yet, my whole self-concept, my aspirations and my desire to make a lasting contribution are all involved with being a jazz musician. Strange to say, although philosophy has been very good to me and I think that my work is reasonable important, music is still at center of how I see myself and ultimately it is what I see as the accomplishment of my life. Go figure! </div></div>mark weinstein, jazz flutisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09347260434409789512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853428050305648215.post-25629369561410583782010-09-02T10:59:00.000-07:002010-09-06T09:40:05.376-07:00what I did last summer<img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaNNEMyLdjuq9VKB80cuDIo-3qmcfFBRA_455yJtAWfOfyObpyjJ8WIKsGmCFyzqaJ0yKuQ8AayapqJB-jeFVxtk-2eFZS2vWG38QUuv8oS8iPM68sd2N9zhyphenhyphen-fE4NP5t8-oNpzC1wB4w/s400/IMG_4221.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5512378789133385106" /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div>I haven't posted a new blog in quite some time, but "I'm back," as they say. I didn't post for a number of reasons. For one thing I wanted the post on "<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Timbasa"</span> to stay up since the album was doing quite well on the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Jazzweek</span> radio charts and I wanted the discussion of the session to be available. Interest in "Timbasa" is still strong as evidenced by a recent <a href="http://www.latinjazznet.com/2010/09/01/interviews/in-conversation-with-flutist-composer-arranger-mark-weinstein/">interview</a>. But the main reason was that I didn't do much during the summer. I worked a few gigs but didn't move on any major projects. For the other thing I was very busy doing a lot of different and time-consuming things. I contradict myself, I'm allowed; my PhD is in logic (actually formal philosophy of science).</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div>I never talk about my other life, except tangentially when I discuss the topic of this blog, my dream to make a contribution to jazz as a flutist. But my other life, my PhD and my full-time job as a professor in a department of educational foundations is an integral part of the whole story. For one thing it pays me a middle class salary and being tenured, the money just keeps on coming in (unless something happens that forces me to retire-- my greatest fear at this point in my life). Plus being divorced and with grown children I can spend my salary anyway I <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">want to</span>, and I want to make records. That is not to say that my recordings aren't a business venture, they are. They are just about the lousiest business venture imaginable. Luckily there is no law in the tax code that says you have to be a smart business man, or even a reasonable one. Only a damn fool expects to make money selling jazz records. But there are lots of us out there trying, musicians putting every available dollar into recordings and jazz record labels willing to accept a marginal return on their investment of time and money for love of the music. My records sell, and I record for a wonderful label, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Jazzheads</span>, which has even received the recognition due to a company that earns a Grammy nomination (for Bobby <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Sanabria's</span> album "Kenya Revisited Live!"). All that said, it is my full professor's salary that fuels my music habit and so a significant part of my life is dedicated to teaching and the requirement that any self-respecting academic must publish.</div><div><br /></div><div>This summer, like every summer I taught a full schedule to earn extra money, but I also had a number of conference papers to give in the areas that I publish in, logic and argumentation theory (practical logic as evidenced in people reasoning together). That meant that I had to write papers and do some traveling. Nicely the conferences were is great places, Corsica and Amsterdam. The Amsterdam conference on argumentation meets every four years and I have been to every one since the late '80's. I love Amsterdam and I got to celebrate my 70<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">th</span> birthday in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Vondelpark</span>, nicely toasted playing my flute. But I also had to do the work and the paper (elaborating the history of the Periodic Table of Elements as an example of argumentation that leads to truth), required quite a bit of work since I needed to support my position with historical facts as well as logical analysis. The paper in Corsica was pure logic, the application of a theory of truth that I have been actively presenting for a number of years to the problem of counter-examples to scientific generalizations (evidence that goes against a seemingly correct theory). Piece of cake!</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div>Corsica was the sort of adventure I loved when I was younger. The trip included a flight, a ferryboat ride across the Mediterranean, a ride along the coast in a narrow gauge railroad and a bus that went pretty much straight up the mountains, going from a hot sea-side climate to a high mountain town surrounded by bare mountain peaks and moving through pine forest and Alpine meadows all in the space of hour. But at 70 and traveling by <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">myself</span> I was full of trepidation. Worse, there was almost two weeks between the conferences and that meant not playing for almost 3 weeks, unless I could go somewhere where I could get together with musicians. I looked at a map and Israel seemed next door to Nice from where I was taking the ferry for Corsica (actually it turned out to be a long flight since all of flights in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">expedia</span>.com within Europe and heading to to Tel <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Aviv</span> seem go through Riga, Latvia a hub in Eastern Europe).</div><div><br /></div><div>I had never been to Israel despite my deep involvement with Judaism. One reason was that like all Jews I have mythologized Israel and I was afraid of the emotional impact of my trip and the consequences it might have if I really felt drawn to the land. The contradictory emotion was that, as a long-time left leaning kind of guy, I was appalled by the political situation especially in the last decade as Israel skidded hard right in response to the second Intifada. I just let a tune of mine from an old album of Jewish jazz called "<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Shifra</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">Tanzt"</span> be used for a compilation CD called "<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">Klezmer</span> Musicians Against the Wall," although I required that the following be included on the album back cover.</div><div><br /></div><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 94px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhea_YkfUnj_aSUxoGtfzLlTD-Z7TIpzVKO4avx7oq6vTIrooUE98X_TCji_KTQjUkZafZLj25Nks6tAaSloiiguhwdED2krixR0ptwdCjfTuyQ2QNfzT69imUtIcBEDe8H-qiMxDIsVGQ/s400/peacequote.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5512388172156329394" /><div><br /></div><div>That's a scan from the prayer book I use after eating. The cool parchment effect is actually grease stains from my hands over the years.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div>Anyway, Israel proved just the ticket since a dear old friend who lives in Jerusalem was friends with Steve <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Peskoff</span>. Steve, a guitarist and native New Yorker, has lived in Israel since the 80's, is extremely active performing and a faculty in a number of jazz programs in Israel. Steve knew of my recordings and we both were looking forward to doing some playing. The trip to Israel was wonderful and playing with Steve as a high point both musically and personally. I made a video playing alone in a park overlooking the old city and one of the reasons I delayed in writing a blog was that I was waiting for the video so I could post it with my description of the trip to Israel. That is still in process so I'll save Israel stories for my next blog.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div>When I returned from my trip I was back to an intensive summer of teaching. I teach methods of empirical research to graduate students and although the teaching part is easy, reading and assessing student papers is very involving and time-consuming. The six week summer course meant putting all music projects on hold, although as indicated earlier I did get into local clubs and out door venues a few times. But nicely as things work out, my break between the summer and fall semesters was just the time that <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">Aruán</span> Ortiz was free and so we scheduled the recording sessions to finish "El <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">Cumbanchero</span>," my <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">charanga</span> project, for the last week in August.</div><div><br /></div><div>The picture at the top of the post is the string section with <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">Aruán</span> and me in the center. The string players are (left to right) <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">Everhard</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">Paredes</span> and Francisco Salazar, violins, Sam <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">Marchand</span>, viola and Brian Sanders, cello. Here is a picture of the rhythm section.</div><div><br /></div><div><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfdmfKYW-ixIt6k7zapNPq4zeFgumrFUm_zrvq41urvI4wfDc62M4hdYsAArkWKAZ4GHrNHfTgNCNZ1kusXBY-mY3ZBxbSihBixVjKekqDNGwGupno9H3M1-_4C_3Fdy4oFfhmhg5NqbI/s400/IMG_4201.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5512393274222002690" /></div><div><br /></div><div>Again, left to right, Mauricio Herrera, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">timbales</span>, conga and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">quiro</span>, me, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">Aruán</span> Ortiz, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">Yusnier</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25">Bustamante</span>, conga and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26">Yunior</span> Terry, bass.</div><div> </div><div><br /></div><div>The session was rather difficult. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27">Aruán's</span> arrangements were complex rhythmically and harmonically and the musicians were not available for rehearsals, so we did a lot of preparatory work during the session. Teaching the rhythm section the charts took hours and the basic rhythm tracks took 11 hours to record. But the result was impressive. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28">Aruán</span> brought in three charts. The title tune, "El <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_29">Cumbanchero</span>," was a fast conga with a long flute solo. Another Cuban classic, "La <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_30">Mulata</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_31">Rumbera"</span> was an innovative take on a classic tune which moved between a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_32">danzonet</span> and a rumba. And an original tune, "<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_33">Aruán's</span> Co" which moved between rumba and conga and featured the latest addition to the rhythm section, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_34">Yusnier</span>, who played <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_35">quinto</span> over Mauricio's conga (which was done after Mauricio laid down the basic drum track on <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_36">timbales</span> along with a bass drum played with the peddle ). Mauricio added an additional two tracks playing <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_37">bomba</span> (low drum) patterns on tom toms. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_38">Aruán</span> played a wonderful piano solo which complemented the alto flute flute solo. Although the tracks were swinging and the drummers magnificent I didn't get the full effect until a few days later when <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_40">Aruán</span> brought in the string players to add the string parts on top of what we had done.</div><div><br /></div><div>The string recording went a bit faster since the string quartet had rehearsed before hand. But, as always, the strings had problems playing with the tracks and struggling to play the complex harmonies and counterpoint that characterizes <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_41">Aruan's</span> writing for the date. And, as always, intonation problems required many takes before the string sound was as good as it needs to be. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_42">Aruán</span> did not write standard <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_43">charanga</span> string parts. Using the string quartet gave <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_44">Aruán</span> the possibility to do some serious writing and his arrangements move the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_45">charanga</span> concept to another level. The session took another 9 hours, but the result is amazing. Along with the two numbers, "El <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_46">Cumbanchero</span>" and "La <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_47">Mulata</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_48">Rumbera</span>" (<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_49">Aruán's</span> original was without strings) <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_50">Aruán</span> brought in an arrangement for string quartet and bass flute of a Cuban classic, "Perla Marina," a deeply moving bolero melody by <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_51">Sindo</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_52">Garay</span> played without drums, another break with tradition.</div><div><br /></div><div>The session recorded last year included <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_53">Aruán's</span> rearrangements of two classic compositions from the repertoire of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_54">Arcaño</span> y <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_55">Sus</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_56">Maravillas</span>, "<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_57">Doña</span> Olga" and "<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_58">Armoniosas</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_59">de</span> Amalia," plus two original compositions, one a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_60">danzón</span> whose name is not finalized and a Latin jazz tune, Av <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_61">Pintor</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_62">Tapiro</span>, which <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_63">Aruán</span> wrote when he was a student in the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_64">Conservatorio</span> Municipal <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_65">de</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_66">Música</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_67">de</span> Vila-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_68">Seca</span>, in Spain, as well as a lovely bolero, "<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_69">Contigo</span> en la <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_70">Distancia"</span> that I play on alto flute. These five and the four tunes recorded last week complete the album. </div><div><br /></div><div>I began the process of mixing in the spring and faced a serious musical problem that I have yet to resolve to my satisfaction. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_71">Charanga</span> bands generally have very simple string parts (<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_72">Arcaño's</span> arrangements written by <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_73">Cachao</span> are notable exceptions) generally written in unison or with simple harmonies and the strings support the flute rather than predominate. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_74">Aruán's</span> arrangements, on the contrary, are complex string quartet writing, often reminiscent of Bartok. And so my tendency is to spread them out across the stereo spectrum and make them the focus of the music. But then where do I put the piano and drums? Latin music, whatever else it does, has to swing. And the rhythm tracks swing like crazy. But the string quartet changes the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_75">entire</span> complexion of the music. Finding the right balance between the two will take time, and time costs money. So those full professor payroll checks are going to get a working over before this project is ready for public consumption.</div><div> </div>mark weinstein, jazz flutisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09347260434409789512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853428050305648215.post-58038401326765708422010-01-18T13:33:00.000-08:002010-01-26T18:28:50.732-08:00here comes another<img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 397px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLP_86fKB1YDGRqjE1l9GZarbHbwQdr51Sm5xRZmCB-elyO7XlbSKBlYB3SK8p6rPm1rygR_6R_WWuW-2my7hpi759mfPelL3967-umVtA8J3sxq6DLVj7UDnmkAG1SfpfUTBRS3Sulvw/s400/timbasacover.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5428196672418693874" /><br /><div><div>"Timbasa" is coming out! The release date is February 9th and Chris DiGirolamo who does promotion for Jazzheads is beginning to send out press releases and CD's, so I might as well do my bit. Timbasa is my 6th record for Jazzheads, the record label of my dreams. Total artistic freedom, emotional and musical support and a deep conviction that my music is worth putting out-- record after record in any genre that suits my moods and my abilities. Although I have recorded a wider range of music than my records on Jazzheads indicate, Randy Klein, Jazzhead's president, has never asked me to moderate or alter my recordings in typical jazz record company fashion-- make the same record over and over again. Instead I have been given the rare freedom that reflects that afforded to some of the very best musicians in the 60's, freedom to follow my muse and develop my music using as a wide a palette as the availability of musicians permits. </div><div><br /></div><div>My first record for Jazzheads "Algo Más" was a radical departure from standard forms, mixing Afro-Cuban folkloric music with the contemporary electric guitar of master guitarist Jean Paul Bourelly and a choir of flutes. My next album, "O Nosso Amor" switched concept and venue, moving to Brazil for a quintet album of Brazilian standards and originals. It was a jazz album, but rooted in authentic Brazilian forms played by the best Brazilian musicians in New York, Romero Lubambo, Nilson Matta, Paulo Braga and Guilerhmo Franke. It was followed by an album of mainstream Latin jazz, "Con Alma," with Latin Jazz veteran pianist Mark Levine, a straight-ahead album "Straight No Chaser with guitarist Dave Stryker and most recently, an edgy Brazilian album with percussionist Cyro Baptista opening up a range of new possibilities for Brazilian jazz.</div><div><br /></div><div>But there are continuities. Both "Algo Más" and "Con Alma" drew upon the brilliance of Pedrito Martinez, a master of Cuban drumming in all of its forms and the winner of the Thelonious Monk Award for hand-drumming the only time such an award has been given."Timbasa" is a album that Pedrito made possible. He picked the musicians from among his closest associates and led them through 16 hours of non-stop recording of some of the most amazing Afro-Cuban Jazz that anyone has ever heard. First the guys:</div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz5plFE4xkq6GQmfh6EoohKuARYOkBIr1Ia2WJMSwa04ackQMIZhc5YFb0DoTFk78IHGhC9JgCHzE9gEqeayH2_3fv1IHMB-nm00ZwgTq3s9vKgkaWwbS-VncCk-iD6MAUyLGjLFAX-0k/s1600-h/IMG_1549.jpg"></a><div><br /></div><div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz5plFE4xkq6GQmfh6EoohKuARYOkBIr1Ia2WJMSwa04ackQMIZhc5YFb0DoTFk78IHGhC9JgCHzE9gEqeayH2_3fv1IHMB-nm00ZwgTq3s9vKgkaWwbS-VncCk-iD6MAUyLGjLFAX-0k/s1600-h/IMG_1549.jpg" style="text-decoration: none;"><img style="text-align: left;display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px; " src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz5plFE4xkq6GQmfh6EoohKuARYOkBIr1Ia2WJMSwa04ackQMIZhc5YFb0DoTFk78IHGhC9JgCHzE9gEqeayH2_3fv1IHMB-nm00ZwgTq3s9vKgkaWwbS-VncCk-iD6MAUyLGjLFAX-0k/s400/IMG_1549.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5428204466729972066" /></a><br />That's Mauricio Herrera who played drums, timbales and guiro, Ogduardo Diaz who played bongos and batá, me, concert, alto and bass flutes, pianist Axel Tosca Laugart, Pedrito who played congas, batá, timbales, bell and chekere and Panagiotis Andreou who played electric bass with vocals.</div><div><br /></div><div>The recording came about because of mutual attraction. Pedrito suggested I do another project with him and I jumped at the chance. We had run into each other a few times, at a memorial service and Marty Cohen's (the founder of LP Percussion) birthday. I was over my head in recording. I had just recorded Jazz Brasil with Kenny Barron, Lua e Sol had still not been released and I was already thinking of recording tangos (a project that has morphed into two albums, as I will indicate shortly). But I could not resist Pedrito's interest in following up "Algo Más" and "Con Alma" with something 'completely different' as the Monte Python folks like to say. My response to Pedrito was that if he could find a piano player and bass player who played as good as he does, I'd be open to another project. He assured me that he had exactly the right people. I told him to bring two other drummers. Within a few days Pedrito was back to me, we could get the guys he wanted for two days, March 30-31, 2008. Two days before the session, Pedrito called me and told me he could only get the musicians for the 30th. I asked him whether he was sure we could record in one day ("Con Alma was also recorded in one long session) and he assured me we could. The musicians he picked were not only the best musicians around, but they were his musicians, the guys who he played with regularly. And furthermore, he had some material already worked out with the drummers that would be the spine of the project. </div><div><br /></div><div>I decided that I would leave the details to be provided by the musical context. That is, we would just go into the studio and play. I told Pedrito that the musicians could bring in original material and I picked a handful of my all-time favorite Latin Jazz standards. The result is a strange and yet familiar album. The standards we ended up playing are as familiar to Latin Jazz enthusiasts as any songs could be, 'Milestones,' 'Footprints,' 'Watermelon Man' and 'Caravan.' Axel contributed a Chucho Valdez composition, 'A Ernesto,' Pedrito, two originals, 'Encuentro' and the title track 'Timbasa,' plus my tune from the original Cuban Roots, 'Just Another Guajira' and an Afro-Cuban rendering of classic Turkish folk melody suggested by Panigiotis that we call, 'Kavlakari Cubano.' </div><div><br /></div><div>The musicians are on fire. The drum routines are complex and precise, the soloing spectacular and the swing is just killing. Beyond superlatives, I can't hope to describe the music, and fortunately I don't have to. The record is there for everyone to hear for themselves. I'll be putting up a few tracks on <a href="http://www.myspace.com/markweinstein">myspace</a> on the release date. Until then you can click on the link and enjoy the tracks I have up from my album with Omar Sosa, "Tales From the Earth" and revisit tracks from "Lua e Sol" and "Straight No Chaser."</div><div><br /></div><div>Bobby Sanabria was kind enough to write the liner notes, which he ends by saying, "Mark's musical encounters continue. As you listen to this CD he is already working on the next one, and the next..." How right he is! The project that I have been calling "Todo Corazón," the album of danzones and tangos written for me by Aruán Ortiz and Pablo Aslan, has morphed into two albums. The danzones sound so good that I can't resist doing an entire album with strings, and the only thing to do with half an album of tangos is do the other half. So the tango's will be "Todo Corazon" and I'm waiting for Aruán to write more arrangements for an album that will be called "El Cumbanchero." For those who recognize the name of the tune the direction for the rest of the album is indicated, burning, up-tempo charanga! </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><div> </div></div></div>mark weinstein, jazz flutisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09347260434409789512noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853428050305648215.post-50292649039784020012009-10-08T12:14:00.001-07:002012-05-18T12:17:33.442-07:00confronting demons<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw2Iqv-kYARF6faqcNKY33us89L1uEpC6CoNAtTYB-tYLVltVZLY0bO5keQlvnvR1XiR9JUq6NcYSzANH956Oj0xwDKEaO5UfGj5kfQWsgaJZhdT7hpVBLzfSvnUjhxjQOAPo6-i0IpZc/s1600-h/10129_1231935916976_1186479675_714699_5208104_n.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5390310354048718098" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw2Iqv-kYARF6faqcNKY33us89L1uEpC6CoNAtTYB-tYLVltVZLY0bO5keQlvnvR1XiR9JUq6NcYSzANH956Oj0xwDKEaO5UfGj5kfQWsgaJZhdT7hpVBLzfSvnUjhxjQOAPo6-i0IpZc/s400/10129_1231935916976_1186479675_714699_5208104_n.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 300px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
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Sometime ago I mentioned that I had entered two competitions for jazz flute sponsored by the National Flute Association (NFA) to perform at the annual convention in New York City, August 2009. The NFA has an enormous membership, in the thousands. Every serious flute player and a host of amateurs are among its members. And overwhelmingly they are all classical flutists. I had a lot of confidence that I would prevail in a competition limited to jazz flutists, but I had enormous anxieties about playing in front of classical flutists. I have a unique sound, in a world where flute sound is of paramount importance in evaluating flutists and an idiosyncratic technique. I never really studied the flute, in the sense of preparing classical music under the tutelage of a teacher and so never mastered many of the flute tropes that come from the literature. Rather, I play like a cross between a sax and a trumpet.</div>
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Happily I can report that I won in both competitions. The video below is part of the recording session I submitted for the competition. I am quite pleased with it. It is Body and Soul played in Gb, which is what the original key of Db turns into when you play alto flute. Paul Meyers is the guitarist.</div>
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The conventions had ups and downs. I performed with a Jazz Flute Big Band, with 30 other flutists. I played alto flute, was selected to play a solo and had a wonderful time interacting with some of the best jazz flute players in the country. Ali Ryerson led the band and it was a true pleasure to spend 4 afternoons rehearsing and a gala concert that ended the convention on many, many high notes, especially from a 12 year old monster flutist who played piccolo. The other competition category was to perform at a master class with Lew Tabakin (that is me, him and the other two winners in the photo). Lew and I go way back. He introduced me as the 'world's loudest trombonist.' Lew had sat in front of me in a number of big bands in the 60's and has often remarked, including at the master class, that sitting in front of Mark Weinstein playing trombone is an 'experience no one forgets.' He is a great saxophonist and a formidable jazz flutist. When I found out that Lew was doing the master class, rather that Holly Hoffman who ran the competition, I was made rather anxious. Lew was always aggressive in his attitudes towards musicians and had the high standards that comes from playing saxophone in the 1960's when the prevailing high standard was set. He met the standard then and now and has had a brilliant career. I only hoped that 40+ years of success had mellowed him out somewhat. Not a chance!</div>
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The deal was for the winners to play a song of our choice with a pianist. Holly asked me to play first. Because of chronic sciatica I set up a stool by the piano and sat on the stage before Lew came up. When he did, he went into a long spiel about how much he wanted to play with the pianist and played a long a complex version of standard. I just sat there getting more and more nervous. He played everything imaginable, starting out rubato, going into time, double timing etc. He played through dozens of technical set pieces from the classical repertoire and swung his ass off. It was quite a performance.</div>
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There was nothing for me to do but try to play up to him. I had selected Stella by Starlight, a harmonically rich and beautiful melody made famous by Miles Davis whose performance of the song in a live concert in Europe has always been the bell-weather for my playing. I started out unaccompanied, playing rubato (as had Lew) expecting the pianist to come in. He didn't so I was stuck playing a whole chorus by myself. I started softly with total concentration, as I realized that without the piano player I really had to nail the changes and yet play free enough to warrant playing without an accompanist. After a full chorus of solo flute the piano player came in and I played about 4 or 5 more choruses. I was playing totally on auto-pilot, deep into the music and paying no attention to my sound. I had to show my mastery of the form, the hell with the flute. That was a mistake. The first thing Lew said after I played was that the most important thing about the flute is its sound. And then went on to play the tune for a few choruses (between you and me and a number of people who spoke to me afterwards his performance focused more on playing bebop than on flute sound) but still he was the teacher. I played another few choruses playing more simply and concentrating on sound and then he made me play fours with him. We ended up playing simultaneously, improvising and trying to be musically coherent despite the fact that it had turned into a 'cutting contest.' He didn't give me a break. I did everything I could to play up to him. The session lasted the better part of a half hour. </div>
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After the other two winners played, without much interruption from Lew and certainly without the battle that he had forced me into, the four of us played a blues and it was over. Holly came over to me and shared her feelings about the master class. The result was that we sat in the hallway later that day and she gave me some of the best tips on sound production that anyone ever gave me. Her support and her willingness to be helpful was a stark contrast with Lew's approach to running a master class. But what he did was quite typical of many musicians' attitude towards teaching and I take it as a compliment that he put me through the wringer.</div>
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Given this is October and the conference is in the past, the question is why do I bring it up now. The reason is because I just confronted a real demon, compared to which playing at the NFA was small beer. Last year I did a number of recordings including a half an album of tangos. The story behind that is as follows. I was at a jazz convention two years ago sponsored by JazzImprov magazine. I had a number of albums ready to go and I was networking like crazy. I ran into Jochan Becker the President of Zoho records. He had passed on my album Algo Más a number of years ago, after first showing some interest (he was not crazy about the vocals, which were an integral part of the concept). He always felt badly that he had not put the album out since it led to my long-standing relationship recording for Jazzheads. Jochan suggested that if I wanted a good chance at a Grammy nomination I should record a tango album (by far the category with the fewest entries) and that he had just the right guy to do it with me, Pablo Aslan, a bassist who recorded for Zoho and who was interested in innovative tango projects. I contacted Pablo and we decided to do a half album. He selected the material and wrote arrangements for flute, piano, bandoleon, bass and guitar, classic tangos in the heart of the tradition. My job was to do something new with them.</div>
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Pablo is a meticulous musician. He hired the best guys around (bringing in a pianist from Buenos Aires) and wrote classic settings. We rehearsed and recorded the material in my usual fashion, one long day. I handled the material, read the charts and played solos. The date was finished. I made a copy of the recorded material and took it home to listen. My initial response was: Why? The music was good enough but there was no reason for me to be playing it. I knew very little about tango music so I played my usual Latin inflected bebop and it was totally meaningless. There was nothing in what I did that added anything beyond the novelty of the flute. I sat on that music for more than a year, terrified to even think about dealing with it. I would listen to the session from time to time, enough so that I eventually had those melodies in my head, but I didn't have a clue as to how to handle the improvisation. I had no idea as to how to make a musical contribution to the form. In the meantime I had connected with Aruan Ortiz and recorded the second half of the album, Cuban danzones as I discussed a few blogs back. Playing the danzones moved me closer to the spirit of the tango, but still I had no sense of how to play the music. The beauty of the tango, as I listened closely to the recordings, is the tension between the strict 2-beat rhythm (carried mainly by a bowed bass) and a free almost rubato approach to the lines. You had to always end up on strong beats, but in between you sped up and slowed down, playing freer in time that either Cuban or Brazilian music permits, which is much freer than bebop. The lines swooped rather than swung. Pablo had notated some runs for me as 11-tuples, that is, 11 notes across a half note. Now that is hard to do and not even accurate since the way you get the odd meters in time is by playing the line with an accelerando and then slowing down to compensate. It is a style of playing that takes a life-time to master and I had dealt myself the task of doing it right the first time. Or at least the 2nd time. I gave myself another shot.</div>
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Last week I went into the studio and played the five short solos over and over for a few hours. Each one took lots of takes and lots of listening until I was finally able to find a way to add my music to a form that was completely alien to me. I tried everything from bebop to Cuban to completely free jazz, letting my fingers and ears lead me. By the end of the session I had the music recorded. It is different from anything that I have done and shows a whole new side of my playing, yet it sounds like me. It will be a while before anyone else hears it. I have Timbasa coming out in February and I still have the album with Kenny Barron that I recorded around the same time finished and in the pipeline. But I can wait. I confronted the demon and I got through it. The tangos are finished!</div>
</div>mark weinstein, jazz flutisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09347260434409789512noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853428050305648215.post-20364346667999140152009-09-11T12:25:00.000-07:002009-09-11T14:30:33.730-07:00a great story<div><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiddQDAr3vU8WNw8N1vSOV4BEHoAtaAkrPLq5WgjWoqQF7sZi8eV-d4fcEA0ZgTMnmig4xN_Pqb__rhpaa0S7b3KX17Y29vzx-0yN3jx3oEobf8i9Z5v-tVN2zTqpsjZ0Di6PN5q9side8/s1600-h/BerlinSession.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiddQDAr3vU8WNw8N1vSOV4BEHoAtaAkrPLq5WgjWoqQF7sZi8eV-d4fcEA0ZgTMnmig4xN_Pqb__rhpaa0S7b3KX17Y29vzx-0yN3jx3oEobf8i9Z5v-tVN2zTqpsjZ0Di6PN5q9side8/s400/BerlinSession.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5380294533604493906" /></a><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 20px; font-size:13px;"><div>I told the story below August of 2008 as the second blog entry. It is a great story. And with Ota records starting the promotion for Tales From the Earth starting I thought many of the blog readers might have missed it. </div><div><br /></div><div>The photo is of the musicians on the date (minus the balafone player Aly Keita). The musicians are, front row, left to right Omar Sosa, Jean Paul Bourelly (my co-producers), Ahu Luc Nicaise (lead singer and percussionist), back row, percussionist Mathais Agbonou, me, bassist Stan Michalak and drummer Marque Gilmore</div><div><br /></div><div>The session was put together by guitarist Jean-Paul Bourelly, a master musician and one of my all-time friends. We met in the 70's when I was playing in Washington Square Park, learning how to play bebop from a guitarist, just out of jail, whose name was Slim. Anyway, Jean-Paul recorded an album with me in 2003 called Algo Mas, my first recording on Jazzheads and my first recording with master percussionist Pedrito Martinez who was one of the drummers on Con Alma (2006) and who co-produced Timbasa the album that will be coming out on Jazzheads early in 2010. Jean Paul (in 2004) was producing a concert in Berlin called the Black Atlantic, a week long festival of African based music from Europe, the US and other places. He asked me if I would play on it, but then took back the offer since somehow a white Jew from Brooklyn was not the image the concert was promoting. While we were discussing the possibilities I asked him who would be there, and he mentioned that Omar Sosa would be there and a number of African musicians including balafone virtuoso Ali Keita. Omar had recorded an album with me in 2001, Cuban Roots Revisited, and I knew Omar was originally a classically trained mallet player (vibes, marimba, tympani, the works) and so I had a brain-storm. Go to Berlin and make an album with vibes, marimba, balafone (an African marimba and the reason they play marimbas in Central and South America) African percussion and myself.</div><div><br /></div><div>So here is the background. Picture this! A brick complex in Berlin, a number of buildings around a small park, behind the main street and isolated from the traffic. Me (a New York Jew) a Polish bass-player, tall and thin, with glasses and a beret, dressed in black (a classic image of a Polish intellectual). Three African musicians, two dressed in vividly colored African style clothes, Omar Sosa, a black Cuban, who is dedicated to Santeria and so who was wearing all white clothes and with beads and as always when he plays, incense on the piano (we played music that was based on the African religion that is the basis for Santeria), An African-American drummer, Marque Gilmore with dread-locks past his waist and Jean-Paul, 6 feet 4, of Haitian-American descent. We went into the studio with absolutely nothing, nothing planned, no music, not even a concept and recorded two days of free-jazz based on African themes. It was amazing! Now, at last, the story:</div><div><br /></div><div>Towards the end of the first day as evening was approaching I went outside to look at the beautiful little park and to smoke a Dutch cigarillo, very addictive, don't even try them. Outside was one of the engineers. I asked him, 'This is a very interesting complex, is it pre-war?' He looked at me and said, 'The complex was Goebbels' information ministry.' It was pure acid! Here I was playing free-jazz to African music, a Jew, a Pole, 3 Africans and 3 new-world people of African descent in the heart of the Nazi culture machine, its idea factory.</div><div><br /></div><div>The next day we piled into two cabs outside the hotel we were all staying in and headed back to the studio. The entrance to the complex was a very narrow street and the lead cab driver missed it. So we stopped in the avenue and walked the few hundred feet to the complex. And there in the middle of the narrow street leading to the complex was a dead rat, big as a cat, squashed by a car. And I had an epiphany-- clear as a bell. The rat was Goebbels, the music drove him crazy and he ran out to be smushed by a car.</div><div><br /></div><div>If you want the more details about how the music was recorded, scroll down 2 blog entries. </div><div><br /></div><div>Today is September 11th, cold and rainy, a dreary early Fall day and a perfect contrast to the bright warm September in 2001 when the Twin Towers were hit. I lived on the lower East Side when the Towers were being built and was very much into biking in the city. I was the cause of amusement to some construction workers one day when I biked down to the construction site and so taken by the structure fell sideways off my bike as I side-swiped the curb. My ex-wife was stuck on the NJ Turnpike on her way to work and saw the towers fall. I was getting a pepper and egg hero at the local Italian bakery when I heard that a plane had hit the towers. I rushed home just in time to see the second tower hit. I didn't believe my eyes. I live in Glen Ridge, an upper middle class community 12 miles west of Manhattan and many of my neighbors suffered losses of family and friends as did a number of my students. The resulting horror of loss of life, pain and finally foreign misadventures that caused even more loss and pain remind me of the sacrifice of the many ordinary people who have suffered as a result of war. Playing in the studio in Berlin gave me hope that even the worst human tragedies can be over-come by the human spirit. Today, remembering 9-11-2001 I can only hope and pray that the current nightmare of Iraq and Afghanistan might some day be no more than a memory and that peace might reign again someday between the various children of Abraham-- Muslim, Christian and Jew.</div></span>mark weinstein, jazz flutisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09347260434409789512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853428050305648215.post-16488873245894354292009-07-19T15:07:00.000-07:002009-07-20T20:36:16.487-07:00romance in summer<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUqXXVfjVv8_roOG0PtFHSI7ifmhF_oO8oceVUMEyFdF-7ar8Fpl80blK0Z6cGvWPyV3ZryqLx2xnb5-15Q_O6PHcVrtyeUNjToUZUmT6inpvQ6o3p0ydQzVQ5CqGWLbkDqKJr0vniZbU/s1600-h/DSC_0450.JPG"></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijOxPtlX7itBPmjHzeNN8ji5FcGxHwudMYMwTQj17VSWQaUeRSQNY4QfX-KIZnssZKRWq4hzeJT3Lj3_6-YEuOdzW9v9w4iPRC0wdkjkMbpOIw_cfRVFzQlxE0sTk3k76ufoKuVwJd0JI/s1600-h/IMG_2962.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijOxPtlX7itBPmjHzeNN8ji5FcGxHwudMYMwTQj17VSWQaUeRSQNY4QfX-KIZnssZKRWq4hzeJT3Lj3_6-YEuOdzW9v9w4iPRC0wdkjkMbpOIw_cfRVFzQlxE0sTk3k76ufoKuVwJd0JI/s400/IMG_2962.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5360299948537253106" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); "><br /></span></a><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="text-decoration: underline;"><br /></span><div><br /><br />That is Mauricio Herrera with a guiro at a percussion overdub for my latest project, Todo Corazon, an album of tangos and danzones. "Why a picture with a guiro?" you may ask. Well oddly enough the guiro is the soul of the swing in charanga music, the flute and violin based music that began with danzones in Cuba in the 1950's and morphed into a truncated NY version that was extremely popular with dancers in the 60's and 70's. This is a project that I have wanted to do for 30 years. In the late 70's, after I recorded the Orisha Suites I contacted both Eddie and Charlie Palmieri in hopes that they would be impressed with the music and help me back into the business. Eddie met with me and we had a drink. I gave him a tape of the music and never heard from him again. Charlie, on the other hand, invited me to his house and listened to the tape (his son had recorded the first session of drums and voices). He was very complimentary and I proposed a project, that we record a modern charanga based on the classic compositions that Cachao wrote for Arcaño y Sus Maravillas, an amazing charanga of the 50's in Cuba. He said to send him a tape of the material. It had recently been rereleased on an LP but he hadn't heard it. I got it to him and never heard anything further. The project went into the deep freeze.</div><div><br /></div><div>Last year I went through an amazing period of recording, two and a half albums. Timbasa, out after the first of the year, Jazz Brasil with Kenny Barron, hopefully out next spring or Fall 2010 and half a tango album. The tango album was prompted by a remark to me by Jochan Becker of Zoho records, that the way to get a Latin Grammy was to make a tango album. He suggested that I contact Pablo Aslan, a jazz bass player from Argentina, who records for Zoho to do a joint project. I called Pablo who was quite interested and we met in his house. Amazingly he lived only a few blocks from where I lived my teenage years at 640 East 2nd Street in Brooklyn. A 'fetid tomb' as I described it in one of my early and rare attempts at poetry, where my earliest angst over sex and women set the stage for my later life. I remember practicing the trombone near an open window in my mother's bedroom looking out at the house next door, where my neighbor Carol once stood naked to the waist near the window while I was practicing (only once). I played by the window for weeks hoping for a repeat (no luck). And where I waited my turn to neck with Irene next door. She went further with her favorites (not me), but she was an equal opportunity kisser at age 14. Such fond memories of the 50's! No wonder I got married as soon as I could. But nostalgia aside, going back to 64o and eating in a Russian restaurant on Ditmas Avenue was a blast. As was working with Pablo who wrote some beautiful settings and got top tango musicians including importing a pianist from Buenos Aires. </div><div><br /></div><div>As lovely as the tangos were, I felt the format, flute, piano, bandeleon (button accordion), guitar and bass was too restrictive for a whole album. I thought to contrast the tangos with half an album of baiaõ, music from the Northeast of Brasil that uses a button accordion as well. But between my unhappiness with the Brazilian musicians who were completely unforthcoming as far as any kind of payback for the many recordings we did together, and the fact that I had three completed records coming out (Tales From the Earth, Timbasa and Jazz Brasil) over the next couple of years, the half album of tangos remained unfinished. </div><div><br /></div><div>About four months ago I received (along with a number of other musicians) an email from Aruan Ortiz introducing himself as a composer and arranger available for projects. Aruan included his resume, conservatory trained in Cuba and Spain as well as Berklee, where he studied and later taught. He had been a violist but moved to piano. He currently plays with Wallace Roney and when I asked him, during our recent recording session, whether Wallace was playing Latin jazz he looked me with a twinkle in his eye and said "Don't stereotype me." He is one hell of a jazz piano player. </div><div><br /></div><div>After I recorded Tales From the Earth with Omar Sosa, I proposed to him and his manager that Omar write me a modern charanga album. I held on to the idea of using the Arcaño recordings as a basis, but I knew that Omar's harmonic sense and approach to music would permit a transformation of the classic compositions while retaining their musical integrity. They were both excited enough about the project that we even came up with a budget. But Omar's busy performance schedule made it impossible for him to do a serious writing project and it never came to pass. Aruan's resume opened the door. Tangos are deeply romantic music and so are danzones. They both exemplify a total lack of musical embarrassment, an unabashed romanticism. Danzones would be the perfect compliment to the tangos, the richness of the strings setting off the sparse instrumentation of the tangos, and with Cuban percussion to spice things up against the suave swing of the tango, driven by bowed acoustic bass and piano. I contacted Aruan by return email and we arranged for me to send him the material (now on CD). We set the parameters for the project in terms of money and personnel and after some weeks (he had been in Europe with Wallace) he called me to play some sketches of material. I grew up in Fort Green Projects in Brooklyn and when I map quested his address I was amazed to discover that getting to his house would take me through the projects (on Navy Street) and up past Fort Green Park and the stores that I remembered from my boyhood. On the corner of North Oxford and Myrtle Avenue was Sarjay's where I had my first ice cream sundae, a pineapple temptation with chocolate ice cream, courtesy of my big sister June. It was still a candy store. The line of stores built when the project was built looked just the same, as did the people on the street. Driving home, I passed Cumberland Hospital where I got my flu shot at 7 or 8, standing in line in an over-heated corridor with kids screaming and my mother terrified that I might get the flu right then and there. And I ended up in Junior's where I had corn beef and pastrami on twin onion rolls and a piece of cheese cake. Ah the musicians life!</div><div><br /></div><div>When I got to Aruan's place he played some of the music on the piano. It sounded just right, modern harmonies, but with beauty and transparency. We confirmed the project and he was off, back to Europe. About another month past and he contacted me, we set two dates. The first day to record piano, bass, percussion and flute. A second day to record a string quartet. The idea was that I would play through the tunes including solos with the rhythm section and then after the strings were recorded reconsider what I should redo in light of the rich string environment. Aruan called Yunior Terry on bass and Mauricio to play timbales during the date and then add guiro and conga afterwards. The date went perfectly. The music was difficult. I had told Aruan that I didn't want to solo on simple repetitive montuno changes. I didn't know what I was asking for. He wrote amazing chords, and amazing harmonies in general. It was a real treat and a challenge to read his music and the solos were very strong all around, including Mauricio who played his usual mind blowing solos, and without any other drummers to hold the time. The four of us were very happy with the results. There was no time for Mauricio to put in guiro and conga and the strings were scheduled for the following Friday. I was off to Miami in search of an old love that beckoned. A disaster as it turned out. Never commit to spend a romantic weekend with someone you haven't seen in 30 years. The trip worked out musically though, since I really wanted to stay our of Aruan's hair and let him record the strings without my interference. I was sure the parts were difficult and although Aruan hand-picked the string players I figured it would be rough enough without me looking over their shoulders. As it turned out it took 3 hours to do the first tune and over 9 hours for the five tunes. Two reworking of Arcaño recordings, two originals by Aruan and a gorgeous bolero which sums up my love life completely, Contigo En La Distancia (with you far away). I heard the strings for the first time a week after I got back from Miami, when Mauricio did his overdubs. I was totally knocked out!</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUqXXVfjVv8_roOG0PtFHSI7ifmhF_oO8oceVUMEyFdF-7ar8Fpl80blK0Z6cGvWPyV3ZryqLx2xnb5-15Q_O6PHcVrtyeUNjToUZUmT6inpvQ6o3p0ydQzVQ5CqGWLbkDqKJr0vniZbU/s400/DSC_0450.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5360360385927333394" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " /></span></div><div>The picture is Aruan with the strings checking out a chart. Aruan is another of the Cuban musicians that reflect what might be among the greatest successes of Castro's Cuba. Whatever else the revolution did it turned Cuba into a music powerhouse. The young Cuban musicians I have been given the privilege of recording with are certainly among the best musicians I have ever encountered. Omar Sosa, Axel Laugart, Aruan Ortiz, Pedrito Martinez, Yunior Terry and Maurico Herrera are consummate musicians (check out Mauricio in the picture, when did you ever see a guiro player reading a chart?). They are classically trained, deeply rooted in Cuban folkloric forms and consummate jazz musicians. Music education is supported by the government but resources are limited and the competition is fierce. The result is that the best musicians are fantastic, and luckily for me they often come to live in New York. So I have at my disposal a level of musicianship that transcends anything I experienced in the 60's and, in my opinion, moves Latin jazz to a level beyond which American born or raised Latin jazz musicians of whatever ethnic background have to offer. But only time will tell. When the records are released I'll get some sense of the realities, and hopefully get some reprieve from the anxieties that my constant quest for recognition loads me down with. Meanwhile playing with the Cubans is a completely different experience from my recent experience recording with the Brazilians. I feel totally accepted, am completely relaxed in the studio and feel that there is a mutuality of musical aspiration that gives me the support I need for my vision of where to take the music. I'm already thinking of my next project based on the availability of a great tresero (one who plays the six string Cuban guitar that is tuned in double strings and with a characteristic tuning) in New York. Mauricio who is from Oriente, grew up playing bongos on Son and Changui, and so another folkloric avenue has been opened up to me. Maybe I'll do half an album of Cuban music and for the other half return to Brazilian forms and record Baioã as I originally intended. I'm a sucker for punishment, but I do love Brazilian music.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>mark weinstein, jazz flutisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09347260434409789512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853428050305648215.post-56977874661549556182009-06-15T09:45:00.000-07:002009-07-06T21:22:25.634-07:00five years later<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTr-QWwpFinuY935kOEhPPkwDlCfJO0TjH4UbmUzCMboqS-hq4AeBLXirNiW2pXHoC6rVRmbadXfpAoUVD5_urhnCjoV9i2oDRw1W_m4yM9-aIFZOsgDB29pdmy8iTxcuISqLzzy-xVvc/s1600-h/DSC01079.JPG"></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9xjb5pKcWVsVm1eSnwqOx-L1tgMxPh7X8tCSEbw7RjQcO3V5z4i5j9WMXg7uO4s9e5ZIVFsCfqvTVBhTP-x09VyEYDhF5HQ4iXY5Rgqo_zRlYcJYmwwQWmSClEwYD_tGh1ZqO02EhjDI/s1600-h/cover_tale2.jpg"></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheOEaKY02OUZZ3o9RbCKRn37TFE2cogp12B5ED2KKqa-hJuPIBvzt_FtAmPc-Q6RtkLzylL6J-a1O3ze2nF0T6aF8g2z9ak3MYOhTKbRbv6nUPw9aFK2uAdnMmrls6wA1hd6pIEmeZEqw/s1600-h/cover_tale2.jpg"></a><span><span></span></span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguirfOvj5cP4_GVI71thN_ZxeXjAg-S1r_0zHGlQWU_yY3Sc7_hKUfSrPj3CsBq_Z35Lwx5c6I08882UEOjX5TfUxm6FNBhgxq8KgsGpUAJMb4Rd2EfxY1NZGWZHNb9H0t7LQmWNyEBoM/s1600-h/cover_tale1.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 360px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguirfOvj5cP4_GVI71thN_ZxeXjAg-S1r_0zHGlQWU_yY3Sc7_hKUfSrPj3CsBq_Z35Lwx5c6I08882UEOjX5TfUxm6FNBhgxq8KgsGpUAJMb4Rd2EfxY1NZGWZHNb9H0t7LQmWNyEBoM/s400/cover_tale1.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5347597003724697858" /></a><br /><div>Five years ago, in the Spring of 2004, after recording O Nosso Amor, I went to Berlin to record an album with African musicians. The date was organized for me by my dear old friend Jean Paul Bourelly (I tell a great story about the date in my second blog, August of 2008). The recording was prompted by a number of things, but the key element was the presence of Omar Sosa, the great Cuban pianist, in Berlin at that time. Omar had recorded "Cuban Roots Revisited" with me in 1999 and I knew that his first instrument was 'mallets,' that is tympani, marimba, xylophone and any other orchestral instrument that you play with a mallet (a thin supple stick with a ball of various hardness at the end). I knew Omar would jump at the chance to record an album on marimba and vibes since he recorded on piano almost exclusively. When he left Cuba he first went to Ecuador where there is a long tradition of marimba playing influenced by the heritage of the African slaves who brought the tradition of the balafon from Benin. And among the African musicians available in Berlin at the time was Aly Keita, a balafon virtuoso. Jean Paul hooked up two drummers from Benin, a bass player and Marque Gilmore on traps. This is the result.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9xjb5pKcWVsVm1eSnwqOx-L1tgMxPh7X8tCSEbw7RjQcO3V5z4i5j9WMXg7uO4s9e5ZIVFsCfqvTVBhTP-x09VyEYDhF5HQ4iXY5Rgqo_zRlYcJYmwwQWmSClEwYD_tGh1ZqO02EhjDI/s400/cover_tale2.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5347601783574947282" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 360px; " /></span></div><div>It took 5 years to get the record out because the music was so deep and so deeply buried in what we recorded that I was terrified of dealing with it. I had taken musical risks before but never of such magnitude. The date cost a small fortune. I had to fly to Berlin, pay the musicians, pay hotel expenses for everyone, as well as the rental fee (exorbitant) for a set of vibes, and a concert marimba, plus transportation for Marque and Mathais Aobokuo from London and Paris respectively. But money aside, the project was based on blind faith. I had no music written, the musicians did not know each other. They came from very different musical traditions, the bass player, Stanislou Michalak, was a classical trained jazz bass player from Poland. But what we all had in common was the Africanization of jazz and popular music that prompted the presence of the musicians in Berlin that Spring. Jean Paul, a Haitian-American, was living in Berlin and working mainly in Europe. He had been given the opportunity to organize a week-long festival to reflect the world-wide impact of African music: Black Atlantic/Congo Square. We went into the studio cold!</div><div><br /></div><div>I had three flutes with me, concert, alto and bass. When we got to the studio I laid them out on the stand for a keyboard in front of me in the booth that I was assigned. Next to me in an adjoining booth was Stan the bass player. In front of me in a large booth was Omar with a set of vibes in front and marimba behind, tuned boxes set up on a table. Aly Keita shared the booth with his balafon.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0EKUYB6OU9pV1-Bo5S6u6-1msPcst09S9QJeA6Y17C7_0fgRzIwTIYC_6Q-0nUrLkLm7sbD4zMhkypSRoddBu72P5MOAY3K1DNHv-tCY3uZNoo7ufgNfzTcPamUc6P0MkFO9fkoVe0EE/s400/DSC01089.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5347608773349118914" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px; " /></span></div><div><br /></div><div> The drummers where in the center room, with Marque on a pedestal at the back and the Aho Luc Nicaise and Mathais surrounded by a drums and microphones. Microphones at three levels, since they would be singing and playing a variety of drums and nobody know what they were going to do when. This created an enormous problem later on. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTr-QWwpFinuY935kOEhPPkwDlCfJO0TjH4UbmUzCMboqS-hq4AeBLXirNiW2pXHoC6rVRmbadXfpAoUVD5_urhnCjoV9i2oDRw1W_m4yM9-aIFZOsgDB29pdmy8iTxcuISqLzzy-xVvc/s400/DSC01079.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5347611038112828114" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px; " /></span></div><div><br /></div><div>Jean Paul was in the middle of the room right in front of me, with his guitar around his neck. He looked exhausted. He had organized the festival, ran it and on the final day played with every band that participated in a final day celebration. We had scheduled the date 2 days after the festival so that he would have a chance to wind-down. That was probably a mistake, since the crash after the adrenaline rush of the last day seemed to have wiped him out. Had we recorded right after the festival he might have been able to continue as his usual level of energy; as it was he played very little on the date. Nevertheless his presence was essential. All of the musicians know him and trusted him. Jean Paul is a world class musician and everyone who plays with him has profound respect for his musicianship and his integrity. Without Jean Paul the date would never have happened and with him I was afforded all of the respect that his participation signaled to the musicians and especially to the engineers. The studio, UFO in Berlin, went all out. They brought in their best engineers, a team that set up the room not knowing what to expect but determined to capture whatever happened with complete audio fidelity.</div><div><br /></div><div>On the way to the studio Luc and Mathais starting singing the prayer for Elegba, the Orisha you petition for permission to engage in any serious endeavor. Omar joined in. 300 years of seperation, and three sons of Africa, one Cuban, still held to the same religion, and could join together in prayer. The prayer for Elegba is track 2 on the disc, Invocation. It starts with the drummers and Omar singing the prayer, Omar plays a chord on the vibes, I play a subdued rhythmic figure on the bass flute, bowed bass, Jean Paul enters with a vamp, the balafone comes in, vibes and drums bring in the swing and I switch to concert flute and play my first solo, then Omar plays a brief solo, we engage in conversations among the instruments, than more singers and on and on. About an hour later we stopped playing. It was insane. No one was leading anything, Jean Paul was grooving, just playing minimal vamps and occasionally shifting patterns. The rest of us were just listening and reacting. Aly Keita was the rhythmic foundation, the drums and percussion adding colors, accents and tremendous swing. We would wind down a section, but never stop. Someone would always continue, usually the percussionists who would shift instruments or tempo and the rest of us would just follow (the result: tracks 2, 7). </div><div><br /></div><div>I was both worried and elated. The playing felt very natural. I wasn't over-playing, really responding to the musical environment and rather than playing jazz solos, all of the players were playing short contrasting sections. It was a real musical conversation. Everyone was listening very hard, the interactions are as good as anyone could hope for. We were being carried by the music as it was created in the room, no thought, no planning, no constraints, just free expression as the context of our mutual creation led us to new places. But it was hard to tell what was happening, since things would alternatively come together and fall apart. As I said, we played for about an hour without stopping. When we finally came to a halt, Jean Paul said to me, "Let them do their thing." I freaked, he was telling me not to play. The musicians, without me and Jean Paul, played for another half hour or so. They sounded fine (tracks 6 and 14) but I was getting very agitated. I felt that Jean Paul had disrespected me in front of the musicians. What was particularly disturbing was that I had played with a great deal of forbearance, and so I was paranoid that the musicians hadn't really heard me play. After they finished, I said to Jean Paul, 'I'm going to play with the bass player.' The drummers asked if they could play as well and I went into the booth and played 7 minutes of free improvisation, technical and harmonically complex (track 13). With my musicianship clearly established we continued recording (tracks 3, 8 and 9). Jean Paul didn't play for the rest of the day. We ended up with about 3 hours of music including some lovely duets between Omar and Aly Keita (tracks 1 and 4). We had been in the studio for about 6 hours and all of the musicians were wiped from the intensity of the music not to mention the tense interactions between Jean Paul and myself. We all went home for dinner and some sleep. I went to Bavarian restaurant within walking distance of the hotel and ate too much and drank too much. I didn't eat with the guys. I was too ambivalent about what had happened and too drained by the emotional experience of the music.</div><div><br /></div><div>The next day was more relaxed. It turned out that Aly Keita could only record that first day.Without the balafon, which can only play a C major scale, we could play with a bit more harmonic freedom. Playing with a diatonic instrument in one key was a challenge, although Omar had an uncanny ability to add extensions that reflected whatever poly-tonal moves I would make during my solos. As the saying goes, 'we played all 12 notes.' Omar was amazing, playing harmonic extensions to C major that permitted any note I chose to play to sound good. But still, with C major as the background there were restrictions and playing just with vibes and marimba permitted a wider palate of harmonic structures and more jazz soloing (tracks 5 and 11). In addition we recorded a tune by Omar (track 12) and a tune by Jean Paul (track 10). The date finished I took a hard-drive with everything on it and got on a plane for Newark and home.</div><div><br /></div><div>When I got home I called Phil my engineer and he downloaded the files onto his hard-drive. When he looked at the files they were very difficult to make sense of, about 30 microphones, plus some rhythm section overdubs and over-dubbed piano on two tracks. Plus the tracks were enormous in length, there was over 4 hours of music with some tracks of uninterrupted playing ranging from 20 minutes to over an hour. Phil set rough levels and burned me four cassettes. I drive a 2000 VW and only have a cassette player in my car. I started listening to what I had. I listened for about a year in fits and starts. I had Phil make me cassettes with the flute taken off so I could hear the recordings as rhythm section tapes, giving me the possibility of rethinking the whole project. But the more I listened the more I liked what I had played. I couldn't figure out what Jean Paul's problem was but with all of my insecurities I shelved the project. </div><div><br /></div><div>I had recorded Algo Más for Jazzheads and Randy Klein liked the album. It had received good reviews and modest sales. I played the tracks that would become O Nossa Amor for Randy and he picked up the album. This led to Con Alma (my 'hit' album) and consolidated my relationship with the label. I mentioned the 'Berlin date' to Randy but I had a problem. When I asked Scott Price, Omar's manager about using Omar on the record date we agreed that his company Otá Records would get first refusal on the project. But my relationship with Randy was paramount to me and we were putting out a lot of records. So the Berlin date stayed in a hard-drive for a few more years. I stopped listening to it, but I never gave up on the project. Finally in Fall of 2006, before I began the hectic recording schedule of 2007 that resulted in Straight No Chaser and Lua e Sol I asked Phil to take a look at the Berlin tracks with me. This resulted in one of the most productive collaborations of my musical life.</div><div><br /></div><div>The first problem for Phil was to make sense of the tracks. As you can see from the photo, there are three levels of microphones on the drummers. Phil had to find the best track to use for every instrument and every segment, since the drummers sometimes played standing as well as sitting. Everything was bleeding into all of the tracks, so to find the best track required careful listening, especially for the background vocals. Luc had a vocal microphone, Mathais singing was picked up by whichever drum microphone he was next to. Plus there were tracks of over-dubbed percussion, including the clapping on track 4 that had little relation to the other tracks in terms of ambient volume. To make things worse, the drum set was not well-isolated and so setting EQ became a real problem. And the same for vibes, marimba and balafon. Although each instrument had its own microphones, there was significant leakage since all three instruments were in the same booth. But the technical aspect of mixing was only part of the problem. The real problem was finding the boundaries within the music that would enable us to extract a hour of music, divided into pieces of reasonable length from the extended improvisations.</div><div><br /></div><div>As you can see from my indications of the tracks a few paragraphs back, individual songs were edited out from the lengthy takes that we recorded. So the first day with three extended improvisations (one without me and two with me) resulted in 7 different tracks. The second day was better organized, the improvisations shorter and more focused. But still a great deal of editing was required. A lot of great playing ended up being left behind. For example, my 7 minute improvisation with Stan was cut down to 4 minutes. The short duets between Omar and Aly Keita were fractions of what they recorded. The short 'rap' by Luc against some changes of Jean Paul's was a one minute segment of an entire composition. Finding the best music, with the most coherent structure from the wealth of material recorded required great ears. First of all, just keeping track of what was heard so that choices could be made was hard enough, and then using musical judgment to select the places where the music made a definitive statement required a exquisite sensitivity to the music. Phil Ludwig, my engineer, a guitarist and bass player, with decades of experience as a working musician and long years as a recording engineer, has the best ears in the business. As I said in the liner notes: 'We became one head with two sets of ears.'</div><div><br /></div><div>"Tales From The Earth" has an official release date on October 2009. Otá records has given me permission to put up some track on <a href="http://www.myspace.com/markweinstein">myspace</a>. Check it out. It is magic music!</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>mark weinstein, jazz flutisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09347260434409789512noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853428050305648215.post-27466057037857231872009-04-26T13:22:00.000-07:002009-06-02T13:46:18.175-07:00half empty, half full<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2hW0r4U5sBDJJQBRqy9xKbsdzJPUa1YGbP97kIAYyZvIn54haUko7pNFw8bCKN0_sO6lZBDFHH6W0CfoL0Azo4FVG9GiRf6ImazU6vGO2wMxBsgvJn3gBwsrYKZrkybEd9Ei1PdB9qBc/s1600-h/SD534755.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2hW0r4U5sBDJJQBRqy9xKbsdzJPUa1YGbP97kIAYyZvIn54haUko7pNFw8bCKN0_sO6lZBDFHH6W0CfoL0Azo4FVG9GiRf6ImazU6vGO2wMxBsgvJn3gBwsrYKZrkybEd9Ei1PdB9qBc/s400/SD534755.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5329111168948031074" /></a><br />I wonder how much this blog should be a true reflection of my feelings, or like so much of what I have written, self-aggrandizing recollections and pleas for acceptance. For what lies behind this blog, especially at this time, is the question that drives me. Am I a good musician? I hide that behind, do I play good music? Which stands behind, when will I get the recognition I need to answer the other two questions? Which hides behind, how much is the recognition I have received really worth? Which hides behind my whining complaint, when will I get the recognition I crave? So I guess even if I expressed all of my doubts and fears about my worth as a musician that would not be any truer than anything else. But, to be perfectly honest, it feels like shit. I need to know whether I play good music and I don't have a clue. <div><br /></div><div>In part that is because I am unwilling to compare myself to anything other than the internalized standards I derived from listening to the great musicians of my era (the 50's and 6o's). And I mean the greats! Miles, Trane, Sonny Rollins and Bird. Not to mention, Mingus, Monk, Duke Ellington, Art Tatum, Louis Armstrong, Jellie Roll Morton, Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday, Bessie Smith and Albert King. Believe it or not, that is a fairly comprehensive list of the musicians whose records I revered and listened to over and over again. I never listened to normal great musicians, just the super giants. That way I never have to confront whether I play as good as the thousands of guys who are competing with me to be noticed. I know they are out there every time I hear the young guys at jam sessions, or when someone makes me listen to a record of some normal decent jazz musician. I was having dinner with an old musician friend, Victoria, and she played a record with a fine tenor player, Eric Alexander, on it. He sounded great. If I knew how to compete I would be competing with him for gigs. But as intimated in earlier blogs, I'm not very effective in competing for the gigs that Eric gets, the New York jazz clubs that might be the first step in getting me to my goal. The holy grail that might convince me that I am playing music worth listening: success at jazz festivals.<div><br /></div><div>My not paying attention to the level of contemporary successful musicians is connected to my only listening to Trane et. al. If my standard is the super-giants of jazz, I immediately fail, no matter how hard I try, since genius like that is beyond the reach of mere mortals like myself. And so I can try to focus on what I alone can contribute. Holding the standard of genius inside of myself and doing everything I can to create the very best music I am capable of producing. But am I a good enough musician? Is the dedication to my own creation, very narrowly construed, as how I improvise on the albums I create as vehicles for my flute playing, totally wrong-headed because I am not even in the running to be a contributor to the developing language of jazz. That's why I can't compare myself to other ordinary marvelous musicians, for if I don't measure up to the sax players around me, there is no point in my even attempting to make a contribution. And I am unwilling to stop trying, no matter what. </div><div><br /></div><div>I want to make a contribution to jazz. And because I play flute I get enough of a pass to make a contribution possible. I want to be to the flute what the greatest jazz musicians were to their instruments, someone who showed others unexplored possibilities for excellence in jazz improvisation, that is, defined a concept for their instrument that included a sound, a style, a harmonic vocabulary and an approach to time and improvisational structures. That's why I wouldn't play sax if you paid me. To make a contribution on sax is to rise to an impossible standard. And that means that contributions to the sax are going to be a long time coming. But flute! There is a shot for flute as the least developed wind instrument capable of playing jazz (God bless the few bassoonists, and french horn players and forget about the oboe and tuba). Even the flute barely makes that cut as a jazz instrument given its lack of power in the bottom register. But flute does have something to offer to jazz, even with all of its limitations compared to the saxophone. It has degrees of freedom, technical and expressive that marks a niche of its own in jazz. I believe Herbie Mann pointed the way, but he had such essential weaknesses as a jazz musician and flutist, that despite the influence of his music on flutists (or perhaps because of it) flute remains relatively unexplored if your model is the harmonic and expressive range of the saxophone.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>This creates the deep insecurity that drives my crazy. Am I a good enough musician to grasp the opportunity of the last undeveloped jazz instrument, and thus make an end run to the holy of hollies of jazz: to make a contribution. Naturally, all of this is due to the aftermath of my latest album, Lua e Sol. That's the team from the recording in the picture. Phil, my engineer, Cyro Baptista, me, Romero Lubambo and Nilson Matta, who co-produced the album with me. My relationship with Nilson goes back to 2003 when I recorded Tudo de Bum. Nilson knew about Jazz World Trios with Cyro and Romero and we were both so disappointed with the controlled vibe of the album's producer, Richard Boukas, that when he suggested that we co-produce a blowing Brazilian jazz record I jumped at the opportunity. Cyro was unavailable, but Romero was willing to do the date, along with Paulo Braga . The result was O Nosso Amor. Nilson and I became close during the project and whenever we worked together I would proudly introduce him as my co-producer. Co-producer was both a favor to me and a paycheck to him. So it was no surprise that we recorded two more albums, Lua e Sol that hit the street October 2008 and an album with Kenny Barron that will probably not be released for another few years. I am over-recorded. This coming October the Berlin album, called Tales From the Earth, with Omar Sosa (my second blog entry) is coming out on Ota records. But even though it is coming out on another label, Jazzheads is holding back my next album with Pedrito Martinez (discussed a few blogs back) until after the first of the year. The album with Nilson and Kenny is next (hopefully before 2011) and then finally an album of tangos and Cuban danzones that I am currently working on. This complicates my relationship with Nilson who, as always, is looking for recording opportunities. And I don't have any for him in the near future.</div><div><br /></div><div>Jazzheads started radio promotion on Lua e Sol after the New Year and it has been on the Jazzweek world chart ever since. It peaked at #5, but is hanging around (14 weeks so far). It was voted best Brazilian Jazz Album of 2008 on the Latin Jazz Corner. So I should have no complaints. Except I have a complaint and that is what this blog is all about. Lua e Sol is what I wanted to record ever since I first played Brazilian jazz in Jazz World Trios. It reunites Romero and Cyro, who along with Nilson Matta bring the creative energy of Jazz World Trios to a broad and representative range of Brazilian forms. Nilson and I picked great material. I rerecorded two of my favorite originals, Estralinha and Lua e Sol (first recorded as duets on Three Deuces) and it captures much of what I want to say in recording jazz with Brazilian music. The tunes range from the light-hearted sambas, Isuara, and Upa Negrinho, to a free form version of Lua e Sol; a Flamenco-like take on Estrallinha and a time shifting composition by Nilson, Floresta. It includes two Pixinginha choros as well and some really interesting and deep compositions reflecting the spiritual side of Afro-Brazilian music, Canto de Ossanha and Emorio, as well as a heart-breaking ballad by Ary Barroso. </div><div><br /></div><div>More important, the guys play incredibly. As always the session was without any rehearsals. Nilson and I picked the tunes and we went to the studio to see what would happen. Giving those three guys complete freedom in the studio resulted in magic. The arrangements were spontaneous and the material compelling. Cyro brought room full of drums of every sort. Here is a picture of <a href="http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=263504310&albumID=203754&imageID=9838685">Cyro</a> and his drums that can give you some sense of what that is all about. The sounds he makes are amazing. But most important without a trap drummer the concept of how rhythm is played becomes totally free. There are textures and surprises, happy swing and deep drama, and that is just the percussion. Romero plays magnificently, wonderful solos, perfect time and rich harmonic structures. Nilson is at his most lyrical as a soloist and an ever-changing voice, both anchoring and inspiring the soloists and statements of themes. The interactions of the three rhythm players reflect the decades that these three musicians have played together, their perfect grasp of Brazilian forms and the total confidence that each had in the abilities of the others. This album is as good as anything I have ever recorded and deserves all of the excellent reviews it received and more!</div><div><br /></div><div>When I had a final mix I sent pre-release copies to the three guys telling them how happy I was about the record and telling them that I would be thrilled to play with any of them on any occasion. Nilson got back to me, congratulating me on the result and told me that Romero loved the album. When the album was released I sent them all copies and yet another note reminding them how great it would be to perform this music live. I have been in contact with Nilson a few times, since he is always looking for additional projects. But with so much unreleased product I have nothing to offer him. Meanwhile the three of them work all of time and use other instrumentalists on their recordings and gigs. But not me! Me and the Maytag repairman. Those guys could really help me if they wanted to. They have the reputations and connections to hook me up with club-owners and booking agents. But they don't. What are they trying to tell me? I love the music I record and so do the musicians who record with me, or so it seems. Yet nobody is willing to give me a hand up, nobody is willing to let me use them as a stepping stone towards my dreams. And so the deep anxiety. Maybe I am really not that good a musician after all.</div><div><br /></div></div>mark weinstein, jazz flutisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09347260434409789512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853428050305648215.post-70763538992257764672009-03-29T17:50:00.001-07:002012-11-25T20:10:31.840-08:00the old days<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj90TFBkpEEgyOs9bvKioXgMq5fDUwhbToY61f1WoXCIb7WyBB8T4pbtAdFonGQdww4h6qyJc-7CJjaS5WFOjiWHC2RVhelvlf2aogGvERS-Uzq9xa-qDMe1c6-UnR4PtlZO7nYWo4VzcQ/s1600-h/Mark+on+cover+with+Eddie+P..JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5319527085960000386" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj90TFBkpEEgyOs9bvKioXgMq5fDUwhbToY61f1WoXCIb7WyBB8T4pbtAdFonGQdww4h6qyJc-7CJjaS5WFOjiWHC2RVhelvlf2aogGvERS-Uzq9xa-qDMe1c6-UnR4PtlZO7nYWo4VzcQ/s400/Mark+on+cover+with+Eddie+P..JPG" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 396px;" /></a><br />
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I've been involved in a discussion on a Latin jazz email list about my old friend and mentor Barry Rogers. Barry, one of the all time great musicians of his era, was the trombonist and music director of Eddie Palmieri's original band, La Perfecta, and remained associated with Eddie (on and off) until his untimely death in 1991. Barry is directly opposite me on the other side of the car (I'm holding the trombone). The discussion created so much interest that I am motivated to look back at my early experiences as a trombone player and share them with the readers of my blog.<br />
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I was 18 years old, playing bass with Larry Harlow in a Latin trio at Ben Maksik's Town and Country Club at the South end of Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn. The back of the club over-looked an undeveloped marsh (near the old Floyd Bennet airfield) and I used the area to practice the trombone before the gig started. I was doing my lip-drills when a slightly built man came up to me. "Are you the trombone player in the show band?" he asked. "No," I answered, "I play in the lounge band." "Too bad," he responded, 'is there a trombone player in the band?" He went on the explain that he was the star of the new show, the Jewel Box Review, a female impersonator show, that with all of the innocence of the 1950's was a favorite of middle aged female audiences, seemingly oblivious to the connection between female impersonation and homosexuality. They came to see the beautiful clothes and wonder at how gorgeous the 'girls' looked in their elaborate costumes. It turned out that a trombone player was needed. The star, Lynne Carter, did a Pearl Bailey imitation and the high (or low) point of the act was when the trombone would play a loud and inappropriate note while Lynne was singing 'I'm Tired.' He (she) called the trombonist (soon to be me) on to the hexagonal stage, jutting out into the table area, who then had to chase after Lynne, who was holding the trombone part, hitting her (him) in the butt with the trombone slide. I was a perfect foil, young, tall, with long hair for the time, and totally embarrassed by the prospect. After a bit of negotiation, I was switched from the lounge band to the show band and my career as a trombonist was started. I played on and off in the show band all through college and got my trombone chops up to speed. The lead trumpet player, Bob Bonsang, much distressed by a young inexperienced musician holding down such a well-paying job, would look at me as I struggled with difficult passages and muttered what was to become my motto as a musician and even as an academic, "Earn while you learn."</div>
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It was my stint playing bass with Harlow that moved me into my major focus as a trombonist, Latin dance bands. Eddie Palmieri had recorded his first album and was working with his band La Perfecta, a unique sound, with a trombone and flute front line (modeled on the flute and violin popular charanga style, but with a trombone instead of violins). The trombonist was Barry Rogers. Barry had a chance to make some good money playing a wedding and needed a sub. He heard about a trombone player, me, who could read well and play Latin bass (by that time I had played bass with Randy Carlos and Harvito as well as Harlow) and figured that I could hold my own in a Latin rhythm section, so he called me to do a gig for him with Eddie's band. Eddie liked the way I played so much that he hired me on the spot to play second trombone. Bass was gone forever; I was a trombone player. More people in the Latin community still think of me as the trombone player with La Perfecta despite everything else I have ever done. That is because La Perfecta had a unique role to play in the development of cultural consciousness among the young Latinos of that era.</div>
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The base for Eddie's popularity was a loft club in the South Bronx, the Triton Club, down the street from the Hunts Point Palace, a lavish dance hall catering to older Latino audiences and featuring name bands like Machito. The Triton Club, on the other hand, was a bare-loft, painted black with a few tables and chairs and a large area for dancing. It was here that the young Latino's came to be hip, to dance to the hot new bands, Eddie, Johhny Pacheco and Orlando Marin, and to come to consciousness as Latinos through music that they saw as their own, helped along by the cheer-leading of the self-appointed host Izzy Sanabria, later to publish Latin New York. </div>
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Playing with Eddie was a peak experience, playing the Palladium, Birdland and the Village Gate in the early 1960's. But it had a major down-side. The band had good arrangements, but what made the band unique was the 'mambo' section. Latin dance band arrangements had a standard form, intro, melody, montuno (where the singer improvised against a chorus, the 'coro'), mambo, montuno and coda. The mambo section was generally massed horns, trumpets played in the high register to generate maximum excitement. But Eddie only had two trombones. Eddies' best mambos were not pre-arranged but were created on the bandstand. Barry sang coro, and during the singer's (Ismeal Quintana) improvisation Barry would often come up with a lick that he liked. He would motion to me over to the mic where he was singing coro, and he would softly sing the lick to me (moving the trombone slide to show me how it was to be done). I had to catch it right away and on Barry's cue begin the lick. After a few times of playing it on my own, Barry would join me in unison, then add harmony. George Castro, the flute player, would start playing on top of the trombones and the drummers would start playing harder. Then Barry would do his thing. My job was to play the basic line, over and over. Barry would start improvising against the line, almost Dixie-land style, playing wonderfully crafted, driving, counter-melodies, evolving with more and more complexity and with tremendous swing. The place would go crazy. Nobody, not even Tito Puente with trumpets and saxes, could match the sheer energy, the electric abandon, with which Barry could push the band. It was exhilarating, and very depressing. I wanted to be Barry so badly. I wanted to play the improvised part, to be at the center of the swing. But instead I had to selflessly destroy my chops playing at full volume, the same figure over and over, endlessly, for 10 minutes or more. I quit Eddie's band and went to Europe to try to succeed as a jazz trombonist.</div>
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Europe didn't work out. I landed in Rotterdam on Christmas 1963, one of the coldest winters on record and headed south, Paris, than Italy. There was little jazz being played and Paris had just made a rule limiting horns in small clubs, so there was not even a jam session scene. I put my tail between my legs and came back home to find out that in my absence there was a trombone renaissance in the Latin scene. I was in demand. Ray Barretto asked me to join his band, but Charlie Palmieri had a 6-night steady gig at a club called the Havana-Madrid. An interesting band with Chombo Silva on sax, myself and Rod Sewart playing flute. It was a free-blowing band, modeled after the first recorded Alegre All Stars and I got to play solos almost every tune. That lead to my recording with the Alegre All Stars on their second album and to gigs with just about every other Latin band that used a trombone. Barry was always busy with Eddie as was Jose Rodriquez who became Eddie's long-standing second trombone player. So I was first call trombone player for Latin gigs. I made a good living, playing, recorded and arranging. I continued playing and recording with Eddie as well as such great bands as the La Playa Sextet, Bobby Valentin, Tito Puente, Ricardo Rey and many others. I had so many gigs I ended up giving my extra gigs to some great jazz trombone players, especially Julian Preister and Garnet Brown. They, in turn, would turn me on to big bands so I got to play with bands led by Clark Terry, Joe Henderson, Kenny Durham and Duke Pearson which led to gigs with Maynard Ferguson, Lionel Hampton and Mel Lewis/Thad Jones.</div>
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The band that I made the biggest impact on, however, was my old friend of bass playing days Larry Harlow. Larry had a summer gig at Schenk's Paramount Hotel playing with Latin quintet at the after-hours club, a hang out for musicians. He used me as the only horn player; trombone and rhythm section, something rarely seen. I got to solo to my heart's content, and since we hosted a jam session, I became well known among the jazz musicians playing in the Catskill mountains. One night Larry and I were laying around, toasted as usual, and Larry told me about his dream. A band with trombones like Eddies, but with a trumpet section to add fire and weight to the ensemble instead of the flute. He asked me to help him write the arrangements. His first album, Heavy Smoking did well on the newly formed record label, Fania, that was to dominate Latin recording for the next decades. I got the opportunity to write the next album, almost completely, Bajandote, which includes some writing and soloing that I am still quite proud of. I played with Larry for several years, playing solos and learning from the great trumpet player Chocolate, who played with the band. The trombone solo after the mass brass mambo, was Harlow's signature response to Eddie Palmieri and my tribute to what I had learned playing with Barry. You can compare Barry's and my playing on Eddie's album with Cal Tjader, Bamboleate. Barry and I both solo (on different tunes). </div>
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A long-lasting stint with Herbie Mann grew out of this experience. Herbie wanted a Latin jazz band with trombones, and Barry wouldn't leave Eddie, so I was it. Herbie's band introduced me to Chick Corea and gave me some exposure on records, at clubs and at festivals. I started to meet some great musicians and recorded Cuban Roots. This led to me getting a taste of rock and roll with, among others, Mike Bloomfield and the Electric Flag. This, in turn, led to me getting called to put together a horn section for Janis Joplin, ironically, the immediate cause of my quitting the business. I had recorded Cuban Roots with Arnie Lawrence on alto saxophone. I was convinced it was a great album, but it only received one review (in a French jazz magazine) and almost no airplay. Worse, neither Barry nor Eddie was willing to tell me that it was a good album, and I worshiped those guys. I was really badly hurt by that. </div>
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I had gotten a call from Albert Grossman, Janis' manager, about putting a horn band together for her. I was laying in bed with my wife Joyce watching the Tonight Show, and there was Arnie Lawrence playing in the band. Before the commercial the band had a feature, Arnie had played a few notes of a solo, when the band was cut off. I looked at Joyce and said, 'If I make it to the top and get to play on the Tonight Show, that is what I can look forward to. I'm not going to take the gig with Janis." In my head that was the turning point. I was out of the business! But there is a back-story. When I was negotiating to go with the Electric Flag (after a few gigs with the band in NYC) my wife had made all of these demands, that she had to go on the road, get her hotel room paid for etc. We had just had a baby, my daughter Rebecca, and Joyce did not want to risk her family while I led the rock and roll life. The Electric Flag didn't come through, the band was dropped by Columbia after one album, but Janis was going to pick up the concept, a hard driving blues band with horns. I was to write the horn arrangements and be music director, but Albert Grossman warned me not to make demands about my wife. I had to move to San Francisco and live at the band house while the band was being formed and rehearsed. I'd be on salary, but my wife and child would have to stay in New York. Joyce was freaked. I loved my daughter, and I was very, very unhappy with my marriage. To go to San Francisco would have meant the end of my family for sure. Joyce had a right to be freaked. The Tonight Show was the last straw, to leave my daughter to play rock and roll (when all I ever wanted was to play jazz), to have my solos cut off at the commercial break, to have my best efforts disregarded by the musicians I revered. It was all too much. I decided to go graduate school and get a PhD in Philosophy.</div>
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mark weinstein, jazz flutisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09347260434409789512noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853428050305648215.post-43698200834660037102008-12-19T11:12:00.000-08:002012-11-25T19:52:01.409-08:00blasphemy<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjryXY0xeSjCdl6CmhnARgo7Fp3brmj-1a2vWD715M6IYQZPIhEis2rnrOD6qoGuUhWN6Db-ZUit_FP91y-GPK7krMqSUynbm3qUr6Mkxqzzat7v0RCHa-H0pJ3gjfJYPfiOJPgxXNNlcA/s1600-h/straightfoto.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5281584577521369522" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjryXY0xeSjCdl6CmhnARgo7Fp3brmj-1a2vWD715M6IYQZPIhEis2rnrOD6qoGuUhWN6Db-ZUit_FP91y-GPK7krMqSUynbm3qUr6Mkxqzzat7v0RCHa-H0pJ3gjfJYPfiOJPgxXNNlcA/s400/straightfoto.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 267px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
I was reading over my last post during the first snow of the season in my beautiful house in Glen Ridge, sitting in the warmth of the colors of the rugs and furniture that my ex-wife left me with, surrounded by the paintings of my first wife that have lived with me for almost 50 years, in the room where I spend my life, practicing with the computer on in front of me. Combining the various facets of my soul through the efficiency of the computer and the allure of many forbidden things. It was a few hours before Shabbis (the Jewish Sabbath), when I shut down for 25 hours of no practicing or computer (although I do take gigs) and I saw what I had written, that my career sucked. That is blasphemy and an affront to the gifts that I have received and the opportunity to live my dream. I am truly blessed. One of the reasons I am writing this blog is to exhibit the blessing that has been given me. The ability to play the best music I can, with the best musicians I could ever hope for, with the financial and emotional freedom to piss away every penny I have available to me so that my music will exist in this realm for a while and Baruch Hashem, that it should enter into the realm beyond, where all things of human value exist eternally.<br />
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Well the Sabbath is over and I'm ready to settle down and confront over 50 research proposals from my methods of research course and 10 papers from my doctoral students. I want to get my grading done before I leave to visit my daughter Rebecca in Portland ME. Rebecca loves Christmas and spending it with her is one of my all time treats. After a rocky childhood and adolescence, Rebecca has turned out to be my best friend. My son Jack and her turn out to be the best thing I ever did. Proud parenthood aside, my music is the core of my essence. For better or for worse it is what I have to offer the world that speaks directly from my innerness. I'm a decent teacher, a reasonably successful academic, and despite lack of longevity due to always picking beautiful women much younger than myself, I've had a decent romantic life. But it is music that I pin my hopes on. If I make good music my life is a success. Trying to make good music has given my life meaning. But the frustration of it all!</div>
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Con Alma's success gave me a few more gigs. There are a number of local jazz clubs that I play in with some regularity, Trumpet's in Montclair and Cecil's in West Orange. The picture at the top is from a photo shoot at Cecil's that I did for the album I recorded after Con Alma, Straight No Chaser. Cecil's has a regular jam session run by alto saxophonist Bruce Williams who, although close to 40 years younger than I am, has been a real influence on my playing. Bruce is one of the young saxophone giants who has mastered bebop and yet plays with complete freedom and abandon. He bridges between carefully constructed harmonic elaborations and totally free constructions, moves effortlessly from blues to complex harmonic extensions and has total mastery of the instrument. I heard him play years ago and he struck me immediately as model of where I wanted to take the flute. But it has not been easy. The jam session at Cecil's is an organ jam and the volume is horrific and the sound system is marginal (at least during the jam session). Plus because Bruce is so well respected every young sax player in the area goes there to show what they have learned. And with William Patterson, Rutgers as well as the NY jazz programs training countless young musicians they have learned plenty. I get respect from the young sax players since many of them are struggling to double on flute and so can appreciate what I have accomplished, but the raw acoustical challenge of playing without really hearing myself makes jam sessions a 'pressure,' rather than a 'pleasure.' Still, playing at Cecil's (and the more supportive environment at the Trumpet's monthly jam session) is something I force myself to do, since my ideal of a jazz musician is not limited to playing Latin jazz flute. The standard against which I measure myself is the jazz saxophone and the music that I aspire to play is based on straight-ahead jazz, rather than charanga or choro or other Latin forms.</div>
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Con Alma was a success, but the question was where to go from there. I walked into Cecil's late one night and atypically, the stage was being dominated by a guitar player rather than one of the many young saxophonists sitting at the bar. And the guitar player was playing his ass off. I asked a young drummer I knew who the guitarist was and he said, 'Dave Stryker.' I had run into Dave a few times at Trumpets years before but we had not really connected. I had been playing with Vic Juris and Ed Cherry and recording with Romero Lubambo and Jean Paul Bourelly, so another guitarist was not on my radar screen, but Dave was something really special. He had a lovely sound, great swing and a relaxed mastery that shown through everything he did. After the set was over I did my thing. I went up to him, gave him a copy of Con Alma and exchanged contact information. He vaguely remembered me, but was non-committal. A few days later he contacted me by email. He loved the record and was definitely interested in doing a project. I made him my now standard offer of c0-producing and asked him to pick musicians and work with me on repertoire. I was going to make a statement about my playing. After a Latin jazz hit record and winning Best Latin Jazz Flautist of 2007 on the Latin Jazz Corner I was going to make a straight-ahead album.</div>
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Dave picked the perfect rhythm section for the date, Victor Lewis on drums and Ed Howard on bass. Both of these guys are modern main-stream players with great swing and taste. Since it was a straight jazz album I decided it would feature original compositions, a long standing tradition among jazz soloists. I wrote three new tunes for the date. A blistering up-tempo 'Loverin'' based on the changes for the 'Lover' but with an altered bridge using 'Giant Steps' substitutions, a medium tempo tune 'Sleeping Beauty' with a waltz section in the style of 'My Favorite Things' and a minor blues I called 'Blues for Janice,' dedicated to a wonderful singer whose album I had produced the year before. I was inviting comparison with jazz saxophonists, 'Blues for Janice' was as close to a Coltrane blues in the style of his 'Blues for Bessie' as I could make it, although I did manage to find a fundamental blues phrase that Coltrane had overlooked. In case anybody missed what I was doing I added Sonny Rollins' signature tune 'Airegin' and Wayne Shorter's classic ballad 'Miyako.' I wanted to be judged by saxophone standards and I was signaling to anyone who could see the semiotics of the tunes that I wanted to be compared with the very best. Dave contributed two wonderful original compositions that he played on acoustic guitar, bringing me back to the modal playing of my days playing with guitar players in Central Park. We added two standards 'Invitation,' and 'Violets for Your Furs,' both associated with Coltrane and rounded everything out with Monk's classic blues line 'Straight, No Chaser,' which I played on bass flute. That was the album. Bass flute is not my favorite instrument and I only played 4 solo choruses, Dave took 6, ending with two choruses of pure funk. Not to be undone on my own album, I over-dubbed his last 2 choruses with a New Orleans ensemble of bass and alto flutes. It was a blast!</div>
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I had my straight-ahead album. Jazzheads was so pleased with the result that they released it next. I had also recorded Lua e Sol during the same period, which is the subject of a later blog, but Jazzheads realized that I had a statement to make that another Latin jazz album could not express. I was a jazz flutist and after achieving considerable support as a Latin jazz flutist I had to set the record straight. I love Cuban and Brazilian music, and the music is a natural vehicle for the flute. But I am a jazzer first and foremost and Straight No Chaser makes that perfectly clear.</div>
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Naturally there was a penalty to pay. Much of the momentum that I had achieved with Con Alma was lost, at least temporarily. Straight No Chaser was not suited for the world music radio stations that had made Con Alma a hit. And although Con Alma had crossed over to the jazz charts, without the foundation in Latin jazz radio Straight No Chaser moved me back to where I was with O Nosso Amor, a few weeks on the charts, but no real impact. Except for the reviews. Many of the jazz writers got the message and the reviews for Straight No Chaser started to present me as a jazz musician that needs to be taken seriously. Now if I can only get some festival gigs! </div>
mark weinstein, jazz flutisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09347260434409789512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853428050305648215.post-71037480286773202512008-12-14T12:04:00.001-08:002012-11-25T19:45:56.919-08:00a hit record<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivpx9J_NJO1HNP_5mbme2THqqlcxBQ1MJFl-NrtDu5N-px94bgX5LyIQ-xfkBy2H526bwKpXuOTjTQ12EcAWNzQOD17M3DMf9orjP3Mxj3hjgYRdQdpo1X-ke0SOKelXfCzxbiYcYXkI0/s1600-h/worldchart134.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5279746368550802610" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivpx9J_NJO1HNP_5mbme2THqqlcxBQ1MJFl-NrtDu5N-px94bgX5LyIQ-xfkBy2H526bwKpXuOTjTQ12EcAWNzQOD17M3DMf9orjP3Mxj3hjgYRdQdpo1X-ke0SOKelXfCzxbiYcYXkI0/s400/worldchart134.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 291px;" /></a><br />
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If you click on the picture on top to make it full-size you will see my record, Con Alma, #1, on the charts for 22 weeks. I stayed on the charts for another month, crossing over to the jazz chart where it hit #2. I had a little help from National Public Radio. After my asking him for years, Felix Contreras, gave me a shot on the Weekend Edition with Scott Simon. You can hear the interview online <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18826528">click here</a>. NPR is syndicated nationwide so that week I got an enormous number of plays and went right to the top of the ranking.<br />
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My 'hit,' Con Alma, was recorded about year after O <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Nosso</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Amor</span>, so the blog is back in chronological order (the Berlin date with Omar Sosa that I discussed in my second blog entry was recorded in between O <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Nosso</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Amor</span> and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Algo</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Más</span> and should be released in 2009). O <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Nosso</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Amor</span> got much better radio play than <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Algo</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Más</span>, which was my old formula of Cuban folkloric music and innovative jazz. The innovations, Jean Paul <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Bourelly's</span> guitar and that multi-tracked flutes really impressed some musicians and a number of reviewers, but few <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">DJ's</span> played it with any regularity. It got about as much airplay as Cuban Roots Revisited. The 'heavy' <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">DJ's</span> played it, but it never got the continuing play that is needed to make the charts. A <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Nosso</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">Amor</span> made it to the charts and hung on for number of weeks in the 30's (<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">Jazzweeks</span> charts the 50 jazz and world albums that get the most airplay for any given week). As important <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">WBGO</span>, the major New York area jazz station, picked it up and played it about 50 times, a major coup in terms of local exposure. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">Jazzheads</span> was very happy with both records, Randy Klein, the president of the company has been amazingly supportive, based on his appreciation of the music. He had real confidence in me. I needed to do something to capitalize on having a record company behind me. I had to think of something that would build my growing presence on the scene. I had tried A<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">fro</span>-C<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">uban</span> music, J<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">ewish</span> music, B<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">razilian</span> music and straight-ahead. What I had never recorded was what had become the most frequent approach to Latin jazz, what I often referred to, snob that I am, as 'bebop with a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">cha</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">cha</span> beat.' <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">Mongo</span> and Cal <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25">Tjader</span>, had started it off (although Bird and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26">Machito</span> got there first) and Tito <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27">Puente</span>, Andy and Jerry Gonzalez and Paquito <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28">de</span> Rivera had turned it into the new standard for the genre. </div>
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Mark Levine, the legendary pianist and jazz educator who is the piano player on Con Alma, goes all the way back in my history. He came to New York in the mid-60's playing valve trombone. Since I was a trombone player on the scene and about the same age we got together a few times. Most memorable was that he gave me the correct changes to Stella by Starlight, a tune that was just coming to the attention of young jazz musicians and that had a few key harmonic moments that characterized the harmonic direction towards which the boundary of jazz was pushing. I remember sitting at the piano in amazement. The chords sounded so good, but they made no sense in terms of my understanding of 2-5 progressions. Instead of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_29">Cmin</span>7, F7 to prepare <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_30">Bbmaj</span>, the tune uses Eb7, Ab7. It made no sense to me, although it now makes common sense to any jazz musicians (since the chords are an extension up the higher partial of the underlying diminished chord). He also had the hots for my wife at the time, something else I couldn't get me head around. </div>
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I hadn't been in touch with Mark for years, but I had been playing with him without his knowing it. Mark is a frequent pianist on Jamey <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_31">Aebersold</span> play along records, and he plays on many of my favorite ones to practice with. I had made a connect with Mark when I was in San Francisco at an American Philosophical Association meeting. My son (who is also a philosopher) and I had a pleasant dinner with him, talking about old times and etc. Mark has had a wonderful career, playing with all of the giants of Latin jazz including Cal <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_32">Tjader</span>, Poncho Sanchez, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_33">Moacir</span> Santos and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_34">Mongo</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_35">Santamaria</span>. He was a brilliant <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_36">harmonist</span>, writing influential books on jazz harmony and, probably because he started piano as a second instrument, plays with great delicacy and taste. Plus, he had won a Grammy nomination for his own recording, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_37">Isla</span>, with his quartet the Latin Tinge. I listened to his record, and sure enough, it was classic bebop with a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_38">cha</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_39">cha</span> beat. Mark Levine was just the person to call if I wanted to move into the mainstream of Latin jazz. I put in a call to Mark in Oakland where he was living and asked him to come to New York and co-produce a record with me.</div>
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But the very centrality of Mark's conception created a problem, for I was known as an 'edgy' player. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_40">Algo</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_41">Más</span> was as radical in its innovation as had been Cuban Roots Revisited and Cuban Roots before it. I had always relied on drummers to give my records their characteristic edge, and so I turned to Pedrito Martinez to give this new project an innovative spin. He was the key to the mix of musicians that made Con Alma a hit. Pedrito had lead the drummers on <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_43">Algo</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_44">Más</span> and did the singing and his reputation as a conga drummer is as good as it gets (he had, after all, won the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_45">Thelonious</span> Monk award on hand drums). He was playing a gig at the Blue Note with trombonist Conrad <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_47">Herwig</span>. I went down and caught a set. I had met Conrad who knew of my trombone playing and he graciously announced my presence as one of the most important sources of his own conception. It was especially gratifying since another old friend, Ronnie Cuber, who I hadn't seen in decades was playing baritone sax in the band. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_48">Pedrito</span> sounded amazing. I had never heard a conga drummer playing with a trap drummer that swung more or took more risks with the time and he had amazing technique. During the break I asked <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_49">Pedrito</span> to do a record with me and to get a trap drummer of his choice. Mark Levine meanwhile, was taking the co-producing role very seriously, sending me great recordings with tunes that he thought would be perfect for a flute quintet. But I needed a bridge between the extreme drumming I knew I would get from <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_50">Pedrito</span> and Mark's centrist concept. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_51">Santi</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_52">Debriano</span> had played magnificently on <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_53">Algo</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_54">Más</span> and had recorded two extended tunes out of the 6 that constituted Jazz World Trios along with drummer Cindy <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_55">Blackman</span>, and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_56">Santi</span> could swing. So there it was-- a centrist jazz piano player, a jazz bass player of exceptional breadth and ability and drummers at the cutting edge of Cuban music. It was a recipe for disaster unless it jelled perfectly. But there was reason for it to jell. All of the musicians had enormous respect for the music and the highest integrity as individual musicians. And they all played their asses off.</div>
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It was a complicated date to organize. Mark was in Oakland, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_59">Santi</span> had a full-time college teaching gig in Massachusetts and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_60">Pedrito</span> was working all of the time. I had no idea who <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_61">Pedrito</span> would bring to play drums, but, as always, I relied on the musicians I respected to make the decision that would enable them to play their best. I had worked through Mark's suggestions for material and had made some of my own. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_62">Santi</span> asked if he could include an original. I decided that each of us, Mark, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_63">Santi</span> and myself would contribute one original and then I would pick jazz classics as well as some less familiar tunes. Mark had suggested a great funk tune by <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_64">Mulgrew</span> Miller, 'Sol-Leo' and a Bobby <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_65">Hutcherson</span> tune, 'Gotcha,' that was perfect for bass flute. He also suggested a tune, 'Monte <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_66">Adentro</span>,' by the great Cuban flutist Maraca, that I played on alto flute giving it a very different treatment than Maraca had. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_67">Santi's</span> tune had basic harmonies but an interesting overlay of two ways of playing 6/8 (the vamp with a 1,2,3; 4,5,6 and the melody in 3/4 time over the 6/8, 1,2; 3,4; 5,6) a concept often found in Peruvian music. The tune, '<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_68">Afrokaleidescope</span>,' lived up to its name, time-shifting as the listener could move from one perspective on the 6/8 to another. As a contrast, I included my original 'Broadway Local,' which I had recorded years before on Three Deuces with Vic Juris. It was as harmonically complex as Santi's tune was rhythmically. It is based on the chords to Coltrane's signature composition 'Giant Steps,' but rather than return back to B major at the top of the chorus, I transpose the changes into G major and then Eb major, replicating the internal structure in a 3 chorus sequence. Despite the apparent complexity, it is quite natural to play and the guys played it down without a hitch. Years ago, Jerry Gonzalez had recorded Monk's 'Evidence' as a Latin jazz tune. I decided to do it against a fast double-time drum rhythm and then double-time my solo as Coltrane did in the recently rediscovered Town Hall recording with <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_69">Thelonous</span> Monk. I added three classic jazz composition, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_70">Dizzy's</span> 'Con Alma,' Coltrane's 'Crescent' and Wayne <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_71">Shorter's</span> funky Fee '<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_72">Fi</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_73">Fo</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_74">Dum</span>.' I had the material, now to organize the date.</div>
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Mark could come in for 3 days, one to rehearse and two to record. I set it up with <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_75">Pedrito</span> and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_76">Santi</span> and booked the studio for Friday and Saturday since I was teaching Monday and Wednesday. The Tuesday before the date <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_77">Pedrito</span> called my all flustered and told me he had a problem with the date. He could record Friday but not Saturday, but he was available on Sunday. Mark was flying back to Oakland Sunday morning. Then <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_78">Santi</span> called. He had a teaching conflict on Thursday and could not get down until late Thursday night. I had no options, there was no point in calling a late rehearsal and then recording the next day; it would be better to do the date cold. Mark, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_79">Santi</span> and myself would look through the material on Thursday, we would record the quintet on Friday, record without <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_80">Pedrito</span> on Saturday and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_81">Pedrito</span> would overdub the congas on Sunday. This was not a promising scenario for a record date. When <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_82">Santi</span> showed up he was exhausted. The three of us went out to dinner and forgot about looking at the material and crashed in my house. We had to be in the studio at noon.</div>
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When Mark, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_83">Santi</span> and myself arrived at the studio Friday <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_84">Pedrito</span> was already there and introduced me to the drummer, a boyhood friend of his in Cuba, who had recently come to the states, Mauricio <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_85">Herrerra</span>. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_86">Pedrito</span> and Mauricio played together all of the time, but this was their first commercial recording together. They were very excited. While the mikes were being set up we talked about the music. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_87">Santi</span> played the vamp for his tune, with the melody laid contrary to the pattern. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_88">Pedrito</span> immediately laid down the drums in a further contrast playing the 6/8 double time under the two patterns. It was amazing! And it swung! The tune went like clock-work, solos by all. The date continued with the same pattern. Mark or <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_89">Santi</span> would establish a pattern; the drummers would come up with some amazing contrasting rhythm. After <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_90">Santi</span> had sight-read 'Broadway Local' perfectly, Mark came over to me and said, "That is the best bass player I ever played with.' After we played 'Evidence' and the drummers came up with some amazing shit, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_91">Santi</span> came over to me and said, 'Man, those are great drummers.' It was jelling all right. It was killing!</div>
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We had booked the studio for 8 hours. We were into the 6<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_92">th</span> hour of the session and had recorded 5 tunes, each one unique and played superbly. I was getting tired and the nagging migraine that had accompanied my last recording was back (it turned out to be serious glaucoma). I was in my booth and Pedro came to my door. He was on fire! 'Please' he asked me, 'can't we finish the date tonight? We can never get the same swing with me overdubbing the drums on Sunday.' I asked Phil, my engineer, if he would stay with us. He agreed. I took two <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_93">Advils</span>. We ordered dinner. We continue to work while we waited for the food to be delivered. We had been in the studio for almost twelve hours and had completed 10 tunes. No one wanted to leave, but we were out of material. Mark said 'let's play Stella,' the tune whose changes he had taught me 4o years before. Mark showed Santi some interesting chromatic additions to the end of the chorus and some figures that gave the performance a tightly arranged feel. We played it top to bottom, solos all around, with the drummers sounding as fresh as they did on the first tune. The recording was done. Mark and I took Sunday off and visited with Lois Gilbert, the web-mistress of Jazz Corner and a old friend of both of ours and had a great Indian dinner.</div>
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Con Alma exceeded all of my expectations. Randy Klein of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_94">Jazzheads</span> loved it, it got great reviews and took off on on radio, staying on the charts and hitting the top. I got my NPR interview and I had achieved a milestone in my career. Instead of playing radical alternative Afro-Cuban jazz I had a record of Latin jazz that was right in the pocket. People could relate to it and understand what I was doing. Instead of playing music on the margins, I was addressing the center of Latin jazz and doing it with respect for the genre, referencing the great contributors to the music, while adding a mix of elements that was characteristically my own. If this was the 60's I would be on my way. But it was 2008 and no one was making room at the top for Mark <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_95">Weinstein</span>. The record was a hit, but very little changed in my ability to get work, particularly at festivals, where my reputation would have to be made. I was succeeding musically but my career still sucked. </div>
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mark weinstein, jazz flutisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09347260434409789512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853428050305648215.post-72776909239517748682008-12-05T09:20:00.000-08:002008-12-31T10:52:02.704-08:00vote for me<div>My latest album on Jazzheads, Lua e Sol has been nominated for the Best Brazilian Jazz album of 2008. I have been nominated as Best Latin Jazz Flutist . I would appreciate your vote. Check out the music at <a href="http://www.myspace.com/markweinstein">myspace</a> and <a href="http://www.chipboaz.com/blog/best-of-2008/">vote here</a>.<br /></div><div><div><br /></div><div>You can also vote for my record lable, Jazzheads and the guitarist on the record, Romero Lubambo.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Thanks for your support,</div><div><br /></div><div>Mark</div></div>mark weinstein, jazz flutisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09347260434409789512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853428050305648215.post-48125708043265430042008-11-21T11:54:00.000-08:002009-11-12T07:24:22.266-08:00the flute and I<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR0m6_YY__AzUYQ3gnCOk62P8ETrn1Nlb8pRE2r4lpisq6JOukX_dGWiMXRBD2eqGtGlSCy4vnyxqwAigmDxu6-7R__M1uUyMlrOaWb4WMd4XSexgcJEMCCtWO7RTyaRA03DutqUtNJd0/s1600-h/moysecover131.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 291px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR0m6_YY__AzUYQ3gnCOk62P8ETrn1Nlb8pRE2r4lpisq6JOukX_dGWiMXRBD2eqGtGlSCy4vnyxqwAigmDxu6-7R__M1uUyMlrOaWb4WMd4XSexgcJEMCCtWO7RTyaRA03DutqUtNJd0/s400/moysecover131.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5271202861793063426" /></a><br />It was the summer of 1961, I had been married for a year and was on full-scholarship playing bass trombone at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, CA when I fell in love with the sound of the flute. My reputation as a young trombonist was good enough so that Davis Shuman-- the classical trombone virtuoso and inventor of the slide at an angle, so that the right arm movement was more natural (one of those brilliant ideas that have everything going for it except success)-- asked me to audition for the resident summer orchestra. When he heard me play he offered my a free-ride for the summer on the condition I learn to play bass trombone. I accepted and my wife Joyce and I were off by bus for all parts West. Taking a bus cross-country is quite an experience, sweaty, dirty, very smelly and we had a fight every day for the four days it took at precisely 3PM, as the boredom and fatigue stressed our, even then, rocky marriage.<div><br /></div><div>Santa Barbara was lovely, we rented a one-room studio off campus (since there were no 'couples accommodations' at the music academy. And I began a summer of practicing, playing and lusting after every good looking female musician in the orchestra. One of major objects of my lust was a bassoon player, who as the saying went, 'would never drown.' I had a thing for bassoon players. My sister June, who I adored, was one. And I sat right behind a gorgeous bassoon player in the All City High School Orchestra. Bassoon players keep their bassoons upright by sitting on a long strap that goes from a clip on the bottom of the bassoon. I spent my time in the All City High School Orchestra envying the strap.</div><div><br /></div><div>Anyway the bassoon player was married to a flute player, Stanley Weinstein, who was a hairier version of me, big and beefy. The first time I heard Stanley play up close I fell in love. Stanley had a classic Julius Baker flute sound, the sound that came to dominate orchestral flute playing, as Julius Baker, principle flutist with the New York Philharmonic for decades, and his students defined the hard-centered, glistening flute sound that is still the standard for orchestral flutists world-wide. When I heard Stanley I understood why people played flute. Oh, to be able to make such a beautiful sound, not to mention double the violins on the greatest melodies ever written by the world's greatest composers.</div><div><br /></div><div>The trouble was that when I began to play the flute about 12 years later I had made a promise. I promised myself that instead of being critical I would search for the beauty in my flute playing. At that point I interpreted that as being accepting of whatever sound came out of the flute. Recall, I was self-taught, didn't even know the right fingerings, and was only interested in improvising. My ritual was to take the flute out. Make a sound, and no matter what came out, follow a musical thread, playing completely freely and spinning streams of sound, melodies that grow organically under my hands. No long tones, no scales, no exercises, just musical freedom. Ask any flute teacher, it was a recipe for tone-disaster. Plus the only embouchure that I knew was a trombone embouchure, so I played with loose lips and a slight frown. Ask any flute teacher, it was a recipe for tone-disaster. But I wasn't worried about tone, I was worried about spinning out melodies, about exploiting my natural fluency and the flute's endless technical potential. Ask any flute teacher, a recipe for tone disaster. </div><div><br /></div><div>I was teaching at Mannes College of Music (western civilization) at 8AM. A student of mine told me that if I turned the head all of the way out, I could play faster. I could always play fast. After pushing a trombone slide around, fast was where I was going. I saw the great jazz reed player, Eddie Daniels, walking down the subway stairs. Eddie and I had come up together in Brooklyn and we hadn't seen each other in years. After 'hello's' etc. told him that I was playing flute and asked him to give me a lesson. I had an old Armstrong student model, all black from playing it outdoors. As soon as I put the flute together, Eddie reached out and took it from me and centered the head joint. He said, 'that's were most people put it.' He played a chord on the piano and I played as fast as I could. He stopped. I said, 'don't I have a lot of technique?' He said, 'that's not technique, that's nervousness. He suggested I study with Harvey Estrin, a taskmaster, and a master of all of the woodwinds. The 'go to' guy for sax players who wanted to develop flute chops. Harvey gave me the basics, a warm-up, long tone octaves and three octave scales. I studied with him for about a year until the fateful day when he questioned the 'aesthetics' of my first recorded efforts (the story is in 'back to the beginning').</div><div><br /></div><div>I didn't study again for years, just tried to play Harvey's routine every day and, by that time, playing hours of Jamey Aebersold records every day, playing free in the park and working trio gigs with young jazz musicians. I was playing an open-hole b-foot Armstrong by this time and another old friend Bobby Porcelli told me about a Miyazawa flute for about $1,500. I ended up taking lessons with the guy who sold it to me and I used to tell folks that 'he sold me a lousy flute and ruined my chops.' And so of course he remains nameless. He was used to flute players with tight smiles and told his students to relax their embouchures. Since I was his student he told me the same. It was a disaster. I couldn't play low notes for years. I was just blowing with no control from my upper-lip and a flabby platform from my lower lip. But the high register worked and I still could play fast. My tone was going nowhere. David Valentin, the great salsa flutist heard my first record and said 'I can help you out.' He showed me that I had muscles in my mouth and how to use them. The sound got better, but without even a glimmer of the characteristic classical sound that David, like Hubert Laws, had made 'the gold standard' of jazz flute playing.</div><div><br /></div><div>When I received tenure my wife and I moved out to Glen Ridge, 4 miles from the University. Peggy Schecter was the flute teacher. I asked her for lessons. I played a single note for months. She called it 'brain exercises.' I was learning to feel how a sound is produced and concentrate and making it better. She showed me how to use my upper lip to control the air. I never did get the sound she was looking for. She claimed I was the only student she ever had who couldn't get the Julius Baker shine in their sound. You know, the sound that I talked about at the beginning of blog, the sound that made me want to play flute! She had me get rid of my Miyazawa and buy the first decent flute I over owned a Sankyo Silversonic for about $3,000. I was no Stanley Weinstein, but my sound was centered and fat, and it had expressive qualities, or so reviewers began to notice.</div><div><br /></div><div>Around the time Peggy and I gave up on each other, I was at the New York Flute Club annual flute fair and I was looking at a pile of flute books. I saw De La Sonoritie (the picture at the top of the blog). I looked inside at the price; it was a fortune. And there was nothing in it. I had seen books like that, generally printed in three languages, with repetitious exercises, laboriously reprinted in 12 keys, something that a jazz musician would explain to another musician in 25 words or less. But I knew these were magic books, books that although seemingly sparse in quantity, were miraculous in quality. I bought it. I spend hours every day playing about 8 pages of that book. Long tones, low crescendos and increasing intervals. Every flute player plays the Moyse, it is the secret to getting a flute sound; that's what the title means, 'About Sound.' A routine like that, once discovered, is a priceless gift, sort of like the lotus-position. It is a doing that supports all other doings. </div><div><br /></div><div>I had gone to Robert Dick, the master of extended flute techniques, in hopes that he could help me understand my idiosyncratic sound. He gave me some tips, but the person who helped my sound the most was Laura George. She told me to play the Moyse with a tuner in front of me. Laura lives in Montclair and she had been calling me to volunteer at the New York Flute Club fair. I was stationed outside the door of the exhibit room. I always liked the alto flute and had gone through an old Armstrong with problems and was playing another, an Altus, that was a better flute, but still hard to play in tune. And there I was with my credit cards in a room full of flutes. The first year I bought a Sankyo alto flute, which I love and the third year I bought a great Yamaha bass flute. But it was the second year that I bought my sweetheart, a Powell, Arumite (a tube of gold, wrapped around a tube of silver) one hell of a jazz flute. $25,000 worth flutes in 3 years. My poor second wife Lesley would be having kittens. And I was on my way to being able to play the flute at last</div><div><br /></div><div>A charanga flute player hipped me to harmonics, and a young girl once gave me a tonguing exercise in the first octave. That was always the hardest thing for me to do and every beginning flute player starts by learning how to do it. But since I was never a beginning flute player, I have to practice tonguing in the first octave every day, since I didn't grow my muscles. Flute players often start at 8 years old, so the muscles grow in response to practicing. Not when you start at 34 they don't. And, of course, as a jazz musician I always play scales, one and two octaves with various articulations, as well as arpeggios, in all keys. For a finale, Harvey Estrin's three octave scales in all keys (you can play any scale beginning on one of two notes, so I play from top to bottom). That's my life, three hours a day, every day. I guess I'll never get married again.</div><div><br /></div><div>Why am I telling you all this? Because I am taking my life into my hands and submitting CD's to the National Flute Association competitions for this year. They do the jazz just like classical compositions. They ask for a specific repertoire, in the case of jazz, rhythm changes a ballad and a bossa nova. I'm going to confront the flute establishment.</div><div><br /></div><div>If you only know me through recordings, you might be surprised by how rarely I get to perform. As saxophonist, Dave Leibman (also an old friend) just said to me in a recent email when I complained about how hard it is to perform, 'it is harder than ever.' And without performances there are no performance videos, and without performance videos there is no presence on youtube, increasingly a must for musicians. The only performance videos I had were a poorly recorded 3 minute of a local gig in New Jersey and a video of a concert I played with guitarist Paul Meyers in 1999. I put them up on youtube but they don't represent my playing. Making the competition CD gave me a unique opportunity. I didn't want to spend a fortune on the CD for the competition, or submit a poorly recorded one. So I split the difference and recorded just a duo in my engineer Phil's recording studio. Paul has been working gigs with me (Trio Jazz Brasil is the name we use) and he is a very responsive accompanist. I found a student through the universities media department and had him video the recording session. So far he has finished video editing two of them (he used 2 cameras). They are now up on youtube. Click on the names of the tunes and check out the videos. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmezCl5CRds&feature=channel">Body and Soul </a>and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHShjwWWPeQ&feature=channel">No More Blues (Chega de Saudade)</a> . Let's see if the flute players will accept me and then the real test. If I succeed in the CD round of the competition, I get to perform live in front of classical flutists at the annual convention of the National Flute Association in New York in 2009. Wish me luck!</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>mark weinstein, jazz flutisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09347260434409789512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853428050305648215.post-89147651245005990102008-11-17T20:44:00.000-08:002008-12-14T14:05:45.963-08:00free stuffThere is a website, Tribe of Noise that lets musicians upload material they control as free downloads. The requirements are that the musician own both the rights to the songs and the rights to the recording, and they will only take songs less then 10mb. I have uploaded four songs, two from my first album Seasoning (1997) and my third album Three Deuces (2001). I discuss both albums in earlier blogs, 'now or never' and 'losing control.' Included in the down loads are two different original blues compositions, 'Last Minute Blues' with guitarist Ed Cherry and 'Walk On Out' with Vic Juris on guitar, Chris White on bass and Cecil Brooks III playing drums and two original tunes, 'Fall Guy,' with Bryan Carrot on marimba, Dwayne Dolphin on bass and Cecil on drums and 'Dawn's Early Light' my anti-war song (don't ask me why I think it is an anti-war song, it just is) with Ed Cherry on guitar. 'Fall Guy' is a 48 bar extended version of the 32 bar tune 'Autumn Leaves.' I take the harmonic principle of each of the sections of the tune and develop them one harmonic extension further. I recorded 'Fall Guy' again as a duet with Vic Juris on Three Dueces and rerecorded 'Dawns Early Light' on the album I recorded for Jazzheads Spring of 2008 with Kenny Barron. That album will probably not be released for another year, since Jazzheads will probably first put out the Cuban album that I recorded during the same period and discuss in the last blog.<div><br /></div><div> I think my old stuff holds up pretty well, and I am pleased with my playing the blues. I wish I could upload another of my blues compositions 'LKC Blues' on Jazz World Trio, but is it 13 minutes long and is 16mb so they won't let me upload it. The first 81/2 minutes were used on a soundtrack for a memorial to my friend Arnie Lawrence, the alto player on the original Cuban Roots. You can get the 4 tune download from <a href="http://www.tribeofnoise.com/browseMusic.php?userID=368">tribe of noise</a> can get to the video from youtube <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulf1gmNeiwE">here</a>. I also recorded an original minor blues on Straight No Chaser, called 'Blues for Janice,' but I don't own the right to the Jazzheads CD's so I can't give it away as a free download.<div><br /></div><div>Playing the blues is more than a basic requirement for a jazz musician, it is the ultimate test. As I listen to my various recordings of blues across ten years I am struck with the consistency of my approach to the material. I play very freely on blues and yet play with an unashamed classicism, playing deep blues phrases and searching for the primordial. Or as my kids used to say, 'whatever.' Anyway feel free to download the free stuff, and if you would like to hear 'Blues for Janice,' it and all of the other tunes from my albums for Jazzheads are all over the web for about 99 cents. All of my early albums, including Jazz World Trios (with the exception of the original Cuban Roots and Cuban Roots Revisited, which I do not own) are on <a href="http://cdbaby.com/">cdbaby.com</a> (search for 'mark weinstein') with short samples and downloads and albums to buy. I have uploads you can listen to from my Jazzheads albums on <a href="http://www.jazzplayer.com/">jazzplayer.com</a> (search 'mark weinstein') and of course on <a href="http://myspace.com/markweinstein">myspace.</a></div><div><br /></div><div>Listen to the music, download it for free if you can and pass it around if you want to. Also, don't be afraid to make comments about the music or about anything in the blog that strikes your fancy<a href="http://www.jazzplayer.com/profile/MarkWeinstein"> </a></div><div><br /></div><div>Enjoy!</div><div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div></div>mark weinstein, jazz flutisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09347260434409789512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853428050305648215.post-67543722565587799612008-11-08T19:01:00.000-08:002010-01-20T18:22:25.731-08:00breaking the pattern<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7bWNcJd-lQgUMAvCuas9PRQwu9k00egC1xqMpPOPlfTfLbRtLIKY-CQC_w_Yz0Q2aeQhgQ0FjdWRBvpS4KQjEIlcjrhw2wE6tz8FDtVJLU9sLBU4LaxQRQ6bkLf7NHW4kl53ZnuF8wiw/s1600-h/IMG_1551.jpg"><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7bWNcJd-lQgUMAvCuas9PRQwu9k00egC1xqMpPOPlfTfLbRtLIKY-CQC_w_Yz0Q2aeQhgQ0FjdWRBvpS4KQjEIlcjrhw2wE6tz8FDtVJLU9sLBU4LaxQRQ6bkLf7NHW4kl53ZnuF8wiw/s400/IMG_1551.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266490184187080994" /></a><br />With the exception of the second blog, which jumped ahead to 2004 with the date in Berlin, which by the way is coming out this winter, I have been going chronologically and am up to my 'hit' album Con Alma, 26 weeks on the charts and thanks to an NPR interview with Scott Simon number one on the Jazzweek world chart and number two on the jazz chart for a few weeks after the interview aired on NPR stations nationwide. But I've been listening to one of two and a half albums I recorded last Spring and it is so phenomenal that I have to break the pattern and talk about it.<div><br /></div><div>The picture is of Pedrito Martinez, winner of the Thelonious Monk prize on hand drums, the singer and leader of the drums on Algo Más and the congero on Con Alma, for which he won best Latin Jazz Percussionist on 2007 on the Latin Jazz Corner poll (I won best Latin Jazz Flutist in the same poll). Pedrito is on the ascendent, he plays with everybody and the depth of his knowledge of the tradition is as profound as any drummers, he is lightening fast and has the must advanced rhythmic conception of any drummer I have ever heard. Pedrito surrounds himself with the very best musicians playing on the edge of Latin jazz and his choice of his compadre Mauricio Hererra as the drummer for Con Alma gave me a demonstration of what the young Cuban cats were up to. But that is the Con Alma story, which has another hook that I will get to in another blog.</div><div><br /></div><div>Marty Cohen is the founder of Latin Percussion (LP), and the greatest friend to the community of hand drummers in NY. He respects them, is respected by them and has given them countless opportunities to perform and document their music. Of course, he made a nice living doing it, and an LP conga drum is in the musical instrument exhibit of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC, along with the most beautiful and rare instruments in all of human history. No small accomplishment for a Jewish engineer in New Jersey who made a cow bell on a small lathe in his garage for Johnny Pacheco in 1961. Cowbells were as scarce as hen's teeth in NY in the 50's and Pacheco, who had gone to Automotive Trades High School in the Bronx (with Barry Rogers), the magic combination that along with Eddie and Charlie Palmieri invented the musical scene that turned into the Salsa revolution, asked Marty Cohen it he could make a cowbell for him. That became the famed Pacheco bell of the early 60's, the gold standard for timbale players from then on. Fiber glass congos followed and LP is to Latin drums what Coca Cola is to soft drinks. </div><div><br /></div><div>Anyway, Marty Cohen had a birthday party at his house. I knew Marty since 1961 (two Jewish guys in the middle of the South Bronx as Puerto Ricans took ownership of their musical heritage and transformed it into into one of the major musics of the world (Salsa). When I started to play again, we got back in touch and so he invited me to his party. Marty has a gorgeous house in Northern New Jersey and he laid on more great Cuban food than I have ever seen in one place. The house was so jammed with musicians and friends that you could barely find a place to sit and as Barry Rogers used to say 'grease,' that is eat with total abandon. I managed, stuffing myself like crazy. Their was a big room set up for musicians to play, three sets of congas, piano, drums, amps, timbales. I knew the sax player, Ivan Rentas, and I had my flute with me. But there was nothing happening, everybody was eating, talking and looking at the great recording and photography equipment that Marty had in his studio. Pedrito saw me and came over, and thanked me for using him on Con Alma, which he seemed to think was a big deal. I was soon in the middle of a bunch of musicians I didn't know, lots of people giving me lots of good energy about the recording. I was stuffed beyond belief and really needed to sit down. As I walked away from the musicians, Pedrito said, 'when are we going to do another record?'. I smiled and headed for a empty seat on couch. The musicians started to play in the next room. There were at least 5 drummers playing, with a loud electric piano and electric bass. Ivan had the microphone stuck all the way into the bell of his tenor sax and I could barely hear him. There was no was I could play the flute with the band that loud. I had seriously over-eaten, it was late, the noise level was murderous. I saw Marty, thanked him and left.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>The next week I got an email from Juan Wust, the engineer who had recorded Algo Más. His 17 year old son had died in a tragic accident a few years ago, and he was producing a concert to raise money for a scholarship fund for students in his son's high school. Pacquito Rivera was head-lining the band and I knew Juan's son. Of course I would buy a ticket. When I got to St Peters College in Jersey City for the event, the auditorium, was surprisingly empty, instruments on the band stand, but the guys hanging around with friends in the audience. I said hello to Pacquito who was sitting talking to some people a few rows in front of me and I laid my two latest albums on him (one can always hope). Pedrito came over and sat down next to me. He said it again, 'when are we going to do another album?' I said, 'If you can find me a piano player and a bass player who play as good as you do, get two more drummers and we can record.' Pacquito got up to go on the bandstand as did Pedrito. I didn't think anything of his remark, and so was very surprised when a few days later, in mid-March, I got a phone call from Pedrito saying he could get the guys for March 30 and 31st. I was in a bind. I had committed myself to record a Brazilian record with Nilson Matta and Kenny Barron, a very expensive project. And I had given a $1,000 deposit to Argentinian bass player Pablo Aslan so he could bring up an Argentinian piano player from Buenos Aires to record a tango album the first week in April. But to turn Pedrito down was to risk being seen as 'jive.' After all, I had set him a challenge. So I said to myself, 'what the hell.' my house in Glen Ridge was an ATM (the housing market hadn't totally tanked yet) and if I did another album I would just be pulling money out of my home equity line as I had planed to do for the other albums. I said, hire the guys, I'll make sure we can get the studio that I like to record in (I have been working with the same engineer, Phil Ludwig, since Tudo de Bom, and he was an equal partner in editing down the hours of music I recorded in Berlin. With Phil and his partner Larry Gates in my corner, I could relax about the technical aspects of recording). The next day Pedrito called me, the piano player could only record one day since he was leaving for a European tour. 'Can we do the record in one day?' I asked. Pedrito said 'sure.' We were set for March 30th. </div><div><br /></div><div>I told Pedrito that if the guys brought in originals they would get co-publishing and I pulled out a few of the most standard tunes I could think off just in case. Milestones, Footprints, Caravan and as a sort of joke, Watermelon Man, plus my 60's tune recorded on Cuban Roots and Cuban Roots revisited, Just Another Guajira, for luck. </div><div><br /></div><div>When I arrived at the studio, the guys where already there (check out the photos on <a href="http://www.myspace.com/markweinstein">myspace</a>). I was setting up my flutes when the piano player came into my booth. Axel Tosca Laugart, 23 years old, a wildman in appearance and bursting with energy. I told him to be careful not to knock over my flutes, he responded, 'I'm young, but I'm a professional.' Little did I know. Axel went into his booth to try out the piano. I almost fell over, he was playing serious Chopin to warm up. I knew I was in for something special. We started with a piano feature, a Chucho Valdez composition called Ernesto. I was totally knocked out. The piano playing was richer than anything I had ever played with and I have played with great pianists (Chick Corea, Omar Sosa and Mark Levine). He had the rhythmic control of Sosa, moving from gaujeo to gaujeo (the piano vamp that Latin piano players play) in an endless stream of creative improvisation. He had the harmonic complexity and structural stability of Chick Corea, and the easy swing and warmth of Mark Levine, and he had all of the incredible technique that is the hallmark of the great Cuban pianists. Axel has it all! Playing solos with him was literally holding the tiger by the tail, he responded to every move I made, extended the rhythmic concept at every opportunity and he forced me to listen and respond in a manner that stretched me like no other recording I have ever done. And then, no matter how good I played, his solos stole the show. No matter how far I moved, he 'saw me and raised.' It wasn't what we used to call a 'cutting contest,' he wasn't trying to show me up. It was just his natural exuberance and phenomenal musical ability. What ever I did, he integrated it into his playing and transformed it. And the rhythm section was in heaven. At the end of the date Pedrito said to me, 'Thank you for letting me play my music.' I had little choice since his music was what I have been dreaming of ever since I started playing jazz to Cuban music.</div><div><br /></div><div>And that rhythm section. Almost every tune has drum solos. With Ogduarte Diaz playing bongos and bell, Pedrito and Mauricio Hererra had a totally reliable time keeper. Mauricio played dramatically, using the kit to add colors and suspense and Pedrito pushed the envelope of time like no other conga drummer I have ever played with. The drum solos that Mauricio and Pedrito contributed to Con Alma were exceptional. Their playing on this recording is transcendent. Complex unison drum figures characterizes the tunes that Pedrito contributed, amazingly complex, and so tight you have to listen hard to hear that it is more than one drummer. And everything with great swing. And then we did the standards. We played Milestones way up-tempo, Footprints in 7/4 rather than the usual 6/8, Watermelon Man as a down home blues (and one of the all time greatest conga drum solos in homage to Mongo Santamaria), Just Another Guajira in yet another rendition, Axel after Omar Sosa, after Chick Corea, another piano setting and one that lives up to the versions of the other two piano masters.</div><div><br /></div><div>And then there is the bass player. Panagiotis Andreou. I have never recorded with an electric bass player before and Panagiotis is no ordinary electric bass player, a classical guitarist originally, he plays with the tips of his fingers. No matter how fast he plays you can barely see his right hand moving, it is all delicacy, all control, with total freedom in the time and a melodic gift. Barry Rogers was the only 'gringo' that was totally respected by the Latin musicians. When Barry said something it mattered. The same goes for Panagiotis, these masters of Cuban drumming accepted his opinions without question. Axel and him were like musical twins, they moved together in some of the most subtle playing behind the drum solos, playing flexible, but superbly tight figures that held the time against the drummers pushing the boundaries. And then came kicker. When I called Caravan as the next tune I thought we would start with a bass solo for contrast. Panagiotis asked for a vocal mike. He played one of the greatest bass solos I have ever heard as an introduction and sang along with every note. I was floored. At the end of the date he asked if we could record a Turkish folk song with bata drums. By this time I was up for anything. He wrote it out for us and I played bass flute in unison with that haunting melody.</div><div><br /></div><div>That finished the recording. We had been in the studio for 16 hours and we had one hell of a record. If this one doesn't put me over the top, nothing will.</div><div><br /></div><div>So, you might ask, why do I wrote about this album now? Two reasons, musicians don't go for spit, no matter how good a record is, to get a phone call with a compliment from the 'first call' players that I record with is virtually impossible. I have heard on the grapevine the Romero and Cyro really love our latest album, Lua e Sol, but neither of them would ever call me up to say so. I guess it is not cool to let the leader know how much you enjoyed the record you made for him. Or maybe the top pros that I record with don't give that much energy to their recordings after they come out. After I finished the mix of the date, I sent a copy to Pedrito. Two days later I got an excited phone call, 'the flute sounds great,' Pedrito started off, 'I'm playing the record for the guys now and everyone loves it,' he continued (and then made a few suggestions for refining the drum mix). I was over the moon! If one of the heavy players that record with me, took the time to tell me how great the record sounds, it must be special. Then I sent it to Randy Klein, the owner of Jazzheads, the record label I record for. He sent me an email, 'this is a major album, it should get you a Grammy nomination, let's talk about how we can push it.' And so I'm putting myself out there for those of you who are interested in my music. This album is a ground-breaking contribution to Latin jazz, it breaks the pattern while staying within the genre, simply by being more innovative and more challenging than anything out there, with virtuoso playing by all and tremendous swing. That's right, to all of the Latin jazz fans out there, I'm putting it on the line. This album is killing! Randy hopes to put it out for Summer of 2009. Meanwhile check out <a href="http://www.myspace.com/markweinstein">myspace</a> for the tracks from my latest Brazilian record, Lua e Sol.</div><div><div><br /></div></div>mark weinstein, jazz flutisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09347260434409789512noreply@blogger.com2