free stuff

There 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.

 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 tribe of noise can get to the video from youtube here. 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.

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 cdbaby.com (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 jazzplayer.com (search 'mark weinstein') and of course on myspace.

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 

Enjoy!

breaking the pattern

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

When I arrived at the studio, the guys where already there (check out the photos on myspace). 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 myspace for the tracks from my latest Brazilian record, Lua e Sol.

pluses and minuses

My career as a trombonist was unexceptional. I started playing in high school in Brooklyn playing with local musicians, started to meet other musicians and branched out into the city. I caught some lucky breaks (a class-A show gig at 18, a funny story I will tell one day) a sub with Eddie Palmieri's band that led to lots of gigs on the exploding Latin dance band scene, got to play some decent jazz gigs, record dates, and quite a bit of arranging to augment my income. I was able to make a living and support my wife and kids, the essential musicians' definition of success. I lived off of the telephone, no self-promotion, just the steady climb through the ranks of musicians relying on word of mouth and personal contacts. My career as a jazz flute player couldn't be more different.

First of all I was playing flute. With all due respect to the few flute players who manage to survive playing jazz, flute is no way to make a living as a jazz musician. In fact after I quit the music business to become an academic I choose flute because I knew I wouldn't be tempted into being a professional musician again. Flute isn't a jazz instrument, it is a jazz double, a side-car attached to a saxophone. If you need a flute player, there are dozens of great sax players you can call. Hubert Laws played tenor with Mongo, Herbie Mann started on tenor, Joe Farrell who made all of those great flute records with Chick Corea was basically a tenor player and on and on.  So playing flute didn't give me the community of working musicians that I could draw upon for advancement. Second flute is a classical instrument and is gendered female. Most flute players are female, start playing in middle school and study with classical flutists who teach them the flute repertoire. Even jazz sax players who double on flute study with classical flutists. And I never played classical music, never developed the strengths and weaknesses of classical flutists who move into jazz. Instead I was a self-taught free improviser who played in parks and on beaches, on roof tops and under bridges. I had tremendous dexterity, a lousy sound and a totally personal approach to the instrument. Not a very good prognosis for a career as a professional musician.

Third, by the time I was ready to play jazz seriously, in the mid 1990's, the music business was sliding downhill faster and faster. My Uncle Irving predicted it in 1955. I was 15 and working a few gigs. Irving, a klezmer trumpet player from Poland and a Marxist said to me, 'So you want to be a musician, do you know the music was the first profession to be destroyed by technology?' I said, "What do you mean, records? He said, 'You're stupid.' I said, 'What do you mean, radio?' He said, 'You're stupid?' I said, 'OK, so teach me.' He said, 'When I came America (in 1919) if you could read and fake (play by ear) you could walk down any main street in any city or town and find a movie theatre that needed musicians to play in the pit along with the movie. Talking movies ruined the music business.' He was right, every technological advance from sound tracks to synthesizers has put ordinary musicians out of work. From radio to recordings, to DJ's at weddings every technological advance resulted in the replacement of average musician with canned perfection. Why hire a wedding band to play crappy covers of your favorite songs when a DJ will give you the real thing. In fact why listen to live music at all when you can construct your musical world to order and carry it around in an i-pod. The only musician who has a hope in Hell is a great musician and there are countless numbers of them, and more and more being trained by the only growth industry in jazz today, jazz education. Great jazz musicians are being turned out at an incredible rate as more and more jazz musicians become educators, helping aspiring musicians to master America's classical music. 

Fourth I was financially secure, a tenured full professor with a comfortable and reliable middle-class income. And so I wasn't hungry! I was desperate to succeed, but I wasn't driven by the most reliable motivator that musicians have, the need to eat. So, among other things, I didn't force myself to play charanga flute. Now don't get me wrong, I have nothing against charanga flute. I love the classic recordings of Arcaño and Sus Maravillas (if you don't know them check them out). It is the essence of Cuban glamor and up-scale romance and the flute melodies, played in the highest octave of the flute register are touching. But to me playing charanga on flute is like playing dixieland on trombone. It is harmonically uninteresting, has very stringent stylistic requirements and it is murder on your chops. I played dixieland on trombone when I had to, I even played the Red Onion, a chain of beer joints that used trombone, tuba and banjo trios cranking out old favorites for hours on end, when I had no other work. But with a check coming in twice a month I wasn't going to hustle the few charanga gigs there are for flute players. And that pretty much meant I couldn't work as a flute player in latin bands, and since I couldn't play with classical ensembles, I couldn't work very much at all. 

If I was 20 and playing flute and had to make a living. I'd get my classical chops up enough to be within striking distance of Broadway shows and record dates. I'd force myself to play latin gigs and most important I'd find a way to work. There is no doubt in my mind that with the harsh task master of necessity I would have figured out a way to make a living playing flute, hustling weddings, playing in restaurants, playing on the subway, giving lessons, anything to make a buck. And I'm sure that would have put me in touch with young musicians who would add a flute to their bands every now and then. I'm willing to bet there are young flute players out there making it somehow (or do they all end up playing saxophone?). But I had those checks coming in, I was in my mid-fifties and I had the money to subsidize records with some really great musicians. Every one of my flute records is with fine musicians, and hiring them to play small-time jazz gigs always ends up costing me a few hundred dollars. The alternative, playing little gigs with young cats so I wouldn't have to spend a fortune to work the gig was attractive to me from time to time, I did my fair share, but I didn't have the motivation to keep it going. And so I never really built a presence on the NY jazz scene as a live performer.

I have played the small Village jazz clubs for the 'door.' It is what jazz musicians are forced to do in NY. But even that is highly competitive in a way that I can't really compete. There are a half dozen jazz programs in the area. Every one of those young music students can play in a club and bring down a couple of dozen classmates hoping to sit in and willing to hang out. And besides for local clubs in my area where I can guilt-trip my friends and colleagues to come out and hear me (usually no more than a few times at most) I can't really guarantee a club owner nearly as many bodies in the room as any tenor player enrolled in the New School, or NYU or Manhattan or Juilliard. And since I don't teach music I can't get my students to come to my gigs without it bordering on harassment. Club owners know the deal and so are hesitant to hire me. I work now and then but basically my life as a flute player exists in the recording studio. And that creates problems.

I can afford to record with the best musicians. The rhythm sections on my records are world class and the guys on my records are working all of the time. They are top professionals and in the real sense of the word I am an amateur, I play for the love of music. I practice all the time, I play maybe a dozen gigs a year and twice a year I have to go into a studio and play as if I have no limits, play as if I just got off the plane from playing some major jazz festival and am one my way to do another. I have to play at the highest standard of those few master musicians who have managed to succeed as jazz musicians in the hardest competitive market imaginable. That is to say, I have to play my ass off, each and every time.

Nilson Matta (that's me and him mugging for the camera) is a great bass player, nobody plays in 2/4 like he does and he is one of the most  melodic bass soloists I have ever heard. Nilson needs to generate income as a musician and he knows how to hustle. I hadn't seen him since we recorded Tudo de Bom and he was playing with the Trio de Paz in town. I went down to hear the band and say hello. He said something to the effect that it was a shame we didn't get to stretch out when we recorded the album with Boukas and suggested that we make another record, a Brazilian jazz record which would really let me express myself as a soloist. I agreed on the condition that he could get guitarist Romero Lubambo to do the date. He set it up, calling Paulo Braga to play drums and Guilherme Franco to play percussion. Nilson and I got together in his house and picked tunes for the date include the Ary Barroso classic Bahia. We went over the tunes and Romero came by for about an hour and looked at the material including some originals by Nilson and myself. So much for rehearsals. The date was on! I was under a lot of pressure and suffering from tension headaches that I later found out were the result of serious glaucoma. I was determined that the date would go well, but I had agreed to play two choros, a style I barely knew, and I wasn't familiar with most of the material we had selected. 

We first tune of the date was Bahia. We recorded a first take. It went well, but the rhythm section was not really tight enough. We did another take and it sounded great. I played the melody and a decent enough solo, but I really wasn't comfortable with the tune. The harmonic rhythm of the tune builds from a beginning with very few chords until a climax with chords changing every beat. I got through the changes fine, but I hadn't really built a solo that was worthy of the harmonic structure, with growing intensity as the harmonies got denser. I needed another take, and Romero knew it. But the rest of the guys had played superbly and to do it again was to risk the very freedom that Nilson and I were trying to accomplish. I didn't know what to do. Romero walked up to my booth and opened the door, "Don't make me play that fucking song again," he said and walked back to his booth. I called the next tune. The die was cast. I had no choice, if I was to play up to the rhythm section I would have to overdub my solo. That had a strange effect on me. Pluses and minuses! I had done my share of overdubbing on earlier records, but always felt guilty about it. My model for a jazz musician came out of the 60's. You played at least 4 nights a week and a record date was just a high-stakes gig. You brought all of your experience from the bandstand into the studio and you played the date as it went down. Whenever I had overdubbed I felt like a failure, but I had to face facts. Since I hardly ever played except in the studio, if I was to play my best I had to bite the bullet and use the artistic freedom the modern technology provides. I had to be realistic about how to get the best performance, rather than live up to the standard of live recording that made sense in another era, but that made less and less sense as musicians performed less and less, with me at the furthest extreme of hardly ever performing. 

I played the rest of the date as well as I could, but I made up my mind. If I had to play Bahia again as an overdub I would utilize the technology to make up for my lack of a professional lifestyle. I would swallow my pride and overdub where needed and get the best performance possible, rather than rely on the magic of the moment. Instead of being a victim of technology I would use it to my advantage. Commercial records had been doing that for years, pop records are recorded in layers with dozens if not hundreds of takes and retakes until each part is as perfect as possible. I would give myself the same option. I would do what ever it took to make the best music possible. I took home a CD of the record date and played along with the tracks until I knew the tunes inside and out. I went into the studio and in a few takes had the performances that I needed. The rhythm section had been responding to the solos I played live, I would then go back and do them one better, responding to every one of there responses to my original solo with a perfect musical fit. The result, O Nosso Amor, was a much better record  than anything I had produced so far. The music was free and full of life and I was playing at my very best. But I was full of guilt, a nagging sense that I had sold my musical integrity in the name of making the very best music I could. Once I crossed that Rubicon I was in another place. I would work to record the very best rhythm tracks I could, never worrying about doing anything in the studio except driving the band with my solos, and then I would do what I had to do so that the results would be as perfect an example of what I was trying to accomplish as I was capable of. No regrets, each performance would be as good as it could be. With that change in perspective I decided to perfect my solos to my heart's content. It is a compromise, but it is a compromise that goes back to the choice I made when I first started to play flute and committed myself to finding the beauty in my music. I have to love what I play. I have to find the most beauty that my music can provide. And so I have to make records that are as perfect an expression of my playing as they can be, performances that honestly present my strivings to make beautiful music, no matter what it takes. I have to do what is necessary for the music and my ego be damned.