here comes another

"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.

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.

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:

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.

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.

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.'

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 myspace 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."

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!

confronting demons

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.

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.

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!

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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!

a great story

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. 

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

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.

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:

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.

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.

If you want the more details about how the music was recorded, scroll down 2 blog entries. 

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.