Composer George Gershwin did not know he was expected to write a new work for a concert that Paul Whiteman called An Experiment in Modern Music until his brother Ira read about it in the paper several weeks earlier. Gershwin went to work and the end result was Rhapsody in Blue.

That concert took place at 3:00 PM on February 12, 1924 at Aeolian Concert Hall which stood just east of 6th Avenue in Manhattan. (Go to this link to hear a 1924 recording with Gershwin at the piano with Paul Whiteman and his orchestra).

Since that jazz band version (arranged by Ferde Grofé) there has been the fully-orchestrated concert version (the standard version heard played by symphonies around the world) and multiple re-workings of Rhapsody in Blue by artists ranging from Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington to Chick Corea, Marcus Roberts (on his album Portraits in Blue) and a new re-imaginging that was released recently by pianist Lara Downes with composer/percussionist Edmar Colón.

I recently spoke with Roberts, Downes and St. Louis Symphony Orchestra’s Conductor Laureate Leonard Slatkin, whose 1974 recording of Rhapsody in Blue is one of the first recordings I owned. We discussed their first memories of hearing the piece; its longevity and appeal and also a recent article written by Ethan Iverson for the New York Times.

You can read Iverson’s full story here, but he says, in part, “If Rhapsody in Blue is a masterpiece, it might be the worst masterpiece. The promise of a true fusion on the concert stage basically starts and ends with it. A hundred years later, most popular Black music is separate from the world of formal composition, while most American concert musicians can’t relate to a score with a folkloric attitude, let alone swing.”

What follows are excerpts that have been edited for length and clarity. You can see all three of my interviews on our YouTube channel.

DOWNES: I have this fuzzy memory of hearing the bit you would imagine used for figure skating in the Olympics. That’s one of my earliest memories I can pinpoint.

SLATKIN: Actually it’s so long ago, I don’t think I remember, but I suspect that like everybody else, the first thing was the clarinet at the beginning more than the piano part. It was a sound that we really hadn’t heard before.

ROBERTS: I was a child, probably 12 years old, maybe 13. The funny thing is I remember hearing the piece, but when I first heard it, I didn’t know that’s what it was called. I think I heard it on the radio, maybe in the middle of it or something and I was really attracted to it. It was soulful. I could tell it had something in it that I could identify with. And of course, years later, I figured out that it was indeed Rhapsody in Blue.

SLATKIN: I hung out with a lot of jazz musicians, but I didn’t know so much about big band jazz. So this idea that whether it appeared in a symphonic form or in a band version didn’t really strike me as anything other than something very unusual that I wasn’t used to. 

ROBERTS: Now that I’m grown up and I’ve been out here playing a long time, I don’t know if I was thinking this way as a kid, but I think it was the fact that the themes were relatable to me, meaning they seemed to come right out of my cultural experience.

DOWNES: What was happening in American music and all of the things that were coming together and all the things that were changing so fast. Understanding what was happening in Black music at that time in the early part of the 20th century and this hybrid language that was developing.

SLATKIN: In order to understand that, we have to go back to that first performance and understand why it was so important. This concert is organized by Paul Whiteman – An Experiment in Modern Music. We didn’t really have American music for the concert hall. Yes, there were composers in America, and yes, many of them were born in the States. But the sound of the music itself reflected a more European tradition.

We’re not talking about an original American music. We’re talking about borrowed music from church, from patriotic songs, from folk music. We didn’t have anything we could call our own. That’s coming up via the emerging popular music scene, probably starting with ragtime. The vernacular music of the time tended to be shorter pieces 3 or 4 minutes long. Now, all of a sudden, a large scale work 15 16 minutes was appearing. This audience, which included some of the most distinguished musicians in New York at the time, was stunned by what they heard. 

ROBERTS: He’s using American themes. He’s using themes that clearly come out of the African American experience. And as Dvorak said, that’s really the cultural identity of the country. That’s where the themes should primarily come from. Not exclusively, but that’s the richest soil that we have.

DOWNES: [When] we look at the core tradition of classical music, what we’re looking at is [often] this interchange between structured music and the vernacular. The folk music that gets absorbed into the music of Brahms and Liszt to Dvorak and everybody. So I think it’s a continuation of a tradition. I also like to look at this as omnidirectional. Gershwin is leaning back, he’s looking forward. He’s got all these things kind of pushing and pulling at him. And what he comes up with is very emblematic of its time.

SLATKIN: It’s an immediate sensation. All of a sudden composers in this country said, we have the room to grow within our own culture, within our own sound world. And from that point on, composers now began to gravitate from one world into the other.

ROBERTS: So I think that it’s ripe for improvisation because the rhythms are clear. You can hear the blues element in the melodies. When I did Portraits of Blue back in 1996, a lot of critics were not too happy about it at the time. Of course, there’s the Ellington version of it. Nobody really did it, though, with the real intention of improvising on it and bringing it literally into the jazz environment with the specific agenda of improvising on it and recreating it. Me doing that has made it clear that not only can you do it, but you should do it, and there should be many versions of it where people can do what they want with it.

SLATKIN: Even Gershwin himself added little things in different performances. I think one of the reasons that this works as an improvisatory piece, even though everything is written out by Gershwin, is because it’s essentially a number of cadenzas where the orchestra is not playing.

DOWNES: I always experience it as a dialog. I really do. I have a close relationship with the solo piano version of the piece. I play that a lot, too. So what that means is that when I play the Grofé version with an orchestra, I have to remember what not to play. But I feel very intimately involved with those orchestra bits because I need to play them myself. I’m not sure that I have an objective view of the structure, but that is something that we wanted to expand and embrace was the improvisational nature and opportunity.

ROBERTS: In the original score, it basically says something to the equivalent of wait for George to nod or something or watch George. So he was he was probably improvising on it himself when he premiered it at Aeolian Hall in 1924.

DOWNES: I think that the further that we’ve gotten from 1924, as we always do, we have started more and more setting that thing in stone, which it wasn’t originally. When you talk about Ellington and Strayhorn, they’re not that far out from the 20s. Grofé did the version in 24 and then the version with orchestra from 1942. I feel like these 100 year anniversaries, it’s important not to put things in a museum when they get to be 100 years old.

I think it’s an interesting thing that we don’t do in the world of classical music very much. There’s some of it, but we don’t tend to re-arrange, reconsider, review, re-imagine. It’s really funny for me when I work with musicians from other traditions and they’re like, you do what? You play the same notes the same way over and over again? 

ROBERTS: And I think that’s what ultimately made me want to do something different with it. The goal for me is to present the piano based on all of the music that I’ve heard in my life up till now. What is it that I understand and put it in that context.

SLATKIN: I think it’s not even fair to call this work a piece of cultural appropriation, because it doesn’t reflect what the Black musicians of the times were doing. They were going in a whole different direction. And yes, that music would pave the way for innovators such as Ellington and so many others.

DOWNES: There have been all along massive problems of inequity in the music world that were institutional. There have been a lot of closed doors and a lack of access. I don’t think that fits with the musicians themselves. I think that sits with institutional structures. I think that what musicians have always done well is listening. And I think that we listen to each other and we learn from each other and whatever is happening in our air around us, we absorb. We can’t help it unless we want to keep our heads under a rock.

ROBERTS: It’s been a struggle. There’s no secret there. There’s obviously been a lot of struggle with minorities in this country. Not just in terms of opportunities in music, but with a bunch of stuff. The fact is, had he not written it, I think there still would have been struggle. So I like to look at it more from the standpoint that he did it. It has opened up, frankly, eventually opportunities for people to still do whatever it was that they were going to do.

DOWNES: I’m so fascinated with that time in the 1920s, in the 30s. Things were changing so fast. People were encountering each other for the first time and everything was new. Jazz was new, and it was a very different thing than it is now. Just even to look at Gershwin’s very short lifetime, his 24-25 years before he wrote Rhapsody in Blue, all the things that are so quickly moving through but accumulating: the Yiddish theater and vaudeville and the beginnings of the Great American Songbook. It’s all coming together. 

SLATKIN: Gershwin didn’t intend that when he wrote it. It wasn’t I’m going to write something and therefore nobody else can go this direction ever again. Gershwin was in his own groove. He came from Tin Pan Alley. Those are people who went from door to door just pitching tunes to publishers. Most music was sold in sheet music fashion for people to play at home. Within the Black culture that was probably not the case. This was passed on more through different means. Ragtime, as practiced, say, in New Orleans or other places, was mostly an improvisatory field. It wasn’t really written out yet. 

ROBERTS: It’s not just George Gershwin. It’s not like it’s George Gershwin’s fault that he did that right. I just think the main thing that we have to focus one in this country is let’s see if we can get away from doing stuff like that. Let’s really use all of our efforts, all of our collective power, to include people and give them opportunity to succeed regardless of race, creed or gender.

SLATKIN: It’s not felt as a work that’s exclusive to one audience. Timeless works are that way for a reason, because they go over these boundaries. Rhapsody in Blue was different for its time. Could Ellington and others have appeared and done this kind of work earlier if Gershwin hadn’t done it? Maybe. But probably not. And anyway, if they wanted to go that direction, they would have done it regardless of what Gershwin did.

DOWNES: I do think that there’s a reason that things last. The piece has proven itself 100 years later and I would just love to see it continue to grow. Because I do think that was Gershwin’s intention. This musical kaleidoscope that speaks to me of endless possibility and shifts.

SLATKIN: Gershwin was all about moving forward with music. Leonard Bernstein talked about how he really was not happy that so many people knew him from West Side Story. Gershwin, I think, would have said, I’m thrilled that the Rhapsody has reached this kind of audience. And I’m pleased that my other works have also done this. He’s always the classic example, along with Mozart and Schubert, of saying what would have happened if he’d lived longer? Let’s just take what we’ve got, because what we’ve got is not bad.

ROBERTS: The attitude I have is that it’s a living work. It’s a living document. I feel like that simply is one of these pieces that’s alive every time we play it. I hope that it’ll be around for another 100 years. And I hope that there’ll be other music that America will fall in love with, that we can continue to have similar ways to collaborate jazz and classical music. 

To see my Rhapsody in Blue interview with Lara Downes and to hear more about her new album, please go here.

To see my Rhapsody in Blue interview with Marcus Roberts and to hear some exciting news about upcoming albums, please go here.

To see my Rhapsody in Blue interview with Leonard Slatkin, please go here.

Main Photo: George Gershwin (Courtesy the Billy Rose Collection/New York Public Library Archives)

The post Rhapsody in Blue is 100 appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

And yes, they can finish each other’s sentences. As I experienced when I spoke with them last week. Charlap was in New York finishing the second of two consecutive weeks at the Village Vanguard. Bridgewater was at her home. They will be performing together in Los Angeles on Friday night to open the 2023-2024 CAP UCLA season at Royce Hall. If you love jazz piano and jazz vocals, you owe it to yourself to check out this concert.

Rather than follow a traditional format of questions and answers, for this interview I will allow Bridgewater & Charlap to do their own performance of themes and variations on the concept of musical partnerships. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview with Bridgewater & Charlap, please go to our YouTube channel.

The key to a good musical partnership is…

Bridgewater: …being open and listening to each other; keeping that line of communication going. It’s no different, I don’t think, than in a relationship without the music, but I think that’s the most important thing. Keeping your ears open and your mind open to receive. And in my case, all of this beautiful musical information from Bill Charlap. 

Charlap: Well, the same is happening to me. There’s all kinds of beautiful information coming to me from Dee Dee. It’s essentially listening first and foremost and chemistry and that we had right away. The chemistry continues to grow, but chemistry, just like any relationship, sometimes you just catch on fire right away and that’s how it is with us.

Bridgewater: It was the first step when we came together. When I approached Bill with this idea I just started calling out tunes and Bill started playing them and then we were putting keys on them. And before we knew it, we had amassed something like 50 songs easily.

Charlap: And there’s plenty more that I’m certain that could just happen. We may choose songs beforehand and say, let’s do these ones, but it could change at any moment. 

Bridgewater: We’ve kind of narrowed the song selections down to some songs that we really feel comfortable with. We’ve kind of worked out, without even saying it, kinds of arrangements in that there’s a beginning and ending and Bill puts some some special little tags on phrases and then I’ll pick those up. We have unspoken arrangements, don’t we, Bill? 

Charlap: I think so. But they can also change on a dime. Both could change on a dime. It’s not necessarily me setting a tempo or you setting a tempo. It could be both of us. Either one of us could take the reins at any point. In fact, that’s the beauty of it. It’s a true collaboration. It’s a true partnership. She accompanies me, too. Were accompanying each other in a sense.

Bridgewater: I don’t know of any vocal piano duo that can do what we do. 

Charlap: It’s great trust. That’s an important word. But beyond that, Dee Dee is such a great storyteller. That’s what [lyricist] Alan Bergman said the first time he heard her. He said she is the storyteller. So there is that. Then there’s Dee Dee Bridgewater the musician. Perfect time, perfect instincts. The ability to hear harmonically exactly what’s going on. The instincts. But it’s beyond telling the story. And it’s beyond the music. It’s all of those things.

Bridgewater: I just saw that that extraordinary documentary, Zero Gravity. So wonderful. Oh, my goodness. I’ve seen it twice. It’s so inspirational. 

Charlap: It’s a knockout. 

Bridgewater: Listening to Herbie [Hancock] talk about the duo that that he had with Wayne [Shorter] I was really struck. I said, Oh, okay, this is where we’re coming from. Except I remember Herbie saying that he felt like Wayne was the master and he was the student and that he just paid attention. I just I feel in a lot of ways that Bill is is such a master with his music and what he does that it would behoove me to pay attention and to listen because we feed off of each other. This is where the inspiration comes from.

Charlap: One can’t hold the other at bay. We jump into the deep end of the pool together at the same time. It’s not sometimes one washes and one dries, one leads and one follows. It changes all the time. It’s in balance. And it’s a dance. it’s also a palette. It’s like a canvas. It’s an emotional canvas, a story canvas. It has humor. It has depth, of course, with the lyrics and the storytelling. There are layers to all of the lyrics, so it’s not always exactly what every word is, too. It might be something else. All of that.

Bridgewater: Bill knows the lyrics. Bill knows all the lyrics. There have been moments where I go up on a word and he just quietly inserts the word that I’m searching for in that moment. I have never worked with a musician who knows every lyric and the stories behind how they came about. This is extraordinary.

Charlap: I’m playing 50% lyrics and 50% music there. They’re wedded to each other. They’re equal partners.

Bridgewater: Yes, but you are unique in that. What can be said about this duo and the beauty of it is because you just have these two sounds coming at you. We are able to dig deeper into the song, into its meaning; exploring the melody more than would be possible, even if it’s Bill’s magnificent trio. We broke that puppy down to just the two of us. That was really the moment. So I think we have this beautiful relationship now. It just tells its own story and it just amplified the uniqueness of it.

Charlap: I must tell when she first called me and said it would be great to do some stuff together. Of course I would love to do that, but I said, “Well, that would be wonderful if you want to do that with the trio.” And she said, “No, I want to do it as a duo.” And I thought, Wow, now that’s special. And that’s great risk. That was great courage. I’ll never forget that first gig.

Bridgewater: I felt naked and I said that to the audience. I said, I feel completely exposed. Nowhere to hide. I remember running around the piano. 

Charlap: It was that feeling of what’s this? This is working. I don’t feel naked. In fact, if I do, I feel very comfortable in it. It has made something that’s really uniquely of itself and a place that is a center that so many things can grow out of. It’s all about exactly being yourself in this music or in any art. So that’s where we’re going to shine the most. 

Bridgewater: Of course, we’re different and our backgrounds are different and all of that. I know that people were really surprised and still are surprised to hear that the two of us are working together and then to experience it and go come back and go, what is that? That was amazing. I think it is the fact that we are different and we are bringing our individual experiences into this duo is the thing that makes it so magical. And there has to be some sort of similarity between the two of us or it just wouldn’t work. I feel like Bill and I are both very adventurous musical spirits and we’re ready to go anywhere.

Charlap: That’s really nice. 

Bridgewater: Something else that that has happened with Bill and I as we’ve gotten more and more comfortable with each other is the the clowning and the having fun. The moments where it’s silly. I think for people to see that with the two of us they’re kind of like, wow, this is different. Like break out in our whistle, do our little whistle things and when I’ll come around behind the piano bench and have my hands on his shoulders and be doing stuff.

Charlap: Well, it’s supposed to be fun and we’re having lots of fun. Kids in the sandbox.

Bridgewater: Exactly. 

Charlap: Would you ever want to lose that finger paint?

Bridgewater: Go play. Yes. 

Charlap: Don’t be afraid to get messy.

Bridgewater: Exactly. Exactly.

And play they do. Beautifully.

To see the full interview with Bridgewater & Charlap (including a very passionate discussion of Billy Strayhorn’s “Lush Life,” please go here.

Main Photo: Bill Charlap and Dee Dee Bridgewater (Photo by Todd Rosenberg/Courtesy CAP UCLA)

The post Bo23: Bridgewater & Charlap Are Musical Partners appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

On Thursday, April 6th, he will present a recital at The Soraya in Northridge where he will show a through-line from Rachmaninoff to Art Tatum, Billy Strayhorn and Stephen Sondheim. How might he do that? That was just what I wanted to know when I spoke last week with Conrad for the first time since our 2019 interview.

Conrad Tao recorded some of Rachmaninoff’s Preludes for his 2013 album Voyages. He’s also a composer whose work appears on that album as well as on 2015’s Pictures and on 2012’s The Juilliard Sessions.

In our conversation we don’t just cover Rachmaninoff and Sondheim, I ask him an all-important question about one of his favorite shows: RuPaul‘s Drag Race and who he thought would win. Of note, this conversation took place before last Friday’s episode was aired. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview, please go to our YouTube channel.

Conrad, you’re someone who embraces a wide range of classical music, whether it is Mozart or contemporary classical music by composers like John Adams and David Lang. Since you’re also not just a musician, but you’re also a composer, what do you appreciate most as a listener and also as a composer and musician when you’re hearing or playing Rachmaninoff’s work? 

In some ways, all the same things that everyone else seems to get out of it. Which is, I think, that incredible melodic sensibility first and foremost. For me the two are pretty wrapped up in one another, especially when talking about someone like Rachmaninoff.

Actually the thing that I get excited by is the knowledge that Rachmaninoff himself played the instrument. I haven’t read up on whether or not Rachmaninoff liked to compose at the piano. But I can say, having played a lot of his music, that the music feels remarkably good to play at the instrument; which makes a lot of sense given his virtuosity at the instrument and his prolific reputation as a pianist. But it’s that intimacy, that feeling of connection to Rachmaninoff, potentially, the player has through his composition. Everything I love about the music is filtered through that. 

How difficult is Rachmaninoff’s music to play? 

It’s hard. I just did the Third Piano Concerto last November for the first time in a little while. There’s no getting around the fact that the piece is quite difficult. 

What I’m aspiring to play when I’m playing Rachmaninoff’s music is not really the surface notes at all. The surface notes are just the incidental result of all of the stuff that Rachmaninoff has constructed or is asking me to do, again from underneath. So the music is incredibly challenging because it is so dense, but all of that density actually emerges from a route. As the years have gone by, the challenges have changed. 

So what would be the challenge, say, if you were going to do all four of Rachmaninoff’s piano concertos and Variations on a Theme of Paganini all in one concert?

Well, you’ll notice that I was not the pianist doing this concert. My arms might fall off. It sounds kind of fun in the sense that I would love to hear that progression from 1 to 5, five being the Paganini Rhapsody. Unlike, say Beethoven, where all five piano concertos span a decent period, but they don’t span his entire life. The five Rachmaninoff piano and orchestra pieces do actually span his life and his entire career. You’d hear this interesting progression, especially four and five, which are after Rachmaninoff moves to the U.S. I suppose that’s the premise of my program.

The Soraya website says that you’re “speculating about Rachmaninoff in the United States.” How do you define what that statement means in relation to this concert?

Rachmaninoff moved to New York in 1918. Many of his most well-known works were written before then: the Third Piano Concerto; the Second Piano Concerto. Some of his most iconic themes had already been composed before he came to the U.S. We know that he was going to jazz clubs in New York; that he was participating in the musical culture in New York of the 1920s. So we can reasonably assume that he would have been hearing the American Songbook from that time.

We know that he was a fan of Art Tatum, who was early in his career in the twenties. Plus knowing some of the music that he wrote after he moved to the US, which to my ears very clearly evinces the influence of jazz. Although the Rachmaninoff is hardly alone being a composer influenced by jazz. But that was my starting point.

I wanted to explore through Rachmaninoff’s music, as well as music of those that he may have heard when he was in New York and future composers who we know were influenced by Rachmaninoff or may have been influenced by Rachmaninoff, what his influence may have been from and on American jazz and popular music and and songwriting.

What inspired this idea in the first place?

The ask for this program first came into my inbox last spring and I had just happened to see David Lean’s Brief Encounter for the first time with that beautiful Noël Coward script. I was totally unprepared for how beautiful and and formally inventive and emotional it was. The way that it uses Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto is so fantastic. It’s not quite diegetic, but not quite not diegetic. It’s in this beautiful middle zone where it represents this person’s subconscious in a way, or internal dialogue. It just lit my brain on fire.

Stephen Sondheim’s music is part of your program. You did a transcription of Move On for Anthony de Mare‘s continuing Liaisons project. Last year posted a solo piano version of Sunday [from Sunday in the Park with George] on your Instagram account. How does Sondheim’s work inspire you?

There are so many great things about Sondheim. That’s the wonderful gift that he left us with such a varied output that always has a rich consideration of every note and every word. The way that he’s able to use music to underscore or undercut the words that a character is singing is really like an age-old tradition. Mozart in opera does this as well. It’s just one of the great joys of writing theater music.

The song that’s on this program is In Buddy’s Eyes from Follies. By this point in the [musical], we have enough context to realize that Sally’s trying to console herself or she’s staring into the abyss as she says these words, while also knowing that there’s truth in what she’s singing, too. That complexity you can feel in the harmony, in the pungent chords that occasionally disrupt what is otherwise a placid surface. That’s just one of the great joys of that music.

I first did Sunday as a solo piano encore the night that he passed away. I happened to be working that night and it was really incredible to me how you can perceive all of this drama just in the music. Sondheim is almost a psychedelic experience because there is this endlessly unfolding layers of meaning. It’s addictive.

Since I know you’re a fan and we are down to the final four, who should win RuPaul’s Drag Race and who will win RuPaul’s Drag Race? 

I am rooting for Sasha Colby this year in general and I feel like she could comfortably slot into both the should win and will win spots. I have been following Sasha for a little while. I don’t know if you or anyone has seen her winning Miss Continental Talent performance from 2012 but it is fantastic. She’s got really good taste in music and it’s a great pick me up if you’re ever feeling unmotivated or down on yourself. So I love what Sasha is doing. I think she brings such a wonderful perspective to the show.

I also am obsessed with Anetra who is such a great performer. Part of that show is always the painful, honest stories about what it’s like to grow up queer or a queen or anything. Her story is one of the most horrifyingly raw and upsetting ones I’ve ever heard. It stuck with me ever since she told it. So those are my two.

Rachmaninoff said, “The new kind of music seems to create not from the heart, but from the head. Its composer thinks rather than feels. They have not the capacity to make their works exalt – they meditate, protest, analyze, reason, calculate and brood, but they do not exalt.” If you could talk to him composer-to-composer, what would you tell Rachmaninoff about the “new kind of music” being done today?

You know, I have a feeling that we might not totally agree, but that we’d share the same values. I actually really agree that it’s so easy and common for composers to get lost in cleverness. This is actually something the late composer Frederick Rzewski once said. “I think that sometimes people don’t always write music that’s just like the melodies that are going through their heads. And I’m still trying to write the melodies that are going through my head.”

I relate to that. Whatever exalt means to someone, that goal, that desire to communicate something of ones feeling, one’s perspective on the world and one’s being, I suppose. At the risk of being a little fanciful, that is why I do it. So I think that we might have different tastes and I might try to persuade him some experimental work is gesturing towards exaltation as well. That’s what attracts me to various forms of music. What I’m looking for is that feeling of resonance; that feeling of being transported; that feeling of being transfixed. So perhaps exaltation as well.

To see the full interview with Conrad Tao, please go here.

All photos of Conrad Tao by Kevin Condon/Courtesy Unison Media

The post Conrad Tao Celebrates Rachmaninoff’s 150th appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

CABARET

Two shows stood out for us this year. The first was Kim David Smith’s Mostly Marlene which we saw at Joe’s Pub in New York City. His gender-bending tribute to Marlene Dietrich was massively entertaining. This performance has apparently been recorded and will be released next year. Check it out. He’s got a great voice.

The other show was Eleri Ward‘s concert – also at Joe’s Pub. Her lo-fi renditions of Stephen Sondheim‘s songs seemed like just the tonic we needed during the pandemic when she first started posting videos filmed in her apartment. Ward ultimately received a recording contract and has her second album coming out next year on Ghostlight Records. She also opened for Josh Groban on his tour this year.

CLASSICAL MUSIC

This was a year in which Duke Ellington was acknowledged as being more than a jazz musician and composer. With that acknowledgment came long overdue recognition of Billy Strayhorn. The Los Angeles Philharmonic performed two different Ellington concerts in January called Symphonic Ellington and Sacred Ellington in January (with Gerald Clayton – whose Bells on Sand was one of the year’s best jazz albums – appearing as a soloist for the first and a member of the ensemble for the latter). In December the perennial holiday classic The Nutcracker was performed. But rather than playing just Tchaikovsky’s music, the LA Phil also performed the Strayhorn/Ellington arrangements of music from the second half of the ballet.

J’Nai Bridges singing Neruda Songs by composer Peter Lieberson was also a highlight at the LA Phil. So, too, was seeing Maestro Michael Tilson Thomas performing Prokofiev’s 5th Symphony and also his own Meditations on Rilke was a great way to have begun 2022.

Composer Osvaldo Golijov‘s Falling Out of Time had a COVID-delayed LA debut when this staggeringly powerful work was performed at the Wallis in Beverly Hills.

JAZZ

Easily topping our list this year are Cécile McLorin Salvant’s concerts at Blue Note in New York City. We saw two shows and had we had the time and the ability we would have seen them all. Salvant performed music by Handel, original songs, a song from Gypsy and more. It was a truly memorable show. Her most recent album, Ghost Song, is one of the year’s best.

A close second were the two shows we saw Dee Dee Bridgewater and Bill Charlap perform. We first saw this remarkable pair at Catalina Jazz Club in Hollywood. We caught a second show at the Oasis Music Festival in Palm Springs.

Terence Blanchard at the Ford Theatre and Wynton Marsalis performing All Rise at the Hollywood Bowl also easily make our list.

MUSICALS

You might quibble with us about one of these, but here goes:

Our favorite musical of the year was the Tony Award-winning musical A Strange Loop at the Lyceum Theatre in New York City. Bold, adventurous, thought-provoking and moving, this is everything a musical should be – at least to us. The show is still running but only until January 15th. We strongly recommend seeing it. For tickets and more information, please go here.

The revival of Little Shop of Horrors was absolutely delightful. Two hours of entertainment that makes you forget about everything else going on in the world. When we saw the show Lena Hall was playing “Audrey” and Rob McClure was “Seymour.” Hall is still in the show and her new Seymour is Tony Award-winner Matt Doyle. The show has an open-ended run. For tickets and more information, please go here.

Into the Woods, which began its life at New York City Center’s Encores series, was pure pleasure from the first note to the last. If you are or will be in New York, you can still catch it at the St. James Theatre until January 8th. A US tour begins in February. For tickets and more information, please go here.

David Byrne’s American Utopia doesn’t quite qualify as a musical per se, but it was another utterly enjoyable show. We also saw Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story at the Hollywood Bowl with live orchestral accompaniment by the Los Angeles Philharmonic conducted by Gustavo Dudamel. That performance made Spielberg’s under-seen film even more powerful than when we first saw it in theaters.

OPERA

For the first time we finally saw a production at the Metropolitan Opera. Ariadne auf Naxos is not necessarily our favorite opera, but soprano Lise Davidsen’s powerfully strong voice could probably be heard in the lobby of the Met even with the doors closed. It was a staggering performance we will not soon forget.

Countertenor Jakub Józef Orliński gave an incredible recital at Broad Stage in Santa Monica. It was our first time seeing him and we can’t wait for the opportunity to see Orliński in an opera production. We also have to give him special mention for his patience. Someone’s cell phone alarm went off and either the owner was oblivious to the noise or didn’t care. Orliński stopped the show, sat downstage and said he’d wait it out.

Getting the opportunity to revisit the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Tristan Project late this year was a treat. We had experienced it when it first happened and its return was more than welcome (and perhaps a bit overdue). This collaboration with Bill Viola, Peter Sellars and the LA Phil remains breathtaking.

Kevin Puts and Greg Pierce turned Michael Cunningham’s novel The Hours into a mesmerizing and emotional new opera. Written for Renée Fleming, Joyce DiDonato and Kelli O’Hara, this is an opera we experienced through the Met Live in HD simulcast.

Intimate Apparel by composer Ricky Ian Gordon and librettist Lynn Nottage was absolutely first-rate at Lincoln Center. Nottage did a wonderful job adapted her own play for this opera. Gordon wrote a stunning score. The end result is an opera that is equally as powerful as the play.

PLAYS

We’ve always loved Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. But until the new Broadway revival, we never had such a visceral and emotional response to Willy Loman’s story. That’s largely attributable to the impeccable performances of the entire cast including Wendell Pierce, Sharon D. Clarke, McKinley Belcher III, Khris Davis and André De Shields. By now you know this is a Black Loman family. That gave Miller’s piece an added resonance that no doubt contributed to the tears streaming down our faces. The use of music was brilliant. The show is still running at the Hudson Theatre in New York through January 15th. For tickets and more information, please go here.

Perhaps nothing moved us as much as the last 15 minutes of the first half of Matthew López’s The Inheritance at the Geffen Playhouse. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. If the second part of this mammoth work doesn’t end up resonating as strongly as the first, it was still a powerful day in the theater (It’s nearly 7 hours long).

Watching Holland Taylor as the late Ann Richards (former Texas governor) at the Pasadena Playhouse was an opportunity to watch a master class in acting.

That’s our complete list of the Best of 2022! What will inspire and move us in 2023? Come back to find out and to meet the artists, creators, performers and more who make it happen.

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

Photo: Cécile McLorin Salvant at Blue Note New York (Photo by Craig L. Byrd)

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If you ask most people under the age of 50 who Billy Strayhorn was they will probably look at you with a blank face. Composer and musician Marlon Martinez, well under that age, would be able to tell you more about Strayhorn that you could possibly imagine. Unlike many of his peers, Martinez took an early interest in jazz.

“I was in middle school and I gravitated towards big band jazz,” he told me. “My parents knew that I was interested in it, so they bought me a lot of compilation CDs.” Remember compact discs?

Any good compilation of big band jazz was certain to include the music and recordings of Duke Ellington. But as Martinez kept listening he discovered something he couldn’t quite figure out at first.

“As the years went by and as I listened more and more to Duke Ellington, I started picking up on compositions that really resonated with me,” he revealed. “You know, I didn’t know at the time that those particular compositions were Billy Strayhorn’s compositions: Isfahan, Chelsea Bridge, Clementine, all these other compositions. I was assuming it was just Duke Ellington’s compositions and his music.”

It took a few documentaries hearing Strayhorn’s name regularly mentioned with Ellington’s and for Martinez to start digging deeper. His studies in music provided some clarity about the music he’d been listening to and the help of a teacher pointed Martinez in a direction that would change his life.

“I went back to Duke Ellington and I listened to The Nutcracker Suite, Such Sweet Thunder and other orchestral suites. I heard these compositions again. My ears had developed so much through school that I started to pick up on harmonies and chords and melodies that I really liked and these particular pieces sound a little different from Duke’s pieces. One of my orchestration teachers, Joey Sellers, let me borrow his copy of David Hajdu’s Lush Life book. I read that and fell in love with Billy Strayhorn right then and there.”

Where it went is impressive. Through Colburn Conservatory of Music, where he went to school, Martinez created an eight-part video series called Ever Up And Onward: A Tribute to Billy Strayhorn. It’s an impressive series of videos that cover multiple aspects of Strayhorn’s life and music.

On January 16th, Martinez will release an album with his Marlonious Jazz Orchestra entitled Marlonious/Strayhorn – a combination of Strayhorn’s songs (using the composer’s original charts) and originals written by Martinez. They will be performing selections from that record on December 7th at the Clive Davis Theatre at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles.

When asked how he differentiated between what was written by Ellington and what Strayhorn had composed, he didn’t hesitate.

“Billy Strayhorn has a legato melodic sensibility that I feel is not in Duke Ellington’s music as much,” he offered. “Strayhorn has that element. He also has harmonic elements that aren’t really characteristic of Duke Ellington, like his frequent use of melodic minor or minor 11 chords instead of your minor seven or the half diminished chord. There’s also a tinge of sadness in Strayhorn’s music that separates him from Duke Ellington. That does not mean that Duke Ellington is not deep, but they’re just both so deep in their own way. Billy Strayhorn has that emotional content in there.”

Strayhorn was an anomaly for his time. He was an openly gay Black American. He came out before the expression existed. That emotional content that Martinez spoke about is nowhere more pronounced than in the song Lush Life, a song Strayhorn wrote as a teenager.

“It’s more like a poem. The music is set to a poem. It has more of a classical sense to it. I think it’s rhapsodic. It has a different kind of flow from the regular song styles at the time. Lush Life has those twists and turns that’s usually going to be hard to interpret. Lyrically I think it’s very sophisticated; very mature lyrics.”

It’s a classic song that has been recorded by a who’s who of popular and jazz music: Nat King Cole, John Coltrane, Ella Fitzgerald, Lady Gaga, Johnny Hartman, Bettye LaVette, Frank Sinatra, Donna Summer, Sarah Vaughan and more. Perhaps the most surprising rendition of the song is the one recording Strayhorn made of this notoriously challenging and profoundly emotional song.

“It’s faster. He has a theatrical take to Lush Life. I think that makes a lot of sense because Strayhorn was so inspired by musical theater. It seems like something that is like a staged song. Something where you would have choreography, you’d have acting, you’d have a bit of singing. I feel like that’s kind of the narrative in which Strayhorn wrote Lush Life.”

As passionate as Martinez is about Strayhorn, he also knew he has to create a link between the music he writes and the music he loves – while still maintaining his own sound and vision.

“I find my music is very much centered in the rich tradition of big band writing and the styles from the forties, fifties and sixties. But played in a contemporary way, in a contemporary context. What I seek to do, even to this day with all my projects, is to show how Billy Strayhorn has inspired my writing. I wanted to pick Strayhorn repertoire that covers many areas of his style or many of the styles that he has. Then sprinkle in some of my compositions to be more of a commentary on Billy Strayhorn’s writing.

“This album will be the first big band album that I’ve produced. I think it’s wise to showcase some of my work as well. This is his world of writing and then here’s my writing. It moved me to do these compositions this particular way. So I think that is definitely carrying the torch and then passing it on to the listener.”

Martinez is under no illusion that the music he loves and the music he writes is not the type of music you find topping the charts today.

“I think the main challenge is showing people that these chords and this type of instrumentation isn’t old. It’s not a thing of the past or a memory. I’m not trying to be a cover band and I’m not trying to be a cover band in the way I write music either. I feel that there’s a stigma around jazz and big band music that needs to be broken. The challenge is how do you make something that’s genuinely what you want to write and not deter people from thinking, ‘Oh, it’s sounds like In the Mood or Take the A-Train.’ I haven’t found the big answer here yet, but I think the fact that I’m writing this music makes it appealing to people because I’m a young musician, a young musician of color. I’m writing this music dedicated to the people in the past and presenting it today. I think the younger generation coming after me they’re going to appreciate it, too.”

Of course Martinez could just follow Strayhorn’s own philosophy: “If you want something hard enough, it just gets done.”

“I was thinking about that quote literally yesterday. That’s always driven me,whether it’s through finding venues and convincing people that this is a band that needs to be heard and contracting musicians and convincing them that this music will be fun and it will be something that you’ll want to play with your your friends in the section. I don’t have to do this kind of music. I don’t have to be a big band composer at this time and be successful at it. There are so many other avenues that I could take, but I love it so much that I’m going to see to it that I do this for the rest of my life.”

Which, of course, sounds like Martinez does have to do this kind of music.

“I do because I have the passion for it. Hypothetically I can say I’ll do the other things that I like to do, like play in symphony orchestras. I can do that and then retire off that and whatever. I find joy in doing that. I find joy in being a sideman on bass for someone else. I can write all kinds of music, but I have the urge and the itch to just write big band music and direct big bands. So that’s what I’m going to do.”

To see the full interview with Marlon Martinez, please go here.

Main photo: Marlon Martinez (Photo by Imran Stephen/Courtesy MarlonMartinezMusic.com)

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Perhaps you didn’t know Julie Benko’s name before this year started. You certainly do now. She was Beanie Feldstein’s understudy in the Broadway revival of Funny Girl who took over the role when Feldstein left the show early. She also did numerous performances as her understudy. Benko will continue as Lea Michele’s understudy once she assumes the role and will also play the part at Thursday night performances.

This is a big week for Benko and Yeager as their album, Hand in Hand, gets released by Club 44 Records on Friday. The album was born out of online Quarantunes the couple did during the pandemic.

Then on Monday they will perform at Birdland Jazz Club in New York. That concert will be live-streamed at 7:00 PM ET/4:00 PM PT so you’ll be able to see the show without having to be in New York.

Having heard an advance copy of the absolutely delightful Hand in Hand, I spoke to the couple about how they merged their musical styles for the album, how their relationship has deepened by being collaborators and about the whirlwind that is Funny Girl. The musical’s signature song, People, is on the album, but it’s a much more personal version of the song than Benko performs at the August Wilson Theatre.

What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. If you’d like to see the complete interview, please go to our YouTube channel.

Q: Jason, in the press release you’re quoted as saying, “Every song that we chose has a special meaning to us and has grown with us in our relationship.” What does Hand in Hand tell us about your relationship and how you not only weathered the pandemic, but also creatively flourished during it? 

Jason: If you play every week with the same person, you develop a certain close musical rapport. Which we already had, but it only deepened through that period because we weren’t collaborating with anyone else. We weren’t able to. So we learned new repertoire and explored new repertoire, we also got suggestions from listeners, family and friends and fans who would tune in online. Many of the songs bring to mind certain memories from that period, as well as memories from New Orleans. Songs that are included on the record bring to mind the several trips that Julie and I have taken there.

Q: Did you find that your relationships with the songs changed from when you first started performing them to when you finally had to cement them in a formal recorded version? 

Julie: Some of the songs we recorded so many takes of and they were all so different and we had to choose. Each take was very different: some out of time, some more New Orleans, some more playful and more theatrical, some less so. I think the good news is that we actually have all those other recordings and we could always put them out as an alternate take if anybody wants to hear some of the other fun stuff we had.

Q: The entertainment industry has been filled with married couples who have achieved incredible highs and some who have achieved incredible lows by working so closely with their spouses. What is the best thing about working with your spouse and what is the most challenging? 

Jason: I feel we’ve become closer as a couple as a result of our music making. And our musical partnership has become solidified and stronger because we are a couple. I’d say the most challenging aspect is when I mess up I disappoint, not only the vocalist who is the star, but I also disappoint my spouse.

Julie: This is sort of a special thing that we do as opposed to the primary thing that we do. So it really does feel like an escape from all of the really stressful stuff that both of our careers bring us. Making music together actually feels like a vacation because it’s just fun.

He really means it when he says he doesn’t want to disappoint. You have to to find a way to support each other as an artist and as a person and be a cheerleader for both and and be able to make space to hold that.

Q: Is there something from merging musical lives that can serve as a role model for anybody who’s trying to bring to two different voices to shared lives, to different points of views together?

Julie: We have to be so just tuned into the other one so that we can have that call and response. It’s a give and take. It’s a dance. It’s a dialogue. What he plays affects what I sing and vice versa. So I think there’s certainly a lesson in the music for relationships in that way. We actually try to consciously say, I’m going to really listen to you and watch you and be with you, rather than focus on doing the song, quote unquote. The music is better because it’s really just about being present with one another. 

Jason: I would only add that also in selecting the the repertoire and creating the arrangements, it was very much a collaborative process that involved bringing songs from Julie’s world and songs from my world together. And then finding, compromise isn’t the right word, but sort of meeting each other at a place esthetically where we both feel at home and excited. That’s a tough combination to reach. We’re different artists and we have different projects and different esthetics that we enjoy. So finding the Venn diagram of where the circles overlap is also kind of a good metaphor for merging two lives together; remaining independent and distinct. 

Q: One of the songs that I love on the album is Sweet Pea, not just because it’s dedicated to Billy Strayhorn, but also because it sounds like a song that Strayhorn would have written, which I assume is intentional. What does Strayhorn mean to you?

Jason: I wrote Sweet Pea as a tribute to Strayhorn on his 100th birthday in 2015 and then later added lyrics and knew that I wanted to have Julie sing it. Strayhorn is one of my heroes as an artist. Somebody who, without much of an ego about it, was casually just brilliant beyond what most of us can even conceive. They say that he would write and read scores of music while other music was playing. In other words, he could read a score of music and hear it in his head, or even write one out as though he were writing a letter or reading an article. The man was brilliant beyond belief and he was a brave person as an out gay man in 1940s New York City. He he took part in various civil rights actions as well. 

Q: I can’t wait, Julie, for the time when you sing and record Lush Life, which Bettye LaVette told me she is going to spend her entire life trying to get right. 

Julie: I know it’s intimidating, honestly. We were actually in tech in Funny Girl. Michael Rafter, who is our music director, who also is a jazz jazz pianist and has been Sutton Foster’s music director for a long time, he just noodles around at the piano in rehearsals. I would just sit there and I was one of the only ones who would recognize what he was playing. I remember he played the four opening bars of Lush Life and I came over and just started singing. He was like, “You know, it?”

Q: Since you brought up this little show that you’re in, obviously there’s no way you could have predicted what this year was going to bring you.

Julie: No, I was not manifesting any of this. 

Q: So given the wild shifts and changes that this production has endured, what are the challenges in staying focused and more to the point, enjoying all of the opportunities that this maelstrom has given you?

Julie: Well, there are challenges in that. Obviously there’s the media swarm, which I have not generally enjoyed being a part of when it’s the tabloid kind of stuff. That’s just all speculation. It’s just very upsetting to read because it’s full of lies. You don’t want to even dignify stuff with responses. But I’ve learned how to tune it out and just turn it off. I try to just focus on doing the work.

One of the main challenges is the vocal, physical, emotional exhaustion. But once you are in there it’s put on the costume and see everybody around. You get on the train and you go and it’s a party. The audience is excited to be there and you can feel that. And it’s just such a dream come true and such a joy to get up on stage and do this huge, complex role that requires every bit of you. So you get on the train and try to enjoy the ride. 

Q: Are you able to enjoy it, Jason, given everything Julie just said about getting caught up in a lot of the gossip and all the other crap that goes along with this position?

Jason: I feel for Julie. That can be upsetting at times, but I think she’s done a great job of making sure her relationships with her colleagues at work are good and honest and free of that noise. My contribution to that is when none of us knew what was going to happen, I started a thread with the family that Julie is not on. So if there was an article of interest that, say, someone else in the family really needed to share, they could share it there so that everyone except Julie would see it.

Q: Which brings me to the version of People that you have on Hand in Hand. People is one of those songs like Being Alive in a Company where it seems like everybody needs to make it as big as possible at the end. What I love is that you’ve taken this less-is-more approach and made it much more intimate on the album. What did the song reveal to you that maybe you didn’t know before when you started looking at it from that perspective? 

Julie: We didn’t know People before I had to audition for Funny Girl.

Jason: And I only knew it from her audition she asked me to accompany her. 

Julie: The fact that we didn’t have that long-standing relationship, or feeling like there were expectations we had to fulfill, probably helped allow us to just explore in our own way. The sense we got from the scene was this is about people who are in a seduction, this love that’s beginning. And it’s also about loneliness and connecting. I think when you do it in a show on stage and you have a big theater to fill and have a big orchestra to sing with it, you get to belt things out. But to me, the lyric and the the emotion behind the song of wanting to connect in a very intimate way with someone really spoke to let’s find a way to express that intimacy and the intimacy we feel when we get to play together.

Jason: In the context of our album, which has that kind of intimacy, even on the tracks that are orchestrated with more instruments that we overdubbed, there’s still this little house concert or small salon feeling to the record that’s, we hope, inviting. So that’s the feeling we brought to it. And I was thinking of something like a tango or a bolero, because the song feels like a dance between these two characters. We just came up with a couple ideas the night before the session and then played around with it in the studio

Q: I want to conclude our conversation by asking you about something Fanny Brice said: “Let the world know you as you are, not as you think you should be. Because sooner or later, if you are posing, you will forget the past. And then where are you?”

Julie: I love this quote. 

Q: I do, too. So how does Hand in Hand let the world see who the two of you are and how do you think you’ll look back on this maybe ten years from now?

Julie: I think that the album is eclectic. We really bounce around between a lot of different genres and feelings. We try not to let ourselves be limited by genre. It’s not a jazz record. It’s not a theater record. It’s our record and it’s very emblematic of the music that we enjoy listening to and the music that we enjoy creating together.

Jason: I think also that there’s a lot of humor and playfulness on the record as well, which is a part of our relationship and who we are in our home lives. There’s also tenderness and love and respect, I think these are also all values that we try to live out in our home lives and in the world. I think it is a reflection of us individually and as a couple.

Julie: I think that it speaks to the fact that the album is unique and is something that really, truly, came from us and from loving each other. 

To see our full interview with Julie Benko and Jason Yeager, please go here.

Main photo: Jason Yeager and Julie Benko (Courtesy Club 44 Records)

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Legendary jazz saxophonist John Coltrane only ever recorded with one vocalist: baritone Johnny Hartman. Their 1963 album, simply titled John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman, is considered an essential jazz album. Only six songs are on the album which runs just over 30 minutes. Nonetheless, it is a classic. On June 15th, saxophonist Ted Nash is going to celebrate that album in a show at Chelsea Table + Stage in New York.

Nash is an innovative musician who composes much of the work he plays. He’s a member of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. That ensemble has recorded and performed Nash’s work. He’s a two-time Grammy Award winner and his most recent album was last year’s Transformation: Personal Stories of Change, Acceptance and Evolution.

Joining Nash for this show is baritone Tyreek McDole with bassist Ben Allison, Isaiah J. Thompson on piano and drummer Matt Wilson. Last December I spoke with Nash about the significance of this album and his approach to performing it live. The show was scheduled for early in 2022, but was postponed. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity.

John Coltrane is quoted as having said, “I’ve found you’ve got to look back at the old things and see them in a new light.” What will be your approach to looking back on this classic collaboration between John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman?

Well, that’s a good question. I love the recording and I’ve listened to parts of it so many times over the years; as a jazz musician and someone who is it improviser, because that’s largely what makes jazz so special. We’re always looking for a way to put our stamp on something. We tend not to want to do it like the original because what’s the point? These artists were masters and geniuses. For us to say, “Well, I can do what they did” it kind of misses the point. We love the music so much so we tend to want to play them at some point during our life.

I think this record, which it’s all standards, what makes it so incredibly unique are the two artists, of course, Johnny Hartman and Coltrane, and their incredible commitment to melody and the way they phrased the melodies and with such expression. My goal to do this is not try to figure out a complete different way to do it. My feeling is to try to embrace it for what it is – almost a recreation of it. People now are more modern and play differently. But to find ways to respect this original project by presenting it close to what it is, that’s what I want to do. I want to embrace it.

What do you think was so special about this collaboration that these two men had at this given moment in time? 

I think both the artists featured here were really at the height of their of their expression. Coltrane, of course, went on to continue to develop as a composer and as an improviser in different directions from this. But I think that it was magical. You can’t really explain things that are magical. They just happen. I read somewhere that there was talk of Mel Torme being the collaborator with Coltrane and Coltrane, said, “No, there’s this guy, Johnny Hartman, who is really singing great for me.” It’s like two great artists that come together and it just created its own thing. I don’t think even if they had gotten together later that they could have recreated the feeling and the spirituality behind the sound of this of this recording.

Do you think Hartman is overlooked as an artist? 

I think he is. I can’t tell you why it is that we know other artists more like, let’s say, Tony Bennett or or Frank Sinatra. Why do you know Clifford Brown more than Booker Little? It could be something personal, it could be something about choices that they made. I have no idea. I do know that he’s got an incredibly deep and rich beautiful voice that makes you feel good.

The album contains what my favorite song of all time, which is Billy Strayhorn’s Lush Life. I had the privilege of talking to Betty LaVette. She told me that she could spend her whole life performing that song and never feel like she got it right. Now you’re working with someone who is closer in age to Billy Strayhorn, who was 16 when he wrote the song. What are your hopes are for what your collaboration with Tyreek McDole will be and what you as somebody who’s further down the line in your career and he, who’s more a newbie in his career, are going to bring to this challenging, beautiful song? 

It’s probably one of the greatest songs ever written. I just have to say that. It’s humbling that it was written by somebody so young and so attuned to social and human characteristics and qualities to be able to talk like that in a song. It’s always a reminder that there’s depth in people at any age.

Getting off your question a little bit, but it’s interesting that the words tend to fall second place to the melody and harmony for a lot of horn players, myself included. I always tell people they should learn the song and the lyrics because it’ll give you some insight into what the song is about and maybe you’ll play it differently as a result. I’ve heard, of course, the lyrics to Lush Life. I’ve read and heard and listened to and thought about it a lot, but a lot of these songs I haven’t. This is a learning experience for me at my age. I’m hoping that with Tyreek will find that place inside of himself, even as a youngster, to bring something of humanity to these songs.

You’ve gotten so much attention for your own compositions, why this project now?

Coltrane continues to be an incredible inspiration and an influence on people. When you’re younger you’re trying to figure out ways to copy his style and copy his notes, copy his sort of expression. And then at a certain point you’re like, I can’t do this anymore. I have to try to find my voice. So you run away from Coltrane. You spend your life running away from Coltrane, right? Then here comes a project where I have license now to play something similar to Coltrane. That’s part of what I’m looking forward to on this gig is to kind of try to find Coltrane, but not to the notes that we do when we’re younger. In this case I want to try to find the spirituality behind Coltrane’s playing and bring it to this gig. In other words, even if I’m not kind of mocking or copying him, I want to copy the feeling that he had back at this time because that’s what’s truly sticks out.

All images of Ted Nash Courtesy Chelsea Table + Stage

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Though this clip isn’t from that concert, it showcases how thoughtful, graceful and beautiful his work as an accompanist is.

In a 2019 article about Fortner in Downbeat Magazine, Salvant said of his playing, “It felt like he was almost saying the words with me and making them ring or sparkle. It felt wonderful.” 

He’s just as good when he’s on his own. As he is in this performance of Billy Strayhorn’s Passion Flower.

Fortner’s most recent solo album was 2018’s Moments Preserved. Earlier this year he released Tea for Two which finds him performing with vibraphonist Kyle Athade.

I could throw all kinds of details about Fortner, his background, positive reviews and awards he’s received, but it ultimately comes down to the music. Take a look and listen to three very different performances.

If that doesn’t intrigue you and convince you, I don’t know what will. I know what I’m doing at 5:00 PM in Los Angeles. If you love jazz, particularly jazz piano, I know what you should be doing, too.

Tickest for Sullivan Fortner are $10. They can be purchased here.

Photo: Sullivan Fortner (Courtesy his website)

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Here is Jazz Stream: September 1st – September 7th:

Wessel “Warmdaddy” Anderson – New Orleans Jazz Museum Balcony – September 1st – 6:00 PM EDT/3:00 PM PDT

If you’ve ever been to New Orleans you know the sound of music seems to fill the air. On Tuesday it will literally fill the air as saxophonist Wessel “Warmdaddy” Anderson will be performing live from the balcony of the New Orleans Jazz Museum.

Anderson has been playing jazz for most of his life. After Meeting Wynton and Branford Marsalis, he found his way to Louisiana and shortly thereafter, into a gig with singer Betty Carter. Joining Wynton’s Septet followed shortly thereafter.

He’s released several albums of his own and has also recorded with Marcus Roberts in addition to Wynton Marsalis. I listened to his album Space will writing this column and thoroughly loved it.

This should be a fun way to get ready for the long holiday weekend. The performance will be available on the New Orleans Jazz Museum Facebook page.

Detroit Jazz Festival – Detroit Jazz Festival Facebook and Instagram Pages – September 4th – September 7th

You don’t have to be in Detroit this weekend to experience this year’s Detroit Jazz Festival. They are streaming the full program on both their Facebook and Instagram pages. You can also sign up for $20 to Detroit Jazz Festive Live! App and that will not only give you access to this year’s festival, but also to select programming throughout the year.

You can find the entire schedule here, but the following performances stand out to me as ones not to miss:

Justice! – September 4th – 7:15 PM EDT/4:15 PM PDT

This is a four-movement tribute to fighting racism. Traditional spirits open the piece with the last three movements by Chris Collins, Michael Jellick and Robert Hurst.

Pharaoh Sanders Icon – September 4th – 9:30 PM EDT/6:30 PDT

Rodney Whitaker Septet with vocalist Rockelle Fortin featuring the Music of Count Basie and Billie Holiday – September 5th – 8:20 PM EDT/5:20 PM PDT

Something to Live For – Music of Billy Strayhorn – September 5th – 11:00 PM EDT/8:00 PDT

Robert Hurst featuring Black Current Jam – September 6th – 8:20 PM EDT/5:20 PM PDT

Michael Jellick Sextet – September 6th – 11:00 PM EDT/8:00 PM PDT

Joey Alexander Trio – September 7th – 2:55 PM EDT/11:55 AM PDT

The Curtis Taylor Quartet – September 7th – 4:05 PM EDT/1:05 PM PDT

James Carter Organ Trio – September 7th – 5:15 PM EDT/2:15 PM PDT

Robert Glasper – September 7th – 10:15 PM EDT/7:15 PM PDT

Kenny Werner Trio – Smalls – September 4th – 4:45 PM EDT/1:45 PDT

How you know pianist Kenny Werner might depend on what music you listen to most. If you listen to jazz and love the music of Toots Thielemans, you’d know Werner’s playing. If you love Broadway star Betty Buckley and have seen her in concert, you’ve likely seen Werner as her music director.

Whichever way you know Werner, you know he’s quite talented. He and his trio (Ari Hoenig on drums and Johannes Weidenmuller on bass) will perform on Friday from the stage of Smalls in New York City.

Dee Dee Bridgewater: Horace Silver Tribute – SFJAZZ – September 4th – 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT

This week’s concert on SFJAZZ’s Fridays at Five features one of my favorite singers: Dee Dee Bridgewater. This concert from September 2017 was in celebration of pianist/composer Horace Silver. Her album Love and Peace: A Tribute to Horace Silver was released in 1995 and she received a Grammy nomination for Best Jazz Vocal Performance.

Silver appears on the album (he passed away in 2014). Bridgewater’s previous husband, Cecil Bridgewater, was a trumpeter working with Silver in the early 1970s.

Bridgewater is dynamic in concert. I’ve seen her perform many times and always look forward to the chance to see her again. This should be a terrific concert.

For those new to this column, SFJazz makes their concerts available for streaming only at 5:00 PM PDT and only on Fridays. To access the concert you have to sign up for either a one-month subscription (for all of $5 which gives you a month of access) or for a one-year subscriptions (for $60 for a year).

Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah – Blue Note Live – September 4th – 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT

On March 15th of this year, the last live performance took place at Blue Note in New York before the pandemic forced everything to be closed. The performer of that concert was trumpeter/composer Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah. He was celebrating the release of his 2019 album, Ancestral Recall (which is a terrific album you should hear.)

This August a recording of this Blue Note performance was released as an album called Axiom. He was joined by his septet which included Elena Pinderhughes – flute; Alex Han – saxophone; Weedie Braimah – djembefola; Lawrence Fields – piano; Kris Funn – bass; and Corey Fonville on drums.

He has 15 albums as a leader and has also recorded with such artists as Donald Harrison, Nnenna Freelon, Grace Kelly, David Benoit and Marcus Miller.

Blue Note charges $15 to watch the performance. They have an impressive schedule of concerts this fall. I have a feeling many of us will be shelling out $15 to get to watch amazing performances like this one.

If you live in Japan and Asia you will be able to stream the concert on September 5th at 8:00 PM JST.

Melissa Aldana Quartet – Smalls – September 5th – 4:45 PM EDT/1:45 PM PDT

Last March we previewed two concerts scheduled at The Soraya by Melissa Aldana. Sadly, they were cancelled as the pandemic become a more serious issue. So rather than recap who Aldana is, I’ll direct you to the preview we posted.

For this concert from Smalls in New York Aldana, who plays tenor sax, is joined by Charles Altura – guitar; Pablo Menares – bass and Kush Abadey on drums.

New Music: Before this column comes to an end, I want to point you in the direction of a new album that was released this week by Bettye Lavette. The album is called Blackbirds and finds the legendary singer performing songs primarily made famous by Black women. Amongst the songs are I Hold No Grudge (Nina Simone), Save Your Love For Me (Nancy Wilson) and Strange Fruit (Billie Holiday).

The title track is, of course, a notable exception as it was a song by The Beatles.

Every song LaVette sings she makes it wholly and uniquely her own. Few singers bring as much raw emotion to a song the way she does. I strongly recommend you take time out to listen to Blackbirds. It’s a terrific album.

That does it for Jazz Stream: September 1st – September 7th. Enjoy this week of jazz.

Photo of Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah courtesy of ropeadope.com

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Orrin Evans: Dedicated to Billy Strayhorn – July 23rd – 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT

Connecticut’s Litchfield Jazz Camp is holding this one-hour concert by pianist/composer Orrin Evans celebrating the work of Billy Strayhorn, the composer best known for his work with Duke Ellington.

Amongst Strayhorn’s best-known works are “Take the ‘A’ Train;” “Chelsea Bridge” and my personal favorite song of all time: “Lush Life.”

Evans is a pianist and bandleader whose most recent album is called The Intangible Between. It’s with his ensemble the Captain Black Big Band and the record serves as a tribute to trumpeter Roy Hargrove and drummer Lawrence “Lo” Leathers, both of whom recently passed away. Jazz Times called the album “brilliant.”

He has been the leader and/or co-leader on 25 albums. In 2018 he was named the year’s “Rising Star” by DownBeat Magazine. An award he found a little strange more than 23 years into his career as he told the New York Times.

“I’m not looking down on it, but I’m just like: If I had waited on you, I’d have been a falling star. There was no way I was going to wait on you to tell me when I’m a star.”

The Black Madonna Project – July 23rd – 7:45 PM EDT/4:45 PM PDT

Mimi Jones is the leader of this concert from Smalls in New York. She will be joined by Leonor Falcón on viola; Juanma Trujillo on guitar and Mark Whitfield Jr. on drums.

It would be difficult to identify Jones with any one genre of music. She writes her own material and the styles range from jazz to funk to folk and rock.

She has three records of her own and has toured and/or recorded with a plethora of artists including Kenny Barron, Lizz Wright, Beyonce, Frank Ocean, Dianne Reeves, Roy Hargrove, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Nona Hendricks, Toshi Reagon and Ravi Coltrane.

When asked about The Black Madonna Project, Jones explained, “The inspiration for this concert came during my 2017 concert tour of southern Italy. When the promoter said to me, ‘You remind me of images of the Black Madonna,’ I realized that the only images I had seen of Christ and Mary were Caucasian. In Italy, I saw many pictures of black madonnas with a face that could look like mine. Those faces served as my muse, and revealed strength and grace.”

Cécile McLorin Salvant with Sullivan Fortner – July 24th – 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT

I’ve written several times about the amazing singer Cécile McLorin Salvant. She has won three consecutive Grammy Awards for her albums For One to Love (2015), Dreams and Daggers (2017) and her most recent recording, The Window (2018.)

This concert at SF Jazz took place on September 7, 2018 and it was part of her tour to showcase The Window.

Salvant recorded The Window with pianist Sullivan Fortner who joins her for this concert.

No need to say anything more. I’ll let her singing speak for itself.

This concert is part of SFJazz’s Fridays at Five series. It requires signing up for a monthly membership ($5) or an annual membership ($60) to see the concerts. I strongly recommend this concert.

Ron Carter Trio – July 24th and July 25th – 9:00 PM EDT/6:00 PM PDT

I’m not sure how much needs to be said about legendary bassist Ron Carter, either. If you go to his website you see a staggering statistic from 2015: “The most recorded jazz bassist with 2,221 individual recording credits as verified on September 15, 2015.”

His discography is truly a document of the history of jazz from the mid-1950s onward.

Collaborations with Art Blakey, Coleman Hawkins, Eric Dolphy, Gil Evans, Wes Montgomery, Horace Silver, Milt Jackson and Miles Davis only take you through the first ten years of his career.

He is a prolific performer, composer, author and educator. Simply put, he’s a legend.

For these two live concerts from New York’s Village Vanguard, he’ll be joined by Russell Malone on guitar and Donald Vega on Piano. You must purchase a ticket for the streaming concert to get a link to see it. Tickets are $10 per performance.

Those are our picks for Jazz Stream: July 21st – July 25th. To get considered for inclusion in our weekly lists, please e-mail us.

Photo of Sullivan Fortner and Cécile McLorin Salvant by Mark Fitton/Courtesy Salvant’s website

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