Andrew Hill -a-thon (Part 1)

It can feel like we waste hours on social media sites. And maybe we do. But they can be used as important news sources, and they can allow for important conversations to happen. Sometimes posts spin off into threads that become heated conversations between people who might never have the possibility if being in the same room together. So Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook, etcetera are in incredible resource if they're used as such.

Having been thinking a lot about records and listening lately (see my previous post), I was lucky to see a Facebook post by my friend and colleague Mara Rosenbloom last Friday. Her post read:

"Spotify, itunes, youtube, ahh...here's what I want - 1 monthly delivery: Andrew Hill Records in chronological order, on vinyl. Or how bout something like a bi-weekly CSA pick-up, except instead of vegetables, I get records...or how bout records & vegetables...that will cover most of the bases."

My first reply said that she could set up her own listening  schedule, but it would take some discipline.  But then I thought that I should do it too, or better yet Mara and I should coordinate our listening and do it together.  We could keep each other on track.  So I proposed this and happily we decided to spend two weeks on each Andrew Hill Blue Note record in chronological order.  The first is Black Fire with Hill, Joe Henderson, Richard Davis, and Roy Haynes.  The plan is to get together to listen to and discuss each record and the end of each two week period.

This project is perfect because Andrew Hill has been a gaping hole in my study for far too long.  I've tried to get into his Blue Note records a few times and always failed.

Andrew Hill was a musician that seemed to be largely avoided in the jazz education world, at least in my upbringing.  I remember getting these Jamey Abersold jazz theory booklets and the Double Time jazz record catalogue, which had a list of "100 historically significant" jazz recordings.  This was a very valuable resource for me and my friends in college.  I purchased nearly all 100 recordings during those years.  This list was full of Blue Note records, perhaps even 50%, but there were no Hill records on it.  The only record I remember getting wind of during my undergraduate music studies was "Point of Departure".  The focus was on the great Blue Note records Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner, Wayne Shorter, Joe Henderson, and Horace Silver, to name a few.

So began this hole in my study.  The Herbie records kept me pretty busy anyway.  But while I was at Manhattan School of Music, I found the Andrew Hill Blue Note Mosaic box set in the library, which I must admit to importing into my iTunes Library.  Sorry.  However, I never got that far into it.

There are three reasons why I think I didn't get far.  One is that Hill's music (at least the little of it that I have actually heard) is more complex and dense than the Herbie, McCoy, etc of the period.   I feel it is music that needs to be digested slowly.  There is a certain rhythmic element to Hill's piano playing that seemed a little off to me in the past. I was fine with the Herbie.  During my time at MSM, and afterward, my tastes were expanding into the free jazz world, and for awhile I was actively avoided straight ahead music all together.  The Hill stuff seemed to be in kind of this middle territory.  Straight ahead in some ways, though definitely left of center, but not far enough out to satisfy my free jazz curiosity.

The second reason has to do with how I acquired the recordings - all at once.  I wrote about this a bit in my previous post.  Box sets are nice for the packaging, the new liner notes, perhaps the organization of having the tracks presented in the order they were recorded.  But wow are they hard to digest.  I think box sets serve a listener better if he or she had previously owned the individual records.  Especially if he or she collected them as they were released and was able to spend periods of time with 40-minute batches of music.  I found that when I'd occasionally try playing the Andrew Hill Blue Note box set that it would pretty quickly all start sounding the same.  It was too much to digest for me.

The third thing that prevented me from getting into these records it pretty stupid.  It is actually the sound quality of them.  The piano sound of the Rudy Van Gelder Blue Note records of the 60s is not very good.  However it is not the quality that really bothers me, rather the characteristics and the memories associated with it.  It's psychological.  When I was in Wisconsin studying music I was so deeply into music of the 50s and 60s.  I was constantly listening to these records (other than Hill's) and thinking about these musicians.  When I imagined New York City, I imagined that period.  I had very little awareness or interest of the current music.  Exceptions were Keith Jarrett, Brad Mehldau, and Dave Holland - that's about it.  While I was doing my master's at MSM, I was slowly (and fortunately) pulled into the current happenings, and then toward the free jazz and improvised music.  The pendulum swung fully.  As I mentioned earlier, after finishing my masters I felt the need to distance myself from straight ahead jazz and my music studies - shed the training wheels if you will.  For many years, hearing even just a snippet of that Blue Note 60s piano sound brought me back to the mindset of my jazz training too hard.  I had to avoid it.  It actually bothered me right up until I started this project with Black Fire.  After listening a couple days, the piano sound wasn't bothering me anymore, and that stupid psychological hang up is gone.  Ah, the mind, what a joy.

So, I am thrilled to have come across Mara's post, and that we have begun this listening project.  I am already getting so much out of it.  I've been playing Black Fire every day since Friday, usually multiple times a day.  I'm starting to know the record.  This reminds me of how I used to listen to records.  I think it mainly happened in the car, actually.  Aside from the road noise, driving seems to be perfect for listening to music.  You have to be awake.  Your eyes are occupied.  Your brain is in kind of a passive mode, being partly occupied by driving.  Perhaps I don't absorb records as easily anymore because I don't have a car.   I've actually found that while riding the subway I listen well when I'm playing some easy game like solitaire on my phone.  Again, my eyes are occupied, my brain is passive, I can listen without getting distracted every two minutes.  Of course focused and directed listening is best and I try to do this as often as I can.

My first impression of Black Fire was that they sound a little drunk, especially rhythmically.  It's rougher and not as precise as the other Blue Note records by other artists of the period.  There is a wide feeling of the pulse. But as I have began to absorb the recording more, what is popping out now is these amazing compositions and forms.  The opening track, Pumpkin, has this great rhythmic hemiola interruption in the form.  The second track, Subterfuge, has a very cool funky rhythmic figure that keeps returning.  These tunes sound like they would be really fun to play over.

Another first impression is that Roy Haynes is killing it.

I look forward to getting to know Black Fire better.  And I'm really excited to get to know Andrew Hill's work much better.   I'm already thinking of what musicians to do this with after Hill.  I also have the Herbie Nichols Blue Note box set, which has also been a problem....  I'm thankful that a few years ago I reluctantly created a Facebook account, and that recently I've been paying more attention to it, and to how it can be beneficial, and that because of that I saw Mara's post, and that she agreed to do this project.  

Should We Make CDs?

I want to ask you a question: Should we make Compact Discs?

In the last ten years or so, I've gone from being an avid CD collector, to being a not-so-avid CD avoider. In 2012 I bought maybe five all year, all of them purchased at shows that I attended. I acquired many more as gifts from those who made them. And I am thankful for these artists sharing their work with me via CD.

I gradually stopped shopping for CDs a few years ago as my iTunes collection became a more prominent feature of my life. At first I was concerned about the sound quality of the digital (as in iTunes/iPod etc) version being lower, but I can't honestly say I notice a difference. Perhaps if I did an A/B comparison I would notice something, but I never find myself thinking the quality is lacking when I'm listening digitally. Besides, many of my favorite historic recordings have crappy sound to begin with, and that's never bothered me.

What I do notice a difference in is the packaging. Obviously, we don't get anything but a picture of the cover in the computer version. CD artwork is nothing special when compared to vinyl, but as a jazz collector, the liner notes and credits are nice to have. My students who are checking out jazz records often have no idea who the side players are on the records they're hearing. But there are websites such as allmusic.com that are good for getting this information.

To me the biggest drawback to digital music collecting and Spotify, etc is the rate at which we acquire the stuff. Now if I discover a new musician or band, it's really easy to suddenly hear everything they've released. This can make it really hard to digest. I've made a conscious effort for myself to acquire an artist's work slowly. I even noticed this problem back in my CD buying days, when I'd buy a box set. The larger the amount, the harder to digest it seems.

I actually went through a vinyl phase two or three years ago. This was done in effort to feel the tangible object fully, and to force myself into a more interactive form of listening. Vinyl is not portable, it needs to be flipped over, the artwork is large, it smells great. One Saturday morning I found a great collection of contemporary classical vinyl that a street vendor had tossed in the trash can. It was amazing.

The vinyl period was fun while it lasted, and I still play vinyl at home occasionally, but there is one thing that killed it for me. It's called Spotify. There is plenty debated about Spotify, which you can find all over the Internet, but for me it comes down to two things: convenience, and no risk.

I subscribe to Spotify's premium service which means I pay $10 a month and that allows me to listen commercial free at supposedly a higher quality, and download music to my phone. Needless to say that this is very convenient. No trip to the store, no shopping online, no waiting. Just search and play. I connect to a wireless speaker in the house, so when I want the volume up or down, or I want to change songs, I just reach into my pocket and take action. I feel somewhat guilty that I often listen to records I own streaming on Spotify, while the CD version sits on the shelf. It's also very handy for teaching. If a student needs to hear a recording, I most likely have it with me in my pocket.

Even more influential than conveniences is the no risk factor. I can listen to anything on Spotify without buying it. This means if it sucks, I can simply stop listening to it, and it didn't cost me a thing, and it won't be taking up space on my shelf or on my hard drive. How am I supposed to take the $15 risk of buying a CD that I might end up not liking, when the free version is right there in my pocket already? Mind you that this is written by an independent musician who would benefit from people buying CDs. If I feel like the risk is not worth taking, there's no way the average listener will take it.

I would like to note that I still believe in albums. I listen to albums on Spotify. I enjoy the arc of a good album. I am not suggesting we should stop making albums and put out singles, although occasional singles wouldn't be a bad thing. And other ways of putting material out there are great as well. YouTube, Soundcloud, Bandcamp, etc are fast and efficient ways to share one's work.

Anyway, back to my original question. Should we make CDs?

Right now I see only two arguments for making CDs. 1.) They allow an artist to mail a physical object to a writer or venue. 2.) It might be advisable to be on every possible format, to meet the buyer wherever he or she may be.

I originally had a third argument in mind, which was having CDs to sell to your fans at shows. This is a nice thing to have, but on further thought, I've concluded that I'd prefer to buy vinyl that comes with a download coupon for the digital version. A 10" vinyl with great artwork and a handful of songs from the full record is something I'd much rather go home with than a CD.

I put out a couple of records in 2012, and I was actually surprised that most critics still wanted physical CDs. It seems like a horrible inconvenience to me. All this packaging and junk for something that might get listened to once or twice and then either take up space or have to be thrown away. Plus postage seems to be getting mor expensive - I actually lost money selling a CD to someone in Spain via my website a couple weeks ago! It seems like a digital version via email would be much easier for critics to deal with. But, I suppose we need to offer any format that they want. And perhaps a physical object is more difficult to forget about or ignore, than a digital copy.

The same goes for the listener. As hard as it may be to convince people to listen to our stuff, we should get rid of as many barriers as possible, including not being on the format that a listener prefers. With that in mind we should be on CD, vinyl, and all forms of digital and be selling in every place possible. If CD listeners are two percent or five percent of our audience, it might still be worth it to make CDs. This I think is the strongest argument to continue making them. But I'm not sure it's a winning argument. How important is the CD collecting minority to our cause?

What do you think? Artists and listeners, should we keep making CDs?

VAX! This Is It!

On Friday February 1st, 2013, I attended a concert at the apartment of drummer Devin Gray. The night featured an eclectic variety of entertainment.

First was a short film by Zach Caldwell, complete with strobe like effects and plenty of dog footage.

Second was a mesmerizing solo improv set by clarinetist Joachim Badenhorst. It was the kind of playing that makes one listen to the instrument in a different way. He created textures that accompanied themselves, and timbres unlike any I had previously heard.

Third was a standup comedy set by Evan Davis. His set was good, and it was made funnier because despite his effort to dumb down his pop culture references for the predominantly jazz musician crowd, many of them still went over our heads.

But the real mothership of the night was VAX, a group consisting of Devin Gray playing drums, Patrick Breiner playing saxophone and clarinet, and Liz Kosack playing Nord Stage keyboard. I was expecting a good set, but what ensued was way beyond good. They performed a piece that was through composed in form, but featured plenty of improvisation. There were pretty moments. There were abrasive moments including a sustained high loud piercing sound from all three musicians (Gray on melodica) for something like five minutes -- much longer than one expected. There was plenty of humor in the show, for example Gray pausing a moment to put ear protection on before the aforementioned long note. There were sudden shifts and connections that came out of nowhere. There was laughter, there was composed rapping/dialogue/chanting. There was choreography. There were costumes. The set ended with a seamless transition into a dance party starting with a Justin Bieber song.

There were no scores. They had worked at this piece in over twenty four hours of rehearsal. They weren't paying each other with money, rather commitment and time. They had found a common goal among them, and decided to pursue it. They were a group. They were a thing. I am so happy for them that they found this. I'm envious. I'm inspired to work toward something like it myself.

Recently I watched a youtube video of some respected, big name jazz players backing a vocalist at a club in NYC. The music sounded fine, good composition, well-played, but these guys had their heads buried in the charts while the vocalist was out front entertaining the audience. And I immediately thought, "No. This is not where it's at." My reaction was not in regard to the music, which was not bad at all. It was in regard to the presentation, and the common NYC practice of hiring some great, but busy, players and doing one rehearsal (if you're lucky) and then the gig, paying them out of your pocket, and hoping you do well at the door. I think the economics of NYC have a lot to do with this norm, but that's another post. I feel this model doesn't always allow the music develop to it's fullest extent, although I must admit to following it more and more recently for my own music.

VAX was the antidote to this. It was so refreshing. It was an example of the highest potential of the great musicians of this city. It is my hope that more people follow their lead and start bands that find a similar commitment to each other and their art. Devin, Patrick, and Liz, if you're reading this, thank you thank you thank you! You have something special. Go with it. Get in a van and go play it everywhere you can. People need to experience it.

VAX : Devin Gray, Patrick Breiner, and Liz Kosack in Brooklyn 2/1/13