RIP Abbey Lincoln

I can't remember exactly how I found my way to Abbey Lincoln's music, but I know that she was the first living jazz singer to stop me in my tracks and make me want to hear a song again and again. I vaguely remember rummaging through the used CD bins at the local record store and seeing a record with Stan Getz (her 1991 release You Gotta Pay the Band, also with Hank Jones and Charlie Haden) and buying it based on Stan's presence... Regardless, I was hooked as soon as I heard the first notes of the song Bird Alone. Later on, I picked up other albums, including Abbey is Blue, which to this day is a desert island album for me.

The rawness and nakedness of her style and power of her conviction is almost unparalleled in the jazz tradition. She had nothing to prove about her voice or musicianship - it's simply there for us to take in, pure, honest, and timeless. Listening to her early records now, it's so hard to conceive that it's the voice of somebody in her twenties and thirties that is singing - it's so developed and full of feeling and sorrow.

Besides her singing, she had an exquisite choice of sidemen (just look at the roster of people on her Riverside albums of the fifties and sixties), unique taste in songs and and a totally adventurous approach to them. Although her own compositions were never my favorite things that she did, I do admire her desire to bring contemporary material to the jazz world that dealt with things other than romance, and I'm sure many of these songs will be sung by other singers for years to come.

I did see her perform once at Yoshi's in Oakland. She sounded great, and was just such a beautiful person to be in the presence of. She possessed a rare gentleness, style and grace that I will always remember. I only wish I had taken advantage of other opportunities to see her.

I put a few of my favorite songs of hers below. Read the New York Times obituary here.

RIP Patelsons 1920-2009

Patelson's, soon to be a relic of another day, was one of those places that almost defined what was so great about being a musician in New York. The stock was great, you could always count on talking to somebody who actually knew what they were selling, and more than once I rubbed shoulders with the classical elite. It was a regular haunt of almost any musician who lives here, and one of the first stops for any musician swinging through town.

Here's the NY Times article about the closing, which details a quintessential New York family story.

Gerry Niewood 1943-2009

I was terribly saddened to read late last night that among those killed on flight 3407, which crashed in Buffalo N.Y. Thursday night, was saxophonist Gerry Niewood. Along with guitarist Coleman Millett, they were on their way to a concert with Chuck Mangione, with whom Niewood performed and recorded with early on in his career.

I went to college with Niewood's son Adam and got to know Gerry a little while in school, and even took a lesson with him after finishing college. A few years later, I found myself sitting next to him when subbing in the orchestra for the Radio City Christmas Show. Over a period of three years, I played about seventy shows sitting next to him, and he was always a great source of warmth, encouragement, sound, professionalism, humor, and a real woodwind guru. He seemed to do things his own way, which isn't something I've encountered much playing on Broadway. I always felt that I emerged a better player after sitting next to him, and he always had something nice to say to me after the show, which meant a great deal to me being so new there.

I'll never forget how five minutes before the Christmas show I was once completely unable to find my tuxedo jacket, which I had taken off and hung somewhere after finishing the previous show. Totally baffled, panicked, and extremely embarrassed, I turned to Gerry for advice on what to do. After chuckling, he pointed me to a costume room upstairs where extra tuxedos were, and I was able to find one that fit to get me through the show. (As it turns out, mine had been hanging on a chair that was moved by the stagehands between shows.) Gerry was the kind of guy who I knew I could go to in this kind of situation, and he was totally there.

It's hard to believe he's no longer with us, and how his life could be taken so abruptly. I know he'll be sorely missed by everybody who knew him and played with him.

Here's the bio from Gerry's MySpace page:

Gerry Niewood is an instrumentalist (soprano, alto, tenor, baritone saxophones; flute, alto flute, bass flute, piccolo, clarinet) who has lent his melodic invention to artists as diverse as: Chuck Mangione, Peggy Lee, Simon and Garfunkel, Sinead O'Connor, Anne Murray, Thad Jones, Mel Lewis, Mark Murphy, Gil Evans, Astrid Gilbeto, Judy Collins, Frank Sinatra and Gerry Mulligan to name only a few. Gerry is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music. Following graduation, he embarked on a recording and concertizing schedule with the Chuck Mangione Quartet with which he performed for a total of nearly fourteen years. Six years after graduation, Gerry relocated to the highly fertile music scene of New York City and began freelancing. With so many colors in his Palette, and his adaptability to many musical styles, there has never been a shortage of opportunities for Gerry. But his distinctive voice on one instrument, the soprano saxophone, brought him the greatest praise. He was twice voted Downbeat International critic's poll winner in the category "Talent Deserving Wider Recognition" on Soprano Saxophone...//// Gerry's Tenor Sax was heard on the sound track to the Robert DeNero film "A Bronx Tale," his woodwinds in the orchestra for "When Harry Met Sally, "Annie," "Shinning Through," "National Lampoon Goes to the Movies," "King of Comedy," and many others...//// Gerry is the 1st saxophonist of the Radio City Music Hall Orchestra. In that capacity, he has performed with some of the world's most famous entertainers.//// As a composer, Gerry Niewood's works have been recorded by: The Chuck Mangione Quartet, Rare Silk, Lena Horn//// Gerry's resume appears in the Encyclopedia of Jazz, and the Who's Who in Entertainment.

His son Adam Niewood, has posted a page on Myspace that will announce plans for a memorial service. It's here.

Blossom Dearie 1926-2009

We've lost one of the world's most original, swinging voices and pianists in jazz. For anybody who hasn't hear her, get her first record on Verve, which features Ray Brown and Jo Jones. The NY Times obituary is here.

Odetta 1930-2008

A voice and an icon leaves us.

NY times obit here.

Odetta at Newport:

RIP Johnny Griffin

I was so fortunate to hear Johnny Griffin play live a few times, mostly in the nineties. In fact, I think (that along with Phil Woods) he was one of the first saxophonists I saw live and was an early hero, and a big reason I switched from the alto to the tenor when I was a kid. Affectionately called The Little Giant due to his small physical stature, he left an impression that I'll never forget. He could blaze at some of the fastest tempos and play a beautiful ballad, evoking Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster with one of the biggest tenor sounds on the planet. He recorded until the end, but I'm a big fan of some earlier recordings of his. Thelonious Monk's Misterioso has some of the most fierce and distinctive tenor playing (and some great Roy Haynes too) ever recorded. He also led a record date for Blue Note called A Blowing Session featuring John Coltrane, Lee Morgan, and Hank Mobley in the front line and absolutely blazes through The Way You Look Tonight.

Even though he rarely played in the U.S. after moving to Europe in the 1960's, his presence on the jazz scene will definitely be missed. Here's Ben Ratliff's obituary from the NY Times:

Johnny Griffin, a jazz tenor-saxophonist from Chicago whose speed, control, and harmonic acuity made him one of the most talented musicians of his generation, and who abandoned his hopes for an American career when he moved to Europe in 1963, died Friday at his home in Availles-Limouzine, a village in France. He was 80 and had lived in Availles-Limouzine for 24 years.

His death was announced to Agence France-Presse by his wife, who did not give a cause. He played his last concert Monday in Hyères.

His height — around five feet five — earned him the nickname “The Little Giant”; his speed in bebop improvising marked him as “The Fastest Gun in the West”; a group he led with Eddie Lockjaw Davis was informally called the “tough tenor” band, a designation that was eventually applied to a whole school of hard bop tenor players.

And in general, Mr. Griffin suffered from categorization. In the early 1960s, he became embittered by the acceptance of free jazz; he stayed true to his identity as a bebopper. When he felt the American jazz marketplace had no use for him (at a time he was also having marital and tax troubles) , he left for Holland.

At that point America lost one of its best musicians, even if his style fell out of sync with the times.

“It’s not like I’m looking to prove anything any more,” he said in a 1993 interview. “At this age, what can I prove? I’m concentrating more on the beauty in the music, the humanity.”

Indeed his work in the 1990s, with an American quartet that stayed constant whenever he revisited his home country to perform or record, had a new sound, mellower and sweeter than in his younger days.

Mr. Griffin grew up on the South Side of Chicago and attended DuSable High School, where he was taught by the high school band instructor Capt. Walter Dyett, who also taught the singers Nat (King) Cole and Dinah Washington and the saxophonists Gene Ammons and Von Freeman.

Mr. Griffin’s career started in a hurry: At the age of 12, attending his grammar school graduation dance at the Parkway ballroom, he saw Ammons play in King Kolax’s big band and decided what his instrument would be. By 14, he was playing alto saxophone in a variety of situations, including a group called the Baby Band with schoolmates, and occasionally with the guitarist T-Bone Walker.

At 18, three days after his high school graduation, Mr. Griffin left Chicago to join Lionel Hampton’s big band, switching to tenor saxophone. From then until 1951, he was mostly on the road, though based in New York City. By 1947 he was touring with Joe Morris, a fellow Chicagoan who ran a rhythm-and-blues band, and with Morris he made his first recordings for the Atlantic record label. He entered the army in 1951, was stationed in Hawaii, and played in an army band.

Mr. Griffin was of an impressionable age when Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie became a force in jazz. He heard both with the Billy Eckstine band in 1945; having first internalized the more ballad-like saxophone sound earlier popularized by Johnny Hodges and Ben Webster, he was now entranced by the lightning-fast phrasing of the new music, bebop. In general, his style remained brisk but relaxed, his bebop playing salted with blues tonality.

Beyond the 1960s, his skill and his musical eccentricity continued to deepen, and in later years he could play odd, asymmetrical phrases, bulging with blues honking and then tapering off into state-of-the-art bebop, filled with passing chords.

Starting in the late 1940s, he befriended the pianists Elmo Hope, Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk, and he called these friendships his “postgraduate education.” After his army service, he went back to Chicago and started playing with Monk, a move that altered his career. He became interested in Monk’s brightly melodic style of composition, and he ended up as a regular member of Monk’s quartet back in New York in the late ‘50s; later, in 1967, he played with Monk’s touring eight- and nine-person groups.

In 1957, Mr. Griffin joined Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers for a short stint, and in 1958 started making his own records for the Riverside label. On a series of recordings, including “Way Out” and “The Little Giant,” his rampaging energy got its moment in the sun: on tunes like “Cherokee,” famous vehicles to test a musician’s mettle, he was simply blazing.

A few years later he hooked up with Eddie Lockjaw Davis, a more blues-oriented tenor saxophonist, and made a series of records that act as barometers of taste: listeners tend to either find them thrilling or filled with too many notes, especially on Monk tunes. The matchup with Davis was a popular one, and they would sporadically reunite through the ‘70s and ‘80s.

In 1963 he left the United States, eventually settling in Paris and recording thereafter mostly for European labels — sometimes with other American expatriates like Kenny Clarke, sometimes with European rhythm sections. In 1973 he moved to Bergambacht, in the Netherlands; in the early 80s he moved to Poitiers, in southwestern France.

With his American quartet — including the pianist Michael Weiss and the drummer Kenny Washington — he stayed true to the bebop small-group ideal, and the 1991 record he made with the group for the Antilles label, called “The Cat,” was received warmly as a comeback.

Every April he returned to Chicago to visit family and play during his birthday week at the Jazz Showcase in Chicago, and usually spent a week at the Village Vanguard in New York before returning home to his quiet countryside chateau.

Take Toriyama

It's hard to believe that a year has passed since Take left us. It's still such a shock to most of us and so painful to realize that he's gone. Like so many others, I had some of the most beautiful and wonderful experiences with him personally and musically. The guy really had a sound, and when you played with him, you were never just playing with a drummer... it was always something greater than that, and so incredibly selfless. He was really the whole package, and exuded such groove, sensitivity and joy when he played. I'll never forget the string of trio sessions and hangs that Take, Chris VanVorstVanBeest and I did at my old place in Park Slope, and fortunately there's some material from a recording session that Take and I did together with Ethan Herr in 2004 or 2005 that I'll cherish.

I'm still amazed when I remember how many people showed up to share their grief and pay him tribute at his memorial. Never had I seen a gathering of musicians that transcended the cliques or divisions that supposedly exist in our little music world.
In just a few short years in New York, Take had touched so many people. Anybody who was there for the walk down 9th street from Prospect Park will never forget the intensity and the collective feeling present that morning. Such a strange mix of sadness and joy to see the music community together that morning, so many friends normally wrapped up in their own lives who rarely come together otherwise unless it's for a gig.

To take his life the way he did, Take had to have been suffering in a deeper way than any of us can imagine. I remember the Buddhist monk who conducted Take's formal memorial pointing out that just like cancer can invade the body, there is a sickness of the mind that is so powerful and debilitating that one loses all hope that things can get better. Take and I were never the closest of friends, which never seemed to matter to me. We're both fairly quiet people and he was somebody I felt close to without opening up to or spending loads of time with. Regretfully, I didn't see him much in the last six months of his life, but through others I know he was going through some really difficult things and kept so much of it inside, fearing that he would burden others by sharing his pain. One of the most tragic things is to think of just how many people would have done anything for him had he reached out. Most people knew he was down, but nobody saw what was coming, and I think his suicide made all of us aware of just how real of a phenomenon it is, one we all need to keep in the back of our mind when we know somebody is suffering.

Take's friend and teacher Hal Crook spoke at the funeral, and it's been posted on Yoshi Waki's website. I don't think anything better or more comforting could have been said.

FOR TAKE

We have gathered here today to honor and pay our respects to our dear friend and brother, Take Toriyama, who made all of our lives better simply by being a part of them. Take’s life touched us all in the best of ways, and his death has left us with an unfathomable emptiness.

At a time like this, it seems that Silence is the real super-power. In Silence, things become clear, and we understand. In Silence we are consoled and healed. We may never get over our sorrow, but in Silence we can accept it and get used to it.


Words can never explain or clarify what went wrong. Words cannot console us, or heal us, or diminish our pain. At times like this, the purpose of words is to set the stage for Silence to take over and do its thing. Silence is the real power here today, so I will be brief.

I met Take when he first came to Boston to study at Berklee College of Music, some 13 or more years ago. He became like a son to me, and like a brother as well. Not that I could ever replace his natural family, whom he loved dearly, but I was grateful for the opportunity to fill in for them while Take was living here.


In fact, I used to joke with Take about this, sometimes calling him the son I never had, and never wanted. But of course, during his years at Berklee and afterward, I wanted very much to be his mentor and his friend, and we became the closest friends. I’ve never had a closer, or truer friend.


In all my life, I’ve never met or known a kinder, or gentler, or more considerate soul than Take Toriyama. Always positive, always doing right, always taking the high road regarding his values and principles. To me, Take was a model example of the best in human potential. Sure, he may have been just a short little drummer guy, but he was a big tall hero to me.


Music was a major part of our connection, as it was with everyone who really knew Take. We got inside each other’s heads and hearts and hands on the bandstand every time we played together. I learned how to tap into the musical strengths of another being from playing with Take. He made it easy.


We studied music and life together, we practiced and performed together, we ate sushi and drank sake together. We recorded together and toured Europe together – sometimes just as a duo. And I can tell you that throughout all our travels and experiences together, everyone loved and respected Take as much as they loved and respected his music.


When I listen to Take’s playing, I think: This is someone who understands everything. Not just drums. Not just rhythm. Not just melody. Not just harmony. Not just form. Not just freedom. Not just music. Everything. Take got it all. He understood the things that matter most to people.


The first thing you read in Take’s self-written bio is, “An amazing parents raised Take.” His parents and brother Kazu were always a major part of his life, as was Natsu, the woman he called his soul mate. He was a great son, a great brother, a great musician, and a great friend. And he should not have died. But he did.


And now we want answers. We say it is human nature to try to make sense of things when they go wrong. We think there has to be an answer. And if we can’t find one we may make one up, just so long as things make sense to us in the end.


Well, maybe it is human nature to search our minds for answers. But it’s also a torturous game, a pathological mind game. Well, maybe it is human nature to search the mind for answers. But it is also a selfish, pathological mind game. The mind, after all, is as much the home of deception as it is truth.


At times like this, I remember what Shakespeare said about thinking. He said, “Nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” Nothing has meaning unless we think it does; or, if we prefer, everything has meaning unless we think it doesn’t.


So, it doesn’t really matter how we leave this life – unless we choose to think it does. One person’s tragic defeat may be another’s triumphant victory. Who is to say? Maybe, in his mind, Take chose victory. And who is to judge? Who is anyone to determine for anyone else what the right course of action is?

When we think about Take leaving us, and how it happened, we become angry and sad because we all loved him and we will miss him. We know that death is the ultimate irreversible act, and that he will not be back to play or hang out with us again.

But I will not think of Take’s final act as good or bad. I refuse to let my thoughts about his death make such an incomprehensible decision. Thinking is simply the wrong tool for the job.

I will let my laughter and my tears determine what is good and what is bad. I will let Silence make things clear to me, and console me, and heal me. I will never get over my sorrow from his dying, but in Silence I will accept it and get used to it.

And I will enjoy the deep and beautiful memories I have of my deep and beautiful friend for as long as I live.

。

Hal Crook

R.I.P. Dennis Irwin

Dennis Irwin, jazz bassist and one of the most remarkable and humble musicians and people I have ever met died this week. I saw Dennis play so many times over the years, with such a huge variety of musicians. Once when somebody asked him how he can so easily go from playing straight-ahead music to playing free music while maintaining his incredible sound and musical identity, Dennis replied "I try to make the inside guys play more out, and the outside guys play more in."

My fondest memories of seeing him play were in Los Angeles when I was sixteen or so. He did a week playing in a quartet with Joe Lovano, and a friend of mine and I went at least three or four of the nights. At the end of each night, Dennis was there talking to us as if we were peers, hanging out and telling us stories about getting to New York and developing his career. Besides being a great musician, he was a very funny guy to be around, and extraordinarily positive.

Here is Ben Ratliff's obituary from the NY Times.


Dennis Irwin, who for more than 30 years was a much-in-demand New York jazz bassist and whose recent illness became a rallying point for jazz musicians without medical insurance, died on Monday in Manhattan. He was 56.


Jack Vartoogian/FrontRowPhotos
The jazz musician Dennis Irwin performing in 2002.
The cause was liver failure as a result of cancer, said his son, Michael Irwin.

He died the same day as a benefit concert was presented in his honor, staged by Jazz at Lincoln Center and including performances by Wynton Marsalis, Tony Bennett, Jon Hendricks, Mose Allison, Joe Lovano, Bill Frisell, John Scofield, and many others. Part of the concert’s proceeds will go toward Mr. Irwin’s medical expenses. The rest, in line with his stated wishes, will go to other musicians in need, through the Jazz Foundation of America, which has helped many uninsured musicians — including Mr. Irwin — pay for healthcare.

Two New York City jazz-club benefits in February, one at Smalls and one at the Village Vanguard, also raised money for Mr. Irwin’s living expenses and for alternative cancer treatment.

Mr. Irwin’s swing was deep and dependable, and he played on more than 500 albums. Since the early 1980s, he had performed almost every Monday night with the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra at the Village Vanguard.

Born in Birmingham, Ala., Mr. Irwin attended North Texas State University (now University of North Texas) as a classical musician studying the clarinet, switching to jazz and the bass during college. In 1973, while still in school, he got a job as a bassist playing with the pianist Red Garland; he moved to New York in 1974 without graduating and quickly found work with Ted Curson, Betty Carter and Mr. Allison, among others. In 1977 he began a three-year stint in Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers.

In more recent years, he played in bands led by Johnny Griffin, Mr. Lovano, Mr. Scofield and Matt Wilson.

His case has already brought help to uninsured musicians. Michael Pietrowicz, vice president for planning and program development at Englewood Hospital and Medical Center in Englewood, N.J., said in an interview on Tuesday that the hospital, in conjunction with the Jazz Foundation of America, would create the Dennis Irwin Memorial Fund, making free cancer screenings available to veteran jazz and blues musicians who are uninsured. (Mr. Irwin was initially evaluated and treated for cancer at the hospital late last year.) And Adrian Ellis, executive director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, said Tuesday that the organization would produce an annual concert to benefit jazz musicians in need.

Besides his son, Michael, of Manhattan, Mr. Irwin is survived by his companion, Aria Hendricks; his brother, David Irwin, and his mother, Daisy Godbold, both of St. Petersburg, Fla.; and his father, David E. Irwin of Monticello, Ga.

R.I.P. IAJE

The jazz world was taken aback this week by the announcement that the IAJE (International Association of Jazz Educators), an organization that grew from humble beginnings to become a major force in the jazz world, has declared bankruptcy and ceased operation. As jazz has become more institutionalized over the last few decades and has taken a firm place in the educational world, the annual IAJE conference became a major place to present music, knowledge, concepts and products. It became the Cannes of the jazz world, where for a meager $300 conference fee you could walk down the halls proudly wearing your conference badge and mingle with the biggest names in the biz, and perhaps feel like one of them for a few precious days every year.

Personally, I attended three of the conferences, one in Chicago as a high-school recipient of the IAJE/NFAA Clifford Brown/Stan Getz Fellowhip and two conferences in New York while I was a student in college. The first conference was any jazz-obsessed eighteen-year-old's dream... I probably hardly slept and ate over the course of those four days, eager to take it all in. The fellowship program offered many aspiring kids an incredible opportunity that I remain thankful for and do not wish to seem ungrateful for in what is to follow.

Over the years what I saw at the IAJE conventions increasingly bothered me and made me feel uncomforable, to the point where if I knew the convention was in New York I made it a point NOT to go out that week to hear any music. The conventions came to symbolize to me just how insular and out of touch jazz is with the mainstream world. Instead of coming together to celebrate the music and figure out ways of expanding its place in our world, I felt like I was seeing thousands of people there fight over the crumbs that exist in the current music marketplace. So few people seemed to be asking the deeper questions that plague jazz currently... What are the literally thousands of people who graduate every year from iniversity jazz programs worldwide going to do in a world largely indifferent to this music? Shouldn't we have been asking why people aren't listening to this music, why is there an ever decreasing number of performance venues that offer artists a real possibility of advancing the music and perhaps bringing it back to a place of social relevance again? How can we create real jazz listeners for the future, and make what we do more digestable to the general public without compromising the art form?

Eventually, any educational world artificially constructed to fill a void of opportunity will topple if it does not teach something relevant to the society in which it operates. From my limited knowledge of what was or was not happening at the IAJE conferences (I didn't go to one since 2000 or so) I think this depressing realization drew the most promising and vital people away from the organization and eventually led to its demise, probably along with some bad financial management, which the courts are now left to decide on. I do believe that teaching jazz in schools passionately and effectively does help create audiences for the future, and I am sure this originally motivated the people who created IAJE. However, I think it eventually was hijacked by a number of short-sighted individuals who saw the organization as a vehicle for self-promotion instead of a place to train effective educators and engage in a serious and broad-minded dialogue. I hope that the jazz world can learn a lesson from this and create something more effective and sustainable in the future.