DavidR

Listened to a bit of it in the store (will pick it up very soon, my CD spending budget is quite minimal at the moment) and it is far, far better than I could have expected. I was stunned by the immediate chemistry on “Questions & Answers” and “Charlie, Woody and You,” and Hornsby’s true facility in the jazz idiom. He’s not just faking it, he’s truly engaging DeJohnette and McBride at their level. The drum machine on “Giant Steps” turned me off a little, but maybe it works in the grand scheme of things. Overall, I’m very, very impressed.

For those of you who like this record and haven’t really made many forays into jazz, I highly suggest Keith Jarrett’s entire output, but especially Belonging, Shades of Jazz, Tokyo ’96 and Whisper Not (the last two featuring DeJohnette on drums), as well as Fred Hersch – Live at the Village Vanguard and Trio Plays…

So, I guess I’ve been paged. I feel like I summed it up in the post David Day quoted above, but I’ll requote here for posterity.

I’d revise part of that now – Roy Haynes is still alive. But yes, Jack is one of the most musical drummers I’ve ever had the pleasure of listening to. He’s got such a fluid yet precise feel, and can groove his rear end off. Jack has played with Keith Jarrett solidly for 20 years, and they first played together over 40 years ago in saxophonist Charles Lloyd’s band. We’ve commented on the influence of Keith on Bruce (just listen to Bruce’s take on “Backhand” up for Bobby Read appreciation week), so it makes sense. I think Sonny would be among the first to praise DeJohnette.

I don’t really know Sonny’s background in jazz – looking at his website, his experience is more on the fusion side: Stanley Clarke, Jean-Luc Ponty, The Crusaders. All great musicians, but if Bruce really wanted to sink his teeth into jazz, I don’t know if Sonny would be the right choice. If Bruce had made a bluegrass album with Doug Derryberry, it probably would have been alright, but it wouldn’t have the authenticity of being immersed in that style with its masters.

As for JV, I don’t think he plays double bass (or upright bass, as we call it), and you just can’t play the same way on electric as you do on upright. I’ve heard people play traditional jazz styles (walking) on electric, and it doesn’t have the same weight and support as it does on upright. You can play jazz on electric (Jaco Pastorius or Steve Swallow) but it’s a totally different ballgame. McBride is an ace on both, and understands the differences and similarities quite well. He’s got huge ears, has played with everybody from Sting and James Brown to Chick Corea and Pat Metheny.

For me, the combination of musicians here is really quite exciting. Bruce and Christian McBride make sense in my head; Bruce and Jack DeJohnette make total sense in my head. It’s actually Christian and Jack that I’m most curious to hear – I can’t think off the top of my head if/when they’ve played together before.

Well, both Bruce and Brad are influenced by Keith Jarrett, I find. They both have fantastic two-hand independence: Brad’s solo piano breaks on “Get Happy” from Anything Goes and “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” from Day Is Done are similar to things Bruce has done.

Other than that, I find their touch and rhythmic feel pretty different – Bruce doesn’t play over the bar line the same as Mehldau does, and the harmonic language Brad uses is more advanced than how Bruce usually improvises. Brad’s also done a lot more stuff in odd meter than Bruce has.

David

I’m the culprit behind “Valley Road.”

Thanks again, Si, for the Daily Dose day. It’s a grand thing you’re doing here.

David

To be fair, the audience was requesting hits and Dead tunes. Bruce has been very vocal that he’s not a jukebox and requesting Dead tunes at a Bruce show is like requesting “Free Bird” anywhere else.

I think it’s a case of the audience and reviewer not knowing what Bruce is up to since 1990, not liking what he does now, and harping on the only thing they can grasp, which is his snarky sense of humour. That said, Bruce has veered close to Keith Jarrett territory over the past few years (and not playing-wise), which he’d do well to avoid, honestly.

David

Two words: Neil Young. I don’t think protest gets much more literal than “Let’s Impeach the President.” There’s always been a bunch of fringe leftist bands: Rage Against the Machine, Michael Franti & Spearhead, many bands involved with the punk/indie scenes in the ’80s. Randy Newman is still writing biting satire and getting a lot of flak for it (“A Few Words In Defense of Our Country?”). Springsteen’s caught some hell as well – anyone remember the controversy over “41 Shots”?

We have to remember that dissent was always relegated to counterculture, and the protest heroes we look to now – Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Pete Seeger – were not accepted as part of mainstream culture in their time. If you want to find music that is engaged and active, you’re going to have to dig for it, then as now. I find protest has become a lot more subtle and more underground – jazz musician Dave Douglas has written lots of politically inspired music, and the group the Bad Plus has a piece entitled “Cheney Pinata.” We’re starting to see new classical compositions addressing the trauma of 9/11 (John Adams’ On the Transmigration of Souls, for instance). But because of the lack of attention given to jazz music, a lot of it slips under mainstream radar. On the flipside, Natalie Maines from the Dixie Chicks makes an off the cuff remark (it wasn’t even a lyric!) and starts a three-year-long firestorm. And Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti was repeatedly imprisoned and beaten for his explicitly anti-government music.

There’s bands like Coldplay, U2 and REM that are active politically outside of their music – the music itself isn’t political. Some of Bob Marley’s music isn’t necessarily protest, but more preaching peace and love, but he’s sort of been misconstrued as this symbol of protest and counterculture. The Black Eyed Peas hit “Where is the Love?” is an incredibly sugarcoated protest song – the first million times I heard it I didn’t even realize. The culturally accepted method of “protest” now is escapism, hence the popularity of fluff like Pussycat Dolls.

I think music can change the world as well – that’s why I’m a musician – but I think it’s only effective on an individual level. If I can reach one or two people per gig musicially, that’s great. I think when bands willingly and intentionally try to create an outright politically-fuelled, galvanizing tune it fails (Antibalas’ “Indictment” comes to mind).

David

This is a rhythmic diagram – has nothing to do with pitch or harmony. The beats and all their subdivisions (ees, ands, uhs, and triplets) can be different notes, or not. That’s not exactly the point here. “Spider Fingers” is hand independence in a way too, with the left hand playing sixteenth-notes all on one note, and the right hand playing that “Sex Machine”-inspired riff.

Both hands are in 4/4 – they just divide the beats differently. Here’s how to do it yourself:
– With your foot (or with a metronome, if you have one), tap out quarter notes (1, 2, 3, 4)
– With your hands, tap three equally-spaced times in the space of a quarter note. Those are triplets.
– With your hands, tap four equally-spaced times in the space of a quarter-note. Those are sixteenths.
– HAND INDEPENDENCE: left hand taps sixteenths, right hand taps triplets (and/or vice versa).

And just to clarify one of Kyle’s points, ostinato does not define or determine how one plays something. Allegro, rubato, etc. are all tempo markings. Ostinato are structural; “any clearly defined melodic or rhythmic pattern that is repeated persistently.”

Kyle’s suggestion on how to practice hand independence is the same way Bruce advises others to practice it.

David

Hand independence is basically like splitting your brain, where the left hand is doing something rather different than the right. If you’re not used to doing it, it’s a challenging task to learn. For my part, my left hand technique is not really up to snuff, so even if I can split my brain to process two different parts at once, my hands sometimes get in my own way. Drummers are fairly used to this, having all four limbs doing different things at the same time, though I find many drummers are more “interdependent” (i.e., all four limbs interlock into a bigger pattern). Truly independent drumming would be polyrhythmic (multiple rhythms at once).

Hand independence is really as difficult as the parts each hand is playing. Ragtime or stride piano is one example of hand independence, where the left-hand plays bass notes and chords and the right hand plays melodies. Increasingly difficult is something like traditional jazz organ, or what Bruce does, where the left-hand is playing intricate bass lines and the right hand is soloing.

Bruce isn’t always improvising basslines like organ players usually do – stuff like “What a Time,” “Sad Moon,” or “King of the Hill” have set patterns or ostinati (plural of ostinato – repeated figure or pattern). What does make Bruce’s hand independence difficult is that he’s often doing polyrhythmic stuff. There’s instances in “King of the Hill” and “Sad Moon” where the left hand is playing eighth notes (two notes per beat) or sixteenth notes (four notes per beat) and the right hand is improvising in triplets. 3-over-4. But essentially, Bruce is only thinking about his right hand because the left-hand patterns are on autopilot. If you listen to the post-Spirit Trail versions of “White Wheeled Limousine,” for instance, the left hand patterns are usually very similar.

“What a Time” is really influenced by Keith Jarrett’s “The Windup” from the album Belonging. It’s a great tune, and that opening vamp/solo is more interdependent than independent, but still fantastic. Also, Brad Mehldau’s version of “Get Happy” from Anything Goes has this amazing solo piano break in the middle that many will find reminiscent of Bruce. But it’s in 7/4!

David

I think the fragmentation of culture – musical and otherwise – has made it very, very hard to galvanize a majority of society the way it was done before. Technology has allowed us to access infinite amounts of information in realtime, and we can now customize it to our liking. I have a Google homepage with only the headlines and links I want to see. And I’m sure another poster here, should they create a Google homepage, would be vastly different than mine. It’s the same in sports – everyone idolized Mantle, DiMaggio and Babe Ruth. Now there’s so many different players with acclaim and achievement that there isn’t a single unifying sports hero… well, maybe Tiger Woods.

I think the problem lies with the lack of value placed on music in society by governments, and with the underestimation of children’s ability and attention spans. Exposure is everything. Never mind that there isn’t a band like Chicago to make trombone cool again, a lot of kids never find out what a trombone IS, as music programs are continually cut and underfunded. A couple of years ago at a jazz education conference, I saw a percussion group of “tweens” playing intricate arrangements of “Spain” on various marimbas and drums. It was incredible, and my heart soared at the fact that the kids were truly engaged and appreciated what they were doing – they were playing some heavy $#!% and enjoying themselves! And a couple of days ago, at an NYC jazz jam session, I had the opportunity to play with a thirteen-year-old drummer, who is far more knowledgeable about the current state of jazz than I was at his age. When I was thirteen, I was in my Thelonious Monk/Miles Davis phase. I knew a handful of tunes – I didn’t even know proper “Rhythm Changes”!

Rich, you mention raising kids. As a youngster myself, I find that parents who are engaged in their children’s pursuits are a minority. Kids are pacified, not stimulated, and are often left to their own devices. A lot of the burden of discipline is being transferred to schools, and it’s not their place, but the parents often can’t be bothered. I recently read Frank Zappa’s testimony at the PMRC hearings, over twenty years ago, and some of it still rings true. If parents are dismayed by what their children are hearing, why not hip them to other forms of music? “Your children have a right to know that something other than pop music exists.”

And as far as self-absorption goes, it’s not just the kids – I’ve stopped counting how many people have Bluetooth headsets now and walk along the streets looking like they’re talking to themselves.

David

Well, I don’t know about best looking. I’m willing to bet I’m the youngest…

Thanks for the welcome, David. I’ve been meaning to join the board for a while – I’m a big Bruuuce.com follower.

David

The intro to “Harbor Lights” sounds a lot like “Song C.” I wonder if the former got morphed into the latter.

Doesn’t Bruce “quote” “The Way It Is” on “Try Anything Once”? And “Changes Made” does bear a lot of resemblance to “The Way It Is.”

David

First, I want to take issue with some of Kyle’s “5 artists who deserve nothing in the music biz.” I have to give credit where credit is due. Justin Timberlake has talent. Some of his songs are substandard, but if you let him loose on a halfway decent song (his last two singles, “What Goes Around Comes Around” and “My Love”) the guy can sing them well. He’s also competent on keyboards, and beatboxes pretty well too. Christina can sing – she’s just lacking taste. I really hope “Ain’t No Other Man” foreshadows things to come for her – there’s hints, underneath all the melisma, of a really good singer in the making.

Are we debating the state of music or the state of the music industry? They’re two mightily different beasts. I think music and musical development is quite healthy – there’s a lot of great artists still cranking out the tunes (Tom Waits, Paul Simon, Radiohead, etc). Ever since the British Invasion, scenes have been fracturing and splintering left and right that it’s been hard to coalesce artistic society under the umbrella of one artist. And I don’t know that it’s necessary for someone to unite an audience the way the Beatles did. There’s so much music out there to be heard, and so much still being created that it’s hard to fight over the din. The closest thing this year might have been Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy.”

MySpace and YouTube are sort of a double-edged sword: anybody with the right amount of money can acquire the gear and ability to record at home and upload it to those sites. That said, I’ve been added by groups on MySpace I’d never otherwise here because budgets prohibit them from disseminating their music outside their area. I don’t have the dough to cross the pond – sorry, Si! – and there’s a ton of British and European artists I’ve discovered through MySpace that I wouldn’t have even thought to have sought out.

Sure, there’s a lot of crap as well. Which brings me to the subject of the gatekeepers, critics, and the music media. A lot has been made that anyone with a pair of ears and a computer can become a music critic, thanks to blogging. No need for a journalism degree, proper grammar, or even discerning musical knowledge – just fire up a browser window and go. Again, while this is true, the positive side of it is that talented, intelligent listeners can now access the same amount of music as a critic, and share their observations with whoever cares to listen. For all the little fanboys regurgitating press releases and Pitchfork headlines, there’s a community of aficionados and musicians bantering about via cross-linked essays. Yes, I’m a blogger too, as well as a musician and composer.

The industry, as it stands, is a dinosaur. The major labels are still too interested in bandwagon-jumping to nurture artistic growth, and there’s this Chicken Little sentiment about downloading and album sales that just isn’t true. Artists have always made the majority of their money through touring and royalties (if they weren’t stupid enough to sign them away), and frankly, most illegal downloads aren’t stolen sales. A lot of the CDs my friends and I have ripped and burned in our lives are things we never would have thought to have bought in the first place. I relish the ability to listen to a disc before I decide to buy it, instead of dropping twenty bucks on a CD I’ll listen to once, or for one or two tracks. If I like it, I’ll buy it. If not, no harm, no foul. It’s akin to banning the test-driving of cars because someone might not return to the dealership.

But the industry is fracturing too – there are so many indie labels that cultivate their own aesthetic (I’m thinking Ninja Tune or Warp or Arts & Crafts), and major label deals have been outed as not the lucrative dreams they once were. And with the rise in recording technology, it’s easy to press one’s own CD and sell it on your gigs. No middlemen required.

So while the industry needs to change lest it become extinct, I don’t think we need to worry about the state of music itself. It’s just fine.

{Phew, I feel better now.}

David