Jeff Albert's blog and podcast home
I love the way Google Alerts sometimes alerts me to video of myself of which I have previously been unaware. Here is one of them.
This is from the Search & Restore NOLA Round Robin Duos concert. I like the fact that once Helen comes on stage I am heard more than seen.
Some of you are probably familiar with the NYC based organization called Search and Restore. It is run by a tireless man named Adam Schatz. Well, Adam is bringing his ever-excited craziness to New Orleans via a three night festival in New Orleans on the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of Jazz Fest.
Search And Restore: New Orleans is a 3 day festival (April 30th-May 2) celebrating the incredible new jazz musicians, creative composers and improvisers operating in New Orleans today, organized by Adam Schatz (founder of Search & Restore), Justin Peake (founder of the Merged series @ the Dragon’s Den) and Jeff Albert (founder of the Open Ears series @ the Blue Nile)
There is a Kickstarter campaign in place. I know I am always curious about how the Kickstarter money will be used. Your donations will help us guarantee a fair fee for every musician performing in the festival, with equal pay going to every artist in an effort to truly value the work. This financial security will allow us to go above and beyond with promoting the event, so that we can expose bigger and newer audiences to this vital community, and we hope you will be a part of it too!
Please pledge at the $600 level. It is the only way my wife will let me have my favorite summer hair style…
This past Friday, offBeat Magazine had their annual Best of the Beat Awards show. George Porter Jr. was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award. George invited many of the old & current Runnin’ Pardners to play that night, and like every gig with George, it was great. His daughter Katrina also put together an all star tribute band that did a couple of tunes. I am thankful that I got to play in that group as well, and thankful that someone from offBeat had a camera.
Horn section (l to r): Brian Graber, Khris Royal, Tracy Griffin, Mark Mullins, Jeff Albert. Front row (l to r): Art Neville, Dr. John, Cyril Neville, Big Chief Monk Boudreaux, David Berard, Stanton Moore, Papa Mali, & Brint Anderson (out of picture to the right).
Here are some behind the scenes pics from my Instigation Quartet recording session on November 21, 2011. The musicians involved were Kidd Jordan, Hamid Drake, Joshua Abrams, and me. Zack Smith took the pictures.
I should have info about the release of the music some time soon(-ish).
Like much of the day, I was talking, and Kidd was practicing. Or maybe he was just trying to drown out my talking.
When he wasn’t practicing, he was laughing, or making us laugh.
Here we are with Wesley Fontenot, our fabulous recording engineer, checking out some playback.
Co-producer Benjamin Lyons and Hamid in (I’m sure rather deep) discussion.
We did actually record some music too. There are more action photos here.
I’ve been meaning to write this for a while, but other things have been interrupting. They have been good interruptions, like a fabulous day in the studio recording with Hamid Drake on drums, Joshua Abrams on bass, and as the Godfather of New Orleans’ free jazz, Kidd Jordan on tenor saxophone. Eventually I’ll have solid news on when that will get released.
But the post that has been waiting to get written was actually instigated by an interview with Nicholas Payton on The Jazz Session. If you are unfamiliar with Nicholas or The Jazz Session (hosted by Jason Crane), go ahead and click through that link. It will be worth it.
In the interview, they were talking about Nicholas’ New Orleans roots, and he mentioned playing for dancers. I don’t know that I agree that “none” of the young jazz musicians have played much for dancers. I think anyone who has tried to make a living as a musician and isn’t a nose-in-the-air purist or jazz snob has had to play for dancing at some point. I know I spent large portions (read “almost all”) of my early career playing for dancing. Of course most of my career has been in new Orleans, so maybe I am making Nicholas’ point.
I do completely agree with his point however, that playing for dancers changes the way we play and the way we view what we do. This is in line with a view that has been articulated to me by others whom I also respect greatly.
At the 2006 Chicago Jazz Festival, I was walking from the Velvet Lounge to the festival hotel, with Dutch cornetist Eric Boeren. We were making small talk, and I asked what else he did. He asked what I meant. I said, “what other sorts of things do you play?” He responded that he didn’t do anything else. He was paid by the Dutch government to write and perform his own music. I said I was jealous, and I did all sorts of weddings, and anything else to get paid. He casually commented, “I sometimes wonder if I am missing out on something.”
My friend and colleague Benjamin Lyons has often stated that he feels like the musicians in New Orleans have an interesting take on improvised/creative/free/whatever music because we all do other things as well. We all play music that has a social meaning that can outweigh the pure musical meaning. Second line parades, jazz funerals, weddings, parties, etc. in New Orleans all have music as an integral part of the overall social meaning, but it isn’t so much about the music, as the music is about the event. The fact that we expect music to have this more important social meaning in these contexts, affects the way we make music in our more artistically centered endeavors. Even when we are being artists, we want to see people move.
I am sure that this is not a phenomenon unique to New Orleans, but it is definitely present here. If we all understand how to make a booty shake, or as Jimbo says “make the party happen” then we will all have a better idea of how to make art that connects with and moves people.
The October 2011 issue of Jazz Times has a couple of articles that (at least in part) deal with the issue of gender diversity, or lack thereof, in the jazz sphere. Nate Chinen‘s column addresses the lack of female jazz critics. In writing about why this lack of female jazz critics should bother us, he says, “You should care because our discourse lacks an illuminating perspective.” The issue also includes David R. Adler‘s piece entitled “Understanding Nicholas Payton.” Talking about the all female reed section in his TSO, Nick says that he is “…trying to develop a band that is more inclusive of different types of energies. Also, I think the feminine energy brings a different sensibility to the group, and it balances out the yang energy, which is cool.”
I agree strongly with these sentiments, not because I have two daughters and want them to feel comfortable becoming critics or musicians or whatever else they might like to become (although that is also true), but because as Nate and Nick each point out, the feminine perspective is different and important and good.
Last year I took part in a group called New Generation that was organized by Georg Graewe. We did two nights of shows in Dortmund, Germany. There were 12 of us in the group, although we broke down into smaller units as part of each show, and 7 of the 12 of us were women. It was the first time that I can recall I had ever been in the sexual minority in a musical situation. I have been in the racial minority in many musical situations, but never had I been in a group with fewer men than women. It was great. The energy was absolutely different than had the group been all men, and different in a positive way. It is hard to be specific about how the musical and social vibes were different, but they definitely were, and I think all of our musical, and critical, experiences would be well served to have a better balance of masculine and feminine energy.
Enrico Sartori (alto clarinet), Domenico Caliri (guitar), Silvia Bolognesi (bass), Simone Padovani (percussion), Marcello Benetti (drums) & Jeff Albert (trombone)
This was recorded at UDIN&JAZZ 2011 XXI EDIZIONE on
Monday, June 20, 2011 in Cervignano del Friuli, Italy
Wow, two posts in row pointing out friends who are asking for money. I guess such is the world in which we live. The truth of the matter is that the old system of media/entertainment/art/whatever is dying. It no longer does any sort of good job at producing interesting and fulfilling material. The job of producing good stuff has fallen to the artists themselves, and other people who are personally vested in quality. That is why we have artists making and funding their own records now, and that is why some of our best music journalism is done by independent bloggers and podcasters.
This stuff has to be paid for in one way or another. With artists making CDs, the answer is fairly easy: buy their CDs. Jason Crane, who produces the fabulous music interview podcast called The Jazz Session, has adopted a somewhat public radio style way of trying to make his show economically feasible. He is seeking members, people who will make an ongoing commitment to financially support the show. We do these things (produce podcasts, run music series, etc) because we love to do them, but it does cost money to make them happen. Sometimes we can subsidize it from our personal lives, and sometimes we have to ask the people who enjoy this work to step up and help pay for it.
I love Jason’s show. I listen to it regularly and have learned a lot from the interviews. Jason has a wide ranging aesthetic and does a great job of giving exposure and forum to artists whose work falls left of the mainstream. I am a member.
I would recommend that you go to the website and listen to a show or two. There is a long list of artists from which to choose. I particularly enjoyed the Ken Filiano and David Weiss interviews. If you like what you hear and feel it deserves your support, you can join here: http://thejazzsession.com/join/
The show needs about 15 more members by the end of Thursday August 11 for it to continue.
I have produced a few CDs over the years that were solely funded by me, and had no chance of being big sellers. This situation makes budgeting the project difficult, especially when it comes to paying the musicians. In some instances, I have just built a modest (but hopefully respectful) amount of money for each musician into the budget, and paid them for the recording. This makes the gamble mine alone, and makes the bookkeeping much easier, in the unlikely event that the CD actually makes money. We did do the first Lucky 7s CD with the understanding that once the initial investment was made back, we would share equally in the proceeds. No one was paid for the recording on the front end. Happily that CD has made a little money, and every once in a while I get to send each of the guys a check (a small check, but a check none the less).
Recently Kickstarter, and similar sites, have become a popular way of trying to finance recording projects. It is not difficult to see how this could seem more appealing than the personal savings method of financing. There has been a good bit of reaction to this trend, both positive and negative, and some insight as well.
All of this brings me to a new Kickstarter project I was recently asked to support. It is Steve Swell’s Nation of We. Steve has taken the curious angle of running the campaign to pay his band. It is not uncommon for artists to make a recording on their own, and then have a label pick it up. It is also not uncommon for the label to pay the musicians in product, i.e. the musicians provide the master, the label pays for pressing and distribution, and the musicians get paid in product (CDs they can sell themselves to make their money). Unless the CD really sells a lot, there is often no exchange of cash between the label and the musicians. NB: I don’t know that this is Steve’s deal on this CD, I just know it is common practice.
Part of me wants to complain about what a shame it is that we have to resort to organized begging to pay musicians for their creative work. The other part of me thinks it is cool that Steve wants to do right by his band, and that using Kickstarter to offer what amounts to CD pre-orders is a great idea. I’ll save the long form rant for a time when my thoughts on the matter or better organized.
I supported this project, and recommend that you check it out and see if it is something you would like to support as well.
I don’t usually use this space to push upcoming Open Ears events, but tomorrow night’s show should be special. We are fortunate to be able to host the New Orleans stop on the Tim Daisy/Ken Vandermark Duo tour. The show is in the Blue Nile Balcony Room on Tuesday July 26, 2011, sometime after 10 PM CDT. The concert will be broadcast on WWOZ (90.7 FM in New Orleans and wwoz.org everywhere else), so if you aren’t in New Orleans, or can’t get to the club, please listen online, or the radio. There is a $10 suggested donation.
Read the Time-Picayune’s preview of the show.
Tim (on left) and Ken rock their excited look.
Ken Vandermark plays woodwind instruments, composes, and makes things happen. He’s had a number of groups, and is probably best known for his long running quintet The Vandermark 5. In 1999 he won a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant.
Tim Daisy is a composer and percussionist. He has been a member of several of Ken’s bands and on top of that is a busy member of the Chicago scene. I have heard a rumor that Tim is a Slovenian free jazz rock star, and I know he knows where to find the best pho in Chicago.
These guys are special, don’t miss it.