Ken Vandermark is a Chicago based musician and organizer. He helped found Catalytic Sound, and they recently started their own streaming service. Jeff and Ken talk about that…and other stuff.

http://catalyticsound.com

https://stream.catalyticsound.com

https://ess.org/option/

And…if you need the visual stimulation of watching Ken and I talk on zoom, you can see the conversation here: https://youtu.be/_Ybep71Vbxc

Given how much I have written here in the past few years, it is unlikely that many (any?) of these things will get full reviews, and I am pretty sure I will not assemble them into top 10 lists at this time next year, but I will hopefully at least have a record of the new sounds and live performances I encountered. Wish me luck.

“The model examines a hypothetical large university of 20,000 students and 2,500 instructors who interact daily for 100 days. The mean class size in the simulation is 24 students, with 90 percent of classes having 50 students or fewer.

Each day in the model, there is a 25 percent chance that one individual on campus not in quarantine, who has not already been infected, can become spontaneously infected by nonuniversity contact, a rate researchers said was rather low compared to other estimates.

In the absence of any intervention at all, the model suggests that all susceptible community members would acquire COVID-19 by the end of the semester, with peak infection rates between 20 and 40 days into the semester, even if the semester begins with no infections.

A standard intervention, consisting of quarantine, contact tracing, universal mask wearing, daily testing of 3 percent of the university population and large classes (30 or more students) moved online, suggests a slightly rosier picture, with infections kept below 66 people in 95 percent of simulations.”

It is possible to do this in a smart way with responsible amounts of risk. #maskup

Of course if the students are not willing to follow guidelines…

the best musicians are not professional musicians or “successful” musicians, but the musicians who struggle to deepen and strengthen their voice.

Music theorist, trombonist, (and my former road roomate) Chris Stover writes about how applying ideas from the practice of music theory can help us understand each other.

Remember that music theory is itself a creative practice, that it does not seek “truth” so much as rich modes of sense-making, and that it is first of all communicative.

I never really thought about how studying Haydn and sonata form would help me do a better job of having empathy (or at least understanding) for my fellow humans, but the idea that all meaning derives from context really hit me.

After her death, a friend from her teenage years shared something that was written 20+ years ago. in 1997, my now deceased friend wrote, “One more thing: When I die, I would like to be remembered as an open person, open to the world. With big and understanding eyes that have seen and see lots of things. More than full of knowledge, wise (in the greek sense, I mean, I don’t want to tell books by memory, but know how to live and help others to do the same).” (This was translated from Spanish)

That is a lovely and accurate description of my friend. She was open and understanding and wise. She successfully lived the life she imagined for herself when she was a teenager. May we all live so successfully. Rest in peace my friend.

Technology and Music from Jeff Albert on Vimeo.

Let’s start with how people hear our music. I probably wrote somewhere on this blog something to the effect of, “once we find a way for cheap easy legal music distribution, piracy will be a thing of the past (or at least we will quit talking about it).” That has become true. It is now way easier for people to hear my music, and I believe more people are hearing my music. I’m probably not making much less money from recorded music now than I was then. Those all sound like wins, but my concern is around the question of control. Since people are getting to my music through Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, or even Bandcamp, I am in a position in which a policy change by any of these companies can effect how I get music to the people who want to hear it. What happened to the internet being democratizing, and removing the middle men (people/entities/bots?)? Why can’t I simply directly interact with my listeners?

Which brings me to how we interact with our listeners (or friendly experiencers to quote a favorite artist). Social media has the same problem streaming services have: when they change policy it thwarts our plans to reach people. I liked email lists…apparently I was the only one. How do we get to a system that lets people get the information they want from the artist/label/venue directly? I don’t want to have to figure out Facebook algorithms (or Instagram or whoever, and yes, I know they are really the same thing) to get to people who already know they want information from me (or my series or whatever). I get playing the social media game to find new listeners, but can we be in control of the relationships we already have? Is text/SMS lists the new thing?

I would love it if you would comment with your thoughts.

Last night we attended the big end of the season high school marching band competition. My daughter is in one of the bands that competed. This competition has a prelims and finals format. They played two great shows. I think the best two shows they have played all season. When the rankings were announced after finals, they did not place as high as many hoped, or expected. There are some natural emotional reactions that can flow out in times like that. But, it made me remember something that my step-son said to me a few years ago.

My step-son, Blake, spent three summers performing on the DCI Tour with the Madison Scouts. (DCI is the highest level of marching band field show in the world. They would be pros, except you have to pay to do it…maybe another post.) At the end of one of Blake’s seasons, as I picked him up at the airport the day after finals, I commented that I thought they should have placed much higher. His response taught me something. He said that they had played one of their best shows of the season, and the audience loved it, and that was what they were there to do; be as good as they could be, and make something that moved people. They did that, and it was a success in his mind.

I feel like that is what my daughter’s band did last night. They performed as well as they could, and people liked it. That’s all that really matters.

…and that third place cheesecake can still make someone VERY happy.

I love the idea of the very low barrier to entry, but I wonder if it can be a viable professional tool. Is it meant to be a professional tool? Either way, it is fun.

(Via @reaktorplayer.)

Comparing Artists To Start-Ups Lazy, Unhealthy, Beside The Point. – hypebot:

“Comparing artists to start-ups is a trend that has emerged this last couple of years as music and tech became ever more increasingly tied and the latter churned out its daily dose of spectacular stories and unicorns. When a particular field is successful, it would be a shame not to try to find some key take aways and apply them to an ecosystem like music where everything has been challenged and turned upside down these last 15 years or so.”

A little backstory: After Hurricane Katrina, our neighborhood lost our curbside recycling service. Not long after that, I cancelled my newspaper subscription. I was not reading it very often, and since we couldn’t recycle it, I had some tree guilt.

The radio show yesterday made me rethink my newspaper situation. We have curbside recycling again, and I feel like I should aim to be a better informed citizen, so I decided to investigate getting a newspaper subscription. In the time since I cancelled my Times-Picayune subscription, the T-P has gone from a daily to publishing a hard copy only three days a week, and The Advocate has come into the New Orleans market.

I went to the T-P site first. Apparently you have to give all of your personal info and start a website account to find out how much a subscription costs. If the information is there otherwise, it was not easy to find. So I went to The Advocate’s website. They had a page with links to “See Prices.” That link opened a popup in which you enter your zip code, and click the “See Prices” button, and…nothing happens.

I possibly would have subscribed to both papers this morning, ended up with neither. Have they given up on this side of their business? Should I give up too and just commit to paying more attention to local web news?

The nature of Louisiana’s backwards legal system makes much of the state’s budget protected and very hard to adjust, except for higher education, which is easy for the legislature to cut. Our governor, who pays lip service to a religion that is supposed to be based on helping the poor and caring for our fellow humans, refuses to allow taxes to be raised for any productive reason. I think he (and his fellow lawmakers of similar political ideology) does this not out of a sense that it is really the right thing to do, but out of a loyalty to a political party that places money above all else, and even then, really just the money of people who already have a lot of it. The lawmakers of Louisiana, led by our governor, are cowards, who are afraid of the dogmatists of their own party, to the point that they will do nothing to help the people of our state in any way.

I actually voted for Jindal. I thought he was a smart man, and he made me believe that he would use that intelligence to run our state well. I did not realize at the time that his political aspirations would out weigh all other considerations to the point that he would be incapable of straying one millimeter from republican dogma, even if it is the best thing for our state.

I got both of my graduate degrees from state schools (the University of New Orleans for my M.M., and Louisiana State University for my Ph.D.). The system worked well for me. These degrees helped me learn many things, and led to me getting a great teaching job and staying in our state. I can now afford to pay more in taxes, and I would love to do that if that is what is needed to keep our higher education system alive.

One more note to our lawmakers: PLEASE LET GO OF YOUR POLITICAL DOGMA AND USE THE BRAINS THAT GOD GAVE YOU TO MAKE DECISIONS WITH THE WELL-BEING OF YOUR STATE IN MIND!

This nola.com article offers a good perspective on the amount of the cuts that are being envisioned.

Cutting Louisiana higher education by $300 million, putting it into perspective | NOLA.com

Ethan’s post mentioned that one of the detrimental comments sometimes laid on Jason Moran’s ALL RISE: A Joyful Elegy For Fats Waller was that it was too close to smooth jazz at times. I wonder if some of that is about the material. Does the presence of such well known songs as “Ain’t Misbehavin'” or “Honeysuckle Rose” cause us to hear those tracks as more in the smooth jazz/muzak vein than we would if they were originals with similar grooves, arrangements and instrumentations?

Another accusation is that this music is a sellout or commercial grab. I don’t buy that. Jason Moran has enough artist cred that I trust this as a legitimate expression on his part…although the big Fats Waller head does freak me out a little.

Growing up musically in a space that was largely influenced by jazz culture, I have some completist tendencies. I like to dig deeply into the music of my favorites. I guess that could be more of a me thing than a jazz thing, because I did that as a kid with my favorite rock bands too. Once I decided I really liked a band, I had to get all of their albums. This habit has made it hard for me to “skim” the music of someone who is new to me, but my recent decision to broaden my horizons has forced me to do just that.

What I have discovered is that even cursory exposure to new music is rewarding and offers insight into old favorites as well. Maybe that has always been obvious to most of you. It just hit me in a new way today.

A Shocking Exchange on Facebook about Music and Hard Work | The Art of Freedom:

“Where is the love of the everyday music-making that we give to ourselves? Yes, music-making can be rewarding, but not just when the performance goes well and as planned! Where is the joy of learning, of experimentation? The spark of curiosity? The excitement of discovery? Where is the delight in making sound for the sake of making sound? Why take the fun out of what we do 90% of the time, which is in the practice room, not onstage? Why make such a harsh division between play and the studied attention we pay to detail in the practice room or in a lesson?”

This is an underlying theme for us in the Loyola Music Industry program.

Then it hit me. Regular people don’t buy these books. Libraries or institutions may buy them. Sometimes students are forced to buy them under the duress of it being a required text for a class. In all of these instances, there is a layer of financial bureaucracy between the user and the book publisher. Even in the case of students, it is often student loan money or some other financial aid that buys their text books, so it doesn’t feel like “real” money.

This is similar in principle to the way healthcare costs have risen because there is a layer of “insurance” companies between the providers and the patients. There are financial transactions between doctors and insurance companies, and between insurance companies and patients, so the cost of each individual transaction gets obfuscated by the layers of financial (insert expletive here) between the doctors and patients. The patients don’t pay directly for the services, so they don’t get outraged at how much it costs.

Similarly, if my university library is paying some outrageous sum of money every year for access to online journal databases, but my colleagues and I are the ones using the databases, no one is in a position to get mad about the cost. The users don’t see the cost, and for the folks who pay the bills, it is just another bill to pay. It’s like financial three card monty. Just keep things confusing enough so that no one notices or thinks about it.

It seems like a very inefficient system for the outsides of the system, and very lucrative one for those who create the layers of obfuscation in the middle.

Why do we let this happen? Is it because we need a super expensive publisher to legitimize our writings to the tenure committee? There has to be a better way.

If that book had been $40, this post wouldn’t have happened, that publisher would have 40 of my dollars, and I would be waiting for what seems to be an interesting book to arrive in my mailbox.

In recent weeks I have read the complaints of a number of people about the amounts of money that performers are paid in “creative music” situations. I know that I could spend an entire book weeding out meaning from the term “creative music,” so let me just clarify that I mean art music that is outside of the economic mainstream.

One of the people who inspired this post simply thinks that the musicians should “make” the clubs sign a union contract and pay a good wage. If music is part of the club’s business model, in the way that a band on Bourbon St. is there mostly to make the party happen, and making the party happen is how the club makes money, then I agree. The market sets a price for beer, and it should also set a price for the band. Both the beer and the band are part of the formula that the club uses to make money. We should also note, that in these situations, the band plays what the club wants them to play. These are craftsman musicians who are hired to provide a service for an employer. The club takes the risk, the band simply provides a service.

This isn’t really the situation I am thinking about.

What about a situation in which I (the hypothetical artist) have a band and some new music, and we want a place to play this music. This is original music, and it isn’t particularly mainstream. My goal is to find a place to present this music, and in doing so build an audience, and make some money.

Some venues pride themselves on presenting new music. It is part of their business model. Let’s take a “best case scenario” for the artist version of this situation, and assume that our hypothetical venue is dedicated to presenting new music. For our little thought experiment here, the genre of this new music isn’t really important, we just have to stipulate that the new music is made by an artist who is not yet well known.

Where does the money come from?

One version of the “unknown band” plan is to offer free entrance to entice more people in to hear the music. I won’t go into my arguments about why it is a bad idea to present yourself with the implication that your performance has no value. If there is no cover charge, then all of the band’s money must come from the bar. Giving the band 20% of the bar ring is on the generous side of standard. If 50 people come to your gig, and each of them has three drinks, and the drinks average $7 each, then the bar ring is $1,050. 20% of that bar ring is $210.

The cover charge scenario is the other way to go. With a $5 cover that goes entirely to the band (which can be rare), those same 50 people generate $250 for the band. Now, will there still be 50 people there with a $5 cover? Probably a question for another post.

Based on these numbers, when you get to audiences of 200 or so, you get to numbers that can support budget style touring (a van and couches). As cover charges can go up, the numbers change. The math isn’t difficult. The point is that the money for the band either comes directly from the audience (cover charge/ticket sales) or indirectly from the audience (percentage of bar sales). No matter how you look at it, audience size is the determining factor in terms of available money for the artists.

Who is responsible for bringing the audience? That may be another post.

The point is when there are 50 people in the audience to hear my great new music for the first time, and the band makes a total of $300, then we did a pretty good job of converting audience into dollars.

$300 a night for an entire band is not a living wage.

This raises more questions. Am I entitled to a living wage from my art? Do I make art as a financial sustenance or just for psychic sustenance? Do we, as audience members, have a moral obligation to financially support the artists whose work we enjoy? Do we, as artists, have a moral obligation to freely share our art with the world? Are there other places to find money besides the bar and the door? (I consider merchandise sales to be a separate income stream from the performance fee.)

The answers to the above questions can inform our search for answers about how to increase the amount of money performers make for live performances.

“Why do only half of college students graduate? Noncognitive factors seem pivotal, and social disconnection appears to be a crucial factor. When students feel alone, they withdraw and eventually give up. Conversely, students who feel part of a community persist.”

I saw this in an article this morning, and I think it is an important part of how we can improve recruiting and graduation trends at universities. While it is important that education is priced in a way that students can manage, and it is vitally important that the education is high quality, I agree that the feeling of being part of a community is a big part of student success. We can learn stuff on our own, but it is more rewarding to do it as part of a larger community of like mined people with similar goals and aspirations. Faculty participation in events like award ceremonies, new student convocations, and graduations (all of the rituals of academia) helps the students see themselves as part of a broader community that includes their teachers and mentors. I think that is more important than some of us realize.

The Jazz Session » The Jazz Session #420: Jeff Albert

**A couple of notes:

I have since finished the dissertation that we talked about in the interview. If you are having trouble sleeping and would like to read it, it is here: http://research.jeffalbert.com/imp/

The CD order changed a bit since I sent him music before the interview, and one of the tunes he plays in the show, is not actually on the CD. Mixes changed some too, so the bass sounds better on the CD than on the podcast.

Dusted Reviews: Jeff Albert’s Instigation Quartet – The Tree on the Mound:

“By the time the four align on the first of Albert’s four ‘Instigation’ pieces (inexplicably out of numerical sequence and missing two in the order), everybody sounds as if they’re more comfortably on the same page. The last three tracks in particular find the group really hitting a galvanizing stride and crafting a series of bracing contrapuntal passages. ‘Instigation Quartet #6’ unfolds as a succession of duets, the first an explosive dialogue between Jordan and Abrams, the next a slow burn from Albert and Drake before moving on to an invigorating ensemble section and roof-raising solo by Jordan. Tenor and trombone converse and cavort in ornate arcs with a level of close confluence complemented by bass and drums. It’s a consensus that carries over into the closer, a collective leap through the indelible finger-snapping groove of Anderson’s ‘The Strut.’”

Since this is my blog, I will explain the inexplicable. The numbers on the IQ pieces are just a way to identify each one. I could have just as well called them Sue, John, Paul, George, and Ringo. They aren’t a suite meant to be played in order, just a collection of similar pieces. They are out of numerical order because that order made a better CD, and they aren’t all there because some of the recordings didn’t make the CD. Just like if they were five improvisations that had non-similar abstract names.

Interestingly, in an attempt to give the pieces names that created no baggage, expectations were still created. There may eventually be a longer post based on that dilemma.

Dan Tepfer // Rhythm / Pitch Duality: hear rhythm become pitch before your ears

People often ask me when I will be on the show, and I usually chuckle and respond that the show doesn’t have “my kind of music.” I say this partly tongue in cheek, but it is true that the show focuses on the aspects of New Orleans music that are generally perceived as specifically representative. My regular musical/professional/social circles are largely tangential to those of the featured musicians in the show. I’m cool with that. I still like watching the show, and a track that I played on was the closing credits for one show in the first season, so I have gotten a little taste of the Treme gravy train.

I guess I should add here, that if I made the show, I wouldn’t have any Open Ears/New Orleans improv community scenes. It does’t fit with the story, and it isn’t very mainstream music. BUT, this past week we did get a little second order mention. The character LaDonna said, “They ain’t gonna shut me down like they did King Bolden’s!” (or something to that effect).

That line acknowledges the genesis of the Open Ears Music Series. King Bolden’s was a club on Rampart St. They only did jazz on Tuesdays (they had DJs and other music on other nights), and it was usually left of center jazz. Mario, the owner, seemed to like me and my band, because he called once a month and asked what night I wanted to play. When that club got shut down, my regular easy gig went away, and I needed a new place to play. That was the catalyst that led to the founding of the Open Ears Music Series, which is now 5 years old and has presented nearly every great New Orleans improviser, and many of the world’s great improvisers. So, you won’t see or hear any of the New Orleans improvised music community on Treme, but there was an inside reference to one of the clubs that features prominently in our history.

The blame game | Mass Comments | Blogs | Loyola University New Orleans:

“It struck me that, in the many years I’ve been teaching, I’ve heard a thousand things blamed for a student’s lack of success, mostly from students themselves. In fact, some of the reasons for missing class, turning in poor work or no work or some variation on failure to handle responsibilities were so bizarre I’ll never forget them (and these are all true):

‘I got arrested because my roommates were growing pot at our house.’
‘I was trying to decide if I should marry my fiancee…and it took a lot of time.’
‘My girlfriend cut up all my clothes and threw them away. I didn’t have anything to wear to class.’”

“Speaking as a consumer and a jazz fan, I gotta say, with all due respect…f–k you guys. You wanna know why jazz albums don’t sell for shit? Because labels release recordings of lazy, entitled old-timers coasting on name recognition, sleepwalking through tunes everyone who’s into jazz has already heard 500 times before. “

Don’t hold back, Phil. Tell us how you really think.

Please, read the whole thing.

(Via @musikFabrik.)

‘It Can’t Be Done’: The Difficulty Of Growing A Jazz Audience : A Blog Supreme : NPR: “Jazz simply needs to continue doing what made it great in the first place: engage with popular culture in an intelligent, nuanced and sophisticated manner, as some successful groups are doing today. If there is any hope of audience building, this is where it lies. It must be organic, visceral and culturally relevant, qualities which cannot be consciously conjured by an audience development committee.”

(Via @tedgioia.)

What Does Practice Look Like for You? – ProfHacker – The Chronicle of Higher Education:

“At the heart of Newport’s writing is the simple idea that success doesn’t require courage, it requires working hard in the right way. There are a number of ideas that follow from that: for example, you have to “become so good that they can’t ignore you” and becoming that good requires “hard focus.” The idea I’ve found most helpful is that to become good you have to practice deliberately.”

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.

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.

Of course this post about New Orleans musicians in the poll is just an excuse to mention that I am listed in the Rising Star Trombone category this year. While I could name a number of other trombone players whose work I admire greatly who are not on the list, it does feel good to know that people are noticing what I am doing. And apparently some other New Orleans musicians are getting noticed as well.

We have our already world renowned musicians who still live in New Orleans, like Terence Blanchard, Herlin Riley, and Nicholas Payton, who got their expected mentions in the Jazz Group, Drums, and Trumpets lists. Our clarinet scene is well represented by Evan Christopher, Dr. Michael White, and Tim Laughlin. NOLA placed 3 trombonists in 4 spots on the Trombone and Rising Star Trombone lists. Delfeayo Marsalis and Trombone Shorty made the grown-ups tableTrombone list, and Trombone Shorty and I were at the kid’s table on the Rising Star Trombone list. It was also nice to see Kidd Jordan get some critic’s love, along with Jason Marsalis on vibes, John Boutté (Rising Star Male Vocalist), and Matt Perrine on sousaphone. I was especially pleased to see Jonathan Freilich on the Rising Star Guitar list and Aurora Nealand on the Rising Star Soprano Saxophone list, both well deserved.

The magazine lists the critics who vote in the poll, and I believe that only two of the voters in this year’s poll are New Orleans residents. The way the scoring works, one must appear on the ballots of at least three critics to make the list, so it is nice to know that critics from outside of New Orleans are aware of what we are doing here, and not just the stereotypical “New Orleans Music” version of what we are doing here, but some of the more creative aspects as well. I got 32 points, which means that at least six critics had my name on their ballot. To those of you who have noticed what I have been doing, thank you, I deeply appreciate the attention.

I hope I can handle the huge influx of CD orders. That is what happens after one makes one of these lists, right?

I have tended towards direct control instruments in my own work. I think this is largely due to my trombone player DNA. I am used to playing an acoustic instrument (direct control) and so much of my performance world view has been formed by that experience. One of the difficulties with designing new direct control instruments is that it often takes a significant amount of time to learn to play them well. Like any instrument, one must spend some time with it to develop any technique or sense of musical connection to the instrument.

On the other hand, process controlled instruments allow for the creation of highly complex musical expressions with little or no time spent learning technique, but they lack the intimacy of control, especially in terms of timing, that one gets from direct control.

Tonight I was reading an article (from 1991) by David Wessel called “Improvisation with Highly Interactive Real-Time Performance Systems.” In this article, he describes a system that seems to be a direct process control system. He launches the processes (I use the term process to be consistent with my categories, I don’t know that he would use that word) from a direct control instrument. This returns the control of low level timing to the performer, yet allows the performer to still take advantage of what the computer processes have to offer. He also talks about mapping expressive gestures to entire phrases as opposed to single notes.

These ideas have started some wheels turning about my next computer instrument.

I love it when I discover that someone solved my current dilemma twenty years ago. That’s why we should always be attentive in history class.

Click the link above to hear an interview of me by Jonathan Freilich. Jonathan has been doing podcast interviews with New Orleans musicians, and he has a great knack for getting us to say things we didn’t know we knew.

Such lapses in attention turn out to be a crucial creative skill. When we’re faced with a difficult problem, the most obvious solution—that first idea we focus on—is probably wrong. At such moments, it often helps to consider far-fetched possibilities, to approach the task from an unconventional perspective. And this is why distraction is helpful: People unable to focus are more likely to consider information that might seem irrelevant but will later inspire the breakthrough. When we don’t know where to look, we need to look everywhere.

My wife always busts my chops because I am an unrepentant eavesdropper. I can’t help but to listen to interesting conversations that are happening in my vicinity. Maybe that is just a sign of my creativity, and not some moral deficiency.

I don’t want to be forced into a system that is controlled by a single entity. I think it becomes dangerous. The world wide web was built on the premise of open standards and open access. Sir Tim Berners-Lee recently wrote a great article for Scientific American on the occasion of the 20th Anniversary of the world wide web. The whole thing is a worthy read, but I will quote only a few paragraphs here:

The Web evolved into a powerful, ubiquitous tool because it was built on egalitarian principles and because thousands of individuals, universities and companies have worked, both independently and together as part of the World Wide Web Consortium, to expand its capabilities based on those principles.

The Web as we know it, however, is being threatened in different ways. Some of its most successful inhabitants have begun to chip away at its principles. Large social-networking sites are walling off information posted by their users from the rest of the Web. Wireless Internet providers are being tempted to slow traffic to sites with which they have not made deals. Governments—totalitarian and democratic alike—are monitoring people’s online habits, endangering important human rights.

If we, the Web’s users, allow these and other trends to proceed unchecked, the Web could be broken into fragmented islands. We could lose the freedom to connect with whichever Web sites we want. The ill effects could extend to smartphones and pads, which are also portals to the extensive information that the Web provides.

The idea that I can link to any site on the web, and any site can link here, and any user can follow those links is foundational.

From Hypebot:

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg used last week’s Web 2.0 Conference in San Francisco to share his most sweeping vision yet of how Facebook will fundamentally change the music, film, TV and media industries within the next five years. Zuckerberg believes strongly that insurgent entrepreneurs will “reform” the music, film, TV, news, e-commerce and perhaps many other industries using Facebook as a platform. Facebook will then profit from the value that it has added to the new landscape through advertising and, perhaps, other partnerships.

I saw a billboard today (along I10 in Baton Rouge) for a well known brand of vodka. The website listed on the billboard was the company’s Facebook page. I don’t get it. It’s not like this company doesn’t have its own web presence. I have been told that companies like Facebook, because it has “all those users”, but “all those users” are also available on the open web, plus many more.

Have we forgotten about the last days of AOL, when they were trying to control our internet experience? We should heed the warnings of Sir Berners-Lee and be vigilant for the open web. We will be in trouble if it slips away while we aren’t paying attention, and the curmudgeon in me wants to say that that is exactly what Facebook would like to happen.

To summarize quickly, in case you didn’t read all the stuff I just linked above: Anthony is afraid to play Nels Cline on his radio show, because he thinks it will drive away listeners, and Lucas linked to a video of Christian Scott on Jimmy Kimmel Live and then asked, “I really wonder what the studio audience and viewers at home, most of whom probably don’t even know who Thelonious Monk is, thought of it.”

There are so many places to go with this, but I’ll start with, why do we insist on underestimating our audiences? People like honest music, even if they don’t know it already, or know or understand the history behind it. As one piece of evidence, I offer up this man. It is not at all uncommon for me to talk to people at the Open Ears Series that will tell me that they don’t really know jazz, and just wandered in to the club, but enjoyed what they heard. (NB- Open ears usually programs fairly left of center, and sometimes just downright weird stuff) Audiences sense honesty and react to that. One doesn’t have to know Monk or his music to get into a young man making a passionate musical statement. BTW Scott’s tune on Kimmel wasn’t all that out. It was just a guy wailing over a simple harmonic vamp, while the drummer went nuts. If he played guitar instead of trumpet, we would have called it classic rock.

It is our job as musicians, radio programmers, bloggers, and friends to spread the word about good music. It is not our job as musicians to guess what people want to hear, it is our job to make the music that we hear, and do it honestly. It is not the job of radio hosts to pander to some perceived infantilism in the audience, it is the job of radio hosts to play good music. We don’t need to pander to audiences, or even nurture audiences. Good music will do the nurturing, all we have to do is let people know that they are welcome to come and listen and make of the music what they will. We just have to invite them in. They’re grown ups, they can listen for themselves.

“I’ve never heard anything like it. This is what jazz should be about. No programs—just all heart. I’m so happy that I can’t describe it.”

NPR’s jazz blog has been doing these cool “Meet the Jazz Audience” pieces, and I love this one. The audience member we meet is named Michael Jones, and he is being interviewed during the Powerhouse Sound set at this year’s Newport Jazz Festival. His reaction should be the goal of every performer.

Too many jazz tribute shows leave little room for innovation – Kansas City Star:

“Concert and club presenters sometimes fret that jazz doesn’t bring in crowds like it used to. But is booking tribute shows the way to bring the crowds back or to build a new audience for the future?

Some tribute shows make a populist appeal. (Hear the Sinatra hits! Hear swing played the way it used to be played!) Some try to serve as gateways to greater jazz appreciation. (Celebrate the 80th anniversary of the classic recordings by Blind Willie Dunn’s Gin Bottle Four! Hear an evening of Wayne Shorter’s music played by people whose fees are lower than his!)”

(Via @accujazzradio.)

Prior to that moment, jazz and The Meters occupied fairly different parts of my genre consciousness, but maybe they are pretty much the same thing to the general public.* That made me wonder, “are The Meters jazz?” What does it mean if they are? What does it mean if they aren’t? Does it matter?

I consider myself a jazz musician essentially (at least when I am forced to chose a side in the genre wars), AND I play in George Porter’s band, The Runnin’ Pardners.** George is one of The Meters, and we play some of those tunes. I don’t suffer any existential angst while doing that, it is actually quite fun. Does the word jazz even mean anything any more (did it ever)? To the lady at Taco Bell, The Meters sounded like jazz, I hold up Ornette Coleman as one of my favorite jazz musicians, yet I am sure it would be quite easy find someone to tell me that neither of those are jazz (or even very close to jazz).

Does genre segregation help us find other music we will like, or does it saddle us with unnecessary (and counter-productive to musical enjoyment) expectations, or both? No conclusions yet, just thinking out loud (or at least in writing).

* I have long maintained that genre segregation is bad, and will write at length about it at some point.

** BTW George Porter & the Runnin’ Pardners are playing Aug 6 in NOLA and AUG 8 near Denver, come say “Hi!”

Click the link, and scroll down to the interview section. There are some insights into parts of the New Orleans music scene and some of its interesting characters.

Ok, this should probably be titled “The 100 Greatest Jazz Albums you can download from Amazon,” but still, I’m a sucker for lists. I usually go in looking for what I will scream about, but this one hit me with a pleasant surprise. Kind of Blue is not #1, but it is in the top 5 and rightfully so. They have Ornette rockin the #1 spot. I’m not sure that The Shape of Jazz to Come is even my favorite Ornette record, much less my favorite jazz record, but it is a seminal recording, so I’m cool with it. There’s plenty of other stuff to argue about further down the list, but I’ll leave that alone and bask in the glow of Ornette getting props.

Dial “M” for Musicology: Thinking with the ear:

“Last time I wrote about performance as a series of deliberative acts vs. performance in a ‘flow state’ and thought about what understanding of self and volition these two states entail. It got me thinking about an old friend — let’s call him Chuck — who was a music undergrad at the same time as me and with whom I played a little chamber music. This guy was one of the smartest people I’ve ever met in my life, a sponge for languages, ideas, literatures, whole fields of endeavor. His intellectual restlessness manifested itself in his approach to music; he was a seriously deliberative musician. When we played together, he would plan out everything that would happen in every phrase, every little pause and inflection worked out along the axis of a carefully-prepared analysis. And I, being at that time convinced that such an analytical orientation was indispensable for proper interpretation, went right along. I enjoyed the crossword-puzzle aspect of our rehearsals, the satisfying feeling of figuring out and verbalizing what he and I were to do at any given moment of the piece. But Chuck’s playing never lost a certain stiffness, a certain lack of organic cohesion—everything he played sounded as if it were made out of Tinkertoys. And it never really grew past a certain point, as Chuck admitted himself, which is why he ended up doing something else with his life (and meeting with a great deal of success). 

I’d go so far as to say that those musicians like Chuck, musicians who think of performance as a highly deliberative act, are at a disadvantage.”

Last Thursday night, George Porter Jr and the Runnin’ Pardners kicked things off at Southport Hall. We don’t get to play together too often, but every time we do, it is a real treat. That night was extra special for some reason. Everyone was playing great, and we all had lots of fun. I’ve been playing with that band for 6 years or so now, and still at least once per gig George and Russell do something that is so bad that I have to put my horn down and laugh (or scream or something). It is nights like that, that remind me how lucky I am to do what I do.

Saturday was a totally new experience for me. I volunteered at one of the Jazz Fest beer tents (well they sell soft drinks too, but mostly beer). The Band Booster Club for my step son’s high school band works at this drink tent to raise money for the band. That’s a side of Jazz Fest that I hadn’t imagined, and it was fun. When you are at the Fairgrounds, be nice to those folks, they work hard. While hauling the 40 lb bags of ice was fun, the highlight of my beer tent time was working the station near the Fais Do Do Stage during the Del McCrory Band set. Those guys were SLAMMIN’.

Tuesday night, my quartet played at the Open Ears, and we had a great time. My old buddy Charlie Wooton was there and played a bit. He and I, and the Italian drummer Marcello Bennetti played a nice trio. Of course Ray, Dave, and Tommy sounded fabulous as always on the quartet stuff. There should be audio evidence on the Open Ears site…eventually.

Today, I was at the Fairgrounds, playing the Economy Hall tent with Ronnie Kole. I have to give some props to the sound crew in that tent. The stage sound was excellent, and people told me the front of house sounded good too. That’s not always a given at Jazz Fest, so thanks guys.

I caught a little bit of Kidd Jordan and Clyde Kerr with the Louis Armstrong Summer Jazz Camp Alumni Band. Kidd and Clyde have taught at that camp for years. It would have been cooler if Kidd would have had his own band. I understand that they want to show Kidd enough respect to have him play, and they aren’t brave enough to give him a whole set, but he is so much better in the right setting. He never plays halfway, so to stick him with a group that only halfway goes where he is going is lame. His set 2 years ago with Clyde, Alvin Fielder, William Parker, and Joel Futterman was great. I wish they’d program that again.

After our set, I caught a bit of the George Wein Newport All Stars. Besides Wein on piano, it was Randy Brecker, Anat Cohen, Howard Alden, Esperanza Spaulding, and Jimmy Cobb. They did mostly tunes that were not quite as old 40 years ago at the first jazz fest in New Orleans. I’d never heard Esperanza Spaulding on anything other than her record. She sounded good. Her bass playing was right there, and she sang “Prelude to a Kiss” with an anything but straight delivery. I had heard a lot about Anat Cohen, and heard a few recordings, but today was the first time I heard her live as well. I enjoyed what she played. Despite the safe repertoire, she didn’t stay in the safe spots.