THE GIG

Advanced Studies

 File under: self-promotion, duologue, pianism. This weekend I will be in Princeton, N.J. for a pair of concerts featuring Vijay Iyer and Craig Taborn. The two pianists, former section-mates in the superb new-music ensemble Roscoe Mitchell’s Note Factory, will perform back-to-back solo sets, followed by new works for duo piano. To quote from the program notes: “Both pianists share an enthusiasm for structural rigor and rhythmic precision, but also maintain a more gestural, interpretive and intuitive approach to improvisation.”

 The event(s) comes courtesy of the Institute for Advanced Study, a center for theoretical research with a distinguished history. (Einstein is among the more prominent former faculty.) Iyer and Taborn are appearing at the invitation of composer Derek Bermel, the Institute’s current Artist-in-Residence. My contribution will be a post-concert conversation on Friday and a pre-concert talk on Saturday.

Tickets are free, but way gone. (I’m told that the waiting list is substantial.) No word on whether this collaboration will yield a future spate of bookings, but as precedent has taught us, it could happen.

Berne Notice

 

Programming Note: I’m in Philadelphia this weekend, taking part in an Ars Nova Workshop Composer Portrait series on alto saxophonist-composer Tim Berne. Originally I was scheduled for a pre-concert talk on Friday, but my jury service has shuffled the deck a bit. So now it’s 6:30 p.m. Saturday. I’ll be speaking with Steve Byram, the influential graphic designer who has worked closely with Berne for years.

One reason I was booked for Friday: that’s when Berne and the Collide Saxophone Quartet (with guitarist Marc Ducret) will perform music from The Sevens, a 2002 release on New World Records. I wrote liner notes for that release -- note: the link goes to a PDF -- and somehow, reading now, they don’t make me cringe. (Not much, at least.) I now heed a general house-policy prohibition against liner notes, but I’m glad I had the chance to tackle these.

Back to this weekend. Saturday looks to be every bit as engaging, with one set apiece by Berne’s new band, Adobe Probe, and Philadelphia-based pianist Matt Mitchell. I haven’t heard the music for either of these settings, but I did enjoy a recent interview conducted by David Adler for the online magazine of the Philadelphia Music Project.

Where, you might ask, is Steve Byram in all this? Pretty much everywhere. And I expect our conversation to range from visual aesthetics to musical details, encompassing the considerable overlap therein. Here, warm up with an image gallery at Screwgun Records. 

(Unrelated Byram-Berne image.)

Coin Conversation

 

Programming note: tomorrow (Wednesday) night I will be at the Issue Project Room for a performance of Matana Roberts’ COIN COIN, a so-called “blood narrative” that draws on family history, genealogy, folklore and myth. I’m conducting a post-concert conversation and Q&A with Roberts. The evening -- featuring her string ensemble, which includes violist Jessica Pavone and cellist Daniel Levin, among others -- is a benefit for the Bread and Life Soup Kitchen, a healthy-food initiative in Brooklyn.

 I reviewed a previous chapter of COIN COIN two years ago. Roberts tells me that the concept has evolved considerably since, in form as well as content. The image above is from her score, which makes that point better than I can here. I’ll leave further elaboration to Roberts herself, via email:

Super Nova

Ars Nova Workshop, the leading jazz and new-music presenter in Philadelphia, launched a stylish new website today. It’s content-rich, as these things go: blog, archives, audio. And I’m struck by how effectively this design highlights the scope of the organization, an independent nonprofit now entering its 10th season.

I claim no objectivity here: Ars Nova founder Mark Christman was a groomsman in my wedding. (The brooding image above ran as part of a recent piece by David Adler, in the Philadelphia Weekly.)  Mark’s obsessive seriousness about the music is what fuels the machine. In recent years I’ve heard about many more of his shows than I had the opportunity to attend. But I was there for the first one: Chris Speed’s yeahNO, at the Plays & Players Theater. When I heard last week’s sad news about Joe Maneri, my thoughts quickly turned to an Ars Nova show from a few years back, featuring Joe and his son Mat.

Ars Nova’s fall season kicks off next Friday with the Mary Halvorson Quintet, whom I’ve covered here. Scan the calendar and you’ll notice a good number of events worth traveling to see: a Don Cherry composer portrait, for starters, and a series called “Anti-Jazz: The New Thing Revisited” (with the Sun Ra Arkestra, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, and Bill Dixon with the Exploding Star Orchestra). In the interest of full disclosure and, yes, self-promotion: I’ll be taking part in a Q&A preceding this Tim Berne event in December.

Here are photos from this year’s Newport festival (that’s Jen Hope, Mark’s better half, in the middle) and last year’s NFL playoffs (we’re on my couch watching his Eagles steal victory from my Giants). 

Programming Note

[Update: Show is archived here] Some critics are natural-born list-makers. I’m not generally one of them. But for some reason it has been easier than usual to track my favorite albums this year. I’m keeping mum about those for now, at least on the jazz tip. On the pop side, I’ll be blabbing this Friday at 2 p.m. on Soundcheck with John Schaefer.

If you can’t tune in, you can stream the show live at the website, or listen to an archive after the fact. The segment will feature some of my Top 10 non-jazz albums of 2009 (thus far). As of this writing, the list is subject to change, though I do suspect that Maxwell, pictured ever so smoothly above, will make the final cut.

My pop focus on the show doesn’t mean that jazz is being slighted. Will Layman, who writes for PopMatters, will offer his picks. I don’t know Layman, but his Top 15 from last year looks pretty tight. 

Related link: Pride: Deadly Medley - Soundcheck, March 27, 2009

(My last visit, part of a series inspired by the Seven Deadly Sins.) 

On JazzTimes (Wheeze, Cough)

[Update: See "Phoenix, Ashes"]

      

It has been exactly one month since JazzTimes magazine issued a terse statement acknowledging “temporary suspension” and a staff furlough while management made its pitch to potential investors. The following week, at the Jazz Journalists Association’s annual awards ceremony, it won Periodical of the Year for the 11th consecutive time. (No other publication has ever won.) I accepted the award on behalf of the magazine, reading another terse statement -- this one signed, by editor-in-chief Lee Mergner -- and gamely attempting to defuse some of the palpable tension in the room.

Like many other former JT contributors, I’m still awaiting payment for months’ worth of published material. Howard Mandel, president of the JJA -- and the blogger whose pointed musings at Jazz Beyond Jazz apparently pressured JT management into making its announcement -- has taken up the cause of these outstanding payments. Sadly, similar scenes have played out all across the desiccated print media landscape in 2009. If you follow these things, you know that Blender and VIBE were among the other prominent extinctions in recent months. (I had occasion to write for both.) Then there's Performing Songwriter, and Traps, and... well, you get the picture.

Square One or:How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Blog

Welcome to THE GIG. My intention here is to express ideas about music, principally (but not strictly) from a jazz perspective. My entrée to the jazz blogosphere -- something I've had my eye on for a while -- was long delayed, for what I took to be good reasons.

I started writing critically about jazz in 1995 for the Philadelphia City Paper, then my local alt-weekly; at first I harbored no hopes of making a career of it. That had changed a bit by 2001, when my editor asked me to start contributing a regular column. The Gig debuted that spring, and in its maiden voyage I attempted to explain the title.

A gig connotes not only an appointment but also a means of income and an outlet for expression. It’s the space in which a player reconciles commerce with art. The former quality is devilishly lampooned in The Gig, Frank Gilroy’s zany jazz movie of the mid-’80s; the latter pervades "The Gig," a complex mini-opus by the late pianist Herbie Nichols. It’s for these two very different items that this new bi-weekly column is named.

I churned out The Gig for the next few years, covering a lot of ground and learning much in the process. It ended around the time I began working on a book project with the impresario George Wein. Then in 2004 I was once again tapped to pen a column, this time for JazzTimes magazine. My fellow columnists were Gary Giddins and Nat Hentoff, both of whom I had read intently and voraciously.

This iteration of The Gig has covered topics ranging from women in jazz to the ups and downs of composer commissions, with an occasional goofy detour; I try to keep things serious but never stuffy. For years I maintained that it served more or less the same purpose as a blog, knowing full well that I was straining to make the point.

It lasted until the final issue JazzTimes furlough of June 2009. My final column at that point, No. 52, saw publication almost exactly five years after the first. In some ways the prospect of JT's demise spurred the creation of this blog. The loss of a regular outlet to a jazz readership was not something I was prepared to accept. I have every intention of keeping the same standard here as in my column. Only with a looser format, and more dialogue. And more pictures of my cat.