Saturday, September 11, 2010 was a day of remembrance, solemnity, and irrational patriotism across the United States as competing ideologues and rationalists commemorated the 9th anniversary of the terrorists attacks on New York's World Trade Center. Some events focused on the tragedy of bloodshed sparked in 2001, both in lower Manhattan, and in the resulting wars, war crimes, and continued terror attacks of the aftermath. The less balanced dedicated "Patriot's Day" to the exercise of bigotry and ignorance against anyone practicing the Islamic faith, anyone who did not speak fluent English, or just anyone deemed "not like us" enough. Whether in the proposed 1st amendment nullification of New York's Park51 center, the press coverage of wing-nut Florida Rev. Jones, or elsewhere, in the post-9/11 world, nothing brings out the crazies like the September 11th anniversary.
Washington DC was no different, except that the crazies gathering in Rosslyn, VA, just across the Potomac from Georgetown University, were neither book-burning Amerinazis nor whale-hugging Euro-socialists. They were Jazz musicians of the highest calibre, and those of us nutty enough to think progressive modern instrumental improvisation was a fine way to spend a sunny Saturday afternoon.
Crazy, indeed.
The marquee annual Jazz event in the District is the DC Jazz Festival, which takes over several weeks in early June at various venues, and was (more famously) known as the Duke Ellington Jazz Festival until recently. But one weekend in September 2010 radically challenged this staple assumption.
The Rosslyn Jazz Festival began in 1990, and grew strongly out of a close partnership between the city of Rosslyn - essentially a suburb of Arlington and clearly within the DC metro - and jazz guitarist Charlie Byrd. I have no idea why Charlie Byrd was so closely associated with this particular organization, but he remained a headlining act for several years, and is still prominently displayed on the events promotional materials, despite passing away in 1999. He lived in nearby Annapolis, and played regularly in the DC Metro area - though not specifically in Rosslyn as far as I can tell.
Regardless, with Byrd's star power as its foundation, the Rosslyn Jazz festival limp along year-by-year, progressively gaining sponsors regardless of its erratic line ups. Some years were clearly better than others, but one truth is objectively clear from scanning the event's full history: 2010 was the best line up ever. Period. By a mile. Or three.
Perhaps they decided to go all-out for the big 20th anniversary, or perhaps they still had funds left over after the 2008 festival was cancelled due to inclement weather. More likely, they just had an especially successful year of grant writing. Whatever the reason, the results are indisputable. With four potential headliners taking the stage, and beautiful weather to boot, the 2010 Rosslyn Jazz Festival was not an event to miss.
So I managed to attend 1/2 of it. :-(
The show opened with the 2008 Latin Grammy-winning Afro Bop Alliance, a DC-local septet of musicians mostly from the US Widwest, who nonetheless have achieved considerable success, including recordings with the similar-but-slightly-more-famous band, the Caribbean Jazz Project. I was not there. (but you can read about it in the review by JazzTimes's Editor-in-Chief Lee Mergner)
The day concluded (at 7 pm) with vocalist/diva Tierney Sutton and her longtime band of California Misfits (not the official name, but I think they should consider the change). While there's something to be said for enlarging the standard piano trio into a piano quartet (with 2 bassists and a drummer), its no revolution in itself. After the two powerhouse performances that preceded it - and in need of some food not on a stick - I left before Ms. Sutton got started.
So rather than wax on about the music I didn't hear, let's focus on the craziness I did witness, in person and for free, this September 11th. While Afro Bop is very strong for locals, and Tierney Sutton is rather in-demand within the Jazz scale, the meat of the 2010 Rosslyn Jazz fest sandwhich was clearly in the middle.
Modern pianist/composer Jason Moran and his trio, The Bandwagon (bassist Tarus Mateer and drummer Nasheed Waits) have accumulated more awards than I can count. Moran has been hailed as everything from a "Young Lion" to "the Future of Jazz." Critics accuse him of being too cerebral, and many of his more artistic conceptualizations - including commissioned works for dance art, etc - fall a bit flat when issued on CD as stand-along works outside their original medium. His long string of albums on the Blue Note label are a constant reminder that respect for the past doesn't mire one in repetition, and that even breaking (some would say 'shattering) expectations can be done with style, finesse, and class. He has previously recorded tribute projects to Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk, and his most recent release TEN, celebrates the 10th anniversary of his trio with characteristic reflection and grit.
Having said all of that, Moran is an odd choice for a mid-day outdoor festival. The range of his playing - not just his abilities, but his strengths - covers intimate ballads, soulful homages to Jazz masters, and what he calls hip-hop "gangsterisms" of wide appeal. Yet none of his best work seems fully appropriate under a blue sky on a warm September day. Whether he was noodling around with a complex solo weaving between Monk's unplayed original notes, or comping on a 1920s acetate recording of black-face comedian Bert Williams, in truth the band failed to connect with the audience. Then again, I witnessed a similar effect when Moran played in San Antonio 4 years earlier. He was, in both instances, incredibly receptive - even devoted - to his band and the music they were addressing, with the audience being a nonissue. I believe Jason Moran would have played the exact same concert - or at least in the exact same way - to an empty Gateway Park any other Saturday of the year.
This feels like harsh criticism for a musician for whom I have the absolute greatest respect, and whose career and albums I have been following intently for most of the past decade. My point is that Jason Moran, for better or worse (and for the record, I believe the better), is a musician on a mission. If you want toe-tapping favorites, clap-a-longs, or other crowd-pleasers, Jason Moran is not your man. While I think this aspect of his performance has improved as a member of Charles Lloyd's ensemble over the past few years, as a band leader his priorities are Music First, Band Second, Audience last. It's a bit refreshing, honestly, to have the 4th wall so soundly in place. As if the audience is in fact a fly on the wall of a high-stakes Jazz rehearsal studio. It bends cautiously around the art-or-entertainment boundary, and insists on adding educational value, however that is to be taken. Ultimately, Moran's performance, as Moran himself, was Jazz at its finest, if not its most popular. If Moran is indeed the future of Jazz, it is up for heated debate as to whether or not this is a good thing.
The next group in the afternoon's lineup provided both a co- and counter-point to the argument.
If Jason Moran represents one possible monolithic progressive Jazz Future, then The Bad Plus present another. The reality, of course, is that both trends exist - and will continue to exist - in Jazz so long as that term has meaning.
Self-described "Indie-Rock/Jazz Fusion acoustic trio," Minnesota-based The Bad Plus - comprised of pianist Ethan Iverson, bassist Reid Anderson, and drummer David King - rose to fame and infamy exactly ten years ago as well. Their brand of irreverent, unorthodox, and generally unrecognizable "Jazz" music has stoked the ire and consternation of many traditionalists, while their Jazz-for-the-masses approach and strong rock tinges have also turned off many critics of the progressive/modernist persuasion. Yet they remain remarkably popular and stress the importance of pop, rock, and classical influences as much (or even more) than the structural components (head, solo, improvisation, etc) that they take from Jazz.
The good news for you, the reader, is that I was better situated to record segments of The Bad Plus concert, and as such can provide some audio to backup this rather dry analysis. With apologies for the crowd noise and occasional airline fly-bys (the concert was held under Reagan National's main approach path), these recordings present a few of the sounds from that September 11th concert for a general idea...
I think the best place to start is actually with their closer. Six minutes into their closing number, the band played this:
What you are listening to is 1:45 of tightly-controlled high-octane unison staccato breaks. For the first 45 seconds, you can tell that the audience, myself included, doesn't really appreciate what is happening. The band did a lot of false breaks throughout their set, and most songs ended on precariously "wrong" notes. We therefore assumed, at least initially, that they were just 'milking' it for the grand finale. Having all three musicians play-stop-play-stop-play together is not a new conceit, but it's usually only done for 1 or 2 measures, and then to an easy, previously agreed upon 4-beat pattern.
After 45 seconds, you can audibly hear the audience realize just how much of a spectacle they are witnessing. Drummer King is bashing his skins and symbols then immediately silencing them. Iverson is crashing his hands on the ivory, then stomping on the pedals to squelch the reverberations. Anderson is - somehow - hugging his massive bass into submission after tub-thumping its gut. And less than half a second - a quarter of a second - later, they play again. then stop. Short pause. Play. Long Pause. Play. Pause. Play. Play. Pause. The pattern, as revealed over 45 seconds, is many measures long, highly complex, and occasionally syncopated. More than that, it's not just a rhythm - they are carving out a melodic line. It's as if every second, or third word was removed from a paragraph with a barely discernible pattern. You could still follow the gist of it, and so we did.
At a slower speed, its possible they could be using visual clues, like a nod from the pianist, to keep in step. But this is just too fast. In fact, the task is so demanding, that each musician is staring - intently - at his own instrument, struggling to emit the most sound one moment, and none at all the next. The crowd gets more and more into it, and after almost 2 minutes, the band explodes into the full chorus, to roaring applause. It was not simply a muscular "this is what we do" show of force, but a ballsy demonstration of Jazz chops and genre destruction that characterizes the Bad Plus. Place it akin to Coltrane's "Sheets of Sound" or Carney's famous Creshendo & Dimuendo in Blue solo. At one and the same time Jazz and anti-Jazz. Brace for impact.
Because I have the audio, and really enjoy discussing it, here are a few other recordings from the Bad Plus concert, and my thoughts to accompany your listening:
An easy, rollicking tune by bassist Reid Anderson, who is responsible for most of the band's more accessible numbers. This one is especially boisterous, but broke down around the 2 minute mark after a low fly-over and trailed off into some (frankly) uninteresting experimentation. My audio fades out, for your enjoyment.
At the very cusp of the recording you'll here a handsome voice (me) blurt out, "Oh, this is good stuff" in eager anticipation of the song just beginning. Taken at a brisk clip, Beryl Loves to Dance pairs aggressive - bordering on apocalyptic - drumming with piano lines that warp and twist the melody around the tempo. As the solos get underway, the audience gets left a bit behind, but off-balance returns to the theme are just often enough to keep most enthralled. Anderson's super-fast and uber-delicate high register bass solo right before the closing head is especially nice.
the roar of jet engines introduce - Appropriately! - the title track to the band's newest album (released just 3 days after this recording). The repetitiveness of this tune seems to owe more to pop or even techno, but Iverson wields it to impressively emotional effect. Whether playing Bjork, Nirvana or original compositions, The Bad Plus survive on the Tatum-esque swagger so prominently on display in this, their latest marquee number. The second airplane coincides so perfectly with the 2:00 break that they'll probably find a way to incorporate it into their next album.
And that's all for now. If you are desperately in need of more low-fidelity bootleg audio, you can find a few more select cuts from The Bad Plus and Jason Moran (including the Bert Williams reference) on episode 71 of my webradioblog - the Weber Surrogate Radio Project.
Weber
::(lame)Texpatriot
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