Russ Long Rides Again

The music of Russ Long got another public airing recently, this time in Topeka, Kan., an hour west of the pianist's home town of Kansas City, Mo. Arranged for septet by Long's long-time bandmate Gerald Spaits, the bakers dozen tunes included the pianist's most widely known, Save That Time.

Long died just over five years ago, after a long illness, but not before recording the septet arrangements for the appropriately-titled album Time To Go. Here's an interview I did with Spaits shortly after the album came out.

Or listen here:



I did my best to agitate for a performance of Time To Go as part of a Russ Long tribute for the Folly Theater's Jazz Season. Didn't happen. But it still could. And would still be fitting.

TNLD Podcast 003: Stan Kessler of The Sons of Brasil

The Sons of Brasil have been bringing the bossa (and samba and other styles of Brazilian music) to audiences in Kansas City for almost 20 years. So who cares if none of them are Brazilian?

The Sons of Brasil released While You Were Out, their second CD in 2009. I talked with one of the founding Sons, trumpeter/composer Stan Kessler, about the group's love of Brazilian music, how they got started, and how the group's dynamic has evolved over the years.

Huge tip o' the TNLD hat to Stan Kessler.

Listen:



Download TNLD podcast 003 [right-click, save-as]

Cuts featured in this podcast are:

• Joao (Kessler)
• Bala Com Bala (Bosco, arranged by Kessler)
• Salvador (Kessler)

The Sons of Brasil are:

Stanton Kessler - Trumpet/Flugelhorn
Danny Embrey - Guitars
Roger Wilder - Piano/Synthesizer
Greg Whitfield - Bass
Doug Auwarter - Drums/Percussion
Gary Helm - Percussion
With Luiz Orsano - Percussion

I would love to hear any feedback you have. Leave it in the comments or email it to lowdown@newlowdown.com.

Finally, a loudly hollered thank you to Jake Blanton for our theme music. Jake, wherever you are, you are awesome (but you already knew that).

Remembering Bird 2008

Talk about your hall of mirrors. In the photo above TNLD captures the indefatigable blogger Plastic in Bag capturing this video of this year's Charlie Parker memorial, held last weekend at Lincoln Cemetery in Blue Summit, MO. (The celebration has become a annual event over the last few years, usually taking place on the Sunday before Bird's birthday which is actually today August 29. Happy birthday, Mr Parker!)

Here's the Kansas City Star's coverage of the event, which includes pictures that are much more professional than anything I took. (I was standing nearby as reporter Brian Burnes and his pen tried to keep up with saxophonist Loren Pickford, who didn't so much talk as radiate phrases that rose, fell and darted bebop style. Burnes probably had to soak his wrist that evening.)

Despite ideal (damn near miraculous, really) late-August weather, the attendance was down from last year's event in almost every category: fewer horns around the grave, fewer folks gawking the musicians, fewer Parker family members, and few members of the Dirty Force Street Band closing things out. There were also fewer revelers at the Mutual Musicians Foundation jam session afterward. The number of bigpipers held steady at one.

This could be taken as yet another reason for hand wringing about the state of jazz in old Kaycee and by extension elsewhere else. I see it more as a matter of logistics and chance.

• Logistics: Two months before, Dean Hampton, the events longtime organizer and a longtime local jazz agitator was forced by illness to hand the event over to a group of volunteers including Fanny Dunfee and Bill Doty and some stalwarts from JAM. And for their first time out, they did a very capable job.
• Chance: You can never tell how many folks, especially jazz fans are going to be able to make it anywhere on a Sunday afternoon. This year's event also faced competition from high-flying birds of another sort at the Kansas City Air Show, as well as other festivals and fair in other places.

That said, in the long run, the event will need some youthifying if it's going to stay fresh. Maybe get some of the kids from the jazz program at the UMKC Conservatory to jump in.

One particularly notable moment from the jam session: The band had played through several of Bird's tunes and wound up with about 10 guys on the stand for Billie's Bounce. They went around the band soloing, first longer solos and then back around trading tighter four-bar solos. As often happens, one guy was on fire and that afternoon it was trumpeter Lonnie McFadden. He really tore it up, making the hair on the back of my neck stand up, prompted hollering from the crowd, and when the song ended and the crowd was cheering, the musicians around him reached out, seemingly involuntarily, to touch him, as though they were hoping some of that fire might pass to them. That's the magic of art, that's the beauty of jazz.

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Listen up: My radio piece from last year's event.

Tribute: Gregory Hickman-Williams

Last night I finished up work on a short feature on Gregory Hickman-Williams that will air on KCUR tomorrow and this weekend on KC Currents. Once it airs I'll post the link here. [Update: Here's the link. Many, many thanks to radio goddess Laura Ziegler for producing.]

A heart attack landed Gregory in the hospital in March 2006, just as his debut recording Passages was about to be released. He never made it out of the hospital and died five months later at the age of 49. It's ironic that Gregory's physical heart should have given out because it's his heart, that metaphorical center of magnanimity, is the thing that people close to him most remember. That, and his one-in-billion voice.

The feature condenses the story quite a bit in the interest of time, but I hope that it gives a sense of the person that Gregory was, his talent and what he went through.

If you want to hear more (and you happen to be in Kansas City) there will be a tribute to Gregory at Jardine's Jazz Club this Sunday night with live performances by many of the musicians who played on Passages, including Stan Kessler, Pamela Baskin-Watson, and Gerald Spaits. Millie Edwards and David Basse will also sing some of the songs that Gregory planned to sing on future albums. I'll be making the trip to KC for the event and plan to play selections from some of the interviews I've done.

The tribute also serves as a kind of re-release for Passages, the album that Gregory and Jon Bauer spent more than a year producing, but which was largely set aside. Jon has recently hired a promoter for the disc, so it may yet reach a wider audience.

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Note: As mentioned previously in this space, I've been working for just over a year now on an increasingly lengthy radio documentary about Gregory. The Pitch's Charles Ferruzza was kind enough to mention the doc in his preview of Sunday's tribute, saying that it asks the question "Why wasn't this man famous?"

Actually, that question originally came from our pal over at Plasticsax and the answer turns out to be fairly disappointing. Fame, as it turns out, is fickle and performers do well to spend more time thinking about their craft.

Among the more profitable questions I hope the doc will ask are:

• Who can tell the singer from the song?
• What is this thing called love?
• Good morning, heartache. What's new?
  

Radio: Up to Date jazz update 9/21

My next appearance on KCUR's Up to Date update happens next Friday. Hope you can tune in.

On deck

• Local jazz goodness including Alaadeen's "And the Beauty of it All" and guitarist Charles Gatschet's Step Lightly, and additional jazz goodness TBA
• Notes from the local scene
  
• and maybe, just maybe, an progress report on TNLD's podcast
  

When to tune in

• Friday, September 21 at somewhere between 11:45 and noon Central
  

Where to tune in

• KCUR FM 89.3 on your terrestrial radio
• kcur.org on your cyber wawa
  

As per usual, a post with notes and links will follow. As always, if you like these jazz segments, scream and shout at uptodate@kcur.org

Remembering Gregory

The evening after last Sunday's raucous celebration for Charlie Parker, I stopped by a smaller memorial for another Kansas City artist who passed on, the singer Gregory Hickman-Williams.

Gregory passed last year on August 26th after 23 weeks in the hospital, awaiting a heart transplant. He entered the hospital a week before a release party for his CD "Passages."

"Passages" is a remarkable document of an incredibly talented artist. Here is a great natural voice that received excellent training (both in the U.S. and Europe) yet never lost the pure joy of singing. Here was a trained singer who could "get off the page" and improvise the blues. The CD shows off Gregory's mastery of not only straight-ahead jazz singing but also Latin and spirituals.

The selections are also full of telling references to the heart. Jon Bauer, Gregory's partner and the album's producer, says that ironically the repertoire was picked out two years earlier, before they had any hint of Gregory's condition.

Here's one of my favorite cuts from the CD, a beautiful and spare treatment of Luis Bonfa's Manha De Carnaval, backed by Danny Embrey on guitar and Stan Kessler on trumpet.



"Passages" is available through iTunes or at CD Baby.

I first heard about Gregory through the tireless enterprise of His Bagness at There Stands the Glass. A few months later I started to work on what I thought would be a short radio feature, but has since grown into a documentary. More news on that front as it develops.

KC Alert: Organ jazz for Deadheads

I've said it before, I'll say it again: Ken Lovern fears no cheese.

The brave keyboard wiz also fears neither genre nor venue. He'll be flying his organ jazz freak flag this weekend as part of the 12th Annual Jerry Garcia Memorial Tribal Stomp at Davie's Uptown Ramblers Club. The event promises "2 nights & 1 day of awesome JERRY GARCIA related music" (their caps, not mine) performed in a variety of styles by a variety of groups.

Ken and the guys hold things down on the jazz tip Friday night between the Buttermilk Boys, a bluegrass band, and the Ramblin' Bears (the band not the sandals). Tix are $6.

Saturday night features The Risky Shift Phenomenon and The New Alligators, again at Davies.

Sunday afternoon the event moves to Theis Park and features a BYO-instrument jam. Groovy.

» More details here.

(Photo above by Brian Turner, from KenLovern.com)

Plastic Sax to the rescue

Good news, KC! There's a new jazz blog in town.

Omnivorous blogger/music maven Happy in Bag has launched Plastic Sax, a blog devoted to the KC Jazz scene. I've lost count, but I believe this his fourth. Under the wildly improbable pen name "Bill Brownlee," he also reviews concerts and new releases for the Kansas City Star and its music blog Back to Rockville, covering everything from kiddie pop to country and back again. And he also coaches little league. Where he finds the time, I'll never know, but heaven bless him and his fingers.

There isn't a more knowledgeable or devoted advocate for the local music scene than HIB. He puts duffers like me to shame and we are lucky to have him.

I'll be checking it regularly (and blatantly cribbing his layout ideas). You should, too.

Show: Matt Wilson's Arts and Crafts

Friday, April 20, 2007 @ The Blue Room

Despite the cover charge and bar tab, it felt more like a house party.

Matt Wilson's Arts & Crafts played three solid sets of top-shelf jazz last Friday at the Blue Room. In the two long breaks in between, the band milled among the tables glad-handing the well-wishers. Arts & Crafts trumpeter Terrell Stafford chatted with local pianist and singer Pamela Baskin-Watson. Local bassist Gerald Spaits worked the room. The Folly's Doug Tatum hung out in a corner with Columbia promoter Jon Poses plotting next year's jazz series at the Folly. A group of hepsters from the UMKC Jazz program (I'm just guessing, they could also be from Jim Mair's jazz program at KCK Community College) called out requests that were honored. Organ-meister Ken Lovern floated in and back out.

In the midst of it all, beer in hand was our host, Matt Wilson. Wilson is a tall job. He looks like the human you'd get if you combined Al Franken and Tim Robbins. He laughs easily on stage and off the high spirits seem to be contagious. Keyboard wizard Gary Versace got out his accordion. Bassist Dennis Irwin told a joke and later brought out his clarinet for a couple numbers.

There's good reason for Wilson to feel comfortable around here. Though he lives in New York now, Wilson grew up in Central Illinois and went to college in Wichita where he studied with Dr. J.C. Combs. I overheard him say he's got family in Springfield and Neosho.

The Arts & Crafts approach, according to Wilson, is using whatever is at hand to express yourself. For Wilson this applies applies as much to repertoire as to instrumentation. The band covered everything from Thelonius Monk to Bossa Nova to Jackie Byard to eclectic originals like "Free Range Chicken." "Chicken" is, by the way, the first time I've heard bubble wrap employed in a jazz setting, but then I don't get out much. The everything-AND-the-kitchen-sink approach covers over a multitude of distractions: when the credit card terminal at the bar went off during "Chicken" it sounded like it was right on cue.

Wilson employed both matched and trad grips, used both ends of his drumsticks, the window sill and what looked like a shoelace full of metal bits on the cymbal. Stafford used a series of mutes including a red plumber's helper to broaden the palette of his trumpet. You might expect a horn player to be the odd man out in this kind of setting, but the arrangements and Stafford's rhythmic attack kept him very much in the mix.

For me the standout of the evening was keyboard player Gary Versace. He traded between the piano the Hammond B3 throughout the night, counting the steps at Wilson's request ("...9, 10, 11 and done!"). Versace is the newest member of the group, taking over for founding pianist/organist Larry Goldings. His work at the organ in particular added an almost mystical sheen to the often antic proceedings.

Wilson has stated often that improvisational jazz is about finding the moment. An apt illustration of this came in the third set. Versace had moved from the piano to the organ as Stafford introduced the original tune "Lester," a tribute to Lester Bowie. He sat staring at his charts (he is the new guy after all) then he whispered to Wilson, "I think accordion!" Wilson half nodded and half shrugged. Versace moved over to get his squeezebox and away he went. A moment later Wilson was grinning like a loon. It was definitely the right call.

More info
The Arts & Crafts Myspace page

Set Lists
We See (Monk)
The Scenic Route*
The Bat (Pat Metheny)
Rejoicing (Ornette Coleman)
Love Walked In

Clarinet/Accordion duet
Cuban Carnival Song
Tenderly
Free Range Chicken*
Beija Flor
We'll Be Together Again (Frankie Lane)

Confirmation (Charlie Parker)
Lester (for Lester Bowie)*
Aluminum Baby (Jakie Byard)
In Touch With Dewey*

*Wilson original

2007 Rhythm and Ribs - Headliners

Attention KC readers.

Happy-Go-Global-Local Pat Metheny will headline the 3rd Annual Rhythm and Ribs Festival. The American Jazz Museum made the announcement today. The other headliners are a pair of smoothies: George Benson and Al Jarreau.

(I don't care what anybody says: "Breezin'" makes me happy for a least a half an hour.)

Organizers are promising 40 other national and local musical acts. The only one named so far is Javon Jackson, but that's good news to me. The young (a.k.a., my age) sax player is definitely one to watch. And his website says he'll be playing with two keyboard greats: Dr. Lonnie Smith and Les McCann. So that will definitely be worth it.

Rhythm & Ribs will also bringing back its amateur BBQ contest. I can already smell the woodsmoke.

Dates: June 15-16, 2007
Location: 18th & Vine

» More info to come on the Rhythm & Ribs website.

Kevin Mahogany in KC

Kevin Mahogany is a wonder to me. He seems to be able to approach almost any style of popular music and make it his own: the blues, bebop, Motown, Mingus and more.

He's returning to his hometown next week to perform a benefit concert at the Blue Room in the 18th & Vine Jazz district for the Euphrates Gallery.

I'm trying to set up an interview with the "Kansas City Cyclone" himself that would air on KCUR at some point. More on that later. In the meantime, enjoy this performance with the Ray Brown Trio.

(Can you really blame the drummer for looking a little intimidated?)

Russ Long's last project

Kansas City jazz musician Russ Long died of heart failure on New Years Eve, after a long struggle with congestive heart failure. He was 69.

On December 3rd, he'd celebrating the release of Time to Go: The Music of Russ Long, a CD with 13 original compositions and a bonus track: Russ singing Cole Prorter's "You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To," a leftover from a 2001 session. Most of the tracks are arranged for a seven-piece ensemble that sounds amazingly rich. There's also a solo accoustic guitar rendition of "Never Was Love" by Pat Metheny, who as a teenager played in an organ jazz ensemble with Long.

I talked with bassist Gerald Spaits, a long-time bandmate of Long's, who produced and co-arranged the CD. This feature aired on KCUR.

Too often older jazz musicians die without getting the recognition they deserve. Russ Long got to hear some of his tunes performed by some of the best musicians around, many of them dear old friends.

Time to Go: The Music of Russ Long is available on CD Baby.