It’s been quite the eventful month at The Jazz Post. As of about a week ago I’m now eighteen years of age — and in about a week I’ll be donning the iconic graduation gown and retiring the title of this blog’s “high school jazz musician.” Although it’s a bit sad to let it go, this graduation means that after a week of much-needed hibernation you’ll be hearing much more from me here at The Jazz Post. But in the midst of last-minute graduation and summer plans (yours truly is headed to the California State Summer School for the Arts on the CalArts campus this summer), I’ve still been able to check out some local jazz.

In fact, a few weeks ago I retired a Saturday’s prom dress for a more comfortable pair of jeans the Sunday afterwards to check out Shogun Warrior at The Baked Potato in Studio City. I was there with the initial intent to chat a bit with pianist Jeff Babko, who’s the son of my band director (and in a previous post here), but I ran into a few more familiar names and faces — I met trumpet player John Daversa, whose composition Bare Your Soul is a part of our jazz repetoire this year, and was surprised to see that the bass player subbing in for the night was none other than Kneebody‘s Kaveh Rastegar, who you might remember from some previous posts (check it out here!). I also touched base with my roots a bit with guitarist Toshi Yanagi (who’s headed near my mother’s hometown for some jazz gigs in Fukuoka, Japan) and met drummer Toss Panos that night.

The Baked Potato’s an interesting venue — it’s hardly larger than the size of an average classroom, with old jazz posters peeling off the walls. They serve salads and, well, you probably guessed it — baked potatoes. Because of its relatively small size, it’s quite the intimate place — I was sitting about close enough to shake Daversa’s hand. In fact, I got a few words in with Daversa — here’s some advice he had for younger jazz musicians:

“I think that you have to be on the scene all the time. I think you need to be talking to the players, and let them get to know you, and absorb all of the music live. I think it’s really important to learn from the records, of course, and all of the jazz masters that have come before us. There’s something about being a part of what’s happening in live music – because it’s what’s current.”

Overall, Shogun Warrior is an incredibly energetic band — if you’re looking for that kind of soul and energy, they’re a monthly staple at The Baked Potato on the first Sunday every month.

I also had the chance to talk a bit with Jeff Babko, who’s a popular keyboardist here in Los Angeles as well as the keyboardist for the Jimmy Kimmel Live Band. Jeff swings by our school sometimes to play for us — a few weeks ago he played in my high school’s “Super Jazz” festival as a guest artist (along with drummer Steve Hass, trombonist Jacques Voyemant, saxophonist Alex Budman, and bassist Reggie Hamilton).

There’s two things that stay constant in every performance I’ve seen of Jeff’s over the course of four years — (1) vintage instruments and (2) high-energy performances. Other than this, there’s always something new and — in a way — rule-bending that emerges every time I hear him play. There were so many elements that made up his playing that night — three layers of keyboards, a trombone, and an electronic touch-screen controller (which was the source of some DJ-esque scratching noises a bit into the set).

There’s also an astounding contrast between the Jeff onstage and the Jeff offstage. Offstage, Jeff’s got an easygoing, laid-back demeanor; but onstage, Jeff’s intense and dynamic throughout the entire set (to the point, in fact, where I wasn’t able to get a still picture of him performing). I’m always glad to be able to talk with musicians like Jeff Babko — so without further ado, here’s some words he shared with me after the first set.

How did you get introduced to jazz?

My dad’s a jazz teacher, a band director. He always had jazz records lying around – the first one I remember hearing clearly was Ramsey Lewis’s Sound of Christmas. He also listened to the Crusaders. He kind of listened to what was called “soul jazz” at the time, as well as the bands of the day – Chicago and Blood, Sweat, and Tears, who were both incorporating jazz and horns into rock and pop music.

I was really fascinated as a young kid with album covers, so I would want to put the record on and look at the covers and study all the musicians. And I was also learning stuff off the radio. It all kind of collectively funneled into my brain – and I played piano from when I was really young, so I wanted to play whatever I heard and try to figure it out for myself.

The first formal training in jazz was from a guy named David Roitstein at CalArts. I was introduced to him when I was ten or eleven. I started classical studies when I was five, but I wasn’t very disciplined. I would always find myself improvising out of Bach. I would incorporate more jazz into my classical practicing.

What made you want to continue to pursue jazz?

All I ever wanted to do was play music. I kind of wanted to be a session musician in Los Angeles, since I grew up so near the city. Also, my dad was doing some recording sessions at the time. He wrote some jingles back in the ‘80’s, and he would let me come to the sessions and let me play in one of them when I was twelve. I knew that it had a real allure to it. All of that kind of funneled in and I knew that I wanted to be a session guy. Then I got heavily into jazz in high school – David Roitstein got me transcribing a lot – Charlie Parker and some others.

And also, people were selling their vinyl because everyone wanted to buy CDs, so I could get all this used vinyl for like ninety-nine cents a record. If I made thirty dollars working at Magic Mountain, I’d spend thirty dollars on records. I was just a sponge.

How has jazz evolved over the course of your career?

When I was in college and when I was coming out of college there was this big Young Lions movement – Wynton Marsalis, Kenny Kirkland, Branford Marsalis, this next generation. When I came back to LA there was this jam led by these guys called Black Note – they had a deal with Sony in the ‘90’s and they led a jam session. You had to wear suits – and I got into that for a while; that was kind of what was happening and I thought that I wanted to go down that road. I kind of forgot how much I liked pop and rock, because I grew up just really eating that stuff alive, too.

By the time I started touring and doing sessions, I started realizing that I wasn’t as purist as those guys. I liked to infuse this other stuff that I was listening to – rock and pop and Bjork and all these people that were doing stuff that was interesting to me.

I definitely went from that Young Lions, straight-ahead, has-to-swing thing to now, we just play whatever will work and this definitely has a blend – it has a rock element. I mean, we’re not afraid to say that we love Van Halen as much as we love Miles Davis. And there’s definitely a Miles Davis influence, he’s probably my hero as far as pushing the envelope and using every bit of input from the world into his music.

I was in the cab the other day in Kentucky and the cab driver was Somali. And he was playing me Somali music and I could’ve ridden in his cab all day. He was turning me on to the best stuff – you never know where you’re going to hear something amazing.

What’s your advice for the young jazz musician?

If you don’t enjoy listening to it, there’s no real point playing it. I mean clearly you love the experience of seeing the musicians get into the moment and experience the moment and communicating with one another – and that’s been happening since the beginning of jazz. That’s what’s exciting. If a student can see a gig where they get turned on by that, I think they’ll understand that it’s fun. Whether it’s through accessible, soul stuff like Eddie Harris or Cannonball, which is really fun to listen to, kind of R&B influenced – even Les McCann, I think kids can’t be expected to play or understand jazz unless they go see some or listen to some – then it gets in you and then you want to get it out of you. But you can’t force it.

Jeff’s suggestions for introductory jazz albums:

MILES DAVIS/FOUR & MORE

HERBIE HANCOCK/THRUST

WAYNE SHORTER/SPEAK NO EVIL

Thanks again to Jeff Babko and Shogun Warrior for the music and the words. You can learn more about Jeff at www.jeffbabko.com.

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: 15 Step/In Rainbows/Radiohead

Vijay Iyer had a distinctly different demeanor from many musicians that I’ve met in the past. It wasn’t that difficult to spot him from my table when I arrived at the Birdland Jazz Club — he looked exactly the way I’d seen him in pictures: sharp, clean-cut, emanating professionalism. In fact, his image was so overwhelming that my father had to pull me out of my seat to go introduce myself to him. (Thanks, Dad.)

I can best compare Iyer’s music to that of Stravinsky’s. By the end of each piece, it’s challenging to come away from it with the melody ringing in your head; rather, it’s an array of innovative chords, unique motifs that you wish you could write down on paper to use later, and a strange image of visually disconnected yet completely intertwined group of musicians that’s stuck in your head when you leave the set. Initially I felt like I was watching three different performances from three different musicians at the same time — but as the tunes progressed, and as I grasped a better understanding of each musician, I also slowly could see a connection between the three. It seems like listening to Iyer’s music is somewhat of an intellectual pursuit.

Throughout my studies in jazz as a high school student, I’ve been told many different opinions about instruments and their respective roles in jazz — specifically, in a combo setting, I’ve been repeatedly told that it’s my job as the pianist to lay down the chords; the drummer’s job to maintain the beat; the bass’s job to set the groove; the horns’ jobs to establish the melody. These concepts have consistently held true through my high school combo and the jazz group at CalArts, but it’s as if all these rules were broken that night at Birdland. Justin Brown (drums) was often more colorful than beat-oriented; Iyer even held the bass line at some moments; Stephan Crump (bass) seemed to even have more of a melodic element than a groove at times. I believe what struck me the most was the fact that this all wasn’t confusing — in fact, everything that Iyer, Brown, and Crump played made complete sense, despite the fact that they were going against every rule I’d ever learned about playing in small jazz ensembles.

Perhaps the Vijay Iyer trio was a reminder to me that if jazz does have rules, they’re completely arbitrary.

I’ve been giving a set list for each performance I’ve attended this past week, but unfortunately the only tune Iyer mentioned was an adaption of Michael Jackson’s Human Nature, where he added: “I just met someone who was born in 1993, so I was afraid she wouldn’t know that one…I graduated in 1992, so…”

(That person, by the way, is yours truly.)

He also played some pieces from his recent album, Historicity.

I was also able to talk to Iyer afterwards:

On the same note as all the college tours I had that week, Iyer and I talked about attending a liberal arts college versus a music conservatory — as you might have seen in one of my previous posts, one of the highlights of my college tours was my trip to Columbia University, where I got a better look at opportunities in both the fields of jazz and journalism. Iyer received his B. S. in Math and Science from Yale College and a Masters in Physics and an interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Technology and the Arts from UC Berkeley along with his studies in jazz at both schools, so I got to get his perspective on the issue of higher jazz education. He expressed that liberal arts schools give musicians an opportunity to experience a breadth of topics along with jazz, preparing the musician for interaction with the outside world.

If you’re in the Los Angeles area, come check out Vijay Iyer at the Levitt Pavilion in Pasadena on the 15th of August — I might see you there!

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: The “Pretty” Road/Maria Schneider Orchestra/Sky Blue

The Village Vanguard immediately fulfilled some of my expectations the moment I went through that red door. It was crowded with people — a few college students, but mostly those beyond twice my age — nearly all the way to the back of the room by the time I arrived. It was frozen in time, the exact image I’d remembered from the pictures I’d seen of it from ages before now, except for a few new coats of paint and a shiny new Steinway — exactly the way I’d imagined it.

There was one thing, however, that was distinctly different from my romantic image of the Village Vanguard. As I may have mentioned before, one of my favorite albums was recorded here (Sunday at the Village Vanguard/Bill Evans Trio) back in 1961 — and one of my favorite aspects of this albums is its vivacity. Vivacity, not only in regards to the musical interaction between Evans, LaFaro, and Motian, but also in the subtle sounds of clinking glasses and chatter and laughter from that audience, undisturbed by editing, is what gives that album a genuinely raw feeling to me. It’s as if tonight those hints of conversation and laughter were replaced by complete silence, only broken by the occasional rumbling from the nearby subway and perhaps the scribbling of my pen against my notebook.

My question is, what is it that changed here? Is it the audience that’s reluctant to make any audible signals of appreciation? It’s absolutely not in the lack of appreciation, I’m sure. Are there new policies at the Village Vanguard? Is the recording equipment too sensitive for any extraneous noise? What do you think?

But without further ado, on to the set list, as well as some notes I took during the show:

Fred Hersch (p), John Hébert (b), Billy Hart (d)

1. From This Moment On

2. Still Here (a dedication to Wayne Shorter, whom Hersch declared his “hero and huge influence”)

3. Skipping (I’m still frustrated that I can’t figure out the shifting time signatures of this tune — anyone know? Otherwise, it sounded very Brubeck to me)

4. Whirl (inspired by a ballerina; a circular, spinning tune with minor sixths layered over triplets in the initial melody; reminds me of that Chopin tune that I desperately need to practice)

5. The Wind (Russ Freeman)/Moon and Sand (Alec Wilder) Medley

6. Played Twice (because Hersch declares that it’s a tradition to play a Monk tune at every set in the Village Vanguard; It was pretty interesting hearing this bebop tune played in a floaty Hersch style.)

7. I’ll Be Seeing You (I loved hearing John Hebert on arco; the way the piece was played reminded me of the recording of Granados on the Bill Evans Compact Jazz album)

8. Change Partners (Hersch started out with random-sounding single pitches that reminded me of a coding exercise I did in a surprisingly challenging CalArts computer music class, later contrasted by some lovely block chords. This piece was my favorite of the night — mostly because of the striking contrasts that Hersch set forward: random chaos/structure, dissonance/comfortable harmonies, random notes/repetition, block chords/melodic lines. A great end to a diverse and thought-provoking set. Not to mention that I was bouncing in my seat the entire show.)

(top: Fred Hersch; bottom: Billy Hart)

The moment Hersch began playing his first tune, I thought back to one of my old piano lessons at the Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts with John Adams when I was about fourteen years old. I remember we were working on an extremely sensitive part of a Edward MacDowell piece — Mr. Adams and I had gotten to the point where we were both frustrated that I couldn’t soften my touch a slight bit more. “Play it soft,” he kept repeating, “like a memory.”

And that’s exactly how Hersch played — like a memory. Even with his consistently active left hand and his tiny upper-register melodies, Hersch’s playing always sounded like some nostalgic echo of something already once played.

That night I sat there in the Village Vanguard in a room filled with memories from a time ages ago — and even though in reality I didn’t exist then, I think I felt a bit of that nostalgia as well.

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: Still Here/Fred Hersch Trio/Whirl

I was at a neighbor’s house Sunday night for a light get-together and a hearty barbecue — the same neighbor, Richard, who was the first to toss some jazz classics in my direction. Throughout the night, several names were thrown about and excitedly discussed — Toots Thielemans, George Benson, and Rod Piazza, to name a few. But for some strange reason, every jazz-related discussion that Richard and I have always finds its way back to Bill Evans.

That night, Richard posed a simple but deep question: why do I like Bill Evans?

Although I’d like to say that I had some heavy monologue about my love for Evans ready on the spot, I’m going to admit that this question definitely took me by surprise. I’m pretty sure I babbled some unintelligible nonsense about the softness and vulnerability of his playing, about how anyone could connect his sensitive playing to his struggle of a life. It probably didn’t make much sense.

Richard probably doesn’t know this, but that question has been on my mind ever since I went to sleep that night. And finally, close to midnight, I’ve come to a conclusion:

Bill Evans and his playing represent one of my most treasured values: to be taken seriously. Evans’s playing is sensitive, subtle, beautiful, unique — but there’s one thing that it’s not: cute. However raw and personal Evans playing can get, it always invokes the same overwhelming feeling of respect from me (and other listeners, I’m sure) — it demands to be taken seriously. Despite the stories that I’ve read about Evans, and despite the fact that some of them are immensely tragic, one listen to Alice in Wonderland makes me forget it all. The fact that his playing allows me only to think of his playing — not his long, bony fingers or his solemn face or his grey life– is the reason why I enjoy listening to Bill Evans.

There’s only one other thing that’s on my mind while I listen to this: I want to get to the point where my playing — and every other aspect of my life — can be taken just as seriously as this.

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: Milestones/Bill Evans/Waltz for Debby

I recently sent in a self-recording for an All-California Jazz Band audition (check it out at CBDA.org) — it was the first time I’d ever done a recording for anything to do with jazz. Like any good musician, I waited until the weekend before the audition tapes were due to begin recording — because recording three short pieces is no biggie, right?

After nearly fourteen repetitions of the audition requirement’s “Samba” piece, I finally think I’ve got it. I turn around to press the stop button on the recorder and…yup, it’s out of battery.

And then when I finally get (what I think is) a good take of “Samba,” I go to listen to it on my computer. But there’s someone running the tap water in the background.

Yes, I was completely proven wrong. Recording these pieces took a good entire afternoon-plus-most-of-the-night — and after an examination from my jazz director — another frustrating evening with the piano and the recorder. I think the biggest thing I learned was the painful difference between a CD audition and a live audition — in a live audition, it’s a lot more holistic; the judge can physically see you in person, watch you move, watch you play; a couple mistakes here and there can be made up for by some (hopefully) fantastic improvisation later in the audition. But while you’re recording, not only are you haunted by the image of a few completely disgusted judges listening to your feedback-y CD, you realize that every time you see that red recording button light up, your fingers turn to mush. (I tried hiding the recorder; it didn’t help too much.)

I did end up finishing the CD after countless hours of this — next time, I’m definitely doing it much earlier. This coming February I’ll be auditioning for the All-Southern-California Jazz band, which’ll be a live audition in Westlake; wish me luck!

Speaking of which, have you guys ever practiced with Aebersolds? I never really used them until I started working with the CalArts CAP program this year — one of my instructors, drummer Tina Raymond, seems to have collected nearly all of his albums; thanks to her, I’ve got a lot more access to his books. They’re definitely just as frustrating as recording a CD — when you’re playing with this pre-recorded rhythm section, you’ve got no wiggle room, no chance to slow down or speed up, and very little room to make even small mistakes — initially, the chords seem to rapidly fly by. But hey, it’s a good thing — after you get a feel of a B-flat Blues or a Lady Bird rhythm track, it really helps you out in regards to keeping time and developing your ideas in a restricted amount of time. So when it comes to actually playing with a live rhythm section, you’ve got a way better understanding of the chord changes — it’s helped me get over the fear of hearing the chord changes fly by unacknowledged, putting my focus on developing a melodic solo instead.

Plus, the Aebersold books have really sweet vintage-y looking covers.

Anyways, one of the SCSBOA Honor Jazz band requirements is to be able to play along with the standard, “What Is This Thing Called Love?” (from the book pictured here).  Since I’m not too familiar with it, I’ve been collecting several recordings of it so I can get to know it a little better. Here’s what I’ve got so far:

1. What Is This Thing Called Love/Art Pepper/Modern Art: The Complete Art Pepper Recordings V2
2. What Is This Thing Called Love/Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock, Jack DeJohnette/Whisper Not (Live in Paris 1999)
3. What Is This Thing Called Love/Wynton Marsalis/Standard Time, V2 — Intimacy Calling

I found this when I was buying a track from the Whisper Not album — did you know Jarrett had a ‘fro back in the day?

This is totally different from my current mental picture of him. (On a side note, don’t you just love it when he hums along with his solos in every recording he releases? I do.):

So since I’ve only got a list of three What Is This Thing Called Love, what recordings of this standard do you recommend? Let me know in the comments or @thejazzpost. I’ll see if I can find anything in the January Downbeat I just got today in jazz class. :)

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: Yesterdays/Act Your Age/Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band

For Gordon Goodwin, it was probably just another solo. But for me, I couldn’t fully grasp it — I was sitting on the same bench as him, watching him improvise on the keys of the old upright Yamaha that I play every morning. I was balancing myself on the edge of the bench so I wouldn’t get in his way (Goodwin seems to like the upper register on the piano) — but at the same time, I was leaning in as close as I possibly could, hoping some of his musicality would rub off on me.

Great jazz piano solos are things that I only see on stage and hear in recordings. So being able to sit right next to a legend play the solo that I’d been working on for ages — let alone have him help me with it — was absolutely insane.

Another reason to be grateful for living in Los Angeles: we had a song written for us by Gordon Goodwin (commissioned by our principal, Bob Vincent — isn’t it fantastic to have a music major for a principal?) entitled Principal of the Thing. Since my jazz director, Bob Babko, knows Goodwin, we had a chance to work with him for about an hour and a half on playing his composition. (Even though we’re definitely not the Phat Band, it still secretly kind of felt like we were.)

Some of Goodwin’s advice:

1. Empty space in a solo is just as important as playing a melody.
2. Other ideas for soloing: blues, chromatic, holding notes, playing a melody, and of course, leaving space.
3. You’ll get a better understanding of harmony if you figure it out on the piano.
4. Don’t bring your personal issues into your playing — you can’t afford to think about extraneous things when you play.
5. There’s always a few places in a composition that show the full maturity of the band — bring those places out.
6. Be proud of being a band geek. :)

There were so many other great tips Goodwin gave us, but I’m still trying to get over the fact that I was sitting on the same piano bench as he was improvising. It’s incredible, isn’t it?

Principal of the Thing will most likely be part of the CD our band makes in our first professional recording session in the spring — I’m definitely looking forward to sharing it with you soon.

Check out Gordon Goodwin and the Big Phat Band at www.bigphatband.com.

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: Alice in Wonderland/Bill Evans/Sunday at the Village Vanguard

It’s pretty difficult to describe who Bill Evans is.

Yes, he’s a jazz pianist from the twentieth century; and yes, he’s arguably one of the most influential jazz pianists in the history of jazz itself. But his story is probably one of the most tragic ones despite his success in music.

As you can tell in any of his recordings, Evans was a highly trained classical musician; both of his parents were musicians, and at a young age, he was exposed to composers like Debussy, Milhaud, and Stravinsky. Although he had some experience playing in jazz bands in his adolescence (like filling for his brother in Buddy Valentino’s band), his biggest break came when he was hired by Miles Davis in 1958 to play with big names like Cannonball Adderley and John Coltrane.

Miles Davis described Evans as having a “quiet fire” on the piano, playing “underneath the rhythm.” Check out the album 1958 Miles to get a better idea of what Davis was talking about.

Although he left the group after recording ten albums with Davis (Evans got a lot of pressure from the public being the only white guy in a group of black musicians), he played with Davis again in the popular album, Kind of Blue.

In comparison to other successful jazz pianists like Bud Powell and Count Basie, Evans has a smoother, muted, more experimental sound — a bit detached from the styles and ideas of hardcore bebop. He’s also responsible for “reforming” jazz chord voicings by almost abandoning the use of the root of the chord, a very complex idea that you’re probably better off reading about in a jazz theory book. Or listening to Bill Evans himself.

Despite his great success in jazz piano, Evans struggled with a heroin addiction that stretched into his late fifties. Although he managed to overcome this in the 1960s, his addiction to cocaine in the 1970s led to his death in 1980 — with a bleeding ulcer, cirrhosis in his liver, and pneumonia.

Even though Bill Evans led an unfortunate life, his influence on jazz — for jazz pianists and many other musicians — has carried on in jazz today.

Bill Evans’s standards: 1…Waltz for Debby. 2…Funkarello. 3…Very Early. 4…Turn Out the Stars.

Where to start? Check out these albums, and be sure not to miss the Bill Evans Trio. (My favorite recording by the Bill Evans trio is Someday My Prince Will Come.)

1…Sunday at the Village Vanguard.

2…Waltz for Debby.

3…1958 Miles.

4…Compact Jazz.

My Bill Evans favorites: 1…Sleepin’ Bee. 2…Granados. 3…Waltz for Debby. 4…I Loves You, Porgy. 5…Solar. 6…Milestones.

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: What is Hip?/Tower of Power/The Very Best of Tower of Power

I was flipping through Downbeat today (the 75th anniversary collector’s edition; seriously, I’m going to keep this thing forever) and I read this short blurb about Toshiko Akiyoshi, a female jazz pianist from Japan (Toshiko: Japan’s First Gift to U.S. Jazz). In a nutshell, Akiyoshi’s pretty amazing – in 1952, Oscar Peterson discovered her playing in a club during one of his tours and convinced his producer to record her playing with his rhythm section (this album was later called Toshiko’s Piano);  three years later, Akiyoshi wrote to the Berklee College of Music asking for a chance to study there – and she did, on a full scholarship. And not only that – she also became the first Japanese student to be enrolled at the Berklee College of Music.

First reaction: How did I not know about Akiyoshi for this long?

Second reaction: Hiromi Uehara!

It all fits together: the piano, the Japanese heritage, the Oscar Peterson influence, the enrollment in the Berklee College of Music. Uehara is totally a reincarnation of Akiyoshi.

Okay, not really. Their styles are totally different – Akiyoshi sounds a lot like Bud Powell while Uehara’s developed her own style that’s really quite difficult to describe; I’ll call it classical/jazz/rock/funk/fusion for now. And the fact that Akiyoshi’s still alive and playing the keys doesn’t really work out for reincarnation.

Uehara’s extremely influential in my own adventures in jazz, so I’m going to dedicate a separate post for her in the future. But for now, I’ll give you a playlist for each of these jazz pianists (note: some of these are their original compositions and others just include Akiyoshi/Uehara):

TOSHIKO AKIYOSHI:

1…The Subject is Jazz (Compilation). 2…The Village. 3…Strive for Jive. 4…Noutorious Tourist From East. 5…Salted Ginko Nuts. 6…Long Yellow Road.

HIROMI UEHARA:

1…The Tom and Jerry Show. 2…Kung Fu World Champion. 3…Spain (with Chick Corea!). 4…XYZ. 5…Time Out. 6…I’ve Got Rhythm.

You’ll notice as you listen to these that both of these pianists are extremely trained classical musicians, which really shows in their playing. Happy listening!

If I were stranded on a desert island and I could only take one jazz pianist with me, it’d be Thelonious Monk.

Why? It’s all in his sound. When you hear him on the radio, you know it’s him. Unlike Leonard Bernstein or Emanuel Ax, Monk had unusually small hands for a pianist (a problem that I struggle with every day) — so he was pushed to develop his own, distinct sound.

You’ll notice in his solos that he doesn’t play the piano like most classically trained pianists — instead, he hits it like a percussive instrument. The solos almost sound like an old, rundown car: he spurts out musical ideas, takes a completely random break, then lets out hiccups of more ideas. But this is what makes Monk different; it’s what makes Monk, well, Monk. In fact, for this reason, his unique way of soloing is dubbed Melodious Thunk.

The Monk standards: 1…Blue Monk. 2…Straight, No Chaser. 3…Epistrophy. 4…Well, You Needn’t. 5…Round Midnight.

My favorites: 1…Blue Monk (my absolute favorite). 2…Round Midnight.

But it’s not just his playing that’s got character. Thelonious Monk has always been known for cryptic and defensive when approached by the media. In 1958, when Monk was emerging as a prominent jazz pianist, an article in the Downbeat magazine explained that “one interview or ten [could not] shatter the protective wall Thelonious Monk [had] built around himself.” He consistently gave the media and his interviewers quizzical answers to their questions. For example:

Q: Where do you think modern jazz is going?

A: “I don’t know where it’s going. Maybe it’s going to hell. You can’t make anything go anywhere; it just happens.”

Q: On his association with musicians like Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane who suddenly became popular after playing with him…

A: “I have noticed that with a lot of musicians…(with a wry smile) I don’t know why that happens.”

Q: About playing with musicians like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, and Milt Jackson…

A: “Just another session…They’re all just sessions.”

Q: What do you listen to?

A: “I listen to everything.”

*Downbeat magazine, 1958 article by Frank London Brown, 75th annual collector’s edition

If you’re new to Monk, start here. Happy listening!

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: Going Out of My Head/Ella Fitzgerald & Duke Ellington/Late Night Piano