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

Last night I had the privilege of meeting bass player Kaveh Rastegar and drummer Jaydon Bean (as well as my teacher, Mark Nilan Jr.) at the Watermark on Main in Ventura. Let me tell you, it was quite the experience just watching the three musicians set up in such a tiny venue — a small space surrounded by already-inhabited tables — yet somehow it worked. I also believe that my heart did skip a beat when Nilan pulled out that lipstick-red keyboard — and the same goes for when he told me that Rastegar was the bass player for the jazz fusion band, Kneebody. It’s not usual for me to be that excited before the show starts — but in this case, I genuinely was.

But it was watching the three of them create this intense musical sphere right there in that busy restaurant — uninterrupted by bustling waiters and rowdy customers — that was probably the most mesmerizing part of the show. And it was even more astonishing to know that this crazy musical bond was created by three musicians that had not once played with one another — in fact, they’d just met only minutes before the gig.

I can’t describe their performance that night as anything else but organic. Organic in the sense that they rapidly caught each others’ idiosyncrasies as the pieces progressed — even the slightest bit of a catchy phrase was repeated and answered and echoed and turned through each player, as if their music was some living, growing, breathing being. I especially enjoyed this nonverbal exchange of ideas and the way Bean’s face lit up every single time something interesting was played (or perhaps he was smiling at the fact that I reveled in this so much).

Their set included Green Dolphin Street, the Beatles’ Blackbird, Someday My Prince Will Come, and my all-time favorite, Alice in Wonderland.

(left to right: Jaydon Bean, Kaveh Rastegar, me, Mark Nilan Jr.)

I also got a chance to talk a bit with Rastegar during their breaks and gained some pretty insightful advice on being a young and ambitious jazz musician. Probably the most valuable piece of advice he gave me was on working with other musicians — recognizing your place and position as a part of the group you are playing with is one of the most important parts of being a successful player. Also, like I’ve read and heard from many musicians, he noted that the most important part of being a musician in any situation is developing yourself into the best musician you can be. It sounds like a given here, but I’m beginning to notice that it’s very easy to get caught up in petty concerns — age, race, gender, equipment, length of study, money, personality issues, even placement or chair seating in a band — which hold the potential to lead you astray from this fundamental goal.

After talking to Rastegar, I now have an appointment at the CalArts library to go on a music-hunting spree, as well as a transcription bucket list nailed to my wall. Not to mention that I’m even more intent on continuing my Joseph Campbell-esque hero’s journey out on the East coast. As you read this I’m most likely staring dreamily into the pages of a college application in some deserted library as I begin the last summer before my senior year.

I’ll conclude this post with the video that introduced me to Kneebody:

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: Brother Mister/Christian McBride and Inside Straight/Kind of Brown

After a grueling two weeks with four AP tests, I can finally open my computer for reasons other than the College Board. But still, these past two weeks were also a collection of some valuable experiences in jazz. (Not to mention that the last few months of life in front of AP review books and coffee has strengthened my gratefulness for it.)

Last week I decided to take advantage of my high school’s required job shadowing activity by using it as an opportunity to go hear some live jazz — so I shot an email to my former CalArts CAP teacher Tina Raymond about it. It turned out that Tina’s currently the drummer of the all-female jazz band Maiden Voyage that’s going to be playing at the Mary Lou Williams Jazz Festival at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. this week; although I knew that yes, female jazz players do exist, I’d never heard of anything like Maiden Voyage.

Tina invited me to go attend a Maiden Voyage rehearsal at the Musician’s Union (thanks again, Tina!) where I was able to meet Ann Patterson, accomplished female sax player and band leader:

Of course, it’s nothing new to see a talented female jazz musician. There’s Mary Lou Williams, Ella Fitzgerald, and Toshiko Akiyoshi from back in the day, and Hiromi Uehara, Esperanza Spalding, Dee Dee Bridgewater performing right now. But I didn’t expect it to be that big of a shock for me to see so many talented female musicians playing together. I suppose it’s the fact that whenever I do see female jazz musicians, they’re either playing alone or they’re being featured as part of an otherwise all-male group. And even though I initially approached the Maiden Voyage rehearsal with questions revolved around the experiences of being a female in the jazz world, it suddenly felt strange to even ask those questions — the fact that being a female player in the jazz world was even significant suddenly seemed disappointing.

It was later that week that this disappointment settled in even further. As I sat on my piano bench at my school district’s honor jazz band first rehearsal and watched each musician walk in, it began to dawn on me that I would be the only female playing in the band.

Yes, jazz is a genre that succeeds most of the time at embracing differences and highlighting individuality, and being the one female in this jazz band is only one more difference that I have in relation to everyone else. But after watching the lead trumpet player of Maiden Voyage hit all those screaming high notes, I begin to wonder where her younger counterpart is in my younger jazz sphere. It’s not as if females have less accessibility than their male friends to jazz bands at my age, so where are they?

It did give me hope, however,  to see several talented female jazz players in the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts’ jazz band this weekend at the Workman High School jazz festival. There’s also reassurance in an article I read in the March 2010 Downbeat — Marian McPartland’s Gender Barriers? Observations of a Working Pianist and Bandleader, in which she asserts that “if women seem to be in the minority in any field,” her advice is still the same: “you have to have talent and motivation, be dogged and persistent, believe in yourself, and not be deterred by anything or anyone.” Also, she notes that she believes “people with determination and a desire to succeed” move ahead, “ignoring all barriers,” despite the stories she initially heard from other female musicians about the difficulty of beginning a career in music. And considering the fact that Marian McPartland is an influential figure in both jazz and in journalism (if you haven’t checked out Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz of NPR, do so now), that’s some powerful advice.

But in the meantime,  events like the Mary Lou Williams Jazz Festival that highlight the talented jazz women of today are also accompanied by a certain degree of pride from both those jazz musicians and aspiring female jazz musicians like me — and that’s some pretty indispensable and irreplaceable passion in the growing jazz sphere.

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: Van Gogh/Jazz At Lincoln Center Orchestra/Portrait in Seven Shades

Listening to this album reminds me that I’ve forgotten to mention my essay that’s published on the Jazz At Lincoln Center’s website as part of this year’s Essentially Ellington essay contest, check it out here! (I received this autographed album as part of the prize package.)

Also, here’s Jeff Jarvis of California State University, Long Beach (left) and  Chris Stevens of Long Beach Polytechnic High School (right); I met them both this past weekend at the Workman High School jazz festival, and they’re both very inspirational band directors with fantastic bands. (Check out this post for a bit about the CSULB band at Newbury Park High School.) Thanks for saying hello!

It’s thirty minutes before we leave for Newbury Park: thirty-six of us are packed into our small jazz rehearsal room, staring at the unbelievable amount of  equipment in disbelief. Three amps. Forty music folders. Two keyboards. A drum set. Two basses. Some of us take a slightly extended trip to the restroom. Some of us push up our sleeves and roll up the cords and cables, lock down the amp cases, count and re-count our music folders. By the time we get on the bus, it’s already groaning at the weight of our trumpets and trombones and saxophones, each wrapped up in comfortable cases. I rub my hands together to warm them up — there’s a slight imprint from the corner of the Yamaha S90ES on my left palm. As the bus rocks back and forth from the asperous freeway, I fall asleep.

This past weekend the two West Ranch High School jazz bands traveled a good hour to the Newbury Park High School Jazz Festival after months of preparation. Our set included Time Check, Dave Holland Does it Like This, Black Orpheus, and In a Sentimental Mood. Have a listen at some of our pieces from both the upper jazz band and the combo:

We left the NPHS Jazz Festival at the end of the night with a second place (WRHS Studio A Jazz Band), a third place (WRHS Lab Band), and another third place award for our new WRHS Jazz Combo. But for me, the greatest part of the festival was the people that I was able to meet — both student musicians from schools like Camarillo High School and Golden Valley High School to professional musicians like CalArts Jazz Program Director David Roitstein, Cal State Long Beach Director of Jazz Studies Jeff Jarvis, and Hemet High School Jazz Director/Idyllwild Jazz Summer Workshop Chairman Jeff Tower (he awarded several full and partial scholarships to this camp to many students at the NPHS jazz festival!).

In fact, David Roitstein was our clinician for the WRHS jazz combo. Meeting him was like meeting some sort of jazz celebrity — for the past three years, I’ve heard my jazz director talk about him; I’ve heard my jazz director’s son (Jeff Babko) talk about him; Even my jazz teacher has talked about him with great respect — he’s often started many pieces of advice with “this is what Mr. Roitstein would tell me to do…” Luckily enough, Mr. Roitstein put much emphasis on improvisation. “It’s something we do every day in conversation,” he told us. Of course, I was pretty skeptical. But after he had us trade fours several times with the Kind of Blue tune So What with the aim of repeating/reflecting on the solo preceding our own, Mr. Roitstein brought us a brighter light to improvisation.  After he told us to imagine having this musical conversation with ourselves, jazz improvisation has lately been starting to make much more sense. The concept of developing smaller, simpler ideas before starting a solo (and even while comping) has become an increasingly more valuable core to developing my own understanding of improvisation.

We were also awarded by an incredible performance by the Cal State Long Beach jazz band directed by Jeff Jarvis. Their set included Airegin, The Days of Wine and Roses (featuring their lead trumpet player), Songbird, Captain Hook, High and Mighty (written by Jeff Jarvis himself), Trumpets Forever, and Got a Match. My two favorites that night were The Days of Wine and Roses and Jarvis’s High and Mighty. Wine and Roses had this romantic, Bill-Evans-esque feel to it (probably because the last time I heard it was in a recording of the Bill Evans trio); it’s also a personal favorite of mine when a jazz band’s horns hits a no-rhythm-section a cappella part with goosebump-evoking perfection — and that’s exactly what happened with this tune. On the other hand, High and Mighty was an upbeat piece that Jarvis said was inspired by the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California. Personally, though, I saw that the piece reflected the entire city itself: Jarvis began the piece with morning-sunrise-like bell-tones (which, by the way, reminded me so much of Bernstein’s West Side Story) and progressed towards busy nighttime tones behind the tenor sax solo. What CSULB gave us that night, in fact, was exactly the subject of the conversation I had with a few jazz music students only a several hours prior:

Project Improv Part I

(From left to right: Carlos Rodriguez, Sean Doane, Brett Lopez, and another Camarillo HS student)

I asked Omer Benyamin, a tenor sax player from my jazz band, to help me seek out some high school students at the Newbury Park High School jazz festival — and I was able to talk to Carlos, Sean, and Brett from Camarillo High School about our own experiences and desires regarding jazz. All three students were introduced to music via an outside influence: for example, Brett was introduced in watching his sister play the clarinet, and Carlos was intrigued when he heard Mickey whistling on the old Disney cartoon Steamboat Willie. But Sean what asserted — and what we all seemed to agree on –  in regards to exposing jazz to primary school and high school students alike was something that I’ve known all along but never even thought to say: we all need to see someone amazing. Since jazz has an increasingly older audience as the years go by, it’s difficult for a young person with little exposure to jazz to perceive it as anything but music that’s, frankly, music for old people. But many of us know that this isn’t the case with today’s successful and young jazz musicians like Vijay Iyer, Hiromi Uehara, and Christian Scott — however, how is it possible for anyone still in high school to know anything about them?

Sean, Brett, Carlos, Omer, and I came to the general consensus that we want and need jazz musicians to reach out to us while we’re still in high school — we want them to perform for us and our high school friends; live jazz is physical proof that (a) it’s still alive, (b) it’s not just for an older generation, and (c) it’s actually a pretty fantastic style of music. We get this bubbly kind of feeling when we hear someone like  Miles Davis or Joe Lovano or David Sanborn on the radio — and as student jazz musicians, we want our friends to get and understand that feeling as well.

This is only the beginning of the answer to the question that I recently received from jazz musician Richard Frank of PTJazz: “How do we make jazz relevant and accessible to youth today?”

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: Red Clay/Freddie Hubbard/Red Clay

Time is a common problem in jazz band. Before competitions, we constantly fret over time — is the music too long? do we have enough of it? are we speeding up? are we slowing down?

But yesterday, my jazz director made an interesting remark: “If I catch anyone playing hacky-sack in the courtyard while we’re there,” he warned, wagging an assertive finger, “I’m going to be pretty upset.”

I came to the realization that there’s another problem we have regarding time: we’re arriving at the host school at 9 in the morning and we’re coming home at 9 at night, and there’s no way that any combination of big band performances, combo performances, and clinics adds up to twelve hours. I’ve been to quite a few jazz competitions over the past few years, competitions that facilitate the mingling of dozens of different schools in my area. I’ve eaten lunch and I’ve warmed up in the same room as hundreds of different high school students from hundreds of different backgrounds, all with common experiences in jazz. But have I met any of them?

I’ve come to notice that over the past three years, I’ve missed out on hundreds of different stories.

Nevertheless, I still have little over a year left. That’s why I’ve attached such a blatantly tacky name to an outrageous idea: Project Improv. From here on out, I’m going to meet, interview, and take pictures with at least three random groups of high school students from three different schools. I’m going to get their perspective on how they perceive jazz as teenage jazz musicians; why they’re so crazy about it (or not?). I’m going to find out how and when they met jazz; where do they see jazz going from here? And how can we make jazz more appealing to younger generations (or is it fine just the way it is?)?

So if you’re looking to find a way to get today’s younger generation increasingly more involved in jazz, Project Improv will hopefully open a window for you to the current opinions of today’s teenage jazz musicians. The first Project Improv will start this weekend at our first jazz competition; I’ll keep you updated on who I meet via Twitter (@thejazzpost) this Saturday.

Wish me luck on making new jazz buddies!

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: Take Five/Dave Brubeck Quartet/Time Out

Being a teenage musician in a place like Los Angeles has got its perks. I’ve got access to the Hollywood Bowl, the Baked Potato, the Monterey Jazz Festival, and the California Institute of the Arts — not to mention access to thousands of musicians associated with LA-based music organizations. Nevertheless, it’s still exciting to meet those people that you only see in websites and magazines; the faces behind the names that show up on the songs that you play every day.

It was on the last Sunday of January that I met Antoinette Perry, the Senior Lecturer of Keyboard Studies at the University of Southern California, for a master class in a home of a quiet suburbian neighborhood. If you know anything about master classes, you’ll know that they can be absolutely frightening — in front of a large, judging audience the student has to perform a piece, knowing that in the next few minutes an intimidating master class instructor will be hovering over her shoulder, exposing tiny mistakes, insisting on minuscule nuances. It’s not one of the most pleasantly exciting things to do.

But my experience with Antoinette Perry was quite the opposite. To tell you the truth, the first thing I noticed about Perry — before her tall, lanky stature and her youthful smile — were her hands. I was nearly infatuated with them. Her fingers were bony, slender, delicate; they stroked the keys of the piano with the grace of a prima ballerina. I’ve constantly tried to justify playing piano with my short, stubby fingers by pulling up names like Thelonius Monk, insisting to myself that he probably didn’t have Rachmaninoff fingers either and could still play a killer B-flat blues — but Perry flat out dissolved those comforting thoughts. Even she noticed that my elbows aren’t even close to being perpendicular with my hands when I play, leaving me in an awkward angle above the piano keys — a realization that she quickly dismissed by hastily moving on to a different topic. It’s a pretty sensitive subject for a compulsively-obsessive pianist like me.

Still, she had fantastic critiques about my performance of Schubert’s Impromptu No. 2 in E-flat Major — everything from inner melodies that needed more emphasis to small fluctuations in pedaling to help me out with my E-flat major scale runs. And Perry was an exciting instructor — as she had me try out her tips with the Schubert, she’d flail her arms wildly in imaginary conducting, passionately singing along. She was definitely a great window into the music program at USC.

(P.S. I later won a $300 scholarship from the local Music Teacher’s Association of California playing the same piece!)

Just as exciting was a clinic with Don Menza, the composer of one of our currently most challenging pieces: Time Check. (Menza’s also the composer of the popular piece Groovin’ Hard.) “You can only play as good as you can play,” he told us in regards to being nervous before a performance, adding, “I talk about this with Sonny [Rollins] all the time.” He only ever took off his shades when he wanted to emphasize a crucial point — putting air through the horn; playing lines together; hitting the drumset with confidence. While Perry was a window into a prospective college, Menza was a window into the past — a place where jazz was a taboo gateway into violence and drugs and alcohol. It seemed like jazz had this fountain-of-youth effect on Menza — as he spoke, he moved his body energetically, visually showing us what he wanted us to do, throwing around in his speech the colloquialisms of a jazz kid from the sixties.

And then there was his saxophone. Before he arrived, we already knew that he’d written and played with Maynard Ferguson’s orchestra and Buddy Rich’s big band; we knew that he was an amazing tenor sax player. But the word amazing is used everywhere in nearly every circumstance imaginable — it can’t even come close to describe what came out of Menza’s horn.

On a concluding note, here’s what I’m failing in an attempt to describe in words:

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: Roustabout/Simple Citizens/Me and Miss Lemona K

If you still haven’t checked out Seis Cuerdas, here’s a little glimpse of their “Flamenco for a new generation” via Youtube:

This is La Posada from their 2006 album, Solo Guitarras. To check out more of their songs & albums, visit the Seis Cuerdas store or look up Seis Cuerdas on iTunes. I’m currently addicted to the Volumen IV album. Why? For starters, it’s just the two guitarists — no bass, percussion, or lyrics — which is great when you’re trying to focus. Their chords are calming — but at the same time, they push you forward in whatever you’re doing (especially when I’m cramming for a test that night :]). That’s really the beauty of their music in general — the mix of two opposites: romance and aggressiveness. If there’s a way to mix rock and metal with flamenco, Seis Cuerdas has done just that.

I also got a chance to exchange a few emails with the Seis Cuerdas brothers this past week — here’s what Martin & Ezquiel Etcheverry have to say about Seis Cuerdas:

Tell me about your hometown, Buenos Aires (especially about its music!). How did it get you started as musicians?

Martin: Buenos Aires is home of the Tango, which is totally the opposite of what Seis Cuerdas is about. I would say that our hometown had nothing to do with the music we play — don’t get me wrong, it’s an amazing and beautiful city with a lot of history and music — but we were always a little apart from its culture in terms of music.

I was 16 when i picked up a guitar for the first time and my brother Ezequiel was 11, we were pretty much inspired by bands like Iron Maiden, Van Halen, Queen and AC/DC to be honest with you — then we heard about a flamenco guitar player called Paco De Lucia and we got into flamenco.

Ezequiel: Think about this: Seis Cuerdas started in 2001, what Martin is telling you happened around 1986 or 87, so Seis Cuerdas’ style is the consequence of many years playing rock and metal.

What brought you to LA (and later, Santa Monica)?

Ezequiel: We had a band at the time and we wanted to try our luck in LA, so we all moved in 2001 from Buenos Aires, Argentina, but things didn’t work out very well and we ended up breaking up the band — that’s when Seis Cuerdas started.

Martin: We’d heard about Santa Monica because a friend was playing there with his band Los Pinguos and he told me to try out. We did and we’ve been playing there since then.

What are your goals as musicians, and what keeps you going as guitarists?

Martin: Our only goal is to be able to keep doing what we are doing, which is playing music. Everything else from touring the globe to making millions is just a consequence; we don’t see that as a goal.

Ezequiel: We are extremely grateful for what this country has been giving us since we moved in 2001. There is no better feeling than playing your music and making people happy, and we see that every time we play, so we couldn’t ask for more.

Martin: Playing guitar is, as cliche as it may sound, a way to express yourself. We don’t do it to be cool or hook up with chicks; we don’t follow a trend; we don’t give a rat’s ass about whats selling or not, about whats played on the radio or what some magazine tells you its good or not. We just write music and use guitars so people can hear it.

What are some of the most exciting things that have happened to you as musicians?

Ezequiel: Hmmmm, so many things but I would say going on tour in Israel was one of the most exciting things.

Martin: Putting together Seis Cuerdas and being able to play with my brother.

What advice would you give to aspiring young musicians like me?

Martin: No matter what instrument you play, just find your own sound, learn different styles and practice a lot…

Ezequiel: Be true to yourself, if you are gonna do it, do it for the right reasons.

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: El Padrino/Volumen IV/Seis Cuerdas (there’s a quote from Black Orpheus in here!)