Where The Dark And The Light Folks Meet: Race and The Mythology, Politics, And Business of Jazz” by Randall Sandke (Scarecrow Press)

Randall Sandke’s book may have a mouthful of a title, but it very succinctly describes what the book is all about. In the space of 275 pages (counting the index), Sandke essentially tells us that everything (well, very many things) we’ve been taught about jazz history is bunk. Of course, he states it more elegantly than that, but the overall effect is that of pure revisionism.

The thing is, unlike so many revisionist histories that try to make their points by distorting the facts, “Where The Dark and The Light Folks Meet:” (the line comes from an early lyric to Spencer Williams’ 1926 song “Basin Street Blues”, generally altered in recorded versions) supplies documented evidence that many significant facets of jazz history have been constructed largely out of unwarranted assumptions, distorted half-truths, and downright, agenda-serving lies. To say this book has made many readers - particularly those with said agendas - uncomfortable would be an understatement. But his research seems to have been quite exhaustive, the only questions seeming to be whether his own subjective interpretations are as biased as the histories he has challenged.

Judging by the evidence presented herein, I would be inclined to state without fear of contradiction that this book is a very valuable corrective. If nothing else, it pokes enormous holes in long-held theories. While it cannot be said that, in the process, Sandke has definitively re-written the history of jazz, his is a very significant step in the right direction. Now that we know what the problems areas are, future historians will have to begin again or be guilty of ignoring some very harsh realities.

Sandke argues that the most significant agendas historians have tried to impress upon the music-loving public involve matters of race. While he does not deny that jazz at its very beginning came out of the African-American experience, he blows the whistle on those historians and popular observers (he is quick to name Wynton Marsalis, among others) for whom jazz is ONLY an African-American phenomenon, for whom white musicians have been treated as a sort of abomination, those awful power-mad white folks who have stolen the black man’s music and thereby profited heavily from its exploitation. Among many other exploded fallacies. Sandke shows how white musicians have been a part of the jazz scene since its earliest days in New Orleans, often in a collaborative setting. In a later chapter, he goes a very provocative step further - perhaps a bit too far for some readers - by arguing that so many contributors to early jazz were Creole (mixed French and black) that they could just easily be called “white” as well as “black” in terms of the percentage of racial heritage (bloodlines) they possessed. But America has never seen mixed-race people in that way

As for the white man profiting from the black man’s creative innovations, Sandke demonstrates through specific facts and figures that the great majority of white jazz musicians have not become rich by playing the music they love. Indeed, many black jazz musicians (again, names are named, figures are quoted) have made considerably more money than their white counterparts. I would like to think that musical contributions and their worth to our artistic well-being are not to be judged purely by who makes the most money and who has had to struggle economically. But the fact is, the accusations against white jazz musicians need to be challenged when they are incorrect. And Sandke is up to said challenge.

Sandke is not only out to correct misinterpretations, misconceptions, and (for that matter) lies regarding early jazz. He takes on the present-day ruling clique (again, read “Wynton Marsalis” and his like-minded followers), who feel it is no longer necessary for jazz to be an innovative, creative art form, that it is enough to pay homage to those artists (and their concepts) who were responsible for the jazz innovations of the past. My question is - and this is me asking, with only a partial paraphrase of what I believe to be Sandke’s intent here - If innovation is not part of the ongoing tradition of jazz, then why do we even bother to honor those innovators of the past by reproducing their music? Why do we not just listen to their records instead of spending large amounts of money to hear jazz repertory companies re-tread older music that has already been done to perfection? And if we should agree that the innovations of Armstrong, Ellington et. al. were once so important that we still pay homage to them, why is it considered somehow wrong to follow in their footsteps by continuing to expand - as they did - beyond the music which preceded them, by being innovative, fresh, exciting, and new? It is precisely because Armstrong and Ellington were innovative in their time that we honor them. Do not current-day musicians also have the right to be equally innovative, if it’s in them to do so? Perhaps I’m misinterpreting Sandke, perhaps he and I are both misinterpreting the intent of the Marsalis Mob, but there are very some skilled musicians who are cheating us of the full measure of their talents by downplaying the role of creativity on the contemporary jazz scene. And in many cases, these are the people who get the grants and the media exposure.

There’s much, much more here, chapter after chapter, sacred cow after sacred cow, butchered, dissected, left lying on the road. What we are left with is the feeling that jazz history as it has been written and as it is taught in History of Jazz courses in colleges and universities across America isn’t history after all. It is, as the subtitle declares, jazz mythology. And most of the discussion has been poisoned in the past by being diverted away from the main topic by biased discussions concerning race, politics, and business.

This is not a quick, easy read. Goodness knows, it took me several months to read it, with long breaks between chapters while I considered carefully what I read. There is much to absorb, much to ponder, much to attempt to rebut if one can. By no means have we heard the last of this debate. There will be anti-Sandke books, I don’t doubt, and books defending his stance as well. Or perhaps the Jazz History Powers That Be will simply sweep Sandke’s concepts under the carpet. But once ideas are out there, they’re difficult to suppress.

If jazz history means anything at all to you, you MUST read this book.

“Jazz Matters: Sound, Place, And Time Since Bebop” by David Ake (University of California Press)

Sometimes it seems as if there must be no need to write yet another jazz book. One might think every aspect of the music’s glorious past, somewhat shaky present, and unforeseeable future must have covered in dozens of tomes by now. But then, along comes a fresh, thoughtful, carefully reasoned book discussing topics that have not been done to death, and one realizes that there may be more left to say on this heavily analyzed musical genre. “Jazz Matters” is one such book.

The first thing that needs to be pointed out is that author David Ake is a musician, critic, and University of Nevada, Reno professor. Having worn all these hats (though not at the same institution), I know all too well how often people performing any one of these roles feel they must grind axes in public. I don’t get that feeling when reading Ake’s collection of essays. He has points to make, certainly, but he’s willing to entertain other people’s ideas, to consider alternate perspectives, even to enter controversial subject areas with an air of objectivity. What’s more, he doesn’t write in the dry, academic, jargon-filled manner which mars many critical books published by University Presses (an area of the publishing industry I am only too happy to support, mind you). You can not only read these essays and understand them, you can actually enjoy the process. Refreshing, to say the least.

But what impresses me the most is that he has actually found new things to write about. To be sure, basing a 17-page essay on the creak of a piano bench (that’s what it sounds like to me; Ake is more careful about speculating on the source of the sound) for one brief moment during a half-century-old Miles Davis LP would be considered by many to be epitome of esoteric criticism. But it leads him to cogitate over such things as the way we listen to the sounds of jazz; what constitutes acceptable sounds and what might be interpreted as “mistakes” in an artform built around spontaneity; whether recordings should represent themselves as artifacts that capture the sounds a musician would produce during a live performance. And it all makes sense as you read it, whether you necessarily come to the same conclusions as David Ake or not.

The opening essay (not counting a well-considered introduction, which sets the tone for what’s to come) promises to be much more arcane that it actually is. His thought is that John Coltrane assumed three subjective personas during the course of his career - a “being” subjectivity, a ”becoming” subjectivity, and a “transcendent” one. Due to time constraints - and because I don’t feel the need to reproduce Ake’s ideas in this space - I will let you find out on your own what this all means. But once again, it makes a great deal of sense when you read it, and it dovetails with my own thinking about how Trane’s music evolved over the the years. The author’s conclusions are readily audible in the music, though I’ve never seen anyone express these ideas with such clarity as Professor Ake does.

The third essay is about what Ake terms the “carnivalesque” elements that are too rarely encountered in contemporary jazz, elements that he feels can be found in the music of the New York ensemble Sex Mob. Essentially, Ake feels there is too much of a premium placed on jazz musicians being dead-serious all the time, that the sense of boisterous fun that could frequently be found in jazz of earlier eras has been lost in the rush to glorify jazz as a ”serious artform”, glorified as “America’s classical music” in the words of the late and beloved Billy Taylor. I have to confess that the music of Sex Mob has never particularly excited me. Still, the grim visages and austere approach of so many self-important modern jazz artists does seem to leave their music with less emotional content and perhaps less audience appeal than need be the case. Laugh all you wish at the Original Dixieland Jazz Band (my example, not one from the book), but their loud, informal, high-spirited music was entertaining fun, easily enjoyable by anyone attuned to the popular styles of the era surrounding the First World War. To be sure, there is considerable artistic validity in serious, straight-faced jazz, but why can’t there occasionally be a sense of “play” in the “playing” of jazz as well? I can almost hear the grumbles of certain self-appointed taste-makers who might read this essay.

Another concept that never crossed my mind - though as someone who is noted as much for his love of folk and traditional country music as jazz, I have certainly noticed the rural influence in certain post-bop artists - is posited in an essay focusing on Keith Jarrett and Pat Metheny. Ake points out how jazz has always been associated with The City, whether that city be New Orleans, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles - the list goes on. It has come to be regarded as a sophisticated response to certain conditions and facets of urban living. But what Jarrett and Metheny (and others of their ECM label-mates) have done, in somewhat related, but essentially independent ways, was to bring a sense of the pastoral to jazz, taking their music out of the strict city environment by utilizing certain elements of folk-rooted musical approaches, in a manner which might be tabbed as “Americana”-related. This essay relies somewhat on musicological analysis, tempered with aesthetic effects, but once again may be read without a Music Theory text at one’s side. It might have been interesting had Ake considered the subject of Western Swing - the first fusion of urban jazz with country sensibilities - in this essay, but since his major concern is, as the book’s subtitle clearly indicates, jazz “since bebop”, and Western Swing’s most creative period (I feel) was before World War II, it was probably considered less-than-relevant.

Ake’s essay “Rethinking Jazz Education” is on a subject close to his heart, and certainly one I can identify with myself. As a Music History professor, many of whose students are involved with the SUNY Fredonia jazz program - indeed my office is directly across from that of the head of the jazz program - I get to witness Jazz Education close-up on a near-daily basis. (I have also served as Faculty Co-Advisor of the Fredonia Jazz Ensemble and have written liner notes for a couple of their albums.) Among the arguments discussed by Ake is the often-heard grumble that in former times, musicians learned from other, more experienced veteran musicians in clubs, on the scene, face-to-face, often on the job itself. There was less of the current-day majoring in classical music, being trained to play art-music scores, and receiving training in jazz primarily in reading-oriented big bands in an academic setting, the accepted method (or at least AN accepted way) of teaching jazz in many institutions. The learn-by-doing method is thought by many non-academic musicians to result in a jazz performer who is potentially freer to express oneself through improvisation, a tendency which some feel to be stifled by academic training. And I can understand that argument when I hear some students struggling through attempts at improvised solos. But I also hear other students who are well on their way to becoming fine jazz artists, not simply technically, but in terms of creative improvisation as well. As with everything else on campus, the key is the individual student, the effort they put into it, the background they bring into the program, the degree of self-motivation they have to break free of their training and their schooled technique. (And I would argue that schooled technique is very important to future employment in music; not everyone will get to play small-combo gigs as their main source of income). There are many options and many opinions pro and con to learning to play jazz in an academic setting, and few of them lead to instant, one-size-fits-all answers. I would recommend anyone involved in the field to read and carefully consider what Ake has to say on this topic, which goes well beyond the few generalities I offer here.

I personally find the final essay to be the weakest in the collection. In it, Ake discusses the question of the “American-ness” of jazz, by looking at several factors - origins, the spread of jazz to Europe beginning in 1919, the levels of skill and understanding of European jazz artists of earlier eras vis-a-vis more recent European musicians, the status of expatriate Americans in Europe in the bop and free-jazz eras (where they were often treated as Conquering Heroes), and interviews with American-born musicians currently residing and working in Paris. Jazz is a music of African-American origin, and many people still believe African-American jazz musicians to have a special sense of the music. Nevertheless, Europe has developed its own styles of jazz, less dependent on African-American roots, often betraying the influences of developments in European classical/art music. Has jazz ceased to be a solely American artform? If so, how does this effect the status of Americans working in Europe? These are all fascinating questions. Yet somehow, I don’t feel Ake has devoted enough space to come to definitive conclusions, if any such conclusions can indeed be made. I would like to see him take on this subject in a longer format, preferably a book-length treatment which would delve more fully into each of the topics addressed in this essay.

But even in his one near-failure, David Ake provides much food for thought and fresh perspectives. I think that’s what I enjoy most about this book. It does not merely rehash long-exhausted ideas, but opens up the possibility that there is much more to be said about jazz, even in the 21st century. And if jazz criticism can remain healthy, jazz itself should be able to remain healthy, too. And that’s good news in our increasingly commodified musical world.

“The Fabulous George Lewis Band: The Inside Story” by Barry Martyn with Nick Gagliano (Burgundy Street Press)

Clarinetist/bandleader George Lewis (1900-1968) has long been considered one of the great iconic figures of traditional New Orleans jazz. As such, the telling of any portion of his story by someone who knew and worked with him represents a significant contribution to the storehouse of jazz knowledge.

It helps to keep in mind that this characterization, “traditional” New Orleans jazz, has a number of levels of meaning. To many people, for example, the Dukes of Dixieland played “traditional” N.O. jazz in the 1950’s, even though they were a few generations removed from the origins of the music, and were influenced by swing and other post-N.O. developments. One might easily argue that even King Oliver in 1923 represented a stylistic modernization over the “original” New Orleans style. Truth be told, we don’t really know what the earliest New Orleans jazz styles sounded like, since no one bothered to document them while they were happening. What we can say, however, is that the music of George Lewis and his band of the 1940’s and 50’s exemplifies what we believe to be one of the oldest, most purely “authentic” early New Orleans jazz styles to be documented, despite the fact that he was most likely born after the music’s ultimate origins, and was not recorded until the 1940’s. This alone would make the George Lewis Band worthy of study.

Unfortunately, this book is not the definitive telling of George Lewis’ story, as it covers only one period of his life and, for that matter, only one portion - albeit a very crucial one - of the George Lewis Band’s existence. This is the period when Lewis - who had returned to New Orleans and what appeared to be a resumption of his long obscurity, after enjoying a brief glimpse of fame playing with trumpeter Bunk Johnson in the early/mid 1940’s - was trying to establish a new dance band in the traditional N.O. style. He had gathered together such equally unknown, yet eventually renowned musicians as Big Jim Robinson, Lawrence Marrero, Slow Drag Pavageau, among others, with hopes of finding more work as a performer at local dances and clubs. He approached a young, articulate, recent college graduate, Nick Gagliano, about helping the band find work. Gagliano did just that, sending Lewis on his way to relative stardom on the traditional jazz scene of the 1950’s. This book is as much about Gagliano and his relationship to the musicians as it is about the band itself.

There is much to chew on here. English-born drummer/bandleader/historian Barry Martyn employs an interview format to elicit thoughts from Gagliano (who is now in his 80’s) on the nature of jazz tradition, the crucial influence of New Orleans’ unusual racial atmosphere on both the musical life and everyday life of New Orleans, the role of the manager in establishing an artist’s reputation, and many other topics germane to the career of George Lewis, but also to the history of New Orleans music as a whole. Martyn asks trenchant questions, Gagliano answers them, and the results are presented unedited.

And therein lies the book’s biggest problem. The fact that the transcripts are unedited eliminate the question of whether Gagliano’s thoughts have been subjected to editorial interpretation. That’s good. But - and this is a big but - every hesitation, every partial sentence, every tangent and diversion, every bit of personal conversation that should have been kept personal, every repeated question, are all here, slowing down the narrative, making it read rather more awkwardly than it needed to. A bit of judicious editing, retaining the integrity of the interview, but rendering it more readable, would have been welcome. What’s more, there are details Gagliano simply doesn’t recall. The “I don’t knows” and “I can’t remembers” begin to pile up once he nears the part of the story where the careers of Lewis and his band are taken over by another manager. (Gagliano went back to school to get his law degree, and could no longer devote time to his musical hobby.) The overall effect is that a book with the potential to attract more widespread attention will now appeal primarily to scholars of the music and other people with a vested interest in learning more about the New Orleans scene of the pre-Civil Rights” period.

Adding interest to the book, in any event, are an interview with a white man named John Chaffe, who took banjo lessons from Lawrence Marrero, further illuminating the stultifying role of race in New Orleans in the 1950’s, and a wonderful reminiscence by musician-turned-historian Samuel Charters. The book comes packaged with a CD of previously unissued live recordings by the George Lewis Band, recorded in Ohio in 1952-53, along with taped interviews from 1953, which add considerably to the book’s significance.

The book is distributed by LSU Press, another fine example of a University Press making available a book slanted toward a specialist market that is grossly under-served by commercial publishers.

“Saxophone Colossus: A Portrait of Sonny Rollins” by John Abbott and Bob Blumenthal (Abrams)

There have been a great many tributes in celebration of Theodore Walter Rollins’ 80th birthday this year, but few may prove to hold as much permanent value as this absolutely gorgeous book.

There are relatively few jazz musicians whose importance to the world at large is so great as to justify the publication of a photographic coffee-table art book. What’s more, there are very few photographers who have devoted as much time and skill to documenting an individual jazz musician as John Abbott has with Sonny Rollins. When you couple dozens of beautifully composed, shot, and printed photographs with Bob Blumenthal’s eminently readable, consistently insightful, and thoughtfully conceived series of essays on Rollins, the result is a book to peruse and to treasure.

Sonny Rollins is indeed a colossus of the tenor saxophone, but jazz-astute readers will have already made the connection to Rollins’ classic 1956 quartet LP, “Saxophone Colossus.” Blumenthal has structured his text after the album, with each chapter/essay being thematically inspired by one of the five tracks on the LP.

Thus, chapter 1 of the book is entitled “St. Thomas”, a tune which at one time was credited to Rollins, but which he readily acknowledged many years ago was an adaptation from a Caribbean tune, meant to represent his family ties to the Virgin Islands and Haiti. Blumenthal uses the tune as an example of Rollins’ “assertive” approach to rhythm. Though he first recorded with singer Babs Gonzalez in 1949 while still a teenager, It was Rollins’ assertiveness which attracted attention while playing with Miles Davis in 1951. In an era in which the initial fire of bebop was mellowing down to the cool approach introduced by Davis in 1948, it was Rollins who, along with such musicians as Horace Silver and Art Blakey, opened the door for the more aggressive “hard bop” sound which eventually established itself as the jazz mainstream for many years to come.

Though Rollins’ surprisingly names Fats Waller as his earliest influence, Chapter 2, “You Don’t Know What Love Is”, delves into the far greater impact Coleman Hawkins had on Rollins’ big tone and improvisational choices. (Secondary influences included Ben Webster, Don Byas, and Lester Young.) Blumenthal notes also that Hawkins was the first jazz musician to achieve and maintain a high level of popularity without having to resort to the trappings of show-biz, thus acting as the role model for all subsequent jazzmen who saw themselves as dignified, serious artists, rather then entertainers. By recording the pop ballad “You Don’t Know What Love Is”, Rollins was in a sense showing the effect of Hawkins, jazz balladeer extraordinaire, on musicians whose primary concern was their music, rather than catering to the whims of a fickle audience.

Chapter 3, “Strode Rose”, leads Blumenthal to consider “Saxophone Colossus” as a “well-made jazz recording.” Due to the relative lack of sales potential, many of the jazz LP’s of the 1950’s were ill-rehearsed blowing sessions. Musicians who did not play together regularly were thrown into a studio for three hours, often without prior rehearsal. A series of tunes and/or chord sequences (often “borrowed” from other tunes) was agreed upon, and the tape started rolling. Recording sessions were a chance to pick up some quick money by blowing extended improvisations without a great deal of forethought. It’s a small miracle that so many of these blowing sessions are still entertaining, and indeed strike many people (such as myself) as far more listenable than over-produced, carefully arranged, yet bloodless modern recordings. Certainly, Rollins played on his share of blowing sessions. Still, “Strode Rode” stands apart from the average tune on this sort of album in that it IS, like so many of Rollins’ originals, actually “original”, i.e., a fully-realized, carefully considered composition. Blumenthal’s analysis of the tune is as fascinating as it is effective.

In chapter 4, “Moritat” (the original U.S. title, shortened from the German, for the Kurt Weill song better known as “Mack the Knife”), Blumenthal tells us that Rollins chose to record the piece out of personal preference, rather than as a nod to the commercial market. Indeed, he points out that Rollins has often chosen to record tunes that many other musicians of his caliber would consider trivial, simply because he likes them. He also credits Rollins’ frequent quotations of well-known melodies within his improvisations to his sense of humor, as well as to their “suggestive and melodic shapes.”

Chapter 5, “Blue 7”, is built around a tune that was instantly composed (improvised) on the spot by a combo that existed solely for a three-hour recording session. However, it has transcended its blowing session origins to become a cohesive, fully unified jazz classic. Blumenthal connects “Blue 7” to the subsequent “Freedom Suite”, which thus allows him to get into a discussion of Rollins’ political views, as expressed in his music. He also talks about Rollins’ infamous unannounced sabbaticals, during which he spent his time practicing and reflecting on both his music and his life.

There is much to ruminate on in Blumenthal’s text. But despite my emphasis on the musical aspects of the book, I must once again commend John Abbott for his photos, which dominate the book as a whole. He has an exceptional eye for color coordination (a sense I am sorely lacking, which is why I am so impressed when I see the work of someone who has mastered color). He also has a finely developed sense of line, posing the saxophone as carefully as he poses Rollins himself in the studio portraits. He also is skilled at capturing facial expressions (even at a sideways glance) in the live-performance shots.

The photographs, the text, and of course the man and the music under consideration all combine to make this an exceptional book of its kind. Highly recommended.