[JPL] REFLECTIONS ON JAZZ TODAY By Archie Hobson

[Jazz Promo Services]

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REFLECTIONS ON JAZZ TODAY

By Archie Hobson (features at santiagotimes.cl)
(December 3, 2006) (Archie Hobson, whose father, Wilder Hobson, wrote the
first American book on jazz, AMERICAN JAZZ MUSIC (1939), shares his father¹s
passion and talent for putting it into words. Here, his thoughts after
hearing a November 17th concert at Flushing Town Hall, Queens, New York.)

What¹s left of jazz has become a manner. But what a manner!
I don¹t mean the institutional stuff. Those woods‹that is, the schools of
music and their related programs‹are full of musicians: better musicians
than jazz ever had before. They can play anything, in any key you pick, at
the tempo you pick, on the instrument you pick. They can play it backwards.

But what they lack‹I have not, of course, heard all of them, or even a large
number of them, but I have now heard enough to know that the more I hear the
more I agree with my original reading‹is a voice. The kind of voice you hear
and after five seconds say, ³That¹s Lockjaw Davis.² Or Miles Davis; or Wild
Bill Davis; or Wild Bill Davison.

It¹s getting to the point, though, where voices are reduced to manners.
Clark Terry was at Flushing Town Hall Friday night, speaking through a night
sky­blue flügelhorn. All honor to this man at 85; but what he says is
measured now. The whole Clark Terry voice has been distilled, in the alembic
of age and experience, work and talent‹not to forget humor‹into notes.
Single notes, sometimes. Imagine being able to play one note and be known.
Now, I had come to hear Terry and collaborators, so I wasn¹t identifying him
this way; but I wouldn¹t have been surprised to find it was he, had I been
led blindfold to the place.

Billy Taylor was there too, the same age and over on the left. You could see
and hear that his hands still move right along the keyboard. It must be
easier when you don¹t have embouchure to deal with; pianists, like drummers,
live longer than trumpeters and saxophonists, because they get more
exercise. This is just a theory of mine. Billy Taylor, of course, compared
with a trumpeter or saxophonist, works with the disadvantage that making one
note on a piano identify the player may not be possible. But he comes pretty
damn close. And if you¹re talking about three or four notes, his placement,
as well as his touch, is so distinctive you find yourself imagining being
led into his presence in a blindfold, too.

The rest of the band were younger: Jimmy Heath, the leader and saxophonist,
has just turned 80. The others‹the trombonist Benny Powell; Earl May, the
bassist; and Heath¹s brother Albert (Tootie) Heath, on drums‹are in their
70s. These six men possess several thousand years of playing experience,
much of it with each other. You looked up and saw Taylor grinning at May
(Jimmy Heath introduced him as ³Earl November²), and you remembered that
they were playing together, no doubt grinning, during the Truman
administration. 

That is a long time to have been taking care of business, and it seems
appropriate it started with Harry‹who was pretty good at taking care of
business himself‹because he came from Kansas City. In fact, the band opened
the first set with ³Jumping at the Woodside,² which is pure Kansas City,
even if the reference was to Woodside, Queens. The borough may, in fact, be
the Kansas City of New York. They weren¹t playing bop here on Friday, even
if all hands had worked through that period; they were playing from the jazz
heartland, be that in Kansas City or in Queens. It may even be in Pine
Bluff, Arkansas. The last, which is where Clark Terry now holds a faculty
post, seemed a hip toy in Jimmy Heath¹s remarks throughout the evening.
These are city boys (Terry: St. Louis; Heath: Philadelphia), but the
off-the-circuit South is homeland now, too.

A powerful young singer named Denise Thymes (I see it spelled ³Thimes² also,
but whatever, time is of the essence) came out and performed several
numbers, blending Ella Fitzgerald with a more obvious intimacy with the
church. The crowd hooted with pleasure, and with reason, although their
response did serve to show, once again, that while jazz is a players¹ music,
its singers have always done better by the non-playing audience.