FROM MLK TO BHO

"BBC World News America has unearthed a fascinating clip of Dr Martin Luther King speaking to the BBC's Bob McKenzie in 1964 in which Dr King predicts an African-American president 'in less than 40 years.'"

Watch here.

Interesting timing. Exactly 40 years from that interview would have been 2004, and then we couldn't even elect a competent white candidate. Just four years ago MLK's prediction would have seemed far too optimistic, so it is almost inconceivable that we could have come to this point so soon without having endured the political/cultural/moral fatigue of the last four years.

Of course it was in 2004 that John Kerry introduced Barack Obama to the nation, but it was ultimately the failed Presidency of George W. Bush that finally convinced enough of us that it was time to try something different.

The fantastic thing about all of this is that it's not exclusively the result of a racial struggle. As Congressman John Lewis pointed out on one of the cable news shows yesterday, Obama's election is evidence of the Civil Rights Movement being finally absorbed into a wider, more universal movement for justice and human rights. I'm not one of those who would assert that this means we've become a post-racial society (post-racist would be fine enough), but it certainly puts us one step closer to getting there.

And we can hope that our 44th President will be a leader who, like Dr. King, calls for all of us to live up to our better nature. He's certainly off to a good start...

EL SEGUNDO, THE SECOND

Here is the second of three brief video clips from a late summer session at Lynn Johnston's place in El Segundo. Vinny Golia on soprano sax, Lynn on bari, Lisa Mezzacappa on bass, Vijay Anderson on drums, yours truly on trumpet. Fun stuff:

Thanks to Vijay for posting these. Also check part one, and part three (in which Lynn Johnston gets the sheng all up in it)...

READING AND WRITING

A little late with this, but here are a couple of nice year-end reviews for Stratostrophic. Thanks to Nate Dorward, a longtime supporter of the various Empty Cage projects, for including us among the Top Ten "Destination Out" CDs of 2008 at the Canadian music rag Exclaim!:

"Hard to believe such rich, multilayered narratives could be constructed out of the sparse two horns, bass and drums format popularized by Ornette Coleman. Trumpeter Kris Tiner has a beautifully clear swing-to-freebop sound and a gift for phrases that hang provocatively in the air. He’s got a perfect partner in Jason Mears’ lemony alto, and the spiralling, witty extremity of their counterpoint rivals the Zorn/Douglas interplay in Masada. Ivan Johnson and Paul Kikuchi have blossomed into one of the supplest rhythm sections around: rather than locking in together, they pull away from each other in order to let these ultra-elastic grooves breathe."

And here's a snip from one by Italian composer/improviser/writer Massimo Ricci:

"When an ensemble needs not to recur to metaphoric paraphernalia and short-lived tricks, we immediately realize that the direction is right. Quite often during the playback I found myself thinking of charts made of very long lines and exploded views, music leading to places where expectations are met without fretfulness and transitions are clearly visible. This sense of structural intelligibility, in conjunction with an evident respect for tradition, is the most considerable attribute of the album."

It's a rare honor when a writer actually takes the time to parse beyond the usual facile comparisons (i.e. "this group sounds just like Ornette Coleman's quartet because the instrumentation is the same..." etc.) and actually listen to determine what's happening structurally, organizationally, and aesthetically within the compositions. Especially since we've never really been a "free jazz" group per se; the compositions - how they evolve both in a performance and over time - are central to what we've been up to for the past 6+ years.

Anyway, both Nate and Massimo have written some of the most perceptive and enthusiastic reviews of our previous projects, and beyond the obvious PR value, feedback like this is always appreciated. Thanks again, guys.

WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?

Forty-five minutes sifting through the archives at CRAP JAZZ COVERS was enough to confirm my long-held suspicion that the jazz fusion movement was responsible for THE absolute WORST assortment of album cover art in history...

Ahhh, egregious displays of chest hair, indecent acts with musical instruments, cutesy (freaky?) nods to grocery store commerce and pop iconography, and poorly rendered '80s neon surrealism... and there's plenty more where that came from. The commentary on some of these is delightfully twisted, but watch yourself: nothing is sacred...

FREDDIE SHREDS SKYLARK

Everybody's linking to their favorite Freddie Hubbard videos on YouTube in the last couple days. Why not a few more? There are so many good ones - surely proof positive of his lasting influence...

Here he is with the Jazz Messengers in 1963, one of the best incarnations of that band, playing one of my favorite ballads, "Skylark". Young musicians take note - a ballad is not an opportunity to just tear shit up, even if you can... you still have to Play. The. Melody. And Freddie could certainly play a melody to break your heart, even as he was tearing everything else to shreds:

Speaking of "shreds", this other thing I just found... they had to do it to Freddie sooner or later:

(Maybe the satire is rather tasteless considering Freddie's recent chops problems, but if you're familiar with the actual clip you know that he really is tearing it up at the Vanguard...)

Gotta spread the love around though, here's one more for good measure:

I think it's Do The Math that calls this stuff "The New Folk Art" - couldn't agree more...

(I haven't had time to sit down with DTM's Wynton-Fest yet, although I'm looking forward to it. I suspect the video above will be even more hilarious afterward...)

THOUGHTS ON FREDDIE

Like a lot of young trumpeters, I was completely spellbound the first time I heard Freddie Hubbard play. He did things on the trumpet that you're just not supposed to be able to do - piano licks, saxophone licks, Coltrane licks! But unlike many musicians who are known for their chops (and many trumpet players who count themselves among his legion of imitators), Freddie wasn't about displaying all of that virtuosity for its own sake. Freddie was no showoff; he was an extraordinarily sensitive and soulful musician who was able to make the whole group sound better, no matter the context. He could play it heartbreakingly lyrical, or bluesy and greasy, or bubbly and playful, or fiercely and mercilessly burning, whatever the music required.

Monster trumpeter he most certainly was, but it was his legendary versatility that was truly scary. Few others covered as much ground in the 60s-70s, from all those mainstream Blue Note dates to some of the most powerful statements of the avant-garde to full-on electric jazz-funk and fusion. As dazzling as those famous hard bop sides are, and as funky as some of that later, post-Red Clay CTI stuff is, the records that continue to knock me out are the more open things he played on in the mid-60s. For a young trumpet player becoming interested in exploring the freer forms of jazz, Freddie's discography pretty much showed the way. Freddie Hubbard was a gateway drug!

As a sideman on Eric Dolphy's Out To Lunch and Sonny Rollins' East Broadway Run Down in particular, he carved out a powerful role for the trumpet in avant-garde jazz. Don Cherry had already opened the door, but Freddie came along and busted the whole wall down. Like Roy Eldridge, Dizzy Gillespie and Clifford Brown before him, Freddie showed that the trumpet was still contemporary, still relevant, and still capable of holding its own with all the saxophone players. He expanded the language and raised the bar, and he made it clear that the instrument wasn't about to be eclipsed by all the saxophonic fire of the New Thing.

Freddie had that rare combination of tremendous chops + tremendous spirit. I think I can speak for many trumpet players here: Freddie Hubbard is our Coltrane. Like Coltrane, much of Freddie's music represents the highest possible creative manifestation of instrumental virtuosity. When he was at his best, his technical mastery was entirely servile to his supreme artistic sensibility, demonstrating by example that true freedom didn't happen by simply breaking rules, but by developing a strong command of one's instrument coupled with a firm sense of tradition and an ability to fully translate personality to sound, breaking through the tradition rather than breaking from it.

He will be missed, but his music certainly won't - it remains as fresh and vital as when it was first laid down, perhaps even more so.

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Other reflections...

Taylor Ho Bynum

Dave Douglas

Greg Burk

David Liebman (scroll down)

Darcy James Argue (+ more links)