Discovering Jazz

Latest Episodes:

Episode 76: An Introduction to Jazz (with Jan Randall) Sep 10, 2019

Show notes

According to Wikipedia, Jan Randall, a Canadian composer, pianist, and arranger, has made a career of composing soundtracks for films, theatre, radio, and television. He combines playing by ear with his formal classical and jazz training. He is now teaching an Introduction to Jazz course at the University of Victoria.

For this week’s program, Jan talks about that course, playing some of the music he plays in order to help everybody expand their minds. And he expanded mine! Never before had I thought about jazz’s “Chopin roots”.

Enjoy Jan’s inspiring commentary, his positive energy, and some great music! From Louis Armstrong, through Art Tatum, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Joe Pass & Herb Ellis, and up to The Yellow Jackets. Plus one very fine original Jan Randall composition, and he demonstrates his creative process in putting it together.

Episode 75, More Musical Selections inspired by Critics Poll Sep 03, 2019

Show notes

This week, just a few jazz artists by whose name I put a check mark as I went through Downbeat Magazine’s 2019 Critics Poll.

As a followup from last week’s podcast on internationally recognized Canadian jazz musicians, I play a track by Vancouver cellist Peggy Lee and one by B.C. violinist Jesse Zubot.

I start the program with this year’s selection for the Jazz Hall of Fame—Nina Simone.

Then, staying with veterans, 93 year old ‘snap crackle’ drummer, Roy Haynes is still going strong. I play a 1986 recording he made of Charlie Parker’s “Bigfoot”.

The number 1 trombonist—by a longshot—is Steve Turre, and here he plays with pianist Kenny Barron, bassist Ron Carter, and drummer Jimmy Cobb plus Javon Jackson on tenor sax.

Robert Glasper has been a name that gets bandied about a lot, partly because of his foray into hip-hop and his role on Kendrick Lamar’s “To Pimp a Butterfly”. Here he employs Bilal and Jasmine Sullivan as guests.

Ahmad Jamal—probably still my all time favourite jazz pianist—plays a fine rendition of a gospel tune from his latest album from 2016. Another veteran still going strong.

This is followed (an interesting transition, don’t you think?) with the duo of Chris Thile on mandolin and pianist Brad Meldhau.

Bob Dorough’s last album (But for Now), even though he only died last year, made the Critics list for “Historical album”. Weird. But it was re-released, so I guess that counts.

I end with a British group with lots of percussion and great sax playing by Shabaka Hutchings—Sons of Kemet.

Episode 74, Canadian artists on Downbeat’s 67th Critic’s Poll. Aug 27, 2019

Show notes

Every year 150 or so critics rank what they consider to be the top jazz artists in 63 categories, and this is presented in the August issue of Downbeat magazine.

Sometimes Canadian jazz musicians are represented. This year I found 9 who I knew to have Canadian roots. I’m sure there are more but I don’t know that they are Canadian. If you find some I’ve missed, please advise me through my “Discovering Jazz” facebook page.

I play a track from seven Canadian artists, and with one of them, I even play two tracks. And, interestingly, 4 of the 7 musicians are female.

If you like this program, please review and rate it on the itunes site.

-Larry

Archives: Episode 46, Stolen Chord Sequences (Jazz Contrafacts) Aug 20, 2019

Show notes

Here is another favourite episode of mine that I thought would be more popular than it was. Originally posted last November, this is all about new melodies that were written over chord sequences of another tune, and then became famous.

Did you know, for example that 46 jazz tunes are listed in wikipedia as using the chords to “I Got Rhythm”? It’s so common that in a jazz jam it’s not unusual for somebody to simply call out “rhythm changes”. And everybody knows what they mean.

Another one is Fats Waller’s Honeysuckle Rose—and one very famous jazz tune, Charlie Parker’s “Scrapple From the Apple” uses the changes to both Honeysuckle Rose AND I Got Rhythm, one in the chorus and the other in the bridge (middle part).

Another famous Charlie Parker tune, Donna Lee, is taken from an old standard called Indiana, and on this program I start out by playing both of those tunes so you can see how Donna Lee re-adapted that sequence. Quite brilliant, actually.

Then there is Irving Berlin’s “Blue Skies”—and here I play two versions of it, by two amazing pianists. One is the great Art Tatum, and the other is a man who melded jazz, folk, popular, and classical into something truly masterful That’s Don Shirley, who was portrayed in last year’s Academy Award winning film, Green Book. And the contrafact? It’s a Thelonious Monk tune. You’ll hear a version of it by Monk himself with a vocal by Jon Hendricks.

You’ll also hear Tony Bennett, Miles Davis and Sonny Rollins, a bit of Charles Mingus, Sarah Vaughan, and Toronto’s Mike Murley & David Occhipinti with “Nest of the Loon”. (Guess which tune that chord sequence is taken from).

One more thing while I have you on the line. Toronto bassist and jazz musicologist, Steve Wallace, made a valiant attempt to take that pretentious term (‘contrafact’) out of the English language and replace it with a word he thought fit so much better—-‘Scrapple’. I don’t think it worked. But we can always hope.

Episode 73, Best Jazz Albums of the Year Aug 13, 2019

Show notes

The Downbeat Jazz Critics poll, published in the magazine’s August issue, summarizes the assessments of some top jazz critics as to the ‘best’ in various categories. One of those categories is the Jazz Album of the Year.

This year’s picks truly stretch the boundaries of ‘what is jazz’.

I play a track from six of the chosen ‘top 10’, as well as one from this year’s Juno winning album by Robi Botos.

Archives: Episode 36, Jazz Singing, With Micah Barnes and Gene McDaniels. Aug 06, 2019

Show notes

This episode, recorded the Spring of 2018, features a discussion with Toronto voice coach and singer, Micah Barnes.

Micah was a rock and soul singer who made the transition to jazz, and he talks about the differences. I ask the question “what makes it jazz” in terms of vocals………..and he does a great job in trying to answer that. We also play music by some of the singers who most inspired him.

Micah talks about ‘breaking free of the melody’, and that leads nicely to a conversation between jazz singer Gene McDaniels and pianist Tom Snow, where Gene demonstrates the art of singing “inside the changes”.

We also demonstrate why its easier for a country and western singer to learn to sing jazz than it is for a classical singer.

A fascinating program. One of my favourites, from the archives.

Episode 72, Discoveries Jul 30, 2019

Show notes

A very knowledgeable jazz bassist from Peterborough named Craig Paterson sends regular emails of great jazz recordings, and on this program I play a few of them. It helps me discover new and old music………and I’ll share some of those discoveries with you in this program.

I also like to go back to some ‘original’ versions, and it helps me to understand more about the creative process used by great jazz musicians.

This week, I start with Christian McBride and New Jawn transforming a very strange Thelonious Monk composition, and found that I was able to appreciate it more by also hearing the original Monk version.

Then I move onto “All The Things You Are” by Brad Meldhau and Larry Grenadier, comparing it to the way Jerome Kern probably envisioned it, and the well-known Charlie Parker transformation.

You’ll hear some Tommy Flanagan doing It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing, a beautiful Miles Davis rendition of Stella by Starlight, and finishing with a young Toronto drummer who just put out an album with a large band—which included trumpeter Lina Allemano.

Thanks to Craig for sharing these.

Archives: Episode 31, A Tribute to Bob Dorough Jul 23, 2019

Show notes

Continuing with re-issuing some programs from my archives every 2nd week, here is one on the great Bob Dorough who left us over a year ago.

Here is a quote from one of my reviews on the itunes site (Canadian): “I knew that I’d be hooked when I saw and heard your tribute to Bob Dorough (a personal favourite) and Thelonious Monk and the recent ‘solo’ shows. I hope you continue to help us discover jazz for a long time to come.”

Me too!

Not many people have discovered Bob Dorough. I discovered him in the late 1960’s when he was involved with some more pop oriented artists like Spanky and Our Gang, and Chad Mitchell. But he is definitely jazz! All the way! He wrote some of my favourite jazz compositions (eg. Devil May Care, I’ve Got Just About Everything I Need) and was one of the few singers to do vocals on a Miles Davis record. But he became best known for creating and playing the music behind “School House Rock”.

Even if you don’t normally listen to much jazz, I think you’re going to be fascinated by this program. Feedback always welcome!

Episode 71, Classical and Jazz, the relationship. Jul 16, 2019

Show notes

This is actually Part 3 of a series looking at the cross fertilization of jazz and classical (aka ‘serious’) music, featuring Al Baggs—a Peterborough saxophonist and lover of jazz and classical music.

This episode explores how each or those two genres can be enhanced by knowledge of the other, as well as at least one instance where trying to combine both ends up detracting from each.

There is a lot of focus on ‘third stream music’, which brings jazz and classical together. How does Dave Brubeck, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Gunther Schuller, Jim Hall, John Lewis, Victor Davies, and even Dvorak fit into that category?

And for those of you listening from my new home town of Victoria, B.C., you’ll hear a Victoria saxophonist and an incredible local big band playing what one might see as an illustration of that jazz-classical cross pollination.

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