Danny Green Trio: Jazz Plus

When I attended Berklee College of Music in the 80s, students engaged in an adolescent turf war, a sort of whimpified version of West Side Story sans knives or anything else involving danger. Instead of the Sharks and the Jets, it was the Rockheads and the Jazzheads, the former perceived as buffoons by the latter, and the latter perceived as smug elitists by the former. I was somewhere in the middle, having been raised on rock and roll though very open to learning about jazz, but the jazz tradition at Berklee made it hard not to side with my rock brethren. So smug were the Jazzheads that they gleefully rode the coattails of Wynton Marsalis’s criticism of his brother Branford for his joining Sting’s band, and they were downright incredulous at how Sting ruined his otherwise legitimate song “Englishman In New York” with a rock beat breakdown (right after a swing section, which the Jazzheads natural approved of).

I may still be a rock guy at heart, but my favorite musical discovery of 2016 came not from one of the dozen rock stations of Chicago but from the jazz frequencies of 90.9 WDCB.  While driving in my car, I heard a piano jazz trio playing an odd-metered song with a stellar melody backed by – of all things – a string quartet. It blew me away. I rushed home, went on-line to check the name of the song – “Porcupine Dreams” – and purchased the Danny Green Trio album, Altered Narratives. It’s a gem.

Altered Narratives showcases a wide spectrum of jazz styles, and with Green’s flair for odd rhythms and the addition of strings on a handful of tunes, the album offers a listening experience that’s far more interesting, varied and fulfilling than any other jazz album I’ve heard in a long, long time. The addition of strings is a stroke of genius as it completely changes the musical palate.  As much as I love the sound of a traditional piano-bass-drums combo, the strings fill out the sound when the band plays percussively, and offers accents at other times, each unit balancing the other to lift the song to an entirely new level.

Some songs stand out in a big way. After a few more traditional pieces to open the album (still original and still excellent), the trio dives into the haunting “October Ballad,” a tune in three-four whose tensions and changing tonal center keep the song moving forward and avoid getting too settled. In addition to his piano chops, Green’s gift is melody, and this song is exhibit A. 

After a solid Latin-based “6 A.M.” the band switches gears yet again with “Second Chance,” opening as a sort of romantic piano piece with the first string accompaniment on the album and reminiscent of some of the cinematic themes of Ennio Morricone. It’s a lovely piece that seemingly concludes, pauses, and then begins again with the full band in a different key and a different time signature, now with the reprised melody offering a compelling 4 on 3 motif that gives the piece its momentum. The next tune, “Katabasis” also sounds cinematic, and its 12/8 rhythm would feel right at home in a tension filled montage of a mystery film. Once again, the feel changes a third of the way through the song, becoming a more staccato piece and giving the song a welcome lift.

Next on the CD is the piece that started it all for me, the wonderful “Porcupine Dreams,” offering another haunting melody with strings punctuating the 7/8 rhythm before the band breaks with a frantic conclusion that alternates between 7/8 and 4/4 and keeps the listener desperate to find the down beat, like a thrill rider’s anticipation of the next stomach-churning drop.

The short piano solo “Benji’s Song” once again stresses Green’s mastery of melody, and the chromatic changes would fit right in with a Randy Newman instrumental album.

Here ends the more experimental side of the album, with the last three songs completing things on a more traditional jazz-trio note, though “Friday At the Thursday Club” offers yet again some very interesting chord changes beneath a melody whose accents are unfamiliar in a 6/8 time signature (a 4 on 3 is once again employed – wonderful!). But for me, tracks 3-8 are among the best six I’ve ever heard on a jazz recording. If the bookends are a bit more on the traditional side, they’re still excellent.

Bassist Justin Grinnell and drummer Julien Cantelm hold down the rhythm fort nicely, particularly in the odd-metered moments. If there’s one criticism I’d make of the album, it’s the inclusion of so many bass solos. I suspect jazz purists will crucify me for saying so, but I never understood the allure of the bass solo. To me it’s an instrument that should stay in its supporting role and allow other instruments to handle the highlights.

Whatever. The Danny Green trio is a stunning group that’s willing to push the boundaries and explore interesting territory. That may be what’s expected of all jazz musicians, but this is a band that is equal to the task.

Movie Review: Captain Fantastic

With all the hoopla surrounding last Sunday's blunder at the Academy Awards, it’s easy to forget that the primary purpose of the ceremony isn’t to hand out prizes, but rather, to celebrate and promote movies. Tucked inside the glam of glistening dresses, monotonous speeches and coveted trophies is an opportunity to consider films that one might not have otherwise. For me, this year’s Best Picture nominees did just that, as I went out of my way to watch movies that normally wouldn’t have been on my radar (Moonlight and Hell or High Water, just to name two). But Jimmy Kimmel inspired me to take things further. During his monologue, he cracked the following joke aimed at actor Viggo Mortensen, the star of Captain Fantastic: “Too often the Academy only recognizes movies that people have seen.”

That inspired me to go beyond the Best Picture nominees, of which I’d seen eight of nine, and extend my viewing to other films that were up for awards. First for me was the aforementioned Captain Fantastic. In this film, Ben is raising his six children in the relative isolation of a Washington forest, where they grow and hunt food, learn self-defense as well as literature, science and math, and stick to a strict routine of exercise and chores. Ben is demanding, and his children are up for the challenge, exhibiting signs of impressive strength, intelligence and camaraderie. In short, the family is living a sort of Utopian existence in a wilderness paradise.

When the children’s mother kills herself after an extended mental illness and lengthy hospital stay, Ben takes his children into town to visit his sister’s family, and we get a unique opportunity to see the world through the eyes of kids who’ve been raised apart from our modern society. Suddenly, the endless stream of shopping malls, overweight people and fake food appear especially tragic, and teenage access to violent video games utterly preposterous. The message isn’t subtle, but it is illuminating.

Unfortunately, writer and director Matt Ross continues to paint in such broad brushstrokes that as enjoyable as the film may be, little of it is believable. Ben’s sister’s family is naturally a stereotype, with overly protective parents when it comes to real life tragedies (i.e., the suicide of Ben’s wife) but who allow ample access to violent video games and whose kids are bumbling idiots. Ben’s kids, of course, are the kind of angelic children any adult would be privileged to raise: strong, confident, intelligent, knowledgeable, loving, musical and kind, all brilliantly portrayed by talented young actors and all desperately two-dimensional, a modern day version of The Sound of Music’s Von Trapp family. But Captain Fantastic isn’t a musical. Our belief is suspended just enough to enjoy the film, but never enough to swallow it whole.

If Ben and his family show any dimensions at all, it appear to be in spite of Ross’s efforts, rather than because of them. Scenes apparently meant as comedic relief instead show an ugly side to Ben. He eschews his father-in-law’s wishes for them not to attend his daughter’s funeral. Fine. But they arrive late, making a grand entrance that would be disrespectful under any circumstances, and Ben wears a red suit that cries for attention, until he interrupts the pastor’s sermon and unilaterally demands attention. In this scene, and in another that has the family employing a ruse to steal food from a grocery store, the outcome isn’t comedic at all, but rather a glimpse into a very flawed human being.

Still, the movie shines when it concentrates on the family enjoying each other’s company. When Ben’s daughter describes a book she’s reading as “interesting,” he demands she try again, claiming the word has no meaning. She does, with success, and it reminds me of all the times I use words that come easily to me instead of searching for the correct ones. 

The conflict in this movie is minimal, and I applaud Ross for not taking the easy way out in this regard. It brings to mind Chef, a film that could have gone down so many Hollywood tropes, but stuck the its central purpose – the relationship between a father and son. Similarly, Captain Fantastic succeeds most when it allows us to watch this unusual family interact with each other. I found the last scene, as understated as it may be, as touchingly brilliant.

Thomas Dolby's Autobiography

A friend of mine sent the following email to me a few weeks ago:

Thomas Dolby did the synth on Waiting??

He was referring to Foreigner’s 1981 hit, “Waiting For a Girl Like You,” and yes indeed, Thomas Dolby of “She Blinded Me With Science” fame played synth on the tune, including the intro that drummer Dennis Elliott categorized as “massage music.” In Dolby’s crafty autobiography, The Speed of Sound: Breaking the Barriers Between Music and Technology, he credits Foreigner with saving him from his stint performing for tips at Parisian Metro stations, though he admits that he was disappointed to learn that it wasn’t Mick Jones of The Clash who came calling. Instead, Dolby was whisked away to New York to record with Mutt Lange and the other Mick Jones, where he earned enough money to kick-start his solo career.

Before reading The Speed of Sound, I knew nothing about Dolby save for his big hit and for an erroneous belief that he or his family had had something to do with Dolby noise-reduction found on tape decks. It was actually the other way around. Born Thomas Robertson, Dolby acquired his nickname due to his propensity to play with gadgets that included a cassette recorder. In 1986, Dolby Labs actually filed for an injunction to prevent Thomas Dolby from using the name, and though the lawsuit was eventually dropped, Dolby took a financial hit that led to him to move permanently to California, where he spent the next two decades in the tech industry. A tinkerer at heart, Dolby formed his own company, first writing soundtracks for computer games and helping develop software that allowed nonlinear compositions to interacted with the user, then striving to discover ways to send music over the Internet in real time, ultimately achieving great success with ringtone software and content.

Particularly fascinating in The Speed of Sound is witnessing the technology boom through the eyes of someone living in the moment. Dolby is careful not to give us the benefit of hindsight: he places us squarely in the period when home computers and the internet were just beginning to flourish, websites were not entirely understood, and when tech companies were sprouting up by the hundreds, all hoping to stay ahead of the curve. No one was sure how it was going to play out, even bigwigs like Bill Gates. When Dolby attended a digital media conference in 1994, a guy named Marc Porat prophesied that one day PCs wouldn't be needed at all because “all your work will be in a sort of cloud.” Gates went ballistic. It would take a while, but Porat’s words proved prescient.

Though there were all sorts of discoveries for me reading this book (his playing with Bowie at Live Aid and with Roger Waters at the Berlin performance of The Wall), the most fulfilling one was learning of the English pop band Prefab Sprout, whose second album Dolby produced in 1985. I’d never even heard of the band before, never mind their music, but a quick listen on YouTube demanded that I buy the CD on eBay that same evening. It’s a gem.

Why isn’t such a great band better known? If Dolby were to summarize the reasons, he would probably say that the record industry “is rotten to its fucking core.” He takes us into the industry's underbelly, where money is laundered, artists are exploited, and support is taken away without notice. Dolby’s career as a recording artist was frustrating, though he managed to release four albums over a decade before finally calling it a day. Things looked bright for a moment when EMI released him from his contract and Virgin Records came calling, but six months later EMI purchased Virgin. Such was the music industry in the early 90s.

Unlike the Springsteen autobiography I just finished reading, Dolby devotes most of his writing to his career and eschews getting bogged down in his personal life, a wise move for an artist whose career isn’t as well understood as someone like Springsteen’s. Too many musicians and producers who embark on authoring a book don’t understand this, and for this reason most of their writings fall flat. Sure, for a megastar whose work you memorized long ago, you may want to know what makes him tick and learn details about his childhood and time away from music. For Dolby, it's enough to understand his journey from synth-pop hit-maker to a tech company founder (and now, a professor of music and film at Johns Hopkins).

It’s a great read. Highly recommended.

Springsteen's Autobiography

At various points while reading Bruce Springsteen’s recently published autobiography, Born to Run, I wanted to tell The Boss to relax. It’s only rock and roll.

Not to Springsteen. Rock and roll isn’t just his career – it’s his passion, his religion and path to salvation and redemption. When it comes to his music, he analyzes, he ruminates, he wrestles with, he composes and discards and rewrites and exerts energy that would exhaust a normal human being. Springsteen’s commitment to his music is inexhaustible, his drive indefatigable, his work ethic bordering on the obsessive, and he fully admits in his 500+ page book that his musical pursuits kept him from living a life for much of his first four decades. For Springsteen, his blessing is also a curse.

Not so for his fans, who now get to enjoy a book that benefits from the same commitment Springsteen applies to his music. There are two things about this book that make it stand out from among so many other musician biographies: first, the guy can write. No ghost writer required for this biopic. Springsteen effectively changes tenses, alternates between story and insight, offers a fairly chronological account of his life while still assembling topical chapters and is just self-deprecating enough to keep the reader rooting for him. (e.g., “I know I’m good but I’m also a poser. That’s artistic balance!”)

Second, Springsteen is an extremely curious person, eager to analyze his past, his surroundings, his parents, his bandmates, his storytelling, what music means to our society, etc., and as such opens up much more than many other musicians are willing to while never falling into the tell-all abyss. He doesn’t shy away from confrontations and weaknesses, but he’s also careful not to say too much. His well-known grievances with manager Mike Appel are mentioned but not dwelled upon, his at-times difficult relationship with Steve Van Zandt and Danny Federici are addressed without going into detail, and his first marriage’s demise is handled deftly and respectably.

Unlike, say, Keith Richard’s entertaining but shallow Life, or Elvis Costello’s coy, self-indulgent and muddled Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink, Born to Run is both an exercise in good writing and in reflection. Consider the following description of how a snowstorm can make you feel. Where others might have simply said, “I love a good snow,” Springsteen writes:

No work, no school, the world shutting its big mouth for a while; the dirtiest streets covered over in virgin whites, like all the missteps you’ve taken have been erased by nature.  You can’t run; you can only sit.  You open your door on a trackless world, your old path, your history, momentarily covered over by a landscape of forgiveness, a place where something new might happen.  It’s an illusion but it can stimulate the regenerative parts of your spirit to make good on God and nature’s suggestion.

Nicely done. Yes, there are times when Springsteen’s ruminations get a tad tiresome, but I’ll take a book with too much reflection than too little any day. And while much of his book is about his troubled relationship with his father and Bruce’s own path to overcome some of the traits he inherited (including a forthright revelation about his own mental illness), the book is a fairly effective balance between Springsteen’s music and his personal life. I would have preferred a few more anecdotes about recording and performing. I imagine he could devote an entire book to such an endeavor, and perhaps one day he will, but as a musician I’m often confounded with how little musicians write about…well, MUSIC. 

Oddly absent are any mention of Springsteen’s 1991 releases, Human Touch and Lucky Town.  Every other album is discussed in some detail, but for reasons unknown, he doesn’t even mention the album titles or the process of composing or recording for them. He does reveal how disappointed he was that 2011’s Wrecking Ball album didn’t reach the audience he’d hoped for, and concludes that “In the States, the power of rock music as a vehicle for [political] ideas had diminished.” That may be true, but probably more important was the fact that Wrecking Ball, as I’ve written before, was a bore. Bruce’s writing simply hasn’t progressed that way it has for, say, Paul Simon, Jackson Browne or Joe Jackson.

One high point of the book is a short chapter devoted to his performance at the 2009 Super Bowl, an event that makes even Springsteen nervous. “It’s not the usual preshow jitters or ‘butterflies’ I’ve had before. I’m talking about ‘five minutes to beach landing,’ Right Stuff, ‘Lord, don’t let me screw the pooch in front of a hundred million people’ kind of semiterror.” This chapter more than any other helps us see performing through Bruce’s eyes.

He writes, “It was a high point, a marker of some sort, and went up with the biggest shows of our work life. The NFL threw us an anniversary party the likes of which we’d never have thrown for ourselves.” The show was only two weeks after President Obama’s first inaugural address. The feelings of excitement, of rebirth and celebration were in the air. It’s hard to imagine this type of feeling emanating from any performer these days. Lady Gaga did a fine job last night at Super Bowl LI, but times look bleak, our capacity for celebration diminished.

In, 2009, Springsteen ended his Super Bowl performance with "Glory Days.”

Glory days, indeed.

Yes by Any Other Name

It’s gotta beat Steve Howe and four other guys calling themselves Yes.

On Saturday night in Chicago, former Yes-men Jon Anderson, Trevor Rabin and Rick Wakeman – along with bassist Lee Pomeroy and drummer Lou Molino – performed two hours of Yes music at the a three-quarters full Chicago Theater, and judging from the audience response, this was the version of Yes they preferred. Wakeman in particular has long-claimed that any Yes without frontman Anderson is no Yes at all, though there are probably some who say the same of guitarist Steve Howe, who continued to tour last summer under the Yes moniker even after Alan White suffered a back injury. Perhaps one day Howe and Anderson will perform on the same stage together, though it’ll have to be soon: Anderson is now 72, and Howe 69.

Balancing the setlist nicely between long-time Yes favorites and songs from the Rabin-era, the transition from prog-rock to pop and back again at times felt jolting, but it also kept the concert from falling under its own weight of self-importance. The group performed four songs from Yes’s resurgent album 90125, one from 1987’s Big Generator (“The Rhythm of Love”) and one from Union (“Lift Me Up”), which allowed Rabin to shine in more familiar territory. Oddly absent were any songs from 1994’s Talk, an album many Yes fans believe is underrated. (I am not one of them.)

Beyond that, the setlist consisted of many of the usual favorites, along with two songs I’d never seen performed live before – a shortened “Perpetual Change” and “Heart of the Sunrise" – and the concert pinnacled with an extended performance of the already monumental “Awaken” from Going for the One, clocking in at close to 20 minutes.

The band performed well together, with drummer Molino approaching the songs with the same rock-oriented technique of Alan White, and Pomeroy doing a terrific job imitating the deceased Squire, including a terrific bass solo during “The Fish.”  But the standouts for me were the voices of not only Anderson – whose vocal chords should one day be donated to science – but of Rabin, who sounded as strong and clear as he did when I last saw him perform 32 years ago.  The newly-added song “Changes” off of 1983’s 90125 allowed him to showcase his chops, and I was surprised to hear him deftly hit the high notes during the bridge. Anderson had to at times choose an alternate melody to the original (the first bridge of “And You And I”), though he seemed to be able to summon his high tenor voice when it counted most.

Wakeman sported a Cubs t-shirt underneath his signature cape – a wardrobe that might have warranted groans were it not for his well-known comedic nature – and surrounded himself with a keyboard setup that wouldn’t have looked out of place in 1972. I counted eight keyboards, including two Minimoogs, which is really kind of silly in this day and age, but there’s no denying his ability and influence. Still, to my ears, he’s a keyboardist who overplays, muddying mixes that would otherwise sound crisp and clean (and I can't stand the synthy-piano sound he prefers to the real thing), which is why it’s probably best that he wasn’t a part of the 80s Yes lineup. There were times in the show when I wanted him to stop playing so I could hear a signature Rabin or Squire lick, though I did notice that the mix from where I was sitting in the balcony was less clear than just one section to my right, so some of the what I heard might have been attributed to poor acoustics more than Rick’s playing.

Rabin primarily handled the licks of Steve Howe well, though there were times when I missed Howe’s subtleties, such as the intro and breakdown of “And You and I,” and the jazz-influenced solo of “Perpetual Change.” Rabin is a different type of guitarist, and Anderson told him from the get-go to approach the songs in his own way.  Mission accomplished, and largely successful.

I suspect this will be the last time I see any of Yes’s members perform, be it under the name Yes, ARW, GTR, Bruford-Moraz or otherwise. I saw some semblance of Yes perform in 1984, 1985 (Bruford-Moraz), 1986 (GTR), 2001, 2002, 2004, 2008, 2011 and now 2016, not officially as Yes, but in my book Yes by any other name is still Yes.  It’s been a hell of ride for these prog-rockers. Perhaps someday soon it can culminate with an induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.