July 29, 2010

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Quote of the Day
It takes a great man to be a good listener.
Calvin Coolidge

The quote of the day is perfect for this image. Keep cool with Coolidge.

Image ... Mural at Bob the Chef's. South End, Boston.

July 25, 2010

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Definitely check out the front page article in this week's Bay State Banner, An heir of expectancy, about Guru of Gang Starr. He's the crucial hiphop artist from Roxbury who first fused the then-nascent form with jazz and then kept deepening the connection throughout his career, sadly cut short this spring by cancer.



And here's Hank Jones, who also headed home this year, live at the Village Vanguard in 1977 performing Favors with his Great Jazz Trio. Maybe Hank and Guru have hooked up and are jamming together. If so heaven, or perhaps the other joint, is certainly swinging.



I dig this tune but keep waiting to hear Miles' horn kick in. So what?

Walked up to Ashmont last night, looking to get a bite, and discovered the Ashmont Grill, right in the square. Seated on the beautiful rear patio. Tall stone rubble wall topped with one of brick. The opposite of bamboo. Surrounded by raised garden beds overarching with river birch.

Waiters, etc. came and went ignoring me for fully 15 minutes. Had plenty of time to study the place, feel the rudeness and absorb the ambience. Biggest turnoff - obtrusive music. All stuff I like (Cure, Marley, etc.) - but not for dinner. I'm absolutely adamant about restaurants not playing music. Big mistake, huge negative. It's a social space where you sit and chat and music in that situation is mere needless noise.

As usual when trying out a new place I go for the simple stuff - say a soup and/or salad. That's the true test. No one can foul up things faster and you don't lay out a huge chunk of change to find the lay of the land.

So I got the half Grilled Caesar for $8. Grilled? WTF? A plate of romaine, one central stem grilled, the rest raw. No croutons, one slight slice of garlic baguette, no anchovy evident. The lettuce not fully dried - a major sin in salad making.

I'll give Ashmont Grill another try but I have a sour taste in my mouth. And it wasn't from the menu's described lemon-garlic vinaigrette.

Quote of the Day
Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.
William Penn

Image ... Central Park. An image, extensively edited, from the YouTube video Hank Jones / The Great Jazz Trio - Favors 1977, but uncredited.

Bongo in Squaresville . 13 | Serge Chaloff

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Boston Blow-up by The Serge Chaloff Sextet ... Serge Chaloff, baritone sax. Boots Musulli, alto sax. Herb Pomeroy, trumpet. Ray Santisi, piano. Everett Evans, bass. Jimmy Zitano, drums. Recorded April 1955 in New York City for the Stan Kenton Presents imprint on Columbia.

Sergical
Jr.
Bofy and Soul
Bob the Robin
What's New

Serge Chaloff, born just a few years before Miles, died at half his age and missed a good shot at earning the mantle of being one of the most significant modern jazz masters. But the evidence is preserved in two recordings made leading his own groups during the 50's - Boston Blow-up and Blue Serge.

Chaloff was born in Boston on November 24, 1923 to two pianists and piano teachers. His father Julius played with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and his mother, known as Madame Chaloff, was an important teacher whose students included Keith Jarrett, Kenny Werner, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, and Steve Kuhn. And, of course, young Serge.

Image ... Boston Blow-up LP cover.

Bongo in Squarseville . 12 | New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival - May 2, 2010

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Bongo in Squaresville is a weekly webcast radio show devoted to the jazz music, of every style and genre, that's gone down in Boston through the last 10 or so decades. Join us at Radio Roofscape every Wednesday night. The music starts at 9:00 and there's never a cover charge or drink minimum. This week we're leaving Boston and visiting the final day, May 2, of this year's New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. Here's the lineup ...

Dukes of Dixieland - When the Saints Go Marching In
Clarence Carter - Slip Away
Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue - Orleans & Claiborne
John Rankin - Chicken Gumbo
Ellis Marsalis & Harry Connick, Jr. - Caravan
Irma Thomas, Dolly Parton, Dr. John, Alan Toussaint - Working In a Coal Mine
TBC Brass Band - At the Perfect Gentlemen Second Line
Delfeayo Marsalis's Future Focus - Track 13 Blues
Van Morrison - Saint James Infirmary
Preservation Hall Jazz Band - Darktown Strutters Ball
Wayne Shorter - Juju
Neville Brothers - Yellow Moon

Sunday Gospel Set . 47 | Blood on the Fields, by Wynton Marsalis - a sampler.

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Join us every Sunday to give praise with the Sunday Gospel Set on Radio Roofscape. This week we're sampling Wynton Marsalis's sprawling and flawed 1994 Blood on the Fields, following the trials of a slace couple and their escape to freedom. Here's the set list, a series of short excerpts from most of the sections of this 3-1/2 hour work.

Calling the Indians Out
Move Over
You Don't Hear No Drums
The Market Place
Soul for Sale
Plantation Coffee March
Work Song (Blood on the Fields)

Lady's Lament
Flying High
Oh We Have a Friend in Jesus
God Don't Like Ugly
Juba and a O'Brown Squaw
Follow the Drinking Gourd
My Soul Fell Down
Forty Lashes
What a Fool I've Been
Back to Basics

I Hold Out My Hand
Look and See
The Sun Is Gonna Shine
Will the Sun Come Out?
The Sun Is Gonna Shine
Chant to Call the Indians Out
Calling the Indians Out
Follow the Drinking Gourd
Freedom Is In the Trying
Due North

Image ... Boston Vigilance Committee poster.

Bongo in Squaresville . 10 | Boston Jazz Week, April 23 - May 2: Made in Boston, Played in Boston

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Bongo in Squaresville is a weekly webcast radio show devoted to the jazz music, of every style and genre, that's gone down in Boston through the last 10 or so decades. Join us at Radio Roofscape every Wednesday night. The music starts at 9:00 and there's never a cover charge or drink minimum.

Gang Starr - Jazz Thing
Charlie Kohlhase - The Explorers Club
Don Byron & the Bang on a Can All-Stars - Silver Wings
Lisa Yves - I Love a Piano
Joe Lovano & Gunther Schuller - Angel Eyes
Yoko Miwa Trio - Live in Boston
Ran Blake - Improvisation
New Black Eagle Jazz Band - Keyhole Blues
Florencia Gonzalez - Ayer Te Vi
Chris Potter & Kenny Werner - Giant Steps

Bongo in Squaresville . 9

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Bongo in Squaresville is a weekly webcast radio show devoted to the jazz music, of every style and genre, that's gone down in Boston through the last 10 or so decades. Join us at Radio Roofscape every Wednesday night. The music starts at 9:00 and there's never a cover charge or drink minimum.

Joe Lovano & Gunther Schuller - Angel Eyes
Roy Haynes - Afro Blue
Rebecca Parris - That Old Black Magic
Rebecca Parris - All of You
Rebecca Parris - I Wish I Knew
Donal Fox & David Murray - Ugly Beauty
Duke Ellington featuring Paul Gonsalves - Blow by Blow
Esperanza Spaulding - Live at City Hall Park, NYC (part 2)
George Russell Sextet - Electronic Sonata for Souls Loved by Nature
George Garzone, Brian Blade, Christian McBride - Chasin' the Trane
Dave McKenna - Some Other Time / A Time for Love
Serge Chaloff Sextet - Bob the Robin
Gary Burton Quartet featuring Pat Metheney - Falling Grace
Ruby Braff Trio - Mean to Me
Terri Lyne Carrington - Virtual Hornets



Image ... Rush Hour. Cover art, album by Joe Lovano & Gunther Schuller.

Sunday Gospel Set . 44 | The Ishmel Sisters

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Join us every Sunday to give praise with the Sunday Gospel Set on Radio Roofscape. This week we're looking at and listening to the intersection of the spirituals and jazz music. Our featured video is The Ishmel Sisters singing Follow the Drinking Gourd and reciting The Joys of Playing by George L. Davis. Here's the current set list ...

Duke Ellington & Mahalia Jackson - Come Sunday
Reverend J.C. Burnett - The Gospel Train is Leaving
Charlie Haden - Spiritual
Marion Williams - Michael Row the Boat Ashore
Louis Armstrong - Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
The Dixie Hummingbirds - Just a Closer Walk with Thee
Ramsey Lewis Trio - Wade in the Water
The Ishmel Sisters - Follow the Drinking Gourd

THE JOYS OF PLAYING
by George L. Davis, II

JASHANNA - Janel
Play little ones, with the sun on your shoulder. With bright smiles and sepia skin, let the wind breeze through your hair. Your afro puffs glisten with the sheen of the starlight, and your full lips taste the cool waters of rivers flowing from your ancient past.

JANEL - Jarinne
See now the gentle rain fall on the playing sisters, in Sofala, in Soweto, in Savannah, in Santo Domingo. See them jump and play and shout and dance. See her twirl, arms uplifted, in parabolic joy. See her roll and roll and stop with her face to the wide open sky. See her laugh and chuckle and giggle and slap her knees at her sisters, while they share this moment to never come again, but always remembered in times yet born.

JARINNE - JaShanna
Play little ones, with the moon on your ear. With the silence of the half light and the call of the night, melt away into the twilight. Your bantu countenance to illumine the midnight sky, silhouettes of golden memories, to the night prime. A primrose path for your beckoning eye for these joys, we sigh.

Bongo in Squaresville . 8 | Billie Holiday

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Bongo in Squaresville is a weekly webcast radio show devoted to the jazz music, of every style and genre, that's gone down in Boston through the last 10 or so decades. Join us at Radio Roofscape every Wednesday night. The music starts at 9:00 and there's never a cover charge or drink minimum.

Check out Roofscape Journal too. Each week we'll be looking at a different aspect of the Boston jazz scene down through the years to today - digging the music, meeting the musicians, hanging out with the fans, making recording sessions and visiting the clubs. Today we're celebrating Billy Holiday's birthday, born April 7, 1915 and died July 17, 1959 at age 44.

Billie Holiday - Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans
Billie Holiday - The Man I Love
Billie Holiday - A Fine Romance
Billie Holiday - Stormy Weather
Billie Holiday - Autumn in New York
Billie Holiday - God Bless the Child
Billie Holiday & Louis Armstrong - New Orleans
Billie Holiday - Strange Fruit

Image ... Strange Fruit. Mural in the South End, Boston.

Bongo in Squaresville . 7 | Sort of Blue

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Johnny Hodges - Duke's Blues, 1952
Terri Lyne Carrongton, Herbie Hancock - St. Louis Blues
Phil Woods, Dizzy Gillespie - Goodbye Mr. Evans
Donal Fox - In rehearsal
Rebecca Parris - That Old Black Magic
Rebecca Parriis - All of You
Charlie Mariano - Django
Dave McKenna - Serenade in Blue
Serge Chaloff - Stairway to the Stars
Herb Pomeroy, Donna Byrne - Ill Wind

Image ... Bongo in Squaresville.

Bongo in Squaresville . 6 | Hot and Cool: 40 Years of Jazz at New England Conservatory

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Bongo in Squaresville is a weekly webcast radio show devoted to the jazz music, of every style and genre, that's gone down in Boston through the last 10 or so decades. Join us at Radio Roofscape every Wednesday night. The music starts at 9:00 and there's never a cover charge or drink minimum.

Check out Roofscape Journal too. Each week we'll be looking at a different aspect of the Boston jazz scene down through the years to today - digging the music, meeting the musicians, hanging out with the fans, making recording sessions and visiting the clubs. Today were celebrating the 40th anniversary of jazz at New England Conservatory.

Here's the playlist for Wednesday, March 24, 2010. Then Tal Farr takes us on a visit around NEC's four jazz decades.

George Russell Sextet
Ran Blake
Gunther Schuller - The World According to Gunther Schuller
Darcy James Argue's Secret Society - Zeno
Noah Preminger - Today is Okay
Bernie Worrell, featured - Slippery People
Marty Ehrlich Sextet
John Medeski - plays Clavinet
Gunther Schuller Orchestra with Jimmy Giuffre - Suspensions, 1957
Ran Blake & Jeanne Lee - Where Flamingos Fly
George Russell, Bill Evans, Billy Evans - The Future of Jazz

Image ... Bongo in Squaresville. he Starlight Room, Boston.

Bongo in Squaresville . 5

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Bongo in Squaresville is a weekly webcast radio show devoted to the jazz music, of every style and genre, that's gone down here in Boston through the last 10 or so decades. Join us at Radio Roofscape every Wednesday night, the music starts at 9:00 and there's never a cover charge or drink minimum.

Check out Roofscape Journal too. Each week we'll be looking at a different aspect of the Boston jazz scene down through the years to today - digging the music, meeting the musicians, hanging out with the fans, making recording sessions and visiting the clubs. To start off, we're going to look at the scene in the 40's and 50's when Boston was one of the great jazz mecccas.

Here's the playlist for Wednesday, March 17, 2010, then Tal Farr takes us to the Hi-Hat Club, pictured above.

Serge Chaloff Sextet - Sergical
Charlie Mariano - Celia
George Garzone, Brian Blade, Chris McBride - Untitled
Dabe McKenna - Poor Butterfly
Terri Lyne Carrington - Dorian's Playground
Gary Burton Quartet with Eberhard Weber - Intrude
Rebecca Paris - Darn That Dream
Ruby Braff - Lonely Moments
Jaki Byard - Jazz Piano Workshop, 1965
Phil Woods - Willow Weep for Me

The Hi-Hat

The Hi-Hat - located at the corner of Massachsuetts and Columbus Avenues in Boston's South End, where the Harriet Tubman House now stands - was known for big names and big money.

Charles Walker, age 87, saw Sammy Davis, Jr. at the Hi-Hat, once on the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Columbus. “You had to have money to go there,” he says of the club, which had a restaurant and lounge downstairs, while the music was upstairs.

The Hi-Hat was the first jazz club in the South End. It was established after World War II, when big bands had gone out and performers such as drummer Buddy Rich, Count Basie and Charlie Mingus were traveling with small combos.

“The Hi-Hat sort of became a symbol of jazz in Boston. It was popular; it inspired other young guys to open clubs,” says Ray Barron, who used to book the acts for the club. He started the popular Sunday jam sessions at the Hi-Hat.

Charles Walker and Ray Barron quoted in South End Jazz: An invisible tradition, by Drake Lucas.

The Hi-Hat was an example of a larger club where the bands, waiters and waitresses were black, but the audience was white. People would come from all over town. When I got out of the army in 1946 I went down there to hear Count Basie.

Thomas O’ Connor, Boston historian and Boston College Professor

Sunday afternoon jam sessions were a wonderful way to spend a Sunday afternoon. Only the squares were home. No matter if it was summer, fall, winter, or spring, the Sunday afternoon jam sessions at the Hi-Hat was where you belonged if you were hip.

Ray Barron, Pick Up the Beat and Swing

Image ... Mural at the site of the old Hi-Hat CLub. Harriet Tubman House, Boston.

Bongo in Squaresville . 4

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Bongo in Squaresville is a weekly webcast radio show devoted to the jazz music, of every style and genre, that's gone down here in Boston through the last 10 or so decades. Join us at Radio Roofscape every Wednesday night, the music starts at 9:00 and there's never a cover or drink minimum.

Check out Roofscape Journal too. Each week we'll be looking at a different aspect of the Boston jazz scene down through the years to today - digging the music, meeting the musicians, hanging out with the fans, making recording sessions and visiting the clubs. To start off, we're going to look at the scene in the 40's and 50's when Boston was one of the great jazz mecccas.

Here's the playlist for Wednesday, March 3, 2010, then Tal Farr takes us to the Hi-Hat Club, pictured above.

Chick Corea & Gary Burton - Monk's Dream
Ruby Braff & Dick Hyman - When It's Sleepy Time Down South
Jaki Byard - Round Midnight
Terri Lyne Carrington - It's You or No One
Ralph Burns - Introspection
Harry Carney - Baritone solo, 1964
Charles Mariano - Celia
Serge Chaloff Sextet - What's New

The Hi-Hat

Standing at the crossroads of Massachusetts and Columbus Avenues in the 40's and 50's, jazz joints stretched away into the distance in every direction. One of the swankiest was the Hi-Hat Club on the southeast corner of the intersection where the Harriet Tubman House, a community center, now stands. The image above is a detail from the mural adorning the building which celebrates the legacy of this famed club.

... Continues next week.

Image ... Mural at the site of the old Hi-Hat CLub. Harriet Tubman House, Boston.

Bongo in Squaresville . 3

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Bongo in Squaresville is a weekly webcast radio show devoted to the jazz music, of every style and genre, that's gone down here in Boston through the last 10 or so decades. Join us at Radio Roofscape every Wednesday night, the music starts at 9:00 and there's never a cover or drink minimum.

Check out Roofscape Journal too. Each week we'll be looking at a different aspect of the Boston jazz scene down through the years to today - digging the music, meeting the musicians, hanging out with the fans, making recording sessions and visiting the clubs. To start off, we're going to look at the scene in the 40's and 50's when Boston was one of the great jazz mecccas.

Here's the playlist for Wednesday, March 3, 2010, then Tal Farr takes us to the Sunday afternoon jam session at Wally's, the last of the classic Boston clubs ...

Duke Ellington / Johnny Hodges - Going Up
Billie Holiday - I Cried for You
Dreaming of Your Love - Tony Williams
Charlie Mariano & KCP4 - Live TFF Rudolstadt 2007
Professor Longhair - Go to the Mardi Gras
Dave McKenna - Nobody Else But Me / I'm Old Fashioned
Leon Collins - Flight of the Bumble Bee
Kid Koala - Basin Street Blues
Serge Chaloff Sextet - What's New
New Black Eagle Jazz Band - Perdido Street Blues
Louis Armstrong - Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans


Wailin' at Wally's ...

Local jazz joints like Wally's are curiously rare in Boston, home of the Berklee College of Music and the Boston and New England Conservatories, each one of them world premier schools for jazz training. But the city hosts dozens of other schools and universities as well and the kids there, like kids everywhere, are rockers. Boston is a big rock and roll town, home of some of the biggest bands of all time - the band Boston, of course, the Cars, the Pixies, New Edition, the J. Geils Band and a million others you've never heard of praticing in chilly warehouses and playing in sweaty clubs of all sizes.

Wally's lives in a time warp. Back in the day when Wally's was founded, by Joseph L. 'Wally' Walcott on January 1, 1947, Boston was a jazz-mad town. Throughout the forties and fifties the intersection of Massachusetts and Columbus Avenues was a mecca for jazz lovers with famous nightclubs like the High Hat, Savoy Cafe, Chicken Lane, the Wig Wam, Big M - and Wally's Paradise, across the street from its current loaction at 427 Massachusetts Avenue. All the hottest bands of the day played these clubs.

Then one day it was all over. My former neighbor, singer Charlotte Bartley explained the end of the era this way:

"The Weekend of a Private Secretary', my first big label solo record was about to be released in 1964. RCA had hooked me up with first class producers, songwriters, arrangers and jazz musicains, including Tito Puente's band. It was what today would be called a concept album, maybe one of the first ones in jazz. Private Secretary follws a young gal's hinjinks around Havana where she's run off on a fling for a few days with her (maybe married) boss. It was hot and naughty and the company was expecting a huge hit."

"Then the Beatles arrived in America [2/9/64 was the first Ed Sullivan show, watched by half of America - ed.] and it was all over, RCA abandoned the album. My career ended overnight. I was finished - and many other big and small band jazz musicians along with me."

Wally's survived the demise of jazz and the big bands as America's popular music through stubborn persistance and a strategy of billing less expensive local musicians, but still stellar talents, who mostly didn't have the big names and big traveling and touring expenses, but walked a few blocks with their axes from their day gigs teaching or studying at Berklee or one of the conservatories. Wally's has provided a stage for the development of countless musicians, many now famous names, and continues to do so - 365 days a year, as the sign says, with never a cover charge.

My favorite time to visit Wally's is for the weekly Sunday jam sessions between 4:00 and 7:00. There you'll see and hear a succession of the baddest cats from around the world crowding the postage stamp size stage making all kinds of music with some competitive cutting and carving contests bubbling up occasionally. The other days of the week are each devoted to a different jazz genre and the bands play from 9:00 to 12:00.

The room is small, intimate and the pure, unamplified sound is superb and envelopes you. It's the way music was meant to be heard and so seldom is these days, so it's a special treat. A long bar runs along one side of the club and tables down the other with the small stage at the back of the club. Drinks are reasonably priced and they serve a simple menu. Photos of the jazz greats who've gigged here crowd the walls. The atmosphere is very low key, friendly and often elbow-to-elbow, so you'll inevitably strike up conversations with your fellow listeners or the musicians between the sets.