[Dixielandjazz] Jazz & Poetry - Redux

[Charles Suhor]

I like the idea of scoring jazz around Cervantes. Sorry it didn't come 
off. Give them credit for an imaginative failure, if Ratliff's comments 
are really on target. BTW, 5.000 words from "Don Quixote" is a minute 
sample. It's written in two thick volumes, only one of which contains 
the famous episodes we know.

For live jazz and poetry in New York, with improvised jazz (my 
preference, when done well), see the attachment that came in today from 
the excellent Barry Wallenstein--and note the great players in the 
combo.

I'll be doing a J&P called "Roots and Wings" next month for the 
Birmingham, AL, Artburst program. My colleague E-K Daufin will 
celebrate her black heritage and do an interpretive dance to Papa 
Celestin's "Marie Laveau." I'll do poems about my N.O. roots and my 
grandfather Antun, a Croatian runaway who married a French girl 
(proposed on the Desire streetcar), became a riverboat captain and Bar 
Pilot, and died aboard ship in 1904 at age 42. You've gotta die, so 
it's a break if you can do it with a flair. We'll accompany each other 
and have jazz guitarist Bobby Morgan on the program.

Charlie Suhor


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On May 7, 2005, at 10:01 AM, Steve barbone wrote:

> Charlie Suhor and others may appreciate this. Ben Ratliff did not.
>
> Cheers,
> Steve Barbone
>
> NY TIMES - BEN RATLIFF  Published: May 7, 2005
>
> More than two hours of original jazz music was played at Rose Theater 
> on
> Thursday night. It was shaped around stories from "Don Quixote" and 
> scored
> for 15 musicians and 2 singers, with a professional actor reading about
> 5,000 words of Cervantes in and around 23 songs and instrumental 
> sketches.
> It was ambitious, well played, deeply Ellingtonian - and completely
> indigestible.
>
> The piece, "Chivalrous Misdemeanors," was written by Ron Westray, a
> trombonist in the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. And after this 
> weekend it
> will take shelf space in a growing library of extended works 
> commissioned
> from within the orchestra by Jazz at Lincoln Center.
>
> Mr. Westray is a good trombonist who isn't particularly known as a 
> composer,
> though he has written arrangements for the Lincoln Center band in the 
> past.
> "Chivalrous Misdemeanors" is Jazz at Lincoln Center to the core: it 
> seems to
> have assumed its polished sound and overinflated shape like a cake in a
> mold, because of the band playing it and the organization presenting 
> it.
> I've now heard hours of Mr. Westray's music, but most of it is so 
> thick with
> Ellington and ceremony that I'm still not sure what his real strengths 
> are
> as a composer.
>
> According to the program essay, Mr. Westray loves Cervantes's novel 
> and was
> particularly struck by the author's feat: to "turn common conversation 
> into
> literature, shedding light on human fallibility." (It's also the 400th
> anniversary of the publication of the book's first part.) He saw a
> connection with the jazz musician's task, to reshape "simple" blues 
> material
> into ultra-complex, sophisticated art.
>
> That's a fair pretext, and you couldn't fault the playing: the rich 
> balance
> in the orchestra's brass and reed sections; some short, startling 
> trumpet
> solos by Wynton Marsalis and the strong tone and rhythm of the bassist
> Carlos Henriquez, who got the orchestra moving more than once.
>
> But Mr. Westray made the music insanely overloaded: drowning in 
> polyphony,
> packed with dissonance upon dissonance, suggesting Ellington at his 
> most
> provocative but without much of his charm. Even during fairly placid
> saxophone solos, there were high, astringent brass harmonies in 
> perpetual
> motion; no single element could be sufficiently taken in, and that 
> includes
> Cervantes and all his levels of irony. In an incredible amount of 
> dithering,
> there were only a few mild strokes of humor.
>
> On top of and in between the music's 23 discrete sections, Patrick 
> Tull read
> endless sections of prose, picked from various parts of the novel. His
> phlegmy, fluting voice could be hard to track as he raced through his
> narration, and especially as he talked over the music. For that 
> matter, it
> prevented you from noticing Mr. Westray's writing, legitimately strong 
> in
> parts. They included an attractive prelude section anchored by a 
> descending,
> looping piano line; a thundering and concentrated Knight of the White 
> Moon
> section; and a slow ballad for Dulcinea, which had a similarity to 
> Glenn
> Miller's "Moonlight Serenade" but at least remained direct.
>
> There were some nice melodic effects, too, in the songs, sung by Sachal
> Vasandani and Jennifer Sanon. But they were clumsied up with Mr. 
> Westray's
> cute lyrics, banalities like "you live and you learn" and "life is an
> adventure." Cervantes isn't enough? (Five thousand words of it?) For 
> that
> matter, wouldn't a quarter of Mr. Westray's melodies have been enough?
>
> The year 2013 will be the centenary of the publication of "Swann's 
> Way."
> That's another prime windmill, and Jazz at Lincoln Center may be 
> tempted to
> tilt at it. Brace yourself, man.
>
> Ron Westray's "Chivalrous Misdemeanors," performed by the Lincoln 
> Center
> Jazz Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, continues through tonight at Rose
> Theater, Frederick P. Rose Hall, 60th Street and Broadway, (212) 
> 721-6500.
>
>
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