Southern Bookman

Jazz will live again at Village Vanguard, with live-streaming of Billy Hart Quartet

Music will return to the Village Vanguard, through live-streamed performances by the heralded Billy Hart Quartet.

The acclaimed drummer and his group will perform at the Village Vanguard beginning at 7 p.m. June 13 and 2 p.m. June 14 , the jazz cathedral announced. While the small club's packed seats will remain empty, a worldwide live-streaming audience will share in the Vanguard's storied ambience. Tickets cost $7.

Other New York City mucic clubs closed by the coronavirus pandemic also are live-streaming performances, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Hart, who will perform along with tenor sax player Mark Turner, pianist Ethan Iverson and bassist Ben Street. told the WSJ that when he comes to the Village Vanguard, he feels the presence of past performers. That aura will inspire his performance, he said.

Such live streaming offers a promising model for cultural events after the pandemic ends. The Metropolitan Opera, which recently announced the cancellation of its fall season, shows productions on movie theaters around the country, a model not yet followed by Broadway shows. Live-streaming would make cultural events available to a much wider audience.

 

Farewell, Ellis Marsalis Jr.

New Orleans pianist Ellis Marsalis Jr. represented a different musical tradition from the rhythm and blues of Dr. John, Fats Domino and Professor Longhair.

Marsalis died Wednesday at age 85 from pneumonia caused by the coronavirus, according to news reports, one of several musicians who have died from COVID-19 in recent days.

A master of the restrained bebop style, Marsalis like fellow New Orleans maestro Allen Toussaint found his greatest success as a performer late in his career.

While Toussaint in his later years moved toward Marsalis' style as a pianist after penning R&B hits like "Mother-in-Law" and "It's Raining So Hard" and producing a number of New Orleans records, Marsalis remained loyal to the cerebral tradition of Bill Evans, McCoy Tyner and Oscar Peterson. Now Bill Charlap and his wife, Renee Rosnes, and a few others keep the genre going.

Standing outside traditional Dixieland and R&B, Marsalis played with refined control, a classical style more associated with New York City and Philadelphia than New Orleans. Marsalis brought cool jazz to the birthplace of hot jazz.

In contrast to the rollicking exuberance of New Orleans R&B, Marsalis displayed quiet precision, crafting delicate patterns of notes on jazz standards and his own compositions. Eschewing electric instruments and fusion concepts, the elegantly dressed Marsalis gave performances each week with an acoustic trio at Snug Harbor on Frenchman Street. He mostly played with young players adept at cool jazz.

When his style of jazz lost popularity with the rise of rock and roll, Marsalis turned to teaching, influencing New Orleans musicians Terence Blanchard, Harry Connick Jr., Nicholas Payton, Donald Harrison, Victor Goines and Reginald Veal. His  esteemed academic career included founding the University of New Orleans' prestigious jazz program.

Marsalis also shaped the careers of his sons, Wynton, the acclaimed trumpeter and director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, saxophonist Branford, trombone player Felfeayo and drummer Jason.

Before turning to an academic career, Marsalis did his time playing at New Orleans' Playboy Club, in a Marine band and accompanying the tourist-friendly Dixieland of Bourbon Street trumpeter and showman Al Hirt. When required by audience demands, Marsalis showed he could play the R&B classics.

Starting out, Marsalis collaborated with sax players Cannonball and Nat Adderley. Turning away from New Orleans' rowdy bar music, Marsalis formed a bebop combo with Alvin and Harold Batiste, members of another famous New Orleans family. The Marsalis-Batiste collaboration continued through the years. Pianist Jon Batiste shows Marsalis' influence.

The huge success of Marsalis' sons brought national recognition to his playing, and he recorded several albums and performed in New York City and elsewhere.

Marsalis' late emergence helped revive cool jazz, long seen as endangered. As a new generation of jazz musicians moves further into experimentation, fusion and abstraction, Marsalis' career looks like the twilight of an era.

 

 

World War II anthem offers hope for coronavirus battle

The mobilization to stop the coronavirus has been compared to war. Each American war has had songs associated with it, and the pandemic crisis likely will be the same.

Already, Cardi B's message to her fans expressing concern about the virus has been made into a popular rap song. Spirit-lifting songs with a vibrant beat will gain popularity as those quarantined at home listen to the radio or streaming services.

Ed Sheeran's "I See Fire," written for the 2013 film "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug" expresses the urgency of the coronavirus outbreak. Those with dark humor will point to Billie Eilish's James Bond theme, "No Time to Die."

The Civil War had "The Battle Cry of Freedom," or "Rally Round the Flag, Boys," "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" and "Dixie." George M. Cohan's "Over There" boosted optimism as American troops headed to France during World War I.

World War II brought a number of morale-boosting songs. The most famous was British singer Vera Lynn's "We'll Meet Again." In the United States, "It's Been a Long, Long Time," recorded by artists ranging from Harry James and singer Helen Forrest to Bing Crosby, expressed the joy of soldiers returning home.

"We'll Meet Again," ironically used by Stanley Kubrick for the finale of the Cold War satire "Dr. Strangelove, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb," still stirs the soul for the long battle against the virus.

We'll meet again
Don't know where
Don't know when
But I know we'll meet again some sunny day
Keep smiling through
Just like you always do
'Till the blue skies drive the dark clouds far away

 

So will you please say hello
To the folks that I know
Tell them I won't be long
They'll be happy to know
That as you saw me go
I was singing this song

 

We'll meet again
Don't know where
Don't know when
But I know we'll meet again some sunny dayT

Sargent's "Portrait of Madame X" enhances poignant "This Is Us" episode

My heart melted when John Singer Sargent's "Portrait of Madame X" appeared on Tuesday night's "This Is Us."

Sargent's alluring 1884 portrait was revealed as the painting Rebecca Pearson had longed to see since she first viewed it at New York City's Metropolitan Museum as a little girl. The episode details Rebecca's thwarted attempts to see the painting during later trips to New York City with her Pearson family.

In one of the show's dazzling twists, we discover that the little Rebecca was mesmerized by a woman looking at the painting for hours as much as the artwork itself. The woman in firs and a pillbox hat epitomizes New York City glamour in the early 1960s.

The show ends with the now aging Rebecca seeing the painting at last. Suffering from the early stages of Alzheimer's, she stares at the work, seeking to recapture her early revelation of feminine glamour and sophistication. Sargent's "Portrait of Madame X" reflects that vision of beauty.

Unfolding like a series of New Yorker short stories, the episode examines aging, family love and conflict, the appeal of art, mental illness and the shadow of death. The recent storylines about Kevin's relationship with Rebecca have raised the show's already excellent writing to an even higher level.

New York City's romance and elegance glow during the episode. it's a valentine to the city and its hallmarks, from the subway to its hotels, parks, museums and restaurants. Even the city's street-food stands have symbolic resonance.

The "This Is Us" episode was the latest moment in the cultural spotlight for Sargent. His portrait, "Dr. Pozzi at Home" adorns the cover of Julian Barnes' recently published "The Man in the Red Coat," a biography of Dr. Samuel de Pozzi, a leading physician during Paris' "Belle Epoque" era from the late 19th century until the start of World War I.

A member of the sophisticated upper classes captured in Proust's novels, Pozzi was an obstetrician known for his medical innovations. He also gained a reputation as a sexual pirate from his many affairs with women, including the actress Sarah Bernhardt.

Sargent was also a member of Paris' dazzling high society. His "Portrait of Madame X," showing the young wife Virginie Amelie Avegno Gautreau, caused a scandal with its revealing dress and her voluptuous figure, a shock even for sophisticated Paris. The artist was forced to move to London, where he was a close friend of Henry James and Oscar Wilde.

I fell in love with Sargent's work when I saw his beautiful portrait of "Lady Agnew of Lochnar" at the Frick Museum in New York City several years ago. The painting's sumptuous colors made me want to look at it for hours, like the lady in "This Is Us."

Later, I was amazed at viewing Sargent's World War I battlefield drawings in an exhibit at Nashville's Frist Museum. The drawings capture the brutal reality of battle as well as Goya's "Disasters of War." Moving away from the vivid colors of Sargent's portraits, the World War I pieces have a somber tone that reveals the horror of soldiers' life in the trenches.

Sargent's reputation declined with the advent of modernism and abstract painting. In recent years, appreciation of his work has grown. He's a master whose haunting portraits capture the fragility of human life, ravaged by time.

Haruki Murakami's story "With the Beatles" evokes lost innocence of 1960s

Haruki Murakami covers several flashpoints of Baby Boomer nostalgia in his story "With the Beatles."

Revealing how pop music enhanced adolescent lives in the 1960s, the story in the current New Yorker presents an era of innocence and young love, free from the political and social turmoil that later shook the decade.

Going beyond simple longing for the past, Murakami reflects upon time, memory, aging, grief and regret. The wistful mysticism of Japanese society co-exists with "Beatlemania" and the emerging dominance of international culture.

Philip Gabriel's translation gives the story the radiance of New Yorker classics by John Updike and John Cheever. Several factual digressions into 1960s films and music accent rather than impede the narration. The tragedies of JFK's assassination and the Vietnam War receive no mention. Japanese guilt over World War II is also absent, replaced by an Americanized prosperity. Yet, an inner desolation brings one character's mental turmoil and another's suicide.

Murakami's focus on "With the Beatles," the Fab Five's second album, evokes a time before the Beatles and the world turned to political rebellion and social protest. A phenomenon from the cute Mop-Tops' first surge of popularity, the album in the story symbolizes youthful sexual longing before the advent of drugs and free love.

The first-person narrator mentions that a young girl he briefly encounters in a high school hallway holds the British version of the album, rather than the Japanese or American releases. He points out that the record's title was changed to "Meet the Beatles" in the United States, a subtle sign of cultural differences.

A discussion of the album's black and white cover showing the Beatles' faces in light and shadow highlights the rising artistic brilliance of popular culture. Astrid Kirchherr's photograph was one of the first images of a new, iconic style.

The Beatles would later produce songs like "Norwegian Wood," evoked in a memorable Murakami novel. "With the Beatles" registers what was lost from the time when the world listened to "I Want to Hold Your Hand."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tony Bennett thrills Atlanta fans with masterful performance

Valentine's night, romance in the air, and Tony Bennett on stage.

The audience at Atlanta's Symphony Hall couldn't ask for anything more. Beaming with joy at 93, Bennett transported his adoring fans through a history of American popular songs, much of which he himself lived.

Wearing a stylish suit and flashing his trademark crooked grin, Bennett generated a rare outpouring of love between performer and audience. From couples of Bennett's generation to millennial hipsters, the well-dressed crowd clapped hands, snapped fingers and erupted with frequent applause.

An audio clip of Frank Sinatra praising Bennett began the performance, and Bennett showed that only his old compadre stands with him as an interpreter of the jazz and theatrical standards called "the American songbook."

Bennett like Sinatra explores the interplay between music and lyrics. As Bennett reveled in his tight band's presentation of the famous melodies, he caressed each song's words. While his weathered voice has lost some of its suppleness, Bennett like a great actor found the songs' dramatic depths.

With a range of gestures and a few spontaneous dance steps, Bennett put his stamp on a full repertory of classics from Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields, George and Ira Gershwin, Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer and other songwriters.

Some in the audience might have registered his performance of Hank Williams' "Cold Cold Heart," one of Bennett's first hits in the early 1950s, showing the crossover appeal of what were then called "hillbilly" songs. Bennett and his quartet sizzled on a jazzy arrangement of the evening's most contemporary song, Stevie Wonder's "For Once in My Life."

In one of the evening's magical moments, Bennett turned Sinatra's melancholy signature "One for My Baby and One More for the Road" into a joyful anthem of resilience. The narrator in his rendering of the Arlen and Mercer classic looks ahead to new adventures rather than looking backward with regret. Bennett also evoked Sinatra with a spirited, if fragmented, performance of Bart Howard's "Fly Me to the Moon,"

While pianist Tim Ray, bassist Marshall Wood and drummer Harold Jones laid down the patterns of a classic jazz trio, guitarist Gray Sargent added a virtuosic dimension. Bennett several times shared the stage with Sargent, whose acoustic guitar solos accented Rice's stylings and Jones and Wood's pulsing rhythms. While Sargent held the spotlight, Jones's brushwork stood out on several numbers.

Bennett's performance of the Gershwins' "Our Love Is Here Today" seemed to move from an expression of personal experience to a universal affirmation of faith and endurance.

After the inevitable finale of "I Left My Heart in San Francisco," Bennett basked in his audience's adulation. He returned several times to the stage, saluting in response to the standing ovation,  as his band performed a reprise of "Fly Me to the Moon." Then he left for the last time, and his fans headed into the chilly night with a warm glow.

 

Rediscovering Norman Blake on a gray Sunday afternoon

We usually keep the Christmas tree up through New Year's Day, but this year we took it down early.

Family members gone home, the holiday bustle past, the house felt empty on a dreary Sunday. Searching through my long-neglected CD collection, I found Norman Blake's  album, "Whiskey Before Breakfast."

Listening again to Blake's flat-picking and singing on "Hand Me Down My Walking Cane," "The Girl I Left Behind in Sunny Tennessee," and "Church Street Blues" renewed my faith in old truths and enduring stories.

Blake's virtuoso guitar playing on instrumentals "The Minstrel Boy to the War Has Gone/Ash Grove," "Macon Rag" and "Whiskey Before Breakfast" brightened the day.

As 2019 dwindles and a momentous new year looms, I return to Blake and others who taught my generation the splendor of American musical traditions. Sadly, too many of them died young: Richard Farina, Janis Joplin, Clarence White, Gram Parsons, Duane Allman, Richard Manuel, Levon Helm, Rick Danko.

Blake, Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson, Ry Cooder and others forge on as another decade comes.

Their music promises that better days will come.

 

 

 

 

 

Wyatt Prunty made Sewanee Writers Conference special

Sewanee Writers Conference founding director Wyatt Prunty is stepping aside after 30 years running the "summer camp for adults" with uncommon grace and professionalism.

Tributes to Wyatt in the Sewanee Review's current issue brought memories of my participation in the first two conferences, funded by a legacy from Tennessee Williams. A noted poet, critic and Sewanee professor, Wyatt made the conference a success from the start.

He was a genial, quiet presence at the conference's many social events. A generous host who kept the conference running smoothly, Wyatt rarely interjected himself into the mingling of poets, novelists, playwrights, agents and publishers. When he did, such as suddenly playing harmonica at a sing-along around the piano, or enlivening a conversation for a sunlit moment with an astute comment or observation before moving on to the next group, participants felt blessed. Those brief interactions made us feel as if he knew and cared about each of us.

The two-week midsummer stay at Sewanee's secluded mountain campus inspired a deep commitment to writing and literature. Sharing breakfast and dinner with luminaries like John Hollander, Howard Nemerov, Tim O'Brien, David Justice, Mona Van Duyn and Robert Stone made us feel part of a literary community. The workshops, individual tutorials and readings raised us to a higher artistic level.

I'll never forget Peter Taylor's courageous reading. Mr. Taylor, still recovering from a stroke, read from one of his marvelous stories. He at times got stuck on a word, but pressed on to the end. I'm honored to say that Mr. Taylor took a liking to me, inviting me to his house in Sewanee for a reception for writing conference faculty members. Talking with him and his wife and wonderful poet, Eleanor Ross Taylor, and intermingling with writers like Ernest Gaines, I thought i had gone to heaven without dying.

The writing conference co-existed with a gathering of high-school musicians. Walking to a workshop or lecture along one of the school's Gothic archways, a writer would come upon a young flutist or violinist practicing. Those brief interludes of music lifted our hearts with the joy and beauty of art.

Before saying farewell to Sewanee, we gathered in the school's magnificent chapel for the young musicians' final concert. They played on each side of us, their Bach and Mozart enveloping us. Such a gift from them as we returned to the world.

Linda Ronstadt documentary traces singer's meteoric career, heart-breaking loss of voice

Linda Ronstadt possessed the greatest range and versatility of any American singer.

The documentary "Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice" traces the singer's spectacular career and the heart-breaking loss of her glorious instrument because of Parkinson's Disease.

Former boyfriend J.D. Souther and fellow pop stars Emmylou Harris, Don Henley, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Dolly Parton and others praise Ronstadt for her supple voice and daring career. We hear from record magnate David Geffen, and former manager Peter Asher. They recall a woman who overcame a lack of confidence in her early days to forge a career that moved far beyond the boundaries of pop music.

Video clips show Ronstadt's performances as a beautiful, mesmerizing young woman. She often starts a song quietly, then stuns the audience with the full force of her voice. Like Aretha Franklin, Ronstadt displays unlimited reserves of power.

The most poignant tribute comes from Kevin Kline, Ronstadt's co-star in the Broadway revival of Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Pirates of Penzance." Kline remembers being moved to tears by hearing Ronstadt's flawless bel-canto voice at the musical's first rehearsal. Scenes of her operetta performance will make musical lovers wish she'd starred in more theatrical productions.

Unlike singer-songwriters like Joni Mitchell, Ronstadt was a throwback to an earlier era when artists such as Frank Sinatra and Peggy Lee interpreted songs written by others.

Ronstadt's voice, larger than other rock stars', pushed songs like "Blue Bayou" and "When Will I Be Loved" to new heights. Reviving American-songbook standards in an album arranged by Nelson Riddle, Ronstadt found her true calling. Later, Ronstadt honored her heritage by recording classic Mexican songs.

Countering record company executives' demands that she stick with hit-proven pop songs, Ronstadt's American Songbook and Mexican albums were best-sellers.

In moving beyond rock and folk, Ronstadt brought her audience to a new musical sophistication and appreciation for jazz, country, Broadway musicals and ethnic music.

The film ends with a heart-breaking scene of Ronstadt struggling with her depleted voice to sing along with her nephew on a Mexican folk song.

Now, the voice that once soared to the highest musical registers can barely rise above a whisper. Ronstadt accepts the loss without regret or bitterness, grateful for the time she was touched by God.

 

 

Remembering John Lennon

The 39th anniversary of John Lennon's murder passed without much fanfare.

On the night of Dec. 8, 1980, Lennon was returning with his wife, Yoko Ono, to their home at the Dakota Apartments in New York City when Lennon was shot four times in the back by Mark David Chapman. The seriously wounded musician was rushed to Roosevelt Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival. The news was first broadcast to a shocked nation by Howard Cosell during a Monday night football game between the Patriots and the Dolphins.

Mark Strong, my friend and colleague at the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, and I put out a newspaper special section honoring the former co-leader of the Beatles who stirred controversy with his and Yoko's political activism supporting world peace. Ledger-Enquirer advertising and circulation execs objected to us giving such attention to Lennon in a conservative small Southern city, but our executive editor, the legendary Glenn Vaughn, never uttered a word. If I recall correctly, the special section was a big seller.

Looking back, I'm amazed at how much Lennon meant to me and others of our generation. My late friend Loftin and I loved Lennon intensely. We liked Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, but we saw Lennon, along with Bob Dylan, as the true voices of our generation.

We waited breathlessly for each new Beatles album to arrive from England, always at this time of year. After the band's earth-shaking early pop hits, mainly co-written by Lennon and McCartney, the two began diverging into writing separate songs on ever more ambitious albums like "Rubber Soul," "Revolver" and "Sgt. Pepper." Their partnership still shone with brilliance on collaborations like "A Day in the Life," which memorably ended "Sgt. Pepper." Lennon's work turned edgier and more mystical, while McCartney remained more pop-oriented.

While many Beatles fans opposed Lennon's marriage to Yoko, we enjoyed her collaborations with him. We remained enthralled by Lennon's solo career after he broke with the Beatles. Lennon's political activism was a big influence on our worldview. He joined Joe Namath and Muhammad Ali as my main anti-establishment heroes.

A lot of Lennon's antics look silly now. But I will always keep a flame burning for him in my heart. When I hear songs like "Norwegian Wood," "I'm So Tired," "Come Together,"  and "Imagine," I'm transported to my youth.