Virginia Schenck perfroms the music of Abbey Lincoln at Atlanta's City Winery

The Vocalsit Virginia Schenck

This past Monday evening the vocal stylist Virginia Schenck brought the musical poetry of Abbey Lincoln to life at one of Atlanta’s newest venues, The City Winery. This was my first time at The City Winery and it was a pleasant, sophisticated experience . Patrons sit in communal tables that face the generous stage and the venue serves food and libations. The space is on the lower level of a shopping center adhjacent to the newly renovated Ponce City Market  and is a good approximation of what NYC jazz venues like the Jazz Standard  are like. 

Ms. Schenck, whose latest cd release is title Aminata Moseka, a tribute to Abbey Lincoln, is an Atlanta area resident who studied music therapy at the University of Florida and has her own music therapy practice in Macon, Georgia. This is her third album and on each outing she has employed the artistry of pianist Kevin Bales, bassist Rodney Jordon and drummer/percussionist Marlon Patton.

Ms. Schenck poses a lean, agile figure dressed in a black leotard top with leather pants under a full fringe black leather open skirt, the fringes freely swaying with her every movment. She was barefoot and had a large silver choker, resplendent with semi-precious stones that wrapped her neck and held her head aloft in regal posture. She often danced around the stage between solos adding to the visual.

The crowd was diverse, one made of fans, press and curious first timers like myself. Ms. Schenck is an animated vocal stylist. Her voice is pleasantly mid-range and while limited she has learned to stay confidently within its boundaries, utilizing a spirited delivery and an imaginative use of sound effects- a technique probably developed during her studies with Bobby McFerrin. Her performance is theatrical with roots in cabaret and musical theater more than jazz, but she can swing and shows an intuitive reverence for the music, especially the lyrics. She is at heart a storyteller who on this project has found a fascination with the poetic music of the late Abbey Lincoln. Lincoln herself was both a singer, an actress as well as a social activist.

Rodney Jordan, Virginia Schecnk, Marlon Patton

Schenck started off the evening entering the stage solo, singing the opening breezy, calypso phrases of Lincoln’s “The Music is the Magic” a cappella. Drummer Patton entered and sat in first, adding percussion to the song introducing a bongo-like beat played with his hands on his tom and snare. Bassist Jordan was next to enter, laying down a swaying bass line before pianist Bales joined in adding his rhythmic piano accents.  The effect was dramatic as the group all came together with Ms. Schenck, eventually ending in as a unified group in perfect precision. 

Ms. Lincoln’s haunting “Another World,” -which Ms. Schenck told the audience was inspired by the musical tone poem from Stephen Spielberg’s movie about extra-terrestrial contact Close Encounters of the Third Kind - was led off by a sensitive Jordan bass solo. There was a slow percussive rhythm to Patton’s drums that spoke of mysterious distant vistas. Bales offered a delightfully buoyant solo that energetically elevated the entire piece to a new high. Ms. Schenck vocal offered the song’s hopeful lyrics adding her own dramatic facial expressiveness.

The set included Lincoln’s cabaret-like “Wholly Earth,” a bluesy folk song “Throw it Away” based on the magic book the I Ching which featured an extended and impressive bass solo by Jordan, and “Caged Bird” based on the Maya Angelou book, which had Ms. Schenck don some heavy chains to dramatize the captivity portrayed in the song. She fearlessly mimicked bird sounds and strutted across the stage like an angry peacock oblivious to reaction or judgement. The band added to the aural display of the song by offering a bowed bass by Jordan, plucked keyboard strings by Bales and the rattling of some metal conduits by Patton. Ms. Scheck’s commitment to her performance art included a parry of her bird sounds pitted against pianist Bales piano chirps in a display of musical conversation.  

The only song not attributed to Abbey Lincoln was a theatrical version of “If I Only Had A Brain” from the Wizard of Oz. Ms. Schenck’s animated vocal delivery includes her own interpretive body movements and facial expressions that all add to the storytelling quality of her performance.

The set ended with Ms. Lincoln’s uplifting “Talking to the Sun” from her 1983 album of the same name. Ms.  Schenck’s performance and the stellar work of her backing musicians had the audience captivated and she received a standing ovation at the end of the show.

Ms. Schenck should be commended for her inspired tribute of appreciation for the work of Ms. Lincoln. Ms. Lincoln was not content to offer  love songs in her repertoire preferring to speak her mind  as an activist and at the same time embracing a more forward looking vision in her lyrics. The poetry of  this music offers a positive message in a time when positivity is sorely needed and Ms. Schenck's fearless portrayl is a refreshing reminder we should all remember not take oursleves too seriously.

The Kevin Bales Quartet Steams up the Mason Tavern

Pianist Kevin Bales

This past Saturday the quartet of the fine pianist Kevin Bales entertained the patrons of the Mason Tavern in North Decatur. The Tavern has been revitalized with the addition of partner Sam Yi, of Churchill Grounds fame, and his inclusion of Thursday night jazz sessions since December 8, 2016. The formula has worked so well that Sam recently expanded the music to include Saturday night shows.

Yi has been a fixture on the Atlanta jazz scene as the proprietor of the venerable jazz club “Churchill Grounds.”  The club was forced to close last July after a twenty-year run.  In search of an alternate venue, Sam was able to institute pop-up jazz events at the Mason Tavern, a local North Decatur eatery on Clairmont Road, and to date some extraordinary jazz has been played at this welcoming venue.

The venue has featured a stable of local and nationally recognized talent with names like Louis Heriveaux, Russell Gunn, Dave Potter, Craig Shaw, Darren English, Terrence and Deshawn Harper, Marlon Patton, Gary Motley and Chris Burroughs appearing on multiple occasions.  It has also seen the likes of Jason Marsalis, Carl Allen, Rodney Witaker, Theodross Avery and Russell Malone all sitting-in at the Tavern.

Kevin Bales and Sam Yi at Mason Tavern

On this evening, the renowned pianist Kevin Bales brought together a cooking ensemble, with Kevin Smith on upright bass, Robert Boone on drums and E.J. Hughes on saxophones. Bales is one of the Southwest’s busiest on-call jazz keyboard artists. A graduate from the University of North Florida music program, he has toured and recorded with iconic saxophonist Bunky Green, guitarist Nathen Page, trumpeter Marcus Printip, and Grammy nominated vocalist Rene Marie to name a few. His journeyman work as a sideman always adds a touch of inventiveness and energy to any artist he supports. He is a busy educator who offers individual and group lessons through his music company, Kevin Bales Music.

Robert Boone, dr; EJ Hughes,saxs; Kevin Smith, b; Kevin Bales, keys

After a brief introduction by Mr. Yi, the evening started out with Bales and company playing an Ellis Marsalis composition that I was unfamiliar with,” Swingin’ at the Haven.” The group took this easy swinger immediately into high gear with Bales pushing the pace and Boone and Smith responding in kind. E.J. Hughes played a sedate but tasteful soprano saxophone solo. The animated pianist soloed on his electronic keyboard with abandon.  He bounced on his small stool , jostling his keyboard with a joyous elan that shook the stand to the point of precariousness. His fleet right hand blurred the separation between notes with speed and agility.

The set continued with the classic “Time After Time,” a song originally penned for the film It happened in Brooklyn. Hughes on tenor this time using a vibrato-less, soulful tone that had no pretense or flash. Bassist Smith produced nice, plump walking bass notes over which Bales played a particularly bluesy piano solo.

The quartet proceeded with the traditional New Orleans standard “House of the Rising Sun,’ popularized by Eric Burden and the Animals in 1964. Under Bales direction the group took a deep, down and dirty approach to this blues classic. Bassist Smith showed off his arco abilities by bowing a soulful passage. Saxophonist Hughes also elicited some mournful notes on his sparse tenor. Drummer Boone tastefully kept the pace as Bales, a master of dynamics,  led his group up through a crescendo of tension ultimately easing the music back down to a skillful release.

“If I Were a Bell,” a song penned for the 1955 musical Guys and Dolls and made famous by Miles Davis rendition on his 1956 album Relaxin” with the Miles Davis Quintet, was next on the playlist.  The group played this with tremendously intuitive interplay, Boone being especially attentive to Bales musical suggestions along the way. Smith knowing precisely where to place purposeful bass line for maximum effect. This was surprising as Bales admitted to having not discussed the playlist with his rhythm section prior to the gig.

The group ended the first set with the title track from the 1990 Spike Lee movie of the same name “Mo Better Blues.” Bales switched the tone of his electronic keyboard to sound like an organ. The tone was perfect for the gospel inspired composition that had the band cooking, with Bales directing the up and down of the pace at will. Bales is an incredibly facile player who seems to have an inner wellspring from which percolates creativity and expansion in his playing. His ebullient personae is infectious spurring on his bandmates and assuring his audiences a night of musical adventure and steamy delight.

You can listen here:

https://play.spotify.com/artist/6rtoiKVyvoRkGROcRQ2bkr

A Night of High Art : Atlanta's High Museum "Jazz on Fridays" : The Dave Potter Quintet

  Miguel Alvarado sax, Darren English trpt, Louis Heriveaux Keys, Craig Shaw bass, Dave Potter Drums.

                  

Last Friday night, as part of the “Jazz on Fridays” series at Atlanta’s High Museum, patrons of the museum were treated to some of Atlanta’s finest jazz musicians as they performed standards from the American songbook and some original music.  The featured group was The Dave Potter Quintet with Louis Heriveaux on keyboard, Craig “Shawbox” Shaw on upright bass, Darren English on trumpet, Miguel Alvarado on saxophones, and drummer/ leader Dave Potter.

Potter is an Atlanta based drummer who studied music at Florida State University under the mentorship of the pianist Marcus Roberts. He received his master’s degree from FSU in 2008. Besides sharing the stage with pianist Roberts, trumpeter Marcus Printup and others he has been an integral part of Jason Marsalis’s Vibe Quartet and recorded with the vibraphone artist on several albums including his latest, highly received The Twenty-First Century Trad Band.

On this early evening, there was a line of people anxiously awaiting the opening of the atrium where Potter and company would perform. The atrium area at the High Museum is a soaring, light filled expanse that is surrounded by an exposed stairwell that coils its way to the upper floors of the museum and offers a view of the City. The architectural firm of Richard Mier and Partners consciously designed the High museum with Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim in mind. The glass exterior wall floods the area with natural light, which in the designer’s plan is a symbol of the enlightenment an institution of art and culture brings to its community and to all who enter the museum’s doors.

The Light Filled Atrium at the High Museum 

There were by some counts upwards of one thousand patrons enjoying the music. Some were seated, some stood, others milled around the atrium enjoying the diverse, cosmopolitan community that is Atlanta in all its splendor, while being thoroughly entertained by these top-notch musicians. For the uninitiated, it was a time of discovery as most of these musicians are all based in Atlanta and can be seen fairly regularly in local venues as well as with nationally touring acts.  Lest anyone fear they have to go to New York or New Orleans to see great jazz, these gentlemen shot an arrow into that balloon of nonsense.

After a brief introduction by WCLK Jazztones DJ Jay Edwards, the group started the set off with a quick paced, hard bop blues composed by the trumpeter Freddie Hubbard. Mr. Potter resplendent in his white suit with dark shirt and light tie leading the way. Mr. English and Mr. Alvarado charging into the melody in synchronous precision. They moved into the Jimmy Van Heusen/Johnny Mercer standard “I Thought About You” followed by another Van Heusen song “Polka Dots and Moonbeams,” where Heriveaux enchanted the crowd with his marvelous keyboard work. If there is one criticism I can levy it is the disappointing lack of a real grand piano in this space. For such a marvelous musician as Mr. Heriveaux not to have a suitable piano here is a crime.



The band followed with the contemporary sound of Wayne Shorter’s “Night Dreamer.” After a spell I took off my journalist’s hat and just listened to and enjoyed the music, paying less attention to what songs they were playing and more into how well they were being played. The front line of trumpeter Darren English and saxophonist Miguel Alvarado was sensational. They often stated the melody line in crisp unified form before each taking robust and creative solos. The rhythm section, driven by Potter and anchored by Shaw and Heriveaux was superb. The pace of the music was often double time, with the rhythm section driving the two horn soloists to step up their game not to be left behind
.

This was my first exposure to the saxophonist Miguel Alvarado who now hails from Nashville, Tennessee and what a pleasant surprise he was. His tenor had a rich, deep tone reminiscent of sax legend Houston Person, but when the pace was pushed by Potter and company he became an incendiary soloist of the highest order. The young South African, now native Atlanta trumpeter Darren English did an admirable job trading solos with Alvarado. English used mutes effectively to change up the sound of his open bell  trumpet and intensify the exchange with Alvarado. Not enough can be said about the stabilizing influence of “Shawbox” Shaw’s bass who kept an unerring pulse to the often-frantic proceedings and offered some nice solo work of his own invention.

The second set was more exploratory in that it offered some original tunes by Potter’s mentor Marcus Roberts, a Thelonious Monk composition and a rendition of “The Nearness of You” that had Alvarado ‘s tenor sounding very Dexter Gordonish. The group also did a Potter original “The Ratio Man” with Alvarado picking up the soprano saxophone for this one.  “Letting Loose” was an off to the races sprint that had Potter pushing the tempo with Elvin Jones like flourishes.

While I did not stay for the third set, the atrium was still SRO by the end of the second set. It is clear that Atlanta’s sophisticated listeners appreciate a good time and good music and will support highly cultural experiences like “Jazz on Fridays.” My only wish is that the crowd be a little quieter in respect to the musicians. The din was some times distracting. The High Museum, in association with WCLK, should be proud for presenting such a community service that obviously fills a need and at the same time preserves our only truly all American art form.To paraphrase a famous saying from an endearing baseball movie “If you present it , they will come.”

A view from above The Dave Potter Quartet

Interview of Pianist and Educator Gary Motley : Director of Jazz Studies at Emory University Part 2 of 2

Gary Motley

Gary Motley is the Director of Jazz Studies at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. He has been teaching music and particularly jazz improvisation since 1995, all the while maintaining his position as a world class pianist and regularly performing and recording with his trio. Just last month Mr. Motley was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame as one that state's native sons. He is participating on a trip to the island nation of Cuba in early January with the saxophonist Victor Goines's group as part a cultural exchange program called "Horns for Havana,"  a program originally started by the trumpet player Wynton Marsalis as a way of  bridging the cultural divide between our two nations.

We talked to Mr. Motley at length on December 8, 2015 in Emory Village. Our discussions touched on of the value of the Arts in education, the development of jazz from its roots, the potential of music as an international form of communication, the state of the industry for young jazz musicians, his own personal musical goals and his latest album Departure. Here is Part Two of that interview.
Part One can be accessed by clicking here.

NOJ:  You are now an educator. When did you start teaching music?

GM: Nineteen ninety-five.

NOJ: What brought you to teaching?

GM: I came home and was kind of a little disenchanted with being on the road. I wanted to take a break from it. When I came home, one of the guys at a local University said he needed somebody to teach a class on improvisation, and asked if I would do it? That is how I started teaching a class at Georgia State and that grew to a couple more classes. Eventually I got a call from Emory to teach an improv class here and that  just started to build. In 2002, I had re-married, and my wife and I were thinking about going back to graduate school.  I called my contacts at Georgia State and they offered me a chance to go there tuition free if I would teach for them. It was an offer I couldn't refuse, so I did that and completed my Masters in program administration at Georgia State. When I graduated, I had acquired the skills to build a new program here at Emory where I started the current full blown jazz studies program since 2004.

NOJ: How many students are currently enrolled in your Jazz Studies Program at Emory?

GM: About forty students.

NOJ: Are they all music majors?

GM: No.  Usually double majors and non-majors because we are liberal arts college, so they are usually doing music and business or music and pre-med or music and some other major.

NOJ:   How many of those students are serious musicians, who want to make music their career?

GM: Not many. I have maybe five majors in my current group, but because it’s liberal arts the curriculum, is basically a two year curriculum as prescribed by the National  Association of  Schools and Music. That is the maximum that I can offer a student in the Liberal Arts setting. If they want to pursue music  as a profession, I have to steer them somewhere else, like NYU, Berklee, NEC ,a school of music or a conservatory. So the big thing that  I do here is make sure they have a healthy appreciation for music, because you never know if these students are the ones that may wind up lobbying on Capitol Hill or something like that. I give my students a chance to see what this music world is all abou. I bring in artists so that they can get a chance to talk with them and get some insight into the world of the jazz musician.

NOJ: With my admittedly limited time down here in Atlanta, my perception is that the area is not as embracing an environment for jazz music, which I consider tantamount to African American classical music, as I would have expected. There seems to be a greater interest in neo soul and Hip hop. Why do you think that is?

GM: I think it’s awareness. It also may come from people wanting to distance themselves from this music.

NOJ: Why is that?

GM: I don’t know, but maybe there is a stigma there. Like the people who resented Louie Armstrong and that kind of thing ( Armstrong was famously ostracized for being  viewed as too pandering at one time).  There was the Harlem Renaissance thing that was a game changer. People started to redefine their whole idea of affluence and success. So certain people wanted to distance themselves from it (jazz) and what they thought it represented.

NOJ: But then many people wanted to preserve the tradition.

GM:  Those who know what time it is, yes. The amazing thing about this music is what it was born out of. It is not a pretty history,let’s face it, but we are talking about people who under less than ideal situations had to figure out how to co-exist.  A beautiful thing emerged out of that coming together, because that is what it is. Somebody asked me the question: “Who does jazz belong to? Who owns jazz?”  Well nobody and everybody.

NOJ: That’s interesting because if you go back and see how jazz developed in New Orleans, the place that many people view as the birthplace of jazz, the music came out of a melting pot of Spanish, Caribbean, Creole, African and traditional European influences through classical musical education.  

GM: This is art. It is really valuable art. If you look at all of the things that came out of that; you look at music, dance the whole thing is ingenious to me. Everything that was associated with community was stripped away for these people. They had to learn a different language, learn different customs learn a different way of thinking, a different way of worshipping. They had to assimilate a new culture and these outside influences were being forced on them. People trying to survive had to find creative ways to fit in and communicate.

In the African culture, drums were used as a means of communication, but drums were taken away (from the slaves.) You’re from a different culture and you are used to instruments that you play to communicate your music and all of a sudden somebody shows you a piano. What are you supposed to do with that? There is this twelve fixed pitches from this tuning system developed by some cat named Pythagoras. Well they can’t find the notes they were used to playing because their music was microtonal (between the twelve tone scale) .

NOJ: Yeah microtonal playing is quite the rage in some circles.

GM: When you hear the slurs and bends that you hear being used in the blues on piano, that’s being done because those notes don’t exist on the keyboard. You have to combine them to get to the sounds. So I’m looking for this note and it is not an F and it is not an F# it is somewhere in between. So you have to slur to bend this thing to get to that sound. Now if I am singing I can get to that because my voice is capable of many pitches. So I get into this technique to get to those sounds. Then you get into the pedantic argument is that sloppy technique? Well obviously no it's not.

NOJ: Not if it is purposeful. If you are playing these things because you don’t know how to play that is a whole different thing.

GM:  Exactly, but that was one of the arguments used when they try to evaluate Monk and his technique. He is using a technique that is unique for the message he is trying to communicate. You can’t assess him using a criteria because it doesn’t apply.

NOJ: I believe he heard things differently …

GM: That is precisely why he played differently and it took people a long time to figure out exactly what was happening.

NOJ: Now, you hear his music and you know it is Monk and it doesn’t sound wrong. It sounds natural to me.

GM:  Yeah. Again we have these cultures being intertwined. Each culture is having to learn how the other one thinks and also give validation to (each other's) thought processes and admitting that while they are different these are valid, artistic  musical statements. We have to be able to objectively deal with all that.

If we go back and look at the whole history of (Western) music and how the church was involved,in that rules were being laid out for composing sacred music. The Church said this is how you write sacred music... which was to be nice and pleasing with no room for dissonance. Bach came along and took notes that were not allowed to be played at the same time and played them with counterpoint.  He figured a clever way to use a tri-tone which was previously not permitted.

When jazz comes along, it is born out of the human experience. It is born from African culture which has a lot to do with rhythms that occur in nature and rhythms that naturally occur in how we move and how we flow and interact with each other. If you look at the Tango for instance, based on the art of the dance, the syncopation, the music has people moving and gyrating. A writer once wrote when syncopation got into the music and started making its way from South America through New Orlean’s into the United States, they called it the "Spanish tinge." They said it was going to destroy civilization as we knew it.

NOJ:  Of course, anything different or out of the norm is going to destroy life as we know it for some people!

GM:  Let’s go back and look at the history of how all these things came about and came together and jazz kind of fuses all of that. It becomes a palette from which we can paint.

NOJ: My perception of jazz is that it is the most universally accepted common language. An unparalleled medium  with which people can communicate no matter what language they speak or what culture they are from.

GM: Check this out.  If you look at in this country, jazz is always introduced in port cities. What happens in port cities? That is where the cultures combine. The other thing to check out  is what does jazz represent? It represents freedom of expression, it represents democracy. If you look anywhere in the world where democracy is introduced, jazz shows up every single time. When the Iron Curtain fell in Russia it was the first thing you saw blossom. 

NOJ: Let’s talk about your music program at Emory. I hear that colleges are cutting all kinds of liberal arts programs everywhere that they can. How secure do you think non conservatory music programs are in today’s environment?

GM:  As a global statement I would say there is cause for concern just because our general state of the economy, but I think it is important to recognize that everything in our society cannot  be boiled down to being a function of economics.  We have to look at those things that are going to give us other ways to be a stable society.

NOJ: How do we as advocates, whether  we are  a student, a teacher, a musician or a writer;  how do we convince the bean counters that music has more value to society beyond it potential  as a career path for those who want to make a living as a musician?

GM:  At this point I treat it almost like being an insurance salesman. Imagine what this world be like if we didn’t have it? I have literally said that to some people in my administration, I have told them we are ambassadors; we give a face to the University. Other advocates can go in and be the frontrunners for those things that need to happen. I would  say look at the state of the world right now, then  take away music. If you think it is bad now, this planet would blow up in a week without music.

NOJ: It’s so true. Jazz and music in general is one of the few international links that people can agree on.

GM: And that’s the thing , I teach it from the standpoint that it is a language. It allows us to  communicates in a way that words don’t. If I go into a culture where I don’t speak their language and they don’t speak mine, we still have this language that moves us both. We don’t have to understand it beyond the fact that we both like it and it speaks to us. Sometimes we as a society becomes too intellectual, or we don’t think at all. It’s important for us all to disseminate the important role that the Arts plays. I talk about the idea that for my students it teaches team building skills, leadership; it stimulates the whole creative process in terms how they view things, how they process things and how they deal with challenges. Having that part of the creative experience as part of your intellect is absolutely necessary. We need people to think outside of the box. With all the challenges that we are facing in the world people respond out of fear, and fear is born out of a lack of understanding.  Music and Art in general help us to try to address things in the world around us because it is born from the world around us and helps us understand it better.

NOJ: With all the many music schools and conservatories that are turning out more and more very accomplished players, where are these musicians going to play? The economics seem to be working against having a successful career in music for all but a few elite. Venues are limited and the compensation is sometimes non-existent.

GM: At a point it becomes a matter of survival and it’s going to be survival of the fittest.  There are musicians out there who are not necessarily as good (as others), but who have marketing skills and know how to navigate the system. That is sometimes a business choice. It is not always just purely about the music. There are a lot of guys who make those choices.

NOJ: How do the economics of making it as a professional jazz musician speak to the long term viability of the survival of the art form?

GM: It is a tough one. I have a hard time, as much as I am passionate about the music, it is not easy for me to recommend this path to students. You would have to be incredibly honest with yourself as to why you are doing it. If you don’t have a sense of mission or a calling for it, then you might want to tell yourself this is fun but it is not necessarily a profession I should follow.

NOJ: Where do you think the music is going? So many kids are purely conservatory trained. There are not enough venues for them to get out and play with peers and basically woodshed.  Do you think the music has become too technical and has lost its heart?

GM: I think we are in flux right now and I don’t know where it will land. Technology plays a big role in that, because we don’t  have as much face to face interaction like we used. That is a challenge because kids need to go listen to live music and see other players, but where can they go? You are not going to be able to speak the language if you haven’t heard the language being spoken, which means you have got to get out and converse with other musicians. Training is fine, but is it going to say anything, is it going to move anybody by itself? Quite honestly I don’t think so,

NOJ: How does a musician be true to the history but still free himself to be creative in a way that is not solely derivative?

GM: I think that it is a matter of perspective. In the jazz community we are always told, studying the works of the masters, pay your dues, so to speak, which I think is a bit overstated. The point is in order to know where you are going you have to know where you came from. To me what made them Masters is that they took the information that came before them and they used it as tools to be able to express what it was what they wanted to say. I think that is the final step in the growth process of a jazz musician. Some people elect to go out because they think they have some things on their mind and they want to get out there and show the world. Others simply want to be able to just sound like someone that they respect and then go out and assimilate hoping that they will find their own voice that way.

NOJ: Is that enough of a worthy goal to sound like Stan Getz or John Coltrane or Sonny Rollins?

GM: Only the individual can decide that. I don’t have the right to tell someone to that they should go beyond. If I see a student with a certain ability that maybe be edging toward breaking free, then certainly I am going to encourage them. That becomes  a personal choice.

NOJ:  What about for you as a musician. What is your aim as a pianist?

GM: My goal is to go beyond. My aim is to take those things and get to a place where I can express what I want to express. Ironically, this is why I named my most recent cd Departure, for that particular reason. It contains all my original compositions and a couple of things that my wife wrote. I made a decision that I am not going to record or  publish any more arrangements or performances of jazz standards until further notice. Every trio under the sun have played these things, they are war horses.  I'm not going to bring anything new to the table.

NOJ: It is hard and yet every once in awhile, I hear somebody do something that is a unique and different take.

GM: Well you know what, this is my point of Departure, at this point I am going take those things that I have learned and just go in a new direction and just see what I can accomplish.

NOJ: When you say that you are going in a new direction, how are you accomplishing that? What is the change that you are making?

GM:  The change that I am making is I am writing, composing my own songs based on a concept that I have in my mind.   I mentioned  the inspiration of Bill Evans and a symphony orchestra, so when I am writing I am writing for the trio and  the orchestra  that’s one of the different things that I am working on.

NOJ: The difference being the trio and the orchestra? Could the trio without the orchestra still be making music with a different approach?

GM:  It could, but in this case I am trying to integrate the two so they are kind of co-dependent. So the orchestra becomes this housing and the trio becomes the processor. It sends out the signals to communicate to this other massive thing. Exploring colors and textures to see what I can come up with. I always had a vivid imagination about things. I know the  story went like this, but it could also have gone differently.  It can sometimes be a problem for my class because I improvise cadenzas at the end of pieces and they tell me we know that is not the way it was written, and I have to tell them, yeah but you don’t know he (the composer) might have had something like this in mind. Growing up in the South, there are things that I have seen that I want to create in music, just trying to come up with some different ideas about stuff. 

There are a couple things on Departure, for example there  is a tricky little thing called “Times Up.” The title comes from playing “Hide and Go Seek” as a kid.  In the game when the time is up you go searching for the person who is hiding. So what I did was rather than playing the melody with the right hand I put it in the left hand, it is a bass part, so that is the hidden part. So you have to search for the melody.  The chord progression that I used is from Wayne Shorter’s ESP and then changed it up with a combination of a Brazilian rhythm and a reggae groove. It just kind of came out that way.  So it is taking all these things that I have experienced  and saying ok this is the direction I want to go in and seeing what happens.

So it’s all part of where do we go next; it’s like the bassist John Clayton said “You have to learn to walk in the Master's footsteps.” You imitate and learn the path they have taken and then you after that you get a chance to forge your own path.

NOJ:  Who are your favorite contemporary pianists?

GM: I like Tamir Hendleman who plays with drummer Jeff Hamilton. I like Brad Mehldau as a modern player. I like Kenny Barron a lot. There is an Italian pianist Enrico Pieranunzi he is still in Italy, but he is one of those guys that I like that a lot of people don’t know about him.

NOJ: You have had some big name jazz players play at  Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts.
How are you involved in getting these jazz concerts at Emory?

 GM:  I am. I’m kind of a consultant. Bob McKay who is the Director of the Center here at Emory, is the one who actually puts these concerts together but we collaborate. Bob has his ear to the ground and pretty well knows what is happening around the country. He is part of Association of Performing Arts Presenters so he goes to the APAP conference. Between the two of us working together it gets done.

NOJ: How do you think Atlanta shapes up as a jazz destination? I see the concert tours and the artists seem to go to New York, Washington, down to Florida and onto Texas but they seem to bypass Atlanta.  Why do you think that is?

GM: We definitely need more venues. I think the market is here now. I think the radio, the way we are communicating with the public about jazz in Atlanta is suffering right now. Starting with the radio station (WCLK)  from the loss of having independent jazz programming which is now automated, If you want to get your jazz fix you have to go to the Internet and stream from somewhere, but it’s more of a national thing, it syndicated and nice but it is not local. What I would like to see for Atlanta is a citywide adoption of jazz as the art form it deserves to be seen as. That’s why I settled here.

NOJ: Atlanta has some venues for jazz. I have seen some pretty good national acts come to the Velvet Note in Alpharetta and if the act is big enough occasionally at Variety Playhouse in little five points, and then there are local spots like Café 290 and Churchill Grounds.

GM: Yes there are these local venues.Then there is Emory, Spivey Hall at Clayton State University in Jonesboro ,GA and Georgia Tech has a theater .

NOJ: You’re going to be going to Cuba to play in January. Tell us about that.

GM : It is a program called “Horns to Havana.” It was started when Wynton Marsalis went to Cuba and they discovered that the students there didn’t have the instruments they needed to play. The ones that they did have needed repair. So they started to raise money to purchase instruments and send them to the students. They would also send technicians down to Cuba to repair instruments. They organized  concerts and performances and outreach sort of things.

NOJ: Who will you be playing with on this trip?

GM: The leader will be with saxophonist Victor Goines.  He just sent me the lineup for the rest of the band. Justin  Copeland is playing trumpet, Adam Thornberg trombone, Emma Dayhoff bassist and Marion Felder is on drums. 

NOJ: It should be interesting to see the old Cuba before it changes as it will inevitably will.

GM: When I went to Colombia I had the chance to fly in a plane when there was no separation between the pilot and the passenger cabin. It is like living in a time warp. That age of innocence which we no longer have here in the US. I expect Cuba will be the same.

NOJ: What is your take on the Atlanta Jazz Festival? How do you think it can become one of the top jazz festivals in the world?

GM:  I think one of the biggest things it is going to take is for people to recognize what we have here (in Atlanta.) We do have a large audience of enthusiasts that can be nurtured and cultivated. You have to start with acknowledging them, acknowledging the local musician community and then figuring out how to communicate to them. When we have quality shows at Emory people do show up so there is audience to tap into to here. 

NOJ: Any more concerts coming up at Emory?

GM: Anat Cohn ( the jazz clarinetist)  will be coming in February with my trio.

NOJ: I hear you will be getting an award soon?

GM: Yes I am being inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame on December 12, 2015. I am very honored. I will join the ranks of Dinah Washington and  WC Handy and Ella Fitzgerald, even though she wasn’t from Alabama.

NOJ: Well congratulations Gary and thank you for sharing some of your thoughts with us.

Interview with Pianist and Educator Gary Motley Director of Jazz Studies Program at Emory University Part 1 of 2

Gary Motley

Gary Motley is an Atlanta based jazz pianist, composer and educator. Since 2004 he has been the director of jazz studies at Emory University while still maintaining a foot in the community of working jazz musicians. Before becoming an educator Mr. Motley plied his skills as an accomplished pianist with the likes of Clark Terry, Benny Golson,Terrence Blanchard, Russell Malone and a myriad of other master musicians. In 2008 Mr. Motley was a featured artist of an interview by the late Marion McPartland on her nationally syndicated NPR show piano jazz. 

Receiving his masters from Georgia State and making Atlanta his home for many years, Mr,. Motley is uniquely positioned to speak to the local Atlanta jazz scene, his musical program at Emory. his thoughts on jazz and its direction, his career as both an educator and a working jazz musician and other music related topics. Mr. Motley was recently inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame on December 12, 2015.

Notes on Jazz  spoke to Mr. Motley on December 9, 2015 in Emory Village, Atlanta, GA. We discussed his Alabama upbringing, his musical influences, his life as a musician and an educator and a composer. This is PART ONE OF A TWO PART INTERVIEW:

NOJ:   Thanks for taking the time Gary . I read somewhere that you were brought up in Alabama, what part?

GM: A little city called Anniston, near  Birmingham about one hundred miles from here.

NOJ: How was the music scene in Alabama when you were growing up?

GM: It used to be fairly decent depending on where you  were. The Blues was big thing over there in the south country and R&B . The northern part of the state was definitely (into) R&B, a lot in the nineteen sixties, Stax Records,  Muscle Shoals, the Muscle Shoals sound, a horn section called the Muscle Shoals Horns.  A lot of R &B stuff was cut up in that area, so you have a lot of that type of Soul music. But yeah, being in the conservative South, you were in the Bible belt, a lot of Gospel and sacred music and that sort of thing, which is what I grew up with. My mom was a church pianist and that sort of thing so that was what she did and my dad loved his Blues records so you got this interesting mix.

NOJ: So who were your Blues favorites?

GM: I just never really gravitated heavily toward the Blues.

NOJ: Does it influence your playing at all?

GM: A little bit, but I think just being a product of the environment, you know I learned about people like Muddy Waters and folks like that, I think just by being in the region.

NOJ: So what did you like to listen to when you were younger?

GM: I discovered jazz as a teen, listening to my local public radio station, checking stuff out and thought this is cool. Television of all places from Charlie Brown by Vince Guaraldi and the rest was also an influence.

NOJ: Did you like Johnny Costa?( Musical director for Mister Rodgers Neighborhood)

GM: Yeah , John Costa.

NOJ: What a player too, underrated!

GM:  I had no idea he was that bad!

NOJ: I believe they called him the white Art Tatum!

GM: I heard that stuff and then I had to find out who it was. I started talking to guys and then met guys who knew him and that sort of thing. From there I started to investigate a little bit more.

NOJ: It’s interesting , my sister, who is not a jazz fan, was telling me that Guaraldi’s score to a Peanuts Christmas and Costa’s work on Mister Rodgers probably influenced more children to at least listen to jazz then would probably have happened otherwise. It’s sort like coming in from the back door.

GM:  Yeah but we got there! We had a local station in Birmingham, a public radio station that would play jazz one hour a night from twelve midnight to one am.  We were getting it on mom’s little AM radio and I was checking out what these cats were doing and it sounded like jazz.

Growing up in the South, let alone growing up in Alabama, was an interesting thing. My mom was set on exposing us to cultural things so it was through those channels that I started to hear the music and really became fascinated. It set me on the course and I never looked back.

NOJ:  Where did you go to school?

GM: I started out at the University of Alabama. Then there is a fine arts college in Alabama called the University of  Montevallo , I transferred there and decided I was going to major in music and did my undergraduate work there.  After that  I went out on the road ( as a working musician)  for sixteen years  and went back to Georgia State University and did my master’s degree there.

NOJ: Wow sixteen years on the road? Who did you wind up playing with and who did you wind up learning from?

GM: I played with all different people. I did some stuff with Terence Blanchard, some with Russell Malone and then just a lot of pick up gigs playing with pretty much all the cats, Clark Terry, Benny Golson. I hung out with Barry Harris while I was in New York. Back in the eighties…I used to hang out there a lot.

NOJ: Did you reside in New York for any length of time?

GM: I never lived there, but I would be in and out there.

NOJ:  Are you a proponent of the idea that as a jazz musician you have to embed yourself in New York which seems to be the Mecca for jazz and where all the musicians seem to congregate?

GM: I think you have to do it. It can be a love-hate relationship. My thing was that I wanted to digest the information, but I never felt comfortable enough to completely take the plunge and live there.

NOJ: It is a pretty big plunge.

GM:  Yeah, that is a helluva leap of faith. I thought long and hard about it and said I will get in there as much as I can, so that was the way I chose to do it. But, I think at some point (a working musician) has to go there just to understand what the level is and what the expectations are, especially if you are someone who wants to do this for a living, and then you got to do it.

 NOJ: What do you think about the feasibility in today’s market of being a professional jazz musician and being able to make a living at this as a profession?

GM:  You have to be dedicated to it and be willing to go where it takes you.  That’s what I’ve done, that is all I have always done for thirty-six years. It has been jazz in some form or another, but it has been jazz.

NOJ: But you also write orchestral compositions?

GM: Yes, I am writing and arranging. I am actually doing something with the Le Grange Symphony Orchestra in middle of January when I get back from my trip to Cuba. It will be strings with a jazz trio. You have to remember Bill Evans did that trio with symphony orchestra. That is one of my favorite projects. So I get to write for that. We have a string quartet in residence here (at Emory University) and so I get to write for them. So writing and arranging doing my own compositions.

NOJ: As a composer/arranger what do you think of the resurgence of big band music writing and arranging?

GM:  There are different approaches to writing and arranging for big bands. Ellington had his own unique approach and Stan Kenton was the polar opposite. You look at somebody current, like Maria Schneider, she sees it like this tonal canvas and you can hear it, the textures that she writes.  One of my favorite writers and musicians period is Bob Mintzer, who writes big band charts. I actually had him here a few years back.

NOJ: What about Southern Rock? Did that hit Alabama when you were growing up?

GM:  Oh yeah,I had some brief encounters with that, but I wasn’t really into it.

NOJ: Who were your biggest influences on piano?

GM:  Oscar (Robertson), Monk, Bill Evans and I guy a lot of people don’t know about named Dwight Mitchell. Remember  Willie Ruff, he played French horn and bass? The Mitchell-Ruff duo? Dwight was a bit of a recluse outside of his performing he was really a low key kind of guy. He was from; I want to say St. Augustine, Florida.  He died a few years back.  He was on NPR’s Marion 

Mc Partland’s show,  "Piano Jazz," you should look up that link to his interview with her.  

These days, I'm really feeling the Bill Evans thing, but I really don’t want to be put in that pigeonhole. Of the guys that are out there now Kenny Baron is one of my favorites.  George Cables  I like.

NOJ: What about Chick (Corea) , Herbie ( Hancock) and Keith (Jarrett) the triumvirate of the past fifty years?

GM: Yeah, if you are a piano player  you have to check those guys out. We had Chick at Emory here recently.

NOJ: I was there, Chick and Bela Fleck. Great concert.

GM: Chick does Chick very well, flawless. I can respect that, he makes you come to him.

NOJ: I remember seeing Chick back in the seventies when he was into fusion and Return to Forever.

GM: I’d say in terms of my influences, initially it was like the classic jazz trios, like Nat Cole, Tommy Flanagan and Wynton Kelly. The modern thing for me came later, in recent years I’m studying those guys more and trying to get in touch with that style. I have been really checking that out now and trying to understand that whole concept. I think …for me being here teaching,  I didn’t have access to some of the guys who were doing ( the modern thing).  You know I was not able to talk to some of the guys in person and finding out what they were doing, asking them “Hey man what’s the deal?” So I had to get a lot of it from books and records or wherever I could find it.

NOJ:  What besides the obvious quirkiness of his music drew you to Thelonious Monk?

GM: I once had a conversation with Ellis Marsalis.  At the time everyone was on this Monk trip and I told him I didn’t get it. So I told him “what’s the deal with this Monk cat,” I was maybe twenty-one at the time. I said I have listened to him and I don’t get it? He said, the problem is that you are listening to Monk for what you want to hear rather than listening to what he is trying to say. He said you have got to change how you are hearing him and then you will get what is going on. Then I started hearing his effective use of dissonance and that sort of thing, but it was deliberate it was by design. I got the artistry and that was pretty radical for the time.

NOJ: Who plays like Monk? His style is so different and yet he has influenced a lot of people. It’s pretty interesting where the young players are coming from. In my opinion a lot of them have taken to dissonance and in particularly many seem to have been influenced by McCoy Tyner’s percussive and modal style.  Why do you think his style has been so influential to the young players where the styles of his contemporaries like Brubeck or Peterson seem to have been forgotten? Do you feel this is true?

GM:  I do. That’s the thing that hit me with that,…  I am analyzing like the McCoy thing and that sound, using the pentatonic scale  and stuff like that. When I first heard it I didn’t get it. Now it is starting to hit me a little bit more. There is a whole interesting underlying philosophy under that music. I don’t know if it actually started  in New York because I’m not there, so being on the outside I have to formulate my own  conclusions about how it came to be.  When you play inside versus playing outside…

NOJ:  Explain what playing inside versus playing outside means to you?

GM: Consonance versus dissonance.  Outside is that tense thing that is unrelated. What is that about and where does that come from? If you are a classically trained musician you are taught about the concept of right and wrong notes. If you purely stick to that you will never get it, because you have been so ingrained with the Western way of thinking about the twelve tone system.  This is going beyond that and saying we are going to define tonality in a different way. There is a whole bunch of reasons why it’s done, but if you are talking about the music itself that’s kind of the number one principal of this thing.  In order to be able to execute it,  I teach my students to put name to these things, then all of a sudden the concept  becomes tangible. The next thing you want to do is give permission to do this.  You know this is not related to the key but that’s not the point. If you want to sound and do something that is not related to the key that actually gives you dimensional freedom  (then at some point )you need the permission to do this.

NOJ: But you should only employ this dissonance for a specific reason, right?

GM: As a conscientious musician you should do it for a reason.  Then that gets it into a whole different thing. Like when Trane made that choice, was that a conscious deliberate choice? Did he have a reason for doing it? The fact of the matter is that here is this new resource that you have that gives another dimension to the music. I agree I think there should be a reason behind using it. Sometimes it becomes affected, a little like smoke and mirrors. I think the musicians who come in the door and say they want to start, with Herbie( Hancock) and McCoy( Tyner) and Trane. I have to say, you don’t understand, they didn’t start there. If you listen to early McCoy he didn’t sound anything like that. He sounded like cats that were around at the time. He got into his eventual style as an evolutionary thing. When you get right down to it, McCoy is still playing stride piano.

NOJ: I never thought of it that way but your'e right.

GM: He just changes the rhythm. It came out of folks like James P. Johnson and Fats Waller. It just was the next step in the evolutionary process. So you have got to go back and deal with that otherwise you’ll never know where that came from.

NOJ: The history is important for any student of the music.

GM: Oh Yeah. That was the thing for me to figure out, because that component  I didn’t get to that right away. I had my own process to see what those thing, where they came from  and then I could see how to put new ideas into practice. 

In Part Two of this interview we will discuss Mr. Motley's assessment of the state of jazz education, the viability of becoming a jazz musician,  the Atlanta jazz scene and Mr. Motley's latest album titled Departure. You can access Part Two by clicking here.

Atlanta's Own Freddy Cole plays the Velvet Note

The Velvet Note

About twenty-five miles due north of downtown , a short thirty minute ride up rte 400, is the Velvet Note possibly the best jazz club in the Metro Atlanta area. General Manager Tamara Fuller, like many of us a transplanted New Yorker, started this club almost four years ago with the idea of creating a club that would appeal to musicians, a place where people could experience live music in a living room setting with exceptional sound. To that end she employed an acoustic design engineer to create an atmosphere that maintains vocal and instrumental fidelity throughout the space. The casual, rug clad space is curiously located in a renovated retail store in a strip mall flanked by a Chiropractic office and a Barber Shop. In keeping with the intimate, living room style there are some small tables, some larger community tables, some randomly placed chairs and even a comfortable sofa on which to sit and a rather generous stage that can be seen easily from almost every vantage. 

The venue seats about fifty patrons comfortably and food and drink are available from a courteous and helpful staff. On this past Saturday evening the Note brought Atanta’s own Freddy Cole and his quartet in for an evening of story and song. Mr. Cole is a dapper eighty-four years young and truly one of America’s enduring treasures. He still commands a subtle baritone whose warmth fills you like the first sip of a glass of fine cognac. He was joined by his working quartet of Randy Napoleon on guitar, Elias Bailey on bass and Quentin Baxter on drums. Mr. Cole is a fine pianist who plays sparingly in the Basie style and who often cites the Modern Jazz Quartet’s pianist John Lewis as an enduring influence.  He actively tours with this group who know his every move and it is a marvel to witness such organic symbiosis between his fellow musicians.  Mr. Cole is notoriously known for never pre-arranging his set list preferring to read his audience and choose his material extemporaneously- keeping his musicians guessing.  He has an encyclopedic knowledge of the Great American Songbook and never uses charts.

At this sold out show, Mr. Cole started the first set with a song from Frank Sinatra’s repertoire “ A Lovely Way to Spend an Evening.” The medium tempo song got the audience in the right mood and you could see this band could swing. The second song was a slow ballad “You’re Bringing the Dreamer  Out in Me” and was originally sung by his brother Nat in 1958 with the arranger Nelson Riddle.  Mr. Cole can make any song bristle with emotion in his most personal conversational way.

Freddy Cole Singing the Blues

“Wild is Love” is from a self produced Nat Cole musical score I’m With You, music by Ray Rasch and lyrics Dotty  Wade, again arranged by the inimitable Nelson Riddle. The show was supposed to be Nat Cole’s  entry  onto Broadway but it never caught on. Bassist Bailey pulses the bossa beat  as Mr. Cole  sang out the boisterous refrain “Wild is Love.” The sentiment about a man looking for love among many choices  is perfectly believable from the octogenarian  whose wizened ways clearly come through in the telling.

Other highlights of Mr. Cole’s performance “I Loved You” It’s Crazy,” “Old Folks,”“Something Happens to Me” and “Sometimes I Love You”  

The quartet is tight and nimble taking the lead from Mr. Cole with Mr. Napoleon’s facile guitar work  being the principle other lead voice in this group. Mr. Bailey is steadfast in his rhythmic consistency and Mr. Baxter showed some subtle brush work on occasion. For the most part this group looks to their leader for direction and respectfully never upstage him, preferring to  allow him the deserved spotlight.

With the holiday just around the corner Mr. Cole treated the audience to a medley of Christmas songs including  a down home blues titled “Blue Christmas.”  What Christmas would be complete without Freddy Cole singing the heartfelt “Christmas Song” made famous by his brother Nat.  The baritone went into the sentimental “Old Days, Old Times, Old Friends” and ended the evening ended with the playful“Jingles the Christmas Cat.”

Mr. Cole will be playing at the St. Regis Hotel in NYC on Dec 21st and then reside at Birdland in New York City from December 22 through 26^th.  His latest album is  Singing the Blues  If you plan to be in New York for the Holidays seeing the romantic crooner live  would be the perfect gift for that someone special.