If you Hear Something, Say Something

I’m sure many of you that read this blog are familiar with the Miles album My Funny Valentine Plus Four and More, the live one at Lincoln Center. On the track Stella by Starlight, during the top of one of Miles’ solo choruses he plays and F# on the E half-diminished chord and there’s a person in the crowd that screams yeah. Now I don’t about you, but to me that was a feel-good moment. That record was one of the first Miles records that I owned (thanks BMG, R.I.P.) when I was in high school. At the time I didn’t think that it was okay to voice sounds of approval at intimate concerts like this one. This one person made it okay to feel like it was okay. I remember rewinding that one particular moment and wondering what it was that Miles played which cause this person to call out. I just think that that note really resonated with him, causing him to speak uncontrollably. So my question is how many of us have experienced this? How many of us have experienced this but have held back in fear of disturbing the experience for others? Let me be the first to say that it’s not cool to ruin another audience members listening experience, but I think that it’s okay to aver a sound of joy to a performer if you hear something that touches you right at that moment.

If you know me as a concertgoer, you know that I can become quite vocal when I hear something that touches me. Throughout my years of doing this I don’t ever remember receiving any snide looks from anyone, so I think that it’s okay. I consider it to be a transfer of energy from the audience to the band. Bands, especially today, really need this. For me as a performer it’s a good feeling to hear these sounds every once in a while and I gain more inspiration to play my best at all times when I experience this. I don’t think that it’s an ego-stroke per se, but more of a subtle approval from someone that you are well on your way towards “speaking” in this music, as opposed to only playing the changes, etc.

So my plea to all of you is to speak up if you hear something that you like from a performer in real time. You don’t have to wait until their solo is over to do so. They’re probably going to take 30 more choruses after that special moment anyway, lol!!

Swing it out!

J.P.

Influence: Lee Morgan

I’ll have to be honest with you.   The first time that I heard Lee on record (I believe that it was an Art Blakey record), I didn’t really dig him.   I thought that he overblew and when I saw a video of him I found his fingering technique to be out of alignment with what I had been taught, so I thought that it was wrong.  Then I bought Night of the Cookers…that changed everything.  I then started to embrace his unique, physically aggressive style of playing.  Up to that point I realized that I was comparing everything that Lee played to everything that I had heard of Freddie Hubbard.  When I got that record, I really started to appreciate the differences in their playing.  That’s when I started to cop as many Lee recordings as a leader and a sideman as I can.  He’s another one of those players whose tone can’t truly be contained on a record.  He was what I would’ve called a child prodigy.  Just check out his work on Blue Train.  He was sooo young on that one.  I really love his playing on Drums Around the Corner (Art Blakey), Night Dreamer (Wayne Shorter), Standards (Lee Morgan), Live at the Lighthouse (Lee Morgan), Expoobident (Lee Morgan),  too many to name…

Influence: Clifford Brown

I heard Clifford Brown’s playing for the first time when I was a teenager. I was on my way back home from a small group rehearsal at the Greensboro Music Academy (where I was a student at the time), and the pianist in the group, Branson Page, pops Study in Brown into the cd player. After hearing Brownie’s solo on Cherokee I was hooked. I hadn’t heard a trumpet sound like that up to that point. So I went out and bought that cd and learned his solo on Cherokee. I made it a point to check out as many of his records and through reading the liners to his records I was able to learn about his life and his tragic death in 1956. The life he led inspired me to stay “clean”.

During my senior year in high school, I met a vibes player by the name of Jon Metzger. I mentioned to him how much I admired Clifford and his playing. He suggested that I contact Clifford’s widow LaRue Watson Brown. He gave me her phone number but it took me about a year to gather up the courage to call her. I finally called her and we talked for a couple of hours about music, life, and Clifford. She told me that one of Clifford’s only addictions was doughnuts. He would eat an entire box of doughnuts in one sitting. I asked her about the Strings album and how it came about. She told me that Clifford wanted to have a child, but she didn’t want to have one just yet. So she told him that if he recorded a classical album they could have a child. He said what about a strings album and she agreed and a child was born.

Throughout the years I’ve been fortunate to acquire more rare recordings of Clifford’s artistry. From the people that I’ve met that played with him or heard him play, they all tell me that recordings don’t really do Brownie’s sound justice. They say that his sound was huge and warm in ALL registers. I learned a lot from hearing about that……

Influence: Charles “Buddy” Bolden

Just imagining the majesty of Buddy’s sound has inspired me to play with a fuller sound as often as I could, especially when the room and the situation calls for it. I’ve heard stories (some label as heresay) about Buddy having the ability to play the trumpet at such a volume that one could hear him playing across the Mississippi River as well as his improvisational prowess.

Here’s a Sneak Peek at my New Theory Book!!

Hi Everyone,

I wanted to clue you in on an project that I’ve been working on for a long time. I’ve been putting together an improvistational concept/theory book which is basically a compilation of the concepts that I try to convey in my own improvistations (sometimes with success, sometimes without). The four pages below are excerpts of what I call the Bowling Ball concept. I’m sure others have other names for it, but I labeled this solely for identification/organizational purposes. I know that the text on the first page may be quite difficult to read so I copied it below:

“Bowling Ball- This technique is intended to enhance fingering patterns throughout the range of your horn. These triplets have a very symmetrical contour when played in succession. I heard these shapes for the first time on a few Nicholas Payton recordings. I thought that the sound and effect of these ideas were pretty potent so I practiced them and expanded on them a little. I encourage you to play all of these sets of triplets using the same fingering (i.e. use the false fingerings when you ascend to the upper-register). I must stress again the importance of practicing these slowly because the later studies will become more difficult. These excercises need to be played slowly in order to be internalized.”

These series of books that I’m planning on putting out are going to be designed for those players who seem to have “hit a roadblock” when it comes to improvising. I must admit that many of these passages will have more of a trumpet slant, but I’ll make sure that there’s a book for everyone. I plan on releasing a few volumes of unconventional scales, a volume dedicated to intervalic improvisation, and a system of improvisation that based on the harmonic series for the trumpet.

Stay Tuned,

Jason Palmer

Lenny the 25th

I’d like to introduce you to a very good friend and mentor of mine. I consider him to be one of the last living masters of this music that we call jazz. He plays drums and I place him in the same category of a Tony Williams or Roy Haynes (he actually knows both of them and would go over to Tony’s house and play drum duets with him when he was younger). Chick Corea considers him to be one of the world’s greatest drummers. I saw that quote in a magazine a few years ago. He taught at Berklee College of Music and he continues to educate and inspire many musicians worldwide via his vast collection of instructional/inspirational drumming videos.

His name is Lenny “The 25th” Nelson. He’s one of the nicest, humble, down-to-earth individuals that you probably have never met. I’ve known him for about eleven or twelve years. He frequents Wally’s Café on the weekends and every time he visits, we talk and I always asked him to play. He kindly refused up until about 3 or 4 months ago. We played Just One of Those Things and it was FAST!! Lenny’s a master at the uptempos. Here’s a video of one of his earlier videos, he has over 1,000 of these in his library:

Why is Lenny known as Lenny “The 25th”? I’ll tell but it’s a long story! I’ll give it to you.

Let’s go back to the opening of Spike Lee’s The 25th Hour in the theatres. So my wife (then girlfriend) Colleen are standing in line waiting to buy tickets. I look over my back and see Lenny with his wife and I asked him what they were going to see. He said they were going to see The 25th Hour. He was excited because he calls himself the 25th. I was a bit confused so I asked him why. He then gives me his business card. It has his name “Lenny the 25th”Nelson on it and nothing else. I chuckled a bit because I think that’s the first and only time I’d received a card with no number on it!

Now fast forward several years to this past Friday night. Lenny came down to Wally’s and I hung out with him on our set break. We started a conversation that somehow got to the subject of his childhood. He then tells me that he is the 25th BORN OF 26!!! The 26th child passed away at 1 year so Lenny got all of the attention. When he was born it was headline news here in Boston. President Roosevelt contacted Lenny’s parents because he wanted to send a TV crew to their home and document their home life. This would have essentially been the first reality tv show (forget John and Kate plus 8, lol). But Lenny’s mother declined. He then described living in a household of this size. Imagine sitting at a dinner table 20 yards wide every meal!!

Lenny was a celebrity here in Boston. He was recognized everywhere he went and a social magnet to all creeds and colors. Needless to say that after all of those years of living in the public eye, Lenny now enjoys a little solitude, but when he gets on the set, he brings everyone together.

Here’s a big CHEERS to Lenny “The 25th” Nelson!!

Jason Palmer

Jam Session Ethics Insight #3: A Slight Diversion

Alright I’d like to tell you a story of a very interesting situation that I experienced at my session at Wally’s about 8 or 9 years ago on a hot July day.

So the session is going along quite smoothly. The front door is open to get some air circulation in and out of the club. A lady walks in who seemed to be my age or few years older than me. She approaches the bartender as I’m soloing. When I’m done with my solo the bartender tells me that this lady would like to perform a spoken word piece. I said that this was cool because every once in a while we’ll have some decent spoken word artists perform with us at the session. So I invited her to the stage after we were done with the tune we were playing. She told me that before she was to begin she would need us to close the door and that there was to be complete silence. I found this to be a rather odd request but we went along with it anyway. By this time, all eyes are on her because I’ve introduced her and she asked for these things on stage in front of the audience and the musicians.

So now it’s time to begin the piece. I asked her if she would like any backing from the rhythm section and she said that she would do a solo piece. So I said cool and stepped to the side and gave her the stage. She closed her eyes, put her head down, and started to scream at the top of her lungs!! It was the loudest scream that I’ve ever experienced in person. I, along with everyone else in the club was completely stunned for the next 30-45 seconds. The screaming went on and on and I didn’t know whether to interrupt her or let it go on. Before I even had a chance to act, the bartender had already come from the back of the bar and grabbed the lady and escorted her out of the club and told her not to come back.

This was one of those instances where I felt totally helpless in a situation that I was supposed to be in charge of. It was definitely a learning experience for me. From that moment on, I made it a point to emphasize the fact that it’s called a jam session for a reason…we are supposed to play with each other…

Keep Swingin,

Jason Palmer

Ethics at Jam Session Insight #2

Alright this issue is for the players that lead the jam sessions. I am certainly not casting the first stone on this one because I have been guilty of this in the past, but I realized these faults and I’ve done my best to avoid them.


If you are regulating the session please be proactive. Communicate (vocally) with the audience and the musicians who have come to share to let them know what’s going on. If you are going to play a few songs out front before you open the bandstand up for players to sit in, let them know. If a very special guest shows up at the beginning of the session and you would like them to join the house band before you open it up, let everyone know. If you don’t use a sign-up list, be mindful of who arrives and in what order they arrive in, just in case drummers show up and you don’t know who entitled to sit in first.


When it’s time to open the session up, do your best to be cordial and stick around to check out your fellow musicians. Everyone that plays/ed in my band was first heard at the jam session at Wally’s…EVERYONE. When I get calls for recommendations for other gigs I recommend players that I have heard at the jam session (and sometimes from school). I went to a late night session in NY not too long ago and experienced the leader, after playing a long set out front, proceed to put on headphones and partake in some billiards, and didn’t come back until the session was over. I would not have known whom the leader was if I wasn’t there in the beginning. I know that some folks need to get away, but I think there are other ways and other times for this….

Keep Swinging,

J.P.

Ethics of the Jazz Jam Session…

I am contemplating writing about the ethics of running and participating in a jam session. I’ve been running one every week here in Boston for about 10 years and I’ve pretty much seen and heard it all. Here’s the first tip:

It’s considered kosher to not play (blow) on a tune if you don’t know the melody to that tune. If you walk into a session and the band is playing a tune, it’s not polite to just pull out your horn and get in line to start an epic solo (unless the leader asks you sit join in). Wait until the next tune. When I experience a cat coming up to solo after we’ve already played the melody, 7 times out of 10 the cat is playing by ear, “skating” over the chord changes. This is rarely done successfully. When I was coming up I made it a point not to blow on a tune if I wasn’t there to play the melody with the band when they started….

Keep swingin!!

J.P.

Piggyback

I’d like to talk about an issue that I’ve seen come up a few times over the years that I think every musician who is ever endeavoring to travel and work abroad might experience. Let’s take a musician and we’ll name him John Smith. Now John Smith lives in Ny and has been called to do a festival in London for a week. Now John’s going to be there for a week for only 1 gig. That leaves for a lot of downtime. John has plenty of musician friends in Europe, one of them being a pianist that lives in Paris who happens to be a real aggressive hustler for gigs and he’s successful at it. John calls the pianist (let called him Jacques for now) and lets him know that he’ll be in London for a week for a festival and that he has a few days free. Jacques has some good paying gigs lined up already in Paris and would like to have John on those.


Now here’s where it’s gets tricky. John agrees to do these gigs. The festival organizers in London have already spent 900+ dollars to fly John over the Atlantic to the gig. So now all Jacques needs to do is buy a round trip ticket for John from London to Paris, which is relatively inexpensive (certainly cheaper than footing the bill from NY to London and back). This is called piggybacking on the behalf of Jacques. Now Jacques is ethically obligated to compensate the organizers of the London gig for the initial flight from NY.
Over the years, festival organizers have really started to crack down on this. Most agents work in a network and they all talk to each other so they know who’s playing where. If two agencies are presenting the same act during the same tour for that act, they’ll share the cost of airfare, especially for the U.S. based bands playing abroad (the cost to bring over a quartet or quintet is very expensive and it’s killed every prospect of me bringing my band abroad anytime soon, so I gave up trying to find work for my band abroad). Most acts that perform abroad from the U.S. have to have an “anchor” gig(s) (a gig(s) that covers for the plane tickets) to have any chance of making a profit on the tour.


So for all musicians looking to work abroad, when you do find work please be honest if you are playing elsewhere during your stay if you are questioned about it. Our reputations rely on this…

Until next time,




Jason Palmer