The Marlowsphere Blog (#135)

It would be easy to make the statement that the younger generation (however you define it) is not being exposed to jazz, America’s classical music, and that is one major reason why jazz is not a popular music anymore.

Well, it would be easy, but it would be a mis-statement for several reasons. Jazz has not been America’s popular music since the end of World War II and the advent of bebop at almost the same time. Jazz went from a dancing and listening music, to a listening music, and sometimes to a hard to listen to and understand music.

Nonetheless, in New York City, at least, there are several ongoing instances of kids, that is students not yet in college, who are being exposed to jazz, not only as listeners, but also as participants. The instances include the jazz program at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music Art and Performing Arts (used to be the High School of Performing Arts and the Music & Art High School before 1982), the jazz program at the Dalton School, the kids initiatives at Jazz@Lincoln Center, and the “Jazz for Kids” program at Jazz Standard, one of New York City’s leading jazz clubs.

I visited the “Jazz for Kids” program a couple of weeks ago, on October 16—a Sunday—when Jazz Standard opens its doors to a program it has been running and promoting for many years. I arrived at around 11:30 a.m. It was an amazing sight in this leading basement jazz venue. On the stage—a stage frequented on Monday nights by the Mingus Legacy Band and on other nights by many of the world’s leading jazzers—was a somewhat diminutive young girl (turns out she was nine and a student at Saint Ann’s located in Brooklyn Heights) at the piano performing Gershwin’s “Summertime.” She also worked through the standard “Blue Bossa.” She was accompanied by a much older, and much more accomplished upright bass player and drummer. Granted, she was no Joey Alexander—she played all the chords on “1” and her improvising was highly formative—but nonetheless there she was performing in a jazz trio.

It turned out she was auditioning to become part of Jazz Standard’s “Jazz for Kids” program, a Sunday afternoon program, during the school year, curated by guitarist David O’Rourke.

Irish born David O’Rourke was introduced to the U.S. jazz scene in 1982 via Bucky Pizzarelli and Les Paul. Influenced by Pat Martino (with whom he studied and now collaborates), David has performed with jazz legends Tommy Flanagan, Cedar Walton, Jackie McLean, Billy Higgins, Curtis Fuller, Kenny Davern, Jack McDuff and many more. His arrangements have been recorded and performed by many jazz legends, as well as the RTE Concert Orchestra (Ireland) which he guest conducts.  David leads his own 20 piece Big Band (The O’Rourkestra), co-founded and directs NYC’s Jazz Standard Youth Orchestra and the Jazz Standard Discovery Program.

Following this audition, groups of junior high and high school students one after another took over the stage to rehearse. The quality of the playing was significantly higher, especially the bass players and the drummers. One pianist in particular, a senior level student from LaGuardia High School (at Lincoln Center) displayed a high level of technical ability and confidence. In a very quiet way he commanded not only the piano and the stage, but also the other players.

The instrumentation among the students was what you might expect: piano, bass, drums, guitar, alto and tenor saxophone. The tunes they played also met expectations: “There’ll Never Be Another You,” “Autumn Leaves,” and “Back Home in Indiana,” among other jazz standards. The by-play among the musicians was also standard fare: a few choruses all around, trading fours, and incorporating quotes from the bebop litany, Monk, and “Trane” in their evolving improvisational technique. An appropriate mix of ethnicities was also present: white, African-American, Hispanic, and Asian.

However, the star of the afternoon, for me, at least, was Max Borak, an 11-year-old vocalist who performed Jerome Kern’s Oscar-winning song “The Way You Look Tonight.” Not exactly the kind of tune you would expect an 11-year-old to choose to sing, but then Max Borak is not your usual kid. I spoke with him briefly after he concluded his rehearsal. Turns out his singing model is Frank Sinatra. Apparently, when he was younger he saw the movie “The Parent Trap” and fell in love with Sinatra’s rendition of the song of the same title. Try to imagine Wayne Newton’s voice in the body of an 11-year-old who is not yet five feet tall. This “kid” displayed poise and audience connection way beyond the norm. His use of the microphone also showed a professional understanding of stage mechanics. You’ll hear from him one day.

The afternoon audience (doors opened at 1 p.m., show time at 2 p.m.; no cover, but the food costs) was mainly parents, friends of parents, and people generally supportive of young people playing jazz. The program benefits everyone: the “kids” who get to perform and gain from the experience, the parents and friends of parents who get to see their kids grow professionally, and the Jazz Standard which gets to bring in an audience on a Sunday afternoon which otherwise would be dark.

The question that has to be posed is this: from what circumstances do these “kids” come to perform jazz? Why aren’t they looking to emulate any number of pop music icons that bombard all forms of media every day? It’s clear each musician understood the correct, professional stage demeanor required, understood how to relate to an audience, and knew how to relate to one another. What is influencing them?

The answer lies in two places. After doing a little questioning with David O’Rourke and several audience members it was obvious that many of the 16 or so students present that afternoon had parents who were either musicians themselves or had connections in some way to the music business or show business. Second, the educational system they were in was also a very strong influence. In this one afternoon they were students there from a specialized school—LaGuardia, a New York City high school one has to audition to get into—or a private school, such as Saint Ann’s or the private school in New Jersey Max Borak attends (even though he lives in Riverdale in the Bronx).

If anything is a truism it’s that where you come from will have a strong influence on your future. Jazz Standard’s “Jazz for Kids” program provides an ongoing environment for these future professional musicians, but it’s the parents and their school environment that provides the evolving talent.

Eugene Marlow, Ph.D.
October 31, 2016

© Eugene Marlow 2016

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The Marlowsphere Blog (#79)

During a mid-June 2013 visit to the Palais de Luxembourg, Paris, to view an exhibit of Marc Chagall (1887-1985) it became evident within minutes how much Chagall used musical icons in his works.  This chance exhibit viewing has also inspired my desire to compose a suite based on these musical icons.

This aside, since returning to New York, I have researched Chagall’s life and work and learned that over a 75-year career, spanning most of the 20^th century, he produced over 10,000 works of art in various media, including lithographs, canvas, water color, postcards, murals, and stained glass windows.

Writers of his art confirm that Chagall’s use of musical icons is no accident. As a youth in a Russian shtetl consisting of primarily members of religious Jews, Chagall was surrounded by musicians—mostly string players, as in the violin. In his youth, Chagall yearned to learn how to play the violin; his stronger impulse, though, was towards art.

His paintings of violinists, such as “The Seated Violinist” (1908), became the basis for the iconic “Fiddler on the Roof” graphic in the poster advertising the long-running Broadway show of the same name. Mirjam Rajner, writing in the 2005 issue of Ars Judaica points out “This seemingly simple depiction of a traditional Jew playing a violin offers the basis for the complex development of a typically Chagallian theme.” Further, he writes, “As he wrote in his autobiography, in his youth Chagall himself dreamt of becoming a professional singer, violinist, or dancer—while taking singing lessons from a cantor and helping him out in the synagogue, violin lessons from a fiddler living in the same courtyard, and dancing at weddings.”

In Chagall we find the strong relationship between the musical arts, the fine arts, and deeply felt emotions. Rajner comments: “The Seated Violinist thus seems to represent the moment when a traditional, provincial Jew, after a week of labor, reconnects after the Sabbath with the spiritual world by playing a Hasidic niggun—the rabbi’s song—to express his deepest emotions.”

Michael J. Lewis, a professor at Williams College, in an article entitled “Whatever Happened to Marc Chagall?,” published by the American Jewish Committee, speculates on Chagall’s apparent fixation on musical icons, especially violinists. He writes:

As cosmopolitan an artist as he would later become, his storehouse of visual imagery would never expand beyond the landscape of his childhood, with its snowy streets, wooden houses, and ubiquitous fiddlers. To fix the scenes of childhood so indelibly in one’s mind, and to invest them with an emotional charge so intense that it could only be discharged obliquely through an obsessive repetition of the same cryptic symbols and ideograms, would seem to require some early trauma. But nothing of the sort is related in Chagall’s copious memoirs, other than his statement that he stuttered.

Is it correct, then, that music is at the heart of all Chagall’s paintings, as playwright Rebecca Taichman−who created a musical work that drew inspiration from the “magic lyricism of Marc Chagall’s art”–has posited?

Tony Bateman, in a February 2000 article entitled “Stringing Up Paintings,” writes:

“It is an intriguing aspect of art history that a good number of the great painters were proficient string players: Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Gainsborough, Henri Matisse and the remarkable French artist Maurice Vlaminck, who could add both professional violin and double bass playing to a list of talents including novel writing and bicycle racing. . . . ‘Music is the sister of painting,’ wrote Leonardo da Vinci, and it appears that his abilities as a musician were considerable. Indeed, when Leonardo was introduced at the court of Milan in 1494, he was presented to the Duke as a performer on the lira da braccio. Leonardo’s skill as a lira player, along with his many other talents, made him the archetypal Renaissance man.”

We can put Marc Chagall in this same “Renaissance man” camp. His 10,000+ artworks notwithstanding, a cursory analysis of several hundred of his artworks reveals 16 different instruments: accordion, balalaika, cello, cymbal, flute, guitar, harp, horn, bass drum, keyboard, mandolin, saxophone, small bell, tambourine, trumpet, and violin. Further, there are several graphic references to a full circus orchestra.  By far, though, the most frequently “painted” instrument is the violin, followed by the cello, and the horn.

His iconic themes are also eclectic, of which there are many, including: Jewish life in the shtetl, Christian/Jewish concepts, lovers, the circus, Jewish theatre, the passage and context of time, street musicians, dancers, acrobats, et al. While many of his artworks refer to music and musicians in very subtle ways, numerous artworks have musicians as a central iconic theme, such as “The Seated Violinist,” “The Accordionist,” and “The Wandering Musicians.”

In a way, Chagall’s artworks—with their vibrant, incongruous colors and childlike fantasy images—encompass the broad range evolution of music in the 20^th century. This was also the time in which jazz evolved to become a unique musical style (that the late Dr. Billy Taylor called “America’s classical music”) with a global audience. The 20^th century was also a time in which classical music evolved out of the Romantic period of the 19^th century into the diverse “classical” styles of the 20^th century, including serial, minimalist, spectral, postmodernist, and world music, among others. It is also the century of the evolution of “popular” music: rock and roll, country and western, bebop, cool jazz, fusion, and ultimately world music.

Chagall’s art—and he is not alone in breaking with 19^th century aesthetic traditions—is representative of the world turned upside down, not only in art, but in politics, business, economics, and science and technology. Chagall, who lived in two centuries, was a man and an artist representative of the rapid changes of the last 100 years.

Please write to me at meiienterprises@aol.com if you have any comments on this or any other of my blogs.

Eugene Marlow, Ph.D.
September 30, 2013

© Eugene Marlow 2013

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