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McCoy Tyner, Philly’s Pianist Supreme

Others are doing a good job memorializing McCoy Tyner in widely-available tributes since his passing on Friday, March 6. See, for example, Ben Ratliff’s piece in the New York Times and Dan DeLuca’s in Saturday’s Philadelphia Inquirer. This, then, will not be a comprehensive retrospective of the great pianist’s life or work.

I would be remiss, however, to let the moment pass without expressing appreciation for one of the true masters, and a critical stylistic link between bebop and the avant-garde. Simply put, McCoy Tyner was one of the all-time greats. If you have never heard him, you owe it to yourself.

Among His Influences

Innovation is paramount in Jazz. There are special places of honor reserved for those who create a sound on their instruments that is new, vital, and unmistakably their own. Within a few notes of any recording, there is no doubt when the pianist is McCoy Tyner. He did not come from nowhere, however, and his obvious inspirations constitute a piano Hall of Fame.

Earl Hines is considered an early virtuoso of Jazz piano for his “orchestral” approach to the instrument. That is to say, Hines used unprecedented two-handed skill and facility to unleash all that the keyboard offers. It is no coincidence that Hines is the one pushing a young Louis Armstrong to new heights on some of the latter’s most important early recordings, like “Weather Bird” and the incomparable “West End Blues”.

The Harlem Stride pianists, like James P. Johnson, Willie “The Lion” Smith, and Fats Waller, were so named for the patterns of powerful chords they used to propel their music. Their left hand did the “striding” while belting out the chords that set the foundation for the right hand’s melodic improvisations .

The two high priests of bebop piano were Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell. From Monk, Tyner clearly gleaned the importance of space in music, and the rhythmic and percussive aspects of the instrument. Powell was his hero, though. The Powell influence is unmistakable in the grace, fluidity and melodic majesty of Tyner’s playing. McCoy added to these bop innovations the fullness of his expanded orchestral approach and the propulsive force of his amazing left hand. Thus, he became uniquely capable of creating thrilling tension and beauty.

As explained in an earlier post (“What Makes Jazz So Endearing and Enduring”, 3/4/19), tension and release is one of the most compelling techniques in the music. Tyner’s remarkable ability to build tension, even while creating melodically and harmonically, made him the perfect pianist for a quartet many consider the greatest ever.

The Quartet

John Coltrane made astounding music both before and after his “Classic Quartet”, but there has never been anything like that group – Tyner, Jimmy Garrison on bass, and Elvin Jones on drums. Jones described the group’s interaction as “telepathic”. It’s a good thing they were, too, given the passion, virtuosity, energy, and inventiveness with which they played.

Every Coltrane album on which McCoy plays is a genuine classic. I’ll just mention two. The first of them, My Favorite Things on Atlantic was, as mentioned in a prior post (“Missing The Trane”, 7/18/19), my first Coltrane record. One reason I listened to the title track every day for a year was how often I discovered an idea in Tyner’s solo that developed into something magical in Coltrane’s second turn on the soprano.

It is impossible to present A Love Supreme, as I’m doing in this 55th anniversary year of the iconic Impulse album’s release, without pointing out Tyner’s contributions.

The truth, though, is that you can pick any album from this group’s era in the early Sixties and just sit back in wonder at what is possible in improvised music. In the middle of it all is Tyner’s grounded but relentless attack setting the table for the bristling passion of everyone else’s playing. You can feel Coltrane gearing up for his next solo.

McCoy was the surviving member of The Quartet; his passing will make any presentation of A Love Supreme that much more poignant.

Post ‘Trane

As far as I can tell, there is no such thing as a bad McCoy Tyner recording. Whether leader or sideman, in whatever setting – solo, trio, small group with horns, big band – he guaranteed a level of excellence for the proceedings.

There are Tyner records that will be mentioned by all, like The Real McCoy on Blue Note. (Emails seeking further listening recommendations will be met with enthused reply, by the way.) For now, let’s just mention Time For Tyner, also on Blue Note. As exhilarating as it is beautiful, this is a wonderful example of the special chemistry Tyner had with the extraordinary vibraphonist, Bobby Hutcherson. Other excellent outings feature saxophonists like Gary Bartz, Sonny Fortune, and Azar Lawrence.

Seeing McCoy Tyner live was always a memorable treat, whether as a solo in San Francisco or with a group at the Berks County Jazz Festival. The latter was with a good friend who is a gifted musician in his own right. When the concert was over, we just sat there for a while, speechless. This can happen after experiencing one of the best who ever lived.

Final Note

I have never read or heard a bad word about McCoy Tyner, as a musician or as a person. He has influenced virtually every pianist who has followed him, many profoundly. They have chosen well in selecting a mentor.

The magnitude of such a loss is tempered somewhat by the opportunity (actually, the need) to celebrate the man. And, as always with truly great music, riches await the adventurous listener.

Ken Bossong

© 2020 Kenneth J. Bossong

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Missing the Trane

John William Coltrane died 52 years ago, on July 17, 1967. Thus, he is gone about 30% longer than the 40 years he lived. Yet, his stature and impact actually have grown in the half century since his passing. There has never been anyone like him.

It would take a college level course to explain fully why that is; for now, we’ll content ourselves with this post.

The biographical details are available elsewhere, so I’ll just mention the basics. Born on September 23, 1926 in Hamlet, NC, John was raised in High Point, NC. Both of his grandfathers were ministers of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. The year 1940 was traumatic for a thirteen year old John, as he lost his father, maternal grandparents and an uncle within a few months of each other. Immediately upon graduating high school at 16, John followed his mother, who had moved to Philadelphia for better paying work. Happily, it was also a hotbed of music.

Unlike some Jazz stars, Coltrane was not a musical child prodigy. He was a quiet kid, a good student, and very enthused to take on a beaten-up clarinet in school. At 14, he tried an alto sax. Eventually, he was good enough to play in a Navy band, and later to attain gigs on tenor sax with Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson and Dizzy Gillespie (among others). He was no household name, though, when Miles Davis hired him for his quintet. The year was 1955; Coltrane had just turned 29.

Miles

If Miles heard something special in Coltrane, it probably had something to do with the musical journey Miles had experienced. He emerged as Charlie Parker’s second horn at the age of 19, after Dizzy Gillespie went his separate way. Where Bird and Diz had each been soaring, incendiary virtuosos, Bird and Miles created a classic fire and ice dynamic. Davis presumably saw in young Coltrane another perfect foil for his own understated passion. It certainly worked out that way.

Prestige and then Columbia

The new quintet with an unleashed Coltrane was a sensation based on a series of appearances and albums for the Prestige record label, including Cookin’, Relaxin’, Steamin’, and Workin’. These albums combined compelling versions of ballads, blues, standards, show tunes, and originals. A stellar rhythm section (Red Garland, piano, Paul Chambers, bass, Philly Joe Jones, drums) supported and pushed the horns to expressive heights. It wasn’t long before Coltrane was being mentioned with the first rank of tenors, like Dexter Gordon and the amazing Sonny Rollins.

If asked to name one recording to hear from the years with Miles, almost everyone would say Kind of Blue, understandably. It is probably the biggest selling true Jazz album ever, and with good reason. So, if you’ve never heard it, by all means do yourself the favor. There is an earlier gem not to miss.

When Prestige ran out of gerunds to use as titles for his albums, Miles left for Columbia, where his first record was the storied ‘Round About Midnight. The jewel of the set is Monk’s “‘Round Midnight”. While it is an outstanding quintet’s take on one of Monk’s great compositions, the show-stopper is Coltrane’s solo. His re-imagining of the tune is so strikingly original that people sometimes think of it as being the composition. At this point, it would be surprising to hear a version that does not reference the solo. To listen is to experience the thrilling convergence of virtuosity and creativity that Jazz improvisation can provide.

Monk

The year 1957 was momentous for Coltrane, for at least two reasons. First, he left Miles and the music to kick the heroin habit that afflicted so many musicians of the era. This he did cold turkey. While he was at it, Coltrane also left behind the alcohol he had tried to use as a substitute. Second, when he came back on the scene, John joined Thelonious Monk. Although Trane never stopped learning, the months with Monk seem especially important to his development.

All possibilities regarding space and time in music opened up to him. (The specifics, such as the use of large intervals, would take up another whole post.) The experience could be unsettling. Trane once remarked that there were moments on stage with Monk when he felt like he had “walked into an empty elevator shaft”. For a man with an insatiable appetite for new ideas, sounds and perspectives, though, this was the ultimate graduate school. Recordings of this band had been severely limited, but newly discovered material issued in the last few years, like At Carnegie Hall and Live at the Five Spot, has been superb.

Coltrane rejoined Miles in time to record classics like Milestones and Kind of Blue and to tour. However, a restless Coltrane was ready to lead and to take on a whole new level of innovation.

Taking the Lead: Giant Steps and Favorite Things

Prestige

Prestige got Coltrane into the studio as a session leader with Miles’ rhythm section when the impact he was having on musicians, critics and fans became apparent. The albums that ensued are great examples of what made “hard bop” hard. If you want to hear blues as only master Jazz musicians can do it, I particularly recommended a twelve-minute collaboration of Trane’s tenor with Red Garland’s piano called “By the Numbers” on the album The Last Trane .

Blue Note

Coltrane cut his only album as a leader for Blue Note in September of ‘57, but what an album Blue Train is! In control of the material (four out of the five tracks being his originals) and the musicians, John served notice that something special was unfolding. Then came John Coltrane’s extraordinary stint with Atlantic Records.

Atlantic

First up was the aptly named Giant Steps. Of the seven compositions, all Coltrane’s, six are absolute classics, likely to be covered to this day by top artists. The other, “Countdown”, is in some ways the most indicative of innovations to come. “Naima” is John’s most beloved ballad. The title track remains a piece used by young saxophonists to determine for themselves whether they have what it takes. You get the picture.

My first Coltrane album, and one of my first Jazz records, was My Favorite Things. This was dumb luck in a way; I bought it because I had heard Elvin Jones was a great drummer and drummers were my entre to Jazz. Mesmerized on first hearing, I quickly realized I was hearing something that would change my life. I listened to the title track after school every day for a year, and never failed to hear something new. My education as a listener accelerated. I didn’t yet understand that this piece would take the soprano sax from relative obscurity to prominence in one shot. I just knew that if music could be this intense and this beautiful at the same time, it was for me.

Another Atlantic disc, Ole, would probably not make many lists of Coltrane’s greatest. Yet, all he did on it was to (1) give another tour-de-force on the soprano; (2) first record with Eric Dolphy; (3) portray a culture, as he would later with “Africa”, “India”, “Brazilia”, and so forth; and (4) free the bass.

Wait, what was that last one? How did a saxophonist free the bass? Well, Coltrane hired two great bassists, adding Arthur Davis to Reggie Workman, and turned them loose on the title track. Neither is “walking” his bass, or even keeping time as such, for most of the 18 minute piece. Rather, they serve as horn-like voices; their improvised arco duet just before Trane’s second solo is astounding.

There’s more, of course, from the Atlantic years. Had this output been his last and had he never moved on to Impulse! Records, John Coltrane’s spot in any Jazz Hall of Fame would have been secured.

The Quartet

Impulse! Records’ Bob Thiele gave Coltrane unprecedented leeway in every aspect of producing his albums. Thank God. The result was a long string of astonishing triumphs.

At the core of the artistic and commercial success – at least until the last year and a half or so – was The Quartet. If Jazz fans speak simply of “The Quartet”, they are referring to Coltrane’s group with McCoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass and Elvin Jones on drums. Each is among the greatest ever on his instrument, but it was as a group that they attained mythic status. Music of such intensity and difficulty required improvisation, musicianship and communication at the highest levels. Both Tyner and Jones have described their interaction as “telepathic”.

By now, the release of every Coltrane album was a major event, eagerly awaited not just by his fans, but by musicians. All wanted to know what would be next, and he never failed to deliver something new and exciting. In fact, following Trane could be bewildering. If asked now which Coltrane record first blew your mind, 50 fans would mention at least 20 different titles. Back when the records were coming out, people could barely absorb what they were hearing before the next one appeared. Then, to see him live was to experience something else entirely. In the time it took to get records in the stores, Coltrane had moved on yet again, even from a brand new album.

One other point about seeing Trane live: the intensity of the performances was legendary. Once the group took off on a piece, they pushed each other to ever greater levels without regard to performance length. Fans hoping to hear My Favorite Things may have gotten their wish, but it bore little resemblance to the Atlantic record. Trane was known to play it for 90 minutes or more, which would drive club owners expecting 60-minute sets crazy. Elvin Jones said there were nights when playing with John was a “near-death experience”. Those lucky enough to have been present and open to such levels of energy and inventiveness heard music they’ll never forget.

Spirituality

In the middle of the great Impulse! albums, between the beautiful Crescent and the compelling Quartet Plays, was A Love Supreme. As a record about which an entire book is written (Ashley Kahn, 2002) and about which I have given 90-minute presentations, this is not the sort of work that lends itself to a quick paragraph. For now, suffice it to say that overstating its impact is very difficult.

Imagine it’s early February of 1965. Like many, you are awaiting the next work of the most exciting, cutting-edge artist around. It turns out to be a nearly perfect four-movement suite, presenting (a) his concept of God and what matters in life and (b) a prayer. No belief system is required to find the music enthralling, but the album has changed many lives. For John, it was the manifestation of a spiritual reawakening that began with his detox in 1957 and would inform the rest of his life.

Beyond

The inexorable trend as Coltrane pushed through every limit to his music was toward the avant-garde (or Energy Music, Free Jazz, the New Thing, etc.). This ultimately led to the gradual demise of the Quartet. Shortly after Rashied Ali joined the group as a second drummer, Elvin left, and McCoy was replaced on piano by John’s wife, Alice Coltrane. Pharaoh Sanders joined the group, bringing his fiery intensity and use of the tenor sax’s upper register to complement the leader’s.

Coltrane may be the only artist who was an essential innovator in two different movements in Jazz. Early on, he took hard bop to its outermost limits with his so-called “sheets of sound”. Many would have been satisfied being the “baddest” tenor in the land, but Trane was just warming up. He took one step at a time freeing his music from unnecessary constraints. 

Trane was not the first avant-garde figure in Jazz (see Sun Ra, Cecil Taylor and Ornette Coleman) but ended up arguably its most significant player and proponent. While he did lose some fans and critics at this portion of his career, his meticulous, incremental approach and unmatched musicianship lent credence to Free Jazz as not only a legitimate artistic movement but actually the inevitable next step after bebop.

The second Coltrane record I bought (soon after MFT) was from this last period. Meditations was recorded on November 23, 1965 and released in 1966. It was the last album with The Quartet intact, but with Sanders and Ali added. The album starts at a level of intensity reached by very few recordings in any genre, and builds from there. I listened to it once, and set it aside for two years. That’s how long it took to listen to what had come before so as to be ready for Meditations. It was time well spent.

A Force for Good

Obviously, there is much to admire in the life of John Coltrane as a musician and as a man. Summarizing from this scratching of the surface:

  • Openness to people, their beliefs, and their ideas
  • Interest in nearly everything – religion, philosophy, mathematics, world culture, and all music – inevitably enriching his music
  • Refusal to settle or be satisfied, where there was more to achieve – including a legendary work ethic (e.g. practicing between sets) resulting in mind-boggling virtuosity
  • Artistic integrity and fearlessness, whether facing withering criticism or praise
  • Confidence with humility and not a hint of arrogance
  • Relentless exploration of sound
  • Creation of entirely new sounds and vocabularies on both the tenor and soprano saxophones, to the point where master saxophonists built their own iconic careers inspired by specific slivers of Coltrane’s canon
  • Innovations in music that we’re still in the process of fully grasping

Consider that Coltrane achieved all this and more in a public career lasting a mere 12 years. It is difficult to conceive what he might have accomplished but for the liver cancer that took him. His last studio album, Expression, especially the piece called “Offering”, portends a next giant step forward as profound as anything before. As it is, he remains a figure of towering impact and significance – and not just in Jazz. As a result, there is a wealth of material to read and music to hear, including an excellent documentary, Chasing Trane (John Scheinfeld, 2017), loaded with commentary of remarkable insight.

In one of his last interviews, with Frank Kofsky in November of 1966, Coltrane said, “I want to be a force for real good…in other words, I know that there are bad forces. I know that there are forces out here that bring suffering to others, and misery to the world…But I want to be the opposite force, I want to be the force which is truly for good.”

Ken Bossong

© 2019 Kenneth J. Bossong

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What Makes Jazz So Endearing And Enduring

America’s Special Music

I have loved Jazz (and Blues) music for as long as I can remember, virtually from first exposure. It has enriched my life more than I can say. Therefore, I take particular pleasure in explaining why and how this music is so special. I have done that for years in personal presentations and I’ll do so now in occasional posts. Since I’m covering a vast topic in manageable portions, this is the first in a periodic series.

In a well written piece for the Smithsonian (https://music.si.edu/story/jazz), Dr. John Edward Hasse says, “Often acclaimed as America’s greatest art form, jazz has become accepted as a living expression of the nation’s history and culture, still youthful, difficult to define and impossible to contain, a music of beauty, sensitivity, and brilliance that has produced (and been produced by) an extraordinary progression of talented artists.”

Agreeing that it is futile to attempt a formal definition of Jazz, I think of it as America’s ultimate melting-pot art form, with something for everyone. Rather than defining Jazz, I find it more useful to explore characteristics that enhance the music’s impact and the listener’s pleasure. Let’s consider seven of them.

1. Call and Response Patterns

A leader calls out a theme and a chorus responds. The response might reflect or amplify the call, or it might diminish or contradict. The pattern may repeat or change. The tone of the exchange can be worshipful or profane, affectionate or adversarial, calm or feisty.

There is something especially satisfying about call and response. It can occur in any setting – between a preacher and the congregation; the lead singer and the backups; the reeds and the brass; or a singer and his or her guitar – or someone else’s. The back-and-forth works so well because it reflects our human need to communicate, whether the content is intellectual (thoughts/ideas) or emotional (feelings/passions).

Even amid the glories of Louis Armstrong’s Hot 5 and Hot 7 recordings, “West End Blues” is above and beyond. One of several reasons I think of it as the most important three minutes of popular music ever recorded is an extraordinary call and response passage between Armstrong’s voice and a clarinet.

Jazz is not the first music form to benefit from call and response. Indeed, Jazz inherited the technique from field hollers, work songs, spirituals, and the Blues. The trail does not stop with Jazz, either.

I remember realizing one day why “Sincerely” by the Moonglows is one of my two or three favorite Doo Wop songs: the lead guitarist sets up an exquisite call and response with the vocal. It makes a good record truly great. It’s amazing what I learn when I really listen.

2. Tension and Release

Nearly equal to call and response in impact and pervasiveness within Jazz is tension and release. There are dozens of ways to create tension in the music and equal numbers of ways to satisfactorily resolve it. This is another remarkably effective way to engage the listener emotionally.

Devices utilized to achieve tension and release include: gradual increases or decreases in tempo, volume, or intensity; repetition; contrast; sudden changes in rhythm, key, or harmonic approach; dissonance; and almost anything unexpected that nevertheless works.

I love to play Duke Ellington’s masterpiece “Ko-Ko” in presentations not only for how many of the above techniques are used, but how well. The effectiveness of the dissonance is mind boggling, and it was recorded on May 6, 1940. Yes, 1940.

3. Rhythmically Compelling

It is generally difficult to listen to great Jazz without moving some part of your body. During the big band era of Jazz, so-called Swing was the most popular dance music in the world. Duke Ellington probably said it best with a song title: “It Don’t Mean a Thing If it Ain’t Got That Swing”.

So, why not just say “It’s got to swing” rather than “Jazz tends to be rhythmically compelling”? Because the pulse of the music can be thrilling even when it’s not the sort that lends itself to finger-snapping on that swinging 4/4 beat. (Though, that is exactly what happens when the music swings that way.)

An example is poly-rhythmic drumming. The great drummers who emerged during bebop and hard bop were masters in sustaining multiple rhythms simultaneously. It’s great fun trying to count how many different rhythms Art Blakey plays at once in his classic drum solos (as in “Free For All” on Blue Note or “I Mean You” with Thelonious Monk on Atlantic).

There are examples even post-bop, when the lines delineating measures were fading. Few sounds are more compelling than drummer Elvin Jones’s “circular rhythms”. He accents at the perfect moment given what the soloist is doing, rather than at predetermined intervals. So the listener does not tap every four beats, but sways with the music’s energy as one might with the ocean’s waves.

4. Instrument as Voice and Voice as Instrument

Great Jazz players consider the instruments they play extensions of their voices. There are many examples, of course. Eric Dolphy seemed particularly intent on “speaking” through his instruments, especially the bass clarinet. One of John Coltrane’s countless contributions to the music was to extend the “vocabulary” and the “syntax” available on the tenor and soprano saxophones.

Similarly, great Jazz singers consider their voices musical instruments. Horn players loved Sarah Vaughan, considering her one of their own. It’s not just the scat singing, by the way, although scatting (in which one sings wordless notes where words would be expected) has made the point most directly ever since Louis Armstrong’s “Heebie Jeebies”.

Then there is scat’s mirror image, vocalese, in which the vocalist inserts words while singing famous instrumental solos. Leading proponents include Eddie Jefferson, King Pleasure, and Lambert Hendricks and Ross.

Thus, the lines between the vocal and the instrumental blur in Jazz. Categorization is less important than effectiveness when it comes to communicating through music.

Whether singing or playing, though, having your own “voice” is critical to attaining greatness. One does not confuse other singers with Sarah, Ella Fitzgerald, Joe Williams, or Betty Carter. Charlie Parker and John Coltrane have innumerable followers and imitators; yet, it is almost impossible to mistake anyone for them after a few notes.

5. Improvisation

Composition and arrangement are vital to Jazz, and the genre has been blessed with many who are truly great at both. To this day, if one were to ask leading music critics from all fields to name America’s greatest composer, I believe Duke Ellington would win that poll.

Nevertheless, rare is the major work of Jazz in which improvisation is not an essential element. Improvisation is the lifeblood of Jazz; it is also the most misunderstood feature of the music. A friend, explaining why he does not like Jazz, did me the favor of articulating the perception: “Why would I want to listen to a group playing around with songs? Practice on your time, get it down pat, and let me know when you’re ready for me to listen.”

Improvisation is not a bunch of musicians with no familiarity with the material or each other just playing and hoping something good emerges, however. It is an approach that places the onus for developing all the best ideas inherent in a piece on the musicians as well as the composer. The performer has an opportunity, in fact a responsibility, to enhance the material provided. The player is creating, composing, on the spot. This requires tremendous technical skill (see Virtuosity, below), a nimble and fertile mind, and vast knowledge of the resources available for reference while improvising.

Astounding listening skills are also needed for artists improvising in a setting other than solo performance.

Legit Jazz musicians are almost always good at this, and often great. The potential for something special, profound even, always exists. When such magic happens, it’s unforgettable. Anyone who’s followed the music for a while has such stories to tell.

If the idea of composing on the spot seems puzzling, so (to a Jazz fan) does the notion of going to a concert hoping that an artist recreates a recent album without making “mistakes”. If that’s the goal, the best that can happen, why not listen to the beloved album in the comfort of one’s home and save the fortune it costs to attend a pop star’s concert?

6. Virtuosity

It is hard not to notice how good Jazz musicians generally are, technically, on their instruments. This is another area that is not as well understood as it could be, however. It is certainly true that all the greats have spent countless hours “wood shedding” (practicing) to attain their “chops” (skills/facility on their instruments). John Coltrane was famous among his peers for practicing incessantly, even between sets at gigs, and for falling asleep late at night with a sax on his chest.

It must be tempting after working so hard to get that good to simply show off with a blizzard of notes at every opportunity. While something like that can appear to be happening at times in a jam session, especially when it has turned into a can-you-top-this cutting session, virtuosity alone is never enough.

Virtuosity or near virtuosity, then, is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition of succeeding in Jazz. When we say someone “can play“, skill is a part of that, to be sure, but there is more.

Virtuosity is a means, not an end. The end sought is the creation of great music. (See Improvisation, above.) I have seen no better explanation of this than a quote from bassist/composer/arranger Charles Mingus: “Once you achieve technical facility, you’re either a musician or you’re not. You’re either a creative person or a stenographer.” He wasn’t kidding, by the way. Nicely playing cliches in the solos allotted was the surest way to get oneself fired by Mingus. This could occur not only in mid-concert, but in mid-solo.

One last thought: Virtuosity comes in many shapes, sizes, and flavors. When a true innovator comes along, critics and musicians alike can look foolish if they pounce before understanding. When Thelonious Monk first appeared on the scene, more than a few proclaimed that he couldn’t play. All Monk did was change our concepts of space and time in music. His oeuvre places him in the first rank of American composers, and the leading competition promoting excellence in playing for young musicians is named after him.

7. The Cry of the Blues

The last characteristic is hard to describe or even name. I know it when I hear it. Further, I miss it when it’s not there. I have wrestled with what to call it. Whether I read it some where, had it suggested to me in conversation, or simply came up with it, I have settled on the Cry of the Blues. (If appropriate, I’ll attribute in a future post.)

It’s a sound and a feeling, more than the song form known as the Blues with its typical characteristics (12 bar, AAB, etc.). Most of the material sung by Billie Holliday over the years was not, technically, the Blues, but our ears do not deceive us. Every note, every syllable, she ever sang was the essence of the Blues.

When the material being played or sung is felt and meant by the artists, a part of who and what they are, the music is more likely to be felt by, and mean something to, the listener. Hopes and dreams, frustrations and loss, triumphs and setbacks: it’s all in there. It’s the stuff of life.

Coda

These essential characteristics of Jazz came mostly or entirely from the cultures of Africa, especially West Africa. We know how they got here. Out of the suffering of a people emerged this magnificent art form. Its riches are always available for the taking – not just in April (Jazz Appreciation Month). And they deserve to be recognized and celebrated all the time – not just in February (Black History Month).

Ken Bossong

© 2019 Kenneth J. Bossong