The write stuff

[Ian Thumwood]

I would like to start a new thread dedicated to jazz composition and arrangement.

Over the last few years I have been increasingly struck by the fact that some of the most interesting jazz has actually been produced by composers and especially those people who have been writing for large ensembles and big bands. For me, this is really where jazz is "happening" and with all sorts of musicians embracing big band jazz, whether it is Wynton Marsalis or Henry Threadgill, the whole concept seems remarkably fertile at the moment. Traditionally, jazz fans have been sceptical of big bands in the traditional sense with the false notion than the beboppers were only too willing to break from this tradition and pursue a more independent existence in small groups where the ability to improvise remained paramount. The arrival of long playing records ensured that this argument was quickly quashed with the result that there is a heritage that stretches back to Fletcher Henderson but which only know seems to be blossoming in to it's full potential. This is Golden Era for big band and jazz writing.

This thread has partly been inspired by listening to some of the big bands perform at Vienne bit also been reinforced by playing a load of Alan Ferber CDs in my car during the course of the last month. I was speaking to musicians and associates of the El Cerrito High School big band a few weeks back after they played a Ferber arrangement. Alan Ferber has worked with this band and there was plenty of praise both for his craftmanship as a musician and as a person who seems to be a real gent from all accounts. I have all four of Ferber's last few CDs' , two of which feature a big band which pushes the boundaries of the orthodoxy and features some stunning writing as well as hugely compelling soloists such as Jacob Garchik, Anthony Wilson and Chris Cheek. I love his big band but the nonet his also leads is maybe the best example of ensemble writing for under 10 pieces since BofC. I am very impressed by the album "Roots & transitions" but an earlier album with the addition of strings is also worth checking out for the bend of contemporary jazz and classical music.

In my opinion, Alan Ferber is one of the most significant musicians in jazz in 2018. He is at the vanguard of jazz writing. I am staggered that he seems overlooked in the UK whereas there is conversely a far more favourable perception in the US including Grammy awards. I think this needs to be pointed out because Ferber seems so under the radar in the UK.

The little video on his website is informative but his whole output cries out for serious consideration.

http://www.alanferber.com/

[Ian Thumwood]

Another new name for me is Michael Leonart although his bass-playing father is quite well known.


The album that is being celebrated at the moment is his "Painted Lady Suite" - this would be interesting enough as the music is inspired by the migratory butterfly. I only heard of his this year following his work on the peculiar Nils Cline album "Lovers" which manages to have the guitarist backed by various-sized ensembles playing music as diverse as Broadway standards, Annette Peacock and Billie Holiday as well as some alt-rock covers.

The new album is by his own ensemble and I though this interview was quite interesting:-

https://uk.allaboutjazz.com/michael-leonhart-surfing-on-an-orchestral-wave-michael-leonhart-by-ludovico-granvassu.php

[Serial_Apologist]

Thanks for starting this thread, Ian. I listened to the "short" and of course will have to listen to the longer link below; but what has initially struck me was the likeness of idiom to some of George Russell's pre-Afro rock pioneering stuff of the 1960s. What will interest me here is the extent to which the "modern" chromatic harmonies in the arrangements have their roots in the ways in which jazz improvisation - as (if you like) the matrix of evolved vocabularies it has now become - has filtered compositional influences from the classical world on jazz's terms back into the composed aspect of the equation. This is the "DNA" continuity that can keep jazz at the forefront of all musical advance, if music is not to hive off once again into various ghettoes, from the most experimental to the most commercial.

[Joseph K]

Speaking of big band composition, I like this Kurt Rosenwinkel tune -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiw8CTK2o_Q

[Ian Thumwood]

Another name that cropped up in discussions at Vienne was Josh Nelson and manifested itself in an orchestra playing one of his arrangements. I have never heard of Nelson although he also has a career outside of jazz in film. I was impressed by the arrangement but my subsequent research in to his music produced some interesting results. Unlike Ferber, Nelson has remained on the West Coast and his music does seem more "populist" but the album he has produced in homage to Los Angeles sounds impressive by the small documentary I have seen. The performance was a multi-media event with pictures adding to the lyrics to portray a quirky history of LA. I would recommend the small video on this link to his film "The sky remains" which is fascinating.

I would not contest that the music is at all "cutting edge" but is does demonstrate that there is an increased awareness of what jazz can be. Of you like, this is almost an LA repost to something like the UK' s Mike Westbrook. Whilst the arrangements tend towards pop, I think this music has its merits and can appreciate just why one of the big band directors I met was so enthusiastic about his writing. The big band stuff has a much harder jazz edge than this project and more orthodox contemporary jazz. I bring Nelson's name up because I have not heard anyone mentioned it before.

http://www.joshnelsonmusic.com/

[Ian Thumwood]

Speaking of big band composition, I like this Kurt Rosenwinkel tune -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiw8CTK2o_Q

Got to say I really enjoyed this track too.

The album got a brilliant review on AAJ when it came out but was almost impossible to find at the time. It is now available for an extortionate price on Amazon

[Ian Thumwood]

Working my way through the fletcher Henderson boxset "A study in frustration" which chronicles the band between 1923 and 1936. The early stuff is uneven with the band hinted forwards only to relapse back in to more archaic ricky-tick rhythms. CD2 is terrific and captures the band really gathering steam with Coleman Hawkins coming to the fore. I love "D Natural Blues" but have been banging my head to recall the later Henderson arrangement for Goodman which includes the same riff.

I didn't realise that Henderson did so little writing before the early 1930's. I was appreciative that the first arrangements were done by Don Redman and that others were carried out by the criminally under-rated Benny Carter. The racing version of "Chinatown, my Chinatown" was written by John Nesbitt who tragically died shortly afterwards. This chart was later "borrowed" by Gene Gifford for "Casa Loma Stomp" but the Henderson performance is a highlight of this box set. I didn't appreciate how good a drummer Kaiser Marshall was too.

Henderson is a knot of paradoxes. There are so many people contributing to charts for his band including the likes of Bill Challis that you forget that he was initially principally a and leader and not arranger. I find it strange how Redman's original charts represent the very first attempt a big band jazz writing yet he was able to embrace more modern writers like Tadd Dameron later on whereas Henderson's writing never seemed to evolve in to the 1940's. and is redolent of the 1930's. Some of the other charts were written by his brother Horace who is also unsung.

The liner notes are not too great. John Hammond's original 1961 liner notes reiterate his prejudices against other bands as well as shedding light on the unreliable nature of the bandleader and his musicians who were a law unto themselves. The additional notes from 2015 seem confused and spout generalisations which remain inappropriate for a complex enterprise like the Fletcher Henderson orchestra.

I think it is worth adding that the performances on some of these tracks are exemplary. Strange also to see the influence of other musicians like Bix.

[Ian Thumwood]

Picking up on more contemporary arrangers, I found a CD that I bought about two years ago by American arranger / composer Steve Owen. He was working with one of the US university bands when I heard his arrangements but the CD I have been playing is by his own ensemble which I believe in based in Colorado. The music fascinated me when I first heard it but I haven't spun the record for a long while. Listening again, it deserves a mention on this thread as the whole album centres around the problem of how to compose a contemporary arrangement in jazz and allow the balance of expression with various soloists.

The album "Stand up Eight" is a mixture of styles. Most of the material is original with the exception of the standard "Everything I love" which despite being the most orthodox track on the record is still one where the theme is quite elusive. The other non -original is Radiohead;s "Kid A" but the rest if the music seems to pitch between Bob Brookmeyer and Maria Schneider. The best track is called "Still" and this seems to me to be what a jazz version of Charles Ive's "The unanswered Question" might have sounded like if payed by Miles Davis. Other tracks lean towards more contemporary approaches as well as West African music on "One voice" which includes a very African sounding marimba.

[Ian Thumwood]

This track may be more familiar.

Strange that Owen is unknown in the UK whereas he is getting commissions from numerous jazz festivals as well as bands like the Frankfurt Radio Big Band. His music does sound very much like Schneider's albeit there is a degree of seriousness about his music which makes it sound a bit more earnest. I think he sounds like he is trying to take a more conservative big band line up and see how far he can push the concept rather than reinventing it. There are elements which sound a bit like Gil Evans yet the harmonic language is often a bit more advanced that than Evans was using nearly sixty years ago.

[Ian Thumwood]

Latest CD further demonstrates where jazz is being pushed forward through composition as opposed to improvisation. Although I have seen him in concert, I had rather lost sight of Henry Threadgill but one if his two 2018 releases ("Dirt ….more dirt" features a big band. The music doesn't sound like your typical big band though. The full ensemble really only kicks in on the third track. It is quite intriguing to listen to this approach to composition because it fits squarely in the same general feel of a couple of fellow alto-composers, Steve Lehman and Steve Coleman.

The Coleman album "Synovial Joints" includes strings and almost seems composed through the process of stitching together a series of infection Steve Coleman phrases. Coleman's compositions have a strange characteristic of being very catchy but so amazingly convoluted that they are impossible to whistle back. I love "Synovial joints" and think this is an exception record. by contrast, the Threadgill album offers agitated phrases under-pinned by a tuba which is immediately recognisable yet almost harks back to something much earlier. Threadgill's music always sounds forward thinking and verging on contemporary composition yet I sometimes hear elements of earlier jazz in the mix. "Dirt...more dirt" is more fragmented that Coleman's effort - it is "avant garde" in more recognisable fashion. I would have to say that this record sounds more way out than anything I have heard in a long while. There is quite a bit of writing for percussion in the two compositions. Coleman is inherently funkier whereas Threadgill's approach to a larger ensemble seems more in the jazz tradition. The second composition, "And more dirt," generates a head of steam at several points but maybe the stop-start nature of tis album makes it less accessible than "Joints." That said, this record offers further proof at the on-going fascination with larger ensembles, in this case 15 pieces with percussion and piano's doubled. Usual suspects Liberty Ellman, Jacob Garchik and Jonathan Finlayson feature in the band.

[Ian Thumwood]

I have been listening to the new Michael Leonart record album which us called "The Painted Lady Suite." If you want a tip for the Grammy's next year, this disc has all the hallmarks that will make it a shoo in for the best jazz ensemble. The bulk of the album consists of a seven movement composition which is inspired by the migratory butterfly although obviously not this year's experience where I have failed to see one this year. (Did see a Purple Emperor in France , though.) There are three shorter compositions which close the album which is quite good but don't quite match the originality of the suite.

I would say that this music is pretty original but I am not quite sure how you would classify it. 10 reed players are listed included a bassoon and there is a 4 piece choir in some tracks in addition to 3 strings. The only family soloists are Nils Cline and Donny McCaslin. A lot of bases are covered in the music. Some of it sounds like 1960's Oliver Nelson (not surprising given the leader's involvement with Bruno Mars "Uptown funk" whereas there are other elements which reminded me of Colin Towns. I suppose the spectre of Gil Evans hangs over this disc and the music is certainly unlike most typical big bands. A lot of the music does not swing and there is a fondness for odd meters and odd juxtapositions of instruments. The only thing remotely orthodox is "Music your Grandparents would like" where the Nelson influence is abundant although Leonhart had Frank Zappa in mind when he wrote it although it mutates towards the end into a Mingus-like romp.


Anyone familiar with Nils Cline's weird "Lovers" will recognise the style of composition but the slower moving components of the "Painted Lady" suite really score for me. I think you could argue that Leonhart's writing might be over-blown and it isn't unorthodox in the fashion of Henry Threadgill which nods strongly towards serious, Classical music. In fact you put Threadgill's music in to Classical context and the music seems to seem more impressive. By contrast, Leonhart is more like a film composer who is extremely well switched on. The best moments have a dense, brooding quality about them and employ exotic scales. It seems very redolent of what some jazz writers were doing towards the late 1960's and thankfully does not descend in to cheesiness. There is sufficient dissonance to ensure that this doesn't happen. However, the composition "1500 feet above the Sahara (Night) " strongly recalls Gil Evans' masterpiece "Sunken Treasure." There are about 35 pieces in this group which is pretty large for jazz ensembles.

[CGR]

Surely one of the fundamental properties of Jazz is improvisation. Through composed music may try to sound like jazz, but to me it can never be classifed as jazz unless improve is a substantial element.

[Serial_Apologist]

Surely one of the fundamental properties of Jazz is improvisation. Through composed music may try to sound like jazz, but to me it can never be classifed as jazz unless improv is a substantial element.

That's the line I always take in the improv vs. compo debate.

[Ian Thumwood]

Surely one of the fundamental properties of Jazz is improvisation. Through composed music may try to sound like jazz, but to me it can never be classifed as jazz unless improve is a substantial element.

CGR

I agree with improvisation being fundamental but it is not essential. The argument you are presenting is one of the greatest fallacies in music and actually originates from articles written by a controversial French critic in the 1930s called Hugues Panassie. Sometimes his name is spelt Hughes. His writing is fascinating because of the fact that he ties himself in knots with his opinions as to what or who was or wasn't jazz. His conclusions are quite ridiculous but the essence of my point is that the debate deserved to be killed there and then but unfortunately other writers like Rudi Blesh gave it legs. In this country, writers like Eric Hobsbawm are probably as guilty. Oddly the argument of improvisation versus composition was largely promoted by critics who favoured revisionist jazz and saw Swing as a betrayal of what they believed Jazz to be. I feel that some of the earlier jazz critics from the Left at this time were writing with an agenda which did not reflect the reality of the music. They were blinkered as to what was actually happening in the music and I suspect most weren't even musicians themselves. unfortunately, they didn't really ask the musicians for their thoughts and the likes of Panassie would be ridiculed by musicians like Eddie Condon. By the 1940's Panassie was not taken too seriously and the fact that he was separated from developments in American jazz as a consequence of the Nazi population, his opinions became really isolated. I remember reading one of his books as a teenager and finding it amusing because it is clearly ridiculous as he was so out of touch. I am not sure he ever was really in touch with the music, to be honest!

The problem became more serious when Jazz criticism became politicised with earlier and less composed styles of jazz were seen as the expression of the individual whereas larger ensembles were deemed to limited expression. This is regardless of the fact that a majority of musicians either sought to lead or compose for larger ensembles of in fact play in them. The appeal still exists today and it does not diminish the music produced in the slightest. The argument you have repeated is nearly 80 years old and was never correct in the first place. On top of this, I think that many jazz musicians would totally disagree with your statement and you only have to listen carefully to see how important compositions and arrangement is , whether you are discussing the early days of jazz with Jelly Roll Morton, Paul Whiteman, Don Redman or through to Hard Bop and on to the Avant garde. I specifically posted the comments about Henry Threadgill in here because I was expecting someone to make your kind of criticism but also because I think it would present SA with a problem because of Threadgill's avant garde credentials and the fact that his music is all about composition. It could fit in to "Hear and Now" really easily.

Take away the composition element from jazz and you rob it of one of it's vital ingredients.

[Serial_Apologist]

Well I've never advocated total elimination of the pre-composed component in jazz, just its downgrading in the scheme of things as the music's main driver, historically. There's a point in your comment on Dinosaur on the other thread, Ian, that relates to this, for me. She says something to Jumoké that sums up the problem of prioritising the composed over the improvised that really tells, namely that for her the problem with a lot of jazz is that the improvised solos sometimes seem to have become separated from the context, by which tacitly she means the composed; and she then goes on to say that what she is trying to do (in Dinosaur) is give musicians little bits in which they can frame the composition in their own separate ways. The individual doesn't really get much of a look-in, either to be part of a group interacting identity or evolving his or her own voice through the music. At least that's the gist of what she says as I see it. The solos are never allowed to shape the music, which is to do with taking one on a journey in which the original melody is a springboard to somewhere else - and the consequences of taking this line that the composed takes priority to its limit are self-evident in the scrappiness of the performance: a scrappiness that I would argue is as much about the principle as about the actual paucity of the materials themselves in Ms Jurd's case. As regards the latter I feel quite sad, actually, having got to know Laura some years ago when she appeared regularly a number of times at a local venue that has since closed, where musicians and audience members intermingled in the breaks and afterwards on a very informal and friendly basis, and I had a lot of time for her both as an individual and a promising musician.