3rd Annual Arbors Records Invitational Jazz Party - final piano jam

Do you want to try eight-handed piano? That's easy, having Dick Hyman as the master of ceremonies, and Rossano Sportiello, Bernd Lhotzky, Stephanie Trick, Paolo Alderighi, Mike Lipskin et al joining in!



The Sheik Of Araby never sounded so crowded.

The Mule's 10 random CD picks (3)

* Henry Red Allen - 1929-1933 (Classics 540)
* Spike Hughes And His Negro Orchestra – 1933: The Complete Set (Retrieval RTR79005)
* Allan Vaché & Antti Sarpila – Swing Is Here (Nagel-Heyer CD-026)
* Dick Hyman - Plays Duke Ellington (Reference Recordings RR-50CD)
* Scott Robinson - Plays C-Melody Saxophone: Melody From The Sky (Arbors ARCD 19212)
* Olivier Lancelot - Lancelot Et Ses Chevaliers (DJAZ DJ 715-2)
* Jon-Erik Kellso - Blue Roof: A Love Letter To New Orleans (Arbors ARCD 19346)
* Stephanie Trick - Hear That Rhythm! (self-produced)
* Wild Bill Davison - Lady Of The Evening (Jazzology JCD-143)
* The Gene Harris/Scott Hamilton Quintet – At Last (Concord CCD-4434)

Bernd Lhotzky plays Chopin

As the very same German pianist points out in Dan Morgenstern's liner notes to the Dick Hyman and Bernd Lhotzky duet disc Stridin' The Classics (Jazz Connaisseur JCCD 0347-2), Frédéric Chopin's Etude in Gb Major (Op. 25, #9), called "Butterfly Etude", "could almost be by James P. Johnson, and comparisons with "Carolina Shout" are almost inevitable: the harmonic structure of the beginning of the theme is almost identical". Listen and enjoy this 3:20 version, uploaded by TheGreatKahulik on youtube.

And what about the Waltz In C-sharp Minor (Op. 64, #2)? Check and compare the "straight" version, where Lhotzky displays his magnificent classical education, and then his hot and stompig stride take.

James P. Johnson's last rent party - reviewed

The James P. Johnson Foundation, the Johnson family and Smalls Club organized an all day “rent party” to raise money to buy a monument to commemorate this great musician who so far rests in peace in an unmarked grave in Maspeth, Queens, Mt. Olivet Cemetery.

The concert took place last Sunday, October 4, at Smalls Jazz Club, and Ben Ratliff has reviewed it for the New York Times. Some excerpts are reproduced here:

--------------------------------------------------

Raising Roof and Headstone for Pioneering Pianist
By BEN RATLIFF
Published: October 5, 2009

"A definition of righteousness: about 75 people, crammed into the West Village club Smalls, watching a series of pianists play James P. Johnson on a grand piano in a benefit concert to buy a headstone for his grave.

(...)

Johnson died in 1955 fairly isolated after four years of illness, and his body lies in an unmarked grave in Maspeth, Queens. The spot was found in February by Scott Brown, a Johnson scholar, and the idea was hatched for “James P. Johnson’s Last Rent Party,” a daylong blowout of Johnsonia at Smalls on Sunday, with historical talks and performances.

The day ended with five hours of solo piano — by 12 performers — and a little bit of four-hands playing. Unlike the Harlem rent parties Johnson used to play, it wasn’t remotely a competition. Though several pianists wrestled with the same material (especially the charging “Carolina Shout”), the emphasis was not on besting one another but on beneficially knocking the tunes around, treating fairly neglected music like common repertory.

Ethan Iverson, the pianist from the Bad Plus, announced that the beginning of his set would be “classical”: an earnest shot at Johnson’s style. He played “Carolina Shout” with sensitivity and clarity, keeping the stride rhythm steady in the left hand. Then he went off into his own updated, posteverything style, full of explicit dissonance, repetition and strange dynamics.

“The Charleston” was his killer: it started with deliberately messy tone rows, his two hands playing at cross-purposes, the left staccato and slow, the right flowing and medium-tempo. Inevitably, and with humor, he finished in the song’s proper style.

Mike Lipskin, a pianist based in San Francisco who studied with the stride pianist Willie (The Lion) Smith, played stride-piano songs as if they were his drinking buddies: his versions of Johnson’s “It Takes Love to Cure the Heart’s Disease” and Luckey Roberts’s “Pork and Beans” were rowdy and familiar, and he made Johnson’s “If I Could Be With You (One Hour Tonight)” mellifluous and lovely, smiling at the audience rather than monitoring the difficult variations in his left-hand stride patterns.

The evening’s revelation was Aaron Diehl, a pianist in his mid-20s who has played with Wynton Marsalis and Wycliffe Gordon. His style, on “Scaling the Blues,” “Over the Bars” and the second movement of Johnson’s “Jazzamine Concerto,” was modest, secure and insinuating, with an iron sense of time. A few different pianists worked in their own tunes as Johnson tributes; Mr. Diehl’s was a slow, gorgeous blues.

Ted Rosenthal and Dick Hyman closed the night. They performed some pieces together at the keyboard, including “Twilight Rag”; then Mr. Hyman, one of the world’s great specialists in early jazz piano, performed Johnson’s music with well-practiced dynamic shifts, elegant and sometimes a bit too showy for the circumstances. But complaining is pointless. Mr. Hyman smoothly played the entire 10-minutes-plus solo-piano version of Johnson’s “Yamekraw,” a rhapsody with classical flourishes and stride interjections. Who else does that?"

--------------------------------------------------

James P. Johnson's last rent party!

James P. Johnson was admitted to Queens General Hospital on November 15, 1955, after having suffered his eighth stroke at home and, on November 17, he died due to a final massive stroke. All the major New York newspapers published his obituary, and he was identified not only as a pianist but also as a prolific composer but, according to Down Beat (December 28, 1955), fewer than 75 persons attended the funeral services at University Chapel in midtown Manhattan two days later.

James P. Johnson, the father of stride piano, composer of The Charleston and The Carolina Shout and one of the founders of modern jazz piano lies, shockingly, in an unmarked grave in Maspeth, Queens, Mt. Olivet Cemetery.

The James P. Johnson Foundation, the Johnson family and Smalls Club have organized an all day “rent party” to raise money to buy a monument to commemorate this great musician. It will take place on Sunday, October 4th beginning at 1:00 PM at Smalls Jazz Club, located at 183 West 10th Street at 7th Avenue.

The afternoon will begin with a symposium by musicologist and Johnson scholar Scott Brown on the life and work of James P. Johnson, followed by Mark Borowsky from the James P. Johnson Foundation and, around 3:00 will then be a steady stream of pianists to play solo piano in tribute to James P. Johnson.

This is the complete schedule:

• 1:00 PM Doors Open


• 1:30 PM Opening Words – Barry Glover and The James P. Johson Society


• 2:00 PM Symposium – James P. Johnson: The Man Who Made The Twenties Roar – Scott E. Brown (this will include an exhibit from The James P. Johnson archive housed at The Rutgers Institute for Jazz Studies)


• 3:00 PM Symposium - James P. Johnson: Invisible Pianist of the Harlem Renaissance – Mark Borowsky


• 4:00 PM J. Michael O’Neal and Natalie Wright


• 4:30 PM John Bunch


• 5:00 PM Tardo Hammer


• 5:30 PM Conal Fowkes


• 6:00 PM Terry Waldo


• 6:30 PM Spike Wilner


• 7:00 PM Ethan Iverson


• 7:30 PM Mike Lipskin


• 8:00 PM Aaron Diehl


• 8:30 PM Ted Rosenthal


• 9:00 PM Dick Hyman

Suggested tax-free donations are $20 with all the proceeds to go to the James P. Johnson Foundation.

Bicephalous stride monster

Dick Hyman and Dick Wellstood first recorded as a duo in 1983, when Hans Ruland produced I Wish I Were Twins for the German Swingtime label (Swingtime 8204). To my knowledge, it has not been reissued on CD yet.

A few years later, the bicephalous stride monster emerged again. Producer Ted O'Reilly watched them at the Bern International Jazz Festival in the first months of 1986, and decided to make a new disc of duets. It was called Stridemonster! and released as Unisson DDA1006 and the CD reissued came in 2005 as Sackville SKCD2-2064, with one unissued track from the original sessions ("Froggie Moore") and three additional tracks recorded by Phil Sheridan at Harbourfront, Toronto, in June 28, 1987.

Here's a small sample of the beast at its best, taken from that above mentioned Bern concert (1986).

--------------------------------------------------

Dick Hyman y Dick Wellstood grabaron por primera vez como dúo en 1983. Hans Ruland produjo I Wish I Were Twins para el sello alemán Swingtime (Swingtime 8204), que no ha sido todavía reeditado en CD.

Unos pocos años más tarde el monstruo bicéfalo del stride emergió de nuevo. El productor Ted O'Reilly los vio tocar en el Festival Internacional de Jazz de Berna en los primeros meses de 1986 y decidió grabar un nuevo disco de dúos de piano. Stridemonster! fue editado inicialmente como LP (Unison DDA1006) y ha sido reeditado en CD en 2005 (Sackville SKCD2-2064), incluyendo un tema inédito de las grabaciones originales ("Froggie Moore") y tres temas adicionales grabados por Phil Sheridan en Harbourfront, Toronto, el 28 de junio de 1987.

Éste es un pequeño ejemplo de la bestia en su mejor momento, procedente del mencionado concierto de Berna (1986).

Dick Hyman & Dick Wellstood - Thou Swell

Jelly Roll Morton & The Lion: Finger Buster vs The Finger Breaker

In his memoirs, Willie The Lion Smith recalls the story of a mythical cutting contest between him and Jelly Roll Morton in the early thirties:

“Some people used to put me on by asking whether jazz was born in New Orleans and whether or not Jelly Roll invented it. I said once that was one of the worst things I ever heard. What I meant was that most of the jazz I knew was, in the beginning, from the brickyards. And another thing, jazz comes from the person’s soul and not from a state. But Jelly Roll was a guy who always talked a lot.

He used to be around the Rhythm Club every day and stand out on the corner and he used to bull and con all those fellows. He had his twenty-dollar gold piece on and he’d stand out there with a bankroll, meaning money, so every time I’d come around, almost all the guys who used to play piano kept quiet. Sometimes I’d lay for Fats and Jimmy [James P. Johnson]. Sometimes I’d even lay for Tatum. But I used to come around especially on Friday and Saturday looking for Jelly. I went around this one Friday and he was standing on the corner."

“Look, Mr. One-Hand,” I said, “let’s go inside and let me give you your lessons in cutting.” So Jelly and I would go inside by the piano. I was the only one he would stand and listen to and then he didn’t open his mouth. I must have played nearly everything you could name and when I got through, I said, “Well, Jelly, you’ll keep quiet now.” And, true as I’m sitting here, Jelly would be quiet.”

In “Willie the Lion”, a documentary produced and directed by Marc Fields, Willie recalls the encounter in a slightly different way:

“Well, I knew Jelly Roll well. I think I was the one of the few who did know him… He was a character. Quite a talker, he had a habit of tearing people apart. I challenged him in the Hoofer’s Club, in the Rhythm Club, I got him before nearly 300 musicians and I said “You call the terms and I’ll call them on the piano, and I’m gonna make you remember piano as long as you live”. And I could.”

After that, whenever anybody referred to Jelly Roll Morton, the Lion would say, “Oh, you mean Mr. One-Hand”, noting the supremacy of the “two-fisted” (as they used to call themselves) Harlem piano players. In fact, in New Orleans and Chicago, Morton was generally known that he could cut people, but when he went to New York, the New York pianists really intimidated him, and Willie did.

In that era of house rent parties and cutting contests, every tickler used to have a challenge piece to defeat the competition. For a time, Willie The Lion Smith had “Finger Buster”, a piece that, in Dick Hyman’s words “was clearly throwing down the gauntlet, so that no amateurs would dare to compete the mighty Lion as he strode into a place.”

“Finger Buster” was composed (in F) by The Lion in 1934 and recorded that same year, but this first version remained unissued for many years. The first 32 bars of this piece were written at Clarence Williams’ office while the Lion was doing technique exercises, and The Lion said he invented it by playing around with a scale as fast and as loud as he could.

As pianist Tom Roberts describes in the liner notes for his own disc “In The Lion’s Den” (Stomp Off Records CD 1392), “the most remarkable section of the tune is the second strain. Here the left hand plays a beautiful descending counter line simultaneously with a variation on the Charleston rhythm while the right hand plays a figure in contrary motion. Rhythmically, tension is created by the juxtaposition of right hand figures in 3 against the left hand in 4. At the end of the 2nd strain, as well as the coda of the entire piece, he strays far away from the conventional chords associated with the key and creates one of his most magical musical moments”.

The definitive solo recording of this piece came in the famous January 10, 1939 session for Commodore (where he cut 14 wonderful piano solos) and was issued on Commodore 522 coupled with “Rippling Waters”.


In the Jazz Man recording session from December 1938, that took place at the Rialto Theater Building in Washington, Jelly Roll Morton cut five sides, one of them being a piano solo piece called “Finger Buster” (matrix number MLB-145) issued on Jazz Man JM 12, coupled with “Creepy Feeling”. “Finger Buster” contains a mighty left hand that thunders up and down the octaves, while the right hand flies with a torrent of arpeggios and trills. Everything goes at super fast speed (metronomique speed rises up to 304) and in the last part pianist Morten Gunnar Larsen sees “a conscious caricature of stride piano technique”. In November 1942 the name of the tune was changed to “The Finger Breaker”, when Roy Carew made a copyright application to the Library of Congress. Morton had not bothered to do so himself, on the assumption that his amazing, breakneck, bravura piano piece would deter all competitions. Other sources state that the piece was called “The Finger Breaker” from the start and that I got mislabeled in the Jazz Man 78 rpm disc.

Anyway, through the years, Willie The Lion Smith’s “Finger Buster” and Jelly Roll Morton’s “Finger Buster/The Finger Breaker”, which are certainly different pieces, have been mistaken in liner notes and discographical notes from quite a few reissues. A different matter is Leonard Feather’s assertion, in the liner notes for Dick Hyman’s Columbia LP with the music of Jelly Roll Morton, that Morton’s “The Finger Breaker” was his only real piece of "stride" piano. As pianist Butch Thompson told us in the Stride Piano List a few years ago, “it isn't stride piano and doesn't sound like it. It sounds like Morton playing fast, but nothing like James P. or any of the others. Morton's right hand riffs are not characteristic stride figures and the left hand bass notes are an octave higher than you would expect from a fully fledged stride player. Morton was his own man.”