The Ear Wants What It Wants
US Grant, HD Thoreau, and Emily Dickinson help us navigate the wiggle room in the eternal ‘What is good jazz?’ question
Ulysses S. Grant was hell on wheels with strategizing large-scale flanking movements on a military campaign. Improvising off an arpeggio using chromatic enclosures, not so much (photo courtesy Library of Congress)
Many years ago, history major that I am, I came across a passage in a book regarding Ulysses S. Grant’s musical appreciation acuity deficit. The general, it appeared, was no fan of the art, and one of his most famous (supposed) quotes had nothing to do with beating Robert E. Lee, but rather his own limited musical knowledge.
“I only know two tunes,” Grant was widely quoted as saying. “One of them is ‘Yankee Doodle’ and the other one isn’t.”
On the surface, that statement seemed to be one of humorous dismissal – the general may just not have cared about music enough to go beyond his two-song repertoire. But a fascinating article in Salon explains Grant’s inability with a more scientific explanation: he suffered from congenital amusia, a condition in which music just sounds like, well, noise.
I don’t know if my own father was amusic or not, but I know he didn’t receive much encouragement to pursue music when he was a kid. He came from a family of eight siblings during the Depression, and my grandfather was a machine shop foreman, so there wasn’t a lot of money lying around for instruments. And he said at some point in school, the music teacher asked him to just pretend to sing in some sort of choral event (I wonder to this day if the teacher had thought to try to find a range in the music for him that suited his voice instead of telling him not to sing, whether he would have enjoyed it more). Years later, after he moved in with us and I was a “comeback” trumpet player who played daily, he never once asked for any song when I pulled the horn out of its case – he would just say “play it loud!”
I had it a little better than my parents did when I was young. They could afford decent instruments for my brother and me, and I was taught through the public school system how to recognize notes on a page and manipulate the proper valves to make the sound that corresponded with any given note at the proper time. But that was the extent of the instructions. I was never taught about why certain notes worked together. I knew the word “chord” but in six years of playing in school bands, nobody ever explained what a chord was or how certain chords worked better together than others. I still think if anybody had taught me a blues scale in junior high school, and how so much popular music from Art Blakey to Led Zeppelin revolved around it, I never would have put the horn down.
Proud and stubborn autodidact that I am, though, I eventually found those blues scales and they have served as the foundation, like a long-lived sourdough starter, for any subsequent musical scholarship I undertake, with or without the horn in my hands. The blues have also served as a pivot point in so many discussions about what makes “good” jazz or not, in words uttered by people much more conversant than I in the arts.
James Kaplan’s 2024 book 3 Shades of Blue: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the Lost Empire of Cool, contains many such passages, including this by Ralph Ellison, who observed a recording session of the Miles Davis sextet at Columbia Records just before they laid down Kind of Blue, now considered almost by consensus the greatest jazz album of all time:
“I finally saw that...poor, evil, lost little Miles Davis, who on this occasion sounded like he just couldn’t get it together. Nor did Coltrane help with his badly executed velocity exercises. These cats have gotten lost, man. They’re trying to get hold of something by fucking up the blues.”
Kaplan then quickly asserts that Ellison (and Albert Murray, who had also dissed the Davis group), were 45 and 42. Middle-aged men, whose memories and nostalgia blocked out “new winds, blowing in hard from somewhere out ahead, (that) just didn’t smell right.”
I don’t buy that age thing, not with creative professionals of any kind who actually make a living with their skill. I don’t think anybody who has been in the creative expression business for more than a minute, whether it be with a paintbrush, a camera, a word processor (or, for the pretentious among us, a typewriter), or a musical instrument, ever calcifies consciously; I think they know their talent and their audiences well enough that they can put certain things in certain boxes. Some boxes pay the rent. Others pay the soul, as saxophonist Matt Garrison says. Sometimes the twain shall meet. Sometimes, maybe usually, they shall not.
And, just as Emily Dickinson and Selena Gomez tell us “the heart wants what it wants,” so too, does the ear - which complicates the question for anyone for whom music is a passion: As a listener, how much should I feel obligated to learn as much as I can about its construction, so I can be an informed consumer who respects the years of effort musicians have put into learning their art? As a player, how much should I feel obligated to learn as much about how to construct it so I am providing an enjoyable experience for my audience while feeding my own soul (even if that audience is just myself)?
The associate publisher and I saw a tour de force solo piano performance from Sean Mason at the Rochester International Jazz Festival in June. I didn’t grasp all the subtle harmonics, but I grasped enough – and he threw in enough recognizable bones from songs including “Sunny Side of the Street” and “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” (really) that I never went down the rabbit hole of shamed ignorance. The room was only about half full, 80 folks maybe. The next night, Sean and his quartet played to a standing room crowd of about 200, with a set that included the very accessible stuff off his Southern Suite album and “Sunny Side…” again. A woman sitting behind us was complaining pre-show that Sean’s solo show the night before did not appeal to her at all; one of her points was that he occasionally “just played one note over and over.” She sat through most of the quartet’s performance, but not all of it.
We then walked across the street to the RIJF’s “big tent” to watch Doreen Ketchens, the trad jazz clarinet player from New Orleans who became famous busking in front of Rouse’s market on Royal Street in the French Quarter. The show was full, maybe 1,000 people, and Doreen, who studied at the Hartt School of Music in Hartford (classical, though, not jazz) played New Orleans favorites like “Joe Avery’s Blues” (also known as Second Line) and “A Closer Walk With Thee.” The crowd ate it up. And those songs are not hard to play.
I make no bones about the fact I am a more or less socially adept introvert, by nature not a performer. The feedback writers get is wholly different and delayed from that a musician gets. But in my very limited “public” playing, on the bench outside our local primary school, I often get compliments from folks out on their nightly walks. Occasionally somebody will ask me to play something.
But nobody walking by my bench has ever asked me to play “Cherokee,” the chestnut rite of passage written in the late 1930s and made sanctified in bebop by Charlie Parker. Any serious jazz musician is supposed to be able to play it (I am a serious hobbyist-level student of music though not a seriously skilled one, let’s be clear, and couldn’t play it on a bet without weeks of practice if I was asked to).
But no less a musician than trombonist Charlie Halloran, who has been a staple of the New Orleans scene for almost 20 years, said the Crescent City, rather than New York, was always where he wanted to ply his trade.
“It never occurred to me to move to New York because I don’t play ‘Cherokee,’” Charlie told me after I mentioned the song and its inside-baseball status. “It’s not fun for me. I’m not particularly good at it. I’ll listen to somebody else play it.”
I’m not done with the Kaplan book; I have just gotten to the point he introduces Ornette Coleman into the mix, which is a whole ’nother ball of time and key signature wax. But as you can tell, the book has stimulated the scholar in me, both as a player and a listener of music. It opens another vector in that everlasting quest to balance recognizing my limitations and extending my horizons. And I’ll let my ear be the final arbiter of things. I think the most likely outcome is that as time goes on there will be a far more nuanced perception, measure for measure and note for note, of what I’m hearing, whether it’s from a world-famous pro at The Side Door or from my own horn in my old glider rocker in the living room. It’s already happening to some extent.
Maybe I’ll just leave it to that great 19th century percussionist Henry David Thoreau, who knew being true to what one’s ear wants is a good recipe for contentment: “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”
It just might be jazz.
Litchfield Jazz Festival Honors Vita Muir
The Litchfield Jazz Festival’s board of directors helped cement Litchfield Performing Arts founder and executive director Vita Muir’s legacy in a big way at this year’s festival in late July: they established the Vita Muir Fund to Support Litchfield Jazz Camp Scholars with a $100,000 starter fund, with a goal to double it within a year.
As camp alum Emmet Cohen told 8495Jazz, the camp didn’t just teach him about becoming a better musician, but also “how to be a decent human being.”
The camp welcomed 298 students this year from around the nation and Europe, and distributed more than $100,000 in scholarships to enable 43 of them to attend for a total of 73 student weeks.
The members of the University of North Texas’s top student jazz ensemble, the One O’Clock Lab Band, show their chops with “Cherokee.” Charlie Parker made the song a benchmark by which “serious” jazz cats are judged to be able to play – or not. Impressive, yes. But it doesn’t grab everybody.
Out and About with 8495Jazz
These listings are a curated sampling of shows in the region. As an independent resource for jazz news, 8495Jazz does not receive any consideration, free tickets, or affiliate fees for these listings. Please confirm events are still happening directly with the venue.
8495Jazz Wild Card Gig of the Week
Waryas Park, Poughkeepsie, NY
Jazz in the Valley: Day 1 feat. Craig Harris (trombone), Saturday, August 16, 3 pm. Free. Day Two feat. Jazzmeia Horn, Bobby Sanabria, Javon Jackson, Lenny White, Lisa Fischer, Dr. Eddie Henderson, Orrin Evans, John Patitucci, Sunday, August 17, 12 pm. GA $60 in advance, $70 at the gate. Students $20.
It’s right on the banks of the Hudson, folks.
8495Jazz Spur of the Moment Gig TODAY
Spire Center, Plymouth, MA
Charlie Halloran and the Tropicales (trombone, combo), 3 pm. GA $26.50 - $29.00 including service fee.
Other Shows This Week
Bushnell Park, Hartford, CT
Paul Brown Monday Night Jazz Series feat. Matt Dwonszyk and the Donny Time Band, Haneef Nelson Quintet, Monday, August 11, 6 pm. Free.
Music Mountain, Falls Village, CT
Maucha Adnet & Duduka Da Fonseca Trio (Brazilian jazz) Saturday, Aug. 16, 7 pm. GA $35-$50, student/teacher/veteran $5-20.
The Falcon, Marlboro, NY
Ed Palermo Big Band Tribute to Sly Stone and Brian Wilson, Saturday, August 16, 2 shows, 4 pm and 8 pm. $30 suggested donation.
Fairfield Theater Co., Fairfield, CT
The Headhunters (jazz-funk), Friday, August 15, 8 pm. GA $52-$72 including service fee.
Regattabar, Cambridge, MA
Berklee Garden Bar Series feat. Niqisax (saxophone), Wednesday, August 13, 6 pm. Free.
VFW Post 399, Westport, CT
Will Goble/Ryan Sands Quintet (combo) Thursday, August 14, 7:30 and 8:45 pm. GA $20.76 for first show, $10.76 for late show. Student/vet $15.76 for early show.
Cotuit Center for the Arts, Cotuit, MA
Jazz at the Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival: Count Basie Meets Gerry Mulligan, Tuesday, August 12, GA $45 including service fee, student $25 including service fee.
The Side Door, Old Lyme, CT
Aaron Goldberg Trio w/ John Patitucci and Obed Calvaire (piano, combo), Friday, August 15 and Saturday, August 16, 8 pm. GA $54.45-$59.75, student $27.98 including service fee.
Pizzeria Boema, Lenox, MA
Monday Night Jazz w/Andy Wrba & Friends, Monday, August 11, 6 pm. Free.
The Parlour, Providence, RI
Clear Audience (combo), today, 5 pm. All ages, GA $10.
Palace Theater Poli Club, Waterbury, CT
Ali Ryerson Quartet (flute, combo), Friday, August 15, 7 and 9 pm. GA $51 including service fee.
Jams
Cafe Nine, New Haven CT
New Haven Jazz Underground jam, usually 2nd and 4th Tuesday of every month: free admission
Saturday jazz jam most Saturdays, 4 pm. Free.
Blackeyed Sally’s, Hartford, CT
Jazz Wednesdays, featured set 7 pm, jam session afterward.
Carmine’s, East Hartford, CT
Paisley’s All Star Memorial Jam, 3rd Tuesday of the month, 7:30 pm. House band set followed by jam. Free.
Mahoney’s, Poughkeepsie, NY
Poughkeepsie Jazz Project, every Tuesday, 7 pm. Free.
Jazz Societies and Organizations (great info on events, festivals, and more)
Jazz Society of Fairfield County
Jazz Fridays at Three Sheets New Haven 1st/3rd Fridays from 6-9pm
Jazz Thursdays at The Cannon New Haven every other Thurs from 7-9pm.
8495Jazz takes its name from the two Interstate highways that cross our region, I-84 and I-95. Within short driving distances from either, you can find incredible entertainment, from local jams to world-famous festivals in New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. 8495Jazz: From Newburgh to Newport!
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Thought I’d heard it all about General Grant! But no. Have to look up amusia in the Chernow tome’s index.