billbeuttler.com

January 1, 1970

A busier week than most, owing to last Sunday's year-end stuff: the annual essay on jazz in Boston over the past year, and my picks for my favorite 10 performances of the past year.

The regular items were a profile of Henry Butler, who lost his New Orleans home to Katrina but will be welcoming in the New Year here in Boston tonight in an 8 p.m. show that will be broadcast nationwide on NPR affiliates (and which Kim and I will be attending live). There's also a McCoy Tyner review that ran the same day. Coincidentally, Tyner also shows up in the Butler profile — he's a hero of Butler's, but one of Butler's famous teachers didn't want Butler approaching the piano the same way.

The hometown group The Fringe was my Calendar pick, and there was an coincidence involved with them, too. My profilee for next week's column was a student of The Fringe's George Garzone, and considers him one of his favorite current tenor players, up there with Joe Lovano and Sonny Rollins.

That's enough for now. It's time to get ready to welcome in the new year. Have a happy one.

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In aftermath of Katrina, he's set to toast new year

By Bill Beuttler, Globe Correspondent  |  December 30, 2005

When Henry Butler welcomes the new year tomorrow night at Berklee's David Friend Recital Hall, as Boston's contribution to National Public Radio's annual "Toast of the Nation," it's a safe bet he'll be glad to have 2005 behind him.

The versatile pianist and singer was left homeless by Hurricane Katrina this summer, reluctantly fleeing his house in the Gentilly neighborhood of New Orleans a day ahead of the storm.

"I intended to ride it out," says Butler, 56, by phone from Boulder, Colo., where he's been housed temporarily since Katrina, "but some people showed up at my doorstep saying they weren't leaving New Orleans without me. And frankly, I'm glad they did, because there's no way I could've survived that one."

Butler and his friends waited out the hurricane in the tiny northern Louisiana town of Farmerville, but his New Orleans home was destroyed by seven feet of floodwater. Everything in it, too. His 1925 Mason & Hamlin piano. His recording equipment, stereo, and CD collection. His computer. All the clothes that he hadn't carried with him.

He's making do without a piano in his FEMA-arranged housing in Boulder while awaiting an insurance settlement and deciding whether it makes sense to rebuild in New Orleans. Friends have donated a replacement computer and loaned him an electronic keyboard. And Berklee brought Butler to campus for a short residency this fall as part of its New Orleans Visiting Artist program, set up to help displaced New Orleans musicians get through the storm's aftermath.

Coincidentally, the first such visiting artist, saxophonist Donald Harrison, headlined last year's Boston segment of "Toast of the Nation." Butler is a similarly shrewd choice for the gig. Like Harrison, Butler has highly impressive jazz credentials yet doesn't hesitate to spice up a show with crowd-pleasing ingredients from their hometown's musical gumbo. In Butler's case, that can mean singing a raw-edge blues, soulful R&B, or dazzling an audience instrumentally a la New Orleans piano greats James Booker and Professor Longhair.

All that and more turns up on Butler's most recent CD, 2004's "Homeland," and he could draw from any of it tomorrow night, depending on his mood. Joining him will be bassist Mark Diamond of Boulder and drummer Herman Jackson of New Orleans. "We're going to do some straight-ahead," promises Butler, "and we're going to do probably some New Orleans stuff. We're going to do whatever we feel like doing. And that's kind of the way I approach most performances."

Butler has always done so, though his first two albums were straight-ahead jazz discs with sidemen including Charlie Haden, Billy Higgins, Freddie Hubbard, Ron Carter, and Jack DeJohnette. Butler grew up in New Orleans seeing musicians play a wide array of styles, then went on to study with teachers across the musical spectrum: Alvin Batiste, George Duke, Harold Mabern, Sir Roland Hanna, and Professor Longhair. Hanna, Butler says, had the narrowest focus of all of them. He didn't just zero in on jazz; he turned up his nose at one of Butler's jazz heroes.

"When I told him that I liked McCoy Tyner, he says, 'I have no use for a guy who beats on the piano like he does,' " Butler recalls. "That's what he said. 'I have no use for that.' He said to me, 'I believe that you should treat the piano like a beautiful woman — caress her and make beautiful music, make beautiful love to the piano.' My lessons with Sir Roland were spent trying to restrain myself."

Professor Longhair, the furthest removed from straight-ahead jazz among Butler's famous teachers, also advocated a light touch. "He said, 'If you play a little softer, you could move a lot faster," Butler says, laughing. "And I'm still working on that."

Work is something Butler has never shied from. Neither is adversity. One bright spot in 2005 for Butler was a spring exhibit of his photographs, titled "How EYE See It," at the Jonathan Ferrara Gallery in New Orleans. Childhood glaucoma left Butler completely blind by age 3, but he took up photography in the mid-1980s, more or less on a dare.

Now Butler's largest hurdle is getting his life back together post-Katrina. He says he'd like to record another CD in 2006, but remains distracted by more pressing matters.

"I have some ideas," Butler says. "Certainly, I want to try to do something next year, but right now, man, I'm sort of in survival mode. I'm trying to get settled here in Boulder. I don't know what's going to happen to my house in New Orleans. It's just not right for me mentally or emotionally. And I don't have a musical instrument."

The lineup for "Toast of the Nation": After Butler and Boston kick off NPR's toast, the live broadcast will move to Sanibel Island, Fla., for a 9 p.m. performance by the Brubeck Brothers Quartet. Then it's on to the New Orleans club Tipitina's for the Hot 8 Brass Band at 10 p.m. The Chico O'Farrill Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra, directed by Arturo O'Farrill, goes on from New York's Birdland at 11 p.m., and will actually ring in the New Year for the East Coast. At 12:10 a.m., jazz vocalist Rene Marie takes over from Columbia, Mo. It's back to Tipitina's at about 1 a.m. for the funk band Galactic. At 2 a.m., guests Jimmy Scott and the Jazz Expressions will join Pink Martini in Portland, Ore. Finally, from 3:30 to 6 a.m., highlights from the whole shebang will be rebroadcast. 

© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

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Tyner's distinctive playing shines on

By Bill Beuttler, Globe Correspondent  |  December 30, 2005

CAMBRIDGE — McCoy Tyner is starting to seem like the jazz world's answer to Bob Dylan. Beyond the superficial similarities — both rose to fame in the early '60s (Tyner as a member of John Coltrane's famous quartet), and both have taken to sporting retro-looking pencil-thin mustaches in recent years — there's the more significant matter of their relentless touring at ages (Dylan 64, Tyner 67) when most artists of their stature are expected to be slowing down. It's as if both men are obsessed with squeezing as much music as possible into whatever time they have left.

Tyner's first set at Regattabar on Wednesday began his third stop in Boston or Cambridge this year, and there were others late last year and at Newport both summers. This time he was performing with a trio.

On bass was Charnett Moffett, who provided his usual strong support and spelled Tyner with inventive solos, like a slightly toned-down version of Stanley Clarke's pyrotechnics. On drums was Al Foster, new to this unit but a gifted and much-in-demand sideman who's worked with Tyner in the past. ("We've been friends a long time, right, Al?" said Tyner in introducing him.)

But people come to Tyner sets to see Tyner. The pianist is looking a lot thinner these days, and his dark pinstripe suit hung loose on him as he walked slowly to the stage and took his seat at the house Steinway. He was reportedly hospitalized for exhaustion in Italy earlier this year. But when he launched into his tune "Mellow Minor" to start the set, his playing was strong, supple, and sure.

Tyner's distinctive approach to the piano is as familiar to jazz buffs as Dylan's signature rasp is to fans of rock and folk. But he's become less emphatic with his left hand lately, bringing a new softness to his playing that seems to be reaching back to jazz's earlier, pre-Coltrane days.

That was so as the trio made its way through "Ballad for Aisha" and the standard "Will You Still Be Mine?" (featuring a drum solo by Foster), and as Tyner took over for a solo interpretation of ''Darn That Dream."

Tyner's left hand reasserted itself on "Manalyuca," one of his most recognizable compositions, but like Dylan, Tyner thoroughly recast his piece once its theme had been stated and it was time to solo.

A standing ovation produced an encore. Like Dylan again, Tyner dug deep into his music's history and offered up a stride-inflected version of "St. Louis Blues" as pretty and bluesy as jazz gets. 

© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
 
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Calendar Jazz

Mon 1-2

The Fringe
Zeitgeist Gallery, 1353 Cambridge St., Cambridge. 617-876-6060. 10 p.m. $10.

True, Scullers and the Regattabar are each hosting expensive New Year's Eve bashes Saturday night. Scullers will have the smooth-jazz duo of guitarist Chuck Loeb and saxophonist Kim Waters, at prices ranging from $50 to $339 (the latter is per couple), depending on whether you pop for the five-course dinner and which of the two sets you catch. At the R-bar, it will be R&B belter Nicole Nelson for music and a champagne toast, priced at $125 or $175, based on whether you're having dinner or just dessert. If, however, your preference runs toward budget-minded, non-smooth jazz, wait a couple of nights and catch the Fringe's weekly late-night Monday set at Zeitgeist Gallery. The trio of saxophonist George Garzone, bassist John Lockwood, and drummer Bob Gullotti has been performing together as a unit for two or three decades now, depending on whether you begin counting from when Lockwood took over for founding bassist Richard Appleman in 1985 or from its original creation in 1971. Either way, the Fringe's longstanding weekly gigs have long since become a free-jazz institution in Cambridge, and a chance for three of Boston's most in-demand sidemen and educators to get telepathic together and strut their stuff.

12/ 31 Chicken Slacks Soul Revue If you simply must welcome in the new year with live music, this R&B/ soul set is a good deal less pricey, considering it includes hors d'oeuvres, party favors, and a champagne toast. Ryles, 212 Hampshire St., Cambridge. 617-876-9330. 8 p.m. $40

BILL BEUTTLER

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In a time of need, shows of compassion

Performers rallied after Katrina

By Bill Beuttler, Globe Correspondent  |  December 25, 2005

The biggest jazz story was the disaster that befell the music's birthplace in August — and the numerous benefit concerts that sprang up around the country soon after to aid the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Locally, hardly a week went by after the hurricane in which there was not some sort of fund-raising concert for New Orleans. Trumpeter Terence Blanchard showed up for a two-night run at Scullers shortly after his New Orleans home was flooded and announced that he'd be donating the profits from the first night to the Hurricane Katrina Disaster Relief Fund.

Smaller venues got into the act, too, with Zeitgeist Gallery hosting a benefit for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which lost its national headquarters in the flooding. The Cambridge Center for Adult Education donated space for "Here's to Life," a cabaret concert for Katrina survivors.

The Berklee College of Music set up a New Orleans Visiting Artist program to bring displaced musicians to campus for short teaching residencies, including standout saxophonist and Berklee alumnus Donald Harrison, jazz/ blues/ R&B pianist Henry Butler, and bassist George Porter Jr. of the Meters. Harrison also marched in Boston's 375th anniversary Grand Parade in September, leading the 14-piece New Orleans Resurrection Brass Band, a group of Berklee faculty, grads, and students.

This year also saw the release of the first complete, unexpurgated, and digitally enhanced version of Jelly Roll Morton's famous oral history sessions with folklorist Alan Lomax, via an eight-CD box set from Cambridge-based Rounder Records. Morton was jazz's first great composer, a gifted pianist, and a mesmerizing raconteur. His tales from his early days as a musician provide proof of how deep the roots of jazz run in New Orleans — all the more reason to mourn the devastation there.

An earlier disaster led, indirectly, to another of the more intriguing jazz stories. Sonny Rollins was in his apartment several blocks from the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, and was among those evacuated after the attacks there. Four days later, he played an emotionally charged concert at Boston's Berklee Performance Center that was taped both by Rollins and, surreptitiously, by a self-appointed Rollins archivist named Carl Smith. The two later put their tapes together to create one of this year's most memorable CD releases, "Without a Song: The 9/ 11 Concert."

The late John Coltrane also made news with recordings released this year. The first was a November 1957 concert at Carnegie Hall, toward the end of Coltrane's brief tenure with Thelonious Monk. The concert was recorded but subsequently lost until a Library of Congress archivist stumbled on it in February. Blue Note Records released the CD version of the concert in September, titled "At Carnegie Hall." In October, Impulse Records brought out yet another Coltrane live set, "One Down, One Up: Live at the Half Note." This one featured Coltrane's renowned quartet with McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones and was made from master tapes recorded during a pair of 1965 radio broadcasts.

Most live CDs come out a lot more quickly, of course, and this year was remarkably fertile. Among those releasing strong live sets this year: Keith Jarrett, Wynton Marsalis, Wayne Shorter, Jim Hall, Bill Frisell, the SFJazz Collective, Harrison, Marian McPartland, Arturo Sandoval, Geoffrey Keezer, Danilo Perez, the Either/ Orchestra, and George Russell. The latter three are Boston-based but did their recordings elsewhere: Perez and his trio at Chicago's Jazz Showcase; the Either/ Orchestra in Ethiopia with Mulatu Astatke and other guests; and Russell during a 2003 tour of Europe with the Living Time Orchestra in celebration of his 80th birthday.

Three of Russell's longtime New England Conservatory colleagues also had noteworthy years. Gunther Schuller celebrated his 80th birthday with a series of concerts in November, including two nights at Symphony Hall with James Levine and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Bob Brookmeyer received a Grammy nomination for his big-band disc "Get Well Soon," had a three-CD set of his 1950s small group work issued by Mosaic Select, and was tapped to join the National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters in 2006, along with Chelsea native Chick Corea, Tony Bennett, Freddie Hubbard, Ray Barretto, Buddy DeFranco, and John Levy. And Ran Blake had a 70th birthday bash thrown for him in April at Jordan Hall, released a duo disc with guitarist David "Knife" Fabris, and has a solo piano CD due in March.

Harvard brought in Hank Jones, who turned 87 this year, for a four-day residency in April, and he appeared on at least four new CDs worthy of top 10 consideration this year.

But don't get the idea that jazz is only an old man's game. Here in Boston, we saw Taylor Eigsti and Julian Lage show up their elders when they opened for Trio! (Stanley Clarke, Bela Fleck, and Jean-Luc Ponty) at Symphony Hall. We also witnessed dazzling teen piano phenomenon Eldar at Scullers and caught bassist-vocalist Esperanza Spalding sitting in with Ellis Marsalis at the same place, then fronting her own band there a few weeks later. Spalding's sometime bandmate and fellow Berklee alum Christian Scott helped Harrison, his uncle, blow in last New Year as part of NPR's "Toast of the Nation," and his own debut disc on Concord Records is due out soon. And Dan Tepfer, Daniel Blake, Richie Barshay, and Color and Talea were just some of the young local talents self-producing strong CDs. 

© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

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Bill Beuttler's Picks

December 25, 2005

Frank Morgan at Scullers

Jim Hall and Dave Holland at the Real Deal Jazz Club & Cafe

New Directions in Music at Symphony Hall

SFJazz Collective at the Berklee Performance Center

Michel Camilo and Joe Lovano at the Berklee Performance Center

Sonny Rollins at the Berklee Performance Center

Wynton Marsalis at Sanders Theatre

Branford Marsalis at Sanders Theatre

Steve Kuhn at Scullers

Dave Brubeck at the Berklee Performance Center 

© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company