On listening to Keith Jarrett’s The Out-Of-Towners and ruminations on melody
I have been giving close listen to this CD by Jarrett with his longstanding trio of Peacock and Dejohnette and have been deeply moved by parts of it. In particular, I Love You, I can’t Believe that You’re in Love with Me and It’s All In The Game jump out at me.
It’s all in the game is an unlikely source for Jarrett’s genius. It’s always seemed to me a rather schmaltzy tune, especially as performed originally. Check out the lyrics:
Many a tear has to fall
But it's all in the game
All in the wonderful game
That we know as love
You had words with him
And your future's looking dim
But these things your heart can rise above
Once in a while he won't call
But it's all in the game
Soon he'll be there by your side
With a small bouquet
And he'll kiss your lips
And caress your fingertips
And your heart will fly away
You had words with him
And your future's looking dim
But these things your heart can rise above
I mean, pretty moon-june – and the original is quite a maudlin version for sure. It’s been top of the hit parade at many a bad wedding gig.
However, in Keith’s solo version from his concert in Germany, the piece is almost devastating in it’s simple, Bill Evan’s Peace Piece approach. Jarrett’s touch, liquid phrasing, everything - it brings tears. Keith finds the fragility and heartbreak in his understated reading. He is able to get inside a song like Miles, Trane, Wayne, Sinatra – astounding.
That leads me to a few thoughts on song, melody and in particular the great American Songbook, a tradition that started with Berlin and Gershwin and I think has continued on with such folks as Joni, James Taylor, The Beatles (I know, not American) Paul Simon, Elvis Costello (again, not American), etc…
What do we know about all of the following musicians? Louis, Bean, Lester, Bird, Diz, Monk, Miles, Sonny, Dexter, Getz, Desmond, Bill Evans, Herbie, Wayne, Keith, Pat, Chick? Well we know they are certainly included in any discussion of greatest and most moving jazz soloists. We also know that every one of them was/is symbiotically connected to the great American Songbook. Almost all of them, it is true, have written wonderful tunes of their own, but whether or not they did, they all played and wonderfully reinterpreted these superbly constructed melodies and harmonies. Whether or not they formally studied composition, by the very act of playing and interpreting these masterful songs, the soloists ingested an intrinsic and intuitive understanding of melodic structure, and I believe that is why their solos have such coherent and affecting shape. I think among newer players it is no coincidence that the folks who are reaching beyond the student jazz players to connect with lay audiences are people like Mehldau, Lovano and Frisell (just to name a few), who have found their own way to draw on and elaborate on the songbook tradition. Mehldau does it by mixing in Beatles and Radiohead, Lovano covers Sinatra, and Frisell draws on Americana.
I know every generation bemoans how the next generation has lost this and that, and jazzers have complained since Louis Armstrong how this crop of kids just doesn’t get it. I don’t want to go there and won’t. My experience in teaching is that the current generation is incredibly well-equipped and trained, with access to real players who can teach, reams of transcription, method, theory and play-a-long material and legions of jazz camps and programs. All of this is a dramatic change, and largely for the better. However, focusing on triad pairs, intervallic this and that, chord/mode relationships, working out slavishly precise lines of others in all 12 keys, etc…makes for a drier, less organic and esp. less melodic approach to soloing.
There is a coherence and singable melodicism to the work of our best-loved jazz icons (just think of Miles’ solo on So What, Cannonball’s on Milestones, Trane’s whole body of work on Crescent, Sunship, etc…) that speaks to a multiplicity of listeners.
The reality is, 99% of the audience members we play for couldn’t tell you what was in a C Maj 7#11 if their lives depended on it. They are bemused and rather indifferent to the endless lines of 8th notes, have no idea if a tune is in 4 or 13, and as for “free” or energy jazz, it is off-putting and alienating to most. These elements are inside baseball that speak to a small subgroup of trained jazzers. And let’s face it, most of us want to be on the guest list and want our friends to give us Cds for free! The great unwashed, so to speak, respond on a visceral level to emotion, melody, rhythmic pulse and the interaction they can see on stage. (On a side note, I can understand this audience antipathy to certain free playing, because I will confess that while I love collective free improvising with folks who have mastered the elements of jazz, such as Liebman, John Stowell or Dave Douglas, I find it painful to listen to or play with folks who play free because they can't speak the common rhythmic and harmonic language which runs from Louis through the Miles mid-60s quintet. "Free" playing requires such a deep understanding and mastery. While I believe it should be encouraged in apprentice players, student free playing should NEVER be a substitute for, but only a secondary corollary to a powerful commitment to the melodic, harmonic and rhythmic common language discussed above. There are no shortcuts.)
Yes, we all need to know the grammar of complex rhythm, harmonic superimposition, transcription, etc… to be competent improvisers in today’s world, but we also need to breathe melody, something that a lot of today’s jazzers seem to have abandoned, along with harmony. Even in the case of Brecker, Liebman or Bergonzi, three players whose lines are scrutinized like they are the Rosetta stone to "hip" playing, I know for a fact that these great players have an encyclopedia of melodies coursing through their musical DNA. I used to have a sign in my sax case, inspired by the 1992 election slogan, that said “it’s the melody, stupid” and I think it is even more timely today…the fact that most contemporary pop radio outside of soul and country has abandoned melody and harmony means our up and coming have to search harder, but it is still out there, and Gershwin or Lennon/McCartney or Jobim is as beautiful a place to start today as it ever was.
Just like Miles with Kind of Blue, Trane with Crescent or any great art, Jarrett is able to communicate transcendent truths that speak to our head and heart, esp. in his handling of the songbook. I tell all my students they should memorize the melody, harmony (and hopefully lyrics) to 500 standards. Even if they don’t formally study the structure at all, they will internalize the idea of melodic structure into their souls, and, along with all of the other work they need to do, will be able to create memorable, melodic improvisations which can move us on all levels…just like Keith does over and over again. (Say it.)
It’s all in the game is an unlikely source for Jarrett’s genius. It’s always seemed to me a rather schmaltzy tune, especially as performed originally. Check out the lyrics:
Many a tear has to fall
But it's all in the game
All in the wonderful game
That we know as love
You had words with him
And your future's looking dim
But these things your heart can rise above
Once in a while he won't call
But it's all in the game
Soon he'll be there by your side
With a small bouquet
And he'll kiss your lips
And caress your fingertips
And your heart will fly away
You had words with him
And your future's looking dim
But these things your heart can rise above
I mean, pretty moon-june – and the original is quite a maudlin version for sure. It’s been top of the hit parade at many a bad wedding gig.
However, in Keith’s solo version from his concert in Germany, the piece is almost devastating in it’s simple, Bill Evan’s Peace Piece approach. Jarrett’s touch, liquid phrasing, everything - it brings tears. Keith finds the fragility and heartbreak in his understated reading. He is able to get inside a song like Miles, Trane, Wayne, Sinatra – astounding.
That leads me to a few thoughts on song, melody and in particular the great American Songbook, a tradition that started with Berlin and Gershwin and I think has continued on with such folks as Joni, James Taylor, The Beatles (I know, not American) Paul Simon, Elvis Costello (again, not American), etc…
What do we know about all of the following musicians? Louis, Bean, Lester, Bird, Diz, Monk, Miles, Sonny, Dexter, Getz, Desmond, Bill Evans, Herbie, Wayne, Keith, Pat, Chick? Well we know they are certainly included in any discussion of greatest and most moving jazz soloists. We also know that every one of them was/is symbiotically connected to the great American Songbook. Almost all of them, it is true, have written wonderful tunes of their own, but whether or not they did, they all played and wonderfully reinterpreted these superbly constructed melodies and harmonies. Whether or not they formally studied composition, by the very act of playing and interpreting these masterful songs, the soloists ingested an intrinsic and intuitive understanding of melodic structure, and I believe that is why their solos have such coherent and affecting shape. I think among newer players it is no coincidence that the folks who are reaching beyond the student jazz players to connect with lay audiences are people like Mehldau, Lovano and Frisell (just to name a few), who have found their own way to draw on and elaborate on the songbook tradition. Mehldau does it by mixing in Beatles and Radiohead, Lovano covers Sinatra, and Frisell draws on Americana.
I know every generation bemoans how the next generation has lost this and that, and jazzers have complained since Louis Armstrong how this crop of kids just doesn’t get it. I don’t want to go there and won’t. My experience in teaching is that the current generation is incredibly well-equipped and trained, with access to real players who can teach, reams of transcription, method, theory and play-a-long material and legions of jazz camps and programs. All of this is a dramatic change, and largely for the better. However, focusing on triad pairs, intervallic this and that, chord/mode relationships, working out slavishly precise lines of others in all 12 keys, etc…makes for a drier, less organic and esp. less melodic approach to soloing.
There is a coherence and singable melodicism to the work of our best-loved jazz icons (just think of Miles’ solo on So What, Cannonball’s on Milestones, Trane’s whole body of work on Crescent, Sunship, etc…) that speaks to a multiplicity of listeners.
The reality is, 99% of the audience members we play for couldn’t tell you what was in a C Maj 7#11 if their lives depended on it. They are bemused and rather indifferent to the endless lines of 8th notes, have no idea if a tune is in 4 or 13, and as for “free” or energy jazz, it is off-putting and alienating to most. These elements are inside baseball that speak to a small subgroup of trained jazzers. And let’s face it, most of us want to be on the guest list and want our friends to give us Cds for free! The great unwashed, so to speak, respond on a visceral level to emotion, melody, rhythmic pulse and the interaction they can see on stage. (On a side note, I can understand this audience antipathy to certain free playing, because I will confess that while I love collective free improvising with folks who have mastered the elements of jazz, such as Liebman, John Stowell or Dave Douglas, I find it painful to listen to or play with folks who play free because they can't speak the common rhythmic and harmonic language which runs from Louis through the Miles mid-60s quintet. "Free" playing requires such a deep understanding and mastery. While I believe it should be encouraged in apprentice players, student free playing should NEVER be a substitute for, but only a secondary corollary to a powerful commitment to the melodic, harmonic and rhythmic common language discussed above. There are no shortcuts.)
Yes, we all need to know the grammar of complex rhythm, harmonic superimposition, transcription, etc… to be competent improvisers in today’s world, but we also need to breathe melody, something that a lot of today’s jazzers seem to have abandoned, along with harmony. Even in the case of Brecker, Liebman or Bergonzi, three players whose lines are scrutinized like they are the Rosetta stone to "hip" playing, I know for a fact that these great players have an encyclopedia of melodies coursing through their musical DNA. I used to have a sign in my sax case, inspired by the 1992 election slogan, that said “it’s the melody, stupid” and I think it is even more timely today…the fact that most contemporary pop radio outside of soul and country has abandoned melody and harmony means our up and coming have to search harder, but it is still out there, and Gershwin or Lennon/McCartney or Jobim is as beautiful a place to start today as it ever was.
Just like Miles with Kind of Blue, Trane with Crescent or any great art, Jarrett is able to communicate transcendent truths that speak to our head and heart, esp. in his handling of the songbook. I tell all my students they should memorize the melody, harmony (and hopefully lyrics) to 500 standards. Even if they don’t formally study the structure at all, they will internalize the idea of melodic structure into their souls, and, along with all of the other work they need to do, will be able to create memorable, melodic improvisations which can move us on all levels…just like Keith does over and over again. (Say it.)
posted by Michael Zilber at 9:07 AM
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