On Pat Metheney, Rachel Z, Billy Collins, Barack Obama and Mi Vida Loca.

Last night, thanks to my friends Susan Muscarella and Robert Cole, drummer bro Michael Barsimanto and I caught Pat Metheney’s and Brad Melhdau at Zellerbach. It was the end of an exhausting if fulfilling day, which had started with helping work on the curriculum for a new bachelor’s degree in jazz studies I am involved in designing, went through a vigorous 2 hour union meeting at my college where I am the Union VP, and then went on to helping beginning improv students transcribe a chorus of Miles’ So What. I was quite toasted by the time I went there, and it was a 2 and a half hour concert without a break, but I was very glad to have gone. The thing that struck me the most was the wonderful level of beauty and catharsis intrinsic in Metheney’s playing. Astonishingly, Pat is still only 53! Amazing as that may seem, when one remembers that he burst on the scene as an 18 year old wunderkind, it makes sense. He is about 6 years older than me and more or less from the same generation. I love that generation, the generation of Jaco and Brecker and Lieb and Weather Report, etc…when we were learning to play, we learned Metheney and Charles Lloyd and Wayne and Brecker tunes as happily and readily as standards and Bird and Monk and Mingus tunes. It was a time when jazz drew gladly and unselfconsciously from any and all influences, and there were no stiffbacked, expensive-suited disapproving keepers of the neo-con flame and no ironic eyebrow-raisers who thought that any jazz played with full passion and commitment, mastery and lack of a “concept” was too sincere.

Metheney is a chief exemplar of that catholic and all-embracing approach, equally at home in burning swing, aching pop, singing folk, shredding rock and avant-free-noise. To be frank, much of the material on his own records has been rather maudlin to me, stuffed with lots and lots of pretty “smooth” chords and melodies. However, at other times, his melding of head and heart, utter mastery of his instrument, and beautifully liquid and emotive tone are non pareil, and he, along with Abercrombie, phrases and legatoizes more like a horn player than any other modern guitarist I can think of. At this concert, his range was phenomenal, from blinding swing, to near-grunger, from the most delicate of filigreed acoustic to the ever-controversial guitar-synth tpt sound. Metheney is a true master, and, like all the greats, he is capable of connecting at once on a deeply emotive and cerebral level, effortlessly blended into his unique voice.

I enjoyed the rest of the group too, especially Jeff Ballard, who has brought a certain fire and swing to the rather reserved Mehldau trio. Grenadier, of course, is a flawless and endlessly musical bassist, well-suited to Brad’s aesthetic. I wish Brad had been stronger in the mix. Maybe it was Metheney’s sound man, but Brad was playing a glorious 9 foot Steinway, and the sound was tinny and disappeared into the rest of the band at times. Brad has impeccable and very inventive time and phrasing. I recognize his complete virtuosity. To me, his approach rings a little austere and reserved. I am drawn more towards nakedly emotive, unabashedly beautiful and swinging pianists like Jarrett, Herbie, Bill Evans, Kenny Kirkland and Dave Kikoski, but that is merely a matter of taste, and is a purely subjective response. There is no dispute as to Brad's virtuosity, invention or connection with many music lovers.

Speaking of pianists, my good friend of 27 years now, Rachel Z, was in town at Yoshi’s and asked me to come sit in with her trio last Monday (March 26). I’ve known Rachel since I was 20 and she was 18, so it is great to have such a long friendship, both musical and personal. Her band sounded powerful and has an interesting twist, picking up on Herbie’s New Standards idea. The vast bulk of their tunes are reworkings of contemporary pop, such as Death cab for Cutie, Joy Division, etc. Very cool, and very much jazz, most containing at least a section of burning uptempo swing. Her husband and musical partner is Bobby Ray, a great drummer who draws as much from funk and pop and hip hop as he does from jazz. He reminds me again (there seems to be a theme developing here) of how when we came up, most of the drummers were drawing as much from funk and pop as they were from jazz, as were we all, and I think it was a much more organic and natural way to develop the music than the hot house flowers who can burn on giant steps and do ECM and free, but couldn’t play a shuffle or a funk tune if their lives literally depended on it. Bobby is also an excellent tone painter, and has a lovely and dramatic sense of dynamics. Rachel, of course, draws as much on folk, pop and classical as she does on Herbie and McCoy and Bud, so she too has a very natural synthesis of what has happened in music the past 50 years.

What I also think is cool is that they have given a young woman bassist, Maeve, from the New School, a chance to tour with them, and she has grown exponentially as a player the past year since I heard her last. There is a grand tradition of nurturing young players, and I know that I was given an opportunity to play with masters long before I had any business on the stage with them, so it is nice to see that tradition continue with Rachel, Bobby and their young bassist. I hasten to add that she absolutely has business on the stage, and I am very excited to watch her continued development. Obviously, this is what I do in all of my jazz teaching, mentoring and playing with young talent, so it resonates with me very much that they are doing this in Rachel’s group. (In a related development, on my gig at Anna’s Jazz Island on April 6, I too will be using a youngster on a gig, a 15-year-old pianist named Danny Mertens. I don’t want to build Danny up too much, but I will leave it at saying that this is the first time I have ever hired someone that young for a gig, and I think he is ready.)

Later, Rachel and Bobby and I hung at an Oakland Chinese restaurant until 3 in the morning, catching up and shooting the shit. I mentioned to them both that I am working on several very exciting musical projects and thought they would be ideal for one in particular: I have gotten the go ahead from the poet Billy Collins to set his poems to music, which is a major thrill. I love his poetry, feeling it is the equivalent of a Wayne Shorter song (the highest praise I can give), seemingly simple and deceptively so, but packing an enormous amount of craft and, more importantly, a profound emotional wallop beneath the surface. This has been very exciting music for me to work on, as it brings me full circle to the time I set Langston Hughes poems to music for a song cycle when I was 24. Now, I feel that I have a mature and distinct voice as a composer, and the joy of working with Billy’s wondrous language is that it allows me to naturally draw from all of the elements that make up my musical language, from jazz to pop to folk to 20th century classical. Therefore, I need musicians who are also comfortable and conversant with all of these worlds, and both Rachel and Bobby Ray are. Stay tuned on this one…

Speaking of upcoming projects, I have interesting ones on the horizon this next year include a 2 drummer, 2 sax record with Dave Liebman, Steve Smith and Lieb’s drummer Marko Marcinko. This is Marko’s brainstorm and should be very cool…as well, the brilliant guitarist John Stowell and I are planning to document our ongoing musical association with a recording in June. Another cool one is that LA drummer Michael Barsimanto and I hope to do some sort of tour and recording in the fall, possibly with Lieb. Bars has become a good friend and is a world-class modern drummer, so that should be fun. Locally, I am part of a very high-level collective, a chordless quintet made up of yours truly, John Gove on trombone, Erik Jekabson on Tpt, Peter Barshay on bass and Jeff Marrs on drums. A pianoless modern messengers so to speak. We’ll be doing our debut gig at Pearl’s on April 26, and it should be worth checking out. John is just about the only trombone player I have ever played with who makes you forget he is playing a basically unplayable instrument (unplayable for modern jazz that is). He phrases beautifully, never stumbles on the changes, head or tempo, and is just a damned good musician. Erik is an outstanding soloist, very musical and thoughtful, and of course Peter and Jeff have turned into probably the most fiery and “East Coast” style rhythm section in the Bay Area. We will be recording that group this Spring as well.

Lastly, I have been asked by my wife Carla, to produce her jazz CD this fall. This is probably the furthest thing from nepotism one could imagine, because Carla and I are going through a truly painful and wrenching separation after 25 years. However, we have a powerful creative connection and mutual admiration society. I believe she is as good a singer as I have ever worked with, and again (the theme is tied up) draws, as all of the good musicians who grew up in the 70s and 80s did, comfortably from jazz, folk, pop and classical elements, so I look forward to that.

Frankly, to get a little confessional here, between the separation and the ongoing progressive illness of my father, this has been an extremely tough personal run for me, and the hardest thing for me is to sit with the aloneness and pain of not being with the person one fell in love with in 1981, to sit with that reality, rather than rush to someone else too soon so as to mask the pain of mourning. In a deep irony, the man I would turn to in years past for words of wisdom is my father, and his illness makes him incapable of that. They say that separating (not ready to use the D word yet) is as hard as the death of a loved one, and the support for it is haphazard, since your married friends can’t relate or are terrified that the virus will infect them, and your single friends, some of whom have been single for too many years don’t have a lot of sympathy for your newly single state. However, I have had a number of friends, usually folks who have been through the “D” word, who can relate and listen to one’s tale of woe.

It is a fascinating experience to be going through this as my “career” cup seems to be filling up. I do count my blessings. As I speak, the warm sun is outside the door, the dogs contentedly rest after a daily run (Duke has lost 11 lbs on our Labrador weight-loss program), my jazzschool ensemble has won 3 more downbeat awards, I may do 6 CDs this coming year and am writing and playing better than ever. I continue to live a life where I make an excellent and relatively secure living solely from playing and teaching jazz, which I know is a rarity. I live in the most desirable area in the entire country, far from the cold and heat and the red state fox news lunacy. Other than the fact that my favorite style of coffee, french press, raises bad cholesterol, the daily comforts are good. I am thankful for all of that and, of course, most of all for the continued joy of seeing my astounding son grow and develop. He will be back soon, and, sore back willing, I will take him to see the Phoenix Suns against the Warriors tonight.

I am sure that a subheading of optimist is Warriors fan, and there is no doubt I am an optimist, so I will leave you with this. Rebecca Solnit observed that the only unforgivable sin is to sin against hope. In that regard, I have thrown my lot in with Barack Obama, who evinces a sincerity and authenticity and hopefulness I have never experienced with a politician. I went to his rally in Oakland and it was magnificent. 12,000 people jammed into every corner, on every lamp post, some of us even climbing on news trucks to catch a glimpse. I choose to believe. He is the anti-Hillary, that charisma-challenged, calculating and utterly inauthentic Clinton, and I think he, as a vehicle for hope and change, can bring us forward. I don’t think he is perfect, but that is fine, and as I have been repeatedly reminded, perfect is the enemy of good. However, my support of a candidate is usual the kiss of defeat, so, in light of that, I shall volunteer for Hillary. Here's to hope...