Music Write-Ups
How do you know Chris Earley?
How many MP3s do you have on your hard drive?
Shlepcar urged me to write one last post this year. I wasn’t sure what to post, but as a jazz fan I was prompted to post a tribute to a jazz great once I heard that Oscar Peterson passed away. This tribute, however, is not for Oscar, but for another legend who died in 2007: Max Roach. I first listened to Max Roach in junior high. He was playing with Clifford Brown, a trumpet player that my band teacher Harry Leff suggested I explore. It took me some time to get over the sheer acrobatic artistry of Clifford’s playing, so I can’t say I was struck by anyone else’s playing. Soon enough, however, I started to notice how clean Max’s playing was, how light his sticks fell on the drums. He played drums like Fred Astaire tapped. You’d think they were both floating on air. Roach went on to create some of jazz’s fiercest recordings alongside Sonny Rollins.
In 1962, he went into the studio to record with Duke Ellington and Charles Mingus. The three had rarely played together (Duke fired Mingus after a few engagements because he chased trombonist Juan Tizol with a fireaxe twenty years back). Duke wasn’t known for his trios, either. The Money Jungle project had all the ingredients of a watershed recording even before the tape began to roll. If any of you enjoy this selection, I highly encourage you to get the album.
I won’t pretend to know enough about Max Roach to deliver a worthy eulogy; I’m just a fan of jazz records. What I do know is that the drummers I respect most always include Max Roach on their short list of greatest influences. What I hear in his playing is another melodic instrument, not just a timekeeper. What I have learned over time - and after seeing Sweets Edison, Stanley Turrentine, Elvin Jones and Tommy Flanagan all within weeks of their passing - is that those of us that want to keep the jazz tradition alive MUST get out and see the likes of Max Roach and Oscar Peterson whenever the opportunity presents itself.
Happy Holidays, TG
*** copyright 2007 ***
Sorry for the disclaimer, local band…
So shlepcar came to one of my performances back in February and asked if I would put one of the songs we played on the website. Well, it has yet to be recorded, but I thought I would offer another song from the vault. Eggplant Casino is the brainchild of Olive Mitra, a fantastic jack-of-all-trades musician in San Francisco. He is heard on this track on drums, bass and vocals, but the album features him on half a dozen other instruments as well (including a mean accordion). That’s me on trumpet.
I chose to post this today because the group played at a House of Love cocktail party last night. I’ve been pretty fortunate in my life, getting to play with many bands all over the US, Germany and West Africa. I’ve played in large halls, giant outdoor festivals, and classic night clubs. I’ve opened for major label artists and a few living legends. But never did I have as much fun playing my instrument as I did last night at the end of Happy, Happy Birthday. I had one of those zen moments where everything became slow and quiet, and suddenly there was nothing but space for me to fill with sound. I took my time, played the lowest notes I could play, toyed around with a phrase for awhile until something else grew out of it. I didn’t force the issue or try to outsmart myself. I was only concerned with the warmth of the tone coming out of my horn. This feeling is definitely not unique to music. I’ve had similar sensations while skiing and scuba diving. But the nature of live performance lends itself to these moments of clarity that, for me anyway, don’t come around very often. By the time I ended my solo and began to sing “everyone gets some cake, everyone but you” I swear I could feel the cells in my body shifting and replacing themselves. I know what you’re saying to yourself - it might have been the Johnnie Walker and ginger ale you felt - and I won’t deny the catalytic effect of a good Dark and Stormy (a new drink name I just learned last night). But last night’s performance - based not on merit but on intention - will live long in my memory.
Keep an eye out for Eggplant Casino, and come see us if you get the chance. I can promise we won’t disappoint.
-Todd Grady
It all started at the end of a 26-hour marathon drive from SF through Flagstaff to Moab, UT in a veggie oil-powered bus that could drive no faster than 15 mph uphill. The trumpet player come to the rescue with a backup bus for the rest of the tour gets the girl at the end of the night, nuzzling in a bed shared by two others in the one hotel room allotted for the eleven of us. The ten day tour was a torrid affair with little fanfare afterwards until a year or so later, when we fell into one another again. The next round lasted a year, one transforming and revealing year. When a relationship ends - or goes on hiatus - the vacuum begins. All those little things you liked to share with her, the silly news articles, the things overheard on the bus, the black coffee she never drank before, the song idea bounding around your head or the song you just heard on your friends’ website…
Empty.
She lifts her skirt up to her knees
Walks through the garden rows with her bare feet, laughing
I never learned to count my blessings
I choose instead to dwell in my disasters
Walk on down the hill
Through the grass grown tall and brown
And still it’s hard somehow to let go of my pain
On past the busted back
Of that old and rusted Cadillac
That sinks into this field collecting rain
Will I always feel this way?
So empty, so estranged
Of these cutthroat busted sunsets
These cold and damp white mornings I have grown weary
If through my cracked and dusty dimestore lips
I spoke these words out loud would no one hear me
Lay your blouse across the chair
Let fall the flowers from your hair
And kiss me with that country mouth so plain
Outside the rain is tapping on the leaves
To me it sounds like they’re applauding us
The quiet love we make
Will I always feel this way?
So empty, so estranged
Well I looked my demons in the eyes
Laid bare my chest said do your best destroy me
See I’ve been to hell and back so many times
I must admit you kinda bore me
There’s a lot of things that can kill a man
There’s a lot of ways to die
Yes and some already dead who walk beside me
There’s a lot of things I don’t understand
Why so many people lie
Well it’s the hurt I hide that fuels the fire inside me.
Will I always feel this way?
So empty, so estranged
-Todd Grady
It was 1977. My mind had already been blown wide open by Obi Wan Kenobi and I found myself in Kansas, looking around for Dorothy and Toto. I remember grooming my father’s record collection as I helped unpack boxes after the move. A lot of frosted images of blonde men in Cardigans, some of a lanky blonde woman with a big nose in an evening gown, another of a blonde man with a big nose sitting at a piano, and then there was this one record of four guys crossing a street. One of them was barefoot! I laughed at that one, so my dad put it on. It was dark and diferent from the men in sweaters and ladies in evening gowns. Then it got all sappy and lame, and I started looking around for my Lincoln Logs. The next song was the one. ‘Joan was quizzical…’ Who’s Joan? And the tuba made my little head bounce from side to side. Then BANG! BANG! came and I was in stitches! This guy Maxwell went around clobbering people in the head, and there were all these cool sound effects. Oh yeah, then Oh darling! came on and I taught myself air microphone and air drums.
Maxwell was the first song I ever listened to. I had heard many, but never listened to a single one. Thanks, Dad!
-Todd Grady
The best songs often leave me with little to say by way of description, so I’ll provide setting instead.
I believe I first heard “New Slang” about 18 months ago while listening to KEXP over the internet. It became my ‘dirty little secret’ song at work - I might listen to it 15 or 20 times in a row, getting almost nothing done because I was anticipating the moment the song would end and I would have to click play again (using the continuous play setting was too indulgent for me. I also like to use the snooze on my alarm clock for an hour before getting up. Whatever it takes, right?) Well, I finally got around to watching Garden State a couple months ago. It was good, and Zach Braff succeeded in joining the ranks of Orson Welles, Vincent Gallo and Ed Wood as a triple threat writer/director/star. But once this song made its way into the movie I was disappointed. Sam (Natalie Portman) was listening to it on her headphones and passed them to Andrew (Zach Braff). She said to him “you gotta hear this one song - it’ll change your life.” I felt exposed! My dirty little secret was out, it was splashed across theaters fromcoast to coast, it was the toast of the town! And then I remembered that I first heard the song on a Seattle radio station from the comfort of my San Francisco cubicle. So I said ‘fuck it’ and had some more popcorn.
-Todd Grady