Postmodern in Retrospect

First let me say we had a blast. It was that much fun. The talented gang from Postmodern Jukebox can really put on a show, and they know how to have fun doing it. Much later I'll eventually get around to my one regret.

Our local venue, the Parker Playhouse in Ft. Lauderdale, was just about the right size for the sold-out crowd, and not so big that the performers got lost in the distance. Scott Bradley was absent for this stop on the road show, but stand-in Todd Shroeder did a great job of pounding out those honkey-tonk beats. From the moment the cast ran onto the dark stage, and then erupted into a spirited rendition of "Fancy," the energy never let up.

It's hard to believe I've only been a fan and following them for six months. In that short time I went from an infatuation with "All About That Bass," through collecting all their albums -- they put out eight of them in the space of a year -- and watching their 100+ Youtube videos (a new one every Thursday), and finally to a live performance.

Meanwhile my friends have had to tolerate me going on about them every chance I get, and I've lost track of the number of times I've said "just watch this" to another hapless victim. Fortunately most everyone has liked what they see, and my wife joined me in becoming terminally enthralled with the whole scene.

If you know them at all, you might be wondering by now who did we see? PMJ, as they're known for short, includes a current roster of around 40 singers and instrumentalists -- a talented pool from which smaller groups are formed. So of course we didn't see everyone, and there's no way they could do every song, but there were plenty of gems performed by some of their most prominent artists.

Both bass players -- Adam Kubota and Casey Abrams -- were on hand from the "All About that Bass" video, so that one just had to be done, although only one of the three female vocalists was present (Ariana Savalas), so the other parts were done by Robyn Adele Anderson and Joey Cook. Those guys really rocked the bass solo, where they both play the same instrument simultaneously, and the tune is a smash every time, regardless of who's singing.

Of course Robyn had to reel off her classic rendition of "Thrift Shop," which might contain more words per minute than any other song as she rattles them off too quick to follow. The crowd got a charge out of it even though we already knew the gag lines: "How much do you think I paid for this dress?" she asked. More than one voice shouted out "Ninety-nine cents!" and "Bag it!"

And I was delighted that new addition Joey Cook was there to do her version of "Delilah," in which she helps herself out on both ukulele and accordion. (Funny how these once outre instruments are sounding hip again.) She also added a gag by nodding her head in the direction of the uke when she came to the line that says "I'll pay the bills with this guitar." A few in the balcony were chanting "Jo-ey! Jo-ey!" by the time she was done.

Dance? Did someone mention dance? Sure, we had that too. Tap artist Sarah Reich was on hand to hammer on her piece of amplified floor. This girl is a living percussion instrument. To prove it, at one point she did a dueling competition with the drummer where they imitated and tried to one-up each other as he applied his sticks to the same surface she was tapping on.

One of the several tunes Sarah performed to was Lady Gaga's "I Want Your Love," sung steamily by Ariana Savalas. How steamily? Well, in the middle of it she came down off the stage to work the crowd in the front row. "What's your name?" she asked one man. Then, immediately snatching the microphone back, she added, "Never mind, I don't care." She then went into a long monolog about women in show business who get ahead by using SEX, it's disGUSTing ... and all the while she's leaning further over the aforementioned lucky man until her bosom was directly in his face. I hope he enjoyed it as much as everyone else seemed to. Then she was back on stage, and Sarah went back to work for the finale, culminating in Ariana's trademark whistling. A knockout!

And let's not leave out the role of the energetic MC, taken by Mykal Kilgore, whose own solo on "My Heart Will Go On" seemed bent on proving the human voice is capable of reaching the stratosphere. There's a wonderful video online of him performing this in a TV studio in Australia, and the hosts of the show are practically exploding when he's done because he so completely blew their minds. You think that was high? How about we take it up a notch...

Even the wind players had their moments in the spotlight, as each was introduced and did something wonderful and single-handed with their instruments of choice.

What's left? A grand finale, then an encore, with a few from the audience invited to come up and dance with a cast member. Ariana danced with that fortunate fellow from the front row, showing it was all in fun. Then the ritual taking of the cast selfie with the audience in the background -- my wife and I might even be in it, way in the back.

We left sated and totally happy. What's not to like?

Well, I said there was one thing. It's all about the sound. I'd never heard them live before, and was really hoping that the wonderful attention to detail evident in the recordings and Youtube videos would mean that even in performance they would strive for the kind of clarity that jazz buffs expect.

Alas, the demands of the crowd and the need for VOLUME meant that the bass was too strong, the horns too weak, and the voices too often overwhelmed by the accompanying din. As in this photo I took, you get the glitz and the fun, but some of the finer points are blurry and poorly defined.

There. I said it. But with that one caveat, for which they can be forgiven in the interests of the gods of entertainment and populism, I still had a great time. Would I go again? Absolutely. But next time I'm definitely springing for one of those seats in the front row.

Jivin' to the Juke

A blast from the past, and it's not ALL about that bass ...

It began with a simple link to a Youtube video that a friend posted on Facebook with the comment that they really liked this version of the song. I nearly didn't look, but something about the preview caught my eye (maybe it was the dress she had on) and I watched. The song was "All About That Bass," the Megan Trainor hit that's been making its own buzz online. But this new group called Postmodern Jukebox was doing it as if it had been written during the golden age of swing, with a trio of vocalists who could harmonize like the Andrews Sisters, and a sense of humor about the whole thing that was infectious.

"Wow," I commented on the Facebook post, "the '40s are alive and well!" Soon I found I had to see it again and share it with people, who universally loved it. These guys were onto something and I wanted to know what it was.

I focused on the singers first, finding that each of them brought something unique to her performance as they took turns doing solos, duets, and finally a trio. Their names are Haley Reinhardt, Morgan James, and Ariana Savalas, and they are part of the "European tour cast" of Postmodern Jukebox. (More on that below.) I learned that Hailey was a number three finalist on The Voice who has her own solo album, as does Morgan James, and that Ariana is related to the actor named Savalas.

Haley leads off "All About That Bass" with a throaty growl on "my momma she told me" and delivers a performance worthy of any classic torch singer. Then Morgan takes over with her own sassy treatment of lines like "from the bottom to the top - HEY!" Finally, after a brief intermission for the bass solo, in which two players work the same instrument at the same time -- and switch places with one another in the middle -- it's Ariana's turn to celebrate the lyric with a smoother touch, arms flailing the air in celebration. The three finish it off with an a capella repetition of the title line, closed out by a bump of the oft-mentioned booty. Delightful every time.

But who was in charge of all this? Was it the bass player? If so, which one? Well, no, it's actually the one musician you don't see in the video because he's hidden behind the piano where he's hard at work stitching this whole thing together. Scott Bradlee is a jazz musician from Long Island who began his career in New York. A few years ago he began experimenting with arranging and performing contemporary songs as they might have been done if sent back in a time machine to an earlier era.

He explains that this is really what jazz musicians have been doing for many years, continually adopting new contemporary works into the repertoire of what our local NPR station calls "America's classical music." But normally that's done by casting them into the form of contemporary jazz, whatever that might be at the time. Bradlee has gone a step further by rolling back the clock.

He's put together a rotating group of vocalists, drummers, bass players, and assorted brass and winds -- even a cello and harp in a couple of places -- who are capable of reproducing the style and energy of everything from Dixieland to Swing and Gospel. And let me be clear -- when I say "reproducing" I don't mean one of those moth-eaten tributes that grace the air of PBS during pledge week. These guys do it as if it has never been done before, with all the fresh energy and sex appeal that made the style so popular in the first place.

It's not just "All About That Bass." Bradlee and his cohorts have produced a series of top-selling albums and a staggering 80+ videos for Youtube with an equally staggering number of views and subscribers. Now on the road for the first time they're selling out venues in multiple countries. With this kind of success it seems clear they've struck a nerve, and I think I know what it is.

One word. Melody.

You may have noticed this key musical ingredient has been mostly absent from contemporary rap. When you can sing the lyrics with a drum you know something is missing. For example,

Dada dada dada dada dada dada DA
Dada dada dada dada dada dada DA

Or maybe for variety something like

Dada DA da dada dada dada dada DA

In this wasteland it's no surprise that someone like Adele can become an overnight sensation by delivering what listeners have been starved for. If you have any doubt, check out this interview with Bradlee and close personal friend Robyn Anderson where they describe having to create a melody for a song that basically was missing one. And as I explained recently, even Bob Dylan is reaching back into the classic American songbook to dredge up those blasts from the past.

An irony in this situation is that we have some great jazz schools in this country -- our own University of Miami is a perfect example -- that are turning out a slew of graduates equipped with the skills they need to rival the old masters of the form. But they emerge from college all dressed up with nowhere to go. The venues that used to offer a place for those hot little combos to play have all dried up. Radio airplay is filled with the above mentioned rap. Even selling jazz recordings is a tough job.

But the success of Postmodern Jukebox offers some hope. They're on such a roll, and their method of accumulating talent is so expandable, that you could even imagine them becoming a kind of Blue Man Group for jazz vocals with branches on tour all around. Hey, it could happen. Even better, they might inspire some competition. Jazz clubs could re-open, and songwriters could begin writing, um, songs again.

Hey, that could happen, too.

Meanwhile, enjoy them while you can. Just to get started you can check out this quick intro on What is Postmodern Jukebox. Then click into their Youtube channel and see what it has to offer. You'll note the interesting minimalist style where a single fixed camera lets you focus on the performance as a whole, just as you would at a live performance in a small club. But whatever you do, don't leave until you've seen these:

"Creep," in which Haley Reinhardt transforms the Radiohead tune from the 1980s into a soulful anthem for anyone who has ever felt unworthy of the one they admire from afar. This knockout is the very definition of singing your heart out. I think I may be in love.

"Barbie Girl," which features Morgan James choreographed as a doll and doing an amazing impersonation of a Theremin while a man behind her pretends to play one in this playful Beach Boys imitation.

"Gangsta's Paradise." Omygod, I never heard the words before Robyn Adele Anderson sang them like this. Just check it out.

"Bad Romance." Ariana Savalas takes Lady Gaga back to the Gatsby era while a tap dancer provides counterpoint. When is the last time you saw a tap dancer? And I forgot to mention, Ariana leads off the song by whistling. When is the last time you heard that since maybe Bing Crosby?

You can also get an insight into Scott Bradlee's own talent by watching him take Twinkle, Twinkle through several decades of style transformations. In another life he might have made a great studio backup man.

And if after watching all that you find you're still not hooked, then you might as well move along because you just don't get it. Maybe, in the words of "All About That Bass," you'd prefer a stick-figure silicone Barbie doll?

Time Out for Time Out

The legacy of Dave Brubeck ...

We lost two huge musicians recently within days of one another: Dave Brubeck on December 5 and Ravi Shankar on December 11. I've been meditating on their importance to me ever since. Surely one of the best measures of an artist's stature is his or her ability to affect the lives of thousands or millions of people they have never met. These two men were as significant to me, as much a part of my life, as if they had been personal acquaintances or teachers.

I only saw Dave Brubeck in person one time, later in his career. It was a dinner show at the Fountainbleau Hotel in Miami Beach back in the 1980's. He appeared that night with his son Darius playing trombone, and was as energetic and melodically inventive as ever. Missing of course was the iconic Paul Desmond who had passed away in 1977, taking with him one of the smoothest alto sax voices in jazz. Desmond's cool, almost clarinet-like sound paired with Brubeck's thoughtful and classically-trained piano lines defined what may have been the greatest jazz combo ever assembled. Apologies to the likes of Miles Davis, the Modern Jazz Quartet, and many others who are also deserving, but to my ear the Brubeck Quartet in its heyday achieved a perfect balance of cool and hot, introspective and ecstatic, composition and improvisation, that has seldom been matched.

I first came to hear them on LP's in the bedroom lair of my high school jazz buddy. When we wore out the local DJ with phone requests to play something from Time Out we finally had to break down and buy the album. A curious fact about it is that the record company, exhibiting the prevailing lack of instinct that has since made everyone realize how clueless they are, did not like the idea that there were no "standards" on the album. You were supposed to show a list of everyone's favorite titles on the cover (which is why they are known as "covers") and then slip in two or three of your own originals. Time Out was nothing but originals, including two that still loom huge over the landscape of jazz.

"Take Five," written in the unorthodox 5/4 time, shattered decades of 4/4 convention and did it not in a cerebral demonstration but with an infectious melodic romp that was impossible to get out of your head -- and feet. The even more contagious "Blue Rondo ala Turk" was in 9 beats -- not unprecedented in the usual form of 3-3-3, but divided into 2-2-2-3 by an insistent pulse from the drums and piano it became a dynamo of perpetual motion, driven forward by the forever unexpected rush at the end of each phrase. Time Out became one of the best-selling jazz albums of all time, truly one without which no collection is complete. So much for the wisdom of company executives.

We made other listening discoveries, like the rare recording with only three cuts on it that I wrote about once before, containing the enigmatic "Purple Moon" done by Desmond with his trio. We were pleasantly amazed when we identified it as being based on the opening motif of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring (L'Sacre du Printemps). How audacious a choice of material was that? The cut was later re-released under the title "Sacre Bleu," which proved we got it right.

Jazz was also our ticket into the world of Beat literature, Eastern philosophy, and a whole cool hip world that we could hardly wait to grow into. By the time we did, the national sound track had shifted into Rock, but for those of us who cut our teeth on it jazz would always hold a place in our souls. All these years later its rich tradition continues in a new generation of practitioners, like the Marsalis brothers and Eric Alexander, who are here to assure us it's alive and well.

The sad thing about that long ago night at the Fountainbleau is that we stayed for the second show, knowing the later it gets the better the jazz ... only to find it was only half full. The dozing clientele having feasted, they were off to play canasta and go to bed. And this was Dave Brubeck! Ah well, it was their loss. And now we have all lost.

[Next time: Ravi Shankar]

Marian McPartland Meets Ira Sullivan

When two jazz greats had an encounter back in December of 2000 ...

[An earlier version of this article was formerly posted on the Butterfly Lightning website. The program aired on NPR sometime in April of 2000, but unfortunately is not available in their online archive at present.]

While the Butterfly Lightning readings went on in another part of our fair city, a bunch of us lucky contributors to WLRN were at Gusman Concert Hall at the University of Miami watching and listening spellbound as Marian McPartland taped an episode of Piano Jazz with local jazz legend Ira Sullivan.

Marian may be starting to walk a little like an elderly person (she's said to be eighty-something) but she sure doesn't play like one. We also found that she has the ability to communicate with facial expressions and the smallest gestures to a whole room full of people so they become willing slaves.

More than once she exhibited that astonishing musical memory of hers. For example, while they were discussing the "jazz alphabet," a list of song titles beginning with each letter, Ira mentioned an obscure song starting with the letter Z, and she immediately played the first two bars and attributed it to Noel Coward. Sheesh!

I've been following Ira, who's only seventy-something, for many years now, and he just keeps on getting better. He was wearing (you won't see this on the radio) baggy white pants, a saggy blue nylon jacket, and a flat cap, looking every bit the old bebop hipster -- especially when he leaned back, pushed his hips forward, shut his eyes and blew.

Blew what, you may ask? As usual, the gifted multi-instrumentalist traded off between several of them -- both tenor and soprano saxes, and muted trumpet. That leaves only the flute and flugelhorn that we didn't get to hear him play. (I've seen him sit down at the piano and drums, too, but he doesn't claim them as his own.)

Once long ago, after one of his evening jam sessions at the local Unitarian Church, I ventured to ask Ira which instrument he had taken up first. "It was the horn," he said with a nod, meaning trumpet. Then he added, "I've really only been messing around with the flute for a few years now." All I can say is that it is darn hard to tell the difference. Whatever is in his hands at the moment seems to be his intended voice.

He has also played and recorded with so many notable figures in the jazz community that the list of the ones he has not played with would be much shorter. Notables include the likes of Red Rodney, Charlie Parker, Art Blakey, Jocko Pastorious, and on and on. I witnessed a New Year's Eve bash at the old Bubba's jazz club in Fort Lauderdale back around 1978 when Ira appeared with Stan Getz, and in my humble opinion blew rings around him. What a night.

As you probably know, Piano Jazz is part performance but also part interview, and here Ira showed off his gift with words. Apropos of "Green Dolphin Street," for example, he reminded us how important it is to have a porpoise in life. (Ewww!) He described the generation that grew up with "bebop poison," the belief that things would never be better than in that era when they were in their twenties. He even unearthed the old gag where someone asks the rehearsing musicians, "Do you know there's a lady trying to sleep upstairs?" To which they reply, "No, but if you sing a few bars, we can fake it." (Nyuk nyuk.)

But my favorite bit verged on poetry. He was talking about learning tunes -- how many there are, and the way he tells students to learn one a day so that even with weekends off they pick up a couple of hundred per year. Among these must be included the "golden one hundred," a collection of standards written as long ago as the 1920's, which have been played and recorded by virtually every jazz artist to come along since.

Waxing lyrical, he spread his hands and said that by this point in his life they were all becoming the same, "the one big song that God gave us, and if you're lucky you get to where you can put it all together."

And on that note ...

[There's a great article about Ira Sullivan's career and a more recent appearance with Eric Alexander and Harold Mabern at All About Jazz. Marian McPartland is still playing and broadcasting at age 90.]

Stoltzman & Son Rock in Miami

My ears are ringing, but that's a good thing ...

Way back around 1980 a friend invited me to a concert by Tashi, the ground-breaking contemporary music ensemble. It was, and still is, unorthodox to name such a group as if it were a rock band, so I certainly knew them by name. But at the time the only one of its members I could name was pianist Peter Serkin, and that was mostly because he was the son of the renowned Rudolph Serkin, also a pianist, giving him quite a hard act to follow.

Besides piano the group contained only a violin, a cello, and--oddest of all--a clarinet. This unusual instrumentation should have given them a highly restricted repertoire, but they found and arranged and commissioned plenty of material to play their way into legendary status.

On that long ago evening, the centerpiece was Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time, that brooding work unique for being written while the composer was interred in a prison camp during World War II. This was in fact the single piece for which the group was originally formed, and the explanation for their choice of instruments. One of its movements is for solo clarinet, and if I had not noticed him before, the performance was more than enough to send me scanning the program for the name of Richard Stoltzman.

There are a couple of single, long, held notes in this piece that begin inaudibly soft and end as loud as the instrumentalist is capable of playing. In Stoltzman's case, the dynamic range was huge and impressive, and filled the entire space inside Dade County Auditorium until it rang. The notes were like primal screams (a trendy therapy in Tashi's era) of rage and release, framing an incongruously playful birdsong. I left the hall with those notes permanently implanted in my memory, along with the identity of the musician who had uttered them.

Stoltzman went on to forge quite a career for himself, both with Tashi and on his own, as featured soloist with countless orchestras throughout the world. But I next noticed him when I discovered his "crossover" album called Begin Sweet World, in which he followed the example of other classical performers who have moved into the arena of jazz. This album, featuring contemporary arrangements of some classical pieces as well as more improvisatory ones, was such a smash hit that he followed it up with several others--enough for another career--such as Brasil, New York Counterpoint, and Dreams.

Obviously by this time I was a fan. So it was with delight and anticipation that I went to see him perform again last week, this time at the University of Miami's Gusman Concert Hall under the auspices of Sunday Afternoons of Music (sundaymusicals.org). We noted that the elder Stoltzman was to be accompanied by his son, Peter, on piano. But little did we realize what a powerful performer the younger Stoltzman would prove to be--so much so that his father playfully thanked him for "still allowing me to play with him."

The first half of the performance was devoted to classical works. That solo movement from the Messiaen (I finally got to hear it again live) was framed by a Debussy Rhapsodie and a Leonard Bernstein sonata, which we learned was that composer's first serious composition, dating from when he was just twenty. Stoltzman introduced it by saying it owed much to Hindemith, but soon revealed the Bernstein that was to be -- "West Side Story coming soon." Indeed the lyrical features of it did presage what was coming later, and the Stoltzman duo went one better and gave us an additional treat that was not on the program in the form of a suite from West Side Story itself, just so we could compare them side by side, so to speak.

In both the Dubussy and Bernstein the pair played wonderfully well together, absolutely tight on timing and with voices so compatible it was sometimes hard to tell which was playing, even though the instruments are so different from each other.

The second half was all jazz, and it was here that the younger Stoltzman, who had already performed prodigious feats, really showed what he can do. We understood how his father must feel as he works to keep up--though he certainly rose to the occasion.

First came an Ellington medley, then a trio of Thelonious Monk. It was at the end of this set that the clarinet topped it off with a mad riff that ascended WAY up beyond the end of the keys, seeming to pop the musician's head off the top like a cork from a bottle. "Waa!" he exclaimed with a huge grin, and to huge applause.

"That note can't be written!" I said to my wife -- it was too high above the staff.

The concluding set from Porgy and Bess was tame by comparison, but it was nice to be let down easy and to be reminded of how solidly classical Gershwin has become. And the quiet encore of "Amazing Grace" caused peace itself to descend on the room.

The passing of musical genes through generations of a family is a well known phenomenon, as witness the likes of the Strausses, Mozarts, and most notable of all, the multiple sons of J.S. Bach. In our own day we have seen the aforementioned Rudolph Serkin being followed by his son, Peter, and violinist Issac Stern succeeded by his conductor-heir, Michael -- not to mention the Marsalis clan and the talented daughters of Ravi Shankar (which proves it's not a male gene).

Now with Richard and Peter John Stoltzman it appears that a new dynasty has been born.

Music Lost, Music Found

There's nothing more nostalgic than old music, unless it's old music that has been lost ...

For years I've been recalling an ancient recording of Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond that I used to listen to with my high school jazz buddy. We must have worn the grooves clear through that record. My favorite cut was something called "Purple Moon" in which Desmond waxed lyrical on a melody from the opening of Igor Stravinsky's Rite of Spring -- not exactly your usual jazz standard.

It never surprised me that the cerebral Desmond would have turned to a classical composer for inspiration. But we were both puzzled by the title until Disney's Fantasia made a return appearance at the movie theaters (this was long before DVD's and even VCR's). The film includes that wonderful animation of the evolution of life with Stravinsky's score as the soundtrack, and lo and behold, when the opening refrain is heard, the screen is filled with a purple moon eclipsing the earth. Yes! It was so perfect, we were sure we had grasped the logic of the name. Desmond had seen Fantasia! And we were the only ones who had figured it out!

I owned that record for years, but somewhere along the line it disappeared and ended up wherever all lost things go. When vinyl LP's began to be reissued on CD I looked for it at music stores, but in vain. When CD's began to be sold online I looked for it there, but no luck. It didn't help that I had forgot the name of the album and could only remember that one tune on it.

Finally through eMusic, an excellent (and legal) mp3 download service, I found it again, called Moods and Grooves. It's hard to convey the feeling of satisfaction that came over me as the familiar walking bass line started and the ghost of Paul Desmond took up the horn again after all those years. Ahh.

It was also good to hear the accompanying tunes again. There were only two other tracks on the whole album. One of them, "At a Perfume Counter," took up a whole side, though it only runs about 15 minutes. It's a dazzling display of piano pyrotechnics as Brubeck shows off his big two-fisted improv style and pounds the ivory off the keys. The tune doesn't really end so much as it expires from sheer exhaustion. Wow.

This wasn't the end of my eMusic discoveries, either. When I dug deeper into Desmond's discography I found out that "Purple Moon" had been released again later under the title "Sacre Blue," a bilingual pun on Le Sacre du Printemps meeting the blues. Just think, if I'd known that I might have found it years ago. But then, maybe the discovery would not have been so sweet.

While browsing, I also located another vanished recording, Jazz Guitar Bach by André Bénichou ("and his Well-Tempered Three"), that came out when I was in college--and not only the original 13 tracks, but 12 more new ones which have been added thanks to the increased capacity of modern media. At last I can hear them again without the pops, clicks, and hisses of the beat-up old LP.

All of which serves as one more reminder of the virtues of the Internet and the digital age. No longer does anything have to become "out of print" and unavailable. Once, even some of the manuscripts of J.S. Bach were lost because the paper they were written on was thought to be more valuable for wrapping lunches. But never again. Now it's possible to preserve all the recorded performances of that music, no matter how many there are.

From now on, digitally, there will be plenty of room for it all. Enjoy the wealth.