Jazz — Page 3

Harlem.org: Jazz History at the Click of a Mouse

Last week, my lady Lisa sent me a link to a very cool website called harlem.org, which invites viewers to “explore jazz history through one photograph.”

Now, the photo in question, taken by Esquire camera man Art Kane, is one I had seen before, and is in fact quite famous. Featuring a veritable who’s who of jazz history, all gathered together on the steps and sidewalk outside an apartment in Harlem, the picture is utterly remarkable. Count Basie, Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins, Dizzie Gillespie, Marian McPartland, Milt Hinton, Mary Lou Williams, Thelonius Monk, Sonny Rollins, Maxine Sullivan, Stuff Smith, Oscar Pettiford…all there, along with many others, fifty-seven in all. The patriarchs and the young lions, side by side.

Still more amazing, however, is how harlem.org has utilized this photo to give you quick, biographical insights into everyone who appears in it. Just mouse over the photo to a general area of interest, click, and that section of the photo is enlarged. Now mouse one by one over the musicians in the enlargement and their names appear in a pop-up balloon. And here’s where it gets good: when you click on a particular musician, a larger window pops up containing a photo and information about him or her.

What I’ve described is just a thumbnail sketch of what the site has to offer. If you’re at all interested in the history of jazz, this website is a must. It’s worth visiting just to see the photo alone, but I promise you, you’ll find much more of value besides.

July 10, 2009 by Robert Hartig

Filed Under: Band, Entertainment, Jazz, Life, Music, Nature, Photography, Saxophone, Tornadoes Tagged With: Coleman Hawkins, Count Basie, Dizzie Gillespie, harlem.org, Jazz, jazz history, Lester Young, Marian McPartland, Mary Lou Williams, Maxine Sullivan, Milt Hinton, musician, Oscar Pettiford, photograph, Sonny Rollins, Stuff Smith, Thelonius Monk, young lions

Sax on the Beach

Looking north along the Lake Michigan coast at sunset.

Sax anywhere is great, but sax on the beach is fantastic.

Take a Squeegee to your naughty mind. I’m talking about playing the saxophone, thank you, and about one of the places where I particularly enjoy playing it. There’s something very special about heading out to the lakeshore and practicing my saxophone accompanied by the sound of the waves and the cry of the seagulls.

If you follow the jazz side of this blog, then you know that I love to play my horn outdoors. My practice habits are fairly eccentric in that regard. Many years of apartment dwelling, which include neighbors whom I haven”t wished to disturb, have taught me that my woodshed is wherever I choose to make it. The state parks. The cow pasture at the edge of town. Most often my own car, parked by the railroad tracks out in the countryside.

But there’s no place quite like the shores of Lake Michigan.

It’s been a long time since I’ve taken my horn out there, but yesterday provided a reminder of what I’ve been missing. Regretfully, I didn’t have my saxophone with me, but I did have my sweetheart and best friend, Lisa. From our little outing in Muskegon State Park, I thought I’d share a few images with you of…

sailboats out on the waters…

sailboats1

…the north boardwalk along the Muskegon channel…

muskegonboardwalk

…dune grass silhoutted by the setting sun…

marramsilhouette

As for the great sand dunes that are one of the hallmarks of this beautiful state, I’ve already given you a glimpse of them up at the top of the page, but the really imposing dunes lie in the northern and southern ends of the Lower Peninsula. Perhaps in another post I’ll include some shots of Sleeping Bear, Warren Dunes, P. J. Hoffmaster Park, and Nordhouse dunes–vast tracts of sand, marram grass, and wooded dunes that reflect the wild beauty of the Michigan outdoors. It is a wide open sublimity that speaks to something deep inside me, and that has colored the music I play for many years.

One of these days soon, I will visit the lakeshore again–this time with my saxophone, to serenade the gulls, the waves, the far-stretching sands, and the setting sun.

June 26, 2009 by Robert Hartig

Filed Under: Band, Jazz, Life, Music, Nature, Outdoors, Photography, Saxophone, Tornadoes Tagged With: beach, boardwalk, horn, Jazz, lakeshore, marram grass, Michigan, Music, Muskegon, Muskegon State Park, Outdoors, practicing my saxophone, sand dunes, sax, Saxophone, Sleeping Bear, woodshed

Jazz and Storm Chasing: Facing the Trade-Offs

And so it begins in earnest. The 2009 Tornado Alley storm chasing season, that is. Me droogs Bill and Tom left today to chase this weekend’s opening action in Iowa, en route to the main play in the Oklahoma/Texas panhandle region. I couldn’t join them as I’ve got a couple of commitments, including a gig with Francesca Amari tomorrow night plus a search for new living accommodations.

Today’s setup out in Iowa was such that I did’t feel too much like I was missing out on something. The storms have turned out to be massive hail producers (LSR from five miles southwest of Greene: “All hail…very little rain falling”), but not a single tornado report have I seen, not in Iowa, not in Wisconsin, not in the entire CONUS.

Tomorrow and Sunday look to be a different matter, though, and I wish like anything I could be out there with the guys watching tubes drop. But as I’ve said, I’ve got commitments.

It’s funny how my two great passions–playing jazz and chasing storms–can conflict. But that’s how it is. You can’t chase storms when you’re on a gig, though ironically, sometimes the storms have come along and canceled the gig. Three years in a row, I got hailed out at the annual Grand Rapids Festival of the Arts. It doesn’t seem to matter who I’m playing with. I’m a freeking hail magnet, and in June or July, you book me for an outdoor event at your peril.

This year, I’ve actually adopted a policy of not accepting any gigs during the peak storm chasing months of May and June. That’s the time of year when the storm chaser in me outweighs the jazz musician. Tornado weather is seasonal in a way that jazz isn’t. Once those mid-levels heat up and the steep lapse rates of spring give way to summertime’s Cap of Doom, that’s all she wrote. I don’t have the time or money to chase the Canadian prairies. So I’ve got to grab my storm action when it’s prime time. This year, I hope to spend ten days or so in mid to late May out in Tornado Alley. I am looking forward to it so much I can practically taste it!

Meanwhile, Bill and Tom are out there headed for Oklahoma without me. Sniff! Ah, well. I hope those dirty dogs get skunked. No, wait…what I mean is, I hope my buddies see some really great tornadoes and get all kinds of cool footage that they can show me when they get back, causing me to grin in maniacal delight while dying inside.

Okay, let’s try that one more time. The compensation for not chasing is getting to do a gig at One Trick Pony in downtown Grand Rapids with Francesca, Dave, Wright, and Tommie–some truly fine musicians whom I absolutely love to play with. A Saturday night spent playing my sax is a Saturday night well spent, and I can’t wait to hit the stage with Francesca and Friends. If you happen to be in the vicinity, please drop on down to the Pony and give us a listen. You’ll like what you hear. The show starts at 8:00 and continues till 11:00. Hope to see you there!

April 24, 2009 by Robert Hartig

Filed Under: Jazz, Life, Music, Saxophone, Storm Chasing, Uncategorized Tagged With: Canadian prairies, chasing storms, Francesca Amari, gig, Grand Rapids Festival, hail, Jazz, jazz musician, musician, One Trick Pony, panhandle, playing jazz, playing my sax, sax, Storm Chasing, storms, tornado, Tornado Alley

The Bob Hartig Quartet Plays the Thornapple Jazz Festival

This past weekend I had the pleasure of fronting my own jazz quartet for two consecutive days as a part of the Thornapple Jazz Festival. Now in its sixth year, the festival has begun to expand its reach beyond Hastings to other, outlying communities in Barry County. This year included Delton and Middleville.

Thus, on Friday the lads and I took the stage at the MidVilla Inn on M-37 just north of Middleville. The turnout was modest, but not at all bad for a small town that isn’t known as a hotbed of jazz. As for a rhythm section, I couldn’t have asked for better players. Ric Troll is one of the tastiest drummers and all-around musicians I know, with tremendous musical sensitivity. Dave DeVos is a seasoned and solid bassist who, like me, has a relentless thirst to grow in the mastery of his instrument. And keyboard man Paul Lesinski is nothing short of fabulous, a player of great inventiveness and the technical excellence to pull off anything his fertile mind conceives.

Together, these guys are my musical dream team. They made it easy for me to pull off my allotted two sets with the kind of energy and spontaneity that are the soul of jazz. If all it takes is one bad player to make a good band sound lame, it’s also true that a great band can boot a decent soloist up to the next level. It takes a certain baseline of aptitude and experience for that to happen, but once you achieve that level, then players the caliber of Ric, Dave, and Paul can lift you out of the ordinary and inspire you to stretch, to push beyond your normal, self-imposed limits and explore new musical territory. That, at least, has been my experience as a jazz saxophonist.

I was very pleased with our performance at the Mid Villa, and again Saturday night at the Waldorf in downtown Hastings. The Waldorf is one of my favorite restaurants, with out-of-this world cooking and absolutely stellar, award-winning microbrews, and I’ve wanted to bring a straight-ahead jazz combo there for a long time. Mike, the owner, finally booked my quartet for the dinner crowd from 6:30-8:30, and we got our chance.

Our song list ran the spectrum from bebop to ballads to Latin to jazz/rock, and included such tunes as “Anthropology,” “Footprints,” “Triste,” “Stolen Moments,” “Have You Met Miss Jones?” and “Song for My Father.” We even played one of my own originals, a Latin-flavored ballad that I wrote several years ago called “Tracy” in honor of a love lost but fondly remembered.

It was a joy to participate in the Sixth Annual Thornapple Jazz Festival, and an honor to be invited by the event’s driving force and musical manager, my friend Joe LaJoye. Joe, if you happen to read this post, thank you! The guys and I had a blast. Maybe next time around you’ll be able to take a breather from all the responsibilities of “makin’ it happen” long enough to sit in with your trumpet for a tune or two, eh?

April 20, 2009 by Robert Hartig

Filed Under: Band, Entertainment, Jazz, Music, Saxophone Tagged With: ballads, Band, Barry County, bassist, dream team, drummers, festival, Hastings, Jazz, jazz combo, jazz quartet, jazz saxophonist, Joe LaJoye, keyboard, microbrews, Middleville, musical, rhythm section, saxophonist, soloist, Thornapple, trumpet, tune, Waldorf

Of Sax Practice and Railroad Tracks

I just returned from a nice, two-hour saxophone practice session out by the railroad tracks.

The railroad tracks?

Oh, I guess I haven’t told you about my practice habits. They have as much to do with where I practice as what I practice.

Living in an apartment, I try to be considerate of my neighbors. I like to think that they’d enjoy my music, but realistically, there’s only so much that even the most ardent jazz lovers can take of listening to the same licks, patterns, and scales repeated ad nauseum, blaring down the hallway and through the walls. So for years, my practice room has been my car. My routine has consisted of driving to the outbacks of Kent County and parking at various locations along the CSX tracks between Kentwood and Lansing, where I practice my horn and watch for the trains to roll by.

I love trains. Obviously, I also love playing my sax. It’s nice to be able to combine those two interests in a productive way. Tonight, as I do so often, I parked at one of my favorite trackside spots near a small community called, appropriately, Alto. I didn’t see any trains, but I had a most productive practice hashing out some diminished and diminished/whole tone licks, and woodshedding the Charlie Parker tune “Ornithology” in several keys.

I always return feeling good about my playing after a session like tonight’s. The time goes so fast! And that’s as it should be.

The best way to make a living is to earn money doing things we’d pay money to do. Playing the sax is one of those things. I can’t say I make a living at it, but it certainly supplements my cash flow; it’s part of the picture of my livelihood. I’ve been at it a long time now, and most of that time I’ve been practicing in my car by the tracks–or, during the warm months, often outdoors. If I ever do buy a house and gain an honest-to-goodness practice room of my own, I think I will still maintain my railroad track sessions. I’d miss them far too much not to. Habits are hard to break, and there’s no reason to break a good one in the first place.

April 3, 2009 by Robert Hartig

Filed Under: Jazz, Jazz Improvisation and Technique, Life, Music, Saxophone Tagged With: Charlie Parker, horn, Jazz, Music, Ornithology, playing the sax, practice, practice session, railroad tracks, sax, Saxophone, trains

An Amazing Evening with Guitar Prodigy Monte Montgomery

Ho.

Lee.

Cow!

Monte Montgomery is an unbelievable acoustical guitarist!!!!!

Please note that I, a professional writer, have just used five exclamation marks, a breach of good grammar and nothing the inexpert or fainthearted should attempt unsupervised. But last night was definitely a five-exclamation-mark event.

Monte’s little trio is a gnarly bunch. His backup players are young musicians, and Monte and his bass man look like they could have been cast as the two mountain men in the 1970’s movie Deliverance. But man, can they play! It was an honor to open for these guys with Ed and the band.

I’m pleased to say that our own quartet performed seamlessly, and we sounded about the best we’ve ever sounded. For homegrown talent, we were a great first act. But Monte’s band sounded exactly like what they are: well-rehearsed, seasoned road warriors who play the living bejeebers out of their instruments night after night, have spent plenty of time tightening down some imaginative and challenging arrangements, and communicate well with each other onstage.

The concert was held in the performance room at the front of The Intersection in downtown Grand Rapids, not the huge concert hall in back. This smaller venue made for an enjoyable, intimate setting that seemed to draw the best out of Monte. He has a comfortable, easy manner with his audience and clearly enjoys interacting with them, trading banter and showing none of the airs that I’ve seen some of the musical aristocracy display. Just a down-home cat you could sit down and drink a beer with and who, by the way, happens to be phenomenally gifted.

But “gifted” doesn’t mean Monte’s guitar chops–and, I should add, his superb vocal abilities–were handed to him on a silver platter. No one plays at that level without working hard to achieve it. I don’t know why Monte and his band aren’t far more widely recognized, but I have the sense that he’s doing exactly what he wants to be doing and cares less about fame and fortune than about playing world-class music in venues where he can connect with his listeners.

My mother and sister made it to the concert, by the way. It was neat and kind of touching to look out into the room and see my mom’s white puff of hair out there in the audience, listening at age 83 to probably her first-ever rock concert. Which is how I’d categorize last night: a rock concert. Monte ain’t about jazz, folks. But he’s got elements of pretty much everything thrown into the mix, and I’d imagine he and his players could hold their own in a straight-ahead setting.

Monte closed with what appears to be his trademark tune, “Little Wing.” His rendition of the famous Jimi Hendrix standard will take your breath away if you’re ever fortunate enough to hear Monte and the band. Here’s a video clip to give you a taste. Get ready to become a believer.

March 4, 2009 by Robert Hartig

Filed Under: Band, Entertainment, Jazz, Music, Video Tagged With: "Little Wing", arrangements, Band, concert, Grand Rapids, guitar, guitar prodigy, guitarist, instruments, Jazz, Jimi Hendrix, listeners, Monte Montgomery, Music, musical, musicians, road warriors, rock concert, venues

Blowing Strong: National Storm Chaser Convention and a Great Gig with Francesca

What a fun and interesting weekend this has been! I had the rare pleasure of indulging both of my two main passions in life, storm chasing and playing jazz.

Fellow chasers Bill Oosterbaan, Kurt Hulst, and I got together Saturday at Bill’s house and spent the day watching live, streaming video of the eleventh annual National Storm Chaser Convention in Denver, courtesy of SevereStudios.com. When 6:30 rolled around, I broke away and played a gig at One Trick Pony in downtown Grand Rapids with Francesca Amari. The engagement was a blast and we were well received; tunes included a vocals-sax duet on “Good Morning, Heartache,” as performed on Francesca’s new CD, Better Days. Then this morning, I got together with Bill again and we watched the rest of the conference.

The entire conference was great, but from my perspective, the last part was the best. This included talks by Dr. Greg Forbes, Jon Davies, and Rich Thompson on forecasting and mesoscale analysis. I learned a couple things that will definitely be helpful for this coming chase season, which is just around the corner.

All in all, a most enjoyable couple of days. I finished by spending an hour or so practicing my saxophone, which is performing beautifully for me after coming back from the repair man.

Another point of interest: I’ve been invited to put together a little unit to play for the Thornapple Jazz Festival on April 17, hosted by the Thornapple Arts Council of Barry County. I’m excited about this, and pleased that the festival coordinator, my friend and fellow jazz musician Joe LaJoye, thought to ask me. I’ve already got two standout players lined up for my rhythm section, and am considering whom I’ll use for the last one.

Lots going on, and much of it good. Today it snowed, but with temperatures in the thirties, even the cold weather is warmer than it was a few weeks ago. From storm chasing conferences to jazz festival invitations, there are signs that spring is on the way.

February 15, 2009 by Robert Hartig

Filed Under: Band, Jazz, Music, Saxophone, Storm Chasing, Tornadoes, Weather Tagged With: chasers, forecasting, gig, horn, Jazz, mesoscale, musician, sax, Saxophone, Storm Chasing, Video, vocals, Weather

“Clair from the Moon” by Joseph Raciti

I received a link to a video clip along with the following email today from a musician named Joseph Raciti:

I had a sneaking suspicion that this little short might interest you and the readers of your blog for its jazzy spin on Debussy’s “Clair De Lune” and the windy conditions the main character is in.

I checked out Joseph’s clip, and I agree with him. Joe has put together a jewel-like little piece of creativity with some very cool jazz piano playing. Naturally, I got curious about Joseph’s blog overall. I was not disappointed. It’s clearly the product of an artistic mind–well-written, colorful, and studded with other video vignettes similar in spirit to the one he’s shared here.

Update: Joe’s blog evidently has been taken down since I wrote this post. Unfortunate. I’m removing him from my blogroll, but I wish him well on his further creative ventures.

February 8, 2009 by Robert Hartig

Filed Under: Entertainment, Jazz, Video Tagged With: blog, clip, creativity, Jazz, musician, piano, Video

Emile De Cosmo and the Polytonal Rhythm Series

I got a most pleasant surprise today while checking my voice mail. A gentleman named Emile De Cosmo had left a message saying that he had run across my post on jazz contrafacts while researching the topic online, and inviting me to call him back. Emile mentioned that he is a jazz educator who has written twenty-six books, and wondered whether maybe I’d heard of his material.

Are you kidding? Heck yes, I’d heard of his books, and of Emile. I’ve known of Emile since back in my college jazz studies days, when I first encountered an ad in Downbeat for his Polytonal Rhythm Series and ordered one of the books from that series. Good grief–Emile De Cosmo, calling me? What an honor!

Of course I returned Emile’s call, and we had a most enjoyable chat. Besides being a passionate and thoughtful jazz educator, Emile is a genuinely nice, warm, down-to-earth guy, easy to talk to and well worth listening to. Unfortunately, our conversation got cut short by a bad signal on my cell phone, but I look forward to reconnecting with Emile and picking up where we left off. At 84 years old, he’s still going strong, writing books and developing his didactic concepts in jazz. He may be retired from university instruction, but the educator in him doesn’t appear to have taken so much as a breather.

Having visited Emile’s site, I’m struck by how much thought and time the man has invested into perfecting his ideas about helping others develop a fluent technique and “big ears.” The Polytonal Rhythm Series was a magnum opus in itself, but Emile and his wife, Laura, have developed more material over the years. With my interest reawakened, I purchased The Diatonic Cycle and have my sights set on The Path to Jazz Improvisation. I’m also intrigued by The Tritone Cycle, but that can wait. I expect that I’ll have my hands full for a while with the first book once it arrives. The timing is perfect; I’ve been wanting something to help me expand my saxophone practice in a different direction.

Emile, if you read this post, it was great talking with you! I look forward to our next chat. Keep up the great work!

February 4, 2009 by Robert Hartig

Filed Under: Band, Entertainment, Jazz, Jazz Improvisation and Technique, Music, Saxophone, Tornadoes, Weather Tagged With: blog, book, contrafacts, Downbeat, educator, improvisation, Jazz, jazz educator, jazz studies, polytonal, rhythm, Saxophone, technique, tritone

Sunset Photos and Sax Licks

We finally got a break in the gray skies and snows. Today’s morning sun rose into a flawless sky, and sunshine predominated all day long, along with warmer–which, at thirty-two degrees, is not to say warm, but an improvement on what we’ve had–temperatures.

I grabbed my saxophone and my camera and headed out to Grand Ledge this afternoon, and on the way out there, I grabbed my first workout in months. I haven’t been in the gym since last October, I’ve been feeling the lack of exercise, and I finally decided the time had come to get back into my workouts. So I dropped in at a modest but great little weight lifting gym out by Lake Odessa and ran through a quick, twenty-minute break-in routine. One set per movement is enough; I’ll be feeling the pain Monday when it comes time for my next bout in the gym.

Anyway…I took a number of photos out near Grand Ledge. The ones I liked best were of an old, deserted farmstead at sunset. Thought I’d share a couple with you.

Old Shed at Sundown

The Sun Sinks Lower

Afterwards, I found a place to park my car and practice my saxophone. It has been a while since I’ve spent time on my horn. I’ve been writing a book and have been singularly focused on that, and I need to exercise a little balance, tend to other things that are also important. Staying on top of my sax is right up there at the top. It felt good to limber up my fingers and run through some Charlie Parker licks.

It takes discipline to be a good jazz musician. Licks and ideas you think you own for keeps can desert you after a while if you don’t practice consistently. Fortunately, I’d only been away from my axe for a bit, not long enough to damage me. But it always feels good when I pick it back up.

January 31, 2009 by Robert Hartig

Filed Under: Band, Entertainment, Jazz, Music, Photography, Saxophone, Tornadoes, Weather Tagged With: camera, Charlie Parker, exercise, gym, horn, Jazz, photos, Saxophone, snow, sunset, writing