The Breath Courses Through Us is a provocative new jazz film that will have its premiere on Friday, January 31. For this year’s edition of his annual Library of Congress Jazz Film Fridays series, produced by Larry Appelbaum. The Breath Courses Through it will be part of a double feature of Alan Roth films, and admission is free (call 202/707-5502 to reserve yours). As always Appelbaum’s always-intriguing film series will play in the LOC’s cozy Mary Pickford Theatre in the James Madison Building, 101 Independence Avenue S.E. in one of the more classy examples of your tax dollars at work.

Both The Breath Courses Through Us and the double-feature Inside Out in the Open focus on the left side of the jazz spectrum; the former focusing on The New York Art Quartet (John Tchicai, Roswell Rudd, Milford Graves, and Reggie Workman. While Inside Out in the Open features such fearless explorers as Marion Brown, Baikida Carroll, Burton Greene, Joseph Jarman, Rudd, Alan Silva, Tchicai, Daniel Carter, William Parker, Susie Ibarra and Matthew Shipp. A major bonus of The Breath Courses Through Us will be an appearance by the great poet-author Amiri Baraka, who ascended to ancestry earlier this month. The films will be introduced by bassist and WPFW programmer Luke Stewart.

In an email exchange with filmmaker Alan Roth I was delighted to learn that we are fellow Clevelanders. Clearly some questions were in order, particularly regarding the premiere of The Breath Courses Through Us, his 2013 feature.

Film maker ALAN ROTH

What has been your experience as a filmmaker?
My filmmaking actually began when I was in high school, when I made my first super-8 film, a study of hands. I made other work, much of it very political, over the next couple of years, then, I lost my camera! My political, social and labor activism took precedence for many years to come.

After an almost 19-year career in the U.S. Postal Service in my hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, I came back to the moving image with video, and fell in love with filmmaking again. In the early 90s, I made a major decision to leave my guaranteed life-time job to be a filmmaker. In 2001, I released my first documentary film Inside Out In The Open, which was my first examination of the music known as free jazz.

Besides my longer work, I was documenting events in New York City during the time of 9/11, some of which became part of the collective film Seven Days in September, shown in theatres and on A&E. I also co-directed a short film used in the campaign for marriage equality in New Jersey.

A major work I am very proud of was my participation in a project Womens Power Against HIV/AIDS. This was an innovative approach, begun in 2006, to use soap opera stories delivered on cellphones as a means to change the sexual/social behavior of African-American women, who made up a significant percentage of new HIV cases. It was a very sensitive approach based on the real stories of women. This study was funded by the National Institutes of Health.

I am now beginning a new work in Mexico City about two indigenous folkloric dancers, their struggle to raise a family (they are a married couple), their daily work and culture, and the relevance of traditional dance in contemporary Mexican society. I hope to finish that film in early 2015.

What was the genesis of this film The Breath Courses Through Us?
My first film, Inside Out In The Open, included among the interviews both John Tchicai and Roswell Rudd, and their formation of the New York Art Quartet. During my editing of the ‘rough cut’ of the film, which became my master’s thesis at the New School for Social Research, I was informed by Tchicai about the reunion. I thought “what a perfect follow-up” and gained permission from the rest of the musicians to document the reunion. I was privileged to work with cinematographer Ronald Gray, who at the time was teaching cinematography at the New York University film school graduate program. This footage is the core of The Breath Courses Through Us.

Stalwart drummer MILFORD GRAVES from the New York Art Quartet reunion

I still had my first film to complete and I focused on that, adding segments that were needed in light of the negativity about these musicians and other historical omisions in the last section of Ken Burn’s Jazz. Little by little, I kept working on the new film, but again, with my full-time attention on the Women’s Project work, it took many extra years to complete the new film. It was totally coincidental that my film and the Triplepoint Records 5 vinyl boxset of the lost recordings of the New York Art Quartet were released within one month of each other, and now, being premiered during the 50th anniversary of the founding of the group.

The title of this film is rather provocative; how did you pair this title with the subject matter?
During the soundcheck for the 1999 reunion concert, the musicians were improvising, merely to allow the tech people to set levels. Baraka read some poetry from memory, including the beginning of his poem “X.” There is a line in the poem “the blood courses through us,” and mistakenly or not, he said “the breath courses through us.” I chose to use that version as my title as a metaphor for the continuity of the living breath of African-American musical tradition and the creative life among these artists. In an early scene in the film, Baraka, at that soundcheck, says “everything you don’t understand is explained in art,” the opening lines of that poem. The film is as much about the present tense in the lives of these artists, along with their individual personalities, with the formation of the group, their own entries into the musical life, and the lifeline of creative music.

What did you find most compelling about the music and the musicians you feature in this film?
Both my parents loved jazz. They told me about going to see Art Tatum play in Cleveland, and as I grew up, I listened to a wide variety of music, including music from other countries in the world and more experimental electronic music and John Cage. I learned to play classical piano as a child, but in my teen years, when my parents decided to hire a jazz pianist to teach me, I had much trouble handling the new language. It was easier to learn to read charts and improv with pop music.

My listening, though, generally leaned towards the more progressive side of music, which included more chance and improvisation. This was the reason I decided many years later to do my first film on this music, not as a dry historical film, but rather one that lets the musicians tell their story, and emphasize those personalities as integral to the creative process. They think it is important to emotionally connected to one’s creative work and perhaps do the same for one’s audiences.

Like many other lovers of this music, I find the music inspirational and transportive, but also challenging. To quote the late Marion Brown from my first film, “ya got to make them think!” Films should engage the audience, involve them actively, challenge them, and hopefully give them reason to walk out of the theater with questions and the urge to learn more. For that reason, my films are not a clear ABC of explanation, but rather a quilt of information that I try to sew together lyrically with its own thrust forward in time.

I sincerely hope that these two films will become part of the repertory of films that give props to the musicians and new African-American musical traditions that emerged from this period in New York City in 1964, which also sprung up in Chicago, St. Louis and so many other places. I think they had more of an impact on music that they have ever been given credit for.

Beyond this Library of Congress premier when and where will this film be available for viewing?
The Breath Courses Through Us is just beginning to be seen around the world. It will continue to be seen in film festivals, and more alternative spaces. I hope it could be included in jazz and music festivals as well. Eventually, it will be available for the public as a DVD or download.

The New York City premiere is scheduled for April, and that should be an important event with the musicians present. The loss of John Tchicai 15 months ago, and now Amiri Baraka were very difficult to take. I am happy to say that Tchicai saw a rough cut of the film, and Baraka had seen the final version. We are losing many in that generation, but I felt good that this film can allow them to continue to speak and perform for the world.

Robert Glasper (left) and Jason Moran opened with some classic Blue Note reminiscences.

Blue Note Records, perhaps the most honored and trusted record label in recorded jazz history, launched a promised series of concerts and performances marking its 75th anniversary on Wednesday, January 8 at Town Hall, the venerable old concert house located just east of Times Square. As day 2 of this year’s Winter Jazz Festival this Blue Note celebration also tapped into the younger audience constituency represented by WJF’s growing presence as a January essential on the NYC cultural calendar. Of course having Jason Moran and Robert Glasper as that evening’s lead concert artists certainly assisted in drawing that much more of that audience sector to the old haunt on 43rd Street, scene to more than a few memorable jazz concert moments down through its rich history.

WBGO’s Josh Jackson, himself representative of that growing 20/30-something jazz audience, served as affable MC in bringing Glasper and Moran to the two embraced grand pianos that had rested majestically onstage as two ebony titans, silently awaiting some learned touch as the audience earlier filed in. Arriving in tuxedos, each playfully sporting a pair of Blue Note imprint Adidas sneakers (Moran kidding Glasper on the freshness of his kicks versus his own well-worn pair), as Jackson detailed their duo piano exploits set in honor of the original Blue Note Records encounter that launched the label, the pairing of boogie woogie masters Albert Ammons and Meade Lux Lewis. What followed was a program – led by Moran and Glasper – that successfully achieved the neat balancing act of being loose and relaxed, with plenty of witty verbal and musical banter between the two, and tightly programmed at the same time, which is no small feat.

Facing each other seated at conjoined concert grand pianos, they were flanked by a Fender-Rhodes, a baby brother in the keyboard family that suggested at least some elements of their respective contemporary exploits for their eager audience. Which brings me to an intriguing sidebar. Surveying the audience it was clear that many in attendance may have been there with certain expectations of some measure of a Robert Glasper Experiment and Jason Moran & the Bandwagon experience. They did get a few morsels of that throughout the evening, in the form of a tune or a familiar line or two injected into the largely classic proceedings; occasional reference kernels in their solo and duo opening set that sparked audience recognition without veering too far afield of the concert’s overall theme of celebrating the Blue Note label. The camaraderie between the two pianists was evident throughout the evening, starting with their both emanating from the same Houston, TX arts high school.

The pianists played cat & mouse on the keyboards, eliciting classic boogie piano figures from the Ammons/Lewis ouevre as their point of departure. Gradually Glasper began roping the muse forward into the Blue Note Records post-bop sweet spot. During the second half of their opening duo set they traded off Blue Note classics, punctuated by a piano refrain that served as their inside signal to each other and the audience that one or another Blue Note classic piece was afoot – some Herbie Hancock “Cantaloupe Island” here, Moran conjuring up Lee Morgan‘s familiar “Sidewinder,” some Horace Silver here, a Joe Henderson classic there… Then a bit of lovely quietude in homage to their mothers, Moran starting on Rhodes. Another highlight was Moran’s “Retrograde,” his de-construction of Andrew Hill‘s “Smokestack.”

For the second set the pianists were joined by two more Houston homies – the explosive and endlessly inventive drummer Eric Harland and bassist Alan Hampton – plus Ravi Coltrane on tenor and soprano saxophones. Never afraid of challenges they opened with Ornette Coleman‘s “Toy Dance”, an undersung gem from the master’s overlooked Blue Note record “New York is Now.” Throughout the evening the sound of surprise was in the air with their tune selections.

The vocalist and frequent Glasper collaborator Bilal unassumingly eased onstage for an essay on the pianist’s “What is Love,” giving the audience a welcomed Experiment moment judging by the buzz of recognition when they got into the tune. Moran joined Bilal for his distinctive arrangement of “Body & Soul,” which he explained was a product of his connections with the singer during experimental days at Brooklyn’s former, lamented Up Over Jazz Cafe.

Monk runs deep in the influence bag for these players’ and they did a neat turn on Thelonious’ “Criss Cross,” with Bilal’s improvised lyrics to the master’s typically knotty line. By closing with one of Glasper’s early originals they sent a happy audience on its way with just a bit of the sound of recognition. Jason Moran is getting a first class education in concert programming through his stint as artistic advisor at the Kennedy Center, and Glasper certainly proved a fit concert programmer as well. The pacing, repertoire selection, humorous asides, and monologues with the audience all lent themselves to a marvelous kickoff to a planned series of concerts in celebration of Blue Note Records at 75.

Robert Glasper modeling his Blue Note special edition Adidas kicks

Photos by: BART BABINSKI

Here are ten essential 2013 releases (listed in no particular rank order), plus three reissues and our choices for Best Vocal Album, Best Debut Album, and Best Latin Jazz Album:

2013 RELEASES

Michele Rosewoman’s New Yor-uba, 30 Years: A Musical Celebration of Cuba in America (Advance Dance Disques)

Terri Lyne Carrington, Money Jungle: Provocative in Blue (Concord)

Wayne Shorter, Without a Net (Blue Note)

Roberto Fonseca, Yo (Concord)

Cécile McLorin Salvant, WomanChild (Mack Avenue)

Nicole Mitchell, Aquarius (Delmark)

Dave Holland, Prism (Dare 2)

Albert “Tootie” Heath, Tootie’s Tempo (Sunnyside)

Allison Miller, No Morphine, No Lilies (Royal Potato Family)

Archie Shepp Attica Blues Orchestra Live, I Hear the Sound (Harmonia Mundi)

REISSUES
Jack DeJohnette, Special Edition (ECM)

Miles Davis, Original Mono Recordings (Columbia/Legacy)

Charles Lloyd, Quartets (ECM)

VOCAL
Cécile McLorin Salvant, WomanChild (Mack Avenue)

DEBUT
Sons of Kemet, Burn (Naim)

LATIN
Michele Rosewoman’s New Yor-uba, 30 Years: A Musical Celebration of Cuba in America (Advance Dance Disques)

Partly in conjunction with this weekend’s Jazz Connect conference (hope to see you at the panel discussion I’m moderating on Thursday, January 9 9:30-10:30am at the New York Hilton on the subject of “The Role of Education in Presenting Jazz”) and next week’s Association of Performing Arts Presenter conference – also at the Hilton – the annual Winter Jazz Festival hits once again with a very promising talent lineup.

Here’s the link to a news story on the Winter Jazz Festival and for complete information please visit http://www.winterjazzfest.com.

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2014/01/05/after-10-years-nyc-winter-jazzfest-in-the-groove/

The 5th annual Jazz Education Network (JEN) conference is Wednesday, January 8 through Saturday, January 11, 2014 at the Hyatt Regency at Reunion in Dallas, TX. For full conference details – including the complete schedule of activities and info on using the JEN conference app – please visit the JEN website http://www.jazzednet.org.

The tireless jazz educator and JEN founding member Mary Jo Papich has edited a new publication that will make its debut at the JEN Conference. Published by Hal Leonard, THE JAZZER’S COOKBOOK is just that, a book full of recipes for success in and access to the jazz industry. The Jazzer’s Cookbook will be launched at the JEN conference on Friday, January 10 at 11:00am at the Hal Leonard booth during the Exhibit Hall Hour. Some of the book’s contributors will be on hand and I hope to see you there picking up your copy of this very informative book. Here’s what Mary Jo had to say about the launch of The Jazzer’s Cookbook:

“This outstanding book is the last in a cookbook series printed by Meredith Music Publishers and distributed by Hal Leonard. It was the brainschild of publisher Gar Whaley and has been quite successful. I have enjoyed looking through the Choral, Band, Orchestra Cookbooks….but happen to think our JAZZER’S COOKBOOK is superb!” (Mary Jo Papich, editor)

Mary Jo asked me to contribute to The Jazzer’s Cookbook and thinking from a presenter’s perspective I gladly contributed the following recipe.

Recipe:
Achieving harmonious relationships with concert & festival presenters
( by Willard Jenkins)

Ingredients:
2 cups artistic excellence
1 cup savvy communication skills
1 cup research
1 cup stagecraft
¾ cup recent recording

Yield:
Improved gig opportunities

Serves:
You & your band

As a jazz festival and concerts presenter for well over 20 years, as one might imagine to many artists there’s a perception that I’m one of the holders of the keys to the Holy Grail. The majority of my festival work has been as artistic director of the Tri-C JazzFest (TCJF) in Cleveland, OH, an affiliation I’ve held for the last 17 years. Other concert curating has been for Tribeca Performing Arts Center (NYC), 651Arts (Brooklyn, NY), HarlemStage/Aaron Davis Hall (NYC), the Smithsonian Institution (DC), and the Mid Atlantic Jazz Festival (MD). However the great majority of my artist communications and interactions concern TCJF.

TCJF is a 34-year old festival with a strong education focus that in addition to booking concert artists for performances also engages artist-educators for residency work. So we’re in the business of providing some significant performance and exposure opportunities to artists; believe me, I get that. However, Northeast Ohio is not one of the noted “major media markets”, nor is our target community blessed with a wealth of jazz radio. The most frequent jazz broadcaster in the area was for years WCPN, Cleveland Public Radio. But they shamefully gave up the ghost several years ago, and at this point jazz radio in the Greater Cleveland market and across Northeast Ohio is pretty much anecdotal – sadly on par with most markets these days I’m afraid.

One thing that certainly means is under-exposure of deserving, and particularly young, jazz artists. In the Cleveland area there is one club that regularly presents jazz performances, Nighttown in Cleveland Hts, where Jim Wadsworth does yeoman work to keep the pots cooking. Other than Nighttown, jazz presentations of visiting artists in the Cleveland area are also pretty much anecdotal; a concert here, a random gig there… you know the drill. So those are the parameters for jazz artists to receive market exposure and develop some measure of a following in Northeast Ohio. Without that market exposure it is difficult at best for particularly young artists to establish any measure of a local audience.

N.E. Ohio is also not a region of ticket buying risk takers; so there has to be some measure of artist recognition to entice our typical audience. That recognition has many potential faces, including radio airplay, significant professional affiliations (particularly in the case of former sidemen stepping out in leadership roles), some measure of successful performance track record in the region, or some other ‘hook’ that will grab a potential ticket-buyer’s attention.

When you couple those cautionary elements with the fact that Tri-C JazzFest is unquestionably the major annual jazz event in N.E. Ohio, it makes you wonder what young artists are thinking about when they pitch booking requests purely out of the proverbial blue for their first exposure in the market! Young artists simply must establish some measure of market exposure and audience before pitching a given market’s major jazz event; that’s one of the difficult facts of this whole equation. In the case of the Northeast Ohio market I generally recommend that artists making cold pitches should strive for a Nighttown appearance or some other market visibility before pitching our festival.

With that in mind here are a few recipe elements – from both the interpersonal and career development levels – which artists need to develop that might enable them to break through that figurative glass ceiling and make themselves more attractive for potential bookings.

Cooking up a tastier dish of festival and gig readiness…

Very important: RESEARCH
•Resources – (jazz specific) annual JazzTimes, Down Beat magazine international jazz festivals guide; (education) JazzTimes jazz education guide, Down Beat “Where to study jazz” issue; JazzEd magazine; (general) Pollstar Talent Buyer Directory; and the universe of online resources…

Investigate festival & jazz presenter web sites:
•Determine who, what, when where info, but also carefully research their booking patterns, who and what type of artists they are likely to present. Question: do they book and present lesser known or emerging artists? Do they present student ensembles? Do they have a significant jazz education component? Educate yourself thoroughly on what these festivals present, how/where they present (# of venues – cite MJF); you must determine if this festival or presenter is even a good fit for what you present.

You must have: a recent recording
•to exemplify who you are and what you play, to use as a “calling card” to substantiate your artistry, to be made available to the presenter for their local radio outlet and PR/Marketing efforts, etc. NOT a demo – a commercially available recording, even if it is only available through the web or downloads.
•A viable web presence with press kit elements, including press clips, b&w and color photo(s) (quality images, not necessarily of the sweaty guys/girls on the bandstand variety, but images that translate well in hard copy and online reproduction.

Tailor your communication skills
•Communicate with festivals and presenters in a collegial manner, don’t be overly aggressive, walk that fine line; keep them abreast of your activities without pushing or being an annoyance; be in touch respectfully and collegially; remember to treat your booking as a joint venture with the presenter in more respects than just showing up and playing the gig. I’ve established communication relationships with artists that may take a couple of seasons before we’re able to realize an actual booking. But I will always favor persistent, collegial, cordial, professional communications. Be pleasant and persistent but NOT insecure and pushy. Take the position in your mind that my music is so good that sooner or later this person is going to present me/us. Be confident and savvy in your communication; make sure the prospective presenter keeps abreast of your gigs and major career developments, and make sure presenter-prospects are up-to-date on your recordings and activities. Make it your point to meet & greet, but not in a pushy way – there’s a fine line you need to walk. Through the years it is often an artist’s music AND personality that compelled me to find a way to present them.

Stagecraft (here’s an area I examine very critically when checking out an artist’s performance; and like many who present, even when we’re out catching performances purely for pleasure we’re always scouting…)
•Your stagecraft is an important element in your overall presentation. Try to never let ‘em see you struggling; be mindful of your onstage body language and what that might convey. Play as if you mean it, regardless of the audience size. Dress & onstage demeanor are of great importance (neatness, body language, etc.).
•Here’s an increasingly controversial element, particularly given young artists’ penchant for playing entire sets of their original compositions: I always advise young artists to carefully craft their set lists to balance originals with some measure of music that will connect with your audience – i.e. cleverly arranged pop or standards material, playing some blues, etc.; playing a complete program of originals may be satisfying to you but may leave your audience puzzled and clueless – when you combine unknown players with unknown music that can double that audience puzzlement factor and leave them less than satisfied by the experience… which will NOT invite return engagements. Re-work some “standards”; you needn’t play Real Book arrangements of standards; reconfigure them in fresh, exciting ways. For example, dig what the challenging pianist Vijay Iyer does in reimagining Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature.”
•Check out how a band like The Bad Plus can go as out as they wish when playing something the audience can hang their collective hats on; arrange known pieces that haven’t been explored extensively. PLAY SOME BLUES – the blues connects with an audience in a very visceral way (e.g. musicians from the always edgy perspective of the collective known as the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) have always been very crafty in no matter how far out they go, grounding their audience with some blues perspective somewhere during the course of a set; such “grounding” can give even the most experimental musicians a freer license with their audiences.

•Introduce yourselves and your music from the stage, and do so with good humor; TALK TO YOUR AUDIENCE, it will do a world of good and immeasurably assist you in truly connecting your playing and your music to the audience. Far too many jazz artists feel all their audience is due is good music, but it has been well-documented that audiences like to feel that connection to the musicians and the music they’re presenting through verbal communication; and don’t be inhibited in allowing your good humor to come through in your audience repartee.

•Accompanying the drummer & bass player when they solo is a good thing. Why is everyone else in the band generally accompanied when they solo, but the drummers and bass players are so often left alone to their own devices? Jazz band stagecraft plays a big role in audience acceptance, particularly with that sector of the audience to whom either you or the music may be somewhat of a new experience. I’ve taught jazz history courses where part of a semester’s assignment is attendance at a live jazz event. For some it may be shocking to know that for so many college students this is their first ever-live jazz performance. Students have reported in their subsequent term papers on their live jazz experience that they were put off when one or more members of the band left the stage when someone was soloing! Be very mindful of your stagecraft… And show up to the gig looking like you came to take care of serious business, not like you’re about to go out in the backyard and rake some leaves.

Willard Jenkins
www.openskyjazz.com
Home of The Independent Ear
Twitter: @Indyear
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