Young Adulthood in the 80s: My Experience with a Christian Jazz/rock group

My installations of episodes from my life continues into the 1980s. I am not happy about this state of affairs because the 1980s are not as innately interesting to me as the 70s, yet there was something about the 80s that couldn't fundamentally shake so many elements of the 70s.

Our story takes place during the Christmas season: I am going to say 1984. It concerns the exotic curiosity which is American independent Christianity, whose vast and manifold arrays of denominations, ideologies, subcultures, and lifestyles together must surely comprise some of the most colorful and at times extreme of religious belief systems to have ever been practiced by a human culture. Please be aware that this story is but of one particular expression of evangelicalism and by submitting it I intend no aspersion towards the many well meaning and sensible Christians who populate these United States.

Somehow, alongside my regular class work at the New England Conservatory, I found myself playing with a rather odd Christian Jazz/rock group, owing to an acquaintance who happened to be a fairly decent tenor saxophonist. This would prove to be one of the weirdest experiences of my musical life. The musicians were good as was the pay, but the lyrics and sensibility were another matter altogether.

We had a couple of rehearsals and, after playing some hotel gigs, we were slated to play a Christian wedding. In this particular subculture Christian is something that is applied to anyone or anything. All matters, great or small are decided on the presence or absence of the designation of "christian" or non "Christian". I gathered that this band was formed because they wanted to form a purer branch of jazz and pop music with the Christian label. I was never asked about my beliefs or lack thereof when I was asked to join the band. Curiously, they just assumed I was a Christian. I presume that had I been named Mitch Rabinowitz, rather than Mitch Hampton, there may have been some questioning alongside the requisite pamphlets from the Jews For Jesus and inquiries into whether I was a "completed Jew".

This band had a don't ask/don't tell policy about religious belief: it was good enough that I attended New England Conservatory. All I know is that when we weren't playing music all the band members would discuss their life with Jesus Christ, how their relationship with Jesus was going, and if they were "right or wrong" with Jesus. They discussed little else. One would think from the way Jesus was discussed that Jesus could have been the name for their girlfriends - so personal and intimate were their comments on Jesus. I have spent a part of my life among Born Again Christians but they never were as insistent upon Jesus in so intimate a way. Music was never discussed. During my two rehearsals scriptural metaphors were used instead of musical vocabulary. I had to learn how to translate on the spot. I remember we had to play some cover tunes by this woman named Amy Grant. I never listened to her music so I didn't know it.

There was never any sheet music with this band. I was supposed to play along by ear and memorize the arrangmements by ear. Part of the reason they worked with me is that I was good at listening. This wasn't too hard as the music had a crude simplicity that allowed me to have fun with it, so to speak. They seemed to like, even encourage my embellishments, which made the music a little better than it would otherwise have been. After the experience of playing a concert with the great George Russell it felt a letdown but the pay was good. Hundreds of dollars. These Christians seemed to have some money at that time.

The wedding we played was very lavish. It was a wedding of extraordinary wealth, in some wealthy suburb of Massachusetts, I think, in Brookline. I remember that the bride and groom wore pastels: teal matching dress and suit. The groom wore a teal tie that matched the color, but not the fabric, of the suit. It was the most awful clothing I had ever seen at a wedding, which, when one considers the attire worn at weddings during the past forty odd years, is saying a lot. Both the bride and groom had hair so tall, wide and thick you could not have seen around a corner if you were unlucky to have their heads in your field of vision.

All of the guests at the wedding danced to our music and rarely did they appear to be without the widest of smiles, and they combined the smile and the dance to great effect.

Although my job was to perform the piano part well, as the music requires, and I approach every musical situation with all the powers within my possession, I could not go along with all of this group's ideas. One thing I refused to do, during an original song by the saxophonist called "Save Us", was to thrust my fist into the air. There was this rhythmic cue where the entire band decided to thrust their fists high into the air everytime they sang "Save us!" I just wouldn't do this. The saxophonist - I'll call him Bob - noticed I was not raising my fist into the air, but instead continued playing piano chords. "Hey Mitch why aren't you putting your fist in the air? The whole band is supposed to do it!"

I explained that since my instrument was the piano and since the piano usually required two hands rather than merely one that I be allowed to be exempt from this bit of stage theater. Bob thought for a moment and then said I made "some sense" and that probably the wedding party would not notice or be disappointed by my lack of..."thrust".

I remember during the wedding dinner, all of the talk concerned Jesus, and how this or that church was faring.

I remember that when the bride and groom stood and kissed we had to stop abruptly during a song. "They are going to kiss!" Someone shouted.

Well the newlyweds did kiss after which entire room erupted in loud catcalls, whistles, moans and cries of "Hallelujah!" and "Praise Jesus". All of this fervor was in response to the most paltry, passionless peck I had ever seen. You would miss the kiss if you blinked but you would be haunted forever by the shrill cries in that room as this outburst lasted for a few minutes. It was if this couple were afraid to kiss, knowing how much their families and friends had invested in them, in watching them. Perhaps they were embarrassed by the religiosity of the room gawking at them. that they knew that they were objects of all of these emotional projections and fixed gazes. Or perhaps they were not really in love at all and it was all arranged by "the church". I just couldn't tell because all emotion was veiled behind this private language - this arcane and ritualized vocabulary of Jesus. This experience greatly depressed me and soured me on the idea of marriage for some time.

What follows is an account of one of the most awkward, absurd and ultimately mystifying conversations and/or lectures or pitches, hustles - I scarcely know how to classify it - I had ever encountered in my life to that point.

When the gig was over Bob was so happy with how I played that he came over to me as soon as we finished playing, excited and exuberant. With a cry of "Praise the Lord", he handed me an envelope that appeared to contain evening's pay in the form of a check.

I quickly opened it to look inside and saw it was a check. I read the writing. It was the amount promised. I looked at that check for a long time while Bob waited. I was tempted to do the Groucho Marx bit and throw the check down on the floor, which, owing to the laws of gravity, never entirely insults the other party since thin paper usually hits the floor without a bounce. Bob was offended though that I opened the envelope so early.

"Ah Mitch. This man is a Christian. It is a Christian bank account. No fear. The devil is not at work here. This is Christian music. Satan free zone."

I was so used to hearing about Christian music shops and Christian dentists that the prospect of a Christian bank account didn't seem so improbable.

Bob went on further.

"Mitch it was so beautiful and joyous for you to come to this holy affair with us and share the spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ like this with us."

"Why thank you."

"Did you enjoy sharing Jesus with us today?"

(I suppose this was their way of saying the gig went well.)

"Yes. You all played well."

"It sure is great sharing the Lord isn't it?"

"Yes."

"Isn't the Lord Jesus Christ great? He is just so great and perfect. He makes all of this possible. He made this wedding possible. He made you and I possible. He made music possible! He created music." Bob gave me a big hug and I moved back a bit, wishing some space.

"Great invention, music. Couldn't agree more."

"Mitch you play so great me and the boys wanted to ask you a deep and spiritual question."

"Okay. Go ahead." I doubt his question was as deep as my dread.

"Would you like to take a trip and go share the Lord Jesus Christ with us?"

I paused for a moment.

"Take a trip to share Jesus? I am not sure. What exactly do you mean? I'll have to look at my calendar...Wait. What does that mean?"

"It would be a great opportunity to work on your faith and share Jesus with us. It won't cost anything. It'll be like today. It will be rewarding spiritually as well as financially."

"When you say share Jesus with us, what do you mean? I mean I have my own church", I answered, "and I am not much for travel and retreats or that sort of thing. I have my own way of studying the Bible."

"Are you sure your way is true Christianity though? I wonder, Mitch. You know we were noticing that you don't share your faith out loud like we all do. You don't talk about how you are with the Lord Jesus Christ. We can sure hear the Lord in your playing. But how about in your talk? How will you spread the Gospel? It is not enough to keep it to yourself. You have a duty as a Christian. The boys and I have chosen you. That means the Lord Jesus Christ might have something.. a plan for you. Hey Mitch. Not to criticize you or anything but why did you not seem happy when the bride and groom kissed? That kiss was so passionate and loving. We were all praising Jesus and and sharing in the spirit of the Holy Ghost and you seemed to just look at the piano."

"Well I was nervous because I didn't know when I was going to come in with the piano part. I was concentrating. I don't know the music as well as you guys and I was focusing on that."

"Isn't that a great couple? Isn't it a joy for a couple to be married through our Lord Jesus Christ like that? Think of all of those sad marriages without Jesus present! What a waste!"

"They seemed like nice people."

"Well getting back to the band. Me and the boys think Jesus has a plan for each of us. And you know what Mitch? Jesus...he has a plan for YOU!"

"Oh He does? You talked to Him?" I asked with the straightest of faces.

"In our church we speak to Jesus directly. That is the only way. We are a beautiful Christian fellowship. We would be so honored to have you come share Jesus with us. Your piano playing is a gift the Lord wants you to share."

"But Bob... my focus is music you understand. If you want me to play a concert or a gig I can do that if it the pay and quality are comparable to what we did today, but you haven't said when or where we are going to be 'sharing Jesus'. You haven't explained what it is you want me to do."

"Well we call it sharing Jesus. But what that means is I have this beautiful cabin in the woods, near the Berkshires. It is a Christian cabin in a Christian community. You know its mostly Jewish up there, but just wait. The Lord wants to spread the news there too! When I say share Jesus I mean that I have this state of the art recording studio in the woods and we want to record a Christian album. It is a Christian recording studio. And you can stay overnight there. No fee. We will PAY you to share Jesus with us..I mean record this record. Don't worry about that. Hundreds of dollars to record with us. And we have this lovely girl who has just joined our church and gotten saved. Oh her life was the lowest you can imagine. Just bad family. Real Satanic influence. But then Jesus won this time, boy. She came to Jesus. And now she sings like an angel. She sings like... you ever hear Blossom Dearie? Like if Blossom Dearie were Christian. You would get to perform with this girl. Can you imagine her singing our tune Save Me? How powerful she would be?"

"Well..I'll have to look at my calendar."

"The only problem see...is this girl is really beautiful and you know I'm a Christian. And you know the Lord wants me to be Christ-like and I don't look at her as purely as I should as purely as HE wants me to. Did you ever watch the show Dukes Of Hazard? Well this girl looks like Daisy Buchanan on that show. But she dresses Christian, I mean modestly. Don't worry about that."

"Is she part of this same church you guys go to?"

"Yes. You'll get to perform with her. She sounds like Blossom Dearie and looks like.. I remember who that was...Catherine Bach and lives a Christian life. She will have no sex before marriage you know. She has a new life now. She is reborn.

"Well, Bob. I think I get the general picture. I appreciate the offer and the compliments but you know, I have this offer from this great jazz sextet, and they play like all of the Art Blakey arrangements. It is really more the kind of music I've always wanted to play since I was a child. So thank you very much, but I am sorry that I have some other things planned for the season."

I went home the following day, deposited that check, and never called this band nor heard from them again.

Notes On Two Concertos

On Tuesday, April 26th, if all goes well in the digital world, I should see the welcome and long overdue release of two concertos I had written a few years ago. Since this release is an austere matter, it being available on itunes, Amazon and their ilk, rather than in, say, a fancy edition with a booklet and notes I thought I should write a blog containing personal notes on my own music.

I had thought writing on the music of Ahmad Jamal and Wayne Shorter was difficult enough, but to write on one's own music seems the hardest. I shall write briefly, with both a musical and general audience in mind, and also indulge in a little polemic concerning why I write the way I do.

THE FOUR HUMOURS (From Robert Burton's Anatomy Of Melancholy) Concerto for flute, clarinet, and orchestra

The longer and most ambitious work is The Four Humors a double wind concerto for flute, clarinet and orchestra. The clarinetist is Richard Stoltzman, the flutist Michael Finegold. Though Stoltzman is arguably the more famous of the two, both are equals in terms of virtuosity and versatility. Since both are skilled in both the jazz and classical worlds, I made sure to include an enormous amount of jazz language in their parts, modern bebop in particular.

Though the piece follows a traditional three movement structure, I decided to make the three movements musically continuous with no breaks, using transitional figures to bridge what are essentially two musical styles, one which is rooted in Latin American and South American dance rhythms, the other being austere and haunting in mood, rooted in European baroque and neoclassical traditions. The title comes from Robert Burton's Anatomy Of Melancholy (1621). Starting with Hippocrates and extending well into the 18th century, there was this doctrine of the four humors: sanguine, choleric, melancholic, phlegmatic. These referred not only to four substances in the body, the excess or deficiency of which were believed to be the cause of illnesses, but also four states of consciousness, or even personality types. Of course the doctrine, taken literally, is false, but as I was inspired by the wit and deep wisdom of Burton's book, and above all by the idea of extreme contrast, I thought the metaphor of four temperaments could provide a model for musical language as well.

In the first movement I begin with a (literal) bang, sounding the motif that determines the whole piece: the interval of the third. The use of the grace note, however sets the stage for the indeterminancy between minor and major that is a hallmark of the blues scale and other expansions of the "major/minor system". This sets the stage for an Afro-Cuban vamp over and under which the two soloists play jazz lines.

However, since the piece of music is about extreme contrasts, such as one would see in dramatic personality changes, the middle movement is longer than usual. It is asymmetrical and in such contrast to the first as to be from a different piece of music entirely. However a close listening will reveal the underlying motive of the third. The austerity of the lines gives way to a brief burst of unabashed romanticism (for about two measures) of the kind rarely heard in contemporary concert music before a return to a dryer or more restrained climate.

The third movement is a return to the impish or jaunty spirit of the first, except the dance quality is even more explicit and developed, based on a motif in fact from Brazilian composer Antonio Carlos Jobim: Waters Of March, also based on the motivic interval of the third. The last movement is quite minimalist in spirit since it uses repetition rather than traditional development of motifs. Indeed the entire movement is a repetition of what jazz players call a "turnaround", normally an in-between transition to get to or from a main section of music. I use the same four bars for the duration of the movement, with the addition of whatever the soloists decide to add to complicate the score. Since the movement is the turnaround, it aids the meaning of The Four Humors: to combine ideas of trance-like consciousness one finds in minimalist and some dance related popular work with the kind of chromaticism and harmonic development one normally finds in both jazz improvisation and classical concert music so that there is a balance between repetition and variation.

A POLEMICAL AND PERSONAL ASIDE:

Both The FOUR HUMORS and The SWINGING SEVENTIES are explicit about and in the use of popular elements. I had always thought that contemporary composers had a great opportunity to use elements of jazz and rock and other popular musics. It seemed to me the only thing preventing their use would be a dogma against tonality per se and a desire to compose strictly within a serialist or aleatoric structure. I was also aware that popular themes could be expanded and in many cases improved upon through extra effort.

At one time, in high school, I was rather interested in going down a strictly avant-garde road. I was excited about mid to late 20th century composers. However jazz was one of my first loves and I wanted my own music to have lots of jazz in it. Moreover, the kind of jazz I loved was more classic in character.

My decision to not pursue that kind of strict avant-garde music came from my experience playing in a big band and my wondering what would happen in a composer decided to use some of the language one normally finds in "commercial" music but without the restrictions of a strict arrangement. Why had classical composers, at least those outside film scoring, or other than exceptions like George Gershwin, refused to use elements of a Count Basie or Thad Jones in their music? Could it be an assumption that tonality had exhausted itself? Could it be that the conviction that popular song was to be kept separate from concert writing? Such divisions would have been unknown in the 19th century.

That is, I suspected there was still a lot to be done within the major, minor, and modal systems. Once thing I was struck by were the voicings of the big band writing and the sticking with extensions of basic triadic harmony. I felt the coloration of these basic harmonies was lost when composers used structures that disavowed or extended those structures to outside of the triad altogether. (Conversely of course, people like Boulez or Elliot Carter make things possible not found in these simpler big band arrangements).

The question I came up against was one of form and feeling. Certain musical effects create rather specific meanings and I had to decide what I wanted to communicate. I also really liked certain things in Geroge Gershwin and Duke Ellington and wanted to hear things like them in music for the concert hall. Out of these ideas I eventually formed my own musical style. As George W. S. Trow concludes in his masterful book My Pilgrim's Progress: "I laughed and I thought to myself, 'Well you can't help who you love'."

In the terms set out by Theodor Adorno in his book Philosophy of Modern Music, I decided Adorno was wrong and I choose Stravinsky over Schoenberg.

THE SWINGING SEVENTIES, Flute soloist, orchestra, one drummer:

The second concerto, The Swinging Seventies, is an outrageous piece, at once serious and a bit of a joke. I had wondered what would happen if I were to write a jazz flute concerto but use elements of commercial disco and R&B, but in the context of a classical concerto setting. One of the reasons I did this is that I wanted the audience to have to listen without distraction, and in a concert hall, to a musical style not normally associated with close attentive listening. Moreover I wanted to write one of the most difficult flute parts I could, since I had a flutist who was more than up to the challenge, a flute part that had the appearance of an improvisation, but would be all written. I started out with these patterns you heard in a lot of funk, but then decided to distort them, much in the way Charles Ives would have distorted the folk material he used. There are some fairly blatant quotations in the piece but it was written mainly as way to show off the gifts of flutist Mike Finegold and also to try to push ideas of using popular material as far as I could while still being fairly complex about musical development. Like The Four Humors, the whole piece has no movement breaks and builds in tension until the end, when it it becomes most dissonant, using polytonality in the orchestra and the soloist. There is a continuous beat from beginning to end as in rock and funk music. The piece is an experiment in destroying the boundaries of genres and labels.

The critical listener will hear that I give the acoustic basses and cellos lines duplicating the playing of electric bassists from the seventies. I was excited to take these great inventions of that decade and give them a seat on the stage of a concert hall. My intent was to try and force the listener, if that is not too strong a word or motive, to treat such motives as having intrinsic aesthetic value rather than as background music or for dancing. For this I was heavily criticized by music critics. But other artists in other art forms had been doing similar things, using unconventional material in new environments. I saw disco musical elements as colors in my palette. In this sense, the work has connections to conceptual art. My use of funk and disco is like John Cage's use of silence: a way of getting the listener to ask questions about what music is and is for and about how we organize boundaries separating the popular from the unpopular.

Without getting overtly programmatic about it, the piece tries to express, in musical terms, the dilemma of the sexual revolution in the 1970s. That is why the tension builds. It is rare that I use a single composer as stylistic inspiration for an entire piece of music, but Charles Ives' collagist ideas were a model for this work.

I decided to use a drummer on the concerto, one with some background in funk drumming. I had hoped the piece would be both fun and a provocation.

I hear all of the world's music as having certain connections. My music does not respect the usual boundaries of genre. The only matter upon which I insist in my music is that it have dramatic value and take the listener somewhere in the course of the piece.

NOW AVAILABLE ON itunes CON MOTO Modern Works For Orchestra Volume 1 Parma recordings

http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/con-moto-modern-works-for/id434517570?ls=1

An Evening With Wayne Shorter

In February I had the opportunity to witness the current Wayne Shorter Quartet, featuring Danilo Perez on Piano, Brian Blade on drums, and John Pattituci on bass. It would be folly on my part to think that I could give a written account of the music played on that concert that would do the music justice. But some general remarks are in order.

The quartet played for over two hours an interrupted piece of music. It appeared to have many movements, the sections ebbed and abated, transformed and led into one another. The raw material was in every respect rooted in all of the language of modern and contemporary jazz and yet it was clear that, with the absence of performance conventions involving clearly delineated solos, and applause, regular song forms, and other practices, the entire evening was as close any jazz concert could be to a thoroughly written contemporary concert piece. Though there was a lengthy score on stage, it was also clear that a great deal of it was as improvised as in any traditional small group jazz concert.

I am not sure all of the audience was prepared for it. It was music that required deep focus and concentration. As rooted as it was in the popular it was equally rooted in highest art traditions.

Wayne Shorter is now seventy-eight years old. Given his involvement in the so-called jazz fusion movement in groups like Weather Report, his origins with the likes of Miles Davis, and his great duo with pianist Herbie Hancock, he is a master of any style of music. Yet Shorter has been all of his life working towards what he is now giving the music world. There were hints of it before, especially in his duos with Hancock, but Shorter, is achieving his greatest musical triumph now: a vision of music where jazz, classical concert music, and popular rhythm are so thoroughly merged that what is performed in concert can be compared in quality to any of the written compositions of a Bartok and have all of the performed intensity of any of the improvisations of jazz masters in the previous century.

I heard Schoenberg and Hindemith as much as Scriabin. But I also heard Funk and Latin music in there too. I heard enough music for a desert island.

The tenor saxophone that he plays has had so many great players coming out of a post John Coltrane tradition. The recently departed players Michael Brecker and Bob Berg were part of this post- Coltrane tradition as was Joe Farrell. There have been so many losses to the jazz saxophone world. Many saxophonists coming out of the big bands of the sixties and seventies created this highly linear and hard edged, expressive style owing to Coltrane. Then there was the influence of the mighty Joe Henderson and this can be heard in a player like Javon Jackson. When I hear the well received Joe Lovano I often think of Warne Marsh, an underrated "West Coast" cat who is clearly an influence on Lovano. I could go on about all of the important saxophonists and there are many I don't have the space to include.

Yet Wayne Shorter is rarer still. He is sui generis. Like Ahmad Jamal on the piano in my last musical blog, Wayne Shorter invented a sound and an approach all his own, that seemed as original as anybody could be on an instrument (even conceding the influence of Lester Young). What is so rare about Shorter is that he plays the saxophone with an approach completely outside of the dominant tradition of long lines. Shorter is a great lyricist; he believes in melody and phrase above all. This conviction colors his writing as much as his playing. In his commitment to this type of comparitively shorter lyrical gesture, I believe the only comparable figure on a wind or brass instrument would have to be Miles Davis.

But this evening of music which, judging from the youtube excerpt above, is a work that has traveled for a few years, was a genuine development for improvised music. There have been attempts at this kind of thing in the past but there were two great flaws: a lack of immediate and genuine integration of musical styles, and secondly a rejection of tonality in favor of a purely NOISE or nontonal practice.

Wayne Shorter's current music is completely in the tonal tradition yet it has all of the abandon, surprise and at times dissonance you could find in noise based avant-garde practices in the sixties. And yet it is firmly tonal and melodic, fully flavored by the traditional modes. This shows that one needn't abandon older musical languages to make original music, that those languages are not dead but that it takes the imagination of four great artists to make fresh music out of that language. Every soloist was superb: Brian Blade and pianist Perez deserve special mention, but this was like a string quartet: all players equal, all parts contributing to a whole greater than the sum of any part.

The one characteristic in this new work is the beautiful melodic approach that is Shorter's metier.

Please take an opportunity to see this quartet should they come to your city or town. You will be seeing a great part of jazz and musical history.