This Site Managed By
Rick Held
Sideman Solos
Purpose of this Blog:There is one frustrating thing about playing in the Eddie Piccard Quartet: many of our good friends can’t hear us every time we play, yet they are interested in the Quartet and would like to hear more about what we are doing and where we are doing it. The purpose of this blog is to give a running account, from my own point of view, of what life is like in and for this band. I will be happy to hear questions/comments/suggestions at richmartin@mchsi.com
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August 8th, 2010
There have been a lot of old friends in recently. Steve and Marie DeVries, John and Jana Klein, Rick and Angie Held. And there are new friends, people one spots immediately because they clearly love the music: Lisa Gilchrist & Steve Gritman (who came back and brought the parents along), Donald Fritze and Mary English. And three young guys who are already right with it when they come in the side door, before they even get to a table: Kevin Murtha, Zach Gignac, Jacob Rouse.
Carolyn Palmer stopped by recently (I mentioned her in an earlier blog) and she brought along Jesse Evans. Jesse started the jazz program at Cornell College. I think he joined that faculty about five years before I did, so by the time I came along he had the program up and running. He not only turned out a good band every year, but he also brought some distinguished visitors to the campus. Like Joe Pass, Sonny Rollins, Bill Evans, Phil Woods. Nice bunch of people to have visit the school.
But this is not a Christmas letter and it is not a Facebook entry. So why am I so persistent in thinking about who comes? It is important that people come, of course, because a band is part of a business enterprise and the cash register is as important to the band as it is to the club manager. So it is important that people come, period. But it is important to the music who it is that comes and how they behave.
Because? If we think about what makes for a good jazz performance, we would all list the following things: talent and training in the musicians, cohesiveness in the group, how members of the band are feeling. And we would also list some subtleties–like time of day, details of setting, atmosphere of the place.
But here is a critically important factor: the audience. The audience is so important that I almost want to risk a mathematical proposition: good audience=good performance; bad audience=bad performance.
What makes for a good audience? People are ready to listen, and not just ready to listen but appreciative. They will be talking with each other, of course, and enjoying the evening socially, but they will be courteous both to the musicians and to those around them. They know that the music is not just a background noise. Something is happening. The improvisation they are hearing will not happen again, not in just this way. They are responsive, ready to applaud solos, feeling the beat.
The effect of a good audience on the music is immediate. Response shapes the song. It shapes the night. Audience response recharges the batteries. One feels like reaching, playing more, playing better.
Sometimes when it’s swinging Eddie will joke that we’re going to go on playing until 4:30 in the morning. When the audience is digging the music, it sounds like a good idea.
June 23th, 2010
“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
So said Faulkner. He was talking about the South, about history, but he could have been talking about music, about jazz. He could have been talking about my own experience recently when we played “Flying Home.”
“Flying Home” was Lionel Hampton’s signature song. It was usually the last number on the program, and it was a thrill to hear it start because you knew that there was a wild tenor sax solo on the way, that the band would keep building, that whatever was left of the roof would blow off.
So it was exciting to me when Eddie called Hamp’s song.
But there are also memories inside of songs, and they all lead to what happens when one solos. Sometimes we don’t remember even what the memory is, but in this case I’m lucky. I do.
There are two parts to this story. Somewhere in the late 40s a young tenor sax named Illinois Jacquet became part of Hampton’s big band. One night it was time to play “Flying Home.” There are many versions of what happened to Jacquet, but it went something like this. As he was rising from his chair to solo, fellow-saxman Marshall Royal tugged on his sleeve. “I’ve heard you sound like Prez,” he said, “and I’ve heard you sound like Hawk. Now–go for yourself.”
Jacquet’s solo made such a mark that some musicians have called it “Flying Home, Part Two.”
And here’s Part Two of my story. A few years ago on a gig in Kalona, I met Conti Milano, an old friend of Eddie Piccard’s. Conti sat in with our band on bass. He once played bass with the Buddy Rich band. That will tell you what a strong bass he was.
On a break, he and I started talking about music and about “Flying Home.” I was enough younger than Conti that he didn’t think I would know who originated that great tenor sax solo. He didn’t think I would know even after I named Jacquet. “Do you know the solo I mean?” he asked, and began quietly singing it. And there we sat, in the outdoor lounge of the Tuscan Moon, at a nicely decorated table, under the patio umbrella, singing together Illinois Jacquet’s solo.
When I launched into my first chorus on “Flying Home” last week, I found myself playing something like Jacquet’s solo. But I wasn’t thinking of Jacquet. I was thinking of Conti Milano, in the outdoor lounge of the Tuscan Moon, at a nicely decorated table, under the patio umbrella, singing Illinois Jacquet’s solo.
My second chorus was something of my own. The out-riff was all Hamp’s.
“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
June 13th, 2010
Well, there are ups and downs. Two great people died recently: Lena Horne and Hank Jones. Lena Horne was a real stylist; she had a great career in spite of the problems our world put in her way because of her race. Years and years ago I bought the LP “Lena Horne at the Waldorf Astoria.” It is a great performance.
Hank Jones, one of “the Jones boys,” played with everybody. I probably remember him best as a member of assorted jam sessions or behind Ella Fitzgerald.
Those deaths are downers, but here’s an up: our technology lets us see/hear them in action after they are gone. A little searching on www.jazzonthetube.com will bring either back to the stage.
That technology is a definite up. There are two (at least) email distribution lists dedicated to keeping jazz lovers happy. Each one of them sends me a film clip every morning showing one of the greats in action. Just recently I’ve seen Charlie Parker, Ella, Buddy Rich. Duke Ellington with Johnny Hodges. This morning Errol Garner was here, playing “Earl’s Theme.” Good company to start the day with.
Here’s another up. A blog or so ago I mentioned the fun of having Mount Vernon people come to see us. That comment must have gone out on the ether waves or something. A couple of weeks back I met John and Jana Klein, then a week later their neighbors Steve and Marie DeVries. And the night after that in came Shannon Reed and Dick Peterson. Steve and Shannon and Dick are all Cornellian friends from my former life and good friends in this current life.
And speaking of Cornellians, Tiffany Clark and Mehrdad Zarifkar were there, along with a friend whose name I’m sorry I did not catch. We will be playing their wedding very soon. I know that because Jackie and I returned from a trip some weeks ago and found a tree limb across the street in front of our house. The city’s volunteers arrived in their truck to move the tree, but the first guy out of the truck didn’t go toward the tree. He came first to where I was standing and told me enthusiastically that I was going to play for his wedding. Then he took care of the tree. It’s a good life, and I am definitely looking forward to that wedding.
So what’s going on in my musical life? Sambas, bossa novas, and the like. I grew up (acknowledgment of age) listening to Count Basie and Benny Goodman and Jazz at the Philharmonic and lots of other people all of whom agreed on the basic and general principle that there are four beats to the bar and beats two and four are accented slightly when things get excited. Then Dizzy Gillespie came back from a visit to Cuba with a suitcase full of other rhythmic ideas and Stan Getz saw a young lady on a beach in Brazil and . . . . Well, ok, that won’t do as history or as a history of jazz, but it will serve as an intro to what I’m doing.
Eddie has played three or four songs lately which are new to me and which I want to learn. As is always the case, it isn’t just a matter of memorizing notes, but of letting your head and heart get a sense of the song. “You have to think Portugese,” Eddie said about one tune. He doesn’t mean a language class. We played “Samba de Orfeu” recently. Eddie nodded his head and I found myself launched into a solo. It is a fascinating, moving, and exhilarating all at the same time to find yourself thinking and feeling in a brand new way.
June 7th, 2010
José
“Jazz on a Summer’s Day” is a great film, made at the Newport Jazz Festival 1958. It has many splendid moments: Anita O’Day relaunching her career with”Sweet Georgia Brown,” Louis Armstrong and Jack Teagarden meeting once again, Mahalia Jackson singing the midnight rain into subsiding. After all, it was Sunday morning.
But this isn’t a film review. It came into my mind because of a gig we played Saturday 6/5. Mount Vernon hosted a Chocolate Stroll for the day, and we finished things off with a concert in the gazebo in Memorial Park. It was a marginally rainy day, undecided clouds coming and going, some gnats taking advantage of the moments in between breezes. In short, it was a perfect day–as it always is once the music starts to roll.
I was told later that a butterfly lingered at the scene. Good. I was having a great time. It was fun to play in my home town and see a lot of friends in the audience. It is always fun to bring jazz into the outdoors, into communities, into festivals, into celebratory occasions. Jazz knows about the blues. We all know about the blues. And maybe that’s why this is a music of joy and of our coming together
Ok. I’ll turn off the vaguely philosophical gear that jumped in there. This was a great day. ‘Nuff said.
And indeed it was a great week-end. Friday 6/4–the day before the Mount Vernon gig–we played at a wine tasting at Vineria, on Blair’s Ferry Road. This was originally supposed to be an outside scene, but weather uncertainty prompted José (he and Melissa are the owners) to move things inside. Good move. The physical set-up inside Vineria, as José arranged it for this day, was perfect.
And Vineria is a great place for such events. To steal from Robert Frost, “I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.” The wines are there for the tasting, the people are there to do the tasting (very nice crowd), it’s party time.
I heard from a lot from people at the end of the gig. They loved the music. So did José and Melissa. I think we are going to play at Vineria again August 6th and October 1st. I’m looking forward to it. True, it’s a little hard on my budget as a working musician because Vineria has so many good wines to offer that I can’t resist re-investing some of what I make on the job. Ah, but art always has its price.
Favorite songs? Hard to say. “I Love Being Here with You” would be a good candidate because Jon made it swing so nicely. People often look to a drummer for the show–speed, dexterity, etc. Jon can provide that. He can do a lot of fancy stuff. But the hardest and most important part of the drummer’s job–and something that people don’t always notice–is getting a good swinging beat established and then maintaining it through the song. That beat propels–it makes one want to play, to solo, to invent.
“ Every Day I Have the Blues” is another candidate. Once again, a swinging beat. Swinging so much that Eddie was forced to grab his harmonica and blow some additional blues choruses. Very nice.
May 14, 2010
Hm. I was going to say that this has been a good stretch of time for the band, but my internal editor clicked in and asked if it is ever not a good time. Good point. What is wonderful about this musical life is the many kinds of happiness it brings.
Think, first, of the delight in seeing the people who come in. Although they have heard the band several times, I haven’t met Allison Bouska and Nathan Parsons before. I’m glad to know them now. I noticed them moving right along with the beat so I got their names right away to put on the band’s mailing list. Good listeners add so much energy to the show.
Who else has been in recently? David and Micki Brost, old friends of the Piccards who enjoy dancing to our music; John Harp-- John was a colleague of mine in my former life at Cornell College; Cary J. Hahn and Jean--Cary is well-known as The Iowa Traveler and as host of “Big Band Memories” on KCCK every Sunday afternoon 1:00-3:00.
Carolyn Palmer, her daughters Mary and Barb, and grandson Josh and his friend Sarah added their energy to our audience . Carolyn was a music teacher when our kids were young; they have fond memories of her classes.
And, of course, there is joy in the music. There’s a special excitement when a song really takes off. There is no predicting when that will happen or what song it will be. As I’ve said before, the evening starts with a couple of warm-up tunes. By the third song this particular band has generally found its groove and things will swing for the evening. But sometimes there comes a song which reminds one of Mt St Helens or the current volcano in Iceland. It simply explodes
A couple of weeks ago it was “Bernie’s Tune.” I don’t know who wrote that, but I first heard it on a Gerry Mulligan recording. It always has a lot of energy but this night it took charge.
More recently, there were several but two stand out. “Comin’ Home Baby” got a lot of audience response and that always makes a tune go. Earlier, the third song of the evening, in fact, we did “Back Home Again in Indiana.” Armstrong played that one. I suppose everybody has played it. But, hey, I’m from Indiana. My family sang that song. When my own kids were little, the kids and my wife Jackie insisted every time we crossed the state line into Indiana that I sing the song and scat sing a chorus.
Now don’t misunderstand me. I’m a calm, reflective type, not given to substance abuse and not prone to delusions. But music does have the power to evoke or invoke. When I started into my solo I could “feel” friends gathering–Armstrong, yes, but also my parents, now long gone, my siblings, now a good deal more mature, my kids, now long past the “kid” stage of their lives. Music is a creating, but it is also a sharing. When you play a song, you are walking with those who have played it or sung it before. You are in good company, but you have a real responsibility.Anticipation is also part of the fun–looking forward to playing in different places, different settings. We will appear at a wine-tasting at Vineria June 4, 5:30-7:30. The very next day, June 5, we will appear at a brand new event--The Chocolate Stroll--in Mount Vernon, my home town.
What did Jackie Gleason say? “How sweet it is!”
April 13, 2010
Two disclaimers at the outset:
(1) I am not a trained musician. I’m more like a musician-in-training. An apprentice. That’s the way jazz was taught/learned in the old days. The perspective in this blog is that of the new kid in town, the outsider coming in.
(2) This blog is attached to the web page of the Eddie Piccard Quartet. So what is Eddie’s connection to it? Since it is his band and his web page, I show him each entry before it is published here as a matter of courtesy. He has only suggested a couple of changes.
In visiting with the audience during breaks, I have been asked several questions about the songs we play. Do we always play the same thing? Is there any order to the songs? Do we always play certain songs at certain times? Do I know what is coming next?
Last question first: no, I do not know what is coming next. Eddie chooses the songs as the night goes along. In picking each song he is thinking about the time of night, the mood of the room, and who is in the audience.
But there is more to it than that. In jazz, bands have both personalities and traditions. The “personality” is a composite of the people who make up the band. Change one member or have somebody sit in and you will hear a different sound, a different way of feeling tunes.
Traditions have a more permanent nature. One of the queries listed above--“Do you play certain tunes at certain times?”–is a more complicated question because the questioner was picking up on something in the way any good jazz band operates.
Here are some examples from the Big Band Era. Some bands have “beginnings.” The Duke Ellington Orchestra opened with “Take the A Train.” Glenn Miller started with “Moonlight Serenade.” (Wonderful sounds, both.) Other bands did not have specific openers, but did have closers. You knew that it was the end of the night when Count Basie swung into “One O’Clock Jump.” Same for Lionel Hampton and “Flying Home.”
The Eddie Piccard Quartet has its own habits, though they are not as fixed as the ones I have mentioned. When playing in a lounge, we often begin with “East of the Sun,” followed by “Wave.” I’m not sure I would call those “theme songs,” but they serve an important function beyond leading off the night. They give us a chance to get into a “group groove,” to establish the feeling that we are playing together. That sense of group enterprise does not come automatically. We have all heard bands that never reach it, that don’t pass beyond the sense that they are just a bunch of people all playing something at the same time.
We do not have a regular closing song. Sometimes we end with an up tempo number by Horace Silver, sometimes with a bluer song like “One for My Baby.” Sometimes we just play a little riff. The ending depends on the kind of night it has turned out to be, what those present have made of it.
Perhaps the strongest tradition in the Eddie Piccard Quartet doesn’t involve the beginning or the end of the evening, but the end of a set–what we do just before we go on break. We have some favorite “set closers.”
Back in the days of Gene Krupa and Harry James in the great Benny Goodman band, tunes like these were called “Killer Dillers.” They are up tempo tunes that swing like crazy and where every member of the band gets to stretch out in a solo.
These numbers are really fun to play, though they do leave one ready for a break. Some of our favorites (and often requested) are “Seven Come Eleven,” “Lady Be Good,” and “Avalon.” I love them all, but especially “Avalon,” because it was a Lionel Hampton tune.
March 31, 2010In the old days, ballrooms used to schedule a “Battle of the Bands.” The idea was to host two of the well-known swing bands, let them take alternate sets on the stand, and draw in the fans of each to support their favorite and enjoy the general uproar. That was good for the business, for the bands, and for the music.
In our time the contest is between the band and some external event. Too often, these occasions are not especially good for the business, or for the band, or for the music. When the external event is “March Madness” a band is up against it. If UNI is still in the tournament, then musicians in Iowa appreciate their faithful friends even more than usual.
Craig Dove, himself a first-rate musician, was there Friday night with wife Barbara and son Ryan. Barb Ross was there. Barb is a reasonably mature woman who has kindly said nothing about the contrast between her being in Antarctica recently doing just fine on a sled and my own falling down in a parking lot on a perfectly clear day and breaking my arm. Jerry Johnson is recovering from hip surgery; he’s been a little casual about walking better but now he’s concentrating because it’s almost time to join Eddie on the golf course.
There were several other friends there either Friday or Saturday night: William Hill, who has a quiet and dignified presence that always makes me think I should behave better; Joi Webb, an old friend of the Piccards; Jack Snetzler and Mary Ralston; Brandy Raschke and Steve Neel. As I write this I realize that it’s good for me to think about who was there. The audience is an important part of what happens in jazz.
And whatever else is happening, the music is always there. Jazz is a constant. On the way into the job I listened to a Lionel Hampton cd. Hamp was a master, of course, “The Vibraphone President of the United States.” I have revered Lionel Hampton since I was very young and I still do. There are many great vibists, but Hamp stands there still for me, an icon. He had an energy, a drive, that could not be resisted.But what struck me on this listening was the relentless support of his rhythm section–Milt Hinton, “The Judge,” on bass, and Grady Tate on drums. You can feel them gathering force in the opening chorus. By the time Hamp or one of the other soloists kicks in the thing is already swinging like crazy and the soloist can build on that swing.
I enjoy playing “Comin’ Home Baby,” a Herbie Mann tune, because I get the same kind of lift-off. Dave Green sets the tempo and the mood for that piece with a four bar bass introduction. Then Jon Wilson comes in on drums for another four bars, setting the rhythmic impulse. By the time I start the melody Dave and Jon have already generated a full head of steam and all I have to do is climb on.
When attendance is low or things are a little slow for some reason–that’s a dangerous time for a vibist. Eddie is apt to experiment a little. He might play a song which he hasn’t played since I joined the group. Then it’s up to me to decide if I can take a chorus or two. That is always an adventure. If you are listening closely, you can tell if I start to get off track. Ordinarily, in jazz, the pianist comps behind the soloist, complementing what the soloist is doing, aiding the rhythm, sometimes suggesting directions. But if I start to wander you will hear an unusually insistent chording from the piano. The rough translation from music into English is: OOPS. NOT THERE. GOES THIS WAY. THIS WAY. OK. THAT’S BETTER.
Often, we discover when we try a new (to me) tune that we feel it in the same way, or feel the same way about it, and it becomes part of our book, our repertoire. That means that I have to learn the song in a much deeper way, so I can improvise on it. Learning a song in that sense is a difficult but fascinating process for me. I’ll talk more about it in a future blog.
March 24, 2010
This last week-end was a bit of a comeback for me. I broke my arm a couple of weeks ago and couldn’t play at all on the week-end March 12-13. Friday night I was back in uniform, but Eddie spared me and did a lot of the work himself. Saturday night I was ready to go, and we could play those two great set-closers “Avalon” and “Lady Be Good.”We also played a song which I don’t think the Quartet has played since I joined: “Things Ain’t What They Used to Be.” I love that song. Sometimes a song evokes memories of other days, other musicians. This one calls up the great Duke Ellington band and the mellow alto sax of Johnny Hodges.
This was a week-end to see some old friends again and to make some new ones. John and Betty Rogers were with us Friday night. So were Rick and Angie Held (Rick runs Eddie’s web site) and Angie’s mother Nancy Cox. So were members of the Priske family--I hope I have the names right and spelled right–Karen, Todd, Marc and Jennifer. If I goofed on a name, I apologize, but I have one critical fact pinned down: Marc really likes Billie Holiday .
Saturday night brought Jon and Janet Reed, my neighbors from across the street, and they brought with them Cherie Wilson-White and Brian White. Having one’s neighbors stop by is not only fun, it generates some good applause. And the applause means that we can play another of my favorite songs–“Midnight Sun.” That one really calls up a friendly ghost–Lionel Hampton, the man who made the vibraphone famous when he played with the Benny Goodman Quartet. He is credited with writing “Midnight Sun” and he played it many times. He was part of the jazz world for something like 94 years.
Life in a band isn’t just about music. Often there is some action outside the music.Drummer Jon Wilson and his family keep a few ducks. The ducks lay eggs. Sometimes the ducks are more productive than Jon’s family really needs them to be. Sometimes, that is, the ducks lay too many eggs. Let me rephrase that. Sometimes the ducks Lay Way Too Many Eggs.
So Saturday night Jon was sharing the wealth. He gave my wife Jackie a dozen eggs when she was taking our grandchildren home from an early set. He placed a dozen eggs on the front seat of Dave Green’s car. He placed another dozen eggs on the seat of Eddie’s car.
I hope he has now caught up with the ducks or talked them into calming down. If not, who knows whose car is next?
March 23, 2010
Concert in Madison
It is always fun to appear in a new place and make new friends, and so it was in Madison in February.Farley’s House of Pianos sponsors a lot of live music, usually on the classical side. On February 21st they came over to the jazz side and featured the Eddie Piccard Quartet. It was a great place to play–good sound in the room, nice setting for both concert and reception. We drew a full house and a very responsive audience.
Initially, I was a little worried–not about the music, but about whether we would get Eddie to come back to Cedar Rapids. Farley’s provided a Steinway piano. Not just a Steinway. A Steinway which was 137 years old, which had wonderful sound over the full range of the keyboard, which even had real ivory keys. All that makes for a very happy piano player. It is a good thing for Cedar Rapids that Dallis lives there.
The audience was ready for jazz. We could hear little sighs of delight as Eddie announced each tune. We drew a lot of applause and made many new friends. It was a very swinging afternoon.
For about the last third of the concert we had a special guest, Greg Abate, from the New York/Rhode Island area, on alto sax. Greg is very much a bop musician, so his sound is a little different from the usual sound of our band, but the combination worked very well and generated some real musical excitement. Greg and Eddie joined in a version of “Angel Eyes” which was simply outstanding.
In bringing artists together at the very moment of the concert, the event caught the spontaneity so important to jazz–the essence of the art. Though Eddie had talked with Greg by phone, none of us had ever met him before. We all shook hands just before the concert started, chatted very briefly, and it was time for the music to begin.
And there was a nice surprise when the concert was over. Among the members of the audience who came up to shake hands and say how much they enjoyed the performance was the bass player Richard Davis. While he now teaches at the University of Wisconsin, I remember seeing him in New York, back in my younger days, when he played with the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis band. Check him out on the web! They don’t come much more famous than this guy.
