Friday, March 28, 2008

Sonny Rollins Comes to Zellerbach

The incredible Sonny Rollins comes to Berkeley's Zellerbach Hall, next Thursday, April 3rd, and begins a world tour that will take him to Japan, Europe and Brazil. When Rollins picks up the tenor saxophone, the world listens. "The last jazz immortal," according to the Village Voice, he is the most formidable of all improvisers and a living inspiration to musicians and listeners alike. Rollins first recorded in 1949 and today, he is one of the few surviving icons from a golden era of jazz that will probably never be equaled. Rollins chooses to "live lightly on the planet," and at the core of his humble lifestyle is a demanding practice regime, essential because of the tremendous demands he places on himself. Rather than exploit his fame, he chooses his creative venues carefully, working only when he likes and recording sporadically. Consequently, every Rollins live appearance sparkles like a rare gem, to be admired and treasured.

Theodore Walter Rollins was born on September 7, 1930 in New York City. He grew up in Harlem not far from the Savoy Ballroom, the Apollo Theatre, and the doorstep of his idol, Coleman Hawkins. After early discovery of Fats Waller and Louis Armstrong, he started out on alto saxophone, inspired by Louis Jordan. At the age of sixteen, he switched to tenor, trying to emulate Hawkins. He also fell under the spell of the musical revolution that surrounded him, Bebop.

He began to follow Charlie Parker, and soon came under the wing of Thelonious Monk, who became his musical mentor and guru. Living in Sugar Hill, his neighborhood musical peers included Jackie McLean, Kenny Drew and Art Taylor, but it was young Sonny who was first out of the pack, working and recording with Babs Gonzales, J.J. Johnson, Bud Powell and Miles Davis before he turned twenty.

"Of course, these people are there to be called on because I think I represent them in a way," Rollins said recently of his peers and mentors. "They're not here now so I feel like I'm sort of representing all of them, all of the guys. Remember, I'm one of the last guys left, as I'm constantly being told, so I feel a holy obligation sometimes to evoke these people."

In the early fifties, he established a reputation first among musicians, then the public, as the most brash and creative young tenor on the scene, through his work with Miles, Monk, and the MJQ.

Miles Davis was an early Sonny Rollins fan and in his autobiography wrote that he "began to hang out with Sonny Rollins and his Sugar Hill Harlem crowd...anyway, Sonny had a big reputation among a lot of the younger musicians in Harlem. People loved Sonny Rollins up in Harlem and everywhere else. He was a legend, almost a god to a lot of the younger musicians. Some thought he was playing the saxophone on the level of Bird. I know one thing--he was close. He was an aggressive, innovative player who always had fresh musical ideas. I loved him back then as a player and he could also write his ass off..."

Sonny moved to Chicago for a few years to remove himself from the surrounding elements of negativity around the Jazz scene. He reemerged at the end of 1955 as a member of the Clifford Brown-Max Roach Quintet, with an even more authoritative presence. His trademarks became a caustic, often humorous style of melodic invention, a command of everything from the most arcane ballads to calypsos, and an overriding logic in his playing that found him hailed for models of thematic improvisation.

It was during this time that Sonny acquired a nickname,"Newk." As Miles Davis explains in his autobiography: "Sonny had just got back from playing a gig out in Chicago. He knew Bird, and Bird really liked Sonny, or "Newk" as we called him, because he looked like the Brooklyn Dodgers' pitcher Don Newcombe. One day, me and Sonny were in a cab...when the white cabdriver turned around and looked at Sonny and said, `Damn, you're Don Newcombe!'' Man, the guy was totally excited. I was amazed, because I hadn't thought about it before. We just put that cabdriver on something terrible. Sonny started talking about what kind of pitches he was going to throw Stan Musial, the great hitter for the St. Louis Cardinals, that evening..."

In 1956, Sonny began recording the first of a series of landmark recordings issued under his own name: Valse Hot introduced the practice, now common, of playing bop in 3/4 meter; St. Thomas initiated his explorations of calypso patterns; and Blue 7 was hailed by Gunther Schuller as demonstrating a new manner of "thematic improvisation," in which the soloist develops motifs extracted from his theme. Way Out West (1957), Rollins's first album using a trio of saxophone, double bass, and drums, offered a solution to his longstanding difficulties with incompatible pianists, and exemplified his witty ability to improvise on hackneyed material (Wagon Wheels, I'm an Old Cowhand). It Could Happen to You (also 1957) was the first in a long series of unaccompanied solo recordings, and The Freedom Suite (1958) foreshadowed the political stances taken in jazz in the 1960s. During the years 1956 to 1958 Rollins was widely regarded as the most talented and innovative tenor saxophonist in jazz.

Rollins's first examples of the unaccompanied solo playing that would become a specialty also appeared in this period; yet the perpetually dissatisfied saxophonist questioned the acclaim his music was attracting, and between 1959 and late `61 withdrew from public performance.

Sonny remembers that he took his leave of absence from the scene because "I was getting very famous at the time and I felt I needed to brush up on various aspects of my craft. I felt I was getting too much, too soon, so I said, wait a minute, I'm going to do it my way. I wasn't going to let people push me out there, so I could fall down. I wanted to get myself together, on my own. I used to practice on the Bridge, the Williamsburg Bridge because I was living on the Lower East Side at the time."

When he returned to action in early `62, his first recording was appropriately titled The Bridge. By the mid 60's, his live sets became grand, marathon stream-of-consciousness solos where he would call forth melodies from his encyclopedic knowledge of popular songs, including startling segues and sometimes barely visiting one theme before surging into dazzling variations upon the next. Rollins was brilliant, yet restless. The period between 1962 and `66 saw him returning to action and striking productive relationships with Jim Hall, Don Cherry, Paul Bley, and his idol Hawkins, yet he grew dissatisfied with the music business once again and started yet another sabbatical in `66. "I was getting into eastern religions," he remembers. "I've always been my own man. I've always done, tried to do, what I wanted to do for myself. So these are things I wanted to do. I wanted to go on the Bridge. I wanted to get into religion. But also, the Jazz music business is always bad. It's never good. So that led me to stop playing in public for a while, again. During the second sabbatical, I worked in Japan a little bit, and went to India after that and spent a lot of time in a monastery. I resurfaced in the early 70s, and made my first record in `72. I took some time off to get myself together and I think it's a good thing for anybody to do."

In 1972, with the encouragement and support of his wife Lucille, who had become his business manager, Rollins returned to performing and recording, signing with Milestone and releasing Next Album. (Working at first with Orrin Keepnews, Sonny was by the early ’80s producing his own Milestone sessions with Lucille.) His lengthy association with the Berkeley-based label produced two dozen albums in various settings – from his working groups to all-star ensembles (Tommy Flanagan, Jack DeJohnette, Stanley Clarke, Tony Williams); from a solo recital to tour recordings with the Milestone Jazzstars (Ron Carter, McCoy Tyner); in the studio and on the concert stage (Montreux, San Francisco, New York, Boston). Sonny was also the subject of a mid-’80s documentary by Robert Mugge entitled Saxophone Colossus; part of its soundtrack is available as G-Man.

He won his first performance Grammy for This Is What I Do (2000), and his second for 2004’s Without a Song (The 9/11 Concert), in the Best Jazz Instrumental Solo category (for “Why Was I Born”). In addition, Sonny received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences in 2004.

In June 2006 Rollins was inducted into the Academy of Achievement – and gave a solo performance – at the International Achievement Summit in Los Angeles. The event was hosted by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg and attended by world leaders as well as distinguished figures in the arts and sciences.

“I am convinced that all art has the desire to leave the ordinary,” Rollins said in a recent interview for the Catalan magazine JaƧ, “and to say it one way, at a spiritual level, a state of the exaltation at existence. All art has this in common. But jazz, the world of improvisation, is perhaps the highest, because we do not have the opportunity to make changes. It’s as if we were painting before the public, and the following morning we cannot go back and correct that blue color or change that red. We have to have the blues and reds very well placed before going out to play. So for me, jazz is probably the most demanding art.”

And Sonny Rollins – seeker and grand master – is jazz’s most exacting, exhilarating, and inspiring
practitioner.

Sonny Rollins
with Clifton Anderson, Bobby Broom, Bob Cranshaw, Kimati Dinizulu and Jerome Jennings
Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley, CA @ 8 pm
Tickets $34, $48, $68

Friday, March 14, 2008

The Seven Stringed Wonders of Edo Castro

The Bay Area is home to some of the most talented and eclectic musicians I have ever seen; tonight at Berkeley's famed Cafe Trieste comes another such talent, the seven stringed bass virtuoso Edo Castro. Castro has performed with a plethora of jazz greats; Roy Haynes, Ed Thigpen, Johhny Griffin, Armando Peraza, Stu Hamm and Mark Egan, just to name but a few. His talented quartet, featuring the amazing saxophonist Charles Moselle, guitarist Erik Lindquist and drummer Alex Aspinall will be joining him and performing selections from his first album, the self-titled "Edo" as well as his critically acclaimed and Grammy nominated latest, "Phoenix". For those who have yet to see this incredible talent, tonight's performance is another wonderful opportunity you won't want to miss.

A native San Franciscan who grew up in the Haight-Ashbury during the 60’s, Castro has been called "an eclectic modern instrumentalist borrowing from jazz, ambient, folk and world music - a chameleon who adapts his musical surroundings to create his montage of compositions". “ I was influenced by Sly Stone, Tower of Power, Cold Blood and Santana. There was so much music going on, it was pratically oozing out into the neighborhood. You couldn’t help not being affected,” Castro recalls.

Castro was initially a self-taught bassist, but later attended the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago. “My Teachers were not only schooling me, they’d recommend me for gigs," Castro marveled. During his stay in Chicago he played with some of the finest young bloods of the music scene at that time, Jim Trumpeter, Fareed Haque, Mark Walker and Hassan Khan. Of course there were the jazz icons, Miles Davis, guitarist Pete Cosey and drummer Roy Haynes that Castro was fortunate enough to play with. Castro recalls," After playing a set with Roy Haynes, there was a bunch of us standing around talking to him and out of the blue Roy handed me his card and said, ‘Man when you’re ready, come to New York and give me a call. That was the greatest stamp of approval in front of all my peers.’ I’ve yet to get to New York and collect on that call.”

Castro soon completed his studies, earned his Bachelor of Music degree in 1987 and continued to hone his craft in Chicago. "Phoenix", Castro's latest CD, was released in 2006 to an enthusiastic crowd at the Larkspur's Sweetwater Cafe Theatre and in October of 2006, "Phoenix" made the 49th Annual Grammy entry list for "Best Contemporary Jazz Album."

In December 2003, Castro released his first solo effort of original music, simply titled “Edo”, and released under the fledgling Mill Valley Label, "Earthwire Records". Seven of the ten pieces were songs written using his myriad of 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 string fretted, fretless and MIDI basses, later adding some percussion, keyboards and guitar for “color”. “The last 3 tunes were written on pieces of paper and handed out to whomever would play them. Luckily for me I got some of the finest players in the Bay Area to interpret my music,” Castro enthused.

"46 West", the opening cut on the CD, sets the tone for this album and it's clear Castro's languid and thoughtful playing is influenced by the guitarist Pat Metheny. "Cause for Concern" and "Intuition" are also in that vein and fine examples of his matured writing. Not a one trick pony, Castro's renown solo bass playing comes to the fore on both albums as well; "The Waiting Cafe" and "Quietly" from his first effort, and "Song of Electric Whales" and "Chance of Rain" from "Phoenix" are simply gorgeous.

In 2006, Castro signed with a new label, Passion Star Records and his latest album "Phoenix", was co-produced and recorded by Larkspur engineer Ray Cooper. “The name Phoenix is not only a beautiful name, it's also the mythical representation of change or transformation" says Castro. "Phoenix is about transforming personal moments," Castro explained. Many wonderful musicians are featured on this album including Mark Egan, former bassist with Pat Metheny, who has played on over 100 albums and is a guest artist on Phoenix.

"Phoenix", also the title song on the album, is one of my favorite cuts and it's clear why it was a Grammy nominee. Other stellar songs from the CD include the tabla-flavored "Bone Dreams"; the beautifully crafted "Chance of Rain"; the grooving "Blue Asia" and a pleasantly surprising version of the classic "Amazing Grace", complete with a full choir.

Castro's group tonight will also feature the ridiculously talented Charles Moselle; part saxophonist, flautist, Tuvan throat singer and "hip-hop" percussionist all rolled into one. He has to be seen to be believed. Rounding out the quartet is the Scofield-flavoerd Lindquist and the crisp drumming of Aspinall. They'll be missing the equally awesome keyboardist Greg Sankovich, who thrilled the crowd during a recent show at Larkspur's Sweetwater Station, but don't let that stop you; Edo Castro and his band will not disappoint.


Edo Castro with Charles Moselle, Erik Lindquist and Alex Aspinall
Friday, March 14th, 8:00 PM
Cafe Trieste, Dwight & San Pablo, Berkeley, CA

Friday, March 7, 2008

Ten Mile Tide Returns: "Healing Loss with Music"

The group Ten Mile Tide first came to my attention via their wonderful guitarist Jason Munning and his work with Berkeley songwriter Cas Lucas and his band. Munning's laid back, yet beautiful, fluid style really complimented Lucas' originals, so much so that it compelled me delve into his own group, Ten Mile Tide. What I found I was a musical triumph amid personal tragedy. The last two years have been a rocky ride for this San Francisco-based Americana/Fiddle-rock sextet. Their band has gone from national success to burnout to tragedy and back again. Their first shows of 2008 began at the Fillmore's famed Poster Room last Saturday and continues through Sunday at Potrero Hill's Connecticut Yankee.

In January 2006, Ten Mile Tide was nominated for a Jammy for the New Groove of the Year. In March, they released their third and much anticipated self-titled album that redefined the band’s sound, and was met with strong reviews to debut in the Top 50 Americana charts in the U.S. and Europe. The quintet teamed up with Mt. High Booking out of Boulder, CO and found the selves touring extensively and profitably. From an outsider’s perspective, Ten Mile Tide seemed unstoppable, having played the major festivals, receiving regular audiences of 1000 +, and having a fan sponsored/organized festival held in their honor.

From the band mates’ perspective, the weekly rollercoaster between gigs, airports and hotel rooms, was beginning to cause what hard-working musicians refer to as “musician burnout”. They became frustrated and irritable, most often with the people they loved and lines of communication were failing. They decided Mulberry Mountain Music Festival, at the end of September 2006, would be their last show of the year—and the unspoken sentiment was it might be quite some time before their next tour; that is, if they were to tour again.

Less then a month into the hiatus, Ten Mile Tide was hit with a devastating tragedy. Nathan Munning--tour manager, best-friend, and adored little brother of the twins Jason and Justin Munning, overdosed and died on Oct. 16th, 2006, 24 days before his 27th birthday. Time stopped. The remaining days of 2006 and most of 2007 were dark times for the Munning twins. The absence of Nathan’s infectious energy left a gaping hole in their foundation. The twins struggled with grief, depression, heartache, and loneliness almost too powerful to bear.

“What helped me most was music. It took me a long time to be able to start channeling my sadness in the form of music, but once I did it was the most cathartic experience I could ever have. When I would get so sad that I couldn’t shake it, I picked up my guitar and played until the music I was playing matched what I was feeling,” recalls Jason. “Two years before Nathan died we played a show in Salmon, ID and a woman came up to me and told me that her best friend had just lost a son, and that our music was what got her and her family through—kept them breathing in and out and getting out of bed each morning. I was moved at the time but had no way of knowing just how powerful that was. Now I know. Music is the ultimate way of connecting on a deep emotional level with people.”

Ten Mile Tide put aside their differences and united in Nathan’s loss. “When your whole world is shattered by grief, nothing matters anymore.” says Jason, “Everything mundane is stripped away and you are left with the single most important thing - Love.”

The music community stepped up. Emails and phone calls from friends and fans poured in, offering heartfelt thoughts and urging them to continue playing. In the fall of 2007, Ten Mile Tide answered with a mini tour in the NorthEast, and returned to Mulberry Mountain; where the twins had last seen their brother alive. This circle confirmed their belief in each other and the music they together make.

Ten Mile Tide is looking forward to a rewarding 2008. They’re hitting their native state of California for a two week tour the end of February and into March, booking festivals, spring and fall national tours, and are working on songs for a new album. Nathan’s nature and spirit remain the inspiration for the Tide. “It’s been over a year and Nathan is still the first thing I think of when I wake up,” explains Jason, “the second thing is that I have to keep making music. And I have to keep playing with Ten Mile Tide. The band, the friends, the fans—these are my family and I need to be with them.”

Welcome them back and lift their spirits; their music will surely lift yours.

Ten Mile Tide
Sunday, March 8th @ the Connecticut Yankee
100 Connecticut Street, Potrero Hill, SF
415-552-4440