Why Jazz Matters: Track 1

Tim Wenger | April 1, 2014 | 0 Comments

by Norman Provizor

While no one has ever invited me to walk down a red carpet, I did get to walk next to one when I attended the 50^th edition of the Grammy Awards back in 2008. The show was filled with artists from Aretha Franklin, Tina Turner, Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis to Beyonce, Rihanna, Carrie Underwood, Alicia Keys and John Legend – with a live satellite performance from Amy Winehouse thrown in as well. Daft Punk was also there with Kanye West and it was the first time I had a chance to see the French techno-duo live.

But for me, as a life long jazz fan, the highlight by far was pianist Herbie Hancock accepting the Album of the Year award for River: The Joni Letters. As the great jazz pianist Hancock said, it was the first time in 43 years that a jazz recording walked away with the coveted Album of the Year Grammy. Back then it was the bossa-nova collaboration between jazz saxophonist Stan Getz and Brazilian guitarist/singer Joao Gilberto that took the prize. In 2008, it was Hancock’s tribute to the music of Joni Mitchell that went home with the award.

One might quibble, of course, with some details. After all, during the 43-year draught for jazz, two singers, who are, to say the least, strongly influenced by jazz (Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett) won for Album of the Year, while the jazz-trained, if pop-oriented, pianist/singer Norah Jones won it in 2003 for Come Away with Me released on one of the most famous labels in jazz history, Blue Note Records. On top of that, arranger/composer Quincy Jones, who has deep roots in jazz, also walked away with the award in 1991.

In any case, the recognition given to jazz, America’s great cultural creation that has captured the imagination of the world, is more than welcome, especially when you consider that in 2008 jazz (in all its forms) represented just over one percent of recording sales in the United States. Two years after Hancock’s win, the young, jazz bassist and vocalist Esperanza Spalding also delivered a shock wave when she captured the Grammy for Best New Artist over performers who were virtual household names. Still, jazz remains rather a stranger in its own land.

With a shrinking and aging audience in America, jazz might strike some as a dinosaur. But think about this. Daft Punk won the Album of the Year Grammy in 2014; and if you look at the personnel on the recording beyond Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers, you find a host of jazz-rooted players who were also on stage performing at the Grammy celebration. There were bassists James Genus (who has worked with Denver’s four-time Grammy recipient and jazz singer Dianne Reeves), Nathan East, Chuck Berghofer, guitarist Paul Jackson Jr. and drummer Omar Hakim (who was part of Weather Report, co-led by the jazz master Wayne Shorter, as well Sting’s group) along with horn players. And this is nothing new. After all, the house band at Motown Records, heard on hit after hit, was made up of players who grew up in the jazz tradition.

The Smithsonian’s Museum of American History has declared April to be Jazz Appreciation Month; and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, in 2011, proclaimed April 30 to be International Jazz Day. In the past, the massive jazz event associated with the day had been held in Istanbul, Paris, New Orleans and the United Nation’s headquarters in New York. This year’s event is in Osaka, Japan.

So, if you haven’t given jazz a listen, this might be a good month to give it a try and see why it has so captured the world. You can hear a sampling of the music anytime at KUVO-FM (89.3). In terms of live music, some of the significant, national acts on tap for the month are: the superb and highly original jazz singer Rene Marie (April 5-6); the masterful pianist Brad Mehldau and his trio (April 6); the genre-jumping band Kneebody (April 7); the Denver-base, internationally known crossover saxophonist Nelson Rangell (April 12); the legendary jazz-rock guitarist Larry Coryell (April 17-18); saxophonist Charles McPherson (April 19); the famed saxophonist/composer Benny Golson (April 24); Jason Marsalis with his Vibes Quartet (April 25); saxophonist Joe Lovano’s US 5 band (April 26-27); and the high powered The Bad Plus trio (April 29-30). With the exception of Mehldau (who is at the Boulder Theater, 303-786-7030), Golson (who is at Mount Vernon Country Club, 303-526-0616) and Marsalis (who is at the Lakewood Cultural Center, 303-987-7845), the artists listed are all appearing at the city’s premier jazz club – Dazzle (303-839-5100).

As part of the Ken Burns television documentary Baseball, writer Gerald Early argued that “there are only three things America will be known for 2,000 years from now when they study this civilization; the Constitution, jazz music, and baseball.” It’s easy enough to find a copy of the Constitution and get to a Rockies game. And there’s also a lot of jazz around to discover for yourself why Early just might be right.