EMPTINESS AND THE JAZZ CONNECTION

The belief in the inherent emptiness of phenomena and the interrelationship of all things that is fundamental to Buddhism is also at the heart of the philosophy of music of some of the best jazz musicians. Some of those who espouse the philosophy of life and music I am referring to are Larry Coryell, with whom I grew up (in a sense), in Westport, Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter, all of whom practice Nichiren Buddhism, and chant the mantra, "Nam-myoho-renge-kyo"in an effort to awaken their Buddha nature and tap into their deepest layers of existence. While I am not a practitioner of Nichiren Buddhism, but another kind of Buddhism--which is as diverse as the rivers of the world--I do share with these musicians/artists a series of core strands of beliefs which I feel makes their music as well as my appreciation of it all the richer.

Shorter is one of those Buddhists who believes that dedication to his practice can actually spark a human revolution. One of our great living jazz treasures, he is a vibrant innovator who has inspired many musicians and artists around the globe and has won numerous Grammy Awards, among them the Grammy for Best Instrumental Composition for "Aung Sang Suu Kyi," a lyrical and haunting composition dedicated to the Buddhist Burmese Nobel Laureate who was freed not long ago after years of enduring house arrest in her land.

Along these same lines, it's interesting to note that while some of the greatest musicians such as Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk were not Buddhists per se, they espoused an essentially Buddhist philosophy of transcendence and purity in their music. In his biography of Miles, So What -- The Life of Miles Davis, John Szwed quotes Shorter on the subject of Miles Davis. Shorter was with Miles' group from 1964 to 1970, then left with Miles' keyboardist Joe Zawinul to form a fusion group, Weather Report.

Shorter on Davis: "Many musicians talked of Davis's approach to music in terms of its purity, an integrity that transcends style. He aimed for a music that reached beyond voice, beyond music itself, even to the unplayable: to playing what's not there."

Shorter goes further into describing what he believes Miles was trying to do in his music, which was not to only achieve transcendence, but a spiritual understanding through the medium.

"Sometimes when Miles was doing things, we would say, 'Miles is messing up.' He wasn't messing up. He was trying to destroy something, a learned thing or something he had done before or repeated. It was like he was stumbling through something. And then the stumbling became beautiful, but he wasn't actually stumbling. He was and he wasn't. It was seamless. It was a seamless process going on. What he was doing was a dramatization of struggle in life: what the hell music might be for. To another degree it's figuring out what life is for. We have so many ways to express what life is for that we have to be careful of getting hung up on the formality of something, a mold or a way of doing something which is not the way of life."

To these artists and musicians who consciously strive to integrate their music and spirituality, I offer up the homage of the sacred Buddhist mantra, OM GATE GATE PARASAMGATE BODHI SOHA, which is the essence of The Heart Sutra on Emptiness. The mantra means literally, "Gone, gone, gone altogether beyond."

THE BEST IN JAZZ LITERATURE

BEST Jazz Reads:

KANSAS CITY LIGHTNING, THE LIFE AND TIMES OF CHARLIE PARKER by Stanley Crouch. The long-awaited (and recently published) book on Bird is well worth the wait, and you won't want to put down. An expert on the art and aesthetics of jazz, Crouch offers fresh stories and insights on the man and myth. An essayist, columnist (The Daily News) and novelist, Crouch is perhaps best known for his long stint serving as artistic consultant for jazz programs at Lincoln Center.

THE BLUE MOMENT by Richard Williams. An interesting attempt to place the influence of Miles Davis in a wider musical, cultural and historical context.

COLTRANE by Ben Ratliff. An extraordinary, thrilling and often heady examination of the sound, technique and influence of the great saxophonist John Coltrane.

JAZZ by Bob Blumenthal. A primer on the subject by long-time critic Blumenthal, who has written for The Boston Globe and received Grammys for best album notes for Coltrane: The Classic Quartet/Complete Impulse! Studio Recordings in 1999 and the following year for Miles Davis & John Coltrane: The Complete Columbia Recordings 1955-61.

FOOTPRINTS: THE LIFE AND WORK OF WAYNE SHORTER by Michelle Mercer. An invaluable compendium of interviews and rich insights into this national living treasure, his struggles and his music.

HARD BOP by David H. Rosenthal. A standard. Read it if you want to know how bebop transitioned into hard bop.

JAZZ by Gary Giddins and Scott Deveaux. Superior photographs and a rich text, intelligent and chock full of love and appreciation for the music.

LUSH LIFE, A BIOGRAPHY OF BILLY STRAYHORN by David Hadju. A short, openly gay African-American dynamo, Strayhorn worked closely with Duke Ellington as a composer and collaborator. Among Strayhorn's defining compositions are "Take the 'A' Train," "Lush Life," and "Satin Doll."

A former writer for  The Village Voice and Rolling Stone magazine, Hadju is currently music critic for The New Republic and teaches at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.

READING JAZZ, edited by Robert Gottlieb. Readable and delightful, a must for any jazz aficionado.

SO WHAT, THE LIFE OF MILES DAVIS by John Szwed. A gorgeous, elegant, well-researched book. Szwed also wrote a bio on Sun Ra. He teaches music and jazz studies at Columbia University and is Director of the Center for Jazz Studies there.

BEST Magazine Reads:

Brilliant Corners - in hard copy only, this is the only national journal focussing on jazz-related lit, and has published some of the biggest names writing on the subject such as Yusef Komunyakaa and Philip Levine

Jerry Jazz Musician - only online, it features videos, articles and short stories on jazz. Historian and music critic Nat Hentoff called JJM "a wonder" -- "The site encompasses what could be called American civilization with jazz as the centerpiece."

A JAZZ SHORT STORY by Arya F. Jenkins on JJM

Jerry Jazz Musician, an online jazz website, just launched a series of jazz short stories by Arya F. Jenkins. The first is called "Soliloquy," and features McCoy Tyner.

http://www.jerryjazzmusician.com/2013/09/soliloquy-arya-f-jenkins/

Thanks for reading. And peruse the excellent JJM website.

REMEMBERING NABIL

I shouldn't feel shy about saying hard bop lives, it does, even after the masters die, it does. The ever funky Horace Silver, who began as a tenor sax man and moved onto piano, started The Jazz Messengers with drummer Art Blakey, and is still with us. Horace's mother was born in New Canaan, Conn., where I grew up and Horace was born in Norwalk. But it wasn't Horace who seeped me in the world of hard bop, it was Nabil, one of the great double bass jazz men ever, who lived in Bridgeport and also played with many hard bop greats.

In the 1950s, bassist Nabil Totah, came home from the Korean War to the Big Apple an aspiring musician and, after only three days of jamming in sessions was hired by Charlie Parker. He was mentored by bassist Oscar Pettiford and worked with Charles Mingus, among others. Nabil's home was an homage to jazz greats with photographs and sketches of them covering nearly every wall. He made me homemade hummus and Ethiopian coffee whenever I came to visit and and played jazz records for me in his studio and would invite me to recite my poems into his recorder and sometimes let me play his piano.

Nabil was born in Palestine to a Palestinian Quaker minister and an American teacher and once performed at a gallery show I curated for three artists in my home in Black Rock. I was fortunate to see him play his beautiful bass with his trio many times at the Silvermine Tavern in New Canaan and at Bread and Roses in Bridgeport. He was brilliant, warm and generous and the world's worst driver--it's a wonder he didn't go out of this world in his pale blue Lincoln--and, like many musicians of his time, an awful drunk until he quit. He quit cigarettes too a few years after letting go the booze, and passed away at 82 last June 7. I still play his gorgeous album, More Double Bass, which he recorded in 1998 with pianist Mike Longo and drummer Ray Mosca.

Here's "Subaru Mama," the last cut on the album, written by Nabil. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5AO_kDLF7k

Long live, Nabil. May you keep playing the double bass in heaven.

BIRD'S ABILITY TO PERCEIVE

Sculptor Julie Macdonald was taken with Bird and "the wonder about his ability to perceive." She and Bird met on his last trip to California, a year or so before he died. Macdonald is known for her extraordinary sculpture of Bird's head, a black and white photograph of which, incidentally, graced the cover of Downbeat in 1965, on the event of the 10th anniversary of Charlie Parker's death. The sculpture is made of sandstone, is almost twice the actual size of Bird's head, weighs 275 pounds and is attached to a polished black granite cube. It is said to capture the many conflicting and captivating traits of Bird's character and personality--the old man and young child, for example--and holds a resemblance to both Egyptian and African art. Macdonald's sculpture of Bird's head is in the collection of Robert George Reisner, who later wrote a biography of Bird that is comprised of interviews with 81 of Bird's closest friends.

Bird's last visit to California was interrupted by news of his three-year old daughter Pree's death. Initially, he reacted to the news by getting drunk on Alexander's. Then he got off heroin and alcohol, before returning east, to be there for his wife Chan through the ordeal of their loss. Many painful incidents in Bird's life were yet to come, but he was willing to put aside the drugs and make an effort to be the man his wife needed him to be in his last months.

For most of Bird's life, he was known as unreliable in all but his playing, a mooch par excellence. He never had enough money, food, cigarettes, booze or drugs. His appetites for all these and women too have been likened to those of Picasso. And yet he was a man who listened with his whole being, and was completely attuned to life. He once noted that if a person could hear every sound there was, he would go mad, which Parker did. He listened that intently to people, to everything.

Although Bird's life was tragic, some of the episodes that led to his being put away "in rehab" are humorous. For instance, once, while Bird was staying in a cheap hotel in L.A., he determined he had to make a phone call and went down to the lobby to use the phone. The manager behind the desk was horrified when he saw Bird, as he had no clothes on. Bird went back upstairs to remedy the problem and came down a short while later. He had put on a coat, but still had no pants on! Soon after that, he was sent to a police psychiatrist, then to Camarillo.

In 2010, musician/artist/performer Charles Wsir Johnson created a beautiful homage to Bird, using makeshift instruments, called "A Bird in Camarillo," about Bird's 1946-1947 visit to that hospital. Bird apparently wrote a short tune while in rehab there called, "Relaxing in Camarillo."

For most of Bird's life, and after it, people viewed Bird's erratic behavior as part of his nature instead of part of the diseases of alcoholism and drug addiction that afflicted him most of his life. Unfortunately, his addictions helped grow his myth. What remains indisputable is Bird's uncanny gift of music and his ability to perceive.

References: "Charlie Parker: A Genius Distilled," by Richard Williams, The Guardian, Mar. 21, 2010.
The Legend of Charlie Parker by Robert George Reisner, Da Capa Press, 1977.
"A Bird in Camarillo," by Charles Wsir Johnson, YouTube video.