I consider myself to be an inept pianist, a bad singer, and a merely competent songwriter. What I do, in my opinion, is by no means extraordinary.
-Billy Joel
My family was musical on both sides. My father's family had a famous flautist and a classical pianist. My mother won a contest to be Shirley Temple's double - she was the diva of the family. At 8, I learned how to play guitar. I used to play songs from the '20s, '30s and '40s in the kitchen for my grandmother.
-Gloria Estefan
When I was studying... there weren't any black concert pianists. My choices were intuitive, and I had the technique to do it. People have heard my music and heard the classic in it, so I have become known as a black classical pianist.
-Nina Simone
When a pianist sits down and does a virtuoso performance he is in a technical sense transmitting more information to a machine than any other human activity involving machinery allows.
-Robert Moog
Ray Jozwiak brings you 'Gonzo Piano'
Monday, October 19 at 7:15PM
The Piano Prelude at
Monday Night Songwriters Showcase at
Brewer's Alley Restaurant & Brewery (take the elevator on the right to the 2nd floor)
OHO's "Ocean City Ditty," the CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD) OHO is Jay Graboski, David Reeve & Ray Jozwiak. Please Visit http://www.ohomusic.com
My latest solo offering, Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak, featuring original, instrumental piano music is now available at - Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak
(To Access all Ray Jozwiak - Gonzo Piano music you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser: http://http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/RayJozwiak)
(from http://edwardwillett.com/2009/03/science-shows-musicians-really-are-more-sensitive/)
'Researchers at Northwestern University have found that the more years of musical experience musicians possess, and the earlier the age at which they began studying music, the better their nervous systems are at interpreting the emotional content of sound.
The study was led by doctoral student Dana Strait, who conducts her research in the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory at the university (and who is herself a pianist and oboe player).
Strait points out that scientists already know that emotion in speech is carried less by the specific meanings of the words being used than by the sound of those words.
. . . Strait and her colleagues enlisted 30 right-handed men and women, with and without music training, between the ages of 19 and 35. The ones with music training were grouped using two criteria–their total years of music experience and whether their training began before or after the age of seven.
Participants watched a subtitled nature film to keep them entertained (“entertained” is apparently a loose term) while listening through headphones to a “scientifically validated emotion sound”–specifically, 250 milliseconds–a quarter of a second–of a distressed baby’s cry.
Sensitivity to the sound, particularly the more complicated part of the sound that contributes most to its emotional content, was measured through scalp electrodes, which allowed the researchers to track brainstem processing of the sound’s pitch, timing and timbre. . . '
In his seven-decade career, Dave Brubeck was an artistic and a commercial success, a pianist and composer who expanded the musical landscape and who crossed other borders as one of the world's foremost ambassadors of jazz.
He had an inventive style that brought international music into the jazz mainstream, but he was more than a musical innovator: He was an American original.
Mr. Brubeck died Wednesday at a hospital in Norwalk, Conn., one day before his 92nd birthday. His manager, Russell Gloyd, said Mr. Brubeck was on his way to a regular checkup with his cardiologist when his heart gave out.
Considered one of the greatest figures of a distinctively American art form, Mr. Brubeck was a modest man who left a monumental legacy. His 1959 recording "Time Out," with its infectious hit "Take Five," became the first jazz album to sell 1 million copies. He toured once-forbidden countries in the Middle East and in the old Soviet empire and was honored by presidents and foreign dignitaries.
He wrote hundreds of tunes, including the oft-recorded "In Your Own Sweet Way" and "The Duke." His quartet, featuring alto saxophonist Paul Desmond, was one of the most popular jazz groups in history, and he kept up a busy performing schedule into his 90th year.
He also composed ambitious classical and choral works, released nearly 100 albums and remained a charismatic and indefatigable performer into old age. In December 2010, the month Mr. Brubeck turned 90, his quartet won the readers' poll of DownBeat magazine as the best group in jazz, 57 years after he first won the poll.
A bespectacled cowboy who grew up on a remote California ranch, Mr. Brubeck was known for his complex rhythmic patterns, which he said were inspired by riding his horse and listening to its syncopated hoofbeats striking the ground.
He studied in the 1940s with the experimental French composer Darius Milhaud, who encouraged his interest in jazz. Mr. Brubeck was among the first jazz musicians to make wide use of polytonality, or playing in more than one musical key at a time. He was also an early advocate of "world music," adopting exotic sounds that he heard in his worldwide travels.
After forming his quartet in California in the early 1950s, he sought to branch out from the dank nightclubs of San Francisco and Los Angeles. His wife, Iola, suggested the quartet perform on college campuses, which produced a nationwide sensation, with record sales to match.
"We reached them musically," he told The New York Times in 1967. "We had no singers, no beards, no jokes. All we presented was music."
With their curly hair and horn-rimmed glasses, Desmond and Mr. Brubeck looked like professorial brothers and were unlikely jazz stars. The two had an instant musical bond and could anticipate each other's bandstand improvisations, as Desmond's ethereal, upper-register saxophone soared above Mr. Brubeck's driving keyboard attack.
With the release of "Time Out" in 1959, Mr. Brubeck had the first jazz album to sell more than 1 million copies. It reached No. 2 on the pop charts, and its eternally catchy signature tune, "Take Five," became a surprise hit.
The tune, written by Desmond but heavily arranged by Mr. Brubeck, built a memorable melody over a complex rhythm in the unusual time signature of 5/4. "Take Five" became a staple of his concerts and helped make the Dave Brubeck Quartet the most popular jazz group of the 1950s and '60s.
"Every once in a while," jazz historian and critic Ted Gioia wrote in an email exchange with The Washington Post, "jazz is blessed by one of those great figures who can do it all. They give us a body of work that is full of musical riches ... but the music also can appeal to the average listener. Dave Brubeck is one of those figures."
"Cool jazz"
Mr. Brubeck's position in musical history has often been debated. He was born the same year as Charlie Parker, the tortured genius of the bebop movement who brought a new rhythmic and harmonic sophistication to jazz in the 1940s, but Mr. Brubeck was never a true bebopper. He defied the raffish image of the jazz musician by being a clean-living family man who lived with his wife and six children.
He was considered a seminal force in the West Coast's understated "Cool Jazz" school of the 1950s, but he disdained the "Cool Jazz" label and preferred to forge an original musical path.
After early struggles, he was reportedly earning more than $100,000 a year by 1954, the year he became the second jazz musician to be featured on the cover of Time magazine (after Louis Armstrong in 1949).
Some musicians and critics resented his success, and others questioned his prominence in a form of music that was created primarily by black musicians.
But Mr. Brubeck was an outspoken advocate of racial harmony and often used his music as a platform for cross-cultural understanding. He once canceled 23 of 25 concerts in the South when local officials would not allow his African-American bass player, Eugene Wright, to appear with the rest of the group.
On a tour in the Netherlands in the 1950s, African-American pianist Willie "The Lion" Smith was asked, in Mr. Brubeck's presence, "Isn't it true that no white man can play jazz?"
Smith gestured toward Mr. Brubeck and said to the reporter, "I'd like you to meet my son."
In 1958, Mr. Brubeck and his quartet undertook an international tour for the State Department, spreading the improvisatory spirit of jazz to Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkey and Sri Lanka, among other countries. In Poland, they were among the first U.S. jazz musicians to perform behind the Iron Curtain.
In each new country, Mr. Brubeck mingled with musicians, absorbing local rhythms and melodies. Long before the term "world music" gained currency, he was writing compositions that borrowed elements he had heard in Mexico, Japan, Turkey, India, Afghanistan and other countries.
Cowboy childhood
David Warren Brubeck was born Dec. 6, 1920, in Concord, Calif. He and his family lived on a 45,000-acre ranch near Ione.
His father was a champion rodeo roper and his mother was a conservatory-trained pianist who had studied in London with concert star Dame Myra Hess. She gave her three sons a surprisingly advanced musical education, and his two older brothers, Henry and Howard, became music teachers and composers.
Because of early eyesight problems, Mr. Brubeck always had difficulty reading musical notation. He compensated by learning to improvise and to play by ear, which served him well in jazz.
At the University of the Pacific in Stockton, Calif., he had planned to study veterinary medicine. But a zoology professor saw how much time he spent in the music department and suggested he change majors.
A dean called him a disgrace but allowed him to graduate after a professor pleaded on his behalf, calling him a budding genius.
In college, Mr. Brubeck proposed on his first date with Iola Whitlock, and the two were married in 1942.
During World War II, Mr. Brubeck was pulled from the ranks of an infantry unit by an Army colonel, who asked him to start a jazz band to entertain troops on the front lines.
After the war, he did graduate work at Mills College in Oakland, Calif., with Milhaud and wrote and performed avant-garde jazz.
Drummer Joe Morello joined Mr. Brubeck and Desmond in 1956, followed by Wright in 1958, forming a group that recorded dozens of records and found international acclaim. The quartet had a huge following until it split up in 1967.
Besides his wife, of Wilton, Conn., survivors include his four sons and a daughter.
In the early 1980s, Mr. Brubeck formed a new quartet, with which he toured until shortly before his death.
In 1996, he won a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement, and he was a Kennedy Center Honoree in 2009.
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AMBIENCE & WINE
Jimmy Lyons alto saxophone player best known for his long tenure in the Cecil Taylor Unit, being the only constant member of the pianist's group from the mid-1960s to his death, after which Taylor never worked with another musician as frequently. Lyons's playing, which usually retained a strong influence from bebop pioneer Charlie Parker, helped keep Tayor's often wildly avant garde music tethered to the jazz tradition.
He was born in Jersey City, New Jersey and brought up firstly there for his first 9 years, before his mother moved the family to Harlem and then the Bronx. He obtained his first saxophone in the mid-1940s and had lessons from Buster Bailey.
After high school, Lyons was drafted into the United States Army and spent 21 months on infantry duty in Korea, before spending around a year playing in army bands. On discharge, he attended New York University. By the end of the 1950s he was supporting his interest in music with day jobs in the Postal Service.
In 1961 he followed Archie Shepp into the saxophone role in the Cecil Taylor Unit. His post-Parker sound and strong melodic sense became a defining part of the sound of that group, from the classic 1962 Cafe Montmartre sessions onwards.
During the 1970s Lyons also ran his own group with bassoonist Karen Borca and percussionist Paul Murphy, taking performance opportunities at the loft jazz movement around Studio Rivbea. His group and the Unit continued a parallel development through the 1970s and 1980s, often involving the same musicians, such as trumpeter Raphe Malik, bassist William Parker and percussionist Paul Murphy.
Lyons died from lung cancer in 1986. The recording legacy of his own group was relatively sparse, though that situation has been rectified by a 5 CD boxed set of archive recordings from 1972 to 1985, released on Ayler Records. (from wikipedia.com)
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. . . and ballads. Charles Lloyd has done, and continues to do it all. Check it out.
Lloyd was born in Memphis, Tennessee. From an early age, he was immersed in
that city's rich musical life and was exposed to jazz. He began playing
the saxophone at the age of 9 and took lessons from pianist Phineas Newborn. One of his closest
friends was trumpeter Booker
Little. Lloyd became a sideman in the blues bands
of B. B. King, Howlin'
Wolf, Bobby "Blue" Bland and others.
In 1956 Lloyd moved to Los Angeles and earned a music degree from the
University of Southern
California. During this period Lloyd played in the big band of Gerald
Wilson. From 1960 to 1963 Lloyd played in the band of drummer Chico Hamilton and became its musical director. Though the
band was known for playing "chamber
jazz" at the beginning of Lloyd's tenure, his influence as a
composer and a player quickly pushed it in a more progressive post-bop
direction. Lloyd's key musical partner in the band was the guitarist Gábor Szabó. In 1964 Lloyd left Hamilton's group to play with
alto saxophonist Cannonball Adderley. During this period
he recorded two albums as a leader for Columbia Records; his sidemen were other young musicians
including Herbie Hancock, Ron
Carter and Tony Williams. Through 1966-1968
Lloyd led a quartet with pianist Keith
Jarrett, bassist Cecil McBee (afterwards, Ron
McClure), and drummer Jack DeJohnette, that producer George Avakian signed to a contract with Atlantic Records. The quartet's music was an interesting
fusion of straight-ahead post-bop, free
jazz, and soul jazz. The group's music quickly caught on
with both jazz fans and critics. Somewhat surprisingly, they also
achieved a fair amount of crossover success with young rock fans and
became the first jazz group to play in The
Fillmore. The album Forest
Flower became a big commercial hit, largely on the strength of
the title track. Other noteworthy albums include Dream Weaver and Love-In.
In 1968, after the quartet's demise, Lloyd entered a state of
semi-retirement. Despite recording several albums during the 1970s and
occasionally appearing as a sideman, he practically disappeared from the
jazz scene. During the 1970s Lloyd played extensively with The Beach Boys both on their studio recordings and as a member
of their touring band. In the late 1970s Lloyd was a member of
Celebration, a band composed of members of the Beach Boys' touring band
as well as fellow Transcendental Meditation
followers Mike Love and Al
Jardine. Celebration released two albums.
Upon being approached by pianist Michel Petrucciani in the early 1980s, he resumed
playing actively. From 1989, Lloyd toured actively and recorded for the ECM label. Although his playing
had not changed much stylistically since his groundbreaking work in the
1960s, these recordings showcased his sensitivity as a ballad
player. Noteworthy albums include Canto, Voice in the Night, The Water Is Wide (featuring Brad
Mehldau, John
Abercrombie, Larry Grenadier and Billy
Higgins), Lift Every Voice
(featuring Geri Allen), and the live Rabo
de Nube with Jason Moran). Lloyd has shown great consistency
and creativity in his period with ECM, much of his music containing a
strong spiritual element, some it heavily in a "world music" vein, and
some of it unusual and experimental as in the duets on Which Way
is East? with his longtime friend and musical soulmate, Billy
Higgins. (from Wikipedia.com)
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ANOTHER SHOT
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Jozwiak
We had heard of Bread & Circuses (I love the name: ". . . as an expedient means of pacifying discontent or diverting attention from a source of grievance. Origin: 1910–15; translation of Latin pānis et circēnsēs; from a remark by the Roman satirist Juvenal on the limited desires of the Roman populace. . .") but had not been there. Then, a Groupon or Living Social or something coupon appeared in our email one day. I knew they offered live, local music and was anxious to go. They also have a wonderful outdoor patio where bands play in warmer weather (and cooler weather in a heated tent).
So we took our coupon and went. We were bowled over by the food and the service. Since I knew they frequently feature local musicians I asked if they would be interested in a solo, original pianist. One of the wait staff responded with the stock 'go to our website and there's a form. . . ' which I had already done months prior with futile result. But a nice lady behind the bar overheard our exchange and said, "What kind of music do you play?" and our relationship began.
Business card exchanges, email communication and within three days she offered me two dates. This Saturday is the second of what I hope to be many more.
You just never know. RAY JOZWIAK at Bread & Circuses Bistro Saturday, DECEMBER 17, 2011 @ 8:00PM
“. . . Jozwiak has a broad and deep knowledge of music and one can hear little snippets of this and that running throughout his work, just enough to put you in the mind of a long forgotten favorite before he turns it inside out or upside down. . .” Joe Hartlaub, Music Reviewer
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