Me and My Shadow

photo by Danny O'Bryan

Invention

Every day
He awakens
And finds a new toy
To play with
Today it's
New Year's light
Reflection his
Against a corner
More than enough
To banish dog
Ennui

Danny O'Bryan

"Derby City Jazz" - One More One

The Hog having some quality time with the Punch Baby.

For jazz fans of the '40s, '50s and early '60s, jazz is much more than music.
It's a grand story about the people who made the music and how that music
changed over the years in reaction to its own artistic struggles and from
external pressures as the world around the musicians changed. Best of all,
the jazz story never ends. New details about the lives of jazz musicians
constantly emerge, and out-of-print recordings are constantly surfacing. It's
all so exciting.

Marc Myers
JazzWax


Jazz organist Hank Marr plays some fine mainstream music

Jazz is an extremely diverse music. Last month, the Louisville Jazz Society introduced local jazz fans to the scintillating hard bop of drummer Art Blakey. Last night during a concert by jazz organist Hank Marr’s Trio at Downstairs at Actors, the Society presented yet another kind of jazz.
This time the music wasn’t as serious or intense. It was just plain enjoyable laid back mainstream jazz performed by a master of the Hammond B3 organ.
Marr, 57, is a native of Columbus, Ohio, he started out playing music there with school mates, one of whom was the late multi-instrumentalist Rashaan Roland Kirk. Marr even backed up singer Nancy Wilson when she was still in high school and, as he put it during an interview at last night’s concert, “when she was just a singer in the band who sometimes got to sing and sometimes didn’t.”
But in 1955, Marr heard organist Jimmy Smith, and like a lot of other jazz piano players of his generation, fell in love with Smith’s huge soulful sound.
During last night’s concert, Marr displayed a lot of Smith’s influences, the lightning fast arpeggios and driving base lines. But his style also owes a debt to organist Wild Bill Davis, the man who penned the famous Count Basie arrangement of “April in Paris.” Like Davis he can make the organ sound like a whole orchestra.
Marr was accompanied last night by vocalist-trumpeter Bobby Alston and drummer Joe Ong. Their first tune, a blues line “Freddie the Freeloader” was a definite bow to Jimmy Smith.
Trumpeter Alston, looking like the archetypical jazz musician – dark suit, dark glasses, bearded, his head shaved – took the first couple of choruses. He displayed a fine technique and a warm, full tone. His solo was followed by Marr coming up from behind spurred on by the driving drums of Ong.
For their next tune, the trio chose the jazz classic “Blue Bossa.” As the name implies, it’s a bossa nova with a blues feeling and Marr and his men played it for all it was worth, including a passage or two in double time.
Before playing the next number Marr, seated behind the organ’s massive wood cabinetry and looking like a youthful Count Basie, informed the audience, “Anybody who doesn’t know the name of this next tune will have to leave the club and forfeit their money.”
There were no takers as Marr began the introduction to Duke Ellington’s famous “Satin Doll.” Alston shone on this tune, contributing a muted trumpet solo that was both laconic and tasteful.
The good-sized audience cheered Alston’s efforts and then was treated to some more liquid fire organ runs by Marr. Next, Alston dropped his role as trumpeter to become the trio’s singer.
He swung into a rocking rendition of “More” from the 60s movie “Mondo Cane.” Marr then charged in with an energetic solo quoting at time from the old song “Blue Skies.”
Drummer Ong was later featured in a special arrangement of Miles Davis’s “Milestones.” He showed fine technique as Alston and Marr fanned him with sheets of music to cool him off.
Marr is a fine musician and he plays an entertaining kind of jazz. During last night’s interview, he said he had played in Louisville several times before, particularly at the old Top Hat nightclub on Walnut Street. But that was over 30 years ago.
It’s real nice to see Hank Marr and his organ back again in Louisville.

Danny O’Bryan
Louisville Times
12/4/84

From the up-coming book “Derby City Jazz”

DO YOU FEEL LUCKY?

Yesterday the Hog was at the White Castle in Frankfort, Ky eating his once a week lunch of three greasy burgers and fries and reading the New York Times on his Kindle e-reader when a young black man dressed in a long black leather trench coat, looking hip For Frankfort stopped and said, "What's that?" Its the second time in two days the Hog has been asked that question.

"It's a Kindle, I'm reading the New York Times."

"What, you can read newspapers on those things? I'm not much into gadgets," he said moving away from the Hog cautiously.

But they had something in common, they were the only two people in the White Castle wearing black leather trench coats.

The Hog loves costumes. His latest is the "True Grit" look: Cowboy hat, boots and a long leather trench coat. It makes people think. He was in this latest git-up walking across the White Castle parking lot yesterday when his right foot hits a metallic object on the pavement. Wait, he'd seen enough Clint Eastwood movies in his time to pick up on this familiar scene. What in the world was a 44 shell casing doing on a White Castle parking lot in Frankfort? The Hog lived all his life in the big, bad city of Louisville and never had this happen. Had he stepped on-to a crime scene. But there wasn't any blood around and no bodies or body parts to be seen so, it would never make a "Law & Order" episode. But what the hell, not bad for Frankfort!

Ray Brown/Milt Jackson Concert - Louisville Times 1984

 
Jackson-Brown Quartet searing in soulful, swinging jazz concert
 
Louisville’s Page Four night club was packed with eager jazz fans last night when Chicago’s jazz entrepreneur Joe Segal walked on stage and asked everyone in the audience to please refrain from talking during the up-coming concert by the Milt Jackson and Ray Brown Quartet.
 
“It’s customary during a jazz concert for the audience to remain quiet,” he said.
 
But what happened for the next hour and a half during the first set, one of two sponsored by the Louisville Jazz Society, had little to do with quiet, silence, or any other word that might imply restraint. The entire concert was a cooking, soulful, swinging affair from start to finish.
 
Milt Jackson, who is probably best known as the vibraphonist in the Modern Jazz Quartet, is one of the true giants of jazz. He has played with everybody from Dizzy Gillespie to Thelonius Monk. Bassist Ray Brown also is a great jazz star and was an integral part of the Oscar Petersen Trio for 15 years.
 
Last night their group also included pianist Gene Harris, subbing for regular pianist Cedar Walton, and ex-Dizzy Gillespie drummer Mickey Roker.
 
The first tune played at the concert was Brown’s “Used to be Jackson,” a low down blues line that set the pace for the rest of the evening. Jackson commanded the vibraphone keyboard with grace and speed. To his right, Brown held the large acoustic bass to his body and swayed in time with the music while flashing a big smile.
 
Much of the concert was dedicated to the music of Duke Ellington. Jackson, who is known for his ability to get the most out of unusually slow tempos, began “It Don’t Mean a Thing if it Ain’t Got That swing” – normally a real swinger – at a sudden crawl. But before he was done the whole room was filled with the emotion of sanctified vibraphone.
 
In an interview after the concert Jackson said, “Actually, my whole musical background was influenced by black church music and the blues. Normally when I perform with the Modern Jazz Quartet all our arrangements are written out and we have to read everything. But this is my group and everything is much looser. We learn the arrangements, then throw the music away.”
 
The Quartet next played a Duke Ellington medley featuring each member of the band. Harris, an extremely strong, soulful pianist who led the Three Sounds jazz trio in the ‘60s, began the medley with an inspired reading of “Satin Doll.” The audience loved it, cheering and clapping along and proving that Louisville can produce an appreciative jazz audience when the vibes are right, if you’ll pardon the pun.
 
Jackson was next up with a haunted version of “In a Sentimental Mood.” Brown took his turn on the big, bass fiddle with Mercer Ellington’s “Things Ain’t What They Used To Be.” At one point during his  bluesy solo Brown swatted at a moth that flew in his face and protested , “Can’t play the blues for all these flies!”
 
The medley ended with “A Train” performed at a blistering tempo and featuring an energy-filled solo by drummer Roker.
 
The rest of the concert moved along smoothly with powerful versions of tunes like “Wave,” “Close Enough For Love” and “If I Were A Bell.” On the last Jackson traded some mighty fours with Harris, proving that both have their roots in church music.
 
After a standing ovation, the quartet encored with a lovely version of John Lewis’ “Django,” named for the great gypsy jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt. This, too, was heavily influenced with the blues and Harris’ gospel-soaked piano.
 
Interviewed after the concert, Brown said he hadn’t played in Louisville since the early 1960s. “Maybe what we did here tonight will have some impact and I’ll be able to come back sooner next time,” he said.
 
I suspect if the Louisville Jazz Society has anything to with it, Louisville-area jazz lovers won’t have to wait another 20 years for a visit from Mr. Brown.
 Danny O’Bryan Louisville Times

1984

From the up-coming book
"Derby City Jazz"



 

A LIVING MINDFULNESS

How many words in this book,
They are meant for remembrance. As though words could carry memories, For words are clumsy mountaineers and clumsy miners. Not for them to bring down treasures from the mountains' peak, or up from the mountains' bowels.

But there is a living mindfulness that has passed gently, like a stroking hand, over everything memorable. And when the flame shoots up out of these ashes, hot and glowing, strong and mighty, and you stare into it as though spellbound by its magic then--

But no one can write himself into this kind of mindfulness with unskillful hand and crude pen; one can only write, undemanding pages as these. I did so on September 4, 1900.

Franz Kafka
"Entry in Album"

Yesterday, going through his book-filled attic in his manic state of mind the Hog came across of Kafka's "Letters to Friends." When the Hog is on this journey it's important to "pay attention" to everything that falls into his lap so, he quoted this morning from the book's first entry and it fits.