Old Ex Cathedra

I regret to inform you that my father, Rev. Bob “Bob” Crispen, suffered a massive stroke  early on the morning of Thursday, August 18.  He is currently in the NICU/Stroke Unit at Hunstville Hospital.

I will do my best to post updates in the days to come. I know that you join me and my brother Robert in hoping for the best for my dad.

The 27th anniversary of the death of this titan of Jazz occurred a little over a month ago, and to this day, words simply cannot describe the depth of his artistry.  His music has always been the best representation, as evidenced by a video clip I recently was made aware of, recorded a month before his death in 1980.  The composition is entitled “Your Story.”

Listening to this for the first time, I was reminded of my astonishment during my initial viewing of Ken Burns’ landmark documentary on Jazz, in which Evans, though clearly in the Top 10 all-time in terms of musical influence, was only mentioned for his role as a sideman on Miles Davis’ “Kind Of Blue” album.  I know this is the best-selling jazz album ever, but one only has to listen to the interview Bill Evans gave after the 1980 concert to understand the depth to which this album, even in 1980, had become a musical cliché.

And since the kindly Rev recently mentioned Stan Kenton, Burns also ignored the tremendous contributions of both Stan and Woody Herman to the big band evolution of jazz.  Why would he do this?  Mostly due to the fatal flaw of using Wynton Marsalis as his primary musical consultant, a man whose arrogance is only exceeded by his ignorance of the essence of this music.  The other fatal flaw is attributable to Burns himself, who chose to frame his entire film around the same theme he used for his films on the Civil War and Baseball: Race.

Ironically, it was Race that led Burns to concoct the fictional story of Jazz essentially dying after the passings of Armstrong and Ellington, only to be heroically resuscitated in the early 1980’s by . . . wait for it . . . Wynton Marsalis.  This account allowed Burns to ignore every prominent jazz artist of the last forty years, because his major theme no longer applied nearly as powerfully as it did describing the heydays of the music’s early pioneers.  Meanwhile, the Michael Brecker’s, the Pat Metheny’s, and the Maria Schneider’s didn’t exist in the highly ethnocentric world created for Burns by Marsalis.

But this is not the real reason I chose to create this blog entry.  Getting back to Evans, I am reminded of the huge differences even among jazz fans concerning what elements are linked to a favorable listening impression.  I have met some people with encyclopedic knowledge of Jazz, who only respond to those performers who demonstrate either an unearthly facility on their instrument, or play their instrument with a mechanical perfection.  Others enjoy being hit over the head with their Jazz, responding to anything that is high, fast and loud.  Still others have a myopic sense as to what is truly Jazz, concentrating their affections on one facet of the evolution, and ignoring all others.  And finally, and most sadly, there are those who are convinced that what they enjoy is Jazz, but have been duped by the often financially successful genre known as Smooth Jazz.

There can be no dispute that Bill Evans was magnificent.  His completely original style of playing and composing, along with his no-nonsense commitment to exploring the maximum potential for expression in Jazz, clearly make him a member of a club Duke Ellington was a charter member of: Beyond Category.

For more info on all things Bill Evans, here’s a link to a suitable repository on the web.

I’ve mentioned Terry Vosbein before. Besides being a classical composer and Stan Kenton scholar, he’s accumulated his share of street cred by playing on the Glenn Miller band.

On a Stan Kenton list we both belong to, the discussion turned to Stan’s provision in his will that no Kenton “Ghost Band” ever be permitted. And some of the list members noted that occasionally ghost bands would play newer works, but always in the style of the original.

Terry picked that moment to reveal what I’d have to say was a true musical horror:

Indeed. When i was on the band the ones that slipped through were: You Light Up My Life, along with disco versions of In The Mood and String Of Pearls and a polka version of Stars and Stripes Forever.

Eeeewwwwwww! But I brought myself up short. Terry had in fact played on a well known professional band and had earned that position. So I could curl my lip all I wanted; Terry could just smile.

And it reminded me of the story Mike Vax told about his first gig as a member of the Kenton band. Larry Welk, it seems, was a stone Kenton fan. Mind you, he knew he couldn’t play Stan’s music in his own band; he had a strong enough sense of economic self preservation to know that the musical world could afford at most one band playing Stan’s music. But he sure did love to listen. And every now and then Larry and Stan would book a joint performance together.

And so when Mike joined the band, it turned out his first performance was on one of those gigs.

The gig was a summertime dance at a country club, where they’d built a stage over the pool. The two bands shared a drum set and alternated playing, 45 minutes or so per band. It was a good deal for the audience, who got nearly continuous music, and it was an even better deal for the country club staff, who didn’t have to chase drunks out of the pool.

Unfortunately, the quality of construction for their platform wasn’t all it might have been, so about the third set, the stage wasn’t just feeling a little unstable. It was sinking. Stan, with his customary elegance, led the “abandon ship”.

And as the musicians squished off stage, Stan looked over at Mike, grinned, and said, “Welcome to the big time, kid.”

From the point of view of a person recently released from the hospital:

Ow.
Ow.
Ow.
Ow.
Ow.

(more…)

Andrew Bernardin points out that God forbids wearing garments of linen mixed with wool, and even took out space in the Bible to say so. But this same god has nothing to say about mixing stripes and checks!

If God is God, he isn’t good.

(Or at any rate, he’s severely unfashionable).
—————-
Now playing: Bud Shank – Paradise

…when I was so rudely interrupted?

Well, let’s see. When I first got sent down to the glue factory for the congestive heart failure, I was evidently a little too whiny, because I convinced the cardiologist to send me back home a day or two too early. Or it could just be that my case was developing like dozens of others he’d seen. Probably both.

Either way, I was feeling decidedly puny, and as time went on, I was feeling worse. And then one morning, right around the time I thought I might mention it to my doctor, I fell down in the shower.

Since that was the first time I’d fallen in the shower since ever, it got my attention. And then when I continued to feel bad (and was pale, lethargic, joints stiffening, and showing all the signs of having very low blood pressure), my son Robert decided maybe it was time to check me back in to the hospital.

This turned out to be good judgment on his part (and on mine for having him). My kidneys had shut down.

Perhaps I need to explain. In the med biz, this is generally considered a Bad Thing. But it certainly explains the fall in the shower. Get some blood that’s already way too thin from the blood thinners that had done their part toward sending my kidneys into retirement, add the vasodilation you get from a hot shower, and plop!

Within a couple of days the kidneys started up again, and the doctors, under the leadership of an internal medicine specialist, got the drugs in much better balance.

That won’t be all I have to say about it, but it does cover the subject and a little bit more. And when I post about it again (I’ll give you fair warning) maybe I’ll have an insight on a thing or two that’s a little out of the ordinary. For instance, the simple pleasure of peeing without having to tell anybody. Or the equally simple and equally vital pleasure of rolling over without setting off an alarm. Or why all the People’s Court clones our Fox station shows every day are responsible for Clarence Thomas not being tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail.

I may even post about my greatest fear, which I thought for a while had come true (it was well before I even suspected my kidneys had put up a “This Space For Rent” sign). Stay tuned.