Hiromi Uehara - A Musical Wonder

Recently, I've been listening a lot to Hiromi Uehara and her band. The jazz world has a new piano master, and she's really a lot of fun. Born in Japan in 1979, Uehara began her musical education at age 6 and was first introduced to jazz at age eight.  She had an opportunity to meet and perform with Chick Corea at 17, then moved to Boston to attend the prestigious Berklee College of Music. There, she met colleagues and made friends that still play with her now.  And play she does. Lots of high-profile concert appearances these days, complimented by a ton of international exposure. So what's the story with this young woman? What's the buzz all about? Just listen.




And this, with her mentor Chick Corea...

Not All Teenage Divas Sing Pop

Montreal's Nikki Yanofsky, at 15 years old, aspires to a more sublime sound. Wow. Confident and composed, this Diva-in-training has the energy, technique and style to be around for a while. A good thing. Regular readers know that Canada has some fine musical talent and fantastic annual festivals. This is an artist we'll be looking for on our next trip north. Enjoy.



Jazz
Nikki Yanofsky

Magical Musical Pairings

Masters of music push limits, often together. Playing back-up, singing duets, adding a hot lead riff, or just hanging out and jamming, the roles of musical collaborators are many.

From these collaborations, and there are many, a few magical musical pairings occasionally emerge. And when they do, it's worthy of notice. Recently, the work of Emmy Lou Harris paired with Mark Knopfler has been getting a lot of play around our house. As are the tunes that Maria Muldaur recorded last year with blues pianist Charles Brown. We've always thought that Dougie McClain and Kathy Mattea went well together. Likewise Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne. Shawn Colvin's voice works well with Bruce Hornsby's limited range and Kelly Jo Phelps' deep growl blends perfectly with Tony Furtado.

Guitarists like Bert Jansch and John Renborne worked better together than alone. Eric Clapton laid down his best riffs playing with the late Duane Allman on Layla. Watching Carlos Santana play with Henry Garza of Los Lonely Boys is like seeing the torch pass from one generation to the next. And of course, Ry Cooder has paired his guitar-playing with just about every musician of merit on the planet. A lot more on the contributions of Cooder to popular music in a later post.

Gypsy fiddle player, Stephan Grapelli has added his serious Manouche jazz licks to a lot of collaborative works. His violin conversations with L. Subramaniam of India are incredible. Talk about East meets West. Gypsy jazz meets Carnatic, Hindustani violin. This stuff is so fast you can practically see the sparks flying. For a taste of Subramaniam's fiddle, check out the M-Vid Oddities and Virtuosities sidebar element. Another clip links to Grapelli playing with Django. Previous posts contain hot-links to all the musicians mentioned here. So go ahead, read them.

Guitar Love

Bill Frisell, Ry Cooder, David Lindley, Sean Watkins, Martin Taylor, there's no shortage of great guitarists. Good thing. Can't have enough fine guitar pickin, ever. There's something about six wire strings and fine, old, resonant wood. Or a well-made electric hardbody with Humbuckers.

Maybe it's because the guitar can weep, scream, moan and cajole with such a fluid flexibility that it is an ideal instrument for so many styles. Maybe its because carrying and playing a guitar is relatively easy - at some level; or maybe its because our ancestors started stretching things over wood to make music so long ago that the look, feel and sound is so hard-wired in our subconscious that it evokes a common, shared reaction. Probably all of the above.

My first experience with out-of-the-box guitar playing involved English masters John Renbourn and Bert Jansch. John Fahey and Leo Kotte soon followed, then Doc Watson. About that same time, I was listening to Mayall's Blues Breakers and I discovered Eric Clapton. Later the likes of Toby Page, Mike Bloomfield, Johnny Winter, Mark Knopfler and Peter Green became my standard guitar fare. Followed by Duane Allman, Eric Johnson, Carlos Santana and SRV. Seeing Peter Frampton recently on PBS made me remember some of his early contributions as well. In short order, I had my own "sunburst" Les Paul (1974), and a fine acoustic Guild with a cut-away. Sold the Les a few years back (really shouldn't have done that in retrospect), but I still have and occasionally play the Guild.

I had an opportunity this summer to catch Larry Carlton and Robben Ford playing together at southern Oregon's fine Britt Music Festival. That show was a guitar player's dream. Ford remains my favorite contemporary bluesman, though there are lots of good ones that come in a very close second. I recently discovered the music of Joe Bonamassa, which really rocks. Johnny Lang and Shannon Curfman represent the "youth" movement in traditional hard rock. Both are accomplished guitarists. Curfman totally rocks, and she's just so cute. Punkers don't count in my estimations, as their guitars are utilized primarily as percussion instruments.

Today, Bluegrass guitarists like Sean Watkins and Tony Furtado (when he's not playing his banjo) are adding new directions to the traditional American Folk lexicon. Kelly-Jo Phelps is shaking up the slide guitar world and stylist, Bill Frisell, is fusing all sorts of unusual sounds together in an entirely new guitar tapestry. Knopfler is back, with his wonderfully minimalist style, paired with Country Diva Emmy Lou Harris in a great collaboration. And Los Lonely Boys front man, Henry Garza is a younger version of Carlos. Lots of talent there.



On the Jazz front, the traditions of French Gypsy great Django Reinhardt are being very well maintained by Martin Taylor and Romane. In fact, Django's style and technical ornamentation can be found in a variety of modern, ensemble groups like 8 1/2 Souvenirs and Pink Martini's Dan Faehnle (who joins the band on tour).

Iberian guitar styles, including Flamenco and Portuguese, will be showcased in a future post.

Accordion Action

As the old joke goes: Why do politicians make good accordionists? Because they are used to playing both ends off against the middle. To most, that sounds about right.

When I was a kid, my parents decided that I needed a musical education. They asked what instrument I might be interested in learning, and at about seven years of age I didn't know any better, so I said: the accordion. To this day, I'm not sure what drove that fateful decision. In any case, I haven't been able to listen to "Lady of Spain" since that time, and have an inherent distrust of all polka. I was scarred by the experience, so avoided the accordion at all costs for most of the ensuing years.

Then I discovered the Concertina, Zydeco, Acadian Folk music, Celtic accordion and Santiago Jimenez. And so, I rediscovered the accordion and learned that the instrument had a very distinctive role in a variety of appealing folk music traditions.

The French "Musette" style of accordion was perfected, often by Italians, in the sawdust covered salons, cafes and cabarets of 1920s and 30s Paris. Sweet, slow and languorous, it was epitomized by by Emile Vacher. The instruments were often in the hands of the French Manouche clan of Gypsy musicians, like Joe Privat, known for cool jazz and striking improvisations. Django Reinhardt playing guitar and Stephan Grapelli on Fiddle, often accompanied by Privat on accordion.

Gypsy musicians use accordions across Europe, with some of the best-known bands in the Balkans. Eastern European Klezmer musicians also relied on accordions to accompany the clarinet and strings. If you live in the San Francisco Area, you can hire Nada Lewis to perform this kind of energetic, ethnic music at your event. In fact, the folkloric net offers musicians in a variety of traditions. Today, jazz accordian is most associated with the instrumental work of Richard Galliano.

Irish airs work well with accordion accompaniment. Sharon Shannon is a Celtic squeezbox virtuoso, as was Joe Burke. I'm going to devote considerably more than one post to Celtic music, and more on the music of my own ancestors is on-deck.

In the U.S., accordion passions primarily are driven by three styles: Polka, Conjunto & Zydeco. I'm not interested in Polka, unless its Mexican; Zydeco and the Tejano Conjuntos are another story. The music of Cajun- and Afro-Louisiana blend into a single accordion style - to my ears. Players like C.J. Chenier, Wayne Toups, Queen Ida and Stanley Dural, Jr., better-known as Buckwheat Zydeco have been livening up the airwaves for decades. This is good-time, toe-tapping music.



But my personal favorite is the Conjunto music of Texas, made popular by the Jimenez family over three generations. Flaco Jimenez played accordion for year with the Texas Tornados and more recently Los Super Seven. Flaco has made guest artist appearances on albums with Dr. John, Ry Cooder and Bob Dylan. He is a winner of the Billboard Magazine Lifetime Achievement Award. Awesome, no?

Any discussion of Latin accordion would be incomplete with out a nod to Mexican great Chelito Sanchez; and to South American musicians like Maximo Jimenez of Columbia.

Slide Guitar Sightings

I have always had an interest in virtuoso guitarists. A wonderful instrument, the guitar. An evolutionary extension of the lute family. Easy to learn the basics, easy to play at a perfectly functional level, and perhaps most important: a lot easier to carry than a piano. Like many other guys, I learned guitar to impress girls and enhance my opportunities to, ah, communicate.

Guitar players, like the music they perform, come in all flavors. French Gypsies like Django Reinhard; Flamenco virtuosos like Pepe Romero; acoustic masters like Leo Kottke; Classical legends like John Williams; country pickers like Sean Watkins; good old rock and rollers like Johnny Winter or Eric Clapton; and, Calcutta slide guitar pandits like V.M Bhatt.

I've been listening to a lot of great slide guitar lately, and that got me on a mad research rage through the net and my ever-growing collection of digital music. From my own collection, I dialed up a playlist of all of Tony Furtado's slide tunes. Being a resident of my own neighborhood, the Pacific Northwest, Furtado is a personal favorite. He's really known for his banjo, which people are forever comparing to Bella. Sure, they're both out-of-the-box but IMHO the similarity ends there.

I love Furtado for his slide, and his engaging, emotional tunes that are beautifully minimalist. Not an unnecessary note. Tight, without being sparse. As a bonus, Kelly Jo Phelps - himself an accomplished and celebrated slide player - adds his bluesy growl to several of Furtado's songs. What a great pairing. If you haven't heard Kelly Jo's version of "Goodnight Irene" on his own disc, Shine Eyed Mister Zen, check it out for a real treat.

Arlen Roth is an unsung institution. I should know. After years of serious guitar worship, I just found out about the guy. I'm humbled. He's awesome, and always has been. Raucous, Southern slide slamming - often at full speed - that's Arlen Roth. The guy can shift gears, however. His acoustic version of Layla is something special. We send him our love and celebrate his passage from considerable recent grief to a better place and his resultant new work. Dial-up Arlen Roth: When A Man Loves a Woman. Check it out.

Slide guitar players ply their trade across a variety of musical styles. Rock and Blues genres have always had a lion's share of the greatest slide players. Eric Clapton, Duane Alman, Eric Johnson, Johnny Winter, Robert Cray, and a personal favorite: Robben Ford. Alternative country bands also spotlight the slide.



Now here's the brain warp. My wife and I were at Quebec City's really wonderful Summer party, the Festival d'ete, a few years back listening to music all day at sites all over historic old-town. On the steps of the main, downtown station we stumbled on this Indian guy playing slide. Yea, uh huh. Still, stranger things have happened so we sat on a 400 year-old wall and listened. This guy, V.M. Bhatt, played a modified Gibson archtop acoustic that he had modified with 17 additional strings. That's right, 17. Bottom line, the instrument became more Sitar-like and better able to handle the complicated scales of classical Hidustani music. He played a lot of that, then launched into a lighting fast version of Orange Blossom Special. We were floored.

Right there and then I decided that Mr. Bhatt was the best slide played I had ever heard. Who'd thought? I've come to find out that there is an entire school of Calcutta Slide Guitar, and another master that deserves attention. Debashish Battacharaya. These players are technically gifted, as musicians of Indian Carnatic music must be to perform. True masters who studied under Pandits as novices for years of disciplined instruction. Their music pushes the limits.

Gypsy Music - Historic Improvisation

In 1859, noted Hungarian composer and musicologist Ferenc Liszt published a book in which he stated unequivocally that all Hungarian music had Gypsy roots. Though most of Hungarian traditional folk music features recognizable Gypsy violin melodies and ornamentation, the controversy he sparked continues today.

In reality, the influence of Gypsy music extends much further than Hungary, where the connection is clear and well documented.

The Gypsies, or Roma as they prefer to be called, are an ancient race that originated in Rajastan, India. Until the link between the Romani language and language of India was published in 1776 by Istvan Valyi, Europeans were unaware of these origins. In fact, the word Gypsy is derived from Egypt - where Europeans assumed the Gypsies originated.

Gypsy music is some of the oldest and most influential on the planet. Music and dance have always played a very special role in Roma society and culture. Every occasion has its musical accompaniment, every ceremony its special song or dance. The making of music is a thread that is woven throughout the Gypsy migration.

Today, there are Roma communities in most central Asian and European countries. Some Rom families have emigrated to the U.S. and Canada. In many cases, it is music and dance that unites these diverse and far-flung communities.

As the Roma migrated from India across central Asia, through the Middle East and Turkic countries up into the Balkans, Europe, and finally the British Isles, their music touched every ethnic group that they encountered. It left lasting impressions and influenced a broad spectrum of musical styles across multiple cultural traditions and continents.

At the same time, the Roma co-opted and incorporated musical instruments and melodic elements that they encountered in their westward migration into their own traditions. Thus, they carried memorable bits-and-pieces that they heard around them throughout their travels. Both of these practices combine to produce a powerful Gypsy influence on the development of contemporary musical styles.

During the 16th and 17th centuries, Russian and Hungarian nobles maintained Gypsy Orchestras and choruses to provide musical entertainment for royalty and major national events. That influence forever changed the music of both nations.

The Gypsies arrived in Wales in the 1700's. They introduced the violin to Celtic music and added the Welsh harp to their own repertoire.

Full of passion and exotic melodies, Gypsy music slides easily in and out of major and minor scales. It is their pension for using the minor scale, called the "Gypsy scale" by Europeans, that characterizes Roma musicians. And Romany music always contains fluid, imaginative improvisations - whether on violin, guitar, or tuba in a Balkan Gypsy brass band.

We can hear the influences of this compelling and engaging music in bands and tunes from Turkey; Armenia; the Balkans; Russia; Eastern Europe; Spain and Portugal. Gypsy music has influenced multiple folk music traditions as well as a whole generation of classical composers including Liszt, Moeller, Rodrigo and Albinez.

One of the strongest influences Gypsy music has had is in Spain, where most Flamenco artists are Roma. Flamenco, perhaps the most passionate music in the world, owes its unique sound and exotic dance to strong Gypsy roots. Bands like the Gypsy Kings - masters of Spanish Flamenco (though they are from southern France) - are well known in "world music" circles.

The Portuguese "Fado," a traditional style of song with many forms, owes part of its haunting melodies and stunning guitar work to Gypsy influences. Street Fado performers, often the engine of musical creativity in Portugal, are frequently Roma.

The Manouche clan of French Gypsies has had a heavy influence on Jazz. Django Reinhardt, the best-known Manouche, was one of the most influential jazz guitarists and musical innovators of the thirties and forties. Playing with violinist Stephan Grapelli in the Quintet of the Hot Club of France, he helped shape the entire universe of jazz guitar . Django's unique jazz leads, fluid improvisations and exotic ornamentation are still influencing popular new bands like 8 1/2 Souvenirs.

It can be argued that, in addition to bringing the guitar and violin into a number of Gadje (non-Gypsy) musical vocabularies, the Roma were the first musicians to practice improvisation. In fact, there are references in the literature to Gypsy musical improvisations as early as 1500. It is likely, however, that the Roma have been improvising as long as they have been making music.

That makes sense, as the Gypsies have always disdained written composition, musical tablature and all of the accoutrements of formal musicology. There is no evidence that any attempt has ever been made by the Roma to formalize or standardize their music. That's not their style.

Every time a Gypsy song, or any other for that matter, is performed by Roma musicians it is entirely unique. This is consistent with the lack of a written Gypsy literary record. And with a linguistic tradition that emphasizes social interaction over the exchange of facts. Life, love, music and performance are very much "of the moment" for the Roma.

The Gypsies carry their disdain for external structure and standardization in their daily lives into their music and literary traditions. At the same time, the Roma prize individuality, cleverness, assertiveness and personal creativity. That leads to uniquely personal musical interpretations and promotes technical experimentation.

So in that sense, it is my personal conviction that we owe at least part of the credit for modern jazz and improvisational lead rock guitar to the Roma culture and early Gypsy musical innovation.