19 September 2012
Delfeayo Marsalis at The Dakota Jazz Club (Theoroi No. 1)
How do I get back to Babylon from here?
Jazz is…
Hot and cool
Strong and sweet
Structured and free
A growl and a screech
Ten fingers and double tongue
Slide and keys
Beat and bass
Soul and white
Hard and velvet
Old and now
Charming and funny
Manic and depressed
Look up jazz and where is the root? In a 1988 interview, trombonist J. J. Johnson said, “Jazz is restless. It won’t stay put and it never will.” It’s a distinctly American genre of music, rooted in both African and European musical traditions. Its African pedigree is evident in its use of blue notes, improvisation, polyrhythms, syncopation and the swung note. These things I understand, but what happens when it becomes free and formless? How can my western musical education help me?
A paradox to say the least, the thought continued to develop in my brain: “Oh my god, I needed this beer and this sound in my ear! But WWVD – What Would Verdi Do? Maybe appreciate its forward thinking? Mozart would probably shit a brick.”
Jazz is…
Saccharine and sensitive
Theme and variation
Classical and modern
Pucker and release
Harmonic and dissonant
Pagan and biblical
So, it’s obviously easier for me to do flow on conscience on this one. My first outing with Theoroi took me way out of my comfort zone. Often have I experienced and loved jazz, but I have usually not understood it completely…and have never had to write about it. So, instead of deconstructing it, I tell you what I think jazz is.
High points of the evening? The music cooling my exhausted brain (it was opening of the season tech week at Minnesota Opera…much harder and more taxing than any of the 9 season openers I’ve experienced while employed at an opera company). Delfeayo Marsalis took the time…after his second set of the evening…to really dig in deep with us (not the usual meet and greet I’ve experienced in my life). Sean Jones SMOKIN’ on the trumpet (Pam was 100% correct in her assessment of what we were going to experience) was another highlight of the evening. And Jason Marsalis’ “Simon’s Journey” blew me away. A micro rhythm in mixed meter and parallel motion in tritones. Noise to Verdi’s ears and death to all things antiquated and classical about music…but the most intriguing and interesting moment of the evening.
A few thoughts about relationships and jazz…specifically jazz at The Dakota. Those many nights with Boot and Marsha Walker (Boot ripping up the keyboard and seducing my ear with his voice and his lyrics), watching Lili’s Burlesque with Leo Vordoni before our Casanova’s Homecoming publicity shoot with the girls in their dressing room, Brad Benoit’s salon performance…and even further back to the OLD Dakota. My first date with a guy, Jeffrey Vandyk. Good times have been had in that temple…but even greater relationships have been made.
To give full context of the evening, however, here are the mind-blowing experiences leading up to Delfeayo:
Brenda Harris blowing the roof off Ordway in the first orchestra dress rehearsal of Nabucco.
Hopping in the car and rocking it out to Mozart’s “Come scoglio” (“Like a rock”) by Jacquelyn Wagner in Minnesota Opera’s 2011 season opener, Così fan tutte. (I rarely am able to listen to the broadcasts of the previous season’s performances on MPR because I’m always in the middle of the dress rehearsal when they air.)
All of this followed by experiencing complete catharsis and developing a crush on two brass players within the space of an hour at the Dakota.
I’ll end this post with this: There is a reason I lost my virginity to a classical singer after a night listening to Debbie Duncan and jazz at Dakota back in the autumn of 1996.
the artful culturevore 