Wednesday, August 31, 2022

Music to soothe a shaken city

 

"Dizzy," by Marc Klionsky (1988; National Portrait Gallery—Smithsonian Institute)

     Dizzy Gillespie cut a regal figure striding through O’Hare: his black and red fez like a crown, his green raincoat draped over his shoulders like a cape.
     It was 1988. Dizzy was coming in from Paris. My job was to meet him at the airport, fly down to Peoria together, interview the jazz legend and catch his performance that night. He didn’t bring anything so square as a change of clothes. Just an instrument case containing his famous angled horn. And a small satchel holding papers, vitamins and medicine for his diabetes.
     If the name is unfamiliar — time effaces the greatest fame — Dizzy Gillespie was the archetypal jazzman. His personal look — sunglasses, soul patch, beret — became the cliche of a bee-bop hipster.
     The musician had come quite a way — 4,300 miles, Paris to New York by supersonic Concorde, New York to Chicago by jet, now a prop plane to the city known as the place where anything daring won’t play. He was 71 years old. He’d been blowing his horn for half a century. Why go to all this trouble for another gig?
     “I want to play all the time,” he replied. “You have trouble if you lay off. There’s an old saying among classical jazz guys: “If I don’t play one day, I know it. If I don’t play two days, my compatriots know it. If I don’t play three days, the whole world knows it.”
     “You have trouble if you lay off.” Something to bear in mind as the Chicago Jazz Festival takes place this weekend at full strength for the first time in three years — last year was a one-night showcase. I imagine more than a few people have a little trouble with the notion of heading to downtown Chicago simply for great, free jazz. Perhaps out of practice by the COVID lull, perhaps given pause by violence that has spilled out of the areas of the city where Chicago has accustomed itself, shamefully, to allowing violence to perennially persist.

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10 comments:

  1. He was featured prominently in Ken Burns' documentary on Jazz.

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  2. "A yardstick that broken can’t be the measure of anything." That sounds like an ageless proverb, applicable in many contexts, that one must have been hearing forever. Kinda amazing to see it coined this morning right before our eyes.

    What Mr. Bailey forgets, unbelievably, in attempting to mimic the Biggest Loser's game-plan when it comes to ripping Chicago and going all in on his nonsense, is that the traitor lost Illinois by 17 percentage points in 2020. Following his lead may be, uh, a mistake.

    I saw Dizzy Gillespie at Rick's Cafe Americain in the early '80s. It was marvelous. I'm not even much of a jazz fan, but I do have a belt. ; )

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    1. Bailey knows what he's doing, he's preaching to us. When someone claims that god won't cleanse this land until we mend our ways, he doesn't really mean we. He means you.

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  3. True appreciators of music won’t need a big name to lure them in. Chicago is full of people who appreciate great music. It’s why there are so many venues featuring so much talent.

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  4. Jazz Fest was the bestl thing ever provided by the city. We started going every day from the early 80s (when it was 7 days) to the late 90s. It's pretty amazing to think of the people we saw free: Dizzy, Joe Williams, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Mel Torme, Nancy Wilson, Ray Charles, Diane Reeves. We became friends with a group of people we would meet up with every year. Most of the greats are gone, but it's still wonderful to sit outside on a nice night listening to good music. Some of the best memories of my life.

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    1. Those were the "daze"...the Chicago Jazz Fests were among the highlights of my summers from '76 to '91, beginning with the "Duke Ellington Memorial Concert" nights, the "Coltrane Night" in '78, and followed by the very first Jazz Fest in '79...which included a "Charlie Parker Night" (AKA "Happy Bird Day") and Benny Goodman playing to 75,000 at the Petrillo Music Shell.

      In the mid-80s, the festival was called the "Kool Jazz Festival" and the most memorable occasions were adding "The Dizz" and George Benson (who drew 100,000 listeners) to my life list, in '84 and '86. But the apex was '87...both Dexter Gordon AND Dave Brubeck, whom I'd adored since junior high, when a trumpet-playing neighbor kid in the Vanguard Drum and Bugle Corps turned me on to the Quartet. We both loved cool jazz and we both wanted to be beatniks (I had an uncle in the Village who actually was one, but that's another story for another time).

      All those years of picnic baskets and wine and the sun slipping behind the buildings on Michigan Ave. while the best jazz people on the planet performed for free. No hassles, no fear, no paranoia, no shots fired. What a glorious time it was...

      The two things I probably miss the most about Chicago are live Cub games and the plentiful availability of live jazz. None of the names on this year's schedule are familiar to me, but, hey, it's jazz...free jazz...in wonderful venues. The old lions are gone, but the young lions are roaring...and blowing...and those who appreciate good music and talent will get their asses downtown. I would if I could.

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  5. "Most of the greats are gone." I grew up during the waning of the big band era, when famous popular musicians were virtuoso instrumentalists, who fronted or played in well-known ensembles. By the time I returned from my naval service overseas they had been replaced by people who played five chords on an electric guitar and yelled into a microphone. I played in a little group in high school, and my ambition to become a professional jazz trumpet player was thwarted only by want of talent and opportunity. A problem was that instead of practicing my technical exercises I would try to imitate what I heard on records or the radio. I nearly did myself an injury trying to duplicate Bunny Berigan's celestial intro to "I Can't get Started." Dizzy was a great technician, but I never warmed to bebop. My favorite on that instrument was the cornetist Bobby Hacket, whose easy melodic turns channeled the legendary Bix Beiderbecke. Dizzy was, of course, great but untouchable.
    Tom

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    1. Some of those guitar players became virtuosos. Good music can be found in all genres, from one man bands to symphony orchestras. One just needs to look for something new to him/her, like I will do tonight, looking for Bobby Hacket on this magic box.

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    2. Good thing you never tried copying Maynard Ferguson; you'd have blown your head off.

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  6. Sounds like a great gig to go hang with Dizzy and do an interview. This and visiting some of the cool places you go makes your job so special. If you ever need someone to carry your pen or tape recorder or whatever you use I'm available.

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