Michael Weiss plays his ass off

[Soul Stream]

Caught the second set of the Village Vanguard Jazz Orchestra at the VV last monday. Hands down one of the most memorable musical experiences I've ever seen. Jerry Dodgion happened to be there that night along with a host of some of the best musicians I've ever had the pleasure of hearing play live. Every member of the band blew me away, including Michael Weiss who was on piano. That cat is unbelievable.

(P.S. Ralph Lalama on Tenor is a bad mf)

[Larry Kart]

Haven't been following Weiss as assiduously as I probably should have -- though I own and have always enjoyed his 1986 Criss Cross debut and also dug and (I think) wrote a bit about him most times he came to Chicago with Johnny Griffin in the '80s -- but the other day I picked up Weiss's 1998 SteepleChase trio album "Milestones" (with Paul Gill and Joe Farnsworth) and am delighted by it. Piano playing that's more or less boppish never wears out its welcome with me, though on the other hand I want it to be as wholly alive and risky as it was with Bud, Duke Jordan, Al Haig, George Wallington, and others of that ilk -- freeze-dried, more or less retro, "Notice how I only color between the lines -- don't I get extra credit for that?"" boppish piano drives me crazy. In any case, while Weiss's playing often has an air of elegance and reserve to it (a la Haig and, if it comes to that, Teddy Wilson -- especially in his delicate sense of touch), within this at times one can detect a digital/intellectual near-frenzy at work, which brings Wallington to mind (at least to my mind) and that seems to me to be in touch with bop's true spirit. To put it another way, Weiss isn't just playing, or so it seems to me -- he is in pursuit. In any case, this is one fine album. The title track BTW is the John Lewis piece that Miles recorded with Bird on tenor, not the later Miles piece of the same name. And dig how Weiss's recasting of "Like Someone in Love" in the key of B almost turns it into another tune altogether (and in a way that seems organic rather than tricky). Jeez, he even makes "Wave" sound fresh.

[Michael Weiss]

Thanks for the compliment Soul Stream. You should have said hello! And BTW, where were you the six nights before during Joe Wilder's week? Incidentally, Ralph was on my first date on Criss Cross 20 years ago.

Larry, thanks for picking up Milestones. But if you want to hear something that's closer to my musical activities of the past several years, pick up Soul Journey. Even though it too is a few years old, it's my last CD as a leader.

[Soul Stream]

Thanks for the compliment Soul Stream. You should have said hello! And BTW, where were you the six nights before during Joe Wilder's week?

Hey Michael, I had just gotten in town the night before and saw Lonnie Smith at the Standard. Then saw ya'll the next night. By Tuesday night I was back in Texas. So, glad I had a chance to see you at the VV! You played a Thad Jones blues piece that second set where you started it out and really killed. What was the name of that tune? I would have said "Hi" but I was too 'fraid.

[Shawn]

Great...more CD's I have to buy.

I was just listening to Michael this afternoon on the Johnny Griffin/Steve Grossman album. Beautiful playing. I also adore the Griffin album "Take My Hand" (is this the same album released as Woe Is Me?). Isfahan is such a great song and this is my favorite version.

[catesta]

I've been fortunate enough to hear Michael play on more than one occasion. Never disappoints.

[Larry Kart]

Larry, thanks for picking up Milestones. But if you want to hear something that's closer to my musical activities of the past several years, pick up Soul Journey.

Will do.

[Michael Weiss]

You played a Thad Jones blues piece that second set where you started it out and really killed. What was the name of that tune?

That was "The Second Race."

I also adore the Griffin album "Take My Hand" (is this the same album released as Woe Is Me?).

Yes. "Take My Hand" was the original on Who's Who of Jazz. I don't know if the next issue was licensed or bootlegged.

and dig how Weiss's recasting of "Like Someone in Love" in the key of B almost turns it into another tune altogether (and in a way that seems organic rather than tricky).

"Stella By Starlight" from that CD is in B too. Not for the sake of being tricky, but playing in different keys makes you play different stuff.

[AllenLowe]

you don't have one of those Irving Berlin pianos, do you?

[AllenLowe]

reminds me of years ago, when Bill Barron died - there was a tribute concert at Wesleyan - I'm playing tenor and there's a bunch of guys on stage, and one says to me, "we're going to play a blues in B for Bill;" well, I'm playing tenor, so I start to play in Db, since that where it should put me, and everything's all screwy - turns out they were actually playing in A because the other tenor players were afraid of Db, and wanted A concert, of course, since this put THEM in B - lazy asses - and it was mostly guys from Hartford who I couldn't stand anyway, so this gave me another reason to hate 'em -

also one night I'm at a jam session in New Haven and the piano player starts playing C Jam Blues. Well, once again I'm on tenor so I start to play in D - and the schmuck is playing in Bb because all the other tenors are too lazy to do any other key - I suggested they change the name of the tune, which didn't make me popular -

sorry to digress, Mike -

[Lazaro Vega]

There's transposing, and then there's Fathead Newman. How does he keep it straight?

[Joe G]

There's transposing, and then there's Fathead Newman. How does he keep it straight?

What do you mean?

[AllenLowe]

I think he means Alfred E Neumann -

[Lazaro Vega]

Just responding to what Allen is talking about, calling concert keys and the key the instrument is pitched in, and seeing as how Fathead plays alto, tenor and flute, he's all up in that. Froncek was telling me a story of working with Fathead in Ann Arbor, and Newman got tangled up in explaining the different keys he needed to play in that night, eventually just waving at his wrack of horns and laughing about it. They got straight. It was just a funny moment.

[AllenLowe]

gotcha - reminds me of another story, thinking of keys - people used to say about Sonny Stitt, wow, he plays those tunes in odd keys, what a guy - when the truth was a little different - Bobby Buster, an organist I used to worked with who worked a lot with Stitt told me that the reason Stitt played in some weird keys was that he was too lazy to transpose, sometimes, when he swtiched instruments - so, for example, if he played Body and Soul on alto he'd want to do it in the tenor key, which would put it at Gb concert -

[Larry Kart]

If you want to hear something that's closer to my musical activities of the past several years, pick up Soul Journey. Even though it too is a few years old, it's my last CD as a leader.

Got it on Monday. I see what you mean or implied about the difference between "Milestones" and "Soul Journey." I like both, and your "core identify" so to speak is intact (especially as a soloist), but I hear your writing on "Soul Journey" a mood (or moods) that is/are implied by the album's title, reminiscent perhaps of "Odyssey of Iska"-era Wayne Shorter. Fine band, too.

[JSngry]

Please Michael, don't be trying to disappear!

[relyles]

If you want to hear something that's closer to my musical activities of the past several years, pick up Soul Journey. Even though it too is a few years old, it's my last CD as a leader.

Got it on Monday. I see what you mean or implied about the difference between "Milestones" and "Soul Journey." I like both, and your "core identify" so to speak is intact (especially as a soloist), but I hear your writing on "Soul Journey" a mood (or moods) that is/are implied by the album's title, reminiscent perhaps of "Odyssey of Iska"-era Wayne Shorter. Fine band, too.

Michael sent me a copy of Soul Journey a while ago. I remember listening to it and enjoying it when I first received it. I will have to pull it out for a more attentive listen.

[Michael Weiss]

Please Michael, don't be trying to disappear!

Huh?

[JSngry]

Inside joke, long story, etc. Nothing bad, I assure you.

[Hardbopjazz]

Michael played his ass off August 9th with the Frank Wess band at Grant's Tomb. I should post some of the photos I took that night.

[Larry Kart]

Inside joke, long story, etc. Nothing bad, I assure you.

Michael --

I think Jim is referring to a Down Beat review I wrote way back when of "Odyssey of Iska" or another Shorter album of that vintage and style, in which I said something about Shorter's apparent desire at the time to "disappear" as soloist -- not meaning by that that he no longer wanted to play at all but that he was seemingly more and more reluctant to step forward in "one" (as they used to say in vaudeville) as a soloist, and that this might account for the lush textures of "Iska" et al., which seemed to cover his soprano in palm fronds. I was also probably thinking then of an interview I'd done with Shorter for Down Beat in '68 or '69 (published under his own name as "Creativity and Change") in which he made it pretty clear that there was something about the then prevailing model of the jazz solo as an expression of self (and the aura of competiveness that he felt went along with this) that had begun to make him feel very uneasy. In any case, that record review was pretty much forgotten (certainly by me) until Francis Davis wrote a piece, for the Atlantic I think, about Shorter's "Footprints Live" and resurrected (with attribution) the idea of Wayne's alleged desire to "disappear" as a soloist. I don't have a copy anymore of that old Down Beat review, but I do have some things to say about Wayne along those lines in my book "Jazz In Search of Itself" (Yale University Press) -- in the introductory chapter "Enactment in Sound" and in a 1987 interview with Wayne that's reprinted in the book. As Jim said, long story.

[JSngry]

Inside joke, long story, etc. Nothing bad, I assure you.

In any case, that record review was pretty much forgotten (certainly by me) until Francis Davis wrote a piece, for the Atlantic I think, about Shorter's "Footprints Live" and resurrected (with attribution) the idea of Wayne's alleged desire to "disappear" as a soloist...

That's been one of your most memorable lines to me over the years, Larry! Made me frantic to hunt down Iska (and it took some doing - didn't find a copy until 1978 or so) to hear just what it was that you were talking about.

[Michael Weiss]

Since forming his present quartet in 2000 (2001?), obscuring the role of the soloist seems to be precisely Wayne's intent. Wayne and Herbie's duets are great examples of this as are the earliest versions of Weather Report. There seems to be more give and take in the dominant/subdominant roles (soloist/accompanist?).

But don't be fooled - there's more structure than meets the ear! – at least the first few listenings. (Scores do help.)

This reminds me of a tangentially related story: I went to the Creative Music Studio in Woodstock, NY in December 1977 for a ten-day "intensive" with the Art ensemble of Chicago. Needless to say, I was a little conflicted, between my interest in "Free Jazz", Cecil Taylor, AEC, Paul Bley, Sun Ra, etc. and Bird, Bud and Trane. You can imagine what a "jam-session" was like there. Although I had a nice time playing Cherokee with Lester Bowie. Anyway, the most interesting experiment, and the one thing I remember most about that week, was a piece that Roscoe Mitchell had us, a group of at least thirty musicians, play. He passed out different colored cards to each of us. Each color represented a role: dominant, subdominant, supportive, nonsupportive, and the like. This opened my eyes to different possibilities of structuring free improvisation without having to write a note. Despite the cards we were dealt, my recollection of the event was that the dominant roles were claimed by dominant people. It was, nevertheless a worthwhile experiment and the kind of thing a fixed group of musicians could accumulate years of hard work before really pulling it off (AEC!)

Reading and listening to what Wayne has to say is almost as much fun as listening to him play. I'd love to see that DB interview.

Edited August 21, 2006 by Michael Weiss

[Larry Kart]

Michael --

Here's a link to it:

http://www.downbeat.com/default.asp?sect=s...ail&sid=803

The circumstances behind it were kind of amusing. I'd just joined the magazine as associate editor, which meant that there were two of us in the editorial department, Dan Morgenstern, the editor, and me. Age 26, I had a pretty good good background in the music and had worked as an editor in textbook publishing but had no journalist experience, had never interviewed anyone. Dan not only wanted me to get my feet wet quickly but also, I believe, rather shrewdly thought that the presence of a young innocent face might get DB an interview with Wayne, who previously had brushed them off. Dan and I went to the Plugged Nickel to hear Miles' quintet, and between sets I introduced myself to Wayne and asked about doing an interview. He said politely, "No -- I don't have anything to say." Meanwhile Miles had spotted us talking and knowing what I probably was up to, because he knew who Dan was and had seen us sitting together, said in his hoarse voice from across the short side of the room, ""Don't tell him anything, Wayne!" It was kind of funny but also kind of cruel and, because I didn't know it was coming, a bit of shock. That must have registered on my face, because Wayne took a quick look at Miles and said to me, "Come by the motel tomorrow afternoon, and we'll talk." (I also suspect that Wayne was just in a Miles says "no," I say "yes" frame of friend.) So I got to the motel the next day, turned on my reel to reel machine, asked maybe one or two questions, and Wayne took hold of the external mike and essentially recited just what's printed in that DB article in a more-or-less unbroken flow. He didn't have anything to say, right? Given that flow, we (i.e. Dan and I) thought that it would only be right if it were printed as an essay under Wayne's name and he be paid the going rate for an article of that size. And that's what happened. Don't have the tape anymore, but I can recall every inflection of Wayne's voice.