Goodbye Sirone

Gone is another jazz artist for year 2009. Bassist and composer Sirone died last October 21 at his second home, in Berlin, Germany.

Norris "Sirone" Jones  was born on September 28, 1940. He got into music by playing trombone and eventually switched to bass in the late fifties after being expelled from his high school band. A decision that would lead him to a life-long career in jazz beginning with George Adams in their hometown Atlanta, Georgia.

Sirone was always on the move. Like most prodigious jazz artists, he was drawn to the big apple relocating there in 1965. He established himself as a leading contributor to 70's avant-garde jazz movement with the Revolutionary Ensemble. A reed-less trio with AACM's Leroy Jenkins on violin, and Jerome Cooper on percussion. Their group was among the first to meld contemporary classical music to avant-garde jazz. Favoring color, tone, abstraction of rhythm, and intense musical interaction now known to many as chamber jazz.

A story he often told with both amusement and rancor, was their trio held a badge of notoriety for drawing displeasure to Quincy Jones. When their album The People's Republic was played by Herb Alpert at a party, A&M's artistic director Jones dismissed it as "not music". The album was released under Alpert & Moss' ill-fated subsidiary label Harmony.

In 1989, a grant received from the German Academic Exchange Service allowed Sirone to teach in Europe. While in Germany, he was able to express himself on various forms of media -- composing and playing music for film and television. Aside from doing live performances and studio work, he also has theater to his credit, collaborating with his spouse Veronika and Pulitzer prize winner Samuel Sheppard.

Sixty nine year old Sirone has recorded three albums under his name. He also appeared on numerous free jazz albums of Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman, Pharoah Sanders, Marion Brown, Sonny Sharrock, and The Jazz Composers Orchestra.

He is survived by his wife Veronika Nowag-Jones.

Together with colleagues, friends, and us fans of Sirone, Cultchas crew expresses its sincerest sympathy to his family for the loss of a remarkable artist. Goodbye Sirone.

 

(1) Sirone portrait was shot and cropped from Pharoah Sanders LP cover, Izipho Zam (My Gifts), released under Strata East Label. Original photo by Martin Bough.

(2) Video and audio by Robert O'Haire at straw2gold pictures. Posted with kind permssion from Mr. O'Haire. Project L'Afrique Garde: Michael Wimberly (drums & percussion), Nioka Workman (cello), Abdoulaye N'Diaye (saxophones), and Sirone (bass) Ras Moshe's MUSIC NOW at The Brecht Forum, NYC June 28th, 2008.

Boss Guitarist George Benson

Growing up during the eighties meant playing, with a lot of imagination, Doctor J vs. Larry Bird on Atari; watching Mr. T and the rest of the gang build DIY anti-bad guy contraptions on A Team; Thriller of Michael Jackson, (yes, I tried to dress, sing, and dance like MJ, not a pretty sight) and of course, the famous ballads of George Benson.

It has been years since I've last played George Benson cuts even for casual listening. If it weren't for a recent thread on one of the Internet's biggest online Jazz resource, AAJ, his albums will still remain enclosed and untouched on my inactive shelf of LPs, tapes and CDs.

I first encountered George Benson via his hit tunes Nothing's gonna change my love for you and In your eyes. Apart from those, my knowledge about him was limited to his dandy vocals.

It took me a while to realize he was a "good" guitarist. When I saw him play live on TV , my interest was piqued as he was playing notes from his guitar exactly how he sang them. First time I saw such a feat.

This led to a series of search, starve, and buy missions starting off with a Don Sebesky backed session White Rabbit on CTI records. It wasn't long when I got hold of his releases with Columbia where he was playing serious stuff. At the onset, I could not believe what enormous skill and talent he had put to waste by singing pop tunes. I labeled him a sell-out and at the same time, guitar god.

Benson's guitar work is full of flawless, razor-sharp phrasings and explosive single note runs. It was as normal as breathing. Just when I thought he had run out of gas, he'll put in full- bodied octaves reminiscent of Wes Montgomery during solos. His rhythmic and harmonic sophistication was also something to marvel. While listening, I could not stop thinking him saying, kiss my axe!

Years have passed, I now realize my grave mistake of Mr. Benson's criticism. It was all borne out of ignorance for good musicmanship, and being insensitive to his circumstance.

Along with elite artists like Nat King Cole, George Benson is one of few musicians who have attained critical and commercial success in different genres. It is with greatest love of all that cultchas crew vote him as one of the world's versatile artists and most wicked six string slingers to have walked on this planet. Take it away boss George....

 

1. Images from George Benson website
2. Video  from Youtube by JazzAudrey. Live cover of Dave Brubeck Quartet's classic hit, Take Five (plus Buck Rogers Nihonggo) with Sadao Watanabe.

Shutter Maestro Roberto Polillo

In a field where names such as Herman Leonard, Lee Tanner, Francis Wolff, William Gottlieb, William Claxton reign supreme; anyone who dabbles into jazz photography is destined to play camera aide. Their works adorned countless jazz publications and albums throughout the years. Each with famous shots marked indelibly into our minds.

It is only a matter of time that lens work of a prodigious youngster be rediscovered forty years after they have been taken. With great pride and pleasure, Cultchas crew now feature a hidden gem in jazz photography, Roberto Polillo.

 

Roberto, then aged sixteen began to cover important jazz artists for the magazine Musica Jazz. These were taken during concerts in Italy and neighboring countries in Europe from 1962 till 1974. His photographs could never have been caught by luck alone -- they are enough to fill an entire art gallery. In fact, his work has been on exhibit at various cities of his homeland Italy. A book aptly titled Swing, Bop, and, Free showcases jazz legends of the sixties captured by him.

A permanent exhibition of Roberto's masterpieces can be seen at the Centro Studi Fondazione Siena Jazz. A center for jazz studies dedicated to the memory of his father, the late, Arrigo Polillo.

All rendered in striking monochrome, his frames are never drab and unceasingly depict stories. Part of his pictures' dynamic appeal is his ability to capture what underpins an artist, possessing transparent sharpness as though his camera have pierced through their souls.

Like the musicians in his pictures, Roberto has impeccable timing, near-psychic sensitivity, and splendid skill in composition.

It is interesting to note that Roberto was never a professional photographer. He was software entrepreneur and co-founder of Etnoteam. At present, he is a professor of computer science at the University of Milano Bicocca on human-computer interaction. 

Nearly three decades of sabbatical in photography, he is now back capturing images -- no longer on film but digital. Other than Jazz, he is currently into different themes, in particular, street and pictorial arts. 

An online gallery maintained by Roberto himself can be accessed at flickr.

(1) Swing, Bop, and Free; Marco Polillo Editore, Milan
(2) Through the generosity of the Polillo family, Centro Studi Arrigo Polillo was established in 1989. The center now holds all documents and recordings amassed by Arrigo through decades of his involvement in jazz.
(3) The url of Roberto Polillo's flickr photostream: 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/robertopolillo

(4) The url of Centro Studi Arrigo Polillo: http://centrostudi.sienajazz.it

(5) All images are posted by Cultchas with kind permission from Mr. Roberto Polillo.
(6) Images from top to bottom: Eric Dolphy, John Coltrane, Lester Bowie,  Wayne Shorter,  Lennie Tristano, Horace Silver, Don Cherry with Sonny Rollins,  and Famoudou Don Moye

Happy Birthday Martial Solal

Cultchas crew greets its favorite artist Martial Solal a happy 82nd birthday!!!

Born on August 23rd of French-Jewish parents in Algiers. Martial Solal began establishing his name when he moved to Paris in the fifties playing piano with American expatriates and Europe's best jazz musicians.

The sixties became pivotal to his success. This was a period marked by a string of key recordings and began writing film scores starting off with Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless. 

On one account, Oscar Peterson gave up performance dates in France to watch this man swing. 

Solal's decision to play to a wider audience across the Atlantic gained him more favorable attention to jazz musicians and critics.

Duke Ellington:
Martial Solal has, in abundance, those indispensables of the musicians' craft: sensitivity, creativity, and a prodigious technique. Most of all, he sparkles with refreshment -- and for a jazz musician to sound refreshing in 1963 is no ordinary thing! 

Dizzy Gillespie:
It is remarkable to discover that an artist so far removed from the roots of jazz as Algeria and France can adapt himself so magnificently, and can create from the soul so basically as Martial Solal.

Martin Williams:
One of the best jazz musicians in the world. 

Lee Jeske:
Martial Solal has it all: heart, brains, chops. Calling him the greatest pianist in Europe is like calling Frank Sinatra the greatest crooner from New Jersey. Ridiculous! 



Merci de faire la musique merveilleuse. Joyeux anniversaire monsieur Solal!!! 


(1) Original photo by Mirko R. Boscolo, re-taken and cropped from Bluesine LP sleeve released by Soul Note Italy

(2) Video from youtube by HLORG

Departure of an Ezz-thetic Stratusphunk

What Bela Bartok and Arnold Schoenberg are to classical music, George Russell is to jazz. 

Multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger, band leader, educator and theorist; Russell pioneered fusing Afro-Cuban rhythms to jazz and liberating its approach to improvisation from the shackles of chord changes.

Mr. Russell died yesterday of complications from Alzheimer's disease. He was 86.

Developed during the fifties, his theory called "The Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization" has influenced jazz innovators like Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, Ornette Coleman and Eric Dolphy. This important work on modal music, which many consider ahead of its time earned him numerous accolades including the prestigious MacArthur Foundation "genius" award in 1989.

The entire Cultchas crew mourn the passing of a remarkable man. He will always be remembered for his stratuspheric contribution to the arts.

(1) The birth of Afro-Cuban Jazz is credited alongside Chano Pozo and Dizzy Gillespie at the Carnegie Hall in 1947; Cubana be, Cubana bop.
(2) Image was re-shot and cropped from the LP cover of George Russell Sextet at Beethoven Hall (MPS); Original photo by Ove Alstrom, graphics by Gigi Berendt.
(3) Video posted is from youtube. With kind permission from JazzVideoGuy, Mr. Bret Primack.