Josh Nelson Offers an LA History Lesson with The Sky Remains - Los Angeles Times

Pianist Josh Nelson’s Fairfax District home is squeezed from all sides by the lore of old Los Angeles, and he is a student of the city’s many tales.

For Nelson’s newest release, “The Sky Remains,” out now on Origin Records, he invokes a handful of Southern California ghosts for an homage to the complicated past and promising future of his hometown with the help of some of L.A.’s best young jazz musicians, including vocalist Kathleen Grace, saxophonist Josh Johnson and drummer Dan Schnelle.

Nelson, 39, has worked tirelessly on the jazz scene since the late ’90s when he was juggling tours of China with classes at California State University Long Beach. He quickly established himself as a first-call accompanist, a talent that he applied to a more than half-decade gig with vocalist Natalie Cole.

In the last few years Nelson has focused on what he calls his Discovery Project, an immersive multimedia concert experience that on previous albums has touched on the works of writers H.G. Wells and Jules Verne as well as the Mars expedition. For the newest installment, Nelson has forsaken the ping of distance satellites for the tap-tap of the telegram machine, exploring Los Angeles with a little push from Robert Petersen’s podcast the “Hidden History of Los Angeles.”

“Robert had the episode about Griffith J. Griffith and his weird life,” says Nelson one early September evening. “He shot his wife in the face. I wanted to write a tune that had some weirdness to it but also a love song coming from his wife’s perspective. But how do you craft a tune that isn’t 'I shot her in the face. She jumped out the window.' So that’s where I started.”

Nelson didn’t start the project alone. Grace co-wrote the soft, propulsive ballad, weaving a love song around a sprawling metropolis and an assault with a deadly weapon conviction. “The city is different now but the sky remains the same,” she sings.

As Petersen’s podcast outlines, Col. Griffith J. Griffith was a drunken mad man with a redeeming streak of philanthropy that led to him funding not only Griffith Park but also the Griffith Observatory and the Greek Theatre.

“Josh’s project is unique because Los Angeles is not just a lyric or setting for the songs,” says Petersen. “Los Angeles is the project. He is trying to understand this complex city and tell some of its stories through song. It’s his love letter to the city.”

Nelson grew up in Long Beach and Simi Valley. His father was a Disney Imagineer and images of sparkling Southern California attractions dot his 91-year-old Spanish-style home. Catalina Island gleams on a Viewmaster on the dining room table, obscure soundtrack LPs recorded blocks away and decades ago fill his shelves. A few tasteful vintage souvenirs of the Happiest Place on Earth hang on his walls.

“Griffith Park has an L.A. sound to me. Being on the stairways in East L.A. or hanging out downtown, I always try to come up with a tune while I’m around,” says Nelson. “That was the fun part of this record: go into the field and do it. Just collect data. I can’t do that with Mars obviously.”

The end result is a suite of tunes that flows from the Los Angeles River to the ocean, from martini olives to ice cream cones. Josh Johnson spreads a hypnotizing swell of horns for his original tune “On the Sidewalk,” an homage to the writer and activist Charlotta Bass. Nelson’s “Ah, Los Angeles” evokes the Bunker Hill of John Fante’s succinct prose while a straightforward but lusher version of Elliott Smith’s “Pitseleh” is guided by Grace.

The cinematic precision of album opener “Bridges and Tunnels” is balanced by the open world of “The Architect,” the fourth tune of the album and the first to embrace many of the hallmarks of “jazz”: solos, swing and spontaneity. Those signals are not present on every track.

“I want to make good records and I don’t know if you can call them jazz necessarily. I’ve gotten criticism for not having enough piano moments on my last few records. ‘What are you talking about? There’s plenty of me!’ I wrote, I arranged and I’m playing the whole time. I’m trying to say something but I don’t want it to be ‘look at me’ the whole time too,” he says.

Nelson’s record is part of a larger trend of local jazz artists stretching beyond the limited confines of the genre. Co-producer and guitarist Anthony Wilson’s “Frogtown” from 2016 was a display of songwriting chops and poignant vocals that heralded another side of the six-string journeyman. Grace’s 2014 release “No Place to Fall” was as indebted to the pedal-steel guitar as it was to any swinging upright bass.

“While the project is clearly rooted in jazz, it is by no means beholden to it,” explains Petersen. “The songs stretch beyond traditional categories and focus more on telling a story or evoking a feeling.”

But Nelson isn’t prepared to hang up the changes just yet. The Discovery Project, with its bells and whistles, is a time-consuming and immersive project. The complicated and exacting presentation has inspired Nelson to hopefully return to a stripped-down trio recording session soon and appease some of his fans who like to hear a blizzard of notes and a melody they’ve known all their lives.

“I’m the first person to put on a Hank Jones record, and when I have sessions at my house, that’s what we play. But there is something about reaching people. I’m not giving up on my roots. ‘The Sky Remains’ is an eccentric record. It’s a little erratic. But so is L.A.,” says Nelson.

Josh Nelson @ the LA Times

39th Annual Playboy Jazz Fesitval - Los Angeles Times

Each year, at June’s gloomiest peak, the Hollywood Bowl hosts a seamless two-day festival that crams more jazz and jazz-adjacent acts into a single day than a subscription package to the Bowl does all summer. It is a marathon of sound and consumption, the rowdiest and friendliest jazz crowd within a few hundred miles.

On Saturday, the still-novel rotating carousel stage brought a differing approach with each half revolution, linking without any interruptions a college vocal ensemble, a behatted retro jazz outfit, a studious homage to French gypsy jazz, four vibraphonists, two blues greats, a grizzled supergroup, two diametrically opposed British pop stars, a vibrantly percussive big band and a bass-slapping front man who opened with a Beatles tune.

Whatever the algorithm, it largely worked, with each act dictating the appropriate level of discourse among the more than 15,000 attendees.

The Django Festival Allstars, a French hot club quintet, served duty as tablecloth jazz for peckish sunbathers in the mid-afternoon. Champagne corks popped over the crowd like bubbly meteorites as the band worked through standards like “Tea for Two” and “Minor Swing” on the heels of lead guitarist Samson Schmitt’s nimble stroke.

In tribute to the late Bobby Hutcherson, Stefon Harris assembled a multi-generational quartet of vibraphonists that also included newcomer Joel Ross, the robust Warren Wolf and the repeatedly hailed “godfather of neo-soul” Roy Ayers. It did not hurt to have Eric Harland on drums and hometown hero pianist Patrice Rushen providing some of the most monstrous straight-ahead solos of the day.

Taj Mahal, clad in a mustard-hued walking suit, shared the stage with a bearded Keb’Mo. They opened with Horace Silver’s “Senor Blues,” growling as they rotated into the daylight. Backup vocalists and a horn section filled out the bluesy set while guitar techs flanked both sides of the stage as both leaders changed instruments with nearly every song. Mahal strummed his way through a ukulele, banjo, electric guitar and acoustic guitar before adding some harmonica. 

By the time Hudson pivoted to the crowd, the sun had dropped behind the trees and the house had filled in substantially. The jazz supergroup which included drummer Jack DeJohnette, guitarist John Scofield, keyboardist John Medeski and bassist Larry Grenadier can be linked to virtually every major jazz figure since the late ’50s.

The act was supporting its ethereal self-titled album released late last week but brought a beefier, festival-ready live set. The group opened with a choppy ride through Jimi Hendrix’s “Wait Until Tomorrow.” Scofield and Medeski shot daggers from their humming machines while DeJohnette provided a muscular backbeat and Grenadier worked his bass like a greaser on the cusp of another reckless spin.

Amid the chunky riffs and feedback-friendly dissonance, the real revelation of the set was DeJohnette’s unexpected vocal take on the Band’s “Up On Cripple Creek,” belting from his drum stool — as it was meant to be sung.

“Let’s get crazy before it gets dark,” announced MC George Lopez.But there was no need to get overly rambunctious because singer/songwriter Corinne Bailey Rae was onstage in a tinfoil pantsuit backed by a cracker-jack R&B band.

She seduced the crowd with slow jams, a judicious mix of folk and funk turned up to 11. She closed with a well-received pair of radio hits, “Put Your Records On” and “Like A Star” but she didn’t get to finish the second tune as the sprightly one-man-band Jacob Collier was harmonizing from the other side of the wall, echoing across the nighttime crowd.

Collier was the first to use the Bowl’s mighty screens to his own advantage, overlaying live footage of each manic assault on his multiple musical workstations. Collier opened with Stevie Wonder’s “Don’t You Worry Bout A Thing,” emitting electric doo-wop harmonies through various tricks and whistles.

He ran around the stage playing some drums, an electric upright bass, a grand piano and a bank of keyboards, all while singing and gesturing toward the crowd in a sarong and oversized shirt. His act was a musical spinning of plates, seemingly changing parts of the song on the fly in polished loops without letting the beat drop.

“If there was a time to smoke marijuana, that was it,” Lopez announced at the close of Collier’s frazzled set. Regardless of in-house policy, trumpeter Arturo Sandoval brought the fire. Backed by his Latin big band with an assist from actor Andy Garcia on bongos, Sandoval played a high-energy set that included mambos both numbered and temperature-gauged.

He brought local trumpeter Wayne Bergeron out for a tribute to Maynard Ferguson. The two rattled glassware with a high-flying blues battle that got the crowd on its feet. Sandoval limited his trumpet playing and announced before sitting on the piano bench “the trumpet is so painful. I feel good when I play the piano.”

“I’m gonna play the most cold-blooded bassline in Motown bassline history,” Marcus Miller declared before playing two notes on his electric bass. Miller was the crowd-pleaser closer and he brought an instant connection with the audience by opening with the Beatles’ “Come Together” and following it up with the Temptations’ “Papa Was a Rolling Stone.”

Trumpeter Marquis Hill and saxophonist Alex Han offered sparse lines and inventive solos that reached beyond the groove while vocalist Rahsaan Patterson, in shoes that could be seen from the last row, sang in tribute to the late vocalist Al Jarreau including fan favorites “I Will Be Here for You” and “We’re in This Love Together.”

The Playboy Jazz Festival has always struck a unique balance between the ribaldry of its sponsor and the integrity of the Los Angeles Philarhmonic. It is a festival that embraces high art and lowbrow, equal bites steak and broccoli. As long as nobody gets hit in the eye by a cork, everybody’s happy.

Playboy Jazz Festival @ Los Angeles Times

Big Jay McNeely Still Blowing the House Down - KPCC's Off Ramp

The scene is a small house in South LA. Big Jay McNeely is attired in immaculate black Dickies, a perfectly pressed royal blue dress shirt, and a carefully chosen silk necktie. As he talks, you start to think this 90-year-old jazz legend is going to climb off his mobility scooter, grab his sax, and blow like he did one day in 1951 .

As Sean J. O'Connell puts it: "Big Jay McNeely was etched into pop music immortality in 1951. Photographer Bob Willoughby captured McNeely at a concert at Los Angeles's Olympic Auditorium 1951. In the photo, the Watts native is blasting his tenor sax on his back, the camera capturing the raised fists of post-war teenage hysteria seething in undershirts and pompadours at the foot of the stage. From Central Avenue with Charlie Parker and Art Tatum in the 1940s to the R&B circuit of the '50s and '60s, McNeely was there through a roller coaster of musical evolutions and had a good time along the way. His showmanship and soul are both youthful and timeless. He is rock & roll history, alive and well."

Big Jay McNeely, showman extraordinaire, at Olympic Auditorium, Los Angeles, 1951 ©BOB WILLOUGHBY/MPTVIMAGES.COm

Big Jay McNeely can't get down on the floor anymore, but he can still get down: he performed two concerts for his 90th birthday, and has two more scheduled this month.

Big Jay was born in Watts on April 29, 1927, given name Cecil James McNeely. Back then, Watts was country ... Cecil chopped wood for his mom's stove, they had livestock at the house, and the actual iceman cometh. He played with Little Richard, Junior Wells, B.B. King, and Etta James, and had his biggest hit in 1949, with "The Deacon's Hop," which hit #1 on Billboard's R&B chart. He played through the 40s, 50s, and 60s, retired from music in the 1970s, then returned to music in the 1980s.

McNeely is a showman, the last of a particular type of sax player called a "honker," who integrated showmanship with musicianship. "It wasn't really part of my program to lay on the floor (and play)," he says. "But I was working in a little town called Clarksville, Tennessee. We were working upstairs, blowing out brains out, but nothing happened. So I got on my knees. Nothing happened. So I laid down on the floor, and man, they went crazy. Everybody from downstairs would come up because they heard all this noise."

Then there was the time he had a gig with Lionel Hampton in LA's old Wrigley Stadium. He started playing up in the bleachers, moved all around the stadium, and wound up crawling across the infield. He also painted his sax fluorescent colors and used black lights to heighten the visual experience. And when he plays, he concentrates on engaging the audience ... with repeated notes, dramatic pauses, "overblowing" the horn, and other techniques he talks about in his interview with Off-Ramp jazz correspondent Sean J. O'Connell.

The reaction he got from teenagers in the city of LA, he says, worried officials here, who apparently thought he was some sort of Pied Piper. "The kids were responding to the music," he says, "and they didn't know why were responding in that way. They'd take pictures, I guess they'd try to analyze it, and they couldn't find out what's happening." So they wouldn't give him a permit to perform.

McNeely attributes at least part of his longevity to "living a clean life" as a Jehovah's Witness. "I was in Germany and was walking around saying, 'Man, I'm 75. I haven't got much longer to live,' cuz the Bible says 80, you know.  I got baptized as a Jehovah when I was 12, and my hope is for the Kingdom of God where you can live forever and ever. And that's what has kept me from getting involved ..." (in drugs or in focusing on success over happiness). "When you put your whole life into a career, and it don't happen, it affects some people. But to me the Kingdom is the only hope, so I'm still looking for that.  That's all that matters."

Big Jay McNeely @ KPCC

100 Years of Ella Fitzgerald with Barbara Morrison - KPCC's Off Ramp

Ella Fitzgerald spent the last part of her life here in Los Angeles. She had a mansion in Beverly Hills and after she died in 1996, was buried at Inglewood Park Cemetery. She would have turned 100 on April 25, and the celebrations have begun... including at the brand new California Jazz and Blues Museum in Leimert Park, which is presided over by LA's own first lady of song, Barbara Morrison.

Off-Ramp contributor Sean J. O'Connell met Morrison at the museum this week to talk about Ella's life and legacy. Make sure to listen to the entire interview in the audio player so you can hear Barbara give scatting advice, and give us a beautiful a capella version of Make Someone Happy.

DO YOU REMEMBER THE FIRST TIME YOU HEARD ELLA FITZGERALD?

I do. I was probably about ten years old. My dad had a hi-fi. And he played all the old songs of the great black singers in the day. And we had the first black radio station. It was in Inkster, Michigan. That's all he listened to.

DID SHE IMMEDIATELY APPEAL TO YOU?

No, I liked Dinah Washington and Ruth Brown. I liked the more bluesy stuff. But she was artistic, and that part of her I did like. She was more creative. She took leaps and bounds. You know, sitting on the bandstand with Chick Webb when you're a little kid and you got all these professional horn players blowing all kinds of solos. She had a photographic memory. She could remember all that stuff. She could remember what Johnny Hodges was playing in his solo, and she could sing it.

WHAT WAS PEAK ELLA?

"Ella in Berlin." When she did "Mack the Knife" and forgot the words. I think that really really really made her famous because she carried that whole thing, but she made it all work. I think people appreciated that, because that's how life is. You know? You make it work.

Morrison just christened the California Jazz and Blues Museum at 4317 Degnan Blvd 90008 which has a corner devoted to Ella. "It's called Ella's Pub," Morrison says, because "Dizzy and all the cats would come to town, and instead of hanging out in nightclubs where people would bother them, they'd go to Ella's house and she had a pub in her rec room and they'd all jam all night - Oscar Peterson and everybody."

Barbara Morrison @ KPCC

Herbie & Wayne & Terrence at Disney Hall - DownBeat

Los Angeles is very lucky to count pianist Herbie Hancock and saxophonist Wayne Shorter as residents. Both are American jazz treasures, and whenever they want to descend from the hills to impart some knowledge, it is always welcome. But Hancock’s tenure as the Creative Jazz Chair at the Los Angeles Philharmonic has been marred by frequent disappointments, including bookings of fringe jazz acts (John Fogerty, Steve Winwood) and overreaching lineups that rarely equal the sum of their parts.  

On Feb. 19 Hancock continued that tradition, overloading the stage with more than 100 members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic to provide pleasant accompaniment to a band that also included trumpeter Terence Blanchard, bassist James Genus and drummer Vinnie Colaiuta. If only the quintet had split the purse and the let the orchestra enjoy a three-day weekend at home, real magic could have been made.

Brooklyn 12-piece Snarky Puppy opened the show. Ordinarily, they are the largest band on the bill, but at Disney Hall they were subsumed by the cavernous venue—there were 10 empty chairs on for every member of the band. A technically precise ensemble, the Snarky Puppy crew is sloppy sartorially. (Many of the teenagers who filled the seats of the high-priced house were more formally dressed than the band.)

They started off slow and quiet but three electric guitars can’t stay quiet forever. “Semente,” from their recent release Culcha Vulcha (GroundUp), turned that around with a playful introduction by bandleader and bassist Michael League. The band was a blur of keyboards propelled by the ebullient rhythmic duo of Nate Werth on percussion and Robert “Sput” Searight on drums.

Songwriter David Crosby was in the audience, their loudest cheerleader, hooting with each blast of horns. As rigidly precise as the band can feel at times, they were certainly doing their part to loosen up the audience. The heat of the evening never got any higher.

Last summer, as part of the Hollywood Bowl’s jazz series, Carlos Santana assembled Mega Nova, a jazz-rock supergroup that not only included Hancock and Shorter but also bassist Marcus Miller and drummer Cindy Blackman-Santana. They played one gig. It was a rudderless drift from one idea to another that saw the ensemble unexpectedly covering both Cyndi Lauper and the National Anthem. Their powers combined did not eclipse each other’s talent.

Hancock and Shorter’s collaboration on Feb. 19 was an even more ambitious swing at grandiosity—with a result that was equally short of transcendent.

The headliners filled the front of the stage; the orchestra filled out the chairs behind them. There were more people on stage than most jazz clubs have capacity. Hancock said a few words about the first tune, Terence Blanchard’s arrangement of a Hancock solo performance, and then off went the house lights.

That tune, called “Herbie Hancock By Himself”, featured mostly the orchestra. Blanchard is a fantastic composer for the screen. His work greatly enhances visual imagery, but onstage, things seemed a little lost. Lush ideas floated by but didn’t stick. In the spaces where a solo voice could step in, it was rare that anyone took a stab with Blanchard playing the most, Hancock tapping out a few ideas and Shorter playing the least.

Shorter, a jazz talisman whose mere presence on the stage is enough to merit a standing ovation, was clearly not being paid by the note. He sat center stage along a baffle against the piano, head down, checking the music, occasionally blowing into his soprano and tenor saxophone.

On a drawn out “Footprints” that had the orchestra tumbling about in booming splashes, Blanchard thundered through a spirited solo. Shorter then took the spotlight on soprano, sat up, began to poke around the bass riff and abruptly stopped less than two choruses into the blues. The audience leaned in with miraculous attention (as they always do for Shorter in Los Angeles) and then exhaled. If he was going to bite, this wasn’t the forkful. 

The sleepy set must have been a dream come true for Blanchard. To have one of the most respected orchestras in the world playing your arrangements is quite the accomplishment. Unfortunately, those less invested in the music seemed to drift off.

The assembled musicians also tackled Hancock’s “Maiden Voyage,” but no amount of glockenspiel, gongs and timpani drums could have improved on what the core quintet could have done with the tune. In lieu of in-depth solos and engaging musical interactions,the audience was treated to a lot of swelling strings, warm brass and furtive looks. When he was briefly allowed to stretch out, Genus proved that he had enough strength and vitality on four strings to match the anonymous group of highly-paid orchestra members sitting behind him. 

Hancock and Shorter are such brilliantly intimate musicians. When they bounce off of each other, it is a language of whispers and telepathy; but when they only play for crowds of thousands, it’s hard to capture that spirit. On this night, the band never really got into that pocket, instead trying to blend in with an orchestra rather than control it. 

A little over an hour after starting, the houselights came up and nobody looked sure if they could leave yet. Should they play another tune? Could they just count one off and bring a little intimacy and spontaneity to the night? They could have, but they didn’t. Hancock thanked the crowd, the band stood up and everybody left the stage. That was all, folks. 

Herbie & Wayne & Terrence @ Downbeat

Saxophonist Doug Webb - JazzTimes

It was nearly 11 p.m. on a Monday night and Los Angeles’ oldest fulltime jazz club, the Baked Potato, was at standing-room-only capacity. Six musicians dressed in T-shirts crowded the small stage amid the garage-chic décor of promo photos featuring long-defunct bands. The sextet performed a blistering version of the Allman Brothers’ “Whipping Post” and embarked on a more subdued journey via Joe Zawinul’s “In a Silent Way.” Bookended by electric guitars and propelled by drummer Danny Carey, best known for his work with the alternative-metal band Tool, saxophonist Doug Webb stood in the middle of the tornado, blasting his horn with as much strength as his heavily amplified friends. Twelve hours later Webb was due for a commercial studio session. By the end of the week, he was in Texas teaching clinics and working with a big band.

“I’ve never turned down any work. I did whatever I could and still do,” the 55-year-old musician said before the set. “I’ve always worked a lot. People have asked me, ‘How come you’re so versatile?’ Easy. Lack of success.”

Though born in Illinois, Webb moved with his parents to Southern California at the age of 3. He played his first paying gig at 13 and has never looked back. Along the way, he picked up a degree from Berklee College of Music and worked with some of the most important jazz instrumentalists of the 20th century. His playing has appeared on more than 1,000 recordings, from honking television themes to soaring cinematic scores. Through it all he has also honed a strong personal sound that harkens back to tenor giants like John Coltrane and Dexter Gordon. Yet only in the last decade has he begun to seek out the spotlight.

On the recommendation of pianist Art Resnick, Webb joined trumpeter Freddie Hubbard’s band while still in his 20s. “Probably the greatest gig of my life, playing in a quintet with one of the baddest cats to ever play the trumpet,” Webb said. “He was kind of old-school. He would call tunes I didn’t know and make me play first. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we would like to feature our tenor player.'”

That kind of feet-to-the-flame education proved to be invaluable. “I would play everything I knew at every gig and then he would proceed to blow me away with one note. Sometimes I was too terrified to really enjoy the moment.” They played together until Hubbard was sidelined by health issues in the early ’90s.

From there Webb moved on to another master, pianist Horace Silver. Webb was a part of Silver’s last touring band and a frequent first call during the bandleader’s time in Malibu. “He would tell me, ‘Doug, you should really play the changes more.’ So I started spelling out the chords, and if I wasn’t playing the chord I was playing a blues scale,” Webb recalled. “When I started, I was trying to play that hip shit and Horace didn’t dig it.”

But bassist Stanley Clarke did. Webb has been a regular member of Clarke’s ensemble for decades, blitzing through his band’s breakneck arrangements on recordings and on stages around the world. For several of Webb’s albums as a leader, including the Posi-Tone releases Renovations and Midnight, Clarke returned the favor and joined in as a sideman, filling out a hard-swinging rhythm section with pianist Larry Goldings and drummer Gerry Gibbs. The results are a rare opportunity to hear Clarke work through time-tested standards.

Clarke has a great respect for Webb’s contributions. “In jazz music there are traditions that many of us hold near and dear to our hearts,” he said. “Some of us show that respect in composition and performance. I like Doug because he’s not afraid to honor those traditions, and even though any good jazz musician will always echo the past, Doug has the unique ability to sit on top of all those influences and truly sound like himself.”

Up a winding road and into the tight confines of the Hollywood Hills, Webb has a modest house amid the movie-star estates and uncommonly woodsy air. Webb lives there with his wife and the sprawling paraphernalia of a working musician. When I visited in March, a neck strap hung on the coatrack; boxes of reeds were stacked like Jenga pieces. A back room was loaded with books, mouthpieces and a few prized press clippings. The stereo was playing the rough mixes for Webb’s next release, a quintet session of mostly originals, recorded in New York last year.

Webb released his first album as sole leader at age 47. Several close calls earlier in his career didn’t pan out, and before he knew it he had enough session work to keep the lights on. “I wanted to make sure I had something to say,” Webb remarked about his eventual debut.

Since then he’s talked a lot. Webb has released nearly an album a year and has plenty of material in the can for future product. His partnership with the venerable Posi-Tone label has been fruitful. Last year, he contributed two albums to the label’s mostly straight-ahead discography. Back East features a boisterous quartet burning through a handful of Webb originals and a few choice standards. The second CD features a three-tenor frontline recorded in Brooklyn, pitting Webb against Walt Weiskopf and Joel Frahm. Triple Play is aided by the two-man rhythm section of organist Brian Charette and drummer Rudy Royston. But the album features carefully crafted takes from all three saxophonists, stepping well beyond the expectations of a traditional tenor battle. The three musicians are clearly on the same team, with a shared goal and a scorecard that is a tangle of timing and swagger.

Though Posi-Tone is based in Los Angeles, Webb is one of very few musicians on its roster who doesn’t live in New York. For label-owner Marc Free, a lot of it comes down to work ethic. “In all fairness, I know a lot of guys in L.A. who I would love to make records with, but they’re not going to get out there and work hard and play a lot of gigs,” Free said. “They’re comfortable with the work they have teaching and doing sessions. They’re not going to get on the road and do two or three gigs a night. … [Doug] has a ceaseless love to play, and that makes him stand out.”

But Webb does record on the West Coast too. His V.S.O.P. quartet release Sets the Standard pairs him with pianist Alan Broadbent, a more sensitive foil to his muscular horn. With bassist Putter Smith and drummer Paul Kreibich, the group works through a set of familiar tunes, presenting a more relaxed side of Webb’s musicality that doesn’t often pop up on his New York recordings.

In a windowless upstairs room of Webb’s house, a museum of weathered instrument cases protected a vast and unique collection of woodwinds. In no particular order, Webb recognized the obscure ethnomusicological artifacts and where he put them to work. A bass ocarina elicited a raspy hum that he used for Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. A set of Chinese reed instruments provided a Far East twang for Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino. Smurfs and Minions waddled around to even more otherworldly horns, twisted into impossible fingerings and even stranger tunings. Webb picked out a dulled, unidentifiable pewter horn and summoned Coltrane’s “Mr. P.C.” with a squawk. “I’ve got about 17 repair people,” he joked.

“I’ve always been a bandleader and I’ve always also been a sideman,” Webb insisted. He’s in it for the long haul and is not afraid to put in the hours to get his name out there. In the next few months, he will lead his band at half a dozen Southern California rooms before gearing up for another album release. The cycle continues, but in many ways the process is just beginning. 

Doug Webb @ JazzTimes

Jazz at the Blue Whale - KPCC's Off Ramp

The Blue Whale just celebrated 7 years in Little Tokyo and has become - despite its location on the top floor of Weller Plaza - the definitive room for hip, progressive, youthful jazz. And the audience at the club has gone from 3 awkward dudes nursing a Pepsi for two hours to a diverse, packed, engaged crowd.

And like the Village Vanguard and Birdland in New York, or Shelly's Manne-Hole and the Lighthouse here in LA, more and more artists are recording albums at the Blue Whale. Several have already been recorded at the club, and on Friday, Feb. 17, and Saturday, Feb. 18, keyboardist Mark de Clive-Lowe is throwing an album release party at the club called "Live at the Blue Whale." Mark can get them dancing in the aisles but he can also play a straight-ahead Ahmad Jamal groove all day long.

Joon Lee admits he didn't pick the best time to start a businesses, especially one in an obscure corner of an obscure mall in downtown LA. "I built it Winter 2009. It was bad timing. Everything was going down. And we had many nights when there were more employees than customers ... for at least a year. I was thinking at least two years, I'm gonna lose money for sure." Why has he succeeded when other jazz clubs have failed? "First of all you have to believe in this music. And then you have to believe in this community." 

Mark says, "There are some clubs where you're fighting with patrons who don't want to hear music, or staff who wish it was the rock night. When I play The Blue Whale, creatively it feels like a safe space. Whatever I want to do - and I've seen this with other musicians, whatever they want to do - is accepted by the audience and the venue. The staff culture here is really strong, supportive, and friendly. The space is made for music; the only reason for it to exist is for people to perform their art."

The Blue Whale @ KPCC

Dizzy For President - KPCC's Off-Ramp

(audio is available at link below)

It's election season. A deep schism in the Republican Party has led to the nomination of one of the most galvanizing presidential candidates in American history. Democrats, on the other hand, have rallied behind a beltway insider with plenty of White House experience.

One candidate, however, has given disillusioned Americans hope for the future. We're not talking about Bernie, and we're not talking about Gary Johnson or Jill Stein, either. We're not even talking about this year's election.

It's 1964: Lyndon Johnson, Barry Goldwater and probably the hippest presidential candidate ever: jazz musician Dizzy Gillespie. And it all started here in Los Angeles. 

With his trumpet bell pointed sky high and his cheeks inflated to the size of softballs, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie was one of the most recognizable jazz musicians of the 20th century. Aside from his importance as one of the prime architects of bebop, Gillespie was a style icon and a consummate showman.

At the age of 47, he added an unexpected title to his resume: presidential candidate. Offering himself up as a swinging alternative to Johnson and Goldwater, Gillespie spent most of 1964 campaigning from the bandstand. He even wrote a theme song for the campaign.

Gillespie hosted a midday press conference two months before the election at Shelly’s Manne Hole, the Hollywood nightclub run by jazz drummer Shelly Manne on Cahuenga Boulevard. In front of a bank of microphones and reporters from Jet, Billboard and DownBeat, Gillespie outlined his platform under the shabby glow of the world-famous jazz room, along with naming his cabinet appointees.

Ramona Crowell, the campaign's self-described "mover and shaker," was there. Crowell is the last surviving member of Gillespie’s proposed cabinet. She's 89 today. But she was more than a cabinet member. She was his campaign manager. She was also pretty realistic about his chances.

"I think he would’ve tried real hard to be business-like," she said. "But he was anything but. You could tell from his nickname what he was like."

Crowell, along with Jean Gleason, the wife of Rolling Stone magazine co-founder Ralph Gleason, organized the campaign with a bit of merchandising genius: sweatshirts.

"I decided we should make Dizzy Gillespie sweatshirts, because I had seen a Beethoven sweatshirt," she said. "Dizzy was agreeable to it, and we did."

Though Gillespie never made it on the ballot, his tongue-in-cheek campaign struck a chord. Sales of campaign buttons and sweatshirts were donated to the Congress for Racial Equality and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

A lot of Gillespie’s platform focused on civil rights concerns: he promised to deport George Wallace, the segregationist governor of Alabama, to Vietnam.

The cabinet appointments were the best part by far, though. Here's a bit of his campaign speech:

When I am elected president of the United States, my first executive order will be to change the name of the White House to the Blues House. The title of ‘secretary’ will be replaced by the more appropriately dignified ‘minister.’ Miles Davis has offered to serve as minister of the Treasury, but I’ve persuaded him to head the CIA instead.

Although Bo Diddley applied first, I told him my choice is the great Duke Ellington for minister of State. He’s a natural and can con anybody. Louis Armstrong is set for minister of Agriculture. He knows all about raising those crops.

Behind every cabinet appointment was a more-or-less inside joke about the jazz legends Gillespie called peers. I don't know if we need to ask, but why Louis Armstrong for agriculture?

"The agriculture thing was because he grew dope," said Crowell, laughing. "I guess it was really good dope."

For minister of Peace? Charles Mingus.

“He was anything but a candidate for that," said Crowell. "He had a terrible temper. He was very overt in his dislike of anybody. And crabby!"

Again, candidate Gillespie:

And, after considering the qualifications and potential of a great many candidates, I have decided that the rabbi of modern jazz… the maharajah of contemporary music… one of the most creative and gifted and avant-garde young men I know – Thelonious Sphere Monk – will be booked for a four-year tour as roving ambassador plenipotentiary.

"He was not outgoing or friendly or anything like that," Crowell, whose title alternated between vice president and press secretary, said. "He wasn’t anybody’s choice for ambassador!”

In the end, Gillespie never held office, of course. His lighthearted campaign did help raise awareness of civil rights issues. Gillespie died in 1993, exactly two weeks before a saxophone-playing southerner took over the Oval Office.

Gillespie did get his chance to hang at the White House, though. In the summer of 1978, Gillespie was invited by then-president Jimmy Carter to participate in the White House Jazz Festival. The two duetted on an appropriate tune, Salt Peanuts.

Dizzy Gillespie and Ramona Crowell @ KPCC

Miles Mosley & the West Coast Get Down at the El Rey - Downbeat

For the last dozen years, the West Coast Get Down has been a collective of supremely versatile Los Angeles musicians, each member a capable but vastly different leader from one another. The band’s explosive arrival beyond the L.A. basin was the release of member and saxophonist Kamasi Washington’s The Epic. The album was praised upon its release in March 2015 and a non-stop world tour has kept Washington’s name in the headlines while the rest of the band planned their debuts from the same blur of hotels, stages and airports. Now, finally, another member is ready to have his name on the marquee: bassist Miles Mosley.

Mosley is a charming frontman. He broke through as a teenager and has since been steadily working with acts as varied as Korn and Billy Preston. His new album, Uprising (World Galaxy/Alpha Pup), is a diverse collection of original tunes that sway from shouting gospel to slapping funk, psychedelic baroque to thumping dance grooves.

On Jan. 28 at the El Rey Theatre in L.A., Mosley and his booming bass performed selections from the new album, and throughout the night shared stories and appreciations that were humble and welcoming. In between, things were much more aggressive.

When the curtain pulled back, 18 musicians filled the stage around Mosley, who was dressed in all black (matching the color of his upright bass). He wore a golden armament on his right bicep. (Though collective member Thundercat was not present, his chain mail armor would pair well with Mosley’s decorative shield.) A four-woman choir, six-piece string section, two keyboardists, a horn section and drummer Tony Austin also filled the stage. 

The band immediately hit loud and fast, summoning incredible force on a par with Sly & the Family Stone. The manic, freight-train vibe seemed to inform much of the evening’s set, with the choir hollering and the horns blasting throughout. Mosley didn’t move much, but he made up for it with some bass demonstrations that few others can match.

Mosley is a rare combination of singer and upright bassist. He handles both with aplomb but it his instrumental prowess that gets him so many gigs. He handles the large instrument like a toy, swaying and stabbing with his bow. When he really digs in, he can summon the sound of a thousand jets, shredding the hell out of his upper register as pedals multiply the intensity and decibels. 

During the hour and a half long set, each member of the horn section was also given an opportunity for an extended solo. But this was not a blowing session. Mosley’s compositions moved like suites, quietude buoyed by pianist Cameron Graves while the bombast would swing in on Austin’s sticks.

Washington was the first featured, snarling over the rest of the band with a tightly-wound shot. Trombonist Ryan Porter nabbed the spotlight later on, blowing with exuberance. Trumpeter Dontae Winslow, his horn bell painted red, reached into the stratosphere for his solo, splattering high brass all over the band’s grooving gospel. Under the guidance of musical director Geoff “Double G” Gallegos, the strings were sharp, pumping up the pomp and circumstance.

“Fire” boiled over quickly with every member of the orchestra pushing his or her abilities to the limit. The crowd followed the lead, moving endlessly through the set in all manner of exuberance. “Sky High” featured Graves nimble piano. A baby grand piano was a rare sight on the El Rey stage, a venue usually reserved for rock acts. Graves took his time, flicking daggers with precision. His piano also grounded “Abraham,” the lead single from the album. The title is a reference to Mosley’s first name by birth, and the song is a roaring, triumphant anthem.

The West Coast Get Down is a many-tentacled beast still tethered to a central nervous system. In the next few months, drummer Ronald Bruner Jr., bassist Thundercat, keyboardist Brandon Coleman and pianist Cameron Graves will all release albums, attempting to further define themselves amid the soaring juggernaut that is “Kamasi Washington fever.” 

As each member grabs the megaphone, a whole new world of box office draws and marquee combinations will be tried. This year might be a challenge for the collective, because there are so many options, so many paths to explore. It’s a nice problem to have, but one that will no doubt test their limits. 

Miles Mosley @ DownBeat

Grammy Camp at Capitol Records with Al Schmitt & Bob Dylan - Downbeat

It’s hard not to feel a tinge of jealousy when observing the student musicians in the annual Grammy Camp Jazz Session. Following a rigorous audition process, high school musicians from around the country travel to Los Angeles, where they watch live performances, attend lectures and perform for industry insiders during the action-filled week leading up to the Grammy Awards ceremony.

This year’s participants included 32 teenage musicians (two rhythm sections, eight vocalists and 18 instrumentalists). Their experience culminated with multiple sessions at the famed Capitol Records Studio A, which has hosted everyone from Ella Fitzgerald to Frank Sinatra to the Beach Boys. The resulting sessions will eventually be whittled down to a dozen tracks and released as an iTunes album later this year.

David Sears, who serves as executive education director, has been involved in the program for 21 years. During that time, many future stars have participated in the program, including pianist Christian Sands (a member of bassist Christian McBride’s band), Jon Batiste (bandleader for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert) and Marcus Gilmore (who topped the category Rising Star–Drums in the 2012 DownBeat Critics Poll).

Over the years, Sears has helped recruit numerous experts to teach the students about music business as well as helping them craft an artistically fulfilling and marketable recording. This real-life experience is invaluable for many students, including ones who pursue collegiate music programs.

Al Schmitt is one of the veteran sages brought in by Sears to give the students some guidance. A producer, recording engineer and mixer, Schmitt has taken home Grammy gold for his work with a diverse array of artists, including Paul McCartney, Diana Krall, Steely Dan and Ray Charles.

At 85 years young, Schmitt remains tireless, as evidenced by the way he enthusiastically bound up the steps and interacted with the young musicians during a Feb. 12 session.

“I can tell you that jazz is not dead,” Schmitt said with a smile during a brief interview. “Every year, these kids just blow me away. 15, 16 years old. Close your eyes and you’ll swear you are listening to a band from the Basie era.”

Schmitt has provided his time-tested ears for the mixing portion of the session for several years. He feels fortunate to have had great mentors, such as Tom Dowd, and he feels a responsibility to share his knowledge. “What the Grammys are doing is a big thing,” he said. “We have to continue funding these things. They’ve stopped putting money into school. When I was a kid we had music appreciation, but kids don’t get that anymore. All parents have a responsibility that if a child is interested they should be given the opportunity to learn an instrument.”

Capitol Records mainstay Charlie Paakkari (also a Grammy winner) served as engineer for the session, manning an enormous mixing console. Meanwhile, Justin DiCioccio—associate dean and chair of the Manhattan School of Music’s Jazz Arts Program—bounced around the studio as band director, sassing the students and drawing strong performances with his graceful conducting.

As if playing music in a world-famous recording studio weren’t surreal enough an experience for these kids, Bob Dylan stopped by—unexpectedly. Midway through a churning take of Herbie Hancock’s “The Eye Of The Hurricane,” Dylan walked into the control booth, dressed in white cowboy boots and sunglasses. He was working on a new album across the hall with Schmitt. The two had collaborated on Dylan’s 2015 album Shadows In The Night (which was recorded at Capitol Studios) and are now working on a similar project.

Dylan stood attentively watching the youngsters perform as Schmitt egged him on, suggesting they record the next album with the students. Dylan talked briefly with Sears and when the band finished, he gave an approving nod before getting back to work across the hall.

Several students encountered Dylan as they went into the booth to hear the playback. Some were dumbfounded by the sight of the rock legend, while others didn’t know who he was. Some kids got more excited when DJ/producer Martin Solveig dropped in on the session and joined the group for an impromptu brassy jam on the hook from his tune “The Night Out.”

In addition to having an unforgettable musical experience, Schmitt feels that some of the kids learned an important life lesson: “The thing I want them to come away with is that they should follow their heart. It’s a great voyage and you never know what’s going to happen.”

Grammy Camp @ Downbeat