Listening to jazz on TV

It's an oxymoron, I know, but I like listening to jazz on TV. It's better than any online jazz radio station or channel.

Here's how it works: My cable provider, Cox Communications, offers about 40 channels of music under the name Music Choice. It runs the gamut -- rock, pop, heavy metal, showtunes, easy listening, blues, Christmas music... You get the idea. Jazz is on Channel 930.

Now, most folks find new jazz music by listening to the radio, Internet channels or services like Pandora or Dizzler. I like Channel 930.

First of all, it plays an incredible mix, and it's all straight-ahead jazz. Today, I spent an hour watching Channel 930. About half the music was new, at least to me: A trombonist named Bill Cantrall. A pianist named Eric Reed (OK, he's not new; he played with Wynton Marsalis in the 1990s. But he was new to me.) An organist named Jared Gold. Half was old: Art Tatum, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane and the MJQ.

There are no videos, just static pictures, and every song includes notes on the artist, song, album and year of release. So, for example, Channel 930 played "Splat" by Jared Gold from his 2008 album "Solids and Stripes." It's so new and unknown that Allmusic.com doesn't list the CD. Amazon sells it, but there are no reviews. (I do wish Channel 930 had at least told me what instrument Mr. Gold plays. The solists on this tune were an organist and a saxophonist. I wound up having to look him up on Wikipedia.)

So what's the big deal? Well, there's a local jazz radio show I like, but the DJ only names the songs and artists every third track. If you're not paying attention, you miss it. On Channel 930, there's no missing the title or artist.

On most songs -- but not all -- the channel also throws up bits of trivia. For Eric Reed, for example, the channel noted that he was influenced by Edwin Hawkins, Art Blakey, Ramsey Lewis and Dave Brubeck, and that he played with Marsalis in the '90s. That's nice to know. I did notice, however, that for very new artists, there is no trivia at all, so the channel just tosses up any old thing about jazz. For example, on Bill Cantrall, Channel 930 offered such un-helpful tidbits as the origin of "soul jazz" (Cantrall is not a soul jazz artist) and details on the 1945 recording of "Koko" (this was not a cover of "Koko").

Over the course of one hour, Channel 930 played 10 jazz songs. None were smooth jazz or fusion or avante garde. I like that. One, by Monk, was a version of "In Walked Bud" that I had never heard before, with Jon Henricks singing the lyrics and scatting. I liked that, too. And the MJQ song included a soloist on Spanish guitar. I had never heard that, either. I enjoyed it.

It feels silly watching jazz on a big-screen high-def TV when there's no action, no videos, just static pictures and words. But it's good. It's a waste of TV, probably, but it's also fun and informative. Now, if they could only add videos.

How Slow Is Too Slow? -- Harry Connick Jr.

My wife has a funny expression. It's about a favorite aunt who talks very, very slowly. "You want to reach down her throat and pull out the words," my wife says.

That's exactly how I felt listening to a song on Harry Connick Jr.'s 1990 album "Lofty's Roach Souffle." I wanted to grab his fingers and force the notes out.

Now, I should note that I like this CD very much. It is strictly instrumental, which is unusual for Connick. More important, it comes closer to sounding like Thelonious Monk, without actually playing Monk's music, than anything I've heard in years. Connick has the gestures down cold. The plink and plunk and odd silences. The unlikely notes struck together. It's all the more impressive because these are original compsitions.

But I digress.

The slow tune is called "Little Dancing Girl." I'm sure there's an interesting story behind it, and maybe it's in the liner notes, but I lost them. So now all I have is this track, which runs 7:33 and feels about twice that long. I know it's a matter of preference, but I can't imagine anyone liking a song that drags... so... slowly.

In fairness, I generally prefer romps to ballads. I like swinging Sinatra more than ballad Sinatra. I like bebop Charlie Parker better than sensuous Charlie Parker. And yet, as I get older, I find myself more and more drawn to songs like "Someone To Watch Over Me." The movie "Mr. Holland's Opus" has an especially beautiful version of that classic Gershwin tune.

But this song? Maybe if I play it twice as fast I could find a tune in it. As it is... meh.

Anyway, buy this CD, definitely. But skip this track and go on to the next one, which is a bouncy New Orleans-y ride on the 88s. You'll thank me.

Celeste + Jazz = Blech!

In 28 years of professional writing, I don't think I've ever used the word "twee." But I'm about to.

Look it up. Dictionary.com says "twee" means "affectedly dainty or quaint." Put another way: Unnaturally cute.

That's the celeste in jazz. It's cute and dainty and thoroughly unnatural. What's more, it's a mood killer. I can't understand why anyone would use it.

You've heard the celeste, even if you don't know it. It sounds like a toy piano. That's the problem. It's about the most un-serious musical instrument I can think of, except maybe a kazoo.

There's a place for the celeste in classical music. Tchaikowsky used it effectively in The Nutcracker. Think of the "Dance of the Sugarplum Fairies." It's also in Grofe's "Grand Canyon Suite."

But lately I've been listening to "The Blues Piano Artistry of Meade Lux Lewis." It was recorded in 1961 and it has 10 tracks. Seven of them are pure barrelhouse, booggie-woogie, solo piano pleasure. It's about as good and rolicking as a solo piano can get.

And then there are three tracks on celeste. Let's just say blues were never meant to be played on a celeste. The CD just stops cold dead at each track.

In fairness, Monk used a celeste, too, on his classic "Brilliant Corners" album, five years before Lewis. He did it on one track, "Pannonica." At least he was smart enough to surround himself with other instruments. He plays the celeste with his left hand and the piano with his right. Plus there are two saxes, drums and bass. And he does lay off the celeste for part of the track. Still, it doesn't sound right.

You have to wonder. Didn't anyone say to Monk or Lewis, "Dude, that's wrong. You sound like a 5-year-old. You sound... twee!"

I wish someone had.

The Bad Plus - But Is It Jazz

And now for something completely different.

I've been listening to The Bad Plus. They're not new, exactly. They've been around since 2003. That's pretty new relative to the rest of jazz/rock/pop/whatever.

And I guess it doesn't matter so much what they are. Jazz? Power trio? Fusion? Well, no, not fusion. By definition, fusion would have to include something electric, and The Bad Plus isn't that. It's just a traditional jazz trio of piano, bass and drums.

But there's nothing traditional about their music.

I have 3 Bad Plus CDs, two of which I bought last week. They are: “These Are The Vistas” and “Give” and “Suspicious Activity?” (The question mark is their's, not mine.)

I like them – I think. I can't recall hearing anything like them before. And how often does that happen?

I remember hearing Monk for the first time. I thought: “Wow, I know that's jazz,but it's unique.” That was three decades ago and I still believe it. I have searched near and far and I haven't found anyone yet who sounds like Monk, or even remotely reminds me of Monk.

The Bad Plus does. Not because their music is Monk-like. It is anything but. Still, it reminds me of Monk in its utter freshness. This is unlike any jazz trio I've heard before. Maybe that's because it's not jazz. It's not free jazz. Maybe this is more like a power trio – like the Jimi Hendrix Experience or Cream, but substitute a piano where Jimi or Clapton would play guitar.

The drummer is mad crazy. He reminds me of Keith Moon (the Who) or Carl Palmer (ELP). The bass is big and fat. And the piano is loud and fast and playing heavy block chords, kinda sorta like McCoy Tyner, but nothing like that. This is dense music, bomabastic music. There's very little melody per se, which usually ticks me off. But somehow, this works.

These aren't five-star CDs, really. I can't listen to them for long stretches. But for four or five or six tracks, they're really provocative.

I can't think of anything remotely like them. Can you?

Can a box set be too big?

In a word: Yep.

I don’t say this lightly. There is something about a box set that makes me salivate. I’m Pavlov’s dog for a good box set. I love Springsteen’s “Tracks.” I can listen over and over to all 5 CDs in the Brubeck “For All Time” box set. (Which isn’t really a box set. It’s just five previously released CDs crammed into a box. I like it anyway.) I’m a sucker for box sets of label histories, like the 8-CD “80th Anniversary of RCA Victor.”

And yet…

I remember the early days of eMusic.com. For something like $15 a month, you got unlimited downloads. Yes, unlimited. We all knew that couldn't last forever, and it didn't. Anyway, at first I downloaded a CD a week and savored it. Then two a week.

Then I got greedy.

One day, I downloaded all 15 CDs of Monk’s “Complete Riverside Recordings.” It was pure gluttony. I couldn’t possibly digest it all. What’s worse, after a while it all started sounding the same. (And, of course, there were no liner notes, no booklet. I had no idea what I was listening to.)

Then I hit on a solution. Monk recorded a lot of single-LP albums for Riverside. What if I deconstructed the box set into its component parts? That is, what if I discarded the “rare and unreleased” tracks and the outtakes and simply kept the individual tracks together as they originally appeared on Monk’s albums?

Suddenly, I was enjoying my massive download. Suddenly, I had a whole bunch of Monk’s most classic albums, just as he had recorded them -- “Monk’s Music” and “5 By Monk By 5” and “Brilliant Corners,” etc. – instead of an indigestible box. I like that.

But did I lean my lesson? Not really.

Recently, I found a 10-CD Monk box at my local drugstore for exactly $10. How can you not buy a 10-CD set for $10? (How in the world can they even afford to offer a 10-CD set for $10? I don’t get it.) So I bought it. No liner note, no booklet, no idea in the world when the discs were recorded or with whom. And yes, I found myself choking on on Monk all over again.

I’ve learned my lesson this time. Really.

Then again, there’s this really neat 10-CD Duke Ellington set, "The Private Collection," and it only costs $40, and you can never have too much Duke…

Modified Monk

There are worse ways to discover Thelonious Monk.

It was 1984. I was four years out of college. I was a struggling newspaper writer, freshly married. I had discovered jazz a few years earlier, but was still fixated on a few faves – Brubeck, Corea, Mingus, even Fats Waller. Monk? Heard of the guy, but never listened to his music.

And what kind of name is that, anyway?

Then a friend gave me a two-record set called “That’s the Way I Feel Now,” a tribute to Thelonious Monk by a bunch of disparate musicians – some jazz, some rock, some who sounded like they came from Mars, or maybe CBGBs.

You need to hear this record. Really.

There are 23 cuts, all Monk tunes, but no two of them sound remotely the same. And yet every one remains true to Monk and his music.

NRBQ and Peter Frampton rock out on “Little Rootie Tootie” and “Work,” respectively. Dr. John gets all New Orleansy on a solo piano version of “Blue Monk.” Joe Jackson plays piano with an orchestra on a wistful “Round Midnight.” Todd Rundgren turns in a happy, playful, fun “Four In One.” Bobby McFerrin tries an equally fun duet with voice-and-vibes on “Friday the 13th.”

And then there are the oddities. In their dopey way, I like them, too. John Zorn turns in, by far, the strangest version of a Monk song you’ll ever hear. It’s “Shuffle Boil” with squeaks and beeps and duck calls. I’m sure there’s a Monk tune in there somewhere. I think. Anyway, it’s clever and original – just like Monk. He’d like it.

The original LP featured sleeves with references to all the original Monk works. I was intrigued. If the reworkings were this odd, what could the originals sound like? I bought one. Then another. And another. They lived up to expectations. I became Monk crazed.

The shame is this: The record is out of print. There is an old one-disc CD version, which costs way too much used, which may be OK because the producers cut out seven tracks to fit it on the one disc. That means I’m left with my cassette tape, and I’m not too sure how long that will hold out. (I gave away the original LP. Wish I hadn’t.)

If you can find it, get it. Tape it, copy it. This is the one that turned me on to my all-time favorite jazz pianist. After all these years, it still sounds fresh.

Suggested CD: "That's The Way I Feel Now" by Various Artists