The Supreme Court was less than inspiring this week. I found myself being pulled into a state of dismay. I strongly objected to the unfairness of hearing specious arguments intended to dismantle a health care law that attempted to help the greatest number of people. Not for nothing, it was a law that would ultimately keep all of our premiums down.

Where to find balance?

I found it helped me to remember how grateful I am to live in a place where we can read and hear more enlightened viewpoints.

In the midst of living in a world where we are all confronted with so many things that don't seem right - we look to find a reliable place of internal balance.

The experience of listening to live music communally often helps us to make shared connections between the concrete physical world and the unseen felt world.
These shared ways of hearing and understanding keep me optimistic that exploration within society can lead to progress.

The force of rock and roll helped shake us from a lot of complacency. And yet perhaps now, at least for me, that shaking is too forceful, too reactive. I want to create music that has room to hear the conversation within it, and room to hear that at its source, a stillness can be found.

If we are lucky, in our homes we can create spaces of refuge. But ultimately if we work to find our home inside ourselves we just might discover the inner resources we need to carry that peace wherever we go.

We have a new home on the first Thursday of every month at the Lily Pad in Cambridge.

October 27, 2010

Dear Friends,

I am writing from the plane on the 11-hour flight back to New York City from Tokyo.



The second half of our tour was booked by Adachi-san. He fell in love with jazz when he was 18. Much to his parent’s dismay, he asked a famous Japanese trumpet player, Teramasu Hino, if he could be his roadie, to follow him around – carry the equipment – record gigs, and eventually manage his career. He then went to Europe where he met many famous American musicians who were playing there – Sam Jones, Benny Golson, Billy Higgins, and got them to come to Japan where he booked tours for them and many others. This was during the hey-day of hard bop and it sounded like he had a great time lugging his reel to reel Ampex tape machine around recording these gigs – He told me his apartment is full of these tapes. Adachi-san must be in his mid 60’s. And he cannot get this roadie bug out of his system. He loves my playing and treats me so well. In his mind I am an important American jazz musician. I am just happy to be playing night after night. He still records all these gigs he books on the road. He recorded ours on a 24-bit hand-held flash-drive recorder – one that he had modified by installing special high-end AKG microphones. The sound he got was so natural – it is a wonder that any of us spend money to go to recording studios – when the aural image and feeling of being in the room was so perfectly captured by these two fingernail sized microphones neatly installed in his tiny Japanese digital recorder

The bassist that we had played with for the first half of the tour, Yoshino Hiroshi had concert performances with his own ensemble – and so we were joined for these next five gigs that Adachi-san booked for us by Hideaki Kanazawa – a 60 year old road warrior who had been Teramasu Hino’s bassist for 16 years. During the first rehearsal though I sensed a certain politeness in his music – a politeness I have noticed in other Japanese rhythm section players: wanting to accompany the soloist in a supportive and as unobtrusive way as possible. Knowing that Hideaki spoke only a very little English – I wanted to convey to him that what I felt the music needed was for him to converse and add his ideas to the music. There are so many “rules” of respecting one’s elders – but I knew I needed to tell him this – that I needed something else from him. I asked him to imagine that my left hand was his bass line – and played contrapuntally – answering and butting in against my right own hand lines as a demonstration. He lit up wanting to try this way of playing immediately. His energetic and wild understanding of this freedom gave him (and me) great joy and we had blast on our five gigs together.

I will describe them each briefly.

1. Our first night was at a major Tokyo club. Jazz clubs are called “live-house” (no plural nouns). Anyway the place was named “JZ Brat – The Sound of Tokyo” is in Shibuya, one of the main shopping and train hubs in Tokyo. When the traffic lights change at Shibuya Crossing easily 500 people cross the street each time. The club had two soundmen for us – one for stage-sound and one for house-sound. They had a Yamaha concert grand piano – so we didn’t need any monitors or stage sound – the room sound was perfect. The only slightly freaky thing was looking up during the performance and seeing my hands or face on a jumbo-tron.

2. The next day we drove 4 hours to Toyota – yes the city where the cars are built – the city they are named after. We played in tiny live-house called Keyboard. The room was filled with retired salary-men who came to hear us play. Most nights at Keyboard one would come to have a drink and listen to jazz records on huge Altec Lansing speakers. But for 35 years, once a month, the live house owner – or “master,” hires musicians from Tokyo to come to play live. That is when his club turns from a “jazz café” to a “live house.” My friend Kazumi who is outgoing and bright does the talking from stage – but I always have a thing or two to say – and I always ask the audience before I say anything, “Aigo-ga wakarumasu-ka?” “English language, the subject of this sentence, understand, do you?” It is always surprising to me – though it should not be – that in the countryside – (outside of Tokyo) – no one ever says “Yes” I get the sound of hesitation from the audience. So I say something and Kazumi translates. Then there are the “ahh – so’s” and “so desu’s.” But after the music almost everyone comes up to bow or shake my hand and in their best English say “I enjoy your play.”

3. We drive the next day to Nagoya – either Japan’s 3rd or 4th largest city and play in a charming live-house called “Star-Eyes” I remember the Master, Iwaki-san, from the last time we played there five years ago. This night for some reason most of our audience is middle-aged women – who also don’t speak much English. About nine of them are in the very front row – listening attentively and appreciatively. During my break it is so much fun being able to converse in Japanese enough to hear how they are office workers at various businesses and institutions – and how they do not get summer vacations – just 3 or 4 days here or there during the course of the year. They all agree sadly that Japanese people work too hard. But they say that is why they come out to listen to music. One says that she thinks my “play” has something of Japanese sensibility to it. What might she be responding to I wonder?

4. The next day we drive to Fukuroi to play at Mamselle – (slang for Madamoiselle) Hideaki has friends in this town who own a roadside restaurant that specializes in Omerice. Omelets wrapped around rice with fishy things in it - then the other half of the the plate is where they pour the curry or tomato sauce. Yum – but very filling. All Hideaki’s friends come to our gig and we all go out downtown for a drink after the gig. But we take a taxi there – because everyone it seems in Japan is totally serious about not drinking and driving. Not even one drink.

5. We are driving to Adachi-san’s home town the next day – a four hour drive into the mountains in Nagano Prefecture to a town called Matsumoto. This is where Seijo Ozawa has led the Saito Kinen Festival every summer since 1992. We are playing a bigger live house and there will be over 50 people tonight. The largest audience we have had since Tokyo. When we show up to play the place is packed – and there are many young people here to listen. This night was really exciting – Kazumi grooved harder during his solos and eights so when we would come back in the music was always building and building. And we had also decided to play shorter versions of a few of my slower lyrical compositions without trying to make too much drama in the solo sections. Just to let the mood of the sound and the composition resonate throughout. This really helped create contrast in our set. Yum.

The town of Matsumoto has a famous Castle from the Edo period – so there are tourists who come to this beautiful mountain town for music and sightseeing. After our gig we are taken to a very old restaurant. When we enter through sliding doors we remove our shoes – and step up to the tatami. The kitchen is below us where we greet the chef/master. We are taken down tatami hallways past other large ricepaper-walled sealed tatami-rooms with large parties in them, to our private tatami room where a dozen of us sit on cushions on the floor around a low table. Adachi san wants to order local country side food – and we start with some cooked mountain wasabi greens served cold with katsu fish flakes on them. They taste just like the wasabi root that I am sure you are familiar with – so all our noses start running. I am not going to go into great detail about the next dish, which arrived as a surprise - but was described accurately– raw horse meat sushi.

Since this was the last night of our road trip we drank beer– and toasted “Otskara sama deshita” and the chef came in to join us with a huge blue bottle of chilled sake. We walked back to our hotel.

6. The next day drove back to Tokyo where I stayed at Kazumi’s house. I went to bed at 10 pm and slept for 11 hours.

7. Our last gig was in Tokyo in a club that I love, in a very lively neighborhood called Kichijoji. Just saying the name is fun. “Kitch - eee – joe – jee. The train station empties to block after block of covered streets for pedestrian shopping crowded with many small stores and restaurants. We will play at a wonderful live-house called Sometime. You go down the steps to an underground brick room with exposed pipes and old sewing machines tables - with the foot mechanisms still attached – they are the bar tables. The piano is in the middle of the room so we play surrounded 360 degrees by our audience who look down – stadium style to watch us play. At least 50 people fit in this room.
There is a single row of 10 seats behind the piano bench and everyone leans forward and to watch and listen. The Master, Ooneh-san is a woman – who is so charming – she comes down from her perch at the door – during our second set – to stand by the bar and listen and sway to our music. I sense in her at that moment her joy – looking over the packed room that she has created and works each night at with her adorable staff. I am so grateful that she speaks English so I can tell her how much spirit her room has – and how much we enjoy playing there. How the energy of being surrounding by such affectionately attentive listeners is palpable. We know over 25 people in our audience – There so many repeat “customers” (as our audience is called.) Lots of musician-friends come to hear us and many of them come back to this club to hear us year after year. It is such a magical way to end the tour. When we get back to Kazumi’s we notice it is 2:30 am.

Thinking back to the first time I came to Tokyo in 1997 – after our sound check at Sometime – I went up to the street for a breath of air and to catch some of the excitement of the pedestrian mall. I remember distinctly being afraid of wandering too far – so I stayed in front of the club and just watched the people go by. I remember being fearful of getting lost, everything at that time seemed so busy and bewildering, chaotic and crowded, over stimulating and distracting – so that I was afraid if I turned a corner I might never find the club again – and as I didn’t speak any Japanese at that time and was afraid if I wandered off alone - I wouldn’t know how to ask anyone directions on how to get back.

The streets and train stations of Tokyo have not lost any of this energy – they remain marvels to experience – but I notice gratefully that the fear has left and the state of amazement that was there all along continues to shine brightly.

Ja Matta Rai Nen.

Well then, with good fortune, again next year !

And with love, always,

bert

October 19, 2010

Tomodachi - (friends)



Today I am returning to Tokyo after completing the first half of the 17-day tour that my friend Kazumi Ikenaga plans for us every year. Somehow the flight into Tokyo, 24 hours door to door, does not seem like such a big deal. Maybe this is because I know I a coming to a place that I love so much - a place where amidst the bustle of so many people there remains such a palpable level of civility. Maybe it is because for the next 17 days I know I will be living the life of a touring musician - living and breathing this music in an atmosphere of such appreciation - maybe it is because I am aware how how quickly this time here will pass - and so I am eager to soak in and participate fully in as much as I am able. Maybe it is because I know that the amount of work it takes for my Japanese friends to plan this trip for me (for us) will someday be too much - and that each trip could be my last - there is more than a fair share of poignancy in my heart as I say hello and goodbye to my many friends and acquaintances that I see in each town we play. And of course this serves as a reminder for all of life.

I start by taking a Chuo-line train an hour out of Tokyo - still officially Tokyo (to Hachioji) to the bassist's home to rehearse and have lunch . That night we have a gig in a small club in Yokohama an hours train ride away. When I say a small club - I mean small - the club has sixteen seats. The club master (owner), Sasaki-san insists that he opens his doors seven days a week for the music - not for people or for money - He shows me the dog-eared cover of our CD "A Closer Look" that he has put on his CD player hundreds of times since I gave it to him four years ago. It is hard to say goodbye to him - as it will be another year - as one says, "God-willing," - before we meet again.

The next day we take the bus - to the subway - to the train - to Kyoto - and begin our rehearsal at 4:00 pm - in plenty of time for an eight o'clock hit. We will be playing with Michi Fujii - a female trumpeter that we have played this part of the tour since I started coming 13 years ago. So we go over the quartet tunes - and the duos and work out some intros or endings. Then luckily we have enough time before we play to stop by for some soba noodle soup with a dried carmel-ized fish in it called "nisshin soba" Yum !

The next day we head out by train to the remote country side near where Kazumi grew up. His childhood friend Nao Takanaka has again worked to produce a concert for us. This time in the very small town of Ohya. The town first bought a Bosendorfer grand piano - and then hired a modern architect to build a hall to house this spectacular instrument. The hall is round - and made of concrete and inside there are timbers that make up an inner round skeleton which houses the the seats - which are on a steep angle - looking down on the stage - and somehow the sound is miraculous and warm and not boomy. This is one of the best pianos I have every played - and its dynamic range teaches me so much about the music's transparency. I can play at a whisper - with such clarity - If I play too loud I will overpower my ability to hear the others - so the energy flows and simmers and the sound we make together draws everyone into the music.

The next day - we are picked up to go to Shirigiriso - a mountain-top lodge with a big kitchen - traditional style tatami mat guest rooms and a dining area that has been converted into a concert space for 30. We drive up from the Japan sea to the top of the mountain (with spectacular views of the sea) where we are joined this day by two more excellent musicians who have come in from Kobe - Tomomi Tanaguchi on trombone, and Ryosuke Assai on alto sax. Michi has writen a few three-horn charts - I bring a reworked sextet tune of mine from the early days when I had more of a chance to play and record with horn players - and we prepare a program for that evening's intimate gathering - and the next day's more formal larger concert. We start the set with the big group - but then break down to quartets, and trio pieces and duos - ending each set with a rousing six-piece arrangement - with some energetic vamping and arranged ending that gets the crowds really fired up.

Then there is the big party ! Every year the producer of this country side festival and concert has a gathering at a restaurant. We have been going the last 6 years to Restaurant Azito with about 18 seats - so we have the place reserved all for ourselves. The owner Shinji-san and his beautiful wife have been cooking and cooking all day - so that when we arrive - after we are all served a drink and the toast is made -Otskara Sama Deshita - "Our highest honorable work is done !!!" we begin to eat and drink and laugh and talk about everything - including detailed descriptions of the local food we are feasting on. This year I was able to understand a pun - that poked gentle fun at our friend Sato-san and his enormous jutting chin.

This joyful yearly weekend is produced by Yorihiko Matsuda, a remarkable energetic magnetizer of people and motivator of coordinated efforts. I know that I have spoken about him before in these yearly letters that many of you have received. He is married to Yuko and has three amazing children - one of whom, his eldest, a most lovely, mature, kind and emotionally mature daughter Mao - lives and works in Boston. Last year she finished a masters degree at Brandeis University - studying cultural production - how to curate and set-up museum exhibits - to take into account aspects of the culture and history that is reflected in the art or artifact.

Matsuda san - himself is most concerned with preserving nature and the culture of Japan and has set up a working project with the University of Kyoto to restore a mountain village and their special home building techniques in a place we pass on the way up to our mountaintop lodge. The students come out to learn and build and weave the thatched roof. He has us play at schools or give clinics to gatherings of high school big bands that he puts together called Satayama Festival (the place between the mountain and the sea.) But mostly Matsuda san is a beautiful man whose strength includes getting people to participate in his vision - which manifests in projects that uplift the spirit. The seats are set up, the sound equipment moved into place , the meals cooked and served and cleaned up - the music played - the photos are taken - and all the participants know that each one of us is doing all we can to help each other - enjoy this mountaintop weekend of music and relaxation.

Matsuda-san insists that he bring us back every year - instead of having a different band each year - because he says that people are interested in seeing how we are growing as musicians. This of course motivates us to prepare a different program each year. It is so clear that Matsuda-san and I both have so much respect and admiration for each other - He is so good to me. He never fails to mention that we are born in the same month of the same year - something that has significance in the Japanese respect-one's-elders culture.

His second daughter is studying oceanography in Hokaido - at the university there. Studying about whales. In my eyes, it is entirely possible that young Ayaka Matsuda will be the one who figures out how to educate and convince the Japanese people to stop allowing their government to subsidize Japan's whaling industry. Of course we will need people like Ayaka to come to come to America to convince our government to support Global-warming and anti-landmine, and international financial regulation treaties. But she will be busy enough in Japan discovering ways of bringing balance and sustainability to Japan's relationship with the sea. She is too busy at school to come to this year's concert. It is the first weekend concert-festival she has missed in a dozen years. More poignancy.

I have always found in myself some resistance to the word "spiritual." But lately I have some confidence that the feeling in our hearts that is kindled by kindness and love and friendship does have everything to do with some non-verbal way of sensing our interconnectedness - and the joy and fullness this brings. We owe this to our spirits - to pay attention to and care for their aliveness - And we owe this very same thing to the music - to know that it is capable of getting us outside of ourselves, rousing our spirits in love and attention and kindness in a flow of connected moments - and indeed the music is meaningless without it. Music is here to bring us into its present moment - it is here to bring us together - in every sense - whether we play or listen - and it is so clear that the same is true about life... life is here to bring us into its present moment.

Anyway here we are at this long bar - toasting and eating and laughing and knowing - that it will be a year before we are all together again - and that that things will be different next year as they have been different in the past - sensing wordlessly that we share these commonalities - that children have left home, people - even friends have passed away - momentous and little things happened in the world - that one more year of this precious life has passed - and that we are connected to each other - in a mysterious interdependent way. And that in just the sensing of all this - the light awareness of this perspective - that everything is changed - for the better.

with much love from the other side of the world,

bert

I have just returned from a concert tour of Lima, Peru and Quito, Ecuador, where our music was enthusiastically received. We were part of the third International Festival of Cajón Peruano sponsored by the Centro Cultural De España in Lima. We also had engagements in jazz clubs, schools, and in public parks. The United States Embassy in Peru also helped sponsor our tour and was very interested in the cross-pollination of our musical cultures. I went to Lima with my Peruvian colleagues, bassist Jorge Roeder, and drummer/percussionist Jorge Perez Albela. We also traveled with the amazing singer Sofia Rei Koutsovitis and with Eric Kurimski, a guitarist who has lived in Peru and studied the music there in depth.

Peru has a very strong and deep tradition of rhythms and dances arising from its African/slave heritage – much like the United States where blues and jazz developed indigenously from a similar heritage. The Peruvian slaves, whose drums were confiscated by their owners, kept drumming, first on fruit crates, and then, as they evolved into what became their national instrument, a wooden box called the cajón. They developed rhythms and dances found nowhere else on the planet.

Both US jazz, and Afro-Peruvian music starts with a four-beat measure and then divides each beat, into triplets. The North Americans feel the syncopated accents on the third triplet (right before the beat) – which gives jazz its familiar swing, while the Peruvians feel the up-beat on the second triplet. (right after the beat). This, in many ways, is a much more complicated rhythm which plays off of the ambiguity of hearing the music in “three” or in “four.” This is achieved by grouping the twelve sub-divisions in each measure (four triplets) as either six groups of two – or four groups of three. The four beat measure is also subdivided simultaneously into 16 subdivisions. All of which leads to an intuitive fluid and playful melding of three and four where feeling overrides math.

But what was incredible – besides the phenomenal musicianship, enormous energy and devotion of the Peruvian musicians – was the way they so often heard and played their music in this 12/8 way of feeling the time. I would hear musicians play traditional Peruvian songs or Gershwin tunes or Beatles songs – all within this rich rhythmic framework. There is no end to the exuberance and virtuosity of the Peruvian musicians.

I have always found that traveling in this way, in getting to hear, and meet, and play with musicians from other countries is of enormous value, in that it reminds me how important it is to put all of one’s heart into the music – every single time I sit down to play or practice.

Afro-Peruvian music is gaining wider recognition and larger audiences worldwide. If you are interested in hearing some samples you can click the following links of some of my favorite artists.

Eva Ayllón

http://www.myspace.com/evaayllonmusic

Peru Negro

http://www.myspace.com/perunegromusic

Susana Baca

http://www.ilike.com/artist/Susana+Baca/track/Caras+Lindas

Geoffrey Keezer

http://www.geoffreykeezer.com/albuminfo.aspx?ID=920

The marsh grasses in Ipswich turned yellow and red this week - as the green life drained out of them - Renee just found out this week, on a nature walk she took at Crane's Beach, that these grasses which grow submerged part of the day in salt water, need the heat of summer to photosynthesize. The cold weather appeared suddenly last week and so these vast expanses of Spartina grass have seemingly changed color over night.

I am getting ready for an exciting Autumn season of music performances and I am writing just to let you know where I will be appearing.

Our trio gig at the Stone Soup in Ipswich is continuing every Thursday night. Mark Mapham, the owner, who is a really great chef and huge fan of ours, comes out of the kitchen to sit next to our drummer, Joe Hunt and listen to our last set. Mark has extended our gig - even though the tourist season has ended. I am really enjoying playing with Joe again on this gig. He was on my first couple of CDs in 1985 and 1987 - and we were working a lot together back then. He has such a deep feeling in his playing which is a joy to connect with. John Lockwood or Peter Kontrimas joins us on bass; and I am certain that the flow of the music has a lot to do with their maturity and energy as well.

For the first two weeks of October I will be going to Japan to play with my friend Kazumi Ikenaga (who was a dedicated student of Joe Hunt's) This is the twelfth year in a row that Kazumi has set up a tour and invited me to come and play. As you can imagine, I so enjoy this trip, Japan, its culture, people and language and the generosity of rapt audiences night after night. We have a terrific following and it is amazing to see our friends year after year at our gigs in Tokyo and Kyoto and surrounding areas. This trip always inspires me to work hard so that I am able to bring new material and some other form of musical growth to share.

Then when I get back I will be starting to play every Friday night at the Four Seasons Hotel with my good friends Nat Mugavero on drums and Barry Smith on bass. Nat has played with me for over 20 years - you have probably seen us play at the Taj or at the Bostonian before that. He is always getting us to ask new questions when we play - and in a most musical way, pulling the rug out from under us. Barry is a really conversant bassist and the three of us are excited about our chemistry as a trio.

I hope that you will look at my web site and refer to the "gigs" page for specifics about my schedule. I would so enjoy seeing you.

It just doesn't seem possible that summer sped by so fast. My hope is that the fall season inspires all of us. There is a lot to look forward to....even to see what shade of brown the grasses will turn next.