Author: Roberta

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What Is Jazz and Why Does It Matter? The Jazz Wars – Part 2

Almost ten years ago, I applied for a grant from the Doris Duke Foundation to fund a project with the electric jazz band I was then leading on Wurlitzer electric piano. We had just released a CD, “I’m Back I’m Therapy and It’s All Your Fault”, and I envisioned a second recording integrating both acoustic and electric piano, bring in some Latin elements as well.

I didn’t get the grant, so I called the Foundation to see if I could get some feedback on why I had been rejected. This is pretty standard procedure with arts organizations. Sometimes the insight into why the judges didn’t approve your proposal can help you make a stronger application the next time. The administrator I spoke with found the notes on my application. All it said was that the judges didn’t think my project was jazz. Now, if I had been told that they didn’t think the project was good enough, I could have accepted that, even if I disagreed with them. But to be told, after devoting my life to the jazz idiom, that I wasn’t playing jazz felt like a dismissive slap in the face.

So I found myself reviewing the different elements that we think of as part of jazz to figure out which of them might have been lacking from my effort… Extended improvisations? check. Advanced jazz-based harmonic language? check. One or two blues? check. Lots of spontaneous interaction beween the musicians? check. Swing feel? oops.

Most of the music on the CD was a straight-eighth feel, often with poly-rhythms, but not a swung-eighth feel. Could that be it? But what about bossa nova? Latin jazz? All those ECM records? Not jazz?

Moving further down the checklist – acoustic instruments? Oops again. Electric bass and piano. Could that be why my recording wasn’t jazz? Is the instrumentation a part of the language of jazz? That seems like a silly definition. It’s kind of like saying Bach isn’t Bach if it’s played on a piano instead of a harpsichord.

Everntually I had to accept that whoever the judges of the Chamber Music America competition, their concept of what jazz is was prejudiced by the limits of their own experience and knowledge. I realized that was going to be true for pretty much any grant I applied for; and so ended my potential for a life as a career grant applicant.

For many musicians who are looking for a grant or trying to get written about in a “jazz” magazine, the argument about “what jazz is” is more than academic. Too narrow a definition discourages innovation, leaving us with a stagnant pool of star imitators who pale next to the real greats of the past.

I have no time, for example, for those who argue that Miles Davis was not playing jazz towards the end of his career. (Really? We REALLY have nothing better to do than argue about whether one of the major inventors and innovators of jazz had a right to call his music jazz?)

On the other hand, I understand the cultural, political and artistic concerns of those who see the term jazz being diluted by everyone from pop singers to rambling pop instrumentalists.

Some will argue that any music with improvisation is jazz. But several cultures have improvised traditions that have nothing to do with jazz. Until about 100 years ago, classical composers routinely improvised on their pieces.

The flip side of that argument is that if it doesn’t have improvisation, it’s not jazz. But I could name a number of famous jazz recordings with no improvisation that are included in the jazz pantheon by any reasonable person, such as this one by the quintessential jazz pianist, Wynton Kelly.

So this is my attempt answer to the endless question: WHAT IS JAZZ, prejudiced by the limits of my experience and knowledge.

I believe jazz is any music played (intentionally) by jazz musicians. I know that sounds like a roundabout definition so I will expand on it. If you have thoroughly studied and attained some degree of mastery over the elements of this music (jazz improvisation, jazz harmony, jazz rhythm, jazz phrasing, etc.), then whatever you do, with an artistic intention is jazz.

I use the phrase “artistic intention” as an out for the times when a jazz musician is, for example, playing pop music, for some commercial purpose. I’m not saying that’s jazz just because a jazz musician is sitting in that chair.

But, with that exclusion in mind, I believe if you have mastered the jazz idiom to a certain degree then your music will be informed by that mastery. Therefore, you as the artist have the right to call what you do jazz. (And who has the right to label the artist’s music other than the artist?) If, on the other hand, you haven’t mastered that idiom, then you haven’t earned the honor of using the term jazz.

We might disagree over whether certain singers are “jazz singers” based on their mastery (or lack thereof) of jazz phrasing, harmony, melodic style. But I like my definition because I think it’s inclusive enough, without giving every bulls#$tter on the planet permission to use the word “jazz” to describe their meanderings.

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SOLO CD RELEASE TODAY!!

Today is the first day that my first solo piano CD is officially available. This is the first time I’ve done a recording of almost all standards! I felt that for my first solo recording I wanted to start with material as fundamental and malleable as the standard repertoire, a common reference point that I am very comfortable with.

After my last few records, this CD wasn’t so much about stepping out of my comfort zone. It was about stepping back into my comfort zone, and finding out if I still have something to say.

The CD and audio samples are available at CDBaby.com. Downloads are available via itunes and other services.

If you like the CD I hope you’ll share a link to it on Facebook or Twitter. If you do share one of the links below,  I’ll send you a free bonus alternate take NOT on the CD! (Be sure to let me know so I can send you the track!) Here’s how to share the link:

Share the CD on Facebook.

Share the CD on Twitter.

Now contact me so I can send you the bonus track.

I’ve been sharing a series of videos on YouTube of both out-takes and “in-takes” from the studio. The videos include my take on a number of standards including Monk’s Dream, Marian McPartland’s In the Days of Our Love, the lovely bossa nova Estate, and the Dietz/Schwartz classic I See Your Face Before Me.

To be notified when they are up, you can either subscribe to my YouTube channel, or “like” my Facebook Page.

After all that clicking and sharing and watching, don’t forget that you can actually purchase the CD at CDBaby.com, itunes and other places including Amazon, Rhapsody, etc.

Thank you for your support!

Roberta

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Jazz Pianist Roberta Piket Plays Standards and Sings at Smalls in NYC with Putter Smith and Billy Mintz

Media Contact: Geneya Brooks, assistant@robertajazz.com www.RobertaJazz.com High-res photos: https://robertajazz.com/press-photos-2/

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Pianist Roberta Piket brings a new trio to New York’s Smalls Jazz Club on Monday July 23rd, featuring west coast bass stalwart Putter Smith and drum great Billy Mintz. Focusing on the American Songbook repertoire, Roberta, who has been singing with increasing frequency, will sing several of her favorite standards including Burton Lane’s Too Late Now, the Harold Arlen classic Come Rain or Come Shine (which begins as a vocal/drum duet with Mintz) and the Gershwin standard He Loves and She Loves.

Bassist Putter Smith is one of LA’s busiest musicians. He has worked with Thelonious Monk, Art Blakey, Warne Marsh, Alan Broadbent, Bob Brookmeyer, Billy Eckstine, Diane Schuur, Lee Konitz, Jackie and Roy, Carmen McRae, Gary Foster, Art Farmer, Blue Mitchell, Art Pepper, Ray Charles and many more.

In an extraordinary career spanning nearly 40 years, Billy Mintz has played with Lee Konitz, Eddie Daniels, Harold Danko, Mose Allison, Mark Murphy, Bobby Shew, Charles Lloyd, Vinny Golia, and the Alan Broadbent Trio. In recent years, Mr. Mintz has taken on new roles as a bandleader and a composer, performing his own compositions with various ensembles. He also frequently performs solo drumset concerts.

Roberta Piket Trio Monday July 23rd, 2012 at 7:30 and 9pm, $20 admission good for the whole night, all ages admitted Smalls Jazz Club | 183 W. 10th St. at the corner of 7th Ave. in New York City.

For video and sound clips please visit www.robertajazz.com

 

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SOLO: New Solo Piano CD Release coming August 1st

For immediate release

Contact: Geneya Brooks | Thirteenth Note Records | assistant@robertajazz.com www.robertajazz.com

 For a courtesy press copy of Solo either on CD or via mp3 download, please email: assistant@robertajazz.com

 
Artist: Roberta Piket
Title: Solo
Label: Thirteenth Note Records

CD Release Date: August 1st, 2012 

Thirteenth Note Records is pleased to announce the August 1, 2012 release of pianist Roberta Piket’s ninth CD and her first solo piano recording. “I get restless easily and I’m always looking for new challenges,” Roberta reflects about her decision to record, at this point in her career, a full-length solo album. Her most recent CD, Sides, Colors, explored the pastel shades and supple textures of an ensemble enhanced with strings and woodwinds. Love and Beauty, from 2006, presented her advanced concept of the modern jazz piano trio. And on her 2003 release, I’m Back in Therapy and It’s All Your Fault, she experimented with electric instruments and groove-oriented pieces.

So, for Roberta, a solo CD represents a new musical challenge, another fresh area of exploration, and the next step forward in her continuing growth as an artist. “This is the first time I’ve done a recording of almost all standards,” she continues. “I felt that for my first solo recording I wanted to start with material as fundamental and malleable as the standard repertoire, a common reference point that I am very comfortable with. After my last few records, this CD wasn’t so much about stepping out of my comfort zone. It was about finally stepping back into my comfort zone, and finding out if I still have something to say.” ”

­­­Grounded in both the modern jazz tradition and the works of the contemporary classical composers she admires, Roberta combines an infectious swing with an adventurous harmonic sense. Her playing, characterized by both a strong sense of direction and a striving for new territory, is at times melodic and pensive, at other times angular and dissonant.

Roberta has played professionally as a sidewoman with David Liebman, Rufus Reid, Michael Formanek, Lionel Hampton, Mickey Roker, Harvey Wainapel, Eliot Zigmund, Benny Golson and the BMI/NY Jazz Orchestra and has thrice been a featured guest on Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz, on National Public Radio. She has also performed with some of the most interesting musicians in European and American creative music, including drummers Klaus Kugel and Billy Mintz, and saxophonists Petras Vysniauskas and Roby Glod and Louie Belogenis. A gifted composer as well, Roberta was a finalist in the Thelonious Monk BMI Composers’ Competition.

Track List
  1. 1.       I See Your Face Before Me
  2. 2.         Monk 1: Variations   on a Dream
  3. 3.         Monk 2: Monk’s   Dream
  4. 4.         Something to Live   For
  5. 5.         Estate
  6. 6.         Nefertiti
  7. 7.         Claude’s Clawed
  8. 8.         Litha
  9. 9.         In the Days of   Our Love
  10. 10.     Beatrice
  11. 11.     Improvisation   Blue

 

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The Ritual Defacing of My CDs

We’re getting ready to send out a big mailing of my new Solo CD to press and radio. I once again find myself in the bizzarre position of having to mutiliate my CD packaging, because if I don’t, a small percentage of the CDs will end up being sold as new on Ebay for about two dollars.

A colleague of mine commented that he’s not bothered by this issue, because he doesn’t make the CDs to make a profit, but more to get gigs. It’s not that I expect to make a lot of money selling the CDs online. However, it’s degrading to see the brand new product of my blood and sweat practically given away on Ebay like a soon-to-expire bag of frozen peas on sale at Walmart.

I understand financial need, having been a professional musician most of my life. Some jazz writers get hundreds of free CDs every month. I understand they can’t listen to all of them. But selling them as new is greedy and wrong. It undermines the artist who trusted you to treat his/her music with respect, it undermines what’s left of the record business, and it undermines the music by cheapening it to the point where people think a song is worth, not even the lousy 99 cents itunes charges, but perhaps 20 or 30 cents.

So it comes down to this: Should I clip the corner? Write on the CD with a sharpie? Or just take the plastic off? (In the latter case it will have to be sold as “like new” or “almost new”.) I haven’t made up my mind yet.