And it’s true – there’s a lot of music in the book.  There’s a reason why the cover has a cornet with notes spilling out of it.  The story begins with a love affair ignited by the power of song, and throughout the novel, music plays a central role in the characters’ lives.  I’m a music nut, I may as well admit it.  I’ve always enjoyed writing about music – it’s not always easy to do, but I relish the challenge.  (By the way, my prize for most eye-popping and true depiction of music on the written page goes to: THE TIME OF OUR SINGING by Richard Powers.  Utterly brilliant.)

There’s an eclectic mix of styles in the novel – opera, ragtime, early jazz from New Orleans, bluegrass, barbershop singing, and good old rock and roll.  When we were discussing how we might make A GOOD AMERICAN fun for reading groups, we thought it would be a nice idea to put together a playlist of the music featured, so that people could listen while they sit around and gossip discuss the novel.

If you’d like to hear that playlist, here’s what you have to do:

1.  If you haven’t already done so, join Spotify.  (If you haven’t joined, you should anyway.  Spotify gives you access to 15,000,000 songs that you can listen to via online streaming.  It has totally changed the way I listen to music and is responsible for way too many late nights recently.)  There are three different levels of membership, and one of them is free, so it doesn’t have to cost you a penny.

2.  Once you’ve done that, click on this link, and it should take you directly to the playlist.  If you click the “Subscribe” button, you’ll be able to follow along as more songs get added – which they surely will.

Enjoy!  Have a listen – and of course I’d love to know what you think.  And is there a particular novel that you’ve read that captures the spirit of music especially well?  If so, please let me know – I’ll check it out.

Vijay Iyer is one of the most exciting and accomplished jazz pianists to have come along in years.  His latest album, Solo, is already at the very top of my “Best of 2010″ jazz albums.  It is a thoughtful, deeply beautiful record.  Look.  Even the cover art is wonderful:

As ever, Iyer draws from a wide musical palette in his song selections.  About half the tunes are his own compositions – thoroughly satisfying, richly crafted affairs that reward close listening.  Then there’s a Monk piece, a couple of Ellington tunes, and a standard.  Oh, and a Michael Jackson number.  Really.

“Human Nature” was one of the slightly less humungous tracks on Thriller.  I hadn’t heard it for a while when I popped Iyer’s CD into my stereo.  The pianist pulls off a brilliant trick – the tune is immediately recognizable, and yet a wholly different beast.

Listen how, before the melody begins, he take one of the song’s minor motifs and polishes it to a beautiful, burnished perfection.  Iyer plays the tune itself pretty straight (for a jazz musician.)  He thoughtfully shifts the pulse of the music, but never wholly unshackles himself from the melody.  This creates a delicious tension – I am always waiting for him to take flight, and it never quite happens.  That’s not to say that this version is bland in the slightest.  I like the dark-hued tonality that dominates the middle part of the tune – hear his left hand rumble towards the bottom of the instrument’s register.

Do yourself a favor, and have a listen.  It’s wonderful.  Oh, and leave a comment and let me know what you think.  Is this your kind of thing?

]]> http://www.alexgeorgebooks.com/human-nature/feed/ 1 http://www.alexgeorgebooks.com/blue-note-lives/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=blue-note-lives http://www.alexgeorgebooks.com/blue-note-lives/#comments Mon, 13 Sep 2010 12:45:41 +0000 Alex George http://ahgeorge.com/?p=2575 Click here to continue...]]> Haven’t had any jazz on here for a while, so here’s something I’ve been saving up for you.

When most jazz enthusiasts talk about “Miles”, the chances are they’ll be referring to one, Davis, M.  But there’s another Miles whose influence, while perhaps not so far-reaching, still had a profound effect on jazz and its iconography.  I’m speaking of Reid Miles, the man who designed so many of the super-cool, era-defining LP sleeves for Blue Note Records during the label’s heyday in the 50s and 60s.  Often these cover designs used the photography of Francis Wolff, one of the co-founders of Blue Note, who used to take photos of the musicians during rehearsals for the recording sessions [file under best job ever.]

In their way, these covers were as influential as the music that was contained on the vinyl inside.  Several books, such as this one, have been dedicated to them.  Perhaps it was inevitable that, in this multimedia, You Tube world we live in, somebody decided that these images were just too cool to remain static on the page.  And so we have the video below, where some of the most famous Blue Note covers have been animated and brought to life.  It’s a pretty cool, if slightly surreal, few minutes of footage.  And no, I have no idea what that man is saying.

PS: if you’re interested, the tune is “So Tired”, a Bobby Timmons composition.  Enjoy.

Hi-Fi from bante on Vimeo.

Our children, typically, have adopted diametrically opposite approaches to the glorious vistas of educational opportunity opening up before them this morning.  Catherine is more excited than she was last Christmas Eve.  The prospect of entering kindergarten is possibly the most thrilling thing ever to have happened to her; there was much debate on the way home from a lovely evening at our friend Allison’s house yesterday about what she’s going to wear for the big day.  Hallam, on the other hand, is contemplating entry into the fourth grade with a heavy heart, worried (as always) about all the stuff he doesn’t know yet.  He, poor chap, has inherited his father’s infinite capacity for fretting about everything.  I worry for him, I really do.  (There I go again.)

Christina and I are just wondering how on earth we can possibly be the parents of a Fourth Grader.

In sporting news, the English Premier league began again this weekend, so it’s back to my usual regime of 90 minutes of solitary agony each week while the children ask why Daddy is howling at the television again.  The mighty Arsenal narrowly avoided an opening day defeat against Liverpool, but they were uncharacteristically lucky and had to rely on the opposing goalkeeper throwing the ball into his own net with about two minutes to go.  At least this time I was on the other side of such a goalkeeping howler – unlike earlier this summer.

In book news, the rewrite continues, although it slowed a little last week as I have been struggling to burrow my way out from beneath a mountain of legal paperwork that amassed while we were away on vacation.  I ran into a problem with plotting a couple of days ago and have been plundering the Old Testament in an attempt to find a way out of the hole I’ve written myself into.  I think I may have solved the issue, thanks to Samson and Delilah, of all people.  Good to know all those divinity lessons at school weren’t a complete waste of time.

Finally, on the subject of time passing, it’s been a bad few days for jazz enthusiasts.  We’ve lost two more major figures.  Abbey Lincoln, a regal and powerful singer, passed away at the age of 80.  Once married to the jazz drummer, Max Roach, she was both an important singer and member of the civil rights movement.  She participated (in an unforgettable fashion) on Roach’s seminal We Insist! – Freedom Now, which was one of the most important musical documents of the 60s – although it’s not an album that I would suggest putting on the stereo during dinner.  Here’s a link to the obit. in the Times.  And on Friday, the great jazz photographer Herman Leonard went on up to the great jam session in the sky.  His images have become such an essential part of the music’s iconography that his contribution to the art form and our perception of it is probably just as significant as any musician.  Here’s one of his most famous shots, a portrait of Lester Young.  RIP.

]]> http://www.alexgeorgebooks.com/time-passes/feed/ 0 http://www.alexgeorgebooks.com/jazz-snark/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=jazz-snark http://www.alexgeorgebooks.com/jazz-snark/#comments Thu, 29 Jul 2010 15:36:52 +0000 Alex George http://alexgeorgebooks.com/?p=2820 I have a very good friend named Joel Hanley.  Joel is – among many other things – my daughter’s godfather.  He has just had a letter published in the Times.  He makes an excellent point.

The tune comes from Goldberg’s superb new CD, Home.  (It’s unfortunate that this CD has the same title as the wonderful live duo recording by Bruce Barth and Steve Wilson which I am very fond of, not least because there’s a shot of the back of my head on the CD cover.  But I digress.)  Goldberg is backed by two of my favorite players, drummer Eric Harland and bassist Reuben Rogers.  Saxophonist Mark Turner also joins in on some tracks.  Goldberg’s playing is in turn sweetly melodic and then strongly, excitingly percussive.  He’s got technique to die for.  All-round bad-ass pianist.  I love this whole album.

As for this song in particular – well, what’s not to love?  It’s a great tune, of course, but Goldberg has taken it and turned it into something quite new.  I love the romping, syncopated motif he returns to throughout the song.  You’d never guess on first listen what you were listening to, but it makes perfect musical sense once you hear the chorus – which he plays about as straight as a jazz musician can.  The first time you hear it, at 1:08, is a true ah-ha! moment.  Now I can’t listen to the original version without Goldberg’s delicious refinements echoing through my head.

]]> http://www.alexgeorgebooks.com/isnt-she-lovely/feed/ 3 http://www.alexgeorgebooks.com/one-day-ill-fly-away/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=one-day-ill-fly-away http://www.alexgeorgebooks.com/one-day-ill-fly-away/#comments Sat, 26 Jun 2010 11:35:15 +0000 Alex George http://ahgeorge.com/?p=2526 Click here to continue...]]> Jazz treatments of pop covers turn up in some unusual places, but I never thought I’d find one on a Keith Jarrett record.  But on Jasmine, his latest outing for ECM, a gorgeous duet session with bassist Charlie Haden, Jarrett covers One Day I’ll Fly Away, which was a hit for Randy Newman in 1980.

As you’ll hear, Jarrett and Haden this very straight.  There are no pyrotechnics, clever chord substitutions, whizzy improvisational delights.  Actually, to my ears, there’s not much of anything.  It’s all done with consummate musicianship, of course, but it left me a little cold.  By way of comparison, here’s Newman herself, performing the song live with Joe Sample (who wrote it), twenty-six years after it was first released.  Now, this gave me goosebumps.  It’s been a long time since I’d heard her sing, and I’d forgotten what a great voice she has – utterly distinctive, and (here, anyway) full of emotion.  I like the Jarrett/Haden version, but if I had to choose one to take one to a desert island, I’d take Randy Newman every time.

Pop 1, Jazz o.  Who’d have thought it?

Continuing our intermittent series of pop tunes being given the jazz treatment, here’s a particularly juicy one – on video, to boot.  Pat Metheny is (little-known fact) Missouri-born and bred – I saw him a while back here in Columbia with Antonio Sanchez and Christian McBride.  Hell of a show.  Here he is playing the &*^#^% out of Norah Jones’s breakthrough hit, Don’t Know Why.  Enjoy.

Sophie Milman is an absolutely cracking singer, with a gorgeous, smoky contralto.  Occasionally she swallows a word or two and sometimes sounds as if she could open her mouth a little wider, but she can swing a lyric wonderfully well.

Milman lives in Toronto now.  She was born in Siberia and is of Russian-Jewish descent.  Her family moved to Israel when she was seven years old, and to Canada nine years after that.  I will forego the temptation to speculate as to whether such a peripatetic childhood and multicultural upbringing has had an influence on her music, but I will say that her choices of songs are certainly more eclectic than some.  On her latest album, Take Love Easy, she covers Bruce Springsteen and Joni Mitchell (as well as Paul Simon) in addition to more predictable choices from the standard jazz canon.  (Perhaps her most interesting song selection was on her previous album: “It’s Not Easy (Bein’ Green)” – first made popular, of course, by one Frog, Kermit T. She sings the lyrics without any of the knowing archness that you might expect, and, astonishingly, it works as a tender ballad.)

But back to “50 Ways”.  Milman has dispensed with Steve Gadd’s sinister, military snare drum that gives the original verse its haunting feel, opting instead for a more laid-back approach, but it’s only at the chorus that things really blossom.  Listen to that delicious Latin-tinged piano as it fills in at 1:20.  Glorious!

One of the things I like about this version is that Milman has maintained total fidelity with the original song while still making it her own.  Often jazzers feel obliged to re-arrange and re-harmonize songs so that they’re nearly unrecognizable.  (Brad Mehldau’s version of this same song, while excellent, is a good example of this.  If you listen closely you’ll hear a snippet of the melody surface about half way through the eight and a half minute tune, and that’s it.)  But Milman has enough confidence not to resort to such techniques.  If the song is strong enough, and your performance is strong enough (check, and check), just let the music speak for itself.

Enjoy.  Happy Monday to you all.

As I mentioned here, I was in Manhattan very briefly last week for the launch party of my friend Nancy Woodruff’s excellent new novel, My Wife’s Affair.

I flew from St. Louis into La Guardia and hopped on to a bus to Grand Central Station.  Less than twenty hours later, I was back on the bus, heading back out to the airport.  With such an abbreviated stay I didn’t even stray out of Midtown.

The party was ridiculously glamorous.  It was held in an incredible penthouse just north of Lincoln Center, with extraordinary views across the city.  It felt as if we were on a film set.  Lots of interesting people there, of course, and it was good to catch up with Nancy and another ex-member of our London writers’ group, Celeste.  There were all manner of stars from the NYC literary firmament, of course, and I enjoyed meeting some of them, too.

Prior to the party I met with my New York, agent, Emma Sweeney.  We had never corresponded directly before but instead have always liaised via my London agent, Bruce Hunter, in an elaborate, electronic version of Chinese whispers, which – thanks to the intercontinental time difference – often meant that news sometimes took an additional day to reach me.  We discussed the rewrite of THE SONGS OF OUR FATHERS, which she was very kind about.  The revised novel is presently with one superstar editor in New York (who just happened to be at Nancy’s party) and we are waiting for her to finish reading it.  She’s actually reading it for the second time, and we are anxious to hear her verdict.

After the party I walked down Broadway to 44th Street to Birdland, and enjoyed Dave Holland’s second set.  It was the opening night of his residency there, but those cats have been playing together so long you never would have known.  It’s always a treat to catch musicians play live after you’ve listened to them (sometimes obsessively) for years.   Dave is a wondrous bass player, and is from the UK, to boot.  The music was fabulous, as was the margarita I ordered, but since I’d been up since 4 that morning, by the end of the gig I was having a little trouble keeping my eyes open, despite Nate Smith’s incendiary drumming.  I finally toppled into bed (in the smallest hotel room in New York) at about 1.30 in the morning.  Long day.

The next morning there was just time for a quick breakfast before walking back down to Grand Central for the bus back to the airport.  By mid afternoon I was back in Columbia, going up and down the aisles of Toys R Us, looking for a birthday present for Catherine, and wondering if I’d actually been away at all.