Brad Mehldau: Formation (Book Review)

by Karl Nehring

Brad Mehldau: Formation: Building a Personal Canon, Part One. Equinox Publishing Ltd., Sheffield, UK/Bristol, CT. 2023. 293 pp.

 

The American pianist Brad Mehldau (b. 1970) is best known for his work in the jazz arena, perhaps most widely as the leader of his own trio, but also for his work with other prominent jazz musicians such as guitarist Pat Metheny and saxophonist Josh Redman. If you really want to hear some peak jazz Mehldau, a good place to start would be his “The Art of the Trio” albums from the 1990s, especially The Art of the Trio III – Songs, which is a captivating listening experience from start to finish, but very hard to find these days, alas, so you might try Vol. IV, Back at the Vanguard, which is also excellent. However, Mehldau’s musical interests are not restricted to jazz alone. For example, he has composed songs and performed recitals with classical singers such as Renee Fleming, Anne Sofie von Otter, and Ian Bostridge. Other examples of his wide musical interests and talents include an album titled Taming the Dragon, on which he plays a variety of electronic synthesizers while paired with drummer/percussionist Mark Giuliana, and an album in which he performs what is essentially a classical piano concerto of his own composition, accompanied by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Our review of that album, titled Variations on a Melancholy Theme, can be found here. Among the other albums of his that we have reviewed previously are the classically-oriented After Bach II (reviewed here) and Après Fauré (reviewed here).

 

His aptly titled musical autobiography Formation: Building a Personal Canon, Part One offers a remarkably – at times shockingly – candid look at the forces and influences that shaped his musical and personal development. “Part One” signifies that in this volume, Mehldau covers how his personal musical canon came to be formed, or as he puts it in his preface, “how that process played out in tandem with my development as a jazz musician throughout the first twenty-six years of my life. In a second book that is underway, I will focus more directly on the canon itself.” Some of the personal details that Mehldau reveals are on the sordid side. As he explains, “there are detailed descriptions of drug and alcohol abuse in this book. I want to stress that although I describe the pleasure of using them, I hope I will have shown that they were a mistaken path, one that injured me and almost took my life. They are a part of my story. I do not know why I survived when close friends of mine did not. Perhaps because of this, I feel an obligation to tell that story honestly. Drugs and alcohol were painkillers which only caused more pain, and I want to underline: they offered no insights musically, in the least.” 

 

As a child, Mehldau of course enjoyed the rock music of the time – Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd, Rush, Billy Joel – from the latter came his interest in the piano. His first exposure to classical music were a couple of cassettes the family had of Rudolf Serkin playing Beethoven – the 4^th and 5^th Piano Concertos with Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra plus another with him playing the “Moonlight,” Pathétique,” and “Appassionata” Sonatas. Later, he would go on to take piano lessons for a teacher who would introduce him to the classical repertoire, beginning with Bach, Beethoven, and Chopin, then soon moving on to Mozart, Brahms, and Bartók. “Brahms was my favorite and Bach pissed me off then – it was just too damn hard. There was just no place to hide. I came around eventually to Bach and he still provides endless edification and nothing short of spiritual nourishment. Beethoven was and is the model for a paradoxical creature, one with a certain willful inspiration. Brahms gives solace and consolation. The three Bs as they’re called – I’m a happy member of that cliché.”

 

Although the book will doubtless appeal more to the jazz fan than to the classical fan, there is much in its pages to appeal to both. To those with an academic background, I would suggest that you might find his discussion of Adorno to be of interest. It’s a fascinating discussion, covering jazz, swing, Brahms, Beethoven, capitalism, totalitarianism, upbeat, downbeat, Black music… all in a few pithy pages. Mehldau gets worked up, Adorno gets skewered, and bebop lives.

If you’re a jazz fan, you really ought to check this book out. Or if you are a classical fan with at least some interest in jazz, well, you might want to give it a look. It’s fascinating story.

3 Shades of Blue/Kind of Blue (Book/CD Review)

by Karl Nehring 

Kaplan, Janes. 3 Shades of Blue: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the Lost Empire of Cool. New York: Penguin Press, 2024. 

Miles Davis: Kind of Blue. So What; Freddie Freeloader; Blue in Green; All Blues; Flamenco Sketches. Miles Davis, trumpet; John Coltrane, tenor saxophone; Julian “Cannonball” Adderley, alto saxophone; Wynton Kelly, piano (Blue in Green only); Bill Evans, piano (all other tracks); Paul Chambers, bass; Jimmy Cobb, drums. Columbia/Legacy CK64935

 

In a couple of recent posts I have shared some thoughts by jazz musicians concerning the influence of classical music on jazz (you can find those posts here and here). In his new book, 3 Shades of Blue, James Kaplan tells the interlocking life stories of three key figures in jazz: trumpeter Miles Davis, saxophonist John Coltrane, and pianist Bill Evans. Those with even a passing knowledge of jazz history are no doubt familiar with at least one of those three names, while those with a bit more knowledge will likely recall all three from their appearance on what today is probably the most widely known jazz album in history, Miles Davis’s landmark 1959 recording, Kind of Blue. Of course, all three musicians released other notable albums, such as Davis’s Sketches of Spain, Birth of the Cool, In a Silent Way, and Bitches Brew; Coltrane’s Crescent, Giant Steps, and A Love Supreme; and Evans’s Sunday at the Village Vanguard, Everybody Digs Bill Evans, and Conversations with Myself.

 

Those with an interest in jazz will gain an insight into the musical and biographical influences that contributed to the sound of those and other recordings by not only these three but other jazz luminaries as Kaplan weaves the three biographies into an overview of the development of different forms of jazz such as swing bebop, post-bop, cool jazz, modal jazz, harmolodics, and free jazz. But of special interest to fans of classical music might be to learn that all three of these jazz giants were influenced by classical music. For example, Kaplan writes that one piece that Miles almost became obsessed with was Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli’s 1957 recording of Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G… Miles wanted to put wide-open space into his music the way Ravel did. He wanted to use different scales the way Khachaturian, with his love for Asian music, did… Davis told Evans that the new album he had in mind would make use of some of the Western classical themes they’d analyzed together…”

 

Evans had been classically trained, but ultimately decided that he wanted to become a jazz pianist. He moved to New York, the hub of jazz, determined to try to make the transition. As Kaplan describes his tiny apartment, “on the music stand were pieces by Chopin, Ravel, and Scriabin, as well as Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier. When he practiced he loved to play classical and then modulate into improvised jazz. The tempo turning to idiosyncratic rhythm, the harmonies close cousins to those in the European music.”  (An interesting fact not mentioned in Kaplan’s book is that at some point later in his career, Evans struck up a friendship with the legendary Canadian classical pianist Glenn Gould; in fact, Evans recorded his famous overdubbed solo album Conversations with Myself using Gould’s piano.)

 

As for Coltrane, Kaplan observes that “almost everyone associated with John Coltrane took note of his voracious appetite for learning about music in general and his instrument in particular… Like Charlie Parker, he made a point of learning to play in every key; also like Parker, and like Miles, he listened broadly and deeply, not just to jazz but to the modern Europeans. ‘Trane and I,’ Jimmie Heath recalled, ‘used to go to the Philadelphia Library together and listen to Western classical music – they had the headphones, you know. We would play Stravinsky and people like that and listen to all this music we could.’”

 

There.is of course much, much more to be found in this deeply researched, engagingly written book that lays out the life stories of these three giants of jazz who combined to give us one of the great recordings of the twentieth century. If you are a fan of Kind of Blue, Kaplan’s book will give you an inside look into its creation and creators. But if you are one of the few people who have not by now given a listen to Kind of Blue, you really ought to give it a listen. It is one of those rara albums that most people – even those who profess not to like jazz – seem to be able to enjoy once they give it a listen. It has a gently swinging quality to it that soon will have you bobbing your head or tapping your tors. In fact, chances are good that you have heard some of this music before – So What and All Blues are floating out there in various arrangements all over the place. Like a great recording of a great symphony, Kind of Blue is an album that can be enjoyed over and over again – it always proves to be just as satisfying a musical an emotional experience each time. It truly is a landmark recording well worth seeking out.

Absolutely on Music: Conversations with Seiji Ozawa (Book Review)

by Karl Nehring

Murakami, Haruki. Absolutely on Music: Conversations with Seiji Ozawa. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 2016.

 

The world of classical music lost a legendary figure earlier this month when the revered and beloved Japanese conductor Seiji Ozawa (1935-2024) passed away at the age of 88. February 6 has long been a memorable day in my life, for it was my ETS day – the day I was discharged from active duty in the U.S. Army, way back in 1975. But from now on, February 6, the day of Seiji Ozawa’s passing, will have an additional memory attached to it, making it a bittersweet day of remembrance for the rest of my time here on this watery orb. My guess would be that most lovers of classical music have at least a few recordings in their collection that feature Maestro Ozawa. He was at the helm of the venerable Boston Symphony Orchestra for nearly 30 years and with that orchestra made a number of noteworthy recordings, especially of French music. In particular, his recordings of Ravel with the BSO are among the finest available. Later in his career he returned to Japan and made some outstanding recordings with the Saito Kinen Orchestra, which he founded.

 

There is most likely a subset of classical musical fans that includes fans of the Japanese author Haruki Murakami. I first became acquainted with his writing when I pretty much randomly picked up a paperback copy some years ago of his novel Kafka on the Shore to read while recuperating from some impending surgery. I found myself spellbound, and since then have read just about every book he has ever published, fiction and non-fiction as well. When Absolutely on Music was first published in 2016, I eagerly borrowed a copy from my favorite library and dug right in. What a delightful, educational, absorbing book it turned out to be!

 

Note the subtitle: Conversations with Seiji Ozawa. Note also that the book is based on some deep, thoughtful conversations rather than some scattered, perfunctory interviews. Murakami had become friends with Ozawa during the conductor’s tenure in Boston, but the two seldom discussed music. Only much later, in Japan in 2009 after Ozawa became ill with cancer, did the two really begin to discuss music. Ozawa was recuperating from treatment; being away from active involvement with music, he now felt he could take the time to reflect and talk about it. Murakami was an interested layman. His principal musical passion is jazz, but as he writes, “I have also been listening to classical music with no less enjoyment, collecting classical records since I was in high school, and going to concerts as often as time would permit.” During one of Ozawa’s visits to Murakami’s home, the conductor began telling an interesting story about the famous concert in New York where Glenn Gould and Leonard Bernstein had a severe disagreement over tempi for the Brahms Piano Concerto No.1. Murakami thought it would be a good idea to get this story recorded. Ozawa agreed, and thus began the series of conversations that eventually led to the book.

The book’s contents include: Introduction: “My Afternoon with Seiji Ozawa” First Conversation: “Mostly on the Beethoven Third Piano Concerto” Interlude 1: “On Manic Record Collectors” Second Conversation: “Brahms at Carnegie Hall” Interlude 2: “The Relationship of Writing to Music” Third Conversation: “What Happened in the 1960s” Interlude 3: “Eugene Ormandy’s Baton” Fourth Conversation: “On the Music of Gustav Mahler” Interlude 4: “From Chicago Blues to Shin’ichi Mori” Fifth Conversation: “The Joys of Opera” / “In a Little Swiss Town” Sixth Conversation: “There’s No Single Way to Teach. You Make It Up as You Go Along.” 

The conversations run deep; for example, in ostensibly talking about the Beethoven concerto, Ozawa reveals some surprising details about Leonard Bernstein’s relationship to the orchestra, while Murakami displays a surprisingly keen ear for musical detail as the two listen to various recordings from Murakami’s collection. Throughout the book, we observe two agile minds engaging each other in lively conversation about a subject about which they are both deeply passionate. Between Ozawa’s musical knowledge and Murakami’s mastery of prose, the end result is a volume that eight years after its initial printing deserves a fresh look. This is not a book just for fans of the late conductor; no, it is a book from which just about anyone with an interest in classical music will be able to draw both musical knowledge and reading pleasure.

 

Critical Insights: Casablanca (Book review)

Edited by James Plath. Salem Press. April 2016. ISBN: 978-1-61925-876-1.

I stumbled upon the movie Casablanca one rainy winter afternoon in 1957. I was in seventh grade, my parents were away, so I decided to watch an old, 1942 movie on TV, a movie I had never heard of before, Casablanca. I didn’t know it had won an Oscar for Best Picture of the Year. I didn’t know who Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Peter Lorre, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, or any of the stars were. I didn’t know it was fast becoming the most-watched movie of all time on early TV. I only knew that when I finished it, I loved it. Then I came across it again a few years later in a college film class where I learned I wasn’t alone in my admiration for it. When I married in 1972, I took my wife to see it because she had never heard of it, and she, too, fell in love with the film. Since then I’ve owned it on Betamax tape, VHS, DVD, and now Blu-ray. My wife and I have probably watched it fifty times or more since.

I mention this because no matter how many times I watch the film or read about it, I learn something new. So it was a decided pleasure to see that Professor of English James Plath of Illinois Wesleyan University had edited a critical edition of essays on the subject of what had become my favorite movie of all time. Critical Insights: Casablanca is more than a reference book; it’s an insightful, erudite, thoughtful, and entirely delightful volume, coming at the movie from over a dozen different angles from over a dozen different scholars, film buffs, film teachers, and film historians. Lots of “Professors” in here. Each of the essays uses a slew of reliable source materials, each essay fully annotated at the end. For anyone who loves the film as I do, who wants to learn more about its origins, its production, its stars, its themes, its producer, its director, its writers, its music, and its place in film history, Critical Insights: Casablanca is the ideal companion for a few long, studious winter nights or a few short, pleasant summer evenings.

Here’s a rundown on the essays and authors included in the book:

“On Casablanca” by James Plath

“Michael Curtiz: One of Hollywood’s Most Versatile Directors” by James Plath

“Tips of the Hat: The Critical Response to Casablanca” by Brennan M. Thomas

“Such Much? Casablanca, Hitler’s Refugees, and the Hollywood Screen” by Noah Isenberg

“Casablanca and Pop Culture’s Embrace” by Kathy Merlock Jackson

“Bogie Noir: Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon” by Li Zeng

“I Stick My Neck Out for Nobody: Rick Blaine’s Anti-heroism” by Erik Esckilsen

“Ilsa’s Sacrifice: Gender, History, and Casablanca’s Conversion Narrative” by Linda Mokdad

“Classical Hollywood, Race, and Casablanca” by Delia Malia Konzett

“Defining Classical Hollywood Narration in Casablanca” by Eric S. Faden

“Adlibbing Greatness: Casablanca’s Screenplay” by Kirk Honeycutt

“Here’s Looking at You . . . and You: The Actors’ Contributions” by Christopher S. Long

“This Crazy World: Cinematic Space and the Casualties of Casablanca” by Larrie Dudenhoeffer

“Beyond Hollywood: Casablanca as World Cinema” by Björn Nordfjörd

“The Undercut Auteur: Michael Curtiz and Casablanca’s Iconic Imagery, Motifs, and Symbols” by Michael O’Conner

“The Music of Casablanca” by James Plath

“Casablanca and the Search for an Auteur” by Paul Morrison

James Plath

Of course, with so many different perspectives on the film, you’re bound to run into a variety of writing styles and viewpoints, some of which you may agree with, some not; some of which you may find exhilarating, some of it perhaps boring. It isn’t as though you’re reading a single outlook on things from a single writer that you know. Thus, there will be times when you just have to say, no, I don’t agree with that; hell, no, that’s not right; or such-and-such author was too scholarly in his or her approach; or, yes, I’ve always thought that myself. It’s fun to read the diverse, often disparate angles people take on things, whether you concur or not. Then, too, you will find some overlap among the essays. They are all writing about just one film, after all, so there is bound to be some degree of repetition in the subjects covered. No matter; if you read the essays attentively and judge each on its own merits, you’ll enjoy yourself and pick up a wealth of information.

It’s hard to pick favorite essays among so many enlightening ones, but I think my own favorites were “Bogie Noir” by Li Zeng; “Here’s Looking at You . . . and You: The Actors’ Contributions” by Christopher S. Long; and, because of my interest in music, “The Music of Casablanca” by Professor Plath.

Why were these chapters favorites among so many fascinating ones? First, growing up as I did in the 1950’s, I had never heard of film noir until college. Then one of my film studies professors introduced the subject but never mentioned Bogart. In the present book, the author argues that not only was Bogart’s The Maltese Falcon the first noir film but that Casablanca exhibits classic elements of noir as well, especially in its use of atmosphere and setting. I can buy that. In terms of the characters in Casablanca, I’ve always thought they were the heart of the film, and I enjoyed Mr. Long’s illuminating takes on their motivations; besides which, Long’s writing is among the most eloquent yet easy to understand in the book. Finally, who could forget the music in the film. Plath calls attention to Max Steiner’s score and the film’s many songs, making Casablanca not quite a musical in the generally accepted sense but a musical movie, nonetheless. Reminds me of when I told a friend I thought the Coens’ O Brother, Where Art Thou? was a good musical, and he said “What?” He’d never even noticed the continuous music and songs in the film until I brought it to his attention, and then said “Oh, yeah. I guess you’re right.” Plath is right about Casablanca.  

No, you don’t have to be a Casablanca fanatic as I am to appreciate the book, nor do you have to be a scholar to find new insights into a great film. Sure, you could find much material like this on-line for free, but, then, you wouldn’t have it all in one place, nor would you find it so well organized into a coherent whole. You just have to have an open and inquisitive mind to appreciate the breadth of knowledge on display here. That you may find yourself being entertained along the way is like icing on the cake.

JJP

Juska: Mrs. Bennet Has Her Say (Book review)

A novel by Jane Juska. Berkley Books/Penguin Group, 2015.

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that every man in possession of a wife must be in want of a son." --Mr. Edward Bennet

"If only poor Mother had lived to tell me of the infamy that would be my wedding night." --Mrs. Marianne Bennet

Having read some time ago Jane Juska's hugely successful autobiographical memoir A Round-Heeled Woman (2003) and recognized what a splendid writer she is, I should never have had any doubts about her latest book, Mrs. Bennet Has Her Say. However, this time was different. She was writing a novel, a fiction, and a historical-literary one at that. Happily, my concerns were quickly dispelled. Before I was little more than a few pages in, I realized that Ms. Juska could write a zombie apocalypse chronicle and it would be head and shoulders above anything else written in the field. Although Mrs. Bennet features no zombies, it is delightfully charming, witty, and outright funny.

Juska chose as the starting point of her novel a work she had known for many years, Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. But, I hear you say, haven't other authors done this sort of thing before? Haven't we had, for example, any number of prefaces to or continuations of Elizabeth Bennet's misadventures, some of them even set in modern times? Of course we have, so Ms. Juska takes a different approach while examining much the same social and cultural landscape as the original. Juska writes her novel from the points of view of the Bennet family parents, Edward and Marianne, when they were young and in the first years of their marriage, some twenty-odd years before the circumstances of Pride and Prejudice. So, no, this is neither a pastiche (Ms. Juska is very much her own person with her own style, and while her writing may remind one of Ms. Austen's, it is still Juska all the way) nor a sequel (a prequel is more like it, yet even then the change in emphasis to the parents dispels any notion of imitation).

Here, in order not to give away too much of the book's plot, I quote from the publisher's notes: "1785 was to be the most marvelous year of Marianne's life, until an unfortunate turn of events left her in a compromised state and desperate for a husband to care--or rather cover--for her. Now, she is stuck in an undesirable marriage to Mr. Edward Bennet, a man desperate in his own way for a male heir. But as she is still carrying a smoldering desire for the handsome Colonel Miller, Mrs. Bennet must constantly find new, clever ways to avoid her husband's lascivious advances until she is once again reunited with her dashing Colonel. Except that the best-laid plans of a woman in good standing can so often go awry, especially when her contrary husband has plans and desires of his own. . . ."

Jane Juska

In other words, both the husband and wife have married for reasons other than love: The husband to provide a male heir for his estate (women had no rights of inheritance in those days or many rights of any kind) and to provide himself a measure of relief from his own lust; the wife because she needs a husband to maintain her respectability. They are not happy with their lots in life when the husband discovers that his wife does not share his more-carnal desires, and the wife recognizes that she cannot have the man she really wants and, worse, that the husband she does have is, as he himself admits, "a boorish, awkward, country lout." Life can be so cruel. "O la!"

OK, now I must admit to another misgiving I had before starting the book, a misgiving related to my own recent literary proclivities. I had been reading almost exclusively crime, mystery, and detective novels for the previous half dozen years (Henning Mankell, Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, John Grisham, Paula Hawkins, David Baldacci, that kind of thing), laced with the occasional popular-science book. Would suddenly turning my attentions to an eighteenth-century comedy of manners really be my cup of English tea? Again, I should have had no such worries so long as Jane Juska was in charge. And imagine my surprise when as things turned out the Bennets were not as genteel as I had expected them to be. The book is a frisky, satiric romp, never explicit in the nature of so many modern titles but playfully sexual enough to hold one's interest.

Anyway, Ms. Juska tells the story through a series of writings by her two main characters (Mr. Bennet in a diary and Mrs. Bennet in letters to her sister). In establishing this alternating framework, Juska is able to explore two very differing points of view on essentially the same topics. Marianne will describe an event, and in the next chapter Edward will usually describe the same event from his own perspective. Often the views are hilariously at odds, as the wife is something of an airhead (or, to be fair, naive, as she is still in her teens) and the husband a confirmed loggerhead (no other way to sugarcoat that one). The husband's diary, he says, is a private affair detailing his lascivious desires for his wife, his tenant farmer's daughter, and any other girl he sees, insisting he wants the whole thing burned to ashes when he dies. The wife's letters describe her continued longings for her dear colonel, and she doesn't want her sister sharing them with anybody. "Be still, my heart."

That Ms. Juska should look more favorably on the nincompoopery of the wife over the blunders of the husband is the author's understandable prerogative. (Mrs. Bennet is the titular heroine of the novel, after all.) As Juska writes in an Afterword, "You know, I think Mrs. Bennet got a bad deal. Five children in eight years is enough to unsettle anybody. On the other hand, maybe she was always dotty, or do you think she got that way after she married Mr. Bennet or only as all those daughters were being born?"

Incidentally, there are more Janes involved with this book than you can shake a stick at (if that's your idea of a good time). There's Jane Juska, there's Jane Austen, and there's the main character's sister Jane to whom she writes her letters. My Random House Unabridged says that "Jane is a female given name derived from French Jeanne, Old French Jehane, from Medieval Latin Johanna (John). As a generic name for 'girl, girlfriend' it is attested from 1906 in U.S. slang. It may owe its 'everywoman' reputation rather to its association with John." I dunno; maybe Ms. Juska liked having Mrs. Bennet write to Jane in order to personalize the messages, as though the main character were speaking directly to the book's author. Or not.

Ms. Juska's strong suit has always been her ability to shape and tone her writing. She is a true wordsmith, whether she's describing Mrs. Bennet's visits to the neighbors, a trip to Bath, or a grand ball. The old dictum of "show not tell" is in evidence in everything Jane Juska writes, and we get a genuine feel for being there with the characters and a sincere understanding of their situations. More important, Juska does it all with grace, elegance, wit, and good humor. There isn't a page goes by that won't have you at the very least smiling and at the very best laughing out loud.

Flaws? Yes. For me, the story's 300-or-so page length seemed too short. No sooner do you get engrossed in it than it's over. Well, I suppose that is also a tribute to Juska's writing style. She pulls you in, and you want more. Although the book may fly by, its large number of very short chapters maintains a healthy, lively rhythm and forward-moving pace.

Jane Juska's Mrs. Bennet Has Her Say is an entertaining read, more amusing and more engaging as it goes along. You can't ask much more of an author than that.

JJP

To listen to actress Lindy Nettleton read a brief excerpt from the book, click here: