Pittsburgh's Own Regional Notables of Jazz
AFRO-AMERICAN MUSIC INSTITUTE CELEBRATES 36 YEARS
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PITTSBURGH JAZZ
From Blakey to Brown, Como to Costa, Eckstine to Eldridge, Galbraith to Garner, Harris to Hines, Horne to Hyman, Jamal to Jefferson, Kelly to Klook; Mancini to Marmarosa, May to Mitchell, Negri to Nestico, Parlan to Ponder, Reed to Ruther, Strayhorn to Sullivan, Turk to Turrentine, Wade to Williams… the forthcoming publication Treasury of Pittsburgh Jazz Connections by Dr. Nelson Harrison and Dr. Ralph Proctor, Jr. will document the legacy of one of the world’s greatest jazz capitals.
Do you want to know who Dizzy Gillespie idolized? Did you ever wonder who inspired Kenny Clarke and Art Blakey? Who was the pianist that mentored Monk, Bud Powell, Tad Dameron, Elmo Hope, Sarah Vaughan and Mel Torme? Who was Art Tatum’s idol and Nat Cole’s mentor? What musical quartet pioneered the concept adopted later by the Modern Jazz Quartet? Were you ever curious to know who taught saxophone to Stanley Turrentine or who taught piano to Ahmad Jamal? What community music school trained Robert McFerrin, Sr. for his history-making debut with the Metropolitan Opera? What virtually unknown pianist was a significant influence on young John Coltrane, Shirley Scott, McCoy Tyner, Bobby Timmons and Ray Bryant when he moved to Philadelphia from Pittsburgh in the 1940s? Would you be surprised to know that Erroll Garner attended classes at the Julliard School of Music in New York and was at the top of his class in writing and arranging proficiency?
Some answers can be gleaned from the postings on the Pittsburgh Jazz Network.
For almost 100 years the Pittsburgh region has been a metacenter of jazz originality that is second to no other in the history of jazz. One of the best kept secrets in jazz folklore, the Pittsburgh Jazz Legacy has heretofore remained mythical. We have dubbed it “the greatest story never told” since it has not been represented in writing before now in such a way as to be accessible to anyone seeking to know more about it. When it was happening, little did we know how priceless the memories would become when the times were gone.
Today jazz is still king in Pittsburgh, with events, performances and activities happening all the time. The Pittsburgh Jazz Network is dedicated to celebrating and showcasing the places, artists and fans that carry on the legacy of Pittsburgh's jazz heritage.
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Duke Ellington is first African-American and the first musician to solo on U.S. circulating coin
MARY LOU WILLIAMS
INTERVIEW
METAPHYSICS OF MUSIC - Part 4 of 6
Comment
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Comment by Dr. Martin E. Rosenberg on April 27, 2009 at 2:21pm
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Dear Nelson: This passage evokes the creativity theory of Henri Bergson and Henri Poincare, both of whom had enormous influence on the artists' artist Marcel Duchamp. Bergson talks about "Creative Evolution" (english transl 1911; see Duchamp's notebooks from 1913) as a dialogue between duree (pure contingent duration beneath the mechanical regulated duration of clock time and calculus), memoire (memory, which can refer to persistence in time of organisms--b/c of the genetic code as well as intellectual or emotional content; and elan vital (the vital impetus of all LIFE: what is reductively referred to as a metaphysical "vitalist" thesis often derided by contemporary philosophers). I've applied this model to the role of tape recorders and transcriptions in the evolution of Be Bop compositional practices (of How High the Moon into Ornithology) ;and the role of people like Dean Benedetti and "secondary" composers like Benny Harris and Benny Golson in the transformation of transcribed solos into secondary and tertiary compositions from standards.
I would try to give a slightly greater emphasis on the role of tapes, transcriptions, manuscript in the history of jazz than you, but, that's probably due to my cultural biases. I see the dialogue--process of duree (contingency of the performance) memoire (tape recordings and transcriptions) propelled by elan vital (creative _spirit_) of the players as interdependent--bound together as process larger than the sum of the parts; one cannot really separate one out and say that it stands alone.
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