NEW YORK, COLTRANE, JAZZ STANDARD, LINCOLN CENTER, REICH

From the mind of Mick Paddon

A few icons capture six days I have just spent in New York.  The snow plows were out when we arrived and six days later the ice was still clinging to pavement edges, or should I say sidewalks.  The familiarity i feel for the place is mainly second hand, a product of dozens, no hundreds, of movies and tv shows over the years.

The Lincoln Center is a sprawl of venues for opera, theatre, dance, jazz, and all of the forms of what get called classical music.  You couldn’t easily classify the evening of percussion we saw there: twentieth and twenty first century music played on marimbas, vibes, various sorts of drums, and a quartet of two pianos and various percussion instruments.   It included part of Stephen Reich’s composition, Drumming.  How can four people, with eight sticks playing six bongos create something so energetic,  stimulating and interesting from such simple patterns? .  I saw and heard Reich’s work performed live years ago before I ever listened to any recordings so now I “see” the performances whenever I hear his music whether I am there in person or listening to a CD.

Reich of course,  was influenced by listening to Coltrane.  John that is. I fancied I could hear something of his soulful, tortured tone in the tenor saxophone of his son Ravi who I heard leading his quintet at a wonderful night at the Jazz Standard club.  I have not listened to much of his work before but will be checking it out from now on.  There is always something about a jazz club which you have to get to by going down stairs, bar towards the back, near the entrance, and a walk through the tables to the stage, the centerpiece, front of house. That’s the Jazz Standard.

Music.  Food for the soul.  In whichever city.  Everywhere in the world

We look forward to having Mick back on the air here with Thursday Drive in March 2015!