WMV Music Web Log

Just what is the difference between jazz and classical chamber music? Some interesting and surprising ideas about this are appearing. We went to HR 57 the other night for the first time, and heard some great stuff there - that is a place by the way that closely resembles my vision of the "chamber music cafe"! (We ate at a great Ethiopian place, Dukem on U St). Also, I have been getting to know John Kamman's Afro Jazz Explosion and Trio CDs better, since my new van has a CD player (it's really just a CD player on wheels, that hauls Marilyn's art around sometimes). I really love Armand's vocals, and the way the songs "cook". John challenged me with the assertion that a major difference between jazz and classical chamber music is that a jazz group really has to listen and respond to each other - touche! That's really what my groups aspire to, but I understand his dig.

The rehearsals are going well, everybody is excited, and my feeling is that the whole idea has "legs". More on the ideas later, but here is John's description of the new piece he is writing for EVOLUTIONS:

"Five Tones" was written with the two vocalists, Armand Ntep and Grace Chung, in mind. It is basically a suite of five mini-movements, which I think of as "tone poems," each emphasizing a different element of the relationship between jazz and various African Styles.

The concept behind the piece comes from a group Armand and I put together, The Afro Jazz Explosion (performing at the January 24th concert), which blends jazz musicians and instrumentation with African stylings. As the sound of the group evolved I was surprised to find many subtle intersections between the African styles I know well, especially Kenyan Benga, and jazz.

For "Five Tones," I have abstracted five of these surprising intersections to build a five part exploration into what I see as some of the most essential, elemental, relations between African traditions and jazz. An example: there is a Cameroonian way of using the voice in a percussive manner that fits very well with a certain style of ostinato (repeated figures) bass in jazz. This becomes a starting point for creating contrapuntal vocal melodies, one voice in the Cameroonian style, and one in a jazz style, with an instrumental landscape providing the frame.

As another example, Armand's style of singing a very sweet, contemplative introduction to an AJE piece of ours, which comes from a blend of Ghanaian kora playing and Kenyan Benga, fits very well with the gospel influenced piano style of "soul jazz' from the 60's. Again, this becomes the framework for creating themes for the two voices, the complementary instrumental background, and a framework for improvising.

Another important commonality is improvisation - both styles place a great deal of emphasis on improvising within the structure of a piece. Armand and Grace are fantastic improvisers, and so I have used the aforementioned "essential structures" both for explicitly composed melodic devices and to provide a unique, framework for improvisation.