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A Singular Patois
MANIFESTO
COURSE CORRECTION
This week, Sassy and I have enjoyed the hospitality of some friends who've generously provided lodging for us in their home while I play a few gigs in the area.
Their son (let's call him Freddie) is a very talented young aspiring jazz trumpeter.
Although I regularly give master classes on the road, and have done my share of classroom teaching, spending time with Freddie and his family over the past week has been a powerful reminder to me of what it means to be a serious musician and what an industry jazz education has become.
At the age of 16, Freddie has already taken advantage of more specialized training and travel opportunities than I had in my college years, and he's already twice the player I was in high school.
Freddie's days are so full that I'm actually hesitant to call him an "aspiring" musician. Not yet a high school senior, he's already playing professional gigs, studying advanced concepts and techniques, taking and teaching private lessons, listening broadly and living a decidedly music-centered life.
Freddie studies privately with two teachers: one for trumpet, another for jazz.
He's a veteran of jazz camp, Jazzschool, the Grammy band, SFJAZZ All-Stars, J@LC Essentially Ellington and Monterey NextGen.
He participates in a summer music mentoring program and leads sectional brass rehearsals for his school jazz ensemble. He's won awards in all the regional and national honors programs you've heard of and several that you haven't. And he's already performed on the most prestigious jazz stages worldwide: New York, Monterey, Montreux, North Sea, Umbria.
I never practiced like this kid, not even at Interlochen. He hits it hard for hours every day. Each morning I awaken to the sound of Freddie's horn, methodically working its way through James Stamp warm-ups, Clarke etudes, Clifford Brown turnarounds, articulation and lip flexibility exercises and chord scale after chord scale. Every afternoon he has a rehearsal or two with this or that band. Every evening he practices again.
When I was Freddie's age, my bedroom was a shrine to Lindsay Wagner and Spencer's Gifts. I had only just begun to take private lessons and didn't take them very seriously. I loved to play but hated to practice.
Freddie's room is a hardcore crucible of brass: his chair, music stand and horn are at the center, surrounded by stacks of lead sheets and method books. His walls are festooned with festival posters and images of great jazzmen. On his desk a laptop computer is open to an overstuffed iTunes library. Two speakers face the practice chair.
I spent a couple of hours trading riffs with Freddie, and am astonished by his proficiency on the horn and his familiarity with the nuances of the jazz language. He's already familiar with every classic recording I mention, and he seems to own nearly all the available Aebersold and music-minus-one collections of standards. He has a remarkably sophisticated ear for modern harmony and can toss off bebop clichés over complex changes at bright tempos. He listens to all the same jazz heroes I do, plus the latest recordings by Alex Sipiagin, Ambrose Akinmusire and Billy Buss. He already knows the tunes, licks and lore that I learned in my five years at Berklee.
The other night I invited Freddie to sit-in with me and the band on "Invitation." The audience was knocked out. He played a mature solo, including some very creative motivic development. After the set, Freddie was appropriately gracious and grateful, pausing to individually thank each member of the rhythm section. He even possesses enough charm to balance all that swagger.
After 30 years in music, I'm now at an age when I think it's important to pay it forward. It's been my belief that I have a responsibility to share what I've learned over the course of my life and career, and to mentor and encourage the next generation of musicians.
But if they're at all like Freddie, I don't have the time.
I need to practice.
— D.M.
IMPRESSIONABLE
When I was young and asking the big questions, I learned most of what I still believe about loyalty, bravery and morality from the Silver Age superheroes in my comic book collection.
For real.
In later years I would travel internationally, study world religions, read classic works of philosophy and ethics, and even pay attention to my father's many lectures. I went to private school, public school, boarding school and the school of hard knocks. I'm an educated cat.
But to this day, when the world tests my mettle or challenges my sense of right and wrong, it's not Spinoza but my inner Green Lantern who shows up for the fight.
I've always been impressionable in this way.
For example, I'm pretty sure I have a goatee because of the way Spock looked in "Mirror, Mirror." I know I started wearing dashikis in high school because of a picture I saw of Elvin Jones in Downbeat. I sport a beret on stage because Dizzy did.
Today, while watching Highlander for the godzillionth time, I noticed something about Christopher Lambert's home. Like so many characters in films of the 1980s and '90s, The Highlander lived in a loft.
It now occurs to me that my interior design preferences and bone-deep love of warehouse loft spaces and mid-century modern furniture are not based on anywhere I've lived or anything I've seen or studied. They don't reflect some sophisticated notion about the aesthetic requirements of an artist's life. They aren't because I need space to rehearse and create.
Nope. I learned about loft living from the movies. Dig:
William Sanderson in Blade Runner (1982). Jennifer Beals in Flashdance (83). Lambert in Highlander (86). Barbara Hershey in Hannah and Her Sisters (86). Mickey Rourke in 9-1/2 Weeks (86). Tom Hanks in Big (88). Billy Crystal in When Harry Met Sally (89). Rosanna Arquette in New York Stories (89). Nancy Travis in So I Married An Axe Murderer (93). James Caan in Bottle Rocket (96). Ethan Hawke in Great Expectations (98). Julianne Moore in The Big Lebowski (98). Adam Sandler in Big Daddy (99). Christian Bale in American Psycho (00). Owen Wilson in Zoolander (01). Olivier Martinez in Unfaithful (02).
I want their cribs!
Thanks, Hollywood.
(Sure hope this flugelhorn thing works out.)
FROM THE ARCHIVES
March 14, 1984
Senior Recital
Interlochen Arts Academy
Interlochen, Michigan
March 14, 1999
Dmitri Matheny, Darrell Grant, Bill Douglass
Florio Street Concerts
Oakland, California
March 14, 2005
Music of Ornette Coleman
Sunday Woodshed
San Francisco, California
THIRD EYE
Are we old enough now, Mr. Lindenau?
DO YOU SEE?
"Always see everything,
my brother."
—Ghost Dog
"I like to look for things
no-one else catches."
—Amélie Poulain
"From infancy on, we are all spies.
The shame is not this
but that the secrets to be discovered
are so paltry and few."
—John Updike
HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL
TOTEM
IN THE NEWS
Arizona Daily Star
October 25, 2012
Jazz Noir Inspired By Crime Shows
By Chuck Graham
Known for his warm tone, soaring lyricism and masterful technique, flugelhorn artist Dmitri Matheny will go searching for poignant moments of jazz noir...more
Explorer News
October 25, 2012
Dmitri Matheny at Tohono Chul Park
Inspired by espionage and underworld movie music, Dmitri Matheny’s “Crime Scenes”...more
Tucson Weekly
October 24, 2012
Sax Under A Streetlight: Crime Scenes | Jazz Noir With Dmitri Matheny
By Mariana Dale
As a teenager living in Tucson in the late 1970s, it was hard to nurture dreams...more
IN THE NEWS
Arizona Daily Star
Jazz Noir Inspired By Crime Shows
By Chuck Graham
"Crime Scenes" will be the centerpiece of Dmitri Matheny's concert Friday at Tohono Chul...more
IN THE NEWS
October 24, 2012
Sax Under A Streetlight: Crime Scenes | Jazz Noir With Dmitri Matheny
By Mariana Dale
As a teenager living in Tucson in the late 1970s, it was hard to nurture dreams of becoming a jazz musician...more
I WANT TO BELIEVE
I've been following the story of Dutch engineer Jarmo Smeets, who claims to have cracked the code on how to fly like a bird.
Inventors since Leonardo have been trying to do this. We've been able to create wings for gliding at high altitude, but the engineering challenge has been that if you make the wings large enough to support the weight of a person, no human being is strong enough—or can flap his arms fast enough—to achieve lift-off.
Smeets says that his breakthrough is using the motion detector from a Nintendo Wii to power small rotors, so that only short, brisk movements of his arms are necessary to power the flapping of the wings. With a running start, he says, he and his wings can take flight.
His YouTube videos are impressive.
The science community, however, is skeptical about the videos. Apparently Smeets' alleged credentials don't check out, either.
Too bad.
As someone who has dreamed of flying nearly every night since childhood, I want so badly to believe that this is possible!
~DM
THE ROWING SONG by Roald Dahl
There's no earthly way of knowing
Which direction we are going!
There's no knowing where we're rowing,
Or which way they river's flowing!
Is it raining? Is it snowing?
Is a hurricane a-blowing?
Bah! Not a speck of light is showing,
So the danger must be growing,
Are the fires of hell a-blowing?
Is the grizzly reaper mowing?
Yes! The danger must be growing,
For the rowers keep on rowing,
And they're certainly not showing
Any signs that they are slowing...
FROM THE ARCHIVES
August 27, 1987
New Voice Jazz Sextet
Willow Jazz Club
Somerville, Massachusetts
15 Years Ago Today
August 27, 1997
Dmitri Matheny Group featuring Shanna Carlson
The Redwood Room of the Clift Hotel
San Francisco, California
NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY by Robert Frost
Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
HEROES
When I begin to feel frustrated by encroaching banality and mediocrity,
it often helps to contemplate those heroic figures who inspire.
Here are some of them:
William Adama
Douglas Adams
Josef Albers
Muhammad Ali
Louis Armstrong
Paul Atreides
Johann Sebastian Bach
Burt Bacharach
Chet Baker
Maria Bamford
Basho
The Batman
Ludwig van Beethoven
Bill Bell
Irving Berlin
Leonard Bernstein
Wendell Berry
Brian Blade
Eubie Blake
James Bond
Anthony Bourdain
Lester Bowie
Ray Bradbury
Johannes Brahms
Clifford Brown
James Brown
Joseph Campbell
George Carlin
Hoagy Carmichael
Carmine Caruso
Johnny Cash
Tony Cennamo
Marc Chagall
Raymond Chandler
Don Cheadle
Doc Cheatham
Louis CK
Patsy Cline
Jimmy Cobb
Leonard Cohen
Ornette Coleman
John Coltrane
Frank Columbo
Sarah Connor
Paolo Conte
Silvio Dante
Dave the Philosopher
Miles Davis
Philip K. Dick
Emily Dickinson
Eihei Dogen
Nick Drake
Tyler Durden
Lawrence Durrell
Clint Eastwood
Eeyore
Harry "Sweets" Edison
T. S. Eliot
Duke Ellington
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Bill Evans
Art Farmer
Felix the Cat
Boba Fett
Atticus Finch
Ella Fitzgerald
Aretha Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
Lester Freamon
Morgan Freeman
Robert Frost
Hal Galper
Mohandas Gandhi
Paul Gauguin
Marvin Gaye
Theodor Seuss Geisel
Stan Getz
Kahlil Gibran
Raylan Givens
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Darrell Grant
Green Lantern
Christopher Guest
Charlie Haden
Hafiz
Herbie Hancock
Harold (& The Purple Crayon)
Tom Harrell
Robert A. Heinlein
Ernest Hemingway
Joe Henderson
Jimi Hendrix
Bernard Herrmann
Bill Hicks
Alfred Hitchcock
Hit Girl
Billie Holiday
Lena Horne
Aldous Huxley
Icarus
William James
Keith Jarrett
Quincy Jones
James Joyce
Will Kane
Orrin Keepnews
John F. Kennedy
Jack Kerouac
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Evel Knievel
Ray Kurzweil
Tyrion Lannister
Bruce Lee
Stan Lee
John Lennon
Abbey Lincoln
Booker Little
David Lynch
Joseph Maddy
Gustav Mahler
Louis Malle
Nelson Mandela
Thomas Mann
Frank Marocco
Marc Maron
Abraham Maslow
Bill Matheny
Henri Matisse
Carson McCullers
Mr. McFeely
Marian McPartland
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Arthur Miller
Henry Miller
Bryan Mills
Joni Mitchell
Thelonious Monk
James Moody
Morpheus
Eddie Muller
Gerry Mulligan
Will Munny
Anne-Sophie Mutter
Willie Nelson
Pablo Neruda
Mary Oliver
Charlie Parker
Sam Pate
Nicholas Payton
Astor Piazolla
Pablo Picasso
Herb Pomeroy
Alexander Pushkin
Prometheus
Samuel Ramey
Christopher Reeve
Rainer Maria Rilke
James Rockford
Gene Roddenberry
Will Rogers
Sonny Rollins
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Mark Rothko
Bertrand Russell
Ryōkan
Lisbeth Salander
May Sarton
Lalo Schifrin
Maurice Sendak
Rod Serling
Woody Shaw
Jack Sheldon
Wayne Shorter
Frank Sinatra
Derek Sivers
Allen Smith
Mr. Spock
Mary Stallings
Wallace Stevens
Detective Mike Stone
Igor Stravinsky
Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger III
Shunryu Suzuki
Andrei Tarkovsky
Donna Tartt
Clark Terry
Henry David Thoreau
J. R. R. Tolkien
Leo Tolstoy
Desmond Tutu
Mark Twain
Lao Tzu
Morihei Ueshiba
Ultraman
John Updike
Vincent Van Gogh
Ack Van Rooyen
Kurt Vonnegut
Tom Waits
Ben Webster
Simone Weil
Orson Welles
Kenny Werner
Kenny Wheeler
Walt Whitman
Oscar Wilde
Nancy Wilson
Stevie Wonder
Lester Young
HAPPY 50th ANNIVERSARY
Happy 50th Anniversary to the Incredible Hulk, the Amazing Spider-Man,
the Mighty Thor and the Invincible Iron Man, all created in 1962
by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Dick Ayers,
Don Heck and Larry Lieber.
You four were among my favorite babysitters when I was a kid.
I never dreamed you'd all become movie stars in my adulthood!
Good for you.
MR. ROGERS REMIXED | Garden of Your Mind | PBS Studios
IMPOSSIBLE MONSTERS
“Fantasy abandoned by reason
produces impossible monsters."
—Francisco Goya
"He who fights with monsters might take care
lest he thereby become a monster."
—Friedrich Nietzsche
"Fairy tales do not tell children that dragons exist.
Children already know that dragons exist.
Fairy tales tell children that dragons can be killed."
—G.K. Chesterton
ON THIS DAY IN 1988
1369 Cambridge Street
Inman Square
Cambridge, Massachusetts