Jess Jurkovic's blog

Because it was a huge and expensive coffee-table-style book, I didn't buy Doug Ramsey's incredible book Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond (2005) until a few weeks ago, thanks to a piano student's Christmas gift card from Barnes & Noble, and the Tacoma, WA Goodwill Store.

The tireless research that must have gone into this book astounds me. Desmond was extremely private, and any information he gave you may have been a joke, apocryphal, or embellished by his peerless wit. But Ramsey has interviewed everyone who knew Desmond (born Paul Emil Breitenfeld), collected correspondence, and assembled the definitive story and summary of his life, and impact on the world of jazz.

But actually, this isn't about that, it's about a little tidbit of information I happened to catch towards the end of the book, as I was skimming through the massive tome. There is a picture in the back of pianist Renee Rosnes, who, though she has no connection to Desmond's life (she was 15 when he died in 1977), is pictured sitting at "Paul's Baldwin grand piano at the Jazz Gallery in New York."Read more

I was entirely pleased to attend the first night of Chick Corea's guesting with Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. I could go on about the brilliance of this pianist, the melodicism of both his compositions and improvisations, his rapport with the band, the excellence of the hastily thrown-together arrangements for the band (only a week! Just shows what you can do when you're up against it), and the poignant beauty of Gayle Moran Corea taking the stage to sing "You're Everything," my current favorite Corea song. Hmm... I appear to be going on about this.

It suddenly dawned on me when Corea took the stage (casually strolling out with the band; it took a moment for the audience to realize he was already there, and we immediately swelled in our applause), looking very fit, his curly dark hair showing signs of grey, that... wait a minute, Chick must be heading towards 70! I later confirmed that, this summer, he will indeed turn 70. How did that happen?

My obliviousness to the inexorable passing of time made me laugh and shake my head (I am fully aware of Dave Brubeck's recent 90th birthday), but this particular hero of mine seems to exist only in a time loop that circles back between roughly 1966 and 1973. It made me very grateful that I can still see my heroes live and alive, but also made me more aware of the timeline of their existence and evolution.Read more

I recently was lucky enough to be invited to see Danilo Perez's latest show at the Jazz Standard. My friend is a publicist and agent, and likes to sit right in front, and so we did.

The group featured Perez, David Sanchez, a trumpeter and alto saxist new to me, plus Adam Cruz and Ben Street. The show was called 21st Century Dizzy, which mixed original compositions with VERY modern arrangements (so much so that they might as well have been originals) of songs written by or associated with Dizzy Gillespie. Even though it was clear to me that, despite this being the last of four nights, some arrangements were a bit seat-of-the-pants or were less than assured, this was not distracting and the playing was top-notch.

The thing that most struck me was Perez's presence on the stage. He is extremely emotive, and although sometimes his shoulders lift and he seems to struggle getting out of his own way (a feeling I know well as a performer), he was arguably the most engaging member of the band.Read more

I bought some DVDs of live jazz concerts and TV performances, of the type that until recently was archival footage, seen only at the time and place of original transmission. In America such performances, say Miles Davis with Gil Evans at CBS in 1959, or Dave Brubeck's appearance on Ralph J. Gleason's Jazz Casual in 1961, might occasionally be glimpsed on some PBS documentary, but rarely would such things be released on VHS or (now) DVD. Maybe it was certain copyrights and such that kept films from being sold to the general public until now.

The appearance of these DVDs, plus postings on YouTube of rare footage makes me very excited; in fact I might not be able to overstate it. As I was growing up and getting into jazz in the '80s, right around the beginning of the CD era, the recordings that I loved were only twenty or thirty years old, but the images with them were precious few. I was always curious to see for myself what these performers were like when they worked: the way they carried themselves, how they interacted with their bands and with audiences. Subsequently having watched some of my favorite pianists on video: Brubeck, Bill Evans, Oscar Peterson, Keith Jarrett (whom I can't watch anymore, quite frankly; looks too painful), I still haven't lost the thrill, the feeling of excitement and expectation at seeing them in action.Read more