From the Rockbridge Advocate, January 1998
OPEN EAR
Tommy Flanagan, a Little Girl, and Tom Riegel - PATRICK HINELY -
Tommy Flanagan played the best jazz yet presented in W&L’s Lenfest Center, on December 6 last. It was a totally satisfying experience. Flanagan is easily (and he certainly made it look easy) among the world's foremost pianists, and, at age 67, his touch is both sublime and subtle, his approach free of ego, with nothing to prove and much of great beauty to share, and possessed of a swinging gracefulness which can be attained only by loving what you do.
Flanagan broke no new ground, but made the old tunes new, which is one of this music's greatest challenges. Jazz has a future only because of players like him, those who have done their historical homework and are fulfilled by carrying on traditions they so fully revere (if, at times, irreverently). Ever a model of humility (modesty, after all, is the best policy), Flanagan included only one of his own compositions which, like his playing, show a sensuous sense of shape. Save for that and a brief medley of tunes by a songwriter not widely known in jazz circles, the balance of the evening's repertoire came from a much more inclusive - and intelligent - cross-section of the emerging jazz 'canon' than what is tunnel-envisioned as scripture in this regard around Lincoln Center of late.
Flanagan didn't merely introduce the tunes, he told stories which set each one into its historical context. He spoke most fondly of Thad Jones, a trumpeter and composer he'd known since childhood, two of whose compositions Flanagan played. Though Jones died in 1986 (earlier that year he'd led the Count Basie Orchestra at W&L's Fancy Dress Ball), Flanagan repeatedly referred to him in the present tense. There may be a profound commentary on immortality somewhere in that.
Having served for 13 years as Ella Fitzgerald's musical director and accompanist, it makes perfect sense that Flanagan would choose versatile bandmates for his own trio, especially drummer Lewis Nash, whose brushes painted palettes of many colors. Using the most elemental of percussive building blocks, Nash raised sturdily elaborate structures, seldom soloing and always listening. His no-noise approach is rare among drummers, and welcome.
This concert was the most user-friendly yet for the W&L Music Department's Sonoklect Festival, and director Terry Vosbein is to be commended for making it happen. It was especially nice to see local folks from all walks of life enjoying this music together.
Or at least trying to enjoy it.
Seated near me was a young girl, maybe seven or eight, who was so in sync with and enchanted by Nash's rhythms that she took her shoes off and was all set to get up and quietly dance, but was restrained by her mother. There was no question about which of those two was having more fun. The child wasn't noisy or disruptive, she just felt the need to MOVE, and was virtually glowing from within, exuding total joy.
So she danced quietly sifting down, despite her mother's repeated efforts to make the child, as Archie Bunker used to say to his wife Edith, stifle herself. I found this control battle hard to figure, since it seemed so obvious that the kid wasn't bothering anyone else, except Mom, who, allowing this to drive her to such distraction, couldn't possibly appreciate, much less savor, this incredibly beautiful music. Maybe she'd been confused by the fact that the music most often heard in this room is classical, meaning logic could dictate that one must behave with a classical music decorum here, no? It didn't seem to occur to her that we were all in a situation beyond logic.
All of which led me to ponder what it is that so many of us so totally unlearn in the process of allegedly growing up. Must we lose the ability to enjoy things as completely as that little girl? There are as many varieties of how that gets beaten out of us as there are people, I suppose.
Thankfully, there are also ways to get it back. Huge fireworks displays usually do the trick.
It has long been known that music too has that power. Medieval church music was designed to elevate one's spiritual awareness into the mysteries of the Trinity, et cetera, and today, several generations of evolution later, elements of that remain with us in many musics, jazz included. J.S. Bach's music definitely has that power (it's the strongest argument I've heard to advocate the concept of a benevolently ordered universe), which I've heard most convincingly rendered by a fiddle player who, as a young man, was a member of Bill Monroe's band. Elsewhere on the same album, he is equally divine in revealing universal truths from a tune by Ornette Coleman, who himself does interesting things with Bach That would be violinist Richard Greene, and the album Ramblin', which Rounder Records has, for whatever reason, not yet had the good sense to reissue on CD nor ha Greene yet appeared at Lime Kiln, where by all rights he should be considered long overdue.
Jazz has long held that same power for me, and Flanagan was the finest I've heard here since Oregon played at Lee Chapel in 1974. Trivia of the day: Oregon's concert was sponsored by the same student group, Contact, whose most recent guest was Pat Buchanan. How times change
Floating out of the Lenfest in a post-concert euphoria, my mind wandered back to a conversation I'd had after pianist Chick Corea's concert there in 1994. On my way out after that one, Tom and Jane Riegel had thanked me for encouraging them to stay for the second set. They'd been thinking about leaving at intermission (as had I), since Corea's first set had been overly esoteric. It was a case of four good players selfishly playing only for one another. (Flanagan never patronized or pandered to us, but neither did he ever forget we were the reason he was there.) Corea and cohorts almost redeemed themselves with their second set, finally attaining atonement with the last tune, but not a moment sooner.
Tom told me he'd especially liked that last piece, but sounded somehow unsure of himself. After a quizzical silence, he owned as how he wasn't sure he understood jazz, saying so in a way that made me think he was hoping I would reveal its secrets to him. The foundations of my pantheon shook, as he was foremost amongst the very few of my college teachers whom I'd always, even in those days of questioning all authority, revered (if sometimes irreverently) as a legitimate authority figure. Here he was, more than 20 years later, asking me for wisdom. Ulp. Once I got my breath back, I asked him if he’d enjoyed the music, and, without any hesitation, he said yes. My response was that, as far as I could tell, about 30 years into what is a still-ongoing discipleship of jazz, if you enjoy the music, then you understand it just fine.
I reckon any art form gives back in proportion to what you bring to it, whether that is a technical knowledge of exactly how the parts fit together and why they're arranged in that particular way, what they're mad of, and so on, or, at least equally and possibly even more profound, certainly more meaningful, if it is as total an involvement and suspension of disbelief as that of the little girl who took off her shoes and did her best to dance while sitting down.
I was sorry to see that she and her mother didn't stay for the second set. That did, though, leave an empty seat for Tom Riegel, which is righteously right, even though he die last summer, at the youngest 94 yet seen by me. There will always be a seat for him in any room I inhabit. There may be a profound commentary on the nature of immortality somewhere in this.
Heroes aren't easy to come by these days.
Tommy Flanagan qualifies. He's done what he does for so long now, and done it so well, that he hardly has to do any more. He can simply be.
It's a rare treat to hear music of Flanagan's caliber anywhere, rarer sill right here in Lexington. And for free at that.
May your 1998 be great.