Ethan Iverson

1 week ago | iverson.substack.com | Ethan Iverson

At the dawn of the LP era, the jazz greats were bewilderingly prolific. It’s nearly impossible to listen to it all, for those treasures from the ‘50s and ‘60s stack up like Smaug’s hoard. Miles Davis was born 99 years ago today. One of his jewels is still all but unknown, a 1956 three movement suite by John Lewis called “Three Little Feelings” for brass ensemble, Milt Hinton, and Osie Johnson. J.J. Johnson also gets a solo during the third movement.

2 weeks ago | iverson.substack.com | Ethan Iverson

Very sorry to hear of the passing of Guy Klucevsek at 78. I attended the final performance of Klucevsek at Roulette last year: it was just great. Not a polka, not a folk song, not jazz, not pop, not anything else, but simply the unique Guy Klucevsek. That night I was in the company of Anthony Creamer, who helmed the definitive interview in 2019: an interview that covers not just Klucevsek but a whole world of creative music that came to term in the 1980s.

2 weeks ago | iverson.substack.com | Ethan Iverson

Andy Bey. One of the best nights I ever had at the Jazz Standard was watching Bey’s trio with Joe Martin and Victor Lewis. Bey was a wonderful singer, of course, but he was also an exceptionally idiosyncratic pianist, far closer to Paul Bley or Andrew Hill than any number of fellow pianist/singers. (Fred Hersch joked to me that Bey the pianist “specialized in avoid tones.”) At the club that night, the voice was velvet, the piano was reaching, and the trio was swinging.

2 weeks ago | iverson.substack.com | Ethan Iverson

Farewell for now to my students at NEC, and enjoy the break. If you have time and a piano, here are three things to consider:Arnold Schoenberg, Op. 11 and (especially) Op. 19Jazz students are frequently enamored of expressionist gestures and atonality. But how many have actually played through the actual repertoire that generated this sort of language? Op. 19 is easy, and the middle movement of Op. 11 is not much harder.

3 weeks ago | iverson.substack.com | Ethan Iverson

Yesterday I posted a short Q&A with Jim Snidero, pegged to his second trio album with Peter Washington and Joe Farnsworth. His suggestions for listening were intriguing! Here is a re-run of his list, now with my own annotations. Johnny Hodges “Day Dream” from ...And His Mother Called Him BillA late Ellington masterpiece, recorded by Duke as a tribute to Billy Strayhorn after Strayhorn passed in 1967.