We’re not doing as many trio shows as usual this month because I’m playing in the orchestra for Man of La Mancha at Burning Coal Theater in Raleigh. I think there will be twelve performances- Google it or drop me a line if you’re interested in checking it out.

I am still playing with Ben Palmer at the Blue Note Grill in Durham on Monday nights. I also squeezed in a gig at the Oxford, and a set at Anthony Rogers’ Caffeinated: Music Festival over at Duke (see flyer)

We had a great time recording music for Beery Media’s ‘Sayonara To Hello’. I think our music fits in nicely, and I hope all of you will get a chance to see this great film.

See you soon.

From SayonaraHello.com: “When it came time to settle on a group to score our feature film, Sayonara to Hello, it was quite a challenge. We wanted a sound that was classic but not retro. A group that could play many styles and create the emotional feel of a road movie with very unique characters. After listening to many groups and musician’s, the answer was right in front of us. The Doug Largent Organ Trio!

Doug and his trio play regularly in my neck of the woods and it’s easy to hear why. They are exceptional musicians.

Doug and his friends, Brad Maiani and TJ Maiani, gave this film the mood, groove and ambiance we needed. Not only that, they went way beyond out initial request and elevated our film to a new level.

We’ll post a video of them recording part of the score soon, so you can see and hear these cats in action.”

And to follow up: The female jazz instrumentalists I’ve played with have been amazing. Do you think that women are driven to work harder in music due to the stereotype they have to overcome?

Lisa: Hi Doug,

No problem with the question. I get it, usually in a much less sensitive and sophisticated way than you phrased it, all the time.

First, thanks for saying nice things about my playing. I really enjoyed your playing too! I had a great time sitting in last Monday and hope we can play together again before too long.

Now on to the “female question.” I guess the first thing I should say is that I’m flattered and honored to be put in the same company as the female musicians you listed, who are indeed terrific. And I know plenty of other great women jazz musicians, including, for instance, Leslie Land (a bassist and vocalist who lives in Durham) and my first-ever sax teacher, a kick-ass reed player named Mary Pat Hughes, who lived in Baltimore until she died in 1999 at the age of 38.

Maybe you’ve hit upon something in your second question–that those great women worked so hard to be good because of the need to overcome gender discrimination. I don’t know; I can’t speak for them. In my own case, I’ve just tried to keep learning and practicing because I want to be a better musician for its own sake, because it is so rewarding to make music and to be able to play with talented people. Then again, though, I’m not a full-time musician, and that may insulate me from the kind of pressure you suggested.

In fact, as I think my own example shows, female musicians can be good and bad and everywhere in-between. We know of some great ones, and we’ve heard some not-so-great ones, just like with male musicians. How they play isn’t necessarily related to their sex, but rather to all the things that make any musician good or not good, like how much time they devote to it and how easily it comes to them.

But people often notice female jazz musicians, and I think it’s not only because we’re relatively rare. It’s that over the many decades in which jazz music has existed, there has developed a certain aesthetic that’s not just musical, but that involves how people look when they play their instruments, how they interact with one another, how they talk, and so forth. Now I’m not saying that all jazz musicians walk or talk the same way, but there’s a certain range that we generally expect our musicians to fit into. Female musicians, or at least instrumentalists, look different than people generally expect, and it’s not just that we have different bodies. I remember reading an interview with the great jazz trumpeter Ingrid Jensen, in which she said that she could never get used to seeing pictures of herself playing the trumpet because it just didn’t look right. She kept trying to make herself look “right” when playing–fancier or more casual clothes, “girlish” or “boyish” hair–but finally she realized it was just that she wasn’t used to the look of a woman trumpeter.

There’s also a certain macho aesthetic that runs through jazz, or that runs through some jazz. The great cutting sessions between, say, Dexter Gordan and Johnny Griffin really were pissing matches (can I say that on the internet??) between two guys showing off not only their saxophone chops but their testosterone. (What a sight it must have been, too, with “long tall” Dexter towering over the diminutive but fiery Johnny Griffin!) I think if women had invented jazz there probably wouldn’t have been so much of what seemed like bare-knuckle boxing. (That said, there definitely are women who can throw down with the best of them.)

Mainly, though, I think what accounts for the “bias” against women players is simply unfamiliarity. I really don’t get the sense that most male jazz musicians are against playing with women on principle (except maybe for that bandleader who called you); they just aren’t used to it. Years ago it looked strange for a woman to wear a police uniform or have a stethoscope hanging around her neck, but now it doesn’t. I’m hoping, and expecting, that before too long the same will be true for women with saxophones around their necks.
Hope I didn’t go on too long, and if I did, please feel free to edit. Thanks for your interest, and all the best,
Lisa

Lisa Lindsay is an alto saxophonist and historian living in Chapel Hill. She began playing jazz in her native Louisiana, but her musical influences also stem from travels and study in the Caribbean and Africa. She has played merengue in the Dominican Republic, cumbia with a US-based Columbian band, highlife in Ghana, afrobeat in Nigeria, and South African jazz in Cape Town.

The highlight of Lisa’s musical life so far was joining Fela Kuti and his band onstage at his Shrine when she was living in Lagos in the 1990s. Before that, she studied jazz improvisation at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. Now a professor of African history, she teaches at the University of North Carolina.

I feel that as a former bass player, I’m driven to be supportive when playing the organ, and not to rely too much on licks or tricky techniques. Or maybe I just don’t have the chops yet to do that stuff! How do you think that being a bass player informs your guitar playing? Thanks!

Ben: Thanks Doug. What a great unexpected surprise, you and I, both bassists, neither playing bass on the same gig. I take that back, your left hand slams on that lower keyboard! Everyone has been thoroughly enjoying your organ playing and the great energy you bring to the jam.

I feel the same way about comping. As a bassist, you spend most of the gig doing your best to make who ever is in front so comfortable, they can do their best playing. I take a little less strict a role on guitar, I don’t feel like I have to outline every chord, I can lay out a bit. I do love to dig in on some Freddie Green quarter notes! That’s the rhythmic home turf for a bassist. It’s all about letting the soloist drive it. See you tonight. B

Thanks, Ben Palmer

Jazz Jam Session -mondays 7-10
Bluenote Grill Durham

Janna: Marriage this time; but I had gone to a grad school in DC in the late 90′s, so it’s not my first relocation to the US. Now I’m married to an American guy and I have to start my music career from scratch, here. As I am also a singer-songwriter, that means writing songs in English – which is becoming easier after some years of living among native speakers (including my own little daughter).

Doug: A lot of people are curious about your singing. After hearing you sing, many are surprised to find out that you are from Russia! What motivated you to learn how to sing jazz standards in English and Portuguese?

Janna: Ella F. has always been my idol; plus I went to a jazz college in Moscow for a couple of years. I also sing in French, Italian, Romani, etc. – don’t care what tongue it is as long as it sounds good.

Doug: In America, it is notoriously difficult for singers to find shows performing original music. How would you compare the music scene here versus Russia in terms of finding musical venues and building a loyal audience?

Janna: I’m just starting to self-promote here, so I can’t compare. In Moscow, you have a 3 musicians to 1 listener ratio so it can’t be much worse here. Hopefully when the economy recovers, the music industry will boom again, and us singers-songwriters will also ride the wave. For now, I am content performing standards (much easier to find musicians to play with!) and squeezing in an original tune here and there. My next show is Feb. 9 at Oliver Twist, 7 pm, no cover fee.

J.

On the other hand, musicians like you and I enjoy playing a variety of music. How did you become such a well-rounded musician?

Todd: My first inclination towards music was listening to rock and roll which back in the day was the pop music of my generation.. Today pop music is a genera within itself.

My musical tastes started to branch out when my drum instructor suggested a few recordings for me to check out. He wrote down (which is in the drum lesson notebook that still have today) Mahavishnu Orchestra Inner mounting flame, Tony Williams Lifetime Emergency, and Miles Davis My Funny Valentine + Four and More. The first recording that I listened to was Inner Mounting flame and it blew my head off. Track one side one is “Meeting Of The Spirits” which starts with three fermatas before the melody is introduced. I could not believe what I was hearing. They started the song at the end which seemed totally crazy to me, but I was in the eighth grade at the time. So I sat and listened that recording from beginning to the end( I did have to take the cassette out to flip it over) so I would not miss out on anything. It was as if I were waiting for the next mind blowing experience. So from then on I was a Mahavishnu fan and are still are. Billy Cobham and Tony Williams became my new found drum heroes. If there is anyone who is reading this and has never heard of Mahavishnu Orchestra you need to check them out, that is if you like fusion. Thus my musical journey had just begun.

Over the next twenty years I would fall in love with a particular genera or style within a genera and really dig in. For instance I got into James Brown. I listened to everything that I could get my hands on then I would transcribe the grooves, and I even went so far as to transcribing the bass lines so I could play bass with my students. I did not realize how much this helped me as a player and at the same time helping my student by jamming with his or her teacher. The lessons became more fun for everybody and I was challenging myself on a different instrument.

Music became this mistress that I could not get enough of. I eventually explored other styles like Cuban, Dominican, Indian, African, and South American to name a few. I never looked at these different styles in the sense that I had to learn them for some sort of academic purpose or need to know basis. I looked forward to hearing something fresh and new. If you check out my music collection it is all over the place from classical to world music and everything in between. To me music is like food. I don’t like the same thing day to day or even week to week. I see some young players that get so focused on artist or style that they can’t see the forest for the trees. We must not forget that variety is the spice of life.