Carmelo Bustos at 90 and the sax in Chile

In Chilean jazz, there are two ruling instruments. As expected, the guitar is one, not only for its prevalence in 20th century popular music, but for it's standing in folk and other local musics (think Violeta Parra and Víctor Jara).

The other one is the saxophone. That happens everywhere in jazz, yes, but in Chile it goes way past the average. Besides shooting stars like the tragic Alfredo Espinoza (Valparaíso, 1942), the younger generations are astonishing. Melissa Aldana may have taken a lot of headline space lately, and deservedly so—not just for winning the Thelonious Monk competition—, but there is much more to Chilean saxophone. One of my first impressions in Chile was seeing Franz Mesko (Santiago, 1989), barely 20 at the time, tearing it up on tenor at a jam session in the old Club de Jazz de Santiago. Besides, or before, rather, a salient feature of these musicians is their attention to language. To wit, this recent video of Agustín Moya (Santiago, 1981).

Don't take it from me. None other than Loren Schoenberg, saxophonist and über-expert on Lester Young approves, and rather enthusiastically at that, of Moya's playing. And don't be mistaken, Moya is his own man, with three albums of original compositions under his belt.

More names to take into account: Claudio Rubio (Santiago, 1976), a keen student of Lennie Tristano, as he proves here (and a surprisingly funny guy to boot). And to keep things short, Andrés Pérez and Cristian Gallardo (both Santiago, 1983), either together as the front line of Contracuarteto, or in their separate projects, of which Gallardo's first album, Sin Permiso, less-than-perfect-sound and all, is a keeper.

Let this rather long introduction serve as a long drum roll to introduce a man without whom there wouldn't be such a rich tradition of the saxophone in Chile: Carmelo Bustos, who is 90 today.

Carmelo Bustos (left) and Marcos Aldana

Musicians' quotes: Maestro Lecaros

"There has to be a piano at home, not a freezer or anything like that, just a piano... not even a telly, but there has to be a piano."

Maestro Roberto Lecaros,
(b. 1944) Chilean musician, in a recent interview.

How to hook kids on jazz: a successful case study

Gerhard Mornhinweg

On my previous post, I introduced the Conchalí Big Band, a project that has now been working successfully for 18 years with kids from an unprivileged district in Santiago, Chile, rolling social work, group therapy, and, above all, music education, all into one, in such a context that this project could have easily been dismissed as unattainable; however, in 2002 they even did a European mini-tour.

The fact that this has happened at all, and quite succesfully too, is down to two factors: the kids' enthusiasm when they're given the chance to play music, and the drive and intelligence of their leader and founder of the orchestra, Gerhard Mornhinweg (pictured).

In the video below (only in Spanish), Mornhinweg, originally a classical French horn player, explains how the orchestra came about (when he was only 22, and at a time when there was no other big band in the country), after being provided with some violins and other assorted instruments, including a sousaphone, and how the municipality supported him, even though they originally wanted a marching band and he conned them into having a jazz big band. More importantly, he also tells how he had very little experience as a teacher and how, being just slightly older than his first students, he sought his own method and soon realized that

it's not about my teaching; it's about their learning

and that

if they're not interested, we cannot teach anything.

In that very first job as a teacher he had to deal with kids living in a home for children from broken families, their imbalance between their huge enthusiasm and very little technique. Shortly afterwards, he grabbed the chance to form a band as part of a public cultural programme in Conchalí. He grins widely when he explains how the big band became a music school and at the same time he became a fully qualified teacher along the way. He notes, though, that this fundamentals remain the same:

The only way to learn is practice. That's what makes us different. My first objective was for the student not to get bored...

We have a system where, first of all, we nudge them gently towards the right instrument for them... - that is very important. The very first lesson is with the instrument, and I don't even teach them anything. I just lay out the instruments and let them see, and experiment, and in about 20 minutes, at the most, one of them will ask 'how do you play this?' That's when we have the interest. Without interest, we cannot teach, we cannot guide a learning process... I don't do much in this job, I don't teach much, I don't planify much... I give them the instrument and as they evolve I give them tips, let's listen to what you're doing, are you interested in that?

In a first stage, these students learn how to read with the instrument, and after that they have their personal tutors, which they use if and when they need them... it's a self-regulatory process, each student makes their own path, and I couldn't care less which way they go, as long as it's a good way.

Originally, this was a project to take kids off the streets. Now, this also carries a series of benefits. First, to make music they have to develop the ability to concentrate deeply... They have to work as a team... They have to develop a strong character, because it's not easy being on stage in front of a lot of people... In spite of all this, some teachers complain that the musicians are the pupils who challenge them the most in class

What I always try is to give them the chance to become professional musicians if they want to; if they don't, I give them the chance to be good amateur musicians; and if they don't want to play, that's up to them, obviously. What we achieve is that when they're done with the Big Band, they have the ability to play, even to earn some money to help them with whatever higher education they choose to follow.

At the end of the video, Mornhinweg lends a trumpet to a man in the audience who's never played, with the expected results. After he tries, Mornhinweg explains,

Can you imagine, going from that to playing a solo? They do. Do you see why I do this job?

On music education: Conchalí Big Band (I)

The recurring debate on how to take jazz out of intensive care — a figure of speech, mind you — seems to be especially prominent at the end of spring. I have my own ideas about that, and I expect to write the dreaded definitive take on it in the future, but in the meantime let me say that I don't care that much about jazz, as I do about music in general, especially when it comes to kids playing. 

If you're a regular reader, you'll have noticed that I mention Chilean musicians quite often. Besides happy coincidence ("happynstance"?) the reason is that I like what they do, and that I'm very intrigued by the embrace, as unlikely as it is enthusiastic, of a music that should be completely foreign to them, both in terms of geography and age. One of the explanations for this is phenomenon is the Conchalí Big Band. 

This is a youth orchestra, based in the not so well-off comuna of Conchalí, in Santiago de Chile. Some alumni you may have seen in this blog are Andrés Pérez, Cristian Gallardo, Marcelo Maldonado, Agustín Moya or Cristian Orellana, all of them great musicians who wouldn't be the same if they hadn't played in this big band. 

The video below — with subtitles in English — is a documentary from 2005 about life on the road, and it focuses mainly on three musicians in the band, Emilio Melo (tp), Juan Saavedra (tb), and Domingo Alicera (g). It makes compelling viewing, especially because it shows how good playing music can be for a kid, and because of the surprising maturity and sensitivity they show. Like so,

Saavedra (on music):

You expel what's inside you. You release all pressures. You take out what's within you, and that makes you free.

Alicera (on music):

It's always me, I think. I may play licks, but I feel where I have to place them. I imagine where they have to be placed, it's me who feels it, so... there's always a connection with oneself [...]

Sometimes there's so much logic [in music] that one misses the feeling, and feeling is the most important thing there is to it, to feel what you're playing.

Melo (about schooling):

Sometimes you have to pay and there are not enough resources to go to a private school. The only option is to go to a bad school. There's no hope for poor people.

More about the band, and their leader and teacher, Gerhard Mornhinweg (the Eddie Bert look-alike), in a few days.

Hope you enjoy it.

More Chilean jazz on video

The good people of DeReojo Producciones are uploading episodes of their series jazz_cl, on the history of jazz in Chile, and Tempo, on the current scene in Chile. Below are the links to the updated posts in this blog, as well as other newly available footage.

• Contracuarteto
• Cristian Cuturrufo
• Gonzalo Palma Trío (last video in the post)
• Jorge Díaz Trío
• Martin Joseph & Pacific Ensamble

Plus

• Tempo, episode 2: Chilean fusion band La Marraqueta
• Tempo, episode 6: Soul jazz band Aluzinati

From jazz_cl, three episodes covering jazz in Chile today.

• jazz_cl, episode 5: Contemporary references from all branches of jazz
• jazz_cl, episode 6: Prolific current scene, with the best young jazz in the country.

Jazz, that international music

July is well under way, which means that American jazzmen are working hard... mainly in the European circuit. The three jazz festivals in my old backyard, Getxo, Vitoria-Gasteiz, and Donostia-San Sebastián, Marciac in France, the trade fair that is the North Sea Jazz Festival, Montreux... and very many others are a vital part of the workload of many jazz artists from across the pond.

The history of jazz beyond the East and West coasts of America is almost as old as the music itself. By the 1930s, a decade when Buck Clayton had a gig in Shanghai (!), live jazz played by its greatest stars was hardly news any more in Europe.

And what about jazz played by non-Americans? Django was probably the first foreigner to have some sort of impact in America, both via his recordings and his concerts with Duke Ellington which, although they were not a complete success, they were not the complete failure the official history of this music tells us.

But, what if we take the US out of the equation? When did non-Americans get access, look for and enjoy non-American jazz from other countries?

A few weeks ago, I got a 3-CD set from Svensk Jazzhistoria, the mammoth series on Jazz in Sweden. The esteemed Roberto Barahona, director and producer of Chilean radio jazz programme Puro Jazz got wind of it and asked me whether that set included the tune "What's New?" played by a flutist that drove him crazy the first time he heard it when he was a kid, back in Chile, sometime in the mid-1950s.

Since this wasn't in my 3-CD set, he asked his compatriot and Chilean jazz über-collector Pepe Hossiason, while I consulted with Swedish jazz historian Jan Bruer, and both came up with the same answer: Philips P 10950 R.

Jan Bruer:

[T]his 10"LP [was] issued in Europe as Swedish Jazz, Philips P 10950 R, recorded 1955-56. One side of the LP is a ballad medley with five soloists in five different titles. Rolf Blomquist plays "What's New" on flute, he was best known as a tenor saxophonist in Arne Domnérus band and the Harry Arnold Swedish Radio Big Band.

Hossiason produced the actual artifact, as released in Chile:

In short, this music comes from three sessions recorded in Stockholm on December 7, 1955, and April 10 and 20, 1956. The first two as "jam sessions", and the last under "Bengt Hallberg All-Stars". Hallberg, by the way, was the pianist on Stan Getz's original recording of "Dear Old Stockholm" fiver years earlier. Ake Persson (trombone) and Arne Domnerus (alto sax) are also among the musicians involved.

So, this is 1956 or 1957, with no internet, no e-mails, no mp3 file-sharing, very fewer transatlantic flights than today, costly international phone calls, and records with a size of... well, either a 12-inch or, in this case, 10-inch flat square. And yet, made-in-Sweden jazz was deemed apt to be commercialized in Chile or even Singapore. Just take a look at the map:

This, below, is a clipping from the Singapore Free Press of January 23, 1957, p. 13

And Jan Bruer adds that this LP may have been shipped to Australia too.

This is just an example, but it'd seem that jazz was going places earlier than some of us thought.

An hour with Contracuarteto

(The program I talked about below is now available online:)

Chilean cable TV station Canal 13 Cable is still running Tempo, the documentary devoted to the current jazz scene in Chile. This week it's Contracuarteto's turn, and since they're a favourite of this blog, this is a reminder that you can watch the programme through the internet. Timetable is as follows:

Monday 20 - 20:00
Tuesday 21 - 00:00 and 14:30
Saturday 25 - 16:30
Sunday 26 - 01:00

Those are local times (UTC-4), which are the same for New York. In London these'd be:

Tuesday 21 - 01:00, 05:00, and 19:30
Saturday 25 - 23:30
Sunday 26 - 06:00

The link: http://envivo.13.cl/13c.php

The complete series is available on DVD (with English subtitles) direct from the producers.

In brief: documentary on current Chilean jazz

Note (June 29, 2012): links have been updated for the actual programmes, when available on line.

From today, Monday 11, at the times stated below, Tempo, a documentary series devoted to the current and very rich jazz scene in Chile. Readers of this blog are aware of the quality of current jazz to the West of the Andes. Tempo is a series up to the standard of the music it presents, combining a very simple formula, a mix of music performances and interviews, with a very sober and cared for production. It's worth watching for the music itself and because it's proof of the possibilities that video offers to expose jazz musicians in an approachable and yet non-compromised way.

Tempo can be watched live online here:

http://envivo.13.cl/