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Thursday, March 4, 2010
The arrival of jazz trumpeter Jeff Lofton
Did jazz trumpeter Jeff Lofton really immigrate to Austin just three years ago?
It seems like he and his writer/publicist wife, Dean Lofton, along with collaborating artists, have permeated local jazz for ages. Without the benefit of multiple jazz clubs — the Elephant Room remains Austin’s mainstay — or dedicated radio stations — KAZI, KOOP and KUT do their parts — the Loftons make it seem like there’s an actual jazz scene out here.
At that West Austin artistic hub, he will again assay his grandest project— “Jeff Lofton’s 1950s Miles Davis Tribute” — on March 13. As he did earlier at the Victory Grill and Elephant Room, he and four other instrumentalists — and a singer — will attempt to replicate the sound from the jazz great’s cool and blue periods. The show will resurrect music pioneered by the Miles Davis Quintet, and will include selections from the multi-platinum album, “Kind of Blue,” which turned 50 last year.
Lofton hopes to tour the act extensively to museums and specialty venues in North America and Europe, then move on to Davis’ more radical 1960s evolutions.
Why has Austin embraced Lofton, 43, so thoroughly, that he can brave such a nervy self-assignment?
“There’s a culture of appreciation for musical artistry here,” says the native of Germany who grew up in a South Carolina military family. “Not just what sounds good and looks good, but: ‘Do you have the actual technique and are you saying something musically?’ ”
Loften has connected with local music critics and record buyers as well, though they might not know that his wind and control are amplified by a missing front tooth, the result of a front-yard accident at age 10 or 11 that left it shattered, but oddly not painful.
Lofton’s first gig after moving to Austin from Columbia, S.C. was the no-frills Club 40 on East 12th Street.
“They paid just enough for me to hire a drummer,” he says. “Someone else provided left-hand keyboard. But the audience was very receptive, as all Austin audiences have been.”
Despite monumental efforts over the years from folks like Tina Marsh, Harold McMillan, Pamela Hart, Alex Coke, Hannibal Lokumbe, Reed Clemons and even Marc Katz —who opened the ambitious but short-lived Top of the Marc in the 1990s — as well as the legions of Victory Grill revivalists, no musicians, promoters or club owners have managed to make jazz a pivotal Austin genre.
“Well, there’s so much of a deep-rooted connection with blues, country and, of course, rock, here,” Lofton says. “When you are blessed with so much of that, it’s hard for a different music to emerge.”
In one of those serendipitous Austin moments, as we spoke about the relative dearth of jazz, Miles Davis’ “Blue in Green” came on over the speakers at Snack Bar on South Congress Avenue. The insinuating sound competed with a loud scrubbing from a service area. “She could at least do it on the one,” joked Lofton.
“Miles Davis has always been a big influence on me,” he says. “I’ve wondered if we could pull off a show that would really recreate his sound. For one thing, you have to get exactly the right piano: Bebop, Bud Powell-influenced, mixed with blocked chords and the harmonic bounce of stride, ragtime and earlier styles. So you’ll hear the Fats Waller, Art Tatum and Bud Powell.”
Lofton is not alone in thinking that Davis’ 1950s sound permanently affected the way we hear music in general, including standards like “Bye, Bye Blackbird,” “My Funny Valentine” and “I Thought about You.” But while jazz artists often dip into Davis’ later periods, including his fusion phase, they treat his earlier work as sacrosanct, not a subject for revival.
“He’s a sacred cow,” he says. “The truth is, the music is difficult to emulate, and musicians feel it’s set in stone.”
Before returning to the subject of Davis, Lofton and I detour into a routine complaint for Austin jazz lovers: Talking. We shared anecdotes about clueless clubgoers who chatter at the top of their lungs, even during hushed instrumental interludes.
“In Austin, people will go to a classical concert and won’t talk at all,” he says “They don’t realize jazz is another high art that takes a lot of concentration, especially with 13 conversations going on.”
Are Austin audiences just the worst at this kind of interference?
“It’s not so much worse here, it’s that clubs don’t (discourage) it,” he says. “In a New York club, they’d say: ‘You can hold it down, or pay your tab and never come back.’”
Lofton won’t have to worry about aural interruptions at One World, where audiences treat music with a reverence appropriate for Davis.
“If you don’t recreate his sound, it goes out of mainstream consciousness,” Lofton says. “And of any American music, this should be in the mainstream consciousness. Miles Davis should be as popular in this country as Michael Jackson.”
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Live Chat with Larry Davis on the State of Austin Nightlife
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Reflections on Fierstein’s “Fiddler”
Before it closes on Sunday, I should say a few words about the touring version of “Fiddler on the Roof” starring Harvey Fierstein at Bass Concert Hall.
Road show director Sammy Dallas Bayes clearly respects the essentials from the 1964 Broadway production, but in hundreds of small ways, he departs from holy writ. This is healthy and refreshing.
To be clear, there’s nothing radical in his interpretation, or that of his star, whose handprints are on every scene. Audiences are always watching Tevye to see how he’ll react to each new test to his character. And Fierstein takes full possession of the role from the second he opens his lips.
The performer’s character voice takes only a few minutes of adjustment. (Side note: The sound amplification at Bass was pitch perfect on opening night for once.) Fierstein’s comic inventions remained mostly on target, especially during the long dream sequence. A little camp at times? Sure, but that’s part of the human experience as well.
His most telling additions, however, delve into more serious emotions, making connections where none existed in previous “Fiddler” productions. The way he wipes his hand after touching Fyedka in the tailor shop, or envelopes Golde’s fingers for a moment before leaving Anatevka, these introduce unforeseen facets of humanity into the role and show.
I had waited a long time to see “Fiddler” again. I cherish memories of a University of Houston production in the early 1970s that made the material so vivid (and, similar to what Fierstein recountd in his interview here, was closer to a time when anti-Jewish feelings were still pervasive). Like Fierstein, I’m not a huge fan of the movie.
Over the years, I’ve seen a wide range of performances, though. (The one I wish I’d seen was former Statesman editor Jeff Salamon’s middle school Tevye. Picture it.) This one belongs among the most memorable, precisely because of what Fierstein embellishes.
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