Live Jazz in Tucson, AZ!

Spring begins early in Tucson and The Learning Curve (an adult education program) offered a four week class on The Magic & Music Quincy Jones, who passed away in November, 2024. The Learning Curve is an independent Arts and Humanities program exploring History, Music and Literature. Our instructor was Khris Dodge, the Executive Director of the Tucson Jazz Festival held each January and also the Conductor for the Tucson Pops Orchestra. We had taken several classes with Khris over the past few years and always enjoy them. Per the outline, we were going to:

Explore the depth and breadth of the incredible career of the legendary Quincy Jones, one of the most accomplished figures in modern music, crossing jazz, R&B, film music, and pop over a seven-decade career. He received 28 Grammy awards and was given honorary degrees by Harvard, Princeton, Juilliard, the New England Conservatory, the Berklee School of Music, and many other institutions, as well as a National Medal of Arts and a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master fellowship.

The classes are always fun and filled with video clips, some live performances and our instructor’s personal notes. Learning more about such a prolific participant in the world’s music scene was an eye-opener. I knew little about Quincy Jones and had no concept of the depth of his seven decade career. His use of unusual instrument pairings with some of his classic pieces were pointed out and once heard and defined, it can add a new appreciation to an often-heard song.

Quincy would use flutes with bass trombones, drums with violins or multiple layers of reeds, brass, percussion and instruments from other cultures/countries. A Brazilian friction drum—a cuica—gives a high pitched sound and once acknowledged, it is easier to distinguish in the orchestration. He even used glass bottles in a percussion arrangement for one album. Khris had a local tenor, Nick Gallardo, in for a few songs from the Michael Jackson’s Thriller album, the highest grossing album ever produced, which will never be surpassed considering the changes in consumer preferences.

Quincy was one of the first to use a large format mixing board in studio recordings. In 1964, he took a 1954 Kaye Ballard standard (In Other Words) that was written as a waltz and changed the time signature and title to Fly Me To The Moon. It became a giant hit for Frank Sinatra in homage to the current Apollo space missions. As a musician, composer, arranger, film maker (with Steven Spielberg and The Color Purple), TV producer (The Fresh Prince of Bel Air), theme song writer (TV’s Sanford & Son), Quincy was an industry pioneer and an artistic genius.

♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫

Our local jazz club—The Century Room—had a visit from Chuck Redd, the accomplished drummer and vibist we enjoy seeing at the San Diego Jazz Party held each February. Chuck had a three-night residency and the first night was his quartet with Peter Saxe (p), Scott Black (bs) and Arthur Vint (dr). Arthur is the Artistic Director of this venue at our downtown Hotel Congress and the originator of the club that just celebrated its third anniversary. Modeled after the Village Vanguard in NYC, Arthur and the owners of the hotel ventured to create an iconic venue in what were considered questionable times. But with a “build it and they will come” attitude, the club has been a success with various forms of the jazz genre seven nights each week.

Chuck and Arthur did a little “stick swapping” on the drums and bravely dueled on a few numbers. Chuck’s vibraphone took the most of his efforts while entertaining the audience with a few Bossa Nova, Latin, and Cuban numbers along with several of Lionel Hampton’s signature renditions. His Sunday night jam session with Max Goldschmidt (tp, tb, ++) introduced a lot of variety and his Monday gig with the Century Room Jazz Orchestra (CRJO)—a 17 piece band—had the vibraphone front and center. He performed a piece written for him by bassist Paul Keller (who has also attended the San Diego Jazz Party) titled (Seeing Redd)—and gave a bit of instruction on the workings of the vibraphone itself. Internationally known vibist Milt Jackson released an album (Bags Meets Wes) with Wes Montgomery 60+ years ago and Chuck revisited a few tunes from that collaboration.

A few days later we again ventured out to the Century Room to see Tucson native, trumpeter James Williams visiting from New Orleans which he has made home for several decades with his band The Swamp Donkeys. Now for this gig, James had Tucson’s Wildcat Jazz Band members, Ray Templin (dr) and Rob Boone (tb) together with Century Room musicians Matt Mitchell (gtr), Ed Friedland (bs) and Kevin Ravellette (reeds) to form The Swamp Donkeys West! Audience member Jibrael Alsooz (tp), also with the CRJO, sat in on a number to the delight of the rest of the attendees.

All in all, a great month to be a Jazz Cat in the desert!