Published first on October 6, 2009 by YLE; the Finnish Broadcasting Company. EDIT: Feb. 22, 2019 - Matti's missing image replaced, the header edited
A versatile drummer and bandleader Kaj-Matti Oiling is dead. Mr. Oiling, born in 1942, died suddenly in Fuengirola, Spain ten years ago.
Matti became known during the decades of Oiling Boiling Rhytm'n Blues Band which he founded in 1969. He began playing professionally when twenty years old in Onni Gideon's band. Although Matti had a strong jazz background, pop music generally belonged to his repertoire. In addition to his own band, Matti Oiling worked in many of the 1960's guitar bands, for example, Jormas and the Boys.
I had a pleasure of hearing the Oiling Boiling band many times in Helsinki clubs and in Jazz festivals all over the country. Matti was well known internationally, too. Occasionally I received messages from my foreign correspondents: How is Matti doing? Now I have to tell that I do not know. But all the signs are on that he is doing just dandy, depending on where he landed.
JW: What was your first instrument? LN: The violin. My dad was my teacher. He was born in Russia and had attended the St. Petersburg Conservatory with Jascha Heifetz. It was a strict place. If a kid played a wrong note, they would hit him over the knuckles with a ruler.
JW:Was your dad a good teacher? LN: My dad was a great violinist but had no patience for kids who didn’t get it immediately. With the violin, you hold your thumb arching backward so your fingers can reach all the strings and you can play fast. My thumb would creep over the instrument’s neck. My father kept telling me to keep my thumb down. One day he hit my thumb and the violin fell and cracked. That was it for violin lessons [laughs].
JW: In school, what did you play? LN: In grade school, my music teacher urged me to play the oboe because the orchestra needed one. It was still the Depression. I told my teacher that I didn’t think my family could afford one. So the teacher gave me an oboe that belonged to the school. I started to play the instrument little by little. I was a ferocious practicer. Violin lessons had taught me about playing and helped me learn other instruments quickly.
JW: How did you become interested in jazz?
LN: By listening to the big bands. I liked Harry James, and when I heard tenor saxophonist Corky Corcoran play The Mole in 1942, I wanted to play the tenor saxophone. My father was in shock. He said, “The saxophone! You play either the piano or violin, not the saxophone. You’ll wind up playing in a house of prostitution” [laughs] Actually he was right. I did play in small funky clubs later.
JW: Did you buy a tenor? LN: I tried. I worked in a restaurant at a local Grant's, which was like Woolworth's. I'd collect the dishes and put them on a dumbwaiter that I raised to get the dishes washed. I made a few bucks that way. When I thought I had saved enough, I went to the music store and asked about a tenor sax. The man said it was $125. So I asked the price of the Martin alto saxophone that was there, too. He said $75. So I bought it and became an alto player.
I have a special relationship with Lennie Niehaus. I have played through all his three Jazz Etude books:
The saxophone quartet, Sax4fun where I play has bought several Lennie Niehaus' jazz compositions arranged for the saxophone (SATB) quartet. These are in a way etudes, but very melodic and brilliantly harmonized. They vary from easier one to very demanding like Lennie's jazz etude books above. We have found then very educational, and have performed them publicly, too.
As a youngster I knew nothing of Mr. Niehaus although I should have. I played harmonica and Hohner Melodica (both soprano and alto) as a kid. A neighborhood boy had a clarinet, but never learned to play it. At fourteen I made enough money in my summer job to buy it off from him. I joined my high school (HKYL) band and a student driven folk music ensemble.
Pekka, my classmate and the leader of the folk music band, was a gifted violinist. He wanted to start a jazz band in the school and bought a brand new alto saxophone. I certainly wanted to join the fun. At fifteen I made enough money in a summer job to buy a used Toneking tenor saxophone. Sometimes that Czech-made horn was more a hinder than help. I still own it, although it is no more playable. But the rest is history...
I participated in mid-1990s in Jazz Studio class taught by Roger Freundlich in Espoo, Finland. Roger later published an article in Down Beat Magazine (1998) about his teaching methods. Here is a summary of it:
Look the demons of jazz improvisation straight in the eyes and say, "I'm going to improvise - deal with it!"
That's the attitude I try to instill in adult jazz improvisation students at Jazz Studio, an adult-education evening class held under the auspices of the City of Espoo Adult Education Centre outside Helsinki, Finland. The participants, generally adults between 30 and 60, are seriously interested in unlocking the secrets of jazz improvisation. In the course, we investigate total musical discipline and total musical chaos to find the magic middle ground where the best music is created.
To supplement the systematic study of intervals, chords and scales, a series of simple group exercises can help adult amateur musicians overcome psychological inhibitions in their desire to become more comfortable as improvising jazz soloists. Developed to educate people in a culture where modesty is a virtue and the ability to improvise is not generally an inborn trait, the following classroom techniques can also be used by band directors to sharpen soloing skills in their big bands.
For the lyricists of the Great American Songbook, it was difficult enough to say "I love you" in 32 bars, expressing all that passion and profundity in one brief chorus. Yet when the legendary tenor saxophonist Lester Young played those same songs, he crammed even more artistry into that same small space. When Young (1909-1959) plays a chorus of a ballad—or a blues or a riff number—you hear more than "I love you." You hear babies gurgling, flowers blooming, couples making love, dogs barking, mothers crying to their kids, worlds colliding.
Young, whose centennial arrives on Aug. 27, created a new approach to the saxophone and to jazz in general. His playing was, by turns, lighter and gentler than anything that had come before it, but also capable of driving with tremendous force and energy.
His 1943 solo on "Sometimes I'm Happy," made shortly after Young's return to the Count Basie Orchestra, is a prime example of the President (usually shortened to "Prez")—as Billie Holiday called Young—touching on every emotion known to man in a single, short solo. He's obviously inspired by Irving Caesar's title and lyric as much as he is by Vincent Youmans' melody. Most popular songs present the states of "happy" and "sad" as monolithic poles of feeling, but Young seems to be jazzed by the way that Caesar and Youmans mix both together. His interpretation of the tune is both at the same time, a constant state of melancholic euphoria.
The song is in ABAB form, meaning that the second 16 bars are a repeat, melodically, of the first, and Young uses that as an impetus to inject more jazzy variations into the second half. Even at the tail end of the first "B," the part that matches the words "If I can find the sun in your eyes," Young weaves in an amazing embellishment, a two-bar phrase that could be the basis for a song in itself, but, more important, perfectly compliments the Youmans melody. After bassist Slam Stewart's simultaneous bowing-and-humming episode and pianist Johnny Guarnieri's brief statement, Prez returns with an amazing coda that's almost completely improvised, except that it uses a phrase from "My Sweetie Went Away" (a 1923 pop song recorded by Bessie Smith) as a point of departure. This lick had a life of its own: It not only also turns up in the verse to Cole Porter's "Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love," but Young had used it earlier in "Here It Is Tomorrow Again," and it was later heard in deference to Prez by Gerry Mulligan ("Jeru"), Stan Getz ("Yesterdays") and King Pleasure and Oscar Peterson in their own tribute versions of "Sometimes I'm Happy."
Small wonder that Young was a major influence not just as an improviser but as an interpreter. A whole school of tenor saxophonists identified themselves as virtual vice presidents, including Getz, Wardell Gray and Paul Quinichette (who even billed himself as such). But Young exerted an equally pervasive influence on several generations of jazz and popular singers, both directly and through such key acolytes as Holiday and Frank Sinatra, who told Arlene Francis in 1981: "I knew Lester well, we were close friends and we had a mutual admiration society. I took from what he did and he took from what I did." Sinatra also praised Young for "knowing the lyrics" to the songs that he played: "knowing what the song is about has to come from the lyric, not merely notes on a piece of paper."
Will Friedwald writes about jazz for the WSJ. Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page D9, Aug. 19, 2009
" You Got to Be Original, Man! "
Tim Price here, for RICO REEDS, talking about some things on my mind lately.
We have all remarked when an innocent child speaks their mind and reveals something candid, with no worries about consequences, failure, or judgment that makes us think. We also know there is something envious about that special quality; raw freedom to express with no fears or hang-ups. When a young student drums on a desk, draws on a paper, or sings, sincerity is at its best. And it’s all valid because it’s sincere.
Our attraction to music is a personal one. Sure, there are peer pressures, and multi musical purposes, but somewhere in our hearts we have our own musical tastes. To step forward and play what you feel might be your best move.I feel it’s tragic to not explore music and life through creativity and self development. I respect the ideal of traditional development of needed musical skills but not at the cost of creativity. No one should have to wait some undetermined amount of time to compose something or even think about composing something.Ditto with improvisation. Same with any writing or art. It’s sincere. It’s in the moment.
The path of a true "artist" is a rocky road. It's like walking up wet glass at times but after a while it's fun.It is your business to keep the channel open.You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you.You'll note a slow emergence almost imperceptible. it will be something you never forget.
Now's the time tell a genuine story, speak the truth, and someone will appreciate it.It is part and parcel of being an artist.
Keep the channel open, and try your best.You'll learn something special.
The quote at the beginning of this weeks blog was from Lester Young. If you want to hear something original-check out Lester Young.
I'll be talking more about ~stepping forward~ and taking your chances. Now's the time.
Till next week, thanks for reading this blog and keep on your path.
New York
In 1987, Congress passed a joint resolution declaring jazz to be “a rare and valuable national treasure.” Nowadays the music of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker and Miles Davis is taught in public schools, heard on TV commercials and performed at prestigious venues such as New York’s Lincoln Center, which even runs its own nightclub, Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola.
Here’s the catch: Nobody’s listening.
No, it’s not quite that bad—but it’s no longer possible for head-in-the-sand types to pretend that the great American art form is economically healthy or that its future looks anything other than bleak.
The bad news came from the National Endowment for the Arts’ latest Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, the fourth to be conducted by the NEA (in participation with the U.S. Census Bureau) since 1982. These are the findings that made jazz musicians sit up and take notice:
• In 2002, the year of the last survey, 10.8% of adult Americans attended at least one jazz performance. In 2008, that figure fell to 7.8%.
• Not only is the audience for jazz shrinking, but it’s growing older—fast. The median age of adults in America who attended a live jazz performance in 2008 was 46. In 1982 it was 29.
• Older people are also much less likely to attend jazz performances today than they were a few years ago. The percentage of Americans between the ages of 45 and 54 who attended a live jazz performance in 2008 was 9.8%. In 2002, it was 13.9%. That’s a 30% drop in attendance.
• Even among college-educated adults, the audience for live jazz has shrunk significantly, to 14.9% in 2008 from 19.4% in 1982.
Charlie Mariano, the Boston-born saxophonist who gained world renown as a performer with his former wife, Toshiko Akiyoshi; Stan Kenton; and Charles Mingus, among many others, died yesterday at Mildred Scheel Hospiz in Cologne, Germany, his longtime home. Mr. Mariano, who had battled cancer for years, was 85.
“He was the dean of Boston jazz musicians,’’ says jazz impresario George Wein, a Boston native who resides in New York and was a colleague and friend of Mr. Mariano’s since the 1940s. “Charlie was a wanderer, and he left his mark wherever he went.’’
Born Carmine Ugo Mariano in 1923, he was weaned on his father’s beloved Italian operas and the big bands he heard on the radio: Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, and Count Basie, whose saxophonist Lester Young became Mr. Mariano’s first musical hero. He would not get his own saxophone until his 18th birthday, but in short order, the ambitious young musician was playing nightly at Izzy Ort’s bar and dance hall in what was then known as Boston’s combat zone, for $19 a week.
Mr. Mariano was drafted in 1943, but never saw combat. He was tapped to play in one of the several small music ensembles that entertained at officers’ clubs. Near the end of the war, Mr. Mariano, who was stationed on an air base north of Los Angeles, heard Charlie Parker play live for the first time, during Parker’s first West Coast gig, at Billy Berg’s jazz club in Hollywood.
“He completely turned my head,’’ Mr. Mariano said of Parker in “Tears of Sound,’’ a 1993 biography of Mr. Mariano published in Germany. Taken with the sax great’s inventive harmonics, newfangled rhythmic figures, and breakneck tempos, “I chased Bird’s sound, his way of phrasing. I listened to his solos on recordings for hours, wrote them down, and played it.’’
As it was for many alto saxophonists, Mr. Mariano found his muse and musical foundation in Parker’s ground-breaking sound. After leaving the Army in 1945, he drifted to Chicago, then Albuquerque, picking up work where he could, and finally wound up back in Boston. When the big-band era began winding down and many local clubs were closed, the largely self-taught Mr. Mariano enrolled in music school for the first time, at the Schillinger House of Music, which would later be renamed Berklee College of Music.
I've started to play sax 1,5 years ago. But at the same time I've started to study musicology. So I had no time to play sax and after this one big year I can't ever properly blow my sax :(
So my plan to learn how to play sax for this year is to practice all major, minor scales and modes, arpeggios and to learn how to do vibrato...
I also want to study some jazz, but dunno where to start :( I thought I could start with trying to imitate a player that I liked. I really like Mark Turner, Kenny Garrett, J. Coltrane and a lot of guys, but they sound to me hard to play... I think I should try to imitate a player from an early era? But who will that be?
I've got an alto sax btw.
Sorry for my bad English and greetings from Turkey! =)
Dear Ogul,
thanks for your note.
About developing your jazz sound; If you are not sure whom to imitate, no one else cannot really tell it to you. My suggestion is to listen to music a lot. Kind of jazz you like, players you admire. Then gradually (over the years) your saxophone sound will develop toward the direction of your liking.
Carmen Leggio's been playing tenor sax for about six decades and it shows. His small frame is stooped over and his head is bent down a bit. The man was made to play music, so it's fitting that his body has conformed to his gift.
Leggio blows tenor the way Willie Mays ran down a flyball. They both let you know from the get-go that you'll never be able to do it their way.
"I have thousands of songs memorized," Leggio explains with childlike joy and not an eighth note of boasting. "I can hear a song once and know how to play it. In my whole life, I've never bought a piece of sheet music. Saved a lot of money."
Leggio (incredibly, it means "music stand" in Italian) taught himself how to play at the age of nine. He began on clarinet, imitating Artie Shaw on the radio. He still performs "Stardust," "Nightmare" and "Begin the Beguine" on an old King metal clarinet. At 14, he switched to tenor sax and began playing in clubs in his hometown of Tarrytown, a suburb just north of New York City.
"I quit high school, because I knew I was meant to be a musician," he said. "But my father was so angry that he didn't speak to me for years. On his deathbed, he admitted I was right to leave school."
That admission came after Leggio had played with Benny Goodman, Maynard Ferguson, Gene Krupa, Woody Herman, Buddy Rich, Dizzy Gillespie and Doc Severinson. There have also been television shows, movies, the Newport Jazz Festival, Birdland and, yes, Carnegie Hall.
On April 17, 2009, Carmen Leggio suffered a heart attack in front of his home in Tarrytown, NY and died later that day at the age of 81.
Carmen Leggio bristled with individuality, whether soaring over a legendary big band like Woody Herman or Maynard or cutting a new path through a standard song like " Smile" his ruggedly magisterial horn made a personal statement the jazz world will never forget.
This player, developed a way to express a wide and subtle range of emotions through a unique and highly evolved level of musicianship, that is never cluttered or forced. One of the masters of original melodic improvisation that melted in your heart like an emotional choclate ball. When he played a ballad you might think he's whispering the greatest story of un-requited love ever told,directly down your spinal column.
Back in the70's I bought the record " Tarrytown Tenor". I got in New York City at King Karol records. At the time, I was wondering why a player like this was not touring the world, recording more and playing every jazz club in NYC and Europe. I played that record everyday, playing along with it and studying the art of Mr. Leggio’s saxophone. I saw him at the Vanguard with That and Mel playing some of the best lead alto I ever heard- just amazing phrasing and soul.
He sure will be missed, and a loss to the world.
RIP Carmen, I'm sure Prez, Sal, Romano and Hawk are waiting in that jam session above for you.
Live Broadcast Friday April 24 & Saturday April 25, 2009 6:00pm (18:00) EST
Featuring leading jazz musicians and photographic artists from Detroit, USA and Torino, Italy (AKA "THE DETROIT OF EUROPE"). Chris Collins (sax, picture right) and Emanuele Cisi (sax, picture left) will be joined by Cliff Monear (piano), Sean Dobbins (drums), and Nick Calandro (bass) in this live recording session.
The jazz jam gig was a success. All tables were taken and there were even dancers on the floor. Here are some pictures I've received. I am sure there are more to come.
This week-end (January 24-25) I will be attending Classic Jazz training camp in Järvenpää. This is organized by same bodies as the summer camp in Otava. There will be performances and jamming at both nights in Bar Cafe My Way at Hotel Rivoli in Järvenpää. Three players from Bob's Take Away -band, Roba, Sami and myself, will be attending the camp.
Spent last week again at Otava Jazz Camp as I have done since 1996 missing only a couple of summers. Otavan Opisto (a junior college) is located in St. Michaels, Finland and the natives are friendly. The college personnel are very helpful and want to create a pleasant environment for jazz studies.
The student group consisted of some 50 players and singers divided into six combos. And the singers had an a Capella nonet, too. I knew most of the students from the past courses although there were some newcomers, too. There was plenty of laughing and good spirits as before.
The theme for this course was "time". The topic was competently introduced by the course leader Wade Mikkola and visiting teacher from Canada, Alan Matheson. I had a chance to talk with Alan several times. He also gave a clinic to all wind players together with trombonist Pekka Leander. Alan is a very pleasant and interesting person besides being a top-notch musician, composer and arranger.
Wade Mikkola, bass
Alan Matheson, trp and piano
I was placed in a group coached by pianist Lasse Hirvi. Lasse was new at Otava, but demonstrated his skills and experience very fast. He was a patient teacher who found ways to get his message across and get the program ready for the performance.
At Wednesday night we performed in the nearby Kissakoski restaurant three pieces:
D.C. Farewell by Richie Cole
Them There Eyes (with vocalist Helena Tuokkola)
Our delight by Tadd Dameron
The performance was well received and the audience acknowledged the solos, too. In this combo we had:
Mikko Heikkinen, accordion Matti Haatanen, vibraphone Jouko Lahtiranta, drums Antti Teinilä, bass Veli-Pekka Kuuranne, trumpet Hannu Luukannel, trombone and Harri Rautiainen, alto and tenor sax
Overall the week was hard work, but also plenty of fun. I think that the results and standards were raised from the year before. The course secretary Tuuli Mäenpää took care of all possible and impossible requests; my thanks to Tuuli (on the left).
Did I miss something? Yes, a saxophone teacher would have been nice to have there.
Would I go next year again. You bet!
Good quality Intermediate Sax
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Featuring leading jazz musicians and photographic artists from Detroit, USA and Torino, Italy (AKA "THE DETROIT OF EUROPE"). 
