1Ì
n JazzTimes’ editorial
calendar, September is
denoted as our “Legends”
issue, and you’ll find quite a few in
these pages. Some are no longer with
us: Mary Lou Williams, Gene Krupa,
Johnny Hodges, Benny Carter,
Art Pepper. Two others are, we’re
grateful to say, very much of the
living variety: 2019 NEA Jazz Master
Abdullah Ibrahim and Nile Rodgers
(and if you think the latter doesn’t
belong in this magazine, please go
directly to Ashley Kahn’s interview
on pg. 34 and see what you think
after reading it).
Ibrahim is 84. Rodgers is 66.
Although the process of becoming
a legend doesn’t necessarily require
that you stick around awhile, longevi-
ty is a factor without doubt. And yet
the longer you last, the more your
final legacy is threatened by the many
indignities of life. The creative spark
of the divine that you, at your best,
access through your instrument can
be dampened or snuffed out by infir-
mity, declining faculties, and frailties
that are all too human.
Most musicians want to keep
playing for as long as they can; in
many cases, they have to play to earn
the money they need to survive.
The percentage of jazz artists—or
any musicians—who have sizable
retirement accounts is minuscule at
best. I’m reminded of the heartbreak-
ing story of surf-guitar pioneer Dick
Dale, who died earlier this year at
81, and who kept touring right to the
end, not because he wanted to but
because there was no other way he
could pay his medical bills.
Of course, retirement is no pan-
acea either. Bossa-nova giant João
Gilberto, whose recent passing we
note in this issue, stopped perform-
ing more than a decade ago, but his
final years were marred by struggles
and squabbles. His daughter, singer
Bebel Gilberto, claimed that he could
no longer handle his finances and
had him declared legally incapac-itated. Others in the family disagreed
with her, but the elder Gilberto did have
to give up his longtime Rio de Janeiro
apartment due in part to his crushing
debts. A lawsuit over unpaid royalties
and the presence of an ex-wife younger
than most of his children made matters
even murkier.
This brings us to another legend, and
the subject of my column last month,
Kenny Burrell. On its face, the GoFund-
Me campaign launched in May by his
wife Katherine to support the 88-year-
old guitarist in the wake of numerous
medical and financial troubles was
a tremendous success, an inspiring
instance of the jazz community coming
together to help one of its own. But a
subsequent statement by Burrell on our
website, followed by a lengthy report in
The Washington Post, painted a far morecomplicated picture of his situation, and
of the public and private responses to it.
The saddest part of both the JazzTimes
statement and the Post article was their
sounding of an overfamiliar but never
comfortable theme, of family members
estranged from an aging parent.
So the question becomes: How do
we best honor our elders as they move
toward the close of their earthly span,
shedding some of their outward mys-
tique as they deal with the most basic
truth of being human? There is no per-
fect answer to such a question. But even
an imperfect one necessitates that we
acknowledge the personal weaknesses
and fallibilities of our great artists along
with their musical gifts—that we look on
them, in other words, not as legends but
as human beings. MAC RANDALLSour Note: Due to an editing error, the
Lauren Sevian Artist’s Choice in our June
issue misidentified Donald Byrd’s At the
Half Note Café as a Pepper Adams album.JT NOTES
Legends Are People Too
COMMODORES 50TH
ANNIVERSARY CONCERTSUNDAY, SEPT. 22, 3 P.M.
Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall
Northern Virginia Community College
4915 E. Campus Drive
Alexandria, Va.