Wall Street Journal 08_04_2020

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Wednesday, April 8, 2020 |A

THE STAYING INSIDE GUIDE—MUSIC

Standing the Test of Time

Vintage videos that capture not only the sounds and sights of jazz,

but—more important—its feeling and deep inner essence

LIFE & ARTS

EVERETT COLLECTION (3)

is titled “I Love Louis Cole.”

A few tracks feature guest vocal-

ists, who seem more like friends

stopping by for a quick hello, so

subtle are their contributions. Don-

ald Glover (in his Childish Gambino

guise) shows up on the bouncy

funk tune “Black Qualls,” while R&B

singer Ty Dolla Sign integrates his

style into the pillowy-soft tone of

“Fair Chance,” which also features

a relatively clear-eyed turn from

the surreal Bay Area rapper Lil B.

“It Is What It Is” is a deceptively

accessible album. It’s easy to get

lost in the lattice-like arrangements,

paying attention to the patterns

and counterpoint, but the result is

so light and frothy it’s just as plea-

surable to put it on and let it fill

the room, like mist from an essen-

tial oil vaporizer. But the closer you

listen, and the more you allow Mr.

Bruner’s lyrics to sink in, the more

complicated the songs become.

Amid the off-color jokes and

funny asides are moments of heavi-

ness. The closing title track, pref-

aced by a snippet titled “Existen-

tial Dread,” is the record’s longest,

and it’s broken into two sections.

To begin the second half, over

folky guitar by Pedro Martins, Mr.

Bruner sings “Hey, Mac,” address-

ing his friend Mac Miller, the rap-

per who died of a drug overdose in

2018. It’s just as musically beauti-
      ful as what has come before, but
      we can feel the almost subliminal
      pull of sadness. That Mr. Bruner
      navigates these emotional changes
      so skillfully speaks again to his
      range as an artist and as a listener,
      his years of playing and absorbing
      music brought fully to bear.

Mr. Richardson is the Journal’s

rock and pop music critic. Follow

him on Twitter @MarkRichardson.

the budding jazz impresario Nor-

man Granz (who had just produced

the first Jazz at the Philharmonic

concert) assembled an outstanding

band that was built around the

tenor saxophone colossus Lester

Young and also included trumpeter

Harry “Sweets” Edison and saxo-

phonist Illinois Jacquet, instructing

them to play two blues (one slow

and one fast) and a standard (“On

the Sunny Side of the Street”). The

results were remarkable, not only

for the amazing playing of Young,

but for the artful way in which

they were captured by director and

veteran Life magazine photogra-

pher Gjon Mili—from the opening

visual, a seemingly abstract image

of concentric circles that turn out

to be the top of Young’s signature

porkpie hat, to the way he trans-

mutes a repeated phrase of the

blues played by Edison into multi-

ple images of the trumpeter. It’s

hard to think of any musical film

that’s as much of a treat for the

eyes as this one.

“The Sound of Jazz”(1957)

Jazz’s finest hour on television.

Robert Herridge produced this exu-

berant live show for the CBS series

“The Seven Lively Arts,” and hired

Nat Hentoff and Whitney Balliett as

consultants to pick the talent and

the tunes. To give a vivid picture of

both the diversity and the overall

continuity of the music, they fo-

cused on the blues, the traditional

and the modern, the up- and the

down-tempo, the sung and the

swung, played by a wide variety of

the best musicians then active. The

emphasis was on Count Basie, with

many storied veterans of his band

as well as sympathetic modernists

like Thelonious Monk, Gerry Mulli-

gan and Jimmy Giuffre. Young’s un-

expected and exquisite improvisa-

tion on his longtime partner Billie

Holiday’s epic nine-minute reading

TO FULLY ENJOYboth the sponta-

neity and the intimacy of jazz, you

have to be—as the musical “Hamil-

ton” would say—in the room where

it happens. Obviously, that’s a chal-

lenge these days, when neither mu-

sicians nor listeners get around

much anymore. So it’s reassuring

to remember that over nearly all of

jazz’s century-plus history, film

and video have played a vital role

in both documenting and dissemi-

nating the music. Here is a short

list of classic videos, all readily

available on YouTube and other

platforms, that brilliantly and ex-

citingly capture not only the sound

of jazz and the sight of it, but—

more important—its feeling and

deep inner essence.

“Jammin’ the Blues”(1944)

If you can watch only one jazz film

ever, let this be it. In August 1944,

BYWILLFRIEDWALD

and Cannonball Ad-

derley; the second

spotlights the col-

laboration of Davis

and arranger-com-

poser-conductor Gil

Evans in three big-

band numbers from

the 1957 “Miles

Ahead” album. Ku-

dos to producer and

host Herridge, who

obviously was well

aware of how im-

portant this music

would be to history.

This is the only

time Davis’s legend-

ary sextet and his

collaboration with

Evans were ever

filmed, and we’re

doubly lucky that

the staging and

photography of Her-

ridge and his crew

are at the same consistently high

level as the music.

“Frank Sinatra: A Man and His

Music + Ella + Jobim”(1967)

This third of five annual Sinatra

specials found the greatest of Amer-

ican male singers sharing the stage

with two giants of music who in-

spired him to reach a pinnacle be-

yond even his usual Olympian

heights. The three numbers with

Brazilian maestro Antônio Carlos

Jobim were an amazing change of

pace for the Chairman and repre-

sentative of a classic album, while

the extended duet section with Ella

Fitzgerald, which climaxes in “The

Lady is a Tramp,” is a tantalizing

promise of the greatest album Sina-

tra was never able to make—his

long-desired collaboration project

with the First Lady of Song.

Mr. Friedwald writes about music

and popular culture for the Journal.

of “Fine and Mellow” is one that

music students have been memoriz-

ing ever since. Herridge and direc-

tor Jack Smight achieve the stated

objective better than anyone has

before or since, to capture the en-

ergy and the feeling of live jazz and

improvisation with the television

camera. Through masterful staging

and rhythmic editing, soloists like

Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster and

Roy Eldridge are endowed with a

commanding visual presence that’s

equal parts Shakespearean orator

and heavyweight prizefighter.

“The Sound of Miles Davis”(1959)

While Miles Davis was in the mid-

dle of recording “Kind of Blue,” the

most celebrated jazz album of all

time, the already iconic trumpeter

and trendsetter took time off to

perform some music from it on

CBS TV. The first part features Da-

vis’s legendary 1959 sextet, co-star-

ring saxophonists John Coltrane

Miles Davis in a publicity shot for ‘The Sound of Miles Davis,’ left; Count Basie

and Pee Wee Russell in ‘The Sound of Jazz,’ above; Frank Sinatra and Ella

Fitzgerald in ‘Frank Sinatra: A Man and His Music + Ella + Jobim,’ below

mind who couldn’t resist a silly

joke. On “Dragonball Durag,” ad-

dressed to a woman he wants to

hook up with, his attempts at se-

duction are undercut by his ex-

treme nerdiness and lines like “I

may be covered in cat hair, but I

still smell good.” His collaboration

with jazz-funk producer Louis Cole

iatures, not extended suites. Each

presents a few ideas, develops

them quickly and efficiently, and

moves on. Listening, you might fill

in unexplored possibilities from a

pattern in your imagination.

Humor balances the jamming—

Mr. Bruner admires Frank Zappa,

another sophisticated musical

PARKER DAY

Thundercat’s new album, ‘It Is What It Is,’ is out now.

A Beautiful Patchwork

Of Genres

float through the mix, as if a stiff

breeze might blow it away. But Mr.

Bruner uses this as a counterpoint

to his forceful excursions on bass.

So on the opening “Lost in Space /

Great Scott / 22-26,” which fades

into “Innerstellar Love,” his words

and Mr. Washington’s probing sax-

ophone are delicate and lightly

psychedelic, while the bottom-end

groove serves as an anchor.

The melodies on “It Is What It

Is” are strange and hypnotic. They

bring to mind ethereal mid-1970s

R&B in terms of weight and texture

(think Smokey Robinson on his 1975

LP “A Quiet Storm”), but the notes

are twisted into bizarre shapes in-

formed by Mr. Bruner’s harmonic

imagination rather than pop con-

vention. One moment “Miguel’s

Happy Dance” has the simplicity of

a jingle, but then Mr. Bruner zig-

zags through the chord changes

and makes choices that feel like

puzzle pieces that snap into place

unexpectedly. The album’s produc-

tion, mostly helmed by Mr. Ellison,

is more focused and spare than a

Flying Lotus record but has a simi-

lar spirit of exploration.

Mr. Bruner is a virtuoso on his

instrument—he crafts astonishing

multi-octave runs that highlight his

finger technique and his melodic

and harmonic vision. But his solo

passages serve the songs, rather

than the other way around. One

thing that makes this proggy sound

so accessible is that these are min-

STEPHEN BRUNER,the 35-year-

old bassist and vocalist who works

under the name Thundercat, has

an unusually expansive musical

range. We can describe his music

as a hybrid of jazz fusion and R&B,

but that only scratches the surface

of what it takes in.

Along with his brother Ronald

Jr., a drummer, Mr. Bruner was a

member of the hardcore punk

band Suicidal Tendencies, and he’s

played on records by neo-soul

singer Erykah Badu. He’s worked

with rapper Kendrick Lamar and is

a fixture in jazz bands led by Los

Angeles saxophonist and composer

Kamasi Washington. He’s a close

associate of producer Steven Elli-

son, better known as Flying Lotus,

who makes innovative electronic

music renowned for its density.

And on the last Thundercat album,

2017’s “Drunk,” one track featured

contributions from soft-rock lumi-

naries Kenny Loggins and Michael

McDonald. Mr. Bruner’s new re-

cord, “It Is What It Is” (Brain-

feeder), out now, runs a thread

through these influences and

many, many more, stitching to-

gether each element to fit Mr.

Bruner’s distinctive aesthetic.

Though Mr. Bruner’s earliest

music as Thundercat was mostly

instrumental, it’s now a song-

based project with his vocals at

the center. His voice is clear and

melodic but not particularly pow-

erful—his wispy falsetto seems to

MUSIC REVIEW| MARK RICHARDSON