Jazz Archives - Bob on Books

Making the Low Notes: A Life in Music, Bill Harrison. Saint Louis: Open Books Press, 2023.

Summary: A memoir of an accomplished former bass player, from his beginnings of learning to play an upright bass, learning from and studying with other players, playing with jazz greats, and the physical and financial challenges of making it.

It began in sixth grade music, when there were too many drummers and his teacher pointed him toward the upright double bass. First concerts playing “Yankee Doodle.” Listening to virtuosi and what they could do with the instrument. Lessons with Mr. Bruno. A first gig playing at a bowling alley. Music camps. College decisions. From New York to Northwestern. Deciding to focus on the instrument. More jazz gigs and the Chicago music scene. Better instruments. Traveling. Teaching younger players and playing with jazz greats. Performing at Montreux and playing in pit orchestras for stage shows.

All of this is part of Bill Harrison’s memoir of life as a musician, a bass player (especially the upright, but also various electric basses–ya gotta be versatile). He chronicles the peculiar life of a bass player–on stage in the background, laying down the musical foundation along with the percussion for the other players, on the edge of most people’s awareness, except for the other players. It’s a role that fits this somewhat introverted man who later realizes that he has struggled with depression for much of his life.

He describes the magical moments of playing in a jazz quartet where each anticipates the other and the highlights of meeting truly great players like Clark Terry, Dizzy Gillespie, and Max Roach, who praised his playing. He shares the joy of finding a beautiful old instrument with a wonderful sound that just fits him. Harrison also helps us understand that along with playing music one loves at a high level comes the wedding and corporate gigs, theatre jobs that offer a steady income, and giving a lot of lessons.

We also hear of the other side of this life. The challenge of scraping together a living. Fallings out with other musicians. The physical challenges that eventually ended his career. The knife edge between brilliance and disaster in playing in a pit orchestra. The challenge of making a career change in one’s fifties.

I learned a lot about an instrument for which I had little appreciation. His narrative of listening to Miles Davis’ Kinda Blue helped me listen to it with fresh awareness of the extraordinary bass playing that is one part of this great album. His account rang true with the stories of musician friends I’ve known–both the moments that make it all worth it and the challenges of making a living for all but the most elite players. His memoir reminds us that it is not the instrument alone that makes the music but the human being who plays it. More than most, Harrison underscores the physicality of this work as well as the matters of the psyche.

Harrison gives us the romance without romanticizing the life of a musician. It’s a good book for an aspiring musician, offering an honest look at what they are signing up for. And it is a good book for anyone who loves jazz, or music more generally and wants to know more of what goes into playing that huge thing that looks like a giant violin.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher through LibraryThing’s Early Reviewer Program.

A Supreme Love: The Music of Jazz and the Hope of the Gospel, William Edgar. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2022.

Summary: A study of the roots and contributing streams of jazz music, proposing that the reason jazz moves from miserable lament to inextinguishable joy is the Christian hope found in the gospel.

This book had me from the title. I recognized the allusion to one of the great jazz albums of all times, John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme. And I found myself intrigued by the idea of the connection between jazz and the Christian gospel. That connection did not seem readily apparent for many years, my associations being of performances in speakeasys and clubs. Then I had the chance to perform some of Duke Ellington’s Sacred Songs with a local choral group, learned about the spirituality of Coltrane in his later life, and listened to some of the sacred works of Dave Brubeck.

William Edgar’s book shows the connection going far deeper, and further back. Most know that jazz is one of the gifts that has come out of the Black community. Edgar, who is both a theologian and an accomplished jazz pianist, traces it all the way back to the Middle Passage experience and the centuries of slavery. He writes:

How could the music that grew out of the realities of the enslavement of Black people, forced migration, rape, husbands and wives being separated, and children being ripped from their families not reflect this suffering and pain? If, as I will argue, jazz is the story of deep misery that leads to inextinguishable joy, then we cannot ignore the sources of sorrow that are found at the root of this music, from spirituals to blues
to jazz. (Edgar, p. 27)

As noted, a theme running through the book is the idea of deep misery and lament that leads to inextinguishable joy. Edgar traces that misery to the deplorable conditions of slavery, but also notes the strange and miraculous reception of the Christian gospel despite the iniquities of Christian slave owners. The biblical narratives of physical and spiritual bondage and emancipation resonated deeply as did the movements from lament to praise in the Psalms.

All of this found expression in distinctive forms of music and dance drawing upon both African culture and the musical forms found in various parts of the South. Edgar traces several different streams arising, beginning with spirituals, then gospel, and finally the blues, all of which contribute to jazz. Edgar connects the “lining out” used to teach words with the “call and response” character of the spirituals, the use of spirituals as code on the Underground Railroad and the popularizing of spirituals by the Fisk Jubilee singers. Gospel is more complicated with roots both in nineteenth century revivalism in the white Southern church and a parallel movement of Black gospel music beginning in the 1920’s, one of the most significant figures of which was Thomas Andrew Dorsey, known for the song “Take My Hand, Precious Lord.” Meanwhile the blues arose around the work songs and “sorrow songs” of the plantation experience. While the connection with biblical faith may not be immediately evident, Edgar notes the connections with the laments of scripture, even noting the similar uses of parallelism.

The third part of the book focuses on jazz itself. Edgar traces its immediate origins to ragtime, stride piano and the music of New Orleans, introducing us to some of the greats of early jazz from Art Tatum, Buddy Bolden and James Reese, Louis Armstrong, “Jelly Roll” Morton, and Duke Ellington. He discusses their music and their spirituality. From “Jelly Roll” Morton, we get the dictum, “Rejoice at the death and cry at the birth: New Orleans sticks close to the scriptures,” another example of the sorrow to joy theme. He goes on to discuss the “midlife of jazz” in bebop and cool, focusing on “Dizzy” Gillespie, Charlie Parker and the great Miles Davis. The two following chapters then draw more specific connections of jazz and the gospel or spirituality in the life of jazz musicians offering examples from the work of Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Duke Ellington, jazz pianist Billy Taylor, Oscar Peterson, Dave Brubeck, John Coltrane, Keith Jarrett, and others. Not all would be considered orthodox Christians by any means, but evidence of the hope of the gospel may be found in their work, according to Edgar.

The book concludes with Edgar’s seven joys of jazz: its bluesy ambiance, its strength to climb, the element of invention, the concept of “swing,” the solidarity of jazz musicians in which performances are conversations in music, the great art that arises from earthy roots, and finally the joy out of deep pain that Edgar attributes to the influence of the Christian message. I suspect some will want to contend this last, but Edgar’s cumulative case of history, contributing streams, and examples from some of the signature jazz greats offer a good explanation for the element of joy that distinguishes this music. I also found it interesting that Edgar contrasts the joy of this music with the “happy” feel of much White evangelical music. Jazz is rooted in both a more profound experience of pain and a more profound hope.

Edgar makes this argument without being polemical. I felt like I was in a jazz appreciation course, being invited to understand and appreciate and truly love the music Edgar loves. And he helps us cultivate that love as well. He includes a nine-page appendix of links to YouTube videos of performances by various artists organized by sub-genres and time periods. What a great way to introduce oneself to jazz in its various expressions and to explore for oneself the “supreme love” that Edgar believes is the source of the great joy in jazz.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.