Andrew White
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LIBRARY oF CONGRESS JAZZ SCHOLARS Dc jAZZ pROJECT A JOHN COLTRANE LEGACY: SIGHT SOUND AND BEYOND ANDREW WHITE MADE Possible by tHE REVA aND DAVID LOGAN FOUNDATION Thursday, November 3, 2016 ~ 7:00 pm Montpelier Room Library of Congress, James Madison Memorial Building Made possible by The Reva and David Logan Foundation is a Chicago-based family foundation that provides strategic grants to support the arts, investigative journalism, scholarship and social justice. ***** Concerts from the Library of Congress has joined forces with the Logan Foundation to showcase some of the greatest figures and musicians in contemporary jazz. The 2016-2017 season features a commission and performance by Steve Coleman, an appearance by Ambrose Akinmusire, and residencies with jazz scholars Ingrid Monson and John Szwed. Andrew White lectures on Coltrane to launch the DC Jazz Project, an initiative that seeks to document the history of jazz and jazz musicians in the nation's capital through public programs and oral history interviews. Please request ASL and ADA accommodations five days in advance of the program at 202-707-6362 or [email protected]. Latecomers will be seated at a time determined by the artists for each program. Children must be at least seven years old for admittance to the concerts. Other events are open to all ages. • Please take note: Unauthorized use of photographic and sound recording equipment is strictly prohibited. Patrons are requested to turn off their cellular phones, alarm watches, and any other noise-making devices that would disrupt the program. Reserved tickets not claimed by five minutes before the beginning of the event will be distributed to stand-by patrons. Please recycle your programs at the conclusion of the program. The Library of Congress Montpelier Room Thursday, November 3, 2016 — 7:00 pm LIBRARY OF CONGRESS JAZZ SCHOLARS DC JAZZ PROJECT A JOHN COLTRANE ODYSSEY: SIGHT, SOUND AND BEYOND ANDREW WHITE Speaker & Saxophone • About the Speaker Andrew White has won international recognition as a multi-instrumentalist, music theorist, composer, author, publisher and entrepreneur. 2016 marks the 45th anniversary of his publishing company, Andrew’s Music, which offers over 2,900 titles in its catalog, including four hundred compositions, fifty books, articles and treatises, and more than sixty recordings. White is an authority on the music of John Coltrane. Admired as “The Keeper of the Trane,” he has created and published 840 transcriptions of the jazz master’s solo improvisations, and his book Trane ‘n Me is considered a significant contribution to Coltrane scholarship. Born in Washington, DC, White grew up in Nashville, Tennessee. He graduated cum laude from Howard University, earning a Bachelor’s degree with a major in music theory and a minor in oboe. He continued his study of the oboe at the Paris Conservatory as a recipient of a fellowship from the John Hay Whitney Foundation. Further studies followed at Tanglewood and at Dartmouth College. White received two Rockefeller Foundation fellowships between 1965 and 1967, awarded for the study and performance of contemporary music at the State University of New York at Buffalo. As a musician White has pursued successful and wide-ranging careers in classical music, jazz and pop, performing as an oboist, bassist and saxophonist. His saxophone career has included performances with the Washington-based J.F.K. Quintet (1961-63) and with such artists as Kenny Clarke, Otis Redding, McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones, as well as with the Julius Hemphill Saxophone Sextet, the Dutch Six Winds sextet and his own sextet, Andrew White’s Zorrosax Allstars. As a soloist he has appeared at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Town Hall, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. He worked as a bassist with Stevie Wonder while continuing to perform as principal oboist with the American Ballet Theatre; later he would tour for five years with the Fifth Dimension and with the jazz-fusion group Weather Report. White was featured as composer, conductor and soloist with the Mass Double Reed Orchestra, a 300-player ensemble, at the International Double Reed Society conference in 2003. Among the honors and awards he has received is a gold medal from France’s distinguished Society of Arts-Sciences-Letters (ASL), awarded to him in Paris in May 2006. 1 Andrew White, 'Keeper of the Trane,' is a Living Legend Unknown to Many Mark Minsker, CapitalBop (March 7, 2011) Reprinted with permission, with thanks to Giovanni Russonello http://www.capitalbop.com/musician-profile-andrew-white-keeper-of-the- trane-is-a-living-legend-unknown-to-many/ Andrew White in his D.C. home. Giovanni Russonello/CapitalBop Over the course of the twentieth century, D.C. was home to many significant jazz musicians, including such luminaries as Duke Ellington, Shirley Horn, and Jelly Roll Morton. But there’s one D.C. jazz figure who is the ultimate Renaissance man: a saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist who has been performing and recording here for 50 years; a collaborator who has played with countless jazz greats and soul artists; a scholar who is known as “Keeper of the Trane” for his meticulous transcriptions of 650 John Coltrane solos (virtually every one on record); and a producer who has released thousands of products, from recordings to transcriptions to books. One would think that with all these accomplishments, this person would be the darling of D.C.’s music community, a poster child for jazz’s greatness in the nation’s capital. But for one reason or another, this has never happened. Andrew White began his career as the leader of an innovative quintet on one of the world’s top jazz labels, then went on to record with McCoy Tyner and Weather Report and toured with Stevie Wonder. Nowadays, the 68-year-old seems destined to fade into obscurity. 2 A possible reason why White hasn’t been as celebrated as certain other D.C. musicians is his refusal to compromise with the music industry. In an age when so-called DIY music production and promotion were unheard of, he founded his own label, Andrew’s Music. From there, he recorded, produced, pressed and disseminated his own records – more than 40 in all. He also used the label as a vehicle for publishing his writing, which has ranged from essays and “treatises” on music and life to adult fiction to an 850-plus-page autobiography. With the possible exception of Sun Ra’s El Saturn label, Andrew’s Music is the longest-lasting self-run, self-produced jazz record label in the world. White's framed transcription of Coltrane's "Afro-Blue" solo runs along an entire wall in his Brookland home. Giovanni Russonello/CapitalBop On my recent visit to Washington’s other “White House,” located in the Brookland neighborhood, White let me browse the inventory of works on his imprint. “All of my records are still in print,” he mentioned, pulling out several shrink-wrapped LPs available for me to purchase. “If you’re interested, I also have copies of my autobiography for sale. Everything is in there, at least everything up till now.” As I flipped through the impossibly thick autobiography, it quickly became apparent that this aging man had done it all, seen it all – most of which he had meticulously documented in the tome titled Everybody Loves The Sugar. Sitting down with me to discuss some important moments in his life, White pinpointed his freshman year in college as the beginning of his long career in music and the arts. 3 Born in D.C. but raised in Nashville, Tenn., “I came back to Washington, D.C. to attend Howard University, where my father had gone to school,” White told me. “Within six months, I was already involved on the jazz scene – and I wasn’t but 18 years old.” With an intense interest in music, he majored in music theory with a minor in oboe. But the music program at Howard in 1960 was vastly different from how it stands today. “Back then, there were no jazz musicians there,” White recalled. “This was before the Jazz Studies program had started. There were students interested in classical music and music theory, but it was primarily an educational institution.” Within the first six months of his time at Howard, White landed a gig at Bohemian Caverns with a group that came to be known as the JFK Quintet. The band featured White on alto saxophone, Ray Codrington on trumpet, Harry Kilgore on piano and Walter Booker, Jr. on bass. Drummer Billy Hart, who went on to become a major figure, was in the first incarnation. But “he had prior commitments, and so we brought in Mickey Newman,” White explained. As is the case today, Bohemian was nestled in the heart of the U Street Corridor, so many other musicians who were gigging in the area stopped by at the JFK Quintet’s Monday night gigs. Luminaries like John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy were among the many. “Cannonball Adderley was playing around the corner at A. Bart’s International Lounge, and he’d come by on his breaks to hear us,” White recalled. “Just like we’d go and hear him on our breaks.” Adderley was enamored with the young, forward- thinking quintet, and he invited the group to New York for a recording date with Riverside Records. This led to the debut album,New Jazz Frontiers from Washington, which Adderley produced and garnered ample fanfare. But after a second Riverside LP, Young Ideas, was released, the band dissolved in September 1963. White completed his final semester at Howard and headed for Europe to study the oboe at the Paris Conservatory of Music.