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"Bunny M." is a seventeen-year-old Dallas resident who plays drums, piano and clarinet.  Her passion for jazz and the challenges she faces as a youthful fan of it is the focus of her Jerry Jazz Musician column, "Accent on Youth." Listen to Dinah Washington sing Accent On Youth ___________________________ Accent on Youth by Bunny M. "Saxo Bourbon," by Olivier Boissinot Jazz 101: An Introduction to Jazz for Today's Youth, Part Two ______________________________      When most young people think of jazz, they probably also think of their parents' generation and beyond ("Squaresville!") -- not a mental association too conducive to developing further interest. But jazz, like anything else, must be approached with a mind as free of preconceptions as possible, and while it may be difficult for today's youth to think of jazz as something independent of "Old School-ism" (not the cool kind, either), the rewards are manifold, not least of which is an experience rich with entertainment and a broader musical knowledge. Today's musical climate is rife with opportunities to break such thought processes, some of which would hardly be suspected of jazz ties.      In part one, I named five albums (#'s 6 - 10) for an exciting, unusual and diverse introduction to jazz for today's youth. In part two below, the top five are named. 5. Jamie Cullum: Pointless Nostalgic (2003)      The greatest of my recent personal musical discoveries is the English-born Jamie Cullum, whose anime-boy young looks belie the fact that, at only twenty-four years old he has become the biggest selling jazz artist to come out of the UK. His sophomore album Twentysomething, released late last year, is the fastest selling jazz album there. His first album, Pointless Nostalgic, is my favorite of the two, from the poetic thought-provoking title to the tasteful arrangement of tunes old and new.      Jamie's style, combining sounds of classic jazz, modern alternative pop and bluesy soul, is as refreshing as popping open a bottle of sparkling mineral water, satisfying almost all of my musical tastes simultaneously. With a voice that is saxophone-like in emotion and piano playing that ranges from "quiet lounge" to raw, scathing blues nightclub, Jamie somehow produces a blend of music that oozes jazz and yet doesn't feel like jazz at all. The standard "It Ain't Necessarily So" has been transformed into a slinking, low key urban groove with so much soul it's almost a religious experience, while songs like "Too Close for Comfort" and "Devil May Care" have the brassy sound of the Big Band Era with a contemporary twist that has me convinced: if Sinatra was a kid breaking onto the scene today, he might sound like this. Originals like "Pointless Nostalgic" have a brooding, modern poetic feel about them in the style of Fiona Apple or Savage Garden. The music is minimalist, and Jamie's lyrics are simple yet thoughtful: "Thoughts running round my head today/ Times from the past popping up, where they're from I don't know/ Reminiscing my cares away/ Wishing I could go back and change the points that were low/ Till I've realized what life's meant to be."      About his music Jamie has said, "I'm trying to find out whether you can get 16-year-olds who listen to The Strokes and twenty-year-olds who listen to house music to think, 'Actually, this is cooler than I thought.'" Pointless Nostalgic is an album that manages to offer something for all musical moods; the pensive tracks make excellent incidental music to quiet thought processes, while the up-tempo tracks will have unsuspecting youths digging jazz before they even know what jazz is. With his deceptively-jazzy musical knack and skyrocketing success, Jamie is in a prime position to become Jazz's "Ambassador to Youth." Too Close For Comfort Twisted Blues 4. Joey DeFrancesco: The Street of Dreams (1995)      At thirty-three years of age Joey DeFrancesco is somewhat older than today's "young" jazz stars, but still young enough to be younger than the music he performs. A third-generation musician (father Papa John DeFrancesco was also an organist; grandfather Joe DeFrancesco played with Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey), Joey was landing paying gigs with names no less than Jack McDuff and Miles Davis at the age of ten on the Hammond B-3 organ, his preferred instrument and one intensely revered by many music fans, Yours Truly included. In fact it is Joey DeFrancesco who is credited as single-handedly reviving interest in this organ of sixties blues and soul fame, while staying true to its musical roots.      I had the incredible fortune to see Joey De in concert last November (from the front-row no less!), and was pleased to see that the small crowd (capacity less than 300) was made up largely of young people (presumably a number of local university students). In this small, intimate setting Joey and company (veteran Marchel Ivery on sax, Clint Strong on guitar and Dallas-homegrown wonder Andrew Griffith on drums) had the house jumping practically from the first number. It's obvious from watching Joey perform that he has a passion for the old jazz and blues standards that is palpable with every note he plays. His interaction with the B-3 is like a private conversation to the exclusion of all outsiders in its intimacy and sensitivity, and seeing the ecstatic expressions on his face as he plays is like beholding an angelic vision. Joey sings, and not just on his organ: his vocals are a true treat, minimalist and smoldering with latent emotion (his live rendition of "That's All" hovered in the air like a fervid mist), sounding like a softer, Mel Torme-foggier version of a young Frank Sinatra with the reediness of a seasoned blues vocalist.      The Street of Dreams offers a mixed bag of both instrumental and vocal efforts by Joey (with musical backing that is not, unfortunately the Ivery-Strong-Griffith trio, but is amazing nonetheless). "What's New" is a demonstration in the smoky-nightclub-atmosphere sound that the Hammond B-3 evokes so well, while tracks like "Puttin' on the Ritz" and "Stop Leading Me On" turn up the swingin' factor to "10" (and beg the question why the Hammond B-3 organ ever got pushed aside for synthesizers!). Recordings give only a glimpse into the energy of the in-person experience, so if the chance to see Joey live comes your way, by all means take it. Music this good begs to be heard in the air, and thanks to Joey DeFrancesco the musical climate is fresher than ever- in a very "organ"-ic way! 3. Benny Goodman: Live at Carnegie Hall (2000)      Benny Goodman, who will always have a special place in my heart as the man who introduced me to jazz, made history in many ways. A musician so highly regarded as to garner a royal title ("The King of Swing") among the music-loving population, it was Benny Goodman's band who became the sensation among the music loving youth, shifting the prime musical audience from adults to kids for the first time. That's right, fellow young groupies, swarming the stage in wild praise of your favorite rock band started back in 1934 when a bespectacled gentleman raised his clarinet at the Palomar Ballroom to a capacity crowd, marking the official beginning of the Swing Era, and the era of music as an object of youthful admiration. On a broader scale, Goodman made musical history on January 16, 1938 by performing a concert that was not only the very first jazz concert at the prestigious Carnegie Hall, but also the first instance of live jazz being thrust into the "proper" mainstream from the dance halls and speakeasies.      When I first got this set I don't think I stopped listening to it for several weeks, especially tracks like the sweet "The Man I Love", the exciting "Bei Mir Bist do Schoen", and "Sing, Sing, Sing" (of Chips Ahoy! commercial fame to many people of my generation) which, at twelve minutes is a tour de force of musical ability and energy bordering on the supernatural. The famous tribal tom-tom intro (savagely pounded out by that patron saint of drumming, Gene Krupa) slithers like a crocodile laying low on water's surface, blossoming into a meditative exercise in rhythm and endurance. The brass section composed in turns of such luminaries as Hymie Schertzer, Johnny Hodges, Harry James, and Bobby Hackett is fit to ring in the blessed at St. Peter's Pearly Gates. The real showstopper, however, is Benny's clarinet solo at the 7:30 mark: backed only by Krupa's hypnotic out-of-the-way drumming, Benny whispers, whimpers, teases and wails his way through two minutes of clarinet domination leading to a high A, prefiguring Maynard Ferguson's similar sky-scraping trumpet escapades in later years. And just when we're thinking it can't possibly go any higher, Benny teases us by coaxing out a closing, unreasonably high C (a feat in itself on a clarinet) that is almost audible only to the canine crowd.      While the sound quality (here taken from the original acetates for the best possible sound) is a little lower than most young people today are accustomed to, the music -- and more importantly the spirit of the music -- comes through with a vigor that could only be topped by seeing it in person. The infectious fun of swing continues to attract young people today, and Benny Goodman's 1938 Carnegie Hall concert is not only an entertaining musical sojourn, but a valuable historical "record " as well. American History has never been this exciting and enjoyable. Ornithology Bird of Paradise Parker's Mood 2. Charlie Parker: Yardbird Suite: The Ultimate Charlie Parker (1997)      Young people seem to like Charlie Parker: from my own experience and the testimony of other young people (local favorite Chris Casey of 15th Street Jazz is heavily influenced by Bird; Heather Mills McCartney professes to be a jazz fan and a Bird-watcher), Parker holds a definite attraction for virtually all who hear. It's not hard to see why, either; with all its vibrancy and aural excitement, Bird's music has youth written all over it. Yardbird Suite: The Ultimate Charlie Parker on two CDs offers a wide range of Parker's musical ability including well-known numbers like "Koko" (the song that brought about the birth of Bop) and his signature "Yardbird Suite" as well as some work with frequent co-conspirators Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis. Disc One contains most of these familiar works, of which "Ornithology" sticks out in my mind the most, sounding like an energetic weekend in bustling downtown. "All the Things You Are" (featuring Dizzy) and "Bird of Paradise" bring a laidback I-don't-care attitude to the mix, the former sounding very much like an abstract "Autumn Leaves", while "Paradise" suggests lounging over lemonade with nothing to do and all day to do it. The version here of "Embraceable You" I found to be the most enlightening track; sounding beautifully nothing like "Embraceable You" as we know it (Bird had a knack for improvising to the point of composing an entirely new song altogether), this is Professor Parker's lesson in thoughtful phrasing, brilliant improvisation, and effective use of embellishment to suggest emotion.      Disc Two is a more mellow affair, with numbers like "Out of Nowhere" and "Parker's Mood" sounding more like a supper club soundtrack. I really dig the Latin effervescence of "My Little Suede Shoes," Parker's razor-smooth lines backed by smart, saucy ethnic percussion. "Klaunstance" has got to be the most exciting cut of the whole package (certainly of Disc Two), avalanching the ear with a seemingly infinite flurry of notes- HOW is it even possible to play so much, so fast? It's an unanswerable riddle for modern times. The last seven tracks offer a rare chance to hear Parker in a live setting, complete with announcer introductions. Of these, "Night in Tunisia" takes the cake for the liveliest "worldly" grooves, while Bird is backed by strings on the penultimate "East of the Sun (And West of the Moon)" for an arrangement that is sweet, airy and sublime, but no less amazing.      I can only speculate about why Charlie Parker continues to be a draw among young people. Maybe it is the same fun and sense of social rebellion that drove the original bop fans so wild; but perhaps today's youth can, if only subconsciously, comprehend the timeless "just-born-yesterday" quality of the music. Like his disciples scrawled on walls years after his death, "Bird Lives." 1. Miles Davis: Kind of Blue (1997; Original release: 1959)      At the risk of sounding trite, Kind of Blue tops my list, as it does so many other similar lists. Why? Well for starters, it's one of those albums so great that it continues to sell well long after its release. Its influence exceeds that of its own genre - rock critic Robert Palmer wrote the liner notes for one of the editions. Kind of Blue hasn't been out of my CD player since I bought it. And while it may seem obvious, This is Jazz, proclaimed in a way that begs of George Lucas-style words scrolling upward against a background of a night sky with "Blue in Green" playing. Every thought I've ever had of jazz (even those before I knew what jazz was) cues up the mental record player to a kind of smoky, latenight gather-under-the-stars-and-just-PLAY riff; I now realize that it was exactly that Kind of Blue sound that I was unknowingly playing in my head.      I know of no one, jazz fan or not, who has not succumbed to the Kind of Blue experience. From the first meandering notes of the opening 'So What' begins a sonic journey through dimensions of Cool that today's "cool" stars can only foam at the mouth and fantasize about. The bass and ride cymbal groove alone are enough to make the floor give way beneath you even before Miles' indomitably cool trumpet asserts exactly Who's the Boss in a manner which is irrefutable. In a more introspective moment, "Blue in Green" is no less astounding; Miles drifts like a feather over the understated background that is more an implication, rather than an outspoken statement, of a rhythm section, while "Flamenco Sketches" is a circular meditation on improvisation in a series of five scales. And while the margins between the up-tempo tracks and the slow ones is small, each song manages to carve out its own mood distinctive from the rest while keeping the overall groove of the album intact. Pondering a listening experience in retrospect, I find it difficult to place exactly where each song begins and ends; the entire album is a seamless thread of elements so intrinsic to one another that separating them is impossible.      The entire album is an exercise in Zen-like minimalism that would make Japanese art proud. Like haiku and suiseki, the beauty of Kind of Blue is its ability to somehow infinitely beget beauty from apparent nothing. Art becomes masterpiece by its timelessness, beauty, and inspiration, and if only one modern creative output could be selected to take its place alongside Venus de Milo and the Mona Lisa, Kind of Blue fits the bill as a prime example of musical genius at what surely must be its summit. Flamenco Sketches All Blues *      Like any vast creative field, the expressions of jazz are innumerable and the angles of analysis even greater. The five artists - and the five in part one - and their recordings mentioned here are by no means a last word on everything jazz has to offer; rather, they are presented as the proverbial first step of a journey of a thousand miles. Jazz is more ubiquitous in our popular culture than many young people may think, so the next time you're grooving to the latest sounds, stop and think: that ultramodern track you're digging might actually be something first made hep by a Jazz Master of the Past. ______________________________   Peace is the word, Bunny Read part one of Jazz 101: An Introduction to Jazz for Today's Youth * "Bunny M." is a seventeen-year-old Dallas resident who plays drums, piano and clarinet.  Her passion for jazz and the challenges she faces as a youthful fan of it is the focus of her Jerry Jazz Musician column, "Accent on Youth." You can contact Bunny at: lotusflower1922@hotmail.com * Accent on Youth archive

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