Friends, Special Guests Pay Tribute to “Noir" Master and Head of Contemporary Improvisation Department
“The deeper emotional and spiritual aspects of music can be absorbed by the soul of the musician if we can validate music’s chief sensory organ — the ear."— Ran Blake, The Primacy of the Ear
Friends, collaborators, students, and special guests will gather to celebrate jazz great Ran Blake’s 70th Birthday, Monday April 18 at 8 p.m. in NEC’s Jordan Hall. They will pay tribute to Blake’s dual musical legacy: a unique and indelible musical voice, and a teaching career at New England Conservatory that has produced many young masters such as Dominique Eade, Don Byron, John Medeski, and Matthew Shipp. With many different performers taking turns on the stage, the celebration will present “scenes from Ran’s life" and a retrospective of the multiple influences on his music.
The concert is free and open to the public.
Born in Springfield, MA on April 20, 1935, Blake began nourishing his musical sensibility from an early age. At 12, he first saw Robert Siodmak’s Spiral Staircase, and was forever hooked on Film Noir. That dark ethos would permeate his pianistic stylings throughout his career, along with other important influences such as American blues and gospel music, 20th Century classical composers like Stravinsky, Messiaen, and Ives; and jazz masters like Thelonious Monk and Duke Ellington.
After attending Bard College, Blake first made his mark with the groundbreaking 1962 RCA album, The Newest Sound Around, which he recorded with the smoky-voiced singer and fellow Bard alumna Jeanne Lee. A cult favorite, that recording is still available as a remastered CD.
“My idea was to gather a student body of talented and eclectic improvisers each of whom would attempt to forge a unique personal improvisational style from a synthesis of his or her stylistic roots. I soon came to include world musics of all kinds (not only African-American) as potential sources for this personal synthesis process which eventually came to be called ‘Streaming.’" — Ran Blake, The Primacy of the Ear
The Newest Sound Around got an initial boost from Gunther Schuller, one of Blake’s most important mentors. Schuller, who coined the term “Third Stream" to denote the fusion of classical and jazz idioms, invited Blake to join the New England Conservatory faculty in 1968, just a year after becoming President. Five years later, Schuller appointed Blake the first Chair of the Third Stream Department — a position Blake still holds although the department has been renamed Contemporary Improvisation.
“In a culture dominated by market place values, in which musical conformity is rewarded and individuality shunned, we respect and defend the sanctity of the individual and his or her right — indeed, if he or she is being honest, need — to create a music true to the uniqueness of his or her personality." — Ran Blake, The Primacy of the Ear
Honored with a MacArthur Foundation “Genius" Grant and two Guggenheim Fellowships in Music Composition, Blake has recorded more than 30 albums, mostly playing solo piano. He has also teamed up with performers like Dominique Eade, Jaki Byard, Anthony Braxton, Steve Lacy, Clifford Jordan, Ricky Ford, and Christine Correa. His musical inspirations continue to come from a wide and diverse universe, including world music, the 12-tone serial composers, and performers like Mahalia Jackson. It is said he can improvise as easily on a 12-tone row as a standard tune.
Many of Blake’s recordings and concerts are tributes to a particular artist, such as Monk, Vaughn, Horace Silver, Ellington, and Gershwin. His concentration on these venerables also finds expression in his annual summer school seminars at NEC, which are often focused on an individual performer or composer. But no matter who is the subject of his homage, Blake’s personal voice comes through unmistakably. So for example, Howard Reich wrote in The Los Angeles Times about Blake’s 2001 Sonic Temples: “Original voices are so hard to come by in jazz pianism that a two-CD set such as this amounts to a signal event. To say that (Ran Blake) alters the harmonies of 'Black Coffee' or brings interesting colors to 'Stormy Weather' would be like contending that Michelangelo did a nice touch-up job on the Sistine Chapel."
Similarly, Ben Ratliff, writing in The New York Times about Blake’s February 2005 performance at Cobi’s Place in New York, stated: “…in no way is he part of a mainstream movement within jazz. (You couldn’t even call it a niche because nobody has directly followed his example.) But what he does—using solo-piano technique, imagination and memory to construct a slightly disturbing dream of American music—is fascinating."
For more information, call the NEC Concert Line at (617) 585-1122 or visit NEC on the web at www.newenglandconservatory.edu/concerts.
ABOUT NEW ENGLAND CONSERVATORY
Recognized nationally and internationally as a leader among music schools, New England Conservatory offers rigorous training in an intimate, nurturing community to 750 undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral music students from around the world. Its faculty of 225 boasts internationally esteemed artist-teachers and scholars. Its alumni go on to fill orchestra chairs, concert hall stages, jazz clubs, recording studios, and arts management positions worldwide. Nearly half of the Boston Symphony Orchestra is composed of NEC trained musicians and faculty.
The oldest independent school of music in the United States, NEC was founded in 1867 by Eben Tourjee. Its curriculum is remarkable for its wide range of styles and traditions. On the college level, it features training in classical, jazz, Contemporary Improvisation, world and early music. Through its Preparatory School, School of Continuing Education, and Community Collaboration Programs, it provides training and performance opportunities for children, pre-college students, adults, and seniors. Through its outreach projects, it allows young musicians to engage with non-traditional audiences in schools, hospitals, and nursing homes—thereby bringing pleasure to new listeners and enlarging the universe for classical music and jazz.
NEC presents more than 600 free concerts each year in Jordan Hall, its world-renowned, 100-year old, beautifully restored concert hall. These programs range from solo recitals to chamber music to orchestral programs to jazz and opera scenes. Every year, NEC’s opera studies department also presents two fully staged opera productions at the Cutler Majestic Theatre in Boston.
NEC is co-founder and educational partner of From the Top, a weekly radio program that celebrates outstanding young classical musicians from the entire country. With its broadcast home in Jordan Hall, the show is now carried by more than two hundred stations throughout the United States.
For more information contact All About Jazz.
