I thought Thursday had been an incredibly rich day at IAJE and that Friday could not match it. I was wrong. Friday was filled with wonderful educational and musical experiences. Following is a summary of Friday's events that I attended:

11:00 a.m. A workshop entitled "Fresh New Approaches to Old Tunes" proved to be more of a performance than a clinic. It featured Pharez Whitted, trumpeter, and his quintet. Whitted was excellent. He has 2 LP's out on the Mojazz label. He was trying to demonstrate that any song can be played in virtually any style and that you can mix hip-hop, bop, swing, blues, Afro-Eurasian influences at will: "There is no limit." His group played some unique versions of Hothouse, Mood Indigo (with a minor feel) and Nature Boy.

12 Noon: A panel discussion called "Planet Jazz" featured the directors of the Jazz Festivals at Monterey, North Sea Festival, and Istanbul discussing the state of jazz festivals and what that reflects about jazz today. They pointed out that whereas 10 years ago there were only about 10 major festivals, today there are 129 (and more than 1100 if you include smaller local annual festivals). There are 3 festivals in Istanbul alone each of which draws more than 40,000 people a year. The oldest is Monterey, which started in 1958 and draws 50-60,000 over 3 days. One of the largest is the North Sea Festival in Holland, which draws 70,000 or more. There was some discussion about the "mixed blessing" of having corporate sponsors. The general feeling was: you have to have such sponsors to survive, but you can't let them dictate which artists you will invite. The panelists present felt that they had learned how to draw a hard line with the sponsors that allowed them to invite who they wanted (as long as the crowds come, the sponsors don't care that much: except when they are record companies, and then you pretty much have to include some of their showcase performers). Festival budgets are: North Sea (3-4 million), Monterey (1.8 million), Istanbul (l million).

1:00 A panel discussion on "The History of Jazz and its Relationship to Age and Race" featuring Billy Taylor, Max Rothman, Jimmy Owens and Dick Dunscomb. They spoke a lot about how many aging jazz musicians have very poor or almost non-existent pensions. e.g. when Doc Cheetham died, he was drawing $51. a month from the pension fund of the American Federation of Musicians.

While race has obviously been an issue, especially in the earlier days, Billy Taylor felt New York had been more open across the board since the 40's. He spoke of the "democratization of jazz" (which is really what the IAJE is all about, as evidenced by this convention). At the end of the panel an interesting debate broke out between Billy Taylor and a young woman who is getting a PhD in Sociology. She was insisting that jazz is "African" and he was insisting that it is "Afro-American" borrowing from both European and African roots but really a uniquely American art form. She got very indignant and the thing heated up, but Billy handled it really well and said "We'll have to talk about this later and right now just agree to disagree!"

2:00 p.m. Lunch break (whew!) When walking around the exhibits you could hear incredible young musicians trying out keyboards and wind instruments. So much good young talent. Whoever said "jazz is dying" doesn't know what they're talking about. There were a lot of highschool and college-aged kids at the convention and they are already working on being the next generation of great jazz artists.

3:00 p.m. One of the real treats of the day: a performance by "DIVA", an all-female jazz orchestra, led by drummer Sherrie Maricle. I mean these women are awesome (especially the alto sax player/flutist Laura Dreyer -- remember that name, 'cause you'll be hearing more from her). Remember when all-female bands were seen as a kind of interesting novelty, but not taken seriously as being of equal quality with male orchestras? Well, those days are past, baby. This band is the equal of any of the male orchestras I heard at this conference (with the possible exception of the Mingus Big Band). Every musician an excellent soloist, very clean and complex arrangements (and really difficult stuff to execute). Friday was largely "women's groups day". Ingrid Jenssen, flugelhorn/trumpeter supreme was featured separately, as was "Sisters in Jazz" (more about that in a moment). But throughout this conference I was struck by the number of great young female jazz artists. I think we will see in the next 10 years a shift (the next barrier in jazz) where you will see female jazz artists showcased alongside the Joshua Redmans and Hargroves, etc.-- WITH EQUAL BILLING1 It's really exciting! DIVA has one CD out which they produced themselves. I bought it.

4:00 p.m. A very interesting panel on "Coltrane: New Insights" featuring Andy LaVerne, David Liebman, Lewis Porter and David Demsey. Lewis Porter led the discussion, drawing from his new book: "John Coltrane: His Life and Music" (U. of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor). There were so many interesting tidbits that came out of this panel that I am going to do a separate posting of it for those interested.

5:00 p.m. A wonderfully interesting seminar on "Trans-stylistic Techniques for Creative Improvisation" led by Ed Sarath, who is Director of the Jazz Program at the U. of Michigan. He plays flugelhorn and has 2 great CD's out: "Last Day in May" (on Konex) and "Voice of the Wind" (on Owl). He talked about how most jazz teaching and practicing is based on the "Syntactic Parameters" of Harmony, Melody and Rhythmn. He suggested that a lot could be gained by focusing more on what he calls "Non-Syntactic Parameters" like: density of sound, dynamics, duration, silence, texture, timbre, interval size, register and pulse/non pulse. To demonstrate this he put together a quick ensemble from those gathered, which included 3 saxes, one voice and a woman who played "baloons" (she blows them up, puts a mike cord around then for amplification, then twists and strokes them to get stange sounds). It was a fascinating impromptu jam. What came out was the need for more "silence" (some people couldn't stop playing) and the need for more "musical conversations" among the instruments (listening more to the others and responding to them musically). Sarath is a great teacher.

6:00 p.m. Cecil McBee led a quartet including Matt Wilson on drums, doing mainly Cecil's original tunes. It was far-out stuff: a lot of it atonal and free form. Most of it was over my head. But it was very interesting (though not what I would choose to listen to on a daily basis).

7:00 p.m. **A real highlight. "Sisters in Jazz." The IAJE had set up a contest to find five excellent young college-aged women: a pianist, bassist, drummer and two lead instruments. The winners performed as "sisters in jazz." they had had only two days together to rehearse, but they played some of the most complex and difficult arrangements I have heard. And what excellent musicians! They included Sara Caswell on violin, Dawn Clement on piano, Anat Cohen on tenor sax, Loraine Faina on drums and Jodi Proznick on bass. I list them, because these are names you are going to be hearing from. They were wonderful. Ingrid Jenssen joined them for the last number. I ordered the cassette of this performance and can't wait to get it. Those who went to see Randy Brecker play with Symbiosis at 7:00 (the majority of the crowd) missed out on the truly extraordinary event of this hour.

8:30 The Billy Taylor Trio performed in the main ballroom (holds 2500). Trying to avoid excess or hyperbole, I can't overstate how wonderful this performance was. I've heard Billy Taylor perform before, but I can tell you this was one of the best performances of his career. He was really turned on by the crowd (who were turned on by him). You have to realize that when you get 2500 musicians together listening to jazz, they hear a lot. Everytime a performer does something unique or great several cheers and oohs and aahs are emitted, which spurs the musicians on to greater heights. That's the way it was at these performances. He was accompanied by Chip Jackson on bass and Steve Johns on drums. Taylor played a great version of Body and Soul, where he played the first chorus with left hand alone a la Satie/Brubeck, giving the impression of a full two-handed performance, and then went into a left handed Teddy-Wilson-like rolling tenths on "Take the A-Train" while playing unique lines, often in counterpoint to the left hand with his right hand. Chip Jackson was incredibly good too. His solo on Body and Soul was truly memorable. For the finale Billy played the Man I Love - again starting out totally with left hand (if you closed your eyes you would have sworn he was playing 2-handed), and then playing in every conceivable style, and topping it off by trading fours between his left and right hands. Describing it doesn't do justice to what we heard. It was one of the greatest performances I've ever been privileged to see/hear. Billy acknowledged to the crowd that they had really inspired him. What a pleasure! I just hope they recorded it and that the recording becomes available.

9:30 IAJE gave out awards given duelly by them and by the NEA to Ron Carter, James Moody and Wayne Shorter.

10:00 p.m. A performance by "New York Voices". They were good, but it was bad timing. They did a total repertory of Paul Simon tunes, jazzed up. They have some interesting voices and great harmonies, but it was getting late, and after Billy it was hard to get excited about them, and I was feeling "let's get this over and bring on the Mingus Big Band!"

11:30 (running 1 1/2 hours late now) the Mingus Big Band. No need to report that this band is awesome. they play mostly Mingus compositions and arrangements. As Mingus' widow said in introducing the band: this band plays stuff that no other band has attempted because until now there were never enough great musicians assembled to be able to pull it off. They played a very difficult tune called "Mambo Moods," an extremely upbeat tune (400 perhaps on the metronome) called "Lickety Split", and a few others. Randy Brecker was wailing. If you're ever in New York on a Thursday night, you've got to go hear this band at Fez.

So at 12:45 a.m. I headed for home: exhausted, exhilarated (I couldn't stop scatting all the way from 45th street to 108th street where I live. I think the taxi driver thought I was on drugs). What a day, what a rich experience. And yet another day to go! hk (Kim) Jones.