Y'dig?

Dominick Farinacci

Attended an amazing chamber jazz performance today in the GML Auditorium in the Bronx Community College, amazing, not in the commonplace sense, but amazing in the eye-opener sense. The auditorium itself is a masterpiece of architecture, a National Historical Monument designed by Stanford White, incongruous in a campus replete with run-down, eyesore East European architecture complete with half finished verges and a general atmosphere of “Who cares?” My Russian wife strongly disagreed with this sentiment, she said the average Russian student would be more than grateful for such a campus, it’s buildings, it’s open spaces, sports field, handball courts and she observed that Russian students achieve a great deal from the little they have, that academic excellence is a product more of what the teachers and the students bring to the process by way of commitment and attitude.  In her opinion, the average Russian student would be in heaven in surroundings as excellent as those found in the Bronx Community College. I defer to the superior wisdom of my wife.

Anyway, if anyone wants evidence that jazz is dying on its feet, or even dead, they need look no further that what was on offer today. The auditorium held about 1200 people, probably 100 students had bothered to turn up, and most of those came because they got credits for attending. (We saw them being checked off on the way out by a member of staff.)

If jazz were considered remotely cool by society at large, Dominick Farinacci, a master of trumpet and flugelhorn at the age of 27 would be a pin up, maybe even a movie star. For cool emanates from self belief and Farinacci exudes that in abundance. Yet, he is largely unknown in his own country although something of a star in Japan where his albums regularly top the jazz charts there. If that were here, it’d be a bit like saying he was a very tall dwarf, for whereas in the 50s and 60s, jazz accounted for about 40% of the average labels sales. by the 90s that was down to 4%. God knows what it is now.

Check him out, he’s more than just very good.

http://www.dominickfarinacci.com/

http://www.myspace.com/dominickfarinacci

also, see this interview with Russ Titleman, who’s produced Farinacci’s latest album: http://www.ny1.com/Default.aspx?ArID=86800

Farinacci attempted a rapport with his audience, who were in the same age bracket as himself. It was doomed from the outset by two factors. Firstly, he spoke without a microphone and those in the middle to rear of the hall couldn’t hear what he said. Eventually, one brave young lady halfway back shouted “We can’t hear you” and he took advantage of the hand mic. But sadly, when he told them a little of himself and asked them what they knew, the vast majority didn’t know what the Blues were, and had never heard of ‘standards’ that body of Broadway show tunes, the canon of American popular music, songs such as Body and Soul and Just One of those Things, which he played. I’d bet, If he’d offered $100 to anyone who knew who Cole Porter was, he wouldn’t have left the hall the poorer.

How comes there’s such a disconnect? The Bronx is a stone’s throw from Harlem where the greatest musicians of the 20th century lived and worked, the people who created America’s Classical Music less than half a century ago. Yet, as far as this audience was concerned, it might as well have been on another contintent and in the Dark Ages.

Farinacci was accompanied by a piano player, Dan Kaufman, and a bassist, Yasushi Nakamura. The drummer who was scheduled to accompany them didn’t show, clearly a man who knew not to cast his pearls.

Obviously, going on without a drummer leaves a hole in a quartet, especially if they’d rehearsed, and these gifted musicians coped and filled in the space so well one wasnt’ aware of the absence. However, one might question the program chosen. To play a selection of jazz standards was never going to lift this audience. Personally, I’d have gone for the jugular and attempted to get them out of their seats. Playing music that was deemed cool fifty years ago or more, just wasn’t cool in these circumstances.

Should we care? Of course. If values and asthetics matter and they do, it is a tragedy that these young people are so cut off from our collective roots from the well-spring of creativity that had this country dominate popular culture across the world for the last hundred years. And these aren’t the dregs of our youth, these are, after all, students in a community college trying to widen their perspectives, to improve themselves.

May God help them, and us.