Originally Posted by
joelf
It's been 3 years since Eddie passed, and I have some thoughts. Many of you know that we were tight for 40+ years. I'll leave the personal out---that stuff runs deep, like family, and it ain't all peaches and cream with intense, artistic types.
So to the music: the reason Eddie influenced many in my generation (and, hopefully, beyond), like Sean Leavitt; Steve Berger; (they say) Doug Raney; Ilya Lushtak; myself---many more.
Eddie was a natural at many things: he was an accomplished and gifted visual artist; loquater (sp?); very good on the page and verbally. The thing that came across in all of it: honesty. I think, foolishly, he hardly practiced (people mentioned 'rough spots') b/c he didn't trust rote recitations, but also he knew what his gift was---it was there, he only needed to reach for it. He practiced a lot before we hooked up. Metronome trading with himself (b/c of his techno-expertise, he was able to put an extra cam in a regular Franz metronome, and practice fast tempos). His best friend, the late David Woods, told me I never heard Eddie's best playing. Maybe, but I sure heard enough (and played w/him enough) to know he probably was one of the best ever---for my taste, anyway.
A bit more analytically, he was a cross between a pure, in-the-moment improviser and a Sonny Stitt-Grant Green more 'worked-out type'---leaning way closer to the pure improviser (and no slam on those guys---it was for illustration). He had his pet moves---who doesn't?---but he would come in with them in new and refreshing places, and listen and play off you. It's what jazz should be, but often falls short of. I think Lee Konitz's designation of Charlie Parker as a 'composer'---a compiler of original materials to be cross-referenced at will---applies.
Then there was his time. Eddie always swung---and right down Broadway, never ahead or behind. (He could be harshly critical of the time feels of a lot of players---including some big names. More to that than I care to get into, reason-wise). And he did it all quietly, never louder than the music called for. You had to lean in to really hear him. I know he taught me and a lot of young guys back to the earliest '80s how to swing on a guitar---especially with the single-string thing. There's lots of ways to swing, of course, but the relaxed way he did it is for mature players in the top percentile, IMO.
When you played duo with him he never 'swabbed the deck'---slogging through changes and time blandly. He coaxed, underlined, goaded; kicked ass---made you play. It was a conversation, and could be intense.
That's about it, except I don't want to diss Pasquale. We've been friends since he and Luigi got here, in 2009. Used to play a lot, in jams with Ari Roland and crew; duo in the back room at Fat Cat; sitting in on gigs. He's, first of all, a sweet, self-effacing man. No ego I've ever seen, just the opposite---never thinks he's playing anything, always practicing. And look what he's accomplished! May end up one of the all-time greats. He has the talent and dedication...
Julian Lage Trio - Sat 27th April - Marciac,...
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