The New Yorker & Me: Hank Jones (July 31, 1918

Introduction

What is The New Yorker? I know it’s a great magazine and that it’s a tremendous source of pleasure in my life. But what exactly is it? This blog’s premise is that The New Yorker is a work of art, as worthy of comment and analysis as, say, Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” Each week I review one or more aspects of the magazine’s latest issue. I suppose it’s possible to describe and analyze an entire issue, but I prefer to keep my reviews brief, and so I usually focus on just one or two pieces, to explore in each the signature style of its author. A piece by Nick Paumgarten is not like a piece by Jill Lepore, and neither is like a piece by Ian Frazier. One could not mistake Collins for Seabrook, or Bilger for Goldfield, or Mogelson for Kolbert. Each has found a style, and it is that style that I respond to as I read, and want to understand and describe.

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Hank Jones (July 31, 1918 - May 16, 2010)

Riccardo Vecchio, Hank Jones (2007)

This is my tribute to Hank Jones, who died May 16, 2010. Jones is the subject of two of my favourite New Yorker jazz reviews: Whitney Balliett's "The Dean" (July 15, 1996) and Gary Giddins's "Autumn In New York" (June 4, 2007). The Giddins piece is wonderfully illustrated by a Riccardo Vecchio portrait of Jones, which I reverently reproduce here. Over the years, I've compiled innumerable jazz piano playlists for my personal enjoyment, and practically all of them include at least one piece by Jones. The one I most often play is his irresistibly affecting "Wade in the Water" from the 1996 album "Steal Away." A close runner-up is his great, rhythmic "'Round Midnight" from the 2004 compilation "Giants of Jazz." His album "Hank Jones: Live at Maybeck Recital Hall" (1991) is a gem. The "I'm All For You" album he cut with Joe Lovano in 2004 is a classic. What I like most about Jones's playing is that it is full of sparkling single-note lines. Balliett describes Jones's style as quiet, lyrical, and attentive - "so subtle and technically assured as to be almost self-effacing." Giddins says, "As his most intricate phrases skitter over the keyboard, he barely seems to depress the keys, yet each note is cleanly articulated." Jones's passing removes from the jazz scene one of our subtlest, most poetic, swingingest pianists. Our only solace is the knowledge that his glorious recordings will live on - an immense bequest to future jazz lovers.