Jazz, An International Dialect

My Integrated Life

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Jazz, An International Dialect

A Brazilian, A Frenchman and an Iowan walk into 24-bars

Dartanyan L. Brown

Apr 20, 2025

Transcript

I lived in California from 1987 until 2014. Musically it was a sublime experience because the San Francisco Bay Area is a world city. The wealth of world-class talent to draw from created its own cauldron of influences and projects to get involved with. As a musician, an Iowa musician raised on everything from Bebop to Country and Western to Funk and Electronic music I was well positioned to take advantage of the opportunities available out there.

I first met Jean Michel Huré in 1987-88 in Marin county as we were both working within the burgeoning New Age music scene. Marin was the center of a scene driven by artists including guitarist and producer, the Des Moines native Teja Bell. My friend Teja produced an incredibly successful New Age album entitled Dolphin Smiles featuring himself and violinist, composer Steven Kindler. Jean Michel, just arrived from France was playing with various artists on the old Global Pacific recording label.

Over the next two decades all of us would work and play together in various combinations of Jazz, New Age, Electronic and Jazz/fusion-tinged projects. Teja even toured with the Ahmad Jamal, himself a legend in the Jazz piano world.

In this latest Jazz Appreciation Month post, I want to return to the subject of Jazz as a language. We as musicians all have to learn the fundamentals of rhythm, harmony and melodic development. Where you come from can have an influence on how you sound as a player. Your geographic location may determine what kind of music or which type of musicians that you get to hear.

Jazz music, since it’s inception has been recognized by musicians around the world as something worth learning. Grounded in Tin Pan Alley compositions, the techniques wrought by Ellington, Gillespie, Parker, Goodman, Beiderbecke, Farmer, and, Armstrong stand as the foundations of Jazz grammar.

The Jazz Language - An International Dialect

Mill Valley New Year’s Eve 2013 Jean Michel Huré, Ricardo Peixoto and the author

There is no better example of what I’m clumsily trying to write about than to listen to French guitarist Jean Michel Huré (center above), Brazilian guitarist Ricardo Peixoto (right above) and American-with-a-French name (Dartanyan) electric bassist, as we play a very impromptu version of the 1942-era Harry Warren composition There Will Never Be Another You. It originally was heard in the Hollywood Film Iceland (where I read that the local Icelanders were not happy about how some of them were portrayed on film)

I recorded our living room performance at a New Year’s Eve party in Mill Valley California as 2012 was becoming 2013. Hosted at Jean Michel’s home for NYE, I was expecting the usual wine & cheese gathering but when his guitarist friend from Brazil showed up….and we all had our instruments with us…jazz was bound to break out.

From New Age to Bebop, Jean Michel and I played it all. With gusto!! My studio San Rafael, CA 2013

Django Reinhardt, the Romani-French jazz musician (23 January 1910 – 16 May 1953) still maintains a towering influence over guitarists around the world, especially one from Paris like my friend Jean Michel. You will hear stylistic homage to Django’s Gypsy Jazz style. Dig our instant international ‘conversation’ as we explore the musical implications of Harry Warren’s immortal standard.

It doesn’t matter where you come from, if you’re a jazz musician, you’ve studied the ‘grammar of jazz’ preparing you to create joyous conversation with others. This performance was unplanned, unrehearsed but the musicians were not under-practiced. I’m glad I had this little gem still in the archives to present to you, my readers and listeners.

Jazz music, borne of struggle is, in the hands of a Frenchman, A Brazilian and an Iowan, a vehicle of communion, joy and freedom.

More Later…stay tuned.

Jazz, An International Dialect

The Jazz Language - An International Dialect

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