Martin Schwacha - Ideas About Music
Imagine a nightclub in the New York
jazz-mecca era of the 1940s. Bebop fills the room with the buzzing air of what
would become jazz standards. These are the sensations you’ll find when
listening to the compositions and arrangements of baritone saxophonist, Martin
Schwacha. Born in 1959 in north New Jersey, this musician was brought up
surrounded by the jazz atmosphere and immersed in a world of music. Through his 48 years of playing saxophone,
while building and maintaining a career outside of music, Schwacha now
positions as one of the leading baritone saxophone soloists, performers, and
writers in the local area of San Antonio, Texas. His compositions and
arrangements demonstrate his musical prowess, as his background in jazz and
bebop exuberate this proficiency throughout his performances.
Having picked
up the saxophone at age of nine, Schwacha has worked his way from the alto to the
baritone and now to the soprano as he has continued to evolve within the jazz
music that he has been performing throughout his life. The opportunities he was
presented with, growing up so close to New York City, influenced his pursuit
into the jazz genre. In high school he was able to perform with professional
musicians from New York who would sit in with the stage jazz band on charts
such as Maynard Ferguson arrangements. This ignited a fire within him for jazz.
He played jazz throughout college on the side while studying at the University
of Rhode Island. He has studied with the renowned jazz trombonist, Hal Crook.
After graduating, he played in southern New England with a number of blues
bands that primarily focused on Chicago jump style and Ray Charles
arrangements. It was not until after college that he began to attempt writing,
having understood harmony on a rudimentary level. Schwacha explained that,
“maybe it was a desire to leave something
more
permanent and less interim than jazz
improvisation;
where you play a solo and it's there and
it’s gone.
Some of that stemmed honestly I think from
my father
who was a fine artist and painter . . . He liked the idea
that I was writing music and having
something kind
of permanent like that and I enjoyed that
creative process.”
While playing in blues bands after college
such as East Coast Rockers, Stovall Brown and the Bobby Watson Band, while also
writing songs and lead sheets, Schwacha inevitably began arranging. He goes on
to explain that, “it would be nice to kind of arrange and have them [jazz
standards] played in a different sort of setting, but it is another aspect of
being creative in the creative process.” His works of arranging various jazz
standards invariably help to maintain the songs for present audiences to hear
performed live. New arrangements also help the genre to continue to thrive and
evolve as musicians build upon one another’s musical ideas, forming new
repertoires.
Having developed a career now in biomedical
research, which is very separated from music, playing and writing have become
even more important to Schwacha, as it feeds the part of his personality that
needs to be taken care of as far as creativity. But furthermore, as Schwacha
states, “it is the release.” This
release is from the pressures of the day; his daily activities of interaction
with other professors and surgeons, writing grants, and doing research in the
lab, all the activities he performs that are completely devoid of music. It is that search of release that motivates
him to continue his writing and arranging music, not having it be a financial
obligation but a way of expression and relief.
Activities Involving Music
Martin Schwacha moved to San
Antonio in 2008 from Birmingham, Alabama and quickly became active in the Jazz
scene through the Small World jam session. This freelance musician, composer
and arranger has performed with Dave Ballou, Paul Butterfield, Richie Cole, Hal
Crook, Phil Watson and a multitude of others. Here in San Antonio, Schwacha
recorded his first release, Sweet
Serendipity, at Peter Carey’s Rhythm Room. He currently holds down the
baritone sax chair and a number of big bands around San Antonio, as well as
writes and arranges for a number of various groups. He now actively performs
locally at venues such as the Blue Star, The Cove, Patty Lou’s Restaurants, and
Olmos Bharmacy.
Schwacha had been working at the University
of Alabama Birmingham before moving to his current home in San Antonio, Texas.
While there, he was also playing in the ensembles, writing, and teaching music
on the side to keep musically active. Not having heard anything about a jazz
scene in San Antonio, Texas, he was not aware of what the city held for his
future when he moved there. Having stumbled upon the jazz radio station, KRTU,
when first arriving in San Antonio, Schwacha heard about a jam session at the
Boardwalk Bistro. He took his saxophone down to the event and explains, “I was
just stunned by the quality of musicianship I had absolutely no idea that there
was this jazz scene here in San Antonio with the quality of players that
existed in this [city].” Since then he has been introduced to and networked
with some of the leading performing jazz musicians around San Antonio such as
John Magaldi, the leader of the San Antonio Prime Time Jazz Orchestra.
Like many performing artists,
Martin Schwacha first “test drove” his music at public venues before recording.
One of his arrangements being analyzed in this blog, Georgia on My Mind, would
fall into this category of songs currently being test driven but not having
been professionally recorded yet. Much like his compositions on his debut CD, “Sweet Serendipity,” which he performed
for a number of years with his group Funky Bebop at venues such as Olmos
Bharmacy and others around San Antonio before recording. It was from this opportunity
to perform publicly before recording that enables him to fine tune his writings
and see the reactions of audiences to them.
For Schwacha, it is much better to
be performing music that an audience is interacting with, attentive to, and
appreciative of. “Without question the environment where you are able to feed
off that kind of energy from an audience is the type of situation I would
prefer.” And with the multitude of opportunities that have emerged over time
for him in San Antonio, Schwacha says, “it is actually been a godsend to me as
I’ve had more opportunities playing here than I’ve had playing right out of
college.” But like most performing musicians who perform in smaller local
venues, occasionally the music will become background for the audience, who are
only partially attentive. At this point, Schwacha believes, “you can kind of
come into a situation where you’re playing for yourself and your musical peers
and interacting on that level.” Though with a group like Funky Bebop, the
vibing sounds of the baritone are sure to perk the ears of all listeners alike.
Repertoires of music
Martin Schwacha grew up in a family very
involved in the fine arts, a father who was a painter and a fine artist, a
mother who could play piano, and a brother who played tuba. Schwacha was
surrounded by a number of music cultures, growing up so close to New York. His
parents, having come from a classical music background, exposed him and his
brother to music throughout their formative years. While in school, Schwacha
would focus on the jazz ensembles, being a saxophone player. Growing up totally
immersed in these musical cultures, music was always important to his family. This immersion invariably filled his
repertoire.
“In college, while
my major was not a music, it was actually
in animal
agriculture, I took as many electives in music courses
that I could take.
That included courses in ensembles, also
courses in jazz
improvisation. I started taking courses in
writing and
arranging, and fortunately I was able to study
with trombonist, writer,
and arranger, Haul Croaker, who
teaches at Berklee
College of music in Boston”
Being a saxophone player, jazz music
naturally falls within the idiom of the sax and thus inclines the ear of
Schwacha. With a repertoire of predominately jazz standards and what can be
termed as the great American songbook, he plays standards of a lot of bebop and
hard-bop from the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. Having lived some time in Alabama before
moving to San Antonio as well as growing up in New Jersey playing charts such
as arrangements of Ray Charles, Schwacha’s own arrangement of Georgia on My
Mind is teeming with the passionate soul-filled sound that his repertoire has
influenced.
The bluesy style of tempo rubato
that he opens the piece with is a heartwarming introduction to the tune.
Following the main melody, he works in ostinatos and blends ornamentation in a
slightly improvised style with each performance. The slow introduction of his
solo baritone saxophone with the pianist backing him up seems to be mostly inspired
by the opening line of Ray Charles’s 1985 cover of the tune. The brass section
comes in on the repeat of the melody as a pad, mimicking the string section of
that cover. The robust voice of the baritone impersonates the impassioned
timbre of Charles himself. The tempo is slightly slower than that of the
Charles cover and that of the 1930 recording from the original composer, Hoagy
Carmichael, creating a more “greasy bluzie” sound. After two minutes of the
slow tempo, the band suddenly crescendos out of mezzo forte to Schwacha’s solo
in the baritone that leads the band into a tempo change, speeding up from a
tempo of 70bpm to around 200bpm. This speeding up gives the piece a sudden
swing feel as the baritone continues to lead, highlighting the technical
prowess of Schwacha’s playing. This up-tempo section only lasts for a few
phrases until the band crescendos to a fermata before cutting off into a drum
solo that re-sets the initial slower “bluzie” tempo to end the song with. What
seemed a relived moment in music history comes to a reverberating decay, like
Schwacha says, “it’s there and it’s gone.”
Apart from arrangements, a number
of Schwacha’s compositions are contrafacts, which are jazz melodies over
standard cord progressions and familiar harmonic structures. In fact, some of
the arrangements that he has brought to big bands such as the UIW Cardinal Jazz
Band have been contrafacts. His composition Pepper Like that was based on
Honeysuckle Rose and another composition, One Way or Another that was based on
Night and Day. These are two jazz standards whose chord progressions were
borrowed to create the new contrafacts. A piece from his album, Sweet Serendipity, falls into this
category of contracts. Harold & The
Purple Canyon is an original composition of Schwacha’s that borrows the
chord progression of the jazz classic, It
Could Happen To You by the composer Jimmy Van Heusen. Schwacha’s use of the
chord progression to create a new swinging chart brings the tune into a new
light while still highlighting the virtuosity of the instrumentalists
performing. Through the vast repertoire that Schwacha has built over his life,
his creativity is able to continue to produce memorable charts and fuel the
jazz scene in San Antonio.
Sustainability
Jazz, like many enduring genres, has seen an
evolution through its years in existence. Artists like Martin Schwacha are the
evidence of the continuing life of jazz. From bringing back some of the
greatest songs in the genre’s history, to bringing new charts onto the scene,
Schwacha sustains a mutual relationship with the genre; continuing its assured
future while fueling his artistic side.
Many universities across America teach jazz
courses and maintain jazz ensembles as part of the curriculum for music majors.
Some may argue that it is this type of conservatory attempt at sustainability
that is producing musicians that are deprived of the ability to truly play
music. Instead, throughout their years of studying, they are trained to play
scales and practice written scores rather than seeking to put real soul and
emotion into the actual pieces and make the music come to life. While these
institutions may preserve the genre in the aspect of music theory, the essential
aspect of true musicality arguably can be lost.
As a
college student, Schwacha did not emphasize jazz as anything more than a
passionate hobby. For him, music was maintained by his passion alone, this
sentiment without a doubt working it’s way into his music and filling it with a
real sound. As a freelance musician, Schwacha does not rely on his musical work
to sustain a living but rather uses it as a release and fuel for his creative
side. Approaching music in this way does not confine him to performing and
writing for the sake of monetary gains but rather for the sake of music itself.
It is often when musicians can
truly put emotion and passion into their sound that audiences will truly become
captivated. There comes into question the truth of the connection to the
audience with performing jazz musicians. Many jazz artists seem to be
intellectualizing the genre, which Schwacha fears often leads to the
disconnectedness with the modern audience. This style of intellectual jazz is
aimed more at other musicians, rather than the general audience. So Schwacha
seeks to maintain a level of visceral connectedness with the listeners; this
being one of the reasons that he performed his compositions from “Sweet Serendipity” publically at local
venues before setting it to a permanent recording.
Jazz has been infused with many different
genres over the past few decades of its evolution. Having spent his formative
years immersed in the jazz scenes, Schwacha has focused his writing to bebop
and traditional jazz standards. It is no
wonder as a baritone saxophone soloist, that Schwacha has maintained a passion
for these styles of jazz. While many various artists are continuing to infuse
jazz with newer genres, such as pop and R&B to maintain a way of bringing
jazz to new audiences, Schwacha believes that the golden days of jazz as a
predominant genre are over. But he explains that, “my hope is that it will
sustain and continue to be viable in some capacity I think that’s going to be
up to the musicians that are playing it.”
His passion for music fuels his hope to continue performing and writing until he can no more. This fiery passion that jazz has been known to instantiate within many musicians is clear evidence of its durability through the tests of time. Not having to stress about constantly finding venues to perform at, but rather using this music as a release, Schwacha undoubtedly will be able to continue to sustain his mutual relationship with music. Jazz and bebop’s torch will be carried on for many years to come, and maybe one day this fire that Schwacha brings with him will ignite another’s listener’s passion for the genre.
Works Cited
Carmichael, Hoagy. "Georgia on My Mind." Hoagy
Carmichael and His Orchestra.
Timeless Records, New York City, 1999.
Web. 13 Nov. 2014.
Robinson, Ray C., perf. "Georgia on My Mind." The
Best of the Blues Singers. By Hoagy
Carmichael. Denon Inc, New York, 2008.
Web. 14 Nov. 2014.
Schwacha, Martin G. Herold & The Purple Canyon.
2012. San Antonio: Funky Bebop
Music, 2012. 1th ed. CD-ROM. Sweet
Serendipity
Schwacha, Martin G. Personal interview. 13 Nov. 2014.
Schwacha, Martin. “Sweet Serendipity.” Online video clip.
YouTube. 17 Jan. 2011. Web.
14 Nov. 2014
Titon, Jeff T. “Sustainable Music in China.” Sustainable
Music. Blogspot. 15 Nov. 2009.
Web. 12 Nov. 2014
Titon, Jeff T. Worlds of Music. 5thth ed. Belmont:
Cengage Learning, 2009. N. pag.
Print.
Wilson, Jeremy. Jazz Standards. Ed. Sandra Burlingame
and Noah Baerman. N.p., 17
Aug. 2005. Web. 15 Nov. 2014.
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