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A Darling Supreme

Johnny Dickshot Sep 13 2007 11:33 AM

Ron Darling talks jazz with the Voice ] Darling of Jazz Who knew the Mets announcer could tell bebop from bunting? by Allen Barra September 11th, 2007 6:36 PM A few weeks ago, I was startled when, in the middle of a broadcast, pitcher turned commentator Ron Darling declared, "I'm a huge Coltrane fan." Baseball Prospectus hasn't confirmed this yet, but it seems likely that this was the first time these words were ever uttered on air during a Major League Baseball game. Was the Mets broadcaster—the only Yalie ever to play for the blue and orange—faking it? Was one of the most popular Mets in the team's history, the heartthrob referred by Mets fans of all stripes as "Ron, Darling," just trying to earn himself some cheap cultural credentials with the intellectual crowd? Did he have the chops when it came to jazz? Or did he think the words "Take the A Train" are just bad advice on how to get to Yankee Stadium? I spent several days boning up for our interview and watching Ken Burns's Jazz on DVD. If the man who won 99 games for the Mets in his career and kicked Red Sox butt in the 1986 World Series laid down a false note, I'd be sure to catch it. I started him off with a brushback. "Do you remember the interview I did with you for The Village Voice in 1988?" "Uh . . . what did we talk about?" "Just baseball," I assured him. "But if I had known you were such a jazz buff, I'd have led us into a discussion of bebop or jazz-rock fusion." "Well, I don't know about buff. I would describe myself as a huge jazz fan, and I would say that for certain artists, I come close to being a buff. But I find that, unlike kids listening to songs on iPods, I go back to a time when artists expressed themselves in albums— entire albums—not just in a song or two." "Speaking of albums," I asked, "how do you feel about Kind of Blue?" "I've listened to Kind of Blue, I don't know, 40 or 50 times, and each time it's like I'm hearing it new," he said about the famous Miles Davis album. "There's always something I didn't hear before." Born, as all Mets fans know, in Honolulu to a French-Canadian father and Hawaiian-Chinese mother, Darling grew up, in his words, "with the clanging of dishes being washed and the vacuum run to music." His mother, who was only 15 when he was born, liked pop—Darling recalls one of her favorites was "Be My Baby" by the Ronettes—and he listened along with her; before long, they were listening to the Beatles, too. As he got older, he started to pick up on jazz. His introduction to the more sophisticated world of music was John Coltrane. "My father was in the military in Hawaii for many years, and he and an old Navy friend would go to hear John Coltrane. Coltrane was in the Navy, stationed in Hawaii, and had a kind of Hawaiian-style ensemble for a while. So there was a love of music in our house that rubbed off on me—definitely a love of jazz. "I can listen to jazz from just about any period, but my favorite is the era from 1946, a year after the war, to the mid-'60s. I like a lot of avant-garde jazz, like Coltrane and Miles Davis. To me, that music never seems nostalgic. It always sounds current." "Which artists?" I asked. "Were you thrilled by the energy and aggressiveness of Lee Morgan's trumpet? What pianists? Did you groove to Bill Evans's cool introspection? Were you moved by Tommy Flanagan's resourcefulness? Soothed by Oscar Peterson's elegance?" "Yes to all of the above," he answered. "And lots of others, too—Red Garland, Hank Jones, Ahmad Jamal; I got to where I could identify many of them from a random solo. But as far as I'm concerned, John Coltrane and Miles Davis are in a separate universe." "Even the late-period Coltrane stuff?" I asked. "Doesn't some of it get a bit too abstract to all but the converted?" "That's to my taste, too," Darling replied, "but sometimes I feel unworthy. I find that sometimes in his late period, it seems like noise and I can't make it out—but in the middle of it, I kind of understand the beat; it sounds right to me. I always figured it's not Coltrane's fault that I don't get it right away, it's just my lack of sophistication. It all depends on where you are. Something that doesn't make sense today might make perfect sense 10 years from now." "Did you ask them to play Coltrane riffs for you when you came to bat at Shea?" "No, they chose the music for us. I think they used to play the Beach Boys' 'Darling' for me, which I thought was pretty good. Funny thing—a lot of the music they play at the ballpark now is '80s pop and rock. A lot of it's the same stuff they played when I was still playing ball." "Does it make you feel nostalgic?" "Naw. I don't get it—I thought it was trash then." --Allen Barra

Benjamin Grimm Sep 13 2007 11:45 AM

I really know so little about music. This, for example: ]I kind of understand the beat; it sounds right to me. I always figured it's not Coltrane's fault that I don't get it right away, it's just my lack of sophistication. It all depends on where you are. Something that doesn't make sense today might make perfect sense 10 years from now. I really don't know what that means. How do you understand a beat? How can music make sense or not make sense? I guess this is why I listen to NPR on the radio instead of music. And, is jazz really more sophisticated than other music? Or is this writer just a jazz snob?

Edgy DC Sep 13 2007 11:50 AM

Mayber Jazz Radio DJ can help us out here.

Johnny Dickshot Sep 13 2007 12:02 PM

Yancy Street Gang wrote: I really don't know what that means. So what?

metirish Sep 13 2007 01:28 PM

Great stuff, ] I always figured it's not Coltrane's fault that I don't get it right away, it's just my lack of sophistication. It all depends on where you are. Something that doesn't make sense today might make perfect sense 10 years from now." I think that's a great quote and could be true for a lot of music,certainly there is music I get now that I didn't when I was younger. Al Di Meola is the extent of my Jazz knowledge and in truth I only listened because a friend raved that he could play guitar faster than Eddie Van Halen,I didn't get it back then though.

Willets Point Sep 13 2007 01:39 PM

Edgy DC wrote: Mayber Jazz Radio DJ can help us out here. I wonder whatever happened to that guy.

Johnny Dickshot Sep 13 2007 02:08 PM

That guy rocked. I don't think what Darling's talking about with music is all that much different from interpreting a painting or a book. He’s listening to hear what the artist intended to convey, I think. I’m a semi-illiterate jazz fan. I know very very little, but I have been listening much more frequently to jazz over the last year and am really enjoying the exploration. I’d recommend the very same period Darling talks about, though I mostly enjoy the bop with happy bouncy themes. A few download suggestions: The Sidewinder – Lee Morgan Joy Spring – Clifford Brown Dat Dere – Art Blakey Song for My Father – Horace Silver Three O’Clock in the Morning – Dexter Gordon CTA – Miles Davis Blue Minor – Sonny Clark Open Sesame -- Freddie Hubbard

Jazz Radio DJ Sep 13 2007 02:30 PM

There is nothing ... more sophisticated ........................................ ..... than Jazz Music. It's music supported by the MacArthur Foundation.... .....the Arthur P. Sloan Foundation.... and.....listeners like you. Won't you please support Jazz Radio?

TheOldMole Sep 13 2007 02:56 PM

Have they forgotten Ken McKenzie?

TheOldMole Sep 13 2007 03:05 PM

]I really don't know what that means. How do you understand a beat? How can music make sense or not make sense? These are actually good questions. The second is pretty much the one Fozzie Bear asks at the beginning of The Muppets Peter and the Wolf, but that only adds to its creds as a good question. The way you understand a beat is exactly the way the kids on American Bandstand did..."I'll give it an 85, Dick -- it's got a good beat, you can dance to it." Or, if it doesn't have a good beat, which you understand by how well you can dance to it, you give it a 50. With jazz, it's a more complicated version of the same thing. You understand the beat viscerally, if not with your feet. The way the music is propelled forward (or sideways) makes rhythmic sense to you. The free jazz that Darling is a little overawed by makes a farther disconnect from the Dick Clark beat than bebop does, so the in the same way that the Bandstand kid may have to make a little aesthetic leap before he can feel the more complex beat of Max Roach -- but he may do it, in time -- Ron Darling knows that if he listens to enough of the late-period Coltrane, that even more abstract beat will start to make visceral sense to him. Darling comes across as an ace in this interview, Barra as an asshole.

TheOldMole Sep 13 2007 03:08 PM

There's an incredible riff by Proust on gradually coming to understand music that I'll post if I can find.

Benjamin Grimm Sep 13 2007 05:24 PM

Good explanation, Mole. Thank you. I often think that I have the musical version of color blindness, whatever that may be. I may have posted something here about it before, but I was amazed once, when watching Letterman, when Paul Shaffer asked Elton John if he knows how to read music. Elton said no, and Paul said he couldn't either. They just know the sound of a song and know how to play it. I know that if I were ever to try to tap out a song on the piano I'd have to methodically follow the notes on the page, like a painter painting by the numbers. Stuff like this, like Darling's quote and Mole's explanation, remind me that music is a language that I just don't understand.

metirish Sep 13 2007 05:56 PM

="TheOldMole"] ] Darling comes across as an ace in this interview, Barra as an asshole. Wallop. Great to have experienced people here to explain things.