Playing the Word

Spoken word can be incredibly self-indulgent, and some of it is simply verbal masturbation. But when it is done well, spoken word can be a pleasure — and Playing the Word is a prime example. This 70-minute CD, which finds pianist Mike Melvoin collaborating with poet Dan Jaffe, favors spoken word of the jazz variety; while Melvoin plays his piano, Jaffe thoughtfully reflects on jazz's rich history and looks back on the contributions of Charlie "Bird" Parker, Charles Mingus, Count Basie, and others. Jaffe does not go out of his way to be abstract, and he avoids being overly academic. One can learn a lot about Bird's personality listening to this disc, but thankfully, Playing the Word doesn't get into any of the dorky "jazzucation" nonsense that some jazz singers have inflicted on their audiences. What is "jazzucation?" If a singer writes lyrics for, say, Thelonious Monk's "Epistrophy" and all his/her lyrics talk about is Monk's methods of playing chord changes, that is "jazzucation" at its most annoying — and sadly, that type of thing has been done much too often in vocal jazz. Although jazz poetry is not the same as jazz singing, the "jazzucation" concept can, unfortunately, be carried over to the spoken word realm. But that never happens on Playing the Word. Melvoin and Jaffe have the good taste to stay away from boring, ultra-technical discussions of jazz on this 2006 release — and when Jaffe is talking about Bird or Basie, his words are warm and inviting rather than corny. Playing the Word is well worth obtaining if one is looking for an album of spoken word jazz poetry that is insightful and relatively accessible.