First Moves / Chess news from around the U.S.
Chess Moves Jazz Sharpening jazz chops through chess
By RICHTON GUY THOMAS
the composition, “The Chess Players,” heard on the 1960 recording of Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, The Big Beat. To this listener, the music kindles a pal- pable image of players assessing multiple options before making their next move. During an interview with writer Eric Nemeyer, the late pianist Cedar Walton discussed meeting trumpeter Kenny Dorham at the chess club in Brooklyn, where the game was played.
Another favorite New York City chess meet- ing ground and one of the oldest chess clubs in the U.S. is the Marshall Chess Club. Located in Greenwich Village since 1931, the club owns and occupies two floors of a townhouse that draws celebrities and non-celebrities alike to engage in the mental combat the game demands.
On a recent trip to New York, I had the chance to speak to jazz musicians striving to achieve a high level on their instrument and in their game. Trumpeter Jonathan Finlayson learned the game from his father, but put it aside to concentrate on music theory while attending the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in Manhattan. In his mid-20s, Finlayson received a book on chess openings from a friend and also talked to Braxton about how the saxophonist used chess strategies in his compositions.
Jazz trumpeter Jonathan Finlayson: “There is a sense of timing with music that sometimes I feel in [chess] when I’m playing.”
WHAT IS YOUR ASSUMPTION WHEN YOU HEAR THE WORD JAZZ? SMOKE-FILLED clubs, at least prior to the smoking bans that cleared the air in clubs where musicians engaged in transforming pop standards into jazz improvisational pieces? Maybe jazz conjures an image of an artist deep in concentration, juggling the combinations that produce a new composition. Or perhaps, the televisions shows, movies and magazine articles in which chess figures prominently come to mind.
Here is a different image: a jazz musician who draws inspiration and hones his or her musical craft through the game of chess. Sharpening “chops” in both arenas involves similar principles and some jazz musicians said studying and playing each produce symbiotic benefits.
Methodical chess players visualize opponents’ strategy, often mapping out several moves in advance. Jazz depends on the ability of players to improvise, shifting in seconds to respond to a chord, rhythmical or tonal change. If your rival in the game is moving as fast, skillfully and unpredictably as a Charlie Parker solo, you learn to either rise to the level of tension and adjust your strategy—or accept defeat.
Jazz music history is replete with examples of masterly musicians who likewise mastered the 64 squares on a chess board. Saxophonist and composer, Anthony Braxton, winner of the 1994 MacArthur Foundation “genius” award, wrote “BWC-12 N-48K,” a three-stage composition dedicated to Grandmaster Bobby Fischer. “If Fischer [sic] wins the world championship I will add another stage. If he loses I will take off a stage and give it to someone else,” Braxton wrote in the liner notes to the 1976 album Saxophone Improvisations/Series F. [sic] (Inner City Records).
Decades before his 2014 Grammy Award win, saxophonist Wayne Shorter penned 10 June 2014 | Chess Life
“There is a sense of timing with music that sometimes I feel in the game when I’m play- ing,” Finlayson said. “I see a combination … as a progression and pro gres sions hap- pen at certain places and certain times in the music, especially if you want to super- impose something on top of something else. The continuation of a combi nation is a pro- gression for me, especially if it involves tactical play.”
For his recording debut as a leader Fin- layson named his quintet Sicilian Defense and wrote the composition “Ruy Lopez” for the album, Moment and the Message. The quintet includes accomplished gui- tarist Miles Okazaki who also plays chess.
The quintet’s name implies an attitude permeating the maneuver’s execution by masters such as Fischer, Finlayson said. “It is really aggressive, no compromise, looking for the win. It represented to me that I’m going to take the initiative.”
Finlayson attributes his wins on the board to the strength of his middle game. “I do not see a big difference in playing the game with another person,” he said, “and then going and playing an instrument with an octet.”
Pianist Eric Lewis, first-place winner in the 1999 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Piano Competition, deliberately appro-
PHOTO SCOTT BENEDICT
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