Birthday... Cecil Taylor... Coleman Hawkins/Ben Webster... Annette Peacock... Rickie Lee Jones... Charles Gayle/John Tchicai...

Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me... etc... Wouldn't have thought to make 61, to be honest. But every day is a blessing... Some music, then...

Cecil of course, on this day... From the infamous Victoriaville concert in 2002 – with Tony Oxley and Bill Dixon. This is 'T/CxB.' Nate Dorward, whose criticism reflected many others, hated Dixon's contribution: 'the trumpeter’s playing solipsistic, even weirdly infantile, in its regression to the sounds of gurgling, breathing and farting, its indifference to line, shape or direction, and its inability to enter into meaningful dialogue.' It's certainly a little different... Mind you, I thought Dixon was fascinating at the London concert a couple of years back, sculpting sound from his electronics... Not many shared my enthusiasm, it has to be said... à chacun son goût...

Two giants of the tenor saxophone playing 'It never entered my mind,' led in carefully by Oscar Peterson. Ben Webster swooshing through, master of the ballad, sprung on a tight rhythm section. Tenor as sonic painting rather than pyrotechnics – Webster reminds me of a deeper version of Johnny Hodges – whom he sat next to in the Ellington sax section in earlier years. To bounce off something Albert Ayler once said, this isn't about the notes – its about the sound and emotions. Hawk – a harder edge, the fountainhead of jazz tenor saxophone. Timeless.

Annette Peacock does Elvis – 'Love me tender.' From her record, 'I'm the one.' Elvis never a favourite singer of mine -I was always a Jerry Lee man... This is much better... IMHO...

Rickie Lee Jones I have always liked... This is the last track from her album 'Sermon on Exposition Boulevard,' 'I was there.'

Charles Gayle partnered up with John Tchicai for this 1988 date – from which I've taken the last cut, 'Then offer all.' One of the highspots of last year was seeing Gayle live in the U.K. twice and he's one of my totally favourite musicians. Nothing abstract about these truths...

Happy birthday to me... Onwards - Berlin in ten days! But today - lunch with my tribe... guess who's paying...

Cecil Taylor (p) Bill Dixon (t, bugle) Tony Oxley (d)
T/CxB
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Coleman Hawkins/Ben Webster
Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster (ts) Oscar Peterson (p) Herb Ellis (g) Ray Brown (b) Alvin Stoller (d)
It never entered my mind
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Annette Peacock
Tom Cosgrove (g) Stu Woods (b) Rick Morotta (d) Barry Altschul, Airto Moreira, Orestes Vilato, Domun Romao (perc) Annette Peacock - composer (music & words), arranger, producer, singer, electric vocals, pianos (acoustic & electric), synthesizers, electric vibraphone)
Love me tender
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Rickie Lee Jones
Rickie Lee Jones (v, g, dul, keys, Moog syn, xyl, b- g, perc) Peter Atanasoff (g, oud, background v) Bernie Larsen (gr, d); Pete Thomas, Rob Schnapf (ac- g) Joey Maramba (b-g) Jay Bellerose (d) Lee Cantelon (background v)
I was there
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Charles Gayle
Charles Gayle (ts) John Tchicai (ts, ss) Sirone (b) Reggie Nicholson (d)
Then offer all
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Anthony Braxton... Jimmy Reed - straight and chopped... Lightnin' Hopkins... DJ Screw/2Pac... Ben Webster/Coleman Hawkins...Cecil Taylor...

'This mammoth document of the final year of the famous Braxton Quartet shows exactly why that group finally split: they had reached a creative apex as a group that -- arguably -- could not be furthered.' (Thom Jurek from a very good introduction to these recordings here...).


Track one from the Willisau Quartet recordings – studio and live – 1991.
Commencing in a rather stately way, the cool tones of Braxton's clarinet giving his music even more of a European edge than usual, perhaps... I like this quote on the BBC web site: 'the missing link between Charlie Parker and John Cage.' Mark Dresser takes a solo and shows his mastery - the gamut of scrapes and scratches and bouncing the bow off the strings to rapid-fire arco sawing, ending on swooning figures as piano and clarinet return. Hemingway rejoins the trio, the drum/tom tom figures reminding you of the music's jazz origins - although the implied rhythms of the participants are another grounding that takes the classical ethos and bends it to Braxton's imperious compositional and improvisational will. The title refers, I gather, to three Braxton compositions... this compounding and blending of the notated sources in performance on the fly adds another layer of complexity to his music... what the thirdstream should have sounded like but rarely did in the balance of technique,genres - and emotion...

Back to the blues... Jimmy Reed was very popular in the UK during the r and b boom years. Yes, his music is a bit formulaic – but there was always something appealing about that shuffle beat of his. Not so heavy on the emotional freight, perhaps – without the shattering power of the Wolf or Muddy Waters, for example – maybe that was one reason for his popularity – social blues for dancing and drinking. And I'm going to New York sometime soon...

Some more Lightnin'... 'West Texas Blues.' Mr Hopkins on his own from the 1960's, stinging guitar tracking the voice, the amplification taking the country blues to somewhere different – able to hold its own in a crowded bar or club better than an acoustic performance yet retaining some degree of intimacy as played solo - when he uses a drummer it gives a different, more extroverted feel... it can be easy to forget that this music was played in more rowdy atmospheres and venues than would seem evident from its arrival on the festival and concert stages when it was taken up by a white audience...

Today's hard blues in Houston – chopped and screwed via the late lamented DJ Screw. Here is his version of 2Pac's 'So Many Tears.' The slowed down track gives a weird combination of menace, poignancy and despair: 'Lord, I suffered through the years, and shed so many tears..
Lord, I lost so many peers, and shed so many tears .' A ghostly harmonica(?) wafts in and out – ghost of older bluesmen... Unable to source this as it's from an old mixtape...

One plays one's games: I wondered what would happen if I took the Jimmy Reed track and slowed it down... get the syrup out, boys and girls...

More from the Hawk and Ben: By the time this session was recorded they were venerable tenor statesmen – the soloing is as much about texture, nuance and rhythm than the usual tenor speed lines. A thoughtful piano intro then Webster takes the tune: 'It never entered my mind.' It suddenly came to me listening to the slurs and bends he employs that there is some Johnny Hodges here, translated to the tenor – well, they sat in the same section for some time... although that after-note vibrato swoosh is classic Webster. Hawk comes in and follows the mood, his tone with that slightly harder edge, staying down and dark for much of his solo. Distilled essence of jazz saxophone... Webster returns for more swoosh... the band frame the two front-liners admirably – Peterson especially restrained and sympathetic.

Cecil Taylor, from the album 'Into the Hot' that went out under Gil Evan's name and showcased Johnny Carisi and the pianist, a side each. This is 'Mixed,' introduced by the horns, starting on a repeated 4 note melody – some nice muted trumpet from Curson. A piercing alto entry from Lyons – the breath of the Bird very much in evidence here. Taylor takes a section – almost rhapsodic as Lyons joins him. Then it starts to cook... churning ensemble and fiery piano taking the foreground, supported by Murray (a little drowned in the mix but his accents and rhythmic concepts come through despite the murk). A strange mutated riff sets up which echoes back into the history as well as pointing forward – the evidence for continuity was always there... The harmonic textures evoke the conservatory – the fire and passion and timbres channel the blues... I must put up some of the Carisi as a contrast – interesting music but conceptually a long way from Taylor's vision...

Great news that Ornette Coleman has received a Pulitzer - I'll put up a tribute asap - so glad I bought my tickets for his London concert (and Cecil - and Braxton - July looking good...). Straight No Chaser has a good piece on this and also a track from 'Sound Grammar.'

Anthony Braxton
Anthony Braxton (as, cl, cbcl, fl, sss), Marilyn Crispell (p), Marc Dresser (b),
Gerry Hemingway (d, mba)
Composition 160(+5) (+40J)
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Jimmy Reed
Going to New York
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Lightnin' Hopkins
West Texas Blues
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DJ Screw/2Pac
So many tears
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Jimmy Reed
Going to New York/Slow
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Coleman Hawkins/Ben Webster
Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster (ts) Oscar Peterson (p) Herb Ellis (g) Ray Brown (b) Alvin Stoller (d)
You'd be so nice to come home to
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Cecil Taylor
(Cecil Taylor (p) Jimmy Lyons (as) Archie Shepp (ts) Ted Curson (t) Roswell Rudd (tr) Henry Grimes (b) Sunny Murray (d)
Mixed
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Paul Bley... Ornette Coleman... Coleman Hawkins/Ben Webster... Juke Boy Bonner... Lord Buckley

The Paul Bley Trio from 1965 playing 'Crossroads,' an Ornette Coleman tune. Bley is an adventurer whose career has spanned playing with Charlie Parker to intersecting with the avant garde in the fifties – with Ornette – and the sixties. And beyond. Free playing but based on a solid sense of history. There is a cool intelligence on display here – working with the freedoms Ornette built into his music. The emphasis is on melody – mainly right hand linearity on display here from the pianist. Altshul discreet (although the mix is not great so this may not be so deliberate), subtly shifting the patterns as Swallow takes a spiky solo.In his sixties trio work, one could posit him as similar to Bill Evans but overall taking the forms much further out. I hear echoes of Tristano as well...

Here's Ornette with Dewey Redman from 1968... 'The Garden of Souls.' An oddity because of the bass and drums of John Coltrane's band – Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones. The drummer more sympathetic/empathetic to this music, perhaps, than the bassist, who had a chequered relationship with the leader and his music since he replaced Scott La Faro. See John Litweiler's 'Ornette Coleman - A Harmolodic Life, pages 102-3, 128). A stretched-out dirge-like melody. Ornette emerges first over an easy swing from the drummer who then proceeds to play some interesting counter-rhythms before doubling the tempo. Ornette's music always works off this slow/fast dynamic – this track will change tempos throughout from slow walk to fast canter and back. Redman enters with bizarre growling granularities – a strangled bending droning. A technique of singing through the mouthpiece to produce overtones and chords that he perfected. Here, he sounds further out than Coleman, issuing scratchy almost bad-tempered timbres:

'In my world, that's the first thing I reach for is the sound. Technique is Ok, but if you got the technique and I got a good sound, I'll beat you every time. You can play a thousand notes and I can play one note and wipe you out. That's what I reach for is a sound.' (From here...).

Here are two of the fountain-head tenors getting down on 'Blues for Yolande.' Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster, the track ushered in by Oscar Peterson's rolling piano. Hawk takes off first, in dirty, slurring gut-bucket mode. Webster has a lighter tone relatively. He comes in for his solo in a more reflective mood, slowly building in intensity and approaching the Hawkins growl. Peterson takes a solo, bass heavy and sparse with his technique held on a tighter rein than usual – in keeping with the mood of the track. This is all about 'sound' not pyrotechnics... riffing tenors edging into r and b territory. Given the macho history of tenor battles, what is interesting on this track - and album - is the way Hawkins and Webster complement - and mirror - each other. Ornette Coleman wrote in the liner notes for his album 'Ornette on Tenor' the following:

'The tenor is a rhythm instrument, and the best statements Negroes have made, of what their soul is, have been on the tenor saxophone... the tenor's got that honk, you can get to peope with it...' (On page 98, Litweiler, ibid).


Ornette Coleman and Dewey Redman were both from Texas and the blues tradition is strong in their music... Here's some more Juke Boy Bonner, the Poet of Houston. 'When the deal goes down.' Strong echoes of Lightnin' Hopkins - but Bonner was an original voice...

In affectionate piss-taking mode: the great Lord Buckley, whose material I have not posted for a while... here is his hip-talking burn-up on the story of Jesus: 'The Nazz.' A carpenter kiddie...


Paul Bley
Paul Bley (p) Steve Swallow (b) Barry Altschul (d)
Crossroads
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Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman (as) Dewey Redman (ts) Jimmy Garrison (b) Elvin Jones (d)
The Garden of Souls
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Coleman Hawkins/Ben Webster
Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster (ts) Oscar Peterson (p) Herb Ellis (g) Ray Brwon (b) Alvin Stoller (d)
Blues for Yolanda
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Juke Boy Bonner
Juke Boy Bonner (g, harm) Alvin J. Simon (d)
When the deal goes down
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Lord Buckley
The Nazz
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