Review: Colour out of Space Festival, Brighton, Friday 5th September, 2008

The balance had to be rectified... I don't have anything against folk music (well, not much) and have been to some great acoustic gigs recently. However – they have been the only gigs I've been to, for a variety of reasons. Just haven't made it to any jazz, improv, skronk/wahoo whatever gig away from the hey-nonny for too long. I had to travel to the south coast anyway to meet up with a friend for a project we are involved in, checked the dates and information – and found that the Brighton Colour out of Space Festival at the Sallis-Binney Theatre was on round about the same time. So: booked tickets and a cheap hotel – and here I am. Sitting writing this Saturday morning looking out across a storm-tossed sea with the wind rising – rehearsals for Armageddon again in this star-crossed country, economics and weather wise... At some point will find a wifi node to put it up...

Friday night.

Arrived a little late as needed a quick kip when I got to the hotel – not much sleep the last few days.

So: first set:

Core of the Coalman. Opening electronics hissing as an aircraft revs up... Your man proceeded to build an imposing, ever-spinning vortex of sound via his viola hooked up to a battery of loop/delay pedals. Simple long bowed notes with fragments of occasional melody overlaid to rise into mighty thunder. This cleared the acoustic cobwebs out... And a reasonable crowd (that would build to impressive proportions – these people know how to get the vote out) intent on digging the proceedings.

Red Stripe/sandwich interval then:

UK group Helhesten – a four-piece, clarinet, single drum and cymbal (floor tom), violin and vocal. Producing an almost ur-music of hollers, grunts and shattered syllables with high streaks of clarinet, low thumps of primal drum and sawed violin continuum. Clustered facing each other, it was if they were gathered round some primeval campfire, coming fresh at the world. A thought accentuated by the numbers sat in the main part of the hall, cross-legged and intensely listening. I don't do cross-legged these days (especially recovering from all my various wounds to feet and legs etc) but had a reasonable view of the ongoing eistedfordd from the sidelines where i found a seat that I managed to hold throughout various beer, sandwich and pissbreaks. Enjoyed these guys... cosmic Kumbaya...

HRT were out in a marquee in the garden area adjoining the Sallis-Binney theatre. Dressed in black cowled robes, spooky electronics – seemed like fun but I couldn't be bothered to stand in mud and needed a break anyway...

Gastric Female Refles, next up. Two fine young Canadians, providing some humour in their presentation – I noticed that the North Americans were the only ones (I saw) to address the audience direct which was an interesting point overall. A table full of electronics to wow and dazzle with ultra-fast jumpcutting across a massive range of samples and sounds in a hectic but good natured two-way call and response. Country guitar picking emerging a couple of times to be thrown down back into the slash and burn – FUN!

Rat Bastard came on resplendent in wooly black hat , big black shades and just a guitar plugged into an amp – with which he proceeded to fast strum and flat pick a gathering wild dissonance that was held together by open strings ringing throughout. Sort of drone crossed with metal replete with many of the stage gestures of that genre thrown in. Guy has a sense of humour. Joined by two young women with hand-held gizmos to throw electronic splatter across like acid, bumping and grinding in a stage mashup complete with hair-flailing which was extremely funny. Mock the rock, hey geezers?

Then: Peeeseye. Stripped down drum kit, guitar and electronics, the drummer doubling on vocals - talking in tongues jive esperanto. Led in by the electronics man producing a drone from what looked like a shoe-shine box with a flap that he manipulated to produce the sounds throughout – must have been hell on his arm muscles. An instrument seen in Indian music, I think – I was somewhat unsited by the crowd down front. An object lesson in how to build and sustain a set, rising from the drone to produce a three-way ever moving vector of powerful musics. The drummer led at first on voice , building it up and easing it down when he stepped out from the kit and went to the front stage mike to keep the vocal voodoo moving as the background settled back and the rhythm was kept just on a cowbell or some similar small metallic ringing intrument he was hitting. Back behind the kit, then the guitar rose up to spit swoosh and roar, then the electronics took front focus. Not solos as such, rather like a triangular movement where the three corners rotate in turn to hold the emphasis. Wild - and thoughtful... great attention to structure here...

To the final act – Aaron Dilloway. I'm a big fan but have never seen him live – and I suspect this really is the best way to experience his full-tilt electronic firestorm. He sat at his table of electronics, looking calm – that state which comes before the storm. Commencing on distant deep muffled dustbins kicked around some dark cellar in a ricocheting clatter. Slowly building, riff upon riff, call and response, as the lights hit him and he moved now to the cross-rhythms of the music. Chomping down on his contact miked mouth to produce howls and cries and squeals, lurching in his seated position into a desperate dance. The music enfolds and overwhelms like a thick rising tide – this is such physical music, coming from the body to hit the collective body of the audience. Truly a PERFORMANCE. As the old MGM trailer went for that compilation of Hollywood musical/movie clips some years back. 'THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT. AND BOY DO WE NEED IT NOW.'

Awesome... and again, a free-flowing structure born of experience and skill – and of course, imagination. A great end to a great night.

I missed some acts which was unfortunate – came back in late to Leslie Keffer's set as the stage was being loaded with invitees – this looked fun – but ya can't have everything? (Why not? I hear you cry – well... stamina these days, folks...). A great combo overall of youth and established musicians with nothing that I saw going by the numbers. Interesting dichotomy between the Canadians/US performers and the Europeans...

And apologies for the few photos – forgot to buy fresh batteries for my camera. So amateur...
No time to check links - will do that tomorrow as I have to grab a quick wifi window.

More to come... on the run...

Bill Evans/Lee Konitz/Warne Marsh... Matthew Shipp... Billy Bang... Cannonball Adderley...

Bill Evans and the Kings of Cool – Konitz and Marsh. 'Speak Low.' This is sparkling, frothy stuff. Evans leads off in rhapsodic mode before Konitz takes the theme and lifts it into steady rhythm. Warne Marsh joins in to weave round the alto in a high-stepping dance. Eddie Gomez springs a line across Evan's chording, firm-fingered, high up the neck. Konitz up next. Followed by Bill Evans, Warne Marsh. Listening to all of them stretch phrases across bar-lines and chorus demarcations is a fascinating master-class in modern jazz improvised melody. Evans returns then there is an almost old-school ride out by the ensemble... Not to get tangled up in racial stereotyping, but this is not the blues end of bop, out of the fountainhead, Bird, and the Afro-American vanguard , rather the oblique white line coming out of Lennie Tristano (which of course came out of the same vanguard, Bird with a large dash of Lester Young, yadda yadda)– yet there is plenty of tension and emotion, delivered on its own cultural terms. Joyous...

Matthew Shipp and 'Density and Eucharist' from his album 'Critical Mass.' Observing the late-night eucharist here in the Eagle's Nest, trying to get it back on track over Budweisers and a chocolate orange. High living... And no intentional blasphemy here – the antinomian takes his or her own way through... But it's a loaded word... Density follows... Led in again by piano, a loping line underscored by some biting harmonies before the violin enters, riding across an increasing complexity from bass and drums. Shipp solos, thick-fingered clusters and swirls, prodded by Parker especially, locking into the occasional almost groove. Manieri comes back in finger-plucking strikes, before returning to his bow. Grappelli it ain't, this is the astringency of contemporary classical whammed across into free jazz. Or the reverse, take your pick... Tension building with heavy deep piano chords bombing across the drummer's rising clatter. Dickey takes his solo before the violin comes back to utter some wrenched phases, answered by the hurly burly piano. Shipp solo – fast track moves that leap the registers before a crunching chordal phrase summons the violin. More fast-it whirligig piano. Slowing down into more reflective mood, yet suddenly criss-crossed by Parker arco, duetting with the violin. Bass switches back to a fast strum as the tempo ups again. Some percussive and also lyrical bass from Mr Parker throughout, the deep heartbeat that links it all together. Density a plenty... The violin gives it that trans-idiomatic riff, as Mr Braxton might say... And much is coming together here – in the interplay of the musicians and the resonance of the title:

'The Eucharist is generally... thought to have its antecedents in common meal practice of uncertain origin, which gradually developed into a rite central to the Roman Church in the first two to four centuries of the Common Era.' (From here...).

Meeting to participate in the easygoing practice and commonplace necessity of eating which will transcend the gathering to a higher plane and purpose... I just re-read Paul's 'First Epistle to the Corinthians,' the first biblical reference to the Eucharist, while also checking the etymology of 'εὐχαριστία' as my classical Greek is shaky after all these years and was struck (again) by the Will to Order implicit and explicit in that text – especially with regard to women and those who speak in tongues as opposed to prophesying as defined by Paul – this argument especially interesting in a jazz context, perhaps re fire musics and the neo-orthodoxies. Nietszche famously said that the Will to Order displayed a lack of integrity, if I remember correctly. But enough...

More violin... Billy Bang – whom I first heard with the String Trio of New York way back and loved instantly... This is from an album where he recorded a load of standards in a pretty straight-ahead setting. 'Sweet Georgia Brown' the title. Bang a player who can go all the way out yet here playing pretty much inside – the fire and attack reminding of earlier maestros like the great Stuff Smith – or to give him his splendid full name: Hezekiah Leroy Gordon "Stuff" Smith. Must dig some of his music out – sure I have some somewhere... Smith was always capable of enthusiastically looking forward, as a master musician from an earlier generation. Bang as a master musician from more contemporary times looks back in celebration of the lineage:

'Violinist Billy Bang is a marvelous bridge from early jazz - [a] strong influence [was] Stuff Smith - to the most cutting-edge innovations of the avant-garde.' (From here...).

As Gaston Bachelard wrote:

'True poetry is a function of awakening. It awakens us, but it must retain the memory of previous dreams. ' (Gaston Bachelard: L'eau et les rêves (Water and Dreams) 1942, quoted from here...).

Blimey. Let's move one...

The Cannon and brother Nat playing 'Soon,' from his album 'Them Dirty Blues.' Julian Adderley could, of course, get down with the best, but like his mentor, Charlie Parker, was capable of fast, complex flights while remaining drenched in the blues. I was just thinking that he was part of a great Miles Davis sextet – the one that made 'Kind of Blue' – and his position between the clenched minimalist burn of the leader who learned his trade on Bird's bandstands and the swooning swooping fire of John Coltrane, maybe gives an hint of where to place him on the rolls. Bobby Timmons opens the game lightly before hitting a heavier chordal vamp as Nat Adderley takes the theme on muted cornet and solos first – the two beat gait alternating with the four walk from the bass to give a curious lopsided dance. Cannonball takes it onwards, the band switching to straight-ahead behind him as he unreels some dazzle and flash. Louis Hayes hits rimshots on the fourth beats, ticking off the bars in Philly Joe mode. Sam Jones displays his credentials, supple melodic bass. Timmons grounds it back as the cornet picks up the theme and that heavy piano chordal figure surfaces to end the track.


Bill Evans
Lee Konitz (as) Warne Marsh (ts) Bill Evans (p) Eddie Gomez (b) Eliot Zigmund (d)
Speak Low
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Matthew Shipp
Matt Manieri (v) Matthew Shipp (p) William Parker (b) Whit Dickey (d)
Density and Eucharist
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Billy Bang
Billy Bang (v) Billy Bang (v) D.D. Jackson (p) Akira Ando (b) Ronnie Burrage (d)
Sweet Georgia Brown
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Cannonball Adderley
Cannonball Adderley (as) Nat Adderley (ct) Bobby Timmons (p) Sam Jones (b) Louis Hayes (d)
Soon
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Disappearances...

My apologies - things have been hectic as we are moving house yet again and I have also been a bit crocked up. I'm off to the Colour out of Space festival this coming weeekend in Brighton so some dispatches will no doubt trickle back from there. Hope the weather is better down south! Probably will put up some music before I go...

Red Garland... Jackie McLean... Rob Brown/Joe Morris... King Oliver... Count Basie/Frank Sinatra...

Red Garland leads a quintet for the long title track of his 1957 album 'Soul Junction.' A name very much of its time... The pianist leads in a slow blues with several choruses of rippling funky lines. Something always cleanly hit about Garland's technique, a finely calibrated springiness. The trademark block chords arrive later on, alternating with the single note strategy.. Coltrane enters, changing the mood into something more questing – as always, he seems to move the music into a different zone. Looking in front of the day while still secure on the back foot of the blues. Donald Byrd is secure and fleet while Art Taylor stirs sporadically behind him with some Blakey-like prodding. Garland returns for some rolling two-fisted sport to take it out.

Jackie McLean recorded the splendidly titled 'Swing Swang Swinging' in 1959 from which I have selected 'Let's face the music and dance.' Something I would have a problem with at the moment, reduced to gimp mode by the broken toe. Let's face the music anyway... Straight in at a sprightly bounce, McLean leads a solid quartet on this 1959 Blue Note date who all sound as if they are enjoying themselves. Art Taylor is on tough form, Garrison runs fast and deep, Bishop looking after the chords. Alto takes a joyous solo followed by piano - channelling Bud, slap bang in the bop tradition as is the whole of this session. Bishop had played with Bird before his death and McLean was seen as one of the heirs to Parker - this reminds me slightly of some of those later quartet sessions Bird made. Recorded 4 years after his death, something of a looking back perhaps, at a time when McLean was about to launch forwards into his own take on the coming New Thing, blown on the winds that Ornette was to send west to east.

'The music needs no further explanation. As Alfred Lyons said: “They came, swung, they split. That's why we called the album 'Swing, Swang, Swinging.' (from Ira Gitler's liner notes).

The Rob Brown/Joe Morris quartet playing 'Results.' Opens on splats, bangs and squiggles – or pointillism, mes braves. The bass starts to run free, with some stops and starts, the drums suddenly roll violently and sax and guitar spar in snatched grapples. Brown takes it up, with Morris occasionally throwing in a shard of comping and an answering or complementary line before he emerges to solo as the others pull back to let him through. The storm rises soon enough – this track never comes completetly to rest. Brown comes back to riff behind the guitar before Parker takes an arco solo. Rob Brown next, jumping across intervals with a Dolphy-esque skip across Morris's acid chording. Free for all to fall into the drums of Krall before they all return - Brown especially passionate and vocal, taking another fine section after the bass and drums indulge in a quieter interlude. Finely positioned quartet work that shows both ensemble and solo in perfect balance.

Back to the roots – King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, the avant garde of 1923 I put 'Dippermouth Blues' up some time back – but what the hell, here it is again, such a joyous piece of music. And I get the chance to riff: 'Oh play that thing!'

Another King Oliver, to make up for the repetition... 'Snake Rag.' There is a very good blog post on this track here (this blog dedicated to Louis Armstrong's life and work). By the way, this is the Gennett version. You have to make a certain leap of the imagination to really get to this music I think – disregard the fact that Baby Dodds' drums were reduced to woodblock minimalism by virtue of the early recording techniques, for example – but if you can create a channel, what joy... King Oliver in his heyday firing out the twin cornet breaks that thrilled the audiences at the Lincoln Gardens in Chicago with his protégé young Louis Armstrong, who was about to blow out the ramparts of New Orleans collective improvisation. Oliver is another tragic figure, in many ways – apparently when he was in New York a few years later he turned down the Cotton Club gig – which launched Duke Ellington and his band to greater glories...

Ring a ding ding – here's Francis Albert essaying forth on 'Hello Dolly,' backed by the mighty Basie ork. (Barbra Who?) 'This is Francis, Louie.' Some show biz fun... Recorded in 1964, a year or so after I saw Bill Basie and co at the Leicester De Montfort Hall. Ah, the memory of the messianic clenched craziness of a teenage jazz fan...

So: I came. I swung. Time to split. Man...



Red Garland
John Coltrane (ts) Donald Byrd (t) Red Garland (p) George Joyner (b) Arthur Taylor (d)
Soul Junction
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Jackie McLean
Jackie McLean (as) Walter Bishop (p) Jimmy Garrison (b) Art Taylor (d)
Let's face the music and dance
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Rob Brown/Joe Morris 4
Rob Brown (as) Joe Morris (g) William Parker (b) Jackson Krall (d)
Results
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King Oliver, Louis Armstrong: (c) Johnny Dodds (cl) Honore Dutray (tr) Lil Hardin (p) Bill Johnson (b, banjo) Baby Dodds (d)
Dippermouth Blues
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Snake Rag
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Count Basie Orchestra plus Frank Sinatra (v)
Hello Dolly
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Anthony Braxton... Phineas Newborn... Miles Davis...

Anthony Braxton and his Great Quartet playing 'No 159' from the 1991 set recorded at the Willisau Festival. Swirling, densely scampering brilliance held together with a repeated phrase that pops up like an annoying child repeatedly sticking their tongue out at you over and over again. (My dear wildboy grandson springs to mind...).

Phineas Newborn recorded the old bop/Afro-Cuban warhorse 'Manteca' out in Los Angeles, 1961, with one of the top rhythm duos of the day – Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones, who had come together in the first great Miles Davis Quintet during the years 1955-8. Newborn never attained the critical heights and was dogged with illness, both mental and physical. On form, though, a scintillating player:

'In his prime, he was one of the three greatest jazz pianists of all time, right up there with Bud Powell and Art Tatum...' (Leonard Feather, quoted from here...).

Miles in 1965 with his Second Great Quintet, bristling with the youthful energies he had surrounded himself with in another gesture of artistic renewal. Taken from the live sets taped at the Plugged Nickel, this is 'Round Midnight,' Monk's famous dark blue reverie which Davis recorded many times. Thoughtful trumpet leads in with a long pause before a sudden trill then into the main theme, Miles bending and squeezing notes, wry smears, sudden flurries. Changing gear as Shorter enters, the tempo busier now. An elliptical solo, finding almost as much space as the leader. Some nice interplay between piano and tenor. Herbie Hancock next, equally sparse to match the mood. Miles returns. More 'vocalised' horn - this is not about bop speed but something different, colour and a cunning use of silence...



Anthony Braxton
Anthony Braxton (as) Marilyn Crispell (p) Mark Dresser (b) Gerry Hemingway (d)
No 159
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Phineas Newborn Jr
Phineas Newborn Jr (p) Paul Chambers (b) Philly Joe Jones (d)
Manteca
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Miles Davis
Miles Davis (tp) Wayne Shorter (ts) Herbie Hancock (p) Ron Carter (b) Tony Williams (d )
Round Midnight
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Broken toes... new computers...

A weird week - breaking my toe (again) on sunday slowed me down somewhat - plus delivery of a new laptop has had me wrestling to re-network the Eagles Nest. Plus doing some recording for a friend of mine... Back on track soon...

Jon Hassell, Jimmy Giuffre/MJQ, Al Cohn/Bob Brookmeyer, Blind Joe Taggart, Bob Wills...

So here we go again... Having spent the sunny days listening to old Wolf Eyes wahoo and other assorted loud power electronics... here's...


Jon Hassell. Who sails away on 'Blues Nile.' A gag I could not resist. I'm all for cheap and easy laughs... Opens on a drone then shadowy trumpet, breathy and bending. Trumpet doubled up, a muezzin-like call across a misty landscape. The influence of his voice teacher Pandit Pran Nath comes through strongly here, it seems – a vocalised line of fragile beauty.
From his first album, 'Vernal Equinox.'

'Hassell coined the term "Fourth World" to describe his musical style, as expressed both in his trumpet playing and in his approach to composition.. This musical conception combines the philosophy and techniques of minimalism with Asian and African styles, and relies heavily on the use of electronic instruments. Critics of Hassell's style have noted its incorporation of New Age and world music styles, but have also detected the influence of Miles Davis, particularly Davis's use of electronics, modal harmony and understated lyricism . (From here...).

The comment about Miles's influence is interesting – Davis's reticence (often seen as lack of technique compared to the more flamboyant bebop trumpeters) on conventional sequences and his later jumps into the sonic unknown via electronics make him much more of a visionary than maybe is often realised. Because he could let rip when the spirit rose – check out some of the tracks with the quintet in the late sixties, where he is surrounded by young musicians and maybe wanted to lay down the odd marker. But by the time of 'Bitches Brew' and onwards, he was looking beyond 'jazz'... Hence the connection with Hassell? Who acknowledges the influence:

'After years of trying to make the case for an improvisational music which is 'not-jazz' and staying away from cliches of jazz instrumentation and style, I started to feel free enough to let more obvious elements of my respect for Miles creep in from time to time.'

(From a fascinating interview here...).

Colour and timbre – here's Jimmy Giuffre and the Modern Jazz Quartet from 1956, playing a Giuffre composition 'Fun.' I took a slight swipe at Connie Kay in a previous post but in this context you can understand his role in the MJQ. Percy Heath and Milt could carry the band with no problem – effortless swing as and when required.

Al Cohn and Bob Brookmeyer play an oblique, somewhat gruff restatement of the theme of 'Lady is a tramp.' An arrangement which, in its own quiet way, re-encapsulates the essence of how jazz deals with melody in a dynamic, elastic manner. Cohn solos first, swinging solidly. Brookmeyer next, looping nicely through the changes. Always an appealing player. They hook up for a double runthrough, a neatly arranged section taking the track out. Mainstream fun...

To a different area of emotion, experience and spirituality - Blind Joe Taggart sounds as if he is ripping chunks out of a hard reality and vocalising them through the filters of his culture and religion... 'When I stand before the King.' In 1926 '...Taggart became the first full-time guitar evangelist to cut a side [for Vocalion].' (From here).
A scuffling guitar backs up the beautifully raw vocals, Blind Joe backed by Emma Taggart (presumably his wife).

'If one ever ran into Blind Joe Taggart in a dark alley, the only possible protection would be to have Blind John Henry Arnold with you. According to the famous folk singer and blues artist Josh White, there was only one man on earth who was meaner than Taggart, and that was Arnold. White obviously knew what he was talking about, having been abused and kicked around by both men, as well as the even more famous Blind Lemon Jefferson.' (Ibid).

Given the nature of his life, perhaps one should balance up this quote with the following:

'Performers trying to survive in such a lifestyle can hardly be blamed for developing what can be best described as street-hardened personalities.' (Ibid).

As an ex street musician myself in another incarnation (albeit in much more benign circumstances) I have a little understanding of what the sentence means - especially with regard to a lot of the old boys I met down the road...

Thinking about going to Texas on my next trip to the States... here's old Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, one of my favourite groups, playing 'Basin Street Blues.' Saxophone, steel guitar, over a rock solid rhythm section. Echoes of Big T in the Tommy Duncan vocal perhaps - or just a shared timbral inheritance. 'Aw, Basin Street, yes yes...' as Mr Wills leads it in... Interesting to remember that Bob W outdrew the Glen Miller and Bennie Goodman bands in 1945... And a great story from here, just to go out on:

'By 1945, Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys had achieved enough notoriety that they were invited to play at the prestigious home of country music a little farther east. Bob unknowingly created quite a stir at his Grand Ole Opry performance. A drum set was a natural, integral part of the Playboys' music, but it was unheard of in the world of country music back then. When the Opry staff told Bob that his drummer couldn't play, he angrily declared that he would not leave a band member out. It was all the Texas Playboys or none. Bob did agree, however, to let the drums be set up behind the curtains. That is, until time to play, when he hollered, 'Move those things out on stage!' In that moment, Bob Wills had left a permanent mark: there would forever be a beat in country music. (He and the Texas Playboys, by the way, were not invited back.) '





Jon Hassell
Jon Hassell (trumpet, Fender Rhodes (specially tuned and altered by Buchla and Arp Synthesizers))
Nana Vasconçelos (congas, shakers, ocean, talking drum, bells, tropical birds)
David Rosenboom (mbira, rattles, tabla, dumbek) Miguel Frasconi (claves, bells)
Nicolas Kilbourn (talking drum, mbira) William Winant (kanjira, rattles) Drone (Serge Synthesizer, Motorola Scalatron) Night Creatures of Altamira Perrasita—distant barking...
Blues Niles
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Jimmy Giuffre/MJQ
Jimmy Giuffre (cl) John Lewis (p) Milt Jackson (vib) Percy Heath (b) Connie Kay (d)
Fun
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Al Cohn/Bob Brookmeyer
Al Cohn (ts) Bob Brookmeyer (tr) Mose Allison (p) Teddy Kotick (b) Nick Stabulas (d)
Lady is a tramp
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Blind Joe Taggart (g, v)
When I stand before the king
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Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys
Basin Street Blues
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Summer still here...

Still gently lounging in the languor of summer... posting will resume soon - honest... Probably when the monsoons strike, if the forecast is correct...

Summertime...

Posts will resume asap - the sun has been shining in God's Little Acre - and I've also been slowed down with a bad leg... but the barbecue has been going, the red wine flowing, the company cool...

Summer jaunts

Review of 'The Big Sing' featuring GU4/Steve Thomason at the Grand Union Folk Club, Monday, 14th July, 2008

We went to Grand Union Folk Club Monday last with high expectations – and were not disappointed. It's an older crowd, in the main, strictly Old School down the line vocalising tonight, no instrumental accompaniments. And none the worse for that – the title of the gig was 'The Big Sing,' after all... And they do not sing any bigger than here – a club noted for its audience's vocal talents, where performers are always buttressed mightily on the choruses and harmonies by the power, passion and depth of feeling round the room. A democracy of voices, indeed, that frequently blurs the distinctions between guest and audience. As tonight: the billed acts, GU4 and Steve Thomason, come out of the rotating floorsingers in an organic move, tall waves rising and falling into a rich sea of sound to create a seamless evening's music. The gamut of the Tradition was on display – from songs of the sea to songs of the land, songs of work, sport and pleasure. Tough times to good times, with what I have previously termed 'The Arc of Loss' inherent in the hard-dogged, problematic journey of our island music as it moved through the various revivals to the present day somewhat backstepped tonight. For this was a joyous celebration, sung out with fire, emotion and at times ferocity, a night where it would be unfair to single out any individual performers. In their own various ways they were all good – and it is rare that I would make that statement, given my often ambivalent relationship to the tradition down the years. Rather than empty gesture, channels were opened to the past, creating a autonomous zone where, for a couple of hours and a small effort of imagination, you stepped outside of time to experience the link to long dead ages and manners. A democracy of voices – not in the sense of a flattened-out banality but an area where the stronger aided the weaker to attain some rather wonderful aural grace, however brief the duration. You might gather we had a damn good time...

Noted in passing: GU4 now have a MySpace site here... which gives a small flavour of their music... and oddly enough, for such a quintessentially English musical bash, it was Bastille Day, Le Quatorze Juillet... Marchons, Marchons...

Clusone Trio... Mance Lipscomb... Herbie Hancock... John Coltrane/Milt Jackson... Cecil Taylor... Tito Puente...

Finally, after all the excitement and exhaustion – back to the music. So we beat on, boats against the current... whatever...

The Clusone Trio give the Herbie Nichols tune, '117th Street,' an outing. Always an element of drollery lurking when Bennink is involved – those crazy Dutch, eh? This swings in lightly over crisp old-school drumming as Moore states the theme and take the first solo – a limpid performance that builds through some more complex swirls into earthier smears. Reisjeger picks his cello through his turn before Moore returns for a brief passage then back in to the theme. Bennink throughout is in homage to earlier drummers mode. An odd mix of the old and disguised hints of the new, filtered through a wash of post-modernism, done with some affection...

Mance Lipscomb – a 'songster' whose material ranged far from the blues into many other areas – through 'folk' and beyond. The lines are never as straight as purists would have you believe - Lipscomb was indeed a river into which many streams flowed:

'Lipscomb represented one of the last remnants of the nineteenth-century songster tradition, which predated the development of the blues. Though songsters might incorporate blues into their repertoires, as did Lipscomb, they performed a wide variety of material in diverse styles, much of it common to both black and white traditions in the South, including ballads, rags, dance pieces (breakdowns, waltzes, one and two steps, slow drags, reels, ballin' the jack, the buzzard lope, hop scop, buck and wing, heel and toe polka), and popular, sacred, and secular songs. Lipscomb himself insisted that he was a songster, not a guitarist or "blues singer," since he played "all kinds of music." His eclectic repertoire has been reported to have contained 350 pieces spanning two centuries.' (Ibid).

(The 'buzzard lope' looks intriguing... may well describe my dance moves...).

This is 'Joe Turner killed a man' which builds a narrative out of a collection of familiar 'floating' verses over a thumping monotonic bass and slashes of slide (bottleneck/knifeblade?) that root it more in the blues.

Herbie Hancock from his bustout album 'Future Shock,' a track called 'Rough.' (Which matches the way I feel today – red wine too late at night!). Yeah, sure, it's a little dated but fun all the same... Ah, the outrage of the day from the jazz community... Play that funky music...

More blues – from the coupling of John Coltrane and Milt Jackson for a 1959 recording date. This is 'Blues Legacy,' a riffed-out twelve bar. Jackson up first to roll out a dazzling line, subtle yet blues-drenched as his playing always was. Coltrane takes it up, the relaxed tempo giving him plenty of ruminative space, yet unleashing those blinding flurries occasionally to spur things along. Connie Kay, somewhat surprisingly perhaps, gives out a solid if sedate backbeat throughout. Paul Chambers paces underneath like a velvet panther. Hank Jones solos, his single note strings echoing Jackson's vibes-induced linearity. Trane returns to spell out the theme. You would have thought that Kay was an odd choice for this gig, given the powerhouse drummers Coltrane was used to playing with, yet his simplified two and four here – almost r and b-ish – lets the bass take a supple role – one that Chambers was used to supplying anyway with his bandmate in the Miles Davis group. Maybe Jackson invited him – they were, of course, long-time partners in the Modern jazz Quartet.

Cecil Taylor – from his 1973 solo album recorded in Japan, this is the first track 'Choral of voice (Elision).' Not sure where I got this from – it's not one of mine, I found it buried amongst a collection of mp3s that I was searching for someone else - so homage to original up-loader. Amid the usual dense piano hurly burly, some more reflective passages. Cecil's solo work is probably the most accessible way into his unique sound world – although presenting formidable problems to the first-time listener, perhaps. But the format offers a chance to follow his logic a little more clearly...

The sun is shining here in God's Little Acre, for the moment at least, so here is some Latin fire - Tito Puente and band roaring through 'Para Los Rumberos.' A mighty sound... they cheer me up, anyway... as I do the buzzard lope round the room...




Clusone Trio
Michael Moore (as, cl, mel) Ernst Reijseger (cel, el-cel) Han Bennink (d, perc)
117th Street
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Mance Lipscomb (v, g)
Joe Turner killed a man
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Herbie Hancock, Michael Beinhorn (keys) Bill Laswell (el-b)
Rough
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John Coltrane/Milt Jackson
John Coltrane (ts) Milt Jackson (vib) Hank Jones (p) Paul Chambers (b) Connie Kay (d).
Blues Legacy
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Cecil Taylor (p)
Choral of Voice (Elision)
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Tito Puente
Tito Puente (vib, mar, tim) Charlie Palmieri (p, org) Mario Rivera (fl, bs) Santos Colon (v) Jose Madera (quiro, perc) Johnny (Dandy) Rodriguez (bongos) Jimmy Frisaura (t, b-t) Yayo El Indio (v) Roy Burroughs, Tony Cofrezi (t) Michael 'Mike' Collazo (d) Dick Meza (ts) Israel 'Izzy' Feliu (b-g) Pete Fanelli (as) Don 'El Barbito' Palmer (fl, as) Jose Merino (t)
Para los rumberos
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The Dynasty continues...

At last! The new baby has arrived - a little girl, born circa 7 a.m. Congratulations to my rather wonderful daughter and her partner. And a big shout to her mother, who has been a rock these last few days... Another grandchild... cor
blimey... regular posting will continue - when we've all had some sleep...

Francis 'Scrapper' Blackwell... Max Roach... Donald Byrd... Booker Ervin... Art Blakey... Derek Bailey...

I promised a commenter some more Francis 'Scrapper' Blackwell – so here's the man giving out 'Blue Day Blues.' He really is one of the missing links between twenties country blues and later urban styles – introducing more linearity via the single-string breaks, for example. No mean singer either...

From his 1967 album 'Blackjack,' this is Donald Byrd heading up a septet on 'Pentatonic.' Sonny Red solos first, a querulous piping sound to his alto. Byrd takes over, an assured performance, fast and accurate. Hank Mobley next, playing on his harder edge here. Cedar Walton, tumbling, rippling piano. Billy Higgins ensures that no one sleeps, punching the track along.

Max in Paris, 1949. This group is essentially the Charlie Parker quintet from that year with Bird out and James Moody in to partner trumpeter Kenny Dorham up front. 'Maximum,' the track. Bop of the highest calibre, stunning drums at a rapid tempo where everyone is locked onboard, not daring to jump off the rollercoaster ride – falter at this speed and you are dead...

Some more from one of my favourite big-hearted power tenors – the late Booker Tellefero Ervin and a track from one of his 'Book' series, 'Tex Book Tenor,' '204.' Woody Shaw at his shoulder guarantees superior front-line backup... Opens on stabbing piano before they hit a smooth uppish line – nothing more than an expanded riff, really, before the Book roars out straight from the blocks. Some high wild playing but always a strong thread of melody – a mix of accessible tinged with a tough bluesy edge that timbrally links old tenor keenings to the more recent avant-garde hollers – pretty much the same thing really, only changed by context and concept. Some dizzying playing here... Woody Shaw comes screaming in after him and unreels some beautifully knotted lines. The young Kenny Baron next, fleet and sure. Billy Higgins whams it all along in grand style, tracking every move, stepping up to trade with the horns . Jean Arnet solid throughout under the fire. A certain similarity to the Donald Byrd track above – the presence of Higgins on both maybe the defining factor – rhythmically supple and continually thrusting and prodding. Recorded a year later for the same label, part of that sixties Blue Note take on hard bop crossed with hints of the freer moves of the time.

Following on from that point, here's the mighty Buhaina leading one of his greatest congregations of Jazz Messengers on the stunning album 'Free for all.' I upped the title track a ways back, so here is the Freddy Hubbard composition 'The Core.' Curtis Fuller really thickened the usual band sound, adding deeper sonorities and expanded instrumental options apart from his soloing skills – this is BIG sonics. Wayne Shorter takes off first, sounding urgent – as how could he not with Blakey's firepower at storm force behind? Freddy Hubbard next, speed, accuracy and ideas – a man who was at the height of his game. Fuller cools things a fraction – the trombone does not quite soar timbrally as much as tenor and trumpet over the thunderous, dense backdrop. Fluent – you are aware of the J.J. influence perhaps, but with a more 'tromboney' sound, if that makes sense, a pleasing gruffness hinting at earlier stylists. Cedar Walton stomps in for his piece of the action before the razor-sharp ensemble returns for the theme. Blakey is just plain WILD throughout... I remember hearing this when it came out in the U.K. so many years back and it excites me just as much now... and I saw Blakey with a late manifestation of his band in a rather odd venue and when he was getting on in years - but the sheer force of his drumming was intoxicating, belying his age...

We like to jumpcut...

Opening on overspeeded drums (courtesy of DJ Ninj) as the mighty Derek Bailey slashes in and pours his hard scrabble guitar all over the first track of his 1996 album 'Guitar, drums and bass.' 'N, J, BM (remix)'. Improv meets the London street sounds of the time... I think this is a very underrated album: oddly, the rather staid programming lets Derek fly, acting as an earth to his fire... Or something...


Francis 'Scrapper' Blackwell (g, v)
Blue Day Blues
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Donald Byrd
Donald Byrd (tp) Sonny Red (as) Hank Mobley (ts) Cedar Walton (p) Walter Booker (b) Billy Higgins (d)
Pentatonic
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Max Roach
Kenny Dorham (tp) James Moody (ts) Al Haig (p) Tommy Potter (b) Max Roach (d)
Maximum
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Booker Ervin
Booker Ervin (ts) Woody Shaw (t) Kenny Barron (p) Jan Arnet (b) Billy Higgins (d)
204
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Art Blakey
Art Blakey (d) Wayne Shorter (ts) Freddie Hubbard (t) Curtis Fuller (tr) Cedar Walton (p) Reggie Workman (b)
The Core

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Derek Bailey (el-g) DJ Ninj (drum/bass programming)
N, JZ, BM (remix)
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Yusef Lateef... Francis 'Scrapper' Blackwell... Max Roach...

Yusef Lateef recorded 'The Centaur and the Phoenix' in 1961. This is 'Every day (I fall in love),' a slow, gorgeous reading, bursting with sonorities and colour. Lateef features his flute here, against a plangent backdrop of three brass and two reeds (the unusual combo of baritone sax and bassoon). The theme unfolds in thick dense streams, as if conjuring the movement from deep sleep to slow awakening – when the flute solos, it has that sprightly morning feel of something new reborn again. What the hell, I'm in a soft and soppy mood, spending the morning with my extremely pregnant daughter. (Not long now!).

Back to the blues... Francis 'Scrapper' Blackwell has been a favourite of mine since I first heard his music in Dublin circa 1970, at the apartment of Merve the Perve who had an extensive collection of blues and sundry other unusual musics ( which I think he had brought back from his sojourn in the States). And where I first stayed with Veronica K (wonder where she is now? Ah, regrets... sigh... ). Blackwell achieved much fame and some fortune playing with Leroy Carr in the late twenties but is a fine performer on his own, his snapping single string guitar breaks proving his musicianship and influencing many guitar players to come. This is 'Kokomo Blues,' a steady rolling twelve bar, solid guitar chording alternating with those famous Blackwell breaks. His voice reminds me slightly of Bukka White... Fascinating interview with him in the sixties here...

Out on wings of fire... where bebop and Afro-Cuban rhythms intersected with the early sixties avant garde and Afro-American politics of the day – Max Roach leads a tempestuous band through the album 'Percussion Bitter Sweet' whose title gives a strong hint of the storms raised here. This track: 'Marcus Garvey's Ghost.' Abbey Lincoln's voice blends wordlessly with the ensemble over the rising thunder of the drums and added percussion, threaded on an insistent cowbell rhythm. Art Blakey was noted for being a powerhouse drummer but Max is just burning here – savage AND subtle. Booker Little solos, then Clifford Jordan, but good as they are, the torrential drums are the focus. Roach takes a fizzling solo, imperious rolls, slashed cymbals. Art Davis is a bit buried in the mix but his bass makes itself known. Mal Waldron not much in evidence here, some occasional comping. And the wild card of the session, Eric Dolphy, who takes some stunning solos on other tracks, is not featured either. Not that it matters – this is a classic track from a classic album. Anger filed to a razor's edge of instrumental brilliance... More of this with some Dolphy soon, I think...

'We are the bearers of the world's bright torch
To light our civilization as we go:
No one should fall or lodge at darkness' porch;
Right well we teach the people all to know:
There's much for us to do in toil of love,
In helping others as we climb the heights;
It is for us to reach and lift above
Those who are struggling up through gloomy nights.'

Marcus Garvey, from 'The Bearers' (1927), quoted from here...




Yusef Lateef
Richard Williams (tp) Clark Terry (flh, tp) Curtis Fuller (tb) Josea Taylor (basn) Yusef Lateef (ts, fl, argol, ob) Tate Houston (bars) Joe Zawinul (p) Ben Tucker (b) Lex Humphries (d)
Every Day (I fall in love)
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Scrapper Blackwell (v, g)
Kokomo Blues
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Max Roach
Booker Little (tp) Julian Priester (tb) Eric Dolphy (as) Clifford Jordan (ts) Mal Waldron (p) Art Davis (b) Max Roach (d) Carlos "Patato" Valdes (cga) Carlos "Totico" Eugenio (cowbell) Abbey Lincoln (vo)
Garvey's ghost
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Saturday: down the market...

And here's Don in his street environment the day after - looking remarkably fresh considering the festivities the night before... (I'm surprised there wasn't more camera shake)...

Review: Don Partridge at the Pack Horse, Friday, 13th June, 2008

Onwards to belated review number two...

... the mighty Don 'Snakehips' Partridge, King of the Buskers, complete with one-man band and two guitars – the big twelve string and a six for more elaborate stuff returned to the Pack Horse after a five-year hiatus. Another national treasure like Jack Hudson, Don has a good few old friends up here from his tenure in God's Little Acre and environs a few years ago – some of whom were here tonight. If you have seen him playing on the streets, the indoor performance is somewhat different. For one thing, he can rein back a bit, not competing with traffic and outdoor urban noise. And this gives another side to his music – Don has always been a clever and sensitive writer of songs and those who know him just from the pop hits of yesteryear ('Rosie,' 'Blue Eyes' and the recently resurrected 'Breakfast on Pluto') may be surprised at his depth and reach. Don is also a natural raconteur with a fast wit, interspersing the music with tales of the roads travelled. Coming from folk music, yet broadening out to include songs like 'Black-eyed Susie,' originally an old bluegrass number that mutated into a big hit for Guy Mitchell. (I remember a long time ago he used to do 'Hey Baby,' the old Bruce Chanel track, in a similar move – he probably still plays it).















Others - a loping 'Streets of Laredo' (joined effectively on squeezebox by the other half of the resident musicians duo, Dave Morton), the old Bessie Smith tune 'Nobody knows you when you're down and out,' a soulful 'I've got you under my skin' which featured some nifty harmonica. Of his own songs, 'Trans-Canadian Highway' is a favourite, recollecting a journey long ago and his seven minute version of his setting of Alfred Noyes narrative poem 'The Highwayman' displays abundantly his musical ear – both sensitive and rousing as befits the story being told. The one-man band sound of bass drum, cymbals and harmonica fleshes out his guitar work to give a full and solid support throughout, translating well from the streets to the club. A fascinating night, with odd fluffs here and there but they did not marr the overall performance and are almost obligatory for a folk club anyway. Only criticism, the vocals may have benefited from a touch of amplification – I was straining a bit at the back occasionally. Having said that, most of those in front of me probably heard everything more clearly... So: Hail the King! (Also, mention should be made of Mr Marmion's new instrument, seen in one of the photos, forged from the body of a six-string banjo and chopped into – something else... nominations for a name are being taken. 'The banjo from the Black Lagoon' was one...

Review: Jack Hudson at Loughborough Catholic Club, Thursday, 12th June, 2008...

Belated small review number one...

... we went down to the Catholic Club last week (hallelujah) to catch the ever-wonderful Jack Hudson, singer, guitar player, national treasure... He was on good form, despite some noise from the other bar (unavoidable at this venue but the p.a. compensates), leading in with 'L.A.Freeway,' giving us his usual wry, good-humoured but intense set. I've written about Jack before here and here, suffice to say he was compelling as ever, a man who knows how to penetrate a song to its core to mine the emotional content and bring it back intact. The channel not the tribute, if you get the dichotomy... Other songs - a stirring version of the old Tom Paxton number 'Did you hear John Hurt?' which ran the Van Ronk version close, 'Pancho and Lefty,' and his own 'Driftwood and Nails' which displays his writing talents. Great stuff... music for adults: songs from the other side of midnight...

Marilynn Crispell/Gary Peacock/Paul Motian... Ornette Coleman... Miles Davis...

A confusing time since I got back – family stuff – an impending baby (my daughter's) - technical problems – plus two great gigs back to back (Jack Hudson and Don Partridge) and a weekend with old friends which necessitated a surfeit of raking...

So to start again, before the reviews – here's Marilynn Crispell with Gary Peacock and Paul Motian. An understated trio, slow and ruminative on 'Albert's Love Theme,' taken from the set dedicated to the compositions of Annette Peacock, 'Nothing ever was, anyway.' Subtle flicks of nuance, discreet colouring – yet underneath a clenched and emotional rigour at work which makes of it something more than just a mood piece. Crispell who can hammer the exhilarating chromatic hell out of a piano with the best gonzo stylists around reins back here and lets the notes breathe. Peacock takes a solo in similar mode – the emotion conveyed beyond mere technique or considerations of the instrumental avenue chosen, thought matched to heart expressed immediately through the body's skill. Motian gives a brief patter across the kit before the piano returns... Somewhat beautiful...

A track of skidding brilliance. Ornette and Prime Time playing 'City Living' from the live set 'Opening the Caravan of Dreams.' A suitably romantic and utopian name for a venue graced by such a romantic and (impossibly) utopian musician. There is a damaged vulnerability to Ornette's playing armoured by an intrinsic courage that took him from facing early contempt – through facing later contempt and ignorance. To win out... Heartwrenching alto flies through the maelstrom that surrounds him – the clattering guitars and drums - rising free...

I'm coming down slowly after the last few days of insanity – so, something to ease the recovery... Miles playing 'There is no greater love,' backed by the grand rhythm section of the classic Fifties band, Red Garland, Paul and Philly Joe. Miles begins and ends - tight harmon muted stuff - bookending Garland, who comes in to his solo locked hands all the way, slow and bluesy. Dedicated to a special person...

Marilynn Crispell
Marilynn Crispell (p) Gary Peacock (b) Paul Motian (d)
Albert's Love Theme
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Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman (as) Bern Nix Charlie Ellerbee (g) Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Al MacDowell (b) Denardo Coleman, Sabir Kamal (d)
City Living
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Miles Davis
Miles Davis (t) Red Garland (p) Paul Chambers (b) 'Philly' Joe Jones (d)
There is no greater love
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Grrr... and double grrr... laptop crash...

Things might be suspended for a day or so while I sort everything out following my main laptop crash last night - it may not be a big problem but until I can figure out whether the power lead or the actual power point on the laptop is the source of the trouble I've had to switch to the travelling machine... most of the files were backed up so no major problem... hopefully... but all the mp3's I had converted/collated for uploading were on it so have to go and redo everything... later...

Return of the psychogeographer... back from the drift...

A belated post... I've been in Berlin (again) and the apartment had no wifi this time... and I was, to be honest, distracted with other things... in the drift... mightily... and the weather has been fantastic... what a town to spend summer in! After some consideration - the beat goes on for a while yet... posting to resume asap... Time for sleep here on God's Little Acre...

Charlie Parker... Evan Parker/John Stevens... Joe Morris... Clifton Chenier...

Back to the source...

Miles leads in with youthful almost hesitant poignancy then Bird takes over to run double time in the main, all round, over and through this slow ballad theme 'Don't Blame Me.' Tommy Potter holds the line, Duke Jordan chords somewhere in the next room alongside equally sonically discreet Max Roach. After the bravura alto, Miles returns for a brief snatch before they end. The flash of Bird is not mere technique venting forth – his sound had such a strong yet vulnerable timbre, his alto saxophone truly a 'vocalised' instrument, that makes his speed integral to his overall concept. Head and heart locked in a mighty embrace. Perhaps one of the defining characteristics of jazz, apart from improvisation (which is linked to it as a moving ever-renewable expression of individuality), is the manner in which an instrument is so heavily connected to a player. This requires the high technical standards necessary in the search for and achievement of individual expression, the way in which a listener can pick out different players from each other by their 'signatures.' But technique alone is not enough - the notes would be 'empty' without emotion. Much of the excitement of jazz comes from this identification with individual concepts and their shifting relationship to the communal. Here – Miles's fragile muted trumpet is instantly identifiable – and Parker even more so. These are voices we know and cherish... Which reminds me of an apposite story that a friend of mine (The Blessed Frank Marmion) recently told me. When he was at sea as a young man a clarinet player came over the radio whom he correctly identified within a few bars – Jimmy Noone, I think. Someone mocked him, in effect saying 'How can you possibly know that – a clarinet is a clarinet, could be anybody.' He had to eat his words when the announcer gave the personnel at the end of the number...

Another mighty player – Evan Parker, in a duet with John Stevens. Coming from a totally different emotional and cultural area, drier, more rarified. Opening on small fragments over spartan percussive patterns. This is '19.44,' taken from the album 'The Longest Night.' Operating on the higher end of the spectrum – cymbals and sharp hits as Parker's soprano crabs its way onwards - this is very intense music, a record of two musicians listening and responding to each other with great intimacy. Going up to bat-squeak sqiggles – yet always under tight technical control. Towards the end, clenched drum rolls and spattering cymbals spur Parker to a longer line - the point where you can see very clearly the lineage back into 'jazz.' Evocative of two friends having a long-ranging late-night conversation that develops its own rules as it moves on through.

My favourite contemporary guitar player Joe Morris, with a trio session from 1997 , playing 'Stare into a lightbulb for three years,' from the album 'Antennae.' Commences with a jerky, fragmented theme, progressing into a three-way collaboration between Morris, bass Nate Morris and drummer Jerome Duepree. The guitarist splats out knotted, gnarled lines with odd intervallic jumps to keep you on your toes, unremitting and remorseless linear improvising. Morris has a purist gunslinger ethos, little tinkering with the sound of his guitar which harks back to earlier modern jazz styles, but a total dedication to his art that takes no prisoners. Actually, once you enter his world, it becomes more friendly – much joy to be had following his logic.

"Morris has gone to the avant-garde well to test the brink of improvisational reason, but at the same time developed a quintessential jazz-guitar tone, dark and dulcet, its vibrato squarely modulated and inimical to sonic overkill. If Ornette Coleman were Jim Hall, he would be Joe Morris."

Said Gary Giddins, quoted from here... 'If Ornette...' Sort of – but Morris is very much his own man... And his cohorts balance him perfectly here – Duepree takes a rippling ripping solo followed by one of some eloquence from the bassist. Morris explains where the inspiration for the album came from in the liner notes:

'This set of pieces was originally named The Green Book. Inspired by a collection of visual graphic aids by that name created by the late composer/improviser/pianist Lowell Davidson... Lowell's Green Book was intended to be used as a guide for improvisation. It consisted of a set of color Xerox images made by the copier running on it's own without source material. The results were dense blotches of random pattern and color. Lowell considered the Green Book to be one of his most advanced devices to be used to steer himself and his players. Others included index cards with different sizes of notes (these were similar to the work of other composers from the 50s and 60s) and his invented staves which were intended to isolate certain musical zones and sounds. He also notated on materials other than paper and used methods of notating such as making holes in aluminum foil and placing it in front of a light bulb. Lowell said that by looking at the foil you could imprint the pattern of light on your synapses and then transfer the pattern to your instrument. In one of Lowell's most extreme experiments, he stared into a high wattage chrome coated light bulb every day for what he claimed was three years-I didn't know him at that time.' (From here – scroll down).

Brief Wikipedia article on Lowell Davidson here... sounds like he was an interesting dude...

Some Zydeco - Clifton Chenier essays a slow-rocking mean old twelve bar - 'I can look down at your woman.' Smouldering stuff - and Chenier transcends the old musicians gag about accordions here with some fine playing. ('The definition of a gentleman is someone who knows how to play an accordion - but doesn't...')

Uploading this as Thelonious Monk solo piano moves into the Velvet Underground playing 'Sister Ray' on my Last Fm feed – whip it on me, Jim... Between those two polarities I can live easily... One of the joys of Last Fm – just when you think it ticks off stuff you know in the background something totally different comes blasting through – the latest being guitarist Pat Martino the other week, whose playing I did not really know before - what a blast that was. Stopped me in my tracks... I have some of his music arriving soon...



Charlie Parker
Miles Davis (tp) Charlie Parker (as) Duke Jordan (p) Tommy Potter (b) Max Roach (d)
Don't blame me
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Evan Parker (ss) John Stevens (d)
19.44
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Joe Morris
Joe Morris (e-g) Nate Morris (b) Jerome Duepree (d)
Stare at a lightbulb for three years
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Clifton Chenier
I can look down at your woman
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Charlie Parker/JATP... Frank Sinatra/Count Basie... Frank Wright...

A wet, cold bank holiday so far here in God's Little Acre... Something to cheer me up. Old School... This is 'The Opener' from a Jazz at the Philharmonic concert in 1949. I can remember way back various critics being sniffy about JATP and Norman Grantz – as if people enjoying the music in a live setting and musicians responding with a bit of rabble-rousing was somehow not the done thing. What crap... Flip Phillips opens up the batting here with some rip-snorting tenor. Tommy Turk cools it down a bit with a fine solo - why was he such an obscure figure? Lester sidles in, lithe and detached but getting almost enervated as the background riffing picks up to boot him along. Then the sublime Bird... Playing further 'in' than usual, locking things down in place with a couple of his patented blues phrases – drums were not Max or Kenny Clarke which would have given him a better cushion. (Buddy Rich is four-square but that doesn't matter so much in the overall context perhaps). But still unmistakably THE BIRD... Hank Jones next, some rather spiffing piano - heard very clearly for once – many of those old live recordings were a bit iffy. Then Roy Eldridge – ripping and stabbing at notes, one of the great trumpeters, the link from swing to Diz, surely. Sure its grandstanding – but breathes there a man (or woman) with soul so dead they cannot dig? Also, an interesting transition being documented – swing to bop (with some r and b elements thrown in) and although the differences are there – re my remarks about Buddy Rich, for example – somehow it doesn't seem such a jump between the two. At this point with hindsight it is evident that modern jazz hadn't been totally disenfranchised from swing - as many of the boppers had started in big bands etc, no matter their subsequent stylistic transgressions into 'Chinese Music' (as Louis dubbed it - an early reaction subsequently recanted). Voltaire said: 'All styles are good except the tiresome kind.' Yup...

In a similar vein... A grand meeting of pop and jazz, from the days when popular music was not that far away from jazz. Combining the sheer drive, swing and snap of the Count's band with the majestic presence of old Francis Albert performing 'I believe in you.' The Basie band punch in like a well-oiled machine embedded with soul if that makes sense and Frank enters for a smooth dance over the top of their contained power, his phrasing a delight - learned in the big band trade during his apprenticeship with Tommy Dorsey - whose trombone phrasing he emulated vocally. Although that early gig was not a smooth ride - see here...

So inexorably to the New Thing... Frank Wright on his second recording date in 1967 for fabled free jazz label ESP. 'The Lady,' taken from the album 'Our Prayer.' Starting with the ensemble horns playing the rather attractive head at a slowish pace as the bass runs around underneath leading the drums in a faster rhythmic contrast. Arthur Jones, one of those who popped up briefly and then disappeared not long after (unfortunately – what a good player!), takes a smearing bluesy solo. Nice blog piece on him sometime back on Destination Out . Coursil – who turned up in New York in the sixties and made a couple of stunning appearances on ESP – starts slow over the busy rhythms, following the logic of the theme - then cranks it up mightily. Lowe comes in in Ayler-ish fashion – you can hear the influence strongly. Oddly enough – or not – this brings the blogpost full circle for me... is JATP really so far away from the tonal distortions here – that one could also hear in the African American church as well as in r and b honking horns? And: Coursil's bravura trumpet is surely not so far from Roy Eldridge? There is a freshness to this music that I find very appealing.

The name of the bass player, Steve Tintweiss, intrigued me as I couldn't place it straight away. Googled however to find some interesting info here – and a nice quote from the article about this session:

“All of us, except for Jacques Coursil the trumpet player, were all on acid for that record. We had learned to use LSD in a disciplined way, as a tool. We were able to discipline ourselves to be able to play and fulfill our obligations.”

Far out, as they say. Actually, after I read further, I remembered who he was - the bass player on Albert Ayler's last date, in Europe, a track from which I put up way back. Maybe more from that soon – that's the way this blog works -jump cuts and random movements diagonally...But fun, essentially...

Wonder if the weather will improve today?

Charlie Parker et al/Jazz at the Philharmonic
Charlie Parker (as) Flip Phillips, Lester Young (ts) Tommy Turk (tr) Roy Eldridge (t) Hank Jones (p) Ray Brown (b) Buddy Rich (d)
The Opener
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Frank Sinatra/Count Basie
I believe in you
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Frank Wright
Frank Wright (ts) Arthur Jones (as) Jacques Coursil (t) Steve Tintweiss (b) Muhammad Ali (d)
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Shelly Manne... Spontaneous Music Ensemble... Thelonious Monk...

Shelly Manne made an album called 'The Three and the Two' in 1954 – the Three being himself, Shorty Rogers on trumpet, Jimmy Giuffre on assorted saxes and clarinet, the Two a duo with Russ Freeman on piano. No bass on either – which poses interesting questions in both lineups... These days we are used to drum/other instrument duos – at the time it was fairly radical in modern jazz, especially because of the changes in the rhythm section that had come about, where the bass is much more the basic rhythmic pivot, freeing up the drums. I have chosen two tracks, one from each lineup – both of them Charlie Parker lines - in an attempt to measure some the continuities - and fractures – that Mann was attempting. Arguably, to come at bop from his own direction, in the spirit of inquiry which was the flipside to what is usually seen as 'cool school' simplifications and embrace of commercial success. I think that one of the main impulses in West Coast experimental musics as such was an emphasis on counterpoint in an effort to acquire a greater freedom of linearity from what were increasingly perceived in some quarters as restrictive bop orthodoxies by the fifties. (A measure of the speed of the music's development, as well...). For white musicians, perhaps an attempt to come to terms with the black origins of jazz by attempting to graft more consciously 'European' devices onto the music? As a white European (sort of), one speculates... I do not profess to know the answer - and it is a tricky/dangerous subject to explore without coming across as some wishy-washy liberal apologist – or bigotedly ignoring the harsh and brutal cultural and political realities of post-slavery America. A fascinating blog post by Evan Iverson takes up the thorny subject of the white-black dynamic in jazz at some length, via a consideration of Lennie Tristano and Barack Obama's recent speech. I might take issue with some of his conclusions but to tackle the subject at all is a brave and considered step... Something else I learned from this piece – that Tristano apparently had no time for Monk – put him down badly/offensively, in fact... Tristano is a musician I admire and regard as very underrated – so this was a shock. But, like I say, these are tricky issues – which should be met head on...

The music: a busy opening on 'Billies Bounce' as the piano takes the lead and the left hand covers for lack of bass by ranging deep and busy – some heavy chording in places. Manne ranges freely – always a melodic drummer, concerned with timbre. The exchanges with Freeman point this up... the pianist also keeps to the middle and lower registers to give a full sound, less forays up the keyboard than you would hear if a bass was there to cover the bottom end. This gives a feeling of earlier two-fisted piano styles crossed with modern harmonies – and stomps along nicely.

'Steeplechase' is introduced by the drums before the horns weave in a dissonant counterpoint, a stop-start feel to the first sixteen bars and in the last eight. Giuffre solos first, Giuffre laying down a fairly insistent four – to compensate for the lack of bass? The use of baritone against the trumpet gives a feeling of the Mulligan Quartet refracted into a more abstracted/fragmented area. Rogers was always an attractive player with an ear for the experimental. Some busy exchanges between drums and the two horns. A sideways tipping of bop into something else – less frenetic than Bird would be yet still busy, the lack of bass or piano offering and opening up free spaces...

Plucks, thumps, sporadic drum hits, a single saxophone note followed by another, chomped off, sparsely spattered, the free rhythm slowly gathers pace as Stevens becomes busier. A succession of almost discreet moments that overlap enough between the three participants to move the performance along. This is the English group 'Spontaneous Music Ensemble,' a trio in this manifestation, of John Stevens, Trevor Watts and Kent Carter, playing 'Rambunctious One.' Pioneering free improv of the Brit variety, pointillist and rigorous, coming from 'jazz' but going elsewhere into distanced considerations of manipulating sounds moving through space and time, taking the instruments to the edges of conventional technique and beyond. Building up a fair head of steam as it progresses, an image in my mind of three people walking in to a room, strewing various fragments about and slowly assembling them, as the lines become longer, more developed. Carter's bass returns in places to an almost conventional role, yet the grounding as such timbrally comes from Stevens - contrast and compare to Shelly Manne above...although the rhythms are much more exploded and stretched. I would hazard that Manne was doing something similar back in 1954...

We started on the West Coast – to return, Monk at the Blackhawk club with a pickup band in 1960. East meets West and the combination defies Kipling's strictures... An unusal lineup for Monk who favoured quartets in the main, to his usual tenor man Charlie Rouse are added Joe Gordon and Harold Land to flesh out the front line. His regular bass player of the time, John Orr, is aided by Billy Higgins on drums. 'Worry later', also known as 'San Francisco Holiday,' is the selection. This album never seems to figure much in the Monk canon but it has always been one of my favourites from when I bought it on first release many (many) years ago. A great live recording, evocative because of the extraneous noises, snatches of conversation, glasses chinking etc... Higgins leads it in with the rhythmic figure of the theme – one of those nagging, stabbing lines that are pure Monk. Rouse takes the first solo, always dependable but sounding quite frisky here. Joe Gordon next, warm of tone and spirit, playing well considering the nature of the music. Land is always interesting – especially here, thrown in to the maelstrom at such short notice. Some commentators have criticised their contributions because of the hurried nature in which the date was organised – Monk's music not easy to drop into etc. Precisely because of this, I find them interesting – but I'm perverse... Monk emits his perennial twists turns, sudden drops and rhythmic displacements, the usual fascinating interrogations. An oddly satisfying closing of the circle here – he was supposed to play with the musician who started this sequence, Shelly Manne, but they did not gel, apparently, so this session was hastily arranged and recorded.

In the Videodrome...

Tristano in Copenhagen – wonderful wonderful, etc...

and with the quintet at the Half Note 1964...

Warne Marsh in Berlin...with Klook...

Kenny Clarke/Bud Powell/Clark Terry in Paris 1959...

Mingus in Milan 1976...

Ornette dances in your head...

at Bonnaroo last year...

Some Johnny Shines slide...


Shelly Manne
(Shelly Manne (d) Shorty Rogers (t), Jimmy Guiffre (bs) Russ Freemn (p)
Billie's Bounce
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Steeplechase
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Spontaneous Music Ensemble
John Stevens (perc, v) Trevor Watts (ss) Kent Carter (b)
Rambunctious One
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Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk (p) Charlie Rouse, Harold Land (ts) Joe Gordon (t) John Orr (b) Billy Higgins (d)
Worry Later
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Back tomorrow... in the meantime... Tommy Flanagan...

Back tomorrow - here's some smooth and elegant piano playing to tide things over until then - Tommy Flanagan playing 'In a sentimental mood.'

Tommy Flanagan (p) Tommy Potter (b) Roy Haynes (d)
In a sentimental mood
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Art Pepper... Gerry Mulligan... Lee Konitz... Art Ensemble of Chicago...

In 1957 the Miles Davis band were out on the west coast and Lester Koenig at Contemporary Records put the group's rhythm section together with the alto player Art Pepper – one of a very select group of saxophonists who were not blatant Charlie Parker ripoffs and had forged their own style (while acknowledging the debt). In his autobiography, 'Straight Life,' Pepper tells of how he had not played for six months at the time, pieced together a battered old horn and ventured off into the jazz unknown. A nice story... although I just checked the discography and he is down as playing on three sessions between January 3, 1957 and the date for this recording – January 19 – two under his own name with different quartet personnel and one doubling on tenor and alto for a gig under Joe Morello's leadership (later to acquire much fame in Brubeck's quartet) which was also put out as a co-led band with Red Norvo later on – and under his own name much later again. A measurement of the vagaries of fame... So: print the legend... Whatever the circumstances, up against one of the great rhythm sections – Red Garland, Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones – he makes a pretty good fist of it, however prepared/unprepared. This is 'Star Eyes:' Red Garland leads in at a sprightly bounce before Pepper states the theme and takes the first solo honours. Piano next, the familiar joyous spring in Garland's fingers as Philly Joe rimshots here and there to keep his band partner on track. Chambers takes an arco spot over sparse comping and occasional drum prodding. Pepper returns – then Philly Joe goes for a quick batter around his kit before all return for the ending bars. There is a crisp purity to Pepper's tone, underlaid with an edge on the occasional slur and bend that became more pronounced in later years, signalling a move into a more overtly emotional music, under the sign of John Coltrane. Also: there is an influence from a previous generation of alto players that perhaps helped to balance off the the large shadow of Bird – he plays with the unruffled skill of Bennie Carter, for example. Classic modern jazz.

The Gerry Mulligan Concert Jazz Band could be considered in the lineage of the Miles Davis Birth of the Cool band, although let us not forget that Mulligan was a founding contributor to that lineage. He had worked alongside Gil Evans in the Claude Thornhill band during the 1940s when Evans was chief arranger, an outfit that pioneered much of the instrumental colouring that was to come: 'Mulligan and Evans agree that Thornhill never has been given his due as an influence in the evolution of modern jazz writing.'(From here... ). This cross-fertilisation bore heavier fruit when in collaboration with John Lewis and Miles Davis, Evans and Mulligan wrote and arranged much of the music for the Birth of the Cool sessions. Davis took most of the credit in the history books but those other contributions were equally important - especially from Mulligan, who was to further evolve his own style with his 50's quartet to solve the evolutionary challenges of bebop's rapid, cluttered chord sequences. Based on various interpretations of counterpoint, I would submit... Here, then, is 'Come rain or come shine.' Soft footing in before Mulligan takes the theme as velvet sonorities wrap around his throaty baritone saxophone, the bottom end ticked off by the bass – nary a drum to be heard at first – then a stop-time section to take it up – eventually to drop off back into the slow tempo. Varying textures behind the leader as he fires away into increasingly complicated double time figures – sometimes just a single instrument. Another indication, perhaps, of a horizontal, linear thinking as opposed to much conventional section writing in larger groups. Going into a sombre ending. A masterpiece...

Lee Konitz plays 'I'll Remember April.' A sardonic ellipsis committed on the theme - Konitz always seems to be improvising, restating, reshuffling from the get go. Similarities with the other great white alto player above, Art Pepper, playing with a powerhouse rhythm section - here, no piano, just Sonny Dallas on bass and the mighty Elvin Jones behind the drums. How far the rhythm had come since Philly Joe, an earlier master. Konitz plays with unfettered freedom over the strong bass pulse that is the fulcrum as Jones shifts it about, offering so many possibilities to bounce off. This track is taken from a 1961 date and seems to encapsulate what had gone before while hinting at what was breaking and what was to come...

The Art Ensemble of Chicago, recorded in 1970 during their tenure in France. 'Theme: Libre.' A percussion/drum-driven clattering, wilding blowout to clear the cobwebs – outside the sun is shining and all is suddenly well in God's Little Acre... trumpet and saxes rise out of the thunder and hissing spatters of cymbals, jumping across each other in a gloriously chaotic leap-frogging (no pun intended...)... Lester Bowie sounds the charge - and also signals periods of repose among the clamour as the flutes join in for a touch of pastoral evocation to ease on out with...





Art Pepper
Art Pepper (as) Red Garland (p) Paul Chambers (b) Philly Joe Jones (d)
Star Eyes
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Gerry Mulligan Concert Jazz Band
Gerry Mulligan (arr, bs) Bob Brookmeyer (arr, tr) Al Cohn, Johnny Mandel (arr)
Don Ferrara, Nick Travis, Clark Terry (t) Willie Dennis, Alan Ralph (tr) Gene Quill (as cl) Bob Donovan (as) Jim Reider (ts) Gene Allen (bs, b-cl) Bill Crow (b) Mel Lewis (d)
Come rain or come shine
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Lee Konitz
Lee Konitz (as) Sonny Dallas (b) Elvin Jones (d)
I'll Remember April
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Art Ensemble of Chicago
Malachi Favors (b, perc) Don Moye (d, perc) Roscoe Mitchell (ss, as, fl perc) Joseph Jarman (ss, as, fl, perc, bass, ob) Lester Bowie (t,, flug, perc)
Theme: Libre
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Late on parade...

Mucho apologies for being late on parade (again!). Combo of the arrival of summer and other pressing tasks... music coming later...