Thomas Chapin... Art Tatum... Mal Waldron/Marion Brown... Hampton Hawes... Billy Bang...

The music called 'jazz' has moved at an incredible speed of development since its murky beginnings, sometime in the early years of the last century. I use the brackets intentionally, as I often do, because so many strands have split off from the origins that it can be difficult sometimes to define what is and what isn't 'jazz.' Many famous musicians have been unhappy with the word, seeing it as either a form of defamation, intentional or otherwise, that links their artistic endeavours to the whorehouses of New Orleans via one of the etymological meanings of the word and some of the social uses of the early music – or, in an expanded point from this argument, as a limiting term that binds into formal constrictions and punishes innovation. Further, there is probably a resentment by often (but not exclusively) African-Americans at the trivialising and misunderstanding of their art by critics, however well-intentioned – or just plain hostile. Leaving this debate aside, what I find fascinating is the variety achieved in what can be very loosely grouped within the common understood parameters – in the contemporary world where New Orleans/Dixieland styles co-exist with retro swing bands, where the mainstream has shifted to bebop, where the neocons of the Lincoln Center bunker glower across at the antics of those who continue their explorations in the 'free jazz' lineage. And vice versa, no doubt... A world where the benefit of some hindsight and temporal distance now enables the listener to track the continuities that were not always so evident in earlier days – especially from bop onwards, perhaps the first great perceived rupture. With some generosity of spirit, one could (should?) widen the field (in an Olsonian sense) to include rather than exclude...

To start – the traditional count – 'One two three four' – and a bouncing vamp on tuba buttressed by the brass section introduces 'Golgotham' by the Thomas Chapin Trio, playing with an expanded line up (that calls to mind Coltrane's 'Africa Brass,' perhaps). The bright, searing sonorities of the trumpets blended into the trombones giving more than a hint of past big band glories. The tuba – a link back to the twenties... but here taking a ride through the expanded timbral palette of splutter, spit and odd phonics, in an interlude that bridges the opening and Chapin coming in to solo over the heavy backbeat – he sails effortlessly over the ensemble, a squalling, bluesy smeary honking performance from his wide range of stylistic devices. A track that collides many years of the music into a glorious live performance that you could dance to. Continuing with growling and unmuted brass call and response and simultaneous lines, emphasizing the timbres acquired early on in the 'jazz' sound world. Stop time breaks as bass and brass duel... drum solo that flows over the implicitness of the rock vamp rhythm that underpins the track – followed by chants from the band. Ensemble through-composed for a section that then falls into a free for all as the track drops out of the rhythm and the band are name-checked by the leader (?)to the audience, picking up the beat again to suddenly end. Inside and outside... a sprawling riffingly joyous track big-hearted as the city it was conceived in, almost at odds with the punning title – 'Place of skulls?' Sardonic...

Marion Brown in a duo with Mal Waldron – a pianist who moved easily across the piano styles. Slow resonating chords, the overtones ringing in the spaces between the phrases, going subtly into a rocking rhythm as Brown enters on ruminative alto – a touch of Johnny Hodges in his tone, the swooping bend round the long-held notes. Sweet and sour... A track that uses space intriguingly, unhurried in its movement. Waldron takes a solo, a sparse melody twisting in interesting directions. Brown rejoins, playing off a repeated note. Two musicians moving through the tradition – this could have been recorded anytime within quite a large abitrarily agreed timeframe...

Art Tatum made a slew of recordings before his untimely death that document his supreme virtuosity and stature in the canon. This selection is a trio playing 'Hallelujah' - Lionel Hampton and Buddy Rich – the latter having the sense to pull back from his usual 'Traps the boy wonder' pyrotechnics by switching to brushes. Bubbling virtuosity from two timeless players as Hampton matches the pianist's speed of thought. Tatum steps up for a solo, stride piano figures disrupted by those tumbling moves up and down the keyboard. Hampton back for some stunning interplay – Rich comes through strongly here. Anyway you slice it, collective improvisation of the highest order. Hot jazz...

Hampton Hawes, playing 'What is this thing called love.' Arpeggiated chords and a ripple of Tatum almost in the introduction (I also hear a distant echo of Erroll Garner) before it picks up tempo and the bass and drums enter. Hawes was self-taught, but acquired the technique necessary to play bop – as evidenced here. Fleet and powerfully swinging, well-supported by Red Callender on bass and Chuck Thompson on drums. He acknowledged a great debt to Charlie Parker who "influenced me more than anybody, even more than piano players." (quoted from here – a very good review of Hawe's autobiography that gives an extensive overview of his career).

Billy Bang would usually be associated with the more radical end of contemporary jazz. Here he is leading a quartet through a swaying swinging version of 'Willow weep for me.' Cutting violin, an instrument that can veer into the lachrymose (I've never liked Grappelli for that reason, undoubtedly fine musician that he was). Swarming bluesy piano- two handed testifying... Bang takes a solo – fire and soul, trenchant bowing... pretty mainstream, if you ask me...

In the Videodrome...

Art Tatum on T.V....

Thomas Chapin at Newport...

Late Billy Holiday swinging out – with Mal Waldron on piano...

The Duke...

... can't leave out the Count – here with a late incarnation of the Kansas City Five...

John Kirby plays for dancers...

... more dancing and playing from a great movie (Slim Gaillard in there somewhere)... a sadly missed old friend of mine was in the English stage show of Hellzappopin'...

... Billy Bang et al in Antwerp


Thomas Chapin
Thomas Chapin (as, f) Mario Pavone (b) Michael Sarin (d) Al Bryant, Frank London (t)
Curtis Fowlkes, Peter McEachern (tr)Marcus Rojas (tuba)
Golgotham
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Art Tatum
Art Tatum (p) Lionel Hampton (vi) Buddy Rich (d)
Hallelujah
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Mal Waldron/Marion Brown
Mal Waldron (p) Marion Brown (as)
Soul Mates
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Hampton Hawes
Hampton Hawes (p) Red Callender (b) Chuck Thompson (d)
What is this thing called love
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Billy Bang
Billy Bang (v) D.D. Jackson (p) Akira Ando (b) Ronnie Burrage (d)
Willow weep for me
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Four Tet/Joe Henderson... Albert Ayler... Kidd Jordan... Kid Parker... Annette Peacock...

Keiran Hebden in his guise as Four Tet brought out a succession of re-mixes – here's one of them, his take on Joe Henderson's 'Earth.' Not everyone's cup of meat, to be sure... perhaps a sonic cross between electric Miles and Alice Coltrane -who plays on the original album, 'The Elements.' Some nice Charlie Haden solo bass...


'N Y E&E C is, simply put, one of the most boring, annoying and completely insulting films I've ever had the displeasure to watch. Improper exposures, lack of composition (both within the film frame and structurally), empty subject matter, run-on scene-takes, and a soul-strangling "freestyle" Jazz soundtrack (imagine bleating goats, whinnying horses and trumpeting elephants all thrown in a blender and set on "Mince") only begin to exemplify what this film pushed out on the audience like so much afterbirth. It became clear quickly that Snow really didn't have much of a plan going into the shooting or editing of the work, and throwing in his famous Walking Woman cut-outs seemed like a weak attempt to legitimize whatever artistic leanings the piece might be able to scrape by on. Once again, the Avant-Garde inherits another legacy of half-baked, infantile, self-satisfying palp.'
(From here...).

... always character-building to consult opposing views... 'self-satisfying palp'... interesting... here's something from the soundtrack to that film 'New York Eye and Ear Control.'

'...imagine bleating goats, whinnying horses and trumpeting elephants...'

Yo...

Reviews of this album were/are mixed and comparisons always made, understandably, with 'Free Jazz' and 'Ascension.' I think it holds up well, given the different underpinning that Sunny Murray especially gives compared to its illustrious predecessors... Discography details: the group were assembled by film maker Michael Snow and the collective improvisation that forms the soundtrack to the movie was recorded July 17, 1964. This is track two: 'AY.' The track starts at a fast lick, Ayler hurling his enormous saxophone blast into the ensuing mêlée... jumpcuts in tempo to a slower crawl... Cherry skids in and out and Tchicai sounds interesting. Rudd mournful and reticent, emerging occasionally as if peeping out from behind a bush. Upping his game with blats and roars in his solo section, a long way from J.J.'s conception of bebop trombone. Peacock puts in some abrasive arco and fast moving pizzicato – Murray as mentioned above giving the ensemble a rolling rhythmic freedom – that must - at this time - have taken some getting used to. Cherry solos over chattering bass and Murray's sudden lurching rolls. Tchicai picks up a motif from him and throws it at the ensemble as they re-gather. A good front line balance overall in a somewhat muddy recording between the high Cherry and low Rudd with Ayler going from gruff to squeal as the spirit moves him and Tchicai high and fluid. Runs out a steam a little towards the end – but a late rally... Albert takes it on points, I think... A further thought: any long, improvised performance will have inconsistencies – that, surely, is the nature of the high-wire act ongoing... further, that the finished performance is enhanced by the inconsistencies if it can both enfold them – and transcend them... Hegelian free jazz criticism what?

Kidd Jordan is one of those underground jazz legends, a man from New Orleans who chose a quieter road perhaps as teacher and educator, better known among his peers than the wider public. (Whose house was sadly devastated during the onslaught of Hurricane Katrina). From 'Palm of Soul,' here's 'Resolution.' When I think of what 'world music' could be – rather than the often-produced banalities it became – this, perhaps, would figure strongly as a contending voice – although the urgency of Jordan's tenor roots it firmly in jazz. A long introductory roll of drums - the track proceeds with incantory vocal over bass and percussion. Jordan weaves his saxophone lines around the mournful voice. Conjuring up a distant memory of Coltrane's 'Kule Se Mama,' which I must get out again soon... The tempo settles into a bass-led groove as voice and tenor follow each other round and round. Mesmeric...

'Asked to define his work, Jordan calls it "creative improvisational music." ' (From here...)

Here's one of my appalling links, spinning on Kid... a track from the even more obscure Delta Blues singer, Kid Parker. 'Mississippi Bottom Blues.' Taken fom an old 78 and released on a Delta Blues compilation, its scratchy distance eery and atmospheric. Blues from another time...

Another singer – a bit more contemporary. Annette Peacock performing 'Gesture without plot,' from her album 'I'm the One.' Another underground cult hero, romantically involved with Gary Peacock (playing on the Albert Ayler track above) and later Paul Bley. Pioneer of synths in live shows... After an arctic winds intro, slow, strange vocal bends and turns over spartan piano. Pretty weird for 1972, given the market it was aimed at... Peacock's voice is bluesy yet distanced:

'this music comes from the same what-the-FUCK universe as Buckley's Starsailor and Nico's Marble Index .' (Extracted from a good review here...). As icily brilliant as the latter-mentioned track...


In the Videodrome...

Annette Peacock in the 1970's


Kidd Jordan with William Parker – a brief clip from New Orleans but a few weeks ago...

...More Parker with his traps buddy, Hamid Drake – and Anthony Braxton...

I found this on Carrot Rope – Sonny Rollins and Leonard Cohen (have a feeling I've posted it way back but too pushed for time to check...)



Four Tet remix/Joe Henderson
Earth
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New York Eye and Ear Control
Albert Ayler (ts) Don Cherry (pt) Roswell Rudd (tr) John Tchicai (as) Gary Peacock (b) Sunny Murray (d)
A Y
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Kidd Jordan
Kidd Jordan (ts) William Parker (b, guimbre, gongs, bowls, talking drum) Hamid Drake (d, tablas, frame drum, voice).
Resolution
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Kid Bailey (g, v)
Mississippi Bottom Blues
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Annette Peacock
Collective personnel for album
Annette Peacock (v, key) Tom Cosgrove (g) Stu Woods (b) Rick Morotta (d) Paul Bley (key) Michael Moss (ts) Barry Altschul, Airto Moreira (perc) Michael Garson (p, org)
Gesture without plot
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Hard to obtain – try second hand...

Review: Freedom of the City, Red Rose Club, London... Nine... Weston/Rutherford/Mattos... Edwards/Parker/Fernandez/Russell... Monday 7 May 2007

The Red Rose in Finsbury Park, London is a comedy club, tonight (and over the previous weekend) dedicated to the Freedom of the City Festival, organised by Evan Parker, Eddie Prévost and Martin Davidson. Through the bar area and into the performance space which is a large square-ish room with a broad stage – must require some interesting stage-craft from single stand-ups. With a cluster of musicians on it who would eventually coalesce into the first band of the night: Nine! Consisting of twelve musicians(?), they played a fascinating set. With all those bodies, one could imagine much sonic clutter arising, but this was avoided in a performance that built from (necessary?) small gestures and nuances into the larger whole. The instrumentation: guitars, harmonica, piano, saxophones, clarinet, flute, violin, various percussion and what appeared to be a banjo-uke or some similar instrument. Subverted by externalising in the main – the traditional internal perfomance properties of the instruments being ignored apart from a few isolated examples of almost straight playing (a strummed chord, a blown note held) – a foregrounding of scratches, scrapes, bangs and bowing of surfaces... Several examples: a small object being rattled inside the bell of a clarinet, a saxophone dismantled and various noises created by using the mouthpiece/reed. Or Prévost bowing a large gong (?), the pianist rummaging inside the piano, investigating the sound properties of its plucked and struck metal entrails. The piece started with electric guitar lightly amplified and playing a repeated figure – but this beginning in tonality soon dissipated ... the discrete sounds coming from across the ensemble formed a surprisingly clear and broad sonic field. An exercise in group playing and tight control – any excess or sudden lurch into conventional soling would have destroyed the delicate balance maintained throughout. A space wide enough to encompass a couple of incongruities – I felt that the acoustic guitar player didn't always fit into the ongoing sound stream – and this was a problem for both, acoustic and electric, that the sounds/sonorities of the other instruments blended more efficiently. Acoustic and conventional electric guitar have little sustain or sonority and fast decay, the electric having a slight edge but - for no doubt deliberate reasons – no attempt was made to produce the longer/louder sustain which an amplifier and pedal setup is capable of. The ear of the beholder– why should someone blowing into the end of a flute have more sonic validity? But overall, only a small criticism. The performance finished back on the electric guitar, which acted as a tonal reference point linking back to the beginning. Thoughtful... radical... beautiful...

Apparently the second group had never played collectively before – Veryan Weston on piano, Paul Rutherford on trombone and Marcia Mattos on cello. The spatial question taken into a different area – a full broad sound that contracted and expanded where necessary, busier than the more spartan Nine! Here, the technical similarities of the trombone and cello, relying on a different kind of sound production in that they have no set points as such - frets, keys - to produce notes apart from the (admittedly strong) weight of tonal convention which can easily be evaded/disrupted by small microtonal shifts and also have an immediacy of response – direct contact with the note production via the fingers - were lined up against the piano. Which has a precise keyboard in front of the performer, notes being produced by a slight time deferment – the key sets up a mechanical process that ends in a hammer striking the strings. Apart from varying one's keyboard velocities and/or using the pedals, to radically disrupt or change the note(s) – to approach the glissando possibilities of the other instruments named, for example – one has to go inside to attack the strings directly. Weston eschews this approach tonight. Theoretically, then, trombone and cello already have the timbral possibilities of blending more easily – for the pianist a way in has to be found. (And Rutherford and Mattos have recorded together in the past so would perhaps be more aware of each other's playing). It seemed to me that Weston was a bit tentative at first, whereas Rutherford and Mattos were straight there in the zone, producing a roaring, scrabbling continuum from the start. After the sonic abstractions of the first set, this was much more visceral music – melody more to the fore – albeit jolted, dragged in and out of shape, skewed by extended techniques and timbres. Rutherford is a veteran of the scene, one of the stone originals who broke out of jazz in the 60's to develop the new improvisational sound worlds. On the basis of his superb playing tonight, a force still to be reckoned with. Mattos, another veteran, was equally stunning... I gather that he studied guitar when he was younger and it comes through in his approach to the cello, strumming chords and violent pizzicato work, along with the usual battery of extended techniques and his forceful bowing. The long piece ebbed and flowed, splitting into varying instrumental combinations that kept the music fresh – especially, one saw the compatibility of cello and trombone when they came together. Fascinating among this wonderful display of imagination and musicianship to trace the trajectory of Weston's developing involvement with the performance as he mapped his path through. A vigorous, emotional performance that also had some of the intimacies of chamber music (in both the jazz and classical senses).

The final set of the night by John Edwards, Evan Parker, Agustí Fernandez and John Russell cranked it up further. Parker stayed on tenor throughout, sitting down as if to emphasize that this was supposed to be a group performance. In spite of the collective ethic, however, the piano player stole the show, run a close second by the imperiously brilliant bass-playing of Edmunds. Parker – embedded back in the mix, his as always superb tenor fluttering and chittering in and out of the more dominant maelstrom provided by the other two. Always the unhurriedness of the master... looking quite benign and bucolic with red-face(caught the sun?) and hairy/bearded appearance. Russell seemed unable to compete on the same dynamic level at times, his guitar again pointing out one of the problems the instrument has in this music – how to balance the essentially dry, astringent sounds of his archtop guitar that decay rapidly against essentially richer timbres. I would have thought that the only way to compete on an equal footing would be to amplify more – but it's a fine balance to strike, admittedly. He also broke a couple of strings which must have unsettled his train of musical thought. What I did hear was interesting, dropping some sharp and brittle colourations across the top of the sound and engaging in a brief skittering duet section with Parker. But the tall, physically imposing, red-shirted Fernandez held the attention, in perpetual motion, bouncing on his seat, hitting the piano with sledgehammer blows from his hands with a violence that at times looked as if it would shake the instrument off the stage – yet balancing that force with a fluttering, feather-like touch at one point that was just on the threshold of audibility. And some humour: smiling, looking as if he was enjoying himself immensely... Edwards, as mentioned above, delivered a master class in contemporary bass playing, fingers of iron ripping out chunks of sound from the strings in all positions, or rubbing and scraping the surface of his instrument – a seamless blending of conventional and 'extended' techniques. The second time I have seen him this year – powerful stuff. Verdict: despite the imbalances, a bravura performance.

Overall – a wonderful display of the variety extant in the musics by three very different line-ups, unified by questing minds, imaginations and the underpinning of dedication to improvised performance. I had arrived feeling out of sorts – I left feeling uplifted. Despite all the privations, sacrifices and financial problems alluded to by Evan Parker in his closing speech, which we are only too aware of in the U.K., a fitting end to what was apparently a great festival... Just wish I had been able to attend for a longer period. Ah well – next year...

Oliver Nelson... John Coltrane... Peter Brotzmann... then off to London...

I am off to London today to grab some of the action at the 'Freedom of the City' festival – curated (I love that word) by Evan Parker, Eddie Prévost and Martin Davidson. Especially looking forward to seeing E.P... A strange succession of gigs recently – from playing with Damo Suzuki the other Saturday to an old-school folk night last Friday featuring Johnny Collins (with review to follow) - to today's line up of radical/improvising performers. Eclectic, mes braves... So a quick post as I have a train to catch from God's Little Acre to the big city – three tenor saxophonists...

Oliver Nelson was always a player I liked – no great technician but he had a special reedy/vibrato-y tone which was unique, a bluesy edge and some interesting ways of developing motifs. This is from 'Screamin' the Blues,' 'Drive.' Which does. Roy Haynes underneath keeping it pretty much beboppy, Duvivier – solid, I suppose. Wyands does what he is asked to do. Richard Williams is bright and vibrant, a flash solo. Nelson as above. The wild card is, of course, Dolphy – who just runs off the conventional edges of this music in joyous fashion.

Coltrane was always a superb ballad player – his more abrasive, violently questing edge subsumed into a tender, reflective approach. This is 'Too young to go steady,' from the 1962 album 'Ballads.' Slow and poignant – paying attention in a Lester Young manner, perhaps, to the lyrical theme of the song, evoking the gawky uncertainess of young love and playing it very straight... Tyner comes in for a flowing solo, Elvin Jones - on brushes throughout - crisply following his line. Coltrane returns, Jones doing some neat double-timing behind him. An odd track, compared to the usual firestorms – everyone hanging back.

Hellraiser of the tenor, Peter Brötzmann with a superb band, live from the Empty Bottle in Chicago, 1997. Wild and vibrant... For those obsessives who read the discographic details - a 'flup' is a flutophone... although it sounds like an interesting verb. I must flup off now...

Oliver Nelson
Oliver Nelson (ts) Richard Williams (t) Eric Dolphy (as) Richard Wyands (p) George Duvivier (b) Roy Haynes (d)
Drive
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John Coltrane
John Coltrane (ts) McCoy Tyner (p) Jimmy Garrison (b) Elvin Jones (d)
Too young to go steady
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Peter Brötzmann
Peter Brötzmann (ts,cl, tar) Mars Williams (ts, as, ss, cl) Ken Vandemark (ts, cl, b-cl) Mats Gustafsson (bs, flup) Joe McPhee (pc, v-tr ss) Jeb Bishop (tr) Fred Londberg-Hom (co) Kenty Kessler (b) Michael Zerang, Hamid Drake (d, perc)
Old Bottle, New Wine
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Review: Damo Suzuki with Dragon not Emperor, Plexus, Black Carrot: Zen Pentecostal Tribal Stomp: Quad Studios, Leicester... Saturday 28 April, 2007

To the Quad Studios... a schizophrenic night – in the roles of observer and participant... The venue is in a part of Leicester where many old industrial properties are being converted to new uses. Not far from the centre of town and a great place to play – but if you don't know the area, a difficult place to find... As the promoter's nerves were being stretched further, the audience started to trickle in, building to reasonable proportions. The Quad is a factory converted into well-equipped rehearsal studios with a large reception area where the stage has been set up. Black Carrot and Dragon Not Emperor (their overlapping duo off-shoot) had extensive sound checks due to the amount of percussion to be miked up, presumably. We did ours fairly quickly as I had decided just to bring a laptop and Murray a guitar to keep clutter down to the minimum – although during our set I think the laptop did some strange things here and there, due to the varying sonic ranges and granularities of the samples I had loaded. There was another minor panic at one point when the promoter received an enigmatic text message which looked as if the star of the evening, Damo Suzuki, was having to pull out at the last minute. Apparently a wrong number – but it provoked a frisson or two... As a gig organiser on and off for many years, I know only too well how the stress levels rise and the lure of strong drink is all too irrestible – until all your musicians are assembled and there is an adequate audience to play to. But it was all coming together – Damo duly arrived and soon the first band started up:

Dragon or Emperor – a duo tonight, Stuart Brackley on bass/lead vocals and Euan Rodger on drums and vocals. Opening on a thumping beat that was a signature in many ways for the night – always underneath the sonic mayhem to follow there was some kind of rhythmic guide. Then the bass snapped in and Stuart proceeded to fill out the sound thoroughly – lead and rhythm simultaneously for large sections. His voice is like a third instrument - the vocals are blurred and somewhat indistinct but this is more about sound/texture and meshing as a third line. Certainly he has an extraordinary voice – vibrato-laden in a way that edges towards the ageing fop Ferry as an easy reference point – but a light year away in what he does with it. Dragon or Emperor start the proceedings on a high level and are well received.

Some re-arrangement: Tom at the drums now as Euan comes downstage to his percussion kit and Black Carrot assemble. I once compared what they do to the type of punk-jazz that was coming out of New York when James Chance and Defunkt were Downtown and roaring but tonight they are nearer to rock (pointed up by Stuart Brackley playing electric rather than acoustic bass tonight)– with their own twists and bends and improvisational ethic that combine to make that somewhat addled form still interesting. A deeply visceral sound, often rooted in the bass lines of Brackley who leads the band melodically for much of the way (and sings in that wonderful open-throated voice), with Oliver Betts starting out on the weird instrument I figure was some kind of bass-recorder, miked up, switching to seamy, smoky tenor sax further on in. I remarked above that the night was based on a tribal stomp motif in a way – and this is what brought the disparate tribes together, perhaps. But what makes Carrot interesting is that they don't just stay there... the two-drum lines will start with simple figures that quickly splinter into syncopations, as the bass roams the airwaves from deep to high up the neck and Ollie's horns fill in the gaps, Stuart's vocals plead and seduce... speaking in the tongues necessary – as a fascinating forerunner to Mr Suzuki. What I've always liked about this band is to the fore tonight – flexibility of strategy, backed by an inside/outside selection of moves that gives a pathway in for audiences even as they subsequently take them to strange places – and bring them safely home. It's that tribal boom boom – that dissolves into more complex rhythms and sounds but is always implicit, like a heartbeat. A great set...









The tribal boom boom of Plexus is maybe not so immediately obvious. Playing as a duo tonight – our original line-up – it was the Old Firm: loud, dissonant, and free-flowing with, however, an insistent four four loop slowly dragged in at the bottom as some sort of anchor. Damo Suzuki famously never rehearses – so neither had we (which would have been absurd anyway as most of our music is improvised on the spot). I can't comment much on our set as I was in the thick of it musically – stage left at the laptop with Damo in the middle and Murray to the other side. He gave up a sonic firestorm on his guitar – feedback, bows, mallets, knocking the shit out his instrument. Somehow – and it is a testament to Damo Suzuki's inherent professionalism – and flexibility and freshness of imagination, because professionalism on its own as technique say is nothing without those more elusive qualities – he quickly found a space in the music – and locked into it. I have no idea how long we played – fifteen, maybe twenty minutes as we were lost in the performance, guided solidly by Damo's wonderfully weird vocals – of which more below, when I had a chance to be an observer...

The main set of the night: Damo Suzuki with Black Carrot and the inestimable Mr Teledu added on guitar. Oliver Betts now on electric piano. That stomp started up – the guideline and a heavy rhythm was kept up throughout – criss-crossed by the invention of the two drummers. Bass receding somewhat to lock things down as Dave T's guitar lashed out some sparse figures, at one point bottle-necking fluid treble glissandos. Ollie launching into some forearm and hand-chop clusters in places, reminiscent of Cecil Taylor. Suzuki meshes with the band seamlessly, flying over the frequent stop-time breaks, his voice coming out of the rock tradition but going into very different places. He makes it look almost easy – but it's not. A slight man who exudes a calm centre, he has a surprisingly wide vocal range, sometimes descending to a deep roar that surges from some bass area channeling Beefheart and Howling Woolf – a trace of Louis Armstrong's scatting? - with maybe something intrinsically Japanese tonally mixed in. An improvised, abstracted vocal blending the melody and the rhythms seamlessly with the backing musicians, sung with a fervour that rivals a Pentecostal foray into speaking with tongues crossed with a lash of Zen... a shamanic performance as Damo sings in a language of his own invention. He retains vestiges of the old hippie idealism from a more innocent time (his musical origins in Germany as a street performer and his tenure with Can) – yet he is not some old rock panhandler out doing the retro-revival circuit. None of the dinosaurs would have the nerve and grace to travel the world and perform spontaneously as Damo does with his selected 'Sound-Carriers:' musicians who come together locally to play with him – which ensures that he keeps each appearance fresh. Maybe sometimes it won't work, due to the high-wire nature of his game, the chances taken. Tonight it did... I speak for all the Leicester Sound-Carriers – it was a great privilege to perform with Damo – and fun, too!

Apologies for going AWOL... then Clifford Thornton...

My apologies – this has been a week of enforced rest – exhaustion has caught up with me... so the Damo Suzuki review is somewhat late - but will go up today (honest)... and some mp3's tomorrow... Here's a track to keep things moving – an obscurity I just acquired in a new batch of stuff. Clifford Thornton, a multi-intrumentalist with radical leanings that are displayed in the album title: 'The Panther and the Lash.' This is 'El Fath,' recorded in Paris, November 1970. Starting on a vamp led by the bass followed by piano and hissing, rattling percussion that leads you in nicely, Thornton squalls up on the shenai, which I gather is some kind of Indian oboe. (Ornette has used one, way back). Thornton exploits its unique tonal qualities to the full, bending and swaying over the insistent rhythms of his backing musicians. This is a rare classic, now re-issued on CD from one of the great, if neglected, figures of Free Jazz. Till later...

Clifford Thornton
Clifford Thornton (cor, shn, v-tb, p, maracas) François Tusques (p, cel, balafon, maracas)Beb Guérin (b) Noel McGhie (d, perc)
El Fath
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Paul Bley... John Coltrane... Charles Gayle...

Killer band... Bley the leader, John Gilmore, Peacock and Motian... 'Turning' is an almost stately waltz whose brief theme is quickly disrupted by Bley's tumbling beginning to his solo. Peacock in close pursuit all over his bass and Motian interestingly oblique. Gilmore comes in on a repeated fragment that he tosses around, going sideways at one point with some growling granularity. The rhythm sways behind him with vertiginous shifts as he continues to run with a repeating/extending line, like a glitterball above a ballroom that sends out different refracted patterns as it revolves. Peacock shows his technique – a strumming, plunking solo. Back to the theme briefly. An interesting exercise in hiding the three four amongst a nest of polyrhythms...

Gilmore is always mentioned as having influenced John Coltrane in some measure... Here is the late great Trane band from the album 'Meditations.' 'The Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost.' The gospel influence is surely to the fore here, in this wild, sprawling search for transcendence. When you play some really raw gospel back to back with this music, you hear the link, surely... The simple theme that emerges reminds me of Albert Ayler – another interesting influence on Coltrane – doubled by the other horn spitting out fanfare-like figures á la Don Ayler. The theme is hurled up in the air and attacked from all angles – I have mentioned before that Coltrane's roiling spiritual quests in his music are unsettling, jagged, high-energy runs into unknown territory – far from the simplistic pieties of the New Age – if Kierkegaad had been reincarnated in twentieth century America and played tenor saxophone, this is the sort of music I imagine that he would have produced. The two drummers set up a blurring jolting backdrop – Elvin on one of his last go-rounds with a band that was soon to lose McCoy Tyner who was replaced by Alice Coltrane. (Not sure of the exact dates – but 'Meditations' was the last album with Jones and Tyner, recorded in November, 1965. By February of the next year when the next recording session took place, they had left... ). Pharoah Sanders emerges out of the firestorm to devasting effect – howling, shrieking smears of blood-red tenor. Moving into a two-tenor blow-out that evokes hunting horns at one point... Tally-ho...When the spirit moves...

'Touchin' on Trane' makes an explicit connection/homage to the dead tenor giant. But Charles Gayle is his own man in a different time – huge lungfulls of air blown through his instrument to release a dervish horde of notes and timbres. Here's 'Part C,' a fast-paced riot of joy. Gayle comes in hard and fast, underpinned and closely paced by William Parker's bass and Rashied Ali's drums. Ali, of course, was the last drummer in Coltrane's group before he died, the man who assisted him take his quest onwards by providing a free-floating undergirding of opened out rhythms. He takes a fleet solo here before Gayle returns, going up high in a masterly display of articulation. I've just read Phil Freeman's fascinating book, 'New York is Now! The New Wave of Free Jazz.' about the New York Free Jazz continuum - partisan and fierce in his attempts to right the wrongs of side-stepped and ignored musicians whom he makes a good case for being the true heirs to the 'jazz' legacy, rather than the neo-classical gang clustered around Wynton and co. Don't agree with everything he says, but the main thrust is sharp and true... I see more of the spirit of jazz ongoing in Gayle, William Parker, David S Ware and company than in the retro death grip of Lincoln Center... (Phil also runs a good music blog here...). Who hasn't read the orthodox criticisms of musicians such as Gayle – that they are somehow just copyists of Ayler, Ornette, Coltrane et al? Blah blah... Bullshit... They didn't get it then and many still don't get it now... And another thought, that Freeman touches on: maybe one of the reasons 'free jazz' is ignored to the extent that it is may reside in the spiritual impulses of so many of its practitioners – something that separates the Europeans from the Americans to a certain extent, given the more agnostic culture the former come from. William Parker is quoted in Freeman's book as saying:

'I think a lot of European musicians don't get into the spirituality of the music... But when you play free improvisation, I think God is there too...whether you like it or not.' (Page 78, New York is Now).

Gayle, for example is a strong Christian whose beliefs have led him into various confrontations and controversies. Coltrane, being dead, can be dealt with more easily and his profound spirituality hastily bundled out of the way. Critics versed in the contemporary pieties of post-modernism approach these subjects uneasily... But remember Albert Ayler saying, way back:

'I must have spiritual men playing with me. Since we are the music we play, our way of life has to be clean or else the music can't be kept pure.' (From a 'Downbeat' interview here...

Lastly, Freeman makes the case for free jazz expanding its audience among the young noise/rock/avant garde metal crowd... a phenomenon I have witnessed here in the U.K. Let's face it, this is not the sort of music that many (not all, to be fair) searching out a standards and blues changes band are going to get too close too...

And that's enough proselytising for today... From the spiritual to the profane... Here's something a wee bit more down to earth: Lightnin' Hopkins, the free spirit of the blues, performing 'Bring me my shotgun.' Proto ganster rap... an uneasy, dark track concerned with infidelity - with an ambiguity: a hidden metaphor for sexual impotence at the end? 'The reason I don't shoot you, little woman - my double barrelled shotgun just won't fire.'




In the Videodrome...

Hair Police – from their tour a while back – my review here – fucking brilliant... making the links between rock, improvisation, noise and free jazz...

Heretically, never a great fan of Billy Holiday – but this is classic stuff... fine and mellow... the band is ridiculous (in the best sense, Cynthia...)

... Lester again – in more voluble form, with Ella...

...Bird and Bean

... our own Pete King on Bird's plastic alto -

...Trane and Getz in Europe – with Oscar Peterson... I kid you not...


Paul Bley
Paul Bley (p) John Gilmore (ts) Gary Peacock (b) Paul Motian (d)
Turning
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John Coltrane
(John Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders (ts) McCoy Tyner (p) Jimmy Garrison (b) Elvin Jones, Rashied Ali (d)
The Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost
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Charles Gayle
Charles Gayle (ts) William Parker (b) Rashied Ali (d)
Part C
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Lightnin' Hopkins
Bring me my shotgun
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Damo Suzuki at the Quad Studios, Leicester... Saturday 28th April, 2007... part one...

Just a quick post to up a couple of photos and say how much I enjoyed the gig last night... Damo Suzuki was brilliant, playing with both Plexus (myself and Murray Ward) - who hoist the black flag of noise/cosmic wahoo and to which his vocal responses were pretty amazing - and in his main set with Black Carrot, our own David Teledu added to the ensemble on guitar. Dragon or Emperor blasted the night off to the levels it stayed at throughout (well, I can't talk for us, but Carrot plus Teledu were on fire). David also promoted the night at Quad Studios - whose owner Bob and his staff extended to all of us their courtesy and professionalism. Great venue - great sound. And great audience. More later when I've recovered... and must buy a new camera... I don't think that dropping it a while back did it much good...

Derek Bailey/Cyro Baptista... Andrew Hill... Booker Ervin...

Derek Bailey time... plus percussionist: 'Cyro Baptista has recorded with a wide range of artists including john zorn, wynton marsalis, herbie hancock, sting, paul simon, cassandra wilson,and trey anastasio.' (From here... scroll down...). One could juxtapose the list to get some interesting results... Derek B with Paul Simon, for example... or the appalling bore, Sting... Or Derek with Wynton... that would have been fun... An interesting fantasy... On 'Tonto,' the inimitable guitarist comes up against the bubblingly infectious rhythms and sounds of Baptista and displays how his spiky, asymmetric playing can bounce off or complement - and also drag his collaborator into areas he might not have travelled to, by the dynamic gravity of his conception. And the reverse – reacting to Baptista causes Bailey to lay back more than usual. Commencing on high pitches and rustles – tremelo guitar figures, spartan for Bailey. Lots of space here – guitar falls back to allow Baptista's small percussion through, returning on strange string noises – plectrum scrapings up and down the strings? Baptista sets up a melodic line of sorts on one of his instruments – some kind of bowed gadget? Round which Bailey weaves his sparse phrases, string noises and occasional ratcheting fast-plectrummed spasms. A very good demonstration that Bailey was more flexible than may often have appeared...

Another Andrew Hill track...

One last word on the passing of Andrew Hill... Be.Jazz has some fascinating links on his tribute to the late pianist – check out the Ethan Iverson essay and the live trio concert video. Just noticed this blog piece about the album, 'Passing Ships,' from which I have extracted the track 'Cascades.' (There is an mp3 download of 'Plantation Bag' here as well...). Recorded in 1969 but not released till 2003... The nonet deployed on this session gives an insight into Hill's writing for a larger than combo size band. The drums usher in the ensemble – a very full sound from top to bottom, anchored by tuba. One thinks of the 'Birth of the Cool' sessions – although this is different, spikier territory, the sonorities are reminiscent of Miles' band. A charging solo from Farrell (whose playing on his several wind instruments is stamped all over this album a heroic role). Hill follows, sparse phrases given plenty of space, spurred on by occasional eruptions from the front line – brassy fanfares... a reminder – and contrast – to Monk, who was an influence Hill assimilated. The similarity in oblique phrasing and unpredictable use of space... the contrast: Monk always seems to have sprung totally from within the Afro-American music tradition, whereas Hill has an edge of European classical/art music in his melodic and harmonic thinking that spices his own cultural heritage. A matter of small nuance, perhaps... these things intermingle and mix more than the purists realise – on both sides... Trumpet follows, brash and beautiful, with the young Lenny White putting the spurs to it before the band return – trumpet and sax weaving to round it off...

Booker Ervin from 1962. 'Speak Low,' track four on the album 'That's It!' A booting tenorfest... alpha male full-throated swagger. Ervin takes the first solo, running the tune ragged. Parlan next, fleet and bluesy before the Book returns to finish it off. Ira Gitler said of him: "Booker Ervin's tenor is like a giant steamroller of a brush, painting huge patterns on a canvas as wide and high as the sky." (Quoted in here...). Tough – and tender...




In the Videodrome...

Eric Dolphy doing his solo bass clarinet thing...

Jaki Byard...

Mingus in Norway...part 1

... and part 2

Derek Bailey (g) Cyro Baptista (perc)
Tonto
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Andrew Hill
Andrew Hill (p) Julian Priester (tr) Dizzy Reece, Woody Shaw (t) trumpet Joe Farrell (bcl, af, (eh) (ss) (ts) Bob Northern (fh) Howard Johnson (tb, bcl) Ron Carter (b) Lenny White (d)
Cascade
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Booker Ervin
Booker Ervin (ts) Horace Parlan (p) George Tucker (b) Al Harewood (d)
Speak Low
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Andrew Hill 1931-2007...

A late posting on a sad subject – but I have been laid up with a chest infection that sideswiped me at the end of last week... just about coming round now...


As jazz gets older – whatever arbitrary birthdate or more realistically timeframe where the music coalesced and evolved into an approximation of what we could understand as 'jazz' one considers, approaching a hundred years, whichever way you slice it – mortality takes over and ever-increasingly adds to the ranks of the departed. So to the sad news that Andrew Hill died last week after battling with cancer for some time. Condolences to his family and friends – and a small requiem. Here are two tracks from his 1964 album – fittingly called 'Andrew!!!' and the exclamation marks are deserved in spades. Added value to this album is the presence of John Gilmore... First: 'Le Serpent Qui Danse.' A dancing, serpentine melody indeed, with perhaps a nod at the more clenched convolutions of Monk. Hill ripples out some single note lines over spartan left hand, becoming more two handed towards the end in textural contrast – bop twisted sideways as he never quite goes where you think he is heading for. Hutchinson follows, closely shadowed by the piano, his lines seeming a fitting extension of the leader's vision. Chambers and Davis superb throughout – the drummer letting go an almighty joyful crash towards the end of the vibes solo. Gilmore – worried phrases then sudden dives and swoops into a longer pattern. His tone similar to Coltrane – on whom he had some influence:

'Gilmore...[was] a gifted saxophonist who gave John Coltrane lessons and was an important but still undervalued influence on the generation of saxophonists who emerged in the 1960s avant-garde...' (From here...).

The drummer next, commencing on a shimmer or cymbals. Hill returns, developing quickly into more chordal strategies, thickening his line. Return of ensemble for the theme and a short piano coda.

My second selection is 'Symmetry.' Hill takes the first solo – expansive and twisting into unusual places again. Knotty stuff... Chambers up next as Davis and spartan piano back his brief but sparkling solo. Hutchinson moves in for his take on expanded bebop then Gilmore – brusque choppy phrases. Noting that comparison with Coltrane again, Gilmore is less 'sheets of sound' than 'shards of sound,' allowing more space...

John Fordham wrote (here...):
'But being many-layered, complex, stretched between American jazz, Caribbean and sometimes 20th-century classical music, Hill's music has never won him the fame of radical contemporaries like Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra, or the Art Ensemble of Chicago.'

A sad truth... yet Hill had received some belated recognition in recent years... although I suspect that 'time, that with that strange excuse' (to appropriate a deleted section of Auden's poem and twist the meaning somewhat) will do much more than pardon his obscurity and see him elevated to a higher position in the public annals – where he undoubtedly belongs. John Fordham's obituary is here...


Andrew Hill
Andrew Hill (p) Bobby Hutcherson (vib) John Gilmore (ts) Richard Davis (b) Joe Chambers (d)
Le serpent qui danse
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Symmetry
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Ornette Coleman receives the Pulitzer... congratulations!

As I mentioned yesterday, the Pulitzer Prize for music has been awarded to Ornette Coleman for his album 'Sound Grammar.' I wonder if the 77 year old reflected on Duke's sardonic statement, when he missed out on a similar prize: 'Fate is being kind to me. Fate doesn't want me to be famous too young.' But let us not carp... I saw the band who recorded this 2005 live album at Ludwigshaven in London the same year and they were brilliant – looking forward to seeing O.C. In July...

So: a small celebration from this blog for a visionary musician... A couple of posts back, I noted that Straight No Chaser has a piece on this and included a track from 'Sound Grammar,' so I'll avoid duplication and go for something earlier. Here's Ornette on his European jaunt in 1965, recorded live at the Tivoli, playing 'Clergyman's Dream.' One of my favourite line-ups - Ornette with David Izenzon and Charles Moffett. Opening theme by Ornette, tracked by the bass and then the drums – the solo alto just flows out from here. The bass is very prominent and the way Ornette bounces off Izenzon's lines describes a joyful arc of freedom. Moffett picks up steam although the recording does him no favours. For me this is one of those tracks that demonstrate very clearly one great vision of what 'free' improvisation means.

Izenzon up next – backed by Moffett's cymbals he takes a fleet pizzicato solo that ranges across his instrument from high to low – Moffett sets up a counter-rhythm at one point on what sounds like a beer glass before thumping his toms to signal his take-over from the bass. A brilliant and imaginative drummer. Free – and swinging, starting off with hihat ticking the off-beat and a rattle of tambourine as a historic starting point almost before the the rapidly developing complications of his complex stick-work take over.

Ornette comes back – some interesting triplet over two behind him that gives a swaying sensation before the bass returns to a more solid four walk. One feels as if the space evoked here is limitless, free air blowing in all directions... Izenzon does his suspended rhythm again... Sudden rolls on the toms as three go separately -and together. Coming back to the slow/fast theme...
The track ends in a glorious rapid swirl of notes and drums... Cue applause...

During this track, as Ornette alternately entangles himself in knotty swirls of melody and then jumps free in a manner that follows a conversational logic – his alto exultant, pleading, querulous – joyful – yet a deep and meaningful conversation – no idle chatter – he demonstrates one of the great innovations in instrumental technique that 'jazz' as we know it developed from the start. The 'vocalised' instrumental tone that every musician has to find – ways of bending the conventional straight timbres to the individual's will and imagination. Compare, say, Lee Konitz with Charlie Parker – the hot and the cool (although Konitz in later years has developed a harder edge). Two radically different voices... Jazz musicians have to find their way through to that space which their technique, emotions and imagination come together to create – influence can never be escaped, yet the imperative is for a degree of freedom that transcends one's teachers – in any of the genres, old and new, retro or forward-faring or just holding the line – way beyond the academy's training. The degree to which this has changed among classically trained musicians is probably the extent to which jazz has impacted on their territories... An overtly romantic take, maybe... but this music makes me feel overtly romantic – guts and brain engaged simultaneously...

And I've just discovered that I upped this track last year and also wrote at some length about it here... bugger! Still – always worth hearing and I'm on the clock today so...


Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman (as) David Izenzon (b) Charles Moffett (d)
Clergyman's Dream

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Bandwidth...

Just checked and noticed that my bandwidth has been exceeded on YouSendIt - all sorted now... the last set of downloads will be ok for the next six days... as ever, if anyone requests a re-post, I'll see what I can do... Just acquired a batch of new cds and albums - the usual mixture including some nice stuff from Bill Dixon and Archie Shepp form way back, along with the unfairly obscure Clifford Thornton... and some Paul Bley... have to get busy on the mp3 conversions as soon as possible...
And... I really must get round to deleting some of the older Savefile tracks so will post up what is still remaining when I've checked through them...

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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Condolences...

I was intending to post the usual odd mixture of mp3's today but, on reflection, have decided that the invariably light-hearted tone I aim for alongside the serious love of the musics - which are mainly from America - jazz, blues, improvised, whatever - would not be appropriate, given the recent tragedy at Virginia Tech and also while the Memorial Service is still being broadcast over the BBC 24 hour news. My condolences to all who have been affected by this terrible incident - sometimes the only appropriate response is silence...

Vat and Fiddle, Sunday 15th April 2007...

To Nottingham and the Vat and Fiddle for the monthly afternoon gig. A beautiful sunny day - so most of the potential audience were outside! Enough drifted in to make it interesting... and I cranked the P.A. up a notch to reach the sunbathers... Mr Marmion was practising his new raspy voice after his encounter with a small camera being thrust down his throat last week at the hospital - brought a new dimension of gravel and grit to 'Delia Gone.' The boys were on their usual form - Tom and Gren having just finished cutting an album, a few new tunes added to the repertoire. What is always interesting is to track the rapid movements in technique and stagecraft as they progress into becoming one of the best acts on the acoustic scene over here... Some old friends in the audience - from junior to senior...

The fate of the Tonic...

I didn't make it to the Tonic when I was in the U.S. a while back, although I intended to. Health issues dictated a less ambitious regime - (although we made it to the Stone Club). But sad news comes out of New York with regard to the future of the Tonic - which I was intending to visit on my next trip this summer. I reprint below the flyer being sent out and urge locals and anyone else able to help to join in the struggle... I wish everyone involved success...

CULTURAL EMERGENCY
Musicians and Friends:
It is time to Claim what is our Right!

COME to TONIC
Saturday April 14th
FROM 11 a.m. until...

107 Norfolk Street
(between Delancey and Rivington)


We Must Demand:
An adequate, affordable space, centrally located in the LES!
Tonic is being handed over to the realtors.
We are making an appeal to the City, to either give us this space or one comparable in size for the use of avantjazz/new music/indie community.
We can not lose such an Important Home!
YOUR PRESENCE - YOUR MUSIC- YOUR VOICE – YOUR ART - IS ESSENTIAL.

SHOW THE CITY YOU CARE ABOUT WHAT IS HAPPENING.

DON’T LET REALTORS DECIDE NEW YORK CITY’S CULTURAL FATE!

STOP the loss of important venues, one by one forced to close by rent increases at an alarming rate.
STOP the destruction of the LES as a center of diverse & varied & unique culture.
Tonic is scheduled to close on Friday, April 13th, 2007.

The following day, we will gather to fight the eviction of this crucial venue, the diminishment of our livelihoods, and the destruction of our culture by peacefully resisting. Please join us.

For the last nine years Tonic has been at the center of NYC experimental music. When the tsunami of rent increases and mal-development engulfing the LES forces its closure, NYC will have lost the last avant-jazz/indie/new music club in Manhattan with a capacity over 90. A vibrant community of musicians and fans worked for years to maintain Tonic -- raising over 100,000 dollars through benefit concerts and donations to pay off debt, fund repairs, buy a sound system, and keep the club open in devastating times such as following 9/11/01.

We’re taking action now to dramatize the market failure of which Tonic’s closing is a symptom, and to ask that the city save this home for us or provide a minimum 200 capacity, centrally located venue for experimental jazz, indie, and new music.

We want for ourselves and the communities around us the right to stay around long enough to enjoy the culture we’ve created, not harassment and a bum’s rush into eviction the minute real estate decides we’ve made the neighborhood ‘safe’ and ‘cultured’ enough for them to cash in.

This is where we tell the landlords, developers, and the city: Enough. Genucht. Basta ya!

Coming on the heels of the closing of CBGB's, Sin-e, Fez, The Continental, and numerous other varied downtown venues, the closing of Tonic represents the shutting down of NYC's most important live music experimental jazz, indie, and new music scene.

This wave of live music space closings constitutes a market failure. The downsized or geographically marginal venues arising in the wake of the established club closings are not generating enough to maintain the economic viability of this scene. If there is not immediate and sufficient PUBLIC INTERVENTION, either in the form of limiting rents, or supplying alternate space and funding - or both - New York City will lose an essential part of its heritage, culture, and economy.

“My band plays some of the biggest festivals in Europe...Meanwhile there’s only one club I can play in New York and it’s about to close.”
Steven Bernstein, Trumpet player and leader of Sex Mob and the Millennial Territory Orchestra
(NY Times)

According to Patricia Nicholson Parker, organizer of the Vision Festival:
“We have come together to say we deserve a space and in essence, we have already paid for our space. Musicians contribute to the economy of this city every day with world class performances. In the case of Tonic, many musicians came together and invested in the space. Through benefits and organizing they raised significant sums of money (100+ grand) for the venue, Tonic. The city needs to acknowledge this. It is good for the city and good for the artists and their audiences that the city make available a musician-friendly community club/space which holds up to 200 audience members. It is important that it not be in the outer boroughs but be centrally located in the LES where this serious alternative music has been birthed and where it can be easily accessed by audiences.”

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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Joe Albany/Warne Marsh...

I have to attend my mother's funeral today so only one track for now: 'Body and Soul,' by Joe Albany and Warne Marsh. Old-school, maybe – but improvising of the highest order. Some mystery to this – according to the sleeve notes there were three players present for this informal session recorded at the home of engineer Ralph Garretson– Marsh, Albany and the bass player, Bob Whitlock, but there is clearly a drummer present... Could be Red Martinson... or Stan Dembowski... Not too sure where I acquired this – possibly from jazz pour tous or a Rab-related site. The things one stumbles across – 'Joe Albany' was a character played by Lloyd Nolan in the 1938 film 'Hunted Men.' In real life, a somewhat tragic character - there is a wonderful interview here with his daughter Amy, who wrote a 'warts-and-all' book about her life with him. Marsh was a brilliant tenor player who never really got the recognition he should have. Listen to their actions and interactions as they take the old standard for a ride.

And: tot siens, mother...

Joe Albany/Warne Marsh
Joe Albany (p) Warne Marsh (ts) Bob Whitlock (b) Unknown (d)
Body and Soul
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Henry Threadgill... Cecil Taylor... Juke Boy Bonner...

After the sturm und drang of the wild and wooly sixties, things died down considerably on the avant garde jazz front – due a complex combination of cultural and economic factors. Yet much work was being done below the radar...
This Henry Threadgill track, 'USO Dance,' is taken from the indespensible 'Wildflowers: The New York Jazz Loft Sessions' – 'sessions...[documenting]... a period in the music's history that, until now, has been severely neglected.' (Taken from Scott Hreha's review here...).
Opening on a rapid-fire bass over spattering cymbals and ripping drums – a sudden pause and Threadgill plunges straight in, introducing a motif and tossing it about – fragments, short phrases the building blocks...
The USO dance must have required much fleetness of foot... I assume this refers to the United Services Overseas – Threadgill was involved with playing and writing for various bands during his term of military service. The band are, of course, the very wonderful Air), Threadgill in company with Fred Hopkins and Steve McCall – decamped from their original home in Chicago to New York when this was recorded live at Sam Rivers' loft in 1976. A perfect balance achieved between the three (worthy, as Bird might have said) constituents...

The drums have it... a stomping opening with snapping rim shots then Cecil lashes out some solo piano – hacking out two handed dissonances before the drums and bass pick up the tempo and Archie Shepp joins in. This is 'Air – take 28,' in a fast but steady time – Neidlinger's bass walking as of olden days. Shepp was allegedly never too comfortable on this session but by the time they got to this take number... he seems more settled. He drops out and Cecil takes over and lifts the track into a different dimension – mainly right hand work here, ranging through the treble. With the steady bass underneath as of Bebop of yore, maybe there isn't so much need for left hand – although it creeps in as he progresses through his solo – minimal prodding rather than sweeping ambidexterity. Taylor and the drummer trade fours... one of those fascinating tracks hovering on the borderline of the music... Charles is superb but Taylor really lets rip here – listen to the way they toss rhythmic figures backward and forward and compare his approach with the drummer... Eight minutes forty four seconds that helped to change the world...

Weldon 'Juke Boy' Bonner was a Texas bluesman who recorded in the fifties and sixties and died prematurely from cirrhosis at the age of 46. A blues life... Not so well known, maybe, as his illustrious forbear, Lightning Hopkins, Bonner has hard, sad stories to tell in an interesting and very appealing manner. 'Stay off Lyons Avenue,' is a fast shuffle also reminiscent of Jimmy Reed. Accomplished harp and strumming electric guitar – his take on the demarcations of bar lines reminds of Lightning's oft-repeated dictum in a studio once: 'Lightnin' change [chord] when Lightnin' wants to.' Which sums up the link between the freedoms of the old blues and the new musics... His songs are raw translations of his life and times in Houston, another link in the chain that leads to hip-hop and rap – compare to present-day Houston music, the violence and random nature of life in the underclass still sadly resonate – 'You go there green, that's the last time you'll be seen. You know it is..'

'If you had to choose a poet laureate of the late '60s / early '70s blues scene you would be hard pressed to find someone more qualified than Juke Boy Bonner. Bonner's songs speak beautifully and forcefully of the struggle of African Americans. While many blues song-writers focus attention on themselves and their place in the world, Bonner's songs display a social consciousness that stretched far beyond himself.' (from here... scroll down...).








In the Videodrome...

Keith Jarrett/Gary Peacock/Jack DeJohnette play here...

DeJohnette again with Miles in 1970...

...Henry Threadgill talks and plays



Henry Threadgill
Henry Threadgill(as) Fred Hopkins (b) Steve McCall (d)
USO Dance
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Cecil Taylor
Cecil Taylor (p) Archie Shepp (ts) Buell Neidlinger (b) Dennis Charles (d)
Air take 28
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Juke Boy Bonner (g, harm) Alvin J. Simon
Stay off Lyons Avenue
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60 today... celebrate with Andrew Hill...

Well - it's my sixtieth birthday and given all my health issues over the last few years, maybe a surprise to myself that I made it this far... a bigger post to come over Easter... but here's a track from a recent acquisition - Andrew Hill playing 'Eris' from his 1965 album 'Pax.' Weirdly kept in the can by Blue Note for years, bits and pieces surfacing eventually albeit briefly in the seventies , the whole session was only released complete last year. Front line: Freddie Hubbard and Joe Henderson on blistering form - plus the leader's acerbic piano over the always wonderful Davis and Chambers's driving drums. Touched by the avant garde but keeping a toe hold on the old verities - a unique balancing act... this is a wild track... Henderson sends out a tumbling, roiling solo with Hill hacking out shards of piano behind - then Hubbard steps up and plays off the edge of himself... the leader interrogates his own material in his usual probing manner, laced with some stomping two handed figures - there is a wonderful urgency and drive to this album - a classic...
but sleep looms, mes braves... and a big kiss to my beloved daughter Amelia who has been a rock over the the last couple of difficult weeks...

Andrew Hill
Andrew Hill (p) Freddie Hubbard (t) Joe Henderson (ts) Richard Davis (b) Joe Chambers (d)
Eris
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