ep1str0phy

Ha! I kind of figured Clifford would be all over this. I started this thread several years back: Free Funk ...and there may still be something useful in there. A LOT of Byard Lancaster's music could fall into this category. Speaking to the South African connection, plenty of Dudu Pukwana's music could fit this mold. Diamond Express/Ubagile comes to mind: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0H_n34woDRA&feature=related -and in terms of Pukwana's UK cohorts, the music of Gary Windo and early Soft Machine could fit the bill (although it's all decidedly more rock than funk in groove). Similarly rockish, but with kind of a modal/jazz bent that often shifts into very free textures, is any music that features the Tippett/Miller/Moholo rhythm section. This came to mind immediately: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsmVYiB8keo And then there's the music of Trevor Watts & Amalgam--very jazzy in character but borrowing heavily, in a rhythmic sense, from US soul jazz, various kinds of African musics, and Ornettish free funk. I don't think any two Amalgam albums sound quite the same, but there's plenty of very vital inside/outside soloing in every iteration. At the same time, I always heard Nation Time as sort of a funky exercise in post-Coltrane modal jazz. I think anything with the Buster Williams/Billy Hart rhythm section (notwithstanding Mwandishi, which is really its own thing), as well as work by a number of Coltrane epigones (Azar Lawrence, Nathan Davis, Carlos Garnett), might edge you closer in that direction.

Later than the Izenzon/Moffett trio, by there are clips from the 60's and early 70's in Shirley Clarke's Ornette Coleman: Made In America. It's certainly one of my favorite music films, but one of my great frustrations with the clips is that a shot of the Ornette/Cherry/Redman frontline (with, I believe, Haden/Blackwell) lasts only a handful of seconds and is obscured by a voiceover. There's also this video from 1972 that has been floating around (there are more clips from the concert scattered throughout the interwebs--I can't find a single continuous performance video, unfortunately): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUknEreFHNg My sense is that there's plenty of Ornette film footage lying around, the bulk of it in Ornette's vault (along with, likely, the balance of the Town Hall concert, the tape with Ayler, the SOJTC quartet reunion that was recorded in the 70's, and so on). As much as I would like to see Crisis on CD, I admire Ornette for his dogged self-determinism--what other jazz icon has so comprehensive a hold on his back catalog?

I'm of the mind these days that energy music serves more of a social function than a strictly aesthetic one. I say this with regard to both the "living masters" of the form--Gayle, Kidd, Arthur Doyle, etc.--and the legions of stylists who have both adopted this musical sensibility and pursued it wholesale. I've enjoyed most of the masters on record, but like many of you folks I've had a stronger emotional reaction/connection to what live performances I've seen. I was at Guelph a couple years back when Kidd played this unrelenting, multi-climactic quartet set with Joel Futterman, Alvin Fielder, and a bass player whose name escapes me at the moment, and the energy both in the room and onstage was closer to a blues or rock venue than any sort of concert music situation I can recall. Kidd's three or four curtain calls were gauche in a buttoned-down "art improv" sense but totally appropriate for a soul/R&B revue. Come to think of it, I've had similar experiences with a number of great honking tenors, not all of them immediately associated with the post-Ayler school (Pharoah Sanders and Billy Harper come to mind). I think this sort of live context is some sort of modern transmogrification of the R&B barwalking of old--a loud, emotional, ecstatic situation that kind of encourages vocal contributions from the audience. That music would not have sounded the same were it not for the music off the stage, in other words. I love Gayle's Trane record and I've enjoyed plenty of his music on record, but the first on I heard (and probably still my favorite) is Repent--go figure, because the title track is like 50 minutes long. I've found that I most enjoy recordings by the American energy schools--whether we're talking about Gayle, Alabama Feeling, Black Beings, Frank Wright, or whomever--when they're (a) reaching for subtleties outside of the energy idiom (i.e., Wright's more reflective, condensed albums like Your Prayer) or (b) pretty much attempting to replicate the live experience. On the other hand--and this speaks more to what I mean by stylists, above--the actual, quantifiable technical content of energy music (insofar as you can examine that stuff in the way you do Coltrane changes or bebop phrasing) is as bankrupt or not bankrupt as any other idiom--which is to say that, outside of the live context where history, charisma, and power can get you over--and especially in situations where the music can/does get reduced to analysis and dissection--the music can be pretty damn abysmal. Music in a strict post-Ayler/post-Brotzmann mode is physically demanding but technically limiting (there's just too much you can't do at at unrelieved high volumes with high density), often deafeningly loud, and (sad to say) easily masks technical limitations. Even when the music is exhilarating and fun to play/listen to, there's no avoiding these facts--and I'll go a little bit further than Allen and say that the corners that energy music has painted itself into are more or less built into the basic principles of the genre. Like David mentioned in the Glasper thread, genre is a question determined at least in part by audience, and the issue is that (as was/is the case with bebop) the minute we've either codified a style or turned a method of playing into something to be revered, that style loses some of its actual flexibility. None of this means that energy players are strictly prohibited from playing quiet, sparse, etc.--it just means that, in practice, because Ayler, Brotz, Wright, etc. did it one way, the everyday adherents of the music aren't expected to produce resourceful and innovative solutions to the problems of the music. I can't count how many gigs I've played where it's been clearly too damn loud and both the band (probably not me, since I'm bitching about it) and the audience were absolutely fine with that--if only because the music was faithful to the aesthetics of the idiom.

The thing that got me was that Flying Lotus is the great-nephew of Alice Coltrane; Cosmogramma is a tribute of sorts to Alice. I honestly can't think of any Coltrane/kosmigroov-inflected music of recent times that has been as creative in its use of Trane-ish source materials. Regardless of its success on its own merits, I think what makes Cosmogramma interesting as a legacy work is the degree to which it departs from its subject matter and conceptual heritage. This doesn't mean to say (on an entirely different level) that Glasper's music is better "current" jazz because it really isn't jazz, but rather that Flying Lotus's Trane-isms are mostly successful because they don't try (or bother) to meet a master on his own terms (and that's a lesson in and of itself, I think). Two of my favorite Trane tributes are "Ohnedaruth" on the Art Ensemble's Phase One and the entirety of Marion Brown's Sweet Earth Flying. The former is sort of a tribute in name and not explicit content and the latter is not really a tribute per se, but they both manage to evoke the iconology of Trane without really doing any Trane-like stuff. "Ohnedaruth" ties together late Trane's implications of infinity, as well as the vocalistic tendencies of the post-Ayler/post-Live In Seattle energy music, with the more earthy hard bop (in the rhythm section hookup) of Trane's earlier days; it's at once a way forward (tying together seemingly disparate subgenre tropes) and a kaleidoscopic view of Trane's personal musical history. Sweet Earth Flying, on the other hand, takes the modalish free harmony and open time feel of late Trane and shrinks it, interpolates some space, and sort of softens the hardcore machismo of 60's energy music--it's at once an interesting commentary on surviving with avant-garde jazz after the 60's as well as something absolutely true to Brown's unique pastoral voice. There's something to be said in both of these cases (as there is with Cosmogramma) in terms of "finding your own voice" while remaining completely part of the lineage.

I think there's plenty of jazz inflected/jazz influenced hip-hop production that accomplishes the idea (or an idea like) what Allen mentions very successfully, with qualifications. It's funny--I sometimes feel like the "avant-garde" of today, insofar as that notion is tied to any particular genre (i.e., avant-garde jazz, avant-garde/experimental hip-hop), is as much about elaborating upon and reconfiguring the basic aesthetics of a given genre rather than transcending them. This makes sense in jazz terms. There is a fine line between genre transcendence and genre obliteration, and if it was evident in the post-Ayler continuum, it's ultra evident in a world that encompasses not only loud, burly blowout free jazz but also the music of the AACM, European Free Improv, Takayangi's Mass Projection, EAI in the Erstwhile vein(s), and so on. In other words, if you're making "avant-garde jazz" today, you're likely working with a specific set of materials commenting on a specific set of things, and if you're making anything truly unheralded or radical, you've left the wheelhouse of the genre avant-garde and are probably making something entirely different. I honestly haven't heard the term avant-garde hip-hop too often--"experimental" hip-hop is more common--and I imagine that part of this has to do with the fact that the presence of an avant-garde implies something like definitive progress/evolution for a genre. "Experimental" is a softer word. Like avant-garde jazz today, a lot of avant-garde hip-hop does have to cater to genre conventions and operate, if not foremost, than at least first on the basic principles of hip-hop production. So even something like this: ...which virtuosically reworks a Wayne Shorter sample ("Barracudas" (General Assembly), off Etcetera), is identifiably a work in the post-Dilla continuum of hip-hop production. I was a tremendous fan of Madlib's Blue Note project until I went back and discovered that he hadn't done much with the source material--the best tracks ("Slim's Return," which samples The Three Sounds) don't do much to alter the DNA of the base track, and the most radical reworkings just sound like Yesterday's New Quintet music (YNQ being Madlib's prefab jazz/improv group, which is more or less groove/samples with noodle-y improv superimposed over everything). I was pretty thrilled when I recognized what I'm pretty sure is part of Don Cherry's Mu on the same YNQ album as the Shorter sample (above), but I was disappointed when I realized that he hadn't done all that much with it. Yes, Shades of Blue was unheralded in that it gave a hip-hop artist unprecedented access to the Blue Note vaults, but it didn't/doesn't do for hip-hop a stitch on what the most incendiary Blue Note dates did for jazz. Maybe the trappings of the loop premise are like ride cymbal dominance and the soloist/rhythm section dichotomy, and so on--it's all stuff that both "genre'd" musicians and critics can't bring themselves to get over, as if losing any number of said attributes would irreparably denature the music's DNA. The opposite argument is that this is the stuff that makes the music work, which is still the argument leveled against, say, electric Miles (you eschew the flexibility of cymbal timekeeping/swing time in favor of bass drum/snare drum dominance, ala rock, and you're left with less interactive music that is more or less stiffer in character--Jack DeJohnette on Live-Evil may want to have some words with you, but I get the point). But then there's shit like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2od42AkD8Gw ...that is just so undeniable and crazy that it doesn't really matter what it is and what it isn't. Flying Lotus is still largely and mainly "about" hip-hop, but some of his studio stuff sits on the line past where you can dance to it and before it becomes "merely" general category electronic music. All this goes to say that there's still flexibility in and around the breaking point of any given genre, although it's important to acknowledge both that these breaking points exist and that there is a shadowy, probably unnecessary commitment to genre sanctity all over the map in this millennium.

RIP. I've enjoyed his playing over the years--he seemed to have an excellent rapport with scores of UK heavyweights. I'll spin some of his work with Mike Osborne a little later...

Swarm Intelligence Hey, good Organissimo-type people- I have no idea why I didn't post about this sooner, but this show may be of interest to Bay Area people--I'm debuting a new band featuring my duo Grex (there was some discussion here about our most recent album not too long ago), two members of the band Wiener Kids (Jordan Glenn and Cory Wright, on drums and Bb reeds, respectively) and two members of the Lost Trio (Phillip Greenlief on alto sax and Dan Seamans--also of the New Klezmer Trio--on upright bass). It's called Swarm Intelligence, and it's sort of a synthesis of ideas gleamed from ambient/out electric jazz (early 70's Wayne, Mwandishi, Bennie Maupin, 70's Miles), Paul Motian Quintet-type music (the rhythm section hookup on this is very reminiscent of that group), and misc. chamber/electropop. Thanks in no small part to the talents involved, the music hangs together well--I'm proud to be presenting it. Also on the bill is Sacramento's Ross Hammond, joined by LA sax dynamo Vinny Golia and, in a rare Bay Area appearance, Julius Hemphill's old rhythm section (Steuart Liebig and Alex Cline). I have no idea what this band sounds like--they're debuting, too--but knowing the participants, I expect round, melodic free jazz with bursts of hairy chaos. For those out-of-towners who may be curious, this is also getting broadcast on Berkeley's KALX (90.7 FM in the East Bay)--it's streamable online! Details: 9pm Saturday, February 25 @ The Swarm Gallery 560 2nd Street, Oakland, CA $5 cover Aaaand websites: www.grexsounds.com, www.rosshammond.com

I'd need to get my thesis hat back on, but I might be able to help. What is the instrumentation? Off the top of my head, Blue Nick and Blessing Light were Blue Notes-era songs. Most (but not all) of the early-60's Blue Notes repertoire disappeared from the (documented) book a year or two after they expatriated to Europe. Some of this material reemerged in Pukwana's bands after the formation of Zila. If it's an iteration of the latter, there's no telling what the exact personnel/date is--but I could make an educated guess if you can figure out the instrumentation. There are some non-Blue Notes Pukwana band players (i.e., Lucky Ranku, Ernest Mothle) that have extremely distinctive sounds; if you can identify one of those guys (via an A/B comparison with a previously released late Brotherhood or Pukwana recording), you'll at least be on the right track. ...then again, if this is something like the Stuckey organ trio, or some unreleased iteration of Spear--i.e., something that only a couple of collectors have heard--you're SOL. Best then to contact Hazel Miller or maybe Barbara Pukwana or even Moholo (though if this recording is in your hands already, you've likely already been down those avenues).

But Bailey did play straight jazz early on. Improvisation states that Joseph Holbrooke originally played in the mode of the LaFaro/Motian Evans trio, and the early (bootleg) recordings with Konitz are in a straightahead vein. I totally agree that Bailey's music transcends the notion and trappings of jazz, and I do think he reached that level of technical escape velocity where he was no longer defining himself in terms of not playing "in" (and there's also ample documentation of his interest in the Second Viennese School concurrent to his jazz years--so it's not as if he was necessarily "all about jazz" at any given point)--it's just a less well documented (or, ultimately, less relevant) part of the puzzle that Bailey did start out connected to the jazz tradition. (BTW, cheers folks--it's time for that time honored tradition known as "going to teach so I can pay my bills"--it reminds me of this time that Fred Frith told me that Derek had "made a lot of sacrifices" to get to where he was, and I'd imagine the easy life of jazz education was one of those things)

Why was that trio called Joseph Holbrooke? I've read it was named after the British composer. Can't see a connection as all I've heard from him is late 19thC romanticism - Wagnerian tone poems etc. Seems an odd hero. Footnote in Derek Bailey's Improvisation: "The group's name came from Tony Oxley although it could quite easily have come from Gavin Bryars who at the time was beginning to show what was to become a lasting interest in early 20th century English music. Joseph (sometimes Josef) Holbrooke, once described as the 'cockney Wagner', was a composer of prodigious output who, although creating something of a stir in his own lifetime has been almost totally ignored since. Investigations about him produced different dates for his birth (1875 or 1878) and different dates for his death (1958 or 1961) raising the consideration that there might be more than one Joseph Holbrooke, a speculation reinforced by the staggering amount of music published under that name. It seemed like a good cover for our activities." The early Holbrooke w/Kontiz has circulated in the blogosphere. My first impressions (upon last listen) were that the non-Kontizi sounded like fine jazz backing but, ultimately, only intermittently inspired. It's foolish to formulate any sort of sweeping statements on the merit of a single dusty recording, but my instinct told/tells me that Derek was an intelligent but only technically "good" jazz guitarist. On the other hand, I can say with some certainty that Bailey was a motherfucker in his own idiom--in a way analogous to, but quite different from, Ayler's virtuosity (I remember Jim calling Ayler a "freakin' virtuoso saxophonist" a while back, and the words continue to ring in my ears). There are certain elements of his technique that are baldly primitive--specifically all the pick scraping and pitchless slurs/seemingly chaotic muting, which is akin to the dubbed tracks on all those "shreds" videos--but other parts point to a very, very sophisticated musical mind (or rather, a mind that is so sophisticated that it has unraveled much of the technical straightjacketing that jazz guitar is heir to). For one thing, Derek was a monster with harmonics. His integration of harmonics into streams of pure tones is unparalleled in terms of clarity and sheer variety. He was like a swiss army knife of harmonics--truly mind-boggling. On a similar level, his early use of distortion and feedback (which he seemed to eschew, for the most part, in later years) was really innovative--check out Topography of the Lungs, which is one of my desert island discs. I always thought that Topography could pass as a modern indie improv album (i.e., something Thurston Moore or something the guys from Don Caballero would do on an off day)--excepting the fact that Evan Parker is clearly the technical better in the late-60's/early-70's of most any contemporary new music saxophonist and that Bailey is so staggeringly creative with such a minimal setup. I think that Bailey's only real "rivals" (though that's an inherently stupid concept) in terms of sheer control, invention, and versatility of modern techniques are Fred Frith and Keith Rowe (guys like Takayanagi and Sharrock are ultimately pitch and distortion/feedback players, although they're the best at what they do--and Ulmer is just his own weird thing, really)--the rest of us are just learning this stuff secondhand. Here's the other thing, and this really shines on Bailey's "later" work (later is an obscure term, but I mark it where Bailey transitions into semi-hollow playing with a greater emphasis on pitch and pure tones--like mid-80's or so)--Bailey is the best atonal melodist in all of free guitar, and one of the best improvisers in this realm, period. Cecil isn't really atonal, but it isn't really a stretch to say that Derek's solo work operates at Cecil's caliber. Derek's whole deal with non-idiomatic playing always struck me as subtractive in nature, having to do with clearing the mind and playing without deliberate style. That being said, it's extremely difficult to chord atonally on guitar (pick up a guitar and try it, doubters of the world--it will just sound like muted, plinky noise when an unpracticed musician does it), but maybe because Derek had the jazz training--and, moreover, because he retained some of the finger/wrist facility while unlearning the jazz guitarist's requisite voicing autopilot--he developed a truly "free" voice. Also, the man's energy was astounding--listen to the concentrated creative energy of Bailey on Aida, the sheer breadth of his ideas--it's overwhelming. He truly was the Cecil Taylor of the guitar, in respects.

KE/GQ on Kickstarter! (video on the link) Hey, Organissimo-type people. You may or may not have already heard the story, but I'm completing work on a new album (due in the Spring). For those who remember the Grex album I released last Fall, this is a more explicit improv/jazz-oriented companion: a sonic essay on my Filipino-American origins, entitled Suite: Taglish. This project means a great deal to me as both a personal landmark and a symbol--it's a one time grouping of spectacular musicians (all dear friends--Asian Improv Arts co-founder Francis Wong (Max Roach, Cecil Taylor) on reeds, American Indian music scholar/Grammy winner John-Carlos Perea (Paul Winter) on bass, Bay Area dynamo Jordan Glenn (Wiener Kids, John Schott, Sarah Wilson) on drums, and my partner and Grex bandmate Rei Scampavia on keys), a multicultural gathering meant to reflect the increasingly heterogenous (but strangely personal) character of contemporary jazz. Make no mistake, this isn't "just" free jazz--it's a combination of dozens of musical ideas (straight ahead jazz, rock, Great American Songbook stuff, free improv, IDM) appropriate to my particular cultural experience. It's my hope that exposure for this album will help to open doors and minds for/to the prospect of a new, truly unique Filipino-American music. Anyway, we're looking for some financial help with the mastering, replication, and packaging. The album is in its final stages of mixing--we just need a push out of the door. As of this posting, we're at roughly 2/3rd of the way there--we have a little over a week left. Absolutely any amount helps, and anything you could contribute (even if it just means telling your friends) would be immensely appreciated. Also, this being a Kickstarter, donors will inevitably receive copies of the CD... Anyway, (hopefully) you can look for this in the early spring--and thanks for listening!

Count me as a fan of that CT album, too... Recently been listening to: Keith Jarrett: Backhand Sam Rivers: Streams Paul Motian: Le Voyage & Marion Brown: Afternoon of a Georgia Faun My fiancee/bandmate custom made a T-shirt of the latter for me (knowing it was one of my favorite albums). Marion Brown fashion Ts are precisely the kind of wonderful absurdness I'm into. On a completely different level, I can understand--to a certain degree--why these dates (Faun excluded) tend to pop up as LPs rather than CDs... While Le Voyage is easily the match of Dance and definitely one of Motian's strongest albums, Backhand feels like a retread of musical conceits essayed elsewhere more delightfully (Birth) and/or more excitingly (Fort Yawuh), and Streams is hampered by a lesser rhythm section (and also a degree of technical iciness--I think Sam mentioned that he didn't like this one that much...). Another tangent/rumination on Rivers, but rummaging through Rivers's back catalog has made me appreciate the Holland/Altschul trio more and more. Compare something like Paragon to any of the trio music on Impulse! and the non-Holland/Altschul sides tend to feel a little weak. Replacing Altschul takes some of the chaotic whimsy out of the band; substituting anyone for Holland, including otherwise spectacular bass players such as Cecil McBee, destabilizes the group and kills some of its propulsion. I almost prefer the apeshit bombast of the trio dates with Joe Daley to the stuff on Hues, the latter of which comprises merely paler, less precise variation on the Holland/Altschul music.

(Since my intended post went long, I thought it might as well just start the blog I'd been waiting to get off the ground. Thoughts here: Grex Blog, though the most relevant paragraph is below:) I’ve been so bummed out by all the death news that I excused myself from jazz internetalia for a minute… it’s surely a downer that we’ve lost the likes of Motian and Rivers, and it’s a lesser shame that (in light of all the recent ego battles and who/what sucks conversations) memorializing the dead seems to be one of the few unifying factors among jazz punditry. Really, it’s all on us–most of the people we’ve lost lived long, full musical lives, and they died in the “best” way possible for folks in our line of work–with boots on, and kicking. Half of me wants to spend the holidays listening to Motian’s autumnal recordings and getting reacquainted with stuff like Waves and the Rivers/Holland duos (that I haven’t broken out in ages), the other half knows that it’s time to step up, put some back into making my own music, and make sure the circle goes unbroken. I mean, the way Sam went out, still energetic, intellectually lucid, creatively viable and full of ideas–new music–that’s as much of a Butch and Sundance ending as anyone can hope for.

Whoa--that's an amazing band, Allen.

Thanks for the kind words, folks! Making music for your muse and making music for others can be two completely different things, but I'm genuinely glad when people take to our more agonizing creative choices... Speaking of which, the White Album thing (as a model of length and eclecticism) was something that occurred to me in the process of editing and sequencing the album, and I was wondering if someone thought the same. We actually left off some of our favorite live pieces--music that is fun to play/in the ethos but completely derailed the momentum of the album (ex. a more explicit head/improv/head free jazz duo piece, a somewhat drawn out Marion Brown tribute, a solo piano piece, etc. etc.). Maybe it's because sprawling epics like The White Album have been burned into our aesthetic consciousnesses, but it can be easy to take for granted just how tightly constructed and internally coherent some of these grab bag kind of projects actually are. Another way of putting it--it's in certain ways absurd how songs like "Not Guilty" and "Circles" can get left off of an album when "Wild Honey Pie" and "Good Night" avoid the chopping block, but there's a lot to be said for the complexity of composing an album itself (a process that entails, in macrocosm, any number of the normal musical variables--key and intervallic relations if you're intense like Coltrane, but really anything like space, orchestration, tempo, etc.). I'm squarely of the mind that the most successful album constructions--like The White Album or even something briefer and more deceptively simple, like Tago Mago or Songs for a Tailor--are as eloquent and wonderful as the most revered album length pieces (A Love Supreme, People In Sorrow, Afternoon of a Georgia Faun, Freedom Now Suite, etc.).

Actually, I think I agree with you--I think it's when the crassness is cyncial that things get ugly. This is going to sound terrible, but I suppose that albums like Duke Ellington & John Coltrane or Ballads are somewhat crass, too, but I would never want to be deprived of that music--I think that Coltrane was playing "mellower" in a very genuine way. And, for what it's worth, I don't think Chick was necessarily being cynical when he made the shift to more commercial music--my understanding is that it was a direct outgrowth of the way in which he responded to Scientology. Judging from the pretty candid statements in Forces In Motion, Chick seemed more or less enthusiastic about going the "let's make some money" route (crass but not necessarily disdainful of others/the music). This is not the best place for gross condemnations of belief systems (of any sort), so let it be said that a lot of Chick's market considerations were informed by psychology--and he's probably at peace with this. The wacky thing is that, judging by the statements above, the guy who played the spectacular piano solo on Afternoon of a Georgia Faun--the piano player in Circle, the Lost Quintet--is still in there somewhere. I mean, I'd like to think the Marion Brown-espousing contingent is a market consideration to (i.e., if Chick were to head back into the studio and play some super out shit--or randomly reunite with the other 3/4 of Circle--I'd want to listen).

But that need will be met only if there is some sort of consensus along the same lines as the artist's vision...which mean that the artist will have found an audience. I pretty much think that anybody who creates in the marketplace and says they don't want to communicate is either crazy or a liar. Or both! The question is - how much of your ideas do you want to communicate, are you going to be satisfied getting some of your points across to more people, or do you need to make all of your points to whoever will listen. The only real "sellout" is to say that you want to be heard even if you don't get to make any of your points. Everything else is...a decision. Absolutely--and these kinds of creative decisions can be/are often profoundly harrowing, since (as per your statement above) I'd think that most (definitely not all--I've met some extremely obstinate "outsider" artists who would rather play and be left alone than be "in the game") creative people would want to communicate. There's actually a pretty heady discussion going on among the SF/Bay Area community regarding the (only recent) tangible recognition on the part of an apparent "people's newspaper" of the fact that we have an underground music scene out here--and everyone agrees that at least part of the reason the underground music scene exists is because experimental artists wanted to a place to air their works. Experimentalism/dissonance/anything that might pose a challenge to anyone's listening tastes is not antithetical to the existence of or desire for an audience. Look at what happened to Albert Ayler... I would personally draw the line at invoking "crassness"--or, more generously, simply catering to what you think the mass audience wants--as a creative impetus. I totally agree that Monk's words may be parsed to mean that he thought an audience was out there, whether it found him sooner or later. The other example is guys like the Art Ensemble--their early music had spectacular, resonant moments (some of my favorite music ever) that nonetheless echoed only underground for some time--my understanding was that it took Europe to make the world realize that the AACM needed their moment. Roscoe's advice to me was always, "Your audience will find you"--and that was 100% correct in his case. Of course, the notion that there is an audience for anything presupposes the existence of an intrinsic, relatable quality in any given musical expression--and yes, some stuff is just noise, and some music just sucks. But imagine being the Art Ensemble--cats who practiced together from morning to night, days on end--having a shared understanding that your music is something special, or even the minority recognition that guys like Larry or Chuck could offer before breaking big... it is worthwhile to listen to the minority opinion. I'd hate to think that we'd be deprived of the AECO, Ornette, or even Bird, Monk, etc. due to weak nerves or a desire for quick returns. Or, paraphrasing a (dubious) Wayne Gretzky quote that Steve Jobs bandied about (sorry, I'm reading this article right now), sometimes it is worthwhile to aim for where the puck is going to be. On the other hand, history has been saddled with tons of crappy music essayed by folks attempting to catch up to existing trends--my first thought was Jackie McLean's Monuments--something that isn't absolutely devoid of artistic content but an artistic compromise nonetheless. I'd rather have a handful of folks on a jazz board geek out on something as profound as One Step Beyond than have no one so much as remember that I made Monuments under the pretense that it would shake some asses. In other words, I don't think that crassness has to do with the end result of the music so much as it has to do with intentions and timeliness.

Weird--I didn't get it. (I tried messaging you on the forum, but it seems like your mailbox is full!) Try sending again (or messaging me here, if somehow that works...) Thanks!

Just wanted to mention--I picked up both the Mitchell and the Freeman this past week. This is all spectacular music, and I'm glad we get to hear it even now, at the waning of the CD era. It isn't often this happens, but the Freeman reminded me of why I ever wanted to "just" play straight jazz in the first place--if it all sounded as free and wild as this, I might journey into that territory more often than I do.

This reissue series is a sleeper miracle. I had more or less resigned myself to never getting a decent CD copy of Sweet Earth Flying, but here it is--in 2011, after the tip over toward the obliteration of the CD industry. I was actually inspired to write an extended blog post on Sweet Earth, so I won't reiterate those thoughts here--but damn it feels good to come back from the local brick and mortar cradling a new copy of World Galaxy, etc. Some technical comments, but with as much value as these twofers pack, I (as a collector/musician/obsessive) would prefer paying double the price for two late 90's Impulse digipacks (complete with the virtually unnecessary third panel--"The New Wave of Jazz is On Impulse!"--legible liner notes, and bonus tracks). I've spent a lot of time dissecting the concept and formal construction behind stuff like Sweet Earth lately, and yes, bonus tracks would cheapen the profundity and eloquence of the original album construction somewhat, but I've finally grown accustomed enough to listening to music in this mixed, digested digital form that if the music hits hard enough, it doesn't really matter if it wasn't on the original LP (especially if it was a space considerations thing). The Marion Brown discography mentions that "Sweet Earth Flying Pt. 2" remains unreleased, which could be (or could not be) a royal bummer, since the original album is probably my favorite non-Coltrane Coltrane-idiomatic music ever.

All (received) paypal orders have shipped! Thanks for the interest and support, guys. This is music that we've bled out for on stage, and I'm glad to have the whole weird package out there and accessible. As for the phenomenon you mention, 7/4--part of it may just be a generational thing, a lot of it (on the West Coast) having to do with expanding horizons on the rock scene/overlap with jazz and experimental music. A musician will tend to absorb his or her surroundings, and a drummer (for example) will be playing straight ahead one day, accompanying a dance group the next morning, rehearsing electropop in the afternoon, and playing free jazz in the evening. There are people out here who tend to stick to specific idioms or practices (and this is not necessarily a generational/age-based phenomenon, since I've had both younger and much older friends espouse a bit of idiomatic "extremisim"--that is, I PLAY FREE MUSIC), and the current trend of people playing anything and everything creative isn't necessarily an evolve-or-die imperative--i.e., you can do well sticking to a very specific set of guns. I do think, however, that the music that comes out of this multidisciplinary slough tends to be some of the most consistently interesting and viscerally engaging made out here (e.g., the aforementioned Wiener Kids, the legendary Graham Connah's crazy big band, Ben Goldberg's hybridizations--I've played in a big band of his a couple of times and always wind up taking this screaming blues--and very much blues--solo--the wonderful electric piano trio Beep, work by the likes of Phillip Greenlief, Moe! Staiano, Dominique Leone, Aaron Novik, the list goes on...) I'm reminded of something that Ethan Iverson posted recently (regarding a duo with Marcus Belgrave)--I'm paraphrasing here, but it was something to the effect of "the musical decision should always be the correct one, and not the one dictated by convention." Exposure to Bay Area musical environment and extended work with guys as contrarian as Fred and Roscoe has altered my brain chemistry a bit--I would never have (maybe four years ago) devoted large chunks of a nominally "experimental" album to weird pop songs, but it felt profoundly right to do it on Second Marriage (as it feels profoundly right to play zydeco, polka, or jug band music alongside free jazz or free improv in the music that essays more or less nightly on the scene out here).

Interestingly, my first response to my friend's statement was defensive--and deep fans of the music can cite any number of instances where so-called "avant jazz" cats rendered performances that were/are as much about "virtuosity" as anything else. Naturally, it's difficult (for open-minded people) to witness anything on the level of Evan Parker's circular breathing control, the harmonic concept on Interstellar Space, or Roscoe after the 80's and not think about the sheer mechanics involved, among other things. One of the great "natural" occurrences on the Mills campus back when I was attending (and I'd treat it as a natural thing, since it happened with striking regularity) was Roscoe's morning warm-up--hours of scales and circular breathing that were totally and legitimately technical practice. Actually, the value of practice was probably the greatest lesson he imparted to me (and I seldom fail to make my three hours a day). That being said--and this might have something to do with Allen or Jim's posts above--I think part of creative mastery in the jazz idiom has to do with technical control in both "negative" and "positive" senses--or, rather, truly great (and not just "good") musicians know how to turn off selected mechanical and intellectual facilities and let intuition and feel take over. Sometimes activating the off switch results in what might otherwise be considered clams or screw ups--and this is what I meant talking about Wadud and Phillip's jarring lack of synchronicity on certain parts "Dogon A.D."--but those mistakes happen--and correctness doesn't happen--because other stuff does. (I mean, listen to Wadud's tone on "Dogon"--or the way Hemphill just soars over that craziness.) I think it's interesting that "Theme de Yoyo" sounds like it does, considering Lester Bowie was musical director for an R&B band (and Melvin Jackson's Funky Skull is a genuine testament to just how tight and punchy the AACM horns could be--and then there's Brass Fantasy...). The horns on "Yoyo" are crazy asynchronous--it sounds like a four square church meeting at times--and the time feel of the band is waaay out of the pocket in spots. But just like "Dogon A.D." is not really about the meter, I don't think something like "Theme de Yoyo" is ultimately about the fact that the AEC is playing an R&B tune. Rather, I think the R&B element of "Yoyo" is incidental to the fact that it's just a brutally good, "free" sounding performance. If the AEC wanted to nail those horn parts or lock in the groove, they easily could have--but the important parts of the performance wind up being the same things that are important in, say, Ayler (energy, forward motion, vocalistic qualities, the use of rhythmic disjunction as a way of ratcheting up tension). Honestly, I think "Yoyo" would have sucked had it been all about "playing the groove," and the AEC recognized this--the genius move is that they discovered that you didn't need to sound like Ayler, Trane, Ornette, or Cecil to play "free"--and that you could, in fact, sound like something as potentially whack as a funk band. Ultimately, the amateurishness is built into the concept, because a "professional" performance would draw your attention away from what's really great about the music.

Looks like I'll be making some mailings tomorrow! Thanks for the response, guys!

Ha! It just makes me think of Braxton--I got through about 1.5 volumes of the Tri-Axium writings and thought, "Where the hell does he find time to write all this?" But then that's the point--some folks need to think about what they do as much as they do what they do. I always amazed at how lucid the comments are from the board's musician contingent--aren't we supposed to be laconic and uncommunicative? (Answer: yes, but but only some of the time.) More on topic, but I gave Roscoe's Sound a spin last night (after spending some time absorbing both Dogon and Before There Was Sound). As much as I love music like the WSQ's albums and the Art Ensemble's ECMs, there's something really special about hearing this music in early, ragged form. One of my friends at Mills (and one of the top Indian percussionists in the world--he was actually one of the West Coast guys they called up for the Miles From India project, which was weird--he'd come to class talking about hanging with Ron Carter and we'd have spent our time merely talking about him) was just getting into out music a couple years back, totally blown away by Roscoe's intensity and work ethic. We were listening to "Theme de Yoyo" and he said, "These guys are such amateurs and virtuosos at the same time..."--and this wasn't an insult--it was more a way of saying that part of what made the music so amazing was how it was able evoke this sense of chaotic looseness despite the sheer technicality of the improvisations and charts.

Wow--thanks for all the support, guys! BTW--orders ship tomorrow for receipts that are in before, well, around 10am PST tomorrow! And, to clarify, it's $10 USD after shipping and I do take paypal.