Lazaro Vega

That is just too young. Had the pleasure of bringing the band to Grand Rapids twice and enjoying his incredible company. Saw him play in Chicago and Ann Arbor, too, including a twin evening of duets with Roscoe Mitchell (one night playing Lacy's music, the next playing Mitchell's). His quintet's instrumentation (when his wife wasn't singing) was based on the Jimmy Noone Band of the 1920's. What a man, and what a musical thinker -- his idea that you're either on the offensive or defensive as an artist is something to be taken to heart. I'm very sad to hear he has left at such a young age.

Actually, some of those Black and Blues were in my mind, too, from having heard them in Chuck's basment. Maybe from "The Midnight Slows."

Anyone reading catch their performance at The Chicago Jazz Festival a couple of years ago?

The band played great, but I could barely keep my eyes open. I think the players went to their host families and got some sleep. Our host, a trombonist, had two little kids, a wonderful wife and loads of questions about jazz, so I never zonked out before the hit.

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/iviews/cnessa.htm

Yeah, Larry, that's a clear way of expressing it. We talked a lot while he was here in Grand Rapids and it was fascinating. I'll post some of that when it comes into form and there's some time. When I mentioned I'd be featuring Duke Jordon on the radio program he just kept saying with equal parts astonishment and reverence and disbelief, "Duke Jordan!....Duke Jordan!....Duke Jordan....!" God rest Wilbur Campbell. The Chicago scene lost a major voice when he passed. Was playing the Louis Smith/Jodie Christian duo cd the other night. Have you heard that? Jodie carries a big load musically and brings the music a fullness and gentleness that is fullfilling and touching. Maybe I heard Chase live once, but most of his music I recall from the few records he's on. Would love to have talked to him -- there's a great example of a musician going into the tradition, pulling out even one of the most eccentric players in the world to emulate, and yet remaining personal. What a great example few will ever hear or follow. Nicky is only familiar to me from his records with Ira which are fine. By the way, I am Blue Lake, too. Peace.

You're welcome Brownie. I just opened it today, and played the last movement on the radio. There's also a recent one on Justin Time of Cecil with the Italian Instabile Orchestra that's very different. Not really like the Berlin big band recording.

According to Lewis via the excerpt printed in Current Musicology (pg 103), when the post card went out calling for a general meeting to discuss what would eventually become the AACM, trumpeter Philip Cohran was one of the three invitees, the meeting took place at his house, and "Cohran in particular had found sustenance in the work of Sun Ra (and Lewis quotes this from Shapiro 2001), with whom he (Cohran) had performed until Ra's departure for New York in 1961." Lewis discusses the Art Ensemble's first regular performances at the Theatre du Lucernaire in Montparnasse, Paris, as causing a sensation. "The group's unusual hybrid of energy, multi-instrumentalism, humor, silence, found sounds, and home made instruments -- and most crucially, extended collective improvisation -- proved revelatory to European audiences." The notions I put forth above, about Roscoe's early influences and where his personal sound might come from, are part of the problem: seeing the narrative from the hero soloist traditional jazz point of view, when this band, perhaps more than another, asserted the group as primary. Which shows me how far backwards the dialogue about music has slipped in the last 24 years (and I along with it). The AACM is so much heavier than people in the world of jazz today realize -- both the organization's history and the great challenging music in that history, and the ideals it embodied in keeping a democratic, multi-voiced group of artists and musicians going in the same general direction: forward. So much of music is commercialized today, that it is no wonder such a noncommercial, artist driven group would find itself on the outs with the critical, industry establishment. And for those reasons alone this is the group to watch and deal with. Muhal remains a vital, brilliant musician, and it is good to see Braxton getting his music more recorded than he has in years. Hell, it is one of the great jazz stories of our time that Ornette is back out, giving regular concerts since last June. A far bigger story to the music than Wayne's temporary choice to go acoustic again. Or maybe equally important, but Ornette isn't getting his new music recorded and promoted the way Wayne's is and that is just symptomatic of the "jazz business" being too much about business and not enough about jazz, imho. Peace.

Yes, and did an extensive interview with the author that was on the Jazz Institute of Chicago web page, but seems to have disappeared. I have it at work and will post sometime this week. It is a helpful book, many primary source interviews from his work with the BBC.

This may work: http://www.downbeat.com/artists/window.asp...e=Wayne+Shorter

Very good.

It went fairly cheap on e-bay. That the second link offers it for only $14.99 is a great price for a double cd import.

Cool Larry. Thanks for sharing. Seemed like you were observing and asking a question in relation to bars Shorter raised for himself, and in the end hitting a note of appreciation for what was possible. Is that Downbeat piece on line anywhere we might read the whole "interview"?

Quote: Protesting Shorter's growing "devotion to sonic color, virtually at the expense of any other kind of energy and invention," the critic Larry Kart attributed this to his "seeming desire to renounce the notion of the improvising musician as the purveyor of a competitive, flamboyant ego." "A noble impulse at first thought, but one that cannot be achieved, I think, by the amplification of simplicities and restraints that amount to little more than a toning-down of invention. What I hear on this album is a musician trying to disappear. I wish he wouldn't." Is that really a protest? Skipping to my Lu....lol

Ubu, we're cool. I was hearing you. And, yes, Two T's is exactly that: a week at work for the Feel Trio. William Parker is impressive in this setting -- he is an incredible fit.

Thanks for putting the sense of humor from both bands into sharper focus Simon. Last night we featured Gary Peacock on the radio program, always a good excuse to play some Ayler, and man, "Vibrations" is a hell of a record. Of course led off with "Ghosts: Second Variation" from "Spiritual Unity." In any case, Roscoe's well quoted about his encounter with Albert Ayler in Europe and how that combined with mid-60's modal Trane ("Out of this World"), Ornette, some of Dolphy, Benny Golson and some r&b cats helped to shape and define his own sound. The players in Ra's band, just as players, seem to be coming from their own personal places and influences which pre-dates some of this activity. I mean, Marshall Allen is 80.

Those points are all on the money. By saying Ra was more "traditional" I didn't mean to imply he had no audience among the young. The notion that Ra was a traditionalist in essence expands the idea of traditionalism, too, because as we all know he was OUT THERE. The apects of Sun Ra that dealt directly with Dameron, Monk and Henderson don't seem to me to have as strong a correlation in the Art Ensemble (which isn't a bad thing, just a difference, and a percieved one at that -- I may be all wet). You hear "Old" which harks back to an earlier form, and there's a version of "Creole Love Call" on Dreaming of the Masters, but the AE's connection to the past seemed more diffuse, or catholic (small c), whereas Ra's roots as Henderson's helper at the Club De Lisa gave him a very personal connection to one of great leaders of the Swing Era.

Then there's the historical perspective. Who recalls the Blue Note ad campaign with the lovely woman laid out by her portable record player, album covers fanned across the floor, and the one she's holding looking admiringly at is Cecil Taylor's "Conquistador"? I love that kind of marketing! I didn't see the "original" campaign, but it was reprinted in every album sleeve Blue Note brought out in the 1980's. That's quiet sarcasm if ever there was any. If Blue Note is buying ad space in Billboard, cool biz: thank you Nora Jones! If you have a problem with marketing, remove it from your life and see what information has come to you without it.

Elvin's smile still shines on our hearts. Still time to say thank you. Thank you Elvin Jones for making the Bluebird memorable. For taking Pontiac industrial life and freeing it through sound. Thank you for emulating Art Blakey, not imitating him. Thank you for poly rhythmic layers of sound with worn edges like heat lightening surging through Atlantic storm clouds off the coast of Africa. Thank you for “Caravan,” dumping sand storms from tom-toms. Thank you for the cortege in “Alabama.” Thank you for blowing hot August nights at Hart Plaza and the big sweaty hugs after the bandstand. Thank you for being with Jimmy Forrest when he brought Grant Green out of St. Louis: may your gin never be gone. Thank you for pursuing music without adding to dogma, i.e. from Duke and Trane to the Marsali and Cecil Taylor you’ve shifted time and time again while remaining time itself. Your past is the music’s future, never ending, with so many sons and daughters pounding their table for more, drum sticks like forks at the ready, appetite stoked by flams and triplets. From the little known Lawrence Williams to the well known Jeff Watts, your sound still echoes in live air. Drummers hang cymbals like mantis eyes in your honor, and children roll down grassy hills inside your snare drum. When you are one with the spirit may you find that nothing has changed, that you always were what you already are, and may the grace of God be with you.

The ex-Mrs Davis is featured in that documentary that's aired on A & E a couple of times. Her part is hilarious, especially regarding her "lunch breaks" from dancing in "West Side Story," I think it was.

Sometimes it is hard to go on when something was recorded vs when it was written (think of Monk, or Strayhorn) but the melody or rhythmic movement of All Blues was made famous in Davis' version. That's all there is, the history of it. Too bad you didn't ask Art when he was alive. I'm sure he'd be honest about it. Is there anything about that in "Straight Life." If it were a bone of contention to Pepper, he'd have probably said something about that, too. You'd think. He wasn't a wall flower.

http://www.math.ucdavis.edu/~mawillia/ayler.html There's also been some information regarding Ayler's mental health (see article) that may have played into his seriously considering self sacrifice for the benefit of his family. People who saw him in the weeks before his death wearing vasaline all over his hands and other things. As for the ocean, who knows. Spaulding Gray?

All Blues was said by Davis to have come out of his interest in the Kalimba, or African thumb piano.

Then again, Hawk "overcame" racism to be who he was, so his transcendence was an ideal againts the small thoughts and hateful emotions in his own time, too.

If any of you guys are within earshot, Wednesday night we'll be doing a "live" broadcast of the Tony Malaby, Angelica Sanchez, Tom Rainey trio at 10 p.m. They just played the Chicago Cultural Center, then came a Trib review, then they packed the Velvet Lounge, then came to play for us before continuining on tour. We had John Erskine record it for us, from the Hope College Sound Lab, and it is the shazjaminist. Nessa was there, and Tim Froncek helped with the drums so he hung out. Wait till you hear this: they were wailing. Wednesday night, 10 p.m., 90.3 Fm or in Grand rapids 88.9 Fm.