Lazaro Vega

Hey everyone, thanks for the hands! I'll be 44 on April 30th, and fundraising on the radio. That same night Jason Moran's Trio will be at the Wealthy Theater in Grand Rapids as part of the Gilmore Keyboard Festival. If you can make it, please let me know how it went, or write a notice for the board. That would be a great present. Thanks again for the good vibes. Lazaro

From today's Chicago Tribune: Fearless musical experimenting pays dividends > > By Howard Reich > Tribune arts critic > Published April 5, 2000 To anyone who values new ideas in sound, the past weekend proved indelible. For on two of the city's most important stages, two generations of jazz innovators -- each rooted in the Chicago avant-garde -- produced brilliantly original improvisations that made no concessions to musical fashion or audience expectation. On Saturday evening, a small but rapt group of listeners convened at HotHouse for a rare performance by Kalaparush Maurice McIntyre, a fiercely individualistic saxophonist who holds an esteemed position in the history of new music in Chicago, and beyond. As an emerging Chicago reedist in the early 1960s, McIntyre joined forces with similarly iconoclastic, South Side musicians who were inventing provocative new techniques for jazz improvisation. By 1965, they formed the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), an organization that helped rejuvenate a jazz world starved for substantial new ideas. McIntyre earned further distinction for his work as tenor saxophonist on Roscoe Mitchell's landmark, 1966 recording "Sound," the first to document AACM breakthroughs. Nearly four decades later,McIntyre, who now lives in New York, returned to Chicago to celebrate the release of a revelatory new disc, "Morning Song" (on Chicago's Delmark Records). Leading a remarkably creative trio, which he calls Kalaparush and the Light, McIntyre distinguished himself as soloist, bandleader, composer and jazz visionary. For starters, McIntyre remains an unapologetically idiosyncratic tenor saxophonist, his work far outside the "tough tenor" tradition that listeners often associate with the Chicago school. Unlike muscular veterans such as Von Freeman, Johnny Griffin and Fred Anderson, McIntyre produces a comparatively light tone, his lithe phrasing, nimble technique and translucent timbre pointing to a player who has veered far afield from his more celebrated Chicago contemporaries. The uniqueness of McIntyre's sound is matched by the fluidity of his thought, for he tends to unspool ideas faster than the ear can absorb them. If the speed of his delivery recalls the bebop era of his youth, his astringent harmonies, piquant dissonances and unusual melodic structures are utterly of today -- fresh, provocative,unpredictable, unexpected. Certainly no one who experienced the avalanche of melodic ideas that McIntyre unleashed in the evening's first piece, "Trend," would have anticipated the profoundly introspective, melancholic lines of his "Symphony #1." The sense of serenity and repose that McIntyre conveyed in this work represented the antithesis of the fire-breathing virtuosity of "Trend." Here was a soloist who cannot be pigeonholed in any style or idiom. But McIntyre's contributions as bandleader proved equally impressive, for he has found kindred spirits in tuba virtuoso Jesse Dulman and drummer Ravish Momin. Each held his own in this exceptional band, a trio of equal parts if ever there were one. Listen to the sweet polyphony that these three players attained in "Mmahjae" -- McIntyre's beautifully sculpted lines dovetailing with Dulman's counterpoint on tuba and Momin's sublime brushwork on drums -- and you're hearing ensemble improvisation that's as alive and spontaneous as it gets. The trio closed its set with the galvanic "Five #1," its hard-charging lines applying the headlong rhythmic momentum of bebop-era improvisation to some of McIntyre's most gnarly, intricate riffs. A stunning finale to a freewheeling, impossible-to-categorize set. If McIntyre's Saturday night show reaffirmed the continued vitality of an elder statesman, saxophonist Doug Rosenberg's set Friday night at the Velvet Lounge placed the spotlight on a potentially important new artist. Playing gloriously freewheeling duets with veteran drummer Bob Moses, Rosenberg showed a fearlessness of spirit and a robustness of tone that seem likely to win him a devoted following in coming years. That Rosenberg chose to play at the Velvet Lounge was apt, and not only because it long has been an epicenter of jazz experimentation in Chicago. More important, Rosenberg was playing in a club owned by Chicago tenor giant Anderson, whose work clearly has made a deep imprint on Rosenberg's. You could hear as much in the outsize tone, the bebop roots and the pervasively lyric quality of Rosenberg's work, even in rhythmically agitated passages. Like Anderson, Rosenberg takes pains to give his solos an unmistakable melodic arc, even as they veer far from straightforward themes and discernible chord changes. Rosenberg accomplished some of his best work on soprano saxophone, his yearning, questing tone and ecstatic bursts of sound egged on by Moses' restlessly aggressive eruptions on drums. In all, a landmark weekend for new music in Chicago. Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune

Terry Martin: "The difference is that Hawkins is more often involved in the statement than in the thing stated. The emotional power is generated by the solo in progress and does not preexist as it does for Webster....Hawkins has forged techniques applicable by romantics because this is one aspect of his exploration of method; the tone, the harmonic basis all ideal, but not only his approach to other types of material but also the extraordinary objectivity of his ballads themselves belie a romantic mind. He exploits (n.b. the baroque attitude) ballad structure but does not accept its aesthetic axioms." Therein lies modernism -- thinking of Jackson Pollack, for example, and "art" as primary verb, jazz as action, painting as process...In this day and age of comodification, looking at anything other than "noun" or "thing" is viewed as a form of ignorance ("Well, that's nice, but how can I make money on it? If you can't show me that, it must not have value." Or, "If Cole Porter put these emotions in a piece, who am I to take it somewhere else?") If it isn't a thing, how can it be sold or marketed. We are less a nation of ideas and more one of simple emotions since Hawk. Hawk was aware of the tremendous influx of creativity in society at large in the 1920's on through to mid-century, and his playing kept pace, and as a result, so did all of jazz. In a day and age when scientific process and methodology, corporate regulation, environmental protection, medicine, foreign policy, education and the arts are all being corrupted by the political ideology of neo-conservatives (i.e. there is no such thing as truth, only political victory or defeat), the music of Coleman Hawkins is an ideal, now, as recorded artifact, finally a thing, of what America used to be -- In all its greatness, grandeur, materialism, ambition and spirit. The observations of JS and TM underscored, for me, how America used to view itself, how it used to create, and how still people such as Ornette and Cecil are responding to the tremendous influx of information civilization made for itself in the 20th century. That virtuosity reflects the dynamics of changes we no longer see encouraged or supported -- not in the spiritual ownership that was America, that jazz made famous -- as those changes inhibit efficiency. They're digressions from the grand march toward obscene wealth. And a world sans efficiency is a parallel universe that we can touch by listening to Hawk. Because the dramatic forms of his solos are ineffeciencies -- one could always just play Body and Soul, rather than devise the sensual drama of courtship, tension and erotic release that his solo describes. Lest you think I'm shuckin', how heavy was Hawk? The Essen concert was attended by Peter Brotzmann, which is why he plays tenor. True.

The show is tonight. Hope to see you there. To be recorded for broadcast on Blue Lake Public Radio.

Stephen Rush, pianist and associate professor at U of M's music school, wrote the encore was actually "When Will the Blues Leave?" and not, as previously reported "Turnaround" or "When the Saints Go Marching In." Final answer.

Actually it was just one foo , and the posts over there are generally civil in my experience. The thread is under General Music, btw, and not New Releases. But here's the thing: I'd really heard Warne on record in the 40's, with Tristano; a couple of sessions in the 50's (with Konitz or Pepper); but mostly, I'd heard Warne in the 1980's on those many recordings coming out of Europe and various other places. That seemed to be his most well documented decade (though I'm not a completist on him at all, far from it). The thing about All Music is his 70's era playing is on another level all together, and I wasn't getting that from his solo breaks with Supersax, not like this, anyway -- the projection of his ideas is much more forceful, and the control he has over nuance is superhuman. Listening to "Easy Living" on All Music -- every note seems to be regarded for it's tonality within the line. He plays freely from sharp to flat within the smallest intervals of the phrase, let alone the tune's general harmonic center. That imparts more emotion in his playing, and gives the line, not just the solo arch, a sense of tension and release that is slayin' me. "Easy Living" is killin', though there are more spectacular performances on the recording, especially, as noted, the variation on "What Is This Thing Called Love."

Time to rally against the foo's!@allaboutjazz.com. Le's go!

I think the web sight is harmolodic studios.com . Write them some zealous fan mail! Man that was brilliant. Lyrical is right. His playing with Prime Time was more out of Bird, more tumbling sets of notes and agitated, over blown split notes (I'm remembering from 18 years ago now). Last night was, as Chuck said, Endless melody. Beautiful. Hey, was that his plastic alto? It was white, with gold inside the bell and around the keys, and a Selmer mark on the neck key. I thought it was metal, but then I was thinking about that photo in the boxed set and the plastic one had metal parts, too.

Thanks. Did they function the same way in Chicago, with one bass playing plucked, the other bowed, most of the night?

You're welcome Joe. I've had two people say now that the last piece they played was "When the Saints Go Marching In" though I heard it as "Turnaround." Anyone? And there was a guy next to us in the third row who left as well, but this wasn't as ferocious as much as it was melodious. Because it was a subscription series concert, some folks may not have been ready (though Ornette's given them 50 years to get ready and he, nor Cecil, is waiting for anyone). Honestly, who's still alive who has had the impact on jazz as a musical form -- not the business or educational aspect or popularity of the music, but the music itself -- as this musician? In my mind those folks would have walked out on Bird '45 and Trane in '65, too. Their loss. The music is called "outside" because it is outside of our expectations. At 74 Ornette is not nostalgic, but vital and creative, though bringing snippits of his compositions through his improvisations created sensations of deja vu all evening. It was a concert for the ages. As one band is called "ToBeOrnetteToBe," that is the question.

Endless Melody. Ornette Coleman Quartet live at Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, MI, 3-19-04. By Lazaro Vega Blue Lake Public Radio Ornette Coleman’s acoustic jazz presentation was functional simplicity -- two basses and drum set creating a tapestry of sound that he’d play endless melodies upon. The ensemble which performed an uninterrupted (no intermission) 10 piece and single encore set Friday evening had the poise and sonic balance of a string quartet imbued with the deeply creative, highly sophisticated shape shifting instrumental relationships to harmony, melody and rhythm Coleman’s music is known for. Though bassist Tony Falanga was assigned an arco role in the ensemble, and bassist Greg Cohen a pizzicato role which became the nexus of the band’s swing by aligning with drummer Denardo Coleman’s ever shifting rhythmic and textural flow, their places in the tempo continually altered in relation to the alto saxophonist’s songful improvisations. What might begin as “a ballad” in slow tempo could morph by the second chorus into something all together different, sometimes with the drums and pizzicato bass flying off ahead, the arco bass floating harmonic ideas around them and the alto sax playing in the “original” or “home” meter. The congruity of the incongruous tempos created an ensemble effect that was, as Coleman might say, like the cosmos: all the planets spinning simultaneously at their own speeds, sending off their own energy, but maintaining a simultaneous direction as a solar system. The beauty of Coleman’s simplicity was spell binding. The evening’s second number began with a driving unison figure played by the ensemble before settling into a long alto saxophone solo full of what are now patented Ornettisms -- the plaintive cry, his cellular motives and their elaboration's, the riffs as familiar and identifiable as anything Charlie Parker ever used for his own identity. And, following an elaborate bowed solo by Falanga, a bit of atmospheric trumpet, mostly an augmented scale in the instrument’s high range, before the alto returned to repeat the opening melody. A “Caravan” type feel to the rhythm of the third number, and Eastern modality to the minor-tinged melody, began a performance which was the best example of the evening of the simultaneity of different, though interrelated time feels from the instruments. Even within the drum set their were different rhythms occurring as Denardo Coleman kept an insistent hi-hat going on every beat of a fast tempo, while grooving the tom-tom oriented “Caravan” type pocket in almost a funk tempo. Enter bowed bass at a funeral pace while the walking pizzicato bass swung the band in the conventional sense. When Ornette joined he played a familiar though unidentified theme which may have come out of the 1980’s, though others suggested something from either the Town Hall concert or his Croyden concert in England. In fact, though most of the music at Hill Auditorium was new (and unidentified), the tendency to allude to his 50 year songbook throughout the night kept Coleman in melodic bliss. If you’re familiar with “Kathelin Gray” from the “Song X” album you might be able to imagine the fourth number played, a beautifully sad melody in rubato tempo with coloristic drums effects. For those who detract from Denardo Coleman’s drum playing, his performance Friday was a refutation. His ability was to provide the music everything it needed -- speed, texture, dynamics, groove, idiosyncratic prog-rock syncopation meshing with Rashied Ali-type cymbal rides. The guy is brilliant and has huge ears for responding to the morphology of his father’s music. Denardo Coleman has a leg up on most drummers of his generation for not only absorbing the messages of Ed Blackwell and Elvin Jones, but comprehending with a personal response the subsequent developments in jazz drumming, i.e. he can take it out. Following an audience request, “Lonely Woman” was played, as Coleman said smiling under his breath, “For everybody else.” In the section one might call the bridge he diverged from the familiar song with a sequence of harmonic steps that took him far afield before rejoining the main theme. The legendary “cry” in Coleman’s sound is no longer the rough wail of the Texas blues refugee, but something smaller yet more ubiquitous in his music. It’s hard to describe, as by “smaller” I don’t mean less full, but usually a gliss into the upper register, the blues cry distilled into an essential overarching mood. “Lonely Woman” featured Coleman’s own unique means of phrasing: 4 notes, 6 notes, a sequence of rising Ornettisms, thematic touchstone to orient the solo, developing tension, rising to a singing, celebratory conclusion. (I’m sorry I can’t be more specific: the music students at U of M are no doubt working those types of details into their class papers at this point). After two ballads, the part of Coleman’s musical personality most closely associated with Charlie Parker arrived and the band burned one out to the hearty satisfaction of the crowd. Which was outdone in the seventh number of the night. By now Greg Cohen’s first two fingers on his right hand were red and swollen -- his pizzicato playing had been by turns fast walking, furious strumming verging on slap bass or pin pricks of high notes down on the fret board. He was working hard, and as the anchor of the band’s swing he was central to the music’s success. Denardo laid down another split time tempo: agitated, constant high hat, accelerating ride and back beats on the snare or snare rim. A caffeinated Philly Joe Jones with Ornette and the basses pulling against him like a wind anchor, a parachute behind the dragster, until they relented and caught up, only to have the drums sprint on ahead even faster. Then Ornette Coleman for the first and only time of the evening picked up his violin, and everything, basically, stopped. Both bassists pulled out their bows and in an instant Denardo was playing his freest drums of the night while everyone bowed like mad. The amazing thing was Ornette’s violin chops are greatly improved, and his dialogue with Falanga, a classically trained and celebrated classical bassist, was in tune and tuned in -- their dialogue was purposeful, sympathetic and ran smack into some of the loudest applause so far in the evening. Coleman’s tone production was shockingly improved. The next number took it up another notch as both players put down their bows, the only time of the night for Falanga, and the band cooked with multi-linear abandon, again to loud applause. The bass players were given the spotlight at a dirge-like tempo, with Denardo Coleman playing first brushes then mallets on resonant tom-toms, before the alto “intruded” and the tempo jumped in the drums while staying fixed and somber in the basses. Ornette Coleman just sang away over the top of it. Denardo Coleman’s drum feature in the final number of the concert was short and to the point, and his father again returned to the trumpet, playing, as with the violin, with improved chops using the same augmented scale revolving around B and the upper reaches of the F scale (on trumpet) to color the music. For the first and only time of the night, Coleman addressed the crowd, thanking them for their energy (which was very high: it was an excellent audience) and then saying something to the effect of: It’s not just about being paid one way and if we can thank the one responsible we’d know it’s not about a moment or a minute or an hour or a day, but Forever is inside us all. The concert began with a standing ovation and now, at the end, after a round of sustained applause, the quartet returned to the stage to the audience spontaneously singing happy birthday (Coleman turned 74 on March 9th). After some debate, they played “Turnaround,” one of Coleman’s most familiar blues, as an encore, which included a lengthy alto solo capped by a quote from “Beautiful Dreamer” and a simultaneous two bass solo, one bowed one plucked, where Cohen inserted some very deliberate and convincing Charlie Haden sounds into the work. After 18 years to have Ornette Coleman return to Ann Arbor was great news, but that he did it in such a simple, beautiful, effective acoustical instrumental setting made it even more profound. Thanks to record producer Chuck Nessa, Brett Saunders of the Denver Post, and Michael Jewett of WEMU radio in Ypsilanti for sharing ideas over some much too caffeinated herbal tea following this concert. Their observations are part of this story.

Though the web site says both workshop and interview are out, there's an e-mail circulating at the school about a Master Class still being on.....

I think someone else remarked that the 19th came from Leonard Feather and has been oft misrepeated, harmolocially speaking.

Just read that the interview and workshop have been cancelled.

I haven't heard the CIMP's, just the Entopy live recording and have to say I thougt this one was more focused, with listening occuring in a more genralized -- like, what is he going to do? -- way. That is, the tuba and drums will enter as things develop as opposed to some prescribed ok now we're going to play in four, one two three four, music...I think it's a good band, and will work to get them filmed by the local cable access station in Grand Rapids, GRTV, which is a fairly tricked out station for not a major broadcater, and have them recorded by Blue Lake for broadcast. And, hopefully, have some of the West Michigan readers of the boards come on out to hear one of the founding members of the AACM live for FREE.!!!

That's nice man, thanks.

I've read that they had transmitter problems in September, so this is a re-scheduled event.

Had to run an errand today which took an hour round trip, and listened to the entire first disc of "Two Ts for a lovely T" with the Feel Trio(William Parker/Tony Oxley) recorded in 1989. An amazing ebb and flow to the music.

Second Harold Z on that. I bought the first two volumes (including James P. Johnson's Waller tribute) and they're very good.

He'll be doing a benefit for MS at the Frauenthal on April 2nd, with many "local" jazzers, including a new big band put together by Tim Froncek..... Tomorrow, Thursday: Paul Wertico at Forest Hills Central High School, 7 p.m. in Grand Rapids. Tomorrow, Thursday: Xavier Davis Trio (with Ugonna Okegwo, Quincy Davis) 7:30 p.m. at Wealthy Theater, Grand Rapids. Anyone planning on making those?

NEW Dizzy Reece - Mosaic Select - 3 CDs (Mosaic) Mar 16

Forces In Motion. Then tell us, what's a Henkle?

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&u...l=A2dqag4abtvjz

Hey montg, did you click on the Real Player Media under listen live?