Muhal Richard Abrams

[Alexander Hawkins]

Oh crap.

I just found out that Muhal Richard Abrams is going to be playing w/ the Roscoe Mitchell Quartet the same night Wayne Shorter is playing here in Philly. I've seen Wayne w/ this band and I've never seen Muhal Richard Abrams before.

Guess I have to sell my Shorter tix.

←

P.s. no question...Muhal with Roscoe Mitchell???? Has to be!

[Johnny E]

I would just like to add YOU CAN'T NAME YOUR OWN TUNE by Barry Altschul to the list of recomendations. Not only doesn it have Barry and Muhal on it, it also features George Lewis, Dave Holland and Sam Rivers!

[Late]

Would anyone recommend Abrams' Mama and Daddy? The Penguin Guide gives it two stars, but I have a feeling to distrust that evaluation.

[Hot Ptah]

Would anyone recommend Abrams' Mama and Daddy? The Penguin Guide gives it two stars, but I have a feeling to distrust that evaluation.

Yes, I recommend it. I think it is one of his more enjoyable albums. To me, almost everything he did during that period is at a very high level, and Mama and Daddy is right up there with the rest of his output.

[Joe]

Would anyone recommend Abrams' Mama and Daddy? The Penguin Guide gives it two stars, but I have a feeling to distrust that evaluation.

Among Abrams' more "abstract" recordings, IMO, but the title track is one of the most flat-out joyous things in his discography.

[Guy Berger]

I've been really enjoying Blu Blu Blu (in the past 24 hours) -- I assume this means I should immediately seek out Rejoicing with the Light and Hearinga Suite?

Guy

[Spontooneous]

I've been really enjoying Blu Blu Blu (in the past 24 hours) -- I assume this means I should immediately seek out Rejoicing with the Light and Hearinga Suite?

Guy

Yepper. (Slight preference for "Hearinga.")

[Alexander Hawkins]

There's some great piano on the newish Pi release with Roscoe Mitchell and George Lewis, 'Streaming'. [Obviously ]

[felser]

Would anyone recommend Abrams' Mama and Daddy? The Penguin Guide gives it two stars, but I have a feeling to distrust that evaluation.

I gave up on the Penguin Guide long ago, found it ludicrous. The early pre-Yanow AMG Guides were also worthless. The only one I use is the Yanow versions of the AMG Guide. I'm a HUGE fan of the long (27 minutes, I think) solo piano piece on 'Young at Heart, Wise in Time', it's marvelous. The only other Abrams I play much are 'Sightsong' and 'Spiral' (live at Montreux 1978), though I do own several others. In fairness, there are a number of his later recordings I have never heard.

[Hot Ptah]

"Afrisong" is an interesting solo piano date by Abrams. It is quite lyrical, while retaining interest. Then the last cut goes "out there". I played it as background music for a friend who likes Keith Jarrett's solo piano albums and he loved it. It was fun to see the last track throw him for a loop.

"Blues Forever" is a more "inside" big band recording on Soul Note, but it is excellent and conventionally fun to listen to. The ensemble is focused and together. I like the entire run of Soul Note larger ensemble albums headed by Abrams. "Hearinga Suite" is certainly near the top of my list of those albums.

I cherish the time I was able to see Abrams in a trio format at Milwaukee's Jazz Gallery in the late 1970s, perhaps in 1980. There was certainly a lot to absorb in his piano playing with a trio.

[Hot Ptah]

Seeing this thread in close proximity on the page to the one about Meade Lux Lewis made me think - there's quite a kinship between their sounds, at times.

Listened again to 'Young at Heart' last night. It just gets better and better. Abrams really is one of those players who conveys a sense of the whole history of the instrument/idiom, without overt copying of styles - quite a difficult thing to do, I think.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

FWIW. while working on the cd reissue of Young at Heart I played a 30 minute first take of the solo piece. Many more references to earlier styles - boogie, stride, etc. Sadly, no room on the cd for it. Maybe in the next format.

In case not enough people state this directly, I would love to hear that take, and would buy such an album as soon as it came out!

[Alexander Hawkins]

They've already been mentioned in this thread, but I've been listening a lot - prompted by Lazaro's wonderful programme on Muhal - recently to 'One Line, Two Views' and 'You Can't Name Your Own Tune'. He's SUCH a killer piano player it's ridiculous.

[MomsMobley]

Attn: Larry Kart, Chuck Nessa, John Litweiler, how many of these folks ya'll recognize? Not realizing I should, I at first didn't.

at 2:00: "Hey Richard, come and dig this cat's... Pageboy."

 

Edited April 9, 2016 by MomsMobley

[Larry Kart]

Frank Baker is jazz DJ-record producer (VeeJay Records) Sid McCoy, the two militants in the Pageboy routine with Peter Bonerz are Muhal and John Jackson, both clearly having a good time. Robert Forster was so good.

[Chuck Nessa]

John Jackson?

[uli]

http://www.newmusicbox.org/articles/muhal-richard-abrams-think-all-focus-one/?utm_content=buffer7aeb7&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer#.VxA2K3OGr-g.facebook

[paul secor]

11 hours ago, uli said:

http://www.newmusicbox.org/articles/muhal-richard-abrams-think-all-focus-one/?utm_content=buffer7aeb7&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer#.VxA2K3OGr-g.facebook

Thanks so much. Too much information and too many ideas for me to absorb in one sitting, but I'll be going back to it.

[HutchFan]

On 4/15/2016 at 8:27 PM, uli said:

http://www.newmusicbox.org/articles/muhal-richard-abrams-think-all-focus-one/?utm_content=buffer7aeb7&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer#.VxA2K3OGr-g.facebook

Wow. Great interview!

[Guy Berger]

On 7/5/2005 at 6:05 AM, B. Goren. said:

So far I'm familiar with one of his recordings (only one, it's a shame, I know…): Duets and Solos, which he recorded together with Roscoe Mitchell. Any other recommendations? What about the rest of his Soul Note recordings?

What do folks think of this recording?  I recently listened to it for the first time and found myself enjoying it quite a bit!  I thought it might be a little too abstract for my taste, but I was wrong.

[JSngry]

Duets and Solos? I tried listening to it while driving and had to stop, it was that compelling. really serious, and seriously focused, music.

[Rabshakeh]

Idle lunch time thought: does anyone know whether the cover of Levels and Degrees of Light is intended to carry a specific meaning?

It looks very clearly symbolic, including the rather unlikely looking Hebrew script, the ankh and the white marking on the hill.

I am surprised that the internet does not seem to carry any theorising regarding its meaning.

Also, does anyone know what happened to the poet David Moore who reads the poem "Bird Song"? From Google, I see that there was a poet named Daniel Moore who has worked with both Threadgill and Mitchell.  Is there any relationship between the two?  

[jazzbo]

It's an interesting painting (by Abrams). Would be nice to know something about the chosen imagery.

[JSngry]

It's a faceless feminine image (symbolizing birth/fertitlity?) and some kind of steps into something...now, did the image come up from those stairs, or is it going to go back down into it? Either way, where does it lead?

Abrams poetry is included, and may or may not be related to the painting. "3 degrees and 7 suns - before eternity"...more birth/time suggestions?

My own, non-illuminated take on it is that it's basically an image of life in time, where we come from, where do we go, or do we really come from and/or go anywhere, are we always here, never here?

I know the recent tendency has been to downplay the effect that Sun Ra's time in Chicago had on the AACM, and stuff like this is maybe beyond something as "simple" as "music. "Mainstream" thought has positioned NOI and other Afrocentric movements as being focused strictly on race, but there's a whole other element to it, lots of numerologies and origin stories. A generation of hip-hop carried some of this line of thought forward with the Five-Percenters. One can get lost in it, or one can just get lost in trying to keep it all straight. I would be in the latter group, but...whenever coming to stuff like this, it's important to be aware of what all might be going on.

There's symbols, numbers, references to pre-Abrahamic concepts of life and time...I would not want to speculate beyond that, and do regret that my initial curiosities into this sphere of knowledge were not sustained.

[Rabshakeh]

8 minutes ago, JSngry said:

I know the recent tendency has been to downplay the effect that Sun Ra's time in Chicago had on the AACM, and stuff like this is maybe beyond something as "simple" as "music. "Mainstream" thought has positioned NOI and other Afrocentric movements as being focused strictly on race, but there's a whole other element to it, lots of numerologies and origin stories. A generation of hip-hop carried some of this line of thought forward with the Five-Percenters. One can get lost in it, or one can just get lost in trying to keep it all straight. I would be in the latter group, but...whenever coming to stuff like this, it's important to be aware of what all might be going on.

I was thinking that specifically in relation to the poem on the second side. Some of the same imagery from it then recurs in the poem on the opening track of Fanfare for the Warriors, which I think is by Malachi Favors. I was a kid when Nas and Wu Tang were in their original pomp, and spent a lot of time as a teenager obsessing over what the 5% references meant, and this has the same "feel" as you say.

Query the Hebrew too - it looks like someone who does not know Hebrew has tried to transliterate the English name "Cain" back into Hebrew, without knowing the original spelling and using a non-final letter for the last letter by mistake. Then again, it could be anything.

[mjazzg]

22 minutes ago, JSngry said:

It's a faceless feminine image (symbolizing birth/fertitlity?) and some kind of steps into something...now, did the image come up from those stairs, or is it going to go back down into it? Either way, where does it lead?

Abrams poetry is included, and may or may not be related to the painting. "3 degrees and 7 suns - before eternity"...more birth/time suggestions?

My own, non-illuminated take on it is that it's basically an image of life in time, where we come from, where do we go, or do we really come from and/or go anywhere, are we always here, never here?

I know the recent tendency has been to downplay the effect that Sun Ra's time in Chicago had on the AACM, and stuff like this is maybe beyond something as "simple" as "music. "Mainstream" thought has positioned NOI and other Afrocentric movements as being focused strictly on race, but there's a whole other element to it, lots of numerologies and origin stories. A generation of hip-hop carried some of this line of thought forward with the Five-Percenters. One can get lost in it, or one can just get lost in trying to keep it all straight. I would be in the latter group, but...whenever coming to stuff like this, it's important to be aware of what all might be going on.

There's symbols, numbers, references to pre-Abrahamic concepts of life and time...I would not want to speculate beyond that, and do regret that my initial curiosities into this sphere of knowledge were not sustained.

I found the coverage of that in the Sites Ra Chicago book fascinating as I'd not come across it previously. Or I had if Szwed covers it but many years ago and it was lost to me by now