Top Ten Free Jazz Underground Records

[Dmitry]

TOP TEN FREE JAZZ UNDERGROUND

3. ARTHUR DOYLE Plus 4 - Alabama Feeling (AK-BA AK-1030)

I'm no music professional, but I have a pretty strong suspicion that he doesn't know how to play the tenor saxophone [i would probably do just as well if someone showed me which buttons do what].

[clifford_thornton]

Overblowing at that level of intensity takes a lot of power, and false fingering isn't just missteps. He can play, his language just is wholly different from a lot of other post-Trane/post-Ayler players.

Late, PM me on the Colbeck. I can burn you a copy. It's probably one of the greatest free-bop records ever waxed.

[sidewinder]

Overblowing at that level of intensity takes a lot of power, and false fingering isn't just missteps. He can play, his language just is wholly different from a lot of other post-Trane/post-Ayler players.

Late, PM me on the Colbeck. I can burn you a copy. It's probably one of the greatest free-bop records ever waxed.

Just listening to that Colbeck this morning. Nice - it's growing on me !

[clifford_thornton]

Funny to think you've got something from the Thurston List, no?

[paul secor]

Thurston's got his list (or had his list, if clem's correct on the time), & probably anyone interested could do one if they had the inclination. My only feeling about reading his is that it could carry more weight than it should with people who don't know any better.

[Late]

Sidewinder's tight with Mr. Moore.

While I do have Echo, somehow I still don't feel cool enough.

Anyone feel like putting their neck out and creating their own "Top Ten" list?

[JSngry]

TOP TEN FREE JAZZ UNDERGROUND

3. ARTHUR DOYLE Plus 4 - Alabama Feeling (AK-BA AK-1030)

I'm no music professional, but I have a pretty strong suspicion that he doesn't know how to play the tenor saxophone [i would probably do just as well if someone showed me which buttons do what].

Overblowing at that level of intensity takes a lot of power, and false fingering isn't just missteps. He can play, his language just is wholly different from a lot of other post-Trane/post-Ayler players.

Oh god, where to begin. Time for Certs in reverse - STOP! You're BOTH wrong!

Dmitry, if you knew what "buttons" did what, then you could play the tenor saxophone at at least a rudimentary level. That's kind of a basic (very basic...) definition of knowing how to play an instrument.

CT - no, overblowing doesn't necessarily take power, and false fingerings don't necessarily come by design. Sometimes you can just bite the reed and wiggle your fingers, and if you do it long enough, say, fifteen minutes, you can get an idea of how to control the basic contours of the resultant sound. Use your own speech/neurological/etc impulses as a guide to when to stop & start & when to go up or down, & hey - you got a language. Do it long enough & you can even have a "style".

But what else have you got? In Doyle's case, I've heard absolutely nothing to suggest that he knows how to play the instrument even a little bit beyond the little bit of doo-dah that he's worked up for himself. Once you've heard it, you've heard it,and that's all you're going to hear, because that's all he can do. Is it "compelling" and/or "powerful"? Yeah, sure, why not, but so is listening to a derelict in a bus station talking to himself in a crazed babble. Is he speaking in tongues with inspiration from beyond, or is he just hearing voices that nobody else can hear, probably because they're voices of his own invention, and not necessarily an invention based in "creativity"?

Ayler was a freakin' virtuoso saxophonist. There's shit on Spiritual Unity & Vibrations that will fuck up even the most accomplished saxophonist. And Ayler's use of the altissimo register and false fingerings showed a lot of control of both embrochure & fingers. You gotta have chops to do what he did like he did it.

As you do to do what a lot of other post-Trane/post-Ayler players do. You don't gotta have chops to do what Doyle does. You just gotta hear voices in your head, either literally or figuratively, and find somebody to listen (and there's always somebody to listen...). Sure, it's not without "fascination", but when people start thinking that this guy should be taken seriously at any level beyond that of the aforementioned "curiosity", well hey - I gotta leave the room lest I become insultive in the extreme.

(And yeah, there's plenty of players of whom it can be said that all they can do is what they do. But if degrees of advancement of one's limitations don't matter, why are most of us walking and running and driving and flying and talking and writing and doing all sorts of things instead of just continuing to crawl around the floor babbling & crying?)

Edited October 25, 2006 by JSngry

[Bol]

Is "Sonny's Time Now" any good? The lineup looks good, but the idea of poetry-reading sounds utterly dreary.

[sidewinder]

Funny to think you've got something from the Thurston List, no?

Indeed !

[Spontooneous]

Is "Sonny's Time Now" any good? The lineup looks good, but the idea of poetry-reading sounds utterly dreary.

It's very good, and all-instrumental, until the last cut. Then the racist poetry begins.

[chitownjazz]

Funny to think you've got something from the Thurston List, no?

I used to own MARION BROWN - In Sommerhausen (Calig 30 605) in the honest-to-god original vinyl. Does that count? I wasn't too impressed with side one so I sold it. The buyer told me that side two was a lot better. C'est la vie.

[B. Clugston]

Is "Sonny's Time Now" any good? The lineup looks good, but the idea of poetry-reading sounds utterly dreary.

It's never struck me as memorable.

Leroi/Amira's poem is laughably bad, rascist comments aside.

[ep1str0phy]

i hear ya' brutha but you do what can you do-- the specific racial/historical context in which Ornette, Trane, Cecil, Ayler were so significant is GONE, done, over. we have plenty of OTHER problems now, just like it is unlikely they'll ever be any issue as blown up as Ice-T "Cop Killer."

of course race plays a huge part, still-- noone scorns the media more than i, so we're simpatico but it's NOT just a race thing but rather anti-intellectualism in general.

Wolf Eyes & Anthony Braxton-- 'nuff said. i have just about no regard for Beasties so there's nothing to be said there (tho' "Paul's Boutique" was innovative production at the time).

i do think yr ascribing too much common sentiment ot the noise kids & also the range of options they have available. i apologize for not knowing who you "really" are-- austin? houston?

anything that encourages the independent creation/distribution of whatsis, i'm generally in favor of, tho' the specifics differ across all the different people/scenes (such as they are).

the Thurston influence/support is entirely salutary, esp. in Western Mass-- someone here can speak on, i'm sure.

finally, if yr looking to Af-Am art music from tha' 'hood... uh, it's been a l-o-n-g wait, tho' i can hip you to at least some very hot hip-hop dudes.

i'm ALL for discussing class as well as race but i respectfully suggest yr griping at straw men here, tho' if the culture down there is different now i'd like to hear about it.

signed,

the southern gentleman

(gone to georgia)

p/s1: we still need to get to root of "affected." you ever see how... Bill Dixon dresses, or heard him speak? i don't see one form of self-invention as intrinsicly more jive or laudable than another, presuming we dig the respective ezz-thetics involved. (i.e. i think we can both loathe affected neo-cons in politics & music.)

p/s2: i like a good deal of Ramblin' Jack Elliott.

I'm an LA boy, raised in what became the ethnic slums (tho my family is now living near Fabio--seen the guy around, and he wears that damn button-down shirt all the time... my Dad cracked some jokes about birds slamming into faces... I think he was buying yogurt and "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter," but I digress... we got out of that part of the SF Valley after one-too-many police raids on porn complexes). I've been in Berkeley for some time, however, so now I'm sort of Bay Area, too...

Straw men, yeah. Perhaps I harbor far too much rage toward forces I can't control/forces I shouldn't control, but there's a sort of bravado and entitlement about the noise/hipster set. This goes back to the 'Ageing/Aging avant-garde' thread: there's a gulf between coming into the music and imposing oneself upon the music. It's one thing if it's racial (I'm Filipino myself, though I pray I haven't abandoned my heritage... it's complicated enough that I generally listen to and have associated with a Black American idiom)--it's another if it's ideological (e.g., now "we're the tradition"--which is really presumptuous, though maybe I'm just raging against some excesses and successes). That's something to come to terms with on a personal level.

As far as the Doyle debate is concerned: maybe we're all looking for different things and arguing in parallel. Amateurism is a big issue in this music, and it can certainly irritate where money and iconology (etc.) are involved... just out of curiosity ('cause I came into this music late)--and for those who were around back then--who did the "can he play? yes/no" debates revolve around? Doyle is easily identified... but who else? Giuseppi Logan? Also--JSngry: what do you think of Peter Brotzmann?

Edited October 25, 2006 by ep1str0phy

[JSngry]

just out of curiosity ('cause I came into this music late)--and for those who were around back then--who did the "can he play? yes/no" debates revolve around? Doyle is easily identified... but who else? Giuseppi Logan? Also--JSngry: what do you think of Peter Brotzmann?

The debate's as old as jazz itself, although it began as the "outside world" attacking the music on general principles. It really began in earnest w/the advent of the "free players", because whereas previous generations of jazz had worked more or less within the confines of "European" practices to one degree or another (although certainly turning them to non-European ends, thus the attacks), this generation was jettisoning many, many notions of that esthetic & going for something else entirely. That's a very broad generalization that's got more than a few holes in it, but it'll do for now from me.

The thing for me is this - yeah, you need to express yourself, but you also need to do it with some sort of refinement (which is not to be confused with "class"). If just playing anything any way was the object, then hell, everybody would be a great artist. And there's people out there today, players and civilians alike, who subscribe to this theory, that "I'm a beautiful soul, you're a beautiful soul, we're all beautiful souls, so that makes everything we do beautiful soul music". Me, I think it's totally naive touchy-feely bullshit, but that's just me. Yeah, we're all beautiful souls, but so freakin' what? What comes after that?

No, you gotta do the work. I'm anything but a perv for "technical correctness", there's a lot of different ways to approach music and instruments, but dammit, the one thing I do want to hear out of anybody playing any way is some semblance/clue/hint/whatever that what's being heard is the result of somebody who's taken the time to tackle the instrument and make it do as much of "their" bidding as possible, not somebody who's just up and decided that "spirit conquers all". Because it doesn't, except in teenage fantasy. Even the Republicans (to use but one example) know that no matter how much escapist bullshit fantasy they peddle to their audiences, there's got to be some serious work going on to move their game along. That's reality.

So Giuesspie Logan, I can hear some work. Donald ayler, I can hear some work (and a lot of insane refusal to realize what playing a brass instrument that way can do to you...), Albert, Cecil, Roscoe, Braxton, all the"usual suspects" (and many others) , I can hear lots of serious work, both immediate, residual, and ongoing. But Doyle? C'mon man, the cat's an "eccentric", pure and simple. If you're into that, fine, it's cool for what it is, but it ain't the foundation for building anything on other than the building of a culture of glorification of the eccentric. Cool, even more distractions...

Brotzman? I understand the appeal (and can hear the work, definitely), but do not find it all that appealing myself.

[Shannon Dickey]

I think Bird said it the best: "Either you hear it, or you don't" (a paraphrase).

Or even better, Miles: "So What?"

put 'em together, and you got an ideal mindset for 'free' Jazz.

I really love Doyle, it's not just 'curiosity', it's one man's playing. And

don't forget Doyle toured with many 'straight' acts, and also taught music.

Free yr mind and yr Ass will follow.

Shit, I like the Bert Larson LP!

----HB

[Chuck Nessa]

Is "Sonny's Time Now" any good? The lineup looks good, but the idea of poetry-reading sounds utterly dreary.

Very good. The poetry is only on one track.

[ep1str0phy]

I think Bird said it the best: "Either you hear it, or you don't" (a paraphrase).

Or even better, Miles: "So What?"

put 'em together, and you got an ideal mindset for 'free' Jazz.

I really love Doyle, it's not just 'curiosity', it's one man's playing. And

don't forget Doyle toured with many 'straight' acts, and also taught music.

Free yr mind and yr Ass will follow.

Shit, I like the Bert Larson LP!

----HB

My proclivities in the way of "putting in the work" overlap with JS's on a number of levels (and it frustrates me enough, as a guitar player--and, in effect, instant anathema to a number of ossified "idioms" that I fall into--watching cats make a lotta noise without the bill-paying skills, so to speak), although I can't agree on Doyle (that's just me). That being said, Doyle is an enigma (to some a cipher) and I'd like to hear someone (Blowsitt?) flesh out a bit more of his background (it's a talking point, no doubt)...

Baraka/Jones has done some f'ed up shit, but it's difficult to totally ruin that Ayler ensemble.

-Finally: it's been brought up here and before--there are hundreds of other albums that might have fit onto this list. Now, as list averse as Organissimo is, I would like to hear what some of our more senior members (the "been there" folks) might rank as essential or favorite listening of this vintage (from the over or underground, as I'm not sure what the "free jazz underground" actually is).

[clifford_thornton]

Is "Sonny's Time Now" any good? The lineup looks good, but the idea of poetry-reading sounds utterly dreary.

Very good. The poetry is only on one track.

I think the poem is heavy.

Why don't people like poems?

[clifford_thornton]

I'm not gonna argue Doyle's merits with a heel-digging Texas tenor player. No way...

[ep1str0phy]

OoooOOOooohh... (hey--music is the healing force of the universe, right?)

[Chuck Nessa]

Could be a scab. Start pickin' folks.

[clifford_thornton]

Ayler was a freakin' virtuoso saxophonist. There's shit on Spiritual Unity & Vibrations that will fuck up even the most accomplished saxophonist. And Ayler's use of the altissimo register and false fingerings showed a lot of control of both embrochure & fingers. You gotta have chops to do what he did like he did it.

Never said he wasn't - technically astounding, swinging, and could get downright feral but it all made sense. Doyle, well, I'm obviously not an expert on how to play a reed instrument (couldn't do shit with a clarinet), but was at least under the impression that it took something to do what Doyle did. Also, I'm certainly not of the mind that he can "put it together" as well as he did when with Howard, Dixon et al. in the '60s and '70s, for what it's worth. I hear what makes the detractors detract, and what makes the apologists apologize. So where does that leave me?

The rest of it, I'm not gonna argue with.

Furthermore, Doyle did play in R&B bands before hitting up the free scene (not that that's particularly surprising). Doubt he was "imposing" himself on anything. Again - FWIW.

As for lists, well, I can think of ten or more WAAAY obscure titles, some of which I have and some of which I would looooove to have: The Seikatsu Kojyo Iinkai Orchestra on Des-Chonboo? The Frippe Nordstrom/Don Cherry Duo on Bird Notes? The Tusques-Wilen on Moloudji? I could go on with things that make me lose sleep at night!

Edited October 26, 2006 by clifford_thornton

[Shannon Dickey]

OK, The dish on Doyle:

(this is dated).

Instructor Experiance: Bennington College; Artist in Residence, Organized performances/lectures.

Jazz Workshop for the La Mama Theater; instructed students on how to improvise & perform in group settings.

CO-Organized: Jazz Festival, a 9 day fest with 100 musical groups and 25 different sites. Interviewed on Television and Radio. Received $4000.00 as seed money which we received from the New York State Council on the Arts.

Doyle was the composer and performer for the Television Special "A Holiday Celebration with Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis." This musical won the Broadcaster Media Award.

Publicity Received: Downbeat, Cadence, New York Times, Melody Maker (U.K.), London:Who's Who in the New Music.

Recorded with and/or toured with: Allan Silva, Rudolph Grey, Bill Dixon, Sun Ra, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Donny Hathaway, Leon Thomas, Milford Graves, Noah Howard.

Education: B.S. in Music Education, from Tennessee State University, studied composition with Dr. T. J. Anderson.

University Experiance in performance: City College, Princeton, Ohio State University, Fordham.

Guest Appearance: With the Jazz Composers Orchestra, under the direction of Dave Burrell.

Sheeyoot! What a piker!! I'll leave it at that for now, but I could ramble on about this subject.

Y'all remember how much shit was talked about Taylor, Ayler....ETC?

C'mon!!! Q-tips anyone??

-----HB

[Chuck Nessa]

[Shannon Dickey]

Regarding the comment about Doyle: "He had problems." Well who don't?!?

Esp. amongst 'free' jazz players! Drugs? Who cares!, Depression? Who cares! All other kinds of strife? Yes, we all have it to one degree or another! Does the Music matter? Hell Yes!!!!

Can you pick up what I'm puting down? Get it.

------HB