Joe Maneri, RIP

[clifford_thornton]

This is sad to hear though I know he'd been in seriously bad health in recent years.

So long and thanks for all the music - music that I still don't understand.

Source

Edited August 25, 2009 by clifford_thornton

[7/4]

RIP.

We played on the same American Festival of Microtonal Music in NYC, Nov. 2000.

.

[clifford_thornton]

Cool.

I've never really "got" Joe Maneri's music - almost to the point of not liking it - but that challenge has left him filed away in my mind as someone to explore further when I'm ready. His passing will certainly leave a hole.

[John L]

His recordings made little impact on me, but then I heard him live with his son Matt, and that was a really fine experience.

RIP

[Guest Bill Barton]

R.I.P.

I too have never really "gotten" his music. Probably my loss. He certainly was a distinctively individual voice.

[ep1str0phy]

I found Paniots Nine, though I know it's not really representitive of the larger body of Maneri's work, to be really accessible. It seems like everyone is doing vampy, mixed meter (sometimes klezmerish) jazz these days... prescient music. I do often feel as if a structurally coherent, pantonal or pan-rhythmic/metrical approach has more to do with where creative music is going than idiomatic free improvisation (but then free improvisation as praxis is ageless and useful in any medium, so yeah...).

I've honestly not not enjoyed and Maneri I've heard. I recall being nonplussed at Going to Church when I first heard it, but I don't think I've ever had any issues over where J Maneri's music was/has been coming from. Maybe I'm just not deep enough in it to formulate a more critical opinion...

RIP to a man who stuck to his guns.

[king ubu]

Sad news, seems he was a true original.

I only have his two hatOLOGY CDs (and have heard one of the ECMs once) and am not quite sure what to make of his microtonal concepts and all, but even though I never turned into a big fan, I found it all sort of a appealing (at least in theory, but I actually do like the two CDs). There was a story on Mat Maneri in The Wire once, where he talked some about his father and his musical concepts. I found that very interesting (and I think it was around the time that the ThirstyEar disc of Mat's w/Joe McPhee was released... not sure that having McPhee on his disc is actually proof of Mat's greatness, but the discs I've heard of his - mostly hatOLOGYs as well, including some w/Matthew Shipp - are quite good, I find).

[clifford_thornton]

I found Paniots Nine, though I know it's not really representitive of the larger body of Maneri's work, to be really accessible.

From the same period, Peace Concert on Atavistic is real nice.

[ep1str0phy]

I found Paniots Nine, though I know it's not really representitive of the larger body of Maneri's work, to be really accessible.

From the same period, Peace Concert on Atavistic is real nice.

Thanks--hadn't heard of this one... I'll check it out.

[Van Basten II]

His music was not easy to get, but nonetheless a great loss and a musicianwith an original voice, RIP.

[WD45]

I have a fondness for his ECM date "Three Men Walking" with Joe Morris and son Mat.

His latter-day conception is more listenable minus a drummer, to these ears.

LOVE Paniots Nine.

RIP

[ep1str0phy]

Actually just got a copy of Peace Concert, based on clifford's rec. It's absolutely ahead of it's time, as far as "jazz improvisation" goes--though, as the liners make clear, Joe wasn't necessarily apart of the whole free jazz thing.

[BruceH]

I found Paniots Nine, though I know it's not really representitive of the larger body of Maneri's work, to be really accessible.

Yeah, that's the only thing by him I ever really liked, though I must admit to not making a great effort to check his stuff out. Nonetheless, RIP.

[7/4]

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/news.php?id=41657

...

[Chuck Nessa]

I have discs on Leo, ECM and Hat. I never made the connection but kept trying. Maybe some day.

We lost an original.

[7/4]

That's how I feel...I never really connected with his music, but I keep trying. As as microtonalist, he's an original...using 72 tone equal temperament to play jazz - that's real unique.

...

[jeffcrom]

I'm certainly not a Maneri expert, or familiar with all of his recordings. But I like his music, and have a suggestion if you're not connecting with it. Listen to the last track of Pantiots Nine. It's an eleven-minute duet with Maneri on clarinet and Greg Silberman on piano, recorded live at New England Conservatory in 1981. The tray card calls the track "Jewish Concert," but the liner notes suggest that the title should be "Jewish Fantasy - At the Wedding." Maneri's playing here suggests that his use of microtones is derived more from Jewish and Greek clarinet traditions and from the blues than from any avant-garde classical source. Hearing this track helped the pieces fall into place for me - maybe someone else will have the same experience.

[7/4]

I'm certainly not a Maneri expert, or familiar with all of his recordings. But I like his music, and have a suggestion if you're not connecting with it. Listen to the last track of Pantiots Nine. It's an eleven-minute duet with Maneri on clarinet and Greg Silberman on piano, recorded live at New England Conservatory in 1981. The tray card calls the track "Jewish Concert," but the liner notes suggest that the title should be "Jewish Fantasy - At the Wedding." Maneri's playing here suggests that his use of microtones is derived more from Jewish and Greek clarinet traditions and from the blues than from any avant-garde classical source. Hearing this track helped the pieces fall into place for me - maybe someone else will have the same experience.

Yeah, that's where he's coming from. When the cash situation gets better, I'll pick up some more albums by him. Right now, my collection is back at my place and I'll probably grab other CDs next time I stop by there.

Edited August 27, 2009 by 7/4

[David Ayers]

Why so cagey? Terrific musician. I guess he basically abstracts kinds of dissonance which are familiar from all sorts of music, and also abstracts typical rhythmic phrasings, then removes the rest. Pretty good really though I have no idea how organised it all is. Usually to get away from cliche you have to be very organised indeed.

[P.L.M]

A great musician. Thanks to Paul Bley to have put it in the light even if it was at a later state of his life.

Funny that even the strongest supporter of the avant-garde on this board didn't get him. More difficult to listen to than Fred Anderson certainly but not more complicated than a solo album of Roscoe Mitchell.

His two greatest discs are, IMO, "Get Ready To Receive Yourself", his first on Leo and the magnificent "Dahabenzapple" who will maybe know a reedition one of this day on hatOLOGY.

His most accessible is, again IMO, "Going To Church" on Aum Fidelity where the band is larger than usual.

The one to listen to if you want "get" the music of "papa" Joe Maneri.

Edited September 6, 2009 by P.L.M

[Joe Bip]

For years and years, my only exposure to Joe Maneri was In Full Cry which I bought on a lark. Not bad, but I wouldn't say I appreciated what made it different. Then in the past year I've started getting a lot more of his recordings: Dahabenzapple, Coming Down the Mountain, Peace Concert, and I just now ordered a used Get Ready to Receive Yourself. I really like his playing but probably still don't "get it" in the sense of being able to explain to someone exactly what it was he was doing.

I didn't buy Paniots Nine, unfortunately, and now it's out of print. But according to Maneri's site, the title track was featured on the soundtrack to American Splendor, so I guess I heard a small part of the album once but didn't notice it!

Edited August 27, 2009 by Joe Bip

[ep1str0phy]

It's actually the title sequence track, which I'm assuming went a long way toward introducing random moviegoers to Maneri's music (probably Pekar's doing). Completely tangential, but having done some Ayler research a while back, I came across some of Pekar's old reviews... agree with much of his taste, if not with the way he articulates(ed) his enthusiasm/lack thereof (a lukewarm review of Spirits Rejoice, IIRC, is kind of embarrassing to read now).

Listening more to his music in the past couple days, I think I find it easier to connect to Maneri on a visceral, rather than intellectual level. On that note, I think P.L.M is right on in that a lot of the music isn't really more "difficult" than a Roscoe solo album. If you can get past (or, maybe, get deep into) the formal abstraction, the music is very pungent and human.

[Steve Reynolds]

The music of the great man, the Round one is indeed visceral, human and pungent in the extreme.

"Dahabenzapple" is one the great statements in modern improvised music. I told Mat on the 1 or 2 occasions we had a word back int he days when Joe and the band would make fairly regular appearances in NYC (from the late 1990's through 2005) that one day if it is heard by enough people that Dahabenzapple could be heard as a composed piece if looked at that way. It is actually 3 long pieces with no apparent structure at first glance but it is very refined and structured in retrospect when heard many times.

for me he is what life is all bout - lost dreams he told me back in the 1960's "The BIG GUY called me up once and said he heard something of mine and wanted to get together - but it never happened. You can guess who the big guy is or waxs - he died at 41 and Joe never played his first real improv gig until he was well into his 60's - so dreams often die young.

I saw his first gig in NYC with the quartet in 1998 or 1999 with Cecil McBee, Randy Peterson & his son Mat.

They played an hour of Maneri music with an encore of Body and Soul which was Joe on the paino and Mat on violin - In Full Cry for sure

nothing mattered in the world.

RIP, sir...

Get Ready to Receive Yourself

[ep1str0phy]

Thanks, Steve. I actually did just hear Dahabenzapple for the first time the other day, and I'm trying to figure out what there is not to get. (It's been a long time since I tried to tackle this music, but I guess my temperament changed). Very, very interesting hearing McBee in this context--he fits in swimmingly, even though I'd always thought of him as more of an explicitly idiomatic player (Moncur III's Some Other Stuff should have told me otherwise, but there you go). (Kind of a tangent, but interesting comparison to how the McBee/Cyrille duo was flowing in for Horace Tapscott's Dark Tree gig--not the regular bass/drums combo by any means, but it works well. Was McBee a regular part of this group, or an idea for the just the session/of the producer's?)

I'm having trouble figuring out who the "big guy" is, honestly. Who died at 41? Bud Powell?

[7/4]

I'm puzzled by the big guy comment too.