Some Love For Jimmy Garrison

[ep1str0phy]

I love bass, one of my favorite instruments in improvised music. But Garrison's approach is just not interesting for me. His bass sounds essentially like some sort of African percussion, balafon or something. Short sounds, pulsating... sort of groovy. Very repetitive, very boring. I can't stand his solos - not only do I find them unimaginative, but they also all sound very similar to each other. And I actually love bass solos, have probably at least 20 CDs of solo improvised bass... I think his approach worked OK in Coltrane's "classic" quartet as supplement to Elvin, but was too square for the band with Ali.

Garrison is actually very similar in style to William Parker, one bassist whose playing I really can't tolerate.

I can see where you're coming from, in no small part because I used to think the same way. I don't think there's any need for "conversion" in disagreement (the "I used to think that" line of debate is a huge irritant of mine), but I seriously think that close listening to Garrison will reward improv listeners with a huge appreciation for what can be done in an (admittedly--occasionally) straightjacketing idiom.

I take some issue with the Parker comparison--they're similar on several facile levels (huge, woody sound, a preference for modal/vamplike contexts and only minor dynamic variation, "status" placement in key rhythm quartet bands--Ware v. Coltrane, that is), but it's worth noting that Parker actually lived through 20-30 years of musical developments before really coming into his own in his own idiom. That is, it's sort of difficult to make the call that playing like Garrison is the only, right, or logical "way" in a free jazz sort of context after Barry Guy, Johnny Dyani, Harry Miller, Peter Kowald, Yoshizawa Motoharu, Tatsu Aoki, Fred Hopkins, Malachi Favors, later Reggie Workman, etc. etc. etc. History can color our perception of things, and I think Parker sounds even more regressive considering that he's harkened back to the already historical Garrison thing and streamlined that. Garrison may not sound sound like the ideal bassist for late Trane--not after the Europeans, AACM cats, Japanese, and South Africans, and not after the promise of Richard Davis--but he's the only one among that crowd to have to grapple with the dilemma of adapting the repertoire of bop era bass to completely unprecedented freedom--and, by that token, he's really the only once who "succeeded." He figured it out first, and maybe by virtue of fighting that fight, understood the meaning of that freedom "the best." Parker, on the other hand, sort of studied the evidence, read the journals, did the science, and decided that Garrison's mathematics was more valuable than any number of other discoveries in the interim.

What changed my mind on all this was actually getting stuck in late Trane for a bit (this is happening again, thanks to Jim's thread). In terms of articulation, phrasing, and especially rhythm, he is nothing like Parker. Jim mentioned in (I think) the Interstellar Space AOTW thread that (and I'm paraphrasing the hell out of this) Trane had basically exhausted the possibilities of harmonic freedom, although he never really got there rhythmically. Coltrane was a lot more systematic, a lot less freewheeling and pliable that Rollins or even Shorter. Another way to interpret this is that rhythmic filigree was at a sort of odds with late Trane's music, which still sounds hard, direct, and sort of monolithic.

I look at Garrison as a sort of bass reduction of this aspect of Trane--not so much inflexible as steely and very much noodle-averse. Whereas Parker is a bit of a thrasher (phrase-wise), Garrison is extraordinarily selective with where he phrases his lines--in relief with Ali's drumming, I have to imagine this was a deliberate way of doing things. Keep in mind this was the guy who flipped out on Ornette because he didn't understand the concept--and a dude who played much more busily on (later) New York Is Now! and Love Call. Garrison's bass solos were always a sort of interlude--a respite from the maelstrom--but in that later band, Garrison found a way to integrate that soloistic approach with the ensemble sound.

This was unprecedented as fuck, as I think only Charlie Haden was really operating on this level at that time. Guys like Gary Peacock and Lewis Worrell were classic--maybe paradigmatic--free improv thrashers, and their role was more as a precedent for the hardcore bass liberation that guys like Barry Guy and Dyani were working with later in the decade. Garrison, on the other hand--and maybe because he was a really systematic thinker, who knows--found a way to operate soloistically while still thinking in terms of counterpoint to the melody--and he didn't do it by playing less busy, necessarily, but by basically improvising a reduction of Trane's harmonic conceits. Resultantly, Garrison is very rhythmically assymetric (much more oblique than Parker), but still melodically lucid. This is a much more "inside" way of doing things, which might be why Garrison is still so "legit" to mainstream cats and maybe not so hot to out people.

This is what I meant by egoless, and I have endless love, respect, and admiration for Jimmy Garrison for being this oddball voice of "reason" in an era when people weren't really giving half a damn about reason. That wouldn't be "enough," really, to put him in the pantheon, but I discovered that Garrison's depth and poise actually gave me sort of a lifeline back when late Coltrane sounded like chaos. Don't get me wrong--chaos is freaking awesome--but listening to Garrison actually foregrounded the calmness, beauty, love, etc. at the center of late Coltrane--which I definitely think was an important (and often ignored) part of the message. There are few greater skills for a bass player, AFAIC, than getting the listener to hear the rest of the band differently and "better."

Killer Garrison to this effect may be heard on:

Live in Japan

-Maybe the most subdued of the late Quintet recordings, it's possible to listen to this as one long rhythm section piece. The interplay between Alice, Jimmy, and Rashied is really striking--like one long, unending dominant chord that somehow relaxes you into the middle of the tension. More than the Quartet music, this feels like Coltrane improvising over something orchestral and endlessly rich in color and stasis.

Expression

-Similar to Live in Japan, but more compressed and maybe more dynamic. What Garrison does with his role in the arrangements is truly spectacular--listen to stuff like "Seraphic Light," where with might otherwise sound like a noodle-y, vaguely "Eastern" drone actually achieves a degree of slow, powerful melodic momentum. That's real spontaneous orchestration.

Cosmic Music

-The Trane tracks on this album are kind of atrociously mixed, but that maximizes (in weird ways) the beauty of Garrison's contribution. His pizzicato work here is really fascinating--the band is at full tilt and the horns get severely unmelodic in places, but Garrison manages to turn that into a weird dialogue--two sides (horns v. bass/piano) at cross-purposes, where the harmony is actually only a shadow of what the horns are doing (rather than vice-versa).

Stellar Regions (see Expression

The Olatunji Concert

-The consensus on this album seems to be that it sounds so bad that it's actually kind of awesome, and I agree with that. The drums are absolutely out of control, but the fact that Jimmy is also pushing the mic waaaay past red says something about his power and aplomb. Garrison earns a medal for not only engaging in a dialogue with what is essentially the world's longest atom bomb denotation, but also for complementing and reinforcing the power with a really inconceivable clarity.

[ep1str0phy]

One more thing--if Garrison ever had a "true" spiritual successor, it was Malachi Favors. They were very different players, but they both had this really profound way of clarifying and illuminating abstract environments. Garrison owned the maximalist arena with the Quintet, but Malachi Favors was a tower of strength on the early, often minimalist Art Ensemble albums (pre-Don Moye right up to and probably including Phase One and such).

Edited October 31, 2012 by ep1str0phy

[Gheorghe]

I can't get excited about bassists. I always found it better just to leave them to it.

Well, a question of taste.

I couldn´t imagine music without the bass. The bass is the bottom of the whole thing. I started listenig to jazz because I fell in love with that sound Paul Chambers had on the records I´d buy then (Davis etc.). No bass, no jazz....at least to me.

About Jimmy Garrison: You will be astonished but I like most what he did on those two records he made with Ornette in 1968.

About his solo work: I agree with some of you, that at a certain point there is not very much variation in it, but that´s what it was supposed to be, a more meditative kind of music.

Anyway, some bassists they great as long as they walk on or stay at the bottom, but when they start soloing, they start to practice. Take as an example the last Mingus Date "Me Myself an Eye" and "Something like a Bird". Eddie Gomez and Jiri Mraz just get lost, only high notes, each of them sounding the same way, sounds like exercises. I heard Mingus was very unpleasant about it. But not only because he was not able to play any more, but because of the way it came out. You can tell a story on the bass, not just pickin only the high notes and faster and faster..... they both sound great in the ensemble, but forget them when they start soloing on that record.....

[king ubu]

Great thread - and most illuminating comments, ep1strophy!

Garrison/Favors - very interesting, and makes lots of sense to me!

[JSngry]

Garrison/Favors - very interesting, and makes lots of sense to me!

Put Wilbur Ware on the front end of that and it makes even more.

[mracz]

I can't get excited about bassists. I always found it better just to leave them to it.

Well, a question of taste.

I couldn´t imagine music without the bass. The bass is the bottom of the whole thing. I started listenig to jazz because I fell in love with that sound Paul Chambers had on the records I´d buy then (Davis etc.). No bass, no jazz....at least to me.

About Jimmy Garrison: You will be astonished but I like most what he did on those two records he made with Ornette in 1968.

About his solo work: I agree with some of you, that at a certain point there is not very much variation in it, but that´s what it was supposed to be, a more meditative kind of music.

Anyway, some bassists they great as long as they walk on or stay at the bottom, but when they start soloing, they start to practice. Take as an example the last Mingus Date "Me Myself an Eye" and "Something like a Bird". Eddie Gomez and Jiri Mraz just get lost, only high notes, each of them sounding the same way, sounds like exercises. I heard Mingus was very unpleasant about it. But not only because he was not able to play any more, but because of the way it came out. You can tell a story on the bass, not just pickin only the high notes and faster and faster..... they both sound great in the ensemble, but forget them when they start soloing on that record.....

I remember Dave Holland talking about his time with Miles. He was getting over-elaborate and virtuosic with lots of high register playing one night, and in between sets Miles simply said: "Hey, Dave, you play the bass".

I love bass, one of my favorite instruments in improvised music. But Garrison's approach is just not interesting for me. His bass sounds essentially like some sort of African percussion, balafon or something. Short sounds, pulsating... sort of groovy. Very repetitive, very boring. I can't stand his solos - not only do I find them unimaginative, but they also all sound very similar to each other. And I actually love bass solos, have probably at least 20 CDs of solo improvised bass... I think his approach worked OK in Coltrane's "classic" quartet as supplement to Elvin, but was too square for the band with Ali.

Garrison is actually very similar in style to William Parker, one bassist whose playing I really can't tolerate.

I can see where you're coming from, in no small part because I used to think the same way. I don't think there's any need for "conversion" in disagreement (the "I used to think that" line of debate is a huge irritant of mine), but I seriously think that close listening to Garrison will reward improv listeners with a huge appreciation for what can be done in an (admittedly--occasionally) straightjacketing idiom.

I take some issue with the Parker comparison--they're similar on several facile levels (huge, woody sound, a preference for modal/vamplike contexts and only minor dynamic variation, "status" placement in key rhythm quartet bands--Ware v. Coltrane, that is), but it's worth noting that Parker actually lived through 20-30 years of musical developments before really coming into his own in his own idiom. That is, it's sort of difficult to make the call that playing like Garrison is the only, right, or logical "way" in a free jazz sort of context after Barry Guy, Johnny Dyani, Harry Miller, Peter Kowald, Yoshizawa Motoharu, Tatsu Aoki, Fred Hopkins, Malachi Favors, later Reggie Workman, etc. etc. etc. History can color our perception of things, and I think Parker sounds even more regressive considering that he's harkened back to the already historical Garrison thing and streamlined that. Garrison may not sound sound like the ideal bassist for late Trane--not after the Europeans, AACM cats, Japanese, and South Africans, and not after the promise of Richard Davis--but he's the only one among that crowd to have to grapple with the dilemma of adapting the repertoire of bop era bass to completely unprecedented freedom--and, by that token, he's really the only once who "succeeded." He figured it out first, and maybe by virtue of fighting that fight, understood the meaning of that freedom "the best." Parker, on the other hand, sort of studied the evidence, read the journals, did the science, and decided that Garrison's mathematics was more valuable than any number of other discoveries in the interim.

What changed my mind on all this was actually getting stuck in late Trane for a bit (this is happening again, thanks to Jim's thread). In terms of articulation, phrasing, and especially rhythm, he is nothing like Parker. Jim mentioned in (I think) the Interstellar Space AOTW thread that (and I'm paraphrasing the hell out of this) Trane had basically exhausted the possibilities of harmonic freedom, although he never really got there rhythmically. Coltrane was a lot more systematic, a lot less freewheeling and pliable that Rollins or even Shorter. Another way to interpret this is that rhythmic filigree was at a sort of odds with late Trane's music, which still sounds hard, direct, and sort of monolithic.

I look at Garrison as a sort of bass reduction of this aspect of Trane--not so much inflexible as steely and very much noodle-averse. Whereas Parker is a bit of a thrasher (phrase-wise), Garrison is extraordinarily selective with where he phrases his lines--in relief with Ali's drumming, I have to imagine this was a deliberate way of doing things. Keep in mind this was the guy who flipped out on Ornette because he didn't understand the concept--and a dude who played much more busily on (later) New York Is Now! and Love Call. Garrison's bass solos were always a sort of interlude--a respite from the maelstrom--but in that later band, Garrison found a way to integrate that soloistic approach with the ensemble sound.

This was unprecedented as fuck, as I think only Charlie Haden was really operating on this level at that time. Guys like Gary Peacock and Lewis Worrell were classic--maybe paradigmatic--free improv thrashers, and their role was more as a precedent for the hardcore bass liberation that guys like Barry Guy and Dyani were working with later in the decade. Garrison, on the other hand--and maybe because he was a really systematic thinker, who knows--found a way to operate soloistically while still thinking in terms of counterpoint to the melody--and he didn't do it by playing less busy, necessarily, but by basically improvising a reduction of Trane's harmonic conceits. Resultantly, Garrison is very rhythmically assymetric (much more oblique than Parker), but still melodically lucid. This is a much more "inside" way of doing things, which might be why Garrison is still so "legit" to mainstream cats and maybe not so hot to out people.

This is what I meant by egoless, and I have endless love, respect, and admiration for Jimmy Garrison for being this oddball voice of "reason" in an era when people weren't really giving half a damn about reason. That wouldn't be "enough," really, to put him in the pantheon, but I discovered that Garrison's depth and poise actually gave me sort of a lifeline back when late Coltrane sounded like chaos. Don't get me wrong--chaos is freaking awesome--but listening to Garrison actually foregrounded the calmness, beauty, love, etc. at the center of late Coltrane--which I definitely think was an important (and often ignored) part of the message. There are few greater skills for a bass player, AFAIC, than getting the listener to hear the rest of the band differently and "better."

Killer Garrison to this effect may be heard on:

Live in Japan

-Maybe the most subdued of the late Quintet recordings, it's possible to listen to this as one long rhythm section piece. The interplay between Alice, Jimmy, and Rashied is really striking--like one long, unending dominant chord that somehow relaxes you into the middle of the tension. More than the Quartet music, this feels like Coltrane improvising over something orchestral and endlessly rich in color and stasis.

Expression

-Similar to Live in Japan, but more compressed and maybe more dynamic. What Garrison does with his role in the arrangements is truly spectacular--listen to stuff like "Seraphic Light," where with might otherwise sound like a noodle-y, vaguely "Eastern" drone actually achieves a degree of slow, powerful melodic momentum. That's real spontaneous orchestration.

Cosmic Music

-The Trane tracks on this album are kind of atrociously mixed, but that maximizes (in weird ways) the beauty of Garrison's contribution. His pizzicato work here is really fascinating--the band is at full tilt and the horns get severely unmelodic in places, but Garrison manages to turn that into a weird dialogue--two sides (horns v. bass/piano) at cross-purposes, where the harmony is actually only a shadow of what the horns are doing (rather than vice-versa).

Stellar Regions (see Expression

The Olatunji Concert

-The consensus on this album seems to be that it sounds so bad that it's actually kind of awesome, and I agree with that. The drums are absolutely out of control, but the fact that Jimmy is also pushing the mic waaaay past red says something about his power and aplomb. Garrison earns a medal for not only engaging in a dialogue with what is essentially the world's longest atom bomb denotation, but also for complementing and reinforcing the power with a really inconceivable clarity.

In terms of solos, the "intro" to My Favourite Things on LATTVVA is a favourite.

[Д.Д.]

ep1strophy, great post. To clarify - I find Garrison definitely more interesting than William Parker (whom I find mostly just intolerable). I will pay more attention to Garrison when I listen to later Coltrane sides. I am actually listening to "Stellar Regions" at the moment, and to me Garrison sounds quite redundant here. Favors / Garrison connection - interesting... I like Favors, but somehow I enjoy his playing more on non-AEoC dates.

[CJ Shearn]

I really like the point Epistrophy makes about Garrison being rhythmically assymetric but his melodic sense comes from the "inside". I can hear what you're talking about and it makes a lot of sense. Also provoking to think Trane was less rhythmically free compared to Wayne and Sonny. I can understand that, too.

[paul secor]

Garrison/Favors - very interesting, and makes lots of sense to me!

Put Wilbur Ware on the front end of that and it makes even more.

I've always heard much more of a Ware influence in Malachi Favors' music than I have Garrison. Not to minimize the possibility of Garrison's influence in any way.

[jazzbo]

Great posts epistrophy, thanks.

[jlhoots]

Somewhere in this there was a statement suggesting a Parker / Ware connection, which I agree with.

I also like the Favors / Garrison link.

[Gheorghe]

[quote name='MarkR'

I remember Dave Holland talking about his time with Miles. He was getting over-elaborate and virtuosic with lots of high register playing one night, and in between sets Miles simply said: "Hey, Dave, you play the bass".

Oh, that´s a really interesting aspect. I got a record of the Miles Band from 1969 at Blue Coronet and realized that Dave plays very much in the high register, about the whole set.

Until now I had thought it was Miles´ idea to leave the bottom out of the whole stuff. That was Miles, telling his musicians things like "leave the chords out, don´t play so many notes, etc.".

So I thought that was just Miles´ advice to try something new, to leave the low register out so it might be an open thing....

So, maybe I was wrong and it was Dave´s kind of aproach and Miles tried to talk him out of it...

[soulpope]

Really interesting thread, thnx to ep1str0phy - I really do love bass :-)

ad Jimmy Garrison ) It took me rather long to appreciate him via his "classic" Impulse recordings with Coltrane (the fact mentioned before from another poster, that Impulse recording engineers in general didn`t do a lot of favors to bassists by keeping them low in the mix was not too helpfull either). Revelation came via a Nathan Davis date from december 1967 bringing to light "Rules of freedom" (released on Polydor) and featuring H. Hawes, J. Garrison and Art Taylor. The rhythm section has some effortless interplay and gives a the same time each of the players "room to breath".....listen to J. Garisson....

Another "enlightening" came via the John Coltrane 4 Live at the Liederhalle Stuttgart from 1963 (formely bootleg LP, now sort of bootleg CD), which features inter alias some breathtaking playing by J. Garrison on "Impressions"..... and from then onwards...

ad Ron Carter) Wouldn`t like to comment reg his pun on J. Garrison. I don`t really dig his bass playing overall - for me it often seems to be sort of "lightweight" and it`s his playing on the 60`S M. Davis 5 recordings which injects them a "bottomless" touch....to which extent this is only due R. Carter`s individual contribution or to the concept of Miles Davis........

Another poster - "AllanLowe" mentioned Ronnie Boykins and the great Wilbur Ware beings his faves beside Jimmy Garrison - I would like to second his opinion and add another one - the great (late) Jimmy Woode and his playing from the mid sixties onwards.

[jazzbo]

I can't get excited about bassists. I always found it better just to leave them to it.

That's interesting because I've always listened to bassists with interest and excitement. From Duke to Coleman, the bass has always been a way into the music for me.

May explain why now in my midlife crisis period I own a contrabass violin and three Fender basses, an Epiphone, and a "Wishbass."

Garrison ALWAYS captures my attention. Just finished listening to him here:

[Guy Berger]

[quote name='MarkR'

I remember Dave Holland talking about his time with Miles. He was getting over-elaborate and virtuosic with lots of high register playing one night, and in between sets Miles simply said: "Hey, Dave, you play the bass".

Oh, that´s a really interesting aspect. I got a record of the Miles Band from 1969 at Blue Coronet and realized that Dave plays very much in the high register, about the whole set.

Until now I had thought it was Miles´ idea to leave the bottom out of the whole stuff. That was Miles, telling his musicians things like "leave the chords out, don´t play so many notes, etc.".

So I thought that was just Miles´ advice to try something new, to leave the low register out so it might be an open thing....

So, maybe I was wrong and it was Dave´s kind of aproach and Miles tried to talk him out of it...

The comment to Dave might also have come later. Between the Nov 1969 concerts in Europe and the Mar 1970 concerts at the Fillmore East, the amount of vamp playing in Miles's live music increased a lot.

[Quasimado]

JG was bassist along with Paul Motion for *Lee Konitz live at the Half Note* from 1959. Bill Evans lays out a lot of the time, leaving the harmonic path to Jimmy. To a lesser player this would be pretty daunting, as Lee's and (especially) Warne's solos on this date are pretty oblique for someone unfamiliar with their approach. They don't leave too many obvious clues about where they are in the sequence. Jimmy does just fine - and he swings!

Q

[sgcim]

My hippie older sister used to babysit for his kid back around 1970.

Then she bought a bass, and started studying with him. I still have the manuscript book with some of his lessons. He stressed learning tetra-chords.

He used to tell my sister that he loved to go over 100mph in his car to open up the engine.