ep1str0phy

I think that Mehldau is very heavy on this disc--definitely my favorite playing of his, by far. Konitz's presence opens up all sorts of room for contrapuntal escapades, and Mehldau's harmonic vocabulary is (winningly) up to the task. I guess I hadn't heard Konitz recently, but his tone leans way sharper and his lines way wobblier, way more fugitive than I remember. Mehldau is the conventional virtuosity on the record--a more adventurous iteration on the Evans thing--but Kontiz pushes things into free jazz territory at times. It's a really weird, really piquant combo. A little more disappointing is the Haden/Motian pairing, if only because those two can generate so much heat and Haden is so far back in the mix that he's almost nonexistant at times. Haden is a super meaty player, but he doesn't pop here. Between this and Motian's ultra-minimalist timekeeping--sort of a rhythmic foil to what Konitz is doing--the recording is definitely balanced in favor of the frontline.

I haven't heard it, but Ornette plays on the album "So Tranqulizin'" by Cosmetic w/Jamaaladeen Tacuma. I haven't heard good things. I have the "Of Human Feelings" Japanese issue, and there are no bonus tracks.

Phillip is a friend of mine (actually playing again in June) and I'm a fan of Joelle's. Best of luck to this project--some amazing talent on board for this!

I think that Ascension's mixed bag of personnel is just part of the flavor. There's a bit of a manifesto quality to it, Trane being the intersection of, one the one hand, this logical conclusion of mainstream/post-bop virtuosity and, on the other, a father figure and icon of the maturing but still new and hairy avant-garde. It gets a little schizophrenic in a way that Free Jazz is not--the differences in approach/shift in rhythm section feels getting wildly divergent from solo to solo toward the end--but that sense of mania, the sheer heterogeneity encompassed within it, plays into this very dialogic, Diasporic sense of music-as-community-ritual/social polyphony. I don't think Ascension's approach is in any way more valid that Free Jazz's, but I think it makes its point as a period earmark much more dramatically and powerfully. In other words, Free Jazz feels at all points like Ornette's music, but there are times--and wonderfully so--that Ascension gets close to a music that is not Trane's. Speaking to that a bit, I think that my negative feelings about Ascension have to do with my personal distaste for a couple of the soloists' approaches (rendered much more vividly here than on Free Jazz, if only because the everyone gets a distinct soloist + rhythm section moment). Everyone showed up to play, and the tutti passages are fittingly big and explosive. At the same time, I think the sense of disjunctness that is one of Ascension's strengths is at times its weakness. Freddie Hubbard was a monster trumpet player who was wonderful in a straight ahead context, but (with the exception of Components and maybe Out to Lunch) he never played a convincing free solo to me; he just pops back into this weird pseudo-Speak No Evil mode when his solo starts, which suggests (but doesn't quite go there) this mainstream-y reluctance to make a full-on void dive. It's a buzz kill. On the other hand--and this really isn't a problem with Free Jazz--avant-garde egalitarianism dropped Dewey Johnson into the party, which I'm still out to lunch on. There's no doubt that one of the "iconic" free jazz trumpets, like Don Cherry, Donald Ayler, or even Eddie Gale at that time, could have cut a lot harder. As it is, Johnson's solo sags in a way that shows the weaker parts of the "all-in" aesthetic. I don't really have this issue with any of the other soloists, but when you have Pharoah, Shepp, Tchicai, and Marion Brown as your other horns, I'd rather you better bring a weapons-grade trumpet to your knife fight. I think what turns me off to Free Jazz, on the other hand, is the unrelenting sense of rhythmic stasis. The Science Fiction sessions will often get the clear vote because (1) the pieces are shorter and Higgins and Blackwell get to play in plenty of different time feels and (2) what the rhythm section is doing, Haden included, is much weirder and more open-ended on the big band Sci-Fi stuff. Free Jazz has this incessant walk, walk, walk and ride cymbal pulse that is attractive as a sort of idiomatic "statement" (very clearly superimposing a lot of bebop tropes onto a non-bebop situation, or, rather, suggesting the notion of slapping two bop rhythm sections on top of one another), but it gets to a little overbearing after a while. Even with Prime Time--by the 70's, Ornette's group music had learned to breathe a bit. I do love how interactive and on an even plane the horns are--in a way that wasn't foregrounded as consistently and obstinately in a lot of the Science Fiction stuff (with the exception of, IIRC Elizabeth, which may be totally collective--need to listen again)... even during the "solos," there's this sense of density that is really unique. Also, title be damned, I don't get the sense that Free Jazz was anything more than a sized-up experiment on Ornette's part (like Ascension was "just" a big band album--but that one still has a manifesto-like weight that I'm not sure Free Jazz has); it's not a logical conclusion, but rather a goal that was reached, assessed, and developed. Taken as a fluid piece of work--or, rather, guys working stuff out--Free Jazz is awesome.

Excllent news...that's a fantastic record. I actually saw this at the local Amoeba already.

The better portion of Taylor "overviews" I've encountered make a point of signaling, up front, "classical training." A more measured analysis (still emphasizing the classical element), which is kind of a "classic" example, is Ekkehard Jost's book (a European dude, keep in mind, evaluating free jazz with more traditional/formalized analysis): In terms of Cecil's percussivity: "[...] He started taking piano lessons at the age of five. A few years later he also began to study percussion, with a timpanist who at that time was playing under Toscanini; we can ascribe some significance to this fact in view of Taylor's later stylistic evolution." More generally: "Without considering direct influences (i.e., models), we can assume that Taylor heard his own ideas confirmed in the playing of Tristano and Brubeck, ideas whose realization he could not yet envision because of his preoccupation with "Occidental" ways of musical thinking. Taylor doubtless had in mind, like Brubeck and Tristano, the integration of European avantgarde elements into a jazz context." And I feel like the Anglicization of Cecil's playing happens often. Here's on example (literally the first review I opened up after searching for the Wilmer chapter on Cecil online... I lent someone my copy of "As Serious..."!): "The performance also included more placid, pastoral segments than one normally expects from his trios. Grimes' frequent use of a bow and akLaff's reliance on brushes certainly contributed to the greater emphasis on soft textures. The pianist apparently steered them in that direction, as demonstrated by his willingness to allow more space between notes, to the point of sounding almost minimalist on occasion. In fact, he closed the first set with a brief solo more reminiscent of Eric Satie's impressionism than any jazz style. And yet it was classic Cecil Taylor, delivered in a context that only he could generate. It also happened to be the most achingly beautiful passage that this listener has experienced at a Taylor concert over the past 20 years." (http://articles.courant.com/2006-10-23/features/0610230467_1_taylor-concert-cecil-taylor-henry-grimes)

I think the "things unknown" play a larger role in "the music" than most people are willing to acknowledge, or at least emphasize. I'm pretty convinced this is why no one ever talks about Rahsaan Roland Kirk in the same breadth as Messrs. Coltrane, Ornette, Miles, etc.

"Always" is a poor choice of words, but I think I've heard Rachmaninoff and Cecil mentioned in the same breadth too many times to count. I think both traditions are part of the same story (at least to Cecil), and to discount one or another is to engage with very selective listening/conceptualization. CT: "I listen to a lot of different music. For instance, today I listened to Chinese Classical music--which I really didn't dig too much, but I'll listen to it again--I listened to Islamic chants that really knocked me the fuck out. And just single voices. I listened to Duke Ellington's Orchestra circa 1945-- there was one piece that was just amazing. I listened to Victoria de los Angeles singing Purcell's "Diedere and something or other..." and then I listened to Gary Grafman playing the first movement of the Brahms piano concerto. Brahms, boy I tell you--then I listened to Leonard T. Price singing the last movement of Richard Strauss' "Solome." Boy--what what a-- wheeew--boy, that guy--I have to go to see that guy. A lot of shit was up. And then, of course, of course--I listen every day to something by Ligeti. Today I heard "Ramifications" and this choral piece, and "Atmospheres." Then I listen every day to [he chuckles] Marvin Gaye, of course. Then I put on Sarah Vaughn, then I put on Xenakis--oh, this fucking guy--this orchestra piece, and then I'm--god, I mean I practiced the piano four hours today. I spent two hours completing another section of this poem this morning. I cooked, I mopped all the floors in this house, and I've done all this stuff. And not one cigarette I can't understand it. No champagne, anything..."

I have to wonder whether the controversy over this sentiment has to do with a Western-derived desire to hierarchicalize and compartmentalize. Virtuosity per se was conceptualized within the Western concert tradition, after all. The idea that you could weigh the artistic contributions of musicians in wildly divergent fields (i.e., the legitimization of Monk via Chopin, the legitimization of Bird via Stravinsky, the legitimization of Coltrane w/relationships to Slonimsky or Hanon texts, Threadgill via Varese, etc.) provides a really potent pedagogical tool--and it's absolutely part of the Western art/science tradition to want to take apart, re-arrange, and assess with something at least resembling objective certainty. Not to belittle relationships that could have been and in many cases genuinely were/are there (Threadgill/Varese, for example, which I've seen the science for and is pretty clear), but I think a lot of the aforementioned phenomenon has to do with the psychological inability to come to terms with abstraction and/or spiritual and/or emotional logics. Speaking to a term that Moms invoked a little earlier on, these sentiments are totally anti-intellectual in certain basic/Western-relative respects, but sometimes that's a good thing--at least partially in Dixon's case and most certainly with regard to someone like Coltrane. Speaking to this, a Cecil Taylor quote I came across on the liners to "Live in the Black Forest" yesterday (and we always talk about CT with reference to a European concert piano tradition): "I think that music is of course natural and spiritual. I think that the conception that gave birth to Jelly Roll Morton or Fats Waller or Charlier Parker or John Coltrane was, among other things, a religious one... I think that it has to do with recognizing the greater creative forces and understanding that every living thing is a part of that garden of nature's activities. To celebrate life means that you recognize the beauty of life as it exists in all things..." I mean, who talks about this music in these terms? We're ill-equipped.

Yeah, but basic liking of/enjoyment of Dixon--and this isn't even going into appreciation--isn't necessarily responsible for any other artist's lack of exposure/denigration. Unless someone really is making the claim that Dixon surpasses any number of contemporary/20th century/21st century composers, this is totally a straw man argument. On the other hand, that Jim or anyone has any responsibility to listen to and weigh the merits of any composer/performer against Dixon (again, unless he somehow makes the argument that Dixon > composer x) verges on the totalitarian. On the other other hand, if anyone here were/is equipped to jump in and weigh Dixon's compositional acumen against any number of contemporaries/forebears, I'd love to hear it. I get the sense--and I could be completely off base here--that any number of us could easily construct an argument (not necessarily fact) for Dixon's primacy in terms of a jazz/improvisational lineage (I did it half-heartedly earlier), but not so easily an assessment on the level of what David suggested earlier (pro or con).

To Moms--yes, but but as an architect of improvisational concepts (both in terms of solo instrumental technique and group dynamics), Dixon was a master. There's a lot that he brought to the table that is clearly distinct from the usual devices of his more celebrated peers (Ornette, Trane, Sun Ra, Cecil, etc. etc. info that everyone already knows), particularly Dixon's treatment of rhythm (esp. the role of percussion) and space (not quite EAI, not quite AACM-ish--a really unique space). "Uniqueness" and a coherent improvisational identity are clearly not enough to make one a great composer, but weighed inside of the progress of Afro-American music (progress as it was, an I acknowledge there is no clear linear motion to that chronology), he's as strong a conceptualist as anyone inside of jazz who might merit and easier comparison with any number of romantic or serialist composers (etc. etc. again). The problem is that people are far more likely to compare Dixon to Webern, Berg, Schoenberg, et al. than they are Ornette to, say, Feldman or something (read the interesting but really quite jumbled liner notes to "November, 1981," for example). The in process-established discourse on Dixon, and, moreover, the liminal space that Dixon seems to occupy in the music (the prejudicial strain that had Dixon branded too white for black people and too black for white people) have made comparisons to the Anglo classical canon really prevalent. I don't think this is necessarily fair, and (of course someone like Clifford could speak to this better than I, having talked to the guy so much) I get the sense that Bill would have wanted to have been taken on his own merits, canon be damned. Besides--his music never promised to operate under the procedures of something is rigorous as strict seralism, so who cares if he's a "composer" in that sense? So, anyway, superlatives suck. There's something there, and that's enough for me.

Fantastic and CORRECT.

Just wanted to mention that I got a copy of this (it's record store day, and I popped into the local brick and mortar before a meeting of sorts). I'm normally not one for no-frills/completely faithful LP reproduction CD reissues, but this is a fantastic release. The sound is really immersive and intensely clear in the bottom end--better than I've ever heard this music. Since so much of Dixon's music has this roomy, bass-heavy sound, lucidity at all registers is kind of a must (it's sorely lacking from Thoughts, and the consensus on that album is a bit of a testament to that). The vividness of this transfer clarifies a bit, for me, the relationship between Intents and Purposes and Dixon's later large-scale work... great to have music this old sound so now.

I have it on good authority that Mohawk is coming out again as a reissue, along with a bunch of unissued stuff. Keep your ears to the ground. Oh hell yes. It's the best NYAQ album, IMO.

So it isn't a classic--merely an album requiring greater exposure (and so not the sort of music that will send people ambling down the brick and mortar aisles)... BUT: THIS. It's not the first thing that might come to mind, but once you hear it, you will get it--a definite "lost" masterpiece. I would rate it higher than anything I've heard from either Brand's discography or Ward's, if only because the music is both so intensely well-integrated and ecstatically free (minus a drummer, of course, this trio grooves tremendously). I first heard this amidst a crest of enthusiasm for Don Cherry's 60's/70's world music/experimental synthesis, and I might say that this is the better, in respects, of stuff like Eternal Rhythm--if only for the fact that it focuses the energy of the larger group excursions into something both endlessly idiomatically malleable and airtight/un-fillered. It's also very accessible, since much of the music rests on Brand's vamp/groove structures (and yet grainy and contorted--Cherry at his finest). So sweet.

I love/loved his playing--such an intense emotional edge. There's a Sweet Space/Untitled Gift twofer floating around that is just sublime--a great place to get a sense of his range and energy. The Vietnam albums are of course extremely intense (if not musically, then vibe-wise). Billy was an amazing player, but--on top of that--an amazing conceptualist and artistic mind. What a loss, and what a legacy.

I first heard the term "modern creative" in the old allmusic guide (where it is used extensively). Even there, the classification is managed nebulously. It has something to do with post-free jazz, IIRC, although who managed to get categorized under the free jazz banner, fusion, modern creative, etc. was often confusing and kind of random.

Listening to Vade Mecum right now. Like Impulse Coltrane, Braxton, the Atlantic Ornettes, Blue Note Andrew Hill, and early Art Ensemble, listening to post-70's Dixon is a completely immersive experience for me. Even if the recordings are meant to be taken each as a piece, there's a general sonic territory to the music on the Soul Note Box that makes for excellent sustained listening--it's the sort of terrain I could be happy to live inside of.

Do we know this is the same date? The boot (I'm assuming everyone has) is dated June 21, 1979. I don't have a chronology in front of me and it's been a while since I've had my Blue Notes thinking cap on, but I'm wondering whether Wright was on for just one date or two. I'm only wondering, since the bootleg sound is pretty awful and may be/must have been a pain to clean up... maybe this issue is from a better source? ' That being said, the music is brilliant. Nice to have Dudu frontlining a small group with someone similarly unhinged.

Don Cherry: Brown Rice Ornette: The Shape of Jazz to Come & Change of the Century Coltrane: A Love Supreme Coltrane: Interstellar Space Andrew Hill: Point of Departure Eric Dolphy: Out to Lunch Jackie McLean: Destination Out! & One Step Beyond Miles: Nefertiti The Brotherhood of Breath: Chris McGregor's Brotherhood of Breath & Brotherhood Dudu Pukwana: In the Townships Louis Moholo: Spirits Rejoice Albert Ayler: Vibrations Mal Waldron: The Seagulls of Kristiansund Beatles: Abbey Road Johnny Dyani: Song for Biko Roscoe Mitchell: Nonaah Reggie Workman: Summit Conference Bailey/Bennink/Parker: The Topography of the Lungs Air: Air Time The Art Ensemble of Chicago: People In Sorrow AEC: Les Stances a Sophie Thelonious Monk w/John Coltrane: Carnegie Hall It's a really slapdash list and doesn't even comprise the larger number of my favorites, but it's a pretty accurate list of the stuff that circulates back into my player with the largest frequency (especially post-burnout on new stuff). I guess this is "home" music for me.

Point taken, although I've been in situations where either I and/or the band performing did the opposite of all of those things and did get people moving in (and not from) their seats. Again, I think it has something to do with the particular audience you're catering to. There are a lot of people (not a giant number, but a significant one) who won't attend shows due to regular pulse, recognizable tunes, etc.

I'm really amazed at the lucidity of your statements, Jim--in part because you're not worried to think small--(which is a thing) both intensely pragmatic and very professional. The hardest part is figuring out how to communicate the existence of what it is that you do to the audience that exists for it. Then there's Roscoe Mitchell's advice, which is (and I paraphrase) "Work on your music, and eventually your audience will find you." I'm don't think that this is a passive thing--it entails, obviously, work--and at least some of that has to do with performing the bare minimum of self-exposure and press--and so it's similar in "spirit" to what Jim has been saying. "Waiting" can be a pain in the ass, and maybe "it" never comes. At the same time, you're not going to win anyone over by convincing he/she that their predilections have been wrong, heretofore. The other cryptic/genius thing I've heard Roscoe say is "work on music." Insofar as this entails letting go of sticking to idiomatic conceits (easy) or engendering/displaying an interest in music that isn't jazz--even if you do play jazz (potentially hard)--it's workable advice. I've seen the largest personal returns (and I've seen many other jazz guys obtain sizable personal returns) by disabusing myself of the problem of convincing people that what I'm doing is awesome and concentrating on dealing with what it is that I do. The fact that a large proportion of my audience isn't comprised of jazz people is ultimately incidental to the fact that I'm happy doing what it is that I'm doing.

Probably never going to happen, but it just occurred to me: Sam Rivers, Contrasts. It's (problematically) on ECM, but their reissue series seems to have gone bust, and this one is in sore need of rehearing/reevaluation: I mention this in large part because it's a desert island disc for many folks I know. The leitmotif and/or refrain sounds like, "I burnt out my vinyl copy."

I love all of the Rivers trio work I've heard — both the horn-bass-drums trio and the horn-tuba-drums trio. Sizzle is an excellent record. The cover art (if it matters) is fairly ugly however. I keep bidding (and losing) on Japanese versions of Streams on eBay. I'm buying Dogon A.D. when it comes out. I've seen Streams for as low as $40 in person. The vinyl suits me just fine, honestly, since it's probably middling 80's/early 90's digital mastering (judging from some of the other OOP Impulse imports I've gotten).

I hear you, but man, it's kind of not economically viable. (And now for a quick rant that I'm sure everyone already knows the lyrics to:) This lifestyle isn't economically viable. In terms of playing any sort of creative music whatsoever--and even when playing most commercial music--no one gets without augmenting the music a bit (teaching, recording, and commercial gigs if you're lucky). The upside is that it's easier to record--especially to quick and dirty record--now than ever. The downside is that the LP & CD era infrastructures of information dispersal are either defunct or very quickly becoming outdated. Whether it's harder now that it was or will be, I don't know--but it is, without a doubt, difficult for the "right" music to find the "right" audience these days. This is without a doubt compounded by the fact that this already extremely un-lucrative art form is overbrimming with talent. At the same time, I don't know if anyone in the trenches makes their money from recording (the consensus from my sample out here in the Bay is that most money comes from live performances, which I can corroborate. My sense is that this has always been the case). And I have had an interesting exchange or two with some musician friends, the conclusion being that people like us (music-addicted musicians, who are music 24/7, as well as intensely music invested people like musician and non-musician alike on the boards here) are not the problem. We will (hypothetically) download 100 albums and go out and spend on 100 more. The problem with the blogosphere is that it will substitute a cursory, dashed off listen to music that it's taken musicians decades to absorb as "knowledge" in the subject; this is a broad generalization, but it's easier now than ever to have an amazing record collection and be an "expert" in something where expertise involves life and not volume. The problem with "us"--the musicians, the not-problem people--is that the art is forced to conform to/be defined by its extremes. This includes people just now figuring out who the Brotherhood of Breath are, illegally downloading the group's entire discography in an hour, "loving it," and moving on. Not that we have to do this, too--it's just that we have to live in a world where, unfortunately, it's just not soluble to reissue most stuff (and I'm sure the Dixon issue is a labor of love), and it's not logical to expect that any new audience will pay for things, hearing unheard. BUT--I've sold tons of albums at live shows. I've had some very well attended live shows that have netted us earnings. Sometimes no one shows up and you and the venue lose money--but if the music is happening, then you're alive. I also know that this sort of enthusiasm can infect the audience--this drives more people to shows, more people to buy the albums, and even if we're not talking sextuple or quintuple or even four figures, it's enough to keep the music going (no matter what anyone else does).