ep1str0phy

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).

The irony is that if virtually anything of what's left to reissues does get reissued, the project will by default cater to a niche market. It's a threefold (or more) dilemma: (1) the decline of the CD, (2) the marginal appeal of jazz/creative music, and (3) the very marginal appeal of relatively old (if not dated) music, performed by folks who have largely shuffled off this mortal coil. Which is not to say that there isn't value in reissuing Intents and Purposes, the Carter/Bradford music, etc.--there's definite historical and cultural value in having this music widely available in audiophile format that does at least some physical justice (contra the very apparent seediness of the blogosphere) to the music. And, hell, to have the physical product in my hands, and to prop it up alongside the past 30 or so years of CD progress, is gratifying from a collector's standpoint. Also, insofar as these releases are legal, there are very definite questions of legitimacy and monetary rights involved--that has been and will continue to be a problem (although legal digital downloads, which I'll admit I've started to move toward in recent times, offset this issue somewhat). But--and I remember this clearly from the first readily available, pre-blogosphere (though not pre-torrent, I think) download offer--back when Tim Berne put Dogon A.D. up on the Screwgun website--it comes down, for the most part, to hearing this music at all. I'd by a cleaned up issue of Dogon in a heartbeat, but that's because in the years subsequent my first exposure to the album (which was then), I became the niche market. The point was that I got to hear that black market, raggedy-ass rip in the first place--and that listening, back then, was clearly more important than any audiophile experience of subsequent years. Granted this, I think I get the biggest thrill these days seeing archival music make it to CD. I'm eagerly, eagerly anticipating when that early Roscoe quartet CD--having heard like two minutes of it back when I was at Mills--makes it out to the masses. And I know this poops on the parade and misses the point entirely, but listen to new music (not saying that you don't if your interest is in "old" music in any way, shape, etc.). Thank heavens you do, Clifford. I'm out at shows/playing basically every night of the week, and I'm consistently amazed at the brilliant, invisible music being created by folks young and old--in places most people will never find.

Though I dig what we've got, that sure would have been nice. It's such a good concert and really different from a lot of Ornette's released discography. The album program is good enough, but I do wonder how much editing is going on. I haven't listened in a bit, I recall an abrupt cut or two (maybe I'm just mishearing?).

thank you for this info. sometimes the names are very hard to hear. Ha! My first thought was this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvester_McCoy

Never got into "Burning Spirits," but maybe I should give it another spin. I don't think I ever gave it fair shakes... I got it around the same time as "Firebirds"--a much more "all-star" recording, which sort of overshadowed everything else. One thing is for sure: I don't think I've ever not enjoyed Clifford Jarvis in his many itinerant, non-Arkestra appearances. Regarding: "Crisis"--I remember getting an LP copy a couple years back. I thought that the vinyl rip that had been in my possession for however long was simply defective (or taken from a "not good" source)... I was sorely disappointed to hear the actual recording quality. Whatever the case, I've acclimated to it--I think it gives the album a sort of urgency/charm. It's definitely more bootleg-y than any of Ornette's other "official" live recordings, which suits the energy of the music--kind of a "I can't believe we got this on record!" vibe. I recall the essential personnel being pretty happy about this concert. Speaking of reissues--it might be nice to get "Made In America" (the Ornette doc) into common circulation. Talking about "Crisis": there's some fleeting (albeit amazing) footage of an Ornette group with Dewey Redman, Don Cherry, and (IIRC) Haden and Blackwell. Also, there's an interesting bit with Ornette and Denardo dialoguing/duoing via crosstown satellite hookup--some of Denardo's most amazing electric drumkit stuff.

Despite the general defunctness of this thread: I'm premiering a suite with my duo Grex (www.grexsounds.com is going to be up this week, but most of our debut album is still up on www.myspace.com/grexsounds), Bay Area drummer Jordan Glenn, Grammy Winner/American Indian music expert (and Jim Pepper authority)/bassist John-Carlos Perea, and Asian Improv aRts co-founder Francis Wong (whose album "Ming" is one of the all-time great documents of Asian creative music). Info: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/156553 If any of you are in SF and free on April 8 or 9 (8pm, Bayanihan Community Center: 1010 Mission Street, SF), you should come out. The code "friends" gets you a discount. Also: www.karlevangelista.com </shameless endorsement>

Probably never going to happen, but "Crisis" is a top 10 album for me. An idealized, "dream" reissue would include the Impulse! single Ornette did as an add-on. Whatever--accentuate the positive. Ornette's music (if not necessarily his playing) is completely innovative and insane these days, so happy to know there's still great "Harmolodic" music out there... There's a copy of "Rumasuma" at my local record shop for like $40. So close to pulling the trigger a while back--but, then, everything suddenly reappears. Higgins being in that band clinches it for me. Then there's crazy stuff like this: http://www.discogs.com/Byron-Allen-Interface/release/872788 That I'd be surprised people even know about. I found a copy at an SF record shop just this past Sunday; the guy at the counter said he'd sold "a few," but I can't imagine it's common stock (the info on the sleeve suggests it was pressed in SF). Every time I wonder why something as relatively commonplace as "Rumasuma" hasn't been reissued, I'm reminded that we're not really at the bottom of the LP barrel just yet.

I talked to Achyutan/Marvin about this thread, and he told me to mention that he's "still trying to kick." Even though he's more often than not playing in a mainstream bag these days, I get the sense he's still fond of a lot of what went down back then. He'll talk about his time with Pharoah, or his stint with Trane, or how Ed Blackwell was "the best," with a great deal of fondness. A lot of looking now/forward, but looking back isn't so bad (I guess) when back was pretty good.

Eddie Gale (and he remembers a lot of this vividly) Marvin Patillo/Achyutan (guy on Pharoah's First, Staying on the Watch, and subbed for Elvin in Coltrane's Quartet. Not really interested in playing free anymore.) Plenty of the PAPA/UGMAA guys are hanging around and making awesome music these days

I'm kind of awed, at the turn of the century (or maybe it's too far past at this point), how easily formulae factor into genre expectation. In BB's case, it might just be lack of conventional swing + electric instruments = jazz rock, since--with some thought, as you conveyed above--I've tried to dissect precisely what makes the lost quintet "jazz" v. BB's jazz rock and there's nothing more than a textural/hierarchical difference really separating the two, content-wise. I think it's kind of telling how the often unmetered, often irregular pulse of free jazz, replete with totally denaturing, fuzzed-out acoustic sounds, was ultimately more conveniently integrated into an overarching definition of "Jazz" than were free-sounding backbeats and distorted electric instrumentation. -->(Obviously there are dozens of ways to qualify that statement, but I offer the Crouchian jazz rock/fusion opprobrium v. complete canonization of the free jazz-inflected 2nd quintet as evidence. If it had never gotten farther than the Lost Quintet music in haute couture--v. jeans and daishikis, which surely hipped "the man" to the idea that "some shit is up"--the jazz rock label might have been a non-starter. Also, compare varying opinions on Mary Halvorson and, say, [the band] Kayo Dot--each entity equally rock-inflected in different ways, with widely varying degrees of compositional/improvisational balances between albums/pieces, and each occupying completely different genre strata. Like science, though, it's hard to prove anything, easy to disprove everything.) I may just be particularly sensitive to this subject, considering I'm a) an electric guitarist and b) occupy a large proportion of my professional endeavors in a guitar/piano duet. I got slapped in the face with ludicrousness recently when I realized (arranging the music for quintet) that adding swung-time drums to the arrangements--changing absolutely nothing else--would lead a large proportion of the audience to listen to it as "jazz." Such are the times/the era in which we live?

CD copy of Dewey Redman: Look for the Black Star. I didn't even know this existed, but I didn't pay that much for it. Sce-ore. (Hot on the heels of purchasing a similar Japanese Freedom import of Ornette's Who's Crazy--vols. 1 & 2, which was also surprisingly reasonable in price.) Also purchased recently: Don Cherry: Live at Cafe Montmartre 166 Vol. 2 Majestic Ragas--Bismallah Khan: The Enchanter

Don Cherry: Tibet ...which I later discovered was Eternal Now--lame issue, awesome music. This week: Michael Mantler: No Answer George Russell Sextet (w/Don Cherry): At Beethoven Hall Ornette Coleman: Crisis All Don Cherry these days...

I just played a gig with David Ewell (the Focus Trio bassist)--unreal player. I actually hadn't heard him before that (save for hearing the Focus Trio, momentarily). The local talent here can be very, very intense (Ewell and Dan Seamans--of the Lost Trio and New Klezmer Trio--are two of the best bass soloists I've heard in person, period).

I played a set with Eddie Gale's band at the Oakland Yoshi's a few months back (part of a package tribute deal to a local trumpet/pedagogy patriarch)... the evening culminated in an all-star, more or less "locals" jam--Eddie, Bobby Hutcherson, John Handy, Marcus Shelby, Steve Turre, Winard Harper--and Najee. According to my ears (in the 20 mins. or so that jam lasted), I could completely understand how a musician of Najee's particular nature could fit in with the likes of Pullen (who has/had as multifaceted a voice as any piano player in modern jazz)--Najee was a completely reputable, if not necessarily "challenging," mainstream blues player. Maybe it's a George Benson kind of deal... you put any measure of time in to music, there's a lot in there you learn, a lot you probably never use. Not a particularly odd pairing, but I've always been fascinated by Sun Ra's work with Walt Dickerson and the apparent empathy two so different musicians seem to have shared... yes, they're both "progressives" in some sense, but Dickerson's music hews as much to dry, hard bop earthiness as Ra's does to early jazz, swing, and reverb-y cosmic abstractions.

After doing some listening recently, can I just say that the man had a baaaad left hand? The right hand isn't bad either. Both hands good.

That's the one I have. It's all splendid.

I actually heard this before the BN albums. I love both, but I think my opinion of this one might have been colored a little differently had I gotten to it second. I think I may prefer the BN rhythm sections, but this one is no slouch. The compositions may also be a little less resonant here, but the playing is top notch and they're at least as harmonically colorful as the BN stuff. Only going off of memory here, but something about Nichols's harmonic palette brings to mind Horace Tapscott's trio music--dense sounds with tons of harmonic color and rhythmic muscle. I think it's "Every Cloud" (on the Nichols album) that has some interesting Maj7 motion--really reminds me of some of Tapscott's harmonies.

Completely not your normal blowing date. I think Rudd's leadership makes the date, since there seems to be a preference for stasis and sustained subtlety on the album--not so much frantic blowing, though it does show up now and again. The reedmen are mostly color; everything is weighted toward the bottom end. It's like an entire album's worth of "Beauty is a Rare Thing," kind of, mixed in with the general vibe and corrosive wonkiness of Giuseppi Logan's ESP albums.

Brown was at least an interesting standards player, although I don't ever think I'd find his changes playing as coherent or even as melodically lucid as his playing in freer terrain or modal territory. I think part of the problem may have been the incidental nature of most of his rhythm sections--star-studded things that may have lacked the finesse of either consistency or a unifying, clear musical concept (the latter of which was more of Brown's issue as a leader in later years). The quartet with Brandon Ross, November Cotton Flower, Soul Eyes--I have to confess that I tune out almost everything that isn't happening during Marion's solos, which may have lost their direction now and again but not their lyricism or quirky tenacity. Vista is kind of like a more jazz-oriented version of The Pavillion of Dreams--extraordinarily subdued, groove-oriented, harmonically resonant, and light on blowing (or rather with light blowing)--sounding for all the world like a middleweight Strata East album. I think that Brown's dry tone might sit better with a more muscly rhythmic concept, but I have a hard time hating any of this stuff. Sometimes the diversity of Brown's albums comes across as genuine aesthetic catholicism (everything up to the like the late 70's), sometimes (or really just later on) a lack of artistic identity. Anyway, his most remarkable album outside of a more traditional free 60's vein (for me)--Afternoon of a Georgian Faun--is almost totally unprecedented in the afrocentric continuum--even more minimal than Muhal's or Braxton's early music (which is pretty remarkable). The lack of unfiltered free blowing on the first track almost suggests AMM egoless-ness, but it's warm and personally aware in a way that the AMM guys wouldn't touch with a pole. Stuff like the pseudo-Coltrane blowing on Sweet Earth Flying is very derivative but somehow comes out sounding like a unique mix (I chalk this up to sheer bottom-heaviness, skewed against a very light horn sound--which is something maybe specific to Brown's later Impulse music). The freer sounding music on the Calig albums arrives at a nice middle ground between an AACM group concept and total free blowing. On the other hand, Geechee Recollections--which is a solid listen, sounds a bit too much like makeweight Art Ensemble concept at times... maybe a little too much reflexivity.

Interesting thought. So many peaks and troughs and hands in all manner of important things (Ascension, Archie's band, ESP-disk, the French and German scenes, interactions with the early AACM/very prescient soundscape/ethno collages, Wesleyan teaching, improv/contemporary music interactions with Elliott Schwartz and Harold Budd...) He also fell into the maybe inevitable post-bop reversion that happened to some of the best free players (though I think he did it with a poise and dignity that can't be reserved for some of his peers). When he was finished playing, he was more or less finished playing. I do think that the spottiness of his catalog is a testament to what is maybe (in hindsight) the most appealing feature of early American free jazz for me, which is a definite sense of "working things out"/apparent difficulties reconciling the urge to freedom with an unwillingness to eschew very overt idiomatic conceits. I was driving to LA for a show last night, and I was bored to death by everything except for "Music from Big Pink" and "Three for Shepp." A weird combo, but it's telling that both albums tap into this seemingly 60's zeitgeist-y thing about working questions of genre out before anyone can tell you exactly what kind of music you're playing. "Three for Shepp" is for me the best of the his albums in this vein (I may like "Sweet Earth Flying," "Afternoon of a Georgia Faun," and maybe one of the Caligs as much or better), mainly because it's both so clearly "60's FREE JAZZ" (caps) and present in this very liminal idiomatic space (the first track is named "New Blue," for heaven's sake--and totally unironic, in contrast to similar reclamations of material on the part of the near-contemporaneous Europeans). There's some cheeky stride/showtune type stuff, a Rollins-esque calypso, a free ballad that teeters on the brink of the Blue Note school of grainy pastoralism... it's an album that I'd think you'd be proud to make decades after the fact--it still sounds fresh and s**ts on completely nothing.