ep1str0phy

Heavy loss. I sometimes do wonder why a foregoing 40 or so years of free altos often lack so much personality--what a collection of beautiful oddballs in those first steps: Brown, Tchicai, Logan, Marshall Allen, Jimmy Lyons, Charles Tyler, to say nothing of Ornette... although the arc of Brown's career is kind of a testament to how the now-hallowed trappings of energy music were really just incidental to these amazing stores and certainly not the full picture. He essayed some of the very best music of the post-Coltrane mode (Why Not, Porto Novo, etc.) and went on to invent and reinvent his career in a way that is legitimately mindblowing--running parallel to the AACM in an amazing ethno/free mix (Afternoon of A Georgia Faun, the duets with Wadada, some of the Calig stuff), crafting interesting inside/out modal music (Sweet Earth Flying)... I have to confess that I'm not completely enamored with the last 1/4 or so of his recorded legacy, but that tone is true and the sheer, lovely stasis in his tone never left (which I think may have been the emotional core of his sound). Even if he hasn't really produced in the past couple of decades, there was so much music in the past and so much music clearly still in there--as a part of his person--that the loss is so profound. Heavy loss.

CONGRATS! Oh yeah--thanks!

Keep in mind I'd only use the fire music thing since it tends to denote something that has at least some socially-agreed-upon significance (i.e., 70's electric Miles generally not fire music, Archie Shepp probably fire music). I don't really give about the term, though--I recall that Trane radio documentary saying that the title was Archie's but the right was Trane's... so this is an instance of taxonomic rigor totally collapsing/laziness, since there are obviously problems with the "free" thing, too... As far as Haden bashing is concerned--I know an equal number of players with nothing but good things to say about his playing--though that has nothing to do with his general artistic choices, questionable as they have been to certain parties as of late. I'm not sure that "star" status has really helped anyone's reputation in the trenches. For my part, I favor his playing over most free bassists in really open situations, though I'll take Malachi, Fred Hopkins, Harry Miller, Mbizo, Barry Guy (and even Gary Peacock, despite his particular career trajectory--he catches a lot of negative press, too) on any number of days. Haden is a fine straight ahead player, for sure, but he really sparkles when the music is weird... compare, even, the new duets album with the Jarrett duet on Closeness--beautiful stuff, but a lot of that has to do with the musicians blending into this very personal, very well-defined, folksy/rubato idiom (rather than your basic jazz balladry). (And those duet albums are a testament to Haden's improvising versatility, which is out of the toolbox less and less these days.)

Actually, Jim, I kind of vibe that as being a problem of a lot of post-80's free players in general, for whatever reason. Tons of technique and facility, less full-bore originality or personality. Like anything else, the context and the vocabulary have been learned, so there has to be some ossifying agent in there. Paradoxically, it's like the more options that have been discovered for soundmaking, the harder it is to sound like "yourself"... I recall Keith Jarrett kind of backhand complimenting Haden on not reaching outside of his technique, and there is some truth to that in a very positive sense.

A series of factors have led me to more closely examine Charlie Haden's recorded output recently, not least of which is my fiancee's unbelievable enthusiasm for the first, epic Liberation Music Orchestra Album--probably for me the most perfect blend of the JCOA axis's heavily arranged, often baroque ensemble music and fire-ish, free rhythm 60's improvising. A lot of the success of that first LMO album has to do, in my estimation, with Charlie Haden's very self-contained (that is, "personally" idiomatic) bass playing--multi-stops, strumming, shifting pedals, etc. I've heard a lot of free-school bass players rip in to Haden's technique, and I can understand this--he isn't a terribly flashy technician, and there are a lot of fine "ear" bassists that have integrated into Ornette's music with more impressive dexterity (LaFaro, Izenzon--hell, Tacuma, MacDowell). I'll admit to being partial to Haden's folkish self-containedness, though, since it's one of those idioms that can be sort of superimposed onto anything and color said anything with a very clear sense of personality. (Or maybe I'm just sick of blunt, colorless technique... no knock to the aforementioned or any free bass players I haven't mentioned--just a general feeling. The opposite of all this is someone like Barry Guy, who has ridiculous technique and sounds like Barry Guy no matter where he goes. He probably buys coffee like Barry Guy.) Here, though, I'm mainly curious about opinions on Haden's free playing in more typical "fire music" settings--if only because the recorded evidence is so rare and his playing is soooo different from what any other free bassist was doing at the time. A bit of this crops up in more familiar settings--his apocalyptic wrangling with Denardo on the heartstopping Crisis comes to mind, since that album has something outside of a typical Ornette ensemble "sound"--but it's in really strong evidence on only a a handful of albums: the first LMO album, Gato Barbieri's The Third World, Archie Shepp's Mama Too Tight, Alan Shorter's Orgasm, Roswell Rudd's Everywhere, (to a lesser extent:) some of Keith Jarrett's freer stuff, Don Cherry's Brown Rice, Leo Smith's Divine Love, and a few other things I've doubtless failed to mention. The bookending tracks on Orgasm are brilliant essays in what can make free jazz rhythm sections truly interesting. Muhammad Ali's time is intensely loose and Haden's apparent tendency is to lock the time in, so the effect is something akin to The Empty Foxhole or other work with Denardo--a really fascinating sort of push-and-pull. Ali is free to power through without operating with any sort of metronomic imperative--it's actually Haden who is the propulsive force, since that shifting pedal thing he does is what produces the forward momentum. With a drummer like Blackwell or Higgins, it could sound like a free fall--fast, intense, and dangerous, with a definite direction and just the right hint of danger. With a guy like Ali, though, it sounds more like steamrolling--moving, moving, moving, but with a clear sense of tension and violence. Anyway, I wish Haden had done more work like this in the past. Not to take away from anything he's done since or, of course, his classic work with Ornette or the Jarrett quartet, but this kind of music is just fun to listen to.

Also, the more I think about it, the more I feel like the notion that there's any sort of interchangeability between "serious jazz" and contemporary composition is totally flawed. Which doesn't mean that there haven't been examples of jazz/free improv-y improvisation in contemporary composition or vice-versa, but, rather, in most prominent cases, this has been an instance of exchange/interaction rather than a matter of just swapping out procedures (e.g., Ornette's chamber/orchestral excursions, Braxton writing for orchestras--largely composed concerti with improvising soloists who have firm jazz roots--exceptions include the work of Roscoe Mitchell and Barry Guy, who do seem to attract the rare contingent of musicians who might identify in equal parts with concert music and improv--but never, really, concert music and jazz--and then, on the other end of the spectrum, stuff by Alvin Curran, Gunther Schuller or Terry Riley, which uses "jazz" soloists as jazz musicians rather than orchestral adjuncts--or, in Riley's case, improvisation in a way that harkens to non-Western routes in a way that doesn't really synthesize with any sort of Western concert tradition... and then things like Treatise or Cage's more open-ended music, which often employ traditional orchestral musicians but are at the same time totally devoid of things like melodic propulsion or melodic development in the fashion of jazz or a lot of free improv...) The point being that a lot of times the procedure is the music. If Threadgill wanted this stuff read down, he could do what Roscoe does and just notate all the music (like some of the version of "Nonaah")--but this changes the basic premises of the music. You could write out everything Liberty Ellman played, but you'd still have his tone, articulation, attack, etc. (which are, for any number of reasons, jazz-dervied, descended, or informed, whatever...)--you expect a degree of self-expression and personal initiative, often suppressed in contemporary performance praxis, when you use that guy. By that token, if you're going to go ahead and assemble a group of musicians with extensive backgrounds in improvisation, why don't you use that? I mean--and this is a huge issue--one of the problems with the compositional dictate is that it (usually) isn't a collaborative process; if you make music in this way, you don't give it to a group of people who are improvising most of the week, right? Maybe Threadgill doesn't compose his music because he thinks it wouldn't sound right that way? And it is a sound thing, since I'm sure a lot of improvisers would agree that spontaneous decision making, self-expression, etc. do filter into sound (and, hence, the music becomes these factors... remove these factors and it just isn't there anymore).

Saw the Threadgill show at Herbst last night. Sadly underattended, but the audience that was there showed up to listen. I sure as hell hope that this doesn't bode poorly for booking more adventurous acts at SF Jazz, the latter of which is notorious around here for the general conservatism of its lineups and tendency to avoid local acts. Moving tickets is important, yes, but I'm glad the institution took some chances this year and brought Threadgill to an audience that has been STARVED for star power of the so-called "free jazz" variety. It was a fine concert. Highlights: (1) I'll second Philly's statements in that we need a current recording of this group, if only because the new cello player is killing it. And not a weak link in the band. (2) They're an even stronger performing unit live than on recording, although the band was very, very poorly served by the hall. The mic'ing helped, but didn't fix things. The sound was overwhelmingly bass-y and tended to swallow up the higher frequencies of the less trebly instruments (i.e., flute, bass). (3) The first of only a handful of alto pieces was arguably the strongest performance of the night and maybe one of single most amazing alto performances I've seen in my life. The whole band did a fine job, but Threadgill was amazing on that one. I recall the Penguin guide discussing Miles's "knife fighter" restraint, and Threadgill had that in spades here. I also remember discussion about Miles's ability to "bring the band" to himself, which is clearly a skill that Threadgill has mastered. His playing on alto is so detailed, so dynamic (both in terms of volume and conceptual flow)... the closest thing I've heard to Dolphy's solo on "Mendacity"--something brutal, tough, and true, kind of lugubrious but fluid and unstoppable. Like mud (in a good way). Some Sonny Criss in there, Benny Carter, even a bit of Ayler. Just ecstatically powerful. (4) Kavee. I'm not sure how much direction Threadgill gives the band in terms of groove or rhythmic approach--and I do think that it is a strength of this ensemble precisely how countable/rhythmically lucid it all is, and how harmonically clear it can be, in spite of all the detail--but Kavee is kind of the living dictate to "groove" in this band. The way he displaces accents, turns the beat all around, and propels with stasis is very similar to the way a skilled laptop producer can turn a regular beat into something really malleable and alive. The difference is that he's doing it live and his sound is the thing of a jazz drummer. Regarding the debate above... this is improvised music in nature, so I feel like whether or not you could make the same sounds by composing is kind of a non-issue. Zooid is very science-y in quality and unfinished in a way that none of Threadgill's bands seem to have been in the past. Whatever the case, part of the crux of this music seems to be how and that it can happen in this kind of improvised situation. The band sounds as large as an orchestra with as much timbral detail as a chamber ensemble--and can push with the dynamism of a jazz band--moving between extremes with something that sounds really spontaneous. You can't write that feeling out--I do hesitate to call it magic, but it's "jazz." These improbable, spontaneous unison downbeats, crescendos/decrescendos, transformations in time feel, sound completely technically right but improvised and alive in a way that relates much more closely to, say, the Jazz Messengers than anything else. (Also, you can't have the "rhythm section" working like this and keep it closer to the realm of composition. It just won't work. It would take ages to write it out in just the right way, and you'd have to get a jazz drummer, or at least a classical percussionist with extensive jazz experience, to play it right. That's a lot of ifs.)

RIP. There's something special in all of it, though the quartet music with Frank Wright holds a special place for me. I'd venture to say that it's in the top tier of energy music.

I looove his playing in the company of reedists of comparable weight (any number of groups with Mike Osborne and John Surman, the Brotherhood). He's such a precise and at times relentless player that it helps to have something a little rough or grainy to mix in. I went nuts when I saw the lineup for Once Upon A Time, but I have to admit to being a little disappointed upon listening. The album has the overall sonority and character of the 2nd Miles Quintet (with analogous instrumentation), but the ensemble lacks the chattery looseness of the Miles band. Beautiful music, but a little steely in a way that's failed to engage me on an emotional level. I honestly find this to be the case with many of the albums that have come under the Vocalion banner (which does more or less encompass a school or community of UK jazz players), and I've done a substantial amount of listening (and continue to do so) to alter this assessment... (Speaking a bit to the above, although a little off-topic) I do feel to an extent that, in broader terms, the most really "alive" improvised music to come out of the 60's/70's UK tended to embrace the aforementioned austerity and either take it to its logical extreme (Derek Bailey's serial-sounding free music, which seems at times to aspire to such iciness that it winds up in some weird, beautiful, craggy middle ground--or Evan Parker's music, which is so exact and mechanically powerful that it gets a little emotionally overwhelming) or introduce rogue elements (the infusion of South African players who are, in sound and predilection, almost the polar opposite of folks like Surman, Skidmore, etc.--and because of that maybe the best suited collaborators).

Heard about this a little late, but best wishes to all and, of course, many, many thanks for this site. Coming to terms with the realities of band logistics, geography, etc., is an unreal pain, but such is the life--the music makes up for it...

I'm not sure about the provenance or even if my memory is a little clouded, but I feel pretty certain that I saw a CD copy of Step By Step in the LA Amoeba several years back. It could have been an import, if the artificially high used CD price was any indication.

Glad to be reminded of Houle, Moore, Sclavis, and Rahsaan, in particular! Also, entrenched as I am in the Bay Area scene, I'd be a little remiss if I didn't mention local clarinet powerhouse Ben Goldberg. He has a fantastically strong tone and a real understanding of the inside/outside paradigm... and his experiments in "out" klezmer music allegedly inspired Zorn to take up the Masada concept (and probably bettered the latter on more than one occasion).

Welcome--and, also, good call on Tardy. I think that last Hill album is a gem.

Great call on Collette. For my part, I'll say John Carter, George Lewis, Bechet, Giuffre, Pee Wee Russell, Perry Robertson, and Don Byron among the younger set. I'd mention strong doublers like Dolphy and any number of AACM guys, but clarinet for these folks is often part and parcel with a larger reed conception in a way that it isn't with the aforementioned.

Yes, Marion Brown. I also thought of Trevor Watts, who kills it on John Stevens's No Fear, but I think his soprano sax playing is even more exceptional. (Bare Essentials is probably my favorite album of that school of improv, like a super minimal Interstellar Space),

I can't believe I forgot Threadgill and Criss. Sonny's Dream alone is sufficient legacy for the latter. Threadgill, as far as I'm concerned, registers one of the few truly original and simultaneously current musical conceptions of anyone in jazz. Zooid's output has been some of the only real "blow your mind" improvised music I've heard in the past few years. Speaking of composer/altos--good ones, but not necessarily favorites--I have been struck by Steve Lehman's octet music. I know that he hasn't gotten the best reception in these and related circles (I recall Allen not liking it), but I'm surprised there hasn't been at least some real discussion, positive or negative, on this music--considering its prominence in some of the mainstream jazz discourse (as of late). I could take or leave the brute theory of integrating spectral analysis into jazz composition, but somehow the prominence of these components in his music draws the explicit jazz aspects (harmonies, "sectional" groupings, the melodic and rhythmic content of the solos) into starker relief. It can get somewhat monotonous, but like Threadgill's music it offers a way out of the neocon/free dyad/morass that is totally constructive in character (which I endorse 100%). Oh--and I can't stress enough that, if I'm in the right mood, I can take Dudu and blow everything else to hell. It's that powerful.

Ornette, Dolphy, Dudu Pukwana, Braxton, Roscoe Mitchell, Mike Osborne, Jimmy Lyons, Jackie McLean, Bird, Julius Hemphill, Arthur Blythe. I just realized that that's a really acute modernist/postmodernist bent but, hey, whatever... I think there's another list for altos who have intermittently blown my mind but not in any sort of career spanning way (Ernie Henry, Michael Sessions, Hodges, Cannonball, Konitz, etc.) Oh--and say what you will about James Spaulding--he kills it with Charles Tolliver and on the handful of prime Blue Notes (Solid, Components) that suit his vocalistic modal bent.

Ugh. Death is killing me. Breuker was a master at his own table.

Very sad to hear this. I always loved his playing with the Brotherhood and its derivative groups. His tone was a round, bursting, burnished thing--powerful and instantly recognizable. He had this sort of internal gravity that rearranged and made better every sound around him. His playing on Mike Osborne's Outback, for one, is some of my very favorite trumpet playing ever.

I wonder if there are players who are better as a sideman than leader? As if the player thinks "It's not my name on it -- it won't 'cost' me anything to take chances..." When it comes to his own name, he plays it safe: "Don't want to scare anyone away..." As an aside on this topic, I've often thought the reverse, that in many cases a sideman/woman will reserve his/her best ideas for his/her own record. I find the cases where the sideperson stands out to be a minority, and often notable for that reason. Yes I thought someone would say that. You rightly infer that I never heard that stuff - it's about all of his that I don't actually own. I guess I'll buy in those Steeplechase LPs - I seem to remember Jim recommmending Montmartre. About ten years ago. Damn. This is a bit of a digression from the thread concept, but there have always been folks who tend to knock me out more as "sidepeople" than when they're in the "lead" role. Bill Frisell is the name that immediately springs to mind here. I *love* his playing, have thoroughly enjoyed most of the live performances I've witnessed, but many of his own recordings tend to leave me unmoved. In fact, my favorite is still Rambler on ECM, which was a long, long time ago... I'm somewhat of this mindset. Fred Frith (a master of sound production on the guitar, of all types) hipped me to Frisell a while ago; I'd taken him to be kind of drossy up until then, only now and again popping up (as on the much-maligned Fragments, which I actually quite like) as a force to be reckoned with. He is, of course, mired in this Americana thing these days, which I've come to appreciate as very accomplished on a technical level (within its own parameters)... but then a friend gave me a copy of Paul Motian's The Story of Maryam, and it completely blew my mind. That type of playing, in a free jazz-type idiom, is stone free in the best possible way--a realization of the guitar as a dynamic, timbrally flexible frontline instrument. I'm not the hugest fan of his aesthetic, necessarily, but in terms of sheer technical prowess, Frisell is the MF of all MFs. That level of sound production/pedal mastery is totally limitless. His volume pedal technique is flawless, and his extremely well-elided, seamlessly integrated pedal work operates at a very high level. More than that, it's easy to forget just how difficult it is to control the nuances of a solid body electric guitar with jacked up treble (especially on the Telecasters that Frisell seems to favor), but he does it very, very well. Something that has impressed me about Frisell (and Frith, too, for that matter) is just how little erratic noise there is in their playing--all the little clicks, blips, and squeaks that jazz guitarists often hazard are almost totally absent in their playing--and a lot of that is good volume pedal technique. ...so I regard Frisell as a virtuoso in his own right--not often (or even half of the time) the kind of listening that I'll go to (as a leader), but something I'll always appreciate and love to hear when the fire is lit.

RIP. I'm glad so much of his music was recorded, as of late; he leaves a fine legacy and a lot, yet, to learn from.

Thanks, B.

Just like to mention that I picked up Weight/Counterweight yesterday. It has to be the best new(er) release I've heard in a long, long time. Sparse, completely unforced, simultaneously dynamic and subdued... in some weird way, it captures the special "vibe" of Get Up With It-era Miles with 100% more flexibility. Ambient free jazz might be the best way to put it--a completely different idiom--even more so than the Soul Note group recordings (which I love). It's a testament to the man's continued development...

I didn't and still don't know his music in and out--he certainly feels like the most elusive of the first wave "free" innovators. Even listening to a minute of his music, it's certainly hard to ignore the sense that his was a dark, complex, beautiful energy. Sad that he's gone, but his music is a gift that keeps giving... I think he'll be listened to for a long time to come, and it's likely (speaking for myself) that I'll never get to the end of how deep that music was/is.

Although I enjoy both Coltrane and post-Coltrane phases of Tyner, I find the former to be muscular and precise while the latter to be almost icily virtuosic, maybe a little blustery. He has always had a sort of distant, diamond-hard quality (especially compared to Trane's vocalistic passion), but it's almost too tough post-Blue Note--amazing to hear, but difficult to "warm" to, if that makes sense.