ep1str0phy

have you checked out 80/81? Some incredible blowing from Pat, Mike Brecker and Dewey Redman. "Every Day (I Thank You)" is one of Pat's best tunes melodically and harmonically. You really shouldn't ask me though b/c I own just about everything Pat has recorded as a leader . Can't wait to see him live in October on the "Orchestrion" tour. Granted I'm a big fan of Pat in certain doses (Song X--which is still the most facile translation of Ornette's phrasing to the guitar anyone has ever done--the trio with Haden and Higgins), I got 80/81 in the midst of a big Dewey Redman binge and found myself kind of perplexed at the completely unironic smooth jazz flourishes in Metheny's writing and playing. It's completely not my bag, but I wholeheartedly respect and, in some perverse way, support Metheny's reluctance to go down any clearly defined, conventionally "tasteful" career path.

He did play some bass clarinet, too, no? (I seem to recall him doing obbligatos under one of Pharoah's improvisations on Live at the Village Vanguard Again!.

I like to think that to some extent Jazz happened because the possibilities for the black population were so limited at the time; many of those who might have become great, say, rocket scientists or dozens of other things, more or less involuntarily chose music and then jazz as the way to express their talents... and that they wouldn't become musicians today... That does in a way serve to emphasize the point. It's hard to take seriously the notion that we/I/one as a jazz musician is playing music of the "now" when the very social constructs that facilitated its emergence in the forms we now celebrate have transformed and/or been rendered obsolete. There certainly is an aspirational quality to Coltrane's music as I hear it--and that may be why people often respond to it on a level so far removed from the technical intricacies of the music itself... it speaks to energies outside of itself--and, for that matter, hints at something other than what it is. No one but Trane, obviously, can speak to Trane's personal experience. Perhaps I still see the creative possibilities of that legacy in musical terms because it's a route that I chose (after my parents made the sacrifices that allowed me to make a choice). This does remind me, to speak in even more abstract terms, of what happened to the notion of "culture as a weapon of struggle" after the end of Apartheid; the SA government began to move away from aggressive/inflammatory art the minute the formal institutions of Apartheid were technically done away with. None of this, obviously, meant that the struggle was over. It also speaks to the fact that there is still place for harrowing, powerful creativity in an environment that doesn't necessarily call for speaking in tongues (or bebop, or whatever, for that matter)--"contemporary" art will have to address its times to a certain extent, which is why I do like Jim's response to the hypothetical, above. A luta continua.

Surely I'd be looking at it a different way if I were around back then. It still sounds clear to me that even Alice's early post-John music (like A Monastic Trio) sounds very different from the Quintet stuff--but it's got an ethos of its own, I think. Cosmic Music has a weird compilation feel to it for that reason, but all of what's there sounds miles more interesting than a lot of epigonal, Trane-like music from even the extended family (Rashied, later Alice, a lot of Pharoah, etc.). It's mixed like shit, to be sure, but the playing is amazing. Now Infinity, I can understand... I do like Yoko, by the way, in much the fashion that I like Alice. On that level, I don't in the slightest believe that any of Alice's music could speak, definitively, to what John would have done or where he was going (which is not to say that Alice did or would think that, either)--and, for those reasons, I definitely vibe the onus on Infinity, especially. As a remix project, great--but, in that instance, Alice seems to have been playing her (very well-educated) guess/what-if, just like everyone else; calling it a John Coltrane album is kind of questionable. Now, the reason I might want to defend Infinity is that, as music, it's actually kind of interesting to me. No way in hell is it a John Coltrane album, though--no more than Bird Up is a Charlie Parker album (to speak nothing of the quality therein).

In all seriousness, I think they'd have a laptop and would know how to use it. Of course, the realm of in-some-form-digital musical production is still in its infancy, contrasted to Trane's world of wholly analog music-making being quite advanced (to the point of almost having completed it's true "evolution"), so we're sort of comparing apples to pears here...but still, I think that's your answer. Lots of peoples not gonna want to hear that, or even conceive of that, but there it is anyway. I think you're totally right, and this simultaneously frightens and invigorates me. Again, the writing is on the wall. The time I spent at Mills slowly, gradually hipped me to this--I was on a totally acoustic thing--which may or may not, as it sometimes or often does, come back around--for a bit, but the forces propelled me toward working (at least) with people who had an understanding of some form of electronic manipulation (whether that be pedals or sampling or whatever...). Among the things that made me think twice were (1) Roscoe's responding very favorably to a soundscape piece created by a friend of mine (soon to perform at the 2010 International Supercollider Symposium with, incidentally, other friends of mine)--the first instance, I'd found, of him wanting to collaborate with one of my peers on what seemed to be something like a professional level during my tenure there, and (2)--I can't stress enough--Flying Lotus's latest music which, genetics be damned, gets closer to the Coltrane vibe than any jazz, I'd wager, of at least the last 15 years. Just something observationally interesting, but I recall a debate between a couple friends of mine--one an electronic musician/rock bassist and the other, predominantly, an improviser and concert composer over whether or not there was anywhere left for jazz "to go"... the former said yes, the latter said no. Keep in mind the latter was, I'm fairly sure, much better versed in the conventions of contemporary jazz... the point being that, in this case, an outsider's sense of a awareness and facility in an alternative medium = "jazz possibilities," whereas the converse was true for someone very "in" the jazz thing. I'll always favor listening to jazz but, at this point, I'm feeling increasingly awkward and irrelevant playing it. Complete and total tangent, but why do people hate Cosmic Music so much? I think it kicks ass.

My hypothetical has more to do with what would happen if someone with John Coltrane's qualities (rather than a man himself) emerged in a post-Coltrane world. Honestly, this isn't even necessarily a hypothetical because (1) it may yet happen and (2) it may be happening without us noticing it. And by qualities I'm not talking jawline or facial structure--it's not even an exact science--more like a general intellectual focus, physical/psychological drive, an acute drive toward technical improvement... So maybe it's more like this--what happens to the Coltranes today? I don' think this is the same issue as "are there still giants in jazz" or "who is the new Coltrane" or whatever--I mean what musical routes are available for younger musicians--coming of age--looking for something genuinely creative to deal with? I mean the catch 22 of jazz in this atmosphere is that (1) you could stare down the nose of decades of happenings in the music, realize that "progress" has been an illusion (at best) or that everything has "been done" (at worst) at just realize that self-aware innovation just isn't happening anymore, or (2) you could not focus on the issue and just go about the process of creating (which is and isn't a Coltrane thing... whether or not he agonized over creating a "new" relevant thing, as Miles seems to have, he did have an eye on creating something he understood as a universal music). Either way--and this is the hazard of coming to terms with where we are now--it's ridiculous to grow up digesting the rhetoric of free music, for example, as confrontational and new (as I have, to a certain extent) and then realize that it is maybe the former but most definitely not the latter--not anymore. Some people are just fine with watching the world turn and go about making their music--but there's way too much writing on the wall, everywhere, right now, to just sit with that. Seriously, though--I lived and breathed two years along the lines of Roscoe Mitchell saying "people ain't doin' shit" to just think that anyone could be happy with the rote avenues history hands us. Not that there's necessarily a "big thing" around the corner--but we/you/I are definitely, without a doubt not looking hard enough if we're caught up in questions of "how do we save jazz" or "is it jazz" or "does it swing" or--even--"is this the next big thing in jazz." I mean, take a sledghammer to this shit--seriously--DO we need tunes anymore? And before this comes out as a sheer nihilistic rant, keep in mind I've been trying to think constructivist. What's killing jazz is the Heisenberg principle of cultural awareness--it becomes "Jazz" the minute it stops being something mutable. And we aren't at the time, historically, to take this for granted. Dolphy could say something like "I'll never leave jazz" because the streets were on fire, for heavens' sakes--it just isn't an issue then. Now that we're in the sandbox, and we can see shit for what it is, maybe we should start taking it apart? Or step outside?

It's a point that's been implicit/sort of explicit on this thread, but I look at the arc of Trane's post-A Love Supreme years as nothing if not the sounds of someone running out of time. Compare the Quartet's marathon workouts at the Half Note or in France in 1965 with virtually any live document with Pharoah in the band--I do get the sense that the sheer volume of solo space ceded to the younger man in those final years does have to do with an acknowledged sense of exhaustion on Trane's part--or, rather, an understanding that Pharoah's idiom (or Rashied's, for that matter) touched upon a space that Trane wouldn't or couldn't get to before his time was up. On that level, I really like Jim's notion that the many relevant things that popped up post-1967 really couldn't have had anything to do with Trane himself; I do look at the late Quintet music as both a culmination of Trane's ideas and an acknowledgment of his corporeal/physical and temporal limitations. It just does't feel like a logical progression for someone who was taking his time. So--to take a party-pooping stance (ugh)--it's sort of unrealistic to trace the pattern of those final years and then figure out what was next--unless, that is, the hypothetical presents itself that something reached down from wherever and gave Coltrane the improbable extra few years on earth (in which case a flirtation with rock/pop trends--completely unforshadowed in his own work, as is/was not the case with Miles or even, to an extent, with Ornette--is kind of outlandish). Electric instrumentation within the Coltrane mode? Probably. "Exotic" instrumentation--probably... extravagant orchestrations with a cast of thousands--probably... it's interesting to ponder what the next technical progression would be, though--as Jim notes--the logical and intuitive answer is that this question isn't a question at all. Although--although--I REFUSE to believe the next course of action with this music would have been a softening up (ala Pharoah, Shepp, whatever)--many of the second generation free guys had retroactive scores to settle with the jazz idiom--not so with Trane. I'd like to think that Coltrane was done with standards in the traditional sense, if not metered playing and changes... The question that's more present to me: if Coltrane were born in, say, the 80's, what kind of music would he be making right now? This is where it gets dicey, and where I know I've had some tension with what it is that I do/have done and many in the jazz community take as gospel truth.

Yes! Not quite the same thing, but blues drenched, consummately played, and very punchy. It's a somewhat-lost gem, for sure.

Kevin Shea drum solo... I agree with the above statement--it's a band of virtuosos with a great deal of creativity and a very direct vision. I also agree, however, that this vision is centered to a large extent on commentary on a post-free jazz landscape--to the extent that the music excels in spite of caricature or shtick (Shea's farce on the uber-intensity of the jazz drum solo, above, falls into this category, I think). The group seems to take as its starting point familiar conceits (e.g., the drum solo) and stretch them to the point that the listener isn't really questioning whether it "works" or operates within the given conventions of the idiom--rather, it makes things laughable and not improper or disrespectful to do so--the vehicle, of course, being a well-versed understanding of the music at its origins and extreme technical prowess. (I do like how this group does manage to challenge anti-free naysaying about technical ability, all while doing not-so-serious stuff... I wouldn't want to tangle with a group that can play "A Night In Tunisia" both so tough and so ridiculous.) For my tastes, though, the music does get a little glib, and I am left wondering what this combination of talents (if not this "band") could do with a little infusion of severity (they're all killer musicians, to be sure). The more I think we're reaching a sort of sea change in the way people deal in the post-free era, the more I am actually getting a little sick of antiseriousness in all its forms. I recall the liners to This Is Our Moosic describing Coltrane as "macho" (and I've heard this from other folks I very much respect on different occasions), which suggests to me a disconnect with the music. It actually scares me to see people "hear" spiritual quartet Coltrane as devices first and sound/power/vibe second--but this is and has been happening--all the loss for the music, despite the technical leaps and bounds we've made in the past 30-40 years... I do know of many among my peers who look at the music as more of just a collection of devices and techniques--all the more power to MOPDTK for having a "message"--but there is something to be said for the as serious as your life ethos of guts and glory. Complete tangent, but I'm more moved by the post-free but not quite free jazz Flying Lotus (Alice Coltrane's nephew)--allegedly at the "forefront" of a more emotionally moving hip-hop--whose music does acknowledge jazz, pop, and electronic innovations of recent decades (often in a referential manner), but does so with emotional depth, aplomb, and absolutely no unwieldy baggage with "legacy" (unlike essentially every prominent jazz act of today).

Hell yes. The more I go back to this one, the more I think it's the best of the PAPA albums. --although the big band cuts from the CD that comes with Isoardi's The Dark Tree are stellar. I'll second the Abrams rec--particularly Blu Blu Blu.

Pharoah Sanders covered it on Rejoice (circa 1981, I think, which at least puts it within the timeframe you've been doing it {?)). I wouldn't be surprised if more people had done it back in the 70's/80's, if only because the UK SA exiles seemed to favor the piece and, well, cultural diffusion being what it is...

I really have only a faint memory of this (and the files aren't accessible right now), but I recall Evan Parker talking about Shepp playing the UK around this time; Harris, Rudd, Moncur III (I think) were mentioned.

I should for all purposes love the music on the Woodstock Playhouse album, but I have a strange disconnect from it--it may have something to do with the bootleg-caliber sound, but it could just as much be that there's a sprawling, somewhat meandering quality to the music that doesn't necessarily serve Greene's approach very well. I'll have to listen again. It's an interesting comparison with the self-titled ESP, which is IMO somewhat more focused but maybe less energetic. Not so much a knock, but rather an observation--Greene's playing on these early discs is somewhat more dynamically static and, to my ears, less melodically detailed than (the obvious comparison) contemporaneous Cecil Taylor, which redoubtably holds my interest over long intervals. Of course, this serves a sort of trancelike quality in Greene's music--totally absent from Cecil's stuff, which is far more rhapsodic (maybe more romantically boisterous in a hybrid Western art music/African sense than an Eastern infinite sense). The often equally unterse Don Pullen has more power at this point, although in his earlier music it's this, and maybe only this energy component that carries things over (and if you're not in the mood for free bash, it can sound a little aimless, too).

Every time I've run into Roscoe, he's been extremely good natured and friendly. I think, as with anyone else, he talks a different talk in media situations. The interesting thing I've observed about that particular brand of genius is that he's very deeply involved with the procedure of his art, rather than the rhetoric. Maybe this makes him more enigmatic or more difficult to pry information out of, I don't know; what I can say is that that sort of stoicism and lack of bullshit was very inspiring to me--treating everything like an experiment, having fun with it, and always looking ahead to your best work are good ways for any musician to operate. I do kind of love that old gunslinger vibe--"shut up and shoot"... It reminds me of another situation... ROVA had set up a lecture for Roscoe to talk at, and the introduction was so detailed and overflowing with praise that, IIRC, it walked a bit into the lecture that Roscoe was going to do. I showed up late, but, in lieu of a flat-out talk, Roscoe played (what I was later told was) like a 5-10 minute long tone. It's sort of a quirky and deep situation at the same time, which is very much the impression that I get from watching the man play.

When I was still going to Mills, Roscoe gave a lecture on (IIRC) his early Art Ensemble days; he had some of these files on his computer. He only played maybe one track from these sessions ("Tatas-Matoes" from the box, too--that's about all I can remember). It did sound very post-Ornette, but the playing was of a high caliber and it swung hard. (My memory is, again, shaky, but I remember the tune being mid-uptempo, with sort of a grooving head.) Very random aside, but I remember Roscoe's computer or iPod not working with the interface--unbelievably common at these sorts of lectures; I, for whatever reason, had the Nessa box on hand, and Roscoe was about to use my copy before we got everything working. (Just a weird, surreal moment that sticks in my memory.)

Funny that I first heard all of those guys in "free"-ish settings (DeJohnette in New Directions, Metheny on Song X, Hutcherson on the old Blue Notes and with Shepp, Henderson--maybe Page One, but I'm inclined to say Unity or Point of Departure). Guys like DeJohnette and Metheny, especially, wouldn't really, I'd guess, discriminate between the regions of their work (some things Metheny has said seem to suggest that his sometimes unwieldy experiments are of the same "career" piece as his more "inside" travels)... ...and neither would Braxton, for that matter, although the aesthetic results are arguably weighted toward his non-standard/inside stuff. What immediately comes to mind are players from the Miles axis--Corea, Holland, Hancock, Williams...--who got their piece of the free pie at a certain point and were each very capable of positively killing it. All of them got out of the game, too, a lot of it a commercial thing (which is, sadly, a crucial swing vote in the free/inside thing, I've gathered...). The one who really clinches it, though, is Williams, who reputedly gave the best Cecil Taylor trio concert of all time. I'd believe it...

If I hadn't found the right support net--and that's both teachers and peers--I would be a very, very bitter person indeed. It took me a while to disabuse myself of wanting to be confrontationally against the grain and realize that, for the most part (and with certain very significant exceptions), everyone is in the same club.

To be fair, I remember being like that as a teenager. I later came to the very sobering realization that even in the outest music--or maybe especially with the outest music--there are no shortcuts to doing what you want to do. I think that a lot of what separates actual musicians from dabblers is an addiction to the practice (practice) of music.

I'm also pretty interested in this assessment: "Electrity is inevitable. Life is electric. We're powered by electricity, and we can no longer pretend to be a hunk of brass and wood glued together anymore." Which is in principle a perfectly reasonable statement--but taking the pure technophilia to its logical conclusion, you're in a boatload of shit. Science music is its own ethos, yes. But the intermingling of electronics and traditional instrumentation opens up a can of worms; I'll again stress that it is empirically true that it's easy to mask a lack of technique with electronics. It is, for example, pretty easy to replicate gale force, late 80's Sonny Sharrock without actually knowing how to play guitar; what concretizes and validates that approach is the concept that goes behind it and, ironically for trumpet dude, Sonny's clear connection to and personal engagement with an ethos of traditional jazz that he is himself building upon. Sonny also said this: "Fool + Noise = Bullshit." So what's the problem if it doesn't take a lick of technique to play the "new" music? I think we've been struggling with that for decades. As hard as it is for me to articulate this point sensitively, I'll just (existentially) say that I don't want to live in a world where anyone can do what anyone else can do and that work, effort, love, or dedication don't mean anything. I'll take an ethos over pure anarchism any day of the week. This of course reminds me of a conversation here a while back when Jim said (and I paraphrase) that "Ayler was a freakin virtuoso"--which was totally a right-on moment for me, because--as crazy as the actual music may sound--there's a lot of love and effort in it. Nothing would have happened without the work.

The jazz wars are over. I just always wanted to say that. Like many people here, I play in many "free" situations, many "inside" situations, and, lately, many "inside" situations with "free" players and "free" situations with "inside" players. Whatever- This dude's fighting a straw man. I can guarantee that a large proportion of masters anywhere near the jazz idiom who commonly play in so-called "free" contexts place a premium on mastering some conventional/"traditional" technical practice; I ran into this headfirst when Roscoe Mitchell schooled me on a Villa-Lobos guitar/flute duet (and, even as a largely electric player, I've taken the curriculum of acoustic classical guitar very seriously since...) Additionally, although its likely the case (I couldn't confirm this either way) that "traditional" methods of acoustic manipulation hold no water for a certain segment of the free improv crowd (many EAI, lowercase folks), I do know many musicians operating in this sphere who (1) have forgotten as much "traditional" stuff as they can do now--that is, they learned fundamentals at some point and just decided that it wasn't for them, or (2) operate with equal facility in more conventional realms and electroacoustic contexts. Conventional technique really isn't necessary to get a message across, but it is empirically true that a large body of musicians working in "free" realms do have some concept of traditional discipline that (to whom it may dismay) bows to some form of conventional wisdom. When taking the traditionalism v. progressivism into consideration, these ideas can't be ignored. I, myself, have a bit of a personal problem with creating music under my own heading that follows, wholesale, jazz convention, but that doesn't mean that I don't enjoy music or musicmaking in that mode or that jazz convention can't inform what I do--it's just a choice I made once I sat down and knew that I had things to choose from. I actually think it's pretty lazy, maybe even cowardly, not to consider what the alternative has to offer and what you can learn from being (like it or not) a part of the same world.

re:JS--The one thing that does immediately strike me about Duke's arrangements are the depth of sound they achieve. The bands on Rough 'N Tumble and The Spoiler, especially, sound much larger than they should (or, rather, they achieve a big band punch that integrates nicely with the smaller group sound). The call-and-response on "Baptismal" is just soooooo ballsy. Not spectacular pieces in and of themselves, but the combination of group elements and the arrangement make for amazing middlebrow work.

I like Rough 'N Tumble... haven't listened to it in a while, but as noted above, the playing is strong. Every solo contribution is excellent in the idiom. The power and vitality of the actual band is almost stacked too high against the compositions, which are arranged tastily, if not challengingly. Actually, while I don't think that this imbalance detracts here, it has hampered my enjoyment of some of Turrentine's other Blue Notes--tough playing with some wimpy, wimpy songs.

Man, Alex--you've got your hands in some top flight stuff. If I were in the UK, I'd be there in a heartbeat. Makes me think--I played a very random benefit gig with Eddie Gale last night, and I later wound up in the middle of a conversation between Bobby Hutcherson and Steve Turre (earlier I'd had a sit down with John Handy). Friends of mine were there in the 70's and 80's, when community accessibility was still somewhat of a more present possibility; I can only wonder now what it would be like seeing these guys on a more regular basis. But then you're living that life, in a way--weirdly miraculous, but then I can't imagine a more qualified guy... You know, they'd love you out in the SF Bay; the pay would suck (unless you played Yoshi's), but you'd be treated very caringly. The only gig I've seen with Harris Eisenstadt was, I think, right before he left the West Coast (really not sure about this), but it was one of Paul Rutherford's last shows out here (may be the last?). I don't think I appreciated it enough at the time, even though it blew my mind. I'll see if I can hip some of my UK pals to this...zzz

Yes, of course there is! Hey, I was the only one to mention Doug Watkins, too... if this would be a "who are you're favourite bass players"-thread and not a poll, people would have posted longer lists (I would have, for sure). Oh man--how could I forget these guys? Fred Hopkins, too, beyond a doubt.

Jimmy Garrison, Johnny Dyani, Harry Miller, Barry Guy, Ronnie Boykins, seconded on Mingus, Pettiford, Richard Davis, Peacock...