ep1str0phy

It was the first Charles Tyler ESP, IIRC. He also seems to play xylophone on the Golden Circle sides ("Morning Song")... though that could just be tinny vibes (haven't heard the sides in a while).

I remember bringing some stuff up to the counter at Amoeba, and the cashier asked, "how can you afford all this?" (I had been coming in three or so times a week) My reply: "I'm a student. I don't eat." It was true--I've since improved...

I couldn't really get into this one at first--probably because it isn't as aggressive as Tyler's first ESP--but I think some of its nuances have started to emerge to me. The strings/sax mix works really well, and Baker is a large part of that.

Redman on tenor has a big, rounded tone, a sort of timbral fluidity, that approaches Ornette's facility on alto--it's a total contrast to the way Ornette plays on that last Atlantic side, which, virtuosic as it is, can probably "best" be described as rough or grainy--a rolling/tumbling sort of thing. Also, although Redman's phrasing has more of a modal/scalular character a lot of the time, he sometimes pushes into Ornette's squarer, diatonic territory (although sometimes I hear this as Dewey doing an Ornette thing, versus Dewey doing a Dewey thing). Rhythmically, though, and in the way of phrase "shapes", Redman and Ornette are in completely different departments. Ornette has a way of getting into the rhythm of whatever is going on around him--even in rubato time--whereas Dewey has a tendency to wash over the rhythm. I guess Mingus's equating Ornette with a whole lot of bongos has some truth to it; Ornette strings his phrases together with a very clear rhythmic momentum--heavily accented--and Dewey just tends to hit the highs and lows (that "careening" sound). Inspired by the Chappaqua talk, I'm listening to the second disc right now--and Pharoah (for what little time he pops up) has sort of a Dewey Thing going on--just swaying over the rhythm. Ornette's ability to dig into wacky syncopation (something that Pharoah doesn't really do, and that Dewey seldom got into) was part of what made the 60's trio so good--Moffett is really an adventurous bebop drummer, pulling some Klook stuff, and he knows how to push his hits like few other "free" guys.

Well, they're not working for Ornette--so it's a valid question.

Bey has performed well in some more advanced contexts. His appearance on Members Don't Get Weary comes to mind.

Oh, and Late--all of that album is just really deep to me (I did this as an AOTW?). It's a shame that Ornette's most regular years on the trumpet and violin were the formative ones--he really developed, especially on the former horn, after the 60's. "Some Day" is gorgeous.

Gonna have to disagree with you a bit, chewy. Ornette has recalled his alto sound on some of his later tenor outings (like the thing Late and I have been discussing), but there's something about his articulation on Ornette On Tenor which is really specific to that instrument. His tone on the bigger horn feels a lot darker, sorta husky where Ornette's alto is nasal--at times, it reaches a sort of Rollins/Ayler-esque rasp, and if Ornette was never really intent on "smoothing out" his multiphonics it's really evident here. There's surely something about the "honk" of the tenor that just roughens out the edges of Ornette's phrasing, magnifying the angularity of his lines. Also, maybe it's just because the album was recorded earlier in Ornette's development, but the transposition to the bigger instrument cuts up Ornette's "pet" motifs in a really interesting way. That this isn't evident on Soapsuds, Soapsuds makes me believe that a lot of the sound on the earlier albums has to do with a self-conscious decision to play out of the alto's "idiom" (and into the tenor, as per Ornette's liner notes on the original Atlantic release). In some ways, I think Dewey Redman feels like a more direct translation of Ornette's alto to tenor than the playing on Ornette On Tenor.

I agree, too, but at this point I'll take anything, and novelty is a part of that. I think the recent "Ornette explosion" has spurred a mad-dash to documentation, but things feel a little uneven when a few great bands have just disappeared from below. Did you happen to catch the Ornette/Charnett/Denardo trio? I mean, I love Geri Allen, but that trio was hard--in its own way, a challenge to the (dare I say it) 60's trio.

Derek Bailey: Aida Bill Dixon: November 1981 Both really, really, really good. I haven't really "absorbed" the Dixon side yet, but the Bailey is clearly one of the most direct, focused solo albums he ever assembled.

DAAAAAAAMN! Thank God, Thank God we live in the reissue/digital era. 'Cause I would never have gotten to hear that one...

Maybe it's just a difference in listener perspectives. Freddie certainly didn't limit himself, but I just feel as if the peaks come a lot rarer on his solo discs--versus his sideman work with, for example, the Miles crowd, which is almost uniformly brilliant (from my perspective). As for Breaking Point--that's a contentious issue, and it's certainly the least "straight-ahead" of all of Freddie's Blue Notes. Part of what interests me is that it doesn't always feel like Freddie's album--maybe more like a run-through for a never-happened Joe Chambers side. Perhaps Messengers-level hard bop was Freddie's strong suit (when he was at his strongest, that is), but I've always loved it when he struggled into alien contexts. (Case in point: Dialogue.) Honestly, though, nothing gets to me like the Breaking Point version of "Mirrors" and, for that part of Hub-Tones I like, "You're My Everything". Again, as for Open Sesame--the whole band, and (like y'all have said)--Tina Brooks. He's one of the legendary "might-have-beens" in the music who's really worth getting to know.

Another question: what should a good condition, first-run copy of Paul Bley's Barrage go for? I've seen prices all over the place.

Well, with the way Chappaqua Suite was recorded, it might as well be Ornette, Moffett, and Izenzon via stairwell. Honestly, though, I'd be interested in hearing Ornette's approach to group music with musicians (such as AACM members) whose ideas are far more "in tune" with other group musics. Case in point: Ornette + Jackie on New and Old Gospel. Case against? : Ornette + Garrison/Elvin (on a lot of) New York Is Now and Love Call, although it's certainly an interesting collaboration on numerous levels.

-On the whole Open Sesame is just OK thing--Hubbard didn't have the most consistent run as a leader on Blue Note (one or two near-classics sprinkled in--Breaking Point, I think--with some very classic sideman appearances), and set next to some of the more (inexplicably) celebrated sides, like Hub-Tones (which, IMO, gets pretty boring after the first couple of tracks), it's really great. And, for what this music is, that band really is killer.

If we're talking Ornette albums in limbo, then we should at least get to The Great London Concert first--that might represent some of the trio's best material, overall. And then there's Who's Crazy, Crisis... And honestly, I'd be even more excited if Ornette started releasing new records semi-regularly again.

Anyone find out what happened to that copy of the Marzette Watts Ensemble Savoy mentioned on the "Nothing Is" blog a couple weeks ago? The seller's name (on ebay) was 04elissa.

Yeah, surprisingly good.

For comparison, listen to Soapsuds, Soapsuds. You'd swear he was playing an alto here and there, though it's plain that, were Ornette not playing tenor on that date, the overall character of the session would be a little more imbalanced. If Ornette on Tenor is his honker album, then Soapsuds, Soapsuds shows what he can do with the subtler elements of the bigger horn.

I have only a passing understanding of the non-jazz thing, but Makeba had her political problems, too, right? After she got with Stokely Carmichael, especially...

Thanks for the report, Ptah. Upped to mention my recent acquisition of More Cutouts, which is a fine outing. There's a sort of quiet, playful psychology to the whole affair, personal and without many explosive moments. Albums like this one get across just how revolutionary Roscoe and the AACM were/are in terms of dynamics--there are moments when the ensemble does everything but play loud. These Cecmas are a sleeper treat...

I think it's one of Freddie's most enjoyable dates. And Clifford Jarvis, in and out of the Ra stable, is always a good thing.

Nothing I've read on SA jazz--and that's really the angle I've attacked these matters at--has led me to believe that highly-charged, political improvised music during apartheid was anything but persecuted--there are police "interventions" into performance spaces, harassment of individual musicians and politically-conscious businesspeople, record store raids... all that, in addition to the usual local pressures (anti-miscegenation, pass/area controls, degrading living and working circumstances, the sheer brutishness of the Boer state) that often resulted in self-imposed exile. Some thoughts, though, which qualify the above: -The SABC, which essentially controlled major music recording and distribution throughout the apartheid regime, had a generally strict policy regarding musical idioms that did not fit within its scheme of syncretic tribalism and (divisive) culture politics. This means that many kinds of modern urban musics, like mbaqanga, and genres of foreign provenance, like jazz, ran into serious problems with the state. Although the SABC--especially toward the end of apartheid, where pressures forced parts of the state music apparatus to buckle--would occasionally allow the aforementioned musics through the apartheid noise, most musicians had a tremendously hard time at it--especially when melding these new sounds with overt political sentiments. Most jazz musicians who did remain (and there are many) and were able to support their livelihood(s) had to kowtow to state demands regarding how "jazz music" or "modern music" should be played to best coincide with the state agenda. This could be the stuff MG has heard, but I honestly can't think of any jazz/improvised music that passed through state filtering (i.e., even after selling a lot of records, before government official stepped in to, for example, confiscate stuff) in the peak apartheid years. (for that matter, who are the many artists you've heard, MG? Really a question here, again, not a sheer antagonistic/devil's advocate thing.) -Many SA jazz musicians, like the Jazz Epistles and Blue Notes, succeeded in securing better economic livelihoods/playing opportunities abroad during apartheid--which doesn't mean that they were rich or even happy. Many musicians secured some means of comfort by either (1) marrying into security or (2) drinking themselves half to (and sometimes completely to) death. There were, regardless, certain mechanisms that made life abroad a more attractive proposition once musicians got out of the state (although none of this does a great job, admittedly, of explaining why the cats left). -A lot of our historical perspective has been tempered by what recordings have accomplished. Many SA jazz musicians, due to government machinations, had a better chance of getting heard without interference abroad than at home, and there's something to be said for relaying the struggle abroad (Hugh Masakela's music speaks for itself on this level, and the end result of the importation of South African music during apartheid, resulting in stuff like Paul Simon's Graceland, was to have a leavening effect on the political struggle). Also, due to government interference (and piles upon piles of quickly-confiscated materials), there just isn't a lot for us in the West to go on in terms of just how South African jazz musicians "fought" for their rights; again, many, many jazz musicians remained at home--we have the primary source accounts--but very few recordings have survived into the digital age. If you look at the already problematic economic situation of jazz music with respect to popular music (or even reggae) in most places in the world, it's no surprise that, paired with government crackdowns, relatively little politically relevant South African jazz made it into either our hands or the South African public's hands. -Many jazz musicians played roles in the cultural wing of the SA liberation struggle. The locally-organized United Democratic Front, in conference with the ANC in exile, propped up jazz as one of the major cultural mechanisms for its local campaign; the African Jazz Pioneers helped launch the organization. The Culture and Resistance arts festival held in Gaborone, Botswanna featuring Ibrahim and Gwangwa (alongside other exiled and still local SA jazz musicians), was one of the key cultural events in the anti-apartheid movement, and the subsequent attack on Gaborone by the South African Defense Force--killing many in the "jazz" wing's entourage--only compounded the status of SA jazz musicians as cultural warriors both at home and abroad. I think this fact offsets the notion that jazz wasn't able to meet the needs of the culture for politically activist music. -It may have just been easier to fight the good fight abroad--once abroad--than at home. One first-person account I've heard is that guys like the Blue Notes wanted to return but that the state wouldn't have them--and it was, in fact, the harassment of state officials of the Blue Notes as an interracial band (and, concurrently, the harassment of the audience watching an interracial band) that led to their going abroad. None of this had anything to do with not being politically or even economically "viable" at home (I've never heard that groups like the BNs couldn't support themselves in terms of audience size, in South Africa or abroad)--and the Blue Notes, as some of the most progressive South African improvisers, were an inspiration to many local, politically-charged musicians during apartheid. Musicians like the McGregor camp just left because personal circumstances had gotten too hot--and it was too hard to come back, long term. -Jazz, despite the central cultural role it played in mid-century South Africa, is still jazz--some folks can't get with it. The relative size of the improvising community anywhere in the world will be small--especially compared to the % of guys working in more popular idioms (again, reggae, soul, R&B, or even "straight" mbaqanga). Really, in terms of numbers, scarce few of those more "popular" musicians were able to do direct political work during apartheid--how much more jazz musicians, who have classically had problems in America?

He's closing out this year's Vision Fest on Sunday June 24. It looks like he will be doing a short EC tour the same week w/ stops in Baltimore and Philly(tentative). Info on the Baltimore gig http://www.andiemusiklive.com/EvntDtl1.cfm...29&T=092024 Thanks for this, Chalupa. I may have to try for this one, given that Vision Fest seems a little remote for me right now. Jazz1--it was my impression that jazz in Africa is in dire straits right now--do you think it's a generational thing? Is it representational (i.e., has the music, due to whatever forces--pandering to tourists, commercial concerns--just gotten too codified and "set in its ways")? I understand that there has been some attempt to amalgamate jazz and modern dance/urban forms, but as for improvised music--the youth here has its own experimental scene, sometimes far removed from jazz, but is there anything like that over in South Africa?

Went to see Purple Gums (Francis Wong-soprano/tenor, etc., Bobby Bradford-cornet, etc., and William Roper-tuba, etc.) tonight--both as a trio and with the SFSU Creative World Ensemble (student group, led by Hafez Modirzade). If you ever get a chance to see Gums live, do it--they're one of the most original and nuanced groups on the West Coast (there's some "little instrumentation" here, free horn dialogue ala Ornette Coleman, and a tremendous, group melodic sensibility--all with a potent social/political edge). And that trio is definitely good, humble (but awesome, in the classic sense of the world) people.