ep1str0phy

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.

No better way for him to leave.

Where are you situated geographically, jazz1? I'd be interested in your take on the local scene, as a resident. Too conservative? You don't think the music is going anywhere? (Really, I'm curious). As far as NYers being spoiled--I'm a WC man myself, and I probably won't even be able to make it out to the Vision Festival this year. There are certainly a great deal more options for East Coasters in the way of listening opportunities and "the legends", but the American scene in general--at most local levels I've experienced--can be just as alienating and frustrating to the adventurous musician/listener as anywhere in the world. I'm sort of of the mind that musicianship issues, close-mindedness, etc. are the norm for improvised music these days. I mean, we've got a lot of young virtuosos walking around, but you'd be hard pressed to "casually" run into an individual and even more so an individual--new, old, legendary or whatever--making money or, much less, "the rounds". Maybe the grass is always greener? We may run the risk, here, of fetishizing the scenes "elsewhere", especially because the local life can be a little frustrating. But the world is smaller than I/we might think...

Very, very sad news. My life is better for his music.

Tolliver--especially as a big band man--has always come across to me as machine-gun hard. Folks will say that he was coming out of a Freddie Hubbard thing, or through that strain of "intelligent" (no disrespect, of course) Browniphiles, but--and thanks for this, JS--I've heard him coming out of a more strident (more direct?) percussive line. He's sort of like an analog to George Adams (or, for that matter, Tolliver's some-time partner Billy Harper) for me--sizing down the drive and fusillade intensity of the energy guys for a more "in" bag. I really, really like the Donald Ayler observation. I've been listening to the Ayler box recently, and I can hear the similarities between Don's more ecstatic moments and Tolliver on, for example, Impact--push, push PUSH.

Well, I'm interested. Thanks for the link...

Things have been happening pretty fast to Ornette lately (though he's always been in the business of making his own business). It's a positive gesture, for what it is. (And more power to Ornette, always.)

Nice one ! Alas, only have it on CD. It's my understanding that the CD is harder to find. The LP pops up often and cheap where I'm at (CA, USA)...

Dollar Brand/Abdullah Ibrahim (born in Cape Town in '34) was and is a big part of the South African jazz scene, although he's registered some of his most important work abroad, often with non-South African musicians, during and after apartheid. His group the Jazz Epistles (with, among others, Kippie Moeketsi and Makaya Ntshoko) was an important early South African bop/hard bop group, and members of its roster participated in the European tour of the seminal King Kong musical (an important step toward the movement/expatriation of SA jazz in and after the 50's--Ellington picked up on Brand in Zurich). Brand has moved in and out of S Africa since (I believe he returned to birth his kid on native soil?), but the music he's crafted after the Epistles has been some of the most influential and individual South African improvisation--expanding upon and, in many ways, gravitating away from American jazz and improv--of the last half century or so.

The question on everyone's mind--what's the roast?

How much does that MGM usually go for?

I love the Howard+Wright+Few+(etc.) group like no one's business. I actually prefer it to the one sans Howard but with Silva, if only because Howard seemed to bring out the most aggressive elements of Wright's playing.

Well, good going Burrell's manager. Moholo-Moholo should really make the rounds in the states.

Then you need to contact me to go back home when it screens! (LA boy, born and bred, living in the Bay Area...)

Marion there looks like something inbetween disinterested in badass--I'd hew toward the latter, as it really seems to fit the music inside. Funny how a lot of old "free" record covers are so urbane--the stuff inside is death.

Does Mitchell appear with Davis at all? A rare treat, if so... I'll second, third (etc.) the love for S II Examples--one of the most compelling pieces of solo saxophone I've heard. It's tremendous hearing someone do so much with so little.

I've always been curious about the pronunciation of 'M's in South African dialects, such as the 'M' in Mbizo (re: Johnny Mbizo Dyani). Anyone?

Porto Novo is rough. I think that was the first Bennink I'd ever heard--and with that nasty reverb, the percussion sounds especially wild. MB is especially unhinged on these sides... interesting that the trio music has been paired with the much quieter, perhaps more sensitive "sound" recordings with Wadada (which is some of the more successful music of its kind from this vintage, I think).