Lazaro Vega

Within the pages of Ornette Coleman at Hill Auditorium you'll find a casual review written about this band. The return of Henry Grimes and the touring of Ornette Coleman are the biggest musical stories in the music right now. P.S. I never did hear from Denardo about that encore in Ann Arbor -- when the saints come marching in, or what it was.... http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php...wtopic=7451&hl=

How did it go?

Writing From Europe via Chicago Improv: For those of you who may want more background information on the current state of European improvisation this is probably the most scholarly and comprehensive resource around - http://www.shef.ac.uk/~ps/efi/efhome.html Giles Thomas

So that's 5 o'clock in New York? A dinner concert! And since 'tater cuff is such a non-invasive proceedure these days you'll be slingin' it with medication and everything will be B-)

From Margaret Davis and The Braxton List: For those in the New York area, Wadada Leo Smith will play trumpet and processed sound with videographer Nicole Jaquis on the first half of a double bill with the Leroy Jenkins World Quartet (Jin Hi Kim, Rmesh Misra, Yacouba Sissoko) in New York City on the 2Oth of May at the Community Church of New York, 4O East 35th St. betw. Madison & Park Ave's starting at 8 p.m. It's an AACM New York Chapter presentation, information 212-594-7149. << >> <<> < >< > > > On Friday, April 29, 2005 at 7:30 PM, Franz Fuchs at f.fuchs@gmx.net wrote: JAZZ NOTES Creating music that's never the same twice By Bill Beuttler, Globe Correspondent | April 29, 2005 The last time the avant-garde trumpeter and composer Wadada Leo Smith performed in Boston was 17 years ago, when he played a 1988 duet set with the late, great drummer Ed Blackwell. So maybe it's fitting that his return visit tomorrow night, for a Boston Creative Music Alliance concert at the Institute of Contemporary Art, will involve only Smith and percussion as well. This time around, though, the percussion will come from the laptop computer of Ikue Mori, best known for her work with cutting-edge types such as Arto Lindsay and John Zorn. And Smith, too, will be accessing electronic effects via his horn. Opportunities to hear what they sound like together are rare. Smith and Mori have played a handful of concerts in New York, and one more apiece in Portugal and Bosnia. And Mori appears on two duet tracks on Smith's CD ''Luminous Axis," which came out in 2002 on Zorn's Tzadik label. ''It does have an electronic feel to it," says Smith, 63, by phone from his California home. ''But I would say it's much warmer than most electronic music. And it's creative, meaning that when we step on the stage we don't have a note in mind, we don't have a rhythm in mind. All we have in mind is that we're going to take this score, or we're going make a collaborative improvisation, and we go from there." More: http://makeashorterlink.com/?G24261EFA or boston.com/news/globe/living/articles/2005/04/29/creating_music_thats_ne ver_the_same_twice/

From Mike Corsa at WNUR: You might have to wait until Sunday for the AACM 40th Anniversary Concert at the MCA, but you can listen to the music of AACM artists all this week on WNUR's Jazz Show. All week long from 5am to 12:30pm the Jazz Show will be featuring recordings from AACM musicians starting in the 60s and going to the present -- about 350 different albums . . . seriously. There will also be some archived live performances and interviews. So tune in to WNUR 89.3 FM in Chicago or on the web at www.wnur.org. Call in and make requests and comments (847-866-WNUR). Also, make sure to check out the 40th Anniversary Concert at the MCA this Sunday (www.aacmchicago.org for more info.) Thanks, Mike (p.s. - for those interested in hearing the recently mentioned "Gettin' To Know Y'all" recording, it will be featured on Wednesday at 8am.)

Is the Saville Theater in Oceanside?

What Jim said. I'll join you in the celebration of the life well lived. And, by the way, Charlie Parker, Ornette Coleman AND Roscoe Mitchell....

Look at how high on the charts "Morning Dance" made it on the "Smooth Rock" radio stations when that band first broke out. That was their crowd. Commercial Easy Listening. As Johnny Griffin would say, "Callitwatchyawanna." (edit to change from "Easy Listening" to "Smooth Rock").

I think for a "regular" radio station streaming on the web if you go outside of the statutory regulations for streaming on the web the pricing is something like thirty cents a play per 100 listeners -- far higher than any standard broadcast royalty. So, we're limited by the statutory license to only play four selections by the same artist in a three hour period. If we were to play 5, that fifth play would be the one charged. This is tabulated by Sound Scan which stations report to. To get on the web, maintain our statutory license and not pay huge sums of money while still providing classic jazz programming (these rules were not made for 78 rpm length recordings) we've written record companies (copyright holders) asking for permission to operate outside of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (yes, it isn't RIAA, it is Congress) as regards 'this material at this time' streaming on the web. Some of that is micro-managed, and some labels gave us blanket waivers. As for Pod-casts who knows, but that is a ball park on costs as they've been related to me by record companies.

Listening to that recording in the car and would never have guessed it was Goodman. Goodman had a strong sense of the blues and though his sound leaned towards Jimmy Noone's "cleaner" approach than the old New Orleans guys, hearing him play classical music was really different. Progam notes: Ingrid Jensen Concert this Saturday morning -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Our funder ends Friday and it is back to "normal." Ingrid Jensen's Quartet with Geoff Keezer piano and rhodes, Matt Closey on bass, and John Wikan on drums as recorded on April 18th in Muskegon will be heard this Saturday morning from about 8:45 to 9:55 a.m. The performance includes a Keezer piece called "Tea and Watercolor," plus "The Night Has A Thousand Eyes," a ballad feature for Closey which is based on a standard, can you guess which one? And two numbers Ingrid wrote on her honeymoon cruise in Alaska, one of which, "Captian John," features Wikan at length. Hope you can join us. Followed by Joey Calderazzo on "Piano Jazz" at 10 a.m. And by the way, guitarist Jim Hall is the featured artist on this week's "Jazz Profiles" from NPR which airs on Blue Lake Sunday night at 10 p.m. www.bluelake.org

Looks like Ingrid Jensen's concert will air from around 8:45 a.m. to 9:55 a.m. this Saturday morning during "Jazz a la Carte." www.bluelake.org

So Sonny Greer didn't play proper swing drum styles against the pulse of Chick Webb or the fluidity of Jo Jones, but his mastery of the colors a percussionist could provide an ensemble was music to Ellington (even though he might have put up "Harlem Air Shaft" to give Greer a run at Jones). Would one condescend to, "Well, we all know Greer was at best a pit band drummer?" And yet he doesn't fit the sort of narrative attempting imposition of propriety for jazz as much as he does fit soley (soul-ly) Ellington's music. Hey, how does one dance to "Creole Love Call"? Duke wasn't such a great dance band leader when he made me pick up a fan: I want to foxtrot! Let these absurdities be words from a Dead Gator, a dicty one, but still cold in hand.

Motian advanced texture and color as primary contributions to the ensemble from the drums, and by doing so helped produce a more fluid, interactive, orchestral ensemble sound for the trio, concepts he's put forth in the rhythm sections of countless bands by now, including his Electric Bebop Band and the trio with Frisell and Lovano. The degree to which that can be counted as an advancement must be seen within the general changes jazz was undergoing in the late 50's early 60's as more traditional models for jazz performance were being scrutinized by even the leading figures in the music, not just the dedicated fringe. That Motian has all but flourished into his 70's speaks to his contribution's importance. If this were not an advancement he would have fallen off the scene from indifference.

She did a great job with rhythm tunes, too, and standards. Favorite Holiday ballad performances? "The Man I Love" and the version of "Embraceable You" with Ben and Sweets.

From Aram Shelton via Chicago Improv: Hey Malachi, Sorry to respond so slowly (and if someone else mentioned this, there's alot of talk about this on the list right now), but I don't think you should be so disappointed with the essay. George Lewis doesn't state that the AACM & European improvisers created improvised music, or were the ones to begin the tradition. What he says is they were "two experimental music communities which emerged at around the same moment". It's in the article in the first paragraph of the secton titled "the Two Avant-gardes" As chance had it, I was in New York a few weeks ago and had a chance to see George Lewis give a presentation on this article. He got through the first half of the essay in about an hour. He also played some musical examples for the non-musicians in the audience. It was a nice way to spend an afternoon. I don't think his mission in writing this essay was to give any sort of creedence to any concept of European "free jazz" supremacy, and it's not solely about improvisation - if George wrote about that, I think it would take a looooong time to read. I think the essay is about a couple of things: it's a primer on the AACM & the first wave of European improvisers & the differences between those groups; it's about how when someone had the idea of getting these groups together, it didn't really work out as smoothly as they would have liked, and the aftermath of that meeting. Just one chapter in the historical documentation of two groups of musicians, one of which he's a part of. I know that he's doing his best to make sure there is some written historical record of this music by the folks who lived it. It's such a long article and covers so much ground, maybe we should all read it again, i'm going to - http://repository.lib.uoguelph.ca/ojs/viewarticle. php?id=28&layout=html yours, Aram

I don't read this as a denial of a continuum but a comparison of a particular point in the continuum with musicians who share, on the surface, certain musical aims and goals -- yet on closer inspection are often moving with different impetus. Saying, Well you're talking about King Oliver but haven't mentioned ragtime or Sousa misses the point that we're talking about King Oliver: as much as jazz was influenced by other things, it became a "thing" unto itself at some point, and that musical style recombines those influences in a manner which allows it to stand on its own and be discussed on its own. The history under discussion is not a broad one, but the specific period of the 1960's when these two styles developed and, in reality, met. It does not seem essential to discuss Tristano's first recordings of free music in the context of this article anymore than it would be to talk about other paths to freedom in European music. Those other things would be welcome, but it would be a different essay then. For my money the way the Europeans push against composition toward a collective improvisation and the way the Chicagoans embrace composition in a balance with improvisation is one insightful and well articulated insight into the period under discussion.

And this from Chicago drummer Damon Short (via Chi Improv): with all due respect, i have always felt the jazz relationship with europe is more intertwined. after all, jazz uses nearly all european instruments and the basic pitch systems are european, as is much of the harmony. my feeling is that the entire basis of jazz seems to be a interchange between african, american and european music systems, and and since at least the latter half of last century, creating new models as well as exploring other existing systems from other cultures. of all the great jazz bassists wilbur ware is the only one without classical training (i was listening to him today with rollins, what a great player!). jelly roll morton, parker mingus, miles davis, duke, the mjq, brubeck, braxton and onward all had interest/involvement in the classical traditon. europe also has closer proximity to africa, we should remember brotzmann's wonderful trio with south africans louis moholo and harry miller. john butcher's early influence was mike osbourne with the same rhythm section, fuchs is still working with some of dophy's innovations and so on. i think a larger problem is that many still define jazz as a single rhythmic unit and a some licks we have come to hear as "bluesy". i see jazz as an interchange of music and cultures, with kowald's global village right in that tradition. i saw the wayne shorter quartet last month. that band was on fire. it had little to do with conventional definitions of jazz. wayne said in the program notes that he wanted to to get to a place of "just music like stravinsky". as an aside if you get a chance to see wayne's quartet with pattatucci, danilo perez and brian blade, do it. the concert i saw was just amazing. i was expecting well played "jazz" , what i got was monumental creative music. anyway just another way to consider things. damon

Marguerite Horberg wrote (via Chi Improv): However in neoliberal economies, advanced capitalism, free markets and the advent of the EU the pressure for the social democracies in Europe to scale back on social programs has resulted in huge cuts to cultural funding -interesting as the playing field becomes more level with the US and the subsidized glory days of the 70's, and 80's which saw so much European activity becomes a dim memory- This is particularly interesting to us presenters who could not compete with fees parcelled out by European clubs and festivals who were already so heavily subsidized let alone all the other accoutrements ( beautiful printed posters, catalogues, media coverage, CD labels, etc) There was a trope going for many years that jazz was more "respected in Europe" because of the ability to produce it based on all these added/ government resources. In didn't matter that they had 30 folks in the audience - the scene had no relation to economic realities...

From Malachi Thompson via the Chicago Improv list:\ Hey Lazaro: Thanks for making this essay available to the general public. As a scholarly work or historic overview of improvised music or free jazz, I'm disappointed with George's essay. Improvised music did not begin in Chicago with the AACM or with European musicians in the mid 60's. George failed to mention Sun Ra's residency in Chicago in the late 50's prior to the formation of the Experimental band or that fact the collective improvisation was always a part of the New Orleans music tradition. Both evolved out of the African American community. Perhaps this was by design since it was first published in German, was it commissioned by the Germans also? The essay can be easily twisted to support the claims of European supremacy in so called "free jazz." Having said that, the essay is informative, as far as understanding the European jazz artists mind set. Do they still consider themselves jazz musicians? The essay suggest that they have appropriated what they could from the African American jazz tradition and now want to divorce themselves from the Black jazz continuum. But on the otherhand they want to present themselves as the foremost exponents of "free Jazz." You can't have it both ways. Also George failed to mention the European improvisation tradition enfolded in classical music called the cadenza. Europeans musicians could embrace their own roots and liberate their own music which has become crystallized in form. European classical music precedes jazz by a few hundred years, they wouldn't have to be bothered with jazz or the black community at all, which some European musicians admit they'll never be able to match the abilities of black jazz artists. This is even a question among black jazz artists who admit that the works of Trane, Diz, Miles & Bird may never be surpassed. Now my question to Europeans and Europeans in America is this, why do you abandon your own culture and play jazz, a music that comes out of the Black cultural experience? I have a degree in music composition and have studied and learned from this great art form. I acknowledge and respect the works of the great French, Italian, German and Russian composers. Coming out of the AACM, we have Great Black Music. However you have Great White Music. This way we can avoid the racial politics that George discusses in his essay. To take it a step further, Europeans have democratic systems of government that are more advanced than what we have here in America. Socialized health care, better education systems, better public transportation systems, greater tolerance of different ethnic groups and Europeans support their artists and artforms to a greater extent. Just look at the new jazz venue in Holland. Americans can learn a lot the European experience. Malachi Thompson >>>>>peace

Regarding Charlie Parker, he is addressed a couple of times in the essay, including: By articulating notions of genre mobility and by actively seeking dialogue with a variety of traditions, these musicians [AACM] had placed themselves in an excellent position to recursively intensify and extend Charlie Parker’s emancipatory assertion: “Man, there's no boundary line to art.”

How soon "we" forget: Besides a critical stance toward media, the trademark AACM solidarity is also on display in this interview. Leo Smith’s reply to a question concerning the meaning of “the tradition – the blues, for example,”21 by asserting that “We want to integrate all forms of music [. . .]. Everything and anything is valid. Why differentiate what is tradition from what isn’t? That separation serves no purpose.”22 When Mitchell is asked for his opinion about Smith’s comment, he replies, laughing, “Leo just said what I could have said [. . .] Why repeat it?”23 This exchange in turn prompts Jarman to reassert the full mobility of the AACM project of “original music”: “We play blues, rock, Spanish music, gypsy, African, classical music, European contemporary music, voodoo [. . .] anything you want [. . .] because, in the end, it’s “music” that we play: we create sounds, period” (Caux 18).24 This exchange illustrates the extent to which the early AACM notion of “original music” was unbound by strict adherence to free improvisation, notated composition, constructed notions of blackness, or any other fixed notion of method or tradition. Rather, as Lester Bowie asserted not long after the dawn of postmodernism, “We’re free to express ourselves in any so-called idiom, to draw from any source, to deny any limitation. We weren’t restricted to bebop, free jazz, Dixieland, theater or poetry. We could put it all together. We could sequence it any way we felt like it. It was entirely up to us” (qtd. in Beauchamp 46)."

BLACK JACK PRODUCTIONS presents TRIAGE (Okkadisk/Chicago, IL/free jazz & improvised music/members of the VANDERMARK 5) http://www.okkadisk.com/ From the press release: Triage is one of the most active young bands on the improvised music scene in Chicago today. Initially conceived by Dave Rempis on saxophones, with Jason Ajemian on bass and Tim Daisy on drums, the group has been key to defining the sound of a new generation of Chicago improvisers. With regular work over the last five years at Chicago venues such as the Empty Bottle, the Velvet Lounge, 3030, the Hothouse, the Nervous Center, and the Hungry Brain, the group has fine-tuned their approach to a music which is currently undergoing a great renaissance in this city. They’ve also toured extensively in the US, completing four lengthy tours in as many years, with an inaugural tour of Europe in November of 2004. With such frequent performances, the band has established itself as one of the few working groups in an era of “project” bands. As a trio, these three combine to create wide-ranging forms of musical _expression. Performing original compositions almost exclusively, the band moves through quiet textural pieces,grooving jazz-oriented tunes, and wailing, expressionistic romps with equal ability. Using these compositions as a springboard for their improvisations, they manage to combine the rhythmic sensibilities of the American jazz and free jazz tradition with the more abstract spaces frequently associated with European improvisers. The reconstitution of stylistic elements from these disparate traditions sheds light on both of them in a unique and powerful way. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday, May 17, 2005 9PM Doors 10PM Show $5.00 Performing Two Sets!! KRAFTBRAU BREWERY 402 E Kalamazoo Ave Kalamazoo, MI (269) 384-0288 www.kraftbraubrewery.com

Great piece, man, what an education reading through that (got about half way and then back to the fundraising....). "Crispus Attucks High School is a reminder that segregation once set down strict physical and cultural boundaries in a metropolis that boasted the highest percentage of African-American citizens in any city north of the Ohio River." Really? Chicago probably had a larger population but percentage-wise....

http://repository.lib.uoguelph.ca/ojs/view...=28&layout=html "Gittin' To Know Y'all: Improvised Music, Interculturalism, and the Racial Imagination" by George E. Lewis