Lazaro Vega

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

U-Skid -- we'll be featuring part of the concert tonight on Jazz From Blue Lake, around 10:30 p.m. And we will be broadcasting the entire concert on Saturday, April 30th at 9 a.m. www.bluelake.org

Chuck, yes. Do you know that work?

Hey, Does it bug you guys that I'm posting program notes regularly here keeping the Blue Lake subject at the top of the list? Our program guide is on-line so maybe this is self indulgent bullshit. Seems other boards think so... Look at me.

Slide Hampton on The Jazz Restrospective. Streaming in 20 minutes, 10 p.m. until 3 a.m. right after the Chicago Symphony (which featured Benny Goodman playing Neilsen's clarient concerto this evening.

Sun Ra's is the first band I ever heard play "Queer Notions." What a knockout that was.

Had the chance to interview NHOP in Denmark, at the Tivoli Gardens Slukhafta (sp) night club, after a performance with Svend Assumsen, Kenny Drew, NHOP and Ed Thigpen. Spoke on tape to all but Thigpen. Great music. Drew was consice, just a couple of pure, perfect choruses then out. He and Pederson hooked up wonderfully. NHOP went to get a beer before the interview and said towards Kenny Drew just before leaving, "I'll be right Black." He was 16 when playing with Dexter, and around that age when he appeared on that not too successful Albert Ayler record. For what it is worth the drummer from that Ayler record, Ronnie Gardiner (sp), has a girlfriend in West Michigan and has been coming into the area fairly regularly. He usually calls the station when he comes in and lays a cd or two on us.... RIP NHOP -- he swung Denmark.

Did anyone catch Bruckmann? Tonight our featured artist on the "Jazz Retrospecitve" is Johnny Griffin. On the web at 10 p.m.

New Artist: Trumpeter Arzo Tureaud II ------------------------------------------------------------------------ http://www.kapcomm.com/arzo/ Here's the guy I'm talking about who's in the Truth in Jazz Orchestra and running the jam session. There are clips of his playing at the web site.

This Monday evening April 18 at 10 p.m. edt (same as New York) please join Blue Lake Public Radio for a special live performance by Kyle Bruckmann's Wrack, a twisted chamber group of improvising musicians from Chicago and the San Fransisco Bay area. See http://www.bayimproviser.com/artistdetail.asp?artist_id=205 for more information about Kyle Bruckman, including links to his home page. The broadcast will be heard in West Michigan over WBLV FM 90.3 and WBLU FM 88.9 and over the Internet via live web stream from www.bluelake.org Lazaro Vega Blue Lake Public Radio 300 East Crystal Lake Road Twin Lake MI 49457 radio@bluelake.org

I'll vouch for Morgan -- he played on Blue Lake with Rob Schepps a year ago and, at 21, is a young musician to watch out for. Hi Keita. Keep up the good work.

Hi Guys, Sorry I haven't been by to check in since the show. That program went way longer than advertised, and the people who left split 1/2 hour after the show should have been over on a school night, and they were old folks: an extended family who were obviously there in support of their grand kids. Ingrid was great -- she came out and played a Stix Hooper chart with the Mona Shores second tier band and about killed me with her Miles-isms -- it was D dorian to E and she rode that Miles vibe for all it was worth. A highlight was hearing "Naima" featuring Mona Shores top tier big band with Ingrid and a student soloist who happened to by the grand daughter of Fritz Stansell, the President of Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp. In that second part Ingrid's quartet integrated into the big band and while the music was odd (a big band with a double rhythm section? Didn't work for Kenny Clarke, so, you know), it was a blast for the kids -- they were right in the thick of the real deal. Did a nice job on a Maria Schneider chart. Ingrid was very supportive, saying she couldn't believe they were high schoolers and that she'd run into college bands with less fire and creativity. Her set was wonderful. Despite folks leaving there was also a nearly 5 minute round of applause that stopped the show completely after that first "set" of music her quartet played. The "Tea and Watercolors" piece was kind of ECM-ish, based mostly on a vamp (Clousey is a good player, three years in New York now from his home in Austrailia). If you know "Twilight Time" (is that it?) on her Project O record, this piece was in that bag for starters, but mutated and eventually developed through several moods -- good writing, tough, heads-up arrangement. At some point the piece became a cadenza for solo trumpet and out of the cadenza the band moved into "The Night Has A Thousand Eyes." A very abstracted variation on "There Is No Greater Love" followed, and then two pieces Jensen wrote while on Honeymoon this last summer with her husband, drummer Jon Wikan (pronounced Wee-kan). The first of those was out, uptempo and free. Nice. I had to split at that point. Was looking forward to broadcasting the concert this Thursday, but may have to wait for artist approval before anything gets on the air, which may take months. I think I need to become charming and see if something could happen more immediately. Don't forget, The Truth in Jazz Big Band this Tuesday night at the West Side Inn on Beidler Street from 7 to 9. Bring your liver: jazz in a neighborhood tavern. It is the BEST hang. Pure Muskegon, that is, unpretentious. There's a kid playing trumpet in that band from Kansas City, a former student of Bobby Watson, and he's one sick mutha. In fact he's running the jam session at The West Side Inn Sunday nights from 7 to 9.

Hi Al, Sorry I didn't log on while we were doing the Herbie Hancock program. Here's something for Monday night: This Monday evening at 10 p.m. edt (same as New York) please join Blue Lake Public Radio for a special live performance by Kyle Bruckmann's Wrack, a twisted chamber group of improvising musicians from Chicago and the San Fransisco Bay area. See http://www.bayimproviser.com/artistdetail.asp?artist_id=205 for more information about Kyle Bruckman, including links to his home page. The broadcast will be heard in West Michigan over WBLV FM 90.3 and WBLU FM 88.9 and over the Internet via live web stream from www.bluelake.org Lazaro Vega Blue Lake Public Radio 300 East Crystal Lake Road Twin Lake MI 49457 radio@bluelake.org

Herbie Hancock as featured artist starting in about 10 minutes.....

That trio is also playing at Founders Brew Company on Monroe April 19th. I guess the Grand Rapids Press did a story about the lack of regular jazz in town and Talaga took a copy of it to The B.O.B. and said, Let's do something about this. http://www.thebob.com/