Lazaro Vega

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/198509/ornette-coleman The Atlantic Monthly | September 1985 Ornette's Permanent Revolution A jazzman breaks all the boundaries. by Francis Davis ..... All hell broke loose when the alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman made his East Coast nightclub debut, at the Five Spot Cafe, in Greenwich Village on November 17, 1959‹twenty-five years ago last fall. The twenty-nine-year-old Coleman arrived in New York having already won the approval of some of the most influential jazz opinion makers of the period. "Ornette Coleman is doing the only really new thing in jazz since the innovations in the mid-forties of Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and those of Thelonious Monk," John Lewis, the pianist and musical director of the Modern Jazz Quartet, is reported to have said after hearing Coleman in Los Angeles. (Lewis later helped Coleman secure a contract with Atlantic Records.) Coleman's other champions included the critics Nat Hentoff and Martin Williams and the composer Gunther Schuller, all of whom wrote for the magazine Jazz Review. "I honestly believe . . . that what Ornette Coleman is doing on alto will affect the whole character of jazz music profoundly and pervasively," Williams wrote, a month before Coleman opened at the Five Spot. Not all of Williams's colleagues shared his enthusiasm, once they were given the opportunity to hear Coleman for themselves. In Down Beat, George Hoefer described the reactions of the audience at a special press preview at the Five Spot: "Some walked in and out before they could finish a drink, some sat mesmerized by the sound, others talked constantly to their neighbors at the table or argued with drink in hand at the bar." Many critics, finding Coleman's music strident and incoherent, feared that his influence on jazz would be deleterious. Others doubted that he would exert any influence on jazz at all. Still others, bewildered by Coleman's music and preferring to take a wait-and-see position on its merits, accused Coleman's supporters at Jazz Review of touting Coleman for their own aggrandizement. Musicians‹always skeptical of newcomers, and envious of the publicity Coleman was receiving‹denounced him even more harshly than critics did. Some questioned his instrumental competence; the outspoken Miles Davis questioned Coleman's sanity. Internecine squabbling over the merits of historical movements and geographical schools was nothing new in the jazz world. But not since a short-lived vogue for the rather decrepit New Orleans trumpeter Bunk Johnson two decades earlier (and perhaps not even then) had one musician split opinion so cleanly down the middle. Coleman was either a visionary or a charlatan, and there was no middle ground between advocacy and disapproval. The controversy raged, spreading from the music journals to the daily newspapers and general-interest magazines, where it gradually turned comic. Every VIP in Manhattan, from Leonard Bernstein to Dorothy Kilgallen, seemed to have wisdom to offer on the subject of Ornette Coleman. In Thomas Pynchon's novel V. there is a character named McClintic Sphere, who plays an alto saxophone of hand-carved ivory (Coleman's was made of white plastic) at a club called the V Note 'He plays all the notes Bird missed,' somebody whispered in front of Fu. Fu went silently through the motions of breaking a beer bottle on the edge of the table, jamming it into the speaker's back and twisting. or those of us who began listening to jazz after 1959, it is difficult to believe that Coleman's music was once the source of such animus and widespread debate. Given the low visibility of jazz today, a figure comparable to Coleman arriving on the scene might find himself in the position of shouting "Fire" in an empty theater. Looking back, it also strains belief that so many of Coleman's fellow musicians initially failed to recognize the suppleness of his phrasing and the keening vox-humana quality of his intonation. Jazz musicians have always respected instrumentalists whose inflections echo the natural cadences of speech, and they have always sworn by the blues (although as jazz has increased in sophistication, "the blues" has come to signify a feeling or a tonal coloring, in addition to a specific form). Coleman's blues authenticity‹the legacy of the juke joints in his native Fort Worth, Texas, where he had played as a teenager‹should have scored him points instantly. Instead, his ragged, down-home sound seems to have cast him in the role of country cousin to slicker, more urbanized musicians‹as embarrassing a reminder of the past to them as a Yiddish speaking relative might have been to a newly assimilated Jew. In 1959 the "old country" for most black musicians was the American South, and few of them wanted any part of it. What must have bothered musicians still more than the unmistakable southern dialect of Coleman's music was its apparent formlessness, its flouting of rules that most jazz modernists had invested a great deal of time and effort in mastering. In the wake of bebop, jazz had become a music of enormous harmonic complexity. By the late 1950s it seemed to be in danger of becoming a playground for virtuosos, as the once liberating practice of running the chords became routine. If some great players sounded at times as though they lacked commitment and were simply going through the motions, it was because the motions were what they had become most committed to. In one sense, the alternative that Coleman proposed amounted to nothing more drastic than a necessary (and, in retrospect, inevitable) suppression of harmony in favor of melody and rhythm‹but that was regarded as heresy in 1959. It has often been said that Coleman dispensed with recurring chord patterns altogether, in both his playing and his writing. The comment is not entirely accurate, however. Rather, he regarded a chord sequence as just one of many options for advancing a solo. Coleman might improvise from chords or, as inspiration moved him, he might instead use as his point of departure "a mood, fragments of melody, an area of pitch, or rhythmic patterns," to quote the critic Martin Williams. Moreover, Coleman's decision to dispense with a chordal road map also permitted him rhythmic trespass across bar lines. The stealthy rubato of Coleman's phrases and his sudden accelerations of tempo implied liberation from strict meter, much as his penchant for hitting notes a quarter-tone sharp or flat and his refusal to harmonize his saxophone with Don Cherry's trumpet during group passages implied escape from the well-tempered scale. Ultimately, rhythm may be the area in which Coleman has made his most significant contributions to jazz. Perhaps the trick of listening to his performances lies in an ability to hear rhythm as melody, the way he seems to do, and the way early jazz musicians did. Some of Coleman's comeliest phrases, like some of King Oliver's or Sidney Bechet's, sound as though they were scooped off a drumhead. Coleman was hardly the only jazz musician to challenge chordal hegemony in 1959. John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, and Thelonious Monk, among others, were looking beyond Charlie Parker's harmonic discoveries to some of the rhythmic and structural implications of bop. Cecil Taylor and George Russell were experimenting with chromaticism and pantonality, and a Miles Davis Sextet featuring Coltrane and Bill Evans had just recorded Kind of Blue, an album that introduced a new spaciousness to jazz by replacing chords with modes and scales. But it was Coleman who was making the cleanest break with convention, and Coleman whose intuitive vision of the future bore the most natural relationship to the music's country origins. He was a godsend, as it turned out. n 1959 Coleman's music truly represented Something Else (to quote the title of his first album). Whether it also forecast The Shape of Jazz to Come (the title of another early album of Coleman's) is still problematical. Certainly Coleman's impact on jazz was immediate and it has proved long-lasting. Within a few years of Coleman's first New York engagement established saxophonists like Coltrane, Rollins, and Jackie McLean were playing a modified Colemanesque free form, often in the company of former Coleman sidemen. The iconoclastic bassist Charles Mingus (initially one of Coleman's antagonists) was leading a pianoless quartet featuring the alto saxophonist Eric Dolphy and the trumpeter Ted Curson, whose open-ended dialogues rivaled in abandon those of Coleman and Cherry. Over the years Coleman has continued to cast a long shadow, as he has extended his reach to symphonies, string quartets, and experiments in funk. By now he has attracted two generations of disciples. There are the original sidemen in his quartet and their eventual replacements: the trumpeters Cherry and Bobby Bradford; the tenor saxophonist Dewey Redman; the bassists Charlie Haden, Scott LaFaro, Jimmy Garrison, and David Izenzon; and the drummers Billy Higgins, Ed Blackwell, and Charles Moffett. These musicians were followed in the late 1970s by younger ones who brought to Coleman's bands the high voltage of rock and funk: for example, the guitarist James Blood Ulmer, the electric bassist Jamaaladeen Tacuma, and the drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson. Some of Coleman's early associates in Texas and California, such as the clarinetist John Carter and the flutist Prince Lawsha, have gone on to produce work that shows Coleman's influence unmistakably. Coleman planted the seed for the free jazz movement of the 1960s, which in turn gave rise to a school of European themeless improvisors, led by the guitarist Derek Bailey and the saxophonist Evan Parker. Since 1965 Coleman has performed on trumpet and violin in addition to alto and tenor saxophones, and several young violinists have taken him as their model: for example, Billy Bang, whose jaunty, anthemlike writing bespeaks his affection for Coleman. And for all practical purposes, the idea of collective group improvisation, which has reached an apex in the work of a number of groups affiliated with the Chicago-based Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, began with the partial liberation of bass and drums from chordal and timekeeping duties in the first Ornette Coleman Quartet. f one listens closely for them, one can hear Colemanesque accents in the most unlikely places: the maundering piano soliloquies of Keith Jarrett and the bickering, simultaneous improvisations of young hard-boppers like Wynton and Branford Marsalis. Yet for all that, Coleman's way has never really supplanted Charlie Parker's as the lingua franca to jazz, as many hoped and others feared it would. One reason could be that Coleman's low visibility has denied the jazz avant-garde a figurehead. Since his debut at the Five Spot, Coleman has set a price for concerts and recordings that reflects what he perceives to be his artistic merit rather than his limited commercial appeal. Needless to say, he has had very few takers. As a result, he performs only occasionally, and it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that he bears some responsibility for his own neglect. Just a few years ago it appeared that Coleman's star was on the rise again. In 1977 his former sidemen Cherry, Redman, Haden, and Blackwell formed a quartet called Old and New Dreams. Coleman compositions, old and new, accounted for roughly half of the group's repertoire. If the myth that Coleman had to be physically present in order for his music to be played properly persisted in some quarters, Old and New Dreams dispelled it once and for all. The band played Coleman's music with a joy and a sense of purpose that bore witness to Coleman's acuity as a composer. The success of Old and New Dreams showed that the music that had once been both hailed and reviled as the wave of the future had taken a firm enough hold in the past to inspire nostalgia. The rapture with which jazz audiences greeted the band's reinterpretation of vintage Coleman owed something to the fact that Coleman himself had moved on to other frontiers‹appearing with two electric guitarists, two bass guitarists, and two drummers in a band he called Prime Time. The group provided the working model for a cryptic (and, one suspects, largely after-the-fact) theory of tonality that Coleman called harmolodics. The theory held that instruments can play together in different keys without becoming tuneless or exchanging the heat of the blues for a frigid atonality. (As the critic Robert Palmer pointed out in the magazine The New York Rocker, Coleman's music had always been "harmolodic.") In practice the harmolodic theory functioned like a MacGuffin in a Hitchcock film: if you could follow what it was all about, good for you; if you couldn't, that wasn't going to hamper your enjoyment one iota. What mattered more than any amount of theorizing was that Coleman was leading jazz out of a stalemate, much as he had in 1959. He had succeeded in locating indigenous jazz rhythms that play upon the reflexes of the body the way the simultaneously bracing and relaxing polyrhythms of funk and New Wave rock-and-roll do. Unlike most of the jazz musicians who embraced dance rhythms in the 1970s, Coleman wasn't slumming or taking the path of least resistance in search of a mass following. Nonetheless, a modest commercial breakthrough seemed imminent in 1981, when he signed with Island Records and named Sid and Stanley Bernstein (the former is the promoter who brought the Beatles to Shea Stadium) as his managers. There is some disagreement among the principal parties about what happened next, but Coleman released only one album on the Island label. In 1983 he severed his ties with the Bernstein agency and once more went into a partial eclipse Lately the task of shedding Coleman's light has fallen to Ulmer, Tacuma, and Jackson. They have been no more successful than Coleman in attracting a mass audience, despite a greater willingness to accommodate public tastes‹and despite reams of hype from the intellectual wing of the pop-music press. When Coleman next emerges from the shadows, he may have discarded harmolodics in favor of some other invention. N the final analysis, Coleman's failure to redefine jazz as decisively as many predicted he would is more the result of the accelerated pace at which jazz was evolving before he arrived in New York than of his lack of activity afterward. During the fifty years prior to Coleman's debut a series of upheavals had taken jazz far from its humble folk beginnings and made of it a codified art music. It was as though jazz had imitated the evolution of European concert music in a fraction of the time. Just as the term "classical music" has come to signify European concert music of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the words "modern jazz" have become synonymous with the style of jazz originally called bebop. With Ornette Coleman, jazz established its permanent avant-garde‹a "new" that would always remain new. If one measures a player's influence solely by the number of imitators he spawns and veteran players who adopt aspects of his style (the usual yardstick in jazz), Coleman finishes among his contemporaries a distant third behind Davis and Coltrane. Yet his accomplishment seems somehow greater than theirs. Davis and Coltrane showed which elements of free form the jazz mainstream could absorb (modality, approximate harmonies, saxophone glossolalia, the sixteenth note as a basic unit of measurement, the use of auxiliary percussion and of horns once considered "exotic") and which elements it finally could not (variable pitch, free meter, collective improvisation). Coleman's early biography is replete with stories of musicians packing up their instruments and leaving the bandstand when he tried to sit in. If Coleman now showed up incognito at a jam session presided over by younger followers of Parker, Davis, and Coltrane, chances are he would be given the cold shoulder. Bebop seems to be invincible, though Coleman and other prophets without honor continue to challenge its hegemony. The bop revolution of the 1940s was a successful coup d'etat. The revolution that Ornette Coleman started is never wholly going to succeed or fail. Coleman's revolution has proved to be permanent. Its skirmishes have marked the emergence of jazz as a full-fledged modern art, with all of modernism's dualities and contradictions. o modern jazz record library is complete without the albums that Ornette Coleman recorded for Atlantic Records from 1959 to 1961, including The Shape of Jazz to Come (SD1317), Change of the Century (SD1327), This Is Our Music (SD1353),Free Jazz (SD1364), Ornette! (SD1378), and Ornette on Tenor (SD1394). Although most of them remain in print, the question arises why Atlantic has never re-issued its Coleman material in chronological order, complete with unissued titles and alternate takes. This seminal music merits such historical presentation. Coleman's recordings with Prime Time and its immediate precursors are Dancing in Your Head (A&M Horizon SP722), Body Mehta (Artists House AH-1), and Of Human Feelings (Island/ Antilles AN-2001). The group Old and New Dreams, which still exists as a part-time endeavor, has released three albums, including Playing (ECM-11205) and two titled Old and New Dreams on different labels (ECM-1-1154 and Black Saint BSR-0013). Other essential Coleman includes his album-length concerto for alto saxophone and orchestra, The Skies of America (Columbia KC-31562); his duets with the bassist Charlie Haden, Soap Suds (Artist House AH-6); and his best concert recordings, The Ornette Coleman Trio Live at the Golden Circle, Volumes 1 & 2 (Blue Note BST-84224 and BST-84225, available separately). The URL for this page is http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/198509/ornette-coleman.

Jazz From Blue Lake Thursday, April 19, 2007 10 p.m. Eastern Time Artist—Song Title – Album Title – Record Label Dizzy Gillespie All-Star Big Band—Morning of the Carnival—Dizzy’s Business—Manchester Craftsman’s Guild Roy Hargrove—A Day in Vienna, Salima’s Dance—Nothing Serious—Verve Jazz Datebook: www.bluelake.org/datebook.html Pat Metheny—A Day Away—Metheny/Meldau Quartet—Nonesuch Steve Talaga--Sun, Comet--Contemplating The Heavens--Talaga Music Jeff Newell’s New-Trad Octet—Stars & Stripes Forever—Brownstone—Blujazz Randy Crawford & Joe Sample—Feeling Good—Feeling Good—PRA Records 11 p.m. Maynard Ferguson—The Mark of Jazz—World’s Greatest Music---Roulette The Vanguard Jazz Orchestra—Frame For the Blues—The Way—Planet Arts Continuum—Lady Bird—Mad About Tadd—Quicksilver Jazz Datebook Frank Tiberi—Central Park West—4 Brothers 7—Jazzed Media John Coltrane—Greensleeves—Africa/Brass-Impulse Jeff Newell’s New-Trad Octet—Lamb’s March—Brownstone—Bluejazz 12 a.m. Slide Hampton’s World of Trombones—Cherokee, A Flower Is A Lovesome Thing – Spirit of the Horn—Manchester Craftsman Guild Maynard Ferguson—Stella By Starlight—Carnival—Columbia Alvin Batiste—Skylark—Honors Series—Marsalis Music David Fathead Newman—Old Folks—Life—High Note Ed Reed—Ask Me Now—Love Stories—Ed Reed (www.edreedsings.com) Thelonious Monk—Played Twice—5 By Monk By 5—Riverside Jazz Datebook 1 a.m. Sonny Sitt/J.J. Johnson—Teapot, Afternoon in Paris—Genesis—Prestige Slide Hampton—Precipice—Roots—Criss Cross Slide Hampton and the Jazz Masters—Bebop—Dedicated To Diz—Telarc Bill Hardman—Focus—Focus—Muse Dexter Gordon—Fried Bananas—Sophisticated Giant—Columbia Paris Reunion Band—Waltz—French Cooking—Gazelle Woody Shaw Concert Jazz Band—Obsequious—Two More Pieces of the Puzzle—32 Jazz 2 a.m. Rob Schneiderman—Time Waits—New Outlook—Reservoir Art Farmer—On the Plane, Lift Your Spirit High—Portrait of Art—Arabesque Woody Herman and Friends—Manteca—Monterey Jazz Festival 1979—Concord Joe Henderson—Inner Urge—Big Band—Verve Bill Charlap—Somebody Loves Me—The American Soul—Blue Note The Vanguard Jazz Orchestra—Dameron—The Way—Planet Arts Lazaro Vega Blue Lake Public Radio 300 East Crystal Lake Road Twin Lake MI 49457 WBLV FM 90.3 / WBLU FM 88.9 www.bluelake.org

Geez, how did I leave off Song X in the list of collaborations? In any case this isn't as much about Ornette not being recognized by the larger public as it is about his musical inroads reclaiming some central attention after 20 years away from the musical doors he's kicked open. Once you start talking about Ornette there comes the recognition of everything that's come after him because of him. As that one band says, "To Be Ornette To Be."

Jazz From Blue Lake Wednesday, April 18, 2007 10 p.m. Eastern Time Artist—Song Title – Album Title – Record Label Miles Davis—E.S.P.—Best of Miles Davis Quintet, 1965-68—Columbia Hal Galper—E.S.P.—Agents of Change—Fabola Miles Davis—Dear Old Stockholm—Selections from Davis/Trane—Columbia Hal Galper—Dear Old Stockholm—Agents of Change—Fabola Paul Carr—Pat and Chat—Just Noodlin’—Jazz Karma Records Jeff Darrohn—Royal Festival Blue—T-Bird ’60—Jazzed Media 11 p.m. Hal Galper—Zen—Furious Rubato—Origin Miles Davis Quintet—Milestones—Complete Charlie Parker—Savoy Hal Galper—Milestones—Furious Rubato—Origin Miles Davis—Miles Ahead—Miles Ahead—Columbia Hal Galper—Miles Ahead—Furious Rubato—Origin Wayne Escoffery—Looking Ahead—Veneration—Savant Mingus Big Band—Ecclusiastics—Live in Tokoyo—Sunnyside Kurt Elling—Tight—Night Moves--Concord 12 a.m. – Out On Blue Lake Cecil Taylor—Steps—Unit Structures—Blue Note Cecil Taylor and the Italian Instabile Orchestra—Movements 4 and 5—The Owner of the River Bank—Justin Time Ornette Coleman—Call To Duty, Once Only—Sound Grammar—Sound Grammar James Falzone—The Sign and the Thing Signified 2,S’egarer des pas,Akrasia—The Sign and the Thing Signified—Allos Documents 1 a.m. Hal Galper—Chromatic Fantasy—Furious Rubato—Origin John Coltrane—Naima—Heavy Weight Champion—Rhino Hal Galper—Naima—Furious Rubato—Origin Morrie Louden—624 Main Street—Time Piece—MoSound Anat Cohen and the Anzic Orchestra—Do It—Noir—Anzic Mark Helias Open Loose—Cinematic—Atomic Clock—Radio Legs Hank Jones—Woody N’ You—Groovin’ High—Muse Frank Wess—Liz—I Hear Ya Talkin’—Savoy Music of Thad Jones—The Summary—One More: The Summary—IPO 2 a.m. Hal Galper—Figurine—Furious Rubato—Origin Hal Galper—How Deep Is the Ocean—Agents of Change—Fabola Tchicai/Kohlhase/Fewell—Floating—Good Night Songs—Box Holder Lake/Tchicai/Osgood/Westergaard—Loop for Susan—Lake…--Passin’ Thru Alvin Batiste— Bat Trad—Honor Series—Marsalis Music Carl Allen&Rodney Whitaker—Inner City Blues—Get Ready—Mack Avenue Lazaro Vega Blue Lake Public Radio 300 East Crystal Lake Road Twin Lake MI 49457 WBLV FM 90.3 / WBLU FM 88.9 www.bluelake.org

Clem, There's a history here that you alluded to earlier. Ornette tried to promote/record his own music, often on his own dime -- the Town Hall concert, the Great London Concert, I believe a Carnegie Hall concert in the 1990's (not recorded but presenting "The Secret Life of Johnny Dolphin" and other new compositions) and how much of his time, sweat and money went into the Caravan of Dreams? While he's maybe not developed a scene the way William Parker has in the present, William's scene today would not be possible without the musical in roads Coleman made so many years ago. That, as they say, is priceless. It is so important to jazz that Coleman is up and touring again and that the touring has been extensive. Ornette at Newport, even. He has a publicity wagon behind him this time -- even appearing, for better or worse, on the Grammy Award telecast. This is all good. Ornette, God love him, hasn't shown much of a collaborative/freelance streak in his career, has he? There's that photo from the Newport Rebels Festival where he's playing with Kenny Dorham, Mingus and others; he appeared as a singer behind Louis Armstrong; and in the one shot we had to hear him alongside Jackie Mac he only played trumpet. There's never been a track record of the kind of thing you say he's not doing now. During the Jazz at Lincoln Center presentation a few years ago he was there, went to the rehearsals, but didn't play. You'd think, before collaborations with Anthony Braxon, who's in a different musical place these days, anyhoo, or Roscoe, that he'd appear with a big band playing his compositions as, at least, a special guest. If the forces that be, with all their backing and influence, can't persuade him to do that... It would be great for Ornette to develop a concert series, again, at his loft, but, wow, have you ever done anything like that? It is a huge load fraught with last minute changes and head aches to keep big pharma in business forever. It has been a while since "Friends and Neighbors on Prince Street," granted, but it's also been awhile since Dave Brubeck nurtured the scene in San Fransisco. You know what I mean? The prices quoted in this thread Herbie Hancock was getting 10 years ago.

Love this band. From Mark's e-mail blast: The 55 Bar - Located at 55 Christopher St. (Sixth/Seventh Avenue) New York ( 212 ) 929-9883 Wednesday April 18,2007 Mark Helias' Open Loose Late Show 10 pm Mark Helias - Bass, Tony Malaby - Sax, Tom Rainey - Drums "Without much fanfare, bassist Helias has been leading some great bands for more than a decade now. The latest edition of Open Loose features Tom Rainey's sonorous drums and Tony Malaby's sinewy tenor, and - as always - the emphasis is on supercharged, spur-of-the-moment interplay." -Davis, Village Voice http://www.markhelias.com for more info

Jazz From Blue Lake Tuesday, April 17, 2007 10 p.m. Eastern Time Artist—Song Title – Album Title – Record Label Gene Ammons/Sonny Stitt—Blues Up and Down—All Star Sessions—Prestige Gene Ammons—Walkin’—Greatest Hits of the ‘50’s—Prestige Billy Eckstine—Blowin’ The Blues Away—Together—Spotlight Billy Eckstine—Rhythm in a Riff—Mr. B. and His Band—Savoy Gene Ammons—My Foolish Heart, Jughead Ramble—Young Jug—Chess Woody Herman—More Moon—Greatest Hits—Capital Steve Grossman/Harold Land—Vierd Blues—I’m Confessin’—Dreyfus Ari Hoenig—Anthropology—Inversations—Dreyfus Hod O’Brien—If You Could See Me Now—Live at Blues Alley, 3rd Set—Reservoir Scott Whitfield—Sugar—Speaking of Love—Summit 11 p.m. Albert Ammons—St. Louis Blues, Shufflin’ the Boogie – 1946-48—Classics Gene Ammons—Stringin’ The Jug—All Star Sessions—Prestige Gene Ammons—Funky—Greatest Hits of the 50’s—Prestige Mingus Big Band—Prayer For Passive Resistance—Live in Tokoyo—Sunnyside Jeff Newell’s New-Trad Octet—Lamb’s March—Brownstone—Blu Jazz Alvin Batiste—Everlovin’ Star—Honors Series—Marsalis Music Bob Florence Limited Edition—Invitation—Eternal Licks and Grooves—Mama Typhanie Moniuqe/Neal Alger—Beautiful Love—In This Room—Tymoni 12 a.m. Bennie Green—Soul Stirrin’—Soul Stirrin’—Blue Note Gene Ammons—Blue Velvet—The Boss is Back—Prestige Gene Ammons—Angel Eyes—Greatest Hits of the 60’s—Prestige Roger Kellaway—Killer Joe—Heroes—IPO Thad Jones—Tip Toeing—Minor Strain—Roulette Jazz Frank Vignola—Fascinating Rhythm—Plays Gershwin—Mel Bay Phil Bodner—Between The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea—Once More with Feeling—Arbors Frank Foster’s Loud Minority—Cecilia Is Love—Well Water—Piadrum Sachal Vasandani—A Flower Is Lovesome Thing—Eyes Wide Open—Mack Avenue 1 a.m. Gene Ammons—Things Ain’t What They Used to Be—Late Hour Special—Prestige Gene Ammons—Confirmation—Boss Tenor—Prestige Gene Ammons/Dodo Marmarosa—You’re Driving Me Crazy—Jug and Dodo—Prestige Gene Ammons—Lush Life—Night Lights—Prestige Thomas Marriott—Sky Dive—Both Sides of the Fence—Origin Ornette Coleman—Sleep Talking—Sound Grammar-Sound Grammar Myra Melford—Fear Slips Behind—The Image of Your Body—Cryptogramaphone Abrams/Mitchell/Lewis—Scrape—Streaming—Pi Recordings 2 a.m. John Abercrobmie—Round Trip—Third Quartet—ECM Anat Fort—Redhaired—Long Story—ECM Thomas Chapin Trio—Changes Two Tires—Ride—Playscape Gene Ammons—Ca’Parange—Greatest Hits Vol 1, the 60’s—Prestige Gene Ammons—The Jungle Boss, Jungle Strut—Greatest Hits, the 70’s—Prestige Gene Ammons/Sonny Stitt—You Talk that Talk—Legends of Acid Jazz—Prestige Gene Ammons—Round Midnight—Brasswind—Prestige Gene Ammons—Someone To Watch Over Me—Gentle Jug—Prestige Lazaro Vega Blue Lake Public Radio 300 East Crystal Lake Road Twin Lake MI 49457 WBLV FM 90.3 / WBLU FM 88.9 www.bluelake.org

The only recourse now is to write your congressmen. Sound Exchange is. They have e-mail alerts set up on their site and are trying to convince people to send out e-mail blasts. This grass roots messaging does work.

Blue Lake will no doubt pay the $500. Our web stream is limited to 70 or 75 users at any one time and has never maxed out -- it certainly doen't during jazz at night when the on-line audience on a good night is around 20. The problem with this, pepsi-Lynch, is the cost. The new regs are cost prohibitive if you build a large audience for the programming, which used to be the point. It is no longer the point of internet transmissions. Ass backwards. The entire "problem" revolves around the erroneous assumption that web stream radio tranmissions are a music delivery system, as in everyone who listens is using the system to download and store music, which led to rules where station's can't play more than four selections by a featured artist in a three hour period, post their playlists in advance, or otherwise do what radio has always done. And now the station's are being charged as if everyone who listens is actually a buyer. The "recording industry" has been trying to do this at least since cassette tapes and they finally found lawmakers who are more concerned with business than the audience which fuels it. Nothing about the regulation of web streaming music has benefited music or it's audience, though there's nothing wrong with artists being paid for their productions. Artists, however, will not be the big winners here if radio just says to hell with streaming. Limiting choices, again. Today's America.

Jazz From Blue Lake Tuesday, April 11, 2007 10 p.m. Theme: Bennie Green—Blow Your Horn—Bennie Green—Decca Count Basie—Two Franks—16 Men Swinging—Verve Frank Foster/Frank Wess—An’ All Such Stuff As Dat—Frankly Speaking—Concord Frank Foster Loud Minority—Joy Spring—Well Water—Piadrum Alvin Batiste—Skylark—Honors Series—Marsalis Music Kurt Elling—I Like the Sunrise—Nightmoves—Bluenote Terrell Stafford—Jesus Loves Me—Taking Chances—Max Jazz Sachal Vasandani—Send Them Up To Heaven—Eyes Wide Open—Mack Avenue 11 p.m. Count Basie—Shiny Stockings—April In Paris—Verve Frank Foster—Red—Here Comes Frank Foster—Blue Note Donald Byrd—Winterset—Long Green—Savoy Pepper Adams—How I Spent the Night—Adams Effect—Uptown Bobby Broom—Can’t Buy Me Love—Song and Dance—Origin Wynton Marsalis—Supercapitalism—From the Plantation to the Penitentiary—Blue Note Stryker/Slagle Band—Self Portrait in Three Colors—Latest Outlook--Zoho 12 a.m. Out On Blue Lake Ornette Coleman—Call To Duty—Sound Grammar—Sound Grammar Conference Call—29 Shoes—Live at the Outpost Performance Space—482 Music Conference Call—Variations on a Theme by Claude Debussy—Variations on a Master Plan—Leo Brian Groder—Diverging Orbits—Torque—Latham Records Natsuki Tamura/Satoko Fujii—How Many—How Many—Leo Records Anker/Taborn/Cleaver—The Hierophant—Tryptych—Leo Records 1 a.m. The Jazz Datebook Frank Foster—Leo Rising—Leo Rising-Arabesque Frank Foster Loud Minority—Simone—Well Water—Piadrum Frank Foster—Dissaproachment—Fearless Frank Foster—Prestige Joe Zawinul—Black Market—Brown Street—Heads Up Brian Bromberg—Chameleon—Downright Upright—Artistry Music Will Bernard—Share the Sea—Party Hats-Palmetto David Murray—How Will I Get Over—Speaking In Tongues—Justin Time 2 a.m. Count Basie—Jumpin’ at the Woodside, Swingin’ The Blues—Best of Basie—Roulette Count Basie—The Comeback—Live at Newport—Verve Frank Foster/Frank Wess—Two For the Blues—Two For the Blues—Pablo Frank Foster Lous Minority—Well Water—Well Water—Piadrum Elmo Hope—Crazy, Chips—Trio/Quintet—Blue Note George Wallington—Baby Grand, Festival—Wallington and His Band—Blue Note Julius Watkins—I Have Known, Leete—Vol. 1 & 2—Blue Note Lazaro Vega Blue Lake Public Radio 300 East Crystal Lake Road Twin Lake MI 49457 WBLV FM 90.3 / WBLU FM 88.9 www.bluelake.org

Jazz From Blue Lake Sunday, April 14, 2007 7 p.m. John Fedchock—Up and Running—Up and Running—Reservoire Striker/Slagel Band—Latest Outlook—Latest Outlook—Zoho Larry Willis—Nardis—Blue Fable—High Note Wynton Kelly—Kelly Blue—Kelly Blue—Prestige Kurt Elling—New Body and Soul—Nightmoves—Concord Jeff Darrohn—The Chase—T-Bird ’60—Jazzed Media Anat Cohen—Do It—Anzic Orchestra—Anzic 8 p.m. Bucky and John Pizzarelli – I’ll Remember April—Generations—Arbors Norah Jones—Sinkin’ Slow—Too Late Now—Blue Note Harry Connick, Jr. – New Orleans—Chason du Vieux Carre—Marsalis Music Ira Nepis/Steve Moore—The Romp, I’m in the Mood for Swing—Another Time/Another Place—Jazzed Media Benny Carter—I Can’t Get Started—The Three C’s—Sackville Hod O’Brien—Double Talk—Live at Blues Alley 3rd Set—Reservoir Howard McGhee—Lo-Flame, Fluid Drive—Introducing Kenny Drew Trio—Blue Note Wynton Marsalis—These Are Soulful Days—From the Plantation to the Penitentiary—Blue Note 9 p.m. Tchicai/Kohlhase/Fewell—Start to Finish—Good Night Music—Boxholder John Abercrombie—Round Trip—Third Quartet—ECM Ornette Coleman—Turnaround—Sound Grammar—Sound Grammar Exploding Star Orchestra—Sting Ray and the Beginning of Time Part 4—We Are All From Somewhere Else—Thrill Jockey Kahil El’Zabar’s Ritual Trio—Freedom Flexibility—Delmark Wayne Escoffery—Bee Vamp—Veneration—Savant Michael Musillami’s Dialect—Brooms—Fragile Forms—Playscape Records Lazaro Vega Blue Lake Public Radio 300 East Crystal Lake Road Twin Lake MI 49457 WBLV FM 90.3 / WBLU FM 88.9 www.bluelake.org

This is great news. Recognize Ornette!

April 13, 2007 The Jazz Datebook: Mondays from 7 to 10 p.m. jazz fusion bands Groove Merchant and Adams Apple alternate at The Intersection, 133 Grandville Ave. S.W., Grand Rapids. Phone (616) 451-8232. Mondays from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. The What Not Inn features a jam session open to musicians and vocalists and featuring local, regional and international jazz musicians as a “house” band. No cover charge. www.whatnotinn.com. The What Not Inn is located at M89 and the Blue Star Highway, 2405 68th Street, Fennville, MI. (269) 543-3341. Every Tuesday and Friday there’s jazz in Ada during the dinner hour (6 to 9 p.m.), with trumpeter/vocalist/entertainer Sweet Willie Singleton at the Thornapple Daily Grill, 445 Ada Drive, Ada, MI. (616) 676-1233. www.thegilmorecollection.com/Thornapple/thornapple.html Wednesdays from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Sweet Willie Singleton plays trumpet, sings and entertains at Bite Piano Bar and Restaurant, 151 Ottawa Avenue, in the Waters Building, downtown Grand Rapids. Wednesdays, 7:00 to 10:00 p.m., Rick Reuther sings at Notos Italian Restaurant, 6600 28th St. S.E., Grand Rapids. Rick Reuther plays with drummer Cherie Lynn and pianist Tom Hagen. See http://www.notosoldworld.com/ or www.rickreuthersings.com Thursdays from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. Sweet Willie Singleton is heard at Gill’s Blue Crab Lounge in The B.O.B., 20 Monroe Ave. N.W., Grand Rapids. Every Thursday at 8 p.m. ‘Til Midnight in Holland features live jazz in the dining room. Thursdays, April 19th, jazz with the trumpeter Chris Lawrence's Trio; April 26th, Jazz Ave; May 3rd, jazz with blue Coast Quartet; Sunday, May 6th, Jazz Brunch 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.; Thursday, May 10th, jazz with Junior Valentine; Sunday, May 13th, Jazz Brunch from 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.; Thursdays, May 17th, jazz with tenor saxophonist Michael Doyle and Evidence; May 24th, jazz with Moments Notice. ‘Till Midnight, 171 East 24th Street, Holland. For more information, (616) 392 – 6883 or www.tillmidnight.biz . Fridays and Saturdays from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. live local jazz at The Grand Seafood and Oyster Bar, 24 Washington St., Grand Haven. Live local jazz or blues guitarists on Wednesday evenings from 8 to 11 p.m. (616) 844- 5055. Friday evenings live jazz at Two Tonys Taverna Grille, 711 E. Savage, Spring Lake, 616-844-0888. Saturdays from 7 to 11 p.m. Restaurant Toulouse, 246 Culver Street, Saugatuck, features live jazz. (269) 857 – 1561. Sundays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Pumpernickels, 202 Butler St., Saugatuck, pianist Jim Cooper plays music of George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Richard Roger and Lorenz Hart. Fridays jazz and other music at The Grand Rapids Art Museum, Lyon and Division, downtown Grand Rapids. See www.gramonline.org for more information. Music heard Fridays from 6:15-8:15 p.m.: Friday, April 20th, Jr. Valentine and the All Stars; April 27th, vocalist Rick Ruether; May 11th, The Dave Colley Quartet with Ginnie Dusseau; May 18th vocalist Mary Rademacher. Saturday, April 14th at 8 p.m. the Truth in Jazz Orchestra appears at the Thornapple Arts Council Jazz Festival in Hastings. Then, Tuesday, April 17th, The Truth in Jazz Orchestra wails at the West Side Inn, Beidler St., Muskegon. The sixteen piece big band led by bassist/bass trombonist Dave Collee features a swinging book and regular guests such as drummer Tim Froncek and trumpeter Dan Jacobs. See their web site: www.tijo.org . Monday, April 16th at 6:30 p.m. the West Michigan Jazz Society presents the next Jazz Gumbo Showcase concert with Francesca Amari and the Mark Kahny Trio featuring Michael Holmes as Judy Garland in a program called “Girl Swingers” held at The Kopper Top Guest House, 634 Stocking NW, Grand Rapids. Phone (616) 458 – 0125. Wednesday, April 18th at 8 p.m. pianist George Winston (www.georgewinston.com) appears in a benefit for the Inner City Christian Federation at the Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park. Dinner at 6 p.m. with the solo performance at 8 p.m. Winston’s recent recording, “Gulf Coast Blues and Impressions” is dedicated to New Orleans and features compositions of Henry Butler, James Booker, Professor Longhair and Doctor John amongst others. Tickets for both the dinner and concert at $125; $60 for the concert alone; $35 for concert only student tickets. Phone (616) 336 – 9333 ext. 118 or e-mail concert@iccf.org. Monday April 16th, Tuesday April 17th and Wednesday April 18th at 7:30 p.m. the Hope College jazz ensembles appear in a series of concerts on campus. On the 16th the Contemporary Ensemble and vocal jazz groups appear; on the 17th three groups share the stage: the Blue Note, Verve and Vanguard Ensembles. Both concerts take place in the Wichers Auditorium of the Nykerk Hall of Music. Then on the 18th the Jazz and Mainstream Ensembles appear in Dimnent Memorial Chapel. Admission is free to all three concerts is free. Wednesday, April 18th from 7 to 9:30 p.m. The 21 piece Beltline Big Band presents a big band dance at The Peninsular Club (Ottawa and Fountain Street, downtown Grand Rapids). Tickets $7 at the door. (616) 459 – 3261. www.beltlinebigband.com. Friday, April 20th at 8 p.m. pianist Steve Talaga leads a nine piece instrumental ensemble in a program of original music inspired by Linda Nemec Foster’s book of poems “Contemplating the Heavens.” Foster will read her poems between each movement of the suite. Blue Lake’s Lazaro Vega wrote liner notes for the CD version of “Contemplating the Heavens.” The performance takes place at Kretschmer Recital Hall, Art and Music Center, Aquinas College, Grand Rapids. Tickets are $7 at the door, $5 for students. Information from www.aquinas.edu/music or by calling (616) 632 – 2413. Friday, April 20th at 7:30 p.m. the Northview High School Jazz ensemble is joined by trumpeter Sweet Willie Singleton (recently featured “Live From Blue Lake”) at the Northview Performing Arts Center, 4451 Hunsberger N.E., Grand Rapids. Tickets are $5 for adults, $3 for students. Friday, April 20th at 8 p.m. The Ying Quartet (www.esm.rochester.edu/faculty/?id=19) with special guests Satoshi Takeishi (percussion) and Patrick Zimmerli (saxophone) perform their rare blend of improvised jazz and composed classical music at Dalton Center Recital Hall, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo. The program includes music by Samuel Barber and Michael Torke. For information The Fontana Chamber Arts phone number is (269) 382 – 7774 of on-line via www.fontanachamberarts.org. Sunday, April 22nd at 4 p.m. a swing revue called “Steppin’ Out” featuring vocalists Mary Rademacher and Rick Reuther with accompanist Tom Hagen at Unity Church of Peace, 6025 Ada Drive S.E., Ada. $15 with reception following the concert. Monday, April 23rd The Grand Rapids Jazz Orchestra appears at The Kopper Top Guest House, 634 Stocking N.W., Grand Rapids, at 7:30 p.m. $3. Wednesday, April 25th at 7:30 p.m. Cornerstone University’s Fine Arts Division presents the Jazz Band and Percussion Ensemble’s spring concert in the Corum Student Union, Cornerstone University, 1001 East Beltline Avenue, Grand Rapids. The concert is free and families are welcome. Thursday, April 26th at 7:30 p.m. Organissimo (www.organissimo.org) performs at a fundraiser for the Holland Habitat for Humanity. The performance takes place at Macatawa Band, 141 East 8th Street, Holland. See www.lakeshorehabitat.org. Friday, April 28th at 8 p.m. the Jim Cooper Trio with Cooper, vibes, Darrel Tidaback, bass, and Mike Van Lente, drums, appears a the Saugatuck Center for the Arts Performance Studio, Saugatuck. Phone (269) 857 – 2399 or on-line www.sc4a.org. Friday, April 28th at 7 p.m. the 21-piece Beltline Big Band plays a dinner-dance at the Middle Villa Inn, Middleville (www.middle-villa-inn.com). Tickets for dinner and dancing, $22.95. Just dancing, $8. RSVP (616) 891 – 1287. Also see www.beltlinebigband.com . Tuesday, May 15th at 7:30 p.m. the Musekgon Community Concert Association presents the “Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra” at the Frauenthal Theater, Muskegon. The Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra is directed since 2002 by Bill Tole, the jazz trombonist from Pittsburg who’s recorded with Ella Fitzgerald, Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra amongst others. See www.billtole.com or www.jimmydorseyorchestra.com for more on the current version of the swing band. Tickets are $15 to $20 and available via Star Tickets Plus from 1-800-585-3737 or at the Frauenthal Box Office Monday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

From the Chicago Improv list: http://www.chicagocityarts.com/ > Chicago City Arts Gallery is honored to exhibit a series of eight > lithographs combined with an accompanying six-CD limited edition box > set by Bill Dixon, one of the great composers and instrumentalists in > contemporary improvised jazz for some 40+ years now. *Chicago City > Arts Gallery will produce Bill Dixon's first ever Chicago concert in > the second week of July *, giving you the opportunity to hear his > unique genius in person. Bill will also teach a master class and give > an in-gallery lecture about his art and his experience of working in > both music and the visual arts at a high level for many years. and from Dan Melnick: http://www.soundslope.com/blog/convergence > The first appearance will be a concert on Wednesday, July 11... I hear > the concert will feature Ken Vandermark and Michael Zerang. *** There > will be a second Bill Dixon show here in Chicago, in an intriguing > setting and format, later in the summer.

Up for tonight, the grand finale of Live From Blue Lake: Sweet Willie Singleton's Quintet with special guest Ronnie Gardiner, the American ex-pat drummer (Sweden) who appears on "My Name Is Albert Ayler" among many others. Mel Dalton, tenor saxophone; Paul Lizinski, piano; Dave Hay, bass. Singleton is from Baton Rouge, LA, originally, and moved into Grand Rapids in the 1990's following a series of concerts there with the Louisiana Repertory Jazz Ensemble. He was an understudy of Clark Terry and played in both the Ellington and Basie "ghost" bands.

Great night. Barry Altschul mentioned he's recording a reunion with Dave Holland and Sam Rivers on May 25th, and that he just finished a duo session with Anthony Braxton. His ability to keep the form, no matter how far it stretches, makes this band. Just makes it. He (and Hillard Green on bass) lay down a groove of shifting textures and rhythmic patterns that will at times go completely free, yet mostly are highly creative within a structure, which allows the horns to blow their minds out in front of them. Barry's command of rudiments makes him accurate and precise within the freer flow of things. As an ensemble they embrace a lot of information. Hilliard's obviously classically trained. They'll delve into textural oriented improv, play sections oriented towards European classical music, hit patches of composed material, and do what Swell reports the people in Boston are now calling "lower case." (?) Whatever, it was fun. Good to see everyone, too, and hang in such an informal setting. Set Lists: 1st Set -- Improvisation Kleine Figuren #3 (Ullman) Planet Hopping On A Thursday Afternoon (Swell) 2nd Set -- Improvisation Seven 9/8 (Ullman) For Grachen (Swell)

Filed the CIMP cd under Ullman's name. Gebhard's big band music on Soul Note, as well as Basement Research and the various trio records he came out with recently, and the duo on Leo with Chris Dalgren, chart a wide array of approaches.

Glad to hear this winter weather isn't in Grand Rapids. The band's leaving Ann Arbor about 1:30 -- should be smooth sailin' on 96. Out here on the lakeshore it snowed like mad this morning. "I'm dreaming of a white Easter...." Have John Erskine from the Hope College Recording Arts Center ready to capture tonight's performance for future broadcast on Blue Lake. Very much looking forward to seeing everyone. Hey Werf, where do you park for Hugo's place?

Monday April 9 Gunda Gottschalk - solo violin Bohemian National Home 3009 Tillman Detroit, MI 48216 313.737.6606 Wuppertal based violinist Gunda Gottschalk performs solo improvisations. Gunda well known for her work with the late Peter Kowald and makes her triumphant return to Detroit. Admission is $5-10 and doors are at 8:00 pm Tuesday April 10 – Gunda Gottschalk solo and duets with Mike Khoury WHFR.FM Wuppertal based violinist Gunda Gottschalk returns to Detroit with a live streaming audio performance on Pat Frisco's Spirits Rejoice radio show. Gunda will perform solo works and in duet with Mike Khoury. Tune in online at 7:30 PM EST.

http://www.dextergordon.com/

Up for this Saturday, and Blue Lake Public Radio will be featuring them tonight, 4-3-07, at midnight "Out On Blue Lake." www.bluelake.org

From Michigan Improv: (begin forwarded message) A great radio program has been lost for those who live in the S.E. MI. area. W. Kim Heron's Sunday night program on WDET has been canceled. Station management has decided that it needs to promote its news and information. I hope that the mich improv list would go to wdetfm.org and send an email to the management to register a complaint. Kim's program will really be missed, he did a outstanding service by promoting creative music in the area and by allowing musicians a performance outlet with his live in the studio programs. This was a great outreach service that WDET has now abandoned. I encourage the readers of this list to register a complaint. Go to wdetfm.org, click on the Contact Us menu.

Recently spoke to the author of that Tommy Dorsey biography, Livin' in a Great Big Way, and he notes that the Dorseys had upwards of 250 hit records between them through-out their careers. Not all #1's, but in the top lists of radio play and sales. Not all were vocals, but many were, and that was the most commercial of all the big bands. The rise of singers popularity after WWII is a well documented trend which was shaped as much by economics and changing tastes, the eventual advent of television and the closing down of the theater circuits and ballrooms, as it was by the choices jazz musicians made.

Our pleasure. Thanks for listening. The boys sweat blood tonight.

Trombonist Steve Swell's Quartet with Gebhard Ullman tenor saxophone/bass clarinet; Hilliard Green, bass; Barry Altschul, drums, in Grand Rapids, MI, Saturday, April 7th at 8 pm, at Mexicains Sans Frontieres , 120 S Division Av # 226, Grand Rapids MI, 49503, tel 616-706-7963. All ages, $10. http://home.earthlink.net/~sdswell/