clifford_thornton

see, that's what I thought and then I talked myself out of it.

Amen, brother.

Yeah, I assume Shepp didn't pick the title for that record, though I'm not totally sure. Early Shepp was far from bluster - lots of interesting arrangements on that & other records, certainly he was a fan of George Russell's work (Dixon assisted Russell as a copyist to help make ends meet), which you can hear especially on the first side of F. M. I'm sure you're right about Debussy, Schoenberg, Webern, Berg - less well-versed in early 20th. c. composers.

inane/manufactured as it might be, the discourse on "free jazz" certainly seems to posit a narrative of the '60s, based for the most part around The Father, The Son & The Holy Ghost (Coltrane, Pharoah, Ayler), Ornette and Cecil. Exploring what else was out there, in Chicago, the West Coast, Europe, Japan and elsewhere is quite interesting and shows that the landscape was much more varied. Then again, as much as I really still enjoy picking up As Serious As Your Life, it's hard to imagine a book on free music of that era being written without the initial focal points of Coltrane, Ayler, Sun Ra, the AACM and CT. I mean, I'd love to read one on Dixon, the Bleys, Archie Shepp, Horace Tapscott and Smiley Winters, but it seems like you've gotta have both the well-known and the obscure to really see how and where the chips fell.

Re: European free music, I wonder how the narrative would've been different if Dixon/Silva made that UK tour in 1964-5? Didn't come through because of the British one-for-one laws, apparently Tubby Hayes was supposed to play gigs in NYC but it all fell apart. Yep, that's what I was referring to. Interesting tidbit, huh?

(my bolding) - yes, that is very true. Of course, Dixon was very fond of Ayler's music, and his solo trumpet work is some of the freest music I've ever heard (because it's so damn singular). His work is extremely emotional, frighteningly so, but in a way that hits you very differently than, say, Shepp would or Babi Music or something along those lines. I think one has also to think of Bill's work visually rather than purely sonically. He was an abstract painter and organized sound in a way that aligns itself with large-scale color field paintings. Favorite art quote ever, from Bill, when I said her work seemed to be enjoying a resurgence of critical attention: "when was Lee Bontecou ever not hip??" Then again I'm of the mind that some of the most directly-linked music to Ayler's Spiritual Unity is the SME of Stevens & Watts (Face To Face, Birds of a Feather et al), and I think most people tend to disagree... so what do I know?

If you've spent any time with the volatile political-critical environment of the 1960s, you'll know that white musicians were often viewed as inauthentic thieves in many circles. Some might have been. Many were not. Does one have to be Black to play Black Music? This is something Bill and others raised often at the critical, musical and educational level (Bill founded and taught in the Black Music Division at Bennington College). I think it's interesting food for thought, and being reactionary doesn't really help us learn more. I can tell you for a fact that people like Burton Greene got the short end of the stick from Black critics for being a white, Jewish free improviser and thus "inauthentic." Sure, he was valued as a collaborator by Black musicians like Marion Brown, Pharoah Sanders, Sam Rivers, Alan Silva, Rashied Ali and Henry Grimes, but on the political end that did not matter. "The Burton Greene Affair" from DownBeat still haunts him, and that's probably the most significant US press he received in the first twenty years of his career. Not that I don't understand the reasoning behind it from a critical "line in the sand" perspective, but it's important to consider. I can also tell you that Gordon Emmanuel, a white vibraphonist who was raised by a Black family in South Chicago, was barred from the AACM in the late '60s once the organization structured itself as a Black music/arts collective. Emmanuel identified as socioeconomically coming from the same place, but on the surface (racially) that wasn't what the organization wanted/needed at the time. It created a fairly big rift, as a matter of fact. There have been theses on the Guild but no definitive text and with a number of the participants gone, it's hard to say whether that'll happen. The Guild's members were Bill Dixon, Archie Shepp, Cecil Taylor, Sun Ra, Paul and Carla Bley, Jon Winter, Burton Greene, Mike Mantler, John Tchicai, Roswell Rudd, and overtures were made to Coltrane and Ornette. I thought Silva was a member but there's been some lack of clarity on that. The Guild sponsored concerts for which not all of the performers were members, but I think one performer had to be associated with the Guild. Uh, I knew Bill Dixon quite well and can verify that he felt this way. Spent HOURS talking with him about this. I.e. people "viewed" him as "less black," not that he was... That's my point: people viewed him as "less black," but he did not himself. Yet here, that argument is resurrected by the OP by opposing him to Archie Shepp and noting "Dixon's music has far fewer explicit spiritual or ethnocentric overtones." That seems to be the argument Dixon was pushing back against. more complicated than that. I have some thoughts that are hard to organize while at work, so will try to post them later.

Uh, I knew Bill Dixon quite well and can verify that he felt this way. Spent HOURS talking with him about this. I.e. people "viewed" him as "less black," not that he was...

^ totally. I'd check out a lot more of the obscure S-E titles if they weren't $200+. The Mtume Umoja is definitely worth spending ducats on - it's a wonderful album. Folk Mond is a nice record. Got the original German CBS for cheap years ago, and in good nick.

Excellent - I have it on a Dutch CBS LP (rather ratty, need to upgrade).

Nice one yeah, finally picked it up recently for fairly cheap. It's far more compelling than I'd expected, excellent date.

Thanks Karl. Dixon and the Guild really haven't been talked about enough. To paraphrase things Bill said to me, he felt that black musicians/critics thought of him as "too white" but being a black musician necessarily meant that he was always going to be too "black" for the white/European avant-garde. Of course being a painter, professor and writer - while I think it made him a more compelling human being - actually seemed to confuse people and work against him critically. Bummer. Ben Young's Dixonia book is essential reading if you want to follow that thread. Part of the challenge with the guild had to do with its diversity - figures allied with Black Nationalism (Shepp and Ra - Ra in perhaps a different way) rubbing elbows with white musicians like the Bleys, Greene, Mantler, Rudd, Jon Winter, etc. At the time, as Bill has said, "the white musicians weren't faring much better than the black musicians" - but no matter, being white certainly gave you a pass with club owners and record labels that being black did not allow. The guild wasn't unimportant at the time, and musicians who were NOT part of it have tried to lay claim to being in it - Milford, Marion Brown, Rashied Ali - there definitely was and still is some cache to being part of that first wave. At least George Lewis acknowledges it as being fundamental to the creation of the AACM (my understanding was that Bill at least was rather guarded about the AACM and BAG in terms of their aesthetic and political viability, if not outright dismissive). I don't know Levin's lineage but I believe he's Jewish. Nice man, fascinating artist. He lives in Malaysia where he has worked as a psychologist for many years. Among Bill's other students at the time of the late '60s, also white (and also obscure), were saxophonist/clarinetist Ed Curran, drummer Cleve (Robert Frank) Pozar, and trumpeter Ric Colbeck. Colbeck was British, Pozar is from Minnesota and I think Curran is a New Yorker, though he now lives out West. You might also recognize Pozar's name from his fantastic recordings with Bob James, when he was in his "free" period. I'll try to think of more to add to this. These guys all came into Bill's orbit after the dissolution of the Guild.

Sonny Fortune - Long Before Our Mothers Cried - (Strata-East)

This is a great record. Nice to see there are extra tracks from the sessions.

Oscar Wilde James Joyce Patrick Swift

I liked the Koons a lot, very well organized and paced. His stuff is ridiculous and cynical but sometimes I appreciate the audacity of it. PS1 had really nice shows of German painter Maria Lessnig and American performance/fluxus-related artist James Lee Byars up recently, as well as a Persian Gulf collective of artists aptly/ironically called the GCC, which was very odd.

#1: don't know Scofield's discography so can't help here... #2: Reminds me a bit of Ken Hyder's Talisker. Some of the trills sound Surman-esque but I doubt it's him. Maybe it is. #3: Not sure. Is this overdubbed or four distinct players? #4: band is 4 Corners (Vandermark, Broo, Lane, Nilssen-Love). Not sure of the track title offhand but I recognize the band. #5: A Mal date I'm not familiar with. Maybe Ricky Ford on tenor? #6 Not a clue. #7 Sounds a bit like Bluiett, though if it's Pepper's tune part of me wants to say Ronnie Cuber. Not 100% here (though I'm terrible at BFTs). Excellent playing though I agree the piece wanders a bit. #8 Perhaps Joe Malinga, though I don't think it's on one of the records in my collection (which all have piano). #9 yeah, Peter Warren is happening. Nice choice. #10 sounds like a more reigned-in Don Pullen on piano. Is that Cecil Bridgewater on trumpet? Saxophonist has shades of Murray and Rivers but I'm blanking, very familiar vibe. #11. Not sure - not really my thing. Nice BFT, thanks.

I guess Peter Warren is in New York still, though not active. I have that Japo album - good stuff. Bass Is, on Enja, is wonderful.

I've seen it online but not on the big screen. Fascinating film.

Notes by Amiri Baraka - probably among his last writings, I would think.

wow. And I'm still catching up with the newest reissues - you're on a roll!

yeah that was my understanding too. Sorry to hear about your friend, Steve.

Was unable to attend last night - friend's art opening, another friend visiting town - but am glad to hear it was good. That World of Objects CD is excellent.

yeah, he's incredible. Amen to all mentioned above. Brian Drye is a fine player too, on the inside/outside spectrum. I was impressed by Jacob Garchik recently too. Samuel Blaser I've liked in the past, "cooler" approach, but ended up passing a lot of those discs on recently (just. too. much.)