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Mark Stryker
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I have not kept up with the logisitics of the law since writing this story 10 years ago, but thought the board might find the particulars in this case interesting. Armstrong, by the way, did eventually win settlements in this suit. He did well, though the specifics were protected.
AUGUST 23, 1998 Sunday METRO FINAL EDITION
NO FREE SAMPLES A DETROIT JAZZ MUSICIAN SUES AFTER SNIPPETS OF HIS SONG ARE USED TO MAKE A RAP RECORD AND SELL SHOES
BYLINE: MARK STRYKER Free Press Music Writer
SECTION: FEATURES; Pg. 1L
LENGTH: 1445 words
It was early April 1996 and Ralphe Armstrong was relaxing in his Detroit home. Reading his newspaper in bed and watching TV, he realized that the major league baseball season was opening that night. If there's one thing that Armstrong, an internationally known jazz bassist, loves nearly as much as music, it's baseball.
He flipped the channel to ESPN as a commercial for Adidas athletic shoes flashed across the screen. The rap music soundtrack immediately caught his ear. Man, that's a hip drumbeat, he thought. Then a high falsetto vocal chimed in on top of the drums -- hey, hey, hey, hey. Armstrong picks up the story:
"I listened and said, 'That's a weird sounding voice.' Then I listened again and said, 'Huh, that sounds familiar.' The third time I listened, I almost fell out of the bed:
'That's me singing on this commercial!!!'"
And so began the oddest episode in Armstrong's career -- a labyrinthine tale involving lawyers, lawsuits and two recordings -- a 1976 LP by John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra, one of the era's premier jazz-fusion bands, and a 1991 CD by Massive Attack, a critically acclaimed English rap group.
Other characters in this drama, aside from Adidas, include a major record company and a Hollywood film studio. It's a potboiler that opens a window on the sometimes grimy world of the pop music industry, and it's a story that, in the end, might make Armstrong very wealthy.
Armstrong, 42, has filed suit in U.S. District Court in New York claiming that Massive Attack infringed on his copyright by unlawfully sampling -- electronically copying bits of sound from a recording -- a composition he wrote and recorded in the '70s with the Mahavishnu Orchestra. The suit claims that the Massive Attack song "Unfinished Sympathy" on its album "Blue Lines" includes passages lifted from Armstrong's "Planetary Citizen," which appears on the Mahavishnu album "Inner Worlds."
More than a dozen defendants are named in the suit, including the three people in Massive Attack, two producers, the American and British divisions of Virgin Records, several publishing companies, Adidas and the shoe company's ad agency.
If Armstrong wins in court, he would be entitled to a share of the profits Massive Attack and the record company made from the song -- both from CD sales and live concert performances. Armstrong would also be entitled to publishing fees and licensing fees -- and possibly shoe company profits attributable to the TV commercial. Settlements in similar cases have netted plaintiffs hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Armstrong, whose resume also includes touring or recording with Frank Zappa, Jean-Luc Ponty, Aretha Franklin, Earl Klugh, Eddie Harris and Geri Allen, contacted an attorney soon after hearing himself on the television commercial.
After some research, he discovered that "Unfinished Sympathy" had also been licensed to Paramount for the soundtrack of the 1993 film "Sliver." The song appears as the backdrop for a steamy sex scene between Sharon Stone and William Baldwin. Armstrong has already reached an out-of-court settlement with Paramount for the use of the song. The terms are protected by a confidentiality agreement.
"It's just like being robbed." says Armstrong. "Not at gunpoint, but it's insulting. Some people say it's to glorify your art, but it doesn't glorify anything to me. It makes me mad because they stole it."
Armstrong says that Massive Attack copied a distinctive drumbeat, a short bass fragment and two key melodic phrases from his original, the first comprising the words "hey, hey, hey, hey" and the second "are you ready?"
"They sampled a readily identifiable portion of Ralphe's composition as he had performed it with his vocal performance, and then what they did was to loop it and make it the dominant part of the Massive Attack recording," says his lawyer, Robert Osterberg of New York.
Repeated attempts to reach Massive Attack for comment through its record company were unsuccessful. Lawyers for the other major defendants, Virgin and Adidas, said their companies will not comment on pending litigation.
Copyright law says that in order to prevail, Armstrong must prove there is a "substantial similarity" between his original composition and Massive Attack's song. The test for substantial similarity is whether an average observer would recognize that elements of Massive Attack's song were copied from Armstrong's original.
The law allows minimal use of copyrighted material without permission, but the courts have not specified an exact amount; the law also says a copyrighted work may be used for criticism, comment, reporting, teaching or research.
Copyright experts say that the length of a sample is less important than whether it reproduces the heart of a song, which might be as little as a bar or two of music.
In a key 1991 case in New York, a federal judge ruled against rapper Biz Markie for sampling only three words from Gilbert O'Sullivan's '70s pop song "Alone Again (Naturally)." The judge opened his opinion with a quote from the Bible: "Thou shalt not steal."
"In terms of Armstrong's case, this is terrific because only a small portion of 'Alone Again (Naturally)' was used, and nobody would confuse the Biz Markie album with 'Alone Again (Naturally),' " says Larry Iser, a music and copyright lawyer in Los Angeles.
Since the Biz Markie case, record companies and artists have generally become more careful about seeking permission to sample the material of others. But lawsuits have also become more common, with all but a few settling out of court.
Defendants in sampling cases typically argue that the music copied either isn't original or the amount sampled is so small that the new work is different overall from the other. Iser says that Massive Attack could claim that Armstrong's "hey, hey, hey, hey" refrain has been part of the public domain since early rock 'n' roll. But the other sampled phrase -- "are you ready" -- will be a tougher fight.
"Once you've sampled a lyric that's something more than 'hey, hey, hey' or 'yeah, yeah, yeah,' you're much more likely to sustain the claim that a substantial piece of the original lyric was infringed," Iser says.
Massive Attack might also claim that the drumbeat it sampled should not be considered part of Armstrong's composition. The courts have traditionally protected melody and lyrics, but rhythm is a murky issue. There is a line of cases suggesting rhythm cannot be copyrighted. But some lawyers also say that a drumbeat could be so unique -- especially in rap music where songs are often just lyrics and rhythm -- that it might qualify as composition.
There is one more distinction important to Armstrong's case. There are two separate copyrights in play. Armstrong owns the copyright on the song "Planetary Citizen," but Sony owns the copyright on the Mahavishnu Orchestra album, the performance. So just because Massive Attack sampled Armstrong's voice, it doesn't mean his copyright was infringed. (Osterberg says he is not aware of any suit filed by Sony against Massive Attack.)
Armstrong was just 19 years old when he wrote and recorded "Planetary Citizen," a souped-up funk tune with naive but sincere lyrics dedicated to world peace through love. There are several levels of irony here: Licensing the song legitimately would have cost Massive Attack and Virgin Records a fraction of what they might end up paying in the end -- one copyright lawyer said $5,000 to $10,000 would not have been an unreasonable sum for the rights to sample "Planetary Citizen" on a CD.
Moreover, it's an odd twist of fate that a song with such noble intentions should end up at the center of controversy. It could take several years for the lawyers to slug it out, but Armstrong says he's prepared to wait for what he believes is his fair share.
"I don't care how long it takes," he says. "I have patience, and I'll just keep taking my vitamins. It's my product."
{END}
Armstrong's remarkable life as a musician began at the tender age of 7
BYLINE: By Mark Stryker
SECTION: ENTERTAINMENT NEWS
LENGTH: 752 words
Ralphe Armstrong is a bulldog of a man with a baby face and a benevolent disposition. He has packed a lot of bass playing into his 42 years. But then, the native Detroiter got off to an early start.
He took up the bass at age 7, when his father, the well-known blues musician William Howard Armstrong, made an instrument for his son by grafting a German bass neck onto a wooden box. Young Ralphe was soon working around town with dad, soaking up the city's vibrant jazz and pop scene and practicing until 4 a.m. He knew he wanted a life in music as far back as his first paying gig: playing soul music at a neighborhood bar on the east side with a real bass. He wore dark glasses and a hat so nobody would guess his age.
He was 12.
"I brought home $ 30, and my mother looked at me and said: 'Where did you get this money?' " Armstrong says. "I said, 'I went up on Harper and I played.' And she said, 'Well, you go back up there.' "
Armstrong's career trajectory continued at warp speed. At 13, he worked a job in Washington, D.C., with Motown's Miracles. He studied classical music at Interlochen and got private pointers from Ron Carter whenever the Detroit-bred jazz great came to town. At 17, he joined John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra for three years. By the time he was 21, he had worked with Carlos Santana and Frank Zappa and was starting a six-year tenure with Jean-Luc Ponty.
He has since worked or recorded with Michael Jackson, George Benson, B.B. King, Aretha Franklin, Eddie Harris, Kenny Burrell, Geri Allen and many others. It's an unusually eclectic resume, encompassing pop, funk, fusion, soul and modern jazz.
Yet what makes Armstrong unique is not just his ability to fit seamlessly into any context; it's the high-gloss refinement he brings to each style and the way he meshes a rapid-fire technique with the ability to strike a deep groove.
"Ralph is a very schooled musician, but he's also very natural," says fellow bassist Rodney Whitaker, one of Armstrong's former students who has gone on to work with Wynton Marsalis and others. "He can play anything. He's one of those guys when you hear him you think: I got to go home and practice."
Given Armstrong's vast experience, it's not surprising that he has developed a repertoire of stories that any raconteur would envy. There's the one about recording in London with McLaughlin and the London Symphony at age 17 and eating dinner every night with former Beatles producer George Martin and classical conductor Michael Tilson Thomas.
Or the one about a trip to fascist Spain, where, if the musicians didn't finish a concert by 11 p.m., officials would cut the power and raise the house lights, then gun-toting soldiers would move the people out.
One of Armstrong's best yarns is the story of how he got his break with the Mahavishnu Orchestra:
One day after school, he dropped by the home of Motown bassist Michael Henderson. Henderson, then with Miles Davis, said he had some friends out East looking for a bass player. So Armstrong played his bass over the phone for a group that included drummer Narada Michael Walden.
The cats were so impressed they sent the 15-year-old a plane ticket to Connecticut. While he was there rehearsing, McLaughlin dropped by, heard Armstrong and promised to call him. "Yeah, right," a skeptical Armstrong thought to himself.
But a year later, the phone rang. And soon Armstrong, with his mother's blessing, was on the road with one of the biggest names of the day. He finished high school by squeezing in the academic work between tours.
"My life was music," he says. "That's something people don't understand today. If you want to be an artist, you have to donate your time to it, to improve yourself mentally and physically with the instrument."
These days, Armstrong travels four or five months a year. He recently recorded with R&B stylist Patti Austin. He'll appear at Labor Day's Montreux Detroit jazz fest and later this fall, he'll head to Europe with the adventurous jazz trio led by Detroit-born pianist Allen.
"I don't limit myself," he says."I try not to become close-minded to new ideas because then you become complacent. That's what Miles (Davis) was always into: trying to grow. I feel if you become too arrogant to not accept new ideas, you should really give it up. Music is something that you can always learn more from."
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I believe that Dave Baker had a problem with his jaw and had to stop playing trombone back in the 60's. I thought that I read somewhere that he had begun playing trombone again recently. Does anyone know if this is so?
David was in a car accident in 1953 and spent years, unbeknowst to him, playing on what essentially was a dislocated jaw. Eventually, the lingering effects of all of this made it impossible for him to play and he had to give up the trombone for good in 1962. He had always taught, even back in the '50s in Indianapolis, so that was a logical career move, as was composing. He cast about for another instrument, first trying piano, and then settling on cello, which has been his primary instrument since that time. I am not aware that he has ever picked up the trombone again in recent years. Maybe, but I talk to him every few years or so and he's never said anything about it. I'm still connected to lots of people in Bloomington (my hometown) and nobody has ever mentioned that. Ghost: Did you ever ask him directly? In his day, he could play the shit out of the trombone technically.
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Well, they didn't have the budget Nancy got for These Boots are Made for Walkin' clip...
I don't think I have ever seen him sing that young....could be worse....
Actually, the vocal sounds pretty good to me. But the video?? What, exactly, is the emotion or feeling being expressed in, say, the opening fake mustache bit and then later on when he's hanging upside down? Also, the flippers crack me up.
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Here's a link to the 1965 St. Thomas that I alluded to earlier but couldn't put my finger on at the time. Just about 2 minutes of Sonny, then interview with NHOP and bass solo.
http://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play?p...;vid=1301156370
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Great stuff!
I have a photograph of Sinatra sitting in a chair looking at a cigarette. I've always wondered where it was taken and confirmed last night it was from that show.
That's another thing that bugs me about Sinatra's on stage mannerisms. What's the deal with glamorizing smoking? Surely he knew that smoking could have nothing but a deleterious effect on his singing, yet somehow he apparently felt the need to convey what he must have considered is the "hip" attitude of a smoker. Did he actually really smoke off camera? Hard to believe. In this last show he expresses in a funny, yet no nonsense way, how very important music is (was) in his life, yet the prop that promises to snuff (pun intended) the vitality out of his art has to be present. No excuse that this 1966 program represented a different attitude towards smoking - Surgeon Generals reports had been in the public consciousness for some time.
Actually, the landmark Surgeon's General Report was only issued at the start of 1964 so the degree to which it had saturated the public consciousness by 1966 is highly debatable. If you're looking for a watershed mark to measure the impact of the country's evolving attitude toward smoking, I'd suggest the ban on tobacco ads on TV and radio that began in 1971. That said, everybody always knew that smoking was bad for you in some general way and singers knew it was tough on the voice.
Sinatra smoked in real life, but my understanding is that he cut back when performing and might go weeks without any cigarettes leading up to important recordings or appearances -- somebody with a good Sinatra bio would have to give us more detail. I suspect he smoked for the same reason that most people smoke -- they are, more or less, addicted to nicotine. Which is not to say that smoking didn't evolve into part of his persona and remain an acting prop on stage. But in his time and milieu, smoking was as much a part of daily life as it was for jazz musicians. I wouldn't say he was glamorizing smoking; I would say he was living a lifestyle.
If you want to see something incredible on many levels, check out how he opens his weekly TV show in the '50s with a direct promotion for the sponsor, Chesterfield cigarettes. This is probably 6 years before the Surgeon General's report. They don't make 'em like this anymore.
http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/searc...-promotio_music
On a related note, I recall reading an interview with Lockjaw Davis who was arguing that jazz musicians should be spokespersons for cigarettes. His point was that jazz musicians should enjoy the same commercial benefits as other celebrities. Now, Jaws had a very sophisticated understanding of the music business, but I believe this interview dates to the mid '60s. Interesting as it relates to attitudes toward smoking.
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TCM has posted some videos on their website. Click on "interview/specials." That gives you the choice of four tunes: "Come Fly With Me," "I Get a Kick Out of You," "I've Got the World on a String" and "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World." (On the last is from Part 2; the others are from part 1.)
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Slightly off topic: I'm compelled, at the mention of "Moonlight In Vermont" to point out that the lyrics in the "A" sections are in the form of Haiku-
Pennies in a stream
Falling leaves a sycamore
Moonlight in vermont
Gentle finger waves
Ski trails down a mountain side
Snowlight in vermont
(Bridge is non-Haiku)
Evening summer breeze
Warblings of the meadowlark
Moonlight in vermont
Wow! Never noticed that before -- thanks for the insight. Any other tunes with similar Haiku-derived lyrics?
FYI, one John Blackburn wrote the lyric to "Moonlight In Vermont." He apparently wrote a lot of songs but this was his only real shot at immortality. Not much info about him out on the web and a Nexis search revealed no major newspaper obituaries when he died in 2006. He does have a brief, sketchy wiki entry and I also found this small-townish story http://www.pioneer.net/~bandee/page7a1.html.
Plus this short bio: Composer ("Moonlight In Vermont", "Need You"), actor, director and author, educated at Western Reserve University. He directed the Cleveland Playhouse, and a teaching fellowship at the drama department at Bennington College for 2 years. He acted and directed at the Pasadena Playhouse for two years. He was a film agent and record distribution manager and song plugger, had his own record company, and worked for North American Aviation. He joined ASCAP in 1953, collaborating with Lew Porter and Karl Suessdorf.
Suessdorf, by the way, wrote the music for "Moonlight in Vermont."
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A programming heads up: Turner Classics is devoting May to Sinatra movies and TV specials. Most notably they're broadcasting the "Man and His Music" programs from the mid '60s. Tonight is No. 2 from 1966 and in some ways it's my favorite, even though Nancy Sinatra takes a up a chunk with her dorky "hits" (ugh -- but nice legs) and the persistent organ in the orchestrations sounds dated to me (apologies to our hosts -- don't ban me!) and the set list isn't as hip as some of the other shows.
But Sinatra's voice is in extraordinarily good shape -- much better than on the more celebrated first "Man and His Music" from a year earlier. He sings one those heroic extended ballad medleys, roars through "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World" and the version of "Moonlight In Vermont" is un-fucking-believable. Watch how he sings the transition from the bridge into the last 8 the second time around without a breath as the key goes up a step and time suspends in rubuto. My hair stands on end everytime I hear it -- one of my favorite moments in all of music.
8 and 11 p.m. tonight
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625 Ornette Coleman: Broken Shadows, Song for Che, Space Jungle. live 3/22/69 ABC 9187* Ex- $6
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Somebody better carpe diem on that bad boy...
Got it. Thanks for the heads-up.
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Thought the board might be interested in the May list of LPs for sale from Ars Nova, a terrific used store in my hometown of Bloomington, Ind. The store specializes in classical and you can find some fabulous stuff at insanely fair prices. This month's list, which I got today, happened to have an unusual number of interesting jazz LPs, including a bunch of avant stuff (especially Ayler but others too), which is why I'm posting an alert. Prices are steep on the Ayler records, but some of you might be tempted by this or that. FYI, I bought Stanley Cowell's "Ancestral Streams," Carla Bley's "3/4 for Piano and Orchestra" and Cecil Taylor's "Spring of Two Blue Js."
Here's the link to the store: http://home.bluemarble.net/~arsnova/
Anybody interested in classical LPs should monitor their lists or, better, ask them to put you on the email list so you get it right off the press. I've bought a lot of stuff here over the years.
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http://www.jazzhouse.org/2008finalists.html
Note the appearance of LK among the nominees for the Jazz Journalism Lifetime Achievement Award. The nomination only cites his work for the Chicago Tribune, Down Beat and as an author. No mention of his contributions to organissimo.
(By the way, I'm not a member -- just passing along the press release.)
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Deserves accolades, yes, but one of the 100 must influential people? What were they thinking?
Well, they weren't thinking; they were reacting to Herbie's Grammy win, which got tons of attention and suddenly thrust him back into the the center of popular culture, at least for 15 minutes. Collectively, the folks who put together a list like this don't really know anything about music, art, theater, literature, etc., so it becomes a barometer of which creative people have managed to sneak onto the radar of the mainstream, and it becomes an outlet for the list makers to prove how "hip" they are. Except they're not.
But that's why I think this kind of stuff (Herbie's Grammy win; Time magazine, etc.) is good for jazz; it gets the music into the discussion. Not that any single moment will change the world. In the end, it may well end up being meaningless, but if enough little moments can coalesce, it might make a difference. Maybe. Reminds me of the marketing strategy that says any single radio ad, billboard, TV commercial, newspaper ad or whatever is unlikely to move somebody into the "buy" column. But the aggregate has an effect on people. Suddenly, the product "clicks" with consumers and lodges in their mind -- it's the 10th contact that does it, not the first. That's another reflection of the shame of jazz disappearing from TV, radio, general interest magazines, newspapers, etc. Out of sight, out of mind.
Another interesting thing about the list by the way, is that Wynton Marsalis is not on it (unless I missed him). Ten years ago, if a jazz musician would have made the list, it would have been him.
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Any mainstream recognition like this is positive for the music.
Beyond that, I was struck by the byline -- Wayne Shorter and Joni Mitchell (!) I really would have liked to see the unedited prose those two came up with -- I guarantee that it was more in the clouds than the final product, which went through the layers of at least one Time assigning editor and copy editor. There is, for example, this gem that either survived the original drafts or got truncated by an editor: "For a while there, he was really into dotted 16th notes and minor ninths." Um, ok.
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On a related note, Willie's next recording is a live CD with Wynton Marsalis' group -- tapes drawn from the J@LC concerts from early 2007 that were discussed here at the time. Release date is early July.
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John McLaughlin and the Tonight Show Band, 1980s, "Cherokee" on acoustic guitar.
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He's got the "stillest" embrochure of anybody I've ever seen - corners in place yet seemingly totally relaxed, and nothing, nothing, on/in the face moves. Ever. It's all throat and tongue and diaphragm (and probably nasal/sinus as well). If there's any jaw/facial action at all, it's so...subcutaneous (and damn, that's the first time I've ever used that term in a musical discussion...) as to remain invisible from the outside.
I mean, just look at him, does he even appear to be blowing, to be putting air through his oral cavity into an instrument? No, he just looks like he's got it in his mouth and is holding it deadpan.
There's other players who have accomplished this as well, but none to the degree that Wayne has. and looking at archival footage/photos, he's always had it like that.
Amazing.
Absolutely. A friend of mine once said he looks as if the saxophone is playing itself. Maybe it is ...
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And speaking of embrouchures (we were, weren't we?)....Wayne's has always freaked me out.
I know what you mean. it's like his top lip is very "foward" and I can't tell what's happening on the bottom. Still, I think the way he tongues his notes is even freakier (in a great way). Like the articulation of the melody on The Three Marias -- that's super bad.
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That's interesting how Clark deals with the idiom -- you don't see that everyday.
This may have been posted before but here's Scott Hamilton with Wayne's band around the same time playing a fast blues. The third tenor is Lew Tabackin -- it would have been interesting to hear how he negotiates the territory in which Wayne leaves him but the tape ends with Wayne's solo.
Only in Japan!
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IA name relevant to all this "saxophonology" - Larry Teal. Mark, you seem like a player yourself, so surely you know the name of this Michigan "guru"?
Absolutely -- a pioneering teacher who was essentially a classical guy but whose concepts of sound production, embouchure, breath support and all things saxophone are applicable across the board. Still a lot of folks around here who knew him and/or studied with him, but I haven't delved much into his personal/professional history. Don't think there's a book in there but probably a very good dissertation/journal article in the subject. Maybe it's been done already. But I've always wondered about the similarities/differences between, say, the concepts and teachings of Teal and Joe Allard, another guru of sound and woodwinds that a lot of jazz players studied with on the east coast.
Back to Joe. He was a Teal student for years and Joe's concept is almost impossible to imagine without that training. Jim's observation about projection vs volume is spot on. Joe could project like crazy because his sound was so focused and supported from the diaphragm. His command of the overtone series surely grew out of Teal too. Joe's mouthpiece was interesting too -- one of the rare jazz guys that used a Selmer "classical" mouthpiece -- I think it was a "D" tip opening (pretty closed for jazz) but not entirely sure what the specific model was called or whether it had been worked on or not. Bennie Maupin used the same mouthpiece early on and he was also a Teal student, used to hang at Joe's apartment when he was coming up and his playing had a lot of Joe in it, from the warm centered sound to the slippery rhythms. (Later, Maupin studied clarinet with Allard.) Javon Jackson (VERY much out of Joe) uses a similar Selmer mouthpiece I think. Sonny used one too in the early '60s -- he's playing it on the cover of the Bridge, but he gets a much louder, more popping sound out of it, but it's also very warm and centered. I've often wondered if Sonny switched from his Otto Link to the Selmer during his sabbitical because he was so involved with digging back into the mechanics of the instrument and the Selmer was a kind of back-to-basics maneuver that allowed him to focus more on the fundamentals of sound production.
On the last point, I did grow up as a player (alto). Raised in Bloomington, Ind., school at Univ. of Illinois. History major in college but always playing. Stopped after grad school (journalism) and I got a job.
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George is scheduled to play this weekend in Detroit with Steve Turre's Quintet (Billy Harper, Buster Williams, Deon Parsons). Don't know the specifics of George's health, but obviously a wonderful sign that he's on the gig and traveling.
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Joe did play really soft -- that's one of the things that allowed him to play so loosely and with such tremendous rhythmic flexibility. It's impossible to play some of Joe's signature flickering and swirling shit if you're trying to blow down the back wall. Still, it was a shock to me too the first time I heard him live -- though it was also revelatory in the sense that I understood a lot more about how he manifested his concept.
Thank you!
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I'd not call it "impossible", but I would say that the same things played at/with a different dynamic would take on an entirely different meaning and therefore essentially not be the same thing.
So once again - Thank you!
You're welcome.
To expand a bit, I think there's a trade-off that very roughly speaking breaks down along a fault line of volume vs. finesse. The louder you play the more difficult it is to realize certain kinds of timbral/rhythmic/expressive qualities. If Joe's shit is not "impossible" to play loudly, it's definitely harder to play, and Jim is exactly right that if you were to play everything that Joe would play but do it at a higher volume, the meaning and impact would be radically different. On a related issue, dynamics are one of the most under-utilized expressive tools available to a soloist. Most people either play too loud all the time or completely ignore the idea of dynamic contrast -- and not just a simple start soft and then get louder in a linear path, but a true ebb-and-flow, with dynamics used to enhance or color meaning of a particular melodic, rhythmic or harmonic idea. Thinking off the top, Wayne Shorter is one guy who gets it and plays with artful dynamics and contrast.
Who else (from the past or today) would be on the list of improvisers who use dynamics this way as opposed to a one-volume-suits-all approach?.
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I'm pretty sure I reviewed that gig, though I can't find a copy in the Tribune's archives. If I didn't review it, I know I was there because I recall how soft JH sounded next to JG when they shared the stand. And it was much more that JH was soft than that JG was loud.
Larry:
Looking through Nexis, I find your reviews from April 23, 1987 and April 24, 1986 that both cover Griffin/Henderson gigs, but nothing from 1991. By the way, Michael Weiss (and Phil Flanigan) are described in the 1987 review as "impressive newcomers."
Joe did play really soft -- that's one of the things that allowed him to play so loosely and with such tremendous rhythmic flexibility. It's impossible to play some of Joe's signature flickering and swirling shit if you're trying to blow down the back wall. Still, it was a shock to me too the first time I heard him live -- though it was also revelatory in the sense that I understood a lot more about how he manifested his concept.
Bennie Maupin
in Artists
Posted
Here's video of Bennie playing "Nutville" with Horace in 1968 with Bill Hardman, John B. Williams and Billy Cobham.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Mxfix2NuWNw