Henry Grimes and Marshall Allen

[Lazaro Vega]

Henry Grimes & Marshall Allen

SPACESHIP ON THE HIGHWAY !

a road tour of the northeastern U.S.

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Contact: Margaret Davis, (212) 841-O899, musicmargaret@earthlink.net

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Tonight, March 10th, at 8 p.m. central time, the duo appears live on WNUR radio from the Northwestern University in Chicago.

Friday & Saturday, March 11th & 12th: the Henry Grimes Quartet featuring Marshall Allen, Fred Anderson, & Avreeayl Ra, HotHouse, 31 East Balbo Ave., Chicago, IL, one set at 9:3O p.m. each night, 312-362-97O7, www.hothouse.net, www.hothouse.net/calendar/genre/jazz.jsp#667.

Tuesday, March 15th: Henry Grimes & Marshall Allen, Passport Project's Global Community Arts Center, 128O1-3 Buckeye Rd., Cleveland, Ohio, workshop at 4 p.m., concert at 8:3O, 216-721-1O55, http://passportproject.org/goingsOn.php, chloe@passportproject.org.

Thursday, March 17th: Henry Grimes & Marshall Allen, Rosewood Theater, 218 Walnut St., Morgantown, WV, 3O4-292-8999, www.rosewoodtheatre.com, Gary@rosewoodtheatre.com.

Friday, March 18th: Henry Grimes & Marshall Allen, Slought Foundation, 4017 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, 8 p.m., 215-222-9O5O, http://slought.org/content/11282, info@slought.org, markc@slought.org.

Saturday, March 19th: Henry Grimes & Marshall Allen, Vision Series, Clemente Soto Velez Center, 1O7 Suffolk St. betw. Rivington & Delancey (2 blocks east of Tonic), New York City, one set at 1O p.m. , 212-26O-4O8O, http://csvcenter.com/2005, www.visionfestival.org, info@visionfestival.org.

(Full bio information may be found under the "Jazz Radio" heading, and the Grimes/Allen thread).

[Lazaro Vega]

They haven't started yet at WNUR -- they'll be on in about 10 minutes for those of you interested in hearing them live. Avreal Ra will join on drums....

[Chuck Nessa]

Another chance to get my picture on the net.

[Michael Fitzgerald]

What? No sammich?

Mike

[ejp626]

What a wild show! Sal, sheldonm and myself saw the Spaceship with Fred Anderson on Friday (in Chicago). If you ask really nice sheldonm will post some photos. The bass Olive Oil, described elsewhere, is indeed about the ugliest bass you will ever see in your life. It's painted green with some little stars stuck on the front.

Anyway, I can't compare it to one of Sun Ra's shows, since I've never seen one (even on video) but it felt like one to me, with Marshall Allen decked out in a gold mesh vest (over a black shirt) waving his arms when not playing and occasionally chanting or singing Space is the Place. At one point, he got down off the bandstand and played in front of everybody in the front row, coming up with different phrases for each customer. The drummer in Chicago was just a monster, really keeping the energy level up. Grimes and Fred Anderson were incredible, though I thought Anderson was better integrated into the first set than the second.

Definitely worth catching if you can, though I guess there are only four stops left. But it is really great to see Grimes playing and touring again, and I expect he will be touring more in the future.

[sheldonm]

Great photograph, Chuck....did those sandwiches come straight from the vending machine????

I will indeed post some photographs in the next few days. I was invited to photograph the sound check and made images throughout the show as well. Henry's manager and "companion" Margaret Davis was very accomodating to me and gave me a couple of his "solo" works (cds) that he did a while back. These are the ones that he did the small, original drawings on the cover. I spoke to Henry and Marshall Allen for a few minutes each. Henry's very soft spoken and gracious; Marshall is out there , but a very cool cat!!! What can you say about Fred Anderson but......damn, that guy can play!!! The drummer, Avreeayl Ra was also a giant on drums!

It was good getting together with ejp626 and Sal. Canonball Addict was suppose to join us at Hot House but couldn't make it......missed a killer show!

If you get a chance to see them in Cleveland tomorrow night (Passport Project's Global Community Arts Center), don't miss it!

Mark

[sal]

Amen. That was one of the most memorable shows I've seen in recent memory.

[bertrand]

What does Margaret Davis look like? If she was in Baltimore, she kept a very low profile.

Bertrand.

[ejp626]

She's a middle aged (late 40s or early 50s ?) white woman (or very very light skinned biracial woman) with wild black hair. She was wearing a button with Grimes' face on it and occasionally scolding photographers at Hothouse. So I'm surprised you wouldn't have noticed her. I suspect she was there, since she is very protective of Grimes and the Spaceship tour. I didn't talk to her, but Sheldonm says she is nice once she understands you aren't trying to rip off Grimes.

[brownie]

Margaret Davis' website:

http://www.joemcphee.com/jny/index.html

[sheldonm]

Margaret Davis' website:

http://www.joemcphee.com/jny/index.html

Brownie,

I asked her about her site and she said she's done nothing with it for 6 months or more. She said touring with Henry is taking so much time she doesn't know when/if she'll update it.

Mark

[brownie]

Mark, at least she added the new adress I gave her for Marion Brown!

Also noticed she gave you those two Henry Grimes CDs. What did you do to her? I paid for those!

[Lazaro Vega]

Nice photo Chuck!

Those were hand made deli samMICHes (a Michigan sandwich) I picked up for the band along with a bunch of other goodies. Did the same for Kalaparush, even remembering he likes "coca cola," so we were straight.

Indeed, some high level improvised performances out of these guys. Marshal still plays the alto sax as if it were a guitar -- with his right hand index finger up and down the keys, strumming.

Good to read the Chicago accounts. How were the crowds?

The WNUR broadcast started an hour late, but I still caught some of it on-line. Interesting to hear Henry say, in response to how is the scene different today than in the 1960's?, that there's more money to be made in it now. He then asked the room if they thought that was right, but no one responded.

Edited March 14, 2005 by Lazaro Vega

[sheldonm]

Good to read the Chicago accounts. How were the crowds?

...Friday night was standing room only; I bet Saturday was the same!

[7/4]

Indeed, some high level improvised performances out of these guys. Marshal still plays the alto sax as if it were a guitar -- with his right hand index finger up and down the keys, strumming.

I remember that from when I saw him with Sun Ra.

I should go to Saturdays show.

[Chuck Nessa]

More from WBLV.

[Chuck Nessa]

Olive Oil and friend.

[.:.impossible]

Marshal still plays the alto sax as if it were a guitar -- with his right hand index finger up and down the keys, strumming.

Is that right? I can't imagine! I'd love to see it... Thanks for the photos and write-ups guys!

[Lazaro Vega]

http://metromix.chicagotribune.com/reviews...mx-critics_heds

From the Chicago Tribune

Top-notch quartet adds punch to Grimes show

By Howard Reich

Tribune arts critic

March 14 2005, 12:30 AM CST

Like many formidable jazz musicians, bassist Henry Grimes dropped out of

music before making a triumphal return.

But because his self-imposed exile lasted several decades—after a creative

peak in the 1960s—his comeback has generated considerable attention and

hyperbole from admirers.

Over the weekend, Chicago listeners had a rare chance to judge for themselves

the value of Grimes' art, apart from the narrative of his sometimes turbulent

life. If the man's playing Friday night at HotHouse proved stylistically

adventurous and technically strong, it was the work of the quartet that he

convened for the occasion that made the most vivid impression.

Even if Grimes had been sharing the stage only with multi-instrumentalist

Marshall Allen, the proceedings would have been fascinating to hear. Allen, a

veteran of many incarnations of Sun Ra's fabled Arkestra, may be the perfect foil

for Grimes, whose tonally resplendent bass-playing warmly counterbalanced

Allen's shrieks and cries on alto saxophone, clarinet and Electronic Wind

Instrument.

The duo currently is touring the country, two battle-scarred veterans of an

age-old avant-garde who still have a great deal to teach younger musicians and

contemporary audiences.

But for the HotHouse engagement, Grimes and Allen were joined by two

indispensable Chicago innovators: tenor saxophonist Fred Anderson and drummer Avreeayl

Ra. These players cohered brilliantly, giving the impression that they had

been performing together for ages.

In a way, of course, they have, since each of these musicians draws upon

essentially the same musical vocabulary, a post-bebop language that's utterly

liberated from the constraints of strict chord changes, rigid time signatures and

any hint of traditional song forms.

Instead, these players are masters at spontaneously building epic

improvisations upon a hint of a motif, a burst of instrumental color, a jagged turn of

phrase. Proficient in the latest improvisational techniques but steeped in the

lessons of Sun Ra, Ornette Coleman and the Chicago-based Association for the

Advancement of Creative Musicians, Grimes' Chicago quartet produced sweeping

waves of churning, blues-drenched sound.

At the eye of the hurricane was Grimes' bass, which unleashed

perpetual-motion lines that were too fast, fleet and harmonically free-ranging to be easily

notated. Grimes emerged a poet of his instrument, albeit one who thrives well

outside the jazz mainstream.

Tenor saxophonist Anderson unreeled the majestic lines one has come to expect

from him, but he ratcheted down the fiery intensity of his solos to match

Grimes' smoldering burn. And Ra shaped the music-making swirling around him with

remarkable precision and poise, as if anticipating gestures that no one

realistically could have expected.

It was as if a potentially great quartet was born at this moment—it deserves

to be heard again, and again.

hreich@tribune.com

[Lazaro Vega]

Quote: "...any hint of traditional song forms."

Except the Space Chants go back to work songs and field hollars....of course that's not too traditional....

[bertrand]

OK - I think I did see her in Baltimore. She was the person who was in the front row, but she was definitely not as exuberant as I expected.

Bertrand.

[Lazaro Vega]

QUOTE (Lazaro Vega @ Mar 14 2005, 03:56 PM)

Marshal still plays the alto sax as if it were a guitar -- with his right hand index finger up and down the keys, strumming.

How arrogant is it to quote yourself? Impossible brought this up, though, upon further reflection it reminded me of how different people make glisses or glissandos with a saxophone.

Roscoe Mitchell playing a slow piece on alto saxophone at the Kerrytown Concert House. He starts his reed to vibrate and, with a far from standard embouchure, begins to control the harmonic -- the kind of thing guitar players get by touching the strings lightly – as it comes off the mouthpiece. It’s slippery work. He shapes the gliss, or series of different pitches, with loudness and duration. By the time they enter the horn most of them are gone, mist. One minute the effect is like painting where he's filling colors in outlines, the next it is like he's hanging shapes of shaved ice on a mobile in a dark room with one clear light coming from the side, the top, the bottom, revealing all these variations in silver and black as they turn in their own space. His vocabulary of glisses is elaborate.

When Marshall Allen furiously strums the lower keys of the saxophone, the effect is like putting the serrations on the edges of a lightening bolt.

Edited March 16, 2005 by Lazaro Vega

[johnlitweiler]

Lazaro, the Chicago Sun-Times review was severely truncated but as usual still more accurate than the Chicago Tribune review:

http://www.suntimes.com/output/jazz/cst-ftr-grimes14.html

Really, it was the Grimes-Anderson-Ra trio with interruptions by Marshall Allen. It was apparently the 2nd time Grimes and Anderson have played together, and they have great affinity. Especially since, with the loss of Malachi Favors, Anderson hasn't had a lot of really empathetic bassists to work with, this is a relationship that I hope will be pursued.

[Lazaro Vega]

Yes, that's more like it. Excellent. Did you slide on down to the Velvet Sunday night?

Grimes seals his triumphant comeback

March 14, 2005

The Chicago Sun-Times

BY JOHN LITWEILER

The return of Henry Grimes is certain to be among the best jazz stories of the decade.

In the late 1950s and '60s, Grimes was one of jazz's boldest bassists, a favorite of experimental leaders from Sonny Rollins to Lennie Tristano to Cecil Taylor, before he abruptly vanished from music in 1968. Rediscovered three years ago in Los Angeles, where he was living in a SRO hotel, and given a new bass, he began practicing again, and soon was playing concerts, festivals and European tours.

Grimes is touring the United States these days with alto saxman Marshall Allen, and on Friday at HotHouse they were joined by two superb players, Fred Anderson and Avreeayl Ra, in free improvisations. Judging from the huge Friday audience, Grimes' style of music, which was once dangerously radical, has become widely accepted.

On Friday, Grimes soloed with all his old authority, then drove the others with rare feeling; his affinity for Anderson, a sensitive tenor saxophonist, was especially rewarding. Allen invented dramatic commentary, accompanied by Ra, who supplied ingenious sound colors and textures.

The merry Allen dominated much of the music. Everything he played seemed to end in exclamation points; his sounds were lustrous and his control of extreme ranges was breathtaking. Again and again he broke into Grimes' and Anderson's flowing lines with breathless atonal hollers and wild leaps. Like Ra, Allen is a veteran of Sun Ra's Arkestra, and he even sang two songs about his journeys to faraway planets.

Even more than Grimes, Anderson created a lyric continuity. Each of his lines was so organically conceived that he seemed to be playing one long, unbroken melody. The variety of his ideas made an excellent contrast to the recurring darkness of Grimes' playing and Allen's discontinuity.

Throughout both sets, Grimes' bass was at the forefront. He's a rare virtuoso without ostentation, an ideal ensemble player of counter-melodies and aggressive rhythms, with a big, true sound. The night was a triumphant return for Grimes and a promise of brilliant music to come.

John Litweiler is a Chicago-based free-lancer and author of The Freedom Principle: Jazz After 1958 (Da Capo Books).

Edited March 16, 2005 by Lazaro Vega

[johnlitweiler]

Yes, that's more like it. Excellent. Did you slide on down to the Velvet Sunday night?

Sorry to say, no. What happened there Sun.?