Lester Bowie

[Rabshakeh]

A question for those who were there.

Lester Bowie seems to have received a lot of name recognition for an avant garde trumpeter. At what point or points did he begin to receive that wider recognition? 

[JSngry]

When ECM came into the picture, with the AEC, DeJohnette's New Directions quartet, the solo albums, and the Brass Fantasy records.

ECM was a big deal in that it provided a permission structure and or a basic distribution structure for a new set of listeners.

Thinking back, I think the DeJohnette thing game first, the group with Bowie, Eddie Gomez, and John Abercrombie. The band came through Dallas on tour, not in a club, but to a theatre. Full house, and I was one of the few people I knew who went primarily to hear Lester. The other players were already established names.

Bowie wore his lab coat and more than played his ass off. Name recognition was no longer an issue for that audience! 

Oh, Lester Bowie was not an "avant-garde" trumpeter in any meaningful sense. He was a deeply rooted, soulful player who sprang out of the deepest imaginable roots. He certainly expanded the traditions, but not once did he destroy any. 

The more you heard him, the more apparent this became 

[T.D.]

And he had a sense of humor! Which seems surprisingly rare in the music sphere.

[Rabshakeh]

That's interesting.

So New Directions and Nice Guys? That would put it around '79-'80, which seems to reflect how it looked to me retrospectively.

So were the earlier AEC records and his Muse records known more within the limits of avant garde fans?

[JSngry]

Not just "avant garde fans" (whatever that means...) but people who liked to hear "the music" moving into new spaces as well as meaningfully inhabiting existing ones. "We* certainly knew about Lester Bowie and as much of the AACM as possible here in our remote outposts. The Arista/Freedom series was a godsend, as were record stores that would order to your request. 

Other than the two Atlantic records, the AEC did not have a larger label behind them. And Muse had not yet grown as popular as it would, so Bowie was not being pushed the way that somebody like Houston Person or Richie Cole would have been.

So in terms of everything except the music itself, ECM was huge in breaking Bowie into a different word.

And it didn't hurt anything that he was ready to go with a deep well of different ideas and formats, or that ECM gave him space for them. 

I still miss Lester Bowie. 

[Rabshakeh]

Thanks!

(Also didn't know that Richie Cole and Houston Person were getting those boosts - not named that are particularly widely known nowadays...)

[JSngry]

Houston Person is thriving today as both player and producer, more than ever! And he still has his fan base here.

He's here if you know where to look for him. 

Ritchie Cole is not. He's dead and apparently went through a lot of personal changes along the way. Never liked him much at all, but as a spirit, his was a real one. And I hate to see anybody live a life that never finds traction with other people. But it happens... 

[John L]

42 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Houston Person is thriving today as both player and producer, more than ever! And he still has his fan base here.

He's here if you know where to look for him. 

Ritchie Cole is not. He's dead and apparently went through a lot of personal changes along the way. Never liked him much at all, but as a spirit, his was a real one. And I hate to see anybody live a life that never finds traction with other people. But it happens... 

Growing up and becoming a jazz fan in the San Francisco Bay Area, I heard Richie Cole very often.  I always thought of him as a good practitioner as opposed to a great creative artist.    But he gave a lot to community, free concerts on the street all over the place.  I thought that he also gave fine support to Eddie Jefferson.   So I am a bit surprised by the idea that he never "found traction with other people."  Of course, I did not know him personally and appearances can be deceiving. 

[JSngry]

I think the Eddie Jefferson tragedy/trauma threw him off in ways that he never recovered from.

Before that, yeah, he was a hot commodity. But eventually the stories began to circulate, not good stories. And he finally just disappeared. I think he resurfaced in Pittsburgh at one point, but then, nothing. 

I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. Musically, I couldn't care less. But on a human level...no. Shouldn't happen to anybody 

[Rabshakeh]

8 hours ago, JSngry said:

Houston Person is thriving today as both player and producer, more than ever! And he still has his fan base here.

He's here if you know where to look for him. 

I know he's thriving (and long may he continue as he is doing) and that people here love him. I was spinning a Houston Person record myself yesterday, so I am one of them. But I had not realised that he received a big marketing push. My assumption had been that he had been a mid level Prestige roster member in the 60s, and then was rediscovered as an elder statesman in the 80s/90s. I hadn't realised that he got a label boost in the 1970s.

Regarding Richie Cole, it makes more sense. His records are all over the bins. I remember a recent trip to Minneapolis where it sometimes seemed, from the second hand shops, like the only records jazz fans had bought had been Phil Woods, Richie Cole and Spyro Gyra. Even over here in London you can pick them up easily. There had to be a reason why he's everywhere.

I like Richie Cole more than the others on this forum, probably because I was not there to witness it at the time. The saxophone playing is obviously réchauffé, but he had that wider concept of mixing it up with the vocalese and a fair bit of humour. I think the Madness records have aged into interesting forgotten curios. Nothing I'd list in my top 50, but I think that he's an interesting part of 1970s jazz (less so 1980s). 

Anyway, interesting on Bowie. As a general question, how visible to the average jazz fan was that Paris 1969-1971 period when the BYGs and America records were recorded? Did those records make it over at all? If not the records, the critical reputations? Or did it come with and based on what got reissued by Arista? I am a child of the 1990s CD reissue and early 2000s blog eras, and it is hard for me to imagine how e.g. Anthony Braxton's or Archie Shepp's or even the Art Ensemble's careers would have looked without that period.

Edited September 19, 2023 by Rabshakeh

[Chuck Nessa]

6 hours ago, Rabshakeh said:

Anyway, interesting on Bowie. As a general question, how visible to the average jazz fan was that Paris 1969-1971 period when the BYGs and America records were recorded? Did those records make it over at all? If not the records, the critical reputations? Or did it come with and based on what got reissued by Arista? I am a child of the 1990s CD reissue and early 2000s blog eras, and it is hard for me to imagine how e.g. Anthony Braxton's or Archie Shepp's or even the Art Ensemble's careers would have looked without that period.

I worked for a national record store chain (Discount Records) at the time and we imported "tons"  of Bygs.

Edited September 19, 2023 by Chuck Nessa

[felser]

I got a lot of BYG titles out of cutout bins in the 70's.  Didn't know what to make of most of them at the time, but immediately fell in love with Moncur's 'New Africa', and appreciated some (not all) of the Archie Shepp titles, especially 'Yasmina, A Black Woman'.   Saw Richie Cole at Penn's Landing in the late 80's in a quartet with Vic Juris on guitar.  The band was "on" and I thoroughly dug the show.  I remember 'Trenton Makes, The World Takes' causing a stir at 3rd Street Jazz in Philly when it came out, and I generally enjoyed his recordings through the years, while nonetheless admitting his stylistic limitations.

 

Edited September 19, 2023 by felser

[clifford_thornton]

BYG and America definitely had pretty good US distribution at the time, and they still remain relatively available on the used market (depending on title -- some are more obscure than others).

[JSngry]

Where I lived, they were to be found in the cutout bins, when they were to be found at all. 

[optatio]

4 hours ago, felser said:

I got a lot of BYG titles out of cutout bins in the 70's.  Didn't know what to make of most of them at the time, but immediately fell in love with Moncur's 'New Africa', ...

Same here in Göttingen ...

[clifford_thornton]

I'd like to have a time machine specifically for those cutout bins. Of course, that would make me nearly 80 -- not a bad age, but things are already starting to fall apart on this body.

[mjzee]

I remember being in Ithaca, NY in spring 1974, and buying one randomly from the cutout bin: Jacques Coursil's "Way Ahead."  IIRC, the vinyl disc had no lip - it was completely flat.

[mjazzg]

18 hours ago, optatio said:

Same here in Göttingen ...

and in London

[Rabshakeh]

BYG style free jazz seems like quite an unexpected style to be widely available, particularly in a world where basic Blue Notes were not.

[optatio]

19 minutes ago, mjzee said:

I remember being in Ithaca, NY in spring 1974, and buying one randomly from the cutout bin: Jacques Coursil's "Way Ahead."  IIRC, the vinyl disc had no lip - it was completely flat.

 

Title mispelled!

[mjzee]

1 hour ago, optatio said:

 

Title mispelled!

That must be a different album! 😁

[mjazzg]

1 hour ago, optatio said:

 

Title mispelled!

Just checked, my copy is the same. Never noticed before

[optatio]

2 minutes ago, mjazzg said:

Just checked, my copy is the same. Never noticed before

👍

[JSngry]

1 hour ago, Rabshakeh said:

BYG style free jazz seems like quite an unexpected style to be widely available, particularly in a world where basic Blue Notes were not.

If my memory serves, Chuck was working out of Ann Arbor, Michigan, a very progressive college town where this type of music had a strong following.

Wish I could have been there then... 

[T.D.]

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

If my memory serves, Chuck was working out of Ann Arbor, Michigan, a very progressive college town where this type of music had a strong following.

Wish I could have been there then... 

[emphasis added] As is Ithaca, NY, which was mentioned above.

Too bad Stereo Jack rarely visits (I hope he's doing well)...he might be able to comment on Bahston, one of the ultimate progressive college towns*.

 

*Despite what Spinal Tap said. 😉

 

Edited September 20, 2023 by T.D.