Aging Avant-Garde

The Magnificent Goldberg · October 23, 2006

Dear Sirs:

I'm pretty sure Chuck's been in Woodville, Mississippi for a bunch of years now, not Chicago.

Best Wishes,

President Clementine
Association of American Geographers

Not Whitehall Mi?

MG

Larry Kart · October 23, 2006

Thanks, Tom.

MG, I'll weigh in a bit on the zesty Chicago AG (or semi AG) scene of recent years later on today or maybe tomorrow. Will be gone from the computer until mid-afternoon..

The Magnificent Goldberg · October 23, 2006

Thanks, Tom.

MG, I'll weigh in a bit on the zesty Chicago AG (or semi AG) scene of recent years later on today or maybe tomorrow. Will be gone from the computer until mid-afternoon..

Thank you Larry. I'm contemplating getting a Fred Anderson album next mnth, because he looks such a nice guy...

MG

JSngry · October 23, 2006

...vittels...

David Ayers · October 23, 2006

[there's a book by a French guy on the end of jazz - anybody remember what it is called? I don't think there was a translation]

You are probably refering to this book: Le Jazz est-il encore possible?. (Is Jazz Still Possible?).
The author turned away jazz criticism and - unless he retired recently - is now a successful book editor!

That certainly looks like it... but I had a feeling there was another... I think perhaps I am just misremembering the publisher (which I thought was Galilee or Editions de Minuit - excuse lack of accents).

Edited October 23, 2006 by David Ayers

The Magnificent Goldberg · October 23, 2006

Dear Magniloquent Goldberg:

I'll check with the Secretary when he comes in this morning but our records currently say Woodville; grew up in rural Idaho, whose state bird is the oddly named 'I-Hawk.' As a fellow diplomat, you may be amused that Idaho's motto when it was an independent country (formerly a part of Mexico), was

"What the fuck are you doing here?!"

Which of course is a bastardization of the famous line from Herodotus but folks out there in the Upper Southwest like their privacy.

No matter the correct answer, Woodville is a fine town for both vittels and jazz scholarship and I encourage you to visit at your earliest convenience. Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention.

Best Wishes,

President Clementine
Association of American Geographers

:rofl:

And what was Iowa's motto, when it was an independent country?

1. barkin bill
delmark.com/rhythm.nessa.htm
Published on: 7/10/2005 Last Visited: 7/10/2005

CHUCK NESSA was born and raised on a farm near Story City, Iowa. For years the only music he had heard came to him via WHO radio out of Des Moines.

I hope you're not suggesting that the EMINENT CHUCK NESSA, poster of this board, is lying about his location in his control panel :excl:

MG

clifford_thornton · October 23, 2006

. I don't think anyone here has heard of Christoph Gallio

Gallio is very interesting... not that young, though, is he?

I don't really have much to add to this conversation. To paraphrase Clem, it isn't all that bad, though it's not all that good either.

A few more than "not bad" in the contemporary Am. jazz vanguard:

Reuben Radding

Brian Allen

Tony Malaby

Rob Brown

Whit Dickey

Joe Morris

Croix Galipault

Adam Lane

Hot Ptah · October 23, 2006

Dear Magniloquent Goldberg:

I'll check with the Secretary when he comes in this morning but our records currently say Woodville; grew up in rural Idaho, whose state bird is the oddly named 'I-Hawk.' As a fellow diplomat, you may be amused that Idaho's motto when it was an independent country (formerly a part of Mexico), was

"What the fuck are you doing here?!"

Which of course is a bastardization of the famous line from Herodotus but folks out there in the Upper Southwest like their privacy.

No matter the correct answer, Woodville is a fine town for both vittels and jazz scholarship and I encourage you to visit at your earliest convenience. Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention.

Best Wishes,

President Clementine
Association of American Geographers

And what was Iowa's motto, when it was an independent country?

1. barkin bill
delmark.com/rhythm.nessa.htm
Published on: 7/10/2005 Last Visited: 7/10/2005

CHUCK NESSA was born and raised on a farm near Story City, Iowa. For years the only music he had heard came to him via WHO radio out of Des Moines.

I hope you're not suggesting that the EMINENT CHUCK NESSA, poster of this board, is lying about his location in his control panel

MG

MG, One thing to keep in mind, and I say this all with respect and affection for you--from your desk in Wales, while Western Michigan may look like it is close to Chicago on a map, it is several hours away by car, and a million miles away in character. In fact, Chicago is like another dimension, a huge cosmopolitan city surrounded by a different universe, small town America. A very short distance outside of Chicago, and you wouldn't know that you weren't in the middle of an endless farm.

Hot Ptah · October 23, 2006

Brown & Morris are close to 50 too... I respect the hell out of Joe but kinda sorta can't stand him, tho' I deal on the Maneri sides-- electric geetar tones can be that way. Rob Brown used to be a bike racer, btw-- might still slip on the lycra too. Dunno why but he's a player who hasn't seemed to take the step, conceptually, as composer/leader, tho' whether that's lack of desire or opportunity... Best hopes for a real new music are in Maneri & Taborn I think. I won't discount the Zorn orbit(s) either, tho' it remains to be seen how many folks younger than Dave Douglas sign on. Af-Am jazz isn't dead in NYC, either playin' or listenin' but it's not huge & had to deal w/conservatism one side, disorganization another & an ofay... oh, wait--

Sista's Place

has their website back in working order. Sad fact is, however, I can't put out $25-30 for gigs esp. if I could check stuff out at Barbe's or The Stone for half that... What to do, what to do?

President Clementine, Iowa & Texas-Ex
(Can drive I-35 from Mpls to Austin w/a quick detour in Lawrence, Kansas for record shopping, eyes closed, 85 mph, no speeding tickets either)

In Lawrence, Kansas, it's Love Garden for record shopping and what else?

The Magnificent Goldberg · October 23, 2006

Dear Magniloquent Goldberg:

I'll check with the Secretary when he comes in this morning but our records currently say Woodville; grew up in rural Idaho, whose state bird is the oddly named 'I-Hawk.' As a fellow diplomat, you may be amused that Idaho's motto when it was an independent country (formerly a part of Mexico), was

"What the fuck are you doing here?!"

Which of course is a bastardization of the famous line from Herodotus but folks out there in the Upper Southwest like their privacy.

No matter the correct answer, Woodville is a fine town for both vittels and jazz scholarship and I encourage you to visit at your earliest convenience. Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention.

Best Wishes,

President Clementine
Association of American Geographers

And what was Iowa's motto, when it was an independent country?

1. barkin bill
delmark.com/rhythm.nessa.htm
Published on: 7/10/2005 Last Visited: 7/10/2005

CHUCK NESSA was born and raised on a farm near Story City, Iowa. For years the only music he had heard came to him via WHO radio out of Des Moines.

I hope you're not suggesting that the EMINENT CHUCK NESSA, poster of this board, is lying about his location in his control panel

MG

MG, One thing to keep in mind, and I say this all with respect and affection for you--from your desk in Wales, while Western Michigan may look like it is close to Chicago on a map, it is several hours away by car, and a million miles away in character. In fact, Chicago is like another dimension, a huge cosmopolitan city surrounded by a different universe, small town America. A very short distance outside of Chicago, and you wouldn't know that you weren't in the middle of an endless farm.

Just across a lil' ole lake

MG

The Magnificent Goldberg · October 23, 2006

Americana Fun Facts

9. MG: You can get Pasties in southwest Wisconsin.

But not Cornish Pasties!

10. In Kansas, just over the Douglas County line, women can dance nude (no pasties) but you can't drink alcohol while watching them.

And who would want to?

MG

Hot Ptah · October 23, 2006

MG, Look less than an inch above Chicago on your map, to a state line for Wisconsin--Illinois. That line defines two different civilizations, which don't like each other at all. Distances can be deceiving in the U.S. (and probably everywhere else too!)

The Magnificent Goldberg · October 23, 2006

THE CORNISH SOCIETY OF GREATER MILWAUKEE

Welcome to The Cornish Society of Greater Milwaukee's Website!

Beginning in the 1830's and 1840's, Cornish immigrants began to settle in Wisconsin.

The lead mines of southwestern Wisconsin (Mineral Point, Linden, Shullsburg, Dodgeville, etc.) beckoned the Cornish miner, while the rich, fertile prairie lands of the southeastern part of our state (Palmyra, Little Prairie, Eagle, Yorkville, etc.) called the Cornish farmer.

Throughout the formative years of Wisconsin, the Cornish were a major ethnic group in these areas, offering their expertise in industry, esp. mining, and agriculture.

The seal of the State of Wisconsin depict a miner, as well as farming and mining tools. Compare Wisconsin's seal with that of Cornwall. Need we say more?

Are you putting me on, CLem?

MG

NIS · October 23, 2006

I'm really not sure what this thread is about and I don't think I want to live in Des Moines, IA either but I did go to a Trio X concert there a couple of weeks ago.

Hot Ptah · October 23, 2006

It is probably not going too far out onto a limb to say that the jazz avant garde scene in Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois outside of Chicago, and Western Michigan, is not a beehive of activity.

Uncle Skid · October 23, 2006

3. I have spent little time in Western Michigan but everyone I've known from there who wasn't a square is, conversely, 1000% batshit crazy, mostly in interesting ways. Is the whole Dutch reform thing out there still that intense? We all hate bullshit preachers but I'd say per person, West Mich folks have even more scorn for 'em than good Southerners... maybe 'cuz we're more used to threading them needles?

Well, I'm probably more square than crazy, but ya gotta adapt to survive, right? :wacko: But, since I was born and raised in Detroit, I might not count as a real West Michigander.

And yes, that whole Dutch Reform thing is still intense. That Amway guy, Dick DeVos, has a reasonable chance at being elected governor... let's just say his biggest supporters don't live north of Windsor. :tdown

clifford_thornton · October 23, 2006

(Can drive I-35 from Mpls to Austin w/a quick detour in Lawrence, Kansas for record shopping, eyes closed, 85 mph, no speeding tickets either)

Yeah, all three places I've lived. Strange, eh?

Agreed, some on my list are pushin' it. Didn't know Rob was an ex-roadie. Nice.

clifford_thornton · October 23, 2006

Sorry Clem, but I'm going to try not to visualize you in pasties!

Rapson is fine on some recordings with Vinny Golia. I enjoyed seeing Smoker in Adam Lane's quartet in Chicago some years back, with Tchicai and Altschul. They tore up the Velvet Lounge (with almost NO audience)...

HolyStitt · October 23, 2006

It is probably not going too far out onto a limb to say that the jazz avant garde scene in Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois outside of Chicago, and Western Michigan, is not a beehive of activity.

Actually Madison, Wisconsin is quite the beehive of avant garde jazz activity. Last I had heard, they had at least one venue that quite often had acts come there to play. In fact, many acts were playing there, but not coming to Minneapolis/St. Paul.

Hot Ptah · October 23, 2006

It is probably not going too far out onto a limb to say that the jazz avant garde scene in Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois outside of Chicago, and Western Michigan, is not a beehive of activity.

Actually Madison, Wisconsin is quite the beehive of avant garde jazz activity. Last I had heard, they had at least one venue that quite often had acts come there to play. In fact, many acts were playing there, but not coming to Minneapolis/St. Paul.

Do the avant garde jazz concerts draw very well in Madison? Historically the jazz audience there has been rather limited. If they are drawing well, that's great.

Larry Kart · October 23, 2006

At the risk of being tedious, a fair amount was said (by me and others) about today’s Chicago AG/semi-AG scene during the back and forth on this thread from Jan. 2005:

http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php...helton&st=0

To that I’ll add way down below the liner notes I wrote for tenor saxophonist/composer Keefe Jackson’s new Delmark album “Ready Everyday” (which represents several aspects of the scene quite well IMO). Other notable Chicago AG or semi-AG figures who come to mind (most all under age 35 I think) -- other than the ones mentioned in the above thread or in the liner notes below -- are clarinetist James Falzone, guitarist Matt Schneider, bassist Josh Abrams, bassist Jason Ajemian, bassist Jason Roebke, vibist Jason Adasiewicz (we got your Jasons), tenorman Geoff Bradfield, cellist Kevin Davis, drummer Tim Daisy, drummer Dylan Ryan, trumpeter Jaimie Branch, trumpeter Patrick Newberry, drummer Mike Reed, trombonist Nick Broste, drummer Tim Mulveena, drummer Nori Tanaka, and I’m sure I’m forgetting a lot of people. Albums I can recommend, in addition to “Ready Everyday” and the other album mentioned there, “Several Lights,” and the ones mentioned in the above thread, are these from reedman Dave Rempis (Circular Logic, Triage “Twenty Minute Cliff,” Triage “American Mythology,” “Out of Season”); Geoff Bradfield’s “Rule of Three”; 774th Street Quartet’s (reedmen Jackson, Guillermo Gregorio, Shelton, Thomas Mejer) “A Rare Thing”; Herculaneum’s “Orange Blossom”; a terrific one from a Jason Ajemian-led ensemble that I seem to have misplaced, damn it, and again I must be forgetting a good many e.g. Josh Abram's Delmark album whose title I've forgotten, guitarist Jeff Parker's "Like-Coping" and a yet-to-be-released one from Falzone. I should add that the stylistic range of this scene is quite broad, but there seems to me to be a definite core to it, the nature of which I try to touch upon below. It's not the same as the AACM at its peak (for one thing, this scene's best musicians are not the towering figures that Mitchell, Bowie, Abrams, et al. were or are), but it's yeasty, genuine, full of communal spirit, and, so it seems from where I sit, remarkably self-sustaining. So here are those liner notes:

One good way to grasp how rich and diverse the Chicago jazz scene has become over the last ten years or so would be to place the album at hand, tenor saxophonist Keefe Jackson's “Fast Citizens,” alongside the music on another Delmark album, “Several Lights,” that three of these musicians (Jackson, cornetist Josh Berman, and drummer Frank Rosaly) made in 2004 with Swiss tubaist Marc Unternährer under the name Chicago Luzern Exchange. All of the music on “Several Lights” is, as we have learned to say, “free” -- improvised from scratch, more or less measureless, and without pre-determined harmonic and structural frameworks. By contrast, the music on “Fast Citizens” swings very hard when it wants to (which is often), and the album's seven pieces -- five by Jackson, one each by cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm and alto saxophonist Aram Shelton (the remaining Fast Citizen is bassist Anton Hatwich) -- present both players and listeners with relatively songlike frameworks that tend to stay in place, harmonically, metrically, and structurally. But I wouldn't say -- and this touches upon what may be the core identity of this Chicago scene -- that the music on “Fast Citizens” is one bit less “free,” in effect, practice, or intent, than the music on “Several Lights” or any of the other widely varied sounds to which this scene keeps giving birth.

The common thread here, that core identity, is genuine compositional thinking -- a practical, unpretentious drive to make music in which every part has a significant structural and expressive role to play. And in the music on “Fast Citizens,” who plays what role and when does seem to be determined quite freely (whether on paper, in rehearsals, or on the run) -- by unusually acute, friendly-competitive ears and sensibilities, not through executive fiat or mere habit. (These are, by the way, the ears and sensibilities of musicians who know both their Ornette Coleman and their Sidney Bechet, their Morton Feldman and their Ruby Braff, and so forth and so on; one of the best things about this Chicago scene is how naturally -- and, again, how freely -- the pasts of jazz and related musics are being played with/sorted out in the present.)

Jackson formed this band in 2003; it played frequently in 2004 at the aptly named (because it's hard to find) Chicago club The Hideout. With the exception of Lonberg-Holm, who is 44, all of these musicians are in their late 20s or early 30s; and all of them, with the exception of Berman, are not Chicago-area natives but arrived here from elsewhere -- Arkansas (Jackson), New York City (Lonberg-Holm), Florida (Shelton), Iowa (Hatwich), (Arizona) Rosaly -- from 1995 on. This flow into town of remarkable, like-minded players and their subsequent further flowering is something one has come to expect.

Some examples, now, of that aforementioned compositional drive in action. Notice during Shelton's solo on “Blackout” (his own piece) how he proposes a fluttering, tremolo-like figure at about the 5:25 mark, which is swiftly echoed by Lonberg-Holm's bowed cello -- with alto and bass then discussing and remolding what might be said to lie under their fingers until Shelton's solo line rises in pitch and emotional heat to a near explosive level of intensity … and then out. In effect, that initial moment of mutual invention/recognition/response has become the basis of the entire second half of the piece. And much the same tremolo impulse resurfaces more briefly and in a rather different guise on Lonberg-Holm's “Pax Urbanum” -- the cello now pizzicato, while Shelton's side of the duet is fittingly cool, delicate, and precise. In fact, and he can laugh at the likely incongruity of this, throughout “Fast Citizens” Lonberg-Holm seems to me to be playing a kind of Django Reinhardt meets D'Artagnan role -- sweeping in over balustrades to add fantasy, fire, and wit.

Berman is a virtual composer in himself; as much any brass player of his age, he has his own sound and personality, with one of his key traits being the way his lines typically seem to think again about what they've just said, in a wry “Did I mean that?/Yes I meant that” manner. But on Jackson's “Signs,” with Rosaly and Hatwich cooking behind him, it would be hard to think of the climactic passages of Berman's brilliant solo as a solo per se -- what we have here, by about the 3:20 mark, is a virtual cornet-bass-drums trio; that it was arrived at spontaneously makes it no less concrete. Speaking of Hatwich and Rosaly, while they aren’t the only gifted bassist and drummer on the Chicago scene, it would be hard to think what things would be like without them. A virtuoso who never thrusts his virtuosity at you, Hatwich has great time, a rich, woody tone; a marvelous, “abstract” ear; and is – that phrase again – always thinking compositionally. And the at once calm and effervescent Rosaly – let’s just say that he’s my favorite drummer since Joe Chambers and leave it at that.

As for Jackson, as soloist and principal composer, I was struck at first by the habañera-tango feel of “Signs” and “Saying Yes.” But no deliberate Latin or Spanish strains are at work here. Instead, Jackson explains, the gliding, brooding moodiness of these pieces may be an oblique, accidental offshoot of his onetime interest in Eastern European music in general and Klezmer in particular. “I was pretty intense about Klezmer for a while,” Jackson says, “playing the clarinet and transcribing all of those tunes, listening in particular to [clarinet virtuosi] Naftule Brandwein and Dave Tarras. Years later, I suppose, melodies with those intervals we associate with the East [must be] floating around in my head.”

Jackson modestly solos on only four of the album's seven tracks, but each one is a gem. The first three (on “Ready Everyday,” “Saying Yes,” and “Pax Urbanum”) all come from one side of Jackson's musical spectrum, I think -- these nearly unbroken lines, absolute in their linear logic, also seem to outline in their sober rise and fall other “shadow” melodies, as though the changes Jackson plays over or implies were, in effect, ghosts. From another side comes Jackson's solo on “Course” -- steaming and expressionistic, it virtually glories in its ability to weld disparate voices and parts into a whole.

The first time I heard Jackson's music, some four years ago, I felt sure that he was someone special; the only question was whether a certain diffidence of temperament would prevent all that he had to give from getting out. Jackson is still the same thoughtful, soft-spoken individual, but the music on “Fast Citizens” speaks loud and clear.

In the course of the back and forth on this thread from Jan. 2005:

http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php...helton&st=0

a fair amount was said (by me and others) about today’s Chicago AG/semi-AG scene. To that I’ll add the following liner notes, which I wrote a month or so ago for tenor saxophonist/composer Keefe Jackson’s new Delmark album “Ready Everyday.” Other notable Chicago AG or semi-AG figures who come to mind (most all under age 35 I think) -- other than the ones mentioned in the above thread or in the liner notes below -- are clarinetist James Falzone, guitarist Matt Schneider, bassist Josh Abrams, bassist Jason Ajemian, bassist Jason Roebke, vibist Jason Adasiewicz (we got Jasons), tenorman Geoff Bradfield, cellist Kevin Davis, drummer Tim Daisy, drummer Dylan Ryan, trumpeter Jaimie Branch, trumpeter Patrick Newberry, drummer Mike Reed, trombonist Nick Broste, bassist Anton Hatwich, drummer Frank Rosaly, drummer Tim Mulveena, drummer Nori Tanaka, and I’m sure I’m forgetting a lot of people. Albums I can recommend, in addition to “Ready Everyday” and the other album mentioned there, “Several Lights,” and the ones mentioned in the above thread, are these from reedman Dave Rempis (Circular Logic, Triage “Twenty Minute Cliff,” Triage “American Mythology,” “Out of Season”); Geoff Bradfield’s “Rule of Three”; 774th Street Quartet’s “A Rare Thing”; Herculaneum’s “Orange Blossom”; a terrific one from a Jason Ajemian-led ensemble that I seem to have misplaced, damn it. I should add that the stylistic range of this scene is quite broad, but there seems to me to be a definite core to it, which I try to touch upon below. So here are those liner notes: