Achyutan Marvin Pattillo - RIP

[Alex Potts]

Benny Green shared this sad news yesterday evening

[clifford_thornton]

Damn, that is sad news! 

our own @ep1str0phyknew him fairly well, I think.

[mikeweil]

R.I.P.

Never heard any music that he played on, but I found out that he was drumming in Pony Poindexter's quartet immediately before the latter's move to Europe and was supposed to record with him, which never took place. Are there any recordings with him out there?

Edited March 30 by mikeweil

[mikeweil]

Just found his facebook and youtube pages. Solid modern bop.

 

[JSngry]

https://www.discogs.com/artist/752421-Marvin-Pattillo

[Niko]

I really like the band on that Sonny Simmons album... RIP

[ep1str0phy]

 

14 hours ago, clifford_thornton said:

Damn, that is sad news! 

our own @ep1str0phyknew him fairly well, I think.

Oh man - tough news. I did know Achyutan. We'd fallen out of touch a bit, and our mutual acquaintances had dwindled. We worked together as music educators in Richmond, CA, and we played together on numerous occasions. He was consistently encouraging, and very warm with me. He was one of the first people I thought to check in with back when COVID hit. 

In a way, Achyutan was my first real view into a certain part of the jazz ethos. He had lived the music that I romanticized growing up, and he welcomed me into that world with open arms. Before playing with Achuyan and company, I hadn't spent much time among musicians who taught from the bandstand - folks who would reprimand you for stepping too far out, or remind you to play the melody when you were just noodling around. Off stage, Achyutan was kind and courteous. The time I spent with him was an object lesson in the fact that music really is a job, a passion, and a lifestyle all at once.

These facts are lost to time, but Achyutan really got around on the scene in the 60s. Like a lot. He subbed for Elvin Jones in the Coltrane Quartet - not for a night or two, but for a stint. He was on Pharoah's first record, and he kept a photo of the band from that album in his living room. He spoke of people like Beaver Harris in reverential tones. Hearing his stories really made me reflect on the number of largely unknown musicians who made inestimable contributions to jazz - people who gifted it life in the wee hours, often to audiences who could not or did not grasp the craft. 

What I found interesting is that by the time we began playing together, he had made a hard shift away from avant-garde music. Even in contemporary academic circles, where there is an incentive to engage in at least some level of cultural nuance, we still tend to think of free jazz a monolith. In truth, there were probably as many different camps as there were participants, and there was certainly a contingent that looked upon the more extreme manifestations of the music with some skepticism. Achyutan could appreciate Archie Shepp's wall-of-noise music from the late 60s, but there was a disconnect between the purity of his bebop vernacular and whatever free jazz ultimately evolved into. It's complex.

Regardless, I'll never forget goading him into playing some wilder stuff at rehearsals. I was super keen to play "Impressions" with him - to just be near the reality of that language. I played my Coltrane superimpositions and side steps and additional self-inflicted hysterics. When we were done, he exhaled and winked. Legit to the core.

I'll remember him differently, but he should be memorialized for the depth of his musicality. Here's a great video with Gato, in 1972:

 

Edited March 30 by ep1str0phy

[clifford_thornton]

Thank you, thank you for that remembrance, Karl. Seems like a fascinating individual, which is what I recall from your mentioning him in years past.

[felser]

Yes, thanks for the remembrance and the video link!