Goodbye, Gato

I don't pretend to be an expert on the music of Gato Barbieri, who passed away yesterday at age 83, but I treasure a few of his early recordings. The track above—from a 1968 duo session with Dollar Brand that's been issued under various names over the years—chilled and electrified me when I first heard it. I distinctly remember throwing this one on during either a very late-night or early-morning DJ slot at WKCR and sitting in the control room spellbound by its strange tension, the way it slides back and forth between gravitas and savagery.

And I have never forgotten his elliptical proclamation in the liner notes (for the Arista/Freedom LP edition, titled Confluence): "'I do not scream,' said Gato, 'for the same reasons Pharoah Sanders screams.'" Wish there was more from that interview, but there you have it. His saxophonic "scream" is one of the most excruciating I know. There are many exquisite examples in the track above, where the sound swells to a horrible bursting. There is a quality of madness in the Barbieri scream that I find immensely appealing.

He also plays beautifully in these group settings...

Alan Shorter's Orgasm:

 

Don Cherry's Complete Communion:


Complete Communion in particular is simply a heavenly album. There are few more earthy and pleasurable and charming and exciting jazz sessions: four masters in, well... re-read the title, with a ton of meaty material to dig into. Barbieri is fully on board with Cherry's "cocktail piece" medley methodology—he's clearly having a blast digging into each melody and, eventually, detonating it. And the Shorter has a beautiful kind of stark, haunted vibe, to which Barbieri makes key contributions. Barbieri's own In Search of the Mystery, which features Calo Scott's cello in an odd yet highly effective foil role, is similarly underrated and heavy-duty.

If anyone knows the Flying Dutchman and Impulse albums well, I'm all ears re: recommendations. (The Third World is one I have my eye on.) I sense that for the listener attuned to Barbieri's early work, the intrigue thins out in the later part of Barbieri's career, but I could of course be very wrong. Discographical minutiae aside, farewell to a musician who honed a real voice on his instrument and made a focused yet indelible impact on this particular listener.

As it happens: Sonny Rollins at the Village Gate, 1962

This has been a year of major ’60s-era finds in jazz. Garth Caylor's Nineteen + shook up my world back in April, and I'm currently fixating on this behemoth, which fits in nicely with my ongoing Sonny Rollins obsession. I'd like to thank Phil Freeman for alerting me to the existence of this set—an exhaustive six-disc issue of the entire 1962 Sonny Rollins–Don Cherry–Bob Cranshaw–Billy Higgins Village Gate run that yielded the severely truncated three-track Our Man in Jazz LP—because I haven't read a single mention of it elsewhere. I'm not sure what rights issues are at play here (this is the first I've heard of Solar Records, who seem to specialize in complete reissues of sessions already put out either in full or in part by other labels)—maybe we're looking at a quasi-bootleg. Even so, I can't look away.

I feel that if this set had come out on, say, Mosaic, it would be one of those landmark archival jazz releases that gets unanimously heralded as the precious find that it is—the 2005 Monk/Coltrane CD, for example. Like the many other great jazz boxes that immerse you in the life of a band during a particular phase—e.g., Miles's Plugged Nickel box or the first two Bootleg Series releases—Complete Live at the Village Gate 1962 feels like an object for lifelong study. It's huge and sprawling and untameable and, as Phil's write-up suggests, nearly impossible to digest in any single sitting, but it's the kind of release that gets inside your head and takes you over. Having spent a couple weeks savoring the set in pieces, it now feels to me like an essential part of the Rollins canon, as well as a key document of the extended Ornette Coleman family and the development of free jazz in general. Beyond all that "historical significance" business, it's simply a source of enormous aural pleasure—an extended document of four great, distinctive improvisers conversing.

I find myself gravitating in particular to the many lengthy pieces here labeled "Untitled Original" (distinguished with the letters A, B, C and so forth), many of them taken from sets played on July 29 and 30 of ’62. According to the liner notes and from what I can tell, these are examples of straight improv, and the results are remarkable in their variety and extremity. This music doesn't simply sound like Rollins stepping into the Ornette world, nor does it sound like Rollins bringing Cherry and Higgins into his world. (The set is a valuable reminder that these players were already unified—as I'm reading in Eric Nisenson's valuable Open Sky, Rollins had practiced with Coleman and Cherry for years before the Coleman/Cherry/Haden/Higgins band's public breakthrough.) It often sounds like, in a very stark way, exactly what it is—these four guys stepping onto that stage on those nights and simply starting to play, sometimes achieving a magical sort of communion and sometimes feeling around blindly in the dark. As Freeman writes, "This is music that's all about the moment." Given that some of these tracks run more than a half-hour, it's not surprising that there are lulls and dead ends, but there are these moments where the music turns a corner and hits upon something startlingly fresh, either in general or in the realm of what we've previously known from Rollins and Cherry, separately or together.

"Untitled Original C" begins with approximately two minutes of weightless, sound-based improv, the borderline-unsettling kind that I associate with early days of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, as documented on the ’67/’68 Nessa box. As is often the case on this set, it's Higgins who pushes the music onto a rhythmic grid—throughout these performances, it's fascinating to hear how the rest of the band reacts to his penchant for hard, propulsive groove, sometimes jumping on the train and other times resisting the momentum. Here, we get a tantalizing bit of the former, but then the bottom drops out again and we're back in this sort of one-sound-at-a-time murmur zone.

In its nakedness and frank experimentation, this music is as radical as what Cecil Taylor, Jimmy Lyons and Sunny Murray would play in Copenhagen seven months later. It's such a pleasure to hear Rollins and Cherry conversing in this sort of private, unhurried way. The music makes perfect sense, but there's no rush to make it make sense, to hurry the process of the improvising, to deliver to the audience anything other than a succession of unfolding sonic phenomena. As "Untitled Original C" progresses, the music enters a sort of march cadence, then leaves it; becomes an uptempo freebop battle, with Rollins and Cherry trading phrases, overlapping them. (In a lot of ways, I hear this band as a direct precursor to the CRHB band discussed here, and to Mu and Old and New Dreams, as much as it's a descendant of anything Ornette had done prior—given the existing bond between Rollins and Coleman, one has to assume that OC was in attendance for some of these performances, or at least that he heard Rollins/Cherry/Cranshaw/Higgins at some point, either live or on record.) Higgins steps on the gas and then stops. Rollins is playing what sounds like a classical etude. The horns trade riffs with the drums. Musical events occur; the band discards them.

Things get even rawer on "Untitled Original E/Untitled Original A #3," with Rollins juggling Morse code bleats and ragged fanfares, turning off the brain and just sound-making. And then, on a glorious, nearly 40-minute "Oleo" on the last disc, a performance that deserves legendary status: pure, hurtling abandon, Rollins racing along like liquid steel.

This set is glorious or it's tedious, depending on where your head is at, what you're asking of the music at that time. But objectively, as a document of these artists at work, Complete Live at the Village Gate 1962 is essential. We get to sit with this band, watch them grind through the process, sweat it out, have fun. There's a conspiratorial glee about the best of these recordings; you can almost sense Rollins breathing deeply the air of freedom*. We get to savor these players' beautifully idiosyncratic voices, separately and together, as we would those of great actors whom we'd known as individuals, but not as a unit—at least not as well as we do now.

We accept the phrase "free jazz" as though it means one thing, as though the music of say The Shape of Jazz to Come bears any real relationship to that of Spiritual Unity, other than that they're both wonderful and both share certain instrumentation and common inspirational roots. But were the Who really anything like the Beatles, once each had achieved a mature style? When I hear Complete Live at the Village Gate 1962, I hear an all-in kind of improvising. Rollins led the band, but he wanted the band, the situation to lead him. These players swing and they suspend time; they jell and they clash. They do what they do in the order that they do it, for as long as they happen to, and that's the music for that set, that night.

You can cling to the notion that Rollins, on one hand, and Cherry and Higgins, on the other, were musicians from different schools. You can worry about what it "means" for these supposedly disparate artists to have shared the stage. Or you can accept that all it means it what it sounded like—not an unbroken string of profundity, but a search, that thing that Rollins has been about all along. The revelations, yes, but also the fits and starts, the muddles and the missteps along the way. Sound, just like life, as it happens.

*"I use a variety of systems… What I'm trying to do is get to the point where I can have a really complete expression of what I'm thinking about… I'm trying to play jazz, creative jazz, where you play things in the moment, at the moment that I get it—it comes into your mind and you're able to play it… I might use any kind of technique or harmonic system… Everything is going in the service of trying to reach Sonny Rollins and play myself." —Rollins in Eric Nisenson's Open Sky

Coiling the spring: Ornette & Co.'s fast-forward mirth/mania

I've spent the past few days glued to WKCR, which is spinning Ornette around the clock through Wednesday, June 17, at 9:30am EST, and to my own rapidly growing Ornette Coleman collection. The concentrated listening is wonderful; the occasion is sad. Every time a major artist dies, I wonder about the cycle of tragedy and tribute—why was I not immersing myself in Ornette's music, say, a week ago, filling in the gaps in my knowledge? (The 1987 reunion of the classic quartet, both studio and live, and the pair of Sound Museum albums from 1996 are two spots in the discography that I'm now seriously investigating for the first time.) That said, I've returned to Ornette regularly since I first began loving his work roughly 20 years ago—WKCR's March 9 birthday broadcasts were always drop-everything propositions for me—but there's just so much music out there. At least we know the man felt the love while he was still alive. This is a good opportunity to mention that Ornette's friends and contemporaries Sonny Rollins and Cecil Taylor, born approximately six months after and one year before OC, respectively, are still with us. Remember it well, every day.

I think that when you love an artist's work, you carry their sound in your head, the same way you carry a friend's voice. That's why I don't place much stock in canonical thinking regarding music or the arts in general. An artist may be great, but if what they do doesn't speak to you on that private level, all the talk of their greatness, as though it were a foregone conclusion, can grow oppressive. And that can be the case even if, maybe especially if, the given artist's work does speak to you. Sometimes, for me, it can be hard to square the writer-about-music's job of having to dutifully recite the reasons for an artist's "importance" with the private sensation of why I love their work. I get why the "important" part is important. It's because, in some larger sense, the very act of speaking about a key figure's life in shorthand is important. When a major artist dies, we summarize their achievements for the benefit of those who might not be familiar with their work. But as I hinted at in this quick, by no means definitive (not being modest; just saying that definitiveness wasn't even my intention) Ornette piece for Time Out New York, the tagline version of a given artist's greatness can often feel very remote from the private truth of that same greatness, as it plays out within the heart and mind of a specific listener.

I love Ornette Coleman not because he Revolutionized Jazz, but, in part, because he was able to cultivate a circumstance in which something like this might occur:


It's no coincidence that I also cited a track from Science Fiction when we lost Charlie Haden just 11 months ago. With very few exceptions, when I think about what a given jazz hero means to me, I think about that figure in an ideal group context. For me, there were two ideal Ornette Coleman group contexts (all respects to the best of the electric years, esp. this 1978 ensemble): Coleman/Cherry/Haden/Higgins (CCHH), heard on "Civilization Day" above, and Coleman/Redman/Haden/Blackwell (CRHB). I feel that both reached their apex during the early ’70s, and specifically on this album, which features performances by each of these two configurations, as well as by a hybrid ensemble; the 1971 Belgrade concert by CRHB is equally godly. (Though I should say that judging by the 1987 recordings I'm currently savoring, CCHH kept right on evolving upon their reunion, and, though technically Ornette-less, Old and New Dreams, the Redman/Cherry/Haden/Blackwell band which fused the two groups cited above, illustrated the Coleman Concept just about as well as the master's own greatest groups.)


"Civilization Day" illustrates one key facet of that Coleman Concept, which is speed. The threshold thereof in jazz. How far can you push it? Charlie Parker had already pushed it pretty damn far. But Ornette, it seems to me, did as much as anyone to explore the border of chaos and control. Certainly there was plenty of that happening in the work of both Davis/Shorter/Hancock/Carter/Williams and Coltrane/Tyner/Garrison/Jones, but neither group ever concerned itself with the kind of gleeful mania heard on Science Fiction.

When I take a personal inventory of what I love about Ornette, I arrive at the idea that he drilled these bands so extensively, coiled their collective springs so tightly, that all four players, whether in the CCHH or CRHB configurations, could just blast off into this white-hot yet almost mirthful kind of fast-forward mode. "Free jazz" was many things to many people: explosion, expulsion, dirge, catharsis, meditation. To Ornette it was the license to dance on a molecular level, at tempos so extreme they seem almost cartoonish.

The deployment of the drums in "Civilization Day" is masterful. The way Higgins drops out after the head (:14), leaving Coleman and Cherry to twist and writhe and wriggle, coiling that spring tighter and tighter before blasting back in with a swing at once steely and buoyant. The brashness, the drive of the band at full-tilt during Cherry's solo. This is the banishment of all that has ever been boring about jazz. Haden doing his part to further coil the spring around 2:25, embarking on one of his epic, brain-bending, upward-moving Haden Slides, till you think your skull's going to burst at the simultaneous tension and drive and motion of it all. And then Higgins out again around 2:50, leaving Coleman and Haden to rev in the starting gate for a few precious seconds before the drums come back in. And once they do, Haden sounds even more hellbent, perversely shifting registers/gears (3:14–3:25) as Higgins steps on the gas. The zipping, darting Coleman wail, the expression of a man on a sonic trampoline, soaring ever higher. Wiggling and shimmying. Singing and dancing. Higgins coiling the spring for 15 almost unbearably tense seconds (4:35–4:50), bashing out snare-cymbal accents at three-beat intervals as Coleman whoops and screams. And as before, when the full-tilt swing resumes, it sounds even more maniacal, more driven, more fun. The drum solo ironically a quick breather, a respite from the CCHH mania, which returns in classically hyperbolic form during the final head.

Is this "free" jazz? Or is it the most controlled, the most together that jazz has ever sounded? It's a circumstance of group sympathy so profound that these concepts become synonymous. So that the band, collectively, is unfazed by an objectively absurd tempo. So that they sacrifice no control or precision of expression even in these circumstances of pure, adrenaline-fueled daredevilry. (There is this speed-demon aspect to the later Coleman bands with Denardo on drums, bands that, as you can hear on the Sound Museum sessions and Sound Grammar, summoned their own special kind of fast-forward mania, but with all due respect, no drummer could rival Higgins and Blackwell when it came to the challenge of maintaining a flawless sense of pocket/groove at breakneck tempos.)

As a listener, you feel like a kid on a carnival ride: "Faster! Faster!" This to me is the core OC sensation, the one to which my listening brain flashes when I think about the Ornette I know and love. It's him, yes, but it's also the hive-mind circumstance he was able to foster among his bandmates. Like Coltrane or Davis or Lacy or Braxton or Ellington or Giuffre or Shorter or Rivers or Evans or Mingus or Lehman or Threadgill or any other major figure in composed/improvised music who at one time or another has managed to align their concept perfectly with one or more fixed groups of collaborators, Coleman found that group ecstasy with CCHH and CRHB. It's there on record, and it is immortal.

Folk hero: Goodbye, Charlie Haden

Charlie Haden, 1937–2014

/////

I'm listening to Ornette Coleman's "Street Woman" (fall, 1971), probably my favorite Charlie Haden performance.



There is a joyous, maniacal folk energy coursing through this recording, and Haden is its nerve center. I don't know the technical term for what it is that Haden is doing during the opening head, but it's a sound I know, and cherish, as the Haden Slide—this sort of sticky, slippery journey down the neck of the bass, creating a descending drone that underpins the horn flurries like a subterranean river of molasses. (There's another beautiful Haden Slide, this one running low-to-high, from about 1:03 to 1:07.) And then the zoned-out ecstasy of the bass break at 2:07, as though Haden were weaving his ideas on a foot-controlled loom, heaping momentum on momentum. Then slamming on these completely punk, throbbing offbeat notes underneath Don Cherry's solo at 3:59. And then back to the Haden Slide for the concluding head—aspirating, invoking, drawing in and out, and up and down. Charlie Haden is the dark, pulsating heart of this piece, and, I'd argue, of the Ornette Coleman aesthetic in general. (He is also, of course, the keeper of the trance on the original "Lonely Woman.")

He served the same function in Keith Jarrett's American Quartet and Old and New Dreams—this collective body of work, the output of these two groups as well as the various Coleman recordings over the years, is highest-echelon art, the most human that jazz, or music in general, can get. Charlie Haden was the steward of what I think of as the earth element in jazz. He was the soft, dark, rich, fertile soil of any performance he participated in. Last night, a friend referred to Haden's principal contribution simply as love, and yes, that is really the most direct way to say it. He dug in and spurred himself to emotive ecstasy so that the music could take off. As jazz attained lift-off in the late ’50s, and in new ways on through the ’70s, Charlie Haden was right in the middle of that. What he represents is "free jazz" not as obscurantism but as a quest for utopia, for greater humanity. He was always just trying to get to the song, and, through it, to you.

The aforementioned collaborations are my favorite Charlie Haden contexts, the ones I know best. The Liberation Music Orchestra and Quartet West, to name just two other major Haden endeavors, are more or less blind spots for me, and I need to fix that asap. In a somewhat more obscure vein, the two 1976 Horizon duo albums, The Golden Number and Closeness, are treasured items in my LP collection: A) because they're every bit as special as the personnel (Jarrett, Coleman—who plays alto on Closeness and trumpet on TGN, and would reprise this team-up on ’77's Soapsuds, Soapsuds—Cherry, Paul Motian, Alice Coltrane, Hampton Hawes, Archie Shepp) would lead you to believe, and B) because they sum up so poetically the Charlie Haden ethos of music-making:



This is—forget "jazz"—music as communion, with a collaborator and with something higher. It's only listening—yes, closeness. This is music that smothers the rarefied, chops-and-theory-forward impulse in jazz beneath its pillowy bootheel. It's about spending time, getting into it, sublimating, chasing collective beauty. But not some New Age–y ideal. This music is frequently meditative and gorgeous ("Ellen David"), sure, but also hard and gritty when it needs to be (see "O.C.," with its wiry physicality). Mostly it's about meeting his collaborators where they live—plunging into Alice Coltrane's blissed-out universe during "For Turiya," for instance, or reveling in Hampton Hawes's deep blues bag on "Turnaround." Or forging pan-ethnic sound spaces with Paul Motian and Don Cherry on "For a Free Portugal" (demonstrating Haden's trademark way of making political music feel noble and artful, not pretentious and heavy-handed) and "Out of Focus," respectively.

The liner notes to these records are masterpieces unto themselves, with so much love, wisdom and goodwill being tossed around among Haden, his collaborators and the listener. You read all this, and it drives home what you already knew: Charlie Haden was a true American folk hero.

A few selections:

"Charlie Haden plays for the existence of the listener. This reason alone makes him a musical guru."

"Charlie's music has its roots in Viva la humans. It is not Capitalistic, Communistic or Socialistic. His music does not dictate."

—Ornette Coleman

"As inner-directed musicians continue to become rarer…, Charlie Haden becomes more of a phenomenon each year… His stature is very often not even admitted among musicians themselves, as they, in general, are externally directed by mere circumstantial forces. He is one of the very few consistently musical players I know… and my participation on this album is a small tribute to his commitment."—Keith Jarrett

"He has contributed much to JAZZ and ranks as one of the greatest players of all time. To say that he is a sensitive, sympathetic musician would be an understatement. He is a natural, original and beautiful player and on this album has created music from the heart."—Paul Motian

"One of the rewards in playing music is the opportunity of meeting and playing with special human beings that come along, not very often, but when they do, bring a message so strong and beautiful that you feel and you know a giant has come to play. This is the feeling I experience whenever I hear Charlie."—Hampton Hawes

"Closeness: one part of the creative process; feeling a closeness to Life; having a need inside to express your feelings in a creative language; dedicating your life to the language we call Jazz (creative music born in the United States); being close to others who have also dedicated their lives to creative music; wanting and hoping to communicate this closeness to as many people as possible through music. These are some of the things this album is about."—Charlie Haden

/////

Some of the great tributes that have turned up so far:

*Fred Kaplan // Slate
*Peter Hum & Co. // The Ottawa Citizen
*Patrick Jarenwattananon // NPR (plus this awesome archived Haden/Jarrett encounter)
*Nate Chinen // NY Times

/////

And finally, a gem you may not have seen. Three fourths of the Jarrett quartet, playing with Baikida Carroll under Haden's leadership:

Melvins/Blue Notes/Parker/Taylor/MORE

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

MELVINS/BLUE NOTES

the new lineup of the Melvins proved itself a smashing success w/ the recently dropped "(A) Senile Animal," but they sealed the deal big time at Warsaw tonight. the show simply kicked total ass.

openers were weak to piss poor. i'm a huge fan of Joe Lally's bass playing in Fugazi, but his solo stuff doesn't do much for me--basically very chill songs built around bass vamps and Lally's speak-singing. the songs he sang on the last three Fugazi records were awesome, but these just feel half-baked. it was interesting to hear him backed by Dale Crover and Coady Willis of the 'Vins and (of all folks) Melvin Gibbs on "lead" bass, but the set was pretty much a snooze.

Ghostigital (i think one of the dudes from the Sugarcubes) just totally blew. boring arty dance music w/ rambling poetry over top.

then was Big Business who played a really solid set of mostly new stuff. this was the first time i heard them live where the mix was just right. their music is straightforward and relentless and, it must be said, very Melvins-like, but they've got a really strong identity, owing to what awesome players Jared and Coady both are. the notsosecret weapon is Jared's voice, a hugely powerful and melodic instrument. Dale joined in on guitar on a few tracks including "Easter Romantic" from "Head for the Shallow" ("White Pizzazz" was also played, after Dale exited), which i thought was probably the best heavy record of '05.

set segued right into the 'Vins set. the two drummers started up this intricate marchy-type vamp, which led into (i think i'm remembering this right) "The Talking Horse," the first track from the new record (which weirdly was the last track on the promo disc i got; entire record was reversed from actual track order and i'm not sure if that was a mistake or just the Melvins messing around). a good deal of "Animal" was played and the stuff simply sounded flawless (didn't hurt that Warsaw is an excellent room with near-perfect sound). usually the drummers would sort of jam out at the end of the songs and launch right into the next one. pacing and setlist were amazing; i heard songs i never expected to hear live, such as "Revolve," "Sky Pup," "Set Me Straight" and..."Oven," which is perhaps the heaviest song ever written and was like a moment of communion for me and my Stay Fucked bros--we opted to attend this show together instead of practicing--b/c we cover that song live. then there were the staples, such as "Let It All Be," "The Bloated Pope" (totally badass track from the very spotty "Pigs of the Roman Empire" record), "The Bit" (which sounded completely massive and benefited from a creepy drawn-out intro), "The Lovely Butterfly" and "Hooch."

it's true that there are certain songs that are in every Melvins set (no "Night Goat" tonight, though), but they play all the material with absolute conviction; they simply do not phone shit in. you might be wondering why i hadn't mentioned how the new lineup (Jared and Coady from Big Business are now in the band if that wasn't already clear) affects the sound and i think the reason is that the new guys fit in so seamlessly. the new songs already sound like classics and the old ones sound pretty much the same but with the added punch of an extra drummer. i really think this new record is one of the best of the band's career and this live show was a whole lot better than the other two i've seen. special props again to Jared's voice: check his performance on "A History of Bad Men" on the record and you'll see what i mean. like Buzz, he can be ferocious and melodic at the same time.

don't miss this band if they come back! hail Melvins! can't believe how long they've been around and how they keep kicking ass completely outside of the spotlight. who else even comes close to this kind of longevity and consistency let alone constant renewal. damn, these guys are just...

***

so i wanted to sort of revisit something from the last post. was trying to home in a certain period of jazz and i cast too wide a net. what i'm really talking about are the more avant-garde-leaning records on Blue Note from the early to mid '60s. i think this music is unparalleled in jazz--total virtuosity and control but with an experimental streak. but CONTROLLED, formal, TOGETHER. not free jazz. free jazz lives but it doesn't have the depth of this music. i'm talking about (partial list):

Andrew Hill - Point of Departure (3.21.64)

Andrew Hill - Andrew!!! (6.25.64)

Grachan Moncur III - Evolution (11.21.63--> day before Kennedy assassination! i
interviewed Grachan and he said he got chills listening to the funeral broadcast the next day because the horns playing taps reminded him of the dirgey title track of "Evolution" recorded one day prior.)

Jackie McLean - One Step Beyond (3.1.63)

Sam Rivers - Fuschia Swing Song (12.11.64--> one day prior to Tony Williams's 19th birthday)

Don Cherry - Complete Communion (12.24.65)

Eric Dolphy - Out to Lunch (2.25.64)

you'll notice that Tony Williams appears on many of these. i feel that he is the best jazz percussionist who ever lived, and one of the finest musicians period that i've ever been exposed to. he played music, not drums. utter finesse and conviction in every note. few things feel more sublime to me than the above-mentioned music and especially Tony's part in making it. this was such a special time.

uniformly strong WRITING on these discs. every piece hummable--never just heads. structural fascinations--Cherry's suite formats, Hill's episodic "Spectrum"--solos to melt your heart and brain (think of Jackie McLean on title track of "Evolution"). real improvisation and composition perfectly balanced. it's dumb that Blue Note lets these things waver in and out of print--as much as i love Coltrane and Miles and Duke and a ton of more well known things, these--and a bunch of related sessions from around the same time and with a lot of the same players--are really the essential records for me, my gold standard for jazz.

[a HUGE thanks needs to be given here to Andrew, Joe and Russell, dudes who first helped me cultivate my love of the aforementioned jazz regions and to Schaumann and Jeff, who understand exactly what i'm talking about when i gush about this vital realm of art.]

*****

Monday, October 16, 2006

COMPLETE COMMUNION / STEVE SMITH

Don Cherry's "Where Is Brooklyn?" (recorded 11.11.66) is a breathtaking small-group inside-out jazz session. but what Blue Note record from this period and general category isn't? these sessions are just too much for me sometimes: how is it that every one of these players--here it's Cherry, Pharoah Sanders, Henry Grimes and Ed Blackwell--have such a strong identity and concept, that it's Cherry's session, but everyone contributes such a unique sound. this is living jazz. Grimes gets a lot of solo space and he sounds amazing--really extreme dexterity and outness of concept. my favorite piece i think is "The Thing," which is this awesome bluesy piece--supercatchy, like so many of Cherry's pieces. Pharoah digs into this one so hard. he does a lot of screaming/overblowing, what have you on this disc, but on this one, he just grooves. Ed Blackwell is a true great--his blinding speed and just sense of hurtling along is basically unparalleled. when you wanted the music to just move/cook/etc., you called this guy.

i'm so stuck on this period of music. basically all of my favorite jazz albums date to around this time: all the great Andrew Hill's, the Sam Rivers's, "Out to Lunch," the early Miles quintets, "Interstellar Space." Booker Little's "Out Front" and the Five Spot sessions w/ Dolphy are a few years earlier, but it's really like '59-67 or something. shit was just ridiculous during this time.

*****

hey, a quick thanks to my friend and colleague Steve Smith for linking here from his blog, Night After Night, which is a really cool and diverse resource for opinions on all kinds of music. link is way up there to the right where the links begin ("Steve Smith's blog")-->

kinda nervous to be connected from there b/c that blog and many of the other ones that Steve links to are pretty serious, pro-type endeavours. not really sure what this one is. been very irregular about posting and also, everyone should know that this is really in theory the news page for my band, Stay Fucked [ED: this post was originally on the Stay FKD page, but actually, you're now reading this on the Hank alone blog.] though a lot of the posts end up being about shows i've seen or records i'm listening to. basically it's just about me as someone who makes and listens to music a lot. ok--again, thanks Steve.

strange record to think about: Van Morrison - "Veedon Fleece"

*****

Sunday, October 15, 2006

EVAN PARKER

had the good fortune of seeing Evan Parker play solo saxophone for the second time in my life tonight. this was at the tiny Stone. this was, not surprisingly, completely awesome. some quick thoughts:

a) i think about Parker's sound as consisting of a main sound and a residual sound, the latter coming across to me like sonic exhaust, like it sort of shoots out the back as he's playing the main line.

2) his tenor sound has an amazing bite to it, just very gruff and scratchy. in such a small room as the Stone, it had a huge impact.

d) four pieces were played, plus a tiny encore of "Played Twice" by Monk, which i took as a nod to the recently deceased Steve Lacy, who performed that tune on his 1960 (is that right?) LP, The Straight Horn of Steve Lacy. Lacy obviously being a fellow soprano master--the two played together on that Chirps disc which i honestly haven't heard but need to.

H) Parker showed an awesome sense of pacing. the pieces were long, but they ended when they needed to. an interesting contrast with the Cecil show earlier in the week was that Parker seemed to end pieces in a very deliberate manner, like bringing them down dynamically, whereas Cecil would stop very abruptly. both players give the sense though of dipping into this infinite stream, like it's just a constant flow that you're hearing part of--nothing really begins or ends. both can sound repetitive and constantly fresh at the same time--bringing to mind that idea that i heard quoted once that "Cecil Taylor has been playing the same piece of music since the '70s." it's at once dead on and totally false. Parker's the same way--the music is unmistakable and the basic materials are the same but each piece has it's own logic and the really great ones seem totally unique. for example, one of the tenor pieces tonight had this really key melodic element; Parker jumped between registers and created a nice contrast, something almost hummable. strange b/c i don't think of Parker as being about melodies, but about like liquid pitch changes. the sound is like mercury, constantly burbling or gurgling or flowing in this slippery quicksilver way.

1) listening to the sort of "exhaust" pitches described above is a really cool experience. at times, i detected these very regular rhythms happening "behind" the main note flow, like pulses of 5 or 6 beats. it makes me wonder if there's a limit to how much of each level of sound he can control when doing multiphonics, like if it's the sort of thing where when one layer is shifting, the other must remain constant. sorta like a Heisenberg type of thing.

there is endless mystery in these sounds. time spent communing with Evan Parker is like brain floss, totally bracing and wondrous.

thinking about a lineage about such obsessive musicians, who pursue this one ultraspecific sound--though as stated above, with marvelous microcosmic variation--over an entire career. saw two of these types, Evan and Cecil this week. i believe that Mick Barr of Orthrelm, etc. is this type of player as well. you always know it's him and even though his works are very diverse (especially the Ocrilim record), it's still all pointing toward this basic vibe--laser focus. who else? ... are there artists in other mediums? like Rothko or Mondrian or something? something to think about...

*****

Friday, October 13, 2006

CECIL TAYLOR / XIU XIU

got to see...

Cecil Taylor

last night.

solo.

at Merkin Hall.

i guess you could say this was one of those check-that-off-the-list-of-things-to-do-in-this-lifetime kind of shows. the best thing about it, for me, was the chance just to do my best to home in and listen really really hard to him for over an hour. obviously i have like 100s of hours of his music on CD, but when you're at a concert, that's all you're doing. sounds obvious, but i was thinking about how that's the best thing about live music, not that it's live, but that it gets your undivided attention--insofar as anything ever does. maybe i just have ADD, but it's just special to me to be able to focus so much.

anyway, he played i think four pieces, interrupted by very brief breaks, during which he turned the pages of what i guess was some sort of score resting on the piano, though it could have been poetry. he recited a short poem before playing which was really awesome, one of the more coherent texts i've heard from him. it was printed inside the program notes and contained stuff about "coefficient of viscosity" and "coriolis" and stuff like that. sounds absurd, but it started w/ (get this) the names of five drummers: Chick Webb, Sunny Murray, Andrew Cyrille, Max Roach and Tony Oxley. so to me, the whole poem was about rhythm. really fascinating.

anyway, the music. i'm avoiding trying to describe this b/c it's so hard. ok, Cecil's music is instantly recognizable b/c you have these sort of musings in really short units where the fingers of his right and left hands will mirror each other. those are the connective tissue of his recent solo music. and then there are obviously the percussive parts, where he'll use either the side of his hand, his fists, or his fingers in kind of a rapid-fire downward stabbing motion. and there's also the really dramatic, usually low-end chords that he often slams on in between the aforementioned spasms.

last night was generally in keeping w/ the Cecil solo i know. in the first piece, he seemed to take a bit to build momentum and toggle somewhat predictably between the modes described above. the second piece was fascinating though b/c at one point, he was clearly playing a written figure--he stared at the "sheet music" and repeated this flowery subtle melody three or four times. there were these strange moments throughout the show where he dropped just the slightest hint of a beautiful, consonant melody and then pulled back. at one point, he paused and i actually felt him hesitate: his fingers were shaking above the keys before he plunged back in. also, he was wheezing audibly throughout--a reminder that he is in fact 77 (!!!!) years old.

dammit, i lost my train of thought, but i was going to comment on some interesting features of the fourth piece. i think some similar stuff was going on in terms of these isolated moments of more conventional beauty than i'm used to hearing from him. this is not to say that i'm one of those people who characterizes him as some basher and is surprised to hear something beautiful from him--far from it. but there was some really delicate, quiet playing in this set. during those parts you could really admire how athletic his hands are. he seems to put as much bodily thrust into his quiet attack as to his loud one. the fingers really dance.

this is the way to experience Cecil. just a beautiful thing to be able to witness. can't imagine ever not being completely awed by this man's music.

*****

ran down to the Mercury Lounge to catch Xiu Xiu afterward. this is the band responsible for what is, i think, definitely one of the best albums released in '06, that being The Air Force. the live show was really, really intense, though i'm not sure i prefer it to the records--really it was a totally different thing. on the album, the music envelops Jamie Stewart's voice, but never overwhelms it; the timbre and lyrics are always right up front. live, unless you know how the vocals go already, you might have a hard time making out just what he's up to b/c this was LOUD stuff with the instrumental interplay taking center stage. and awesomely rhythmic i might add. lineup was: Stewart on vocals, percussion, lap steel, etc.; Caralee McElroy on vox, melodica, samples and probably a whole lot of other stuff; and Ches Smith on drums, percussion and vibes. they played over backing tracks, but got into some really heavy syncopations and rhythmic workouts that reminded me (duh!) of Aa a little bit. Ches did a great job of working with the drum machine and playing what sounded like really powerful, fucked up versions of those crazy 32nd-note dance beats you hear in Destiny's Child and shit like that. Stewart is pretty awesome to watch; he's obviously digging pretty deep and he shuts his eyes tight the whole time. a great show, definitely. it's cool that they're sort of interpreting the album rather than reproducing it.

like i was saying, "The Air Force" is definitely something to hear.

*****

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

CANNIBAL CORPSE/JIMMY LYONS/BROTZ and BENNINK/JOHN FEINSTEIN/THE DEPARTED/
CHEER-ACCIDENT/COSMOS

in the All Music Guide's review of the new Cannibal Corpse disc, "Kill," the writer refers to them as a black metal band. ouch.

that album is pretty savage, though it gets totally old after three songs. all the players have gotten a lot better than the last time i really checked them out, which was in like eighth grade, around the time of "The Bleeding" (as you can see, they've really got this album titling thing down to a science). i remember my mom said she would buy me an album if i went on a Sunday school retreat and the one i wanted was fucking Cannibal Corpse. thanks, mom!

also in the middle of this alto thing. been enjoying disc 1 of the Jimmy Lyons box set (thanks Scofield for the burn) immensely. it features this drummer Sydney Smart who may be one of the most cooking freetime pulse players i've ever heard--just complete frenzy, but at a simmering temperature. he sounds like he must have been a pretty crazy dude. or maybe really well-adjusted and he just had this crazy side to him. anyway, where are you Sydney Smart? the first track is a boiled-down burner of ridiculously fast and potent freeness, sort of a la Ornette, but sometimes i like listening to Jimmy even more. Raphe Malik is killing too. Lyons's control is scary, obviously translating those superfast liquidy runs a la Bird to the free thing. but that's really the truth. he is that good. also digging Burnt Offering, recommended to me by my free jazz source Russ Baker. [ed: intended to add that i'm now moving on to "Porto Novo," which pairs one of my other alto heroes, Marion Brown, with Han Bennink, mentioned below.]

who, like me, attended one of the Brotzmann/Bennink sets the other night at Clemente Soto Velez. they really cooked. "track" lengths were a little skimpy, but Bennink's chops made me wanna barf. Brotzmann's tarogato was like an annoying little kid wailing. i love the burr of his tone. made me go back and check out "Reserve," this great FMP disc w/ Barre Phillips and Gunter Sommer. basically i feel that Brotzmann is just a texture--you can turn him on or off and he will go and sound really awesome. not so interactive though. don't know how much that matters when all is said and done. though there are some nice quiet bass clarinet passages on "Reserve" that kind of debunk all that. it's not an absolute thing.

"The Departed" was great. i like Matt Damon's Boston accent and boyish macho thing so much. look out for the scene where he picks up the lady shrink in the elevator. he says something like he'd get stabbed in the heart with an icepick if he could go out w/ her. and then the actual date scene is amazing, with both him and her commenting on this weird architectural dessert. most will comment on Nicholson, but it's the painful scenes between Damon and the girl that got me. plot is SO confusing, like "Miller's Crossing" but worse. very brash and audacious, if at times predictably so. whatever, you'll love it.

reading John Feinstein. i love his books about sports. i could give a shit about the Baltimore Ravens, but he writes characters so goddamn well. i love the narratives. proves my point about nonfiction: any documentary work is interesting if it's well told. the subject is totally irrelevant.

Cheer-Accident is coming to town. hail this band. listen to "Learning How to Fly" from "The Why Album" or "Find" or "Smile" from "Introducing Lemon." their drummer/pianist/vocalist/trumpeter Thymme Jones is an utter progpop genius. he plays these sick funky oddtime beats and sings in this beautiful sort of neutered whine. that's not a good description. it's just a pretty high croon sans drama. melodies are something like Beatles meets Yes. hail hail hail this fucking band.

enjoyed Cosmos at ErstQuake. tiny sounds. people laughed at me when i described it. Ami Yoshida is a poet of the throat and a very sad performer to watch--sad as in full of pathos. amazingly austere yet fragile. don't wanna get into stupid cliches re: her gender and ethnicity. listen to Cosmos.

looking forward to: Peter Luger, Cecil Taylor, Xiu Xiu (AMAZING new album), playing the new Stay Fucked song live--it's called "Naked from the Waist Up" and we've had some of the riffs kicking around for several years.

other things of note:

Ocrilim - Anoint
Point Break on DVD - Ultimate Adrenaline Edition
Steely Dan - Making of Aja DVD
The Band - Making of "The Band" DVD
some people that i have encountered recently, both for good and for bad...