Evan Parker Transatlantic Art Ensemble

Boustrophedon
ECM 1873

A rare – and exceptional – foray into partially scored and conducted music for British saxophonist Evan Parker, this eight-part work for a 14-piece ensemble realizes its lofty goals because the composed sections are cleverly counterbalanced by the improvisations.

Boustrophedon – an ancient word describing a method of writing one line from left to right, the subsequent one from right to left and so on – reflects the CD’s parallel methodology as well. While Parker directs a seven-piece group of experienced European improvisers, American saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell does the same with seven, equally proficient, Americans. Much of the boustrophedon movement involves comparable exposure from matched instrumentalists such as the two bassists, two percussionists and two fiddlers. Meanwhile singular soloists like pianist Craig Taborn, cellist Marcio Mattos or flutist Neil Metcalfe cleanly negotiate the fissure between Eurocentric and American-inflected Free Music. Taborn, for instance, adds styled glissandi, tinkling portamento story-telling and formalistic note clusters to “Furrow 2”, but metronomic rhythmic chording to “Furrow 4”.

That same track exposes parallel counterpoint involving liquid contralto trilling from John Rangecroft’s clarinet and the sibilant rasping of Corey Wilkes’ trumpet pitched high enough to resemble a piccolo trumpet. Reposing on cymbal clashes from Tani Tabbal and Paul Lytton, this calming interlude contrasts with the previous “Furrow 3”, which reached a rushed crescendo of piano clinks, tongue-stopped vamps from the reeds and blunt drags and rebounds from the percussionists. A similar episode of intersected tones from members of the ensemble characterizes the suite’s climax. Its defining cacophony shatters into sound shards that include dual piano syncopation, opposite sticking percussion ratamacues and splayed cello interjections.

Again emphasizing parallelism, the concluding track is more of a postlude than a finale, as solos, encompassing among other techniques, double-tongued, pastoral flute, kinetic keyboard arpeggios and thematic alto saxophone variations, alternate with tutti orchestral passages.

Overall this CD is a unique but a memorably rousing addition to Parker’s discography.

-- Ken Waxman

-- MusicWorks Issue #104

August 8, 2009

A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music

By George E. Lewis
University of Chicago Press

Home from his studies at Yale University in 1971, trombonist George Lewis was walking to his parents’ home on Chicago’s South Side when he heard unusual sounds coming from a nearby brick building. Peering inside he saw a group practicing what he calls “fascinating” music. Asking if he could attend future rehearsals, Lewis was grudgingly welcomed into what he soon found out was the disciplined but inventive milieu of the Association of the Advancement Musicians (AACM).

Shortly afterwards he became a member, and subsequently an official of the organization, founded by a group of Chicago’s most accomplished, jazz-directed improvisers in 1965. Forty-three years later the AACM – which one European critic describes as “a guarantee of quality” for improvised music – is recognized world-wide as “the first [successful] avant-garde co-operative in the United States”. A music professor at New York’s Columbia University, Lewis uses his insider’s perspective to write this comprehensive history of the organization. Knitting together 92 interviews and extensive research, A Power Stronger Than Itself stands out as exemplary jazz scholarship that also appeals to the non-academic.

Basically, the reason why the AACM has managed to survive into its fifth decade, while similar organizations have disappeared, is because as Lewis writes, “the collective conception that dominated the AACM both institutionally and artistically challenged the commodification of individuality itself – the ‘star system’ with its sharp division between ‘leader’ and ‘sideman’ that has been authoratively written into the discursive cannon of jazz”.

That doesn’t mean that some AACM members aren’t internationally renowned – reedists Anthony Braxton, Roscoe Mitchell and pianist Muhal Richard Abrams come to mind. It’s just that the association’s growth has always been predicated on its collegial connection with the working class Black community of Chicago’s south side where it spawned. AACM members still promote its original nine-point program from 1965 that promises to stimulate cultural tradition, increase employment opportunities for creative musicians, provide composers’ workshops, like the one that impressed Lewis, and operate a school for aspiring musicians. AACM bands such as reedist Ed Wilkerson’s 8 Bold Souls and flautist Nicole Mitchell’s Black Earth Ensemble are still a constant Chicago presence.

However Lewis also notes that as significant for the ACCM’s survival, and its influence – which has gone past jazz’s boundaries to affect what he calls “whiteness-based” musics such as rock and so-called classical – is the decision from the beginning to emphasis the primacy of original music and the composer. Many first-generation AACMers – including, Lewis, Abrams, Braxton, violinist Leroy Jenkins, reedists Henry Threadgill, Joseph Jarman and others who left Chicago and formed a New York chapter in 1982 – deal with idioms that move across genres. Involved with theatre, poetry, sound collage and multi-media, the post-modern art music composed by these individuals is as likely to include references to minimalism and neo-classicism as the jazz tradition. As Lewis writes: “AACM musicians felt that experimentation in music need not be bound to particular ideologies, methods or slogans.” Musically, the AACM’s paramount contribution to experimental improvised music is a sense of dynamics. Unlike the New York-based New Thing of the 1960s, “the Chicago people got intense, but they also got soft and they were also incorporating other sounds into their music,” Lewis quotes Mitchell saying.

Describing the parallel development between the self-described “more conservative” Chicago-based AACM and the experimental New York wing is another way in which this volume supersedes earlier studies of the association. Lewis does situate the AACM in relation to other avant-garde collectives such as New York’s Jazz Composers Guild, St. Louis’ Black Artists Group and Los Angeles’ Underground Musicians Association (see Musicworks #96). He outlines how a supportive group of writers, music presenters and record labels allowed the collective to become better know. Braxton, Jenkins and the Art Ensemble of Chicago (AEOC) – which included Jarman and Mitchell – gained greater recognition during a two-year, late-1960s relocation to France.

However the French romanticizing a link between the association and radical Black Nationalism was discursive. These players’ intra-musical experiences plus resentment from Chicagoans, who felt that the AEOC was monopolizing the AACM, necessitated a separate New York chapter.

A Power Stronger Than Itself is also universal enough to deal with topics usually ignored by others. Lewis’ penultimate chapter itemizes how the ACCM has finally evolved from being a literal “old boy’s club” into addressing its gender imbalance. From first-hand accounts, he doesn’t sugar-coat the situation that initially any female musician had a hard time being accepted into the AACM, and that it wasn’t until 1992 that Samia, become the association’s first all-woman band. Even today female AACM members are more the exception than the rule, although Nicole Mitchell is the association’s co-chair

Recalling his experience and those of his AACM peers such as Braxton he also exposes the barriers that Black composers like themselves face when they write music outside the codified jazz tradition. Neither fish nor fowl, their creations are rejected by jazz purists for not swinging or being blues based, and by the classical establishment for being African-American, even he says, in the so-called downtown New music world. Such aids to experimental composers as university professorships, endowed chairs, performance ensembles and electronic music studios are monopolized by musicians hostile to improvisation and African American music.

Although he was only one of three African American composers affiliated with important experimental efforts such as 1992’s New Music, New York, since then the subsidy situation has improved, with several AACM composers are beneficiaries of major fellowships. Slightly beyond this volume’s purview, grant politics should be examined in the context of post-modern music in 21st Century. However readers of A Power Stronger Than Itself discover how the AACM, a grass roots association, evolved to participate in these discussions.

Considering that an AACM-organized, 50-member ensemble was available to play Abrams’ orchestral composition as part of the association’s 40th anniversary celebrations in Chicago, composers and performers from the ACCM will sure to be involved in whatever constitutes modern music for decades to come.

-- Ken Waxman

In MusicWorks Issue #101

July 2, 2008

Roscoe Mitchell’s Chicago Trio

Albright-Knox Gallery, Buffalo
CODA Issue 335

Vastly dissimilar in attire, the members of Roscoe Mitchell’s Chicago Trio aptly demonstrated to the audience at an almost full auditorium at Buffalo, N.Y.’s Albright-Knox Art Gallery in late April that cohesive improvisation doesn’t demand sartorial consistency.

Suitably dapper in well-cut shirt and trousers, the veteran Art Ensemble of Chicago reedist convoluted harsh split tones, extended circular breathing and touches of foot-tapping melodies into a singular statement on alto and soprano saxophone during two set-long pieces. Alternately whacking or stroking precise tones from his double bass or cello was Harrison Bankhead, resplendent in casual sports shirt and straw boater, who took a position to Mitchell’s right on the well-lit, bare stage. In the middle, using sideswipes and back beats with equal finesse was drummer Vincent Davis, in rustic black turtleneck and jeans.

Mitchell, whose usually dour expression masks the elation he brings to creation, played swiftly and speedily on alto saxophone. On the curved horn his output varied from close-packed, circular-breathed elongated phrases; to classic Free Jazz that used harsh squawks and multiphonics to scrape all prettiness from errant note patterns; to a set-closing blues line that apparently channeled jump-band altoist Tab Smith.

Diaphragm-expelled overblowing at one point made his cumulative notes resemble those of a bagpipe. Distinctively see-sawing his torso as he played, plus constantly repositioning his mouthpiece during solos, Mitchell’s soprano saxophone pitch varied from snake-charmer nasality to bursts of legato arpeggios. Still, his constant molten flow of notes while sharp and staccato, never sounded overly abstract.

Bankhead, who also plays in the Indigo Trio and the 8 Bold Souls, is no slouch in the technique department himself. At one point following a series of grinding arco runs from his bass, he displayed two bows which he then manipulated cross-wise on the strings to produce extra cadences and color. Able to triple-stop and strum with guitar-like facility when he unveiled his pizzicato talents, he set up a formula that made it seems as if he was playing call-and-response on a single instrument. He actually does double however. Spiccato slaps and sweeps from his cello were showcased at one point to temper the dissonance of Mitchell’s abrasive alto saxophone peeps and squeaks.

Content to stay slightly in the background – and not just because of the instrumental set-up on the stage – Davis’ only overt display came in the penultimate minutes of the final tune, when his suddenly vociferous cymbal splashes and bass drum rumbles momentarily masked the other two’s sounds. Throughout, however, his rhythmic reactions unrolled in sympathetic – if contrapuntal – pulses. Reining in any errant time meandering with ruffs, rolls and ratamacues, his tendency was to slap, not pummel parts of his kit, with felt-tipped mallets and wire brushes literally at hand, as frequently as drum sticks were brought into play.

Satisfying and memorable, it could be that the only negative parts of the Buffalo performance – besides lack of an encore – was that Mitchell’s unique tough-romance flute procedure never appeared, despite the instrument itself being prominently displayed on stage.

-- Ken Waxman

October 3, 2007

ROSCOE MITCHELL QUINTET

Turn
Rogue Art ROG 0003

By Ken Waxman

Forty-plus years on in his recording career, Roscoe Mitchell, arguably the most versatile members of the Art Ensemble of Chicago (AEC), continues to surprise.

This CD, featuring the multi-reedman’s most recent working quintet, two of whom – trumpeter Corey Wilkes and bassist Jaribu Shahid – who now fill chairs in the AEC, offers a glimpse at his panoply of talents. With the combo filled out by pianist Craig Taborn and percussionist Tani Tabbal – both of whom recorded as part of Mitchell’s nonet as long ago as 1997 – the five men are able to convey the range and flexibility of a larger band on 14 Mitchell compositions.

It’s a good thing that each one plays more than one instrument and is comfortable in many styles. For the twists and turns on TURN involve sounds that vary from those that nearly replicate hard South Side blues and Free-Form Energy Music to near-Baroque-style recitals and Freebop rambles. Plus there a couple of tracks where everyone seems to have climbed inside Mitchell’s massive percussion cage and rhythmically whales away on claxons, wood blocks, cymbals, marimbas, maracas, claves, rattles, and a ringing school bell.

Holding sway over all this is Mitchell, whose musical personality also changes depending on the horn he’s holding. “Take One” for instance, features his alto playing, which during the course of the nearly nine-minute piece, includes smudgy split tone pitch vibrations, snorts and honks and slurry multiphonics. For his part Wilkes contributes multi-directional brassy triplets, flashy chromatic trills and whinny plunger work, while the soloists balance on the polyrhythmic beat from the rhythm section.

“Quintet Nine”, with Mitchell on flute, is a sophisticated bop line that floats on Shahid’s tough walking bass and low-pitched sawing as well as Tabbal’s pinpointed cymbal splashes. “March 2004”, on the other hand is exactly what it says it is, with Mitchell on bass sax in unison with trumpet peeps and the proper ambulatory beat from Tabbal. Eventually Wilkes adds some jazz funk with a slurry rubato solo while the saxophonist comments contrapuntally.

“Page Two A” could be New music, with a vibrated theme conveyed with ghostly piano clusters and the occasional cymbal ping, until two-thirds of the way through it downshifts into solid reed expansion, bowed legato bass and Tabbal’s gentling marimba-like swats. This composition and the rococo “In Six” could be played for non-jazzers without ruffling their sensibilities. Of course they may miss the toughness hiding beneath the simple syncopation advanced by Taborn’s close voicing and the blend of flute and muted trumpet.

More than the front line gets to express itself here as well. Shahid’s bowed bass is a foil for Mitchell’s tenor saxophone on one number, and his electric axe adds the proper pulse to another. Tabbal’s back beat propels that finger-snapper as do wah-wah trumpet lines and honking sax figures.

TURN confirms that there’s no let up in Mitchell’s creativity, whether it’s as part of the AEC or on his own.

Track Listing: 1. Quintet One 2. For Cynthia 3. Quintet Nine 4. For Now 5. Horner Mac 6. Rhine Ridge 7. Page Two A 8. March 2004 9. In Six 10. Turn 11. Take One 12.Page One 13. That’s Finished 14. After

Personnel: Corey Wilkes (trumpet, flugelhorn and small percussion); Roscoe Mitchell (soprano, alto, tenor and bass saxophones, flute, piccolo and percussion); Craig Taborn (piano); Jaribu Shahid (bass, electric bass and small percussion); Tani Tabbal (drums and percussion)

August 14, 2006

ROSCOE MITCHELL/TATSU AOKI

First Look Chicago Duos
Southport S-SSD 0112

CARLO ACTIS DATO & BALDO MARTINEZ
Folklore Imaginario
Leo CD LR 437

Like evaluating a foreign art film and a Hollywood blockbuster in a similar fashion just because both appear on celluloid, these string-and-reed duos are superficially analogous. Yet by the time the imaginary final frames appear you realize that the four musicians involved, despite using the more-or-less-same instrumentation and the same medium, have created two radically different productions. The irony for some is that the Europeans on FOLKLORE IMAGINARIO have come up with the buoyant, in-your-face, aurally Technicolor product, with the equivalent of the spills, chills and thrills of a mainstream film. In contrast, the sounds created by the Americans on FIRST LOOK CHICAGO DUOS are as low-key and meltingly chiaroscuro as the screen images of an independent, usually foreign language production.

First of all you must remember that Turin-born baritone saxophonist and bass clarinetist Carlo Actis Dato is the Jim Carey of contemporary Italian jazz. Although a member of widely-respected ensembles like the Italian Instabile Orchestra, he’s usually dressed in a colorful costume complete with hat. Contributing a sense of wacky abandon to any improvised situation, his highly rhythmic style encompasses as many tongue slaps and honks as Carey’s work includes pratfalls.

Playing Dean Martin to Actis Dato’s Jerry Lewis is the respected Spanish bassist Baldo Martinez. Someone who has in the past worked with Canadian trumpeter Kenny Wheeler and American bassoonist Michael Rabinowitz among others, his style often includes a strain of ethnic music. In a way this CD is a continuation of an earlier project where he improvised on folkloric themes from the North of Portugal and Galician traditional music from the north of Spain.

That music may have been presented like a National Film Board documentary. But with Actis Dato on board, herky-jerky cabaletta and Klezmer interjection, not to mention freak notes from both his horns turn this imaginary folklore on its ear, ending up with FOLKLORE IMAGINARIO perked up with slapstick implications.

On the American side, FIRST LOOK CHICAGO DUOS could be the aural equivalent of a cinematic profile of a quick change artist, thespian or not. Roscoe Mitchell, one of the founders of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, uses his collection of reeds and percussion to assume various roles on the CD’s nine tracks. His partner, Tokyo-born, longtime Chicago resident Tatsu Aoki, not only exhibits his prowess on the double bass, but also strokes and bangs complementary tones with his percussion implements.

On “The Journey”, for instance, it sounds as if Aoki is slapping a taiko drum as well as his bass strings, until the strings’ steady pulse turns to accompanying a long-lined tremolo section from Mitchell’s alto saxophone. When the reed work becomes more intense and shrill, Aoki pummels the drum again, producing irregular pulsations that match up with the saxman’s overblown multiphonics and circular breathing.

Overwhelmingly percussive, the concluding “Out” finds Mitchell creating polyrhythmic textures that seem as if they could come from shaken tam tams, concussive claves, vibrated steel drum and rattling metallic balls. Aoki sticks to a steady bass line, which in the tune’s centre section harmonizes with Mitchell’s legato flute modulations.

Elsewhere the saxophonist uses tough and textured double tonguing from his soprano to go up against forefront stretching and vibrating bull fiddle strings. Slinky ney-like trills are tried sparingly but effectively on other tracks, usually as counterpoint to Aoki’s rumble and bounce. Yet on “Festa”, the drum-like wallop appears when Aoki pats and pops the ribs and belly of his bass, eventually taking on dumbek properties to match Mitchell’s Arabic timbres.

Constantly intersecting and adapting new pitches, each man can provide the accompanying ostinato, and either can step forward as soloist.

The same equal partnership exists on FOLKLORE IMAGINARIO, but with the added impetus of the other CD’s chiaroscuro grey scale and muted pulsations replaced with eight tunes sonically decorated with shocking flashes of vibrant colors and buoyant interactions so quick and violent that they’re analogous to an action film’s car chases.

Playing eight tunes by Actis Dato and eight by Martinez, as opposed to Aoki-Mitchell’s set of instant compositions, the Euro improvisers figuratively hit the ground running with the first track, the bassist’s “Sospeita”. Built on complex rasgueado from Martinez that evolve into slap bass technique, Actis Dato responds with baritone saxophone snorts, squeals, squeaks and yells vibrated from the body tube. After spiccato turns and pops from the bassist, while the saxman accompanies him, they switch roles and Actis Dato snorts out irregularly pitched lines on top of Martinez’s slap bass ostinato.

“Vejo Elmer” and “Compay Segundo” try out different strategies with the former depending on Actis Dato’s pitch-sliding bass clarinet coloring in the chalumeau register, while the later commences with sombre-sided bowed bass lines and basement-deep smears from the baritone. The former includes enough contrapuntal and subtly colored notes climaxing in a series of shredded squeals and passing tones, that in cinematic terms it could be linked to a sensitive dramatic turn by a comedic actor. Yet once the method-acting is out of the way on Actis Dato’s “Compay Segundo”, a snaky half Klezmer-half Hindustani pulse appears. Does it represent the novelty of exotic belly dancing in the shtetl? Round waddling notes from the baritone’s mid-range meet bull-fiddle strums with even more jocular reverberations added as the coda.

It’s these effervescent impulses which characterize most of the tracks here. If Actis Dato isn’t yowling and smearing timbres in a cabaletta-style rhythm, then he’s producing tongue flutters and honks from the big horn that would make R&B saxmen blush. Martinez’s Andalusian beat includes slaps, slides and single-string pizzicato snaps as well as arco double- and triple-stopping. Contrapuntally the two echo each others’ phrases, like an awkward duo finishing each others’ sentences in a teen comedy. They also pause a few times during the improvisation to harmonize on a vocalization of the title on “Mandingo”, a technique often used by the saxophonist on other CDs.

Although the folklore implications of the session are expressed often, because of the dance-like complexion of many of the tunes, no matter how outside the solos go, there’s always a recap of the theme sometimes before the finale.

Whether you prefer your duos Hollywood frantic or art house cerebral, there’s much to like on either of these discs.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Folklore: 1. Sospeita 2. Ashanti 3. Compay Segundo 4. A boca da ria 5. Luna Park 6. Vejo Elmer 7. Festa 8. Mandingo

Personnel: Folklore: Carlo Actis Dato (baritone saxophone and bass clarinet); Baldo Martinez (bass)

Track Listing: First: 1. In 2. East Side Easy 3. Number Five Wings Place 4. The Journey 5. Glide 6. Dot 7. Journey for the Cause 8. Yoshihashi 9. Out

Personnel: First: Roscoe Mitchell (alto and soprano saxophones, clarinet, flute and percussion); Tatsu Aoki (bass and percussion)

April 10, 2006

Guelph Jazz Festival:

Improv On The Move
for CODA

Taking the concept of free-flowing improvisation a step further, one morning at this year’s Guelph Jazz Festival (GJF), 15 musicians performed simultaneously in four different whitewashed rooms of the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre.

The workshop developed this way, according to Ajay Heble, GJF artistic director, because so many musicians wanted to participate. Some – American alto saxophonist Marshall Allan, British pianist Veryan Weston, Québécois guitarist René Lussier and American banjoist Eugene Chadbourne – rooted on a spot and collaborated with whoever came along. Others moved from place to place and up and down the staircase as they played.

Trumpeter Gordon Allen from Montreal added fanfares to understated percussive taps from Guelph drummer Jesse Stewart in the main space and later combined with Lussier for showier work in an upstairs room. New York-based alto saxophonist Matana Roberts, wearing a dress festooned with razor blades and safety pins, and tenor saxophonist Jason Robinson from San Diego acted like traveling minstrels. At one point the two and altoist Allen blended for spicy multiphonic runs. At another, Roberts played a feathery obbligato behind a simple blues Chadbourne was chording.

Toronto bassist Rob Clutton constantly schlepped his ungainly instrument. In one space he sympathetically backed Chadbourne’s avant-folk, before that he combined in a staircase duet with Halifax clarinetist Paul Cram. Interesting juxtapositions occurred as faint sonic timbres bled into the textures produced by the visible performers.

At Sticks & Stones’ afternoon gig, Roberts, wearing face paint and a flowing gown, proved herself equally facile on clarinet and saxophone. With drummer Chad Taylor’s polyrhythms and bassist Josh Abrams’ powerful plucking as anchors, her solos encompassed wide vibratos as well as piercing note pecks.

Sharing the bill, Japanese pianist Satoko Fujii’s quartet worked from more of a composerly base. The keyboardist’s contrapuntal styling was seconded by the understated inventiveness of percussionist Jim Black and thick col legno swoops and windmill motions of bassist Mark Dresser, so the energy level built throughout. When Fujii reached inside the piano to liberate quivering pulsations, the drummer sawed on his cymbals for daxophone-like squeals.

In a set that echoed Fujii’s recorded work with Japanese noise rockers, trumpeter Natsuki Tamura spun out muted staccato lines, reminiscent of 1970s Miles Davis. That sound served as a sub-motif for the Festival. It was echoed in interludes from drummer/trumpeter Arve Henriksen, whose Norwegian band Supersilent, late at night brought synthesizer and computer-processed noises to an enclosed downtown mall with post-rock soundscapes that promised more than they delivered.

Quicksilver grace notes were showcased more impressively by trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith in the all-star Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) ensemble that opened the showcase concert in the soft-seated River Run Centre. Smith’s sprints and spits made common cause with the bassoon, flute, didjerido, shaker and miscellaneous “little instruments” of Douglas Ewart, Hamid Drake’s percussion and Jeff Parker’s guitar. A last-minute addition Parker’s twangy fills never really jelled with the others’ work. Episodic rather than cohesive, the best audience response came with Ewart’s anti-George Bush recitation.

Headliners, The Art Ensemble of Chicago (AEC) fared much better, hitting a groove with its opening number and keeping the time steady, no matter what detours into hokum, faux primitivism, blues, post-bop dissonance or pseudo-swing were evident. Based around the durable bass work of Jaribu Shahid and the solid beat of percussionist Famoudu Don Moye, this underpinning allowed the front line its freedom.

Playing trumpet and flugelhorn singly or together Corey Wilkes, combined fiery execution with sophisticated note placement. His musical personality was strong enough to hold his own with Roscoe Mitchell and Joseph Jarman, who between them play most members of the reed and flute families. Theatrical in his face paint and ceremonial robes, Jarman frequently honked two saxes simultaneously and interspaced his solos – one of which he played on his back like a 1950s R&B saxophonist – with shouts and a shuffling dance. Resplendent in a well-cut business suit, Mitchell belied his appearance with fierce polyphonic reed responses to Jarman’s japes and notable solos on both saxophones and piccolo. Mitchell’s parody blues, “Big Red Peaches” was the show’s finger-snapping climax, with Wilkes playing Cootie Williams-like plunger tones and the AEC confirming its commitment to all forms of improv from the simplest to the most complex.

The AEC concert was the capper to the GJF’s celebration of the AACM’s 40th anniversary as well as five days of impressive music. The concurrent improvised music colloquium provides an academic cachet lacking in other festivals. Internationalism was represented by Israeli pianist Yitzhak Yedid and the European musicians, while a group of Quebec’s Musique Actuelle heavy hitters such as saxophonist Jean Derome and bassist Pierre Cartier celebrated another concentrated scene in shows throughout the fest.

More pop-oriented performers were presented in the licensed tent in front of city hall, so the casual as well as the committed could sample the music. Furthermore, with workshops, free and open to the public, the uncommitted could discover a showcase like Montreal clarinetist Lori Freedman’s intense solo concert that used the room’s acoustics as well as extended techniques,

Solidly established at 12, with attendance growing, international jazz fans follow the GJF’s progress as it heads into its teen years.

--Ken Waxman

November 15, 2005

The Velvet Lounge: On Late Chicago Jazz

by Gerald Majer
Columbia University Press

By Ken Waxman
October 10, 2005

A non-faction memoir of tales that may or not have happened, this volume is, to overstate the case a bit, sort of an American À la recherche du temps perdu. Gerald Majer, an English professor at Villa Julie College in Baltimore, utilizes his listening experiences involving major Chicago jazz musicians, as an entrée to his ruminations and meditations on growing up in that Midwestern city.

Don’t be fooled by the photograph of tenor saxophonist Fred Anderson on the cover or the two-page discography at the end of the volume however. Although Majer deals, in greater or lesser degrees, with the sounds of, among others, tenor saxophonist Gene Ammons, Anderson, bandleader Sun Ra, multi-instrumentalist Rahsaan Roland Kirk and Art Ensemble of Chicago members Roscoe Mitchell and Malachi Favors, this is no music encyclopedia or a collection of album and CD reviews.

Instead, like Proust in recherche du temps perdu, who evolved his pioneering modern novel from the sensations and memories unleashed when he tasted a madeleine cake dipped in linden tea, similar to those he was given as a child, Majer’s tastes of modern and so-called avant-garde jazz prompt similar autobiographical and poetic musings.

Here’s his introduction to an apocryphal retelling of the circumstances surrounding Ammons’ 1962 heroin bust that can serve as an explanation of how many of the experiences outlined in the book should be taken:

“My account will only be a partial one – the version of story I heard and have remembered and imagined for many years, the story that called me to attempt to speak of another’s life...”

Link that statement to another he expresses later while detailing a 1973 Auditorium Theater performance by Sun Ra and his Arkestra:

“Behind the curtain of memory, I see that night though there were others over the years and inevitably the memories drift and fuse and overlap.”

In other words these non-faction incidents are his usually successful attempts to capture the feeling of jazz through his own emotional response to certain situations.

Thus, for example, a section involved with recalling the power of Elvin Jones’ drums he felt during a matinee show at the Jazz Showcase when he was a teenager, leads to a recollection of how he first noted Jones’ name while listening to John Coltrane’s My Favorite Things LP, the title of which he relates to the poet Arthur Rimbaud’s system of vowels. Simultaneously, Jones’ real-time exertions remind him of the dangers and excitement of playing games in a vacant lot near his childhood home, one of which was a test of kids’ endurance they called “the punching game”.

Or read how he spins his reminiscence of pianist Andrew Hill and tenor saxophonist’s John Gilmore’s work on “Le Serpent Qui Danse” on a late 1960s Hill LP into a meditation on South Side Chicago blues, Hill’s compositional links to Thelonious Monk, and – with Gilmore – to Sun Ra; as well as the composition’s link to the myth of Apollo and Python, elaborated by the metaphors of Charles Baudelaire’s poem of the same name. Finally, he uses these combined sentiments to arrive at the emotions he and his then-girlfriend experienced at a Sunday afternoon Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) big band gig in 1976.

Stylistically, many of Proust’s sentences in recherche du temps perdu extend several pages in length. Thankfully, Majer’s don’t. But his all-embracing metaphors and similes do, descriptively uncoiling a meditation, activity or idea through a few paragraphs, pages or entire chapters, only abandoning the concept when every last implication and inference has been drained from it – not unlike the way Coltrane, or come to think of it, Kirk or Sonny Stitt – both celebrated in the book – would play a solo.

Along the way, The Velvet Lounge: On Late Chicago Jazz does double duty as a celebration of the Windy city, and what Majer calls “the trite and secret motto of Chicago: to live is to work, to work is to live”. As an academic, Majer is an anomaly in his tales populated by working class muscle and fortitude, whether it’s expressed in the assembly line work of his North end Polish-American family and friends, or in the prodigious efforts of Black musicians from the South Side to band together into the AACM – and he proudly ticks off the collection of blue-collar jobs he had as well.

Majer doesn’t just poetically rhapsodize about the street and trees and buildings of Chicago, but celebrates its street markets, book stores and libraries plus its roads and highways, ground level transit and elevated and underground trains. These modes of transportation and services available to all were also inspirations to composers like Ra, who created compositions like “Magic City” and “El, the Sound of Joy” from those experiences.

Although Majer touches on similar live shows elsewhere, a performance at Anderson’s Velvet Lounge justly deserves its place of prominence. That’s because the author’s 18-page portrayal of an evening he and his wife spent listening to tenor saxophonist Ari Brown’s trio – and a sitter-in – at that down-at the-heels music shrine – interrupted, as expected, with numerous conceptual memory excursions – is probably the single most arresting recounting of the improvisational experience you’ll ever read in print.

Mixing in a tribute to a late rock musician friend who was buoyed by how the Lounge was a space “to keep the music alive, uncompromising and uncompromised”, Majer sketches the circumstances of how a routine Wednesday night gig at the Lounge in the middle of August – cover charge five dollars – changed in an instant to “music that doesn’t level off … but instead exposes its instant of creation”.

The dramatis personae, besides Brown on sax and electric keyboards are bassist Favors, drummer Avreeayl Ra, and a sitter-in on tenor saxophone named only Paul. A Lounge regular, who at one point worked for the Chicago Transit Authority, Paul’s command of saxophone improvisation is perhaps made more mythically transcendental by the author’s prose. Using this figurative language allows Majer to imaginatively capture the sensation of exhilaration and release that top-flight improvisation involves.

For instance, after he suddenly grasps that he’s been unconsciously mesmerized by the music for an extended period, Majer writes:

“I want everyone to be there, the living and the dead, I want to record this moment for posterity though its power must be precisely in its coming and its passing without any possibility of saving it … I let out a shout. I can’t help it …”

And later on, writing in the third person about audience reaction in general:

“A sound leaped out of you that was all yours and that wasn’t yours at all. You yelled for joy.”

It’s this sort of writing which is the volume’s strength, but which makes it so difficult to slot into any category. The author is a sophisticated enough writer so that even when he goes on metaphoric flights, his descriptions actually make you want to hear again – or listen to for the first time – the music described. Still, the elegiac first-person details of his upbringing and coming of age may not strike a resonating chord in every reader, unless he or she revels in quirky details about the United States’ Second City and its local characters.

In short, like improvised music itself, the audience for this book may be small, but fervent. As Majer writes about jazz, but perhaps describing his books as well: “following its track might mean not so much loving jazz but loving the interval that it opens…”

In reality no more challenging a read than “late Chicago jazz” is a listen, The Velvet Lounge: On Late Chicago Jazz deserves to achieve eventual reception and respect not too dissimilar from what the music itself has earned.

October 10, 2005

ERNEST DAWKINS’ NEW HORIZONS ENSEMBLE

Mean Ameen
Delmark DE-559

ART ENSEMBLE OF CHICAGO
Sirius Calling
Pi Records Pi 11

An organization’s influence is reflected in how well it continues to evolve after it becomes old enough to become established. So it is with the Association for the Advancement of Creative Music. Heading into its fifth decade, its membership has dispersed away from Chicago -- though the majority of AACMers, young and old, continue to reside in the Windy City -- and some of its more prominent members are starting to die.

Particularly affected is the band that could be called the AACM’s flagship, if the non-hierarchical organization had one: the Art Ensemble of Chicago (AEC). Over the past decade the AEC has survived the defection of Joseph Jarman, one of its saxophonists, the death of trumpeter Lester Bowie in 1999, and finally the death of bassist Malachi Favors early in 2004. SIRIUS CALLING is Favors’ final AEC session that took place after Jarman decided to rejoin the band after an absence of eight years. Thankfully throughout the CD’s 14 tracks the players -- sometimes divided into duo and trios -- prove that the AEC’s sum is greater than its parts -- even when one part is missing.

A much younger band than the AEC, Ernest Dawkins’ New Horizons Ensemble faced a shattering setback in 2003 when its most colorful soloist and member since 1979, trumpeter Ameen Muhammad, died of a heart attack at 48. The Ensemble has soldiered on with MEAN AMEEN, the band’s first post-Muhammad CD, designed as a musical tribute to Dawkins’ friend since childhood.

Imbued with more bluesy swing then the AEC date, like other more recent Chicago-based AACM discs -- only AEC drummer Don Moye still lives in Chi-Town -- the CD features young trumpeter Maurice Brown taking the brass parts. An Illinois-native who now lives in New Orleans, Brown studied at Southern University in Baton Rouge and played with heavyweights such as pianist Mulgrew Miller. In contrast the present day AEC soldiers on with Detroit bassist Jaribu Shahid, a member of Roscoe Mitchell’s Note Factory, filling in for Favors, and other players joining the front line.

In a way, it’s easier to deal with MEAN AMEEN, since Brown fits seamlessly into the band. More of a technician than Muhammad was, his preference is for showy triplets and ozone grazing jumps and wiggles that often head into Maynard Ferguson territory. This is apparent as early as the title track, where Brown works his way up to what seem to be the trumpet’s highest notes, then surpasses even that, mixing bugle calls and dog whistles, until he finally concludes in comfortable moderato range. Dawkins adds a rhythmically exciting tenor solo, Darius Savage contributes some woody slap bass and Isaiah Spencer offers fine-tipped ruffs and flams.

Even more impressive is trombonist Steve Berry’s more-than-15-minute tribute to Muhammad’s own band, “3-D”. Sort of a contrapuntal round, its highlight is a buzzing and hollering rubato section from the composer that spreads a brassy resonance. Emotional, tenor saxophonist Dawkins uses a wide vibrato for slurred, irregularly pitched work, breaking his solo up into growly multiphonics, bellowing through his horn, then sliding from upper partials to wet, baritone-like honks and snorts. Until Brown ends the piece with spiraling triplets à la Ameen, both brassmen provide counter harmonies and the drummer lays into claves, cowbells and other off beat percussion.

Other tributes, including a balls-to-the-wall “The Messenger” which seems equal parts Art Blakley-like press rolls and Benny Golson style melody, don’t impress that much. Even with Brown using what sounds like a bucket mute, it’s merely yet another tributes to Bu. Dawkins’ overlong (nearly-16½ minute) “Buster and the Search for the Human Genome” is similarly weakened by round robin solos.

Still the tune does feature a generous collection of wiggled and irregularly vibrated slurs and split tones that leap so quickly that you get a mental picture of Berry and Dawkins jumping in the air to follow them. Soon the ever-shifting horn ostinato breaks up into pinched alto saxophone lines, slide trombone triplets and a racetrack fanfare from Brown. Deplorably, after theme variations that seem to move from Klezmer to “Frankie and Johnny”, space is made for Savage’s speedy, mainstream solo and one from Spencer’s that spends too much time on the sock cymbals, bass drum and snare.

Brief interludes on slide whistle, police whistle and rattling tambourines appear on that track, with more so-called little instruments in earshot on “Haiti”. Along with the bird calls and concussion drums, plush toy squeaks, conch shell blows and berimbau resonation are echoes of what the AEC was doing in the 1960s and 1970s. This impression is confirmed when the track ends with a simple harmonica line -- a Favors specialty -- wooden flute textures and a concluding drum pop.

If AACM descendents, New Horizons Ensemble can sound like the AEC circa 1973, SIRIUS CALLING showcases the band itself 30 years later working out new strategies. Fourteen tracks and the 35 instruments they play among them allow the group to mix’n’match themes and personnel. Of course the versatility of the members has always been such that at times you can’t tell how many musicians are represented.

“Till Autumn”, a call-and-response groove piece written by Mitchell is one of those instances. Spurred by Favors’ walking bass and Moye’s shuffle and sand dance drumming, it revolves on the stentorian timbres of the composer’ bass saxophone. Although he’s usually an altoist, it’s then likely Jarman who takes the loping southwestern-style push-and-pull tenor solo. But is it he or Mitchell who shines on the smooth, leisurely Lester Young-like tenor solo on “Slow Tenor and Bass”?

With its Sun Ra-like title “He Took a Cab to Neptune” features both saxmen wailing and vamping. Then after a low-pitched, double-stopping bass excursion, Mitchell contributes the echoing mountain-top bass flute line and wide echoes from the bass recorder, bookending a frenzied, slurry alto solo -- from Jarman? -- that circles into itself with a tone that’s half-folksy Ornette Coleman and half-rating Jackie McLean.

Considering another piece is entitled “Cruising with JJ”, it could be Jarman who plays both the buoyant flute cadences and dissonant Eric Dolphy-like sax licks. That would leave the snorting tenor saxophone split tones to Mitchell. Whoever it is, he has fun sneaking up and down the scale in polyphonic unison with Favors’ bass after the bull fiddler introduces the tune with rumbling sluicing stops.

Then there’s “Taiko”, the longest track, which relates back to the AEC’s percussion-intensive past. During the course of its nine minutes plus, it appears as if any manner of little instruments are being resonated from within and without a percussion cage. Echoing waveforms take in timbres from wooden marimbas, metallic xylophones, ringing bells and concussed gongs as well as more exotic tones -- for North Americans --that could come from the balophone. All four participate in this percussive group grope, yet you can also assume that it’s Jarman who sounds the melancholy flute line.

Favors himself titled the CD just before his death with an expression from the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Sirius is the brightest star in the universe where the soul goes after leaving the body. Thus it’s almost certain that the bassist, who had been ill for a couple of years before this, was thinking of his impending demise as he improvised. That makes the penultimate piece, “Voyage” that much more poignant.

Written and performed by the bassist and Mitchell, it’s a pensive track built around rock-solid stops by Favors, with the saxist’s sopranino’s double-tongued altissimo with moderated vibrations played in counterpoint. As well as a first-class exhibition of close cooperation between musicians, the composition offers a real sense of motion, perhaps from this plane to a higher one.

Both discs serve as more examples of the AACM’s ongoing legacy and proof that the performance of the music overcomes the loss of any one -- or two -- players.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Ameen: 1. Mean Ameen 2. 3-D 3. Jeff to the Left 4. The Messenger 5. Haiti 6. Buster and the Search for the Human Genome

Personnel: Ameen: Maurice Brown (trumpet); Steve Berry (trombone); Ernest Dawkins (alto and tenor saxophones); Darius Savage (bass); Isaiah Spencer (drums)

Track Listing: Sirius: 1. Sirius Calling 2. Come On Y’all 3. Two-Twenty 4. He Took a Cab to Neptune 5. Everyday’s a Perfect Day 6. Till Autumn 7. Dance of Circles 8. Cruising with JJ 9. You Can’t Get Away 10. Taiko 11. There’s a Message for You 12. Slow Tenor and Bass 13. Voyage 14. The Council

Personnel: Sirius: Joseph Jarman (wooden flutes, C flute, Eb flute, flute and bass flute, Eb sopranino clarinet, sopranino, alto and tenor saxophones, percussion, wooden stand drum, bells, gongs, table vibraphone and whistles); Roscoe Mitchell (piccolo, flute, bass and great bass recorders, sopranino, soprano, alto, tenor and bass saxophones, percussion cage); Malachi Favors Maghostut (bass and percussion); Famoudou Don Moye (drums, congas, bongo and counsel drums, bells, gongs, chimes and whistles)

March 7, 2005

ROSCOE MITCHELL

Solo [3]
Mutable Music 17515

One of the first reedists to perform and record solo, Roscoe Mitchell has upped the ante even higher with this magnum opus. Almost 40 year after the Art Ensemble of Chicago founder and Association for the Advancement of Creative Music leader pioneer waxed a solo saxophone LP, he’s confident enough of his material to turn out this three-CD set. Luckily each disc offers something different.

CD2, Solar Flares for Alto Saxophone, showcases manipulations of his main axe, with the output more concerned with legato story telling than the sort of multiphonic techniques most soloists exploit. Almost self-explanatory, The Percussion Cage and Music on the Go, CD3, features a few soprano saxophone explorations as well as Mitchell exhibiting his prowess banging, hitting and thumping the hundreds of little instruments he has gathered into a four-sided Rube Goldberg-style contraption he dubs a percussion cage. Most unusual is CD1, Tech Ritter and the Megabytes, where the reedist who has been involved in New music and electronics over the years, double and triple tracks his sax work to create interlocking reed bands.

With 38 tracks, lasting from 43 seconds -- “Green Sky”, a slurred soprano sax outpouring on CD3 -- to almost 20 minutes -- “November 18, 2000” on CD1, a soprano saxophone showcase from a concert in Essen, Germany -- quality and execution varies. Some of the most memorable pieces play varied percussive timbres off against one another or contrast saxophone tones.

Because of this -- especially in a three CD context -- the solo saxophone disc offers the fewest surprises. Each of the 10 numbers seems to unroll at the same meandering tempo, with only the odd bent note muddying the output. All tunes are lyrical in a post-modern way and at almost 10½ minutes “The great red spot”, the longest, is typical of them all. Working, as others do, with elongated up-and-down runs, after a couple of minutes Mitchell introduces reedy resonation that vibrates against the metal. The final third contrasts lower-pitched tenor sax-like resonation and pinched, ney-like runs as separate split tones. When they finally unite, the result is satisfying and appropriate.

Satisfaction has to be spread among 21[!] tracks on the third CD, with Mitchell on some tracks moving among the hundreds of real and invented instruments he has crammed into his percussion cage and playing solo soprano sax on others. Among the more consistent tones produced are ones from gongs, air horns, whistles, tubular bells, claxons, hollow logs, balophones, wood blocks, real drums that are or resemble batas or djembes, triangles, toy xylophones, glass armonicas and temple bells.

A piece like “Truly”, for example, contrasts hollow clip clops with woodblock thwacks, rim shots plus vibrated finger cymbal timbres that resonate for many second at a time. “Clocks”, living up to its name, uses the reverberations of hanging temple bells and cowbells to replicate the regular pulse of clocks. Later smacks on hollow wood and hubcaps cut through the unwavering tones.

Despite its Sun Ra-like title, “It Was Only a Nebula Away” pales beside the Arkestra’s percussive inventiveness. Beginning with gong resonation, small items like knitting needles propel rhythms from, chimes, bells and hollow logs, with these tones succeeded by teeny tiny toy xylophone-style vibrations. As a woody polyphony makes an appearance, double timed bounces bring gongs and snares into the picture. Shorter pieces concentrate on chime reverberations or metallic vibrations.

Meanwhile, compositions like the interconnected “An Ambiguous Sign of Life” and “On Rolling Hills” pretty much sum up Mitchell’s solo soprano work. Almost bizarre when a sax riff appears in the midst of percussion, the reedist builds most of his solos around split tones. On these two pieces, and other shorter ones, the idea appears to be how the soprano’s nasal vibrations can be subdivided into secondary, chirruping lines until the two are compressed into one elongated tone.

Recorded live at the same concert as “November 18, 2000”, “November 17, 2000”, on CD1 is a more impressive soprano saxophone showcase. Here Mitchell contrasts an unstable lower-pitched tone and near whistling from a higher-pitched one. As his harsh, hunting horn-like slant gets more angular and grainy, he introduces circular breathing -- creating split tone shards that vie for space with one another. Sideslipping into different keys, he varies the output with glottal punctuation and tongue stopping. Surmounting all that has gone before with a diaphragm-related vibrato, his splayed reed tones split into small peeps and sharp tongue slaps. Decelerating down to foreshortened notes, he ends overblowing, as if he’s sounding more than one reed instrument a time.

That’s certainly true for “The Little Big Horn 2 for Bb bass and Eb sopranino saxophones” where he’s comfortable enough in the situation to make the named saxes sound like they’re duetting in real time. With shrill trills from sopranino and pedal point snorts from bass, there’s no obvious disconnect between the two.

Additionally, the two short roughs of the CD’s title tune, “Tech Ritter and the Megabytes”, finds him going saxophone combos like the Word Saxophone Quartet one better, creating a shifting miasma of overdriven smeared tones. Finally, his two experiments with the percussion cage, sound much more impressive isolated from other percussion tracks. Especially noteworthy is “1999/2002 For Flute and Percussion Cage.” Using an undercurrent of steel drum-like portamento and straight thwacks on cymbal and drum heads, without overdubbing, Mitchell produces both a light, legato flute tone and a resonating basso trill from the horizontal metal.

Longtime Mitchell fans will probably rate these CDs higher. They certainly provide insight into Mitchell’s value as an instrumentalist, composer and improviser. But in three CDs some less-than-stellar tracks are included. To properly appreciate the oeuvre, the massive musical meal should be taken in slow, small bites.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: CD 1: Tech Ritter and the Megabytes: 1. The Little Big Horn 2 for Bb bass and Eb sopranino saxophones 2. November 18, 2000 for Bb soprano saxophone 3. 1999/2002 For Flute and Percussion Cage 4.Tech Ritter and the Megabytes/Improvisation for two altos, tenor and bass saxophones 5. November 17, 2000); for Bb soprano saxophone, 6. A dim distant world for percussion cage 7. Tech Ritter and the Megabytes/Composition for alto, soprano, tenor and bass saxophones CD 2: Solar Flares for Alto Saxophone: 1. Nemus 2. Beyond Neptune 3. The Kyper Belt 4. Miranda 5. As the Sun went Down He would Look Up 6. Icy Pearls 7. The Great Red Spot 8. The Forgotten Players of the Solar System 9. Methane Snow 10. Frozen in Time CD 3: The Percussion Cage and Music on the Go: 1. Horn Bell and Drum 2.Clear Pictures 3. The Park 4. The Mercurians 5. Clocks 6. A Surface Covered with Cracks 7. Meteor 8. Rings 9. Some Flowers were Seen 10. Rock Number 84001 11. An Ambiguous Sign of Life 12. On Rolling Hills 13. Jump 14. Green Sky 15. One Two and Red Blew 16. Truly 17. It Was Only a Nebula Away 18. Next Stop Titan 19. At Corona’s End 20. Dust 21. Sailing

Personnel: Roscoe Mitchell (sopranino, soprano, alto, tenor and bass saxophones and percussion cage)

August 9, 2004

ART ENSEMBLE OF CHICAGO

Tribute to Lester
ECM 1808

ART ENSEMBLE OF CHICAGO
The Meeting
PI Recordings PI07

Could the Art Ensemble of Chicago (AEC) continue performing after the November 1999 death of Lester Bowie following 30 years of close collaboration? Sure, each members had his own side projects over the years and the band had survived the defection of reedman Joseph Jarman in 1993, but going on without the flamboyant presence of the lab-coat wearing trumpeter appeared impossible.

As Bowie once famously replied to another question: “Well, I guess it all depends on what you know,” and chuckled evilly. Not only did the three remaining members regroup to turn out TRIBUTE TO LESTER, but then the unexpected happened. Jarman brought his collection of reeds to mesh with the sounds from fellow reedist Roscoe Mitchell, plus bassist Malachi Favors Maghostut and percussionist Famoudou Don Moye on THE MEETING, although the title may suggest a non-permanent hook-up.

Unfortunately since these CDs were recorded Favors too has passed on. An unshowy tower of strength in this band and with Kahil El Zabar’s Ritual Trio, his death from pancreatic cancer in February may finally make perpetuating the AEC impossible.

Perhaps this was already suggested by the music here. As a three-piece and/or four-piece configuration, the band already seemed to be in a weakened state, at least in contrast with its earlier, more muscular work. On the evidence of the two CDs, the group’s more precious, microtonal tendencies, appear to have been reinforced at the expense of the outrageous humor Bowie sometimes brought to the bandstand. Furthermore the preternatural, stillness Jarman apparently exhibits as a teacher of Buddhism makes its way into the quartet session as well, making it too low-key when more exuberance would have brought forth more musical contrasts.

Perhaps reflecting the ascendancy of drummer Famoudou Don Moye, percussive sounds predominate on the discs, with more of a rhythmic drive exhibited on the Chicago-recorded TRIBUTE TO LESTER than the other CD. Both bassist Favors and multi-reedist Mitchell play percussion as well here, but at least the harder pulse gives more vitality to the proceedings, something a memorial to a fallen comrade should have. Conversely, some respite from these showcases for AEC-described “little instruments” is provided by Mitchell’s sax wizardry.

During the course of the nearly 14-minute “He Speaks to Me Often in Dreams” for example, it appears as if the three are wandering around the studio hitting and banging percussion tools by chance. They’re not, of course, and the textures created by shaking Mitchell’s percussion cage as well as Moye’s congas and what results from others pealing bells, buzzing door-bells, shaking maracas and hitting xylophones sums up one part of the AEC’s appeal. Intermittent, panpipe-style sounding from flute finally turns this final track into a threnody, though.

Mitchell’s bass saxophone drones go up against the mix of percussion on “Sangaredi”, while Moye’s ruffs, rolls thumps and flams are pierced by circularly breathed tones from the saxman on “As Clear as the Sun”.

That breathing exercise may put the reedist in the company of Euro improvisers like Evan Parker, but, on the other hand, some of the other tunes are pure Afro-American funk. “Zero/Alternate Line” is a hard and heavy line that features a gentle shuffle beat, a walking bass and Mitchell fielding multiphonics that manage to suggest both New Thing frenzy and Gene Ammons-like South Side jumps. “Tutankhamun” is a honking version of an AEC classic from the 1960s. As Favors’ fingering keeps the beat going, Mitchell, on tenor, scoops out lower tones from his bell, then creates a ney-like sound from his sopranino growling out double tongued excitement.

THE MEETING could have benefited from a bit of this excitement. Although Jarman’s reed and percussion arsenal is added to Mitchell’s, the overriding feel of the session is so reductionist that the listener may feel as if he has wondered into a microtonal recital. Adding another member to the band still doesn’t make this disc, recorded in different sessions at Madison, Wisc., sound like a full-fledged AEC disc.

“Tech Ritter and the Megabytes” and “Hail We Now Sing Joy” are the two atypical tracks, but together they barely add up to 11 minutes. The first is a Mitchell-created funky march that may or may not honor Bowie’s brass band proselytizing. At least with the composer huffing away on bass sax and Jarman’s clarinet lines spanning the others’ beats, it moves at an energetic pace. The former has a catchy melody, with the words of praise sung in a pleasant, off-key fashion by Jarman. His alto solo seems to relate more to pre-AEC Eric Dolphy-Ornette Coleman style than the band’s individual take on the tradition, with only Favors’ on-the-money bass work holding everything together.

Most of the other pieces take the unobtrusive experimentation in the percussion lab concept to an immeasurable extreme. Except for some ethereal flute tones, odd whinnying sax lines and indistinct whispers on the penultimate track, every other sound seems to involve low-key percussion expelled at a languid pace. Bells ring and jingle, a toy vibraphone resonates, gongs boom minutely, finger cymbals shake, triangles are hit and hand drums struck.

Perhaps the most egregious -- and certainly, at nearly 19 minutes -- most extended example of this appear on “It’s The Sign of the Times”. Although supposedly divided into four solos and an ensemble section, the entire track seems to be one of a piece, and a lowercase excursion at that. On and off sounds such as scrapes, crackles, reed buzzes and kazoo-like whistles predominate, with pitches coursing forward for a coupe of minutes at a time then vanishing. At one point you hear a serene flute line upfront, with gongs being manipulated in background, at another drum rolls followed by a serpentine alto or soprano saxophone portion that opens up into bowed bass motion and some shaking percussion hits. The overall effect is eerily metallic, like electronic collages but -- obviously -- without the surge of electricity.

Dispassionately listening to both CDs, make you hope that events prove otherwise and these won’t be the AEC’s less-than-stellar swansongs. But even before Favors’ passing, it’s evident that neither 1+1+1 nor 1+1+1+1 adds up to five.

- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Tribute: 1. Sangaredi 2. Suite for Lester 3. Zero/Alternate Line 4. Tutankhamun 5. As Clear as the Sun 6. He Speaks to Me Often in Dreams

Personnel: Tribute: Roscoe Mitchell (sopranino, alto, tenor and bass saxophones, flute, whistles, percussion cage); Malachi Favors Maghostut (bass, bells, whistles, gongs); Famoudou Don Moye (drums, congas, bongos, counsel drum, bells, whistles, gongs, chimes)

Track Listing: Meeting: 1. Hail We Now Sing Joy 2. It’s The Sign of the Times A. Malachi Favors (solo) B. Roscoe Mitchell (solo) C. Joseph Jarman (solo) D. Don Moye (solo) E. Ensemble 3. Tech Ritter and the Megabytes 4. Win and Drum 5. The Meeting 6. Amin Bidness 7. The Trian to lo

Personnel: Meeting: Joseph Jarman (wooden flute, C flute, flute and bass flute, Eb sopranino clarinet, clarinet, sopranino, alto and tenor saxophones, percussion, wooden stand, drum, bells, whistles, gongs and table vibraphone); Roscoe Mitchell (sopranino, alto, tenor and bass saxophones, piccolo, flute, bass and great bass recorders, whistles, percussion cage); Malachi Favors Maghostut (bass, percussion); Famoudou Don Moye (drums, African drums, congas, bongos)

March 8, 2004

SUNNY MURRAY

Sunshine & An Even Break (never give a sucker)
Fuel 2000 Records 302 061 215 2

Potentially the time when Energy music of both the American and European varieties reached the zenith of acceptance, 1969 was also unique because it suddenly seemed that the very fabric of society was ripping apart.

Riots were commonplace on both continents. Radicalized students were staging sometimes-violent demonstrations to demand more liberalized education processes and to protest against local repression and the war in Viet Nam. Fringe groups had turned to kidnapping, bomb throwing and arson in Europe, while in the U.S., the Black Power Movement had moved into its short-lived, so-called revolutionary phrase.

Articulate American provocateur/musicians, including members of the Art Ensemble of Chicago (AEC) and especially poet Amiri Baraka and tenor saxophonist Archie Shepp were making incendiary statements. And in Paris newly created BYG/Actuel records was attempting to get as many of the new avant gardists on tape.

Looking back from the 21st Century, many of the actions seem futile, as they encouraged greater repression and the election of right wing governments. Many of the so-called generational spokespeople retreated into business or academe, including Shepp and jazz then sought refuge in fusion and neo-conservatism.

Yet some fine CDs were made at that time, including, very definitely this one. Already known because of his association with pianist Cecil Taylor and tenor saxophonist Albert Ayler, drummer Sunny Murray’s first LP had been recorded under the aegis of Baraka and he was playing Europe his band in 1969. Combing two LPs on one CD, this disc features the drummer’s regular combo augmented by guests.

The most ferocious -- and longest -- performance comes on “Flower Trane”, which adds the AEC’s trumpeter Lester Bowie and alto saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell, plus alto saxophonist Arthur Jones and Shepp to Murray’s group. It’s a dense, snaky, highly rhythmic assault, built on the dual bass strength of Alan Silva and the AEC’s Malachi Favors plus the drummer’s cymbal splashes and snare pulse. With the horns playing screaming, off-kilter multiphonics practically in unison, despite the line-up, no single reed-bleater stands out. It does show however that “Ascension”-like group improvisations work.

Free of the visitors and goosed by Murray’s kit and Favors’ boomeranging 4/4-time invention, little-known Jamaican tenor saxophonist Kenneth Terroade turns out some memorable reed-biting smears and cries here. “Red Cross” -- not the Charlie Parker tune -- features more musicians as well, with individual saxophone lines -- most prominently Shepp’s avant-mainstream tenor -- and Bowie screeching trumpet, combining, splitting and leaping up and down the octaves.

Somewhat more cleanly recorded, the remaining numbers find Philadelphia reedman Byard Lancaster joining Terroade, Favors and Murray. Using both whirling saxes as backing ballast and point makers while exhibiting his percussion collection, Murray intones a portentous Black Nationalist poem on “An Even Break” very much under Baraka’s baleful influence.

With Lancaster screaming in ear-bleeding register and Terroade honking on his instrument’s bottom keys, the saxes construct extended smeary countermelodies on “Giblets - Part 12”. But even Favors’ virtuostic bass thump can’t disguise the tune’s origin as a simple R&B style riff. Resembling Ornette Coleman’s folksy material as well as AEC sound experiments, the final tunes work the same groove, with heads that reappear throughout, unison horn lines and an overall sound and sliding motion very much of their time.

Not the best example of Energy music in existence, this CD still offers up a hearty slice of 1969 free jazz played by some of its most accomplished practitioners, especially the still active, but under-recorded Murray.

Now, if somebody could only locate saxophonist Terroade, who was rumored to have returned to Jamaica in the early 1970s. If he’s still with us, it would be interesting to hear how his musical conception has evolved.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Flower Trane*#+ 2. Real; 3. Red Cross+#*; 4. An Even Break&%; 5. Giblets - Part 12% 7. Complete Affection% 8. Invisible Rules%

Personnel: Lester Bowie (trumpet)*; Arthur Jones+, Roscoe Mitchell+ (alto saxophones); Byard Lancaster (soprano and alto saxophone, bass clarinet, flute)%; Archie Shepp*, Kenneth Terroade (tenor saxophone, flute); Dave Burrell (piano)#; Alan Silva*, Malachi Favors (bass); Sunny Murray (drums, balafon and poetry reading&)

October 7, 2002

ROSCOE MITCHELL & THE NOTE FACTORY

Song for My Sister
PI Recordings 103

Avant garde jazz fans who remember the 1960s and 1970s have the tendency to come on like moldy figs when they compare the activities of many highly celebrated younger players with the accomplishments of their elders.

Case in point is this CD. For while a few youngsters have been over-praised for merely mastering the intricacies of a particular jazz style -- be it hard bop, modal or even a hip hop take on the New Thing -- reedist Roscoe Mitchell, 62, showcases a lot more.

Mitchell, who plays soprano, alto and tenor saxophones, flute, bass recorder, great bass recorder and percussion on this disc, has also written a set of unmistakably modern tunes that touch on playful R&B, precise swing, Third World anthems, jagged contemporary composition and even Early music. Assisted by eight young and veteran improvisers -- and four more for the “classical” piece -- Mitchell easily slides from one stance and style to another without ever losing his identity or resorting to tonal impersonation.

Pretty impressive for someone who was one of the founders of Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians in the mid-1960s and has been making impressive records on his own and as a members of the Art Ensemble of Chicago since that time.

Now a resident of Madison, Wisc., Mitchell has recorded with The Note Factory twice before, but only bassist Jaribu Shahid has been on all three discs. In the decade since the first CD, the band has grown from six to nine pieces, with new, impressive players joining. Especially prominent on his recording debut with this group, is Chicago trumpeter Corey Wilkes, whose contributions range from Harmon-muted whispers to brass band cadenzas.

New pianist Vijay Iyer leads his own bands around New York, while returning pianist Craig Taborn has gone from working with Young Lion James Carter to becoming a part of saxophonist Tim Berne’s electric trio. Bassist Leon Dorsey and drummer Vincent Davis have played and recorded with Mitchell in different configurations, while Shahid, guitarist Spencer Barefield and drummer Gerald Cleaver came out of Detroit subterraneous avant jazz scene.

Perhaps the best way to analyze a disc like this is to point to the two most unusual compositions. For a start there’s the almost 11½-minute “Wind Change”, a piece which evolved organically from a set of cards Mitchell developed to help beginning improvisers study. Switching between notated and improvised sections, and with the addition of Anders Svanoe on clarinet and bass clarinet, Willy Walter on bassoon, Janse H. Vincent on violin and Nels Buttmann on viola, the ensemble resembles a chamber orchestra. Except it’s a chamber ensemble where reverberations from Cleaver’s marimba, and bell shaking from Davis, make the more “legit” instrumentalists create sharp-angled sections, rife with the pizzicato string plucks. Meanwhile, Mitchell’s so-called classical sounding flute arches over the proceedings.

Equally unusual, “this”, recasts one of the composer’s chamber pieces written for a baritone vocalist, with Mitchell’s great bass recorder filling the singer’s role. Regarding Early music as yet another way to transmit his sound into another sphere, the saxophonist, a card-carrying member of the American Recorder Society, melds the canyon-wide, but limited range of the recorder with other sounds. In the end, the batter of marimba glissandos, muted trumpet lines, cello-like arco bass tones and shaken and stirred exotic percussion, end up with a product sounding like a Westernized version of gamelan orchestra music. Then there’s “The Megaplexian”, featuring Mitchell and the two percussionists improvising on instruments he invented for a special concert commission. Sounding like a combination of glockenspiel, vibes, wind chimes and bell tree, the megaplexians impart both an otherworldly and Third World feel to the composition. It also showcases the two pianists using a thicket of whole notes, bent notes and a few glisses.

On the other hand there are tunes like “Step One, Two, Three”, which comes across as half hard bop and half Middle Eastern court music. As the dual pianos sound out the infectious descending push-and-pull theme, Mitchell lets loose with some updated Swing tenor, so that you get an image of a college football half-time band marching through the narrow streets of the Casbah.

Not that more traditional music is neglected either. “Count-Off” is a rollicking, modern R&B type tune featuring a fruity Earl Bostic-style alto saxophone snaking through the music, with some Harmon muted tones from Wilkes, chordal guitar fills from Barefield and old-timey piano tinkles from one -- both? -- of the keyboardists. Then there’s the title tune, honoring Mitchell’s late sibling, but which comes across as bluesy rather than mournful. Displaying the saxophonist’s hard tenor tone, muted work from Wilkes, both basses walking and a waterfall of dual piano notes, it’s half modal and half freebop.

Age may have to withdraw for beauty sometimes. But in music the truly talented can produce beauty with intelligent content, because of their age and experience.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Song for My Sister 2. Sagitta 3. This 4. When the Whistle Blows 5. The Megaplexian 6. Step One, Two, Three 7. The Inside of the Star 8. Wind Change* 9. Count-Off

Personnel: Corey Wilkes (trumpet); Roscoe Mitchell (soprano, alto and tenor saxophones, flute, bass recorder, great bass recorder, percussion); Craig Taborn and Vijay Iyer (pianos); Spencer Barefield (guitar); Jaribu Shahid and Leon Dorsey (basses); Gerald Cleaver (marimba, percussion, drums); Vincent Davis (drums, percussion); plus on*: Anders Svanoe (clarinet and bass clarinet); Willy Walter (bassoon); Janse H. Vincent (violin); Nels Buttmann (viola)

September 9, 2002