Steve Tintweiss and the Purple Why

Jimmy Lyons
Live from Studio Rivbea
NoBusiness NBCD 178

Nine years may not seem like a long time. But in the case of American Free Jazz – often labelled as The New Thing – these discs recorded in 1967 and 1976 represent the zenith and the nadir of the music’s acceptance. Steady growth during the decade of the 1960s finally led to the recognition of Free Jazz as another manifestation of Jazz’s constant development and during 1967’s Summer of Love advanced ensembles like Steve Tintweiss and the Purple Why were as likely to show up at large open-air concerts as Rock and Folk groups

The hegemony of the Rock-Pop intensified during the next few years as the music business itself became more corporate. Experimental Rock bands began disappearing, bookers narrowed their policies and Jazz of all kinds became more of a minority music. By the mid-1970s, improvised music had been resegregated into smaller and smaller venues and shoestring record companies. By time Jimmy Lyons’ Live from Studio Rivbea tracks were recorded except for a few high-profile ones, experimental players had vanished into obscurity, turned to academe or were toiling in faceless studio work. In the period between 1974 and 1976 when Studio Rivbea’s two tracks were recorded “Jive Talkin’” and “Love to Love You Baby” topped the charts, solidifying the disco craze,  and at least provided gigs for some Jazz studio players.

Bassist Steve Tintweiss, now 80, who recorded with Albert Ayler and Burton Greene  among others has preserved his commitment to creative music over the years and has been able to participate in the so-called Jazz revival of the 21^st Century. Alto saxophonist Jimmy Lyons (1931-1986) was part of Cecil Taylor’s groups from about 1960 to his death. He led his own group intermittently and recorded infrequently, which makes this set valuable.

Audiences openness to different music in the 1960s is the alpha and omega of Live in Tompkins Square Park. The fact that a uncompromising Free Jazz group could draw a large  audience to a gig, even though it was outdoors and probably free, attest to this. However since it was a live gig the crowd’s laughs, yells, cries, grunts and murmurs are more prominent than they should be during the performances. Also the open-air location and the non-professional audio set up means that drummers Randy Kaye and Laurence Cook are often over-recorded, almost drowning out some of the other players’ sounds. There are also two drummer on Live from Studio Rivbea, one on each track. But the more intimate and respectful loft setting means that Henry Letcher or Syd Smart are properly balanced with the former on the track with Lyons, bassoonist Karen Borca and bassist Hayes Burnett, while Lyons, Burnett and Smart are featured on the other extended track.

Back in the park, the Purple Why is rounded out by clarinetist Perry Robinson, tenor saxophonist Joel Peskin, Tintweiss, Cook and Kaye, who also plays piano, plus trumpeters Jacques Coursil and James DuBoise, who is added on the last tune. Like the Lyons associates, with the exception of Peskin, who is now a studio musician, all the Purple Why members kept plugging away at some sort of creative music in the years since 1967.

Putting aside the audience noises and over-loud drums, it’s best to concentrate on the Tompkins Square Park soloists and the instrumental extended techniques which allows concentrated themes to be expressed. A throbbing exercise in stop-time interpretation, “N.E.S.W. Up/Down” does exactly what the title promises. Its repeated and layered choruses stack the horns so that Coursil’s first stratospheric then portamento extrusions meet up with Peskin’s fluttering variations as bass drum textures bump along. Robinson’s downward clarinet slide distinguishes the final sequence as the sprightly initial theme is recapped, but in a harder and thicker form than in the introduction.

Meanwhile the sequential “ California Sandra”, “To Angel With Love” and “Ramona, I Love You” move towards the straight-ahead as variable sways alternate with Tintweiss’ pizzicato thumps steadying the almost hand-clapping exposition abated by  clarion and altissimo reed slides. Half-valve brass ripples and piano comping bridge the transition to an upturned saxophone whine, while “Ramona, I Love You” avoids sugariness by mating high-pitched clarinet trills and low-pitched saxophone slurps. The climax comes as sax snorts and clarinet squeaks are harmonized in a linear fashion by cymbal clanks.

Overall, it’s Coursil’s overblowing triplets, brassy brays or cushioning grace notes and Robinson’s squeaky clarion trills, mewling cries and spayed split tones that make the greatest impressions. Curiously the trumpeter later opted for academe, while the clarinetist stayed true to creative music until his death in 2018.

Minus the death rattle, the same could be said for Lyons associates on Live from Studio Rivbea, notwithstanding all had music teaching experience. The extended – almost 30 minutes each – tracks evolve with the same level of invention although “Diads” is a trio exposition, and includes an almost unstoppable Lyons solo; while on “After You Left”, Borca’s slurry bassoon is prominent.

As the title telegraphs, while not a contrafact “After You Left” solidifies Lyons’ conception that was free enough, but with echoes of mainstream Jazz. As he distinctively bites and squeezes  up the scale with intensity, the bassoon’s gargling serves as a seconding voice contributing smears, stops, and burrowing buzzes, Burnett’s string twangs preserves the pace and Letcher’s cymbal clanks and paradiddles break up the rhythm enough so that proven and provisional themes come into focus.

Lyons excels at this type of neither-this-or-that narrative, with pointillist and fragmented passages followed by thickened note slides, triple tonguing and expanding multiphonics. An arco double bass interlude marks a transition, which when pizzicato tones return, accompanies the saxophonist’s brief turn to standard replication, Reed harmonization and division confirm the final sequence with string squeaks and a brief drum rumble marking the end.

With Smart and Burnett staunchly comping with ruffs and thumps Lyons turns “Diads” into a seemingly unstoppable tour de force. Moving from presto to prestissimo tempos his squeals and cries are strident, staccato and spectacular with Woody Woodpecker-like repetition sometime added. As he piles notes upon notes and phrases upon phrases, the rhythm duo heroically hangs tough, with the finale that somehow melds a melancholy ballad passage and a squeaking upsurge.

Jazz mythmakers have tried to excise Free Jazz from the music’s canon with a smear job not unlike anti-Trotsky Stalinist revisionists. But that trope has prevented many from hearing exceptional music. With the opposite idea, these discs are instances of how the committed were playing in the 1960s and 1970s with no thought of a future magazine cover or a TV spot – just promoting creative music. Lyons’ disc may have the edge because of superior recording, but both sessions add more sounds to Jazz’s ongoing  musical history.

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Tompkins: 1. Warm-Up And Announcement 2. Water 3. Land 4. N.E.S.W. Up/Down 5. Are You Lonely? 6. Waltz Of Eternity 7. Space Rocks 8. California Sandra 9. To Angel With Love 10. Ramona, I Love You 11. D-Drone 12. Y Interlude 13. The Purple Why*

Personnel: Tompkins: Jacques Coursil, James DuBoise* (trumpet); Perry Robinson (clarinet); Joel Peskin (tenor saxophone); Steve Tintweiss (bass, melodica, vocals); Randy Kaye (drums and piano) and Laurence Cook (drums)

Track Listing: Rivbea: 1. After You Left* 2. Diads+

Personnel: Rivbea: Jimmy Lyons (alto saxophone); Karen Borca* (bassoon); Hayes Burnett (bass) and Henry Letcher* or Syd Smart+ (drums)