Hijinx

Back in Tempe after a scattered and scattering week in Santa Fe for the High Mayhem Festival. I pulled out of the driveway in AZ at 9:30 in the morning and arrived on the dot for the 6:30 rehearsal with Chris Jonas' Rrake ensemble (Paul Brown, Jeremy Bleich, Milton Villarrubia III, Josh Smith, Mike Gamble and CJ) which went until about 11:30. Immediately afterwards drove up the mountain road and pitched a tent at the Black Canyon campground in Santa Fe National Forest, where I spent two nights. The second night, buckets of rain fell, of course. Just fine, really, and still exactly the edge of the wilderness I needed to shake out the endless stripmalls of central AZ. Besides, a few nights housesitting for JG and taking care of the sweetest dog in the history of the entire known quadruped universe took the only slightly rough edges off the camping experience.

The High Mayhem Festival itself seemed a huge success. Carlos Santistevan, the "curator" of the annual event, chose a new format for this year, with groups of similar performers clustered on each of the three days. Friday was "acoustic day," including the Cleveland Trio with Bleich, Smith and beautifully intense yet musical Cleveland drummer Carmen Castaldi. Rrake went on at about 12:30 am and played for a packed house until about 1:30.

The Traps event, originally planned for 6 drummers on 6 drumsets, benefited from the addition of Quinn Kirchner (who, as usual for a drummer these days, is involved in a billion projects, including Grilly Biggs). The performance was one of those oddly vanishing experiences: I remember going onstage, and leaving. What does Vijay Iyer call it at Destination Out...autoscopy. Al Faaet, Quinn, Mike Rowland, Dave Wayne, Joe Sabella and Milton Villarrubia III all played with extraordinary and deep listening. The array of 7 drumsets was a wonder to behold, especially in the load in area.

Great to be there, great to be a part of two wonderful performances. Some of my other highlight shows: CK Barlow and David Felberg doing Boulez' Anthemes 2, Mute Socialite from San Francisco (the buzz was all about Moe Staiano, quite rightly, but the other drummer, Shayna Dunkelman, completely tore it up as well. And what's not to love about guitarist Ava Mendoza?) The Late Severa Wires with JA Deane and Molly Sturges was also mind blowing.

There were, as usual, so many performances that grabbed me by the short hairs, packed into a measly three days, that I was definitely feeling overwhelmed by the time I hit the highway to return here.

Not the Radisson, daddy-o

So it's that time of year again. Oh man.

THE 7th ANNUAL HIGH MAYHEM EMERGING ARTS FESTIVAL

Dan over at Soundslope swears it's totally cool to still say "stoked," so okay then, I'm stoked. There's been a certain amount of pissin' and moanin' around here lately, a certain perhaps overly Jeremiah-like ululation and wailing and renting of liner notes and gnashing of CDs. The annual advent of this uniquely extra-planetary, supernally and sempiternally wicked rad blast of searing sonic and visual adventure generally tends to restore my faith in...things.

I trek to The City of Holy Faith Tuesday, rehearse with Chris Jonas' Rrake ensemble, perform at midnight (just like a real crazy musician) on Friday, meet with the Mad Drummers for my "project," Traps, Saturday. The six of us get to our six drumsets at the magic hour of 6 PM on Sunday. There are so many xenophiles I'm looking forward to hearing and seeing at the fest as well as offstage.

Check out the unbelievable list of performers, among whom it is more than an honor and a privilege to be counted.

Anyone who reads this broadside and can get to Santa Fe for the weekend needs to go. Go, go, go. Go to the High Mayhem Emerging Arts Festival. Go. To the High Mayhem Emerging Arts Festival, go. Go.

If you live too far away or are infirm or do not, for some other reason, GO, print out the poster and put it up all over your town. It will, at least, confuse the no doubt already-addlepated citizenry.

BOHICA

Stapelia gigantea, a milkweed-family succulent from Africa, growing in a neighbor's front yard. The adaptation: carrion-scented flowers, pollinated by flies.

When my brother was a Midshipman, he told me the Marines had a saying: "Adapt and improvise."

His Naval Academy buddies also frequently used an acronym: "Bohica." It stands for "Bend Over, Here It Comes Again."

Speaking of sayings: the unreliable narrator and I have one that summarizes an approach to the music people still insist on calling "Jazz": "Real Book at the Radisson." Maybe you can already hear it. If not, imagine the typical upscale cruise ship atmosphere in any lobby bar in any business/upper middle class tourist oriented hotel in any town or city shooting for swank, imagine the piano trio with guest vocalist or guest alto player, imagine the setlist ranging from What's New? through maybe Wave to perhaps the adventurous arrangement of Green Dolphin Street or the blunt-force literalness of the sax feature of maybe Ornithology or the late night wild and crazy straight-six-eight of Footprints or even the jazzed up Beatles medley.

I've played these gigs. One of them was New Year's Eve, '85 into '86, at the King of France Tavern (I think it might be called The Treaty of Paris Tavern, actually) in Annapolis, MD, with the stunningly talented pianist and arranger Stef Scaggiari (perhaps best known for his brief, impeccably arranged variations of the All Things Considered theme on NPR). Stef used to host an open mic night there and I once jumped into the fray with a piano improvisation, sort of equal parts Gershwin-lite and ham-fisted ersatz Cecil Taylor. Scaggiari was nicely supportive and ended up calling me for the drum chair for the following New Year's gig (his regular drummer, a very talented DC session man, had bigger holiday fish to fry). Imagine my astonishment that the 4 hour gig paid $300. I figured I was finally launching my career as a professional musician.

Sadly, my bass player friend Steve Singer (on the gig on my recommendation) and I didn't really play very well at all. Actually, Steve played well. I pretty much stunk up the joint. Maybe I had a few too many free, very dry martinis; maybe I just had an "off night." But I insisted on wheeling out my less than integrated Elvin Jones chops, and some of the unevolved Tony Williams flourishes I had bastardized in a horrific overlay on my suburban white boy Buddy Rich and Louis Bellson roots. Not realizing how thoroughly inappropriate these half-assed references were for the setting, I pretty much bashed and busied my way out of any future gigs with Stef, and seemed to confuse everyone involved, including myself.

Unanchored by any wise elders, mentors, teachers or tradition, and coincidentally not very skilled at self-reflection and accurate self-assessment, I conveniently avoided learning anything at all from the experience. In fact, I remember feeling frustrated that Stef and Steve were so fuckin' square and couldn't go to all the multi-layered, polyrhythmic and envelope-pushing outlands in which I was so obviously completely at home. My immense ego could grasp that something wasn't working, musically, but that's as far as things could proceed.

One of my favorite Proverbs of Hell, from Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: "If the fool would persist in his folly, he would become wise."

And so it was, dear reader. Many more Real Book at the Radisson gigs before that fateful New Year's Eve and after, virtually every one of which was a study in everyone involved having chosen poorly, in reference to and including me. Another standout was a string of gigs one languid summer at a hotel in Santa Fe called, at the time, The Picacho Plaza, which is now, believe it or not, actually a Radisson. These gigs were a couple of nights a week, organized by a "jazz vocalist," whose name I have forgotten, with the impeccable musicianship of Santa Feans Sherman Rubin on piano and Spin Dunbar on bass. This was the summer of 1990, when I had left a 5 year relationship for a siren named Petra, a performance artist and dancer. She came to one of the gigs and yawned a lot. Sherman and Spin eventually tired of my showboating and got me fired.

Perhaps it is this string of utter artistic failures "in the tradition" that makes me want to eat my own arm off at the shoulder every time I hear "BeBop 2007" or "The Young (aging) Lions Play Exactly In The Style of Blue Note Circa 1966," or the "jazz repertory" sadness that gets all the surfaces right and completely misses the meaning (pace Eliot) or the irredeemably miserable Diana Krall, or the pale, millenial fireside warbling of Norah Jones. Those who can't do, criticize.

Yes, but in my own defense: I am completely and totally sent by, for example, the Herbie Nichols trio stuff with Max Roach and Al McKibbon. Or Miles and company coyly working over some idiotic fluff like If I Were A Bell. Or Elvin masterfully picking his spots on the Sonny Rollins Night at the Village Vanguard sessions. Or Sarah Vaughan, even on something as thin as Black Coffee.

I also want to gnaw madly at my extremities when I hear "Free Jazz" a la 2007. Ken Vandermark, for example, despite being well-funded and even immortalized now on the big screen, just misses the entire boat for me. Pick your poison and all that, of course. But the self-consciousness of it all completely bypasses the original vitality of the approach. "How to Take a Vital Tradition and Turn it Into Various Clunky Shapes Cast Entirely in Lead."

Cecil Taylor/Tony Oxley/Bill Dixon in 2002...a snapshot of part of what the "wise elders" are up to. Unrelentingly stunning, authentic, urgent, assured aural conjuring. Utter magic. Completely different: The Ethnic Heritage Ensemble's recent release, Hot 'n' Heavy, with Corey Wilkes. Bam, wake up. Wachet auf! Roscoe Mitchell, Harrison Bankhead, Corey Wilkes, Vincent Davis live a few months ago in Albuquerque: clarity, fire, roiling intensity, freshness, joy, depth. High concept music underpinned by earthy power as deep as you'd want to take it.

The contrast is absolute. The New Thing on CD is Real Book at the Radisson in a thousand thousand forms. It's nice. It's entertaining. It's a display of obviously highly crafted musicianship (usually with very tasty drumming). And if it weren't nailed to the perch it would be pushing up the Stapelias.

Pushing Plastic

So Columbia has launched yet another Miles Davis marketing campaign. Surely someone could do a PhD on the various MD marketing campaigns from start to the current day. This new-ish one is peculiar in a lot of ways.

The insert included with both Miles Smiles and Round About Midnight yells: The Top-10 Must Have CDs of Miles Davis.

In a little box underneath: "Miles Davis recorded many masterpieces aside from Kind of Blue. Explore his rich, diverse musical world with the following CDs. (In alphabetical order.)"

A Tribute to Jack Johnson
Bitches Brew
In A Silent Way
In Person- Friday and Saturday Nights at the Blackhawk
Kind of Blue
Miles in the Sky
Miles Smiles
On The Corner
Round About Midnight
Sketches of Spain

This list is (like many lists) fascinating to examine. There's a lot of ways to take it apart, but I'm particularly interested in the marketing angle itself. 6 of the 10, surprisingly to me, were released from '67 to '72. It seems wild to me that On The Corner is included, surely a recording that can still give Kind of Blue fans serious indigestion. I'm personally pleased that so much of this late MD, pre-retirement, is being sold. To whom though? What's the target demographic?

Here's the blurb for On The Corner:

"Having turned around the jazz world and cracked the realm of progressive rock with such benchmark fusion albums as In A Silent Way and, especially, Bitches Brew, Miles Davis went for broke with On The Corner, perhaps the nastiest, streetiest (sic), most in your face "jazz" album of all time. Influenced by Sly Stone, James Brown as well as certain aspects of Indian music and the revolutionary modern classical composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, On The Corner remains a love-it-or-hate-it proposition. But there's no denying the raw power of its clattering, world-party grooves."

Is this high praise? It's funny, in my opinion. Love the neologism "streetiest."

The New Thing

Disclaimer: I almost never buy new releases and I am almost completely out of the loop regarding what's happening "now" in the strange music people still insist on calling "jazz."

Here's the list of new or recent releases that the radio station where I do my show, KSFR, just got in:

1. Soulfive - No Place Like Soul (2007)
2. Debbie Davies - Blues Blast (2007)
3. Bobby Floyd - Notes to and From My Friends (2006)
4. New York Voice - A Day Like This (2007)
5. Charlie Hunter - Trio (2007)
6. Carl Allen and Rodney Whitaker - Get Ready (2007)
7. Diana Krall - The Heart of Saturday Night (2007)
8. Knoxville Jazz Orchestra - Blues Man from Memphis (2007)
9. Omer Avital Group - Room to Grow (2006)
10. Jeff Hackworth - How Little We Know (2007)
11. Illinois Jacquet - Swingin' Live (2006)
12. Nine - Bring Back Pluto (2007)
13. Armand Boatman - BeBop Revolution (2007)
14. South 9 Ensemble - The Llama
15. Charles Gatschet - Step Lightly (2007)
16. Curtis Stigers - Real Emotional (2007)
17. Ali Ryerson - Jammin' at the Jazz Corner (2007)
18. The Shook/Russo Trio featuring Bob Butta (2007)
19. Chris Potter - Follow the Red Line (2007)
20. Mike Longo Trio - Float Like A Butterfly (2007)
21. The Dan St. Marseille Quartet - Swinging with the Saint (2006)
22. Wendy Fopeano - Raining on the Roses (2007)
23. The Wonderful Jazz Ensemble - A Wish (2005)
24. Sonny Fortune - You and the Night and the Music (2007)
25. Christian Scott - Anthem (2007)
26. Dale Fiedler Quartet - Plays the Music of Pepper Adams (2007)
27. Bob Hamilton Trio - WixWax (2007)
28. The Omer Avital Group - Asking No Permission (2005)
29. Ted des Plantes Washboard Wizards - Thumpin' & Bumpin' (2006)
30. Allan Harris - Nat King Cole: Long Live the King
31. Grant Stewart - In the Still of the Night (2007)
32. Joe Locke and 4 Walls of Freedom - Dear Life (2004)
33. John Vance - Dreamsville (2007)

What the hell is all this stuff? I wish I had time to check it out and write some kind of incisive summary of The World of Jazz Today, but, for one thing, I'm 530 miles away from the station and for another, I just used some old Barnes and Noble Gift Cards from former students of mine, totaling $125, to pick up the following:

Miles Davis, Round About Midnight, the Legacy reissue with previously unreleased live recordings with the first quintet at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium, as well as bonus tracks that are among my favorite sort of hard boppish MD, including Little Melonae and Budo.

Miles Davis, Miles Smiles, which I've had on vinyl since 1976 and it basically went completely smooth.

Duke Ellington, Newport, the amazing Phil Schaap reissue with the real live recordings released for the first time in stereo.

Ornette Coleman, Free Jazz, including First Take...I got lazy with this one because I had it on cassette for years (no First Take).

Art Blakey, A Night at Birdland, Vol. 1 and 2, the great band with Brownie, Donaldson, Horace Silver, Curly Russell. This, I also had on cassette, recorded in about 1974 from the vinyl I borrowed from the Bethlehem Public Library.

Cannonball Adderly, Somethin' Else, a recording I somehow never heard before.

Someone, anyone, name one title from the above radio station list that a). you will still want to hear 33 years from now, b). will be coveted in reissue by people like me approximately 20 years after that, c). that you are likely to be able to listen to over and over again at recurring intervals for the next 50 years and hear something thrilling or new nearly every time. Oh I know, it's not fair to compare the above artists to Miles, Duke, Blakey, Cannonball, Ornette. Or maybe it's not fair to compare the radio station list with such classics as I picked up at Barnes and Noble. Okay, maybe you have a point, sort of. Except that I'd probably be excited if the radio station suddenly got the entire Blue Note catalogue, for example, from 1957. Or maybe even every Columbia Jazz release from 1967.

So why isn't it fair? And even if it's not fair, what does that in itself say about what has happened to this ugly stepchild of American musical culture that people still insist on calling "Jazz"?

Talk about leading questions. You know and I know that we all know the answer.

By the way, Sonny Fortune and Illinois Jacquet are incredible musicians, but I'm skeptical of the above releases. Chris Potter's disc might be worth a whirl. And one of the groups unknown to me, The Dale Fiedler Quartet, playing the music of Pepper Adams, sounds like it's worth a listen. But let's say I can still hear in 2057, let's say I quit smoking and take up yoga and don't get hit by a bus...what then, when I'm 96?

Are You Glad to be In America? vol. 1

Okay, maybe an easy target. So sue me. This (sadly broken) CD was at the corner thrift store, Gracie's, for 25 cents. Except it was the monthly half price day, so I guess it was 12.5 cents. Did you know there was a Fellowship of Christian Cheerleaders? Did you know there was both "Beginner's Music" and "Advanced Music"? And then the Spirit Mix. I wish the CD itself were playable, as it gets my imagination going. But I guess I'll just have to imagine that perhaps the "Beginner's Music" is in some sort of duple meter, the "Advanced Music" is maybe in five and uses a few microtonal flourishes and the "Spirit Mix" is something like Ayler.

A friend of mine who requests anonymity teaches Comp 101, you know, freshman writing. On the student questionnaire for the happy, relaxed, get-acquainted days of the early semester, one of the questions was: If you could meet anyone from history, who would it be? A few students put Jesus; one student put Ronald Reagan. Many students answered the "ethnic background" question by writing "white." Or "American."

If I could meet anyone from history, it might be the graphic designer of the FCC Cheer Mix CD, so I could ask: why the dancing mouse?

On another front entirely, yet somehow still from within the borders of this Great Nation of Ours, this excerpt from Katherine Stubblefield's moving account of Max Roach's funeral:

"If I recall correctly, at around this time Stanley Crouch spoke... it was amusing to hear a few groans from our position in the balcony...and one person called out that he only has five
minutes... anyway, thank you Stanley Crouch for speaking well of Max Roach."

I wonder if Crouch was before or after Bill Cosby? Or the reading of Bill Clinton's letter? And thank God that Crouch spoke well of Roach, thank God he didn't say something like "You critics would have totally ignored a Wynton album with Roach on it but you practically sainted the man for playing with Braxton."

As to what may or may not have been discussed in the foyer of Riverside Church either pre or post memorial, only the hallowed walls can tell.

Maybe as a karmic offset for buying the FCC Cheer Mix for 12.5 cents and eagerly ripping it open only to find it unplayable, a lot of kind folks have been sending me music lately. The wonderful free improvising saxophonist from down under, Massimo Magee, sent me his recent recording, "To Those for Whom No Time Exists." Kevin Frenette sent me a CD I haven't had time to listen to yet. Ditto Stanley J Zappa. Ditto guitarist Lily Maase. Massimo's title more appropriately for me could have been "For Those Who are Chronically Out of Time." Double or perhaps triple irony intended.

And I've sent the extraordinary duo recording of Paul Rutherford/Paul Lovens from '76/'77 to the fine fantabulists at Destination Out, so maybe we'll see parts of that up there soon.

Max Roach

There's a wealth of Roach tributes pouring out, quite rightly, all over the web. What jumped into my mind on first hearing the news of Roach's passing was his solo on Valse Hot, a Prestige recording with Sonny Rollins, Clifford Brown, Richie Powell and George Morrow. This was one of the workouts that Andrew had me try to cut my teeth on when I first started lessons with him. I'm reminded also that I had started drums at about age 5 or so, and had been studying and playing, sometimes fanatically, for roughly 23 years by the time I worked with Andrew. And I had heard Roach's solo on Valse Hot maybe 50 or 100 times by the time Andrew put its architecture in front of me.

I had never tried to work through it, had never approached 3/4 in the absolutely literal way that Roach deadpans his way through it. The experience absolutely kicked my skinny Irish ass. It's not conceptually very difficult, really. The idea: boom chick chick, boom chick chick. Right foot, left foot, left foot. Then just layer patterns over the top. But in the way that Roach's conception was always deceptively simple, capturing this pattern in a convincing way, with musicality of phrasing, with his sense of absolute confidence, proved highly challenging for me. The process of transcribing the solo was eye opening and deeply humbling in many ways.

And this goes to so many different layers of musicology and beyond. The drums, in particular, attract a lot of wankers. There were some street drummers out last night at the corner of Mill and Fourth Streets in the execrable (supposedly hip) "downtown" area of Tempe. (More about that in another post). These 3 young drummers had some moves, for sure. They had choreographed some pretty slick stuff and executed some impressive sticking, some flashy acrobatics. I admired their flash and the ways they worked together. I also admired their mastery of the rudiments and their stick control. But there was not much music in the end result. I have nothing against flash. And Roach had plenty of flash himself (his hi hat solos, for but one example). But Roach also made music. Always.

He was an artist first and a drummer second. And I can clearly hear that the end result of this sort of priority is that one becomes massively expert on one's instrument. But the technique is in the service of some sort of statement. Roach was always saying something. Some great drummers are sometimes simply saying "look at how great I am."

One of my growing up moments was moving from Buddy Rich to Max Roach. (and Elvin Jones, and, perhaps oddly, regaining more appreciation for Gene Krupa). The public library where I grew up had a record called "Rich versus Roach," and the role of that record changed over time...from justifying my Buddy Rich fetish to highlighting my newfound respect for Roach. There's a lot I still admire about certain Rich performances (especially excerpted from the cornball contexts that Rich often stooped to). And no matter how much Rich's snare technique can still floor me, if I want to hear the drums as an instrument capable of making music, I'd rather hear Roach in a heartbeat.

What's echoing in my head now is Roach on Bemsha Swing, from Monk's Brilliant Corners. Roach on tympani. Then what piles in is the extended duet with Cecil Taylor from 1979. That this same artist confidently spans these styles and is instantly recognizable is a miracle of American musical culture.

Valley Fever

At first, I figured Valley Fever was just a catchall name for the crazy behavior one sometimes sees exhibited by residents of Central Arizona, probably caused by the searing heat and overexposure to strip malls, strip clubs, road construction and big box retail. Turns out that Valley Fever is an actual fungal infection.

Woohoo.

Strange: landmarks here are constituted by a bewildering array of drug stores, supermarkets, chain restaurants such as Outback Steakhouse and Chili's, gas stations and department stores. Problem: It would seem simple enough to remember that Trader Joe's, for example, is located in a plaza at an intersection with a huge Walgreen's. However, it's an identical plaza with a huge Walgreen's, maybe 5 blocks south of the one closer to the house.

Beautiful: the saguaros and other cacti in people's yards.
Ugly: Just about everything else.

I started work as a part time High School algebra 1 teacher last week, rumbling through endless orientation and set up activities. Classes start Monday. I'll be teaching about 50 (mostly) 9th graders at a charter school that focuses on the arts. The pay is unbelievably low and the hours are actually relatively long, as well as the professional requirements being fairly detailed. Call me crazy, but I'm stoked.

Also stoked about the High Mayhem Festival next month. The schedule isn't completely finalized, but I know through the grapevine that Chris Jonas's Rrake project (I'll be on drums) is Friday, 9/21 and my own Traps performance (with 6 drummers on 6 drumsets) is Sunday, 9/23. I don't think I'll be able to get to Santa Fe this month so it's especially exciting to have this in the offing.

Also stoked about an "audition" for The Phoenix New Times, writing one of their arts and culture event previews for the section called Night&Day. The paper devotes an entire page to every day of the week, with short pieces of about 150 words for three or four events each day.

Do people still say "I'm stoked"? If not, let's just say "I'm old" and leave it at that. Maybe it's all of the Hawaiian shirts I bought at Gracie's Thrift Store last week. Dude.

I notice checking out the blog rounds that there's been a recent flurry of commentary on Kieth Jarrett's recent outburst in Perugia. I don't have any strong opinions on any of it yet. The only thing that comes to mind is my recent hour-long telephone conversation with Sonny Rollins and attending a wonderful Meet the Artist event where Rollins was interviewed by AB Spellman, as well as the stunning Rollins performance the following Sunday night. Without saying a word, Rollins exudes dignity, humility of a strong and centered spirit, a sense of humor, a sense of perspective and gratitude. There isn't one molecule of kow-tow nor any shred of the submissive in Rollins. Yet, at the same time, there is no sense of brittleness nor of self-seriousness. In describing to a friend of mine how solid Mr. Rollins seems, he said "Man, if I had accomplished even one tenth of what Rollins has, I'd be the biggest prick in the world." Interesting perspective.

Into the Hot

Apparently, the Hohokam name for Phoenix was "Hoodzo," which literally means "the place is hot." So far the biggest surprise is the humidity, actually. I had no idea that this area received an influx of monsoonal moisture every summer. It feels and looks tropical outside, palm trees towering over the apartment buildings behind our back yard.

Music? I still haven't discovered much. Well, I've only been here 5.5 days. These things take time, like at least 8 days or so. I checked out the Phoenix Creative Music Movement's web site again and sent an email but it got kicked back. So I'll have to see about it some other way. We took a drive into downtown Phoenix last night and saw a few blues clubs here and there, but nothing particularly interesting yet.

Meanwhile Chris Jonas' Rrake project goes up again in preparation for the '07 High Mayhem Festival Sept. 21-23, so I'll be headed back to Santa Fe for some rehearsal, hopefully dovetailing with a rehearsal for the Traps project.

front yards, insane and otherwise

The top photo is our front yard in Tempe. The bottom photo is a neighbor's front yard. We've had to mow the front yard three times since July 20th thanks to flood irrigation. The neighbor just gets to be awe inspired by completely xeric cacti.

It's not fair, nor is it sane. Grass grows in Kentucky. In the Sonoran, do as the Sonorans do.

selling out

My blog is worth $9,032.64.
How much is your blog worth?

What the?

well hey, here I am in Tempe. How strange is that? Listening to Corey Wilkes play two trumpets on the title track of Ethnic Heritage Ensemble's Hot 'n' Heavy. It's playing on my own radio show, which I recorded last Thursday...streaming on the web from www.ksfr.org.

AND I finally managed to put together a workable home studio to record the show here, putting August 16th's show in the can this morning. I was all set to use the MBox2 but the sucker wouldn't power up from the USB so I ended up just running the stereo into a mixer and the mixer (mic included) directly into the 1/8 mic input on the back of the Mac G5. Recording using the free recording software Audacity, which seems to work just fine. The mic sound isn't so great, but it's a loaner mic, a loaner mixer...the whole deal ended up costing me $15 in cables and adapters.

Job offer: full time middle school math teaching with an additional high school algebra I class for about half what my last full time teaching position paid. Great school, great people. I just can't do the deal anymore...I might be teaching part time at the same school, maybe music theory. It was interesting to note my reaction to being offered the job, which was a sort of kneejerk "great, when do I start?" Only after I slept on it overnight did some clarity come my way.

Generally: the feeling is I have fallen into a vortex of disarray. I'm sure everything will sort itself out after a bit more time.

The internet fortune tellers at astrodienst actually back me up this time:

Favorable results

**

Your energies are high, you feel good, and you believe that you can do twice as much work as usual, which you probably can. This time is also favorable for most business activity, for your actions are blessed with insight that helps you succeed in business where others might fail. For the same reason, this is a good time for making decisions. You have a very clear sense of yourself and your needs, so that you can make decisions according to your best interests, in the largest and most enlightened sense of the phrase. If you must take chances or do something that you can't foresee the outcome of, this is as good a time as any. Your optimism now creates a positive energy that will attract favorable results from your gamble. Besides, you have the sense at this time to avoid any real risky ventures.

Duology Two Links

Canned improv available here, with me on piano on all tracks:

rosS Hamlin
guitar, invisible hand puppets

Molly Sturges
voice, effects

Carlos Santistevan
bass

JSA Lowe
language

JA Deane
samples, live samples

Milton Villarrubia III
drums

Recorded live at The College of Santa Fe, Friday, July 6, by Fly On The Wall Productions. (Thanks again, Stephen Schmidt).

Much gratitude to the performers for bringing so much to this second Duology. Some performers bringing what they brought despite recovery from serious illness, impending marriage, moving 500 miles away, leaving for Verona the following day, having just returned from a two week tour, etc.

Many thanks, also, to a certain indispensable person for hosting on her server (you know who you are). It took forever due to the file size, transitional internet unavailability, the downloading of Fetch, etc. A long time that could otherwise have been spent on packing, wrangling with utility companies, etc. My gratitude is suffused with sheepish guilt.

The technology thing had me in its jaws also much of yesterday, doing the regular radio show and then back in the studio at 6:30 to produce the Sonny Rollins interview, not done until 11:30. It's actually still not done: the segment of East Broadway Rundown came out too hot, with distorted peaks during the opening head, and I would like to put a Lester Young mix behind Sonny's comments during a brief section. Don't know if I'll have time before the interview airs on KSFR, Thursday, July 26, from 1-3 Mountain Time. I did get a condensed text version into the Santa Fe Reporter for publication on July 25, a record 13 days in advance.

Mr. Rollins is a very thoughtful man who does not jump immediately into responses to questions, at least not on the phone. The first go through the interview involved a painstaking edit of the plain voice file, tightening up the pauses, removing both his and my own ums and so on. Splicing musical selections, both on their own and as backgrounds, took the rest of the time. The total time with music ends up at 63 minutes, so I'll have to broadcast it in two sections during the 1-3 time slot. (remarkably, the total time of the raw voice recording is 60 minutes, and I added perhaps 12 minutes of music yesterday, which means I edited out roughly 9 minutes of ums and pauses.....)

Enjoy the above *free music* and let me know what you feel about it.

Excavation/Two by Shepp

Going through vinyl in preparation for the move to Tempe, I found a couple of Archie Shepp albums I haven't heard in a long time. One, Pitchin' Can, on America records, contains an extended blowing piece called Uhuru (Dawn of Freedom) with Shepp, Bobby Few, Bob Reid, Clifford Thornton, Mohamed Ali, Al Shorter, Djibrill, Ostaine Blue Warner and Lester Bowie. The other piece on the record is the title track, with Shepp, Sunny Murray, Clifford Thornton, Julio Finn, Noah Howard, Leroy Jenkins, Dave Burrell, Earl Freeman and Chicago Beau. Apparently recorded in Paris in 1969 and 1970, the album is yet another outgrowth of the exodus (whether temporary or more long term) of creative musicians to France near the end of the '60s.

The other record unearthed is simply titled Archie Shepp/Philly Joe Jones, and has Anthony Braxton, Chicago Beau, Shepp, Julio Finn, Leroy Jenkins, Earl Freeman and Philly Joe Jones. This one is from the same brief period; Paris 1970. (I notice some of the other vital extended sessions Shepp participated in from this time, including Alan Silva's Luna Surface and Sunny Murray's BYG sessions and work with Grachan Moncur III). The two performances recorded here: Lowlands and Howling in the Silence. Apparently, Philly Joe Jones was teaching at a school in London from 1967-1969, although he was prevented from working there because of the British musician union rules.

I can't hear much Braxton on this recording, with Shepp very hot in the mix and Chicago Beau's vocals an urgent and also overly hot scream. There's a lot of Leroy Jenkins though, which is a pleasure. Philly Joe Jones brings some serious muscle to the loose 6/8 of much of Lowlands. His approach is completely different from Max Roach's ferocious fluidity on the duets with Cecil Taylor from 1979; much more metrical and articulated. The overall effect is free jazz blues tinged with hard bop and not particularly integrated. It's a mad swirl of chaos, especially when Julio Finn's (or Chicago Beau's?) harmonica comes through. Braxton's soprano sax sounds more like a Middle Eastern reed instrument than a sax.

Howlin' in the Silence starts with some piano from Shepp (sounding very influenced by another of his collaborators of the time, Dave Burrell). Leroy Jenkins states a sweet, minor theme and Braxton finally gets some angular, sere time on alto that quickly morphs into screams and guttural shards, with Philly Joe dancing on the brushes. The spoken word seems to work better here. (The consensus among Vision Festival attendees this year seems to be that free players should dispense with spoken word, but I usually find it an affecting mix. There's something about language brought to the swirl that has always seemed a fitting contrast to me). Leroy Jenkins gets some stretching time on this piece, and this may be why I had avoided spinning the disc much when I was younger. It took me a long while to get next to free jazz strings in general; I guess I was assisted mostly by Ramsey Ameen's work with Cecil Taylor's late '70s Unit. Now Philly Joe Jones has launched into a melodic excursion in 6, brushes mixing snare and toms in his trademark way. Now we're back in the blues, well a sort of cubist blues. Shepp is also back on tenor; Braxton in flights on alto as well. It's great to hear Braxton with Philly Joe Jones behind him. Surreal, but lovely.

Pitchin' Can bears some resemblance to the above recording, except that the approach of Uhuru is nonmetrical, roiling and shimmering in the archetypal "energy music" style. Shepp gets more of his signature full-toned blowing time, and Clifford Thornton is particularly effective on valve trombone , coming in and out. Some of Shepp's phrases here are reminiscent of one of my favorite recordings of all time, The Magic of Ju-Ju. Thornton gets some butt-kicking solo time. He's one of the players from this time by whom I am always surprised, and when I hear some of what he did, I always want to hear more. Alan Shorter takes an all-too-short solo on flugelhorn. Sadly, stepped on by the ululation of the word "Uhuru" by Shepp. Burrell's playing is full and dramatic, awash with chords and sparkling lines. Oddly, yet again, as I'm just getting next to what Burrell is doing, it's overpowered by more shouting.

The title track comes as a surprise after the ferocity of Uhuru. It's a sort of uptempo All Blues riff, that stays in the tonic. Sunny Murray keeps impeccable time. I would have liked to hear more Noah Howard . In general, on both recordings, I want to hear more from the remarkable personnel. Not that I am not always inspired to hear Shepp.

Inside Out

Interesting conversation at Settled in Shipping spurred by Dave Douglas and his reflections on Ethan Iverson's '90s post. Interesting to me anyway. I could examine the question of "inside" versus "outside" endlessly, and seem to have been doing just that for many months now.

The whole conversation originates from the wonderful Jazz in the '90s series of posts at Destination: Out. Here's an interesting quote from Ethan Iverson's blog:

"There was very little Branford in D:O!'s final tabulation: in fact, the only mention was Crazy People Music on Nate Chinen's list. This was only to be expected, since the wonderful D:O! site focuses on free jazz, and its readers would probably be generally not interested in the music of the Marsalises and other players who made such a point of bringing back earlier styles of jazz. Further, Branford is a loudmouth who has said dismissive words about Cecil Taylor and 70's jazz. If you love the kind of music that is hosted at D:O!, it is only natural to be skeptical of him, his brother Wynton, and other musicians associated with that circle."

I'd like to write at some length about this so-called "skepticism," eventually offering some other far more appropriate (for me) terms.

I think, for me, I'm actually "skeptical" of the music itself. You know, Miles Davis was a loudmouth who said dismissive things about more than a few of my other heroes, but that hasn't prevented me from holding almost everything he ever did in very high esteem. Musically. If Davis had been unable to make unbelievably compelling and ridiculously innovative music for 50 straight years, then I'd be skeptical. Who cares, really, what who says about Archie Shepp or Ornette or Cecil Taylor or Eric Dolphy? When I get right down to where my resistance comes from, it has absolutely nothing to do with these politics, nor does it have to do with "bringing back earlier styles of jazz." I think Sonny Rollins playing Mack the Knife on Saxophone Colossus is just fine, thank you (for example).

More on this later. Probably more than most people will care to read.............

Happy Independence Day.

work in progress

Sonny Rollins on the phone yesterday: "I'm still learning. I'm still trying to find the way to express myself. I'm still a work in progress." 77 years old, a monumental figure, a nearly 60 year recording career, a resume that stretches from Harlem to the outer reaches of the galaxy. A work in progress.

Many other memorable quotes which will be distilled in a 550 word piece in the Santa Fe Reporter Wednesday, July 25. The entire interview (after some serious editing) on KSFR Thursday, July 26, 1:30 MT.

My own experience one of enormous stress, a state of fairly high anxiety. I only realized this after the interview was over. I'm such a noob at this, having only interviewed Jane Ira Bloom, Roscoe Mitchell and Sonny Rollins for the radio. (Print interviews with the somewhat less intimidating, for a variety of reasons, Peter Nero, Quincy Troupe and JA Deane). I imagine what it would be like to interview an artist and not know anything at all about him or her. Actually, it's not knowing about the career or the work or whatever, it's the personal hero factor. It came up also when meeting and spending a few hours with Cecil Taylor a couple of years ago in Albuquerque. The feeling for me is the surreal collision of a formerly exclusively private, personal universe with the outside world. It's an experience of meeting or conversing with an archetype. As if one of the major arcana from the tarot, or one of the planet gods, were to have a phone number. Significant figures who have not been introjected so thoroughly would not lead to such discomfort. Like who? Cormac McCarthy, Derek Walcott, Yo Yo Ma, for a few examples. Or the ease and "no big deal" experiences I had when I would meet celebrities who were parents of students when I worked at the swanky school in Los Angeles. Admittedly, it was still surreal when, for example, Bruce Willis would come to a parent-teacher conference, but just humorously or curiously so, not (for me) intimidating or paradigm shifting.

Where this collision is heightened says a lot about my spiritual values, about my experience of "art." About a belief system that ascribes great power to authorship, to the individual person "behind" the work itself. "Hero worship" in a variety of forms, lending great energy to the belief that certain artists are more than human, or have a mythical power of some kind. Interestingly, I think a part of this is the co-existing belief that I lack that power myself. Maybe waking up to some of these dynamics is just another in a huge tidal wave of opportunities lately to gain some perspective and proportion.

free form

Been digging around this morning for as much sense as I can muster in preparation for the conversation with Sonny Rollins later today. Bret Primack's videos on YouTube, linked from Rollins's website, are recommended. It's especially interesting to hear a little more about Rollins's experience of popular culture (movies, radio) in his youth in Harlem.

This conversation between David S Ware and Rollins is definitely worth reading, too.

The more I approach Rollins as musician and person the more I am reminded of the "Inside Out" ethos. This is something along the lines of music as a totality, a continuum, in particular with the so-called avant garde and mainstream forms of jazz as highly artificial and unfortunate distinctions created by a so-called "free market" economy in order to limit freedom and limit choice (as always, by creating the illusion of choice). Musicians who have themselves bought this line of bullshit hook line and sinker (on either side of the illusory divide) seem to me to be legion these days. Rollins captures something about it, having spanned nearly 60 years in performance and recording. There's a sound I hear in his playing that's pure of this self-consciousness, burning bright without worry about where the music "fits" or what "it is." The saddest thing about "post-modern" "jazz" is its referential, stylistic obsession, its endless catalogueing of various styles and approaches from the past, but in a distanced way that has not absorbed the spirit. The leading edges of this approach in its earlier days in the 80s had not only the formal and stylistic elements and mannerisms but also the heart that transcended style in the first place. It seems a fear of simply being oneself in one's music permeates the "industry." Rollins is a wise elder now who captures this very freedom, a kind of relaxed and unconcerned phosphorescent brightness and immediacy with neither backward looking conservativism nor "neoism."

Listen, Sonny

I've got an interview with Sonny Rollins scheduled for tomorrow afternoon, in advance of his appearance here and in Albuquerque as part of the New Mexico Jazz Festival. Rollins is a true "cultural exception," whose nearly 60 years of recording (if I have it right, his first session in the studio was with Babs Gonzales in January of 1949, when he was 19 years old) includes a series of remarkable and risky maneuvers. I suddenly, however, feel like I know next to nothing about Rollins, despite listening to his music since I was about 9. Some serious homework is in order.

In the spirit of blind ignorance, I ask my readers: what would you ask Mr. Rollins if you had him on the phone? Here's my initial ideas, aided by my old friend Emery: Why the pianoless trio at VV? What about East Broadway Rundown? The brief period with Don Cherry, Henry Grimes and Billy Higgins, what was the impetus behind that? Any solo tenor performances in the works? I wonder if Rollins has heard the Vandermark 5 Free Jazz Classics? New band, new CD?

I gave Sonny, Please! a first listen this morning. Rollins's playing is stunning; his tone, his phrasing, his spirited and playful, utterly relaxed yet energized statements. It amazes me sometimes how the masters can deliver thoroughly satisfying work for me in settings and styles that otherwise are not so much my cup of tea. (I feel this way about Miles Davis on Aura and Amandla, for example, or Elvin Jones in some of the settings he's been in, or Lester Bowie on David Bowie's Black Tie/White Noise).

Off to lucubrate, any and all suggestions welcome.

Coruscations

Echinocereus fitchii and Coryphantha scheeri (top) add their ephemeral glories to summer '07.

Cecil Taylor's For Olim in the background (actully, really frikkin' loud) on a 90 degree day.

The small flashes and sparks around here have to do with MONEY, BABY. That's right....bread, scratch, cold hard cash. Because what is money really? I ask. The school I used to work for had a generous donor who used to say "Money is just energy." I've known plenty of people who think money is bad, except that they wish they had more of it. I don't know very many rich people who think money is bad, but Santa Fe does have them: "Liberals" or "progressives" who are all chagrined and conflicted and embarrassed about having money.

If money is just energy, how can it be bad? Energy is neutral.

I guess I'm not really thinking about money as much as I am thinking about transactions. The exchanges that get us money or in which we lose it. A transaction is based on some sort of explicit or tacit agreement that both parties are a means to some sort of end. The ends in an employee/employer transaction are significantly different for both parties. As an employee, I'm agreeing to provide some sort of labor or service in exchange for money (energy) that I use to survive (shelter, food, clothes, etc.) As an employer I agree to pay an employee because, for whatever reason, I need that employee's labor or service.

But here's one way the transaction gets strange. The employee needs to survive, whereas the employer simply needs a particular task done. The stakes are much higher for the employee, and the pay can't really match how high those stakes are. The stakes are low for the employer, because the employee can be anyone, anyone at all, really (even in specialized fields it doesn't seem to take all that long to find a "replacement.") The dispensable employee is relying on the agreement for indispensable means of survival. This is probably why employees seem to set out to make themselves indispensable somehow, always a losing a game. In an employer/employee situation, no employee is indispensable. Having been one of the founders of a private school in 1994 and fired by the Board of the same school a short 7 years later teaches that kind of lesson. My father, who was in labor relations at Bethlehem Steel for 32 years, found himself forced into early retirement in the 1980s. One imagines that a 32 year commitment to a corporation entitles one to some generous treatment, but the agreement was never about that to begin with.

Maybe this is particularly clear to me as a drummer in a small town with about two dozen working drummers. How it is that a particular musician becomes "in demand" and manages to stay in that position for any length of time is a real mystery to me. It's certainly not chops; life as a musician has taught me that no matter how hard I woodshed, there's always some phenomenal player out there coming around the corner, setting fire to his snare drum with a faster single stroke roll, or whatever. It seems to me to be an ineffable quality of combined personality and ear that gets musicians hired in any reliable way. But it's a mystery.

From a larger perspective, it's strange making music within the framework of an employer/employee transactional economy. As a sideman, or even in a "collective" situation where everyone makes the same amount of money, it's hard for me to equate the actual music making with the transactional situation. I have played unbelievably cheesy, easy gigs that paid a relatively large amount, and very very tough and challenging gigs that didn't pay a dime. I've had great fun and gotten paid well and had a miserable time and gotten paid well, or poorly, or not at all. I've been told by leaders that I was exactly what they were looking for and then not gotten a call back; I've been on rockier ground and had steady work. It seems that my music life is an exaggerated version of my overall work life: a series of odd mysteries and strange transactions over which I've had very little control. The single constant has been the desire to survive, a rather bare naked animalistic thread on which to hang one's dealings with the world. But in all of its forms, no matter how elaborate-seeming, it is what it is.

The desire to make music is somehow separate for me from the desire to survive. Sometimes feeling even "in spite of" the desire to survive. I'll have to puzzle over that. And my apologies to readers for whom the above all seems entirely rudimentary and transparently obvious.

Facts and Honesty

"we bring the civilization of the universe to a decadent anti-civilization. I don't have to point out to you, a very intelligent young man, the signs of decadence that abound, the destruction, carnage that abounds, the wars, the greed, man's inhumanity to man that abounds. That is the opposite of what the music is about, and most people are starved for the opposite of those things. Therein lies the power of the music: enlightenment, awareness, uplifting, inspiration, never be the same, clarity, vision, heightened, senses heightened; facts and honesty."- Walt Dickerson in part one of a great interview I'm slowly digesting over at Dark Forces Swing Blind Punches.

Be sure to download Dickerson's solo vibes performance, a post or two above the interview at Dark Forces, and give it a close listen as well.

aesthetic orthorexia

A brand new disorder I hereby claim as my own little invention. First, check this out for background.

But surely, man cannot live by no bread alone!

I hereby swear off all forms of human expression that are not raw. I am henceforth on a Raw Art diet. No art for me that's been sullied by the greasy fingers of commerce. No artificial ingredients in my art. No derivativists, preservationists or genetically modified lineages. Only pure, raw art. By restricting my soul's exposure to only these empyrean expressions, perhaps someday I too will become a Raw Artist.

Processed art? Bah! Raw Artist Manifesto! Raw Artist Manifesto! Raw Artist Manifesto! etc.

Into the Fire: Miles! Trane! Rollins! Monk! the first to go. Then Cecil, Art Ensemble, Braxton, Ornette! impure, impure. Sullied by long-antiquated structures! Even Henry Grimes! Away! (if he had stayed off the scene, then he would have been RAW, but his triumphant comeback is a total disgrace). And all the ones influenced by the above, all who have so much as admired for the briefest moment the false prophecy of their seductive siren songs!

Let's see....who is left? It's awfully quiet on a raw art diet. True, but perfection, absolute purity of motive, of presentation, of the very soul itself...these refined realms require sacrifice!

New Links/New Video

I have been visiting several blogs by improvising musicians and add them to the sidebar. More to come. There's also a new link section, "Televising the Revolution," inspired by small business visionary Marc Choyt, where I'd like to gather links to sites questioning the 19th Century economic models that still consciously or unconsciously drive people's thinking (not to mention Feudalism, etc.) Choyt applies Native American ideas to economics; any and all suggestions for other creative approaches are welcome.

Adding links is a really tiresome and cumbersome process for me, involving an elaborate dance of cutting and pasting. I do not know how to just sail through html, although I suppose I could at least learn the peculiar little string of code in the template and maybe make the process more facile. I develop idiosyncratic work-arounds with technology all the time and sometimes wonder what it would be like to actually learn how to use it.

For those who haven't checked out YouTube in a while, I highly recommend a revisit. I only had time to search Anthony Braxton and Miles Davis, but found several new multipart videos of wonderful performances from both. I might have time to do another YouTube tour soon; otherwise, my suggestion is "Go thou and search!"

Beast at Trough

My 14 year and 2 month old mutant black lab, Fiona, enjoying my nanny-like largesse.

An odd thread has run through recent days regarding torture. I had a dream the other night that I just remembered earlier today about a torture device that was a body-sized stainless steel grill with gas jets for heat, on which people who were enemies of the State would be fried alive, one side at a time, with the heat gradually being turned up. This dream was followed by reading an article wondering if "horror films have gone too far," examining the delightful (supposedly new) genre "gorn," spurred on by the release of the movie Hostel II. Apparently, among other varied and creative depictions of intense suffering, this bit of summer fluff features a long scene in which a woman is hanged upside down, blindfolded, poked with some sort of implement and finally sliced open in various degrees and bathed in cascades of her own blood. Today, thanks to be-jazz linking to Brian Olewnick's blog, I was treated to a John Zorn CD cover image of some sort of unbelievably gruesome torture from somewhere in Asia.

What does it all mean, I ask?

No answer yet. So what about John Zorn anyway? The article and commentary Mwanji links to is from The New Republic. A writer named David Hadju offers up one of those "spurned lover" pieces that pretends objectivity of an odd sort but is in fact dripping with sour-grape-i-tude. I know next to nothing about Zorn's music, having only heard the delightfully punk-infused, rambunctious Spy vs. Spy, Zorn's set of covers of Ornette Coleman compositions, and a few of the ultra-brief tracks from Torture Garden. (Yeah, I know, there it is again). But I know Hadju's style of snark quite well, having lived with the inside of my own head for nearly 46 years now.

One thing: at some point in the trajectory of every admired, respected, opinionated, stubborn and iconoclastic artist it becomes fashionable for members of the press (which now, in the age of Web 2.0, includes me, and you, and everyone we know) to pile on. Read some of the original reviews of, for example, Miles Davis's recordings from 1969-1975. (Ron Brown, in Jazz Journal, "reviewing" On the Corner: "I'd like to think that nobody could be so easily pleased as to dig this record to any extent.") I was astonished, years ago, to find a short "review" of a Cecil Taylor performance in The New York Times, acidly penned by none other than Peter Watrous, castigating Taylor for his precious Romanticism and aimless, self-indulgent noodling. I had to dig out my copy of CT's splendid solo piano set on For Olim and double check to see if, in fact, it was the same Peter Watrous who wrote this in the liner notes, published perhaps two years earlier: "Taylor touches the piano like no one else in the world, eliciting a tone that is at once steely and fragile. He draws on a frighteningly extreme range of emotions in his performances, making him perhaps the most unabashedly candid performer alive. Devoid of any simply defined attractiveness, his playing moves into areas of raw intensity which, in their straightforwardness, take on a singular beauty."

So maybe you're wondering what this has to do with my new obsession, JAZZONOMICS? Well, there's this: hip writers revel in the obscure and the undiscovered, revel in the role of having esoteric knowledge of outsider figures doing strange new things, revel in their own self-constructed role of Messianic tastemaker for the ignorant consumer. Many music writers are like the guy we all know who seems to always have that legendary bootleg or out of print recording that is always "better" than the one we admire. (I encountered this guy yet again recently when I was innocently enough expressing my admiration for the opening section of MD's Black Beauty; said individual finding it necessary to rave on and on about a series of cassette bootlegs of the same band that are "infinitely better." I politely feigned benighted ignorance of these tapes, despite the fact that I have a few, thanks to generous souls on the Miles Davis boards I used to frequent. I feigned ignorance because I have found it is "infinitely better" to let this particular type have his or her delusion; it just makes things go by more quickly).

This is writing that is not one whit about the music itself, but about the writer. Sad figures, many commentators and critics. Many are either closeted or failed musicians. ("Failed" used here in the sense of a "dream deferred," not as an aesthetic or, God forbid, financial judgment). Stanley Crouch comes to mind. Incapable of sustaining some sort of musical path of his own, Crouch gained some sort of odd cred by offering up all sorts of opinions on figures in this music next to whom he could not even hold a candle in sunshine. Somehow it has also become fashionable to be sort of snarky and unimpressed by The Vision Festival, which surprises me in my naivete, because when I look at the lineup my first thought is "Holy Shit! What an amazing bunch of inspiring and inspired programs!" There's a dart throwing impulse. All I see is the darts; I don't see the background. Of course, all sorts of political and economic controversy has to surround someone like John Zorn, someone like William Parker. Someone like Miles Davis. But I wish I could get a clearer picture of exactly what the dissatisfaction is, exactly where it resides. I suspect it's rooted in consumer culture and the lie of the "free market" more deeply than I had ever imagined.

From other. more generous perspectives, how could it not be enough to have had the sorts of cultural and musical impact and influence the above three figures have had? What would respectful but not slavering and worshipful criticism look like? And what relationship between "becoming a beneficiary" (to quote Agee again) and becoming a dartboard is there? If the only thing the music press is looking for is the hip esoteric outsider stuff and someone formerly with that cred suddenly wins a MacCarthur or Pulitzer, then what? Will we now see perhaps the 4th or 5th round of dart-throwing at, for example, Ornette Coleman?

Snake Oil Symphony

Do you know it? A truly remarkable tape composition from 1982 by DS Crafts, who, of course, lives in Rio Rancho, NM. (Ties in to the free-forming conversation last night with drummer Dave Wayne, who has worked with Rob Brown, bassist Matt Deason, who has worked with Brian Hardgroove and John Kurzweg and keyboardist Robert Muller, who knew and studied with Andrew Hill, among others: New Mexico is like some sort of strange ark for creative souls who have much deeper background than you'd guess). Thanks to Sean Conlon at KSFR for the tip.

The above photograph is a Do It Yourself attempt at offloading a typical ranch-style Santa Fe house, perhaps 4 bedroom 1.5 bath, a block east of where I live. Look closely at the price.

A fragment of last night's conversation was Robert's oblique reference to a quote from Forces in Motion from Sun Ra, about commerce and beauty. This third hand account: commerce and beauty are kept entirely separate in the American milieu. What's not viable in the commercial market is utterly dispensable. Whether this is an accurate representation of Sun Ra's quote or not, it got me thinking.

Just what constitutes the commercial market? We casually use the phrase "market forces" without really reflecting on what it is we're actually referring to. The more unexamined Libertarian viewpoint takes at face value certain principles of self-determination and "popularity." Artistic value in this context is completely commensurate with financial viability. Ideas of cultural value that extend beyond what's being sold and bought are , at best, simply empty ideals, impractical and ultimately without worth. But these sink-or-swim attitudes misconstrue the essential nature of so-called "free markets."

Nothing is free. The market itself has a vested interest in control. Buying and selling is the creation of means as an end in itself. The constant re-establishment of the impermanent as if it were reliable.When Michael Moore's main thesis for the reform of health care in the United States is "There is no room for profit when it comes to the well being of people!" I get a sinking feeling. Of course there's room for profit. What else is there, really? Unprofitable people die. Who cares? Everything is for sale. To single out health care as one area where this principle of means doesn't apply is ridiculous and unconvincing and flimsy. How about "There's no room for profit in making films!" Now that would be a more revealing attitude.

To expect that "cultural exceptions" are worth sustaining despite the amoral wasteland of endless means is to expect the world to operate on a level of fairness akin to that in the worldview of a 5 year old. Or maybe it's like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. The point is not that the arts, or medicine, or the environment, or food and farming, or the prison system or whatever are broken and need to be fixed. There's no such thing as a society not based on means-creation. It does not matter in whose hands the real or apparent power to create these means resides. Blake: "I must create my own system or be enslav'd by another man's."

James Agee, curious figure that he was, once received a survey from Partisan Review. Thanks to the unnarrator for the following excerpt (from Let Us Now Praise Famous Men):

In 1939, Partisan Review sent writers "SOME QUESTIONS WHICH FACE
AMERICAN WRITERS TODAY."

Question 4: "Have you found it possible to make a living by writing
the sort of thing you want to, and without the aid of such crutches
as teaching and editorial work? Do you think there is any place in
our present economic system for literature as a profession?"

Agee: No; no living. Nor do I think there is any place in our etcetera for
'literature' as a 'profession,' unless you mean for professional
litterateurs, who are a sort of high-class spiritual journalist and
the antichrist of all good work. Nor do I think your implied desire
that under a 'good system' there would be such a place for real
'writers' is to be respected or other than deplored. A good artist is
a deadly enemy of society; and the most dangerous thing that can
happen to an enemy, no matter how cynical, is to become a
beneficiary. No society, no matter how good, could be mature enough
to support a real artist without mortal danger to that artist. Only
no one need worry: for this same good artist is about the one sort of
human being alive who can be trusted to take care of himself."

"A good artist is a deadly enemy of society; and the most dangerous thing that can happen to an enemy, no matter how cynical, is to become a beneficiary."

cultural exceptions

I finally found the full text of the Marc Ribot essay excerpted on be-jazz, thanks to The Improvising Guitarist linking to Darcy James Argue's Secret Society, who in turn linked to the complete piece at All About Jazz. I bet I could have just gone directly from Mwanji's excerpts, but I'm an adrenaline junkie and enjoy a challenge.

My interpretation is that Ribot isn't primarily talking about "state subsidy" as he is the principle of "cultural exception." "Cultural exception" is the idea that art that doesn't enjoy popularity in the market still ought to be financially supported. A natural consequence of this philosophy is that it is a legitimate role of governmental agencies to offer this support. Specifically, Ribot speculates on what things in Manhattan would be like if the city itself were to provide a venue for new music.

It's interesting for me to reflect on new music as a strange beast that can only barely stay alive through the largesse of various societal nannies, a beast that would wither and starve otherwise, last in line at the great trickle down trough of commercial enterprise. The strangest thing about the great (dare I say obscene?) wealth of the US is it's shadow: scarcity. I will boldly suggest that, in fact, the wealth is propped up by a culture of scarcity. By a deep-seated conviction that there's NEVER ENOUGH. By some sort of lurking horror of a sudden collapse, starvation in a society obese with food, brownouts and gas lines in a society that uses 80% of the world's energy, dreaded limitations descending on the Land of the Free. These fears bring tremendous energies to what Ribot calls "free market neo-liberalism."

I'm reminded of strange public statements that either consciously or unconsciously come directly from this Culture of Scarcity. Our military, for example, suddenly isn't big enough. Not if we want to have the suddenly absolutely necessary capacity to engage in three separate conflicts around the globe while at the same time providing National Guard troops in the event of something like Katrina. Our media outlets just don't have the money to take a risk on cultural "products" that might not "become a hit." Our venues "just don't have enough" money to keep their doors open. The public radio station where I do my little show "just can't risk alienating donors." Speaking of which, I have to go do that show momentarily, so further thoughts on this series of illusions and lies will mostly have to wait.

I also have some thoughts stirring on the distinction between "capital" and "labor" that Ribot mentions.

I think I'll leave off for the moment with a quick anecdote: I used to fundraise for a non-profit and had the occasion to schmooze with people who had a net worth of $100 million and more. Many of these people spoke about their depth of admiration and support for the non-profit and its mission. With rare exceptions, when it came time to put pen to check, there was great chagrin, an apologetic smile, and a statement like "I wish I could do more, I really do. But we just can't afford it."

Duology Two

A pianist in search of brave collaborators.

Duology Two, 8 pm Friday, July 6. O'Shaughnessy Performance Space, The College of Santa Fe, 1600 St. Michael's Drive, Santa Fe NM

with JA Deane, live samples; rosS Hamlin, mystery instrument; JSA Lowe, language; Carlos Santistevan, bass; Molly Sturges, voice; Milton Villarrubia III, drums.

Brave indeed.

This Do It Yourself stab at gaining listeners brought to you by Peter Breslin, an unincorporated, definitely non-profit, unaffiliated, locally owned person.

free jazzonomics

Check out Marc Ribot's thoughts up at Mwanji Enzana's blog.

I'm not sure if the comment I left there makes any sense. I guess I'm reading Ribot offering three sources of capital for new music: market forces, state subsidy and self-promotion. And I think he's saying that people are perhaps too quick to dismiss or take for granted the value of state subsidy. I run into some confusion, not fully understanding what Ribot means by "state subsidy." I assume he's referring to local, state and federal grants funded by tax money, funneled back to the arts. But Ribot seems to be addressing the crisis in venues at the same time as problems with funds for individual artists.

I'm thinking now that these are two different topics. Venues are particularly problematic. Santa Fe is at a low point in the venue cycle in some ways. Most of the clubs that offer live music of any sort are unrelentingly lame, treat musicians poorly, offer lousy sound and cramped quarters and have about as much sense of adventure as a Methodist grandma. (A couple of venues offer "alternative" live local and touring acts that seem to be "alternative" only to the extent that they aren't yet rich and famous with a major label deal; the music itself is often approximately as alternative as white rice with butter instead of plain white rice). Performance venues with a concert setting are somewhat more rare for local music, with the exception of Wise Fool, High Mayhem, The College of Santa Fe. Club venues rely on market forces perhaps more than any other arts presenting component in a local economy. Alcohol sales and door charges.

On the concert level, Santa Fe doesn't have a dedicated concert hall, despite the rabid passion among the wealthy and aged for classical repertory. The Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, one of the most respected in the world, schedules shows in several different venues around town. One great addition over the past few years has been The Santa Fe Opera opening itself up to live performance in the off season. The Opera has also made the Stieren Orchestra Rehearsal Hall available more often; it's a top of the line small performance space with impeccable sound. Strange venues have increased their visibility, such as The Unitarian Church and The Scottish Rite Masonic Center. Also, FanMan Productions has revived the summer series at the Paolo Soleri Amphitheater.

With a few occasional exceptions most of these venues host imported culture.

Making a living in Santa Fe as an improvising musician is impossible. Of course it would be, considering it's impossible in New York or Los Angeles. But I don't think a lack of venues is the reason. I think it's because creative composed and improvised music is feared, hated, misunderstood and dismissed before the fact as pretentious, intimidating, boring, ugly, unlistenable and amateurish garbage. Americans ever have been philistines, even when they have been correct. The majority of so-called avant garde music is apparently self-indulgent and disturbing. Music for an American is his or her little anodyne, his or her little sentimental pillow of middle class dreams, his or her little soundtrack for the more important business of getting and spending. "Getting and spending" meant in the broadest possible sense as a life of means, a life of goals, a life of tit-for-tat, a life of bland, inconsequential trade offs.

The ability of most Americans to hear sound has been lobotomized, amputated, castrated.

The outlying territories have long been abandoned (if they were ever actually even briefly visited) in favor of white picket fences and streetlights, well marked streets and police cruisers, diet soda and processed cheese food and beef by product sloppy joes.

Economic struggles in the world of new music are a laughable flyspeck. Injustice and oblivion and willfully ignorant consumerism runs its sticky befouled and befouling fingers over everything, not just new music. Is it any wonder that "the state," itself now at the beck and call of corporate materialist commercialism, the government itself now an advertisement for infinite petroleum and douches and sugar free gum, would begin to abandon arts funding? Or throw its hefty ass behind arts that are already doing just fine in the so called free market?

As my friend Zimbabwe Nkenya recently emailed, when I asked him about Arizona where he briefly lived and mentioned that I had heard it was very "conservative:" "Conservative is a code word for backwards and racist."

When actual practitioners of new music look back and characterize earlier periods as "Crazy Experimental Freedom" and claim it needs to be "harnessed," haven't the terrorists already won?

It's a great game, extracting money to fund activities that are blatantly subversive from the entity one is hellbent on subverting. I have nothing against it. I would take gummint money in a heartbeat if I could finagle it. I would take a grant from The Old Fart Society To Preserve 32-Bar Song Form and Jamey Aebersold Jazz Vomit if I could. But it's far more often ourselves who are forced to act against our own self-interest by the vast bloodsucking machine, not the other way around.

anomalies

This was the scene to my right as I drove just southwest of Santa Fe yesterday, at about 3:30. I haven't checked the news today for more info, yet. Readers from the Great Plains or Tornado Alley might shrug and say "So what?" But the general Santa Fe area rarely experiences this. It was quite surreal. Many people were parked along the highway, taking pictures. Several emergency vehicles were all blazing in the general direction of the twister.

I was on my way to the independent media panel. I heard the promo spot for it on 101.5 on the way there, where I was described as a "long time local personality." My friend Jack Kolkmeyer, who has been on the radio here for 23 years, was also described thusly. We agreed when we met up at the event that such a description is like saying a movie was "interesting."

Anyway, the panel consisted of about 10 media types. I was perhaps the most radical ranter present, largely bypassing the specific issue of radio consolidation and spewing vitriol about the attack on the Constitution, on democracy and on free access to culture and information. I mentioned the Verizon Wireless/Jazz at Lincoln Center/National Endowment for the Arts Jazz in the Schools Curriculum, the Bush takeover of NPR, the FCC as a supposed watchdog for public airwaves being in fact a lapdog for huge media conglomerations. I got rather evangelically heated. Too much coffee. Brian Hardgroove, bassist for Public Enemy who moved here last August, backed me up 100 percent, which was a bit of a rush. DJ Rocque Renaldi told some hilarious stories about some of his commercial and corporate radio experiences.

I had to make absolutely clear that, while some of my activities for money and otherwise are with two local media outlets, KSFR and the Santa Fe Reporter, I was on the panel as a lone wolf, not a rep. I wish I had said "I am an unaffiliated, independently owned local person," but I only thought about that afterwards.

Most of the attendees were left urgently wondering what they could do. There were excellent suggestions from many panel members. I'm afraid by that time I was feeling so acidulously misanthropic that the only suggestion that popped out of my caffienated mouth was "talk to a bunch of rich people and put millions of dollars together. Can anyone here write a $3 million check right now to get things rolling?" Really obnoxious.

Actor Gary Farmer, from Canada, was in attendance. He mentioned a program there where the Canadian equivalent of the FCC requires commercial broadcasters to kick back 6 percent of their gross to emerging artists, public radio, public and independent media. He wondered if the FCC would ever consider a recharging scheme like this. I think that's when my bitterness reached hydrochloric acid pH levels.

big box media

From the Indie 101.5 website:

Have you been hearing rumors around town about a takeover and consolidation of radio stations KWRP, KLBU, KBAC? Maybe you've also heard that KSFR is going to switch channels. Wondering why? Then come to the Santa Fe Brewing Company out on the patio this Saturday for a panel discussion about the consolidation of media that is threatening Santa Fe as well as other cities across the country.

I'm on the panel, and it will be interesting to be a part of this event. This Santa Fe Reporter story gives an overview of what's been happening here.

Here's a few things I don't understand. Independent radio here in Santa Fe plays music that is decidedly commercial. Music widely available on iTunes or in CD stores or at Amazon or whatever. It's mostly still a form of "branding." If anything it creates the opportunity for people to feel "hip," as they tune in to "alternative radio" under the illusion of being anti-corporate and anti-homogenization. But the reality seems to me to be that just about anything that ends up on a commercial radio station, no matter how "alternative," has as much of the full weight of the great mass marketing machine as, say, Garth Brooks or Classic Rock. (I'm reminded of Amercan Spirit cigarettes as an analogy. The Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company is making millions, hand over fist, selling "all natural organic cigarettes." I smoke them like they're going out of business. This is the kind of odd "alternative"-ness I'm talking about, that is as much embedded in mass marketing and homogenization as Marlboros or Kools).

Santa Fe's one public radio station, where I enjoy doing my 2 hours a week, breaks this mold to a large degree. Except that listener pressure (which equals donor pressure twice a year during fund drives) shapes the aesthetic. It's not marketing so much as community taste/standards/listener preference. Check out most of the "jazz" programming on KSFR for an example of what I mean. It's a funny scenario: 24 hours of jazz programming a week, most of it during the day, a very rare format. Yet most of what gets aired is soft, easy, mainstream, non-threatening. The attempt is to appeal to the broadest possible audience. But the difference is that this appeal is not manufactured in a marketing office, whereas in so called "alternative" commercial radio, it often is. Playlists are playlists, after all. KSFR's great strength is in having independent producers, no playlists and a reasonable amount of freedom in what gets aired.

My last show a couple days ago is an example. Charlie Parker, Sonny Sharrock, Herbie Nichols, Dave Douglas, Henry Threadgill, Andrew Hill, Horace Tapscott, Marc Ribot, Malachi Favors, Abdullah Ibrahim, David Murray. From 1-3 in the afternoon on a weekday.

Fortune Cookie

The usual post-Chinese-American-dinner (or it may have been lunch) mantic aphorism recently said "You have many opportunities." For what? I wonder. Well, for one thing, the fortune cookie gods may have been referring to the various glimmers of imagined possible activity in the Phoenix metro area. The Phoenix Creative Music Movement, Phoenix New Times, New School for the Arts and Academics, Desert Botanical Garden and even KJZZ...a strange beast, that last. The NPR station for 3.5 million people with a "jazz" format. Check out the playlists, but put on your gray suit and red tie first. Maybe, however, a slot or two a week for a show that stretches things might increase their demographics. As in attract a few listeners under the age of 60 who are interested in music made after 1960. Maybe not.

"It never hurts to ask" keeps running through my head, and yet I feel a certain amount of anxiety about the process. I vaguely remember times in my life when I've actually enjoyed the strange circus of resume writing, inquiries, interviews. The whole job search thing. This time is not, for whatever reason, one of them. Partly it's undoubtedly because I have led a somewhat sheltered life in Santa Fe, securing all of my employment through word of mouth and organically arising opportunities springing from longstanding friendships. It's been a while since I put myself on a job market through more traditional means. It's also a bit daunting to have to craft several different resumes. The same resume really doesn't apply for possible freelance writing, radio work, horticulture and high school teaching. I don't know; maybe that would be amusing. Ineffective, but delightfully eccentric. Right. ("Delightfully eccentric" in central Arizona looks to not be a highly cherished value....)

The other thing on my mind is balance. I have tended in the past to jump feet first into 50 hour a week jobs and not allow breathing room for sparse but important musical opportunities, radio shows and so on. Despite the fact that nothing is actually happening I envision myself in Dockers and a white oxford, "grading" papers, dreading Mondays, attending meetings and looking forward to vacation time (as soon as vacation time is over).

As my sponsor likes to say, I lack the imaginal capacity to get a clear picture of what might happen in a new setting. Lacking the imaginal capacity for anything clear, confronting a gaping hole and having no idea what will go into it, I'm left with old stories and old habits, old patterns and old assumptions. Despite this, unexpected things do happen. No matter what, the life we end up creating looks nothing at all like what we thought it would.

It occurred to me the other day that I have successfully (within reason) improvised the life I currently lead in Santa Fe. I returned with no employment, picked up work at a greenhouse when money ran out, gathered a few private drum students, picked up some paid gigs (a real rarity here), began working for the Reporter, picked up the Santa Fe Opera job. All of which I had not imagined before I returned here. None of which ended up being what I thought it would be. These sorts of events can only unfold if there's room left for them to unfold. If I had somehow come back to a full time job teaching English, for example, well, that would have been most of what would have been going on.

But then there's the tug toward security and stability. Paying off back taxes. The Holy Grail of health insurance, vision, dental. The distant possibility of saving money. The looming strangely fixed age of 65, a mere 20 years away. How nice it would be, I imagine, to knuckle under and get practical and trade a couple of decades for a few guarantees. This whole arena is a swirling morass of sirens and seduction. "Peter....Peter....get a real job....what are you doing?....you'll be destitute, you'll be homeless in your old age, you'll never make any money as a musician anyway......why not just be realistic............" The whole culture whispers these siren songs.

When I first returned to Santa Fe from Los Angeles, people would ask me, "So, what are you doing these days?" I had a ready answer: "Nothing." Some people found this intriguing, or even laudable. Most were uneasy. Many perhaps thought (maybe rightly) that things were altogether too aimless for someone in early sobriety. But what about simply refusing to define ourselves by what we do? Extending even to the activities that our culture encourages us to feel "special" about, like making music? I am not that. I simply am. That's just....stuff. Like plot and characters in a novel that's really *about* something else.

The un got a more whimsical if somewhat odd fortune last night at the Thai Cafe: "There's beauty in your heart, let it out, let it beat, give yourself a treat."

Tempe Times

Grass and trees courtesy of the apparently infinite amount of water supplied as if by magic to the Phoenix metro area. Rumbling down State Highway 87 into Mesa, one crosses a couple uncovered canals, brimming with water, slick-surfaced and sparkling. I guess the water comes from somewheres they got some sorta unlimited supply cuz, by golly, everywhere in Tempe and the whole area, sprinklers, hoses and car washes (for example) spew prodigious, profligate exudations of dihydrogen monoxide molecules. No end in sight. Even the restaurants on the strip adjacent to Arizona State University (P. F. Chang's, Chili's, Pizzeria Uno) mist the customers foolish and daring enough to eat outside in a constant cool spray of water. This in the Sonoran Desert heat sink, recipient of an average of 8 inches of rain a year.

The above happy shack is my future home, starting around the end of July.

There's a way in which a single image encapsulates the strangeness of Tempe, at least in some measure. Check it out. If you dare. (To be fair, the image encapsulates the strangeness of Jazz Studies programs all over this great nation of ours as well).

Meanwhile, back here in quaint Santa Fe, Duology Two is set for July 6, featuring duets with Carlos Santistevan, bass; Milton Villarrubia III, drums; J A Deane, live samples; Molly Sturges, voice; Jennifer Lowe, language; Ross Hamlin, guitar. Chris Jonas' Rrake ensemble is getting geared up again; I'm one of two drummers in that one, along with Milton. Apparently we are being joined by sound artist, violinist and Harry Partch scholar David Dunn this time around. (I had the pleasure of teaching David's daughter in a class at Desert Academy here, before I was aware of who Dunn was; I used to play music and have the students free write. Once I chose Partch's The Dreamer That Remains, and Dunn's daughter rolled her eyes and said "My dad is on there. He's the one yelling "help!")