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!")

I'm Goin' to Yemen

Not Yemen. Tempe. But I'm sure we all remember the Friends episode where Chandler goes to Yemen simply to get away from the woman with the unbelievably annoying voice. What we don't remember is the name of the character. And we'll pretend we also don't remember sitting around for two hours every weekday evening watching Everybody Loves Raymond and Friends reruns on television in Los Angeles in 2004, post DUI, unlicensed to drive, required to attend DUI "school" (one session of which involved watching the Simpsons episode where Homer gets arrested for DUI, which really taught me a very valuable lesson).

The great pleasure of being legally forbidden from driving in Los Angeles involved walking in the balmy night air from my apartment at the intersection of Saturn and La Cienega to the theaters in Culver City to see a movie. Mapquest tells me this was about a 9 mile walk round trip. No wonder I lost 25 pounds, in spite of Icees and buttered popcorn (and the brain fattening fare of Dodgeball and The Day After Tomorrow).

Anyway, the house hunt is on in Tempe. The Weather Channel (online; I no longer even own a television, he lied, avoiding mention of the fact that he still races little cars around thanks to Playstation2 and Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2, which also consumed countless hours in early sobriety, post jail; the cars are little because the screen is all of 13 inches, he boasted, proud of his alienation from the wasteland) anyway the Weather Channel says it's 98 degrees in Tempe right now, at 7 pm, with a chilly overnight low of 74 degrees in the offing. Bring a sweater. And a body sized chest of ice to climb into every hour, on the hour.

If any of my dear and faithful readers know of improvising musicians in the greater Phoenix metro area and can weasel me a facile intro, I'd appreciate it. The actual relocation looks to be at the end of July, but I just love me some schmooze. Anyone know anything about the Phoenix Creative Music Movement?

I've only ever heard of John Hollenbeck.

If any of you can get me a radio show and a freelance writing job, that would be cool too.

what's the difference?

"Looks like the same species of cactus to me," many cactus freaks proclaim. Even experienced growers with a trained eye claim they have a hard time telling the above two plants apart. In my opinion this is like someone well versed in music claiming that they can't tell the difference between 1950s Sonny Rollins and 1960s John Coltrane.

Anyway the above two plants are growing in the xeric demonstration garden at Santa Fe Greenhouses; the first is Echinocereus triglochidiatus and the second is Echinocereus coccineus. The E. triglochidiatus is from seed collected from the gigantic plants that grow in the White Sands area of New Mexico- it might be hard to tell from the photo, but the largest stems are more than three feet long. (Del Weniger, who is usually much more detail oriented and thorough as a botanist, takes it on hearsay that these White Sands plants revert to the usual much smaller size when they are grown elsewhere....obviously not the case).

So the surprising inability to tell the above two cacti apart reminds me of how it is for anyone who knows even a passing fair amount about anything. The more I learn about music, for example, the more clear detailed distinctions become. I never really bothered distinguishing Joseph Jarman from Roscoe Mitchell in any active way, for example, while listening to Art Ensemble recordings. But somewhere in the process of getting it together for the Mitchell interview the distinction became entirely clear, and I wondered how I had never been awake to it before.

One of my favorite pastimes in mid-adolescence (and occasionally since) was listening to music and identifying who the players were. That we can make these sorts of distinctions, in the manner of a "blindfold test," is truly remarkable and would probably be difficult to analyze. Sure, there are the easy ones: Ayler, for example. But my friend Emery and I used to make fine distinctions between, for example, tenor sax players whose styles were all mutually informed. I suppose this is "voice": that even drummers can have a unique voice, or piano players, both of whom deal not with breath and timbre so much as some mysterious something else, is also remarkable.

Roscoe Mitchell Quartet 5/19/07 Outpost

Roscoe Mitchell stepped to the mic after the second standing ovation of the night and said, "Last time I was here was at the old Outpost (a concert of duets with Malachi Favors). Tom (Guralnick, Director of The Outpost) and I go back many years. We've found out that music keeps you busy."

This evening's music was constituted by some of the best group interaction I have heard in a long time. Bassist/'cellist Harrison Bankhead, drummer Vincent Davis and trumpeter Corey Wilkes managed the ultimate act of respect, supporting Mitchell's every move while at the same time stepping out and being completely distinct and authentic. This was a fully functional collective ensemble, finely honed and tuned, yet somehow it was absolutely clear that Mitchell was the leader. The energy reminded me of some of the great Art Ensemble of Chicago shows I was lucky enough to attend in the 1980s. Mysterious, brooding, abstracted, music like silence itself offset by great swing, thunderous passages of relentless intensity and straightforward head arrangements. The band served up many of the offerings of Mitchell's omnivorous stylistic appetites. Each musician displayed ferocious technique that was artfully in the service of their torrent of ideas. Corey Wilkes sounds the history of "jazz" trumpet but not in a self-conscious way; there's also more than a little Lester Bowie in his playing, but not one shred of imitation, just absorption. Vincent Davis brought huge dynamic range to the percussion and even during subtle passages maintained completely focused energies. Bankhead's bass and cello poured out lines that were impossibly both highly ornate and utterly grounded.

It was Mitchell who reaffirmed his status as a legend. Playing only flute, soprano sax and alto sax, Mitchell remains instantly identifiable as himself. There is no one who plays melodic lines akin to his. A close scrutinization of transcribed Mitchell solos might reveal at least a part of his intervallic predilections, his absolutely unique phrasing and his pantonal choices in relation to bass lines. But his voice couldn't be transcribed, and that's where Mitchell is a nonpareil conjurer. Especially apparent last night was his complete relaxation, mentally and physically. Even during the second set alto solo that involved a lot of circular breath and built to, as well as sustained, an unbelievably complex intensity, Mitchell was the picture of completely relaxed and focused concentration. Also, he wasn't affected by Albuquerque's altitude, which many otherwise very strong players are. The generous resourcefulness and mercurial soul of his music carried the group of very, very heavy players.

Do not miss any chance to hear this group.

JA Deane Interview

The interview with Dino came out yesterday.

Not sure how I managed to get the day of his performance wrong in my copy for the print edition, which had him playing Saturday, May 19 (which is when Roscoe Mitchell's show is). I've had way too much going on lately.

The Roscoe Mitchell interview airs at about 2:15 mountain time this afternoon, KSFR 90.7 FM, streaming from www.ksfr.org

Here's a few more of Dino's comments on conduction and sampling for which there wasn't room in the SFR version:

What is conduction?
Lawrence “Butch” Morris, who originated conduction, defines it this way: "A vocabulary of idiographic signs and gestures activated to modify or construct a real time musical arrangement or composition. Each sign or gesture transmits generative information for interpretation by the individual and the ensemble, providing instantaneous possibilities for altering or initiating harmony, melody, rhythm, articulation, phrasing or form."

In your work with Butch Morris and CK Barlow’s role in Out of Context, sampling and live sampling are mentioned. What is that?
Basically, a sampler is a digital recorder that allows the player to manipulate prerecorded and live recorded sound in real time. Painting or sculpting with sound, I think best describes the
process, but with the added ability orchestrate multiple events in real time. More than any other instrument of technology (tape recorder, electric guitar, synthesizer, multitrack recorder) the sampler has forever changed music. It’s influenced or altered nearly all evolving music in the world today, from concept to creation, and has even changed the way we listen to music (the iPod, for example, the “fast food” version of the sampler).

Why do you use samplers?
I always envied that painters could realize large scale works completely on their own; composers couldn't. The first time I saw Butch Morris conduct he was using samplers but with musicians painting with sound in real time. It was a large scale sonic sculpture. Then the question becomes “what's your palette?” Are you going to use the same four on the floor beat as everyone else? A lot of what I hear people doing with samplers is relentlessly boring, smothered by this beat. The sampler can be the definition of option anxiety...you have to determine your parameters. What has emerged is in a narrow range dictated by the fashions of social dance music. If you get rid of the unrelenting beat, the real sophistication emerges.

nice guy

Coming soon, a transcript of the interview with Roscoe Mitchell that we did this morning, which will also be broadcast on KSFR (www.ksfr.org for streamers) Thursday, May 17, at about 2:10 pm Mountain Time.

I was nervous talking with Mr. Mitchell. I've been listening to his compositions and improvisations since I was about 14 years old, about 31 years. Roughly nine years into his career. I was astonished to note that his discography lists 112 recordings that he either appears on or is a leader of. That's about 2.6 per year. My first Art Ensemble of Chicago concert was probably about 1980 or so; in particular I remember an incredible performance by Mitchell at a show a bit later in the Reagan Era at Bryn Mawr College, including his signature circular breathing, single note solo to end the first set. Another remarkable show was at The 9:30 Club in DC; I attended with a fever and chills and the music completely healed me of whatever bug I was harboring.

Mitchell was courteous, professional, articulate and insightful. He's bringing the "Chicago Quartet" to The Outpost in Albuquerque Saturday, May 19.

Also coming soon, an interview with J.A. Deane that I did over the weekend. This will probably run in the Santa Fe Reporter next Wednesday, May 16, and I'll put up a link and include some of the sections for which there wasn't space. Deane is doing a solo set and conducting his 12 piece ensemble, Out of Context, the day after Mitchell's appearance, also at The Outpost, as part of the three day Creative Soundspace Festival, which also features Myra Melford/Mark Dresser Duo and Santa Fe's acoustic trio, A. Barnhouse.

When it rains around here, it pours.

community art

Sclerocactus parviflorus, flowering northwest of Bernalillo, on Jemez Pueblo land.


Toumeya papyracantha, sometimes called the paper spine cactus or grama grass cactus, flowering north of Santa Fe, near Jaconita.

Local cacti. Entirely unknown to 99% of local residents.

I've been working on a 600 word preview article for the Santa Fe Reporter on an event with a cast of 24, a 9 person artist team, 4 months in the making. Memorylines: Voices from a Collective Journey/Voces de Nuestra Jornadas, a community arts project resulting in an original opera, directed by Molly Sturges, with music by Sturges and Chris Jonas, performed by a 9 piece orchestra. The entire cast is local, the whole project is local. Most of the cast members, who range in age from 8 to 88, have never done any performing arts work before. This is the kind of project that Molly does. The last one was in Cork, Ireland, as part of the European Union Festival; an original opera featuring homeless elders, school children, etc. The great thing for Santa Fe arts about Memorylines is that it's co-sponsored by The Santa Fe Opera, traditionally somewhat of an elitist or at least rarified, specialized organization, presenting work by hundreds of visiting artists who only come for the summer.

But how to sum up such a beast as Memorylines in 600 lousy words? Maddening, really. I could have written a 4,000 word cover story about the event, especially tied in to the Santa Fe Opera's Student Produced Opera Program, the tendency for Santa Fe performing arts events to be imported from far flung places, the emerging highly vital and unique, yet barely surviving local arts scene that goes far beyond 2-D and 3-D arts like painting and sculpture that have held sway here.

It used to irritate me that the now-defunct "Santa Fe Jazz and International Music Festival" was 100% imported. Not one local artist ever graced the stage for this event, except for the event organizer. The new jazz festival, called the New Mexico Jazz Festival, has remedied this snobby, elitist, reverse provincialism by at least including a series of events in Albuquerque featuring New Mexico musicians. Meanwhile, the annual High Mayhem Festival of Emerging Arts (unique not just for this area, but internationally) focuses almost exclusively on local performers and gets next to zero press coverage in the daily papers. This is yet another way that Santa Fe is a charming and crazy-making mess: a backwards, paradoxical town full of elitist, aesthetically conservative rich "arts consumers," who want their Mozart and Verdi and Wynton Marsalis and who somehow manage to leave their progressive or liberal political views at the doorstep of local venues.

this space for rent

Not really. I've just been too busy to do any writing outside of writing for work. The above photos: a Pediocactus simpsonii on the Rio en Medio Trail and Fritz Hochstaetter taking a picture of same. Yesterday morning at 7 am I met Herr Hochstaetter and the two of us went out into the boggy wilds. A drenching rain had fallen since about midnight. We had to cross the same river many times (Heraclitus be damned). Sodden, cold feet. I should never hike first thing in the morning. I'm not really paying attention. It was fascinating, though, meeting and getting to hang out with the world's greatest living expert on the genera Pediocactus, Sclerocactus and Toumeya. (His taxonomy is highly controversial, but that doesn't negate his contribution to the understanding of a group of plants otherwise fairly obscure). I know absolutely no German; Fritz knows very little English. This made for some absurd and comic moments.

Like "jazz," cacti seem best appreciated by Europeans.

I've been studying up on Roscoe Mitchell and playing a lot of Mitchell's compositions on the radio show, in preparation for his appearance at The Outpost in Albuquerque on May 19. I always thought of the Art Ensemble of Chicago as largely a collaborative. Check out the composer credits on Art Ensemble albums; it's highly instructive, especially in regard to Mitchell. The AEC book relied heavily on Mitchell's structured, whimsical, fierce and soulful lines. I hadn't really taken notice before that many of my favorite satirical/parodic AEC pieces are by Mitchell, as well as some of the more intricately structured themes. If all goes as planned I'll be interviewing him next Wednesday morning for broadcast on the May 17 show.

This just in: the New Mexico Jazz Festival is bringing Sonny Rollins to the area for two shows, in Albuquerque and here in Santa Fe, in late July. I haven't heard Rollins' new CD yet. I did play some of the Night at the Village Vanguard tracks today on the air-- Strivers Row and All the Things You Are, and was yet again reminded what a launch into new form that pianoless trio format was. In 1957, too. Two whole years before The Death of Jazz, according to Darius Brubeck.

clazz or jassical?

The Ornette Coleman Pulitzer Prize news on the web is fascinating. The original AP wire service story by Jake Coyle has the following opening:

"Ornette Coleman won the Pulitzer Prize for music on Monday for his 2006 album, Sound Grammar, the first jazz work to be bestowed with the honor.

The alto saxophonist and visionary who led the free jazz movement in the 1950s and 1960s, won the Pulitzer at age 77 for his first live recording in 20 years. The only other jazz artist to win a Pulitzer is Wynton Marsalis, who won in 1997 for his classical piece, Blood on the Fields."

Apparently uncomfortable making the jazz versus classical distinction, several publications used the AP article but changed the lead to something like this, from the International Herald Tribune:

"Ornette Coleman won the Pulitzer Prize for music on Monday for his 2006 album, "Sound Grammar," the second jazz artist to receive the honor."

The Boston Globe's Jeremy Eichler ran a strange piece under the headline "Classical Music has Nothing to Fear from Pulitzer Going to Jazz Artist." Yehudi Wyner, a classical composer who recently won a Pulitzer, and who was on the nominating jury, is quoted as saying, "Classical music is very much a minority art, and in some sense, recognition by an august agency helps keep it alive, or keeps its prestige alive. But the idea that jazz, this most vital and participatory American art form, was in no way recognized and was actually shunted aside, it's scandalous. It's unconscionable."

Several writers indicate that Coleman "blends classical and free jazz" techniques in his creative process.

The struggle continues, even among certified professional experts, to make sense of American culture.

snow. mud. spring.

The view from my motel room in Chama, Tuesday morning, 7 a.m.

By Wednesday, the day of the performances of the Chama and Tierra Amarilla student operas ("Dallas Stadium Fan Fight" and "A Blast of the Past," respectively) it was sunny and warm enough for the ice to turn to water. Water that saturated the clay bog at the bottom of a driveway off a dirt road about 7 miles from Chama where I tried to turn my car around in the break between dress rehearsal and performance. A clay bog that ate my car. An hour and a half before set up for the shows. I tried the old trick of jamming rocks, sticks, dry dirt under the front wheels, to absolutely no avail. In fact, the more I tried to rock the car out of the saturated and colloidal clay, the more the front end of the car sunk. By this time there was about 10 pounds of mud in the car itself, from the bottom of my shoes.

However, not only was there a cell phone signal out there (Verizon comes through) but also: I called information, got the number for the hotel my teaching partner had gone to (checking in early for his parents), called the number and got through to him. So he headed out to rescue me. I stood up on the road's shoulder, waiting, when a huge F350 pickup approached. The fine gentleman and his wife were on their way to a meadow to watch deer. Instead, he went back to his house and got a Polaris 4-wheeler, enough rope to reach into several bogs, and in no time the car was hauled back to navigable road. I think his name was Bob Marshall, and he'd just retired to Chama from Tallahassee. "Lucky we came this way," he said. "There's nothing up this way at all."

The students did a great job performing their operas too. Nearly 300 people came. There are 1,200 residents of Chama. Let's see...if I could get 25% of Santa Fe's residents to come to my next show...that would be about 17,500 people.

Played a lot of Andrew Hill's music on the radio show yesterday. I realized that the best way to listen to Hill is with headphones, eyes closed, no distractions. Just how extraordinary his work was comes through clearly that way. Especially the dense, dissonant altered chords, suspensions and twists and turns.

Also played some Roscoe Mitchell in preparation for his performance in Albuquerque on May 19. Tnoona, The Key, the version of Line Fine Lyon Seven from his Black Saint Sound and Space Ensemble recording. A brief alto solo from his three CD solo release on Mutable Records. Looking forward to working more Roscoe Mitchell in over the next few shows.

Chama

A group of flowering cacti from last week: right side, top to bottom, Strombocactus disciformis, Echinocereus russanthus, Escobaria organensis, Stenocactus vaupelianus; left side, top to bottom, Echinocereus russanthus "weedinii," Escobaria sneedii, Mammillaria viridiflora. Lophophora diffusa off to the side.

So I'm in Chama for the next 4 days, doing two 4th/5th grade opera projects...10 and 11 year olds writing their own operas in a total of ten hours. Chama's project involves football players, aliens and superheros. The big problem: a superhero and an alien both fall in love with the same football player. At Tierra Amarilla, the story includes secret agents, knights and outlaws of the old west. The big problem: a secret agent has created a hole in the time space continuum by using her gadget; a knight falls in love with her and a cowgirl falls in love with the knight. What is up with all this love business? I've done 5 other operas with kids and not one of them involved even a hint of love.

Chama is at about 8,000 feet, along a road (US Highway 84) that turns into NM 17, heading directly for the snowy passes of the high Rockies. An elk, just one, lumbered along the road just outside of town yesterday. Mule deer, Canada geese, huge pine trees. Only a handful of people. The big news at noon yesterday on the local radio station: next year's middle school basketball program is lacking funds, which will mean having to combine Chama and Tierra Amarilla students onto one team.

Tierra Amarilla, by the way, is most famous for the Land Grant rebellions of the 1960s, including the raid on the US Courthouse.

Just outside the town, there's a billboard that says "Tierra o Muerte!"

It's no wonder the knights and the cowpokes in the TA opera get in a fight over who owns the land.

It seems quite a few people have stopped by to download the Duology files (a couple of posts down) but there's been an eerie silence afterwards. I expected some sort of critical feedback (though I didn't explicitly ask for any) and I guess I envision someone downloading them, listening, and being too enraged, disgusted, bored or embarrassed to comment. This is the neighborhood my mind wanders in when it encounters a lack of information.

I don't watch television, so a stay at a motel is always fascinating. Wednesday and Thursday night I mostly watched The Twilight Zone and The X Files, avoiding the incessant and harrowing coverage of the Virgina Tech shootings. I did see some of the shooter's video. Maybe the only clip that I saw of that was when he said "So this is it. The end of the line. What a life. Some life." Or something like that. And I guess the only thought I had was "where is everybody? All along the way, as someone becomes submerged in psychopathic grief, rage, loneliness...where was everybody?"

long time no see

Pediocactus simpsonii in the foothills of the Sangre de Christo Mountains, near Tesuque, NM.
It's right there, under the pine cone. The top one has 15 flower buds; the shiny object to the lower left is a quarter for scale.

Yesterday was the first day in a while that fell on a weekend and was suitable for heading out into the mountains. At least we didn't get 8 inches of rain. My sympathies to our east coast readers.

Thanks to all who stopped by and downloaded the Duology files. The usual post-event wasteland syndrome (pews) has set in out here in the Rockies. It's as if all my musician friends have gone to law school or had major surgery. (which is worse?) Actually, Ruth Zaporah and I will be setting up a monthly series of improvisational performance events here, I think. Monthly might be far too frequent, however, given the lack of staying power of the typical Santa Fe audience.

I'm in another one of those periods where I'm sick of music. Sick of people writing about it anyway. The great conversation on the internet also involves encountering arrogance, quibbling, oneupmanship (is that a word?) and all sorts of bizarre posturing. There's still fresh and engaging (and sometimes disturbing) stuff such as Stanley Zappa's site
and Chris Rich's refreshing blasts, etc. But I haven't had time to really engage and when I hurry, the cumulative effect is one of only picking up on the annoying or benighted comments (such as a few of the comments on the Larry Young post at Destination Out).

duology links

Now, for a limited time! Absolutely free! No obligation to buy!

Each file is about 10 megs so take your time. Don't listen in your browser, but download.

duets with:

Mark Weaver, tuba

Ruth Zaporah, movement/voice artist

Chris Jonas, soprano and tenor sax

Jeremy Bleich, percussion and oud

Paul Brown, bass

Mike Rowland, drums

These are in the order presented during the concert (which was derived by drawing names out of a hat). I'm on piano each time.

taxonomy, jazz death III, language games

The above two cacti are considered the same species by most botanists. Echinocereus russanthus. The blonde on the left is sometimes called Echinocereus russanthus v. weedinii. But usually the two forms are lumped into synonymy.

Which brings me to another series of thoughts about jazz death. Jazz taxonomy is a nightmare. In botany, there's two opposed camps: the lumpers and the splitters. Basically, the lumpers look for similarities and the splitters look for differences. In the cactus family, the lumpers acknowledge something like 1200 species. The splitters, 3,500. There's clearly jazz splitters and jazz lumpers as well.

The best thing of all is when musicians and critics get rid of the term "jazz" altogether. It's the best thing because it squelches the discussion at the root. Can't claim jazz is dead if there's no such thing as jazz. haha. It's just music. But this isn't satisfactory at all for those who hold to phrases such as "the jazz tradition" or "jazz history." Or even tyros who have the balls to use a phrase like "Free Jazz Classics." It's as if some people would rather have a clearly defined form that is, in fact, dead, than not have a category at all. Lots of "jazz organizations" talk about their mission as one of "preserving the rich heritage of America's unique art form." Preserving. A fetus in a jar. Well, a young adult anyway. According to Professor Darius Brubeck jazz started to die in 1959, at about 39 years old.

Splitters want all the genres as specifically identified as possible. The extremes take what most people with passing familiarity would hear as one genre and atomize it. Free jazz, for example. What an idiotic name for a form of musical expression, first of all. Free jazz splitters go with experimental, avant garde, free improv, modal, creative music, third stream, modern jazz, collective improv, free fusion, harmolodics, new music, etc. Probably a bunch of apparent "types" that I'm forgetting. Every one of these categories is vague and linguistically unsatisfactory. All music is new, for example. Neoism is easily fetishized. Neoism is as much of a suffocating ideology as "preservation."

One of the comments appended to a YouTube video of the Miles Davis Quintet circa 1969, with DeJohnette, Holland, Corea and Shorter: "It's too free for me." Who gives a rat's ass? What makes people feel compelled to displays such as that? Or the following comment in the wooly threads under one of Cecil Taylor's videos: "He's been playing the same song for 30 years." It's endless. The most abundant element isn't hydrogen, but stupidity. etc.

Looking back at the racist, fascist and tragicomic history of jazz itself, the plantation/exploitation system, the pathetic co-optation by white hipsters in search of street cred, the ridiculous narrow mindedness of the American arts consumer in general, the internecine warfare among musicians and critics alike (Max Roach assaulting Ornette, rich white boys John Hammond and Leonard Feather arguing about Duke in the 1940s, Wynton's cabal gutting the amazing music that was already going on contemporaneously with the rise of the "neo-mainstream" movement), Chris Botti and Candy Dulfer and Sophie Millman (among the worst) and the Young Pussycats not far behind...it's a sickening spectacle, really. Jazz, word and ubergenre, die, die, die. Haven't we heard enough of what people think jazz is?

On KSFR, where I host a weekly show, there's another weekly program called "Giants of Jazz." Last fall, when my show was new and causing some raised eyebrows (specifically, playing The Artist in America from OC's Skies of America back to back with Jump Up from Jimmy Lyons/Sunny Murray/John Lindberg) "Giants of Jazz" featured two hours of...Bill Charlap. Yeah. Bill Fuckin' Charlap. Die, jazz, die!!

spring snow

Part of the unrelenting charm of living at the southern end of the Rockies at 7,000 feet: seasonal transitions that often involve unpredictable events. A sudden plunge in temperatures last night and 2 inches of snow, for example, but with the predicted high temp today up into the 60s again. Fruit trees often push out flowers at the first sign of warmer weather and then get slammed with the return of frost and snow. Of course the indigenous denizens around here are adapted for these extreme fluctuations. It's the invaders like myself (even after 24 years I'm still not a local) who get our blossoms battered.

The view of the mist and snow in the foothills (haha, "foothills" that go up as high as 9,000 feet) from the un's apartment at sunset or in the almost-full moonlight yesterday is one way of accessing humility. Living in an environment where there are frequent reminders that we carve out a bare existence shaped by a meager generosity and vivid drama, maybe we get perspective. Having also lived in Philadelphia, Boston, New York and Los Angeles, as well as Bethlehem, PA, what's most apparent in Santa Fe is that humans persist in spite of the distinctly inhospitable environment, not in any dominant or prolific way but tenaciously, tentatively. Even with the relatively huge increase in population over the past 20 years, it's no wonder that New Mexico, the fourth largest state in the US, hosts a mere 2 million puny humans. Roughly 15 people per square mile. And that's artificially inflated by the few "urban" areas. The more rural areas have 4 or fewer people per square mile. Compare to the population of Manhattan, nearly equal to the population of the entire state of New Mexico, with almost 70,000 people per square mile. Or even Phoenix, AZ with about 2,800 people per square mile.

Masochist? Misanthrope? New Mexico's for you! (not the official New Mexico promotional slogan....which I think is still "The Land of Enchantment.")

Insect Trust in the background doing Glade Song, from 1970's Hoboken Saturday Night, hosting Elvin Jones on the drums. "You bring your toys to my house, I will open up the gate, we'll spend the day together making the sun shine. You bring your can to my house, I will open up the can, we'll spend the day together eating a sandwich." If anyone knows how Elvin Jones ended up on this recording, I'd love to hear the story.

My ex-wife's dog passed away Thursday. Kita (a Great Pyrenees/Akita mix) was a beautiful, noble and dignified beast with a few flashes of surprisingly clownish ways. I become massively attached to dogs; it's a sense of real loss for Kita to be gone. But for JG, I can't imagine how global a feeling it must be, as she was inseparable from Kita for 15 years.

I'll be setting up some kind of web platform to host audio files and some of the Duology duets will probably go up first. More info on that later.

opera madness

One of my day gigs is working as an artist-in-residence (fancy huh?) for the Santa Fe Opera in their Student Produced Opera program. The format is that a theater artist and a composer visit public schools and work with groups of kids age 5-12 to help them write the libretti and music for their own operas. The projects culminate in a public performance, with one of the projects that I started back in October going up last night.

The Nava Elementary after school program was proud to present When Doom Comes Alive, the story of a magic horse who wears the Golden Wreath of Truth, the Dreadful Doctor of Doom who captures the horse because he wants the wreath, and the heroic Escogida family who are swept into the Doctor of Doom's castle by a tornado and imprisoned by meteors but somehow manage to put the Golden Wreath of Truth back on the horse's neck and lead it back to earth, followed by the Dreadful Doctor of Doom who is transformed, once back on earth, into the Daring Doctor of Daylight (who also just happens to be the family's long lost Uncle David).

Tonight, Salazar Elementary offers the world premiere of Operation: Egypt, in which the evil Queen Kryses has stolen all of the world's stories and is keeping them in her tomb and the courageous Agent 21X 006 and his Sidekick travel to Egypt, are captured by mummies, rescued by centipedes and spiders, and return the stories to the children of the world.

Somehow the kids on both projects came up with stories that are no more nor less bizarre than many swanky classic operas. The music ain't Mozart, however. But there are some surprisingly complicated bits, especially rhythmically, that the kids are managing to pull off. Like the mummy rap:

We know your secrets, secret agent
Like that clean, cotton underwear that you wear,
Glowing in the dark under there, there, there
You're really just a scaredy cat
You're really just a scaredy cat
(repeat)

wha happen?

Duology went remarkably well. Steve Schmidt from Fly on the Wall Productions did a digital recording and burned me a copy on the spot; haven't heard it yet. Somehow zeroing in on six different performers in six back to back duets worked out; especially cool because I had never done a duet with any of them. Ruth Zaporah and I met for the first time at 7:15 in front of the performance space. She called it a blind date.

I got comfortable eventually with the Yamaha grand. These expensive pianos are not properly maintained very often. Uneven action, in particular. There's a lot of great piano tuners around here because of the classical scene but where's the techs to build an even action across the octaves? Also, the preferred tuning locally sweetens the upper-mid register too much, again a reflection of classical priorities. The intonation of the lower two octaves is often so sloppy it's embarrassing. Finally, Yamahas are designed to cut through behemoth orchestras; the upper octaves are brighter than polished silver. It's a shame, because the quality of the box itself is high-- would a little warmth kill anybody? It's got that horrifying music box sound up there. I guess I need to win the lottery and buy a Bosendorfer.

Each duet presented unique opportunities and challenges. I drew the names out of a hat and Mark Weaver on tuba came up first. It's a shame anyone has to go first, really. But Mark wrestled that sucker to the ground. I had trouble hearing him for a bit and realized two things: I was playing too loud. I was in the low end too much. We locked eventually. Ruth Zaporah started behind me, out of my sightline, and yet I could feel the sphere of her energy radiating out, could listen and respond, intensely tuned (at one point the hair on the back of my neck stood up). Chris Jonas tore off the top of my head and handed me a new pair of shoes. Jeremy Bleich's oud playing brought tears to my eyes. Paul Brown's bass shifted, turned, elbowed angular lines. Mike Rowland played with astounding dynamic range and ferocious energy throughout...even in the quiet sections. I owe all of them a debt of gratitude.

Here's the thing: it's been a good while since I performed completely improvised music, especially so focused on the piano. I intentionally did not practice leading up to the show. I know that might sound strange but I decided to get in fresh, try not to bring anything at all (other than a pre-existing 25 year relationship of sorts with the piano). I had never performed a duet on piano with any of the artists and had never even met RZ. Needless to say I was completely and totally absolutely freaking out in the days leading up to this, especially yesterday afternoon. I used to drink a lot in an effort to manage those feelings of horror, nakedness, anxiety; the different thing is being with that set of demons and just riding it out. I kept chiding myself for not being able to center, to be peaceful and serene, and then I realized that was pretty damned funny.

Anyway I had a great time and the players and audience seemed to as well.

Duology Two in the works already. Jeremy suggested we try Triology One. What I wanted to do was call everyone up on stage and do a septet piece, but I didn't want to create an opportunity for noodling and aimlessness, which was mostly (miraculously) absent up until then. Maybe we can try a group piece next time.

DUOLOGY one

Duology One

Peter Breslin and Friends present an evening of improvised duets.

Saturday, March 24, 8 pm. $10. O'Shaughnessy Performance Space, Benildus Hall, The College of Santa Fe, 1600 St. Michael's Drive. Call 670-1500 for more information.

Improvising performers include Jeremy Bleich, multiple instruments; Peter Breslin, piano; Paul Brown, bass viol; Chris Jonas, saxophones; Mike Rowland, drums; Mark Weaver, tuba; Ruth Zaporah, voice and movement.

Duology, the study of twos. Duets carved out of fat air. Improvisation in a fairly pure form, with no prior discussion, lead sheets, arrangements or composed themes. In the moment, of the moment, out of the moment, arising from long-standing or completely non-pre-existent creative partnerships. Breslin has never performed with Rowland (his former drum student) nor with Zaporah. Has never played piano with Brown nor Weaver. Has never played a duet with Jonas.

Each participant brings vitally fresh energies coupled with depth of experience.

Performer's Bios

Jeremy Bleich incorporates a wide palette of culture, ancient and modern instruments, traditions and forms as well as electronic manipulation into the creative process of composing, performing and recording music. His approach to the electric bass and the oud have earned him a reputation internationally as an innovator. Jeremy is focused on producing music that captures the essence and meaning behind the process of creating it. He resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico where he is involved with presenting new music, as well as composing and teaching. Jeremy is a member of the critically acclaimed group birth and has performed and/or recorded with Coung Vu (Pat Metheny Group), Joe Maneri, Jeff Coffen (Bela Fleck), Chris Jonas, Carmen Castaldi, (Joe Lovano), Brook Martinez (barky!), Kevin McCarthy and Nashville songwriters Rick Elias (Ragamuffins) and Jason White. He has played the oud in collaboration w/ Mustafa Stephan Dill (SAMA trio), Andrew Stoltz (laptop musician/composer), and Rahim Alhaj (Iraqi oudist). He has recorded for MCA Records, Hopscotch Records, High Mayhem and INS labels.

Peter Breslin is a percussionist, pianist, composer and teacher who has performed extensively on the east coast and in the southwest. He studied drums with Andrew Cyrille in New York and piano with Shirley Ling in Philadelphia. In northern New Mexico, he has performed on piano in several large ensemble concerts of original composed and improvised music, as well as appeared on drums with a variety of groups, including Mingus Amongus, The John Clark Quintet, The Gluey Brothers, The African Space Program, Mad Trio, Bing, The Miles Davis Electric Project and Rrake. Breslin recently organized, arranged and conducted the Miles Davis Electric Project, a cadre of 14 local musicians re-examining Miles Davis's music from 1970-1975. Currently, Breslin is an artist-in-residence with the Santa Fe Opera's Student Produced Opera Program, and writes on the arts for The Santa Fe Reporter. Breslin broadcasts a weekly creative composed and improvised music program on KSFR, 90.7 FM, Santa Fe Public Radio called "Inside Out," every Thursday from 1-3 pm.

Paul Brown has been playing music for 33 years, studying bass with
Greg Mooter and Rich Appleman at the Berklee College of Music in
Boston, and oud (middle eastern lute) with Haig Manoukian and Necati
Çelik in Mendocino, Calif. He is a specialist in Balkan and Turkish
music, especially as they relate to groove and improvisation. A
recent (re)transplant to Santa Fe, he plays with many groups across
the country, and is starting to play locally as well, with Chris
Jonas' Rrake, Polly Tapia Ferber and Round Mountain, among others.

Mike Rowland has found himself playing drums in miscellaneous weird bands, touring and doing recording projects in Pacific Northwest from 1986-1997, including work with 11 Phantoms, Delilah, Pinewood Derby, and the infamous Rockn' Rod and The Strychnines. Rowland moved to Santa Fe in Spring 1998 and hooked up with Yozo Suzuki and Dierdre Morris, forming the legendary Candy From Strangers, as well as playing in Invisible Plane. Rowland is a Board member and co-founder of High Mayhem (IDEA: Institute for the Development of Experimental Arts). Currently, Rowland plays in The Late Severa Wires. His side projects include The QT, a percussion driven experimental ensemble and guest appearances with We Drew Lightning and The Pedal Pushers.

Chris Jonas of Santa Fe, New Mexico is a composer, multimedia/visual artist and soprano/tenor saxophone player. Jonas has gained recent international attention for his work leading the New York-based ensembles The Sun Spits Cherries, the Jonas Cork Ensemble (a mixture of Irish and Congolese musicians from Cork, Ireland), the Santa Fe poly groove band, Rrake, the collective EU-US quartet amitosis, and along with co-leader and life partner Molly Sturges a neo-Ethiopian pop groove band BING (of annual silent film soundtracks at
the Lensic and Circus Luminous). He is also well known for his 1990s
tenure as a saxophone player and side-man to New York City jazz musicians
and composers Anthony Braxton, William Parker, Cecil Taylor, The Brooklyn
Sax Quartet and in Butch Morris‘ conduction ensembles. Additionally, Jonas
has also become well known for composing and guest-conducting ensembles
all over the US and Europe, receiving commissions for works for
orchestras, circus noir, soundtracks, installations and new music
ensembles. Jonas also works as an intermedia artist, combining music,
performance, video and new media into structures for performance.

Mark Weaver (an architect by profession) has been playing low-brass instruments since 1970. Primarily self-taught, Mark studied the wind instrument methods of Arnold Jacobs with his student Steve Rossé (now principal tuba, Sydney Symphony Orchestra) in 1989-90. His musical interests have been broad, leading him to involvements with a wide range of ensembles. Currently, Mark is a member of the following ensembles: Brassum, a unique brass+drums quartet performing Weacer;s original compositions, with Dan Clucas, Michael Vlatkovich, Weaver on tuba, and Harris Eisenstadt; Rumble Trio – (Mike Balistreri-dbl bass/percussion, Ben Wright-dbl bass/saw, and MW-tuba) with guests including Jack Wright, Dan Clucas, Tom Leith, Alan Lechusza, Dave Nielsen, Dave Wayne, and Sara Schoenbeck; Selsun Blue – Albuquerque street band quartet with a down-home off-beat approach, led by L.B. Smith with instrumentation including dobro, banjo, guitar, tuba, vocals, drums. Mark has performed in ensembles led by trombonist/composer Michael Vlatkovich, trumpeter/composer Jeff Kaiser, multi-instrumentalist/composer J.A. Deane, pianist/composer Christopher Adler, bassist/composer David Parlato, composer/arranger Jack Manno, percussionist/composer Harris Eisenstadt, multi-instrumentalist/composer Alan Lechusza, dbl-bassist Damon Smith, trumpeter/composer Dan Clucas, saxophonist-composer Chris Jonas and vocalist Patti Littlefield. He considers these artists to have been his teachers, in the absence of a formal music education.

Ruth Zaporah's work established her as one of the San Francisco Bay Area's pre-eminent solo performers. Zaporah recently relocated to Santa Fe, a return to her home town. She is a master of improvisational performance, a master of dramatic action. Her scripts are created in the moment-to-moment process of performance, never to be repeated. Zaporah is a dancer, an actress, a mime. She is a performer who can transform her being into characters of great variety. These characters have extra-ordinary, archetypal dimensions, illuminated by her unique use of language, gesture and her freedom of mind. She dances and sounds, creating environments and moods. Zaporah is funny; she's moving; she's entertaining. Zaporah's book, _The Improvisation of Presence_, is a vital guide to the spirit of improvisation in performance. Zaporah is a teacher of these particular skills of performing, which she calls ACTION THEATER. Ruth's training awakens spontaneity, present awareness, and a sense of play. For her audience and students alike, Zaporah's theater offers a lesson by example: Every action becomes exciting the moment we pay it our undivided attention.

*************************************************************************************

in other news:

Okay, so I finished drafts of all 4 sections of the Santa Fe Reporter's Annual Manual. You know those ideas that hit you and you never do anything about them? The idea I had last year was to collect all the news related to the four sections I did then, (same as this year-- Jobs and Business, Education, House and Garden, Health and Wellness) and have all of that info at my fingertips for the 2007 versions. Of course, I never did this, not even for a week or two after I finished last year. That meant hours of research into news archives, City Council web pages, State of New Mexico government pages, a huge number of websites regarding housing, commerce, real estate, water conservation, alternative energy, health care laws, etc. It's Wednesday morning and I've already forgotten just about everything I knew yesterday. Then there's the strange necessity of double checking city and state web sites by calling info and other numbers on the phone...for example, 6 weeks after local School Board elections, the Santa Fe Public Schools had not updated their website information on the new Board members or officer positions. Santa Fe charm. Land of Manana. Stupid.

Spinning now: Lester Bowie's solo about 17 minutes into "Oh, Strange" from The Art Ensemble of Chicago's Live in Paris, recorded October 5, 1969. It's one of my favorite Lester Bowie statements from any AEC recording. I've had the two album vinyl from Affinity since about 1980; Emery sent along the 2003 2-CD set from Charly. The vinyl is nearly unplayable, so it's amazing to have yet another resurrection experience. Small appreciation: many CDs of extended improvised performances blend the LP sides together on the reissue. It's great to hear the set unfold over something closer to its entire length without having to flip the LP.

Sunny and warm. That's the weather.

a break from copy whoring

The un several days before Christmas in La Mision.

I've got several thousand words of copy due to the Santa Fe Reporter for the special Annual Manual issue, a comprehensive guide to living in Santa Fe, by Wednesday (with my own personal goal of getting the sections in early). What does it say about this crazy mountain town that two of the shortest sections are Education and Jobs/Business? And two of the longest are Health and Wellness and House and Garden? I can guess, but all I know is that I'm working on all four.

The last of the Emery shipments arrived last week and I haven't had time to listen to many of the albums, but Clifford Brown's work with the French musicians, 1953, very interesting. More about that soon.

Back to work with me...Sarah Vaughan taking Black Coffee for a ride, with a slinky arrangement that just barely avoids being the corniest thing ever.

the new originals

A key feature of the "neo mainstream" movement and even certain projects from people outside that movement is to revisit jazz compositions and styles from past times. Honestly, I usually find these revisions or excavations a waste of time (or much worse), as the results rarely have the vitality and urgency of the originals.

Even the Art Ensemble of Chicago, for example, loses me on those Dreaming of the Masters recordings from the 1990s. The cover of Purple Haze, for example, is painful, in my opinion. (Zombie is pretty good as is Creole Love Call).

But there are and have been exceptions. When Sun Ra's band started playing Fletcher Henderson charts in the '80s I was blown away. I love what Steve Lacy and friends did with Monk tunes. The Duke/Strayhorn duets between Lacy and Mal Waldron are absolutely stunning. Duke's own tendency to reach back in his catalogue often had vital results, such as Ellington '55. David Murray, Henry Threadgill, Dave Burrell and some (some!) of Paul Motian's retrospective approaches really grab me. When I'm in the mood, Charlie Haden and Hank Jones' Steal Away works just fine. Dave Holland's bands echo various post-1960 (or so) compositional and improv approaches and his stuff is interesting. Tim Berne's post-modern cut and paste jumpcuts are often intriguing and seem more sincere and less gimmicky than Zorn's earlier work.

The tendency of a lot of the younger neo mainstream players to echo '60s Blue Note approaches (so-called "hard bop") is truly unfortunate, as the original recordings are always far more varied, energetic and natural-sounding. Why would I spin Donald Harrison etc. if I can just check out Turrentine, Blue Mitchell or Lee Morgan?

Here's a (very) short list of revival or back catalogue work I'd be interested to hear:

The Herbie Nichols songbook arranged for a quintet or larger ensemble. I think Rudd's groups used to include some Nichols tunes but I don't have any of those recordings. Perhaps an extensive excavation of Andrew Hill compositions with new approaches/arrangements as well.

A new and improved Skies of America; a better recording with a more enlightened and sympathetic orchestra and conductor.

Re-arrangements and performances of Cecil Taylor compositions for various ensembles.

Art Ensemble of Chicago compositions could be an interesting legacy in the right hands.

A revisiting of James Blood Ulmer and Ronald Shannon Jackson compositions for various formats. Jackson and Ulmer's groundbreaking work went by pretty quickly.

Somebody I admire having a go at a new arrangement of Dogon AD.

Just some thoughts. The Vandermark 5's "Free Jazz Classics" really didn't do it for me, to put it mildly, but that doesn't mean there isn't potential for relevant and vital contemporary stuff to be done using a more judicious and less "corporate bopper" approach.

jazz death part 2

Just want to keep the conversation happening. Lots of folks say to me, "This is boring! There have been so many discussions of whether or not jazz is dead. Get over it." I take that as a good sign. If there have been so many discussions about it, why aren't the results more crystalline? Cogent?

Part of the problem is the yutes of today. They ain't got no respect. The whole idea of tradition is anathema to them. Everything springs full blown and unrooted out of the present moment. There's little if any sense of music history informing their listening or appreciation. Maybe this rant should be saved for my new blog, "Git Offa Mah Yahrd!" (the blog that will pave the way for my inevitable descent into snarling senescence and violent curmudgeonhood).

But really, a lot of what I hear that's being done now just sounds like stuff I've already heard. A lot of my younger friends don't seem to have that baggage. "It's nice," they say and kind of shrug. Why get all lathered up over Branford Marsalis' execrable "version" of A Love Supreme, for example? I mean, if you haven't heard 'Trane's, what difference does it make. And even if you have, so what? It's all good. Shrug. "It's nice."

No, it's not fuckin' nice. It's horrifying.

Well, maybe not. Maybe we're just spoiled in different ways. I'm spoiled by thinking that great artists did great things at various times that are still great and still worth knowing fairly intimately. They're spoiled by the fundamental idea that no one is any more or less great than anyone else and it's all...nice. Shrug.

Culture right now has all the vitality of McMurphy after he's lobotomized in Kesey's "Cuckoo's Nest."

Not sure what this has to do with jazz being dead. Dead as roadkill. Dead as dead can be. If I didn't keep nailing it to the perch it would be pushing up the daisies. It's an EX-genre. It's rung up the curtain and joined the choir invisible.

slash and burn

There's a whole class of plants, usually found in extremely xeric, harsh desert climates, called "geophytes." (There are some lavishly "pretty" and more coddled geophytes as well: Iris, crocus, amaryllis, tulip...bulbs, basically. In this post, "geophyte" refers to the rougher, hardcore xeric types).

Geophytic plants are characterized by having a significant portion of their living tissue underground, usually in the form of a tuber, caudex or various subterranean structures of other kinds. Many desert plants evolved to have the vast majority of their living tissue buried in the cool dark, safe from predation, fires, light frosts, plant collectors with anything less than pickaxes, etc. In Madagascar, for example, where slash and burn farming techniques periodically result in as much as 30 percent of the island being in flames at one time, the many geophytic caudiciform succulents growing there survive, sending up new life in between blazes.

A fine example of a geophytic cactus from the US is Peniocereus greggii, the "night blooming cereus" of the Southwest, pictured above. The stems look like dead sticks and sometimes are completely broken off, killed by rare frosts, or burned in brush fires. Underground, an old specimen of Peniocereus greggii can have an enormous tuberous root, weighing 100 pounds or more.

P. greggii specimens in the wild give themselves away 1 or 2 nights a year when they flower. The fragrance is legendary, apparently detectable from a single plant for as much as a 1 mile radius.

Who are the geophytes in music? Stems camouflaged, dead-looking, largely underground. We don't know who they are by their above ground parts. The trick is to be buried. The flowers seem to come out of nowhere, actually resulting (briefly) from the dark itself, a darkness painstakingly guarded, nurturing, protective.

(musings partly dedicated to Leroy Jenkins, 1932-2007)

Jazz Death?

Jazz is dead. Isn't it? In the immortal words of Lester Bowie, that depends on who you ask. From one point of view, jazz is a cultural artifact, a museum piece originating from a particular time, and whatever is going on now is recycled and derivative. No longer culturally relevant. (I'm reminded of the guy outside the bank in Falling Down: "NOT ECONOMICALLY VIABLE.")

There's slightly more subtle viewpoints than the above. For example, the "neo-mainstream" "movement" has temporarily lobotomized jazz by trying to make it hold still. Or post-modern cut and paste, collage styles have temporarily "ironified" jazz into a series of witty cliches, pastiches and homages. Or "jazz" itself died in 1959, (or 1940 or 1945, etc.) really, and ever since then god only knows what we've had. Or "contemporary jazz" musicians are too much a product of the schools and have lost any vital connection to the streets, replaced by hip hop etc.

My outrage at the misrepresentation of "free jazz" (a form which is actually fairly expensive) repeated by the guardians of culture has stirred all of these opinions (and more) up from the murky bottoms of Lake Revision.

Sometimes, when I hear so-called "contemporary jazz," I wish it (and when I'm feeling melodramatic, I) were dead. Is there any music worse than bad jazz? To my ears, the slicked out, blanched, over-produced music that passes for "jazz" in most record catalogues these days is among the worst music ever made in human history. The recent wave of "jazz chanteuses," for example, wouldn't know what to do with a great song if it popped right out of their decolletage. An acquaintance of mine recently uttered this sentence: "I'm going to Borders to buy the new Norah Jones...go home, build a fire, listen to some jazz." One of my colleagues at KSFR did a "best of 2006" "jazz" show last month and selected Bob Brookmeyer's Spirit Music CD as the "best of the best." When I started my show immediately after, a caller rang the studio to say "what the hell was that? That's quaalude jazz!"

Here's a possibly even more subtle look at jazz death: it's part and parcel of genre death in general. When I taught secondary school students, they had an unbelievably detailed and often arcane universe of hair-splitting genres. "Iron and Wine isn't Emo! It's shoegazer!" "Dude, are you nuts? Iron and Wine is anti-folk!" Etc. In this digitally-abetted explosion of genres, many of which are contained esoterically within other genres (think Chinese doll), what meaning do the big genres (jazz, classical, rock, pop) have anymore? Jazz already had an unwieldy number of subgenres as long ago as 1970. On freejazz.org, a raging debate sometimes erupts on the relative merits of "free jazz" versus "free improv." These heated arguments are highly entertaining, and a definite sign of the proliferation of hair-splitting categories about which NO ONE CARES except a small group of rabid aficionadoes. (Not that I'm not one of those rabid sorts, as I think the discussion of "free jazz" versus "free improv" is interesting....)

In a relatively conservative cultural climate such as Santa Fe, where there are several high-brow presenting organizations constantly programming the same old Western composed orchestral, vocal and chamber music (we used to be able to say "classical" and be done with it), no one blinks an eye at absolute and completely unswerving predictability. Mozart's 250th birthday went on endlessly, forever, eternally here in this largely blue-hair, rich, ossified arts market. In this context it is a RISKY VENTURE to book Wynton Marsalis. This is jazz death, more surely than any other reality.

Jazz in the Schools

In 2006, the National Endowment for the Arts put up a "classroom resource" for teachers who wanted to do a jazz curriculum. Curious to check out the party line, I investigated. Imagine my astonishment at discovering the web project was produced by Jazz at Lincoln Center (and funded by Verizon Wireless).

Why does the mugshot of Dana Gioia on the "Welcome" page creep me out as much as it does?

No matter. Down to brass tacks. Let's look at the curriculum. Hmm, it appears to be nearly identical to the Ken Burns jazz documentary! And, for that matter to just about every other "history" of jazz ever written, from the perspective of the guardians of culture. (for a very telling snapshot, check out this Lesson Objective from Lesson 1, from the Teacher's Guide: "Students will identify the major early New Orleans jazz musicians, name the various roles they played (e.g., entertainer, teacher, transmitter of cultural tradition), and be able to describe their activities and achievements." Entertainer, teacher, transmitter of cultural tradition. Man, does that have Marsalis sauce all over it or what?)

But you all know what I'm most interested in. Once you get past the King Oliver, the Louis worship, the Bix and Benny and even Parker and Diz, golly, how will this National Endowment for the Arts/Jazz At Lincoln Center/Verizon Wireless curriculum make sense of all that Crazy Experimental Freedom?

Let's go to Lesson 4, "From the New Frontier to the New Millenium," and look at the list of Major Artists. Betty Carter. Ornette Coleman. John Coltrane. Wayne Shorter...hey, hang on a second kids! We missed one! How could we have skipped Wynton Marsalis?? And the perspicacious wisdom of his quote: “Jazz is an art form,” trumpeter Wynton Marsalis has said, “that gives us a painless way of understanding ourselves.” I have a painless way of understanding how Marsalis could be listed as a Major Artist with the likes of Betty Carter, Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane and Wayne Shorter...it involves scrolling down to the bottom of the page and being reminded that the educational materials have been Produced by Jazz at Lincoln Center. As the Verizon Wireless guy would say, "Can you hear me now?"

Check out these "Jazz Lesson Objectives" provided for teachers:

• Students will understand how jazz reflected the political and racial turbulence of the 1960s.
• Students will learn about trends in jazz during the 1960s and 1970s, including free jazz, fusion, and neo-mainstream.
• Students will learn how jazz earned its place as a significant American art form that today enjoys the support of government programs, private conservatories, and major cultural institutions.

"Teacher, how did jazz earn its place as a significant American art form that today enjoys the support of government programs, private conservatories, and major cultural institutions?"

"Well, sonny boy, read page 4 of the essay that goes with lesson 4, "From the New Frontier to the New Millenium," of the National Endowment for the Arts/Jazz at Lincoln Center/Verizon Wireless Jazz In The Schools Curriculum."

"Well teacher, it says:

"It turned out that, while the commercial vitality of mainstream jazz was fading during the free jazz and fusion eras, a younger generation of jazz musicians was being quietly cultivated not in urban lofts or in experimental ensembles but in colleges, universities, and music conservatories. By the early 1980s, the ranks of the “neo-mainstream” movement, as this new direction in jazz came to be called, were being filled in large part by talented young musicians who had undergone a rigorous program of instruction encompassing the entire history of mainstream jazz. In 1983 and 1984—after paying his dues as a sideman with the veteran drummer Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and the pianist Herbie Hancock—a young trumpeter from New Orleans, Wynton Marsalis, won two Grammy Awards, in both the jazz and classical categories. He was a convincing spokesman for jazz, and his music balanced inventiveness with tradition, group interaction with personal expression. The publicity he earned helped launch the careers of a score of likeminded performers—Terence Blanchard, Nicholas Peyton, Geri Allen, Cyrus Chestnutt, James Carter, and Joshua Redman, among others—whom the press collectively dubbed the Young Lions."

"That's right, sonny boy....but, keep reading, it gets better."

"For the many critics and fans who had been fearing the demise of jazz, the music of the neo-mainstream movement was a welcome revival of the music’s core values. Others worried, however, that jazz was now in danger of being confined to a narrow orthodoxy that would blunt the music’s cutting edge. Their concerns would soon prove to be unwarranted, however. During the 1990s, as musicians such as Don Byron, Cassandra Wilson, Dave Douglas, Brad Meldhau, and Jason Moran—whose styles variously incorporate the full spectrum of American and world musics, from country blues to Baltic folk songs to hip-hop—joined the fray, it became clear that contemporary jazz was a big tent that could accommodate a huge variety of aesthetic approaches."

(our courageous student begins to ask what "being confined to a narrow orthodoxy that would blunt the music's cutting edge" really means, but decides against it...and reads on):

"Meanwhile, having already secured a prominent place in the academic arena, jazz began receiving recognition and support both from the government and from private foundations. In 1982 the National Endowment for the Arts created the NEA Jazz Masters program to honor individuals who have contributed to the advancement of jazz; as of 2006 more than 80 artists had received awards. In 1986, four years after the death of the brilliant pianist and composer Thelonious Monk, his family established the Thelonious Monk Institute for Jazz, which quickly became a potent force both for jazz education and for the recognition of aspiring young jazz musicians (its annual jazz competition has become the preeminent event of its kind in the world). And in 1987, Lincoln Center, New York City’s premier arts complex, added jazz programming to its lineup; less than 10 years later, Jazz at Lincoln Center, with Wynton Marsalis at its helm, took its place alongside the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic as a full-fledged constituent, introducing a full concert season, a permanent jazz orchestra, and a broad range of educational programs that reach audiences of all ages.

When, in 1997, Marsalis’s epic oratorio Blood on the Fields became the first jazz composition to win the Pulitzer Prize, the vital role of jazz in American culture in the coming millennium seemed assured. It’s true that jazz was no longer the nation’s dominant form of popular music as it had been during the heyday of the Swing Era, but in fact jazz had in some ways transcended the popular realm and had become a form of expression equal in stature to classical music, fine art, and literature."

"But teacher," says our courageous student, "I still don't understand how jazz earned its place as a significant American art form that today enjoys the support of government programs, private conservatories, and major cultural institutions?"

"Well, sonny boy, if you ask to ask, you'll never know...."

deserts, oceans, reissues

An ancient barrel (Ferocactus cylindraceus) just south of El Rosario, Baja California Norte.
Rancho Santa Ynez, near Catavina in the Central Desert. Sign by Gary Larson.

Playa Saldamando, off the toll road from Tijuana to Ensenada, with tent sites right on the Pacific. Typical of off season experiences, we were the only people camping. There are a couple hundred tent sites.

Dizzy Gillespie reissue on Prestige called "In the Beginning" now spinning. Double album with recordings from 1945 to 1950. There seem to be errors in the titles and personnel, so I'll have to dig a bit. Some tracks seem correct, including early work by Dexter Gordon, Al Haig, others. Dizzy's world is a flashing mix of adventure and entertainment. There are some funny moments of sudden transitions on here, including some discordant and ballsy big band performances followed by stuff like Oop Bop Sh'Bam.

Cut to Arthur Blythe's "Illusions," from Blythe's Columbia period, 1980. This is a Behearer selection and I can instantly hear that. I didn't catch much of what Blythe and some of his colleagues were doing in the late '70s/early '80s, as I was more focused on Cecil Taylor and the FMP stuff at the time. I was tired of explicitly composed music and suspicious of the Columbia catalogue in general. I'm deeply admiring of the playing by the personnel on here: James Blood Ulmer, Steve McCall, Fred Hopkins, Bob Stewart, Abdul Wadud. It seems funny that I thought of this music as "commercialized" at the time. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't, but the larger aesthetic impacts get lost in elitist judgments such as the ones I used to make with great certainty.

With the wisdom of hindsight what amazes me is that a major American label put this music out at all.

ugly beauty?

various survival analogies

the whole point to the alkaloids is to make creation possible. I mean, if you're eaten before you can set seed, you've just been an herbaceous blip.

What's reprodcutive age for an American artist? Cecil Taylor performed at Newport in '55, I think, and won a MacCarthur in 1990 (I think...it was the early '90s, at any rate).

Camouflage is important too. If your flower is too showy you can give yourself away amongst the protective grass.

The above left is a Toumeya papyracantha, probably about 20 years old. The type locality for this bizarre cactus with grass-like spines is Santa Fe. Hardly anybody who lives here knows it exists.

On the Galapagos Islands, without predation, Opuntia echios v. gigantea, which otherwise may have remained just another "prickly pear," grows into a 30 foot tall tree with a 30 foot wide trunk. It's something like a trust fund plant, or a grant recipient, or a plant with patronage.

attitude

Images...mp3's and music files in general, soon. I want to be high tech, I really do. Especially, since I don't have any recordings out or available anywhere, I want to convert old cassette tapes to digital and archive them. Funny to look at the whole pile of recordings of concerts I did and see it change to CDs after about 2000 or so.

The above represents the two main defense strategies of cacti in a harsh environment. Spines out the wazoo in the back row. From left to right: Thelocactus bicolor v. falvidispinus, Thelocactus bicolor, Glandulicactus wrightii. The front row...don't they look tasty, inviting, chewable? The stems are loaded with toxic, bitter alkaloids. From left to right: Ariocarpus kotschoubeyanus v. macdowellii, Ariocarpus fissuratus, Ariocarpus trigonus.

So which are you? Spines or alkaloids? (Not to say some cacti don't have both...)

The Kings of Jass

Paul Whiteman spinning as I write this, a collection called The Bix Beiderbecke Legend, on French RCA. These are 1928 sessions, possibly unmarketable were it not for Beiderbecke's presence. The overall effect is refined flour pancakes coated with margarine with three times the optimum syrup, except that certain spare and inventive solos briefly poke through the sucrose. Interesting to note the lead lines that Whiteman often gave to Beiderbecke and how much muscle he brings to otherwise unbelievable fluffy music. I am by no means an expert on '20s and early '30s jazz, and I know there are those listeners out there who are obssessive about these early recordings. But in comparison to Armstrong's Hot 5's and 7's, which I have heard, or Duke's efforts from roughly the same period, this is remarkably soft and genteel music. Whiteman's dense yet unswinging and predictable charts get some small part of "jazz," and the rest is treacle. The two feel is unrelenting, underpinned by the constant 4. There's an offbeat, but the main thrust of the rhythmic motif is on 1 and 3. The dotted 8th note choppiness is unrelenting and overall the phrasing is extremely tidy. The vocal numbers are nearly unlistenable. The strings goop around, providing a tiny bit of fairly tidy melisma. I wonder...if I had decided to play this music 80 years ago would I have also begun to drink myself to death?

But this music must have been extraordinarily easy to dance to. The expropriation of just enough of the more blatant facets of a "jazz" style is balanced quite skillfully with absolutely explicit and unsubtle THUMP thump THUMP thump. The proceedings are fairly well-recorded, and I assume that, relatively speaking, there was money for Whiteman and his orchestras. Is this the first example of white jazz? And did the guy really have to be named Whiteman? The music gods have a sense of humor, for sure.

There a few tracks of Beiderbecke with Hoagy Carmichael and a few of Beiderbecke's own 1930 band with the Dorseys, Benny Goodman, Gene Krupa and Peewee Russell. The Hoagy Carmichael instantly has a different feel from Whiteman. It's funkier, it hops more. But the version of "Rockin' Chair" is sullied by the minstrelsy mugging of the vocals. "Barnacle Bill the Sailor" is a manic and extremely discomfiting "novelty number." Beiderbecke's own band provides a happy go lucky version of one of those searingly ironic tunes, "Deep Down South," a paean to...well, the Deep South. In general, Beiderbecke's own 1930 ensemble recordings feel closer to Whiteman than to Carmichael's syncopation. Except for more of a two-beat feel (one TWO one TWO) and more space for some inventive solos.

When I read Reading Jazz, the anthology edited by Robert Gottleib, it struck me how much romanticization and hero-worship young Beiderbecke received from a generation of "jazz" musicians from roughly 1940 to 1960 or so. The racism inherent in many comments about Beiderbecke is glaring. One famous musician said, "Beiderbecke helped to make jazz civilized." Is this not a deflected way of saying he helped to make it whiter? I'll stand by the queasy feeling I get of "making jazz safe for The Man," and the veiled "great white hope" whistfulness behind Bix worship, despite, of course, not being able to substantiate it.

Bix hagiography also reminds me too much of Dave Douglas's recent odd comments regarding the "crazy experimental freedom" of the '60s and '70s and how improvising musicians now are "harnessing" all that. It is important for creative musicians to remember that only the most blatant ploys (or natural tendencies) toward instant digestibility result in significantly greater sales figures. "Harnessed" CEF is still CEF, and has a very high LD 50. The handful of "jazz" musicians who make any real money (and they are not "jazz" musicians, really, most often) present few if any challenges to the listening public. Even a smidgeon of "crazy experimental freedom," just the slightest hint of it, and one's career is suddenly below the radar. I often innocently pick tracks for my radio show that I am convinced are non-threatening and "inside," perfectly mainstream, and have gotten feedback that "it's just too weird for me, too noisy/strange/hyper/dissonant." The general American listening public has all the sense of adventure of Immanuel Kant.

Having waded through the enjoyably odd Bix sides, it's now Charlie Parker/Fats Navarro/Curley Russell/Bud Powell/Art Blakey, execrable recordings captured live at Birdland, June 30, 1950. Twenty years after Goldkette, Whiteman, Carmichael, Bix. Dirge-like 'Round Midnight. Crazy.

shelter, longitude, fantasy

Some days here if you stand just right, against a wall or in an outside alcove, when the sun is shining at the right angle, it's warm, like spring. You suddenly feel like you've traveled hundreds of miles south, or it's 8 weeks from now. The body goes into a strange swoon in moments like these, having been clenched against the cold or artificially warmed for months. Every cell comes alive and the energy of escape, of mad release, of being free, finally, from the limitations of winter cascades like snowmelt.

Maybe it's a moment or two like this that makes me mellow, makes me look back at a winter of carping and criticizing and wonder why I don't post more positive posts. I hear Kenny Davern and Steve Lacy with Swallow and Motian on the radio in the morning and I think "no wonder people think they don't like creative improvised music...this is aimless, wandering trash. Clever, soulless mindfuck music." I hear Branford Marsalis and company from Crazy People Music on the radio this afternoon and think "The Coltrane Quartet on a really bad night. Trane has a canker sore and Elvin's using the wrong sticks. No, it can't be Trane, not when that opportunity to burst through the fog is glaringly missed, not when the piano playing completely lacks direction or spine, not when the whole band falls apart when the tenor takes it too far away. Ah, it's Branford! Now what the fuck was the point of that crap?"

It's hard being me, stuck with my carping negativity every day, day in, day out. There's lame and lazy Freddie Hubbard on the stereo right now. Philly Joe Jones wasting his talents again. A version of Body and Soul that's a total miss. With personnel like Wayne Shorter, Cedar Walton, Reggie Workman and Philly Joe, how can Hubbard fuck up? I don't know, but he manages it.

And what possesses someone like Archie Shepp to record a bunch of duets with Neils Henning Orsted-Pedersen of Charlie Parker tunes? Just play Shepp, Shepp. Goddamn this slack and faltering. Where's The Magic of JuJu Shepp?

I keep thinking of Miles Davis in his last, most famous Blindfold Test with Leonard Feather. Here's his full reaction to the famous trio recording of Duke's Caravan on Duke/Mingus/Roach, Money Jungle:

"What am I supposed to say to that? That's ridiculous. You see the way they can fuck up music? It's a mismatch. They don't complement each other. Max and Mingus can play together, by themselves. Mingus is a hell of a bass player, and Max is a hell of a drummer. But Duke can't play with them, and they can't play with Duke. Now how are you going to give a thing like that stars? Record companies should be kicked in the ass. Somebody should take a picket sign and picket the record company."

This is from the Blindfold Test where he basically hates every single recording and most of the musicians Feather puts on, except The Fifth Dimension's Prologue, The Magic Garden. ("That record is planned, you know. It's like when I do things, it's planned and you lead into other things. It makes sense.") Davis has kind words for The Electric Flag and Stan Getz as well.

I can be just about that ungenerous and irrational. The Davis Blindfold Test was in June, so you can't blame seasonal bitterness for that. But I'll use it as an excuse. Elvin, Elvin, Elvin...who talked you into doing watered down afro-cuban fusion hard bop in 1973? Was it Jan Hammer and his little Moog? Just play Elvin, Elvin.

The strange thing is I like all of these recordings. Not the Branford Marsalis, actually. I can't imagine ever listening to that a second time. But Lacy is a hero of mine. Shepp's duets have a spare, muscular strength and wit. Money Jungle is gorgeous and Miles was wrong, the three of them could play together (although I think Caravan is the weakest cut). Hubbard's sides are great to relax into. Elvin's early '70s recordings are wildly adventurous and take some real risks. And give you a chance to hear Pepper Adams.

I do fantasize about being chill. About enjoying everything. About warming up, thawing out, lightening up. Maybe next month.

Cecil Taylor versus Behearer

Mwanji Enzana's blog recently featured a note on the continued interest in behearer.com, the wonderful re-accounting of (loosely speaking) "jazz" during the Dark Ages (click on the link for the timetable for the Northsea Jazz Festival, July 1982) of disco and Flock of Seagulls, etc., namely, 1970-1990. Dave Douglas, Ethan Iverson and others went into a kind of list-making frenzy, and the results are generally excellent. If I could figure out how to edit the galldurned lists by year, I would add several recordings by a major figure in American music during this period, someone whose compositional and pianistic strategies emerged in a wholly new way (on record anyway) and then went through at least two other major transitions during this period: Cecil Taylor

Not that Taylor is ignored by the Behearer project. 9 of his recordings are listed for this 20 year period. Compare that, however, to Mr. Taylor's discography for the same period: at least 25 recordings, and that's counting the 11-CD FMP 1988 marathon as one release (the FMP box set is listed on Behearer, in its entirety, as one entry, "Berlin '88.")

Taylor recordings that were essential to me during this period and that I think could easily be argued belong on the lists include:

1973- Indent, Akisakila, Spring of Two Blue J's
1976- Dark Unto Themselves, Air Above Mountains (Buildings Within)
1978- Cecil Taylor Unit, One Too Many Salty Swift and Not Goodbye
1979- Max Roach/Cecil Taylor Historic Concerts
1980- It Is In The Brewing Luminous
1981- The Eighth
1984- Segments II: Orchestra of Two Continents Winged Serpents/Sliding Quadrants
1986- Olu Iwa
1990- Double Holy House

Notes by year:

1973

Indent (and its equally stunning counterpart, "Solo," an obscure Japanese release on Trio Records) heralds the "new" Taylor brilliantly. It stands in stark contrast to any of his earlier periods and makes for fascinating listening A/B-ed with "Praxis," another obscure solo piano recording, supposedly from 1968. Akisakila features unbelievable and unrelenting energy and inventiveness from a bare bones trio with Andrew Cyrille and Jimmy Lyons. Some of the most remarkable "free jazz" drumming in the history of the music. Spring of Two Blue J's is simply gorgeous.

1976

Dark Unto Themselves (sometimes erroneously called "Dark to Themselves," an error Inner City Records made that lingers) is absolutely ripping and features the buzzsaw drama of David S. Ware, ballsy trumpet from Raphe Malik, and the roiling and precise drumming of Marc Edwards. The composition is extraordinary as well, and meticulously arranged. Air Above Mountains (Buildings Within) is yet another revelation in the solo Taylor catalogue, somehow managing to be a flood-like onslaught of ideas yet minimalist.

1978

Two recordings spotlighting the landmark Unit of CT, one of the greatest groups in the history of jazz: Jimmy Lyons, Raphe Malik, Ramsey Ameen, Sirone and Ronald Shannon Jackson. The Cecil Taylor Unit is the New World Records counterpart to "3 Phasis," which is listed at Behearer. It's especially remarkable to follow the much more ballad-like swells and tidal shifts on this one. As for One Too Many Salty Swift and Not Goodbye, it is, quite simply, one of the all time great albums, regardless of style, time period, what have you. It's an epic, even in its edited three record original release, clocking in at more than 2 hours. The CD resissue includes some stunning solos and duets that were a prelude. I've owned this recording since it was released and have yet to absorb it. Every time I sit with it I hear new things.

1979

The Max Roach/Cecil Taylor duets from 1979 are *essential listening* for anyone and everyone. Hard to believe this recording is not on the list.

1980

It Is In The Brewing Luminous is a gorgeous set featuring both Sunny Murray and Jerome Cooper, with particularly stunning solos from Jimmy Lyons and a great, massive yet delicate overall swing.

1981

The Eighth, originally released as "Calling It The Eighth," in edited form, is especially worthy due to the constantly surprising and sensitive interplay of William Parker and Rashid Bakr.

1984

Winged Serpents/Sliding Quadrants...How could this not be on the list as a shoe in? Relatively brief excursions featuring Taylor's indelible mark as composer and arranger. Great ensemble playing. Burnin' solos. In some ways this is a distillation of everything Taylor had done to this point.

1986

Olu Iwa is a fascinating, layered recording. It marks yet another transition for Taylor into different territory. Check the personnel: Earl McIntyre, Peter Brotzmann, Frank Wright, Thurman Barker, William Parker, Steve McCall.

1990

A new chapter in Taylor's solo approach is represented by Double Holy House. His ritualized spoken word and percussion is dubbed over solo piano. The piano atmospheres are more spacious, more explicitly bluesy, gloriously percussive and rumbling with low notes.

Admittedly this is a lot of Taylor. But one could argue that the period from 1970-1990 was his most prolific, his most unrelenting and tenacious in the face of overwhelmingly depressing antithetical forces in America. Sad that almost all of these recordings were recorded or released in Europe. But maybe including more Taylor from 1970-1990 on Behearer is some slight way to remedy that.

Wrapping up this Taylor-like, epic post, I'm spinning "The Eighth." Jimmy Lyons! I had forgotten that the proceedings are launched by a Lyons solo. The fiery and sure backing of Parker and Bakr, and Taylor's earth-rattling dialogue with Lyons: simply not to be missed.