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!")

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.