ALTO 1
Kaoru Abe
Solo 1972
PSF : 1994

KA, alto sax.

Dear C,

No doubt you’ve heard how blisteringly hot it is here. The asphalt bubbles up from the streets and sticks to your soles. Our air conditioner blew a fuse, so we sweat it out in the apartment with fans aimed at our foreheads. There’s noise in the city, but lately it isn’t loud enough. There’s nothing that can match the insistent scorch of the thermometer. We’re slowly losing our minds, baby.

You remember that scene in Hal Hartley’s Simple Men? It’s about an hour into the movie and everything has been typically deadpan and soft-spoken. Then Martin Donovan’s character rushes into the frame, kicks his hat, and screams “I CAN’T STAND THE QUIET!!!” Cue the opening chords of “Kool Thing” and the characters begin a choreographed shimmy to that Sonic Youth nugget. You smartly pointed out the dance was pilfered from Godard’s Band of Outsiders. But originality be damned, that moment is exactly what we need right now.

It feels like even the web site has been too sedate lately. When not broken. We need a jolt of pure noise to shake things up. This morning, after a series of bracingly cold showers, we reached for our trusty Kaoru Abe records, looking for some face-melting saxophone fury that could temporarily erase the heat from our fevered minds. We picked a solo show from November 4th, 1972 — smack dab in the center of his prime fire-breathing years.

But damn if even Kaoru proved too quiet. The album’s first track finds him in an almost contemplative mood. It’s startlingly lovely and lucid, but he’s not trying to destroy the universe from the inside of his horn. He patiently builds to a section of piercing lyricism, then becomes a gonzo one-man marching band. Just when we’re ready to follow him into the streets, he shifts gears and offers some unabashed beauty.

But beauty is not what we need. We crave something so loud and immersive that it will obliterate our unpleasant surroundings. You once hipped us to that great riddle of a last line from Annie Dillard’s An American Childhood:  “In New Orleans — if you could get to New Orleans — would the music be loud enough?”

We now know the answer. It can never be loud enough. Kaoru Abe sounds like Ben Webster to our sadly unpopped ear drums. Please send suggestions for something terrifying that will destroy our hearing and what’s left of our fragile egg-shell minds.

Much love,
The boys from D:O

RELAY: DANCE #5
SOLO #8
Bill Dixon
Untitled
Edizioni Ferrari : 1982

Relay: BD, flugelhorn, trumpet, piano; David Carrier, trumpet; Ann Carrier, alto flute; Stephen Hornstein, bass clarinet; Chris Bishop, electric bass. Solo: BD, trumpet.

FOR CECIL TAYLOR
Bill Dixon
Verona Jazz
Nettle : 1996

BD, piano; Arthur Brooks, trumpet; Stephen Haynes, trumpet; Stephen Horenstein, tenor sax; Alan Silva, bass; Freddie Waits, drums.

WEBERN WORK STUDY (1973-74)
REQUIEM FOR BOOKER LITTLE (1975-76)
THE CLOISTERS (1973)
Bill Dixon
Odyssey
[self-released] : 2001

BD, trumpet.

With the death of Bill Dixon last month, the world lost an utterly distinctive voice. Adept at various settings — solo, small group, orchestral — Dixon presented the antithesis of “licks.” His was a music of surprise, of expressing a personal sound. Unafraid of silence, or unconventional sonics — and seemingly allergic to cliche  — he created a body of work that offers the patient and open-eared listener unparalleled joy and depth of feeling. Though Dixon could be the sort of musician who starts arguments, we believe the often strong reactions to his playing grew out of his unique approach to his instrument; it was very hard not to have an opinion. We come down alongside Dixon’s colleague and student Stephen Haynes: “Dixon was the next technical extension of the trumpet after Dizzy Gillespie.”

For Dixon fans, we’ve got some genuine rarities from his deep catalog that we’re pleased to share. But these tracks aren’t just for the heads – they serve as fine introductions to the range and breadth of Dixon’s work.

Probably the rarest item in Dixon’s oeuvre is the untitled LP issued by the Ferrari Gallery in 1982, in conjunction with an exhibition of Dixon’s visual art. Only 400 copies of this gem were ever pressed. In place of a proper cover, the record came with a print of one of Dixon’s pieces from the show. See below:

All the material on this album dates from the early 1970s and includes some of Dixon’s most fascinating compositions and performances. “Relay: Dance #5” is from a full length dance-music collaboration performed at Bennington by Dixon and the Judith Dunn Company of Musicians and Dancers in 1970. This short and meditative section moves through several changes, teasing out a delicate wisp of melody against an increasingly insistent piano. It’s nothing short of sublime and features the rare audio spectacle of Dixon dueting with himself in real time.

The track was composed in an inventive fashion: Dixon’s multi-tracked trumpet and piano parts were pre-recorded and further music was created live by the ensemble during the dance performances. “I did that because I didn’t have that many musicians,” Dixon said. “I didn’t use the tape to be cute but because I wanted that many layers.”

The stunning “Solo #8” comes from a January 1973 concert at Bennington. This bravura seven minute performance highlights a range of his approaches to the trumpet, exploring buzzing and breathy runs, echoing overtones, guttural ellipses, ghostly moans, and splattering cries. But the real draw here is the piercing emotional tone that unites the piece as it builds to a memorable crescendo. (Hardcore fans should note that parts of this same concert were also used in Considerations 1.)

This 1980 live version of “For Cecil Taylor” comes from a rare compact disc of exclusive live performances from the 15th annual Verona Jazz Festival. It was issued in 1996 as part of the Italian music magazine Musica Jazz. While Dixon was justifiably best known for his remarkable horn work, his piano playing has yet to be given its due. This churningly hypnotic tune focuses on his keyboard work, which moves from confidentially minimalist to lyrically exploratory. It’s also a showcase for his compositional chops and leadership. Note how the horns, bass, and percussion play an even greater role in evoking Cecil Taylor’s music than the piano. Dixon must have been in a reflective mood about the jazz masters that night, since he dedicated the entire performance to Miles Davis.

These rare items come from the collection of George Scala, who generously shared them with us – and you. George maintains a valuable, multi-artist free jazz discography that’s well worth checking out. You’ll be hearing more from his archive at D:O in the near future.

Thanks are due, too, to Clifford Allen, who kindly supplied us with the tracks above from Dixon’s self-released solo opus, Odyssey. Here we have unadulterated Dixon, revealing various facets of his playing and thinking. There’s Dixon the melodist and Keeper-of-the-Flame (“Requiem for Booker Little”); Dixon the sound sculptor, working with decay, space, echo (“Webern Work Study”); and Dixon the creator of incantations, breaking down distinctions between “music” and “not music” (“The Cloisters”).

For more on Dixon’s life and work, we highly recommend taking the time to visit the following:
–Taylor Ho Bynum on Dixon, over at Darcy James Argue’s place.
–Stephen Haynes on Dixon, with a great photo, too. More from Haynes also at NewMusicBox.
–Ben Young, with the official obituary.
–NPR’s Lars Gotrich on Dixon and his effect on young ears.
–Clifford Allen with a deep, personal remembrance.
–Bill Dixon’s Facebook page has been filling up with anecdotes and encomiums, including this great one from longtime Dixon collaborator Stephen Horenstein.
–Previous D:O posts on Dixon here.

Thanks also to Ben Young ’s invaluable Dixonia, which helped clarify many of the details in this post. Bill Dixon, RIP.

ENCORE
Fred Anderson & Muhal Richard Abrams
Live in Verona
Sala della Guardia : 1979

FA, tenor sax; MRA, piano.

Fred Anderson, RIP.

We can’t quite muster the words to do Fred Anderson justice, so let this exceptional live track featuring him and Muhal Richard Abrams serve as our aural epitaph, for now. Thanks to Hank Shteamer for the tip. This is an especially appropriate cut given Abrams’ deeply-felt musical tribute to Anderson mere hours after his death. More on that in a moment.

Not to turn this place into a mausoleum, but we’ve also been busy preparing a special Bill Dixon tribute that will include some uber-rare and fantastically wonderful deep cuts from his oeuvre. Stay tuned for that next week.

Of course it hasn’t been all death and gloom around these parts. Over the last week, we attended a number of inspiring shows at Vision Festival XV in NYC. The specter of mortality sometimes haunted the shows, but the musicians transformed that heavy vibe into stirring and defiant art. Maybe next year we’ll live blog the festival like it’s the Oscars, but for now here are some after-the-fact impressions:

Muhal Richard Abrams – solo piano
The show starts with the somber announcement that Fred Anderson died several hours previous. Fuck. He was scheduled to play right after Muhal, so the fog of this sad news hangs especially thick. Muhal dedicates his piece to Fred’s memory and begins playing a few funeral bass notes, coming back to them over and over. It sounds like the low end of the piano is mic’d for extra resonance because the bass reverberates deeply through the space.

The hour-long performance may be largely improvised but it feels like a suite, lucidly moving from section to section, building from brooding primal minimalism to athletic note flurries that recall Cecil Taylor to astonishingly delicate lyricism. The predominant tone is a stern romantic grandeur reminiscent of late Beethoven. It ends with Muhal pounding his palms against the keyboard and letting the discordant echo slowly die out.

This was clearly a Major Achievement. It’s appropriate Abrams received a Lifetime award afterward because he poured a career’s worth of ideas, emotions, and techniques into this one piece. We’re tempted to inflate dead words like “monumental” with some sort of genuine meaning to try and describe the effect. Feel free to tell us that there were better performances at the festival, but we won’t believe you.

Lifetime Trio featuring Joseph Jarman
The Lifetime trio offers concise songs with a bright melodic feel. With the lilting acoustic guitar, it almost comes across as lite avant jazz. Then Jarman starts to sing a series of platitudinous lyrics – bad news.  When he plays the sax or flute, everything is fine. When saxophonist John Tchicai joins the band for the last few pieces, things get even better.

Muhal Richard Abrams Trio
With nothing left to prove, Muhal lays back and initially only peppers the music with brief runs of notes. At first it’s forbiddingly abstract and diffuse. With no drums, time feels especially elastic. Bassist Harrison Bankhead is excellent but tends to play five notes where one might do. Saxophonist Ari Brown is accomplished but his tone is a bit faceless. By the end though, their individual textures have been seamlessly woven into a roiling and mesmerizing mesh of sound.

Billy Bang’s Spirit of Sir One
Begins with a special award and the announcement that Billy Bang is seriously ill with lung cancer. Fuck. His large ensemble piece is dedicated to the memory of Sirone (“Sir One”) and features two bassists.The first number is a shimmering and through composed tone-poem that’s the title track off Bang’s upcoming album. Meditative and lovely. The second piece gives the group plenty of solo space but there’s no fireworks until Bang picks up his violin and unleashes a frenetic and slashing solo that’s so emotional it renders everyone in the room temporarily mute. Worth the price of admission by itself.

David S. Ware Trio
David S. Ware is seated because he’s suffering from complications due to his recent kidney transplant. Fuck. But while his body may be in pain, the saxophonist has lifted to his playing to yet another level. He opens with an uninterrupted blast of sound that lasts five minutes, circular-breathing his way through the changes. Some editing may have lent more punch to the show, but the performance also brings to mind Coltrane’s reply when asked why he played so long: “Because that’s how much I had to say.” Overall, it’s s a powerhouse performance. The new album this fall should be something.

Peace Out Trio featuring Dave Burrell
Bassist William Parker and drummer Hamid Drake are typically stellar, but the star is pianist Dave Burrell. He plays like he’s on laughing gas. His jubilantly unhinged runs of notes are breathtaking in their madcap logic. You have no idea where he’s going next. Rhythmic grooves? Atonal cluster bombs? One-finger minimalism? Simmering melodies? Frantically playing with his forearms? That’s just the first five minutes. And all without devolving into pastiche. Burrell’s recent albums have been good, but nothing as thrilling as this.

Burrell’s performance reminds us of Marc Ribot’s wildest guitar solos, the ones where he finds ways to make the so-called wrong notes sound so right. Burrell often plays atonally, but in rhythm. He threatens to derail the performance at every turn and swerve the entire trio into a ditch, but he never does. He’s not just reckless, he’s authoritatively reckless.

His playing is so unfettered and anarchic (not to mention masterful) that he sounds more youthful and adventurous than many young pianists on the scene today. The kids should be taking notes.

The Stone Quartet
Diffuse and muscular in all the right places. The band keeps switching roles, erasing the line between soloing and supporting, texture and melody. Trumpeter Roy Campbell can occasionally get too pyrotechnic for our tastes, but here he’s the ideal catalyst whenever pianist Marilyn Crispell, bassist Joelle Leandre, and violinst Matt Maneri threaten to get overly bogged down on the microtonal tip.

Touch the Earth II, featuring Wadada Leo Smith and Gunter “Baby” Sommer
One of the festival highlights. We know to expect Wadada’s exceptionally clear and piercing trumpet tone to be powerful, but his split-second reflexes and melodic inventions are equally dazzling. Gunter Sommer is from the same full-body and kitchen sink school of drumming as Hann Bennick, but he’s also not afraid to be simple, teasing out steady grooves  and comfortable with silence. This telekinetic performance delivers whimsy, wonder, and sheer beauty with a sense of dramatic tension that keeps the audience rapt.

People Places & Things
Mike Reed’s quartet is impressively tight. While their expertly played head-sol0-head format is a nice change of pace, it also seems strangely retrograde after the complex interplay of The Stone Quartet and Touch the Earth II. The best parts here feature the two saxophonists playing in tandem to concoct sizzling melodic lines. Special note to musicians: Bass solos are killing jazz.

Supporting the Music
Attendance at Vision seemed significantly lower than in years past. The Abrams Playhouse stage had great acoustics, most of the bills offered excellent values, and the festival ran like clockwork. So it was sobering to see giants like Wadada Leo Smith playing to crowds that could have fit in The Stone. It was nice to see so many familiar faces, but maybe jazz fans need to start taking their friends and colleagues to shows like these. In the midst of this summer of death, it’s more important than ever not to take these musical opportunities  for granted.

***

What were your Vision Festival highlights? Or highlights of any recent jazz shows you’ve attended?

What are some of your favorite Fred Anderson tracks?

UNKNOWN
Muhal Richard Abrams
Tin Palace, NYC
1976.07.18

MRA, piano; Anthony Braxton, alto sax; George Lewis, trombone; Fred Hopkins, bass; Steve McCall, drums.

ARHYTHM SONGY
Muhal Richard Abrams
1-Oqa+19
Black Saint : 1977

MRA, piano; Anthony Braxton, alto sax; Leonard Jones, bass.

PANORAMA
Muhal Richard Abrams & Malachi Favors
Sightsong
Black Saint : 1975

MRA, piano.

MUHAL RICHARD ABRAMS: A LIFETIME OF VISION

With the recent sad loss of trumpet titan Bill Dixon, it is once again time to cue up another rendition of “gather ye rosebuds” and celebrate the musical giants that still walk amongst us. This year’s Vision Festival, starting next week, does just this, honoring Muhal Richard Abrams with their Lifetime Achievement Award on Thursday, June 24th. We cannot think of a more worthy recipient.

Abrams is perennially under-recognized. A teacher, educator, organizer, composer, bandleader, and pianist of the highest order, not to mention one of the co-founders and guiding lights of the AACM during its five-decade run, Abrams has maintained a criminally low profile over the course of his entire career.

Emblematic anecdote from the intro to George Lewis’ AACM history: Lewis proposes a biography of Abrams; he demurs, and suggests instead the need for a book on the AACM as a whole. So to some extent the low profile is perhaps desired by this artist. When the jazz blog conversation kicked up about four years ago with an Ethan Iverson-spurred conversation about overlooked Post-1973 Jazz, one of our two contributions to the exchange was Abrams. He was overlooked (it seemed to us) even then!

To both honor Abrams in our own small way, and draw attention to this year’s Vision Fest — which, we can say with absolutely no hyperbole, presents their greatest lineup yet — we are happy to showcase Abrams leading a couple of small groups taking on his own compositions, plus a beautiful solo outing.

The first is an admittedly rough-sounding boot from a 1976 show featuring an all-star line-up. This gig took place at the Tin Palace, one of the essential spaces booking progressive, adventurous jazz in the mid-Seventies. (Stanley Crouch took over Tin Palace bookings in 1977.) Though the unison passages are tough to make out, the soloists are given a lot of space, and the sonics improve. What it lacks in fidelity it more than makes up for it in immediacy and warmth.

The next two are drawn from Abrams’ great run of albums for Black Saint in the 1970s and 80s. While we are more familiar with his large group recordings of this period, which tend to highlight Abrams the composer and arranger more than player, we thought it fitting to showcase his ample talents with some small group performances.  Brian Olewnick turned us on to the joys of Sightsong several years ago. The disc also features a solo turn by Favors, and on most tracks they play together. “Panorama,” though, finds Abrams, alone, in a notably lyrical mood. “Arhythm Songy” is culled from a curious album of the same period, featuring a crackerjack band that includes Henry Threadgill and McCall in addition to the personnel above. For this trio exploration, a winding theme opens up to some great counterpoint and striking simultaneous soloing from Braxton and Muhal.

VISION FESTIVAL XV
For those in New York City in the next two weeks, there’s an embarrassment of riches at this year’s Vision Festival. Click above for the full schedule.

You can’t go too wrong, but we especially recommend the show on Thursday, June 24, which features Muhal performing solo and with his trio. Joseph Jarman performs that night as well.

On Sunday, June 27th, there’s the David S. Ware trio, Billy Bang, and Dave Burrell. Monday, June 28th, includes The Stone Quartet with Marilyn Crispell, Matt Maneri, Joelle Leandre, and Roy Campbell, plus Wadada Leo Smith, Mike Reed’s People Places & Things, and Joe Morris. And this Monday, the 21st, these folks (and more!) will grace The Local 269 stage: Jason Kao Hwang, Darius Jones, Adam Lane, Tim Berne, Nate Wooley, and Mary Halvorson.

We’ll be at at least three of these nights for sure. If you make the scene, be sure to say hello! (Just yell “Jeff” into the crowd and there’s a decent chance one of us will turn around).

MORE MUHAL READING:

—-Jason Moran picks his dozen essential Abrams tracks here

—-A fine interview with Muhal here

Special thanks to Ethan Iverson for help with this post.

* * * * *
What are your favorite Muhal performances?

SAM’S FLOAT
Dave Liebman
Lookout Farm
ECM : 1974

DL, soprano and tenor saxes, flute; John Abercrombie, electric and acoustic guitars; Richard Beirach, electric and acoustic pianos; Eleana Sternberg, vocals; Frank Tusa, bass; Badal Roy, tablas; Don Alias, congas  and bongos; Armen Halburian, percussion; Steve Sattan, tambourine, cowbell; Jeff Williams, drums.

THE SUBJECTIVE FACTS:
“Sam’s Float” is mesmerizing jazz fusion that splits the difference between the visionary electric music of Miles Davis and more commercial instincts of groups like Weather Report. It’s a model of ensemble playing – the wordless vocals, Indian percussion, and guitar riffs meshing perfectly with the sturdy groove and Liebman’s chirpy-but-incisive playing. As a whole, Lookout Farm remains the high-water mark of Dave Liebman‘s career as a leader.

BACK TO THE LAND:
The facts will only get you so far. More interesting are the associations evoked by the music itself. The utopian vibe suggests that Liebman may have formed his new ensemble under the heady influence of the early 1970s movements of communal living and sustainable agriculture. You might also detect the subliminal influence of Richard Brautigan‘s whimsical fiction, particularly his surreal fable In Watermelon Sugar. Imagine the band removing themselves for a two-month residency to a farmhouse in the woods of New Hampshire, developing their sound in harmony with the surrounding fields.

BUT STILL PLUGGED IN:
But it wasn’t quite as rustic that suggests. The barn complex was rigged with various large amps and speakers, plus wired to allow the electric instruments to be cranked up to maximum volume. During the early practices, the locals claimed they could feel the tree roots shaking. One observer remarked: “It’s like Nature – but louder.”

LOOKING AHEAD:
There’s a earthy quality to the tunes that are prescient of back-to-the-land movies like Winstanley, the overlooked British classic about The Diggers, an English group who tried to overturn notions of private property and reclaim the common soil for the benefit of everyone. It didn’t end well for The Diggers, nor for the Lookout Farm band, which wasn’t able to capitalize on the artistic success of this album. But it was a shining moment nonetheless.

ODE TO A FAVORITE WATERING HOLE:
“Sam’s Float” – a small lake on the adjacent property that was favored by the band and the golden retriever who adopted them that summer. The tune suggests the dog was experiencing a sort of satori moment while soaking his matted fur in the cool water.

VISIT LOOKOUT FARM!
Why not take a jazz field trip to the actual historic location, one of America’s oldest active farms. Bring the kids!

YOU WANT IT, YOU GOT IT:
Inexplicably never released on CD by ECM, the rest of Lookout Farm (and them some) is currently available as part of the Mosaic Select: Dave Liebman and Richie Beirach box set.

As for the rest of the material on that Mosaic set and other lost Liebman gems, you tell us!

SOUNDWAYS, PART TWO (Edit)
Marion Brown/Elliott Schwartz
Soundways
Century : 1973

MB, alto sax, clarinet, piano, percussion, little instruments; ES, Arp synthesizer, piano, percussion, little instruments.

In this corner! A saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist weighing in at trim 150 pounds, featuring a tone that can slice through tin can lids, and a lyricism that can make grown men weep like willows…wearing the withering stare…Marion Brown!

And in the far corner! A New England professor armed with an old school synthesizer and who knows what else…wearing the hornrims, attenuators, and bolts of tweed…Elliott Schwartz and his ARP!

From this rare album — recorded live at Bowdoin College in 1973, where Schwartz was then teaching — here is the first ten minutes of side two. The whole album is one continuous, near-forty minute performance, later repackaged as part of Duets on Arista/Freedom. Exploratory in tone, it showcases Brown’s ability to maintain his innate melodicism regardless of whatever is thrown at him by Schwartz. Not to mention Brown’s facility on a range of instruments.

Parts of this piece are reminiscent of Human Music, Don Cherry’s 1970 computer-jazz collision with Jon Appleton. Soundways, though, is far less academic (despite the setting) and more exciting than its predecessor. It combines the playful, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink vibe of early Art Ensemble, with the probing sonic experimentalism of Anthony Braxton’s duets with Richard Teitelbaum. A bit of an outlier in the Marion Brown discography, but a fascinating one — and a little Marion Brown is always worth exploring. That Schwartz was just awarded an honorary degree while Brown is seldom celebrated, and large chunks of his oeuvre languish, inaccessible, is a dichotomy we’ll leave for others to examine further.

What are your favorite computer music collisions? Jazz or otherwise.

TRIUMPH OF THE OUTCASTS, COMING
TEMPLE AT DENDERA
Steve Colson & The Unity Troupe
Triumph!
Silver Sphinx : 1980

SC, piano and voice; Iqua Colson, voice; Wallace McMillan, tenor sax; Reggie Willis, bass; Dushun Mosley, percussion.

THOUGHT FROM DUKE
The Colson Unity Troupe
No Reservation
Black Saint : 1980

SC, piano; Iqua Colson, voice; Wallace LaRoy McMillan, soprano sax; Reggie Willis, bass; Dushun Mosley, percussion.

PARALLEL UNIVERSE
Steve Colson
The Untarnished Dream
Silver Sphinx : 2010

SC, piano; Reggie Workman, bass; Andrew Cyrille, drums.

The AACM has spawned a host of brilliant jazz musicians including Henry Threadgill, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Anthony Braxton, and Wadada Leo Smith. The organization’s moniker is virtually shorthand for quality music that’s conceptually rigorous, steeped in musical tradition, forward-thinking, and freewheeling. There are many fine musicians associated with the AACM who still haven’t received their due. At the top of that list is the husband and wife team of Steve and Iqua Colson.

That’s starting to change. Soul Jazz recently selected their cult classic Triumph! to appear in the coffee table book of avant jazz album covers Freedom Rhythm & Sound. They included the track “Lateen” on the accompanying comp and plan to reissue the entire album later this year. The Colsons recently released a new album, The Untarnished Dream,  which has been receiving rave reviews.

We’re pleased to offer a mini-retrospective of the Colsons’ work that spans a wonderfully wiggy ensemble piece spiked with vocals (“Triumph of the Outcasts”), beautifully knotty solo piano (“Temple at Dendera”), a more straight-ahead tribute that showcases vocals (“Thought for Duke”), and a richly abstract song that highlights compositional acumen and instrumental interactions (“Parallel Universe”).

The Colsons were also gracious enough to answer some questions for us, providing more insight into their musical inspirations and future plans.

ON INSPIRATION FOR THEIR ALBUMS :
Adegoke Steve Colson:
Our recorded music is meant to give a sampling of our repertoire, so we try to offer a wide range of our material. But we play with some wonderful musicians and they are inspirational themselves, so sometimes we are influenced by the players. In terms of this latest CD, Reggie Workman and Andrew Cyrille have been influential and inspirational, and they definitely caused us to consider our musical choices for this project.

Iqua Colson:
We have written tributes to individuals or dedicated to people who have influenced us personally, i.e., “Thought from Duke” (Ellington and Muhal) and  “Teachers/World Heroes” for Steve’s  early piano teacher Henry Smith. There is no shortage of ideas. The music ranges from free to song form  – collaborative improvisation based on traditional and non traditional notation -  to pieces where the head- solo format works for us – but it is always our creative expression of what we hear or want to explore.

ON MUSICAL TRADITIONS:
Ade:
We have both listened to lots of music of all types: choral music, instrumental, opera, modern, etc. In addition to artists like Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, or Sarah Vaughan, we studied Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Bartok, Hindemith, Nathaniel Dett, and others of that stature. Blues, Gospel, R&B, Rock, Broadway Musicals, Pop, you name it. In addition to Andrew and Reggie we have also been fortunate to know and work with musicians such as members of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Steve McCall, Muhal Richard Abrams, George Lewis, Max Roach, Henry  Threadgill, Leroy Jenkins, Hannibal Marvin Peterson, Amina Meyers, Leo Smith, and others who have always been advanced conceptually and have incorporated music from various cultures into their own compositions and performances. These experiences have given us tons of ideas about music and have helped us to draw from many traditions.

ON THE RELATIONSHIP WITH SOUL JAZZ:
Iqua:
You never really know where the work will lead – you just do your work – your music. We did our first album on our label Silver Sphinx in 1980. Fall 2008 we learned it was selling on eBay for $200-$300 – and we still had a few in or possession. Then in summer 2009 Soul Jazz Records out of London approached us about including the album cover in their coffee table book Freedom Rhythm & Sound and including us in a CD and vinyl compilation with the same name. Now they will reissue the entire album. This 30 year old recording took on its own revival and being a part of the book and compilation puts us in the company with many creative artists with similar artistic values.

ON UPCOMING PROJECTS:
Iqua:
Our sons are grown and living their lives so we are back to having the focus primarily on our own short- and long-term projects day to day. We’d like to do more work with Steve’s orchestra. So far that has been the collaboration with writers Amiri Baraka and Richard Wesley that is in tribute to Dr. King entitled “…as in a Cultural Reminiscence…” and the all star orchestra that presented  “Greens, Rice and a Rope” as a part of New Music America. That work included. We did a concert in NYC years ago featuring an octet – Eighth Tone Dimology -  that people are still talking about so we are looking into releasing some of the music from that date.

Ade:
There are a number of artists who we’d like to work with within and outside of the AACM – we’re planning to build on a great concert we did in Chicago at Fred Anderson’s Velvet Lounge with long-time Chicago compatriots Dushun Mosley and Ernest Khabeer Dawkins. We’ve started thinking about the next CD too: that project is already underway and will be more of a feature for Iqua; we have several of the pieces right now. We are also collaborating with a couple of great writers and visual artists on potential projects, and have traded some ideas with David Murray who I worked with regularly 20 years ago. So the work continues.

+ + + + + + +

For more on the Colsons’ history with the AACM, do consult George E. Lewis’ magisterial history of the organization, A Power Stronger than Itself. And finally, why not treat yourself to a download of No Reservation, now at Amazon for less than $5.00.

ASTRO
PROPHESY
Walt Dickerson and Sun Ra
Visions
Steeplechase : 1979

WD, vibes; SR, piano.

Everybody knows it’s foolhardy to try and describe visions. The stronger their impact, the more likely you’ll be reduced to wild gesticulations and sputtering nonsense. Walt Dickerson and Sun Ra’s duo album Visions had that affect on us, its sublime beauty leaving us wide-eyed and gob-smacked. So rather than any bogus critical rundown, here’s a list of some talking points. Discuss amongst yourselves.

—This is the second match-up of Dickerson and Ra. Their first meeting was on Dickerson’s excellent Impressions of a Patch of Blue (MGM, 1966).  Ra plays harpsichord, adding his unusual textures to the efforts of bassist Bob Cunningham and sometime Ra drummer Roger Blank.

—Ra very infrequently performed as a sideman for anyone. But two of those rare appearances were with Dickerson.

—Check out Hank Shteamer’s invaluable interview with Walt Dickerson for more details about this and other sessions.

—It includes insights from Dickerson like this:  “Philosophically we had nothing in common [laughs], strangely enough; that’s why I enjoyed his company. Sun Ra was a teacher, and sometimes teachers need to be fed other than what they teach; that’s where I came in. That’s why I used Sun Ra on several of my recordings. He did a marvelous job; I wanted that difference; I wanted that uniqueness that he brought to the table.”

—We’re not normally the biggest fans of the vibes, but what Dickerson does moves the instrument away from overly smoov and swoony atmospherics and jazzy licks, and toward a precise and utterly original articulation of his thematic, er, vision.

—Is it just us, or is there a meditative quality to Dickerson’s playing? A sort of zen fervor? The way he gets the overtones to ring and resonate, the way he makes you conscious of shaping the space between notes…

—This was recorded about the same time as Ra’s excellent solo piano releases Solo Piano and St. Louis Blues. We hear some similarities in his thinking and attack.

—”Prophesy” [sic?] is a bonus track that wasn’t included on the original LP release.

—We admit to being late to discovering the pleasures of Walt Dickerson’s music. What are some of your favorites from his slim-but-potent catalog?

While we were concocting this post, we were under the mistaken impression this album was completely out of print. Turns out you can buy a copy direct from Steeplechase. If you dug the tracks we posted, the rest of the album is equally transcendent. Get your copy here, forthwith.

AGNEWISTIC
AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL?
The Richard Davis Trio
Song for Wounded Knee
Flying Dutchman: 1973

RD, bass; Joe Beck, guitar; Jack DeJohnette, drums (on “Agnewistic” only).

We’re thrilled to offer a guest post from the esteemed Hank Shteamer, featuring excerpts from his recent interview with the great Richard Davis. Without further ado, take it away Hank….

Bass master Richard Davis turned 80 on April 15th, 2010. In celebration, my friend Russell Baker (a jazz expert as well as an outstanding trumpeter) and I are preparing a lengthy tribute program, which will air this coming Sunday, May 9, from 2pm to 7pm on WKCR, 89.9 FM, New York. You can tune in online here. We’ll survey Davis’s entire body of work and play excerpts from a telephone interview I conducted with him on April 25th, during which he discussed his collaborations with Booker Little, Bruce Springsteen, and Igor Stravinsky, among many other career highlights. NYC readers, take heed: Davis makes a rare East Coast appearance at Symphony Space on June 11 as part of Lisle Atkinson’s Neo Bass Ensemble.

Richard Davis recalls Song for Wounded Knee
Excerpt from interview with Hank Shteamer: April 25th, 2010

The vast Richard Davis discography contains at least two towering, genre-transcending classics—Eric Dolphy’s Out to Lunch! and Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks—and quite a few more acknowledged masterpieces, from Andrew Hill’s Point of Departure to Janis Ian’s Between the Lines. It also contains many fascinating curio pieces, largely forgotten records marked by inspired idiosyncrasy. If you’re a Davis fan looking to dig below the surface, I’d highly recommend checking out Cauldron, a passionate 1979 free-improv duo with multi-instrumentalist L. D. Levy issued on the Milwaukee micro-label Corvo Records, and The Philosophy of the Spiritual, a stately and mystical 1971 Davis-led outing featuring guitarist Sam Brown and fellow bassist Bill Lee.

As eccentric as those records are, the most unusual Davis date of them all might be Song for Wounded Knee, a trio session with guitarist Joe Beck (a veteran of Miles’s proto-fusion experiments such as “Circle in the Round”) and drummer Jack DeJohnette issued on Bob Thiele’s Flying Dutchman label in 1973. The music itself is almost totally spontaneous, frequently gripping and completely devoid of free-jazz cliché, sometimes verging on post-Captain Beefheart avant-rock and queasy free blues, as you can hear on “Agnewistic” above. What really makes the album unique, though, is its highly politicized presentation, evidenced by the title’s allusion to the Wounded Knee Incident and track names such as “The Rise and Fall of Tricky Dick.”

These days Davis, an esteemed professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is as much a social activist as a musician, heading up both the Institute for the Healing of Racism and the Retention Action Project, among other similar initiatives. But as he admitted to me in our interview, when he entered the studio with Beck and DeJohnette back in ’73, he wasn’t yet aware of what Wounded Knee referred to. It’s not clear what Beck—who passed away in 2008—and DeJohnette knew of the Native American tragedy at the time, yet we can confirm that the album’s protest-music slant didn’t stem from them either.

As it turns out, the whole thing was Thiele’s idea. In the liner notes, the producer, already famous for his work at Impulse, breaks it down for Nat Hentoff:

I’m not, by temperament, the kind of person who marches in the street with a picket sign; but I do express my beliefs through many of my recordings—recordings which are, in a way, newspapers that keep on living.

This level of producer involvement in a record’s presentation couldn’t seem more foreign today. Listeners are well-acquainted with the idea of a producer leaving a sonic fingerprint—I’d bet that most readers of this blog could instantly conjure the sound of a Phil Spector or Bill Laswell production—but a political statement is something else entirely. Such a gesture couldn’t help but create an odd sort of tension: Davis’s name appeared on the record and he and the other musicians shared composer credit, yet the agitprop presentation was all Thiele’s. (Flying Dutchman had already issued several similarly pitched LPs, including journalist Pete Hamill’s Massacre at My Lai.) This circumstance serves as a reminder that recording dates in the classic sense were collaborations not just among musicians, but between artists and executives.

Fortunately, as Davis explains in the above excerpt from our interview, he was fully on board with Thiele’s ideology:

I was bowing the melody to “America the Beautiful”… and I made every note a wrong note on purpose… I was in a way attempting to say how unbeautiful or nonbeautiful America is.

The resulting performance (slyly titled “America the Beautiful?”) is as pure an artistic document of Vietnam-era malaise as you’re likely to find. Moreover, it demonstrates that Davis’s skills as an improviser extend far beyond the realm of music. Instead of handing Davis a score or a repertoire, Thiele furnished him with a concept, and the bassist ran with it. The scenario augments the already open-and-shut case for Davis as a consummate collaborator: Not only has he performed winningly in a huge array of styles—he’s also perfected the art of translating ideas into sound.

DUNIA
BARAKA
Kawaida
Kawaida
O’Be Records : 1969

Albert “Tootie” Heath, drums; Don Cherry, trumpet; Jimmy Heath, tenor sax; Herbie Hancock, piano; Buster Williams, bass; Ed Blackwell, percussion; Mtume, congas.

A FLOWER IS A LOVESOME THING
GOOD BAIT
Ethan Iverson : Ben Street : Albert “Tootie” Heath
Live at Smalls
Smalls Live : 2010

EI, piano; BS, bass; ATH, drums.

We are once again overjoyed to present a guest post from Ethan Iverson, this time on the occasion of (1) the release of his live trio album with Tootie Heath and Ben Street, and (2) this week’s Village Vanguard hit by the Heath brothers. It is a journey through time and space and sound, and marks what we are fairly certain is the first time a Tadd Dameron tune has graced D:O! Please enjoy the tunes and the talk — take it away, Ethan…

& & &

The economic reality for independent artists living in New York gets more appalling every day. Yet it remains the best place in the world to live if you want to be around a great concentration of older jazz musicians. I always tell younger players, “Go see the masters live as much as you can, and then, if you’re ready, start hiring them as soon as you can.”

But not all of the masters live in New York. Drummer Albert “Tootie” Heath, the youngest brother of a fecund Philadelphia jazz family that also produced saxophonist Jimmy and bassist Percy, transplanted happily to California in the early 1970’s. Whenever he shows up, it’s an event, just like with Charles McPherson or Bunky Green or Evan Parker or the Fringe or anybody else not normally residing in NYC.

Tootie will be at the Village Vanguard this coming week with Jimmy and the rest of the Heath Brothers group. It’s the perfect room for the Tootie Heath experience.  The last time I saw him there he was not only swinging his ass off but also outfitted in sunglasses, bespoke suit and natty bow tie. I told him, “Man, you look good!” He turned and checked it out in the bar mirror. “I sure do!” he replied.

Tootie’s first record date was in 1957 with Nina Simone. (I’ll give you a second to digest that.) Since then, he’s been on all sorts of gigs and sessions with many of the greatest names in the music. While most of his recorded output is in a swinging, straight-ahead style, he’s always been interested in other music, too, ranging from Herbie Hancock’s funky grooves on Fat Albert Rotunda to Roscoe Mitchell’s experimental quartet with Jodie Christian and Malachi Favors.

His debut record as a leader included early examples of one of Destination:  OUT’s favorite genres, kosmigroov.  Kawaida is the 1969 meeting of the Hancock rhythm section (with Buster Williams), his family (Jimmy Heath and Jimmy’s son Mtume), and the Ornette Coleman quartet (represented by Don Cherry and Ed Blackwell).

Kawaida is a good place to start if you want to hear how wonderfully Tootie plays graceful funk, but overall the record defers to his nephew, the future Miles Davis percussionist and successful bandleader. For Kawaida, Mtume brought in most of the compositions. He also belonged to the US Organization and studied the teachings of Maulana Karenga, so everyone present (except Blackwell) takes a Swahilli name, apparently given by Mtume:

Kuaamba Tootie Heath
Mwandishi Herbie Hancock
Tayari Jimmy Heath
Mchezaji Buster Williams
Msafari Don Cherry
Fundi Billy Bonner  (Bonner plays flute/perc, on “Kawaida” only)

Hancock continued this concept in his next band: he called the band Mwandishi and each member of the sextet got a Swahili name, too.

As far as I know, none of these musicians kept the Swahili name in regular use after the mid-’70s. (“Jabali” has stayed around for Billy Hart a bit, but that’s because it’s such a great-sounding name.) But I think all these men like hearing that name again once in a while. It’s certainly interesting and important to remember how affected they were by the era.

For me, Kawaida is more of a period piece than an essential listen. However, Don Cherry sounds so good on it that I will definitely keep it in occasional rotation. Whenever he appears, every phrase of Don Cherry is a burst of surreal sunlight. It’s fabulous to hear him instantly reframe this material into something less obvious, a quality especially evident on “Baraka.” (This references the poet Amiri Baraka, who wrote the liner notes and takes Imamu for a Swahili name.)

Cherry proudly leads the charge on the fanfare “Dunia,” which may be the only extant track of Jimmy Heath playing in a completely free-form context. This is Tootie’s own tune (and the only one on Kawaida not by Mtume). “Dunia” is heard again on Tootie’s next album, Kwaanza from 1974, but this time it sounds more like hard bop.

—

Of all the interviews I’ve done for my personal blog, Do The Math, the conversation with Tootie Heath is one of my favorites. Click over to the interview if you want to read more about Kawaida, Ornette Coleman, and stories of the jazz life.

For better or worse, that kind of jazz life is mostly gone at this point. When Tootie began his career in Philadelphia, the music was an everyday affair. There were enough small clubs everywhere that if you knew the common-practice repertoire, you could work. Maybe the audience paid attention, maybe they didn’t, but either way, the musicians could try to get better every night.

Today it’s not really like that in Philly or anyplace else, although at least Philly has Ortlieb’s. New York City has the most (albeit upscale) versions of venues where the “serious tradition of jazz as casual club music” can happen. My favorite is Smalls, an intimate basement that feels like the real deal. A spring 2009 Smalls gig with Tootie and Ben Street was the best “everyday affair” jazz I’d yet been a part of, so I immediately planned a fall recording. I’m indebted to pianist and Smalls proprietor Spike Wilner for his support of this project: He gave us three full nights to mess around and not try too hard.

Ben suggested some Billy Strayhorn music, a composer whom I love but hardly ever play. There was no rehearsal for this gig, but via email Ben and I agreed that The Peaceful Side of Billy Strayhorn (Strayhorn’s only record as a leader) would supply the harmonic basis for our versions of “Chelsea Bridge” and “A Flower Is a Lovesome Thing.”

However, the way I first learned about “Flower” was not through a Duke Ellington or Strayhorn record, but from the Steve Lacy/Mal Waldron album Sempre Amore. (I recently blogged extensively about Mal Waldron, including how he’s a major influence on this record.) After listening to Strayhorn’s own romantic version with violins, I wondered about discarding a steady tempo. Ben agreed to try, so I asked Tootie right before the gig:

“Oh, do you mind playing ‘A Flower is a Lovesome Thing’ rubato?”

“I’d love it. That’s how Frank Morgan played it, too.” (So much for having a new idea!)

Tootie used mallets on it and on the last night he even took a long solo up front. That take ended up being the one for the record. (At least I’m pretty sure this is the only version of this tune with a rhythmic tom solo in the beginning.)

“A Flower is a Lovesome Thing” is the most abstract piece on a disc that otherwise documents how Ben and I interface with Tootie’s powerful swing.

My favorite track may be “Good Bait.” (A tune, incidentally, that was on that first Simone – Heath session in 1957!) After the piano intro, Tootie chooses to play mallets again on the A sections of the tune. No cymbals: Just the click on “2” and the double bounce on “4.”  Consequently, the bridge has an extra lift when he goes to the cymbal.

I regard my own performance on this disc as a work in progress. Ben is there already, displaying an unparalleled combination of modernism and old-school swing. But I’m especially proud of documenting the continued excellence of Tootie Heath. No matter what he plays, it is the sound of a life lived in jazz.

& & &

The Heath Brothers are at the Vanguard through May 2. The Iverson-Street-Heath trio is available now. EI has most recently been on the road with Alex Ross on the Rest Is Noise tour, but is probably back in NYC now. You might even seen him at the Vanguard this weekend?

BLACK AFRICA – PART 3
Sam Rivers
Black Africa! Perugia
Horo : 1977

SR, flute, soprano sax, vocals; Joe Daley, tuba and euphonium; Sidney Smart, drums and percussion.

This double album is not to be confused with its sister effort Black Africa! Villalago, a single album that’s currently available as an import from Amazon. Recorded live at Umbria Jazz in July 1976, Perugia finds Rivers at both his most focused and expansive, his talent in fullest flower as he switches between flute, sax, and piano,building up impressive blocks of sound and seductive grooves over an eccentrically  stripped-down rhythm section.

The Black Africa! material follows on the heels of Rivers run of five releases for Impulse and builds upon that exceptional material. It can also be seen as an extension of the superb series of duets Rivers recorded with Dave Holland earlier that year, which included sculpted long-form improvisations and showcased his facility on the flute, piano, and soprano sax. Black Africa adds yet another element to his musical arsenal: vocals.

Part 3 opens with some stirring flute work, quickly moving from a breathy intro into funky modulations over a solid groove. The rhythm section replaces bass with tuba – a move similar to Arthur Blythe at this time and one which evokes the New Orleans brass band tradition. Note the hiccups that Joe Daley lays into the tune all while staying in the pocket. We’re generally not the biggest fans of the flute, but this performance is one of the glorious exceptions.

Then there’s the vocal interjections, which are hardly genteel. It’s difficult to tell whether Rivers is calling down the spirits, invoking field hollers, or yelling at the cops. Disorienting and unexpected, his vocals up the emotional ante on the flute section and set the stage for the coda with the dueling saxophone and euphonium.  These 16-minutes speed by before you realize it, another testament to this great performance.

What’re some of your favorite unexpected jazz vocal performances?

BROWN RICE
DEGI-DEGI
Don Cherry
Don Cherry
A&M/Horizon : 1976

DC, trumpet, electric piano, voice; Charlie Haden, bass; Billy Higgins, drums; Frank Lowe, tenor sax; Ricky Cherry, electric piano; on Rice only: Bunchie Fox, electric bongos; Verna Gillis, voice.

If this site has a musical lodestar, it’s probably best personified by Don Cherry. Global traveler, fan of the polyglot (the polyglotter the better), sonic experimenter, searcher, classicist, egalitarian, non-snob…. We’ve probably done more posts on Cherry than any other musician to date. There are surprisingly quite a few corners of his discography that remain out of print and unknown to many jazz fans.

One of our very first posts, back in 2006, featured the first track above, “Brown Rice.” Here’s some of what we said at the time:

Chilly Jay Chill: I don’t normally think of Don Cherry when I think of jazz-rock fusion. World music fusion, sure. But this sounds like… Can.

Prof. Drew LeDrew: Really good Can. Like what they always wanted their Ethnic Forgery series to sound like but it never did. In terms of quality, this is right up there with Ege Bamyasi.

CJC: It’s amazing what you can do with a few electric pianos and some voices. And who knew Don could chant like that? Definitely gives Can singer Damo Suzuki a run for his money.

DLD: Hey, don’t forget the electric bongos. That’s clearly the secret ingredient here.

CJC: For those who don’t know, we should point out that Don Cherry made his name playing a small pocket trumpet as part of Ornette Coleman’s first quartet in the 1950s. Wonderful acoustic jazz. Classic stuff.

DLD: He obviously kept developing from there.

CJC: This blows my theory that there was no good fusion after 1975. It’s like he’s absorbed all the jazz-fusion innovations, plus the Indian trance music he loved, and then swallowed a serious dose of Krautrock for good measure. There might even be some disco in there, too. Staggering.

DLD: And it still somehow sounds like him. It’s no gimmick.

Figured it was time for a revisit,  along with a bonus, the last cut on the album. “Degi-Degi” is a sister track to “Brown Rice.” Where the other tunes are slightly more earthbound concoctions of acoustic jazz and Indian drones, these two tracks are both genuine space-rock jams. Play them for your jazz agnostic friends and watch them flip.

This music even won over fusion-hater Stanley Crouch, who contributed the liner notes. He gives kudos to the album’s stellar line-up, and presciently hones in on Cherry’s technique – “a poignant trumpet tone that moves from impassioned and burred yelps of scalar melodies, with a whispering, chanting, and shouting singing style, and a sense of international non-European music made into one force by improvisation.” Got that? Crouch dubs this “music of perpetual transformation.” To which we say: Dig.

Noted: You can buy a digital copy of this album — reissued under the title Brown Rice and no longer featuring a vista of the Watts Towers — via Amazon.

PRAYER FOR PEACE
JUDY’S SMILE III
Amalgam
Prayer for Peace
Transatlantic : 1969

Trevor Watts, alto sax; Jeff Clyne, bass (“Judy’s Smile”); Barry Guy, bass (“Prayer for Peace”); John Stevens, drums.

Ah, the late 1960s. So many possibilities, so much cross-fertilization, so many unexpected alliances. That was especially true of the British avant jazz scene, where jazz was often fused with elements of rock, traditional folk, European improv, and American fire music (not to mention the strong strain of South African Township Jazz) to create something startling and singular.

Amalgam’s stunning debut is a classic of British jazz. True to the scene’s cross-pollinated roots, it was originally released as a double-album on a label that was home to visionary British folk revivalists Pentangle. The esteemed Penguin Guide to Jazz (get this thing online already; Tom Hull can’t do all the work) awarded it one of their coveted crowns. In the Village Voice’s Jazz Consumer Guide, Hull gave the reissue an “A.” However, the album and the group remain relatively unknown in America, which is a shame.

Amalgam features two of the leading lights of the Spontaneous Music Ensemble, but the trio’s music is more subdued, deliberate, and melodic than the SME’s often sprawling free improvs. Prayer for Peace is suffused with melancholy and sheer beauty. It was warmly recorded, filled with reverberating space, the delicate chiaroscuro play of light and shadow, and deep listening from the players.

The keening title track focuses on Barry Guy’s arco bass and Trevor Watt’s plaintive sax, generating a prayerful refrain worthy of Albert Ayler. Today you mostly hear the aching beauty of the track, but back in the 1960s it must have read loudly as a lament for the global political upheavals of Vietnam war and beyond. “Judy’s Smile III” starts off in a similarly contemplative mode but steadily builds momentum — dig Jeff Clyne’s subtle way of introducing the groove and how the tune reaches a roiling climax.

We’ve given the fertile world of British avant jazz a bit of short shrift around here. So tell us: What are your favorite records from that scene?

BERTHA BAPTIST
Gary Bartz Ntu Troop
Juju Street Songs
Prestige : 1972

BG, alto sax, percussion; Andy Bey, electric piano; Stafford James, bass; Howard King, drums, percussion.

McCoy Tyner’s Expansions…Miles Davis’s Live-Evil…Mtume’s Alkebu-lan…Pharoah Sanders’ Summun Bukmun Umyun…for a period there in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Gary Bartz was showing up in all the right places. And setting it down right in the pocket, however deep that pocket went. In 1972, Bartz took the lessons learned from these collaborations and forged the missing link between Live-Evil and Sextant.

Well, okay, maybe it doesn’t quite scale those peaks, but “Bertha Baptist” is still one seriously funky slab of kozmigroov goodness. The rhythm section keeps it solidly swampy, with a steadiness that’s subtly undermined and expanded by Bey’s electric piano and Bartz’s weaving volleys. Bartz seems to be several places at once, harmonizing with himself in this studio-created hall of mirrors. Someone had some fun with the panning, too, as any headphone wearers will soon discover. Nevertheless, it still has the feel of an organic jam; not for these guys the airless virtuosity of late Seventies jazz-funk.

The track does a fine job of conjuring the dynamism of an electric tent revival, but there’s less gospel in this “Bertha Baptist” than straight-up funk. Bertha is undoubtedly strutting down the same side of the street as the denizens that populated the landscapes of Superfly and Funkadelic. Not to mention On the Corner. (Is that her dress swishing, on the latter half of the tune, during Bey’s solo?) The  juju here is mostly secular.

So…what makes you shake your rump?

THROAT I
Little Women
Throat
AUM Fidelity : 2010

Travis Laplante, tenor sax; Darius Jones, alto sax; Andrew Smiley, guitar; Jason Nazary, drums.

We are insanely happy to be able to bring you this exclusive preview track from the upcoming full-length debut from Little Women. Due next month from AUM Fidelity, this disc grabbed us immediately by the neck and has yet to let go. Our suggestion — in full consumerist mode — is to grab your copies now, direct from AUM Fidelity, well before the official release date. You need this kind of beauty and brawn in your life.

The album’s opening tune is throbbing with raw energy, and gives some idea of the overall sonic palette. But note that this is just the first of a seven part suite, best ingested complete in one sitting. Note too that there are also less pummeling, more contemplative portions of the full story arc, which occasionally find expression in straight-up lovely passages.

We are further thrilled to provide some elucidation from the band themselves on their working methods and approach:

‘Little Women as human heart’   (version)

Little Women is as the human heart. It works on the principles of mechanics and electricity. There are four valves, which is the mechanical side. The electrical side is what makes the heart beat. With Little Women you have four individuals; four distinct sounds; four distinct personalities; four distinct perspectives coming together in harmony to make the blood flow. The electricity comes from, not coal, not hydro, not nuclear, not wind, but these four individuals meshing their spirits/valves together in the moment to create an ultimate beating heart.

Each player in Little Women sacrifices their own unique musical approach to the greater collective sound, making the creation of “one sound together” the priority. A particular example of this sacrifice is how the two saxophonists openly share their musical secrets with each other. They teach each other their individual and special extended techniques without fear of losing individual identity; in a sense, signing “we are one sound” in blood.

When Little Women formed, an organic process was deemed and followed. The music has been allowed to develop over time and not be overly influenced by any one member. We started by improvising together and then taking ideas from the improvisations to form what we now consider to be our unique suite concept. We wanted the music to have a collective presence to it, so it was/is important that everyone in the band write music. Every member’s tunes are subject to band critique and approval. If you were to listen to each of us individually, you could hear the essence of Little Women, but you wouldn’t be able to hear the full idea of what we do. Little Women was formed to put the heart back into the music that we love.

Just like the Be-boppers, Little Women is creating a language of its own. We have all been to music school and have been influenced by many different types of music. But when we came together, we actualized the idea of starting from zero. Now that we have built a sonic foundation for ourselves, the aim is to look at the world that we’ve created from many different angles and to reinvent. Throat is the third suite in the lifespan of this band. It came about through hours of playing and curiosities about the sounds that different techniques on each instrument could create. In this suite, one of the techniques that the saxophonists wanted to investigate was the use of multiphonics and how they would sound being played simultaneously. Another technique was the use of guitar harmonics and how those could be incorporated compositionally. It is important for us to utilize extended techniques not only compositionally, but also within improvisation. Even though the music is very structured compositionally, it is vital for us to maintain an organically open state with each note, technique and sound of the suite. We don’t just want to play the music, we need to experience it as it is being played. The experience is vital to us, just as the heartbeat is vital to the living human body.

Our thanks to Little Women and AUM Fidelity for making this happen. See the AUM site for dates and venues for the band’s tour of the Northeast and Midwest U.S. + Canada in early April, followed by a European tour in May.

LATER: There is a rather tremendous video + text page devoted to Little Women here, courtesy of (((unartig))), and brought to our attention via improvised Communications. If you are not fully sold, check it out & be converted.

LATER STILL (16 Mar): Comment process was all cocked up yesterday (Monday). If you tried and met with a boondoggle, please try again! Thank you.