[audio:http://destination-out.com/media/tracks/Threadgill_Undertake.mp3|titles=To undertake my corners open|artists=Henry Threadgill Zooid]
To undertake my corners open
[audio:http://destination-out.com/media/tracks/Threadgill_Time.mp3|titles=After some time|artists=Henry Threadgill Zooid]
After some time

Henry Threadgill Zooid
This Brings Us To, Volume 1
Pi Recordings : 2009

HT, alto sax, flute; Liberty Ellman, guitar; Jose Davila, trombone, tuba; Stomu Takeishi, bass; Elliot Humberto Kavee, drums.

Zooid: A cell that is able to move independently of the larger organism to which it belongs.

Wave the flag, bang the drum, and shout hurrah, for a new Henry Threadgill record is before us. We are incredibly pleased to be able to exclusively preview two tracks — streaming, at the artist’s request — from this wonderful upcoming disc. You can’t hear this music anywhere else.

This is Threadgill’s first release in some time. The limited-edition vinyl release of Pop Start the Tape, Stop in 2004 was so below the radar that the All Music Guide doesn’t even list it. And his last CD releases were 2001′s two-fer on Pi: Everybodys Mouth’s A Book and Up Popped the Two Lips.

Up Popped the Two Lips featured the debut of the Zooid ensemble. While it’s an excellent album in its own right, you can hear some tentativeness in the performances. This Brings Us To showcases the Zooid band in full flower, having spent almost eight years perfecting their system of compositional improv. Both as a band and as players, they’re firing on all cylinders. The new tunes are more nuanced, complex, and frankly, exciting.

“To undertake my corners open” and “After some time” are two of the album’s most propulsive tracks, effortlessly weaving solos into an ever-shifting pulse of brass and rhythm. The tunes offer immediate and visceral pleasures, but the textures are also more slippery than Threadgill’s previous work. Give them a few spins for maximum impact.

Although the music speaks for itself, we’d like to spotlight Liberty Ellman‘s astonishing guitar playing. His gifts have grown dramatically over the years and he offers some of the album’s most startling and immediate moments. (He also produced the record.)

Henry Threadgill generously agreed to sit down with us to discuss the new album and what he’s been up to recently. We turn it over to him:

On his compositions: It’s a language; the musicians have to learn this language so that they can play this music,  and we can play as a group, and accomplish a level of communication and ensemble [cohesion], like a baseball team or a basketball team…. That communication is past anything you can see. You can’t see communication on a basketball team. If you can see it, it’s not a good team. It’s psychic…that’s the ensemble, an ensemble is always psychic.

On notation vs. improvisation: [The songs on This Brings Us To are] notated and improvised. I can’t give you percentages on each piece. Regardless of the percentages , the level of performance and communication at that time — we were at the height of our communicative powers. We came right off tour and played immediately at the Jazz Gallery three nights, and right out of there into the studio…. You got to play when you’re hot…. Basically, everything was one take… about 90% of two albums was done in one take.

On his relatively scant recorded output: It has to do with the demands of the record industry. This group came together at about the time of the demise of the record industry…. I never depended that much on recordings to keep a band together. That’s basically the documentation…. These are just CDs. I  make CDs the way you used to make albums…I don’t believe in putting a whole lot of material on an album, just because you got the space, y’know? It’s like someone brings you a plate and fills it up with food, and do you have to eat it all? I don’t think so… albums, they were just about right, for the American listening public.

On his current ambitions: I would like to be able to do what I’m doing, 100%, without any problems.

Some of the artists name-checked by HT during the course of our conversation: Varese, Stockhausen, Bernstein, Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Edward Said, Manet, Monk, Van Gogh, Reich, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Barbara Streisand, Aaron Copland, Elliot Carter, Charles Ives, Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman, Benny Goodman, Anthony Braxton, Robert Altman.

On art: The one thing I  can say that I’ve learned about culture is that it can humanize mankind, and make [one] more sensitive to oneself and to other people. That is the one thing that art will do for you. That is something that you can’t…it’s intangible…that’s why our country don’t see any value in it, because you can’t touch it…. It makes for better people… makes them sensitive to things…and [this belief] informs me.

Pi Recordings is having a sale right now; you can also order This Brings Us To there and get it first from Pi before any other vendors. The official on-sale date is 27 October. Those in and around NYC on Sunday, 25 October, will get a rare chance to see this band in action, at Roulette. Threadgill will unveil a new, commissioned piece for a slightly augmented Zooid, and the band will also play selections from the album.

So there you go. If you find this only whets your appetite for things Threadgillian, there’s no better place to turn next than the extensive discography and bibliography compiled here. And, oh, volume two? Look for it in 2010.

Originally posted 10 January 2007.

THE RAGTIME DANCE
BUDDY BOLDEN’S BLUES
Air
Air Lore
RCA : 1979

Henry Threadgill, tenor sax, alto sax, flute; Fred Hopkins, bass; Steve McCall, drums.

BUDDY BOLDEN’S BLUES
(I THOUGHT I HEARD BUDDY BOLDEN SAY)
Jelly Roll Morton
7″ Single
General : 1940

JRM, vocals and piano.

It’s an old story but bears repeating: The avant garde is intimately connected to the tradition and vice versa. This lesson has been replayed countless times, but rarely as spectacularly as Air’s major label debut – Air Lore. The trio offer up an album of Scott Joplin and Jelly Roll Morton covers, refracted through their own modern stylistic prism, along with a Threadgill original written in a similar mode.

Many jazz writers of the day were deaf to Air Lore’s charms and achievements, but rock critic Robert Christgau immediately recognized it as something special. He championed the album in the Village Voice, singling out the pleasure of “hearing Henry Threadgill improvise over an explicit pulse.” He also highlighted one key facet of the music:

Demonstrating not only that Ragtime (Scott Joplin) and New Orleans (Jelly Roll Morton) are Great Art consonant with Contemporary Jazz, but also that they’re Corny. And that both Great Art and Corn can be fun.

Fun – exactly. And modern for exactly that reason. By Corny, Christgau partly means Obvious. Those familiar ragtime and nawlins rhythms, melodies, and changes – the ones that Threadgill and Co. both embrace and subvert in equal measure. Note the way the band tears through Joplin’s “The Ragtime Dance,” shifting gears on a dime, funkifying the beat and then breaking it apart, Threadgill breezing through some ferociously off-kilter solos.

But there’s something deeper afoot here, too. You can hear it in their version of Morton’s “Buddy Bolden’s Blues” – the tune spooked by the spirits of both Jelly Roll and legendary New Orleans trumpeter Buddy Bolden. We’re not usually the biggest fans of the ol’ compare and contrast. But in this case it’s illuminating to hear Air’s version alongside the original – to hear the well of playfulness, spite, and sorrow the trio is drawing from.

Barely two and half minutes long, Jelly Roll’s “Buddy Bolden’s Blues” is fathomless. There’s the stately rolling piano and the way it complements Morton’s laconic delivery of such cryptic and haunted lines as “I thought I heard Buddy Bolden say / You’re nasty, you’re dirty / Take it away.” He lets the mystery build in the next verse: “I thought I heard Buddy Bolden shout / Open up that window and let the bad air out.”

Charles ‘Buddy’ Bolden, the ghost at the heart of jazz, the cornetist of legend who supposedly birthed the music but was never recorded. His mighty sound sizzling in the minds of all who heard it. The progenitor behind King Oliver and Louis Armstrong. Born in 1876, worked at Joseph’s Shaving Parlor in New Orleans, played at Masonic Hall on Perdido and Rampart, at the Globe downtown on St Peter and Claude, and Jackson Hill. The music’s Rimbaud who went mad in April 1907 while playing with Henry Allen’s Brass Band. Thirty one years old. Admitted to East Louisana State Hospital with dementia. Died there in 1931. Full of bad air.

You can hear his spirit both evoked and held at arm’s length in Jelly Roll’s voice. He wants no part of Buddy’s madness, but can’t help conjuring other ghosts as well, those from the Storyville scene: not so benign spirits who warn “Gal, give me that money / I’m gonna beat it out.” And you believe they will. The song is one of the great American touchstones and has inspired many thoughtful written reckonings over the years, most recently in The Rose and The Briar: Death, Love, and Liberty in the American Ballad, edited by Greil Marcus.

Air’s version of the song is no less of a reckoning, a musical attempt to come to terms with its mysteries. In some ways it’s a close cousin of Michael Ondaatje’s visionary novel Coming Through Slaughter, which mixes reportage, poetry, fiction, and history to try to conjure Buddy Bolden’s ghost, to hear some echoes of what he might have been saying, what others might have thought they heard him say. Air also use a variety of techniques and methods to work their way into the heart of the song – and the legacy of Buddy.

It’s telling and heartrending how Air winds down the tune, letting the melody grow slower and fainter until the final sighing notes almost evaporate from the grooves. Ondaatje’s novel ends with a similarly wary coda, as a broken Buddy recedes from view: “Thirty one years old. There are no prizes.”

* * * * * * *

The Morton tune is currently available on the companion CD for the Marcus-edited book.

CHARLIE M
Art Ensemble of Chicago
Full Force
ECM : 1980

Lester Bowie, trumpet; Joseph Jarman, saxophones; Roscoe Mitchell, saxophones; Malachi Favors Maghostus, bass; Famoudou Don Moye, drums, percussion.

BLACK BLUES
The Henry Threadgill Sextett
Just the Facts and Pass the Bucket
About Time : 1983

HT, alto and baritone saxophones; Olu Dara, cornet; Craig Harris, trombone; Diedre Murray, cello; Fred Hopkins, bass; John Betsch and Pheeroan Aklaff, drums.

BLOODLINE
Muhal Richard Abrams
Rejoicing with the Light
Black Saint : 1983

MRA, piano, conductor; Jean-Paul Bourelly, guitar; Baikida Carroll, trumpet, flugelhorn; Vincent Chancey, French horn; Marty Ehrlich, alto saxophone, flute, clarinet, bass clarinet; Eugene Ghee, tenor saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet; Craig Harris, trombone; Patience Higgins, baritone saxophone, clarinet, alto clarinet; Howard Johnson, tuba, baritone saxophone, contrabass clarinet; John Purcell, piccolo, flute, alto saxophone, oboe, clarinet, bass clarinet; Rick Rozie, bass; Warren Smith, vibraphone, percussion; Abdul Wadud, cello; Andrew Cyrille, drums.

We conclude our ‘80s retrospective with the jazz figure who dominated the media landscape during the decade: Wynton Marsalis. If you haven’t already checked out Ethan Iverson’s essential interview with him – plus the accompanying suite of articles about the Young Lions, AACM, etc – do yourself a favor and head over there now. These thoughtful and provocative linked pieces constitute the best jazz criticism of the year, hands down.

Even if you’re like us and the mere invocation of Wynton’s name raises your blood pressure, the pieces are revelatory. Ethan mainly sticks to talking music with Marsalis, focusing on his new album Congo Square, featuring the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra with a West African drum ensemble. It’s no surprise Wynton is articulate and knows his shit inside-out. But we were surprised how forthright and engaging he is when discussing his music. It shows him in the best possible light. There’s also a fascinating blindfold test and a kozmigroov reference for good measure!

TRICKLE-DOWN AESTHETICS
Ethan raises some fascinating points we want to tackle. But first, let’s set our prejudices on the table: We’re not particularly fans of Wynton’s music. Growing up, friends were obsessed with Wynton and the Young Lions. We duly immersed ourselves in the albums and attended concerts, trying to figure out the new scene. With a few notable exceptions, we were kind of bored. There was something intractably stodgy about much of this neo-traditional work, lacking both the spark found in the original forms and the thrilling innovations of the so-called avant garde. To our ears, it was minor music with a major publicist. So we moved on to greener pastures. We still occasionally check in on Wynton and his cohorts and discover a few impressive passages, but nothing has yet caused us to overhaul our initial opinions.

Our main gripe with Wynton is his self-serving rhetoric about what constitutes jazz. As he erupted on the scene in the ’80s, Marsalis gained an unprecedented bully pulpit through the media and his association with Lincoln Center. He used this power to redraw the boundaries of the entire genre, declaring that only acoustic music that swung was actually jazz. This argument was plain insane, but a surprising amount of otherwise intelligent people bought it. The result was that generations of jazz giants such as Sam Rivers, Marion Brown, and Cecil Taylor were denied work – and worse, their music was derided and further marginalized.

It’s been widely pointed out this is analogous to how Ronald Reagan* redrew the political map during the same period. Reagan espoused a bogus return to “traditional values,” and effectively used this term to belittle opponents and consolidate power for himself and his cronies. Wynton similarly used his curatorial duties at Lincoln Center to provide work for his colleagues and only allowed institutional legitimacy to trickle down to those who met his favor.

Almost as destructive was his role as consultant for Ken Burns’ Jazz documentary, instructing the documentarian that the genre corrupted itself after 1965 and didn’t revive until, surprise, his own ascendancy. That shameless lie has been amply debunked – particularly in the 1970-93 discussion initially launched by Ethan Iverson – but it was still broadcast to millions as the official story.

MUTILATING HISTORY
In the Iverson interview, Wynton comes off as inclusive, talking up his experiences playing traditional jazz, funk, classical, marching band, ragtime, and even avant garde music with Kidd Jordan. But as Ethan points out in an accompanying piece, Wynton still clings to his strict definition of jazz. Here’s a sample of what DOES NOT make the cut, as delineated by Iverson:

1) American popular music since 1955, especially if electric instruments are involved

2) Classical music, especially dense modernism and minimalism

3) Experimental, avant-garde, or free jazz made or influenced by musicians like Albert Ayler, Cecil Taylor, Milford Graves, the AACM school (including Anthony Braxton and Henry Threadgill), and the BAG school (including Oliver Lake and Julius Hemphill). This category includes Downtown metajazz like John Zorn, anyone playing hardcore free jazz today like William Parker, plus more recent composers and improvisers like Tim Berne and Dave Douglas.

4) Romantic and even-eighth-note “pretty” music associated with Keith Jarrett, Pat Metheny, ECM, and Europe.

5) One-of-a-kind rogue improvisers who are major stylists in both free and straight-ahead music like Paul Motian, Charlie Haden, Paul Bley, Steve Lacy, Kenny Wheeler, Dewey Redman, Eric Dolphy, Richard Davis, etc.

In other words, almost everything interesting that’s happened in jazz for THE PAST FOUR DECADES. Discounting 40 years of a 100-year-old art form isn’t revisionist history, it’s amputation. And even though, truth be told, we sort of feel Wynton on whole Jarrett/Metheny thing, we’d never claim it’s not jazz. Taken together these developments don’t constitute a series of quirky offshoots. They comprise the story of the music itself.

EARN YOUR PREJUDICES
One of the most interesting moments in the Iverson interview occurs when Wynton talks about how people have ignorantly criticized his music without hearing it all, especially the recent work he feels differs from his early efforts. He makes a salient point with this anecdote:

I was in the Modern Museum and I told my son, “Earn your prejudice. Don’t be prejudiced against something you don’t know. Look at the man’s work. Look at all of this stuff.”

Sound advice. But what’s jaw-dropping is that several minutes later, he admits to Ethan how he isn’t familiar with the work of the AACM. Wait a minute. You mean, the avant garde collective whose music he has demonized, barred from the hallowed halls of Lincoln Center, and claimed help ruin jazz in the 1970s? The Art Ensemble of Chicago, Anthony Braxton, Muhal Richard Abrams, Henry Threadgill, George Lewis, Leo Smith, et cetera. He admits he doesn’t know any of their music?!?!

It’s hard to know what’s more astounding here: The sheer hypocrisy or the remarkable musical ignorance.

The irony is layers deep. The AACM is deeply involved in a dialogue with the vast history of jazz. We’d argue they’ve engaged it far more widely and significantly than Wynton and his past-obsessed peers. The AACM may be interested in Cage and Stockhausen, but they also know their Jelly Roll Morton and Louis Armstrong. Some claim they deploy their knowledge as mere postmodern pastiche, but we hear something far more serious and playful, a sincerely daring attempt to reanimate history in a living and relevant context.

We’ve posted some AACM tracks above as a corrective. These are not from obscure albums, but rather from works that were cited in the Village Voice “Best of the 80s” poll. They were recorded about the same time Wynton was making his meteoric media ascent, and their engagement with the jazz tradition fairly demolish his arguements. Check out the Art Ensemble’s slinky, sultry, and muscular tribute to Charles Mingus; Threadgill’s elastic gutbucket blues; and Muhal’s creative big band that manages to swing like a mofo.

ASK THE DUKE
Ultimately whether Wynton is playing jazz or the AACM is playing jazz, or both, or neither, is moot. We always look to Duke Ellington to settle these questions of genre. He sagely says music falls into two categories: Good and bad. We’ll go on record as saying we’re in awe of the drumming of Jeff “Tain” Watts, that we dig many of Branford Marsalis’s more abstract blowouts, as well as some of Kenny Kirkland’s adventurous piano and Wynton’s fiery solos. Drew has even been known to occasionally enjoy some Marcus Roberts, though Chilly needed No Doze to make it through one of his gigs.

But really, if you’re comparing the purely musical accomplishments of Wynton and the Young Lions to the AACM… well, to misquote Greg Tate, that ain’t even a conversation, let alone a quip. Hell, the first third of Anthony Braxton’s career alone overshadows the entire output of the Young Lions in terms of musical quality, scope, ambition, and sheer gusto.

THE BENEFITS OF MINOR TYRANTS
But this isn’t a baby and bathwater tantrum. One of Iverson’s crucial points is that Wynton Marsalis’s musical seriousness and deep knowledge about jazz’s origins contributes something important for musicians. He writes:

Wynton’s message may not open creative doors; indeed, he wants young players to do only one thing, “real jazz”!  But minor tyrants who really know their subject and make their students learn it just so are an important tradition, too.

Makes sense to us. For musicians (though not necessarily listeners) it’s important to know the tradition so you can move on from there. Even the most adventurous jazz is usually nurtured through its roots to the past, whatever form that takes. The tradition of jazz may be innovation, but one way to become an innovator is to work your way deeper into the tradition rather than out of it. To really quote Greg Tate: “Recognize that there’s gold in them haunted hills.”

Iverson worries this isn’t the case anymore. Without naming names, he cites a lack of historical knowledge in the larger jazz community. Ethan takes Wynton’s side that musicians need to know the past and acquire the necessary chops to take the music into the future. He writes about being horrified by a master class full of piano students who didn’t recognize a classic piece by James P. Johnson – and worse, didn’t even know who that was!

From our far more limited purview, we see many of the younger adventurous jazz acts more eager to embrace European free improv and noise than the American jazz tradition. We suspect one factor is that many of these musicians are white. It often seems like they feel that plugging into the rich continuum of jazz is hijacking an African-American expression that doesn’t belong to them. Our favorite exchange between Ethan and Wynton obliquely covers this ground:

Iverson: Jazz culture wasn’t part of my upbringing.

Marsalis: Yes, it was. You’re an American.

And here is Wynton at his best, his most magnanimous, his most Whitmanesque. Here’s the Dean of The One True Path of Real Jazz implicitly telling a white guy from Wisconsin that by taking the craft seriously and studying the past masters, that this is his birthright just as much as a third-generation musician from New Orleans.** It’s a wonderful moment.

A DISTORTED BODY IMAGE
If only everyone had Ethan’s sane lens through which to view Wynton: A valuable player and educator who works a narrow field of music. But unfortunately that’s not the case. Wynton’s narrow-minded mythologies have shaped a generation of musicians. The so-called mainstream players we come across also tend to have gobsmacking gaps in their knowledge of jazz history. They know absolutely nothing about any of the adventurous jazz from the past 40 years – from Wayne Shorter on. Again, this isn’t merely overlooking a niche, it’s being ignorant of essential history.

As much as we’re distressed about the piano students being clueless about Johnson, we’re equally worried that a 46-year-old jazz legend knows nothing about the AACM! To our mind, this is just as horrifying a lapse and symptomatic of a deep problem. Actually, it’s even more troubling considering Wynton’s influence and the fact he can’t claim the ignorance of youth.

Largely thanks to Marsalis’s “real jazz” propaganda, jazz today suffers from a distorted body image. His high-profile opinions have helped obscure the full history and musical range of jazz. The fruits of this approach is an overall scene that often seems divisive, uninformed, and unhealthy. Some of the younger mainstream believe they know the full story when they’re missing almost half the picture. And for some of the younger adventurous players, Wynton has made studying the past seem like eating your brussels sprouts rather than exploring a goldmine of possibilities. Both sides lose.*** Or rather, we all lose as jazz is steadily sapped of its vitality from both ends of the continuum.

Our favorite newer acts on the scene don’t fall prey to this false duality, musicians like Vijay Iyer, Jason Moran, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Matthew Shipp, and of course The Bad Plus – among many others. The divisions of tradition and avant garde only serve those afraid to submit their music to Duke Ellington’s ultimate criteria, those who are afraid to embrace a music that truly encompasses the ancient to the future, both at once.

__________________________

*A recent blog post tackling Marsalis claimed there shouldn’t be anything inherently negative with being compared to Reagan. But students of history will strongly disagree. We bet even Wynton bristles at the  comparison.

**As for the Europeans, well, that’s probably another discussion.

***One is reminded of a quip from Henry Kissinger, who, when asked why academic squabbles were fought with such viciousness, replied, “Because the stakes are so small.”

THE SAME RIVER TWICE, part 1 (live)
Myra Melford
Interpretations 1997.12.04

MM, piano; Dave Douglas, trumpet; Chris Speed, clarinet and tenor saxophone; Erik Friedlander, cello; Michael Sarin, drums.

[audio:http://destination-out.com/media/tracks/Threadgill_Noisy-Flowers.mp3]
NOISY FLOWERS (live)
Henry Threadgill
Interpretations 1996.01.11

Myra Melford, piano; Ed Cherry, acoustic guitar; James Emery and Brandon Ross, soprano guitar; Jerome Harris, acoustic guitar and acoustic bass guitar.

We interrupt our Braxton blogathon to bring you this brief public service announcement, with (soprano) guitar: The twentieth season of the very fine Interpretations series kicks off this week at New York City’s Roulette, with October 2d performances from Myra Melford’s quartet and Henry Threadgill’s Zooid. The good folks behind the Interpretations series, notably Andrea La Rose, and the musicians featured here, were kind enough to share with D:O the tracks above, in order to get the word out.

These two live, unreleased gems are from previous Interpretations concerts; Melford’s from 1997, and Threadgill’s from ’96. (“Noisy Flowers” is presented, per the artist, as streaming audio.) If you like what you hear, and you’re within driving- or mass-transit-distance from Roulette, we heartily encourage you to drop by.

THE DEVIL IS ON THE LOOSE AND DANCIN’ WITHA MONKEY
OFF THE RAG
Henry Threadgill Sextett
Rag, Bush and All
RCA : 1989

HT, alto sax and bass flute; Ted Daniel, trumpet and flugelhorn; Bill Lowe, bass trombone; Diedre Murry, cello; Fred Hopkins, bass; Newman Baker, Reggie Nicholson, drums and percussion.

CONSIDER THIS:
Elvis Costello once said Morrissey wrote the world’s best song titles (“We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful,” “Sister, I’m a Poet,” etc.), but sometimes forgot to write good songs to go with them.

FOLKLORE GONE CRAZY:
This truism brings to mind the fantastically titled Henry Threadgill tune “The Devil is on the Loose and Dancin’ Witha Monkey.” He could’ve stopped right there, called it a day, and still been ahead of half the pack. Fortunately, that masterful mouthful of contorted mythic imagery was merely a prelude. The maestro clicking the baton against his stand and calling the band to attention. As it were.

CINEMATICALLY YOURS:
A friend of ours has long maintained this track should be used in a movie. And while it has undeniable cinematic qualities, we can’t quite wrap our tender minds around what sort of scene this would soundtrack. An old time dance competition held during a mudslide? A phantasmic chase scene held atop telephone wires? A showdown involving a butcher knife, frantically sawed-off dolls parts, and a woman applying lipstick? Or maybe he took the title literally. And hey, who wouldn’t want to see something like that?

DO MONKEYS WALTZ?
We have long wondered. Assuming the devil can execute any jig he pleases, what about his furry partner? From the sound of it, we’re thinking this ape prefers more of a cakewalk-cum-mambo. But then we’ve never been to Arthur Murray.

HERE’S THE THING:
Over its nearly seven minutes, the tune never quits throwing down serious moves.

YOU KISS YOUR MOTHER WITH THAT MOUTH?
Now when it was first released, some people slid right off the suggestive album title. They assumed it was Henry being cryptic again or some such. But make no mistake, it’s a downright dirty title, in the most suggestively poetic and historically generous sense possible. And really now, couldn’t jazz use more of this sorta Jelly Roll juissance?

AN ASIDE:
The dirtiest straight-faced stage name ever: Peter O’Toole.

HOLY FLOW:
“Off the Rag” – the tune continues the historio-scatalogical theme and goes with the flow. The feel here is Joplin/Not-Joplin. The tune has ribald energy to burn, plus you can tap your toes to it. The momentum keeps building, the song moving crazy-legs style, juggling massive amounts of musical cargo with ease, catching its breath for superb cello, trumpet, trombone, and bass solos that are woven into the compositional tapestry of the piece.

A BRIEF MANIFESTO:
The head-solos-head format is a dead end. “Off the Rag” offers a solution. It has plenty of solo space but never falls into a predictably rote and hopelessly schematic pattern. Instead, it reserves the right to surprise. The other instruments don’t stop their interesting feints and zigzags when it’s time for a solo. The piece continually develops and mutates. Nothing stops dead just because someone climbs into the spotlight to let their little light shine.

WE COULD SAY:
This is Threadgill’s best album.

BUT:
Them’s probably fighting words. So we’ll leave that for you in the comments. Other favorites?

WELCOME TO NINETIES WEEK
(Part three of five)

‘The present is in constant struggle with the past.’ -Jean Genet

Over the past month, we polled music critics, musicians, and jazz bloggers for their favorite records from the 1990s. We got a terrific response, one that does justice to the remarkably diverse output of the decade. See below for day one and day two. Each day this week, we’ll continue to share more lists. Today, we’re highlighting tracks from Henry Threadgill’s Too Much Sugar for a Dime. Next week, we’ll add some concluding thoughts and summary tallies.

These entries aren’t the last word on the decade. Think the lists are missing some truly hip shit? Are they way too American-centric? Let us know! Put your own lists and thoughts in the comments. Don’t be shy.

—

NATE CHINEN
New York Times

Some of these hit me hard at the time, and have an almost sentimental value; others have come to loom larger in retrospect. It’s far from a perfect list — no Latin jazz, for one thing, and no vocals — but I can say that every album on it is a personal essential.

1 Gregg Bendian, Interzone (Eremite, 1996)
2 Tim Berne’s Caos Totale, Nice View (JMT, 1994)
3 Brian Blade, Brian Blade Fellowship (Blue Note, 1998)
4 Paul Bley, Not Two, Not One (ECM, 1999)
5 Anthony Braxton, Quintet (Basel) 1977 (Hat Hut, 2000)
6 Michael Brecker, Tales from the Hudson (Impulse, 1996)
7 Steve Coleman & Five Elements, The Sonic Language of Myth: Believing, Learning, Knowing (RCA Victor, 1999)
8 Dave Douglas, Charms of the Night Sky (Winter & Winter, 1998)
9 Bill Frisell, This Land (Nonesuch, 1992)
10 Kenny Garrett, Pursuance: The Music of John Coltrane (Warner, 1996)
11 Charlie Haden and Hank Jones, Steal Away (Verve, 1994)
12 Andrew Hill, Dusk (Palmetto, 2000)
13 Jarrett/Peacock/Motian, At the Deer Head Inn (ECM, 1994)
14 Joe Lovano, Quartets: Live at the Village Vanguard (Blue Note, 1996)
15 Branford Marsalis, Crazy People Music (Columbia, 1990)
16 Brad Mehldau, Songs: The Art of the Trio, Vol. 3 (Warner, 1998)
17 Roscoe Mitchell & the Note Factory, Nine to Get Ready (ECM, 1997)
18 John Scofield Quartet, Meant to Be (Blue Note, 1990)
19 Henry Threadgill, Carry the Day (Columbia, 1994)
20 David S. Ware, Go See the World (Columbia, 1998)

—

TAYLOR HO BYNUM
SpiderMonkey Stories

In reverse alphabetical order, cause I started at the bottom of my CD shelf and worked up. I probably missed a few things, but these stand out and are probably what I’ve listened to the most:

1 Cassandra Wilson, Blue Light Till Dawn (Blue Note, 1993)
2 Kenny Wheeler, Angel Song (ECM, 1997)
3 Randy Weston, Spirit of Our Ancestors (Antilles, 1992)
4 James ‘Jabbo’ Ware and the Me We and Them Orchestra, Heritage Is (Soul Note, 1994)
5 Henry Threadgill, Too Much Sugar for a Dime (Axiom, 1993)
6 Sonny Sharrock, Ask the Ages (Axiom, 1991)
7 Sun Ra, Purple Night (A&M, 1990)
8 Naftules Dream, Smash Clap (Tzadik, 1998)
9 Charlie Haden, The Montreal Tapes (Verve, 1994)
10 The Fully Celebrated Orchestra, Live at the Latch String Inn (Cud, 1996)
11 Deep Rumba, This Night Becomes a Rumba (American Clave, 1998)
12 Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Open Up (Whatcha Gonna Do With the Rest of Your Life) (Columbia, 1991)
13 Bill Dixon, Vade Mecum II (Soul Note, 1996)
14 Anthony Braxton, Willisau (Quartet) 1991 (HatART, 1992)

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JASON GROSS
Perfect Sound Forever / Ye Wei Blog aka Wild Taste

1 Various Artists, Jazz Satellites – Volume 1: Electrification (Virgin, 1996)
2 Sonny Rollins, Silver City (Milestone, 1996)
3 Ornette Coleman, Tone Dialing (Verve/Harmolodic, 1995)
4 Ground Zero, Plays Standards (Nani, 1997)
5 Massacre, Funny Valentine (Tzadik, 1998)
6 Sonny Sharrock, Ask the Ages (Axiom, 1991)
7 Sun Ra, The Singles (Evidence, 1996)
8 Henry Threadgill, Too Much Sugar for A Dime (Axiom, 1993)
9 David S. Ware, Go See the World (Columbia, 1998)
10 Naked City, Black Box (Tzadik, 1997)

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PAT DONAHER
visionsong / more on this list

1 Bill Frisell, This Land (Nonesuch, 1992)
2 Maria Schneider, Evanessence (Enja, 1994)
3 Dave Douglas, In Our Lifetime (New World, 1995)
4 Wayne Shorter, High Life (Verve, 1995)
5 Henry Threadill, Too Much Sugar for a Dime (Axiom, 1993)
6 Motian/Frisell/Lovano, At the Village Vanguard (JMT, 1995)
7 Hal Wilner, Weird Nightmare (Meditations on Mingus) (Sony, 1992)
8 Ornette Coleman, Sound Museum: Hidden Man/Three Women (Verve/Harmolodic, 1997).
They are two records from the same session, so I’m lumping them together.
9 Myra Melford, Above Blue (Arabesque, 1999)
10 Steve Coleman, The Sonic Language of Myth: Believing, Learning, Knowing (RCA Victor, 1999)

Just missed:
Shirley Horn, You Won’t Forget Me, (Verve, 1991)
Bobby Previte, Weather Clear, Track Fast (Enja, 1991)
Stan Getz/Keny Barron, People Time (Verve, 1992)
Joe Henderson, So Near, So Far (Verve, 1993)
I have a feeling three of those will show up on some other lists…

Added bonus — the best records of the ’90s even most jazz fans never heard:
Nguyen Le, 3 Trios (Act, 1997)
James Carney, Offset Rhapsody (Jacaranda, 1997)
Michael Cain/Ralph Alessi/Peter Epstein, Circa (ECM, 1997)
Art Lande/Mark Miller, World Without Cars (Synergy, 1999)
Either/Orchestra, The Half Life of Desire (Accurate, 1990)
Have to represent Boston somewhere.

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KELLEN YAMANAKA
Song with Orange

1 Brian Blade, Fellowship (Blue Note, 1998)
A lush tapestry of saxes, guitars and piano, this album is absolutely gorgeous, sonically and harmonically. Plus, Blade has always been a favorite of mine.
2 David Binney, Free to Dream (Mythology, 1998)
Great showcase for Binney’s alternately searing and sensitive playing (more of the latter here), not to mention his trademark hypnotic, melodic compositions.
3 Marc Johnson, Right Brain Patrol (JMT, 1993)
A wonderfully moody, broody, bluesy post-Bass Desires feature for Johnson but also notable as one of Ben Monder’s earliest appearances on record.
4 Dave Douglas, Tiny Bell Trio (Songlines, 1994)
Jazz: the Balkan Connection. And you don’t even miss the bass. Adventurous, avant-leaning playing has always been linked to the blues, but it’s great to hear other folk traditions in the mix, too.
5 John Scofield, Quiet (Verve, 1996)
Sco’s voice is so easily identifiable on electric, it’s refreshing to hear him in an acoustic setting. (He didn’t even own an acoustic guitar before the early ’90s.) Of course, his irrepressible personality still shines through.
6 Charles Mingus, Epitaph (Columbia, 1990)
When the score to Epitaph was discovered in 1985, it was apparently riddled with chord misspellings, gaps and illegible notations. With Gunther Schuller’s corrections — and in some cases, well-educated guesses as to what Mingus would have written — it’s a stellar contemporary realization of Mingus’s opus.
7 Michael Brecker, Time Is of the Essence (Verve, 1999)
Maybe not the most critically acclaimed Brecker date from this period, but hearing him surrounded by the warmth of Pat Metheny’s guitar and Larry Goldings’s organ is plenty rewarding. Plus the rotating drum chair (Bill Stewart, Elvin Jones and Jeff “Tain” Watts) keeps it fresh.
8 Maria Schneider, Evanesence (Enja, 1994)
Schneider’s maiden voyage as a leader — powerful arrangements, dramatic melodies and focused performances from her band.
9 Pat Martino, Nightwings (Muse, 1996)
Not exactly a groundbreaking album, but one of my favorites of his since his return to the scene in the late ’80s after recovering from his post-aneurysm amnesia. Lots of mind-bending chops, as always.
10 Mark Turner, In This World (Warner, 1998)
Fabulous playing from Turner, ranging from wailing to whispery with great songs to match — some dark but tuneful originals plus a few standards. Brad Mehldau’s presence on piano and Rhodes is as essential to the album’s vibe as Turner himself.

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NINETIES PICK HIT

TRY SOME AMMONIA
Henry Threadgill
Too Much Sugar for a Dime
Axiom : 1993

HT, alto sax; Mark Taylor, French horn; Brandon Ross, electric guitar; Masujaa, electric guitar; Edwin Rodriguez, tuba; Marcus Rojas, tuba; Dorian Parreot II, tuba; Gene Lake, drums.

“It is rooted in tradition, but I am not doing traditional jazz. I consider what I am doing world music. It is music for the world.” –Henry Threadgill

THE RAGTIME DANCE
BUDDY BOLDEN’S BLUES
Air
Air Lore
RCA : 1979

Henry Threadgill, tenor sax, alto sax, flute; Fred Hopkins, bass; Steve McCall, drums.

BUDDY BOLDEN’S BLUES
(I THOUGHT I HEARD BUDDY BOLDEN SAY)
Jelly Roll Morton
7″ Single
General : 1940

JRM, vocals and piano.

It’s an old story but bears repeating:Â The avant garde is intimately connected to the tradition and vice versa. This lesson has been replayed countless times, but rarely as spectacularly as Air’s major label debut – Air Lore. The trio offer up an album of Scott Joplin and Jelly Roll Morton covers, refracted through their own modern stylistic prism, along with a Threadgill original written in a similar mode.

Many jazz writers of the day were deaf to Air Lore’s charms and achievements, but rock critic Robert Christgau immediately recognized it as something special. He championed the album in the Village Voice, singling out the pleasure of “hearing Henry Threadgill improvise over an explicit pulse.” He also highlighted one key facet of the music:

Demonstrating not only that Ragtime (Scott Joplin) and New Orleans (Jelly Roll Morton) are Great Art consonant with Contemporary Jazz, but also that they’re Corny. And that both Great Art and Corn can be fun.

Fun – exactly. And modern for exactly that reason. By Corny, Christgau partly means Obvious. Those familiar ragtime and nawlins rhythms, melodies, and changes – the ones that Threadgill and Co. both embrace and subvert in equal measure. Note the way the band tears through Joplin’s “The Ragtime Dance,” shifting gears on a dime, funkifying the beat and then breaking it apart, Threadgill breezing through some ferociously off-kilter solos. Â

But there’s something deeper afoot here, too. You can hear it in their version of Morton’s “Buddy Bolden’s Blues” – the tune spooked by the spirits of both Jelly Roll and legendary New Orleans trumpeter Buddy Bolden. We’re not usually the biggest fans of the ol’ compare and contrast. But in this case it’s illuminating to hear Air’s version alongside the original – to hear the well of playfulness, spite, and sorrow the trio is drawing from. Â

Barely two and half minutes long, Jelly Roll’s “Buddy Bolden’s Blues” is fathomless. There’s the stately rolling piano and the way it complements Morton’s laconic delivery of such cryptic and haunted lines as “I thought I heard Buddy Bolden say / You’re nasty, you’re dirty / Take it away.” He lets the mystery build in the next verse: “I thought I heard Buddy Bolden shout / Open up that window and let the bad air out.”

Charles ‘Buddy’ Bolden, the ghost at the heart of jazz, the cornetist of legend who supposedly birthed the music but was never recorded. His mighty sound sizzling in the minds of all who heard it. The progenitor behind King Oliver and Louis Armstrong. Born in 1876, worked at Joseph’s Shaving Parlor in New Orleans, played at Masonic Hall on Perdido and Rampart, at the Globe downtown on St Peter and Claude, and Jackson Hill. The music’s Rimbaud who went mad in April 1907 while playing with Henry Allen’s Brass Band. Thirty one years old. Admitted to East Louisana State Hospital with dementia. Died there in 1931. Full of bad air.

You can hear his spirit both evoked and held at arm’s length in Jelly Roll’s voice. He wants no part of Buddy’s madness, but can’t help conjuring other ghosts as well, those from the Storyville scene: not so benign spirits who warn “Gal, give me that money / I’m gonna beat it out.” And you believe they will. The song is one of the great American touchstones and has inspired many thoughtful written reckonings over the years, most recently in The Rose and The Briar: Death, Love, and Liberty in the American Ballad, edited by Greil Marcus.

Air’s version of the song is no less of a reckoning, a musical attempt to come to terms with its mysteries. In some ways it’s a close cousin of Michael Ondaatje’s visionary book Coming Through Slaughter, which mixes reportage, poetry, fiction, and history to try to conjure Buddy Bolden’s ghost, to hear some echoes of what he might have been saying, what others might have thought they heard him say. Air also use a variety of techniques and methods to work their way into the heart of the song – and the legacy of Buddy.

It’s telling and heartrending how Air winds down the tune, letting the melody grow slower and fainter until the final sighing notes almost evaporate from the grooves. Ondaatje’s novel ends with a similarly wary coda, as a broken Buddy recedes from view: “Thirty one years old. There are no prizes.”

* * * * * * *Â

The Morton tune is currently available on the companion CD for the Marcus-edited book.

Destination: Out is thrilled to present this amazing guest post by Ethan Iverson of The Bad Plus. This is the first in what we hope will become an occasional feature – jazz musicians on their favorite music. Enjoy!

THEME FROM THOMAS COLE
SILVER AND GOLD BABY, SILVER AND GOLD
Henry Threadgill
You Know the Number
RCA-Novus : 1986

HT, also sax; Rasul Sadik, trumpet; Frank Lacy, trombone; Fred Hopkins, bass; Diedre Murray, cello; Reggie Nicholson and Pheeroan akLaff, drums.

Recorded October 12 and 13, 1986.

Anybody else remember this glossy print ad campaign that featured Henry Threadgill?

Over the years, Madison Avenue hasn’t called on many jazz musicians to promote luxury items. Dewar’s tapped Threadgill in the late 1980s, during which time he had major recording contracts (first RCA-Novus, then Columbia), critical acclaim (he won Best Composer in the Downbeat critic’s poll every year from 1988 to 1991), and even a celebrity marriage (with Cassandra Wilson, since terminated).

That level of hubbub subsided pretty quickly, but he’s kept going strong. Every couple of years he shows up with an interesting new band. He is currently recording for Pi.

Sometimes during rehearsal in the Bad Plus, one of us says to the other two, “This part is like Threadgill.” As I wrote on Do the Math:

Reid, Dave and I all checked out various Threadgill discs when young. We have talked to many “straight-ahead” jazz musicians who have never heard a note of Threadgill, which is unfortunate for them since he is one of the music’s important resources. There’s at least one great track on every Threadgill record we’ve heard.

Here are two tracks from a wonderful record made almost exactly 20 years ago. It’s extremely out-of-print and unlikely to be reissued any time soon. To demonstrate why Threadgill is an important resource, I have gotten fairly technical in my description of these performances. (Hopefully non-musicians will not find it unfriendly.) If more musicians had paid attention 20 years ago, jazz today might be quite different. There was a glossy print ad campaign featuring a luxury item and a jazz musician last year too:

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“Theme from Thomas Cole” is in two sections. The first (“A”) is homophonic and vaguely “classical” sounding with a clear tonic of F# minor. The second (“B”) is a rare example of successful counterpoint in jazz. All the musicians play the parts cleanly, without any raggedness or smudging. However, against either A or B, there is almost always a soloist who is blowing ragged lines against the pure texture. This dichotomy — clean band, dirty soloist — goes back to the dawn of jazz and exists in any decent blues performance. Threadgill’s playing in particular is quite irrational. It is impressive that a man can write such elegant music and then deface it so casually.

The Sextett had two drummers. Notice that in the first “A” there is only a multitude of cymbals (no drums) and that in “B” each drummer is assigned one of the lines of counterpoint. It is not an easy tempo but it never drags — in fact, “Theme from Thomas Cole” would be a little too long if the drummers weren’t so enthusiastic; Pheeroan akLaff was an important asset to Threadgill. He replaced the late Steve McCall in Air and turns in a great performance with Very Very Circus on Makin’ A Move.

The last time through “A,” Threadgill varies his pecking “dee-dee-dee-dee” figure for the first time (at 5:45). This tiny moment of entropy presages the brief horn calamity that starts the coda. A sonorous C#7 is eventually agreed on except in the bass: Fred Hopkins swoops down to pound on his low F#. This moment (a prolonged V dominant over i) is found in any piece of Beethoven but hardly ever appears in jazz. The tension is gratefully released in a satisfying blare of pure F# minor.

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After a slithering microtonal Hopkins introduction, “Silver and Gold Baby, Silver and Gold” reveals itself to be a mysterious dirge in the Ellington tradition. Diedre Murray is unnervingly scored at the top of her instrument. The weird staccato note in the melody sounds like a mistake, but it is exactly the same on the reprise. At about a minute into the track, Threadgill gets a few bars of Johnny Hodges-like statement, and you can almost hear the words “Silver and Gold, Baby! Silver and Gold…” The tune keeps twisting along. It’s quite a long form, probably at least 32 bars with no repeats.

The second chorus features an abstract Threadgill solo. The accompaniment of Murray and Hopkins (who switches between arco and pizzicato effectively) marks the tune’s harmony but doesn’t lock up anything like a piano player would. Threadgill’s last two impassioned notes — almost an operatic appoggiatura — ties up his solo perfectly (4:07). The third chorus reprises the tune with Murray an octave down, although the band makes it only halfway through before getting stuck on a dolorous vamp for Threadgill to preach over.

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Here is an article by Greg Sandow that has a lot of interesting information about Threadgill’s background

Here is a Threadgill discography.

Here is more on painter Thomas Cole (1801-1848).

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Read much more from Mr. Iverson and his confreres at the Bad Plus’ internet home: Do The Math.