Coltrane! Coltrane! John Coltrane - né September 23, 1926

The last time that I heard John Coltrane in person was January 22, 1966 - the year before his death. His quartet performed at Cobo Hall in Detroit, Michigan. On the program with  Coltrane's quartet were  Monk's quartet and Sarah Vaughan accompanied by a trio. Coltrane also performed with Monk that evening for the last time. My wife and our unborn son were there with me. Our friends, the Murphy's, also attended this concert. The first time that I heard Coltrane was in the fall of 1959 when he appeared at Ford Auditorium with the Miles Davis Sextet. A rather full account of the fabulous August 1961 performance of Coltrane's group at the Village Gate in NYC which featured Eric Dolphy and Roland Kirk appears in my blog posts of March 17 and 26, 2011.
     Happy Birthday, John!

http://www.johncoltrane.com/

Apropos of Free-Jazz, Guelph Jazz Festival, and Schoenberg

The composer Allen Shawn's Arnold Schoenberg's Journey is a wonderful book. He explicates Schoenberg's music for the rest of us, for the unprofessional atonal enthusiasts. My view is that the atonal - I know "atonal" is a bad choice of nomenclature, a bad choice for getting things right - music in our life is often more accessible (another bad word) to jazz enthusiasts than to classical (another bad word) music enthusiasts. I recommend reading Shawn's short chapter 10, "Wrong Notes". Shawn compares Thelonious Monk 'composing' at the piano with Schoenberg's rapid-pace and nearly trance-like way of 'composing' at his writing desk, writing that Schoenberg, "believed passionately that art should come primarily from the unconscious." (106) He continues by posing four very interesting questions:

What if Schoenberg's music had been improvised? What if it belonged to the world of "free jazz"? Or more realistically, what if the technical aspect of Schoenberg's music had been kept secret when it was first introduced? Would it have more easily found a following if it had been presented as a form of spontaneous expression? (106)

I don't think that Schoenberg or Monk would have "easily found a following" in any case: their music isn't simple enough - unlike the music of a Marsalis, a Glass, or an Adams.
      In Schoenberg's music, as in free-jazz, the interval seems to be the thing. This is especially true of Henry Threadgill's music and his magic. As I noted in the Guelph Jazz Festival post, if one is interested in Schoenberg improvised, listen to Spooky Action's Schoenberg disc.

    

Sunday Morning - Red Baron et al.

#s 8 & 10 are left as exercises for the reader. Try YouTubing the list. Until I have something to say,

Cheers!

Hold on! Today's vinyl day. Later for YouTube!

Guelph Jazz Festival

This year's Guelph Jazz Festival was held in Guelph, Ontario, Canada on September 7 - 11. There was more music presented than was possible to take in. Typically the music presented is improvised, avant garde, and experimental - a mix of young and seasoned musicians. I've attended Guelph with a friend three times, in 2007, 2010 and 2011. Last year's festival was rather disappointing musically - it seemed to have been sponsored Apple Computer and ECM Records. George Lewis and his MacBook were ubiquitous and the latter 'performer' detracted from the music that managed to break through. But 2010 was never the less enjoyable. It's often worthwhile to hear what's not happening. And Guelph is a charming city. This year the merchants of Guelph were wary of the American dollar - isn't everybody! 2007 was Anthony Braxton's and William Parker's Curtis Mayfield Project's Guelph - it was a stupendous Guelph! We didn't attend in 2009 - the Guelph of David Murray, Fred Anderson, and the World Saxophone Quartet - since I had been involved in presenting Murray and the WSQ in Columbus, Ohio in 1999 and thereafter in a number of different guises over a six year span. But I'm sorry that I missed Guelph 2009 - David Murray and Milford Graves, Hamid Drake and Fred Anderson! How stupid could I have been? 

     Hamiet Bluiett of the World Saxophone Quartet and the grandmaster of the baritone saxophone, contra-bass clarinet, and much else remarked to me a while back that when he was coming of age musically he and his fellows looked to the young musicians to find out what was happening musically. Today, he went on to say, its the older musicians who are the beacons of what's happening. In terms of Bluiett's point, this was certainly the case - the 'old heads' were happening and showing the way forward (sometimes the way forward is back).

      I find the piano-saxophone duo format wanting musically in many cases. A few satisfying recorded examples include David Murray & Dave Burrell/John Hicks, Dave Brubeck & Paul Desmond and Marshall Allen & Terry Adams - we should remember also the recorded piano-trumpet masterpieces of Lewis Armstrong & Earl Hines and Chet Baker & Paul Bley. I think that the piano-saxophone performances that I find unsatisfying are those in which the pianist has a weak left hand, where the music lacks a bottom, where one hears a doubling of the melodic lines by the piano and saxophone. Right.

      A trio of piano, bass/drums, and saxophone/trumpet is a way of satisfying this author's performance preferences. We recall, don't we, the wonderful piano-drum-trumpet/winds duos and trios of Shelly Mann, Russ Freeman, and Shorty Rogers/Jimmy Giuffre?
     Free-Jazz - a-melodic and a-harmonic - the sound-events are the thing. [*]
One of the great, good things about about the annual Guelph Jazz Festival is that it emphasizes improvised avant-garde free jazz. It gives free-jazz players a chance to play their music and to get paid too. Getting paid is very important for free-jazz musicians; since, unless they have university or other teaching gigs, most music presenters refuse to present new music or free-jazz.
     We all know that free-jazz began with Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Cecil Taylor, Albert Ayler, Don Cherry, Sun Ra and others. We also know that free-jazz is defined by negative attributes - it's a-melodic, a-harmonic, a-rhythmic. It eliminates the traditional rhythm section as accompanist form. There are almost as many free-jazz styles as there are free-jazz players - there is no singular free-jazz style. But there are varying degrees of freedom in free-jazz. Sometimes the musicians have written scores or head-arrangements. Most often, however, music scores are absent. We also know that European free-jazz musicians have their own variety of free-jazz, one that is more out of the European art-music tradition. But Schoenberg, Webern, Bartok, and Stockhausen are favorites of both North American and European free-jazz musicians. N.B. North American includes Canadian!
       The stone free-jazz music that I heard in Guelph was performed by Trevor Watts (saxophones) and Veryan Weston (piano); Lotte Anker (saxophones), Craig Taborn (piano), and Gerald Cleaver (drums); and Creative Collective - Kidd Jordan (tenor saxophone), Joel Futterman (piano), William Parker (bass), and Alvin Fielder (drums); and Paul Plimley (piano), William Parker (bass), and (a drummer whose name I don't know who was pressed into service for the absent Gerry Hemingway).
       The free-jazz performances of Lotte Acker et al. and Paul Plimley et al. were composed of sound-events that didn't have beginnings, middles, or endings. They just began and then stopped. Lotte Acker's saxophone playing reminded me of what has been said of the earliest role of the tenor  saxophone, with its slap-tonguing techniques: it was a rhythm instrument supporting a bass line. So I thought Acker was tip-toeing with the saxophones while Taborn and Cleaver were playing their percussive piano and drums, respectively.

The Vancouver, BC pianist Paul Plimley engaged the music with a trio that included William Parker, bass and a drummer, whose name I don't know, who was sitting in for the estimable Gerry Hemingway. Plimley's set was too long, given what he was playing - two hands close together at the top of the piano keyboard then bounced to the bottom of the keyboard, over and over again. Cecil Taylor's former bass-man tried to steer the piano to the middle of things, but without success. The drummer tip-toed throughout. All in all too much of the same patterns with no flow.

      Creative Collective - Kidd Jordan (ts), Joel Futterman (p), William Parker (b), Alvin Fielder (d). For me the music created by the Creative Collective was the highlight of the Guelph Jazz Festival. This was free-jazz playing at its best. The group played in one long music-event. The music moved, it flowed, it had a beginning, middle, and end. Four fabulous musicians. Futterman and Fielder were unknown to me. Fielder played the drums, no tip-toeing with him. William Parker didn't have to direct traffic in this context (as he had done with Paul Plimley); he showed why he is so highly regarded as a bassist and musician. Kidd Jordan and Joel Futterman knocked me out with their forceful, subtle playing and musicianship. "Creative Collective" is certainly true of these musicians.

     On the stone-free-jazz side of the Guelph Jazz Festival, Trevor Watts & Veryan Weston and Creative Collective were superb and thrilled me with their musicianship.

On the Other Side. I heard Tygve Seim (saxophones) & Andreas Utnem (keyboards), Nicolas Caloia (bass) Quartet with Jean Derome (winds), Guillaume Dostaler (piano), Isaiah Ceccarelli (drums) and Henry Threadgill's (winds) Zooid with Liberty Ellman (guitar), Stomu Takeishi (bass guitar), José Davila (trombone & tuba), Elliot Kause (drums), and Christopher Hoffman ('cello).

     Tygve Seim & Andreas (ECM recording artists) performed in St. Georges Church. This space was apt for their ECM, Garbarek-like vibe. The audience, it appeared, was enthralled by the stillness of their etherial music. It sounded too good for me. But that's the ECM way.

      Nicolas Caloia's Quintet music was enjoyable for me. It was the most straight ahead music that I heard - it wasn't experimental or free-form. It was well played. I was impressed by J. Derome (winds) and G. Dostaler (piano).

       Henry Threadgill - Zooid. His music has been characterized as sui generis and his instrumentations and voicings as bizarre (The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 5th ed.). I first heard Threadgill in person with the group Air in Ann Arbor (1980?). I was also most impressed by his flute solo on David Murray's recording Ming. Henry Threadgill gave an interview in Guelph as part of the festival program. He mentioned the music of Arnold Schoenberg as having influenced his music. He also alleged that American string players are very weak when it comes to rhythm - far weaker than string players of other countries. Now pay attention here!
       There is a group out of New York University that calls itself Spooky Actions (after Albert Einstein's phrase). Spooky Actions has recorded improvisations based on the music of Schoenberg, Webern, and Messiaen. The Webern arrangements and improvisations are in Threadgill's neighborhood conceptually. I think it's quite interesting to listen to Spooky Actions' Schoenberg and Webern recordings followed by Schoenberg and Webern followed by Threadgill. Then listen in reverse order. Then ..... Of course Monk is in there too. Go figure/listen.
       Threadgill-Zooid's was captivating to my ears - it was about time for musicians to bring their music-scores to the front. The musicians were all superb. The music moved up and down, but it flowed too. It wasn't free but it wasn't constrained either. It was very satisfying to my ears.
       Last Thing. I would urge one to go to the Guelph Jazz Festival website and look at the archive of previous festivals. One will be astounded by the assortment of great musicians who have contributed to making the Guelph Jazz Festival one of a kind and something not to be missed.      

[*]Ekkehard Jost's Free Jazz, Da Capo Press, 1994 is the thing for inquiring music minds.
http://www.guelphjazzfestival.com/2011_season/performers
http://jazztimes.com/sections/concerts/articles/28468-guelph-jazz-festival-colloquium
http://www.spookyactions.com/
     http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/17/arts/music/roulette-opens-in-brooklyn-with-camilla-hoitenga-review.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Henry%20Threadgill&st=cse

The Moral Stance & Laser-Guided Democracy

Noam Chomsky's 1966 essay "The Responsibility of Intellectuals" is along with Peter F. Strawson's "Freedom and Resentment" one of the two best essays that I have ever read. I remember pouring over both essays in the dimly lit Wayne State University library in 1966. The Vietnam war against the Vietnamese people was quite underway and  Detroit's 'Insurrection' occurred the following year. Both of these abuses of power were lethal actions brought by the privileged, educated few - Harvard, Yale, Stanford men (mostly), against the unprivileged many. According to Chomsky's recent essay, "The Responsibility of Intellectuals, Redux" (September/October Issue Boston Review, the United States' official version of democracy is quite limited in its extent and in our government's application of its democratic principles. On page five (5) Chomsky writes,

What particularly troubled the Trilateral scholars was the “excess of democracy” during the time of troubles, the 1960s, when normally passive and apathetic parts of the population entered the political arena to advance their concerns: minorities, women, the young, the old, working people . . . in short, the population, sometimes called the “special interests.” They are to be distinguished from those whom Adam Smith called the “masters of mankind,” who are “the principal architects” of government policy and pursue their “vile maxim”: “All for ourselves and nothing for other people.” The role of the masters in the political arena is not deplored, or discussed, in the Trilateral volume, presumably because the masters represent “the national interest,” like those who applauded themselves for leading the country to war “after the utmost deliberation by the more thoughtful members of the community” had reached its “moral verdict.” 

By "excess of democracy" Chomsky means "democracy for the rest of us, for those of us down here on the ground (Cornel West's apt phrase) - "All for ourselves and nothing for other people." We've seen this "vile maxim" pursued by our President, by his friends in powerful places, and by his ghosts in Congress - his imaginary opposition.

     Noam Chomsky's two essays are very instructive and repay one's attention. Peter Strawson's fine 1960 essay is also worthy of our attention. Lastly The New Yorker profile by Larissa MacFarquhar of the philosopher Derek Parfit offers rewarding reading. Parfit gets quite worked up about human suffering. Thus Chomsky, Strawson and Parfit fit together. 

http://www.bostonreview.net/BR36.5/noam_chomsky_responsibility_of_intellectuals_redux.ph

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/09/05/110905fa_fact_macfarquhar

Bechet, Ellington & Coltrane

Duke Ellington's  Music Is My Mistress contains a portrait of the soprano saxophonist and clarinetist Sidney Bechet, whom Ellington characterizes as "one of the great originals." (pps. 47-8) Bechet was greatly admired by Johnny Hodges and John Coltrane greatly admired Johnny Hodges. Although, Hodges main instrument was the alto saxophone, he occasionally played the soprano saxophone - he even had a hit recording in the late 1950s featuring his soprano saxophone. It seems to me that John Coltrane's and Lucky Thompson's soprano saxophone conceptions are primarily by way of Hodges, whereas Steve Lacy's is by way of Bechet. These master musicians, masters of the soprano saxophone, are about it for me as far as liking soprano saxophone action. Typically I don't like what the younger, Wayne Shorter generation does with this difficult instrument. A couple of other soprano saxophonists who I think master the instrument are Bob Wilber and Oliver Lake - they play the curved version of the soprano.

     Ellington talks about Bechet's getting a wooden sound from his clarinet, something Duke finds very rare. Sidney Bechet gets an almost Ben Webster or Gene Ammons sound that blows one away. The other soprano-players tend to squeeze where Bechet has an intense vibrato and huge sound - try Bechet's wonderful French Vogue recording with the 'moderns' Martial Solal, Pierre Michelot, and Kenny Clarke. 

     Bechet was a great clarinet player; according to Gunther Schuller, Early Jazz, one of the three great clarinetists in the New Orleans tradition; the other two were Johnny Dodds and Jimmy Noone. (p. 195) Schuller explains Bechet's unique soprano sound as deriving from his clarinet conception. Bob Wilber is closest to Bechet in his conception; Wilber is a clarinetist too, whereas most of the younger soprano players play either tenor or alto saxophone and have a saxophone conception. 

      For a thrill listen to Sidney Bechet's and Billie Holiday's Summertime (the latter in a small group with Artie Shaw on clarinet).        

John Coltrane

Sunday is my music day. I listened to John Coltrane most of the day. His birthdate is 23 September - an important date in a number of ways. "Lonnie's Lament" is haunting me.

Pierre Boulez, Rocco Di Pietro & Rayesti

Wolfgang Rihm via Paul Griffiths

This morning I tuned into my main modern music guide Paul Griffiths' webpage to find out what was happening. He has a review of a recording by the Arditti String Quartet of the 12th Quartet of Wolfgang Rihm, his Interscriptum, and Fetzen. After reading Griffiths's account of this music, I was shocked that it fell out of Amazon's Cloud onto my hard drive. It's truly wonderful, brilliant music. Read Griffiths and perhaps it will fall upon your ears too. Griffiths' link is below.


http://disgwylfa.com/new.html

Slow Listening - "'Take your time!'"

Wittgenstein offers this advice to philosophers, Culture and Value (p. 80e), "This is how philosophers should salute each other: 'Take you time!'" This kind of advice usefully applies to music critics, philosophers of music, and music enthusiasts - "Take your time: Listen and re-listen!"
     I have described Andrew Porter's routine for approaching new music in a previous post. Richard Wollheim, the philosopher of aesthetics whose thing was the visual arts primarily, writes somewhere that his routine for contemplating a painting consisted of sitting in the gallery containing the painting he was interested in viewing; just sitting there for a long time so as to unburden himself of unpainterly distractions and to prepare himself aesthetically (as a surgeon might prepare to operate) to regard the painting with the right attitude. Clement Greenberg, the high-priest of modern art critics, would back into the gallery, turn around quickly, quickly take in the painting with his (critical) eyes, and judge there and then and there whether the painting was worthy of his continued critical regard.
      Of course, in either case - painting or music - robust experience is necessary; in addition to slow looking or slow listening, repeated visual and auditory experiences of the works under consideration. With new music performances, whether recorded or live, there are problems inherent in the partnership relation that exists between the composer and performing musicians. A composer composes a piano sonata (say), she (Sofia Gubaidulina, say) messes around with the emerging work at the piano, commits her experiments to paper, takes her brand new sonata to a new music specialist (the pianist Ursula Oppens, say) to work out the performance details. And to put the vitally important finishing touches - accents, phrase markings, tempo indications &c. - on the extant score. Sometimes these indications are incorporated in subsequent editions of the score - however with contemporary works, what one first sees in a score is all that one will ever get. There's also a further problem: some composers are pianists, and know there way around a piano keyboard; other composers haven't a performer's clue about writing for the piano. Beethoven knew what made the piano and pianists tick; Schoenberg didn't have a Beethoven pianist's sense. See Mitsuko Uchida's discussion of Schoenberg's piano music on YouTube.
         Point. (We're almost there.) Experiment in slow listening. Collect as many recorded accounts of Schoenberg's Five Pieces for Piano as is feasible - a small sample might consist of Gould, Wolpe, Pollini, Hellfer, Jacobs, and Spooky Actions. If one can find even earlier recordings, it's even better for our experiment. Now the outcome of this listening experiment will be increased musicality, because the performers have learned what Schoenberg's work is about, and have helped to shape the pieces. It's more than interpretation; it's articulation of the music both in and out of the score. Try it.
        Comments are always welcome.
        Thanks to Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers for helping me with this post.