Bach Collegium Japan - Bach Mass in b minor, BWV 232

Last Thursday evening (March 24, 2011) friends and I were in Hill Auditorium at the University of Michigan to hear Bach Collegium Japan, under Masaaki Suzuki -
Artistic Director and Conductor, perform J. S. Bach's Mass in b minor. I had not heard this work performed live before this wonderful occasion. It's a work that has been on my must-hear-live before my-obliteration-and-oblivion list. Fortunately other works on my list have been heard and therefore checked-off; these include Mahler's Eighth Symphony, Schoenberg's first String Quartet and Pierrot lunaire, Stockhausen's Klavierstück IX, and Carter's first and second String Quartets. But Boulez's Le marteau sans maître remains confined to vinyl and CDs.
   There were a few rough patches in the performance; but if the reader was not there in the audience, there is no reason to waste time with New York Times' styleless 'criticism': "It was a splendid performance; but not without flaws." It's not a multi-tracked CD after all!
   The countertenor Clint van der Linde was outstanding. The solo parts performed by the ensemble's first violin, flutes, and oboes were very well played. The other vocal soloists and chorus were also quite good.
   About the chorus there were two aspects that affected me greatly: After the intermission one of the chorus was without his score and another member of the chorus was much taller than the other members of the chorus. ☺ (Apologies to the New York Times.)
   It was a wonderful evening of music.

Some Favorite Things I’ve Wanted To Write Down - Continued

17 August 1961 John Coltrane at the Village Gate.

   The Music. Reggie Workman (bass) played pizzicato phrases while Art Davis (bass) employed an arco technique. The Village Gate introduction was in a way like that of Coltrane’s recording of “Dahomey’s Dance”. But it also was, or it had the feeling of, Jimmy Garrison’s solo introduction to the 57 minute Live in Japan 1966 recording of “My Favorite Things”, in which Jimmy Garrison uses both pizzicato and arco techniques. But the Village Gate arrangement followed the initial Atlantic recording except for the basses’ introduction and the additional instruments: a second bass, Eric Dolphy’s flute, and Roland Kirk’s three saxophones, nose whistle, and other stuff.

   Eric Dolphy and Roland Kirk are on the bandstand. Reggie Workman (bass) and Art Davis (bass) have provided a lengthy introduction. McCoy Tyner (piano) plays an ostinato figure on the piano. John Coltrane plays the melody then solos. McCoy Tyner keeps the ostinato two-handed block chords coming. Roland Kirk is entranced, his movements were those of a prize fighter—a fighter with three saxophones hanging from his neck. Dolphy is looking up at the ceiling. Coltrane is back for another solo. Tyner keeps the block chords coming, pushing Coltrane’s soprano saxophone further out. Coltrane restates the theme after his intense solo. Next it’s Eric Dolphy’s solo on flute.

   The photographic image that I’ve had all of these years has been one that’s dark around its edges with a halo-like lighting in the center—the saxophone trinity of Coltrane, Dolphy, and Kirk in the center framed by the 6/8 rhythm machine con- sisting of the drummer Elvin Jones, the bassists Reggie Workman and Art Davis, and the pianist McCoy Tyner. Ostinato all around; ostinato all the way down.

   Throughout the introductions of Workman, Davis, and Tyner, and throughout the solos of Tyner, Coltrane, and Dolphy; Roland Kirk is bobbing and weaving with his army of saxophones, whistle, and other stuff, ready to engage “My Favorite Things”. I’m sure that the Village Gate “My Favorite Things” was more than an hour in duration (the Live in Japan recorded performance is 57 minutes).

   After being "on creative alert" for forty minutes or so, the one man saxophone ensemble that was Roland Kirk was beyond ready to play. I certainly can't describe to the reader how he played; except to say that he played his three saxophones all at once and punctuated an incredible solo with a whistle from his nose flute — Kirk’s incredible solo followed the incredible solos of Messrs. Davis, Workman, Coltrane, Tyner, Coltrane and Dolphy. Incredible solos? Solos characterized by forceful tones, harmonics, doubling the 6/8 rhythmic pulse, creating a rhythmic pulse on top of Elvin Jones’ polyrhythmic pulses---indescribable; I tried!

   There has been fixed in my memory and imaginings of that evening of stupendous music making and invention an image of the audience’s reaction to the sight of Eric Dolphy leading Roland Kirk, a blind man with his tangle of instruments, to the band stand. This image of mine, which has been constant, is one of me as a member of the audience witnessing the sight of Eric Dolphy and Roland Kirk, witnessing this very reflexive seeing of a sight of . . . . This, hopefully non-vicious, visual regress appears to be in stereo—one mind’s eye on me qua audience member and one mind’s eye on the audience, including me. I also suppose that there could be a regress of mind’s eyes, too.

   My current explanatory hypothesis resides in the fact that I had met Roland Kirk a year before at the Half Note and I knew as a consequence of that meeting what to expect from him musically. The rest of Village Gate audience didn’t know what to expect from this blind man with his tangle of saxophones and other weird instruments, his assortment of found objects. Anyway that’s my thinking.

   After the music started I was totally transfixed. And my ‘memories’ of that fabulous night have been a fixed point for me over the past 50 years—me as a spectator amongst the other spectators, 17 August 1961. Memory and imagination hang together for me.

   As I noted above, for many years I couldn’t figure out exactly who the second bass player was; I knew that Art Davis was one of the bassists. I conjected that Reggie Workman might have been the other bassist, but I couldn’t be sure. A few years ago I asked Oliver Lake, who performs with Reggie Workman and Andrew Cyrille in the group Trio Three, if he would ask Workman if he was the other bassist that night in August, 1961. Reggie Workman thought that I might have been trying to peddle a bootleg recording of the music of that evening (I wish someone had a recording of that night!), and he refused to say whether he was on that gig or not. But some time later, Trio Three appeared at the Kerrytown Concert House in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and I asked Reggie Workman directly. He replied, ”Yes. It was magical wasn’t it.”

   It was indeed, magical.

Some Favorite Things I’ve Wanted To Write Down

17 August 1961 John Coltrane at the Village Gate. In the summer of 1961, recently out of high school, I was living on the second floor in an industrial loft at 326 Bowery with two artist friends, Mike M. and Joel. The three of us worked at the Stouffer Restaurant, The Top of The Sixes, located at 666 Fifth Avenue, near MOMA. At the time another friend, Jerry M. from Michigan was visiting. I had known Mike and Jerry in high school in Highland Park, a suburb of Detroit; Joel was the New Yorker. Our loft was located near the famous Five Spot.

   On the night of 17 August 1961, Jerry and I went to the Village Gate located at 158 Bleecker Street at Thompson in the Village to hear the John Coltrane sextet which featured Eric Dolphy (reeds), McCoy Tyner (piano), Art Davis and Reggie Workman (basses), Elvin Jones (drums), and special guest Roland Kirk (reeds).

Lewis Porter in his John Coltrane: His Life and Music, The University of Michigan Press (1999) reports on page 365 that ”According to Bob Rusch, Roland Kirk sat in with Coltrane on August 17 [1961].” Since I had never seen mention of the Coltrane-Kirk event, I called Lewis Porter and informed him of my presence in the Coltrane-Kirk event. Porter said that he would give me a footnote (someday) in the Coltrane encyclopedia he was putting together. Instead of waiting for the footnote, I’ll try and convey what the Coltrane-Dolphy-Kirk event was like nearly 50 years ago.

   I had met Roland Kirk at the Half Note in 1959. High School friends and I had spent that Christmas in NYC. Roland Kirk (later Rahsaan Roland Kirk) is one of three Columbus, Ohio music luminaries —Nancy Wilson (“Sweet Nancy” in Sid McCoy’s lexicon) and Harry “Sweets” Edison. I had the thrill of meeting ”Sweets” Edison in Detroit at Bakers’ Keyboard Lounge where he was performing with Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis. “Sweets” Edison performed with Count Basie, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Ben Webster, and Frank Sinatra. I never met “Sweet” Nancy; but I feel like I know her, since Sid McCoy, the famous Chicago jazz disc jockey always played something by Nancy Wilson. He opened his show with Jimmy Smith’s recording of “When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again” — unfortunately a tune with a poignant message for us today.

   Sweet Memory, Fifty Years On. The Village Gate was located in the basement (or ground floor?) of a large building. The room itself was large with long tables at which one sat. I don’t recall having been served drinks, New York waiters had a keen awareness of the spenders verses ‘music lovers’, so our waiter or waitress most likely avoided us. The former Village Gate is now (Le) Poisson Rouge.

   Jerry M. and I were expectantly sitting at our table waiting for the music to begin. My expectation was the result of having heard John Coltrane in person once before at Ford Auditorium in Detroit, Michigan in the winter of 1959. He was a member of the famous Miles Davis sextet that featured “Cannonball” Adderly, Bill Evans, Paul Chambers, and Jimmy Cobb. Ford Auditorium has/had a platform in front of the main stage that could be lowered and raised. Miles’s sextet rose up from a lower level blasting Thelonius Monk’s “Straight, No Chaser”—a thrilling moment for my date and me.

   I think the long tables were set out at angles to the bandstand. There were microphones all over the bandstand, each of the contra-basses was miked; Art Davis was on the left and Reggie Workman was on the right. Elvin Jones and his drum set were behind Workman. McCoy Tyner at the piano was behind Art Davis. John Coltrane, tenor and soprano saxophones was in the middle of these musicians. Eric Dolphy, alto saxophone and flute walked past out table. He was charged with leading Roland Kirk to the bandstand. Mr Kirk was blind.

   To say that Roland Kirk was a multi-instrumentalist could be misleading. He performed on the tenor saxophone, flute, and these antique single-reed instruments manzello, stritch, and nose-flute. But Kirk was unique in that he had perfected a technique of playing the tenor, manzello, and stritch simultaneously.

   Now Eric Dolphy was leading Roland Kirk and all of his instruments to the bandstand! Around his neck were hung three saxophones and nose-flute. In his hand he held a regular flute. So after their trek to the bandstand, through an even more expectant and buzzing audience, there stood at the center of the elevated bandstand three giants of creative music: John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, and Roland Kirk. What I felt at that moment has stayed with me for nearly fifty years — I have had a vision outside myself of myself. That’s one of the ways that art — even the prospect of ART — can affect one; it takes one outside of one’s self, if one let’s the music take one. You have to give yourself to it. You have to be on “creative alert” in Geoff Dyer’s phrase. That evening at the Village Gate I was on creative alert.

   There are certain tunes that become an improving artist’s signature tune. “My Favorite Things” was John Coltrane’s signature tune in a way that doesn’t have anything to do with a “Hit Parade” competition or an “American Idol” shot. It’s more in the sense of an Anthem that I have in mind. It’s in the sense of an Anthem of Excellence or Striving for Artistic Perfection. I think of Charlie Parker’s “Koko” or Monk’s “Criss Cross”, nearly every tenor-man’s “Body and Soul” (after Coleman Hawkins, that is). John Coltrane didn’t take requests, but he most often played “My Favorite Things”. He first recorded it on 21 October 1960. It was released in March 1961. (I don’t know whether I heard this recording prior to the Village Gate performance.)

To be continued.

Basketball & "Down a Path of Wonder"

I must admit I'm a big fan of college basketball. I've tuned into ESPN instead of my ancient cares: Schoenberg, BeBop and philosophy. So I'm attending to "March Madness" instead of "Tenor Madness", basketball madness instead of the madness of so-called Conservatives, both musical and political. Since I watch the basketball games on TV with the sound off (until the last 4 minutes), I have been able to read in Robert Craft's recent collection of essays and reviews, Down a Path of Wonder: Memoirs of Stravinsky, Schoenberg and other cultural figures, Naxos Books (2006). I have long admired Craft's New York Review of Books' prose style. The essays in his prior collection, The Moment of Existence: Music, Literature and the Arts 1900 - 1995 are also recommended, especially the essay on Thomas Bernhard, "Austria's Negative Poet Laureate". In the Naxos' essays, Craft's three page chapter on Schoenberg's A Survivor from Warsaw illuminates this work for the listener.

I'm looking forward to Louisville verses Connecticut this evening. The Big East games are usually better with the sound up.   

Stuff 'n' Things

Music: Russell & Wittgenstein.

  Ken Blackwell, Treasurer of the Bertrand Russell Society, asked, in conjunction with submitting the treasurer’s report, that members provide him with links to their web sites, which he would list on the BSR web site.

  This prompted me to think about - to inquire about - Bertrand Russell’s interest in music. There aren’t many references to music in Ray Monk’s two volume Russell. Russell does mention being inspired by a biography of Mozart and the letters of Beethoven. And Wittgenstein, in a letter to Russell, shows his approval of Russell’s interest in Beethoven. However, Russell’s interests in Mozart and Beethoven seems to have been these composers’ lives rather than their music. Brian McGuinness in his Wittgenstein: A Life has a lot to say about Wittgenstein’s musicality, music preferences, and concert-going in Cambridge. His tastes were conservative Viennese tastes - Schubert was his main man.

Fred Sherry String Quartet’s Naxos Schoenberg recording.

  Fred Sherry’s recording of Schoenberg’s 3rd and 4th String Quartets along with the Phantasy for Violin and Piano is brilliant. The performances and the recorded sound are thrilling. The latter is something that I’ve become accustomed to not getting from Naxos recordings. I must say the sound quality of recent Naxos recordings - Ligeti, string quartets; Babbit, Soli e Duettini; and Haydn, Stabat Mater - has been excellent.

Listening Experiences - 2

American composers that I admire - Let's see?
   Duke Ellington, T. Monk, K. Dorham, H. Mobley, C. Mingus, O. Coleman, J. Coltrane, G. Schuller, R. C. Seeger, D. Martino, M. Babbitt, E. Carter, O. Lake, J. Hemphill, D. Murray, B. Morris, S. Rivers, A. Braxton, J. B. Gillespie, C. Parker, T. Dameron, J. Giuffre, G. Russell, A. Davis, M. Waldron, M. Richard Abrams, J. J. Johnson . . . .
   For the most part I prefer chamber music - 33 pieces or less -: string quartets, jazztets; intimate music that's economical to produce and the parts of which are distinct and not doubled. Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven fit in here. My worthy exceptions to 33 pieces/less are Wagner, Mahler, Schoenberg, Berg and Webern. I never liked Bruckner; I still try, but nothing for me there.
   One of the major problems that Americans represent is Academy-itis (as my grandmother would have put it: music making, music composing, music theory as research projects. (This may have been one of the things bothering Stanley Cavell.) Unmusical university administrators wouldn't have understood new-music performances; but would have believed of themselves that they understood the written word in journal articles about new music. For American academic music it's publish, publish and perish.
   Except for the overlooked, disdained, and disparaged creative music greats there doesn't appear to be a lot for America to shout out to the rest of the world about - Ives, Carter, Schuller, any others?
   Must bounce again. More later.

Listening Experiences - 1

The past few days I've been listening to recently acquired CDs with music by Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, and Henze performed by Quatuor Diotima, Fred Sherry String Quartet, bass Nicholas Iserwood. I've also been listening to five Mal Waldron (piano) discs, two with his trio, one each with a quintet, with Jeanne Lee (vocal) and with Archie Shepp (tenor & soprano saxophones).
   Rediscovering Mal Waldron's music has been good for my brain/mind and soul. Neither Mal Waldron nor Jeanne Lee are with us, both passed away. As far as I am aware Mr Shepp is still with us. The Waldron pairings with Miss Lee and Mr Shepp are enthralling and soul-stirring. In 1984 Shepp and Lee made a live recording that produced the enchanting Tune For Shepp (Circle Records). (All of this is leading to many other things that we'll file under Coming Distractions.) Before I leave the vocal side of Mal Waldron - he was after all Lady Day's piano-man - I must note the fabulous recording of Soul Eyes that Mal Waldron made with the vocalist Judi Silvano. Now to the 'serious' European cats, Arnold et al.
   I've never found it useful to distinguish creative music ('Jazz') from so-called, mis-called 'Classical' music from an aesthetic point of view - Duke's dictum still prevails: If it sounds good, it is good. Right!
Now what one should be about, what I hope that I am about, is music ecology - issuing music reminders,  'stickie-notes' before it's too late. Indeed, WKCR-FM remains one of the foremost music ecologists - if you're reading this post try getting next to WKCR on the internet, Google it!
   One of my main persons, Maestro Pierre Boulez in an interview was asked about American composers. He replied - in his usual way - (something along this line) "America doesn't have anyone of Hans Werner Henze's caliber, and that's not setting one's sights very high." I used to listen to Henze's music quite a lot. I listened to Henze along with Boulez. I find their music exciting. And I liked Henze's politics. His El Cimarrón - a diary of a runaway slave for bass voice, flute, guitar and percussion - was a favorite of mine. I listened to the incomplete vinyl DGG recording directed by Henze with the bariton William Pearson. Another of Henze's works that attracted my attention was his Der langwierige Weg in die Wohnung der Natascha Ungeheuer (The Tedious Way to the place of Natascha Ungeheuer). [We've all had these tedious-way experiences.] This DGG vinyl recording features William Pearson, Fires of London: piano quintet; Philip Jones Brass Quintet; Gunter Hampel Free Jazz Ensemble; Stomu Yamash'ta, percussion; and recorded tape. Damn! Natascha Ungeheuer is reckoned as the siren of a false Utopia - a lot of that going on today. What could be hipper than all of that - it was like Archie Shepp's Impulse recordings, like John Coltrane's Ascension, like The Art Ensemble + Fontella Bass. But puzzling Pierre did have a point about American 'composers'; but a quite allusive point. One must remember that Boulez in print is one person; Maestro Boulez is another person. The latter Pierre is totally committed to creating music.
   One of my points concerns the disparagement of creative music (jazz) by academic American composers. How is that composers who are quite influenced by creative music, who take John Coltrane's music or Lennie Tristano's music - I have Philip Glass and Steve Reich in my sights here - straight away without acknowledgement? I attended a performance by the Philip Glass Ensemble in Detroit many years ago. I had never heard Glass's music before. I read about him in the Village Voice. So I thought that I would give his music a listen. I was spellbound by the performance - take Coltrane, Indian music, African drumming and make a distillate of those ingredients, then amplify this compound. In what did my spellboundedness reside?
   More on these subjects later. Must bounce.     

Jazz Critics - A Thought

I have always been bothered by jazz critics who feel it a requirement of their craft to rely on impressionistic sociology to fill in the gaps of their articles, liner notes and books. Richard Cook & Brian Morton, in their otherwise useful The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD (many editions), rely on medical gossip to characterize recorded performances. I only single out Cook and Morton because my recent reading involves their book. But examples of this kind of "drug-addict journalism" should be a thing of the past. For rock legends drug addiction seems to be charming and beneficial for their musicianship. Anyway, in my reading of Sir Donald Tovey's Beethoven I came across his sane words which I shall quote without comment:

To study the lives of great artists is often a positive hindrance to the understanding of their works; for it is usually the study of what they have not mastered, and thus it undermines their authority in the things which they have mastered. To undermine that authority is an injury much more serious than any merely professional technicality. Even if the works of art show characteristics closely resembling the faults of the author, we have always to remember that the business of the work of art is to be itself, whereas neither the science of ethics nor the structure of society can thrive for long on the denial that it is the duty of a man to improve himself. [1]