Bill Smith : imagine the sound

GEORGE LEWIS

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Smith) — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 16:38:00 +0000

Trombonically Speaking

Foreword by George E. Lewis,
December 2009

This interview was done during my November 1975 visit to Toronto to perform a solo trombone concert, a medium that, as it happens, I later renounced forever. On previous visits to the city I got to know such innovative Canadian artists as Victor Coleman, and people who later became close associates in Vancouver, such as Eric “Doctor Brute” Metcalfe (http://www.vancouver2010.com/more-2010-information/
cultural-festivals-and-events/event-listings/metcalfe-lewis--ikons_70634gu.html), who was involved with the campaign to elect “Mr. Peanut” (alias Vincent Trasov) mayor of Vancouver. My hometown of Chicago was still being ruled by Richard I, so the possibility of a little cross-cultural transference of consciousness seemed deliciously inviting, even if, as the “colourful” Chicago pol Mathias “Paddy” Bauler had already famously declared, “Chicago ain’t ready for reform.”

Bill’s mid-1970s Coda interviews allowed free rein to musicians to say whatever they liked, for as long as they wanted. This interview ran to over 14,000 words, about the length of the best-known extended format of the period, the Playboy interview. Part of the reason why the Coda interviews ran so long, I suspect, is that for the most part and for whatever reason, most musicians operating in jazz-identified networks (and I include improvised music practitioners in this, all demurrals and exceptions admitted) were not publishing their own written work – not even their scores. Thus, the Blindfold Test, the interview, and the record and CD liner note became prime opportunities for the dissemination of musicians’ textual expressions.

I imagine that for many readers, part of the interest in the interview format lay in the encounter with an ostensibly spontaneous expression by the subject (always central to the image of jazz), now transposed to the written page, where readers are implicitly invited to compare the two registers of spontaneity. As with music, however, apparently spontaneous improvised dialogues actually undergo multiple mediations – of desire and intention, personal and social history, time, space, memory, diverse methodologies, and power relations. Certainly Joseph Jarman, who counselled me early on about developing “interview technique,” understood this well.

Perhaps this was why Adorno dismissed the products of jazz as “not really improvised,” and I have lately found it rather odd that critics of his decidedly dour view of that music (myself included) have concentrated on (or explained away) the philosopher’s lack of affinity and understanding for jazz, while failing to interrogate the larger issue of Adorno’s notion of improvisation, with the inchoate notion of pure spontaneity that lay at its root. But I’m sure that such a keen analyst of the culture industry could not have seen jazz as the only purveyor of ersatz spontaneity. The practice of electronic punditry had come into its own in his final years, and by the time this Coda interview was published, live television entertainment was fading as a medium, made redundant by the greater control over message offered by recording and editing. Imagine a modern late-night talk show taking the time to explain and perform meditative brainwave music, as John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and David Rosenboom did on a 1972 Mike Douglas show that you can search out on YouTube if you like. For today’s media monopolies, there is no reason at all to allow potentially inconvenient and uncontrolled expression to threaten their fraught stewardship of the public airwaves.

Twenty years after this interview, I published “Improvised Music After 1950: Afrological and Eurological Perspectives” in Black Music Research Journal – perhaps the first scholarly article to critique John Cage’s published views on improvisation, sociality and African American musical culture, and later reprinted in Daniel Fischlin and Ajay Heble’s The Other Side of Nowhere. The afterword I wrote for that book took up the editors’ implicit suggestion that a diachronic understanding of both Cage’s work and my critique would allow for change, development, and even progress, a notion still active at the personal level, if not on grander historical stages. Thus, a historian picking through the artifacts of Cage’s life would find contradictory viewpoints emerging from – well, not the same source, since not even Cage could step into the same river twice.

Much later in my career, I discovered that I had been labouring under a certain naïveté with regard to interviews. In fact, interviews in other areas of the art and academic worlds were routinely edited with the consent of the interviewers. In the jazz sector of my career network, I had never heard of such a thing, and I began to realize that other sectors of the cultural and historical landscape took a very different view of the function of the interview as historical document; precision of expression was believed to trump the pleasures of spontaneity and display.

Although Bill kindly invited me to retroactively edit this version of the interview, I suggested instead that I write this foreword, borrowing Daniel and Ajay’s riff. After all, the original interview is still around in libraries and archives, and discrepancies between the two versions of the historical record rightly invite suspicion. Thus, as with small, specific moments in the musical products of my life, I find myself cringing at some of the more callow statements in this somewhat rambling dialogue. Perhaps Bill’s cover photo for “The George Lewis Solo Trombone Record,” taken around the time of the interview in the home he shared with Chloe, his wife of those years, and their two young daughters, now with children of their own, could serve as a visual companion for this public coming-of-age narrative, guided by a sympathetic, cosmopolitan writer and photographer of a slightly older generation, who as it happens, was just coming into his own as a creative musician as well. In this context, the photo seems to tell us that “the child is father to the man,” that sort of thing.

What we encounter in this interview is someone who was learning the pleasures of the grain of the voice, a phenomenon that intrigued both Roland Barthes and, considerably earlier, Dale Carnegie, who brought the phenomenology of the sounding voice to the business world with his famous book, How To Win Friends and Influence People, which my father obliged me to read while I was still in lower school. At the same time, I hear the voice of someone who was trying to understand the epistemological dynamics of socioprofessional networks and the nature of improvisation as a form of composition, and looking to throw off readymades: “If you find out that in terms of the music that you want to play, Harry Partch suits your thing more than any trombone player you’ve heard, go with that.”

In the end, I was pleased to rediscover at least one other area of remarkable consistency between then and now—the ardent assertion of mobility of method and cultural reference, an artifact of first-generation AACM thinking emerging in a second generation. Or, to put it more succinctly, paraphrasing The Prisoner: “I am not a genre; I am a person.”

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The first part of this “slightly cleaned-up” interview was done on the evening of November 21, 1976, after the taping of George Lewis’ first solo album.

Bill Smith: I don’t think I ever heard a “jazz” trombone player write a piece of music like “Piece For Three Trombones”. How does that kind of concept arrive in somebody who’s basically involved in the jazz tradition; who is supposed to be an improviser; who writes a music that is very formal?

George Lewis: I don’t think there’s any such thing as a “jazz” trombone player. Now let me qualify that! What I mean to say is that I’m not considering myself to be a trombone player, or a jazz trombone player, any of those things. I’m involved in music right now, so being involved in music right now, immediate music, for me that means using the trombone as something that’s getting my thoughts out – an instrument or vehicle for the realization of what I’m thinking. And when I’m thinking I’m thinking – in this case – trombonically if you will; now there’s a nice word. So that means that whatever I’m doing is coming out in terms of the trombone. In terms of what I’m playing, in terms of writing a piece for three trombones or whatever, it’s like a trombonic thought, but at the same time it’s not like I want to say, “Well this is another one in the tradition of trombones”, or “This is one in a long line of pieces that are geared to that”. It is that, but it’s something else, too. Do you see what I mean?

Bill: You deal with your instrument in an historical perspective? You didn’t suddenly hear a trombone player who made you freak out?

George: No, no I never did. The thing is, I didn’t suddenly start playing trombone in response to an idea, like hearing a bunch of guys on the radio playing trombone and saying “oh wow, I want to play like this guy”. I started playing for completely different reasons. It was to help my social adjustment. That’s what my parents figured. That a nine year old kid, changing from the school I was going to, which I guess would be classified as a ghetto type of school, in Chicago, and moving to the University of Chicago laboratory school, which is another trip; it was a mostly white school, differences in the socioeconomic background of the people who were going. Like, changing from a situation where most of the kids don’t have any dough to a situation where most of the kids do.

Bill: The trombone was like a therapy?

George: I think that’s what they thought at the time, that if I got involved in a band that would be a bona fide school activity that I could get into that might hasten my interest in assimilation into the community at large, which was the dominant theme then. To assimilate you as much as possible into the scene, even though you’re black. So one of the ways to do that was to have everybody in the band, or in some sort of activity, so my parents told me I ought to play an instrument. I said well, I thought that was a pretty decent idea, but I didn’t have any idea what instrument I wanted to play. I was nine years old – I liked music, but had never considered playing it.

This is at the “why I play the trombone “ stage… it was just a little social adjustment, and seeing the trombone there out of all the instruments that I went to see. I bought the trombone the same way I buy everything else – impulse, and it was the biggest one, and I guess I figured that if you were playing the biggest one you became the most well-adjusted, which is actually the reverse of the truth. The flute players and guitar players got considerably more press time than trombone players. Trombone players were like the lowest of the low. Trombone players and German students, and I was both. There were three trombone players in the entire school, one of whom dropped out in the third week. There were twelve German students. Out of all the students in the school, twelve of them took German, it was like a little elite club…

Bill: It’s a perfect German instrument, like “Oom-pah! Oom-pah!”

George: Right. You say, “Ynnaaarp, ynnaaarp” and then you try to do it, the guy gave me one and said, “Okay now, what are you going to do when you play this?” So I blew and blew and blew and nothing happened. “What’s this? Is it broken? “ He said, “No, you have to buzz”. So he showed me all this buzzing. And I became a master buzzer, but I never practised for years and years and years, until I started thinking I wanted to play jazz. At that point I said, “Wow, I’m going to be a jazz musician.” I was about eleven or twelve. I wasn’t going to be a jazz musician, I was just going to start playing and see what happened. I wanted to improvise because you get to stand out in front and do your own thing, you didn’t have to read a chart and sit in the back.

Bill: Did your band play show tunes?

George: No, mostly we played a lot of march crap. That was the band, that was the concert band. Now the orchestra, naturally, played Prokofief, and Beethoven, whoever else was on the scene at the time. I was in that too, because with only three trombone players, they had to stretch them through the whole music program. Of these three players the top cat was Ray Anderson, who plays in New York. This cat can really play, he’s pretty bad. He has always smoked me. From the very first, this cat took hold, took charge, learned how to read music very well, really got together, and by the time we were in high school, this cat was so far ahead of me I was thinking of quitting. He was just amazing. I’d sit up there and listen to him pop these high “C”s and “D”s, you know, for a kid…

He’s got a very original style on the trombone. And a lot of my stuff comes from things that he’s shown me to check out, in terms of just thinking about well, what are you going to do on the trombone? And knowing that some of the things were possible that I was thinking about, or hearing some guy and saying, if this is possible how come I can’t do it, or how come I’m not doing it?

Bill: Did you discover at some point that you were a trombone player?

George: Yes, at the twelve-year old stage. I had a horrible embouchure, my embouchure was absurd, it wasn’t allowing me to get out of the middle register. I was always playing second trombone. By then, they had added a jazz band, and a junior jazz band. There was a lot of jazz in this school, the University of Chicago school. They had Frank Tiro there. Frank is now doing analyses of Bird. He played alto. I never made the connection until years later. I knew he played alto, but I never knew he was into Bird as much as he was. So now I’m reading in music journals about this guy, he’s analysing Bird and so on. And he was the guy who gave me my first lessons on the trombone. I didn’t know he was into jazz, he never said anything about it. I guess he sort of kept it out of the way, but when it came time to form a jazz band, he was right there and he dealt it and got the band together, the band won prizes at these suburban jazz contests and all this sort of thing. It was a very white scene at the lab school, but it was the only school that I could see that had a jazz contest at the time.

This was way past the days of Captain Dyett, the guy who’s responsible for all those players like Johnny Griffin, John Gilmore. Roscoe was talking about this cat, but I don’t really know about it, so I can’t really talk about it except to say that he was a teacher in the Chicago public school system who taught a lot of guys who are now very well-known Chicago cats. I get the feeling he was a very strict disciplinarian about playing. He’d give you the right horn, Von Freeman talks about this cat a lot. He would force you to get into your stuff. I’ve heard stories where he’s chased the saxophones, chased the whole trumpet section out of the room for playing a part wrong, threatened them with all kinds of stuff and got cats together on their horn. Henry Threadgill studied with him, a lot of the Chicago cats. He taught at DuSable High School.

DuSable. Named after the black man who founded Chicago but never gets any credit. He was a trading-type cat, he’d be black by our contemporary definition of it. Or some sort of mixed cat, but anyway he was the first guy to establish some kind of trading thing in Chicago, long before any of these cats like John Kinsey. I’m not a history buff, but he was the first cat. And they’ve never really acknowledged that. They have a “DuSable Day” every year, and a school named after him, and a little plaza that they just did three years ago, dedicated to him, but it’s a very tardy recognition of this guy’s role in forming Chicago.

You’ve got plenty of guys coming out of that school, starting in the fifties. People even got to the point where it’s like “The DuSable Gang” or something. But we weren’t involved in any of that at the lab school, it was a different set of circumstances, and they were involved in this suburban white scene. It was like a city school, with private school leagues, a very closed sort of scene. A prep school, most of the kids who went there were children of University of Chicago professors.

Bill: Is there some point around here where you start realizing that you have some inclination towards your instrument and the music that you’re playing? A special kind of interest in the instrument?

George: I’ve always had a special interest in trombone playing. Really. The thing is, there’s a difference between that and knowing “I want to play music” and not “I want to be a nuclear physicist” or whatever.

Bill: I doubt that when you’re ten years old that you have the capacity to realize that that’s going to be some kind of lifelong occupation. But at some point you must realize that. Do you remember some kind of realization of that? When it started becoming more important than other things?

George: I don’t think that really happened until college, which is way up the road, before that it was a totally different scene.

Bill: Did you go to college as a music student?

George: No, as a philosophy student. The first thing I did was decide to be a political scientist. I had a big plan to study political science, then I’d go on to law school, and then make some money, or something like that. My first year in school they had a big student strike, with thousands of people running through the streets demonstrating for various things like “Free Bobby Seal”. So I gave up trying to be a lawyer, that got to be a drag.

At that point, my trombone broke. I had the same horn for ten years. These things have great significance, they seem rather sentimental, but it’s weird. This thing broke, the slide fell off. After ten years the slide had finally fallen off, I said “I don’t have to play trombone any more, I’m not going to, I’m going to bag this shit, I’m going to stop being a musician, this is absurd, I’m practising in my room everyday for nothing, there’s nothing coming out of this, everyone hates jazz here…” – which they did, everyone hated it. This was at Yale. People would completely downgrade what I was doing. The music school in general has never been a big fan of improvised music.

Bill: Why is everybody afraid of improvised music?

George: I just figured that these guys, first of all they’re not able to improvise, secondly I don’t think they’re afraid but they just have a big interest in keeping it out because they’re not doing it. If they were doing it on a wider scale they would start introducing it.

Bill: If they were doing it, it would be cool; right?

George: No if they were doing it they’d be cool! We’d still be out of it. The thing is that they’re not doing it on any scale, so if they say, “okay your stuff is horrible and our stuff is what’s happening right now”, whatever it is, it doesn’t matter so much as improvised music, it’s just the form of music that they have going is composed music primarily and the form of music that we have going is improvised music.

During our last years at school it became in to attend our concerts. People who were in the know, they didn’t attend rock concerts, they listened to our stuff. Guys would come up and say, “Well, I’ve really been listening to your music lately and I think it’s far better than this rock stuff”. And we’d appreciate that, because it was nice to be finally recognized, but at the same time we’d get a lot of people who were being very in, then it got to be a drag too, because it wasn’t like you were playing for an audience, it was like you were playing for contemporaries, and people you had in classes and stuff, so it got to be on a very personal level and it got to be sort of out there. See, there’s a certain impersonality about audiences and musicians, which serves as a dramatic focus for the performance or the concert. A lot of the time, you don’t know the person that’s up there performing. Like personally know them. I don’t think most people do, so they can’t approach the music in the same way. And it’s better that you can’t, because it’s not part of that zone to do that.

Bill: You don’t feel the audience’s role is subsidiary, the audience is part of the performance, isn’t it?

George: Absolutely. But the role is dynamic, it’s not a static thing. You can make an analytical proposition and say, “Okay, the audience is part of the performance”, fine. But that’s not talking about the dynamics of the relationship between the audience and the performer, which is what I’m trying to get to. If you don’t know the performer and the performer doesn’t know you, you ‘re not going to make the same sort of assumptions about your responses to the music and how they fit into the total picture as you would if you knew the person. People respond to the music in so many different ways – they start making all sorts of inferences about the musicians that are playing, about their psyches, their backgrounds, their preferences of whatever kinds. All these inferences start happening along with the music a lot of times. Sometimes people will come up and tell you what they got out of it and that will be the form that they’ll use to tell you, an analysis of you.

Bill: But sometimes it’s not what you are at all. Their reaction to you is not necessarily what you are.

George: Well, it almost never is. But it almost always contains some aspect of what it is. But it’s them, because most of the time you can’t interpret the musician in that way if you don’t really know them in some personal sense. But even if you’ve had the vaguest kind of interaction with a musician, on the level of like, we’d be giving these concerts in school, and people would see us in classes, they’d see us on the street or something like that. That’s enough context to start a whole different chain of associations from when for example, Miles came to the school. And so you’ve got so many different complexes there.

Bill: You were playing with other players at Yale. Was that Anthony Davis…

George: …and Wes Brown, Gerry Hemingway, Hal Lewis. Jerry Hemingway plays drums, Hal Lewis is a saxophone player.

It started out with them. I wasn’t with them from the beginning, I guess it was basically Anthony Davis and Hal Lewis and a drummer named Steve Knapp who I guess is now getting his Ph.D. in English or something and is no longer involved in the music, but he’s a good drummer, and then very floating bass players, playing Anthony’s compositions which at the time were very free, a lot of them very modal. He had a suite for Coltrane, a lot of different pieces he was composing even then, very super music. There were only six or seven people in the whole school who were interested in this kind of music, out of the whole population and they were constantly being shit upon by everybody. Seven cats versus five or six thousand, plus the whole New Haven community. Well, not the whole New Haven community because there were guys like Eddie Buster, you know?

We played a lot of different places. We finally started getting gigs everywhere. At first it was just campus gigs, for the door or something like that, and everybody would just get together and try to play free. So these guys heard me playing in my room and told me to try and join up. They had some other guy, some other trombone player and something happened with him so they got me into the band. But then I flunked out, so we had to start all over again after I came back.

I flunked out, I failed in my mission to become a political scientist. I became so bored, I became so terribly bored that I had three papers to complete, did not complete a single one.

The way that I look at it is that the political scientists failed to interest me in their theories. It wasn’t that I couldn’t do those papers, the papers were easy. In this case it was a combination of things. I guess I don’t regard it as a failure, because it cut across several things. What happened was, I could have had a chance to do the papers over the summer. I said no. I won’t do them and the guy said, well you’re going to have to take off for a year and you can re-apply in ‘72. So I said okay fine but I’m not doing this shit. One of them was a music thing, a history of romantic music which I had to do a paper for. I didn’t feel like doing a paper on that, either. We learned about Berlioz, Meyerbeer, these types of fellows. They wanted everybody to do a paper on some aspect of this, but I just couldn’t see it. The guy who was lecturing us would never even look at the class while he was talking. He would always hold his hand in front of his face and look up at the ceiling while talking in this rambling monotone. It would be for an hour and a half, twice a week! Are you kidding?

So I stayed out for a year, and on my nineteenth birthday I walked into this basement and found all these fellows from the AACM playing. In Chicago, about six blocks from my house.

I had a summer job painting chairs, painting chairs by the side of this pool in the North Shore Cabana Club. You know what’s happening on the North Shore of Chicago. A big high rise scene. No blacks. Thousands of wrinkled people, in t-shirts with alligators on them. All these old people sitting around there, and if they didn’t have money a lot of them would be on welfare. A lot of them were sick, had no way to fend for themselves, not anything. They were sick, that’s a drag, to be sick, but on the other side of the big fence there were people who were sick who were out of it. Because once you got past this high rise, you were in the uptown area with all the white Appalachian immigrants, people who had come to Chicago from the Ozarks. These people had absolutely no money, and they’re sitting up there staring at this high rise, with all these people cavorting around in Cabana Clubs. And I was painting chairs in my street clothes.

Bill: What players were playing in that basement six blocks from your house?

George: Muhal, Kalaparusha, let’s see – oh, a whole bunch of guys. Steve Galloway, John Jackson. I don’t remember very much about it because I didn’t know any of the people at the time. I wasn’t around musicians. I had no connection whatsoever with the musicians, the community of Chicago.

Bill: Did they invite you to play?

George: No, in fact they tried to keep me from playing. You know how it is, they have to see if you’re serious first. Because I was talking about playing with them. That’s another matter. I mean they can encourage you sure. A guy will say, “Oh yes, practise practise practise!”. But it’s a different thing from saying “practise, practise” and saying, “Yes, come and play in this band.” First they have to see if you can play. And that requires a little persistence on your part. So that’s what they do, they test you. This happens all the time, I didn’t regard it as any big deal. I knew it was going to happen, so I was already prepared for it. Because it happens in everything, people are constantly testing you to see if you’re really committed to checking them out, and then they’ll check you out more seriously. It’s just social interaction, and nothing to be afraid of.

I didn’t know anybody. I knew about the Art Ensemble from listening to records, and I knew about Roscoe Mitchell from listening to records, and that was about it. And I’d gone to some live AACM concerts. Fred Anderson, I’d gone to the Art Ensemble – before Don Moye was in it, and I’d gone to a solo Joseph Jarman concert. This was while I was still in high school that I went to these concerts. But it never occurred to me that there was an organization called the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians that I could possibly get involved with, or where I could go and play. I wasn’t at that stage yet, where I wanted to go out and see how great I was. I still figured I wasn’t really any good at playing. I’d better shape up, or pretty soon I’d ship out, and my teacher was saying, “Well, you’ll probably stick with this until you graduate from college, then you’ll probably bag it”.

Bill: So when you came back from Yale to Chicago, they were a more powerful influence then? There were more things happening with the AACM?

George: No, I don’t think so. I think the AACM was in a very transitional period. The older cats were getting older and there weren’t any younger cats coming up. When I joined the AACM there was a big generation gap, which exists now, but the majority of the AACM is now players under 28, 25, something like that, which wasn’t the case when I joined. Now the majority of the players are around 25, 26, that age, whereas when I joined the AACM in ‘71 I was the youngest player, I was 19, then the next cat was like 25, 26, and then it went up to the forties. Plus the guys that I never even saw, like Anthony Braxton, John Stubblefield, Leo Smith, Leroy Jenkins, all these cats had disappeared.

The thing is, being in the AACM encouraged me to check out the AACM. It wasn’t a process of “I’m in the AACM because I dig the AACM and I want to be apart of it”, I was in the AACM because it was my vehicle into playing the music. That was my first contact with musicians, ever, the musicians who were involved in the AACM’s music. It’s not a situation where I came to the AACM from something else, the AACM was it. And it still is it, in most respects that I can think of.

Bill: Do you think of Chicago as some kind of spiritual/central force for a music for the last twenty years? Like Sun Ra, Muhal Richard Abrams, The Art Ensemble of Chicago, George Lewis… ? Does it have some kind of association to Art Hodes and Muggsy Spanier and Louis Armstrong? Does it have some kind of association that far back? Is there some kind of historical continuance? Is that that true?

George: No, “true” is not the word I’d use to describe that. That’s just a potential path of validity that you could follow. But “true”, I don’t know about “truth”, I don’t know about that. I mean I know I’m hedging a little bit, but the basic point that I’m making is that when you’re talking about historical movements and historical figures, you don’t talk about “truth” and “falsity”, at least I don’t. You talk about movements that you can detect. If you see a direct line of inference between Louis Armstrong and what’s happening now, and what happened later on in Chicago There are other schools in Chicago too, like this Beiderbecke thing was happening.

It’s hard to describe because I’m not of that generation of cats that’s giving this a great deal of thought. I see the connection, but I don’t think I understand it yet. Because I’m not at the stage. It takes time to be out here playing this music. Guys like Muhal can really show you about the historical thing that’s coming out in Chicago’s music. I’m learning about the history of Chicago music not from records or from reading a bunch of books. Not that I don’t want to look at them, but that’s not my primary mode for learning about the different connections in Chicago music. And seeing how different people who everyone has never heard of have contributed greatly to the music, and seeing little fillips about them in strange places. I’m finding it’s a more personal education that I’m getting, from the inside out rather than from the outside in.

I’m not ascribing any kind of cause and effect relationships at all to what exists. It’s never been about a cause-and-effect relationship with me. It’s more dynamic than a cause and-effect relationship, I don’t want to limit it to just that aspect. When you hear anybody who’s playing in any style of music, when I hear anyone who plays any instrument, there’s always something that comes out of it and I see the connections with the line of people who have been playing the trombone, from the earliest cats, from the Honoré Dutrey type of thing, and from the cats who preceded them, and the role of the whole thing. Fine, but I’m also seeing the cross-influences which became clear when Bird arrived and wiped out the scene but which have always been going on. With different guys citing like, Frankie Trumbauer as their main influence, and he wasn’t even playing their particular style of music, you know you couldn’t see the connection at first. But then you see it later, and these cross-influences are what I’m getting at, and this is the thing which is happening today – people are taking a view of the music which transcends their instrumental concept. I don’t think it’s any more about “Well, you play the trombone, so this is your thing right now, this is your line of development, you play the sax, this is your line of development… “Everybody’s drawing from everywhere at this point. So if you find out that in terms of the music that you want to play, Harry Partch suits your thing more than any trombone player you’ve heard, go with that. That would be my opinion. Listen to everybody. But go with what you hear. And then you find that you’ll become a part of the historical thing, you are a part of it. It’s not something that you learn how to be by reading about somebody or by listening to his records. You are that, just by playing.

I grew up in a family where everybody listened to music of some kind. My father didn’t sit down at the time and show me, “well this is what’s happening”, but he had his ideas about what the different styles in the music were, and he ran them down. He’d say, “Okay, this is a Count Basie style arrangement”, or “This tenor player plays like Illinois Jacquet”. And this was at a stage when I had no interest in who these guys played like or who they were or anything. I didn’t give a damn. I was four years old! It gets through, but it gets through in a subconscious way. People in my family claim that my father brainwashed me, but it took hold late. It didn’t take hold for years, because I resisted it with all my might. And then all of a sudden…

Bill: Does your father think that the kind of music you recorded today is legitimate music? Does he like it as much as when you played with Count Basie?

George: I think he finds it relatively boring, terribly academic and so on, but he doesn’t think it’s bullshit. He knows it’s real music.

Bill: Does your father play an instrument?

George: No he doesn’t. I would suspect that he always wanted to play because of his lifelong interest in music, but he’s never actually played an instrument. I’m about the only musician in my family.

Bill: Is he proud that his son plays trombone?

George: Well, he started it. He was responsible for that whole sequence of events in terms of my playing the trombone. He was always the guy who’d say, “Look, you’re not going to stop practising after I’ve paid all this money, and you’re claiming you still want to play! You have to practise for this amount of time every day”, and “I can tell when you’re not practising because your lips get big. When you practise properly your lips will remain the same size because your muscles are in shape”, he’d say all this.

I guess my parents enjoy the idea of what I’m doing. I guess they enjoy the fact that I’m not a drain on their resources. That I’m trying to make ago of it, and no matter how meagerly my scene is happening, I’m trying to do it on my own. So they’re into that, as much as they’re into the idea of the music, because they’ve always taught me this big self-reliance thing. Which is why they’d never bug me about practising or anything if I didn’t want to, they’d just say, “Well, he’s doing something else.” I had a lot of freedom to do basically what I wanted to do in most respects. So that was the upbringing type thing, which has an influence. But my mother likes the gospel type of music. She goes to church regularly, she goes to different choir things that they have. And my sister is heavily off into the current popular music of the day. But she has to have it – with us it’s always like a fanatic thing going on. Like if we want to listen to music we want to listen to it, all the time. All day, every day my record player plays. When I’m there there’s always something on. I’m not interested in what’s going on on television, and I don’t like movies. But I do like to listen to people play music.

Bill: Is there some point in this career where you begin to think that you have some kind of talent that’s worth pursuing?

George: When I came in, everybody in the AACM seemed to like what I was doing on the trombone.

Bill: Was Lester Lashley another trombone player in that period?

George: Yes, but I didn’t actually get a chance to play with him until much later. You know Lester often quits playing for a long time. He does art, he’s involved in cinematography, in visual art, in theatre, in a lot of things. He has a vast art output, he also does leather work, so any of those interests can get him away from music. And especially as it was happening in the Chicago period, nobody could make a living playing the music. There was never a big gig scene where you could work or anything like that. I had a job throughout the entire time that I was off from school playing with the AACM. I played in the Monday night big band in the Pumpkin Room until four o’clock in the morning and then I’d go to work at seven in a slag plant. Slag is a by-product of the steel-making process. The iron melts off and there’s the slag. Slag is made into all kinds of useful substances. So I was a labourer. I’d be a creative performer until four and then at seven I’d labour. Then at three-thirty I’d go back to being a creative performer.

Bill: But when you finally come to Toronto George, you’re a star. You’ve been here three times now: once with Roscoe Mitchell, once with Count Basie, and once as George Lewis. Here, you see, you’re treated with some kind of respect.

George: Yup! But everybody laughed at me back then because of my slag affiliations.

Bill: How did you get out of the slag industry?

George: Well, I decided to go back to school. I stayed out for a year, re-applied and got back in, went in and finished up. I went back as a philosophy major. I’d read Kierkegaard over the time I was a slag person. I thought Kierkegaard was out. I’d read this thing and I didn’t understand a word, so I decided that anything written in the English language that I couldn’t understand was certainly worth investigating. I’d been reading since I was three and a half years old and I’d never read anything I didn’t understand until I read Kierkegaard. I said, “What in the hell is this? “… a nineteenth century Danish philosopher! He comes after Hegel, as a critic of Hegel. And he’s involved in theology and so on. He’s written some interesting stuff. Either/or. A lot of religious works. Fear And Trembling. The Sickness Unto Death. He’s a precursor of guys like Paul Tillich. Anyway, he was kind of intriguing, and I read some Nietzsche and all that so I decided I wanted to be a philosopher.

Bill: I kind of think of the trombone as a philosophical kind of instrument. Philosophy has always seemed to me to be very inaccurate, sliding about all over the place, there aren’t any fixed positions…

George: A slush-pump science.

Bill: The trombone has always been associated, to me, with street music, folky kinds of things. In England we used to call it “push me off the pavement”. It seems that it’s very hard to bring some kind of sophistication to the trombone. It’s always been a “brrrawpbawp bup bup brrawrpbop” kind of music.

George: Instruments go through phases. Read what Mendelssohn has to say about the trombone. It was the expression of a commonly accepted idea, that trombones were not to be used except in sacred music contexts. They would bring the trombone out for the voice of God.

The earliest classical Western literature doesn’t refer to the trombone. Then the later literature uses it up to a point. In the Romantic period they start using it all the time. After Beethoven it becomes a very important instrument, and they have a whole trombone section and so on. This is what I gather from my meagre studies of it. The trombone also has an important aspect in marching bands, these street music bands. Because you can go “dyiaahhdup dit dit dit dyiaaadat”, that’s a beautiful effect, that’s very important. So everyone wanted to do that, you had to have that in your band. Saxophones couldn’t do that, that’s why they didn’t allow saxophones in the orchestra! No, that’s not true.

Bill: I’m not going to respond at all to that kind of comment.

George: I’m just bugging you about the sax.

Bill: We understand the superiority of the saxophone against the trombone, we’ve already decided that that’s a fact of nature. A slush-pump, versus an articulated instrument which has pads and mechanisms, balance and curvatures…

George: …a precursor of the analog computer!

Bill: We’re getting back to this same question again. Is there some point where you discover you have some special kind of talent?

George: I never discovered it, I just had people saying, “oh, this cat plays all right. “Go to the Pumpkin Room, sit up scared and everything, take a solo, everyone says, “Oh wow!” I said, “What’s this???” I was playing in the key of D-flat. Ornette talks about how this D-flat blues really gets to you. When I learn how to play the D-flat blues better I’ll be in charge.

This time, this was “Blues Forever”, one of Muhal’s compositions, that the band has played at least fifty million times, and that several generations of cats have played. Everyone remembers playing this, Braxton remembers playing “Blues Forever”. So it’s “D-flat blues, slow”, and I’m going oh shit, and then he points at me to take this solo. I thought, “well, maybe I should have practised my D-flat scales more, uh, carefully”. So I just went free. Well, I was out, I couldn’t believe it. And then everyone stood up and applauded. So then they asked me to stay in the band, make rehearsals. That’s how I got to know a lot of these cats personally, although I’d been checking them out, and I’d heard about different cats like Lester Bowie, I’d heard about Roscoe, heard about Muhal, heard about Jarman. I hadn’t heard about Anthony [Braxton], that was out of my zone at that time. And these cats came back about the time that I joined up in the AACM. They came back from Paris, there’s this big ballyhoo. “Jarman is coming back.” It’s like a tradition in the AACM, a whole historical thing, ten years of being together, and before that, in the fifties…

Bill: Is Sun Ra not linked into that somehow?

George: I guess what I’m describing is how I learned about the AACM’s history. He’s not linked into that. People didn’t go around talking about Sun Ra all the time, although he was involved in the stuff. People would go to hear him. There were a lot of cats who were off into a lot of the spiritual aspects of what Sun Ra was talking about in Chicago, a lot of them weren’t musicians either. There’s always been a strong Hebrew contingent in Chicago as well. There’s a whole cultural thing that you come to know because of your involvement with the music, but not all of the people involved with it are musicians, and not all the musicians are Hebrews, or people who follow any particular mode.

Anyway, in terms of knowing guys like Jarman, if you don’t know them at first, you have to come to know them. Once you are involved in a musical circle you know them on a different level, it’s like you know them, it’s not like they’re involved in a historical process. You meet them, and you become aware of their involvement in the historical process as you become aware of their involvement with you. Like when I met Sun Ra this summer, that sort of thing. I know about his influence on the AACM, but there’s nothing like meeting this cat, and seeing how everyone acted towards him and their relationship with him and seeing how that came out, that was more valuable than just “knowing” it in the abstract. When I say “abstract”, I mean by just listening to records and figuring it out. By “concrete” I mean actual experience in the historical process, which is social interaction. How Muhal acted towards Sun Ra when I saw him. What happened when Braxton showed up in Chicago for one day. Everyone’s saying, “Braxton is back, Braxton is back”, and I ‘m sitting around saying, “who is this ‘Braxton’? Who is this?” Or when Joseph and Roscoe came back and immediately took over the big band, and started bringing their compositions in and getting them played. Anyway, this is the point I want to make clear. It’s a different scene to be involved with musicians not knowing them as the musicians of the day or the people who are shaping the music. I didn’t know who was shaping the music. I just knew who I liked. And a lot of them I didn’t even know.

Bill: People don’t come consciously to originality, do they?

George: I don’t think they go to originality consciously, because that’s not a goal, it doesn’t mean anything. “Okay, I’m going to be original now”. At some point you may come across the realization that you might have something, your own little corner of the world, your own little ironic situation where you know you have something that no one else is doing quite like you. But that’s not really enough. That’s fine, but that’s just the first step. You have your own thing that you think you’re going to work out of. Fine. But you could have your own thing, and still not know anything about the dynamics of actually playing your instrument. You hear guys all the time that have their own original concept. You say, “Wow! This guy has his own original concept. It’s fantastic, but his tone is horrible” or “he can’t play this” or “he doesn’t read” or something. Just any number of things. I don’t think these things come about in a logical order. It all happens at different times. I think also that everybody I’ve heard from Chicago has their own original style of playing. Whether certain large groups of people have taken up their cause or not, that’s something else again. But I hear lots of cats in Chicago right now who amaze me. And I think I put them on the same level as the cats who are currently being written about and are getting a lot of press time. That’s true of every musician. I think that people tend to put people who have become more famous up and they become images, you know? And I’ve always tried to get past the image aspect of everyone who’s involved in it.

Bill: How did you stop being a local musicianß? How did you get to play outside of Chicago?

George: People kept asking me to play with them. All different kinds of people. I’d play with everybody. Anybody who asked me, I figured that if I had the time and I always had the time, I haven’t been working a great deal. So if a Latin band asked me to play a gig with them, I’d play a gig with them. The AACM had some gigs in Mississippi, I played with them. And whatever type of requirement that they had for their music, I was usually capable of running it down. If they had heavy chart reading, I was into that. If they had freedom or whatever, I was into that. If they had a particular kind of rhythmic style I was either into it or I could learn it within a few minutes, or do a creditable enough imitation of it to make the gig. If it was a music with which I had absolutely no familiarity… nobody ever asked me to play a Greek wedding or something.

Bill: There’s been a big rush for you out of Chicago in the last year and a half. It’s been Michigan, Toronto, New York, Europe, America…

George: But with all different people. That’s the thing, the diversity of contexts that people have seen my stuff in. Although I seem to have become known right now for playing this “new music” that everyone is talking about, or that’s currently being rapped about in some papers. When I first came here I came with Roscoe, I’ve been here with Basie’s band and I’ve been here with my own thing as we were talking about. A lot of different situations playing different types of music in different contexts. It’s not so much people knowing about you as musicians. The musicians invite you to participate because they know you can do what they’re doing. Braxton I’m sure wouldn’t have asked me to play on his thing (“Creative Orchestra Music 1976” on Arista) if they hadn’t told him what was happening. Because there’s big chart reading and some solos. So they say, “yeah, you should get this cat because he can also read charts” in addition to play a little bit. So whatever the requirement is, if you can deal it you have a better chance for getting a lot of gigs. So that means your musicianship has to be at least up enough so that you can play in a context which you’re not practising every day and with which you’re not entirely familiar. And go in there and become familiar with it right off and deal it. Which is what these studio cats amaze me at, their ability to do that. I’d really like to find out more about the requirements of doing that, whether I could meet those requirements. In terms of serious strict attention to what’s happening with a page of music. I mean I’m good, but it’s not... I mean I’ve seen guys just go on stage: “okay let’s go on this” (snap!) nothing. Just incredible. Then I hear, “Oh, they’re not the top players! These cats are the really bad cats!

Bill: Do you feel privileged in being able to play exactly what you have inside of you out to a very open public?

George: I can’t believe it. Especially when I hear about… I came in on the tail end of what these cats have been experiencing for like fifteen or twenty years. When I came in, nobody was listening to the music at all, it was completely out, the AACM was doing concerts and very few people would come and so on. That’s still true in Chicago but the New York phenomenon of the AACM didn’t exist; and I’ve seen the music rise to a position where there are more records coming out now than ever.

I’m not saying there’s some big amount of dough in this or that people are getting what they really deserve for their artistic output. I don’t even want to give the impression that that’s what’s happening. I think it was Threadgill who pointed out to me that something like ninety per cent of all the national endowment money in the States goes to classical music, which only about three per cent of the people listen to. Which is also not the American music. You can get five or ten times the amount of money in the States for a classical group than for a jazz group.

Now the music scene is on a different level, so it’s talking about a redistribution of the wealth. There’s always been a situation where certain musics have been downgraded and other musics have been upgraded. This is great, this sucks. This is real, this is fake. Like jazz is – “you know how to improvise, that’s faking”. That means, playing the real notes versus the fake notes you’re just making up out of your head. Aside from the fact that that’s a terrible thing to call your own music, a bunch of fakery. The psychological consequences of that must be tremendous.

Bill: Recently you’ve been coming to some attention with Anthony Braxton. Do you think that’s part of your overall concept, that you’re still playing with a Chicago musician? Is it happening by accident, or did you arrive at this situation logically?

George: I think it’s a natural consequence of what happens when you’re around people who are involved in a particular sphere of the music. If you affirm that line of development, then your development follows those lines. And what happens to you comes out of your involvement in the area. I don’t think you come out of the blue and start playing with anybody in the Chicago school, that’s not to say you’re not involved in something else. I had Braxton describe to me his experience playing with Ken Chaney’s band in Chicago, and then I described to him my experience playing with Ken Chaney’s band five or six years later. And the music had changed and different cats were playing and so on. Or playing in Morris Ellis’ band. And that sort of thing enables you to jump in on that set without coming out of nowhere, because you can’t come out of nowhere into a situation. It arises as a product of what you’ve been doing before. So I see whatever I’ve been doing with any Chicago music as a natural outgrowth of what I’ve been doing all along.

Bill: Do you feel that way about what you’ve been doing here in Toronto this weekend, a solo concert?

George: Absolutely.

Bill: This is your first solo concert. Was it an alarming experience for you?

George: It’s not my preferred medium. For one thing, it takes a lot of chops.

Bill: Have you ever made audiences laugh like that before? Made them that happy?

George: Oh, audiences always laugh when I play. People are always cracking up. Well, I like to make a joke every now and then. There’s no reason why it can’t be funny. I mean, you listen to Lester Bowie, now there’s a joking cat. He doesn’t say a word, and he’s funny. But there’s humour in all the AACM stuff. I’ve never seen any big deal in doing something funny. When I play a concert with Douglas Ewart in Chicago, we get involved in theatrical stuff. He’d be playing little instruments, which I’ve never been able to get into. For some reason I’ve never felt comfortable with them. But I had a set of things that I would play, and Douglas had this whole setup of little instruments, and we’d do a whole play or something. Acting is not my thing, I don’t think so, but we’d do a play with music. And that’s the way it would go down. Douglas would say, okay, would I give a concert with him today? Very seldom was it an austere kind of thing where people say, “oh my”, very closely examining and “don’t laugh, shut up”…

Bill: I don’t agree that acting’s not your thing. I still think that every trombone player of merit since J.J. Johnson that I’ve seen was an actor. The first one after J.J. that made any kind of impression was Roswell Rudd and he had a bent instrument just to prove that he was an actor. It’s a very dramatic instrument, trombone.

George: J.J. Johnson. Let me say something about him because I think he’s a far-out cat. For me he’s the cat who shows the direction that the instrument can really take if you really think. Because he thought. And that’s the thing that really wipes me out about him, that he’s a thinking guy – he had to think about how to play that fast. I’m seeing now the approach he had to take to think about the possibilities of playing quickly on the trombone, getting over the horn in a big hurry, because I had to go through the same process and lots of musicians have described to me the processes they used by which they jump over a certain hurdle to get to the next one. Through a very logical process of deduction. It’s very cold and analytical.

All music makes me feel the same way. I have to confess that. I’m sorry to say this, you may think this is wrong, everyone I tell this to says “you’re crazy!” But all music, if it makes me feel something, if I like it, it makes me feel the same way. And I get the same feeling from all music. I don’t mean to say that I get the same content, or emotional content, from all music. I’m saying that the basic feeling I get when I enjoy a piece of music never changes and I know the feeling and I’ve come to really love it. It’s not the same thing as saying that all music is the same, because it’s not. I’m talking about a specific feeling that comes over me when I’m listening to a piece of music that I’m really enjoying, that I really dig. It has nothing to do with anything else beyond that.

It takes a long time to make these kinds of things clear, but it’s better to make them clear than to gloss over them, as I see in a lot of situations.

Now J.J. Johnson has been a major stylistic influence on everybody that plays the trombone. He wasn’t everybody’s favourite player, that’s a different thing. But everybody who has played it has had to deal with structural aspects of what this cat is playing. Today as well as in the past. Because of what he showed is possible on the instrument. That’s all you need to show, possibilities.

But when I think about the sort of thing I’m looking for in my playing, I think about Johnny Griffin’s playing, or Coltrane’s playing, in terms of that driving sort of rhythm that I want to achieve. The sort of thing which pushes and has a certain intensity, then it backs off for a while, then it increases with renewed force, that sort of thing, which jumps, seemingly without regard for lines and bars and chords and produces layers of rhythm besides the basic one, layers that don’t even get into these transcriptions of solos that appear in magazines. Because they don’t understand that aspect of the music which is basically the drum aspect. Where a rhythm is played on two drums, one is high and one is low, it’s ba-boo-bup, is different from boopbup-boop, even though they’re notated the same. That’s the thing that these formularizers of jazz music tended to wipe out. People who tended to put jazz into a particular kind of, “well, this is the line of development” or, “this is what you must do and if you don’t conform to this line of development… “. It’s not like an interrogation – you listen to what somebody’s line of development is, then fit it into the total picture. Because history is not determined by the past. The past is a component of what’s happening now, but it’s not unalterable. You’re here now, you can alter what you want to do. I can stop playing this bullshit. I feel I have the freedom intellectually if not emotionally. I can say okay, no more of this new music scene, I’m going to go off and join the Chicago symphony. People do that and they don’t have any qualms about it. That’s not to say that the symphony is great and that playing this music is absurd, that’s to say that you have that power of altering your destiny. It’s not like you’re determined by your background, and you’re going to play this instrument at this time, you’re going to listen to these cats. Sure, you’ll do all that. But the number of ways you can do; fascinating.

When I hear about most guys’ development I’m always amazed because they came from a point at which they aren’t even listening to the music. Like I listened to Braxton talk about how he was already listening to Ornette in grade school, and that’s fine, because he was from an earlier period of time and it didn’t take long, it only took five years. But people in my generation weren’t listening to Ornette. At least the people that I knew weren’t listening to Ornette. I knew blacks as well as whites. When I came back from the white thing, out of school, I was back on the block with the cats – they weren’t listening to Ornette either. They were off into the popular AM theme of the day… (end of first tape)

Afternoon of November 22, 1976:

George: We were talking about whether people were listening to this new music, or whatever it is. I’ve never been in a community where that was happening to any great extent, until I got involved with the AACM people. We were talking about Braxton telling about when he was a kid in grade school they were trading ideas about Ornette, saying “Ornette’s great” “Ornette sucks”, and so on.

I’d been listening to Braxton’s music for a long time, since college. That record he did, “Three Compositions of New Jazz”, that got me off of Coltrane. Before that, I had every Coltrane record, I was saying, well, this is where it’s at right now, this is where it’s going to be, Coltrane’s the greatest ever and so on and so forth. So I was doing that, and someone gave me this record. So I listened to it – “hmm, it’s all right” – I got hooked on this record. I couldn’t stop listening to this record, I listened to it every day for like a year. It was just very good. I had always known that this type of music existed, but I was never interested in it until I got to that point. It was a natural outgrowth of the AACM music that was happening all along. It’s just that that got to me more than most of the AACM music. It got to me on an immediate emotional level that most of the records didn’t. Even though I like the records, I think they’re great, that one in particular really hit me on an emotional level.

Bill: Is Braxton your first experience of travelling outside of Chicago with other players and going to different parts of the planet?

George: The first time I went to Europe was with Braxton, but the first time I went overseas was with Basie, going to Japan. But all that’s happened in the past year, since I left my insurance job.

Bill: Was that a peculiar experience, touring with Basie? I can’t really associate you with that kind of terminology, in the trombone section of the Basie band.

George: Actually, it wasn’t very peculiar. Because I certainly had training for it, and I’d played a lot of the arrangements in other bands. Or at least something akin to the arrangements, because you know how people get arrangements for bands, they take them off records. In fact we played with a band in Japan that had done exactly that. I sat in with this band, and I was playing my own part. I’m sitting up there reading this part: it’s mine. This cat copied it off a record. So that type of music is not unfamiliar to me at all. It wouldn’t be for any AACM members who’d been listening. That’s the thing about the AACM, it’s not as if you were ordered, but it was considered to be very silly if you didn’t check out all the different types of music that you possibly could. That’s why I said earlier that all music that I like affects me in a very similar way.

Bill: Are you aware of Basie’s historical order, like Lester Young, Wardell Gray, Buck Clayton, all of those famous players that came out of the Basie band in the thirties and forties?

George: That was how I started listening to Jazz music, listening to Lester Young. Before that I wasn’t interested in that at all. By accident I got this record by Lester Young, “The President plays with Oscar Peterson”. I played it a lot, tried to play some of the solos, that was when I decided I should really start I trying to practise more. I was about twelve. He’d go “dadadadaduhduh-daduhdaduhduh, duhduhduh-dadaditdada “. I said okay, that doesn’t sound too hard – “splrrp “. Of course it was ridiculous.

It was a two-month hitch with Basie. I did the big replacement for Curtis Fuller. The band had a very good trombone section. It was a big learning thing for me, these cats are so tight. You play the same music every day, so you know what the whole program is from start to finish, for the most part. He always throws in a couple of ringers, but usually it’s the same thing every day. The major thing I liked about being in that band was the opportunity to jump on music in a formal chart-reading sense where you’re concerned with dynamics and attacks and shadings and blend and balance and all these sorts of things. They’d do that to the max, like when they’d do a release, or they have a certain way of phrasing a line, they hit with that, and that’s all there is to it. Their interpretations of charts. I had some battles with cats over interpretations of a chart, but it’s silly for you to battle with those cats because they’ve been playing those charts, so I had to get with their interpretation: even though it was my solo. You have to get with what they say about it. That’s fine. I got to play solos. There were two solo chairs, the third chair that I was playing, and AI Grey. Mel Wanzo was playing lead, and Bill Hughes was playing bass. All three of those cats showed me different parts of what’s happening with being a trombone player in a band of that kind. A lot of cats were very helpful in terms of showing me different things, not so much just about music as about, just existence. The existence of a person on the road. I learned a little bit about what sorts of things are important to those people, the concerns of the Basie band, memories. John Duke the bass player, he’s always a very friendly, open guy. He was one of the oldest cats in the band and I was the youngest, as usual. And there were well-known cats, Danny Turner plays in that band, he’s a very good player; Jimmy Forrest played in the band – Freddy Green. These cats sort of thought I was strange, but I wasn’t obnoxious or anything, so I think they enjoyed having me for the time I was there. It was important, it really was.

Plus the thing of meeting and being able to talk with Basie. He’s freaky, I began to see why he’s such a great leader, how this cat can assemble a band, year after year and do different things. Now I don’t know anything about any sort of stories that anyone has heard about what this cat has been doing, none of that means anything to me. I was never involved in it, that’s the baby of these cats who have been on the scene for years and know all the stories. What I saw in Basie was a real willingness to listen to what people were doing. Like he would hear me playing the piano, he’d say, “Well, I know you don’t really know how to play the piano, but you sound good. I don’t know what it is you‘re playing but… you mean you get enjoyment from playing that style of… ?” I said yeah, it makes me feel relaxed. He said, “Well… yeah, I can understand that.” And he sat down and listened. I started to get up, I thought he wanted to do some practising. “Oh, no no, sit down “. I played about a minute, then I got up, you know I couldn’t sit there and play in front of this cat, I don’t even know how to play the piano. But listening to him, night after night, listening to the various terms he would use, how he would introduce a simple blues thing with an incredibly complicated progression, how he would move the band with a note or two. And how when he got on the stage everybody shaped up. There was grumbling and all that, but when he got on stage, music time, no more arguing. Music time.

Bill: You don’t feel inclined to periodize music anyway, do you? A lot of people who listen to the music, and a lot of people who play it tend to set everything out in patterns like this is Jelly Roll Morton, Armstrong, Bechet, this is EIlington, Lunceford, Calloway, this is Lester Young, Charlie Parker, Coltrane, like a historical process. Music is an open thing for you.

George: I’m interested in seeing influence and confluence but I’m not interested in periodization if that means that if something comes in that doesn’t fit with your idea of a period then you just ignore it. I’ve seen too many instances where you try to fit people into boxes and they just don’t fit. Not into neat little categories. So I try to avoid categories as much as possible. Some generalizations are really unavoidable though when you’re considering a music that has evolved over just about a hundred years when you consider the precursors of ragtime music and all this sort of thing. The slave thing, what was happening with the music that these cats had going. All that is a development that leads up to this. It’s not like, “Here jazz starts, today”.

Bill: Is travelling with Braxton similar to travelling with Basie?

George: No, the big band scene means travelling by bus. You’re riding on a bus with a whole group of cats. That’s where I learned about the inter-personal dynamics of bus travel. In other words, everyone had their own seat on the bus. It’s a sacred entity, don’t sit in someone else’s seat. I had seat number 27, that’s right in the back, behind me off to my right sat Danny Turner, behind me sat Bill Caffie the singer, behind him sat John Duke, next to him sat Freddie Green, Basie sat up at the front, but he didn’t sit in the front seat, he sat in the third seat or something like that. You had the same seat on the bus every time, plus you had the space directly above your seat for your luggage, your garment bag and your suits and all this kind of stuff. Because there’s so little privacy on the road, people value just that little bit that they do have.

Whereas with a small group it’s a different kind of thing. The Braxton band is more closely knit, naturally, and not only because it’s a smaller organization but because Braxton, Dave Holland and Barry Altschul have been playing together for a long time. And the number of things they know about each other from having played together that long, and having been personal friends – they know each other’s wives – is absolutely staggering. Sometimes I still have this feeling: “Well, maybe I should leave the stage”, because at times if my stuff falls down they just take it, they say, “Well, he’ll come back”, because they’ve been playing and they know. They know something about each other’s capabilities, and they know how best to utilize them. And they’re all super players, I really enjoy it. I’m not saying it’s better or worse, but I haven’t found its equivalent in anything I’ve been doing before. Playing with this band allows me to get a full measure of learning about collective improvisation, solos, construction of solos, compositions. It’s not like… the Basie band has a book with a thousand tunes, they call number 427, you take it out, play it and put it back. But Braxton does it with some tunes, and most of them are kind of challenging. I had to practise the tunes for a long time, or at least for an extended period so I could get them down, it takes time. But even then that’s only the surface part of it, and after about a month of the surface I discovered what was really happening, how far I really had to go to learn the open improvisations that they’re doing, how to function in the context of Braxton’s written music. And it’s given me a chance to try my own written music out, that’s one of the things I like most about it, it gives me a chance to do my written music with people who are really up on it, who can play it technically, and who have the emotional commitment to it as well, which is something I didn’t find as much in Chicago although I did find players able to do it.

Bill: I remember that when we first met a year or so ago you weren’t actually aware of lots of other trombone players except for people like Joseph Bowie. Were you surprised to discover Albert Mangelsdorff, Gunter Christmann, Radu Malfatti, all these trombone players from different places who are at a very high stage of development?

George: I’ve never been a person to go out and buy all the records of people I don’t know anything about. And these people are never talked about in any circles I’m ever in. Braxton was really the person that got me listening to these guys because he had been going out, and knew all these cats, had heard them and so on. I don’t know if he thinks they’re the greatest or whatever, but he used to say well, you should at least listen to them, because they’re out there playing. So I decided to go out and listen to them and, well… it’s nice.

I find that what these guys seem to be investigating the most is getting new timbral things out of the trombone. That’s what I’m learning the most from these cats. Mangelsdorff has developed what he’s doing, with his chord-progression thing up to a very high level. He played opposite us once in Europe. When I heard this guy play, it was amazing. It was even more amazing to hear him practise this for a minute. Then in Berlin I heard Christmann play. It’s not that you haven’t heard it before, it’s that you hear it and you say, “hmm, what’s that?” and then you listen and you say, “oh I see, that’s what it is”. It’s just that nowhere have you thought how to do that, you listen to the cats and say, “hmm, I never thought of that”. Then you go and see what it is this guy is doing. It doesn’t take long, because there’s only a finite number of variables. So you just investigate all the different variables and come up with what the cat is doing, or something like what the cat is doing. And Paul Rutherford, he’s the guy that really interests me. Aside from being a very nice cat, as all these cats are, he’s not using a developmental thing in his playing, the thing of a melodic or harmonic or timbral development, I don’t see that. But he’s investigating the use of all different kinds of mutes, he’s using a lot of them. I don’t think he’s using as many as I am, but he’s using them. He’s using them in non-traditional ways, he’s using the things you can do when you hit the trombone, strike the bell. A lot of these things evolved from these classical cats like Vinko Globokar, with using reeds and so forth.

It just looks like there are a lot of trombone players right now because there were so few before, but there are still only a very small group of cats that are dealing this. We’re talking about maybe six or seven, maybe ten cats at the most that I know about that are actually dealing it, but there are hundreds of saxophone players, so it’s not like there’s a big trombone explosion and everybody’s going out and buying one, it’s not on that level yet. But I think that the reason that more people are investigating it and it’s getting more of a play, is that so many saxophone players sound alike right now. Coltrane is such a major influence on so many cats and, well, people are getting tired of hearing cats sound like Coltrane. I know, because I wanted to sound like Coltrane – kind of a tough deal when you’re playing trombone. So I was going to switch to the saxophone.

My feeling is that the reason people want to sound like anybody is that they feel good listening to this cat, and then when they start playing this cat’s thing it’s like they’re this cat for a minute, they’re Coltrane for a second. And they borrow some of his magic, it’s like the African thing where you put on the lion’s skin and you become the lion, the attributes of the lion come to you.

That’s one of the reasons why people are investigating the trombone. It has to go back to when these cats were young, though. Like Mangelsdorff hasn’t just started.

Bill: He was a bebop player for a long time. He even played dixieland music.

George: And he told me what he was doing before that. He used to play guitar, also. I said, “What?” And Christmann, he’s not a young cat, Rutherford isn’t either, at least they’re not my age. They’ve been coming along and coming along and coming along and right in this period where with the saxophone you either sound like Coltrane or you can’t get a gig. The trombone cats have never been encumbered by having to sound like Coltrane or Charlie Parker, so a whole new avenue opened. And they can go and take from the old cats, and make up stuff of their own if they think it’s happening, too. Without the need for people to compare them with some guy. Even a guy like Roswell Rudd, he’s an important cat in the music, that’s not to say I thought he was the greatest.

Bill: He was very traditional, wasn’t he? Even though he was playing in another situation he was actually almost like a New Orleans-style tailgate trombone player. Even though he was involved with Albert Ayler, Marion Brown…

George: Yes, but it’s hard to put him into that. The best thing I ever heard him play was a solo he did with Archie Shepp live in San Francisco, where he does this long solo, it’s very well-constructed, not just a technical thing, it’s like he’s playing music, that’s what wiped me out about that, but not enough to try to sound like him, I’m just not interested in that. But in terms of what he’s doing, I dig it, and that’s as far as it went with him. But even he didn’t wipe out the scene like Coltrane wiped out the sax scene in general, and I don’t think anybody’s going to wipe out the scene like that again.

Bill: You think the days of the startling genius on the pedestal are over?

George: Oh no, no. But the nature of the startling genius is going to change. It’s not going to be like oh, here’s this guy playing alto… who did Braxton listen to on the contrabass clarinet? This is why it’s getting to the conceptual artist stage. The thing I’m seeing about all the different cats that are playing today is that in order to play their music you have to patch into their conception. What they want out of their music, like reading Leo’s [Smith] rhythm book. It’s very exact what he is doing but you must patch into his conception in order to play it. The same with any of these cats’ music. The music is not standardized the way conventional Western notation is now. The newer forms, the extensions of it, are becoming conceptual again. In other words, it’s the conception of the moment: “okay, this is a graphic page, play it like this” – all right. But that’s not standardized, the player’s input is too great for it ever to become a standardized thing. Like when Braxton showed me these pages that he had going, he’d say, “okay, this is the way this music is played.” Boom!, you play it like that. So I’d listen to him, I’d have it. It wasn’t something that you could read like one two three four . Braxton would say, “this is it”, and you played it like that. Then when he showed you another composition in the same vein, that was his system, so you’d think back to his system, you’d play it like that and you’d be right again. Not because it was standardized but because it was standardized for him in a conceptual way. Maybe I’m not explaining that too well…

Bill: Do you feel that you have some special way of dealing with that yourself? You just did this thing with three trombones… a concept where you think your music is going to become that recognizable too?

George: Well, if it keeps getting out I think so, if I can avoid getting wiped out by trying to copy someone. I think my stuff has a little originality. A lot of it needs work. The piece is not perfect but the thing I’m trying to get to is to get more of my written music performed so that I can hear it so I can continue to advance in writing it, and listen to more notated music to find out what sort of interfaces between composed and improvised music are possible. How far you can go in welding the two together, which is the plan in the three trombone piece. Improvised music, composed music, coming together. (end of first side of the second tape)

Bill: My final question is: How important do you feel Muhal Richard Abrams has been to you and to the AACM in general?

George: I know that every interview with every cat I’ve read about who has been involved in this has rapped about Muhal, and how great he is and so on. I agree. But in terms of me personally, I’d say, crucial, not just important or interesting or any of those things. He was the first guy that I met in the AACM. Learning about attitudes to deal with myself, learning about philosophy, he was the person who convinced me to go back to school and study philosophy because of his interest in philosophies of all different kinds. He was the person who encouraged me to go out and study other forms of music of whatever kind, and he had some of it that he could let me listen to. I consider he and his family to be my friends, as well as he being my musical mentor in many ways. And my parents credit him with saving my life! They thought that I was really out of it, but that being around this cat’s influence really got me straightened out. From being a very uncentered, undirected sort of kid, to trying to grow up a little bit. So that’s like a father-figure in a sense, I saw him as being that then, it’s not that way now. It’s like I can go and play on a set with Muhal. He’s always treated me as if I was his musical equal, which is absurd. He’s always treated me as if we were collaborating on music - “oh, we’re just collaborating! – actually, I’m just listening, he’s doing all the talking. You can collaborate in silence, I guess that’s possible too. And I’ve seen how he’s affected a whole generation of newer AACM members my age and younger, and how he’s still trying to do a lot of things he was doing back then in the earlier days of the AACM, in terms of bringing younger players to the fore. He’d never put out a set of dogmas that you had to follow. Or if he did, I never listened to them anyway, I don’t think he did, the point is that he would show you, “I’m doing this now… “ He was the first person who gave me any lessons in theory that I could understand and relate to. In music theory, in composition. I credit him with anything I know about composition, as based upon things that he showed me. Anything. In the class, giving a lecture on composition, he’d say, “well, I’m doing this right now”, this is the approach that I’m using or these are the approaches that I’m using, “but I haven’t investigated this approach, I think it might be nice, what do you think about this?… okay, bring back an exercise based on this concept”. And you’d come back with it, he’d look at it, sometimes we’d play it, go over it on the board. He’s the person that got me into transcribing solos seriously. He’d transcribe solos like piano things and Bird things by writing, but usually he’d just transcribe them by ear to the piano. I think that’s a very good method for learning, and he’s very quick at it, that’s one of the major ways by which he has learned about music and that’s why he values it so highly.

He was the only teacher I could ever really relate to in terms of him actually teaching me something which I thought was useful in a field that I was passionately interested in. I was passively interested in philosophy, but none of the teachers I had in philosophy could really stack up with Muhal. If I had had Muhal in philosophy I might have been a philosopher. Well, he’s just a hell of a guy, that’s my opinion. Maybe that boils down to the same thing everyone else has said about this cat. Muhal, to me, is someone that I came to knowing nothing about, knowing practically nothing about the AACM, knowing nothing about the entire Chicago music scene except having been to three AACM concerts. I hadn’t even been to a nightclub before I played with these cats at the Pumpkin Room for the first time. I’d never been inside a nightclub, I didn’t know what it was like. My parents had to go to make sure I was all right – “he’s going to a nightclub!” You know, you’re not allowed in nightclubs until you’re 21.

Braxton said he tried to sneak in to see Coltrane one night. They wouldn’t let him in, he cried, so Coltrane and the cats got him in. Once I went to see Miles on a Sunday. You never play Sunday matinees, I didn’t know that though. So I went to see him at the Plugged Nickel. Of course he didn’t play, I was heartbroken, I really wanted to see this cat, it was my first experience. But you couldn’t get into a nightclub. And there’s no way I was going to sneak in!

George Lewis on Sackville:
with the Roscoe Mitchell Quartet
(Sackville SKCD2-2009 also featuring Muhal Richard Abrams & Spencer Barefield.

The Solo Trombone Record
(Sackville SKCD2-3012)

Available from Sackville Recordings, Box 1002, Station O, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4A 2N4 (Fax 416-465-9093)

George E. Lewis
A Power Stronger Than Itself The AACM and American Experimental Music

“An important book… Mr. Lewis narrates [the AACM’s] development with exacting context and incisive analysis.… Because the book includes biographical portraits of so many participating musicians, it’s a swift, engrossing read.”– New York Times

728 pages, 4 colour plates, 71 halftones 6 x 9 © 2008
Cloth $35.00 - ISBN: 9780226476957 Published May 2008
Paper $25.00 - ISBN: 9780226476964 Published October 2009
E-book from $5.00 to $25.00 (about e-books) - ISBN: 9780226477039

The University of Chicago Press1427 East 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637 USA
Voice: 773-702-7700 - Fax: 773-702-9756

Cecil Taylor

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Smith) — Sat, 02 May 2009 22:22:00 +0000

Unit Structures

This interview took place at the Ann Arbor Jazz & Blues Festival, Windsor, Ontario, Canada on September 7th/1974.

Bill Smith: Last night, I read in Leonard Feather’s Encyclopaedia of Jazz, that you played twenty years ago or more with people like Hot Lips Page. Is that true? Did you have any idea or conception about being different to other people at that point?

Cecil Taylor: No, I don’t think you really have a conception of being different. What you have a conception of is listening to all the people that you think are very marvellous and adapting to your own language some of the more precious things that you find them doing. You don’t really get any insight into how your music is different till you hear your first tape or your first recording. And when that happened to me then I understood why certain musicians, or at one point, why most musicians really shuddered when I walked into a room. But when I was about twenty years old Mr. Page said to me one time, “Son, I’m going to teach you how to play the blues.” And one can feel honoured that this man who has known so much music would take the time to say that that’s what he was going to do. So that was certainly one of my most memorable experiences.

BS: People idolise you now, I don’t whether you realise that piano players try to play like you and so on, did you try to play like certain piano players then?

CT: There were lots of people. I would say at that time there were people like Erroll Garner, around 1953 — of course, Horace Silver was very important to me, of course Bud Powell was fantastically important. Monk was of growing importance. I heard him play in a club in Harlem, he used to play every Monday night, and I used to go there because they used to have sessions. And of course I used to watch the reaction, I’ve been aware of reaction, ‘cause sometimes… the marvellous thing about that place was that if people didn’t dig what you were doing, you’d know it. And I can remember one musician reacting to Monk at that time in that way, ‘cause he was the marvellous one, he just kept on doing what he was doing.

BS: People thought Monk was weird, most of them, didn’t they, at that point?

CT: They found it strange, I think. Or just didn’t like it.

BS: So would you have considered yourself a bebop piano player at this point?

CT: I would say no, I would not say that. See, because I was also very impressed with a number of people. Like Oscar Peterson, for instance. And you know there is a specific ordering of the musical language, and because I was never a part of any clique, the secrets always were filtered down to me rather from on high. And I didn’t mind that, because one of the things you find is made very clear at the earliest possible date in New York, is that the price for admission to a clique is, or was, a kind of subservient unquestionable behaviour that was not acceptable to me. And I think I formed an attitude or an attitude was beginning to come into my being, that would allow me to find excuses. For instance, in the same way that I would respond to Bud Powell in that the most important thing was not the duplication of phrases exactly, but what was the essence of the genius that motivated the thrust of the music, or in other words, what was the nature of the sensations which you would call maybe, or which we would respond to as feeling. And that’s more important it seems to me than the duplication of the note, because we understand more about the multitude of ways in which notes can be arrived at. Part of what this music is about of course is not to be delineated exactly, it’s about magic, and capturing spirits, and so that all of this music and all of the different types of music which are unfortunately categorised, creates artificial separation. It seems to me that music had different points of view, but at the source, the philosophy and religious source, those people really that understood it, are identical.

BS: Do you think that a lot of the critics in the late ‘50s, for example, did a lot of damage to the music by simply calling it a name like avant garde?

CT: I do not think of what you would call critics as being bad at all. I don’t find generally what they have to say pertinent to anything more than being pleased if you return a telephone call. I don’t find them, you know, really in love with the music generally. I find them, mostly as journalists who have evolved in the music to suit certain economic or career needs at the time. That’s why I asked you earlier about what happened to those journalists, because given the use-orientation, or supposed use-orientation, of certain cultures, the fact remains that if you want to be a great artist, if you want to be a mature artist, that doesn’t happen from those cards when you’re 16, 15, 20, it happens maybe when you’re 38 or 39 if you keep working. I’m really not talking about reviews in a sense, or peoples’ reaction, I’m talking about what a musician knows from his own most private investigation of the facets of his life that have determined the amount of energy and devotion that he puts into his own self divination through playing and loving and experiencing whatever poetic thing he’s doing. That has nothing to do with audience reception or what anybody says. It has to do finally with what is most meaningful to the person who is doing the creating. There is a lot of confusion, it seems to me, generated by the attitude of pleasing the people who have power; and say if you do this you’ll become successful. A group of people who are saying well, you know “We must communicate”. That, tome, is a specious position because how can you create art and not communicate, but you communicate first with yourself, on the most deeply and most profound level. Then the other thing that they don’t want to involve themselves with, is that if people want to be moved they do not only want to say they do the work, they have made their own commitment, and if they come to hear you and are moved by you, something in their lives makes you know that they, too, in some part of their being, have felt the need to reach that level of dedication. I’ve seen it in the faces of old and young people in Europe and America, so there’s nothing that some journalist can say to me or about me that in any way colours what I have perceived, because when someone walks up to you in Warsaw, a man 70-80 years old, and everybody is out yelling, screaming about what you’ve done, and this man walks up to you and says, “Aah”, that’s something you’ll remember all your life. Because you know what he’s heard. I mean, What’s a critic compared to that.

BS: That’s what I meant, when I said that about what it means to you. You change your position on stage if a lot of energy is coming off an audience, does that come back to you while you’re playing sometimes?

CT: The feeling process is primarily this thing between a musician’s playing, however, in a way, you become aware of an audience. The extent of their concentration of course immediately comes over, and then you really want to do it even more. You understand it, they’re there. They want it. And so it’s another level of the experience, not something that one says, “Now we’re going to communicate with them.” It’s really a sacred spiritual thing which you don’t talk about. The people coming there, they know.

BS: So is there a preference in what kind of situation you play, like a theatre or a club or a festival ?

CT: I would say that I don’t necessarily like large places. I don’t like large places outdoors, and I never go to hear people that I really love in large places indoors. Because you really can’t, I can’t, experience somebody that I like. It’s different in Chateauvallon or the Maeght Foundation. It seems to me that the best things that European art’s supposed to be about are that they are somehow civilised, like what Maeght has done in his foundation. In any case, to meet Moreau, and to have Moreau give you an original painting after he hears you play, is something that makes you know that if you’re asked to play in the situation for these kind of people then you’re on the right trail. So that can be a large situation, and there you try to create other interesting things to do in addition, but it’s not artificial, it grows out of the magnificences of all those artists, who have spent that lifetime creating something. Like you’re asked to come in, like wow, maybe this is one of the places you’ve been working, one of the situations you’ve been working for all those years when you’re not allowed to work in clubs.

BS: Is there a simple way of explaining why in the United States, although the music is created in it, it’s the least propagator of the music?

CT: Corbusier was not asked to build any buildings in France, he…

BS: But in the United States such a large part of the total musical heritage comes from the same source and yet the more creative parts of it don’t seem to be recognised.

CT: Hasn’t there always been a lot of confusion about what the different European countries have done with their most obvious beginnings, and didn’t the Spanish try to convince themselves at one time that they were really German? There has always been this desire in the West to be something other than what one really is. So that in New York for instance the most revered dance and drama critics are all imported from England. And in certain circles, people try to affect British accents.

BS: So the ballet and the traditional classical music and so on is more acceptable to Americans because it isn’t actually theirs?

CT: If you experience the Royal Danish Ballet dancing to Prokofiev or see the Leningrad company doing Swan Lake and see Balanchine do Swan Lake, in N.Y.C., or see the American Ballet Theater do Les Sylphides. I once had the opportunity to see Markova dance Les Sylphides in New York after she “defected”, and dancing on the other side of the leading man was Mimi Paul, who was one of Balachines’ leading dancers, from say around ‘55 - ‘58, until she left the company, and she was particularly effective, it seemed to me, in the slow movement of Bizet’s Symphony in C, she was a very striking dancer. Now when they did Sylphides, Mimi Paul was required to do the same movements in certain passages that Markova was doing. Mimi Paul who I always thought was very lovely, looked like a football player in comparison to Markova. And it was not a question of her lacking a very misunderstood concept called “technique”, because her legs were strong. I dare say, she was stronger. It was just that Markova was moving from inside of the music, being conditioned by a tradition which goes back maybe 150 years, so the music had a thing that was a part of the essence of her growing up, whereas Mimi Paul danced in New York City where those buildings are very high, the subways very rough, it’s a mechanistic society, and it’s just not there. If you want Mimi Paul to indulge in something that I think is equally fictional, what they call jazz dancing, Mimi Paul does that a lot better than Markova. But still, now we’ve got Barishnikov, and the New Yorkers are having ecstatic reviews about the “new classicism “. Meanwhile, there are movements of dance going on in the States that are just so much more important, but they’re struggling along. Their own tradition has been there, but ignored. Balanchine got a lot more money doing what he did than, say, Martha Graham, for a long time. Balanchine got $6,000,000 from the Ford Foundation.

BS: But there are people like Alvin Ailey and Martha Graham who in Europe are revered in certain circles, aren’t they as being contemporary?

CT: Well, I don’t know. I’m very interested in Alvin Ailey, to see what’s going to happen, because certainly the company commercially seems to be one of the hottest prospects in America. And because of the ethnic point of view, perhaps the idea of the ethnic — it’s very curious to me, to see what’s going to go down.

BS: In Sweden he’s even been able to have a film made of his dance.

CT: We’ve had several films made. That can be a terrifying experience when you return to America after being celebrated in Europe. See, that’s another thing that I try to impress on the people who have worked with me; forget about what American critics say about you, just forget it. I mean Mr. Maeght asked us to come to play at the lOth anniversary of his foundation. There were a lot of rich people there, but there were mostly artists there. I mean he could’ve asked any number of artists throughout the world to do that. We made a film for instance in ‘66 for the Bureau of Research, which is part of the ORTF (French Radio/TV), and there were three other people asked to make films; one was Varese, the others were Messiaen, and Stockhausen. And Pierre Schaefer, who is an eminent composer in his own right, approved it. And at the same time, you have to live in America. And the rewards from the fruits of working in one sense come from places outside.

BS: Could it be more satisfactory for you to live in Europe or Japan. Is that not something that has crossed your mind on occasion?

CT: Oh, it’s certainly crossed my mind, but… Whatever it means, to be American, I am an American of African descent. And I was born in New York. And when I go elsewhere they know me as an American. We were in Cannes and there was a discotheque place that we used to go into. I was there already, and a couple of the members of the band came in, and the Europeans looked at them, and said — they didn’t say “Oh, the blacks have arrived”, or “the Negroes” — they said, “Oh, the Americans have arrived.”

BS: That’s a whole other thing, it’s not like the American attitude.

CT: Well, that’s what you ‘re not supposed to understand about, you’re supposed to be continually fighting the small areas of American thought regarding your import into the American culture.

BS: What about things like the Guggenheim award; you’ve had grants. This acknowledgement by a foundation doesn’t attract all kinds of other interest to you?

CT: Well, it’s very interesting. In dealing with the Guggenheim people, I said specifically that what I was going to attempt to prove, I was going to try in a way to define the Black methodological system of composing and writing. In essence, that’s what I said. When they approved the grant, they wrote “Experimental music”. I told them what it was. They didn’t want to deal with that. So they changed it, you see. It was fun on my part, because people said, “Well, why do you say ‘Black music’?” “Why do you talk about ‘Black music’, why can’t it just be…”. But we’re just playing a game. It isn’t even necessary if you’ve had philosophers to write grand looking phrases about Beethoven or Brahms. To say that this is even European music, much less white, they’re more apt to say that this is the ‘universal blah-blah-blah’. But you see if you examine the amount of writing about music that has its original source of inspiration in Africa, you don’t find many people to be most knowledgeable and most sympathetic to the non-comparative essences of music. See, when you have a musicologist trained at UCLA, it’s frightening to think about the comparative techniques that he uses when he starts notating down what his tape machine has experienced — from hearing somebody playing a drum. When you read what they have to say it just is not too meaningful. The reason that their information is just useless is because you see they don’t want to deal with the development or continuity of that music, that they have attempted to go back 300 or 1000 years to codify, when right in the next neighbourhood, they could go, if they weren’t so diseased, they could just see the relationship, right there. But I’m not concerned about that too much. Because I understand that that disease is there. And that’s their problem.

BS: Would you object to someone promoting you on a star level?

CT: Well, I’ve always been a star.

BS: In your music you always have, but I’m talking about a level like The Rolling Stones.

CT: I have no objection to that, because I think great artists… I mean the first time I saw Carmen Amaya dance, in 1955, it was as though everything stopped for me, I mean everything stopped. When you see that. Now that, to me, is the highest kind of compliment that can be paid to another artist, to make somebody else lose all sense of time, all sense of their own existence outside, like the perception of all of their energies on that figure. That to me is the greatest. So this other thing, oh, hey that’s fun. Hey, c’mon, that’s fun. Miles Davis has great presence on stage. I think Sonny Rollins at one time had great presence on stage. I think Billie Holiday was magnificent on stage. I think Betty Carter is fantastic on stage. Lena Horne is fantastic on stage. I mean, great artists are. It just takes the business boys a long time to catch up — “Oh, hey, we could make them stars.” But by that time… perhaps I think what I’m learning now is that they can do these things, but I can say to them without being offended, well that’s not exactly in taste for me. Could you cut it a little this way? Or have somebody else say it for me in a way that they won’t be offended. I don’t necessarily want to offend anyone by it. I want to continue living and doing as best I can what I spend most of my time doing.

BS: Is this one of the reasons why you’ve got involved in producing your own music on record ?

CT: I ran into a young student, and by accident, someone showed me some photographs that he’d taken. And the photographs just knocked me out. Young black man — I think at that time he was 18 or 19 — and I said wow, I think I should have that, I would like to have that picture on the cover of an album. And that’s the picture, the two pictures that are on Indent. And among other things, that guy played Fender bass and was studying to be some kind of sociologist. I saw there was homebody’s work that really excited me to the point that I really would love to give people who might be interested in the music an additional delight just to see that visually.

BS: Have your experiences with record companies been unfavourable in general, where record companies have put out records by you ?

CT: There are usually a lot of things that are unfortunate about those things. Especially when you don’t understand that they’re not necessarily devoted to aesthetic standards outside of making a buck. When you’re younger, you spend a lot of time being morally indignant over issues that are not meaningful or apparent to the system.

BS: Have you found dedicated people, though, in any of those situations?

CT: Well you see, most recently, dealing with some people that are in their mid-20’s, who say that they’d like to do this or that, what I found is that they’re really not equipped to do it. I don’t want to get into the business aspect of it at all, but at the same time, I do, just through having certain experiences. So I assume that for instance if you say that you want exclusive rights to distribute my record, you better know certain things, because that’s what you say is your business. And I’ve found them goofing. And then they say, “Well, we’re not in this for the business”. I said “well then, don’t be in it, because I’m not putting up the money necessarily with a complete business orientation, but I’m making a product available to your expertise. So I want you to cut it. If that’s what you do, do that, and do it as well as I play”. And so they say, “Well, we’re not…” And I find this curious ambivalence, when I say to them “Hey, you’re not doing something”, “well you know, we’re human beings”. I say “Hey, look, I would assume that that’s given, I think you’re using it to evade the fact that you ‘re not taking care of business”. People get very upset. But fortunately in the situation I’m in now, these people are older, and sometimes they get carried away and make these long speeches, and I just sit there and I listen and I say, “Well, that’s it, then”. And I’m going to the door, and they say, “Mr. Taylor, do you have a minute?” And I say, “Well, yes”. Now. Well the business point that we were talking about, could we just clear it up? What I realised was that they were clever enough to absorb that long speech that I made, then it might be more beneficial to me to pay attention to things that they were running down. In other words there’s a kind of equalness in input, and I think it ‘s much easier to thoroughly respect whatever a man is doing if you make a commitment to say, I want to get into this, if you find that guy really good doing it, that’s groovy. I think the other thing is that there are all kinds of ways to live a life. There are all kinds of attitudes that people could have. I mean I think that Herbie Hancock is a very clever guy. I think that James Brown, in the specific areas that his music covers, is absolutely incredible. Perfect, for that form, for what that is, and gee, I sit there, and it just knocks me out. I’m talking about essences. I love Billie Holiday and I love the way Stevie Wonder sang five years ago. I don’t any more. But I love Aretha Franklin, I love Sarah Vaughan. Can you get to all those places. And if you can, then you’re just really enriched. And you want to bring in a piece of that, because that to me is what living music is, the ongoing nature of life, the different manifestations of ethics as they are perceived in the special creations of individuals from different times.

BS: But a lot of the reason that all those people are reaching out to a large number of people is because the record companies are taking care of a commercial situation. Isn’t it possible that it would be an advantage for you; financially, I mean?

CT: Of course. But you see I’m not concerned about that, because l think that’s going to happen anyway. I think that the situation has sort of been set up that if that’s going to happen, you know… see, the thing is, I don’t want that to happen. See, that could have happened to me for instance eighteen years ago, after the first Transition record was made, when a lot of people were very interested. But that isn’t as exciting as being able to gracefully accept all the love and adoration that people have for you, rather than the money that the industry might want to give you, then get involved in it, and then die, because you can’t handle it. Like Joplin, Hendrix. Or have all that sugar make you a diabetic. Or be like Oscar Peterson who starts playing because Norman Granz says “Do this”. Play all those tunes, destroy what was such a promising genius. And to be able to say graciously if it really comes to it, “Well, I don’t think I can do the Rodgers and Hart tune”, as well as say, “So-and-so could, why don’t you get him.” lam going to sit back, and just prepare myself to be very happy, and maybe very rich. But I hope no less beautiful. In a way that is most important to me. I mean Ellington was magnificent. He was just magnificent, he was not only a genius in music but he knew so much about life, he’ s beautiful.

BS: That’s why I’m trying to find out if there are ways that you could direct not how you play, that’s got nothing to do with it, but if there are ways to make it come out on a larger scale.

CT: A lot of musicians adored a very typical sort of figure in the ‘50’s and the ‘60’s and when that figure began to make, from my point of view, questionable choices musically he passed on that information to a number of very gifted young musicians. Those musicians who accepted that form of geniuses’ advice have really not developed. There are no Milford Graves among them, there are no Sonny Murrays, there are no McCoy Tyners. There are other people, and they are very accessible, but I think time will show that at best it will be music of a period.

BS: Do you think that they will return?

CT: Anything’s possible. But if you want to write scores for movies, on the basis of the energy that you have generated, and bring that energy to a movie like “Death Wish”, then from my point of view once again, although there may be one or two interesting musical passages, I think that a whole area of possibility of creative thought has been shelved. I would like to write for movies and I would like to write for theatre, mostly because I love theatre and I love the movies, and what’s so nice about it, ain’t nobody in Hollywood going to ask me to do a movie. But when they do, it’s because they know something about what I’ve done. Hopefully. And they’ll say “Hey, we’d like you to do this, and we can go at it as a team, and do something that can maybe be really fun”. And I think it should be fun. I don’t even think it should necessarily be work, it should be a kind of activity that when you ‘re finished, you know that you’ve really expended a lot of the life that’s in you. But then you’ve regenerated it. It shouldn’t be a task. After all, the Puritans were the lower classes, and they carried a particular kind of burden, but that had nothing to do with spiritual essences. That’s what I think. It’s so easy to adopt a socio-political idea when you talk about music, which is a nice way of avoiding what the artist does.

BS: Two people have been with you a long-time, both Andrew Cyrille and Jimmy Lyons. Is there a specific reason why you have been associated with them for such a long period of time?

CT: Well, you know, they’re awfully good.

BS: I’m assuming that everybody already realises that.

CT: Well, I wonder about that sometimes. Lyons interprets the music that is given him — which has been given to me, really — in a way that I don’t think anyone else can. And you see it’s not really understood about what composition is. Or what I think composition that stems from an African beginning is. It’s about community thought. It seems to me, it’s about you have maybe three or four different levels of musical activity going on. The alto saxophone has a whole tradition in this music of great men who, given three notes, interpret these notes in a certain way. It isn’t about how Cecil Taylor writes music. But Cecil Taylor is a vehicle for certain ancestral forces that this body has been fortunate enough to hear and pass on to people, and together in a community situation we exercise certain conversations, you see. And these men understand this. There are some. There are other groups of musicians who do the same thing. That’s what the tradition of this music is. It’s not understood essentially because in the drive to become successful, and there are so many pressures on musicians of this ethnic persuasion, there is no support for this particular kind of view anywhere, in any of the responsible areas that could make this point of view economically feasible. Because there is no cultural knowledge acting in those communities in America who, it would seem from a superficial level, would be the most interested in seeing this point of view being made.

BS: The Layers of Indent for example, apart from being music that I’ve heard, does it have some other meaning as well? People write tunes, but you have layers of indent, lots of them. How do all those conceptions arrive ?

CT: I’m writing a book about that. Hopefully. I ‘m not worried about when it’ s going to be finished. I don’t think it will be finished. I hope maybe sometime to put out the first volume. ‘Cause I like to write. I like to think about what are some of the possibilities, what are some of the things that you’re really working with. And what is musical sound, what does that really mean, you know. And I’ve been working on that for a number of years. Fortunately I’ve had a lot of years playing music and grew to a certain level of understanding, so that I had a chance to be more than a person who just played, I had a chance to be something spiritual who had been touched by forces that defy actual description. And it had nothing to do with any academy. It had something to do with traditions.

BS: Not spiritual and religious beliefs, you don’t feel spiritual that way?

CT: Well, I think that music is of course natural and spiritual. I think that the conception that gave birth to Jelly Roll Morton or Fats Waller or Charlie Parker or John Coltrane was among other things a religious one. But then I don’t know that religious means you know… I think that it has to do with recognising the greater creative forces and understanding that every living thing is a part of that garden of nature’s activities. To celebrate life means that you recognise the beauty of life as it exists in all things that hopefully you can see the life in.

BS: Do you think that it’s possible to teach people enough musical knowledge to bring out a possible creative force in someone else. Among all the students that you had at Antioch and Madison, were there some that had special qualities which came out while you were teaching?

CT: I think everyone has a special quality.

BS: Were there some musical creators amongst those people who are going to be very special people ?

CT: You’ll hear them.

BS: Do you think it’s possible to teach your art to someone else ?

CT: Oh, I don’t think that at all. The exciting thing about being in that situation was really I had a chance to learn so much. I had a chance to make a lot of mistakes, and live through them, and to really learn. When I was at Glassboro State College, this past year, I began to really understand what it was that I was doing, that was I think very good. A lot of brilliant people I think are just generally stomped, crushed because of the nature of the way the music is taught. I was very fortunate that the people who, for instance, made up the ensembles that I had, were really gifted people. And what you try to do is to create a situation in which the nature of their gift is allowed to flower. What you try to do is to create a situation in which they realise the beauty of all the other things that those traditional concepts have attempted to hammer out. The most beautiful situation would be when young people begin to be led in on the beginning of their own awareness of their own uniqueness and their own music talent. Almost like watching a birth, being part of giving birth to something. And I had two people in Glassboro who were really gifted. To see them get into it, to get into that especially when you’re young and when you’re very vulnerable. In all of the places I’ve been in I’ve seen most of the teachers kill them, quite deliberately. “Hey, you’ve got to practice your exercises! You’ve gotta do this, you gotta do that!” I think it’s a reflection of the political climate in one sense.

BS: Is a situation like Berklee part of that?

CT: I think so.

BS: Doing it right, making it fit in, is that one of the reasons?

CT: Well, I don’t know, I don’t want to make a generalisation. We gave, you might say, a brief seminar one afternoon at Berklee when we worked there, it turned out to be from a certain point of view one of the instructors said they had never seen anything like it before. Oh, they got very upset. But I thought it was very interesting, I thought it was sort of a plus. I mean there are a lot of presumptions that are going down there. People got really upset. A lot of “Did you think that they were right there… “

BS: But at Antioch you got quite a few musicians with you that you liked. Didn’t you perform in fact with some of those young musicians at one point? Wasn’t there a New York concert?

CT: I had a relationship with musicians. A lot of the musicians at Antioch came from Wisconsin, I met some others at Antioch. As a matter of fact Arthur Williams, the trumpet player, is going to play with us tomorrow. He came out to Antioch. Fantastic.

BS: Were most of the students at Antioch technically competent in the traditional kind of way when you arrived there, were they already top musicians?

CT: What do you mean by technically competent?

BS: Well, in the traditional sense of the word that they did all of the things they were supposed to, like sight-read and all of those things you’re supposed to learn.

CT: Why should they sight-read? I mean we could go on talking about things like this for a long time. I have some ideas about music that are extremely painful to the academies that I’ve been in. They’ve been rather painfully received.

BS: Would this be true of the European situation too, if you went into a European university ?

CT: I’d hate to think what would happen if I went into a European university. Part of the novelty of going to Europe is that there aren’t too many Negroes that are committed to make a lasting statement in Europe in terms of being incorporated into the European situation.

BS: So it’s not very different in reality to the United States.

CT: It’s because the United States attitude was nourished and fed by the Europeans. And the United States became more powerful, there were certain things the United States gave back.

BS: I happen to have a record by Andre Watts; one of him playing Chopin.

CT: Oh, yeah. That must be lovely. Well you know, he’s a man who’s furthering what I would assume at least to be right, it’s a European methodological camouflage. So that doesn’t threaten anybody.

BS: But you’ve been accused by so many people of being a European-influenced piano player.

CT: Oh, I know. It’s easy to do that, because at the same time what they’re really saying is that absolutely there is only one kind of musical order that we recognise, so if you do such-and-such, it must be European.

BS: Could it make a difference if improvisational musicians were made more aware of people like Harry Partch and Edgar Varese. Could that develop another kind of situation. Do you take anything from those people sometimes?

CT: I’m still involved with the conception of a particular tradition. And it must be in terms of getting the world history in its more proper perspective. We have to understand that what is considered the dark continent and all the not too subtle uses of the word “black”, “dark”, you know meaning some kind of ignominy, you must begin to understand that the word “arab” as applied to Europeans meant “place of darkness” at the time when Africans had a very great civilisation. And that comparatively speaking, the European ascendancy is the most recent in the evolution of man. But don’t tell that to any American. Don’t tell it to any American. And I can understand why. Why? Because in America, great country that it is, you understand, we’ve only had our consideration of art for under lOO years. It’s a most recent phenomenon. Give us time.

BS: But jazz music comes with all the stigmas, doesn’t it, for the white audience? And yet its audience is mostly white, why is that?

CT: You see, if you ‘re going to call it jazz… I understand what you mean, but dig what I’m saying. I’m saying that James Brown is Jazz. What we ‘re talking about is the methodology that determines how musical architectures are set up. Hey, the bulk of the black population loves James Brown or Aretha Franklin or whatever, now if you separate it and say hey, that’s soul, everybody needs soul. Milford Graves! What is that? But that’s something we have to live with, and understand that’s part of the division that is perhaps desirable from those people that control. They’re not interested in Milford Graves and Cecil Taylor. They write stories that will sell a million copies of Ebony and, from the business point of view, perhaps they’re right. After all, they’re involved in business. But you know, it’s fun once again, if you make a commitment to art, beauty. You can watch that as you grow older and say that is the way it goes down, but it doesn’t have to affect any personal choice that I might have. And maybe that’s a sign of fast approaching old age. I feel that I can understand even a man like Sammy Davis.

BS: That’s a long way from Andre Watts, though, isn’t it ?

CT: Not really, all the same thing, just a different view of different style of accomplishment.

BS: Andre Watts never made all those rash public statements, though, did he, like…

CT: He makes it every time he touches the piano.

BS: But most people are insensitive to that, they wouldn’t know it anyway.

CT: We ‘re not talking about most people we’re just talking about at most three of us here. For instance, this guy is going to play in New York, the opening concert at the Lincoln Center, and Pierre Boulez is going to conduct, and they’re going to play Liszt, and they’re going to play somebody else. I wouldn’t go, I’d like to say I’d like to go, ‘cause I’ve never heard him play, and I’d like to go see it, but you know I’ve heard certain people play that way of playing and I always said, there’s nothing about Mozart and Bach, to me, the answer is that all these children play it. I was playing Mozart when I was ten or eleven years old. When I saw Emil Gilels play Mozart, at Carnegie Hall, I had the same kind of sensation. I went to that concert, and then went down and heard Coltrane who was appearing at the Half Note. And I have to say after just about 30 minutes of Coltrane that they had expended more energy, played more notes, created more music, in maybe two minutes than Gilels spent in an hour and a half. You realise that these cats have always said in jazz there’s that beat, beat, beat… well, even at the same level of perception, I could say that Bach inventions and Mozart’s piano, had the same kind of thing. After you’ve heard one of them, you’ve heard them all in terms of structure, in terms of more subtle things like timbre, what happens in different registers. The same thing happens from piece to piece. It took me 40 years of life and 25 years of involvement to understand the lies that have been perpetrated culturally to deny first, black America, not because it’s dealing with black America but simply because they cannot face Africa, what Africa was, that Africa resulted in the wealth of the British Empire, that the slaves made the British and the Dutch wealthy, created the concept, afforded them the money that allowed manufacturing, mechanisation. So I’m saying that’s ok, that’s your problem, because if I live through the thing where they said I’m European, I don’t have anything to deny, I was only a product of the European nation, I went to the conservatory, and I must admit that when I first — and I’m not ashamed of this — when I heard Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring at Symphony Hall in Boston it was a devastating experience to me. And you know it’s very cool, see? I admit I’m rather hard on European musicians, I wouldn’t walk across the street to hear most of them, right? But that’s ‘cause I’m a musician.

Anthony Braxton Interview 1973

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Smith) — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 23:37:00 +0000

The following dialogue is from an interview that took place in Toronto in June 1973. My questions have been edited out. The piece originally appeared in April 1974 issue of Coda Magazine.

Music was always around the house. I grew up with lots of music and I was listening very seriously until I was about 9. I was into rock and roll; The Flamingos, Frankie Lymon and The Teenagers, that record still arouses memories, that was the music happening in the 50’s, and I was a real rock and roll fan. Later I heard an Ahmad Jamal record — “At The Pershing” — and it kind of changed my whole scene. it was shortly after that when I was exposed to Brubeck with Paul Desmond, that was the only type of jazz music I was exposed to, I hadn’t heard any Charlie Parker, I think I might have heard one record by Charlie Parker that frightened me. Listening to jazz that was easily accessible was a natural entry, and it was the day I made the decision to play the saxophone, whereas before I wanted to be a trumpet player, with Miles Davis, but after I heard Desmond I knew I wanted to play saxophone.

But I didn’t get a chance to study until I was about eleven. I was playing clarinet in the high school band and started taking lessons in alto saxophone (I had started playing saxophone in 1959). Of course in high school I went through a period of playing bebop music, tunes, and that kind of thing, my chief inspirations being Paul Desmond, Lee Konitz and Charlie Parker. I had my own combos, and I worked with other people’s combos. I became a student of Jack Gell at Chicago School of Music and studied there from 1959 to 1966 - basic theory, theory of saxophone (I started with clarinet and alto). Of course even where I went to school — in Chicago School of Music — they would not normally make you aware of jazz. There was a dance band, that’s what they referred to as a jazz band. They played show tunes, that sort of things, arrangements of old Woody Herman charts, old Basie tunes.

In 1966 when I got out of the Army, at that time I began to think I was insane or something; I was becoming very paranoid because for the most part I couldn’t find anyone that I could relate to musically in terms of what I wanted to do. I was becoming somewhat isolated. Not many people wanted me to play with them unless I played conventional, so when I ran into Roscoe Mitchell, who brought me to the A.A.C.M., the experimental band, I found a whole group of people - not only could I relate to them but they were all doing it, the whole community. I haven’t seen anything like it since. It was a very important part of my life.

I’m kind of far away from the A.A.C.M. now, I know that in the period when we were working, I don’t think I was concerned with worries any more, it was just work. The A.A.C.M. have created a separate school of thought, quite different from the jazz tradition of New York. Probably the biggest difference in the music between Chicago and New York is the environment. In Chicago there was time to research and study and refine some of the elements that constitute how the music would flow in Chicago. I think between ‘66 and ‘68, or maybe in ‘69, there was a lot of creativity happening; no one was so much concerned with labels, and because everybody came from different directions eventually they went and continued in their own directions. It was very interesting, nobody came out sounding alike. And yet at some point we embraced certain realities together. I don’t know if all the music could be called jazz. Actually I’m involved in contemporary classical music and to some degree with improvised music. So what I do is a logical extension of my interest in both areas, which is one of the reasons why I say I’m not a jazz musician.

When John Coltrane died, I began to re-examine process, because I found that I couldn’t continue playing modal music, for instance. Even John Coltrane himself talked about the fact that he loved to hear multi-rhythms in his music, and his music was at some point getting to be rhythmatical, and after he died I found myself looking at that concept, but I was not interested in the intensity, because I did not see how I could be more intense than John Coltrane. So what would be the result of having a sound environment which is free rhythmatically without the intensity? And I found that if you took away the drums and the bass you could open up the environment in the same way, and yet you wouldn’t have the intensity. I began to reject intensity as being just a common setting for the music. I found that at some point intensity can become a mass, for lack of invention. So in 1966 I formed a group with violin and trumpet with Leo Smith and Leroy Jenkins. We wrote in as many different settings as we could think of. Ninety percent of the stuff with the group was improvised. Of course, it depended on the composition, like the Kelvin series. I have a concept that when I work on repetition music it’s designated “Kelvin”. For that particular music it’s about dealing with the repetitions, although there’s much more room than say like the Lamont Young school which I found out about later. Repetition is the basis, the germ of that music, but it moves into it differently. So it depended on what elements we were working with, whether it was all improvised or not. But for the most part it was really like improvisation.

It was in the same period that composition wise I wrote my piece for a hundred tubas, and five tubas; I began to initiate (1) new situation for the improviser and (2) new compositional situations, since I’ve always been interested in structuralism at some point. Also in 1966 I began to explore the possibilities for solo alto, because in that particular period I was breaking down everything, like I was getting Webern off of me and yet I think what I got most out of contemporary classical music is the fact that the composer has so many different mediums that he can work in and it keeps his activity up. You can see his activity from different colours, which is what mediums are at some point. I just began to conceptually break down certain things and decide which avenues were available to me and which avenues I was interested in, and at some point solo saxophone was the legitimate avenue which hadn’t really been explored (of course Coleman Hawkins had done some wonderful things, Eric Dolphy would do isolated spots) but it hadn’t been explored in the sense of Stockhausen’s or Schoenberg’s piano music where each piece would be really one more different element, or something like that. And in that particular period I was very deeply into piano music. I’ve always loved solo piano music, and I found myself thinking, why not use the alto saxophone for my piano (as far as my improvised music was concerned), and continue to write solo music for piano, which would have to be interpreted by an interpreter. And I found then as now that music for solo saxophone would have to be very different from solo piano music; in fact there are a lot of available areas on the alto which aren’t available on the piano and of course vice versa. So that’s really how I arrived at that process.

I approach my solo music using different systems. The piece for Bobby Fischer for example has to do with certain systems, ways of constructing and approaching several problems, and certain ways to resolve them, in terms of actual makeup of the piece. It’s dedicated to Bobby Fischer because he’s very important to me. There’s always a relationship of some sort with the one to whom the piece is dedicated (the pieces are almost always dedicated to someone), but it’s not always a relationship like I’m trying to duplicate a chess game, playing Bobby Fischer’s chess game with Spassky, not that comparable. The actual systems of the piece don’t really have anything to do with chess, but because it seemed like it would be suitable for Bobby Fischer, which is why I include that in my program of performance. It’s actually stage 5 of a whole series of pieces that I have for Bobby Fischer, all of them using certain systems which at some point make me think of Bobby Fischer. And that particular piece was in part just another emancipation of the area of this that ‘s been touched; it’s just some of the inherent potential that’s in the instrument. Part of my thing has been that there are a lot of things happening with the saxophone which haven’t been done yet.

Why an alto and not a clarinet, a soprano or a tenor? Well, merely because I put the limitation on myself that I wanted to just do alto saxophone music, and I have a record out in Europe right now; “The Complete Braxton” — it wasn’t my name, but they changed it, called it “The Complete Braxton” anyway — and there’s a piece for solo contrabass clarinet and I intend whenever possible to do isolated solos on some of the other instruments. But I’ve always had a special feeling about the alto saxophone, so I decided to use that extensively for my experiments. The conceptual answers that I can come out with the alto saxophone could apply to my writing and for other things that I’m interested in. So I really just solo. I just give solo concerts on the alto saxophone, really because it’s my only consideration in terms of how I limit myself.

What happens now that I don’t play clubs — I never liked playing clubs and in fact I've not played in them since Circle — we usually rent a concert hall and present the music in a way where people can just come and hear the music and not buy drinks or anything like that. So whatever halls are available we could use that, but that’s not the problem, the problem is getting the money to get them. There are always places you can rent and put the music on. My understanding of what I’m doing is that I’m trying to be creative, and hopefully I’d like to put it in a situation where people could experience it, to be able to either like it or dislike it.

I’m a composer, and as a composer I’m just merely trying to be creative in different mediums. I feel that’s the function of music. I’m interested in parade music. My piece for a hundred tubas hasn’t been performed, but I would really like to get into parade music. Then I’d like to realize a few of my orchestral pieces and continue my electronic music. I’m in residence in Paris and there’s an electronic studio that I can go to every day now, and work on tapes. I’m able to realize projects that I couldn’t do in America. And so it keeps me in Europe. If I could do the projects in America I would do it. Not because it’s my home, but because it’s a valid part of the plan. it still exists, in spite of us. And there’s a lot of things to do. But you have to have some way of gaining facility, it’ s usually a University or something like that, or you have to have enough money to be able to live on this. I couldn’t really make a living off my music in America, I’d have to do TV commercials or something like that, or play some sort of music I don’t want to play. And at this point in my life I don’t want to do that any more. I have an idea of what I want to pursue as far as the creative thing is concerned. I’m not as flexible as I used to be, I’m no longer interested in showing someone I can play bossa nova and so on.

If Eric Dolphy were alive right now we would really be able to relate to each other. I know he was interested in some of the same elements I am. He had different solutions, of course. I thought that at some point there is definitely a line running from Parker and Dolphy like a continuous system to the kind of music I do. I know Charlie Parker wanted to study with Edgar Varese; I mean he was very much aware of the fact that he couldn’t get all of his music through the alto saxophone. That’s only one medium, and that’s what I’m working with now. I’m working with as many different mediums as I can. The problem is to get into other mediums (for me, anyway) rather than just to present oneself in the bass-drums-piano situation. It gets to be quite boring.

One possibility to get the facility is the university. I think most universities have an orchestra, so at some point I would have the facility to use an orchestra, and the electronic studio if there is one, to get some of my written music performed. I wouldn’t mind teaching, as long as it’s not too much teaching. I’ve been teaching in Paris and lately I’ve been giving a lot of lectures, not just on my music but on progressions of modern music, usually starting from Schoenberg to Cage and Lamont Young, and from Charlie Parker to Albert Ayler, to give some real perspective on what the implications of that music are all about, and to teach it in a way that it can open people up, rather than close them and make them think in limited terms about the music. One of the problems with teachers is that they limit you in your understanding of creativity. It’s surprising how many people can’t really teach about improvised music in away which is enlightening. There are not very many good teachers. For that matter, there are not that many good teachers in contemporary classical music. I think the emphasis in teaching is definitely on something that’s not creative.

Another possibility, being a musician in residence for example, would be something that I would be interested in, as long as it’s not too long. For instance, in America you have 4,000,000 composers in every university and once or twice a year they perform their own music, and 5 or 6 composers in their area will come in and be at the concert because they know that if they don’t go to his concert, he won’t go to their concert. You know there’s a whole university composer’s thing happening in America, in fact happening in Europe too, and these are people who for the most part like to drive and go out to play their music and live what they’re supposed to be about (supposingly) as musicians and composers. The university’s a somewhat safe haven, kind of too safe. Usually it’s very dangerous, because 3/4 of the composers are idiot composers, so they expose people right off to very bad music. Your whole post-Webern period made some of the dullest music on this planet. As far as I’m concerned, all those people are indebted to Varese, so I don’t know. I think it has something to do with the inability to have structure initiate what you say you’re about. So there’s an advantage connected with the university in some part, like where you can make some money, and use the facility, and teach; but if you stay there too long, it can also become a disadvantage, not just to you but to the people around you.

The question then becomes how much of that can you take, does it impair what you’re doing and does it enhance it, or if it does both, is it worth it? Do you get more out of it than what you put into it? You’re dealing with a strange kind of balance in that situation. I imagine that if there’s a good balance then it could work. You can make a living plus still be creative. But you’re dealing with a lot of factors, you know. All the factors of course change, depending on what university you’re dealing with. Some give you more room than others. But to just be in America and not connected with some sort of institution and trying to play creative music — well, not trying to play creative music but trying to be creative, you’re put in a very strange position. So I could understand Marion Brown teaching for instance, and find some sort of meaning in that. For instance he has a family, and just because of that consideration alone he’s not able to be like me, running around the planet in heavy wins and losses, taking the loss myself because I don’t have to worry about a wife and kids. I imagine at some point he might really be able to dig it, but how much it takes away or adds to what he does as a performer, we’ll see of course in the future.

I know a person like Stockhausen has complete facilities in Germany; as soon as something is innovated in technology that could lend itself toward music, in terms of its creative potential, he gets it very quickly. Or he’s able to use it. I guess that’s the optimum situation. But I guess at some point even Stockhausen has gone out of it. It seems like the more facility he gets, the less creative he is; he hasn’t done anything decent in the past ten years, so I wonder what that means. It’s a strange balance happening. I don’t know, maybe the nicest thing that could happen is to do like Charles Ives, be creative as long as you can and say fuck it. He eventually gave up and just did insurance. But while he was creative, he was very creative. At some point we’re all going to burn ourselves out.

And that’s been the question around here is it really necessary to have this kind of struggle to be creative? And if it is, is it worth it? Because it seems like the less struggle you have, the less dynamic your work becomes, as far as its relationship to what you were doing in the beginning. And yet I would hate to advocate starvation, because it’s not really hip.

But to get out and try to perform your music, you enter the area of where you’re making a living doing it, so you then have to deal with the available mediums to get it out, whether it’s records or concerts or what have you; you then enter big business or business. And there are problems there, you know. The record companies don’t know who I am, and the ones who do know don’t seem to be interested. They’re only interested in recording you if at some point they can help you define what you ‘re doing, in fact if they can have the ability to define 3/4s of what you’re doing. So there’s my problem. Like Ornette went through so many changes to get “Skies of America” performed, you wouldn’t believe it (we won’t go into that right now) but here is a man who is established now in terms of his creative ability, and he can barely get that project off; and it’s not even about money, it’s about something else — it’s about control. White people don’t mind giving black people money (of course we have black people with money) as long as they can define.

I think everybody knows the situation with jazz musicians, of course they’ll do whatever they can do to you. The record companies, especially in America, are not interested in paying you any money, where you can get good musicians, or where you can do a project and have it done in a right way, and on top of that they have the nerve to want to tell you what you’re doing, as if I don’t know what I’m doing all these years. Something like the A & R man syndrome. And so I have no records out on a major record label in America, and I don’t see that situation changing. Besides, I still get treated like a jazz musician rather than a concert musician - like when I got my piece for five tubas recorded, it was only because we had signed the contracts and everything before; I was supposed to come in with my bass, drums and trumpet, and I slipped in with five tubas, but it was too late - they were in the studio, and so he had to tolerate it. At the end he liked it, but I’ve never had a record date of any of my written music, and so I’m represented for the most part as a saxophone player or a woodwind player. But that’s a small part of what I do.

I have never had access to other media, like television or radio to any great extent in America, but in Europe I’ve performed on television in Germany, France, and Holland. I mean in America they’re just getting Miles Davis on television. That’s true. And that’s only because it’s a rock band. I think the whole situation is silly, I mean I don’t even see Muddy Waters on television. I saw him on television ten years ago, one time, at some festival, a pseudo-jazz festival, and he stole the show. I think it’s undebatable people could listen to my music if it was on television, and could see the process of the music being made. I could take advantage of the visual aspect of it too. So of course, that’s to your advantage. I think that’s why the popular musicians at some point are known so much. Television is a real medium. But I think we all know why the situation is like it is. I don’t think it’s going to change, not for a while.

For me I find that in this part of my life I would have more problems if I wasn’t trying to make a living playing music. I have less problems than for instance if I were working at a job and playing music at night, because then I wouldn’t have the energy to try and develop what I’m doing it takes a lot of energy to do something you don’t want to do. I accept the situation that I have to exist in, even if I didn’t accept it, it wouldn’t make any difference. It’s not changing. But we’re talking about the situation now, which is that to be creative is at some point to be put into a very isolated position on the planet, where for the most part you ‘re not able to get the music out, and have people experience it on a real planet level.

The dichotomy between the people and the music gets wider and wider. Because for the most part people who define phenomena, whether it’s art or baking cookies or what have you, at some point they don’t even deal with the music. There ‘s a concerted effort in America in the past 6 or 7 years to kind of not use the music, to in fact push the music to one side, to talk about some of the weaker elements in the music, and to negate and invalidate contemporary creativity. So music gets to be somewhat esoteric which is not the purpose of it. And yet there’s nothing we can do, there ‘s no magazine in America for creative music, there are no outlets, aside from the people who already know about it. It gets to be really something. I don’t know if I could just relate it to the fact that I’m black, although in America the racial situation is manifested on every level of the culture so at some point of course my blackness is a barrier to me in terms of doing certain things and working at a certain level. But I don’t attribute the fact that my music isn’t available, or in a position where people can hear it, merely because of my blackness, I think the implications of creative music is what frightens most people. And I think it’s basically people’s misunderstanding about what creativity is in fact about in the first place that makes them repel any new effort. It would be much more comfortable if I would play jazz or if I would interpret Bach or something which is established, because of the reality aspect of the music.

But by the very nature of the system that we live in, once something creative is established, they find a way to turn it into a spectacle. It becomes established as something which other people will relate to, then they’ll have another value system they can talk about, this kind of relationship to Albert Ayler who becomes the norm then.

And here we're actually talking about flows and systems of art in Western civilization, because this whole situation is indigenous to our particular culture. In Africa you don’t see no cat running around trying to get a record date because he can play flute or something, because everybody can play flute just as good as him. It ‘s not even about how good you play. The music has more than just a casual interest, it’s more than just a spectacle, it’s about something else. We live in a situation that because there’s no ritual, because this culture hasn’t advanced to a point where spiritually or metaphysically or whatever people have got higher levels of cognizance, music becomes reduced to a diversion sort of thing. Even the particular periods of music, if you look at them, can be talked of in terms of the structure and what have you; the game seems to be to develop a new structure, so that we can say this is new, but actually nothing is very new. But by developing it, we can focus some attention to what we do. And even in ten years if people should be listening to my music it would be for the wrong reasons or they’ll think Braxton is really great or whatever, when actually nobody’s doing anything else out of what they could do anyway. And all this trying to be creative is to realize the potential that is in us as human beings. It’s really very natural to try to be creative, in fact it’s not natural not to be creative. So we’re placed in a very alien situation, not as a white man or a black man, but as a human being. This is not really a human situation that we walk around in. In that situation, it becomes important to have alternatives, for people whose activity is available as an alternative; creative music becomes a necessary alternative again.

There’s our reason for playing together. But I think that the way the situation is defined right now, my music could not appeal to the masses of people. Because there would have to be a lot of homework that would have to be done, not because my music’s profound or anything, but because the nature of creativity has been distorted, to the degree where a person would have to be re-schooled. I’m not talking about the people who come up under certain systems who naturally progress toward activities like mine, but I’m saying for the most part, it’s a little bit different from the kind of music that’s played on the radio, which is the kind of music for the most part that people are conditioned to dealing with. Not that I would want people to be conditioned to listen to my music, I wouldn’t like people to be conditioned to listen to anything. And if at some point you’ve never been exposed to other alternatives, it can be somewhat difficult for people to experience it.

On the other hand it seemed to me last night (i.e. the concert given by Braxton in Toronto on June 16, 1973: see August/ September 1973 Coda, p.43) for instance. I don’t know if all those people there were into creative music or contemporary improvised music, they were able to relate to it. The notion blowing around that people if given a chance couldn’t really experience creative music is true to a degree, but at some point I find that a lot of people can relate to my music, in all of its different stages. I felt last night for instance the people were able to, even if they didn’t exactly know what was happening, be open to experience it. And it’s definitely true in Europe, and in France in particular since that’s where I play most of the time; there, the audiences are more susceptible to new ideas than American audiences. In ‘69, I believe it was, concerning the influx of musicians from Chicago and New York at some point the people became very aware of their music, mostly for the wrong reasons. But now I think I could say there’s a real audience. The radical elements of the music are no longer impressive, at any rate. Now people can really get down and listen to who’s playing the music. When John Coltrane died, in America, for the most part when the media would centre on so-called new music, they would talk about the inadequacies of the younger musicians technically or something like that. Now we realize that we had those musicians only to thank, because most of the “polished” musicians are really playing accepted ideas, or ideas which Charlie Parker had initiated, you know?

People have the wrong idea about what jazz music is supposed to be, but I’m tired of fighting it. Charlie Parker was playing what he was playing; they called it jazz - I don’t care if Louis Armstrong was the first to use that word or not, it’s playing creative improvised music. And yet because the music was so creative, most of the people after him have not been able to understand that they should find their own processes in terms of their own solutions, or what have you. For instance I think the biggest problem that black people have in America is their inability to understand that they can define an “is” in their own situations. It’s manifested in the music, I think that’s what you’re talking about. In fact jazz has been defined and pigeonholed to such a degree where in order for a person to pursue that type of music as a way of making his living, and being creative, he has to fall within the definitions of what that’s supposed to be about and act accordingly. Like I’m supposed to give you a bass, drums and rhythm section and work through tunes — “Melancholy Baby” or something, for the old folks — and I’m supposed to go out and play that, I become known as that, and it falls into T. S. Eliot’s “formulated phrase” (Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, Lines 55-56: “And have known the eyes already, known them all; the eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase… “) again, and that’s not only how jazz is labelled but all our music’s labelled. Like your contemporary classical musicians for the most part well, their connection with Europe is obvious, but you go to a concert and the explanations for each piece will be four hours long to not only validate the music but also give a historical perspective in terms of what’s gone down before it. I mean everybody’s locked in by (1) the historical framework and (2) the fact that they haven’t defined what they’re doing.

That’s why strong people are needed to hear what they themselves are doing and to have the integrity to stay with what they’re doing. People like Lamont Young, for instance. Lamont Young is a composer in New York. For the most part I don’t think the mass public knows his name, but he’s a most important cat because he’s been on the scene for 15 years (1) initiating his own concepts and (2) continuing to do what he ‘s doing, and developing it. He becomes very important, it doesn’t even matter whether or not you like him. We need alternatives, more people like Lamont Young, people who have an idea or the desire to want to be creative and who through the test of time will feel that they will be able to stay there and do what they do and develop it. And for me, the only course I have is to continue doing what I’m doing, period. Till I burn out and work at the Post Office or something. I think I do what I do because of who I am, but I’m also outside the general framework, like my music’s not available for the most part on this planet, except say in Tokyo where I have music available. I can go and do a recording for the largest record company in Japan, with no vibration, with nobody running around and saying do this and do that, and with complete freedom with what I want to do, no question about it; and in Europe, but in America I don’t have any music out because I haven’t been O.K.’d. I don’t perform that much — I’ve never performed that much — record wise, Delmark Records was the only outlet I had in America, and there ‘s no distribution for those.

And so jazz has become a fixed medium, where to be a jazz musician you have to play in a certain way or whatever, and if you do well they give you five stars in Down Beat or something; you become a hero. The situation for creative music hasn’t changed, either; although the situation for jazz has changed a little bit, I’m afraid that when you talk about creative music and when you talk about jazz you’re talking about two different things, for the most part. I’m not trying to invalidate some of the musicians who come up playing what they called bebop, who are really dealing with the reality of what their whole creative thing is all about, but when you’re talking about jazz now, you’re not talking about really creative music, you’re talking about fixed solutions and even the jazz musicians who are able to get their music to the public come through a lot of definitions, a lot of things are changed. I don’t know of anyone playing the music called jazz right now who’s doing anything, I mean take somebody like Ornette Coleman for instance; I think Ornette’s music has gone. He does what he does now, and he does it well, and it’s not new to the extent where it challenges any notions of creativity, or even more than that, he does what he’s done, or what he does. He ‘s certainly still creative, it’s certainly not still the same as when he was younger. I don’t think it’s so much that he’s burned himself out as that he’s lost a lot of energy and what-have-you through the living and the struggle, plus he’s found a certain particular area that he wants to work in. And he does that. But for me, I’m not particularly interested in one particular aspect, my interest is that things keep moving along. And at some point I imagine that I’ll burn out, or not have the ability to initiate something new, and maybe even become known for something that I’ve done or something, and be expected to be able to duplicate that. And maybe I won’t even be able to do that. Which hopefully will be true. Leave it there and move on to something new.

One possibility is that I might remove myself from music entirely and devote myself to another love that I have, which is chess. I’ve been playing chess since I was in high school, I won my first trophy in high school, and it’s a very important part of my life. It’s just as lucrative as playing creative music, and I really love playing chess. I consider myself a good chess player, but I’ve never played it competitively on any kind of high level. I’m still studying for a mastership. I’d like to at least be a master. I have more work to do. I’m still studying more systems and I get a chance to play a lot in Paris, Yugoslavian players, and Egyptian players, so I’m re-learning all of the opening systems, and doing a lot of theory right now. I’m hoping to start entering tournaments. I actually hope that I could start sometime this year but my schedule has been such that I haven’t been able to study as much as I like, but when I can…

But getting back to what else can happen after you burn out — then what do you do? You become a legend, or you go teach in the university. But when the moment is happening, it’s unfortunate that it can’t be received. It sounds like I’m saying that if any cat comes up and says that he’s doing something different, that he should immediately be pushed out and people should be exposed to what he’s doing, of course that’s not really happening, for every person who’s legitimately coming up with something creative there are 400,000 charlatans too. Like most of the jazz music right now for example, We’re in a very interesting period in jazz. In the 60’s, a person like John Coltrane was an honestly spiritual person who initiated a certain type of music; now in the 70’s we see those intentions used — like everybody has a professional guru — and I find jazz very boring now, everybody talks about their religious beliefs, and has their little swami with them and for the most part the music is very dull, it’s sacrilegious, it does more to confuse people. I’d rather listen to some rock than listen to most of the jazz although when I say that I find myself thinking “did I really mean it”? And out of the contemporary classical concerts you might find two decent concerts out of a hundred, because most of the people have become so in love with process that they forget about music.

It’s quite possible that the energy source is going to shift from the United States to Europe for the further development of the music. There was a time when I would say no, it’s not that critical, but I find myself wondering about that. I’m hoping that at some time the whole planet will be equally “is”, in terms of the ability to initiate concepts. I doubt very seriously if America will become totally uncreative. But there are dangerous signs among the young musicians especially, that — I don’t know how to say it — I don’t hear that much creative improvised music, whether we want to call it jazz or not. Most of the gifted younger musicians, gifted technically, seem to be without the real understanding, the total perspective of what they’re doing. I know that sounds somewhat negative, even though I’m saying it, and yet I might as well just say whatever I’m thinking. For me, I’m just bored with technique, I mean with that kind of technique. This is why I have not become impressed with some of the schools now which teach “Jazz”. So called. I mean they teach you how to play “correctly”, and there’s nothing more boring than a “correct” player in my opinion. It’s all automatic, your situations are all pre-planned in terms of how you deal with certain harmonic situations, chord progressions and what have you. So there ‘s not that much improvised music/ jazz, or whatever you want to call it, that I find interesting. So I don’t want anything to do with that. I left the jazz community a long time ago, and I think they were happy to see me go. I don’t even listen to jazz any more, with the exception of old pieces of music that I like.

The problem is that there are not that many musicians on the whole planet that I really want to play with. Lately I’ve been really interested in doing duets with Richard Teitelbaum, he plays synthesizer, you know, and one of the main problems that George Conley and I run into any place on the planet is to find out what musicians are at some point being creative, I mean the first name that comes to my mind as far as improvised music is concerned is Derek Bailey. I don’t know of any guitar player in America that could touch him. Bailey’s English, it’s indicative of some sort of change, I mean I think the idea that only black people could play jazz or be creative — everybody ‘s looking at that now — is seeing that it is of course racist. Like half of the creativity that I hear that is supposedly new is a drag. You know, you can’t just embrace anything because it’s new. As a safeguard you not only have your critics but you just have the whole way things are set up, in terms of longevity and what have you. And parts of that are valid too. That’s all something you come up against, which is honest, but I don’t know. I find most critics to be especially dangerous, especially in jazz music. Like in Chicago, for instance, the critics really helped to destroy the A.A.C.M., by pushing out some figures and not talking about other figures, sort of separating them into who’s good and who’s not good, pitting the musicians against themselves. And they’re all doing this under the guise of they know what they’re talking about. They’re the professionals. People who really know. And yet I don’t know, I think the function of the critic is to make certain things available to people, and yet of course valid criticism is important too. I talk about critics and it’s a problem for me, because in the west I think it’s necessary to have critics. I mean our music isn’t really about music, it’s not about enhancing the general understanding we have about life, participating and that, because everyone has a different understanding about life. So the critic reviews things from the historical standpoint, and the process, the position in this point of time on the planet is a valid one. A lot of critics seem to abuse it, where they know more about what a man’s doing than what he knows, and usually they’re so late. I don’t think it would be better if critics were musicians, because every musician would write he was doing the most important thing in the world. Musicians are drags, although I think they should be able to define what they do. But as far as being a critic, if I was a critic I probably would “x” out 99 records out of 100 because of my own subjective understanding of what interests me . Musicians are very subjective, just because they’re dealing in the medium themselves. It’s like Aaron Copland writing a book about American music and spending one paragraph on jazz, dismissing it as bad-but-true that will soon go away or something. By his criteria the music wasn’t even valid, never has been. He raped jazz. Anyway, the music exists or it doesn’t, and it does.

There’s an interesting thing happening though in America; a lot of little creative groups are getting together, and people are just trying to be creative, manifested in the stuff you did with painting or music or what have you. In California people are going up into the mountains and hills to just do things to be creative, trying to get under condition, or reconditioned back to life. And it’s not like them trying to make a living off it, you get to think that maybe trying to make a living off being creative is not the answer. It seems to be almost impossible. The hassle of having to make money interferes with your process. Creativity isn’t a spectacle, it’s just something that people do, something that’s related to being alive in the fullest sense of the word. But it’s not saleable. Actually, my music’s not very saleable anyway. But especially when I’m able to do some of the other aspects of my music, no one would consider doing it.

But even more than that. If America continues in the course that she’s going, which is denying people the understanding of what creativity is all about, it’s quite possible that the axis is going to shift to Europe or something. But I think it will still be some time at this point. We’re moving to the decline of a whole civilization, we have to deal with that too, there’s not going to be any change. I don’t see any changes in the whole scene, the only thing to do at this point is to continue doing what you believe in. There’s no question that I’m going to be accepted or not accepted, because it’s not even about that, there’s nothing to be done. We could say “Bomb America” but that won’t even solve the problem, or go talk to the educated people of Down Beat Magazine, and that’s not going to change, because the misunderstandings are so deeply imbedded in the culture not just about music but with dealing with existence, that I don’t think one or two people can change anything.

All that has to do with cliques and everything too. I mean Cecil Taylor finally got a Guggenheim, which I think is really wonderful, but Cecil Taylor is a man whose contribution to music is not even debatable at this point. People attribute atonal improvisation to Ornette Coleman, but as far as that particular period Cecil was doing the same thing, in the same period. You can’t say who was first or not. Now they’ve given him a Guggenheim, we’re supposed to be happy. So it’s the same thing, you still have to know somebody, or be around so long and have an output of music through a long time period where at some point they just have to deal with you, even if they don’t like you. I mean there are still people who can’t get into Cecil’s music, but I think at some point we all have to give the man credit for what he’s done. And he still doesn’t work — understand, now. Cecil still isn’t available for people who really want to hear him, he doesn’t perform that much, and it’s not because he charges too much money either. It’s just because the way the situation is, that there’s not the real need for Cecil Taylor because you could have Joey and the Flea-Bops or something; there’s no understanding about what the man is, what his music is.

Now take Miles Davis for instance, who’s supposed to be one of the richest black jazz musicians of America. He walks around talking about how great he is, and yet it seems to me that he could help some of the younger musicians. I’m not talking about me, since he probably couldn’t stand my music, but what about the music he likes? He could do something with it. In America, how many black millionaires are there supposed to be? There are more black people than you would expect who have money, who at some point would really help, not just black people but help the scene, to initiate something that would be positive. Nothing’s happening. They have that money but without the power of definition again, the power of being able to define. So that money’s nothing. There’s not any difference between the white and black bourgeoisie, except black bourgeoisie are imitating white bourgeoisie. The white one’s an original one, the other’s a copy. But in the final analysis, it’s the same result. They don’t feel any more relationship to me than any of the white millionaires, they feel even less, because they’re trying to reject something. They’re trying to push aside what they originally were and don’t want to be.

Maybe the only way to make the system work is that it should be destroyed. And actually that seems to be the only thing that we’ve come out with, and we’ve known that when we came in — transformation. The system, as things stand right now, doesn’t seem to lend itself toward some sort of real substantial change. In fact the way things are constructed, everything can be assimilated within the system and slightly altered — by “slightly altered” I mean “completely changed” — then become part of the system, whether it’s creativity or what have you. We could endure to continue doing what we profess to be about, the situation will change, I mean America’s changing. I think in the next ten or twenty years we won’t even be talking about America. Something’s happening, and I think it’s best for me to acknowledge it, so that I can learn from it. There’s a lot of creative music happening in the underground, which is a very hopeful kind of sign. The mere fact that there are certain people on the planet who have the integrity and have the ability to go out and continue to initiate things which could be called creative, they become very important people. That’s all. For as long as they’re able to do what they’re doing. But for the most part you don’t know these people. Like no one here knows about Richard Teitelbaum, the fact that they don’t know about him is criminal, especially when you consider all the bad electronic music that’s happening. They’re usually kind of outcasts. For the most part no one can relate to them. And it’s all over the planet; you go and look in the alleys and under the doorways, in the coal mines — they’re there, lurking in the shadows: a significant amount of people in different parts of the planet who are genuinely creative. And I associate and attach myself to that.

Usually when I go to any new place I try to find out from the musicians; they’ll usually say something like “this guy can’t play”, or “he’s crazy”, “he’s not doing anything”, “he’s a sick, warped, demented fool”, and immediately I try to find him. He’s probably one of us.

PAUL BLEY

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Smith) — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 18:52:00 +0000

The 2nd in a series of Interview/Essays of Canadian Musicians

On February 6th, 1979, at Town Hall in Toronto, a really surprising occasion took place. Great Black Music Productions presented a concert by two soloists, Roscoe Mitchell and Paul Bley. Apart from the excellent music that was performed, the surprise was that Paul Bley, a returning Canadian, had not performed in Toronto for nearly twenty years.

Although Paul and I had often corresponded, by letter and by telephone, we had met only once, when he was working with the Charles Mingus group at the Five Spot in the early 1960s. I was however not to hear him play on that night because the “legendary” Five Spot piano was in its “normal” state of untune and Paul refused to perform. And so after nearly two decades of experiencing him on recordings, it was eventually in Toronto that I was to really hear his music.

Part of his program was a tribute to the late Charles Mingus, a wonderful recitation of “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat”. In his introduction to this piece he had said something that I had not realised, that Charles Mingus was the person who had abducted him, when very young, from Montreal.

PAUL BLEY: Oh yes! When I first went to Juilliard I encountered something called The New Jazz Society in New York City. It was a group of people who met at a club on West 54th Street that Charlie Parker played at. Barry Ulanov organised it, he was working for a magazine called Jazz. Mingus was also working at this club on certain nights, Bird would work weekends and Mingus would work other nights. I had occasion to sit in at the club. Mingus was very friendly and when I went back to Montreal for one of the holidays I was offered two jobs in Montreal, which meant that I was making a great deal of money, as I was living at home, and it seemed that I was never going to get back to New York. The phone rang one day and there it was — Charlie Mingus was on the other end of the phone, saying, “Paul, you’ve got to help me out, I need a conductor for an octet.” It was quite complex and he felt that he wasn’t able to do the conducting and would I do that, and “by the way would I also do a trio date with him and Art Blakey?” Which was my first record.

That was a hell of a phone call. And I said, “Just tell me where to be when. I’ll be there!” I caught a plane and there I was. We did a date for his own Debut label with a singer and an octet, baritone sax, one or two horns, trombone — Jimmy Knepper, if I remember correctly. I’d done my first year of conducting at Juilliard. He had this large score and we ran through it and we got through the day I was extremely nervous (laughter).

Then early one morning a few days later Art Blakey showed up and just my luck, good luck I should say, the date was scheduled for 9:00am in the morning and I had for some reason to be back in Montreal at 3 o’clock that afternoon, and so I told Charlie I was hoping to get through in time to catch the plane. Art Blakey came in, some band boy was carrying his drums. He was so sleepy that morning that he played very quietly, very quietly, keeping beautiful time! It was just perfect, because at that stage of my career I wasn’t really ready to override him, his power, so I had a chance to be heard and be felt. He’s a monster drummer. Mingus played beautifully. And I went back to Montreal. This is just out of the clear blue, I said, “Well, now that I have all this activity in New York I’d better quit all these good paying jobs”. I think my mother was banking $350.00 a week for me in Montreal, clear. In the early ‘50s that was a great deal of money. It must have been equal to a thousand dollars. Clear! It seemed like an endless job, and I was looking forward to a great deal of income. But it was a wonderful opportunity. Mingus’ offer plucked me out of the liability of this seduction, the lure of heavy money.

I was already enjoying a considerable reputation in Montreal before I went to Juilliard. My early bio includes a film with Stan Kenton, jazz workshops at the Chez Paris, we ran our own club, we produced a weekly show for CBC television, of which over a period of time we promoted Canadian groups as well as Americans; Brew Moore, AIan Eager, Dick Garcia, Sonny Rollins and Charlie Parker. This was for CBC and for our own jazz workshops. As a matter of fact I invented the name “Jazz Workshop”, although I’d never tell Charlie Mingus that. I shouldn’t say I invented it. It was taken directly from the drama workshops that existed.

One of the other things that happened was, during my final year of high school, (Norman) Granz came and literally plucked Oscar Peterson out of Montreal, leaving behind him Clarence Jones and Ozzie Davis. Ozzie Davis was the bassist and Clarence Jones was the drummer, both from New York, whom Oscar had invited up to Montreal to work over a year or two period at a place called the Alberta Lounge which was just opposite the CNR station in downtown Montreal. I sat in there occasionally So when Oscar was invited to leave, the other two members of the trio invited me to replace him. I was there for about six or seven months Which was another wonderful opportunity. It didn’t do anything for my final year of high school though.

When I eventually went to the United States, everything was as wonderful as that first opportunity, the music was really going on. There was a little bit left of 52nd Street. Can you imagine one of the first nights that I remember arriving in New York, Lennie Tristano, Warne Marsh, Lee Konitz, Billy Bauer and one or two other players were working on 52nd Street. Charlie Parker, Max Roach, Miles Davis and whoever were working on 54th Street. Dizzy Gillespie’s orchestra was working in Birdland. Billy Eckstine’s orchestra was working upstairs, Be Bop City! And that was just in a four-block radius. If you wanted to go a little farther there was other music to be heard Incredible! All finished, very professional, very deeply into it, as into their act as Ellington was into his. Finished, fully professional, fully formed bands. All playing Misteriosos as far as I was concerned. To hear this level of accomplishment, of diversity! Can you imagine the bridge of some of those Lennie Tristano tunes, at four times the tempo, this gorgeous harmony? It was incredible, it was really an oasis. A garden of Eden musically.

My mother was really a wonderful woman. When I was 14 she put 500 bucks in my hand and said “go to New York for a few days and see if you like it.” I checked into the Taft Hotel and kept my head upwards for the whole weekend. And I said, “I definitely like it.” So while I had a band in Montreal there was a girl singer from New York to whom I explained my hidden secret desire to go to Juilliard. The moment I said that, she was convinced that there was nothing else I could possibly do, except that. She was generous enough to invite me to her family’s home in Brooklyn and I slept in an apartment with her and her three brothers, and we kept rifles for Israel under the beds. And cooked main courses, dinner was chicken, and steak and roast beef and six vegetables, I mean we really cooked a dinner. It was like a restaurant.

What I mean to say is, there was an awful lot of generosity extended my way. When you try to leave your home country at age 15, 16, 17, there’s an incredible amount of magnetism pulling you to stay where you are. You have to be wrenched out of your environment.

When I arrived in New York I was definitely the worst player in town! It was just a measure of how far I had to go. It took years, while I was at Juilliard I worked different weekends with different people. One of those experiences, one particular weekend, I worked early in the evening in Brooklyn with the Pete Brown quartet, and the same night I went to do a gig with Dick Garcia and Charlie Parker at the Armoury, around 168th or whatever, it was up in Harlem. The gig was supposedly at 1:00am, which Bird showed up for at 3:00am, and to hear the two horn players juxtaposed over three hours, to be on the bandstand with both of them was to see the incredible similarity rhythmically, and the way they projected their sounds. They were very very close. Pete was considered a blues player and Charlie Parker of course was bebop and there was a great deal more complexity, but rhythmically they ran eighth notes the same way. A jump band.

Beautiful. Beautiful. His favourite idea was to be playing Brooklyn in January and it would be very cold and for the first number he’d play “52nd Street Theme” as fast as he could play it. Willie Jones was the drummer. Willie Jones would say, “Man, give me a chance to warm up you know, why do you want to hit with that for the opening tune?” He would say, “If you can play this tune you’ll have no more problems for the rest of the night.”

BILL SMITH: Was it possible for you to make a living playing this music?

PAUL BLEY: No I don’t think you could say that you could make a living. For one thing, I wasn’t ready to go and jump on the bandstand with the groups that existed. There’s a tradition in New York that for twelve months you’re supposed to be seen and not heard. It’s very presumptuous to think that you can come in being the hot flash from Cleveland and expect to impress anybody in New York. So you’re supposed to just very quietly make friends and do a great deal of listening. It took me four years of listening before I was really ready to jump on a great deal of the bandstands. At Juilliard Phil Woods was a student, Teo Macero was a student, there was a band there I had an opportunity to play for John Higgins’ class. I had a chance to do a lot of work as a leader at that time.

I worked in all the black clubs in Long Island and Brooklyn. I’ve had some wonderful bands that have never been written about. I had a quintet, which was a very well-known quintet but it was mine. It was Jackie McLean, Donald Byrd, Arthur Taylor and Doug Watkins. It played a place called Copa City in the early ‘50s. Those guys were really funny. To drive out with those guys in the car was hilarious, they were like a bunch of porpoises, you know, constantly roughing each other up physically, verbally, for me it was an incredible education I copped for six weeks or so while I found out what they were doing. I was always the poorest player in every band and that situation existed for years. As a matter of fact I didn’t make a record that I could say, “check this one out” until about 1962 or ‘63, which was the Savoy record with Pete LaRoca and Steve Swallow. I think that record took ten or twelve years of listening and trying to play, just to catch up. Because Americans had all kinds of power, all kinds of forward momentum, all kinds of aggressiveness, all kinds of balls, all kinds of lack of inhibition These were personality traits, it’s nothing you can practise in a room by yourself.

And then there were the giants, the monsters. The Sonny Rollins’ with the super volume. These people were giants. And for us practising our standards and sitting in and playing well and whatever, it just wasn’t the same breed of animal. You couldn’t tell from records. You thought you were playing jazz by comparing your playing to records, but when you heard the amount of wind that came off these stands you realised you would have to totally lose your reticent Canadian personality before you could even expect to keep up. That was the shock.

That incredible power and confidence. And that very confidence is what I tell people, this is where the Canadian artist’s function to Canadian society is. The problem in Canada is that… just reading your newspapers… that one doesn’t have the confidence to be objectionable, as a Canadian one doesn’t have the confidence to subject someone to your inadequacies. I learned to tip my hat in elevators in Canada, to defer whenever possible, almost Japanese like. Canadian behaviour is very Japanese-like in social relationships and that. Japanese might be a multiplication of Canadian behaviour, but the good-byes and the hellos take a tremendous amount of time in Japanese, the full bows back and forth, almost ad absurdum.

For example, you have a two-way television system here that has to be sold to the rest of the world in a very short period of time, before the ideas are co-opted by some other country and introduced as their original invention. And given that time deadline it’s still — according to the headline of your local paper the other day — the recommendation that Canada would not be able to sell this two-way television idea to the rest of the world unless it already had a system in place in Canada. Well, that’s just looking for an out. If you only have a year or two to sell it according to the article. And you’re certainly not going to put a system in place by then. What you have done is say, “let’s not sell it because it’s not time yet”. If you had a good sales person out there, because you do have a superior product that no one else has, you wouldn’t have to have everything in place to make the perfect sale. It’s just that type of mentality: “Let’s not do it now, do it later because we’re not ready yet.”

BILL SMITH: There’s so much incredible natural wealth here. Why do you think Canadians are like this? Now that you aren’t actually part of Canadian society anymore.

PAUL BLEY: Oh, I’m a Canadian who’s left and had a chance to observe society all over the world. Lived in different societies all over the world. Why is the Canadian personality this way?”

BILL SMITH: Well it seems to be two steps back from the front. You know, you stand back when you knock on the door instead of opening it. That seems very prevalent in Canadians.

PAUL BLEY: Perhaps its our British tradition, perhaps it’s our French tradition. The English are also extremely polite, mannered. I’m not sure why. All I know is that I think that generalisation is accurate. Now as jazz musicians we’re saying for this society, you can free up your imagination. You can proceed in an area without much information and you can function in an area without much information. You can, I told a class at York University just yesterday, that one has to be the greatest salesperson in the world to sell something to somebody that they have no idea that they need or want. These are all characteristics that artists are faced with because of the difficulty of their situation and they can serve as a model to the rest of society as to where society is in its own personal development. You have to have something to be proud of. Nationally, federally, locally, and the type of people who are willing to take on several layers of impossibilities, and yet be able to function. Artists always predict the future, the social future. Blue jeans were the dress of the painters. It wasn’t the paintings that influenced society, it was their pants!”

BILL SMITH: In this period here in Toronto, I don’t know about the rest of Canada, there’s a very powerful new music thing happening which is not at all like the bulk Canadian music attitude. Always the jazz players here are imitating someone else, learning in that kind of process which is not very healthy in my opinion. There have not been very many original players that I know of in Canada, and when there are they do seem to leave. It’s almost a joke in Canada, that leaving thing. So I hope your prediction’s right, that it does socially follow the occurrence that takes place in the environment. Music now in Canada is coming to the point where there are perhaps a dozen players who are becoming quite powerful. So theoretically your idea means we’re looking to a good future socially. I don’t know if that’s true...

It’s an indicator, absolutely. One of the many indicators at least that should be taken seriously.

BILL SMITH: Returning, do you feel like a Canadian anymore?

PAUL BLEY: Absolutely! Always have I have a Canadian passport, a Canadian mother, all my school friends are Canadian. I grew up here for the first 15, 16 years. So that’s fully formed, that’s Canadian. As a musician one doesn’t want to disinherit oneself from any ethnic background. The more ethnic backgrounds the better.

BILL SMITH: So in spite of all your reservations about the character of Canada you still feel very strongly that you are one of us.

PAUL BLEY: Absolutely! I tip my hat in elevators to ladies.

BILL SMITH: You said that you didn’t really make a record that you felt was an important statement until about 1963 or ‘63. Yet by that time you had already had a band that was so controversial that it had nothing to do with those records. You know, the band with Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry. There’s been so much talk about Hillcrest that we have to talk about Hillcrest. Do you mind talking about Hillcrest?

PAUL BLEY: I don’t mind talking about anything that happened.

The Hillcrest Club was a club on Washington Boulevard, which is in the black section of Los Angeles, right in the middle of it. That area had a tradition of live performance. Les McCann played our Monday night jam sessions. When I arrived in Los Angeles after along college tour with a trio that I brought from New York we added the vibraphone player, Dave Pike, and went into the Hillcrest Club and stayed roughly close to two years; six nights a week. (This is the band that made the record Solemn Meditation - Gene Norman GNP 31). And over that period of time some of the players went back east and were replaced. Billy Higgins replaced Lennie McBrowne, Charlie Haden replaced Hal Gaylor, the Montreal bassist.

One night Billy Higgins said, “a friend of mine, Don Cherry, brought a saxophone player and wants to sit in”. I normally never let anybody sit in, we sent them all to Monday night and gave them to Les McCann, but because it was somebody in the band and they almost never made any recommendations for somebody to sit in we said “no problem”. After playing one set with them Charlie and I went out in the back yard and had a confrontation. We said. “Look, we have been working in this club for a long time and most probably could stay here as long as we wanted. If we fire Dave Pike and hire Don and Ornette we won’t last the week. We’ll be lucky to last the night. What shall we do?” And we looked at each other and said — “Fire Dave Pike!” (Laughter)

Well a good relationship with the owner allowed us to stay another three or four weeks on that job. It was historically amazing. And socially, in the club it was hilarious. Look at the situation. A quartet that is a house band, very successful in a club, making money for the club, all of a sudden changes its policy and hire’s two horn players in place of a vibist. The music in 1957 was certainly a lot more dramatic and revolutionary than Albert Ayler when he first came out, and he created a tremendous stir. It was really similar to some jokes, I’ve told jokes about it. When you were driving down Washington Boulevard and you looked at the Hillcrest Club you always knew whether the band was on the bandstand or not. If the street was full of audience in front of the club, the band was playing.

Every set we’d go up and we’d play and the club would totally empty out, they’d leave their drinks on the bar and everything. Totally empty out, it’s socially possible in California, there’s warm weather and it’s very friendly there. So everyone would be out on the street. And as soon as the band stopped they would all come back in and drink, talk and shout and be happy and be merry and then we’d go back on and they would empty out and wait on the street. They really loved the place, loved the band. Loved what they thought the band used to be. That’s what the situation was.

Musically it was incredible. Ornette had a bag of compositions that was so deep that we rehearsed every day of the job for the three weeks or the month of the job. Every single afternoon all day. And every night we played an entire new book from the night before. So, I’d say ten or twenty new tunes were added to the band’s repertoire daily. That’s a rate of growth that’s stimulating to say the least.

I spent 3/4 of the time tuning Ornette up to see if I could get him to play A44O. He could play A44O, A444 or A436 or any A you wanted. Unfortunately I didn’t have the flexibility that he had when it came to hitting A. From a musical point of view it was extremely stimulating.

I told the class yesterday at the university that all you’ll ever be hired for as an artist, as a musician, is your judgement. When you hit one note, the next note starts involving your judgement. We talked about personal habits and things like that to improve your judgement. Well, who you play with is certainly important. Who you think plays well, who you think can offer you something. All these decisions. Geographical decisions, musical decisions. They’re all judgement, over and over and over again.

Up until the time that those two fellows had sat in with this group, there had been a great deal of thought as to how to break the bondage of chord structures over meter. Ornette was so early that Coltrane was an interim step which coexisted with Ornette, whereas historically it should have preceded Ornette.

BILL SMITH: A friend of mine here told me once about visiting New York. He liked Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, Roy Eldridge, that kind of music. While he was there he went to the Three Deuces and the shock of Bird and Gillespie, and I think people like Duke Jordan and Max Roach. I mean he was a real jazz fan, but the shock of Parker… he’d heard it on record but it was only 2-1/2 minutes long and in the club it was 22-1/2 minutes long. You know, chorus after chorus after chorus.

PAUL BLEY: That was the normal length. An LP length was normal club time, and longer if there were more horn players. But I think the shock of Ornette was much more severe because bebop didn’t use micro-tonality. You were just talking about a new arrangement of well tempered notes. When Ornette introduced the idea of erasure phrases, where you’d have some phrases that were tonal and well tempered and then some phrases that were deliberately meant so that there was no way you could transcribe this onto paper easily. Then the music was suspect. That interfered with the enjoyment or the evaluation of the music. The technical ability was suspect. If Ornette had not been a composer, it would have taken him a great deal longer to get those erudite critics, who by the way performed a yeoman service in quickly identifying Ornette’s validity to the sceptics, the New York musicians who were sceptical. It was the critics who did more than their job of acquainting the public with the music. They acquainted the musicians with the music. They acted as liaisons between the avant garde and the musical community. Benny Golson was the band opposite Ornette at the Five Spot when he came in.

After the Hillcrest I formed another band with Scotty LaFaro and Bobby Hutcherson just down the street from the Hillcrest and we went in there and played for an open-ended contract. Ornette and Don had gone to Lennox School of Jazz and I’d done a couple of months at this club. I’d heard that they were at Lennox and that this was the final year of Lennox and I thought it was a very exciting idea. So one night around 9:30 I told the band that I was going to say goodbye to them right now, and that they could finish the year without me. I just walked out of the club, got in a car with Carla and we drove directly non-stop to Lennox. We realised that if we drove non-stop we would get there for the last day of Lennox and we thought that it was extremely important to do this.

After the Hillcrest job I was in the process of taking in this new information and playing with other musicians in Los Angeles. At the same time as working steadily I would go on my night off and sit in with everybody to see how I could relate what I’d learned with other players. After being offered every job in Los Angeles as well as having my own job, it was another case of having to leave. It was Montreal all over again. There was nothing left to accomplish.

We drove to Lennox. Got there at 10 or 11 o’clock at night. Got to the jam session of the final night. This was the last jam session of the last night of the final year of Lennox. Everything was the last. The last set and the last tune. The car was still sweating from the trip. We left everything in the car, came in and I tapped Ran Blake on the shoulder, introduced myself to him and said “May I sit in”. Ran is an extremely social, wonderful person, and said yes. I had a chance to play with whoever it was. Sort of an all-star line-up. Everybody was there. Jimmy Giuffre was there, Ornette, everybody was there. I had a chance once again to see if I could relate what I’d learned. Because I was playing a tempered instrument, you see, so that if anybody was to ask what was going on in free music I was in a perfect position to tell them something that they could relate to, because they could not relate to any information regarding microtonal music. But they could relate to everything involving the well tempered scale. I had one tune to play and I played like my life depended on it. I’ve only done that about four times in my life, where you play one song where your life depended on it And in fact it did. That last tune on the last set led to my next four years employment in New York. I got the job with Jimmy Giuffre based on that set. I got the job with George Russell based on that set; the two piano album. There was a phone call directly from his being in the audience that night. For Jazz in the Space Age with Bill Evans and myself and the orchestra. I got reinvited to play with Mingus as a direct result of that set. Everything but the Sonny Rollins job was all out of that set. If a traffic light had been red instead of green at one intersection across the country it would have been too late. We slept under John Lewis’ piano that night and headed for New York the next morning.”

BILL SMITH: I remember all that controversy around Ornette in that period. I mean all the quotes and stuff in the press, all these different critics. This camp saying, “It’s okay because Leonard Bernstein said it’s okay, John Lewis said it was okay” and on this side, this critic says, “This is rubbish”.

PAUL BLEY: “Right. The terms were really hostile. The groups that didn’t like the music just couldn’t face it, never mind discuss it. And the enthusiasts said it was the messiah. It was that extreme. Anyway, Ornette opened at the Five Spot and played there for months.

BILL SMITH: Did you play with that band?

PAUL BLEY: No, never. That’s another story, involving Charlie Haden and myself. Ornette wasn’t sure whether he was going to continue with Charlie Haden. I said “You’ve got to be kidding!” Charlie had some personal problems. I said “I know a lot about rhythm sections. It’s been my life study”… I could get into that sometimes as to thin bassists and fat drummers or fat bassists and thin drummers. I mean, I made a study of time playing. I said “There’s no one on the globe who will be able to accompany you” and no one ever did. Scotty was playing atonally and certainly Ornette was not an atonal player. Jimmy Garrison was a tonal player. He wasn’t even polytonal or atonal. Most bass players could only play a fifth of the areas that Ornette could enter.

BILL SMITH: Charlie Haden heard it all the way through didn’t he?

PAUL BLEY: All the way through. Played all the wrong notes and made everything sound right.

BILL SMITH: When I think about it now those early records, on Atlantic for example, they never sounded very strange to me at the time. We thought that they were very funky.

PAUL BLEY: Because of the bassist! The Atlantic records, once again, were shortened performances, six or seven minutes, which involved a lot of writing.

BILL SMITH: And those wonderful tunes. That people actually whistled.

PAUL BLEY: But in the club… those few Hillcrest tapes that managed to come out, with a great deal of duress at one time or another, they’re presently withdrawn from our catalogue. I withdrew that album shortly after it came out. Those Hillcrest tapes are 15 minutes, 21 minutes a tune, as the bebop lengths were. It was a lot harder to listen to microtonal music at length than it was squeezed together between some very friendly songs.

BILL SMITH: In this period, you’re moving quite a way from bebop music and this microtonal music is making you investigate other concepts of piano. Or were you always developing into that? You play a much more open, spacy way, whereas bebop players have a tendency to accompany themselves. You don’t do that, you have another way of playing.

PAUL BLEY: Yes, use of space is a separate discussion. In terms of what I personally thought was the way to play the piano. Leaving space out for the moment, I’ve always loved every period that I’ve played in. I’ve never been interested in one as opposed to another.

I anticipated all the changes in jazz because they were all problematical things, that I was dealing with myself. In New York in the late ‘50s there were a lot of experiments being made on how to avoid playing popular standards and how to get improvising out of those constricting formats. I participated on several of them, the albums with Don Ellis in the early ‘60s were part of that problem/ solution, some of Mingus’ compositions, some of George Russell’s compositions, these were things that were handled by composers and therein lay the problem. It was an improvising problem, over and above a composition problem. So a composer could write something that wasn’t 32 bars. But as soon as he let someone take a solo on it, it would become metrical, an 8 bar system or what have you.

BILL SMITH: George Russell almost succeeded with that concept of improvisation.

PAUL BLEY: Almost, yes, absolutely. But don’t forget Ornette took on rhythmically the loosening up of the dominance of the single meter beat so that you’d have multi-rhythms happening. Or something that wasn’t even considered rhythm, just slower or faster than the beat. That type of rhythmic suppleness was unheard of prior to him. For me, it was a question of techniques. I could play on simple triads, I could play on complex chord changes. I could play modally, now — could I play free? It was a question of stretching your consciousness, to allow yourself to be fearless in the fact that you could get back correctly. Could you go to a place that had relevance to the history of jazz? You could always sit and rumble around on an instrument but would it mean something to a perspective based on, say, King Oliver? As well as who else was around the scene. These were techniques so I didn’t hold one style over another. I didn’t have to give up anything to acquire something. It was my specific interest in being able to weave a seamless thread through the history of jazz, involving any and all of what I thought were valid and future mainstream pursuits. So the ability to recognise this music when it happened. To know and to work with Albert Ayler early on. John Gilmore (this was Gary’s band, actually. I was the pianist in Gary Peacock’s band), Sunny Murray and Paul Motian. It was like a double band.

I just released the album with Gilmore and Motian, Gary and myself. But in fact the second group of players that worked that job were Albert Ayler taking John Gilmore’s place and Sunny Murray taking Paul Motian’s place. To be able to recognise and seek out what I thought were important players the moment they appeared was sort of a voracious appetite, for the scientific pursuit of advancing the art of improvising.

BILL SMITH: So this is an incredibly different New York City to when you came as a young man from Montreal?

PAUL BLEY: Well after doing a great deal of listening in New York, I went to Los Angeles in 1957, because I had done enough listening and I was interested in putting a band together and trying out some of the ideas I had. When Ornette and Don came along it wasn’t a shock to me, I was ready for it.

BILL SMITH: In this period in New York there was some communication, for example, between musicians and artists and writers? Was there a community thing like that? Did painters and poets and writers come to the music?

PAUL BLEY: In the ‘60s, yes. There was a really nice situation. Mike Snow from Toronto lived in a downtown loft. Paul Haines was somebody I discovered in the audience of a Charlie Mingus performance that I participated in in the early ‘60s. We became fast friends, so he introduced me to a group of writers who were exploring the English language as opposed to a straight prose style, and making analogies there with free jazz and regular jazz. Michael Snow visually was dealing with certain abstractions of real images that had something to do with his trumpet playing. The walking woman album as you well know is a Michael Snow painting. There was a lot of talk. A lot of wonderful talk going on. Sitting around at tables with wine and candles and talking for six, seven, eight hours about the implications of what had happened, what was going to happen, how it affected the other arts, what type of work needed to be done. The Jazz Composers Guild Orchestra was an idea of mine. A very practical idea because there was the Jazz Composers Guild which had everything, all of the eleven or twelve groups had a fully formed instrumentalist as leader: Archie Shepp, Sun Ra. And Carla and Mike Mantler both were not fully formed instrumentalists and we were very competitive. Because we played ten bands a night, quickly, one set after another, so that, being adjacent on a bandstand, you were very competitive. I said that the obvious thing to do was, since you were not able to compete with these fully formed instrumentalists, was to hire them, because you’re both composers and this way you can wipe out everybody by playing your music. And you got a name as well, just take the name of the organisation. Which is exactly what happened.

It was too good of an idea. It required their full time attention to do it and I lost a wonderful lady in the process.

So ideas were very important. Gary Peacock came to New York in the early ‘60s and was a participant with Annette and Carla and myself and Michael Snow and Paul Haines, this was sort of an intellectual nucleus that spent a great deal of time fully working out problems. For instance we could solve a problem real quickly. For this Gary Peacock job, we had Albert Ayler as I mentioned. Carla approached us with a set of tunes that were in meter, had time to them. Not four beats to a bar, but steady time. As soon as the tune was over the band began to play free time, so that you had tick-tick-tick-tick for the piece and then whatever for the solo. We did this for one whole night and I got back at around two in the morning, I said to Carla, “Look, I can’t go tick-tick-tick-tick for your pieces, and go free for the solo because your pieces make the soloist sound wrong or the soloist makes your pieces sound wrong. Would you please write me a new book that’s in free time.” …so it would make the soloist sound right, for example I worked on Sunny Murray. I said, “Sunny, we’re gonna play a Latin tune, you got it?” “Don’t worry Paul, I got it.” I said, “One two three four.” Then he would play open (laughter). I said, “Sonny, now it’s in time, right?” “Right!” “One two three four, ready?” Then out he’d go, he’d play free. So I had to change the book, because I couldn’t change the drummer.

Well by the next night Carla had a dozen or two dozen tunes all set up, that were totally free. We quickly called the band in and by 8:30 or 9:00 started. There was no more steady meter. The history of instrumental music changed in 24 hours as a result of our meeting.

It was done that quickly. By the way it was a very fine situation. Every time I’ve had the chance of some historical, musical job some other very attractive offer has come up. Gary said, “Paul, I’ve got a gig at the Take 3 with Albert and Sunny and John. It pays $3.00 a night.” I said “Fine, I’ll take it.” Just as soon as I put the phone down Edgar Bateman, a former Miles Davis drummer, called me from Jamaica, saying that he had this wonderful bebop band in Jamaica and would I catch the plane on Friday. This is in the dead of winter. It paid hundreds of dollars a week. “Edgar”, I said, “I’m sorry, I wish you had called me last week. I’ve got a $3.00 a night job on Bleecker Street that I can’t say no to” (laughter) So there’s always the temptation to not do the historically important job.

BILL SMITH: Did you really know that you were changing the face of the planet?

PAUL BLEY: Absolutely! These things don’t happen accidentally.

BILL SMITH: I feel that way too. All the processes that I’ve been involved in were definitely not accidents. I work very hard to make all these things occur in Toronto. People, in books and things, sometimes throw away history and say, “well, it naturally evolved”.

PAUL BLEY: Naturally I would have been in Jamaica.

BILL SMITH: That’s right, you would actually be wearing a three piece suit, sitting in a lounge in Jamaica (laughter).

PAUL BLEY: Edgar Bateman was no slouch. That would have been a great deal of fun. He was a wonderful drummer.

BILL SMITH: In this same period are musicians beginning to think about being in control of their own music? Through recordings I mean.

PAUL BLEY: “No. The ‘60s still had the gangster element in the record business. There’s a story about Woody Herman. In 1952 he formed Mars Records, one of the first artist’s labels. He had just come off a CBS contract and a Capitol recording contract. He and his manager decided to form their own company. I’ve read a couple of stories about what he said had happened. He said that he was in business for perhaps a year or two, and they distributed the records all over the world. They put out about six or seven Woody Herman orchestra records. A very successful band at that time. Anyway, he said that looking over the books after doing all this business over that length of time they realised that no one, anywhere, ever paid them any money at any time for anything. No distributor ever paid them. Not a nickel. Not foreign, not domestic, not local, no one ever paid them. There wasn’t a distributor on the globe who had ever paid them. Period.

When I started in the record business I asked somebody in the business. I said, “I’ve got this buyer’s guide with maybe five or six thousand names of distributors world wide. Who shall I sell the records to?”

He said, “You’ve got to beware of them. There’s quite a few people who are slow or non-existent to pay.”

I said, “Well, there’s thousands of them in the book. How many pay?”

He said, “Six”.

The ‘60s was not really the time to form a label. Like ESP, the little talking I’ve done lately with Bernard Stollman, because he’s totally dropped out of sight. He tells horror stories about being pirated. Can you imagine somebody wanting to rip off Albert Ayler discs. That there was nobody else on the globe that they could make more money with? I didn’t get the full story, it was just a telephone conversation. But he had horror stories that made me very glad that I hadn’t tried to start a label in the ‘60s. That wasn’t the time yet for a musician-controlled enterprise. But it was the time for music to be directly controlled by musicians. A lot of upheavals, coming very quickly. And through all of this was John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy. A big controversy was as to whether Dolphy played as well as Ornette. Well, as we said, the two historical movements overlapped and they shouldn’t have. In the past they each would have taken a decade, There would have been a decade of Trane and Dolphy and then a decade of Ornette and then a decade of Albert Ayler and then a decade of electronics perhaps. In fact, they all telescoped, reverse-telescoped into a ten-year period. It created a great deal of unnecessary controversy.

BILL SMITH: The controversy at least actually got everybody’s name in the paper.

PAUL BLEY: Well, not really because of the type of controversy, the hostility. And at the same time, the English-revived blues music with electric guitars took all the press. The Beatles came and everybody forgot about everything else. That was a friendly, together, hip interpersonal music, introducing electric sustain, and it captured the imagination of everybody. So improvising, even though it was in a very rich period in terms of impact on the public, the ‘6Os were very hard times on players financially. The ‘5Os, and the ‘7Os have been better. The ‘6Os were lousy for players. The music was fantastic but don’t expect to make more than hundreds of dollars a year. There were very small opportunities financially. But improvising players had steeled themselves against these things by developing very simple life habits, so that they were fully prepared to spend a whole year with no income if that was the case.

BILL SMITH: So when in actual fact in that period when you read about somebody like Cecil Taylor saying that he never made enough money to pay income tax, it’s not bravado, it was very definitely what was happening to everyone in New York.

PAUL BLEY: Absolutely. Now Cecil can make enough money on a single performance, if it’s recorded, to equal a year’s income.

BILL SMITH: Do you feel in a strange position now? I mean, you’re a musician who has a record company recording other people’s music, Is this an awkward situation for you?

PAUL BLEY: A very natural situation. I think all record companies should be run by a musician. Just as you wouldn’t trust your health to an electrician. You’d want someone who knew a great deal about the body and its functions. Musicians who trust in your brain, your aural senses, to somebody who doesn’t know anything about music, this is not really right, So it seems quite natural for somebody who spends all of his life carefully considering the relative merits of one musician to another, for that person to form a record company.

BILL SMITH: Are you recording friends? Or is it more businesslike than that?

PAUL BLEY: For me a label has to have a definite philosophical continuity. The continuity of this label is contained in the name, Improvising Artists. I had a point to make. Both my ladies have been composers who just happened to be women. The label is called Improvising Artists, therefore what I’m doing is saying philosophically or posing the question philosophically, which is something of a soap opera question. “Can a label that doesn’t require its participants to bring written music make a series of recordings so that the listener won’t know the difference or will find that those recordings in fact sound totally written, as opposed to partially written?” It’s certainly, from a practical point of view, more seamless to have a piece of music that’s totally improvised from beginning to end than to have one that’s written for a period of time, improvised for a period of time and then written for a period of time. So what we were doing is asking these players, who are composers, “Can you compose in real time for the entire length of a performance, as opposed to having something written?” The first record, the Jimmy Giuffre/ Bill Connors record called Quiet Song, won the Prix du Jazz. It was great, I’d never won a prize before so for me that was important.

BILL SMITH: This continuity of a certain kind of style, not just the fact that you’re saying it’s improvised music, but you take your attitude into the concept of record jacket design, quality of pressing, the kind of artist. Do you think it’s perhaps dangerous to create an image that could become a very singular thing?

PAUL BLEY: No. On the contrary. We’re dealing again with ideas. Improvising Artists is one idea for one label. I’ve written a list of fifty ideas for fifty labels, all of which I would be interested in doing. I.A.I. was just one idea. I’m hoping to get to the other forty-nine labels eventually.

BILL SMITH: Do you enjoy being a record producer? Do you enjoy that as much as the music?

PAUL BLEY: Well, anything to do with the making of music is very exciting. There are a lot of people in the world who want to be in recording studios as producers, as artists, as technicians, whatever. The actual making of music on record is a very exciting process. So of course I enjoy it. The ability to pre-decide things without discussing them with other players, you see all the planning and everything can’t ever be verbalised. In music you can only exert your ideas musically. Not verbally. You can discuss them later. After the fact verbally but it’s very gauche to sit down with players and discuss “my ideas musically”. It was never done. Mingus never sat down and said, “look, Paul, this is what’s going to happen.” All the information that was necessary was contained in the music and in the mode of performance. So that’s just some more of the same. I bring a group of players together, and it’s the playing experience itself that tells them what’s going to happen. I don’t write them a couple of paragraphs telling them what it is I’m trying to do.

BILL SMITH: There’s some problems in the kind of business that we’re in, having this kind of music efficiently distributed. We talked a little bit about this last night. Do you think it’s possible there should be some other way for people who are interested specifically in improvised music, that perhaps we could make more of an impact if we all formed a new group?

PAUL BLEY: Well, we can’t produce each other’s records. That wouldn’t be fair, and I don’t think we should collect revenues for each other. We certainly could collect credit references together. Share imminent bankruptcy information with each other. So we won’t have a shipment of 2,500 records going to a foreign country when one of us has heard that this man has just left the office and locked the door behind him. You don’t want to send him a plane-load of records just because you haven’t been informed that he was leaving the active business world. So by sharing this credit information we can save ourselves some time and money. There’s a lot of information we can share. I think certainly a meeting of the concerned individuals, realising that we’re competitive, but that there are more people in the world against us than ourselves, and so because we are a minority we have to be together and see if there’s something we can do for our own specialised interest. We’re different from a folk label or a blues label, a vocal label, a boogie label, we’re interested in improvised music, whether it’s ragtime, free music or electronic music. We do share a common musical basis.

As for the difficulties of starting a record company, remember that as a band-leader you go into business every time you talk to a person you don’t know and ask him for a live performance job, whereas in the record business you go into business only once with each distributor. You may have the distributor for 25 years. So you only have to ask half a hundred people for a relationship once and they continue those relationships forever. In the live performance business you could ask half a hundred people to start a relationship, but those relationships are only one day long and then you have to ask another half a hundred people. You’re constantly going into business in live performance. Record companies are much easier than live performance. There’s nothing harder than live performance.

BILL SMITH: I recently read, I think it was in Coda, about you putting the music in a visual context as well. Where you would buy video tapes that went with the records. That kind of thing. Are you seriously contemplating doing this?

PAUL BLEY: We’ve already done it. The catalogue lists the last four recordings, which have been visually recorded as well. The fidelity of the future is no longer the needle in the groove. It’s lasers reading through discs. Right now we get somewhere around 55 to 65 DBs in high fidelity. The video disc gets 90 to 95 DBs. In a single technical innovation we’ve almost doubled the level of fidelity. The only problem, they say, is that when listening to 90 to 95 DBs you can’t tell it’s loud because the background noise is so low. You might hurt your ear drums and not know that the music was loud to begin with. What you hear as loud is the background noise being loud. That’s how you can tell music is loud. This new fidelity level takes the background noise all the way down. Therefore it doesn’t seem loud to you, where in fact it’s injuring your ear drums.

To get back to why visuals; this was just an experience. Somebody about five or ten years ago played me a black & white video tape of a concert by Miles Davis in a theatre in Philadelphia. It was Coltrane, Cannonball, Bill Evans, whoever. This was a single camera on the first balcony, that just turned to the left for the piano solo, to the centre for the trumpet and saxophone solos, and to the right for rhythm section solos. The concert lasted an hour and a half. They used a long lens so that you could bring in close-ups and this was the most revealing innovation for me. In that visual information is five million bits, audio information is twenty thousand bits. As a player trying to absorb a performance, with the aid of the visual, I was getting five million bits of information, whereas in the past, listening to a record, I was only getting twenty thousand. It didn’t matter if the fidelity was high or low, audio-wise I was getting more of what was happening because of this tremendous amount of visual information. It was a very compelling performance, and historically very important. I realised that now we had a medium to replicate visual musical performances cheaply and efficiently. It was very important for us to preserve what existed on film from an archivist point of view. And in fact to preserve those performances by players who are perhaps still around, but not for much longer, on film as an archivist. I understand that there’s not more than half an hour or so of Charlie Parker on film.

We have players among us right now who, if they could be captured just in the process of recording their audio portions… like Joe Venuti for instance, was a tremendous live performer who captivated large audiences. Their should be several hours of video tape on this man, high fidelity colour videotape; well, he passed away. Lennie Tristano passed away. As an archivist I’m beginning to face this dual problem of whether nor not I want to continue my other 49 labels, or face the tremendous need for preserving some of these performances visually, because your record collection for certain is going to go the way of the wax cylinder. It will be audio, and as such it will not survive into the 21st century.

BILL SMITH: I have thousands of them Paul. Don’t say that.

PAUL BLEY: Save them, they’ll all be worth something whether the music on them is good or not.

BILL SMITH: You know I collect jazz films. I don’t have an enormous amount of them but I have quite a few. I have a 45 minute reel of shorts that were called “kinnies’. I watch them often; it’s fantastic to see Cab Calloway and Fats Waller, just to see them on film.

PAUL BLEY: Right, and you’re speaking of something that was transmuted through Hollywood’s idea of what was theatrical. We just bring a camera in and let the music go on for an hour, and show the players playing it. There’s visually a totally different story than dealing with the visual imaginations of people in Hollywood films. Also it’s a question of duration. Video tape can go on for hours. Film is a very expensive medium, it does minutes.

I think that’s probably one of the most important works that anybody can do today, is make colour video tape of the important artists that are still alive.

BILL SMITH: And everyone does have a TV. I mean they won’t just be documents. There are imaginative video people who can also make the image creative too.

PAUL BLEY: There will be as many ideas in the visual as there are musical. We found that a very nice format is to do a real time concert. Which has a natural beginning, a natural pause, a natural ending, a natural recapitulation and the encores. It makes a nice dramatic balance. It’s a theatre piece already just in the form of the structure and so it makes a good film. It’s not a television program because, number one, you’re not broadcast over the air. The visual fidelity is much higher than you could expect to receive off the tube over the air. So much so that it does begin to resemble a film in its fidelity.

BILL SMITH: In conversation it’s becoming apparent that you are somehow consuming, in your personality, all the aspects of this music. Not just a piano player, you’re producing records, you’re interested in visuals, you give lectures at universities…

PAUL BLEY: This was the first one. I make it a point not to teach. Ever. Partially because I’m very fearful of somebody coming under the influence of a teacher. It’s better to get information oneself from a myriad of sources as opposed to from a student-teacher association. I object very strongly to those relationships. So whenever anyone’s asked me to teach I’ve said, ‘Yes, but only by telephone.’

KENNY WHEELER - Windmill Tilter

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Smith) — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 16:58:00 +0000

The 1st in a series of Interview/Essays of Canadian Musicians

That was some summer in London in 1966. The jazz scene, which I had left three years previously had changed so much. A new identity had occurred. The old heroes, who relied so much on the American system of jazz for inspiration, had been superseded by a new, original and vibrant music. In this period the information that was available in the international media, was acclaiming a flowering of a new jazz, an extension of Coltrane, Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor, but for the most part this same media was focusing on music that was coming from the United States. Not such an unusual situation considering the circumstances of all new attitudes pertaining to jazz. In Europe however a parallel force was occurring, the likes of Gunter Hampel, Willem Breuker, Peter Brötzmann, Peter Kowald, Misha Mengelberg and Han Bennink were redefining the concept of improvised music. In England a similar situation was developing, and like the Europeans they were beginning to process their new identity, that although inspired by the music of Albert Ayler, Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor and John Coltrane, was a decidedly non-American music. The trumpet player that seemed to be involved in a great number of these ensembles was Kenny Wheeler.

Kenny Wheeler was born in Toronto in January 1930, and as a teenager moved to St. Catharines, a small town close to Toronto. “It wasn’t long before I met some of the young local guys. Sounds like there was a lot of them, but there were maybe half a dozen. They were probably complete outcasts in St. Catharines, but the thing that they knew about was bebop, and at that time I was listening more to people like Buck Clayton (I still love that music) and they turned me on to Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles… bebop.”

By 1952 Kenny Wheeler was ready to move on, so he headed for Montreal.

“It was wanderlust really I guess. I was supposed to go to Montreal, to McGill University to take a course which would make me a high school teacher. I just realised that I wouldn’t be able to make that. So I thought I can’t go back to St. Catharines with my tail between my legs, which I had done a few times. So I just (headed out), being very daring.”

The winter of 1952 saw Kenny Wheeler arriving in England for the beginning of a long career in music.

“I’ve lived there (London) longer than I’ve lived in Canada. At that time when I arrived, it was still the big band era in England, so that’s what everybody worked in. I was young, and you know you don’t care so much about things. I only had a certain amount of money, and I didn’t really know anybody. But I wasn’t worried. Now of course I would never dare try anything like that.”

Eventually in 1959 he began to perform with the famous England orchestra of Johnny Dankworth, and with that orchestra he would later compose his first major recorded work, “Windmill Tilter”. A suite based on the book Don Quixote.

“I went through quite a lot of the slightly more commercial big bands before that. The first one was Roy Fox, who was an American (more famous in the 1930s, who was residing in London), and Vic Lewis.

“The first thing I did, of course, was head for the local jazz clubs. The one I looked for was the bebop club (Club 7), which was the style of music I was into by then. I thought I was pretty hot, so I stupidly went up and asked to sit in. They let me sit in, but they never took any notice of me whatsoever. So that sent me into a shell for a long time. When my money ran out I got myself a day job. At Christmas time they used to take on a lot of extra people in the post office. Eventually I found out about a street where all the musicians used to go on a Monday afternoon, which was like a market place for work, called Archer Street. So I started going down there. I couldn’t believe this place, there were hundreds of musicians standing around, and jobs would come up. I got to talk to people and know who they were. Finally somebody said — Roy Fox needs a fourth trumpet player, would you do it. I said sure, I’ll do it.”

From those humble beginnings the career of Kenny Wheeler has taken a long and varied path, which included studies in counterpoint with Bill Russo, composition with Rodney Bennett and performance with almost every major English jazz artist, including bebop musicians of the calibre of Joe Harriott, Tubby Hayes and Ronnie Scott.

But my real experience with him begins in 1966. The Little Theatre Club was situated in Central London, up four flights of narrow stairs, a small bar in the lobby, and a performance space that often had as many musicians performing in it as there was audience. This was where the legendary Spontaneous Music Ensemble gave regular concerts, and introduced me to the amazing music that was developing in London. The band often included John Stevens, its organiser and drummer, saxophonists Trevor Watts and Evan Parker, guitarist Derek Bailey, trombonist Paul Rutherford, bassists Jeff Clyne and David Holland and of course Kenny Wheeler. In this period and indeed right up until now, he has been involved in a number of adventurous and original groups of artists.

Did it feel, in the sixties, that John Stevens and the others you were involved with were creating anew music form?

“I don ‘t think I was consciously aware of that at the time, for me it was something that was completely different. But it is different from American free music. It did have a different sound. I never heard any American player that sounded like Evan (Parker), certainly not then. I think he has influenced a lot of younger people.”

Evan Parker was to be one of Kenny’s long time associates, and due to Evan Parker’s more radical concept towards improvised music, I was curious about the public reaction to the two of them in performance together.

“I don’t think either of us ever thought about it, we just play together and usually enjoy it. Whatever the situation was. We even played on several lucky occasions, just duets together. It has worked out great. I suppose for those members of the audience who feel more comfortable with pigeon holes there would seem some unbalance. I must admit that most of the people that would come to hear us would be more interested in Evan than me, it wouldn’t be some of the more conventional people. Perhaps if they saw Evan’s name on the bill, they might stay away. You know what I mean.”

Evan Parker has also been involved with Kenny in the Globe Unity Orchestra, an orchestra that for several years has had a very high profile in new music circles in Europe, and in the winter of 1983 toured America and Canada.

In recent times not much has been said about this orchestra. Does it still exist? Do you still play in it?

“Yes, when we do work, but it seems rarer and rarer, the chance to work. We used to work quite a lot, maybe five or six times a year over a period of a week or two at a time. Which is quite a lot. But not anymore. It’s strange, because the last few years the band was as good if not better than it had ever been, and you know for 12 - 13 people to walk on a stage, with no music, and no preconceived idea about what they are going to do, it was getting so that a lot of the time it was coming off, and some really great music was being played. There was also a period when Alex Schlippenbach did use quite a lot of written material. He loves Monk.”

In the 60s another orchestra descended upon London to add to the power that already existed there. The orchestra, under the direction of pianist Chris McGregor, was called The Brotherhood of Breath, and originated from South Africa. England became a haven for them, away from the racist environment of Apartheid. Kenny Wheeler was one of the English musicians that played with them.

“I did a couple of gigs with the Brotherhood. They brought a lot of great energy with them to London, it was just a great period in London anyway, there were so many different kinds of music happening, but somehow it and the musicians were crossing over into different things. There wasn’t a barrier. There was the Brotherhood, there was the Little Theatre Club, there was John Stevens, there was John Surman, Mike Gibbs, somehow in a strange way it was all meshing together. At least from my point of view. I think it was also in that time a lot of people in the pop world were keeping an ear to what was going on in all this movement in the jazz world. If that is what you want to call it. Also the Brotherhood of Breath were a completely different musical culture which had arrived in London. It was quite different to what was already there, and it was gratefully accepted by everybody.”

Another major aspect of Kenny Wheeler’s life has been his association with ECM, which began in 1975 with the recording entitled “Gnu High”. A more recent example of his music for this label would be “Around 6” (ECM 1156), and this brings to light another peculiarity about working in Europe in comparison to North America. All six players are from different countries. Evan Parker (England), J.F. Jenny Clark (France), Edward Vesala (Norway), Tom Van Der Geld (Holland) and Eje Thelin (Sweden). How could such an eclectic group of people be assembled. How would you meet such a group of players?

“Europe is small compared to Canada, and you go through many different cultures in a short time of travelling, so you do meet a lot of players from all different countries and festivals.”

That’s still very active in Europe, the festival circuit, so that you can move about quite readily?

“Well, maybe I’m one of the lucky ones, but I seem to keep working.”

Is this one of the advantages of the Common Market, that your passport is open in every country. That you can travel freely?

“No — there never was, as far as musicians go, at least for English people going to Europe to work. You don’t need work permits like in Canada and America to move from country to country. So the Common Market didn’t really affect musicians. Maybe other kinds of people it did.”

One of the most fruitful periods of Kenny’s life, at least musically, was in the middle seventies, when he became associated with Anthony Braxton. A period that brought about the quartet of Braxton, Wheeler, David Holland and Barry Altschul. From 1974, for another two years he worked continually with Anthony Braxton on numerous projects, which took him all over Europe, to the United States and on several occasions back to his native Canada. Those years were for me, as Kenny himself describes, also my most fruitful. My family lived for one whole summer in Woodstock, NY, when that marvelous quartet was developing. Attended the rehearsals and the recording sessions of the great Arista records, and helped to bring that quartet to Toronto. Kenny has returned often to Canada in the last ten years, not only to perform with Anthony Braxton but also with my band, Ron AlIen, an orchestra project with young Toronto players, to make records for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), and also recently with his old friend from those wonderful days some twenty years ago in London, Dave Holland, who is now the musical director of the Banff Summer School.

“I started teaching at Banff five years ago, Dave Holland asked me to come out there originally. For me it’s hard — I’m not a born teacher, but the students do seem to get a lot out of it… Quite a lot of the students come back again, some for two or even three years.”

Kenny Wheeler is a gentle man, reserved and serious about his art. That he has succeeded is sometimes a surprise, because he is not part of the world of musical hype, not in any way a hustler. He is, who he is, based entirely on talent. I leave you with a feeling for him as he talks of his first meeting with Anthony Braxton, that clearly illustrates my point.

“He (Braxton) came to London and brought some music, and I think he was quite impressed by the fact that I attempted to get through it, and made something of this black music, which was running all over the page. It was really hard music. I think he remembered my brave attempt so he kept my name in the back of his head.”

Information sources include Toronto writer Mark Miller, the Encyclopedia of Music in Canada and the quotes are from an interview on CKLN radio.

On the Road Again

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Smith) — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 19:38:00 +0000

Toronto & Havana
Travelling with Colston and Essjay

It’s November, the weather conditions on the west coast unpredictable with frequent storms presenting the possibility of being stranded even before beginning, making it necessary to start the journey a day earlier than had been planned. I promised myself I would not do this any more, this travelling about the planet in search of music, it’s like a disease, a brain impregnated wanderlust, but here I am, still curious, still longing for pleasurable possibilities.

Aging brings about the unwanted deterioration of body parts, in this case an attack of Bursitis seemingly acquired at the previous day’s hanging of my photographic show of Jerry Pethick’s Time Top journey; a show running throughout December at Joe King Clubhouse back on the island. This painful condition (a fluid swelling above the knee cap) that induces hobbling, is a malady commonly called Housemaid’s Knee but is being jokingly referred to by intimates as Curator’s Knee.

The journey is a multi-functional affair, the first destination being Toronto for a family visit and to attend a book launch which includes David Lee’s The BATTLE of the FIVE SPOT - Ornette Coleman and the New York Jazz Field, a Master’s thesis dissertation, and Mark Miller’s collection of selected writings from 1980-2005 titled A Certain Respect for Tradition. And then on to the 23rd Edition of the Havana Jazz Festival.

Since GeoDubya introduction of colour coded paranoia and the country-wide undemocratic smoking ban, airports have taken on a tedious self righteous attitude, removing for me any joy that may have previously existed. By chance we meet songstress Jackie Zbirun, an old island friend, at the entrance to the Comox Airport, who is also travelling the first stage of our journey to Calgary where we will change aeroplanes and she will disembark. The purpose of her trip, it seems, is to sell, to a prospective customer, her daughter’s quarter-size violin — now of a certain value as it has been autographed by a famous personality — to be replaced by a size more suitable for her growing offspring. There is a kerfuffle at the security check, the officials confused by what could well be a weapon of mass destruction in the bottom of her bag. The suspicious object she is transporting is a pitch pipe, which seemingly none of the officials had ever seen before. “Let me demonstrate its purpose” sez Jackie. The officials step back, warily observing, as Jackie toots a simple tune, accompanying herself as she does with a lively little jig. Once through the security check the traveller is confronted with a bare bones waiting room decorated in the style of a McDonald’s; bland, lifeless, devoid of any personality, and serviced entirely by corporate mediocrity. The 50¢ bottle of water that has been confiscated can now be replaced, purchased from the Coca Cola sponsored coin operated machine for a mere $2.00. Hope you have the correct change.

The wait in Cowtown’s terminal is minimal, just time for a glass of wine and a cigarette. Ah, yes, in Calgary airport, unlike elsewhere in Canada, there are numerous lounges where it is possible to enjoy a relaxing smoke. How civilized. Even the cowhide decor of the bar, echoing imagined sympathy for my slowly rotting gamey leg, seems friendly. Perhaps it’s true that Alberta is an independent state and should be recognized as such. On to Hog Town. Such nicknames our cities have. Animals being led to slaughter.

We have double-packed our bags, two sets of attire, knowing as we do that Toronto will be at the beginning of its remembered winter and Havana balmy at the very least. Surprise! Surprise! The following day we awake to a temperature in Toronto of 15°C. The mail man, whistling away a happy tune, is sporting a cotton shirt and shorts. Quite unseasonable. We are ensconced in the house of an old friend on Brunswick Avenue just a few blocks north of the venue in Kensington Market where the Mercury Press book launch will take place; a hip, and to us new club named the Supermarket which in recollection was a Portuguese pool room where gentlemen of sundry generations could be observed lounging about its front porch; socialising, enjoying a cigarette, gossiping neighbourhood stories, or daydreaming villages back home.

Circumstances have concocted what could be considered a dream band from a past history: I have travelled, as noted, from the west coast with my sopranino saxophone, David Lee has travelled in from Hamilton to promote his new book and brought a bass, Arthur Bull journeying west from Digby Neck — here on some mysterious government business — has brought his guitar, and violinist David Prentice with previous knowledge of this unlikely gathering has come down from Flesherton to join the party. Shazam! — as Billy Batson would shout when he wanted to be transformed into Captain Marvel — and we have the resurrection of the Bill Smith Ensemble. And as if this were not enough we are joined by Stuart Broomer enlarging the ensemble with a second guitar. The out-of-towners congregate, with my two daughters, across the street from the club at a small Mexican family restaurant where we satisfy our hunger with a variety of fine spicy food and a couple of beers (each) and catch up on old times.

The Supermarket turns out to be a large venue with its back-half secluded from the main space by a set of sliding doors, creating an intimate room complete with a small stage, possibly suitable for fifty listeners. Perfect for a book launch. Each of the writers (six in all) are allocated seven minutes to promote their work, and when David Lee’s turn arrives he relinquishes his chat so that the band can perform a brief (seven minute) version of Ornette’s Beauty Is A Rare Thing. In keeping with his learned tome. The audience, for the most part, are overjoyed with the addition of this unexpected music; an acoustic old fashioned avant garde music rarely heard in these parts anymore, its practitioners having fled this metropolis over the past twenty years for more rural climes. The story, the whole evening, is a much bigger affair, so I’ll just stick with the musical interludes. Mark chose to read a piece on John Zorn entitled Shivers - John Zorn’s Naked City (1989):

“Note #5. To mix things that don’t traditionally match. The bass line of Roy Orbison’s Pretty Woman, for example, running under an atypically fractious version of Ornette Coleman’s usually serene Lonely Woman. Zorn dresses in that manner, too. His footwear comes in singles, not pairs. One white running shoe, one black. One red sock, one green.”

An inspiration for this rare gathering of musicians to conclude the evening with another Ornette tune. The sliding doors were then parted, opening up the whole space for the ensuing six hip-hop DJs to strut their stuff for the ever increasing younger crowd coming to dance. ‘Round midnight — time for us oldsters to retire.

The weather remains clement throughout our stay, no need to unpack our Eddie Bauer thermal long-johns or thick socks, a chance to wander about our home town, participate in lunch and dinner with family and friends, check out the used book shops, and casually prepare for the journey south to the Havana festival.

For the past half-century I have attended hundreds of jazz festivals, including almost every edition of the Vancouver event since its inception in 1986, so many that the novelty (is that the word?) or excitement is wearing thin. The repetition of the venues, traipsing every day from one to the other, and even to a certain extent the music, far too much to digest, is not so interesting as it all once seemed. Time for a change. With the assistance of Ginny Harrison, our travel consultant at White Rock Travel, we have discovered what is purported to be an all inclusive package to the Havana Jazz Festival where we expect to hear a variety of Latin-based music not usually a part of our auditory spectrum. The package includes transport on Cubana Air, all the transfers, airport taxes, accommodation, which includes a buffet breakfast, in the five star Hotel Nacional de Cuba, and a pass and transport to all the festival events. However we soon discover that once we leave the orderly uncluttered world of Canada and change to Cuban time all is not as it seems. Perhaps the makings of an absurd, mostly humorous Marx Brothers film produced by Karl and directed by Groucho, with us participating as bit-part players.

Hola Sun of Richmond Hill, “THE CUBA SPECIALISTS”, through whom we have booked this package, turn out to be an inefficient organisation. The aeroplane journey is long-winded, landing as it does first in Camagüey in central Cuba where the majority of passengers disembark, and after an hour stop-over continuing on to Havana. We are met at the Jose Marti International Airport by a representative of Havanatur, the official Cuban travel agency, to be shuttled into the city. As the bus trundles through the darkness, the guide — compulsory on every package tour — delivers his welcome speech, explains such details as the currency, safety, hustlers etc., and it soon becomes obvious that he has no idea that a jazz festival is taking place, even though this is the reason that all the passengers on the bus are visiting his city. By the time we arrive at our hotel it is 10 o’clock at night, too late to attend the Gala de Inaugaracion del Festival, and there is no representative in the lobby to supply us with our “included” festival passes anyway. No matter, the Nacional is a grand affair, built in 1930 and since rejuvenated to its former glory, the ghosts of its fascist history still wandering the passageways, from a time when it was linked to Italian American mobsters, the likes of Lucky Luciano, Santos Traficante, Frank Costello and Meyer Lansky, the chosen accommodation of the rich and famous including Hollywood legends Marlon Brando, Errol Flynn, Johnny Weissmuller, Buster Keaton, Clark Gable, Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner, the writer Ernest Hemmingway, the Duke & Duchess of Windsor. Even my old nemesis Winston Churchill could be imagined waddling about the tropical gardens sucking on a fat pungent cigar. Dump the bags in our spacious room and investigate the sumptuous facilities, flop down in a comfy couch and relax our first night away sipping a mojito while listening to a trio of Cuban musicians at the outdoor Bar Galeria which looks out over the beautiful tropical gardens complete with strutting peacocks. Here we meet an English representative of Cubana Air who describes the Nacional as being a ***** hotel with *** star accommodation. Out there, past the edge of the gardens is the Malecón, the joyous sounds of singers could be clearly heard, and upon investigation we find that thousands of people are enjoying the opening celebrations of Fidel’s 80th birthday and the 50th anniversary of the arrival of the revolutionaries from Mexico to begin the overthrow of the American controlled puppet dictator Fulgnecio Batista. The stage at the Plaza de la Dignidad with its 138 flags crackingly flapping, honouring Cubans that have been incarcerated and murdered by the American’s, hosts a variety of artists giving us our first taste of the plethora of music yet to come.

Friday: The information package supplied by Hola Sun provides two contact numbers, both of which are discontinued, but with a little detective work we locate our Havanatur hostess — whose cell phone it seems is also out of commission — and by mid-afternoon manage to procure the elusive passes. At last we are set to attend our first concert at Teatro Amadeo Roldan. Or so its seems. The starting time is advertised as 5:30pm, and as we are running a little behind schedule we jump into one of the taxis that constantly pull up to the entrance of the hotel. After being driven around for about 15 minutes, up and down unknown streets, the driver purportedly receives a call over his radio informing him that he has to return to the hotel as our papers appear not to be in order. We are now late for the concert. Suspecting that the cab driver, in co-operation with the hotel door attendant, is into some tourist scam we exit his vehicle without paying, walk down to the main street and procure a cocotaxi, a small three-wheeled, two-stroke powered scooter that has the look of a large scooped out orange.

For the rest of our stay we will use these taxis on a regular basis, as the near to the ground experience, the up-close intimate view of kerbside culture adds to the thrill of being in this magnificent, albeit somewhat dilapidated, city. The driver is a chatty fellow, who informs us that the Opus Bar, one of the most popular bars in the city, is on the top floor of our destination. A disgruntled crowd is gathered outside of the theatre and we soon discover that the concert has been cancelled due to a power grid failure. Strike two. Never mind, we aren’t in a hurry, the temperature is a balmy 28°C, and the next concert, beginning at 8:30pm is just a few blocks away at Teatro Mella. Time to sample one of the legendary pizzas in the restaurant of the luxurious modern Hotel Meliá Cohiba.

What a grand old theatre Teatro Mella turns out to be, much like the remembered theatres of my youth, its Gaudí-esque interior complete with a meringue-shaped wrapped around balcony, the 1500 comfortable seats all but full of expectant fans. Unfortunately, although enamoured by its suitably seedy character, the smell of decay and the stench of the toilets wafting through the lobby soon become apparent. Plus we appear to have been followed on our journey by yet another deaf soundman whose intention, it appears, is to erase the subtle complexity inherent in this naturally rhythmic music. The names of the artists are unfamiliar as I have little or no knowledge of Cuban musicians, but judging by the opening band of Orlando Sánchez we are in for a treat, his brawny tenor saxophone overpowering the inadequate sound system, introducing us to the excitement that is generated by Cuban music, extending into daring forays often missing from the current batch of “schooled” retro-jazz players. The second treat was provided by bassist Jorge Reyes whose prodigious technique has been utilised by Arturo Sandoval, the Afro Cuban All Stars, Irakere, Roy Hargrove & David Murray. The third combination features a boring female singer. Time to head outside for a self-imposed intermission. The transport (guaranteed as part of our package) to return us to our hotel is waiting, engine running, even though it is only 10:30pm and the show is but half-way through. The driver is unwilling to wait. Oh well — it’s been a long day so let’s go “home” and once more lounge in the hotel garden with another mojito.

Saturday: We have awakened too late to attend the celebrations at the Plaza de la Revolution that have begun at an early hour to avoid the heat of the mid-day sun, and anyway the ailing Fidel has been replaced by his brother Raúl. So after a sumptuous breakfast we set off on foot to investigate the city. Beginning our journey with a casual stroll along the Malecón, a sea wall stretching the entire length of the city’s north side, protecting the coast from the occasional fury of the Straits of Florida, we head in the general direction of La Habana Vieja (Old Havana) which in 1982 was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site, and could be thought of as a 500 year old history lesson into Cuba’s glorious past, with its buildings and passageways, hotels and cafes, renovated to their former splendour, an illusion for the tourist trade. Just a step to the left into the surrounding dilapidated streets reveals the decay and squalor of the crumbling collapse of this once magnificent city, the disintegrating rutted and pocked streets, the facades and balconies of once grand dwellings, the homes of the hoi polloi, sadly in need of repair. It must be said though that these friendly people have a joyful air about them, healthy and happy, their smiles shining bright, clothing clean, neat and tidy, and unlike most Canadian cities, there is not a panhandler or bum in sight. Music is just about everywhere, not only in bars and cafes but in the street where groups of young people gather to sing, dance and accompany themselves with complex hand-clapped rhythm patterns. It is slowly beginning to become apparent that it is not necessary to search out the music at the jazz festival, that it is not a precious isolated commodity but the indigenous voice of the people.

There is still the curiosity of the pre-revolution American cars that abound, some in barely usable condition commandeered by locals as people’s taxis, and others called Gran Cars which are renovated and beautifully maintained for the pleasure of tourists. The city abounds in the noise and smell of automobiles, the left-over Ladas of the abandoned Russian occupation readily apparent, rattly old vehicles of every description, their honking horns the most apparent sound next to the plentiful music. 24 hours a day they sound, timed on an average of nine-second intervals, warning the lackadaisical wandering pedestrians walking about unconcerned, or when creeping from the side streets sidling into the constant stream of traffic; any excuse to participate in this cacophonous symphony.

The La Mina restaurant (which boasts more — although unseen — wandering peacocks) is situated on the edge of the charming park of Plaza de Armas, and has been recommended by a previous visitor. After we enjoy a delicious tuna salad and are entertained by yet one more superb band with the unlikely line-up of violin, flute accompanied by the customary Latin rhythm section, we return once again to the Teatro Amadeo Roldan for that evening’s concert.

This venue, the home of the National Symphony, is of a much higher quality than Teatro Mella, the decor modern and the sound system no longer an intrusion. First up is the spectacular Costa Rican quartet of pianist Luis Monge featuring the technical wizardry of clarinetist Vinicio Meza, repeatedly bringing the enthusiastic audience to their feet. “Swing en 4”, as the group was called, utilised a mixture of classical, folkloric and jazz forms to great effect, and could be conveniently described as a most energetic Latin chamber music ensemble. A palpable tremor of excitement was apparent as the brilliant pianist Hilario Durán was introduced, and although he has been a Canadian resident for the past decade, performing and recording with our very own Jane Bunnett, who in many ways is responsible for our awareness of Cuban music, his return to his homeland is obviously a special event. His importance, alongside Chucho Valdés and Gonzálo Rubalcaba, as one of Cuba’s most spectacular musicians, became immediately apparent as his trio launched into the first evidence of bebop with a composition by one of his old bosses — Dizzy Gillespie — with the appropriately titled jazz standard Hot House. Attired in a radiant white suit he led the energetic trio through a series of delightful compositions, the bassist and drummer joined at the hip, their collective ideology and joyful exuberance perhaps inspired by the socialist doctrine from which they evolved, contradicting the conditions observed in our walk-about earlier that day. Three strikes and you’re out would be a fair description of the Swiss band that followed, akin to suddenly falling down an open manhole, dull and predictable after the vibrant vivaciousness that had preceded them. Time to join the exiting audience for a beer in the roof-top Opus Bar.

Sunday: A change of pace is needed, time to participate in an action that takes us among the Cuban people, away from the tourist rigmarole, and what better way than to attend the opening game of the baseball season. Our five-star concierge is not a baseball fan, perhaps the only person in Cuba not interested in their national sport: “Ask a bellhop” she suggests. It’s like a code-word — baseball, even though we are unable to speak more than a few words in Spanish just uttering this word will open the door to all the information we need, the multi-lingual bellhop immediately informing us of the starting time and directing us to the Estadio Latinoamericano the 55,000 seat stadium known locally as El Latino. It a simple enough 45 minute walk south down Calzada de Infanta (Avenue of the Children), introducing us as we go to a number of neighbourhoods, skirting the University area, passing a bakery, a library, numerous local shops and cafes, and soon the huge stadium becomes apparent as we join the crowds streaming toward it. There are thousands of expectant fans, forty thousand in all, queuing up at the main entrance and before we can join them we are approached by an elderly gentlemen who accompanies us to one of the numerous policemen in evidence. After a short conversation — ah if we only understood Spanish — he then takes us to a tiny ticket wicket, almost invisible in the gigantic wall of the stadium, where foreigners can acquire a ticket for the measly price of 3 CUC’s (suitably pronounced coup). We are then directed to another less crowded entrance where another elderly gentleman takes over and leads us to our seats in the enclosure directly behind home plate. There are more foreign visitors among the chosen few, one sporting a tee-shirt with the logo of the Burnaby Fire Department. As with all opening games there is a grand show, young people bearing flags of the different provinces stretching from one base to the next, and then a mighty roar welcomes the two teams, the Havana Industriales attired in their blue shirts and Santiago de Cuba in red. The home team of “Los Azules” have a reputation similar to that of the New York Yankees in that they have fans from all over the country, and every one of their actions is greeted by raucous cheering and the sounding of horns. Such a grand spectacle with patriotic songs, revolutionary speeches, a minute’s silence for an unknown hero (if only we could understand Spanish), two dance troupes and the teams’ warm-up exercises accompanied by boisterous Latin music booming out from the stadium’s speaker system. Halfway through the fourth inning a flu bug caught from one of my grandchildren back in Toronto begins to overpower my energy, forcing us to leave, but all is not lost as we speed back to the hotel in one of the ever available taxis and watch the rest of the game on television. The Havana Industriales lost 6-2.

That evening’s concert is the closing event of the jazz festival (Gala de Clausura del Festival) once again at Teatro Amadeo Roldan, but as I am unwell Essjay sets off, with unwarranted optimism, on her own as transport to the event is guaranteed. She waits for an hour in the hotel lobby but the bus once again does not show.

In spite of all the chaos I cannot remember ever being at a “jazz” festival which generated so much genuine excitement, and for the second half of our stay we simply wandered about the city, visited art galleries, museums and parks, relaxed with a cool drink on one of the numerous patios of the grander hotels, and enjoyed the local music that was in abundance throughout Havana.

DEREK BAILEY (1930 - 2005)

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Smith) — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 17:52:00 +0000

Christmas Day again. The e-mail from Martin Davidson simply read - "Derek Bailey died aged 75 in London in the early hours of December 25. He had motor neurone disease". I had been thinking of him, knowing that he was ill, but still the finality of this sad news came as a shock. He had for some time suffered from Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, crippling his hands to such a degree that he was forced to develop a whole new system of playing, utilizing his thumb to strike the strings. With his usual dry wit he titled his last recording "Carpal Tunnel".

My companion had cautioned me on occasion of the tendency to over familiarize, to use the description friend in much too casual a manner, and so I would be more inclined to describe my close-on 40 year association with Derek Bailey as a comrade in improvised music. In many ways I barely knew him: a luncheon once on a visit to London at a vegetarian restaurant on Greater Newport Street, which had, long ago in my youth, been the premises of Studio 51, the first jazz club I ever visited; the occasional letter, one suggesting that we both lived on islands, he in Hackney and me on Hornby; several meetings at various musical events, a rare e-mail, but little actual personal connection between us. Ultimately it was the music that had drawn us together.

As with all original artists his music required serious investigation, an attentiveness to the new details he was proposing, especially as the concept he was putting forward was relatively unknown territory. A concept that he would describe as non-idiomatic music. Improvisation, when considered in the environment of an evolving music has, in certain situations, not remained as a part of a process, such as in the traditional concept of jazz music, but has become the music in total. The reference point of playing tunes, which must be considered an art in its own way, has been shed, and in doing so has immediately made, for the listener, a more difficult task. The composition was always a recognizable familiarity that could readily attract the more simplistic portions of our mind. But it has always been improvisation that was the predominant strength of jazz music. Its musical structure has other rigid systems, or recognizable identities such as chords, time signatures, and the legendary idea of swing. In the process of Derek Bailey, all these elements were not separated, not ignored, but rather brought together in a most personal way and utilized, in the way history can be, into a unique and original art.

There has always been a system of judgement placed upon art that has introduced innovation to a previously occupied position, often hindering the acceptance of a new genius. Intimating that it is not yet a completed form, that there are not enough discernible historical directives on which to base an opinion, and suggesting that it can be a process that is simply self-indulgent. As it is completely based in new technical areas, far removed from previous improvised standards, there is no clear pathway to critical analysis. I found after continuous listenings, that Derek Bailey became a most unique phenomenon in that what he presented was very open and sensitive, a sharing of a personal idea that was never quite the same. Surely something that all intelligent people strive for. Because he presented each event as a situation that was not predetermined, the experience of listening became more focused on the idea of the system of structure he employed. There was the possibility of hearing his logical attitudes to improvisation as an infinitely detailed ongoing process, so successive recitals had the feeling of having occurred in a logical sequence. This indicated that there was indeed a quite clear structure, it just belonged to a new, more personal system of performance, a performance that because of its lack of connection with the past, required, on the part of the player, a most positive attitude, a necessity to be totally confident in the realization that what he had discovered was truly unique. In some ways, it is not possible to judge Derek Bailey’s music as it is totally improvised, so perhaps there is no good or bad performance, just different situations, and all you really have to do is be open to enjoy whatever you can take from it.

Although his early history includes dance bands, studio work, and theatre work with the likes of Gracie Fields and the comedy team of Morecambe & Wise, his reputation is as an improviser performing and promoting the concept of non-idiomatic music. From his earliest recording in 1965 with Tony Oxley and Gavin Bryars with the group they called Joseph Holbrooke (a 10-1/2 minute rendition of John Coltrane's composition "Miles Mode" on an Incus single) until the 2002 release of "Ballads" on the Tzadik label, he rarely if ever played tunes.

By 1966 he was visiting the Little Theatre Club at 23 Garrick Street in London's West End theatre district, a venue which was organized by drummer John Stevens. There he was able to develop his unique ideas with the likes of Trevor Watts, Paul Rutherford, Evan Parker, Dave Holland, Kenny Wheeler, Barry Guy etc., many of whom played in various combinations over the ensuing years as the Spontaneous Music Ensemble, the Tony Oxley Quintet & Sextet, the Music Improvisation Company and Iskra. In 1970 Derek Bailey, Tony Oxley and Evan Parker would form Incus Records, the first independent musician-owned record company in Britain. A 1974 series of radio interviews with musicians from various idioms, resulted in the publication, in 1980, of his influential book "Improvisation - its nature and practice in music". From 1976 until 1994 he organized his Company projects in London and various outreach locations — including Vancouver — where he invited a stylistically wide-ranging group of players to improvise together. A list too long to note, but including players that would normally be considered outside of the world of improvisation.

His devotion to pure improvised music led him down many and varied paths including interaction with American legends as conventional as Lee Konitz, as inventive as Steve Lacy and as avant garde as Cecil Taylor; the historic tap dancer Will Gaines, with whom he made a video, fusion jazzer Pat Metheny, noise rockers and anything else that tickled his fancy. There will never be another like him.

Recommended Recordings:
Spontaneous Music Ensemble (1968) – Karyobin – Chronoscope CPE2001-2
Tony Oxley Quintet (1969) – The Baptised Traveller – Columbia 494438
Anthony Braxton & Derek Bailey (1974) – First Duo Concert – Emanem 4006
Derek Bailey solo (2002) – Ballads – Tzadik TZ-7607

Anthony Braxton & Leo Records

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Smith) — Thu, 16 Feb 2006 21:26:00 +0000

A Continuum

Anthony Braxton and Leo Feigin share a certain persistent determination to document creative music. Leo, as a producer releasing numerous important recordings, beginning in 1979, and Anthony documenting his own music any way he could, starting with “Three Compositions of New Jazz” on the Chicago based label Delmark in 1968. Much has happened for both of them in the ensuing years including a partnership that has continued for the past 18 years starting with the release of the 3 record set – “Anthony Braxton Quartet (London) 1985”. Since that time Leo has released no less than 30 CDs of Braxton’s music. When asked why he was so interested in Anthony Braxton's music he replied:

“I am convinced that Braxton is, first and foremost, a visionary, and only then a musician. When you deal with a visionary everything must be recorded. We, simple/ordinary folks, may not understand what he is doing, and the meaning of some of his works will become clear in about 30 or 50 years from now. So when I get the material for a release from Braxton I don't question the artistic merits of the work and I don't have to like it. I am convinced that his every work is important. That's why I see my task in presenting the material in the best possible way, to find the best writers to write liner notes, etc.”

“I am enjoying wonderful working and business relationship with Braxton. He is a person of great generosity and tremendous magnanimity, and I think we have a very good rapport. It's easy to work with him. We have many things to discuss and he always listens, and a horrifying thing for me is that he probably trusts me, for very often he gives me a free hand with his material.”

Leo Feigin was born in St. Petersburg, Russia and found his way to England via Israel in 1974, where he worked with the Russian service of the BBC — broadcasting, producing programs, and presenting a weekly jazz show. In 1979, a friend sent him a concert tape with music of the Ganelin Trio, which was smuggled out of Russia by a friendly tourist. And so the idea of creating the Leo label was conceived. As no one had heard of Russian new music Leo decided to start off with two other more "viable" recordings, the first by Chicago pianist Amina Claudine Myers and then saxophonist Keshavan Maslak. The third release was the concert tape from East Berlin, and so the Leo legend began, joining forces with other like minded labels such as Emanem, Ogun, FMP and Intakt.

My relationship with Braxton began in 1973, an important year for the jazz intelligentsia of Toronto. A small group of us, loosely associated with Coda Magazine, had become aware of the activities, through recordings being produced by the likes of Chuck Nessa, that were taking place in Chicago, activities that included saxophonists Roscoe Mitchell and Anthony Braxton. Both of them were performing solo saxophone in concert, an art form although not unknown in the jazz world — Coleman Hawkins, Sonny Rollins and Eric Dolphy had already recorded solo pieces — had not been presented as a complete concept. We had found a perfect venue, the 130 seat hall at the St. Clair Music Library, where we decided to present a series of solo concerts. The three artists were Anthony Braxton, Roscoe Mitchell and Dollar Brand (Abdullah Ibrahim). And so began an important personal epoch that would lead me along paths of investigation as yet not imagined. Initially there was no idea that we were involved in the direction that jazz would take, unaware of the importance of our actions, mostly it was a selfish desire to hear this new developing music live.

The primary reason that had induced Braxton to agree to play in this series, was that he was desperately poor and attempting to raise enough money for a return air ticket to Paris where apparently he and his fellow pioneers were more welcome. The concert in Toronto took place on June 16th. Fortuitously he was able to spend a week as my house guest, which allowed me time to interview him. The first major interview that I had ever done with an artist of such importance. The following year, on October 7th, in co-operation with York University we presented him with Richard Teitelbaum, Leo Smith, Roscoe Mitchell, Kenny Wheeler, Dave Holland and Jerome Cooper. From this visit came the Sackville recording “Trio & Duet”. The trio with Teitelbaum and Smith, and the duets of standards with Holland are currently available as Sackville SKCD2-3007. He visited Toronto numerous times over the ensuing years, with a variety of configurations.

The three recordings under consideration partially illustrate the scope of Braxton’s imagination, and eradicate any notions one might have that jazz music has stagnated into college-boy exercises. This of course will come as no surprise as it has always been obvious to modern jazz enthusiasts that his music was a natural extension of previous forms, his level of intelligence and perception unencumbered by populist rhetoric. One of his favourite words, continuum, fits this assertion perfectly.

It is no secret that he has been a massive influence on my life, both intellectually and musically, and that I have championed his music in Coda Magazine for much of the past three decades; but with this said I should point out that I have not always been enamoured by everything he has produced, his range of concepts often being outside my listening capacity. My preference, as I am still at heart a jazz fan, has been for his more “jazz inclined” — if that be the description — projects.

The 4 CD live set of “20 Standards (Quartet) 2003” (Leo CD LR 431/434) is the second project with this marvellous quartet of guitarist Kevin O’Neil, bassist Andy Eulau and percussionist Kevin Norton; its predecessor being “23 Standards (Quartet) 2003 (Leo CD LR 402/405). The chosen material is a jazz fan’s delight, with almost half of the compositions coming from popular show tunes penned by Jerome Kern & Oscar Hammerstein, Vernon Duke, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin and the like, and the remainder by jazz legends as diverse as Gerry Mulligan, Charlie Parker, Bill Evans, Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis, Paul Desmond and Eddie Harris.

I can’t help but allow history to influence my thoughts, that the quartets of Lee Konitz with Billy Bauer rise up as spectres, as half-century old sentiments; or the Bird-like flights of fancy that emerge when Braxton’s alto saxophone soars above O’Neil’s fleet spikey guitar, this young man’s technique laced with jazz slurs and inflections; or in the more gentle moments Jimmy Guiffre coming to mind, because it is clearly from this past that their music comes. However I should clarify that this is not a copyist homage, but rather a Braxtonian perspective taking from this past information and reassembling it in a most personal and original way. A continuum so to speak.

In recent years I have lost interest in much of what passes as jazz, in the pathetically lethargic recreations of the youthful imitators who have done little to expand the ongoing construct of its form, so it is wonderful to once again reclaim the energetic originality that was the beacon of American jazz music in this set of four exceptional CDs.

“Quintet (London) 2004” (Leo CD LR 449), presents one Braxton original - “Composition 343”, in two parts, with yet another group of “unknown” young players: Taylor Ho Bynum (trumpet), Mary Halvorson (guitar), Chris Dahlgren (bass) and Satoshi Takeishi (percussion). Once again it is recorded live, this time by the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) at the Royal Festival Hall.

As I’ve already said, I cannot help but refer to the past, and in this instance it is Braxton’s system of composition. From his very earliest recordings, from the late sixties on the Delmark label, it is apparent that he had already devised a compositional system to be developed and catalogued, and this recording in any number of ways harkens back to that system. Once again clarifying the idea of a continuum. Not only does the structure of “Composition 343” remind one of his earlier work, but the principles of improvisation employed by the players suggest that the tutoring of this new assemblage is also based in a developed procedure. Here we get an illustration of his uniqueness, his amazing ability to invent strength in any process he chooses, making each into a distinct project. As with the preceding CD that strength lies in the organization of the complete whole, the landscape being a movable terrain contained within the composition itself, and the ability of the participants to identify the signals that often only subtly insinuate themselves. The composition has the readily identifiable, somewhat peculiar sense of rhythm that makes Braxton’s music so personal, the sonic drama of a story unfolding with the characters in place, conversing with overlapping dialogue, making his intentions, after all these years, crystal clear. The improvisations, mostly collective, float out of the charts each time into a different territory, shape shifting, varying from gently abstracted sound poems to ferocious alto attacks, the energy changing pace but never flagging. Halfway through “Part 1” himself segues momentarily into a melodic, almost balladic song. With this group trumpeter Taylor Ho Bynum seems to occupy a prominent role, his muted horn talking, Bubbering as in a jungle band, with Lester Bowie and Leo Smith apparent heroes. Braxton also appears, once again, to have a penchant for brittle guitar textures.

At 49 minutes & 17 seconds “Part 1” ends abruptly with a reading of the composition and Braxton rapidly introduces the band members. Thunderous applause from what sounds like a very large audience. And then there is what appears to be a freely improvised encore. A bonus. More thunderous applause. What a difference a year makes.

The final recording in this dissertation, “TrioTone” (Leo CD LR 416) is once again a live performance from 2003, and is a co-operative trio project with Hungarian pianist György Szabados and Russian percussionist Vladimir Tarasov of Ganelin Trio fame. The latter was featured on Leo’s first Russian release. The three share a political stance when its definition is thought of as the support of particular ideas, principles or commitments. For Braxton the journey was a difficult one as the general attitude toward his music by the jazz press was negative, and it was apparent, even 30 years ago, that many detractors would come to him in his life. As for György Szabados and Vladimir Tarasov their music was developed in a world fraught with government control and political chaos.

In the two previous CD sets Braxton is surrounded by moldable youth, but here we have him working with his peers in a trio of international unity. All three of them of an age group that is hovering on each side of sixty. All three of them with substantial experience in a variety of music forms. Both of the Europeans are actively involved in composed music; Szabados who is an admirer of Bartok and his reinterpretation of Hungarian folk traditions has created the Royal Hungarian Court Orchestra as a format for that country’s evolving musicians. Tarasov is a regular soloist with the Vilniuis State Philharmonic, and in addition to composing music for film, theatre and orchestras, is a visual artist.

The first two of the five pieces are composed by Szabados, with the latter three being short collective explorations. “Trioton”, at 32’ 28”, begins with a delicate bell tone centering and gradually generates a rhythmic motion benefiting from the subtle contributions of Braxton and Tarasov, with the clear and relatively straightforward composed sections forming what could be described as a suite. The second half accelerates the content into an intense brawny power. “Black Toots” comes off as a sprightly, boppy, somewhat old fashioned sounding jazz tune complete with a dazzling sopranino solo and a very jazzy piano section. The first of the three improvised pieces has Braxton setting the stage with a gruff growling alto that his companions poke and probe at until they find their way into an abstracted reality; the second has the piano conjuring up a spatial melodic mood with Braxton at his most gracious, and finally the trio boogie-ing together with vague quotations from an imaginary standard into the final emphatic chord. Throughout this recording the trio bring to the music a level of listening, response and interaction that generates a rarely experienced intelligence.

I have chosen the above recordings to illustrate Anthony Braxton’s genius partly because they are all “live” events, giving the listener the possibility to experience what it may have been like to have attended these events. Nowadays with recording techniques at such a sophisticated level, the quality of sound is equivalent to that of a studio, and the musicians have the opportunity to capture their music in a more natural context, without the confines of a studio or the opinions of a producer hampering the result.

These three examples of Braxton are but a small selection from the 30 CDs that Leo Feigin has produced, and a complete catalogue can be discovered at www.leorecords.com

DAVE HOLLAND - Interviews - 1973 & 1989

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Smith) — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 20:58:00 +0000

DAVID HOLLAND (1973)
Song For The Newborn

The group known as Circle consisted of Anthony Braxton (reeds), Chick Corea (piano), David Holland (bass), Barry Altschul (percussion)

Bill Smith: Circle is the most recent group, of any permanence, that I know about that you have been playing in. Could you explain how such a group came to be?

David Holland: We all came from very different directions. Anthony Braxton came from the Chicago school, with Cage's music and the theatricals that you spoke about the other day. And of course Chick came from quite a melodic Latin kind of thing and I came from England, with all that stuff that's going on there, and Barry was from New York, and had played with people like Paul Bley. There's quite a wide variety of viewpoints that came to me in the music which is why it has got such a lot of attention, and I figure that we had many different directions going on.

Bill: Circle came about for all four of you when you were already living in the United States, then?

Dave: The idea came when Chick and I were with Miles. We both wanted to leave the group. I didn't feel that there was anything more to be done with Miles, for my own taste, for what I wanted to do. Initially we wanted to get a trio together, and we did a gig down at the Vanguard, with Barry and Chick and myself, and Anthony turned up. He came to hear Roy Haynes who was playing there with his group. He came over to talk to us and so we got together a few days later and did a few gigs. We did a concert in Baltimore... the music was so strong... we did a lot of playing in the loft that Chick had and the first music we played was very experimental. We really just opened that up, we just broke down all the barriers and said OK, we'll just play with any sounds that we can find. We used things from the kitchen, and bellows and shouting and singing and whistling, we did all kinds of things, just to find out how far we could take it. And then it started to get more defined. We started to try and get a bit more precision into the music.

Bill: Would it be difficult, David, for a group like that to survive economically anywhere in the world?

Dave: Well, that particular group I think could have survived, had we stayed together. You see there were enough people who knew who the people in the group were, so we were assured of a certain number of people coming to hear us. With the right kind of handling of a group of that kind, and with enough traveling, you could cover yourself between albums that you might do. You could go to Europe for the summer, doing concerts over there, coming back to make it to a university, doing things like that. We had a very large following from young people, partly from the fact that they knew Chick and I from Miles, and had heard some of those albums, and wanted to come and find out what we were doing on our own. And the music seemed to appeal to them, it wasn't just the idiom that we were using, it was the feeling that we produced as a group. And this is something that I've noticed happened with the music, is that no matter what kind of music you play, it doesn't matter what the style, if the spirit is in the music, if there's really a spirit in the music, it communicates to people. The people sense that, and we really had a unified feeling going on for awhile, and people immediately caught fire because of it. They saw what happened on the stand which made them feel good just by virtue of the fact that they could see that kind of closeness and communication and love between people was possible. The music kind of represented that, and so that took them beyond the idiom that we were working with, whether we were using strange or common sound, it didn't seem to matter, it just could relate to the feel of it. So in that sense, I think survival means that, survival means flowing. Survival means doing, and I think Circle was doing and was flowing while it existed.

Bill: There are a great number of people who refer to it as 'this music', there are a great number of people who simply do not even consider it to be music. Is there a reason why those people can't hear it?

Dave: The evolution of music comes through many stages but first of all, you have to define what music is. Music is an organisation of sound of some kind. You have to invent some kind of system, or set of values by which you can hang your conceptions on. In other words you have to have forms to realize the ideas and inspirations that you get. But inspiration on its own is not enough, it has to be put into a communicable form whereby people can receive that inspiration. So the systems change, the form that you use changes as the music progresses. Initially, there were very fixed systems, like modes, which are very simplified systems of harmony. And then as it progressed to Bach, Beethoven and the composers of the 17th and 18th century, the music started to take on different characters, different colours, more contrasting colours, colours that sounded dissonant at that time, even though to our ears, now, in the 20th century, they sound quite consonant. As people had to re-educate their ears in order to hear the new relationships of dissonance and consonance, and as the music progresses more and more, what produced tension ten years ago, now no longer produces tension because it has become common place to one's ear. In order to create that same kind of tension now, you have to use something which is even further removed from the original consonant idea. So that might involve metal scraping against metal which would be a very dissonant sound. You would be using the element of timbre too, which has been the most important development in modern music texture, treating a melody, not just dealing with the sound and pitch of the note, but dealing with the coloration that you can give that note. I think people just need to be educated in hearing new relationships of sounds. I think the function of the artist is still keeping communication with his audience, but at the same time introducing new elements too. It's a question of almost a compromise between what one ideally hears as an artist, which is generally contrary to what the audience is hearing, and finding a way to communicate that element to them, in a way that they can understand, because art is only alive inasmuch as there are two sides to it. There has to be the artist and the audience. It's something which has to be ultimately shared up there.

Bill: Do you need an audience to retaliate or relate to you on some level so that you can feel some kind of energy that will make you perform better?

Dave: Yes. For instance the album that we did with Circle in Paris was a very special occasion for me. The group was at a particular high point, in fact we'd been very together with each other, we felt very close to each other, and while we were feeling this way, we found ourselves in an ideal situation, because the O.R.T.F. (French Radio) building in Paris was a very nice hall, and a very receptive audience that really wanted to hear the music. There was no question about it, that was a packed house. Before we even got on the stand every seat was full and there was this electric energy thing on the air! My own most intense experience in the concert was the solos I played. There was such a stillness before it started. I felt the energy just entering my body, and for that whole period that I played, I was just transported into another place. I think the audience contributed as much to that experience of the music as I did. It was something that we totally shared. So that energy is very important, I think. I'm not saying that music can't be created without an audience, because I have created it by myself at my house, but the element of there being somebody out there who's receiving what you're doing increases the flow, because the flow goes to them and back to you and to them and back to you and the whole thing just lifts itself up in that way.

Bill: I was just having a thought when you were talking about energy lifting you up, and it occurred to me that there 's something very peculiar about a string bass that no other instruments have. One thing is that it doesn't have fret positions so you can play notes at any point in your scale values. There's no stop between any of them, it's a continuous note. Everything to do with the bass, which is very ancient and strings were the first sophisticated melody instruments.

Dave: Would you mind me interrupting just a minute, because I think that the first sophisticated instrument was actually the wind instrument. I'm pretty sure that that would apply, because it would be a reed which somebody would pick up and blow or that they would hear the wind blowing through it and they would say ah, sound, wind, music, you know? They would use their breath, which I think is a really beautiful way of playing music. But I take your point about the bass though, for sure, I think the bass has got something.

Bill: But blowing out into a saxophone, trumpet, etcetera... with a bass you caress it all the time, doing something you 're joining with it physically.

Dave: Right. The thing of the finger and the string is something very special to string players. It's something that I get more and more involved in as I play longer and longer. There's something to do with pulling a string with a finger that's incredible. Are you familiar with a book called "Zen And The Art Of Archery"? Well, there's a feeling that he describes with the archer becoming one with the bowstring. That whole thing is what happens with playing string instruments, where the finger and the string almost become one with each other, the string yields to the finger, somehow, and the finger yields to the string.

Bill: In the earlier histories of jazz, the bass played a role of almost a simple rhythm instrument, that played changes and single lines to support the rhythm section. And although there were people like Jimmy Blanton, Oscar Pettiford, Milt Hinton, Charlie Mingus, they're the ones that come instantly to mind out of that whole growing-up period, it isn't until somewhere in the late 50's, with Scott LaFaro - now I don't know if I'm placing too much importance on LaFaro's music - that there 's a very drastic change in bass playing. The bass becomes very much a fourth member of a quartet instead of something that was backing somebody. It seems to play more intricate lines, and although it's playing rhythm things, it's playing a lot more melody things too. Is Scott LaFaro the most important reason for that? Was he the first bass-player who gave that idea to younger bass-players?

Dave: I think Scotty was a very important stage and I would never under estimate what he represented. But Scotty also had his roots, and he drew from other people like Mingus and Paul Chambers. Now Paul's approach to the bass was a very important step too, because you know that the way the bass would be playing four in a bar and there would be a little triplet drop, well right there is where the whole thing started for me. Scotty took that idea and said, well maybe I could even leave out more than that, and maybe colour a little more. One of the beautiful things about Scotty was that he was able to do that and still be a bass player. A lot of bass players, when they hear Scotty, felt the bass doesn't have to be a bass at all. And they just went out and played as much as they could over the top. I felt called to that too. And still do. But what Scotty had got together somehow was the ability to colour and to make the rhythm very, very free, but at the same time always giving you the feeling that he was there supporting in a very solid way.

Bill: Would you like how bass players like Ray Brown and Red Callender play?

Dave: Anybody who's found music must be quite a likeable person. As far as what I listen to, one of my first influences was Ray Brown. In England, the Oscar Peterson Trio was a very popular group.

Bill: Everybody knows that the Prince of Darkness walked into a club one night and pointed at you and said "You're my bass player". But obviously you didn't start playing the bass the day before that. And I know you were a classically trained bass player and went to the Guildhall School of Music and you came through the whole thing formally. Were you always interested in jazz all the time you played the instrument?

Dave: Prior to playing the string bass, I played bass guitar. I was listening mostly to popular music. And around that time in England there was a traditional jazz boom which I think over here they call Dixieland. I took off on all these people, and of course, as I was involved in pop music, I came across this music, and I listened to it, and I was very interested in the sound of the acoustic bass. I was getting bored with what I was playing on the bass guitar. I wanted more, and in fact there were points where I was considering doing something other than music. Music had always been there in my life, but I had never considered doing it for a living. It was something I just enjoyed doing. But anyway, when I heard the acoustic bass, I decided I would have to buy one, so I went out and bought this brand new plywood bass, all shiny and glossy. I practiced it a little bit, had some lessons with a local bass player, who I thank very much for his guidance, although he wasn't a great bass player, but he helped me. The rock group that I was with went to Germany and as I was still under 18 and couldn't work in German clubs I had to find some work during the summer. I had just started going to a jazz club in my home town of Waltham where I spoke to the tenor player. He was taking a band up to a place called Scarborough, which is a British resort area, and I went to play bass with the band. After that, I didn't want to go back to bass guitar. That was it. I played a lot that summer, practicing a lot, and got a job in London, and started studying the bass at the Guildhall. And my ambition then was to become a studio musician. I thought I enjoyed playing lots of different kinds of music so I decided I would study classical music. When I finally got to be a real musician I could really attend to business. I went to the Guildhall really with that in mind. I thought, I can play pop music, pretty well, play the bass guitar, and was sort of getting jazz together so the only thing left was classical music. I hadn't really listened to classical music very much until that time, and I really started to get into it. There was an experience I'd had at a concert that I did with a very large orchestra of "Symphonie Fantastique" by Berlioz. I was very moved by the whole spectacle of this gigantic orchestra and this very emotional piece of music that I had got very involved in doing. And at that point I said, Anything I do as an improviser can never live up to that, and therefore what I must do is give myself up to performing music of such great consequence. I was very much in love with Bartok and felt it wasn't even worth my trying to match his ability. Luckily I saw that no matter what I did, if it was mine and honestly offered, it didn't have to be a great work of art. If it was just real, then it was worth doing. As I came through that one, I wanted to play my own music more and more. Gradually I met more people; John Surman was a very important person that I met, because we played a lot of music together in London at that time. I had really firmly decided to play improvised music, because by this time I was also working with people like John Stevens and Evan Parker. I was playing some contemporary 20th century music in small chamber orchestras and was beginning to get an idea of just how far this thing could go, that I had got involved in. It was at this point, in my last year at college, that I was quite active in London. I was doing recordings, some studio work, I was at college, then playing with Surman, and I took a month at the Ronnie Scott club because Bill Evans was going to be there, with Eddie Gomez and Jack DeJohnette, and I had a gig in a supporting band backing a singer. During the last week that Bill was there, Miles came into the club, to see Bill and Jack, because they both worked with him, and offered me the job, and that was the beginning of that whole thing. I feel good about the way it developed. I didn't have too much anxiety during the development. I just enjoyed doing what I was doing, which I think is very important. I think too much weight put on the goal that you 're trying to achieve stops you from moving anywhere. Because one has to be living and experiencing what's going on now in order to learn, which is how we move to another place. So if you're sitting, just thinking about where you want to go to, you're not even here, you're in the future, thinking about where you're going to go. So I think it's very important for musicians, artists, for anybody to try and experience the now as much as they can, and not worry about the goals that they 're trying to achieve. Those goals will happen very naturally if you allow the flow to happen.

Bill: Do you have some kind of singular spiritual values which you base your life on ? Is there some kind of religious order or something?

Dave: No, I've given them all up. I've been involved in quite a few systems and there's some information that I learn from some of them that's very useful. But I learned that all systems have limitations, and life has no limitation. There immediately is the problem. So I don't reach conclusions any more. I think when you reach conclusions you stop living for a second.

Bill: Because religions simply have a system which has boundaries. Some of the boundaries are just a boundary. And you don't learn anything from them, they just impede your progress?

Dave: There's only one religion, I think, for each person, that' s their own. I think that each person has to have their own life. I'm not saying that systems don't have their place and their value. I think they act initially as the first few rungs of the ladder. Once you've got your head above it a little bit, then you can start to see and make your own life. They only get part of it. The music I would like to ultimately be able to play would be a music that would be constructed much as the Sufi stories are constructed. The Sufi are an Islamic group of people who say they're not a religion, but they are religion itself. All that means is that they've got the original teaching. One of the beautiful things about them is that they translate the teaching to suit the time. It 's not static. Their principle of teaching is very much through folklore, stories and little parables. It's very amusing, and reach people on every level. They can be laughed at, and then at what I presume is the highest point, you get spiritual enlightenment out of it. You get some kind of cognition. Things somehow fall together because of it. Suddenly your viewpoint has changed. The reality of things has changed because of it. Now I think that a music or an art form that could exist on those levels at once would be a very nice thing. Where it would have something for every stage of awareness for every person who would come.

Bill: Do you think it's possible to make music that high?

Dave: Yes. It must be, because we thought of it already. It's not beyond the conception of man, and therefore it's not beyond the reach of man.

Bill: Like a universal music that has something in it that everybody can hear? That's an incredible ambition. A highly unlikely possibility, it seems to me.

Dave: I would not say that. I think you have to say it's possible. I have to say it's possible because that's what I want. I should think the role of the artist is a sower of seed. He takes some kind of light which is given to him, which is put through him, and he distributes it, and he tries to distribute it to everybody, not exclusively, but inclusively. Because the only way to live for me is to be ever more inclusive.

DAVE HOLLAND (1989)
Jazz Educator
Conference of the Birds

Bill Smith: Although the preceding excerpt, from our conversation, took place some fifteen years ago, it illustrates that what has unfolded in Dave Holland's life was already in place in his head. My experience with him has continued over these years, and to hear his music from those times move through Miles Davis, into Circle with Chick Corea, Barry Altschul and Anthony Braxton, the marvellous quartet of Braxton, with his early friend Kenny Wheeler, Sam Rivers, the Stan Getz quartet, once again with Jack DeJohnette, and on into this period when he is the leader of his own bands, has been, to say the very least, an education in itself. I had not seen Dave for some time, and when I was invited to be a guest of the Banff School of Fine Arts, in the mountains of Alberta, I was delighted. For Canada, and possibly for anywhere, the Banff school is a unique situation, so we started off our conversation talking of the difference between what it was like studying music at the Guildhall in his youth, and now being here as the artistic director of the jazz workshops...

Dave Holland: Well first off the Banff experience is very different to an institution, the way this school is run and the kind of emphasis that's placed, and I'm not just talking about the jazz program, but I would say the whole. Everything that I observe here is geared toward performance level study. Mostly people who are coming, work next to prominent and very creative people in their fields, and it's viewed more as an exchange of ideas rather than a school. It's a place where people can come and get advice on the work that they are actually involved in now. It's not something where you learn to play a C Major scale, but to try and get some inspiration for direction. Just to get some feedback about that. Compared to my experience the school that I went to was a classical music school, and the experience that I had in learning about improvisation was all from the opportunity to play with other people. The advice that I got from all the other musicians. Unfortunately, I think in jazz institutions for the most part, they fall short of creating that type of context for learning.

I'm quite concerned about the direction that jazz education is taking in the schools, because it's tending to be a paint-by-numbers system, where you learn to fit the right lick on the right chord, and you become a jazz player and get your diploma. There is a lot more, as you know, to it, trying to draw out the creativity and individuality in the player, at the same time as giving them a foundation in the tradition of the music, and giving them something to build on. Because we don't want to see people just trying to do things in a vacuum, we are trying to present at Banff a broad spectrum of alternatives and ideas. It's not a program which tries to put forward one singular idea of what improvisation is, but rather present a broad spectrum of it.

Bill Smith: It also seems to me that the standard idea of jazz education has created a clone-like situation, and has managed to stifle creativity. So knowing all of that, how do you decide, at the beginning, which people are allowed to come here to study?

Dave Holland: It's a very difficult process actually, because obviously it's based on performance. Most of the people that come here send tapes to the Banff Centre, and at a certain point in the year, usually around March, l am sent a box full of tapes, and I sit down at my tape recorder and listen to them, and evaluate. With a lot of reviewing, over and over again, I try and decide based on certain criteria. People might disagree with the criteria I use, but I just listen for musicianship and their ability to play their instruments. To me, there are certain levels of requirement for that. But also I look for individualism in the players. At the same time, just for the sake of the program, we've tried to keep the main thrust of the program to do with the jazz tradition as we understand it to be. The lineage of jazz from Louis Armstrong through the great players, and to keep that as a general focus for the program, rather than to try and make it a world music, third stream, everything's included type of situation. Because I've been involved in a few things like that and I found that it diffused the energy a little too much. One of the things I wanted to do to make the program strong, was to have a central idea of what we're trying to do. Even though that centre can be interpreted in many, many different ways. We've had players from Cecil Taylor through George Russell through Anthony Davis, Anthony Braxton, and on the other side Dave Liebman... I've tried to be objective in terms of impartiality, presenting as many different views as I can, over the eight years I've been involved here.

Bill Smith: I've talked to a number of student over the past few days, and there seems to be some confusion among some of them, considering that the teachers are you, Roscoe Mitchell and Muhal Richard Abrams, for example, than when they actually play in groups the music is sounding very conventional, and yet the musicians that have been teaching them are much more contemporary. Is this because of the workshop groups, or is it the students' mentality that makes this occur?

Dave Holland: Basically I think most of us here, as teachers, are trying to deal with the students on their own ground. Rather than trying to impress upon them a single way that they should be going, we try to look at where they are at this point. How we can help them move on and maybe broaden their horizons. But these things don't happen in four weeks. So what we find mostly happens is that the people that come here as participants are already focused on certain things that they want to do, and what the program does is expose them to other ideas. The music that is played is not really standard repertoire, we don't hear fifteen versions of "Stella By Starlight" - it's a beautiful piece - but what we hear are their own compositions really. When you go to the Blue Room in the evenings to hear the students perform, most sets are original music, and this I think is great. Rather than trying to dissuade them from doing these things, I would rather let them have the opportunity to externalize these things that they want to do themselves.

To me the learning process is helped by that, by them being able to bring out the ideas that they have and to look at them, to compare them to what they hear some of us do. Some of the ideas that are discussed in the classes are certainly personal ones of the faculty, and sometimes even contradictory, which we don't mind at all. I think it's healthy. So, they are exposed to our ideas, but to expect that in a few weeks they would quickly transform them into a performance is unrealistic. I'm happy with the results that we have, really. There are some participants that would like to work in different types of areas to what the majority want to work in, and these are people that we try to spend more time with, and discussions with, and try to encourage their own directions. Everybody has the opportunity to put together special projects, so nobody is denied the opportunity to do something their own way.

Bill Smith: With the faculty itself, the actual people who are working here to teach the students whatever they can, it seems to me that most of the people have been very closely associated with you in the past and even played in bands with you. Is there a real purpose to why it's like this, and why it is not just a bunch of odd fellows?

Dave Holland: Well again for the sake of unification. I think if you look at the music of Muhal Richard Abrams and then at the music of Kenny Wheeler, you see two quite different polarities. Now I just happen to be a musician who has chosen in my life, to play with a wide diversity of people, and I think that's one of the things I've been able to bring to this program, that I have been associated with quite different types of musical situations, and therefore have been able to call people up and say, 'look would you like to come and be part of this and have it work'. I see myself as a person that can bring people together, and I've tried to use that idea to make the program work. You know there have been musicians here that I have never worked with: Cecil Taylor, Anthony Davis, we haven't really worked together that much. Muhal and I have not worked together that much, we did some duet concerts a year or two ago, but I've a great deal of respect for him and we always have stayed in touch with each other in various ways. It's not a coincidence that that's the way, but on the other hand, let me say this: You can only do what you can do best, and I don't want to be everything to everybody.

I'm trying to bring together the people that I've had positive experiences with, and that I feel can have a high quality communication with other people. Now that does not include every musician. As you well know, some musicians are great players but they are not great communicators. So I've tried to look at the music in the most objective way and I think you can see that the program does not reflect my single approach to music. It reflects some criteria that I believe are important, which is to have conceptualists here, people who are all leading people in their field, in the area they have chosen to work in, and people who have built on the tradition in one way or another, not people who have come from some other type of orientation.

Bill Smith: One of the situations that has happened while I have been talking to the students is, because some of them are very young, and as youth are often very opinionated about who they are, that they have little or no real connection with the history of the music. They are not like you or me, who have spent years listening to all those records, reading about it, and being part of it, because they have not yet had time to do this. So is there somewhere in the period that they are here, some kind of connection with the history? Are there talks about how the history worked, records, films, books recommended...?"

Dave Holland: Well actually, just to address that question of the young, you and I were also young at one point, and opinionated. and I remember when I was a nineteen year old musician, the music I was listening to was the immediate five years of what was going on. I was not much interested in Duke Ellington. To me it was "old" music. It was only after I had bought "Such Sweet Thunder", when I was about twenty or twenty-one, that I had a rude awakening to the fact that these players were tremendously creative and I started to fill in the gaps. I think we have the same phenomena here. You know, young people basically are looking at their contemporaries, and we have an extensive record library here, for a start. We also have a collection of jazz videos which represent people like Thelonious Monk and Coleman Hawkins, and we have talks about the videos, sometimes play them at discussions, and so on. I can't speak for every teacher, but I know a lot of them use as a reference point, people in the past. If we are talking about improvisation, the balance of improvisation and composition, we might use Duke Ellington as an example. Often I'm encouraging them to look at styles which have not been absorbed into the mainstream, and so I will say to the saxophone player, listen to Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, or somebody like that. Somebody who is coming from a different point of view to the popular styles that were assimilated. So there is a reference point there.

Bill Smith: How did you first become involved at all with the Banff Centre? How did you actually decide to be on the teaching staff anywhere? Why as a musician have you decided to go into education? I understand that you also teach somewhere else.

Dave Holland: Yes, I'm teaching at the New England Conservatory in between touring. Well, the involvement here at Banff started in 1981. I came here with a pilot program that actually became the Creative Music Studio, or at least people that were involved with the Creative Music Studio. Karl Berger put together a collection of people that included Ed Blackwell, Lee Konitz, Sam Rivers, and others and we came up here and did about ten days around Christmas time. The following year we were invited back to do a two week program in the summer, and at the end of that I was approached by Michael Century to see if I would be interested in heading the program. At first, the responsibility was a little bit intimidating. I did not know whether I really wanted to take it on at that point. But the opportunity here seemed so special that I decided I would give it a try. I was motivated mostly for the reasons that we were talking about earlier, that I was concerned about the way jazz education had been going, and I thought, 'well if you're so concerned why don't you get up and do something, instead of complaining about it'. So I said, 'well, let me see if these ideas that I have, which I know some of the other musicians share, to create an environment for learning but one that encourages individuality and creativity, see if this works'. So that's why I took it on.

The New England position was more that I had come to the end of a five year period of working with my quintet, and I wanted to have a period where I could do some research myself, and teaching is a great aid sometimes to externalizing your ideas, trying to make them clear. I saw it as an opportunity to do that, and I also have an ensemble up there that I have been writing music for. It's a way to get a quick feedback on music that you want to write. So it was a good experience. I have trouble, I must admit, with the situation of having the confines of the schedule, in terms of seeing everybody for one hour, and then the next person comes in. That's a difficult way for me to teach. I've been spoiled by the situation in Banff, and this for me is really the ideal kind of situation where we can create a forum for discussion.

Bill Smith: Do a large percentage or the students come back to the school again?

Dave Holland: We do get a lot of students coming back. I don't know what the percentage is, but I often find that the people come here the first time, and they don't quite know what they are going to get, what's going to happen, and many people feel that the second visit they can be more prepared and really get a lot more out of it by that type of preparation.

Bill Smith: Have any or the students in your experience, in the eight years that you have been here, gone out into the real big world and actually become known musicians?

Dave Holland: Oh yeah, of course. Renee Rosnes, from Vancouver, is one; Hugh Fraser was someone that came here earlier and he is now actually on the teaching staff. Many of the Toronto musicians seem to be active, people like Jim Vivian, Mike Murley, Stich Winston, also we get professionals. The ages, we talk about young players, and I guess the youngest we have here is often sixteen, but on the other end we have players coming here in their forties, too, people who are looking for some other ideas to put into their music. I would say the average age is probably around the mid-twenties, twenty-seven, something like that. But we have noticed that a lot of the musicians playing the jazz festivals this year are in fact players who were here at one time or another. Another one is Phil Dwyer. There are many people that do go on. It seems normal, I wouldn't say that Banff has to take all the credit for it, but it seems natural to me that somebody who is searching and curious and dedicated to the music, will come here because this is one of the sources that they can draw on. Then these people, will of course, because of their nature, go on to create some situation and visibility for themselves.

20th Vancouver International Jazz Festival

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Smith) — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 02:35:00 +0000

June 24th - July 3rd, 2005
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

The promotional claptrap of the public relations world is always off-putting, so to read that there are 1800 musicians participating in 400 performances at 40 venues for an audience of 507,000 people is certainly not the reason to attend this festival. Fortunately there is more to be heard than described by this simple-minded propaganda. Although the big name acts are local superstar Diana Krall and Cesaria Evora, the usual headliners with Dave Holland, Bill Frisell and Terrence Blanchard among them, and ten nights of get-down boogie music at the Commodore Ballroom — which interestingly enough had a night of David Murray with the Gwo-Ka Masters whose energy even the deaf sound engineer could not ruin — there is, among all this mostly routine fare, music of interest.

A series of three concerts featuring the clarinet began with another of Ken Vandermark's tribute projects. This time Free Fall — which claims in the program to reflect Jimmy Guiffre's music, a detail that eluded me — had Ken playing only clarinets. Expecting some relationship to the marvelous original Free Fall trio, there was a disappointment that this trio had none of the delicate beauty of its namesake. There were some terrific pieces, in particular "Still Life" dedicated to painter Willem de Koonig and "Past Soon" for pianist Bill Evans, both of which were rather simple melodic compositions that enabled the bell like spacial clarity of the trio to prevail. The third group of the evening (leaving the premier event for last) was the chamber music trio Queen Mab, which featured the bass clarinet of Lori Freeman with her companions, fellow Canadian Marilyn Lerner (piano) and Dutch violist Ig Hennemann, who performed at The Ironworks, a superb new club venue, situated in a slightly dangerous warehouse neighbourhood. This trio, with improvisation among its formalities, just sparkled, integrating the two concepts into a pliant mature exciting assemblage.

Lori Freedman had had a busy night as previously she, alongside Evan Parker, had been the reed section in François Houle's commissioned composition "Twenty", which was dedicated to Steve Lacy. Sitting in the balcony we were treated to the added delight of the visual display of the somewhat unorthodox orchestration which included musicians from many disciplines, and a perfect view of the very energetic conductor, Giorgio Magnanesi, whose mad professor hair-do and bright red stove-pipe trousers added to the hilarious musical riot that occurred. The music was loosely composed, seemingly in various combinations of improvising blocks, each grouping as directed, repeatedly producing brilliant music. A nice middle-class perfumed lady sat directly in front of me tried unsuccessfully to persuade her friends to leave. She had tried stuffing her fingers in her ears, then ear plugs and even a walkman, but nothing could shut out the joyful noise emitting from the stage. Eventually she alone left the building.

Over the ensuing ten days there were numerous stimulating events, but the difficulty of too much music obliterating previous details is a problem, so the choices have to be narrowed into selective listening. There are the free concerts that bracket the festival, outdoor events for the general public which for the most part are to be avoided. The one exception was the Dutch Orchestra Bik Bent Braam which could be imagined as loony tunes Count Basie, bonsaiing 26 small pieces, 2 for each member, to cue, in a personal manner, as they wish.

A series at Western Front, an old wooden building with superb acoustics, seem rewarding, featuring as they do informal improvising groupings. George Lewis with his partner Miya Masaoka, cellist Peggy Lee and flautist Michelle Mitchell, and the quartet of pianist Paul Plimley, Mark Helias, Gerry Hemmingway and Dutch violist Oen van Geel, both held much promise and had frequent moments of excellence, especially as individuals, although occasionally missing satisfying endings. The finest in this series of concerts however was a bass duet. The Marks Brothers. The two Marks — Helias and Dresser — having a long friendship, produced an intimate synchronicity, organized conversations joined at the "very" hip, their rhythmic and melodic structures projecting the joyfulness of their fellowship. Time for a new CD of these mates.

This festival is well known for its abundant Canadian content, especially from the superb local scene. Long time companions "singer" Kate Hammett Vaughan and guitarist Ron Samworth disguised as Cheap and T'audrey were introduced - "without further delay", causing Ron to comment — "shit, delays are half my stuff". They were definitely not Tuck and Patty. Following guitarist Tony Wilson about one day led me to a lunch-time concert with Saul Berson's mixed music quintet, an afternoon concert in duet with Dutch bassist Wilbert de Joode and another fine evening at The Ironworks with Dutch cornetist Eric Boeren's guitar band which also included Samworth. This club became a popular late night venue with an interesting array of local bands of all disciplines, among them a fine quartet under the leadership of NOW saxophonist Coat Cooke.

The second half of the festival introduced the British visitors, and one of the main reasons for us being in attendance was the wonderful Dedication Orchestra, with its program of material associated with the Brotherhood of Breath, from which a number of other projects were garnered. An evening of Evan Parker utilizing some of them, with local talent incorporated, in a series of trios and quartets; the UK Sextet led by Louis Moholo — a miniature Brotherhood, and finally the 23 piece orchestra in all its glory. This was an evening filled with fantastic memories of those wonderful Brotherhood tunes written by Dudu Pukwana, Chris McGregor, Mongezi Feza and Johnny Dyani: "MRA", "B My Dear", "Andromeda", "Blues for Nick", "Traveling Somewhere"… the cream of the British avant garde swinging like the clappers, catching the spirit of anthems from the homeland, with Louis, the only survivor, spurring them on. After this evening of potent ecstasy there was no room left in our hearts for more music, regretfully causing us to miss the opportunity of hearing the Roscoe Mitchell Quintet.

There were also a number of Outreach Programs featuring daily workshops with Dave Holland, Wolter Wierbos and Michiel Braam among the musicians, Bill Shoemaker conducting a blindfold test with Louis Moholo, a talk by Hazel Miller and a jazz journalists panel. A 10 day series of workshops at the Vancouver Creative Music Institute, which included in its faculty Evan Parker, Mark Dresser, Mwata Bowden, George Lewis and Miya Masaoka, introduced to 30 participants the possibilities of what can be achieved in improvised music under the tutelage of master musicians.

So There you have it the 20th anniversary of the Vancouver festival suitable for jazz casuals and aficionados alike.

An edited version of the above appeared in Signal to Noise - issue 39.