| |
|
|
Standing by the avant-garde’s old guard
BY JON GARELICK
|
|
|
|
|
No matter how broad-minded one considers oneself as a music listener, there comes a time when you have to face your prejudices. For me, the realization has recently dawned that, in a lot of ways, I’m stuck in the jazz world of the ’70s to mid ’80s. This was the pre-Wynton era, when all that was "new" was represented by the likes of the World Saxophone Quartet and the separate bands of its individual members, Oliver Lake, David Murray, Julius Hemphill, and Hamiet Bluiett; by Steve Lacy and by Henry Threadgill’s trio Air; and by any number of offshoots out of the Midwest, from Charles Bobo Shaw and Joseph Bowie in St. Louis to the Art Ensemble of Chicago. In the meantime, I was going to Michael’s Pub on Gainsborough Street every Monday night to hear the remarkable local trio the Fringe. The new jazz of that era took much of its high-octane power from the free jazz of the ’60s — from late Coltrane, and from Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman, Archie Shepp, and Albert Ayler. But it was tempered by a new formal rigor, the tricky, often angular "head" tunes elaborated on by arrangements of varied texture and dynamics, extended forms with carefully cued entrances and exits. These days, pieces can be arranged with a mixture of "free" and mainstream elements — tonally based chord progressions or not, free meters or straight time. Probably the easiest route to my jazz-nerd solar plexus is the pianoless quartet or trio (the latter set-up owing much to my jazz initiation at the feet of the Fringe). Without a piano spelling out the chord progressions, the tonality becomes tantalizingly ambiguous. That’s why, over the past couple of years, whenever I’d get frustrated with my dutiful pan-stylistic listening to new CDs, I’d skip to George Schuller’s Schulldogs band (with saxophonists Tim Berne and Tony Malaby), or to the Fully Celebrated Orchestra, or to anything from Charlie Kohlhase but especially his trio CD of a few months back, North Country Pie (CIMP), with bassist David Wertman and drummer Lou Grassi — the squall and bomp of free jazz tethered to variable song forms, blues connotations, and chord progressions and meters that can be adhered to or not as the moment dictates. But I’ve also had to face the idea this is no longer "new" music, even if the folks who still play it are in the minority. And what’s "inside" or "out" is often an illusion. I realized this at a recent Jazz Journalists Association listening panel where we checked out new releases that were unidentified. One tenor trio track began, after a fragmented Max Roach–like drum intro, with a sharply angular, boppish head; that was followed by speedy tenor improv over very fast walking bass with those dotted jazz eighth notes clattering away on the ride cymbal. There was a nod to Sonny Rollins in the tenor’s broad-shouldered, relaxed opening statement, but then he was all over the place, pulling rapidly spilling figures from everywhere, articulately fiercely. A couple of us guessed that it might even be the Fringe. But it turned out to be from bassist Steve Swallow’s new Damaged in Transit (XtraWatt/ECM), with saxophonist Chris Potter and drummer Adam Nussbaum. Later in the set we heard another tenor trio, this time playing the hoary jazz standard "Stella by Starlight." If anything, this performance seemed even freer — after the head, the tenor stepped in and out of the changes, played with rhythm and pitch, doubled the time in one phrase, and halved it in the next. Drums and bass were likewise as playful. Our panel made general comments about the conversational give-and-take of the ensemble. It was Joe Henderson’s The State of the Tenor: Volumes 1 & 2, recorded live at the Village Vanguard in 1985. And I can only guess that the piece sounded freer because the band were playing by more clearly defined rules — what made several of us on the panel laugh at the little musical jokes in the conversation was that we could intuit what conventions were being played with and violated. So, pleasing as it is, Damaged in Transit isn’t nearly as "out" as some of its forebears, or even Henderson’s acknowledged classic. Whereas Potter is unpredictably explosive when he plays with Dave Holland or Dave Douglas, and broadly romantic and sweet on his own albums (with piano or guitar), here he indulges his taste for Rollins and even plays a Rollins-like calypso. What makes the album distinctive is not its overall "out-ness" but the overall quality of the trio’s playing, Swallow’s singular electric bass, and his witty tunes. For a taste of a "trio" with a broader palette, check out Tony Malaby’s Apparitions (Songlines). I put "trio" in quotes because this is a trio sound — saxophone, bass, and drums — but with two drummers, Tom Rainey and Michael Sarin. Malaby guides your ear with groove-based rhythms and blues-drenched tunes, but his textures and dynamics are as unpredictable as his forms. A tune seems to grow in increments as the form is repeated, suggesting either explicit writing or rigorous rehearsal. There are regular meters, but bassist Drew Gress rarely plays straight fours. As with Air, it’s difficult to tell how much is written and how much improvised. Either way, the listener wins, the familiar and the strange constantly dovetailing. And Malaby’s saxophone sound is big and brawny, in the Lovano manner, with technique to spare. Tim Berne, now 49, comes right out of Julius Hemphill (whom he studied with) with his long-lined, bluesy themes and formal experimentation. By now, those experiments have become Berne’s own, as he’s created different bands and concepts as impulse dictates, occasionally self-releasing his albums. In his way, he’s the equivalent of Built To Spill’s Doug Martsch and or the Bevis Frond’s Nick Saloman in indie rock, going his own way, creating his own musical world. Berne’s new double-disc The Sublime And (Thirsty Ear) combines his alto with Rainey’s drums, Marc Ducret’s electric guitar, and Craig Taborn’s electric keyboards and effects. Berne still likes to drive his pieces off repeated short melodic-rhythmic figures, developing various countermelodies as the form repeats. There’s usually a hard groove (even without a bass). Taborn, as in his playing with Dave Douglas, uses the Fender Rhodes keyboard for distinctive rhythmic accents and dissonant harmonies. Best of all, Ducret’s guitar playing harks back to John McLaughlin’s down-and-dirty days with Miles Davis and the Tony Williams Lifetime — hot and shot through with rock-band distortion. I don’t know of anyone playing jazz guitar like this these days. The Art Ensemble of Chicago opened the door for much of this music. The band’s motto was "Great Black Music Ancient to the Future," an idea that could encompass African drum choirs or R&B and reggae, bebop and free jazz. The band developed out of reedman Roscoe Mitchell’s bands of the mid ’60s, and what was true of his writing then is still true — he can compose elegant, pointillist pieces punctuated with kabuki-like silences or tear into extended passages of free blowing. In the ’90s, the Art Ensemble’s activities declined. Saxophonist Joseph Jarman left; then, in 1999, trumpeter Lester Bowie — who was essential for both for his distinctive trumpet sound and for his sense of humor — died. Now the AEC is back with two albums: Tribute to Lester (ECM), with just the trio of Mitchell, Malachi Favors Moghostut, and drummer Famoudou Don Moye; and The Meeting (Pi), on which Jarman has rejoined the band. The Meeting is the mellower of the two albums, opening with a fine tune from Jarman (featuring his vocals), an invocation called "Hail We Now Sing Joy." There’s a long piece by Favors that features solo sections in sequence, and the ferocious title cut by Mitchell. The album’s final tracks, however, evaporate on a mist of spare percussion and "little instruments" (whistles, gongs, bells, etc.). It’s the ECM trio date that right now is closest to my heart, not only because Mitchell is featured on the rarely heard bass saxophone (truly big-horn music) but because, after a lovely, Baroque-style flute piece, he takes off in several stunning solos for high-register saxophone (I’ll confess that I haven’t at this point sorted out soprano from sopranino). On the 12-minute "As Clear as the Sun" (a collective improv), he arpeggiates in cycles of continuous breathing over a furious pace from Favors and Moye, his phrases creating the illusion that they’re overlapping each other. It’s a disciplined, exhausting, and ultimately cleansing performance that had this old-school avant-garde dog shouting for joy.
|
