Larry Kart

Clem -- I've listened over and over to a fair amount of Saariaho and Lindberg, in the hope that ... but, no. Seems to me that in the former there's almost no "there" there, and that in the latter one moves, over time, from a near-programmatic ugliness (like the score for a movie about a huge nasty alien space ship, e.g. the aptly titled "Engine") to candy sweetness (e.g. the Clarinet Concerto -- not a bad ear there, but SO sweet). I've got my money on Helmut Lachenmann, Pascal Dusapin, Salvatore Sciarrino, and a few others.

Hope my post wasn't one of those, but just in case, none of the players I mentioned there seems to me to be a parasite "mining the past for a 'style' on which to build a career." I don't like that shit either, agree that it doesn't work anyway, and don't think I'm likely to be fooled. (If I am self-deluded here, our friend John L. is in the same boat on several of these guys FWIW.)

Not yet. From what I've seen of it, George Lewis's forthcoming tome on the AACM will be chewy in spots but often brilliant and as close to comprehensive as could be possible. The non-AACM Chicago AG scene has not found its Boswell (don't look at me -- I couldn't get past the Vandermark barrier, for one thing), nor has it been continuous, as far as I know, in the way the AACM has been since its inception. Probably the key figure of continuity there was, as Chuck pointed out on that thread from 2005 I linked to, the late Hal Russell. (Chuck recorded Russell as well as Roscoe Mitchell, Lester Bowie, Leo Smith et al.) Also, when I say the "non-AACM Chicago AG scene," I don't mean to suggest that there's any sense of opposition at work here; in fact, there's a good deal of friendly, open-eared contact, sharing of bandstands, interactions among players, etc.

At the risk of being tedious, a fair amount was said (by me and others) about today’s Chicago AG/semi-AG scene during the back and forth on this thread from Jan. 2005: http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php...helton&st=0 To that I’ll add way down below the liner notes I wrote for tenor saxophonist/composer Keefe Jackson’s new Delmark album “Ready Everyday” (which represents several aspects of the scene quite well IMO). Other notable Chicago AG or semi-AG figures who come to mind (most all under age 35 I think) -- other than the ones mentioned in the above thread or in the liner notes below -- are clarinetist James Falzone, guitarist Matt Schneider, bassist Josh Abrams, bassist Jason Ajemian, bassist Jason Roebke, vibist Jason Adasiewicz (we got your Jasons), tenorman Geoff Bradfield, cellist Kevin Davis, drummer Tim Daisy, drummer Dylan Ryan, trumpeter Jaimie Branch, trumpeter Patrick Newberry, drummer Mike Reed, trombonist Nick Broste, drummer Tim Mulveena, drummer Nori Tanaka, and I’m sure I’m forgetting a lot of people. Albums I can recommend, in addition to “Ready Everyday” and the other album mentioned there, “Several Lights,” and the ones mentioned in the above thread, are these from reedman Dave Rempis (Circular Logic, Triage “Twenty Minute Cliff,” Triage “American Mythology,” “Out of Season”); Geoff Bradfield’s “Rule of Three”; 774th Street Quartet’s (reedmen Jackson, Guillermo Gregorio, Shelton, Thomas Mejer) “A Rare Thing”; Herculaneum’s “Orange Blossom”; a terrific one from a Jason Ajemian-led ensemble that I seem to have misplaced, damn it, and again I must be forgetting a good many e.g. Josh Abram's Delmark album whose title I've forgotten, guitarist Jeff Parker's "Like-Coping" and a yet-to-be-released one from Falzone. I should add that the stylistic range of this scene is quite broad, but there seems to me to be a definite core to it, the nature of which I try to touch upon below. It's not the same as the AACM at its peak (for one thing, this scene's best musicians are not the towering figures that Mitchell, Bowie, Abrams, et al. were or are), but it's yeasty, genuine, full of communal spirit, and, so it seems from where I sit, remarkably self-sustaining. So here are those liner notes: One good way to grasp how rich and diverse the Chicago jazz scene has become over the last ten years or so would be to place the album at hand, tenor saxophonist Keefe Jackson's “Fast Citizens,” alongside the music on another Delmark album, “Several Lights,” that three of these musicians (Jackson, cornetist Josh Berman, and drummer Frank Rosaly) made in 2004 with Swiss tubaist Marc Unternährer under the name Chicago Luzern Exchange. All of the music on “Several Lights” is, as we have learned to say, “free” -- improvised from scratch, more or less measureless, and without pre-determined harmonic and structural frameworks. By contrast, the music on “Fast Citizens” swings very hard when it wants to (which is often), and the album's seven pieces -- five by Jackson, one each by cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm and alto saxophonist Aram Shelton (the remaining Fast Citizen is bassist Anton Hatwich) -- present both players and listeners with relatively songlike frameworks that tend to stay in place, harmonically, metrically, and structurally. But I wouldn't say -- and this touches upon what may be the core identity of this Chicago scene -- that the music on “Fast Citizens” is one bit less “free,” in effect, practice, or intent, than the music on “Several Lights” or any of the other widely varied sounds to which this scene keeps giving birth. The common thread here, that core identity, is genuine compositional thinking -- a practical, unpretentious drive to make music in which every part has a significant structural and expressive role to play. And in the music on “Fast Citizens,” who plays what role and when does seem to be determined quite freely (whether on paper, in rehearsals, or on the run) -- by unusually acute, friendly-competitive ears and sensibilities, not through executive fiat or mere habit. (These are, by the way, the ears and sensibilities of musicians who know both their Ornette Coleman and their Sidney Bechet, their Morton Feldman and their Ruby Braff, and so forth and so on; one of the best things about this Chicago scene is how naturally -- and, again, how freely -- the pasts of jazz and related musics are being played with/sorted out in the present.) Jackson formed this band in 2003; it played frequently in 2004 at the aptly named (because it's hard to find) Chicago club The Hideout. With the exception of Lonberg-Holm, who is 44, all of these musicians are in their late 20s or early 30s; and all of them, with the exception of Berman, are not Chicago-area natives but arrived here from elsewhere -- Arkansas (Jackson), New York City (Lonberg-Holm), Florida (Shelton), Iowa (Hatwich), (Arizona) Rosaly -- from 1995 on. This flow into town of remarkable, like-minded players and their subsequent further flowering is something one has come to expect. Some examples, now, of that aforementioned compositional drive in action. Notice during Shelton's solo on “Blackout” (his own piece) how he proposes a fluttering, tremolo-like figure at about the 5:25 mark, which is swiftly echoed by Lonberg-Holm's bowed cello -- with alto and bass then discussing and remolding what might be said to lie under their fingers until Shelton's solo line rises in pitch and emotional heat to a near explosive level of intensity … and then out. In effect, that initial moment of mutual invention/recognition/response has become the basis of the entire second half of the piece. And much the same tremolo impulse resurfaces more briefly and in a rather different guise on Lonberg-Holm's “Pax Urbanum” -- the cello now pizzicato, while Shelton's side of the duet is fittingly cool, delicate, and precise. In fact, and he can laugh at the likely incongruity of this, throughout “Fast Citizens” Lonberg-Holm seems to me to be playing a kind of Django Reinhardt meets D'Artagnan role -- sweeping in over balustrades to add fantasy, fire, and wit. Berman is a virtual composer in himself; as much any brass player of his age, he has his own sound and personality, with one of his key traits being the way his lines typically seem to think again about what they've just said, in a wry “Did I mean that?/Yes I meant that” manner. But on Jackson's “Signs,” with Rosaly and Hatwich cooking behind him, it would be hard to think of the climactic passages of Berman's brilliant solo as a solo per se -- what we have here, by about the 3:20 mark, is a virtual cornet-bass-drums trio; that it was arrived at spontaneously makes it no less concrete. Speaking of Hatwich and Rosaly, while they aren’t the only gifted bassist and drummer on the Chicago scene, it would be hard to think what things would be like without them. A virtuoso who never thrusts his virtuosity at you, Hatwich has great time, a rich, woody tone; a marvelous, “abstract” ear; and is – that phrase again – always thinking compositionally. And the at once calm and effervescent Rosaly – let’s just say that he’s my favorite drummer since Joe Chambers and leave it at that. As for Jackson, as soloist and principal composer, I was struck at first by the habañera-tango feel of “Signs” and “Saying Yes.” But no deliberate Latin or Spanish strains are at work here. Instead, Jackson explains, the gliding, brooding moodiness of these pieces may be an oblique, accidental offshoot of his onetime interest in Eastern European music in general and Klezmer in particular. “I was pretty intense about Klezmer for a while,” Jackson says, “playing the clarinet and transcribing all of those tunes, listening in particular to [clarinet virtuosi] Naftule Brandwein and Dave Tarras. Years later, I suppose, melodies with those intervals we associate with the East [must be] floating around in my head.” Jackson modestly solos on only four of the album's seven tracks, but each one is a gem. The first three (on “Ready Everyday,” “Saying Yes,” and “Pax Urbanum”) all come from one side of Jackson's musical spectrum, I think -- these nearly unbroken lines, absolute in their linear logic, also seem to outline in their sober rise and fall other “shadow” melodies, as though the changes Jackson plays over or implies were, in effect, ghosts. From another side comes Jackson's solo on “Course” -- steaming and expressionistic, it virtually glories in its ability to weld disparate voices and parts into a whole. The first time I heard Jackson's music, some four years ago, I felt sure that he was someone special; the only question was whether a certain diffidence of temperament would prevent all that he had to give from getting out. Jackson is still the same thoughtful, soft-spoken individual, but the music on “Fast Citizens” speaks loud and clear. In the course of the back and forth on this thread from Jan. 2005: http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php...helton&st=0 a fair amount was said (by me and others) about today’s Chicago AG/semi-AG scene. To that I’ll add the following liner notes, which I wrote a month or so ago for tenor saxophonist/composer Keefe Jackson’s new Delmark album “Ready Everyday.” Other notable Chicago AG or semi-AG figures who come to mind (most all under age 35 I think) -- other than the ones mentioned in the above thread or in the liner notes below -- are clarinetist James Falzone, guitarist Matt Schneider, bassist Josh Abrams, bassist Jason Ajemian, bassist Jason Roebke, vibist Jason Adasiewicz (we got Jasons), tenorman Geoff Bradfield, cellist Kevin Davis, drummer Tim Daisy, drummer Dylan Ryan, trumpeter Jaimie Branch, trumpeter Patrick Newberry, drummer Mike Reed, trombonist Nick Broste, bassist Anton Hatwich, drummer Frank Rosaly, drummer Tim Mulveena, drummer Nori Tanaka, and I’m sure I’m forgetting a lot of people. Albums I can recommend, in addition to “Ready Everyday” and the other album mentioned there, “Several Lights,” and the ones mentioned in the above thread, are these from reedman Dave Rempis (Circular Logic, Triage “Twenty Minute Cliff,” Triage “American Mythology,” “Out of Season”); Geoff Bradfield’s “Rule of Three”; 774th Street Quartet’s “A Rare Thing”; Herculaneum’s “Orange Blossom”; a terrific one from a Jason Ajemian-led ensemble that I seem to have misplaced, damn it. I should add that the stylistic range of this scene is quite broad, but there seems to me to be a definite core to it, which I try to touch upon below. So here are those liner notes: One good way to grasp how rich and diverse the Chicago jazz scene has become over the last ten years or so would be to place the album at hand, tenor saxophonist Keefe Jackson's “Fast Citizens,” alongside the music on another Delmark album, “Several Lights,” that three of these musicians (Jackson, cornetist Josh Berman, and drummer Frank Rosaly) made in 2004 with Swiss tubaist Marc Unternährer under the name Chicago Luzern Exchange. All of the music on “Several Lights” is, as we have learned to say, “free” -- improvised from scratch, more or less measureless, and without pre-determined harmonic and structural frameworks. By contrast, the music on “Fast Citizens” swings very hard when it wants to (which is often), and the album's seven pieces -- five by Jackson, one each by cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm and alto saxophonist Aram Shelton (the remaining Fast Citizen is bassist Anton Hatwich) -- present both players and listeners with relatively songlike frameworks that tend to stay in place, harmonically, metrically, and structurally. But I wouldn't say -- and this touches upon what may be the core identity of this Chicago scene -- that the music on “Fast Citizens” is one bit less “free,” in effect, practice, or intent, than the music on “Several Lights” or any of the other widely varied sounds to which this scene keeps giving birth. The common thread here, that core identity, is genuine compositional thinking -- a practical, unpretentious drive to make music in which every part has a significant structural and expressive role to play. And in the music on “Fast Citizens,” who plays what role and when does seem to be determined quite freely (whether on paper, in rehearsals, or on the run) -- by unusually acute, friendly-competitive ears and sensibilities, not through executive fiat or mere habit. (These are, by the way, the ears and sensibilities of musicians who know both their Ornette Coleman and their Sidney Bechet, their Morton Feldman and their Ruby Braff, and so forth and so on; one of the best things about this Chicago scene is how naturally -- and, again, how freely -- the pasts of jazz and related musics are being played with/sorted out in the present.) Jackson formed this band in 2003; it played frequently in 2004 at the aptly named (because it's hard to find) Chicago club The Hideout. With the exception of Lonberg-Holm, who is 44, all of these musicians are in their late 20s or early 30s; and all of them, with the exception of Berman, are not Chicago-area natives but arrived here from elsewhere -- Arkansas (Jackson), New York City (Lonberg-Holm), Florida (Shelton), Iowa (Hatwich), (Arizona) Rosaly -- from 1995 on. This flow into town of remarkable, like-minded players and their subsequent further flowering is something one has come to expect. Some examples, now, of that aforementioned compositional drive in action. Notice during Shelton's solo on “Blackout” (his own piece) how he proposes a fluttering, tremolo-like figure at about the 5:25 mark, which is swiftly echoed by Lonberg-Holm's bowed cello -- with alto and bass then discussing and remolding what might be said to lie under their fingers until Shelton's solo line rises in pitch and emotional heat to a near explosive level of intensity … and then out. In effect, that initial moment of mutual invention/recognition/response has become the basis of the entire second half of the piece. And much the same tremolo impulse resurfaces more briefly and in a rather different guise on Lonberg-Holm's “Pax Urbanum” -- the cello now pizzicato, while Shelton's side of the duet is fittingly cool, delicate, and precise. In fact, and he can laugh at the likely incongruity of this, throughout “Fast Citizens” Lonberg-Holm seems to me to be playing a kind of Django Reinhardt meets D'Artagnan role -- sweeping in over balustrades to add fantasy, fire, and wit. Berman is a virtual composer in himself; as much any brass player of his age, he has his own sound and personality, with one of his key traits being the way his lines typically seem to think again about what they've just said, in a wry “Did I mean that?/Yes I meant that” manner. But on Jackson's “Signs,” with Rosaly and Hatwich cooking behind him, it would be hard to think of the climactic passages of Berman's brilliant solo as a solo per se -- what we have here, by about the 3:20 mark, is a virtual cornet-bass-drums trio; that it was arrived at spontaneously makes it no less concrete. Speaking of Hatwich and Rosaly, while they aren’t the only gifted bassist and drummer on the Chicago scene, it would be hard to think what things would be like without them. A virtuoso who never thrusts his virtuosity at you, Hatwich has great time, a rich, woody tone; a marvelous, “abstract” ear; and is – that phrase again – always thinking compositionally. And the at once calm and effervescent Rosaly – let’s just say that he’s my favorite drummer since Joe Chambers and leave it at that. As for Jackson, as soloist and principal composer, I was struck at first by the habañera-tango feel of “Signs” and “Saying Yes.” But no deliberate Latin or Spanish strains are at work here. Instead, Jackson explains, the gliding, brooding moodiness of these pieces may be an oblique, accidental offshoot of his onetime interest in Eastern European music in general and Klezmer in particular. “I was pretty intense about Klezmer for a while,” Jackson says, “playing the clarinet and transcribing all of those tunes, listening in particular to [clarinet virtuosi] Naftule Brandwein and Dave Tarras. Years later, I suppose, melodies with those intervals we associate with the East [must be] floating around in my head.” Jackson modestly solos on only four of the album's seven tracks, but each one is a gem. The first three (on “Ready Everyday,” “Saying Yes,” and “Pax Urbanum”) all come from one side of Jackson's musical spectrum, I think -- these nearly unbroken lines, absolute in their linear logic, also seem to outline in their sober rise and fall other “shadow” melodies, as though the changes Jackson plays over or implies were, in effect, ghosts. From another side comes Jackson's solo on “Course” -- steaming and expressionistic, it virtually glories in its ability to weld disparate voices and parts into a whole. The first time I heard Jackson's music, some four years ago, I felt sure that he was someone special; the only question was whether a certain diffidence of temperament would prevent all that he had to give from getting out. Jackson is still the same thoughtful, soft-spoken individual, but the music on “Fast Citizens” speaks loud and clear.

Thanks, Tom. MG, I'll weigh in a bit on the zesty Chicago AG (or semi AG) scene of recent years later on today or maybe tomorrow. Will be gone from the computer until mid-afternoon..

Not true of Chicago.

Robert Redcross

Right on both counts. For instance, check out Adams being his busy burly self on the Lennie Niehaus CD "Zounds!" (OJC) from 1956.

Potentially interesting information (technical, legal, historical, etc.), much of it relevant to what we've been talking about I think, from the somewhat different but obviously related field of film preservation: http://www.afi.com/about/preservation/abou...eteriorate.aspx http://www.cinemaweb.com/access/pre_stmt.htm http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/byform/mail...5/msg00092.html http://www.filmpreservation.org/preservation/fpg_8.pdf

I have mixed feelings about Mitchell. Historically, and terms of quality/fluidity of melodic thought, he and Mingus probably were the key horn-like bass soloists -- Mitchell's work, I would suspect, had a major impact on Scott LaFaro -- and Mitchell's rhythm section playing was top-notch too, up to a point in time that I can't nail down but that may have coincided with his development of a retuned, four-string bass (from the top down -- A, D, G, low C) in the mid-1960s. Whatever, Mitchell IMO eventually began to swoop/swoon about the instrument (and highlight that booming fourth string) in a rather self-indulgent "Hey, I'm being lyrical!" manner, both as a soloist and behind other players too; there are a fair number of latter-day recordings where Mitchell's presence as a sideman makes things a trial to listen to, at least for me. Also, I heard him once live at Shelly's Manne Hole in 1962 and was surprised to find that on the stand in a normal rhythm section he was barely audible. I'd assumed from his recordings that he had a big sound. On the other hand, you can't deny how good Mitchell was when he was good -- just as you (or I) can't deny how good Phil Woods (a somewhat parallel case, perhaps) was before he got all "hot" and jazzy.

A link to another, somewhat more fleshed-out story that at least quotes someone on the crucial point that Chuck makes about who pays for preserving the primary source material if it belongs to all: http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/st...1925067,00.html

Sorry, that's Jaimie Branch, not Jamie. I spell fonetikly sumtimz.

Last night in Chicago at Elastic caught trumpeter Jamie Branch, tenor saxophonist Joe Sexton, and drummer-pianist Marc Riordan -- all former New England Conservatory students, Sexton and Riordan still based in Boston, Branch has been in Chicago for several years (her folks live in a northern suburb, she works at the Jazz Record Mart). Very impressive more or less "free" playing, no waste motion. Sexton is a bit older and more developed than Branch -- a review that talks about him is here: http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=18470 -- but Branch is really in tune with these guys; they make a group music. I was especially impressed by what happened on the one piece where Riordan switched to piano; Webern out of Feldman gestures that really cohered and were responsive to, and were responded to by, Sexton and Branch. A nice touch is that Elastic, before and between sets, plays all kinds of good stuff through their good sound system, but wisely only one artist/band per night, so you can really get into that thing if you're in the mood, and also wisely, not something that's in the style of the music you're about to hear "live." Last night it was Armstrong Hot Five/Hot Seven. Damn did it sound fine. Another night it was Von Freeman's Atlantic LP. Etc.

Gary Valente, point that thing the other way!

That link seems to be on the fritz. Try this one: http://www.amazon.com/Leroy-Walks-Vinnegar...boutThisProduct

http://www.amazon.com/Leroy-Walks-Vinnegar...et/dp/B000000Y9 followed by Leroy Walks Again. They're not solo LPs; the first one's a sextet, the second I believe is a quintet. Personnel includes Teddy Edwards and Victor Feldman. Leroy Walks probably is the one you saw.

President Bush calls in the Head of the CIA and asks, How come the Jews know everything before we do?" The CIA chief says, "The Jews have this expression :'Vus titzuch?' The President says, "Hell, what's that mean?" Well, Mr. President", replies the CIA chief, "It's a Yiddish expression which roughly translates to "what's happening". They just ask each other and they know everything." The President decides to personally go undercover to determine if this is true. He gets dressed up as an Orthodox Jew (black hat, beard, long black coat) and is secretly flown in an unmarked plane to New York, picked up in an unmarked car, and dropped off in Brooklyn's most Jewish neighborhood. Soon a little old man comes shuffling along. The President stops him and whispers, "Vus titzuch?" The old guy whispers back: "Bush is in Brooklyn."

Indeed.

As I recall, a grim tale lies behind this sentence: "Larry Young died from untreated pneumonia at the age of 38."

I recall hearing that it was AIDS or AIDS related, via the dirty needle route.

It's not an album title, but a few weeks ago I saw this neatly lettered handmade sign taped to the inside of a someone's instrument case: DON'T FORGET PEOPLE DON'T LIKE YOUR MUSIC

I remember in my senior year in high school a girlfriend who had no jazz background whatsoever. We were in a record store listening booth, and I put on Ornette's "Free," which was pretty much brand-new and about which I, the young know it all, was still dubious. She got it immediately.

Hussar = soldier in a light cavalry regiment. The full title is Variationen uber ein Husarenleied, Variations on a Hussar's Song.

Not exactly a requiem -- as the title implies, the subject is nothing less than the apocalypse -- but try Franz Schmidt's Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln (The Book with Seven Seals) , preferably the Mitropolous recording with Wunderlich and Dermota. The Welser-Most got some good reviews, but I haven't heard it.

Addendum: Getz seems to be working pretty steadily these days with Dale Fielder (see his itinerary): http://dalefielder.com/index.html