Valerie Wilmer on John Gilmore in THE WIRE

[Larry Kart]

Answered my own question thanks to ... Scott Yanow:

http://www.answers.com/topic/jane-getz

[Larry Kart]

Addendum: Getz seems to be working pretty steadily these days with Dale Fielder (see his itinerary):

http://dalefielder.com/index.html

[erhodes]

He's also an innovator but not as a saxophone soloist.

We part ways here Ed.

For which I am sincerely sorry...since Chuck has been one of the ones...way before we shared thoughts on the internet.

Roscoe has been someone for whom I took a long time to come to terms with. I think maybe I was one of the first ones in NYC to buy "Sound". I've got first edition...or first of what was sent to NY...copies of all those first round AACM Delmarks and the early Nessa's...though I slept on "Congliptuous" for awhile. I played "Number 2" for Sunny Murray before he went to Europe for the Actuel thing. The Chicago thing was one of my crusades back then.

I didn't warm to "Little Suite" back then. But I wore out "Ornette" and "Sound". I was already carrying Byard and Arthur Jones and Danny Davis around with me like a humongous chip on the shoulder...that's exactly what it was...so when I saw "alto" in the credits I did the folded arms bit...and Roscoe blew me away.

What I'm saying is that Albert was the innovator. I think he and Sunny Murray were the last instrumental innovators in jazz...innovators in the sense that Bird gives meaning to the term...though, for the record, no one is quite where Bird...is...that from a '64-'68 Pharoah lover. That language...Albert put it out there, particularly on "Spiritual Unity"...how you actually improvise in that way...make an extended statement. I hear everyone after that...everyone...in that context...including Roscoe.

I consider Roscoe to be the last conceptual innovator in jazz. It took me awhile to come to this...decades...but I finally see the AEC as fundamentally Roscoe's innovation. But I had to go back to "Congliptuous" to understand that. Because for me, the AEC was a different thing from the Roscoe Mitchell Art Ensemble. Jarman's presence and impact seemed to me to take the collective thing to another level...and I saw that as Jazz's last real innovation. But eventually "Congliptuous" and "Old/Quartet" forced me to understand that the innovation was in the group before Jarman joined...and that Roscoe was the driver.

But in terms of the horns themselves...it was Albert. Chicago had to come to terms with him just like everyone else...though how that happened is a story yet to be told.

The Gilmore thing opens another window on that...because there are folks...a lot of them on the Saturn list...who say that Gilmore got there without Albert...that the Arkestra's reed section was doing it before they heard Albert. The dates are tight on this one... I'm still not convinced. But if someone...like Bill Dixon...would comment forthrightly, I'm prepared to revise my...outlook. If anything, I think Marshall may have been the one to anticipate Albert but the devil remains in the details...particularly the chronological ones.

These are hairs I find it necessary to split.

Albert's horn was it. And I think that spreads to all kinds of unanticipated corners. Like the recent thread on Maupin which invoked Shorter. I love Wayne...but I think the comparison misses the point. You can't talk about Maupin without coming to terms with Albert, even if there was no direct influence. But the relationships you can tease out of that...Gilmore cum Pharoah...Trane looming...cannot be understood in terms of Maupin and Miles. Too much left out...

Chuck...I saw Roscoe, Joseph, and Braxton do a saxophone trio thing at the Kitchen...had to be a good 20 years ago. By that time Braxton's rep was in place. Folks took Roscoe for granted and didn't talk at all about Joseph. The last "piece"...they all pulled out their altos and went after one another in pairs. Joseph is actually my favorite but Roscoe one that set. He swallowed Branxton right up...that huge barking, throaty thing...digging in...

No dis to Roscoe...who is one of the ones that keeps me alive...

Just trying to make an obscure point.

[erhodes]

only there?! while i do appreciate Ed's candor, however wrong i think it may be, i must speak up for Farrell on Impulse (dude, what are you listening for

Fire, passion, horn, drive, momentum...

But if we have different ears, then that's it. But you and youmustbe write as if the issue is settled. I was there...I'm in the mix...and what you say...I was about to ask you what YOU listen for...except that if you think anything Pharoah did as a leader on Impulse is up to the standard of, say, his solo in "The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost"...

The answer to free speech you don't like is more free speech. I thought/think something else needed/needs to be said.

[Adam]

Answered my own question thanks to ... Scott Yanow:

http://www.answers.com/topic/jane-getz

She plays with some regularity in Southern California.

[JSngry]

Who "is" Pharoah?

To me, he sounds like a "country boy" who's spent his entire life wandering in various wildernesses (right from the beginning, in Arkansas) trying to conjure up the Utopia he's convinced exists somewhere on this planet. Sometimes he's done it by casting out demons & speaking in tongues, sometimes by praying to the angels, sometimes by just laying down and staying out of the way. I get the impression that sometimes he's really feeling it, and that sometimes he's doing it because to do otherwise would be to admit a defeat to himself that he feels but can't/won't concede.

Never do I hear anything even remotely "urban" in his playing, and never do I hear him warming to/embracing the here & now (and that may be two different ways of saying the same thing...). Albert was all about the excape through confrontation. Pharoah's more about the escape, period.

I dig Pharoah.

[Guest youmustbe]

I agree that Ayler was the LAST innovator in jazz music. After him the deluge...i.e., it was all over. Nothing since. Sometimes it happens like that to an 'Art' form. Particularly when the people that mostly created it, abandon it for another type of music.

Monty Waters...yeah, I remember hearing him at Slugs' and differnt places. And Arthur Jones was the alto player with Sunny Murray that I heard? So long ago and so many different things I've been into, can't rememeber.

BTW speaking of the old days, I heard Henry Grimes with Cecil, with Albert in the band, and now I think i'll go hear Henry with Cecil at Iridium oct 26, 27. Maybe it;s my age, and nostalgia, but I got a band with Henry and Cyrille (who I first heard with Olatunji when they were opening for Trane) with Bill McHenry...am trying to put Archie Shepp and Lovano together at Birdland....those sounds keep coming back to me.

[erhodes]

i thought before you were just being flip...

Nah...just incoherent.

[erhodes]

Monty Waters...yeah, I remember hearing him at Slugs' and differnt places. And Arthur Jones was the alto player with Sunny Murray that I heard?

Could have been...but Sunny usually played with Byard...they were both from Philly.

I have a partner who remembers when Arthur and Byard used to rehearse together in...Byard's?...apartment. Ghost-y sounds wailing through the building... Those are his words.

Those were my two favorite alto players back then...when I wasn't listening to Danny Davis...who is probably still my favorite altoist since Eric died. Would've liked to have heard him and Pharoah back in that '64 to '68 window.

[Guest youmustbe]

I have photos from a Sunday afternoon Moses gig...a sax player is sitting in...maybe same gig?

Arthur Jones I believe I heard with Sunny with Dewey in the band at Slugs'?

But back to Ayler...the way after that was not Fusion but Hendrix. Same thing but in a different context. What he could do on electric guitar, Albert, Trane et al tried to do on acoustic sax and reached the limit. hendrix continued it.

[clifford_thornton]

Arthur Jones I believe I heard with Sunny with Dewey in the band at Slugs'?

That makes sense - his '68 band that recorded an incomplete session for Columbia featured both Jones and Dewey.