Chris Potter - FOLLOW THE RED LINE (Live at the Vanguard)

[JSngry]

Bassless 4tet w/Craig Taborn, Adam Rogers, & Nate Smith, a (considerably more "electric" - in terms not just limited to AC current being used) followup to Underground.

In no way have I had an interest in Potter over the years. Underground was the first album of his that made me listen, and then it was with as much curiosity (as in, "Wow, this is Chris Potter and I'm actually semi-interested. WTF?") as enthusiasm.

But....

These guys have got something going on.

Check it out.

[Free For All]

I really like this one. In contrast, I also like what he played on the Steely Dan side "Two Against Nature", especially on the last cut. I like that he can sound great in various contexts.

Sangrey/Clem, have you heard the "All The Things You Are" recording from some Potter clinic that's been making the rounds? I swear, THAT should make anyone who thinks he's not a player change their mind. He totally owns the tune in a very Rollins-esque way.

I'm sorry, but this cat is playing some SHIT! :rsmile:

Edited November 28, 2007 by Free For All

[Nate Dorward]

Saw the group with Taborn a few years ago--yes, it's by far the most interesting context I've heard for Potter. I thought the slightly mechanical excitement of his playing (the way his "hot" playing usually makes me feel "this is a guy stepping on the gas" rather than "this is really exciting") fitted in well with the grinding Tim Berneish jazz-rock vibe.

I've always found him vaguely irksome in other situations.

[Free For All]

Saw the group with Taborn a few years ago--yes, it's by far the most interesting context I've heard for Potter. I thought the slightly mechanical excitement of his playing (the way his "hot" playing usually makes me feel "this is a guy stepping on the gas" rather than "this is really exciting") fitted in well with the grinding Tim Berneish jazz-rock vibe.

I've always found him vaguely irksome in other situations.

I've heard more than a few people with your opinion, Nate!

I have to say that in my various hearings of CP, I find him to be more substantial than a player simply going through the motions. I feel sincerity, a definite assimilation of his influences and a relevant vocabulary in his playing that keeps me engaged.

Just curious, what do you mean by "irksome" (specific examples)? (and I ask out of respect for your opinion, no defensive BS here!)

Edited November 28, 2007 by Free For All

[Van Basten II]

The band played here last winter and they were cookin', Taborn was fantastic and the rest of the band was great. Looking for very much to get this cd.

I think Potter is one of those guys who are way more interesting and exciting to see on a live setting than on a recording.

[JohnS]

I can't say I've been too fond of Potter's own name recordings. Much better in a sideman situation imo.

[JSngry]

THAT should make anyone who thinks he's not a player change their mind.

Oh, I think/know he's a player. Never any doubt in my mind, and plenty of respect for him here. Just not a lot of personal love, and the reasons are that - personal. Either somebody gets to you or they don't. And Potter hasn't. Not his problem, not my problem, not anybody's problem. Just one of those things that happens in this big. wide, wonderful Universe Of Music of ours.

And in all honesty, his playing per se on this one isn't what gets to me. It's the group energy, focus, and syncronization of their willingness and ability to go there and get there as a unit.

And frankly, I'm just glad to hear somebody "currently in favor" doing something that's this much of a slam in the face of all the overly-precious "art music" that all the sit-still-dammit-and-LISTEN-INTENTLY types (aka, Aric's "beards" & Co.) have been so damn insistent on promoting as the One True Serious Jazz for way too long. This shit is loud, raucous, beat-y, gonzo, and serious as a mofo. It's guaranteed to have the "beards" running from the room in disgust.

No, I take that back - running from the room would be too much of a public physical exertion and too direct a show of emotion. The beards would wait until break, walk out, drive home, and then sniff about it all.

Potter or no Potter, I'm all in favor of pissing off the beards from now until....ever.

[Joe G]

Just please don't piss ON the beards!

[JSngry]

Hey, not my fault if they're too cool to be proactive...

[Free For All]

Hey, not my fault if they're too cool to be proactive...

They're prozactive!

[sal]

I've enjoyed Potter for years, and agree that he's much better in person than on record. This group came through the Jazz Showcase a couple years ago and they were really something. I'm looking forward to checking out this release!

[jazzypaul]

I thought Underground was nothing short of amazing. I too saw them at the Showcase (hell, I might have been there the same night as Sal! For someone that comes from the same town as me, it's shocking that we've never met...), and thought they burned. The only bummer was that I got robbed coming out of a mexican restaurant after the show.

When he came through with that band again at the Old Town School, I MC'd the show, and was really excited. dragged Christina out for it, and it was...boring. All of the songs built the same way, did the same things and played over the same groove. The only thing that really stood out was Togo (which is on the live disc, too), and that was killin'.

I really agree with Sangry's assessment that this group is even better for standing right up and saying, "THIS IS WHAT I THINK JAZZ SHOULD SOUND LIKE RIGHT NOW," but after having heard it a couple of times, I'm a little bored.

I hope he keeps working in this format though, and I hope that they keep finding new ground to stand on, because it's an interesting idea. Unfortunately, at least to these ears, it's an idea that got stale kinda quick.

[Nate Dorward]

I've heard more than a few people with your opinion, Nate!

I have to say that in my various hearings of CP, I find him to be more substantial than a player simply going through the motions. I feel sincerity, a definite assimilation of his influences and a relevant vocabulary in his playing that keeps me engaged.

Just curious, what do you mean by "irksome" (specific examples)? (and I ask out of respect for your opinion, no defensive BS here!)

I don't have any specific examples because I don't have any recordings of his at present in the collection (or sideman recordings either)--mostly just basing comments on seeing him live, & hearing the odd thing (either borrowing CDs from the library, or things I bought & later sold off, like one of the discs with Dave Douglas). To me in ordinary jazz situations it's like he's always jumping out of the musical context--or making me jump out of the musical context--& not in a good way (a la Dolphy): I find myself thinking "is this guy just pushing buttons?" "does this really suit the mood of the piece?" and so on. His tendency to slip easily into and out of histrionics (distortion, freak notes &c) in particular bothers me--it's like it's purely ornamental. I'm sure this isn't always the case--I tend to have similar reservations about other players of roughly the same generation (e.g. Tony Malaby) where there's a gestural palette that I find impossible to hear without mentally putting everything in quote-marks--but every so often they seem to be in the right context & then things work for me. As with Potter & the group with Taborn.

[Larry Kart]

I've heard more than a few people with your opinion, Nate!

I have to say that in my various hearings of CP, I find him to be more substantial than a player simply going through the motions. I feel sincerity, a definite assimilation of his influences and a relevant vocabulary in his playing that keeps me engaged.

Just curious, what do you mean by "irksome" (specific examples)? (and I ask out of respect for your opinion, no defensive BS here!)

I don't have any specific examples because I don't have any recordings of his at present in the collection (or sideman recordings either)--mostly just basing comments on seeing him live, & hearing the odd thing (either borrowing CDs from the library, or things I bought & later sold off, like one of the discs with Dave Douglas). To me in ordinary jazz situations it's like he's always jumping out of the musical context--or making me jump out of the musical context--& not in a good way (a la Dolphy): I find myself thinking "is this guy just pushing buttons?" "does this really suit the mood of the piece?" and so on. His tendency to slip easily into and out of histrionics (distortion, freak notes &c) in particular bothers me--it's like it's purely ornamental. I'm sure this isn't always the case--I tend to have similar reservations about other players of roughly the same generation (e.g. Tony Malaby) where there's a gestural palette that I find impossible to hear without mentally putting everything in quote-marks--but every so often they seem to be in the right context & then things work for me. As with Potter & the group with Taborn.

Nate's experiences with Potter jibe with my own -- and I've also had the same reaction to Malaby. "Gestural pallette" is a good way to put it, as is the comparison to Dolphy. The latter (among many other things) took certain musical gestures that were associated with/stood for extreme states of emotion and made them structural, though the fact that those structures were made from those elements remained of some significance (perhaps a la the sculptures that John Chamberlain made out of battered car fenders etc., where the original source of the reshaped materials could be recognized, but the final sculptured "thing" was the main deal and more or less free from any social/emotional narrative). Another way to put it is that I (and I assume Nate) have a problem with players who seem to be saying, "Hey, I'm getting hot now." Also, I do have a few things with Potter as a sideman that I like -- in particular, a 2004 date under Kenny Wheeler's leadership, with John Taylor and Dave Holland ("What Now?") where everyone is in top form. And normally I'm not a big Wheeler fan.

[Larry Kart]

Link to Wheeler's "What Now":

http://www.amazon.com/What-Now-Kenny-Wheeler/dp/B00080Z6IS

[Larry Kart]

Links to images of John Chamberlain sculptures/constructions:

http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_resu...mp;sort_order=1

http://collections.dallasmuseumofart.org/c...currentrecord=1

http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/a...rk_md_29_1.html

http://hirshhorn.si.edu/collection/record....e=&Record=3

http://moca-la.org/museum/pc_artwork_detai...=0&y=0&

[JSngry]

Link to Amazon (thru Organissimo) for the album under discussion: http://www.amazon.com/Follow-Red-Line-Vill...3387&sr=8-1

[RDK]

The Potter's available on emusic as well. Listening now.

[JSngry]

I think it's really long overdue (perhaps fatally so, but we'll see about that one) for people like Potter to finally just go ahead and deal with the fact that electricity & non-"swing" rhythms are at least as organic to who they are as people (not "jazz musicians") of the last quarter of the 20th Century & beyond as are acoustic, "swing"-based jazz, and just go ahead and play that way w/o any kind of retro-winking with literal references (a fault I can find w/some of Dave Douglas' work & definitely w/Wallace Roney's recent stuff, even though in both cases, the music doesn't piss me off to the higher levels of such).

Continued listens to this side are making that my major liking of this album, the attitude of the concept and of the playing. Potter still has some of that "objectivism" to him that is what I think others have refered to as "gesturing" or some such (and as much as I know what they mean, I also think that such an "attitude" is also one of the logical outgrowths of Coleman Hawkins' esthetic), and that's a bit of an obstacle to full appreciation for me, but in this context, it makes more sense, it feels more real, it sounds more like this is just the type of guy he is rather than somebody who has an emotional disconnect with the music.

So it's all good like that, and if the ultimate "meaning" of it is that the "middlebrow" of jazz is finally deciding to wake from it's mummy-like stupor of the last how many ever years and realize that some things about music/art are timeless, but that some key things that go into creating that timelessness like individual time and place are not, hey, that's all right by me. It's about f-in' time, yo.

[JSngry]

Craig Taborn is always worth hearing..;

Dude, Taborn is holding this shit together like The Glue Of God.

No bass in this band either.

[king ubu]

Craig Taborn is always worth hearing*

*) except with that ridiculous trio of Susie Ibarra's w/Jennifer Choi...

Interesting discussion here... I only saw Potter live twice, and both times as sideman, with Paul Motian and with Steve Swallow's "damaged in transit" trio (w/Adam Nussbaum). In the latter setting, he was terrific, really digging into the music. But from what I've heard on CDs, I can absolutely relate to the points that Nate is making... I still have three or four of Potter's discs, but rarely play them (one on Concord, the Jazzpar disc, Gratitude...), and like John said, I prefer him as a sideman - the discs with Steve Swallow I like a lot, for instance (Always Put Your Uniform on Top may my the favourite). The ones with Holland though... oh well, that's another discussion we've had, I assume...

[JSngry]

CRAIG TABORN!!!!

Edited November 29, 2007 by JSngry

[Tom Storer]

I'm going to have to check out Craig Taborn--my only real experience was a concert when he was with James Carter's band, and I hated that concert so thoroughly I haven't gone back to either of them. But apparently that was an unfair conclusion to draw, since he gets a lot of love from a lot of people. I'll check this album out.

[Alexander Hawkins]

I think Taborn is easily one of the best younger pianists around. Let's face it, how many times is Roscoe Mitchell wrong with his bands, and Taborn is STUNNING in the Note Factory (IMHO).

Strangely, the playing of his I've probably been most ambivalent about has been his leader disc on piano in the Thirsty Ear series - some killing playing and arrangement (e.g. 'I Cover the Waterfront'), and some markedly less interesting, more generic stuff...

[Larry Kart]

Been very impressed by Taborn on disc and in person (especially a gig in NYC in maybe 2003 with Mark Helias, Mark Shim, Eric McPherson, and Herb Robertson -- Helias the leader) but found his own "Junk Magic"

http://www.amazon.com/Junk-Magic-Craig-Taborn/dp/B0001LYFQS

to be mostly a snooze. My son explained that the gist of "Junk Magic" was oblique takeoffs on the mannerisms of various Detroit-based hip-hop artists, and that you needed to get the references to get the music. Thanks a lot.