Bagatellen

John Carter - Fields (Gramavision)

Long before I ever heard Horace Tapscott's The Dark Tree or learned of the man's Revelation recordings with long-time collaborator Bobby Bradford, I had read and heard stories about John Carter. The premier clarinetist of the "free jazz" era, an esteemed educator, and, most intriguing to me, a Dallas native who spent years, decades perhaps, creating a conceptual masterpiece similar in concern but towering and windy than anything Ellington, Mingus or Marsalis ever tilted at, Carter nevertheless proved to be quite invisible by the time I was ready to start hunting down his records and exploring his legend. My searching finally paid off one terrifically hot July afternoon in 1995, at a tiny Half-Price Books off Garland Road. That's where I found a cut-out copy of Fields in the "50 Cent" vinyl racks. Ring me up, please.

But I was not exactly sold on the music itself until much later. On my first listen to this, the fourth of five installments in Carter's Roots and Folklore: Episodes in the Development of American Folk Music, I was put off by Don Preston's wacky synthesizers, Terry Jenoure's histrionic vocals, Carter's rather cloaked presence as a soloist, and the general lugubriousness of the whole thing. Then again, a musical suite that purports to portray the life of subjugation, back-breaking toil, and yearning for deliverance to which Black agricultural laborers in the American South were yoked is not going to be a real briar patch. And the four tracks that make up Fields original side 1 are a dark and troubling and spiky affair indeed. The record begins with a sort of death chant -- "Ballad to Po' Ben" -- in which the singer does not intercede for the departed's soul as much as she bitterly mourns the lot of those Ben has left behind. "Bootyreba at the Big House" carries echoes of N'Awlins second line parade, but, as expressive as the individual instrumental voices are, they are too workaday woozy -- drunk, exhausted, beaten -- to be grotesque. Escape via heightened states of distraction is fruitless. "Juba's Run", the pace and tone of which is set by the desperate sprinter's panting, finds literal flight from these circumstances equally impossible. The final track delivers the coup de grace. But this blow does not take the form of a last lash across the back. It is shod within a boot, the toe of one kicking the defeated of off their belly so they be reminded that the victor is always gazing down on them. "Seasons" serves to remind us that it is not just the whip of merciless masters that harnesses (to use the verb Carter does in his annotations) these lives to cycles of anchoring, extraction, and accumulation. It is the nature of the land, which may or may not be the promised land, and it the state of the universe, which is indiscriminate with its promises. Spring, autumn; fat years and lean years; more hands to send out to the field, but more mouths to feed. What faithful servant or even army of righteous men will not be plowed under by the turning of this wheel? "Seasons" with Jenoure reciting the following:

What time is this? What place? What space does my existence fill? What melody sings in this song of pain and sorrow? Am I enduring some intense drama judging my own right to my own initiative? Or am I the prisoner of some ungodly historical circumstance? Is home tomorrow, or is tomorrow another hour, another season, or another lifetime in this cruel drama?

This is no doxology. And these are not the questions of an Uncle Tom, but of a Schopenhauer or Kierkegaard.

If the album ended there, on that deterministic and despairing note, well, we would be left with something that, while infinitely more interesting musically than Marsalis' Blood On The Fields, would be just as grave. Not to mention just as exploitatively violent, and just as petulant in its attitudes towards guilt and exculpation -- shaking the first in the audience's face in a game of "keep away"; pushing away an offer of the latter like a child refusing to eat his lima beans. But Carter knows this more about this rural life than Marsalis can imagine, and his "research" of it grounded in actual and personal experience. Carter knows he cannot completely shun pastoralism. He also knows that, with pastoral ways, he cannot wholly separate out the threads of adversity and contentment that weave through it. Marsalis, with the narrow-mindedness so many African-American associate with "white people", is out to erect a monolith. But Carter is making a quilt. He takes a scrap here, finds a scrap there and the stuffing may be thin in one spot, but it is so pillowy in another. Carter is working in a completely different economy. He embraces his grandchildren, whose playful yet thick, firm voices leap up in the mix on "Children Of The Fields", but he acknowledges the filthy rednecks that live a few acres over. Carter understands that you have to take the bullshit with the sunshine. The apparently bifurcated structure of Fields is a n ingenious and even necessary narrative strategy. It is almost a ruse. The form of the piece reflects not history in simple Antebellum / Reconstruction halves, but that very same dialectical state of mind which Carter wishes to transcend, in the sense of rising above it, and not to fly away, but just to get the bird's-eye view. Moreover, Carter knows such transcending cannot be purely providential. Although the triumph is touched by grace, what is more fundamental to its savor -- and solace -- is that it is earned.

It all comes together on the long, long title track. It begins in Africa, or with memories of tribal chants (so it sounds), and goes on to incorporate "field recordings" of children's song as well as the reminiscences of Carter's namesake, his own Uncle John. In the field, of the field, surrounded by the field, but, metaphysically, so far distant from it, yet transported in part by its sights and smells and difficulties… Something is brewing, and brewing with mysterious indolence, here. Eventually, everyone solos, and the composed elements are handled brilliantly by his Carter's ensemble, especially Benny Powell, Marty Ehrlich (this is the record that made me notice him) and Andrew Cyrille. Just as it seems that the labor must continue, that everyone is bending back down into the harvest -- or shoeing mules or blocking out wagon wheels, or swinging the hammer; stepping back into a river of sweat -- there is a flurry of little airs, those songs meant to make work more endurable. Quickly, it grows into jubilation, honest-to-goodness jubilation. It still sends the chills up my spine, the way it arrives, and the sheer presence it has. Then the track plays out, Jenoure's ecstatic screams fade, and we hear old Uncle John muttering out the rhythm that supplied the force for that eruption. There is still something imponderably joyous about this little revelation, not least because of the way Carter stages it. I know it should not be momentous, it is textbook stuff (field hollers, blues jazz, etc.), but pivotal, thus full of implications for the future, is how I experience it.

With Fields, Carter to be saying: if you don't understand the complexity of slavery and its byproducts, and if you don’t understand all this through individual character, how can you hope to recognize slavery as it is present today, and the ways in which it is coercing you into doing that which, at your core, you would never want to do? Loathe the powers that be, but don’t shrink from them in fear. But -- and this, more than its ostensible scope, is what lends Carter's great projects its greatness -- that is just of Fields' layers. There are a lot of stories imbedded in Fields, but Carter isn't telling them for the sake of scaring or admonishing his audience. Carter is telling tales because he wants them to be remembered. Only on Fields's last performance, "On A Country Road", does Carter step forward, playing the "circular breathing" phrases that were his trademark. With it's old-folks, loping gait and its use of instrumental colors that were familiar to a curly-headed, bespectacled post-adolescent who never farmed a day in his life but who spent many a summer in Omaha, Texas, draining Dr. Pepper bottles and waiting for the next train to rumble hootingly by and punctuate the growing of the tall, brown grass, for a good while "On A Country Road" was the one piece here that immediately resonated with me. Later, I began to comprehend how all of Fields is about the confluence of West and South that is East Texas. Though I can’t explain exactly how, but I can assure you that there is something of the humidity and heat of the region in the music, the oppressive air that you gulp as much as breathe. And the brilliant greens, blues, yellows and oranges, each as hot as the exposed head of a nail glinting in the noonday sun. The music is daubed too with the red dirt of this place, and, like that clayey soil, the music smells of both dust and mud. But, gradually, in my experience with Fields, I ceased having truck with mudpies and started to wonder about exactly where that country road led… Carter, I think, has a certain destination in mind, one that is essentially poetic and resembles a country described by fellow East Texan (and perhaps even kindred spirit) William Goyen in his "A Shape Of Light":

So following this ghostly little lamp of light, we came, of a sudden, into this unearthly landscape, the one I have told you about, with the white beings. We knew the country, you understand -- our ancestors had broken it as wilderness and started all their seed there, my grandfathers and their fathers, me, all my blood-kin, children and children's children. We descendants thought we had measured and blazed it all. But there is always some unknown part of all that is known -- and we had stumbled into it, following this light. I knew my ancestors had followed this light, it was that ancient a thing, this light; that they had ridden behind it, over branch and pasture, thicket and prairie, from supper till sunrise, when they saw it sink into the ground. There are the records to prove it, for these old men made records, stopping to put down what happened, even as I am doing: "Around us were disorder, rancor, words gone sour in the mouth like persimmons; thoughts turned rotten in the mind, crops eaten, droughts and floods, poorly wives and an evil chance of children; but when we saw this light, we left the worst behind and followed to see what it was, that it might show us what our sorrow meant." (The Collected Stories Of William Goyen, p. 108).

~ Joe Milazzo

Who Says Jazz Doesn't Sell?

The first time you look at them, squeezed into the tight inches of page 12 columns (hey, that's not a bad financing rate...) the prices look staggering. Looked at some of the bold-case, H6 closing bids still posted over at Ebay, with all those zeroes lined up like the digits in a final box score, and the numbers become even more impressive.

I'm speaking, of course, of Guernsey's massive jazz auction, the gavel on which fell -- appropriately enough -- at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Rose Theater this past Sunday and Monday (02/20 - 02/21). 430 lots, consisting of artifacts pulled out of attics, from under beds, from garages and basements by those family members who somehow survived living with those great musicians who dedicated themselves to the "jazz life". We're talking articles of clothing, musical instruments, letters, manuscripts, signed photographs, personal effects, and, yes, private recordings -- a whole stack of them released (not in the record industry sense of the word) by Chan Parker.

Bird's "primary" 1950's ax went for $225,000. John Coltrane's original, hand-written arrangement for "A Love Supreme" -- who knew that his original vision for this piece was that of the "classic quartet" augmented by a five-man percussion section? -- 3 sheets of ink-stained and penciled-in paper, sold for $164,000. A notebook that Thelonious Monk kept as a student at Manhattan's not-for-dummies Stuyvesant High School in the early 1930's? $65,000. Never mind that there is nothing of musical significance contained in this notebook, just pages of Monk's practicing penmanship (which is pretty incredible, actually; quite flamboyant) and thoughts on assigned themes such as "Stinking City" and "Everyone Should Read Good Newspapers". An epic (32 page) biographical letter from Louis Armstrong to his manager, Oscar Cohen, written on the backside of Pop's (in)famous Swiss Kriss advertisement, fetched a cool quarter-grand. Also available for purchase: Benny Goodman's tuxedo; Bird's pocket-watch; Coltrane's contract with Prestige records; Tadd Dameron lead sheets, including one for "Lady Bird"; original paintings by Miles; a Gerry Mulligan houndstooth jacket; Eric Dolphy's alto sax; and God knows what else. Too much.

When I first heard about this auction several weeks ago, my initial thoughts were hand-wringing ones. I thought about Dan Morgenstern at Rutgers' Institute of Jazz Studies and of the music and entertainment curators at both the Smithsonian and the Library of Congress, about meager acquisitions budgets (though LC thinks nothing of paying tens of millions of dollars for early maps), and how there was no way this stuff was going to end up where it "belonged". In museums, research centers, cultural institutions. I work in the library "sciences", and have some experience with archival collections. And while the field may still attract those possessed of a great if rather stoic passion to organize and classify all the world's knowledge, it has always and will always require those experts and specialists who are of the same type -- only more genteel and ruthless -- as those manic shoppers who stampede through sale outlets and toy stores if they know some prized commodity can be found there. We can institutionalize the amassing impulse all we want, put a nice -- at least impersonal -- bureaucratic face on the desire to have, have, have, but there's no way that this is a rehabilitation of that condition.

Consider that Guernsey's has already taken high-resolution digital photographs of all the items that were put on the block this past weekend. How else were they able to put together their print catalog (still available for $36 USD, or $50 USD elsewhere in the world) and post those fabulous images to Ebay? I don't know what the copyright situation with this stuff, whether it was retained by the families, or whether part of the agreement was that this material, though offered up to the private sector, has been entered into the public domain. Whatever; Guernsey's has effectively digitized this complete collection, and they have vowed to make archival quality reproductions of all 2 dimensional items from this auction -- those letters, manuscripts, scores, etc. that are of most informational value to researchers -- available to anyone who asks for them. And as Coltrane biographer Lewis Porter, points out, before we did not even know these things existed. Now we do, and we have a record of where they've gone. This stuff was brought together only to be dispersed, whether to corporations competing for prestige and funding (it takes money to make money) or to individuals, who, as it turns out, might share some fellowship because they share similar interests. And Guerney's has even pledged some of the auctions proceeds to music education and jazz foundations -- even if "jazz is dead", some of this money is being set aside for the future.

I suppose what I am saying is that this auction has caused me to make a little peace with the free market. Of course, it is easy to be sympathetic to some idea, especially an abstract one, when it arrives with full and unexpected force in your life and showers favor on you or those with whom you feel some communion. Many of these families simply needed the cash. Let the big dogs eat each other over these scraps and bones. Let greed like some foul but sweeping wind clear the path for them, I say. As for the consequences of what they do, I see these in a largely personal light. T.S. Monk (III) is, like Sue Mingus or Dookie Coleman, by no means an uncontroversial figure, but as he is one of the last living connections we have to his T.S. Monk (II) as someone other than a piano player, humorist, and composer, some of whose most enduring works aren't jocose as much as they seem often to be having a secret laugh on the laughing listener, I cannot help but feel some sympathy for him. And I cannot imagine what commingled pride, sorrow, anxiety, regret, memory, immediacy, who knows what else, may have enveloped him as he sat there watching his father's life laid bare for thousands in the form of disconnected odds and ends.

Something still bothers me, though. If these families did not want to keep this stuff, then who could possibly want it? Wanting to divest oneself of reminders, that I can comprehend. And I'm not speaking here of desiring or needing access to primary sources and realia because inspection of them is a necessary step in gaining insight into the history made by the musicians whose things these were. Appreciation, deep understanding, has no truck with ownership. The investigative journalist wants to know what is in "those files", but no way on earth to they want to be discovered holding them. The real scholar publishes his or her "findings", talks endlessly about what he or she knows and how he or she came to know it? And how can he or she argue the finer points of this learning unless they promulgate it, give it away to colleagues so that they can give it back? What I am instead talking about is acquisitiveness, and not merely an avaricious pursuit of things but an appetite for experiences, one so insatiable that it is touched by no awareness of how jaded its palate has become.

Don't get me wrong. I can browse those Ebay pages and the magnitude of the allure that these objects possess is far from invisible to me. It is an allure photographs not only capture but also sharpen. It is an allure that arrives with the power of hallucination. Looking over Satchmo's cables to Joe Glaser, I can hear the voice dictating them, raspy, colorful, taking its time and hardly carrying about the per-letter financial constraints of the telegram. The angle at which Dizzy bent his trumpet; it is not just like needle on a gauge pointing to his mood. It is an impersonation of his essential emotional character. These are not simply personal effects and ephemera, I know. They are, through language and via use -- visible as a patina -- connected directly to minds that aren't exactly gone, but are less here than they used to be. Angry minds, sullen minds, junked-out minds, brilliant minds, healthy minds, obsessive minds, Black minds, great minds. What motivates someone to grab at pieces of the collective past in the hopes of assembling them into some singular past? I suppose from some collectors it is simply a natural progression. Once you have exhausted all the recordings, in all formats, and all the Downbeats and Jazz Monthlys, there is more intimate game afoot. I don't think collectors want to invade the lives of those whom they admire in some simplistic, "le me be you" fashion, though. For one thing, there is still a lot of mediation involved. Sure, what has once "his" may now be "mine", but the authenticity of the what as well as its provenance must still be certified, notarized, sealed with a hologram sticker that cannot be counterfeited. For another thing, I think the issues are much more selfish than that. Collection, recollection... maybe collecting is but a symptom of a pathological nostalgia. For many listeners, jazz is American optimism. Good times. Good company. Singing out. Sloe gin fizzes, dance halls, honest sweating toil, cosmopolitanism. The blues is for the moonstruck rube, the cuckolded strong-man, and the penniless illiterate poet. Jazz makes of the blues a restorative (don't ask me how; its pure alchemy). But this is a happiness that never really was. It was always willed, and even those musicians whom a perceptive writer such as Richard Sudhalter feels expressed this feeling to the nines in their playing, such as Bobby Hackett, always let you see, if only for a second, the grimace behind the smile. How else could Hackett work so well with the Paul Klee of jazz, Pee Wee Russell, whose depth of feeling is melancholic in the most magnanimous and vibrant possible way, whose every phrase is a polyphony? Can the adventure of finding and purchasing displace the pleasure of encountering, or being opened entirely to something new? I think it can, and I think the two can be quite easily conflated. The opportunity to own something that belonged to Charlie Parker, or Trane, of Stan Getz -- it is also an opportunity to recapture a more youthful excitement. Perhaps what one felt when one first heard those men play.

But such excitement turns one's own past into a vicarious experience. (That may be inexorable anyway.) And at what price vicariousness? And how would buyer's remorse feel -- "well, it looked good in the dressing room mirror at Bloomingdale's / there on the showroom floor..." -- when you've blown hundreds of thousands of dollars? And, if money is "no object", as we like to say, what sort of presence do these old saxophones and postcards and clothes have once they've been exchanged for, and thus measured in, units that of themselves have no innate significance? When you know the financial cost, what becomes of the investment that the original owners made in the thing? Not only the attraction of these things but also chiefly their consequence is due exactly to their presence, to their aura. In that they can evoke and provoke. By placing such artifacts in a museum, sure, we are saving them. But, in so doing, we also install them in circumstances that communicate to us how they are suspended outside of notions of "property" and, somehow, perceptibility. The urge to touch or hold museum objects, when it arises, is a common and acute one. But it is typically frustrated or beaten down. Its function, in fact, is to be resisted and turned into an unusual form of longing. We are supposed to be left aware of the fact that all possession is momentary, if not fleeting. To touch one of those things would be like dipping one's hand into a terrifying clear and cold stream. Nothing abhorrent about it, but you can expect that it would hurt as much as it would refresh. The grasp has no business lingering there, and, in truth, that rapid flow excludes all seizing.

Ah, but here is the key. The men and women to whom we assign ownership to these masterpieces of their conceiving and maquettes of their person, this was surely how those men and women experienced their contact with these objects that were so important to them. The way the Olivetti, Underwood or Royal is more than a tool to a writer. The way that artists use brushes without really being conscious of them as such, but aware of them as themselves working ideas and of them as fine and chiseled and slick ideas of line, shape and color at work. Certainly this contact was not maintained always and forever, but if did occur at one time and lasted for a time. They managed to tame that thrill that here was something that was, at a fundamental level, emphatically not theirs. They could control it perhaps better than anyone else, but, even so, it could and was taken away from them for long periods of time. They learned to live within that rhythm of course. They resigned themselves to the idea that these things were not theirs to sport with simply as they wished. The music those jazz artists made may not have been wrought or bled or called out of these things, as if the music were some property of thing that could be extracted and the thing then discarded. Still, by some accounting, these things are just like the music itself. The music does not belong to anyone, yet it does not belong to everyone, either. It has no real custodian or guardian. To know of the music, to hear it active in the world: that's free. But to understand it and follow where it has led and where it leads... well, in that case, one had better be prepared to forfeit something.

~ Joe Milazzo

Ernesto Rodrigues / Gerhard Uebele / Guilherme Rodrigues / José Oliviera - Contre-Plongée [Six Cuts for String Quartet]

Ernesto Rodrigues / Gerhard Uebele / Guilherme Rodrigues / José Oliviera
Contre-Plongée [Six Cuts for String Quartet]
Creative Sources 011 CD

The Portuguese label Creative Sources has been releasing a formidable array of CDs of late – since 2004 alone, a dozen and counting. The titles are teasingly cryptic, the cover-art spare and beautiful; the music itself is ultra-minimalist improv, of a kind that, even though it involves acoustic instruments rather than laptops and the like, will probably appeal more to followers of the electroacoustic improv scene than fans of “traditional” free improvisation. Contre-Plongée is a “string quartet” album of sorts, featuring the father/son team of violinist/violist Ernesto Rodrigues and cellist Guilherme Rodrigues, plus violinist Gerhard Uebele and – no, not another fiddle, but José Oliviera on guitar and inside-piano. An earlier CS release was entitled Cesura – meaning both “cut” and “scar” – and the theme continues on Contre-Plongée, whose improvisations are dubbed “cuts.” The aesthetic is austere rather than lacerating, however: uneasy assemblages of rustles and whimpers and langorous rubbings, the musicians faintly grazing the surface of their instruments rather than penetrating further inside. Very rarely, a gesture sticks up out of the musical fabric – the little mew that pops up several times on cut 1, for instance – but for the most part the music is persistently quiet and undramatic: nothing really happens, yet something’s always happening. There’s nothing too surprising here, perhaps, if you’ve been following the burgeoning subgenre of just-barely-there improv, and the disc never manages the stark, aphoristic strangeness of Cesura. But it’s nonetheless an intriguing release that, as its title suggests (“en contre-plongée” means “from below,” as in a low-angled camera shot), offers a fresh perspective on string-quartet language.

~ Nate Dorward

We Jam Econo

A pal out in So Cal just hipped me to a new Minutemen documentary that’s teetering on the cusp of release. Looks like Tom Irwin & Rocket Fuel Films wrapped the production recently & will have a christening/screening this Friday, 2/25 @ The Grand Theatre in San Pedro. It's got the usual punk intelligensia suspects: Thurston Moore, Henry Rollins, Greg Ginn, John Doe, Ian MacKaye, etc. as talking heads. But it's also got archival footage & concert clips (21 performances by one count) culled from 100 hours of raw source materials, interviews, stills and best of all what looks to be a metric ton of music. My one burning question: how much are the cheapo 11th hour fares to Pedro?

A Troika From Treader

Every so often outside provocateurs enter the insular organism of improvised music and shake things up. Several years ago the culprit was Spring Heel Jack. A shared moniker for the British duo of John Coxon and Ashley Wales, the ‘band’ began fostering collaborative connections with British and American improvisers through a series of projects on the Thirsty Ear label. Mixed reactions to the music followed, varying from incredulous head-scratching to enthusiastic praise. Coxon’s roots lay in pop production while Wales came out of a classical composition background. The pair initially teamed in the production of dance-oriented drum ‘n bass and dub projects. Through a serendipitous evolution they now keep heavy company with venerable free jazz and improv musicians like Wadada Leo Smith, Daniel Carter and Evan Parker.

As a natural outgrowth of their Thirsty Ear endeavors, the newly christened Treader label presents side projects by those players in their ever-expanding circle. Pressed in editions limited to a few hundred copies the first three titles in the series will likely become collector’s items in short order. Indicative of their rarefied numbers, the discs come ensconced in pastel colored fold-out cardboard sleeves embossed with a raised gold animal imprints and non-descript lettering. Accompanying information is utilitarian and minimal. Even track titles are left by the wayside, leaving the music largely free from extraneous connotative influence.

One of the most indelible anecdotes about Eric Dolphy involves his afternoons spent practicing with birds in his backyard. Treader’s first release immediately conjures parallels to Dolphy’s colloquies with his avian neighbors. Curiously, Evan Parker with Birds carries the incongruous faunal insignia of kangaroo. Parker favors mainly soprano, but also slips in a bit of tenor. Coxon and Wales are credited with the inconclusive instrumentation of “soundscapes.” The bird song components borrow from several sources and combine with field recordings of outdoor ambient textures made by Wales at several European sites. Dedicated to Steve Lacy (Chirps, Parker’s FMP duo recording with Lacy, also evinced ornithological qualities), the program opens in mediis rebus and stretches out over four tracks. The first one evolves over aqueous trickling backdrop of treated clucks, twitters and caws that occasionally overlays the sonorities of a burbling jungle stream over the panoply of bird speech. Parker traces gelid melodic lines on top that carry vaguely Arabic undercurrents, etching his tone occasionally with grainy rasps and also incorporating overdubbing. Soon familiar multiphonics tumble forth in a self-replenishing tide of circular breathing bracketed by the recurring croak of what sounds like a lonely macaw.

The second track shaves away the ambient filters leaving Parker in a more purely ‘acoustic’ setting with his winged partners. Quavering and tongued breath sounds siphon through pursed embouchure and reed, flittering in contemplative conversation with beak-born counterparts. Key pad patter and puckered percussive pops also punctuate the ersatz discourse. Electronics return for the third piece, eclipsing Parker and threading what sounds like the dull clack of pinball flippers and muted video game explosions into the lattice of doctored bird song. The fit between variously recorded elements is surprisingly snug. Parker unpacks his tenor on the disc’s final piece and blows plaintive dry gusts against canvas of crinkled antique LP static and humming machinery sounds. After another ambient section of looped church bells he returns to limpid soprano for a haunting Giuffresque close. All told it’s an oddly disarming and diffusive excursion, one that occupies an instantly unprecedented slot in Parker’s already capacious discography.

Coxon and Wales hold positions of more obvious prominence on Trio with Interludes. Here they join Parker and British percussionist Mark Sanders for a series of largely improvised studio encounters. Coxon relies on a small arsenal of keyboards, piano, harpsichord, National Trojan guitar and riveted tambour, while Wales occupies himself on piano, bass drum, the aforementioned tambour and flannel. The approach and feel align more closely with the pair’s various Thirsty Ear outings (Live and Sweetness of the Water). While neither is in the same improvisatory league as the acoustic musicians each still crafts irreverent and often humorous contributions. This time out the disc sleeve totem is a walrus and Parker leaves his soprano case latched shut. Broken into thirteen tracks, the program alternates between longer combative episodes and the shorter titular “interludes” for pianos and percussion that serve as the segueing cartilage between them.

Parker and Sanders put up with the knob twiddling, button pushing, string-torquing and instrument-abusing antics of their partners. In the opening minutes the Parker blows saucy tenor into the maw of gurgling, flanging electronics while the Sanders kicks up a racket on his kit. Unexpectedly the bottom drops out and a cascade of sci-fi detritus soaks and threatens to subsume Parker’s gnarled fractious lines. Shaking the synthetic suds from his mustache and beard, Parker hunkers down and soldiers on. Sanders sounds more at home, his bumptious, detail-oriented style meshing with the monkeyshine method of music making that Coxon and Wales appear to favor. Later Parker engages in protracted concert with Coxon’s particularly loquacious Roland MKS 80 console, man-driven reed versus man-driven machine with the winner a draw. Sander’s sticks carve a cavalier shadow beat as commentary and have their turn toward the disc’s close in a spasmodic exchange that throws off its fair share of funk. Not all of it works and the instrument-switching becomes a bit exasperating in spots. But all four men take pains to ensure that the interplay doesn’t wallow in needlessly prolix wankery. Repeat spins of this disc will likely depend on the listener’s affinity for the disorienting sensory horseplay of carnival funhouses.

Swallow Chase presents a solo recital by Sanders. Coxon and Wales’ roles scale back to producers’ status and the purely acoustic milieu presents an ideal telescope on the drummer’s itemized technique. The church mouse on the disc’s cover serves as an anthropomorphic analog to the mood of much of the music, quiet, delicate and fastidious in conception. On many of his previous gigs, particularly in the company of Evan Parker and bassist John Edwards, Sanders has favored an aggressive style that can border on the stentorian in terms of volume and impact. Not so here. This is a different, more subdued Sanders than the player on The Ayes Have It or The Two Seasons, more in synch with his approach on Nisus Duets (all three on Emanem). A quiet, contemplative cast drapes much of the program; one piece even incorporates snatches of silence for nearly half its duration as ballast for Sanders’ micro-level stick movements. Another (the last track) sounds like the disc is spinning at half speed and slowly winding down. Attenuating his sticks to the studio surroundings, Sanders’ also exploits the natural acoustics of the room.

Even with the emphasis on gradual development there is still a flurry of things going on and also a few spots where Sanders deploys some daunting muscle. Many of the pieces employ tempered cymbal (bowed and struck) and thudding tom play often favoring timbral exploration over rhythmic push, but still undergirding the action with an arching forward momentum. Peripheral implements like gongs and objects placed on skins enter the palette regularly. He also involves himself in various gamelan and East Asian percussion oriented asides. Through it all an extraordinary dexterity, both mental and kinesthetic comes into play. The disc is surprisingly frugal: nine untitled cuts float by in just under forty-two minutes. Its economical overall length gives each of the highly textured episodes welcome cohesion, an implicit sense of impetus and ending. The tactic also successfully safeguards against the intrusion of filler. Of the three inaugural Treaders this one takes the prize by a narrow margin, but each holds its charms. Coxon is reportedly at work on the second series of three. The current clutch already shows his efforts as quite removed from that of the typical boutique label.

[Treader titles are available directly through the Treader website.]

~ Derek Taylor

Deep Purple - In Rock (Warner Bros.)

To appreciate Deep Purple -- whether the "Mark II" Ian Gillan / Ritchie Blackmore / Jon Lord / Roger Glover / Ian Paice group that turned out this classic slab an was soon to be ranked by Guinness the "world's loudest", or later editions featuring the ill-fated Tommy Bolin and that odd Stevie Nicks look-a-like (feathered hair, snakeskin, diaphanous white blouses) David Coverdale -- you have to accept that a real, working metal band can be campy without inevitably turning into Spinal Tap.

If this idea seems terminally English to you, that's OK, too, because the records still hold up. While no masterpiece of goofy heaviosity ala Machine Head, In Rock is still touched by genius. Ian Gillan, in addition to be being one of rock's champion screamers, is also one of hard rock's quintessential lyricists. "Speed King" remains one of his greatest odes to testosterone. Nothing doomy (Sabbath) or flowery (Zeppelin) here, just a knucklehead extension those tried-and-true Chuck Berry tropes. IMO, only Motorhead's Lemmy and Kyuss' John Garcia have come closes to capturing the carefree nihilism of Gillan at his best, yet neither one possesses his sense of theater. Lemmy grimaces and yowls at the slow pace maintained by the apocalypse, Garcia is furious about the buzzkill he finds everywhere in his world, but Gillan struts in the role of "rock singer" the way Charles Laughton tears into the juicy part of Henry VIII.

Of course, this record also signals the beginning of this group's end. For it is here that Blackmore starts to assert his dominance on the band. No more steely blue-eyed soul, and no more Jon Lord-led excursions into jazz odysseys or collaborations with the Royal Philharmonic. Man, it is time to shred, and "Child In Time" and "Flight Of The Rat" do just that. The long solos on these tracks still click, and they still make Eddie Van Halen sound vapid by comparison, but they also reveal how much ego tripping was going on. In three short years, it would all be over, and the sucking (Stormbringer, anyone?) would begin.

With the result that most would forget the effective and sometimes brilliant strategies Deep Purple made to the metal playbook. There was not an eighties hair band that did not rip them off in some wise, and, it goes without saying, without a tenth of the flair that these five had. And, as long as Slash and Kirk Hammet are still wielding axes, Deep Purple's influence remains vital to this day. If you want hipper proof, just put on the oh-so-earnest Mars Volta's Frances The Mute and tell me those guys haven't been going through the Nag Champa by the case and scribbling late into the meth-ed out night while Made In Japan and Burn (the title tracks is so absurd it achieves something like profundity) are bled white under the diamond stylus.

Just remember, though, if you're going to have a party to save your soul, still you gotta be sly. Like a demon's eye.

~ Joe Milazzo

Gum - Vinyl Anthology

Gum
Vinyl Anthology
23five
005

Sometime back in pre-history, around 1986, in a far away, semi-mythological land (Australia), young Andrew Curtis posted an advertisement in a local record shop looking for someone who shared his passion for industrial bands. The ad was answered by an equally young Philip Samartzis and Gum was born. Though both were ardent fans of the music, it didn’t take long to become evident that the trappings and general downcast and glum aura associated with the industrial scene weren’t good fits for their personalities so the two forged on into improvised turntablism, albeit often with rock undertones. A couple of albums and several contributions to various compilations resulted. Those and a few more odds and ends are collected in this handsomely produced, very enjoyable 2-disc set.

Disc One includes the ten tracks originally issued on the “Vinyl” LP as well as two outtakes and a 20-minute live performance from 1987. With a couple of exceptions, the cuts are short, two to four minutes. I continue to have the growing suspicion that there’s something genetic, or something in the water, that causes Australian sound artists to be particularly keen on sonic separation as that aural clarity is heard throughout this set. The very first piece, “Stormy Weather” (no, not that one) leaps into one’s face, a-crackle and roaring, a mass of sound that reveals, upon a moment’s consideration, six or seven layers in play, high to low, foreground to background, like a sliver of Xenakis’ “Bohor”. While not every piece completes the 18 year journey without showing signs of wear, as a whole the performances sound remarkably fresh and works like “Outfits for Agony” (yes, some of the titles betray a bit of youthful indiscretion…) are just stunning in their richness. A distant, pounding drum, multiple strata of flute-like hums, captured CB conversation—all make for a thrilling, very cinematic soundscape. Oddly enough, in some pieces you also get a whiff of Terry Riley’s mid-60s experiments, recalling things from “Mescaline Mix” (not available at the time of this recording). The live track is a kick as well, opening and closing with “Stayin’ Alive”, detouring and rhythmically deconstructing various songs, advertisements and other detritus along the way. After they finish, someone from the crowd shouts, “Play some music!”

The second disc includes several pieces done for compilations (not all accepted) and the contents of Gum’s second album, the felicitously titled, “20 Years in Blue Movies and Yet to Fake an Orgasm”. Indeed, the first track features porn dialogue over an increasingly funky backdrop; maybe not the most original idea—even then—but still pulled off with enough glee to work. The highlight here, for me, is “Okefenokee”, a riveting throe of a piece from 1990 (late period Gum), all whooshes and chitters whirling about over a freight yard full of shuddering rumbles. A massively impressive slab of sound. The 20-minute “Banning” is just a single-minded yet multi-faceted machine, brutally gouging a path through the rubble, eventually joined by frenetic drums and bells. Yoshihide and Tetreault achieved this kind of intensity a couple of times last time I caught them; hard to imagine any other turntable tag-team doing so. The final selection is Gum’s most blatant allusion to their industrial rock roots, working off a loose cover of Throbbing Gristle’s “Blood on the Floor”, quickly appropriating the beat and chorus and basically going nuts rocking out with them. Nerds on the loose! It’s great fun and a rollicking way to tie up what is, in total, an excellent, ear-opening look into the early career of Samartzis, one of today’s most rewarding sonic adventurists (Curtis, according to the fine liner notes by Jim Haynes, has returned to his first love, photography). Highly recommended.

More info at: http://www.23five.org

~ Brian Olewnick

Cover Me

Juiced by the modest coffee clatch going on over at the Dexter Gordon review to the lower right & keeping with the current theme of the Bags front page, I thought it might be interesting to limn what attributes constitute a *great* album cover. It’s always been a contentious issue, but especially so in the cd era. The reality of shrunken miniature-type face booklets supplanting the glorious and gilded gatefold LPs of old certainly complicates things. So does the penny-pinching finances of most creative music labels. Then there are the peculiar, strictly-policed precepts, like the one insisted upon by Delmark’s Bob Koester that all of that label’s covers contain portraitures of the musicians. In typical dictum-deriding fashion he chose a prosaic shot of himself washing the dishes for his Delmark debut (see Mamet above, now available for $3.49).

All of this feeds as fodder for healthy preference-posturing. Some folks love Hatology’s grayscale & often obliquely angled/cropped photography or the minimalist red & black print on white backdrop of the HatNow series; others despise it. Some embrace ECM’s austere arctic landscapes; others are bored to tears by them. So in the spirit of the retired Uncle Walto’s grand unification theory of music criticism (glossing all the whys and where-fors and distilling down to a reliable ‘sucks/rocks’ continuum) I’m wondering what the readership here deems exemplary in the way of covers & by proxy what criteria goes into their appraisals? The sample below is one that I’ve been grooving on of late (Richard Hull’s oil & wax on ground linen), though it admittedly suffers in the compressed format. The music it serves as candy wrapper for is pretty nice too.

[addendum 2/17: looks like we hashed this topic 18 months or so ago, right down to my Fields’ anecdote (wow, funny to ponder that Bags has been a web-presence-- albeit a niche-within-a-niche-within-a-niche one -- for over two years), but what the hell? Let’s bring it up for air, since hopefully we’ve garnered some additional readership in the interim.]

Tourist Point Of View

EMI have delayed a planned February 15th reissue of Pete "LaRoca" Sims' classic Blue Note date Basra, a quartet date featuring some of tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson's finest recorded work (IMHO). Why? Not becuase Michael Cuscuna and co. could not locate the master tapes, or something went terribly awry during manufacturing. Rather, because someone connected with the recording wants the album's title altered. Apparently, this someone, most probably Pete "LaRoca" Sims himself, is concerned that any reference to Iraq or the "Middle Eastern situation" is potentially offensive.

For more information and some spirited discussion (obviously, the faithful are not happy), see this thread over at the Organissimo Jazz Forums BBS.

~ Joe Milazzo

Echo Taps

The world seems a perfect conflagration today.

Maybe it's becuase I feel a bit feverish; influenza has made a big comeback here in temperate Northeast Texas.

Perhaps I'm still brooding over the last book I reviewed, Jared Diamond's Collapse. "Current events" as reported only tell us what we already know about the human race's past, its unchanging roil. But what is our future is already here, and we just do not recognize it?

Or maybe my mood is unduly influenced by my current listening selection: Alvin Curran's radio symphonia / commemoration of Kristallnacht, Crystal Psalms. The second movement has just begun, opening with the sound of jackhammers, breaking glass, choruses in anguish, and, now, a klezmer ensemble (accordion, clarinet, trumpet) playing piercing, echoing tones. Like musicians that have taken several blows to the head, they wobble around the mix wobbling around, and also suddenly able to make their instruments expresses how the world sounds to them in their pain and confusion. (Later, carrion birds will gather cackle greedily; another flock of tearing shards.)

So I am looking at Bagatellen "home", thinking to myself that I need to add new content to the site, keep the front page fresh. The virtue in doing and all that. I suppose I could write about the Harold Arlen centennial, I think to myself. I could get into how his life was so Jazz Singer-esque, how the enduring popularity of his blues-tinged songs contributes to the strange dialogue black and white Americans conduct through their shared, i.e., national, popular culture. About how Arlen was not the rah-rah vulgarian Irving Berlin was, or a perfume merchant like Gershwin, but an honest-to-goodness morose romantic -- someone who, though his most famous songs sported lyrics about rainbows and sunshine, preferred the darkness. Blah blah blah. It will be mentioned on the nightly network news, former Dukes of Hazzard star Tom Wopat has even recorded an Arlen tribute record in conjunction with this media event, who cares?

"Living with sound." I've said, maybe not publicly but at least in correspondence, that this is the subject I'm interested in exploring through Bagatellen. To the extent that there are days like today when I want to put music aside.

Well, at least mornings when I think that is what I want. Because here is a story, "ripped from the headlines", that says a great deal about the role of music in the here and now.

Stretched across 41 miles between two national cemeteries in rural western New York, hundreds of horn players will play a cascading arrangement of taps on Armed Forces Day on May 21

What "finality" does this tune really singal? Brief respite from the raging of conflict, even if you multiply that pause by miliions and millions ("If we have a bugler every 10th of a mile, or 410 buglers, the rate of sound traveling through the valley would be 60 miles an hour and last 41 minutes."), does not end the war. Is it that in death only is the veteran freed from his warrior's obligations? Is the sorrow the music is meant to inspire as well as express really less one associated with grief and more about remorse over the terrible actions soldiers are commanded to take upon themselves? Or is taps played more for the benefit of the survivors, the melody sweetening the bitterness of being left with their soldier's memories? Does the digital really have no place in our rituals? If this were a Dave Douglas initiative (see his Mountain Passages), would it be easier to accept the political overtones with which it resonates? Is honor so capable of controlling the fires that rage as soon as we open our hearts? American children may not say "I love you" to their parents every day, but they do make their Pledge of Allegiance without fail.

Is there stillness in mourning? I'm thinking, that, just as this slowly pealing version of taps would probably only be beautiful if you accidentally stumbled into it, say, on a country drive undertaken in search of other pleasures, if you had no idea what it meant or why it happened, similarly woe may quiet us only if it surprises us. Yet I also know that, for my own peace of mind, I can't keep relying on such stunning fortuities.

~ Joe Milazzo

Dexter Gordon - Ladybird

Steeplechase 36035

The latest offering from the seemingly bottomless Danmarks Radio Archive, this disc presents another air shot of Gordon’s lengthy mid-1960s Café Montmarte stint. Dex’s sizable cachet as an expatriate jazz icon prompted a nightly spooling of the tape machines. The resulting cache, so far doled out one set at a time, documents a particularly fertile time for the saxophonist. Shortly after arriving on European shores he teamed with pianist Kenny Drew and a topflight pair of locals in the persons of Pedersen and Riel, set up shop and enjoyed a more relaxed lifestyle than the scuffling of his earlier Big Apple years. This package is a bit different from the previous ones in that it presents trumpeter Donald Byrd, a fellow NYC émigré, sitting in with the working group.

The top-heavy program revolves around extended readings of two standards: the Tad Dameron-penned title track and a blue-chip modal number from the best-selling jazz album of all-time. After a brief ensemble stroll through theme Gordon essays a hungry, if slightly boilerplate solo that swallows up a healthy string of choruses. Byrd follows, cooler in cast and surfing across Riel’s frothy snare and cymbal-driven fills with a succession of slightly smeared runs. Pithy Drew and Pedersen statements follow. Riel lends steady hi-hat and sharp, textured brushwork to the latter’s deft pizzicato exposition and the two wear their advanced postbop pedigrees proudly. The piece winds up with a short spate of robust exchanges between Riel and the rest. These closing minutes are marred by a recurring and intrusive tape warble that ends up sounding oddly like a third remedial horn.

“So What” receives a comparably elongated reading with Pedersen paying homage to and capaciously expanding on Paul Chambers’ original epochal role. After the familiar bass invocation and riffing theme Gordon breaks away and spools out a sultry solo flanked briefly by just Pedersen and Riel at a brisk, but effervescent tempo. As on the previous cut, Drew delivers deft complementary chords that push the action without prodding it. Byrd’s improvisation unfolds in the leader’s wake, displaying a bit of the gelid clarity that was the composer’s calling card. Pedersen brings up the rear with another compact colloquium on killer contrabass technique. The horns wisely abstain from reentry and let it stand as the dénouement.

Byrd sits out on a luxurious “Who Can I Turn To?”, but the band returns to full-size for the closer, another Miles Davis’ tune, “Blues By Five.” The trumpeter’s presence and the high degree of rapport shared by the rhythm section make this date one of note. Coupled with a tune choice that strays dexterously in more challenging directions than the band’s usual diet of bop standards it’s a welcome program that finds Gordon in a limber and exploratory mode. Foibles in fidelity aside, Dex aficionados will be sold on the disc’s face value. But casual listeners will probably also be pleasingly surprised by the caliber of this classic conclave.

Steeplechase discs are available directly through Stateside Distributors: Stateside@prodigy.net

~ Derek Taylor

Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis - Streetlights (Prestige)

This Prestige two-fer garners heavy rotation in the Taylor household with more spins spun than I can now comfortably count. It's arguably not Jaws best, byt there’s something about the package, most likely the vintage and band dynamic that earns it a top tier slot. Davis was at a bit of a crossroads when the two albums- I Only Have Eyes for You and Trackin’- were birthed at the Van Gelder compound on the single day in ’62. His once profitable partnership with Johnny Griffin was recently wrecked on the fiscal shoals and he had yet to fully immerse himself in the enterprise of earning an income as a booking agent. The gig revealed business acumen akin to his prowess on tenor and built on an earlier position held in Prestige A&R where he lobbied the signings of young hopefuls like the Curtis Peagler Jazz Disciples to the roster.

Opting to fall back on a format that he helped pioneer, Jaws put guitarist Paul Weeden’s trio (w/ organist Don Patterson and drummer Billy James) on the payroll, rehired his old confrere George Duvivier for the bass chair and wrangled up a modest songbook of standards. Both dates deliver a revealing bridge between Jaws in his nascency (the raw and ribald R&B rooted raconteur heard on early sides for Savoy and King) with the more mature and genteel stylist that emerged through his partnerships with Shirley Scott and Count Basie. As far as I know Davis never cut an album without a chordal instrument in tow. The section on “The Way You Look Tonight” where Patterson and Weeden lay out spoons a tantalizing taste of what might’ve been had he done so. Just a fast-walking Duvivier and churning James at his back.

Both guitarist and organist make responsive foils for the leader’s lone horn. Weeden’s delivery is textbook, but with all sorts of hand-written asides crammed in the margins. On “I Only Have Eyes for You” he mixes ringing Wes-style octave work with brass tack-sharp single note runs. Patterson is similarly all over his console, flipping the switches and mixing in equal parts church and speakeasy with a bit of roller rink as a garnish. Davis sounds both above and appreciatively attenuated to the prodding, riding the changes with his own logic and a mandible-dropping command of both tempo and key shifts. Check his sudden spur to emphatic double-time braying on the title-track.

Davis' toothsome tone slow-dissolves with the pleasing piquancy of a sugar-dusted lemon drop, though he’s never one to apply syrup or saccharine sentimentality in his robust voicing of a line. At other times, especially on ballads like “Sweet and Lovely,” his phrasing carries an amorous insouciance, spilling across bar lines like a feathered boa draped over the shoulders of a fine lady. But Jaws could also lock on and grind through reeds with the most edacious, akin in appetite to the identically-monikered Marvel comics canine that came much later, chewing off whinnying blurts and curt asides at idiosyncratic intervals.

Davis is one of the few artists whose work brings out the completist impulse in me (a nigh impossible pursuit given his proliferation of sideman appearances over a four decade-plus career). This set makes me pine for the long shot find of more of the same.

John Clair / Andrew Sosis - Filigree, John Clair - Early August

John Clair/Andrew Sosis
Filigree
Arrival
9

John Clair
Early August
Arrival
10

Two releases from John Clair, who occasionally posts here at Bags under the nom saltwatersnow, one in duo with Andrew Sosis, one solo, offer two rather different approaches. “Filigree” is a good, strong outing, largely focused on calm but intense concerns. Clair (tenor saxophone, portable feedback guitar, cymbal, piano and harmonica) and Sosis (electronics, psaltery) tend toward restraint but tinged with angst and agitation. Clair does a nice job of decontextualizing his saxophone on the opening track, “Scarlet Embers”, squeezing out sputters and purrs over subdued, fluttery pulses from Sosis, sustaining a thoughtful mood throughout. On “Teardrop Shaker”, it sounds like Clair is wielding that feedback guitar, occasionally to piercing effect, and matters wander a bit loosely for my taste, including an extended bowed cymbal interlude closing out the piece that never quite gains its footing. The last cut is the most successful with (I believe) the psaltery up front, strummed and plucked in semi-recognizable fashion over electronic scrabblings and hums. Beginning sedately, it gradually bubbles into a small welter of intersecting tones and “noise”, finally punctuated by several sharp notes from the piano; a very fully realized piece.

“Early August” is a whole ‘nuther bowl of tapioca. One track, about 45 minutes long, consisting of Clair manipulating exposed wires. That’s it and, moreover, that’s pretty much what it sounds like, at least on first blush. Even in the further reaches of sonic abstraction, there’s a tendency on the part of the listener, I think, to hear a given sound as transcending its source, as being a note instead of the sound of friction between a bow and a string, a tone instead of an amplifier hum, etc. We tend to isolate what we hear into a realm aesthetically apart, often, from its sources. Sometimes, it’s very difficult to do this and the question arises as to whether it’s always necessary. (I recall hearing a Keith Rowe performance during which he used an electronic kitchen implement, a beater of some sort. I mentioned to him afterwards that it, apart from many other of the everyday utensils he deployed, sounded very much like “what it was” when turned on, a rather jarring effect. “I know”, he said.) My first time through “Early August”, part of me had a similar “Is that all there is?” reaction. It seemed that, given the extremely restricted palette in use, the relative lack of variation in dynamics, timbre, etc. that any “success” would derive from the placement of sound, of a poetic situating of the crackles and hums and of the tension achieved thereby. It’s what I love, for instance, about several of Sachiko M’s recent works, that sense of rightness that manifests when simple sounds appear (or when they don’t). Here, my initial impression was one of fairly monochromatic sameness, an impenetrability that didn’t seem to mask any deeper reason for being. But then, one of the nice things when confronted with something like this is that it causes one to re-approach with differently attuned ears and, sure enough, when I did so I found a more variegated attack with at least a half-dozen distinguishable sound-areas. You can hear Clair working in a given field, then another, coaxing out hums of different volumes and textures, interlacing them with a limited range of pops and fizzles. While I’m pleased that repeated listenings allowed me to hear the piece more fully and to appreciate it far more than I did at first, I still find it lacking the exquisiteness of something like Sachiko’s work—not to compare the two in any way other than with regard a certain aspect of their extremeness. I certainly leave open the possibility that I’ll return to this one day a few years hence and be astonished by what I’d missed. As of today, though, I find it a challenging venture and worth hearing and thinking about but only a partially successful one.

I’ll be curious to see what happens with Mr. Clair and associates from here on in.

More information available from arrivalrecords@canada.com

(I also wanted to mention the lovely packaging, each disc enclosed in a thin, folded, intriguingly illustrated brown paper bag)

~ Brian Olewnick

Groovin' at the Smalls in the Sky

Hammond organ icon Jimmy Smith passed away yesterday at the vernal age of 79. He leaves behind quite a legacy with a discography numbering well into the upper double digits & dating back a half century in years. The pioneering Blue Note period constitutes the arguable plum of the batch; the proving ground by which his prodigious talents at the still newfangled contraption took hold. My own introduction was through my mom’s worn & frayed copy of Prayer Meetin’, an album I still spin (now on pristine, if sterile, cd) with undiminished relish. Other favorites: Cool Blues (1958), Groovin’ at Smalls' Paradise (1957), Standards (1959), Root Down (1972), All the Way Live (1981) and Open House/Plain Talk (1960), which afaik marks his only released conclave with Jackie McLean, Blue Mitchell & Ike Quebec. Some reports were that Smith could be an irascible cuss, often drunk on the ego-feeding fame that was his remuneration, but he never lost his grip on the crown commensurate with the “Emperor of the B-3” mantle. Here’s hoping he’s groovin’ with his old pals Eddie McFadden and Donald Bailey somewhere in the great beyond.

Punching the Clock

Day gigs occupy an inevitability similar to death and taxes in the life of the typical musician. Few are the number who can support themselves solely on earnings from their creative calling (especially those operating out of the gamut of styles celebrated here at Bags).

• Mingus logged long hours at the Post Office;
• David S. Ware drove a cab;
• Analog synthesist/pianist Jim Baker crunches numbers as a certified public accountant;
• Bluesman Doug Quattlebaum earned the majority of his daily bread scooping cones as an ice cream man.

Countless others labor away in office cubicles, withering under melanin-depleting fluorescents and longing for the shift-end furlough when they can shuffle home to the sanity of more basement or garage-based sound-smithing.

Greg Kelley's recent extended post over at Brian’s four-fold Ground Vault review got my cogs clicking. The music under discussion there is a foreign commodity to my experience; the men and women who craft it, an unknown constituency. But even in my ignorance I’d lay easy odds that it’s far from an economically viable undertaking.

I’m curious about what these folks do when proletarian ventures necessarily take them away from their art. By what means is the average Aktionist able to pay the rent? How does the dyed-in-wool Gurglestock guy procure money for groceries? Where does Dave Phillips find/earn the funds to purchase his orally-inserted contact mics? And relatedly, how do these “working stiff” experiences affect/constrict/inspire/expire their musical pursuits?

It'd be great to hear about past/current day gigs from some of the musicians who frequent the site. Thanks in advance for indulging me in this modest (and admittedly fishy) sociological study.

Texarkana

Total population: 61,230 (38,665 Caucasian; 21,404, Black / African-American; 602, Native American; 559 Other). Major industry: U.S. military ordnance (Red River Army Depot). Situated on the Texas - Arkansas state line. Birthplace of Scott Joplin, Conlon Nancarrow and the Milazzo Family.

Bad -- i.e., amateurish -- digital photos from Jully, 2004. Best viewed while listening to Doug Sahm's "At The Crossroads", Michael Nesmith's And The Hits Just Keep On Comin', Jolie Holland singing her "Catalpa Waltz", Andrew Hill's "Ghetto Lights" (from Bobby Hutcherson's Dialogue), The Knitters singing "Trail of Time", Fairport Convention's "Autopsy", Beck's "Cancelled Check", Blind Willie McTell's "Travelin' Blues", the Budd Johnson / Jimmy Jones Big Four session (H.R.S., 1947, 4 selections), the Jandek LP of your choice, or nothing at all.

Anything but R.E.M.'s "Texarkana", certainly.

~ Joe Milazzo

Double Leopards - Halve Maen (Eclipse)

Here’s a CD reissue for those who think Merzbow’s got the right idea but is too loud, Pelt is too folky, Stars of the Lid too precious and Sunburned Hand of the Man too abstract. Halve Maen has been lovingly transferred to CD by Eclipse as a miniature reproduction of the original vinyl, and both the music and the package are immensely satisfying.

New York’s Double Leopards inhabit a world of what might be described as comfortable darkness, and possess the ability to float fearlessly over an abyss. Familiar sounds are injected, often with force, but they remain somehow alien, existing within and just above the continuous and constantly morphing and expanding drone that pervades this double album. "The Secret Correspondence", the final, originally side-long composition (here broken into two tracks), exhibits definite references to free-jazz drumming, and the juxtaposition of conflicting traditions is surprisingly successful. "Druid Specter"'s sonic wash is replete with low piano tones and thudding percussion reminiscent of both early AMM and of Stockhausen’s 1950’s piano works, but again, the thick organ-like drone and scalar melodies render all else mysterious and somehow "other".

The notion of "otherness" or the uncanny seems both appropriate and deliberate. "Sound Holes", a brief but majestic opener, invokes the "floating anarchy" of the typical space-rock gestalt with synth swoops and swirls that simultaneously suggest popular science fiction or outer space as topos. Similarly, "Hemispheres in your Hair" conjures "jungle" percussion and the thrum of exotic birds and locusts, aided by yet another drone permutation.

The drone itself is never the cut-and-dry static accompaniment found in traditional North Indian music or in so many medieval western "classical" compositions. These are nebulous constructions, constantly swelling, distorting and shrinking, brimming with unidentifiable sounds that could be any combination of voices, flutes, cymbal washes, guitars and/or keyboards. In this case, the various indistinguishables enhance the beauty and serenity of the project as an indivisible unit, as a unified expanse of meditative space punctuated with brief silences.

As with the group’s concert recordings, each improvisation changes so gradually that a blow-by-blow would do the music an injustice. An appreciation of minimalism is most likely a prerequisite, but beyond that, Halve Maen should appeal to a wide variety of attentive listeners hungry for something beyond "indie". I hope that Eclipse will follow this welcome reissue with CD versions of the other Double Leopards albums.

~ Marc Medwin

Philip Samartzis / Rasmus B. Lunding - Touch Parking

Philip Samartzis / Rasmus B. Lunding
Touch Parking
Synaesthesia
SYN 008

This duo collaborated once before on the very enjoyable “Fluorescent”, recorded in 2000 and issued on Dr. Jim’s Records in 2002. Loosely referring to their earlier work in more rock-based music, they created a simmering collage of abstract electronica with oblique references to melodies and rhythms but, more to the point, something of a pop-tinged glaze, a sweet sonic coating for tingly, arcane investigations; there are moments when Fennesz comes to mind. If you missed it first time around, it’s a good one to pick up.

Several years later the two reunite for “Touch Parking”, a vinyl release. A word or two is necessary about the record itself as an art object. I haven’t kept up on the recent history of illustration transfer to vinyl so perhaps this sort of thing is more common than I know, but the disc, designed by Kristian Vester (better known as Goodiepal) is striking. The background on each side is a striped sequence of confectionary creaminess, alternating rose-beige, black and hazelnut brown, with thinner white stripes between. Side one as an elaborate, almost baroque and kitschy representation of a couple in vaguely S&M garb (she in leather corset, black stockings and stilettos, he only in leather underpants), back to back, arms intertwined, performing an obscure though apparently pleasurable dance ritual. They’re surrounded by images of gritty sand into which have been embedded various marbles and other spherical objects. A gap in the sand reveals the inscription “Protecting The Hive”. Along the top, encased in purple squares, are four letters: capital “D’s” in the first and fourth positions with two runic characters between (Is the D itself a rune? Dunno.). Side B consists of those four letters repeatedly printed on the black stripe. I find it a more unsettling image than the outré one on Side A. Here, it reads like some impassive intimations of some alien genetic code.

It’s reasonable to say that the music on “Touch Parking” picks up where “Fluorescent” left off, edging a bit more into complexity and abstraction while certainly retaining some pop attributes. The overall sensation I derive from it is one of almost giddy adventure, of being in a vessel that scallops down into a specific sound-world, savoring a given slice before flitting to the next area in nervous anticipation. There are four tracks timing in at only about 24 minutes total but still leaving one well sated. As with much Australian eai I’ve heard in the last several years, the sonic separation is extraordinary; there’s a wonderful feeling of air between sounds. The first section, after a brief sample of public conversation, is aflutter with information (this is a release that amply repays repeated listening, always revealing more than you first thought was there), skittering between high flickers and low rumbles. Here, as periodically throughout the disc, there’s recurrent digital beep, a disquieting approximation of an alarm of some sort, an element that provides an underlying sense of unease to counterbalance the attractive surface sheen. On the next cut, a loosely metallic rhythm asserts itself (a pachinko sample?) and several others quickly bubble up to clamor for attention. Children’s voices, a far-off choir, PA announcements and more are churned into a rich stew. Surprisingly, the third piece begins with processed Jew’s harp (or some variation thereof) over jangling metal, soon joined by a cascade of rollicking drums, as though Han Bennink had just stumbled into the room. There’s a song of sorts interspersed, possible a commercial jingle, but one that to American ears surreally recalls the Mickey Mouse Club theme. While it’s the track that most overtly refers to rock and pop forms, there’s nothing of that in its structure which consistently confounds any such association, morphing at the end into percolating blips and static just when one might be settling in for a groove. “Touch Parking” closes in a work of only slightly troubled serenity, sets of pulsations looking for calmness, elbowed a bit by harsh intrusions and treacly pop samples before being erased entirely by a brief wash of sandy scrubbings.

It’s a lovely recording and a helluva lot of fun to boot. Limited to 300 pressings, if you’ve kept your turntable, you have to check it out.

http://www.philipsamartzis.com/music-touchparking.html

(also available through Erstwhile distribution)

~ Brian Olewnick

New On Ground Fault (& Ausculture)

L/A/B
psychoacoustics
Ground Fault
GF032

Dave Phillips
/////
Ground Fault
GF031

Guilty Connector
Cosmic Trigger / 2AM Visit
Ground Fault
GF033

Zbigniew Karkowski + Antimatter
KHZ
Ausculture
aus021

Last year, the kind folks at Ground Fault sent me a number of releases to review. Despite my less than lukewarm response to some of them (though I greatly appreciated my first taste of the work of Joe Colley, Daniel Menche and others), they’re happily undaunted and recently proffered four more. Once again, the results, to my taste, are decidedly mixed but as always, I’m happy to actually hear music like this if only to attain a more accurate picture of what’s occurring out there that I might otherwise never get around to. As before, I welcome comments from those more into some of these scenes who may well strongly disagree with me.

Karkowski was the only name with which I was previously familiar and the packaging of his release somehow indicated great promise, so I held that one off for last, listening to the others in the sequence given above, eyeballing the liners and guessing as to the order I’d eventually come to enjoy them in, least to most. I was spot on. The liner notes for L/A/B’s “psychoacoustics” reek of pretension, including lines like “…illustrates the musical sounds of the human psyche” and “The dominant mythology of our time is science”. The trio’s music doesn’t fare much better. Petri Laukka, Jonas D. Aneheim and Henrik N. Bjorkk wield unidentified electronic instruments in what appears to be a melding of live improv, composition and studio post-production but the results are almost unrelievedly bland. The first track, for instance, has a buried, dub-like bass pattern overlaid with loopy, sci-fi sounding electronics and rough, repeated rhythms. All well and good but the actual choice of sound, of rhythms and of placement seems so unconsidered, so rudimentary; something you’d expect from a trio of well meaning youngsters who just made the leap from rock to free improvisation. This sets a pattern for much of the disc. There’s such a clichéd aspect to the majority of the sounds employed to the extent that I wondered if that might be the point: “Let’s intentionally use every electronic music cliché in the book and see what we can come up with”. Alas, I don’t think so. There’s even some (what appears to be) solo noodling on the piece, “Masking; Loud” where it momentarily sounds like Keith Emerson’s grandkid got a hold of his dad’s old Moog. The brevity of the tracks (15 in about 48 minutes) doesn’t help as the few ideas that sound as though they might actually yield something are cut off midstream. In fairness, it’s not entirely that dire and some pieces, like “Telefonbau Normalzeit”, wherein rare restraint is shown and “2050 C”, which more unabashedly displays rock roots, work pretty well. But overall, an unsuccessful album.

I’ll freely admit that when I see a disc that contains 99 tracks, my expectations are lowered approximately that many notches. I suppose someone had to do it once but after that, there really isn’t any excuse unless you just happen to have that many pieces to round out an album in less than 80 minutes. Dave Phillips’ enunciation-defying “/////” doesn’t fit that latter bill. Toss in liner notes printed in dark purplish gray on black (hadn’t a law been passed against this sort of thing post-Zorn?) and you’ve dug yourself a pretty deep hole with this listener. But “/////” actually begins enticingly enough, after the (obligatory?) silent first cut, with a soft field recording of rain and distant thunder. Not earth-shaking but not bad. After this, however, the disc progresses into a kind of noise territory that has a disheartening sameness about it. With track 9, two sounds that I’ve increasingly come to hear as epigrammatic in this sub-genre make their appearance: One is something you’d imagine would be produced by hitting a heavy, metal banister with a two by four. As good a noise as any other, I guess, but one that swiftly cedes any resonance or mystery. The other, shades of Randy Yau, is the sound of someone retching. Why retching seems so attractive is troubling. Again, as a simple noise, fine and dandy, but the fact that it, among the gazillions of possibilities, rears its head on yet another disc leads one to think that its creators are intending a more metaphorical connotation, one that is off-puttingly adolescent. Maybe it’s just Phillips’ history on the death metal scene; I don’t know. And it’s always possible that the artist is commenting on just such suppositions. To be sure, these two only happen to stand out to me and the remainder of the disc covers a wide sonic range but the haphazard, slapdash back and forth sounds almost as stale today as those post-modern musical cut ‘n’ pastes of the late 80s, early 90s. I can understand some listeners getting a kick out of this approach (and perhaps those here who do, maybe Nirav or Ed, will chime in), but with the exception of the odd passing moments of interest, I fail to hear it.

With Guilty Connector’s “Cosmic Trigger/2AM Visit”, things take a healthy, noisy turn. Twelve tracks dense with noise but, unlike my sense of the previous two releases, steeped in purpose. Difficult to put one’s finger on, of course, but I hear more pure engagement here, more of a plunge into the storm without regard for effect, an immersion if you will. Someone will correct me if I’m wrong but I believe it’s one individual, Kohei Nakagawa, who’s responsible for this onslaught. I’ve no idea what Utsu and Shibaki electronics, which he’s credited with wielding, consist of and don’t care. He takes a misstep here and there; “Brighter than 10,000 Cacophonous Suns” stumbles through some raucously percussive screeching far longer than necessary though it too eventually circles in on some heady, feedback-laden material that more or less justifies the journey. Once in a while, I found myself thinking of mid-60s Sun Ra at his most extreme. In music as noise-driven as this, that sense of abandon, of an utter lack of calculation, might be what makes or breaks it for me and Nakagawa has abandonment down. Extra points for the appearance of Abba’s “Rock Me” at the tail end of one particularly vicious screed. It’s a good, tough record, well worth checking out, and someone I’d like to actually witness perform.

But the real gem of this bunch is Karkowski’s “Antimatter”. One tightly focused 45-minute track that grabs attention from the first sound and maintains a high level of creativity throughout. Stuttering sub-tones provide a rough bottom coat, imparting something of a forward momentum while medium and high pitched scrapes and whistles dart randomly above, hovering for a bit before flitting off to one side. There’s certainly a landscape (or, maybe, methane-laden seascape) aspect to “Antimatter”, a sense of hurtling through or around some alien territory. The contrast of the muted low tones and often piecing upper ones in the first half of the work is striking, creating vast spatial separation and recalling something of Xenakis. In retrospect, you realize there have been a large variety of sounds but because none of them come off as forced, there’s a seamlessness to the piece, a misleading sense of continuity. About midway through, the rumbles subside (never quite disappear) and a slew of midrange whirs and buzzes whipsaw their way across the scene. Drones, but disquieting ones lacking any serenity. A pulse emerges and granularity increases for a few minutes before things quiet down to a dialog between the pulse, angry and studded with clicks, and a distant jangle. An electrostatic storm erupts suddenly and wildly only to swiftly plummet to a hissing eddy, closing out this fine, thoughtful and immensely enjoyable disc.

As always, I’d be happy to get conflicting opinions, especially on the two I didn’t care for. I may well be missing something.

~ Brian Olewnick