Good questions, Joe.

I'm not sure some of the folks that I'll be talking about in 20 to 30 years (assuming I live that long) will be the subjects of popular discourse. Two who spring to mind are Joe Maneri and Guillermo Gregorio. Neither man is that widely touted these days (except in certain passionately opinionated circles), but I believe each has made significant strides in shaping something new from improvised music. Maneri's microtonal manipulations are the most obvious 'new' element in his playing, but I think it goes deeper, from his various intimately individual sounds on his reeds/piano to his invented verbal languages that are often a regular part of his performance. Not to mention his eccentric & highly inspirational perspective on the creative process. Sitting down in coversation with him is like having audience wiht a Bodhisattva (albeit a playfully vulgar one).

Gregorio's explorations are in some ways even more extensive and impressive. His integration of visual and architectural arts into his compositional aesthetic for one. His attempts at recontextualizing earlier jazz movements/songbooks, specifically facets of the Cool, Swing & Chamber Jazz schools of Norvo, Henderson & Phillips for another. And then there's his ambitious take on Braxton's Compositions 10 & 16 (Hat Now). His style of playing on various reeds remains idiosyncratic, a product of a wide ranging assortment of referents and an acutely attuned creative mind.

As far as it being necessary for a musician to identify his or herself with a single instrument. I don't think so, though I do think paring one's arsenal down to a solitary weapon does help in the acquisition of accolades/respect. Sadly enough, the 'Jack of All Trades, Master of None' stereotype/stigma does still exist- just look at Ken Vandermark. I usually like it when musicians who are known for their work on one instrument branch out onto others. For instance, Joe Morris' foray into the rigors of the double bass. He's still receiving flak for the move (which I don't really understand given that he hasn't hung up his guitar), but I've his enjoyed his work thus far in settings like the Steve Lantner Trio.

Then there's William Parker, who arguably represents the other side of the coin. His voracious appetite for African, Asian instruments (as well as obscure European ones) has at times outdistanced his improvisatory abilities on them. His interminable bombard solo from NEW WORLD PYGMIES, VOL. 2 (disc two) being but one example. But again, I totally respect his desire & decision to broaden his palette & seek out new vehicles of expression.

Despite my frequent doubts to the contrary, I don't think any instruments are 'used up;' same goes for instrumental combinations. They just offer up greater challenges as time goes on & the catalog of precedence continues to expand. Every time I think of an ensemble situation as being beyond the reach of something new, along comes a group or individual that blows my assumption out of the water. The piano trio, for example. It's been done to death & there's such a long lineage of accomplishments that it often seems as if nothing new can be said. But then someone like Noah Rosen sits down at the keys and crafts an album like TRIPS, JOBS & JOURNEYS that tills virgin soil with the same tradition-blunted tools. Same goes for standard tunes. For every hundred worn out retreads of "Summertime," there's a Warne Marsh or Ted Brown out there who finds something new to say with it.

The mechanical means fo music/sound making used to be very important to me- part of the reason for my early aversion to electronics in improvised music (the flip of a switch or the turn of dial felt like cheating). These days, not nearly as much, particularly when it comes to recorded music. The Sounds themselves seem to have far more sway than the techniques or manipulations that lead to their creation.

Derek -- those are some interesting choices, particualrly Gregorio, who has moved on from his very early Fluxus / noise / architectonic experiments (i.e., his OTRA MUSICA release on Atavistic UMS) to the kind of tightly araanged, genre-bending work occasional collaborator Franz Koglmann was been doing since the mid-80's. And, again, we see the Tristano School influence again in contemporary music. I've not heard the session with Gustafsson (BACKGROUND MUSIC), but the concept looks intriguing "on paper".

I also wonder if Mat Maneri may not end up being more remembered down the road than Papa Joe, simply because he has managed not only to achieve an unmistakably personal sound on both violin and viola, but because he has shown the essential versatility of this voice in ensembles as diffferent as Natraj, the Maneri Quartet, and the band (a one-off?) assembled on SUSTAIN. Its a seeming paradox, Mat's "universal idiosyncracy", but that quality is also present in the music of Hawkins, Pee Wee Russell, Dolphy, etc.

Finally, my post was in some ways very much inspired by Al Muller interview, and the brief exahcnge he and Jon Abbey had re: Muller and Rowe as two of the inspirational figures in today's "electro-acoustic" scene. Both Rowe and Muller play instruments that, in their basic configurations are still capable of producing nontempered and unusual sounds. In some sense, for Muller to play his drums with drumsticks tipped with microphones and to employ contact miking, etc., is a logical development of conventional percussion techniques. Miking, of course, is part of the structure of the electric guitar as well...
Which I think help explains why double-bass players like Joelle Leandre build on their instrumental traditions: the retunings introduced by Red Mitchell; the "singing-and-bowing" unison pioneered by Slam Stewart and Major Holley; the knocking, slapping and distressing of strings one hears in Barre Phillips playing; and so forth.

Finally, there is by now a lot of history attached to all this instruments, especially tenor sax, trumpet, and piano. For me to ask whether "...you think some instruments are utterly 'used up' and have very little expressiveness left in them?" is another eay of asking whether you feel there are other instruments that perhaps promise more freedom to the individual musician, especially if tha musician is an improvisor, than others.

Then again, some people define "musicality" as a quality that transcends the instrument...

Joe, so glad you’re back. This place was beginning to feel like a ghost town. Where the hell is everybody?

I didn’t really care for much for OTRA MUSIC, felt too much like a mish mash of fragments & exercises. But BACKGROUND MUSIC is one I return to often. The instrumentation leaves a little to be desired & is a shade severe/austere in places (for some reason it reminds me of Shelly Manne’s THE THREE in this regard), but it’s definitely worth investigating. As an aside it also carriers John Corbett’s most creative set of liner notes, IMO.

I think you’re probably on the mark about Mat eventually eclipsing Joe. The elder Maneri’s accomplishments before his ‘discovery’ by Paul Bley & the ECM apparatus are largely consigned to time, at least to date (makes me wish Mat could find the financial backing for the archival label he’s been talking about for years). Too few people have been privy to his earlier work (almost a half century’s worth).

I really like your comparison of Mat to other idiosyncratic voices that were able to fit into myriad ensemble frameworks, especially Dolphy. Also, Mat has the advantage of youth & will hopefully still be creating new music 20 to 30 years down the road.

The question of whether certain instruments offer more freedom is a good one & one I’m not sure about. If pressed on the issue, I think I’d still have to go with the cop out answer of ‘not necessarily.’ My understanding of electronics as a performance tool, particularly in the digital sphere, is extremely stunted, but it would seem that laptops and samplers would offer a greater range of possible sounds (and by extrapolation, ‘new’ sounds) to a musician than say a piano or a trumpet. But sounds, just like instruments, do not necessarily beget music.

Every instrument, like every piece of technology, has its confines & limitations. That’s actually part of the thrill of listening to say, John Coltrane, for me. Hearing him struggle with the strictures of his chosen implement, striving to break out beyond its sonic boundaries & shortcomings. There are instances where you can hear him fall short and fail, but even the failures are usually glorious to behold.

"Every instrument, like every piece of technology, has its confines & limitations. That’s actually part of the thrill of listening to say, John Coltrane, for me. Hearing him struggle with the strictures of his chosen implement, striving to break out beyond its sonic boundaries & shortcomings. There are instances where you can hear him fall short and fail, but even the failures are usually glorious to behold."

Very well said. That's the human story of technology, maybe, how it embodies our hopes, dreams, ambitions, etc.

Hello.

I'd very much like Mat Maneri to be better remembered than his dad; what I've heard of Joe's recordings hasn't really grabbed me by the nuts. But "Sustain," "Light Trigger," and some of his collaborations with Joe Morris and Matt Shipp have made Mat somebody I'll always check out, when I hear he's got something new.

As to the question of whether there are any instruments in danger of running out of steam no matter who's playing them, I don't think there's any danger. I mean, look at the electric guitar. There's an instrument that should be totally played out by now, and yet if you wanted to, you could find somebody doing something new every week, whether it's Keiji Haino or the guy from The Locust. I don't think it's a question of instruments getting played out, as much as players not knowing (or being willing to admit) when they've run out of ideas.

I'm still not 100% sold on laptops and samplers et al. as "real" instruments. Yes, there are people like Autechre who are doing great work with electronic music, but I haven't heard that much stuff on their level. Maybe I'm watching too much MTV (it's my default TV channel).

>

I think the saxophone is pretty close to defunct, and it's a sentiment I've heard shared by many people, including prominent saxophonists.

>

Haino's been doing the same thing for two decades, and has been out of ideas for maybe five years now.

>

yes, maybe you are.

whoops, my quotes from Phil's post didn't translate, let's try again...

"As to the question of whether there are any instruments in danger of running out of steam no matter who's playing them, I don't think there's any danger."

I think the saxophone is pretty close to defunct, and it's a sentiment I've heard shared by many people, including prominent saxophonists.

"you could find somebody doing something new every week, whether it's Keiji Haino"

Haino's been doing the same thing for two decades, and has been out of ideas for maybe five years now.

"I'm still not 100% sold on laptops and samplers et al. as "real" instruments. Yes, there are people like Autechre who are doing great work with electronic music, but I haven't heard that much stuff on their level. Maybe I'm watching too much MTV (it's my default TV channel)."

yes, maybe you are.

man, my brain must be going because I only noticed Joe's post last night.

Welcome aboard, Phil.

If you can pretend to look back to our time from a point 20 or 30 years in the future, who do you think we will be talking about in the same terms as we talk about Hawkins, Dolphy, Christian, etc. today?

Hrm, hard to say because nobody today is making music in the same terms as those folks. Improvisation has mad leaps and bounds in terms of accepted standards and forms since even Dolphy's day. In terms of approach, rather than music, I wonder if Dolphy in his wildest dreams would have imagined something like "Weather Sky."

Speaking from total time-related ignorance, it seems like AMM's agenda took over 30 years to catch on, at least beyond devoted cult interests. For clarity, a popular essay like Broomer's synopsis should have been written years ago.

30 years from now? Jon will probably think otherwise, as indicated in his response to Phil, but I'd like to think that Evan Parker will be respected as the revolutionary he is for his take on the saxophone. Hard to say I'll still be listening to him at that point -- even today I think I get more joy out of his music academically than aesthetically -- but anyway...

Do you think it is important or necessary that a truly successful musician be identifiable with a single instrument?

Not at all, especially in times that there are no more Roone Arledges; iconic individual figures that have been replaced by chameleons with omni-directionally wielded agendas. On the other hand, often the most successful musicians in terms of $ and criticism are those who are defined by the instrument they play. Maybe the hubkaphone's revival is overdue after all. Somebody call Threadgill. Now.

Do you think some instruments are utterly "used up" and have very little expressiveness left in them?

I'm with Phil. Absolutely not. Is Keith Rowe out of ideas too? I mean, he's basically doing the same thing with his main axe that he's been doing for years, right? Anyway, he's not the least bit stale to my ears.

A lot of these instrument-related questions have to do with the way they are played/represented. The worst label a musician like Rowe could bear is "gimmicky," IMO.

Jon, why do you think the saxophone is defunct? The reviewish thing I spilled about Tom Chant pretty much consolidates my feelings on it.

"man, my brain must be going because I only noticed Joe's post last night."

Al, maybe. But if so, my mind beat yours to the door by a good hour-and-a-half.

A realted question: are there particular instruments, just in terms of personal taste, you can't help but think of as "gimmicky"?

"Jon will probably think otherwise, as indicated in his response to Phil, but I'd like to think that Evan Parker will be respected as the revolutionary he is for his take on the saxophone."

no, I'd agree with that, and hope that will happen. I just think he's been on cruise control for the better part of a decade. cruise control at a higher speed than most players can ever dream of reaching, effortlessly, routinely brilliant, but cruise control nevertheless.

"Is Keith Rowe out of ideas too? I mean, he's basically doing the same thing with his main axe that he's been doing for years, right?"

no, actually that's one thing I find so amazing about him. he's only used three guitars in the close to 40 years he's been playing, and since he switched to the third one a few years ago, his work has generally been much more stripped down and electronic. his work on Weather Sky bears virtually no relation to anything he did before that, with the possible exception of the Beins duo immediately preceding it.

"Jon, why do you think the saxophone is defunct?"

hmm, a little hard to put into words. I guess the main reason is that I haven't heard a new and interesting one in so long. I just think there's too much historical baggage for an improvising saxophonist to find their own voice. John Butcher's the one partial exception for me, but even he slips into "now I'm playing the saxophone" mode. I tend to not be interested in sounds that can be easily traced to the instrument making them, and saxophonists have more problems removing recognizable sounds from their vocabulary than most.

who knows, though: I never liked almost any free vocalists (Makigami Koichi live is the only exception I can think of, but most of the more famous ones I hate/d), and then I discovered Ami Yoshida, who's an incredible young talent. I'm sticking with my defunct thesis until proven otherwise (to my ears), though.

If I might make one slight distinction. The saxophone, by its nature as a physical instrument, offers an easily discernable human tone that makes it very difficult, it seems to me, to "disembody". Brass players can create various buzz and breathtones that often might prove hard to source without references and that can more easily merge with electronic and/or abstract sounds. Even played at its most extreme ranges (a la Butcher, Rainey or Doneda, for example), you can almost always hear "saxophone" and, for most experienced listeners, this brings with it a certain amount of history (or, if you're so disposed, "baggage").

Of course, this may not be a problem for many listeners. I'm inclined to go along with Jon in that I like to not hear individual instruments as such (in free improv performances), preferring the entire sound achieved to function as a whole. Even in early AMM, which I adore, I find Lou Gare's contributions (fine in and of themselves) to be distracting. When he enters, I begin to think, for example, of the Sun Ra Arkestra, by no means a bad role model but not, I don't think, what AMM was centrally about.

On the other hand, I can imagine, in the pendulum-like way things often work, that a given musician could go through this highly abstracted phase, learn an enormous amount, then return to his instrument as such, playing it more "traditionally" but having much more to say given his prior discoveries. (sort of like, to stretch the analogy perhaps too far, a realist painter working in abstraction for a while then returning to realism having discovered new ways of seeing).

During one of his performances here in February, Rowe turned on a small device (I forget what, exactly) that, unlike some of the handheld fans and such he often uses, sounded exactly like what it was. It was a little disorienting, suddenly taking one out of the abstract soundscape by introducing a "banal" real-world sound. The next day, I said to him, "You know, that device, at least as far as I was concerned, was 'read' as itself, not as a 'musical' element." "I know," he said.

So, I can imagine the possibility of someone coming back into freely improvised music on, say, the saxophone, and playing it recognizably like a sax yet sounding entirely different from Coltrane etc. I can imagine the possibility, but I have no idea how the hell it could be accomplished.

Brian/Jon: Hm.....looking at this comment--

> I'm inclined to go along with Jon in that I like to not hear individual instruments as such...

I'm rather inclined to ask "why?"--isn't this a rather perverse criterion to apply to music created with actual musical instruments?

Nate, like most matters of taste, it's a bit hard for me to put into words, and there are certainly exceptions, but in general, I just find that being able to tie sounds to the instrument that's producing them breaks me out of the deeper mindset that I like to be in when listening to improvised music.

I'm not one of those guys who closes my eyes at concerts, and this isn't a point of view I can especially defend, it's just my own taste. not sure if that helps, maybe Brian can explain it better...

I didn't used to be one of those that closed his eyes at shows, but I've found more and more that it works (for me) better with "this" sort of music.

It might be a little contradictory, but at the same time that I value transparency in performance (ie, it not being a mystery as to how sounds are produced, what system (if any) is being used), I hope that the sounds transcend their source and the _music_ emerges as a whole thing. To the extent that the music (lets say, using AMM as an example), is emergent from the room in which it's being performed, there's a fine balance (again, for me) between doing nothing and not overdoing something (excessive gestures, pyrotechnics,e tc.) that acts against that atmosphere or "sticks out" too much. What Rowe and Nakamura are honing in on, where they're more about tinging the existing atmosphere, causing the listener to perceive it differently rather than changing it drastically is the sort of thing I'm finding more and more valuable.

I don't think it's "better" or "worse" than hearing Sonny Rollins play, for example, where the individual sound and the specific sound of the instrument is front and center. It's just that once you start going down a given path, I find it more satisfying if you _go_ down that path, with few if any backward glances.

I think I'm closer to Nate and Brian on this, and somewhat befuddled by Jon's ideas.

I think the idea that being able to figure out what instrument is making what sound, or being able to figure out how a sound is being made, period, is somehow a bad thing...well, it's a little too hermetic and wilfully abstract for me. Maybe that's because I spend so much of my time listening to extreme metal and other rock-based musics, and so little time listening to the type of "improvised music" that's being cited in this discussion.

But I take the opposite tack when listening to free-form stuff. For example, I spend my time at Borbetomagus shows actively trying to figure out who's making what sounds, and how.

I think the idea of a "pure" sound, free of associations, is kind of silly. It's through associations that most music gathers meaning. Music for which there is no context is, I find, often extremely tedious. I can't listen to AMM for more than fifteen minutes, for example, without wanting (needing) to hear Ted Nugent.

But AMM (just to use them as an example) is chock full of associations. It's just that the associations aren't necessarily musical (although those can certainly be there) but more to do with the room in which they're performing which includes a huge number of potential associations, from the visual and aural information available to them to the personae of the the audience members to what was happening recently in the world-at-large and more.

I can't imagine anything making me want to hear Ted Nugent, with the exception of Wango Tango once a decade or so.

I plan to expand on this idea in another posting, but it seems pertinent here...

Why play an instrument at all? Why bother with these things that can only follow instructions? Why not sing or otherwise make one's own body -- "material reality" -- the means of musical expression?

The body is as limited as any other musical instrument. It's available as a percussive sound-source, or you can sing, or stuff contact mics up your own ass or down your throat and release the resultant tapes (I believe Aube has done this already, and others likely have as well)...but that's about it.

That's not an argument against using one's body as an instrument - even as the only instrument - but there's not all that much that can be accomplished. Also, given the mutability of the human body, it's probably extraordinarily difficult to get the same sound twice. For example, let's say you're beating your chest and chanting. If you gain ten pounds, the sound you get when beating your chest will be very different than it was when you were skinnier.

I know I wouldn't listen to anything like that, if only because I have a strong dislike of the sound of the human voice. One of the best things about death metal is the indecipherability of the vocals - you're no longer required to focus on them as words, just as sounds. And the more inhuman they sound, the better, to me anyway (Mortician are the best example - the singer's voice is so low, the vocals are just a growl that frankly sounds like bass-amp distortion most of the time). I like having "artificial" music to take away from the naked human-ness.

If you discover after hearing some stuff that you thought was being played on a saxophone that it was really being played on a euphonium, did the piece get better for you?

Hm, I'll be boringly predictable (as I'm very sure the statement's made precisely to elicit a response) but I found this--

>I have a strong dislike of the sound of the human voice.

--one of the more depressing comments I've read recently. Even admitting how annoying 90% of free-improv vocalists are, it still seems a strange thing to say.

Well, free improv aside doesn't really enter into the discussion - I like the sound of Ami Yoshida's voice just fine, for example. My statement's got a lot to do with how much rock and pop music I listen to.

As a writer, I'm very inclined to focus on a band's lyrics. And when those lyrics are wretched, as they so often are, the mere sound of the singer's voice can make my skin crawl, or drive me to distraction. The absence of vocals is one of the first things that really struck me as pleasurable about jazz. (I don't listen to jazz vocal, period.)

That's why I like lyrics in languages I don't speak (King Sunny Ade, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan), or that are indecipherable (death metal).

Phil, thanks for chiming in around these parts. I’m trying to get my head around the logic of your lyrics stance. As a writer, you focus on bands’ lyrics, but prefer lyrics in languages that you don’t speak? How do you reconcile this discrepancy when writing reviews? Given that the semantic qualities of lyrics in other languages are beyond reach aren’t you then really focusing on the sounds that convey their voicing (ie. the human voice)?

I respect your stated opinion regarding the human voice, while staunchly disagreeing with it, but it sounds like you’re commenting on two different things when you talk about voice and lyrics. For instance, Frank Sinatra can sing the otherwise trite lyrics of “Surrey with the Fringe on Top” and make them sound hip. Just as Sonny Rollins can take the song’s simple melody and transform it into an improvisatory tour de force.

>Phil, thanks for chiming in around these parts. I’m trying to get my head around the logic of your lyrics stance. As a writer, you focus on bands’ lyrics, but prefer lyrics in languages that you don’t speak? How do you reconcile this discrepancy when writing reviews?

When I said "as a writer, I'm very inclined to focus on a band's lyrics," I didn't mean that I use them as the crux of a review. I think that's the worst thing a music critic can do, more often than not. What I meant was that as a writer, I judge the writing ability of the lyricist more harshly, I suspect, than many other fans of that band might. I listen and I think "Jesus, that's a clumsy phrase; he should have used this word instead." I edit the lyric as I'm listening to it.

I don't discuss lyrics in my reviews very often at all, except to mention the subject matter in passing if it's consistent, as in the case of death metal. I prefer to describe what the music sounds like; how well the players play their instruments, how it's mixed and produced - stuff like that. This is an easy tack for me to take, because of what I review. If I reviewed folk music, I'd have to write about the lyrics more, and a lot more people would be pissed off about my reviews of their albums than already are. But with metal, a music that's (to fans anyway - it's always detractors who fixate on the words) defined by instrumental skill, I don't have to talk about the lyrics. So I don't.

>Given that the semantic qualities of lyrics in other languages are beyond reach aren’t you then really focusing on the sounds that convey their voicing (ie. the human voice)?

Well, yeah; when it's a language I don't speak, I'm basically considering the vocal as just another instrument. But this is something that doesn't come up all that often, and that's important to specify. My listening diet is about 40% metal, 40% "jazz" (everything from Armstrong to 1970s Miles to free jazz old and new) and 20% "other." Within that "other" category is hip-hop, go-go, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, King Sunny Ade, Burning Spear, AMM, Derek Bailey, stuff on Erstwhile and 12k, etc., etc.

>I respect your stated opinion regarding the human voice, while staunchly disagreeing with it, but it sounds like you’re commenting on two different things when you talk about voice and lyrics. For instance, Frank Sinatra can sing the otherwise trite lyrics of “Surrey with the Fringe on Top” and make them sound hip. Just as Sonny Rollins can take the song’s simple melody and transform it into an improvisatory tour de force.

I am really talking about two different things, but my annoyance causes them to become one. I am frequently confronted with lyrics so rank that my visceral reaction becomes "I don't ever want to hear another human being sing in English as long as I live." That's what I was getting at, and of course it's too broad and too clumsy, but it does seriously weigh into why I like what I like.

I also prefer instrumental music because it has the potential to be more powerful, in a sound-as-physical-force sense, than music with vocals. Because an instrument, fed through amps, can be so much more powerful than a voice fed through amps, it's my experience that bands with vocalists have to hold themselves back (even if it seems like just a little) to make room for the singer. The trio Blind Idiot God were quoted in an interview as saying they didn't have a singer because nobody could scream loud enough to be heard over the noise they were making. As someone who really likes to have his ribs caved in by the sound of a band, I like instrumental groups (Borbetomagus, say) who blast full-strength without having to worry about whether the singer can be heard clearly.

Thanks for the clarifications. I read the word ‘writer’ and immediately made the leap that you were referencing the process of writing a review. I’m intrigued by your statement that metal is a music that’s defined by instrumental skill. I’m probably showing my glaring ignorance of the genre, but it strikes me as a form where speed, dexterity and volume are valued, but harmonic, melodic and rhythmic variety isn’t placed at such a high premium (at least compared to jazz). Though I guess the same could be said for certain sorts of jazz too.

I hear you on the allure of visceral sound & music that packs a physical punch. It’s one reason that I really appreciate the work of a band like Lightning Bolt. Just two guys, two instruments (three if you count voice) and a towering stack of amps cranked to ear-damaging levels. It’s the kind of sonic experience that, especially in a live setting, reverberates through the skeleton, organs and musculature, altering all in ways that are felt for hours after the sounds cease.

For a slightly different take on this issue of instrumentality -- among other things -- and its relationship to a musician's reputation, check out this excellent piece by former DALLAS TIMES HERALD (sigh) music writer Michael Corcoran.

Lift Him Up: the gospel truth about Christian blues pioneer Washington Phillips

mortician rules. they are the fastest, heaviest band on earth. if you had speakers big enough you could decimate an entire city with a mortician c.d.

any mortician c.d. would be perfect for houseboating. pop the c.d. in the stereo and ~LEVEL~ every other boat on the lake.

totally fun.