Tim Berne is undoubtedly one of the premier creative forces in improvised music of the last 20 years. Born from the influence of Julius Hemphill, Berne's music is at once groundbreaking while each record is a marked transition in his own unique approach to composition and in the application of the saxophone. Whether Berne's appeal lies in the study of a progression through solo, or in the physical consistency of his working groups, one is pressed to address his discography in terms of... scope. His music emblazoned in joints and memory, a platform for such a study might begin with this interview. Joe Milazzo spent a few hours with the saxophonist by way of telephone, much as he did two years ago with another complex musician -- and close associate of Berne's -- Herb Robertson. The results are immediately personal, often humorous, and always fascinating. Bagatellen is proud to present this exclusive dialogue, the center of which continues to shape arteries of the music we hold so dear. Read on.
Posted by al on August 10, 2003 8:46 PMNice job, enjoyed it. A great line!: "The stuff I’m doing now is not very conducive to the trumpet unless you travel with a dentist." Ha!
I would've liked to hear him ruminate more about his playing in different contexts, if/how he approaches them differently. But good stuff overall, thanks Joe.
Posted by: Vincent Kargatis at August 11, 2003 2:06 PMHmmmm. I have a comment on this interview that appears someplace else. Maybe they could be consolidated somehow?
Posted by: walto at August 12, 2003 5:40 AMBlame Al for starting a different thread! Who's running this place anyhow?? :)
Posted by: Vincent Kargatis at August 12, 2003 6:37 AMYeah, what's up with that? I think he's trying to ride on the coattails of Milazzo's thunder.
Posted by: derek at August 12, 2003 6:56 AM"Milazzo's thunder"...
Was that what Bob Seger was singing about in "Night Moves"?
Posted by: Joe Milazzo at August 12, 2003 9:00 AMYour thunder is Number One with a Silver Bullet my friend & cannot be contained by the meager lyrics of a Seger ode.
Is it me, or are there uncanny similarities between “Night Moves” and Don Henley’s “Boys of Summer”- two treatises on time’s inexorable toll by two of America’s *finest* FM radio poets.
It's you.
Posted by: al at August 12, 2003 10:49 AMHow so?
Posted by: derek at August 12, 2003 10:58 AMThe shit Bob did in the backseat of his '60 Chevy and whatever the hell Don does with boys in the summer are probably completely independent of each other.
Posted by: al at August 12, 2003 11:13 AMOr: if there's no business being, er, transacted, on the naugahyde of that Chevy backseat, there are no boys of summer future. Just like the youthful residents of the tenement housing block pictured on the gatefold cover of LED ZEPPELIN IV probably grew up to be Sham 69 and Clash fans...
Posted by: Joe Milazzo at August 12, 2003 12:11 PMBut Al, at a deeper, more existentialist level, I think both songs are attempting to delve into the effects time has on the psyche. The subjective reality of what Thomas Wolfe was getting at when he noted “you can’t go home again.”
At the end of “Night Moves” Bob laments "autumn closing in” after reminiscing about the glories & freedoms of his youth-spent summers- the metaphor of practicing his ‘night moves’ with his girl. And there’s the aural image of “humming a song from 1962” as another lingering relic of better days.
On the Henley side you’ve got Don waxing philosophic: “I never will forget those nights… I wonder if it was a dream… Remember how you made me crazy? Remember how I made you scream.” That shit is deep. And the imagery again of a past unrecoverable, this time of “a Dead Head sticker on a Cadillac, a little voice inside my head said Don’t look back, You Can Never Look Back.” The angst so thick you can cut it with a butter knife.
Can’t believe I just wasted three paragraphs analyzing that shit. Man, I should see if Griel Marcus’ gig is open.
As Al knows well, it's all in Conrad's "Youth."
Posted by: walto at August 12, 2003 12:19 PM"It is respectable to have no illusions, and safe, and profitable and dull."
Don's bears more resemblance to Bryan's, and Bob's to none. To come full circle back to Tim it's better that he's not Berne, Jim.
Belushi?
Posted by: derek at August 12, 2003 2:18 PMBerne's comment on patterning his sax sound after stringed instruments is cool and funny given how many guitarists try to sound like saxophone players ie Allan Holdsworth.
Posted by: tim gueguen at June 8, 2004 9:47 PMJust yesterday, listening to Charlie Parker + strings, I sometimes thought he sounded like a violin, or something. Might just have been the recording.
Posted by: mwanji at June 11, 2004 12:01 PMGET A LIFE YOU GUYS!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by: balh at September 7, 2004 6:32 PM.................................................. © 2003 - 2006 bagatellen ..................................................