Tim Bernes\u2019 Snake Oil<\/i><\/span>. The essays reminded me of the hugeness of jazz, its mesmerizing complexity and appeal, how little I know, and how much was buried in the echoes of my mind. For people who are new to the music or even those who have only a casual interest, the book is an advanced primer on the scope of modern jazz music.<\/p>\nWhat makes this volume special is the quality of writing. Again and again the narratives weave stories that draw a reader directly into the fabric of the music by stating, not just the facts, ma\u2019am, but reveal the emotional sinuosity, the historic context, importance of the music, and in some cases the technical requisites that make the music sound as it does. The essayists reveal an open door into what the music does, a jazz literature that takes you on a journey through compound layers of parable, parallel worlds, incisive detail, tapestries that are much like the way that Evan Parker, for example, differentiates harmonics during his extended circular breathing improvisations.<\/p>\n
Brian Morton<\/b><\/p>\n
Consider Brian Morton\u2019s essay on Max Roach. \u201cIncised\u201d is the opening word. Deliberate and portentous, the incision refers to ten words from a Sonia Sanchez haiku<\/i> embellishing Roach\u2019s grave. In one paragraph with Swiftian analogy as its core, Morton reminds the reader that Roach is one of the semi-forgotten who should not have been so. Roach, mostly remembered for his association with be-bop, trembled and reformulated jazz meter. Morton stokes the inner fire of Max Roach, knowledgeably emphasizing that Roach was an intellectual whose heart flamed with the passion of all things just, social, rhythmical, and improvisational. Morton\u2019s one opening paragraph contains enough explosive power to send one to listening to the We Insist! Freedom Now Suite<\/i> or his Historic Concerts (with Cecil Taylor)<\/i>. That one paragraph could have been the entire essay.<\/p>\n
Then begins the biography, giving intriguing detail of his many early musical assocIations, including the loss Brown. Morton makes the accurate observation that Roach \u201cprovided strong evidence for the sometimes vaporous conviction that jazz was not European or American in origin but had its ancestry in the percussion ensembles of sub-Saharan Africa\u201d. This idea of a \u201csometimes vaporous conviction\u201d is a challenging observation, an intoxicating point of view that requires thinking hard and long beyond the assumptions of jazz being mainly a birthed on the soil of the United States.<\/p>\n
Morton ends his essay by inverting his initial paragraph, generalizing on the space-time continuum by summoning the spirits of the ancestors, including \u201ca ghostly huddle of anonymous village drummers\u201d, a statement that the \u201cthe drums fell silent for a time on August 16, 2007 but their resonance still echoes and spreads\u201d and then a final haiku. <\/i>Head, theme, development, coda. Morton\u2019s essay sounds and reads like a structured improvisation, an homage.<\/p>\n
Then look into this passage on Misha Mengelberg and gaze with astonishment: \u201cHe is certainly the most playful of the major European improvisers, not just in his sardonic self presentation but in the openly ludic quality of the music itself. He is perhaps a European version of the trickster figure, a shape shifter who pretends to slowness in seriousness, a quiet man given to explosive outbursts of sound, and intense improviser who, like his sometimes associate Peter Br\u00f6tzmann, is also capable of the most delicate lyricism, as if picked at random in a chaotic meadow of sound, or from a street corner at which bombs once fell.\u201d Imagine that!<\/p>\n
Stuart Broomer<\/b><\/p>\n
Broomer\u2019s essay on Marilyn Crispell opens with black and white photo by Joaquim Mendes. The\u00a0 shades of black are deep, rare for a concert photo. But then Europe\u2019s jazz lighting style is designed to illuminate people naturally, not in the garish reds and greens of North American rock-style lighting. What is more unusual is that Mendes captures Crispell from the bass-end of the piano, not the stereotyped upward angle from the edge of the stage. From the back stage, the photographer can stand shooting slightly downward with getting in the way of the audience. It\u2019s oh so more natural, but rarely done. Mendes captures her face looking not at the keyboard but at the chart, her hands interlocked at the base end of the keyboard. Photographing Crispell\u2019s hands in unusual positions is not the difficult part: Crispell typically lets her hair hanging over her face while playing, which renders even the best photos null and void. Mendes, patient like the nature photographer waiting for correct angle of the evening sun, nailed a classic portrait of Crispell at the grand piano.<\/p>\n
Broomer is also a straight shooter. In this book, that linearity is a biographical approach capturing chronological progression, including the dates any particular artist appeared at Jazz em Agosto and who they played with. That approach is easy enough for any competent writer, including the too common contemporary writers whose stock talent is the replication of press releases. The Broomer method of attack roughs out the structure of the article, which the detailed and insightful analysis then can drape nicely from the form. Like Morton and Shoemaker, Broomer has been at the craft for a long time. When you\u2019ve been at it for a long time, depending on proclivities and if you\u2019re any good at it, a writer can then speculate on where and how the music has been influenced.<\/p>\n
Speculation means exactly that, because the art of creating composition does not necessarily come about from specific references, like the curvilinear trombones in \u201cThe Song of the High Seas\u201d (Richard Rodgers and Robert Russell Bennett) from the ancient TV series Victory at Sea<\/i>, or something non-specific like a Miles Davis\u2019 \u201cNo Blues.\u201d Music doesn\u2019t have to be directly about something, but no musician exists who has not learned what has been done before. Creative musicians exist by definition in an atmosphere of intellectualism, a vibratory world filled with historical knowledge, ancient wisdom, and current events.<\/p>\n
Consider Broomer\u2019s essay on Orkestrova Electric Ascension<\/i>. Broomer doesn\u2019t tell the readers who Orkestrova<\/i> is until far into the essay and that vagary is not presumptuous. Whether or not readers know Orkestrova<\/i> is immaterial, since they wouldn\u2019t be reading this book if they didn\u2019t know that John Coltrane\u2019s Ascension<\/i> is one of the great compositions of music from any period of time.<\/p>\n
There are two parts to Broomer\u2019s essay, the source recording and how Orkestrova<\/i> created a brilliant and constantly evolving electronics-driven version. Broomer cites that religious ascensions belong not only in the Christian catechism but is also an essential of the Holy Koran.<\/p>\n
Is easy to accept Broomer\u2019s point that the composition relates to the spiritual, especially since the opening \u201cfive-note motif adds a single note to the four-note theme of Acknowledgement<\/i>, a direct link to A Love Supreme<\/i>.\u201d This analysis is one of those exciting little tapas<\/i>, a tiny chunk of verity for becoming knowledgeable about jazz. Who\u2019d a thunk that a single note cold differentiate love from ascension, but also be a continuity between the two?<\/p>\n
Having discussed the obvious, Broomer sets the scene for some tempting historic speculation, one that starts with a keen observation on the wailing and thunder of Ascension<\/i>, \u201cIs it a song of liberation, of bonds unloosed? Of torment?\u201d He cites Evan Parker alluding to a slaving ship called Ascension <\/i>(during a lecture on Coltrane at Jazz em Agosto<\/i>). Broomer\u2019s further research, cited in a footnote, reveals that\u00a0 the slaver had been the place of a 1794 unsuccessful slave insurrection. His speculation: could Coltrane\u2019s Ascension<\/i> have been inspired by that act in 1794 and given modern impulse by the transition from form-bound music into the realm of improvisation as defined by the Black Freedom movements of the 1950\u2019s and 1960\u2019s?<\/p>\n
Orkestrova Electric Ascension<\/i> is the ROVA Saxophone Quartet expanded, ROVA being the acronym for Jon Raskin, Steve Adams, Larry Ochs, and Bruce Ackley (the \u2018V\u2019 is a holdover from a former member). As one of the longer standing contemporary bands in creative music, it\u2019s repertoire one of constant changing amplitude. The ensemble work for Ascension<\/i> began with an acoustic performance, and in 2003 the first of the Electric Ascension<\/i> ensembles started touring. For the 2006 Lisbon concert there were thirteen musicians. Broomer calls the shots this way: \u201cWhile the cataclysmic saxophone course remain[s] at its heart, the ritualized pattern of solo with rhythm has been broken, traded for a series of determined textures, sub-groupings that while set, proceed with tremendous freedom, changing the constituent musical languages.\u201d With ROVA\u2019s powerful amplification of Coltrane\u2019s original concept, Broomer also tells us there are moments of \u201cexploratory electronic tranquility\u201d and later, \u201cEven the saxophones are permitted moments of lyric effusion.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reference to lyricism is one of Boomer\u2019s favored devices and it goes far in his essay on Crispell. The essential biographical aspects are there, her work with Mark Dresser and Gerry Hemingway in the Anthony Braxton Quartet, with Paul Motian and Gary Peacock, with Barry Guy and Paul Lytton, and with Jo\u00eblle L\u00e9andre, Urs Leimgruber and Fritz Hauser. But it is Broomer\u2019s insight into several qualities of Crispell\u2019s playing that shines between the lines. Try this for getting to the essence: \u201cCrispell\u2019s work [on the CD Amaryllis<\/i>] is invested with brooding depth and a transforming luminosity.\u201d An abstract statement, read into what you like, but a statement that probes to heart of Crispell\u2019s manifestations of heart-felt emotion palpable.\u00a0 Or one could try Broomer is opening paragraph, \u201cMarilyn Crispell has a mercurial musical sensibility, her performance is alive with the unexpected, whether she\u2019s finding new degrees of quiet intensity, taking off on certain exploratory flight, or interrogating a fellow improviser\u2019s phrase for further meanings.\u201d<\/p>\n
Which means that while Crispell has her own clearly identifiable voice, she also works as an elite musician with other unique musicians precisely because she has the ability and the musical need to absorb, project herself into, and enhance what others are playing. Broomer himself has some of the Crispell pianistic touch in his own writing. His research, once he has covered the basics of what the musician has been formed by, then proceeds to scrutinize who the performer is. He probably was not consciously describing himself when he describes Marilynn Crispell\u2019s musical signature of as \u201cpart attack, part timing, and part voicings\u201d, but his writing signature does follow that description, making it distinctive as Crispell\u2019s sound, his portrayal of musicians like ROVA and Crispell uncovering the essence of what it takes to become knowledgeable about jazz.<\/p>\n
Bill Shoemaker<\/b><\/p>\n
Bill Shoemaker has this way of slipping sly, logical, unexpected, and ultimately sophisticated American humor into his essays. In his think-piece on drummer Han Bennink, Shoemaker writes about a group that Bennink was a member of, the Clusone 3. <\/i>Try this one on for size: <\/i>\u201cThe cover photo for Rara Avis<\/i>, a \u201897 album of songs named after birds \u2013 an aviary spanning \u201cBaltimore Oriole\u201d to the Peruvian \u201cEl Condor Pasa\u201d \u2013 freezes the gag near the punchline: Bennink has a huge sheet draped over him and the traps; [cellist] Reijseger\u2019s bow lifts the end of the sheet, allowing him to peek from a safe distance. Though he is not in the shot, it can be safely assumed that Moore was deadpan.\u201d<\/p>\n
Who is the missing Moore? One absolutely has to be knowledgeable about jazz, and especially European jazz and possibly have regularly attend the Vancouver International Jazz Festival, to know that he is Michael, the cool-tempered and understated clarinetist, alto and bass saxophonist, the man whose tone and demeanor are as seductive as was Johnny Hodges\u2019. Moore is the ultimate foil to the zany Bennink, even to the point of a visual blandishment. It could even be the unseen Moore who is under the white sheet, especially since Bennink can often be found not at the drum chair but rhythm-a-ninging high on the steps of a ladder he has hauled from back-stage.<\/p>\n
Note the expression \u201cfreezes the gag near the punchline.\u201d It\u2019s not just that Shoemaker knows what assumptions to suss out of a photo (the album cover is reprinted on page 27). His writing is tantalizing, leaving the reader at times with essential but incomplete information, the kind to stop you in your tracks with an uncommon word like \u201cdeadpan.\u201d This is the kind of writing that is designed to leave the sophomore keening to find out more and the senior nodding his head bemusedly.<\/p>\n
In his essay on Steve Lacy, Shoemaker starts not with the man, but with the instrument and its jazz lineage from the first important player. Note that Shoemaker does not reference the third musician in the lineage, the one who it is alleged started playing the seriously after he heard the control and contemporary creativity that Lacy brought it.<\/p>\n
Here is what Shoemaker says: \u201cThe soprano saxophone is among the hardest of all wind instruments to play in tune. The embouchure required to play on pitch in the lowest octave will not work in the middle register, and the adjustments made for the midrange require additional tweaking for the horn\u2019s high-end. There are very few ways to work around the problem: Sidney Bechet used a stunningly wide vibrato, which masked his near misses, but most saxophonists skirt the problem using an anemic oboe-like sound. Steve Lacy is one of the very few musicians to wrest a robust saxophone sound from the contrary straight horn.\u201d Check and double-check that phrase \u201ccontrary straight horn\u201d: there\u2019s nothing linear about articulating the instrument and a taut three word phrase does as much for the subject as ten pages of quantum mathematics.<\/p>\n
Lacy was most compleat<\/i> of musicians not only in the sense of mastering the horn, but in the Ellingtonian sense. Hard times usually kept him working in compact trio and quartet formats, the epitome of the road warrior with endless road trips. He was a wizard of the solo format, but he could also formulate the most arcane long forms played by large groups, like the conducted ensemble recorded in concert as Steve Lacy + 16 Itinerary<\/i>\u00a0 (hatART CD 6079).<\/p>\n
Lacy had a way and a fascination with words and that goes a long way to explain his ballsy collaborations with writers. Shoemaker tells the story of Lacy putting music to the the poetry of Bangladeshi Taslima Nasrin in a Jazz Opera called The Cry. <\/i>Nasrin was put under a bogus fatwah by religious fanatics for her stark poetic descriptions of the women’s\u2019 fate. When performed in Paris the poet read from within a bullet-proof cage and Lacy was also threatened with violence. He went ahead anyway and performed The Cry <\/i>internationally, including at the Vancouver International Jazz Festival. When I asked Lacy if was afraid of the situation, he just gave one of his insider smiles. He had obviously thought deeply about the issue and said, \u201cThe music finds its own way. The words are are important and must be sung.\u201d Shoemaker ends his essay with a well-known lacy-ism: \u201cThis is highfalutin\u2019 material, It\u2019s not for everybody.\u201d That\u2019s Lacy for sure: shooting straight as his horn, gruff and vernacular, expressing the truth through sophisticated witticism.<\/p>\n
No matter how Lacy expressed his music, he had an inner clock that made his compositions swing, no accident since he started his career with a dixieland feel. Equally, anyone who is familiar with the pre-bebop period knows the Count Basie composition \u201cCorner Pocket.\u201d Jazz has always had its attraction for its sense of time that brings freedom from the geometry of the metronome. Think of jazz as a pool table, a meticulously-balanced rectilinear flat plane with six pockets, four of which are corner pockets. Breaking the original triangle of 15 balls by the straight cue stick leads to a semi-random spacial relation among the balls, defined partly by the skill of player. For the difficult strokes, an intuitive, experience-based knowledge is required to put the correct spin (\u201cenglish\u201d) on a ball to play it through sharp angles into the pocket.<\/p>\n
The possibilities are endless and depend on the skill-set and imagination of the player. Enter Jo\u00eblle L\u00e9andre, whose music-making is dense, free, and elastic. Because of these qualities, assaying Jo\u00eblle L\u00e9andre\u2019s music is \u2018arguably\u2019 the most difficult topic in all of Arrivals\/Departures<\/i>. I don\u2019t know if Shoemaker\u2019s current fascination with the American pool table predates this essay, but the english he puts on its structure illuminates the almost unknowable and even the brilliant corners to which L\u00e9andre articulates the music.<\/p>\n
Here is how he starts the essay: \u201cThe inclusion of Jo\u00eblle L\u00e9andre in this volume is a measure of the flexibility with which the term “jazz” is now used. You don’t have to be a neo-conservative to point out the bassist’s lack of jazz bona fides; and she would concur that her evolution from playing in orchestras to, first, being a specialist in the music of John Cage and Giacinto Scelsi, and, subsequently, a free improviser has little to nothing to do with jazz in the main.\u201d Now, that is one killer of a complex paragraph, puts the eight ball snugly in the corner pocket.<\/p>\n
Further, Shoemaker states, \u201cThere is the palpable sense that Leandre starts with a blank slate for every performance, that she finds form in real time, and that whatever beauty she may create, it is a one-time occurrence, never to be replicated\u2026.. Leandre’s artistic evolution cannot be neatly divided in periods the way that, say, John Coltrane’s can.\u201d<\/p>\n
To explore the validity of that statement, I went back to a recording of L\u00e9andre with Fritz Hauser and Urs Leimgruber at the 2009 Vancouver International Jazz Festival, concentrating on one of her solo pieces (not the one posted on you-tube). L\u00e9andre\u2019s music struck me as a primeval force, like some ancient cosmological progenitor of a natural order. The music flashed with the intense, dazzling, and ultra-colorful pulses of the aurora borealis<\/i>. Like the aurora <\/i>(the Roman goddess of dawn), each passage was multi-layered, and while there were patterns, there was little to no repetition. In fact I would go much further and say there was a definitive structure, a lightly-touched beginning and end with a complex solar wind in between. While I heard protons and muons colliding with the upper atmosphere, Shoemaker states she creates a \u201cbroad spectrum of otherworldly textures she creates with the bow.\u201d He states that her pizzicato is equally powerful, \u201cwith the attack and drive commonly associated with Charles Mingus, but without the idiomatic orientation.\u201d It takes an extraordinarily perceptive mind, one knowledgeable of jazz history to makes such historical linkages between two musicians of powerful mien. I also cannot think of a finer trio of writers like Shoemaker, Morton, and Broomer to consistently make such fine-edged critique throughout Arrivals\/Departures<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Critique<\/b><\/p>\n
As outlined above, Arrivals\/Departures – New Horizons in Jazz<\/i> is a dense work. On four counts, however, it is incomplete. Count one: there is no essay on the Gulbenkian itself, how and why such a prestigious Institute could formulate and present a consistently high-caliber festival over such a long course of time. Try this for context and comparison: in the USA does the Smithsonian Institution sponsor an annual festival of advanced music? The point is that the Gulbenkian is special, and an essay explaining this idiosyncratic quality would have gone a long way to explain the context of this book.<\/p>\n
The Gulbenkian Institute is surrounded by a stone wall, containing within research institutes, libraries, paintings, and forested pathways designed for contemplation. There is an outdoor amphitheater complete with rings of stone seats. The concert artists dramatically arise out of an unseen tunnel to walk across a large swath of grass before arriving at their places on stage. The indoor concert hall has wonderful acoustics. None of which qualities are sussed out in a contextual essay. That stone wall could have used an opening door essay to reveal what lies within, to let the parts of the world (namely, North America) know about the splendor of the Gulbenkian .<\/p>\n
Count two: Every festival needs an Artistic Director with clairvoyant vision. Jazz em Agosto <\/i>Artistic Director Rui Neves is such a virtuoso. An essay by Neves or about him by one of the trio of essay writers would have revealed some of the secrets of his artistic vision, the imagination that holds the enterprise together and passes from success to success. The world could use some explanation of the curatorial processes for events like Jazz em Agosto<\/i>. Instead, Arrivals\/Departures<\/i> implies that artistic vision only by the chronology and the selection of profiled musicians. The lack of such an essay is a missed opportunity.<\/p>\n
Count three: the distribution of this Arrivals\/Departures <\/i>is limited. It appears to be available only through the Gulbenkian, and even then it is hard to find ordering information on the Gulbenkian website. The distribution method appears to be somewhat academic in nature, not for the general jazz audience through bookstores and on-line outlets (Amazon would be an obvious distribution target for North America, and this company also has branches in Europe). This is another missed opportunity for the huge numbers of people who have increasingly limited means of becoming truly knowledgeable about jazz. The down and out of these three counts is a loss to the Gulbenkian itself, to the curatorial community, to the musical community (think publicity and economic benefits) and to the broad general audience of music lovers.<\/p>\n
Count four: In an incredible under-sight, a faux pas,<\/i> Broomer-Morton-Shoemaker are not listed as co-authors in the book cover, nor at the head of each essay. Instead, diminuendo<\/i>, the capital letters of each author are listed at the each essay: \u201cS.B\u201d<\/i>, \u201cB.M<\/i>\u201d, \u201cB.M.\u201d <\/i>with the exception of an introduction to jazz by Broomer at the beginning of the book. Only on page 239, \u201cColophon and Credits\u201d, are listed the names of each author and the essays they wrote.<\/p>\n
Another critique: the selection process must have been arduous, but Randy Weston is the most prominent among the missing in action. As the most important living jazz artist and epitome of the lineage that Brian Morton refers to as originating in the ancient sub-Sahara, I would assert that he was a natural for the A-list.<\/p>\n
Conclusion<\/b><\/p>\n
Arrivals\/Departures – New Horizons in Jazz <\/i>is a one-volume answer to a crisis in the jazz literature. It brings the reader the essence of the mighty changes in the music that have happened over the three decades plus. Even the most astute aficionados will increase their chops by reading Arrivals\/Departures<\/i>. It is a classic in jazz literature. My recommendation is get Arrivals\/Departures – New Horizons in Jazz<\/i> while you can, for who knows how long the print run will last? The book is an indispensable guide to understanding the state of the jazz art, its writing meeting the highest possible standards of jazz and arts literature and criticism.<\/p>\n
\u00a9Laurence Svirchev<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Essays by Stuart Broomer, Brian Morton, and Bill Shoemaker about Musicians <\/p>\n
Appearing at Jazz em Agosto 1984-2012<\/p>\n
Publisher: Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon Portugal, www. musica.gulbenkian.pt\/jazz<\/p>\n
\n
Becoming Knowledgeable about Jazz<\/p>\n
Becoming knowledgeable about jazz is a sly proposition. You have to hear . . . → Read More: Commentary & Book Review: Arrivals\/Departures – New Horizons in Jazz<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1422,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essays","odd"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/misterioso.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Gulbenkian-Review.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/misterioso.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1421"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/misterioso.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/misterioso.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/misterioso.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/misterioso.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1421"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/misterioso.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1421\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1436,"href":"https:\/\/misterioso.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1421\/revisions\/1436"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/misterioso.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/misterioso.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/misterioso.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/misterioso.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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