For master tenor saxophonist Ralph Lalama’s Birthday, the liner notes for the 1997 Criss Cross album “Circle Line”

To mark the fabulous tenor saxophonist Ralph Lalama’s 73rd birthday yesterday, I’m posting my program notes for the 1997 Criss Cross album, Circle Line, a slamming quartet session with Peter Bernstein, Peter Washington and Kenny Washington.

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Ralph Lalama embodies the school of tenor saxophone playing that combines a big swinging sound with heart-on-the-sleeve lyricism.  Lalama projects a rich timbre from the top to bottom of his horn, applying rubato in the manner of a Tony Bennett or Sarah Vaughan.  He’s a rhythmic wizard, altering the phrasing every four to eight bars within the continuity of his line.  A thoroughly educated musician with an authoritative command of harmony and finger-busting chops at any tempo, Lalama’s technique is never calisthenic; he applies it unfailingly to shape the melodies that suit his song of the moment.

Describing his style with characteristic directness, Lalama says, “I’m a melodic guy.  Melodies turn me on.  It doesn’t matter to me if they were written in 1920 or 1995.  You have the horn in your mouth, you hear the melody, you interpret the melody, and you have your own sound, you bend certain notes, you hold certain notes out longer, shorter, blah-blah-blah.  I just go from the melody.”

We hear the qualities mentioned above throughout Circle Line, Lalama’s fourth Criss-Cross recording; that he’s internalized them so strongly seems almost to stem from genetic predestination.  His grandfather, Nofrey, Sr., once the State Auditor of Pennsylvania, was an accomplished clarinetist and alto saxophonist who performed in various ensembles around Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, just outside of Pittsburgh.  He gave his grandson clarinet lessons at the age of 9.  “My grandfather played pretty, a little rougher than Paul Desmond,” Lalama recalls.  “He was a good reader.  When I was a kid, I played in the Sons of Italy band, a concert band that met every Wednesday.  That’s how I learned to read and play with people.  My grandfather sat first chair and I sat last chair.  He could play the marches and mazurkas and overtures, which was difficult clarinet music.”

Ralph’s father, drummer Nofrey, Jr., “was working seven nights a week when I was a kid — I never saw him.  They weren’t playing Jazz per se, just good music.  The first time I played with Mel Lewis, I flipped out, because I related his sound and feeling to my father.  My father met my mother, Jenny, who’s a contralto singer, on the bandstand — three years later they were married.  When I was a kid in the early ‘60s, I’d come home from school, and my mother would be doing housework with the TV tuned to one variety show or another where the singers would be singing songs with a lot of melodies — even standards.  She would harmonize every note with changes under the melody that were always right.  That would amaze me, to come home from school and hear this beautiful, harmonious sound.”

When Lalama started playing the tenor at 14, he listened to his father’s Gene Ammons, Sonny Stitt and Stan Getz records, to which “I had a hard time trying to find the notes!”  Soon the young aspirant began intensive on-the-job training “playing the music of James Brown or the Temptations, the one-chord thing.  By 16 I was working six nights a week, and sitting in with a lot of organ players, playing the blues.  I was playing entirely by ear at the time, and I began to find the pitches and distinguish right notes from wrong notes by a process of elimination.

“I fell in love with the tenor right away.  I loved the sound.  It was more my range and my voice inside.  The keys I sang in were right there.  It was more sensual. It was velvet.  You could get mean on it, and you could get soft on it — kind of like my personality.”

The raw, ebullient ear-improviser began to evolve into a polished, sophisticated musician after enrolling in the strong music program at Youngstown State University, an hour down the road from Pittsburgh.  “When I got into college at 18 I started theory more,” Lalama recalls.  “I met Tony Leonardi, a bass player who used to play with Woody Herman, and had grown up with Sal Nistico and Chuck Mangione in upstate New York.  He started me seriously studying Bird, Sonny Rollins and Coltrane.  I was featured a lot with the band, and my brother Dave and I played standards four nights a week at a heavy Mafia place called Cherry’s Top of the Mall.  I used to drive an hour-and-a-half to Cleveland, to the Smiling Dog, where I heard Sonny Stitt, Stan Getz, Art Blakey, Elvin Jones, Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters, and Freddie Hubbard with Junior Cook, hearing the music in the flesh, right in my face.”

After 5½ years on scholarship at YSU, Lalama was fully prepared to step on to New York City.  None other than Thad Jones provided the push.  “Thad did a clinic with us one afternoon in late May of 1975, and I was able to play a few tunes in quintet with him.  That night we played a concert featuring Thad’s big band music, and I soloed a lot, so he got to hear me more.  After the concert I got to hang out with him, and he said, ‘Ralph, if you want to play, New York is the place.’  I got to New York on September 7, 1975, to be exact, called Thad, and he said, ‘Oh, I’ve got a gig, man.  You want to play?’  So my first gig in New York, after I was here two weeks, was with Thad Jones, Walter Norris, George Mraz and Mel Lewis for three nights at William Patterson College in New Jersey.”

Ralph Lalama hasn’t looked back since.  He worked with Woody Herman (1976-77) and Buddy Rich (1980-81), while subbing with the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra; he took second tenor chair with the Mel Lewis Band in 1983, and remains a regular member of its descendent, the Vanguard Orchestra.  He’s been with the Carnegie Hall Jazz Orchestra since 1995, and travels around the world as a hired-gun soloist with local rhythm sections.  He’s run ongoing jam sessions in New York Thursdays at Visiones and Sundays at the St. Mark’s Bar since 1991.  He teaches privately at New York University.

A quarter-century in big band reed sections taught Lalama the concision that marks his focused improvising throughout Circle Line.  “Playing in a reed section is a lot of hard work and it’s a lot of fun,” he remarks.  “You’re talking about intonation, about balance in the sound of the section, about breathing together, phrasing together.  It’s a challenge, a good workout, and a lot of discipline.  It’s the same with improvising.  You have to have the discipline before you have the right to be free.”

That discipline enabled Lalama to go in the studio with a tenor-guitar front line, perform three explicit homages to Sonny Rollins, and emerge seven hours later with a CD that evokes the essence of Rollins’ 1962 opus, The Bridge, without ever xeroxing the content — the sound throughout is wholly Lalama’s.  “Sonny has always been one of my heroes,” Lalama enthuses.  “He’s a very spontaneous guy.  Sometimes he’ll just pick some B-flat songs and make them sound like symphonies.  His rhythm is ridiculous; he plays like a drummer.  And he’s an improvising fool.  One of his improvisational techniques that turned me on is his use of the element of surprise, where he just plays some simple little melodies and then explodes.  I don’t know if I patterned myself after him, but I’m influenced by him.  Thus, it comes out.”

Lalama plays the first part of the melody of “Without A Song” an octave higher than Rollins did on The Bridge, then creates a miraculously relaxed improvisation at a brushfire tempo sparked by drummer Kenny Washington.

Of “You Are Too Beautiful”, which Rollins recorded in 1958 with the Modern Jazz Quartet minus Milt Jackson at Lenox Inn for Verve, Lalama comments, “I played it in the key of A-flat, which Sonny played it in, because it’s in a range that makes the timbre sound like a cello.”  Lalama’s lyrical mastery of rubato is fully evident in his no-holds-barred solo, and Peter Bernstein knows exactly what to say in his brief turn.

Coleman Hawkins recorded the definitive “My Ideal” in 1943 with Art Tatum; Rollins dialogued on it with vocalist Earl Coleman on the 1956 Prestige recording Tour de Force, and played it as a duo with Larry Coryell on Don’t Ask (Milestone, 1979).  Lalama’s intimate conversation with endlessly resourceful bassist Peter Washington was an impromptu coda to the session, and it’s a highlight of the date.

There are tips of the cap to John Coltrane and Joe Henderson as well.  “To me,” Lalama says, “Coltrane was Heaven; Sonny Rollins is Earth.”  On “Giant Steps,” “the harmonic formula that opened up the sounds of the 5-chord,” Lalama employs an 8-bar chorale and a vamp up front, and chooses a more relaxed tempo than the norm.  “That makes you play differently than what people usually run on it, with a little more rhythm, a little more breath, more melodically.”

Kenny Washington’s radar hones in dead-center on Lalama’s every breath throughout Circle Dance, shaping the improvisations with apt interpolations and undeviating tempos.  His exchanges with Ralph on the thoroughbred-paced version of Joe Henderson’s not-just-a-B-flat Blues, “Homestretch,” are a highlight of the date.

On “Homestretch” and the CD’s title track, Lalama showcases his dazzling rhythmic facility.  In the manner of Lester Young, Charlie Parker and Rollins, he hurtles bar lines with cool assurance, landing wherever his phrases take him.  “My father used to tell me, ‘Ralph, you have to feel every beat,’“ he recalls, “and I hear the drums.  All the music I heard and played live as a kid in Pittsburgh, and even the Jazz there, was very beat-oriented.  I can leave space because I know every beat.”

Lalama posed challenges for his first-call New York band on both originals.  “Circle Line” begins with a virtuosic Tristanoesque unison chorus “with not too many breaths in it that kind of gives me the feeling of going in a circular motion.”  A pungent solo by Peter Washington begins the drama, then Peter Bernstein elegantly paves the way for a fluid Lalama solo over the rhythm section that morphs into a duo with Kenny Washington, then transitions back to Lalama and the band.  There are imaginative 8’s and 4’s with the dynamic drummer, then a final heated unison.

“Dark Chocolate” “is your simple A-A-B-A form, the standard song form, but every section is 5 bars, so it’s a 20-bar tune divided into four 5-bar sections.  That’s kind of unique, because you have that extra bar every time.  Which gives you that little uncomfortable, you-want-to-kill-yourself-and-go-in-the-East-River-and drown feeling — really.”

It takes prodigious technique and musicianship to play the kind of music we hear on Circle Line at the level Ralph Lalama, Peter Bernstein, Peter Washington and Kenny Washington play it, so let’s conclude with Lalama’s observations on the subject of technique:  “In improvisation in general, I like to have all the tools so you can use what you need for the moment.  I try to use my technique to create some energy.  Not to play fast for fast sake, but to create some movement and power in the music articulately.  Technique isn’t just playing fast.  The way I look at technique, it makes your music clear and articulate.  ‘Clean’ is not the right word.  I like to use the word ‘clarity.’  So if you have technique, I think your music is clear; thus, understandable, hopefully.”

Talk about technique; the 46-year-old tenor master at the top of his game defined it the way he solos  — with clarity.

[–30–]

For Bassist Alan Silva’s 85th Birthday, A WKCR Interview in January 1994.

Bassist Alan Silva, a key figure in New York City’s experimental and free jazz communities during the 1960s and a stalwart figure in France since he relocated in the early 1970s, turns 85 today. I’m posting an interview that we did on WKCR in January 1994. A lot of information contained herein — although it’s not as detailed as the excellent 2002 interview with Dan Warburton contained in this link. (https://www.paristransatlantic.com/magazine/interviews/silva.html?fbclid=IwAR1P_g1OtnDhLnGQ2EQuO4LnN-8tMs3Upw2P93iDszcEulukhgv01ITWryI)

Also, here is a piece about Alan Silva’s mother, Irene Levy, that Stephen Haynes linked to today on Facebook. (https://patch.com/new-york/fortgreene/irene-levy-union-pioneer-and-long-time-fort-greene-reda52a8e546?fbclid=IwAR2KvRFj4g7PI9M2gxIjVoFBOOlex1lHYmnPDoCITO5CAbO8UgFV_aKvl6k)

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Alan Silva (WKCR):

[MUSIC: Cecil Taylor, Enter Evening (Alt. Take)]

Q:   You hadn’t heard that up to now.  What did you think?

AS:  Well, sometimes alternate takes are not as interesting as the original takes.  Sometimes you can have that problem, I think.  Blue Note put out some alternate takes.  But on this piece, I don’t think it’s necessary.  Sometimes alternate takes are something you don’t want to hear.

Q:   Sometimes it’s preparation for the proper way of doing it.

AS:  Yeah.  And that might be interesting from the point of view of historical, but some alternate takes are just like mistakes.  And they’re good for historians or people who are really interested in music.  But sometimes the final piece is the final piece.  It’s like going to Picasso’s garbage can and picking out old sketches.  I thought that’s what alternate takes really meant.  But I don’t see any significance in the piece.

Q:   I think a lot of listeners would be interested in hearing about your association with Cecil Taylor, and how and when it started. 

AS:  Well, Cecil and I… My impact on Cecil was probably from the point of view as a listener.  The first time I really had a chance to listen to Cecil Taylor was at the Newport Jazz Festival, where he was playing one of those afternoon discovery bands.  I was a very avid Jazz collector, myself as a student, and I went up to the Newport to hear, as usual — like a ritual to go up to Newport.  And that day they had Cecil Taylor, an afternoon concert.  And that’s when I really heard some very interesting music by Cecil.  I was only about 18 years old at that time.  And I think that record is out with Jazz Lab on one side and Cecil on the other side.

Q:   Around 1957 maybe?

AS:  I think so.  Like that.  1957.

Q:   Steve Lacy was playing?

AS:  Steve Lacy, Henry Grimes, I think Dennis Charles.  So from my point of view, when I heard the band, and live, I fell in love with the music… At that time I was very much studying trumpet with Donald Byrd.  And I sort of thought that was really a great band, too. I mean, they were on the same gig, in fact.  So that was my first encounter with the man’s music.

Q:   What did you think?

AS:  Well, I loved Monk’s music.  And I had one Cecil Taylor record done on Transition…

Q:   You were a real collector.

AS:  Oh, yes.  I’m a serious listener of the music.  All of the music, in fact, going all the way back.  So in the sense that I had those Transition copies… And at that point I said, “Well, this man is really an interesting musician.”  And I always liked the eccentric aspects of music-making, people like Red Nichols or Harry Partch.  I was always looking for the real eccentric aspects of music.  And I was a collector on those aspects.  So Cecil really interested me as something that really was emerging there.  I found his music as a young musician much more interesting than Ornette when he first came to New York.

Q:   Why is that?

AS:  Well, because I thought that… I had already heard Charles Mingus’ experimentations and Max Roach’s experimentations from the New York scene.  See, you have to realize I’m a New Yorker, raised in New York, and I had a lot of chance to really hear a lot of very interesting music in this town.

Q:   Tell us about the environment you were coming up as a young musician, a young listener and so forth.  And this will all take us to how you hooked up with Cecil Taylor…

AS:  I was raised in Harlem in the early 1950s.  I came from Bermuda to live in Harlem.  And at that time, in the early 1950s, my father, who’s an avid Jazz listener, Duke Ellington was his favorite… And I had a chance to be very associated with what was Bebop at that time, only at 5 or 6 or 7 years old.  I fell in love with music as a listening thing by radio, and listening to Charlie Parker and Classical Music, and I became very much interested in music ethnology, world music very early, listening to Folkways records and stuff like that.  And I really accepted Jazz, Afro-American music at this particular point as a very significant body of music.  So that took me into being a musician. 

     But I’m not basically… I’m like an artist.  I studied painting.  I studied at Art Students’ League. I studied at Hans Hoffman’s School of Fine Arts just before it closed.  I went to New School For Social Research and studied theories in music.  I studied with George Russell, the Lydian Chromatic Concept.  So in fact, living in New York was exposing to the amount of beautiful things that exist as a student.

Q:   No better place.

AS:  No better place to learn and no better place to experience.  So in a sense, Cecil I felt came out of that kind of experience, being raised in New York, too.  So I’m not one-sided, in the sense that my listening aspects are quite broad, from John Cage’s music to Harry Partch, to some American Indian music.

Q:   Well, let’s talk about you as a musician, then, and your development as a musician, and where you were at in 1957, when you heard Cecil Taylor at the Newport Jazz Festival.

AS:  Well, at that point, I was seriously thinking about becoming a painter.  And I still loved music, and I was still playing trumpet at that time, and I studied composition. 

Q:   How long had you been playing trumpet?

AS:  I had been studying trumpet maybe two years. 

Q:   Had you played anything before that?

AS:  I had played piano since I was six, and violin.  I was in music since the early parts of my life.

Q:   Through your parents?

AS:  Yeah, through my parents and through the church I was working with in Harlem.  So in fact, I was getting ready to prepare myself for a kind of artistic career.  I decided to study trumpet with Donald Byrd, because he was suggested to me.  I wanted to become a trumpet player.  I liked Miles and I liked Fats Navarro and people like that.  But in fact, this idea of playing the trumpet was something of a fantasy, actually.  I thought I was a good trumpet player.  I could read, and I thought I had good technical training, and I wanted to go into Classical, Classical trumpet playing, like at the Manhattan School of Music and New York College of Music.  So I began that search.  But I didn’t feel that Classical music was what I was really interested in.  And at that time, you couldn’t really study improvisation like you have today.  So I began to be interested in improvisation as a process. 

     But as I said before, these things about being fixed are not necessarily my idea of being an artist.  You understand what I mean?  Like, when I start playing trumpet, I might make a painting.  Do you see what I mean?  So I’m saying that you have to look at my development.

     When I decided to become a musician, that was about when I was…1961 or 1962.  But the preliminary aspects:  I was still painting, I was still drawing and painting and working on that aspect.  So when I met Cecil, I met him on those levels, as a collector and as having an interest in his music.

     The first I encountered Cecil on a personal level was when I was working for Whelan Drugstores.  I used to work on 8th Street and 6th Avenue…

Q:   Ah, yes.  Now it’s a Papaya King.

AS:  Exactly.  An all-night place.  Whelan Drugstores was a chain, and I worked there because my mother gave me a gig.  And this job was great.  I used to meet all the musicians and all the clubowners, who used to pass by at 4 o’clock in the morning and get hamburgers.  And that’s where I met Cecil…

Q:   Across the street from Nedick’s.

AS:  Exactly.  So Cecil was sitting there one day, having his hamburger and strawberry malted.  And I said to him, “My name is Alan Silva and I’m a bass player, and I’d like to meet you.”  So he said, “I’ve heard something about you from Bill Dixon.”

Q:   How had he heard about you from Bill Dixon?

AS:  Well, Bill Dixon is one of the persons I think that’s very much underrated in terms of the New York scene.  Bill and I go back to about 1960, when I had a band called the Free-Form Improvisational Ensemble.  The Free-Form Improvisational Ensemble was an experimental band based on totally free music.  We did a number of concerts at Town Hall, produced by Norman Seaman.  Norman Seaman had a new music series.  And Bill came to hear the concert, and he loved the band so much and what we were doing — and he invited us to participate in the October Revolution.

Q:   Give us a sense of what that band sounded like.

AS:  Well, this band… The problem is that there is no real document… The band was Burton Greene, a flute player, Mr. Winters, a drummer who was an electrical engineer, who was my best friend, and three bassists — one was a history of  science major who is a bassist… So it was like kind of an amateur art band.  Let’s look at it that way.  It wasn’t serious… We began rehearsing in the 1960’s every day…well, four rehearsals a week for three hours, and we recorded a lot of music. 

     The band was on a separate scene from themselves.  The band was a free band.  We started working on no writing, no compositions, what we called that.  I would say first that this band was trying to sound like a Contemporary Classical music piece that had the energy and had the sophistication, and compositions that were totally organized by the musicians.  I’ll say that we wanted to make the band sound as if it was reading music.  And that was our goal that we were trying to achieve…

Q:   And Bill Dixon heard you.

AS:  And Bill Dixon heard us at this time, and Bill asked us to join the October Revolution at one… We did one concert. And then Cecil asked me to play on October Revolution with the saxophone player…with John Coltrane, with Tony Williams playing drums.  That’s when I first entered…not actually entered, because I was actually trying to work on the Contemporary Music scene, not necessarily on the Jazz scene per se.

Q:   Who were some of your antecedents as far as playing bass?

AS:  Well, first of all, Mingus.  I studied sometimes with Charles Mingus. 

Q:   What was that like?

AS:  Well, Mingus was a great artist and a great bass player.  I learned how to be an individual. I think that one of the great things that Mingus taught me was get your sound, get something that’s really your personal sound.  And I think that training was unique, harmonically or the way you touch it, the way you pull it, the way… He was quite a bass player in the sense that he was totally committed to the technical development of a contemporary-sounding bass, slapping the bass… He turned me on to a lot of techniques that I was aware of in contemporary music.  Contemporary string playing, for instance.  I mean, Mingus was a cellist.  So we were all involved with the string instrument.  And I thought that Mingus was not trapped in some kind of a Jazz orientation.  Again, Mingus is a unique American artist, like a Charlie Parker, in a sense, on his instrument.

     One of the things you have to understand is that I was caught in between trying to make American music.  And I thought that Jazz or Afro-American music was the music.  I just felt as a composer that if I’m going to involve myself in American music, I have to involve myself here.  Because I felt a lot of the schools were too much on the European orientation, and I wanted to really penetrate what was…to try to create American music.  And I thought that improvisation was one of the key elements that American music needed to have.

Q:   We’re eventually going to get to Alan Silva meeting Cecil Taylor and hooking up with him, and so forth and so on.  But in this segment of the conversation, we’re talking about various within African-American music/Jazz who were influences.  You were studying with Mingus.  Were there other people?

AS:  I would say Paul Chambers.

Q:   A few words about him.

AS:  Yeah.  Paul, I mean, the bow.  Mingus had the bow, too.  But Paul really impressed me the way he handled the bow, in terms that he made it sing.  Paul had an incredible technique, intonation, speed, phrase, in time — his timing was impeccable.  And of course, like, the other one that’s fantastic, who sings with the bass…Slam Stewart.  These impressed me.  I mean, Slam Stewart was impressive.  I mean, to sing along with your instrument… I thought that was fantastic. 

     If you want to talk about contemporary bass playing, then you would have to say cats like Sam Jones, or the bass player that played with Miles later…

Q:   Ron Carter.

AS:  Ron Carter.  Now, this is… Or David Izenson, for that matter.  Who influenced me earlier was Henry Grimes.

     We all had Classical training.  I studied with Mr. Zimmerman, who was the top-notch bass teacher here in New York, with the New York Philharmonic, for several times.   But I was really interested in contemporary sounding bass playing, and that moved me into my own individual approach.  And I thought that Cecil’s music would be a good vehicle for the kind of work I wanted to do. 

     So if you want to place me as a sideman inside a system of searching for new ways of playing, yes, me and Cecil both agreed that we needed to develop new types of ways of playing.  And I think that comes simply because we loved the instrument.  I mean, if you like your instrument and you like sounds and you’re interested in sounds… In fact, I think that’s what makes, I think, a great African-American improviser.

Q:   Now, Cecil Taylor’s sound changed between 1962 and 1966 in a very distinctive way, from the documents that we can hear.  Talk a little about that, and the development of his sound.  Because it seems that he was, let’s say in ’62, searching for what starts to crystallize in the recordings around 1966.

AS:  Yes.  And if you have all the documents… I’m talking about Johnny Come Lately from that Transition record…

Q:   Or Wobbly Rail…

AS:  If you understand… If you have a good ear, and you’re really open, let’s say.  Because I think Cecil had a hard time convincing people that he was an Afro-American musician or a Jazz musician.  That was one of his hardest things, was to convince everybody.  European influence, blah-blah-blah, all this type of period… I mean, even the critics recognized he had an incredible technique, but they didn’t particularly like the music.  Do you understand what I mean?  It was like technique over music.  And I thought that that was not the real issue.  The issue is the music first, and then the technique… Cecil had that type of stuff 

     But the record he made that I think is still a fantastic solo is the one he did for Impulse, on Into The Hot, called Bubbles.  Now, this record, with Sunny Murray playing drums… It’s the most incredible rhythm section.  The swing is incredible.  This very poignant use of space and time, which he was learning from Monk… And what I loved about Monk’s music was his spacing, his idea of space, not cluttering the space up.  And I think that this record for me… I used to say to Cecil, “Cecil, if you kept on playing like that, you might have been a little more successful in terms of the stylistic problems,” you understand… We kid him about that sometimes.  Because obviously, he’s a very talented, very creative person — he’s got to keep moving.  But I felt that this… He swang.  The rhythm section was right on the button. I mean, it’s an incredible, poignant solo, very strong. 

     Then, of course, we started talking about Time, and changing rhythms and things like that.  And I think that’s what’s incredible about this period, of what we call Swing;  I mean, the idea of what Swing was. 

Q:   Talk about this new idea of swing at this time.

AS:  See, the bass players were the key elements.  I felt that bass players and drummers… Because that’s what happened when Ornette came to town with just bass and drums.  Now, Cecil was a piano player, and the role of the piano player… And I think that Cecil was trying to change that role.  But the bass players and the drummers, see, they had to deal with time and different types of elements.

     So when I first heard Sunny Murray, as a bass player, I said, “This is a real interesting way of playing drums and an interesting way of feeling time.”  And I had a very good understanding, because I knew about African rhythms, and I was very familiar with Chinese music.   So I heard all that when he played.  Now, this is the whole problem with people on Sunny.  Sunny is a world-class drummer and percussionist.  But since people have very little idea of how rhythm is put together, and even this whole idea of Swing… Kenny Clarke, for instance, who was the most fantastic drummer; I played with him in Paris… This idea of swing is really something that flows from the music itself.  And we have this problem now of what I call square rhythm, something very definite.  But I think that the Bebop…

Q:   Rather than circular.

AS:  Exactly.  Or multi… I call it now multi-layered, you understand.  What we try to do with those type of musicians is this multi-layer situation.  And I think even in Bebop, in a really good Bebop band (when I say really good Bebop, I’m saying cats like Philly Joe Jones and Paul Chambers), it’s an adventure.  And I think that when you have, like, Sunny Murray and myself and Cecil, there’s another adventure.  And we need to have a horn player…you understand…?

     So I’m saying when you look at the rhythm sections of that period, David Izenson and Moffett… I mean, there are so many varieties.  Or Max Roach and Curly Russell.  When we look at it in these ways, it’s not so fixed.  And I think that we experimented openly with time signatures and different types of time signatures.  So consequently, this was an open period, and it’s come together as a world music, a world-class music.  And most of the musicians of my period always had a very broad perspective about what was music.

Q:   [ETC.] Alan Silva lives in Paris a good chunk of the time, but he’s in New York now, working on a dance piece at the Dance Theatre Workshop… [ETC.] What we’re hearing now is an environmental piece of yours.  So I’d like to talk about (a) the music that’s coming over, and (b) the theatre piece.

AS:  The piece that’s coming over the airwaves at the moment  is kind of a piece to cool… My current work is how I can make sound an intricate part of the environment.  That’s in the sense that I’m trying to work now with this type of development.  The piece that I’m working on now with Mrs. Gibson, which is called Buried Oak, is a piece that’s mostly by Mrs. Gibson in the sense that she is a choreographer, and she has written a story or a piece of choreography that I am involved in writing the music to, in the sense that it is a combination of things about expatriatism, and at the same time, how Art can grow in this type of environment.  She’s the choreographer and I’m the composer. 

     I have written some of what I call computer-generated music.  I don’t particularly like this word.  I’ve been trying to search for  more feasible way to understand how does an improviser use a computer.  How I use it is simply: This is me, all of me, I might say.  I have generated the music simply by my own improvatorial concepts, which allows me to select different times, different instruments.  So this piece is based on that.  It’s all of me in the sense of being a composer and a player.  We’re going to hear a little bit of some of this piece now that we will perform at the Dance Theatre Workshop.

Q:   Is the piece computer-generated, or is it being performed by musicians?

AS:  No, this piece that you’re hearing is computer-generated.  I improvised into the computer, and I selected these sounds.

Q:   What sort of parameters are you using in terms of your  improvising program?

AS:  I like to sit at my synthesizer and organize structures on the synthesizer in terms of, like, I’m taking a solo.  I usually do that by organizing six different strata of solos.  Then I listen to…not playing against it, but trying to think of how I would play with this instrument.  And that’s how I begin to work on my computer-generated music.

Q:   It sounds sort of analogous to the idea of multi-layered rhythm.

AS:  Yes, exactly.  So I try to create something, and then I don’t hear that piece.  I try to memorize what I did, and then I sit at the computer and play another track for instance.

Q:   The first piece is cued.  Do they have titles?

AS:  No.  Track 1.

[MUSIC]

     This was a computer-generated piece I made about the summer of this year for a Florence premiere in June for Mrs. Maxwell.  It’s called Buried Oak.  Buried Oak‘s opening section now is an Ezra Pound poem, a translation of Chao Tsu, a Chinese 12th Century poet.  And this is the opening, we call the procession part of that piece.  [ETC.]

Q:   We were discussing the very turbulent years during the 1950’s and 1960’s when a new approach to music was being generated by a rather small but highly influential and accomplished group of musicians, many of them, and we’ve been discussing some further implications of what we were talking about off-mike.  In light of that, we’ve cued up one track from a number of documents that Alan Silva has recorded with Bill Dixon, whom you mentioned as having heard you with your ensemble in 1960.  Now, you’re both painters.

AS:  Exactly.  In relation to the current work that I’m doing with dancers, I think that Bill was, as a said before, my mentor in this area, with Judith Dunn, who was the principal dancer with Merce Cunningham during the Fifties.  We had a small trio, bass, trumpet and dance, and we premiered a piece at the Dance Theatre Workshop at that particular time, in the early Sixties, I think just before we did Unit Structures.  Me and Bill were working as a duo, trumpet and saxophone, among the Downtown Art Scene, I would say.  That’s with Aldo Tambellini, a very famous environmental video artist. 

     The idea that Judith had with Bill and I was to create three levels of improvatorial concepts in terms of visual and sound aspects.  And I think that because Bill and I were painters, this gave us a pretty much broad perspective of what Art was and what art movements were about.  I think Bill was very important in how we were going to use the dance as a score.  And I later went on to develop other dance or choreographic aspects.  Bill went to Bennington College with Judith to set up the Bennington College Improvised or Afro-American music, Black Studies programs during the Sixties, to develop a very interesting series of dances.  I worked with another one called Heidi Stonier(?).  She came to Paris, and we did a piece — one of Judith Dunn’s dance students.

     So I have three or four lines that I’m working on, as you can see.  I don’t like to be considered too much in one area.  I like to consider what I’m doing as artistic, in the artistic realm, and crossover — you might use that word.  The cultural aspect is very important, you see.

Q:   I’d like you to talk a little about the structures of Dixon’s in terms of your performance within them.

AS:  Me and Bill got along fairly well, and sometimes we had a lot of fights, simply because I refuse to do a lot of things over and over again, which he likes to do.  He’ll always say, “Well, why can’t you play that over and over?”  I say, “Look, I’m going to do that one time or twice.”  So now we have a clear idea that I would never play so many things over and over again. 

Q:   That means it has to be a rather special piece of his to have you in it.

AS:  Exactly.  So he knew exactly that if I’m going to hire Alan for a gig, then he’s got to have his way.  I was one of those bass players at a period where I had some ideas such as what improvatorial concepts were in relationship to performance, for instance.  In the United States during the Sixties, most composers had complete control of the piece.  They received royalties on the piece.  But not too many people who improvised on the piece ever received any royalties.  I was one of the first guys that started talking about, “Well, look, you didn’t write me anything here.  I can play what I want.”  So actually, who owns the composition?  So me and Bill used to discuss these types of interpretation…

Q:   And you’d have a fight once in a while.

AS:  Exactly.  I love him because… Well, he played trumpet, and I was an ex-trumpet player.  I mean, I learned a lot from him as a trumpet player about the way to play trumpet.  And when I heard him play, I knew that this really was a fantastic way of playing trumpet.  We just sort of blend very well, this trumpet and bass duo, which Cecil always thinks is one of Bill’s greatest moments, and I think so, too, myself… I thought the duo was a very strong duo.  And the trio with Judith was a very important musical event for the time, you understand.

     We’re now going to play something that Bill asked me to do at the Paris… One of those pieces comes from two events that he organized.

Q:   The recording is from 1980, on four records, Considerations One.  He writes, “Places and Things (1976) is one of the sections out of the longer work, entitled Autumn  Sequences, from a Paris diary.  It was composed for and performed for the Autumn Festival held in Paris at the end of September and the beginning of October 1976.

AS:  Right.  And what was fantastic about Bill in this period… I know the people who do the Autumn Festival in Paris.  He did a first concert that I think was twenty minutes.  Twenty minutes.  There were about 800 people in the room, a small room.  And the people who organized the Festival said, “Are you finished?”  He said, “Yes.  Tomorrow is another day.”  And I said, “Bill, we just played twenty minutes.  Do we have another set?”  “I don’t think so, Alan.  I think that will be it.”  And we went upstairs and had champagne.  I said, “Bill, that’s really lovely.  Okay.”  I knew that he was very determined to maintain that he was an artist and he had played.  And when the lady, who I know very well… She said, “Is he finished?”  I said, “We’re going to dinner.” 

     So his integrity I really respect.  And that Bill hasn’t received the tremendous amount of let’s say attention that he deserves… Because if you wanted to write a book about the Sixties, you have to deal with Bill Dixon, especially in New York.

[MUSIC: Places and Things (Bill Dixon, S. Horenstein, A. Silva), C. Taylor/Silva Tales, 8 Whisps]

Q:   [ETC.] I want to play Devil’s Advocate with you.  The music that you were involved in has been generalized and talked about as Free Jazz, or the New Thing, or the New Wave, and so forth and so on, and a number of either comments or accusations and so forth were thrown at the music.  So I’m going to start with a couple of them.  I’m going to throw them at you like I’m insulting you or something, and then I want you to respond.  First of all, the music has no chord sequence, there’s no structure, there’s no foundation.  Talk.

AS:  Talk!  Well, I think the problems when you have the clear structure, that question, no chords… Maybe we can look at the possibilities of the way people learn how to improvise maybe, and then we can figure out why this group decided to say “No chords,” or why did people seem to think that we were not playing chords.

     The problem here is that you have to study… If you were really serious about that question, and you say, “Well, how do people generate musical ideas?”… Well, yes, you could say they are chord-generated, or they are scale or melodically generated.  And I think the major issue here is not whether or not a person can play on chords.  The major issue is whether or not you can constructively construct a piece of music in space and time.  And since improvisation is part of that tradition, let’s say, that you’re able to  create something in the moment, then how do you begin to create?  So that means that when someone says, “Well, I don’t hear… You’re not playing 32-bar songs” or “you’re not playing a 12-bar blues,” it would assume that these were the only way in which music was created.  And I think that that’s quite limited, considering the fact that Nature is quite broad, and there’s many different ways in which creation can be executed.

     So my approach has always been to develop… Well, I consider it two ways.  I like to listen to Thelonious Monk.  I thought Thelonious Monk taught me more about how to improvise than, say, maybe Charlie Parker.  You understand what I mean?  I like the way Duke improvised.  Whether or not we have to learn chords, it’s just simply the fact is, “Do we play on chords?”  And I can tell you now from my current research that there are probably 50 or 60 million different ways in which you can organize any kind of scale  on any kind of chord.

     So the question is, do we play on chords.  It depends on the player.  So one player may be linear and one player may be vertical, and one may be even horizontal.  Some people say you need both of them.  I say, “Well, it depends.”  So I think the current issue even now in the Nineties is, do people play on chords or do they play on melody.  And I think the same issue was for Charlie Parker, and the same issue for Louis Armstrong, for that matter — or go back to the beginning of music.

Q:   Now, one distinction might be that in the case of Charlie Parker and Louis Armstrong, they were creating something new, and there is a continuum from the idiomatic tradition out of which they evolved their playing style.  Does this continuum exist in the music of the Sixties?

AS:  Well, I think if you seriously look at the music of the Sixties, with an objective ear, you can start by listening to certain things like what John Coltrane, who was at that point a leading improviser in what we call “chord music”, you understand… I mean, if you really want something about chords…

Q:   Up and down.

AS:  Up and down!  I mean, he created the sheet of sound.  So I happened to be there a number of nights that Trane would be with Miles, taking something like maybe 25 choruses, where Miles would say, “Well, man, how much can you have more to say?”  So if we take Trane, I think Trane is a unique improviser in Afro-American music, because fundamentally he said, “Okay, I’ve learned that; now I’m going to move into this area.”  He did things like Sun Ship, and things like that.  And some people didn’t follow this road.  But I think he was fully equipped to handle any kind of musical situation. 

     But in fact, I think he was just like any normal musician who is continuing to grow.  And I think this issue is the issue of creativity, if you’re involved in music, and I think Trane or Ornette or Cecil are involved of the process of music.  Now, the public has nothing to do with that.  This is a professional thing.

Q:   And an artistic thing.

AS:  Yeah, it’s an artistic pursuit.  And this is defined by that very clearly.  If the audience doesn’t… Some people say, “Well, I liked Coltrane when he was doing the ballads, but I don’t particularly like Ascension,” for instance, I say, “Well, if you’re really involved in listening to an artist’s work, then you’re involved in his research as much as possible,” you see.

Q:   Another thing that was thrown at a lot of the musicians at this period was “They can’t play”…

AS:  Mmm!

Q:   …or “They’re jiving” or “they’re faking,” or “X, Y, Z, A, B and D can play, but…” — and so forth.

AS:  Yeah.  I think I’ve heard that…

Q:   A couple of hundred times.

AS:  Yeah, a couple of million times.  Let’s say Sunny Murray.  Can he swing?   Can he really play time?  Can he really play the Blues?  Or did Cecil ever play the Blues, or did Ornette… You see what I mean?  Consequently, there was not one document that sort of synched(?) it… But like I told you when I began (?) with Cecil… I mean, Cecil was there!  If you’re really serious about what he’s doing today, he’s doing what he’s doing! 

Q:   And going way beyond that.

AS:  Exactly, I mean, in fact.  So for me, in that particular part, yes… I am a well-trained musician.  I studied music.  And some musicians who came through New York, intuitively they were beautiful musicians, and it’s best that they didn’t go to school, because had they gone to school they might have messed up their creative energy to a certain degree.  And some musicians are autodidactic, or what we call orally trained, are just as acceptable — from my point of view.   Such a man who I worked with for a long time is Frank Wright.  Frank Wright played the saxophone like no other person ever played the saxophone.  And if I listen to Frank Wright, I hear something I never heard before.  And that would interest me.  If you’re not interested in that, then I’m sorry.  You can’t talk to me about that.  Because I am interested in the way the instrument sounds, and that’s what….

Q:   And a particular individual’s own sound, and the collision or meeting with the sounds of others.

AS:  Exactly.  And that’s what I think, that the new music again surged into individuality… I think the Free Jazz movement really expressed that, that the spirit of the individual is most important, not fundamentally that the musicality is important.  You see?

Q:   You’re living in Europe, and you’ve been there for many years, and improvisation is your mode of expression.  And in Europe there has developed over the last 25 years a rather substantial community of improvisers, drawing upon their own particular background, resources and so forth.  Have you been associated with those people?

AS:  Yes.

Q:   What are your feelings about it vis-a-vis the broader world of improvising?

AS:  I went to Europe in ’72, left the United States.  I was very aware of the developments of the European improvisation.  But at this time, in the Sixties, I was for Jazz, or improvisation on a world-wide scale.  I didn’t segment it in terms of, well, this was American music and this was European music.  I just thought if you wanted to improvise, then you’re part of this group, and those people who want to read music are part of this group.  I made it very clear.  And I remember, I made my first interview at a Swiss radio station, I said, “Well, 65 or 80 percent of the world’s musicians improvise,” so I don’t have the problem about Classical Music, you see.

     So I think when I’m looking at the source of the Europeans in the Sixties, we were more collectively identified with each other, you understand.  I don’t feel any animosity towards European improvisers in the Sixties, or in the later parts.  Some musicians later started to build a “European improvisational group,” trying to establish some uniqueness.  For me, I do not like nationalism, and I don’t like this at all.  I think that  Peter BrÖtzman plays the saxophone in a certain way, and when I pick up a record and I listen to it, it is not a European saxophone player, it is Peter BrÖtzman.  Because I believe individuality is the essential issue is the Free Jazz music, the voice thing.  So these people start to cornerize the market, like European Jazz is different than American Jazz, and I say, “Unh-uh.”  If the guy has got a sound, for me it’s a certain unit.

     Well, people say, “We’re working on something a little different than American musicians.”  I say, “Mmm.  What could be different?  You play the saxophone?  We play the saxophone.  You play the bass…”  That’s the only difference.  So I think that some people are defending European music not a very good ground for me as a musician, as a worldwide musician.  Because I am not trying to interest myself in… I am going to China, for instance, in May.  I am only interested in improvisation.  And as I said before, I am very clear about that.  Some people are not so clear.  German musicians are affected by American musicians.  As you know now, it’s a big struggle between Europe and America on artistic… [END OF SIDE 2] …product and stuff like this, and the European musicians are feeling affected by the loss of jobs in their own territory.  So it’s more economical.

     Now, if we want to talk about the source of the music, this is a problem of governmental involvement.  Now, we happen to be in America, which…

Q:   Or the involvement of the market.

AS:  For instance, yes.  But the American market is primarily a private industry, and in Europe it’s been a governmental issue.  So I think that the problems of European music… So getting back to the real difference between an American musician and a European musician… I don’t think there’s really a difference.  I can play with European musicians and I can play with American musicians.  This is my own personal thing.  But I know that there is a difference, and this difference I won’t…

     I will say culturally, yes.  Yes, there are some cultural roots in European music that’s different than the American for sure.  I’ve known that for years.  Like, say, drummers.   I mean, they had a hard time really swinging Bebop.  That was one of their hardest… I mean, they couldn’t produce a drummer in Europe for a number of years.  Bass players, too, until much later.  Saxophone players it was difficult, too.  Bebop was a difficult music for the Europeans to really grasp and to really articulate. 

     But a generation later, when we opened the music up to a wider scope, which Cecil did and myself, I thought this… We were all drawing upon a lot of different sources together.  Stockhausen, American Indians… You understand what I mean?  And these sources are available I think to all people.  And this is why I feel… As for myself, I played with the Globe Unity Orchestra, and I’ve played with Cecil Taylor’s Orchestra.  Cecil has done now a whole series of records…

Q:   Duos and trios with European improvisers.

AS:  Exactly.

Q:   Which are extraordinary.

AS:  Extraordinary pieces of music, and I think they will stand upon their own not because Cecil is Cecil, but just stand upon their own as sound documents.  And this is what… I’m very impressed always with Evan Parker.  I’m working now with Roger Turner and Johannes Bauer.  I’m always impressed with their way of handling the sounds.  And I love this.  For me, I have no problem with them.

Q:   We’re speaking with an individual who has generated one of the most distinctive sounds on the acoustic bass over the last thirty years, Alan Silva.  You were speaking of being a world musician, but I think you may even have extended that in the title for your orchestra, the Celestial Communications Orchestra.  The following pieces from a 1978 recording, Sun #3, Portrait For A Small Woman

     Now, your first orchestral record is a semi-legendary piece of work from 1970, in part because of, it has to be said, the horrible pressing! 

AS:  Oh, boy, yes! 

Q:   It’s hard to hear what was going on.

AS:  Right. 

Q:   And that’s I think three volumes on BYG.

AS:  Three volume set.  I think this was my first attempt in terms of recording… I mean, the tapes were fantastic, but I think everybody’s gotten some real bad pressings on that deal.

Q:   The tapes are still around?

AS:  Yes.

Q:   So they theoretically could still be issued.

AS:  Theoretically they could come out.  I’m hoping that Charley Records, or Affinity, who has the tapes, would like to release that album.  I want to hear it on CD.  I’m impressed by the digital process, and especially on this record, which is extremely dense, quite interesting as a sound document.

Q:   Well, 1969 and 1970 was a particularly unique time in Europe.

AS:  Right.

Q:   I know we keep digressing.  But that’s when a lot of musicians from the Midwest, the AACM and other places, settled in Paris, intermingled with European musicians… Talk about that period.  It was an incredible time.

AS:  This piece that I put together in fact was during Christmas, it was December 25th or 28th, something like that… I was on loan in Paris, from the New York scene to the Paris scene.  This particular exchange was I think engineered successfully by a producer there.  The tricky part about this album is that it would never have existed had it not been for one cancellation of a very famous musician, Stan Getz, who was supposed to do a Christmas concert at the ORTF.  Stan Getz could not come to the concert.  So one of my friends who worked in the radio said, “Alan, what could you do?”  And I said, “Well, why don’t we just put everybody that’s in Paris, and we could make a nice orchestra piece.”  That’s the real history of that album.  I mean, the Radio house would have never… The Director of the Radio house, who is Mr. Andre Francis, who really didn’t like Free Jazz at all, he was very, very conservative about his views…

     So the event took place.  And you have to remember that this was ’69, one year after the student revolution.  We had almost 4,000 people at this concert that couldn’t get in.  In fact, the French security forces had surrounded the Radio House, because there were 4,000 people outside and only 3,000 people inside.  If you have a chance to listen to the record, that’s why I put all the claps on the end, I think about five minutes of claps and stomping.  Because I was so impressed, I didn’t believe that this ever could… That’s why I did that as an historical piece.  I think the musicians that are on it, from the Art Ensemble to German and French musicians… It’s an important document of that period.

Q:   This 1978 recording that we will be hearing, however, talk about the genesis of this.  The featured soloist on the piece we’ll be hearing, Communications, which you described as “out,” is Jouk Minor, a baritone…

AS:  A baritone saxophonist.  My residency in France from 1972 all the way up until 1982 has generated a lot of musicians around my work.  I made an orchestra at that period, at different periods, that dealt with European musicians, based around my concepts of what I thought the music was.  These albums represent some of the people who actually studied music with me, and helped me to build my school.  These are the two or three primary players, who now are quite famous in the French Jazz scene, in a sense.  So this is some of the work that we had done together in this particular period on that album. 

     And I think this album represents a kind of retrospect of my work.

Q:   Up to 1978.

AS:  No, I wanted to put some music on line, orchestral ideas, that I didn’t do on my 1969 record.  You understand what I mean?  In the sense that it is some pieces that I conceptualized here, like Broadway, from the point of view of this music is not totally improvised.  There’s a lot of written music.  And this album was conceptualized as a possibility of anything I could do after that, you see.

[MUSIC: CCO, Communications, The Shout, Wright/Silva/Ali, Center Of The World (Pt.1)]

     The area between being a bass player, being a composer and bandleader, or being an orchestra leader and a composer during this period of the Seventies, when the last things that you hear are European pieces, and working with Frank Wright, the Center of the World Quartet, which I thought was one of the most successful of what I would call people- living-abroad bands… We were one of the most successful Americans-living-abroad bands in the Seventies that didn’t go back to America — let’s look at it that way.  From this resident group of musicians, there were two bands that were left, the Steve Lacy Sextet and the Frank Wright Quartet (or the Center of the World).  As you know, Steve Lacy and I have maintained ourselves abroad, and Bobby Few has… So Steve has continued world stature, using Paris as his base.  That band he created, the Sextet, as you know is quite well-known on the  world-wide scale. 

     But Center of the World broke up in the late Seventies.  Frank Wright went on to make other music with other bands.  I went into the educational business, making the Institute for Art Cultural Perception, and the orchestra became my vehicle, in the Seventies and the late Eighties, of my productions.  After that I didn’t do too many quartet albums.

[PAUSE]

     I’m currently working with two European musicians, an English drummer, Roger Turner, and Johannes Bauer, a trombonist from East Germany (which is now no longer the East) who comes from a very fine family of musicians, the Bauer family, which has Kenny Bauer, Conrad Bauer — I mean, this family is full of bass players and trombone players.  We decided to make a little trio, and the success of that has been… We did the Nickelsdorff Festival last year.  It’s not currently working that much, but we are now working on a CD which you will hear some tracks from at the present moment.

     And I’m working with a man named A.R. Penck and Frank Wolley.

Q:   A.R. Penck is another person who is dealing with a dual artistic or creative identity, and is best-known and probably best financially remunerated as a painter.

AS:  Exactly.  And as a sound document.  I like Ralph because Ralph worked with Frank Wright for a number of years, and I thought he did a number of festivals here in New York.  I thought he did the Sound [sic: Sound Unity] Festival one year; he sponsored something with Frank Wright and Peter Kowald, I think.  He’s done a number of Sound festivals in London.  He sponsors himself.

     I am currently involved with one of his projects, the trio, called the TTT.  Butch Morris, of course, has been with TTT for a number of years, along with Frank Wright.  I just joined the organization after the death of Frank Wright, so I decided to join that group.  And this record you will hear later today with Jeanne Lee, who has been  working with A.R. Penck…

[MUSIC: A.R. Penck/Silva; Bauer/Turner/Silva; Silva (environmental sound piece)]

AS:  The last piece is a computer-generated piece which is run with environmental sound of a piece I wrote for an art exposition in the town of Duren(?).  If you can hear the water mixing with the sound… It was done for an art exposition environmental sound piece.

     The one before that was my new trio, and we hear four short selections that will possibly be coming out in the near future.  Here I guess I’m exhibiting myself as a synthesizer player. 

     So those records have a whole different line of what I’m currently working on, synthesized music, I don’t play too much bass… I use bass inside the synthesizer.

[ETC.]

     I have always been interested in institution building.  And that means, consequently, that I believe in musicians’ control.  And my whole life has been devoted to actually trying to control my art.  I would say that Bill Dixon and myself, that’s the problems we might have in contemporary society.  See, people who like to control things…

Q:   The market.  Capital.

AS:  For instance.  Or the ability to be a producer.  Or the ability for some musicians to have some control over their existence.  And going further into actually building institutions that really reflect musicians’ attitudes, such as what I try to do at my school, the Institute for Art, Culture and Perception.  The most important thing is that musicians of my generation, what I feel was concerned with institution-building… I really respect the people from the AACM for the long work they  done in continuing that spirit.  We had the Jazz Composers Guild in New York, and we didn’t achieve the objectives set up by the organization.  But I am very respectful of the AACM for their continuing to try to be a musician-controlled institution.  And this what…

Q:   What you’re about.

AS:  What I’m about, actually. 

[ETC.]

[MUSIC: C. Taylor, Niggle Figgle]

     This was a fantastic concert.  I think we had just finished doing the two records, Unit Structures and Conquistador, and we came to Paris to do an art project.  And this piece I think is probably… Student Studies and Amplitude is really interesting; it’s a longer piece.  I like this piece because of the speed at which the energy is flowing.  But the other two pieces are very important pieces of Cecil in terms of space, time, energy release.  He never curated any pieces like this before, later… I think this band really understood space and time in a very deep sense, and that’s what I really remember about this piece.

For trumpet master Marcus Printup’s birthday, an unedited Downbeat Blindfold Test from 2018

Like all his bandmates in the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, trumpeter Marcus Printup — who has contributed some 30 compositions and arrangements to the band’s immense book since 2007 — is  familiar with and able to interpret gracefully a broad spectrum of styles. His keen observations made this 2018 Downbeat Blindfold Test difficult to edit down to a one-page feature — here’s the uncut version.

****************

Marcus Printup Blindfold Test:

Nate Wooley

“Hesitation” (Dance To The Early Music. Clean Feed, 2015) (Wooley, trumpet; Josh Sinton, bass clarinet; Matt Moran, vibraphone; Eivind Opsvik, bass; Harris Eisenstadt, drums)

This is “Hesitation.” I know it’s not Wynton’s version, but I’m listening. Whoever it is, they’ve got a lot of chops. It sounds great. I’m hearing a bit of Don Cherry, but of course it’s not him. I love how free he is. It’s almost as though there’s nothing he can’t do on the horn. I’m wondering if it’s Dave Douglas and Chris Potter. I’m stumped. But it’s very impressive. As I said before, I’ve not listened to a lot of free trumpet playing like that, but he or she is very much on top of their game and I want to hear more of it. I think the treatment is great. The only version I’ve heard is the one that Wynton did back in the early ’80s; as a reference to that, this is freer within the form. I dig it. Right away, it reminded me of Dolphy, and a little bit of Booker, but more like Don Cherry. But I love it. 4 stars. Nate Wooley? Don’t know him.

Eddie Henderson

“Fran Dance” – (Be Cool, Smoke Sessions, 2018) (Henderson, trumpet; Donald Harrison, alto saxophone; Kenny Barron, piano; Essiet Okun Essiet, bass; Mike Clark, drums)

I hear a lot of Miles, of course, and heard a few Dizzy Gillespie licks, and Freddie Hubbard, too. I’m guessing this is Charles Tolliver. I’m in the right generation. Jimmy Owens. I’ve heard him do similar… He knows so much history of the music, and his Harmon sound is similar as well. Oh, it’s Eddie. What gave it away, I was thinking… You said I was in the right ballpark when I said Charles, and I was thinking what other trumpet players were around during that time. But then, again, I didn’t want to narrow my thoughts just thinking about who was around before. I’m listening to the music and trying to see what he or she is dealing with. I went, “Wait a minute, Miles; he knows Dizzy’s language and Freddie—that’s got to be Eddie Henderson.” There was a lick he did that really reminded me of Miles, but it had that same flavor in it. “Oh, come on, Marcus; that’s Eddie Henderson.” I loved the piece. I met Eddie a few times, and I’ve always been a fan of his playing. People say he sounds like Miles, but he has his own thing. I can’t say he’s freer than Miles, because they have different personalities. But he has his own way of playing and interpreting the sound of that Harmon mute. There’s only a few trumpet players who play Harmon mute that I really like. Eddie is one, and of course Miles, and I love Dizzy’s Harmon mute as well—and a few modern cats as well. But my lightbulb came on at the last minute. Miles Davis made a few different recordings of this and many other songs, and they never sounded the same. So I think Miles basically set the tone for not just playing the same melody, but just being free within the melody to create your own lines, to create your own harmonies, to create your own vibe, the way that Eddie was well. The band was following him; following each other. It’s laid back. The mood of the song kind of maintains; the whole mellow thing—it has a few highs, then it goes back down. But it’s music. 4 stars.

Brian Lynch

“Sweet Love Of Mine” – (Madera Latino, Hollistic, 2017) (Lynch, trumpet, arranger; Michael Rodriguez, trumpet; Zaccai Curtis, piano; Luques Curtis, bass; Obed Calvaire, drums; Little Johnny Rivero, congas)

Is that two trumpets? Is the first trumpet Mike Rodriguez? Mike is not only one of my favorite young cats around, he’s one of my favorite cats to hear. He’s such a great talent. He actually did a few tours with the orchestra a few months ago, and I had a ball playing with him. I love his sound. I love his fingers. His ideas are fantastic. I’m trying to figure out the second guy. Diego Urcola. Some fantastic orchestration on the shout chorus at the end—very nice. When they trade first and then weave into the melody, that’s very nice. The other trumpet player is on the tip of my tongue, and once it’s revealed, I’m going to go and run about 10 laps around the building. Nice take. I like how they maintained the vibe of the style the whole time. That other trumpet player sounded great. They complemented each other. I know Mike’s playing well. Like I say, he’s one of my favorite cats out here, so I can identify his sound pretty much from the beginning. The other cat is a great player. Sounds familiar. 4.25 stars. It was great. I don’t usually give 5 out unless it’s like…I don’t know. That was Brian Lynch! Shit. Should have known that. He sounded fantastic. Some great writing.

Andrew Rathbun Large Ensemble-Tim Hagans

“Two Islands II” (Atwood Suites, Origin, 2017) (Tim Hagans, flugelhorn soloist; Rathbun, composer; Seneca Black, Matt Holman, Dave Smith, Russ Johnson, trumpet, flugelhorn; John O’Gallagher, Ben Kono, Quinsin Nachoff, Dan Pratt, Carl Maraghi, reeds and woodwinds; Alan Ferber, Mike Fahie, JC Sanford, trombones;; Chris Olness, bass trombone; Jeremy Siskind, piano; David Ambrosio, bass; Bill Stewart, drums)

My first guess is Ingrid. My second is Dave Douglas. Ok, I’m off. That took me somewhere. It took me to a nice place. I dig how in the beginning… First of all, there are so many trumpet players who are coming from the Miles Davis sound, but they have their own thing. I think it’s beautiful, because his influence is so strong to this day. But I love the way it starts off, kind of like a classical sonata type piece, and then it goes into kind of a Gil Evans chorale type thing, which is beautiful, too, then the rhythm comes in later. I love it. It’s a nice way to start a tune with those three different things coming in, and maintaining the rhythmic elements of the song. It’s brilliant. It took me somewhere. I have no idea who the trumpet player is, but he or she did a great job, weaving in and out, establishing a mood. Whenever I teach now, which includes teaching myself when I’m trying to play something, I’m always trying to find a way to sing. I’m always trying to find a way to not play the trumpet but just to sing. This cat was singing, whoever he or she was. I liked the very end of the first part, which I call the classical sonata part. He or she ends up on that high A. It’s a little wavery, but it’s so human, and I love that. When things are too clean, it sounds like a computer. That had some grit in it that lets you know there’s a human being behind it, and that was beautiful. I liked that a lot. 4 stars. That was Tim? That’s my man. I love Tim Hagans. We did a tribute to Freddie Hubbard back in 1997 or 1998. Now that you say it, of course it was him. We did a two week tour, and by the end of the tour I was playing a bit like him and he was playing a bit like me. Tim is a great player, great cat.

Sean Jones

“The Ungentrified Blues” (Live From Jazz At The Bistro, Mack Avenue, 2017) (Jones, trumpet; Orrin Evans, piano; Luques Curtis, bass; Mark Whitfield, Jr., drums)

It sounds like my man, Sean Jones. There’s nothing like a nice D-flat blues. Before I figured out it was Sean, the first note I heard I was thinking this is someone that’s coming from Roy Hargrove. Roy has so many disciples, which is a great testament to his artistry. But I said, “This is not Roy; it’s somebody else.” Then I kept listening. I had the pleasure of sitting beside Sean Jones in the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra for about 3-4 years, and every night he just brought the most amount of soul. Outside of being one of my favorite players, he’s a fun cat to hang with, too. But the thing about the song I really love: Usually when there’s a 12/8 kind of gospel feel like this, it’s really hard for the musicians, especially if they’re young, to maintain that groove, and not climax (for lack of a better word) too fast. But they maintained the vibe throughout the entire tune. When Sean went up, the band went up. When he came down, the band went down, and then during the piano solo, it stayed kind of mellow the rest of the song. Usually when you hear people playing this kind of tempo, there’s a big rise at the end. But they kept it right there. That was probably a strategically planned encore. It’s a very cohesive unit. That’s probably Obed on drums… Sean is a great leader. The music sounds fantastic. 4 stars.

Tom Harrell

“View” (Something Gold, Something Blue, High Note, 2016) (Harrell [left], Ambrose Akinmusire [right], trumpet; Charles Altura, guitar; Ugonna Okegwo, bass; Johnathan Blake, drums)

[First trumpet solo] That is Ambrose. I just realized that there’s two trumpet players. Before you reveal who the other trumpet player is, I’ll talk about the music. This kind of music inspires me, because they just play one or two chords, and there’s so much inventiveness that came about on that one or two chords, and that kind of inspires me to try to find a different way to play. I play Duke Ellington and a lot of other great standard compositions, but just hearing how inventive these young cats are is wonderful. It makes me want to be young, and learn something else.

I met Ambrose when he was 15 or 16 years old in San Francisco, and he was playing kind of like Freddie Hubbard back in the day, and just to see how much he’s evolved into being a giant on the scene… He’s incredible. He definitely inspires me as well. But the other cat sounds great, too. I was thinking Marquis Hill, but Marquis is a bit different. I love the tune. I think it’s fantastic. Again, it’s minimal, with the melody and everything, and the chords were pretty steady. It’s only one or two chords, but within the improvisation they’re making thousands of chords, so that makes it great. I like the tune. 4.25 stars. That was Tom Harrell? Man! I didn’t recognize Tom’s playing on there, because I haven’t heard him play like this before. That’s great. I’ve met Tom a few times, and we had a conversation about what we practice, and he said he practices Charlie Parker solos. That makes a lot of sense, because his fingers are so nimble, and his ideas are so fresh as well. So that’s Tom Harrell and Ambrose—two of my favorite cats. Now that it’s Tom, let’s give it 4.5 stars.

Ingrid and Christine Jensen

“Duo Space”/“Old Time” (Infinitude, Whirlwind, 2016) (Ingrid Jensen, trumpet, effects; Christine Jensen, tenor saxophone; Ben Monder, guitar; Fraser Hollins, acoustic bass; Jon Wikan, drums; Kenny Wheeler, composer)

Ingrid Jensen. What tells me it’s Ingrid? It’s inventive. She can go from the low range to the high range so easily; she has that thing that nobody has but her. I like the way she does it. I know she’s been experimenting with electronic effects as well. She has a lot of Miles in her playing as well, but she sounds like herself, which is fantastic. Hearing her dig like this, it’s great. The way it started, very sparsely, was inventive. People talk about jazz, and they ask you what is jazz.  Jazz is improvisation, and that’s exactly what was happening in the very beginning. It wasn’t swing. It wasn’t whatever you want to call it. It was what it was. [PAUSE] People talk about jazz and what is jazz. Does it have to swing? Does it have to do that? The very beginning of this song was nothing like that whatsoever, but I think the meaning of jazz is being creative and finding your own voice and finding how to interpret what’s inside of you. That’s what being a jazz artist is to me. I guess that could apply to many different genres. But the fact that Ingrid is a great jazz musician makes it jazz to me. So I thought it was great, the way they did the first section and then came into the groove, and it became even more creative and inventive. They pulled it off. Fantastic. 4 stars.

Terence Blanchard

“Tit For Tat Nocturne” (The Comedian, Blue Note, 2017) (Blanchard, trumpet, composer; Kenny Barron, piano; David Pulphus, bass; Carl Allen, drums)

[AFTER 3 NOTES] Terence Blanchard. I learned a lot of stuff from Terence about bending notes. I love how he bends notes. That’s how I play when I play certain styles of music; some of it came from hearing him do that when I was younger. That’s another example of that 12/8 bluesy style of playing. They actually pulled something off… Sean and Terence went in similar directions, but Terence made it go up a bit more at the end, and that was very effective, too. I’ve got to give Terence 4.5 stars as well because he’s my elder. When Terence first came out, after Wynton left the Messengers and then we heard Terence with the Messengers, at first people were saying, “here’s this new cat from New Orleans; he sounds like Wynton,” blah-blah. But he sounds like himself now, man. He sounds so good. Again, I love the way he bends notes. He slips and slides around. And he plays the trumpet like he’s a singer. When I teach lessons, I’m always trying not to get trumpeters to play like that, but just to find the deepest means of expression. When Terence is playing, it’s just like he’s singing, and I love that. Now that you said it was film music, another reason I’m giving him 4.5 stars is, you hear elements of Miles Davis in his playing, you hear all of this history, and he’s been able to transform that into film and into just going mainstream without losing any of his integrity at all. But he pulled it off.

Jonathan Finlayson & Sicilian Defense

“Flank and Center” (Moving Still, Pi, 2016) (Finlayson, trumpet; Miles Okazaki, guitar; Matt Mitchell, piano; John Hébert, bass; Craig Weinrib, drums)

I’m totally stumped. The rhythm section is killing! Trumpet player sounds great. Sounds like a younger cat who’s got his stuff together. That sound is so familiar; I’m trying to think who it is. Was it Ben Williams on bass? I really liked the tune. It took me somewhere as well. 4 stars. It’s not usually my taste of what I like to listen to, but the level of musicianship was so strong in there. Oh, that’s Jonathan! I heard Jonathan and Ambrose together for the first time…when I met Ambrose, I heard them together.

Caroline Davis-Marquis Hill

“Penelope” (Heart Tonic, Sunnyside, 2018) (Davis, alto saxophone; Hill, trumpet; Julian Shore, piano; Tamir Shmerling, bass; Jay Sawyer, drums; Wayne Shorter, composer)

[DURING THE BEGINNING UNISON] That sounds like Marquis. I know his sound. He has a warm sound. Chicago. The sparse rhythm with the drum and the bass and piano playing very sparse rhythms gives the improviser a lot of freedom to create, and to be nimble on top. Very nice. I love how Marquis plays a lot of interludes between the solos, which adds so much flavor and life and personality to the music. Who’s the alto player? Caroline Davis? I don’t know her. She’s killing. I loved that one. For the composition and the vibe of the song, 4.5 stars. Something about Marquis… He’s one of those young cats who really inspire me to find my voice. I’m 51, and I think it’s cool that I’m getting inspired by someone half my age. I’ve got 2 or 3 of his records. His solos are damn near perfect. His note choices are damn near perfect, and they’re full of soul and they’re full of spontaneity at the same time. That’s the way I’d describe his solos. I’m a big fan.

Christian Scott

“AvengHer” (The Emancipation Procrastination, Ropeadope, 2017) (Scott, trumpet, effects; Marcus Gilmore, drums, SPD-SX; Weedie Braimah, bata, djembe)

Dave Douglas does stuff like this, so I’m going to say Dave Douglas. He’s feeling it, whoever it is. He’s got a lot of heart. The only other guess I have is this young cat, Philip Dizack. It sounds like his sound. I like Philip, too. He did some stuff with Greg Tardy. Was that a real drummer? Personal opinion: It’s not my favorite to have that in the background. But I don’t want to sound like an old man! But for what it was, of course, they pulled it off. Again, my thing is about the level of musicianship, and it’s high, and they sound really good. The trumpet player had a lot of chops. 4 stars. Oh, that’s Christian! He’s doing some different stuff these days.

Ron Miles

“I Am A Man” (I Am A Man, Enja, 2017) (Miles, cornet; Bill Frisell, electric guitar; Jason Moran, piano; Thomas Morgan, bass; Brian Blade, drums)

That sounds like the same key as this Ron Miles song, “Just Married.” It is Ron! I love him. Ron’s playing always takes you on a journey—his compositions, his band. That’s Bill Frisell. Was that Brian Blade? I missed the piano player. Oh, it’s Jason? That makes sense. There are so many themes within that one cut, and they all fit. It’s not like he’s adding something in there just for the sake of adding it in. Everything fits like a puzzle. Again, it takes you on a journey. 4.5 stars.

Wallace Roney

“Observance” (A Place In Time, High Note, 2016) (Roney, trumpet; Ben Solomon, tenor saxophone; Buster Williams, bass; Lenny White, drums)

Wallace. We talked about so many trumpet players who are coming from Miles Davis. Wallace can sound, in my humble opinion, exactly like Miles without losing who he is as well. He can sound exactly like Miles Davis, but he also sounds exactly like himself. That’s my opinion about Wallace. I love Wallace Roney. They play well together. Again, great musicians. I never play this kind of music, and I don’t listen to it a lot, but I still like it. Because the musicians are so accomplished and because Wallace is one of my heroes, 4.5 stars.

A Review of Tyshawn Sorey’s “Reimagining Max Roach’s ‘Members Don’t Get Weary’ Concert at Public Records, Brooklyn, Jan. 10, 2024, for Max’s centennial

I attended only one event at Winter Jazz Festival (or Jazz Congress) for reasons having to do more with stamina issues, work obligations, and child care obligations than disinterest in the music. But I am grateful to have had an opportunity to hear the WJF’s opening night concert at Public Records, on which Tyshawn Sorey deconstructed and translated into his own argot Max Roach’s great 1968 album “Members Don’t Get Weary.”

I haven’t seen any reviews, so I’ll try to describe what it was like.

If you haven’t been to the listening room at Public Records, the selling point is the larger-than-life sound system, including Kareem-sized speakers that PROJECT. It’s also chairless, which gives you an opportunity to get right next to the barely raised bandstand, which I was able to do, center-stage.

The concert was presented by Take Two, whose format, it was explained before the proceedings began, is to play the record and then bring the artist assigned to interpret it onstage. They played a mint copy (can’t remember if it was mono or stereo) of “Members,” 32 minutes long, by Max’s then-working band of several years, with Gary Bartz, Charles Tolliver, Stanley Cowell and Jymie Merritt, who played definitive interpretations of well-known tunes like Stanley Cowell’s “Effi” and “Equipoise,” Jymie Merritt’s “Absolutions,” Gary Bartz’s “Libra,” and a memorable vernacular title track with Andy Bey on vocals. Hearing it through these speakers was amazing.

After a break, they brought up Gilles Peterson, who was dj’ing later, to speak about Max Roach. In my opinion, this was a mistake. All Peterson seemed able to speak about was Max’s impact on him, how he “discovered” Max, and how that “discovery” impacted Peterson’s impact on British DJ culture and dance music. He then brought Charles Tolliver on stage for an interview, and spent most of their few minutes talking about how great it was when Peterson brought him on a tour. Master Tolliver, unprompted, managed to get in a few words about Max, and told us (if I remember correctly) that the group went in the studio for the album after a tour that included some time in London, and that they did it in 3-4 hours.

The meat of the matter was the concert, which was formidable. (I felt the impact of standing for 2-1/2 hours the next day, but not during the music.) Tyshawn Sorey convened Adam O’Farrill on trumpet, Mark Shim on tenor, Sullivan Fortner on Rhodes, Matt Brewer on bass. It’s very hard to give a blow-by-blow of the music. It was a continuous suite. A lot of the ideas Sorey put forth were probably over my head, and I’d need to listen back a few times to confirm that I heard what I heard — which I would gladly do because of the exalted level of interplay and soloistic ingenuity and the leader’s otherworldly drumming. It seemed that Tyshawn extrapolated Max’s beats into extremely long-form cycles (it was fun to watch Fortner and Brewer crack up simultaneously as they completed them — impeccably, I might add — and launched into the next one), which framed the reharmonized material. Adam O’Farrill played one badass solo after another, always landing on the one, and Mark Shim was on top of things, too. Fortner and Brewer didn’t solo, at least not to my recollection. I think Sorey briefly ended each song with something close to the original melody. The concert ended with “Members Don’t Get Weary” (not “Absolutions”, as on the record, or maybe he segued into “Absolutions”), on which Fay Victor refracted Andy Bey’s declamation on the album into a pointillistic tapestry of intense vocalese (not sure if that’s the right word – maybe “sounds” is better) that reminded us that this music was recorded in late June of 1968, 2-1/2 months after MLK was assassinated, three weeks after Robert Kennedy was assassinated, and 2 months before the Democratic Party National Convention in Chicago.

Bravo, Tyshawn Sorey, for paying such an informed, heartfelt homage to the transformational maestro Max Roach, and for executing your concepts on a level worthy of “the man with the fresh approach”… Also, bravo to Take Two for presenting the event with such respect and professionalism.

For Saxophone Master Ivo Perelman’s 63rd Birthday, a Jazziz Feature from 2023.

Late in 2022, Jazziz magazine assigned me to write a feature-length piece on master outcat saxophonist Ivo Perelman, a force in the music since the late 1980s. It appears that the text that appeared on the web was cut quite a bit, so I’m posting the piece here at its original length.

 

The Art of Spontaneous Conversation

 

“Maybe I am a grandiose maniac,” Ivo Perelman says, reflecting on his decision midway through 2021 to ask Mahakala Records to sponsor a project on which he would play spontaneously improvised duos with master practitioners of the woodwind and saxophone families. Released in late October, the ensuing Reed Rapture documents the 62-year-old São Paulo-born tenor saxophonist’s tabula rasa encounters with a multi-generational cohort on 16 different instruments: Lotte Anker soprano and alto saxophone; Tim Berne, alto saxophone; James Carter, baritone saxophone; Vinny Golia, soprillo, clarinet, basset horn, alto clarinet; Jon Irabagon, slide soprano saxophone, sopranino saxophone; Dave Liebman, soprano saxophone; Joe Lovano C melody saxophone, F soprano saxophone;  Joe McPhee, tenor saxophone; Roscoe Mitchell, bass saxophone; David Murray, bass clarinet; Colin Stetson, contrabass saxophone, tubax; and Ken Vandermark, clarinet.

          “Each duo is different, and Ivo plays differently on all of them to a great degree,” says Berne, who had neither played with nor listened to Perelman before they entered the studio. A few months later he joined Perelman, Carter and tenor saxophonist Tony Malaby on a sax quartet album titled (D)IVO (Mahakala). “That’s impressive to me. He’s not trying to make the other person feel comfortable. It sounds like he’s reacting in the moment to whatever the other person is doing, and plays with it. He doesn’t just do his thing. So none of it sounds contrived.”

           “We played one piece after another, followed the sound and played off of each other’s ideas,” Lovano cosigned. “He has a beautiful approach and a beautiful range. He has a sound of his own. He’s an inspired player.”

          Prior to 2018, Perelman’s discography — now 130 plus and counting — comprised almost entirely encounters with pianists, string players (cello, guitar, bass) and drums. “I felt intimidated to play with another saxophonist — that I wouldn’t be able to be myself or find space with two instruments with the same timbral nature occupying the same space at the same time,” he explains. In 2017, he recorded Philosopher’s Stone (Leo) with pianist Matthew Shipp and extended techniques trumpet maestro Nate Wooley, an increasingly frequent collaborator. In 2018, Perelman recorded with three bass clarinetists — Ned Rothenberg plays on four tracks on Strings 2 (Leo), so named for the presence of violinist Mat Maneri and cellist Hank Roberts, while Kindred Spirits and Spiritual Prayers (Leo) are duos with, respectively, Rudi Mahall and Jason Stein.

          In parallel to these one-off projects, in 2014 Perelman embarked on a series of duos with pianists — Dave Burrell, Sylvie Courvoisier, Marilyn Crispell, Agustí Fernández, Vijay Iyer, Aruán Ortiz, Aaron Parks, Angelica Sanchez and Craig Taborn — collated on last year’s nine-CD set Brass & Ivory Tales (Fundacja Słuchaj). In 2017, Leo issued seven Perelman-Shipp duos titled for different moons in the solar system.

          “For me, the duo format epitomizes the concept of jazz,” Perelman says. “The duo is the most intimate, visceral way to exchange musical ideas, particularly when I’ve never played with a person. There’s so much to talk about and discover and change as you do it — much as in a conversation. There’s no way to hide, to recede, to go to the foreground or background. It’s two transparent lines, simultaneously.”

          Duo also offers pragmatic advantages — not least financial — in the realm of production. “To get what I wanted, I needed to investigate a lot of different scenarios,” Perelman says. “Quantity became king. That means recording a lot. Speeding up. Fomenting evolution. Fomentare. It’s a Latin word. I need to do be doing it. Maybe other musicians, once a year is enough. I need every week. I’m very intense. I’m always going to the next level, practicing.”

          In line with this mindset, Perelman began to think about recording a saxophone duet. “But that wasn’t grand enough,” he says. “I wanted to have a definitive picture, to give future generations an idea of the individual potential of each horn. That was the inception trigger. I didn’t say, ‘Oh, 12 is a magic Kabbalah number.’ No, no. I wanted to have all the horns. Then I would say, ‘That’s it; I will not be curious about the saxophone duet ever again.’ I was inviting all these players and they were all saying yes.”

          Upon hearing Perelman’s pitch, Mahakala’s owner, Chad Fowler — himself an outcat saxophonist and software developer-venture capitalist who started the label on funds gleaned after Microsoft purchased the task management app Wunderlist (for which he’d served as Chief Technology Officer) in 2015 — asked for time to reflect. “As crazy as it sounded, Chad could not say no,” Perelman says.

          “I’d been telling Ivo I was going to start producing less stuff and slow down production,” says Fowler, who plays stritch and saxello alongside Perelman and Zoh Amba (tenor sax and flute) on the November Mahakala release Alien Skin, and plays alto sax on a forthcoming saxophone quartet session with Perelman and veteran speculative improvisers Dave Sewelson and Sam Newsome. “So when he started talking about it, I thought this would be pretty expensive and time-consuming. But Ivo mentioned Dave Liebman, who’s a huge influence on me — almost all you have to say is his name to get me interested. As we went through the names, I was in awe that I could touch something like this. I feel it’s an historic document of a point in time with a lot of the older, more influential saxophonists and reed players around today. It ended up being a quick decision.”

          At the time, Fowler, who recorded 17 — yes, 17 — other Perelman projects in 2021-22, was no stranger to Perelman’s m.o. They first interacted after Fowler heard Callas (Leo), a rhapsodic, scratch-improvised 2015 recital with Shipp, Perelman’s recording partner on more than 40 occasions in duo, trio and quartet configurations. “I was so moved, I reached out to him,” Fowler recalls. He references the high-energy early 1990s albums that put Perelman on the map, on which he deconstructed the songs and rhythms of Brazilian children’s songs with dynamic bands including New York speculative improv heroes like Don Pullen, Fred Hopkins and Andrew Cyrille; postbop masters Joanne Brackeen and Billy Hart; and Brazilian icons Flora Purim, Guilherme Franco and Eliane Elias.*

          “Ivo’s early stuff was flashy and aggressive — and really appealing,” Fowler says. “You could listen to him and objectively say, ‘This is a badass saxophone player.’ He’s still got those skills, but now he’s reeled all that in. His playing has evolved to this unique vocal, lyrical, sweet quality, which I can’t compare to any other saxophonist. He has remarkable control over intervals and extended register, he’s worked for decades on tone production. When you stand next to him or hear him in person, you immediately hear that his sound is so big and remarkable. He’s clearly constantly playing the horn.”

          “I practice like a madman,” Perelman corroborates. “I am so anal, so obsessive. I practice detail in fractions of seconds. But I am nothing but freedom when I play. I don’t care if it comes out this way or that way. I’m watching myself play and watching the sounds take shape.

          “Some guys love playing solos. Steve Lacy. Evan Parker. I don’t. It’s boring. I feel I’ll be regurgitating my own thoughts. What’s the fun? I like to dialogue musically. I like to have at least one person, or a whole band, or some grand structure. For me, lonely time is practice. That I take very seriously. I have to be alone. I have to have my practice time daily. It’s my lab.”

 

[BREAK]

 

It’s not surprising that Perelman and Shipp — who first recorded duo together in 1997 on Benito of Santa Cruz (Cadence), a year after the Perelman-Shipp-William Parker trio date Came de Terra (Homestead) — inspire one another in their respective practice regimens.

          “From the first note we played, I felt a connection,” Shipp says. “We seemed to anticipate each other’s phrasing, and it seemed very natural. I heard an openness to be able to synthesize things he learned from everywhere into some poetic essence of himself. Ivo searches out the most arcane and obscure method books from Renaissance music that Baroque trumpet players or French horn players would have practiced on, and then applies them to the saxophone, the way Coltrane used to practice out of harp books to increase his range. It’s not a matter of specific genres, although Ivo understands and feels classical music and has the aspect of Brazilian music within him. It’s a beautiful, childlike love of the elements of music that drive his kind of mad scientist personality.

          “Our relationship has become like a workshop. He goes his way, I go my way, we get more information and then come back together and see what more detail the other one has. The data is never for data’s sake. It’s always to feed the organism, which changes from the influence of the data.”

          “Matt has influenced me in more ways than I can imagine,” Perelman says. “He’s a very resourceful human being — not just music, but his method, his approach, his code of ethics. Rubbing shoulders with him for so many years, I absorbed it, a lot by osmosis. We have a friendly competition going. He doesn’t sit on his laurels. Neither do I. Not for any other reason than we get a kick out of evolving. It’s boring to say, ‘OK, I know that, and that’s what I’m going to play all my life.’”

          The son of Polish Jews whose parents emigrated to Brazil in the 1930s, Perelman, whose mother was a conservatory-trained pianist and teacher, began guitar studies at 6. A proficient classical guitarist by his early teens, he played local recitals, but found that world unfulfilling. While searching for his voice, he played traditional Brazilian music on mandolin and clarinet, sang bossa nova, played cello in an orchestra. By age 20, he was playing clarinet in a Dixieland band, modeling himself on jazz clarinet virtuosos like Buddy DeFranco and Woody Herman and Paul Horn, while also digging tenor stylists like Stan Getz, Warne Marsh and Hank Mobley. At a certain point, Perelman heard Wayne Shorter’s expansive album Schizophrenia and experienced an epiphany. Although he’d planned to be an architect, he decided to matriculate at Berklee to learn the tenor. He left after two semesters, spent a year in Montreal, then transplanted to Los Angeles, where he received a degree in arranging, composing and conducting from the Dick Grove School of Music, while also studying with vibraphonist Charlie Shoemake, whose mantra was “memorize Charlie Parker solos in 12 keys and you will become an individual.”

          “It didn’t work for me,” Perelman says. “At Berklee, I didn’t know I was a free jazz or creative musician, but I knew I loved those sounds and wanted to sound like them. I also realized that I wasn’t the best improviser. No matter how much I memorized the II-V-Is, when it came time to actually play I’d steer away from it naturally. Now, at the Dick Grove School I learned 10 years’ worth of material in one year. I internalized all those 101-basic things, and I apply them to instantaneous orchestration, leitmotifs, expanding a musical cell. I had the basics, but I didn’t feel I was expressing myself. I was playing casuals and bar-mitzvahs around L.A. and I hated it. I decided to learn the flute and go back to Brazil, where at least I can play behind good singers like Gal Costa.”

          For flute lessons, Perelman called Marty Krystall, a mainstay in the L.A. studios and co-owner of the K2B2 label, who told him to bring along his tenor. “He said, ‘Wow, you can actually play,’ and suggested I make a CD as a calling card,” Perelman recounts. “It turned into an incredible project, because Marty knew all the studio cats. He asked who I wanted to play with. I’d seen John Patitucci and Peter Erskine around Los Angeles, and Flora Purim and Airto from my country. I knew Eliane from São Paolo where she’d studied with the Zimbo Trio. Marty said, ‘All right, let’s do it.’ We did it in three hours, everything first take.”

          After the end product, Ivo, received four and a half stars in Downbeat, Perelman decided “to move to New York to see where this would lead.” He says: “That was the beginning of realizing who I am: What do I like to do? How can I contribute in this language? What do I have that is uniquely mine? I was finding that out. I knew I wasn’t going to be a Gato Barbieri, although there were seductive invitations ‘to do something like Gato; you can sell a million records right away.’ It’s hard for a young artist.”

          By the mid-’90s, having recorded four CDs that hybridized the tropes of Brazil with the sensibility of avant-garde jazz, Perelman shifted his orientation. “I distilled the process, pondered what I liked about what I do, and decided to focus on free improvising,” he says. “It’s the matière, the actual material you work with, not the shapes, not the process. It’s the sound, which is my lifeblood, my oxygen. In New York, I realized there are cats here who do this ONLY, as a way of living.”

 

[BREAK]

 

Perelman has titled several albums after the novels of the Jewish Ukraine-born Brazilian author Clarice Lispector, whose narratives detail the nuances of consciousness in microscopic increments. “She was very abstract, creative, free, with a fascinating, convoluted thought process,” he says. “Just as with a saxophone, the thought process is a writer’s core; the words and the pen are just tools. Lispector freezes time and enables you to meditate in a vacuum about what you’re doing. She detaches you from reality in a delirious way — and playing for me is just that.”

          This truth became ever clearer to Perelman during the late 1990s, when he developed tendinitis from overly assiduous practicing. He began to work on producing sound from the body rather than the fingers. Using Sigurd Raschèr’s treatise on the altissimo register, Top-Tones for the Saxophone, as a lodestar, he devised exercises to finely calibrate his embouchure towards the aspiration, as Perelman puts it, of “exhausting the possibilities of the harmonic series — the smaller notes within the note. I pretended I was a brass player. I would have never done it if I didn’t have to. No saxophonist in his sane mind would do what I did. It’s maddening. It’s no fun. It’s hard work. It’s dry. But it was that or getting crazy — because without music I would go mad. I did it for a few years. Then it was too late to stop. I was hooked. And I still do it every day.”

          During these years, “forced to investigate other ways of self-expression,” Perelman began to paint. He delved into visual art with an immersive fervor equivalent to his musical practice, and eventually began to have exhibits and sell paintings. “I conceptualize art and music through similar frames,” he says. “The components and language are different, but it’s the same root process, which is manipulating the life force, the energy — after all, light and sound are different materializations of energy. Beneath the cerebellum, in the part of the brain that’s still primal and pre-reptilian, sound and light are just energy. Later, we started to evolve and differentiate, partly for pragmatic reasons. When you see a lion, it’s a materialization of energy that can devour you and you die, so you run. When you see fire, the same. When you hear sounds, you know there are [birdsongs] that serve different functions. But I was forced to access that primal part of the brain, and it enriched my playing a lot.”

          He references a trio album he’d made the day before with Shipp and cellist Lester St. Louis, to be issued in early 2023 on ESP. “I felt it as we played,” Perelman says, gesturing with his arms as though splashing paint on a canvas. “Matthew and Lester were priming the canvas. The recording came out … like … unique. It’s not just another CD. It’s new music. It really is.”

          Perelman’s unfailing enthusiasm for his projects raises the question of criteria: In a genre predicated on spontaneous interplay, how do you determine whether an encounter is successful? “It’s highly subjective,” he responds. “Almost always when I hear someone, after the second note, I know if I’m going to be successfully creating with this musician, and I make the phone call or send the email. The specific criteria springs off that concept, which is spontaneity, egoless exchange, to be at the service of music, to create something where ego is not part of the equation. A drop of ego will pollute the environment. Of course, the human idiosyncrasy is that all we do is about and for ego. So it’s a dialectic way of making art — huge ego and no ego at all. I save my soul by acting this way, because I have a huge ego, like all my partners have. I’m here talking to you because we have that cathartic process through which we delete ourselves — at least for an hour.

          “This process saved my life. I am functional. I am a cooperating member of society. I haven’t killed anybody.”

          Asked about his next steps, Perelman says, “I am still enjoying the aftermath of this box. It was so transformative. It was a lot to take in. Twelve accomplished masters sharing creative space with me. Twelve moments of truth. I internalized a lot of their history, for which I am eternally grateful. They were very generous.”

          Then he mentioned a soon-to-come six-CD release of further string encounters, and a yet to be actualized bossa nova project. “Whatever I do with whoever, I am still the 12-year-old boy in Brazil learning the Torah and writing and singing bossa nova songs,” he says. “Internally, I am trying to sing and play a bossa nova with the beautiful João Gilberto chords and the rhythm. The format of bossa nova is too restrictive for the burning fire inside me — though I am still trying. But I built a system to negotiate the delirious artist in me. I expanded the concepts and the limits and the outer structure, to the point that I maximized my saxophone potential. I’m trying to do what Albert Ayler did. He takes it to the limit. He goes for the jugular. He wants to make that thing scream. I’m going for the nooks and crannies, the nuances hidden inside the harmonic series, the little details that only the turbulence we create with our air column can create inside a saxophone. I’m a scientist in a way. But deep down, I am just trying to play a beautiful bossa nova song.”