Tag: improvising musicians

My Only Mentor, Butch Morris (1947-2013)

Marclay, Morris, Horvitz 1987

Butch Morris (center) performing with Christian Marclay (left) and Wayne Horvitz (right) at the Times Square-area bar Tin Pan Alley in 1987. Photo by Keri Pickett, courtesy Wayne Horvitz

I met Butch Morris shortly after moving to New York City in 1979. I am not sure how or when, but he was extremely gracious to me, became a lifelong friend, and I can honestly say he is the only single human being who I think of as a mentor. It wasn’t about music in any technical sense, but really more in a social sense: How music fit into his life, how he created community, what he cared about, what he didn’t care about, and so on. The fact that Butch was fun, charming, a great person to travel with, to dine and drink with, and to hang with is something everyone who knew Butch can speak to. I could go on for many pages, even chapters, but I will not. Instead I would like to speak to two singular aspects of Butch’s contribution to music since he came on the scene in the ‘70s: community and conduction.

When I arrived in New York, the city and the Lower East Side, in particular, was a diverse community. Punk rock and out jazz, improvised music and new classical music crossed paths constantly, as did people of divergent backgrounds. It was a racially integrated community as well, but only so far. Sort of like the high school where kids basically get along, but still the white kids tend to sit together in the lunchroom and so do the black kids. Butch was keenly aware of what being a black man in America meant. He had no delusions of living in a “post-racial” world, and he was vocal and articulate about racism. I myself had come to New York because of Cecil Taylor, The Art Ensemble, et al., but it wasn’t surprising that I quickly fell in with my more immediate peers: Elliott Sharp, Bobby Previte, John Zorn, Eugene Chadbourne, and many, many more. We were white kids from the ‘60s. It’s important to remember that, like a lot of us, I came to improvised music more from The Grateful Dead and The Jefferson Airplane only to find Albert Ayler and Sun Ra later. Butch reached out to me, and to many others, without ever leaving behind his history and inspirations. He didn’t care if the jazz community approved of him, and he sure as hell didn’t care if the academy or the uptown music world approved of him, and he took chances, musically and socially. And he did it with such grace that as far as I can tell he rarely alienated anyone, which was not often the case in a scene where a lot of egos were involved and folks had powerful opinions with strong emotional attachments. In many ways this seems to me to be a crucial aspect of what led him to what he became best known for, which was the system known as conduction.

As a musician I got to play a lot with Butch, in small groups as well as some of his larger ensembles. I made three of my first five records with Butch, toured in his trio with J. A. Deane a lot, as well as the Horvitz/Morris/Previte Trio. Later I produced a record for Butch and was involved in the early conduction ensembles. The Horvitz/Morris/Previte Trio was a seminal moment in my own artistic evolution. To put it in its absolute simplest form, after a few years of wanting to be Cecil Taylor I remembered how much I loved Richard Manual, and something began to click that felt like my own. Many other influences helped along the way, especially the Chicago and St. Louis musicians, and the Art Ensemble of Chicago in particular. I made a record for Black Saint from a live recording at Studio Henry with Butch and William Parker, and I began to find ways to bring my own harmonic language into the palette of “free improvisation” (whatever that means), and also to use electronics with acoustic instruments and at acoustic volumes. Butch was particularly supportive and encouraging, often without really saying much. The trio I formed with Butch and Bobby allowed me to develop those ideas. We made two records that I still consider some of my best work, and Butch played beautifully. It is worth noting that they were also two of the easiest recordings I have ever made. Just set up, play, listen a bit, and keep playing. We toured Europe a few times and did concerts around the States a bit, and we had a lot of fun.
I remember years ago going to his apartment to listen to the mixes of a record we were working on. He had the left speaker on top of the right speaker, and I was furious. How could we listen to a stereo mix that way? He wouldn’t move the speakers, that was how he liked it. He didn’t give a damn. I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t say I miss those times, often deeply.

For a variety of reasons, including my move to Seattle, I did not perform in Butch’s conduction ensembles much after the early ‘90s. For the most part I stopped being involved in what really became his life’s work. Nonetheless, as a composer, I have given “conduction” a lot of thought, and I find it a singular and momentous achievement. It has been interesting, and honestly a bit disheartening, to see just how much attention Butch and conduction have been given by the media and social media since his death, considering how much it was essentially ignored in his lifetime. There are many stories of its success and positive reception but nothing close to what, in my opinion, many artists have received for much lesser contributions to the very essence of how music evolves. I believe that this is for the most part a result of how Butch liked to live, and what his priorities were.

I was on a music panel in the late ‘90s selecting the first round of musicians and composers who would be in residence at Civitella Ranieri. Unlike a lot of panels, we arrived a day or two early and were given copies of all the work samples from the artists. On the second evening, after food and wine, I went back to my cell and braced myself for hours more of listening through work samples. The residency very much encouraged improvised music, jazz, and international artists, as well as more traditional contemporary composers. I listened to the work of a lot of experimental composers and jazz composers, many of whom I was already familiar with, as well as a lot of new music composers, some of whom I did not know. I knew Butch had applied, and I assumed I would support his application, but it occurred to me that if I was going to articulate my position I should listen to the work sample he submitted. In fact I had yet to hear any of the ten-CD box set he had made for New World Records, but whatever I was then listening to seemed to answer all the questions and even feelings of discontent I had been having all evening. First off, the music didn’t sound anything like jazz or “improvised music,” it sounded like vital contemporary music, possibly composed but also unlike so much of the “new music” I had been listening to. How should I say this? Like it didn’t have a stick up its ass? It sounded comfortable in its own skin—soaring, living, glorious. Granted it was three in the morning, I was tired, maybe even a little drunk, but I still remember it to this day. George Lewis and Jonathan Harvey were also on the panel, and as I walked in the next morning I heard Jonathan Harvey talking to Gordon Knox, the artistic director, saying, “It was quite interesting listening to many of the work samples, but there is only one CD I would like permission to keep, and that is the music of this Butch Morris fellow. I must find out how he creates this incredible music.”

I was in Nashville shortly thereafter, producing a fairly traditional record with some Nashville session guys, and I started thinking about comfort zones. I don’t mean an aesthetic comfort zone, I mean physical comfort. Music sounds good when the physical relationship between performer and instrument is good. Technique and expression come from this. Which is why I think that when you take a classical violinist with great chops, conversant in modern music and with experience playing in great ensembles, and he or she spends two weeks with Butch, their improvised language often sounds brilliant, with flow and grace.

A problem in contemporary music, especially of the through-composed variety, is that often the composer creates situations that aren’t comfortable for the performer. I suppose that in itself has its place, but it can get old fast. A composer creates a new work with extended techniques and writing that “pushes the envelope” and all too often it sounds like work, not play, and after all we try to play music, not work it. Musicians improvising, even if they aren’t “improvisers,” will usually make choices that are within their physical comfort zone and within their technique. This creates music that has the same level of physical logic that these same performers possess when they are playing Mozart or Hank Williams. Meanwhile Butch found a language that created structural integrity, something sorely missing in so much so-called “improvised music.” Cecil Taylor and many others have spoken eloquently about the logic inherent in the body, that the logic of our physical relationship to our instruments has an innate intelligence. Butch never wanted to lose sight of that, but he also insisted on never assuming anything about structure, and he developed a methodology that allowed the music to turn on a dime. Of course one can argue that his music was also, like Ellington’s, personality dependent. With Butch, his conductions were, of course, an expression of his entire being. There will never be another conduction by Butch, with all that he brought to the music. That being said, and I think Butch would be pleased, I truly believe that his system is significant enough that it will live on in many forms, will transform and evolve, and have great influence on the music of our times.

No matter how far out the music got, Butch always wanted it to feel like a song, like a singular piece of music, and his system and his presence allowed him to create that. It didn’t always work. No music always works. But the potential was phenomenal, and it created a music that simply couldn’t exist any other way.

Butch’s humanity was phenomenal. Every one of us who feels like Butch was one of our dearest friends knows we share him with hundreds of other people, if not more.

People work so hard to be present, to live in the moment. I know Butch loved to be alone, and I know he loved to be with people. To me he seemed to live less in the past or future then anyone I have ever known. On the street, in the park, in an airport, even waiting for a cab, he was always there for you, and now he isn’t.

Sounds Heard: Mary Halvorson Quintet—Bending Bridges

One of the most excellent things about the music of guitarist/composer Mary Halvorson is that every composition percolates with a charming sense of unpredictability. Bending Bridges is the second release from Halvorson’s quintet, which features members of her original trio—John Hébert on bass and Ches Smith on drums (plus, of course, Halvorson on guitar)—and adds to the ensemble Jonathan Finlayson on trumpet and Jon Irabagon on alto saxophone. Although there are plenty of groups comprised of this instrumentation, Halvorson’s preference for a very dry, close recording style lends a hand in giving this album a unusual sound, and in bringing to light instrument balances that serve to highlight her quirky (in a good way) melodic and harmonic sense.

Sinks When She Rounds The Bend (No. 22) begins as a relaxed, even lounge-worthy chorale scored for the whole quintet, giving way to solos for guitar and bass. Before you know it, Halvorson has quietly flipped the distortion switch on her guitar, and busts out a series of fat, grunge-laden power chords propelling trumpet and saxophone through an altered version of that initial chorale, which transforms before our ears into full-tilt improvised chaos.

Hemorrhaging Smiles (No. 25) has a catchy opening groove, with rhythmic guitar and a repeating melodic series for sax and trumpet. The energy continues with a sax solo, and then another for trumpet, placed in front of tinkling guitar and percussion textures. The improvisation sections are contrasted with the initial musical material in a verse/chorus format. Ches Smith contributes interesting and tasteful drum set performances throughout the disc.

Four of the nine tracks on Bending Bridges set aside the brass instruments and feature the original trio of Halvorson, Smith, and Hébert. Stepping-stone style bass and drums in Forgotten Men In Silver (No. 24) follow an impressionistic opening guitar solo, and later a background wash of guitar serves as a blanket for an energetic bass and drum improvisation, rife with extended techniques on both instruments. The next trio work, The Periphery of Scandal (No. 23) features a wacky guitar melody that becomes increasingly intense and distorted throughout the course of the track. The aptly titled That Old Sound (No. 27) does indeed open with an ever so slight Western twang—I kept visualizing a dusty corral and cacti during this mellow track, which sports an elastic sensibility, with instrumental lines expanding and contracting in turn. Deformed Weight Of Hands (No. 28) is an energetic back and forth between a spunky guitar and drum figure, and noisy, frenzied improvisation.

Returning to the quintet format, Love In Eight Colors (No. 21) is one of the more traditionally “jazz” sounding composition on the disc, and there might even be some quotes lifted from other tracks to discover in this one (I will leave that part to you!). All The Clocks (No. 29) also seems to fit well within the realm of guitar-based jazz, featuring lead guitar with spinning melodic material that is complemented by the ensemble performing driving, rhythmic music.

Sea Cut Like Snow (No. 26) strikes my ear as especially thoughtfully composed, and showcases the most successful brass writing of the entire disc. A winding guitar line is offset by shifting repeated-note riffs in the brass that develop gradually and are later joined by a funky, almost Latin beat. The established groove is then again transformed into a rollickingly fast drum and sax duet, and winds up in a bending, spindly solo guitar line.

Halvorson has cited in interviews how large a role the simple element of time—spent playing and performing together—plays in her compositions for the quintet. She is gaining confidence in writing for the entire group, and they are all playing together increasingly well. Although I think the trio sounds more musically integrated (and indeed it should, since they have been together longer), the addition of saxophone and trumpet as she treats them in her compositions brings a wonderfully offbeat sound world into the music. It will be very interesting to hear how her writing for the quintet evolves in the future. Whatever form it takes, I have no doubt that there will be plenty of surprises in store.

Seldoms in Space

Marc Riordan (piano), Jeff Kimmel (bass clarinet), and Lilianna Zofia Wosko (cello)

Marc Riordan (piano), Jeff Kimmel (bass clarinet), and Lilianna Zofia Wosko (cello)

Dance is a medium that inherently deals with space—the spatial relationships between dancers and the physical movement of bodies on stage.  The Chicago-based contemporary dance company known as the Seldoms took the parameter of space to a higher level in their first performance at the Harris Theater in Chicago.  The venue itself took on a starring role as the audience moved through the space.  Tim Daisy composed the original score for this exploration of site-specific dance with music tightly customized for the wide variations in the vignettes and environments. The audience became participants by mere virtue of sharing tight spaces with performers.  And ushers became tour guides charged with keeping people in the right places at the right times.

The printed program for the Seldoms’ performance was broken into multiple cards that were gradually dealt out one at a time before each vignette.  The first card set an appropriate tone:

This is not a dance concert.  This is an anniversary dance party.  This is a promenade.  This is a backstage pass.  This is a mile marker.  This is a reflection.  This is a record of actual comments.  This is a subversive act.  This is our debut at the Harris Theater.  This is an endurance event.  This is a thank you to our Chicago audience.  This is a nod to all the moving parts of live performance.  This is the starting block for our second decade of art-making.  Runners to your mark.

As part of this debut performance, they offered a tour-as-performance of the structural layout of a unique theater design that places the balconies and performance stage at the same level as the underground parking.  Even the balconies are located a couple of floors below the main entrance.

At the beginning of the evening the audience was broken up into smaller groups and instructed to line up at different doors.  This allowed for relatively small groups of people to move quickly between different stations.  It also meant that each team experienced a different sequence of vignettes leading up to the finale during which the full contingent of musicians, dancers, and audience occupied the main stage itself.  The choreography of funneling attendees into lines for the anticipated spectacle ahead gave the early part of the performance the feeling of a crowded theme park with long lines leading toward the roller coaster.  The act of moving between different acts gave a sense of active participation to an audience that spent much of the evening standing, walking, and coming into close contact with a different combination of dancers and musicians at each station.  It was a thrill ride along aesthetic dimensions.

Paul Giallorenzo (piano) and Jeb Bishop (trombone)

Paul Giallorenzo (piano) and Jeb Bishop (trombone)

The spatial variation was noteworthy on multiple levels. The quality of the dance performances varied a great deal between stations; it was the consistent qualities of the music compositions that gave the experience its cohesion and cut through the substantial differences in acoustics found throughout the building.  Tim Daisy’s music was closely matched to the location and sense of playfulness found in each vignette.  The echo-rich environments of the lobbies were accentuated by drums and pianos to match the range of motion explored along the stairs and benches, while the less reverberant areas around and behind the main stage featured wind instruments to match the story telling that marked the dances in those areas.  Finding a fresh, new combination of so many of Chicago’s great improvisers at each station added to the sense of discovery.

The most satisfying vignette of the evening was performed in the back stage area.  A duo of male dancers put on costumes while elevating themselves on a pair of aerial work platforms before settling into a whimsical story of professional jealousy and one-upmanship.  This was accompanied by the inspired instrumental combination of Jaimie Branch on trumpet, Katherine Young on bassoon, and Anton Hatwich on bass.  The rhythmic contours of the music brilliantly suited both the slapstick elements of the dance and the acoustics of the concrete-enclosed setting.

Jaimie Branch (trumpet), Anton Hatwich (bass), and Katherine Young (bassoon)

Jaimie Branch (trumpet), Anton Hatwich (bass), and Katherine Young (bassoon)

The vignette performed in the seating area of the main stage offered another dose of whimsy as a trio of dancers emulated the jostling and struggle to settle into one’s seat typical of audience members attending a formal performance.  The exaggerated rustling of programs, coughs, and constant standing and sitting to allow people to pass through narrow rows played upon the movements of a typical audience.  The accompaniment for this action was another strong trio featuring Tim Daisy on marimba and percussion, James Falzone on clarinet, and Jennifer Clare Paulson on viola.  The physical coexistence of dancers and musicians was further emphasized with Daisy stepping onto the stage while playing percussion as a deliberate element of movement among the dance troupe.  Another creative layer that spoke to the careful timing and choreography of having multiple vignettes running simultaneously in different locations was the appearance of a dancer on the catwalk who had just stepped away from his active role in one of the lobby performances.

The lobby of the Harris Theater exists on multiple levels connected by stairs.  Two vignettes performed on two of those levels simultaneously posed particular issues for the music, as there was considerable sonic bleed through between the two ensembles playing within such an acoustically live space.  With the dancers moving metal benches around, dancing along the stairways, and quoting various Yelp reviews of the Harris Theater, the music and action occasionally drowned out their verbal contributions.  While the music wasn’t as clear as one would hope, the visuals were striking..  They even danced their way into the bathrooms as they quoted reviews of the bathrooms themselves.  The relatively small spaces of the lobbies did allow for close observation of the musicians and dancers and did feature some of the strongest ensemble interactions and costumes of the evening.  It was also a space enhanced by the unique lighting of the Harris Theater lobbies, as each vertical level of the lobby is illuminated by contrasting hues of florescent lights.

The Seldoms performing in one of the lobbies of the Harris Theater.

The Seldoms performing in one of the lobbies of the Harris Theater.

The finale on the main stage brought the full contingent of dancers and musicians together.  Hearing the complete ensemble playing together provided a great punctuation mark to the musical side of this event.  Tim Daisy wisely composed a score with this specific set of improvising musicians in mind and his music hit an excellent balance of compositional structure and improvised detail.  The dance itself didn’t quite hit that same sense of full ensemble as the Seldoms continued to muse upon earlier themes that maintained the small ensemble feel even with the extra bodies on stage.

But the true exhilaration of the experience was rooted in the audience’s participation through movement—passing through areas of the back stage and break rooms once shielded from audience view and discovering the previously unknown connections between cat walks and lobby exits all while anticipating unexpected usage of space, not knowing if one was standing in a place that would shortly become the center of the action.  In this respect, the layering of music and movement into an experience that shatters the fourth wall made for a well thought out dance party that appealed to many senses.

I Must Have Forgotten To Laugh

This week’s report hails from San Francisco, arguably one of the greyest cities in the Golden State (although it’s not too foggy today). I come here every December to celebrate the holidays with family and friends. Over the past several years I have been afforded the luxury of playing professionally while I’m here, turning my annual pilgrimage into a kind of “busman’s holiday,” and I’ve been blessed to play with many of the great Bay Area jazz musicians, most recently: saxophonists Mel Martin and Sheldon Brown, drummers Alan Hall and Jeff Mars, pianists David Udolf, Grant Levine, and Adam Schulman, and trumpeter Dave Bendigkeit. Of course, I go to jam sessions whenever possible, some open to the public and some not, where I’ve met old friends and associates, such as: pianist Denny Zeitlin, drummers George Marsh and Mark van Trikk, guitarists/vocalists Glenn Jensen and Charley Reed, and one of my oldest associations, guitarist/bassist/trumpeter/vocalist Roger Hrebich.

These last listed names, while not familiar to many music aficionados, are part of a group of musicians I knew in high school who were then, and are now, working rock/blues/funk musicians. We formed bands that would play for dancing and parties, covering the music of Chicago, The Rolling Stones, Tower of Power, Santana, Cold Blood, Sly and the Family Stone, Jimi Hendrix, and many other popular musicians and music groups. I met pianist Mark Soskin and vocalist Elaine Caswell in a group like this covering the music of Rufus and the Tony Williams “Bum’s Rush” Lifetime group. When I think back on the experience, I realize that most of the groups I worked with then covered the music of others, which is also true of the jazz groups. While most of the “big name” acts I had the pleasure of cutting my teeth with back then (Bobby Hutcherson, Denny Zeitlin, and Joe Henderson) played originals almost exclusively, artists like John Handy, Cal Tjader, and Jim Pepper included a liberal amount of repertoire made popular by others. Vocalists, especially, included “standard” material and, while iconic singers like Jon Hendricks and Betty Carter performed their own compositions, tunes like “Moody’s Mood” and “Every Time We Say Goodbye” were regular features in their performances. It’s a way to connect one’s music making to an historical tradition while engaging a larger performance network. Probably the most extreme use of covers, or standard, repertoire was practiced by the orchestras I played in. I can only remember two times, the West Coast premiere of Pauline Oliveros’s To Valerie Solanas and Marilyn Monroe in Recognition of their Desperation and a performance of Donald Erb’s The Seventh Trumpet, where an orchestra I was in performed an “original” composition. This isn’t to say that orchestras never play new music, just that their ratio of new compositions to “flagwavers” was more than reverse that of the “name” jazz musicians mentioned above. But, outside of the “name” jazz groups, most of the music I heard or played consisted of covers—music originally performed by others.

This has changed for me somewhat over the years, especially since moving to New York in 1977. There are so many musicians who have gravitated to that city in order to develop and promote their musical careers that entire collectives of musicians can dedicate their time and efforts to playing original music to the near exclusion of anything else. I find something rewarding in playing standard material though. For one thing, it allows a way for musicians who rarely play together to make good quality music “on-the-fly,” without rehearsal. This happened last night when I played a private house party with pianist David Udolf and drummer Akira Tana. I have played with Udolf only a handful of times since we were introduced last year by bassist/educator Harvie S, when David and his wife, vocalist Sherri Roberts (who is at the midway point of recording a duo project with pianist Bliss Rodriguez), were visiting. Akira and I figured out that, besides a single tune in a restaurant with Suzanne and Jeff Pittson over seven years ago, we haven’t played together in over 25 years.

Udolf recorded the music on one of those semi-professional portable digital recorders that have become ubiquitous. (Of course he asked our permission first, something that everyone recording a live performance must do—even when using the low-resolution video camera on a cell phone. Always, ALWAYS, get permission first and, please, pass that along!) On the way back from the gig, I stopped by Dave and Sherri’s to see if I could help him figure out how to download the files. Once the transfer was underway, I could hear some of what we played and it was almost “album” quality in both fidelity and performance. It sounded like we played together regularly. Of course this is because we were very familiar with the standard repertoire we played, but it was also true for the original music we performed (two of mine, two of Udolf’s, and one by the now Santa Fe-based bassist Chuck Metcalf).

Without beating the drum and expiring horse too much, years of practice and study are directly responsible for this. I can remember when a conversation I was having with a fellow guest at a party about the music of Pierre Boulez was interrupted by someone who apparently found it stunning that a jazz musician would know anything about Boulez (as if musicians only listen to works from their assigned genres). I was stunned into silence by the remark, since I knew that the person was sincere and I didn’t want to reply with anything that might be taken as insulting. Fortunately, the person I was talking to is more adept at negotiating this sort of thing and handled the situation gracefully. I tend to let my emotions get the better of me in these situations; so, you can imagine my stunned silence when I was given this to read.

As I’ve remarked before on this blog, improvising musicians spend a lot of time practicing and studying in order to extemporize cohesive performances. Every successfully executed phrase has been practiced a thousand times in hundreds of contexts and includes a more than passing familiarity with the elements of theory. So, tomorrow I’ll be working with Tana and pianist Mark Levine, who I haven’t played with in thirty years. But (like every performance a musician engages in) I’ve practiced all that time just for this moment.

I’ve been lucky. When I was going to junior and senior high schools in this fine Pacific coast city, harmony was offered as a course to be taken five days a week. If one wanted to study theory in college, there was ample opportunity to build a solid foundation in the subject before placement exams. For some reason, an education that included music, the second oldest profession mentioned in the Bible, was understood to be important. For other reasons, this is no longer the case. It is incumbent on us to promote music education as part of a well-rounded curriculum. I hope we succeed before time runs out.