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(From Down Beat July 15th, 1965 - Vol. 32, No. 15. p. 12) CAUGHT IN THE ACT Reviews Of In-Person Performances Bud Powell / Byron Allen /
Albert Ayler / Giuseppi Logan
Town Hall, New York City Personnel: Powell, piano. Eddie Gales, trumpet; Allen, alto saxophone; Walter Booker, Larry Ridley, basses; Clarence Stroman, drums. Don Ayler, trumpet; Charles Tyler, alto saxophone; Albert Ayler, tenor saxophone; Louis Worrell, bass; Sonny Murray, drums. Logan, bass clarinet, flute; Don Pullen, piano; Reggie Johnson, bass; Milford Graves, drums, percussion. _____ To the supporters of the jazz avant-garde—musicians, critics, and fans—there seems to be no middle ground. One is either for or against the new music, and any expression of reservations is interpreted, in the manner of political or religious movements, as a species of treason.
Furthermore, the insistence of those supporting the avant-gardists that the music is a socio-political act, and their habit of attacking even sympathetic criticism with such semantic bludgeons as “racial prejudices,” “backwardness,” “white power structure,” and other ideological catch phrases of dubious relevance, hardly has served a climate of reasoned objectivity.
To this reviewer—and let the chips fall where they may from assorted shoulders—the sole relevant issue is the validity of the new music as music, at least within the confines of a review such as this.
To agree that there is room in jazz for radical innovation is not synonymous with the abandonment of all prior esthetic standards, and to be sympathetic to new things in jazz does not mean that all that is new must be received with unqualified approval simply because it is new.
This concert presented, in addition to an honored jazz veteran, three groups of widely varying quality and orientation, having little in common beyond their affiliation with ESP Disks, a newly founded record company that presented (and, in part, recorded) the event.
Alto saxophonist Allen’s group, which opened with a 25-minute set devoted to one piece, is rooted in Ornette Coleman’s approach to jazz. Allen employs some of Coleman’s speechlike phrases and some of his rhythmic and melodic patterns, but he does not as yet have a comparable sense of form and organization. A lyrical, rather gentle player, he still has to learn to edit himself, and his music now makes a rather unformed and tentative impression.
Allen’s rhythm section, despite the presence of two bassists, was fairly conventional; i.e., it swung. Ridley, a fine player not exclusively affiliated with the avant-garde, and Stroman, who also is primarily a modern-mainstream player, took good care of the timekeeping, while Booker played fills.
Powell followed, playing solo piano. Though in considerably better form than at his distressing appearance at the Charlie Parker Memorial Concert at Carnegie Hall in March, Powell was far from his peak. However, his final selection, I Remember Clifford, was extremely moving, and what had seemed to be faltering time on the faster pieces now became a nearly Monkish deliberateness, each phrase ringing out full and strong. What Powell hasn’t lost is his marvelous touch and sound, and everything he played revealed a sense of balance and proportion not much in evidence elsewhere on the program.
Next came Logan, a multi-instrumentalist who restricted himself to a mere two of the nine horns this reviewer has so far heard him play.
Of his two compositions, the first featured him on flute, which he plays with an attractive tone but a technique far from virtuosic.
Percussionist Graves was much in evidence, opening the proceedings on an array of instruments including a large gong, bells, gourds, rattles, and African types of drums. For the second part of the piece, Graves switched to a regular set of drums. Straight time is not his forte; he uses percussion to embellish and punctuate, setting up a continuous barrage of sound, which can be striking when it does not overwhelm the efforts of the other players.
The second piece featured Logan’s bass clarinet. The sounds he produced—shrieks, swoops, and gargles—brought to mind Eric Dolphy at his most extreme but lacked the latter’s technical brilliance, emotional force, and sense of contrast. With this kind of playing, it is sometimes hard to decide which notes are voluntary and which are accidental.
In spite of his occasional wildness, Logan appears to be a musical eclectic with romantic leanings and a flair for melodic invention that he might profitably explore. In addition, his music has a kind of theatricality (both he and Graves are “showmen” of a sort), and he could become the first popularizer of avant-garde music, or rather, its surface characteristics.
Bassist Johnson was often inaudible (through no fault of his own) but was effective in a duet between arco bass and percussion, during which Graves bent and twisted a cymbal while beating it with a mallet.
Pianist Pullen is a technician with great dexterity, but his improvisations are those of a classically oriented musician—chromatic runs (not unlike a random medley of Scriabin fragments) without a trace of swing or rhythmic definition.
The concert concluded with by far the strongest and most unusual music of the afternoon. Albert Ayler is certainly original. His tenor saxophone sound, on fast tempos, is harsh and guttural, with a pronounced vibrato and a multitude of what used to be called freak effects in King Oliver’s day. He plays with a vehemence that startles the listener, either repelling him or pulling him into the music with almost brute force. The effect can be oddly exhilarating.
On slow tempos, Ayler favors a vibrato so wide that it brings to mind Charlie Barnet’s old take-off on Freddy Martin. It is an archaic sound, and the phrasing that goes with it—drawn-out notes, glissandi, sentimental melodic emphasis—is quite in keeping.
Trumpeter Don Ayler plays like his brother plays fast tenor: loud, staccato, and broadly emphatic. But his fingering technique appears elementary. He did not solo at slow tempo. Altoist Tyler fits the brothers. His sound is not unlike Albert’s but more grating and less controlled—some of his overtones were involuntary, whereas the tenorist meant every note he played to be.
The music that goes with this definitive instrumental approach is no less personal. It resembles at times—in texture as well as voicings and melody—the music of a village brass band or a military drum-and-bugle corps. In spite of its abrasiveness, the music is quite gay and friendly—“country” might be the word for it. The harmonies are stark and almost primitive, with occasional forays into bagpipe effects.
Ayler’s group played two pieces. The first, quite brief, ended with a prolonged bombardment by the full ensemble; a flurry of repeated notes played strictly on the beat. The effect was not unlike a surrealistic parody of those famous Jazz at the Philharmonic finales, replete with screaming trumpet and honking saxophones. Or perhaps the image was of a rhythm-and-blues band gone berserk.
The second piece, though sprawling and too long, was nevertheless filled with exciting passages. A slow tenor solo was followed by a bass interlude and then a call to arms by the horns, a militaristic theme-statement, a fast tenor solo, ensemble interlude, solos by all the horns at very rapid tempo, a return to the theme, another call to arms, and a bansheelike concluding ensemble.
The horns—the leader especially—played with such rhythmic thrust that the role of the rhythm section was merely incidental. Murray seemed forever to be trying to catch up with the horns. Worrell was effective in solo, and his backing of Ayler’s slow improvisations was particularly apt.
To this listener, there seems to be a great deal of wild humor in Ayler’s music. Though often vehement, it is celebration rather than protest; much of it has the sheer “bad boy” joy of making sounds.
Whatever one’s reaction to this music, there can be little doubt that it contained the spirit of jazz. Some may dismiss it as untutored, primitive, or merely grotesque, but it certainly has the courage of its convictions and is anything but boring or pretentious.
If one thing was made clear by this concert, it is that the so-called new thing is really many things: very different approaches to innovation (or novelty?) in jazz, having in common only a predilection for radical means of expression. If there is a jazz revolution, it has already developed its Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, Social Revolutionaries, and Trotskyites (I don’t know of any musical Stalinists) and is definitely not a unilateral phenomenon. At its core, as always in jazz, lies the personal and individual.
Perhaps it is time to get away from the emphasis on categories and get back to the proper perspective—the individual one—which would eliminate the pointless and absurd debates about “modern” and “old-fashioned” music. —Dan Morgenstern *** The following edited extract from this review was used as the sleevenotes to Bells: Albert Ayler is certainly original. His tenor saxophone sound, on fast tempos, is harsh and guttural, with a pronounced vibrato and a multitude of what used to be called freak effects in King Oliver’s day. He plays with a vehemence that startles the listener, either repelling him or pulling him into the music with almost brute force. The effect can be oddly exhilarating.
On slow tempos, Ayler favors a vibrato so wide that it brings to mind Charlie Barnet’s old take-off on Freddy Martin. It is an archaic sound, and the phrasing that goes with it—drawn-out notes, glissandi, sentimental melodic emphasis—is quite in keeping.
Trumpeter Don Ayler plays like his brother plays fast tenor: loud, staccato, and broadly emphatic. .... He did not solo at slow tempo. Altoist Tyler fits the brothers. His sound is not unlike Albert’s but more grating and less controlled—some of his overtones were involuntary, whereas the tenorist meant every note he played to be.
The music that goes with this definitive instrumental approach is no less personal. It resembles at times—in texture as well as voicings and melody—the music of a village brass band or a military drum-and-bugle corps. In spite of its abrasiveness, the music is quite gay and friendly—”country” might be the word for it. The harmonies are stark and almost primitive, with occasional forays into bagpipe effects.
Ayler’s group played two pieces.The first, quite brief, ended with a prolonged bombardment by the full ensemble; a flurry of repeated notes played strictly on the beat. The effect was not unlike a surrealistic parody of those famous Jazz at the Philharmonic finales, replete with screaming trumpet and honking saxophones. Or perhaps the image was of a rhythm-and-blues band gone berserk.
The second piece, though sprawling and too long, was nevertheless filled with exciting passages. A slow tenor solo was followed by a bass interlude and then a call to arms by the horns, a militaristic theme-statement, a fast tenor solo, ensemble interlude, solos by all the horns at very rapid tempo, a return to the theme, another call to arms, and a bansheelike concluding ensemble. To this listener, there seems to be a great deal of wild humor in Ayler’s music. Though often vehement, it is celebration rather than protest; much of it has the sheer “bad boy” joy of making sounds.
Whatever one’s reaction to this music, there can be little doubt that it contained the spirit of jazz. Some may dismiss it as untutored, primitive, or merely grotesque, but it certainly has the courage of its convictions and is anything but boring or pretentious. —Dan Morgenstern Back to Concerts |
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