1991 TMM / "Haus der jungenTalente"Steve Lake (1991) |
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One of improvisation's periodic responsibilities being the overthrow of its own traditions, the 1991 Total Music Meeting departs from the habitual three-sets-a-night jazz club format to present free music from nine players as a continuous, swift-flowing stream. Saxophonists Evan Parker, Peter Brötzmann and Charles Gayle, bassists Fred Hopkins, William Parker and Peter Kowald, and drummers Rashied Ali, Andrew Cyrille and Tony Oxley will decide on a running order for each evening's music and proceed to explore all possible permutations of their collective instrumentation. Every combination from solos, duos, trios up to nine-piece group improvisation will be broached in the course of the event, with festival organisers FMP imposing only one guideline in the form of a thirty-minute time-limit. That's to say, every thirty minutes there will be a new instrumental combination on the stage, with no intervals longer than the time to takes to move a microphone. The concept is neither stunt nor gimmick but means of maintaining musical variety, focussing the playing, and minimizing the seek-and-find wandering trajectory (still) too common to this mode of music-making. The digressive approach is out; the players, up against the clock, will be obliged to come rapidly to the point. The presentation of this particular grouping of musicians futhers FMP´s efforts in closing the historical gap which, until the celebrated Cecil Taylor festival of 1988, separated the chief exponents of American so-called free jazz from their free improvising European counterparts. Though by no means the first example of the Euro-American collaboration, its musical successes were effectively the final confirmation that the goals of these two groups of players were, if not identical, then sufficiently close to make cooperation highly productive. Charles Gayle, for example, saying "When I play I want to Knock down walls, blow my guts out," could be reading a page from one of Brötzmann´s old dairies. From a European listener's perspective, Galye´s approach - holding out for total spontaneity, making no recourse to thematic material in his performances - will likely feel closer to the methodologies of the homegrown players FMP has championed over the years than to those of the hornmen of the "October Revolution" era. He sounds "freer" than "free jazz", a force to be reckoned with right now. Gayle's already played with a large Brötzmann Ensemble (also incorporating William Parker) and a Peter Kowald Quartet in New York, the results documented in Ebba Jahn´s film Rising Tones Cross, and his albums for the Silkheart label (Homeless, Always Born, Spirits Before) have had New York critics reaching for the superlatives. Peter Brötzmann´s recently begun to feel trapped as a "power player". Though there's no getting around the colossal strength of his playing, and one cannot, with the best will in the world, call him a sophisticated musician, a more reflective strain has begun to appear in his work as he takes that big sound of his into an everwidening range of contexts. At heart a traditionalist (Bechet's as much of a role for him as Ayler), Brötzmann needs to hear brums - and rhythm - around him for his playing to become truly galvanic, and the drummers in this Total Music Meeting would be on his shortlist of the very best. He's played with all of them in the past. Evan Parker, Europe's most innovative (and, in free circles, most imitated) saxophonist has brought a number of new techniques to his instruments, primarily to deal with the challenge of solo playing. In a group context, he knows how to listen and react; he's never been a steamrollering, egotistical player, though early documents like "Machine Gun" (and the recent confrontations with Cecil Taylor) show that he can hold his ground with the heaviest. If Brötzmann and Gayle use violent metaphors to explain their sound, Parker's horns do not express anger or preach revolution (unless very indirectly). For him, improvisation is ideally a pure play of acoustical energies, the sax becoming "an instrument of transcendence" as he "takes a note for a walk" - or a gallop. Like fellow Wuppertal resident Brötzmann, Peter Kowald scarcely needs an introduction to Berlin audiences. He's been the linchpin of innumerable small and large ensembles for a quarter-century and a frequent visitor since the first Total Music Meeting. Kowald´s helped expand the vocabulary of the bass through solo performances and a series of impressive duets with, amongst others, Barre Phillips and Barry Guy. Long ago, Kowald used to be a translator, and in a sense still is: assisting the communication of ideas through his role as mediator, he's brought many very different artists together (the most extreme example being probably his composition "Local Fair" for Globe Unity). One of the pleasures of the ´88 Taylor festival was the way in which Kowald and William Parker worked together, both inside Cecil´s European Orchestra and in the workshop sessions. At 39 the youngest player in this festival, William Parker's been described by Cecil Taylor as one of the most underrated bassists - it might be true if critical recognition is any yardstick, but certainly the musicians know his worth. He's worked extensively with Taylor since 1985 and also gigged and recorded with Frank Lowe, Billy Bang, Jemeel Moondoc, Jason Hwang and others. The William and Patsy Parker Ensemble, juxtaposing experimental music and experimental dance, appeared in the aforementioned jazz film by Ebba Jahn. For 20 years Fred Hopkins has proven to be one of the most important voices in the new black music, a crucial contributor to the music of Muhal Richard Abrams, Hamiett Bluiett, Charles Brackeen, David Murray, Don Pullen, Oliver Lake, and Henry Threadgill. It was with Threadgill in the still-missed trio Air, the most highly-regarded of the post Art Ensemble AACM groups that the comprehensiveness of Hopkins's bass mastery became apparent. In Air, Hopkins could move from Scott Joplin to the deep blues to roaring free improvisation with total authority. Rashied Ali played with Bill Dixon, Sun Ra and Paul Bley before joining John Coltrane's band in 1965 and really opened up the space in the great saxophonist's music with his multi-directional drumming. (This period, fortunately, is well-documented on records including classics such as Live At The Village Vanguard Again and the ultimate sax/drums duo album Interstellar Space.) After Coltrane's death, lack of work opportunities prompted Ali to take his fate into his own hands with his own record label, Survival, and his own New York club, Ali´s Alley, which was home to the burgeoning talents of the so-called Loft Scene of the mid-70s. Having posited new options for the drums in the 60s, Ali´s work in the 80s found him working through all the idioms, with no loss of power. He participated, for example, in a very spirited (and, sadly, unrecorded) jamming band called There Goes The Neighbourhood with blues harmonica man Sugar Blue and Hot Tuna guitarist Jorma Kaukonen. He's played with Kowald and Brötzmann in New York, and appeared in Phalanx, an "all-star" grouping featuring Blood Ulmer, George Adams, and Sirone. He's still a vital - and vitally original - force in the music. Andrew Cyrille´s major contribution to contemporary drumming has been the way in which he combines a lithe, dancing swing with sensitivity to timbre and tone, often playing melodically on his instrument. Cyrille´s worked through the tradition, playing with Freddie Hubbard, and Coleman Hawkins and jamming with Monk and Bud Powell before embarking on his 12 year association with Cecil Taylor. Since ´76 he's led his own bands but worked frequently with friends including Muhal Richard Abrams and Walt Dickerson. His head-on meeting with Brötzmann in Berlin in 1982 resulted in an enduring album. In the 1960s during his tenure as a house musician at Ronnie Scott's club where he accompanied most of the leading American soloists, Tony Oxley, a virtuoso player, was widely tipped to become the next major modern jazz drummer. Today, when he plays time, he's probably the only European drummer who can favourably be compared to DeJohnette, Erskin etc. But Oxley chose to take the stonier path of the free music innovator, continuing work he'd begun as early as 1963. By the 1970s he had completely revolutionized his drum kit, dispensing with the snare, the very heart of the set for most players and bringing metals, including a giant cowbell, and racks of woodblocks into the kit and also using amplified percussion. His early music on such records as The Baptised Traveller in many ways anticipated the directions later taken by Anthony Braxton, a fact perhaps acknowledged by recent collaborations. Since the FMP festival of 1988, Oxley has also been Cecil Taylor's preferred drummer. from: Leaflet TMM (1991) |
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