Mickey Fields

Talk about saxophone playing in Baltimore and before long you're going to be talking about Mickey Fields. I was recently interviewed by some folks from the Baltimore Jazz Alliance who are putting together a book about the history of jazz in Baltimore (or "Charm City" as it is sometimes referred to), my home town. So I got to speak about Mickey and in doing so he's been on my mind lately.

Mickey (who passed in 1995) was emblematic of a special type of musician, the home town hero who could have gone on to fame in the music but decided to remain at home. I regret that the the history of jazz does not do better service to local scenes and players who while not well known outside of their hometowns played a great role in the development of the music. Often we read interviews with one or another of the greats who will reference a name or two of someone who greatly influenced them. Often that player was someone who did not record much if at all and not much is usually found out beyond these informal anecdotes.

So I am very pleased that Mickey Fields will get some of his "due" in this upcoming publication. More on that when it comes out. Suffice it to say that Mickey was a warm and generous man who provided much encouragement to us younger musicians coming up and demonstrated night after night in just about every club in town just how it's done. The fact that he could hold his own with Sonny Stitt was a matter of strong local pride. The fact that he did not record much is lamentable. He had a gutsy sound and delivery and possessed a sophisticated knowledge of blues and bebop. I once recall hearing Mickey at a neighborhood club filling the room with an enormously raw sound while romping through the changes of some uptempo tune. It was as if I was hearing Albert Ayler play bebop.

The only recording I have of Mickey was done considerably earlier than that and evidences the quintessential type of Mickey Fields experience enjoyed by so many in Baltimore back in the day. It's a 1969 LP called "The Astonishing Mickey Fields" that is beyond rare and hard to find. Here's a track, "Lover Man"...

Shut Up and Go Practice...

That's an all purpose insult often hurled at gear-heads. You know, folks who seem to have an endless fascination with musical gear, often to the exclusion of music. And often to the detriment of practicing. Personally I've stayed almost deliberately ignorant of much of what goes into making a saxophone work. But as I mentioned in my opening post I've had my ears opened to a few things with the switch to a vintage saxophone. In addition to edifying awareness in my occupation it's gotten me very curious about a horn that's been sitting in my closet. It was my first saxophone, rented in Baltimore in 1969 from the music store where my grandfather taught guitar. It was the only tenor they had (and I insisted on a tenor) but it looked as if it had been buried in the ground for quite a long time. And it kinda had a musty odor. All the other kids in the school band had shiny horns. I couldn't wait for the day when I could "graduate" up to a Selmer. That day came a few years later and that was pretty much the last I thought about my first horn.

I had retrieved it from my mother's house (where it had been sitting for the last thirty-five years or so) more out of a sense of sentimentality than anything else. I never thought it was a great horn but I was twelve so what did I know? The finish was so corroded that it was difficult to even make out the engraving. I showed it to Bill Singer (my repair-man here in NYC) who informed me that it would take some doing to get it playing again and that the cost would likely exceed the value. So it sat in my closet for some more years.

That is, until I started researching the saxophone in earnest, reading up on the history of the instrument and the technical advances (or I should say technical changes) that brought us to where we are now, in 2010. In short, seems a lot has been lost over the decades. Granted, modern saxophones are easier to play and have more consistent intonation than older horns, in general. But I'm finding that older horns often have a certain character that seems to have gotten lost with the continual refinements that today's players have come to expect from an instrument.

I decided to pull that old horn out of the closet and see what I could find out about it. I knew it was a Buescher. I assumed it was a "True Tone" model since that's what the emblem on the case said. (The case, by the way, stunk so bad I had to discard it). It was hard to read but the saxophone itself had the word "Aristocrat" engraved on the bell. That was a surprise, as I came to find out that this was a "pro" model and considered one of their best (if not the best). I still couldn't read the serial number so I had to scratch away a bit of the crud in order to find out that this was a 1941 "Big B" model (so named because of the large letter B on the bell). Along with a few other technical clues I came to find out that this horn was actually a contender back in the day. Apparently Sonny Rollins used this model on a number of his early recordings.

Seems that sometime around the 1950's the French Selmer company became ascendent and eclipsed the prevailing American made horns of the day (such as Conn and Buescher). To be sure, the Selmer was and is a fantastic instrument. With their innovations the saxophone became easier to play (key placement) and the prevailing sound changed from a more bottom heavy to a somewhat lighter sound with more complex overtones. This is a generalization, but from my perspective those are the major differences. In the 1970's the overall sound of the saxophone changed even more dramatically due largely to mouthpiece design. In order to accommodate playing in heavily amplified electric bands the horn had to become louder and the sound had to cut through the increased volume on stage. This meant that the older horns and mouthpieces were often abandoned and along with them a certain way of making sound on the instrument, that fuller, rounder, darker sound that one hears in players from the 30's and 40's.

To my surprise I have come to find out that this was not the first time this happened in the history of the instrument. Seems the ascendancy of the saxophone in popular music and especially it's role in the rise of big bands provoked Sigurd Rascher (one of the first classical saxophonists) to express his concerns that recent changes in the instrument (the bore taper) and the "newer" mouthpieces being used (designed to make the horn louder) meant that the saxophone was no longer the same instrument that Adolph Sax invented in 1841. These observations by Rascher came in the 1930's.

It might be easy to write that off as being reactionary in the face of progress. But I've gone back and listened to recordings made by Rascher (and the saxophone quartet that bears his name, who endeavor to play the instrument the way it was designed) and in their hands the saxophone really does sound like another instrument. It's a hybrid sound, sometimes stringlike other times a bit more like low brass. While I'm totally into the idea of taking the horn into whatever sonic realms possible (a process which has historically been more or less fully exploited by now) I'm uncomfortable with the idea that I may have unknowingly been missing out on a very large part of what the horn is capable of.

None of this is news. It's just that making a "discovery" like this for oneself at such a late date can throw one's mental state into disarray. In a good way. Wouldn't want things to get too pat.

So back to this Buescher Aristocrat that got me started. Apparently the taper of the bore design is supposed to be closer to the original design of the saxophone by it's inventor. So that's got me curious. And given how much I love playing my vintage Conn I really have to find out what the Buescher is all about. It seems to represent another branch of the history of the horn. So I took it over to Bill Singer a couple of weeks ago for restoration and it's due back any day now. Don't know whether I'll even like it or not but I'm sure I'll find out something more about saxophones in the process.

More on this soon...

(photo is the "before" version)

Mel Ellison

I met Mel Ellison in 1979. I was 19 and still living in Baltimore and Mel came through town with trumpeter Ted Curson's band to play for a few nights at "The Bandstand", a jazz club in Fells Point. It was a festival of sorts and saxophonists Sonny Stitt and David Schnitter were also in town to play. In fact, I recall playing on one of the afternoon jams and Sonny and David walked in while I was playing and came right up to the stage in front of me. It was a little nerve-racking but I think Sonny said something complimentary which made me feel good. That night Ted Curson's band played. They sounded great. Mel played saxophones, Armen Donelian was on piano, Ratzo Harris on bass, Tom Rainey played drums and Montego Joe was on percussion. At that time the prevailing trend on saxophone was toward a brighter more cutting sound. But Mel had a distinctively full dark sound and an intervallic melodic style that was his own. I was so knocked out I asked him for a lesson. It was a catalyzing experience which I still remember quite clearly.

About a month later I had a free weekend and decided to visit NYC for the first time. I looked up Mel who was living in midtown on 46th street. A bed, a TV, a stereo, his horns and a big cappuccino maker were all that was in the room. He had his horns out and was practicing. We chatted for awhile and then he played me a recording of a group that he had. I remember thinking that I had never heard anything quite like it. Mel explained how he had done every kind of gig one could do as a saxophone player and now he wanted to simply play the music he loved. So he drove a limo in order to make some money while hitting the NYC jazz scene. He was the first musician I had met who was actually living the life, doing what I aspired to do. I remember pulling my horn out (without being asked) and trying to get him to play with me. I only played a phrase or two, but just being in the same room with him made me play better than I had ever played before. That night he had a gig with Jackie Byard's Apollo Stompers and invited me along.

It wasn't until 1983 that I moved to NYC. By that time Mel had left town and gone back to the Bay Area. I would ask around and those who remembered spoke very highly of him. But he had otherwise vanished from the scene. Finally, sometime in the mid '90s I tracked Mel down on a trip out west . We spoke on the phone and met briefly at one of my gigs. Mel explained that he had since been in and out of music over the years due to his feelings about the music business in general and how he wanted to live his life. We stayed in touch over the years and I asked him if he would send me any recordings of himself made from his time in NYC as commercial recordings were few.

One very nice session is available though. It's by bassist Saheb Sarbib from 1980 entitled "Seasons" (on the Soul Note label). Mark Whitecage plays alto and Paul Motion is on drums. It's a great indication of Mel's sound and approach at that time. You can get it on iTunes

I'm still trying to track down the recordings of those gigs in Baltimore with Ted Curson. I pretty sure they exist.

Mel recently informed me that he was coming to town for a visit. In fact, it would be Mel's first time back in NYC since he left in the early 80's. Being an important musical figure in my development, I was thrilled to be able to organize a jam session inviting Ratzo Harris and Tom Rainey. And I don't think Mel had seen Ratzo or Tom since those early days. In spite of the fact that Mel does not play with the same regularity he did in his NYC days, his spirit and sound are quite intact. It was a real thrill to actually play together and renew the inspiration from those many years ago. Thanks Mel!

(photo: Mel, Tom, Ratzo, EE)

First Installment...

Back when this whole internets thing got going (mid/late '90s) I took advantage using web sites and discussion groups as a means to speak for myself as a musician. The timing was fortuitous as it coincided with a period in which I experienced a verbal awakening of sorts. I was asked to write some articles here and there and in general I found the process of organizing my thoughts and expressing certain ideas for the first time to be very beneficial for my music making.

At some point however (maybe a couple/few years ago) I found myself with little else to say. And perhaps with the exponential increase in on-line activity (MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter) I began to feel the need to take a break. And I'm still rather ambivalent about much of this. So much business is done at the computer as it is. But lately I've been feeling the desire to take charge again and have been wondering what the optimal platform might be to best keep things on my own terms.

Facebook has been somewhat interesting but ultimately I find myself wanting to sink my teeth into something a bit deeper. There are some impressive blogs out there, which at first I found almost intimidating in as much as I can't imagine reading as many books as are being discussed, or listening to as many recordings as are being dissected. But I found many of them to be compelling and so decided to start this blog without telling anyone about it for awhile, just to see what develops and to find out whether this might be a good outlet and connection to other folks who may be interested in my work.

One of the other reasons I stopped doing as much online writing was that I've been practicing more. A lot more. For a time, much of my creative energy was devoted to conceptual issues and integrating other types of experiences into my artistic life. That seemed to require only enough daily practice as to keep myself in shape. But over the past few years I've become almost obsessed with sound. So much so that in trying to further develop my sound I recently took the drastic (for me) step of changing my equipment. I've always been strong on the idea of sticking with a set-up (mouthpiece, reeds, horn) for many years at a time and discovering what it takes physically to change ones sound. Finally however, I felt the need to explore some other options. The first step involved getting a new mouthpiece. I chose a hand-made model by Fred Lebayle (who is working here in NYC). It's an large chamber piece and puts me one step closer to the kind of sound I've been looking for (warmer, fuller). From there it was only a few weeks before I realized I had to take the next step and check out some other saxophones. I've been playing a Mark VI Selmer since the early '70s. But I always had a sneaking suspicion that I might really prefer the previous model, the Balanced Action. Trouble is, these vintage Selmers are so vastly overpriced as to make them all but unattainable for most of us. But I did try a number of them and I did feel that they were much preferable to the Mark VI, more of a core and more of a singing quality to the sound. Along the way however I decided to check out some vintage Conn saxophones (from the teens, 20s and 30s). And man am I glad that I did. I like them even better than the Selmers. I had no idea that these horns were so unique. To make a long story short I picked out a 1927 Conn that makes everything I've been trying to do sonically that much easier. In the process I'm learning a whole lot more about this instrument the saxophone (that I've been playing since I was 10) than I ever thought there was to know.

And the effect of all of this musically has been rather profound. I feel as if I'm starting over from the beginning. That's on the one hand a bit frightening but on balance much more exciting and very conducive to the whole idea of improvising. And improvising is about all I've been interested in doing. Granted (no pun intended) I recently completed a writing commission from Chamber Music America which allowed me to pursue some compositional strategies I've been interested in (maybe I'll write more about that later). But I'm more and more compelled by the idea of free improvisation not being a style at all, but simply a means to incorporate any and all kinds of musical information into a spontaneous presentation. Not free "from" anything but free "to" do anything. Not a form of avoidance (of form, melody, lyricism or groove as is often the case) but an opportunity to unite everything.

So as I embark on this new chapter in music making I will use this blog as an opportunity to share parts of the process. And living here in NYC presents me daily with experiences from the mundane to the astonishing. Taken individually, many of these experiences may not seem all that important. But the fabric of life here is unique (even as the city continually changes) and taken together these experiences are often worth documenting.

So here goes...