On Tradition(s)…

On the passing of Sonny Rollins…

There have been a number of moving tributes written in recent weeks and I’m still experiencing a range of feelings given the depth of musical expression he made of his life. It’s an enormous loss of course, and yet...the inspiration he gave us is even larger. It has to live on and it has to live on through us, in whatever form that may be. That may seem insurmountable but I don’t think we have any choice. Rather than be hung up by virtue of comparison we must simply keep going.  There’s no time for anything else…

The tradition has taken many forms and there have been many great contributors. Perhaps the single most revered figure would be Louis Armstrong given the enormity of his impact on music and culture worldwide. Last week I visited the Louis Armstrong House and Museum in Queens. I’d been meaning to do so for years.  It’s easy to postpone things like this and my advice would be, don’t.  Having seen photos and read about the archive I kind of felt as if I already knew what I needed to know.  Wrong.  All I will say is that I could not have been prepared for the feeling of standing in the man’s living room, kept just as it was when he lived there. Just go. 

I bought my first Louis Armstrong record just around the time he passed in 1971. It was on a budget compilation LP on UpFront Records and I bought it at, of all places, a 7-Eleven store.

Also, it can sometimes be easy to postpone going out to hear someone play, perhaps someone you’ve been meaning to catch for some time.  Like, perhaps decades.  A couple of weeks back saxophonist Bill Saxton performed with a group as part of a Jazz Foundation of America presentation at Hudson River Park, just down the street from where I live.  This free concert took place outdoors in the early part of the evening, so no excuses for not making it. Mr Saxton (age 80) simply blew the roof off the joint, and there was no roof to begin with. It was all about spirit, and it’s one that we don’t get to hear very much any longer. It took me back to the ‘70s, an exciting time for the kind of no-nonsense, hard bop/modal approach to playing that so inspired me.  The set was well constructed and his announcements to the crowd reflected a relaxed authority, a kind of gravitas that feels very welcome these days. But it was what he was saying on the horn that was so compelling.  His note choices were absolutely on-point, speaking that language in a way that made you feel his life experience, you were a part of it at that moment. Afterwards I went over to shake his hand and say thanks and that while I’d been aware of him for years this was the first time hearing him live, to which he was appreciative.  As I was walking away I couldn't help but think that he would have been completely justified had he said something like, “well, I’ve been here all this time, where have you YOU been?”

The following week on the series was trombonist Dick Griffin and his big band.  Dick Griffin (age 86) is one of our neighbors and has played with Charles Mingus, Rahsaan Roland Kirk and Sun Ra among others. Again, that spirit in sound, this time orchestrated for a slew of horns. Everyone got space to solo and occasionally everyone did so at the same time.  The only issue I will speak to would be the use of the P.A. system which was overly bass-heavy for both of these concerts, something that current-day sound engineers do not understand about jazz music.  Besides being inappropriate musically it messes with the rhythmic feel of the band. Musicians do not often have control over this but I feel it important to continue speaking about it.    

Also reminiscent (quite literally) of the tradition is a recent memoire written by bassist Ron McClure. To say that Ron McClure (age 84) has played with just about everyone would be no exaggeration.  The Wynton Kelly Trio, The Charles Lloyd Quartet, Joe Henderson and even Blood Sweat and Tears are just some of the names involved.  Ron is also one of the first musicians I met upon moving to NYC and I later got to play with him at a now defunct club called Sweet Basil on a gig led by trumpeter Terumasa Hino along with Larry Willis on piano and Billy Hart on drums.  It’s a rewarding (if lengthy) manuscript and could really use a serious editing but at least the important aspects are documented.  Here is an excerpt.

In my other realm of listening, just some weeks ago the Gotham Early Music Scene presented a thought provoking performance by the ensemble Theotokos, led by Doug Balliett.  I wrote about this ensemble last year, albeit a different configuration and program.

I’ve come to learn a bit more about composer and bassist Doug Balliett. He’s involved in an impressive amount of musical projects within the early music scene yet his interests clearly extend beyond any such confines. This ensemble has an ongoing residence at St. Mary’s Church on the lower east side and Doug composes a new cantata for the ensemble each week.  

This particular concert was called “Music in the Time of Charlemagne”, which means music from around the year 800. That’s 1200 years ago and coincides with the first notated western music. I was excited to attend hoping to satisfy my curiosity around how this music would have been performed that long ago. Some of it was quite simply presented as monophonic chant and yet the music seemed to grow subtly into some unexpected and exquisite harmonies. There was one moment in which I would have loved improvising on what I was hearing.  As for satisfying any curiosity, I came away still wondering, so much so that I contacted Doug to ask some questions. Turns out that while there are several schools of thought concerning rhythmic interpretation of that music, there may not be any real consensus.  The issue of harmony seems equally uncertain.  Beyond the monophonic notation there are sources from that time period that refer to “sweet harmonies” so it’s possible that the monks from that period were actually harmonizing in performance while the notation did not reflect this until centuries later. Doug admitted that the gorgeous 9th and 11th chords he was playing on the organ (the ones that so much made me want to play) were not historic but given the fact that various kinds of choices were likely made over the course of time it’s not at all unreasonable.  A case might be made that it is more in keeping with a dynamic tradition as opposed to a static one.  I’m still very curious however in as much as while there is an ideological approach to defining early music there is also a physiological aspect in how music can make us feel.  As much as I love those 9th and 11th chords part of me craves a connection with historic practice, however imperfectly we can discern what that may have been.

As for Doug’s predilection for expanding the possibilities that early music offers, there was a collaboration between another of his ensembles, called Ruckus, and the great Roscoe Mitchell that took place last year as part of the Vision Festival. I asked Doug about this, apparently the group's flutist Emi Ferguson was aware of Roscoe Mitchell’s use of baroque flutes and so she made contact with him, instigating this project. Also involved was saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins, who has impressed me with his rootedness as well as his forward looking musical nature.  Doug mentioned that this project will be recorded for upcoming release, which is good to know being that I was not able to attend their festival gig.

I’ve written before about the affinities between early music and improvisation as we know it today. Not so much in an explicit way, just that from a personal vantage point over time the differences seem less and the similarities greater. Rather than try and unite these traditions in a conscious way I’ve been patient, allowing things to take form on my instrument in my daily practice without the need for nomenclature.  It may be that some of this has informed the recent solo concert I did last month.  I think there was a balance of elements achieved, musically and acoustically due to the excellent listening conditions afforded by the Zen Center where this took place.  As it happens, the concert was recorded and will be released on Hat Hut Records in the next months.  More news on that to come…

I’ve heard this song before…

Does art need to be provocative, challenging the status quo?

Should the process of art-making be front-loaded with ideas and prerequisites to notions of validity?

Do artists have any responsibility to society?

Should artists be advocating, telling anyone else what to do or simply speak for themselves?

What is activism?  What is quietism?  What is ism?

Are humanitarian and universal values in art evasive of the problems that people experience?  Or are they inclusive?

What is culture in the digital age?  Is there culture in the digital age?

What is the spark, the urgency that drives the creative process?

This slew of questions came to mind upon reading a book review in which the word “quietism” was used, rather pejoratively, towards an author whom the critic felt did not take enough risk in presenting their opinions.  It’s not a word I’ve seen used much other than in old zen stories in which teachers who espoused the use of koans (a kind of problem to concentrate on in meditation) used it to criticize other teachers who espoused a more open contemplative approach.  And that’s probably overblown, more a matter of pointing out the potential pitfalls in either approach, aggression on the one hand and passivity on the other.  In seeing it used in a literary forum I decided to look it up and was surprised to find that it has a history relating to western philosophy as well as Christianity.  

In Catholic theology quietism refers to late seventeenth century contemplative and mystical practices oriented towards absorption into the Divine Essence that were ultimately deemed heretical by the church.  In later times the term referred to religious practice that eschewed political activism.  In early Western philosophy (second or third century) quietism was associated with a philosopher named Sextus Empiricus who espoused Pyrrhonism, describing it as a form of philosophical therapy.   He felt that philosophy had no positive thesis to contribute.  Rather than settling debates Pyrrhonism was intended to liberate the mind by diagnosing confusing concepts.  More contemporary expressions of this idea came from Wittgenstein who influenced the “ordinary language” philosophers who considered philosophical problems to be the result of linguistic misunderstandings.  

That’s paraphrasing wikipedia in as much as this is all quite new to me.  If I’d have known about this when I was younger it might have spared me a fair bit of angst.  I recall my college philosophy course (a subject that actually interested me) as being an exercise in the high tedium of intellectual conflict, reducing the whole of Western thought into a litany of arguments and refutations starting with the assertion “I think, therefore I am” and going downhill from there.  Or perhaps I simply checked out mentally on the whole thing being that my real interests lay elsewhere and I was hungry for life experience.  In reading about this now it resonates with a certain tension that I’ve long felt in considering the role of music and art in society, namely the need to speak to real issues and the need to allow the creative process free and unrestricted rein into the unknown.  I’ve alluded to this in a number of previous posts and have never felt completely resolved about it.  I’m not alone in this and sympathize with what my fellow artists are going through yet I’m at a loss when it comes to identifying a singular ethos that satisfies all parties in all situations.  

As in…what’s the solution?  

What if there is no solution?  

What if the situation is hopeless?  

No one likes hopelessness but what if we allow for the possibility just long enough to imagine the implications?  How far do they go?  What form could we possibly apply to the process?  Somewhere I read an interview with a physicist who tried to describe what happens when a black hole collapses.  All I remember about it was the poetic way he put it, something akin to, death dies with death.  Somehow that sounds reasonable, assuring even.  That which we are most afraid of.  Does this help in any way on planet earth as we struggle to address our problems?

This verse from the Tao Te Ching showed up in something I recently read…

“Throw away morality and justice, and people will do the right thing.”

Pretty drastic, eh?  Kind of goes against everything we seem to be fighting for.  Maybe it strikes you as a form of anarchy.  Or perhaps it’s pointing towards something else, the artifice that comes with making an ideology out of natural goodness, and then using that ideology as a weapon, in the name of goodness!  I think there are a number of ways one might understand this statement (made three thousand years ago) but I don’t think it’s espousing that we do away with any of the tools we need to navigate the relative world.  That may seem contradictory when seen as dualistic, which is actually OK because it’s the product of thought.  It becomes a problem when we can’t see that and act out of a misguided belief.

I suppose this has become a theme on the blog, and yet I keep thinking that this time everything is suddenly going to be OK and there will be no need to bring it up again.  There is a tension around this issue in that I used to speak out pretty strongly on social and political issues but it didn’t help, it made me feel worse, in ways I didn’t understand.  That doesn’t mean it’s hopeless and not to speak out.  Plenty of artists do speak out and with good reason.  But perhaps it’s hopeless in a more positive sense.  We are all going to die.  I think that means that we’re already free, we just need to make some effort in realizing it.  No matter what you choose to do, how that effort is directed makes all the difference.  You can see it in the way it affects other people and you don’t have to be a sage to feel that.

As for those questions posed at the top, they’re OK, it’s just that they are all imposed before the fact.  Too far ahead of the beat, as it were.  Let’s see if we can find a better groove…

Upcoming Solo Concert / May 3rd

We’re just a couple weeks out from my solo concert taking place at the Zen Center of New York City on May 3rd.  The address is 500 State Street located in the Boerum Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn.  It begins at 3 pm which allows for a comfortable start to your day and an entire open evening afterwards.  If you’re near enough and so inclined please consider registering soon as seating is limited.  

In preparation I’ve been practicing more recently, giving less time for rumination on the world which is probably a good thing.  So I have nothing to offer by way of essay although not for lack of trying.  The process for that usually involves haphazardly jotting down thoughts and ideas, throwing them into a pile and coming back once in a while to see if anything gels.  In looking over notes from the past several months most of them found their way to the trash without much second guessing.  Certain patterns emerge, repetitious to the point of annoyance.  But if there were to be a discernible theme amongst them it might involve intention, as in what is the motivation for expressing oneself verbally in a more or less public forum, particularly at this current moment in time?  Angst is a powerful motivator, no matter how you might try to dress it up to put a positive face on it.  It might even seem trivializing to do so and yet it is undeniably important to allow for the motivation of what is positive.  It’s easy to think of this in terms of opposition but that seems to create the very obstacle in allowing what is truly positive to find you.  I’m not going to try and prescribe a solution for this in as much as it all has to be taken in, dynamically.  As important as it is to stay informed and engage with what is meaningful it is just as important (if not more so) to stay with whatever it is you’re doing at the moment.  For example, riding the subway can give rise to any number of anxieties.  Some of them may actually be related to what I am seeing and experiencing but I habitually find myself amplifying and projecting a great deal beyond the direct experience of just riding the subway.  Granted, it’s odd to be contained in a metal box clattering along a narrow tunnel under the ground.  Perhaps all the more reason to actually be riding the subway while I’m on it.  When I can do so there is more to be seen.  It requires a certain amount of intention and it’s dawning on me that this kind of intention is in fact the most positive kind of motivation I can tap into.  No need to deny what is clearly problematic in the world.  And no need to deny ourselves of what is good, because without that there is no way to address anything or help anyone.

Having said that...in order to fill things out a bit, here are a couple of things in keeping with the theme of music making…

Further lessons learned…

Weekly early music concerts from GEMS continue to inspire and illuminate.  Flutist Kelsey Burnham recently delivered a solo recital of Telemann (Fantasias 1 and 3), Bach (Partita in A minor) and Kuhlau (Fantasy for Solo Flute) demonstrating an impressive range of interpretation on music that would appear simple and straightforward when seen on the page.  At least that’s been my superficial impression in looking at the scores of Telemann and Bach, pieces that I’ve been practicing on saxophone for some years now.  Kelsey Burnham dispelled any notions that this music is in any way locked down.

I had the opportunity to chat briefly with Kelsey (turns out she’s from a neighborhood in Baltimore not far from where I grew up) and got some tips on how she approaches this music in practice, the first and most important being to sing it.  She also pointed out how phrases tend to carry through into downbeats.  The most surprising (and encouraging) revelation was that she articulates the phrases differently each time she performs them.  Something I can relate to!

Interestingly, at the time this music was written the notion of the “public concert series” was almost nonexistent.  Turns out it was Telemann himself who was instrumental (no pun intended) in getting the concept rolling.  It makes one wonder about the effect of context over time as musical culture “accumulates” to the point that we often get to hear programs that range in time over centuries.  A concentrated concert like the one Kelsey presented is all the more impressive given the amount of music we are aware of in 2026 such that compositions from three hundred years ago become just as alive as when they were written.

Bassist Melvin Gibbs has a new book out…

I first heard Melvin Gibbs at a jazz festival in Switzerland with the group “Harriet Tubman” (with guitarist Brandon Ross and drummer JT Lewis) performing for an audience that wasn’t quite ready to take in what they had to say.  I was impressed both by the music and the way they handled the situation.  Melvin and I chatted and soon after I called on him to play on my recording “Ten”, released in 2004.

“Ten” was a completely improvised session and if you listen to the tracks that Melvin plays on you’ll appreciate how essential the architecture he provided was to the music, not just through the role of the bass sonically but through his compositional awareness overall.  It’s a perspective that comes from knowing music on a macro level as well as having expertise in one’s own instrumental domain.

His book is called “How Black Music Took Over the World”.  That’s a very big title considering how much music is being considered.  However, the pre-release announcements allude to an autobiographical approach to his overview which seems appropriate given Melvin’s cross-cultural involvement in a wide range of music during his life.  In The New York Times he stresses that his aim was “primarily inspirational” adding that “it’s about overcoming”.  This from a musician with an informed perspective.  I’m looking forward to reading.