Downbeat Reviews (Vol. 32, No. 15, July 15, 1965, pp. 29-31) – von Kenny Dorham und Billl Matthieu
TWO VIEWS OF THREE OUTER VIEWS
Albert Ay1er
SPIRITUAL UNITY—ESP Disk 1002: Ghosts: First Variation; The Wizard; Spirits; Ghosts: Second Variation.
Personnel: Ayler, tenor saxophone; Gary Peacock, bass; Sonny Murray, drums.Rating: no stars
Byron Allen
BYRON ALLEN TRIO—ESP Disk 1005: Time Is Past; Three Steps in the Right Direction; Decision for the Cole-Man; Today’s Blues Tomorrow.
Personnel: Allen, alto saxophone; Maceo Gilchrist, bass; Ted Robinson, drums.Rating: *
Giuseppi Logan
THE GIUSEPPI LOGAN QUARTET—ESP Disk 1007: Tabla Suite; Dance of Satan; Dialogue; Taneous; Bleecker Partita.
Personnel: Logan, tenor and alto saxophones, Pakistani oboe; Don Pullen, piano; Eddie Gomez, bass; Milford Graves, drums.Rating: no stars
It’s clear to me that Ayler is from the avant-garde institution. But there is good and bad avant-garde.
From the beginning, Ghosts: First Variations is satirical comedy. In order to make this more successful, it seems he would apply the “fog horn” sound in a fuller context, at least making it parallel with itself. This track sounds as if it is an attempt at putting the listener on.
After the first chorus, Ayler does something—I don’t know quite what he is trying to do—but it sounds kind of like a baby crying for candy with a whining ball in its mouth—wanting to play music and not wanting to, while holding a musical instrument.
After a bewildering solo by Peacock—who I didn’t know had such want-to-get-away-from-it-all, high-minded, uninhibited aspirations—Ayler returns, this time turning the clock back (counterclockwise)—all the way back—to folk-country, Ozark, real 1920s Texas hillbilly musical gyrations. Then they go back to the melody and fade out. If the townspeople hear this, I’m sure that when the second variation of Ghosts is played, there will certainly be a ghost town. No one left but. . . .
The Wizard is angry tonight, and from all indications he has the rest of the group boxed in. He and Gary. I wonder what the drummer would do with some precisioned sound, like a melodic instrument in hand. I like Murray best of all, but I also like Peacock for being a diehard.
There are a lot of unexplored territories in music (at the moment, that is) without going into areas that leave us earth people so far behind, or far away, or without leaving us so far “in.” It must be awful to study for years to get away from the gravitational pull of inhibitedness to find there is nothing at the heights to which thou hast extended thyself.
Ayler seems to have a nice full tone on Spirits, but it’s hard to tell. Is he playing with a mouthpiece? I heard Roland Kirk play without a reed and get sounds like this, but he had a conception of melody and chords. I don’t have the spirit to listen to more of this one.
I’ve heard Peacock play “conventional,” so I know he can play more to my liking and that he knows chords, cycles, etc. A gig is a gig? If this thing isn’t quarantined, we’ll all be in the garment center pushing wagons.
Ghosts: Second Variation is about the same as Variation No. 1. Ayler is really stretching out here, and I’m convinced he doesn’t know or care anything about conventional music.
A baby can do this if it can produce the air for the sound. A baby is free. Ayler is free. Free as a bird. Ayler is free of everything except melody and Father Time (the march of time itself—clock and cadence). He sounds like a very frustrated person. He is also playing a very controversial music. At this point it’s not worth the paper it takes to review it. Too far out. He passed the moon and the stars.
The Allen record is a little better.
The bass does string and bow calisthenics on Time, so I don’t suppose he was tuning up. Allen enters, playing a horizontal line that has nothing to do with chords or anything being played by the others except an occasional cadence. If these guys are going to play in time, then they should play some chords. This would at least form a design, but this is drama beyond conventional description.
Bass calisthenics and then drum calisthenics. But at least the drummer plays some good rolls. Then the alto comes back, and they’re really trying to get something going. Whew! This track is trying.
On Three Steps, Allen comes closer to playing something than Ayler does. Allen’s tone is kind of “mousy,” but he doesn’t squeak. Robinson sounds all right on drums.
Gilchrist stretches out on Steps, but he doesn’t seem to know where he’s going—or does he? I can’t hear where he’s making any steps in a musical direction. I wonder if he ever heard of Ray Brown or Oscar Pettiford? Or even the more recent “spare bass” style exemplified by Scott LaFaro, Richard Davis, Charlie Mingus, Steve Swallow, and Ronnie Boykins, to name a few. After these spare bass players put you on, they play extraordinary combinations of “in” and “out” stuff; however, their put-on (I may be exaggerating a bit) is mathematical (precisioned) because it’s right in some chord (it sounds such).
Cole-Man begins with a bombardment of synchronized rhythm section and horn ensemble before the three men battle it out. I like to hear some point of rest, unless the idea is to leave one hanging in suspense near the cliff’s edge. Allen almost gets going here, but this music is ugly. There is enough of that in the world, even for those who seek perfection.
Robinson really pushes to make Blues go, but the bassist pushes a lot of strange buttons. Allen, however, plays some nice folk hollers. This is the best track, but the album as a whole passed this earth person and most of the stars.
The Logan album is the worst of the lot.
Taneous begins with a free-for-all conglomeration of noise, sounds, and tempos, with the drummer playing a synchronized cadence. I suppose this is an alto being blown into or blown around. A good grip on the instrument might have enhanced the aim. Piano follows the alto with a futile attempt to get some jazz going. Nothing happens. The bass follows with seemingly no idea of what to express; then the piano joins, in the same context. Finally Logan enters riding oboe, I think. The drummer does a few gymnastics, and they all join in for a free-for-all outgoing.
Pianist Pullen plays the introduction to Bleecker, laying a nice carpet for Logan’s rendezvous with Satan on the oboe. The oboist doesn’t like much that’s conventional, and when he does, he reminds me of Jackie McLean on a freedom excursion. In other words, Logan is not original when “in.” When “out,” it’s out for the sake of being out.
Contrasted with Logan’s oboe, Pullen’s piano solo is unusually pleasant, while drummer Graves keeps something going on, seemingly mostly for the sake of filling in. But when Pullen plays some block chords, Graves plays a nice roll on his hi-hat, which makes for a professional bow-out.
There is an ensemble goulash and then accompaniment for Logan, who bows out gracefully with all participating harmoniously. Quite a relief. The title is quite appropriate, assuming this is a party on Bleecker St. in New York’s Greenwich Village. An “out” orgy.
Tabla Suite and Dance of Satan begin with oboe (?) and bass up front, with Graves playing sticks across the bass’ strings. The pianist seems to be cleaning off his instrument’s strings at this point. Rhythm is being played on the body of the bass, while Graves plays on the strings, seemingly below the bass’ bridge. Logan enters on oboe (?); piano enters playing in 7/4 with Logan, but it doesn’t stick to a set rhythmic pattern—seems to overlap. Smoke-screen 7/4 (can’t exactly tell what it is).
A musical instrument didn’t necessarily have to be used for this music, because such an instrument is a precision instrument constructed for a definite purpose. As very little is definite here, a bamboo cane, water hose, or a rubber ball with a hole in it would have sufficed. Then one could place all this in a category of its own—not jazz, not miscellaneous jazz, but something like miscellaneous (musical) vibrations.
Dialogue is basically a four-part, go-for-yourself thing. The pianist is very agile and flexible, however.
For some unknown reason, I could take Logan under specific conditions. But he better get out of that smoke-filled room, walk out on Bleecker St., and catch some air.(K.D. )
Kenny Dorham.Albert Ay1er
SPIRITUAL UNITY—ESP Disk 1002: Ghosts: First Variation; The Wizard; Spirits; Ghosts: Second Variation.
Personnel: Ayler, tenor saxophone; Gary Peacock, bass; Sonny Murray, drums.Rating: see below
Byron Allen
BYRON ALLEN TRIO—ESP Disk 1005: Time Is Past; Three Steps in the Right Direction; Decision for the Cole-Man; Today’s Blues Tomorrow.
Personnel: Allen, alto saxophone; Maceo Gilchrist, bass; Ted Robinson, drums.Rating: see below
Giuseppi Logan
THE GIUSEPPI LOGAN QUARTET—ESP Disk 1007: Tabla Suite; Dance of Satan; Dialogue; Taneous; Bleecker Partita.
Personnel: Logan, tenor and alto saxophones, Pakistani oboe; Don Pullen, piano; Eddie Gomez, bass; Milford Graves, drums.Rating: see below
These three records are best heard as a document from the center of contemporary jazz, not as finished, definitive performances. The music, however, is not merely experimental. It is fundamental to the lives of the many men making it. The ability to form rounded judgments of the music seems less appropriate than the ability to suspend that judgment willingly. The focus must be on the aperture of one’s ear. Criticism of the usual sort (especially ratings) would be a burden all around.
The records sat around my house for a long time before I would let them get to me. And yet my immersion in making similar music is what sustains my days. How could these records be so close, so valuable to me, yet seem so unlistenable, so unattainable?
Let us begin with what is clearest. There are moments in this music when something happens so strongly together that there is a flash of brilliance and a lingering radiation. The best musicians get it brightest, oftenest. But all groups get it sooner or later; it is a condition of playing this music.
It also is clear that there are painful passages of alienation, note-swept, dry. The music bubbles like black broth and is just as repellent, just as empty of music. How can these extremes be possible? What is happening to allow them?
The primary thing is this: many men are suddenly laboring very hard to find a new language that will express a new grace within the human condition. It is the labor that strikes us most. The lack of clarity of the language defines only the certainty of the toil.
When one senses that toil, one also senses those celebratory passages in which the work carries its own weight and the men ride it like hussars. But it is the toil, the necessity to toil, that comes first, and only after that can the music, sometimes, flow.
Now, are we to buy records just to listen to sweat? There is no answer except: here are the records at the listener’s disposal.
It is not remarkable that so many men want to labor together so fiercely. (There are dozens in New York, dozens elsewhere, many of whom sound much the same.) It would be remarkable if any of these records sold over 2,000 copies. Society does not want to share in this particular act of labor. The work is too unproductive, in the understood sense, too liable to error, too hard. Society will wait till the work straightens itself out and then maybe take a peek. Meanwhile, society will water the lawn, perhaps the best thing to be done. Certainly critics aren’t going to help matters by clearing away underbrush impeding the progress of short men.
The following remarks are written, then, as a musician, not as a critic. They are opinionated and intuitive; they spring from varied and contradictory tastes; and they have, I am confident, no corroborative rationale.
In the music of the Allen trio there is an evenness, not the usual intensity. The pieces generally begin and end well but often run into serious trouble along the way. No listener, however, could doubt that feelings pass between these men like circles pass through circles on water. One is present at the unfolding of the language.
The worst difficulties are textural. As in much of the new jazz, the textures are little more than textures (like the feel of a fabric, not its detailed construction). As such, they have only coloristic interest. When the textural phrases are shorter, the music becomes more interesting. Contemporary classical music learned this lesson the hard way, too, but a while back.
And formal problems: the solos seem out of place and too long sometimes—I mean especially the drum solo in Blues and the bass solo in Cole-man.
There are constantly recurring stylistic oddities. In the midst of so much melodic freedom, the rhythmic and metric rigidity is boring. This is similar to the texture problem.
Gilchrist is an inventive and dramatic bassist (lots of plot). He sustains without complexity—a rare talent.
Robinson is a good group player, but I don’t find his work outstanding.
Allen is more openly indebted to the mainstream from Charlie Parker than are most avant-garde players. There is the desire to go beyond, but no tangible rebellion against, the old school. His boppish licks sound good, in a way; they are an affirmation of the old in the midst of the search.
On the whole, this music is not far out. At its best, it sounds quite natural, wholly at one with its makers, unaffected, unmannered—a direct song, like all good music. It is not of the highest inspiration, but it is strongly felt music.
One must be careful not to expect thunderbolts. The new jazz is far enough along so that capable players can make coherent nontonal music at will. Anybody can do it who wants to, in fact. It takes no super-feeling, no super-talent, no super-training—just immersion and belief. I feel that there are hundreds of musicians who could have recorded Three Steps, although this may not be so.
Again, this is not a record of rare moments, but of everyday life-activity in which rare moments, naturally, occur.
The Logan disc has some of the best new jazz (from Pullen) and possibly some of the worst (from Logan).
Tabla begins with a texture dominated by the piano strings being plucked and stroked. This accompanies Logan’s laboring, wheezing oboe. The textures that this group has found are even less detailed, more coloristic than those of Byron Allen. The result is more hypnotic than musical and does not want repeated hearings. I ask more detail, more note choice, more thought. Some sections—the end of Taneous, for example—require different ears. There is a kind of LSD delight in the play of sound for its own sake. But music is more than that.
The prearranged material is bad enough to offend, in some cases revealing a simplistic and uncomprehending musicality. For instance, the return to E minor, in Bleecker, is simply not the way to organize this music. The cliched use of triads, modality, regular rhythms, endless melodic repetitions result here in a distortion of these conventional materials. This sense of willful distortion is at times so strong—as at the end of Dialogue—that one wonders what bizarre put-down is this of what by whom? If the music attempts this discomfort, it succeeds. Even if taken as exorcism—as in Satan—I wonder if Logan means to purge or enrage me. Perhaps these are the same? And maybe, too, I would feel less assaulted if Logan were a more accomplished player.
It is true, though, that one hears Logan’s overcoming of seemingly impossible obstacles. And one never questions his reality.
Pullen plays an exciting solo in Dialogue. His work is very rangey, very notey, yet he goes far beyond mere contour into an enormous hive full of life. He is not consistent enough, however, to lift Bleecker out of the pit.
Gomez has a terrific high sound. It’s hard to believe he isn’t playing a smaller instrument (he isn’t). He is a sensitive player, a good soloist.
Graves, a good drummer, does not shine here.
The Logan quartet is best in uncharted seas, and even there it succumbs sometimes to a rambling search just below the mark of musical survival.
Ayler’s music, like Logan’s, also contains distortion, but it is not a perverse force. And it is slightly wry, and slightly like Eric Dolphy’s saying, “Can you touch the beauty in this ugliness?”
Ayler makes a great wobbling noise. Notes disappear into wide, irregular ribbons, fragmented, prismatic, wind-blown, undetermined, and filled with fury. Though the fury is frightening, dangerous, it achieves absolute certainty through being, musically, absolutely contained.
Ayler seemingly rarely hears one note at a time—as if it were useless ever to consider the particles of a thing. He seems to want to scan all notes at all times and in this way speak to an expanded consciousness. And the consistency in this outpouring is a reference point from which his music takes shape.
The second variation of Ghosts contains a solo that has no counterpart in intensity except maybe in the best of Archie Shepp.
Murray is in evidence mostly through the very fast common pulse he lays down for everyone.
Peacock is of the finest, consistently creative; on Spirits he plays a wonderful solo.
All of Spirits is well shaped; in fact, it is the best musical experience to be found among these three records. In it the organization goes beyond the momentary detail. And Ayler sounds like torture here, but self-torture, an often desirable, or at least necessary, thing. Somehow he has us share it.
Ayler’s music, as well as most avant-garde music, is, at best, difficult to listen to. It is nevertheless a very direct statement, the physical manifestation of a spiritual or mystical ritual. Its logic is the logic of human flesh in the sphere of the spirit. Could it be that ritual is more accessable to some listeners than it is to others?
To those of us who think our brains are the center of the universe, this music will appear formless and antirational. The avant-garde is, in fact, rebelliously and stubbornly antibrain. When that repugnance of the brain goes away, the music will broaden.
Meanwhile, the musician asks: These men—are they real? Answer: Yes.(B.M)
Bill Mathieu
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