Birth of the New Thing
Avant Garde Recordings of the 60's & 70's
HISTORY IN JEWELBOXES
As a new era of "free jazz/improvised music/avant garde/noise/etc." is opening
up to us, led by new artists like John Butcher, Joe Morris, Keiji Haino
and Matthew Ship it is important to remember that this is not "new
music" but a continuation of the long line of innovation that has taken place
over this entire century. We as record/cd buyers have a wonderful chance to
listen to the whole spectrum of the 20th century's musical revolution. From
the first recordings of King Oliver through Louis Armstrong and
Jabbo Smith back to Bunk Johnson on to Roy Eldridge and
Dizzy Gillespie up to Kenny Dorham, Clifford Brown and Miles
Davis next to Bill Dixon, Don Cherry and Wadada Leo Smith
coming to rest with Dave Douglas today. This is just a subjective
treatment of the trumpet; you can draw lines from the past to the future
through all of the instruments (For the drums, for example: Baby Dodds-Zutty
Singleton-Max Roach-Edward Blackwell-Sunny Murray-Hamid Drake).
But when you listen to this recorded history, the area with the largest
missing pieces may well be the "new thing" era of the `60s. As jazz became
less profitable for the major labels a number of smaller independents moved in
to document the music. This is nothing new: small/fringe labels record a
majority of what would be called "ground-breaking" music. Paramount preserved
the best of the rural blues sound of the `20s, Dial took the first chance with
Charlie Parker in the `40s, Contemporary first recorded Ornette
Coleman in the `50s and so on. As the `60s dawned with a large number of
artists following Coleman, Cecil Taylor and John Coltrane into
the latest wrinkle in the jazz universe many labels both in the US and Europe
where there to package it for posterity and us.
ESP SEES THE FUTURE
After the big names (Coltrane, Monk, Coleman) the next major innovator "on the
scene" was Albert Ayler (since this is such recent history many can and
do argue about absolutes like this, which is half the fun.) with ESP Disk, a
label releasing a steady supply of disks. All of his great recordings for this
equally wonderful label are thankfully in print and available on cd. Along
with the Ayler's (Spiritual Unity, Bells, N.Y. Eye and Ear Control
etc.) ESP Disk recorded other greats of the `60s: Ornette Coleman,
Pharoah Sanders, Bob James (his only good record?) and Sun Ra along
with important artists like Milford Graves, Giuseppi Logan, Frank Wright
and Patty Waters to name a few.
THECHICAGO SCENE
As the `60s moved on other labels started recording the strange ""new sound"
coming out of this country. In Chicago Bob Koester and Chuck Nessa helped
preserve the first important "new musics" from the midwest. With a more open
and spatial attack artists like Muhal Richard Abrams, Roscoe
Mitchell and Anthony Braxton began a new branch of the jazz
continuum for Koester and his Delmark label. Starting with Joseph
Jarman's Song For, Abrams' Levels and Degrees of Light,
Mitchell's Sound, Braxton's Three compositions of New Jazz (and
his monumental solo alto double lp For Alto) Chicago was on the map.
Nessa records came to life at this same period with a batch of recordings that
have been collected into a wonderful 5 disk set: The Art Ensemble
1967/68. Also, two of the original disks (Mitchell's Old Quartet
and Lester Bowie's Numbers 1&2) have just been reissued in
Japan. Nessa was also there to help document a meeting of American trumpeter
Bobby Bradford and John Stevens' Spontaneous Music Ensemble (from
the UK) which are still available on 2 single lps.
NEW THING - OLDWORLD
A great number of American artists, like Bradford, left the US for Europe in
the `60s and started recording for European labels. The first was the BYG
label who recorded such expatriated artists as Steve Lacy, Anthony Braxton,
Jimmy Lyons and Paul Bley. The original BYG's are sadly out of
print but a handful are still available on lp through the Affinity label and
are well worth hunting out. As European and American artists started working
live together they also started to record side by side. One of the first great
collaborations actually took place in `64 when Eric Dolphy recorded
The Last Date with future greats Han Bennink on drums and
Misha Mengelberg on piano, both would go on to be major forces in
"improvised music". You can also hear wonderful music from the Gunther
Hampel group on his recording The 8th of July 1969 on Birth records,
this group includes Anthony Braxton and fellow Chicagoan Steve McCall.
As the `70s came in European artists began to find a voice of there own. And
there is great documentation of this even newer branch of "free jazz" on labels
like Incus and EMANEM (both from the UK) and FMP (Germany). The first and
most famous fruit of this new musical world may very be the Peter
Brötzmann Octet's recording, for FMP, Machine Gun. This is a
wonderfully in your face disk. Along side Brötzmann are future greats
Willem Breuker (who is also on the Hampel disk) and Evan Parker
on reeds, Peter Kowald on bass and Han Bennink (making the leap
from swinging Eric Dolphy to supplying this juggernaut its drive in just
4 years).
A small aside: Brötzmann told me that he sent a master tape of this same
group to ESP Disk to see if they would like to release it. No response and no
returned tape, so an lp master of unreleased material is out there (I like to
think it's still around and not in a landfill) by this musical freight train.
If you find it give me a call.
This also brings us all the way around to the beginning, ESP to FMP.
Bruno Johnson runs the prolific Okkadisc jazz label and also
works at the Jazz Record Mart.
AVANT-GARDE DISCOGRAPHY
These are must-listen albums from the early days of
avant-garde.
All are available on CD unless otherwise noted.
To order any of these, call (800) 684-3480.
Albert Ayler Spiritual Unity ESP Disk 1002
Bells ESP Disk 1010
New York Eye and Ear Control ESP Disk 1016
Ornette Coleman Town Hall Concert 1962 ESP Disk 1006
Pharoah Sanders Pharoah's First ESP Disk 1003
Sun Ra Heliocentric Worlds Volume 1 ESP 1014
Volume 2 1017
Frank Wright Trio ESP Disk 1023
Steve Lacy The Forest And The Zoo ESP Disk 1060
Moon Affinity 23 (LP only)
Gunther Hampel Music From Europe ESP Disk 1042
The 8th Of July 1969 Birth 001
The Art Ensemble of Chicago 1967/68 Nessa 2500
Lester Bowie Numbers 1&2 Bomba imp.
Roscoe Mitchell Old Quartet Bomba imp.
Sound Delmark 408
Joseph Jarman Song For Delmark 410
Muhal Richard Abrams Level And Degrees Of Light Delmark 413
Anthony Braxton Three Compositions Of New Jazz Delmark 415
B-XO... Affinity 15 (LP only)
This Time Affinity 25 (LP only)
Bradford & The Spontaneous Music Ensemble Vol. 1 Nessa
17
Volume 2 Nessa 18 (LP only)
Sunny Murray Never Give A Sucker An Even Break Affinity 30
(LP)
Frank Wright One For John Affinity 33 (LP only)
Jimmy Lyons Other Afternoons Affinity 34 (LP only)
Paul Bley Ramblin' Affinity 37 (LP only)
Dewey Redman Tarik Affinity 42 (LP only)
Peter Brötzmann Machine Gun FMP CD 24
