Rating:** Rating:*****
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anino's Madonna with the Long lihck (c. Like the painter Goya (1746-182a), 1532) is grotesque; and Giovannie da who spent a great deal of time and energy Bologna's 1567 statue Mercury is eccentric. depicting the horrors of nian's inhumanity It was a time of crisis: the old forms to man, Shepp's playing reflects the cruel did not fit the new sensibilities, and the ties of racism. It's all there-the· slave shock tactics of the new wave could not exploitation, brutality, white treachery, the produce art. doctrine of "separate but equal," the The day was saved by the Venetian ghettos-and, like Goya, there is no altern painter Tintoretto and El Greco of Spain, ative; it is something he has to do. Un both of whom; showing the substance of fortunately for jazz, this phase of Shepp the creative spirit, refused to be trapped has more social import than esthetic jazz in ideologies that negated the. past. Records are .reviewed by Dorr De value. Micheal, Gilbert M. Erskine, Kenny Both were tired of old forms but not LeRoi Jones' notes are hurried and in Dorham, Barbara Garc!ner, Erwin Hel old art; and both, painting pictures that adequate, and his subservience to the black fer, Don Nelsen, Bill Mathieu, Dan transcend ,time and age, showed the others nationalists cancels his effectiveness as a Morgen~tern, Harvey Pekar, Harvey how to be new. El Greco's View of critic. At one point he says, "In order for Siders, Pete Welding, John S. Wilson. Toledo (c. 1600), rooted in tradition but the non-white world to assume control, it Reviews are initialed by the writers. with its avant-garde foreground and shak must transcend the technology that has ing sky, tells a thousand more secrets of enslaved it . these players· [show· the When two catalog numbers are listed, the heart and mind than any. of Zuccari's way by] transcending any emotional state the first is mono, and the second is caprices. stereo. the white man knows," showing by another Much of the avant-garde in jazz today kind of cunning his willingness to. use the Ratings are: * * * * * excellent, can be equated with post-Renaissance art. jazz avant-garde for his own racist ends. * * * * very good,* * * good, The syndromes are identical: the shock (G.M.E.) * * fair, * poor. tactics, the rage against tradition (this, in spite of what some critics say), and the Various Artists --------- TWO VIEWS OF dominance of ideology over esthetic sense. THE NEW WAVE IN JAZZ-Impulse 90. • Of the "new thing" players at this Rating:***** . I THE NEW WAVE session, only the Tolliver-Spaulding group There is no moment on this record when .Various Artists --------- treatment of Thelon1ous Monk's difficult the spirit falters. The recording is live THE NEW WAVE IN JAZZ-Impulse 90: and beautiful Corners succeeds in per Nature Boy; Holy Ghost; Blue Pree; Hambone; from the Village Gate, March 28, 1965, Brilliant Corners. forming work,. that is esthetically satisfying, for the benefit of the Black Arts Repertory Personnel: Track 1-John Coltrane, tenor sax• and this is so because the musicians are ophone; McCoy Tyner, piano; Jimmy Garrison, Theater/School. Aside from titling the bass; Elvin Jones, drums. Track 2-Donald Ayler, faithful to Monk's great senSe"'°f tradition. album with their own trade-motto, Impulse trumpet; Albert Ayler, tenor saxophone; Joel · On Ghost Albert Ayler shows us the Freedman, cello; Lewis Worrell, bass; Sonny has presented the music with exemplary Murray, drums. Track 3-Grachan Moncur, trom labored journey he's made to free himself noninterference. bone; Bobby Hutcherson, vibraharp; Cecil Mc from the bondage of meter, harmony, and The five groups cover a stylistic range Bee, bass; Bill Harris, drums. Track 4--Ashley Fennell, rrumpet; Marion Brown, alto saxophone; even melody; but, like Zuccari, having from neo-bop (Tolliver) to the most severe Archie Shepp, tenor saxophone; Fred Pirtle, bari forced the change, he's made only a avant-garde (Albert Ayler); they can be tone saxophone; Virgil Jones, trombone; Reggie bizarre artifact-not art. His refusal to Johnson, bass; Roger Blank, drums. Track ,_ discussed in that order. Charles Tolliver, trumpet; James Spaulding, alto use tradition puts him in a more rigid, Corners· is formed around a heavy unison ,axophone; Hutcherson, vibraharp; McBee, bass; cold, and cramped place than convention Billy Higgins, drums. post-Parker line, and the playing, especially Rating:** could ever be. His whole approach, more ,by Spaulding, fits with the other groups These performances are from the Black over, seems dictated by ideology, and not mostly by virtue of contrast, as if to show Arts Repertory Theater/School concert in hy artistic impulse. Would he feel free to us how much jazz has learned in so short March, 1965, at the Village Gate in New use tradition? I think not-at least not a time. Spaulding's wide, lush, and very York City. With a good representation of now. beautiful vibrato might make someone leading "new thing" players, this album The men in Coltrane's group relate to born before 1940 exclaim, "My God, it's strikingly shows the series ofproblems that each other for a few brief opening phrases getting late!" have expanded into the crisis facing the on Nature Boy and, then, in extended Coltrane's long Nature Boy solo presents jazz avant-garde today. "free" improvisations, the group skitters in him with his usual intensity and with more Analogies in art are dangerous, and espe chaos, failing in the same way Lennie than usual coherence; the group seems cially so when dealing with something as Tristano. failed with Intuition 16 years especially receptive. fluid as the avant-garde, but the current ago. With no collective point of reference, Free is the most compositionally or situation is so palpably similar to that of the not even intermittent ones, the players ganized piece and, not surprisingly, is also post-Renaissance period in European art simply don't get anything going. the most calm and controlled statement. that it is fitting to consider the parallels. There is a dazzling McBee-Hutcherson Hutcherson's work is delibera,tely beau Classical beauty and harmony and duet on Free, and some original composi tiful. The compositional spirit goes beyond "correctness" had reached a peak during tional structure, especially in the opening the written music, however; the improvis the Renaissance, and the new artists, see section, where the melody direction seems ing is compositionally sensitive on a level ing the futility of working the same ground to backtrack on itself instead of going for rarely found in unwritten music. Even if as Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian, and ward. But the continual, relentless string the materials are less adventurous (whole Leonardo da Vinci, began ·to search for of augmented chord changes is a capricious tone modality, for instance), the commit new approaches to expression. The mood and boring device. ment of the individuals to the quartet is of the Renaissance age, moreover, was Shepp, one of the mosi "neralded and highly rewarding. jarringly out of place in the turbulence of interesting of the "new thing" musicians, Hambone is a most brilliant and subtle the 16th century. would have most modern-mainstream tenor musical satire. · Unable to manifest the pulse of the men in trouble if he played their style. There is no specific object; rather a times in any conventional manner, some His ear is fine, and he has a fantastic general posture toward human life, human artists, in their frustration, turned com imagination. dignity. (The San Francisco Mime Troupe pletely to the startling, the unexpected, the is called to mind.) unheard-of effects, and their commitment 10 On 1 In Music '66 Shepp's playing is less vaulted than on other occasions; but this piece is so pur~ was such that many developed a rage The New Wave in Jazz album reviewed against· tradition. on this page is the subject of 10 far· posefully eclectic, so intentionally extra Their works, while different, were not ranging critical evaluations in Down musical that we listen with dramatic as · always successful. Zuccari's windows in Seat's Music '66. well as musical ears and tend to think of Rome (1592) are simply bizarre; Parmigi- the v~i~s as principals as well as instru- January 27 D 29 ments. The piece uses a great variety of rather, like one of those ·Moibus rings, stylistic .reference, from triadic harmonies seems forever wrapped up in itself), and • and simple rhythms and sardonic quotes to it is surprisingly sedate melodically and avant-garde pan-meter and pan-modality; rhythmically. The fault would appear to it begins somewhere past the middle of lie with the work itself, for the string ... swing Duke Ellington and goes beyond. players give it a handsome reading. The Albert Ayler's Ghost is to my ears the piece does reveal, however, that ·in 1962 top of the crest of the wave. To an Coleman had attained a mastery of the astonishing degree it commands the sus vocabulary of string-quartet wtiting (in 1n pension of critical judgment and succeeds that respect, the composition is not in the in presenting itself full face forward to least lacking); all that remained was for the listener on a level above quality, above him to speak in the idiom with the same personal like or dislike. It ·simply is what fluency and persuasive force he brought I it is; it arrives at mere experience, much to his own improvising at the time. the like a raga. Perhaps when there is more That instrumental and improvisational cultural and temporal separation between strength is evident in the three perform us and it (some more enlightened day?) ances by his trio; they have the directness new.