Another Year, Another DISSIDENT ARTS FESTIVAL: DAF Uptown

THE DISSIDENT ARTS FESTIVAL 2014

 

 

 

In its nine year history, the Dissident Arts Festival has demonstrated a strong creative growth and has also made significant statements about a variety of socio-political issues. For a concise history on the Fest's development, see the lower section of the press release which follows this brief essay. But suffice to say that this annual event--initially a forum for cultural workers to speak out against the Bush Administration--has thrived through changes of region and venue: from the Howland Cultural Center up in Beacon NY to the Brecht Forum in Greenwich Village and now to El Taller on the Upper West Side. The loss of the Brecht Forum, a radical political and arts center downtown since the 1970s, hit the entire community very hard and it left me frantically trying to figure out which venue would be the best to continue this work in. While playing one of many gigs with Karl Berger's Improvisers Orchestra at El Taller it hit me that this space shared the Brecht Forum's commitment to the Left as well as the arts and did serious community work too--there could be no other choice.

 

This year's Dissident Arts Festival takes us uptown to El Taller during that space's 35th anniversary. The music will continue to be cutting edge free jazz, new music, radical song, protest poetry and a very outspoken kind of performance art too. Our headliner will be a powerhouse quartet co-led by multi-reedist Will Connell and French horn player Vincent Chancey: Will's history includes years of close work with the legendary Horace Tapscott. He was active with various components of the Black Arts Movement on the West Coast and has shared the stage with countless masters of this forward-looking improvisational music. Will was also the music copyist for the premiere of Ornette Coleman's 'Skies of America'. Vincent is internationally renowned as the leading French horn player in all of jazz and has performed with some of the most important exponents of contemporary music. Their quartet is rounded out by a monster rhythm section of Max Johnson and Jeremy Carlstedt, two young lions that have proven their importance in this sphere and who have yet amazing careers ahead of them.

 

Also on hand will be El Taller's founder and artistic director, Bernardo Palombo, a celebrated writer and performer of neo-Nueva Cancion music. We are thrilled to pull Bernardo out of semi-retirement to play for the public again! Other acts on the bill is vocalist Andrea Wolper and bassist Ken Filiano in duet (this pair needs NO introduction to creative music audiences) and experimental guitarist and activist Juan Quinonez' trio Truth to Power! (with bassist Michael Bisio), socio-political jazz poet Raymond Nat Turner's ensemble Upsurge! (featuring reeds heavy Ras Moshe and bassist Ken Filiano). I am excited to not only present my liberation jazz quartet The Red Microphone but also my duet with trumpeter/alto clarinetist Matt Lavelle, Harmolodic Monk. HM will be using our performance spot to celebrate the official release of our debut recording, "Harmolodic Monk" (Unseen Rain Records, 2014). Also, the Festival will welcome rad performance artist Crystal Shipp back to our ranks and poet Sana Shabazz; the latter will be accompanied by my much better half Laurie Towers on electric bass :) And poet and union activist Chris Butters joins the list of Festival performers for the first time.

 

As we have done for the past couple of years, the event will close off with a screening of a revolutionary silent film and its live improvised score will be provided by Festival house band, the Dissident Arts Orchestra. This year, like last, we present Sergei Eisenstein's 1926 masterpiece 'Battleship Potemkin'. As the Dissident Arts Festival is much more tan an amalgam of its parts---it is in itself a concerted statement about social justice, we hope to make this a real community event. Come to NYC's beautiful Upper West Side for a great later afternoon meal, an early evening stroll and then at 6PM head up the stairs to El Taller Latino Americano to engage in a 51/2 hour immersion into revolutionary cultural work!

 

All details follow.....

 

peace,

john

New York, NY: The 9^th annual Dissident Arts Festival, a celebration of revolutionary Free Jazz, New Music, World Sounds and radical Poetry, Performance Art and Film, moves uptown to the celebrated cultural space El Taller Latino Americano as it celebrates its 35th anniversary.

The Dissident Arts Festival serves as a showcase of radical arts commemorating the rich heritage of movement culture. The 2014 edition encompasses a tapestry of liberation jazz and new sounds including Festival headliner WILL CONNELL and VINCENT CHANCEY’S SADHANA Quartet, THE ANDREA WOLPER PROJECT, THE RED MICROPHONE, BERNARDO PALOMBO, TRUTH TO POWER!, HARMOLODIC MONK (celebrating the release of their debut recording), UPSURGE!, performance artist CRYSTAL SHIPP, poets SANA SHABAZZ and CHRIS BUTTERS, and Festival house band, THE DISSIDENT ARTS ORCHESTRA, performing an improvised score to “BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN” (Sergei Eisenstein, 1926)

The Dissident Arts Festival 2014 is produced by Dissident Arts and El Taller.            

Curator/host: John Pietaro.

 DATE: Saturday August 16, 6pm – 11:30pm

SITE: El Taller Latino Americano 2710 Broadway at 104^th Street, New York NY,  212-665-9460
ADMISSION: $15.00
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: www.DissidentArts.com

FESTIVAL SCHEDULE:

6:00-6:30 TRUTH TO POWER! (Juan Quinonez-guitar, Michael Bisio-bass, others TBA)

6:30-6:40  CHRIS BUTTERS (poetry)

6:45 – 7:15 BERNARDO PALOMBO (Bernard Palombo-vocals/guitar, others TBA)

7:20-7:50 THE RED MICROPHONE (John Pietaro-vibraphone/percussion, Ras Moshe- reeds/flute, Rocco John Iacovone-reeds, Philip Sirois-bass)

7:50-8:00 SANA SHABAZZ (Sana Shabazz-poetry, Laurie Towers- electric bass)

8:00-8:30 UPSURGE! (Raymond Nat Turner-poetry, Ras Moshe-reeds/flute, Ken Filiano-bass)

8:35-9:05 SADHANA (Will Connell-reeds/flute, Vincent Chancey-French horn, Max Johnson-bass, Jeremy Carlstedt-drumset)

9:05-9:20  CRYSTAL SHIPP (performance art)

9:20-9:50 ANDREA WOLPER PROJECT (Andrea Wolper-vocals, Ken Filiano-bass)

9:50-10:20 HARMOLODIC MONK (Matt Lavelle-trumpet/alto clarinet, John Pietaro-vibraphone/percussion)

10:25-11:30 THE DISSIDENT ARTS ORCHESTRA/“Battleship Potemkin” (John Pietaro-vibraphone/percussion/conduction, Nora McCarthy-vocals, Cheryl Pyle-flute, Rocco John Iacovone-reeds, Ras Moshe-reeds/flute, Matt Lavelle-trumpet, Gil Selinger-cello, Ken Filiano-upright bass, Laurie Towers-electric bass, others TBA)

HISTORY:

The Dissident Arts Festival began life in 2006 in Beacon NY, where it remained for the first four years before moving to NYC in 2010. The Festival’s primary goal was the establishment of an annual showcase of radical protest music, poetry and performance art--perhaps the only such annual fest in the nation. The concept of an art as daring and bold as the participants’ world views soon shaped the Festival’s philosophy and the focus on liberation through free improvisation and post-modern sounds commanded the stage.  Increasingly the Dissident Arts Festival has presented the New Music and Free Jazz statements it remains embedded in now, along with similarly outspoken arts of other disciplines. Over the years, performers and speakers included downtown jazz idol Roy Campbell, folk legend Pete Seeger, celebrated raconteur Malachy McCourt, world jazz icon Karl Berger, latter day Beat poet Steve Dalachinsky, spoken word artist Louis Reyes Rivera, political activist/satirist Randy Credico, free music mainstay Ras Moshe, international poet Erika Dagnino, noted filmmaker Kevin Keating as well as revolutionary hip-hop and rock artists, balladeers and many more. Festival house band the Dissident Arts Orchestra performs live, improvised scores to silent film classics. The Festival has also showcased sessions of free improv, militant poetry, punk-jazz, contemporary composition and tributes to Bertolt Brecht, Paul Robeson, Woody Guthrie, and Phil Ochs along the way. We have also screened relevant films including 'Salt of the Earth', 'Giuliani Time', ‘Cultures of Resistance’, ‘Battleship Potemkin’ and ‘Metropolis’. The Dissident Arts Festival has offered voice to labor legend Henry Foner, progressive political candidates of independent parties, IWW organizers, and social justice organizations such as Occupy Musicians and Local 802 AFM’s Justice for Jazz Artists. Now, in the midst of right-wing fear-mongering and teabag hysteria, radical artists continue to speak out for social change—and creative liberation!

"New York Eye & Ear Control" at 50---Looking Back and Forward in One Fell Swoop

"New York Eye & Ear Control" at 50:

Looking Back and Forward in One Fell Swoop

by John Pietaro

I type this piece as a rage of thoughts race through me; this is no time to be writing and so this is all the more reason I feel the need to do so. Tomorrow, June 1, is the concert I organized  in honor of a very special album of the Free Jazz canon. Here comes the hit; all of the PR has been done and every step is nuanced as far as I can see. Some 24 hours from now I will know for certain, but my manic flow is carrying me to that point. This is the same  surge of intensity I have been experiencing for a couple of days now. The energy level is cool but the headache is far from appreciated.

Over these past few months in which I was anticipating the golden anniversary the Albert Ayler-led earth-shaking album "New York Eye and Ear Control", the idea for this special event came to me. I can only imagine how this music was received back in '64: I mean, the Beatles' first American singles were still dominating the charts, the Stones came along a little later, and of course the popular music that emanated from AM radios made this British Invasion sound seem, well, radical. Mainstream Jazz had progressed: the Getz/Gilberto album emerged this same year. And Broadway shows like "Hello Dolly" provided founding fathers like Louis Armstrong with hit material too. But the experimental sound that accompanied the rising sense of revolution in the early-mid 1960s, shouted through the lack of attention. '64 also gave us Dolphy's "Out To Lunch" and of course John Coltrane's classic quartet, with each turn, were kicking out the walls of what one could expect in the music. Toward year's end they would record "A Love Supreme". At this point, Ornette  had disbanded his quartet and was doubling on trumpet and violin in a bare-bones trio that never stopped searching for the next step, if indeed there was one to be found.

But the indie label ESP-Disk  invited the furthest outside artists into their studios to record statements that inspired responses ranging from fury to awe. And it was all grassroots, anticipating the DIY record movement by more than a generation. Rather than trying to keep up with the Coltranes, ESP debuted musicians that few had previously heard of---and the results stand among the most potent examples of the New Thing.  Albert Ayler's first ESP recordings offered something bold, even in a time in which so much adventure was to be had for those who bothered to seek the new music out---surely you wouldn't find the furthest out stuff on Impulse or Atlantic in the racks alongside Jack Jones  and Pearl Baily. And if those records could be elusive, the ESP-Disk titles could seem like contraband. Who could have guessed that 'Ghosts' or 'Spirits' would be on vinyl? ESP believed in Ayler and during this year of '64 brought him into record several times and released all of it. Ornette and Ayler had become friends and many were drawn to his music. The emulsion of raw jazz, country blues and an inside-out vision of early European folk song filtered through his melodies and so one was left wondering if they'd maybe heard it all before in a dream. But, no, this was simply Albert Ayler. Not so simply, he weaved these odd little songs into screaming improvisatory statement and back, allowing saxophonic field hollers of Ornette to enjoy a new persona, sitting on top of marches, quadrilles and jigs from a land that never was. In an era groaning from the rigors of forced segregation. The music was primal scream as much as it was prideful fight-back and a leap beyond all that had come before it.

In July of  1964 Albert Ayler gathered Don Cherry, John Tchicai, Roswell Rudd, Gary Peacock and Sunny Murray in a studio to record the legendary album ‘NEW YORK EYE AND EAR CONTROL’, the free score to the film of the same name by Michael Snow, creating a hallmark of the avant garde. 'Don's Dawn' offers a brief repose as the album's opener, a laid-back introduction that is no indication of what's to come. The remaining two cuts, lengthy free pieces are a sleigh ride into the furthest reaches of creativity, but a creativity in which no rule of harmony is featured. While Trane was seeking out a higher truth and Ornette was philosophizing Harmolodics, Ayler's trio plus Cherry, Tchicai and Rudd dropped bombshells into the grooves of this LP adorned with the shadowy figure of Snow's "walking woman" figure (actually the profile of a rather healthily-shaped Carla Bley, already a part of this exciting new scene). The music told us that there is no tomorrow, there is only the moment and it offered a soundtrack to the crush of NYC as much as it did the times of the musicians' lives. And the listeners'. Though the focus was on the moment at hand, the product is quite timeless. It breathed too hard to not contain enough air to last through the decades. Five decades. Its awful to consider that as these musicians went into the studio in July, they were acutely aware of not only the social changes in their midst but the loss of a guiding force; Eric Dolphy died suddenly at the end of June in this year. Perhaps the cries of the instrumental voices were laments for Dolphy--or a celebration of the  passage of the Civil Rights Act which came to be the same month as "New York Eye and Ear". Some would argue that Free Jazz is not necessarily political, not specifically revolutionary. I would counter that the music cannot help but reflect the years in which it was born and raised---the tumult about the framers led to and commented on the times. Even when the statements remain focused on the music itself, the very radicalism of any avant garde stands as defiance against a comfortable, bourgeois institutional art vogue. And this particular avant garde scared the shit out of many experimentalists in other genres. This was the real thing, not just a New Thing. Its independence and rebel yell led the way for the Downtown sound to come---and birthed the development of the many improvisers today.

So, this particular summer of 2014, the jazz concert season kicks off to an early start with a rousing tribute to this celebrated recording as it hits its golden anniversary. A half century hence, a wide swath of New York Jazz underground instrumentalists fete it with four sets of contemporary fire music. The headliners are a one-time only assemblage dubbed here as The Veterans of Free, a combo of artists who were vital parts of the scene during Free Jazz’s development and still stand now as leading figures. And the opening attraction is celebrated downtown poet Steve Dalachinsky whose mix of spoken word and improv crosses the decades. The other artists performing represent the improvisational new music sounds of the past thirty+ years heard in Manhattan and Brooklyn performance spaces right into today.

 Dissident Arts and the Firehouse Space present

A TRIBUTE TO "NEW YORK EYE AND EAR CONTROL" The 50th Anniversary of the Free Jazz Classic!

-'VETERANS OF FREE' ALL-STAR ENSEMBLE:

Daniel Carter- saxophones, trumpet. Karl Berger- vibes, piano. Warren Smith- drumkit, percussion. Will Connell- saxophone, flute, bass clarinet. Ingrid Sertso- voice. And with Ken Filiano on bass.

-STEVE DALACHINSKY:

Steve Dalachinsky- poetry. Rocco John Iacovone- alto saxophone. Plus guests.

-THE RAS MOSHE UNIT:

Ras Moshe- saxophones, flute, bells. Dave Ross- electric guitar. John Pietaro- vibes, percussion. Andrew Drury- drum set, percussion.

-MATT LAVELLE’S 12 HOUSES ORCHESTRA:

Matt Lavelle- trumpet, alto clarinet, musical direction. Anais- voice. Mary Cherney- flute, alto flute. Claire de Brunner- bassoon. Lee Odom- clarinet, soprano saxophone, bass clarinet. Charles Waters- alto saxophone, clarinet. Ras Moshe- tenor and soprano saxophones, flute. Tim Stocker- baritone saxophone. Gil Selinger-cello. Chris Forbes- piano. John Pietaro- vibraphone, percussion. Anders Nilsson- guitar. Jack DeSalvo- mandolin, banjo. Francois Grillot- bass. Reggie Sylvester- drums

Date: Sunday, June 1^st 2014
Time: 3PM – 6:30PM –

Steve Dalachinsky (3PM)

Ras Moshe Unit (3:30)
The Veterans of Free (4:30)
12 Houses (5:30)

Location: The Firehouse Space   246 Frost Street, Brooklyn New York 11211

Curated by John Pietaro -  For more information please see www.DissidentArts.com

CD Review: Dave Ross Quartet

 

CD Review by John Pietaro:

DAVE ROSS QUARTET: ‘BYE-BYE BROOKLYN, HELLO EVERYWHERE’ (Nacht Records, 2014 – www.nachtrecords.com )
Michael Monhart - Tenor Saxophone
Michael Bisio -  Bass, Vocal
Jay Rosen - Drums
Dave Ross - Guitar, Vocal

Recorded at the Blue Room,Brooklyn, NY, April 8th, 2008

Recording engineer - Robert O'Haire

Mixed by - Dave Ross at Orange Music Sound Studios, Orange, NJ
Mix engineer - James Dellatacoma
Mastered at Sound Mirror by "Magic" Mark Donahue
Produced by - Dave Ross and Robert O'Haire

Let it be said that Dave Ross is one of the most Harmolodic guitarists performing in improvisational music today. That he is not more widely known as a leader in this sphere is to every listener’s detriment. The wealth of imagery Ross conjures out of a guitar transports the instrument beyond mere orchestral pallet – here is where the truly unorthodox sits in a happy emulsion with impeccable technique. Ross’ approach to the guitar is refreshingly unique, inspired by visionary saxophonists much more than any other guitar player; he projects linear, spiraling sounds from deep within that emerge with jewels of melodies, barks, growls and motifs that are evocative of….something else. In true Harmolodic fashion, melody, counter-point, harmony and rhythm are interchangeable and excitedly feed off one another each time he puts fingers to fret board.

As a musician active in the NYC free jazz/new music scene myself---but as one who also writes about it---I would be remiss if I didn’t state here that I know Dave through mutual performance, but this in no way compels me to write in hyperbole, would that even be possible. In fact, my performances with this guitarist allow me something of a special insight into his conceptions and I look forward to the rolling sonic sky he creates as he both locks into the rest of the band’s moment, and then carefully rejects it all to bring us into new terrain. As I said, this is one of the most Harmolodic guitarists out there. Ornette would have to dig this music.

‘Bye-Bye Brooklyn, Hello Everywhere’ opens with  the halted breath of “Love at First Feel”, with the four musicians engaging in a group improvisation, dancing about one another as would a young couple in the moments leading up to intimacy. Beckoning, retreating, advancing in hot pursuit. Or was that “feel” simply about the good vibes that grew in the session itself? Either way, the interactions are true and you can tell these musicians enjoy one another’s work. There is a real sense of unity and the collective improv is a moment in time that is as gripping as it is joyous. Bell-like guitar trades the lead with whispering saxophone and the searching commentary of upright bass and drums. And then the dance picks up speed and pulsations are going off in every direction. Michael Monhart’s powerful tenor is ever-present in this four-way discussion but, for this cut, maintains more of a section-man role than that of the front of the band. A lengthy solo by Michael Bisio reveals a fluid, multi-dimensional bassist who establishes a groundwork that is as much about rhythmic drive as it is extended techniques and gorgeous melodic statements. It is far too easy to get lost in the reality Bisio brings forth. As his solo diminishes, drummer Jay Rosen takes us back to the moment with gently piercing metals and the brattle of fills on his tom-tom and snare rims. The quartet resumes its collective improvisation until Ross’ own solo section emerges. Lightning-fast runs, percussive fret assaults, bluesy wailing and atonal quests pour out of your speakers, with the bass chasing down every move until the two, engaging in call-and-response, slow to a sudden, unresolved halt.

The next cut, “All Roads Lead to Universe”, is a Ross composition which offers an imaginary landscape into a horizon somewhere far away. One sees an endless desert, a barren mountainside, with a red sun beating down on a small caravan of believers that move along determinedly over miles of the mind. Wheezing saxophone, the reed sounding as dry as the imagery this produced for me, slowly brings a melody to the forefront. By the time this somewhat Arabic piece comes into being, the saxophone is now full-bodied, perhaps even one part bar-honker in addition to the obvious world music and post-modern jazz influence. Ross’ guitar, now feeling strangely like some sort of electric sehtar, opens the pathway for Bisio’s bowed bass which, cello-like, guides the rear of the caravan beneath Rosen’s white-hot cymbal rolls.

“This is Was” kicks off with a clipped walking bass which builds into the free jazz comp of the old school shimmering rhythm section  a la Haden and Higgins, creating a swathe in which all else is built upon. The first leading voice one encounters in this brief piece, traditionally enough, is the tenor, here spewing out a blurring improv that screams out Ayler’s name while reminding us that for at least one classic album Ornette played tenor too. The inventive, dominant performance of Monhart is quite classic and yet is unafraid to look well beyond his favorite memories of the Atlantic and Impulse records in his collection. Behind him, Ross drops in a chordal structure, bouncing off of the gallop of bass and drums. The guitarist takes over in a solo which includes a tap dancing duet with snare rim-shots, and then Bisio is featured as the sounds around him slowly come apart, decrescendoing into an abrupt false ending. The piece returns in an explosion that feels like a Sun Ra orchestral climax but also recalls early King Crimson. It’s all over quickly, leaving you wanting much more. The title’s Was seems to not only comment on the past of improvisational music but the blink of the track itself.

“In the Key of D” may have been a general idea in the instructions when this piece was first presented, but the irony of the title is apparent; the work opens with a drum solo. Drummer Rosen offers a world of sounds in his frenetic but quite musical feature. Even as the other instrumentalists enter the scene, Rosen remains out front. The inventiveness is germane to the standard of the contemporary free drummer’s language. The approach is far different from the “traditional” free jazz drumming of the music’s first period, as heard in the prior piece. In this case, the showcase is of the drumming conceived by stalwarts such as Rashid Ali and Milford Graves and then developed further through percussionists like Charles Downs (Rashid Bakr), Ronald Shannon Jackson and Jamie Muir. Just as the music had to develop to a point where the elements could break the chains of their conservatory roles, so did the New Thing drummer have to develop a vision of his or her instrument. The ride cymbal is not specific to time-keeping, perhaps nothing is. And why need it be? The constantly shifting terra firma offers a natural contrapuntal voice to lead lines which have moved well beyond any work’s specific harmonic structure let alone key signature. It’s a new day and it has been, progressively, since at least 1956. The artists of the underground claimed it as the Year One in their quest for the next philosophy, but have forged on ahead steadily. Nothing can stop this progression. The full breadth of it can be heard in many pockets of this album. But in the world of Dave Ross, the full breadth can sometimes be a detailed close-up of only one or two voices of the whole.

Case in point, “So Nice 2 Be…” closes off this album with the leader and bassist sitting out, apparently enjoying the gripping tenor/drumkit duet carrying on wonderfully about them. This is a concise selection that never falls into the trappings some extended duets have, where the players’ inspiration runs out well after the listener’s interest. Here is a rapid-fire excursion that invites us along for the ride and then ends with mutual satisfaction---like our younger selves had hoped for in First Feel encounters gone by. Love is never having to say ‘you are out of tune’…

The utter modesty that would allow a leader to end an album with his own tacit speaks volumes. Even more than these darkly adventurous, magical cuts can. Dave Ross never turns down the spotlight, and once in it he is a master magician of free, yet he is just as inspired in playing behind another soloist, dropping in just the right chords, spikes of sound, languid lines—or basking in silence. But Ross BECOMES the guitar when he is in the moment, and this cannot be learned through any tutelage. You have to experience it for yourself. ‘Bye-Bye Brooklyn, Hello Everywhere’ offers at least a glimpse into that special place.

 -John Pietaro is a musician, writer and cultural organizer from Brooklyn NY. His website is www.DissidentArts.com and blog http://TheCulturalWorker.blogspot.com

 

 

HORACE TAPSCOTT CELEBRATED: performance review from the inside

HORACE TAPSCOTT CELEBRATED in NYC: The Jazz of Liberation Recalled and Re-lived

HORACE TAPSCOTT BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION, 4-7-14, Clemente Soto Velez Center, NYC. Part of the ensemble, left to right: Vincent Chancey, Ras Moshe, John Pietaro, Rosi Hertlein, Rob Brown, Matt Lavelle, Will Connell (photo courtesy of Arts for Art)
  by John Pietaro

I am typing this as I listen to Horace Tapscott's 'The Giant Has Awakened', recorded in 1969. I am on something of a Tapscott mission, still coming down off of a wonderful gig last night where I was among the performers of an Arts for Art-produced Horace Tapscott Birthday Celebration at the LES space, Clemente Soto Velez Center. The event was led by the woefully under-recorded Will Connell, a serious veteran of the New Thing. We played several of Connell's compositions including "Inkata" which had been performed by the Tapscott aggregation in its heyday.  On Will: now here's a man who not only played in Tapscott's Pan-African People's Arkestra but was its librarian and music copyist and aided with most every facet of this ensemble. He worked closely with Tapscott--who was a close associate of Eric Dolphy and Don Cherry--absorbing not only the man's music, and his theories but his unrepentant activism. Thankfully. It was in the period when the Civil Rights Movement grew into Black Power and the identification for peoples of color to recognize their own heritage and culture was vital.

The tumult of the late 1960s shook the inner-city areas with the scent of revolution in response to eons of oppressive racism, Jim Crow politics and coldly opportunistic capitalism. For the Black community that meant taking back the streets in their own name. This was reflected in dress, stance, speech, attitude and, most importantly the arts: indie theatre and dance companies sprang up as did filmmakers, painters, poets, journalists and of course musicians. And while the music exploded in various directions with funk, reggae, and soul, jazz---itself born of African musicians forcefully transplanted into this nation's hymns, wars, brass bands and folksongs---further decentralized. The jazz musicians of the day split in multiple fragments, creating a multitude of fusions and some took the music to its next radical level. The so-called avant garde of jazz expounded upon the music's origins in collective improvisation, offering up interwoven voicings of powerful instrumentalists at once rapturous, celebratory, explosive. But it also engaged in new music practices in composition and concepts coming out of the universities; the same colleges that once openly kept African American artists out had now begun courting them as professors, following legislative change and the need for Black Studies departments to become realized. So suddenly the bold pilgrimage into sound that Ornette and Sun Ra and Trane and Dolphy and then Shepp  had forged, was now expanded further. And in a time of Black-identification into both the Black community and the culture at large, there is a need for special focus in education.

Horace Tapscott was just one of the visionary musicians who sought to create a school of sorts. Regional arts centers, all a part of the widespread Black Arts Movement, were found in many cities: most famous was Chicago's Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), but there was also the Black Arts Group (BAG) in St. Louis and of course the cultural work flourished in Harlem under the leadership of Amiri Baraka and with musical activities by Bill Dixon and Archie Shepp, among others. Yet before these cultural institutions were fully founded, Tapscott developed his own Union of God's Musicians and Artists' Ascension (UGMAA) in Los Angeles. In 1961. Wow. Amiri was still LeRoi Jones and was years away from writing Blues People. Coltrane released 'My Favorite Things' that year. On the other hand, Ornette was several albums into his career and grabbed everyone's attention with his 'Free Jazz opus, and Sun Ra was busy with multiple records and the resultant furor over this New Thing was beginning to boil again. Tapscott saw the writing on the wall and recognized the need to carefully guide this new art of liberation. His bold activism led to years of blacklisting as a touring artist: the need to stay in one place was both thrust upon him and grew from his own desire to create a base from which to have his teachings develop.

The ensemble Tapscott developed was the principal voice of all of this, the Pan-Afrikan People's Arkestra. With the inclusion of traditional African music into his compositional textures, as well as unfettered free improvisation, statements of pride and protest and larger and larger ensembles, the Arkestra allowed for the creative, spiritual growth of many in the L.A. area. Various editions of this band ran for decades and Tapscott, ever the teacher, a philosophic force for upcoming generations, stayed home to make this his mission.  But the band and Tapscott's tutelage produced noted figures in the music including Arthur Blythe. And of course Will, who has lived in New York City for many years following his tenure with Tapscott and stands as an important link in this town's heritage of revolutionary arts. Son of a violin prodigy held back from a professional career as a concert musician, Will Connell Jr is a saxophonist, bass clarinetist and flutist who wears his influences well. This writer, back in the guise of percussionist in the current 'new jazz' scene has enjoyed a few interactions with the man, talking as much as playing. I have told Will he needs to write a book for his tales of Tapscott, the US Army, years of club gigs around the country, as well as his work with David Murray, Chico Hamilton, Philly Joe Jones and a pantheon of greats would be worthwhile reading. But its hard to fit lengthy projects into life in the face of music performance and a day job too (I know this all too well).

Last night's event in honor of Horace Tapscott's birth anniversary was some 15 years after the man's passing but the revolutionary energy extended well beyond any individual's lifetime. Music of militancy cannot fade away, not as long as we struggle against any repressive force. One could easily hear and see the effects of this music on the large ensemble Will Connell had gathered for the occasion: Will conducting and on reeds and flute, Rob Brown, alto saxophone, Ras Moshe on soprano saxophone and flute, Rosi Hertlein on violin and voice, Vincent Chancey, French horn, Matt Lavelle, flugelhorn and alto clarinet, Steve Swell on trombone, Jesse Dulman, tuba, Larry Rolland on bass (and poetry), Jeremy Carlstadt, drums, while I played vibes and percussion. It was a powerful event which easily bridged the grainy pictures of 1961 to right now. And oh do we need more of this right now. This music, forged under fight-back, must again be a vehicle to awaken the sleepers, the complacent who have been fed the lies of manipulative cast system and a steady diet of 'reality' television, calories and beer. And if every radical artist begins with those immediately around him or her, we can see the concept of a revolutionary creativity grow again. To that end, Tapscott wrote just one year before he died:

"It is important that an artist living in the community recognizes that community with their art...But if you stayed in your community, lived with the people and became part of that just think how much more you got to carry, how much more power has been given to you by the community. That’s what gives you the power to do what you do as well as you do.

"Now for me, by being raised in segregated society I’m used to this cuz we all lived together, artists and all, cuz there wasn’t no place else we could live. And it really is true that I get my inspiration and strength from the people.… I still say the heart of what I do is for the people who aspire to freedom"

Book review: BOHEMIANS A Graphic History

Book review by John Pietaro

BOHEMIANS A Graphic History

Edited by Paul Buhle and David Berger with Luisa Cetti

Introduction by Paul Buhle

 BOHEMIANS would appear to be the book Paul Buhle has been waiting to introduce his entire lengthy career as a writer and editor. While his other thirty-plus volumes on Left history and the blacklist all came from a place deep within, this latest addition to the Buhle canon somehow stands out, a place where the author can step into the times and places of the amazing characters within.

When this book arrived in the mail I thought I would skim it over, reading closely in a few areas and then bang out the review. But it wasn’t possible as these largely chronologically placed tales of radical intellectuals (don’t you just hate that term??) beckoned me to investigate further each time I tried to put the book down. This history is graphically told via the work of underground comic book artists and writers including the late Spain Rodriguez (whom BOHEMIANS is dedicated to), Sabrina Jones, Peter Kuper, Sharon Rudahl and many others, though Buhle makes appearances as scripter in many spots, offers a rock-solid intro and weighs in on the intros to each chapter too. But he’d be the first to point to the actual bohemian input of some of his comic brethren as most salient; Buhle is fascinated by the lives of radical artists though he regularly states that he remains apart from the lot, an observer who chronicles the movements.

BOHEMIANS opens, befittingly, with utopianism, militant uprisings and every pronounced fight-back to reactionary thinking the artists of the day could come up with, from free love, spiritualism, feminism, multi-culturalism and more. What is most compelling, though, is the almost constant connection between the bohemian artists and the concept of modernism. Enlightenment. Gay and Lesbian lifestyles were accepted and the openness of inter-racial relationships a matter of course. Theirs was a world in which one’s politics were as revolutionary as their creativity and all of this was ignited by the vision of a new day. The cultural expanse of communism, socialism and anarchism are widely and deeply felt in these pages. Stand-out chapters include the entirety of ‘Village Days’, a wide-eyed view into Greenwich Village in the 1910s. See John Reed carousing with Mabel Dodge, Floyd Dell, Max Eastman and Arturo Giovannitti, dip into the pages of “The Masses” and “Il Fuoco” and embark on a journey into the Lawrence Strike. And while this chapter informs the reader of the Patterson Pageant, the benefit musical extravaganza Reed wrote with Dodge and performed on stage with actual strikers from Patterson, it somehow doesn’t take us there (note to self: push Buhle to include a section on this when the book goes into a second printing!).

But BOHEMIANS doesn’t stop with the death of Reed. In fact it dips back into the modern art movement in Manhattan in the earliest 20^th century, giving an incredible vision into the time and the intensity of the struggle to break through the art establishment. Here you will find yourself walking the precipice of modern art and dadaism, including specific galleries and journals, both homegrown and European in origin, plus Duchamp, Man Ray, photography, cubism and of course nudes descending staircases. From there, its Claude McKay’s prideful, angry journey into life as a writer, in and apart from the Harlem Renaissance, as well as the turbulence of Henry Miller, Gertrude Stein, Parisian salons and the tortured celebrity of Josephine Baker. But modern dance is offered thick, detailed segments with much focus also on theatre, folk music, and jazz. Pay special attention to the piece on Billie Holiday: it’s a walk through her pained life with an ongoing experiences of Abel Meeropol, the communist composer-lyricist of “Strange Fruit”, in comparative view. But along the path that BOHEMIANS takes us on, we discover painters, poets, singers, actors, musicians, dancers and thinkers largely lost to the passage of time though they shaped the art of the here and now. Where would today’s youth of Williamsburg Brooklyn be without them?

Chronologically, the book brings us into the 1940s—the era of be-bop, modern jazz--with a close look at both Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. I must admit, I could have used a lot more Thelonious Monk, in fact this brilliant composer and classic bohemian archetype deserved his own chapter.  The closing piece is the development of underground cartoonist Robert Crumb and the writer who worked so closely with him for years, Harvey Pekar. In later life, the very working-class yet quite bohemian Pekar partnered with Buhle on several books including The Beats and SDS: A Graphic History. To allow for the full breadth of bohemianism, one might have to fully absorb those two volumes while reading through this current one, and spend some time listening to the expansive, free jazz of John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy and Albert Ayler as well as early punk and no wave. Such a radical creative vision cannot rest.

The road of bohemianism is jagged and cuts through every revolutionary social movement. What could ever stop it?

 

-John Pietaro is a musician, writer and cultural organizer from Brooklyn NY – www.DissidentArts.com

 

CD Review: SANA NAGANO TRIO

CD Review by John Pietaro

 

Sana Nagano Trio, “Inside The Rainbow”, independently released 2014

Sana Nagano-violin

Karl Berger-vibraphone

John Ehlis-guitar

Recorded, mixed and mastered by Ted Orr at Sertso Studio, Woodstock, NY January 2014.

Produced by Sana Nagano, Karl Berger

All compositions by Sana Nagano, Karl Berger, John Ehlis

-AVAILABLE SPRING 2014-

 

Sana Nagano is the kind of improviser that recalls the very best of free violin, resurrecting the spirit of Billy Bang and the full breadth of modernism all in one fell swoop --of her bow. A mainstay of Karl Berger’s twenty-five member strong Improvisers Orchestra (where she regularly shares the space with the likes of Jason Hwang), here Nagano stands at center stage---the heart of a trio that includes Berger and another member of Karl’s large group, guitarist John Ehlis. The trio has a beautiful sense of oneness, allowing the violinist to lead the improvisational encounters, really journeys into unknown landscapes amidst burning colors and other-harmonic sounds.

Nagano explained that all of the pieces were freely improvised but with a nod toward composition, thus there are beautiful patterns which catch the ear, beckoning us along, as well as pointillistic forays based on staccato repetition. The title track is a prime example yet it drops off into a gentle legato strain just before suddenly coming to an end. Nagano states that she made use of the recording studio’s editing possibilities in the service of weaving the improvisations together into more of a focused, composed presentation, but there is no sense of “cheating” here. The intent was to create a free improv album that would be palatable to a wider range of listeners, in some smaller doses and toward a vision of completion. Bravo. The final result is most satisfying as we move through the selections, with at least a hint of a suite in the big picture. To that end, I would have enjoyed some of the themes to have returned in later cuts, offering a more clear rapprochement as the larger piece takes us through its many facets.

Nagano’s violin is clean, cutting, sinewy, regal, magical. This die-hard improviser grew from many years of formal training, all put to excellent use. Yet nothing seems to please her more than ripping into a burning improvisation. She clearly musses the conservatory up with Downtown in the best imaginable way. Her performances beyond this disc feature a full scope of the musical experience; it mystifies me that she is not getting the press she deserves. Nagano’s resume includes work with Joseph Jarman, Yusuf Lateef, Adam Rudolph, William Parker and an array of others in addition to Berger’s Orchestra where this writer (the percussionist of that large ensemble) first encountered her. Since then we have shared the stage in a band led by Rocco John Iacovone as well, and she never fails to achieve the highest level of invention.  

Though Karl Berger is by now the grand old(er) man of improvisation, with a resume that ranges from legendary work with Don Cherry to founding the Creative Music studio alongside his wife and partner poet, vocalist Ingrid Sertso and Ornette Coleman. In the still fairly concise circle of international free musicians, Berger’s great relevance is obvious, so it is always a treat to hear his vibraphone in a small group like this. As a vibraphonist myself, Karl has been a clear influence (Cherry’s “Symphony for Improvisers” explains a lot!) and on this disc his unique approach to the instrument is evident. When he desires to his ax sounds like glass or the echo of an ice cave. Alternating comfortably between pianistic chordal sustains and sharp attacks where his vibes act as a xylophone, Berger offers the history of avant mallet playing over these tracks.

Ehlis’ guitar is often terra firma with thumbed basslines laying down a bottom over which he drops chords and finger-picked motifs that explore the space about him and inspire the parts above. In the Berger Improvisers Orchestra, Ehlis is usually seen brandishing a mandolin, adjunct to the formidable section of violins and violas, but in this setting he is able to bring a wider range of sound to the fore. Terse textures that claim space only in the most supportive manner, Ehlis is the necessary third component to this ensemble, dark counterpart of Nagano and Berger’s upper range.

After carrying us through a compelling set of underground sounds, Nagano’s album closes off in classic style, with a pulsating dance into creative music that rises into another place before turning away and looking back at the listener in a pensive moment that steps, with conviction, into a tacit.

Links:

https://soundcloud.com/sananagano

https://sananagano.bandcamp.com/album/sana-nagano-trio

http://www.sananagano.com

Pete Seeger: 1919 - 2014

PETE SEEGER, 1919 – 2014: THE CULTURAL WARRIOR IN RETROSPECT

Obituary by John Pietaro

Photo: Pete Seeger performing with the Ray Korona Band (John Pietaro, percussion, left), Martin Luther King Jr Labor Center, NYC, Nov 1999

As a child growing up in the later 1960s, aware of the tumult in the streets as well as the reactionary responses to this at home in blue-collar Brooklyn, the voice of Pete Seeger mysteriously rang through. I don’t quite know how or why, but I cannot recall a time when Pete’s warm vibrato-heavy split-tenor wasn’t there. He was still a victim of the Blacklist at that time and didn’t get back on television until ’68, but I seemed to know this voice from my earliest memory. There wasn’t any interest in folk songs in my parents’ home, where the sounds of Sinatra and easy listening WPAT radio was as much music as one could expect to hear. And no, my Republican father, hurling loud pejoratives to the TV whenever long-haired young protesters were seen on Eyewitness News, wouldn’t have frequented radical bookstores to pick up any Seeger records. And surely no, the family never attended a rally. But somehow this sound was implanted and I always associated Pete’s voice with a gentleness that was visceral.

 

As I grew my own musical journey took me—for the most part—in a different direction, but the topical folk music stayed in my heart and my politics moved boldly Leftward. The issues ingrained in protest song brought it all back for me even as I delved deeper and deeper into radical jazz and new music. The relevance in Pete’s songs and the causes he championed stood out profoundly. As a percussionist and cultural activist (and sometime banjo player), bridging revolutionary struggle to the arts, I had the opportunity to share the stage with Pete a number of times. Surely the first stands out as a moment of great pride, November of 1999, playing drums with the Ray Korona Band as it accompanied Pete for a NYC concert presentation he dubbed ‘Music in the History of Struggle’, the occasion of his 80^th birthday. Later, my association grew further when, from 2005 through 2010, I lived in Beacon NY where Pete has lived nearby since the late 1940s. I came to see some of his intensity close-up and also some of his rarely discussed temper and hard-core traditionalism; he offered little patience to this non-traditionalist who included improvisation and daring arrangements of the older topical songs! Though it’s hard to think back to being chewed out by this larger-than-life figure, Pete’s mission was on over-drive even while he was in his 90s. The music he modeled for us all was in his every fiber…

Pete was so much to so many: an ideal, a vision, an expectation. Transference of our own hopes, most certainly. The product of a Communist composer father and a concert violinist mother, Pete Seeger was introduced to the 5-string banjo as a teenager during the 1930s and came to bring it to international prominence. He introduced its application as a fiercely American instrument, one derived from African origins and developed by the sweat and blood of the oppressed. In his wake, the banjo – or at least his banjo – became a symbol of the power of song and an icon of more than one "folk revival".

During the depth of the Great Depression, Seeger took to collecting folk songs with his father, Charles Lewis Seeger, a member of the Composers Collective of New York who sought the dissolution of the Modernist, experimental music collective once he became convinced of the revolutionary potential of traditional song. In the 1930s, Daily Worker arts columnist Mike Gold wrote of the need for “a Communist Joe Hill”, to offer musical organizing on the front lines: a few years later Woody Guthrie came to prominence in the political left. Guthrie, a firestorm of creative energy and radical philosophy was introduced, in 1940, to a young Pete Seeger by folk archivist Alan Lomax and the two became inseparable. Once Woody had taken up Pete’s offer to join him in the Almanac Singers, they wrote and performed music together and Seeger, through musical and political osmosis, rapidly morphed into a new kind of cultural force.

 Early on Pete developed a strong kinship with the political left and quickly became a first-call performing artist for May Day parades in New York City and radical labor unions around the country. Seeger became a prominent part of progressive cultural organizations, anti-fascist collectives and American Labor Party rallies throughout the 1940s and into the ‘50s, even as the specter of HUAC haunted his musical groups, the Almanacs and then the Weavers, as well as his organization, People’s Songs. By 1961, he too would be subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee which riddled him with questions not only about his “patriotism” but that of many he’d been associated with. To his credit, Seeger refused to name names, but he did offer to sing for the HUAC inquisitors. They refused his offer and called it contempt of Congress.

 A victim of the same tenacious Blacklist that had torn apart Hollywood and the CIO in the post-war period, Pete sang for college students and children, when no one else cared to listen ... or, rather, when no one else could hear. And when he could not sing for them, he sang for the trees and forest life about him. Seeger was hell-bent on allowing music to touch deep, whether as a weapon or as a healing force. Uniquely, he almost always achieved both in tandem.

 While it is true that Pete became a beloved figure with the passage of time--one given Kennedy Center honors by the 1990s and celebrated at Madison Square Garden a few years ago--his radical heart remained integral to his spirit. Performing for President Obama’s inaugural celebration, Pete sang Woody’s anthem, “This Land is Your Land” along with Bruce Springsteen and happily led the crowd on some of Guthrie’s lesser-known, revolutionary verses including the one about that damned symbol of the high wall tagged “Private Property”. In his lifetime, Pete stood onstage with Paul Robeson during "The Peekskill Riot" and marched with Dr. King through the bloodiest of Civil Rights battles. He was a loud opponent of the Vietnam War and a prime voice of the environmental movement. In more recent years, Seeger could be found, during the entire sickening debacle of the Bush administration as an active part of protest actions, and stood most every week at a peace vigil in New York’s Hudson Valley, through broiling heat and frozen winds.

 Pete's songs are truly the story of 'the folk', and so they tell the people's story. Long before Howard Zinn wrote his 'A People's History of the United States', Pete Seeger sang it. He stood as the very model of the cultural worker. Taking the distant advice of Joe Hill, he recognized long ago that more can be said in one topical song than in a hundred pamphlets. But, even in silence, Pete's philosophy can be understood by anyone who recalls what he long ago adorned on his banjo head: 'This Machine Surrounds Hate and Forces It To Surrender'.

The cultural warrior shall not be forgotten for his voice remains in us all…

GRAMMY 2014 REPORT----RINGO AND THE SHADOW BACK-UP DRUMMER

 

OKay so this is the FIRST time I have watched the Grammy Awards in many years. I felt I needed to tune in as Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr were going to be on, their first time on stage together since the Beatles broke up. I may be a jazz and new music musician but I will always, always be a serious Beatles fan. But this Beatle-survivor reunion was only one aspect of the show...

 

Well to start right off, I am once again sickened by the Grammys absolutely ignoring the entire Jazz and Classical categories. How in hell can this be "music's greatest night" when only popular music---pop, R&B and rock--are represented? This is bad enough, though some of the performances were not bad. But then there's Chicago with Robin Thicke (I am not familiar with him, only his father!), whose sine-wave voice did nothing for the good songs by a band that can still kick out jazz-rock between all of their MOR light fare. Still it was good to see them. And Stevie Wonder, one of the great talents of R and B and pop music, a guy who could command the entire Grammy stage by himself in the '70s, here sharing the spotlight and airspace with a young rapper and Nile Rogers. Glad to see Stevie Wonder and Nile Rogers but why the need to water down a Stevie Wonder gig?? And when the great composer Ennio Morricone got a precursory award, his face was obscured on the screen. Later, Lou Reed got only a mention, not even one of his songs presented, no Velvet Underground salute. Nothing.

All right now for the serious disappointment: Paul McCartney and his band come out for a piece and the big deal, of course, is Ringo Starr coming out to join him. As soon as I got over the initial momentary thrill I realized that Ringo is of course not the only drummer. Macca's very talented drummer Abe Laboriel Jr was back there in the shadows while a spot was on Ringo drumming along with him! Laboriel took all of the fills; Mr Starkey played a simple 4/4 underneath. The truth is that no one has seen Ringo play drums without a back-up drummer in many years, so I shouldn't have been disappointed. But I was. Here is this historic moment, these two playing together for the first time since Let It Be in 1970, and Ringo took the easy way out. I may get a lot of gruff from other percussionists for this but just being in a legendary band does NOT make someone a great instrumentalist. Here's the reality: Ringo recorded some very nice Beatle parts in those years but they were largely simple, though well-executed. It has been established that more often than not, Paul and John to a lesser dsegree would commandeer the black pearl Ludwigs and offer Ringo coaching on how they wanted him to play for their songs:

Ringo admitted this in many interviews, clarifying that it was rough being in a band with three guys who could play drums. Especially McCartney who actually proved his own skills playing drums on "The Ballad of John and Yoko" and his own 'Band on the Run' album. By and large, Ringo was there and the rock, even if his role was background. He had a few moments of drumming strength (certainly "Rain" comes to mind) otherwise he played some very nice, beat-driven parts in those great songs. He was support to the two singer-songwriters who changed the face of popular music as we know it. And his drumming worked beautifully in that role and it inspired millions to play. If you saw the film Let It Be you know he handled his job quite well through 1970. Bernard Purdie used to say that he actually did all the Beatles studio work, subbing for Ringo on records every session, and while I don't believe that is true, it is odd that Ringo basically stopped playing shortly thereafter.

He played with no back-up on an early John Lennon album but had Jim Keltner drumming along with him on his own solo records. And in '71 when George Harrison organized The Concert for Bangladesh, Ringo was the drummer--but then so was Keltner! They double-drummed each song that night. Ringo, in interviews, said he loved playing with Keltner, commenting that they were thunder and lightning. OKay, so that's cool but then later when Ringo toured with his own All-Star band he had Sheila E on drums. Ringo would sit down at his own drumkit  next to Sheila's just for "Boys" and maybe one other, otherwise his sparkle kit sat idle. All of this wouldn't be an issue until tonight. Here was Ringo's chance to get back into the driver's seat and really dig into a song with his old band-mate, a guy he'd made history with. Sadly, as a drummer, Ringo seems to simply refers to the sentiment in his solo hit from the 70s, "All I've got is a photograph to remind me..." He was never much of a singer so the fact that Ringo would basically walk away from his actual role in rock history is beyond me. Did he just get lazy and stay away from the drums so long that there was no returning? Why would he trivialize what he did by letting his chops and groove simply fade away? Oh well, my ignoring of the Grammys for so long may have been a good move after all. Next year I am scheduling an anti-Grammy gig--all of my expansive jazz comrades are invited! LOL and I will not ask any other percussionist to join me!

HARMOLODIC MONK, SOUND EXPLORATIONS, AND THE YEAR'S END IN RETROSPECT

HARMOLODIC MONK, SOUND EXPLORATIONS, AND THE YEAR'S END IN RETROSPECT

Harmolodic Monk: Matt Lavelle and John Pietaro at the Firehouse Space, Oct 19, 2013. Photo by Laurie Towers

Sometimes life can be like a whirlwind. So much went on over the past 12 months that I can hardly believe we are near year's end. Between the rush of music, the passage of time and the ongoing stress of my day job, I guess I lost track of time. But here we are, now, deep into December. We have had a fairly mild weather in NYC, though this past week we saw snow and cold weather try to take a bite out of us. But New Yorkers are hard. And just now the weather man reported that it will be 57 degrees on Sunday, adding to the sense of uncertainty. Do I still have time to buy the pertinent Christmas cards to avoid being ostracized by family?? And talk about rush: a couple of months ago I actually self-published my book of short stories and poems, NIGHT PEOPLE AND OTHER TALES OF WORKING NEW YORK, which had been in the works since about 2009. Life is just one fantasia after another, isn't it? Getting passed the newfound ulcer in my belly and moving beyond the effects of the insomnia that pops up when I think I am finally relaxing, its good t know that creativity has been the healing force. Ayler was damned right. And this year there was much to be healed by....

2013 has been a year of vibrant soundscapes, with a wide variety of performances in the company of very talented, powerful musicians. How can I complain? Most of my playing has been on the vibraphone---the instrument that I consider my true voice---but other percussives have happily been called for as well. And why not....I am happy to have a vast collection. This year my work with Ras Moshe, celebrated reeds monster, has increased tremendously and we played together in numerous formats ranging from duet (where I either played vibes or drumkit or hand drums) to trio (on vibes and percussion; with guitarist Dave Ross, or bassists Shayna Dulberger or Lisa Mezzacappa), to quartet (the incredible one which included guitarist Anders Nilsson and drummer/percussionist Andrew Drury remains in heart! Here I am again playing vibes/percussion). We played a couple of gigs for Arts for Art in there too. There's also been our ensemble the Red Microphone which released a debut CD this year. And there's been a great assortment of Ras' larger bands. All that and there was the release of the Erika Dagnino Quartet's disc 'Signs' which included Erika's poetry, Ras' reeds and flute, Ken Filiano's bass and my vibes and percussion. The association with Ras is one which is ever-changing and intense. Its been said that we share a telepathic relationship, intertwining lines and improvising endlessly through streams of consciousness.

There's also been gigs with vocalist Maryanne DeProphetis (at the I-Beam playing twisted standards!) and Nora McCarthy (at the Cornelia St Café for my event 'An October Jazz Revolution') and the band SoSaLa (at NuBlu). And my own Dissident Arts Orchestra performed several times this year, offering jagged scores to silent film classics or backing poet Sana Shabazz. That was fun in a whole other way. And as I am so fond of backing poets, I am thrilled to have developed a rapport with Steve Dalachinsky, a serious contender for Beat poet of this era. I performed with him in duet at my own Dissident Arts Festival this summer and more recently at Shapeshifter Lab for the Memorial Concert for John Tchicai with a band that included Steve Swell, Will Connell and others. I really ate this one up. I was also part of the jam session that closed out the big '50th Anniversary Concert of ESP-Disk' at JACK in Brooklyn. And reeds player Rocco John Iacovone began his own series late this year, creating a mixed ensemble I have been happy to bring my vibes to, where he presents different composers each month. It occurs at Pianos in the East Village. My own piece is scheduled to be presented at the January gig! The Red Microphone had a busy year and we are closing it off on 12/22 at Theater 80 on St Mark's Place, performing the opening segment to a large-scale awareness-raiser for Mumia Abu-Jamal.

And my work with the legendary Karl Berger has continued of course---this was year two with his Improvisers Orchestra. The band is amazing and never fails to inspire. So many noted improvisers have been a part of this band that it would be almost impossible to recall each one. No matter how strong of an impact they have had on the whole. With this ensemble I play conga, bongos, orchestra bells, various metals, suspended cymbals and many small percussives too. Sitting next to Warren Smith's drumkit (or none-too-shabby subs like Lou Grassi or Joe Hertenstein!), my hands are on fire as I offer thunderous rhythms and stinging orchestra bells to accentuate the screaming horns section. Our final gig of the year was in mid-December and Karl is now reviewing tapes of the Orchestra's performances for release as a CD. The band was 32 strong at its largest but we have not slipped below 20 this year. Happily, I ushered many of my close musical associates into the Orchestra including Ras Moshe, Rocco John Iacovone, Nicolas Letman-Burtinovic. And Matt Lavelle. Now there's a unique guy...

I met trumpet player/alto clarinetist Matt Lavelle at several different Ras Moshe gigs. Here's a very hip musician who regularly plays with Bern Nix and spent several years studying with Ornette Coleman. We spoke at a few of these gigs and he told me of this vision he had for a duet with vibes playing Monk composition by way of the Harmolodic theory of Mr Coleman. Wow. What a challenge, I thought, and what an amazing opportunity to engage in something truly new and inspirational. Has it been done before? Highly unlikely. When a reviewer asked Thelonious Monk what he thought of Ornette, this revolutionary founder of Be-Bop said, "That cat's crazy". But upon closer examination, one cannot help but see that had it not been for Monk, there couldn't be an Ornette as we know him. The modernist vision is apparent. But isn't there something else that somehow draws "Light Blue" or "Ruby, My Dear" to "Lonely Woman" or "Beauty is a Rare Thing"? The guitarist Jack DeSalvo said just the other night, after hearing our duet Harmolodic Monk, "The folk form that is at the core of both of them is the Blues". And he is right. It is the glue that keeps their musics imbedded in tradition, a place to boldly grow out of. Their rapprochement to blues cannot be mistaken, nor can it be avoided if one is to play either of their works. So when Matt and I first got together to attempt this exploration at Ayers Percussion studio in the theatre district, it somehow fell right into place from the start. There was no question that this experiment had a life of its own. Now that I think of it, how could it not?

We debuted at one of Ras Moshe's Music Now events at the Brecht Forum and locked in a modicum of performance practice in this unique repertoire. We took it then to ABC No Rio and the Firehouse Space. Damn, there was simply no turning back. Somewhere in there, Jack DeSalvo signed us to his Unseen Rain label and asked us to record a duo CD---even as we contemplated whether or not we needed a bassist. But no, Jack saw this as a natural duet. Our record date is slated for January 6. We rehearsed just last week for a gig the other day up in Beacon NY: part of James Keepnews' new jazz series which has been itself growing in leaps and bounds. During the rehearsal, Matt requested that I move to hand drums for a piece and that grew into a medley of "Green Chimneys" and "52nd St Theme". Wow, that worked. Well. We discussed stretching things further, the outer reaches of harmolodics perhaps. I brought out a large frame drum, a 22" bodhran and we crafted a brand new concept where "Monk's Mood" existed. That rehearsal and the wonderful performance which followed it gave us the chance to envision that lay-out of the album. Oh, its gonna be a killer.

Going forward, Harmolodic Monk is a major part of my 2014. We would love to have the album out early in the year----and who knows where else this music, this soundscape of the new, can take us. Hell, ulcers aside, casting out day-to-day stress and winter blues, its all about the Epistrophy.

Book Review: RADICAL JESUS: A GRAPHIC HISTORY OF FAITH

 

Book Review by John Pietaro-

RADICAL JESUS: A Graphic History of Faith
Paul Buhle, Editor; Art by Sabrina Jones, Gary Dumm and Nick Thorkelson
(2013, Herald Press, Virginia)

 Although noted Left-wing historians such as Paul Buhle aren’t normally seen as devout in their religiosity, a read through of RADICAL JESUS could lead to the assumption that the revolutionary intellectuals in our midst have “seen the light”. But here, Buhle and a company of underground comic artists are instead offering a vision of Jesus Christ (and religion itself) that was clear all along to anyone who looked beyond their hymnal. What comes to life in the course of these 128 pages is what political radicals have always asserted: Biblical figures such as Jesus, John the Baptist and Martin Luther were not only revolutionary in their spirituality but in their actions.

The book opens with “Radical Gospel” and offers the ‘downtown’ art of Sabrina Jones to Biblical excerpts. But as one may expect, it wouldn’t be the stuff of underground comicdom without the proper irony, so Jones mixes contemporary imagery morphed into the Greatest Story Ever Told. Quotes such as “blessed are the poor” are paired with visuals of a union strike, and “blessed are those who mourn” with the parents of Trayvon Martin. These are in excellent company with frames that depict Occupy Wall Street, the homeless, peace demonstrators and Middle Eastern families faced with armed US troops. And as the Bible is filled with symbolic tales of faith, these sections RADICAL JESUS are fully engaged with expanding on the common symbols to denounce capitalist greed and high-priced televangelists. But what’s in store for the reader here is not necessarily what we may have guessed: in a discussion between Jesus and an apostle about the great power, wealth and towering temples around them, Jesus warns that “The day will come when there isn’t one stone left on top of one another that isn’t thrown down”, and Jones bravely recreated the wreckage of the World Trade Center on September 11.

“Radical History” is the next lengthy segment and it brings us through the Lollards journey (one of the early radical Christian organizations), the Catholic Church’s base of power, the burning of “heretics”, and the radical reformation founded by Martin Luther. These sections are not from the Bible at all, but history itself. Drawn by Gary Dumm (with vivid coloring by Laura Dumm) and often scripted by Buhle, Dave Wagner or Dumm himself, we are taken through some harsh and some revelatory scenes. Peace activists and members of AIM will recognize the roots of their struggles in chapters on the Quakers’ relationships with Native Americans and the Abolitionist movement. Without much difficulty one can of course see a connection to the struggle of the Palestinians and others of the First Nation.

The final segment, “Radical Resistance” was written and drawn by Nick Thorkelson. It explores faith-based movements in modern times and in doing so, ties together the struggle for human rights and equality throughout the ages. There is a special focus on slavery and African American freedom struggles and Sojourner Truth is heroically depicted as are multiple figures we recall from the Civil Rights years (yes, there’s Dr King tearing down the walls of Jericho). But it surely doesn’t stop there: check out the story of the Catholic Worker movement and Dorothy Day’s quote: “…The class structure is of our making, not His….So we are urging revolutionary change”. Hey, this kind of dangerous talk can almost bring ME back to church! And Thorkelson shows how the line went from Haley House to the Catholic Worker to Plowshares. We also see Mennonites, various levels of peace protests around the world, Conscientious Objectors, Aboriginal movements, and the struggle for ecology and a sustainable world.

Taken literally, the messages of Jesus’ teachings should always reflect a visions of a shared planet and an economy not designed by and for the wealthy few. As a child at weekly Catechism classes I had to attend, we were constantly taught that “God is love” and that Jesus was “the Prince of Peace”. But this was during the climax of the Vietnam War and when we asked the nuns or lay-teachers why God has allowed this ongoing horrific violence that came home to us on the television news each night, they only answered that we must have faith, and that God works in mysterious ways. I am sure that none of these intended guides to my religiosity considered the figure of Jesus as a revolutionary nor the symbolism in the Bible to have more in common with Marx than Pope Paul, but then RADICAL JESUS had not yet been published at the time. After reading this book, however, I would argue that it surely had been written ---a millennia ago, with a message still urgent after King James had his way with the words and church corruption attempted to refigure it, sore afraid of a fully awakened populace.