Black Music by LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka)

Author:LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka)
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Akashic Books
Published: 2010-03-18T04:00:00+00:00

1965

Apple Cores #2

ESP Records, new project gotten together by Bernard Stollman, promises to be one of the most valuable developments in contemporary jazz in some time. Stollman has so far made tapes and test discs of some of the most interesting new groups around this town, e.g., The New York Art Quartet, which is John Tchicai, alto; Roswell Rudd, trombone; Louis Worrell, bass (recently, Eddie Gomez); and drummer, Milford Graves, who must be heard at once. Graves might remind some well-traveled citizen of Albert Ayler’s drummer, Sonny Murray, because he keeps all his sound devices working almost continuously and simultaneously. But Graves has a rhythmic drive, a constant piling up of motor energies, that makes him a distinct stylist. He is also beginning to use the Indian-derived Tabla drum, as well as making innovations in cymbal playing, sometimes stroking the underside of the ride or crashing in such a way as to produce high-pitched whining, whistling sounds which punctuate percussion phrases like some Eastern string instrument. Graves studied for a long time with an Indian Tabla drummer, and for this reason the sound he gets from a snare drum seems completely different from the usual drum and bugle corps ratatat most drummers get.

Graves also plays a big part on another ESP side, made by young alto saxophonist Giuseppe Logan. (Logan also plays tenor and trumpet.) Logan has a quartet on this first side, Don Pullen, a pianist who might still be finding his own way by using a few Cecil Taylor forms to point out a personal direction; Eddie Gomez, bass; and Milford Graves, drums and Tabla drums. On this record Logan seems to have been inspired by Indian music, although the backbone of this music is as Western as it has to be to remain jazzical. The names of the tunes on this side might give you an idea what these young men are into: “Tabla Suite,” “Dance of Satan,” “Dialogue,” “Taneous,” “Bleecker St. Partita.” I’ve yet to hear Logan in person, but behind this record, I’ll have to make it my business. This group, along with another percussionist named Sahumba, will have a concert at Judson Hall, February 8.

Still another ESP “find” is altoist Byron Paul Allen, whose first side is called “Time Is Past.” Allen’s group is a trio with Theodore Robinson, percussion, and Maceo Gilchrist, bass. This group already sounds like they’ve been together for a long time, that is, they already have a distinct and original sound form as a group. And Paul Allen is moving to become a deep thinker on his instrument, and we might not have long to wait. For instance, a statement he made, possibly to be included in any liner notes for this first album: “For musicians only: Time is not speed, it’s distance, and sound is measured motion.” Drummer Theodore Robinson also made a statement, which I think might tell you almost exactly where he is, or at least was, when he made it: “Since God has bestowed me with the want to execute the sound that I feel, I shall proceed.

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