Drumming on "Live at the Golden Circle"

what was so bad about it (heard it once about three months ago and I had to go away for a while and haven't heard it again since I got back)?

Julio Moffet's drumming on these albums has always been pretty controversial. I've seen a lot of praise for these albums here recently and wondered what folks thought of it. He has his fans too, but the anti case would focus on being inappropriately loud and aggressive and not a great listener. Shame because Ornette is on great form and Izenzon is fantastic.

i love these records but i have to say mainly for ornette's fiddle playing: i'll relisten over the weekend i think

I must listen to these again sometime.

yes, it's been debated on rec.music.bluenote and other places -- to me it's always been moffet banging too hard and too loose i.e. the easy constant change un-shuffle, which has always pissed me off despite what anyone else thinks because it's just that much harder to hear izenzon

i don't remember it sounding much better on that double live in london where the muso union forced ornette to give some chamber crowd a piece to play (some kind of union swap deal with america) which produced a rather stark "classical" piece which the "stiff" UK players in the union sounded like they'd hated playing once they'd got themselves into it

(cf: super-cool "Skies of America" -- duh, remember i bought your copy of that duane -- you should've told me before flogging it to the second hand, but then again that's really the story of our life)

yeah and izenzon wasn't around so much after that sadly, so they could be mixed or filtered i guess 'cause the drumming was irrelevant given ornette/izenzon synergy (i think) -- sunny murray should've done it with that decorative/drive thing which might have improved on higgins or blackwell, or bring jackson in early in short pants if you're into that sort of thing (rather than denardo)

those two blue notes covers have to be the coolest -- cats standing in the middle of northern european winter and called "golden circle" ?

in christchurch there's a japanese guy who trained with ornette in ny and he calls his trio the golden circle, and the posters are gold background with bluenote encircle, name of band = album name on record label and trio members = songs listed on label and they are hot and christchurch is hotter than supposedly "cool" dunedin (where it actually snows !! and they definitely do not move any faster for it)

it's probably easier to go through life as a "duane" or even a "doorag" than have your dad label you a "charnett"

Interesting I didn't know about these debates elsewhere. I may try and access those at the bluenote site.

I agree about the album covers - really wonderful.

Actually saw Charnett with McCoy Tyner recently. I knew his reputation as an all-technique-no-taste player but had never heard him. His technique really was fabulous, don't think I've seen/heard better, and his support playing was very fine. His solos were flash tours-de-force but presented as such and very entertaining if not exactly deep and meaningful. Overall I was pretty damn impressed.

I'm sure you know this george - you obviously know a helluva lot more facts about Ornette/Iznenzon than I do - but for anyone who doesn't, it may be worth pointing out that Izenzon added to his own audibility problems by being a classically trained purist who refused to be amplified. So, weirdly, you've got Ornette sawing away on the fiddle and Moffet bashing away and Izenzon saying no, I'm not going to compromise on my pure classical tone with amplification.

no, of course i don't AA (though john litweiller's "harmalodic life" bio-disc is a minor godsend), and i'm keen to hear john lindberg's tribute album to izenzon which i guess is a pretty serious dark affair -- but back to izenzon's sound arrangement you describe, and yeah right, it's crazy

(incidentally, ever heard "who's crazy" (?), another soundtrack by ornette for art film deemed unsuitable, but it's well recorded and got all sorts of noise music on it, kind'a deserving its name almost)

ornette's sometimes self-destructive career u-turns have often made me feel he thrives on being seen as a lyrical cuckoo (or at least doesn't care if people think that), an act he's telling you's "serious as your life" and always publicly spirited (artists house for instance) ok, but so many changes of direction, wacky one-off tour ensembles like "Song X" (which rocks) or "Ornette at 12" (w/denardo aged 12 so you tell me, it's "naive" or "intuitive" or "nepotistic" or "genetic talent" or what?) or "Dancing in Your Head" (which i guess is in some ways similar to braxton's gtm but i'd call that album "Headache", with the "lost" jajouka track not really fulfilling the promise of ornette's brian jones like legendary mission)

was it 1962 he quit playing (?) at the (apparently then somewhat rascist) 5 spot 'cause he filled houses and brubeck filled houses and brubeck got paid many times more dollars per gig -- fair protest but why didn't he just find another house to fill? (he retired)

i'm guessing that he's been misunderstood and ripped off by almost the entire jazz industry (he's been on virtually every label of the times)

if you're recording your gig you can still mike an acoustic bass surely (if you're bluenote) so maybe izenzons demons meant he didn't want to be heard, stage fright etc.. ?

current "prolific" celebrity Wm Parker has been much criticised for his puny amp set-up, before we get started on his constant plonk home note gross simplification of what he'd like to call free jazz

bassists -- thankless job and for every silva or grimes or the masterful sirone we get w parker cashing in as if he's some genius or people like mark dresser (who's good at following instructions) -- it's got to be the most physically challenging instrument in jazz before you begin trying to audibly compete with drums and reeds

bass = also VERY hard to amp decently, at least it was back when i played it (haha so i took up the sackbut instead and invented madrigals) (= joke abt me being v.old and not playing bass seriously for nearly 20 yrs so amps might have improved)

who's crazy is grebt, better i think actually than the two golden circles

GG is making some of the points I wd abt ornette's um "strategy" re positioning himself, choosing sidemen etc => i think we also need to consider the "bez" factor tho = you choose ppl you can get on with in the tourbus, whose presence off-stage inspires you to play the way you want to onstage, and maybe their onstage work is actually less significant, even a bit wonky?

surely more of this goes on that is ever discussed (i mean, long before we get to the "x was allowed to play sackbut for y because he was buds w. a good dealer....")

this is all a bit in the abstract, though: i shall have a coleman trio weekend and report back

george what d'you think of simon fell?

After GG's post I was just going to mention simon fell who doesn't amplify his strings (though he does use blocks of polystyrene and clips on his string to change the sound he gets from his strings: would taht be amplification in this case?). I saw a gig where he played a solo (well, he was playing with a live painter, simon's playing would change by what the painter was doing so you could say its a 'duo'). simon just works incredibly hard, he really does, my eyes got tired just by watching him go...

This is still the best improv gig for me (though i haven't watched too many).

''current "prolific" celebrity Wm Parker has been much criticised for his puny amp set-up, before we get started on his constant plonk home note gross simplification of what he'd like to call free jazz''

from hearing harras which is the trio with zorn and bailey I thought parker's playing was very good. but i nevah got round to getting anything else.

''it's got to be the most physically challenging instrument in jazz before you begin trying to audibly compete with drums and reeds''

In absolute agreeement here. hearing bass in free jazz is very difficult and almost impossible in some cases (especially if you factor in the recording conditions of some of these old recs).

Most jazzers use amplification these days although there are still purists who are snobby about the amount. (The implication being that high action/low amp sounds are "more beautiful" than low action/high amp sounds. I've heard bassists of the calibre of NHØP dismissed as having an "nearly all amp" sound.

ok, so i'll have a fell weekend (even though that just makes me want to go and read "Hannibal" again, as that movie ain't a quarter of the width)

but yeah i forgot barry guy (i believe he uses lots of tricks)

when i saw peter kowald play (and duane fall over drunk) kowald's hands were moving so fast it was the taylor/blur type look, and brotz' was alternatively reminding us that he good fill the biggest hall most loudly with the smallest pocket sax or stomp around bavaria with some phallic tree trunk dance, and those guys were locked into each other like magnets, and i almost fell over myself in a mix of humour and euphoria

er mark i think you're getting at this: coleman, haden and cherry but especially coleman/haden really practised their arses off to get that double rotate undulate thing they did (cf: lame scott lefarro sides) and years later "soapsuds, .." proved it, sort of, and "body meta" always struck me as a band grooving so well into each other that it might as well have been a foreign language to the un-prepared jazz fan, and the double live in london would have to have been stressful for all concerned given circumstances explained previous or if you knew you were being recorded for posterity and you only had one chance, so yes, do we agree that these lock-groove musos who may as well be lovers did find the biz' side of things, the nightly repetion of riffs (cf: discovery while jamming) and all the bullshit heaped on "free jazz" by the media less than completely pleasant ?

incidentally, did you do that james _moody_ inv. jukebox where after ten seconds of ornette he got aggressive, told the scribe to get that shit off right now and then ranted for ages about all his hard yards learning scales like a trooper and how the real jazz man has to pay his dues and maybe, hey, play vegas (business victim in that case too i suppose) ? cause that was one of the funnier/sadder jukes

didn't monk say of ornette "man, that cat is nuts" whereas bigass davis said "..if you're talking psychologically, the man is all screwed up inside.." or "are you cats serious" (dizzy) -- i.e. he even got pain from fellow black musicians -- yeah, so playing in private, jamming, avoiding the brickbats would have been their most comfortable playing circumstances, right ? yes i think you are

''didn't monk say of ornette "man, that cat is nuts" whereas bigass davis said "..if you're talking psychologically, the man is all screwed up inside.." or "are you cats serious" (dizzy)''

I just love to cause this much 'trouble' and 'controversy' (though i suppose it wasn't funny back then). Miles can bloody talk, 'Bitches Brew' is one of the biggest jokes I have heard.

Any good books on ornette around?

arfarf, I haven't heard the record (just vol 1 which I bought about a month ago) much, but I think I thought (1). like mark I'll have to have a looksee.

I think GG is being just a little unfair to Wm Parker, who I think is more varied/flexible/sympathetic than GG makes out. Plus I quite like the crude repetition and ugly/irritating qualities of 'Dancing In Your Head'. However, GG sure makes me want to hear 'Who's Crazy'...

After I got 'Beauty Is A Rare Thing' I steered clear of buying any more OC until I'd really got my head round that box set, so I've never heard the 'Golden Circle' recs. But one thing I noticed when I listened to 'The Shape of Jazz to Come' material on BIART was how much more audible Haden was, compared to my old vinyl versions...

Julio, that John Litweiller bk that GG mentions is pretty much the 'standard work' on OC. Da Capo (US) published it, and although I don't think it's still in print, it's not that tough to find... try 'Helter Skelter' in Denmark St., maybe (they used to stock 'Improvisiation' by Bailey, also published by Da Capo, so they're not totally hopeless...)

Obviously William Parker is terrible! That's why he's played with just about everyone under the sun for the past 30 years. Who are Cecil Taylor, David S. Ware and Peter Brotzmann to judge bass players, anyway?

andrew- yeah, went to helter skelter to look for the John Carducci book and ben watson's book on zappa. But I'll look for this. I'm mostly done with the book on sun ra so ornette is a good follow up.

GG and mark s should get married, no? Both bust the jazz cannon for sure (mark s doesn't like coltrane and GG doesn't think much of w parker). what will their kiddies hate, I wonder?

our kiddies will hate george and me!!

stencil,
i've had that answer thrown at me before and i think it ignores how dumbed down taylor + parker is cf: taylor + sirone or silva or grimes -- listen to each of the recordings on their own merits

aum fidel, eremite etc. have all cashed in on st thurston moore's recommendation and endorsement of what he thinks is good free jazz -- to me ds ware is just an obvious revamp of ayler+coltrane lowest common denominator (it dilutes everything to just simple often single root notes based grooves, so shipp's just moonlighting with morris or manieri on those recordings, whereas parker has proved again and again that he can't do the changes, or presuming that he can despite scant evidence, let's politely assume it's easier for the audience if he sticks to the basics)

listen to sirone on the '79 unit, silva on student studies, haden interleaving with coleman, note how they're all over the scale (they play in many different keys for maximum "angle", which means taylor or coleman are complimentarily slamming back in beautifully balanced semi-opposing keys)

then go and listen to shipp, parker and the boys play whole albums with parker, all playing the same note in the same scale, also true for the taylor "looking" trio too or those awful Leo things with the pianist forced, stuck, just complimenting one key (and carlos ward != jimmy lyons)

by trying to make pop music out of recent "so called" free jazz more units are sold and the musos make more money -- it's an industry thing
y'know -- maybe the free jazz guys decided they'd have to meet the audience halfway to make a crust

but the only decent thing that can be trumpeted about w parker is that he's got extended technique: he bangs, he pops, he scrapes, he taps, but it's all in the same key and the same speed, so the whole band of whomever you wish to drag up are stuck working around angles virtually the one chord, not so far removed from 3 chord punk vs. prog rock (not that i recommending prog. rock!) -- oh and rhythmically he's just as limited, a plodder, a pow pow pp pow pow pp pow kind'a guy

free jazz is part of the jazz industry now, usually easily assimilable after two listens -- the '60s stuff was an art form of such inscrutable lengths at times that 30 listens of a track would continue to reveal new layers, angles, asides, chords, riffs, rhythhms and humour, magic, sparkle, surprise, and there wasn't much of it around in part because back then repeating the same ideas was actually considered a little below par

mark dresser or john lindberg may have their weak points but w parker simply would not be able to play with anthony braxton -- i guarentee you, brax has played with orthodox guys like NHOP, even jack six, but he's never going to stoop to producing "easy listening" -- they will never play together -- parker's your standard "Mr P.C." approach player and no artful dodging about all the noises he can make will improve his rhythm, harmony or self-admitted "mayor of punkville" nyc downtown alternative niche (that's alternative to free jazz)

mccoy tyner left coltrane for the same musical reasons, as coltrane wasn't stuck in his little modal box much later on, ali had introduced concise polyrythms, sanders had bought harmonic discourse and tyner was more the vamps(, man)

...[Braxton] never going to stoop to producing "easy listening"...

Ever hear In the Tradition?

I think you're totally wrong about Parker, but we're free to disagree I guess.

if it makes you feel better herb I don't get him either but then I don't get parker

is 'standard "mr p.c."' supposed to be an insult or a dis or something? and I thought tyner left cuz he couldn't like hear himself (I guess that's a musical reason).

"by trying to make pop music out of recent "so called" free jazz more units are sold and the musos make more money -- it's an industry thing"

Yeah, ever since those fake free jazzers sold out 'the kids' have gone wild for that crazy out sound! Curse those crafty record execs!

ho ho...I always enjoy when certain free jazzers get thrashed and I do like when GG does it.

GG: did you write that letter to the wire this month (tom waits on the cover)? That thrashed the wire's jazz coverage (the rot setting in with David keenan's cliche ridden primer on 'fire muisc' a year ago apparently, it wasn't your name but maybe it was you under disguise).

I suppose the only way is to conpare bass solo albums of w.parker (who has recorded one at least) and some 'old master' from the 60s/70s.

''free jazz is part of the jazz industry now, usually easily assimilable after two listens -- the '60s stuff was an art form of such inscrutable lengths at times that 30 listens of a track would continue to reveal new layers, angles, asides, chords, riffs, rhythhms and humour, magic, sparkle, surprise, and there wasn't much of it around in part because back then repeating the same ideas was actually considered a little below par''

well I have to say I haven't heard much free jazz from the contemporary side yet. I'm still trying to get catch on those old recs and it does take MANY listens in some cases to absorb the rec. If i'm buying anything contemporary its prob some of the european improv.

''by trying to make pop music out of recent "so called" free jazz more units are sold and the musos make more money -- it's an industry thing
y'know -- maybe the free jazz guys decided they'd have to meet the audience halfway to make a crust''

heh...this really ties in nicely w/ GG's John cage conspiracy thory doesn't it?

Somebody must have written about this before but I wonder if it says anything of interest about Coletrane/Coleman that you tend to think of the drummer being the star in 'Trane's rhythm sections (esp Jones v Garrison) and the bassist being the star in Coleman's (Haden v Higgins, Izenzon v Moffet)

Very broad generalisation of course: Coleman worked with Jones/Garrison, PC was great on 'Trane's earlier albums, Higgins was a pretty fine drummer). But interesting to speculate on a parallel universe where 'Trane recorded his peak-period albums with Haden and Coleman recorded his with Elvin.........

surely it has to say something abt ornette's attitude to available grown-up professional drummers, mainstream OR out, that ornette chose denardo aged 12 and pretty much stuck with him: the something being, the grown-ups were not yet providing what he wanted? (whatever that was...)

as usual i am stalling btw, i got no sleep and cannot trust myself to even listen to the radio intelligently, let alone the coleman trio

(i blame the clash)

no mark, not the clash (though that is bad enough). Blame radiohead.

unintelligently would be a start. coleman would probably be delighted, too.

delighted about what? sorry, i am no more alert now than i was five hours ago — and also haven't listened to a thing all day

(i actually post all this "soon i shall do this" nonsense to try and shame myself into actually doing some of it... it doesn't work, does it?)

I'm not listenin either. worst of all is i actually got two other recs on the way to work from the record library.

Sorry know nothing about Denardo-period Ornette. As prev. mentioned not a big avant garde fan (prob puts me in a minority of one in this thread), just happen to like early Ornette. Only post Golden Circle OC album I've got is "Love Call", an impule buy, which is pretty mediocre. Snippets I've heard from other later albums haven't tempted me to explore further.

no it doesn't mark

ok, i'm going to take one of me and marks' boys and make him my drummer from an early age -- he'll hang out with me and always play with him ('though i won't be playing with him, no, just mentally)

so he'll grow up and become a man and i'll snap my finger when say i'm crooning th'bassoon and he'll know what to do

will he be able to play with others ? live with others ? will he be my musical slave, worse, autistic even ? well, it's when you start isn't it ::-> ".. give me a child until he's seven .."

that's if you're a weirdo like me (or ornette perhaps), or you're one of those priests