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Steve Lacy & Enrico Rava in Rome, 1966. Copyright Lilian Terry |
I remember reading a few years ago some remarks about
reedman-composer Ken Vandermark and the problem someone had with his titles –
that they were a codified and hip “reference system” to show that he was “in
the know” about music, art, and literature. Lucky Thompson, Robert
Rauschenberg, Stephen Shore, The Ex – all were fair game, and whether the music
itself reflected the values of the dedicatees was anybody’s guess. I always
found that argument kind of unfair, because whatever one thinks of Vandermark’s
music, he chooses to pay homage to his peers and forebears. These are little
“gifts” as I see it – offerings to those whom he respects, and they don’t have
to sound or look like their recipient in order to give a proper nod. Also, one
doesn’t necessarily have to have, say, Bob Weston or Steve Lacy in mind when
listening to the entire nine minutes of a tune to enjoy it and feel that it’s
within a sort of “sphere of interest.”
Vandermark is certainly not the first to do this and
certainly he should not be the last. Soprano saxophonist and composer Steve
Lacy frequently referenced others in his titles, as has composer-reedman
Anthony Braxton. These two figures are, not coincidentally, very important in
the lineage of artists who have influenced Vandermark’s work. They made no
bones about their forebears and those whom they held in high esteem, and to a
degree this was important in drawing a connection between the New Thing and
what came before. Considering how challenging their music could be, it was/is
important for Lacy and Braxton to make links to the past (and probably too much
has been made about the traditionalists’ and boppers’ disdain for the New
Thing. It wasn’t always the case). That was especially true thirty or forty
years ago, when their work had not become as highly regarded in the landscape
of this music.
Monk, Sonny Clark, Sidney Bechet and Ellington (along with a
host of visual artists and poets/writers) were part of Lacy’s bedrock. Braxton
would add Warne Marsh, Paul Desmond, Lennie Tristano, Sun Ra, and Karlheinz
Stockhausen to his playbook. One of my favorite Lacy pieces is the short “La
Motte Picquet” on The Gap (America,
1972), which Lacy says was “dedicated to the memory of Sonny Clark, who would
have liked this kind of tune.” It’s got a declamatory, odd-interval elision
going on, singsong but a bit batty. I never really appreciated what Lacy meant
about Sonny Clark until hearing the pianist’s “Minor Meeting,” which is
extraordinarily crisp and stark in its A-section. It sounds like a Steve Lacy
composition, in fact, and one can imagine it being played with unaccompanied
clarion soprano twirls. “La Motte Picquet” is much freer but the connection
isn’t as spurious as one might think, and for whatever reason it’s one of the
least-talked-about in Lacy’s oeuvre.
Of course, nothing exists in a vacuum and honestly, to hear
someone like Cooper-Moore recite “I want to give thanks” and invoke Ellington,
Coleman Hawkins, and Jaki Byard at a time while being crucially aligned with
the post-loft environment of David S. Ware and William Parker is something
special, indeed. This, from his 2001 Hopscotch CD Deep in the Neighborhood of History and Influence, which has been mentioned here before. Or, when I interviewed reedman Peter Brötzmann back in 2002,
the heaviest thing he laid out was his deep, deep love for Hawkins. For that
matter, Bill Dixon’s invocation of Miles, Chet Baker and Tony Fruscella places
him, rightly, in a lineage of brass instrumentalists and composer/interpreters
that are beyond category. Where some might see Vandermark’s titles as a
political gambit, I see it as not forgetting where one comes from or what
surrounds one’s work. After all, no person is truly an island, no matter how
weird the output is.
In a time where there is so much information available, as
well as a time when a whole generation (or two) of important artists are
passing on, being aware of history and one’s own peers is crucial. Being able
to tie one’s work together with a landscape larger than one’s immediate
environment helps bolster things – of course, a dedication isn’t necessary to
do that, because good art should be able to stand firmly on its own and its
place within the continuum implicit. But gifting a nod is fairly uncommon,
and it is important to network contributions between present and past. Far be it for me to be proscriptive; as
Dixon would say, “tradition is all around you. Start from where you are – you’ll
get to the rest in time.” Easy to forget, but not hard to acknowledge.
It's always quite a thing to see K. Vandermark and B. Dixon mentioned together--doubly so when they are likened to one another.
ReplyDeleteBy now we have all read the H. Blooms Anxiety of Influence and so, by now, we all have our own feelings about "influence" and the "misreading" of those influences as generative engine.
Even if we haven't made it through Anxiety it's easy enough to have feelings about the strategic "gifting a nod" (which is NOT all that uncommon) to the ends of alignment with those influences for purposes entirely unrelated to music, but instead related to the marketing and merchandising of music. Anyone can make up a title, right? Like that tree falling the forest, if you can't hear the antecedent (or a swerve from the antecedent) in the music, is the influence really there?
Dixon also made VERY clear, time and time again, that it is the swerve or "clinamen" (to use Bloom's terms) from the aesthetic predecessor that mattered.
To Dixon, there were originals and then there were imitations. Can you guess which one Dixon held precious? Just how much Chet Baker do you hear in Bill Dixon? How much Chet Baker do you think Bill Dixon heard in Bill Dixon?
Is it the artist's responsiblity "to tie one’s work together with a landscape larger than one’s immediate environment" or is that the job of the listener? Remind me again, in that process what things are being "bolstered?"
PS, yes to Matts and no to Marco on the saxophone 50? UNREAL. A shonda for the Burning Ambulance.
Happy Halloween,
sjz