Daily best music in the world: Ronald Shannon Jackson with Albert Ayler

Ronald Shannon Jackson playing with Albert Ayler on the Live at Slug's Saloon album, recorded in 1966. Jackson wasn't recorded a lot at this stage of his career, and it's really interesting to hear him do the same relentless rolling thing we heard him do on a giant Sonor set in the 80s. Clearly he's more technically able than some other avant-garde drummers of the period— people who may have been going for an emotional intensity that was beyond their capabilities. Jackson also has a stronger sense of pulse than most of them— it's like listening to a mediocre bass player with weak harmonic sense play this music (another common situation), and then listening to Gary Peacock play it. It's like oh, this guy is playing off a pulse. He's a real drummer.




Jackson plays with real power, and he's obviously a strong listener. It reminds me a lot of Jack Dejohnette playing avant-garde. There's just a different quality when a real technically and musically able drummer does this kind of thing. There's more energy and more evident creativity happening; more melodic awareness.

He is awesome playing with Cecil Taylor a dozen years later, too. Cecil can be kind of punishing to me; Jackson humanizes him.

DBMITW: more Cecil

This is from my other favorite Cecil Taylor record, Looking Ahead!, with Denis Charles on drums.



Charles plays his cymbal (in 1950's, at least) in a way you would have a hard time getting away with today- he really drops in the 1's and 3's. At the medium tempo blowing in the middle of this tune he plays a very "dotted-8th/16th-y" rhythm as well- which works well with Cecil's playing.

After the break is a couple of excerpts from a documentary about him that looks like it was filmed shortly before his death in 1998, and completed shortly after.

DBMITW: Cecil Taylor

Here's another old free jazz favorite from my LP stacks. Andrew Cyrille is on drums. And the title (CONQUISTADOR!) has an exclamation point, which I like.

Andrew Cyrille interview by Ted Panken

Here's another in my series of choice, drummer-relevant bits of other people's interviews, this time with Andrew Cyrille, by Ted Panken:

Ted Panken: Are there different challenges for you in dealing with, let's say, the less pulse oriented forms of drum music? Did you have to develop new techniques or a different vocabulary?

Andrew Cyrille: That's an interesting question. Most of the time, I think about myself as using pieces of the language that I have learned from seeing and hearing the traditional greats, like Jo Jones, Max Roach, Philly Joe Jones and Baby Dodds or Frankie Dunlop and Rufus Jones in the big bands. Buddy Rich, to some degree, who was a speed merchant.

Ted Panken: That came in handy with Cecil!

Andrew Cyrille: Well, that's right! When I was working with Illinois Jacquet, he had Jo Jones in his head, and I had to give him some of it. On "Robbins Nest" and "Flying Home," certain things would happen that brought forth certain climaxes things that you might say were scientifically proven! They reached certain peaks, made certain descents, and returned to those peaks. You had to know what to do. Of course, I was young and didn't know a lot about Jo Jones, and sometimes I got frustrated because I couldn't give Jacquet everything he wanted all the time. Then, again, I don't necessarily think that I had to, because I was trying to find my own place and do my own stuff, which maybe he didn't like. He was stronger than I was. He was the bandleader, and I was finding my way. But still, he hired me.

Tony Oxley

Excerpts from a Modern Drummer interview are coming, but in the mean time I thought I'd share some clips of one of the more unique drummers living, the UK's Tony Oxley. As you can see, he takes things into sort of a "jazz multi-percussion" direction:



More after the break:

Humanizing the hard stuff

Over at Four on the Floor Jon McCaslin has posted several great duo videos featuring Max Roach, including clips with Dizzy Gillespie, Randy Weston, and this with Cecil Taylor:




Max really warms up Cecil's thing, doesn't he? This reminded me of Momentum Space, with Cecil alongside Elvin Jones and Dewey Redman, which gave a similar feeling; and the Tony Williams/Cecil duet on Joy of Flying. And Gary Peacock on Albert Ayler's Spiritual Unity. I guess it shouldn't be a huge mystery- you put someone with the greatest drummers in the world and they're going to sound good. But his music is so impenetrable it's hard to imagine Max being able to do anything with it at all...