Practice loop: Chenrezig

Some of my practice loops are as much for inspiration as they are about learning a style or practicing drum ideas, or whatever— for example, the Sivad loop or the Attica Blues loop.

Here's another one like that, sampled from Chenrezig, from the Don Cherry album Brown Rice. Billy Higgins is the drummer. Tempo is 169, so you could do a bebop feel in double time to practice yesterday's uptempo bailout drill.

Ornette live in '58

Here's something remarkable: Ornette Coleman recorded live in LA in 1958, just before his big national exposure in New York. The band includes the musicians in his famous quartet: Don Cherry, Charlie Haden, and Billy Higgins, plus Paul Bley on piano. They had all been playing together a lot at this point, but like the album from '58, Something Else!, it does sound on-the-cusp; after the famous, long-running gig at the Five Spot in 1960, the band just sounds bigger and more confident in their thing. Or, hell, maybe they sounded amazing in '55 and just started getting recorded better. Don Cherry sounds great here.



Tunes are:
1. Klactoveedsestene
2. I Remember Harlem

3. The Blessing
4. Free
5. Ramblin' (possibly my favorite Ornette Track ever, from Change of the Century)
6. How Deep Is The Ocean?
7. When Will The Blues Leave?
8. Crossroads

DBMITW: Cherry / Blackwell / Gurtu / Wolcott / Shankar

From the same YouTube user who posted yesterday's Ed Blackwell videos, here's a totally amazing concert recording of Don Cherry playing in Neuwied, Germany, with Ed Blackwell, Lakshmi Shankar, Colin Wolcott, and Trilok Gurtu, probably from the 1979— Cherry references Margaret Thatcher's election in some improvised lyrics. You'll recognize things from El Corazon and Mu, Cherry's great duo albums with Blackwell, as well as a tune from Playing, by Old & New Dreams— Mopti, a 6/8 tune which I've been playing since this 90s.



Much more after the break— there are eight of these total:

Billy's best

Here's some more essential Billy Higgins listening for you. I hesitate to declare anything the best— because a) the man played on over 700 albums, of which I have been exposed to, what, 5-7%? And b) what I know about “best”? But these are the records that were most influential to me. He's also on multiple albums— major works— with Cedar Walton, Mal Waldron, Art Farmer, Donald Byrd, Clifford Jordan, Eddie Harris, Charles Lloyd, and many others— enough that any two players might have completely different lists of favorites.

Ornette Coleman — Change of the Century
The Shape of Jazz To Come is more famous, but this one's my favorite of his records with Ornette. This is probably the track of his career, for me:




Don Cherry — Brown Rice
I've loved this since I found a derelict vinyl copy of it in the early 90s; for a long time it was as out of fashion as macramé. Charlie Haden is on this, and the next few...




Don Cherry — Art Deco
Lots of great medium tempo swinging here— for me this is kind of the record for modern bop drumming.




More after the break:

Busy

Busy all day doing tour-related junk, and transcribing charts-- Blood by Paul Bley, Priestess by Billy Harper, following Gil Evans's arrangement, and a couple of Don Cherry tunes I used to play in the 90's. If they turn out OK we'll be playing those along with the Ornette Coleman stuff on my little Europe tour in November.

In fact, what the heck, here are our old recordings of Mopti and Guinea, by Don Cherry-- you can buy those if you want:





Man, my playing has really changed. And yet it hasn't. Oh, and in keeping with the 6/8 theme, you should cruise over to Four on the Floor and see where Jon McCaslin outlines his own favored version of the Afro 6/8 groove, using the more African-style (that's the way I think of it, anyway) bell pattern.

After the break is some bonus DBMITW:

Groove o' the day: Ed Blackwell

Here's another simple afro feel played by Ed Blackwell on Mu, the duo record with Don Cherry. It's also available on the Cherry album Cool. This also could've been written as two measures of 3/4 or 6/8:

An easy change to this groove which would give it more of a 6/8 feel would be to add dotted quarter notes with the left foot, the right foot, or both feet.

YouTube audio after the break:

Masahiko Togashi

Here's a very interesting drummer you don't hear much about- Masahiko Togashi. In the early 00's I heard a record he made with Don Cherry and Charlie Haden, and dug his very "drummy" style, but was unfortunately never able to find a copy to purchase.

Like some other non-American avant-garde players he leans more towards a "jazz percussion" type of approach- for lack of a better term- than the swinging, timekeeping-based American thing.  Certainly his sound was influenced by the fact that he was paralyzed from the waist down and confined to a wheelchair in 1970 (he was able to resume playing 18 months later). In addition to Cherry, he also recorded and toured (I believe in Japan only) with Steve Lacy, Gary Peacock, Sadao Watanabe, Masabumi Kikuchi, and Mal Waldron. His physical condition deteriorated and he gave up drumming in 2002, and died in 2007.



More clips after the break:

Different values

I usually keep just one CD in my car for days or occasionally weeks at a time- recently for me it's been Don Cherry's Art Deco, an old favorite that had been languishing in the stacks for some time. Repeatedly listening to Billy Higgins' solo on When Will The Blues Leave, it's striking how alien the working value system is to so much of what's going on in drumming now. I imagine it would be hard for drummers immersed in the current amazingness cult to know what to do with something that really isn't even trying to blow them away.

I don't even know how to make a case for this. Stuff like "why Billy Higgins is great" is usually just something you figure out by listening. Your ears get a little tired of rimshots and barrages of 32nd notes, and there's Billy waiting to fill the void. Sometimes it takes a little independent credibility boost- like knowing that he's one of the most recorded drummers in history- to encourage you to try to get it. "Either all of those producers and bandleaders were idiots, or he's a great drummer in a way you don't understand yet."

After the break is a little thumbnail analysis of the solo, written for my own benefit as I was thinking about this- I can't promise you'll find it educational. I always thought the analytical tool of stating the obvious was kind of BS, and I feel like I'm BSing when I do it. So, skip it if you want and just enjoy Billy Higgins' drum solo on When Will The Blues Leave, from Don Cherry's Art Deco:

Favorite albums: Billy Higgins

I guess I could've called this Higgins and Haden. These are four records from what is for me the classic phase of Higgins' career in terms of his sound- he's got that heavy-ish rivet cymbal and floppy snare drum sound, and is nice and present in the mix. The advances in recording technology since the classic Blue Note and Ornette records of the 50's and 60's really agree with him, and his delicate touch really communicates. There's also a sense of a new level of mastery in his playing- it feels as natural as breathing.

Pat Metheny - Rejoicing
With Higgins and Charlie Haden. Word is that Metheny wasn't thrilled with this record- he thought the band played better on other occasions. We'll have to take his word for it. It's hard to pick a favorite track from the first side; I think the wash of brushes on Lonely Woman is the star of the show, though. 

Don Cherry - Art Deco
Cherry and Higgins plus Charlie Haden and James Clay. One of the most relaxed and unpretentious drum performances ever- I wish more people would emulate that. Tunes include Cherry's Art Deco, Bemsha Swing, When Will The Blues Leave, Body & Soul, and The Blessing.

Joshua Redman - Wish
The Rejoicing band together again. I guess people don't dig Redman at this early stage of his career, but that doesn't matter- it's a great ensemble performance. Moose the Mooche is the standout, along with some nice originals I don't know the titles of. 

Don Cherry - Brown Rice
This is an older record than the others, and very much from the 70's- quite clearly- I mean to tell you there is no ambiguity whatever on that question- none. Like doing macramé at a Bahai temple while tripping on LSD, I imagine.

Audio after the break:

Old & New Dreams - 1980 lecture/demonstration

From Warren Senders at Running Gamak, here is audio and a transcript of a clinic given at Harvard by Old and New Dreams (Don Cherry, Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden and Ed Blackwell) during their 1980 tour. They speak in depth about Ornette Coleman's "harmolidic" method, and about making music in general.




A fun aside: it was during this tour that, in one of the more inspired programming moves ever, my brother's fusion group, Glider (or was it Glyder? Including Portland bassist Kevin Deitz and LA guitarist Richard Smith), opened for OAND at Perry's in Eugene. I think that was set up by Portland bassist Andre St. James. I had just started taking drum lessons a few months before this, and was learning the nature of  life as a drummer by shlepping my snare drum the mile and a half to school 3 times a week. 

Questions and answers about Ed Blackwell, who was getting dialysis treatment and was not present:

Dewey Redman: ...if the drummer, who is the lifeblood of the group, is not here…it would give it a different inflection with the drummer, because he is the lifeblood, sets up the rhythm, counter-rhythm, etcetera.

[...]

Audience Member: Question for Charlie: Eddie Blackwell is not here, and you are the rhythm section for the time being. What’s that like?

Charlie Haden: Hard!

Ben Sidran speaks to Don Cherry

In keeping with our current theme, here, via AllAboutJazz.com, is a podcast of Ben Sidran talking to Don Cherry on NPR in the mid-80's. I'm listening to it now- you should be too.

There are free podcasts of other Sidran interviews with Miles Davis, Freddie Hubbard, Dizzy Gillespie, and others at SoulAndJazz.com.