I first saw Paul Motian in the early ’70s with the Keith Jarrett Quartet. The group came to our modest Midwestern university one cold Saturday night and set up on risers in the student union ballroom. Except for Motian, none of the group, which included bassist Charlie Haden and saxophonist Dewey Redman, seemed glad to be there. Jarrett, reportedly upset with the condition of the piano, spent most of the concert prowling around the make-shift stage shaking things and beating his fists on the piano box. Occasionally, he would reach inside and grab at the instrument’s strings as if trying to pluck something out of it. For a brief moment in the second set, he sat down on the bench and began to roll out his signature harmonic churn. But he soon grew bored of it and walked off the stage leaving Redman, as he had done all night, to solo at length.

The performance proved a showcase for the drummer. Motian, smiling and slapping sticks at his kit, played in an off-beat fashion that seemed odd to our young ears. When we thought the accent should come just there, he brought it a split second later. When we anticipated an extended press roll, he cut the rumble short. At the break, we foolishly described his playing as sloppy and carefree,  as if he’d had one too many beers (we didn’t know if he’d had any, and probably not). By the end of the show, especially after his sonically-rich solo that highlighted the second set even more than Jarrett’s brief stint at the keys, we better understood what he was doing, how it fit in and what all the color and shading he applied did for the quartet’s sound. Motian had made us believers in a different kind of timekeeping.

Today, with his passing  , I’ll lament not only his loss  –recent recordings showed he had much left to add — but also the loss of my vinyl copy of Conception Vessel (scroll far down), his 1972 date with Haden, Jarret, violinist Leroy Jenkins and others.. I’ll pull out I Have the Room Above Her to hear him with long-time mates guitarist Bill Frisell and saxophonist Joe Lovano, Monk In Motian to enjoy his comprehension and extension of the Monk sound and some of those wonderful JMT recordings of the ’90s (I’m listening to the cymbal-shimmered twang of Trio i sm  now) and to Reincarnation of A Love Bird  with its two guitars, two saxes and fine Steve Swallow bass work (truly a reincarnation of Monk, Miles, Mingus and Gillespie). And I’ll listen to what he’s done for younger emerging artists, like pianist Anat Fort whose music seemed the perfect canvas for Motian’s painterly ways (he’s on her first ECM recording Long Story, the opening and ending cuts of her latest are titled “Paul Motian”). Recordings make it too easy to miss our lost musicians.

Maybe Richard Cook and Brian Morton say it best in The Penguin Guide To Jazz Recordings:

Time will tell how important Motian is ultimately considered to be in the development of jazz since the war; but if all revolutions in the music turn out to be upheavals in the rhythm section, then it seems likely that he will be seen as a quiet revolutionary.

–Cabbage Rabbit

***I hope our countless fans around the globe will forgive the delay of this Playlist…a winter storm took out our internet and the company formerly known as Qwest took four days to repair it. Hope this isn’t the norm in Santa Fe.

SOULTRANE, John Coltrane; Prestige, recorded February, 1958.  I was preparing to see a Coltrane tribute band with Jimmy Cobb—no, he’s not on this recording— and wanted no Kind Of Blue clichés. Pulling Soultrane out was genius, not just for its foreshadow of Coltrane’s later, denser play but for the amazing bass work of  Paul Chambers, the grace of Red Garland and the shing-a-ling of drummer Art Taylor. I have a feeling that saxophonist Javon Jackson of the We Four Coltrane tribute band did the same thing before touring with his Cobb-included quartet. And yes, I pulled out Giant Steps to hear Cobb on “Naima,” the only track from that landmark recording on which the drummer appears.

KIND OF BLUE, Miles Davis Septet, Columbia, recorded  March and April 1959. You move into a new home, set up your well-traveled sound system and what do you want to hear? Something you know (and love) well. Yeah, I know it’s a cliché. But it’s a classic cliché. And besides, I was feeling all “Blue In Green.” Not to mention that fact that I was looking forward to seeing Jimmy Cobb, now a spry 82, perform with the next generation. Final report: yes, my speakers were in phase.

GARDEN OF EDEN, Paul Motian Band; ECM, recorded November 2004. Paul Motian plays drums like Bill Evans played piano. Here’s it’s in support of a larger group; the tangle of guitars (Steve Cardenas, Ben Monder, Jakob Bro), brother saxophones of Chris Cheek, Tony Malaby, the try-this-on-for size bass of Jerome Harris. Some Mingus, some originals from the band. But it’s Motian’s “Mesmer” that has a mesmerized. It’s like an Ornette tune at half-speed; inviting, entrancing and ultimately about the human condition.

SCHUBERT IMPROMPTUS, OP.  90 & op.142, Mitsuko Uchida; Philips, recorded 1996. Serious music for serious times performed with respect and sensitivity. With the possibility of dark moments on the horizon, I want to be prepared. And Schubert’s an expert at resolution.

Joseph Haydn: Die sieben lezten Worte unseres Erlosers am Kreuze (The Seven Last Words of Our Savior On the Cross); Broodin Quartet, Teldec, recorded October, 1993 . The lush, lovely side of the Passion Play, the Largo second movement is to die for. Grave, but somehow transcendent. No, not first-thing-in-the-morning music. Leave it for late afternoon, when the day’s enticements are less promising.

Franz Schubert Octet in F, D.803, Music From Aston Magna; Harmonium Mundi, 1992. Double adagio and still uplifting. The instrumentation is divine, the rhythms natural, the music moving like deep water.

Morton Feldman: Piano and String Quartet, Kronos Quartet with pianist Aki Takahashi; Nonesuch, recorded November, 1991. In a time of change against a background of stasis, Feldman’s almost 80-minutes of repeated space makes for soothing returns and an alertness that comes of incremental difference.  Like waiting for something to happen when things are happening all around.

Miles Davis Quintet:  Filles de Kilamanjaro; Columbia, recorded June, 1968.  Filles is more melodic that the preceding quintet recordings most likely due to the presence of Gil Evans when these tunes were written. The themes are light and graceful, but dissolve in to free-expression solo sections that catch everyone  (but especially Wayne Shorter) in expansive moods. And then back to those themes of grace and respect, the perfect things for someone looking for beauty and while trying to make order out of the chaos.

Initiate,  The Nels Cline Singers; Cryptogramophone, recorded September, 2009. Disc two, the live recording of this two disc set, reminds us that hearing Cline live was always something of a symphonic experience. A good momento of what this band can do on stage, the variety of moods and sounds it covers and its ability to adapt music to its surroundings. Don’t ask me which disc I like best — studio or live  –  both represent the varieties of life in surprisingly different ways.

John McLaughlin was a 27-year-old, relatively unknown guitarist in 1969 when he arrived in the U.S. from England to join drummer Tony Williams’ Lifetime band with organist Larry Young. His background was broad and without category.  He had been brought up by a concert violinist mother to love classical music, flamenco and traditional jazz. He had worked with Brian Auger and Graham Bond as well as jazz and R&B singer-bandleader Georgie Frame. Before leaving, he recorded Extrapolation (with John Surman and Tony Oxley), hailed by Richard Cook and Brian Morton in theThe Penguin Guide To Jazz Recordings as “one of the finest jazz records ever made in Europe.” It took his coming to America for that recording to catch on.

Within days of arriving in New York,  McLaughlin was recruited by Miles Davis to record what became In A Silent Way and later Bitches Brew. His participation in those projects — Davis titled one of the cuts on Bitches Brew “John McLaughlin” — changed the shape of jazz to come and helped define the fledgling fusion movement as a form not only powered by electricity and virtuosity, but a willingness to embrace a variety of forms and influences. McLaughlin would go on to form the energetically-charged and influential  Mahavishnu Orchestra and pursue a host of directions, including flamenco with fellow guitarists Paco de Lucia and Al DiMeola, Middle Eastern with Trilok Gurtu, classically-tinged orchestral fusion with Michael Tilson Thomas and the Indian-influenced with Shakti. His latest recordings, Five Peace Band with Chick Corea (see Corea interview here), and  To the One,  are a return to the creative and electric power of his early days.

The Rabbit exchanged e-mails with McLaughlin as part of the research for our story “Pop and Sizzle: Plugging Into Jazz Fusion” written for the 2010 Playboy Jazz Festival’s program.  Here are the high points of that exchange.

–You’ve explored and developed so many styles of music—no need for me to list them—what has driven you? Why have you been (and continue to be) open to so many styles and genres? Are your broad early influences and experiences—your mother’s classical influence, early exposure to Flamenco, Django, traditional blues, South Indian Temple Music, Miles, work with John Dankworth, Georgie Fame and others–a key? And how does it relate to your own composing?

Truth to tell, I don’t know why I’ve been involved to such a degree in my musical explorations. Most probably it is due to the environment I was subject to from an early age. I believe that we are ‘marked’ in some permanent way by our early influences, particularly when they are dynamic, and the influences you mention above were very dynamic. For example after hearing flamenco music between the age of 13 and 15, I really wanted to be a flamenco guitar player. However finding a flamenco teacher in my little town was impossible, and then shortly afterwards I heard the music of Miles, and the particular LP that I heard had also integrated Miles’ own influences of flamenco and Hispanic music. It was the album Miles Ahead with Gil Evans. From that point Miles became a kind of Guru to me. This was the real Jazz.

How I compose is still a mystery to me. There have only been two instances when I actually sat down to write music, and they were the pieces I wrote for guitar and orchestra. Other than that, the music basically just arrives in my mind. Once I hear it, I really try to stay out of its way and let it be. Of course, the music itself is probably deeply influenced by the experiences stored in my subconscious. These influences relate to all of the different forms you mention above.

--Can you give a sense of your feelings those first few weeks in 1969 after you arrived in the U.S. to work with Tony Williams and were then asked to join the In A Silent Way . Are there any anecdotes, special memories, say meeting Miles for the very first time, that stand out?

I was in a state of euphoria arriving in New York to join Tony Williams and Larry Young for Lifetime. The fact that I ended up recording with Miles the following day was really out of a dream and totally unexpected. I can never forget meeting Miles for the 1^st time. I should remind you that Tony had a week to finish up with Miles at Club Baron in Harlem. This was convenient since Larry and I would go up to Club Baron during the day to rehearse with Tony as his drums were already set up there for Miles.

The 1^st night in NY I went up to Club Baron, and Miles knew that Tony had invited a guitar player from the UK to join his own band, and for some reason he recognized me when he came in the door of the club. He looked amazing – as always – wearing a long black cloak, and he walked right up to me and brushed my shoulder with his saying, ‘John’ in that whispery voice of his… That was it. The following day I was with Tony at Miles’ house, and as soon as I walked in Miles came up to me and said ‘bring your guitar to the studio tomorrow’. It was just like that.

The following day in the studio was the Silent Way recording date and all I had was a piano score from Joe Zawinul. Joe didn’t know I would be there since Miles had only invited me the previous evening. After running through the tiltle track from Joe ‘In a Silent Way’, Miles wasn’t happy with the result and turned to me and said ‘Play it alone on the guitar’. Since I had only a piano score I asked him if he wanted the left and right hand together. He said yes, and I said it’ll take me a minute to put it together on guitar. He said ‘Is that a fact!’… Sweat was already running down my back and got worse after that. After a few seconds he must have realized that it was a pretty tall order, and he bailed me out by saying’ Play it like you don’t know how to play the guitar’. Another of his famous cryptic statements. He was standing in front of me waiting to see what kind of reaction that would make, and after a few seconds I threw caution to the winds, which meant that I also threw all of Joe’s chords from the piece to the winds. I played the melody in E Major with no harmony no tempo, nothing… Anyway everybody knows the E chord on the guitar even if you don’t know how to play… The red light was on and I just kept on playing. On the playback Miles was delighted. I was dumbfounded. It sounded so beautiful, and that was one of Miles talents – to be able to pull music out of his musicians that they didn’t even know was inside them.

–When you do a project like the Five Peace Band  or 4^th Dimension, do you have a sense of legacy from those days of Miles and Mahavishnu? Or is it something that stands apart, reflecting the current times? Both? How does the spirit of what you did then affect what you do now?

Both Chick and I are very aware of our histories, and I could ask how can what we do today, stand apart from what we did yesterday? The only reason we can do what we do today is because of all our yesterdays. The time we both spent with Miles was marvellous, but already by 1972 I had the first Mahavishnu Orchestra – incidentally it was Miles who advised me to put a band together in October 1971, and Mahavishnu was the result of that suggestion – Chick put Return to Forever together and we’ve both had a lot of experiences in music since the Miles’ days. That said, during our 5 Peace Band tour together, we were very aware that it was 40 years since we’d first met and played together with Miles. That’s a lot of water under the bridge!

Pianist,composer and bandleader Chick Corea is one of the jazz genre’s most unique and diverse artists. One of his earliest recordings, Now He Sings, Now He Sobs, is a landmark piano trio recording. His stint with Miles Davis, who encouraged him to explore the electric piano, changed the sound of jazz accompaniment. His groundbreaking experiments with Return To Forever, first in a mixed electric-acoustic Latin-Brazilian format and then in pure electric jazz rock, showed a restless ambition.  He challenged the avant garde with Anthony Braxton and Barry Altschul in Circle and performed duets with Gary Burton, Herbie Hancock, Bela Fleck and Hiromi. At one time, he worked with both Acoustic and Elektric bands. In recent years, he’s toured with his bandmate from the Miles Bitches Brew period, guitarist John McLaughlin and synthesized directions with his Freedom Band. In short, there’s no direction or combination of musicians that Corea hasn’t felt a need to explore.

For his feature article in the 2010 Playboy Jazz Festival program, “Pop and Sizzle: Plugging Into Jazz Fusion,” the Rabbit had an email exchange with the always busy Corea about his early Miles experiences, his interest in all kinds of music and how his diverse past affects his equally diverse present. Here’s the complete exchange.

–As Stanley Clarke says in the “Chick Corea” documentary, “Chick has no problems with changing.” You’ve explored and developed so many styles of music—no need for me to list them—what has driven you? Why have you been (and continue to be) open to so many styles and genres? Is your father’s influence a key? And how does it relate to your own composing?

I’m often asked about what others consider my diversity of tastes. Actually, the simple, but most truthful and direct answer is, I never think about it. I follow my interests and find that it leads me to trying to understand other cultures and the artists that create within them. Often, rather than seeing another way of music as only a “curiosity”, I want to understand it more intimately – and that leads me to studying the music of and participating with the musicians of that culture.
–When you look back on the period in 1969 when In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew were recorded, how do you view what was going on then? How would you characterize the musical times? Were you aware that what you were doing with Miles would be thought to be so innovative and different? That it reflected the shifting cultural and social  times?

From present time looking back on the 60′s, it seems that there was more agreement and acceptance in society of experiment and change. There certainly was in the arts. If I compare it to what’s happening now, it seems “The Media” and “big business” has the flow of art locked up and tightened down. The public has gotten used to it. The result is, less individuality and thus everything else that goes along with that negative direction.

Of course at the time we were recording In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew, none of us were talking about what “impact” it might have on the future. Miles was in a constant mode of search and change; it all seemed perfectly natural. And, for me, still does.

–It would be great to have an anecdote from those days, some unique memory that reflects the spirit of those times. In his biography, Jack Chambers quotes Miles saying that after you first joined the group, you and he would “talk about music until late every night.” Is there anything that stands out from those discussions that you recall? What was the setting?

The first gig the Miles Davis Quintet played after Tony Williams left the band was a week’s engagement at a club in Rochester (Duffy’s Tavern?). Jack DeJohnette joined the band and we just finished the first set. As we were walking off stage, I was following Miles off to the left, he muttered to me: “Change again.” in his familiar cryptic way. I took it to mean that he had scanned his whole musical life in an instant and seen the constant change. Maybe he was resisting it at that moment – - I’ll never know.

–When you did the Five Peace Band Project, did you feel it to be part of a fusion legacy? Or was it something that stood apart, reflecting the current times? Both? How does the spirit of what you did then affect what you do now (ie, The Freedom Band)?

Working with John and the gang in the Five Peace Band felt fresh as a daisy to me. Not much talk about the past during the tours. But there was an unspoken (sometimes spoken) reverence expressed for Miles and “the day” – delivered in a manner not wanting to dwell on the past but with real feeling.
–Fusion can also suggest a combining of personalities, something you’re very familiar with especially considering the wide array of duo performances –Hiromi, Gary Burton, Herbie Hancock, Bela Fleck, Bobby McFerrin, et al—you’ve done over the years. Can you address the dynamic of fusing musical personalities in performance, how it affects those involved and what they create?

Making music with other musicians is an ultimate joy. To be a part of a group creation when there is complete giving amongst the group is my pay for being a musician. And each musician is a unique world unto himself. This is the subtle and high level challenge of communication between free spirits. Unencumbered by any particular protocol, and with a desire to make the other sound the best he can sound, soulful and satisfying music can be made. I’m fortunate to have these kind of associations with my musician friends.

I remember a wonderful incident when Herbie Hancock and I were first beginning to play 2 pianos together. At first we were careful about “not getting in each other’s way”. The playing moved cautiously and slowly. Then we both discovered that we could play whatever we wanted and never get in the other’s way because there was no offering from the other that wasn’t fully accepted and enjoyed. We were both trying to make the other sound good. We had a good laugh over that.

In his liner notes to Miles Davis’ post-Bitches Brew recording At Fillmore: Live At the Fillmore East, Morgan Ames quotes J.J. Johnson on Miles’ new direction. “If you put Miles and his new group in the studio and recorded them on spearate mikes, and then you cut the band track and just played the trumpet track, you know what you’d have? The same old Miles. What’s new is his frame of reference. ”

Musicians reinvent themselves not so much by changing their personal style but by putting themselves in new contexts. David Murray, a prodigious recorder has done that times over since the mid-1970s. Whether in small groups or large, the World Saxophone Quartet, avant-garde or ballad programs, Murray’s voice, a unique blend of swing, bop and free expression, is instantly recognizable.

His best playing, certainly currently (and it’s all great), can be heard on his Afro-Caribbean projects.  Murray’s connection to the  French possession, Lesser Antilles island Guadeloupe, heard on 1998′s Creole, and 2004′s Gwotet, has given him new life. His brother-in-law, Klod Kiavue and a group of Guadeloupe Creole musicians known as the Gwo Ka Masters contribute to this Africa-America connection. To make The Devil Tried To Kill Me an overarching fusion hybrid, Murray brings in Californian funk drummer Renzel Merrit. To make it a fusion of arts as well as styles he integrates the poetry of Ishmael Reed  and brings in folk-blues interpreter Taj Mahal to sing them.

Despite all this stirring –and the Rabbit, no stranger to stews, promises to use no more food imagery– the one ingredient (sorry) that stands out here is Murray. His ability to catapult an improvisation into a squeaky, high-register and just as gracefully fall back is familiar to those of us who’ve been following his work since his early recordings on the Italian Black Saint label.   Murray’s willingness to combine elements of classic swing and bop, to recall masters from Ben Webster to Albert Ayler, and to do so in fresh, invigorating ways, is unique among tenor players. Then there’s his tone: rich, robust and razor sharp. The purity of his sound, even at its most wild, even when he somersaults through those previously mentioned upper- register squeaks or caterwauls deep in the low, makes his every solo, especially in these Afro-Caribbean rhythms, a thing of marvel. Yet there’s no doubt, no matter how different the frame of reference, who the saxophonist is.

The lyrics and background chanting provide much of Murray’s motivation to overachieve. Surprisingly, they’re a mixed bag.  Reed’s poem that gives the recording its name is a driving story of recovery, powered by interwoven percussion and vocalizations. Singer Sista Kee makes the lyric flow against the rambunctiousness of her piano and the JuJu paced rhythm guitar of Christian Laviso. But even Taj Mahal can’t make Reed’s “Africa” fit the music in a meaningful way. The poem’s imagery of illness and recovery (a theme on the recording– “Africa, if I were a hospice worker…”–on lyrics by Kito Gamble as well as Reed) are apt and moving as spoken word. Setting them to music — this music — seems to dilute their message. Much more meaningful to the song: Murray’s heart-felt, flowing bass clarinet solo.

The rhythm section is the heart of this recording and it beats best when it is driving a bloodline of chanting that gives way to solos from Murray and trumpeter Rasul Sikkik. Bassist Jaribu Shahid provides just enough support and none of it overly repetitious, even as it grooves. Murray seems particularly responsive to the bass — or is it the other way around — and the effect is one of a single voice coming from eight different musicians. Lovers of both African pop and American jazz will find things to like, even love, here. What comes together on the Island won’t stay on the Island. And lucky for us.–Cabbage Rabbit

Spirituality has long haunted the music of guitarist John McLaughlin.  But its a different kind of spirituality than commonly accepted.  Serenity is replaced by driven purpose sometime almost furious in its speed and direction. The organic is overcome by the electric. The enlightened sense of  “taking it as it comes”  is replaced by a lock-step unison through structured themes and powerful rhythms. This is an enlightenment with weight, purpose and intensity.

It may have been difficult to make the spiritual connection when McLaughlin’s Mahavishnu Orchestra arrived on the scene in 1972. The imagery was all there — the band’s name, the album’s title The Inner Mounting Flame, its candle-lit album cover — but the music, more fire than flame,  was something else again, mostly speed, spark and machine-gun rhythm. But not exclusively. “Lotus On Irish Streams” a meditative, acoustic number better fit the cliche of spirituality. These loud-quiet contrasts have been present through out McLaughlin’s career, begining with the devotional acoustic and avant garde sensibilities of his first recording, Extrapolation, through the dichotomy of Shakti and Electric Dreams.

The mistake we make is to type-cast spiritual music as acoustic, pastoral, reverent or reserved. Think of spiritual music that is not easily defined by these terms — Santana, Alice Coltrane, Charles Lloyd, the more fiery ragas played by Ravi Shankar — and its a simple matter to see that spiritual music, like spirit itself, can be all things, including intense, acutely rhythmical music.

John Coltrane’s solos on  A Love Supreme, possibly the most spiritual of jazz recordings, carry an intensity that expresses the yearning and the search of the seeker. Something like it is heard on McLaughlin’s latest, To the One, an electric jazz-rock outing that relies on tough drumming, tight vibrant bass lines, shimmering keyboards and its leader’s high-voltage electric transmission. Without McLaughlin’s explanatory notes on the inside cover — “The inspiration behind this recording stems from two sources: Firstly from hearing the recording ‘A Love Supreme’ by John Coltrane in the 1960′s (sic), and secondly from my own endeavors towards ‘The One’ throughout the past 40 years” –  listeners might think that the guitarist was making another turn towards jazz-fusion.

There’s less insistence and more acceptance on To the One than heard in the Mahavishnu recordings, electric or acoustic. From the recording’s opening bass slide and cymbal splash, the music is positive, serene and upbeat. There’s nothing here to suggest the path to The One is long, arduous or otherwise marked with temptation. It’s as if McLaughlin has already attained what he seeks and now is enjoying it.

The 4th Dimension  (not to be confused with the 5th) is McLaughlin’s most polished band. Much of its drive and cleanliness comes from bassist Etienne M’Bappe whose rich tone and detailed play are the fine line underscoring the proceedings. M’Bappe is something of a juggler, supporting every note from his bandmates and propelling it back into the air. His solos are busy, buzzing affairs filled with lyricism despite their speed. Drummer Mark Mondesir is crisp and tasteful, having the drive of Billy Cobham and the inventiveness of Jack DeJohnette. Keyboardist (and sometimes drummer) Gary Husband finds the right moods and tonal combinations to complement any direction the music might take. His accompaniment is smart and reflective, his chords often coming a step behind the lead as if to give them a split moment to sink in. His solos, especially the one on “Discovery,” are warm and sophisticated. Just when he seems ready to overstate his case, he finds a place of conviction, a sense of contentment.

McLaughlin brings a sense of joy to his play that reflects the recording’s attainment. Listen to him on”Special Being” as he spins and pirouettes like an accomplished gymnast. He gives a characteristic roughness to his tone on “The Fine Line” before sliding into a singing theme. “Lost and Found” is the disc’s most relaxed piece and its most beautiful. It’s resonating synthesizer backdrop and McLaughlin’s smooth synth-guitar tones give it a meditative feel heightened by M’Bappe’s repeated bass motif presented at different octaves.

The most spiritual of the six pieces on this short, 40 minute-plus recording, is the title tune. Husband’s clipped cymbal work (he doubles on drums for this number) accents McLaughlin’s synth strolls in a way that suggests idle contentment. In a nod to A Love Supreme, there’s some unison chanting over a drone at the end that suggests the journey isn’t yet over. Note how in his comments McLaughlin writes after “periods of indolence, doubt and even plain laziness” he hears the call of his soul and returns to his “inner ear,” not his inner being. We find this brilliant; the portal to enlightenment being the ear rather than the mind or the soul. It’s certainly the place where so much joy, so much beauty, so much knowledge has entered.–Cabbage Rabbit

The same old thing wasn’t going to cut it in the early 1970s. And just about anything recorded before Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew, in other words before 1969, was the same old thing. That wasn’t going to grab the ears of the hip new audience Miles had attracted with his magnum opus. And record companies wanted that audience…bad.

The music collected on Bridge Into the New Age, all of it (with the exception of one cut) recorded between 1971 and 1974 documents attempts to bring jazz into the age of Aquarius. There are reflections of the political, social and cultural trends that influenced the music, mirrored by peace-and-love themes and cries of “Free Angela!” as well as attempts to meld Afro-centric rhythms and soul–the “bad” sounds of James Brown, Sly Stone and Issac Hayes among others–to an art form which was popularly seen as  becoming to intellectual and formless  (though this wasn’t necessarily so).

As Bridge illustrates, there was much about this movement that was successful. The period (and earlier) produced some great music, not all of it by Davis. Any comprehensive selection of the era’s hits would have to include Miroslav Vitous’ Infinite Search, Herbie Hancock’s Mwandishi, Wayne Shorter’s Super Nova, Joe Zawinul’s Zawinul, Weather Report’s eponymous first album and a host of others. Bridge documents the Milestone/Prestige label’s attempts at staying current. That most of the music here is satisfying and timeless in its appeal speaks to the musicians on the label’s roster–Joe Henderson, McCoy Tyner, Idris Muhammad, Gary Bartz–and their ability to maintain their individuality even as their approach to music changed.

The music reflects trends of the era: spiritual and ethnic-consciousness themes, electric instrumentation, emphasis on vocals, percussive color, accessible beats that supported strong and sometimes free-form solos, attempts to include non-traditional instrumentation into the mix, movement towards larger ensembles. Here, those trends are represented by drummer Muhammad’s eight-piece ensemble playing “Peace,” with two additional percusionists (occasionally augmented by saxophonist Clarence Thomas on bells) joining the drummer in rhythmic layering.  Larry Willis attaches echoplex and ring modulator to his keyboard for Henderson’s “Tress-Cun-De-O-La” with the leader’s vocal and guitarist James “Blood” Ulmer providing dissonant elements.  Alice Coltrane brings harp to Henderson’s “Fire.” Todd Cochran, performing then as Bayete, balances clavinet against the horn section on one of “Free Angela”‘s three sections. Gary Bartz sing lyrics from Langston Hughes before cutting loose on alto.  None of the tunes would be identified (except by militant purists) as anything other than jazz. Yet they all sound different than earlier schools of swing, be-bop, post-bop. New.

It’s impossible to tell if (or how much) this direction resulted from label influence (as it did from the Columbia label) or if it came from the artists themselves.  And not everything here is music to our ears. Compare vocals from artist themselves (Henderson, Bartz, Cochran’s chorus) to Jean Carn’s strong and convincing voice on Azar Lawrence’s tune that gives the collection its title, or her work on  “Mother of the Future” from Norman Connors’ Slewfoot. The one piece that stands apart from the rest–Jack DeJonette’s “Brown, Warm and Wintry”–was recorded in 1968. Maybe something from the 1975 Prestige date Cosmic Chicken would have better fit the program (his excellent1970 recording Have You Heard? on Milestone may have been too far out or its trio too underpopulated to be included).

Needless to say, much of this music’s positive direction lost out as jazz recording moved on to jazz-rock and fusion. Too bad. But the Rabbit, who owned all but one of these recordings as a bunny, remembers the hopeful feeling this music gave him…and the conviction it gave that there indeed was something new under the sun. Dumb bunny.–Cabbage Rabbit

It’s New Years Eve on a closing decade and we’re feeling a certain obligation, though not because of any clamoring demand to, to….. We’ve never liked top-ten lists,- year-end lists, best-of-the-decade lists, that sort of thing. And for all the usual reasons. Now, as the old song goes, everybody’s doin’ it.  (Matthew Yglesias,  discussing top-ten lists,  says “One of the pernicious impacts of the rise of the internet is how everyone gets to publish their own list.”) Pernicious? In the interest of helping drive the stake in this monster’s heart, here we go. What qualifies the Rabbit? Not much. Sure, we had a long publication history back when but our appetites have always trumped taste. And our tastes tend toward the strange and eclectic. Most of all, even with our ears and wiggly nose, we could never hear/read everything we wanted let alone things we never knew. Nor do we want to be held to release dates limited to the last 365 days (see March Hare) even though we cycle through a lot of the new and now.  But in the spirit of recognition, as a means of thanks (we couldn’t have done it without you), here are the books and recordings that helped us to get through it all. Because good books and good music make life worth living.

BOOKS

The Shaghai Gesture by Gary Indiana; Two Dollar Press. For the cleverness and laughs not to mention world-wide conspiracy.

Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon; Penguin Press. Genius confirmed. Did we mention world-wide conspiracy?

The Shadow of Sirius by W.S. Merwin; Copper Canyon Press. The natural world reminds an old poet what’s left to learn. Punctuation not included.

My Father’s Tears and Other Stories by John Updike; Knopf.  Mature themes (you know what I mean)  and grace from one of the great man of letters. He’ll be missed.

Report On Myself by Gregoire Bouillier; Mariner Books. And I thought I had problems.

What Love Comes To: New and Selected Poems by Ruth Stone; Copper Canyon Press. The later poems in this volume make real and worthy connection to the natural world.

The Bear from Go Down Moses by William Faulkner; Random House. What we lose when we lose wild places.

The Undiscovered Self by C. G. Jung; Atlantic, Little Brown; and The Basic Writings of C. G. Jung; The Modern Library. To understand symbol, image and archetype and because I dream.

The Future of the Image by Jacques Ranciere; Verso. Image and politics. See above.

The Complete Crumb Comics: Volume 6 “On the Crest Of a Wave” by R. Crumb. Helps us to remember when.

The Right Mistake by Walter Mosley; Basic Civitas Books. A wise man seeks patience in a cruel world.

In Search of Small Gods by Jim Harrison; Copper Canyon Press. Poems in which the mundane becomes magnificent.

The Photographer: Into War-Torn Afghanistan with Doctors Without Borders by Emmanuel Guibert, Didier Lefevre and Frederic Lemercier; First Second. Part photo collection, part graphic novel…what makes us think our experience in Afghanistan will be different than the Soviets? 

MUSIC

Up Popped Two Lips by Henry Threadgill’s Zooid; Pi Recordings. A twisted puzzle, with oud. How does it all go together?

Cartography by Arve Henriksen; ECM. Poetic electronic and percussion landscapes from the speech-inflected trumpeter.

75 by Joe Zawinul; Heads Up. Sure, we like Brown Street better but as the last recording by a great innovator (with Wayne Shorter on a cut no less) and, well, we miss you, Joe…

Blood From the Stars by Joe Henry; Anti. The songwriter who sinks his faith in image and rhythm recalls Katrina with blues-inflected (natch) seriousness.

New York Days by Enrico Rava; ECM. Moody, intellectual, beautiful.

The Complete On the Corner Sessions by Miles Davis; Columbia. We have a weakness.

Set the Alarm For Monday by Bobby Previte; Palmetto. Keeps us in real time.

Bartok: The Six String Quartets by the Takacs Quartet; Hungaraton. Always. There’s no better way to start the day than to try and figure these out.

Radiolarians II by Medeski, Martin & Wood; Indirecto Records. Take away the groove…

The Lost Chords Find Paolo Fresu by Carla Bley; ECM. Jazz–now and then–and more. That’s Paolo on trumpet

The Essential Leonard Cohen; Columbia. Poetic nostalgia; don’t ask.

…and all the other life-sustaining words and sounds my addled mind has, for the moment, lost.–Cabbage Rabbit

The Rabbit was slow to come to Jon Hassell‘s Last Night the Moon Came Dropping Its Clothes in the Street. The music certainly caught the attention of our floppy ears on first preview. But it was months past the February (’09) release date when we finally gave it serious airing–I’m late! I’m late!–and then mainly because we recognized Hassell’s influence on fellow-trumpeter Arve Henriksen’s Cartography, an album we truly admired. Sure enough, the recordings were two of a kind.

The danger here is misunderstanding who influenced who.  Hassell, of course, has the longer career, and Henriksen openly declares its effect on his work. But our study of  Cartography before we seriously listened to Last Night tended to confuse things. The similarities stood out.  The music from both is impressionistic, creating aural landscapes and establishing mood with repeated melodic lines and percussive phrasing. “Hypnotic,” “haunting” and other mesmeric words come to mind. Music of this type is often dismissed as background but careful listeners know better.

That’s when we started to listen for differences.  Droning backgrounds and electronic crackling give both recordings the impression of being of two ages. But modernism seems to win out in Hassell’s recording. Indeed, at least two of the nine musicians on Last Night are credited with performing “laptop” as well as more traditional instruments and a third is credited with “sampling.” Hassell’s trumpet, swirling through a mix of guitar, violin and percussion, often doesn’t sound like itself.

It’s tempting to label the ten tracks on the recording as “soundtrack” and start pulling out the movie screen images. Cartography certainly fits that bill with its emphasis on narrative and scenery shifts.  Last Night is more literate than visual (its title is drawn from 13th century Persian mystic poet Rumi) , more like a surreal novel in which plot takes a backseat to symbolic, psychic impressions. Indeed, we found it wonderful backdrop to readings of Jung. Hassell’s trumpet play, unlike Henriksen’s  speech-inspired phrasing, is more painterly, more about color, form and light.  The music seems to settle in the memory like a splashed canvas and , at times, can be just as gripping. If anything, it recalls the1970s  Pangea period of Miles Davis, especially in its thudding, Michael Henderson-like bass simplicity, airy percussion and unexpected electric guitar  chords.

Two pieces–both, disappointingly among the three not available for download at Amazon– seem to best represent the whole. “Abu Gil”, the recording’s longest piece at over 13 minutes is a shifting, East-meets-electronics version of Juan Tizol’s “Caravan“  It contains all the qualities that we find so attractive in this music, threaded together by a repeated theme. “Blue Period” is a languid, turquoise-colored dream with echoing keyboard, lush guitar and looped trumpet lines providing accompaniment to Hassell’s new cool. We don’t believe in top-ten lists (despite the fact that we’ve been paid to write many) but Last Night, as well as Cartography would both be on our short list of recordings that most reflected our mood in this long and troublesome year. We like to program one after another with Hassell leading and then sit back and feel the contrasts of our life bubble into the audible. –Cabbage Rabbit