multiphonicsounds

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A huge loss for Canada’s jazz community today. I heard Ross twice, once performing on piano and once on saxophone - he had the deepest connection with the moment; spontaneous, creative, and sensitive. “Vancouver-based saxophonist and pianist Ross Taggart has died. The powerful and well-liked player, Victoria-born and -bred, had been hospitalized in the fall for renal cancer, and a sold-out benefit concert was staged for him in late November. Taggart was in his mid-40s but had been active active at a high level even as a teenager on Canada’s West Coast. A consummate mainstream jazz player who was equally formidable on both of his instruments, Taggart accompanied in his day such legendary players as Benny Golson, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Phil Woods, Clark Terry, and Fraser MacPherson. He taught at Capilano University and was married to pianist Sharon Minemoto. Taggart told the Vancouver Province in 1991 that he became hooked on jazz at 14, and that hearing an Oscar Peterson album prompted him to trade all his rock records for jazz albums. When the story was written, Taggart was 23 and about to leave Vancouver for eight months to study in Toronto and New York with support from the Canada Council for the Arts. Among his teachers were George Coleman, Clifford Jordan, J.R. Monterose, Don Thompson and Bernie Senesky.”

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What The Jazz Greats Knew About Creativity

The improvisational flights of jazz greats like Louis Armstrong and John Coltrane are so transporting that they can seem almost otherworldly — especially when the listener is aware that these musicians weren’t following any score, but were making up their riffs in the moment. New research on what happens in the brain when we improvise, however, is showing that it is very much an earthbound activity, grounded in the same neural processes at play in every one of us when we engage in spontaneous self-expression, like a conversation with a friend. “Creativity is far from a magical event of unexpected random inspiration,” wrote researchers Charles Limb and Mónica López-González in an article published in the journal Cerebrum last month. “Instead, it is a mental occurrence that results from the application of ordinary cognitive processes.” Many students and employees are discovering this for themselves as the techniques of musical and dramatic improvisation move into educational and workplace settings, where they’re used to boost the creativity of people who’ve never picked up a saxophone in their lives. Limb, an associate professor otolaryngology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine who is also on the faculty of the university’s Peabody Conservatory of Music, conducted one of the earliest brain-scan studies of musical improvisation in 2008. In that study, published in the journal PLoS ONE, Limb and his co-author Allen Braun persuaded six professional jazz pianists to play on a specially designed keyboard while lying inside a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine. The musicians played a tune they had memorized and then a tune they invented on the spot. With the shift to improvisation, the researchers noted the appearance of a distinctive pattern of brain activity. The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, a region associated with careful planning and self-censorship, became dormant, while parts of the brain connected to the senses — hearing, seeing, feeling — became especially lively. Most interesting, a brain area called the medial prefrontal cortex, linked to autobiographical storytelling, also showed increased activity. Inhibitions released and senses primed, these musicians were engaged in an act of self-expression, using the music to communicate something deep about themselves. We don’t have to be professional pianists to reap the benefits of improvisation, as a study published in the journal Psychology of Music in 2008 shows. In this experiment, 6-year-olds were divided into two groups: one group received music lessons enriched with improvisatory activities involving their voices, their bodies and musical instruments, while the other attended classes that were “didactic and teacher-centered.” A measure of creative thinking in music was administered to both groups before and after the six-month series of lessons. The results: children who’d engaged in improvisation showed significant increases in the creativity of their thinking and the originality of their music, while pupils who attended the conventional classes did not. Improvisation can also bring fresh thinking into the workplace. The Second City, the famous improv-comedy troupe in Chicago, now has a corporate arm devoted to improving business communication skills through the same techniques its actors use to make people laugh. “Business isn’t neatly scripted,” notes Tom Yorton, chief executive officer of the Second City Communications. “It’s an unpredictable and unwieldy act of improvisation.” The organization’s trainers lead groups of coworkers, or “ensembles,” through exercises designed to break down inhibitions, heighten attention and ease self-expression — valuable aims, research suggests, for anyone who wants to come up with a riff the world hasn’t heard before. -Anne Murphy Paul http://ideas.time.com/2012/03/21/learning-creativity-from-the-jazz-greats/?xid=gonewsedit

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This is the way music should be recorded. Daniel Lanois’ music will sound great on any stereo system even with the worst EQ settings it’s ‘distinctly lanois’. Black Dub is his new project, heavily influenced by dub engineers Lee 'Scratch’ Perry and King Tubby but flows from one of his previous releases, Belladona. This performance features the completely unique musicality of Brian Blade. Blade’s approach to dub drum playing in this case is really original. Unlike the typical approach of drumming in this style, which uses a repeating rhythm usually consisting of closed hihat and cross stick snare with an emphasis on beat three. Blade swings his eighth notes similar to Carlton Barrett’s 'one drop’ rhythm but he improvises his patterns throughout the song and follows the shape of the vocal line. In usual dub recordings the vocal was added over the rhythm. Producers would then use the multi track recording and add sound effects or vocal parts and do remixes. In recording with a live vocalist, Blade is able to improvise and react live to the Whitley’s phrasing. His improvisational accents from his jazz background really add to the feel of this piece. There’s a moment around four and a half minutes that is really powerful, he uses his ride cymbal equally as a crash accenting vocalist Trixie Whitley’s dynamic live performance. Listen to more BLACK DUB: http://www.blackdub.net/music Aaron Leaney www.aaronleaney.com

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Relentless Energy. So much has been written and said about John Coltrane and his quartet; there is so much to experience and learn when one listens with an open heart. This video is really dense in many ways: harmonically, rhythmically, and dynamically. These four musicians played “My Favorite Things" so many times but still found ways to be creative within its structure. Coltrane was often known to just start playing without counting pieces off. Here we can see him give two ‘stomps’ for the tempo count in at 16:44 . These two taps can be interpreted as a 2 bar count in ¾ (ex.1) [three quarter notes per bar] or the "1 and 4” of 12/8 [twelve eighth notes per bar] (ex3). ex.1 (¾): 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 ex.2 ©: 1 2 1 2 ex.3 (12/8): 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 There are many ways to feel and interpret music while playing and listening to fast tempos. Often feeling it as “1-2/1-2/1-2” is more natural for the musician. It also frees up the mind to be more creative and allows intuitive energy to take over. Thinking of each beat at such a frantic pace is limiting because it restricts the music and can create stress. Coltrane here is obviously feeling the tempo in 'cut time’ or '½.’ This allows him to effortlessly execute fast flurries of notes and interact with the group rhythmically. One must always internalize a tempo (especially when it’s fast) so that the music has a lighter bounce which can make dragging or dropping tempo, less common. Many students tend to tap their feet as a way of keeping time but this is a physical tenseness and when you study great musicians you can see how still and focused they are but always physically relaxed. Tensing up can make you play out of tune and can even lead you to not playing again. The way to learn how to play fast is to play fast! Practice uptempo by always using a metronome when you practice. Try setting it on two and four and just improvise freely, focusing only on eighth note lines in time. Once you get that together try playing standards that you know at faster tempos. Keep playing fast, the more often you do the easier it gets. Aaron Leaney www.aaronleaney.com

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Ornette Coleman (alto saxophone), David Izenzon (bass), Charles Moffatt (drums) Complete freedom. Ornette’s music is full of diverse colours and tones with a sustained intensity. There’s aways swing and blues in ever piece even though it has a uniquely free and open approach. The musicians use a melodic statement as the initial inspiration of each piece and create within that moment. The jazz musician can immediately respond and incorporate other ideas from the musicians he/she performs with sometimes you hear players who are so rigid and slave to the form that they don’t get past it. “I won’t be able to tell you what it is until it happens” Stefon Harris said in a TedTalk describing the collective approach to spontaneous jazz composition. Ornette Coleman’s approach has always been to put creative people together and trust in their musicality to freely contribute to the interpretation of his compositions. His sound has changed and progressed over the past forty years; I recently saw his double bass quartet at Massey Hall and his alto sounded more like the timbre of a french horn than the brightness and playful tone from a record like, Change Of The Century. Coleman has dedicated his life to music. He has seen suffering and has struggled to keep his creativity funded almost his entire career but he has never submitted his talent to slaving for the corporate benefit. I highly doubt Coleman’s music ever made best seller lists or made it to the top 40s charts but his contribution to music will undoubtably continue to stimulate creativity, question passivity and heal our minds. Aaron Leaney www.aaronleaney.com

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David Spencer Ware (November 7, 1949 – October 18, 2012) David S Ware, the saxophonist whose monumental sound matched his physical stature, has died aged 62 following complications from a kidney transplant he underwent in 2009. Ware, who was mentored by Sonny Rollins and worked with the free-jazz piano virtuoso Cecil Taylor, was one of the few structure-busting radicals in jazz history to reach beyond the music’s cognoscenti without compromise. His impassioned, wounded-beast sound inspired a devoted following, despite his rejection of the accessible song structures commonly used in jazz. The journalist Gary Giddins wrote in 2001: “Every time I see Ware’s group or return to the records, it flushes the competition from memory.” The film-maker David Lynch, whose foundation backed a recent documentary about Ware, simply marvelled: “How cool is cool?” A first encounter with Ware’s music could be an intimidating experience. He seemed to have arrived from another dimension, unleashing an ambiguously pitched, bagpipe-like sound without obvious antecedents – though there were audible links with the saxophonists Pharoah Sanders, Albert Ayler and Rahsaan Roland Kirk. A profoundly religious man, and a lifelong practitioner of yoga and meditation, Ware was preoccupied with nothing less than humanity’s place in the cosmos – he often seemed to be stretching for a musical equivalent to the heat and raw noise of the universe in transition or, as he put it in a conversation with Rollins in 2005, “musically to go so deep that you touch upon those universal forces”. On another occasion, he observed that the improvising strategy of his early years was simply to “come out blasting … like I was coming out of a cannon”. Ware was born and raised in New Jersey. From the age of 10, he played alto, baritone and tenor saxophone. He attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston from 1967 to 1969 and formed the Boston-based free-jazz group Apogee, including the pianist Cooper-Moore and the drummer Marc Edwards. But if he was already indifferent to conventional jazz storytelling, or the principles of tension and release, Ware was far from indifferent to saxophone expertise. Having introduced himself to Rollins on a Manhattan street corner in 1969, he began to study advanced techniques – and discussed eastern religion and spiritual perspectives in the context of extended breath control – with the jazz superstar in the latter’s Brooklyn apartment. In 1973 Rollins even engaged Apogee as a support band on one of his appearances at the Village Vanguard in New York – a piece of bold patronage that did not go down universally well with his fans. In 1974 he performed in an orchestra led by Taylor at Carnegie Hall. Through the 1970s, Ware was involved with the popular loft-jazz scene in New York and worked regularly with Taylor’s sidemen Raphe Malik (trumpet) and Andrew Cyrille (drums). After beginning to record under his own name, and working with the bebop pianist Barry Harris, he embarked on a 14-year stretch (1981-95) as a New York cab driver to pay the bills. During this period, he was sporadically active in Europe, and in 1988 he formed his most compatible band – with the bassist William Parker, who he had met in Taylor’s orchestra, the pianist Matthew Shipp and a succession of imaginative drummers. The Swedish label Silkheart and the Japanese label DIW caught these musicians in scorching form. Ware had previously been too untamed a performer to reach beyond the niche audience, but broadening public tastes for ambient sounds, ethnic influences, improv and noise were joining a general upswing in jazz popularity during the 1990s. The saxophonist Branford Marsalis seized the moment to sign Ware to Columbia in 1997 for his first and only major-label deal. Though the albums Go See the World and Surrendered were not his strongest, they brought Ware an enthusiastic new public. He recorded extensively for his manager Steven Joerg’s AUM Fidelity label from 2001, including a dramatic reworking of Rollins’s Freedom Suite and a magnificent, Coltrane-reminiscent live recording from the 2006 Vision festival in New York, Renunciation. Ware also recorded for the eclectic independent label Thirsty Ear, often confirming that his earlier full-on methods were changing in middle life. BalladWare (1999) included bittersweet reworkings of Autumn Leaves and Yesterdays; Threads (2003) explored a sonically subtle music with strings, and a belated but characteristically creative interest in more song-centred materials was plainly audible on a compilation of Swiss and Italian live shows, Live in the World (1998-2003). Ware was always unmistakably himself, embodying jazz’s drive towards independent creativity – unmoved by trends and eschewing imitation – in its purest form.

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Othar Turner and the Rising Star Fife & Drum Band: The Call (1978)

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Burn down babylon and all those who create war and fear. One Love, Unity, Peace, Love, One People. Bob Marley & The Wailers - April 22, 1978

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Sonny Rollins - tenor saxophone, Don Cherry (1936-1995) - trumpet, Henry Grimes - bass, Billy Higgins (1936-2001) - drums This is a special quartet! Don Cherry and Billy Higgins were coming right out of Ornette Coleman’s quartet who’s music challenged everyone’s definition of jazz at the time. Henry Grimes’s presence is important on these sessions, he was playing with Steve Lacy around this time and playing with Rollins was a big move. Rollins was the top tenor player in most critic polls and was really re-developing his distinctive voice at this time. His tone is quite different from the recordings he did with the Clifford Brown/Max Roach quintet. He’s searching for change in his sound and getting the ‘new’ young players that were causing such a riot on the scene was exactly the energy that he needed. John Coltrane’s popularity in 1963 was ever growing and as a result of his reinterpretation of “My Favorite Things” from the Sound of Music soundtrack; Rollins’s music was beginning to fall into the shadows. So, Rollins got some new blood around him, opened his ears to the 'new-music’ and the 'free-jazz’ sidemen in his band were a great inspiration. Check out the inventive way Rollins plays with rhythm; sometimes laying back behind the beat, or developing one single idea and moving it around. He takes extended solos that really develop and swing, he uses all sorts of 'side-stepping’ which means going in and out of the key spontaneously, it’s all forward moving! - Aaron Leaney www.aaronleaney.com

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Happy Birthday Michael Brecker (March 29, 1949 – January 13, 2007) Brecker's Shapes of Infinity When I was in university I had the privilege of meeting and learning from the great tenor saxophonist Michael Brecker. Growing up I was never particularly drawn to his sound, I thought it was ‘cheesy’ and tinged with '80s cliche production and I often chose to listen to Coltrane or Chris Potter instead. Often I encounter people who tell me, 'I love the saxophone!’ and usually the sound that they’re talking about is Brecker - he was an original. His discography is daunting, he was THE session guy of the '80s and he played on countless jingles, pop recordings, jazz, pioneered the electronic wind instrument, and he even established the classic Saturday Night Live tenor sound. He recorded with Paul Simon, Herbie Hancock, Bruce Springsteen, Pat Metheny, and so many more. Brecker was an outstanding technical genius who had full mastery over his instrument. I have never heard anyone execute the most technically challenging patterns in all keys and the full range of the horn, as easily as he could. One lesson I remember in particular that he said really helped him advance was to take a four note pattern (sometimes a grouping of four unrelated notes) and move it around the full range of the horn though different root relationships. For example take the “Giant Steps” pattern of 1,2,3,5 (in “C” it’s C, D, E, G) and practice it this way. 1. Ascending chromatically (Bb, B, C, C#, etc…) 2. Desending chromatically (Bb, A, Ab, G, etc…) 2. Ascending whole steps (Bb, C, D, E, etc…) 3. Desending whole Steps (Bb, Ab, Gb, E, etc…) 4. Ascending minor 3rds (C, Eb, Gb, A, etc….) 5. Descending minor 3rds (Bb, G, E, C#, etc…) 6. Ascending Major 3rds (Bb, D, F# / B, D#, G, etc….) 7. Desceneding Major 3rds (A, F, C# / C, Ab, E, etc…) 8. Circle of 4ths (Bb, Eb, Ab, Db…etc) 9. Circle of 5ths (Bb, F, C, G, etc…) - Aaron Leaney www.aaronleaney.com

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CHARLIE PARKER: Charles “Charlie” Christopher Parker (aka Bird, YardBird) - (August 29, 1920 - March 12, 1955) “If I Should Lose You.” 1950. Charlie Parker with Strings. Perf. Charlie Parker - alto saxophone; Mitch Miller - oboe; Bronislaw Gimpel, Max Hollander, Milton Lomask - violins; Frank Brieff - viola; Frank Miller - cello; Myor Rosen - harp;Stan Freeman - piano; Ray Brown - double bass; Buddy Rich - drums; Jimmy Carroll - arranger and conductor. Mercury. Recorded 1947-1952. -- BIRD LIVES Billions of words have been written on the genius of Charlie Parker; he created a new harmonic language in music, he redefined freedom as an improviser, and his documented recorded works still define modern jazz even to this day. The lineage of Parker in Jazz music is often written about because his influence can be heard on almost every important musician after him. Even Parker transcribed (memorize, play with recordings, play without recording) Lester Young and was once interviewed stating that he committed 11-15 hours per day for 3 years to solid practice in order to master his instrument. The spiritual element to Parker’s music is often overshadowed by his technical prowess. If we listen to the recording, “Charlie Parker with Stings” we can see how he channels a higher power or something beyond this world. Bird’s story and life is so well discussed because he lived a very dramatic life. Drug addiction plagued his life and the relationships of people that loved him. A famous jazz club even paid the highest tribute to him by calling themselves, Birdland; although even Parker had a hard time getting bookings there because of his unreliability and he definitely did not own any part of the club. However, this recording was a paramount period in Parker’s career;he was sober, he was practicing again, and he was completely innovative. This recording reflects a direction in Parkers playing compared to the hyper-fire quality in his earlier recordings with Dizzy Gilespie. Listen to his warm syrupy sound, the variation in rhythms, and the pure effortless string of melodic lines. Aaron Leaney www.aaronleaney.com

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JOHN COLTRANE (September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967) Stellar Regions is a posthumous release by John Coltrane, discovered in 1994 by the artist’s wife, Alice Coltrane, who plays the piano on the session. Alice Coltrane is also responsible for the titles of the eight numbers featured on the album, although the material is not entirely previously unreleased: the same take of “Offering” was first issued on Coltrane’s final studio album, Expression; the song, incorrectly retitled “Stellar Regions” here, is in fact an early version of “Venus”, first released in 1974 on the sax-drums duo album, Interstellar Space. Stellar Regions was recorded the week prior to the session that gave rise to that album, and features many similar note choices and runs; indeed, the “Venus” solo is also presaged here by portions of “Offering” and “Sun Star”. The former song and also “Tranesonic” anticipate the fascination with polyrhythm and spare, duo arrangements that would dominate the Interstellar Space sessions. This is one of Coltrane’s most accessible later albums: the numbers are brief and distinctly structured. But the fact that Coltrane did not title this material leaves in doubt how much of it he ultimately intended to release. The selection also features Rashied Ali on drums and Jimmy Garrison on bass. Several pieces are notable for their European-like sense of tonality (“Jimmy’s Mode”), quite at odds with Coltrane’s usual work in the blues idiom. Garrison’s bass is often bowed, unusual for him and for Coltrane, and also lending an orchestral majesty to material like “Seraphic Light”. There are a couple of blues-based and atonal numbers as well. Some critics and musicians, including British free jazz saxophonist Evan Parker and Coltrane biographer Lewis Porter, have argued that Coltrane is playing an alto saxophone - something he did very rarely after 1946 - on both versions of the piece entitled “Tranesonic”.

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Bob Marley & The Wailers (Live at Harvard July 21, 1979) Bob starts at 15:15, full set. Bob Marley (vocals, rhythm guitar), Aston Barrett (bass), Carlton Barrett (drums) Junior Marvin (lead guitar), Al Anderson (lead guitar) Tyrone Downie (keyboards), Alvin Patterson, percussion, The I-Threes (Rita Marley, plus Judy Mowatt and Marcia Griffiths) backing vocals

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HAMID DRAKE: His discography includes records with Pharoah Sanders, Ken Vandermark, Peter Brotzmann, Fred Anderson, Herbie Hancock, David Murray, and David S. Ware. SOUND.

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Mahmoud Ahmed - Abbay Mado (Ethiopiques Volume 7)

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LINCOLN ‘Style’ Scott (October 12, 2014) 1 Confirm Reservation 2 Sad to know you’re leaving 3 Front Door 4 Substitute Personel: Gregory Isaacs (Vocals) Dwight Pinkney (Lead Guitar) Style Scott (Drums) Erroll Carter (Bass) Eric Lamont (Rhythm Guitar) Anthony Johnson (Keyboards) Gregory Isaacs teamed up with the Roots Radics for much of the early 1980’s producing some of the best reggae music ever. In January of 1981 they dropped by the BBC and laid down some magic. Born in Chapelton, Clarendon, Scott was a member of the Jamaica Military Band who also played the north coast hotel circuit before joining the 'Radics’. In 1979, the fledgling band also included bass player Errol 'Flabba’ Holt, rhythm guitarist Eric 'Bingy Bunny’ Lamont, lead guitarist Noel 'Sowell’ Bailey, and keyboardist Wycliffe 'Steely’ Johnson. They were, arguably, the hottest reggae band of the late 1970s to the mid-1980s, playing on numerous hit songs by Barrington Levy Looking my Love, Bunny Wailer Rock 'N’ Groove and Gregory Isaacs Night Nurse. Along with the Radics, Scott recorded and toured with Isaacs, Wailer and roots group Israel Vibration. He is the fourth member of the band to die; Lamont, Johnson and Bailey preceded him. In recent years, Scott toured Europe frequently as leader of the Dub Syndicate Band, which he coordinated with British reggae historian/producer Adrian Sherwood. – Howard Campbell

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SAINT JOHN COLTRANE DOCUMENTARY