Born on June 15, 1938 in Sheffield, UK, Tony
Oxley left us, sadly, two days ago. Founder of Incus label, present with his
name on The Baptised Traveller (CBS, 1969), one of the very first record of
European Improvised music where he is drummer and leader followed by Evan
Parker on tenor, Kenny Wheeler on trumpet, Derek Bailey on guitar and Jeff
Clyne on bass, Oxley was a self taught pianist as a young child and only at 17
he started studying drums.
In 1963 after playing with a military band he
gave life to a trio of musicians including Gavin Bryars and Derek Bailey,
before moving to London where he became sideman for the Ronnie Scott’s. There
he played with musicians like Joe Henderson, Charlie Mariano, Stan Getz, Sonny
Rollins and Bill Evans, and with local glories as Alan Skidmore and Gordon
Beck.
In 1969 he played on Extrapolation by Miles
Davis’ ex guitarist John McLaughlin and then he formed the above mentioned
quintet. Pivotal and key figure for the London Improv scene, at a certain point
he inaugurated a long time collaboration with pianist Cecil Taylor and bassist
William Parker in the famous Feel Trio. I had the opportunity to see them play
live in Italy and the music was outstanding: every musician was playing
indipendently from the other twos, but listening to the three as a whole was an
enormous experience. They were in fact matching exactly together.
Skimming through his vast discography
one can only admire the varius contexts, from due to large orchestra, in which
Oxley played with some of the most important avant-gardists of his own time.
Strangely underappreciated by the critics who come to jazz from other musical
worlds – strangely because Oxley rarely was ‘swinging’ so his approach to drums
full of middle- or micro- rhythms would seem appealing to them at least
theorically – he was a musician’s musician, but he was also very appreciated by
the audience.
Difficult as it was to be an avant garde
improviser in Europe since the 1960s – no easy melodies nor easy rhythms to
approach, and the will to get rid of anxiety with only a sincere will to be
yourself while playing – Tony Oxley always tried to learn new tricks and tips,
curious to put himself in difficult and out-of-the-comfort-zone positions in
order to understand better the essence of the music he was playing and he was
in love with.
If you don’t wanna to use Amazon to grab copies
of books and records for your own – ideological and practical – reasons, it is
harsh to find out what you’re looking for at the right time. In Milano, the
town most near to the place where I’m currently living, you have to pay extra
fees for import books and records once you’re ordering them. Things goes that
way. So I put my hands on a copy of this book by Marc Ribot only after it was
translated, unexpectedly, in my own native language one month ago.
Divided in four parts, and with only the first
one devoted to music, the other three being dedicated to small novels in a
style that reminded me the one that belonged to Bukowski – “bloody funny”, as
Elvis Costello said – in a way, I was just reading a small novel about a Jewish
girl that lived the first part of her life as a hippie and the other part as an
attempt to become, after the harshness of life hit her, acceptable to her
social milieu again before going to cinema to see the last movie by Arnaud
Desplechin, the one titled Brother and Sister featuring two great actors such
as Melvil Poupaud and Marion Cotillard.
Curiously enough, the story in the movie was at
the opposite of the story narrated by Marc Ribot, that of a liberation from
their social milieu, but in order to do so the main characters, both Jew
interestingly enough, needed to get outside of the society that gave life to
them. One writing more about himself, the other leaving France for Africa. What
both the book and the movie have in common is the fact that they try to cope
with what remains of our cultural heritage and roots as part of the Western
civilization. Nothing less, nothing more.
One can think, superficially, that the best
part of Unstrung is in its first part: the hommage to Henry Grimes, the
narration of the life of guitarist Frantz Casseus, some notes on people like
Robert Quine, Derek Bailey and Hal Willner, some liner notes for Ribot albums
or the text for Ceramic Dog’s rap The Activist. Nothing more wrong than that.
The entire book, even the most funny parts, is interesting because it is an
attempt by a navigated musician to fight body against body with his culture and
even his own life.
Obviously the book can seem at a first reading
as not pretentius or even superficial – even if there’s a line by James Chance
quoted by the guitarist himself here, “I only live on the surface – I don’t
think people is very pretty inside”, that can explain the aesthetic of Ribot
style as a writer. Not that Ribot is a “nihilist”, he is in fact more as
someone very gifted with (sometimes black) humour, but this tinge is more a
testimony of an ancient culture that survived the Holocaust and still ask
itself how to believe in a God whatever, talking about a people or a culture
and not necessarily about a single human being.
Interesting as it is reading this book,
as a critic I’ll bring back that note about musicians laughing hard at the
attempts by people like me to understand and making comprehensible to the
masses – two different types of translations at the place of a single one, that
means two different possible types of mistake – the work of a musician, complex
as it can be. You can take as an example the beautiful passages of the book
where Ribot try to explain the difficulties in playing non-Western music like
the one created by Susana Baca and others, thansk to cultural and existential –
I mean, experiential – difficulties.
In the end, Unstrung. Rants and Stories of a
Noise Guitarist is a book worth reading, full of notes about the music we all
love and full of fantasy and fantastic stories to pass some good time with.
Like those discussions with a friend who traveled the world around a table and
a beer, full of strange facts but also full of new, interesting things to learn
and to store in order to enrich your own personal luggage. Curiously enough,
the Italian version of the book, the one I own, was published by the same
publishing house that issued the last edition of Mingus’ Beneath the Underdog.
Sadly passed away on August 5, 2023,
Tristan Honsinger was a hidden gem in the vast ocean of free improvisation.
Known mostly for his work with pianist Cecil Taylor and guitarist Derek Bailey,
but an accomplished musician on his own, Honsinger during his career
collaborated also with post punk bands such as The Pop Group and The Ex. This
remarkable folding of collaborations can give you also an idea of his style,
that span from nervous glissandos to melodic quotes traken from Albert Ayler or
classical music.
Born in 1949 in Burlingon, Vermont, Honsinger
had music lessions at a very early age, so he gave concerts on a weekly basis
with other members of his family since when he was 12. After he studied
classical cello first in Boston then in Montréal, where he became conscious and
interested in free improvisation. In 1974 Honsinger moved to Europe,
particularly in Amsterdam where he became a pivotal figure of Netherlands
improvised scene.
A musician that, according to the Dutch ‘Volkskrant’
journalist Erik Van de Berg “hasn’t lost his childhood fantasy entirely”,
Tristan Honsinger can be taken as a representative figure for what European
Improv scene is: for such musicians in fact ‘playing’ means not only expressing
yourself through music, but also to take risks. While many would cite irony as
a main topic for such improvisors, more than that their attitude is that of a
child curious about what sound he can obtain from his instrument.
Spanning through his discography, a must have are
his records with pianist Cecil Taylor, but there are also interesting
collabortions with conductor Butch Morris, records for solo cello and duos with
Derek Bailey and saxophonist Sean Bergin. The more adventurous listeners can
try and find a copy, as a mere example, of his record with Steve Beresford,
David Toop and Toshinori Kondo for Double Indemnity issued in 2001.
Misha Mengelberg with Thomas Heberer, The Stone, 2008
Last week pianist Misha Mengelberg has
died, aged 81. Mengelberg was born in Kiev, Ukraine, in 1935. The son
of the Dutch conductor Karel Mengelberg, his family moved back to the
Netherlands in the late 1930s and the young Mengelberg began learning
the piano at age five. He studied architecture briefly before
entering the Royal Conservatory in The Hague. There, he won the first
prize of a jazz festival in Loosdrecht and became associated with the
Fluxus movement.
His influences count the likes of
Thelonious Monk, Duke Ellington and John Cage. Mengelberg was one of
the very first perpetrators of the revolution of the free jazz/avant
garde jazz of the 1960s but from an European perspective. His first
appearance on a record is on Eric Dolphy's final recording, Last
Date (1964). On that record appears also drummer Han Bennink,
marking the beginning of a long friendship and collaboration.
Mengelberg and Bennink founded later a
quartet with saxophonist Piet Noordijk and many different bassists.
The quartet played at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1966. In 1967
Mengelberg co-founded the Instant Composers Pool, an organization
that, similarly to the AACM on the other side of the Ocean, promoted
avant garde jazz performances and records, with Bennink and Willem
Breuker.
Mengelberg played with a large variety
of musicians: quite often he performed in duo with fellow Han
Bennink; other collaborations included guitarist Derek Bailey, and
saxophonists Evan Parker, Peter Brotzmann, and Anthony Braxton. He
also wrote music for other performers (leaving some space for
improvisation) and oversaw some music theatre productions. On the
other hand, he made known to the public the works of pianist Herbie
Nichols.
East meets West again. The first
wailings of the encounter between jazz and Indian classical music
were in 1963, the year Impulse! issued “Impressions”, a record by
John Coltrane featuring Eric Dolphy with the beautiful piece “India”,
in which drums and bass were imitating tabla and tempoura while the
saxophonist was pushing at the boundaries his concept of modality.
Then, it was the time for Mr Anthony
Braxton and his 'pulse tracks' to realize a music that was compelled
in blurring the boundaries between African American music and Indian
music avoiding every possible 'fusion' as it happened in the 1970s,
giving life to a structure that remains between the most innovative
and aesthetically accomplished.
The reason why Indian music was so
interesting for innovative improvisers was well explained in a
chapter of Derek Bailey's “Improvisation: Its Nature and Practice
in Music” (Da Capo Press, 1993): in facts, Indian classical music
features a huge amount of improvisation. Ravi Shankar is an
improviser as much as a composer, and this is the same tradition of
people as Coltrane and Braxton.
Umberto Tricca
Now, is the time for the young Italian
guitarist Umberto Tricca to provide the world of improvised music
with a new melting of jazz and Indian music. Tricca studied guitar at
CEMM in Milano, then at the Berklee School of Boston. Then, he
followed the lessons of arrangement with bassist Giovanni Tommaso and
other courses, such as modern harmony and jazz harmony.
Umberto Tricca collaborated with
musicians coming from Florence (Italy) such as Giancarlo Boselli and
Masabo Trio, deepening his own studies on harmony and rhythmic
conduction of musicians as Dave Holland and Steve Coleman. While
experimenting with italian music revised in jazz, bossa nova and
samba and contemporary jazz repertoire, he starts studying Indian
music with tabla player Francesco Gherardi.
The result of these different
experiences are available in his new record “Moksha Pulse”
(Working Label, 2016) featuring Achille Succi (alto sax, bass
clarinet), Giacomo Petrucci (baritone sax), Nazareno Caputo
(vibraphone), Gabriele Rampi Ungar (bass) and Bernardo Guerra
(drums). As happened with Braxton and Coltrane, you will not find any
ethnic inclination in this record.
The tracks of the album show the love
Umberto Tricca has for Indian music, the counterpoints of Afro Cuban
rhumbas, and contemporary music – you will hear in 'Prelude' an
influence by some Iannis Xenakis compositions. The name of the
project comes from the Sanskrit word 'Moksha', that means
'emancipation' underlying the choice of leaving every predetermined
structure, developing the possible interactions between those
traditions and musical languages.
L’Enfance
Rouge & Eugene Robinson: Bleed a
Little (2012) [6.20]
*Costas Dousas The
Trawler From “Café Rembetika – The Birth of the Greek Blues” (2000) [4.04]
*Bästard: 200 Miles From Hanoi from “Radiant, Discharged,
Crossed Off” (1996) [4.25]
*Keiji Haino: Untitled
from “Tenshi No Gijnka” (1995) [4.23]
*Miguel Angel Costas: Mi llanto (Solea) from “Bordòn De Trapo”
(2006) [3.15] -
*Einstürzende Neubauten: Sehnsucht
(Zitternd) from the movie “1/2 Mensch” (1985) [2.55]
*Olivier Messiaen: Meditations sur le mistère de la Sainte Trinité(1969)
[8.28]
*Derek Bailey: Stella By
Starlight from “Ballads” (2002) [7.22]
L’Enfance Rouge: Petite Mort from “Trapani - Halq Al Waady”
(2008) [8.46]
Iannis Xenakis, Nomos
Alpha (1965) Pierre Strauch cello [12.40]
Dälek: Eyes to Form Shadows from “Absence” (2004) [6.30]
Ennio
Morricone: Astrazione con Ritmo from
“Il Serpente” (1973) soundtrack [4.19]
Living Colour: Wall from “Stain” (1993) [5.24]
The music in this episode marked with (*) is
kindly provided by François Régis Cambuzat of L’Enfance Rouge, who gave me
the records from which I selected the tracks. While waiting for his new album
with L’Enfance Rouge and Lofti Buchnak, I hope to invite more artists as guest
podcasters in the near future. I took his photos here during a concert near Milan (Italy)
last summer.
François Régis Cambuzat biography from
womex.com: French,
born in Viet Nam,
from pieds-noirs parents. Since birth, François R. Cambuzat has never lived
more than four years in the same place. Saïgon, Paris,
London, New York,
Berlin, Amsterdam,
Tunis, etc.
His touring
life has led him from Vilna to Cadiz, as from Tbilisi to Athens
and further. He has been invited to many great festivals such as Documenta in Kassel, and so,
geographically as well as artistically, François R. Cambuzat has explored many
music genres from punk to contemporary classical music, from jazz to maghreb's
music, as his discography testifies.
He has
created major projects as famous as the Kim Squad, Il Gran Teatro Amaro and
L'Enfance Rouge.
François' repertoire is to be seen literally as a
secret garden. A part of his favourite melodies. Arie and chants from early
Birthday Party to Claude Debussy, songs from peculiar areas & quarters of
Tunis until the '900 Paris of Jacques Ibert or the Spain of Buenaventura
Durutti and Garcia Lorca, maybe his most intimate soul, maybe his darkest soul
and paradoxally his more sunny side.
To listen to the podcast, go to Podomatic website and search for 'completecommunion'.
To send me material to be featured on the podcast, email me at galasi.g [at] virgilio.it or gianpaolo.galasi [at] gmail.com
