Category: Thoughts

Malachai Ritscher

Chicago Reader Blogs: Post No Bills – Malachi Ritscher’s apparent suicide

On Saturday the Sun-Times ran a small item about a man who had set himself on fire during rush hour Friday morning near the Ohio Street exit on the Kennedy. His identity had not been determined at the time, but members of the local jazz and improvised music community now say they are certain it was Malachi Ritscher, a longtime supporter of the scene.

I didn’t know Malachai Ritscher. He ran a site that had listings for all of the happenings in the Chicago jazz/improv scene. It was a service he provided to the community.

Apparently Malachai immolated himself in protest of the direction the United States is taking. Some people might dismiss him as a mad man. Even if he was a mad man, I know many crazy people that do not have the strength of conviction to set themselves on fire to raise awareness of injustice. Regardless of how any of us feel about Malachai’s final act or the ideas that led him to it, I hope his ultimately sincere dedication to his beliefs will lead us all to really think about how we live our lives and uphold our responsibilities as citizens.

DJA on rhythm

In this performance review,Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society: Steve Reich @ The Whitney, 15 Oct 2006 (Alarm Will Sound, So Percussion, etc), Darcy exhibits how deeply he gets it.

…at the time Reich first started presenting his music, few classically trained players were capable of dealing with its demands. It’s not that the music is flashy and virtuosic — just the opposite. But it requires (and I’m sorry to keep harping on this, but it’s important) rhythmic authority. Rhythmic authority isn’t just the ability to play rhythms precisely, although unfortunately, many classical players aren’t even equipped for that. Reich’s music is only playable if everyone has a rock-solid internal click track going, as well as the ability to both lock in with the ensemble and — when necessary — slip off the grid while still maintaining rigorous control over your own tempo. And that’s just to get through the music on a basic level. For the pieces to come alive, for the music to draw the listeners in instead of just sitting there, flat and sterile, you need to have an emotional connection to rhythm. You need to understand viscerally, in your gut, what a short note on the “and” of one means, and how it’s different from the same note in a different part of the bar. You need to have an intuitive sense of how tiny differences in emphasis and placement can drastically affect the character of a syncopated or repeated figure. In other words, you must be able to groove.

Why do we have musical boxes?

Why do we feel the need to put all music into it’s own little stylistic box? Last night after my gig I stopped by dba to hear the Robert Walter Trio. I hadn’t really heard him live, eventhough he has lived in New Orleans for some time now. I must admit my expectations were low, but some friends were playing with him, so I stopped to check it out.

I was expecting some sort of bland jam, and the first bits I heard didn’t completely convince me otherwise in terms of the tunes, but the groove was happening and the energy was good. As I opened myself to listening I realized that the improvisations were all honest and interesting. As the night continued, tunes like Juju and Monk’s Dream made their way into the set, and I really enjoyed the music.

I left feeling good about what I had heard, and wondering how many nights of good music I had missed, because the catergory or box that Robert Walter is usually put in doesn’t usually get me to listen open mindedly. I realize that it is my responsibility to listen openly always, and I also realize that there is only so much time to explore, so we tend to start with things that have been categorized in ways that appeal to us.

I just wonder how much good music we are missing because we look at the category instead of listen to the music?

Hermeto, Joe McPhee and instruments

Sometime ago Ray Moore and I were disussing multi-instrumentalists. I was saying how awed I was by Hermeto Pascoal and his band, that they all play multiple instruments, and sound great. Unrelated stuff like piano, flute, and euphonium…all on a level to make great music. We decided that some of it was the idea that they think less about the instrument and more about the music.

Today I was reading an article on Joe McPhee in the Fall 2005 issue of Signal to Noise. Joe McPhee says:

People say to me, “How can you switch between instruments?” It’s because I don’t make a distinction. I don’t think “saxophone”, I think “music.” …It doesn’t matter to me what instrument it is. The instrument is simply a tool.

Get the right tool for the job, eh?

Rifftides: Doug Ramsey on jazz and other matters

Rifftides: Doug Ramsey on jazz and other matters

When you begin to teach jazz, the most dangerous thing is that you tend to teach style…I had eleven piano students, and I would say eight of them didn’t even want to know about chords or anything – they didn’t even want to do anything that anybody had ever done, because they didn’t want to be imitators. Well, of course, this is pretty naive…but nevertheless it does bring to light the fact that if you’re going to try to teach jazz…you must abstract the principles of music which have nothing to do with style, and this is exceedingly difficult. So there, the teaching of jazz is a very touchy point. It ends up where the jazz player, ultimately, if he’s going to be a serious jazz player, teaches himself.
–Bill Evans

The best teachers I have had in a jazz context have guided me towards finding my own style, as opposed to teaching me theirs.

A vinyl look back

I just picked up a few used LPs from an internet friend. It is funny how our memories of things change. Every time I get involved in a conversation about CD packaging, someone mentions the good old days with vinyl and the big jackets, and all of the wondeful info they carried. That was true, sometimes.

Two of the LPs (Roswell Rudd – Inside Job on Arista, and Enrico Rava Quartet on ECM) have nothing more than basic discographical info on them. No extensive info on gatefold covers or printed on the inner sleeve. Just two panels of record jacket. They look cool, and sound great, but they aren’t any sort of liner note utopia like some folks remember LPs to be.

The other LP I picked up is Mel Lewis and Friends on Horizon/A&M from 1976. This one does have more liner note info, including this great quote from the back of the jacket.

One could hardly ask for a more stylishly swinging pianist than Hank Jones, a more aggressively attentive bassist than Ron Carter, or a more ferociously fertile trumpter than Freddie Hubbard. The fourth member, tenor saxophonist Mike Brecker, is not as widely known…

My how times change.