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session 7
A For me, the importance about talking about that continuum would be healthy for the interview, because my interest in Europe doesn't supersede my interest in myself or in the American and African American masters.
M Where did we get with the last interviews? We talked about the African American composers, and we talked about the jazz masters, and Korea…
A Did we talk about Frank Johnson?
M Yeah.
A Because he's important to me, even though, if I would be honest, I only discovered Frank Johnson when I was in academia. This is part of the problem of the culture, this sector doesn't have musics available; the documentation is so spotty. A record comes about with a print run of 500 copies; then I, listening to "Tristan and Isolde" last night, and the way I've been playing "Treemonisha" again--and I really like "Treemonisha"--and I've been reading about Scott Joplin's life and really identifying with this guy. I'm going to go to Borders maybe tomorrow and buy the two books on W.E.B. DuBois.
M I saw a book review of that on TV. Do you know about the Book TV channel?
A Yes. That's a very nice channel. Guys come and talk about the books that have just come out. So he must have been on it, the guy who the New York Times Book Review…
M No, the guy who wrote the book was on it.
A Yes. This is why I want to get that book. But, for instance…
M Let me ask you this while I'm thinking of it: on the subject of Europe, how do you feel you've been received as a composer over there in the Western tradition?
A I think DuBois, in this book review, put his finger right on my situation, excatly. He said that, basically, African American intellectuals, and people like myself, whatever we do is irrelevant, as far as affecting the debate of ideas.
M You seem to have more of a following in Europe, though, and an understanding; are you saying that they're more concerned with you as a black exotica kind of thing?…
A No, I feel that there's a small group of people in Europe who really are interested in my work, and I thank them. Were it not for their interest, what work I've had in terms of performance in the last 20 years would have been cut 7/9ths…
M Peter Niklaus Wilson seems to admire your compositions.
A Peter's been very supportive, and a real friend; the book he did on me, for example, and the books that Graham Lock did…I thank the Europeans and I thank those individuals who have supported my work in some way.
M The London Composers' Orchestra…
A The London Composers' Orchestra; but to respond to your question about my work in composition, I mean, you know, I don't get performances of my compositions, especially the large pieces; the piece for 4 orchestras has never actually been performed. And I understood that when I embarked on this direction as a young guy; it was always clear to me that, based on reading what happened to William Grant Still, and what was happening in my own life, looking around at performances, it was clear that I was not going to be able to have many performances. Later, that's why I left Paris…
M The ideal situation would be one in which, for instance, say, Stockhausen would be aware of you as a peer, and everyone else would see you in the discourse too?…
A I don't hope for that, nor would I necessarily think that Stockhausen would see me as a peer. I mean he's an older guy, and he is in a different circle, and I don't know how interested a guy like Stockhausen would be in my work, since my understanding of him is that he's basically doing his own music and he's open a little bit to the colleagues he came up with, but he's not that interested in even the post-Webern or post-Stockhausen guys; he's kind of fighting to do his own work; and I think I learned a lot from him about how important it is to generate your own enthusiasm about your own work and try to push forward. He's had support, and as a European he's been able to take advantage of his position in postwar Europe. There's no reason for me to assume that a guy like Karlheinz Stockhausen would even be open to my work but there's every reason for me to continue to always recognize his work, since he's one of my fathers, whether or not he knows it; he's one of the musical fathers whose work helped me define my life, and part of that for me involves recognizing the responsibility to acknowledge it.
M Getting back to the African American continuum, you did mention Cecil Taylor and the AACM a little bit. Why don't we just start with Tadd Dameron and go through the ones you mentioned.
A Let's start with Duke Ellington, because Tadd comes after. As a young guy, I loved Duke Ellington's music, but I only experienced a very narrow spectrum of it. In fact, I have Leo Smith and Muhal Richard Abrams to thank for encouraging me to explore Mr. Ellington's music more. At 55 years old, I look at Mr. Ellington and have a profound debt to him, that he was able to fight so long for his music, and to achieve so many successes musically in so many different areas. His work has many different levels of inspiration for me, as an African American with integrity; as a composer who has many different periods to his music; as a composer who participated in the challenges of creative music in his time period and met with so many different successes: integration of composition with improvisation. Of course, this subject really isn't complete without acknowledging the great work of Fletcher Henderson, and the success of his compositional musics. I hear there's a new record out with Bob Wilbur playing Fletcher Henderson's arrangements for Benny Goodman, including compositions that were just discovered, and never played. This is a CD I will buy. Bob Wilbur is a virtuoso saxophonist and clarinetist who is kind of a part of the revivalist movement of the '50s; he's a post-Sidney Bechet stylist, but an original one, he has his own music, really a great musician. He's gone about his music with total integrity and respect, and his work is generally pushed to the side and not appreciated; he's an American who lives now, I think, in London. He's a great player, I've heard him play live.
M Pushed aside as being sort of retro?
A Yes, when in fact his music is not retro. For me it's the problem again of definitions, how we talk of past, present and future as being separate units. He's connected with the earlier musics, that's for sure, but it's not a revivalist connection in the sense that he's jumped aboard some band wagon; rather he's following his muse and building upon his real interests, which were based in that period. So he has a new CD out now with Fletcher Henderson arrangements. I mention it because it triggered in me the importance of Fletcher Henderson's music. Fletcher Henderson has been either ignored or whatever. But, for instance, line-forming logics can be viewed as a point of definition in Fletcher Henderson's work. Imbalanced extended structures; fresh integration of composition and improvisation, not just a little head or riff, but an architectonic compositional perspective that he brought to the music, even before Duke Ellington.
M So what do you see as the link between Fletcher Henderson and Duke Ellington?
A The link would be that Duke Ellington's work would build upon the propositions of Fletcher Henderson, in the sense of extended orchestration, and continued evolution and exploration and synthesis-conceptual models that would explore that dichotomy between intention composition versus improvisation and targeted improvisatory strategies. Fletcher Henderson would be one of the main composers to open that door. Duke Ellington, then, starting with the "jungle musics," would introduce fresh rhythmic strategies, more extreme conceptual models, building upon individual uniqueness, integrating that into the orchestral context. Mr. Ellington…it's outrageous to look at the spectrum of musics he's contributed. "Black, Brown and Beige" is an example of the beginning of the extended structural models; a sense of Africanisms that, in terms of poetic logics, like William Grant Still and other of my heroes, would start to mine the folk musics and blues musics of the African American experience.
M It seems like in your Composition Notes, a lot of times you write the phrase "fresh timbral possibilities;" and it seems like starting with James Reese Europe we started to get these growling trumpets and vocal sounds in the instruments. Then you think of like Chu Berry with Fletcher Henderson having a distinctive voice; then Duke seems to have really flowered that whole concept in his band.
A Exactly--and there's another person that we need to also include, and that's the great work of Charlie Mingus, which is post-Ellington. But Duke Ellington's various Suites, the Queen Suite, Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue--that music is very important. In saying that, I'm not saying anything fresh on any level; in fact, I'm very happy that we are now in the Ellington period, where serious scholarship is starting to come out on his music, right as we move into the third millennium. In every way, that is right on time and correct.
M When we talked about Louis Armstrong last time, we talked about the two side, the creative side and the appropriated side. How would you talk about Duke Ellington in the history of that double-edged sword? Because obviously now at the Lincoln Center, Duke Ellington is right at the center of that too.
A Yes.
M How would you distinguish your own relationship with Duke Ellington's music from, say, the Lincoln Center's?
A Well, I see Duke Ellington as occupying the same position that we give to JS Bach, that his music is all-encompassing. And yet, his music is politically being used in this period to stifle guys, like myself, when in fact his whole career was a struggle, as an African American person, to have the right to do his music and to have it respected based on his value systems. For instance, there was a period when Duke Ellington's music was put down in the jazz community. It was being undermined by a viewpoint of trans-Africanisms that would say that his extended compositions were somehow not correct for an African American composer, that it was too Eurocentric. So, you know, here I am fifty years later getting the same kind of viewpoint, where parameters are being set that seek to determine what is correct for an African American composer, that seek to reduce the dynamic possibilities of the music as opposed to seek to understand the breakthroughs, the possibly unique possibilities that have come from the African American experience. So Mr. Ellington then had the same objections put on his music.
M I remember reading Stanley Crouch critiquing Ornette Coleman as someone who really couldn't cut it in the African American, so he got into the European paradigm somehow. Do you know where he was coming from with that?
A Stanley has been quite effective in the last 20 years as far as positing a viewpoint about what constitutes the correct aesthetic parameters and alignment for African American music. From the beginning, we've always had a different viewpoint about this subject. When I think about my understanding of Stanley's viewpoint, I find myself feeling that it, again, is a reductionist one, that on the one hand insists on the inclusion of Duke Ellington and Charlie Mingus, and rightfully so--that continuum of composers as equal to anything that has been created by the European or European American composers community. But on the other hand, his viewpoint of Eurocentric in many ways has distorted his understanding of African American creativity. In doing so, Stanley's viewpoint, in my opinion, is involved with those reductionist forces that have historically sought to limit the vibrational spectrum of African American experience. In my view, while on the one hand, Stanley's writing and political decisions have been very important for elevating and exposing people to the work of Ellington and Fletcher Henderson, and the blues tradition; on the other hand, his work is directly connected to the suppression of African American composite vibrational dynamics. For me, this has been the tragedy of his viewpoint.
I would also say that if we were in a more balanced situation in the media, I don't think Stanley Crouch's viewpoint would be so harmful, if other viewpoints were given equal attention and equal treatment in the media. Then his viewpoint would be one among many. But what we're seeing instead is a suppression of perspectives. I don't blame Stanley Crouch for his viewpoint, he has a right to have it; but for his viewpoint to be the only one that gets out there…this has created a problem, I feel.
M What do you make of his insistence on using the term "Negro?"
A It's fine with me if he wants to use that term. Twenty years ago everyone was saying you had to refer to African Americans as black. I see his use of the term as consistent with his composite attempts to transport the musics back into the 1920s and '30s. All of this, in my opinion, is part of this retrogressive movement. He wants jazz to be jazz, negroes to be negroes, jazz musicians to wear suits; he wants one rhythmic logic, that he calls swing; he wants idiomatic certainty, from a continuum that was based on evolution and responding to the dynamics of real time. Just as, in my opinion, the devices of the bebop language are the sonic bones from that continuum, the use of the word "negro" is only relevant in the sense that psychologically, this is an attempt to pull everything back to the '20s again, and to celebrate the psychology of the '20s and '30s as representing idiomatic and vibrational certainty.
M What do you make of their inclusion of Ornette Coleman into the canon, as sort of the final word?
A I think Ornette Coleman's use of the blues has been a vehicle that has helped him. They include Ornette Coleman, but they don't include, for instance, Cecil Taylor, who Stanley likes to talk of as including too much Oliver Messaien in his music. In saying that, Stanley is really helping us to see how little he really knows about the European art musics, and how little he knows about Messaien's music. I think Ornette Coleman's Texas blues qualities have helped him. I guess I would also say the dynamics of the early quartets; it's kind of hard to deny. But then again, they've been able to deny so much music. I guess they could have simply denied all of Ornette Coleman's music; but I think it's the blues quality…
M How would you distinguish Cecil Taylor from Messaien?
A His language is totally original. Cecil Taylor would be the beginning of the more propositional logics, which is actually the term I use to talk about my own music; but his concept of unit structures, modular structures, modular rhythmic and pitch structural material, could be called the beginning of propositional compositional models. And his actual language on the piano is a kind of a composite language that takes into account everything, a trans-idiomatic language. To reduce it to Oliver Messiaen is in fact to misrepresent his music.
M How would you describe Messiaen's music?
A I'd describe it as a polyharmonic music, image-logic music--i.e. birds--maybe polytonal is better than polyharmonic. Kind of an extension, in a strange kind of way, of Romantic music. It continues with the basic propositions of the post-Wagner musics, but infuses that tradition with fresh timbre spaces. It explores the extremities of that position, and makes inroads to the linear space, using the same conceptual propositions of the post-Wagner musics, with a more active rhythm, exploring fresh instrumental combinations in conjunction with the response from the great French tradition. In fact, as part of that response period of nationalism that occurred after World War I, and solidified by World War II--not only in France, but I'm thinking Shostakovitch--the whole period from 1900 to 1940 was a period of responding to the post-Germanic musics, and the response basically was a response that included fresh timbre possibilities, i.e. new instruments, even bringing in the saxophone, i.e. Ravel, Debussy, lighter timbres, bringing in the influence from world culture, i.e. whole tone scales, Messiaen looking to the world group, to South America, the great music of Chavez, for example. Messiaen' music would take in a broader concept space, and react from a broader world music perspective than Wagner. Taking that position, his work would fulfill the dynamic implications of the modern Germanic musics that Wagner represents, without changing the principle conceptual components of that continuum, but rather fulfilling it to demonstrate what we call the modern musics.
M Do you have some sense of where Stanley was coming from when he made that comparison between Cecil and Messaien? What was he trying to say?
A I'm not sure…but I recall conversations with Stanley where he would say a solo sounded like Messaien. The only thing I could understand was that he was talking about a particular voicing or rhythmic device…but I didn't agree with him then or now. Certainly the modern vocabulary calls for, or would include, non-tonal-ish devices, or devices which were trans-tonal-ish, but trans-tonalism in itself doesn't necessarily imply anything, since tonality was the big breakthrough for the Europeans; trans-tonality really transports the music back to the world community again, opens up an awareness of possibilities that are multi-hierarchical, in terms of influence, and in terms of possibilities. Mr. Taylor's decision to move from the tonal musics into what I'll call atonality--I don't know how Mr. Taylor would refer to the harmonic or tonal evolution of his music--but that in itself can't necessarily be reduced to any one composer. That is to say, there most certainly could be a connection, or one could make a connection between Cecil's music and Messaien's, but you could also make a connection between Cecil and Stravinsky, Cecil and Bartok, Cecil and Dvorak, Cecil and Ellington, Cecil and Mingus, Cecil and Herbie Nichols--not to mention the great work of Dave Brubeck, who Cecil would listen to as well. What we're really describing is the evolution of harmonic psychologies going outside of tonal music; to simply cast Cecil's music as an attempt to parody Messaien, or forward components of Messaien's music, is a profound distortion. Not to mention the actual music itself is unique, whether we're talking of the early period of Cecil Taylor, the period which, idiomatically and conceptually, had the attributes of a post-bebop music that included phrase cluster configurations, a metric tempo, but extreme harmonic compositions to the point of actually verging on atonality anyway, including the use of imbalanced compositional and structural realities; that early period of his music is totally unique. Later, the period represented by Live at Montmartre, for instance, the trio with Jimmy Lyons and Sunny Murray--that's a very different music than the musics he would demonstrate on the "Unit Structures" CD, which would be a more propositional--or what I would call a more modular structural logic, as opposed to propositional…Yes, the word "propositional" when referring to Cecil Taylor I would throw out, and in its place I would put "modular structural logics," starting with Unit Structures. From that point, the velocity and energy components of Mr. Taylor's music would be unique, both in the sense of his individual language and the concept space itself, not just as virtuosity. I would recommend that a person go back to Nuits de la Fondation Maeght, with Sam Rivers and Jimmy Lyons and Andrew Cyrille playing with Cecil Taylor. It's a very different kind of concept space, it's not a normal kind of concept space; Cecil's always playing. His playing becomes a kind of generating fabric that everything is kind of put on top of in a way that's really different from John Coltrane or Ornette Coleman. It was not a sequential structure space music as much as this motivic space that expanded and extended with its own unique kind of energy quality. I think he's a great man.
M Tying this up with Duke Ellington, who we know was a big influence on Cecil, we know that Cecil, as a composer, has developed a style of talking his big bands through the charts rather than notating things for them. You mentioned him as a big influence on you and your work. How would you distinguish your path as a composer from his, and how would you describe both of those as part of the Duke Ellington continuum?
A I would say that we can look at Mr. Ellington's music as one that forwarded the propositions of Fletcher Henderson, in terms of composition-improvisation integration; as a music that would establish the broadest possible conceptual space for the creative composer and instrumentalist, the understanding being that as an instrumentalist, Ellington is a great pianist. I've always felt that his piano music was overlooked because of his great successes in composition; as an improviser, he continued that tradition of real-time experience on the instrument, and his work with his creative orchestra would basically set the standard for American creative music, especially that continuum of American creative music. After Mr. Ellington, I would focus on the great work of Charlie Mingus as a logical-unlogical heir to that same tradition. Tadd Dameron fits in that same tradition; it doesn't have the same spectrum as Mr. Ellington's in the sense of completed compositions that demonstrates the total spectrum of the music. Mr. Dameron's music, for me, is interesting in the same way that we talk of…oh, maybe Ralph Shapey…but that might not be the best example…
M Who?
A Ralph Shapey, the American composer whose work is modern music, but it has its own particular qualities. It doesn't challenge the law structure, or the qualities of concept space that had been demonstrated; at the same time, it is unique in terms of the problems that it tackles. Tadd Dameron's work is connected, in my opinion, to the solidification of what we call bebop and that period. I would also say the great work of Dizzy Gillespie and his creative orchestras in the big band tradition…all of that music--Tadd Dameron, Dizzy Gillespie, Billy Eckstine, Earl Hines a little bit--could be looked at as an area of creative orchestra music that would be important for clarifying the modern platform, what we call the bebop musics, postwar demonstration of extended chromaticism, harmonic complexity, unique integration between composition and improvisation.
The music of Charlie Mingus, and the reason why, for me, it's the next point after Duke Ellington, is because he would take the post-Ellington propositions and extend them to theater musics, to the world music platform in a different way. His work with poetry, in narrative musics, is unique. "The Eye of the Hurricane"…his song form musics, his combination logic musics, putting several different compositions together, to fuse music strategies, would be unique. His intervallic musics--compositions like "Eclipse" and "Weird Nightmare" would fulfill the extremities of the post-Ellington conceptual propositions. For that reason--not to mention that as an instrumentalist, he was a virtuoso, who also, like Cecil Taylor, in the latter part of his career, would adopt oral music strategies, would demonstrate a dynamically unique music universe--including his electronic music, what little he did. "Eye of the Hurricane"'s electronic components would be more image logics, adaptations of electronics as opposed to the work of some of the post-Webern electronic composers. Maybe not as elaborate as the "pure" electronic composers, but in the end it was a unique adaptation of the medium, in the same way that Varèse, who did not have opportunities to have experiences in electronic music that we would have hoped for, created "Poéme Electronique," a unique piece of music as far as I'm concerned. Charlie Mingus, whose efforts in this area were not extensive…even so, the little work he did I value greatly.
M You know, Mingus, I recall, also was pretty keen on oral transmissions of music rather than notation.
A In his later period, not in his earlier period.
M I read this article, an interview with Cecil in German, where he was being real adamant about the superiority of his method of talking people through their parts rather than notation, because he felt they got the music a whole lot more into their systems. You're a guy who's really taken notation far, and who relies on it in a way that puts off a lot of European players, and maybe a lot of players, and draws criticism. So how would you, again, distinguish the path you chose to take, maybe specifically with your use of notation, down that Ellington-Mingus continuum, from Cecil's or Mingus's oral methods?
A I would position my work as such: Duke Ellington's music as a fresh synthesis music demonstrating composition and improvisation; Charlie Mingus's as a post-Ellington music demonstrating the extremes of that position, plus extending into new global music domains; Cecil Taylor is a point of definition for modular structural devices, moving into the oral tradition, but even using that material modularly; and I see my work as a point of definition for propositional logics, in what I've come to call a tri-centric music; propositional logics as a way to talk about the connections in my music--in the house of the circle, the house of the rectangle, the house of the triangle. Tri-centric in the sense of the connection between domains, between the Tri-Centric writings and the actual compositions and the integration of those components. Propositional in the sense of in the house of the circle, a concept of language music as a point of definition for mutable logic syntax geometry as a way to create improvisatory language in the house of the circle. From that point, expanding the same information to the house of the triangle, to the architectonic domain; and from that point to create languages based on syntax and logic; propositional in the sense of defining strategies based on the twelve components of my system; from that point, propositional in the sense of defining language syntax, then architectonic syntax. From that point, defining synthesis integration point of definition with respect to ritual and ceremony and philosophical components.
So how would I distinguish my work from Cecil Taylor's? For me, Cecil Taylor's music demonstrates a modular structural space that would extend into world music vis-à-vis santaria, with an occult component that is holistic; my work, for me, demonstrates a multi-hierarchical thought unit that is tri-centric, and when I talk of it in this time period, I talk of a tri-centric music that demonstrates propositional constructs, syntactical constructs; tri-centric as a thought unit that demonstrates a mechanism, or structural mechanism, or active mechanism; and finally, tri-centric as a thought unit that demonstrates an occult position--which is to say, no wonder I'm broke.
M Actually, I did follow that very well, because I've been through it with you…
A Of course.
M …but we need to come back to it when we actually talk about your work as the sole focus to sort of unpack and decode it. But what I'm wondering about at this point is specifically just the use of notation. Would you say that the use of conventional notation is part of your fulfillment of the house of the rectangle?
A Yes.
M And that its relationship--I mean in other words the uniqueness of your use of conventional notation lies in its relationship to the house of the circle and the house of the triangle?
A The house of the rectangle. But let's look at that. In the house of the rectangle, which in my system is really the house of targeted intention. When we talk of notation in my music, we're not talking of one kind of anything. I have, in the 400-something compositions that I've worked with, I've sought to demonstrate traditional notational models, my own systems of notation, and targeted verbal directives. So my work in the house of the rectangle can't be reduced to one parameter of notation.
M So what would your response be to Cecil's or anyone's decision to be so orally focused, and also maybe Mingus's, and even Ellington's, in the sense that he used to sort of make a composition in a day and then just sort of talk it over to his band?
A I have that component in my music as well; I've tried to--I see my music as a point of definition for the trans-idiomatic musics, and the trans-idiomatic processes, and the trans-vibrational spiritual lane. By that, I'm saying that there has been no one way for me, no one methodology; in fact, the system that I've built has twelve different ways. So as far as your question is concerned, I respect the gentlemen that we've mentioned and their methodologies and the way they've developed their music. When speaking of my own music, I would say that many of those arguments don't apply to my work, because, for one thing, I'm not interested in the "democratic" or "conservative" party; I'm not interested in notation or improvisation; my work, on the occult level, I speak of as navigation through form. By that I just mean that I've put together different components based on whatever the project is. I disagree with the idea that improvisation or oral information is any more advanced than notated or totally fixed information; I think those are the arguments of the twentieth century, and that in the twenty-first century, with the tri-centric thought unit, that those arguments aren't relevant to what I'm trying to do. As far as I'm concerned, the state of freedom, and the experiences in the house of the circle, are only one component of my music, and that's what differentiates me from the great trans-European tradition and the great trans-African tradition, in terms of preferential focus for any one domain.
M Okay. Sun Ra.
A For me, Sun Ra, like Charlie Mingus--and I guess Sun Ra would come before Charlie Mingus; they're really around the same time, but Sun Ra is slightly before him. Sun Ra, again, would be an artist, a great visionary whose work forwards the post-Ellington and world culture implications of the fourth and fifth restructural cycles. Actually, I would even go back and say of the first restructural cycle. In his music is demonstrated extended improvisation, collective improvisation; a composition like "Strange Strings" demonstrates a fresh timbre-logic state, integration of world music instrumentation; Sun Ra's music is a point of definition for composite aesthetics, reconnecting back into Africa, not being afraid of Europe as well; Sun Ra would expand his work into the house of the triangle and create a ritual and ceremonial music, including an occult position. Even more so than Mingus, Sun Ra's music would demonstrate a unique creative universe that--and when I say even more than Mingus, I only mean that compositionally, this guy tackled problems from every direction. And like Ellington, he kept his same group of people together, had a family music, had a mysticism, reconnected back into Egypt, was not afraid of the world. Sun Ra's music would bring fresh perspectives to percussion music, would be a part of sound mass evolution; as an instrumentalist, even more than Ellington, demonstrated a unique music on the piano that encompassed the total spectrum of the music. He would also be among the first African American visionaries to include electronics; he was a multi-instrumentalist, playing organ and synthesizer. Every parameter, every quadrant of his music would demonstrate some fresh component of radiance, whether it was instrumentation, ritual and ceremony…plus, like a Gemini, he kept changing the name of his ensemble. So his work was the essence of American and African American and trans-African and finally world music: always growing and expanding and changing, and it functioned under his definitions. It was a mystical music. He also included dancers and singers; he was a point of definition for multimedia presentation, and redefining that in a way that encompassed Ellington and went back to before Ellington to the world of Vaudeville musics. Fletcher Henderson…
M And also out to Lex Baxter, this Lawrence Welk kind of easy listening stuff…
A Yes! And he had the insight to include Walt Disney as a part of his components, and a lot of people didn't understand that. I've talked with many musicians who had a very negative reaction to his inclusion of and respect for Walt Disney. As far as I'm concerned, that was a brilliant aesthetic move of Sun Ra's, because of course Walt Disney is an American pioneer and visionary.
M Do you see Sun Ra as part of the continuum of figures shunned by the African American community?
A Exactly, and this is taking place even in this time period. I hear the Ken Burns film coming out doesn't include him. What a tragedy, for a guy that great. Nor does it include George Russell. George Russell, as far as I'm concerned, is in the tradition of the restructuralist African American creative composer visionaries. His work would principally focus on timbre-logic components of the music, and he is responsible for the emphasis of lydian scalar strategies, which connects into the world music community. His decision to systematize his methodologies would be a point of definition for the creative music continuum, and make it possible for guys like me to start thinking in terms of the importance of systematizing their methodologies, and of moving toward a literary parameter as a component of the music work. George Russell would later evolve a rhythmic component from the rhythmic system of his music. His work is essential in seeking to understand the evolution of the trans-African, and trans-African American, and finally the trans-American music continuum.
M So let's polish this off with the AACM.
A Well, Mike, let me first say thank you. The AACM. I think the AACM will one day come to be seen as one of the important junctures in time in American music, especially in the history of trans-African American musics. The AACM comprised a group of African American men and women who were dedicated to responding to the composite challenge of creative music in a way that has historical implications. In this organization, there was never an attempt to define one way for the individual, or one idiom that is correct for the individual. Rather it was a platform that was mutually supportive of the individual and that encouraged research and exploration and fraternalism. I believe that when the true histories are written that the AACM will come to be viewed for what it was, that being the second juncture after Reconstruction, the first being from the 1880s to the 1920s, that would define the fresh perspectives for African American and finally world music dynamics for the third millennium.
About the individuals in the AACM: first, Muhal Richard Abrams. I think he's a great man, and I'm just totally shocked that as we enter into the third millennium that so little of his work is known or understood or appreciated. He's a great composer, a post-Ellington composer whose work is unique; he has theater music, he was doing plays in the '60s. His work has a post-Sun Ra component to it. His work is trans-idiomatic in the sense that he has a body of all-notated musics, all improvisatory musics; he has a music that contains the oral tradition and compositions that mix together in various ways unique to him composition and improvisation. As an instrumentalist, Muhal demonstrates the total history of the music in a way that is connected to Ellington. He was a pivotal figure in bringing musicians together in Chicago, and for that alone he occupies a special place in terms of his understanding of social responsibility and his desire to be a part of the community and to help young guys like myself to go back and study and reevaluate Louis Armstrong's music. My relationship to Armstrong as a young guy was just surface; I couldn't figure out what all the talk was about. It was only after studying with Muhal Richard Abrams and learning from Leo Smith that I would gain an insight into Mr. Ellington and Jelly Roll Morton and composers I had missed as a young guy.
Leo Smith. I think Leo Smith is another of the great restructural masters of this time period whose music has just been pushed aside; there's been no attempt to understand Leo Smith, but, like me, he was interested in building a music system, not just a music. He was the first of the musicians from my generation to write about his music. His concept of sound units would be the first of the methodologies that would be defined in a very clear way. Leo Smith has a body of notated musics that encompasses everything from his own system, like mine. In fact, anything that I could say about myself I could say that Leo Smith has a complimentary music that comes with its own unique qualities. He's demonstrated a body of musics and a universe of perspectives that should be essential, and will, in the future, be essential, once the information is made available, for creative musicians and composers in the third millennium.
M So maybe what we're saying for academic research is that the information is there, but has yet to be explored.
A Exactly. Roscoe Mitchell. When I got out of the army, Roscoe Mitchell had already found his own music. I mentioned before that we were at Wilson Junior College together. Even then, as a stylist on the alto saxophone, he had his own music, apart from Ornette Coleman. He had already found something special, his own sound, his own rhythm, his own way of playing on changes. When I got out of the army, the record "Sound" had already been recorded, I think. That record alone, had he done nothing else--just as we might say John Coltrane, had he died after "Giant Steps" would be considered a great restructural saxophonist who brought something fresh to the music in terms of harmonic dynamics, compositional dynamics, sheets of sound, just what he did with the instrument in terms of vocabulary syntax--this was also true of Roscoe Mitchell by the time of the record "Sound." Since then, Roscoe Mitchell has gone on to build a unique universe of musics that isolate different conceptual problems, methodological devices; Roscoe Mitchell is a multiinstrumentalist whose work would define contemporary multiinstrumentalism in the '60s; before him, if you played flute, clarinet, and saxophone, that was enough. After Roscoe Mitchell, you had to play the whole spectrum of the woodwind family and then also make your own instruments. Roscoe Mitchell has produced a unique chamber music, body of musics; his orchestral musics are uniquely his own; his improvisatory musics are very different from mine; he works out his improvisations in a very different kind of way. Then when you hear his solo concerts, they're worked out very differently than the language music strategies that I would work out for myself. I just think when the true histories of the music are written, this is another guy who cannot simply be looked at as a good instrumentalist, although he is that and more; or a composer of particular compositions; rather, he has produced a universe of music.
M Borah Bergman was telling me--he's played a lot with Roscoe lately, you know--and he said Roscoe had told him recently "now my star is rising," because of those stories in the New York Times, and Down Beat.
A He's like 58 years old, and finally his star is rising. I only hope his star will keep rising and that they will give him more opportunities. He has vocal musics, theater musics…and, of course, all of that is separate from his work with the Art Ensemble of Chicago, one of the greatest groups in music history. That group is a direct affirmation of Roscoe's input as well.