The Great Adventures of Kool Keith

[Kool Keith Sweat]

Almost exclusively listening to Spring Heel Jack ('00-'0, Mark Hollis, Autechre ('95-'05), Roy Montgomery, John Fahey, The For Carnation's EPs, Andy Stott, and Tortoise remixes these days, with some Massive Attack and Bill Callahan, some other songs here and there. Saw The Necks a couple weeks ago, which was the best live performance I've ever seen along with Sleep. Am very excited for the coming Levitation Fest and Brotzmann and Tortoise shows I've got lined up.

[Kool Keith Sweat]

Since the last entry in this diary, my listening has changed to the point where free improvisation and jazz make up at least 80% of my listening and that's probably a conservative estimate.

I think I was/am drawn to free improvisation largely because, more than any other kind of music I've come across, it has a tendency to really explore the timbral boundaries of instruments, and I mean really open them up, via extended techniques. A lot of my highlights from rock songs were also extended techniques, extreme vibrato/tremolo, feedback, etc. It was almost a natural progression for me to see to what extremes instruments could be taken to with extended techniques or, if a lot of what I enjoy in rock is timbral revelry and extended technique, why not try to find entire tracks of that. A secondary draw for me is/was definitely freeing track structure as well. I think I've grown progressively more conscious of overused track structures and a lot of free improvisation (definitely not a lot of free jazz) frees track structure. At this point, I'd much rather listen to something like repetitions that "go nowhere" or impressions that "go nowhere" than a GY!BE track that's going to predictably crescendo, a verse-chorus-verse pop track, or a free jazz track that starts quietly, rises in volume and gets frenetic, and then fizzles out again. Finally the nature of improvisation and our music culture's relationship with it is very interesting to me; grappling with that definitely brings a freshness to the music. For instance, improvisation is definitely performance-based music, opposed to our rock-centric culture based on recorded music. How do you evaluate recordings of improvised music? As a flash in the pan snapshot of the trajectory of the performer? Could or should improvised music be evaluated like a performance, after one listen? Is improvised music somehow inherently "never as good" as composed music (actually a prevalent thought)? If communication between performers is an established primary indicator of the quality of group performance, what implications does that have for evaluating a solo improvisation? How much of a performance can be improvised (I don't think anyone agrees it's 100%)? Is it possible to be a non-idiomatic performer, as many improvisers posture themselves? and what makes the jazz idiom? These are some of the questions that float around this music that I think are interesting.

I definitely have a bias towards solo improvisations; they make up over a quarter of my overall chart at the time of this post. I think it's interesting to listen in on a mind in a room. I think it takes some courage to start improvising in something more "formal" than your home practice space, without the crutch of another player sharing the burden of space with you or taking those first steps into an empty space with you. I'd like to think it provides a view into the unmolested style of a performer, into their playing personality, so it becomes very interesting to see how they perform differently in duo, trio, and larger formats. Which is why I probably listen to duos second-most, because it's not too big of a step from the solo; I can still identify most everything a performer is doing and have time to think about how their style has changed in relation to the other player. Things get messier the more people get involved, but I'm always trying to go bigger to test my ears.

One of the previous posts in this diary actually mentioned following a sound strain of trombonists (Grachan Moncur III, Clifford Thornton, Roswell Rudd) and I'm actually going through a heightened interest trombone right now as well. I still think those previous three are great players, but this time around I'm focusing on George Lewis, Paul Rutherford, and Matthias Muller. Lewis' style is a master blend of complex structure and timbral exploration, whereas Rutherford has more open space, impressions, larger timbral boundaries; Muller is an quiet extremist from what I've heard - the trombone equivalent of Michel Doneda. They all have pushed or are pushing the language of the trombone. I was drawn to the trombone the first time around because I was into JCOA and wondered why, of their seven or so albums, they commissioned trombonists to do three of them; this time around, I think I'm drawn to it because it's the only horn with a slide, one of the only instruments that can produce a true glissando and has an interesting tonal blurring effect, maybe something else.

I think the instrument I'm drawn the most to is soprano saxophone, but that's largely because I've explored improvised music through big soprano players like Evan Parker, Lol Coxhill, Steve Lacy, Michel Doneda, etc. Evan Parker is just a technical powerhouse. Lol Coxhill is like a quaint Ayler or Fahey, perverting folk songs to fit his instrument and his various timbral preferences, which can be "out there." 20 minutes of circular breathing, split tones, false fingering, 120+ notes per minute all the way to majority silent impressions are possible for him; the take home though is that breath and monophony are not restrictions for him. Steve Lacy is a more traditional player, and draws explicit attention to the limitations of breath and monophony. Michel Doneda's pieces are literally breath, most of the time, but he can breathe circularly and monophony is not a restriction for him, he just chooses to draw attention to the breath required to play.

I've gotten kind of bored of typing, so I'll stop there. Just some ramblings that I hope someone will read and want to think and talk about because discussion threads are scant

[Repo]

Hey, Keith! I'd love to discuss this stuff with you. Why don't you rec me a jazz album on the mellow side of things and we can start from there. I think we have fairly similar tastes (Tortoise, Talk Talk, etc.) I just haven't been exposed to a lot of jazz.

[Kool Keith Sweat]

This is a quiet one

Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.

Anatomie Des Clefs by Michel Doneda

It might be hard to find online though; I just bought the CD

[Repo]

[Kool Keith Sweat]

Seen Henry Threadgill's Zooid perform In for a penny, in for a pound since my last post; will likely be the most complexly composed piece I'll ever see, and the tuba/cello combo is really inspired. Speaking of jazz composers, I will be seeing Leo Smith's golden quartet preform Ten Freedom Summers in a couple of weeks; pretty excited about that. Recently finished up Sonic Transmissions III festival, at which the highlight was a trio of Ken Vandermark, Joe Mcphee, and Susan Alcorn. Just two working groups so far, but sax/steel pedal seems like a combo that's building steam. Apparently, the trio recorded with Astral Spirits while they were in town, so looking forward to that; Astral Spirits also had their next few months of releases available at the fest and their level of quality just keeps on rising (I'm listening to an excellent Rob Mazurek cornet/electronics solo right now). Was also able to pick up Ken Vandermark's Momentum 1: Stone, which I highly suggest to anyone trying to get into contemporary, boundary-pushing jazz; it's almost a who's who of great American players right now. Other than that, been listening to what's on my chart and digging in to more Steve Swell, Mat Maneri, and Ned Rothenberg