A feelings post.

As mentioned in the previous post, a performance by Charles Gayle, Milford Graves and William Parker was an end. It was the end of a dynasty and the end of a multi-generational epic that began with John Coltrane, came to conceptual flower in Albert Ayler and was brought to conclusion by Charles Gayle. That performance at the Webo Gallery was the apex of that "ruminative line" to misquote Bloom.

Further, Charles Gayle ended a way of playing the saxophone. Exhausted it--disintegrated it. And it couldn't have happened without the help of Graves and Parker, who by providing the necessary setting for the end of a way of playing the saxophone, simultaneously brought to an end a way of functioning for the 'rhythm section.'

After Gayle, in the wake of Gayle, after what Gayle did (so definitively and thoroughly) to the saxophone in improvisation, the tenor saxophone sensibilities of Daniel Carter, Joe Maneri and John Butcher gave me a dignified, convincing out. Peace with honor, so to speak. They (Carter, Maneri, Butcher) are believable. Perhaps there is hope.

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Gayle, Graves and Parker brought to climax 'the trio'--something I had been relating to more or less since Jimi Hendrix captured my attention.

Dixon's imagination can ends that which has yet to begin. Who will do more with the two trumpet, two drummer instrumentation than Bill Dixon, Arthur Brooks, Gary Sojkowski and J. R. Mitchell at the St. Marks Church? (I have a flyer for that one too amongst all the other papers in storage; the concert happened in the early 90's)

It was a remarkable concert. Music beyond conception. Music without precedent, and a music of a kind that hasn't been heard since. Why it was not recorded and released is a recurring tragedy.

It was a unique ensemble in terms of instrumentation, concept, and amount of rehearsal. I remember Dixon, Brooks and Sojkowski rehearsed all winter in the "Black Music Library" at Bennington College for the performance. (They did so in in their coats and hats, as Bennington College turned off the heat in the winter to save money.) Dixon and Arthur Brooks had been working closely for years and years; at that time, few knew Dixon's music and concept better than Brooks. No one else on Earth was better equipped to be 'second trumpet' in this setting. Their unique, deep relationship made the music all the more singular.

I could (and still can) get my mind around Gayle, Graves and Parker at the Webo with the aide of constructs like the Jimi Hendrix Experience as well as that groups faint, strained, frayed but distinct tether to Jazz.

I couldn't (and still can't) get my mind around Dixon's performance at the St. Mark's church. All kinship to Jazz erased--as close to Jazz as Peter Paul and Mary--but in the opposite direction.

Like Lichtenberg said, "I too admire great men, but only those whose work I do not understand"

What is to be celebrated about Dixon is that Dixon can really be understood only in the context of Dixon--and even there, what is there to say besides "it sounds like none other than Dixon?"

copyright,  © 2007 Stanley Zappa

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