Twittering Machines

Bill Dixon
Berlin Abbozzi

Bill Dixon’s only recording for über-free-jazz German label FMP is back in print (sort of*)! Recorded live by Holger Scheuermann and Jost Gebers on November 8th, 1999, during 10 Jahre Mauerfall at the Podewil in Berlin to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the fall of the Wall, Berlin Abbozzi features Bill Dixon: trumpet, flugelhorn, Matthias Bauer: double bass, Klaus Koch: double bass, and Tony Oxley: drums.

You can listen to Berlin Abbozzi for free and see what you think. I think it helps not to think about free jazz or FMP or any labels of any kind. You know, just listen.

Berlin Abbozzi
BILL DIXON

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* Available from Destination Out in “MP3 320, FLAC, or just about any other format you could possibly desire” along with a whole bunch of FMP classics. (I think this is a sign)

Bill Dixon
photo credit: Stephen Haynes

Francis Davis of the Village Voice reviews the CD reissue of Intents and Purposes:

If ever a jazz LP literally qualified as “legendary,” Intents is it: Deleted practically in transit, it was briefly reissued only once (in France, in the 1970s). It’s at long last been reissued on CD in a fetish-worthy International Phonograph limited edition with original graphics, liner notes, and period Nipper logo, and I envy anyone first hearing it now, because it’s as bold and surprising as anything newly released this year.

There’s some very nice bio-info in there as well which makes this review worth the read for those so inclined.

Cecil Taylor  Bill Dixon  Tony Oxley

Like a B.L.T. only this one’s good for ya (and I’m not talking about the sandwich). Cecily Taylor and Bill Dixon first joined forces for the record way back in 1966 on Taylor’s Conquistador! (a must-have LP in my catalog on Blue Note) and the Dixon-Oxley and Taylor-Oxley collaborations started in the ’80s. This is also the live and Controversial* recording from May 19, 2002 and it tinkles and trinkles, clicks and clacks and blows and breathes until it blows your house down all the way home.

Bill Dixon makes ample use of reverb and I read somewhere that he did so so’s you can better hear what he’s doing, not for effect (or affect). Cecil Taylor is, you know, himself* and Tony Oxley is almost more colorist than strictly percussive. The crowd, this was recorded at the Victoriaville festival in Quebec, Canada, is so quiet and respectful I can’t imagine this would have been the case at any of NYC’s more famous Jazz haunts (you know).

I once saw Joe Pass solo at the Blue Note, and Joe Pass isn’t exactly difficult music mind you, and the crowd wouldn’t, as in would not, shut up. Joe finally started strumming some straight forward rock ‘n roll chords as a joke but the crowd almost immediately took notice, shut up and started clapping. Poor Joe Pass at first had the look of “no, really!?!” all over his face then he just put his head down, closed his eyes and went on with his show. Fuck these nitwits muttered under my breath as the noise level rose again.

Difficult music is only difficult until it becomes familiar unless we never give it the chance.

Tracks – B + T + C (41’55″), T ÷ C x B (7’41″), and C x B x T + T (1’21″). I know exactly what you’re thinking – this could fit on an LP!

* The Controversy explained: Apparently there was a lot of negative hubbub over this concert at the time mainly centering around Bill Dixon. He was critical of the Canadian press pre-concert, the show started late (although I don’t believe this was Bill’s fault), it was only 50 minutes long and here’s the fatalist blow – Cecil Taylor played slower than normal because he was following Bill Dixon’s lead. Now I’ve been a victim of failed expectations at concerts but we really need to learn to shut up and listen.

If you want to read more about this controversy including some infantile doodling by poseur music critics, Google is your friend and you can start with Nate Dorward, Cadence, December 2002. (some critics, imo, need to shut the fuck up and listen more ideally more than a drunken NYC crowd AND they need to extricate their ego’s from their expectations which can be a painful yet liberating surgical procedure).

Bill Dixon
Odyssey

I just read on Bill Dixon’s Facebook page that they are planning to make Bill’s massive self-produced 6 CD + art + book Odyssey available again!

“This is not a reissue but, rather, a continued sale of the limited edition box set that Bill Dixon designed, manufactured and distributed from his home in North Bennington, Vermont.

We anticipate making the work available again by early summer. To inquire (price is not yet set), send an email message to newparadym@yahoo.com with the subject line reading ‘Bill Dixon Odyssey.’”

You can read more about Odyssey on One Final Note and I’ve included some details here…

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Bill Dixon
Envoi

Bill Dixon’s last concert recorded at the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville, May 22, 2010. Released on Les Disques VICTO (CD only).

Featuring:

Bill Dixon – trumpet, composition, direction
Stephen Haynes – trumpet, cornet, bugle
Taylor Ho Bynum – cornet, bugle
Rob Mazurek – cornet
Graham Haynes – cornet, bugle
Glynis Loman – violoncelle
Michel Cote – clarinette contrabasse
Ken Filiano – contrebasse
Warren Smith – vibraphone, batterie, percussion

Bill Dixon
Intents and Purposes

What a tremendous and welcome surprise – Jonathan Horwich of International Phonograph, Inc. has released a re-mastered and first-time ever on CD limited edition of Bill Dixon’s classic and seminal recording from 1967 Intents and Purposes. Yes, I love this record so much I’m positively thrilled to see it released on CD so it can reach even more ears and minds. To my way of thinking anyone and everyone who is interested in music should own their very own copy of Bill Dixon’s Intents and Purposes. It will make the world a more thoughtful and better place.

Of course, what would be even more tremendous, stupendous even, would be a vinyl re-issue. I say we spread the word and get everyone you know who loves music and records to say – “I want Intents and Purposes on vinyl!”. Say it here in the comments, send me an email, send Jonathan Horwich an email or all of the above. My feeling is if we get enough people interested, Jonathan will be happy to say “yes”. As the Beach Boys said, wouldn’t it be nice?

I wrote about the original LP here and I’d reiterate that Intents and Purposes sounds like Intents and Purposes and nothing else. It is genre-less in the best possible way. Intents and Purposes was one of The Wire magazine’s 100 Records That Set The World On Fire (while no one was listening).

A1 Metamorphosis 1962-66 13:20

Bass – Jimmy Garrison , Reggie Workman
Cello – Catherine Norris
Drums – Robert Frank Pozar
English Horn – George Marge
Leader, Trumpet, Flugelhorn, Written-By – Bill Dixon
Percussion – Marc Levin
Saxophone [Alto] – Robin Kenyatta
Saxophone [Alto], Clarinet [Bass] – Byard Lancaster
Trombone [Bass] – Jimmy Cheatham

A2 Nightfall Pieces I 3:47

Flute – George Marge
Leader, Trumpet, Flugelhorn, Written-By – Bill Dixon

B1 Voices 12:08

Bass – Jimmy Garrison
Cello – Catherine Norris
Clarinet [Bass] – Byard Lancaster
Drums – Robert Frank Pozar
Leader, Trumpet, Flugelhorn, Written-By – Bill Dixon

B2 Nightfall Pieces II 2:25

Leader, Trumpet, Flugelhorn, Written-By – Bill Dixon

But don’t take my or The Wire’s word for it….

It is easy in retrospect to understand why this album has garnered such enthusiasm among fans and musicians. The music sounds like nothing else of the period (or today for that matter) and the palette of instruments and musicians is continually fascinating. Kudos to Jonathan Horwich for the herculean effort it took to bring this masterpiece back into print. Music and More by Tim Niland

Dixon’s first album, Intents And Purposes (1967), released when he was already 42, included two lengthy workouts, the five-movement “Metamorphoses 1962-1966″ (October 1966) for a tentet (trumpet, trombone, alto, clarinet, English horn, cello, two basses, drums and percussion) and “Voices” (January 1967) for a quintet (trumpet, clarinet, cello, bass and drums). Both works displayed Dixon’s pensive, lyrical style that sounded like pure poetry among all the viscerality of free jazz. Instead of using the music as a weapon, Dixon (who was also a painter) used it to create vast canvasses of organized sounds, using space and silence in a way that predated Chicago’s “creative” school, and often caressing the atmosphere with haunting bass lines. Piero Scaruffi’s The History of Jazz

From a review of the reissue by Doug Ramsey, Rifftides, 3/28/11:

In a brief addendum to the notes, Horwich writes of Intents and Purposes, ”It stands as one of the most important and revolutionary musical expressions of the 20th century.”

That may be true.

”There was nothing like it before 1966/67 and there has been nothing like it since.”

That is true. –

“I have hundreds of hours of this music on tape performed by orchestras at the college that, as I said, have never seen the light of any other day.” Bill Dixon

Sounds like MORE.

(October 5, 1925 – June 16, 2010)
photo credit: Nick Rueschel

WKCR‘s birthday broadcast is airing today (right now!) from 12:00pm – 3:00pm

Paul Bley, Bill Dixon, Bob (Cleve) Pozar, Archie Shepp, Marzette Watts
New Music: Second Wave

Released in 1979 five years after Clive Davis/Arista purchased Savoy Records, New Music: Second Wave contains mostly excerpts from some great ’60s Savoy jazz releases produced by Bill Dixon (with the exception of the Paul Bley tracks) – Archie Shepp/Bill Dixon Consequences (1964), Marzette Watts The Marzette Watts Ensemble (1968) and the Robert F. (Cleve) Pozar Ensemble Good Golly Miss Nancy (1966). The Paul Bley tracks were previously unreleased.

My main attraction to this LP was to finally get my hands and ears on Marzette Watts. I knew of Marzette from his association with Bill Dixon who plays piano on and produced this Savoy outing as well as Marzette’s life as an abstract expressionist painter who ended up destroying most of his work.  The only other Marzette Watts record I’m aware of is Marzette Watts & Company on ESP Disk from 1966 which includes Sonny Sharrock on guitar. Yes, both LPs are hard to come by and I haven’t, yet.

Marzette Watts
The Marzette Watts Ensemble

“Play It Straight” (an Ornette Coleman tune) features Marzette Watts on tenor sax, Bill Dixon piano, Steve Tintweiss  bass and Tom Berge drums and its anything but played straight. Think manic drunken monkey master free jazz vibe with Dixon’s piano sounding like honky tonk Schoenberg. The other Watts track “Lonely Woman” (also by Coleman) features Watts on tenor, Marty Cook trombone, Amy Schaeffer vocals, Juni Booth bass and JC Moses drums. I’m not familiar with Amy Schaeffer but here she’s in lovely voice reminiscent of Dee Dee Bridgewater.

Any sampler worth its salt will give something unexpected and in that sense, this one worked wonders for me. From the liner notes by Michael Cuscuna – “Although Savoy at this point [1962] had narrowed its activities almost exclusively to the Gospel field, the company did collaborate with trumpeter-composer-educator Bill Dixon to fill the initial vacuum for a second wave of new music creators.” I also learned from the liner notes that Bill personally financed his recording sessions with Archie Shepp and leased them to Savoy. If you couple this with the October Revolution in Jazz (1964) concert series that Dixon organized and his Jazz Composers Guild, you’ll find that Bill Dixon was a major impetuous behind this second wave.

Robert F. (Cleve) Pozar Ensemble
Good Golly Miss Nancy

The other pleasant surprise of this collection turned out to be Cleve Pozar (Robert Frank Pozar officially changed his name to Cleve Pozar because “my father was a very stern kind of guy, and he was always on my case, and he used to say, “Bob!” and it was like a gunshot, and I used to have nightmares about that shit. And I said, “I’m gonna get a name that nobody can say harshly.“). Cleve studied with among others…Bill Dixon and he also played on Dixon’s seminal Intents an Purposes. Here he’s represented by three tracks, “Robin Hood” and “The Mechanical Answering Service of Chris and Marta White”, featuring Cleve Pozar on drums, Mike Zwerin on bass trumpet and trombone, Kathy Norris on cello, and Jimmy Garrison bass and “Sweet Little Maia” which was composed by Jimmy Garrison and features only Garrison and Norris’ cello. Which makes it a Jimmy Garrison track. No?

Nonetheless, the purely Pozar cuts are beautifully composed and a step back to structured play but Pozar’s playfulness comes through his claimed sources of inspiration – the Robin Hood TV show theme song and Chris White’s pitch modulation and dynamics on her answering machine message (Pozar worked with John Cage, Morton Feldman, Robert Ashley and Gordon Mumma at Ann Arbor’s Once Festival). A copy of this LP which was supposedly from Bill Dixon’s personal collection just sold for $165.75 on eBay…

Cleve Pozar
Solo Percussion

Cleve Pozar’s other record is called Solo Percussion and the few tracks I’ve heard from it sound like more. Listen to Echo Afrika.

Here’s a great Bill Dixon story as told by Cleve Pozar from Working Out of Another Bag by Hank Shteamer (April 2008):

“How come you’re not studying with Bill anymore?” I said, “Judy [Dunn], man, I got no bread. I don’t have food money.” So Bill finds out through Judy that the reason I’m not studying with him is because I don’t even have food. He comes over to my place with two grocery bags, one filled with food and the other filled with ale, walks in, puts the shit in my refrigerator, puts the extra bottle of ale in my refrigerator, opens up a bottle for me and a bottle for him and says, “Sit down on the drumset.” He takes the barstool, leans over to me and says, “Don’t ever do that to me again!”

If you want to learn more about the fascinating Cleve Pozar, I suggest this interview with none other than Adam Lore of 50 Miles of Elbow Room.

Trivia – that odd cover photo of a weed among gems? is by John E. Barrett of Muppet photo fame.

Issue #1

Grand Royal Magazine (1993-1997) was a Beastie Boys gig. What started as a newsletter ended up as 6 issues of one very cool magazine. Thanks to Milo’s recommendation, I’m the proud owner of Issue #2 – “Long Awaited, Much Anticipated, Grossly Outdated”.

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Bill Dixon
Thoughts

Recorded at Paul Robeson House – Bennington College, Bennington, Vermont on May 16, 1985

Bill Dixon – piano, trumpet, flugelhorn
Marco Eneidi – alto saxophone
John Bruckman – tuba
Peter Kowald, William Parker, Mario Pavone – double bass

I got to see and hear this ensemble minus William Parker in my last year at Bennington. What sticks in my mind most was intensity. From the first note to the last, this was an edge of your seat adrenaline crush of a concert. I also  remember Peter Kowald’s physicality – a big, bald, brawny German dressed in black, he nearly consumed his double bass when playing. They very nearly looked like one thing.

I also remember a distinct sense of violence. Or maybe fury is a better word to describe the emotion that lit up the hall during the performance. I also distinctly remember how direct Peter Kowald was when he asked my then girlfriend back to her room. I think it was the next sentence after ‘hello’. Come to think of it, there was this violent sexual tension in the music and this night these musicians seemed to have everyone in their grasp. Intense.

The Paul Robeson House where this record was recorded has an amazing history which includes housing the first retrospective of Jackson Pollock’s paintings in 1952.

And this is Jennings which was home to The Black Music Division founded by Bill Dixon in 1973 (imagine this shot with Dixon’s Jaguar E-Type coupe parked out front and imagine how badass that was).

Jennings was like its own college within a college and while I never took a course with Bill Dixon (yes I have kicked myself), I met him a few times and found him intimidating (I think he liked that) and intense with a wicked sense of humor. A truly fascinating character. And if there’s any one record that reminds me of the Bill Dixon I was lucky enough to be around, it’s Thoughts.

I came across this quote by Piero Scaruffi and even though he’s talking about another recording, it applies:

His own trumpet was a magical device, that attained great emotional intensity with a trickle of notes. Melodies were hinted at, rhythms disappeared in rhythmic vacuums, harmonies disintegrated as they were created.

I intend to get all of Bill Dixon’s recordings over time, fill in the blanks and be thankful for the time I can spend just listening.

I do not, as a rule, do encores. When I have finished playing, I have indeed finished playing. I have nothing left; there has been no reserve. ~ Bill Dixon

Bill Dixon
Considerations 1

All pieces performed at Bennington College, Vermont except “Places and Things” performed in Paris, France.

Three of these pieces are performed by Bill Dixon alone on trumpet. “Places and Things” adds Steve Horenstein on tenor sax and Alan Silva on bass and “Pages” adds Steve Horenstein again on tenor, Henry Letcher on drums and Dixon on trumpet and piano.

Bill Dixon was born on October 5, 1925 and he grew up Nantucket, MA “30 miles out in the Atlantic Ocean”. Considerations 1 includes experts from The Fifth of October his autobiographical writings and this entire record sounds like a very personal record; like pages from a journal or sketches from a notepad.

“There was a lot of fun in those days – walking along the beach even on the late Fall with no shoes on; feet sinking in the sand. And the roar of the ocean to be almost forever inscribed upon my mind and hearing. In fact, it was years later after we moved to New York that I discovered that what was ‘wrong’ or ‘missing’ was the absence of that sound.”

“..my mother has reminded me…..sometime in the Fall when they made their own beer – that even before I was able to walk I’d come noisily crawling down the stairs the minute I heard escaping air as the top was being taken off a bottle of beer.”

If you can imagine those two sounds, the roar of the ocean and the hiss of air escaping from a bottle of beer, you’ll have an idea of the extremes that sound out of Dixon’s trumpet. Yet this music is lyrical in the literal sense – “Pages” where Dixon plays piano accompanied by Horenstein on tenor sounds like the soundtrack from a Jean-Jacques Beineix film. “Long Alone Song”, “Shrike” and “Solo” where Dixon plays alone allow us to hear into the scope of his sound and his ability to tell a story with pure tone,  the absence of tone – instead the hiss, blurt, squeal and roar that he conjures from his memory/trumpet – and the spaces in between.

Considerations 1 includes a reproduction of one of Dixon’s drawings. There is a Considerations 2 but I’ve never seen a copy.

Bill Dixon
Son Of Sisyphus

“When I play, whether you like it or not, I mean it.” Bill Dixon

Recorded June 28/29, 1988 at Barigozzi Studio, Milan and released on Soul Note in 1990, this record features Dixon on piano and trumpet, John Buckingham on tuba, Mario Pavone double bass and Lawrence Cook percussion.  I saw and heard the trio portion of this lineup minus tuba perform a number of times at Bennington and this record brings back some bits and pieces of those memories – mainly a kind of exquisite tension.

This music is beautiful, sparse and tonal like taking a moment of In A Silent Way and extending it for two sides by dissecting and magnifying that fragment over and over until there’s as much silence as notes (a silence reminiscent of the Second Viennese School). It’s also a beautiful sounding record and the tuba adds a foundation whose voice is similar to Dixon’s trumpet yet makes it shine as something that much more apart, opening up a vast middle ground for Mario Pavone and Lawrence Cook to play around or wreak havoc within.

Here’ Bill Dixon from the liner notes: “This work, these small pieces, laced together to make a whole, is a representation of things, musical and otherwise, that at this point continue to occupy a considerable portion of my thinking. And in that instance serves /or should serve/ to detail these interests to that segment of the music public equally interested in those thoughts and their genesis.“

I hear it, I like it.

Archie Shepp/Bill Dixon
Consequences

Note that’s a “/” not a “&”. Bill Dixon’s “7-Tette” gets Side A, Archie Shepp and the New York Contemporary 5 Side B. The Dixon side was recorded in New York, December 1963 and the Shepp side in New York in January 1964. Originally released in mono on Savoy, the reason for this odd un-pairing was Dixon and Shepp had been together as the Archie Shepp – Bill Dixon Quartet and they had a two record deal for Savoy. After releasing their debut titled Peace in 1962, they split but owed Savoy a second record so this is what they/we got/get.

The Dixon side is fairly straight-forward (for Dixon) but even within this structure Dixon’s trumpet playing is already showing signs of non-trumpet-sounding interests – that fat air-pulse pushing its way right through any sense of melody or time. Overall there’s some great playing from all involved and Dixon’s addition of tuba and oboe also hint at other more composed voicings to come.

Bill Dixon – “7-Tette”:

Bill Dixon, trumpet
George Barrow, tenor saxophone
Ken McIntyre, alto saxophone and oboe
Howard Johnson, tuba and baritone
Dave Izenzon and Hal Dodson, basses
Howard McRae, drums

The Shepp side is wild woolly and wonderful and Archie sounds as out and angry as ever, even at the crack of 1964. Don Cherry showed up late for the session so Ted Curson stands in on a few tracks but the New York Contemporary Five burn.

Archie Shepp and the New York Contemporary 5:

Archie Shepp, tenor saxophone
John Tchicai, alto saxophone
Don Cherry, trumpet (track 11)
Ronnie Boykins, bass
Sunny Murray, drums
Ted Curson, trumpet (tracks 9 and 10)

You can hear, at least I’ll offer this observation with clearer hindsight view, how Shepp is going in one direction – out, while Dixon’s compositions move inward.

No, I don’t have Peace but I will. Both were re-released by BYG Records.

Bill Dixon (October 5, 1925 – June 16, 2010)

Some Bill Dixon recordings we’ve talked about:

Weight
Intents and Purposes
on Cecil Taylor’s Conquistador
Bill Dixon in Italy Volume One

All About Jazz Remembering Bill Dixon: 1925 – 2010