Tim Price Bloggin' For Rico Reeds- "You Got to Be Original, Man! "

The point here is to emphasize what Rilling calls the "architecture" of the music. For example, the way Pablo Casals varied the tempo according to what he was trying to convey. The words above, You Got to Be Original, Man!Come from Lester Young.The quote sais it all. Hopefully, what's going to be remembered, the present living person whoever it is, whether it's Casals or Tim Price, YOU ,Ray Pizzi, Jack Prybylski or Lester Young in the context of the art form, its tradition, its future, its present, and that whole mixture together. I have great respect for the "tradition," the rules, and playing it within context and everything, I think it's great, but…what are YOU creating as an offering.Try to think the term "syntax" , which means a vernacular, a way of speaking. This music is speech and dialect. And there is a way of speaking. A common form and feeling. The vibe of a sax player who walks the bar and a guy cross legged in India in a trance blowing –It’s all the same- they BOTH are after the same thing. It’s…that THANG…that place the music goes. Like that groove that exists in R &B AND Jazz and Indian ragas.In essence, we really have something called the language, the syntax, the vernacular, and it's immediately transferable to personal creation anyway. So in jazz, the art form itself says you're supposed to individualize it , that's the point . All that's understood, but your goal is not to repeat or to objectify this thing. It's to take it and have it be a living thing that you put your personality on. The goal sould be- to try to bring a spiritual dimension to the music.Be it some booty shaking funky jazz, a swinging standard or your agenda. I feel that the music speaks absolutely louder than any dogma, any words can speak at all. And in the end, the music is connected- there's a great book by Hazrat Inayat Khan of the Sufis. <> It's about how music ties into the "realms" and everything like that. It's just an understood, it's a given. In my thinking it is an artist's duty is to try to get in touch with that vibe through his work.Not to get some in the shadow of another player that it's just silly- or worse.Inspiration is one thing- being a copy cat is just that.Do you want to cop Jagger or Sonny Rollins so much that when folks hear or see you they say " Oh yea, he stands like Jagger, or oh...he sounds sorta like Rollins. Be the best YOU you can be- live with it.It's the work and it's the art that will do. SO.. it's freedom, individual creativity ! Nobody can be a better YOU than YOU. It is obviously possible, as many do, to improvise within certain stylistic or other constraints.<> While this is perfectly valid, and while it transcends such constraints, such as simplicity vs complexity, tonal vs atonal, intellectual vs intuitive, and so on. A step towards music-making where all possibilities can be genuinely embraced.There is a strong sense in which this really is playing music. Approached like this, it unlocks the natural, spontaneous creativity within each participant who lets the process flow deep and operates simultaneously on many levels. This is a very liberating experience and is often found to be therapeutic as well. It feels good to start from zero, or just be you. So this is what's going on now, what I'm thinking about. Lester Young is right. I hope you enjoy it- Peace and goodwill to you all, Tim Price PS- PHOTO CREDIT...The picture was from a live gig with my band and Rachel Z- the great pianist. We still talk about that gig, where I hit a LINE 6 pedal...and started to let effects go wild. Good times in the Tim zone ;)

Tim Price Bloggin' For Rico Reeds- Farewell Bert Wilson...you touched us all very deeply.

- A great friend of mine died last week- BERT WILSON. My respect for the splendor he created within his art is beyond MY words. The color and the significance…and the way his music/ playing has touched my heart for decades is inspirational. Where he was at as a person and teacher, creator is a great example of where the spirit comes from. - - BELOW- Is an article I did on Bert Wilson. It's short but loaded with insights from this master. He was so together, and in places that most don't even have. He music was is pure poetry. The language is very accessiable but the playing is extremely original in rhythm and in rhyme. yes he was on a major level like someone Like Eric Dolphy, Sonny Rollins and innovators like that.He was over looked by the powers in the business of music, and we spoke many times about how they were so rude and intentionally ignored him. Why who knows? But he kept on like nothing happened- the music was the agenda- you can hear that! Bert had a perfect osmosis between the music and the technique, maybe even too perfect to be true. It was all there, bop, swing,post-bop and highly original too. This worked because of his roots,Bert's roots covered into many traditions.Bert Wilson was surely one of the greatest musical forces of the 20th century; his compositions track the stylistic developments of jazz and are as vital as anything ever. Likewise his playing and supreme use of multi-phonics. INSIGHTS... Tim: Bert, you knew Sonny Stitt; reflect on his tenor style. Bert: You have to study and compare how he played tenor saxophone and how he played alto saxophone. He played alto sorta like a Bird style; but not totally Bird. On tenor he blended Lester Young’s influence with Charlie Parker’s. Then he did it and his approach influenced every tenor saxist for a long time including John Coltrane! Stitt’s style taught me to blend influences, in listening to more than just one artist. I could blend all of the influences into my playing and become Bert Wilson. When you hear Sonny Stitt on tenor he does not sound like Lester Young; nor does he sound like Bird on tenor, ’cause when you listen to Bird when he played tenor, the closest person to that would be Sonny Rollins-tonally and especially rhythmically. Stitt’s style taught me how to take the approach of learning from all of the great artists in the music and blend their influences into my personal playing. All the young saxists should listen to Sonny Stitt; it will really help your style. Tim: As a force in modern day sax, what drew you to Colman Hawkins? Bert: Everybody says Hawk was the daddy of the tenor sax. And as much credit as they give him, I feel they don’t give him enough. Hawkins invented jazz tenor saxophone. It was through Hawkins’ studies playing cello and piano as a child, and working out his own approach to the horn. Hawk said there were others that were earlier than him who played the saxophone, but they all played the instrument like it was a clarinet! And Hawks figured out how to play it like a sax; he gave it its own voice and its own style. We all wouldn’t be around if it weren’t for Colman Hawkins. If not for Hawkins we might all sound like Bud Freeman. What drew me to Hawkins was his terrific beat! The way his sound leaped off the record into your ears. As soon as Hawkins blew, the music became supercharged with energy, reached a new level of creativity, and a total feeling of command. It just grabbed me! His harmonic feel was just so advanced, and all over the horn. It was totally and wonderfully Colman Hawkins; it was something special. Throughout his life, Hawkins would pick out the parts he liked and add them to his style, sound more like Colman Hawkins than ever, and drop the rest. What a great genius! Every note, every solo is something special. It tingles my ears and wakes me up. One more thing needs to be said about Coleman Hawkins is that everybody talks about Colman Hawkins and not enough people listen to him, and they should. There’s a universe of music to listen to in his music. Tim: When did you first hear Stan Getz? Bert: Around when I was 11 or 12; in about 1951 or ’52 I heard the Royal Roost records. The disc jockey in Chicago played Johnny Smith’s “Moonlight in Vermont” every night. I had no doubt in my mind it was Stan Getz. I had listened to Lester, and you could hear Lester in Stan Getz, but even the young Getz was himself. Stan’s sound and special placement of tone in the horn were so beautiful; he was very special. The “West Coast Jazz”, and “Diz and Getz” records are just dynamite. Everyone should hear those, especially that one called “For Musicians Only”. A total class of music by itself. How many hundreds of us would like to sound like Stan Getz. Oh boy, I wish I could. Coltrane even loved Getz. Because Getz played so smooth, so pretty, his playing was accessible and commercial to the extent that he could play any style. Here’s a good example of Charlie Parker’s influence on the tenor sax. Getz’s drops and the way he ran through changes are you can tell the difference between Stan and Lester. Lester often chose common tones and held across the bar and across the chord and hold one note there. Getz could do that, but run the chords in a way that was both vertical and horizontal. He would make a line that involved the melody using all the notes in the chords; and the color changes would be really outstanding like they were in be-bop. Plus this lyrical beautiful line that was more across the bar; very much his own. Tim: You know John Coltrane’s music; you played with him. Can you reflect on his playing? Bert: I don’t want to do just another technical analysis; that’s been done over and over. I don’t want to talk about his sainthood ’cause that’s been done over and over. John Coltrane taught us all how important practice was! What dedication really means. He gave his life, body and spirit to it. He was in the forefront of an entire cultural movement! It changed the entire face of art in this country and in Europe. Because of his young death, the bottom fell out of the profit margin that people who ran the record industry were seeing in the new music, the creative way of thinking, the new approach. Because of what happened to the culture at that time, at least an entire generation of jazz musicians went undocumented, unaccounted for, unappreciated to the point where now there’s a whole raft of musicians who range in age between forty and sixty who are totally unknown, who should have been the leaders of that new movement in jazz. The fact that I happen to be one of those doesn’t in any way make it more important to me ’cause I’m one of a crowd that includes Sonny Simmons, Barbera Donald, Zitro, Michael Cohn -- fantastic musicians who should have been the great artists of this generation. Smiley Winters, Perry Robinson, Henry Grimes, Jim Pepper, Albert Stinson -- all of those people should have been leaders in a big way. Trane was a wonderful person; not only that dogged resolve to practice his instrument-no matter what, bt he had a warmth about him, too. He always made time to talk to a young musician, time for help, time for a word, a question, anything. Trane would make time for everyone. As a result, everyone loved him, myself included. He was a wonderful guy. One night at Shelly’s Manhole in Los Angeles he just knocked out the entire audience. Occasionally someone in the audience would scream because of the intensity of the music, myself included. So I went backstage to tell John how much I loved it. And I told him how much he moved me, and he said, “I can’t get anything going tonight. I practice so hard; I don’t understand.” That’s a perfect example of the artist hearing what goes in and the listener hearing what goes out, and it’s always, most always, unrelated - Unrelated! It’s all a matter of perspective. It’s spirit; that’s what makes us musicians. We feel it inside. Because nobody could pay us for the kind of spiritual awakening we can get from the act of making music. That whole sharing thing between creatures. A lot of people who only imitate Coltrane missed out on a lot by only digging Coltrane. They missed Lester Young, Don Byas, Wardell Gray, Hawkins, Sonny Rollins and Lucky Thompson. So we got three generations of players who sound like they only listen to John Coltrane and are trying to copy Trane too hard. And they missed Lester and Hawk, or Budd Johnson, Zoot Sims and Al Cohn, Benny Golson; and Johnny Griffin. There’s the problem that evades and invades jazz today; because people won’t do that; they miss the real tradition of jazz, the real creative process. One style seems to be the trend now, which is that funk R& B style, mixed with Coltrane. There’s so much more than that! Dedication, understanding and study by a young musician is what creates a young musician. Study of the jazz history and hours of listening to masters. Not cloning in on a trendy style. You can’t do it that way. Its deeper. There’s a spirit, and the work. You got to get them from yourself inside. Tim: When’s the first time you heard Sonny Rollins? Bert: On that radio show in Chicago. It was very overwhelming to hear, I could see between Coltrane and Sonny Rollins they were reinventing saxophone-ology. And in a very complete way. Sonny Rollins plays like a dancer. And because of my early training as a dancer, I really heard Sonny’s rhythm and the tapping, bouncing dancing way he has. I bet one of Sonny’s influences is Fred Astaire! It’s quite plain to hear. Sonny Rollins knows more about the saxophone than anyone who’s alive today! He can control two lines at once. People need to study Sonny Rollins for the spirit, the heart and the creativity. Tim: What about Sonny Simmons? What space does he hold? Bert: He shoulda got the crown when Coltrane died. Sonny Simmon’s music was ready. He was one of the first saxists to play the new way. His music - the shapes and the way he played form without a preset form - it was much a part of what some other musicians and I were doing that it just set the whole pace for us. We all went that way when we heard Sonny. It put it in focus for all of us! Simmons has the best parts of Bird, Dolphy, Coltrane, Ornette wound tightly into a personal experience that is his alone. He has a natural amazing facility on the instrument. He taught himself how to play alto saxophone after studying classical oboe and English horn for quite a long time; as a child. He picked up the sax on his own. He was a rock ’n’ roll star in his teens playing tenor, walking the bars in Oakland. During the early parts of the free jazz movement is when Sonny committed himself to the thing that he was doing all along. Sonny also studied out of the Nicholas Slominsky book of scales and melodic patterns, and also had been studying Schillinger composition and theory out of the Schillinger books and really coming to grips with the fact that there were more than 8 notes in each scale, and ways to relate them together, and exploring those sounds. He also pushed the constraints and limits of the instrument. He was a very advanced player. He taught me a lot. We played together all the time. The one record I’m on with him -“Music of the Spheres”- which was done in 1966, is not even close of how far we took it. Simmons had the most exciting, together, well-formed and most swinging; it was a perfect example of how a unique voice was created from many voices of influencing one person. When you listen to the best musicians and learn from each, you come up with your own voice. He absorbed be-bop totally, before he became influenced by people like Trane and Ornette and Eric Dolphy. What he did was draw the things that he heard the best in his own ears and mind and blend and combine them into what sounds to all of us like Sonny Simmons. Like anyone can do if they try, they’ll come up sounding like themselves, not who they studied, because that’s what happens when you study the masters. Tim: What about some solos on records you’ve done over the years that you really like? Bert: The first records I did in 1966 and 1967 have only recently been reissued on CD on the E.S.P. label with the fact that they’ll be out at the same time with my CD called “Further Adventures in Jazz”. There is some very interesting correlations when comparing these discs with the music that first came out and the music that’s happening today. One thing that’s happening is that if you go back to those E.S.P. discs, I used several sounds on sax during that period that had never been on records before. At that time Albert Ayler, Phariah Sanders and a lot of people, including Coltrane, were using extensive sounds that had never been used in this music before. Each one was different and highly personal so it really wasn’t noticed at that time during the entrance of my solo on the “Zitro” record (on E.S.P.) that I played eleven tone clusters in a row that were all melodically and harmonically organized. It didn’t get noticed at all at the time it came out. It will be interesting to see today if those sounds get noticed in context. I did a double record in 1968 for Arhoolie label in California in Berkley. It was called “Smiley Etc”. On that record, which is still available by the way, there’s a track called “Love is Enlightenment”, and I played a lot of things on soprano sax at that time, a lot of which had never been used at that time, such as tone clusters, overtones and extended ranges. On one track, called “Two Tranes”; which is a tune of mine, I played several melodic quotes in tone clusters including one which is a direct quote from Wayne Shorters “Nite Dreamer” which I voiced in tone clusters, melodically and harmonically, and exact. It’s interesting nobody ever noticed that! On the new recordings we’re much more in the context of straight be-bop tunes with order, changes and melody, in swing time in the regular way. But my thing is that I use all of those extended techniques in the music still. You can hear those sounds on “Ionic Implant”or “Happy Pretty”. There’s places in the melody of “Truth” where you can hear multiphonic clusters against the melody. On the earlier record, “Kaleidoscopic Visions” there’s a piece that’s conceived as a study in multiphonics; song and solo are chock full of clusters and multiphonics. Both records are available through North Country, Cadence Magazine. (Write: Cadence, c/o Cadence Building Redwood, NY USA 13679). The title tune is what I’m referring to, it covers a lot of sounds and harmonic areas. Here is the obit ; http://www.theolympian.com/2013/06/07/2576262/olympia-musician-bert-wilson-dies.html - A constant inspiration in my life and tremendous supporter of all things music. NOBODY...Played like Bert Wilson. He was a history book and if you know who Lenny Pickett is....Bert was Lenny's teacher back in the day in the Bay Area. Anyone who has been in my home, knows the pictures of Bert in my studio. We had a friendship that was beyond words. I learned so much from hearing Bert and talking to him on the phone, in addition to the music he shared with me. He was a major part of my universe. He'd call at holidays, send CD's, and just inspire. There used to be messages on my phone machine from Bert, I'd save. Multi-phonics, and playing musical messages, then he'd tell me how to get the note clusters with certain fingerings. My heart goes out to Nancy Curtis, his wife who is also a very amazing flautist and unique soul in this life. There are very very few that have accomplished what Bert has, and I got to say, he was an innovator with roots so deep. I just can't imagine this planet without him. RIP Bert Wilson....you've touched my life deeply and will always be remembered.He loved Rico Plasticover reeds too- used them for decades! - If...you look at the center of my studio wall, in the above picture...there is a poster Bert Wilson sent me over 30 years ago. We've been friends over 30 years. BERT ....to me was someone who just was sent to this universe to knock us all out musically. AND HE DID.In the end, the final bow must go to the master, Bert Wilson. It is almost inconceivable to me that any human being could have conceived of, let alone successfully executed, the creative ideas, life in living that Bert Wilson did. Bert's contributions are in reality one gigantic arch which starts on Earth and continues,traveling and trail blazing and inspiring. His music provided me with wisdom, beauty, and joy. Thank you Bert. - TIM PRICE

Tim Price Bloggin' For Rico Reeds - Happy Birthday Anthony Braxton.

- Today is the great Anthony Braxtons birthday. I personally celebrated....with his composition - 104°-Kelvin M-12. Which is one of my all time favorites.Braxton's music is difficult to categorize, and because of this, he likes to reference his works (and the works of his collaborators and students) as simply "creative music". He has claimed in numerous interviews that he is not a jazz musician,[citation needed] though many of his works have been jazz and improvisation oriented, and he has released many albums of jazz standards. For example, in an interview Braxton explains, "even though I have been saying I'm not a jazz musician for the last 25 years; in the final analysis, an African-American with a saxophone? Ahh, he's jazz!" In addition to these, Braxton has released an increasing number of works for large-scale orchestras, including two opera cycles. Braxton's music combines an ecstatic, primal vigor with highly theoretical and mystically influenced systems. He is the author of multiple volumes explaining his theories and pieces, such as the philosophical three-volume Triaxium Writings and the five-volume Composition Notes, both published by Frog Peak Music. While his compositions and improvisations can be characterized as avant-garde, many of his pieces have a swing feel and rhythmic angularity that are overtly indebted to Charlie Parker and the bebop tradition. Though much of his music can be safely classified as jazz, Braxton has worked in a wide variety of other genres and has sometimes had a prickly relationship with the jazz mainstream. Without question- a serious human being and asset to this planet. - Braxton is one of the most prolific American musicians/composers to date, having released well over 100 albums of his works since the 1960s.Among the vast array of instruments he utilizes are the flute; the sopranino, soprano, C-Melody, F alto, E-flat alto, baritone, bass, and contrabass saxophones; and the E-flat, B-flat, and contrabass clarinets. Braxton studied at the Chicago School of Music and at Roosevelt University. At Wilson Junior College, he met Roscoe Mitchell and Jack DeJohnette. After a stint in the army, Braxton joined the AACM.After moving to Paris with the Anthony Braxton Trio (which evolved into the Creative Construction Company), he returned to the US, where he stayed at Ornette Coleman's house, gave up music, and worked as a chess hustler in the city's Washington Square Park. In 1970, he and Chick Corea studied scores by Stockhausen, Boulez, Xenakis and Schoenberg together, and Braxton joined Corea's Circle. In 1972, he made his bandleader debut (leading duos, trios, and quintets) and played solo at Carnegie Hall. In the early 1970s, he worked with the "Musica Elettronica Viva", which performed contemporary classical and improvised music. In 1974, he signed a recording contract with Arista Records. One of the first black abstract musicians to acknowledge a debt to contemporary European art music, Braxton is known as much as a composer as an improviser. The output ranges from solo pieces to For Four Orchestras, a work work that has been described as "a colossal work, longer than any of Gustav Mahler's symphonies and larger in instrumentation than most of Richard Wagner's operas." His 1968 solo alto saxophone double LP For Alto (finally released in 1971) remains a jazz landmark, for its encouragement of solo instrumental recordings. Other important recordings include Three Compositions of New Jazz (1968, Delmark), his 1970s releases on Arista, Composition No. 96 (1981; Leo), Quartet (London) 1985; Quartet (Birmingham) 1985; Quartet (Coventry) 1985 (all on Leo), Seven Compositions (Trio) 1989 (hat Art), Duo (London) 1993 & Trio (London), both on Leo. Critic Chris Kelsey writes that "Although Braxton exhibited a genuine if highly idiosyncratic ability to play older forms (influenced especially by saxophonists Warne Marsh, John Coltrane, Paul Desmond, and Eric Dolphy), he was never really accepted by the jazz establishment, due to his manifest infatuation with the practices of such non-jazz artists as John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen". -From a personal point of view...." CIRCLE" was my intro to this genius and his vast amount of music.In 1971 one of the greatest jazz groups with a high level of musicianship and creativity played " The Jazz Workshop" on Boylston St. In Boston, Mass. I went on Monday, and followed through going to every show that week.I heard wonderful, huge, beautiful music. "Nefertiti" and "There Is No Greater Love" were part of the set lists,as well as Dave Holland's "The Toy Room" and "Q-A," an almost ambient cut, and his Composition 6F ("73 Kalvin"), a classic Braxton fusion of composition and group improvisation. Chick Corea, Dave Holland, Barry Alschul and Anthony Braxton. - Mr. Braxton is a flaming comet. For those with ears, you know whereof I speak. If you want to hear from a master what the art of collective, spontaneous music is really all about,hear him. It's all in the love. - TIM PRICE

Tim Price Blogging For Rico Reeds...Horizons & staying on the pulse. Lin Halliday, Chicago groove and stuff to shed.

New Improvising horizons..... Check out- Lin Halliday.When one considers what makes a meeting of two master musicians interesting ,there are several common factors which can be observed throughout the history of jazz.For Lin on tenor, it is a combination of Lester's time feel,Rollins’ “wet” approach and even some influence from early Trane as he goes into the higher register. But really it's that that Chicago thing in there - extended vocalizing emanating primarily from the throat. You'll notice this in other Chicago tenor players such as Johnny Griffin , John Gilmore , Von Freeman and the inspirational Joe Daly. Stylistically, Lin can stretch the rhythm and harmony, but in completely different ways.Lin Halliday dives straight into the center of the harmony and pulse using his incredible imagination to create a universe.of its own within the structure of the tune. Speed and dexterity are fundamental to Lin's style like all good Chicago tenor men. Ya know , when I close my eyes and listen to him, it’s like a locomotive coming down the track right at you, there is the sheer joy,Lin in his own way has extended the language on a level prominent enough to have a major effect.It has been my feeling that with our culture's emphasis upon and rewarding of conformity rather than originality has been increasingly stifled in the past decade or so . You won't hear that stifled approach here !!! In his playing you hear the history of jazz saxophone, from pre-bop to free jazz executed with a tone that can be booming or at times breathy in the low register, with a shade of silkiness as he ascends through the horn and even an occasional expressive growl, totally refreshing. CHECK LIN OUT....He's a link to new improvising horizons for sure. As your doing it...Check out Rico artists from Chicago like Mike Smith, Frank Catalano for some Chicago horizons.Mike Smith is one of today's creative inspirations,one of the very best alto saxophonists playing today. Ditto Frank Catalano...both these guys deserve more time in your ears- check them out. They are world class monster jazz players. Also Eric Alexander too,one of the cool guys in today's tenor world, I always look forward to checking out Eric, he recorded with Lin and sounds great always. OK- See you next week....keep on it and stay on the case....TIM PRICE - Stuff to shed is below too. Check it out ;Ear Training on Chord Tones - Phase 3" is up and running: http://www.saxontheweb.net/Price/EarTraining3.html....also- for some more ideas....check through these ; IF...you want some ideas on ii-v's...look here; http://www.timpricejazz.com/lessons/iiV.pdf......... If your looking for a nice warm up / sax sound study-look here; http://www.timpricejazz.com/lessons/sax_warmup.pdf.......... for info on tune study; look here; http://www.timpricejazz.com/lessons/learningatune.html.... reed info, look here; http://www.timpricejazz.com/lessons/dealingwreeds.html.... sax players food for thought:look here; http://www.timpricejazz.com/lessons/creativepurity.html... In any case, thanks and keep playing your horn!!!

Tim Price Bloggin' For Rico Reeds- Fantasy or Reality?? Live / be the reality.

~ These days with all the amazing internet adventures,Facebook, Twitter and you name it, it's easy to loose touch with reality. The " real" of it all. To be using the " net" or Facebook as a tool, is a great thing. But sometimes I have noticed a lot of hype,and no reality. Hype is healthy, for sure, but the real deal is when what your talking about hits the streets. In short- How to stop adding to the hype and make the internet of things a reality! Then of course there are the " TROLLS" that exist everywhere, look at some of insane comments on YOUTUBE or web forums. The key is,And I'm going to just come out and say it — a large proportion of the worst, most horrendous internet trolls are probably people who lack a certain amount of social graces in their "meat space" interactions as well. Including some people you probably would flee, long before they got as far as opening their mouths.But on the internet, there's no easy way to flee people before they can say their piece. It's actually the opposite of the way most people think the internet works — and it's definitely the opposite of the way futurists predicted the internet would work. It gives a fool the same common ground as you, and more often on let's say Facebook, a BS artist or a person trying to create a persona for themselves the same common ground as an established professional. - That's one point — trolling or being is often in the eye of the beholder. A conservative's idea of trolling will be very different from a liberal's. Ditto for divisions of age, socioeconomic status.We tend to talk to our friends,like minds, and to people we already share some basic similarities with — and if a random dude does come up to you and start explaining his theories about why Charlie Parker doesn't sound good, you usually back away fast. Ha! Yet- to read about something someone invented on line, to hype the lack of " time spent" or street cred. is pretty frustrating. You want those 3 minutes back, unless of course you can actually see this becoming reality. Or hear the said " CD" they are talking about and some actual gigs that are in motion. ~ I've noted....with extreme interest the way a lot of folks roll with this these days. Matter of fact, if it's real then it's cool. But just fantasy? I can't get with that.But with great freedom comes great responsibility, and as I reflect upon that, I have to say it's how you use it and the reality of it all. Internet freedom is a beautiful thing, but keep reality in the hype and dream too my friends.All we can do is continue to speak out on these issues and keep the flame alive for quality, the craft of musical forward motion, and informed musical decisions in creating our art. I think I’ll go listen to some Don Menza! Looking forward to doing more clinics and work in Europe myself, I love it there, learning more, and making a salad using the avocados later. Keep the faith,keep listening to the real things - TIM PRICE

Tim Price Bloggin' For Rico Reeds- Getting your mind set to lock into a conscious ability to plan and organize

Music is a language......

Today's musicians-students-educators need quality of practice, which is of the essence. It's a life long process-. When you're twenty yrs. old, you just run off desire and youthful animal energy to practice. In the long run, the creative person needs to find a way to maintain a level of interest and aliveness in his art. This takes work and intelligence,it is not separate from living, just another aspect of it.

The concept of daily practice is an important one and is the best way to make
any kind of musical progress. Daily effort keeps you finely attuned to
continuous movement and the accumulation of effect. Practicing sporadically
causes you to lose the thread of your practice and is thus much less effective.

Through diligent , consistent daily work, a tangible musical substance is
incrementally developed. First of all, you develop physical stamina through
the repeated effort. Also , from day to day, you accumulate ideas and expand
on the themes of your practice. If you are working Major chords; the first day
you might just work on arpeggios, the next day you might see some connection
with other musical sources, such as songs, or through or whatever is interesting to you. By continuing to work with focus on the same things from day to day, you will find that your level of proficiency has risen and expanded to include all these other sources. Your practicing every day results in the acquisition of  technique, musical intelligence, improved tone, and stamina. Just the quest to continuously find something to practice will increase you creativity.

There are so many variations of scales melodies, and melodic patterns. So many sounds to make, articulations, songs to learn, music to listen to and analyze, technical
problems to sort out. The only limitation is your focus and creativity.
For example: let's say that you have adequately practiced your horn and now want something else to work on. You could sit down at the piano and transcribe a song, learn a song by ear that you may have previously learned by wrote.

This , is one of the most beneficial practices you can do. Ear training, learning songs, listening to other players, hearing bass lines, melodies or whatever. Ok. Now you've spent a few hours and learned a tune the way its supposed to be played. You know the tune inside and out, in essence a great organizational mind skills study too. However your mind works. Don't overload-otherwise nothing sticks. Your capacity will increase after you have spent more and more time. It's amazing how connections are made,they seem to occur in a fashion which is beyond the conscious ability to  plan and organize.

Daily practice also allows me to imprint the material in my mind until it
becomes instinct. One long practice session will not do this. For
most players, useful techniques can only be acquired through repetition. I
always try to work new materials into songs, lines and grooves that I like.
For me it's sort of like upgrading my musical mind so that my playing becomes
reoriented in the directions I choose. Increasing familiarity with they materials is a good thing. It's like learning a language--music is a language. 

 

Catch ya'll next week...I'm having a ball in Texas. ~ TIM PRICE

Tim Price Bloggin' For Rico Reeds- CANNONBALL !

The below interview was by Seed Jazz columnist Joe Gallagher. When Cannon was playing in Chicago. Check it out. It's very insightful. JG: As an opener, Cannonball, what would you say you see in the immediate future of jazz? Cannonball: It's kind of cloudy to me. Essentially, it's a little bit cloudy because I'm not encouraged by what I see developing in music as related to acceptance on the part of the various jazz audiences; that is, the jazz audience has become smaller and smaller, whereas jazz-oriented groups have had a broadening of the audience; so the people who say we are playing the real jazz, they get further and further entrenched and the fans become smaller and it's a thing that makes me very concerned, really, because I am not convinced that people are just suddenly going to say, well, yes that's it, that's beautiful, because they have never done it with classical music yet, man, that was a long way ahead of what we are doing in jazz as far as experimental wo are concerned, for want of a better term; the jazz avant garde is doing something that has already been done and to date there's been no great acceptance of the kind of thing that is being done in jazz by the "avant garde." JG: Let's try to get an idea what percentage of people would say that they are interested in the avant garde or appreciate it. I think Leonard Feather did an article for Downbeat a few months ago in which he took a survey of what percentage of Downbeat readers were interested in the avant garde. I think he said 40% were quite deeply interested. CA: I don't think that they are supporting it, though. May be just being interested is not enough. It's sort of like the music of Carl Heinz Stockhausen is different. Certainly there's some interest in what Stockhausen is doing, especially among the musicians and people who understand music enough to be aware of various things that are happening, but it's like once a curiosity has been satisfied it becomes eclectic, there's no longer any emotional satisfaction, and that is the thing that bothers me. Now, I don't equate all because unfortunately the jazz writing community has lumped everything into one thing. I think there's a market for what Charles Lloyd does; I think there's a potential market for what Ornette Coleman does, and certainly there's a market up to a point for what John Coltrane was doing when he was around. But this vast new community of young people who know no other jazz, who know no other way to play, and apparently don't have that much impact - I am a little bit concerned about it because I cannot say they grew up the same way these other people did. I think that when a guy like Coltrane arrives at what he arrived at, then at least there's a basis for how he grew and there's more to it than just subjective interest. JG: In other words, they are trying to start out on top and don't really have anything underneath them and what a lot of them are doing will prove to be nonsense, whereas probably most of what Coltrane has done was sincere and musically valuable. CA: Well, I won't say that it's nonsense per se. What I will say is that it makes a lot more sense to be completely involved in the jazz art form institutionally. There's no future without the past and anybody who doesn't really understand where jazz has come from has no right to try to direct where it's going. It's that kind of thing, now, the point of it all is that where toward the end John Coltrane's attendance at clubs and so forth had fallen off quite a bit because even his hardcore fans may not be prepared to accept what he was doing in toto. That is not necessarily any fault of Coltrane's, that's nobody's fault. The artist has to do what he thinks belongs there, but when you are in an experimental stage you are on the way to arriving at something, and this will happen in the case of anybody who is trying to develop a thing; but jazz seems to be in a constant state of development and I wonder about the abrupt great leap forward. I think that what the "avant garde" - what these people have done is to temper and influence the other modern jazz musicians in such a way that it's becoming more and more interesting, like what Miles Davis is doing. While certain things we do are directly influenced by Ornette Coleman or John Coltrane or Cecil Taylor ... anybody ... but we do what we do in the context of what we know the music to be - our music to be - and the influence is out there, but I don't know whether we are ready for ... JG: complete jump out front ... CA: . „. yes, freedom without regard to discipline. JG: Would you agree that what we call the modern jazz mainstream, people who are sort of progressing gradually, are really carrying the ball? CA: Carrying the ball? JG: Yes. At the center of where jazz is rather than the people who are what we call the avant garde. CA: Well, I don't know. The funny thing is that all roads lead back to Duke Ellington. So long as there's a Duke Ellington you don't have advancement in jazz, you don't have modern jazz, traditional feeling, you don't have time or no time, or polyrhythms and polytonality as well as simple tonalities. I think that so long as he's around we are going to have jazz as we knew it, but I'm a little bit afraid. Our problem is just getting the people to listen. There are a great number of fine players, and there will always be fine players. What were the elements that attracted people to jazz in the first place? Let's stop and think about that. Jazz had a kind of mystique. It differed from popular music and dance music because there were surprises all the time ... there was always the spontaneity of improvisation and the excitement of people really involved in enjoying what they seemed to be doing. Among other things. Now aren't some of these same elements present in some of the popular music today? This is the thing that is of major concern to me. There are certain rock and roll, rhythm and blues groups who have exciting rhythms going on - complicated things they have a spontaneous kind of vocal improvisation even, and they have the same elements, solos that we have today, improvisation based on something new, when they get a music that complements all the other elements they have going, then I am a little bit afraid, because we have become so intellectual in our approach to jazz that it's becoming academic, and we listen to people because we know they are good and to see what they are going to teach us or what they are going to say rather than for the sheer thrill and enjoyment of feeling. JG : Now , what you said about rock having these elements of improvisation and burgeoning with some interesting rhythms-maybe we could see something for the future, a music that doesn't really have to distinguished like jazz and rock. Do you think there's some sort of blend coming ? CA: I don't know whether there will be a blend as such or merger; but maybe it will be a good thing when music ceases to be departmentalized. That's something that Duke Ellington has said ... I keep reverting, he to me is the greatest ever and my favorite jazz philosopher, as such. He says that we need to discard that silly term "jazz" because the larger thing is the music. What does the music do? What does the music mean? JG: Do you see a unified music in the future? CA: No, there will never be a unified music as such and we Americans by nature seem to need to have handles for everything - everything must have a catalog number, and so long as this is necessary for us as Americans we will have a different kind of music. There's a difference between rock and roll and rhythm and blues and there's jazz rock and hard rock, there's folk rock, there's always something, so I don't think that there will ever be a unified music because there will never be a unified people. As long as it's creative, there will be different things going on, but I'm convinced there will be some of the same elements operative in all of the popular music. JG: That's the way it should be - unity and diversity. How could there be unity if everybody were really the same? You would not have the feeling of unity, there would be no dynamism there. CA: Consequently I hope that there never is a single music to serve everybody's needs. I like the concept of so many different people from diverse sources and styles finding some of the same music interesting. I may go to somebody's home and find a record by Ramsey Lewis and another by Ravi Shankar and maybe one by Simon and Garfunkle and one by Wilson Pickett. This same person may not like classical music or country and western or just plain pop. Then we go to somebody else's house and find a Miles Davis record , a Frank Sinatra record side by side and maybe one by Van Clibourn; so long as these tastes cross each other, I think that's wonderful, but never a music that will take care of it all. JG: Let's hope not. What about electronic music. You have probably and I have heard the few things that the Beatles have done in this type of thing CA: I think it's a misnomer to call it electronic music really. All these amplified instruments and so forth, okay, but I don't see anything new about it. It's all been around, it's all been done, people are employing things they have heard from other places, other things. There's been a lot of talk about this Larry Coryell, but I have never heard him and I am very anxious to hear what he does. But I don't know anything about electronic music per se to comment on it. I am still listening. JG: I would like to know how you feel about the people who are making music, how they are going to grow, what their tastes are going to be. It seems that rock has a very firm place. What about jazz? CA: Well, rock is the pop music of today essentially, and there's always been an ingroup for jazz, you know, rather than a great market place. JG: Do you see in the next few years a broader acceptance of jazz? CA: No, I don't really. That's what I was saying before. I don't see that. I do see more and more people making it who are, like, on the one hand a Ramsey Lewis ... there are certain jazz elements operative there, but it's a different thing, it's not per se, the same thing that Bill Evans does. I see a greater amount of acceptance for these things. Now if Ramsey Lewis continues to play all kinds of music for his following, then it will make a big difference, as say Jimmy Smith has done. Jimmy Smith has a lot of pop hit records; he continues to play the stronger things than the more far out things and he also continues to ... like the album they made about Peter and the Wolf. I thought that was interesting for a pop record, JG: What do you think about rock and its development? Do you think that rock has become a valid type of music? CA: Well, that's being proved all the time. The successful rock musicians seem to be unwilling to take chances with their security except in the case of the Beatles. But you cannot say that for many groups, groups that if they get a successful thing, with the what I call doowaah ... you know ... doo-waah, doowaah ... if they make a success with that they are a little bit afraid to say oooaa, because they are known as the doowaahs. Well, certainly these groups, these players, writers and so forth, have recognized the possibilities of things and you find more and more people coming out of rock and roll, rhythm and blues, etc., becoming overall stars: the kind of thing Dionne Warwick does, or that Bert Bachrach has written for her, is a beautiful music and she is no longer just a rhythm and blues, rock and roll singer, she is a fine singer of great songs, and I think that's wonderful. Now if we find more and more of that happening there will also be a growth pattern. JG: I feel a musician can reach people if he's willing to play various types of music, and there's something in all of them that's worthwhile. CA: I don't think that people should be willing to play music that is popular as such. People should play what they want to play, and if their tastes run in several directions, then play that; I think it's important to be able to play whatever you play well and it will communicate. There's George Shearing who has been very successful for many years but who is from out of jazz and has a jazz-oriented pop group; the younger generation is not so aware of Shearing and his background and his contribution to developing a wider jazz listening audience as some of us older folks are, but George Shearing, a case in point, is a man who has always liked all kinds of things and he plays them all. He had a Shearing sound and a Shearing sound is easily identified, but to say that a guy should be willing to do what he does would negate the truth because I think that an artist should be faithful to himself and honest with himself. I remember just a few years ago, everybody was talking about this piano player with a small band that played rhythm and blues that was so soul that Atlantic Records brought this young man up from the rhythm and blues scene to make a jazz album. His first jazz album had Milt Jackson on it. People liked that. Beautiful album, but the point I am trying to make is that a jazz musician was very anxious to play with this young man and I am referring to Ray Charles, but it's just been 8-10 years since this happened. Of course, you know a lazy guy says I'm going to make a record with Ray Charles, it doesn't have the same impact, but it did at that time because people thought that what he was playing was beautiful and it belonged in that swing together style. I think that's i the way it should be. JG: It's at the heart of life, or at the heart of what life means to young people. CA: Let's not say this: rock is the answer. I honestly believe that jazz has suffered for lack of exposure; there were many times, especially in the last 15 years, when I felt that a jazz music could have been much more popular than it ever was during the early days of the Jazz Messengers and the early days of Jimmy Smith, because it had a thing that people liked, the same elements - I talked about. There were people who said that isn't going to sell and blah blah blah and everything meant money. So, I think that rock has become the kids' kind of music because they hear it all the time. Now it's traditional with them. Let's face it, before Elvis Presley even, rock didn't have that kind of exposure that it has today. There were so many good music stations, etc. and maybe there would be one station that would play Bill Hayley's Rock Around the Clock. JG: In the beginning it was really something we could all pretty well get mad at, but I see your point that it's not right for any one type of music to be the only thing that kids or all of us can hear. We have got to hear it all. CA: That's the way I feel about it. We just simply don't have equal opportunity. One thing that bothers me is that I don't think jazz musicians should be the deprived class, simply because they care about something that we think is major musically. I see no reason why we should be hungry in order to survive ... in order for music to survive, I don't understand that. I say one thing, and I say this sincerely. If it ever gets to the point where it becomes a liability for a musician to create what he believes in, the whole thing will suffer. It's just like all the other little freedoms that we seem to give up, that every time we give up something then we all lose in the exchange, and the rock community, the classical community, the American community should see to it that this music as we know it, philosophically, should survive and it should be nurtured; we don't need to let it disappear. JG: Let's talk about some ways of preserving this modern American music. Do you feel that the musicians can do anything? CA: No. JG: No? CA: No. I really don't. I think once again that the artist like any other artist, should be permitted to express himself in the way that he feels should be. That is, I don't think that there should any rules laid down that say well, this is how you should smile ... and that you should play ... no, the point I'm trying to make is this: the people who seem to feel like they're doing someone a favor, maybe they do feel that way. You know, Picasso felt that way for quite a while and why not JG: He's been lucky, maybe. It didn't help his salability or his popularity. CA: Well, it's not altered him one way or the other from the outset. That's the point I'm trying to make, He's always been simply Pablo Picasso, and he's been himself, his way, he's been unreachable, he's been insulting, he's been everything and I am sure he's been lucky, but he was not always a best seller and he's always been the same way. The point is that he was never a phony about it, he did what he felt. I feel that all artists should do this. The point is not always people's troubles, who get concerned with them. I don't think it's anybody's business what he does in his personal life or how he presents his art. Either you like what he does from an artist's point of view or you don't. I don't think that we should chastise musicians as such who don't care necessarily to be, let's say, showmen in their presentation. JG: Personalities vary, though; when you see a person getting outright ornery, would not you say that this can ... CA: I don't think anybody really is. Even the ones who get publicity and so one, people have a way of needling you, they have a way of generalizing. You read that a person is such a way, and so someone says, I don't believe he will do that to me, so they chance it and what this man says or does other than musically is not that person's business, so okay, it becomes a cause celebre. You know what I mean, to chastise a Charles Mingus because he doesn't think the same way or Thelonius Monk or Miles Davis doesn't like to talk. There are people who say, is he really like that? I'm going to see. They needle him. I think they have a perfect right to express themselves the way they choose; naturally he's ornery, okay. Nobody has the right to listen. Let me tell you something. Picasso or Lyndon Johnson, neither has the right to insult me. But then I don't have the right to invade his privacy, so I think that let's separate the two. JG: Could musicians do more to reach the people than they are doing now? For example, I feel that you and the rest of the fellows in your group do much more than some other groups to reach the people. CA: You know, I have a funny attitude about that. We have always played pretty much the same way. We have always played pretty much the same variety of music. Naturally, when we had a bigger band, we could not play as much as we are playing with a smaller band, because tenor saxophone players are very longwinded and where we could play 4 or 5 tunes during a set now, then we could only play 2 or 3. The point I'm trying to make is that we think that people discover us and there's no conscious effort to be different, and never has been; we have always presented ourselves in different way of ... I don't know ... and suddenly we find a lot of middle-aged people right along with the young people saying, yes I enjoyed it, this is good. It is gratifying to me to be accepted on a larger scale, to get more acceptance on a commercial basis is always good for the pocketbook, as well as the ego, but it still mystifies me sometimes. Why do we have 40-yr. -old white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant listeners to Sack o' Woe in 1967, and we had difficulty getting them in 1960 or '61. What is the difference for the same tune, or the same kind of music, the same kind of talk, the same kind of presentation, the same size band? What makes the difference? There's the mystery. It is very interesting. JG: I think that the music is what the people are who make it and if the people are kind or outgoing, the music will eventually reach people because it will somehow have this warmth, this kindness in it. CA: I wish I could agree with you on that. I think it's wonderful that you think that way, but there are too many cases in point to contradict you. Some of the guys who have written some of the most beautiful music ever are some of the biggest bastards, and this goes all the way back to Handel and Schubert. Some of the biggest fops ever were like Franz Lizst and Chopin and these cats whose music cannot be questioned in terms of its beauty. They were not necessarily beautiful people. The same applies to some of the pop music from the last 30 years or so, from Gershwin on through Richard Rodgers. Some of these guys are not likable people, but they make beautiful music. I think that it would be nice if I could take refuge in the fact that I feel kindly towards the world and the music communicates that way but I really cannot. JG: Maybe it's sort of an independent thing from the creator, once a creator gives it a little birth, it's kind of on its own. CA: Oh, yes, that's true. You have no control over it after that. After that old saying about beauty is in the eye of the beholder, or the ear of the beholder. JG: You were saying that the group has always played the same type of variety of things and had a pretty consistent feeling running through it over the years; it's never made an overt attempt to grab people by the collar, but for example, in a piece like Mercy, Mercy, Joe Zawinul must have seen that this would be a tune that would have more appeal than some other of his compositions. Is that true? CA: Only after it was created. It's hard to say about music and now you take my brother: Nat wrote a song about 7 or 8 years ago. It wasn't a big song for us. We did the first recording and the second recording. He recorded it himself on an album he did for Riverside, called Work Song. Then we recorded it in an album: the very next album I did called Them Dirty Blues and it was recorded by various other people; then Oscar Brown wrote a lyric to it and it was recorded by a lot of singers, and Herbie Alpert and the Tijuana Brass decided they wanted to do it, and it became a big, big tune. We still play the tune ... we have played it through the years because we like it. But what makes it? JG: What a mystery! Well, I guess life is a mystery. Can't get more trite than that - it's a fact that you face every day. CA: Every day of our lives. JG: And you wouldn't want it any other way. CA: That's true. If we knew what was going to happen - oh, boy, wouldn't be any fun. ............................................................. - If you like my blogs, and many of you have. 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