Fulbright riffs, 1991 — day 61, Monday July 29th
Cooler and drizzlier weather. My survey of IJS jazz serials continues and I come across Bells a free jazz and improvised music magazine published during the 1970s in California by Henry Kuntz. About half the issues are devoted to American free jazz pioneers like Sun Ra, Cecil Taylor and Albert Ayler, while the other half is devoted to free improvisation, its main activity centred on London with Derek Bailey, Spontaneous Music Ensemble and Evan Parker. [This trove of music writing is available online as of this year, thanks to Metropolis].
[I have mixed views about Cecil Taylor’s music. A French assistant at my secondary school once let me borrow about a dozen jazz LPs, including Cecil Taylor’s Unit Structures on Blue Note. Despite being heavily into Bartók and Stravinsky, I found Taylor’s re-orientation of the jazz listening experience unfathomable. When I heard him play live in London in the late 1980s his extended improvisations sounded like the late piano sonatas of Scriabin. His playing has virtuosity and integrity: I remain intrigued but usually find myself overwhelmed rather than enveloped by Taylor’s pianistic blizzards.]
In the IJS collection I find Mysteries,
recorded in March 1973 with Andrew Cyrille and Jimmy Lyons on Taylor’s own label Unit Core. This was subsequently released as Indent.
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IJS also has in its serials collection some copies of Band Wagon, a magazine published in London 1939–1940.
Looking through the IJS copies, I am surprised by the number of pin-ups, a reflection of the place and its times and a readership drawn from the armed forces.
I call Bob Rusch (on my list of contacts) at Cadence Records and read through his book Jazz Talk that includes interviews with Cecil Taylor, Von Freeman and others who recorded for Cadence. The interview with Milt Hinton introduces me to a fascinating piano player from Chicago, Cassino Simpson (1909–1952). He was diagnosed schizophrenic in his twenties (1932/3) and admitted to hospital for life where John Steiner managed to record his only solo piano recordings. The playing is wild but rhythmically exciting, reminiscent of Earl Hines and Art Tatum. IJS has a copy of Paramount CJS 109, Cass Simpson, (for which they had to pay good money) the first track being Tea for two, the tempo challenging his right-hand octave technique. Endings are unusual
Back in Maplewood, the grouper I’ve barbecued is a little underdone due to haste. I hadn’t thought that neighbour Robert Heffley would take up my invitation to go to a New York jazz club, but here he is! He drives us to Bradley’s in Greenwich Village for Hank Jones’s 80th birthday celebrations. The place is packed and we have to stand up, a little way out from the bar all evening. Admission was $25 and there is a $15 minimum charge per set, although the definition of ‘set’ tonight is loose as the birthday celebrations involve about a dozen piano players, each doing two or three numbers with a bass player. George Mraz accompanies Harold Mabern, Muhal Richard Abrams (surprisingly subdued in standards), Mulgrew Miller and Billy Taylor. Ray Drummond (whose size dwarfs his double bass) takes over from Mraz for Larry Willis. We leave just before midnight as Junior Mance takes his turn — I’d recently heard him in Chicago and Robert has to work in the morning. It was a polite, festive occasion, nobody really intent on setting the place alight. Most of the numbers were standards in medium fast tempi or lingering ballads, all tastefully interpreted in a manner appropriate to honouring one of the jazz piano greats.
Robert seemed to enjoy it. He certainly enjoyed showing off his automatic garage doors as we pull into his driveway. On the way back to Maplewood he told me he’d been taught how to drive by a former racing driver. He had also been a New York taxi driver in the early 1970s. The exam consisted of ten questions along the lines of: ‘Where is Kennedy Airport? — answer, Queens; Where is the Yankee Stadium? — The Bronx. He believes that around 60% of cab drivers are working their first day at any time. The turnover among the two hundred nationalities involved is prodigious.
