Nick Didkovsky's "Now I Do This" and "Screaming Into the Yawning Vacuum of Victory"

There are certain guitarists I always look to when it's original ideas and fresh approaches I'm craving. Nick Didkovsky is one such axe-slinger. Since I first encountered him via his $100 Guitar Project, I've been amazed and enthralled by the prog rock extremity of his work with Doctor Nerve, his evocations of the hard rock I grew up with via Pretties for You NYC (his homage to the first, undervalued Alice Cooper LP) and his Tony Iommi guitar lessons on YouTube, the father-son death metal of Vomit Fist, and the crushingly heavy textures of free metal duo CHORD. On his two latest releases, available on CD via his Punos Music label or digitally via Bandcamp, Didkovsky looks both backward (to his first solo record, originally released on vinyl in 1982) and forward (through duets with his former Fred Frith Guitar Quartet bandmate Mark Howell, recorded in a couple of quick sessions back in September).

Now I Do This had its genesis in Didkovsky's student days, when he found the compositional freedom he sought in electronic music. Here Didkovsky, noted for his six-string prowess, employs the full array of implements available to the late 20th century composer: prepared guitar, tape-manipulated voices and found sounds, synths, percussion, and homemade instruments like the awesomely abrasive nail violin. (Listening, I am reminded of the experimental musician who told me, "Anything is an instrument if you stick a contact mic on it.") With these tools, Didkovsky produced atmospheric soundscapes that engage the ear and evoke unlikely emotion. 

The epic, 15-minute "Silesian Winter" is the album's tour de force, wending its way through shifting moods and textures. The four bonus tracks, all unearthed on ancient cassettes and previously unheard, range from an early version of album opener "Flykiller" (sort of an atonal "Peter Gunn" variant) to "Mokele Mbembe," in which wind and strings as well as percussion perform rhythmic functions. In this context, the tonality of "Chanedra," the earliest piece here (1980), is almost shocking, starting out like a ruminative King Crimson outtake before venturing into turbulent territory Doctor Nerve would explore more fully a couple of years hence.

Around the time Didkovsky was creating Now I Do This, Mississippi-born Mark Howell was arriving in New York, where he formed avant-rock band Better Than Death with bass clarinetist Michael Lytle (also a Didkovsky collaborator in Doctor Nerve). Howell went on to co-lead the bands Zero Pop and Timber, and to play alongside Didkovsky in the original lineup of the Fred Frith Guitar Quartet (one section of whose "The As Usual Dance Towards the Other Flight to What is Not" is reprised here) before embarking on an academic career. The two men reconvened when Howell visited NYC this past September, bringing a sheaf of compositional ideas, a couple of Les Pauls, Marshalls, and 1x12 cabs (but no effects) into Didkovsky's studio for two whirlwind afternoon sessions.

The result, Screaming Into the Yawning Vacuum of Victory, is a collection of 21 miniatures (the two longest pieces are under two minutes, the shortest 21 seconds) that recall Trout Mask Replica in their knotty contrapuntal complexity. On "Twitch Code," f'rinstance, the twin guitars negotiate a steeplechase of choppy chords and staccato lines. On the two opening tracks, Didkovsky and Howell vocalize in unison; the lyrics to "Fat Dad, Fat Son" are particularly resonant as the record drops in a week when the trials of Rittenhouse, and Ahmaud Arbery's killers, are winding up. 

As one might expect from an electronic composer, Didkovsky views mixing and sequencing as crucial components in the record making process. His attention to the flow of events conjoins these units of experience in mini-suites; the one that includes "Automagically," "Luscious," and the aforementioned "The As Usual Dance..." is a particular favorite at mi casa. The closing "Heat," with its droning, pulsing streams of feedback, just skirts the domain that the ongoing CHORD project inhabits. I'll be using this CD to warm the house this winter.

Leo Smith's "A Love Sonnet for Billie Holiday" and "The Chicago Symphonies"

Since retiring from academia in 2013 and returning to New Haven, trumpeter-composer Wadada Leo Smith -- who turns 80 on December 18 -- has been in an upsurge of creativity, much of it documented on the Finnish Tum Records label. Smith's latest Tum releases include a trio with two distinguished alumni -- leaders in their own right -- of his Golden Quartet, and a four-disc set of symphonies celebrating the contributions of Chicagoans (and figures associated with the Windy City) to music, the other arts, and social progress.

Like Miles and Don Cherry, Smith says a lot very simply through his open or muted horn. On A Love Sonnet for Billie Holiday and The Chicago Symphonies, his compositions unfold in accordance with their melodic contours, rather than any imperative to forward motion (which I remember someone in the '70s telling me was the very definition of jazz). This use of silence and space to evoke stillness harkens back to his 1969 compositions "The Bell" and "Silence," recorded with Anthony Braxton and Leroy Jenkins. His present day collaborators are attuned to these requirements, and to each other.

I saw Jack DeJohnette, who drums on both new releases, with the Gateway Trio in '75, and he was one of my favorite bandleaders of the '70s and '80s with his Directions, New Directions, and Special Edition outfits. It's easy to forget that he hails from Chicago and was associated with the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) before leaving town for historic stints with Charles Lloyd and Miles Davis. As if to remind us, DeJohnette released Made In Chicago, a festival recording with AACM eminences Muhal Richard Abrams, Roscoe Mitchell, and Henry Threadgill (whose alto and flute grace three of the Chicago Symphonies) in 2015. On the trio album's title track, it's intriguing to hear this master of groove and swing inhabiting a space that's less concerned with pulse than with tone and texture. DeJohnette's "Song for World Forgiveness" adds some rustic lyricism to the proceedings, while the closing group improv "Rocket" finds him on more familiar rhythmic ground.

Pianist Vijay Iyer, the third member of the trio, first appeared on my radar a decade or so ago in the cooperative trio Fieldwork with Tyshawn Sorey. Besides acoustic piano, his instrumental array includes organ and electronics. (Like Craig Taborn and Jason Moran, he's of a generation that teethed on hip-hop as well as jazz and fusion.) Iyer was in the Golden Quartet lineup that included drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson, featured in Jacques Goldstein's documentary Eclipse. In that setting, he played both Chick Corea and Keith Jarrett to the leader's Miles. Here, on his composition "Deep Time No. 1," Iyer creates an electronic bed, including a sampled Malcolm X speech, on which to overlay shimmering electric piano washes and drum clatter. On Smith's dedication to original Golden Quartet pianist Anthony Davis, Iyer bears the weight of the music's harmonic density.

Inspired by Don Cherry's Symphony for Improvisers, The Chicago Symphonies is the second outing by Smith's Great Lakes Quartet: Smith, DeJohnette, Threadgill, and a frequent Smith collaborator, bassist John Lindberg. It's a pleasure to hear Pulitzer Prize-winner Threadgill, who's led some of the most important bands of the era (including Air, the Henry Threadgill Sextett, Very Very Circus, and Zooid) interpreting another composer's scores. The sound of the two men's horns blending their voices and trading solos is a delight, as is the elastic rhythmic flow Lindberg and DeJohnette produce together. The contrast between Smith's long-tone melodies and busy accompaniments harkens back to Ornette but goes much further in its development.

Like much of Smith's later output -- beginning with the 2012 masterwork Ten Freedom Summers -- the symphonies' programmatic content displays a concern with history that provides valuable context for the music. (For interested listeners who are unfamiliar with the AACM saga, a perusal of George Lewis' A Power Stronger Than Itself might be useful.) The movements of the four symphonies contain dedications, sometimes to multiple individuals, sometimes to participants in this recording. That's not to say that these pieces literally recapitulate their honorees' accomplishments; for instance, the fourth movement of the Gold Symphony, dedicated to Louis Armstrong, Earl Hines, Lil Hardin Armstrong, and Baby Dodds, is hardly an homage to the Hot Fives and Sevens. Rather, the various movements are Smith's responses to the achievements of his forebears and contemporaries, and their ongoing importance, now and in the future.

It's that focus on futurity that makes the dedication of the Sapphire Symphony -- with a relative newcomer, reedman Jonathan Haffner, performing ably in place of Threadgill -- to Presidents Lincoln and Obama seem so poignant. Reading the texts to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and Obama's 2015 remarks at the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma, both of which are reproduced in the booklet that accompanies this set (Tum knows how to package this music in a form worthy of its quality and importance), one can't help but reflect on how hard-won are the freedom struggles in this country, and how tenuous are their gains without our continual vigilance.

Re-Velvetized

1) I still haven't seen the Todd Haynes Velvet Underground documentary. I'm not doing movie theaters because Covid, and we already have enough streaming services. A friend has offered to hook me up, and I'll probably avail myself of their offer. But I already know I'm a terrible fan. When the Stooges reunited, bigger Stooge fans than I informed me I wasn't a real fan because I opted to play Stoogeaphilia shows over taking advantage of offers to see the reunion band. But I'd rather play than see anybody.

2) That said, I enjoyed seeing all the Velvet love on social media in the run-up to the Haynes doco's release. While reading all the posts, I was reminded that I've never owned VU or Another View. The Velvets' original discography (including 1969 Live, which was my go-to for years when I wanted to hear them) seemed sufficient. But I started trawling online and realized that vinyl copies of those two '80s releases now go for more than my $20 ceiling. I wound up ponying up 30 bucks for a copy of the Australian What Goes On box set even though the more complete Peel Slowly and See was on offer for the same price...because the latter duplicates more stuff I already have, and includes more stuff that I know I'd only listen to once (e.g., Lou's Dylanesque songwriter demos). The fan-compiled What Goes On serves as a neat audio verite document of the Velvets, and includes everything I'd want from VU and Another View except "Temptation Inside Your Heart," a joke about doowop that is the source of the line "Electricity comes from other planets." I'll probably listen to this as much as I have the complete Matrix thing.

3) Re-skimming Clinton Heylin's From the Velvets to the Voidoids (the revised edition with the uber bitchy "Postlude"), I realized there's a song from the Nico era that I never heard -- actually two. Listening to the bootleg of the '66 Factory rehearsals, I discovered the song Heylin mentioned ("Miss Joanie Lee") is pretty lousy, as is the one he missed ("Get It On Time"). The jam room Velvets sound like any other shitty garage band screwing around with I-IV-V s and one chord drones, although it's interesting to hear them transposing keys while Lou tries to teach Nico how to sing "There She Goes Again." Unessential, but I'm glad to have it.

4) When Stoogeaphilia expanded our brief from the Stooges to the whole period covered in Velvets to Voidoids, I thought surely we might do a VU tune or two. But the bass player had a college roommate who insisted on not only listening to the Velvets all the time, but lecturing on why they were important. So no dice. A few weeks ago, I was dicking around with Blood Ulmer's guitar tunings (which use lots of unisons -- like Lou's "ostrich" tuning -- and 4ths) and stumbled on the melody of "All Tomorrow's Parties," one of my favorite songs of all ti-i-ime. I started posting vids of some Velvet Underground songs, which I mostly played off the top of my head after maybe a cursory review of form or lyrics (hence the mistakes). I usually don't watch these things once they're done, but the one for "The Gift" -- a song which figured in a bad acid trip I had when I was 16, rendering me unable to listen to White Light/White Heat for decades  -- is an exception. Contrary to Heylin, the instrumental part isn't "Booker T," a I-IV-V; it's "Gloria," with feedback. I'd still rather play than see anybody.

ADDENDUM: Finally saw the Haynes doco. Wow. He really did them justice. It helped that they were well documented on film, and he must have had a big budget for clearances. Still, he knew the people to talk to and the questions to ask. And his love for the band and the independent cinema of the time shines through. Neck-and-neck with Alex Winter's recent Zappa (sorry, Lou) as the best rockumentary ever.