The adventures of Dennis Gonzalez in the 21st century: an appreciation

There are those who will tell you that the only way to experience creative music is in live performance, and while I can see validity in that -- there's an energy exchange that takes place between performer and audience that recordings can't  capture -- if you don't live on the coasts, your opportunity to hear a lot of people you might read about is going to be limited.

And when the artist departs this life, as my friend Dennis Gonzalez did on March 15, recordings are the only way we have left to hear them.

Since reconnecting with Dennis in 2002, I heard him perform live many times, usually in Yells At Eels with his sons Aaron and Stefan, and for the last six years, with Ataraxia. But Dennis performed and recorded in many other situations during those years. A systematic appreciation of that body of work now seems appropriate.

To many listeners, Dennis's reputation is based on the records he made in the late '80s for the Swedish Silkheart label: Stefan, Namesake, Debenge-Debenge, and The Desert Wind. While it's not as dauntingly massive as some, sorting through Dennis's discography is complicated by the plethora of geographically-based names he gave his groups -- at the behest of Silkheart co-founder Keith Knox, Dennis told me -- and the several labels for which he recorded. 

By the turn of the century, the marketplace had changed; now it would be unheard of for a label to send an artist a big check, as Dennis said Silkheart did, to bankroll a week of sessions (which produced his own Namesake and Debenge-Debenge, Ahmed Abdullah's Liquid Magic, and Charles Brackeen's Bannar) in 1987. Between 2001 and 2021, he released seven albums on Clean Feed (Portugal), five on Ayler (France), three on his own Daagnim label (plus one unlabeled archival self-release), two each on Furthermore (U.S.) and No Business (Lithuania), and one-offs for Entropy Stereo Recordings, 1 Car Garage, Treefallsounds, and Aaron Gonzalez's Inner Realms Outer Realms (all U.S.); For Tune and Not Two (Poland); and Pirates Press (Czech Republic).

To begin with, Yells At Eels' Home is clearly a starter record, with the Gonzalez sons finding their feet and their father finding his way back to performing, but it contains the first recordings of "Document for Toshinori Kondo" and "Ganesha the Spy," both of which became staples of YAE setlists. Following its release, they toured in November, March, and June -- whenever school schedules would allow -- gaining valuable experience and solidifying as a unit. 

There's more fire on the follow up 2CD Home Away from Home (Live in Minneapolis) & Pictogram (In the Studio). The live disc finds YAE holding their own in the company of AACM eminence Douglas Ewart (who previously appeared on Namesake). The studio disc is highlighted by a four part expansion on The Desert Wind's "Hymn for Julius Hemphill" -- another YAE perennial -- with a guest appearance by fleet-fingered Fort Worth guitarist Bill Pohl (The Underground Railroad).

But that wasn't the only playing Dennis did in 2002. Released on Michigan-based indie Entropy Stereo, Old Time Revival, credited to Dennis Gonzalez New Southern Quintet, teamed him with the twin reeds of Tim Green (a Gonzalez familiar since 1990's Hymn for the Perfect Heart of a Pearl) and Andrew Lamb along with a rhythm section of AACM veterans who'd both been on the 1987 Silkheart sessions (Malachi Favors and Alvin Fielder). The album included the first recorded version of Dennis's "The Matter At Hand" as well as a cover of YAE's emblematic "Free Jazz Is Thrash, Asshole."

An August 2003 visit to the Northeast to play shows in Boston and New York resulted in a slew of recordings. Some of the Old Time Revival material was played at the August 8 show in Boston, which featured an ensemble with two basses (Nate McBride and Joe Morris), saxophonist Charlie Kohlhase, and 19-year-old drummer Croix Galipault (a student of Morris's). The Portuguese label Clean Feed released the live recording as No Photo Available in 2006. It was Dennis's first time performing with an ensemble other than YAE since 1999.

The next night's live recording at Tonic in New York was married by some equipment failures, but enough was salvaged for Clean Feed to release (with additional studio material) as Dance of the Soothsayer's Tongue in 2007. Dennis's NY Quartet included saxophonist Ellery Eskelin (whom I was surprised to see in a PBS documentary, talking about his father, the late "song poem" musician Rodd Keith), bassist Mark Helias, and drummer Michael T.A. Thompson. 

This was the same unit that entered the studio on November 22 to record Dennis's scintillating NY Midnight Suite, an album to put next to the Silkhearts. The following day, Dennis was back in the studio with a different group of musicians (except for Thompson, who held the drum chair): trumpeter Roy Campbell, Jr., multi-reedist Sabir Mateen, and bassist Henry Grimes, who'd anchored crucial recordings by Cecil Taylor, Don Cherry, and Albert Ayler, and was making his return to the studio after 35 years. The resulting Nile River Suite, which Dennis released on Daagnim credited to Dennis Gonzalez's Inspiration Band, displays a rare depth of expression from all the players.

Last but not least in this series of Gonzalez records is Songs of Early Autumn, recorded in Connecticut at Joe Morris's invitation in the wake of the aforementioned Boston gig, in the company of Joe's regular collaborators Timo Shanko (on tenor sax rather than his usual upright bass) and Luther Gray on drums. You can hear the New Englanders' familiarity with each other's playing, into which Dennis blends seamlessly.

I wrote liner notes for Idle Wild, recorded in August 2004 and released by Clean Feed the following year. Dennis Gonzalez's Spirit Meridian brought Dennis and T.A. Thompson together with altoist Oliver Lake of Black Artists Group/Jump Up/World Saxophone Quartet fame and Austin bassist Ken Filiano. Highlights include Dennis's "Elechi -- Elegy for Malachi Favors" (the bassist passed in January 2004), the first released version of his politically themed "Bush Medicine" (previously recorded by the Connecticut Quartet but not released until 2009 on Lithuanian label NoBusiness), and a rousing version of YAE's signature "Document for Toshinori Kondo."

The Gift of Discernment, recorded at the end of December 2005 and released by the Polish label Not Two in 2008, was something entirely different. Originally planned as a trio with pianist Chris Parker under Alvin Fielder's leadership, it was expanded at Fielder's request to the double drum Jnaana Septet with Aaron and Stefan Gonzalez (the latter on tuned percussion as well as trap set and small instruments), additional percussionist Robby Mercado, and vocalist Leena Conquest. The music's modal melodies and rich polyrhythms give it an African tinge, with a thunderous 16-minute take of "Ganesha the Spy" a high point. Pianist Parker is a wonder, and the Gonzalez brothers' playing has gained expressive force and confidence since YAE's earliest outings.

That growth is consolidated on Geografia, the first recorded peak for YAE, released on Aaron Gonzalez's label Inner Realms Outer Realms in 2006. For the first time, the brothers' compositions predominate, and the collective improvisations really sizzle. Stefan's "Ethereal Carpet Ride" features his vibraphone facility, while the band composition "Elegy for a Slaughtered Democracy" offers thoughtful solos from all the participants, including guest tenorman Carl Smith. On Stefan's mysterious "Crow Soul" and the brothers' cathartic, co-written "Mutation Station," Bill Pohl's molten silver electric guitar and Kim Corbet (Tidbits)'s trombone, keys, and electronics provide orchestral depth (on the former) and excitement (on the latter).

(Around this time, I played one gig with Aaron in an ad hoc aggregation called Kamandi, fronted by two drummers who set up face to face, sharing a kick drum. My principle memories of the evening are the hail of splintered drumsticks, the atavistic hysteria of the audience members I could see, and Aaron's hands after we finished. They looked like hamburger.)

Dennis's next couple of recording projects were under the auspices of Marty Monroe's Asheville, NC-based Furthermore Recordings, a label active between 2008 and 2010. Renegade Spirits featured Dennis, his sons, and Tim Green in the company of Art Ensemble of Chicago percussionist Famoudou Don Moye (Dennis having previously played with the drummer's AEC predecessor Fielder and his longtime bandmate Favors). 

The session was originally planned to include Fort Worth drum titan Ronald Shannon Jackson, but he proved to be unavailable in the event, so Moye was slotted in. (This didn't prevent Stefan Gonzalez from picking up the phone, calling Shannon, and driving over to his Fort Worth home to share drum knowledge. In 2013, Stefan was behind the traps with the band at Shannon's Fort Worth memorial.) Stefan and Famoudou mix it up like peers, and the younger Gonzalez brother also plays bass clarinet on his father's composition "Skin and Bones" (on which Tim Green plays his ass off). And the percussion duets really signify.

On A Matter of Blood, Dennis and T.A. Thompson form a quartet with pianist Curtis Clark (best known for his work with David Murray) and bassist Reggie Workman (John Coltrane, Trio 3), recorded at the end of 2008. The long band tracks are interspersed with solo interludes by Workman, Thompson, and Clark. While Dennis is inclined to defer to Clark, and the music's in more of a post-bop bag than most Gonzalez offerings, it's Thompson who steals the show here; his loose-limbed energy drives the music. My favorite piece on the album is Dennis's "Anthem for the Moment," which has a similar vibe to Coltrane's "After the Rain," inviting Clark to inhabit its melodic contours before the group improvisation careens into free territory.

Another personal favorite is Scapegrace, a duet with the Portuguese pianist Joao Paulo (full name Joao Paulo Esteves da Silva), recorded in 2007 and released on Clean Feed in 2009 (a banner year for Gonzalez releases). It's a work of unbridled lyricism, a quality always lurking beneath the surface of Dennis's playing. They recorded a follow up, So Soft Yet, in 2010 (released the following year). On that date, Joao Paulo added electric piano and accordion -- the latter a particularly effective accompaniment to Dennis's Iberian soul music.

As I wrote when it was new, YAE's The Great Bydgoszcz Concert (we say in Texas that it's only a brag if it's not true) represented as big of a progression from Geografia as that album had from its predecessors. Recorded on a 2008 tour of Poland with Aaron and Stefan's Humanization 4tet band mate Rodrigo Amado on tenor and released on the French Ayler label the following year, Bydgoszcz documents an uncommonly high level of bandstand communication between players who can execute as fast as they can think. 

The way they improvise over fast tempos on Ornette's "Happy House" and Geografia's "Document for William Parker" is blinding -- surpassed only by a version of the former tune from the same period (with Carl Smith on tenor instead of Amado) that you can see on YouTube, which is terrifying (in the best possible way). This lineup was equally effective on dirges like Krystztof Komeda's "Litania" (which boasts a stirring solo from Stefan). Another astonishing peak.

One might think of Gulf of Storms as the third installment in the Yells At Eels and the Great Drummers series, with South African Louis Moholo-Moholo -- who previously played with Dennis on Catechism and Hymn for the Perfect Heart of a Pearl -- in the seat occupied by Alvin Fielder on The Gift of Discernment and Famoudou Don Moye on Renegade Spirits. Stefan's growing facility on tuned percussion broadens YAE's timbral palette and is featured on Dennis's opening "Document for Walt Dickerson" (so named for a vibist who recorded with Andrew Hill) and on his overdubbed interlude (all three Gonzalezes get one, like the rhythm players on A Matter of Blood). And you can dance to Dennis's "Snakehandler," propelled by Aaron's three dimensional bass.

Fielder returns for YAE's third Ayler release, Resurrection and Life, along with New Orleans expat, trombonist Gaika James. The blend of the two brass instruments is particularly satisfying. (Furthermore honcho Marty Monroe magnanimously funded most of this project.) 

Stefan's vibraphone is now integral to the sound, lending an otherworldly quality to Aaron's composition "Psynchronomenography" (which sounds like something Sun Ra might have written in the '50s, when Fielder played in his Arkestra), as well as his own "Everywhere to Go But Up, Nowhere to Go But Down." Fielder, who at 76 had just survived a life threatening illness, plays with the vitality of a man half his age. For these sessions, Dennis and Alvin chose to reprise two tunes from 1989's incandescent The Desert Wind: "Battalion of Saints" and "Max-Well." (Fielder passed in 2019.)

Four tracks from a November 2011 Polish radio session with saxophonist Marek Pospieszalski and bassist Wojtek Mazolewski augmenting YAE saw vinyl release. Dennis's composition "Wind Streaks in Syrtis Minor" was split over two sides of a 7" on Treefallsounds. 1 Car Garage got three songs on a 12": a brooding dirge titled "The Polish Spirit" is the pick of the litter, but the jokey "Artykuty Gospodarstwa Domowego" is big fun.

Dennis made a point of saying (when I chided him for posting silly rock song lyrics on social media) that he was a rock musician before he was a jazz musician, and he was a church musician before that. The Hymn Project, a 2011 collaboration with the Norwegian bassist Ingebrigt Haker Flaten (The Thing), is the first item in Dennis's discography to explicitly address the spiritual aspect of his world. It's an open and spacious sound, as rich in the sound of strings (Ingebrigt and Aaron's basses, Henna Chou's cello) as the great drummer collaborations were with percussion. 

Framing the interpretations of American and Norwegian hymns were two strong originals by Dennis: "Hymn to the Incoherent" and "Herido." The latter is the first song Dennis recorded with his sons, also recorded for 8th Harmonic Breakdown on a CD that's been elusive (now available digitally via Dennis's Bandcamp page), and later a highlight of Ataraxia's live sets. After playing together on this album, Ingebrigt recruited Stefan to play vibes in his band The Young Mothers.

Colorado at Clinton, recorded in 2011 and released on Ayler in 2013, teams YAE with Stefan's childhood friend Aakash Mittal, an adept altoist who's visited India and studied with Rudresh Mahanthappa and Ravish Momin. I saw this lineup play at the Oak Cliff Cultural Center on a night when my wife and I also took in a Clay Stinnett art show at the Texas Theatre and Junior Brown at the Kessler -- the Cliff at its finest. Mittal's two originals are fine (I had to smile at the quote from Trane's "India" in "Shades of India") and Dennis's "Wind Streaks in Syrtis Major" gets revisited with powerful solo statements all around. The dirge "Constellations on the Ground (for Chris Whitley)" features a Hadenesque solo from Aaron.

In Quiet Waters -- how odd it feels to be saying, the last YAE album, was recorded partly at the Gonzalez home studio and partly at a house show in Deep Ellum, and released on the Polish For Tune label in 2014. There's a YouTube video of the performance of "Hymn for Julius Hemphill" from this album that captures the vibe I remember from so many YAE shows. That and the 2016 video of a "guerrilla" performance of "Document for Toshinori Kondo" are what I'll always show folks who want to know what this band was about. This album represents the high water mark of YAE -- how far they reached as telepathic improvisers and skilled composers. Offline, Dennis also showed his sons, by example and experience, how to organize and promote this music in DIY fashion -- a legacy that has benefited creative music in North Texas.

Ataraxia proved to be Dennis's sunset project, and while it came about as the result of a scheduling conflict, the trio with bassist Drew Phelps and tablaist Jagath Lakpriya allowed Dennis to explore a quieter, more reflective music than YAE was accustomed to playing (although there were moves in that direction on In Quiet Waters). 

The obvious comparison was with the jazz/"world music" hybrid trio Codona, and Dennis told me after Ataraxia's second performance that he had discussed collaborating with Codona's Colin Walcott before Walcott's death in 1984. Ataraxia's double vinyl debut captured their sound beautifully: the traditional Sri Lankan tune "Ukusa," a dedication to Aaron's daughter "Issy," a new version of "Namesake," Phelps's composition "Thoink." Those of us who caught their first run of shows will have to rely on our memories of the aforementioned "Herido" and David Bowie's "Black Star."

The fact that the follow up, Nights Enter, was completed is indicative of Dennis's strong drive to create. For years, he had been dealing with a multiplicity of health issues -- hearing loss, diabetes, heart disease, and later, kidney failure -- that made going and doing a supreme act of will, which was further complicated by a life-threatening injury Dennis sustained during the recording sessions. I wrote the album's backstory in the liner notes. Suffice to say that electronic musician Derek Rogers provided the Moog synthesizer compositions that served as the foundation over which the Ataraxia musicians and harpist Jess Garland added their contributions. Regardless of the circumstances of its creation, the music on Nights Enter fits perfectly the Merriam-Webster definition of ataraxia: 'calmness untroubled by mental or emotional disquiet."

It was with this unit (with Aaron subbing on bass) that I saw Dennis perform for the last time, at the Fort Worth opening of a collaborative art show with his beloved granddaughter Issy. The sound mix was dodgy, but only a couple of days earlier Dennis announced that he'd completely lost hearing in his right ear. The last time I set eyes on him, he looked drained but happy, surrounded by people he loved, who loved him. The memory of that warmth and love will sustain me for a long while.