Ches Smith's "Interpret It Well"

I've long thought of Ches Smith as "Mary Halvorson's drummer," but he's also had ongoing side musician gigs with Tim Berne, Marc Ribot, and John Zorn. I was impressed by the first outing from his band These Arches, 2010's Finally Out of My Hands. Since then, he's released two more albums with that band (whose latest lineup includes both Halvorson and Berne), and another four of solo percussion/electronics under the rubric Congs for Brums. His strengths as a composer and conceptualist came to the fore in last year's foray into Haitian vodou music, Path of Seven Colors. 

But what had me anticipating this album was the knowledge producer David Breskin had shared that guitar icon Bill Frisell was on board, alongside the trio from Smith's 2016 ECM release The Bell (pianist Craig Taborn and violist Mat Maneri). Not only that: Frisell had been using electronic effects in a way he hadn't since the '80s -- a tantalizing prospect for anyone with the fond memory of Frisell's sound on his own Lookout for Hope, as well as his service as a color in the palettes of the aforementioned Mr. Berne, Power Tools, and Paul Motian, among others.

Now I hold Interpret It Well in my hands, replete with illustration by SST Records eminence Raymond Pettibon, and while there's nothing on the album as jarring as the torrent of skronk Frisell once unleashed to open Berne's Fulton Street Maul, the guitarist's approach here is knottier and more aggressive than the unadorned melodicism that's become his trademark in recent years. That said, the taste with which he now employs his tools is emblematic of the entire project.

Smith himself is the most self-effacing of leaders, moving between vibes and drums as the music demands but always playing inside the compositions, never needing to dominate the proceedings -- although the participants serve his composer's intent at all times. The seven pieces comprising Interpret It Well use shifting dynamics to build powerful moods, awash in crystalline textures and shimmering tonalities. On the title track, for instance, echolalic repetition gives way to intertwining and blending melodic voices, a driving ostinato with blazing solos all around, and even a moment of rock-like forward motion before shuddering to a conclusion. 

"Mixed Metaphor" begins with a four-way conversation of chiming melody before another ostinato sets up a series of solo turns, with Maneri soaring above Taborn's sturdy foundation, gradually building intensity until the pianist allows himself to cut loose. "Clear Major" is the album's apogee -- a masterpiece of tension and release where engaging themes alternate with compelling free sections, finally resolving to tranquil beauty. Breskin's longtime collaborator Ron Saint Germain captures the musicians' interaction with breathtaking clarity and immediacy. A record that demands repeated listens, and yet another reason why Kris Davis's Pyroclastic has become a favorite label at my house.

Charles Mingus's "The Lost Album from Ronnie Scott's"

Charles Mingus's centennial is upon us April 22, and Resonance Records -- the worthy nonprofit that's released important archival recordings by John Coltrane, Bill Evans, Sonny Rollins, Roy Hargrove and Mulgrew Miller, to name but a few -- is commemorating the occasion with this previously unheard concert from a comparatively under-documented period in the titanic bassist-composer's career, on vinyl for Record Store Day (April 23), with CD to follow April 29.

The 1972 recordings British CBS made on the last night of this Mingus sextet's two-week stand on the musician-friendly turf of Ronnie Scott's club in London, released for the first time as The Lost Album from Ronnie Scott's, capture a band riven by interpersonal tensions, but burning brightly, like a lightbulb just before its filament fails. After this date, tenorman Bobby Jones (a member of the band since 1970, who'd been sparring with Mingus in press interviews) and teenage trumpet prodigy John Faddis (a high note specialist and protege of Dizzy Gillespie) would depart the lineup, leaving only altoist Charles McPherson (who'd first played with Mingus in 1960 and had probably seen worse), pianist John Foster (about whom little is known except that he passed too early, in 1976), and drummer Roy Brooks (former Horace Silver sideman who had his own big archival RSD release with last year's Understanding) to complete the tour with Mingus. 

While the '64 Dolphy-Byard-Jordan-Richmond and '73-'75 Adams-Pullen-Walrath-Richmond lineups remain more revered, the way this '72 unit inhabits Mingus's compositions takes a back seat to no one. Ensembles are solid but not slick, solos are expressive and individuated, and the spontaneous rhythm section dialogues behind them -- a highlight of live Mingus -- are bustling and vibrant. Obscure though he might be, Foster is a fully developed player, more than equal to the demands of Mingus's music. Brooks listens and responds effectively, as well as swinging hard. Jones has a light touch that contrasts with some of his predecessors on tenor in the Mingus band, and adds variety with his clarinet on two of the pieces. Young Faddis's virtuosity generates light as well as heat, and McPherson shows why he was a linchpin of Mingus groups for a dozen years. (Lucky fans on a few selected dates will get to hear McPherson with the Mingus Big Band during this year of centennial celebrations.)

They stretch out at length on a set that mixes Mingus live staples (the lushly Ellingtonian "Orange Was the Color of Her Dress (Then Silk Blues)," the barbed political irony of the tour de force "Fables of Faubus," the ballad "The Man Who Never Sleeps"), the previously unrecorded, boppish-themed "Mind Readers Convention in Milano" -- which winds its way through several intriguing shifts in tempo and dynamics, with all the players digging deep in their solo spots -- and homages to Texas tenor Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson ("Noddin' Ya Head Blues," later recorded with fusion guest stars on Three or Four Shades of Blues, here with a vocal by Foster and a solo by Brooks on musical saw!) and Louis Armstrong ("Pops"). In the course of two and a half hours, Mingus and his men create whole worlds in sound.

Interviewed for the liner notes, McPherson describes Mingus the composer's methodology as well as anyone I've heard: "When Mingus wrote, he quite often wrote long form. He had tempo changes. There were parts that were almost polytonal; you could hear a lot of stuff going on. And he wrote thematically and he wrote episodically, as well." Besides that interview, the notes include an essay by Mingus biographer Brian Priestley, and the full transcript of the wide ranging '72 interview -- mirroring their onstage instrumental conversations -- that the author conducted with Mingus and McPherson at Ronnie Scott's a couple of nights before these recordings were made (excerpts from which appeared in his essential '82 tome Mingus: A Critical Biography).

If Columbia had released The Lost Album from Ronnie Scott's when it was new, the '72 lineup would be remembered as one of the great Mingus bands. Instead, the label cut Mingus loose at the same time as it dropped Ornette Coleman, Bill Evans, and Keith Jarrett -- an incredibly short-sighted decision in an industry known for short-sighted decisions. It is fitting and proper that Resonance should make these sides available in time for the centennial. One wonders what other treasures from Mingus's legacy still remain to be heard.

Oak Cliff, 4.10.2022

Below is an approximation of what I said to open the "For Dennis" event at The Wild Detectives last night. Stephen Lucas filmed the whole night, and Jimi Bowman was recording, so it should be viewable and audible at some point. I wanted to do my friend justice. I hope I did. Ataraxia with Chris Curiel was transcendent, and I believe they will continue performing together. The quintet of Aaron and Stefan Gonzalez, Damon Smith, Ra Kalam Bob Moses, and Jawwaad Taylor performed a fiery exorcism. 

There were two moments when I felt Dennis's presence there: once in Ataraxia's last piece, when Chris blew a couple of long, pure notes, and once during the quintet's performance, when Stefan lay out and you could focus on just Damon, Ra Kalam, and Jawwaad (who was playing a cornet Dennis had gifted him). "This is what it might have sounded like if Dennis had been able to make the gig," I thought. Thank you, brother.

Good evening. Welcome to The Wild Detectives. Looking out at all of you, my heart is full with the knowledge that what my friend, Fort Worth pianist Johnny Case, calls Dennis Gonzalez's "lifetime project" is complete, and successful. The proof is all of you. Let me explain.

In the piece Preston Jones wrote for kxt.org, Damon Smith said -- and I agree -- that Dennis was "the most important jazz or free jazz musician from Texas who never left Texas." I'd like to add the caveat, "...as a base of operations." Unlike so many other greats from this part of the state who had to leave to make their major impact -- I'm thinking of Ornette Coleman, Julius Hemphill, Dewey Redman, and Ronald Shannon Jackson, to name but four -- Dennis took his visions to the world from right here...from a house on Clinton Avenue in Oak Cliff. 

That's important because as a result of his ADVOCACY, ENCOURAGEMENT, and MENTORSHIP, there is today a thriving creative music community and as importantly, an AUDIENCE for creative music in North Texas that would have been unimaginable when I first met Dennis 44 years ago, or even when we became close friends 20 years ago. Dennis took his music anywhere and everywhere there were ears to hear it: theaters and art galleries, rock clubs and punk squats, schools and libraries and house shows. He made what some folks call an esoteric art music easily and immediately accessible.

Listening to Dennis's younger brother Scott speaking at the Kessler last week, it struck me that the nut doesn't fall far from the tree in the Gonzalez family. I've said in the past that Dennis emerged fully formed from his own head, but that's not really true. He was the son of an educator (which he became for four decades plus) and a choir leader and visual artist. That spirituality remind part of his music and his being all the way through. I think about that now when I listen to The Hymn Project that he recorded with Ingebrigt Haker-Flaten.

There's a story Dennis told me about Stefan that illustrates another quality of all the Gonzalezes -- they are NOT SHY. There was a time when the famous cartoonist Dan Piraro lived down the street from the Gonzalez home during a time when Stefan was taking an interest in drawing. One day, Dennis told me, Stefan took his drawing materials down the street, knocked on Dan's door, and told Dan, "Hi! I heard that you're an artist TOO." It put me in mind of the heyday of Caravan of Dreams, when Dennis would introduce himself to the marquee artists from around the world -- from the AACM, from the ECM Records stable that he loved -- not as a fan, but as a fellow musician who wanted to collaborate. Dennis was NOT SHY.

Dennis was also the embodiment of the idea that living well is the best revenge. I was a fan of "Miles Out," the radio show he had on KERA-FM for 21 years. In 1992, when I was working overnights at St. Theresa's Boys Center in Fort Worth, his broadcasts were...sorry...an oasis for me -- not only the music he played, but the kind and friendly persona he projected. When they gave his show to a football player, he told me he stood in the station manager's office and told them "I hate you" -- a sentiment I can't imagine Dennis expressing to anyone. But instead of dwelling on the slight, he went back to playing music himself after several years of inactivity.

Yells At Eels, the band he formed with Aaron and Stefan, went on to tour the US and Europe for over two decades. I remember Dennis confiding in me more than once during the band's run, "These youngsters are kicking my ass!" And he loved that -- he loved pushing his sound into the air over their whirlwind energy, and he loved to see them going out on their own with Humanization 4tet, Unconscious Collective, and countless other musical endeavors.

Dennis also continued to collaborate with eminent creative musicians, bringing the bassist Henry Grimes back to a recording studio after 35 years, forging longtime relationships with the drummers Alvin Fielder and Louis Moholo-Moholo. It's a testament to Dennis's level of achievement that the musicians who'll be playing with Aaron and Stefan tonight -- the bassist Damon Smith, the drummer Ra Kalam Bob Moses, and the cornetist Jawwaad Taylor -- wanted to be here tonight to pay tribute to him.

Before that quintet takes the stage, you'll hear a band that was close to Dennis's heart, joined by the trumpeter Chris Curiel. Long before reaching out to bassist Drew Phelps and tablaist Jagath Lakpriya about forming the Ataraxia Trio, Dennis had harbored an interest in the music of the subcontinent. In the early '80s, he had discussed collaborating with Colin Walcott, who played sitar and tabla in the bands Oregon and Codona -- before Walcott died tragically in a car accident while on tour in Germany. 

I was fortunate to see some of the early Ataraxia gigs. I remember one night at Chateau Virago where it became apparent Dennis was beginning to struggle physically. Performing became an act of will for him. For Ataraxia's last recording, he augmented the trio with the electronic musician Derek Rogers, who served as the catalyst for Dennis's last great surge of creativity, and harpist Jess Garland, who'd taught at Dennis's free music school La Rondalla and added to the music a celestial quality he'd been seeking.

It's funny how, when you know someone for a time, you have conversations with them that go on, sometimes for years. Sometimes they're never finished. I remember in 2013, at Ronald Shannon Jackson's memorial service in Fort Worth, I was sitting with Dennis when he started a story, "Let me tell you about Charles Brackeen..." -- the saxophonist who'd played with Dennis in the '80s after playing with Shannon, Don Cherry, and others. But just at that moment, the service began, so the story had to wait.

That night at Chateau Virago, I remember asking him again, "So what about Charles Brackeen?" And just at that moment, Ataraxia was called to perform.

He never did get around to telling me that story. So when I saw the news that Dennis had passed, the first thing I thought was, "Well, I guess I'm not going to get to hear your Charles Brackeen story." 

The next thing I thought was:

May you and all your descendants know peace and the absence of pain.
May you and all your descendants know peace and the absence of pain.
May you and all your descendants know peace and the absence of pain.

A tall order for this life.
But whatever fortune has in store for Aaron and Stefan and Issy,
May they make of it something beautiful, as you did.
As you do.

The Hochimen's "Le Poulet et Tabac"

When I was writing about music for the local alt-weekly, it was frequently my experience that I'd hear a band that was solid and entertaining, but as I was leaving the club, I'd have no memory of any of the specific songs they played. This was never a problem with the Hochimen, the band led by bassist-vocalist-songwriter (and much more) Reggie Rueffer, whose tunes stick in my head even when I haven't heard them in awhile. (This isn't a slam on anyone, just acknowledgement that mastery of a style or genre is a different skillset than songcraft.)

The Hochimen's debut CD, Totenlieder, documented Reggie's spiritual desperation via the soaring arc of melodies that took some surprising twists and turns, which his reedy tenor made easy on the ear, in striking contrast to the lyrics they carried, which while always finely wrought, often carried a sting in the tail. While this might be considered swimming against the tide in the age of the non-singer, when harmonic movement has been all but banished from popular song, in my house, we consider Totenlieder a classic, and its follow up, Tierra del Gato, might be even better. (This week, it's "Brush With Religion" and "Do It Clean" that are stuck in my head. Next week, it'll be something else.)

Now, after just, um, 16 years, there's a new Hochimen disc, Le Poulet et Tabac, so called, Reggie says, because "Le Bier et Salad didn't ring." Release date remains TBD, but will be digital, and in anticipation, Reggie and his accomplices Ed McMahon (guitar) and Pete Young (drums) will be venturing onto the evening stage at Dan's Silverleaf in Denton on April 7, a Thursday. "One gig every six years," Reggie quips, and an opportunity for folks now pushing 50 who remember him from Mildred (a Dallas Observer "best album" winner in '92) and Spot (big regional hit with "Moon June Spoon" a couple of years later) to experience again the feeling of air from speaker cones and drum heads moving their clothes around.

About the new album: Even listening through crappy phone speakers, one still couldn't miss the brilliant clarity of the recording -- produced at various locations by Joey Lomas, mastered by Dave McNair. As always, McMahon's experimental edge and Young's propulsive clattter (a jazz cat's unironic take on rock -- like Keith Moon with intellect) provide a remarkably full sound for three pieces, but their instrumental prowess always serves the songs, albeit in ways their author might not have anticipated. "I love Ed," says Reggie, "but he always does something I'm not sure about. Then I reconcile and grow to love it. You gotta let players play. I'm not an autocrat."

Reggie calls "My Son" -- the lament of a man finding himself in middle age without progeny -- "the saddest song I've ever written." It's grown folks' rockaroll: music that acknowledges the possibility of loss and regret. And make no mistake: whether by accident or design, this is the hardest rockin' outing yet from these guys. Brother Chad Rueffer's second guitar is absent from the lineup this time around, but Ed lays down crunchy rhythm parts to keep the forward motion going. 

As befits music made in the pandemic time, there's a creeping sense of dread in songs like "Belly Eye," which sketches a chaotic universe, over which Ed paints ethereal textures worthy of Andy Summers. "Rosebud" works off snarling guitar chords and a four-on-the-floor beat that puts one in mind of AC/DC, although those Aussies never dreamed up a melody or lyrics like these. "Hairless Baby Body" is almost an answer song to "My Son," concerned as it is with a child being born into "the evening of the Earth," with tremolo guitar and a clinking percussion track to make the uncertain future sound enticing. 

The album's scariest moment, though, comes with "Jasper," the deathbed confession of an unrepentant killer, who sounds like a cousin of the abortion clinic shooter from Totenlieder's "60-40." Thankfully, Reggie chooses to end things with the hopeful valedictory of "Our Times Coming," which in a just Universe would be the last song on a hit soundtrack and earn Reggie enough coin to keep him writing songs to get stuck in my head for another 16 years.