CLINTON ST. QUARTERLY YOU, M AND TH ART | ENSEMBLE K-B-O-O because they play more jazz, blues and popular black music than any station on the West Coast . . . ” Then with a chuckle he adds, “ . . .The only American music.” Above: The Art Ensemble’s Famoudou Don Moye. Far right: Lester Bowie (Photo: David Gahr) In retrospect I realize why as a kid I loved equally the music behind my Saturday morning cartoons, Ray Charles on the AM, the Supremes and Cannonball Adderly: it really is music from the same source, and no one demonstrates that as clearly as the Art Ensemble of Chicago, who came to Portland November the seventh for a concert at Reed College. They bill their production as “ Great Black Music — Ancient to the Future.” Their bassist, Malachi Favors Magoustous, describes it this way: “ We have made a bridge in black music, a bridge between jazz, rock, spirituals, African music, all kinds of black music. It’s all in there; you can hear it if you listen.” “ . . . if you listen . . . ” Listening is the most important part of group improvisational music, both for the musicians and their audience. The music performed by the Art Ensemble (all original compositions by group members) is new and unusual, but they present it with such drama and awesome technique that I was immediately captivated, eager to listen and to learn. The expectant crowd at Reed was already on its feet cheering when the Art Ensemble finally appeared. The group looked a little weary when they took the stage, but they lined up, drew a deep breath, and remained poised until the crowd became quiet. Then they pivoted slowly into position and picked up flutes and drums to begin the first piece. They were dressed in costume, as usual (“ We always like to put on something special that removes us from the ordinary, THEIR GLEAMING BANKS OF INSTRUMENTS - RANKS OF GOLDEN HORNS, RACKS OF BELLS AND GONGS, DRUMS - RIVAL THE DETAIL AND BRILLIANCE OF THE ALTAR IN A CATHOLIC CHURCH. dad was a trumpet player and singer in his youth, the son of a boiler-maker in Depressiontime L.A. who spent his part-time earnings on music lessons. Eventually the war, a family and the need to earn a living caused him to abandon his hopes for the music business, and those dreams were packed away for his first-born to pick up . . . What my dad wanted was for me to grow up to play like Benny Goodman . . . At eight years of age I began studying the clarinet, and later played in school bands and a rock and roll combo called ‘‘The Rivieras” (blue blazers, white socks, Night Train and Louie, Louie: 1 thought I was on my way). I practiced every day and my dad took me to hear Duke Ellington and Cannonball Adderly. Jazz was my goal, the music that inspired me, but I never learned much about the conditions that make it what it is until I put away my horns and started reading. Of course my dad steered me to Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Stan Kenton and Dave Brubeck. He had the right idea: a chubby, aging Benny Goodman becomes America’s jazz ambassador to the Soviet Union playing riffs he copped from Charlie Christian, a guitar-playing black genius who died years earlier of TB at age nineteen. An American boy doesn’t need his father to show him the advantages of being white. But most of my jazz heroes — Sidney Bechet, Johnny Hodges, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young — were black. And even though Lester himself said that his biggest influence was Frankie Trumbauer, a white soprano sax player, and even though everyone knows that there are legitimately great white, yellow and brown jazz musicians, the jazz tradition has been fo rm e d p r im a r i ly by b lack Americans. On his Saturday afternoon jazz show on KBOO, George Page used to play a plug taped by Charles Mingus. ‘‘When I’m in Portland, I listen to that evokes a sense of spirit” ), and from their first eerie notes they held us all under that spell. Their gleaming banks of instruments — ranks of golden.horns, racks of bells and gongs, drums — rival the detail and brilliance of the altar in a Catholic Church. Around the musicians all the sounds of the world are arrayed, and they browse among them purposefully in order to create their statement. They are kind of priest-like (to carry the altar image further), because their performance makes manifest and puts the audience into communication with a higher, what you could call more sacred order . . . The reason most commercial music is little more than harmless distraction is because pop music gives a listener only what he already knows, while more serious music aims for something new and illuminating. “ We’re into communicating with the audience, sure, but we also want to put a message to them . .. We want to make sure the whole world finds out about creativity
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTc4NTAz