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Roswell
Rudd : Rudd Revival (Part 2)
by David Dupont
April 2004
Tucked into the credits on Four by the Ab Baars Trio with Roswell
Rudd, the last item covered in part one of this overview of the work
of Roswell Rudd since his re-emergence, is the name of Verna Gillis.
"Roswell Rudd represented by Verna Gillis/Soundscape", the
notes for the 1998 session read. This marked a significant development
for the trombonist, and one that would bear fruit the following year.
Gillis helped initiate reunion sessions with some of Rudd's most noted
associates—John Tchicai, Steve Lacy and Archie Shepp. She also
produced an ambitious session under his own name and provided him
entry into the music of Mali, opening another new avenue for Rudd's
restless muse.
The first recorded product of this partnership was a reunion of the
members of the New York Art Quartet: Tchicai, Milford Graves, Rudd
and Reggie Workman. 35th Reunion marks the group's founding
by the saxophonist and trombonist in 1964. As with so many groups
founded in the turbulent atmosphere of the free period, it lasted
only two years and left a scant recording legacy. But then such fleeting
existence is what many a legend is made of.
For those who admired the ensemble's Fontana and ESP recordings, the
prospect of the reunion promised much. I for one always have wanted
to like 35th Reunion more than I do. Part of the problem is
the impossibility of recapturing the edgy attitude of youth, that
certain devil-may-care earnestness. All the players here have moved
on and created vital music in the intervening 35 years. Rudd has always
insisted that this and other sessions with compatriots from the 1960s
are not revivals, but rather opportunities to pick up unfinished business.
In this June 1999 session the business seems destined to be left unfinished.
Rudd's "VG's Birthday Jamboree" and Graves' "Perceiving
Passerby's" best capture the old spirit. Even here though, Rudd
and Tchicai (for whom the larger tenor now replaces his dry, acrid
alto) seem not to be connecting—Rudd sputters and ruminates on
the far left and Tchicai ruminates on the right. Part of the problem
is the presence of Amiri Baraka. Baraka, then still known as Leroi
Jones, made a guest appearance reciting his "Black Dada Nihilismus"
on the band's 1965 recording for ESP. Here he becomes a fifth member
of the quartet; and to my ears at least, a fifth wheel. The recitations
prove distracting, seeming at times to derail the band's forward momentum.
The nadir is his improvised work on Tchicai's "Seek Light at
Once", which includes a list of obvious cultural references to
the 1960s and degenerates into literal baby talk. His best work comes
on Rudd's "Music's Underwear", where he turns down the volume
and blends more comfortably with the group's textures. With Graves
and Workman on board this session is never less than expertly played,
but it never catches fire. Maybe next time.
A week later in France, Rudd hooked up with another long-time collaborator,
soprano saxophone maestro, composer and bandleader Steve Lacy. The
ties between the two men date back to the late 1950s when both were
playing Dixieland. Over the years, though Rudd remained stateside
and Lacy relocated to Europe, they still recorded together occasionally,
notably on Trickles, a 1976 Lacy recording on Black Saint.
The title of their reunion session, Monk's Dream, evokes the
promise of their most notable collaboration, a quartet dedicated to
the music of Thelonious Monk. The so-called School Days quartet (post-named
for the group's sole recording that appeared first on Emanem in the
1970s and was most recently reissued by Hat Art) devoted itself to
freewheeling and canny dissections of Monk's oeuvre. While the instrumentation
is the same, the spare mix of soprano saxophone, trombone with bass
and drums, Monk's Dream really isn't a reunion session. Rather
we find Rudd joining Lacy's long established trio to jam on a couple
Monk gems, Ellington's "Koko" and a half-dozen Lacy favorites.
The repertoire seems safe, and the playing sounds a little safe. Lacy's
playing especially sounds like a distillation of his work, Rudd displays
just how well his chops were getting back into shape and bassist Jean-Jacques
Avenel and drummer John Betsch are simply one of the best rhythm duos
in the music. They bring a well of color, and a deeply rooted sense
of groove to everything they play. "Koko" shows Rudd's hand
in arranging and his deep love of Ellington. (See the Candid session
that featured a couple of his charts played by a small band that included
Lacy, pianist Cecil Taylor in his last recording of someone else's
music and Clark Terry.) Bookended by brief episodes of free interplay,
the score reduction has Lacy's piping horn against Rudd's plunger
muted trombone to evoke the entire Ellington brass section. Underneath
Avenel and Betsch engage in a thoroughly modern song and dance.
"The Bath" provides a glimpse of Rudd's own form of musical
theater. With his horn he paints the scene of a bum taking his first
bath in a long time. He opens with a breathy tone that sounds like
water bubbling up through ancient pipes. He continues to summon the
image of the water steaming as it hits the tub, and finally loosening
into a steady stream. In an extended solo, Rudd traces the turns of
the bum's reverie. Each phrase takes on a different emotional color
as the bum reflects. When Rudd and the trio went on tour in 2000,
he extended this even further, giving comic voice to the interior
monologue. I caught the band on the last two nights of its cross-continental
tour and by then it had jelled into a working unit, with Rudd reveling
in his role as comic provocateur. Too bad no live recordings of this
Lacy-Rudd quartet were made.
While Rudd was engaged in these two reunion sessions, he was also
in the process of recording Broad Strokes, the album that would
serve as an official proclamation of his return. Not surprisingly,
given Rudd's romantic inclinations, the session is devoted to ballads.
Also unsurprising given Rudd's musical reach is the manner in which
the definition of ballad gets stretched to the extreme. This is certainly
not a set of sedate renderings of sentimental tunes. Rather it is
a sprawling, messy recital grounded in Rudd's life. He even has a
love ballad about an affair between a Great Dane and a German Shepherd
mix sung by his son Chris, a tune that reflects Rudd's love of animals
-- he has adopted animals from New York City pounds.
The trombonist pays tribute to those who inspired him throughout—Monk
on "Coming on the Hudson", recorded at the same session
as the Lacy date; Herbie Nichols on "Change of Season",
which opens the session and is reprised at the close; and Ellington
with the medley of "All Too Soon" and "Way Low".
As a whole, the session features a variety of bands recorded over
an eight-month period. Four of the tracks feature a five-horn frontline
that includes three trombones: Rudd, Steve Swell and Josh Roseman.
Otherwise the personnel shift from track to track, as does the mood.
On "God Had a Girlfriend" Rudd enlists help of musicians
he worked with in the Catskills to tell the tale of his thwarted effort
to start a nightclub in 1974. On "Theme from Babe" he blows
over the top of an electronic cushion supplied by Sonic Youth. Swell,
Lacy and Elton Dean return from various sessions he recorded in the
years preceding. And most notably, vocalist Sheila Jordan joins him
for "The Light", a hymn as much as a ballad celebrating
Rudd's belief in Pythagorean philosophy. Jordan delivers an earnest,
emotional reading of the theme; Rudd only steps forward once she's
finished, starting quietly. Slowly he builds a jubilant solo, full
of gospel fervor. But for all its sense of clutter, Broad Strokes
remains an enduring, engaging addition to Rudd's discography.
A few weeks before the last Broad Strokes session, Rudd traveled
to Boston to participate in a project devoted to his compositions
led by his former student, saxophonist and composer Charles Kohlhase.
Eventuality (Nada) almost seems like an alternative version
of a Rudd coming out recording. Unlike Broad Strokes, this
date focuses exclusively on Rudd's compositions: No Monk, Nichols
or Duke. And as such it provides a well-rounded portrait of the artist.
"Siva & Sakti" demonstrates just how the ancient and
modern, sacred and profane intersect in his work. The piece references
the cosmic lovers of Hinduism, is dedicated to friends and supporters
of composer's, a married couple, and draws its harmonic underpinnings
from the standard "Like Someone in Love". The song is intoned
by Rudd on mellophone, the instrument he first played in grade school,
and Kohlhase on alto saxophone over bassist John Turner's bowed counterpoint.
The song is through composed and stretches over six minutes. In it
Rudd draws a lyrical line from the classic ballad writers of Broadway
through Monk and Nichols to his own distinctive expression.
Rudd also has a knack for using simple ideas to great affect. The
blues "Palmer House Rocking" (dedicated to the people at
a residence for the mentally handicapped where Rudd worked during
the 1990s after his gig at the Granit Hotel) takes an easy-on-the-ear
figure and, through voicings and background figures, turns it into
a jamming vehicle for the entire band. "Something of Yours",
inspired by a letter from Lacy, hints at the soprano saxophonist's
own compositions before shifting into a Dixie clambake. Rudd also
benefits from the services of the members of Kohlhase working band,
the Charles Kohlhase Five. Kohlhase provides the principal solo voice,
playing mostly angular, acerbic alto. On "Joel" (written
for Herbie Nichols' father), Rudd presents a straight-ahead swing
tune with room for everyone to step forward and blow.
The session closes with comic high jinks, in an evocation of a studio
band playing for a talk show. The snazzy show band wail gets periodically
cut off by some verbal chatter, or in Rudd's word, "imbroglio".
The band gets further and further out, until it bursts into a free
roar that stops suddenly midstream. "What a cut off!" Rudd
proclaims, getting in the last word.
As Rudd continued to reunite on the bandstand with former colleagues,
anticipation built among his most loyal followers for a meeting with
Archie Shepp. The saxophonist, composer, dramatist and all-around
provocateur led a quintet from 1965 until 1969 that was a defining
force in the second generation of the avant-garde as well as a too-little-credited
influence on the neo-traditionalists of the next two generations.
With his broad, expressionistic style that resonated with the overtones
of the entire history of the music and flair for the dramatic wedded
to an acute awareness of politics, he seemed the natural figure to
be designated by the media as the spokesman, the "angry"
spokesman no less, of his generation. This image even earned Shepp
a mention in the Ken Burns PBS documentary Jazz, which otherwise
downplayed the avant-garde. During this period Rudd served as his
aide-de-camp, arranging music, including the Ellington pieces they
both loved and Nichols' "Lady Sings the Blues", providing
a complementary frontline voice that matched Shepp's in its range
of reference.
In the intervening three decades both had gone on to explore more
traditional aspects of that range. Brought together in late September
2000, the band that hit the stage at the Jazz Standard was sorely
lacking in preparation, but had spirit to spare. Grachan Moncur III,
who joined the frontline in later versions of the quintet, is on hand
as was the crack rhythm team of Reggie Workman, again on bass, and
drummer Andrew Cyrille. Amiri Baraka reads "We Are the Blues
(Funklore)", in a performance more in balance with the proceedings
than his work on the New York Art Quartet recording. If that recording
came off as an all-star session and the Lacy session had Rudd in the
role as guest artist with an established group, then this session
has all the makings of a gathering of old friends.
The playing is vivacious, with the music spilling out of the horns
like old friends gathering around a table for drinks, except that
these old friends are less concerned with recounting the glory days
than with catching each other up on what they've been doing since.
Shepp's explorations of the romantic tradition comes through in his
singing and piano playing on "Steam", composed for his cousin
who died at 15 in a street fight, and "Déjà vu"
with opens with a ballad statement by Rudd. The session closes with
"Hope No. 2", his paean to bop composer Elmo Hope. "Ujamma"
comes from the repertoire of his 1970s quintet.
Rudd brings five compositions to the table, including the opener "Keep
Your Heart Right", the band's former theme song. Rudd also contributes
"Slide by Slide"; with its slithering old-timey opening
and rollicking blowing sections, it's a far cry from the wild interplay
of "Portrait of Robert Thompson" recorded in December 1967.
Still, it's a fitting celebration of the brotherhood of the sliphorn.
When Rudd would talk about whom he wanted to play with again, he always
put Moncur high on the list, a reflection both of esteem for his fellow
trombonist-composer as well as his love of the bold sound of multiple
trombones. Moncur's work on "Slide by Slide" is characteristic
of his playing throughout the session—spare, punchy, sounding
like he's dueting with Workman's firm, responsive bass. That interest
in multiple 'bones echoes his use of a trombone trio on Broad Strokes
and looks forward to his recent Trombone Shout band that toured Mali.
His African interests are also reflected in the inclusion of "Bamako",
a song inspired by his first visit to Mali. The piece was a favorite
at this time. It was also a part of the repertoire of the Lacy-Rudd
touring quartet.
Though these signs of where he was headed were clear, revisiting his
former work was not yet a thing of the past. The Nexus Orchestra,
the Italian progressive big band founded and led by percussionist
Tiziano Tononi and saxophonist Daniele Calvallanti, invited Rudd to
join them in celebrating the ensemble's 20th year of existence. Rudd
visited twice in 2001, first in May to record original Nexus compositions
and later in November to record a new version of his "Numatik
Swing Band", released as Seize the Time (Splasc(h)).
"Numatik Swing Band" was first commissioned and waxed in
1973 by the Jazz Composers Orchestra during a burst of visibility
for Rudd. He, with his wife Moselle and pianist Hod O'Brien, had opened
the New York City nightclub and recorded with a band featuring Sheila
Jordan on vocals. The recording showed his more adventurous side compared
to the more commercial leanings of the Arista date with Jordan, and
it featured one of the masterpieces of Rudd's career: The solo on
the "Circulation" movement. As that solo built to its climax,
Rudd turned a perfectly formed lyrical gem—so perfect, I always
assumed it was part of the composition. So listening through on the
Nexus version I kept waiting for it, but it never came—the sole
disappointment of this recording.
"Numatik Swing Band" is also Rudd's tribute to the art of
wind playing. The opening "Vent" sounds like a primordial
horn band warming up, with the occasional bellow of an elephant in
the distance. Over four of its five movements, Rudd explores the continuing
implications of humanity's discovery that such beautiful noise can
be made by blowing into hollow devices. With Nexus, Rudd expands the
piece some to give more musicians blowing room—and not only horn
players, as the bass team Tito Mangialojo and Paolino DallaPorta sound
the final notes and guitarist Roberto Cecchetto says his piece. The
second movement, "Breath'A Howard" (subtitled here "The
flat-foot version"), blossoms from the original three-minute
feature for Howard Johnson's tuba on the original to a six-minute
swinging jam. The concluding "Aerosphere" gets similar expansion,
with the Italian crew making the most of the space.
Nexus provides an ideal environment for Rudd, a large sprawling ensemble
with just the right mix of discipline and spontaneity. That comes
through on Tononi's "The BloodDrumSpirit Suite". Clearly
Nexus members were a great host because Rudd sounds in fine brawling
form here, and perfectly at home. The session is not only notable
for his work either. For those who haven't explored this band's work,
Seize the Time is a great place to start. Given the personnel, it
also serves as a good introduction to the more adventurous elements
in Italy's vibrant jazz scene.
As is obvious from the scope of his work over the past decade, Rudd
is not just interested in revisiting the past. The most dramatic testament
to that came with MALIcool (Universal), a date he co-led with
Toumani Diabete of Mali. He first traveled with Verna Gillis to Mali
in February 2000. When I talked with him later that spring during
his tour with Lacy, he was still exuberant over the trip and the possibilities.
MALIcool was recorded at a later date (the notes don't state
when), and the repertoire is a mix of Rudd and Diabete originals along
with some unexpected covers.
Unlike other jazz musicians who have used African elements to provide
a bit of exotic color, Rudd immerses himself in the African context
with an electric bass and guitar as the only other Western instruments.
(In Sayon Sisoko's hands the guitar even returns to its Moorish roots.)
The session opens with Rudd's "Bamako", presented here in
its full glory. The simple melody rings out amid a tangle of strings
with Diabete's kora commenting on Rudd's Malian reverie. The pulse
is insistent, yet oddly delicate. The tempo picks up with Diabete's
"Rosmani", as the strings and Lassana Diabete's ballophone
weave crossrhythms underneath Rudd's plunger-muted hollers. Diabete's
two other contributions have a country lilt to them. A listener, I
think, would be hard pressed to tell which compositions here are the
works of American or the Malian composer; both use the resources of
this crosscultural ensemble to create distinctive sound.
The ensemble also jams on some odd vehicles: Monk's "Jackie-ing"
sounds strangely at home, while jams on Beethoven's "Ode to Joy",
"Malijam", "Summertime", and the traditional Welsh
lullaby "All Through the Night" provide insight into the
interactions among the musicians. Rudd's loose, vocal delivery and
harmonic sensibilities help him blend in with his Malian colleagues.
He has since played live in New York with Diabete and a version of
MALIcool. He's also returned to Mali fronting another promising ensemble,
his Trombone Shout band—inspired in part by the music of the
United House of Prayer, an African-American religious denomination
centered mostly on the Eastern Seaboard. Rudd is making clear that
he hasn't finished adding on to his already distinguished legacy.
In the past 10 years, he has played some of the best music of his
life, and he shows every indication that there's more to come. And
for that, music lovers should glad.
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