Elton Dean The Vortex Tapes 1990 (SLAM 1992 CD)

Elton Dean – alto sax
Trevor Watts – alto sax
Simon Picard – tenor sax
Jerry Underwood – baritone sax
Paul Rogers – double bass
Tony Levin – drums
First Impressions

Four other tracks with other bands led by Elton Dean

1. Second Thoughts
2. First Impressions
3. Going Fourth
4. Third Time Lucky
5. Taking the Fifth

Recorded at The Vortex London 24-28/9/1990

Mujician The Journey 1991 (Cuneiform Records)

Paul Dunmall (saxophone);
Keith Tippett (piano);
Paul Rogers (bass);
Tony Levin (drums)

The Journey (Dunmall/Levin/Roger)

European Jazz Ensemble European Jazz Ensemble meets the Khan Family, India 1992 MA Music – Hamburg CD A 807-2

feat: Joachim Kühn, Philip Catherine, Ustad Munir Khan -

European Jazz Ensemble 25th Anniversary Tour 1992 Konnex Records, Berlin KCD 5100

(18 musicians from 10 European countries)
including: Joachim Kühn, Paolo Fresu, Alan Skidmore, Daniel Humair, Charlie Mariano

Brother Joe 12:42
Fellini 8:17
Green Table Speech 12:32
Traveller 12:38
Bötz 3:02
Salinas & Missing a Page 13:55
Three in One 14:50

The Quartet Live in Prague 1992 P&J Records CD 101-1

Sophia Domancich Reve De Singe 1993 Gimini Music

Sophia Domancich (piano)
Paul Rogers (bass)
Tony Levin (drums)

Rêve de singe…7′49
P.D.M….13′12
Dji dji up…6′16
Jocelyn…10′42
Cold shoulders 9′04
Blott on the landscape…9′44
Mon rêve familier…10′15
Lunch, the rabbit…8′59

Tony Levin & Paul Dunmall Spiritual Empathy 1994 Rare Music Recordings

Tony Levin, drums, percussion;
Paul Dunmall, alto and tenor saxophones.

Mandala 16.38
Centre dance 5.20
Circle of light 5.45
The faultless gaze 9.06
Dark centre 12.42

Recorded at Lanes End Studio, Kidderminster, on 15 December 1993 (Mandala) and on 6 May 1994 (all others).
Front cover wood engraving (reproduced above) by Paul Dunmall.
1994

European Trumpet Summit European Trumpet Summit 1994 Konnex KCD5064

Enrico Rava (Trumpet),
Allan Botschinsky (Trumpet),
Jarmo Hoogendijk (Trumpet),
Manfred Schiek (Producer),
Thomas Heberer (Trumpet),
Ali Haurand (Bass),
Rob Van Der Broeck (Piano),
Tony Levin (Drums)

Blaublusen
Cobra
Brother Joe
Anna Sophia
Pulque
Interaction

Mujician Poem About the Hero 1994 (Cuneiform)

Paul Dunmall soprano, tenor saxophones
Keith Tippet grand piano, wood blocks, plastic pan pipes, pebble, maraca
Paul Rogers five string double bass
Tony Levin drums, percussion

First Verse 7:48
Second Verse 9:34
Third Verse 23:33
Fourth Verse 1:33
Fifth Verse 30:40

Paul Dunmall Quartet, Sextet and BABU Trio 1994 SLAMCD 207

Quartet:
Paul Dunmall,
Simon Picard tenor saxes,
Paul Rogers bass,
Tony Levin drums.

Sextet – add Jon Corbett cornet and John Adams guitar.

Trio
Paul Dunmall,
Paul Rogers bass,
Tony Levin drums.

Dobunni
Moths and Spiders
In the Haddock
The Devil’s Chair
Scramasax
Apocalypse NPW and Then
Lert
Trickly Hausen
Shun Fat
Separate Balls

Kenny Wheeler Dream Sequence 2003 Psi

Ray Warleigh (alto saxophone & flute)
Stan Sulzmann (tenor saxophone)
John Parricelli (electric guitar)
Chris Laurence (double bass)
Tony Levin (drums).

1. Until – Kenny Wheeler Quintet
2. Drum Sequence
3. Dream Sequence
4. Cousin Marie
5. Nonetheless – Kenny Wheeler Quintet
6. Flower Is a Lovesome Thing
7. Hearken
8. Kind Folks

Recorded 1995-2003 at Gateway Studio

Philippe Aerts Cat Walk 1995 Igloo IGL116

Philippe Aerts double bass
John Ruocco saxophone tenor & clarinet
Toni Levin drums

1 Hotel Seventeen 06:54
2 Stray line 07:29
3 Off minor 06:20
4 Cat walk 06:04
5 Ray’s pay 10:11
6 Airegin 06:48
7 Three for Alfy 06:21
8 Just one of those things 06:39
9 Chelsea bridge 11:40

Sophia Domancich L’annee Des Treize Lunes 1995 Seventh 15

Sophia Domancich (Piano)
Paul Rogers (Bass)
Tony Levin (Drums)

OT
Three Of Louis
Emile
Parrots
Annie, Pierre Et Les Enfants
Min
Jimy

Elton Dean Quartet Two’s And Three’s 1995 (Voiceprint 95 CD)

Elton Dean – alto sax, saxello
Paul Dunmall – tenor sax
Paul Rogers – double bass
Tony Levin – drums

1. The Duke

Other tracks by other groups led by Elton Dean
Recorded in 1989,

Elton Dean Silent Knowledge 1996 Cuneiform

Elton Dean (saxophone, alto saxophone);
Paul Dunmall (tenor saxophone);
Sophia Domancich (piano);
Tony Levin (drums).

Gualcho
Sound Awake
First in the Wagon
Trains for Tooting

The Premises, London, England (06/01/1995).

Mujician Birdman 1996 (Cuneiform Rune 82)

Keith Tippett-piano, woodblocks, pebble, chines
Paul Rogers-double bass
Tony Levin-drums, percussion
Paul Dunmall-alto, tenor saxophones, Chinese shenai

Birdman
Bunkins
The Hands Are Just Shadows

Tony Oxley Celebration Orchestra Feat Bill Dixon Enchanted Messenger: Live from Berlin Jazz Festival 1996 Soul Note 121284-2

Johannes Bauer with Celebration Orchestra
Bill Dixon
Frank Gratkowski
Stefan Holker
Alexsander Kolkowski
Tony Levin
Marcio Mattos
Phil Minton
Tony Oxley
Ernst-ludwig Petrowsky
String Quart

Section 1 – 19

1994 Berliner Jazztage

Evan Parker, Paul Dunmall, Barry Guy, Tony Levin Birmingham Concert 1996 Rare Music

Evan Parker
Paul Dunmall
Barry Guy
Tony Levin

Lion (26:33)
Lets Get Across (10:13)
Aquatics (16:57)
Four Freedom Plus (20:08)

Paul Dunmall and Tony Levin Essential Expressions 1996 Cadence Jazz Records CJR 1079

Paul Dunmall
Tony Levin

Dots and Circles
I Found An Angel
It Must Be Loose
Essential Expressions
Secret Notes

Gerd Dudek Crossing Level 1997 Konnex KCD 5077

Gerd Dudek
Rob Van Den Broeck
Ali Haurand
Tony Levin

Old Folks (6:34)
Don Cherry (5:39)
Wishing Well (5:57)
Expressions (9:15)
Wave (Intro) /The Meaning of the Blues (11:01)
String Thing (4:32)
No More Chains (7:40)
Melancholia (6:14)
You Don’t Know What Love Is (6:26)

Mujician Colours Fulfilled 1998 (Cuneiform)

Paul Dunmall (soprano & tenor saxophones, clarinet, bagpipes);
Keith Tippett (piano);
Paul Rodgers (acoustic bass);
Tony Levin (drums).

Colours Fulfilled (Pt. 1) 11:25
Colours Fulfilled (Pt. 2) 23:59
Colours Fulfilled (Pt. 3) 26:07
Colours Fulfilled (Pt. 4) 5:58

Recorded at Gateway Studio, Kingston, England on May 18, 1997.

Sophia Domancich La Part des Anges 1997 Gimini Music

Sophia Domancich (piano)
Paul Rogers (bass)
Tony Levin (drums)

11 Juillet
La Part Des Anges
Sur Les Traces
Ondine
Together
Corbeau Carnivore
Dalice
11 Juillet

Recorded July 1997 at Studio de Chennevieres.

European Jazz Ensemble 20th Anniversary Tour 1997 Konnex Records, Berlin KCD 5078

Paul Dunmall Desire and Liberation 1997

Paul Dunmall (tenor sax);
Simon Picard (tenor sax);
Gethin Liddington (trumpet);
Annie Whitehead (trombone);
Chris Bridges (trombone);
Keith Tippett (piano);
Paul Rogers (bass);
Tony Levin (drums)

Tenor Solo 8:59
Bass Solo 5:23
Trombone Duet 4:20
Tenor Solo [Picard] 6:54
Drum Solo 2:16
Trumpet Solo 5:16
Piano Solo 9:27

Tapestry Orchestra Live At Lemans (1998)

Paul Rutherford,
Paul Dunmall,
Elton Dean,
Louis Moholo,
Tony Levin
and others

Documents a live performance from May 1998

Paul Rogers Quartet Time of Brightness 1999

Paul Dunmall – Alto and Tenor Saxophone
Sophia Domancich – Piano
Paul Rogers – Five-String Double Bass
Tony Levin – Drums

Bear Moon I 10:03
Bear Moon II 8:13
Bear Moon III 12:31
Bear Moon IV 11:43
Time Of Brightness I 4:38
Time Of Brightness II 12:00

Paul Dunmall Octet Bebop Starburst 1999 Cuneiform RUNE112

Paul Dunmail, Simon Picard (tenor saxophone);
Gethin Liddington (trumpet);
Annie Whitehead, Chris Bridges (trombone);
Keith Tippett (piano);
Paul Rogers (bass);
Tony Levin (drums).

Bebop Starburst (Pt. 1) (:50)
Bebop Starburst (Pt. 2) (7:25)
Bebop Starburst (Pt. 3) (20:34)
Bebop Starburst (Pt. 4) (21:12)
Bebop Starburst, Pt. V (2:35)

Recorded at Gateway Studio, Kingston, United Kingdom on June 22, 1997. Includes liner notes by Bruce Coates.

Keith Tippet Septet A Loose Kite In A Gentle Wind Floating With Only My Will For An Anchor 1984 (Ogun)

Keith Tippett, piano;
Larry Stabbins, tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone;
Elton Dean, saxello, alto saxophone;
Mark Charig, cornet, tenor horn;
Nick Evans, trombone;
Paul Rogers, double bass;
Tony Levin, drums, percussion.

1. A loose kite in a gentle wind floating with only my will for an anchor part 1 (28.20)
2. A loose kite in a gentle wind floating with only my will for an anchor part 2 (20.53)
3. A loose kite in a gentle wind floating with only my will for an anchor part 3 (14.41)
4. A loose kite in a gentle wind floating with only my will for an anchor part 4 (01.14)
5. Dedicated to Mingus (11.52)
Recorded live in Exeter on 25 October 1984.
Front cover photograph by Julie Tippetts; sleeve design by David Ilic.

Peter King Brother Bernard 1988 [CD in 1992]

Peter King
Guy Barker
Alan Skidmore
John Horler
Dave Green
Tony Levin
Martin Drew

Yesterdays 3.35
Final Curtain/One For Sir Bernard 16.17
For All We Know 4.25
But Beautiful 5.59
Dalin 7.42
Overjoyed 8.00
Brother Bernard 9.40

Elton Dean Elton Dean’s Unlimited Saxophone Company 1989 Ogun OGCD 002

Elton Dean alto saxophone, saxello
Paul Dunmall tenor and baritone saxophones
Simon Pickard tenor saxophone
Trevor Watts alto saxophone
Paul Rogers double bass
Tony Levin drums

1. Unda (12.25)
2. Rising (10.02)
3. Seven for Lee (13.32)
4. Small strides (08.27)
5. Fall in free (11.14)
6. One three nine (07.30)

Recorded 1989 at the Covent Garden Jazz Saxophone Festival.

European Jazz Ensemble Live at the Cologne Philharmonic Hall 1989 MA Music 801

including: Philip Catherine, Enrico Rava, Manfred Schoof, Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky and others.

Alan Skidmore Quintet – TCB 1970 Phillips

Alan Skidmore Tenor Saxophone
Mike Osborne Saxophone (tracks: B1-B4)
John Surman Saxophone (tracks: B1-B4)
Malcolm Griffiths Trombone
John Taylor Piano
Chris Laurence Bass
Tony Levin Drums

A1 Jack Knife
A2 Lantern Wood
A3 One On One Off
B1 T.C.B.
B2 Walk In And Dance Out
B3 A.J.
B4 And Think Again

Producer – Terry Brown

John Taylor Pause, And Think Again 1971 (FMR CD24-L1295)

Kenny Wheeler
Stan Sulzmann
Chris Pyne
ChrisLaurence
Tony Levin

Pause (6:30)
White Magic (8:00)
And Think Again (7:30)
Awakening / Eye To Eye (9:30)
Interlude / Soft Winds (11:06)

Norma Winstone – Edge Of Time 1971

Norma Winstone : voice
Mike Osborne : alto saxophone
Art Themen : tenor saxophone
Henry Lowther : flugelhorn
Kenny Wheeler : trumpet
Chris Pyne : trombone
Malcolm Griffiths : trombone
Paul Rutherford : euphonium
John Taylor : piano

1. Edge of Time
2. Perkins Landing
3. Enjoy This Day
4. Erebus (Son of Chaos)
5. Songs for a Child
6. Shadows
7. Song of Love

Nucleus Labyrinth 1973 (Vertigo 6360 091) (Reissued on CD BGOCD567)

Ian Carr (tpt/flhn) ;
Kenny Wheeler (tpt/fghn) ;
Norma Winstone (voc) ;
Tony Coe (bcl/cl/ts) ;
Brian Smith (ts/ss/fl) ;
Dave MacRae (elp) ;
Gordon Beck (elp) ;
Roy Babbington (b) ;
Clive Thacker (d) ;
Tony Levin (d) ;
Trevor Tomkins (pc) ;
Paddy Kingsland (syn)

1. Origins (Carr)
2. Bull-Dance (Carr)
3. Ariadne (I.Carr/S. Carr)
4. Arena (Carr)
5. Arena (Carr)[continued]
6. Exultation (Carr)
7. Naxos (Carr)

Recorded March 1973 – Phonogram Studios, London Engineer Roger Wake – Producer Ian Carr & Roger Wake

Gordon Beck’s Gyroscope One, Two, Three….Go! 1974 Jaguar Records. JS2

Gordon Beck: Piano, Electric Piano
Tony Levin: Drums, Percussion
Ron Mathewson: Bass, Electric Bass
Frank Ricotti: Vibes, Percussion
Stan Sulzmann: Tenor Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone, Flute

Nice One (19:50)
Variations/1st Version (9:35)
Variations/2nd Version (10:55)
One, Two, Three…Go! (18:35)

All tracks recorded live on Capital Radio in London, England April 1974.
Only released on cassette.

Neil Ardley, Ian Carr, Mike Gibbs, Stan Tracey Will Power 1975 ORIGINAL ARGO LP ZDA 164/165 (1975) STEREO

Norma Winstone and Pepi Lemer (voices)
Kenny Wheeler (trumpet, flügelhorn)
Tony Coe (reeds)
Paul Buckmaster and Colin Walker (amplified celli)
Gordon Beck, John Taylor and
Stan Tracey (electric and acoustic keyboards)
Ron Matthewson (double bass)
Tony Levin (drums)
Trevor Tomkins (percussion)

Sonnet (Mike Gibbs)
Shall I Compare Thee (Neil Ardley)
Charade For The Bard (Neil Ardley)
Alas Sweet Lady (Stan Tracey)
Will’s Birthday suite (Ian Carr)

John Surman and Tony Levin Live at Moers Festival 1975 Moers 1006

A1 Element Of Surprise (12:28)
A2 Resulting Confusion (4:40)
A3 A Solution Found (7:19)
B1 Journey In Hope (10:21)
B2 Speedy Preparation (8:13)
B3 A Little German Clap And You Have It (5:19)

Moers Music momu 01006

Stan Sulzmann – On Loan With Gratitude 1977 Mosaic Records GCM 772

Ron Mathewson (Bass, Bass Guitar)
Tony Levin (Drums, Percussion – 2)
John Taylor (Keyboards, E.m.s. Synthi – 2)
Stan Sulzmann (Saxophones, Flutes )

A1 G.R.S. (8:40)
A2 Anagram (14:20)
B On Loan With Gratitude (Parts 1, 2, 3) (22:14)

All compositions by Stan Sulzmann.
Recorded 8th April 1977 at BBC Kensington House, UK.
Engineers: Pete Freshney, Paul Nickson

Max Roach’s percussion ensemble which recorded from the early 1970s have a cult following – probably because the music is so interesting and the records so rare – and the recordings go for three figures when they do come on sale. Rather confusingly, though, those records made commercially available tend to have the same title. This leads to the assumption that they are re-releases. I have to admit that this had been my original assumption.

Working on the recordings I’ve got, I hope I’ve grasped it correctly.

The first record from the group came in 1973 with Re:Percussion on Strata East with seven tracks. Confusingly, then there’s an LP of the same title in (I think) 1977 on Baystate featuring two long tracks, and then a Columbia LP (released later on CD) which is usually dated as July 25, 1979.

Re:Percussion on Strata East SES 19732
Max Roach
Roy Brooks
Joe Chambers
Omar Clay
Warren Smith,
Freddie Waits
Richard “Pablo Landrum

A1 – Morning, Noon, Midday (5:44)
A2- Attention-Call & Response (0:47)
A3-Jihad Es Mort (8:15)
B1- Elements Of A Storm/Thunder & Wind (2:00)
B2-Inner Passion (4:04)
B3- Heaven Sent (5:08)
B4- Onamotapoeia (6:38)

Re:Percussion on Baystate (J) RVJ 6001
1. Giselle Street (17.25)
2. Jihad Es Mort (15.100

Re:Percussion released on Columbia IC 36247

Roy Brooks
Joe Chambers
Omar Clay
Fred King
Max Roach
Warren Smith
Freddie Waits
Ray Mantilla

1. Onomatopoeia (5.21)
2. Twinkle Toes (3.36)
3. Caravanserai (4.05)
4. January V (3.27)
5. The Glorious Monster (6.49)
6. Rumble In The Jungle (7.18)
7. Morning/Midday (6.53)
8. Epistrophy (4.21)
9. Kujichaglia (6.27)

There are also some live recordings in existence of M’Boom

Alassio in September 9th, 1979
Zurich Jazz Festival in 1982
SOB’s, New York in 1992.

And some You Tube video:
An extract from a TV documentary on Max Roach opens with a short except of M’Boom in concert (there’s no details) at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6xbASpL3-c&feature
A three-minute excerpt from another unnamed concert at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmYHyD1z008&feature

If I’ve got anything wrong here, or there’s extra information do let me know.

Tony Levin is a British jazz drummer whose career started in the 1950s and he is still active today. It is quite remarkable that there is no comprehensive online discography of his work. Levin appeared on some of the best British jazz records of the last fifty years, and has played in bands of quite astonishing breadth of styles. In the 1960s he was a member of Tubby Hayes’ bands, appearing on what for me is one of the high points of British Jazz, Mexican Green. During the 1970s he appeared on a whole stream of wonderful records from the likes of John Taylor, Alan Skidmore, Norma Winstone, Gordon Beck, Neil Ardley, Stan Sulzmann as well as Nucleaus’ Labyrinth. Over the last fifteen years he has been a member of Mujician, as well as a large number of outstanding recordings of European free improvisation.

Here’s my decade by decade discography based upon records I have, or can find information about. Please do let me know if I have missed anything or made any mistakes. If there’s no cover art I would welcome contributions.

1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s coming soon

Joe Harriott Live at Harry’s 1963 (Rare Music, 2006)

Joe Harriott – Alto Saxophone
John Collins – Alto Saxophone/Baritone Saxophone
Colin Willetts piano
Fred Barnsley – Double Bass
Tony Levin – Drums

Sandu [12:26]
Cherokee [11:17]
Night In Tunisia [13:07]
I’ll Remember April [16:32]
Just Friends [8:40]

Tubby Hayes Addictive Tendencies 1966

Tubby Hayes – Tenor Sax
Mike Pyne – Piano
Ron Matthewson – Bass
Tony Levin – Drums

CD 1:
Walkin’ [13:24]
Tubby’s “A Little Work Out” announcement [00:14]
Tubby’s “I Have A New Quartet” announcement [2:11]
Alone Together [25:53]
Tubby’s announcement [00:21]

CD 2:
Tubby’s announcement [00:19]
Off The Wagon [20:33]
Tubby’s announcement [00:12]
When My Baby Gets Mad Watch Out [12:30]
What Is This Thing Called Love [11:51]

Recorded England, UK 1966
Remastering Lee Goodall
Artwork Ian Muir
Produced Tony Levin

Tubby Hayes Quartet – Tubby Hayes Quartet Live at The Dancing Slipper Harkit

Tubby Hayes (ts,fl),
Mike Pyne (p),
Danny Thompson (b),
Tony Levin (d).

Alone Together
Here’s That Rainy Day
What Is This Thing Called Love
Be Myself
Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most
A Taste Of Honey

March 28th 1966 (Live at the Dancing Slipper)

Tubby Hayes with the Les Condon Quartet – Peter Burman Presents Jazz Tete A Tete (Harkit)

Les Condon (tp),
Tubby Hayes (ts),
Mike Pyne (p),
Ron Matthewson (b),
Tony Levin (d).

Freedom Monday
When My Baby Gets Mad-Everybody Split
(album also includes titles by Tony Coe Quintet and Frank Evans Trio).

Recorded at Bristol University, 18th November 1966.

Tubby Hayes Quartet – For Members Only

Tubby Hayes (ts,fl),
Mike Pyne (p),
Ron Matthewson (b),
Tony Levin (d).

Dear Johnny B*
Mexican Green*
Dolphin Dance*
A Dedication To Joy*
You Know I Care**
For Members Only**
Finky Minky***
Change Of Setting***
Conversations At Dawn***
Nobody Else But Me***
Off The Wagon***
Second City Steamer***
This Is All I Ask ***
*January 23rd, 1967
**August 7th, 1967 (BBC broadcast)
***October 11th, 1967 (BBC broadcast)

Tubby Hayes Quartet – Mexican Green (Fontana FJL911)

Tubby Hayes (ts, fl-1),
Mike Pyne (p),
Ron Matthewson (b),
Tony Levin (d).

Dear Johnny B
Off The Wagon
Trenton Place-1
The Second City Steamer
Blues In Orbit
A Dedication To Joy
Mexican Green

February 2nd and March 3rd, 1967

Tubby Hayes and his Orchestra 200% Proof (Master Mix CD)

Greg Bowen, Ian Hamer, Les Condon, Kenny Wheeler (tp)
David Horler, Bill Geldard, Chris Pyne (tb)
Peter King, Alan Branscombe (as)
Tubby Hayes, Ronnie Scott (ts)
Harry Klein (bs)
Mike Pyne (p)
Louis Stewart (g)
Ron Matthewson (b)
Spike Wells (d)

The Inner Splurge

add
Jeff Clyne (b)
Tony Levin (d)

200 Percent Proof

Ian Hamer, Les Condon (tp)
Kenny Wheeler (flhorn)
David Horler (tb)
Tubby Hayes (ts)
Peter King (as)
Alan Branscombe (p)
Louis Stewart (g)
Jeff Clyne (b)
Spike Wells (d)

Octuple Blast

Kenny Wheeler (tp)
Chris Pyne (tb)
Tubby Hayes (ts)
Ron Matthewson (b)
Tony Levin (d)

Conversations At Dawn

Tubby Hayes (ts)
Chris Pyne (p)
Ron Matthewson (b)
Tony Levin (d)

Members Only

July 25th, 1969 (BBC broadcast)

David Murray – I am a Jazzman
Jacques Denis & Jacques Goldstein – 2008

Screened on ARTE at 22.20 PM (Paris time) August 31, 2009 Details (in French) are here.

This is a fascinating fifty-five minute programme. Made in France where Murray now lives, there’s a French voice-over but most of the talking is in English with French subtitles.

It shows Murray in a number of contexts, Murray gets to communicate some of his ideas in words as a well as music, and we get something of his personal history.

Like most music documentaries it’s a montage of new footage, voice-over and interviews, clips from earlier Murray filming and some recorded music for soundtrack.

If you know something of Murray’s personal background you’ll find Murray’s journey back ‘home’ to California and the home movies fascinating, but oh too short. The footage of Murray in church as a young man, and playing with his father on guitar, was just wonderful. From here he goes back to the New York loft scene and we get some footage of Murray with Milford Graves from the late 1970s. There are extracts from the filming of Murray’s Sacred Ground, and he even goes back to the Hudson River to the place Albert Ayler drowned (although the voice-over doesn’t say so!). Then a statement from Murray that he needed to move from New York to extend his musical horizons.

Stanley Crouch, who was one of Murray’s earliest boosters back when he ran a jazz loft, says a few of his over-generalised, but supportive, points, and Murray meets up with first Black Panther Bobby Seale and then Amiri Baraka (who Murray recorded with in the 1970s) to discuss the place of jazz in American culture.

Murray’s walk on the banks of the Hudson is then paralleled with Murray walking on the coast of Guadeloupe where he talks about black musical cultural identity. We visit a slave processing centre, repeating Murray’s experience of visiting West Africa in the 1980s. This establishes the programme’s thesis: Murray is looking for the true black musical experience as he threw off his desire to be a jazz star.

The programme’s short extracts from concert performances are intriguing: there’s the Coltrane Murray; the James Brown Murray; the loft Murray, the Guadeloupe Afro-Murray. We get the biggest chunks of the latter, but in the interspersed comments Murray talks about how important black jazz history is to him. We also get some insights into various parts of Murray’s most recent work with the Gwo Ka Masters, Ishmael Reed and Amiri Baraka.

As a few readers of this blog will know I am a bit of a Murray fanatic, and over the years I’ve managed to collect his whole recorded output, but I’ve been able to get very few examples of David Murray on video. Other suggestions on what is out there greatly appreciated.

You can read more about David Murray elsewhere at wallofsound

David Murray & Milford Graves: Real Deal 　　　　　　　　
DIW 867

David Murray (tenor saxophone on 1, 2, 3, 5, and 8, bass clarinet on 4 and 7),
Milford Graves (drums and percussion)

1. Stated With Peace (David Murray) 7:50
2. The Third Day (David Murray) 8:50
3. Luxor (David Murray) 8:29
4. Under & Over (Milford Graves) 6:03
5. Moving About (Milford Graves) 11:08
6. Ultimate High Priest (Milford Graves) 6:27
7. Essential Soul (Milford Graves) 10:49
8. Continuity (David Murray) 4:10

Recorded November 3, 1991, at Power Station, NYC

This album came 11 records into Murray’s tenure with DIW records and, as would be suggested by a duo performance with Milford Graves, it probably has more in common with Murray’s earlier performances than with his other work of that time. During most of October and early 1991 Murray seemed to have been locked in the Power Station recording studio in New York City, and with nothing else to do he embarked on a mammoth recording session with a wide array of different musicians. This duo performance was the last of a run that included a quartet with James Blood Ulmer, Murray’s then concert quartet with Bradford Marsalis added on two tracks, and a beautiful quartet/quintet recording with some of his earlier collaborators including Bobby Bradford, Dave Burrell, and Fred Hopkins.

‘Moving About’ is perhaps the most imaginative and satisfactory of the tracks as a collaboration. While elsewhere the sax and drums sometimes sound like they a running on parallel lines, here the drum textures seem to offer Murray something to work with, and his playing is ecstatic but rooted. Nevertheless my favourite track is ‘Essential Soul’. Perhaps because I favour Murray over Graves, and I always feel that this period is the strongest for Murray’s Bass Clarinet playing. Here Murray’s playing might be more independent, but Graves is more restrained, and he follows Murray’s lead even though this is the percussionist’s composition. I just adore Murray’s exposition. Others may find it meandering, and it doesn’t seem to have any sense of direction, or any musical resolution; it’s just one of those beautiful Murray journeys. I don’t really care where it is going. ‘Under & Over’ is almost jolly, and there is some real interaction as Murray takes a much more percussive role on Bass Clarinet, and produces some of his best squeals and squarks, in a uncanny copy of his tenor saxophone playing. This was a real instrumental master at work. ‘Luxor’ investigates the tumultuous side of Murray, and ‘The Third Day’ is almost middle eastern to my untrained ear, with lots of busy traps playing from Graves.

Graves is venerated as much, I feel, because his recordings are a rare commodity, and yet he is striking even amongst free drummers. He certainly became enamored of complex timbres and his playing is often more musical than rhythmic in the jazz swing sense. In the New York Art Quartet he started out as a conventional traps drummer in a strong and idealist group, joining Albert Ayler for Holy Ghost and Love Cry (where Graves seems totally dominated by the saxophonist), he then appeared intermittently on disc with a range of his own groups and in small-scale settings. I do love his work on Nommo with Don Pullen, in a combination of jangle and cavernous percussion with dark piano clusters that shouldn’t work, but does. This is real textual stuff, in which who is the percussionist and who the melodist seems a stupid question. I would be interested to find out who had the idea of pairing him with Murray. It isn’t that there wasn’t a precedent. Murray seemed to like percussive percussionists, and had played with Sunny Murray, Philip Wilson, and Andrew Cyrille within three years of arriving in New York. he then went on to work with some of the best drummers in jazz, followed by experiments with Kahil El’Zabar from the late 1980s into the 1990s. later Murray would explore a whole wider world of percussion in collaborations with African and Caribbean percussionists.

For those willing to spend a little time acclimatising, and especially if they are willing to suspend their belief that music has to have a purpose beyond the moment, this is exactly the real deal.

Wilber Morris / David Murray / Dennis Charles: Wilber Force 　　　　
DIW 809

Wilber Morris (b)
David Murray (ts 1-4 6,bcl 5)
Dennis Charles (d)

1. Randy (Wilver Morris) 12:55
2. P.C.O.P. #1 (Wilver Morris) 10:00
3. Miss Mack (Wilver Morris) 9:05
4. West Indian Folk Song (Dennis Charles) 8:40
5. Afro-Amer. Ind (Wilver Morris) 10:20
6. P.C.O.P. #2 (Wilver Morris) 11:35 　

Recorded live at February 6, 1983 at Kwame, NYC

This seems to be the second recording for Wilber Morris’ sometime bass-drums-sax trio. This one features the young (but long-time Morris associate) David Murray, and recent partner in rhythm (but fixture of the New York scene) Dennis Charles. Morris and Murray were both part of the tide of West Coast musicians setting up in New York in the mid 1970s to play in the loft scene, while Charles had been the powerhouse behind some of the key experimental musicians of New York’s avant guard since the early 1950s.

I bought this as part of my obsessive David Murray collecting, but it is now far from a completists addition. The bassist is clearly the leader here, composing all the themes with short names ( West Indian Folk Song is Charles’), and giving all the numbers their drive and shape. Murray is particularly effective in a trio, and the Morris themes seem to push him to some very different performances. Although I tend to think Murray can do no wrong, even I’d have to admit that he hardly ever subsumes himself into the setting he finds himself. In ‘Afro-Amer.Ind’, though, features his plaintive bass clarinet weaving through Morris’ bass figures and Charles’ choppy cymbal work. A bass and vocal chant leads to a long Murray solo, subsides into a bass solo with a intermittent gentle tap and brushed backing from Charles, before Murray and Charles burst back in stretch to the end. Meditative is probably the adjective. By contrast Charles’ jolly theme suits Murray well, and brings out a strong tight drums and bass performance.

‘Miss Mack’ is more subdued sax and Charles’ lovely drum textures. This one repays repeated listening. It’s remarkable how much is going on amongst the three musicians. The longest track, ‘Randy’, has one of those quirky rhythm-melody themes, and some constant changes of pace driven by bass and drum with Murray holding on for dear life! He does get to squeal a little here, though. there are two ‘PCOP’s, though I’m not clear what they are. A lovely theme set out by sax and bass with cracking physical playing from Charles. There’s a lot of unfocused meandering, but journey’s don’t have to be purposeful if there’s lots to hear on the way, and here the textures are just wonderful. This really is music for the moment that allows you to forget where you’ve come from, and care little about where your heading.

As far as I am aware this was the first time Murray was on a DIW recording, and a decade later this was going to be his main channel for releases. There’s a pattern in Murray’s history where he records as a sideman for a project and seems to establish a relationship that blossoms into a recording contract later on. This was also a bit of a return to small group recordings after septet and octet experiments (usually featuring Morris and his younger brother, Butch) interspersed with quartet recordings.

Along with Collective Improvisations (featuring Denis Charles and saxophonist Charles Tyler for Bleu Regard in 1981) this is an enjoyable record in its own terms, and a key point in Murray’s career that isn’t that well known.

morph33

This week I attended the New Jazz Histories Seminar at Salford University with my colleagues Paul Long and Andrew Dubber. Paul and I gave a presentation on the BBC documentary series Jazz Britannia. This is part of a wider project we are developing on popular music history and heritage at the Birmingham School of Media’s Interactive Cultures research centre. We’ll be writing this paper up as a full journal article, and I’ll post some of the background thinking at Wallofsound over the next few weeks, starting with the key points of our presentation.

Here I am writing primarily for those who attended the seminar, and others who may be interested in such debates. The discussion is therefore somewhat more abstract than my usual wallofsound posts.

The other papers at the seminar took a variety of approaches to jazz history: Alyn Shipton opened the discussions by linking his own fairly recent book to the papers that followed, and to his own oral history research and publication; Jason Squinobal (University of Pittsburgh) and then Adrian Goodman (York University Toronto) used musicology to investigate John Coltrane’s later career, and the innovations of Tony Williams and Miles Davis respectively; Jeremy Barham, (University of Surrey) and then Laurent Cugny (Université Paris-Sorbonne Paris IV) gave more theoretically-abstract reflections on issues of definition and periodisation in jazz; and finally Andy Fry (Kings College, University of London) produced a convincing and stimulating reappraisal of the career of Sidney Bechet in France using historical evidence. The issues of doing jazz historography was then discussed by a panel of Nicholas Gebhardt (University of Lancaster), George McKay (University of Salford), Catherine Parsonage (Open University), Alyn Shipton (RAM), Tony Whyton (University of Salford) and the wider seminar members. Hopefully the authors will turn their papers into articles for the Jazz Research Journal, and you’ll be able to read them at length in the months ahead.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable day, and provoked me to think about some key questions in research about jazz culture. Paul, Andrew and I certainly had a good discussion on the way home to Birmingham.

The diversity of approaches to jazz history have made the field a dynamic one, and there certainly isn’t an orthodoxy. However, I wonder if collectively we have focused on whatever methodology we have inherited, and in doing so we haven’t spent enough time on some central questions. Certainly such questions kept coming to my mind through the various papers, either because they centrally addressed issues, or because they ignored them, implicitly throwing up as many questions as they answered. Here are my initial observations and the questions that cristalised at the end of the day:

There seemed to be key unarticulated questions that threaded their way through all the papers: how do/should/can we understand jazz historically? Or put another way, how do we understand jazz in history?

My own use of historiography to explore popular music culture in its different manifestations has led to the increasing conviction that there isn’t a cultural object that is popular music, but that what music fans, music-makers and the media do and say constructs a changing sense of what popular music is as a whole, and what it is in any particular time and place. Jazz, it has always seemed to me, is the paradigm case. Put simply, there isn’t any such thing as jazz! Rather we need to understand that there is a way of ‘manufacturing’ a cultural object which has been (and is) termed jazz, but that this thing is a different thing at different times and places. Such a statement includes the idea that jazz sounds different at different times, or that jazz means different things to different people dependent on their historical or social location; but it also means far more. To understand what jazz is we shouldn’t look at the thing, but at what is said and done to bring it into existence.

I intend these statements to be a provocation. One I hope will continue the debate we started in Salford. However, you may also recognise my debt to the work of Michel Foucault, and his discussion of the nature of things, in such a proposition. Paul and I explicitly used this approach when we analysed the Jazz Britainnia series. Specifically, we argued that the programmes constructed a totalising history, in which the complexity of single moments are subsumed into a broad sweep of a historical narrative, which often seeks to justify a single idea.

I recognise, then, that my other observations follow from that position. Even if the other members of the seminar (and others interested in such questions) aren’t convinced by the starting position, I hope they’ll at least take seriously the ideas that flow from it, and use them to interrogate their own work.

First, I was struck how prevalent, in the analyses that were presented, were the use of pre-existing historical models (or even specific historical narratives), and the tendency of such models or narratives to totalise jazz. Laurent’s analysis made his historical narrative most explicit, and the totalising tendency was perhaps the strongest here. He suggested a new extended classic period in jazz which encompassed swing, bop and post bop styles. In doing so he pushed the modern moment of jazz past bop to free and modal forms of jazz practice. He explicitly drew upon the European notion that art reaches a mature, classic, phase, and that earlier music is an antecedent, while later forms formally interrogate the classic period in their self-conscious modernism. Central to his reclassification is the notion that swing and bop are united in a common practice which dominated jazz from a rupture around 1930, to the next rupture in 1960. I have argued that such notions are characteristic of all popular music histories. Laurent, though drew his paradigm from European art music frames of reference. Jason’s and Adrian’s analysis placed a heavy emphasis on textual scrutiny, the dominant approach used by trained musicologists. Perhaps my own lack of such training limits my understanding, but while I usually find these approaches interesting, I also feel they restrict history to the idea that the music changed. Jason certainly gave details of Coltrane’s personal history to contextualise his analysis, but then these are constructed as psychological determinants, and remove the idea of agency from that moment of history. Jazz musicians make meaningful choices in a cultural context, and while they make them out of the material provided by history, they are not determined by it. In such accounts the focus is on the very fine detail of what happened musically, rather than how the music signified in a wider culture, and why groups of music-makers do the new things they do.

Second, such analyses seem to suggest that there has been a relatively slight influence of theories of historiography from outside jazz studies as musicology. Historiography itself, and cultural and media studies, have been fields in which debates about what is history and how it should be researched and then written have been paramount. We should at least use these debates as reference points to discuss and evaluate what we do. Alyn did this effectively in regard to oral history, and something of the intelligence and communication skill that he brings to his writing and broadcasting was made plain in his paper. Jeremy was the most explicit amongst us in trying to apply work from cultural studies. Specifically he drew on Deleuze and Guattari’s use of the idea of the rhizome as a way of avoiding the reductive idea of roots common in historiography and the hierarchical relationships which are often utilised in cultural analysis. I’m entirely persuaded by this notion myself, but strangely Jeremy ended up with a series of completely dehistorised examples in the way he applied the idea. His suggestions did ‘flatten’ the ideas of European art analysis that dominates music study, but at the very same time it decontextualised jazz’s existence as a popular music.

This brings me to my third point. While jazz is clearly discursively constructed most often as an art music, I think that should alert us to the need to study the central role of critics and of the concerns of the listening and collecting audience (rather than musicians), rather than to make arbitrary musical connections between the formal properties of single practices of jazz and single practices of European art music. The idea of the rhizomal relationship more productively, I think, points us in the direction of jazz’s pace in wider popular culture (and therefore popular music). So often jazz is posed against popular music, when the common practices of jazz music-making are those of the popular, not the art musician, even if the common practice of the fan is very often similar to that of the art music (self-consious) connoisseur. Such an approach was practically demonstrated (exemplified, even) by Andy’s attention to the detail of Sidney Bechet’s music-making, and the facts of his life and music, as a way of rethinking the dominant historical narrative of jazz, and Bechet’s place in it. I hope I am not overwriting on his sensitive reading of the musician’s life when I point out that Bechet was a popular musician making a living in ways that were open to him at different points in his career.

More simply put, we need to avoid understanding the existing historical narratives of jazz as statements of truth, rather than frameworks which seek to make a complex world comprehensible. Making things comprehensible is, of course, the purpose of scholarship, but we must remember that such moments of understanding offer both uses and limitations in our attempt to grasp the significance of things in the world.