“The Age of Illage” – Bambouche of the Vanguard Squad

In 1948 Charlie Parker said of the be-bop movement, "Modern life is fast and complicated, and modern music should be fast and complicated." And so, musicians began hurling themselves into worlds that were only accessible for those who listened. Improvisation, the art of making it up as you go. Imagine the excitement of taking the stage, closing your eyes, and letting the unknown take control. This new style eventually gave way to other styles; hard bop, avant-garde, free jazz, soul jazz, etc. Charlie Parker’s invention wasn’t without criticism, but time has proven that be-bop changed the style of jazz forever. Somewhere along the way we lost our grasp on the spirit that embodies jazz. Improvisationalists have become supper club showcases, virtually unwanted in today’s music market. Blame whatever you want (commercialism, white corporate assholes, American pop culture destroying its own native art form), but today jazz is rarely witnessed. Moreover, musical spirituality and the concept of improvisation have been reduced to the background making way for life’s bigger issues. With the advent of digital music technology, jazz is not nearly as cutting edge as the digital fuckery of techno savvy teenagers punching buttons on their laptops. The good graces of jazz are not entirely gone. There are still a handful of us who listen to old records and converse about forgotten labels like Black Jazz, Savoy, Jihad, Clef, and Allegro. Today, if you want to hear Dizzy, Duke, Mingus, Monk, or ‘Trane you need to put on a record. While it is nice to listen to old records, they are still a one-dimensional representation of an instance in jazz’s history. You can listen to a record a thousand times, familiarizing yourself with all the notes in all the solos, but if you were to hear that song performed live by the same musicians who recorded it, your effort in learning the recorded version would be for naught. Jazz musicians were not prone to repetition – they were constantly reaching for the next thing, whatever that may have been. These days, musicians are learning less about music theory and more about computer software. Let’s face it, times change. Therefore, it is inevitable that the musical process is going to change. Listeners today are choosing to spend their money on Internet connections, file sharing software, blank compact discs, and mp3 storage devices rather than records, and the record industry is retaliating by filing lawsuits against people who download songs. Today’s musicians need accountants, lawyers, publicists, public relation specialists, booking agents, stylists, and bodyguards more than they need theory. The stakes are high if you want to make it, much less make it big. The various interpretations of what defines music have problematized what defines a "musician". Just A Few of My Favorite Things… Loosely, I should be labeled a "musician," since I make music. I own a Rhodes electric piano, three guitars, and a bass (all of which I struggle to play with any depth). I can barely translate my musical ideas to staff, I can’t voice chords, I can’t tell the difference between the Dorian and Phrygian scales, but I am a musician nonetheless. About ten years ago, I started dabbling with a device known as a sampler. In its essence, it’s a state of the art tape deck (remember those?). It records stuff. Sure, it does all sorts of other cool things, but at the end of the day, it just records stuff. While I said I have an assortment of instruments, most of what I do is done entirely within the sampler. I don’t play an instrument as much as twist knobs. Technically, I should be likened more to an operating engineer than a musician. The arguments for and against the new technologies in music are blurred by availability. On one hand, it is delightful that anyone with access to a few basic tools can create music, turn it into a sound file, and post it on the World Wide Web for anyone to hear. Imagine John Coltrane, sleepless one night, strolling out to the living room and recording himself playing a 40 minute rendition of "My Favorite Things" and posting it on his website. The possibilities are endless. Now, on the other hand, the ease of access to those same tools means that just about any schmuck can clog the ether with his or her useless drivel. We have a choice not to listen, sure, but who wants to sift through the garbage looking for the grace? The same argument can be made about the jazz of yesteryear, obviously. There was plenty of drivel in those days. I have sifted through tons of records looking for forgotten moments, and much of what I’ve found is quite bad. That said, it could hardly be disputed that John Coltrane and Duke Ellington were nothing short of genius. Take Coltrane’s "My Favorite Things" for example, people may not "get it", but the idea of twenty-five minutes of nonstop improvisation is awe-inspiring. I often find myself wondering where the John Coltrane’s of today are hiding. Let’s examine the parallels between Charlie Parker’s 1948 comment about the fast and complicated changing face of music and the use of a sampler as a valid instrument capable of orchestrating complex sonic collages that mirror the spirit of jazz improvisation. The Old School I have a terrible ear. I am practically tone deaf, actually. I got my first musical instrument (an electric bass) the summer of my 8th grade school year. My aunt leased it for me with the notion that it would keep me busy and out of trouble. I took lessons at a local music store with four other kids who played guitar (always the outsider, I was the only bassist in class!). The first song I ever learned how to play was "Margaritaville" by Jimmy Buffett. While it wasn’t the most prestigious school of study, it was what I had to work with. I slowly became disappointed with the lessons and stopped going. A few months later, I joined the jazz band at my high school. As a "jazz" band we covered such classics as Huey Lewis’ "Hip to be Square" (again, it was all I had). I never showed up to any of our recitals (more because of the dress code than the song choices) and wasn’t asked to return after the first year. Joining the jazz band in high school was less about jazz and more about finding something easy to do for third period. Music and foreign language were the choices we were given to fulfill our "fine art" requirement, and I imagined jamming for an hour would be cooler than learning Spanish (hey, I was young). Mr. Smiley, my jazz band instructor (I am not making this up, his name was, in fact, Mr. Smiley) once told the class, "Did you know Max Roach could drum roll with one hand?" For the most part, his comment fell on deaf ears, I mean, what 14 year-old gives a shit about anything so disconnected from their existence as someone who can drum with one hand? But, I believe that was my first formal introduction to jazz. Mr. Smiley later showed the class a videotape of Roach drumming to prove his point. Why we were learning songs like "Hip to be Square", while watching videos about Max Roach, is beyond me, but the seed was sown. Nine years later, I bought a guitar and studied theory and counterpoint for six months. I was immersed in Arnold Schönberg’s writings on harmony, and the musical buoyancy of Joe Henderson’s "Blue Bossa". This was the first jazz song I learned on guitar (from Henderson’s Page One LP on Blue Note Records). I was both overwhelmed and unable to afford the lessons, so I quit. That is my musical study in its entirety, a few crummy bass lessons, one year in the jazz band, and a brief study of theory. Not much resulted from my jazz "experience". This was a time in my life when the only two albums I listened to were Public Enemy’s It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back and the Bad Brains’ Quickness. Well versed I was not. Slowly, I began hearing names like Dizzy, Duke, Dolphy, Mingus, and Monk, and if for no other reason than their peculiarity, the names stuck with me. It was through hip-hop that I became interested in jazz. As an art form that makes ample use of references, hip-hop introduced me to the likes of Gil Scott-Heron, Nina Simone, Art Blakey, Weldon Irvine, David Axelrod, The Last Poets, and many others. Somewhere along the way I realized they weren’t only referencing jazz icons lyrically, but they were rapping over short loops lifted from jazz records. This started me on a never-ending endeavor of sifting through the "Special Thanks" and "Shout Outs" sections of liner notes, looking for references to records, artists, song titles, etc. With the dawn of copyright infringement lawsuits, this pursuit became much easier, as hip-hop artists were required to credit their samples. This meant all I needed to do was look for the "This song contains a portion of…" to find my answers. Jazz Nepotism – Who’s Who and What’s What As my interest grew, so did my collection. I was constantly being introduced to new artists, and after a while the long list of names I was searching for began to blur. I found that jazz has a lot of folks in its congregation. For example: There’s a Johnny "Hammond" Smith (organist) and a Johnny Smith (guitarist). Lonnie Liston Smith (pianist) is different than Lonnie Smith (organist). Jo Jones (drummer) is not Philly Joe Jones (drummer). Shirley Scott plays the organ, Shirley Horn plays the piano (not a horn!), Jimmy Scott’s a singer, Jimmy Smith’s an organist, Clifford Scott and Clifford Jordan play the saxophone, and Clifford Brown is someone else all together. You can see how a young mind can get confused… Early on, my record collection consisted mostly of sample fodder. Whatever the new hip-hop records sampled, I wanted for my own collection. When the effect of the three or four second sample wore off, I usually found myself enjoying the "other" parts of the record (you know, the music). I started buying the albums mentioned in the liner notes of jazz LPs rather than hip-hop records. Slowly, with this frame of reference my collection grew, and grew, and grew… For instance: Gil Scott-Heron’s "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" was referenced on the Public Enemy Nation of Millions… LP. "The Revolution Will Not be Televised" first appeared on a Gil Scott-Heron LP titled A New Black Poet – Small Talk at 125th and Lenox on the Flying Dutchman label. I enjoyed the record so much I figured why not try some other artists on the same label, like Richard "Groove" Holmes? Well, Holmes’ Onsaya Joy LP on Flying Dutchman has a tune titled "Song for My Father" written by Horace Silver. Horace Silver recorded an album for Blue Note Records titled That Healin’ Feelin’, which features vocalist Andy Bey. Salome Bey (Andy's sister) worked with Galt MacDermot on an original cast recording for Dude, which Bernard "Pretty" Purdie plays drums on. Purdie released his own album, Shaft, on Prestige, accompanied by pianist Neal Creque. Creque and Purdie both play on Harold Alexander’s Sunshine Man as well as Leon Thomas’ Full Circle LPs (both on the Flying Dutchman label). Joe Farrell plays trumpet on the Thomas LP. Farrell’s own Upon This Rock LP feature pianist Herbie Hancock. I bought Hancock’s Sextant LP on Columbia at the same time I bought Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s Blacknuss LP on Atlantic. Another Atlantic artist, Max Roach, recorded a tribute album to Mao Tse Tung, Force, for the Italian-based Uniteledis label (saxophonist Archie Shepp is featured on the album). Shepp recorded a tribute album of his own, Poem for Malcolm, on the Paris-based BYG label. That same year (1969), Shepp played on yet another tribute album for BYG, Sunny Murray’s Hommage to Africa. The album features Jeanne Lee on vocals. Jeanne Lee is also featured on Gunter Hampel’s The 8th of July 1969 LP on Flying Dutchman. The liner notes on the LP mention Marion Brown, who coincidentally recorded a tribute album of his own for Archie Shepp, Three for Shepp (which itself is a reference to Shepp’s tribute album to John Coltrane, Four for Trane). Inside the gatefold cover of Three for Shepp is an interview with Marion Brown discussing, among other things, politics and Ornette Coleman, who Brown claims was responsible for encouraging him to play regularly. "War Orphans", a Coleman composition, was covered by Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra, which featured Gato Barbieri, Andrew Cyrille, and Bob Northern; Gato Barbieri recorded a song titled "Tupac Amaru" (do you think 2pac’s mother knows this?) for Flying Dutchman featuring Lonnie Liston Smith (more on L.L. later); Bob Northern – under the moniker "Brother Ahh" – recorded an album with Max Roach for Strata East titled Sound Awareness (a ’72 anti-drug album of sorts); Andrew Cyrille recorded an all drum LP titled What About? for the BYG label. Charlie Haden, in addition to his work with the Liberation Music Orchestra, also played on Alice Coltrane’s Journey in Satchidananda LP on the Impulse! label (an album dedicated to Alice’s spiritual preceptor Swamiji Satchidananda and the late John Coltrane). Former members of John Coltrane’s ensemble, Pharoah Sanders and Rashid Ali, accompany Alice. Pharoah Sanders, outside of his work with the Coltranes, also released records on the Impulse! label, like Summun Bukmun Umyun. Gary Bartz, Lonnie Liston Smith, and Cecil McBee also play on Summun Bukmun Umyun. Saxophonist Gary Bartz released two LPs in a series called Harlem Bush Music (featuring the vocals of Andy Bey, mentioned above). Lonnie Liston Smith (as I promised to get back to) released Expansion on the Flying Dutchman label, which coincidentally features Cecil McBee. McBee recorded an album called Mutima on Strata East. Strata East is also home to Gil Scott-Heron’s Winter in America LP. Gil Scott-Heron, hey wait, he’s the guy who wrote "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised", which is what started this whole thing… [Listen to the needle as it skips across a few seconds of each of the above-mentioned records.] "Who Gives a Fuck about a Goddamn Grammy?" In the early ‘90s I decided to buy my first sampler. I saved for months, but was still hundreds of dollars short. Thanks to a friend who worked at a pro audio store, who didn’t mind me fudging the numbers on the application, I was able to finance the purchase (it should be mentioned it took me 2 years to pay off). The Ensoniq ASR-10, a rather heavy beast with a whopping 4.5 megabytes of diskette storage space, was sampler, sequencer, and effects unit all in one. Armed with the owner’s manual and a bevy of "fresh" ideas I set out to make what I called music and my mother called noise. My first efforts were, to say the least, bad. I don’t mean bad as in good, I mean bad as in terrible, awful, and embarrassing. After some years of writing noisome songs and using hundreds of diskettes, I was finally able to understand the intricacies of low frequency oscillators, lowpass filters, envelope generators, sequencing, and SMPTE time codes. In time, I sold the ASR-10 and upgraded to the then all-new Akai S3000XL (the device I still use today). The Akai was God-like compared to the ASR-10 (at one quarter the size and three times the price). What it lacked in size, though, it made up in memory. I now had 32 megabytes of sample storage. The Akai’s enhanced storage capabilities allowed me to exercise a complete lack of control in the "duration" department, with each composition becoming a 20-minute opus employing hundreds of samples. It took me years to outgrow the necessity to maximize sample-space capacity with each song, and luckily I did just before the advent of the 128-megabyte sampler. (Imagine the 23-disc electro jazz "concept" albums I could have released!) Where is the parallel between sample-based music and jazz, you ask? (You’ve been reading long enough, you deserve an answer, right?) I like to think of my creation process towards sample-based music as a jazz-minded approach. Not only in the stealing prolifically from jazz LPs (like those mentioned above), but also in regards to arrangement, interpretation, and the spirit of improvisation. It is hard to grasp the idea of an improvised sequence, since a sequence in nature is programmed repetition, but for the sake of argument, I will try to demonstrate in song how sampled-based music can be like jazz. Evolution in Styles I wanted to write an homage tune of my own. Something to honor all those stolen moments waiting to be free of the dusty grooves they’ve been locked in for the last 30 or 40 years. My intention was to write a "modern" song using only samples from jazz records. I wanted it to both venerate and defy jazz traditions. "Evolution in Styles" is a collage of vocals from jazz icons layered over sounds taken from jazz records. Simple, really. The art, I think, is in the arrangement. While the title is obvious in meaning, its implication is two-fold. The evolution refers to not only the style of jazz (from musicians on stage to digitally programmed), but also to how the sampler is used. I wanted to do with samples what improvisation did for jazz, by manipulating miniature chunks of records and creating an assemblage of sounds that breathes and reacts like a group of musicians improvising. Sampling technology has created the ability to take sounds from records and do an infinite number of things to them. However, that technology does not provide a license for those sounds. Using samples from records is illegal without consent from the holder of the copyright (usually a record company, not a musician). Choosing to use samples without paying for their license assumes the risk of paying penalties should the source of the samples be discovered. The same standard didn’t apply to the jazz of yesteryear. Jazzmen would often "quote" contemporary composures during their solos, reinterpreting the melodies in improvisation. (Notably, it has been said that those composers actually stole their ideas from jazz greats to begin with.) What do you think Charlie Parker would have said in 1948 if you told him that the fast and complicated nature of modern music would lead to people stealing each other’s music – not by "quoting" – but actually stealing the music right out of the groove of the records? There are only 12 notes a musician can play. They choose how they want to arrange those notes, and once the choice is documented, that particular sequence and phrasing of notes becomes off limits to other musicians. With only 12 notes, it’s inevitable that things are going to start to sound alike. Now, me looping an eight bar section of someone else’s music can hardly be seen as an original idea, and it seems logical that such usage should be impermissible without license. But what if I only take six notes from within those eight bars and rearrange them to create a new phrase – is that not original? Is my phrase not mine because the sounds I used were not mine to begin with? There have been clever advancements by sample operators to avoid license from those they are "quoting". Like using obscure, relatively unknown records or disguising samples to make their source less apparent. I’ve done both with "Evolution in Styles". Here is a dissection of the song: (This is It!) Ebony & Ivory The piano in "Evolution in Styles" is quirky and playful, and contains uniqueness that makes it easily recognizable. The sample was taken from a solo piano record, so it was easy to work with (no messy drums or bass in the background to muddle the sound). From the original tune, I chopped the piano motif into seven individual pieces. In doing this, I was able to rearrange the piano, to both combine it with other instruments, as well as disguise and rephrase its melody. [Listen to the original piano and the restructured sequence.] Sigmund’s Sax The alto saxophone in "Evolution in Styles" was sampled from a not-so-typical alto saxophone solo from a not-so-typical alto saxophone player. The sample was taken from a moment of call-and-response interplay between the drums and saxophone. I clipped ten short pieces from the solo to interplay with my piano sample. The sax and piano were in different keys, so I lowered the saxophone two steps. [Listen to the original sax solo and the restructured sequence.] Low End Theory I chose an acoustic upright bass sample to occupy the lower regions of the frequency range. This particular bass line is from a jazz rendition of a classical piece written by a blind Spaniard in the late ‘30s. The melody is both beautiful and widely popular. In effort to disguise the source, as well as rearrange the melody, I cut the bass into six pieces. I also had to lower the bass two steps (again, so that it would be the same as the piano and sax). Rearranging the bass pattern allowed me to add silence, which works against the syncopation of the piano and saxophone. Further, I equalized the bass to enhance the 80-hertz region. I ran the EQed bass through a compressor that reduced its dynamic range, making it, in parlance of the hip-hoppers, phat! [Listen to the original bass line and the restructured sequence.] Ill Horn Stab Early hip-hop records employed the use of what has commonly been referred to as the "horn stab". The horn stab is a simple, single, and often orchestral, horn blast acting like an audible exclamation point! For reverence, I used a similar technique in "Evolution in Styles". I stole four short notes from a trumpet line to act as exclamation when the piano, saxophone, and bass arrangements change slightly. Again, I had to change the pitch of the horn so that it would match the key of the other instruments, this time raising it two steps. I also ran the trumpet through an echo device. [Listen to the original trumpet phrase and the restructured piano, saxophone, bass, and trumpet sequence.] Give The Drummer Some! Depending on your familiarity with sample-based music, you may recognize the term "drum break". A drum break is an isolated, rhythmical drum pattern within a song. With this isolated drum sound, a sample operator can take a drum break from a record and use it in an entirely different context. [Listen to an exemplary drum break and how it’s used in a sequence.] For "Evolution in Styles" I chose a less-than-average drum break from a late ‘70s electro-jazz record. While it is not the most interesting of drum patterns, it was easy to amputate each individual drum hit from the body of the break. This particular break has no cymbals (hi-hat, crash, ride, etc.), so I stole cymbals from another late ‘70s record with a 30-minute drum solo featuring not one, not two, but three drummers! (All I needed were a few hi-hats and a crash nestled amongst the drum solo, so I was in and out.) By using individual drum sounds, rather than looping an entire phrase, I had full control over the volume and placement of each individual sound. (In drum vernacular, this is called "playing in the pocket".) I also EQed the kick drum to add a little oomph! [Listen to the two original drum breaks and the reprogrammed break sequence.] The Duke Ellington of Digital Once the musical ideas were in place, all that was required was the assemblage. I wanted "Evolution in Styles" to have many elements, and many different arrangements of those elements within the song. As I said, I wanted this song to mirror the spirit of jazz improvisation. Electronically composed music is static in nature while jazz improvisation is unpredictable. In order for my song to mirror the spirit of yesteryear’s jazz, I had to program improvised-sounding patterns into the song. This process is quite similar to the way the composers of yesteryear would work out a tune, with the only difference being the use of technology. While the composers would sit at the piano, tinkling with ideas, jotting them on staff ledger, voicing chords, and making notes regarding interpretation, I find sounds on records, sample them, program their arrangement, and then save it all on disk. This "programmed improvisation" is not easily mistaken for live jazz, but it creates tension, dynamic, and anticipation – things not available in an eight bar loop. Louis said… Some years ago, I bought a children’s record that had an interview about phrasings in jazz melodies, and how they changed from the era of Louis Armstrong to Roy Eldridge. The interview contains a short vocal demonstration of the different styles of phrasing. This is where I originally got the idea for "Evolution in Styles". I stole both the singing and the interviewer’s question, in which he asks, "Could you sing a riff to illustrate the evolution in styles?" I included the question in the song because it exemplified the parallel between the changing of the jazz idiom, and the emerging technology that has created new ways of conceiving and writing music. Not to state the obvious, but the idea of taking a recording that discusses evolution by demonstrating different styles of singing, cutting those demonstrations into pieces, and making a different demonstration out of them, is to me what the song is really about. (Evolution in styles, you dig it?) [Listen to the original interview and the reprogrammed singing sequence.] Gruntin’ & Groanin’ No jazz recording is complete without some musician banter. Put on any jazz side where there is some particularly hot phraseology happening and you’re bound to be witness to some verbal blessings. It’s usually blunt and to the point (i.e., "yea" or "ugh"). Eldee Young – of the Ramsey Lewis Trio and later Young-Holt Unlimited – is my favorite example of gifted grunting. Take for instance his bass solo on "My Babe", his half-singing/half-grunting is something I never tire of. [Listen for yourself.] I painstakingly listened through hours of jazz interviews searching for a smattering of voices to add exclamation to "Evolution in Styles". [Listen to the original sources of all the voice samples and how they are used in a sequence.] It’s the Fuzz! Last, but certainly not least, I added some good ol’ fashioned record fuzz to the mix, simply because it is a sound that I have come to love. Not that anyone would know, but I stole the fuzz from one of my all time favorite jazz recordings. You may wonder if it matters where the fuzz is from, "How can you tell one fuzz from another?" Let me just say this: When you’ve spent 15 years sitting in front of your record player you become well acquainted with the subtlety of fuzz. I will refrain from making the "it’s like a crackling fire" analogy (because that shit is more played out than hip-hoppers keeping it real), but I will say, if things like record fuzz didn’t matter then why are there thousands of different kinds of hot sauce? Leaving no stone unturned, and realizing there may come a day when sample operators will need to ask permission, pay royalties, and site the source of their fuzz, I lowered the pitch of mine four-tenths of a step and slightly processed it with an envelope filter, then ran it through an echo unit – to keep it unreal. [Listen to the original fuzz and the all-new reprocessed fuzz sequence.] Reachin’ Rediscovery When all was said and done, it took me roughly 90 hours to complete "Evolution in Styles". (How’s that for "improvisation"?) I used a total of 9 records to create over 70 samples, occupying just less than 10 megabytes of storage space. Jazz improvisation lasts just as long as it is heard, but my variation on improvisation will last forever (well, actually… probably just until this form of data storage becomes obsolete). When Charlie Parker spoke of the fast and complicated nature of modern music, I doubt he had any inkling of what today’s capabilities would be. Then again, the world was in awe at the advent of radio (people would stop going to live concerts!), the compact disc was going to replace the vinyl record (I mean, who needs records, they’re so big), and the mini-disc was the best, easiest, and most compact way to store music (the mini-what?). Technology is nice, but temporary. I’m certain this mp3 phenomenon will be a blip on the radar-screen of music history. Downloading songs from the Internet will become boring (if it doesn’t become a capital crime first). Record companies will find new ways to make you re-purchase your entire music collection. Sample-based music will be replaced by something with more memory. And the face of jazz will probably change a hundred more times before the earth stops spinning. I however, will continue buying old records. (Yes, they still sell those!) Now, would you please listen to "Evolution in Styles" in its entirety and let me know what you think? -- Bambouche of the Vanguard Squad