Fulbright riffs, 1991 — day 28, Wednesday June 26th

A long day. Into work by 9 anticipating an early departure for the Knitting Factory Festival. I get engrossed in a thesis by Conrad Stuessy, The confluence of jazz and classical music:

“Some composers believe… that the contributory styles of jazz and classical music should be juxtaposed, with each style retaining its distinct identity. This approach to confluence results in an “adjacent” confluent work. There are two basic methods of achieving this adjacent confluent style. The first, the adjacent-vertical style, consists of the jazz style and classical style sounding simultaneously. The second, the adjacent-horizontal style, consists of the two basic musical styles appearing alternately. Ten confluent works by eight classical composers are analyzed in some detail in an attempt to gain insight into the musical structures of the works... Included are three works by Gunther Schuller, and one each by Rolf Liebermann, Meyer Kupferman, Leonard Bernstein, Morton Gould, Milton Babbitt, Larry Austin, and Werner Heider. Similarly, five works by five composers normally associated with the jazz world are analyzed in detail. Represented are Lalo Schifrin, Dave Brubeck, John Lewis, Don Ellis, and Andre Hodeir.”

I’m not sure I want to follow this up immediately and get distracted by the contents of four boxes of material donated by Reggie Workman:

Collective Black Artists/Reggie Workman, ca. 1969–1987, #31 /

3 cubic feet /

Business papers, agendas, &c. on formation and activities of the Collective /

Finding aid in Word document.

I start filling up the Chicago — New Orleans schedule. Today’s contact, the Center for Black Music Research in Chicago.

John Clements likes sharing his audio explorations with me: enlightening, but often distracting. Meanwhile, Don has taken an interest in my work and seems impressed. Package no. 2 has arrived from The British Library containing more leaflets and a copy of POMPI 2 (Popular Music Periodicals Index) to donate to the IJS. The postbag also contains a postcard to me from Brian Priestley who’s been at the Ellington Conference in Los Angeles.

[During the 1980s The British Library recorded two DEMS Ellington conferences —sadly, not in Los Angeles CA, but in Oldham, Lancs.]

I head out for the 7 pm showing of Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser but it was on last night. Outside the cinema I am pestered by a man who is either a pimp or gay, so I make swiftly for the Knitting Factory which has three sets that night. Michael Dorf, the owner, is on the door and I ask if they offer a discount for all three shows: “No, we do-o-0-n’t,” comes the long drawled out reply. $10 + $12 + $14 is way too much. But I do use their bar to have a beer and a chat with a black woman from North Carolina, then make my way down Mott Street to nearby Chinatown to find something to eat.

I end up at Mueng Thai again and order Pad Thai. The restaurant is quiet at this time and I talk with one of the waitresses (who may also be the owner) comparing prices for Thai food in New York and London. She gives me some recommendations about what to order next time. I stumble upon a Thai grocery on Mosco Street, then head back up Mulberry Street, which suddenly turns from Oriental to Italian beyond Canal Street, all street restaurants occupied by yuppies. When I arrive back at the Knitting Factory I am kept out for almost half an hour as the first set is running late.

The second set is Bobby Previte’s Empty Suits. This is the first time I’ve head the drummer/composer Bobby Previte: he has an idiosyncratic drumming style, angularly intense and dramatic, combining jazz and traditional African patterns, but it’s the compositions that stand out, prime examples of Stuessy’s “adjacent-vertical style” of fusion. Other empty suits are: Robin Eubanks, ebullient on trombone and live electronics; Jerome Harris on vocals and bass; Steve Gaboury on keyboards and Allan Jaffe on guitars. These last-mentioned are a bit melodramatic, but that’s all part of a Previte performance.

The tickets include free drinks, so after the Previte set I celebrate with a Jack Daniels: “That’s a dollar surcharge!”. I begin to think improvisation at the Knitting Factory is not confined to the music.

The third set is Roscoe Mitchell who comes onstage wearing a suit designed by an artist friend — mostly grass-green colour with very large polka dots in black, read and yellow. It makes a real impact, as does his saxophone playing. I’ve heard Mitchell with the Art Ensemble of Chicago but not with his own ensemble and what I am hearing now is startlingly original, twenty-minute, circularly-breathed perorations, joyfully and at times agonisingly supported by Reggie Workman on bass and a couple of young guys, Matthew Shipp on piano and Whit Dickey, who has been a pupil of Andrew Cyrille and Milton Graves, on drums. [The nearest I can find to the remembered sound of that set including Shipp and Dickey, is this version of Angel Eyes by David S Ware].

The PATH is delayed and I very nearly miss the last train out of Hoboken.