Saga of the Outlaws
| Saga of the Outlaws | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Live album by Charles Tyler | ||||
|
Publication |
||||
| Label (s) | Nessa Records | |||
|
Format (s) |
CD |
|||
|
running time |
36:50 |
|||
| occupation |
|
|||
|
Chuck Nessa , Michael Cuscuna (Reissue) |
||||
|
Studio (s) |
Studio Rivbea, New York City |
|||
|
||||
Saga of the Outlaws (subtitled Ride of the Marauders , dt. Drive the marauders ) is a jazz album by Charles Tyler , which live on 20 May 1976 Studio Rivbea, the loft of Sam Rivers was added and in 1978 as a record for the first time in Nessa Records appeared. The uninterrupted 36-minute performance by Tyler and his quintet was recorded during the Wildflowers Festival. In 2009 it was re-released as a compact disc by Nessa.
background
Michael G. Nastos pointed out that the recording was preceded by "many months of arduous work, recording and test-run studios, random meetings and many thought processes", which formed the prelude to the performance documented here. An important band member for Tyler was Trumpeter Earl Cross , who, like Ted Curson or Raphe Malik , saw himself in the generation after Freddie Hubbard and was looking for a sound without borders. Bassists John Ore and Ronnie Boykins both came from Sun Ra's bands ; Drummer Steve Reid , whom Nastos sees as the perfect rhythmic navigator, with the stamina necessary to keep the band moving for the entire time.
Nastod described the musical sequence of the work as follows:
- “The piece begins with Clairon calls from Tyler and Cross, who command the freedom fighters to the poor, with even rhythms and exploring bass that initiate a nice counterpoint . You can hear the imagination of a gun fight as the piece becomes wider and more intense. Tyler's extended solo stretches harmonic parameters of tonality in the manner of his former bandmates, brothers Donald and Albert Ayler . The group trudges along for a moment as if maintaining their reserve energies creates power, with Ornette Coleman approximations emerging, Cross offering a spiky solo, and Tyler getting more lively in turns with Cross. This absolute hit session also features a tingling drum solo by the quite capable Reid. Then a new western free jam assumes a return to the images of the old west, as the calming, smoking smoke goes down at sunset. "
Track list
- Charles Tyler: Saga of the Outlaws (Nessa n-16)
- Saga of the Outlaws 36:50
reception
Michael G. Nastos gave the album 4½ (out of 5) stars in Allmusic, saying, "Charles Tyler's Saga of the Outlaws is one of the key works of free improvisation in history, a 37-minute piece of pure emotion and depth." Tyler and his Extraordinary, avant-garde quintet would have created a polyphonic sound and a “drama of the old and new West”, they “shoot their way with the free bop in a way that reflects the cool and vicious mentality of a gunslinger” while simultaneously entering howling discourse full of harmonic depth and contrapuntal interaction. Recorded live in the Rivbea studio owned by Sam Rivers and his wife Bea, Saga of the Outlaws not only identifies the so-called loft jazz movement and the jazz revolution according to Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler , but also started its own in the mid-1970s Default. This music became very influential both in America and in the burgeoning European (especially German) scene, where Tyler fled to the Netherlands a year later and stayed until his death in 1992.
“It is Charles Tyler's magnum opus, ” Michael G. Nastos sums up, “historically one of the most definitive free jazz statements of the 1970s, made during the Wildflowers Sessions and the work of Roscoe Mitchell , the Art Ensemble of Chicago , Frank Wright and Anthony Braxton came first. For certain tastes - those who like absolutely creative, improvised music - is a must and luckily now on CD. "
Marc Medwin praised Dusted , the 36-minute track recorded during the same sessions that produced the legendary Wildflowers recordings, "a performance of tremendous dynamism and overwhelming beauty by one of the most underrepresented figures in music." Charles Tyler's sound is as big as his discography is small. His instrumental approach bears the stamp of his time with Albert Ayler, with whom he recorded influential material for the then still young ESP disc label. The saga shares Ayler's deep roots in the blues, but Tyler also had the ability to create something very close to the center of his consciousness out of his saxophone. Every moment brings with it a change in register or a shift in mood, often accompanied by a change in sound.
According to the author, the entire motivic development that signals great solo play is recognizable. “For example, listen to the three-note figure that appears at 8:02 and dominates the procedure for the next 20 seconds, briefly stopping a few minutes later. Even this short period of time is filled with a whiplash as ideas pour out of the alto [saxophone]. Few, including Ayler, Trane, and Jimmy Lyons , share this ability to blend the remnants of bebop with the aesthetics of the New Thing of the 1960s. Tyler's higher registers are pierced with pain, and his growl emanates from a ground that lies beyond the simple vision that such a clumsy expression as free jazz offers. "The recording is" for both the Nessa catalog and the AACM Movement overall a milestone. "
Ed Hazell praised in Point of Departure: "Every aspect of Tyler's music is at its absolute peak and this is perhaps Tyler's best moment." Saga of the Outlaws is one of the brilliant documents of the time; with “unusual accuracy and depth” the music captures “both sincere anger and exuberant joy, a sense of tragedy and triumph and grace in the midst of intense effort. Nothing is played halfway through. Tyler's elegant, folkloric composition sets this deeply divided emotional tone and just pretends to keep the music focused and at the same time allow improvisational freedom. ”One of the many subtitles of the composition calls it polyphonic sound drama , and these parallel written parts help create one Polyphony , which gives the music its formal structure and emotional ambiguity, according to the author.
“Tyler's lengthy opening solo is one of those fearless free jazz performances that dig deeply into something dark and unsettling, a harsh truth, and comes back with something beautiful and true. He dives in headfirst - the impulse is amazing - but his phrases combine to form an irresistible chain. Tyler often hovers in the midrange of the alto saxophone, throwing his low and high notes in relief and giving them maximum emotional impact. Its tone is autumnal - regal gravitas with sorrow and loss - with a worried high edge overlying darker indigo timbres. It conveys a range of feelings just because of its complexity. Trumpeter Cross is a more economical, less volatile player who leaves room for bassists and drummers to move around his lines. His tone has a dark patina , which gives his improvisations a reserved, mysterious quality, but its sudden flare-up to a sizzling, high register expresses the suppressed intensities. "
The saga of the outlaws: The marauders' journey is not just “a polyphonic sound drama”, but, according to Hazell, “a story of the old and new west”; it shows Tyler's “interest in appropriating the outlaw mythology of the American West and incorporating it into the African American experience. The amalgamation of the old and the new West creates parallels between the outcasts of the white conquest of North America in the 19th century and the outcasts of the white power structure of the time. It's a less harsh political statement than many with a touch of ironic humor, but adds another dimension to an already impressive musical performance. Essential music. "
Awards
In New York's Village Voice magazine's Jazz Critics' Poll , the album's re-release took eighth place in the Jazz Reissue of the Year category . In 2010 the album received a nomination for the JJA Awards of the Jazz Journalists Association in the category Reissue of the Year .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Review of the album Saga of the Outlaws by Michael G. Nastos on Allmusic (English). Retrieved March 21, 2019.
- ↑ Discographic information at Discogs
- ^ A b c Marc Medwin: Charles Tyler: Saga of the Outlaws . Dusted, April 2, 2009, accessed March 21, 2019 .
- ^ A b Ed Hazell: Charles Tyler: Saga of the Outlaws . Point of Departure, April 2, 2009, accessed March 21, 2019 .
- ↑ 2009 Voice Jazz Critics' Poll: The Results. Village Voice, October 29, 2009, accessed March 21, 2019 .