Memories
Alvin Curran
Alvin Curran with Frederic Rzewski, Karl Berger, Ingrid Sertso
FR:. I remember some interesting concerts. Do you have a copy of the recording with John Cage and Sunny Murray? There was some interesting stuff on there. I gave John Cage a copy of The People United, which had just come out on Vanguard, and right in the middle of the discussion, suddenly John Cage held up this record, he was talking about politics, a live broadcast over National Public Radio, and he said that Rzewski wants a police state. He’s just given me this record, the People United will Never be Defeated, that’s the police. You don’t remember that? I was completely speechless. I couldn’t believe he would say something like that on live radio. I forget how it happened. That’s when I realized that John Cage was a real fighter, a street fighter. He would do anything to win, he never lost, he always won.
KB:. I remember John Cage at The Kitchen. First of all, when we first started CMS, Orrnette was a co-founder. He said to me at the time “you do the nonprofit, I do the profit.” He said that we need to have an advisory board with Cage, Fuller, DeKooning. I went to Cage and I spoke to him. Cage said, “I don’t like jazz but I like Ornette; so count me in.” He did several workshops at CMS, from the very beginning. We performed some of his pieces; he was there. He hated everything.
AC:. There was a little discussion last night provoked by Laura Kuhn, head of the Cage Fund, which is based here at Bard College. She was contesting whether Cage hated improvisation. This was true for most of his life. He had a turnaround. There was a period when he wrote what he considered improvisational pieces. What I’m asking you is, this must have coincided with his experience at CMS. When you come in contact with a certain cultural ambience, you say “look at these guys, they’re making music like I do. I’m pulling numbers out of a hat or off of a computer, but they’re doing it spontaneously.” Similarities exist. Even though, with improvised music, there’s an issue of the personalities involved and the willful expressionism of those personalities. Cage tried to eliminate that in his music. He spent his life trying to get rid of the ego in the music.
FR:. Give me a break. I’ve heard this so many times.
KB:. Cage wasn’t a player, he wasn’t really a performer.
FR:. He was a master performer. He entertained rich people all his life, he made them laugh, he did party tricks. He was an entertainer.
AC:. There’s this video on RAI where he’s playing on a bathtub and with an electric toaster, in 1966, he blew their minds, he became a major person. In Italy in particular he became a household word.
FR:. He won enough money to buy a VW bus. Sertso: Karl performed his 4:33 piece in Woodstock, where no note is played.
KB:. I had the original score. I turned the page, I did the whole thing. I used that performance to tell the audience afterwards about the practice of “listening to the sounds disappearing”, more of an active way to go to silence. I would play a note on the vibraphone and let the people listen to it disappearing. Which was more like what we did at CMS, that type of work.
AC:. Do you think that Cage came around to embrace mildly the idea of improvisation at that time?
KB:. He would never want to call it improvisation, ever. He would never be slightly associated with what other people called improvisation, which was mostly jazz players. He was really trying to stay totally away from it.
FR:. He tried to stay away from everything, he stayed away from politics. He never came out in any way on the subject of war, of Vietnam, he disappointed a lot of people.
KB:. I saw an interview where he said some really ridiculous stuff. People would say that lots of people died in World War II and he would say “exactly the right amount.”
AC:. It’s like what Stockhausen said about 9-11.
FR:. He said it in Hamburg, where the terrorists came from. He said the wrong thing in the wrong place…
AC:. …and the world press came down on him so badly. First the German press, then the world press. And he took it back, saying he was misunderstood.
FR:. That absolutely true. If you read the whole text, he was perfectly right, he was there for a festival and he was talking about his operas. He said his operas are very extravagant but they’re nothing compared to this, this is the biggest spectacle of all time. It made perfect sense.
AC:. One more thing, to finish with Cage. The thing with Sun Ra, they played together, individually and then together. I don’t know what Cage played.
KB:. Every time I talked to Cage in connection with CMS, it was always a lively conversation, he looked like he was interested in what we were doing, he wasn’t antagonistic. He never wanted to use the word improvisation for his own music.
FR:. Certain subjects, like sexuality, you could not talk about and that was one of them. Politics, sex, improvisation.
KB:. He came to a concert that Garret List organized at The Kitchen where we played. My improvisation is very talkative and Cage would come up to me at the end and say, “If I want to talk, I’d rather use language.” I said, “If I want to say something, I prefer to play” and that was the end of that conversation. At the very beginning, I talked to him and he joined up, he liked Ornette. Why, I don’t know. He probably liked him because Ornette was not accepted by the jazz community.
AC:. Another outsider.
IS:. It’s very hard not to like Ornette personally, he’s a sweetheart.
KB:. You and I met before CMS.
FR:. I think we met in Carla Bley’s office, on Broadway in the 50s.
KB:. We had a little back room in that office when we started the CMS thing.
FR:. That would have been 1971 or something like that.
KB:. Yes
AC:. Didn’t they move to Soho at some point?
KB:. New Music Distribution Service was in Soho. It started a year later. We learned from Carla Bley and Mike Mantler about grant writing, how to do a nonprofit organization. They gave us the idea to do it as a nonprofit. We got into a yearly cycle with NEA after that.
FR:. There were some creative people in the State Arts Council at that time. The man who started it came to Rome in 1962 to do a happening. He was famous at the time.
KB:. In the late 70s, Ornette’s cousin James Jordan was running it so we had a real direct line there. James would call me and tell me what to apply for. It was a nice relationship. Anyway, Gregory Reeve got us to play at WBAI and that’s how we got going. I have a photo from 73 that you’re on and Dave Holland. Did anything from CMS influence your music? You came several times.
AC:. It was part of an ecstatic time. It might have been 74 or 75. It was at the height of that feeling that an alternative world was being born but you were part of the process and being born with it, part of the cause and effect simultaneously. I conflate the memories. For me, since I didn’t have that much contact with it, for me it falls into this larger picture of a youth movement in action, the energy of that time was incredible. I did a collective vocal improvisation, using techniques that I was developing. I would take the instruments away and just use your body as a sounding board and a resonating instrument. I remember that everyone was ready to launch into incredible improvisation, some very heavy thing, and suddenly they become transformed into reconsidering how to make music without their instrument. That was my one strong memory. Carla Bley was in the group. I felt it was just putting roots in a wonderful scene, one of many that were blossoming all over at that time. This was very special because of its physical location and the people who were actively involved, it was memorable. That’s all I can comment on.
KB:. You two never came together. Frederic, we have a tape of a duo performance that we did, called “A piano and a half.” We had a grand piano and a smaller upright piano. Maybe we switched at one point. It’s a very interesting tape. You also worked with the student ensembles.
FR:. There were some nice performances, one piece called Seascape, the students had to made wind sounds. I felt honored to be received into this situation because people like Don Cherry were the aristocrats of the new music. I was just a dumb classical piano player who didn’t know anything about jazz. It was an honor to be taken seriously. I did not feel worthy.
KB:. You were well received in the concerts in Woodstock, people would write pages.
FR:. I always feel guilty when appearing in that kind of situation because I knew that I didn’t swing. I had been told that. I played a concert with Braxton in Rome in the 70s and that’s what the critic wrote.
KB:. I don’t know if Braxton swings. Your playing was always overpowering.
FR:. What’s amazing about the CMS thing is that it kept on going year after year.
KB:. As a year round thing, it went for twelve years. If Reagan hadn’t come into office, it would still be here now. It was on a roll, attracting people who supported it and then the support system disappeared.
AC:. I remember the striking similarity in Italy, with a sharper edge, the popular music schools.
KB:. Do you remember the recording we did in Rome on Horo Records?
AC:. I remember Teitelbaum insulting the producer, Aldo Sinesio, at a good restaurant he took us to. He called him a mafioso. Richard didn’t know that the guy is Sicilian. He was one of the major independent jazz promoters, free music promoters, in Italy.
KB:. The reason I played with you guys had to do with CMS. That’s how we met and how the music developed. There are some duets on there with Steve Lacy. There’s a couple of very interesting musical things going on on that record. It’s a double LP.
FR:. It was one of the few occasions where these two musical worlds came together. That is what is so unique about CMS.
KB:. That’s what we did.
AC:. Now it’s the big thing, the so-called crossover.
FR:. It doesn’t work. Gunther Schuller tried it in the 50s. It’s a theory, it’s an idea, bring these two worlds together and see what happens.
KB:. Why did we do it then? I kind of like these records we did. Why do you say it didn’t work? That’s a theory that it doesn’t work. Some of them work, some don’t. It’s not about styles, it’s about personalities. If you gel with a person from a whole different background, it’s going to work. It’s like marriage, sometimes it works. It’s a question of are we symbiotic? It becomes one music.
AC:. Even more so. In this rush of euphoria about liberating ideas- socially, politically, economically- integrative ideas of bringing all peoples from all directions- the MEV Sound Pool was emblematic of it, even suicidal, because we didn’t know when inviting an audience what the hell could happen- we set off a spark and let them play.
FR:. The Catholic Church is the primary example of this kind of thing. That’s the whole point of the Church. It’s apostolic and catholic, it’s for the whole world. It’s the only religion you belong to even if you don’t belong to it. You have no choice.
AC:. But the priests in that religion are covered in silver and gold and jewels and ermine and our people were not because there were no leaders, there was a theoretical democracy happening that was a completely other thing. I don’t buy your theory Frederic.
FR:. I’m saying that it’s a model for all such theories of bringing people together.
KB:. From my point of view, there’s two edges to this theme. And it’s one of the reasons why we did CMS. The first one was this idealistic idea that all music has some common denominators and that musical forms all over the world are just dialects of the same language. If a Texan talks to a New Yorker, they can still understand each other but they have a completely different sound and rhythm and feel for their language. The other aspect is the personality thing. You remember Aiyb Dieng, the talking drummer who came to CMS? He came and I played balaphon and vibraphone and, from the very first moment, it sounded like we had always played together. It was perfect. He came from Senegal from a completely different background. When we later went to Senegal together, Aiyb introduced me to his brother and said he really knew how to play the talking drum, but it didn’t happen with him. I couldn’t do the same thing with him. So it has a lot to do with personalities, things that happen between people, individuals. So you have this thing about the common base, which does not necessarily work, but it works when personalities come together. The same thing I had with Paolo Moura, Brazilian saxophone player, who miraculously showed up in the middle of a CMS session. He just walked in and said he wanted to be here for the rest of the summer. He stayed for the next three summers, he was there all the time. And when we played, I had the exact same experience of a direct connection. His rhythm was Brazilian, not completely different. So I agree with you and I don’t. Both of those things happen. This was the nice thing about CMS is that we could go through these experiences and find out about them.
FR:. I’m not saying that it’s impossible. All I’m saying that it has been demonstrated that it cannot last.
KB:. It can’t be organized. You can’t have a world music producer putting together world music records and that doesn’t work.
FR:. Numerous attempts have been made to create a genre and it doesn’t work. You have partial examples which are relatively successful like Barenboim’s East-West Orchestra and the Silk Road thing, kind of fashionable.
KB:. Those are producer oriented. It doesn’t really work.
AC:. It’s commercial.
FR:. On the other hand, it’s not without interest. Even that that is possible is already exceptional.
KB:. Even one of the very first ones worked, which was Menuhin and Shankar but it’s a personality thing again, people meet and something works. Other people can be put together by a producer and it won’t work. It showed me that the original theory that these are all dialects is true but still not everybody is going to go to bed with each other.
FR:. There’s another interesting example of fusion in history, which is baroque music because it’s created at a time when Europeans are traveling and exploring the world. So there is a bipolar fusion. The forms the Spaniards found in South America –dance forms-found their way into baroque dances. Bach’s suites are full of these things. The baroque style in Europe influenced music in South America. So you have Brazilian choro music, which is somewhat like New Orleans jazz but it really resembles Vivaldi. There are these examples and of course opera too, mixing up folk music. But in general these things are exceptions. Music tends not to come together, it tends to stay apart, like language. Languages do not fuse and neither does music. There are very few cases like pidgin where two languages actually come together. Yiddish is basically German. The grammar is German, it has words from other places but it’s a German dialect.
KB:. My argument is that different styles of music are not different languages. They have a common base and it can come together on a level of personalities, not on the level of somebody dictating who plays with who, that doesn’t work. Most musicians who came to CMS, students as well as teachers, all had a sense of expanding their horizons somewhat.
AC:. That was also the nature of those times. People were really opening up, not closing down.
KB:. We’re getting mail to this day from former students that this was influential for them in many ways, so that’s nice to hear.
FR:. The influence of this thing has extended through a very side area.
KB:. It’s still going on somehow. The interesting thing is that there’s a new generation that’s attracted by improvised music, despite the fact that there is no money to be made. There are thousands of musicians in New York, not hundreds. It’s unbelievable. I’m doing an improviser’s orchestra in New York, I thought I could do it for a few months and then it would dissipate. It’s the opposite, now I have 60 players who want to play. Each one who walks in has a better technique than the last. I’ve never played with less than 25 players. We meet for two hours, one is a workshop rehearsal and the second hour is a performance. I’ve done 42 performances without any written music. The results are really interesting. The secret of what I do is focusing on dynamics. They play the same sound over and over until it harmonizes through subtle dynamic changes. It takes weeks and weeks.
AC:. Are you talking about levels of volume or of listening?
KB:. Listening.
FR:. There was an article in Scientific American thirty years ago where they studied the first bassoon players of 15 different orchestras. They had them play the same music and measured how many degrees of dynamics and they found three.
KB:. I tell them the opposite, that they’ll never repeat a note dynamically, ever.
FR:. Do you remember La Monte Young’s X for Henry Flynt? The point of the piece is that you try to make the same exact sound 566 times. No matter how hard you try, it’s always different.
KB:. You don’t repeat any note ever in your life. Once you know that, all music is new.
AC:. If you’re playing alone, this becomes more and more evident.
KB:. A Wall Street Journal guy came to the orchestra and wrote about the luscious harmonies that he heard. And there wasn’t one written note. That’s amazing. After six months, people were really tuning into the sound.
AC:. I tell my students to choose silence over constant attempts to produce something. When in doubt, lay out.
KB:. It comes from CMS. The difference with this orchestra is that these kids have evolved to professionalism while we had students to work with who were not quite as proficient on their instruments. So the experience was a little harsher at CMS than I have with this group. Do you have some stories to tell about CMS?
FR:. I remember listening to Sunny Murray on the grass, talking about the Black Panthers and his adventures in Africa. And I remember thinking how unlikely this combination of people was. Under ordinary circumstances, these were people who would never talk to one another.
KB:. Or go to each other’s concerts. For example, Leroy Jenkins and Lee Konitz were together in some of the groups. Lee and Leroy Jenkins, who would never have meet otherwise, became the closest of friends after they came to Woodstock and they traveled to Europe with the Workshop Orchestra. With Lee, I made a personal effort because Lee is the first guy who ever played free jazz, with Lennie Tristano in the 40s. When I met Lee, I reminded him of that and said “let’s play something free. You’re the first one to ever do that so why not?” We did two records together and some are completely open. He calls me when he comes to New York now. But now he plays completely traditional. I had a concert with him in Munich where we played tunes and then took them out. The audience loved it and the paper wrote about it.
FR:. What about the future? We have talked about the past and present.
KB:. I started the orchestra in New York just to test the waters. We have a similar atmosphere now but these kids live in little cubicles for $2000 a month and never rehearse for more than two hours because it’s too expensive to rent a room. They play in six different bands. They never really get to play together.
FR:. So why don’t you take over a school in New Jersey somewhere and hire us?
IS:. That’s exactly what Don Cherry said before he went to Barcelona to die. He didn’t want to travel or tour anymore. This was so unique.
KB:. I think the time is right for it. The people are asking for it. The people are already there. We’re aiming for an ongoing place but it hasn’t quite evolved to that. The word is going out and we’re making connections. There’s been a conservative period and now these kids are looking for the next thing.
AC:. There seems to be a spark of life.
FR:. They want the real thing, not the conservatories. You’re one of the few people who can make that happen. You need a staff!
FR:. I remember some interesting concerts. Do you have a copy of the recording with John Cage and Sunny Murray? There was some interesting stuff on there. I gave John Cage a copy of The People United, which had just come out on Vanguard, and right in the middle of the discussion, suddenly John Cage held up this record, he was talking about politics, a live broadcast over National Public Radio, and he said that Rzewski wants a police state. He’s just given me this record, the People United will Never be Defeated, that’s the police. You don’t remember that? I was completely speechless. I couldn’t believe he would say something like that on live radio. I forget how it happened. That’s when I realized that John Cage was a real fighter, a street fighter. He would do anything to win, he never lost, he always won.
KB:. I remember John Cage at The Kitchen. First of all, when we first started CMS, Orrnette was a co-founder. He said to me at the time “you do the nonprofit, I do the profit.” He said that we need to have an advisory board with Cage, Fuller, DeKooning. I went to Cage and I spoke to him. Cage said, “I don’t like jazz but I like Ornette; so count me in.” He did several workshops at CMS, from the very beginning. We performed some of his pieces; he was there. He hated everything.
AC:. There was a little discussion last night provoked by Laura Kuhn, head of the Cage Fund, which is based here at Bard College. She was contesting whether Cage hated improvisation. This was true for most of his life. He had a turnaround. There was a period when he wrote what he considered improvisational pieces. What I’m asking you is, this must have coincided with his experience at CMS. When you come in contact with a certain cultural ambience, you say “look at these guys, they’re making music like I do. I’m pulling numbers out of a hat or off of a computer, but they’re doing it spontaneously.” Similarities exist. Even though, with improvised music, there’s an issue of the personalities involved and the willful expressionism of those personalities. Cage tried to eliminate that in his music. He spent his life trying to get rid of the ego in the music.
FR:. Give me a break. I’ve heard this so many times.
KB:. Cage wasn’t a player, he wasn’t really a performer.
FR:. He was a master performer. He entertained rich people all his life, he made them laugh, he did party tricks. He was an entertainer.
AC:. There’s this video on RAI where he’s playing on a bathtub and with an electric toaster, in 1966, he blew their minds, he became a major person. In Italy in particular he became a household word.
FR:. He won enough money to buy a VW bus. Sertso: Karl performed his 4:33 piece in Woodstock, where no note is played.
KB:. I had the original score. I turned the page, I did the whole thing. I used that performance to tell the audience afterwards about the practice of “listening to the sounds disappearing”, more of an active way to go to silence. I would play a note on the vibraphone and let the people listen to it disappearing. Which was more like what we did at CMS, that type of work.
AC:. Do you think that Cage came around to embrace mildly the idea of improvisation at that time?
KB:. He would never want to call it improvisation, ever. He would never be slightly associated with what other people called improvisation, which was mostly jazz players. He was really trying to stay totally away from it.
FR:. He tried to stay away from everything, he stayed away from politics. He never came out in any way on the subject of war, of Vietnam, he disappointed a lot of people.
KB:. I saw an interview where he said some really ridiculous stuff. People would say that lots of people died in World War II and he would say “exactly the right amount.”
AC:. It’s like what Stockhausen said about 9-11.
FR:. He said it in Hamburg, where the terrorists came from. He said the wrong thing in the wrong place…
AC:. …and the world press came down on him so badly. First the German press, then the world press. And he took it back, saying he was misunderstood.
FR:. That absolutely true. If you read the whole text, he was perfectly right, he was there for a festival and he was talking about his operas. He said his operas are very extravagant but they’re nothing compared to this, this is the biggest spectacle of all time. It made perfect sense.
AC:. One more thing, to finish with Cage. The thing with Sun Ra, they played together, individually and then together. I don’t know what Cage played.
KB:. Every time I talked to Cage in connection with CMS, it was always a lively conversation, he looked like he was interested in what we were doing, he wasn’t antagonistic. He never wanted to use the word improvisation for his own music.
FR:. Certain subjects, like sexuality, you could not talk about and that was one of them. Politics, sex, improvisation.
KB:. He came to a concert that Garret List organized at The Kitchen where we played. My improvisation is very talkative and Cage would come up to me at the end and say, “If I want to talk, I’d rather use language.” I said, “If I want to say something, I prefer to play” and that was the end of that conversation. At the very beginning, I talked to him and he joined up, he liked Ornette. Why, I don’t know. He probably liked him because Ornette was not accepted by the jazz community.
AC:. Another outsider.
IS:. It’s very hard not to like Ornette personally, he’s a sweetheart.
KB:. You and I met before CMS.
FR:. I think we met in Carla Bley’s office, on Broadway in the 50s.
KB:. We had a little back room in that office when we started the CMS thing.
FR:. That would have been 1971 or something like that.
KB:. Yes
AC:. Didn’t they move to Soho at some point?
KB:. New Music Distribution Service was in Soho. It started a year later. We learned from Carla Bley and Mike Mantler about grant writing, how to do a nonprofit organization. They gave us the idea to do it as a nonprofit. We got into a yearly cycle with NEA after that.
FR:. There were some creative people in the State Arts Council at that time. The man who started it came to Rome in 1962 to do a happening. He was famous at the time.
KB:. In the late 70s, Ornette’s cousin James Jordan was running it so we had a real direct line there. James would call me and tell me what to apply for. It was a nice relationship. Anyway, Gregory Reeve got us to play at WBAI and that’s how we got going. I have a photo from 73 that you’re on and Dave Holland. Did anything from CMS influence your music? You came several times.
AC:. It was part of an ecstatic time. It might have been 74 or 75. It was at the height of that feeling that an alternative world was being born but you were part of the process and being born with it, part of the cause and effect simultaneously. I conflate the memories. For me, since I didn’t have that much contact with it, for me it falls into this larger picture of a youth movement in action, the energy of that time was incredible. I did a collective vocal improvisation, using techniques that I was developing. I would take the instruments away and just use your body as a sounding board and a resonating instrument. I remember that everyone was ready to launch into incredible improvisation, some very heavy thing, and suddenly they become transformed into reconsidering how to make music without their instrument. That was my one strong memory. Carla Bley was in the group. I felt it was just putting roots in a wonderful scene, one of many that were blossoming all over at that time. This was very special because of its physical location and the people who were actively involved, it was memorable. That’s all I can comment on.
KB:. You two never came together. Frederic, we have a tape of a duo performance that we did, called “A piano and a half.” We had a grand piano and a smaller upright piano. Maybe we switched at one point. It’s a very interesting tape. You also worked with the student ensembles.
FR:. There were some nice performances, one piece called Seascape, the students had to made wind sounds. I felt honored to be received into this situation because people like Don Cherry were the aristocrats of the new music. I was just a dumb classical piano player who didn’t know anything about jazz. It was an honor to be taken seriously. I did not feel worthy.
KB:. You were well received in the concerts in Woodstock, people would write pages.
FR:. I always feel guilty when appearing in that kind of situation because I knew that I didn’t swing. I had been told that. I played a concert with Braxton in Rome in the 70s and that’s what the critic wrote.
KB:. I don’t know if Braxton swings. Your playing was always overpowering.
FR:. What’s amazing about the CMS thing is that it kept on going year after year.
KB:. As a year round thing, it went for twelve years. If Reagan hadn’t come into office, it would still be here now. It was on a roll, attracting people who supported it and then the support system disappeared.
AC:. I remember the striking similarity in Italy, with a sharper edge, the popular music schools.
KB:. Do you remember the recording we did in Rome on Horo Records?
AC:. I remember Teitelbaum insulting the producer, Aldo Sinesio, at a good restaurant he took us to. He called him a mafioso. Richard didn’t know that the guy is Sicilian. He was one of the major independent jazz promoters, free music promoters, in Italy.
KB:. The reason I played with you guys had to do with CMS. That’s how we met and how the music developed. There are some duets on there with Steve Lacy. There’s a couple of very interesting musical things going on on that record. It’s a double LP.
FR:. It was one of the few occasions where these two musical worlds came together. That is what is so unique about CMS.
KB:. That’s what we did.
AC:. Now it’s the big thing, the so-called crossover.
FR:. It doesn’t work. Gunther Schuller tried it in the 50s. It’s a theory, it’s an idea, bring these two worlds together and see what happens.
KB:. Why did we do it then? I kind of like these records we did. Why do you say it didn’t work? That’s a theory that it doesn’t work. Some of them work, some don’t. It’s not about styles, it’s about personalities. If you gel with a person from a whole different background, it’s going to work. It’s like marriage, sometimes it works. It’s a question of are we symbiotic? It becomes one music.
AC:. Even more so. In this rush of euphoria about liberating ideas- socially, politically, economically- integrative ideas of bringing all peoples from all directions- the MEV Sound Pool was emblematic of it, even suicidal, because we didn’t know when inviting an audience what the hell could happen- we set off a spark and let them play.
FR:. The Catholic Church is the primary example of this kind of thing. That’s the whole point of the Church. It’s apostolic and catholic, it’s for the whole world. It’s the only religion you belong to even if you don’t belong to it. You have no choice.
AC:. But the priests in that religion are covered in silver and gold and jewels and ermine and our people were not because there were no leaders, there was a theoretical democracy happening that was a completely other thing. I don’t buy your theory Frederic.
FR:. I’m saying that it’s a model for all such theories of bringing people together.
KB:. From my point of view, there’s two edges to this theme. And it’s one of the reasons why we did CMS. The first one was this idealistic idea that all music has some common denominators and that musical forms all over the world are just dialects of the same language. If a Texan talks to a New Yorker, they can still understand each other but they have a completely different sound and rhythm and feel for their language. The other aspect is the personality thing. You remember Aiyb Dieng, the talking drummer who came to CMS? He came and I played balaphon and vibraphone and, from the very first moment, it sounded like we had always played together. It was perfect. He came from Senegal from a completely different background. When we later went to Senegal together, Aiyb introduced me to his brother and said he really knew how to play the talking drum, but it didn’t happen with him. I couldn’t do the same thing with him. So it has a lot to do with personalities, things that happen between people, individuals. So you have this thing about the common base, which does not necessarily work, but it works when personalities come together. The same thing I had with Paolo Moura, Brazilian saxophone player, who miraculously showed up in the middle of a CMS session. He just walked in and said he wanted to be here for the rest of the summer. He stayed for the next three summers, he was there all the time. And when we played, I had the exact same experience of a direct connection. His rhythm was Brazilian, not completely different. So I agree with you and I don’t. Both of those things happen. This was the nice thing about CMS is that we could go through these experiences and find out about them.
FR:. I’m not saying that it’s impossible. All I’m saying that it has been demonstrated that it cannot last.
KB:. It can’t be organized. You can’t have a world music producer putting together world music records and that doesn’t work.
FR:. Numerous attempts have been made to create a genre and it doesn’t work. You have partial examples which are relatively successful like Barenboim’s East-West Orchestra and the Silk Road thing, kind of fashionable.
KB:. Those are producer oriented. It doesn’t really work.
AC:. It’s commercial.
FR:. On the other hand, it’s not without interest. Even that that is possible is already exceptional.
KB:. Even one of the very first ones worked, which was Menuhin and Shankar but it’s a personality thing again, people meet and something works. Other people can be put together by a producer and it won’t work. It showed me that the original theory that these are all dialects is true but still not everybody is going to go to bed with each other.
FR:. There’s another interesting example of fusion in history, which is baroque music because it’s created at a time when Europeans are traveling and exploring the world. So there is a bipolar fusion. The forms the Spaniards found in South America –dance forms-found their way into baroque dances. Bach’s suites are full of these things. The baroque style in Europe influenced music in South America. So you have Brazilian choro music, which is somewhat like New Orleans jazz but it really resembles Vivaldi. There are these examples and of course opera too, mixing up folk music. But in general these things are exceptions. Music tends not to come together, it tends to stay apart, like language. Languages do not fuse and neither does music. There are very few cases like pidgin where two languages actually come together. Yiddish is basically German. The grammar is German, it has words from other places but it’s a German dialect.
KB:. My argument is that different styles of music are not different languages. They have a common base and it can come together on a level of personalities, not on the level of somebody dictating who plays with who, that doesn’t work. Most musicians who came to CMS, students as well as teachers, all had a sense of expanding their horizons somewhat.
AC:. That was also the nature of those times. People were really opening up, not closing down.
KB:. We’re getting mail to this day from former students that this was influential for them in many ways, so that’s nice to hear.
FR:. The influence of this thing has extended through a very side area.
KB:. It’s still going on somehow. The interesting thing is that there’s a new generation that’s attracted by improvised music, despite the fact that there is no money to be made. There are thousands of musicians in New York, not hundreds. It’s unbelievable. I’m doing an improviser’s orchestra in New York, I thought I could do it for a few months and then it would dissipate. It’s the opposite, now I have 60 players who want to play. Each one who walks in has a better technique than the last. I’ve never played with less than 25 players. We meet for two hours, one is a workshop rehearsal and the second hour is a performance. I’ve done 42 performances without any written music. The results are really interesting. The secret of what I do is focusing on dynamics. They play the same sound over and over until it harmonizes through subtle dynamic changes. It takes weeks and weeks.
AC:. Are you talking about levels of volume or of listening?
KB:. Listening.
FR:. There was an article in Scientific American thirty years ago where they studied the first bassoon players of 15 different orchestras. They had them play the same music and measured how many degrees of dynamics and they found three.
KB:. I tell them the opposite, that they’ll never repeat a note dynamically, ever.
FR:. Do you remember La Monte Young’s X for Henry Flynt? The point of the piece is that you try to make the same exact sound 566 times. No matter how hard you try, it’s always different.
KB:. You don’t repeat any note ever in your life. Once you know that, all music is new.
AC:. If you’re playing alone, this becomes more and more evident.
KB:. A Wall Street Journal guy came to the orchestra and wrote about the luscious harmonies that he heard. And there wasn’t one written note. That’s amazing. After six months, people were really tuning into the sound.
AC:. I tell my students to choose silence over constant attempts to produce something. When in doubt, lay out.
KB:. It comes from CMS. The difference with this orchestra is that these kids have evolved to professionalism while we had students to work with who were not quite as proficient on their instruments. So the experience was a little harsher at CMS than I have with this group. Do you have some stories to tell about CMS?
FR:. I remember listening to Sunny Murray on the grass, talking about the Black Panthers and his adventures in Africa. And I remember thinking how unlikely this combination of people was. Under ordinary circumstances, these were people who would never talk to one another.
KB:. Or go to each other’s concerts. For example, Leroy Jenkins and Lee Konitz were together in some of the groups. Lee and Leroy Jenkins, who would never have meet otherwise, became the closest of friends after they came to Woodstock and they traveled to Europe with the Workshop Orchestra. With Lee, I made a personal effort because Lee is the first guy who ever played free jazz, with Lennie Tristano in the 40s. When I met Lee, I reminded him of that and said “let’s play something free. You’re the first one to ever do that so why not?” We did two records together and some are completely open. He calls me when he comes to New York now. But now he plays completely traditional. I had a concert with him in Munich where we played tunes and then took them out. The audience loved it and the paper wrote about it.
FR:. What about the future? We have talked about the past and present.
KB:. I started the orchestra in New York just to test the waters. We have a similar atmosphere now but these kids live in little cubicles for $2000 a month and never rehearse for more than two hours because it’s too expensive to rent a room. They play in six different bands. They never really get to play together.
FR:. So why don’t you take over a school in New Jersey somewhere and hire us?
IS:. That’s exactly what Don Cherry said before he went to Barcelona to die. He didn’t want to travel or tour anymore. This was so unique.
KB:. I think the time is right for it. The people are asking for it. The people are already there. We’re aiming for an ongoing place but it hasn’t quite evolved to that. The word is going out and we’re making connections. There’s been a conservative period and now these kids are looking for the next thing.
AC:. There seems to be a spark of life.
FR:. They want the real thing, not the conservatories. You’re one of the few people who can make that happen. You need a staff!
Olu Dara
(Conducted March 2, 2013)
“I was brought in as a guest teacher at CMS to work with other musicians, some I knew and some were new to me. I was at CMS two or three times. There was a great atmosphere there. There were very interesting international students to work with, but also American musicians like myself. We had a nice mix of personalities.
It was a very nice place to be. Karl had it in an attractive place, with good food. The classes were a great experience. The students were exciting to be with and some were excellent, some above average.
What was really great at CMS was having a chance to work on my teaching technique, to get into songs that were made up on the spot. I think I was more musical then than at any other time in my life. Playing music off of the top of my head was a good stretch for me and my music.
I remember some of the CMS concerts I was part of. I brought along a dancer named Christine Jones for some of the concerts and also a singer, which was nice.
My memory is that we did completely different stuff at each performance. I was younger than I am now and I look back on CMS as a great experience. CMS influenced me because, after being there, I used a lot of techniques we were doing there, the creative modes we used and the idea of playing off of the top of your head. It freed me more and I’ve kept that spirit with me.
I have stayed in touch with musicians from CMS, I’ll see them play in their own bands, run into them on planes. We all have happy memories of being there.”
“I was brought in as a guest teacher at CMS to work with other musicians, some I knew and some were new to me. I was at CMS two or three times. There was a great atmosphere there. There were very interesting international students to work with, but also American musicians like myself. We had a nice mix of personalities.
It was a very nice place to be. Karl had it in an attractive place, with good food. The classes were a great experience. The students were exciting to be with and some were excellent, some above average.
What was really great at CMS was having a chance to work on my teaching technique, to get into songs that were made up on the spot. I think I was more musical then than at any other time in my life. Playing music off of the top of my head was a good stretch for me and my music.
I remember some of the CMS concerts I was part of. I brought along a dancer named Christine Jones for some of the concerts and also a singer, which was nice.
My memory is that we did completely different stuff at each performance. I was younger than I am now and I look back on CMS as a great experience. CMS influenced me because, after being there, I used a lot of techniques we were doing there, the creative modes we used and the idea of playing off of the top of your head. It freed me more and I’ve kept that spirit with me.
I have stayed in touch with musicians from CMS, I’ll see them play in their own bands, run into them on planes. We all have happy memories of being there.”
James Emery
“Leroy Jenkins got me into the scene and I had moved to New York to play with him. I moved to Brooklyn in 1973 and in the fall of 1974, I was playing with Kalaparusha, who I met through Leroy. We had a trio with Warren Smith and did a fair number of gigs. We played in a café in Woodstock and I met Karl and other players involved with CMS there. Karl invited me to work with the guitar students. I started teaching at CMS and played with some great people like Ed Blackwell, Dave Holland and David Izenzon.There were many ideas and philosophies circulating at CMS that were created by the Guiding Artists who visited. What CMS provided was a broader range of expression and new opportunities for learning. You wouldn’t go there just to study but also to perform and learn from other musicians who were performing new music. You would spend a week there instead of having a quick interaction. And CMS wasn’t just about playing, it was a complete experience of exploring new ideas.
The workshops I attended were at Oehler’s Mountain Lodge near Woodstock in West Hurley, NY. It had a large main building with a great room for the concerts and also cabins where the musicians stayed. There was room to eat and play and hang out. I worked with the guitar students and also wrote two pieces for large ensembles. We would work on it during the week and perform it on the weekends. It was my first writing for a large group and my first time conducting.
The concert with Leroy went really well, it was enthusiastically received. I wrote most of the music, which was high-energy music typical of those times. It was new in the sense that musicians from Chicago like Leroy and (Anthony) Braxton and Muhal (Richard Abrams) were playing in textures rather than chord changes. So the music had a new focal point that opened things up. Worlds of expression opened up and there was room to create new things.
Another thing that happened for me compositionally at CMS was to move away from the standard format of starting and ending with the same theme. We would start in one place and end up in another place that was completely different. Audiences like to predict where the music is going but it is also rewarding to be surprised and that opened up compositional possibilities.
I’ve maintained deep connections to players I met at CMS. John Lindberg was a 15 year-old bass player from Michigan when I met him at CMS in 1975. We formed the String Trio of New York in 1977 and we are still together. Another CMS connection was Rob Schwimmer, a versatile pianist who also plays the Theremin. He and I just played with Thurman Barker. I am still on good terms with other guiding artists I met at CMS.
CMS is one of several lasting influences on my music. It provided openness and a sense of discovery, which was true of only a few other places like the loft scene. That spirit is sorely missed today. At CMS you were encouraged to find your individual voice rather than a generic style. The conservatism that started in the music in the 80s put a damper on that spirit.”
The workshops I attended were at Oehler’s Mountain Lodge near Woodstock in West Hurley, NY. It had a large main building with a great room for the concerts and also cabins where the musicians stayed. There was room to eat and play and hang out. I worked with the guitar students and also wrote two pieces for large ensembles. We would work on it during the week and perform it on the weekends. It was my first writing for a large group and my first time conducting.
The concert with Leroy went really well, it was enthusiastically received. I wrote most of the music, which was high-energy music typical of those times. It was new in the sense that musicians from Chicago like Leroy and (Anthony) Braxton and Muhal (Richard Abrams) were playing in textures rather than chord changes. So the music had a new focal point that opened things up. Worlds of expression opened up and there was room to create new things.
Another thing that happened for me compositionally at CMS was to move away from the standard format of starting and ending with the same theme. We would start in one place and end up in another place that was completely different. Audiences like to predict where the music is going but it is also rewarding to be surprised and that opened up compositional possibilities.
I’ve maintained deep connections to players I met at CMS. John Lindberg was a 15 year-old bass player from Michigan when I met him at CMS in 1975. We formed the String Trio of New York in 1977 and we are still together. Another CMS connection was Rob Schwimmer, a versatile pianist who also plays the Theremin. He and I just played with Thurman Barker. I am still on good terms with other guiding artists I met at CMS.
CMS is one of several lasting influences on my music. It provided openness and a sense of discovery, which was true of only a few other places like the loft scene. That spirit is sorely missed today. At CMS you were encouraged to find your individual voice rather than a generic style. The conservatism that started in the music in the 80s put a damper on that spirit.”
Steve Gorn
Conducted by Marc Epstein on April 13th, 20151. When did you first participate in CMS and how did that come about?
I started teaching/performing at CMS around 1979 — I would come up from NYC to give workshops of Indian classical music.
2. How would you describe the philosophy and atmosphere of CMS?
CMS resonated with my involvement with “world music.” Karl Berger’s integration of Buddhism, world rhythmic sensibility and oral tradition had a significant effect on everyone. It brought out musicality in the best sense of the word.
3. Were there memorable performances that you participated in at CMS?
During the summers of 1979/80/81 (I think these were the years) I joined an amazing group of “world musicians”… Ismet [Siral], Haci [Tekbilek], Trilok [Gurtu], Nana [Vasconcelos], Don [Cherry], Collin Walcott… music was always fresh — exploring the intersections of different cultural styles, particularly with Ismet and Haci — the opportunity to mix my Indian aesthetic with their Turkish style.
This was true for Trilok as well — and for Nana, Karl, all of us — to enter that Turkish music world and find our own voice. The short-lived group Five Feelings was fresh with these discoveries
4. Can you describe your connection to other musicians you met while at CMS? Have you maintained those connections?
I’ve played in various ensembles with Karl, Ingrid, John Lindberg, Jack DeJonette
5. Has CMS had some lasting influence on your later musical life? Did it inspire you in some new ways?
The experience described in question 2, has been the bedrock of my music and my attitude toward music for the past 35 years. The practice of Indian classical music and contemporary ensemble improvisation and composition have been at the core of my work. CMS played a vital role in my finding my own authentic musical voice.
I started teaching/performing at CMS around 1979 — I would come up from NYC to give workshops of Indian classical music.
2. How would you describe the philosophy and atmosphere of CMS?
CMS resonated with my involvement with “world music.” Karl Berger’s integration of Buddhism, world rhythmic sensibility and oral tradition had a significant effect on everyone. It brought out musicality in the best sense of the word.
3. Were there memorable performances that you participated in at CMS?
During the summers of 1979/80/81 (I think these were the years) I joined an amazing group of “world musicians”… Ismet [Siral], Haci [Tekbilek], Trilok [Gurtu], Nana [Vasconcelos], Don [Cherry], Collin Walcott… music was always fresh — exploring the intersections of different cultural styles, particularly with Ismet and Haci — the opportunity to mix my Indian aesthetic with their Turkish style.
This was true for Trilok as well — and for Nana, Karl, all of us — to enter that Turkish music world and find our own voice. The short-lived group Five Feelings was fresh with these discoveries
4. Can you describe your connection to other musicians you met while at CMS? Have you maintained those connections?
I’ve played in various ensembles with Karl, Ingrid, John Lindberg, Jack DeJonette
5. Has CMS had some lasting influence on your later musical life? Did it inspire you in some new ways?
The experience described in question 2, has been the bedrock of my music and my attitude toward music for the past 35 years. The practice of Indian classical music and contemporary ensemble improvisation and composition have been at the core of my work. CMS played a vital role in my finding my own authentic musical voice.
David Izenzon, as told by John Lindberg
David Izenzon (May 17, 1932 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – October 8, 1979, New York City)
David Izenzon began playing double bass at age twenty-four. He played locally in his hometown of Pittsburgh before moving to New York City in 1961. There he played with Paul Bley, Archie Shepp, Sonny Rollins, and Bill Dixon, but he is best known for his association with Ornette Coleman, begun in October 1961. He played in Ornette’s famed 1962 Town Hall concert and played with him regularly from 1965 to 1968, often in a trio format with Charles Moffett. During this time David also recorded with Harold McNair and Yoko Ono. He taught music history at Bronx Community College from 1968 to 1971 and played with Perry Robinson and Paul Motian, but reduced his time in music in 1972 when his son became ill. In 1973 he received a Ph.D. in psychotherapy from Northwestern University. In 1975 he composed a jazz opera entitled How Music Can Save the World, dedicated to those who helped his son recover. From 1977 he worked again with Ornette and Motian, up until his death in 1979.
Karl Berger: I had the great fortune to play with David in various formations over several years. Ornette Coleman introduced us around 1968 and when CMS started in 1972, David was among the first to regularly offer workshops. David’s trio compositions on this CD were recorded at Carla Bley’s Grog Kill Studio in Woodstock. This trio appeared at various concerts in New York and at CMS, sometimes with the addition of J.C. Moses or Ed Blackwell on drums.
Bassist John Lindberg, who inherited David’s collection of tapes and manuscripts, plans to digitize and archive more of David’s music, with the help of Ben Young of radio station WKCR in New York. So we hope to see more of David’s music released in the future. David was not only a one-of-a-kind player, improviser and composer, but he was also a one-of-a-kind person, a thinker and activist.
Tragic circumstances called David and his immediate family away at an early age. John Lindberg offered to give an account of his experiences and observations with him. John was one of the first participants at CMS and is now an internationally active performer/composer.
Following is a discussion between Karl Berger and John Lindberg about David Izenson:
Karl Berger: From all the people at CMS you are probably the one who was closest to David Izenzon.
John Lindberg: I had been at the CMS Woodstock campus in 1974-75, and at the CMS program at Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado, in the summer of ’76. I was asking everyone how I should prepare to make it on the NY scene. Ed Blackwell said, “What you have to do is study with David Izenzon.” I had already taken lessons with Dave Holland, but Blackwell was very adamant that Izenzon was the only guy to study with. He offered to call David, and I think he did, and that got my confidence up.
I went directly from Naropa to the City, arrived there with a bunch of phone numbers and a hundred dollars. Interestingly, I found a place to live on East 3rd Street, one block from where Izenzon lived, in the LaMama Annex Theatre. When I called David, he wasn’t really excited about the idea of giving lessons. He was into his psychology practice. But I was insistent that I needed to take these lessons.
The first thing he said was, “when you come to the lesson don’t bring your bass.” And every time I went there he made me play a different bass. His comment was, “You’ll find out one day that you will need to be able to pull your sound out of any bass anybody gives you, anywhere.” That was quite prophetic. Here we are thirty years later and no bass player travels with a bass anymore. This was definitely the most practical teaching I ever received from him.
David was a very fundamental teacher. I wanted to learn about all of the virtuosity he used with Ornette. He didn’t want to show me any of that. He wanted me to play only long tones on an open string, each lesson on a different bass. I was getting kind of frustrated. The he wanted me to play a bass line on a jazz standard and sing the melody. I really wasn’t interested in that. But he insisted. And this went on for about a month.
Then he said, “If you’re serious about this, you should quit hanging around these free-jazz guys on the Lower East Side. I can write a recommendation and get you into the Manhattan School of Music” (where he went). We knocked heads over that: he was really serious about it, and I was really serious about not being interested in an academic environment.
He offered therapy sessions to see whether we could do more lessons. He led these group therapy sessions. I was actually not interested but went a couple of times. I kind of broke off at that point. Months went by, and one day he showed up. I was still living up a block from him, at Bob Shaw’s in the LaMama building. He said, “I have to go away for a couple of weeks with my family. Would you stay in and watch my house?” I agreed. From that point on everything changed. Our relationship moved into a very genuine friendship. I got married right around then and my wife and I got very involved with his family. I was nineteen.
We went on a regular basis to do patterning for David’s son Salomon, who was born brain-damaged. All the motor movements had to be 24 hours a day. He needed teams of people. So we volunteered. We became really good friends and neighbors. We didn’t even talk about music. He saw that I stuck to my guns, started to go play in Europe, doing records with the Human Arts Ensemble, Frank Lowe, and Marion Brown. Being adamant about my own way was starting to work out.
In 1979 he passed away. He was only 47, I was 20. His archive of music, of course, stayed with his wife Perry. She said some time later, “I know there isn’t anyone else David would have wanted to have all these things more than you. So if you are willing to take them…” It was mainly musical stuff: 200 reel-to-reel tapes, boxes of scores, films, videos, letters, notebooks, a personal artistic archive. I have been lugging that around ever since, almost 30 years now. A fraction has been catalogued and identified. It’s all preserved. Ben Young from WKCR has worked with me on digitizing and cataloguing this material.
Within a few years Perry died, and then Salomon died. This all happened in a 5 to 6 year span.
David had such a different feel from any of the bass players. Using the bow as part of expression right from the beginning was very important to me, and there was just nobody else doing anything on that level with the bow, sonically and virtuously in jazz and improvised music. That’s why I wanted to study with him.
I was still taking lessons with Dave Holland too, although it was more like we were playing together. And I remember when he suggested we would play a piece together both using the bow, I said, “No, no. I am studying the bow with David Izenzon. I am coming to you to study pizzicato.” He didn’t like that. That was an odd moment. They had completely different viewpoints.
That is what is so great about creative music. You can be equally profound coming from completely different backgrounds or abilities or viewpoints, conceptually and technically.
KB: That would have been David Izenzon’s observation too. He had a universal approach to the music in a lot of ways.
JL: Absolutely, because he was such a virtuoso, and came from the classical world, some people might have thought he was a snob, looking down at people who weren’t classically trained, like Wilbur Ware for example. But Wilbur was one of his favorite bass players. The he got together his “Bass Revolution” group, which had 8 or 10 players in it, and this was the entire gamut of approaches: from Glenn Moor to Jimmy Garrison, Wilbur Ware, Peter Warren, and classical players like Jamie Font. He loved what everybody did on the bass. He could learn from and connect with all kinds of players. He was not narrow-minded at all, just the opposite.
David came to New York with the specific intention of playing with either John Coltrane or Ornette Coleman. And he just called them up and said “I am coming now.”
KB: Ornette told me that David would knock at his door every day until he got to play with him.
JL: He tried the same with Coltrane and had one session with him. He said to me, if connecting with Coltrane or Ornette hadn’t happened he would have gone back to playing with the Pittsburgh Symphony, where he came from.
Talk about Persistence: While David Izenzon was in New York he played with the American Symphony Orchestra under Kazuyoshi Akiyama. There is a letter from him to Mr. Akiyama that goes something like this, “Dear Maestro, I am writing to you as a member of your orchestra. You mentioned that if any of the members had an idea for repertoire to let you know. I have written a symphony and this is my recommendation: I will deliver the score upon your command. Should you decide not to play it, I will immediately resign from the orchestra.” It was not accepted and he resigned.
I found another interesting letter written from Ornette to David, when Ornette decided to bring Charlie Haden back, wanting to have two basses in the group. Ornette let David know that this was his intention for the upcoming tour. David wrote back, “Forget it I am not going to play with another bass player in the group.” Ornette’s return letter is really loving. He says he just hears his music with two basses. He hopes that David will still join him. In that instance David gave in.
KB: I saw that group at the Village Gate. Charlie and David played on opposite sides of the stage, not looking at each other ever. It was obvious that neither of them liked the situation.
Thanks, John, for this lively commentary about David Izenzon.”
David Izenzon began playing double bass at age twenty-four. He played locally in his hometown of Pittsburgh before moving to New York City in 1961. There he played with Paul Bley, Archie Shepp, Sonny Rollins, and Bill Dixon, but he is best known for his association with Ornette Coleman, begun in October 1961. He played in Ornette’s famed 1962 Town Hall concert and played with him regularly from 1965 to 1968, often in a trio format with Charles Moffett. During this time David also recorded with Harold McNair and Yoko Ono. He taught music history at Bronx Community College from 1968 to 1971 and played with Perry Robinson and Paul Motian, but reduced his time in music in 1972 when his son became ill. In 1973 he received a Ph.D. in psychotherapy from Northwestern University. In 1975 he composed a jazz opera entitled How Music Can Save the World, dedicated to those who helped his son recover. From 1977 he worked again with Ornette and Motian, up until his death in 1979.
Karl Berger: I had the great fortune to play with David in various formations over several years. Ornette Coleman introduced us around 1968 and when CMS started in 1972, David was among the first to regularly offer workshops. David’s trio compositions on this CD were recorded at Carla Bley’s Grog Kill Studio in Woodstock. This trio appeared at various concerts in New York and at CMS, sometimes with the addition of J.C. Moses or Ed Blackwell on drums.
Bassist John Lindberg, who inherited David’s collection of tapes and manuscripts, plans to digitize and archive more of David’s music, with the help of Ben Young of radio station WKCR in New York. So we hope to see more of David’s music released in the future. David was not only a one-of-a-kind player, improviser and composer, but he was also a one-of-a-kind person, a thinker and activist.
Tragic circumstances called David and his immediate family away at an early age. John Lindberg offered to give an account of his experiences and observations with him. John was one of the first participants at CMS and is now an internationally active performer/composer.
Following is a discussion between Karl Berger and John Lindberg about David Izenson:
Karl Berger: From all the people at CMS you are probably the one who was closest to David Izenzon.
John Lindberg: I had been at the CMS Woodstock campus in 1974-75, and at the CMS program at Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado, in the summer of ’76. I was asking everyone how I should prepare to make it on the NY scene. Ed Blackwell said, “What you have to do is study with David Izenzon.” I had already taken lessons with Dave Holland, but Blackwell was very adamant that Izenzon was the only guy to study with. He offered to call David, and I think he did, and that got my confidence up.
I went directly from Naropa to the City, arrived there with a bunch of phone numbers and a hundred dollars. Interestingly, I found a place to live on East 3rd Street, one block from where Izenzon lived, in the LaMama Annex Theatre. When I called David, he wasn’t really excited about the idea of giving lessons. He was into his psychology practice. But I was insistent that I needed to take these lessons.
The first thing he said was, “when you come to the lesson don’t bring your bass.” And every time I went there he made me play a different bass. His comment was, “You’ll find out one day that you will need to be able to pull your sound out of any bass anybody gives you, anywhere.” That was quite prophetic. Here we are thirty years later and no bass player travels with a bass anymore. This was definitely the most practical teaching I ever received from him.
David was a very fundamental teacher. I wanted to learn about all of the virtuosity he used with Ornette. He didn’t want to show me any of that. He wanted me to play only long tones on an open string, each lesson on a different bass. I was getting kind of frustrated. The he wanted me to play a bass line on a jazz standard and sing the melody. I really wasn’t interested in that. But he insisted. And this went on for about a month.
Then he said, “If you’re serious about this, you should quit hanging around these free-jazz guys on the Lower East Side. I can write a recommendation and get you into the Manhattan School of Music” (where he went). We knocked heads over that: he was really serious about it, and I was really serious about not being interested in an academic environment.
He offered therapy sessions to see whether we could do more lessons. He led these group therapy sessions. I was actually not interested but went a couple of times. I kind of broke off at that point. Months went by, and one day he showed up. I was still living up a block from him, at Bob Shaw’s in the LaMama building. He said, “I have to go away for a couple of weeks with my family. Would you stay in and watch my house?” I agreed. From that point on everything changed. Our relationship moved into a very genuine friendship. I got married right around then and my wife and I got very involved with his family. I was nineteen.
We went on a regular basis to do patterning for David’s son Salomon, who was born brain-damaged. All the motor movements had to be 24 hours a day. He needed teams of people. So we volunteered. We became really good friends and neighbors. We didn’t even talk about music. He saw that I stuck to my guns, started to go play in Europe, doing records with the Human Arts Ensemble, Frank Lowe, and Marion Brown. Being adamant about my own way was starting to work out.
In 1979 he passed away. He was only 47, I was 20. His archive of music, of course, stayed with his wife Perry. She said some time later, “I know there isn’t anyone else David would have wanted to have all these things more than you. So if you are willing to take them…” It was mainly musical stuff: 200 reel-to-reel tapes, boxes of scores, films, videos, letters, notebooks, a personal artistic archive. I have been lugging that around ever since, almost 30 years now. A fraction has been catalogued and identified. It’s all preserved. Ben Young from WKCR has worked with me on digitizing and cataloguing this material.
Within a few years Perry died, and then Salomon died. This all happened in a 5 to 6 year span.
David had such a different feel from any of the bass players. Using the bow as part of expression right from the beginning was very important to me, and there was just nobody else doing anything on that level with the bow, sonically and virtuously in jazz and improvised music. That’s why I wanted to study with him.
I was still taking lessons with Dave Holland too, although it was more like we were playing together. And I remember when he suggested we would play a piece together both using the bow, I said, “No, no. I am studying the bow with David Izenzon. I am coming to you to study pizzicato.” He didn’t like that. That was an odd moment. They had completely different viewpoints.
That is what is so great about creative music. You can be equally profound coming from completely different backgrounds or abilities or viewpoints, conceptually and technically.
KB: That would have been David Izenzon’s observation too. He had a universal approach to the music in a lot of ways.
JL: Absolutely, because he was such a virtuoso, and came from the classical world, some people might have thought he was a snob, looking down at people who weren’t classically trained, like Wilbur Ware for example. But Wilbur was one of his favorite bass players. The he got together his “Bass Revolution” group, which had 8 or 10 players in it, and this was the entire gamut of approaches: from Glenn Moor to Jimmy Garrison, Wilbur Ware, Peter Warren, and classical players like Jamie Font. He loved what everybody did on the bass. He could learn from and connect with all kinds of players. He was not narrow-minded at all, just the opposite.
David came to New York with the specific intention of playing with either John Coltrane or Ornette Coleman. And he just called them up and said “I am coming now.”
KB: Ornette told me that David would knock at his door every day until he got to play with him.
JL: He tried the same with Coltrane and had one session with him. He said to me, if connecting with Coltrane or Ornette hadn’t happened he would have gone back to playing with the Pittsburgh Symphony, where he came from.
Talk about Persistence: While David Izenzon was in New York he played with the American Symphony Orchestra under Kazuyoshi Akiyama. There is a letter from him to Mr. Akiyama that goes something like this, “Dear Maestro, I am writing to you as a member of your orchestra. You mentioned that if any of the members had an idea for repertoire to let you know. I have written a symphony and this is my recommendation: I will deliver the score upon your command. Should you decide not to play it, I will immediately resign from the orchestra.” It was not accepted and he resigned.
I found another interesting letter written from Ornette to David, when Ornette decided to bring Charlie Haden back, wanting to have two basses in the group. Ornette let David know that this was his intention for the upcoming tour. David wrote back, “Forget it I am not going to play with another bass player in the group.” Ornette’s return letter is really loving. He says he just hears his music with two basses. He hopes that David will still join him. In that instance David gave in.
KB: I saw that group at the Village Gate. Charlie and David played on opposite sides of the stage, not looking at each other ever. It was obvious that neither of them liked the situation.
Thanks, John, for this lively commentary about David Izenzon.”
Cliff Korman
Conducted by Marc Epstein on April 21, 2015
1. When did you first participate in CMS and how did that come about?
I participated in the World Music Seminar of 1981. It was recommended by a drummer with whom I worked in a house band in New York City. He was based in the Woodstock area, and one day on our gig enthusiastically mentioned it to me, along with something like “I think you’d love this, you should do it…”
2. How would you describe the philosophy and atmosphere of CMS?
The philosophy…that the practice of music, whether solitary or in a group, is internal, but that a nurturing external environment — which prioritizes creativity, attention to sound and rhythm, process and performance — is essential. That includes the existence of public spaces including the meal area (here I remember the good food and nice vibe of eating together), Studio A, where there was so frequently great music happening until late at night, and the grounds. I think the philosophy is reflected both in the model that uses master teachers and visiting artists to transmit knowledge and experience, and in the formation of a community that is dedicated to music as life-practice. As well, there was a wonderful and delicate balance struck between individual discovery and group work; at the same time that CMS provided a schedule and structured day, everyone was free to find their own process and rhythm of gaining and applying knowledge.
3. Were there memorable performances that you participated in at CMS?
We had at least one student performance, I remember rehearsing and presenting a couple of my tunes. Paulo Moura went through some Brazilian material with us, I imagine we played. More memorable are the ones I heard…Abdullah Ibrahim solo piano, Colin Walcott, Karl [Berger] and Ingrid [Sertso], Marilyn Crispell. There was so much music happening, I may be confusing ‘performances’ with jam sessions or practice sessions.
4. Can you describe your connection to other musicians you met while at CMS? Have you maintained those connections?
Everyone of course arrived with their own set of baggage and point of view, but I think we were all there to grow. I think that attitude already sets the conditions for camaraderie and interest in the other. Of course, some connections become stronger than others, by nature, inclinations, and time spent together. Saxophonist Friedemann Graef and I hit it off really well, and have remained in touch over the years. That included a number of visits in NY and Berlin. Saxophonist Michael Sievert as well became a friend. He was involved with projects that included approaches from Turkish music traditions, which was totally new for me. We recorded together some time after the session, and visited each other as well. Unfortunately I’ve lost touch with him. And of course, meeting Paulo Moura, with whom I felt an immediate empathy. I consider that over the years our relationship developed in successive phases from that of master-apprentice, in which Paulo gave me a lot of space to try things out, to that of musical colleagues, one in which I was able to contribute some of my knowledge and experience that I gained over the years of study and practice in NYC. And then, most wonderfully, friends and collaborators.
5. Do you have some favorite anecdotes about being at CMS?
I have strong memories of some favorite moments, they’ve stayed with me for 34 years. Nana Vasconcelos, his voice, his berimbau, and how he managed to get an Oberheim drum machine to swing (definitely way beyond the programming capacity, I thought at the time…); sitting in with Trilok Gurtu playing “On Green Dolphin Street” in 7/4; he was definitely not using any subdivision I was familiar with…I thought I was relatively safe with that tune, and of course had my head blown; Abdullah Ibrahim walking the grounds playing soprano sax, that was really nice, since I was already so taken with his piano playing; bassist Will Woodard, who also had some administrative role in the the workshop, pulling me aside sometime before the two weeks I had signed up for were coming to an end (that’s the time I figured I could manage to stay away from the city…), asking me in a disbelieving tone something like “There’s room to stay….you’re not really leaving, right?” He was right. I may have needed that nudge, and I remain grateful for it; the next three weeks were transformative.
6. Has CMS had some lasting influence on your later musical life? Did it inspire you in some new ways?
Without question my experience put me in touch with music I was not at that point aware of, expansive and inspiring approaches to improvisation, composition, and performance practice, and an attention to listening as meditation that I have worked with since then. Karl’s exercise in “listening to sound disappearing” is a big part of that. Words don’t really do the experience justice, they sound overstated and clichéd. But it somehow inverts the practice of music making from one of trying to make events occur to one of quieting the mind and allowing them, and the actions required to initiate them, to appear and disappear.
1. When did you first participate in CMS and how did that come about?
I participated in the World Music Seminar of 1981. It was recommended by a drummer with whom I worked in a house band in New York City. He was based in the Woodstock area, and one day on our gig enthusiastically mentioned it to me, along with something like “I think you’d love this, you should do it…”
2. How would you describe the philosophy and atmosphere of CMS?
The philosophy…that the practice of music, whether solitary or in a group, is internal, but that a nurturing external environment — which prioritizes creativity, attention to sound and rhythm, process and performance — is essential. That includes the existence of public spaces including the meal area (here I remember the good food and nice vibe of eating together), Studio A, where there was so frequently great music happening until late at night, and the grounds. I think the philosophy is reflected both in the model that uses master teachers and visiting artists to transmit knowledge and experience, and in the formation of a community that is dedicated to music as life-practice. As well, there was a wonderful and delicate balance struck between individual discovery and group work; at the same time that CMS provided a schedule and structured day, everyone was free to find their own process and rhythm of gaining and applying knowledge.
3. Were there memorable performances that you participated in at CMS?
We had at least one student performance, I remember rehearsing and presenting a couple of my tunes. Paulo Moura went through some Brazilian material with us, I imagine we played. More memorable are the ones I heard…Abdullah Ibrahim solo piano, Colin Walcott, Karl [Berger] and Ingrid [Sertso], Marilyn Crispell. There was so much music happening, I may be confusing ‘performances’ with jam sessions or practice sessions.
4. Can you describe your connection to other musicians you met while at CMS? Have you maintained those connections?
Everyone of course arrived with their own set of baggage and point of view, but I think we were all there to grow. I think that attitude already sets the conditions for camaraderie and interest in the other. Of course, some connections become stronger than others, by nature, inclinations, and time spent together. Saxophonist Friedemann Graef and I hit it off really well, and have remained in touch over the years. That included a number of visits in NY and Berlin. Saxophonist Michael Sievert as well became a friend. He was involved with projects that included approaches from Turkish music traditions, which was totally new for me. We recorded together some time after the session, and visited each other as well. Unfortunately I’ve lost touch with him. And of course, meeting Paulo Moura, with whom I felt an immediate empathy. I consider that over the years our relationship developed in successive phases from that of master-apprentice, in which Paulo gave me a lot of space to try things out, to that of musical colleagues, one in which I was able to contribute some of my knowledge and experience that I gained over the years of study and practice in NYC. And then, most wonderfully, friends and collaborators.
5. Do you have some favorite anecdotes about being at CMS?
I have strong memories of some favorite moments, they’ve stayed with me for 34 years. Nana Vasconcelos, his voice, his berimbau, and how he managed to get an Oberheim drum machine to swing (definitely way beyond the programming capacity, I thought at the time…); sitting in with Trilok Gurtu playing “On Green Dolphin Street” in 7/4; he was definitely not using any subdivision I was familiar with…I thought I was relatively safe with that tune, and of course had my head blown; Abdullah Ibrahim walking the grounds playing soprano sax, that was really nice, since I was already so taken with his piano playing; bassist Will Woodard, who also had some administrative role in the the workshop, pulling me aside sometime before the two weeks I had signed up for were coming to an end (that’s the time I figured I could manage to stay away from the city…), asking me in a disbelieving tone something like “There’s room to stay….you’re not really leaving, right?” He was right. I may have needed that nudge, and I remain grateful for it; the next three weeks were transformative.
6. Has CMS had some lasting influence on your later musical life? Did it inspire you in some new ways?
Without question my experience put me in touch with music I was not at that point aware of, expansive and inspiring approaches to improvisation, composition, and performance practice, and an attention to listening as meditation that I have worked with since then. Karl’s exercise in “listening to sound disappearing” is a big part of that. Words don’t really do the experience justice, they sound overstated and clichéd. But it somehow inverts the practice of music making from one of trying to make events occur to one of quieting the mind and allowing them, and the actions required to initiate them, to appear and disappear.
Oliver Lake
Whether painting or composing major commissioned works for the Pro Music Chamber Orchestra, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the Arditti and Flux String Quartets, World Sax Quartet, San Francisco Contemporary Players; arranging for pop diva Bjork, rocker Lou Reed, rap group A Tribe Called Quest; collaborating with poets Ntozake Shange, Huang Xiang, choreographers Ron Brown and Marlies Yearby, Native American vocalist Mary Redhouse; hip-hop artist Mos Def, pop star Me’Shell Ndegocello; or leading his own groups and touring with cooperative ensembles, the World Saxophone Quartet and TRIO 3; Oliver Lake views it all as “part of the same whole.”
Oliver attributes his diverse musical styles and multifaceted creativity to his early experience with the Black Artists Group (BAG), the legendary and innovative St. Louis collective of poets and musicians he co-founded in 1968. He also co-founded the prestigious World Saxophone Quartet, and continues to collaborate with many notable choreographers, poets and a veritable who’s who of the progressive jazz scene of the late 20th century, performing worldwide.
A recipient of the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship, Lake is one of the most frequently commissioned composers to emerge from the jazz tradition. Other honors include the Mellon Jazz Living Legacy Award at The Kennedy Center in 2006. Oliver Lake was a regular Guiding Artist at the Creative Music Studio, coming several times a year from 1975 to 1984. He led orchestras and ensembles, and was always curious to expand his musical travels.
Dost Kip, the Turkish film maker and producer who to this day continues a special CMS-related festival in Istanbul (www.iscms.org) interviewed Oliver a few years ago. Here are some of Oliver’s memories of his time at CMS:
Oliver Lake: I came to New York in 1974 and soon started hearing about Karl Berger’s school. I think I performed there with Leo Smith’s Ensemble and then started workshops about two to three times a year.
It was quite an experience, with students from all over the world and different artists, many friends of mine, going up and doing workshops. When you teach you always learn. The environment that was created at the time was incredible, very unique.
The AACM was based in Chicago and I came from St. Louis’ Black Arts Group, and when many of these artists moved to New York we continued to be associated in a very loose kind of way, performing together. Then members from both groups went to teach at CMS. The way Karl and Ingrid set up the studio (not a ‘school’) there wasn’t a separation between teacher and student. It was a communal feeling, with all participants exchanging ideas. It was a very creative time. It had something to do with the personality of Karl to make it come off the way it did. It felt like an equal exchange between the artists and the students.
Dost Kip: How about World Music?
OL: World Music has become very popular and very strong, and that was going on at CMS then. I am sure that CMS gave students a lot of ideas of bringing different elements together in jazz. The Black Artists Group had also experimented in that direction, but it was much more of a hands-on approach at CMS, because a lot of artists from all over the world were there, teaching, doing workshops and residencies. And we all had an opportunity to perform together.
The key fact was that Karl was able to bring all these musicians together from all over the world: Trilok Gurtu was there, the Indian table player, who played many percussion instruments. For me to be able to play with him was quite unusual. There were so many musicians that I had the opportunity to play with that I wouldn’t normally have played with, from so many different parts of the world.
CMS was situated in what used to be a motel with separate cabins and several big halls where people lived, ate and played together 24/7. It felt like a commune of sorts. The feeling of equality between all participants made it conducive for many unusual concerts and musical concepts to come forth. There was a spiritual aura and energy around the place. Also, discussions in the classes got into the spirituality of music.
Quite a few of the students have gone on from there and created very successful careers in creative music. That really stands out to me, that so many were inspired and wanted to continue to play the music after the experience they had at CMS. They got a chance to hear the philosophies of the various artists and speak to artists who were living the life of creative musicians, traveling, performing and composing.
DK: How do you define Creative Music?
OL: Even Ellington or Ornette didn’t like their music to be called jazz. At first ‘Creative Music’ was a synonym for jazz as a personal expression. The term Creative Music expresses the fact that you are moving forward, you are searching, you are not standing still, you try to make things happen, you are using different elements of the music together, you don’t go to one spot and stay there. That was the energy being expressed at the Creative Music Studio.
Oliver attributes his diverse musical styles and multifaceted creativity to his early experience with the Black Artists Group (BAG), the legendary and innovative St. Louis collective of poets and musicians he co-founded in 1968. He also co-founded the prestigious World Saxophone Quartet, and continues to collaborate with many notable choreographers, poets and a veritable who’s who of the progressive jazz scene of the late 20th century, performing worldwide.
A recipient of the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship, Lake is one of the most frequently commissioned composers to emerge from the jazz tradition. Other honors include the Mellon Jazz Living Legacy Award at The Kennedy Center in 2006. Oliver Lake was a regular Guiding Artist at the Creative Music Studio, coming several times a year from 1975 to 1984. He led orchestras and ensembles, and was always curious to expand his musical travels.
Dost Kip, the Turkish film maker and producer who to this day continues a special CMS-related festival in Istanbul (www.iscms.org) interviewed Oliver a few years ago. Here are some of Oliver’s memories of his time at CMS:
Oliver Lake: I came to New York in 1974 and soon started hearing about Karl Berger’s school. I think I performed there with Leo Smith’s Ensemble and then started workshops about two to three times a year.
It was quite an experience, with students from all over the world and different artists, many friends of mine, going up and doing workshops. When you teach you always learn. The environment that was created at the time was incredible, very unique.
The AACM was based in Chicago and I came from St. Louis’ Black Arts Group, and when many of these artists moved to New York we continued to be associated in a very loose kind of way, performing together. Then members from both groups went to teach at CMS. The way Karl and Ingrid set up the studio (not a ‘school’) there wasn’t a separation between teacher and student. It was a communal feeling, with all participants exchanging ideas. It was a very creative time. It had something to do with the personality of Karl to make it come off the way it did. It felt like an equal exchange between the artists and the students.
Dost Kip: How about World Music?
OL: World Music has become very popular and very strong, and that was going on at CMS then. I am sure that CMS gave students a lot of ideas of bringing different elements together in jazz. The Black Artists Group had also experimented in that direction, but it was much more of a hands-on approach at CMS, because a lot of artists from all over the world were there, teaching, doing workshops and residencies. And we all had an opportunity to perform together.
The key fact was that Karl was able to bring all these musicians together from all over the world: Trilok Gurtu was there, the Indian table player, who played many percussion instruments. For me to be able to play with him was quite unusual. There were so many musicians that I had the opportunity to play with that I wouldn’t normally have played with, from so many different parts of the world.
CMS was situated in what used to be a motel with separate cabins and several big halls where people lived, ate and played together 24/7. It felt like a commune of sorts. The feeling of equality between all participants made it conducive for many unusual concerts and musical concepts to come forth. There was a spiritual aura and energy around the place. Also, discussions in the classes got into the spirituality of music.
Quite a few of the students have gone on from there and created very successful careers in creative music. That really stands out to me, that so many were inspired and wanted to continue to play the music after the experience they had at CMS. They got a chance to hear the philosophies of the various artists and speak to artists who were living the life of creative musicians, traveling, performing and composing.
DK: How do you define Creative Music?
OL: Even Ellington or Ornette didn’t like their music to be called jazz. At first ‘Creative Music’ was a synonym for jazz as a personal expression. The term Creative Music expresses the fact that you are moving forward, you are searching, you are not standing still, you try to make things happen, you are using different elements of the music together, you don’t go to one spot and stay there. That was the energy being expressed at the Creative Music Studio.
Ismet Siral, as told by Steve Gorn and Karl Berger
KB: Ismet is a quintessential CMS story. He came to spend a week and stayed for two years.
SG: He expanded the whole world music vision.
KB: Did he come with that idea?
SG: I don’t think he came with any idea. You met him through Don in Sweden, I think. That’s how I met him, through Don. He was living with Murat in the City on 55th Street and he found a real spot.
KB: He spent a week here and, at the end of that, I went to the cabin where he was staying and he said “I’m not leaving.” He said he wanted to stay for room and board and he would do extracurricular stuff such as evening sessions by the fire.
SG: That was such a great era because you could do something like that without it being a big deal. Were you aware of what a well known bandleader he had been?
KB: Little by little, we found out. I know now that the Erteguns played in his band under his direction.
SG: He was such a modest and unassuming person, he never talked about any of that. It was almost like he had left that behind and what he loved about CMS was that he felt it was an environment where he could explore the dervish music into a jazz context. He was deep into that, not the dance band at all. And that’s what made CMS so attractive to him.
KB: Do you think hearing Coltrane made him do that?
SG: No, he had traditional jazz training and he really loved the Mevlevi dervishes with the ney players. Being around Don and certainly listening to Coltrane he realized a way to draw that in. He’s Turkish and there’s something from Turkish heritage that can mix with a jazz sensibility very comfortably.
KB: So he met Don in Sweden.
SG: I’m pretty sure because Haci Tedbilek was there. Haci was a very good friend of Ismet’s, they were very close. I think he was living in Sweden for a while. They had a similar interest
KB: Haci was at CMS almost as much as Ismet. He was always close by, somehow. They had a vision of what they were interested in that was very clear.
KB: Was Haci playing tenor sax already in Turkey?
SG: Ismet played soprano with CMS. He found himself in the gamalataki world and jumped right in.
KB: It was astounding to me to see how much Turkish music was a direct use of the gamalataki idea.
KB: He wanted to be in the all star groups.
SG: He wanted to play music.
KB: He had a quarrel with his friends at Atlantic Records, because they never invited him to record. He was down on them. What he taught, I’m still using his melodies. I have 3 or 4 of his pieces in my general repertoire.
SG: They’re bright and rhythmic.
KB: His whole idea was breaking out of conventional boundaries.
SG: He realized he had something to offer people.
KB: A lot of CMS alumni comments are about Ismet.
SG: He was your resident world music guy, on site all the time.
KB: He showed up out of the blue.
SG: That’s the reputation that you had at that time.
KB: Who at CMS did Ismet enjoy playing with?
SG: Nana and Trilok, all the guys who had some non-Western background. He taught ney to a bunch of people. He was ready to teach that music to anybody and it got a lot of people going.
KB: Did he meet Colin Wolcott?
SG: I’m sure they met but I don’t know their relationship. I recorded with him on the Asian Journal record with Badal Roy and myself, around 79 and 80.
KB: He stayed here two summers. He had a good relationship with Nana. Who from CMS did Ismet continue playing with?
SG: There wasn’t a regular group. He formed deep friendships and he began to get this vision of doing this in Turkey. He was excited about it but the tragedy of things, for whatever reasons, is that it fell apart. He had the land and felt he could do it. He was always around to sit in and work on new stuff but it wasn’t organized.
KB: We played with the CMS orchestra, a mix of students and artists, and Ismet played on that at the Public Theater several times. The Atlantic guys came to hear him but they didn’t like what they heard.
SG: You have him recorded doing concerts?
KB: There are concerts with you and Nana. They have different characters, the tracks. One is flute oriented, one is sax, one is percussion oriented. Short tracks. Did Ismet talk about his philosophy of music? SG: All of his philosophy came from the Sufi Dervish. His hero was Aka Gunduz, the lead ney player of the Mevlevi Dervishes.
KB: Was he a contemporary?
SG: He was a little bit older, in his 70s. He was the most famous person of that generation. His whole philosophy is in that Nasruddin story of the search for one note that everybody is looking for.
KB: Ismet had found the note.
SG: His whole orientation to sound was looking for that note. You’re a master if you find the one note.
KB: Did he teach any of the Sufi stuff?
SG: I think so. People around Ismet would be affected by that philosophical view, by spirituality couched in music. He told you about music but inside the story is something profound about how to live your life and not compromise your values. Sufis had a lot to say about music. They had inherent understanding of music as a healing art.
KB: Did he spell that out?
SG: That wasn’t his style, to spell it out intellectually. He would just play something.
KB: He called for years from Turkey, which was expensive at the time.
SG: You made something available to him, something to live for.
KB: but he underestimated the insurmountable traditions in Turkey.
SG: He was heartbroken.
KB: I wish we had been more flexible to help him out. I wish I had been in a position to do that.
SG: He was 30 years ahead of his time. He was a very innocent guy, with a childlike softness, with a romantic belief that they could make it happen.
KB: You were around CMS quite a bit.
SG: I was here for several summers in July. I played a lot with Ismet. He was very social, very curious.
KB: I saw that he could easily be hurt because he was so open.
SG: He had no defenses. Murat Verdi took care of him and saw him as this Turkish elder, kind of a guru. He might know where his curiosity about the avant garde came from.
KB: Do you have any stories?
SG: Just the Nasruddin story about playing the one note. There’s really not much more to say.
SG: He expanded the whole world music vision.
KB: Did he come with that idea?
SG: I don’t think he came with any idea. You met him through Don in Sweden, I think. That’s how I met him, through Don. He was living with Murat in the City on 55th Street and he found a real spot.
KB: He spent a week here and, at the end of that, I went to the cabin where he was staying and he said “I’m not leaving.” He said he wanted to stay for room and board and he would do extracurricular stuff such as evening sessions by the fire.
SG: That was such a great era because you could do something like that without it being a big deal. Were you aware of what a well known bandleader he had been?
KB: Little by little, we found out. I know now that the Erteguns played in his band under his direction.
SG: He was such a modest and unassuming person, he never talked about any of that. It was almost like he had left that behind and what he loved about CMS was that he felt it was an environment where he could explore the dervish music into a jazz context. He was deep into that, not the dance band at all. And that’s what made CMS so attractive to him.
KB: Do you think hearing Coltrane made him do that?
SG: No, he had traditional jazz training and he really loved the Mevlevi dervishes with the ney players. Being around Don and certainly listening to Coltrane he realized a way to draw that in. He’s Turkish and there’s something from Turkish heritage that can mix with a jazz sensibility very comfortably.
KB: So he met Don in Sweden.
SG: I’m pretty sure because Haci Tedbilek was there. Haci was a very good friend of Ismet’s, they were very close. I think he was living in Sweden for a while. They had a similar interest
KB: Haci was at CMS almost as much as Ismet. He was always close by, somehow. They had a vision of what they were interested in that was very clear.
KB: Was Haci playing tenor sax already in Turkey?
SG: Ismet played soprano with CMS. He found himself in the gamalataki world and jumped right in.
KB: It was astounding to me to see how much Turkish music was a direct use of the gamalataki idea.
KB: He wanted to be in the all star groups.
SG: He wanted to play music.
KB: He had a quarrel with his friends at Atlantic Records, because they never invited him to record. He was down on them. What he taught, I’m still using his melodies. I have 3 or 4 of his pieces in my general repertoire.
SG: They’re bright and rhythmic.
KB: His whole idea was breaking out of conventional boundaries.
SG: He realized he had something to offer people.
KB: A lot of CMS alumni comments are about Ismet.
SG: He was your resident world music guy, on site all the time.
KB: He showed up out of the blue.
SG: That’s the reputation that you had at that time.
KB: Who at CMS did Ismet enjoy playing with?
SG: Nana and Trilok, all the guys who had some non-Western background. He taught ney to a bunch of people. He was ready to teach that music to anybody and it got a lot of people going.
KB: Did he meet Colin Wolcott?
SG: I’m sure they met but I don’t know their relationship. I recorded with him on the Asian Journal record with Badal Roy and myself, around 79 and 80.
KB: He stayed here two summers. He had a good relationship with Nana. Who from CMS did Ismet continue playing with?
SG: There wasn’t a regular group. He formed deep friendships and he began to get this vision of doing this in Turkey. He was excited about it but the tragedy of things, for whatever reasons, is that it fell apart. He had the land and felt he could do it. He was always around to sit in and work on new stuff but it wasn’t organized.
KB: We played with the CMS orchestra, a mix of students and artists, and Ismet played on that at the Public Theater several times. The Atlantic guys came to hear him but they didn’t like what they heard.
SG: You have him recorded doing concerts?
KB: There are concerts with you and Nana. They have different characters, the tracks. One is flute oriented, one is sax, one is percussion oriented. Short tracks. Did Ismet talk about his philosophy of music? SG: All of his philosophy came from the Sufi Dervish. His hero was Aka Gunduz, the lead ney player of the Mevlevi Dervishes.
KB: Was he a contemporary?
SG: He was a little bit older, in his 70s. He was the most famous person of that generation. His whole philosophy is in that Nasruddin story of the search for one note that everybody is looking for.
KB: Ismet had found the note.
SG: His whole orientation to sound was looking for that note. You’re a master if you find the one note.
KB: Did he teach any of the Sufi stuff?
SG: I think so. People around Ismet would be affected by that philosophical view, by spirituality couched in music. He told you about music but inside the story is something profound about how to live your life and not compromise your values. Sufis had a lot to say about music. They had inherent understanding of music as a healing art.
KB: Did he spell that out?
SG: That wasn’t his style, to spell it out intellectually. He would just play something.
KB: He called for years from Turkey, which was expensive at the time.
SG: You made something available to him, something to live for.
KB: but he underestimated the insurmountable traditions in Turkey.
SG: He was heartbroken.
KB: I wish we had been more flexible to help him out. I wish I had been in a position to do that.
SG: He was 30 years ahead of his time. He was a very innocent guy, with a childlike softness, with a romantic belief that they could make it happen.
KB: You were around CMS quite a bit.
SG: I was here for several summers in July. I played a lot with Ismet. He was very social, very curious.
KB: I saw that he could easily be hurt because he was so open.
SG: He had no defenses. Murat Verdi took care of him and saw him as this Turkish elder, kind of a guru. He might know where his curiosity about the avant garde came from.
KB: Do you have any stories?
SG: Just the Nasruddin story about playing the one note. There’s really not much more to say.
Foday Musa Suso, as told by Adam Rudolph to Karl Berger
Adam Rudolph: I met Foday Suso in Ghana. After studying at Oberlin College, I wanted to go to Africa. I was interested in African percussion. Juma Santos told me about the Institute of African Studies in Ghana, where they brought together musicians from all over. I wrote to them but didn’t wait for the whole process of registration. At 21 one doesn’t hesitate. I drove a taxi in Chicago and saved up money. I bought a one-way ticket and I just went. I knew no one there. I ended up moving to a compound for graduate students and Suso was there. We were just hanging, starting to play together. After about half a year, Suso was getting ready to move to the West, England possibly. This was right after “Roots” came out. So there was interest in African music.
I used to play with Fred Andersen and listened to the Art Ensemble of Chicago. My idea was to develop music inspired by improvisation, but based on some really incredible African rhythms. That was my dream. I wrote Hamid Drake, who I had met in Chicago. Suso abandoned his own plans and agreed to come to Chicago with me. So we moved to Chicago, staying at my parents’ house. And there we built the “Mandingo Griot Society.”
I wanted Don Cherry to be involved in our first record date. Somehow we found Don’s phone number in Sweden and Don agreed to come. In the meantime we played all over Chicago. We were one of the first bands playing African-based music in the West.
After that Don invited us all to his house in Sweden, a former school house. We stayed at Don’s house for a few months and toured with him and Charlie Haden around Scandinavia. Hamid came with his wife and kids.
Living at Don’s house was the closest to the experience of living at the Creative Music Studio, with music around the clock, gardening, making meals. Trilok Gurtu came by, and Amadou Jarr from Lou Reed’s Everyman Band. This was all in 1978. I took a trip to Morocco, then we picked up with the band again.
Through Don’s connection with CMS, the Mandingo Griot Society came to CMS in Woodstock in 1980 and stayed for several months. The recordings here are from that period. John Marsh was now the bass player, with Hamid Drake on drums.
I remember the fluid energy and inspiration that was flowing between all the musicians there, whether they were studying or teaching. I was in a constant state of inspiration. Hamid and I stayed up most nights with Ismet Siral and Hadji Tedbilek (Turkish musicians at CMS) working on music until the sun came up. It was amazing.
I had about eight percussion students, all women, which was really great. I mean, there are traditions in the world of that, but for us that was not really common. We were probably opening some door here, a different energy.
People were playing each others’ compositions and we had time to compose. It felt like we were busy doing music 24 hours a day. There was a lot of time to do it. We didn’t have to think about anything else.
There was something about these world music sessions. A lot of these sessions were not geared toward pedagogy or theory. People carried the pedagogy and theory inside of them and it came out in how they played and what they played.
I was beginning to understand that what was important about making these connections in what we now call world music was actually deeper than the music itself. It goes through different avenues: one is the universal. The humanity of everybody, wanting to express and being in this vibrational realm. The other part, being around guys like Ismet and Hadji, was to see that the music came from something greater than music, an expression of a cosmological grounding of the culture. That was even more impressive. There was a spiritual dynamic. What was fascinating was how musicians from different cultures think about music itself in such a varied and different way. That was fascinating to me. That’s the part that opens you up to new ideas. Ismet, for example, introduced us to the idea of “usul,” the “dum tek,” the Turkish concept of how they think about rhythm and form. I never knew about that. Learning the rhythms was one thing, but understanding that there was a whole concept behind it, that got me thinking about things in a new way.
Ismet gave us a book about “usul.” I did more research on this over the years. The idea of ”dum tek” can be found throughout the Middle East in rhythmic motion, “dum” is the low to high tension and “tek” is the high to low release. Now the whole of American popular music genres are based on that, low and high, kick and snare. I began to see how they defined form because they didn’t move through harmonic areas so much in that music. How were they delineating form? I learned about these usul cycles that would go all the way to 108 beats. So there might be 10 beats and the melodic cycle might take 5 cycles of 10 beats. There might be larger units of 60 beats, big spaces delineating how you move through form.
For me, a lot of these ideas that I am still pursuing as a composer and as a performer were first illuminated to me during that summer at the Creative Music Studio. Also, being around you (Karl) and your Gamala Taki classes, looking at rhythms in a universal way, was very opening to me.
Relationships were made then that still endure today. I just recently did some work in Denmark with Pierre Dorge and Irene Becker and they said that it was at CMS when they first came in contact with and became aware of African music. They were interested to the point that they went to Africa, which started a really important dynamic for them that continues to reverberate in their music. That’s what I mean by people really being inspired and set off in new directions.
Cyro Baptista (Brazilian percussionist) was a student there. That was the beginning for him of opening up in different musical directions beyond Brazilian percussion styles.
Karl Berger: Cyro told me that he actually just wanted to come for that summer but ended up staying here, relocating to the U.S.
AR: And he created a great career. The way CMS manifested in reflection was in a way a beautiful reflection of how we think about music. It struck a beautiful balance between structure and freedom. We are always balancing the idea of form, playing inside a form, or generating form from the moment. CMS was the only place I have ever seen that actually reflected that attitude that we have in the music. There was so much space and time, physical spaces and fluidity, for people to play whatever with whoever. That was to me the manifestation of the process we use in music, this balance between structure and freedom. Which is completely unique, I have never seen that anywhere, nobody has really done that, not even close.
I’ve taught at many schools. It’s hard. The institutional approach brings by definition with it a certain calcification and formality that just doesn’t invite the free-wheeling approach that CMS took. The most important part that we shared wasn’t even the information. Of course, the information is important. Let’s say, I teach this Afro-Cuban rhythm, I learn the particular Turkish scale, what’s most important is the creative attitude. Every musicians teaching there between tours and recordings had their own way of look at creativity and what creativity really meant to them. And that can’t be taught. It can be radiated. For example, Don Cherry was a non-didactic guy. What I really got from being around someone like him was the creative attitude, how he thought and lived creatively. That’s what is important. That’s what you take away.
The essence of the music is to play your own “aboriginalness,” as Ralph Emerson calls it. We want to play our own nature and have our own voice. When we hear Lester Young, or Elvin Jones, or you, or Don Cherry, that is the quality. And that quality cannot be taught. That quality is personal search and if you are around people who radiate that you spend time with them, that’s what matters.
Today, all the information is now there, at your fingertips, literally. Everything you want to know about is available. But for the actual knowledge, the wisdom, the creative attitude, you have to be around the artists. It’s hard for formalized schools to do that.
KB: So the actual situation of living at CMS was important?
AR: Exactly. All important, in fact. That was the traditional way in many places, in India, in Africa. Music is about life. That is something that the Creative Music Studio offered. I think it was essential.
The core idea that you had of having musicians come for a week, for a few weeks, was really the value of it., for the Guiding Artists too. Look at the situation today; in New York there are a gazillion of talented, amazing players, but everybody is ripping and running, and there is no chance to develop music together. To me it would be worth it to bring my group up to a place like CMS and have everybody teach. But we also got to be around each other and develop our music at the same time. Now, you can never catch anyone for more than one rehearsal, so the music is always kind of at the lowest common denominator.
KB: During the late sixties in Europe we would play with Don Cherry’s group pretty much every day for years, except maybe Mondays.
AR: I saw Dave Brubeck’s Quartet and you could tell that these guys played together for the past twenty or thirty years. That was something to experience. That is the biggest hurdle that is holding up the music to make the next move. We need R+D grants like scientists have. Then come to a place like CMS. And why not connect that with teaching?
KB: Sure, it’s more about sharing music.
AR: Nobody at CMS ever told us what to teach. Also, the form how everyone would teach, was totally left to the artists. That sets an example for developing your own voice.
KB: So, obviously, schools can’t do that.
AR: The need for CMS never went away. It feels like a timely and amazing thing to see CMS come back, a space to develop what you do, exchanging ideas, some form of collectivity. It would be different, of course.
KB: The next generation would be teaching. It would probably be more about production also, recording, video, crossover into even more facets of music.
AR: Yes, the paradigms have changed, but not the essence. I also think it could be a place where writers and listeners could catch up and develop deeper insights into the musical process.
KB: Exactly. I am working on a text on Music Mind that essentially aims at people being able to feel music like a musician, and for musicians to ground themselves further in this natural Music Mind that we all possess. We have to allow ourselves the time and space to go there.
AR: With Suso, we had to at first go where he was. Suso was a strictly traditional guy and he played his songs. So how is it that we knew how to support what he was doing and still sound like ourselves? It happened naturally. We played a lot and it developed naturally.
I used to play with Fred Andersen and listened to the Art Ensemble of Chicago. My idea was to develop music inspired by improvisation, but based on some really incredible African rhythms. That was my dream. I wrote Hamid Drake, who I had met in Chicago. Suso abandoned his own plans and agreed to come to Chicago with me. So we moved to Chicago, staying at my parents’ house. And there we built the “Mandingo Griot Society.”
I wanted Don Cherry to be involved in our first record date. Somehow we found Don’s phone number in Sweden and Don agreed to come. In the meantime we played all over Chicago. We were one of the first bands playing African-based music in the West.
After that Don invited us all to his house in Sweden, a former school house. We stayed at Don’s house for a few months and toured with him and Charlie Haden around Scandinavia. Hamid came with his wife and kids.
Living at Don’s house was the closest to the experience of living at the Creative Music Studio, with music around the clock, gardening, making meals. Trilok Gurtu came by, and Amadou Jarr from Lou Reed’s Everyman Band. This was all in 1978. I took a trip to Morocco, then we picked up with the band again.
Through Don’s connection with CMS, the Mandingo Griot Society came to CMS in Woodstock in 1980 and stayed for several months. The recordings here are from that period. John Marsh was now the bass player, with Hamid Drake on drums.
I remember the fluid energy and inspiration that was flowing between all the musicians there, whether they were studying or teaching. I was in a constant state of inspiration. Hamid and I stayed up most nights with Ismet Siral and Hadji Tedbilek (Turkish musicians at CMS) working on music until the sun came up. It was amazing.
I had about eight percussion students, all women, which was really great. I mean, there are traditions in the world of that, but for us that was not really common. We were probably opening some door here, a different energy.
People were playing each others’ compositions and we had time to compose. It felt like we were busy doing music 24 hours a day. There was a lot of time to do it. We didn’t have to think about anything else.
There was something about these world music sessions. A lot of these sessions were not geared toward pedagogy or theory. People carried the pedagogy and theory inside of them and it came out in how they played and what they played.
I was beginning to understand that what was important about making these connections in what we now call world music was actually deeper than the music itself. It goes through different avenues: one is the universal. The humanity of everybody, wanting to express and being in this vibrational realm. The other part, being around guys like Ismet and Hadji, was to see that the music came from something greater than music, an expression of a cosmological grounding of the culture. That was even more impressive. There was a spiritual dynamic. What was fascinating was how musicians from different cultures think about music itself in such a varied and different way. That was fascinating to me. That’s the part that opens you up to new ideas. Ismet, for example, introduced us to the idea of “usul,” the “dum tek,” the Turkish concept of how they think about rhythm and form. I never knew about that. Learning the rhythms was one thing, but understanding that there was a whole concept behind it, that got me thinking about things in a new way.
Ismet gave us a book about “usul.” I did more research on this over the years. The idea of ”dum tek” can be found throughout the Middle East in rhythmic motion, “dum” is the low to high tension and “tek” is the high to low release. Now the whole of American popular music genres are based on that, low and high, kick and snare. I began to see how they defined form because they didn’t move through harmonic areas so much in that music. How were they delineating form? I learned about these usul cycles that would go all the way to 108 beats. So there might be 10 beats and the melodic cycle might take 5 cycles of 10 beats. There might be larger units of 60 beats, big spaces delineating how you move through form.
For me, a lot of these ideas that I am still pursuing as a composer and as a performer were first illuminated to me during that summer at the Creative Music Studio. Also, being around you (Karl) and your Gamala Taki classes, looking at rhythms in a universal way, was very opening to me.
Relationships were made then that still endure today. I just recently did some work in Denmark with Pierre Dorge and Irene Becker and they said that it was at CMS when they first came in contact with and became aware of African music. They were interested to the point that they went to Africa, which started a really important dynamic for them that continues to reverberate in their music. That’s what I mean by people really being inspired and set off in new directions.
Cyro Baptista (Brazilian percussionist) was a student there. That was the beginning for him of opening up in different musical directions beyond Brazilian percussion styles.
Karl Berger: Cyro told me that he actually just wanted to come for that summer but ended up staying here, relocating to the U.S.
AR: And he created a great career. The way CMS manifested in reflection was in a way a beautiful reflection of how we think about music. It struck a beautiful balance between structure and freedom. We are always balancing the idea of form, playing inside a form, or generating form from the moment. CMS was the only place I have ever seen that actually reflected that attitude that we have in the music. There was so much space and time, physical spaces and fluidity, for people to play whatever with whoever. That was to me the manifestation of the process we use in music, this balance between structure and freedom. Which is completely unique, I have never seen that anywhere, nobody has really done that, not even close.
I’ve taught at many schools. It’s hard. The institutional approach brings by definition with it a certain calcification and formality that just doesn’t invite the free-wheeling approach that CMS took. The most important part that we shared wasn’t even the information. Of course, the information is important. Let’s say, I teach this Afro-Cuban rhythm, I learn the particular Turkish scale, what’s most important is the creative attitude. Every musicians teaching there between tours and recordings had their own way of look at creativity and what creativity really meant to them. And that can’t be taught. It can be radiated. For example, Don Cherry was a non-didactic guy. What I really got from being around someone like him was the creative attitude, how he thought and lived creatively. That’s what is important. That’s what you take away.
The essence of the music is to play your own “aboriginalness,” as Ralph Emerson calls it. We want to play our own nature and have our own voice. When we hear Lester Young, or Elvin Jones, or you, or Don Cherry, that is the quality. And that quality cannot be taught. That quality is personal search and if you are around people who radiate that you spend time with them, that’s what matters.
Today, all the information is now there, at your fingertips, literally. Everything you want to know about is available. But for the actual knowledge, the wisdom, the creative attitude, you have to be around the artists. It’s hard for formalized schools to do that.
KB: So the actual situation of living at CMS was important?
AR: Exactly. All important, in fact. That was the traditional way in many places, in India, in Africa. Music is about life. That is something that the Creative Music Studio offered. I think it was essential.
The core idea that you had of having musicians come for a week, for a few weeks, was really the value of it., for the Guiding Artists too. Look at the situation today; in New York there are a gazillion of talented, amazing players, but everybody is ripping and running, and there is no chance to develop music together. To me it would be worth it to bring my group up to a place like CMS and have everybody teach. But we also got to be around each other and develop our music at the same time. Now, you can never catch anyone for more than one rehearsal, so the music is always kind of at the lowest common denominator.
KB: During the late sixties in Europe we would play with Don Cherry’s group pretty much every day for years, except maybe Mondays.
AR: I saw Dave Brubeck’s Quartet and you could tell that these guys played together for the past twenty or thirty years. That was something to experience. That is the biggest hurdle that is holding up the music to make the next move. We need R+D grants like scientists have. Then come to a place like CMS. And why not connect that with teaching?
KB: Sure, it’s more about sharing music.
AR: Nobody at CMS ever told us what to teach. Also, the form how everyone would teach, was totally left to the artists. That sets an example for developing your own voice.
KB: So, obviously, schools can’t do that.
AR: The need for CMS never went away. It feels like a timely and amazing thing to see CMS come back, a space to develop what you do, exchanging ideas, some form of collectivity. It would be different, of course.
KB: The next generation would be teaching. It would probably be more about production also, recording, video, crossover into even more facets of music.
AR: Yes, the paradigms have changed, but not the essence. I also think it could be a place where writers and listeners could catch up and develop deeper insights into the musical process.
KB: Exactly. I am working on a text on Music Mind that essentially aims at people being able to feel music like a musician, and for musicians to ground themselves further in this natural Music Mind that we all possess. We have to allow ourselves the time and space to go there.
AR: With Suso, we had to at first go where he was. Suso was a strictly traditional guy and he played his songs. So how is it that we knew how to support what he was doing and still sound like ourselves? It happened naturally. We played a lot and it developed naturally.
Juma Sultan
Interview conducted on March 12, 2015
My involvement with CMS was through playing three concerts with Kalaparusha instead of the teaching or workshop aspect. I was brought into CMS with Kalaparusha. He came from Chicago with AACM. His daughter lived up here in Woodstock. He was a prolific composer, writing music all the time, and we played and practiced all the time. I knew Karl going back to a program of playing workshops in different schools in New York and the surrounding area with Charles Moffett in the 60s, one of the Great Society programs.
The vibe for CMS was set up years before. To describe the scene at CMS, it was coming from a place of unity, it encompassed everybody, with no divisive lines. I appreciated it. Everybody was hearing each other’s tunes. There was a lot of collaboration in Woodstock even before CMS, a lot of crossing of genres. Sonny Simmons, Sunny Murray, Noah Howard were up here. Bob Liikala of Group 212 brought up many, many musicians in 1967 to 1969 and we were doing early concerts. Pan Copeland also had concerts at her farm at Glasco. She was presenting eclectic concerts way before Woodstock. She had everybody from Odetta to Richie Havens, to classical, to avant garde jazz, these three day events. It was a different time and there was a spirit of sharing, people from different backgrounds would jam- old blues cats and others would finish their show and then sit around and jam, coming from different backgrounds and so you get different sounds, feelings and discoveries, just like when Paul Butterfield moved up here in the 60s. They were playing rock but they were also formidable jazz musicians and they played all day and night.
CMS was more about structured workshops and, as I said, my involvement was with the Kalaparusha concerts. He was writing full scores all the time. He was writing for small ensembles. There were a lot of great people involved with CMS including John Betsch, who is now in France. So many great people were involved with CMS. Dave Izenzon and Barry Altshul played with CMS and my group. I had a similar idea to CMS and I had bought 60 acres from Bernard Stollman’s mother to set up a performance space on Acorn Hill in Krumville but there was some theft of funds for rent and I left, walked away and went to California. Then I discovered two years later that Karl had negotiated a deal and had started CMS out there, which was wonderful.
Then in the early 80s the grant money ran out for CMS and me. I had grants from the State Council on the Arts and I was producing 103 concerts a year. It became hard to make a living and I went into semi-retirement, pulling myself out of the commercial end of music and played church concerts and I went into the ministry, doing youth outreach and raising my family. We’d do a free concert and dinner at the church. The group with Kalaparusha played a lot in New York after he left Woodstock and went over to Germany for festivals. We rehearsed a lot and had a gig every few months. We had a good connection and some good outlets to play in. John Betsch was the principal drummer. Betsch had a loft space in the East Village and Juma Santos and Malachi Thompson played there too.
The bass line on the Kalaparusha cut is the same from the one I played with Jimi Hendrix, which is called Sundance. There was a lot of jamming with Jimi when he was in Woodstock, including a session with Sam Rivers that I recorded. Jimi rented a house on Trevor Hollow Road, an English manor house. We recorded with Jimi and my band, the Aboriginal Music Society, at the Tinker Street Theater. We would play every Friday night after the movie from midnight until 3 or so in the morning. And on Sunday we would also play, mixed genres. I have it all documented on tape. The press made Woodstock to be about drugs, sex and rock and roll but it was really about agape (Greek sense of love and wonderment) and helping others out, which is what we need now to save the world, to be honest with you.
My mainstay now is my Ghanaian group Sankofa that I take to schools. My 14 year old daughter dances and plays drums with us.
My involvement with CMS was through playing three concerts with Kalaparusha instead of the teaching or workshop aspect. I was brought into CMS with Kalaparusha. He came from Chicago with AACM. His daughter lived up here in Woodstock. He was a prolific composer, writing music all the time, and we played and practiced all the time. I knew Karl going back to a program of playing workshops in different schools in New York and the surrounding area with Charles Moffett in the 60s, one of the Great Society programs.
The vibe for CMS was set up years before. To describe the scene at CMS, it was coming from a place of unity, it encompassed everybody, with no divisive lines. I appreciated it. Everybody was hearing each other’s tunes. There was a lot of collaboration in Woodstock even before CMS, a lot of crossing of genres. Sonny Simmons, Sunny Murray, Noah Howard were up here. Bob Liikala of Group 212 brought up many, many musicians in 1967 to 1969 and we were doing early concerts. Pan Copeland also had concerts at her farm at Glasco. She was presenting eclectic concerts way before Woodstock. She had everybody from Odetta to Richie Havens, to classical, to avant garde jazz, these three day events. It was a different time and there was a spirit of sharing, people from different backgrounds would jam- old blues cats and others would finish their show and then sit around and jam, coming from different backgrounds and so you get different sounds, feelings and discoveries, just like when Paul Butterfield moved up here in the 60s. They were playing rock but they were also formidable jazz musicians and they played all day and night.
CMS was more about structured workshops and, as I said, my involvement was with the Kalaparusha concerts. He was writing full scores all the time. He was writing for small ensembles. There were a lot of great people involved with CMS including John Betsch, who is now in France. So many great people were involved with CMS. Dave Izenzon and Barry Altshul played with CMS and my group. I had a similar idea to CMS and I had bought 60 acres from Bernard Stollman’s mother to set up a performance space on Acorn Hill in Krumville but there was some theft of funds for rent and I left, walked away and went to California. Then I discovered two years later that Karl had negotiated a deal and had started CMS out there, which was wonderful.
Then in the early 80s the grant money ran out for CMS and me. I had grants from the State Council on the Arts and I was producing 103 concerts a year. It became hard to make a living and I went into semi-retirement, pulling myself out of the commercial end of music and played church concerts and I went into the ministry, doing youth outreach and raising my family. We’d do a free concert and dinner at the church. The group with Kalaparusha played a lot in New York after he left Woodstock and went over to Germany for festivals. We rehearsed a lot and had a gig every few months. We had a good connection and some good outlets to play in. John Betsch was the principal drummer. Betsch had a loft space in the East Village and Juma Santos and Malachi Thompson played there too.
The bass line on the Kalaparusha cut is the same from the one I played with Jimi Hendrix, which is called Sundance. There was a lot of jamming with Jimi when he was in Woodstock, including a session with Sam Rivers that I recorded. Jimi rented a house on Trevor Hollow Road, an English manor house. We recorded with Jimi and my band, the Aboriginal Music Society, at the Tinker Street Theater. We would play every Friday night after the movie from midnight until 3 or so in the morning. And on Sunday we would also play, mixed genres. I have it all documented on tape. The press made Woodstock to be about drugs, sex and rock and roll but it was really about agape (Greek sense of love and wonderment) and helping others out, which is what we need now to save the world, to be honest with you.
My mainstay now is my Ghanaian group Sankofa that I take to schools. My 14 year old daughter dances and plays drums with us.
Marilyn Crispell
In the summer of 1977, I met Karl Berger at a workshop in Boston and he invited me to check out the summer session at CMS. I never left, I’ve been living in Woodstock ever since.
The culture of CMS was one of freedom, a space that allowed people to connect in a relaxed way, in a way they wouldn’t have in a city. There was time to interact because the workshops were for a week or more and that created a lot in interplay between the guiding artists and participants. There was a spirit of exploration and no sense of right or wrong in the music. I met like-minded musicians like Anthony Braxton, who lived down the road. The first time I played with him, he said “this is my new pianist” which took me by surprise. I’ve listened to that recording with him and it sounds great.
CMS allowed for a lot of global interaction and hanging out. The sessions were at an old Catskills hotel. After playing all day, musicians from Africa, Brazil and elsewhere would sit outside by a fire and play, dance and talk. There was a very forceful exposure to other cultures at CMS.
CMS performances that were particularly powerful were seeing Dollar Brand, later Abdullah Ibrahim, for the first time. It struck me as much as hearing Coltrane’s “Love Supreme” for the first time, it went to the core of my being. I also remember an amazing duet between Joseph Jarman and Don Moye of the Art Ensemble that was very powerful. I saw Leo Smith and it was a revelation for me to learn about his concept of balancing sound with an equal amount of silence. It was great to not only play with these artists but to be exposed to their theories of music.
I’ve kept close connections to CMS and to Karl and Ingrid, in addition to musicians like sax player Peter Buettner who stayed in the area. When I travel, I often run into students from CMS.
CMS was very inspirational, it opened up a whole new musical world for me. For example, I had never been exposed to world music or played in ensembles before. It gave me so many ideas and deeply influenced my music.
The culture of CMS was one of freedom, a space that allowed people to connect in a relaxed way, in a way they wouldn’t have in a city. There was time to interact because the workshops were for a week or more and that created a lot in interplay between the guiding artists and participants. There was a spirit of exploration and no sense of right or wrong in the music. I met like-minded musicians like Anthony Braxton, who lived down the road. The first time I played with him, he said “this is my new pianist” which took me by surprise. I’ve listened to that recording with him and it sounds great.
CMS allowed for a lot of global interaction and hanging out. The sessions were at an old Catskills hotel. After playing all day, musicians from Africa, Brazil and elsewhere would sit outside by a fire and play, dance and talk. There was a very forceful exposure to other cultures at CMS.
CMS performances that were particularly powerful were seeing Dollar Brand, later Abdullah Ibrahim, for the first time. It struck me as much as hearing Coltrane’s “Love Supreme” for the first time, it went to the core of my being. I also remember an amazing duet between Joseph Jarman and Don Moye of the Art Ensemble that was very powerful. I saw Leo Smith and it was a revelation for me to learn about his concept of balancing sound with an equal amount of silence. It was great to not only play with these artists but to be exposed to their theories of music.
I’ve kept close connections to CMS and to Karl and Ingrid, in addition to musicians like sax player Peter Buettner who stayed in the area. When I travel, I often run into students from CMS.
CMS was very inspirational, it opened up a whole new musical world for me. For example, I had never been exposed to world music or played in ensembles before. It gave me so many ideas and deeply influenced my music.
Tom Schmidt
I moved to Woodstock in January 1973, following Tim Hardin and the piano player Gene Adler. In April I became a bass player with CMS. I was also a teacher at Kingston Music Center to help pay the rent on our group house in Saugerties. I had studied for several years with Charlie Haden and at CMS I became a kind of understudy to Dave Holland. You could say that I “became absorbed” as CMS’s bass player. I ended up living for a while in Karl and Ingrid’s home. In 1976 I became Karl’s assistant for the Gamala Taki workshops. CMS had an open atmosphere. It was an opportunity for musicians to apprentice with the masters. I also knew Larry Chernicoff, who has one of the first CMS staff members even before they were located in Woodstock. Larry started with Karl in 1971 when Karl lived in Weehawken, soon after he arrived from Germany.
I remember a lot of the early gigs. Bob Moses and Steve Haas lived nearby and we played together regularly in 1973. I then began working with the CMS student orchestra. We took our first CMS tour in February 1974. We did a benefit in Toronto for Ed Blackwell at a festival and we toured other Canadian cities. We did a gig in January 1974 at the Smithsonian in Washington that included many vibe players. Then there was the series of concerts at the Peace Church, which went into 1975. Some of the players there included Carlos Ward, Lee Konitz, Frederic Rzewski and Bob Moses. At the same time, I was playing at Sam Rivers’ Studio Rivbea with Blackwell, Rivers, Jerome Cooper, Barry Altschul and others. In the summer of 1975 we took a big eight week tour that included Antioch College and eventually workshops at the Naropa Institute in Boulder. That’s where we connected with the Tibetan Buddhist lamas and their music, which I’m very involved with today. The tour continued in Mexico, then San Diego, San Francisco and LA, playing opposite some Blue Note label artists.
I spent the whole summer of 1976 in Boulder, doing workshops and concerts with Don Cherry, Blackwell and artists who were also passing through like Colin Walcott and Oregon. I stayed in Boulder through 1977, then returned to Woodstock from fall 1977 through March 1978, when I began working at the Buddhist monastery in Woodstock.
I was in a funny category at CMS because I was a staff member and professional musician, not a student at that point. I learned a huge amount from working with Karl, it was a tremendous experience, but I also had my own connections in the area through working with Bob Moses, with who I still have a close connection, and Eric Kloss, Jack DeJohnette, Dave Liebman and others. Another big influence on me was Dollar Brand, now named Abdullah Ibrahim. He influenced some things I did on piano and I later brought him up to play in Woodstock.
I’ve stayed in touch with Karl and Ingrid and he still calls me for gigs and recordings, including string work on one of Karl’s recent CDs. I picked up a lot of subtle things from being a sideman with Karl. He drew me in and I was absorbed into the culture of CMS. For example, in 1973 Karl had a grant to go around to local schools and do workshops. We would also do workshops for amateur musicians in Woodstock. I resisted doing those at first but came to enjoy them.
I remember a lot of the early gigs. Bob Moses and Steve Haas lived nearby and we played together regularly in 1973. I then began working with the CMS student orchestra. We took our first CMS tour in February 1974. We did a benefit in Toronto for Ed Blackwell at a festival and we toured other Canadian cities. We did a gig in January 1974 at the Smithsonian in Washington that included many vibe players. Then there was the series of concerts at the Peace Church, which went into 1975. Some of the players there included Carlos Ward, Lee Konitz, Frederic Rzewski and Bob Moses. At the same time, I was playing at Sam Rivers’ Studio Rivbea with Blackwell, Rivers, Jerome Cooper, Barry Altschul and others. In the summer of 1975 we took a big eight week tour that included Antioch College and eventually workshops at the Naropa Institute in Boulder. That’s where we connected with the Tibetan Buddhist lamas and their music, which I’m very involved with today. The tour continued in Mexico, then San Diego, San Francisco and LA, playing opposite some Blue Note label artists.
I spent the whole summer of 1976 in Boulder, doing workshops and concerts with Don Cherry, Blackwell and artists who were also passing through like Colin Walcott and Oregon. I stayed in Boulder through 1977, then returned to Woodstock from fall 1977 through March 1978, when I began working at the Buddhist monastery in Woodstock.
I was in a funny category at CMS because I was a staff member and professional musician, not a student at that point. I learned a huge amount from working with Karl, it was a tremendous experience, but I also had my own connections in the area through working with Bob Moses, with who I still have a close connection, and Eric Kloss, Jack DeJohnette, Dave Liebman and others. Another big influence on me was Dollar Brand, now named Abdullah Ibrahim. He influenced some things I did on piano and I later brought him up to play in Woodstock.
I’ve stayed in touch with Karl and Ingrid and he still calls me for gigs and recordings, including string work on one of Karl’s recent CDs. I picked up a lot of subtle things from being a sideman with Karl. He drew me in and I was absorbed into the culture of CMS. For example, in 1973 Karl had a grant to go around to local schools and do workshops. We would also do workshops for amateur musicians in Woodstock. I resisted doing those at first but came to enjoy them.