John Tchicai - Tribal Ghost '2013

Tracks list

Tracklist

01. Tribal ghost
02. The queen of Ra
03. Dark matter
04. Llanto del Indio

Here’s an astonishing fact: This album was recorded during John
Tchicai’s first and only weeklong residency at a New York jazz club.
Tchicai — co-founder of the New York Art Quartet, one of the most
innovative bands of the 1960s; member of Albert Ayer's New York Eye and Ear
Control; participant in John Coltrane’s Ascension, perhaps the most
influential of Coltrane’s late works; practitioner of world music-jazz
fusions in bands such as his own Cadentia Nova Danica, Pierre Dorge’s New
Jungle Orchestra, and Johnny Dyani’s Witchdoctor’s Son; winner of
Denmark’s prestigious Jazz-Par Prize and first recipient of a lifetime
grant from the Danish Ministry of Culture — would seem to have merited a
week in New York well before 2007. He defied just about every
“avant-garde” stereotype without ever compromising his integrity. He
was an intensely lyrical improviser who balanced cool intellect and emotional
heat. His solos were orderly, constructed with great care, yet he remained open
to surprise and the spontaneous. And although he was a player of deep
spirituality, there was always a touch of humor and a sense of jubilation in his
music. In short, he was just the sort of innovative, swinging, prestigious jazz
elder that in a perfect world one might expect to hear regularly in a jazz club.
And yet, he had to wait until he was 71 for it to happen.

When, to their everlasting credit, Birdland finally gave him the opportunity to
play a major club, he opted for a band that brought together musicians he knew
well with players he’d never or rarely worked with before—he liked
both the trust between regular partners as well as that edge of an unknown
factor when he played. Boston-based musicians guitarist Garrison Fewell and
saxophonist Charlie Kohlhase were partners in a trio of several years’
standing that played primarily in New England whenever Tchicai was stateside.
Bassist Cecil McBee was new to Tchicai’s sound world. John and Billy had
worked together years before as sidemen on Steeplechase albums by Pierre Dorge
(Ballad Round The Left Corner, 1979) and Johnny Dyani (Angolan Cry, 1985), so
they were renewing a passing acquaintance.

Tchicai, Kohlhase, and Fewell had come together as a trio four years previously
at Tchicai’s suggestion. The lanky Dane knew Charlie from a New England
tour he’d done with the Boston-based little big band, Either/Orchestra in
1993. He had also recorded with Charlie on his CD, Life Overflowing (Nada,
1999). Garrison and John met in Italy, where Garrison summers when he's not
teaching at Berklee College of Music, and recorded Big Chief Dreaming for Soul
Note in June 2003. Their chemistry as a trio was immediate and deep. They
recorded what was only their third gig together on an outstanding double CD Good
Night Songs (Boxholder). In the years following those December 2003 gigs, they
played in New York, at Montreal’s Casa de Popolo and did other short
tours that took them to Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and clubs and galleries
in the Boston area.

When John secured a gig for the trio at New York’s Cornelia Street Cafe,
Garrison invited Birdland Booking Director Ryan Paternite to come hear them.
Several years earlier in 1998, Garrison had recorded Birdland Sessions (Koch
Jazz) at the club, featuring a modern mainstream quartet with pianist Jim
McNeeley, bassist Steve LaSpina, and drummer Jeff Williams. Impressed by both
the music and the large audience the trio drew to the west village
bistro’s downstairs music room, Paternite invited them to play at
Birdland. His only stipulation: they had to bring a rhythm section.

John and Garrison discussed various candidates, but John especially liked the
idea of McBee, with whom Garrison had played and recorded earlier in his career,
including his debut album, A Blue Deeper Than Blue (Accurate). Since Hart worked
so much with McBee and knew Tchicai from their work on the aforementioned
Steeplechase sessions, he was the natural choice for drummer. “John wanted
a rhythm section that could play time, could swing, and play free,”
Garrison says. “He was very specific about it.”

Cecil and Billy certainly had that inside/outside flexibility that John
required, but just as important was their ability to come into a situation that
was new to them and make it work. Joining a trio of musicians who were so
familiar with one another and figuring out how to sound like a quintet instead
of a trio with a rhythm section is no small matter. They succeed magnificently.

The quintet played Tuesday through Saturday and the last two nights were
recorded. (John was thrilled to see one of his saxophone heroes, Lee Konitz, in
the audience on Saturday.) Over the course of five nights, the music covered a
lot of ground, and this album doesn't necessarily capture the band’s full
range. But it does provide a clear picture of the intimate, lyrical side of the
band and its collaborative spirit.

Tchicai named the band after the opening tune on the album, a three-section
original of Garrison’s in 7/4. In the more reflective opening section,
Garrison solos over lines scored for baritone sax and the bass. It’s a
relaxed, melodic statement, with a purposeful and compelling flow of ideas.
“I feel like I’m not trying to fit into any genre,” Garrison
says. “I’m still informed by my lyrical instinct, even in freely
improvised settings.”

The second part is an open improvisation for Charlie and Garrison (with some
judicious support from McBee). Garrison calls the final section the
“playful ghost,” and certainly Tchicai enters into it with the right
spirit, playing around with little variations on phrases in an especially joyful
solo. “When John improvised, you’re in a sound world that is so
different,” Garrison observes. “He could deconstruct and reconstruct
the smallest melodic fragments, and he would be so logical in their
development.”

Garrison wrote “Queen of Ra” for John, who over the years
increasingly made it his own. It debuted on Big Chief Dreaming and appears again
on Good Night Songs, but this may be the definitive recorded version. Charlie
puts the cry of the human voice in his solo, a tightly structured improvisation
that weaves just a few phrases played with that deeply human sound into a
powerfully expressive statement. John’s solo is a tour de force of sound
manipulation, ranging from tender sighs to full throated cries, and of melodic
improvising that sounds inevitable but is full of surprises.

The short, but potent “Dark Matter” hangs together like a
through-composed piece, but there’s flexibility built into composition
and room for improvisation. “I was inspired by John Carter's Castles of
Ghana,” Garrison says of the origin of “Dark Matter.” “I
wrote the horn line intro as something majestic and princely, an overture to a
processional out of Africa with a darkly anticipatory tone.

“The tune itself consists of repetitive melodic rounds that are meant to
spin off as the players choose,” he continues, “and the repetitions
or order of the rounds are decided by each player in the moment. Solos should
emerge from that ‘dark matter,’ which is meant both as a reference
to Africa and its diaspora, and also to the scientific phenomenon of dark
matter, the invisible material that makes up most of the mass in the
universe.”

The South American folk song, “Llanto del Indio,” is a favorite of
Tchicai’s. He first recorded it in 1968 on Cadentia Nova Danica and again
on 35th Reunion with the New York Art Quartet in 2000 as well as on Good Night
Songs. John, Charlie, and Garrison practically sing the melody through their
horns, then Cecil finds a groove that elevates the rest of the performance.
“It’s completely improvised after the theme,” Garrison
explains. “That groove we find was not planned and will never be heard
again the same way. It's Cecil finding a hook and locking it down, which he
often does. He once told me that his first goal when he steps onto the bandstand
is to find that illustrious groove and lock it up.” Clearly the rest of
the band loves Cecil’s illustrious groove. They let it carry them into a
collective improvisation that gives way to a solo by Garrison and shows how much
he’s been able to carry with him across the border from hard bop into
free jazz.

It is astonishing—in a somewhat negative way—that this was John
Tchicai’s only New York club date. But there are so many other
astonishing things about this music that are positive, that perhaps it
isn’t right to dwell on the negative. It’s astonishing, for
instance, that a group of musicians who worked together for such a brief period
of time—a mere five days—could create music of such lasting
significance and beauty.

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