Graham Collier news
Not a blog but a chance to get all the current news, reviews and opinions on to one page. After a month or so they will be deleted or moved to the relevant pages in the site. Comments are welcome.
News for 2008
On the move...
In what I'm calling my heart of darkness tour we're on the move from an Andalusian hill town to a small Greek island in the Aegean. I'm not expecting to end up an African river as Kurtz did in Conrad's novel - or Brando in Apocalypse Now - but it's another move away from noise and crowds and all the things that increasingly impinge on one's space. And a chance to sit by the sea!
Of course it's a move away from jazz clubs and concerts as well but given the state of the jazz world it's a price I'm willing to pay while still taking advantage of what can be heard as I continue to travel and work in different countries around the world.
My new book The Jazz Composer, moving music off the paper has just been delivered to Northway Books, who will publish it early in 2009. Issued alongside the book will be 14 Jackson Pollocks, a double CD of a concert recorded at the London Jazz Festival in 2004. Also on the CD will be the Alternate Third Colour, a performance which used the same music but produced a very different result than that on The Third Colour CD (Jazzprint).
Another alternate performance - this time of the highly praised Mosaics from 1970 - will appear for the first time on a new double CD package from BGO. Also included will be my first recording, Deep Dark Blue Centre, but this time in a newly discovered stereo version, and Portraits.
This website will be resting for a while until the move is complete, but will return in a new format which will start to develop a parallel universe to the Jazz Composer book, giving access to audio samples, more information on artists covered and allowing comments from readers. Watch this space.
Some detail from the posting in November 2007.
BGO recently released three classic Graham Collier LPs - Down Another Road, Mosaics, Songs for My Father - in a 2 CD package with new notes by Alyn Shipton covering Graham’s whole career.
14 Jackson Pollocks, whose title comes from a comment about the concert from an audience member, includes two major works, Forty Years On, a relook at many of Graham’s compositions during his forty year career, and The Vonetta Factor, commissioned by Birmingham Jazz in 2004. The double CD will also include The Alternate Third Colour, a previously unheard performance of his 1997 Arts Council commission.
The inclusion of alternate versions of these compositions is a result of Graham’s working methods which can be summed up in the phrase ‘jazz happens in real time, once’. This means that the alternate versions contain not only new solos, but also new backgrounds and new overall structures. How this is achieved is discussed in the final part of his new book The Jazz Composer, Moving Music off the Paper, which presents a mainly philosophical look at the largely misunderstood subject of jazz composition. Publication, by Northway Books, is due in early 2009, simultaneous with the release of the 14 Jackson Pollocks CD and the launch of an interactive website containing audio examples, links to other sites and more.
See this space for further details in due course.
Current Affairs February 2007
Since writing the brief tributes below on friends and fellow musicians who had recently died, news came of the death of Steve Harris, a great drummer and friend. The CDs he gave me provided much enjoyable listening, and led to one chapter of my new book being dedicated to Steve and his group ZAUM. More about Zaum can be found at http://www.steve-harris.info/
Here are two extracts from taking a chance, relinquishing control, Chapter 14 of The Jazz Composer.
This chapter’s dedicatee, Steve Harris’s group ZAUM, has created, in their live performances and in their CDs, sets of miniatures which show distinct compositional form, with some moments of aggression, alongside some moments of pure beauty. To my ear they could have been composed, yet I am told that they were completely improvised in performance. Some of the sounds are undeniably jazz, some could have been created from music written by a contemporary classical composer. They provide a completely satisfying experience in an area where, for me, - because of the risk taking? because of my preference for some kind of underlying form? - this is rare.
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Given such a huge recorded output, often on very obscure labels, there can be few who know Sun Ra’s work in its entirety. My problem is, that of what I have heard, there is very little that I actually enjoy.
… (As an experiment, after listening to Heliocentric Worlds, Volume 1, one of Sun Ra’s most praised albums, I put on a random track of ZAUM, the free improvising group mentioned above. I immediately felt drawn in to the sound world, and sense of form, that Steve Harris and his musicians were creating, an effect which had passed me by when listening to Sun Ra. I should add that I have seen Sun Ra live and enjoyed the spectacle hugely, and most of the music, but have not, for the reasons mentioned above, become enough of a fan to follow it through.)
From November 2007
On regard for the individual
Recent months have seen the passing of several close friends and musical colleagues. Michael Henshaw, who became a good friend, was my accountant for many years. Named by the Guardian as ‘the financial guru to the unconventional rich’ he numbered many artists among his clients, as well as a few more penurious musicians such as myself and Nick Weldon.
Paul Rutherford and Mike Osborne were two of the great musicians who were part of the London jazz scene from the 1960s on. Like most of the musicians around at that time they never became rich, unconventionally or otherwise, but they were part of a very vibrant and creative scene in a country which, sadly, failed to recognise and reward their talents.
The dedication of my Jazz Composer book to trumpeter Herb Pomeroy is, as the Introduction will say ‘a reflection of his influence on my formative years when I attended Berklee. A good friend and mentor, and an inspiring teacher, Herb taught me a lot but one occasion stays in the mind. He was highly sceptical when I gave a solo section of one composition to the lead alto player, rather than the acknowledged soloists. He later graciously recognised that I knew what I was doing, but it was he who had first taught me the lesson that regard for the individual is what really counts in jazz.’
These four individuals made their contribution count, in my life and those of many others.