Mal-icious

I communed with the spirits of three musicians the other night.  Mal Waldron, Reggie Workman, Billy Higgins and I met at a cosmic astral plane while my poor human body lay on the floor in an unlit room well after midnight.  The out-of-body experience facilitated by Up Popped the Devil was entirely unexpected.

I was inspired to play the obscure European release after reading a The New York Times feature about an outlandish record label’s plans to reissue one of Waldron’s albums for Prestige.  Knowing the pianist’s work from the ‘50s doesn’t interest me, I crassly opted for the 1973 session based on its odd album title and excellent cover art.

The trio’s hypnotically transportive playing stunned me.  How could I not have known about Waldron’s two radically distinct careers?  I’ve since learned that he had a mental breakdown in 1963.  The music Waldron made after the trauma is just as idiosyncratic and almost as innovative as the work of Thelonious Monk and Cecil Taylor. 

Waldron explains his approach in the illuminating documentary “A Portrait of Mal Waldron”.  He says “when I play piano I’m trying to find things... it’s always a constant search.”  As Waldron’s newest convert, I’ve joined his search party.  My initial exploration into his dozens of late-career albums- including the maiden voyage of ECM Records- has just begun.  Hours of ecstatic delirium await.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)

Cecil Taylor, 1929-2018

Many advocates of jazz laud the polite sophistication that’s often associated with the form.  Not me.  I first embraced jazz as a disaffected teen in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s.  Artists who possessed the same sort of disruptive energy, outrageous personas and penchant for abrasiveness as cutting-edge rock and R&B musicians provided my entry point into the music.  Aggressive new releases by Cecil Taylor, Anthony Braxton, Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra and the Art Ensemble of Chicago thrilled me almost as much as the latest innovations by the likes of Prince, Talking Heads, Rick James, the Clash and the Gap Band.  Only later did I come to appreciate the uptown elegance of Duke Ellington and the subtle beauty of Bill Evans.  My primary allegiance will always be with the noisy daredevils of jazz.  Taylor died yesterday.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)