In 1999 I was visiting family in Norway, and was lucky enough to be taken (via 3 ferries) deep into fjord country to a mountain cave where Garbarek performed with the Hilliard Ensemble soon after the release of Mnemosyne. The musicians slowly circled the small audience in near-darkness, creating a swirling sonic landscape. It was the most surreal concert experience of my life.
When I read a line like “what Coltrane hears in heaven” I am reminded that AI will never be able to replace the human observer of art. Who was the listener who said that?
It was George Russell who brought Gabarek and Rypdal to attention of Bob “Impulse!/ Flying Dutchman” Thiele for release of The Esoteric Circle Gabarek and Jon Christensen both studied under Russell, who was living in Oslo. And Don Cherry had normalized international improvisation earlier in the ‘60s, working with Gato Barbieri, Karl Berger, JF Jenny Clarke, Aldo Romano and Bo Steif at Cafe Montmarte ( in Copenhagen). I think Eicher deserves more credit ( or blame) for the Euro-jazz or Nordic sound than Gabarek. What that sound mostly turns away from musically speaking is jazz bedrock such as the American songbook, gospel roots and the blues. Image-wise, it replaced jazz as the late night music of urban Americans relaxing after work with the notion that the music floated among the mists of nature, apart from struggles that might refer to race, gender, politics. Intensity was, as Ted identifies, seeking transcendence, with the Hilliard Ensemble, for example, offering liturgical basis from pre-modern Christian traditions.
Howard, thank you for peeling Ted's proverbial onion further. I have this fantasy that the downside of this moment in world history will bear artful fruit—somehow give birth to whatever a contemporary version of music that's diverse and interesting enough to produce an integrated deep dive like this. Any paragraph that includes George Russell, Don Cherry, Karl Berger, seeking transcendence, and the liturgical basis from pre-modern Christian traditions is one I want to read. Now to see and hear the 2026 version of this broad of influence and imagination. Peace to you.
Til Vigdis is great--been looking for an LP copy for many years, but have little hope of acquiring one. I’d agree that Cherry was a huge influence on improvisers in Scandinavia (Sweden especially, for obvious reasons). Ayler, Coltrane, Dolphy, Coleman, Taylor, Dixon-Shepp, and Barbieri all passed through the region and left quite a mark that Scandinavian players responded to in a variety of interesting ways. My favorite Garbarek & Rypdal is definitely the earlier material but the reverb-heavy ECM chamber jazz certainly has its place.
Garbarek's Witch Tai To (Ecm 1041) remains one of my most favorite records ever. While most of my vinyl is on shelves, this record (which I bought 51 years ago) is, at this very moment, one of the 20 or so records that sits right next to the stereo because I play it so often!
As a Hindustani musician I found "Ragas and Sagas" to be highly problematic. The tracks are only identified as "raga 1," "raga 2," etc. But these are actual songs which are part of the Hindustani khyal tradition. They have words (the first few of which always serve as the song's "title" in conversation), they are composed *in* ragas and talas. For Garbarek to title them as he did is IMO disrespectful...imagine an album made by someone from outside the jazz tradition in which a bunch of familiar tunes were just titled "standard 1," "standard 2," etc.
Garbarek's improvisations (much as I desperately wanted to like them) do not show that he actually listened to the Hindustani musicians who were in the room with him.
Regrettably, I did not get the sense that the Hindustani musicians in the room with him were listening to each other much less Jan Garbarek...Time to re-focus from this new locus on life! Health and balance,
They at least had the excuse that they were presumably hired to do their Hindustani thing & almost certainly had no previous exposure to JG's music (or probably to jazz in general if my experience is any indication). But Garbarek, and the producer of that record, should have known better.
Giving the Hindustani musicians and JG with ECM's recording crew the benefits of doubt in following through on their real time recording and perhaps creative compositional projects, your prescription for a more inclusive and responsive creative inter-action over intervening decades (suitable for respectful and thoughtful creative reply) should generate inter-communal support for those participants to either work on their own or in some collaboration towards advancing useful creation and dialogue even at this late (or early vis a vis geological time) date!
Manfred Eicher and ECM share-holders surely hold the corporate resources to fund such a follow-up project, perhaps an audio disc and book project. They may be taking a longer view than my comment represents as an irregular listener to ECM recordings in general and Jan Garbarek's recording and compositional catalogue(s) in particular.
Thanks, Ted, great article… you've unleashed a few memories from across the years.
There I was, a 16-year-old college freshman in 1978, approaching the university's radio station to volunteer for whatever they might need. The station manager handed me a stack of about a dozen LPs and told me to bring back my reviews; they'd figure out where I fit best after that. Buried in that pile was a boring blue cover marked, "ECM Sampler 3". Opening track: 'Long As You Know You're Living Yours, from "Belonging". A lifelong love of the ECM label was about to begin. I can't really blame Jan Garbarek, or Keith Jarrett, as that album also had tracks by Pat Metheny, Terje Rypdal, Ralph Towner, Jack DeJohnette, etc. I hate to admit it here, but that Sampler never made it back to the radio station… sorry guys, it's still in my shelf today. (One other LP I recall from that fateful stack: Oregon, "Out of the Woods". Classic. RIP, Ralph.)
Fast forward to 2004. Shuttling between work in Singapore and my new family home in Thailand. Finally manage to catch Jan Garbarek in concert in Singapore, as there are occasional forays from international level contemporary jazz artists to the Lion City. I'm finding out, though, that Bangkok is not attracting the same talent. What to do? I start by picking up a copy of "The History of Jazz" by some hitherto unknown author (ha!), and raiding the Tower Records in Singapore and Bangkok for CDs of every recommended recording which strikes my fancy. Good times! But, still, as I gradually settle further and further into Thailand, there is no live international jazz coming through. So I start my own company to make it happen.
Which brings me to 2009. I'm driving Tim Garland and Gwilym Simcock from Bangkok to Pattaya. They're playing some shows I've organized in Bangkok, but they have been invited to visit a recording studio south of the beach resort town for the day. At some point along the way my CD-changer clicks over to "Belonging", and the first track, Spiral Dance. The conversation immediately turns to Jan Garbarek and Keith Jarrett. I tell them how influential this music was to 16-year-old me… and they both admit that their biggest early influence was "My Song"! So good.
Ted, you really took me back in time with this post. Thank you. I loved your opening salvo with the "First they love me, then they don't" phenomenon. I was especially moved to be reminded of the Art Lande and Jan Garbarek duet. I had that record and loved it. In fact, I was a bit of an Art disciple for a moment there (taking a break from Keith, Bill, and Herbie). I saw Jan at the Great American Music Hall as part of an ECM day and night gig. He was fantastic—everyone was, from Dejohnette to Ralph Towner. Heard Art and the Rubisa Patrol at Keystone Korner and later recorded with Mark Isham and the drummer Kurt Wortman. Anyhow, thank you. Sorry, Jan ruined your ascent to fame! You're doing okay though. Appreciate every post!
Ha! Well GAMH, def not to be repeated now. Lots of those folks had the curtain close, even recently with Towner and Dejohnette. Sorry! But Rubisa Patrol were such a good band. Loved them. Also the band Mark Isham had after Rubisa Patrol, Group 87 was also excellent. Saw them once then Mark's film composer career began and the rest is history. Bill ended up moving to the Nevada City area. A longtime friend from the Yuba City area when I was just starting out, Lorraine Gervais, did lots of gigging with Bill and always had good things to say about him. Kurt Wortman, the drummer of Rubisa Patrol played in my band on the second General Public tour I did in early 1985. Thanks for commenting!
It was through Garbarek that I feel in love with jazz in my teens. I was lucky to see him play multiple times, including in a deeply mystical, dimly lit Church in the South of France. Thank you for this deeply moving article. As a European living in the US, I appreciated it even more!
Not disagreeing with you per se, but when I would travel in Europe in the 90's you never knew for sure what you were going to get when you went to a club that advertised jazz: something really good, a third rate dixieland band, or an American slumming it and assuming that it was easy to vocalize as well as play their instrument -- and demonstrating that it wasn't.
I fear I am about to open Pandora's Box here. Lovely melodies even if he moved away from that essential to jazz sense of swing and pulse whether it is lightning fast or in dead-slow ballads. It is soundscapes now. Not even jazz adjacent. Why do we still call it jazz, because he plays the saxophone?
As I said, loveIy melodies but still find his tone very piercing and grating. But then, beauty is very personal.
Garbarek was a big inspiration for my quest for my own musical voice in the 1970s, and remains one of my favorites today. In 2013 I attended a concert with his quartet featuring percussionist Trilok Gurtu— an utterly amazing experience, even if the repertoire was mostly a retrospective.
Well shit, thats not fair. Now i feel like i *have* to ask, why? Funny thing is i wouldnt have given it a second thought if you hadnt said that:/
Also, this *feels* like a reflection or reaction to current events. And im not saying that critically(ofc we're affected by the crazy ass world around us), just noticing the vibe shift. Or maybe its just coincidence. Still, feels like our world is getting smaller by the day
Edit: it just occurred to me that perhaps you meant "dont ask why" in that "go figure" kinda way, as in dont ask why bc no one has a clue, dude just likes crazy names.
Read and ruminate over poetry of your own selection and choice and Afric Pepperbird might jar the intuition part of touch sensitive musical listening adeptness into a more conscious mode!
Not for nothing that vanguard playwrights and other performance artists like Murray Mednick, Sam Shepard, Ed Harris, Guy Zimmerman leaned so hard in their productions (as did directors like Darrell Larsen) on threading mood music into the dialogues and discursive works that down-staged thought in character and not just animating antics....
I was drawn by such indie stagings by Darrell Larsen and the Padua Hills Playwrights makers like Murray Mednick to Keith Jarrett's spacier jazz recordings and then contemporary classical compositions with improv space for soloists like Jarrett and his percussive jazz combo featuring colorful players like Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette or Jarrett's recording of his orchestral works like The Celestial Hawk (recorded with the Syracuse Symphony).
From the broadened instrumentation and arrangement palettes of albums and live performances with evocative deep Texas roots sounds of saxophone reeds adepts such Dewey Redman and Ornette Coleman and avant garde stage and film composer\directors such as Shirley Clarke:
Ornette: Made In America captures Ornette Coleman's evolution over three decades.
"...Returning home to Fort Worth, Texas in 1983 as a famed performer and composer, documentary footage, dramatic scenes and some of the first music video-style segments ever made, chronicle his boyhood in segregated Texas and his subsequent emergence as an American cultural pioneer and world-class icon. Among those who contribute to the film include William Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Buckminster Fuller, Don Cherry, Yoko Ono, Charlie Haden, Robert Palmer, Jayne Cortez and John Rockwell...."
"Ornette: Made in America is essential for anyone hoping to understand the history of jazz and the fertile creative exchange that highlighted the 60’s and 70’s in America. It is a portrayal of the inner life of an artist-innovator."
"The innovative techniques that director Shirley Clarke and producer Kathelin Hoffman employed in this film very closely parallel the music of the man who is its subject. Clarke defied traditional documentary formats to reveal Ornette’s extraordinary vision through her equally extraordinary filmmaking artistry."
"Critically acclaimed when it released in 1985, the film is even more significant today, as Coleman’s influence has increased, while Clarke and Hoffman’s interpretation of his life and times remain as fresh and exciting as ever."
"The film focuses on the struggles and triumphs of Ornette Coleman’s life as well as on the inspired intelligence that spawned his creativity and ensured his success. Clarke’s footage includes Ornette in conversation with family and friends; excerpts of interviews, riffs and travels, along with footage of his performances—in his hometown of Fort Worth, TX, in New York, in Morocco and beyond—presents the most comprehensive record of his career available."
"Ornette: Made in America explores the rhythms, images and myths of America seen through they eyes of an artist’s ever-expanding imagination and experience."
Or as with the pipe organ solo behemoth and site specific projects Jarrett undertook (often recording on location of the instrument and architecture such as the various acoustic dynamics options afforded by gigging improv settings that got more formalized into compositions like Hymns\Spheres or those other memorable and vivid ECM album projects recorded with sound design by Manfred Eicher.
1973 Guilherme Franco - Keith Jarrett Quartet with Dewey Redman - Berliner Jazz Stage '73
Guilherme Franco
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Keith Jarrett - Piano
Dewey Redman - Tenor Sax
Charlie Haden - Bass
Paul Motian - Drums
Guilherme Franco - Percussion
This Reader Comment on the U. of Tube above site says so much of what an adventurer can find within these occasions with Keith Jarrett and his full-form creative collaborators or mentors such as composing improviser Ornette Coleman and similarly multi-platformed indie filmmaker Shirley Clarke (linked above in the documentary roots exploration tracking the Texas environments that so a'mused improv artists and composers or composite artists like Dewey Redman and his wife and son as well as their creative collaborators and free form or structured recordings and staged works featuring extended families and indeed entire generative communities:
"Redman graduated from Berkeley High School,[5] class of 1986, after having been a part of the award-winning Berkeley High School Jazz Ensemble for all four years of high school. After graduation, Joshua frequented the classroom jam sessions of Bay Area pianist and professor of music (at Laney College in Oakland, California), Ed Kelly. It was there that he performed alongside saxophonist Robert Stewart.[6]
In 1991, he graduated summa cum laude with a degree in social studies from Harvard University, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He had already been accepted by Yale Law School, but deferred entrance for what he believed was only going to be one year. Some of his friends had recently relocated to Brooklyn, and they were looking for another housemate to help with the rent. Redman accepted their invitation to move in, and almost immediately he found himself immersed in the New York jazz scene. He began jamming and gigging regularly with some of the leading jazz musicians of his generation and that of his father, including Brad Mehldau, Peter Martin, Mark Turner, Peter Bernstein, Roy Hargrove, Christian McBride, Kevin Hays, Jorge Rossy, Pat Metheny, Charlie Haden and Billy Higgins, among others."
"Redman won the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition in 1991, and began focusing on his musical career. He was signed by Warner Bros. Records and issued his first self-titled album in the spring of 1993, which subsequently earned Redman his first Grammy nomination. He continued to develop his style throughout the 1990s, beginning with a sideman appearance on Elvin Jones' Youngblood alongside Javon Jackson, and following up with an appearance on his father Dewey's 1992 record Choices."
"On his second album as a leader, Wish, he was joined by a notable lineup consisting of guitarist Pat Metheny, bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Billy Higgins; this group then toured as The Joshua Redman Quartet, featuring Christian McBride in place of Charlie Haden. He continued to work with various quartets, including one with pianist Brad Mehldau until forming a new trio, Elastic, with keyboardist Sam Yahel and drummer Brian Blade. The trio debuted under the moniker Yaya3, producing one album under this name..."
"....The same group of musicians made up the core on Redman's Elastic album, before becoming known as the Joshua Redman Elastic Band. Some of his works were featured on The Weather Channel's Local on the 8s. Redman performed in a fictitious supergroup, "The Louisiana Gator Boys", in the 1998 film Blues Brothers 2000, performing on "How Blue Can You Get?" and "New Orleans". Redman also appeared alongside Roy Hargrove and others on a series of albums released in the 1990s on RCA Novus by the Jazz Networks, an ensemble of American and Japanese musicians who focused on re-interpreting jazz standards primarily for the Japanese market."
"2000s
In 1999, Joshua Redman was immortalized in the children's TV show Arthur on PBS. He appeared in the tenth episode of the fourth season ("My Music Rules"), where it was rumored by the characters that he would get in a fight with famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma, who also appeared in the episode. Instead, when the two meet they are revealed to be fans of each other's music and collaborate together on a song to entertain children...."
"In 2000, Redman was named Artistic Director for the Spring Season of the non-profit jazz-presenting organization SFJAZZ. Redman co-founded the SFJAZZ with Executive Director Randall Kline, as the SFJAZZ Collective, an ensemble distinguished by the creativity of its members and a primary emphasis on composition."
"...On Sunday, December 8, 2013, Redman joined a group of jazz all-stars onstage at the Kennedy Center Honors in Washington, D.C., to pay tribute to honoree Herbie Hancock in performance. The event aired on December 29, 2013 on CBS."
"In 2015, Redman received his third Grammy nomination for his solo on "Friend or Foe" from the album The Bad Plus Joshua Redman."
I read somewhere (maybe Litweiler's "The Freedom Principle") that Don Cherry is responsible for convincing Garb to ditch his Trane obsession and focus on his Scandinavian roots. So blame Don!
In 1999 I was visiting family in Norway, and was lucky enough to be taken (via 3 ferries) deep into fjord country to a mountain cave where Garbarek performed with the Hilliard Ensemble soon after the release of Mnemosyne. The musicians slowly circled the small audience in near-darkness, creating a swirling sonic landscape. It was the most surreal concert experience of my life.
I am deeply envious.
When I read a line like “what Coltrane hears in heaven” I am reminded that AI will never be able to replace the human observer of art. Who was the listener who said that?
It was George Russell who brought Gabarek and Rypdal to attention of Bob “Impulse!/ Flying Dutchman” Thiele for release of The Esoteric Circle Gabarek and Jon Christensen both studied under Russell, who was living in Oslo. And Don Cherry had normalized international improvisation earlier in the ‘60s, working with Gato Barbieri, Karl Berger, JF Jenny Clarke, Aldo Romano and Bo Steif at Cafe Montmarte ( in Copenhagen). I think Eicher deserves more credit ( or blame) for the Euro-jazz or Nordic sound than Gabarek. What that sound mostly turns away from musically speaking is jazz bedrock such as the American songbook, gospel roots and the blues. Image-wise, it replaced jazz as the late night music of urban Americans relaxing after work with the notion that the music floated among the mists of nature, apart from struggles that might refer to race, gender, politics. Intensity was, as Ted identifies, seeking transcendence, with the Hilliard Ensemble, for example, offering liturgical basis from pre-modern Christian traditions.
Howard, thank you for peeling Ted's proverbial onion further. I have this fantasy that the downside of this moment in world history will bear artful fruit—somehow give birth to whatever a contemporary version of music that's diverse and interesting enough to produce an integrated deep dive like this. Any paragraph that includes George Russell, Don Cherry, Karl Berger, seeking transcendence, and the liturgical basis from pre-modern Christian traditions is one I want to read. Now to see and hear the 2026 version of this broad of influence and imagination. Peace to you.
Til Vigdis is great--been looking for an LP copy for many years, but have little hope of acquiring one. I’d agree that Cherry was a huge influence on improvisers in Scandinavia (Sweden especially, for obvious reasons). Ayler, Coltrane, Dolphy, Coleman, Taylor, Dixon-Shepp, and Barbieri all passed through the region and left quite a mark that Scandinavian players responded to in a variety of interesting ways. My favorite Garbarek & Rypdal is definitely the earlier material but the reverb-heavy ECM chamber jazz certainly has its place.
Garbarek's Witch Tai To (Ecm 1041) remains one of my most favorite records ever. While most of my vinyl is on shelves, this record (which I bought 51 years ago) is, at this very moment, one of the 20 or so records that sits right next to the stereo because I play it so often!
love Garb/Bobo's take on the Jim Pepper klazzick!
Thank you, Ted, on behalf of those of us for whom Music is a Universal Force.
As a Hindustani musician I found "Ragas and Sagas" to be highly problematic. The tracks are only identified as "raga 1," "raga 2," etc. But these are actual songs which are part of the Hindustani khyal tradition. They have words (the first few of which always serve as the song's "title" in conversation), they are composed *in* ragas and talas. For Garbarek to title them as he did is IMO disrespectful...imagine an album made by someone from outside the jazz tradition in which a bunch of familiar tunes were just titled "standard 1," "standard 2," etc.
Garbarek's improvisations (much as I desperately wanted to like them) do not show that he actually listened to the Hindustani musicians who were in the room with him.
Regrettably, I did not get the sense that the Hindustani musicians in the room with him were listening to each other much less Jan Garbarek...Time to re-focus from this new locus on life! Health and balance,
keep on listening & sharing.
Tio Mitchito & those muses
They at least had the excuse that they were presumably hired to do their Hindustani thing & almost certainly had no previous exposure to JG's music (or probably to jazz in general if my experience is any indication). But Garbarek, and the producer of that record, should have known better.
Giving the Hindustani musicians and JG with ECM's recording crew the benefits of doubt in following through on their real time recording and perhaps creative compositional projects, your prescription for a more inclusive and responsive creative inter-action over intervening decades (suitable for respectful and thoughtful creative reply) should generate inter-communal support for those participants to either work on their own or in some collaboration towards advancing useful creation and dialogue even at this late (or early vis a vis geological time) date!
Manfred Eicher and ECM share-holders surely hold the corporate resources to fund such a follow-up project, perhaps an audio disc and book project. They may be taking a longer view than my comment represents as an irregular listener to ECM recordings in general and Jan Garbarek's recording and compositional catalogue(s) in particular.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Garbarek
https://www.jazzwise.com/artists/article/jan-garbarek
Thanks for engaging and not merely "consuming" creative product!
Warmly and respectfully yours in shared enthusiasm,
Tio Mitchito
Mitch Ritter\Paradigm Sifters, Code Shifters, PsalmSong Chasers
Lay-Low Studios, Ore-Wa (Refuge of A-Tone-ment Seekers)
Media Discussion List\Looksee
Thanks, Ted, great article… you've unleashed a few memories from across the years.
There I was, a 16-year-old college freshman in 1978, approaching the university's radio station to volunteer for whatever they might need. The station manager handed me a stack of about a dozen LPs and told me to bring back my reviews; they'd figure out where I fit best after that. Buried in that pile was a boring blue cover marked, "ECM Sampler 3". Opening track: 'Long As You Know You're Living Yours, from "Belonging". A lifelong love of the ECM label was about to begin. I can't really blame Jan Garbarek, or Keith Jarrett, as that album also had tracks by Pat Metheny, Terje Rypdal, Ralph Towner, Jack DeJohnette, etc. I hate to admit it here, but that Sampler never made it back to the radio station… sorry guys, it's still in my shelf today. (One other LP I recall from that fateful stack: Oregon, "Out of the Woods". Classic. RIP, Ralph.)
Fast forward to 2004. Shuttling between work in Singapore and my new family home in Thailand. Finally manage to catch Jan Garbarek in concert in Singapore, as there are occasional forays from international level contemporary jazz artists to the Lion City. I'm finding out, though, that Bangkok is not attracting the same talent. What to do? I start by picking up a copy of "The History of Jazz" by some hitherto unknown author (ha!), and raiding the Tower Records in Singapore and Bangkok for CDs of every recommended recording which strikes my fancy. Good times! But, still, as I gradually settle further and further into Thailand, there is no live international jazz coming through. So I start my own company to make it happen.
Which brings me to 2009. I'm driving Tim Garland and Gwilym Simcock from Bangkok to Pattaya. They're playing some shows I've organized in Bangkok, but they have been invited to visit a recording studio south of the beach resort town for the day. At some point along the way my CD-changer clicks over to "Belonging", and the first track, Spiral Dance. The conversation immediately turns to Jan Garbarek and Keith Jarrett. I tell them how influential this music was to 16-year-old me… and they both admit that their biggest early influence was "My Song"! So good.
Ted, you really took me back in time with this post. Thank you. I loved your opening salvo with the "First they love me, then they don't" phenomenon. I was especially moved to be reminded of the Art Lande and Jan Garbarek duet. I had that record and loved it. In fact, I was a bit of an Art disciple for a moment there (taking a break from Keith, Bill, and Herbie). I saw Jan at the Great American Music Hall as part of an ECM day and night gig. He was fantastic—everyone was, from Dejohnette to Ralph Towner. Heard Art and the Rubisa Patrol at Keystone Korner and later recorded with Mark Isham and the drummer Kurt Wortman. Anyhow, thank you. Sorry, Jan ruined your ascent to fame! You're doing okay though. Appreciate every post!
I remember seeing Rubisa Patrol, with Bill Douglass on bass. But I missed the GAMH date! Damn, you’ve given me something to regret now 🥲
Ha! Well GAMH, def not to be repeated now. Lots of those folks had the curtain close, even recently with Towner and Dejohnette. Sorry! But Rubisa Patrol were such a good band. Loved them. Also the band Mark Isham had after Rubisa Patrol, Group 87 was also excellent. Saw them once then Mark's film composer career began and the rest is history. Bill ended up moving to the Nevada City area. A longtime friend from the Yuba City area when I was just starting out, Lorraine Gervais, did lots of gigging with Bill and always had good things to say about him. Kurt Wortman, the drummer of Rubisa Patrol played in my band on the second General Public tour I did in early 1985. Thanks for commenting!
It was through Garbarek that I feel in love with jazz in my teens. I was lucky to see him play multiple times, including in a deeply mystical, dimly lit Church in the South of France. Thank you for this deeply moving article. As a European living in the US, I appreciated it even more!
Never heard of this guy before today. Clearly my loss. Right now I'm listening to his 2025 album, "Substantial." Wonderful stuff.
Once again, Thanks, Ted, for bringing us this kind of wonderment.
Not disagreeing with you per se, but when I would travel in Europe in the 90's you never knew for sure what you were going to get when you went to a club that advertised jazz: something really good, a third rate dixieland band, or an American slumming it and assuming that it was easy to vocalize as well as play their instrument -- and demonstrating that it wasn't.
Officium is sublime.
I saw this project live in Brussels. Stunning.
I bet. I envy you! I never tire of it. Always fresh.
I fear I am about to open Pandora's Box here. Lovely melodies even if he moved away from that essential to jazz sense of swing and pulse whether it is lightning fast or in dead-slow ballads. It is soundscapes now. Not even jazz adjacent. Why do we still call it jazz, because he plays the saxophone?
As I said, loveIy melodies but still find his tone very piercing and grating. But then, beauty is very personal.
Thanks, Ted— this is a great article.
Garbarek was a big inspiration for my quest for my own musical voice in the 1970s, and remains one of my favorites today. In 2013 I attended a concert with his quartet featuring percussionist Trilok Gurtu— an utterly amazing experience, even if the repertoire was mostly a retrospective.
called Afric Pepperbird—don’t ask why
Well shit, thats not fair. Now i feel like i *have* to ask, why? Funny thing is i wouldnt have given it a second thought if you hadnt said that:/
Also, this *feels* like a reflection or reaction to current events. And im not saying that critically(ofc we're affected by the crazy ass world around us), just noticing the vibe shift. Or maybe its just coincidence. Still, feels like our world is getting smaller by the day
Edit: it just occurred to me that perhaps you meant "dont ask why" in that "go figure" kinda way, as in dont ask why bc no one has a clue, dude just likes crazy names.
Read and ruminate over poetry of your own selection and choice and Afric Pepperbird might jar the intuition part of touch sensitive musical listening adeptness into a more conscious mode!
Not for nothing that vanguard playwrights and other performance artists like Murray Mednick, Sam Shepard, Ed Harris, Guy Zimmerman leaned so hard in their productions (as did directors like Darrell Larsen) on threading mood music into the dialogues and discursive works that down-staged thought in character and not just animating antics....
https://odysseytheatre.com/cast-crew/darrell-larson/
I was drawn by such indie stagings by Darrell Larsen and the Padua Hills Playwrights makers like Murray Mednick to Keith Jarrett's spacier jazz recordings and then contemporary classical compositions with improv space for soloists like Jarrett and his percussive jazz combo featuring colorful players like Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette or Jarrett's recording of his orchestral works like The Celestial Hawk (recorded with the Syracuse Symphony).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Celestial_Hawk
From the broadened instrumentation and arrangement palettes of albums and live performances with evocative deep Texas roots sounds of saxophone reeds adepts such Dewey Redman and Ornette Coleman and avant garde stage and film composer\directors such as Shirley Clarke:
The Survivors Suite
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Survivors%27_Suite
https://projectshirley.com/ornette_about.html
Ornette: Made in America
Home About the Film
Ornette: Made In America captures Ornette Coleman's evolution over three decades.
"...Returning home to Fort Worth, Texas in 1983 as a famed performer and composer, documentary footage, dramatic scenes and some of the first music video-style segments ever made, chronicle his boyhood in segregated Texas and his subsequent emergence as an American cultural pioneer and world-class icon. Among those who contribute to the film include William Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Buckminster Fuller, Don Cherry, Yoko Ono, Charlie Haden, Robert Palmer, Jayne Cortez and John Rockwell...."
"Ornette: Made in America is essential for anyone hoping to understand the history of jazz and the fertile creative exchange that highlighted the 60’s and 70’s in America. It is a portrayal of the inner life of an artist-innovator."
"The innovative techniques that director Shirley Clarke and producer Kathelin Hoffman employed in this film very closely parallel the music of the man who is its subject. Clarke defied traditional documentary formats to reveal Ornette’s extraordinary vision through her equally extraordinary filmmaking artistry."
"Critically acclaimed when it released in 1985, the film is even more significant today, as Coleman’s influence has increased, while Clarke and Hoffman’s interpretation of his life and times remain as fresh and exciting as ever."
"The film focuses on the struggles and triumphs of Ornette Coleman’s life as well as on the inspired intelligence that spawned his creativity and ensured his success. Clarke’s footage includes Ornette in conversation with family and friends; excerpts of interviews, riffs and travels, along with footage of his performances—in his hometown of Fort Worth, TX, in New York, in Morocco and beyond—presents the most comprehensive record of his career available."
"Ornette: Made in America explores the rhythms, images and myths of America seen through they eyes of an artist’s ever-expanding imagination and experience."
Or as with the pipe organ solo behemoth and site specific projects Jarrett undertook (often recording on location of the instrument and architecture such as the various acoustic dynamics options afforded by gigging improv settings that got more formalized into compositions like Hymns\Spheres or those other memorable and vivid ECM album projects recorded with sound design by Manfred Eicher.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hymns/Spheres
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbh_iVBh4jg
1973 Guilherme Franco - Keith Jarrett Quartet with Dewey Redman - Berliner Jazz Stage '73
Guilherme Franco
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81,108 views May 20, 2013
Keith Jarrett - Piano
Dewey Redman - Tenor Sax
Charlie Haden - Bass
Paul Motian - Drums
Guilherme Franco - Percussion
This Reader Comment on the U. of Tube above site says so much of what an adventurer can find within these occasions with Keith Jarrett and his full-form creative collaborators or mentors such as composing improviser Ornette Coleman and similarly multi-platformed indie filmmaker Shirley Clarke (linked above in the documentary roots exploration tracking the Texas environments that so a'mused improv artists and composers or composite artists like Dewey Redman and his wife and son as well as their creative collaborators and free form or structured recordings and staged works featuring extended families and indeed entire generative communities:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Redman):
"Redman graduated from Berkeley High School,[5] class of 1986, after having been a part of the award-winning Berkeley High School Jazz Ensemble for all four years of high school. After graduation, Joshua frequented the classroom jam sessions of Bay Area pianist and professor of music (at Laney College in Oakland, California), Ed Kelly. It was there that he performed alongside saxophonist Robert Stewart.[6]
In 1991, he graduated summa cum laude with a degree in social studies from Harvard University, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He had already been accepted by Yale Law School, but deferred entrance for what he believed was only going to be one year. Some of his friends had recently relocated to Brooklyn, and they were looking for another housemate to help with the rent. Redman accepted their invitation to move in, and almost immediately he found himself immersed in the New York jazz scene. He began jamming and gigging regularly with some of the leading jazz musicians of his generation and that of his father, including Brad Mehldau, Peter Martin, Mark Turner, Peter Bernstein, Roy Hargrove, Christian McBride, Kevin Hays, Jorge Rossy, Pat Metheny, Charlie Haden and Billy Higgins, among others."
"Redman won the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition in 1991, and began focusing on his musical career. He was signed by Warner Bros. Records and issued his first self-titled album in the spring of 1993, which subsequently earned Redman his first Grammy nomination. He continued to develop his style throughout the 1990s, beginning with a sideman appearance on Elvin Jones' Youngblood alongside Javon Jackson, and following up with an appearance on his father Dewey's 1992 record Choices."
"On his second album as a leader, Wish, he was joined by a notable lineup consisting of guitarist Pat Metheny, bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Billy Higgins; this group then toured as The Joshua Redman Quartet, featuring Christian McBride in place of Charlie Haden. He continued to work with various quartets, including one with pianist Brad Mehldau until forming a new trio, Elastic, with keyboardist Sam Yahel and drummer Brian Blade. The trio debuted under the moniker Yaya3, producing one album under this name..."
"....The same group of musicians made up the core on Redman's Elastic album, before becoming known as the Joshua Redman Elastic Band. Some of his works were featured on The Weather Channel's Local on the 8s. Redman performed in a fictitious supergroup, "The Louisiana Gator Boys", in the 1998 film Blues Brothers 2000, performing on "How Blue Can You Get?" and "New Orleans". Redman also appeared alongside Roy Hargrove and others on a series of albums released in the 1990s on RCA Novus by the Jazz Networks, an ensemble of American and Japanese musicians who focused on re-interpreting jazz standards primarily for the Japanese market."
"2000s
In 1999, Joshua Redman was immortalized in the children's TV show Arthur on PBS. He appeared in the tenth episode of the fourth season ("My Music Rules"), where it was rumored by the characters that he would get in a fight with famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma, who also appeared in the episode. Instead, when the two meet they are revealed to be fans of each other's music and collaborate together on a song to entertain children...."
"In 2000, Redman was named Artistic Director for the Spring Season of the non-profit jazz-presenting organization SFJAZZ. Redman co-founded the SFJAZZ with Executive Director Randall Kline, as the SFJAZZ Collective, an ensemble distinguished by the creativity of its members and a primary emphasis on composition."
"...On Sunday, December 8, 2013, Redman joined a group of jazz all-stars onstage at the Kennedy Center Honors in Washington, D.C., to pay tribute to honoree Herbie Hancock in performance. The event aired on December 29, 2013 on CBS."
"In 2015, Redman received his third Grammy nomination for his solo on "Friend or Foe" from the album The Bad Plus Joshua Redman."
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Lay-Low Studios, Ore-Wa (Refuge of A-Tone-ment Seekers)
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I read somewhere (maybe Litweiler's "The Freedom Principle") that Don Cherry is responsible for convincing Garb to ditch his Trane obsession and focus on his Scandinavian roots. So blame Don!