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	On This Page: STEPHAN MICUS - Solitary Pursuits BOOK REVIEWS STEPHAN MICUS ? Solitary Pursuits Interview by John Kelman Multi-instrumentalist Stephan Micus has been working outside the musical mainstream for over 30 years. With more than 15 albums for the German ECM label and, in the early days, its sister label JAPO, Micus has created a body of work that is the result of years of extensive traveling around the world to both acquire and learn musical instruments ranging from the Armenian double-reed duduk to the Ethiopian 10-string bagana. Micus finds music in the most curious and unexpected of materials, including clay flower pots and large sculpted stones. A lifelong student of culture and society, Micus finds new ways of combining a rich diversity of ethnic instruments that would simply not be possible under other circumstances, creating a cross-cultural music that is like no other. Indian dilruba blends with Arabian nay; Tibetan chimes mix with Bavarian zithers; and Ghanese dondon unites with Japanese shakuhachi to explore, quite possibly the most affirmed idea of World Music. And while most musicians thrive on the interaction of playing with others, Micus? heavily layered pieces are the result of years of painstaking and solitary pursuit. The result is an arc of recordings that, perhaps more so than most, truly reflects a life?s calling that embodies more than merely music, realizing the spiritual search that clearly informs his work as well. Micus? latest album, Life (ECM, ?04), is in some ways the most ambitious album of his career, based on a Japanese Koan or riddle regarding the meaning of life. From the complex and sprawling ?Narration One and the Master?s Question,? which incorporates the Ethiopian 10-string bagana, Tibetan chimes, Burmese kyeezee (chimes) and maung (gongs), Japanese sho (mouth organ), voices, tin whistle and Bavarian zither, to the stark single voice of ?The Master?s Answer,? Life takes the listener on a journey of discovery and revelation where the answers are often as enigmatic as the questions. Beginnings Micus didn?t have any particular musical exposure as a youth. ?My father was a painter,? says Micus. ?Growing up I didn?t really have any intense contact with music, instead I was exposed more to visual things. Many people say that the covers of my albums are quite special, and I think that?s because I choose all the photos myself, so that?s perhaps a reflection on my father?s visual education. ?And then the music,? continues Micus, ?I really got into that all by myself. It really started on my 12th birthday when I received a guitar, which I wanted very much, so I started to learn guitar. Later on, listening to Jethro Tull I got interested in the concert flute. I was playing in rock groups by that time and at school. Fairly quickly I got away from that and started making music with English texts and acoustic guitar and, in fact, made my first album while I was still in school. When I was about to finish school in ?70-?71, I heard my first albums of Indian classical music and that was, for me, an incredible moment, and it really gave a very strong influence to my career and my whole life. So when I finished school I travelled to India overland, it was ?72, to learn Indian music, the sitar, and from then on there was a pattern which continues to this day, which is that I listen to records or concerts, hear some instruments which really attract me, and I go the countries of origin and study them ? many instruments including the Japanese shakuhachi and the Armenian duduk.? Meeting Manfred Eicher and Early Recording Process Following his trip to India in ?72, Micus spent about six months in New York City, and established some connections there that would ultimately lead to his meeting up with ECM label owner and primary producer, Manfred Eicher. ?When I was living in Manhattan,? Micus explains, ?there was a very important public radio station, WBAI. Groups like Oregon used to hang out there; it was like a meeting place for musicians who recorded for ECM in the very early days. At that point I had made my very first recordings in Spain and the director, Judy Sherman (now producer of the Kronos Quartet), liked the tapes and made an hour-long program out of my music. She told me that when I got back to Munich, where I was living in the countryside nearby, I?d have to meet a person called Manfred Eicher, because she thought he?d like my music. From Manhattan I travelled to Japan, and it took me two more years to reach Munich again, but when I finally got home I called him and we met. We started to work together and have now for over 30 years.? Unlike most ECM artists where Eicher is most often intimately involved in everything from pre-production through post-production, Micus is left completely to his own devices, recording everything at his own MCM Studio since To the Evening Child (ECM, ?92). ?This is absolutely fantastic,? says Micus. ?You can get a really great quality studio for $15,000. To get the equipment to produce the same quality of sound when I started cost you a million dollars, so this is really an amazing development and really fantastic for people like me. Manfred was with me in the studio for the first two records, Implosions (JAPO, ?77) and Till the End of Time (JAPO, ?78, reissued ECM, ?93) but since then he hasn?t been involved with my recordings at all.? But in the early days, Micus was given the same restriction as most other ECM artists ? three days to record and mix. ?It was really very difficult,? Micus explains. ?What I did with the later albums, before I had my own studio, was to put a month between each day. The first ones I did in three consecutive days. I can?t really tell you how I did it. It would have been absolutely impossible to do an album like Life. Now that I have my own studio I can invest not only as much time as I want in composing and making demo tapes, but also the actual final recording.? Instruments It would be almost impossible to count the number of instruments that Micus has acquired and used over the past 30 years. ?It?s a pattern that has continued all my life,? Micus says, ?where I fall in love with different instruments, and am so attracted that there is no other way than to go to the country and find a teacher. I am interested in not only studying the music, but also all about the culture. I think that to really learn an instrument, especially from a foreign place and culture you have to not only take music lessons, but you have to learn about philosophy, architecture, poetry, cooking. You have to establish some contact to the nature there. So that has been my whole life. ?Of course each instrument has its own unique story,? continues Micus, ?so let me tell you about the bagana. I was playing in a festival in Milano, and there was this player from Ethiopia playing the bagana. I really got fascinated by this instrument, and later I got introduced to the man and so we made some contact and as soon as I had some free time I travelled to Ethiopia, where he?s still living in Addis Ababa, the capital. I spent six weeks there, time with him and time just travelling in the country. Many times I don?t meet the teachers beforehand, but will just go to the country and look around, maybe visit some music schools or conservatories or universities. Sometimes I check things out through recording studios. There are many ways; if you really want to find something like this, you?ll eventually find it.? But along with putting together instruments from different cultures, Micus sometimes has to modify an instrument or create new tunings. In the case of the bagana, the tuning of only five of the ten strings is known; the rest have been lost to antiquity. So for the music on Life, Micus devised a new way of tuning the instrument so that he could use all ten strings. ?I could have simply continued the same way as the Ethiopians are doing it,? Micus says, ?but here we come to the point which is probably responsible for a lot of the things I?ve done. I have this urge, this very great interest, to experiment with instruments and to change them, modify them; to imagine new instruments. So, of course, it would have been impossible to have five extra strings on the bagana without using them. It was great fun to get all 10 strings playing again. Obviously at one time the Ethiopians used all ten, and I think it?s quite remarkable, because it seems to be quite an ancient instrument, for hundreds of years they built it with ten strings but used only five. It?s absolutely fantastic, crazy. Imagine having a guitar with 12 strings and not knowing how to tune 6 of them, yet still continuing to build the guitars for 12 strings; it?s absolutely extraordinary.? Actors and The Music of Stones As Micus acquires new instruments and the skill to use them, he has a very specific approach to incorporating them into new projects. ?I have tried on most albums, especially with the later ones, to have one or two main actors or instruments,? explains Micus, ?and then I build the story around these main actors. So we could say, for example, that in The Music of Stones (ECM, ?89), the stone instruments are the principal theme, and with Towards the Wind (ECM, ?02) it?s the duduk, and on East of the Night (ECM, ?85) I had designed a new type of guitar. Then there were two albums where the primary theme was flower pots. So there are many kinds of main actors. ?The Music of Stones was a very special project,? continues Micus, ?because I had been interested in the use of stones as musical instruments since very early on, because I had visited Korea in ?73 or ?74, and there in a museum I saw an instrument that I knew about, which was a very ancient Chinese instrument the Koreans later adopted. So the use of stones as musical instruments goes back about 2,500 years or more. That was very inspiring, and I actually copied this instrument later, it?s like a slate which has a very specific shape. I copied it with marble and certain other stones, so I was already into this. ?Then I heard of this German sculptor,? Micus continues, ?who dedicates his work to making sculptures that can also be played as musical instruments. I went to see him and we got to know each other. After a year or two he called me and said, ?Look, I have this really interesting exhibition in the Cathedral of Ulm,? which is a city in Southern Germany, with a very big church that holds 7,000 people and the biggest church tower in the world; it?s the biggest Protestant church in the whole world. It has an amazing acoustic. If you clap your hands there will be sound for 8 seconds. So it?s very extreme -- the fantastic thing is that when the priests speak you can?t understand a single word. ?Anyway, he had an exhibition there,? concludes Micus, ?he wanted to make a concert and wanted me to write a special composition for this event. Of course I was very interested, and so we worked several nights in the church, over a period of 3-4 months, we made a program and in the beginning we never thought about making a record. But then towards the end we saw that really interesting material had been created, so after the concert we took another day and recorded it. That was very special; as you can imagine in this acoustic you have to create music especially for this space. If you just go there and play ordinary music it becomes one big soup.? Composing and Recording ? A Unique Process Micus? composition methodology is somewhat different than most artists. Rather than sit at an instrument and notate his pieces, it?s more about beginning with a concept and then experimenting with various possibilities until something concrete develops. ?I compose through many improvisations,? Micus explains, ?so I usually start out with one instrument, which I either feel like playing or is the instrument that I have decided will be the main actor. So I?ll play, let?s say, the duduk, and then I improvise until I find some pieces that I find interesting. All the while I have a cassette deck recording to have a reference. When I think that maybe a 15-second passage is interesting, then it starts to be the seed of the composition. I?ll then work around developing this phrase more, until maybe a whole melody comes, and then at a certain point I?ll decide whether this stays a solo duduk piece or, if I have the feeling that it would be nice to have another instrument, I?ll try out many other instruments that I have. I work very little in a mental way, like planning this mentally. The way I work is to try out many different things, actually playing them. I could never compose music with just a pencil and paper, it would be absolutely impossible. ?Usually I have certain ideas as to what could best fit with the main instrument,? continues Micus, ?but basically the way I work is to try out all the possibilities that I think could work somehow, and consequently there are often great surprises. That?s why I don?t trust so much in a rational process where you have for example, a duduk and you think that the next best thing might be violin, because I?ve seen many, many times that things work together that I haven?t really imagined, and you get into completely unexpected places and new possibilities by trying things out. I?m a very practical person, not a person who is very involved in theories. I like to do things with my hands; I have to hear the sound of an instrument. I could never compose music for an instrument that I couldn?t play myself.? With Life, for the first time since Athos (ECM, ?94), Micus worked from a predetermined text. ?I had a text for the Athos album,? says Micus, ?in an existing language, but it was different because there were several texts and I could sequence the individual compositions as I wanted. But with Life the text tells a story from beginning to end. This was both an advantage and a challenge; the sequence was predefined by the nature of the text. It was a help in a way, it was like something to hold onto, but in another sense a challenge, and difficult because you really had to respect text that couldn?t be changed. ?Let?s talk about the first piece on Life,? Micus continues, ??Narration One and the Master?s Question,? which is the most complex piece I?ve ever done. First of all there was the text. Also I wanted to present the bagana on this album, so the logical thing was to start the album with this instrument. Then I had the text, which can be divided in two parts. There?s the narration and the dialogues between the master and the monk. I wanted to sing all the narrations as a choir to give them a special form, and so I had to compose the different narration parts. So there are three shorter choir parts in the first piece. I composed these three choir pieces first and then I created the accompanying instrumental parts. Then there was the question of the master, which could have been a separate piece, but I felt that through the music I was getting more to the solution, where the question evolves from the narration of the choir. I don?t know exactly how much time I spent working on just this first piece, but I had a demo version and then just to record it I worked for half a year, every day, without doing anything else. You can only do this alone; you cannot ask any musician in the world, however patient, to be with you half a year to record 14 minutes of music ? they?d kill you! ?I think in this regard,? concludes Micus, ?that people who work with a piano, pencil and paper, they probably have the same amount of frustration, and weeks of work without getting anywhere. Unfortunately I don?t have any contact with people in that way, so I don?t know what they experience. But I can?t imagine that any composer doesn?t have times like this ? I have these periods where I think I can?t do anything, am worth nothing, and wonder if I?ll ever compose another piece. So this has been going on for 25 years and it?s a very strange way to live.? Micus does, however, often have more than one project on the go. There was a cross-over, for example, between the recording of Towards the Wind and Desert Poems (ECM, ?01). ?I now have, for example, 15 minutes ready for the next album,? Micus explains, ?and that was at the moment when Life was released. There are usually some pieces that I have composed, or have in a demo version, which I do during the time when I?m working on another album. Sometimes it?s simply that the pieces don?t fit or make sense on one album and maybe they will on the next. Other times it helps me to regain focus on my current project by distancing myself.? And while Micus often layers many tracks ? ?The Horses of Nizami? from Desert Poems, for example, incorporates the Indian bowed sarangi, five Ghanese dondon or talking drums, and no less than 23 voices -- he intentionally eschews the use of effects or studio trickery that would make his compositions, if he were to put together a large enough ensemble, impossible to perform. ?All of my compositions could be performed live by an ensemble of musicians,? says Micus. ?I very consciously compose the music in such a way that it always could be performed, if you had the musicians together. I try to avoid any effects or using instruments in a way that wouldn?t make sense on stage. Sometimes I hear music where instruments are used for a short time and you wonder why they?re used, or you think of it as more of an effect. I try to avoid this kind of thing.? Performing Micus performs in concert rarely, usually doing no more than 10 or 15 concerts each year. Rather than putting together an ensemble, however, to reproduce his recordings, Micus views the performance as an entirely separate experience. ?I perform solo,? Micus explains, ?and obviously there are many of my compositions that I cannot perform on my own. So the concerts are somewhat different than the albums. Nobody would get a shock when they see my concerts because they are of the same feeling, the same world that the music transmits. What is different is that I either play one instrument solo or I play an instrument and sing with it. Each concert I also do two pieces where I have a very simple accompaniment on tape which I recorded myself, and usually I play flutes on top of this. I have some arrangements for more complex pieces where I make an arrangement to do it in concert in a slightly different way than on the album. Some pieces I play in concert that are not on any album. But usually it?s not such a problem as many people might think who have never seen a concert.? While some artists who perform so rarely might consider releasing a live album, this is something Micus says will never happen. ?For me the beauty of a concert is that it happens once and then it?s gone forever,? says Micus. ?As a musician who works in the studio, it would not make sense to make a live album from a concert because I feel these are two quite different things. I like to play concerts, it?s very important for me to have it as a change from the studio work where you?re on your own for weeks and months, and you don?t get any real feedback. It?s very important to have this communication with the audience, and spend this time together with the audience in concert and feel that there?s something happening, a connection, a direct communication and feedback.? Visualization and the Next Project Regardless of the project, Micus treats it as a whole; a complete entity; a story arc that has a beginning, middle and end. ?I definitely try to visualize each album as one creation,? Micus explains. ?Perhaps some of my earlier albums didn?t have so much of a concept as a whole; rather they were collections of different pieces which I had at the moment. But later on, and certainly now, I had this idea of looking at an album as a whole; that it should be like a journey, with a beginning, taking the listener somewhere and also bringing him to a certain place in the end. So I definitely try to achieve this and I want to avoid the concept of just putting together some compositions that don?t have anything to do with each other.? While Micus is already working on the next project, it?s too early to divulge much about it. ?I have three pieces,? Micus says, ?but it?s too early to speak about them. I can only say that I have certain ideas of what the instruments will be, but there are many things to investigate; I?m really at the very beginning and it might develop in many different ways. But travel will definitely be involved. I am going to Burma for the fourth time. I do two large trips every year. Many times there?s a specific instrument that I want to study or acquire; sometimes there is music that I?d like to hear, but that?s becoming more and more difficult as many of these cultures are disappearing.? While there are many artists who pursue the genre called ?World Music,? few are as ambitious as Micus in bringing together the sounds of different cultures and different times. And while others look for ways to meld the ethnic music of various locales with a more western approach, Micus stands alone in creating a sound that exists beyond genre, creating instead his own distinctive avenue that combines intriguing textures, richly-layered tapestries and a deep spirituality that transcends temporal concerns and religious specificity. Visit Stephan Micus and ECM Records on the web. Selected Discography: Implosions (JAPO, ?77) Till the End of Time (JAPO, ?78, reissued ECM, ?93) Koan (ECM, ?81) Wings Over Water (JAPO, ?82) Listen to the Rain (JAPO, ?83, reissued ECM, ?93) East of the Night (ECM, ?85) Ocean (ECM, ?86) Twilight Fields (ECM, ?88) The Music of Stones (ECM, ?89) Darkness and Light (ECM, ?91) To the Evening Child (ECM, ?92) Athos (ECM, ?94) The Garden of Mirrors (ECM, ?00) Desert Poems (ECM, ?01) Towards the Wind (ECM, ?02) Life (ECM, ?04) Top of Page BOOK REVIEWS INDEX: Footprints: The Life and Work of Wayne Shorter My One and Only Love - Gilad Atzmon Go Ahead John: The Music of John McLaughlin Footprints: The Life and Work of Wayne ShorterTarcher/Penguin ISBN1-58542-353-X 2004 Saxophonist Wayne Shorter has often appeared to be something of an enigma. From his early days with Art Blakey?s Jazz Messengers through his tenure with Miles Davis? second quintet, and from his years with the ground-breaking fusion group Weather Report to his current acoustic group with pianist Danilo Perez, bassist John Pattituci and drummer Brian Blade, Shorter?s writing has been characterized by a complex and cerebral harmonic nature while his playing, occasionally appearing deceptively tentative, at other times powerful and intense, has sometimes been like a riddle where the listener is expected to find the answer. Now, with Michelle Mercer?s in-depth and informative book Footprints: The Life and Work of Wayne Shorter, some of the questions about Shorter's sometimes mysterious character are resolved while, at the same time, posing new ones for the reader to consider. With the same sense of economy as Shorter often displays in his soloing, Mercer?s book is concise at 272 pages (not including notes and index) and asserts that many of the interests that drive Shorter have existed since childhood ? in particular film. In fact, one of the remarkable revelations about Shorter as a child was his ability, along with his brother Alan, to recall complete film soundtracks from memory. Clearly, from a very early age, Shorter demonstrated a rich musical potential. In one instance, Shorter completed a high school music examination in a matter of minutes; the teacher told him, when he got up, that ?if you get up you?re finished.? Shorter handed in the examination; the teacher marked it immediately, telling the class ?this is an example of a perfect exam,? giving him 100% and telling him to go home. Detailing Shorter?s rise to attention with Blakey, his first solo work for Blue Note and his ultimate ascension to Miles Davis? quintet, where he became Miles? de facto in-house composer, Mercer paints a portrait of a serious and introspective man who was more content to go to his room after a gig, enjoy a bottle of wine and work on composition. When he did get out and associate with Miles and the rest of the group, his conversation was often filled with oblique references and odd non sequiturs that took Herbie Hancock, ultimately one of Shorter?s closest friends, a long time to figure out. Mercer details specific important events; when, for example, Miles? group decided, before the celebrated Plugged Nickel performances, to play anti-music, where instead of following their instincts the group would do the exact opposite. It was a daring choice, one which ultimately created some of the most vibrant and adventurous music of Miles? career; and Mercer communicates the excitement and risk of the situation, making it almost palpable. Mercer also spends significant time with Shorter?s ultimate conversion to Buddhism, something that has guided his life for over 30 years. In fact, during periods where fans were wondering where he was ? in the latter days of Weather Report, where he seemed to be subsumed by Joe Zawinul?s approach ? Shorter was spending more time pursuing spiritual matters. In fact, while Shorter did have a drinking problem at one time, one of the most prominent qualities of his life has been that of balance. Music is an essential part of his being, but so are many other things, including his spiritual pursuits. Other notable watersheds in Shorter?s life are given detailed examination. His meeting the Brazilian singer Milton Nascimento and their ultimate collaboration on Shorter?s Native Dancer, is brought to life as Shorter absorbs the culture and then reinterprets it through his own harmonically innovative style. But the largest portion of the book is, not surprisingly, committed to his experiences with Weather Report, the group that, lasting 15 years, occupied the largest portion of Shorter?s career. Elsewhere the book details the creation of Shorter?s misunderstood album, High Life, and the difficulties he had of taking this complex work on the road. But perhaps most importantly, Mercer gets to the essence of Shorter?s current quartet, where it?s almost as if Shorter has taken on the role of Miles Davis, encouraging a group of younger players to, as Miles used to say, ?Play what you don?t know.? The difference with Shorter, however, is that while Miles was completely democratic musically, his role as leader was always clear; Shorter prefers to consider himself an equal amongst the group rather than a leader. Throughout Shorter?s life there has been tragedy, including the brain damage of his daughter Iska and the loss of his wife Ana Maria and their niece on the infamous TWA Flight 800 crash of ?96. Shorter?s resilience, in large part due to his Buddhist faith, turned loss into triumph, and discord into ascendance. Following the death of Ana Maria, in fact, and following his marriage to family friend Carolina Dos Santos in ?99, Shorter began a serious and concerted return to the public eye, collaborating with orchestras and ultimately forming his current quartet where, for the first time he is revisiting some of his earlier composed works. But what distinguishes Shorter is his ability to reinvent his material. Rather than simply reproducing songs like ?Footprints,? ?JuJu? and ?Water Babies,? he, Perez, Pattituci and Blade take them to completely new places. And in the same way that Miles would provide pithy and sometimes on the surface unfathomable instructions, so Shorter gives his band mates directions like ?We?d rather go for elusiveness than clarification.? The idea of writing a book on an artist who is not only still alive but in the midst of a musical renaissance and, therefore, still a work in progress, may seem premature; but Mercer gives it all sense even as it ends on an open-ended note. How many writers have the opportunity to not only interview people who have been associated with the subject, but to spend significant time with the artist himself, getting a clear picture of his life from his perspective? In some respects Footprints: The Life and Work of Wayne Shorter is more autobiography than biography. Mercer?s clear and concise prose reflects Shorter?s own personality in a way that would be impossible had she not had such deep exposure to Shorter himself. Mercer has delivered a book that, by having the luxury of involving the artist himself, is arguably be one of the most thorough, enlightening and entertaining biographies written of a jazz artist to date. Reviewed by John Kelman Back To Book Review Index My One and Only Love - Gilad Atzmon (Saqi Books, 2005) My first reaction on hearing that Gilad Atzmon had written a second novel was to wonder how he does it. At the time this was a simple expression of bemusement at his ability to fit in what to some people is a full-time occupation alongside his other activities: gigging, rehearsing and recording, as well as writing polemical articles on politics, culture and philosophy. Now, having read the book, an alternative, more literal, meaning of the question occurs to me. Given that English isn?t his first language, how does he actually go about the process of writing a literary work? His first book, A Guide to the Perplexed, was translated (presumably from Hebrew) but there?s no indication of that here. One answer that suggests itself lies in the way the novel is constructed. It is supposedly based on biographical research conducted by one Bird Stringshtein (don?t let the name fool you - he dislikes jazz and is described as ?definitely not a brilliant musician?). The book is composed almost entirely of transcripts of a series of interviews conducted by Bird with three main characters: a shy Israeli trumpeter called Danny Zilber, briefly but spectacularly popular in the 1960?s; Sabrina (aka Elza), the Mata Hari figure who enters Danny?s life briefly but cataclysmically, giving the novel its title; and Avrum Shtil, impresario and self-proclaimed ?all-time number one Jewish showbiz tycoon?. This structure allows the author to hide behind his three mouthpieces, and as none of them has English as a mother tongue, the main requirement is that their voices remain consistent. Thus Danny is the eternal innocent idealist, his descriptions of even the most intimate moments lapsing into hackneyed soft-porn clich?s like ?I kissed every millimeter of her snowy flesh?. Sabrina, by contrast, has the knowing but still vulnerable tone of experience and tragedy. It?s Avrum?s voice that dominates, though. The man is an irresistible monster - a crude, ruthless, self-aggrandising bully, described by Danny as ?a kind of street animal motivated by pure instinct and greed? who ?even in Hebrew ... speaks a language entirely of his own.? The language in question is a mix of Jackie Mason and Tony Soprano. To give a flavour, here is Avrum describing the first stirrings of his grand musical idea: ?I thought to myself, now I must come with a final punch. Something that will fuck the whole world up the arse. Check it out, just there while I was thinking about it I started to see prime numbers rolling in my brain, you know wha?a mean, like 1, 3, 5, 7, 11, 12, 13 14, 15, 16 ... I love the prime numbers. They are so united they remind me of the Jews coz nobody except themselves can interfere and divide them at all.? His plan is to make music that mines the German capacity for self-recrimination, that will ?make the Germans cry like crazy and feel shit about themselves ... and get them to say ?sorry? big time.? Or, as Danny puts it, ?Avrum was the first to recognise the commercial potential of the Shoah. He was the first to understand how to transform German guilt into gold.? To appreciate the layers of irony in all this, it helps to know something about the author?s own position and background. As a musician, he is a passionate opponent of the commercialisation of music. He left his native Israel (or Isra-hell as he is apt to call it) in reaction to treatment of the Palestinians and to pursue his studies in German philosophy. He is a committed anti-Zionist and self-proclaimed ?obsessed Germano?phile?. All this adds to the often outrageous humour of this book, and (perhaps) allows him to get away with stuff that others would think twice about saying. In one episode, for example, Avrum is asked by a secret Zionist organisation to hide Dr. Ingelberg, a kidnapped Nazi war criminal clearly based on Josef Mengele. He is to be kept safe as he is ?the rock of Jewish existence? without whom ?the whole Jewish nation might lose its way?. Ingelberg?s liking for pork sausages presents a problem until Zionist researchers come up with the solution: a kosher pig. ?Can you believe it?? asks Avrum, ?A circumsized pig, with cloven feet and two stomachs ... wearing a skull cap. In other words the pig was more Jewish than the Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi.? As you can see, politically correct it most certainly isn?t. Clearly there are political points being made here, but the sly humour that undercuts nearly everything, along with the reckless, gleeful mingling of history and fantasy, makes it hard at times to distinguish the serious from the satirical, the polemical from the comical. This emerges clearly in the glossary at the back, which is a source of fun in itself. Secreted among the straightforward definitions of Hebrew and Arabic terms and historical and mock-historical names, you find more barbed entries like the ones for kosher (?Jewish dietary regulations guaranteeing zero assimilation?) or goy (?Gentile. As a derogatory term, confers inferiority on anyone who fails to be Jewish?). Those looking for an insight into the music will also have to cut their way through a lot of satirical and at times downright farcical undergrowth. Bird isn?t the only one who dislikes jazz. If all his other attitudes weren?t enough to put you off him, Avrum?s pronouncements on jazz (and race) are likely to be the final straw for anyone reading this: ?I don?t understand this music at all. Everyone comes on stage with a dustbin full with stupido funny notes and pours it on the innocent audience as if they are a rubbish dump. For me jazz isn?t music, it is a collective punishment. When I listen to this horrible music it always makes me angry. And beside that, the black colour really annoys me when it comes on people and please don?t ask me why. On cars and horses, no problem.? Danny, on the other hand, is a long-time fan and would-be practitioner of jazz. From an early age he has loved all the greats of the music and improvises chorus after chorus with his fellow members of the Israeli military band. The problem is his swing: ?I used to practise for hours with the metronome tapping on two and four, but I never really got there.? This, I suspect, is another little joke, but Danny?s innocent dedication is touched with tragedy too. The arrival of bop is the last straw for Danny, and his reaction is probably similar to that of a lot of real players at the time: ?That was it, it was very depressing. They were far too good. I didn?t even know where to start to encompass their ideas, they were inhuman.? As for the plot itself, it involves music business hype, in-fighting among Zionist groups, plots to smuggle arms and people in the cases of ?Gulliver violins? and copious quantities of sex in various levels of perversity, the latter usually described in a tone of detached amusement. In describing the content and style of both this book and its predecessor, it seems to be standard procedure to mention Portnoy?s Complaint, but, especially in their tendency to elevate a simple idea into a grand academic theory or world view, the possible influence that came more forcibly to my mind was The Dice Man, Luke Reinhart?s cult book from the sixties. Whatever its influences, it?s an enjoyable and thought-provoking read, liberally scattered (as you may have gathered) with rich humour that runs the gamut from farcical and mischievous through sarcastic to darkly ironic. So, as Avrum himself would say, the keys are in the ignition (just to let you know that the book is out now and available to buy). And you won?t get that last sentence till you?ve read it. Reviewed by Steve Baxter Back To Book Review Index Go Ahead John: The Music of John McLaughlin by Paul Stump SAF Publishing ISBN: 0-04-679124-1 1999 Published in 1999, Paul Stump?s Go Ahead John: The Music of John McLaughlin is aptly named. While there is a certain degree of biographical chronology to the book, it is more of an assessment of McLaughlin?s recorded work, from his earliest day as a session player in London through later triumphs with his own projects. Reading more like an extended critical review of McLaughlin?s oeuvre, placed in context of his life experiences, Stump eschews the distance that normally defines musical biographies and, instead, is intensely personal. The result is a book that, for long-time McLaughlin fans, may be hotly contested ? his relative dismissal, for example, of the Heart of Things band and recording, bemoaning the fact that McLaughlin is not dominant enough a voice, may miss the point of the group. Still, like The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, Seventh Edition, you may not always agree with Stump, but his arguments are always cogent and well thought-out. One of the more interesting parts of the book is his coverage of McLaughlin?s early years, before he headed to the US to work with Tony Williams and Miles Davis. The relatively unknown fact that McLaughlin was a session player on albums including The Rolling Stones? Metamorphosis and the hit ?Heart of Stone,? not to mention the first album by a then little-known singer named David Bowie (The World of David Bowie) lends credence to the fact that artists rarely emerge out of nowhere. No, they pay their dues and, with a sessionography from ?63 through ?68 that has its share of hits -- Kenny Wheeler?s Windmill Tilter and Jack Bruce?s Things We Like -- and misses ? recordings with singer Duffy Powers, for example ? McLaughlin was, to a large extent, just another working musician on the London scene. And as much as his heart was in jazz, he also had a strong rooting in more fundamental blues, a confluence that would serve him well on later sessions including Davis? A Tribute to Jack Johnson. But nobody was ready for the sudden emergence with his first led recording, ?69?s Extrapolation, an album that was a strong harbinger of things to come. With a more aggressive stance than heard on most jazz guitar albums of the time, Extrapolation may have suffered poor sales initially due to inadequate distribution, but it went on to become a seminal album, not just for McLaughlin, but for guitarists in general who wanted to see the guitar as a stronger, more dominant force. And over the course of the next four years, McLaughlin would go from being a musician?s musician to a veritable jazz superstar, with his Mahavishnu Orchestra Mark I eclipsing the sales and popularity of many of the artists he came to America to work with. But what Stump credibly gets across in the course of 170 pages or so ? seemingly short, yet dense with detail and critical assessment ? is that McLaughlin has a voracious musical appetite that, for the most part, bucks any trends and, instead, follows his heart. The first incarnation of his East-meets-West acoustic group Shakti, for example, came at a time when electric fusion was at its height; following the dissolution of Mahavishnu Orchestra Mark II, it was a risky move, indeed, to go with an ensemble that blended North Indian Hindustani influences with more Occidental scalar improvisation, and one that was not well-supported by his record company. Still, McLaughlin persevered, and the three albums they made are amongst his many career high points. That?s not to say that McLaughlin didn?t periodically bend to the pressures of the industry. His mid-?80s reformed Mahavishnu Orchestra recordings, Mahavishnu and Adventures in Radioland, were unquestionably attempts at getting himself back in the public eye, especially after the relatively unsuccessful-but-wonderful music from his early ?80s acoustic group with Katia Labeque, Jean-Paul Celea and Tommy Campbell, Belo Horizonte and Music Spoken Here. After two recordings that demonstrated a new direction for McLaughlin on classical guitar in a high energy environment that was nevertheless capable of delicacy and elegance, the two Mahavishnu Orchestra recordings were unfocused albums that did nothing but support some listeners? opinions that McLaughlin was all about speed and bombast. And by avoiding the raw guitar tones that were his trademark, instead experimenting with synthesized sounds with the Synclavier, whatever stylistic personality McLaughlin had seemed to be completely subsumed. And yet, after a somewhat troubled time during the ?80s, following what seemed like success-after-success in the ?70s both with his own recordings and those with Tony Williams, Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter and others, McLaughlin managed to reinvent himself for the ?90s, becoming the grand master that fans always believed in. McLaughlin?s output, since the first recording of his trio with Trilok Gurtu at the end of ?89, <I>Live at the Royal Festival Hall, found a McLaughlin who was, at last, comfortable with all the diverse influences that have informed his music. And while there have been some misses ? specifically his album <I>The Promise which, with its plethora of guest stars tended to lack focus and failed as often as it succeeded ? many of McLaughlin?s projects since that time, including the trio with Gurtu, the Remember Shakti project, the Free Spirits trio with Dennis Chambers and organist Joey DeFrancesco, have been amongst the best of his career. There have been no ?Eureka!? moments as there were in the early ?70s with albums like My Goal?s Beyond and, more importantly, Inner Mounting Flame and Birds of Fire, but McLaughlin has finally reached a stage in his career where he can take risk and not have its success or failure measure significantly on his overall reputation. Stump?s prose is as economical as McLaughlin has been, on occasion, considered musically verbose. While certainly critical of some of McLaughlin?s missteps ? the reformed acoustic trio with Al DiMeola and Paco de Lucia in ?96, for example ? Stump is clearly an adoring fan, and rightfully sees McLaughlin as one of the most significant guitarists to emerge in the last 40 years. And his coverage of lesser-known collaborations like the ill-fated ?Trio of Doom,? with Tony Williams and Jaco Pastorius, presents a side of McLaughlin that is contrary to the affable and well-spoken artist most people know. It lends depth to McLaughlin?s character to see that there are occasions where his gentle exterior is laid bare, making him more rounded, more human. Go Ahead John: The Music of John McLaughlin may not be filled with the kind of biographical insight of, say, Michelle Mercer?s Footprints: The Life and Work of Wayne Shorter, but that?s not its intent. Instead, Stump presents one writer?s critical assessment of an artist who, to this day, continues a musical life that is filled with risk and, on many occasions, great reward. Like Shorter, McLaughlin is still very much a work in progress, and perhaps Stump will consider a revised edition in years hence, to cover what has occurred since the publication of this edition. Reviewed by John Kelman Back To Book Review Index Top of Page
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