jazzmatazz | upcoming | recent | reviews | books | links | musicians | labels | sale list | stores | sweetnighter
previous review | reviews home | next review
Barry Altschul
You Can't Name Your Own Tune(32 Jazz)
Barry Altschul was, along with Don Moye and Steve McCall, the consummate free-jazz drummer. Before a concert performance he would tune his drums to Dave Holland’s cello. And he was a drummer/percussionist with a strong understanding of melody—he created sounds, indeed notes, and not merely rhythmic pulses. His drums sang, especially in the intimate give-and-take of the jazz trios he worked with Holland and multi-reed player Sam Rivers.
The 1977 You Can’t Name Your Own Tune, originally on the Muse label and now reissued, was a creation of meticulously-constructed free jazz. This is not an oxymoron. Altschul and his fellow musicians—Holland, Rivers, and the brilliant Chicagoans pianist Muhal Richard Abrams and trombonist George Lewis—performed compositions—works with structure and definition, with hallmarks of hard-bop, New Orleans collective improvisation, and impressive rubato give and take. There is magic in the exchanges, and even humor, as when the musicians play an off-tempo quote or two from "ain’t she sweet, just walkin’ down the street..." which then dissolves into a free-jazz free-for-all and resolves in a cake-walk.
On this CD, each piece is radically different—an intense ensemble piece is followed by a chamber-like, austere recording, and then a percussive round, the last a piece where each instrument spits out a rhythm or sound that the next follows, mimics, derides or reshapes, first one-on-one and then in multiple simultaneous exchanges, dashes of light and sound across and among the instrumentalists. Abrams then contributes a piece where piano runs verge from Cecil Taylor to the classic bop stylings and through furious enhanced tempos.
Great musicians, great innovative music. The 32 Jazz label has taken the plunge into the avant-garde with this reissue, and given the jazz world an exceptional recording.
— Jules Epstein, January 2001
please send comments to jazzmatazz@att.net
last update 18 January 2001