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 BOOK
REVIEW
Free Jazz And Free Improvisation : An Encyclopedia
(Greenwood Press)
by Ken Waxman
February 2005
Reviewing a stand-alone project like Free Jazz and Free Improvisation presents
a unique set of challenges, since you must deal with what isn’t covered
in the 500-odd oversized pages of these two volumes as much as what is. From
the downbeat, author Todd Jenkins has to be commended for his Herculean task,
collecting from various sources essential information about Free Music and putting
it into approachable form for the student and the researcher, as well as the
improvisational newbie.
Further props in his favor include the introductory essay, “The Path to
Freedom”. In around 40, well-measured, pages, he manages to touch nearly
every major current in so-called outside music from the late 1940s all the way
up to the present. Subtantially, in the body of the book, his list of individual
entries ranges from the irrefutable pioneers—such as John Coltrane, Ornette
Coleman, and Cecil Taylor—all the way up to many newcomers including Bay
Area saxophonist Rent Romus and Boston-based trumpeter Greg Kelley.
Jenkins is knowledgeable enough about the scene in general to include listings
of such little celebrated entities as Muhal Richard Abrams’ influential
Experimental Band and the pan-European Quintet Moderne, to cite two entries.
Cognizant of Free Music’s universality, he also has a good percentage of
entries on non-American performers—European and Japanese in the main—as
well as separate slots for important nightclubs and record labels. As stand-alone
entries, his extensive dissections of the careers and recorded work of important
stylists such as Taylor, Anthony Braxton, and Evan Parker are exemplary.
That said, Free Jazz and Free Improvisation also encompasses several egregious
flaws that compromise the volumes’ status as a reference source. Emphasis
is put on certain trends, musicians, and record labels at the expense of others
that in the future could prove to be as momentous. Furthermore, for a hardcover
publication destined for library shelves and as a long-term reference, an appalling
number of omissions, typos, proof reading, editing, and even factual mistakes
appear. In many instances also, Jenkins writing is gauche and graceless,
relying on such cliched expressions as “avoid like the plague”, “like
it or lump it”, “welcome with open arms”, and “packed
to the rafters”. This may be OK for a rush job destined for next day newspaper
publication, but a book, especially an encyclopedia, is a monumental undertaking
that should avoid cringe-worthy prose since it will be consulted for years to
come.
Briefly, Jenkins is on the most solid ground with his shorter entries, since
they pithily state the basic facts and locate the data in the improv continuum.
In some of these however, and many of the longer entries, a form of omnipotence
weakens the strength of the information. Endless detailing of individual LP and
CD tracks and sessions is something best left to record reviewing. Plus, following
the lead of Leonard Feather’s pioneering, yet not wholly successful, efforts
in his Encyclopedia of Jazz, opinions of others conversant with the works
discussed should have been added to Jenkins’ own. To use an obvious cliché,
disagreements and preferences are what make horse races.
Although the selection of entries is catholic, too often additional information
is missing. Jenkins includes the full birth date, place, and year of birth for
many musicians, for instance, while other listings lack one, the other, or all
three. Communications via the Internet has made such lapses dubious. A web page
search or e-mail to the person involved could have yielded the missing date.
In 1956 and thereafter, Feather sent out a questionnaire to those musicians he
wanted to include in his encyclopedia; 21st Century transmission makes this task
that much simpler.
Certainly every reader will have a list of who or what should or shouldn’t
have been in the volumes, but a couple of omissions seem more than inexplicable.
The most glaring oversight is lack of a separate listing or even an index reference
for CODA, the Canadian jazz magazine with a worldwide circulation. Cadence—founded
in 1975—and its affiliated record labels rate an entry, while that publication
and Signal to Noise, which began in the very late 1990s, are cited as “periodicals
specifically oriented towards new music” in the end notes. CODA has
had its ups and down over the years, but as a journal “published continuously
since May 1958” as its masthead states, it has been a constant champion
for Free Music almost from its beginning. During the late 1970s in fact, the
magazine’s affiliated Sackville and Onari labels released some now-classic
free jazz/improv sessions, a role which Cadence’s labels admirably
fill today.
Another puzzling omission is that of New York trombonist Steve Swell, especially
since many of the players with whom he associates rate their own listing. A few
other musicians who could be included are, from Europe: pianist Michiel Braam
and reedist Ab Baars of the Netherlands, Spanish pianist Augustí Fernández,
and British drummer Paul Hession. Then from the United States: Mississippi drummer
Alvin Fielder, Texas trumpeter Dennis González, New Yorkers, saxist Michael
Marcus and pianist Uri Caine, plus drummer Gino Robair and saxist Francis Wong
from the Bay area. And that’s only thinking of ten at random.
Where would the publishers have found room for these entries? Removal of quasi-improvisers
who come from the rock music world such as Thurston Moore, Jim O’Rourke,
and Fennesz [!] could provide some space. Plus a 17-page, year-by-year Chronology
of Events from 1949 through 2003 at the beginning of the volume that lists births,
deaths, and record releases already included in the text, could have been excised. Adding
or removing entries may be merely an exercise in different priorities between
this reviewer and the author, but mistakes and misstatements aren’t open
to discussion. To list a few, again at random:
- Barre Phillips is described as a British bassist in the entry on Peter
Brötzmann, but correctly as an American in his own
- Big Nick Nicholas was a tenor saxophonist, not a blues singer
- Violinist Billy Bang didn’t “found” the String Trio of
New York, it was a cooperative effort between him, guitarist James Emery,
and bassist John Lindberg
- No effort is made to explain that the “Rev” in tenor saxophonist’s
Frank Wright’s name was a nickname for his soulful playing, not a legitimate
ecclesiastical title
- Sun Ra didn’t play in the big band of Erskine Caldwell, the author
of Tobacco Road, but in the band of Erskine Hawkins, the popular
trumpeter
- Ajay Heble isn’t the former Guelph Jazz Festival director,
he still holds that post
- John Coltrane recorded Olé for Atlantic not Impulse and Ascension for
Impulse not Atlantic; the reverse is stated in the introduction
- Poet/activist Amiri Baraka’s name change reflected his Pan-African
revolutionary Marxism, not a conversion to Islam as is misstated twice
- Novelist Jean Toomer, who is mentioned in the entry on altoist Marion Brown,
is a “he” not a “she”
While this list may seem excessively nitpicky, precisely because Free Jazz
and Free Improvisation is an encyclopedia, these missteps are particularly
egregious. Even in the 21st Century anything printed between hard covers is given
extraordinary respect, so these errors will be perpetuated for some time.
While Free Jazz and Free Improv followers can pick up these volumes, they should
be very conscious of these faults before doing so. Perhaps one way around the
conundrum, would be for the author to annually publish a yearbook that would
bring things up to date. Another welcome gesture would be if buyers could be
provided with an set of corrections should they purchase the volumes. The information
could even be e-mailed after the publisher is contacted.
Despite Jenkins’ hard work, it appears that Free Jazz and Free Improvisation is
still only another small step on the road to completeness for individuals and
institutions that seek a permanent collection of facts about these genres.
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