Listening Post: Michael Cosmic — Peace in the World / Phill Musra Group — Creator Spaces (Part Two)
Following up on the part of the conversation posted earlier today, the Dusted crew continues to discuss these newly reissued free jazz records from 1974 Boston.
Mason Jones: I'm pretty outside the jazz realm, though in my years playing avant-experimental music I've crossed paths with a lot of free players, particularly the early '90s Oakland scene (Splatter Trio, Gino Robair, Pluto, and the like). I've dipped into jazz quite often from time to time but for some reason little of modern jazz resonates strongly with me. The expanses of this release that do, surprisingly, are those that breathe more slowly. John Coltrane's not my thing, but like others I also hear echoes of Alice Coltrane in parts of "Peace in the World" for example. Even though it doesn't really sound much like her work, it somehow feels similar. I dig the splashing, crashing drum solo in "The Creator Spaces" and find Ertunç's playing pretty evocative throughout. My deficiency in appreciating reeds certainly impedes my judgment on a lot of this, though, so I'll have to let others get deeper into it all.
Jonathan Shaw: Michael, by "otherness" earlier, you mean a form of alienation beyond being black? Something more musically mediated?
Michael Rosenstein: Good point! By "otherness," I was referring to musical practice. While the traditions of free jazz (and by the mid-70s, the language had developed traditions) were referenced by many of the musicians in Boston, they brought an outsider sensibility to things. That is certainly not unique to Boston, but it was something that certainly struck me when I was first hearing musicians like Voigt, Harvey, Davidson, and Smart (to name a few).
Jonathan Shaw: So interesting to think of a music that wants to articulate some principle of "freedom" developing traditions. Tradition isn't intrinsically reactionary, but that's the way the term often gets used these days—I think especially of how the term resonates in the Traditional Workers' Party. Assholes.
What's freedom's outside? Where can we hear it on these records? I don't know who coined the term "free jazz" and to what extent that usage of free speaks to other forms of Africanist and African American identity construction in 20th century culture; as I noted somewhere above, my sense of "free" in free jazz is liberatory, but in a nationalist sense, black as essentially other than white, and decidedly other than European. But that's not the only way to conceptualize things. Back in the 1920s, Alain Locke argued that black Americans were best positioned to fully embody the country's ethos of freedom and liberty, precisely because blacks understood the opposite of freedom and liberty like no one else. For some reason, I think Locke would be more attracted to Cosmic/Musra's music than he would to Archie Shepp c. 1970 or Braxton.
Derek Taylor: I’m not sure on the origin of the phrase “free jazz” earlier than Ornette’s composition/album of the same name, but that’s when it really started to gain traction as a descriptor. While the “free” is in there, so is “jazz” denoting a foundational framework around which the free elements center and revolve. The specifically Nationalist leanings came shortly after and were confounded in part by the prominent place of white players in the music: Charlie Haden w/ Ornette, Roswell Rudd w/ Archie Shepp, Alan Silva, etc. The free musical elements that Cosmic and Musra employ definitely sound on that axis to my ears while bringing in aspects in part apart from jazz tradition as well (the zurna, African/Latin percussion instruments, etc.)
Any musical idiom that has historical legs is naturally going to develop traditions. Even music as resolutely non-idiomatic as free improvisation has developed recognizable vocabularies over the years through the repeated use of extended techniques and other tools (a reason why Derek Bailey, despite his protestations against precedence and familiarity, is usually instantly recognizable). Tradition in the context of Cosmic/Musric seems like a way of preserving, celebrating older means of musical expression outside Western, or more ambiguously white, cultural standards. But I don't get the feeling that they're doing it from a position of any overt animosity or concerted resistance, but more from a place of naturalness and positivity.
Mason Jones: When I hear "free jazz" or "free music" I also inevitably think of LAFMS, which was coming at "free music" from a very different angle than the jazz cats, though with a lot of sympathy both ways. They were looking to unmoor music from pretty much all frameworks, while I still think of free jazz as identifiably "jazz" — it's leaving behind the traditions but somehow still employing a lot of the same thinking. The Cosmic/Musra set is undeniably jazz even at its most outré, and to me feels only partially "free" in this context. I agree that it doesn't sound reactionary, so I might say that it's aimed towards freedom of expression rather than freedom *from* anything, if you know what I mean.
Jonathan Shaw: Probably also worth noting that a bunch of free players had good times in Europe—Cecil Taylor, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Don Cherry.
Bill Meyer: When musicians operate from a jazz foundation, and when they think what they are doing continues to relate non-antagonistically to jazz, you have free jazz. European free improvisation was started by people who loved jazz, but felt that they could not contribute in a culturally primary way. To be a Briton or European who loved jazz was to love something that came from somewhere else, but they wanted to take the example of serious aesthetic advancement that they saw in Ornette/Coltrane/etc to heart. Some of them (Paul Lytton, I believe, has talked a lot about this) very self consciously cut themselves off from playing music they really loved in order to grow. Others were aware of not being a part of it but continued to use it as a touchstone - Evan Parker for example. And Brotzmann sees himself as a jazz musician, I think, even though he's quite willing to step outside of jazz.
Cosmic/Musra, I think, come from a specifically African-American angle. Presumably they aspired to play jazz before they arrived at the music that they play on this set. The beyond-jazz aspects of their music relates to a divergent stream of jazz (Sun Ra, John and Alice Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, the AACM) that was reflects ways of expressing and defining identity that were current in the African-Amerian community. As a whole, this music reflects an interest in Africa and non-European cultural, a disinclination to accept mainstream narratives and perspectives at face value, and a valuation of strongly felt/expressed spirituality that made a lot of room for the esoteric.
Derek Taylor: There’s definitely a lot of anecdotal history in support of Jonathan’s point about Stateside versus European experiences for ex-pat free jazz players and jazz players in general. But it wasn’t all rosy for them either. Ayler (in)famously got booed and worse at stops on his first European tour and Coltrane/Dolphy were hit with critical devaluations even earlier for the avenues they opted to explore. That makes the brothers experiences intriguing by contrast. Yes, they came later after the groundwork had been established by forebearers, but they still experienced a pretty uniformly positive response to what they were doing, at least in Chicago and Boston, if not L.A.
Brötzmann’s relationship with and to jazz has been contentious throughout his career. I don’t think he has much use for the term as a descriptor for what he does and hasn’t for quite some time, although his own listening habits apparently tend toward the classicists (Sidney Bechet, Coleman Hawkins, etc. who were themselves somewhat ironically the revolutionaries in their day). Parker’s much more open about acknowledging and embracing his debts (to Coltrane especially).
I get the feeling that Cosmic/Musra’s core musical beliefs came out of the AACM. It’s where they ostensibly really learned to play their instruments. Musra tells the story of Roscoe Mitchell recruiting him, clarinet in hand, right of the beach. Earlier influences were in the African American church (both sang in the choir) and by proxy their father’s record collection/musical interests. So right off the bat neither was coming from any sort of traditional pedagogy, jazz or otherwise. They were steeped in the divergent stream Bill mentions almost from the start.
Jonathan Shaw: Thanks for the context, Derek. You mention the positive response the brothers' records got. Is that response recorded anywhere? Were any prominent jazz critics and/or thinkers writing about the brothers in the 1970s? It would be interesting to see how their contemporaries processed the sounds.
Bill Meyer: I think it's interesting to think about what we mean when we say tradition and what the brothers might have thought tradition meant. Free jazz in all its stripes was the New Thing, and the influences we've noted would have been, for the brothers, music from the last five or ten years. On the other hand we can think of a free jazz tradition because free jazz has been a label as long or longer than most of us have been alive.
Derek Taylor: Good questions, Jonathan & Bill. I was going off of Clifford Allen’s notes & other contextual information available over at his blog Ni Kantu. He’s talked/corresponded with Musra over the years and has gathered a lot of anecdotal context, although I get the impression that the positive response(s) as described was more at the audience/community level rather than a critical or establishment one. Lots of gigs, but pretty much under the radar of the conventional jazz/music press, although I could be mistaken.
The AACM was founded (at least formally) in May of 1965, which would mean that it was it was less than two years old when Mitchell ran into a teen-aged Musra on the beach. Hardly time enough to establish tradition in an orthodox sense. That in turn seems to imply that the traditions the brothers were interested in exploring were older, non-Western and not strictly observed, but rather interpretative jumping off points. It doesn’t sound like their formal instruction prior to AACM enrolment was very extensive at all.
Michael Rosenstein: I wouldn't say that their records got particularly positive responses when they came out. They came out in such limited runs and distribution was so localized at the time. But they definitely played out a fair bit in Boston based on the documentation provided in Mark Harvey's book. There is a flyer that is reproduced from Spring 1974 that lists the following:
That's nine gigs within six weeks in clubs, churches, galleries, universities, radio, and a festival! And there are enough other flyers in the liner notes to the CD and Mark's book to show that this wasn't just a fluke. This provides some evidence as to how much they were integrated as musicians into the DIY jazz and arts communities in Boston at the time.
Derek Taylor: Nice! Appreciate the specifics from Harvey’s book, Michael. When you say responses, are you speaking to audiences or on the critical/journalistic end or both? The grass roots aspects to the brothers’ efforts are pretty pervasive from the nature of the gigs, to their chosen crew(s), to the DIY-nature of the recorded documents. A large slice of their overall charm from where I sit.
Jonathan Shaw: I'm also curious. I'm charmed (wrong word, but hope you all hear me) by the self-released aspect of the records. I come from punk musical and social backgrounds, so my touchstones are Dischord Records, scene reports in Maximum Rock n Roll, zine culture, etc. It's really cool to see the antecedents of those marginal modes of cultural production in Cosmic/Musra, Sun Ra, and so on. As with the free jazz, the punks were trying to find authentic community that could buttress their resistance to social convention in art and in life. I don't know how self-selected the choice to self-release was for Cosmic/Musra.
Michael Rosenstein: Ahhh. When I say that the records "didn't get positive responses," it was in the context of national/mainstream jazz journalism. I also checked the archives of the Boston Globe to see if there was any newspaper coverage but non popped up. But response seems to have been pretty solid within Boston based on the fact that they got radio play (on underground radio/college radio) and played around quite a bit. I agree about the DIY nature of the recorded documents, but I also hear that really extending into their overall musical sensibilities. Like Derek notes, you just need to look at the range of musicians they pulled in.
Self-produced, self-released small labels were definitely relatively prevalent at that time for jazz musicians. I remember going to New Music Distribution Service in the early 80s in New York and there were shelves upon shelves upon shelves of records, a large chunk of which were self-produced. Nice to see that this stuff is continuing to be mined and released.
Jonathan Shaw: Not to continue to allege a comparison, but the proliferation of punk small labels in the 1980s (SST, Alternative Tentacles, R Radical, Dischord, etc) signaled a deliberate choice on the part of some bands to remain outside the music industry. Most of that came out of a left-ish, anticapitalist stance that was more or less coherent, depending on the band; some wanted to gain as much control over the production process as possible, for ideological as well as aesthetic reasons. The loving song to Malcolm X on Cosmic's record is potentially interesting in this regard: X stressed the necessity for black neighborhoods to assert greater control over their local economies, so that wealth could be generated within the community and stay within the community.
Derek Taylor: I think the comparison between valuation of DIY approaches in punk and jazz communities is spot-on. As Bill mentioned earlier there's a long history of jazz artists starting their own labels or having labels started by others to advance their work/interests. That tradition carries through to this day, but was just as prevalent contemporaneously with this set. Hat Hut was just getting off the ground in Switzerland in 1974 as a conduit for Joe McPhee's output, which had earlier been fostered by Craig Johnson's CJR imprint and Giacomo Pelliciotti's Black Saint/Soul Note ventures were launched in similar fashion to steward Billy Harper's efforts. All three were fiercely artist-focused and remained so even when outside pressures/enticements attempted to lure them in other directions. History is also littered with jazz artists who accepted major label overtures only to be dropped when the returns on investment didn't manifest (Sonny Simmons, David S. Ware, Henry Threadgill, Arthur Blythe, etc.). It's not entirely clear whether Musra & Cosmic ever shopped their work to outside concerns, but based the energy the put into their enterprises top to bottom I kind of doubt it.
Bill Meyer: Yeah, Max Roach, Charles Mingus, and Mingus's wife Celia started Debut back in the 50s. Sun Ra and Alton Abraham started Saturn around the same time. It was not new. At the time that Cosmic and Musra made these recordings, I can't imagine that they had a lot of other options. It was a rough time for jazz, commercially speaking. And one thing the punks and indie rockers figured out that I think the jazz indies of past decades never did was how to put together touring and distribution networks.
Jonathan Shaw: 1974 was rough pretty much all around. I've been listening to the version of "Arabia" on the Phill Musra Group record this morning, which seems to me much tougher and dissonant than the longer take on Cosmic's. Even the cymbals on the shorter version have more attack to them. Alongside "Egypt," I can't help but think of the Yom Kippur War of the previous year, formation of OPEC, and the consequent gas shortages in the US. I wonder what it was like performing songs themed toward North African and Middle Eastern cultures at that time.
Bill Meyer: Recession, gas lines, Watergate... they were not salad days.
Michael Rosenstein: There are a bunch of labels started by jazz artists like the ones noted above along with Strata-East founded by Charles Tolliver and Stanley Cowell, and Cecil Taylor's short-lived Unit Core label. But, as Derek notes above, I would guess that Musra & Cosmic were driven more by just wanting to get their music out than by wanting to stay outside the music industry. There just weren't that many options around in the mid-70s for jazz musicians. If anything, I would put their efforts closer to the DIY cassette scene. From the liner notes, it looks like neither Cosmic Records or Intex Records (the two labels that put these out) pretty much existed only to release Musra & Cosmic's music and then disappeared.
Derek Taylor: Interesting question regarding the reception toward music referencing North African and Middle Eastern cultures in the mid-1970s. I doubt the audiences Cosmic & Musra were courting evinced any overt ire or issues, but you never know. A tangent and a much later case, but drummer Pete La Roca (in)famously attempted to bar the reissue of his 1965 Blue Note album Basra (a minor masterpiece, IMO) out of the purported opinion that the title was disrespectful to American troops that had died in Iraq.
Jonathan Shaw: Interesting info, Derek. My grade-school memory of the 1970s suggests that anti-mid-eastern sentiments kicked up a lot after the Islamic Revolution in Iran. I don't know how extensive or intense anti-Arab feeling was in the 73-74 oil shock or to what extent Africanist/African-interested jazz music would have been on that radar of hate.
On a different theme: Michael noted earlier that "The Prayer," on the record of previously unreleased stuff, doesn't feature either of the brothers. From the album booklet, it looks like the only of player of note to the rest of the collection is John Jamyll Jones. The decision to include what seems a relatively tangential piece—especially one of such length—is strange to me (it's a lovely piece). How influential a player was Jones? How extensive might his influence have been on the brothers?
Michael Rosenstein: My guess is that the inclusion was to provide context of other music in a similar vein that was happening in Boston at the time.
Derek Taylor: Jones led the World Experience Orchestra, another Boston band of which the brothers were members and had strong strong ties to NYC. Now Again reissued two albums as a two-fer package prior to the set under discussion here. I was excited prior to hearing Jones, but came away underwhelmed. The music just doesn't hold together as well and the use of singers and less skilled participants is more pronounced.
Jonathan Shaw: That's too bad. I'm listening to "The Prayer" again. Appropriate that it starts with a statement from Jones. I don't usually respond well to flutes, but the solo (notes credit the playing to Stan Strickland) really lights things up. I wonder how thematically significant the instrument's gentleness is, with respect to prayer. The strings also give the piece a sort of rapturous quality. There's some dissonance around the 17th minute, but it's not a dominant tone. Also, the audience's initially confused response to the coda is pretty great.
Michael Rosenstein: Back to the notion of comparing these releases to punk labels in the early 80s, I think a better comparison would be to the local rock bands in the late 70s who did small-run, self releases. There was a promo e-mail that got forwarded recently for a reissue of music by the Austin band Terminal Mind. From what I can tell from the info on the site this band wasn't known much outside of Austin at the time, put out a few EPs themselves that sold out quickly, and then recently got unearthed. Jenny can probably think of a bunch of other examples like this. I think it was just reasonably affordable to pull together a short-run EP/LP back then.
Derek Taylor: The Numero Group has kind of made that sort of thing their reissue forte over the years, first w/ a slew local/regional soul labels and later branching out to include rock, punk & other genres, even yacht rock.
Jonathan Shaw: The tack Michael suggests is how a bunch of those early-1980s labels started. SST was originally a vehicle for Black Flag to put out singles in LA. Once they figured out that it was possible, they invited some friends along for the ride.
Mason Jones: Exactly — similar to Slash, Dischord, and so forth. Even Industrial Records and Mute, for that matter!
Ian Mathers: Speaking of getting in late and miss some fascinating conversation... I can give a complete novice’s perspective, at least. I was delayed partly by the problems of fitting in listens of this pretty sprawling set (or sets?), but I have been following the conversation with interest and learning a lot, and really enjoying those listens when I have been able to fit them in. I have virtually no jazz vocabulary to discuss these with; I grew up with Kind of Blue and A Love Supreme and loved the latter, and have been able to get into four Miles Davis albums so far (In a Silent Way, A Tribute to Jack Johnson, On the Corner and, uh, Dark Magus) and although I've listened here and there to plenty of things (including some free or at least freer jazz) and usually enjoyed it, for whatever reason jazz just doesn't tend to be something I put on unless I think about it. I feel like I should personally apologize to Derek here (who's writing about I've been reading and enjoying here for years!).
What this means is that while I recognize most of the names that have been mentioned in relationship to the music here, and even have enough context and/or fuzzy memories of having heard them before that the references have made contextual sense to me, when I'm walking around listening to "The Prayer" I'm mostly thinking that the part where the bass and violin are most prominent (my favourite part) makes me think of, say, Astral Weeks meets the Dirty Three. So I apologize for an fumbling and/or ignorant cross-genre comparisons I might make.
The most unexpected part of the experience for me so far is that I pretty much instantly liked the Michael Cosmic and World Experience Orchestra material, the Phill Musra Group tracks took a little longer and honestly still aren't my favourite (although I don't dislike them). I was struck by Jonathan's comment about the Musra "Arabia" being a little tougher and more dissonant, which I agree with, because both of those things would normally make it my preferred version, but in this case in addition to those qualities this shorter version just feels a little less... colorful? Listening now I'm wondering if this isn't partially the production or even room tone, but those four Michael Cosmic tracks, especially the longer first two, just feel so vibrant and communal and joyful, and the Phill Musra tracks just feel a little more... considered? formal (if that's not a totally ridiculous descriptor for any of this music)? restrained? And I think because "Arabia" is the only shared track between the two I feel the contrast a bit more there. That being said I do really like "The Creator Is So Far Out" in particular.
My favourite track here though, by far, and for some of the same reasons I know Derek wasn't necessarily a fan, is "Space on Space". I am a repetition guy and even though the actual music is vastly different some of my love for "Space on Space" comes from the same part of me that adores Oneida's "Sheets of Easter" or the loops at the end of Liars' "This Dust Makes That Mud" and Massive Attack's "Antistar" or the many 20+ minute tracks by Muslimgauze I've heard over the years. And here with "Space on Space" maybe it's the fact that there is that continuing element that allows me to more fully appreciate the parts of the band that are peeling off and doing their own thing while the looping musicians vamp in the background. It's probably the most viscerally thrilling free jazz track I've heard, although again my prior experience is minimal.
It's been a real education reading the liner notes and the discussion here about the context surrounding the brothers and their music, not least because some of that confirms the feeling I was getting from this music as soon as I played it the first time (I wanted to go in blind, just in case I wound up being overly suggestible). I definitely want to keep this stuff around, although in the future I honestly might split it into three, because the situations where I'd want to hear the Michael Cosmic material versus the more meditative Phill Musra Group versus the even more laid back World Experience Orchestra track here would probably be different.
Recorded Dec. 6, 1974 at Music Designers, Boston. From his insanely rare (and never reissued) self released LP "Peace in the World" (Cosmic rcds. 85. 1974).
Acoustic Bass – John Jamyll Jones
Drums – Hüseyin Ertunç
Engineer, Mixed By – Joe Chickarelli
Percussion – Eric Jackson
Piano, Piccolo Flute, Soprano Saxophone – Michael Cosmic
Soprano Saxophone, Tenor Saxophone, Flute – Phil Musra
Tenor Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone – Leonard Brown
From "Peace in the World", private pressing (LP. Cosmic rcds). Superb free jazz from an impossible to find album. Hopefully a reissue will appear at some point.
Acoustic Bass – John Jamyll Jones
Drums – Hüseyin Ertunç
Engineer, Mixed By – Joe Chickarelli
Percussion – Eric Jackson (9)
Piano, Piccolo Flute, Soprano Saxophone – Michael Cosmic
Soprano Saxophone, Tenor Saxophone, Flute – Phil Musra
Tenor Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone – Leonard Brown
