Free jazz at stony brook
April, 2010
Ray Anderson, trombone
Terry L. Greene II, drums
Rebekah Griffin Greene, bass
Yoichi Uzeki, piano
Phil Salathe, trumpet
Terry asked us to come in and demonstrate "free jazz" for his jazz
history course at SUNY Stony Brook, and although we hadn't
planned anything, and we hadn't all played together before (some
of us had played with a few of us), we had a great time playing
together and the results were pretty amazing! By the way, I would
like to say that no one was using any amplification, including me,
who normally freaks out if I can't play with an amp. This was
recorded with 2 stereo microphones: one was placed about 3 feet
in front of me and the piano, and the other was placed on the
other side about 3 feet from the horn players. We were in sort of
a semi-circle from left to right: Yoichi, me, Terry, Phil and Ray.
The first track is sort of a take-off from a
popular Blues head, which we had just played to demonstrate
"normal jazz". See if you can guess which one it was...:) Phil came
into class at the end of the track, so it's mostly just me and Terry
and Yoichi, with Phil at the end.:)
The second track was an experiment. Terry
drew some "graphic notation" on the chalkboard, and asked us to
follow that and then at some point start playing Oleo, by Sonny
Rollins. I love it when Terry plays "I Got Rhythm" on the drums.
HA!
The third thing that we played purely evolved out of listening to
each other and responding. This one is my favorite! At one point,
the horns started playing "Lonely Woman" by Ornette Coleman.
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