Features
Deep and Delicious
HAMIET BLUIETT AND KAHIL EL’ZABAR
BY David Dacks November 28, 2007 15:11
HAMIET BLUIETT AND KAHIL EL’ZABAR
Part of the Afrikan Millenium and Cultural Arts Festival. Sat, Dec
1-Sun, Dec 2. The Trane Studio, 964 Bathurst. $25. 7pm. Sat 9:30pm; Sun
7pm. Also appearing in coversation Mon, Dec 3, The Trane Studio. $10.
7pm.
Hamiet Bluiett is fighting a war against music. The definitive baritone sax player of the last three decades struggles not only against the perception in jazz that his instrument is nothing but a growl underneath a horn section, but against a wider musical reality in which lead bass voices are disappearing.
“I’m going against the whole fabric of music on the planet!” he declares. “If you listen to the baritone voice, it’s not a coveted voice — everyone’s hollering about the tenors and sopranos. If you listen to everything on the radio, you hear basically tenors and sopranos, across the whole spectrum of any kind of music that you listen to. Quit thinking about me in terms of jazz; think about me in terms of music!”
Bluiett hails from (and still resides in) Brooklyn, Illinois. He picked up his first baritone in his late teens but was fully inspired to explore its potential after seeing Duke Ellington’s deep and soulful bari player Harry Carney work his magic on the horn. Not only was Bluiett impressed with Carney’s tone and technique, but with his melodic rather than merely supportive role in Ellington’s arrangements.
Bluiett has spent more than four decades on the vanguard of low-register explorations. He first made an impact in the late ’60s as a co-founder of the multimedia Black Artists Group in neighbouring St. Louis. In the mid-’70s, he was an important part of Charles Mingus’ band. Later that decade, he formed the still-active World Saxophone Quartet with David Murray and fellow BAG men Oliver Lake and Julius Hemphill. The WSQ was one of the most important bands in jazz for the next 20 years, a righteous combination of freedom, composition, individual firepower and devastating ensemble work. The saxophone quartet format allowed Bluiett both to plumb the depths of his instrument’s range and to soar into lead roles with counterintuitive alto- and soprano-like passages.
And that’s just jazz. Bluiett has showcased the versatility of the baritone in a variety of contexts, from symphonic works with St. Louis’ Gateway Symphony Orchestra to African-themed work with Babatunde Olatunji and Oneness of Juju’s Plunky Branch. He states, “I want to take the horn to different experiences — to teach it how to be a lead instrument and speak a lead voice, not just be an accompanist.”
For his two dates at the Trane Studio with Chicago-based one-man percussion orchestra Kahil El’Zabar, he’ll dip into all kinds of music, both free and composed. But he’s not tipping his hand any further than that, other than to say he feels a great kinship with El’Zabar.
“We’re kind of similar in a lot of ways. We are both African-oriented, he’s done stuff in Ghana, I’ve done stuff with [Nigerian drummer Babatunde] Olatunji. Both of us are from the Midwest, which is a whole different-feeling part of the country. From New Orleans [all the way to] Texas, into Illinois, up as far as Detroit — in between the alligators and the Appalachians, there is a different music.”
He cites Charlie Parker and honorary Midwesterner Count Basie as examples of this sound: bold, direct playing that is unafraid to be experimental and traditional at the same time.
The recent closure of the Courthouse has prompted another round of hand-wringing about the state of jazz in this city. But Bluiett’s seen it everywhere. To get caught up in that debate, he says, would limit his self-image to that of a jazz musician and cause him to lose focus on the breadth of his baritone advocacy.
“I’ve been a different sort of musician, more creative for a long time. [I’ve seen what other musicians] have been running into [in terms of jazz venues closing]. I’ve been doing this for a long time. It’s not new to me. I was never dependent on jazz clubs where you play for a week, that’s not my whole thing. The jazz venues right now are locked into a whole different thing with different musicians. They play very similar [music], it’s not that adventurous. I can’t make that be what I depend on.
“I’ve always had to be so-called alternative or indie, you know what I mean?”
625 Church St, 6th Floor, Toronto M4Y 2G1
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