Ornette Coleman playing in Berlin, 1971, with Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden, and Ed Blackwell. It occurs to me that I don’t think I’ve seen any decent video of Blackwell playing before— there have long been only a few grainy things online, and unfortunately I didn’t get to see him play when he was alive.
I shared this video in 2024, but didn’t say anything about it. I’ll give some notes below.
He’s playing quite loud, even at the very fast tempos— like on the first tune he’s using the butt of the stick on the cymbal. The cymbal rhythm is simplified, and he’ll get onto the drums to break it up, and maintain the velocity without getting tired out on the cymbals. There’s some very exposed drumming there, loud straight rudimental stuff on the snare drum.
Re: his place in this group: he really seems to be a normal jazz musician who was willing to roll with it— a lot of what he’s playing is just bebop, very Max Roach. It seems like it would be hard to play normal stuff in that setting, when it’s not directly supportive of, or supported by, the texture. He had been playing with Ornette— a lot— for about 15 years at this point, so he had to be comfortable with his voice’s place in the music, he had to be hearing it. Billy Higgins playing with Ornette was similar, but softer edged— for me he blends better.
With the fast tempos, we’re really talking velocities, because clearly we’re not just locking on a strict agreed upon quarter note and meter. He’s playing in 4, just because you can’t not; there may well be some phrases of 3/4 as well. That’s just how stuff organizes itself when you’re playing time, but not worrying about barlines. I wouldn’t call the way he plays time flexible, or “organic”— within himself, it’s a definite tempo. With a polyrhythmic approach, the time can modulate to some different feels, and I think that happens to an extent, but I’m not hearing it overtly. I got the idea of that partly from Blackwell’s playing, and sometimes his feel changes happen organically, sometimes he just changes it. He can be fairly pointed about it, putting in a new thing at his own tempo.
That really is a player way of thinking, to me— not over concerned with the larger composition or for the audience’s musical impression of it, not afraid to break a line sometimes.
Talking technique, you’ll notice, as always with real players, it’s very basic— “German” grip, on the snare drum, no elaborate technique on the cymbal. His grip actually looks quite a bit like mine, back fingers closed up, index finger hanging off the stick. I would want to see what he does with the fast tempos in a more finessed setting, where he’s playing a straight normal bebop cymbal beat at those tempos.
He’s playing some very new, very stiff Paiste cymbals— at Paiste there used to be a room for jazz drummers come and get what they needed, free of charge, so a lot of drummers who were touring Europe had them. I’m guessing a 20″ Heavy, 16″ Crash, 13″ Medium Hihats, all 602 series. I don’t think I would handle those cymbals well. I would want some duration from them— I would want more cover on that stage.
I always think how I would handle these situations, how would I play it, how would I feel playing the same stuff/the same way they played. There would be some kind of similarity, because a lot of my thing I got from Ed Blackwell. It would be hard for me to play that much rudimental snare drum, honestly. My whole thing is connectedness, so for a lot of this I would be feeling obligated to make some kind of arc, a continuous texture, with a long conclusion, but he’ll drop out and change things up. The band isn’t cueing off him for the changes, so he’s free to play without the overall texture getting disrupted becuase of something he did, or didn’t do.
There is a rather strange contrast between seeing this video, compared to the very carefully rendered performances of transcriptions of his playing. Even as a relentless transcriber, and transcriber of Ed Blackwell— with a big new transcription of his playing coming up— I never understand the impulse to learn them like classical music. Obviously a completely different spirit from what created the music in the first place. Just the difference in touch is glaring, seeing these practice room style renderings, vs. Blackwell himself— he clearly has the touch of a nightclub musician. Everyone should do whatever they need to, I certainly do, but… just beware.
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