Description
Alga Marghen / Forma Libera, Italy 2024
“Alga marghen / formalibera is very pleased to present the first of a series of released documenting the work of Danish composer and multi-instrumentalist John Tchicai. This new LP features two previously unpublished recordings, “Beautiful United Harmony Happening” with Don Cherry and “Education Of An Amphibian” with Sahib Shihab.
Tchicai returned to his native Denmark in July 1966 after spending a remarkable four years in New York City. In that short span, he helped redefine and expand the relationship between soloing, collective improvisation, and composition in small free jazz ensembles such as the New York Art Quartet, the New York Contemporary Five, and on albums such as “New York Eye and Ear Control” with Albert Ayler and John Coltrane’s “Ascension”. It certainly counts as one of the most fertile periods in any artist’s career. Yet when he returned to Europe, Tchicai turned his attention primarily (although not exclusively) to large ensemble music. The breakthroughs made in New York were not lost, but transferred to a large group context, opening up further avenues of exploration.
“The Education of an Amphibian” by the John Tchicai Octet represents a first try at “Komponist Udøver Ensemble,” or “Composing Improvisers Orchestra,” an approach that further blurred boundaries between improvisation and composition. Recorded in October 1966, the piece presents Tchicai as composer and guiding presence; an organizer of sounds; and an explorer of a widening musical vocabulary drawn from contemporary classical and African influences. Tchicai conceived of the band as a collective, yet it very much reflects his sensibilities. He determined the loose framework within which the band members play. His composed themes that make even the most abstract phrases seem lyrical. These concise, repetitive melodies punctuate and structure the performance.
Much of the piece is truly an improvised composition. The closely voiced harmonies that open the performance, the drum motifs that supply a melody, the subtle background material supporting soloists are spontaneous creations that function as elements advancing the piece toward its conclusion. An energized group improvisation, with each instrument participating in an interwoven, higher-order counterpoint, is a highlight of the concert.
Individual soloists, as well as the octet’s closely attuned improvised ensemble work, contribute equally to the group’s unique sound. Trumpeter Hugh Steinmetz, a frequent Tchicai collaborator during this period, brings a strong jazz sensibility to the band (he was elected Danish Jazz Musician of the Year by the Danish Jazz Academy the year of this recording). Saxophonist-flutist Shahib Shahab, an African American ex-pat who moved to Copenhagen in 1964, takes a crepuscular, bop-inflected flute solo. Piet Kuiters’ explosive solo on harpsichord, a classical instrument nearly unheard of in jazz interjects startling new timbres into the piece. The percussionists function quite differently than in conventional jazz, they are not obligated to “swing” and often function melodically or texturally in ensemble passages.
“Beautiful United Harmony Happening” is something different—an opportunity to embrace new modes of interdisciplinary performance. From the beginning of his return to Denmark, Tchicai sought out not only musicians, but artists in all artforms and began to organize happenings.
Although rarely noted, ideas linked to Fluxus, performance art, and happenings were a large influence of Tchicai’s thinking at this time. All these related movements sought to blur or erase boundaries between media and set up juxtapositions between styles and artforms that disrupted received ideas of “high” and “low” art. Participation by non-artists introduced elements that challenged ideas about virtuosity and legitimate expression. Random elements were embraced, and non-Western music and concepts were welcome. Tchicai quite often used many these revolutionary ideas with Cadentia Nova Danica and in happenings he organized at this time. This performance, heard here in an excerpt from the full two-hour performance, is very much in this vein.
It is one of the last performances involving members of Cadentia Nova Danica, but they are only one component (and hardly the focus) of an ensemble that included a five-member chorus of disciples of the Swami Narayanananda (Tchicai lived at the yogi’s ashram and had organized the choir himself), the Diane Black Dance Theatre, and Don Cherry, a trumpeter and multi-instrumentalist truly beyond category. Tchicai and Cherry followed similar paths through music, starting as jazz musicians and broadening their frames of reference with an ear for traditional and experimental forms of music and performance as they evolved. Both were earnest spiritual seekers.
The multimedia event interrogates the relationship between experimental contemporary art and ritualist religious/meditative practice. At the time, Tchicai wrote, “I’m interested in finding the genuine source of life in myself and the genuine source of music. I think those two considerations are tied up very much. I have certain spiritual beliefs about human beings, and the best place to find these sources of music are to look into the yoga and Zen teachings.”
Not long after this performance, Tchicai stopped music making to devote himself to his spiritual studies. This was a fitting send off until his return to the stage four years later.
