Gutarist Garrison Fewell dies |
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Posted: 06 Jul 2015 at 2:31am |
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Farewell to Guitarist Garrison Fewell (October 14, 1953-July 5, 2015)
Boston-based guitarist, improvising composer, writer and
educator Garrison Fewell made his exit from Earth on July 5, 2015 at the young
age of 61; he’d been battling cancer for quite some time, yet despite the
challenges of severe illness he self-published a book of interviews with
improvisers, recorded and released a clutch of new discs, and performed as
often as he could. I never met Fewell personally but we did share a number of
exchanges via email and social media, and I was able to catch him in a striking duet
performance with saxophonist John Tchicai (1936-2012) at the Cornelia Street
Café several years ago. A professor at Berklee College of Music, Fewell – whose
own education traversed the realms of blues, jazz, free music and traditional
non-Western musics – was a restlessly inquisitive, generous and humble man who
cited Buddhist teachings and things he learned from fellow players well ahead
of any self-created pedagogy.
Fewell had written texts on guitar improvisation, but his most
recent published work is a collection of musician-to-musician interviews titled
Outside Music, Inside Voices, and is
something like a spiritually-centered version of Art Taylor’s Notes
and Tones. Fewell rarely cites his own
views on a certain artist, preferring to reflect on meaningful experiences of
their work and engaging their music and personhood with profound empathy, while
still being able to get into the nitty-gritty of artistic process. Fewell
interviews some of his collaborators including Tchicai, trumpeter/flutist Roy Campbell, Jr. (1952-2014),
violinist Rosi Hertlein and trombonist Steve Swell, as well as a range of
modern musicians such as bassists William Parker and Joëlle Léandre, poet Steve
Dalachinsky, pianist Matthew Shipp, reedist Henry Threadgill, and percussionist Han Bennink.
Though Fewell’s line of query is not entirely fixed, he does ask
each musician what the importance of spirituality is in their work, and the
answers differ drastically – some players encounter the music from a secular
standpoint, others with deep religiosity, yet the telepathic dialogue and
connectedness that improvisers participate in is seemingly universal even when
couched in material transcendence or a unification with God. While some
interviewees are not particularly inclined to use the word “spiritual” for
their practice, owing to the term’s many weighty trappings, pianist Dave
Burrell’s answer to the question of a relationship between spirituality and
improvisation is perfectly simple: “There is a truthfulness that binds improvisation to
spirituality. The improviser strives for oneness. The masters of improvisation
have practiced until they have achieved clarity that brings a more beautiful
tone. Repetition generates energy, boosting spirituality’s intensity. I have
been told that John Coltrane achieved his high level of spirituality from intense
study.”
Spirituality is non-denominational; to read of musicians
describing it, being spiritual may ask for intense self-reflection and critical
study, but the results of such efforts (some call it “practice”) bring clarity
of vision and a healthy connection between creative mind and athletic skill.
Fewell acknowledges in discussing the subject with multi-instrumentalist Joe
McPhee that “some musicians wrestle with the word ‘spirituality.’ It’s possible
that misunderstandings have developed around the word that have unfairly earned
it a poor reputation. Or some might prefer to leave such things unspoken, to be
expressed in musical ways. For me, the root of spirituality is ‘spirit,’ which
I believe can be thought of and lived in different ways with individual
interpretations at the very heart and soul of creative music.” Like a number of
musicians in Outside Music, Inside Voices,
McPhee’s response to this quandary is deceptively simple: “when you mention
‘spirit,’ I think of that not so much in a religious context but more like the
center, the soul of the music. Where it comes from, I don’t know. I haven’t
found it yet – it’s somewhere
around there.”
While much conversation is devoted to biography and practice,
starting each dialogue on the subject of spirituality, whether it’s viewed as
the eternal now or a methodical, rigorous practice, gives a lens through which
one can engage the work of a diverse sector of contemporary improvisers. In a
testament to Fewell’s generosity and egoless approach, in which he’d rather
talk about favorite works by his subjects than his own playing
strategies, Fewell often asked musicians about their peers – Tchicai comes up
often, as do saxophonists David S. Ware and Marion Brown, bassists Johnny Dyani
and Wilber Morris, and other departed figures who this text insists not be
forgotten. It’s likely that a number of musicians in the future will bring up
Garrison Fewell the same way.
The most recently-released chapter of Fewell’s recorded presence is
Evolving Strategies with the
Variable Density Sound Orchestra, waxed in January 2012 but not released until 2014
(NotTwo MW 911-2), and joining Fewell, Tchicai, Campbell, Swell, bassist Dmitry
Ishenko and drummer Reggie Nicholson on seven compositions: Swell’s “Mystical
Realities” in two versions, four from the guitarist’s book and two from Tchicai’s.
Fewell’s bent, bluesy comping and non-linear interjections are full but
querying and present a certain wholeness that can be both powerful and
non-specific. These fuzzy cells and craggy shards have a tendency to goad his
partners into passages of centered density and splayed incision, as on Swell’s
opening slinky hymn, and provide a blanket of muted clamber in areas of spidery
collectivity.
Fewell was raised in Philadelphia and studied with Philly guitarist Pat Martino (whose own trajectory encompassed greasy organ trios, Indo-jazz and free improvisation), as well as in the college music department he eventually called home, and even in the context of free music, his playing is remarkably rooted. “Thoughts for Dixon” moves through duet, trio and quartet sections, thematically recalling Wadada Leo Smith and Anthony Braxton through condensed pirouettes before Tchicai, Fewell and Ishenko enter into the choppy waves of invention, followed by brass and percussion in a section of pinched boisterousness, while “Return and Breathe” shifts from cottony string harmonics and delicate breath to punchy collective improvisation over a rubbery vamp. It’s odd to think that half of the musicians on this very fresh-sounding, ebullient and husky slice of contemporary improvisation have now departed, but at the same time, this disc is a testament to the art form’s continuing gifts, presented with copious substance and little flash. Chicago pianist-composer Muhal Richard Abrams titled a 1975 Delmark LP Things to Come from Those Now Gone and the sentiment that we still have many nuts to crack from Fewell’s offered hand doesn’t go unnoticed. Visit Garrison Fewell's website here. from http://cliffordallen.blogspot.com |
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