The Squid's Ear Magazine


McPhee, Joe / Survival Unit II / Thorton, Clifford: N.Y., N.Y., 1971 (Hatology)


 

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Personnel:



Joe McPhee-trumpet, tenor saxophone

Clifford Thornton-baritone horn

Byron Morris-soprano, alto saxophone

Mike Kull-piano

Harold E. Smith-percussion


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UPC: 752156062424

Label: Hatology
Catalog ID: Hatology624
Squidco Product Code: 6194

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2006
Country: Switzerland
Packaging: Cardstock foldover
Recorded live at WBAI's Free Music Store, NY, NY, October 30, 1971 by Chris Albertson.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.
"Producer's note: I first heard these tapes during my visit to the U.S.A. in 1974. The occasion was my first meeting with Joe McPhee and Craig Johnson of CJR Records. That meeting and the impact of these and other unreleased tapes had on me, are the reason I became a record producer. Originally this release was planned for 988 on LPs. Due to the rapid rise of the CD medium, the original plan was postponed and was eventually forgotten. 1996, 25 years later, Hat Hut Records celbrates its 30th year anniversary with the release of this newly remastered version of the original broadcast."-Werner X. Uehlinger, October 2005 [from the back cover]

Artist Biographies

"Joe McPhee, born November 3,1939 in Miami, Florida, USA, is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, improviser, conceptualist and theoretician. He began playing the trumpet at age eight, taught by his father, himself a trumpet player. He continued on that instrument through his formative school years and later in a U.S. Army band stationed in Germany, at which time he was introduced to performing traditional jazz. Clifford Thornton's Freedom and Unity, released in 1969 on the Third World label, is the first recording on which he appears as a side man. In 1968, inspired by the music of Albert Ayler, he took up the saxophone and began an active involvement in both acoustic and electronic music.

His first recordings as leader appeared on the CJ Records label, founded in 1969 by painter Craig Johnson. These include Underground Railroad by the Joe McPhee Quartet (1969), Nation Time (1970), Trinity (1971) and Pieces of Light (1974). In 1975, Swiss entrepreneur Werner X. Uehlinger release Black Magic Man by McPhee, on what was to become Hat Hut Records.

In 1981, he met composer, accordionist, performer, and educator Pauline Oliveros, whose theories of "deep listening" strengthened his interests in extended instrumental and electronic techniques. he also discovered Edward de Bono's book Lateral Thinking: A Textbook of Creativity, which presents concepts for solving problems by "disrupting an apparent sequence and arriving at the solution from another angle." de Bono's theories inspired McPhee to apply this "sideways thinking" to his own work in creative improvisation, resulting in the concept of "Po Music." McPhee describes "Po Music" as a "process of provocation" (Po is a language indicator to show that provocation is being used) to "move from one fixed set of ideas in an attempt to discover new ones." He concludes, "It is a Positive, Possible, Poetic Hypothesis." The results of this application of Po principles to creative improvisation can be heard on several Hat Art recordings, including Topology, Linear B, and Oleo & a Future Retrospective.

In 1997, McPhee discovered two like-minded improvisers in bassist Dominic Duval and drummer Jay Rosen. The trio premiered at the Vision Jazz Festival in 1998 but the concert went unnoticed by the press. McPhee, Duval, and Rosen therefore decided that an apt title for the group would be Trio X. In 2004 he created Survival Unit III with Fred Lonberg-Holm and Michael Zerang to expand his musical horizons and with a career spanning nearly 50 years and over 100 recordings, he continues to tour internationally, forge new connections while reaching for music's outer limits."

-Joe McPhee Website (http://joemcphee.com/bio.html)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Clifford Edward Thornton III (September 6, 1936 - November 25, 1989) was an American jazz trumpeter, trombonist, political activist, and educator. He played free jazz and avant-garde jazz in the 1960s and '70s.

Clifford was born in Philadelphia. The year of his birth has been reported as early as 1934 or as late as 1939. Jazz pianist Jimmy Golden was his uncle, while his cousin, drummer J. C. Moses, had a jazz career that was cut short by failing health. Clifford began piano lessons when he was seven-years-old.

He briefly attended Morgan State University and Temple University. Several biographers report that Clifford studied with trumpeter Donald Byrd during 1957, after Byrd had left Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, and also that he worked with 17-year-old tuba player Ray Draper and Webster Young. Following a late 1950s stint in the U.S. Army bands Thornton moved to New York City.

Clifford's political and musical motivations are epitomized by his statement: "For a lot of brothers like myself, we got no choice. What else can we do in this world that's not a slave job? Really, what are our options? We have to be creative musicians if we want to be somebody in this world."

In the early 1960s, Clifford lived in the Williamsburg area of Brooklyn in an apartment building with other young musicians, including Rashied Ali, Marion Brown, and Don Cherry. He performed with numerous avant-garde jazz bands, appearing as a sideman on records by notable artists Sun Ra, Archie Shepp, Pharoah Sanders, and Sam Rivers; many of whom were affected by the compositional ideas of Cecil Taylor. In the January 1976 Black World/Negro Digest, Ron Welburne states that during this period Clifford had been active in the Black Arts Movement, associated with Amiri Baraka and Jayne Cortez. This musical and artistic network provided him with a variety of perspectives on ideas such as black self-determination, performance forms, outside playing, and textural rhythm; it also gave him access to performers who would provide the abilities some of his later compositions required. He was included in the dialogue around the developing thought of political artists, including Shepp, Askia M. Touré, and Nathan Hare, as well as the journals Freedomways and Umbra. [...]"

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifford_Thornton)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



Joe McPhee-trumpet, tenor saxophone

Clifford Thornton-baritone horn

Byron Morris-soprano, alto saxophone

Mike Kull-piano

Harold E. Smith-percussion

Related Categories of Interest:

Hat Art
Improvised Music
Jazz
May 2006
Joe McPhee
Quintet Recordings

Search for other titles on the label:
Hatology.


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The Squid's Ear Magazine

The Squid's Ear Magazine

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