Articles by Bill Siegel
Charlie Parker's telegrams to Chan Parker, on hearing of the death of their daughter
by Bill Siegel
Chan, please help meDropping from the wires,a cry hangs in the air like a dustcloudabout the shoulders of the man aloneworking its way into the wrinkles of his coatthe cracks of his facefilling his jowls, bending his neck
Chan, please helpIn his head, he works over one wordtries it out on the lampposts, the hydrantsthe curbstonesLike last night's ...
read moreThe Flutist
by Bill Siegel
for Elyse Wood
she listens to the bass strings moanrolls her cold silver fluteacross one cheekwhile the bassist's fingers sweat tearson the polished woodas she playsthe saxman's shadow croucheshunchbacked on the wallwhen she finishesshe stands straight as the fluteresting along her armand quiverswith the strings of the bass. ...
read moreso listen:
by Bill Siegel
so listen:
i've counted the moose that might have crossedthe fields we passedthought of the bear at the woodpileat night one summer wandering headcockedlike a drunk looking for a friendly eartell you his story for a drinktell you his story for a drink
i've watched crowshadowed houses cower at dawnlike the dalton boys waiting out a trainemmet & grat & the rest
read moreMichael Brecker: Celebration of a Healer
by Bill Siegel
Michael Brecker Memorial Town Hall, New York February 20, 2007Town Hall was the scene for a spirited memorial service for Michael Brecker, universally acclaimed as one of the most influential jazz sax players since John Coltraneand certainly among the most productive and ubiquitous: think of a name in innovative jazz or pop, and chances are Brecker's sax has been in the studio or on stage with themfrom McCoy Tyner to Paul Simon, Herbie Hancock ...
read moreJim Pepper: Polar Bear Stomp
by Bill Siegel
Jim Pepper Polar Bear Stomp Universal Music (Austria) 2004
Jim didn't want me to write about the music, since he thinks the music has the right to speak for itself. He also didn't want me to write a biography; instead, only my impressions." Enja Records co-founder and Jim Pepper producer, Horst Weber.
How fitting that Jim Pepper's friend and professional associate Horst Weber remembers that it was by impressions that Pepper wanted ...
read moreJim Pepper: Afro Indian Blues
by Bill Siegel
Amina Claudine Myers & Jim Pepper Afro Indian Blues PAO Records 2006
Why now? Why review a recording of a concert that happened fifteen years ago? For one, because it's taken this long for anyone to get around to releasing the performance on CD. But even more importantly, because this is a major event and should get all the exposure possible.
In 1991, at the time of the gig, Pepper was already sick with ...
read moreThinking Mingus
by Bill Siegel
But jazz is decadent bourgeois music," I was told, for that is what the Soviet press had hammered into Russian heads. It's my music," I said, and I wouldn't give up jazz for a world revolution." ~ Langston Hughes
No matter what LeRoi Jones says to the contrary, the essence of this music, this 'way of making music', is not simply protest. Its essence is something far more elemental: an elan vital, a forceful vitality, an explosive creative ...
read moreJazz-Rock Fusion: The People, The Music
by Bill Siegel
Julie Coryell Jazz-Rock Fusion: The People, The Music Hal Leonard 1979 Preface by Ramsey Lewis 2000 edition with new preface by Julie Coryell Photographs by Laura Friedman
Jazz-rock fusion . It's a tag, a label from the 1970s that can still provoke impassioned arguments from all sides -- pro, con and every stop in between. Not to mention the way the debate was, for a long time, stoked ...
read moreJohn-Carlos Perea: First Dance
by Bill Siegel
John-Carlos Perea First Dance Aerep Music 2001
What do a Mescalero Apache electric bassist, a Michoacan-Mexican percussionist, a Chicano guitarist, a Nicaraguan-Jewish drummer, and French-Iranian, Argentine and Chinese-American saxophonists have in common with John Coltrane and Jim Pepper?
The answer comes in the form of John-Carlos Perea's First Dance. Perea--who plays fretted and unfretted electric bass--produced the CD and composed all but one of its cuts. First Dance is a ...
read moreThere Are No Coincidences: A Tale of Synchronicity
by Bill Siegel
Or Meditations on Jim Pepper, Chief Bey, Milford Graves, a Heron and a Flock of Geese
(excerpts from this appeared in the Winter/Spring 2005 issue of Planet Jazz magazine)
If anything is a coincidence, then everything must be; And if everything is coincidence, then surely nothing really happens by chance.
Item: One of the first times I listened to saxophonist Jim Pepper ("Comin' and Goin,'" from the album of the same name). I was driving on a crowded ...
read more