9675. TAKE MY HANGING BASKET, pt 12

TAKE MY HANGING BASKET

- the Jazz Loft, pt. 12, 1967 -

The 'jazz' loft was not much like 

the 'art' loft - for one thing the 

jazz loft was always dark and 

crowded and usually did stink of 

alcohol pot or sweat and it was 

often airless or stale while by 

contrast an art loft tried to thrive 

on light and spaciousness and if 

it held any odor at all it was the 

odor seemingly of grand oily and

enticing tubs of paint - fresh and 

splattered dried and caked. People 

in an art loft had a complete and 

different view of things, and they 

went about things based on completion 

or work or achievement and values 

based on a tradition of things like color,

perspective, density, and content - and
I'd been to both types lots of times and   

even making it more odd was the fact 

that many times (as in the case of, say,

Larry Rivers) the artist was also the

jazz man with much less of that 
happening the other way around
but, whatever. The overlap is what

made for the interesting groups 

of intermingling people : late night 

jam sessions, dense and thick with 

smoke and booze, sex and fury, and 
the jazz loft was used by choice more
than the art oft for these sorts of
group and music encounter. Groups
of men with their horns and equipment
held long extended and wild jam sessions,

people coming and going. A car or taxi

would bring someone, or just a lot of

these people walked, now far I never 

much knew, nor where they'd been or 

where they were going, they'd shuffle 

in, as hot or hip and on fire as they'd

choose (a lot of it was pure styling, to 
the point of self-conscious put-on, I'd

thought then, and still do), no organized

sitting in any way, haphazard, and rotating 

session men in and out of the group - 
which eventually wound up playing for
hours and hours with shifting alliances and

personnel - and as hard to explain as it was,

it worked. I never exactly had it figured,

not that it mattered, whether or how much

of what they were playing these guys 
actually 'knew' about beforehand or if
they were just winging or hamming through.
Sometimes it as difficult to really tell.

See, the thing I noticed about jazz, or that 

kind of jazz anyway, (by the 70's there'd 

be other colorations, mellow-jazz, cool-jazz, 

table-top jazz, card-jazz, and even stuff

they'd call jazz  when they shouldn't have. 

But that was later, and with a whole 

other raft of people). 

-

The thing about jazz, this jazz, coffee jazz, 
or whisky jazz, I called it, be-bop, whatever, 
it was a solo language, What good is a

'language' you may ask if it's solo? And 

that's a good question because mostly it 

takes two to talk. That was the situation 

here  -  horn, piano, even a drum run, they'd

all maybe start out separately, like talking 

to themselves, then they'd find a word they 

shared, and then there'd be this quick 

dialogue and someone else's single language 

would want in because it had heard 

something too and, sharing a word or 

phrase, then it would come along  -  

one other or three others, it didn't much 

matter, then the room would shatter 

and there'd be a weird crazy moment 

of cacophony when they'd all smash 

together, in spite of each other 

seeking the solitary, and then 

someone would get the solo, 

talk alone for a while, until, after 

soaring, it would slowly land,

into some other mess of words, and 

someone else would pull it out, and 

run with it, and whatever the 

instrument, piano or drums, there'd 

be some magical thing passed between 

them, and respect would set in, and 

everyone else would stop to listen 

to the one guy doing whatever right 

then, quiet and thoughtful, and then 

it would go again. That confluence, 

you see, was supposed to take in 

everything -   the sorrows and the 

nights, the darkness and the happiness, 

the canyons and the fills, the misses 

and the gets and all the things being 

around, to a fill  -  those endless and 

mysterious things of race and servitude, 

fierce power and anxiety, and all the 

loss and regret too. But without any 

words, and mostly not even much 

sense. You couldn't 'line out' or 

graph what was going on, or I 

couldn't. To me, though, it was 

a music of theory, one that I was 

willing to follow, as I could. 

One moment I did, the

next I didn't.

-

As I said, people arrived all in different

ways  -  some guys coming in as legends

already  -  even if only to themselves  - 

and others sort of the humble-happy troupe,

merely being happy to be present, to play

with some real players. Lots of leather

and shine, long coats and funny hats

too. The stairways filled with hangers-on 

and people wanting entry but the crowd

sometimes was too much; a mess of things 

being around and present, the skill of

the fast-runner, the spin, the dive and 

the deep canyon again broke through,

 All in one. And no one had to talk. Nods

and slaps and all that brother stuff did

it. Here and there it always seemed there 

were one or two blind men who ended 

up playing grand solos on saxophones 

or other horns, and keyboard guys - often 

enough blind too - would bide their 

intensity and time away playing fills 

on one of the often two or three pianos 

in these lofts. All in all it was a 

remarkable and often sex-charged 

scene, with women as much an integral 

part of the music as anything else,

simply by their sexuality and elastic 

morals (let's say); long dark windows,

drab and moist with dewy sweat 

and stained by streaks of the

water-condensate rolling down. 

There'd be people huddled, or 

sometimes just nuzzling, making out,

(I think it was date-night too), or talking 

excitedly together - it was just never 

known what I'd run across or into 

upon entering any of these scenes. 

It was as if some great billowing 

New York artworld nuclear blast 

had occurred and expanded light 

and energy over the entire island,

and most intensely in these music

lofts where people stayed all night 

and sometimes for days, while 

others came and went and the 

great, black, resonating voices 

would cat-call back and forth all 

night to each other - jazz-inflected 

insults and jibes which kept much 

of the tension going and creatively 

added an element of frisson to the 

proceedings. Occasionally there 

would appear someone from the 

music press or the greater jazz-world 

to stay awhile and listen or take part, 

while others clapped or roared 

or got sick silently along some 

sidewall alone somewhere. The 

passed-out dregs of all this would 

be left alone or cradled by someone 

else - all in all an intriguingly and

always interesting scene, and by far 

I'd have to say jazz lofts were 

wilder and crazier than artlofts - 

which by contrast held professors, 

scholars, and the utmost of gentility, 

all swept along by the brush and 

broom of art's more graceful arc.