The first day of any season is an occasion of private celebration for me and, in 1997, the first day of Spring held a special promise: the opportunity to document the artistry of 3 distinct musicians whose work I have long enjoyed. The anticipation of inspiration was enough that it motivated us to leave our beloved sonic heaven, the Spirit Room, to search out a space with a suitable piano. Pianist Joseph Scianni (CIMP 122, 130) had told us about the Tedesco Studio, where he had recently helped choose a Steinway suited to his very discriminating standards. So we booked the room and ventured forth. Kali Fasteau first came to my attention through her 1974 collaboration with Raphael Garrett on ESP Records and then their later documentation on Red Records. After some world travel and absence from the general scene, she re-emerged in the United States and began issuing recordings on Flying Note Records.
Noah Howard also first came to the attention of the public at large on ESP in recordings from 1966. Noah was part of that vital and distinct New York Free Music scene of the 1960s. As with many of his contemporaries, he left the United States and followed a familiar journey to Europe where he found a more receptive environment for his art. From Europe came a number of interesting releases on Freedom, FMP, SAJ, Sun, America, and Frame Records, some of which include Bobby Few as his pianist.
Bobby Few was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1935, but came to the attention of the world as an artist living in Europe. And though he recorded on a number of American labels (Blue Note, Impulse, etc.), with artists such as Booker Ervin and Albert Ayler, all of his self-led sessions are on European labels (Sun, Freebird, etc.). This session, I hope, will mark the beginning of interest, in America, of this native son.
It's a bit ironic that these three artists, all of whom had to go outside the USA to find part of their artistic center or base, have recorded together for the first time on an American label. Sounds like a good idea to me.
After the recording of Jello One, Kali remarked upon the changing volume of the sax. I commented that this was a natural dynamic of the group and their musical statement/conversation. It again reminded me how we have become accustomed to a homogenized (safe) world: predictable, bland, and settling. Definitive statements, unequivocal opinions are viewed as disruptive, out-of-step, and politically incorrect that is not what art of its own time is about. It's about bold statements, often provocative. It comes from this direction or that. It is not about waiting its turn or setting a volume level. It is about seizing the moment. Sounds good to me.
So here are the statements of the Fasteau-Howard-Few Trio. This is what they had to say on the first day of Spring 1997. And it is reproduced, not according to some sound engineer's idea of what that dynamic should be (through a shuffling of dials and equalizers), but is accurately reproduced through the trio's presented dynamic. Sounds good.
Robert D. Rusch
