Fred Hess (1944, Abington, PA) has been a catalyst in creative music in the Rocky Mountain area since the mid '80s – where he worked with the Bruce Odland Big Band and when he began his long association with trumpeter Ron Miles – and carries through today in the Boulder Creative Music Ensemble, a group Fred founded in the early to mid 1980s. The inspiration for the BCME was seeded after Fred's attendance at the Creative Music Studio (Woodstock, NY) in 1978 and by the creative ensemble attitudes that blossomed out of Chicago in the 1960s.
A critical success does not a living make, an understanding most creative artists eventually come to know. Fortunately, along the way Fred picked up a doctorate in music to help supplement his artistic passions. And through the years the BCME has documented their work on a handful of recordings while the ensemble personnel has remained remarkably stable. My involvement with Fred has been informal over the years and then, in 2000, got a bit more involved when I produced one of Fred's BCME productions on Cadence Jazz Records. Of course, the logical step then is to do a CIMP date.
For the first time on record, this date finds Fred out of his usual geographical (Colorado) and group (BCME) setting. Paul Smoker (1941, Muncie, IN), a veteran of many CIMP dates, is capable of interpreting any chart, is a master of original improvisation and has worked a number of times with Ken Filiano (1952, Patchogue, NY). Ken is another master of technique and has, in complement, unleashed an emotional depth in the last couple of years to make him one of creative improvising music's most formidable bassists. Damon Short (1954, Rock Island, IL) is based in Chicago. I first became aware of him on his inventive Penguin Shuffle (1986) recording. More recently he has issued a series of solid sessions on Southport and DepthPerception Records. Paul suggested him to Fred for, in working with Damon in the past, Paul had found him to be "a very attentive and sensitive drummer."
Given that the folks are not into this music for the big bucks, it's an indication of their seriousness and dedication to the art that Fred flew in from Colorado, Ken drove up from New York City and Damon drove in from Chicago. Once in Rochester, New York, they all met over the weekend to rehearse at Paul's house and, from there, drove on to Rossie, New York for the Monday and Tuesday sessions.
Good times, good food and a rather involved sound check held off the start of the opening session till a bit after 9 p.m. They opened technically proficient but emotionally tentative. It's a fine line with Fred's music as his lines and playing style (a style as evidenced from his previous discography) tend to focus almost evenly between the intellectualization of the written music and the emotion of his sax and its softer counterpoint. His many recordings with Ron Miles' trumpet tend to complement that blend, and I figured Paul Smoker's more muscular blat would be a greater contrast. Well, I figured wrong as, in this setting, Fred's sax work seems to have a more visceral attack and line as he responded to the new dynamic with a flexibility I had not anticipated.
So, we listened to the first take (JHM), discussed our thinking and found we were in general agreement. With clear heads, acclimation, and trust in the surroundings, we went into take two. What a difference a take makes. Ken threw himself into the opening solo and Damon opened up the drums, now trusting the room. Fred relaxed more, dug in, and Paul – well, Paul is Paul. After the take, Ken wondered why his bass sounded different. He thought it was reflecting off the toms but, on playback, it didn't seem to suggest this. We finally realized we'd left a small door across the room open, changing the room's climate. At this point Fred said his sax sounded different because of the climate (humidity) and altitude (Rossie is almost a mile lower than Denver). Here, Fred noted that his keypads were more swollen and fit better and his reed responded differently to the humidity. Such are the subtle but very real differences a setting can have on the dynamics of this music and another way in which creative improvised music is reflective, if allowed to be, in a live dynamic.
As the night moved on, the music became more and more abstract, either by design or circumstance (to date, this is arguably Fred's most abstractly structured release) and ended with a fine reading of Going There, a piece with not only the signature styles of Fred's writing but also of Ken and Paul in their solos. Adventures in sound, indeed.
The next day they opened with Joe Said, a (John) Guntheresque contrapuntal bounce number which had Fred pretty wide-eyed during Paul's solo which, in turn, inspired his own solo and his playing into the strong rhythm bass that Ken and Damon were caught up in. During the previous day's session, the soloing protocol, in regard to the drums and expressed by Damon was, if he was moved. With that in mind, it seemed obvious to me that he would solo on "Joe Said." And solo he did, a short, appropriate solo showing perhaps a Blakey-Blackwell influence (Blackwell more than Blakey, he tells me later).
We ended in the early afternoon with a deconstructed take on Good Question, a restructuring of the modes of the piece which had been oddly disjointed on previous takes, in effect finding the success of the piece by discarding some of its parts.
And so, exposed here is Fred Hess in a way never heard before but worth hearing again. Fred was happy, I was happy and we hope listeners will also find its joys and satisfactions.
Robert D. Rusch - June 12, 2001
