Full Tilt
Ellery Eskelin
Magnet, Real Music Alternatives
No. 30 Sept/Oct 1997
"We don't have to respect jazz to the point of suffocating it," says tenor saxophonist
Ellery Eskelin. "It's been resilient enough to have withstood years of being nearly
neglected to death; now it must withstand years of being respected to death."
Eskelin trusts jazz's traditions to withstand hard use; the 38-year old New York City
resident plays music that broadens the genre while trashing it's conventions. He
has a gruff, sinuous sound and a highly individualistic compositional style that
emphasizes unexpected combinations of instruments. Michael Ehlers (proprietor of the new-jazz
label Eremite) recalls the first time he encountered Eskelin: I remember thinking
that he sounded like a demented Archie Shepp, playing these very odd phrases at odd
lengths, but with that completely bad-ass sound. He has a presence on tenor that one hears
on great, old records, but with a very individual and definitely very modern vocabulary."
This balance of old and new is evident on The Sun Died
(on Soul Note), Eskelin's splendid tribute to his hero, Gene Ammons. Eskelin, drummer
Kenny Wolleson and guitarist Marc Ribot recreate Ammons' warm tone and immaculately
soulful tunes but accelerate and warp his easygoing grooves. Ribot (who has also
played with Elvis Costello and John Zorn) lends some extra grit with his distorted, bluesy
accompaniment.
But the balance tilts when Eskelin plays with his regular trio. The unusual instrument
selection Jim Black (drums) and Andrea Parkins (accordion and sampler) reflects
Eskelin's belief that "typical jazz lineups that emphasize horn players as soloists
over the top of a rhythm-section accompaniment have been pretty much exploited. I'm
looking for new contexts to put the saxophone in ." On "Jargon", a suite-like piece
from the trio's debut, Jazz Trash
(Songlines), this search for new contexts impels Eskelin to use a sampled organ drone
as a transition, moving from delicately stated, lyrical melodies to belching, abrasive
passages of circus music dominated by Parkins' effects-laden squeeze box. The music's emotional impact is powerful but elusive. Says Parkins, "Ellery's music is often
more about what I would call 'states of being' rather than a narrative structure."
Despite it's modern sonorities, the trio's music never completely severs it's connections
to jazz's past; on their new record, One Great Day...
(Hatology), they pay tribute to another champion of yore by playing Rahsaan Roland
Kirk's "The Inflated Tear." Green Bermudas
, which Eskelin and Parkins recorded last year for Eremite, stepped even farther
outside. With the trio, Parkins mainly plays piano and organ samples, but on Green Bermudas
she samples the saxophonist's back catalog and his fathers's. The senior Eskelin
arranged, played and sang on hundreds of song-poems under the pseudonyms Rodd Keith
and Rod Rogers before his death in 1974. The song-poem industry is a scam in which
verses that were solicited from gullible comic book or tabloid readers via advertisements
are set to music. During the industry's '70s heyday, hired hands cranked out dozens
of songs a day in drug-fueled marathon recording sessions. The resulting music, which
wedded jaw-droppingly warped lyrics to hastily improvised approximations of contemporary
pop styles, is a wondrous feverdream articulation of the American psyche. According
to Phil Milstein, who curates the American Song-Poem Music Archive, Keith was the
best studio man in the industry. "Where the rest of the song-poem musicians were craftsmen,
Rodd was an artist," says Milstein. "I think his genius is on a par with Brian Wilson,
Roky Ericson, Jad Fair all, perhaps not coincidentally, hallucinogen casualties."
On Green Bermudas,
Parkins lobs great big chunks of song-poems at Eskelin, who responds with some exceptionally
passionate solos. Says Milstein, "I think it's brilliantly fucked up. Most people,
given the same source material, would choose to excerpt from it in small and heavily processed packets, and then merge it more subtly with their own music. Ellery
and Andrea, by subjecting the source material to less processing, by excerpting in
large parcels and by smacking it in the face of their own music like you might smack
someone in the face with a dead fish, are being much more subversive than I could have
possibly imagined."
-Bill Meyer
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