Out is in

Fire in the Valley is the best of new jazz

by Ed Hazell

In art, as in life, the price of individuality is more often than not, obscurity. So you'll most likely never see any of the musicians in the second annual Fire in the Valley festival in a beer commercial or on Late Night with David Letterman. But you can be guaranteed that each and every one of the musicians is a determined, if not down right ornery, individualist.

In its dedication to uncompromising artistic integrity and individuality, there is nothing remotely close to the Fire in the Valley festival in New England. "We want to keep the vision as pure as possible," says Michael Ehlers, director of the Conway New Music Society which organized the event. "It's totally vital, contemporary, and hip music, and you won't hear it anywhere else on the East Coast outside of New York City."

The festival, which begins on July 26 at 1 p.m. and ends at 11 p.m., with a two-hour dinner break in the middle, includes Trio Hurricane with tenor saxophonist Glenn Spearman, bassist William Parker, and drummer Paul Murphy; and an all-star quartet led by trumpeter Raphe Malik featuring new-jazz founding father Dennis Charles on drums, saxophonist Sabir Mateen, and bassist Parker; and a quintet of young firebrands under the direction of drummer Jackson Krall. Unaccompanied solos by new-music veteran, violinist Malcolm Goldstein, and guitarist Loren Mazzacane Connors will offer contemplative contrasts to the overwhelming energy the bands are sure to generate. Fire in the Valley '97 is not only New England's premiere new-jazz and improvisation festival, at $20 a ticket ($18 in advance), it's one of the great concert bargains of the summer.

The daylong celebration of new music is a grassroots effort. Conway New Music Society members and a coalition of committed record stores in Central and Western Massachusetts, including Dynamite Records in Northampton, Toonerville Trolley Records in Williamstown, and Ecstatic Yod collective in Montague, all work for the love of the music to produce the festival and a new-music concert series throughout the rest of the year.

This year's line-up, which includes returnees Malik, Spearman, and Parker, is heavy with players associated with free- jazz pioneer pianist Cecil Taylor. The marathon atonal performances of Taylor, a MacArther genius grant recipient, defy nearly all jazz conventions. By working without fixed beats, tonality, or song form, he has established a new tradition that draws on its own disciplines and techniques, with its own vocabulary of unusual timbres, untempered notes, unanchored rhythms and pulses, and its own rules of ensemble engagement.

The younger free-jazz players heard in the festival take full advantage of their legacy of freedom. Trio Hurricane's 1994 CD Suite of Winds (Black Saint) owed a clear debt to the volcanic pianist (Parker was Taylor's regular bassist for a decade, and Spearman played in his bands in the early '80s), but without a keyboard, the music is more open textured, and at times lyrical, without sacrificing the elevating energy of Taylor's music.

Trumpeter Malik recorded his latest release, The Short Form (Eremite), at last year's Fire in the Valley gathering. Also an alumnus of Taylor's bands, Malik is today one of the most distinct voices in free jazz, capable of infusing the rough and tumble music with a bluesy authority that draws on the clarion-toned legacy of Louis Armstrong as much as the heady structural freedoms of the '60s New York avant-garde. Malik's exhilarating music keeps all options open -- swing beat or free pulse, recognizable melodies or abstract sound, traditional head-solo-head arrangements or extended suites. The sense of freedom is intoxicating.

Drummer Krall and his bassist Dominic Duvall are currently Taylor's rhythm section and Krall quintet members Elliot Levin and Marco Eneidi are also graduates of Taylor Units.

Goldstein and Mazzacane Connors are less obviously indebted to a single source. Goldstein's roots are nourished by contemporary classical as well as jazz, and are equally entangled in the sound-art movement and dance. He is something of a school unto himself, having developed his own techniques to produce a unique sonic vocabulary for his improvisations. Guitarist Mazzacane Connors is similarly sui generis, playing a truly arresting music that fuses delta blues, slow-motion free-form development, and grand architectural design.

Championed by rock-world advocates like Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore (who played last year's festival) and punk poet Henry Rollins, free-jazz improvisation has attracted an unlikely crossover audience of alternative rock fans recently. For audiences looking for something new and vital, Fire in the Valley offers a real alternative.

Fire in the Valley '97 begins at 1 p.m. at Bezanson Recital Hall, Fine Arts Building, UMass, Amherst. Tickets are $18 in advance, $20 at the door. To charge tickets, call (413) 545-2511 or 1-800-999-UMAS. For information, call (413) 584-9592.