Inside Out In the Open

what is sound

well is the obvious tell me something

you did sound actually silence its

server vibrations between space the

reason

sound is silence is because without

sound silence doesn't exist without

silence sound doesn't exist

sound close very close to your region or

to your own being I use sound as as a

vehicle to amplify what's going through

me in terms of thoughts and feelings and

ripples through my soma

to get an identity to get an essence is

all the work of improvising musician I

just would play either the way I felt

that I should play and everybody thought

it was strange there's an element that

each musician brought to the music now

that these elements could have arisen

from what they couldn't do or what they

could do okay meaning that a drummer may

say well I don't play time because I

can't play time so therefore I had to

create I don't feel comfortable playing

time so I had to create a whole nother

other people would say well I'm tired of

playing time and I want to play this way

oh I hear this way when the great

afro-american musicians came to this

country they came with their musical

traditions like everybody else who came

here with their baggage and and their

ideas but it's all in the head you know

and then manifestation time you know and

it happened you know I can happen

anywhere in New York I mean I have I

pick up a trumpet and you know he

struggles with it and he develops his

own personal language from other people

too you know I'm saying that so

autodidactic development is sort of like

running on on on a spirit which is a

self-organization in my own work I'm

striving to eliminate reason

you could just turn that off I know for

me it was an environment that nurtured

creativity you know it nurtured

individual fault I'm sorry for the

interruption

so trying to eliminate of course you

must understand that one needs to be

programmed physically and psychically in

order to create music create this sound

to deal with by programming I mean

educated must know the traditional

systems and how they all operate but in

my own work I'm trying to eliminate all

of those aspects and rely only on

intuition so that the sound the

manifestation of the sound can be as

pure as possible

there's other people that would

contribute to making their own personal

statement music have you taken on a

board point like I said John Cage or

David to me if you look at you oh it's

not that no this is American music

American music is based on individuality

everybody else does the clone Arnett

proof you don't have to be a clone and

cecil did too you don't have to play

piano like Bud Powell you can play me on

like the way you want to play people

well among said that be original now

being an original man that means hard

work it's difficult to come up with

something that's going to make somebody

else say yeah I would have done it the

same way as most people say no I would

do it another way that made that made

improvisation the high level for an

artist known as enemy

yes I came to the place where everybody

comes New York

oh here you can do it say anything you

want to people believe it they'll accept

if they don't they'll reject you because

they might reject you anyway even if

they do beneath it I moved down there

about 1958 and what drew me to that was

the fact that the music was going on and

I needed to be around the live

performances of it

and this is where where it was happening

and there were people of my you know my

contemporaries were there and I needed

to I needed to bounce off my

contemporaries to get an idea of what my

chances were bubbling joint I mean with

you know dance performances are done and

on the street or Judson Church or

something like that so people doing art

events or doing collective of gallery

events for instance you know artists

painters coming together just to hang

their work or the famous village art

show which started simply by just

hanging people's work in the streets of

the village you know became a very big

type of situation you know and and dance

dance to the old modern dance you know

and and performance you know they're

happening you know and having having

like being at parties at Leroy Jones's

loft with him reading poetry and

having different types of music played

was also fantastic and of course at that

time it was right in the 60s there was a

lot of experimenting going on with both

the drugs and six so all kinds of

strange things whatever was happening

Chicago is an incredible place for art

really it it doesn't have the

restrictions that New York has because

it doesn't have the illusion of

competition that New York has

we were into educating so we black

articles the situation was on Washington

Street which was in the heart of the

black community so we had a lot of

inner-city children that we were

teaching

all aspects of art the other thing that

about the black artists group is that we

didn't only deal with just music we

dealt with dance theater poetry visual

art painting move all Abrams had the

experimental band and you could bring

anything into that band nobody would

ever say hah hah hah hah hah hah we

can't play that no they said what it did

you Braxton you bring in the piece of

music with X's and circles and squares

and a box honest land and you okay and

then a few notes it's acceptable and for

us learning to read these different kind

of symbolic ways was very meaningful as

well

so you got more than music you got you

know you got Joan janae and a B Spelman

and Baldwin you notice and as well as

Katherine Dunham and you know everybody

brought their all influenced so you were

hearing so it gave you a broader palette

to pull from you know you weren't just

trying to create off obviously a 12-bar

blues for them you know you had to

create something that had an emotional

context

so the music that was coming out of

Chicago that these youngsters were

creating was very well received and and

there were sessions where you could go

and play this new music if you come in

there playing some old style they would

look at you funny whereas it used to be

if you go in there and and didn't make

the changes they would look at you from

it had to be in the early 50s sometime

when the friend took me here to here

Louis Armstrong down in the city down in

New York City Paramount Theater went to

shake Armstrong's hand and Annie took my

buddy and myself back into the to the

dressing room he thought we were like

two orphans that shouldn't be out there

without a chaperone you know he was very

very gracious and caring and funny but

boy that was it that day I that day I

decided that I would try to play music

because he made me feel so good I just

thought maybe I can do that for somebody

else I was sitting in class and it was

like the second year or the second half

of the year and I remember a woman our

student walked in and addressed the

class and she said uh was there anyone

anyone interested in joining the band

and through my head I remember the last

semester we would be in class like 2:30

you know two o'clock and band members

would come to class with the uniform on

and they would leave school early so

when she said that that flashed through

my head other than that I hadn't any you

know inkling of being a musician or even