john tchicai with strings

want a chance to highlight an album that’s been in heavy rotation for the last several months.

not going to lie, i stumbled accross the tchicai with strings album in downtown music gallery because of the shiny gold leaf animals on the cover of the treader albums on display. asked the sales dude about them- it turns out that the treader guys used to be in this popular british drum and bass outfit called spring heel jack, but had renounced all of that to make freer music. i copped the tchicai with strings album and also an evan parker with birds tribute to steve lacy album (had just seen the evan parker at the stone show).

but the tchicai with strings album is just great. its just really pretty and serene. even my girl likes it, and we ended up listening to it on the beach in mexico. i'm always wary of describing musical qualities in writing, but i'll give it my best shot. the background soundscapes are a mishmash of lush repeating strings, more discordant pianos and various clacking percussive effects. and tchicai is gorgeous. his tone is full but focused, with only a slight twinge of the acerbic that comes with alto (charlie parker to jackie maclean), and a small amount of reediness/breathiness.

about half the tracks are relatively in- in that they have clear tonal centers and slowly undulating rhythms. and tchicai generally lets longer tones and lines sit on the out sections while he tends to dart in and out of the more harmonic pieces. there are a fair number of chromatic lines that accentuate the interplay between the in and the out. his playing is spacious, generous, and avoids any obvious atonal honking and screeching. and while the backgrounds are clearly prerecorded, you get the real feeling of a coherent vibe that tchicai is responding to. he’s always aware and reactive to the musical embankment that surrounds him.

the last track is tchicai reading a poem. all i can say is that in diction and sound, he’s like barry white as a jedi master rather than the love walrus. clearly a very spiritual dude. i mean, you can just tell. i am usually totally against poetry in jazz, but pink roses fits the quality of the album, despite the tonal differences between tchicai's deep voice and the alto.

i was curious enough that i emailed the guys at treader. john coxon was extremely gregarious in getting back to me. rather than post a composite of our emails, i’ll just post them directly.

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hey john, thanks a ton for getting back to me. hope you don't mind mind doing this in a discursive way, but any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

i guess most of my questions have to do with how you guys hooked up with tchicai and what the process of working together looked like. how did you and tchicai hook up? i guess you guys played a show with john and evan parker before the album was recorded? what was that like, and how do you guys play live? once you decided to record, was it strictly a process of you handing john prerecorded tracks to play over, or was there somehow more interplay or (for lack of a better or less pretentious term) 'collective improvisation'? how did you decide how to sequence the individual tracks- in that did you just let the tracks run until john was done playing, and then turn them off?

okay, enough rambling, a couple more specific points i'm curious about,

the album is pretty serene- is that the sound or vibe that you had in mind when going to work with tchicai? i can't help but think that its a response to his personality more than anything. dude is pretty mellow.

there are a couple of tracks that are relatively 'in'. i'm thinking of the repeating G/C/D of Lied, and the Ab minor to G major of Hymn. were those tracks approached differently, or just a natural part of the vibe of the entire experience? did john have anything to say about some of the harmonic elements or character of the album?

i love the fact that you included the poem. john definitely has a beautiful voice and cadence, and a voice that fits so well (despite the disparity between the deepness of his voice and the register of the alto) with the overall tone of the album. how was the decision to include the poem made?

how did you guys decide to do the gold leafing and animals on your album packages? is it real gold?

someone told me that mathew shipp approached you guys about making a more groove based album (i'm not really familiar with the spring heel jack stuff, except that it exists) and that you flatly refused. at what point did you guys decide to go in the free noise direction? are you guys totally dogmatic about it on some 'jazz is freedom music/ayler lives!' type shit? or is it just something that you guys fell into a little more organically?

what else is on the plate for you guys and the label?

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well..........we met john @ the coimbra jazz festival 3 years or so ago.i sat next to him at a dinner before the show we were doing with wadada leo smith et al.
we talked about all sorts of stuff,but i liked him a lot and on the way back to the uk on the train ashley and i were discussing what next for treader and we came up with the idea of john tchicai 'with strings'.........we emailed and sent a couple of the thirsty ear cds,spoke to 'jazz on 3' here to get some help with studio time and arranged for evan parker to interview him for the programme.
meanwhile we worked on the tacks.sent them to him couple months later and arranged a gig @ ashley's monthly 'back in your town' concert.we liked his alto playing and arranged to borrow an old 1920s buescher alto for the sessions.
we did 2 recordings at the time- a duo with evan,then the strings one over a day and an evening.
the interview on the day of the gig,then the gig at the red rose.it was completely packed.....jtch hadnt played uk for over 30 years.
the duo record we gave to the bbc to cut into the interview.
there was no collective impro. on this cd although mark sanders added some drums.
john brought the dalachinsky poem with him and had said enough sax wise,and we had 2 tracks left.actually there is another poem piece unreleased.
the order of the tracks is different from the recording order.
the serenity comes from the intial idea,but john's extraordinary charismatic playing was just what it needed............actually we enjoyed the tracks so much before he played onem that we were quite apprehensive...
john's initial response to the tracks wwas that they all sounded a bit similar,and there was a certain amount of '...well that's the point....'type discussions.
we also had some pretty straight arguments about improvising vs composition,particularly re the duo.
harmonically 'in' or 'out' really doesnt exist for us-know what you mean,but there is never any discussion of this kind of stuff betwween me and ashley-only if someone pushes us......
the packaging is designed by our freind frauke stegmann who has complete creative control.
we have no historical or cultural connection with jazz and we cant play jazz in any sense whatever.
there are elements of jazz history we are both interested in,and individuals we will go far out of are way to play with.the thing about beats is-well,practical.......mainly drummers are used to pushing,not being pushed......nothing against programmed/sampled beats at all.....but i suppose if you have a han bennink,then you want space for him and not to just try to push him with metrical mechanics.
we have just got series 3 delivered...............
john coxon/wadada leo smith-brooklyn duos.....harmonica/guitars:trumpet
han bennink-amplified trio with me and ashley.....really intense
evan parker/matthew shipp-abbey road duos......lovely sounding

we are currently doing a record with roy campbell jr. et al for thirsty ear.....

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five stars.

hymn and these pink roses