Grace Jam

Sometime in 2009 – the Fall? late Summer? – a bunch of musicians gathered in a New York City recording studio to record some music. While the musicians had played together in 2s, 3s, 5s, and so forth, this particular group likely had never been together at the same time in the same place to make music.

The session had been called by Charlie “Urban Blues” Keil and he had a list of tunes we’d be recording. First up, “Amazing Grace.” Though I have no detailed memory of how things went down, I’m pretty sure there was little, or no, discussion of just how we’d negotiate this tune. Somehow it was decided that Don Slatoff would kick it off on bass clarinet, and he did.

From that point on we just made it up. We all knew the tune, in some version or another – there were, and still are, are bar or three where I’m not sure of the exact melody – and we just played what made sense. We listened to one another, responded, found little nooks into which a note or three could be put, and we put ‘em in.

Folks have been making it up since whenever. The particular ragged-ass style into which we’d drifted emerged in jazz sometime in the early to middle 60s. It was generally called “free” jazz, implying not set melody, no set chord progressions, no set rhythm. With all sorts of options along the way.

“Amazing Grace” does of course have a set melody, and well-known one. And we did play it, though likely not exactly as it was wrote. And different folks had different takes on it, all in the same performance. Same with harmony. You’ll hear some standard hymn/gospel sounds in there, which were freely offered up. And the time, the time’s the time.

I put the photographs together last week. I’d started with the idea of using nothing but flower photos. But when I saw some of the Hudson River photos from my 9 April morning stroll, I decided I had to use some of them. Given that, just what photos would I use, as I still wanted to use some flower shots. After thinking a bit I decided that, as a matter of discipline, I’d limit myself to photos I’d taken that morning. If I wanted flower shots, they’d have to be from that morning. Which was OK.

Why’d I make that decision? Well, I had to choose the photos somehow. But choosing from the 1000s on my computer could easily have become a chore. Deciding on that particular shoot set limits on those choices. And the limitation made some kind of sense: same day, same place. With that done, I set about figuring out just which shots to use and how to use them.

If you look closely you’ll see I used most of the photos two or three times, maybe even four. Though I cropped them differently each time. Mix it up, just a little.

Think of each photo as a riff or, given the different croppings, a small family of closely related riffs. I then strung the riffs together into a visual composition. The stringing together took a bit of planning, and more than a bit of tedious work. But then, that’s the nature of the medium. It’s not like music.

Not quite.

* * * * *

Arrangement by The New York Path to Peace
Editing and Assembly by Xanadu Jive (Bill Benzon aka STC4blues)

MUSIC

The New York Path to Peace:

Victor Jaroslaw: Drums, Sekere
Steve Swell: Trombone
Sam Kulik: Trombone
Roswell Rudd: Trombone
Matt Moran: Bass Drum & Cymbal
Greg Glassman: Trumpet
Everyone: Chants
Enrique Fernandez: Alto Sax
Don Slatoff: Tenor Sax, Bass Clarinet
Dan Peck: Tuba
Chris Stromquist: Snare Drum
Charlie Keil: Valve Trombone, Percussion
Bob Hovey: Trombone
Bill Benzon: Trumpet
Allen Farmelo: Percussion

Produced by Allen Farmelo & Charlie Keil
Recorded by Allen Farmelo at Mavericks Studio, NYC
Mixed and Mastered by Allen Farmelo at The Farm, Brooklyn
Assistant Engineer: Jessica Thomson

Music © 2009 12/8 PR
www.128path.org

PHOTOGRAPHS

The photographs were taken by Bill Benzon on the morning of 9 April 2011 in Hoboken, NJ. They are licensed under an Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons license.