by Andrew William Burnes
dsrekab@prism.gatech.edu
When Will the Blues Leave?

Coupla nights ago I had the pleasure of attending a performance of the Jemeel Moondoc trio at the Neighborhood Playhouse in Decatur. Laurence Cook was the drummer for the evening, and John Voigt likewise played the electric upright bass. The room at the playhouse is a blackbox, longer than wide, and fairly small. It filled up nicely and suited the music well enough. When we arrived at the place, I noted to myself that it was at Trinity Pl and Electric Ave. No joke. That's a good omen, isn't it?

Anyway, many know more about these guys than I, and I am more familiar with Voigt's work (and then only a little) than the other two. The universal description for a Moondoc show seems to be "he sounds like Ornette," so I had an idea what to expect, but of course he's not Ornette, he's Jemeel. The set-up: Cook played a small kit plus an extra tom and a gigantic (symphonic? marching?) bass drum inscribed with kids initials and a few swear words. I think the bass drum belongs to the playhouse. Lots of cymbals, many riveted. Voigt played one of those faux-uprights, which is to say it was electric and all neck, no body. He was clearly unfamiliar with his amplifier, as it took most of the show to find the sound he liked. The trade-offs of traveling light. Sounded good either way. You know how musicians are too picky for their own good anyway. Moondoc played alto. Just like that.

So the first thing I'm thinking is, "Man, why does Laurence Cook look so familiar?" He was wearing a grey-chamo jungle hat and his specs were tinted grey. Menacing expressions were tossed into the crowd like candy at a parade. Rutger Hauer? No, maybe a younger Rod Steiger? As Rod Steiger ever younger? So this was the first of him I had heard. Swings hard. Sometimes blistering like Blackwell (Ornette ref), but when he got into it, he was drawing back like elvin, hitting hard. He likes to fall into these trainwrecks, and when you think he's lost it, he comes back on the one like "What? I don't know what you're talking about." Smile gently. Mumble. Every once in a while he would look out in the crowd like "watch this, ooh this will show you" and do some bombastic shit. I liked it. So then I realized who he looks like. This is for real, he looks like that famous badass actor JOHN VOIGT (you know, deliverance etc) which brings us to...

The bassist in question. But John Voigt doesn't look like an actor named Laurence Cook. Oh well. Voigt was like some Sancho Panza figure on this night, along for the ride, just playing his thing while the other guys stepped up and showed. Our own ellen mcgrail sat in the front row playing dulcinea. All motion, a really free "free" is what he's got going on. I am pretty sure he knows his harmonic theory as well as or better than any of us, and he played very "out" harmonically speaking (which is to say it sounded good, but I couldn't figure out what the hell he was doing). C'est la viol. There were occasions where he and Jemeel rode on a harmonic center, but often Voigt was offering a foundation for Moondoc that was more textural than tonal. Occasionally he built up some chordal stuff that was, well, Haden-ish (Ornette ref). I'm cool with that. I love Haden's shit. But then there was...

Jemeel Moondoc on the alto saxophone. He's a small guy (as is Voigt) and he really looks like he was sitting on his front porch watching the world go by when somebody said "why don't you come play some stuff with us?" Straw hat, some old baggy work pants and a plaid shirt. Wingtips, no socks. I was expecting him to kick his shoes off at any minute. Pleasant demeanor. He plays with a soft, talking tone (like Ornette) and he didn't rely on all the squealing and skronking that all the kids ride so hard these days. Okay, he did a little right at the end, but mostly not. His squeal wasn't a scream though, it was a cry. He didn't run out the long phrasing that Ornette and Cherry did so much. Jemeel plays more conversationally even than they. How can I say this? His playing parallels human speach to a remarkable degree. Whereas Ornette broke up the rhythm and the melody into smaller fragments than what was the norm at the time, Moondoc has even further reduced (refined?) them. I think it is common enough to compare music to spoken languages, and it is certainly easy enough to associate tenor and alto saxophones with the human voice, as they share similar ranges and timbres. But music is fundamentally different from spoken languages in structural and neurological ways, and I think that we have gotten too comfortable with making such comparisons. So when I say that Jemeel Moondoc plays conversationally, I don't mean, "Oh, you can feel he's telling a story, he's talking to you," I really mean his flow, his diction as it were, is like a spoken language. His phrases are syllabic. He plays words, and a song or a set is like a story, only kinda like Charlie Brown's teacher. Obviously I don't mean to say he sounds like Charlie Brown's teacher, but like if somebody told you a story in Russian or some Indonesian language you could not understand. The pace and phrasing was that of spoken word. Which is not to say that he has reached some new level of musicianship previously considered unattainable, just that when someone says, "He plays like he's talking," well, Moondoc is a remarkable example of someone who plays like he's talking. Like the guitar in the intro to "Yankee Rose." Just kidding, yo.

They played two long sets, the first consisting of two pieces, the second set being maybe three tunes. Of course, this is where one runs out of adjectives. It was free, you know? Plenty of space, plenty of density. Some hard-swinging stuff, some smoky ballad-type stuff. It was lovely. Cook provided plenty of humor, and Voigt threw in some funny bits, too. Moondoc just "talked," except when he was crying or laughing or singing with his horn. Such a nice, soft tone, he would have sounded good in front of just about anybody, but Cook and Voigt provided good counterpoint, good conversation. The second set was mostly an interesting rendition of Coltrane's "one up, one down," by the way. Even the old guys like to give the shout-out every now and then.

Michael Ehlers of Eremite recs was here for the show. Eremite has put out several Moondoc cds, and I myself got a couple at the show. When I got home, I noticed that Jemeel talks a lot about Ornette in the notes of his records. I guess that's why people hear Ornette in his playing. He really LOVES Ornette's stuff. As do i. So I hate to think that someone might use an Ornette comparison to dismiss Moondoc's playing. And I hate that I couldn't write this review without making comparisons myself, but his style is derived from Ornette's, though I must say he has taken only good things from it. If you are familiar with Moondoc's work (hell, even if you aren't), this review has probably been tedious, but if you haven't heard him, he's a hell of a player and has a hell of a sound. Put it on at bedtime and it's better than your mama telling you that Curious George story you loved so much.