Gordon: Beats me. He had a piano; there was a piano on the stage.
You mentioned how you enjoy "out" jazz every once in a while. I was listening to Eric Dolphy earlier. It's just my ears now. It sounds more and more normal…
Gordon: Didn't he play a bass clarinet‚ too?
Yeah. A friend of mine sent me a tune of his called "Come Sunday‚" and it's just bass clarinet. It's really crushing.
Gordon: It's just a ballad‚ or out?
A combination of both. He's really going for it‚ but it's got structure.
Gordon: There's a violin concerto with Béla Bartók. It's one of those things where you listen to it and it makes mathematical sense‚ like the phrases or working in a really cool way. It's completely listenable in a cool way.
Jennifer: He's got some other stuff that's just incredible. If you don't know his music it's just crazy great.
Gordon: It's not painful.
[laughs] What's an example of something painful? You're talking about something that's painful because the lack of structure?
Gordon: Maybe. I had this thing called Archie Shepp's Fire. He did some fairly cohesive‚ understandable stuff. This was like bass‚ drums‚ piano and sax like… the way you would end a song‚ a scrub out all the way through. It just never stops. There's no real discernible beginning or end of anything. It's supposed to be free jazz‚ and it is. Everyone's like playing to the max.
That was one where you were like‚ "I don't need that anymore?"
Gordon: I gave it away.
If it's worth listening to once a year‚ if you're in that state of mind once a year where it's enjoyable‚ then maybe it's worth keeping.
Gordon: What is it?
Well‚ that's just my scale. I have some Coltrane. I think it's called Meditations.
Gordon: That's awesome. I like that.
There's parts where he sounds like he's killing a baby. [laughs] Really heavy duty stuff. But once a year I feel like it's the best music I can be listening to‚ or the most soothing.
Gordon: I think there's one track on Zappa's Weasels Ripped My Flesh‚ where it sounds like Archie Shepp's music all the way through. Just screaming‚ but not for that long.
Jennifer: It's funny‚ but the one thing I can say is that we don't listen to a lot of music in the house. It's something that we just noticed. There's a lot of music in and around us. We invested in a record player. We have all the formats you could possibly ask for‚ but we invested ten dollars in a record player at a flea market. [laughs]
Gordon: We put some vinyl on the other day. But you're right -- we don't play a lot of music around the house. After a gig I cannot listen to anything. Going home after gigs with other guys in the van who put music on… I'm just so done with that part of my psyche that I don't know how I can listen to anything.