Love for jazz in the time of Pantera

The night jazz first reared its glittering head for me was in a bar near UST called Naked Ear. I had listened to jazz before — the kind purveyed by David Benoit, Earl Klugh and Spyro Gyra, among others — but the music never beckoned. It was far from being a moving voice in the wilderness. Never did I behold the light of a burning bush while listening to jazz’s pop incarnation, which is dubbed by some critics as drugstore jazz or music for skin flicks and elevators. Or the type of music to listen to while meditating in the Jacuzzi. For me, illumination took place once Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and Velvet Underground vinyls were on the turntable. Not with instrumentals featuring sterile piano and lazy, saccharine saxophone. But that night at Naked Ear, I had my first jazz epiphany.

The cranky DJ at that joint usually played smooth jazz numbers. I went to the booth and noticed a John Coltrane Greatest Hits CD under some Kenny Gs and Acoustic Alchemy discs. I had heard of Coltrane before, reading somewhere that this cat could summon metaphorical snakes from the sax. I quickly realized that it was not an exaggeration.

I looked at the sleeve and requested for a tune called India. It started out with a soft mantric bassline. Two saxophones slithered into the piece and from there, it seemed the gates of aural delirium were opened. It was loud. Really loud. Louder than heavy metal. Louder than cats caterwauling on corrugated roof. Louder than love.

Some geeky customers in the bar complained of the racket, reacting as if the tune were the mad clattering of chimes from a nuthouse. Probably the vibes in that bar clashed big-time with their designer threads, their Super Dry beer and their jive-ass yuppie discourse on cars and chicks. Maybe they couldn’t sip their Screwdrivers or talk Anne Rice with some mad sax blaring in the background. So, from the speakers disappeared Coltrane and was replaced by Earth Wind & Fire, or something as sappy.

I left the jazz joint forever altered. Music — or to be more specific, the way I listened to music — hasn’t been the same since. (It was the time of the great Grunge hangover. The last rock great group I listened to intently, aside from the purveyors of Seattle rock, was Pantera.) Jazz offered a new universe altogether. Hence the search for the aural antidote to a joyless, meaningless and terribly empty life.

And if there is rapture in discovering Coltrane, it is equally rapturous to be able to turn other people on to the merits of music that is strange and beautiful at the same time. Music that stresses improvisation, innovation and exploration. Music that is a gateway to the transcendent.

Although I learned soon enough that it‘s no frolic in the park to get others to listen to the gospel according to Bird or Lady Day. Try convincing posers out there who play Crazytown and Limp Bizkit CDs in psychotic volumes, the very same people who used to ledge-dance to C&C Music Factory in their longbacks and Topsiders. It’s even hard to convince one’s friends to ditch their Fat Boy Slim tapes and give a listen to the Headhunters. And it’s not any less daunting to expound on jazz in a 7,000-character article. Which is difficult. Impossible, even. Like sowing fear with a handful of dust or scrawling the history of philosophy on the head of a pin.

Here’s the bull-headed attempt, though. Jazz, currently, is the alternative to the alternative. Only a few people really dig jazz, give a serious ear to this wildly inventive American music style, and shell out obscene amounts of money just to get their hands on ECM or Impulse releases. There is usually an agora-like atmosphere in the rock, R&B and pop sections (there’s murder along those Mandy Moore and Westlife racks); meanwhile, all is quiet in the jazz front.

But being esoteric is not just what makes jazz so hip. It’s the innovative nature of the music. Jazz musicians flee like eels away from the bumbling hands of those who love to label. Case in point: Coltrane and Miles Davis.

Miles has many phases, just like Picasso. His landmark albums are as different as they are transcendent: the subtle "The Birth of the Cool," the steamy "Cookin’" and "Relaxin’," the bombastic orchestral beauty of "Sketches of Spain," as well as the edgy "Nefertiti" and "Sorcerer." These albums have left critics in a lurch as to how to classify the sonic sorcery spun by Miles Davis and his sidemen (Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Tony Williams, Wayne Shorter, John McLaughlin, Joe Zawinul, Chick Corea, and John Coltrane, among others).

Miles’ music hits listeners like a pugilist or a hallucinogenic drug. From the impressionistic "A Kind of Blue" (no one plays silence better than Miles on this album) to the bitchy aural brew of the loud, electric, brooding and über-funky "Live Evil," "Bitches Brew," "Black Beauty," and "On the Corner," among others.

After classics like "Blue Train" and "Giant Steps," Coltrane figured his message had to be enfleshed in a new medium altogether. Or more cryptically, the message must become, itself, the medium. In "Ascension," "Meditations," "Om," "Interstellar Space" and "Live at the Village Vanguard," Coltrane ceased being a gifted musician and became a deeply spiritual being with the gift of tongues. This is most apparent in the classic "A Love Supreme," one of the greatest works of art ever created (along with James Joyce’s Ulysses and Salvador Dali’s The Temptation of Saint Anthony).

Coltrane’s sagely sax is also spotlighted in "Om," which conjures images of monks and bedraggled Bombay snake charmers. This album makes listeners feel what Thurston Moore would call "ecstatic peace."

Miles and Coltrane are just two of the masters of jazz. For a dose of the avant-garde or free jazz, one can check out master harmolodicist Ornette Coleman ("The Shape of Jazz to Come," "Free Jazz," or "Song X" with Pat Metheny). There is also Eric Dolphy who made classics like "Out to Lunch," which straddles the fine line between form and freedom. Mingus created some of the most moving pieces in jazz such as Goodbye Pork Pie Hat and Open Letter to Duke, two cuts from the album "Mingus Ah Um." For some jazz/rock hybrids, look for albums from the Mahavishnu Orchestra, the Tony Williams Lifetime, Gateway, Weather Report and Return to Forever — bands that are heavy, loud and as inspired as legendary rock groups like the Jimi Hendrix Experience and Yes. There are also some great finds from Jaco Pastorius, Stanley Clarke, Al Di Meola, John Zorn and Bill Frisell.

Delving into jazz is quite an experience indeed, since jazz is art for the ears, opium to the soul and the senses. And there’s always something new and interesting to discover: re-issues, new groups, jazz lore, etc. In the end, it’s up to the listener to discover jazz for himself; it’s up to the person to hear his or her own way. As for me, I’m still searching — and finding.

One time I was scrounging around for some Bill Evans discs at Tower Records when I saw a copy of a Thelonious Monk album. I’ve read tons of articles about the man; never got to listen intently to his music. Bought the disc and went home quite excited. I played the Monk CD. I closed the lights and listened. I didn’t get it. What to make of this Monk fellow I had no idea. I failed to establish a connection with one eccentric dude playing the piano alone in San Francisco.

A few months later, drunk and alone and depressed, with the blues in the room so heavy and so thick, I once more listened to the pianist. Strangely enough, the music made perfect sense.

It was like John Coltrane and Naked Ear all over again.

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For comments, suggestions, curses and invocations, e-mail iganja@hotmail.com.