Andrew D'Angelo
TBP and friends have been rocked by news of Andrew D’Angelo’s brain tumor - hospitalization - surgery - and diagnosis of brain cancer, oligodendroglioma. Read his wonderful blog for more information.
---
Andrew has been a vital part of many important contemporary bands. Probably the most influential one has been the collective Human Feel, which was the analysis of New York Downtown jazz by some Boston prodigies. Human Feel reunited and toured last year, blowing minds everywhere - just like they did 15-20 years ago. (Human Feel reunion on YouTube.) Andrew has also been the agent provocateur in the wildly popular Matt Wilson quartet, one of the great “jazz ambassador” bands of our day. (See this clip, good christ.)
Go to Andrew’s MySpace to hear some of his uncompromising solo work utilizing electronics.
Even more uncompromising: Andrew’s photo gallery of brain scans, where you can see his tumor.
---
For a brief period (just before TBP began working too much for me to keep it up), I was a fairly regular member of Kurt Rosenwinkel’s group. One night I couldn’t make it, and he got Andrew D’Angelo instead. Later, I asked Kurt how it went, since the Rosenwinkel repertoire was (for lack of a better term) more “straight-ahead” than Human Feel. “Oh, it was great,” he said. “Andrew is a ‘pure element.’ If you are a ‘pure element,’ there’s no problem!”
I thought this was wonderful way of putting it, and have since realized that almost all improvising musicians I admire without reservation are also “pure elements.” At the end of the day, there is going to be no trivial concern about style from them: they are going to be themselves, no matter what.
Jazz and improvised music needs “pure elements” as much as it needs anything. Of his generation and peer-group, Andrew is among the purest. At every gig, Andrew is going to show up, looking good (muscular, handsome), pull out the axe, and chainsaw like there is no tomorrow. His general alto saxophone style is in the "raw" tradition of Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy, Oliver Lake and Henry Threadgill, but he probably surpasses all of those players in terms of sheer energy. His pitches are also his own, not an imitation of any of those older masters.
I unfortunately missed the night that he sat in with Bill McHenry, Ben Monder, Reid Anderson, and Paul Motian at the Village Vanguard, but the waitstaff would talk of nothing else for the rest of the week. It was like one of the Sex Pistols had suddenly turned up on the Vanguard stage.
---
Reid Anderson had a working group for awhile informally called the Animal band. They played quite a bit, and I was at nearly every gig. I couldn’t have participated in TBP had I not studied this band’s music first.
Thankfully, The Vastness of Space is a worthy recorded document. Two of Reid's songs first recorded on Vastness eventually became popular pieces for TBP: “Silence is the Question” and “Prehensile Dream.” Presumably many readers of this blog have heard our version of "Silence"; it is interesting to compare with the Animal band version. I love Andrew’s lonely intonation of the high “E” during the melody, which becomes a primal scream an octave higher by the end.
Download Silence_Is_The_Question.mp3
Andrew D’Angelo, alto sax
Bill McHenry, tenor sax
Ben Monder, guitar
Reid Anderson, bass
Marlon Browden, drums
recorded by James Farber, March 2000
There’s a sweet hint of the blues in Andrew’s playing here, too. I had forgotten this element until relistening today; perhaps I will steal this notion the next time TBP plays “Silence Is the Question.”
---
So, the story ahead for Andrew is going to be hard and expensive. It’s surprising that America’s heath-care system hasn’t caused a bloody revolution yet. I am giving money, and if you have enjoyed Andrew’s music in the past or are intrigued by this post, please give too.
