Interview with John Tchicai, Danish saxophonist
Danish saxophonist John Tchicai arrived in New York City in the fall of 1962 and quickly immersed himself in Manhattan's fertile free jazz scene, forming the New York Contemporary Five (with Archie Shepp and Don Cherry) in 1963 and the New York Art Quartet (with Roswell Rudd) in 1964. In addition to recording as a member of the Jazz Composers Guild, Tchicai appeared as a sideman on some of the decade's most crucial free improv recordings: Albert Ayler's New York Eye and Ear Control, Archie Shepp's Four For Trane and John Coltrane's Ascension.
What distinguished Tchicai and made him such a desirable collaborator was his unique sound. While the reigning free saxophonists of the day (like Coltrane and Ayler) blew spiraling, extroverted split-tones, Tchicai's tonality was intimate, cool and dry, drawing inspiration from alto saxophonists like Lee Konitz, Charlie Parker and Lennie Tristano as well as European classical composers like Bartok, Hindemith and Stravinsky. Tchicai describes his own linear lines as being: "in all kinds of keys, or in no key at all, or totally open in terms of where the stuff is going to go."
What were some of your early musical inspirations?
"I started pretty early, when I was about 14 or 15, listening to radio. American bases in Germany, they had radio stations, so you could catch all kinds of (for me) unheard jazz at that time. I heard a lot of interesting things that I had never heard before, like Gerry Mulligan's piano-less quartet. I was listening to Voice of America with that guy with that impressive voice, Willis Conover. He had a jazz program that went out on shortwave all over the world, I think. So at certain times at night, you know, you'd get that station where he played all types of jazz and I heard Monk and all that stuff. So there was a lot of early inspiration."
What provided the impetus for your move to New York?
"I had met some of the young lions--the upcoming musicians like Sunny Murray and Albert Ayler and also Jimmy Lyons and Cecil Taylor--in Copenhagen. We had a pretty good club there in Copenhagen where people could work steadily for a longer period, like a month or three weeks, and a lot of people came and played, so I sat in sometimes. I played with Sunny Murray and Albert Ayler--not with Cecil at the time--and that sort of gave me the idea that it was probably better to go to America, because in Copenhagen the free music scene, or rather the people that were involved in making improvised music, were not that many. It was just a little handful and not really any drummers of the caliber of Sunny Murray."
So you first connected with Ayler in Denmark?
"Yeah, he was living in Copenhagen for a period--in Sweden and Copenhagen. I think in the beginning he was playing in some kind of dance band or something like that, but then when he settled in Copenhagen he started to play his own stuff. One of the first records he made there, that was in Copenhagen [My Name Is Albert Ayler]. I was in the studio there when they recorded that."
It seems like once you arrived in New York you were busy with performances and recordings right off the bat. How did that come about?
"I started right away because I was in that position where I had met a lot of the younger musicians already over in Scandinavia. I had met Bill Dixon and Archie Shepp and the group that was around--Don Moore on bass, Perry Robinson [on clarinet]. When we met in Finland, they gave me their phone numbers, so right away when I came to New York I called them up and soon after we started to play together, so that was my big luck that it happened like that. Otherwise I might not have been so lucky."
Your discography from your New York years is pretty amazing. Did you have any sense of the importance of those recordings at the time?
"No, not really. I was just taking the whole thing in, making the best of it. It was a great time and a very inspired time and a wonderful time to be there. I was busy all the time practicing and going to this rehearsal, going to that rehearsal and recording and trying to do some gigs out of New York. Mostly we were just playing New York in small bars and whatever but it was so great because that was what I wanted to do."
What was the scene like in New York in the 60's?
"On the one hand there was the coffeehouses and small bars and restaurants--mostly in the village. I can remember just now one called Take Three. Then, of course, there was the Village Gate and Village Vanguard, but we didn't play that often there--once in awhile. At a certain time you were able to do something on top of the Village Vanguard--there was a kind of gallery space there. When we first started with the Jazz Composers Guild, then we started to be able to rent concert halls and make real concerts in a more classical style, in a real concert hall like Judson Hall. I think that's where we wanted to go because the bars and the small clubs, you usually played on the door. You were very rarely paid anything, so that was more for the practice and for the experience. Of course there was always a very enthusiastic audience at that time."
How often did the New York Art Quartet perform?
"Not very often. I mean we had some concerts during the life of Jazz Composers Guild, but it wasn't very often. But maybe it was more than I can remember; I'm not good at remembering that kind of detail. I remember one time we went outside to some summer camp or something like that and then we went to Newport. I don't remember if we played there as a quartet. Maybe that was only as Composers Guild Orchestra. Seen on a large scale it wasn't much, but it was apparently sufficient."
Did the New York Art Quartet tour at all?
"I went first with the [New York] Contemporary Five to Denmark; that was the whole group. Then later on I could go back to the same club there that everybody was playing at and play with the New York Art Quartet, but unfortunately it wasn't the whole group. It was only Roswell Rudd and myself plus Louis Moholo from South Africa played drums and a Danish bass player. We did some concerts in Denmark and Sweden and also in Holland. We did some radio recordings there that later came out on a French illegal record."
How did you hook up with John Coltrane?
"We met one time in Belgium. There was a festival there. Coltrane was playing there and I was playing with a Dutch group--with a pianist, bass and drums--just before Coltrane had to play. We had finished and then Coltrane came running out with a tape recorder in order to record some of our stuff. He said, "what, are you done already?" So I said, "yeah, well, we are; it's over." Then later on back in New York I sat in with him one night at the Half Note. That was around the time when he started to use Rashied Ali on drums. Then also when we did Four For Trane, he was in the studio there."
Do you have any particular memory from that time that sticks out as a highlight?
"I don't remember which one came first, but when I thought it was really good, that was when I did the [New York Art Quartet's] Mohawk recording. Then I thought everything came together--the sound was right and the group was right and the circumstance was right. That was a highlight. There was a contract and this record company in Holland [Phillips] had given me some money to produce that record and I did it on my own. I took the initiative myself and just did it and talked to Rudy Van Gelder. Then, also in the same studio, when we did Four For Trane and Ascension was a great experience--a very unique experience."
In 1966 Tchicai and his wife packed up and moved back to Copenhagen to escape the "intense living" of New York City. Once back in Denmark Tchicai formed his own large ensemble, Cadentia Nova Dancia, and also began playing with the new European free improvisers, like Misha Mengelberg, Han Bennink and Derek Bailey, who had all (no doubt) been influenced by his exploratory New York work.
In the 70's and 80's Tchicai performed with, among others, Cecil Taylor, Pierre Dorge's New Jungle Orchestra and Charles Gayle. In 1991 Tchicai received a state grant from Denmark making him "independent of economic worries." Tchicai now lives in Davis, California where he works in the music department at University of California and leads an improvisation group.
Tchicai has a new quintet recording, co-led with Charlie Kohlhase from Boston's Either/Orchestra, which was released in June. Also on June 13th, 1999, the New York Art Quartet (featuring Tchicai, Roswell Rudd on trombone, Reggie Workman on bass and Milford Graves on percussion) reunited for the first time in over 30 years to open for Sonic Youth at the Atrium in Manhattan.
by Brent Burton
info@outersound.com
