Obviously, reigning baritone saxophone king Hamiet Bluiett didn’t plan a trip to New Orleans just to play and gig.
“It was Kidd, Kidd Jordan,” Bluiett declares. “I always try to do something with him because he’s one of my favorite musicians. For free and improvisational musicians around the world, Kidd is an icon. That’s it.”
The two old friends and musical soulmates, who perform at Café Brasil on Saturday, December 13, quickly connected when they first met in the summer of 1976 at a session at saxophonist Sam Rivers’ notorious New York loft. That same winter, Jordan invited him as well as saxophonists David Murray, Julius Hemphill and Oliver Lake to perform a concert. This pivotal event led to the birth of the renowned World Saxophone Quartet as well a life-long relationship between all of these like-minded, freewheeling musicians.
Singing Jordan’s praise, Bluiett proclaims: “Anyone with that kind of vision, you hold on to.”
“We hit it off like brothers,” says Jordan of he and Bluiett’s first encounter. “I guess maybe it was the fact that I played baritone [as well as tenor]—and I still do in show bands—and that he plays baritone that I liked what he was doing. I heard about his baritone playing before I met him because he was in the service with [New Orleans saxophonist] George Davis. George was one of the baddest cats that ever left New Orleans and we played in the Hawkettes together. There weren’t too many baritone players out there soloing, so we knew all the baritone players across the country.”
In comparison with other members of the saxophone family—alto, tenor, soprano—the baritone is rarity in jazz in the position of a lead or solo instrument. Bluiett, whose poetic name, incidentally, was passed down from his father, began on clarinet. He was first drawn to the big horn visually, rather than aurally.
“The first time I saw it when I was little—about nine-years-old—I was awe-struck. A guy had one and I sat there just looking at it with my mouth wide open. I asked him, ‘What is that?’ and he said, ‘It’s a baritone saxophone.’ And I never forgot. When I heard him play it though, I thought it sounded too small—‘That horn is too big for him to get a little sound like that.’”
Living in Brooklyn, Illinois, a locale he describes as a drum and bugle corps town, the young Bluiett was fully aware of the mighty blasts emanating from less hefty instruments. Finally, he heard the bari’s true potential from the virile and innovative Harry Carney, who was best known through his work with Duke Ellington.
“For me, I like playing baritone because I put out a lot of wind. I quit playing clarinet because it’s too small and I over-blow the instrument. I’m not long winded; I’m big winded.
“You know, when a big person comes through the door, he don’t move the same way as a little dude. So I think an instrument is the same way. They have different size sounds. A lot of sounds I play on my horn, I think of like elephant notes. Shit, the baritone is a big, wild, outdoor instrument.
“I’m basically bass clef oriented and I see the bass clef as half of the music. So I’m taking in all of the sounds—whale sounds—on the planet,” continues the innovative and influential Bluiett, who has stretched the instruments capabilities to five octaves. “So my whole way of looking at music is different because of that.”
While creative music/avant-garde jazz has been around for some 40 years, New Orleans’ experience with the genre remains limited. Through the decades, Jordan and the members of his Improvisational Arts Quintet, have been its primary purveyors. As far as free jazz gaining greater acceptance here, Jordan views the situation as a bit of a Catch-22.
“Exposure is education,” Jordan declares. “People react to and like things they’re exposed to. If you never saw a house, I could show you a tepee and you’d always think that was a house. But once you see one of those big houses on St. Charles Avenue, then you know what a house is. Suppose they never built anything other than the Model A Ford. Where would transportation be? So every generation [of musicians] who developed new techniques on their instruments had to do it a different way. One thing I think about the music, is that it’s just like marrying in the family. If you keep marrying in the family then you’re going to have a whole lot of idiots. If you keep playing the same thing…”
In his association with Jordan as well as his myriad of endeavors as a leader, member of the World Saxophone Quartet and sideman, Bluiett aims to hold down the kind of energy and creativity he found when New York’s loft sessions were in full-bloom.
“One thing is that I like music,” says Bluiett of all genres. “If you really can play and you put a lot of energy and heart into it, all that love comes out. So that does me a lot of good. I was always blues-based. You know, I came from out of the people.”
Hamiet Bluiett and Kidd Jordan perform along with drummer Alvin Fielder, trumpeter Clyde Kerr, Jr. and bassist Elton Heron at Café Brasil on December 13. Showtime 8:30 p.m.
