Passages

Joseph Murphy | June 8, 2011

Billy Bang
And while still on strings, we note the passing of the exquisite jazz violinist Billy Bang, in NYC last month, age 62. Born William Walker in Mobile, Ala, Bang grew up in Spanish Harlem, where a young Black kid with a violin case learned quickly the ways of the street. After serving two combat tours in Vietnam, he returned to the states where, inspired by the music of Coltrane and the sentiments of rising Black nationalism, Bang took up the violin in earnest; studying for a time with LeRoy Jenkins and immersing himself in the multifold styles Of music from Caribbean to free jazz that were found in the City. In the late seventies, Bang formed the highly influential chamber group, “String Trio of New York with guitarist James Emery and bassist John Lindberg where he found a home until the late eighties. In the oughts, Bang issued two recordings, done with fellow Viet vet and trumpeter Ted Daniels, based on his experiences during the Vietnam conflict , “Vietnam Remembered” and “Vietnam; The Aftermath” (Justin Time ) that stand as masterpieces of distilled and cathartic emotion and very possibly the most completely realized musical statements to come from twentieth century warfare. They also happen to swing like crazy As a stylist, Bang was the most complete and truest ‘jazz’ player of his generation; playing sweet pentatonic swells and gruff Stuff Smith blues with equal élan. The rare player who fully embraced the rhythmic role of the violin as expressed in Afro Cuban musics as well as the dissonance of it’s African roots. His last recording,“Prayer for Peace” shows both sides with great care.
joseph murphy

Gil Scott-Heron

No sooner had I signed off on Billy Bang came word Gil Scott Heron, also 62, dead in
NYC.

Much early talk in obituaries for Mr. Scott-Heron is typifying him as the progenitor of rap
and hip-hop. If the clave and drop beat/spoken word polemic survives him it may constitute a
victory of form over content as in 2011 no one from the hip hop scene is bringing anything like
“The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” “Johannesburg” or Whitey On the Moon.” For Scott-Heron
was one of precious few artists to emerge from the seventies, who, to use the Ellingtonian,
were beyond category. “Don’t blame me for that that shit,” offered the Godfather himself,
I listen to the jazz channel.” And so he did. Bringing the fire of a Coltrane blues aria to his poetics
and the tenderness of Billie Holiday to his love songs.

There has also been much tut tutting along ‘the more things change… line, – including one prominent national jazz dj who suggested Scott-Heron became by way of addiction all that he railed against. I often think we spend way too much time worrying about artists drug habits and sexual predilections at the expense of their work. While Scott Heron did memorably rail against addiction and Black self victimization , he never relented in active opposition to the racism, colonialism and inequality of American life. That, he did with uncanny penetration of the political and cultural moment but also with a prescience that makes pieces such as “Winter in America” and “We Almost Lost Detroit” as timeless American music in league with Stephan Foster or Woody Guthrie. He thought he was a “bluesologist” but he turned out to be prophetic. His stuff is still new. Little wonder it’s being appropriated widely for another generation of expression.
As a white twenty something coming of age in the West in the seventies I was far removed from the depredations of urban black life Scott-Heron chronicled with relentless concision and intelligence, but I heard him talking about apartheid, nuclear power and neo-colonialism and about the spiritual malaise that shrouded the country in the mid seventies. “Winter in America” still gets me every time.