Jazz: Who What Where Why

I've done it all alone," John Zorn vented one morning, walking across Tompkins Square Park. "The press has never done anything but ignore and ridicule and marginalize my music-downtown music, because they don't know what to call it.

"You were right here," he personalized the complaint, "seeing it develop over 30 years, but your commitment is to jazz-that ching-ching-a-ling drum thing-not to the avant-garde. You say you can't sell articles about it, and all right, you don't want to jeopardize your living situation, but I haven't seen any writer demonstrate the kind of commitment and sacrifice to our music that it deserves, over all this time."

Zorn's rant is characteristic, something to love about the maverick composer, aggressive saxophonist and driving force behind Tzadik Records' more than 400 category-defying CDs. It is also myopic. I first heard him playing reeds and assorted duck calls with scratch-and-wail guitarist Eugene Chadborne celebrating Charlie Parker's death day in a downtown in 1976. I wrote about that set, interviewed him for Ear magazine in the late 80s (expanded to a chapter in my book Future Jazz), produced a nationally distributed radio show on him in the early 90s; played his game piece "Cobra" with other music writers at the old Knitting Factory, and have praised his jazzy Masada quartet with trumpeter Dave Douglas, bassist Greg Cohen and drummer Joey Baron. He's been covered plenty.

I'd triggered Zorn's wrath, though, by mentioning I hadn't been to The Stone, the recital room on 1st Street and Avenue C he opened last spring. I'd tried.

The first time, I couldn't find its tiny sign on a dark door, then was discouraged by a greeter-with-attitude from entering mid-performance, told there'd be a second cover charge to hear the second act of the night. The Stone's spartan policies also put me off. There's no drinking (water, much less booze), no snacks, and the audience sits in rows of flimsy chairs. It's all about the music and musicians-a different musician from Zorn's coterie curates each month, and the $10 admission goes entirely to the bands, overhead to be paid by recordings to come. It's very respectful, but not relaxing or sociable.

Still, like such comparably sober venues as Roulette and Merkin Hall, The Stone features artists (usually two acts a night, Tuesday through Sunday) who reward focused listening. Properly abashed, I went there to hear Lawrence Douglas "Butch" Morris perform his patented conductions, and managed without drink, food or chat to surrender to rich, warm crosscurrents he summoned without scores but only baton sweeps and hand signals from 12 string players (violins, cellos, harp, bass) and piano.

Butch, a cornetist, came to New York years back with tenor saxophonist David Murray, and wrote lovely melodies that lent themselves to jazz extrapolation. He won't ever flush that from his system, but he's beyond jazz now, having directed pick-up ensembles in conductions internationally. Despite widespread high regard, impressive recordings and a clearly written explication of his system, he attracted little institutional backing or foundation support. Yet he doesn't complain about being marginalized, knowing that truly new ideas always start on the fringe, gradually, if ever, to be widely embraced. Butch's conductions can also command the attentions of convivial audiences offered food and drink at places like the Bowery Poet's Cafe, and coming in September, Sweet Rhythm. Sometimes, not often these days, he employs a ching-ching-a-ling drummer; his music remains substantially avant-garde.

The avant-garde label is shorthand for the distinctive originality of dozens of Downtowners, belying Zorn's claim he's established a movement all alone (and surely he'd modify that statement if called on it). There are veteran avant-gardists initially from the jazz world like Henry Threadgill, who introduced his 3+3 group-three cellos, tuba and drums, himself playing alto sax and flute-at the Museum of Modern Art's sculpture garden a few days ago. Threadgill draws on blues and swing, also circus and parade music, modern "classical" approaches and Eastern idioms; his personal statements can be fearsomely prophetic, or resigned as a god on high surveying human folly.

Zorn's longtime pal and frequent collaborator Anthony Coleman, the keyboardist-composer celebrating his 50th birthday with programs this week and last at Barbes and the Issue Project Room in Brooklyn also has a jazz background, having been a precocious Ellington acolyte and jam-session frequenter in his teens, before studying at Yale and deciding to make a virtue of outsider status.

Coleman's Self-Haters band delves into musical strains theorist of the avant-garde Theodore Adorno identified as pitiful and niggling from Jewish and Negro culture; he also interprets Jelly Roll Morton, and reworks Afro-Cuban themes with guitarist Marc Ribot. For all his breadth and depth, Coleman is no longer identified with anything Jazz at Lincoln Center, for instance, considers "jazz."

Some Downtown avant-garde figures don't draw on jazz at all, but are nonetheless soulful and exciting. I honestly recommend What is it Like to Be a Bat?, a high-tech, abstract, mesmerizing trio (including my almost ex-wife Kitty Brazelton), and must mention neo-blues guitarist/scronk composer Elliott Sharp, another Zorn associate. They too have demonstrated commitment and sacrifice for their art-in that they're not alone. The Stone, Avenue C & 2nd St., 212-431-0066, $10, thestonenyc.com for more info.