Jimmy Giuffre, 1921-2008

In music, space and time are linked in ways that don't apply to any of the other arts. The spaces between notes occur in time; the qualities of the sound as heard are largely dependent on the physical space in which the music is played. Certain kinds of music are more explicitly "about" these kinds of connections than others.

The music created by Jimmy Giuffre, whose primary instruments were soprano saxophone and clarinet, alongside pianist Paul Bley and bassist Steve Swallow, took me on some of the most pleasurable explorations of space and time that I've ever experienced, and taught me how to better intuit the foldings of space and time as applied in the other arts, film among them.

Their music was quiet, as much music that eschews percussive instrumentation is, but it did not lack for emphases. Each player exhibited a different style—Swallow's electric or acoustic bass confident, sinewy, droll, Bley's pianism often dauntingly abstract but prone to unexpected lyrical flights, and Giuffre's reed playing just...exquisite. His clarinet sounded like a reincarnation of the instrumental voice opening Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" suddenly breaking out of the composition and going off on a joyous tangent; his soprano work had both a tenderness and a refusal of sentimentality wrapped in the same tone. The concentration the three brought to their improvisation invited the listener's utmost attention; the collective used their notes to "sculpt in time," to take Tarkovsky's phrase.

Giuffre, whose innovations and achievement stretch far beyond his work with this trio, died last month at age 87 after a struggle with Parkinson's that had taken him out of touring in the '90s. I feel privileged to have seen him play a few times, once with the ineffable trio. If you don't know the work, I highly recommend—it's an ear-opening, soul-soothing, surprisingly moving trip. I recommend the album Free Fall, and the 1961 live recordings as exemplary points of departure.

Comments

[Kent Jones]

The Jim Hall/Ralph Pena music is nothing to sneeze at either.

A lovely tribute, GK.

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