Live in Athens - John Tchicai [Praxis CM101]

Live in Athens -John Tchicai-

Solo Saxophone

Side 1
1. Saluting Praxis
2. Freeing Up The Second
3. Song of The Islands

Side 2
1. That One For Whom?
2. Frobenius Stomp
3. Elephants Never Forget

John Tchicai - Alto Saxophone and vocal

Recorded live at the 'Praxis Jazz '80' festival Alambra Theatre, Athens Greece.
Produced by Kostas Yiannoulopoulos
Praxis Records CM101

The veteran inside/outside Afro-Danish saxophone player John Tchicai - here from a live solo gig at Athens' 'Praxis Festival' in 1980. Just about a decade and a half after appearing on Coltrane's 'Ascension', and closer to 20 years after his work with The New York Contemporary Five and the New York Art Quartet [with Roswell Rudd, Don Cherry, Archie Shepp, Reggie Workman, Milford Graves et al.]

July 1964 saw Tchicai appearing with Albert Ayler's trio of the time (Gary Peacock, Sunny Murray), as well as Cherry and Rudd on the seminal 'New York Eye and Ear Control' on ESP.
In 1969 he played on John Lennon's 'Life With The Lions'.
The year after Live in Athens was taped , he featured on record with Chris McGregor's Brotherhood of Breath ('Yes Please' 1981). He has played with Cecil Taylor, Charles Gayle, Johnny Dyani, Instant Composers Pool, Willem Breuker, Wadada Leo Smith - and a hell of a lot of other musicians, both live and on records.
Born in 1936, he is still active and playing today - recently, in a Parisian Albert Ayler tribute gig - http://www.paristransatlantic.com/magazine/monthly2010/12dec_text.html#5. As Dan Warbuton notes, Tchicai was the only person to take the stage that night that had actually played with Ayler.
Here, Tchicai is playful, relaxed and happy to communicate & interact with his audience .
At times, he vamps on repeated riffs, bringing to mind a big-band guy playing section-work, or a single part of an imagined saxophone quartet. Bursting out from repeated riffs and themes into skirls and drifts of flurried improvisation, and then back 'inside' for melodic ostinatos. With a 'groovy crowd chant-along section' on Side 2 !
The Praxis label was the child of Kostas Yiannoulopoulos and over a dozen titles came out under the imprint between 1980 and 1985. It's not to be confused with the hardcore techno label of the same name. (I can assure younger readers that hardcore techno did not exist in 1980).
Possibly most familiar titles on the label may be the 'Sun Ra Live at Praxis' releases, and possibly the excellent Cecil Taylor solo double album (simply entitled 'Praxis') that has been posted at inconstant sol ( http://inconstantsol.blogspot.com/2007/07/cecil-taylor-praxis-rec1968-solo-flac.html )
Some Praxis-label material has ended up on Leo ['Golden Years of New Jazz'] , after the suggestion that Yiannoulopoulos did not have the rights to release it - such as the Art Ensemble's 'Among The People ' - later on CD as "Live in Milano'.
That the label was very closely affiliated with the festival of the same name seems clear. Any, more fulsome information about the Praxis Festival, gratefully appreciated from anyone that knows.
Despite the fact that Discogs.com says this doesn't exist, this was in fact the first LP on the Praxis label.
Old hands will know that this record has circulated in rough MP3 form (only 160kps) on the net, and, for all I know, perhaps in a more attractive format as well.
Here are some FLACs - and also some MP3s [320kbps] from my pretty clean vinyl. There's a bit of 'topiness' and 'edge' to a couple of the louder passages that are pretty much "limitations of the source material". I'm considering doing some scientific experimentation in re-ripping this with radically different turntable settings to try a 'softening approach'. If it all works out beautifully, I'll post the links here too.
This might not be, in the end, a "Hall of Fame album" that will live, deathless, through the ages. Kind of Blue and A Love Supreme are already that, and the smell of formaldehyde they give off is overpoweringly deadening. Ashley Kahn is never going to write a book called "Live in Athens - The Making of J.Tchicai's Grecian Masterpiece". And a good thing too - he's a shit writer.
But this is real, this is fun, this is a little complex as well as a little simple .
Like all live albums worth their salt, it makes you feel like you were there.

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Check out John Tchicai's website, and buy something of his if you can - so much is good !
http://www.dcn.davis.ca.us/~jomnamo/rub_tchicai/page_bio.html
In writing this, I've only just stumbled across the Taso label which Tchicai is on - interesting looking recordings with Karl Berger and Albert Mangelsdorff [amongst others].
Jazzloft has a good little range of Tchicai - including the classic 1975 live-in-Willisau recording with Irene Schweizer, Buschi Niebergall & Makaya Ntshoko that is Willi The Pig. (The Pig is Great..)

NB: For those wondering, the 'Kalispera!' that John shouts, is not Greek for "The Benificent Creator Blesses Our Vibrational Gathering" or somesuch - it simply means 'Good Evening'. Further Greek translation (of Side 2 dialogue) welcome. I know [some time ago] we had at least ONE Athenian-based fellow-traveller looking in here. Of course I realise that everybody fell asleep and drifted off to other places long ago. Heh ...