Also this issue: Ghost in the Machine Japanese psychedelia invades brains, raises spirits. -A.D. Amorosi Family Fugue Orchestra 2001 puts the Crumbs back together. -Peter Burwasser Originators of the Species The progenitors of progressive house sprout legs, go on tour. -Sean O’Neal Jon Langford -Paul Burress Jello Biafra -Patrick Rapa Ryan Adams -A.D. Amorosi The Blind Boys of Alabama/ The Dirty Dozen Brass Band -Sam Adams The Chameleons -Sam Adams

October 3- 9, 2002

the gig

The phrase “avant-garde” has endured so many permutations of usage as to seem hopelessly broad today. Obviously of French origin (from vanguard, or “troops moving at the head of an army”), the term has in its very etymology an implication of both forward motion and dangerous confrontation. How this came to be associated with the arts is a mystery (although artists’ proclivities for melodrama must have something to do with it). Who is avant-garde? Certainly Stravinsky, Stein, Duchamp -- figures who challenged convention, sparked consternation, and irrevocably changed the landscape of their respective fields. But in jazz, this gets quite muddled; as I type this I’m listening to stride pianist Art Tatum, and I swear he fits the definition as handily as anyone. Louis Armstrong was avant-garde in the ’20s, as surely as was Coltrane in the ’60s.

Call me a stickler for language, but it seems only appropriate that the true avant-garde is that which portends a larger trend; troops at the head of an army have, at least, some assurance that the rest of the force will arrive in short order. By this (admittedly closed) definition, much of what has been branded "avant-garde" in jazz probably deserves a different categorization. Cecil Taylor has always sounded like Cecil Taylor -- but despite his towering influence, few others have actually absorbed his style. I'd call Cecil a visionary, but to my mind his music is not technically avant-garde. The same could be said for Anthony Braxton, Albert Ayler and Sam Rivers; notwithstanding a clear impact on a contingent of followers, their innovations have not entered the larger cultural vocabulary. I should say that I love and admire all of the above. But unlike the stuff of Parker, Mingus, early Ornette, Coltrane and Miles, their innovation had no armies in hot pursuit.

So what can be said, for instance, of the Adam Lane Quartet -- a group with more collective left-of-center experience than can be calculated? Well, it serves both to confirm and refute all that I've argued so far. At the frontline of the group is John Tchicai, a Danish alto-saxophonist who recorded with both Coltrane (on the Impulse! album Ascension, which I'd call experimental but après-garde) and John Lennon/Yoko Ono (Life with the Lions, on Zapple -- extérieur-garde, perhaps?). Barry Altschul is a drummer whose career includes stellar time with Braxton, Rivers and Muhal Richard Abrams; trumpeter Paul Smoker has done good work with Braxton, Ellery Eskelin and Gregg Bendian. As for the leader and namesake of this outfit, he's a bassist who has accompanied Tchicai, studied with Braxton, and recorded with art-rock boho Tom Waits (how about étrange-garde?). Lane's relative youth (he's in his 20s) shines light in the gaping hole of my argument; he's part of the standing army that has rushed to succeed its vanguard, and hopefully make inroads of its own. And if I've sounded ridiculous here, it's on purpose -- I'm hoping that in the future, we can forgo the French and simply aim for "music."

The Adam Lane Quartet plays on Mon., Oct. 7, 9 p.m. at Tritone, 1508 South St., 215-545-0475. To report a gig -- or any other jazz-related news -- e-mail Nate Chinen at n_chinen@citypaper.net.