Free as They Want to Be

by Brian Howard

A cover story on a couple of free-jazz mainstays like Jamaaladeen Tacuma and G. Calvin Weston is probably way overdue. I know we sure wish we'd booked it sooner than we did.

Shaun Brady pitched his cover profile on North Philly legends Tacuma and Weston back in June. After sitting on the pitch for a few months, figuring we had plenty of time given its November time hook, we gave Brady a month or so to write the piece and photographer Michael T. Regan a couple of weeks to set up a shoot. Done deal.

At least it should have been.

Here's a little inside baseball. This issue's cover story was originally scrawled on our white board for last week. But despite drummer Weston being more than amenable to answering Brady's questions and Regan's calls to set up a photo shot, Tacuma was, well, elusive. As last week's deadline approached, we were still unable to reach the bass player. We changed course and went with Brady's non-time-hooked feature on John Oates and his mustache, and crossed our fingers.

Brady was finally able to pin down Tacuma for an interview. But we were still in a bind as to how to illustrate the piece. Surely we should exhaust every last option to take a cover portrait for a story about two local jazz legends, two guys who, most likely, are just a subway ride away.

At last week's art meeting, Regan switched his cell phone to speaker, placed it on the table, dialed the number and we all listened as it went straight to a busy signal. As it had been for most of the last two weeks. We had a press photo. But we don't put press photos on our cover.

Desperate, we actually contemplated, however briefly, a technique generally reserved for photographing hostile witnesses: the ambush.

"Can we find out where this guy lives and just wait him out?" I wondered, half seriously.

In the end, as is often the case, senior designer Evan M. Lopez whipped up a sick illustration and saved our asses.

Once we had Brady's piece, it was no surprise pinning down Tacuma was so difficult. This is a guy, after all, who made his bones with Ornette Coleman, jazz's answer to Jackson Pollack. And to read about how Tacuma's inability to show up for sound check turned into his Free Form Funky Freqs' m.o. (they don't sound check, let alone practice), it's no surprise we were working on his time, which is to say, if and when he wanted.

So if you're planning on catching Tacuma, Weston and Vernon Reid (yeah, the guy from Living Colour) on Saturday at Johnny Brenda's, you probably shouldn't sweat it if you're running a few minutes late.

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(bhoward@citypaper.net)