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Shaky Ground
Unlike my first book, The Free Musics , this book is not easily categorized. My original intent was to publish a revised version of a personal journal I wrote in the early 90s. I began that project in early 2020; then, besides covid, the political world exploded. Since I was an activist in the 60s and still “somewhere on the left,” I was taken aback and had to rethink my political allegiance. As a musician, touring and performing, I was unaware that “the left” had been gaining power and now was on the same side as all the major institutions it had been fighting—how could that be?
The result is a mix of the personal and a critique--my own shaky ground and that of the contemporary world. Besides occasional references to my past and to free playing, I attempt to understand, with empathy and objectivity, where this left has come from historically and socially from the postwar period until today. This is the dateline of my own conscious life, and so the analysis is informed by my experience of the transformation of America. It coincides with my own change, from having a promising academic career to being a musician of strange sounds with no career interest. The critique is not a thorough history, nor a polemic, but an opportunity for stepping back from the present situation and getting my bearings on politics, my class of origin, and my inner dilemmas. It is written out of a need to think things through--open the book at random for a taste of it.
The result is a mix of the personal and a critique--my own shaky ground and that of the contemporary world. Besides occasional references to my past and to free playing, I attempt to understand, with empathy and objectivity, where this left has come from historically and socially from the postwar period until today. This is the dateline of my own conscious life, and so the analysis is informed by my experience of the transformation of America. It coincides with my own change, from having a promising academic career to being a musician of strange sounds with no career interest. The critique is not a thorough history, nor a polemic, but an opportunity for stepping back from the present situation and getting my bearings on politics, my class of origin, and my inner dilemmas. It is written out of a need to think things through--open the book at random for a taste of it.
311 pages, Paperback
First published November 20, 2022
2 people want to read
About the author
Jack Wright
2 books1 followerJack Wright (born in 1942) is a saxophonist, pianist and improvisor in the Philadelphia area, one of the originals of American free improvisation, and still actively touring.
Described forty years ago as an "undergrounder by design," Jack Wright is a veteran saxophone improviser based mainly in Philadelphia and living in nearby Easton PA. In 1979, after an academic career teaching at Temple University (European History) and activist politics, he returned to the instrument of his youth. Almost immediately he discovered free improv, virtually unknown at the time and still obscure. He is one of the few who have played this exclusively since then, one of the originals of the 80s era. He plays mostly on tour through the US and Europe in search of interesting partners and playing situations. Now at 80 he is still the "Johnny Appleseed of Free Improvisation," as the late guitarist Davey Williams called him back in the 80s, continuing to inspire musicians, playing and organizing sessions and gigs with visiting and resident players old and new. His Spring Garden Music House has been around since 1977, for the past sixteen years housing only improvisers and providing space for sessions. In the early 00s it was the space for the No Nets he oganized.
He has avoided the standard career aimed at visibility and prestige, seeing it as a hindrance to musical growth. The partners he's preferred over the years have also been mostly unknown to the music press, and too numerous to list here. His current focus is sound-oriented, mostly associated the underground known as electronic noise music. His main partners the past several years have been Zach Darrup, guitar,Ben Bennett, percussion, Evan Lipson, double bass, and Ron Stabinsky. keyboards, the personnel of Wrest, Minimal Disturbance, Roughhousing, and Never.
Jack is what used to be called a "musician's musician," yet unschooled in music, learning through interaction with partners and private discipline. He's said to have the widest vocabulary of any, and still expanding--leaping pitches, punchy, precise timing, the entire range of volume, intrusive and sculptured multiphonics, vocalizations, and obscene animalistic sounds. You'll hear the most conventional jazz sound for a second or two and "post-electronic saxophone" the next. His playing sums up his 40-plus years of improvising, from lyrical, Ornette-style free jazz at first, then hard-blasting and emotive, then the opposite of that--reduced, quiet playing around 2000. The past dozen years he's come back to more physically engaged playing, but with a phrasing and variable sound unique among sax players.
In 2017 he published, The Free Musics , which has sold around 900 copies, mainly to improvisers in the US through direct contact, and often on tour. In 2022 he published another book, Shaky Ground, which combines his self-questioning and life experiences with a historical analysis of the current situation, particularly the left today. His books are available from him, info at Spring Garden Editions.
A reviewer for the Washington Post said, "In the rarefied, underground world of experimental free improvisation, saxophonist Jack Wright is king."
Described forty years ago as an "undergrounder by design," Jack Wright is a veteran saxophone improviser based mainly in Philadelphia and living in nearby Easton PA. In 1979, after an academic career teaching at Temple University (European History) and activist politics, he returned to the instrument of his youth. Almost immediately he discovered free improv, virtually unknown at the time and still obscure. He is one of the few who have played this exclusively since then, one of the originals of the 80s era. He plays mostly on tour through the US and Europe in search of interesting partners and playing situations. Now at 80 he is still the "Johnny Appleseed of Free Improvisation," as the late guitarist Davey Williams called him back in the 80s, continuing to inspire musicians, playing and organizing sessions and gigs with visiting and resident players old and new. His Spring Garden Music House has been around since 1977, for the past sixteen years housing only improvisers and providing space for sessions. In the early 00s it was the space for the No Nets he oganized.
He has avoided the standard career aimed at visibility and prestige, seeing it as a hindrance to musical growth. The partners he's preferred over the years have also been mostly unknown to the music press, and too numerous to list here. His current focus is sound-oriented, mostly associated the underground known as electronic noise music. His main partners the past several years have been Zach Darrup, guitar,Ben Bennett, percussion, Evan Lipson, double bass, and Ron Stabinsky. keyboards, the personnel of Wrest, Minimal Disturbance, Roughhousing, and Never.
Jack is what used to be called a "musician's musician," yet unschooled in music, learning through interaction with partners and private discipline. He's said to have the widest vocabulary of any, and still expanding--leaping pitches, punchy, precise timing, the entire range of volume, intrusive and sculptured multiphonics, vocalizations, and obscene animalistic sounds. You'll hear the most conventional jazz sound for a second or two and "post-electronic saxophone" the next. His playing sums up his 40-plus years of improvising, from lyrical, Ornette-style free jazz at first, then hard-blasting and emotive, then the opposite of that--reduced, quiet playing around 2000. The past dozen years he's come back to more physically engaged playing, but with a phrasing and variable sound unique among sax players.
In 2017 he published, The Free Musics , which has sold around 900 copies, mainly to improvisers in the US through direct contact, and often on tour. In 2022 he published another book, Shaky Ground, which combines his self-questioning and life experiences with a historical analysis of the current situation, particularly the left today. His books are available from him, info at Spring Garden Editions.
A reviewer for the Washington Post said, "In the rarefied, underground world of experimental free improvisation, saxophonist Jack Wright is king."
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