Harmolodic Duke by Matt Lavelle

Duke Ellington has long been at the heart of who has influenced my own music. When asked about the avant- garde, he said “for the avant garde I have Paul Gonsalves.” When asked about Africa’s connection to jazz Duke said, "The African pulse is essential to jazz all the way up to and including the avant garde."

Duke, with all his compositional powers, wound improvise freely in his language all the time. So many of his intros with the orchestra are like this. I’ve researched and transcribed several of his small group recordings and learned there would be arrangements that said things like “Barney 8 bars”, a place to solo with no clear harmonic directive. Watching Archie Shepp and Ben Webster sit in with the band, he seems to deliberately avoid giving them a harmonic basis before they
play. Watching Duke record the album The Big 4, is a window into how he just starts playing and it’s up to the other musicians to enter the ocean. There’s a part of this on YouTube, and I love when Duke says he really liked the way Prelude to a kiss ended, which sounds improvised to me! Either way, we’re talking about someone who was the grandmaster of using beautiful dissonance in his musical world. I look to Duke's Melody for the gold and love to see how wide
intervals were used so perfectly. Another aspect of Duke's mood and image tapestry is how he does the “haunting”, and by this I mean his ability to take all aspects of the heart into his music. The desire, the yearning, the loneliness, that feeling when you’ve lost love and are alone with your feelings in the dark.
Ornette was of course another great composer in his extremely unique way. Lonely Woman says it all, but then check out the melody on Holiday for a Graveyard! On this recording however I’m trying to apply Ornette’s Harmolodic concepts to Duke Melody, though Ornettes melody into Duke's world sounds like something I’ll ask Chris Forbes to try. The Harmolodic series started with Harmolodic Monk, and the plan was always to try to do it with Duke, and finally Louis Armstrong’s Hot 5’s. Bern Nix and I talked about playing Duke, and had started choosing tunes when he suddenly left this world for the next.
Following up on Harmolodic Monk with the duo idea at first, with Jack DeSalvo at Unseen Rain, we decided to ask Baritone Sax great Claire Daly to fill out the sound and she was down. Claire and I both have jazz expressions in our soul, from all of jazz history and she was ready to leap off the cliff. Chris Forbes brought his vast knowledge of harmony across all borders and categories, and his musical fearlessness and boldness to try new things. On to the music.
The original recording of Dusk made me see Duke on the road headed to a concert during sundown. I tried to open it up but was simultaneously seduced by a melody that to me is perfection. It used the language I have pursued for years. I have never felt a melody so strong in my life.
Knowing Duke was also a painter like myself, I wanted to see how he dealt with actual color and I’m exploring these connections in a broader context (I’ve painted my first visual score recently).
I was led to Sepia (Panorama), Turquoise (from under a Turquoise cloud made in collaboration with Lawrence Brown, to Azure which I first encountered in a duo with a great bassist from Italy, Silvia Bolognesi. Someday I hope to acquire one of Duke's paintings!
We tried a new version of Heaven that we used to do live. Ahmed Abdullah heard it and said that was his favorite version. I add a solo version of it also, trying to open up and sing on the piccolo clarinet I inherited from Giuseppi Logan. For the rest, we leave the experience to you dear listener.
Big Love to all the listeners and supporters out there

Matt Lavelle has played and collaborated with Ornette Coleman, Giuseppi Logan, Hildred Humprhries, William Parker, Eric Mingus, Sabir Mateen, Roy Campbell, Daniel Carter, Jemeel Moondoc, Mat Maneri, Ras Moshe, Potato Valdez, JUlie Lyon and leads the 12 Houses Orchestra and the Matt Lavelle Quartet.