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Giuseppi Logan
- Wesleyan University Press
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180 Giuseppi Logan After a disappearance of nearly forty years, multi-reedman Giuseppi Logan resurfaced in New York in 2008, and the downtown scene was abuzz. Always a singular figure, with a sound and approach like no other, in the early 1960s he had lived in Boston, where he sat in at Connoly’s with Sonny Stitt, Roland Kirk, and Eric Dolphy, who inspired him to pick up the bass clarinet. Arriving in New York in 1964, he quickly fell in with the new music folks, and after the October Revolution concerts he recorded his first date for ESP, The Giuseppi Logan Quartet (on November 11, 1964). Six months later, he made his second album, More, at the same Town Hall concert (on May 1, 1965) that produced Ayler’s Bells. The next year, he was part of ESP’s college tour through upstate New York, and further opportunities followed. But by the beginning of the ’70s, he was nowhere to be seen. Family and personal difficulties led to a very long eclipse, and despite occasional sightings no one really knew if he was still in this world. With his return to New York, he has struggled not only for survival but to regain his ability to play. Musicians donated instruments—Matt Lavelle gave him a bass clarinet and helped find an alto saxophone; Alan Sondheim gave him a flute. Videos of him playing in his regular spot in Tompkins Square Park appeared on YouTube (shot by Suzannah B. Troy) and support grew: in February 2009 he performed onstage for the first time in all those years, in the ESP-sponsored series at the Bowery Poetry Club, with a quartet that included Lavelle, bassist François Grillot, and Warren Smith. Aided by the Jazz Foundation, he managed to play other concerts with the same group, and in the fall they recorded a new album with pianist Dave Burrell, an old friend. The Giuseppi Logan Quintet, for the Tompkins Square label, features five new original compositions and three standards (“Over the Rainbow,” “Blue Moon,” and “Freddie Freeloader”). Giuseppi Logan 181 You returned to New York just a year ago, in 2008, and certainly it’s been very difficult working your way back into music. You’ve been long gone, so far gone it’s a wonder you managed to come back at all. Where were you? I had been in a mental institution for three years straight, and the next time I got caught they put me in there for two years. And the next time, I had to stay in there for eighteen to nineteen months. I lost my wife, my family, everything. Everybody left me. I was homeless. I had a home. It’s still in my name, but she got it. That was in Virginia. Isn’t your son a musician? Yeah, Jay Logan, he’s in California. I’d like to know something about him. I don’t know what he’s playing. I never heard him play, but I started him off. I wish I could hear him. They tell me he’s good. What do you recall about meeting Bernard Stollman? I know he was good to me. He gave me a piano. I only had a saxophone and a flute; I picked up those instruments at a music school in the Village. How did you decide on those particular pieces for your first ESP record? I wrote the pieces for that session. Milford Graves brought in Don Pullen and Eddie Gomez for that date. Were you familiar with them? No, we never played together before the session. And i t was t he first time I played with Milford Graves. He heard me play in Boston; that’s how he met me. I had been playing with many other people for a while, so I decided to go back to school. And from going to school, my concept changed. At the New England Conservatory of Music, you began to think more about modal possibilities. Yeah, I went through a lot of modes: the Phrygian, the Lydian, the Mixolydian, the Dorian. I learned a great deal from that school. [54.211.203.45] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 22:25 GMT) 182 esp-disk’ as lived and witnessed You had been doing a certain amount of writing by the time of your first record. Yeah, but it got burned up and I lost it, so I’ve got to write them over. Th er...