Sunday Music: "BushWack" by Uri Caine

I woke up needing to sort these out on the 4th and it became this post. So, 4th of July musical musing, incoming. Let me know what you think, let me know what you hear.

There’s a thin line between chaotic nonsense and chaotic substance. There’s a not so thin line between creative exploration and creative activism. Sometimes art, as protest, is too on the nose and it ends up being - temporally trite, and other times it’s personally reflective enough to be timelessly emotive.

Think protest songs for a minute. There’s a big difference between the Op Ed/opinion column singalongs and, say, Hendrix interpreting “The Star Spangled Banner.” Is it just the lyrics? I’m kind of stuck on it, because when the words are left out, the feelings that wash over you - it’s different, right?

I want to tell you about how I arrived at this thought first, but we’re going to land on Uri Caine’s musical protest song, “BushWack” and how in 2004 he gave a number of classics the Hendrix at Woodstock treatment.

Kevin Alexander shares a note every year on the 4th titled, “John Phillip Sousa- ‘Stars and Stripes Forever’: ‘A Republic, if you can keep it.” He adds some new ideas to the margins, but it’s such a great story of the song that I hope you’ll read it.

There are two parts I always appreciate the most though.

The first is this quote, “And that’s what this song represents to me. It’s the romantic notion of things like small-town America, hard work, looking out for one another, and coming together for a common cause.” I love it at least in part because I’m a romantic, too. I probably also love it because it triggers my association with this song, of the community orchestra on the bandstand in the park by the river, where we’d go as kids, as a family, and how they’d play it with the fireworks going off, and all sorts of friends and family hanging out for a summer’s night.

The second is this detail, “Sousa noted that the three parts of the final trio were meant to signify three sections of the country; the main theme represents the North, the piccolos the South, and the trombones the West.” Beyond the lyrics, which are in Kevin’s post along with their story - and both are worth a read - is this footnote on its musical complexities.

Most people aren’t going to know it. But, I’m willing to bet, most people are going to feel it. Because this is one of the things that music does best - there’s a richness in the sounds that’s telling you there’s more there.

I don’t know why, but this morning when I read Kevin’s note I remembered a live Uri Caine Trio album where I swore he was playing “The Stars and Stripes Forever.” I had to do some searching before I figured out probably what I was remembering. It was from 2004, at The Village Vanguard, and the unsubtly titled track, “BushWack.” Probably a good thing he didn’t do lyrics for this.

Most people hear jazz like this and get stuck on the chaotic nonsense. It’s the audio equivalent to word salad. At best, they might acknowledge it sounds like “crazy person music” and they’re not wrong.

I don’t think you have to get an advanced degree to appreciate this stuff though. I do think you just need to listen a little more closer. The stories in the sounds are worth it.

Caine breaks the country down into sonic textures in a way not dissimilar to Sousa’s. He just does it by juxtaposing and imposing borders on phrase and segment, over and over.

You get the very march-y yet dissonant “Hail to the Chief” riff to start. You get the impressionistic atonal note-wash after, right before he blasts us again, and almost hints as some classicalisms before he gives a classical song intro like it’s a Looney Tunes setup.

All that in 30 seconds before the first full left turn. Suddenly, the song swings. We get the angular Coltrane treatment for a bit, with the sharp, stabbing notes that sound like parallel voices arguing. Then Uri starts or at least continues the song quotes, as we start literally bebopping around the country.

Tyner, Hancock, Tatum - he’s internalized all his musical war heroes. When the montuno rips at 3 minutes in, Corea’s bubbling up too. A Corean war (ha, can I say that)? Not as a joke, but because this is a masterful collage and come on, he’s doing this live, you’re feeling it too, right?

By 4:30ish somewhere, we’re starting to break Sousa. Even if it’s over the back of Irving Berlin (“Alexander’s Ragtime Band” is in there). If I can make a Corean war joke, I am also going to make a “They are getting Mahler’d” joke now. My post, my rules. I’m entertaining myself.

There’s a Monk quality to the next time “Stars and Stripes” comes up. The band is flying, and Caine is almost thumping the notes out as they race towards the end. There’s a magic moment when they hit their final hit and the crowd, in shock, realizes it’s time to clap.

What makes a memory of an album from 21 years ago pop into your head over a note about a song written 129 years ago? How they make you feel. How they remind you of your capacity to not need words as much you need to experience your own, and our own, humanity.

We’re post-4th the holiday, but I’m still reflecting on the music. I’m still reflecting on what it means to say it with feelings. This is a word-filled post but, don’t forget there are times it’s best to leave the words out and just listen.

Now more than ever, we can use the reminder to open ourselves up to worlds beyond words. People are out there saying all sorts of things and the talk-noise is deafening. But, there’s so much opportunity within other constraints.

Which is the power of music. It’s the power of art and creating in any and every direction we can imagine for the sake of making something new. Or, as Kevin says, “To me, ‘Stars and Stripes Forever’ represents where we can go.”

For music, for country, for all of us - there are so many places we can go. Feel it. Feel THAT feeling today, with me.

Ps. This is really cool - John Philip Sousa conducting and speaking before playing “The Stars and Stripes Forever” on the radio in 1929:

Pss. Only because these come to mind (and I don’t think Country Joe McDonald is trite, for the record, but I do see it as more temporally anchored than Hendrix, probably because it’s set to lyrics. Hmm).