I’m still out here writing about my recording released this year on my birthday, 4/11. Dig the numerology and call me for the truth. The reason I’m staying on it is that in 2024 you have a very short window to be heard. There are so many records coming out every day that it has so much less impact. Back in the CD days, Tuesdays were new release days and it was a big deal. I was the jazz buyer at Tower and as usual, the past defeated the present, cold. Record of the year? The lost Monk and Trane concert. Kind of Blue would outsell every new release that came out every week. I can't go on social media today without 5-10 jazz musicians dropping their latest work. I’m guilty of this myself with a whole pile of records I’ve done as a leader. I’m all over bandcamp. I’ve recorded for Silkheart, ESP, Unseen Rain, Mahakala and beyond. Truth is some of my self-released homemade solo records should be taken down for poor sound, and I might do that soon. (Not my solo alto clarinet record, that’s very important to me)
The Crop Circle Suite Part 1 is different from anything I’ve done before. The music on this record is why I’m here. It’s difficult to explain my very intrinsic spiritual life, but let’s just say that with my Sun in the third house my ability to communicate with energy we can’t see here is substantial. I’m not bragging, it’s just the reality of my existence as Matt Lavelle. My life is not easier because of this. I’m doing everything in my creative power to deliver the message of this music. I’m an 11-the spiritual messenger, so I really have no choice. For my people on Substack, you may not have read what I’ve posted or heard about the recording.
First I broke it down in the liner notes:
The key takeaway from the liners is this:
Music is the bridge between science and art.
Then on Facebook, I elaborated further on each track: (My people on Substack may not have seen these 6 posts)
Have you ever been walking around and you discover hundreds of birds that have taken over a tree? It’s always very thick trees, and you might not even be able to see them but they are having some kind of jam session or group debate where every bird is just singing wildly. I’ve encountered these moments many times. Crop Circle one and the whole suite begins this way with as many flutes as we could find. I said to the houses something like “were an army of birds, mad happy to be alive and be together” I asked Christopher Gordon Forbes to superimpose the melody on top of it all, leading to the whole orchestra playing the full orchestrated song. The song is literally a melody through the circle of fifths as many musicians might catch. The first Crop Circle is a circle, it’s the foundation of everything. I could write about circles forever but I like to focus on how the Sun and the bell of my trumpet are both circles. I still have fun with everything and love it when Darth Vader said “the circle is now complete”
Once we’ve played the circle, we’ve established the world that we’re in, and it was/is time to take a journey through the 4 worlds of the orchestra. The 12 Houses at this time were a sax quartet, a brass quartet, a classical winds/string quartet and a stellar ritmo section. I wrote a line based on the core of my own improvisational language and passed it around. The saxes swing, and the brass 4 entered the Latin community, while the classical group started weaving and swinging and the same time.
Next I needed 2 batons! I had talked with Matana Roberts about crossing the line and using a baton and this was the first time I conducted with them. My goal was to have the 3 different horn groups have a jam session, and it was so much fun. I built this up and then Pow! dropped all of it and asked Jack DeSalvo to improvise solo guitar with the original circle of fifths melody. This is a stark unexpected contrast, and my favorite thing to do in 12 houses.
Finally I led us on a journey through every music interval starting with minor seconds to the octave. I wanted to drill down on the sound of each one and asked a different soloist for each one to use the same interval. We build and build until we erupt into the classic drum and saxophone full bore improv. The climax of the whole piece, and I needed Ras Moshe Burnett and Jeremy Carlstedt at the top of the mountain. The whole band then came together and discovered a garden where I had planted Crop Circle 2
3 sounds that really get under my skin are viola (on the bottom string) alto flute, and bass flute. Crop 2 opens with Cheryl Pyle and Mary Cherney on alto and bass flute, and we keep coming back to them. They have true beautiful flute sounds. They are FLUTE players, meaning flute is their main horn. There’s a reason Sonny Fortune jokingly told me there was a thing to take James Moody out because he was too good on flute. To focus entirely on flute is deep.
Later in the piece I asked Jeremy Carlstedt to change the rhythm every time I changed the band's notes, this was more than 6 or 7 times, and he did it! I really can’t say just how important Jeremy is to The 12 Houses. He helps hold the spontaneous arranging together and just owns it. When it’s time to get down? Watch out!
Crop Circle 3 starts with something I wrote from a chamber piece called Surface of the ocean before a melody I devised for 3 voices. I asked Christopher Gordon Forbes to play 2 parts at once missing the third voice and it became a dreamscape ballad from another time and place as Stephanie Griffin just put so much feeling into it. Then I Superimposed the whole band playing triplets in 3/4 all a minor third apart! Finally Charlie Waters just soars, swoops and sweeps blues over it all. To close Stephanie brings the feeling profoundly out of the melody. Part of The 12 Houses creed is to take real musical risk in a large ensemble. I didn’t know if this one would work, but with the right musicians it was elevated far beyond what I knew was even possible
Crop circle 4 is all about fourths but I also wanted to feature one of our great trumpet players, Matt Lambiase. Matt could play this melody way better than me. Having trumpet players in your group when that’s your own primary instrument is fun and also a trip. In a large ensemble I did before 12 Houses I had Nate Wooley on trumpet if anyone can believe that. Nate hadn’t been in NYC that long and had already gone in a different direction than everyone else. He at some point studied with Laurie Frank. I almost studied with Laurie and got her number from Dave Douglas, but Matt Lambiase actually did.
Matt is a unique player today. He’s into sound improv but he has a brilliant brass sound and a clear great vocal tone. The free sound trumpet guys today all have sounds, but they can’t sing like Matt. It was also so liberating to write trumpet music outside of my range and hear it played. Matt plays trumpet music when he improvises to me. He doesn’t chops or sound overload, he still dances and leaves space. CC4 is the most conventional piece on the record. It was fun asking the Zodiac sax quartet to improvise in fourths before becoming like a traditional trumpet big band section.
Crop Circle 5 opens with the Fibonacci Sequence in the bass line and harmony so it’s clear that nature swings. Stephanie “Danger” Griffin is featured next over a sinister bed of flat fives. Next we plundered the royalty of 5th’s seeing just how much drama we could create before Ras Moshe Burnett and I enter escape velocity with what might be the strongest low end perfect 5th in the entire world, inside a turbulent vortex created by Hill Greene, Jose Luis Abreu, and Jeremy Carlstedt. Art Baron then conducted the houses in free swing support giving us a mountain to stand on. We all reach the top together and when the sky clears Christopher Gordon Forbes has opened a door to the realms above.
Crop Circle 6 is just wild. It starts off with the impossible and incredible duet of Jack DeSalvo with himself on Oud and banjo! I truly believe there is no other musical event like this duet in existence. Then Art Baron and I duet on didgeridoo and Bass Clarinet. The BC can actually become a type of didg, maybe I’ll learn to circular breathe one day. Of all the harmony and intervals, I have long been obsessed with the 6th even from my early days in music. The full band enters in 6/4 pushing the 6th to the extreme. Then I wanted to see what happens if a full orchestral roar could duet with the blues in this environment, and I was looking for blues blues rhythm, not jazz. Christopher Gordon Forbes became who he refers to as “the bear” attacking the piano very physically, while Claire Daly sails over an ocean of blues. Claire is just a master of taking her time no matter the environment, and plays a beautiful solo. Finally Art and I return to duet but on trombone and pocket trumpet, both with plungers. Only Roy Campbell did plunger pocket trumpet as far as I know and I wanted to do a big horn little horn vibe. Recording a duet solo with Art was also very special for me, and it’s a staple of 12 Houses live.
All that being said, I really hope folks do enjoy The Crop Circle Suite, Part one
Peace
TBC
ML