Giuseppi Logan went out Playing

"In music, sadness can be beautiful." - Giuseppi Logan

One day at the late Sam Ash on music row, I was toiling away at the register when a street musician asked me for one reed. I knew several, all alto sax players but not this person. “Who might you be sir, maybe the lost Giuseppi Logan?” I asked half-jokingly.

“That’s right, I am Giuseppi Logan. I’m back, and I want to go out playing!”

I was shocked, but I knew right away what the next move should be. I told Giuseppi about the Vision Festival going on in full swing, and told him how to get there. I said: “Walk up to anyone and I say I’m Giuseppi Logan and I need to find William Parker.”

I went to the festival myself and found Giuseppi playing piano in the lobby, where he had been for hours. We started hanging out. Reports were that he did this for several days. A few days after the festival William and Giuseppi pulled up to the Ash, and William got him an Eb real book and supplies. I asked G if he wanted to have a session over at Francois Grillot’s kitchen in Hell’s Kitchen, within walking distance, and we were off to the races. At that point I decided I was going to attempt to join forces with G in an attempt to help him fulfill what he decreed as his final mission. He repeatedly told me:

“This is how I want to end my life.”

What happened in his life prior to this time was both known and unknown. I had never even seen a picture of him. He was from Philadelphia, and had been to the New England Conservatory. He studied with Bill Dixon who noted he already had a distinct sound in an ensemble, and had a very difficult time getting musicians to play his music. Bill was one of the few who could. Trumpet great Ted Daniel knew Giuseppi then and said he was completely straight and focused entirely on music, right down to wearing a tie every day. The demons that lay in wait may have been licking there chops. As Ted told me “Nobody in this music gets away for free.”

At some point in 1964, Giuseppi was photographed by Bernie Moss playing with Jimmy Rushing at the Jazz Workshop. He was clearly already going his own way!

Also in 1964, he played twice, once with Bill Dixon in the famous October Revolution in Jazz. Though alto was his lead horn, he was also heard playing tenor, clarinet, oboe, flute, violin, trumpet, trombone, and vibes! “All of them!” he told me once laughing. Once fully in NYC he was playing and teaching as much as he could. He was struggling to an extent fairly quickly as noted in the short Edward English film Giuseppi Logan, 1966. In the film (where we also see his young son Jaee Logan) there was a sign outside his residence that read Giuseppi Logan: Complete Musician. He was playing with everybody he could at the time, including John Coltrane. He told me he met Trane in Philly, but played with him at the Village Gate. Jaee remembered playing with Trane’s kids. Giuseppi told me he also played with Charles Mingus, Sun Ra, Pharoah Sanders, Sun Ra, and even Dizzy once. It was Milford Graves who got him his first record date as a leader with ESP, the famous Giuseppi Logan Quartet.

There’s something special about this record that has elevated it to the point of a classic that people return to time and time again. It was Milford Graves and Don Pullen’s first recordings! You can’t write down a feeling with notes. Don Cherry said that music should never sound written down. Giuseppi’s compositions on his first quartet set it all up as they are just the right amount of him to set up the vibes. This was a recording where the perfect musicians to play the music were present. He’s like a plane in turbulence, going through it, but never down. His first quartet resonates with listeners on a human level that is difficult to explain, and has stood the test of time that takes most recordings out. Downbeat asked Archie Shepp about G. Downbeat also tried to sink Giuseppi with 2 lead off reviews of the quartet, and one of them was by Kenny Dorham! Both reviews were total destruction, zero stars and 1 star. In line with the manufactured controversy back then, these reviews where asking is this music? I asked Giuseppi about these reviews. I think about his short response daily:

“I didn’t have any time to waste on Downbeat and all that.”

Hearing Giuseppi at this time, Frank Smith may have said it best (not in DB)

“The music was very powerful and beautiful with Logan playing things so piercingly sad that he almost had me in tears. His strongest quality seems to be his soul-wrenching sadness mixed always with a touch of tenderness.” Logan’s piercing tone was distinctively his own – perhaps a jazz saxophonist’s most important achievement – and he was able to organize an equally distinct world of sounds around it.

When you hear or experience someone’s music you’re getting the feeling of what it’s like to be them. You’re walking into and inside them and their inner world, all of it. Musicians that share as much as Giuseppi are the most honest musicians in the world. For some like Albert Ayler they had no choice but to take you to the center of their spiritual storm. Giuseppi struggled with mental illness and addiction, and that turmoil is present, but I also hear a conviction and commitment to live that rises above. People respond to mental illness differently today. He was institutionalized repeatedly. He’s in solid company with Bird and Mingus, though G did have several longer stays.

More Giuseppi Logan was next on ESP in 1966. Mantu was a live flute performance that seems mostly improvised. Shebar starts off with his bass clarinet. I gave Giuseppi an old bass clarinet that I just bought before we met so he could could get back in the game. He was talking about bass clarinet often and it seemed to be the horn he felt most besides alto. Flute was strong inside him though he struggled with it in his comeback. His bass clarinet sound on Shebar is the exact same sound I heard the second I heard him get back on BC. Curve Eleven is the most intriguing piece to me from More. A solo piano improvisation recorded in the studio. As always in Giuseppi’s music you can hear that something that seemed to be haunting, or stalking him in some way. I love all of his written music, my 12 Houses have played much of it, but Wretched Sunday is the piece I feel the strongest on a personal level. You can not only feel the loss, but you can feel being lost at the same time. In all of jazz history I know of nothing like this, and in realms of the spectrum of emotional expression this is an innovation on the level of Ornette’s Sadness at town hall. I tried to get Giuseppi up to Ornette’s but it never worked out.

Finally, there was the lost ESP The Giuseppi Logan Chamber Ensemble in concert, recorded but never released. When Giuseppi returned however, his first musical stop was with Steve Swell , and his solo at 25:00 is for me a possible indication of what it might have been like. This moment shook all present as we were brought inside the world of what Darius Jones described as a mad genius. Placed inside a massive 22 piece full bore orchestra gave the moment even more power.

I met the great Roswell Rudd a couple of times, and when I asked him about Giuseppi he looked me right in the eye and said emphatically “GENIUS!” In 1966 Giuseppi played flute and bass clarinet on Roswell’s Impulse album Everywhere. I wonder if he orchestrated his piece here Satan’s Dance. Beaver Harris is just exploding, and Giuseppi is pushed to pull the bass clarinet out from the depths into the sky. G sounds like bubbling lava throughout Yankee-Know How. Respects has some strong in the pocket flute.

Giuseppi also appeared in 1966 on flute with the great singer Patty Waters on her ESP College Tour. Here is some of the most sensitive and intimate singing of all time. On Song Of the One I Love she seems to take Giuseppi’s flute sound and improvise with it to close a live performance. Patty certainly deserves more research and time here. I reached out to her but wasn’t able to connect with her until after Giuseppi left Earth. I asked her is she had any words I could read at a musical memorial I did for Giuseppi at Solar Myth in Philadelphia. It was an honor to play with Dave Burrell and Bobby Kapp who both played with Giuseppi. Here is what Patty said:

Guiseppi was a kind and gentle human being.  He invited me to join his group for the  New York State Colleges Tour in May of 66. I was very honored to sing with him on that tour.  I had and will always have great respect and appreciation for him and his music. He was so special, almost saintly here on this earth.  I know it isn't easy for such a person to survive all the difficulties of daily living but he somehow made it through. He gave the world his own unique beautiful music which will continue to live on through his recordings.

A flyer from this time before we time travel..

In the 70’s there were 2 sightings of Giuseppi. Jackie McLean told Downbeat he saw him playing on the street in the rain. Roy Campbell met him on the street and Giuseppi wanted to play somewhere but needed to go home first. He then took Roy to a telephone booth.

Back to 2009, I’m going to try to remember everything that happened as Giuseppi launched his comeback of sorts. First up, was chops. Word got out quickly that Giuseppi was back on the block. People may have been looking for another Henry Grimes situation. I still have no knowledge of this:

Tom Abbs from ESP wanted to do a return concert at the Bowery Poetry Club. Ben Young from WKCR asked Giuseppi to play and do an on air interview. We did it but we were not ready. Bern Nix heard it and told me it was really out…it was. Giuseppi said give him 3 months and we hit the shed weekly in Francois kitchen, mostly as a trio. As we got close to the concert I knew what we needed to do, I called the great Warren Smith. We hit and a lot of my people were in the house. Pete Gershon from Signal 2 Noise magazine flew in to cover the story and wrote an in-depth piece that fills is some gaps to the saga. Afterwards Giuseppi was sitting on a bench talking about getting to the shelter before curfew, but people might steal his horns. I didn’t know what to do, I was living in a small room uptown. Somehow that night he ended up ok. We agreed that Sam Ash was the place to meet up since working a cell phone wasn’t working out, believe me, I tried. The mission then was to work as Giuseppi called it. The goal was to make another ESP record. We played a bunch of places, all the usual spots at the time. The Brecht Forum, The Stone, The Bowery Poetry Club again, and especially The Local 269. Here was the VIBE at that time. We played at the ESP Record office. G had a seizure on the subway on the way there which was big time scary. One time we got stuck in an elevator together, but we were more concerned with getting to the gig than our safety.

Storm clouds then gathered in a tale I call Bernard’s Revenge:

ESP said it was time to record Giuseppi again. We hit the kitchen and G wrote a whole new record. The music sounded like the next one after his quartet. The date was set with a plan to fly in Jaee Logan, Giuseppi’s son, who was a great piano player and musician in his own right. 2 days before the date the studio calls me and says Benard canceled the session. I called him and he said “I’ve decided to never work with Giuseppi Logan ever again.” Whatever their history was, he didn’t have to book, set us up, and then pull the rug out. That was cold as f. The worst was telling Giuseppi. We were all seriously dragged.

Not to despair though, several months later Josh Rosenthal from Tompkins Square Records stepped up. He called Dave Burrell. We hit the shed again, but this time Giuseppi wrote new music that was different. The other music had faded somehow. These new tunes were more on the inside straight. The Giuseppi Logan Quintet was Giuseppi’s official return, and a pretty wild ride. We were all ready to give our all for him in the studio. I remember I had to learn these tunes without sheet music, the real deal. The strange thing is if you ask me about this session, what I remember most is at the end we were out of music and Giuseppi was tired, but we needed one more. I knew he played piano and sang at times, and asked him to play piano and sing as a nice finish. Love Me Tonight still gets me every time.

Once the record came out we got the momentum that Benard Stealman tried to take. We got asked by the ARS Nova group in Philadelphia to play. Warren couldn’t make it and Dave Miller started working with us. This concert was the absolute highlight and peak of Giuseppi’s return. Giuseppi was in top form. It was a beautiful place to play, and it was packed. There was reporters and everything. We went back to NYC and just kept hustling. Giuseppi’s son Jaee Logan flew in to see his dad and play with us. He had his own film crew to document him seeing G that’s on YT. Here’s part 2, and is loaded with information. Over the entire course of G’s attempted resurgence Suzanna B. Troy was making videos to help Giuseppi. There’s a whole bunch on YT where she most often meets up with G right at his bench in Tompkins Square. Somewhere along the way Giuseppi played on the soundtrack for a short film called Water in the Boat.

Next up was a very important and special event. My life had totally fallen apart on a personal level and I was stuck in a job I couldn’t get out of, but Giuseppi, Francois, and Dave made it out to WFMU in New Jersey for live playing and an interview. Giuseppi was in great shape! Francois felt that my not being there is what made it work as it was all on G. I believe this to be Giuseppi’s top recorded playing during the comeback. Listen here starting at 2:04:11. Big Love to Doug Schulkind.

We had a crazy situation when we played the Firehouse Space in Brooklyn. Francois and Giuseppi were smoking outside when the Police came and arrested Francois as he looked like a murder suspect. He got out the next morning. The cops showed how hip they were by going to McDonalds for 2 hours but left Francois locked up in the van.

I forget how the New York Times found out about Giuseppi, but they decided to do a big story on his return that came out on an Easter Sunday. The story was great, and Giuseppi had a room on the Lower East Side that was assisted living and run by the city. The dark aspect is this guy Ed Petterson started a Kickstarter to make a Giuseppi record to go along with the release of the story. I was all in and in communication with Ed for months but then when he arrived to the city to record, he blew us off. We had a session set up specifically for him to meet Giuseppi and play with us. He ghosted, and when I asked him what was up, it was all bullshit. Something was up. There were 2 recordings that he pulled off, but I still don’t think Giuseppi got any of the $12,000. He said he got him some clothes. Ok, cool. It got so out that Ed threatened me saying his Aunt was Janet Reno, the then attorney general of the United States! The regrettable part is there was no preparation for the music and Ed clearly had to hustle to make it look legit. Giuseppi hardly plays on these records.

We kept playing of course, not knowing where we were going, but just wanted to keep the music going. We had a ball at 5C. This was just with my friend, the late great bassist Larry Roland. I’m sorry I don’t remember who was on conga. We played Nublu with Bern Nix! We played 2 more ESP events, one on Roosevelt Island, and another at Jack in Brooklyn. There was even a German News program that did a segment of Giuseppi (at 26:00), and somehow he ended up getting work as a fashion model with Assembly New York!

Around this time the storm clouds returned. Giuseppi was disappearing near Tompkins Square Park and falling back into old, dangerous habits. One time Jemeel Moondoc and I tried to stop him and he brushed past us and said “I know what I’m doing.” Another time we were walking to go play at the Stone when 2 teenagers were following us and looked mad as hell. It got so out I stopped them and asked “What’s up?” Giuseppi had a debt, and I paid it to save us both. Sometime later, I called his residence and they said he was hospitalized and in really bad shape but they wouldn’t say where. I found him and he said he fell. Years later he alluded to being shot. I still don’t know exactly what went down, but the state took over his life and shipped him out to a Nursing/Mental home in Far Rockaway, Queens, last stop on the A. Giuseppi’s playing days had ended.

During this transition, a film documentary maker, Larry Weinstein, was making a doc on the saxophone called The Devil's Horn. Larry had footage before and after Giuseppi was sent out to Queens. There’s some heartfelt moments here, and anybody interested in Giuseppi should check this out. The money from this helped Giuseppi stay afloat in his final years. There was a second documentary made by a filmmaker that I can’t remember.

Giuseppi was out at the nursing home for a number of years. I visited every few weeks, then months. mostly I tried to keep him in engaged with music. He had an angel out there looking out for him, Dianne Moore. Sometimes he would try to leave with me but would get busted. They called him “Mr. Logan.” Outside his room he was officially Joe Logan. There were these 2 funny guys that were always hanging out by the elevator and said they needed $5 to give me clearance to go upstairs to see G. He could play saxophone, but he played less and less as time went on. We got him a keyboard and had his horn fixed (Thanks Rocco!) A few months before he left town forever I recorded this clip of him in his room on the keyboard.

About a month before Covid, drummer Reggie Sylvester and I went to see Giuseppi. Reggie snuck in a snare drum and a stand, and I had my pocket trumpet. Reggie was his last drummer, playing his last few gigs. The idea was to have a session with G on keyboard. We closed the door and had a ball. What we didn’t know was that this would his be last session. Covid started sweeping through nursing homes and Giuseppi was caught in a wave.

What really happened though is that his quest was over. He spent his life more in love with music than anyone, and as such it was a tough road. He hurt himself and others. His greatest accomplishment, is that he left the world beautiful music as evidence that he was here. Music that will outlast all of us.

Some souls might have checked out long before this, but not Joe Logan…

Joe Logan went out playing

For Giuseppi, now and forever

Giuseppi Logan by Mary LaRose

Cover photo by Michael Hauser