JEANNE LEE: Unassailable Strength in Being

INTRODUCTION

Jeanne Lee was an original in every sense of the word. Despite having very little recorded work under her own name, her noteworthy involvement in the endeavours of her peers paints an amazingly vast portrait of her artistry. Her appeal is extremely difficult to pin down. In my estimation, this singularity is largely to blame for her lack of canonization in jazz history. Whereas countless scholars, analysts and fanatics have gone on long-winded tangents discussing the allure of Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane and Sun Ra, Lee is different. She has largely been ignored by jazz aficionados. It would be easy to write her off as derivative of Abbey Lincoln, but that would be to wilfully ignore everything she did spanning four productive decades after 1962. This would be the equivalent of judging John Coltrane solely on his Prestige years. On the other hand, to only refer to her as an “avant-garde jazz vocalist” would be to ignore her interdisciplinary and multi-faceted output during the peak years of her productivity. To further the Coltrane analogy, it would be considered questionable to boil down his entire legacy to simply having a profound influence on the modal jazz soprano saxophone. Jeanne Lee often worked inside the jazz tradition on the verge of outside, and outside on the verge of inside within the span of a few breaths. Her voice would reassure when her words scalded. She could modestly occupy the background of a track, and simultaneously captivate the foreground in the listener’s mind. Everything she did was on her own terms, through her own voice, and driven by her own contradictions.

THE LIFE AND TIMES

Jeanne Lee was born in New York City in 1939, and died in the year 2000 in Tijuana, Mexico at the age of 61. Her artistic career would span four of those decades, and she would never be limited to one medium of expression. As accomplished a vocalist as she was a choreographer, composer and poet, she made multiple connections with the art scenes in New York and California. Encouraged and inspired to pursue music at an early age by her father (who was a professional vocalist in both the concert and church setting), she went on to study child psychology, literature and dance at Bard College. While at Bard, she forged what would turn out to be one of the most significant partnerships in her lifetime, with idiosyncratic pianist Ran Blake. After graduating Bard in 1961, she and Blake performed at an amateur night at the Apollo and won. Following this success, they recorded a seminal work titled The Newest Sound Around, which would serve as both artists’ debut in the recording industry. They would not record another studio album together until the equally enthralling You Stepped Out of a Cloud in the year 1990, although they would often tour together during that long timespan. Today, The Newest Sound Around is often considered by critics to be the seminal work of both artists, which Lee resented, as the rest of her work would often get overshadowed. The album was largely ignored in the US at the time but European audiences took to it, which prompted Blake and Lee to tour together for the first time. After this, by most accounts Jeanne Lee virtually vanished from the jazz scene during the mid 60s. During this time, she immersed herself in the Fluxus-affiliated art scene, collaborating with artists such as Alison Knowles, Dick Higgins and David Hazelton (whom she briefly married). Her work at this time included composing music for sound poetry, and engaging in sound poetry herself. It would be her association with these people — and the variety of mediums they were working with — that would be fundamental to her drastic change as a performer and creative force (more on that later). Most of her creative focus was centered around this community until the year 1967, when she would forge another partnership that would prove to be pivotal for her both as an artist and human being — with multi-instrumentalist Gunter Hampel. A majority of her work in the jazz field would be alongside Hampel, who would not only end up being her most fruitful collaborator but also eventual husband. They did a large number of shows together and most of Lee’s recorded work as a side woman would be with Hampel’s groups. They brought out the best in each other musically, and Jeanne Lee’s newfound passion for non-verbal poetics made their music some of the most forward thinking in the entire jazz genre. Her triumphant return to the jazz scene and cutting edge knowhow made her one of the most sought after vocalists among composers on the vanguard, as she added vital contributions to the most significant work of people such as Carla Bley, Andrew Cyrille, Archie Shepp, Anthony Braxton and Marion Brown. Her reputation in the experimental art world was such that John Cage recruited her to perform the Afro-American spiritual part in his Apartment House 1776 piece for the American bicentennial. She would later cite this as a pivotal experience for her compositionally. In later life she remained prolific, creating majestic art all the way until her demise from cancer in the year 2000, a testament to her restless spirit. She wrote poetry and prose, and continued to create her distinctive brand of music. Some of her most celebrated work actually comes from the last few years of her life, particularly her impressive collaborations with pianists Mal Waldron and Ran Blake. She also emerged as a great educator, teaching in universities around the globe after receiving her Masters in NYU. While she herself lamented never getting the recognition she deserved due in part to her sparse solo output, she remains beloved in many circles and is one of the most vital voices in the history of modern music.

JEANNE LEE’S GREATEST HITS

• “Caravan” by Jeanne Lee and Mal Waldron from the album “After Hours” (1994)

This song is far and away one of my all-time favorite renditions of this tune. Mal Waldron’s arranging talents and impeccable time feel are the perfect foil to Jeanne Lee’s spellbinding deconstruction of the melody, complete with a goosebump-inducing, deep voice and effortlessly acrobatic flourishes. Even in her twilight years, her interpretive abilities are remarkable. The emphasis, precision and conviction in which she says “my dream of love is coming true within our/desert caravan” serves as a perfect send off, and Mal Waldron’s subsequent solo feeds off this energy perfectly, as if Lee lit a raging fire beneath him. Lee goes nuclear when her turn arrives. Starting with a deeply disquieting head voice of the airiest variety, she treats time as an elastic construct as she glides over Waldron’s blocky chords with great finesse and intuitiveness. Her passage is a perfectly paced exercise in tension and gradualism. Around the 4:50 mark, the goal is realized and with an assertive “sha-hyay-haya” she has altered the colour of her tone entirely, signaling the end of the emotional ordeal. Her final restatement of the melody manages to be even more enthralling than the first time, taking even more liberties with the pulse and register. Lastly, we are treated to an impromptu minute-long coda that is one of the most hypnotic things ever put to tape.

• “Afternoon of a Georgia Faun” by Marion Brown from the album “Afternoon of a Georgia Faun” (1971)

In complete contrast with the prior example, we have one of the more celebrated collective improvisations of the 1970’s, in which Jeanne Lee seems to contribute nothing more than background noise. However, as she always liked to make a case for herself as both an instrumentalist and music environmentalist, this might actually be the most fully realized illustration of her artistic vision. For the first twelve minutes of the piece, as she works in tandem with the vocals of Gayle Palmoré, the purpose her vocals serve isn’t any different from the purpose of the playing of Anthony Braxton, Andrew Cyrille et al. They serve to contribute to a soundscape, or an environment. The only difference here being that Jeanne Lee’s instrument has far more range and versatility than the others. Whether it be by channelling birdsong along with the zurna and flute playing of the woodwind section or creating textures (and actual percussion) to compliment the Cyrille led sections to emulate the sound of nature; music environmentalism in the literal sense. However, this wouldn’t be a Jeanne Lee masterstroke without a fearless outburst of astronomical proportions. The ungodly, horrific and mortifying landscape she paints at the 12:50 mark leaves a shattering impression. The rest of the improvisation in her wake is much more frenzied and involved, as if commenting on the horror that just unfolded.

• “End of Rawalpindi” by Carla Bley from the album “Escalator Over the Hill” (1971)

This next track takes Lee’s environmentalism to an even further extreme by having her try and fend off a gargantuan Black Sabbath-esque groove by herself, with the addition of impeccable belter Jack Bruce to contend with. With Bruce being far more prominent in the mix with his “It’s again/It’s again/and again/again” refrain, Jeanne Lee opts for the approach of filling in the blanks rather than attempting to win in the traditional sense. This approach emerges victorious, the guitars begin wailing and Lee actually becomes more reserved in her approach. Her tuneful use of the head register and repeating of the syllable “yea” makes it sound like she’s offering the band affirmation. When the band crescendos, she instead makes her syllables incrementally harder, ranging from “yea” and “gah” to the eventual rapid fire swelling of the “hyeeah”. This emphasis of density over volume contributes to the track in a more percussive and textural sense than Bruce’s brute forcefulness, complimenting him perfectly. It was these conscious decisions to serve the arrangement rather than her ego that might be the most enduring quality of her musical identity.

• “Blasé” by Archie Shepp from the album “Blasé” (1969)

It is rare that an artist of Archie Shepp’s stature can have some of their greatest work be indebted to the contributions of a collaborator. However, there is absolutely no question to me that Jeanne Lee is the driving force behind the enduring quality this album possesses. The title track is a beautiful composition, and an absolutely unforgettable work of art. While Shepp’s arrangement provides a beautiful backdrop, Lee’s mesmerizing performance is the only thing on my mind when the record stops. From her “blaseeeeeeeeeeeee/ain’t you daddy” entrance, it becomes quickly apparent that everything preceding Lee was merely prelude — despite the fact that the song is already half over. Disregarding the lyrics for a moment, the intonation and weight she puts into her words are so commanding that the rest of the band enters a state of paralysis for two uninterrupted minutes. Even after Shepp makes his return following the exclamation of “All of Ethiopia awaits YOU!/My prodigal son”, he sheepishly stammers as if unable to come up with anything resembling a rebuttal or response. Much like the listener, he is completely at Lee’s mercy. The most telling moment of the profound effect she has is Shepp’s sheepishly feeble response to her cry of “SHE”. He pathetically mirrors her, as if he was being peer pressured to drink for the first time at a fraternity kegger. None of this is to belittle Shepp’s beautiful playing at all, it just pales in comparison to Lee’s all-consuming voice. The words themselves, of course, are some of the most thought-provoking lyrics in the history of song. Superlatives don’t do this recording justice.

PERSONAL MUSINGS (TANGENTIAL)

To me, there are obvious reasons as to why Lee isn’t a jazz history staple. For one, she is a woman in jazz, which inherently means all her accomplishments will be diminished and well-meaning chronologers will overlook any lasting influence she had by judging her career off what flashy male names she associated with. Instead of “Jeanne Lee, one of jazz’s most idiosyncratic vocalists who irrevocably obliterated the line between singer and instrumentalist and whom carved out her own distinguishable niche within the eclectic 60s/70s avant-garde art and jazz scenes” we got “Jeanne Lee, vocalist who collaborated with Archie Shepp, Anthony Braxton, Marion Brown….”. There is also the fact that she (by her own admittance) didn’t exactly have an expansive recording catalog under her name (three solo albums over a 38 year recording career isn’t even D’Angelo levels of scarce, albeit her collaborative material is a completely different story). However, I would argue that the main reason for her obscurity lies in the fact that in writing her a chapter in the jazz encyclopedia, scholars would have no idea where to start. She was simply in too many places at once, pushing too many boundaries, redefining the voice in too many ways, and just too nuanced a performer to pin down exactly what distinguishes her in the canon of jazz. “The Newest Sound Around” was as audacious a title, and yet nobody dared challenge its claims. This is not just because nobody wanted to. Nobody COULD, it was a selection of standards with nothing played outside, and yet still nothing managed to sound like it.

Since the rise of Louis Armstrong in his Hot 5s and 7s, there is a short list of jazz presences that are so exigent, they transcend their eras and ensembles. Artists that don’t need more than a few assertive notes to make sure they’re the only thing listeners pull that wax off the shelf for. Art Blakey comes to mind, as his presence/leadership commanded the band to the extent that he justifies putting his name in front of the Jazz Messengers despite not penning anything nor filling every cut with showings of virtuosity and volume. Other obvious examples of this include Thelonious Monk, Tony Williams, Alice Coltrane, Brian Blade, Charlie Haden, Carla Bley and Dave Holland. Despite usually giving way to the more egotistical players in their bands, these players encapsulate the sound of the music better than anyone else. Jeanne Lee takes this concept of doing a lot with less further than the rest. As an example, take the title track of “Blase”, Archie Shepp’s definitive record. From the very first vowel she utters, the song is hers. Her phrasing is too dynamic for the rest of the musicians to handle, or to play anything but the exact accompaniment Shepp wrote on paper.

Perhaps just as Monk was best accompanied by his 60s rhythm section and Ornette cited Geri Allen as the pianist that actually got what he was going for, Jeanne Lee only truly found her foil in Gunter Hampel. All of their 1978 show “Oasis” is proof of this. Whereas Shepp didn’t quite know what to do with himself once Lee was actually riffing, Gunter Hampel knew to fight fire with fire. They weave in and out of each other, playing in dialogue. The best way I can think of to describe their rapport is that Hampel acts as the thread to Lee’s needle. Lee is the architect of their improvisations but Hampel keeps her in check, saying everything she doesn’t. What they create is contrasting, but also in perfect alignment with each other. As I alluded to before, they might have been the most forward thinking musical duo of the entire 1970s. What makes Hampel so significant in Lee’s evolution is that she finally found the environment in which she could most freely exist. These sessions are the fullest and most honest expressions of an extremely expressive soul. Just as John Coltrane found McCoy Tyner in lieu of Tommy Flanagan and Thelonious Monk found Charlie Rouse in lieu of John Coltrane, Jeanne Lee found Gunter Hampel in lieu of the rest of the universe. In my estimation, it was this encounter that prompted her triumphant return to the world of jazz.

CONCLUSION

While researching this paper, I was initially disappointed to find that I was one of few people on the internet to actually try and dissect Jeanne Lee’s work in depth. This was initially discouraging, but I ended up appreciating the unprecedented nature of my work. It is for these reasons that this paper is probably plagued with logical leaps, foolhardy conjectures and inherent biases that come with writing an academic paper mostly consisting of my own subjective views. However, this is music, and as Jeanne Lee’s style was rarely organized in the traditional sense, this feels like a fitting means of expression. Whatever the outcome, I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to delve into this great artist’s work. She is without a doubt one of my favorite musicians dead or alive, and that was before being exposed to the impressive breadth and variety of her oeuvre. I’ll conclude by encouraging the reader to digest Lee’s own improvised words from the 1979 Andrew Cyrille song “In These Last Days”, from which I derived the title of this paper:

“In these last days/of total/disintegration/where every day/is a struggle/against becoming/an object in/someone else’s nightmare/there is great joy/in being/Naima’s mother/and unassailable strength/in being/in the way”

REFERENCES

(2020). Retrieved 25 October 2020, from http://www.dianatorti.eu/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Jeanne-Lee-article_diana-torti_translated-in-English.pdf

Jeanne Lee, Jazz Singer Who Embraced Avant-Garde, Dies at 61. (2020). Retrieved 25 October 2020, from https://nmbx.newmusicusa.org/Jeanne-Lee-Jazz-Singer-Who-Embraced-AvantGarde-Dies-at-61/

Shatz, A. (2020). An Invitation from Jeanne Lee. Retrieved 25 October 2020, from https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2020/06/11/invitation-jazz-singer-jeanne-lee/

Jeanne Lee’s Voice. (2020). Retrieved 25 October 2020, from https://www.criticalimprov.com/index.php/csieci/article/download/53/184?inline=1

Byrne, M. (2020). “Sundance” — an essay on Jeanne Lee — Madeleine Byrne. Retrieved 25 October 2020, from https://www.madeleinebyrne.com/essays/2018/8/11/sundance-an-essay-on-jeanne-lee