Remembering Mal - A Retrospect with David Friesen

 

The first intention for my blog was to just review all of Mal's music. But as I was working on it I decided it had to be more than that. I decided to write to some of the people Mal worked with or who knew him well. I was amazed by the warm responds I got. It leads to a new series: interviews and personal stories on Mal Waldron. The first in that series to appear was Belgian filmmaker and musician Tom van Overberghe. And the second is just here in front of you: it's an interview with bassist David Friesen.

David Friesen appears on more than 200 jazz albums. He has played with all the greats: from Stan Getz to Sam Rivers and from Dizzy Gillespie to Billy Harper. And of course with Mal Waldron. He appeared on 5 of his albums: One Entrance, Many Exits, Encounters, Dedication, Remembering Mal and Remembering the Moment. Part from those records he also toured extensively with Mal for multiple years in groups that consisted of names like Joe Henderson, Charlie Rouse, Eddie Henderson and Eddie Moore.

I had a 1.5 hour Zoom meeting with him and it was a pleasure talking to him. He's a very friendly and humble guy and told some great stories about Mal and his own musical career. Enjoy!

Pim:
First of all thank you very much for wanting to participate to my blog David. I truly feel honored. Sorry if my English is not always as fluent as it should be but if you don’t understand just let me know.

David Friesen:
That’s okay Pim.

Pim:
May I ask something about yourself first? You grew up in Tacoma, Washington didn’t you?

David Friesen:
Actually I was born in Tacoma but then we moved to Spokane, Washington. I grew up there mostly till the age of 8/9 or something like that and then we moved to Seattle around 1948/1949.

Pim:
At what age did you get in touch with jazz music? Was that at an early age?

David Friesen:
Well, I was around 5 years old and I was living in Spokane those years. I was playing with my little toy trucks and my sister Diane had a friend who was coming over to the house one day. We had an upright piano in the living room. He sat down and he started to play boogie woogie, you know that old style blues. I was on the floor playing with my trucks but when I heard this person play I stopped playing, looked at him and never touched my trucks again. When he left I sat down at the piano and tried to emulate what he had been playing. And that was it, from that moment I was into jazz music.

Pim:
So you did not start on bass?

David Friesen:
No, No, I started emulating on piano. Later some ukulele and then some accordion. I was playing guitar for a while. Finally in the army in Germany, that was where I picked up the upright bass. That must have been around ’71, ’72.

Pim:
According to your biography on your website you regularly played at the Penthouse when you we’re still living in Seattle in the 1960’s. You played with quite a lot of people back than and witnessed many legends passing by. Is there an appearance you still remember that made a lasting impression?

David Friesen:
Well, they all did at the time. I was playing with this group at the Penthouse, this very famous jazz club in Seattle. Wes Montgomery, Coltrane, Miles: all these musicians came trough there and I was playing opposite of them. I was hanging out with Albert Stinson, this great jazz bassist and also Jimmy Garrison who was with Coltrane. Pete LaRoca and others. I was hanging out with these people, asking questions and learning from them. Really all that time playing opposite of them was a big school for me. You know I never got my degree from university, I got my degree from the street. Street university.

Pim:
You learned trough listening?

David Friesen:
Yeah learned trough listening and by playing with them, absolutely yes.

Pim:
I know Coltrane visited Seattle in 1965 and he also played at the Penthouse. Did you witness him playing there with the classic quintet as well?

David Friesen:
Oh yeah I remember playing opposite of them. I remember Jimmy Garrison saying to me: ‘David, stay on the music stand and play with us’. And I said ‘Jimmy I am thirsty so I will go to the bar, get me some water… why don’t you guys just start play a tune and then I’ll come up and play’. Coltrane said: ‘great’, they went up and played one tune for an hour and a half. So there I was losing my opportunity to play with them. I really always was there when Coltrane was there.

Pim:
Wow, that really must have been something.

David Friesen:
Yeah, it was great. The biggest thing I learned from him: the first 30 or 40 seconds it was really Coltrane, Tyner, Garrison and Jones. After that time they became less and the music became more. That really is what they are doing. They are pushing there ego’s away: it really was all about the music.

It actually reminds me all a little about how I met my wife in Copenhagen (she is Danish). I met her at a record store there, when I was looking for a copy of Sonny Rollins’ ‘The Bridge’. I asked her to see Roland Kirk at Montmartre that night. But I also planned to see Coltrane at Tivoli. I told her that if she would join me I would sacrifice half of Coltrane’s concert for her. So we went to see Coltrane at Tivoli for the first half and went to Montmartre after. We were pretty much in front of the row but as the doors opened everybody passed us and we ended up without a seat.

On stage there was this black woman who asked us if we were still looking for a seat. That woman appeared to be Roland Kirks wife and she put us at the artists table next to Roland Kirk and Kenny Dorham. We watched the show from there but halfway the doors opened and Coltrane came in with his quartet. He sat down at the same table as us. So my first date with my wife (girlfriend at that time) we shared a table with Coltrane.

Pim:
You must have been sure that she would be the love of your life then! And of course there is a connection between them.

David Friesen:
Yeah, Mal really loved Trane. He once told me that Coltrane made his tune ‘Soul Eyes’ so popular, he could survive only on the royalties it gave him.

Pim:
Yeah that composition is probably one of the things Mal is best known for. And of course his affiliation with Billie Holiday.

David Friesen:
Oh yeah he loved her too. I remember when I came in his apartment in Munich for the first time there was this huge photograph of her on the wall with something written by her like: to Mal, my love. Mal really cherished his time with her. It really was a big thing to him.

Pim:
Could you still remember how you first met Mal?

David Friesen:
There was this jazzclub in San Francisco called ‘the Keystone Corner’. Todd Barkan was the owner of it. Todd liked my music and invited me to play on New Year’s Eve there. It was a pretty big gig with names like Kenny Burrell, Sonny Stitt was there. He wanted to peer me with Mal Waldron to play duets. That must have been in the early eighties or late seventies. It was hand in glove. A perfect match. He was about to record the album ‘One Entrance, Many Exits’ at the time. I made up the name for that album by the way. He liked it. So we teamed up with Joe Henderson and Billy Higgins and made the recording for Palo Alto.

Pim:
Of course you already knew Mal back then for his affiliation with Prestige and the time before his breakdown. But were you also aware of his later work like ‘Free at Last’ for ECM or ‘Black Glory’ for Enja?

David Friesen:
Well the first time I came in touch with his music was by this record…. what was it called, maybe you could help me out.

(According to David it had a purple cover and the river Seine on it and it was probably solo piano. We talked later about it but could not find the exact album David means. It is probably Impressions to which we listened to later in the interview)

That really was the first album that got me in touch with his music.

Pim:
Do you have another personal memory or story to share?

David Friesen:
Well I remember we were on the road with Eddie Moore. Mal, Eddie Moore and me were on the road to Canada in the car for the Edmonton Jazz Festival. So we had this huge bag of cookies, the kind especially Eddie really liked. So at a moment Eddie (big Eddie) said: ‘hey Mal, would you mind pass me that bag of cookies you’ve got’? So Mal passed the bag to Eddie, who was on the back seat. After an hour or so Mal said: ‘hey Eddie, I would like to have a cookie too’. But Eddie ate all of them (laughing). It really was a huge bag. Poor Mal, he really did not knew what to say (laughing). He was so amazed by it.

But that was not all. Just before we would arrive finally at our destination my car broke down. So it was me, Eddie and Mal at the high way. Of course there were no cell phones or whatsoever during those days. So we made this truck stop and it would take our car from there. But Eddie, Mal, me and the truck driver: we all had to sit on the front seat. So Eddie was next to the door, I was next to the truck driver. And Mal’s head was on the floor with his feet sticking up Eddie (laughing).

After that we went to some place in the east of Alberta. I can’t remember the name but it had this western like name, you know like a redneck town. When I told him the name of the town he and Eddie stopped talking and just looked at me. Then Mal said: ‘They are gonna hang you all along with us ‘(laughing). Traveling with them was really something.

Pim:

You have spent lots of time on the road together touring.

David Friesen:
Oh yes we drove for miles and miles all across the country.

Pim:
Did you only tour the Pacific coast of the U.S. or more than that?

David Friesen:
Yes, Canada, Austria, Germany, Italy, Belgium and also Holland.

Pim:
And did you travelled mostly by car or by train?

David Friesen:
Oh in Europe mostly by train. That was the easiest way to do it.

Pim:
Did Mal ever get tired of it?

David Friesen:
Well I remember I was in Munich and we just finished a tour all across Europe. We were about to go our own way so I asked him ‘Mal, what are you going to do tomorrow?’ He said: ‘Well I am going to pack for I leave for Japan tomorrow’. I said: ‘Mal, we just finished a month of concerts and now you are going to leave for Japan?’ He said ‘If I don’t David, I die, because playing is how I breathe. It’s my life and breath’.

He really was loved there in Japan by the way. You know what he did? He would go and visit the fishing villages over there where people were too poor to buy a concert ticket and play for them for free!

Pim:
Did you gig in Japan as well with Mal?

David Friesen:
No just, the U.S., Canada and Europe.

Pim:
Was it difficult to find gigs at the time in the U.S. in those years? Was it hard to make a living out of it?

David Friesen:
No it was okay. We had this woman (Mal’s tour manager at the time) in Salem, Oregon at the time. And with an all star line up like we had with Charlie Rouse, Eddie Henderson, Billy Higgins, Mal and me it wasn’t hard to find a place to play. Same goes for the group with Henderson.

Pim:
Mal met and married his second wife in the 1980’s: Hiromi. He was also a very busy man: lots of time on the road. How did she cope with that?

David Friesen:
Well, we never had problems when he was touring with me, probably because she saw me as a good influence. I don’t do drugs, cigarettes not even alcohol. I remember playing with him, there were always these people trying to sell him drugs. Then I would get him away from it, you know, get him out of that club. When we stopped playing together, that’s when she got more possessive of him. She was worried.

Pim:
How did you kill time on the road?

David Friesen:
We played chess of course. He always had his chess board with him. And then Mal would have these activities in the evening (laughing) and I just did my own thing practicing my bass.

Pim:

What activities were those?

David Friesen:
I think he went out having dinner with friends. All kinds of things. The time we hang out was traveling and playing together. And then there was some space at night: he did his thing and I did mine.

Pim:
Did you listen to music together too?

David Friesen:
Yes we did. Mal was playing duo’s with this soprano player, what’s his name again?

Pim:
Steve Lacy?

David Friesen:
Yeah Steve Lacy. We once did a quartet in France too with Oliver Johnson on drums, that was a great concert. Mal had a lot of tapes of him playing with Lacy, stuff that was never released officially. Very nice music. So we listened to that kind of stuff when we were on the road.

Pim:
What else did you do together?

David Friesen:
We made jokes. Lot’s of jokes. I could not remember one of them but they sure were funny. We laughed a lot. Also during one of those drives Mal told me about his overdose. That he just forgot how to play. And listening to his old records he wondered how he played that way. He really had to relearn everything and his playing changed.

With me he never took any drugs. I have never done any drugs myself. I don’t even drink or smoke. I collected wine for some time but never drink it. But in 1987 we were doing the recording of ‘Remembering the Moment’ for Soul Note and I introduced Mal to Jim Pepper. I was the one who put the session together. They made some nice recordings together.

Unfortunately Jim Pepper was addicted to drugs. He was a dear friend and very compassionate person. But unfortunately he was an addict. I’m not sure but I sometimes think Mal got hooked again. His Japanese wife Hiromi was pretty suspicious of it sometimes calling, being very angry and thinking that people got Mal on drugs again.

Pim:
What is it that makes Mal such a great musician in your opinion?

David Friesen:
His focus and concentration. He was fully immersed in the music. I remember a gig in Los Angeles, at the Hi Hat on Sunset. Shelly Manne organized jam sessions there. We had a group there with Frank Morgan on alto saxophone, Mal at the piano, myself on bass and Philly Joe Jones on drums. It was in the lobby of an hotel: there was no stage so we were all settled on the floor. I was facing Mal with Philly Joe on my right and Morgan on my left. All of a sudden a women, 16 or 17 years old, just sits down next to Mal at the piano on the piano seat. So I am watching Mal but he doesn’t move . He does not look to his left or right. He’s head buried. After finishing the tune Mal just looks at me and the management took her away. But I don’t even think Mal noticed it.

Pim:
Did you play a set repertoire or did you make a program of compositions?

David Friesen:
No, Mal and I played free music, in the sense that we created it on the spot. We mostly just played some compositions by himself, some standards and some Monk tunes.

Pim:
The music you made on your first record as a duo, Encounters on Muse, also contains music that does not necessarily fit in more traditional jazz patterns. Songs like you’re solo bass statement: ‘For Toby’ but also ‘Imagination’and ‘Night Wind’. On my blog I called it ambient and world music like influence. We’re those influences from your hand?

David Friesen:
Of course Pim but it was mainly influencing each other. When you have two people coming together and you’re listening to each other. The whole idea of practicing in my opinion gives a jazz artist confidence, technique and flexibility. In that way he could respond creatively to what he is hearing. And this was really the case with Mal and I. So the things he played influenced me and the stuff I played influenced him.

Pim:
What would you say was the biggest influence he had on you?

David Friesen:
I think the concentration. The intensity. Also his use of space and his timing. He had a very strong timing.

Pim:
What group or record you made with Mal did you like best?

David Friesen:
Well I really liked the trio I had with Mal and Eddie Moore. Also the group with Eddie Henderson, Charlie Rouse, Billy Higgins, myself and Mal. We toured the west coast multiple times. I especially liked those larger ensembles for Mal was like some sort of anker, settling and structuring everything. That really was a quality of his which he could not show when we were playing as a duo. I don’t like it more or less than the duets but it was something different.

Pim:
You’re recording affiliation with Mal ended in 1987. Did you keep in touch with him?

David:
Oh yeah we did. We met a couple of times in Europe and hang out. We would sometimes talk to each other on the telephone.

Pim:
Do you ever listen to the music you made together and is there a recording you like best?

David Friesen:
No to be honest I am very busy at the moment. I am playing with my own group nowadays with Joe Manis on tenor and soprano saxophone and Charlie Doggett on drums. In 2019 we went to Ukraine together performing with a huge orchestra playing my music. We had 4 sold out gigs there and flew to Prague the next day but then all gigs got canceled for the Covid situation. So now I am mostly at home playing with my own trio. I don’t even listen to my own music right now.

Pim:
David, you have played bass with so many jazz greats: Billy Harper, Sam Rivers, Joe Henderson, Ted Curson, Kenny Drew, Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie and so many more. Which collaboration do you still have fond memories of?

David Friesen:
Oh I really have fond memories of all of them. I was recently talking to somebody about Billy Harper. I remember driving back recently and I discovered he was in town (Seattle) with his group, The Cookers. I knew all of the guys in that band. So I really wanted to see Billy, for both he and I are real boxing fans. He has every film of the early Muhammad Ali fights. Even when he was still fighting as Cassius Clay and was still a light heavyweight. That’s how we spent time together.

So I was standing at the bar there and we had not seen each other for a while. He saw me standing and came of stage and said: ‘is that you inside there?’ (laughing). That’s typical Billy Harper.

Pim:
What strikes me is the versatility in music and personalities. One must really know how to play if you could play with both Sam Rivers and Stan Getz. Is it easy for you to adjust to the musician you are playing with? How do you do that?

David Friesen:
You just listen… You take your eyes off yourself and listen. You respond creatively to what you hear. Just listen and associate with the people you are playing with. I have nothing to prove. In my book I say: ‘Listening is my life preserver in an ocean of sound, without it I drown’. And that’s the truth. I don’t know that much.

If you look at the sun. Let’s say you are in Amsterdam and you are looking at the sun. You would say that sun would fit in Amsterdam. But the closer you come to the sun, the larger it gets and the smaller you become. And it’s like that with the source of music. The closer you get to the source of music, the more you find out how little you know. That’s what I mean to say.

I remember attending a class one day and said: ‘Remember, I knew more ten years ago then I know now’. Than one of the students said from the back: ‘Then why didn’t you come ten years ago?’ (laughing) I said: It would have been the same thing then (laughing)

I really can’t play music without listening. Unless I am playing solo.

Pim:
Do you sometimes play solo bass?

David Friesen:
Oh yeah I do that. I play this bass right now (shows his bass). It’s an amplified one with a pick up. But I don’t have a pick up on my acoustic. I am really a purist. It was made in 1795 and was used in an orchestra that Beethoven once conducted. There’s no way I am going to put a pick up on that instrument. But if I play with a drummer I can’t be heard. So that’s why I have this bass.

Pim:
One last question that I also wanted to ask you: how are you coping with the whole Covid situation. How does it affect you?

David Friesen:
Well you can’t play any gigs of course. But I play these live streams. There’s a concert coming up on the 29th of March with my trio. It’s especially for my European fans. The link will be on my Facebook page. It’ll be 12 o clock noon here so that’s 8 pm your time. It’s a four camera shoot and the sound will be great. My last tour got cancelled, but I am now planning a tour for the March 2022.

Part from that I am doing all kinds of stuff, mostly online like lecturing and teaching but also giving concerts on YouTube trough live streaming.

Pim:
David, thank you so much for your time and participating. Please stay safe and take care!

David Friesen:
Thanks Pim it was a pleasure talking to you.

Please support David Friesen and visit his website, social media accounts and live streams on YouTube!

Website: http://www.davidfriesen.net/

Teaching: https://jazzanywhere.com/jazz-essentials/

FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/davidfriesenjazz/ 

Insta: https://www.instagram.com/david_friesen_music/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKpR2anDQ14rTAvhIX8n0mQ/videos

A Portrait of Mal Waldron - A Personal Retrospect by Tom van Overberghe in English and Dutch

“Let us assume that coincidence is a matter of lines; lines that in themselves may be part of an ordinary, everyday reality, but intersect at a point that no one could foresee, that no one could predict or invent. Because you can invent a lot, but not everything.” - from “Flamenco Sketches” by Wannes Van de Velde.

Backstage, from the darkness of the wings, two good-humored African-American men, both in their seventies, enter a hallway that leads to a long narrow staircase next to the stage. They are welcomed by an enthusiastic, broadly smiling white man who is in his early thirties. He precedes the two older men and together they descend the stairs that lead to the artists' foyer. The white guy in his thirties is me, Tom van Overberghe. The two African-American guys in their seventies are Max Roach and Mal Waldron after their concert on September 20, 1995 in Antwerp arts center deSingel.

What I am describing is an 'outtake' from my film “A Portrait of Mal Waldron”, a scene which I call “The descent from the Olympus of jazz” because at the time I felt like a chosen mortal who was granted the rare privilege to spend time in the company of two Gods. Two jazz Gods. Or to put it in the words of soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy: "Mal and Max Roach and people like that, they are really giants, they are really “eminence" and there aren't too many of those". In addition to their status as jazz eminence, they were the living connection with all those legendary musicians who made a big name in post-war jazz history: Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Charles Mingus, Billie Holiday, Abbey Lincoln and so on.

The fact that the collaboration with Mal Waldron and the resulting years of friendship made such a great and lasting impression on me, undoubtedly has its origins in the fact that I

grew up in a musical family with a strong love for jazz. The jazz musicians with whom I would work with in person years later, were only spoken of in superlatives during family gatherings in my youth. Both my grandfathers earned their spurs before and after World War II in semi-professional dance orchestras and big bands, one as a trombone player, the other as a drummer. From the late 1950s their sons - my father Cel Overberghe and my uncle Fred Van Hove - followed in their footsteps and in turn became the pioneers of free jazz and free improvised music in Belgium.

From the early age of seven I attended music school where I took guitar lessons until I was eighteen with Joost Weyler, whose parents were the driving force behind the “Halewynstichting” in Antwerp. Classical guitar was my main training, but as a fan of The Rolling Stones and Muddy Waters, I also played rock and blues and through my guitar teacher I ended up at the Sunday jazz harmony and interplay lessons in the late 1970s and early 1980s that were given by his brother Maarten. These were the precursor of what later developed as the Jazz Studio, a full day course for jazz musicians.

Although after secondary school I enrolled in film and photography at the Sint-Lukas Institute in Brussels, the calling of music kept ringing in my ears and at times I really struggled either to choose one or the other. In the end I decided to try to combine both passions. When the opportunity occurred to realize this dream, I immediately took advantage of it. For my short film about the Flemish writer Hendrik Conscience - one of the six episodes from the film “Elixir d'Anvers” from 1996 - I not only wrote the script and directed the film, but also composed and performed the soundtrack. To my great pleasure, it also led to the first musical collaboration with my father. He played the saxophone on a number of tracks that I, together with Fred Bekky from the legendary Belgian pop group The Pebbles, had composed based on sampled instruments.

In the years succeeding the making of “A Portrait of Mal Waldron” - which premiered in August 1997 at the Jazz Middelheim festival - I remained in touch with Mal Waldron, his Japanese wife Hiromi, their five children and a big Leonberger dog named Uksy. When he performed in Belgium, I always tried to attend his concerts. Afterwards we had a chat or went out for dinner. I usually visited him in Brussels, but he also came to my home in Antwerp. I once described Mal Waldron as the combination of an Eastern sage and a bad boy, and that made our encounters an entertaining and satisfying pastime. Apparently he also appreciated my company because one time he said: "Tom, you should visit me more often." During those visits we used to listen to music, watched music documentaries about Bud Powell or John Coltrane, or we watched the television series “Friends” of which he was a big fan. He was also a musical mentor that I could turn to for advice. For example, we discussed the changes of some of his compositions, such as “Fire Waltz” or “Soul Eyes”. When I asked him about the harmonic function of a certain chord in a certain measure, he would laugh: "Because it sounds good!”. He concluded his music lesson with: "It's all about the soul and the fingers Tom".

What always surprised me a bit about Mal Waldron was that he didn't have his own piano. The only keyboard he owned was a small Casio electric piano on which he played at his coffee table with headphones on so he wouldn't disturb the neighbors. It seemed as if he was one with his instrument and that from the moment he sat on a stage behind the piano the music just flowed out of him naturally. The last time I spoke to him was on the phone, the day before his untimely death on December 2, 2002. He would have celebrated Christmas in Antwerp with my family a few weeks later. An event he eagerly looked forward to with the words: "That's fantastic". The last words I heard from him. Two days later the sad news of his death followed. I attended the cremation and the modest funeral

service that was organized for him. His daughter, singer Mala Waldron, had flown in from New York and sang her composition "He's My Father". The service was followed by an intimate concert with some of the musicians he had worked with, including bassist Arjen Gorter and saxophonist Sean Bergin. Not a day has passed since then without thinking of Mal. He has always been very present. I keep several photos of him on the wall at my home. When my youngest daughter wrote an essay on Billie Holiday for school, Mala, Mal's eldest daughter, wrote a short contribution on request, reminiscing the time Billie was her godmother.

The music of Mal Waldron resonated in me on such a deep level that it single-handedly sent me on the musical path that I have continued to follow until today and I still experience our friendship as a source of power from which I draw a lot of energy and drive. An American jazz singer once summed it up as follows: “This film is the gift that keeps on giving.” Besides his music, there was something else that spoke to my heart. In an interview for the film, Mal Waldron told me that in the late 1950s, during “Jazz & Poetry” evenings at the famous Five Spot Café in New York, he had accompanied Beat Poets such as Allen Ginsberg. That also struck a chord with me. After all, reading a book like "On The Road" by Jack Kerouac left a deep impression when I read it for the first time as a fifteen-year-old. It was nothing less than a revelation, and the identification with the main characters and the free-spirited attitude towards life that is the heartbeat of the book had reassured me as an adolescent teenager that there was a place for me in this world too.

Meanwhile my personal musicianship evolved until in 2007 it reached the point when for the first time, I ventured into the musical waters that my father Cel Overberghe and uncle Fred Van Hove had preceded me: free improvisation. The day my father turned seventy, May 30, 2007 to be precise, I performed an impromptu concert with him and Kris Nelissen, a bass playing friend, that gave me so much joy and felt so liberating that me and my father promptly formed a band that played their debut concert a few months later, on December 10, 2007, at café El Negocito in Ghent under the name CO2. To clarify that group name, I wrote the following text: “CO2. There are always two sides to a coin. First: the C and the O are the initials of my father's name - Cel Overberghe - the “2” relates to the fact that with me alongside there are 2 Overberghes in this band. Second: as a chemical formula CO2 refers to the band as a laboratory. A laboratory of musical poisoners so to speak because we love to think outside the box.”

The following years, I organized numerous free improv concerts under the name CO2, most of which took place in a number of Antwerp cafés such as Plaza Real, Bato Batu or Do Re Mi. The "modus operandi" consisted of inviting a number of like-minded guest musicians with whom I performed together with my father in trios, quartets or quintets formed for the occasion. In 2011, with the support of Rogé Verstraete from El Negocito Records, I was granted subsidies from the Flemish government that enabled us to release a first CD in 2012, entitled “Intersections”. For the occasion, CO2 was renamed CO2 Quartet because in addition to myself and my father, bassist Paul Van Gysegem, also a veteran of Belgian improvisation music, as well as the ever dynamic and surprising Ghent-Italian drummer Giovanni Barcella played along. Five years later, in 2017, a second CD followed celebrating both our 10th anniversary and my father's 80th birthday. Hence the title “10/80”. The CD consisted of two separate live concerts recorded in 2013 and 2014 by sound engineer Michael W. Huon who also mixed and mastered our first CD. One concert was recorded in Antwerp with bassist Peter Jacquemyn, the other in Brussels with drummer Dirk Wauters.

What started out as an occasional formation that fulfilled my desire to be able to make music alongside my father, whom I have always admired for the unsophisticated self-evidence with which he practised his artistic talents, evolved into a project that brought us to places and in the company of musicians that exceeded my wildest expectations. A highlight is undoubtedly the concert organized by Christel Kumpen and Koen Vandenhoudt on December 10, 2017 in De Studio in Antwerp, exactly ten years after our first concert in El Negocito. CO2 opened as support act for a duo consisting of the great Joe McPhee and Paal Nilssen-Love and was, by way of encore, subsequently invited by Joe to close the evening with him and Paal in quartet.

After many years without being in touch with the Waldron family, I received an email in October 2018 from Hiromi, Mal's widow, asking if I might be interested in a couple of boxes with archival material that belonged to Mal. Because she was moving out, I could pick it up at her place if I wanted. An offer that I eagerly accepted. When I got home and began to carefully search through all of Mal Waldron's personal belongings, I made a special discovery that was very meaningful to me. In a scrapbook in which Mal had kept numerous newspaper articles, photos and posters, I found an original poster of a concert that had taken place in Ghent in 1971, consisting of Mal Waldron, Paul Van Gysegem and Cel Overberghe, all on one night. The fact that it was precisely Cel en Paul whom I brought together forty years later for our first CO2 CD, which was also a way of paying hommage to Mal Waldron “whose music, friendship, wit and wisdom will remain an everlasting source of inspiration” as I wrote in the liner notes, gave that poster the tangible aura of that unpredictable, unforeseeable meeting point of accidentally intersecting lines from the introductory quote by Wannes Van de Velde. The title of the CD, “Intersections”, unintentionally gained extra meaning.

Tom Van Overberghe
February 2021

A Portrait of Mal Waldron: the beautiful documentary Tom made on Mal Waldron

The outtake Tom describes in the first paragraph

“Laat ons aannemen dat toeval een kwestie is van lijnen; lijnen die op zichzelf misschien deel uitmaken van een banale, alledaagse realiteit, maar die mekaar snijden in een punt dat niemand kon voorzien, dat niemand kon voorspellen of bedenken. Want ge kunt veel bedenken, maar niet alles.” - uit “Flamencoschetsen” van Wannes Van de Velde.

Vanuit het schemerdonker van de coulissen doemen twee goedgeluimde Afro-Amerikaanse mannen op, beiden in de zeventig, die in een gangetje dat naast het podium naar een lange smalle trap leidt, verwelkomt worden door een enthousiaste, breed lachende witte man van vooraan in de dertig. Hij gaat de twee zeventigers voor en samen dalen zij de de trap af die naar de artiestenfoyer leidt.

De witte dertiger ben ikzelf, de twee Afro-Amerikaanse zeventigers zijn Max Roach en Mal Waldron na afloop van hun concert op 20 september 1995 in kunstencentrum deSingel in Antwerpen.

Wat ik beschrijf is een ‘outtake’ uit mijn film “A Portrait of Mal Waldron”, een scene die ikzelf “De afdaling van de Olympus van de jazz” noem omdat ik mij op dat moment als een uitverkoren sterveling voelde die het zeldzame voorrecht vergund was om enige tijd in het gezelschap van twee goden door te brengen. Twee jazz goden. Of om het met de woorden van sopraansaxofonist Steve Lacy te zeggen: “Mal and Max Roach and people like that, they are really giants, they are really ’eminence’ and there aren’t too many of those”. Naast hun status als jazzeminentie waren zij de levende connectie met al die legendarische muzikanten die in de loop van de na-oorlogse jazzgeschiedenis naam hebben gemaakt: Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Charles Mingus, Billie Holiday, Abbey Lincoln en ga zo maar door.

Dat de samenwerking met Mal Waldron en de jarenlange vriendschap die eruit voortvloeide zo’n grote en blijvende indruk op mij gemaakt heeft, vindt ongetwijfeld zijn oorsprong in het feit dat ik ben opgegroeid in een muzikale familie met een uitgesproken voorliefde voor jazz. Over de jazzmusici waarmee ik jaren later in levende lijve zou samenwerken, werd in mijn jeugd tijdens familiebijeenkomsten enkel in superlatieven gesproken.

Mijn beide grootvaders waren zowel voor als na de Tweede Wereldoorlog actief in semi-professionele dansorkesten en big bands, respectievelijk als trombonist en als drummer. Vanaf de late jaren vijftig traden hun zonen - mijn vader Cel Overberghe en mijn oom Fred Van Hove - in hun voetsporen en ontpopten zich op hun beurt tot de pioniers van de free jazz en de vrij geïmproviseerde muziek in België.

Zelf ging ik vanaf mijn zevende levensjaar naar de muziekschool waar ik tot mijn achttiende gitaarlessen volgde bij Joost Weyler wiens ouders de bezielers waren van de Halewynstichting in Antwerpen. Ik leerde hoofdzakelijk klassieke gitaar maar begaf mij als fan van o.m. The Rolling Stones en Muddy Waters op ook het pad van de rock en de blues en via mijn gitaarleraar belandde ik eind jaren ’70, begin jaren ‘80 uiteindelijk ook in de zondagse lessen jazzharmonie en samenspel die door zijn broer Maarten werden gegeven en de voorloper waren van wat later uitgegroeide tot de Jazz Studio, een volwaardige dagopleiding voor jazzmusici.

Hoewel ik mij na mijn middelbare studies inschreef voor de opleiding film en fotografie aan het Sint-Lukas Instituut in Brussel, bleef ook de roep van de muziek in mijn oren klinken. Bij momenten ervaarde ik het als een verscheurende keuze om ofwel voor het één of voor het ander te moeten kiezen. Ik besloot dan maar om te trachten beide passies te

combineren. Toen de kans zich voordeed om die droom waar te maken, heb ik die dan ook met beide handen gegrepen. Zo heb ik voor mijn kortfilm over de Vlaamse schrijver Hendrik Conscience - een van de zes episodes uit de compilatiefilm “Elixir d’Anvers” uit 1996 - niet alleen de regie en het scenario voor mijn rekening genomen maar ook de compositie en uitvoering van de soundtrack. Het leidde, tot mijn grote genoegen, ook tot de eerste muzikale samenwerking met mijn vader. Hij speelde saxofoon op een aantal tracks die ik samen met Fred Bekky van de legendarische Belgische popgroep The Pebbles op basis van gesampelde instrumenten had samengesteld.

In de jaren na het maken van “A Portrait of Mal Waldron” - die in augustus 1997 in première ging tijdens het Jazz Middelheim festival - ben ik het contact met Mal Waldron, zijn Japanse vrouw Hiromi, hun vijf kinderen en de grote Leonberger hond genaamd Uksy, blijven onderhouden. Wanneer hij in België optrad, ging ik meestal luisteren. Nadien maakten we een praatje of gingen uit eten. Doorgaans zocht ik hem in Brussel op maar hij kwam ook bij mij thuis in Antwerpen over de vloer. Ik heb Mal Waldron ooit omschreven als een kruising tussen een oosterse wijze en een kwajongen en dat maakte van onze ontmoetingen een vermakelijk en deugddoend tijdverdrijf. Blijkbaar stelde hij ook mijn gezelschap op prijs want op een keer zei hij: “Tom, you should visit me more often.” Tijdens die bezoekjes luisterden we naar muziek, bekeken muziekdocumentaires over bijvoorbeeld Bud Powell of John Coltrane of we keken naar de televisieserie “Friends” waar Mal een grote fan van was. Hij was ook een muzikale mentor waar ik bij terecht kon voor advies. We bespraken dan bijvoorbeeld de akkoordprogressies van enkele van zijn composities, zoals “Fire Waltz” of “Soul Eyes”. Als ik hem dan vroeg naar de harmonische functie van een bepaald akkoord in een bepaalde maat, antwoordde hij lachend: “Because it sounds good!”. Hij besloot zijn muziekles met: “It’s all about the soul and the fingers Tom”.

Wat mij altijd een beetje verbaasde was dat Mal Waldron niet over een eigen piano beschikte. Het enige keyboard dat ik ooit bij hem aantrof was een kleine elektrische piano van het merk Casio waarop hij aan zijn salontafel zat te tokkelen met een hoofdtelefoon op om de buren niet te storen. Het leek erop dat hij één geheel vormde met zijn instrument en dat vanaf het moment dat hij op een podium achter de piano ging zitten de muziek er als vanzelf uitstroomde.

De laatste keer dat ik hem sprak was aan de telefoon, één dag voor zijn vroegtijdige dood op 2 december 2002. Normaal gezien zou hij een paar weken later kerstmis gevierd hebben in Antwerpen met mijn familie. Een evenement waar hij naar uitkeek met de woorden: "That's fantastic". De laatste woorden die ik van hem hoorde. Twee dagen later volgde het droevige nieuws van zijn overlijden. Ik was aanwezig tijdens de crematie en de bescheiden uitvaartdienst die voor hem georganiseerd was. Zijn dochter, de zangeres Mala Waldron, was overgevlogen vanuit New York en zong haar compositie “He’s My Father”. Na de dienst volgde een intiem concert met enkele van de muzikanten waarmee hij had samengewerkt waaronder bassist Arjen Gorter en saxofonist Sean Bergin.

Sindsdien gaat er geen dag voorbij dat ik niet aan hem denk. Hij is altijd heel erg aanwezig gebleven. Er hangen bij mij thuis dan ook meerdere foto’s van hem aan de muur. Toen mijn jongste dochter voor school een werk schreef over Billie Holiday heeft Mala, de oudste dochter van Mal, op verzoek een korte bijdrage geschreven vanwege het feit dat Billie Holiday haar ‘godmother’ was geweest.

De muziek van Mal Waldron resoneerde in mij op zo’n diep niveau dat het mij eigenhandig het muzikale pad op stuurde dat ik tot vandaag de dag ben blijven volgen en ik ervaar onze vriendschap nog steeds als een krachtbron waaruit ik zeer veel energie en

gedrevenheid put. Een Amerikaanse jazz zangeres vatte het ooit als volgt samen: “This film is the gift that keeps on giving.”

Naast zijn muziek was er nog iets anders dat me erg aansprak. In een interview voor de film vertelde Mal Waldron dat hij eind jaren vijftig, tijdens “Jazz & Poetry” avonden in het bekende New Yorkse Five Spot Café, Beat Poets waaronder Allen Ginsberg had begeleid. Ook dat raakte een gevoelige snaar. Het lezen van een boek als “On The Road” van Jack Kerouac had immers een diepe indruk nagelaten toen ik het als vijftienjarige voor de eerste keer las. Het was niet minder dan een openbaring en de identificatie met de hoofdpersonages en de vrijgevochten levenshouding die het kloppend hart van het boek vormt, hadden mij als puberende teenager het geruststellende gevoel gegeven dat er ook voor mij een plaatsje was in deze wereld.

Mijn persoonlijke ontwikkeling als muzikant bereikte in 2007 het punt waarop ik mij voor het eerst in het muzikale vaarwater waagde waar mijn vader Cel Overberghe en oom Fred Van Hove mij in voorgegaan waren: de vrij geïmproviseerde muziek. De dag dat mijn vader zeventig werd, 30 mei 2007 om precies te zijn, heb ik samen met hem en Kris Nelissen, een bevriende bassist, een impromptu concertje ten beste gegeven dat mij zoveel deugd deed en dat zo bevrijdend aanvoelde dat ik prompt met mijn vader een groep gevormd heb die we een paar maanden later, op 10 december 2007, boven het doopvond hielden in het Gentse café El Negocito onder de naam CO2. Ter verduidelijking van die groepsnaam schreef ik: “CO2. There are always two sides to a coin. First: the C and the O are the initials of my father’s name - Cel Overberghe - the “2” relaties to the fact that with me alongside there are 2 Overberghes in this band. Second: as a chemical formula CO2 refers to the band as a laboratory. A laboratory of musical poisoners so to speak because we love to think outside the box.”

De daaropvolgende jaren heb ik onder de naam CO2 tal van vrij geïmproviseerde concerten georganiseerd waarvan het meerendeel plaatsvond in een aantal Antwerpse cafés zoals Plaza Real, Bato Batu of Do Re Mi. De ‘modus operandi’ bestond er uit om een aantal gelijkgestemde gastmuzikanten uit te nodigen waarmee ik dan samen met mijn vader optrad in voor de gelegenheid gevormde trio’s, kwartetten of kwintetten. In 2011 sloeg ik er in om geruggesteund door Rogé Verstraete van El Negocito Records subsidies van de Vlaamse overheid te bekomen die ons in staat stelden om in 2012 een eerste cd uit te brengen met als titel “Intersections”. Voor de gelegenheid werd CO2 omgedoopt tot CO2 Quartet omdat naast ikzelf en mijn vader ook bassist Paul Van Gysegem, ook een veteraan van de Belgische improvisatiemuziek, alsook de immer dynamische en verrassende Gents-Italiaanse drummer Giovanni Barcella meespeelden. Vijf jaar later, in 2017, volgde een tweede cd, ditmaal in eigen beheer uitgebracht, waarmee we zowel ons tienjarige bestaan als de tachtigste verjaardag van mijn vader vierden. Vandaar de titel “10/80”. De cd bestond uit twee afzonderlijke live concerten die in 2013 en 2014 waren opgenomen door geluidsingenieur Michael W. Huon die ook onze eerste cd had afgewerkt. Het ene concert werd opgenomen in Antwerpen met bassist Peter Jacquemyn, het andere in Brussel met drummer Dirk Wauters.

Wat begon als een gelegenheidsformatie waarmee mijn verlangen in vervulling ging om te kunnen musiceren aan de zijde van mijn vader, die ik altijd erg bewonderd heb om de ongekunstelde vanzelfsprekendheid waarmee hij zijn artistieke talenten beoefende, evolueerde tot een project dat ons op plaatsen en in het gezelschap van muzikanten bracht die mijn stoutste verwachtingen overtroffen. Een hoogtepunt is ongetwijfeld het door Christel Kumpen en Koen Vandenhoudt georganiseerde concert op 10 december 2017 in De Studio in Antwerpen, exact tien jaar na ons eerste concert in El Negocito. CO2 opende als “support act” voor een duo bestaande uit de klassenbakken Joe McPhee en

Paal Nilssen-Love en werd, bij wijze van ‘encore’, nadien door Joe uitgenodigd om samen met hem en Paal als gelegenheidskwartet de avond af te sluiten.

Na vele jaren geen contact meer te hebben gehad met de familie Waldron, ontving ik in oktober 2018 een mail van Hiromi, de weduwe van Mal, met de vraag of ik eventueel geïnteresseerd was in een aantal archiefdozen die aan Mal toebehoord hadden. Omdat zij ging verhuizen mocht ik die als ik wou bij haar komen ophalen. Een aanbod waar ik uiteraard gretig op in ging. Toen ik al die persoonlijke spullen van Mal Waldron bij mij thuis zorgvuldig begon te doorzoeken, deed ik een voor mij persoonlijk wel heel bijzondere en betekenisvolle ontdekking. In een plakboek waarin Mal krantenartikels, foto’s en affiches had bijgehouden, vond ik een originele affiche terug van een concert dat in 1971 in Gent had plaatsgevonden met op één avond zowel Mal Waldron, Paul Van Gysegem en Cel Overberghe. Dat het net Cel en Paul waren die ik veertig jaar later samenbracht voor de opnames van onze eerste CO2 cd, die ook een hommage was aan Mal Waldron “whose music, friendship, wit and wisdom will remain an everlasting source of inspiration” zoals ik in de liner notes schreef, gaf die affiche het tastbare aura van dat onvoorspelbare, niet te voorziene snijpunt van elkaar toevallig kruisende lijnen uit het inleidende citaat van Wannes Van de Velde. De titel van de cd, “Intersections”, kreeg daarmee ongewild extra betekenis.

Tom Van Overberghe
Februari 2021