Vonology by Mike Allemana

All formats—vinyl and digital download—include a PDF of Mike Allemana’s dissertation ’Will You Still Be Mine?’: Memory, Place, Race and Jazz on Chicago’s South Side” as well as the cover art, liner notes, and Von Freeman’s natal horoscope.

Mike Allemana, guitar and compositions
Victor Garcia, trumpet and flugelhorn
Greg Ward, alto saxophone
Geof Bradfield, tenor saxophone
Kendall Moore, trombone
Tomeka Reid, cello
Matt Ferguson, acoustic bass
Michael Raynor, drums
Brian Allemana, conductor and astrological texts on “The Mentor’s Benediction”

Voices:
Sue Demel, soprano
Gabriela Allemana, soprano and alto
Lindsay Weinberg, alto and vocal melody on “The Mentor’s Benediction”
Austin Burgett, tenor
Alton Smith, tenor
Angel Rodriguez, bass
Bill Brickey, bass and readings on “The Mentor’s Benediction”

Von Freeman: swaggering philosopher prince of Chicago jazz; saxophonic poet of the late-night bandstand; charismatic showman and unsurpassed raconteur; a mentor to three generations of neophytes turned stars (such as saxophonist Chico Freeman – his son – and trumpeter Brad Goode, saxophonist Steve Coleman, vocalist Kurt Elling, and many of those on this album) – all wrapped up in his sprawling tenor, a sound that brayed, wept, and pinpointed endless gray shades in between, a tone that needed no microphone to carry to the back of any hall, yet intimate enough to embrace listeners in the closest of bear hugs.

Von Freeman, to borrow from Walt Whitman, contained multitudes. Mike Allemana witnessed all of them in the 14 years he worked in Freeman’s quartet, in venues ranging from high-profile festival gigs to the weekly late-night jams that constituted the College of Von. For Allemana – as with others who knew Freeman or simply heard him – Von’s friendship, freely dispersed and widely displayed, was a life-changer, and it extends beyond his passing in 2012. Allemana based his doctoral largely on insights gleaned from Freeman’s life and career; that thesis includes the composition on this album.

It’s no surprise that Freeman’s spirit hovers over Vonology – and also wells up beneath, sweeps in from all sides, and infuses it with the voluptuous, technicolor spirit that marked his marathon solos. But Vonology doesn’t try to copy Freeman’s style (a fool’s errand in any case, given its uniqueness). There’s no attempt to re-interpret his signature tunes, or sketch some photorealistic portrait. Instead, Allemana has used his deep knowledge of the tenorist’s personality to create a piece that honors Freeman most sincerely: by creating new work that, while inspired by him, avoids mere imitation.

In Allemana’s words, “It is not a tribute in the traditional sense, but an original work that represents, through sound and text, the ways in which Von musically and spiritually connected with others and transformed people’s lives.”

To “sound” and “text,” however, you have to add “astrology.”
“Numerous musicians of Von’s generation interpret the world to some degree using an astrological lens.” Allemana explains. “Because of Von’s interest in astrology, I decided to investigate his natal horoscope, to compare readings of his chart to what people have said about him and his music, and to my experiences performing with him.” The idea arose when Chicago Tribune columnist Howard Reich wrote in 2011 about locating Von’s birth certificate, which proved he was born October 3 (Libra), 1923 – not 1922, as Freeman himself always claimed.

In serious astrology, the use of the correct year makes a universe of difference. So Mike Allemana asked his brother Brian, a professional astrologer, to create two versions of Freeman’s natal chart – one for each year. “And what he found,” says the guitarist, “was the 1922 chart had nothing to do with Von as we knew him, but the 1923 reading really connected.” This convinced Mike, with Brian’s help, to sift further through Von’s stars, and to use the intricacies of the natal chart to create a template for composing Vonology.

Just so we’re clear: in terms of complexity and detail, a professionally drawn chart has about the same relation to newspaper horoscopes as a jet engine does to a roller skate. Mike Allemana used this deep analysis to construct a complicated methodology based on four modes specific to Freeman. A mode is a custom musical scale that uses only a portion of the 12-tone Western scale; these four modes form Von’s Zodiac tonality, in Allemana’s coinage, each comprising a group of pitches that Allemana assigned to certain sections of the chart. (This vastly simplified description omits the arrows and symbols that Brian Allemana uses to designate nexuses, energy flow, and other concepts, as explained in full at vonology.info.)

Any experience you’ve had with astrology may add to your admiration of the piece’s inner workings. But you need no such preparation to hear Vonology as a monument of graceful ingenuity and forceful commitment.
“Welcome, Enter” portrays “the emotional and creative intensity that people felt when first hearing Von improvise,” says Allemana. A paean to Freeman’s spirituality and fertile invention, it is based on Von’s second Zodiac mode, which in this cosmology conveys the dream world that fired his imagination. Tenor saxophonist Geof Bradfield references one aspect of Freeman’s tone in the guttural edge to his keening solo, followed by a more measured rumination from trombonist Kendall Moore. The movement climaxes in a showcase for drummer Michael Raynor, who played in Freeman’s band for more than two decades.

This movement also introduces the human voice, which figured prominently in Freeman’s life. He himself sang (and knew all the lyrics to the songs he performed), and he proudly presented singers throughout his career. The choice of vocalists celebrates still other facets of Freeman. Allemana used the singers from his gospel project, Come Sunday, to signify Von’s attachment to religion; and on the first and last movements, the presence of vocalists from the Chicago Children’s Choir reminds us that Von mentored younger musicians throughout his life.

“Libra, the Mediator” zeroes in on Freeman’s personality. “Libras desire and understand how to connect deeply in dialogue with others . . . a desire produced through love of beauty and harmony,” Allemana points out. The movement starts with electrifying guitar, drums, and a bass line played by Matt Ferguson, the third member of Freeman’s longstanding rhythm section. The melodies derive from all four of Von’s Zodiac modes; the unusual 25-beat format draws upon positive and negative Zodiacal forces. Tomeka Reid acts as intermediary between the opening moments and the sharp-angled theme; sparkling, perfectly paced solos from saxophonist Greg Ward and trumpeter Victor Garcia are transited by vivid ensemble passages.

On “Communion and Renewal,” Allemana departed the astrological plane to “draw solely from my musical intuition” in capturing the resonance of Freeman’s immensely affecting ballad style. “Von told me that he judges musicians not on technical prowess, but whether they can perform a ballad convincingly, with emotion . . . as a form of communion with musicians and audience.” The luscious carpet of horns recalls the jazz orchestras of the 1930s and 40s – the music Freeman grew up on – and provides another manifestation of Allemana’s skill as an arranger (and also an achingly lyrical soloist).

“Libra, the Channeler” uses the rhythmic and modal methodology of the second movement, says Allemana, but here it represents “how Von channeled higher consciousness while trying to escape the tension and anguish of lower forces.” The solos belong to Bradfield and Reid, who reminds us that in terms of range and expressivity, the cello and tenor sax are kindred spirits. The movement ends in tension, courtesy of Allemana’s growling guitar riffs, that suddenly resolves in the final movement, “The Mentor’s Benediction.”

Here, a horn chorale introduces the spoken word: vocalist Bill Brickey’s reading of text written by Brian Allemana, which gloriously encapsulates Von’s philosophy of life and art. Then comes a theme that incorporates the muscled swagger of Chicago jazz that Freeman exemplified – specifically the postwar period, from the first whispers of bebop through the AACM artists and including the cosmic swirl of Sun Ra’s Arkestra (a band in which Freeman played for a brief period). This brawny melody is actually a sped-up inversion of the first movement’s theme, which then returns in its original form to bring this exquisitely balanced piece full circle – the shape used for astrological charts.

Music constructed strictly from a set of rules can end up sounding terrible: like the blueprint for a building’s interior framework, it has no intrinsic aesthetic value. For that, the architect requires artistic vision and the technical command to realize his concept. The same holds for a composer working within the sort of framework that undergirds Vonology. As he experimented with the system he’d created, Allemana fiddled around with melodic development and core rhythms. As he gained familiarity with them, lines and forms began to materialize; Allemana steered them toward the now elegant, now hardscrabble lyricism that Freeman sought in his playing.

“Von made music that was accessible,” he points out. “As deep as his improvisations were, and as ‘outside’ as he might play, people always came back to hear more. He would go into what I call his ‘Rainbow Zone’ because once, when I asked him what he was playing on a particular tune, he took a bottle cap from some cranberry juice he was drinking, and he put it on the bar and said, ‘Imagine this is the tonic [the pitch, not the mixer]. And there's a rainbow around it, and I play in the rainbow – but I don't stay in the rainbow, because if you stay in the rainbow too long, it sounds like chaos.’ So he's talking about how far out can you go, and when should you bring it back in.”

Mike Allemana has brought the music in and let it loose, with a wholly original composition that, I’m tempted to say, Von might never have imagined. But I knew Von Freeman, so I know better than to say that.

- Neil Tesser

Mike Allemana is a jazz guitarist, composer, accompanist, arranger, and Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology, the University of Chicago. Photo by Liina Raud.

mikeallemana.com