I think now that training was invaluable [for both] collective learning, ... and also more academic stuff like learning how to phrase, learning how to hear and treat a large group as one musical entity or instrument, and learning how to deal in a social musical context. Also, watching Thad Jones, Cecil Taylor, Sam Rivers and others deal with large groups of musicians in an effort to get them to collectively express an idea as a unit was ... of great value, since this is one of the very things I have to deal with. It was very good for developing patience and discipline. But at the time I started to do this I did not clearly know all of this. I was mainly trying to learn exactly the way Bird and others had learned, because I figured they must have done something right to be able to express their music like that. I figured (and I still do) that the way they learned had a lot to do with it. (Coleman, private commun.)Here Coleman echoes the esteem for the big bands espoused by Sun Ra, Miles Davis and others; Coleman aimed to duplicate the early learning experiences of heroes such as Charles Parker and John Coltrane. He has made connections between what he learned from these experiences and his current group-improvisational activities (which he calls "collective meditations"). (Coleman, private commun.)
Playing on the city streets for a good part of the time to earn subsistence, Coleman and his ad-hoc cohorts began working on the foundations of some of the musical concepts that have become associated with M-Base -- "improvisations within nested looping structures." (Coleman, "Resume") Soon he had connected with trumpeter Graham Haynes, vocalist Cassandra Wilson, and keyboardist Geri Allen; together the four of them became the creative backbone of the group Five Elements. Coleman says of this group,
All of these people have one thing in common besides their great musical abilities, Very Strong Intuitive Powers. They automatically interpreted the music using a great deal of intuition. Now this can be dangerous (at least to me) if you are not prepared musically but they were and the four of us sort of carried the rest of the people from a creative standpoint. (Coleman, private commun.)I have conducted a brief written interview with Coleman on the subject of the collective status of M-Base, as it has transformed over the years. Judging from his responses, it becomes clear that "collectivism" in the AACM's sense, or in the Arkestra's sense, has been supplanted by a more open, less rigid definition. Coleman gives his views of the decline of the collective atmosphere among the early M-Base participants:
You see when I was working with Cassandra Wilson, Greg Osby, Geri Allen etc.. we made it a point to try and have a group that did not have a musical leader (or a business leader also but it turned out that I was doing most of the business). I was also one of the pushier people in the group in terms of trying to advance our musical way of thinking... This led to problems as others wanted to be looked at by people outside of this process (critics, writers, record company people) as doing more of these things... Eventually egos came into play and this is one of the reasons why this group of people are not really working together today. Everybody wanted to be looked at as a leader and as a result all of these people (and some others too) have got their own groups today.Coleman makes sure, however, that the spirit of this musical microcommunity (as it is today) remains, independent of the music business. He himself frequently works through the established industry channels (major record companies, booking agents) to try to reach a wider audience; his own name and status are what make these efforts possible. Coleman maintains a balance between activities through these established channels on the one hand, and less economically viable, grass-roots channels on the other. The latter was exemplified by the six-week Five Elements 1994 residency in the Bay Area, which was largely financed by Coleman himself. Like Sun Ra, Coleman uses his success and status to assume the role of moderator, to facilitate the broader, more abstract goals of M-Base. "If it is called a collective or not really is not the point for me, it's the work that gets done and trying to stay on this path of creative expression." (ibid.)The nature of the music industry today is such that individual musicians are immediately looking to form their own groups and get their own recording contracts, even before they get any real experience out in the field. This is due in large part to the commercial pressures of the music industry (and the west in general). Many times musicians deviate from their original purpose of creating music because of commercial pressures...
So I decided to just start the groups myself and lead in a more obvious way (businesswise and musically) so there would be no argument and therefore no ego battles. I think this works out better in this culture although I wish it were different because I have to do a lot of things that really have nothing to do with creating music, just to make the music happen at all.
...If I start The Mystic Rhythm Society (instead of Steve Coleman and The Mystic Rhythm Society) then you have the kind of situation that existed with Weather Report or The Jackson Five, where any aggressive dissenting member of the group can break up the whole thing because of the way this society is.
... I don't think that the collectives that most people talk about last very long in this country today because of the western mentality and commercial pressures but that does not effect the kind of collective I mentioned above because creative energy always will find a way to manifest itself through individuals and groups of individuals. (ibid.)
Another comment from the interview broadens the notions of M-Base even further:
When I use the term "collective" I'm really not using it in the same sense as I think you are. For me the M-Base collective is the group of people who have contributed to a way of thinking about creating music. It is not a group of people who make a certain style of music. So for me Muhal [Richard Abrams, AACM co-founder and pianist] is part of the M-Base collective, even if he would not say so. (ibid.)This may appear to be the last straw. Now that Coleman extends inclusion in this creative community even to people who are unaware of their membership (not that Abrams and Coleman are strangers to each other), where are the boundaries of the M-Base collective? Has "M-Base" lost its meaning entirely? Has it become reduced to a list of Coleman's favorite people?
I believe otherwise. At the end of the interview, Coleman mentions the abstract forces that define M-Base, and his role in relation to them:
I am only the catalyst and portal through which the energy that is holding this particular incarnation of creative relationships together is working. But other individuals respond to these vibrations by opening themselves to these creative energies and this is what makes it a collective on this plane of existence. (ibid.)These comments locate the the collective's defining force in the interactive exchange itself. Ultimately, M-Base's scope encompasses those who are "open" to transmission of discourses or "energies." It thereby builds on the underlying Afrological emphasis on interaction of personal narrative. The focus on exchange, transmission, and flow of ideas necessitates communication across cultures.
I close with the following two related quotes:
My own belief is that musical improvisation in the West is inherently and necessarily transcultural at base. Musics from all over the world are studied and influences flow freely between traditions, while traditional Western practices are often subtly decentered. This transcultural nature is, I feel, at the heart of the dilemma facing the creative person working through improvisation in the West, most particularly in the Americas. (Lewis 1995a)
... There is no doubt in my mind that we will soon come into a world music, a different and wholly new music derived from the musics of the many different peoples of earth ... What is happening points back to the most natural and fundamental law of becoming. That is to say, all of music's laws, principles, and aesthetic concepts are contributing to the common birth which will eventually develop its own personality as a world music... Needless to say, with the technological advancements ... of contemporary times, we are indeed in a position to form a world community, and it is from this community that the new music will arise. (Smith 1974)Whatever M-Base is, I feel that it addresses these global, transcultural issues, and it does so from a growing complex of Afrological viewpoints.