Phil Haynes & No Fast Food CodaI(s): No Fast Food III

June 18, 2023

Phil Haynes & No Fast Food

CodaI(s): No Fast Food III

Corner Store Jazz

Drummer Phil Haynes and his trio No Fast Food with NEA Jazz Master saxophonist Dave Liebman and bassist Drew Gress have initiated an ambitious three-year release schedule with the double CD Coda(s): No Fast Food III CodaI(s: No Fast Food III. Haynes has been a driving force in NYC’s creative/improvising music scene since the early ‘80s but has suffered a degenerative hand malady that has forced him into an unwelcome retirement. This gives him an opportunity to revisit much of his work, to issue recordings from his vast catalogue. This project kicks off the plan which also features collaborations with Ben Monder, Hank Roberts, Ellery Eskelin, David Kikoski, Mark Feldman, Kermit Driscoll, Herb Robertson, and lost greats including Paul Smoker and John Tchicai. The subject at hand though is the third album from No Fast Food, his exploratory trio with legendary saxophonist Liebman and renowned bassist Gress. He’ll also recount the story of his life and creative process in his compelling autobiography Chasing the Masters, due out November 15, 2023, accompanied by a career-spanning 62-track audio compilation. We’ll outline those other projects later.

Haynes connection to Leibman dates to fifty years ago when the saxophonist gifted the then youngster Elvin Jones’ Merry-Go-Round as a Christmas gift, only to later catch Jones at the Village Vanguard, post college. Haynes describes that as a life changing experience. Fast forward all the way to 2012 though before Liebman and Haynes recorded together on the 2012 duet outing The Code. The next year Gress joined to form No Fast Food, whose debut was the 2014 live set In Concert, followed by the 2018 studio date Settings for Three. Haynes had recovered enough from his hand and accompanying depression issues in late 2022 when these sessions for Coda(s) were recorded. The compositions are spare, allowing of course for free improvisation (the only way Liebman wants to play these days) and puts a cap on the trio’s recordings.

Leibman plays soprano sax, wooden flute, and bells, Gress is on acoustic bass and bells, and Haynes is on the drum set, gong, tunes & settings. As Haynes recounts, “We’ve expanded our aesthetics – we touch on free playing, we touch on harmony, we touch on abstraction, we touch on burning jazz. It was all in play. I’ve never liked cutting the jazz tradition into pieces.” The individual pieces, though there are twenty of them, are relatively short as the total running time between the two is 69 minutes. That may beg the question of why two were needed. This writer’s guess is that there is a different tone, timbre, and approach to the two. Disc One is relatively quiet and seems to mostly offer dialogues between Haynes and Gress (check out “Some Sick Slick” and “Cycle”), using the bells and gong frequently, while Liebman peeks in and out on his wooden flute or soprano saxophonist. On the other hand, Liebman seems far more aggressive on Disc Two, and much more prevalent, playing mostly soprano on pieces that are bursting with energy (“Jour Now,” “Lil Iowa Get-down,””Music Du Jour”). But that’s just one opinion. Certainly “To Swing of Not (II)” and “Where’s the Door” on Disc One contradict that observation. It’s best to just let these “settings” as Haynes calls them, unfold as the adventurous trio is eminently flexible and freewheeling.

The reflective and modest Haynes says this as he reassesses his work, “For a long time I felt like I hadn’t quite achieved my dreams,” Haynes concludes. “My models were Elvin and Tony Williams and Jack DeJohnette – innovators. Maybe I never managed to become an innovator like Elvin, but I did my own thing. I have an identifiable sound, and I did play with masters. I saw that I’d gotten a lot closer to my potential than I’d realized. And there’s still more to do.” As proof, here is the release schedule alluded to above:

PHIL HAYNES 2023-2025 RELEASE SCHEDULE

2023

June 15 – No Fast Food Coda(s)

2-CD limited production set + digital release via Bandcamp

featuring David Liebman & Drew Gress

November 15 – Chasing The Masters (CTM) + A Life Improvised (ALI)

ALI is CTM’s 62-tune audio compilation digital release – the first Haynes retrospective – via Bandcamp.

CTM is the accompanying hardcopy autobiography, via Amazon On Demand, which includes the QR Code to an integrated ALI soundtrack.

2024

Winter/Spring – 4 Horns & What(?) The Complete American Recordings

3-CD limited production set + digital Bandcamp release, including the quintet’s previously unreleased last concert, ‘Live@BAM’

w/ Paul Smoker, Ellery Eskelin, Andy Laster, John Tchicai, Herb Robertson & Joe Daley

Fall – Free Country Our Music

4-CD set featuring Haynes’ multi-release American Trilogy of Popular Music,

plus the new recording of band original works, Our Music

w/ Hank Roberts, Jim Yanda & Drew Gress

2025

Winter/Spring – Transition; Return to Electric

Multi-CD limited production set + digital release via Bandcamp

Transition features duets w/Ben Monder resetting John Coltrane’s classic original

Return to Electric presents guitarist Steve Salerno & bassist Kermit Driscoll recasting early fusion icons

Fall – The Phil Haynes Continuum The Passing

Haynes’ mid-1980’s debut as a leader & Mark Feldman’s jazz debut

featuring David Kikoski, Drew Gress and Feldman’s realizations of early “Phil tunes”

An audiophile restored & remastered limited production CD + digital release via Bandcamp

– Jim Hynes

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