Magnetic Fields by Bert Wilson & Art Tantrum

Volume 2 of OlyJazz - Bert Wilson & Art Tantrum’s Magnetic Fields album from 2002. Art Is better known as Jeffrey Morgan, currently residing in Germany - Bert left the planet in 2013. Bert’s catalog is immense, I have only heard a sampling of it, but it is excellent. I particularly like the albums I’ve heard that he did with Jeffrey and I believe this one is a great addition to the OlyJazz Series. In my research for my “Jazz In Olympia” song on the "Olympia: A True Story" album, I came to consider Bert, along with Red Kelly and Obrador, as the linchpin of the Olympia jazz scene. td

Jeffrey: I first met Bert Wilson back in 1976, when I was living in upstate New York. At that time I was attending the Creative Music Studio in Woodstock, and his name was unknown to me, but an apparent mutual friend of ours, Michael Moore (of Obrador), mentioned that I should look him up while I was out on the East coast. I started playing Free Music a couple of years earlier, first on the piano, and then the saxophone and trumpet followed soon after, due to my enthusiasm towards the music.

When I decided to give Bert a call, I had asked to take a lesson, and we set an appointment. Upon arriving at his house he started the lesson by interogating me, to see wehat I know about Jazz; to say the least, I failed the quiz miserably. Here was a man, sitting in a wheelchair, coming across with some kind of beatnik air, and played some records he was on from the previous decade: (1966) Sonny Simmons, "Music of the Spheres"; and the (1967 ESP) James Zitro, "Listen." I sat there a little dumbfounded, thinking to myself, "Who are these guys?"
This first meeting with Berthad an effect on me that I can't really pinpoint. I never really thought I would cross paths with him again, but it turned out to be one of those Karmic conicidences, that one day in 1978, a cassette of music from Olympia landed in Bert's mailbox while he was still in upstate New York. One of the selections was a piece entitled "Killer Bees", one of the rare occasions I sat in with Obrador (Moore, being a member of the band, had sent the tape to Bert). Bert heard there was some good energy coming out of our little corner of Planet Earth (just head up north and take a left...) and decided to move back to the West coast, establishing his new residence in Olympia.
Bert Wilson, to me, is truely a phenomenon. He was born in 1939, but contracted polio at the age of 4, and the doctors never believed he would live to be 20.
However, Bert was atraccted to the Music after seeing Louis Armstrong and Barney Bigard when he was 10, then he discovered Charlie Parker! He took up the clarinet at 13, and the saxophones followed a few years later. Today, he feels his practice on reed instruments saved his life, which is probably true to an extent, and his will to live and play music has kept him healthy and in good spiritis. Over the last 40 years he has developed extended techniques that would normally take lifetimes to crystallize.
The recordings documented here are from my summer 2000 visit to Olympia, where I spent a few days hanging out with Bert at his house playing music. The four pieces represented here I have selected because they show Bert's mastery on the clarinet, bass clarinet, alto and tenor saxophones respectively.
Who's Art Tantrum? Well, some people identified him as the village idiot-Savant. He was unable to conform to the system, could not keep a regualr job, much less being able to take care of himself, However, other people in the community looked after him, especially if he lost too much weight.As Art developed his unconvential piano style from early on, many people thought he had studied Ravel, Debussy, Scriabin, and Satie, but he would proclain he was only a product of his time. Jeffrey Morgan - September 2000 - Cologne, Germany.

Bert’s catalog is immense, I have only heard a sampling of it, but it is excellent. I particularly like the albums I’ve heard that he did with Jeffrey.
I came to consider Bert, along with Red Kelly and Obrador, as the linchpin of the Olympia jazz scene.