Mark Whitecage (1937 - 2021)

Mark Whitecage. Photo by Peter Gannushkin

By Martin Schray

There are musicians you always wanted to see live, but somehow it doesn't work out. This was the case for me with Mark Whitecage for years. Then I was able to catch him with the Nu Band at the German-American Institute in Heidelberg two years ago. It was a great gig and he was in a great mood and entertained the audience with anecdotes and his varied playing. Now the wonderful saxophonist and clarinetist has passed away at the age of 83.

Mark Whitecage might not have been one of the alpha dogs on the scene but he was an outstanding old school (free) jazz saxophonist. And he had a long musical life indeed.

He began performing in his father's family band at a very early age. In his youth he listened a lot to Roy Eldridge, Ben Webster, Lester Young and Stan Getz. He went to New York in the 1970s and was loosely associated with the loft scene with INTERface, a quartet with Perry Robinson (clarinet), John Shea (bass) and John Fischer (piano). Then he met Gunter Hampel and did longer tours with Hampel’s Galaxie Dream Band, which helped him to build up a network outside the US. “We probably played every venue in Europe. When we first started in ’72, Gunter was very hot and we were playing the festivals, too. It was very nice. I know all the people over there and they know me“, he once said in an interview with All About Jazz. During the 1980s he had two separate bands: Liquid Time and the Glass House Ensemble. In the meantime Whitecage had gradually built up a very good reputation and he connected with the New York City-based Improvisor's Collective, a network that brought forth many of the best jazz musicians even to this day. His name is also closely related to the founding of Bob Rusch’s CIMP Records, a label he recorded for prolifically. The people he played with at that time is a like Who's Who of US free jazz: William Parker, Jackson Krall, Anthony Braxton, Dominic Duval, Joe McPhee, Steve Swell and many more. By 2000, he had split from CIMP because - as he said - Bob Rusch wasn’t interested what he was interested in at that time - namely electronics. Instead Mr. Whitecage recorded predominantly for his own Acoustics label.

Although he was socialised with bebop and cool jazz, Mark Whitecage was an improviser of extraordinary imagination and intensity. His linear, free-bopish style had its roots in the music of Lee Konitz and Charlie Parker, but his phrasing also reminded me of Ornette Coleman and this special mix created his very own voice. His sound on alto saxophone could be voluptuous and sparkling at the same time; his clarinet could be dark and gloomy, like the style of his friend Perry Robinson. His improvised lines are hard to pigeonhole, so skilled was he at adapting to the situation of different surrounding.

His latest working project, the Nu Band, was an organism that had found its common breath. Well grounded by Joe Fonda’s warm walking bass, the band was one of a kind. All of the musicians contributed compositions (Fonda, Roy Campbell/Thomas Heberer on trumpet and Lou Grassi on drums), they threw the melodies back and forth to each other. Especially with trumpeter Roy Campbell (and after Campbell’s untimely death with Thomas Heberer) Whitecage was able to meet someone for sensitive dialogues.

At the Heidelberg gig my friend Christoph, who had seen him often at live shows, asked Mr. Whitecage what he was doing at the moment besides the Nu Band. He replied that he played in a lot of completely different projects, including theater and even with people from the Grateful Dead. Joe Fonda, who stood next to us, then said that his friend was actually a hippie. “First I was first a beatnik, then I was a hippie“, he shortly remarked, smiling. It also says a lot about his music.

If you have hardly heard anything about Mark Whitecage, know this: he was not only a musician’s musician, even if his colleagues have praised him to the skies. Sadly, music magazines like Down Beat or Jazzwise have hardly mentioned him. But you get a glimpse of what the music of this man is about if you listen to Consensual Tension or Research on the Edge (1998 and 1999, CIMP). Give Live in Concert by Dominic Duval’s String Ensemble (1999, Cadence) and Live at the Public Theater by Saheb Sarbib and his Multinational Big Band (1981, Cadence) a chance. Also, check out the Nu Band’s The Final Concert and Live in Paris (2016 and 2010, both on NoBusiness). The first INTERface album (1976, NY Composers Collective) is a treat. And you’re never wrong with Gunter Hampel’s Galaxie Dream Band’s Broadway/Folksong (1972, Birth Records). Then you will know something about his music and why he should have a place in the virtual free jazz hall of fame. Music was his life, he once said. People will miss you, Mark Whitecage.

Watch Mark Whitecage with the Nu Band at the Bop shop in Rochester/New York: