Received the following from Guerino Mazzola. For those in Berlin:
**********************************
“We Are Not Alone, But We Are Few”
We are gathering together to remember our companion in love and suffering, our soulbrother and friend, a music rebel, a music lover, the jazz bassist, bandleader, composer and actor:
SIRONE
28.9.1940, Atlanta – 21.10.2009, Berlin
We want to remember together how he lived his life in music.
How, with his fat-bellied contrabass (tenderly called “Angel”) he plucked his way through the Rhythm-and-Blues of the American South; how, in New York with Albert Ayler, John Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders and Ornette Coleman, he railed against segregation and racial discrimination, solidifying his protest with Leroy Jenkins and Jerome Cooper in founding the “Revolutionary Ensemble”; that, without Sirone, the freedom won through American Avant-garde jazz in the 70’s would never have happened.
We want to remember that devoted man on the contrabass with Afro-American-Indian genes, whose sufferings through segregation and prejudice fused into distinctly individual interpretations and compositions of melody and rhythm. That unique quality of his, which always pushed him, personally and professionally, to cross boundaries. Side by side with Cecil Taylor; later with Billy Bang and Charles Gayle. And with his Berlin formation Concord, in which he found a brand new sound of freedom once again.
We want to remember the Avant-garde jazzman from New York, who, since 1989, sought to conquer new ground in Berlin, and engaged himself in the artistic context of the German speaker. Who composed and acted for theater productions by George Tabori: who, for Werner Schroeter, stood together with his bass on the stage of the Berliner Ensemble. And who, with his wife, Veronika Nowag-Jones, continued to realize collaborative productions at home and abroad – both in Germany and America.
We want to remember that strange, vibrant man next door, a unique character in that Kreuzberg neighborhood, often seen in Görlitzer Park, performing in its clubs and cafés, or on stage at the Eiszeit-Kino.
And that distinctive face in films, seen far too seldom.
We want to remember a man taken from us, whose Buddhist mantra was his refuge.
“We Are Not Alone, But We Are Few”
– Remembering Sirone (Norris Jones) on November 15 at 16:00 in Berliner Friedenszentrum, Tempelhofer Ufer 36, 2HH, 3OG-