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Per
· May 20, 2024
Images courtesy of Ana Ruiz and Blank Forms
When pianist Ana Ruíz and saxophonist Henry West began their partnership in the early 1970s, they introduced the dynamic sounds of improvisational music to the culturally rich neighborhoods of Mexico City. With the percussionist Evry Mann (born Robert Mann), they founded Atrás del Cosmos, an ensemble that would become the most important improvisational music group in Mexico. Unfortunately, their music was lost to history – until now. Blank Forms recently re-released their lone recording, Cold drinks/hot dreamsfor the first time on vinyl, finally allowing listeners to hear the revolutionary sounds that turned Mexico City’s creative community on its head.
Ana Ruíz was born and raised in Mexico City. As a child, she was mesmerized by her grandmother’s piano playing. She soon started tutoring her aunt. As Ruíz recalls: “She showed me several contemporary Mexican composers. I played Blas Galindo, Carlos Chavez and others, who were the greatest composers at the time.” The young pianist was pushed further into the classical realm by her mother, who only played classical music at home. But Ruíz’s father listened to popular music while his wife was away, allowing Ruíz to absorb the sounds of jazz and cha-cha-cha. Although she enjoyed it, Ruíz never studied jazz, not even when she attended the Conservatorio Nacional de Música.
With a surplus of pianists at the Conservatory, Ruíz focused on composing. The change opened her up to a new world of sound, and she began studying with contemporary music legends in Mexico, including composers Mario Lavista, Manuel Enríquez and Gerhart Münch. Münch served as Ruíza’s introduction to the wider world of improvisation when she began secretly listening to him improvise in his studio. Soon she started experimenting with improvisation herself – albeit within the limits of new music and its rules. She even sat in with Lavista’s improv group Quanta, playing extraordinary instruments created by Julian Carillo.
Ruíz left the conservatory and got married, but after the breakup of that marriage he returned to music. It wasn’t long before Ruíz met someone who would change her approach to music from that moment on: Henry West.
Born to an American father and a Mexican mother, West grew up splitting time between Mexico City and New York. He grew up loving jazz. As a young man he started learning the alto saxophone and went from bar to bar to play. He later moved to Boston to study formally at the Berklee School of Music, but dropped out after two years and returned to Mexico City. By the mid-’60s, West had found another way to express himself. Music soon became part of Jodorowsky’s exploratory performance art, eventually leading to an improvisational ensemble called Las Damas Chinas, which included Luis Urías. The group famously performed the music for Jodorowsky’s radical work/happening titled Zarathustra. Eventually, West would travel with Jodorowsky to New York, where he would act as musical consultant on Jodorowsky’s avant-garde film, La montaña sagrada (Holy Mountain). West puts trumpeter Don Cherry on that project. Beginning with rock shows with Ruíz’s roommate, drummer Mickey Salas, they soon brought in percussionist Antonio Zepeda, who focused on pre-Hispanic instruments, to form AHA.
Eventually, Ruíz and West’s relationship grew into a musical one. They soon began living together and working music-related jobs while developing their own improvisational language. Jodorowsky’s influence faded as Ruíz and West began to explore improvisation on their own terms—though they occasionally performed with Jodorowsky’s wife, Valerie Tremblay, a unique singer.
The duo encouraged others to join them on their journey, and their longest collaborator was percussionist Nando Estevané. In the summer of 1975, the trio began performing regularly at the El Granero Theater. An ever-growing audience of creatives and intellectuals eventually forced the trio to find another venue: the 300-seat El Galeón Theater in Chapultepec Park. Their eight-month stay there drew the attention of Juan Jose Bremer, director of the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, who offered the group funding for regular performances in Mexico City and cultural centers throughout Mexico.
But Bremer wasn’t the only person the trio impressed at El Galeón. Evry Mann had just arrived in Mexico City when he caught the group’s performance. Mann grew up in rural Seffner, Florida, where his first exposure to music was when he began playing drums in his high school marching and concert band. Mann’s percussion activities led him to involvement in high school rock bands and then to the qualifying group the Grateful Dead while a student at the University of Florida St.
Settling in Montreal to attend McGill University, Mann became disillusioned with his studies and decided to pursue his passion for music. Since then, Mann has been active on the Montreal scene. He began performing with Indian classical musicians, becoming adept at playing the tabla. He then attended Karl Berger’s Creative Music Studio in Woodstock, New York, where he was immersed in improvised music. As he began writing his dissertation on the philosophy and psychology of religion, Mann’s parents invited him to stay with them in Mexico City.
As Mann remembers it: “I pick up the paper and see that there’s a free jazz concert about half a mile from where our apartment was. So, I go to Galéon and it was this trio: Ana, saxophonist and drummer. The music delighted me. ‘Oh my God! This is what I was listening to in my head!’” Mann introduced himself to West and Ruíz, who immediately asked him if he would be interested in playing with them, since that night was Estevané’s last show with the trio. Mann accepted and moved into the servants’ quarters at the couple’s home in Colonia Tlaxpana, located behind a movie theater called Cine Cosmos that showed kung-fu movies. The proximity of the cinema gave the trio its name: Atrás del Cosmos or Behind the Cosmos.
Along with regular Monday night performances at El Galeón and monthly trips to cultural centers throughout Mexico, Bellas Artes gave the trio the opportunity to host Don Cherry in 1977. Arriving in March, Cherry stayed in Mexico for seven months. While in Mexico City, he stayed at Ruíz and West’s house and continued the ethos of his Organic Music Society by organizing workshops for musicians to practice his usual material and perform at El Galeón. The conclusion was the first free jazz concert in the famous Auditorium Nacional.
Cherry’s visit revitalized the trio. West began teaching music theory from their home and workshopped his students, laying the groundwork for La Banda Atrás del Cosmos, an 11-member ensemble of rotating improvisers. But the trio remained the central creative outlet for Ruíz, West and Mann, and they practiced every day.
“I could play as much as I wanted,” says Ruiz. “I felt like I couldn’t do anything wrong because (West and Mann) were there. I will not fall, because they are there.” Performances were as free as practices – except for West’s tradition of playing the well-known wedding song at the end of sets.
“We would go on these wild rides for about an hour and a half,” Mann remembers. “No pause. Just straight through. We didn’t know where it was going to end, did we? But we would always close the show with this traditional Mexican farewell song, called ‘Los Golondrinas.’ Suddenly the audience would realize, ‘Oh my God. We must have landed.’ That spontaneous clapping and cheering would break out — it was almost like a thank you for surviving.”
In 1980, Atrás del Cosmos, together with bassist Claudio Enríquez, recorded a sold-out concert at the Colegio de Ingenieros Civiles de México theater. Obtained Cold drinks/hot dreams was released the following year on cassettes in a series of 150 tapes. While the recording situation may not have been ideal – Ruíz had to play a spinet piano and Mann’s position wasn’t close enough for everyone to hear –Cold drinks/hot dreams still provides a fascinating snapshot of the group’s wonderful interplay.
The recording opens with Ruíza’s unaccompanied piano on “Cold Drinks,” highlighting her dynamic and precise style overshadowed by years of classical music studies. West’s flowing alto joins in a brief duet before Mann’s drums and Enríquez’s bass push Ruíz even further. “Clapping Hand II” finds Mann on the balafon, conducting a mesmerizing solo improvisation. Rhapsodic piano and dramatic cymbal crashes represent the group’s take on David Liebman’s “MD”. Piano block chords and drums disintegrate to introduce West’s fervently soulful viola, transitioning into a collective freestyle.
West’s sax is front and center on “Hot Dreams” with heavy bass and drums building the intensity. “Hanne IV” was a Sufi poem that Cherry taught Ruíza. She plays in a duo with Mann on tabla. The final track is a medley of pieces that begin with a cathartic version of Ornette Coleman’s “What Reason”, followed by a return to the rousing “Clapping Hand I”. The recording ends with Kenny Wheeler’s modal “Baba” as a grand send-off.
By the time the tape was released, Atrás del Cosmos was nearly over, as much of their funding had dried up. Mann left Mexico City for the United States to pursue other musical pursuits. The trio toured Mexico for the last time with composer Terry Riley in 1983. Ruíz and West’s partnership ended. West moved to Phoenix, Arizona, leaving group improvisation for electronic music. Ruíz remained in Mexico City and continued to play regularly with numerous projects. He often hears from people who followed Atrás del Cosmos, some even citing their recording as important for their musical development. Still close friends, Ruíz and Mann reunited for a reissue of the album in Brooklyn with saxophonist/cornetist Daniel Carter in April 2024. Ruíz confirms that there are also numerous tapes awaiting rediscovery. Atrás del Cosmos have not played their last “Los Golondrinas” yet.
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