“Butch’s approach gave us a new way to express and control the improvisational impulse with a larger group.
He figured out the pratical means of keeping ideas cohesive. This is a game changer. With the Conduction technique in hand, large format ensembles will be liberated, tooled with the means of expressing that illusive, “urgent spontaneity” that has served to fortify black cultural expression and identity of Africans in the Americans. This has until now been mostly the exculsive domain of the trio or quartet. Not any more.
On the personal level Butch was somewhat of a social genius. He had a way of handling people of all walks of life that was very special and personal.
I was in a Turkish bar with him in Berlin once and he had such a deep friendship with the bartender neither of them could speak the others language but they had a great communication, irony, jokes all of it.
It was all non verbal and intimate. That was Butch. ”
It was a great honor and pleasure to learn from him through the years and be effect by this innovative thinker.
JP Bourelly
