WALTER ZUBER ARMSTRONG

A West Coast reed player with a haunting tone and an armload of self-published albums, Walter Zuber Armstrong was highly influenced by free jazz legends Eric Dolphy and Anthony Braxton. Like them, he was drawn to the idea of multi-instrumental textural dexterity. Zuber Armstrong chose the bass clarinet and flute to cover opposite extremes, a pair of instruments Eric Dolphy had used as an exotic sideline to his alto sax. Then Zuber Armstrong pretty much set aside the entire jazz content of Dolphy's music to concentrate on more spaced-out ideas. From Braxton he adopted the idea of solo reed performances, although unlike his model he was not particularly into shrieking displays of intensity. Zuber Armstrong was based out of the sleepy border town of Bellingham, WA, for most of his career, meaning that one of his main performing possibilities was nearby Vancouver, British Columbia. The bustling jazz scene in read more...