This new weekly column will focus on the breadth and variety of Houston’s musical scene. I’ll be writing about 21st century composition, improvised idioms, and performances that integrate theater, visual arts, and/or dance. Inevitably, my love for rock, jazz, country and all out noise will creep into the column as well.

I want to expand people’s awareness (including my own) of the innovative musicians living and working in Houston: The rare birds of the city’s sonic culture.

Musicians speak warily of the “jazz police” who are, for those of you unaware, an elite and mysterious branch of the Central Intelligence Agency whose mission is to control the shape of jazz to come. They operate at the most conservative and most avant-garde ends of the musical spectrum, closing minds and closing ears.

Using fear tactics, economics, and music critics, the “jazz police” can convince even the most rational musicians and listeners to self censor their playing and listening habits thus helping to perpetuate a hierarchy in music. Insidious. And their influence goes beyond who or who doesn’t get a job at a club, contract with a dinosaur record label, or mention in a hip column like mine.

The “jazz police” adopt a pose of “self-aggrandizing elitism” befitting the most pinheaded classicist or way-out modernist. Don’t misinterpret and think I’m only picking on the suits here. As the composer Frank Zappa once said in concert to a heckling audience member: “Everyone here is wearing a uniform, don’t kid yourself…”

We all have our preconceptions, opinions and respective comfort zones. It is only human to feel weird when confronted with the unfamiliar, and there is always unfamiliar music being made somewhere. But when we buy into the B.S. the “police” perpetuate regarding the relative quality of one manner of music making over another, we compromise our ability to simply enjoy the sheer variety of sounds that coexist quite happily beyond our intellectualizing.

Bassist and composer Thomas Helton has no interest in policing your mind and therefore may be an anomaly among jazz musicians. He plays out frequently.

Recently, here in Houston, you might have heard him at Discovery Green leading a nine-piece band through the tricky charts of Miles Davis’ 1957 album Birth of the Cool or across town at Labotanica playing tuba in a group of free improvisers at Nameless Sound’s They Who Sound series. Helton has formed bands to play the compositions of Gerry Mulligan, Charles Mingus, and Clifford Brown, performed with his musically omnivorous Core Trio, used an award from the Houston Arts Alliance to produce a concert with his 15-piece Torture Chamber Ensemble, compiled, transcribed and self-published a “real book” of tunes by Houston jazz musicians, and improvised with interactive computer software created by sound artist Kevin Patton.

The common thread through these varied projects is Helton himself, who is surprisingly self deprecating with regards to his “jazz” playing, yet obviously thrives in challenging and forward thinking musical situations. After meeting Helton for a conversation about music this past week, I was reminded of William Burroughs’ acknowledgement of the “quiet strength and competence” of alto saxophonist and free jazz originator Ornette Coleman.

Like Coleman, Helton enjoys music in all of its guises, be it bebop, heavy metal or avant-garde. Whether swinging with his Birth of the Cool tribute band, or utilizing extended techniques while in dialogue with a temperamental computer, elitism is not a part of Helton’s M.O.

Like many contemporary musicians these days, Helton is exploring new and creative ways to share and promote his music. His latest project is a DVD created in collaboration with Houston’s Binarium Productions, featuring a solo bass performance by Helton filmed in a variety of raw and unfinished spaces. Shot by videographer Jonathan Jindra, who is also a fine electronic musician, Helton’s meditative and ritualistic performance is complimented by eerie and imposing environments of pockmarked concrete, exposed air ducts and piles of bricks.

Throughout the video, Jindra interjects his own abstract organic visuals complimenting shifts of texture in Helton’s music. It ain’t Live at Birdland. Helton hopes the present the final cut along with special musical performances at alternative film venues locally and beyond. Watch a trailer of the piece:

While Helton’s bread and butter may be playing standards in a variety of lovely restaurants and bars around town, places like Ovations and Cezanne have hosted his more extreme projects much to the delight of audiences. Adventurous spaces like Labotanica and The Mekong Underground are attempting to fulfill the need for dedicated listening venues in Houston that don’t require a two-drink minimum.

The real estate is there. And as Helton and many of his fellow musicians are demonstrating with shows that connect uncompromising music from the 1950s with that of the 21st century, the listeners are there as well.

Next week, I’ll take a look at three women, all artists, who are using social media in creative ways to promote Houston’s underground rock, jazz, and independent classical music culture.