Jazz – Page 14 – Rock Salted

Sun Ra – The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Vol. 2

Sun Ra and His Solar Arkestra – The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Vol. 2 ESP-Disk ESP 1017 (1966)

The best of the Heliocentric Wolds Sun Ra albums. This album may be conclusive proof that the “genre” of “Free Improvisation” (which, incidentally, does not exist) is simply a racist and wrongheaded attempt at revisionist history, nothing more than a power play to shift interest and attention from African-American musical innovators to white hangers-on while simultaneously attempting to create false credibility in the cheap knock-off stuff. The magazine The Wire had a “free improv” section and readers would regularly write in suggesting that the term be abandoned as not being distinct from “jazz”. In response, the magazine’s editor has noted the term’s “political” connotations. Pay attention: why is it that advocates of “free improv” are ALWAYS white (and also generally white males)? And why is it that the strongest musician advocates of “free improv” arrive with no credentials in the jazz realm? And why did one of the originators of “free improv”, Trevor Watts, in essence repudiate the concept? And why don’t practitioners of “free improv” that meld Euro-classical and jazz forms and techniques simply use the term “Third Stream”, which already existed? And why did the term “free improv” originate at the same time “British Invasion” rock groups were taking songwriting credit for blues songs actually written by African Americans? And why do advocates of the term meaning something outside of “free jazz” tend to always have a vested interest in differentiating themselves from practitioners of “free jazz”? There are answers to ALL of these questions.

Matthew Shipp – Matthew Shipp’s New Orbit

Matthew Shipp – Matthew Shipp’s New Orbit Thirsty Ear HI57095.2 (2001)

Matthew Shipp’s New Orbit expands on his pivotal Pastoral Composure album. Even after seventeen albums, Shipp has seemingly just scratched the surface.

Most interestingly, this recording explores new approaches to mixing and recording a jazz album, drawing heavily from the realm of contemporary (independent) rock. Though rooted in tradition, the quartet freely reinterprets existing technique to unfold fresh new arrangements. Shipp’s style is the new thing: continually propelled rhythms on the piano; flowing melodic elements that obscure any and all boundaries of form; and spatial rather than computational conception. There is ample time for solos. Everyone takes the opportunity for extended, unaccompanied passages. The individual flavors then blend seamlessly back into the group dynamic. Often the effect is a droning meditation. Natural elements are set against celestial backdrops. The result is a cohesive sound. While abstract, the structures are purposeful and drive towards a fuzzy destination in the distance.

Wadada Leo Smith on trumpet is a perfect fit with the group. Long-time associate William Parker delivers a stellar performance on bass, as expected. The dynamic duo of Shipp/Parker is the modern equivalent of Harris/McCann, Armstrong/Hines, Ellington/Blanton, or Montgomery/Smith. Parker balances pizzicato (plucked strings) and arco (with a bow) to make full use of his talents. The bass has a natural sound, but one constantly pushed towards expressive limits. Drummer Gerald Cleaver turns in one of his finest performances to date. The group has reached unseen heights of individual and collective performance.

Scientific song titles suggest a high technology milieu — implying that jazz has not commented sufficiently on technology in the past. Each track elicits a new response. “Chi” is guided by rhythms. “New Orbit” is pensive and reflective. “Paradox X” is mysterious, with dissonances filling huge amounts of space. William Parker shines on “Orbit 3.” Gerald Cleaver pulls “U Feature” together by dropping in abstract bass drum hits. Wadada Leo Smith sets off “Maze Hint” with an intense trumpet solo that retroactively changes the album to that point.

Matthew Shipp’s New Orbit is the state of music; Matthew Shipp and friends reaffirm their status as jazz innovators. Hunter S. Thompson has said Muhammad Ali may not have been perfect, but came as close as we are likely to see in this life. There is no more fitting a description for this group. They may be carbon-based life forms, but the crucible of this musical partnership has transformed this bunch of atoms to diamonds.

Thelonious Monk Quartet – Monk’s Dream

Thelonious Monk Quartet – Monk’s Dream Columbia CS-8765 (1963)

Monk was always something of a delightful mess of contradictions. His works were always too odd to fit neatly within the bop school, or any other, yet he always looked back toward an idiosyncratic version of traditionalism, sticking with the same basic style for his whole career and never chasing fads. His seemingly willfully unorthodox (some would say poor) technique was belied in that he chose to play that way, known to rehearse in a more conventional manner.

On Columbia Records, Monk established a pattern of mostly re-recording old favorites and tossing in a select few new compositions. From one perspective, that’s a disappointment. On a re-recording, Monk was never going to match the magnificent, startling, timeless splendor of his early Blue Note recordings, or even the often crudely performed and recorded but no-less-charmingly-weird-for-it efforts of his brief Prestige tenure. But, let’s take this from another point of view. If you could write a song like “Monk’s Dream” or “Bye-Ya,” shit, wouldn’t YOU play it (and record it) all the time? Monk knew what he had on his hands. And he made good use of it. He also adapted perfectly to his growing commercial success pretty comfortably. He may have mellowed a bit, but he never gave up on his offbeat innovations and mannerisms.

Charlie Rouse was the most effective saxophonist who ever played with Monk. His woody, slightly gritty tone sat well alongside Monk’s percussive piano playing, particularly in the 1960s when Monk had buffed his music down to something well-worn but still with a glint of sparkle. Rouse is pretty energetic here, somewhat in contrast to Monk, and is ready to jump out with a solo just as twisted as any of Monk’s melodies. Having Rouse on his game, with the rhythm section rising to the occasion, and thanks to the kind of wonderful production values the switch to Columbia provided, this is a thoroughly pleasant and engaging set. If this strikes your fancy, check out Live at the It Club: Complete.

Thelonious Monk Quartet – At the Blackhawk

Thelonious Monk Quartet Plus Two – At the Blackhawk Riverside RLP 1171 (1960)

Possibly Monk’s second best live recording, after Live at the It Club: Complete (though Thelonious in Action might be another contender). Monk went way out west to record with Shelly Manne, but when that meeting didn’t work out, Monk’s regular quartet recorded this live date instead with two guests. The results speak for themselves, with solid playing from the quartet and just enough variety added by the new players to make this something other than yet another set of readings of familiar Monk tunes.

Billy Higgins (d) was no slouch when it came to the avant-garde, but his playing was always rooted in bop. In short, that made him a player a lot like Monk. John Ore (b) was a dependable member of the quartet. He doesn’t ever capture the spot light. But he also never screws the pooch either. Then there is Charlie Rouse (ts). Monk and Rouse went together like peas and carrots, milk and cookies, bread and butter…hell, name your analogy. Rouse brought an energy and an almost telepathic understanding of Monk’s songwriting and playing so that he’s usually the group’s biggest asset, and this disc is no exception.

The guests, Joe Gordon (t) and Harold Land (ts), play things particularly straight. Gordon sticks to pretty standard hard bop stylings. That’s perfectly fine. Monk rarely included trumpet in his recordings as a leader, so having one present is unusual enough in itself. Land comes across as something of a lesser version of Coltrane (much lesser actually), who had been in Monk’s working group a few years previous. The contrast between Land and Rouse is quite stark, and makes for a funny indicator of how Rouse just “got” Monk’s music better than anyone else.

Likely because of the two guests, who had only minimal prep time to integrate themselves with the quartet, Monk and Rouse really step up in their playing to carry the day. The guests add some new flavors, but fortunately they take secondary roles and are content to just pop in for occasional solos. So, you still get to hear the great Monk/Rouse team in action. The sound on this may disappoint some — patrons of the Blackhawk club can distinctly be heard talking away during the recording (at least on the CD reissue with some bonus tracks). But forget that. This is a pretty good Monk recording, well worth the time.

John Pietaro – Obituary of Ornette Coleman

Link to John Pietaro’s Obituary of Ornette Coleman

And…

“Small Flowers Crack Concrete” by Sonic Youth:

“Plastic saxophones bleat, bleed for nothing, nada”

Miles Davis – The Cellar Door Sessions 1970

Miles Davis – The Cellar Door Sessions 1970 Legacy C6K 93614 (2005)

I have some opinions on Miles’ electric period, and on his early 1970s electric period in particular (like what we have here), that might differ from the conventional wisdom. I think the 1970s might have been Miles’ most consistently interesting period. I think you can get more from a single song in this period that you get in entire albums the man put out in the 1950s. There is an open-mindedness, a fluidity that I don’t think any other recording artist has ever really achieved on such a massive scale. With this particular band, I think there a number of interesting developments that make this set stand out. These are probably the best recordings Keith Jarrett has ever made. I know that he talks trash about playing electric with Miles, but frankly, his later solo stuff is just plain boring. Then there is Gary Bartz. Compared to the next few saxophonists Miles used up through his silent period, I think Bartz was the most interesting. He played these long, extended lines — I would even call them thin lines too. I dig ’em. The clarity of his lines doesn’t overwhelm the songs, but provide a constant thread throughout his solos despite the looseness of the accompaniments. I don’t think anyone else really took that approach on a sax in an electric setting. It adds a cohesiveness by making it difficult to focus on any little bit of the music for too long. Bartz also could blast his way through a funky, rock-oriented setting without being drowned out better than Miles’ previous sax man Wayne Shorter.

Another area of disagreement with the conventional thinking for me is that I think Miles and Teo Macero did a good job of editing material for release. People complain about the At Fillmore: Live at the Fillmore East album being heavily edited, but I think the final results sound great, whereas some of the unedited material from roughly the same period (In Concert: Live at Philharmonic Hall) sounds terribly unfocused. And I think this plays into my belief that Miles was actually fine tuning his approach through the 1970s. He was more consistent just before his temporary retirement than when the 70s opened. So, getting back to this Cellar Door set, I think it has a very loose, jammy sound to it. Occasionally, the band muffs something or other. Bassist Michael Henderson sometimes hasn’t fully integrated himself into the band until some of the later sets. You also might not call this the strongest playing from Miles himself, at least not consistently. But no matter. I think this is very enjoyable and interesting stuff. Lots of energy. Perhaps the edited, reorganized presentation that ended up forming most of Live-Evil sounds just a bit better on the whole. But this unedited presentation still sounds fine — actually better than just fine most of the time. With adequate time to sit back and enjoy this whole damn collection on its own terms, with the occasional missteps and the more tentative early sets all included, the band still can cook. That’s what it was always about.

Kelan Phil Cohran & Legacy – African Skies

Kelan Phil Cohran & Legacy – African Skies (1999)

An eclectic and cool album from shamefully neglected Chicago musician Phil Cohran and his group Legacy. Cohran was a one-time member of Sun Ra‘s Arkestra and a co-founder of the long-running and influential AACM organization. African Skies was recorded live in 1993 at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago. “White Nile” and “Blue Nile” are calm and fragile songs, with lots of strings, including harps — reminiscent of Brother Ah‘s Key to Nowhere. “Cohran Blues” has an almost rag-style beat, and it probably wouldn’t surprise if Leon Redbone had popped in for a vocal. “The Dogon” features Cohran on his Frankiphone (his custom modified African thumb piano), which will take some listeners back to songs like “The Minstrel” from Cohran’s classic On the Beach with the Artistic Heritage Ensemble. “Kilimanjaro” gets to that distinctive Cohran rhythmic style. All this music takes influence from around the world. It’s an approach a little like Don Cherry but more composed. It’s wonderful to see so many Cohran recordings in print on CD. These things are more available now than ever.

Dorothy Ashby and Frank Wess – In a Minor Groove

Dorothy Ashby and Frank Wess – In a Minor Groove New Jazz NJLP 8209 (1959)

Jazz music tends to be played on a fairly well-defined set of instruments. The bagpipes, accordion, cimbalom, any sort of double-reed instrument… there are plenty of things that just don’t pop up that often, and when they do they are used sometimes only for a novelty effect. Harpist Dorothy Ashby and flautist Frank Wess bring together two such rarely played instruments for what turns out to be an impressive hard bop album, In a Minor Groove. The mood is that of a hip, bohemian club (sort of a whole album along the lines of Sun Ra‘s “Lullaby for Realville” or maybe some early Eric Dolphy recordings). The delicate timbres of the harp and flute contrast with the punchy qualities of the drums and acoustic bass, giving the music an inherent interest even when rooted in familiar hard bop structures. Yet the players don’t content themselves with merely offering some unusual instrumentation. The playing is superb. Ashby was widely regarded as the best harpist in jazz. Her and Wess play with assurance. Drummer Roy Haynes is particularly effective. He lays back and uses brushes a lot, with embellishments limited to just a slightly harder attack now and then. But his happy-sounding and very understated performances is perfect for the music. This is forward-looking bop, and about as good as “inside” music of the era got.

Dorothy Ashby With Frank Wess – Hip Harp

Dorothy Ashby With Frank Wess – Hip Harp Prestige PRLP 7140 (1958)

Dorothy Ashby’s second album expands upon her debut. It’s jazz firmly in the hard bop mode, yet striving to do something different with the sub-genre. She deploys some of the same techniques as she used on The Jazz Harpist before to imitate a guitar and sweep the strings on her harp to play glissandos. But now it sounds a bit more purposeful, like she has more to express than just getting across those little tricks. Flautist Frank Wess is with her again. He plays more fluidly than on the debut, though his tone is a little harsh.

Dorothy Ashby – The Jazz Harpist

Dorothy Ashby – The Jazz Harpist Regent MG-6039 (1957)

Dorothy Ashby’s debut album as a leader The Jazz Harpist gives a taste of what was to come from the woman who seems to be unanimously regarded as the greatest jazz harpist. But at the same time this recording relies a bit too much on the novelty of having a harp in a jazz setting. It wallows in a few gimmicks. She uses two in particular on many of the songs: the stereotypical harp glissando (sweep) and imitation of guitar. For the latter, she strums and plays a few melodic notes, which gives the impression of two guitarists. It is kind of a neat trick, but she doesn’t do that much with it. Her frequent collaborator Frank Wess is here, though his playing on flute is a little stiff compared to on the pair’s later recordings. Ashby would just get better over her next few albums, exploring hard bop and cool jazz idioms, before she would take a turn toward soul jazz and eastern-flavored spiritual jazz.