Tag: Jazz

The Ornette Coleman Trio – At The “Golden Circle” Stockholm, Volume One

At The "Golden Circle" Stockholm, Volume One

The Ornette Coleman Trio – At The “Golden Circle” Stockholm, Volume One Blue Note BST 84224 (1966)

In 1962 Ornette briefly retired from recording and public performance. He returned to public performance in 1965, after teaching himself violin and trumpet, and then spent the remainder of the decade bouncing between record labels.  He recorded a number of albums for Blue Note in the late 60s, as that label started to fade from prominence.  Both just before and after his retirement he worked with a trio featuring Charles Moffett on drums and David Izenzon on bass.  Most of the Blue Note recordings are considered somewhat second-rate entries in the Coleman catalog.  But two volumes of live recordings from Sweden at the “Gyllene Cirkeln” club have definitely withstood the test of time and can stand alongside Coleman’s best work.  It was Ornette’s first tour of Europe.

The music here is a refinement of what Coleman did in the late 1950s and early 60s with his combo that featured trumpeter Don Cherry.  There is a lightness and optimism in this music that is rather rare in free jazz circles, where dour seriousness all too often predominate.  Coleman plays many songs here with melodies that could well double as nursery rhymes.  The sparseness of the trio format, without any other horn to play harmony with Ornette, and with Izenzon and Moffett both playing in ways that recall standard bop jazz, make this music a bit less demanding on the ears than Coleman can sometimes be.  But for all those reference points, this music also reflects the growth and change in Coleman’s music from the preceding years.  This is transitional music.  The amazing thing about Coleman is that no matter how radical his approach to music was, it wasn’t static.  Here, the radicalism comes in a most unexpected way.  It introduces complex, novel structures by appearing to do anything but that.

These songs often find Coleman playing for a long time, without repeating himself and without relying on another wind player to add independent melodic statements (much like on Chappaqua Suite, recorded earlier the same year).  He also throws in short little riffs of surprising complexity.  No, this is not a performer limited to simply melodies; this is a performer choosing to play them.  The effect all this brings about in the music is subtle.  At any moment, Ornette doesn’t seem to be playing differently than he was five years earlier, but he’s playing that way for so much longer without tiring that this represents a whole new level of that same type of playing.  Reaching that new level opened up new horizons for compositional structures in the music.  The group doesn’t return to “heads” (group statements of a theme) in a planned way, as on early Coleman recordings.  Izenzon and Moffett are largely free to solo simultaneously with Ornette — though both are fairly restrained players who do so without much flash or pageantry.  This becomes the heart of Ornette’s musical theory of “Harmolodics”.  This is a trio of musical equals.  None of the instruments is privileged over the others.  Moffett plays a key role in this.  His drumming is bop-inflected, but also more skittering and decentered.  He drops a few bass/kick drum “bombs” like Art Blakey, but he works in a lot of hi-hat rides and runs on his tom drums during Ornette’s playing time, with a touch so light and effortless that he turns what would be a Blakey solo feature in a Jazz Messengers performance into supportive “accompaniment” that suits concurrent playing by the other trio members.  As the players work together, they are able to react and shift directions as a unit, without tearing the fabric of the performance apart abruptly.  Rarely does jazz performance this angular and sharp sound, if not smooth and easy exactly, at least as smooth and well-incorporated as it does.

There is an earnestness in this music that makes it difficult for even Coleman detractors to bag on it.  At The “Golden Circle” Stockholm, Volume One is certainly Coleman at his most approachable.  It is probably advisable for newcomers to his music to start closer to the beginning, with some of the Atlantic recordings; however, this live set makes for an excellent second course, so to speak.  His music reach a pinnacle of complexity in the coming decade, as he began to realize works at the furthest reaches of what his “harmolodics” concepts suggested in music.

Sun Ra – Angels and Demons at Play

Angels and Demons at Play

Sun Ra and His Myth-Science Arkestra – Angels and Demons at Play El Saturn Records LP 407 (1965)

The arrival of Marshall Allen to the band in no small part allowed the Arkestra to fully realize the afro-futurist elements in Sun Ra’s music beyond song names and album jacket poetry.  Allen’s flute and Phil Cohran‘s zither do a lot to distinguish the recordings that make up side one from material with distinct big band reference points on side two.  The exotica of someone like Les Baxter was starting to seem a more apt comparison than Fletcher Henderson in those instances.  Great stuff and really a worthy stop on any journey through the Earthly recordings of Sun Ra.

The opener “Tiny Pyramids” (written by Ronnie Boykins) is a dead ringer for Buddy Collette‘s “Blue Sands” (as recorded with Chico Hamilton‘s Quintet) — both open with irregular drumbeats then have prominent minor key flute, with a middle-eastern flavor, though Sun Ra’s version has prominent two-part harmony unlike the Hamilton recording.  “Between Two Worlds” makes use of staccato arrangements, with harmonies from the horns broken up so that what could maybe pass for a typical detective movie or TV show chart is stripped of its familiarity and becomes more unsettling.  The music on side one gets progressively more otherwordly, with Cohran’s zither playing high-pitched strums that cut like shards of glass, and bassist Ronnie Boykins occasionally playing arco (with bow).

As Sun Ra frequently programmed albums in the early/mid 1960s, side two is completely unlike side one.  The Arkestra is playing big band music with more typical horn solos trading off each other.  Side two was recorded four years earlier than the material on side one, with basically an entirely different set of musicians (only John Gilmore and Sun Ra appear on both sides of the album).  “A Call for All Demons,” with a few “tick tick” rhythmic figures on a wood block, quizzical horn charts, and Ra plunking out tipsy individual notes and short clusters of notes on the piano, is one probably the best-known song from the album.  It shifts from dramatic and ominous arrangements with plenty of space to more regular boppish soloing, then it’s on to Ra playing electric keyboard briefly before seguing back to an arrangement like the opening of the song.  It is a mean feat that Ra is able to accomplish the shifts between quite different styles as seamlessly as he does, compressing a mini-suite into a performance just over four minutes long.

Sun Ra – The Nubians of Plutonia

The Nubians of Plutonia

Sun Ra and His Myth-Science Arkestra – The Lady With the Golden Stockings [AKA The Nubians of Plutonia] El Saturn Records LP 406 (1966)

Originally released in a blank sleeve as The Lady With the Golden Stockings, but quickly renamed The Nubians of Plutonia for subsequent issues, this might represent the peak of the Sun Ra Arkestra’s Chicago period in terms of revealing the totally unique foundation of the group’s music.  While Jazz in Silhouette might be a better album, it doesn’t as explicitly present the otherworldly vision that would take the group to so many different stylistic touchstones over the coming decades.  But this album perhaps does point in that direction.  It’s eclectic.  The lineups and voicings shift.  At times an emphasis on rhythm supplants that of melody or harmony.  Vocal chants reveal hints of theatrical live shows.  The group sounds confident and polished.  The solos are incorporated in more daring ways here than on, say Angels and Demons at Play, because the solos retain a bit more of exotic, spacey elements and the polyrhythmic percussion backing holds constant throughout songs like “The Lady With the Golden Stockings.”  The band might not have had the recognition of the top jazz stars of the day, with gigs still sparse, but they were reputedly fairly well known and respected within Chicago.  So this album is all about the warm glow of the Chicago years, before a move to New York City in the early 1960s shook things up and took the music into other unexplored corners of the universe.  Great songs, great performances; you can’t ask for more.  This is one of the essential Sun Ra recordings.

Anthony Braxton – The Montreux / Berlin Concerts

The Montreux / Berlin Concerts

Anthony Braxton – The Montreux / Berlin Concerts Arista AL 5002 (1977)

One of Braxton’s finest releases.  It pulls together a lot of what he was up to throughout his career to this point.  Everyone in each of his groups featured here is in dynamite form and willing to stretch on every performance, which removes the possibility of the compositions sounding merely academic.  The improvisation is unrelentingly fresh and inspired across the whole album, and never drifts into mediocrity and convenient formulas.  A classic.

The Montreux/Berlin Concerts is one of many highlights from Braxton’s tenure on the Arista Records label.  It features performances from two different European festivals in 1975 and 1976.  The recordings are mostly from two similar quartets with Dave Holland (b), Barry Altschul (d), and either Kenny Wheeler (t) or George Lewis (tb), plus one side-long recording with The Berlin New Music Group.  In many ways this is a culmination of many things Braxton was doing through the 1970s. Much like a comedian who will test out new material in various venues first and then repeat the best and most successful bits and routines for a big show or video/recording, Braxton is not so much trying out new methods here (with the exception of the orchestral track with The Berlin New Music Group) as much as delivering something with techniques he (and his bands) had already perfected.  What makes the album so special is that there are some very fine performances here.  Arguably, Braxton never led a small combo better than the ones here, even if he led other ones as good or nearly as good.  And these are stellar performances even from this impressive cast of characters.  In Braxton’s world, he deals with “musical informations”.  There is certainly a lot of information being exchanged on these sets.  Each performer is contributing — solo, spotlight time is shared fairly equally.

When Braxton was the first jazz signing to the new major label Arista, he promised to be some kind of crossover success (see the liner notes to The Complete Arista Recordings of Anthony Braxton and a November 2008 essay in The Wire magazine discussing its release).  Leading up to his tenure with Arista, he had recorded works that extended into the territory of modern composition (of the likes of John Cage and the Fluxus movement), but he also worked with more traditional jazz material.  He drifted back and forth between the twin poles of traditional jazz and avant-garde composition.  But most of the time these were shifts between isolated modes, not truly a “crossover” in the sense of a meeting and melding.  On The Montreux/Berlin Concerts he does cross the divide between traditional jazz and modern composition, achieving a synthesis of both within any given piece.  There is definitely a sense of connection to traditional jazz throughout.  Often a bouncing, free-wheeling, syncopated beat as if from an old Fats Waller tune will be unmistakable.  Yet the speed and density of it all will not permit confusion with anything from Waller’s era.  The intervals, squeaks and new performance techniques also push this well beyond just the tradition.  Again, though, this is crossover music, and so this music is not completely of the “new music” realm of abstraction.  It inserts, modifies, expands, deconstructs, and borrows from the tradition at will, but never feels constrained by it.  It is the much talked-about but less frequently achieved notion of playing “inside” and “outside” at the same time.  This is an album by an artist who has developed techniques that allow a unique voice to emerge beyond and in spite of those techniques, that is enjoyable in a way that exceeds the moral limits of traditional musical structures.  It makes for an excellent listen.

Lee Morgan – Infinity

Infinity

Lee Morgan – Infinity Blue Note LT-1091 (1981)

It’s pretty amazing that Lee Morgan’s Infinity album sat in the vaults for so long before seeing release.  In an effort to duplicate the success of The Sidewinder, Lee Morgan was making a lot of recordings in the mid-1960s.  His reputation is that he was something of a hard bop reactionary.  And I suppose that the 60s were a unique time in that there was never again to be such a large number of musical giants performing jazz at the peak of their careers combined with a comparable level of commercial interest in the music.  The commercial decline of jazz music had a profound impact on how many young musicians chose to play jazz (rather than rock or something else) and what labels and venues were willing to support.  So, for a brief moment in the 1960s, Infinity many have seemed like “just another hard bop album” and therefore not commercially viable enough for release.  And to a certain extent that might have been true.  This might have been lost in the shuffle around the time it was recorded.  But it’s also another pretty good hard bop album.  The songwriting is above average, there are some top players here, and it all comes together in some commendable performances.  While I don’t want to make it seems like this is some groundbreaking lost classic, this album does certainly hold its own with the better hard bop albums of its day.  Particularly thanks to Jackie McLean, I think this is even a bit more rewarding than some of the better-known, though overrated, hard bop albums of the period.

Willie Nelson & Wynton Marsalis – Two Men With the Blues

Two Men With the Blues

Willie Nelson & Wynton Marsalis – Two Men With the Blues Blue Note 50999 5 04454 2 4 (2008)

Two Men With the Blues pairs Willie Nelson with Wynton Marsalis at two live appearances at The Allen Room, Lincoln Center, New York City, where Marsalis is musical director.  Willie has always demonstrated a fondness for jazz, and he has recorded in that setting before, so an outing backed by a jazz combo for some bluesy vocal jazz-pop is well within his range.  He doesn’t have to reach for any of this.  Although Willie just does his usual thing, it happens to suit the music fine.  The only thing Marsalis and his band bring to the table is endless showboating.  But the problem is the showboating isn’t very impressive (perhaps only appearing so to the jazz novice).  It’s actually Willie Nelson on guitar who brings more adventurousness to bear, with much more affinity for dissonant chords than Marsalis’ hard-bop puritanism permits.  Perhaps more time playing together would have allowed a better rapport amongst the musicians.  As it stands, this is adequate, but falls well short on creativity.  A pairing of Nelson with someone like saxophonist James Carter might be more interesting.

Preservation Hall Jazz Band – New Orleans’ Sweet Emma and Her Preservation Hall Jazz Band

New Orleans' Sweet Emma and Her Preservation Hall Jazz Band

Preservation Hall Jazz Band – New Orleans’ Sweet Emma and Her Preservation Hall Jazz Band Preservation Hall Records VPH/VPS-2 (1964)

They call Dixieland jazz made after its time “moldy fig” music.  The Preservation Hall Jazz Band played their first touring gigs in Minneapolis, and Sweet Emma is a recording of one of them.  The band was started to provide jobs for aging musicians who played a style of jazz that had long since fallen out of commercial favor.  A venue named Preservation Hall was opened as a kind of museum and tourist attraction to showcase Dixieland jazz.  The band has featured a rotating cast of local New Orleans musicians through the years.  If you’ve listened to old, first-generation Dixieland records, this will probably not impress you much.  But it’s all still good fun.  This is unpretentious music that is exactly what it claims to be, no more, no less.

Willie Nelson – Angel Eyes

Angel Eyes

Willie Nelson – Angel Eyes Columbia FC-39363 (1984)

In the 1980s, Willie Nelson released a lot of albums.  So many that most are forgotten.  Angel Eyes from 1984 was recorded at his own Pedernales studio and pairs him with a jazz combo led by guitarist Jackie King (who receives special billing on the album jacket).  Ray Charles does a guest vocal.  King and his band play a rather straightforward post-bop music.  King had connections to a lot of country artists.  His style is akin to Barney Kessel, Kenny Burrell, or even Jim Hall, with a very clean tone and little inclination to play chords. Willie sticks almost exclusively to vocals.  He is a competent jazz vocalist (and guitarist, as collaborations with Wynton Marsalis attest, though you wouldn’t know from this recording).  He would go on to record many jazz albums.  Here, his performances are nice but not particularly compelling.  This is less of a snooze-fest than Willie’s easy listening and light pop albums of the era (Stardust, City of New Orleans) but it is also not ambitious enough to garner much attention.  Yet Nelson fans should perhaps give this a bit more credit than it has tended to receive, because it has a much more authentic and intimate improvisational feel than certain others of Nelson’s forays into jazz.  This belongs in the top half of the large batch of curious but insignificant genre exercises that Nelson has recorded in his long career.

Rahsaan Roland Kirk – Bright Moments

Bright Moments

Rahsaan Roland Kirk – Bright Moments Atlantic SD 2-907 (1974)

Rahsaan makes goofing off a profound experience. If only people spent more time doing just that, maybe there would be more bright moments and less fabricated problems in this world. Such is the shoot-from-the-hip philosophy Rahsaan promotes.

His style was a little Afro-centric, but that sells him short. Rahsaan made humane music. Everyone is involved. Here, there is plenty of opportunity for the audience to holler, testify, and clap along with every song and interlude. It isn’t just Rahsaan who makes Bright Moments what it is. Unlike his studio masterpieces Rip, Rig & Panic and The Inflated Tear, Kirk’s band here is not made of big-name superstars. It doesn’t take a band from the short list of jazz masters to make a great album.

Bright Moments is a fantastic example of the power of live recordings. Great live albums should make it a trivial fact that you aren’t actually at the concert as you listen. It is vaudevillian, and makes the effort to craft the performance into one tailored just for the audience. With the right set of ears it’s obvious Rahsaan is spinning his craft just for you.

Rahsaan certainly brought his bag of tricks at this date. He played three saxophones at once. He played a flute with his nose. These aren’t gimmicks. Kirk was talented enough to make sounds these unusual ways, but also to do a little more. “Fly Town Nose Blues” has him playing the flute with his nose with vibrato! When he plays multiple saxophones, there are certain logistical difficulties — three instruments and two hands. Kirk could deftly make the drone an integral part of some complex solos.

Few people could accuse their audience of not knowing everything about John Coltrane “and the beautiful ballad he wrote called ‘After the Rain’” and turn the accusation into a peace offering. Rahsaan was the people’s sax man. That isn’t any big secret, because in so many words he certainly lets you know.

Yeah, it takes a little something to blow such ragged solos. Rahsaan let all the breathy, clipped, muffled noise coming from his saxophones have their moments in the lights, hanging there as invisible sound sculptures.

At some point the criticism that jazz became academic gained supporters. It’s not that Rahsaan went out of his way to dispel that myth, but he did dispel it. Rahsaan Roland Kirk is like good whiskey. There are supporters, but the rest — even those finding it hard to swallow — can be easy converts.