Jazz – Page 18 – Rock Salted

Miles Davis – Bags Groove

Miles Davis – Bags Groove Prestige PRLP 7109 (1957)

My early reaction to this album was “it’s good not great.” Well, coming back to it years later my opinion has changed a bit. While I still look at this and say Miles’ playing is nothing special, due to his general complacency and the fact that he hasn’t yet realized the full potential of his stemless Harmon mute, I have to give credit to the rest of the band for truly achieving something special. The rhythm section steals the show. Percy Heath gives amazing performances throughout, and, despite the fact that he never solos, he’s the still the album’s star in my mind. People have long talked about Monk‘s solo on the title track (take 1), and that’s all well justified. It smokes. Unfortunately, he’s only heard on the title track. But Horace Silver plays well when he’s substituting for Monk, and Sonny Rollins‘ style is well-suited to the music. Milt Jackson also plays really well in his one appearance. Kenny Clarke is solid as always, and, significantly, he doesn’t distract from the other performers–something not to be underestimated with a talented group like this. Bag’s Groove is an excellent album to play in mixed company, even among people who have no specific knowledge of or appreciation for jazz. It’s about as good as “straight” jazz ever got.

Sun-Ra – Holiday for Soul Dance

Sun-Ra and His Astro Infinity Arkestra – Holiday for Soul Dance El Saturn ESR 508 (1970)

A set recorded in 1960 mostly consisting of standards plus one song (“Dorothy’s Dance”) written by Phil Cohran. This is traditional jazz, something along the lines of Bad and Beautiful, Some Blues But Not the Kind Thats Blue and Standards. “Early Autumn” has vocals by Ricky Murray that recall the mannered, almost swallowed vocals of Kenny Hagood on Miles Davis‘s “Darn That Dream” with the Birth of the Cool band. Yet, these are not throwaways from the vault, but rather pleasant readings suitable for playing in company that would bolt for the door with most outer-space Ra stuff. In fact, this might be the all-around best of Ra’s standards albums — though Some Blues But Not the Kind Thats Blue with its great John Gilmore solos is a very close runner-up.

Gato Barbieri – Fenix

Gato Barbieri – Fenix Flying Dutchman FD 10144 (1971)

An early foray into Gato’s mix of jazz and South American folk music. A piece of advice: start with Chapter Four: Alive in New York and come back to this later if interested.

Albert Ayler – Live in Greenwich Village

Albert Ayler – Live in Greenwich Village: The Complete Impulse Recordings Impulse! IMPD-2-273 (1998)

A compilation of Albert Ayler in Greenwich Village and The Village Concerts plus one track from the comp The New Wave in Jazz and one previously unreleased track, all of which were recorded in the same timeframe of 1965-67. I guess this set is pretty uneven. It gained a sort of inflated reputation because it came along when practically none of Ayler’s recordings were available on CD — something that has since changed considerably. When I say uneven, I’m talking primarily of Ayler’s band. Ayler himself is in quite good form throughout. However his brother Donald is lagging most of the time, the violin (Michel Samson) is out of place as well. Sunny Murray and Beaver Harris can’t be heard all that well on drums amongst so many other players. But despite all that, this still manages to be a pretty good set when everything clicks. “Omega is the Alpha” is probably my favorite Ayler recording.

George Lewis – The George Lewis Solo Trombone Album

George Lewis – The George Lewis Solo Trombone Album Sackville Recordings 3012 (1977)

Great stuff. While solo horn albums tend toward the dour to the point of turning listeners away — For Alto the classic example — this one is refreshingly joyous and even humorous at times. A remarkable debut, and yet another overlooked treasure from the Sackville Recordings catalog.

John Coltrane – Blue Train

John Coltrane – Blue Train Blue Note BLP 1577 (1958)

Well, I’m willing to argue that Blue Train is not really that special. Maybe I might reconsider someday (it has been some time since I have listened to it), but for now, it strikes me as kind of boilerplate hard bop overall. Maybe it’s that boilerplate aspect that draws so many people who wish to dabble in jazz to this album, because it is relatively uncomplicated, it adheres to most expected formulas, it is widely available, and it is a pretty even album. But as a reviewer on RateYourMusic put it, lots of other tenor players could have made this album.

One argument I recall having about this album started when I commented that it wasn’t really offering anything new when it was released. In response, what I heard was something like, “But in like 1957-58, this was cutting edge for the day!” Well, I’m afraid not. In the same time frame, Sun Ra was years ahead of this, even if a lot of Ra’s contemporaneous recordings wouldn’t be released until a few years later. Let us not forget that Coltrane was to be heavily influenced by Ra’s tenor John Gilmore in the years to come. But aside from Ra, there also was Cecil Taylor with albums like Jazz Advance, or Ornette Coleman with albums like Something Else!!!! or even Lennie Tristano with precious few recordings but outsized influence. The cutting edge stuff might not have been that well documented, and may have continued to evolve, but it was out there being played around the time Blue Train was recorded and released. Just because the late fifties were a relatively slow time for innovation in jazz recordings doesn’t mean I need to handicap this disc.

Now, I don’t mean to rag on Trane that much. My point is merely that he hadn’t achieved greatness yet.

Don Cherry – “mu” First Part

Don Cherry – “mu” First Part BYG 529.301 (1969)

For me, this is Cherry’s single best album. It finds him and Ed Blackwell doing something with cultural musics from around the globe that no one else had ever really attempted before, and the results are astonishing. If it had to describe it, I would say it’s about stitching together common threads in seemingly diverse musical traditions from around the world in an earnest attempt to express something through Cherry and Blackwell’s personal connections to those musics. And what separates this from lesser visions that might fall under the category of cultural piracy is that this album reflects a legitimately deep understanding of and appreciation for the different musical traditions brought together, and a genuine sense of connection to what those traditions express. Importantly, these guys are NOT appropriating “world” music just to sound “exotic”. For those unfamiliar with Cherry’s late 1960s/early 1970s work in that vein, you might try Eternal Rhythm first, which is slightly more conventional and easier to absorb.

Philip Cohran and the Artistic Heritage Ensemble – The Malcolm X Memorial

Philip Cohran and The Artistic Heritage Ensemble – The Malcolm X Memorial (A Tribute in Music) Zulu (1970)

A truly remarkable album. While not so recognizably distinctive as the Artistic Heritage Ensemble’s debut album On the Beach, The Malcolm X Memorial is just as fine an achievement. This is a deep and effective meditation on the life of one of the most significant public figures of the 20th Century. Phil Cohran‘s songwriting reaches a high water mark in setting out the four distinct phases of Malcolm X’s life, each of which is featured with its own song named after the appellation Malcolm used in that phase. Rather than push Malcolm X’s agenda, or try to comment on his significance — socially, politically, or otherwise — Cohran simply creates a rich backdrop that portrays the context for Malcolm’s life. Listeners can draw their own conclusions about what the man’s life meant, but in hearing this work they unmistakably witness a transformation from familiar and humble beginnings as portrayed by the spooky blues solo from guitarist Pete Cosey that opens the set, to the confrontational tone set by the increasingly busier and driving group arrangements in the middle of the album, to the expansive possibilities suggested by the decidedly non-Western flavor of the finale. Recorded live, The Malcolm X Memorial features many wonderful performances that could hardly have been improved in a studio. For instance, just listen to Aaron Dodd‘s lovely tuba solo on “Malcolm Little”, and the funky electric bass on “Detroit Red.” This is a piece of music well worth attention, and one that rewards careful and repeated listening. The Artistic Heritage Ensemble belonged to the upper echelon of performers of their time, and, albeit posthumously, they deserve wider recognition.

Wadada Leo Smith – Ten Freedom Summers

Wadada Leo Smith – Ten Freedom Summers Cuneiform RUNE 350/351/352/353 (2012)

Supposedly decades in the making, this massive four-disc collection of music by trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith chronicles the freedom movement (a/k/a civil rights movement) in the United States for the years 1954-64. It features quartet and quintet jazz combos as well as a chamber orchestra. On the plus side, this work is nothing if not eclectic. When it opens with “Dred Scott, 1857,” it has the unmistakably measured, conversational style of Bill Dixon. A little further in, “Thurgood Marshall and Brown vs. Board of Education: A Dream of Equal Education, 1954” is punchier, more blues-inflected. By the time the fourth disc rolls around, it settles into a very “typical” spare, rattling-drum modern jazz style. Unfortunately, there is something rather lacking in this work. It’s that this takes itself so serious that there isn’t any energy left to let it breathe. Nothing here innovates, really, and the music isn’t particularly evocative either. Compared to, say, Philip Cohran and the Artistic Heritage Ensemble‘s The Malcolm X Memorial (A Tribute in Music), this feels a little pedantic and dull. It’s not bad. No, it’s actually performed as well as it could be. But it’s ambitions are unfocused and too shallow. I think, much like Matana Roberts (though Smith is a substantially more talented performer), this album practices a kind of intellectual bullying. It takes on a subject for which there is a “correct” view, and adopting that view, there is an effort to silence dissent about the execution and specific content of the compositions and performances purely on the basis of the thematic focus. So, even if you agree with the notion of equality (which I do), it is still possible to find this music, heard as a discourse about it, unpersuasive and uninteresting.

Archie Shepp – For Losers

Archie Shepp – For Losers Impulse! AS-9188 (1970)

You could look at this album as the greatest waste of talent on vinyl. You’ve got some of the greatest jazz performers around playing…straight soul charts. Yet, it works. Shepp was the brash youngster of the 1960s jazz avant-garde. He was, typically, a step behind the leading lights, and rarely seemed to deliver on what his talent promised, but, he was only one step behind, and he still delivered something, all of which does count. Tellingly, the first session for For Losers was just a few days after Albert Ayler‘s New Grass, with the same producer (Bob Thiele). Additional material from these sessions was later released on the forgettable outtakes collection Kwanza. In the rapprochement between jazz and rock, Shepp’s style may have ended up being one not pursued by others, usually dismissed as being too deferential to rock/soul structures, but it still holds up on its own terms decades later.