Norman Connors - 1974 - Slew Foot

Norman Connors

1974

Slew Foot

01. Mother Of The Future    6:49

02. Back On The Street    3:57

03. Welcome    7:20

04. Slew Foot    3:19

05. Dreams    6:14

06. Chuka3:27

07. Jump Street    2:40

Acoustic Bass, Electric Bass – Ron Carter (tracks: A1, A3, B2)

Alto Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone – Gary Bartz

Clavinet – Hubert Eaves

Congas, Bongos – Lawrence Killian

Drums – Norman Connors

Electric Bass – Anthony Jackson (tracks: A2, B1, B3, B4)

Electric Piano – Elmer Gibson

Flute, Alto Flute – Hubert Laws

Guitar – Reggie Lucas

Percussion – Dom Um Romao, Skip Drinkwater

Tenor Saxophone – Carlos Garnett

Trumpet, Flugelhorn – Eddie Henderson

Vocals – Jean Carn

1975's Slewfoot continues Norman Connors' diversification into jazz-funk and brassy R&B with mostly positive results. Surrounded as usual by an all-star personnel -- including but not limited to vocalist Jean Carn, bassist Ron Carter, pianist Lonnie Liston Smith, tenor saxophonist Gary Bartz, horn player Eddie Henderson, and flutist Hubert Eaves III -- Connors tears through a mostly hard-driving set of songs. Carlos Garnett's "Mother of the Future" leads off the album as a frenetic jazz-funk workout and offers each instrumentalist a chance to flex muscles; Carn is particularly hot, while Elmer Gibson's electric piano runs highlight the latter half of the song. Henderson's "Dreams" and a gorgeous reworking of Coltrane's "Welcome" (Carn takes another spotlight) are the only reprieves from the upbeat slant. The remainder is dotted with decent but slightly innocuous funk and fusion instrumentals that are occasionally punctuated by bold horn charts (Richard Clay's "Back on the Street," Elmer Gibson's "Chuka," Connors' "Jump Street"). Not one of Connors' best, but it does have its moments.

Norman Connors is a fascinating artist to me. Starting out as a free jazz drummer with people such as Archie Shepp and Pharaoh Sanders,Connors was something of an internal talent scout during the 1970’s. His early solo career consisted of solo albums with an avant garde fusion style that somewhat anticipated the rise of the new age musical concept. By the end of the decade,Connors was known primarily for romantic soul ballads featuring the lead vocals of artists such Jean Carn,the bassist Michael Henderson and his major pet project in the late Phyllis Hyman. One of these ballads,”You Are My Starship” is still his best known song.

Over the past decade or so,I’ve been progressively exploring the music of Norman Connors album by album. Even though he became known for his slow numbers,it was through his uptempo material that his music really evolved. And it was an exciting time too because Connors original run as a solo artist started at the dawn of the funk era and came to a conclusion around the beginning of the post disco period. One major period of his career that has attracted me was from when Connors began transitioning from jazz to a more funk/soul sound in the mid 70’s. And one major cornerstone of that was the title song to his 1974 album Slew Foot.

A hard,fluttering horn chart led by Eddie Henderson opens up the groove as  Connors in similar manner to the Bar Kays’ choral horns from 1967’s “Soul Finger”.  The Clavinet of Hubert Eaves plays additional rhythm support-as each refrain is separated by a break featuring a bluesy amp’d guitar from future Mtume member Reggie Lucus. He is supported on bass by Anthony Jackson on those scaling,cinematic refrains before Lucas gets a chance to really rock out on the middle chorus of the song. The rhythm scales back down to the drums,bass line and Clavinet on the final part of the song. Especially right as the horns fanfare the song right into fade out.

Norman Connors really lifted up cinematic funk at a very important time. This was during the blacksploitation era when Isaac Hayes was winning best musical score for his work on Shaft. Not to mention Curtis Mayfield’s huge success with Superfly  and Roy Ayers with Coffey. Even though this song wasn’t in a movie,it was surely funk that moved itself on every level. Both rhythmically and melodically. It was also a building block in the evolution of Reggie Lucus’s transition into funk with the late 70’s edition of Mtume as well. So as a musician and a major talent assembler,this was some of Norman Connors’ finest funk!

Freddie Hubbard - 1970 - Red Clay

Freddie Hubbard 

1970 

Red Clay

01. Red Clay 12:05

02. Delphia 7:25

03. Suite Sioux 8:40

04. The Intrepid Fox 10:40

Bass – Ron Carter

Drums – Lenny White

Piano – Herbie Hancock

Saxophone – Joe Henderson

Trumpet – Freddie Hubbard

Recorded at Van Gelder Studios. Recorded January 27, 28, 29, 1970.

Herbie Hancock appears through the courtesy of Warner Bros. Records.

The first Freddie Hubbard album released on Creed Taylor CTI label marked a shift away from Hubbard's recording with Blue Note Records. It was the album that established Taylor's vision for the music that was to appear on his labels in the coming decade. "Red Clay" is Freddie Hubbard's seventeenth overall album.

On Jan. 27, 1970, trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, playing at the peak of his powers after a string of seven brilliant Blue Note albums and three for the Atlantic label, went into the studio to cut his first for Creed Taylor’s CTI label. With Taylor producing, a stellar cast was assembled at Rudy Van Gelder’s studio in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., for three consecutive days of recording. They emerged with Red Clay, an album that would not only define Hubbard’s direction over the next decade while setting the template for all future CTI recordings, but would also have a dramatic impact on a generation of trumpet players coming up in the ’70s.

This may be Freddie Hubbard's finest moment as a leader, in that it embodies and utilizes all of his strengths as a composer, soloist, and frontman. On Red Clay, Hubbard combines hard bop's glorious blues-out past with the soulful innovations of mainstream jazz in the 1960s, and reads them through the chunky groove innovations of '70s jazz fusion. This session places the trumpeter in the company of giants such as tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson, pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Ron Carter, and drummer Lenny White. Hubbard's five compositions all come from deep inside blues territory; these shaded notions are grafted onto funky hard bop melodies worthy of Horace Silver's finest tunes, and are layered inside the smoothed-over cadences of shimmering, steaming soul. The 12-minute-plus title track features a 4/4 modal opening and a spare electric piano solo woven through the twin horns of Hubbard and Henderson. It is a fine example of snaky groove music. Henderson even takes his solo outside a bit without ever moving out of the rhythmatist's pocket. "Delphia" begins as a ballad with slow, clipped trumpet lines against a major-key background, and opens onto a midtempo groover, then winds back into the dark, steamy heart of bluesy melodicism. The hands-down favorite here, though, is "The Intrepid Fox," with its Miles-like opening of knotty changes and shifting modes, that are all rooted in bop's muscular architecture. It's White and Hancock who shift the track from underneath with large sevenths and triple-timed drums that land deeply inside the clamoring, ever-present riff. Where Hubbard and Henderson are playing against, as well as with one another, the rhythm section, lifted buoyantly by Carter's bridge-building bassline, carries the melody over until Hancock plays an uncharacteristically angular solo before splitting the groove in two and doubling back with a series of striking arpeggios. This is a classic, hands down.

It was a transitional period in the jazz; the tectonic shift beginning with Miles Davis’ In a Silent Way, recorded the previous year. Hubbard’s entry into this crossover territory on Red Clay was characterized by the slyly syncopated beats of drummer Lenny White on the funky 12-minute title track, an infectious groover that was soon covered by budding crossover groups all over America. Essentially an inventive line set to the chord changes of “Sunny,” Bobby Hebb’s hit song from 1966, “Red Clay” would become Hubbard’s signature tune throughout his career. As trumpeter, friend and benefactor David Weiss, who is credited with bringing Hubbard out of self-imposed retirement in the late ’90s, explains, “Later in life Freddie would always announce it as ‘the tune that’s been keeping me alive for the last 30 years.’ We played ‘Red Clay’ every night and he would quote ‘Sunny’ over it every night.”

Weiss and the New Jazz Composers Octet backed Hubbard on two recordings (2001’s New Colors and 2008’s On the Real Side) in addition to playing several gigs with him. As he notes, “What struck me when I went back to check out ‘Red Clay’ was how loose it is. It’s killing but kind of raw, and it goes on for over 12 minutes … not like what you would expect from what gets tailored to be a jazz hit.”

That looseness can be attributed in large part to drummer White, whose wide beat and interactive instincts characterize the track. “Freddie always credited Lenny with that,” says Weiss. “He said Lenny came up with the beat and that he himself had nothing to do with it. He was always happy to give Lenny credit on that track.”

Freddie Hubbard - 1973 - Sky Dive

Freddie Hubbard

1973

Sky Dive

01. Povo 12:33

02. In A Mist 7:04

03. The Godfather 7:21

04. Sky Dive 7:40

Bass – Ron Carter

Bass Clarinet – Phil Bodner

Bass Trombone – Paul Faulise

Clarinet – George Marge, Romeo Penque

Drums – Billy Cobham

Flugelhorn – Marvin Stamm

Flute – Hubert Laws

Flute [Alto] – Hubert Laws, Romeo Penque

Flute [Bass] – Hubert Laws

Guitar – George Benson

Oboe – Romeo Penque

Percussion – Airto, Ray Barretto

Piano, Electric Piano – Keith Jarrett

Trombone – Garnett Brown, Wayne Andre

Trumpet – Alan Rubin, Freddie Hubbard

Tuba – Tony Price

Recorded at Van Gelder Studios, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, October 4 and 5, 1972

Freddie Hubbard's fourth CTI recording (and the second one with Don Sebesky arrangements) certainly has a diverse repertoire. In addition to his originals "Povo" and "Sky Dive" (both of which are superior jam tunes), the trumpeter stretches out on the theme from The Godfather and Bix Beiderbecke's "In a Mist." The charts for the brass and woodwinds are colorful; there is a fine supporting cast that includes guitarist George Benson, Keith Jarrett on keyboards, and flutist Hubert Laws; and Hubbard takes several outstanding trumpet solos.

I don’t know if the assembly-line tac­tics of the ubiquitous Creed Taylor label are paying off commercially, but judging by the speed with which they’re coming off the conveyor belt, I suppose they are. This is Hubbard’s second album for CTI, with another on the way; once again it shows that he’s never recovered from his years with the Jazz Messengers.

His recent residency at Scott’s had him bopping in old Blakey style, while this album embraces a hotch-potch of music­al contexts, ranging from funk-rock to Beiderbecke to Bossa Nova and back to Blakey – all of which suggests a schizo­phrenic rather than versatile attitude. Sadly, Hubbard is lost in a period he can’t come to terms with, while fellow Messengers have either thrown in their lot, contented themselves with the past, or, like Wayne Shorter, forged way ahead. But that’s another story.

Povo drags a Hubbard composition uneasily into up-dated rock. Introduced by a Gil Evans style spread, Carter opens with a simple bass riff which continues remorselessly through the number’s absurdly drawn-out length. The equally simple melody line covers what is basically a languorous early Shor­ter 12-bar composition; add some names like Cobham, Jarrett and Benson and you’ve got a track which does Creed Taylor proud. These presumably lucra­tively enticed session men are hardly enthusiastic, but at least the ball’s roll­ing.

Cobham does especially well by waking up occasionally to change em­phases and add off-beats, only to be forced back by clumsy bouts of orches­tration. Laws alone is trying, and he provides the only solo of any listenable worth. In his other composition, Sky Dive, a piece of Quincy Jones bossa-funk, Hubbard at least bursts into a healthy and sustained playing, in uncompromised tone, of his original style. The following breaks by Benson and Jarrett are just short enough not to steal the show.

Beiderbecke’s In A Mist makes as few bones about its wallowing Messengers treatment as much as Jarrett and Cobham are unafraid to parody a ten year-old Cedar Walton and Art Blakey back­up – which leaves one wondering idly if Hubbard directed them so, or, if not, whether he was aware of what was go­ing on behind his back. Lastly, yet an­other blood-transfusion of the love theme from The Godfather already again, in which a predictable arrangement and glossy orchestration is spared only by a few neat changes in tempo, a miniscule but authentic Jarrett introduction and a brief spell when Cobham, Jarrett and particularly Carter are permitted a couple of minutes trio work.

Stanley Turrentine - 1971 - Salt Song

Stanley Turrentine 

1971 - Salt

Song

01. Gibraltar 10:20

02. I Told Jesus 7:35

03. Salt Song 7:10

04. I Haven't Got Anything Better To Do 4:30

05. Storm 7:30

Arranged By, Conductor – Eumir Deodato

Bass – Ron Carter

Cello – Alan Shulman, Charles McCracken

Drums – Airto Moreira, Bill Cobham

Guitar – Eric Gale

Percussion – Airto Moreira

Piano, Electric Piano, Organ – Eumir Deodato, Horace Parlan, Richard Tee

Tenor Saxophone – Stanley Turrentine

Viola – Harold Coletta

Violin – Harry Katzman, Joe Malin, Julie Held, Julius Brand, Leo Kahn, Paul Gershman

Voice [Voices] – Brenda Bryant, Margaret Branch, Patricia Smith

Recorded at Van Gelder Studios

Recorded July, September, 1971

An amazing album from Stanley Turrentine -- quite different than most of his other sessions for CTI, but in a really great way! Stan's playing here with arrangements from Deodato -- in a swirling, Brazilian jazz influenced mode that's similar to their work together with Astrud Gilberto on her CTI album -- save for the fact that this set's all instrumental, with Turrentine's tenor in the frontline! The sound is wonderful -- soaring, swirling, and plenty darn soulful when Stan's tenor comes into play -- and in a way, the album's almost an instrumental companion to the Gilberto CTI album. Instrumentation includes some great keyboards from Deodato and Richard Tee -- plus guitar from Eric Gale

Stanley Turrentine's stint with Creed Taylor's CTI label may not have produced any out-and-out classics on the level of the very best LPs by Freddie Hubbard, Hubert Laws, or George Benson, but the bluesy tenorist's output was consistently strong and worthwhile for all but the most stridently anti-fusion listeners. Salt Song was Turrentine's second album for CTI, and while it's perhaps just a small cut below his debut Sugar, it's another fine, eclectic outing that falls squarely into the signature CTI fusion sound: smooth but not slick, accessible but not simplistic. In general, keyboardist Eumir Deodato's arrangements have plenty of light funk and Brazilian underpinnings, the latter often courtesy of percussionist Airto Moreira. The first three cuts are the most memorable, beginning with a ten-minute exploration of the abrupt time signature shifts of Freddie Hubbard's "Gibraltar." Though a hard bop version might have returned to the theme a little less often, Turrentine's solo sections are full of ideas, befitting one of his favorite pieces of the period; plus, guitarist Eric Gale shines as both a rhythm and lead player. The traditional gospel tune "I Told Jesus" features Turrentine at his bluesiest and earthiest, with snatches of ethereal choir vocals floating up behind him. Milton Nascimento's title track, naturally, has the strongest Brazilian flavor of the program, and Turrentine skillfully negotiates its frequent shifts in and out of double time. The 1997 CD reissue also includes Nascimento's "Vera Cruz" as a bonus track. All in all, Salt Song has dated well, partly because the arrangements don't overemphasize electric piano, but mostly on the strength of Turrentine's always-soulful playing.

Tenor sax player Turrentine has often tried to gain commercial success with the help of trendy producers / arrangers. Here he is produced by Creed Taylor, and his arranger is Deodato, but the sound is not as Brazilian as you would expect. Only Milton Nascimento's "Salt Song" and the bonus track "Vera Cruz" (by Nascimento, too) have a Brazilian flavor. "Gibraltar" is a tune made quite famous by his frequent partner Freddie Hubbard, "I Told Jesus" has Gospel overtones, as you might expect.

As this is a CTI production, many outstanding musicians play in this album: Ron Carter, Billy Cobham, Airto Moreira, Richard Tee, Eric Gale, Hubert Laws ... , the usual suspects.

Glossy easy-listening jazz, much better than today's so-called smooth jazz, not challenging but nice as background music; there are times we need some, don't we ?

Stanley Turrentine - 1971 - Sugar

Stanley Turrentine

1971

Sugar

01. Sugar 10:00

02. Sunshine Alley 11:00

03. Impressions 15:30

Bass – Ron Carter

Congas – Richard "Pablo" Landrum

Drums – Billy Kaye

Electric Piano – Lonnie L. Smith, Jr.

Guitar – George Benson

Organ – Butch Cornell

Tenor Saxophone – Stanley Turrentine

Trumpet – Freddie Hubbard

Recorded at Van Gelder Studios

Recorded November, 1970

If ever there were a record that both fit perfectly and stood outside the CTI Records' stable sound, it is Sugar by Stanley Turrentine. Recorded in 1970, only three tracks appear on the original album (on the reissue there's a bonus live version of the title track, which nearly outshines the original and is 50 percent longer). Turrentine, a veteran of the soul-jazz scene since the '50s, was accompanied by a who's who of groove players, including guitarist George Benson, Lonnie Liston Smith on electric piano, Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, bassist Ron Carter, organist Butch Cornell, and drummer Billy Kaye, among others. (The live version adds Airto, flutist Hubert Laws, drummer Billy Cobham, and organist Johnny Hammond.) The title track is a deep soul blues workout with a swinging backbeat and the rhythm section fluidly streaming through fours and eights as Benson, Hubbard, and Turrentine begin slowly and crank up the heat, making the pace and stride of the cut simmer then pop -- especially in Hubbard's solo. This is truly midnight blue, and the party's at the point of getting really serious or about to break up. By the time Benson picks up his break, full of slick, shiny, warm arpeggios, the seams are bursting and couples are edging into corners. Butch Cornell's "Sunshine Alley" is a solid, funky groover, paced by organ and double fours by Kaye. Turrentine and Hubbard stride into the melody and keep the vamp in the pocket, riding out past the blues line into a tag that just revs the thing up even further. But the big surprise is in the final track, one of the most solidly swinging, from-the-gut emotional rides of John Coltrane's "Impressions" ever taken. Turrentine is deep inside his horn, ringing out in legato with everything he has -- and it is considerable. Ron Carter's bass playing flows through the modal interludes, creating a basis for some beautifully intervallic invention by Benson and Smith by building a series of harmonic bridges through the mode to solos. It's hard to believe this is Turrentine, yet is could be no one else. If jazz fans are interested in Turrentine beyond the Blue Note period -- and they should be -- this is a heck of a place to listen for satisfaction.

Soul jazz with a blues flavour, great line up, and of course had to get it when I saw Freddie Hubbard plays trumpet. Stanley Turrentine is no slouch on saxophone either. Rounding out the rest of the band, Ron Carter, great bass player, George Benson, doing his thing on guitar, the ever talented Lonnie Liston Smith (another fave of mine) on electric piano, Butch Cornell on funky organ, Billy Kaye on drums, and some conga playing, ever so subtle, from Richard 'Pablo' Landrum. Side two is one long track to sink into. Side one, two tracks, starting out with 'Sugar' tied for the best track with the one long track on side two, in which Hubbard really shows off, in fact the main guys stretch it out, Benson, Turrentine getting long play. Love this album, and it sounds so good on vinyl. Jazz and classical music were meant for vinyl, best way to hear them. Especially good because this is an original, the gatefold pressing, there are lots of reissues but there is nothing like the original. CTI records fell out of favour at one point and these originals where cheap to get but then rappers started using them for samples and the price went back up. Got this at a vinyl fair, unfortunately the price was back up. No worries, I play this lots and love it, it oozes groove.

Yusef Lateef - 1976 - The Doctor Is In ...and Out

Yusef Lateef

1976 

The Doctor Is In ...and Out

01. The Improvisers 7:54

02. Hellbound 6:37

03. Mystique 7:37

04. Mississippi Mud 2:51

05. Mushmouth 6:30

06. Technological Homosapien 5:16

07. Street Musicians 2:54

08. In A Little Spanish Town (T'was On A Night Like This) 

Alto Saxophone, Tenor Saxophone, Flute, Oboe, Flute [Bamboo] – Yusef Lateef

Yusef Lateef (tracks: A1, B1, B3, B4)

Bass – Anthony Jackson, Robert Cunningham*, Ron Carter

Drums – Al Foster

French Horn – Jimmy Buffington*

Guitar – Billy Butler 

Keyboards – Kenneth Barron

Percussion – Dom Um Romao

Arp 2600] – Dana McCurdy

Trombone – Jack Jeffers

Trumpet – Joseph Wilder*, Leonard Goines

Tuba – Jonathan Dorn

In 1976, Yusef Lateef's as restless a spiritual seeker as there ever was in the field of music, revisited some of his earliest themes in the context of modern sonic frameworks: The Eastern modal and melodic frameworks of his Prestige sides, such as Eastern Sounds, Cry!/Tender, and Other Sounds, brought to bear in much more sophisticated, complex, and grooved-out ways -- after all, it had been 20 years or more. The groove referred to is funk and soul. Funk itself was mutating at the time, so Lateef's interpolation at the crossroads of all ports in the musical journey was not only valid in 1976, but also necessary. For this recording, he utilized an absolutely huge group of musicians, bringing them in for this or that part, or a sound, or a particular vamp. Some of those present were Kenny Barron, Ron Carter, Dom Um Romao, Al Foster, Billy Butler, Anthony Jackson, a five-piece brass section, and a synth player. Lateef, as always, was offering evocative glimpses of geographical, psychological, spiritual, and emotional terrain in his compositions, but not in predictable ways. There's the deep minor-key meditation on blues and evolving thematic variations on "Hellbound" that becomes a Latin funk tune; the airy, contemplative, and skeletal "Mystique," which may use a repeating rhythmic phrase but explores every inch of its margins via a string section and Lateef's flute solo; the smooth, urban, bluesy funk of "Mississippi Mud"; the completely out electronic musique concrète of "Technological Homosapien" that becomes a series of synth squeals and an erratically tumbling bassline; and the wonderfully warped mariachi variation (sung in white-boy English) that featured the band playing bluesy hard bop over an age-old recorded track on "In a Little Spanish Town." It's a weird way to end a record, but then, it's a weird and wonderful record.

One of Yusef Lateef's funkier albums for Atlantic -- and a record that features some great keyboard work from Kenny Barron! The liner notes indicate a current Lateef fascination with rhythm, and it tries to present this fascination in a way that implies a bigger intellectual approach to the music -- but heck, this is just some pretty darn nice 70s jazz funk, and Lateef's angular reed work sounds very nice next to the smoother electric backdrops! In addition to Barron's keyboards, the record also features guitar from Billy Butler, drums from Al Foster, and percussion from Dom Um Romao -- plus a bit of Arp from Dana McCurdy, which is mighty nice.

Sadao Watanabe - 1976 - I'm Old Fashioned

Sadao Watanabe

1976 

I'm Old Fashioned

01. Confirmation 4:54

02. Gary 4:30

03. 3:10 Blues 5:44

04. Episode 6:33

05. I Concentrate On You 5:55

06. Chelsea Bridge 5:48

07. I'm Old Fashioned 8:06

08. One For C 2:33

Alto Saxophone, Flute – Sadao Watanabe

Bass – Ron Carter

Drums – Tony Williams

Piano – Hank Jones

Recorded on May 21, 1976.

A surprising title – given that Sadao Watanabe was really stretching out a lot in the early 70s – but a fitting one too, as the set's a nice back-to-basics date from the amazing Japanese saxophonist! Sadao's working here with the Great Jazz Trio of Hank Jones on piano, Ron Carter on bass, and Tony Williams on drums – a swingingly solid combo who really make things cook, even in a small space – sounding almost better here when topped by Watanabe's sharp-edged alto lines than on their own albums of the time! Sadao also plays a bit of flute, which is really a treat!

Sunbirds - 1973 - Zagara

Sunbirds

1973

Zagara

01. My Dear Groovin
02. I Don't Need
03. African Sun
04. Fire Dance
05. Homecoming
06. Ocean Song
07. Stillpointing
08. Zagara

Ferdinand Povel/ fl
Leczek Zadlo/ fl
Lucas Costa/ gtr
Rafael Weber/ gtr
Fritz Pauer/ p
Jimmy Woode/ dbl b
Ron Carter/ dbl.b
Norman Tolbert/ perc,
Klaus Weiss/ dr

Originally released in 1973, as this was the short-lived jazz / fusion collective's second and final lp. About as good as their first self-titled record (see my review) also reissued by the Garden Of Delights label. Tunes here that I liked the most were the -almost- ethnic-sounding "Fire Dance", the laid-back "Homecoming", the well-received "My Dear Groovin" and the eleven-minute [somewhat inventive, one might say] "African Sun" with some really great flute playing featured. Might possibly appeal to of Epidaurus, Can or Pierre Moerlen's Gong. Also available on vinyl lp from Garden Of Delights.

Wayne Shorter - 1970 - Moto Grosso Feio

Wayne Shorter

1970

Moto Grosso Feio

01. Moto Grosso Feio (12:25)
02. Montezuma (7:50)
03. Antiqua (5:20)
04. Vera Cruz (5:05)
05. Iska (11:20)

Wayne Shorter / tenor & soprano saxophones
John McLaughlin / 12-string guitar
Dave Holland / acoustic guitar, bass
Ron Carter / double bass, cello
Chick Corea / marimba, drums, percussion
Micheline Pelzer / drums, percussion
Miroslav Vitous / bass - not confirmed

Recorded at A & R Recording Studio, New York City on April 3, 1970.

Weird how some sessions fit to make full album get lost or forgotten in the vaults of some of the biggest labels, Blue Note in this case. And just get a load of the participants to Shorter’s second session of that day (the first session had produced the tracks that would make Odyssey Of Iska): Corea & McL (ja, man!!), Carter & Holland (believe, man!!), with only the unknown being a Belgian teenage girl Michelin Prell (whom Shorter had known since infancy) to insure the percussions. Well, it’s when some contract dispute (his moving from Blue Note to Columbia, where he was already with WR) in 75 (five years after its recording) that this session was remembered and finally located (not labelled) and finally released under a quickly thought-out Brazilian-sounding album, just like most tracks on MGF bore Latin names.

OK, Shorter’s fascination with Brazilian music and language played a role (his wife was Portuguese) in these names, but you won’t find much music that’s really related to Latino music, except maybe the cover of Nascimento’s Vera Cruz. Indeed, most of the tracks are very much in the dissonant avant-garde and free-jazz mode, although it’s still fairly listenable to relatively profane ears (IMHO, at least), but please investigate, rather than take my words for granted. Opening on McL’s acoustic guitar, underlined by Carter’s cello, the 12-mins+ title track is an enchanting and relatively haunting stroll in the Matto Grosso forest, where Shorter’s sax puts a spell on us, before some obtrusive (for the calm climates) drums interventions leap out like hungry jaguar. While the calm returns quickly, the serenity is not as evident, now that we are aware of the menaces that can abound. Montezuma opens a tad more traditionally and might just be the most accessible track of the album, but it’s definitely no cinch either: Prell’s amazing and intuitive drumming is purposely up front in the mix like it would be in some of the best Sun Ra albums, and Carter’s cello shines. Great stuff

On the flipside, Antigua is again starting rather standard, but quickly digresses into dissonant territory, although there is again nothing Latino about the music. Nascimento’s Vera Cruz plunges directly in the inner realms of Shorter’s explorative mood, and there are again not much South American ambiances in there. The album closes on another version of Wayne’s Iska (his baby daughter’s name, Jessica in Hebrew), which is probably the more difficult piece on the album, with McL’s guitar often crossing the sanity borderline, but the amazing presence of the teenage girl Prell is probably the nail that closes the coffin down into the grave. Astounding stuff, but not for the faint-hearted, though.

Recorded on the same day as the superior Odyssey of Iska, this loose session (Wayne Shorter's final one for the Blue Note label) is quite unusual. Although Shorter sticks to his customary tenor and soprano, ianist Chick Corea plays marimba, drums, and percussion; bassist Ron Carter mostly performs on cello; electric guitarist John McLaughlin sticks to the 12-string guitar, and bassist Dave Holland also plays acoustic guitar, with drummer Michelin Prell rounding out the group. Not released until 1974, the music is influenced by early fusion and has its interesting moments although it often wanders. The group performs Milton Nascimento's "Vera Cruz" and four of Shorter's originals, of which "Montezuma" is the best-known.

Wayne Shorter - 1967 - Schizophrenia

Wayne Shorter

1967

Schizophrenia

01. Tom Thumb 6:15
02. Go 4:52
03. Schizophrenia 6:59
04. Kryptonite 6:25
05. Miyako 5:55
06. Playground 6:20

Recorded March 10, 1967 at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.

Alto Saxophone, Flute – James Spaulding
Bass – Ron Carter
Drums – Joe Chambers
Piano – Herbie Hancock
Tenor Saxophone – Wayne Shorter
Trombone – Curtis Fuller

Wayne Shorter was so important to the world of modern jazz starting around 1960 that it is hard to know where to start. As Richard S. Ginell puts it in Shorter's biography on AllMusic:

Though some will argue about whether Wayne Shorter's primary impact on jazz has been as a composer or a saxophonist, hardly anyone will dispute his overall importance as one of jazz's leading figures over a long span of time. Though indebted to a great extent to John Coltrane, with whom he practiced in the mid-1950's while still an undergraduate, Shorter eventually developed his own more succinct manner on tenor sax, retaining the tough tone quality and intensity and, in later years, adding an element of funk. On soprano, Shorter is almost another player entirely, his lovely tone shining like a light bean, his sensibilities attuned more to lyrical thoughts, his choice of notes becoming more sparse as his career unfolded. Shorter's influence as a player, stemming mainly from his achievements in the '60s and '70s, was tremendous upon the neo-bop brigade who emerged in the early '80s, most notably Branford Marsalis. As a composer, he is best known for carefully conceived, complex, long-limbed, endlessly winding tunes, many of which have become jazz standards yet have spawned few imitators.

After spending four years with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers from 1959 to 1963 (where he eventually became the musical director), Shorter joined Miles Davis' second classic quintet in 1964, staying with him until 1970. During his time with Miles, he recorded a series of albums for Blue Note that were all outstanding and some are even considered stone-cold classics (Speak No Evil, JuJu, Adam's Apple). Towards the end of this run of recordings came Schizophrenia in 1967, a fantastic record that shows off the "two" sides of Shorter - his straight ahead compositions, along with those that moved more into the free jazz and post bop realms.

Just check out the opener "Tom Thumb," which starts out sounding like a typical late-'60s soulful Blue Note number, before it soon shows itself to be a more advanced hard bop and adventurous piece [listen to "Tom Thumb" above]. It shows off how talented Shorter was at choosing sidemen to accompany him: Spaulding, Fuller and Hancock are extremely comfortable with this form of jazz. Fuller, as always, is just pure joy to listen to, he is as underrated as it gets among his fellow brass players of the day. Spaulding also shows just how important he was to this mid-to-late '60s era of Blue Note recordings: how many great sessions from this period did he add his muscular alto and delicate flute playing to? And, Herbie? Well, he's Herbie. Solid as a rock and always showing why he is deserving of all the accolades heaped upon him over the years. It, of course, didn't hurt that Shorter had been recording and touring with Hancock and Carter as bandmates for a few years by 1967, during his time with Miles Davis, forming one of the more memorable symbiotic quintets in the history of jazz.

Compare the soulful and bluesy "Tom Thumb" with the album closer "Playground," a track that fully shows off Shorter's notions of what free jazz can be, it's an intricate and unpredictable composition that illustrates not just how talented this group of players is, but also how much they are on the same page at this point in their respective careers [listen to "Playground" above]. Shorter's meaty and swinging solos are matched by Fuller and Spaulding in turn. The rhythm section of Hancock, Carter and Chambers sound like they are having the time of their lives stepping outside of the standard modern jazz that they would have been accustomed to playing most of the time.

The rest of the record falls somewhere between the opening and closing tunes, most easily classified as post bop, but with that soulful edge that defined much of Blue Note's classic sound. In retrospect, this album doesn't sound nearly as "out there" as it may have to some listeners when it was released in 1967, but what it does sound like is the work of a master at the peak of his powers - both as a player and a composer - who is joined by a group of like-minded and ultra-talented musicians who are thrilled to be along for the ride. It is an under-appreciated and overlooked classic from Shorter's first period of recordings as a leader.

Wayne Shorter was at the peak of his creative powers when he recorded Schizophrenia in the spring of 1967. Assembling a sextet that featured two of his Miles Davis bandmates (pianist Herbie Hancock and bassist Ron Carter), trombonist Curtis Fuller, alto saxophonist/flautist James Spaulding and drummer Joe Chambers, Shorter found a band that was capable of conveying his musical "schizophrenia," which means that this is a band that can play straight just as well as they can stretch the limits of jazz. At their best, they do this simultaneously, as they do on the opener "Tom Thumb." The beat and theme of the song are straightforward, but the musical interplay and solos take chances that result in unpredictable results. And "unpredictable" is the operative phrase for this set of edgy post-bop. Shorter's compositions (as well as Spaulding's lone contribution, "Kryptonite") have strong themes, but they lead into uncharted territory, constantly challenging the musicians and the listener. This music exists at the border between post-bop and free jazz -- it's grounded in post-bop, but it knows what is happening across the border. Within a few years, he would cross that line, but Schizophrenia crackles with the excitement of Shorter and his colleagues trying to balance the two extremes.

Wayne Shorter - 1965 - The All Seeing Eye

Wayne Shorter

1965

The All Seeing Eye

01. The All Seeing Eye
02. Genesis
03. Chaos
04. Face Of The Deep
05. Mephistopheles

Alto Saxophone – James Spaulding
Bass – Ron Carter
Drums – Joe Chambers
Flugelhorn – Alan Shorter
Piano – Herbie Hancock
Tenor Saxophone – Wayne Shorter
Trombone – Grachan Moncur III
Trumpet, Flugelhorn – Freddie Hubbard

Recorded on October 15, 1965.

“For the composer, it’s almost a decree that the chamber orchestra and string quartet are the height of individualism,” Wayne Shorter stated in 2002. “Composers like Gabriel Faure wrote things that were like stories, complex, but in color, and as you follow them, you can go away on a trip. Playing that music, you have a lot of companionship and exchange, and you don’t have one job. You’re supporting. Then you have something to say, someone disagrees, and the line you play saves the second violinist over there, then he comes or she comes and saves your ass! Then you go out in space. You go out into the unknown.”

Shorter’s remarks present an interesting perspective on The All Seeing Eye, a programmatic five-piece suite recorded in October 1965 on which the composer, 13 months after leaving the “sock ‘em dead” hard bop verities of Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers for the wide-open spaces of Miles Davis Quintet (Miles was five months into a protracted convalescence from hip surgery that had sidelined him from performing, giving Shorter much time to dream), convened an ensemble of best-in-class contemporaries to fulfill John Milton’s admonition to the “heavenly muse” in Paradise Lost to sing the story “In the Beginning how the Heav’ns and Earth/Rose out of Chaos,” while also offering a hip perspective on “Th’ infernal Serpent” who “Mov’d our Grand Parents in that happy State,/Favour’d of Heav’n so highly, to fall off/ From their Creator, and transgress his Will.”

Propelled by the nonpareil rhythm section of Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and Joe Chambers, each a master of compositional improvisation, and informed by consistently virtuosic soliloquies on Shorter’s sparse, pungent themes from the composer, Freddie Hubbard, Grachan Moncur III, and James Spaulding, all at the top of their respective games, The All-Seeing Eye offers nothing if not a master class in hardcore jazz expression. The soloists operate along team-first imperatives, following Shorter’s emotional roadmap while also fully expressing their personalities, both in the melodies they weave and the orchestral array of sounds and timbres that they elicit. In Nat Hentoff’s superb liner notes for the original issue, Shorter explicates his intents and purposes for each piece in abundant detail, more literally he has done before or since, so a blow-by-blow is not necessary. Still, it is useful to note that each piece sounds like an abstraction for a more fully fleshed-out work, a notion that Shorter confirmed in 2002, with such orchestral masterworks as Phantom Navigator, Atlantis, and High Life under his belt.

“The All Seeing Eye is not finished,” Shorter said. “When I was doing it then, I was thinking, ‘Okay, this is just for now, but this is only a framework.’ I realize that everything I’ve done has been bricks, building a larger architecture. Now I think there’s a part of us that knows everything. Music cannot stop wars, but, like the judge says, ‘What are your intentions?’ I want the music to carry the good intentions, the good dialogue, the impetus for people to start thinking things they never thought before.”

In many ways The All Seeing Eye feels like the most fleshed-out and comprehensive composition of Wayne Shorter's career. The playing is all uniformly stellar, the music veers into places and dark corners you don't expect jazz to necessarily go (see "Genesis" or the touches of Miles's "Spain" in the last track). It amounts to compelling evidence that Shorter deserves the recognition he receives next to the likes of Coltrane, Blakey, and Mingus, among other legends.

Wayne Shorter - 1964 - Speak No Evil

Wayne Shorter

1964

Speak No Evil

01. Witch Hunt
02. Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum
03. Dance Cadaverous
04. Speak No Evil
05. Infant Eyes
06. Wild Flower

Bass – Ron Carter
Drums – Elvin Jones
Piano – Herbie Hancock
Tenor Saxophone – Wayne Shorter
Trumpet – Freddie Hubbard

Recorded December 24, 1964 at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.

On his third date for Blue Note within a year, Wayne Shorter changed the bands that played on both Night Dreamer and Juju and came up with not only another winner, but also managed to give critics and jazz fans a different look at him as a saxophonist. Because of his previous associations with McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones, and Reggie Workman on those recordings, Shorter had been unfairly branded with the "just-another-Coltrane-disciple" tag, despite his highly original and unusual compositions. Here, with only Jones remaining and his bandmates from the Miles Davis Quintet, Herbie Hancock and Ron Carter on board (with Freddie Hubbard filling out the horn section), Shorter at last came into his own and caused a major reappraisal of his earlier work. The odd harmonic frameworks used to erect "Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum," with its balladic structure augmented with a bluesy regimen of hard bop and open-toned modalism, create the illusion of a much larger band managing all that timbral space. Likewise on the title track, with its post-bop-oriented melodic line strewn across a wide chromatic palette of minors and Hancock's piano pushing through a contrapuntal set of semi-quavers, the avant-garde meets the hard bop of the '50s head on and everybody wins. The loping lyric of the horns and Hancock's vamping in the middle section during Shorter's solo reveals a broad sense of humor in the saxophonist's linguistics and a deep, more regimented sense of time and thematic coloration. The set ends with the beautiful "Wild Flower," a lilting ballad with angular accents by Hancock who takes the lyric and inverts it, finding a chromatic counterpoint that segues into the front line instead of playing in opposition. The swing is gentle but pronounced and full of Shorter's singular lyricism as a saxophonist as well as a composer.

On the spectrum of jazz challenges, Wayne Shorter’s “Speak No Evil” appears to lean toward the easy side. The title track of the eminent saxophonist and composer’s 1964 masterpiece Speak No Evil sits in a comfortable and utterly approachable medium swing. Its primary theme is a series of long tones outlining placid, open-vista harmony. Its bridge resembles something from the notebook of Thelonious Monk – a simple staccato motif that stairsteps up and down, each phrase defined by strategic accents.

Yet as often happens in the music of Wayne Shorter, things are not entirely what they seem. There are layers. The notes of the melody tell one story; the chords nudge the musicians someplace else, a realm where theory lessons are of limited value and instinct matters more than intellect. To thrive in this place, the musicians have to relinquish the tricks of the jazz trade – the lightning-fast bebop runs, the killer licks they lean on to navigate chord changes. The tune, simple though it may be, comes with its own specific language – a trait it shares with many of Shorter’s pieces. Before diving into the conversation, the improviser has to discover the specific quirks of the form, its textures and temperament. How challenging is this? Even Shorter, who wrote the tune, sometimes struggles. He begins “Speak No Evil” by repeating a deftly tongued single note over and over, as though chopping his way into new territory. Shorter’s first few lines are simple declarations with a smidgen of blues in them – he’s not thinking about solo hijinks, he’s just trying to hang with the slalom course that is his creation. As he steers around tight curves, his lines coalesce into a kind of spontaneous lyricism – he’s singing through the horn, linking seemingly disconnected phrases into one (!) hauntingly memorable chorus. The subsequent soloists embrace his melody-first example when improvising: trumpeter Freddie Hubbard blows wistful then tender then fierce; pianist Herbie Hancock follows spry modal lines into quiet introspective corners.

This subtle “guiding” of soloists is a crucial component of Speak No Evil, and much of Wayne Shorter’s compositional output. The last of three monumental works Shorter recorded in 1964 (the others are Night Dreamer and Juju), this album frequently turns up on shortlists of essential jazz, and one reason is Shorter’s ability to coax those around him out of their comfort zones, and into new ways of playing. Shorter’s melodies encourage musicians to stretch, and so do his vividly imagined harmonic environments – playgrounds, really. No other jazz figure found such innovative ways to balance hard bop rhythmic fire against delicately loosened (yet, crucially, still tonal) harmony. And where some contemporaries built brainy maze-like contraptions, Shorter went straight for the heart, trusting that the poignancy he embedded in his structures would stir something similar within the soloists. The moods he explores here are deep and absorbing, far from typical jazz club fare: “Dance Cadaverous” offers a macabre tour of a haunted house (or, perhaps, a haunted mind), while the keening octaves of “Infant Eyes” sketch human vulnerability with a rare sustained empathy. Incredibly, these pieces become deeper and thicker in the solo passages, as each of the players gingerly endeavors to enhance the beauty already on the page.

That’s what every composer wants – the chance for the vague notions he scribbles on paper to take root, expand and blossom as music. Shorter managed that with astounding consistency over the years, creating a songbook that’s regularly described as the “mother lode” of jazz composition. That songbook has many riches – some are stone simple, some merely sound simple, and some are deceptively sophisticated and complex. It’s a vast trove of heady music, and the high-level sorcery at work within Speak No Evil is a great way to begin exploring it.

This is pure inner city Jazz, vintage Hardbop, intellectual, cultivated and super-cool, ideal music to be used as a soundtrack for a discourse on modern Western life.

The album is well-balanced, the choice of songs as well as that of the participating musicians. It simulates the Miles Davis quintet (Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter) minus Miles but plus Freddie Hubbard, and minus Tony Williams but plus Elvin Jones, so, what can you say. No downer here, but Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum, the ballad Infant Eyes and the waltzes Wild Flower and Dance Cadaverous are special highlights.

I wouldn't want to join in with the crowd saying "this is the perfect Shorter album", simply because there are more than one perfect Shorter albums. This one, however, may be the most representative for Shorter's specific mid-sixties Hardbop.

Leo Wright - 1962 - Suddenly the Blues

Leo Wright

1962

Suddenly the Blues

01. A Felicidad 2:37

02. Greensleeves 2:45

03. Gensel's Message 4:10

04. The Wiggler 2:55

05. Tali 4:44

06. Dionysos 3:07

07. Sassy Lady 4:24

08. Willow Weep For Me 4:21

09. Suddenly The Blues 5:07

Leo Wright - alto saxophone, flute

Kenny Burrell - guitar

Ron Carter - bass

Rudy Collins - drums

A record of incredible beauty from the great Leo Wright -- and one that we'd never part with at all! Wright's one of those excellent players from the 60s who never really gets his due -- largely because he was always hiding behind larger groups, and because he left the US in the decade for an extended stint in Europe. Still he cut some fantastic early work with both Dizzy Gillespie and Lalo Schifrin -- and this album captures him right during the peak of that early period!

Charles Tolliver And His All Stars - 1971 - Charles Tolliver And His All Stars

Charles Tolliver And His All Stars 

1971

Charles Tolliver And His All Stars

01. Earl's World 4:23
02. Peace With Myself 9:37
03. Right Now 5:47
04. Household Of Saud 6:06
05. Lil's Paradise 7:05
06. Paper Man 6:11

Alto Saxophone – Gary Bartz (tracks: B1 to B3)
Bass – Ron Carter
Drums – Joe Chambers
Piano – Herbie Hancock
Trumpet – Charles Tolliver

This was Charles Tolliver’s first album as a leader. The setting is unique only because his second Freedom-Black Lion album “The Ringer” and all of his subsequent albums on Strata-East featured his quartet Music Inc. with pianist Stanley Cowell. Here he is surrounded in quartet and quintet formats with a truly stellar cast of the leading players on the New York jazz scene.

Charles plays the role of leader, composer and trumpeter. But it is surely that last role that deserves the most attention. The trumpet is a brass instrument that leans toward a hard sound and staccato phrasing. Yet Tolliver is the quintessence of fluidity. While it may be undeniable that he has learned from his musical heritage and past trumpet masters, a trumpeter of such flow, tone, control, lyricism and creativity is, by definition, a major musician.

Charles Tolliver first came to the professional jazz scene in the mid-sixties, when he first met Jackie McLean. Under McLean’s leadership, he played on a number of Blue Note record sessions, some of which have yet to be released. He contributed original tunes to many of those sessions.

Within a couple of years, Tolliver was a well known figure in New York circles, playing and/or recording with Booker Ervin, Archie Shepp, Andrew Hill, Roy Ayers, Art Blakey, Sonny Rollins, Willie Bobo, Gerald Wilson, McCoy Tyner, Hank Mobley, and many others. His compositions were getting recorded by many artists. He gained his greatest recognition during a two year stint with the Max Roach quintet that also included Gary Bartz and Stanley Cowell.

There is also a previously unreleased bonus track of the song, “Repetition”, recorded by Charles for this LP which will be included on this new release of the album. This song was originally made famous by Charlie Parker’s LP With Strings.

This album is certainly an important and lasting document in light of the musicians involved and in light of its unique context for Charles Tolliver. But basically, it is just a great album to listen to.

At the time of this recording, Charles was part of a whole new generation of hardboppers who were coming up in a world of new ideas. Here he is surrounded in quartet and quintet formats with a truly stellar cast of the leading players on the New York jazz scene that features Gary Bartz on sax, Herbie Hancock on piano, Ron Carter on bass, and Joe Chambers on drums. This was Charles Tolliver’s first album as a leader. The setting is unique only because his second album “The Ringer” and all of his subsequent albums on Strata-East featured his quartet Music Inc.

The first moment of genius from trumpeter Charles Tolliver – a set that wasn't originally issued on the Strata East label, but which really set the tone for all the genius to follow on Tolliver's label! At the time of the record, Charles was part of a whole new generation of hardboppers who were coming up in a world of new ideas – a time when Coltrane, Shepp, and Ayler were transforming the left side of jazz – while other musicians were pushing the boundaries of more familiar modes too. Tolliver worked with Horace Silver, Max Roach, and others at the time – and here, he's a brilliant leader right out of the box – set up with an all-star combo that features Herbie Hancock on piano, Ron Carter on bass, and Joe Chambers on drums – perfect partners for exploring the new music that Charles brings to the record. Gary Bartz joins the group on the second half – another young player about to transform a generation – and the whole album's a dream all the way through, with the mix of soul and spirit of some of Woody Shaw's first records, or maybe Bartz's first few albums for Milestone.

Attila Zoller - 1979 - Common Cause

Attila Zoller

1979

Common Cause

01 Kaybee 6:26

02 Common Cause 5:14

03. Tshitar 7:48

04. Lady Love 7:10

05. Meet 8:20

Bass – Ron Carter

Drums – Joe Chambers

Guitar – Attila Zoller

Among the legions of neglected jazz guitar players, the late Attila Zoller is one of the best. Enja's reissue of Common Cause presents all the evidence needed to make the case. Bassist Ron Carter and drummer Joe Chambers round out this fine trio recording, one that suggests a reassessment of Zoller is long overdue.

Zoller has a big sound oddly reminiscent of Charlie Christian. They were both guitarists who loved the sound of the electric guitar, producing big round notes that seem decisive and firm in a nearly physical way. But Zoller's music was the music of a later era, the post bebop era in jazz; and, besides, he was also familiar with 20th century classical music. His trio mates are just as sophisticated. In addition to featuring Zoller's trio, Common Cause includes two long solo guitar tracks, with seven of the disc's eight tracks original Zoller compositions.

Highlights of the session include the trio's performance of the title track, where Zoller and Carter carry on a long intertwined dialogue with Chambers providing understated but tight accompaniment to these two very articulate voices. Zoller's memorable, slightly mid-eastern sounding opening solo on "Tshitar" is joined at various points by Carter's bowed and pizzicato bass. Carter then echoes fragments of Zoller's solo phrasing before kicking the whole trio into high gear. Throughout, Chambers' precise and agile drumming guides the music from below, as the tempo rapidly shifts several times, and stylistically the music moves into a more modernistic vein.

"Lady Love" provides a graceful shift into a more traditional ballad melody, and a lushly romantic one at that. The deft versatility of these musicians is notable; there's not much these three instrumentalists can't do together, Zoller's two long solo tracks sustain the high level of musicianship throughout the session. The clear, sharp sound quality of the reissue adds to the pleasure of this subtle and highly recommended trio recording.

Eugene McDaniels - 1970 - Outlaw

Eugene McDaniels

1970

Outlaw

01. Outlaw 5:00
02. Sagittarius Red 3:03
03. Welfare City 2:52
04. Silent Majority 4:10
05. Love Letter To America 3:57
06. Unspoken Dreams Of Light 6:40
07. Cherrystones 3:08
08. Reverend Lee 6:31
09. Black Boy 2:59

Bass – Ron Carter
Drums – Ray Lucas
Guitar – Eric Weissberg, Hugh McCracken
Percussion – Buck Clarke
Piano – Mother Hen

Under conditions of national emergency, like now, there are only two kinds of people - those who work for freedom and those who do not... the good guys vs. the bad guys. -Mc D.

With special thanks to Les McCann

Eugene “Gene” McDaniels first broke through in the early ‘60s with pop soul hits like “A Hundred Pounds of Clay.” But that was a different time...and a different man. By the time McDaniels recorded his 1970 album Outlaw, he had re-christened himself “the left rev mc d” and penned the soul-jazz protest anthem “Compared to What,” first recorded in 1966 by Les McCann and turned into a standard by McCann and saxophonist Eddie Harris on their 1969 album Swiss Movement. Indeed, the front cover of Outlaw left no doubt as to the radicalization of McDaniels’ politics. As Pat Thomas puts it in the liner notes that we have added to this reissue, “One sees Middle America’s worst nightmare coming to life. There’s the badass Reverend Lee himself holding a bible. Righteous Susan Jane in a jean jacket and black French resistance turtleneck is wielding a machine gun, and McDaniels’ then-wife Ramona appears as a soul sister with cross your heart Viva Zapata! ammo belts. In the forefront is a large human skull, just in case you didn’t already get the message.” The Nixon White House sure got the message; legend has it that the administration was so offended by the lyrics to “Silent Majority” (“Silent Majority is calling out loud to you and me from Arlington Cemetery”) that either Spiro Agnew or Nixon’s Chief of Staff personally called Atlantic, asking them to stop working with McDaniels. Politics aside, Outlaw offers a heady blend of soul, jazz, folk, and rock grooves played by Ron Carter, Eric Weissberg, and Hugh McCracken among others, with legendary producer Joel Dorn at the controls and cult favorite William S. Fischer operating as Musical Director. Oft-sampled, and never more relevant, Real Gone’s 50th anniversary release of Outlaw comes in a neon red vinyl pressing limited to 700 copies. And those liner notes we mentioned previously? They come with some pithy McDaniels quotes that confirm his revolutionary fervor remained unquenched till his death in 2011.

"What the fuck is this?” you may ask yourself? The answer may surprise you. First of all, this is a folk-pop album and McDaniels seems to be trying (successfully) at times to sound like Mick Jagger, and his band sounds like the Stones of Let It Bleed. Odd that a black man would apparently model his vocal performance on a white man who’d copped his singing from R&B singers, but it works. A bit convoluted perhaps, trust me he makes it work. One song reminded me strongly of an outtake from the musical Hair. It’s a weird album, but a very, very good one. It’s just next to impossible to categorize. It’s country-rock-funk-folk. It’s got a good beat throughout.

Unsurprisingly, Outlaw‘s politics are radical and deeply held. The lyrics—if not the music—are in-your-face, up-against-the-wall stuff. It’s interesting to note that McDaniel started off as a Jackie Wilson-type singer. His first hit record was the soul standard “A Hundred Pounds of Clay” and he worked with Snuff Garrett and Burt Bacharach early in his career. He’d also written the topical protest song “Compared to What” taking aim at Lyndon Johnson and his deeply unpopular Vietnam War, so Outlaw wasn’t completely out of the blue for the guy, but it was still unusual for just about ANY artist—Black or white—recording for a major label to affect such a radical image. Apparently, someone in the Nixon administration got wind of the track “Silent Majority” (“Silent majority / Is calling out loud to you and me / From Arlington Cemetery / To stand up tall for humanity”) and it was either Vice President Spiro Agnew or else Richard Nixon’s Chief of Staff who personally called Atlantic Records to complain, asking them to stop working with McDaniels.

Outlaw was produced by Grammy-winner Joel Dorn and arranged by William S. Fischer. Both had worked before with friends of McDaniels, like Roberta Flack (McDaniels wrote her “Feel Like Making Love” hit and other songs for the vocalist) and Les McCann and Eddie Harris (who turned his “Compared to What” into an electrifying jazz standard on their live Swiss Movement album in 1969). Their support is sympathetic to McDaniels’ goals, but you have to wonder what they made of such an almost deliberately uncommercial project. It’s one of those albums where you almost can’t believe it exists. I’m glad it does.

In the early- to mid-'60s, Gene McDaniels was a successful singing star whose carefully orchestrated records, full of production polish, split the difference between R&B and pop. He hit the charts with the singles "A Hundred Pounds of Clay," "Tower of Strength," and "Chip Chip" and was a popular performer on-stage and on television. However, McDaniels was a more thoughtful and politically conscious man than his hits would suggest, and after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., he left America to live in Sweden and Denmark and focus on songwriting. When he returned to the United States in 1970, he was billing himself as Eugene McDaniels, and his music took a sharp turn into a new direction. Few would recognize the guy who sang "A Hundred Pounds of Clay" and the artist who made 1970's Outlaw as the same person unless they were told, and even then they might not believe it. On the opening title track, a loose country-rock number about liberated women, McDaniels sounds remarkably like Mick Jagger (an interesting creative choice since McDaniels would record "Jagger the Dagger," an unflattering appraisal of the Rolling Stones' frontman, on his next album, 1971's Headless Heroes of the Apocalypse). Even when McDaniels' vocals more closely resemble his early hits, his music is radically different. Outlaw is a set of songs that exist in a place bordered by jazz, rock, and funk, and McDaniels' phrasing is expressive and adventurous in a way it had never been before. Most importantly, as a songwriter McDaniels had eagerly embraced the counterculture and the issues of the day, and Outlaw is full of smart, pointed lyrics that speak of race, class, and cultural division in a style that's articulate and just a bit theatrical, as if this were the original cast album to an off-Broadway revue about the turbulence of the early '70s. The musicians (who include Ron Carter, Hugh McCracken, and Ray Lucas) bring an unflashy virtuosity to their performances, and Joel Dorn's production is suitably clean and unobtrusive, giving the music a welcome sense of focus. At a time when African-American consciousness was exploding in new and provocative directions in popular music, Outlaw shows Eugene McDaniels was at the vanguard of this revolution, even if the album didn't find an audience until it became a cult item decades after the fact.

Alice Coltrane - 1970 - Ptah, The El Daoud

Alice Coltrane

1970

Ptah, The El Daoud

01. Ptah, The El Daoud 13:58
02. Turiya & Ramakrishna 8:19
03. Blue Nile 6:58
04. Mantra 16:33

Bass – Ron Carter
Drums – Ben Riley
Piano, Harp, Written-By – Alice Coltrane
Tenor Saxophone, Alto Flute – Joe Henderson
Tenor Saxophone, Alto Flute, Bells – Pharoah Sanders

Sometimes written off as an also-ran to her more famous husband, Alice Coltrane's work of the late '60s and early '70s shows that she was a strong composer and performer in her own right, with a unique ability to impregnate her music with spirituality and gentleness without losing its edges or depth. Ptah, The El Daoud is a truly great album, and listeners who surrender themselves to it emerge on the other side of its 46 minutes transformed. From the purifying catharsis of the first moments of the title track to the last moments of "Mantra," with its disjointed piano dance and passionate ribbons of tenor cast out into the universe, the album resonates with beauty, clarity, and emotion. Coltrane's piano solo on "Turiya and Ramakrishna" is a lush, melancholy, soothing blues, punctuated only by hushed bells and the sandy whisper of Ben Riley's drums and later exchanged for an equally emotive solo by bassist Ron Carter. "Blue Nile" is a case where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts; Coltrane's sweeping flourishes on the harp nestle in perfectly with flute solos by Pharoah Sanders and Joe Henderson to produce a warm cocoon of sound that is colored by evocations of water, greenness, and birds. Perhaps as strong as the writing here, though, are the performances that Coltrane coaxes from her sidemen, especially the horn players. Joe Henderson, who can always be counted on for technical excellence, gives a performance that is simply on a whole other level from much of his other work -- freer, more open, and more fluid here than nearly anywhere else. Pharoah Sanders, who at times with John Coltrane seemed like a magnetic force of entropy, pulling him toward increasing levels of chaos, shows all of the innovation and spiritual energy here that he is known for, with none of the screeching. Overlooked and buried for years in obscurity, this album deserves to be embraced for the gem it is.

OK, it’s not a Sanders album, but he is fundamental to its success. Musically and spiritually, singly or together, Sanders and Alice Coltrane, were on the same page and between them laid down the astral-jazz paradigm. Ptah, The El Daoud is one of three Impulse! albums released under the harpist/pianist’s leadership on which Sanders is featured (the others are 1968’s A Monastic Trio and 1971’s Journey in Satchidananda). On Ptah, The El Daoud, Sanders, on tenor saxophone, alto flute and bells, is heard alongside Joe Henderson, also on tenor saxophone and alto flute. A jewel of an album.

Pharoah Sanders - 1969 - Karma

Pharoah Sanders

1969

Karma

01. The Creator Has A Master Plan
02. Colors

Bass – Reggie Workman, Richard Davis (2) (tracks: A, B1), Ron Carter (tracks: B2)
Drums – William Hart (tracks: A, B1), Frederick Waits (tracks: B2)
Flute – James Spaulding (tracks: A, B1)
French Horn – Julius Watkins
Piano – Lonnie L. Smith Jr.
Tenor Saxophone – Pharoah Sanders
Vocals, Percussion – Leon Thomas

John Coltrane left behind a legacy of experimental and extremely spiritual work whose timeless quality still reverberates today. After his untimely death many poseurs came out to stake their claim as the next Coltrane. Many tried and many failed. Then in 1969 a former sideman of Coltrane's, Pharoah Sanders, stepped out from the shadow of his mentor and recorded Karma, which bore the soul of Coltrane's musical and spiritual passion.

Karma was released four years after his first record as a leader, Pharoah's First (1965). While working with Coltrane, Sanders began to develop an aggressive tone that ripped into an anarchaotic passion owing as much to Coltrane as Albert Ayler. His records as a leader did not always reflect the raw energy that would show up on Coltrane classics such as Ascension. His 1966 Impulse! debut, Tauhid, is a great example of this. Sanders let the work take on a generalized groove that worked with the mood created in each piece. In doing so, he created not only his best pre-Karma record, but one of his finest overall. After Coltrane's death, Pharoah worked with his widow Alice before setting to work on what would become Karma.

As with many records of the mid to late-'60s/early '70s, Karma is based primarily around the first of two album tracks, "The Creator Has a Master Plan." The track is one of the finest and best-executed and edited jams ever caught on record, though many critics would and will argue with that statement. The master plan of tracks on contemporaneous Miles Davis records like In a Silent Way or Bitches Brew was created by the editing and production efforts of Teo Maceo. Recordings like Free Jazz or Ascension, in contrast, worked by virtue of the way they tore down sonic and musical boundaries. Sanders incorporates these values into "The Creator," making it more than just a loose jam; no matter where Sanders goes, he is in total control. Even as the piece peaks into volatile eruptions roughly sixteen minutes in, he saddles the passion and works the track back into the initial groove that was comprised its first movement.

"Creator" comes in at 32:47 and wastes not a single note. Opening with a virtual rush of sound, it then quiets down and drops a brief riff from A Love Supreme. The tune then works itself into a groove that would later be known as acid jazz, working with Eastern percussion and allowing the bass to float close to the front of the mix. This first section relies on a modal two-chord structure that keeps the tone bouncy and meditative. At eight minutes Leon Thomas begins a chant-like vocal that varies lines from the mantra "The creator has a master plan, peace and love for every man." The vocals drop and the third movement becomes an unrelenting Coltranesque blitz that tears the mellow mood apart, only to combine the angst and mellowness in the next movement and settle back into a reprise of the first fourteen minutes.

"Colors," on the other hand, is a shorter and more structured piece that features some solid and well-executed chops. Again Leon Thomas sings, and Ron Carter takes over the duties of Richard Davis and Reggie Workman.

Love or hate the music of Pharoah Sanders, you cannot deny the man's vision after hearing this record. His is an absolute genius approach to arrangement and performance. Though Sanders would release many great records and even mellow his distinctive tenor sound down, Karma is a record that deserves to be heard by any serious jazz fan.

If Tauhid is Sanders’ best Impulse! album, Karma is his best known, thanks to the 33-minute track ‘The Creator Has a Master Plan,’ featuring vocalist Leon Thomas. In truth, Thomas’ chanted iterations of the track title tread too fine a line between the hypnotic and the monotonous, but it’s a small price to pay for the richness of everything else that’s going on, including the contributions of another new recruit, pianist Lonnie Liston Smith. Like Tauhid, Karma benefited from being produced by Impulse! house producer, Bob Thiele, then on the cusp of leaving the label, and has an audio quality sometimes missing from Sanders’ later Impulse! discs...