The Penguin Jazz Guide (166 page)

Greatly admired by other players, including Miles Davis, the Memphis-born saxophonist came through in a richly talented cohort of hometown players – Frank Strozier, Charles Lloyd, Phineas Newborn, Harold Mabern – and developed into a deceptively complex harmonist and challenging improviser. He was only briefly in Miles’s great quintet, following Coltrane, and his achievement there is still undervalued, as are his own recordings. He is a deceptively complex harmonist and challenging improviser.

Coleman made some interesting records for Theresa (now on Evidence), including the richly textured
Manhattan Panorama
, but he seemed the most neglected of the major-league tenor men at the end of the ’90s until Telarc threw him a line, and the promise of top-quality sound. The material is hardly unexpected, but George finds new things to do with ‘Lover’ and ‘My Funny Valentine’, roughening up the changes and investing ‘Valentine’ with a dark sobriety that banishes winsomeness. The band includes two old friends from Memphis, Mabern and Nasser, and the presence of Higgins at the kit guarantees a pungent swing. ‘Thou Swell’ is a duet for saxophone and drums, and ‘People Will Say We’re In Love’ is just by the rhythm section. Nothing definitive in these interpretations, just standards playing of the very highest rank.

ROY HAYNES
^&

Born 13 March 1925, Roxbury, Massachusetts

Drums

Praise

Dreyfus 36598

Haynes; Graham Haynes (c, flhn); Kenny Garrett (ss, as); David Sanchez (ts); David Kikoski (p); Dwayne Burno (b). May 1998.

Roy Haynes said (2004):
‘I heard “Morning Has Broken”, Cat Stevens, played on the radio and really liked it. When it was over, the DJ just said: “Praise!” and I thought that was a pretty good name for a record.’

Blessed with a terrific physique and natural good health, Haynes seemed to go from strength to strength as he entered his 70s, his exuberance undimmed, his musicianship
subtler with each passing year. Unlike Elvin Jones, he doesn’t dominate the bands he leads, but steers them generously from behind. As so often for players of this generation, Europe was often more responsive and it was the French Dreyfus label which took him up at this period. Haynes plays one of his most persuasive recorded solos on the closing ‘Shades Of Senegal’, a performance that is as expressive as it is rhythmically astute. The album covers every possible permutation, from solo percussion to septet, and at every level it is Roy who leads musically. Son Graham and the two saxophone-players each have interesting things to say, but it is the rhythm section, with Kikoski very much in the foreground, that makes things happen. Some of the selections, like John Carisi’s ‘Israel’, are less than ideally suited to this personnel, but ‘My Little Suede Shoes’, the Charlie Parker classic, and the traditional ‘Morning Has Broken’ are both sterling performances, and Roy has rarely sounded more gleefully in charge.

& See also
We Three
(1958; p. 226)

SATOKO FUJII

Born 9 October 1958, Tokyo, Japan

Piano

Kitsune-Bi

Tzadik TZ 7220

Fujii; Sachi Hayasaki (ss); Mark Dresser (b); Jim Black (d). May & November 1998.

Saxophonist Raymond MacDonald says:
‘Anybody who is lucky enough to play in Tokyo with Satoko not only experiences her endless generosity with time and energy but also realizes very quickly the huge affection and trust she has from the musicians around her.’

Classically trained Fujii and trumpeter/partner Natsuki Tamura have forged a powerful body of work which combines romantic abandon with free-jazz daring. They divide their time between Japan and New York, but record so frequently that it is hard to imagine them actually in transit. The influence of Paul Bley on Fujii’s work is unmistakable, though so, too, is the example of classical pianist Koji Taku, who gave up academic work at the age of 60 to play jazz. Stylistically, though, it’s Bley who determines much of the language and a 1994/1995 four-handed album is a fascinating study in creative influence.

Kitsune-Bi
was something of a breakthrough record for Fujii. Divided into two sessions, one of duets with the little-known but impressive Hayasaki (think Jane Ira Bloom on a scholarship to Nagoya), the other a brilliant trio with Dresser and Black. There is also a stunning solo piano piece, ‘Sound Of Stone’, which in itself is enough to establish Fujii’s remarkable pedigree. ‘Past Of Life’ with the trio follows her usual practice of mixing freedom with some very infectious grooves, leading to a hypnotic, almost trance-like effect that sustains interest all the way through. The trio-only record is, if anything, better still, a thoughtful but by no means pastel record very different from her large-scale pieces. The long title-piece comes first and dominates the rest, to its detriment, but reprogrammed it makes for a compelling, even compulsive listening experience. The only things against it as a representative Fujii work are that Namura isn’t involved on this occasion, and secondly the very idea that such an astonishing body of work could yield up one ‘typical’ record. She’s worth investigating, and rapidly becomes an addiction.

URI CAINE

Born 8 June 1956, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Piano

Gustav Mahler In Töblach: I Went Out This Morning Over The Countryside

Winter & Winter 910 046 2

Caine; Ralph Alessi (t); David Binney (as); Mark Feldman (vn); Aaron Bensoussan (oud, v); Michael Formanek (b); Jim Black (d); DJ Olive (elec, turntables). July 1998.

Uri Caine says:
‘In 1997, my first CD of Mahler arrangements received the Gustav Mahler International record award in Töblach amid some controversy. Many of the judges were upset that a jazz-influenced recording was even considered and made their displeasure known. When we were invited to play the following summer at the festival, many diehard Mahler fans protested and staged a walk-out while others greeted our music with enthusiasm. The CD is a live Italian radio recording of the concert; perhaps the controversy infused our playing with a special intensity.’

The son of academics (his mother is also a poet), he studied with Bernard Peiffer and later with George Rochberg and acquired an eclectic approach to composition and arrangement. Though there is a Herbie Hancock influence, much of his recorded work consists of bold reworkings of classical material. His first record,
Sphere Music
, was a typical debut, with just about everything thrown in: the Monk tributes hinted at in the title, avant-garde procedures, elements of klezmer and other Jewish musics (an enthusiasm shared with Don Byron, who was an important collaborator). Nothing much about the record or its successor,
Toys
, prepared Caine’s growing audience for the astonishing use of Mahler themes as ‘standards’.

Chosen to kick off Winter & Winter’s ‘New Edition’ imprint,
Urlicht
was an extraordinary feat of imaginative projection. The basic concept for the label is clearly modelled on ECM’s swing towards new music, though perhaps Stefan Winter is more interested in fusion and crossover experimentation than is Manfred Eicher. The notion that Mahler’s music, for much of the last two decades (and certainly before the popular advent of Górecki, Pärt,
et al
.) the only classical composer to appeal to a rock generation, might be adaptable to a jazz aesthetic is a pretty startling one. For the most part, the studio album works very well, not least because Caine refuses to ‘jazz up’ the source material. He takes themes from the first and second symphonies (including the ‘primal light’ theme from the ‘Resurrection’ Symphony), as well as songs from
Kindertotenlieder
and
Des Knaben Wunderhorn
, and turns them into open-ended, loose-woven melodic shapes that invite not so much harmonic improvisation as retexturing.

The live recording from Töblach (the composer’s summer retreat) of the same material is a revelation. From the tightly reined-in piano introduction to the funeral march from the Fifth Symphony, with its wry Beethoven reference and high harmonics from Feldman and the DJ, to the sweeping romanticism of ‘The Farewell’ from
Das Lied von der Erde
, the audience is taken on a journey that has little to do with musicological orthodoxy, but everything to do with thoughtful deconstruction. Caine intuits how much of Mahler’s music comes from folk sources and he hands over these famously sonorous themes to a wailing village band. The strange swoops of live electronics are a convincingly alien presence, hinting at birdcalls, spirit-possession, or merely creaking wheels and axles.

The two selections from
Kindertotenlieder
are exquisitely done. ‘Oft denk’ ich, sie sind nur ausgegangen’ is recast as a mournful duet for violin and trumpet, ever more distant and desolated; children call in the background. There are fresh interpretations of ‘Urlicht’, the Adagietto from the Fifth Symphony and songs from
Des Knaben Wunderhorn
and
Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen
. A remarkable conception.

CHARLES LLOYD
^&

Born 15 March 1938, Memphis, Tennessee

Tenor saxophone, flute

Voice In The Night

ECM 559445-2

Lloyd; John Abercrombie (g); Dave Holland (b); Billy Higgins (d). May 1998.

Charles Lloyd says:
‘This was my first ECM recording with Master Billy Higgins. The first day, we got caught in traffic two blocks from the studio. I got very agitated about the delay. Higgins suggested I cross my toes and say: “Yes, Charles; yes, Charles; yes, Charles.” I did and then jumped out of the car and walked the rest of the way. All of my recordings with Billy are precious testimony to our deep friendship.’

Lloyd gradually turned his back on jazz after the end of the ’60s. By the end of the following decade, the sabbatical was assumed to be permanent. His return to performance has been much discussed. Whether his return was instigated by Michel Petrucciani is now a matter of question. The fact is that he came back, first at a Blue Note event and then as an unexpected ECM signing, though Jarrett surely had a hand in that. The early albums for Manfred Eicher were fine, but they all now sound like way-stations, pilgrim moments.

As he passed his 60th birthday, Lloyd seemed to pause and take stock. Here, having seemed for many years to have turned his back on much of his past work, Lloyd revisits ‘Voice In The Night’ and the glorious ‘Forest Flower’, as well as covering Strayhorn’s ‘A Flower Is A Lovesome Thing’ and Elvis Costello’s and Burt Bacharach’s ‘God Give Me Strength’, which stays close to the original. Also, much as he once did with ‘Memphis Green’ and similar downhome numbers, he gives himself the space to blow righteously on ‘Island Blues Suite’.

This was also Lloyd’s first comeback recording with an all-American group (expat Holland notwithstanding) for almost three decades. And what a band it is! Higgins does very much the kind of job that DeJohnette did, a driving, innately musical beat, and he was to become Lloyd’s closest musical partner until his death in May 2001, making
The Water Is Wide
,
Hyperion With Higgins
and a very moving film by Dorothy Darr, which also yielded the duos on
Which Way Is East?
, two men wrapped up and embarked on quite different journeys towards God, but on the same road. Abercrombie and Holland bring their own insights, compounded of rock, free music and the latter-day atmospherics associated with the label’s core roster. ‘Forest Flower’ is a delightful re-creation, unfolding the song’s rich colours in a series of time-lapse shifts that don’t so much spark nostalgia for the original and its setting in a happier age as instil a sense of the timelessness and universality of this music.

& See also
Dream Weaver
(1966; p. 334)

JOE MORRIS
^&

Born 13 September 1955, New Haven, Connecticut

Guitar, double bass

A Cloud Of Black Birds

AUM Fidelity AUM 009

Morris; Mat Maneri (vn); Chris Lightcap (b); Jerome Dupree (d). June 1998.

Joe Morris says:
‘A friend in the business thought that my liner-notes were too personal. I explained that the music and the title were about the point of realization I had when I decided that I needed to be an artist. I reminded him about Coltrane and
A Love Supreme
and how personal that was. Personal is rare in the jazz world. It’s usually about the technique or the tradition or something.’

While Morris was attending a special school in the Boston area, as he movingly relates, he spent a lot of time alone watching starlings flock and fly outside his bedroom window. Their movement – patterned, complex, only seemingly chaotic – made a great impression on Joe, and some of that experience comes out in the densely packed music on ‘A Cloud Of Black Birds’. One senses that here Morris does something similar to the Black Mountain poets’ ‘composition by field’, where line and immediate detail is less important than constellations of sound, or on the analogy of the title, flock-movements. Reunion with Maneri sparks off a lot of shared experience, and their interaction, notably on the duo, ‘Renascent’, is close, intelligent and thoroughly sympathetic. The group tracks are inevitably denser in conception but no less powerful. The same language applies in the trio setting, except Morris is more obviously out front as a soloist. Here, Morris acknowledges a debt to the pianist and composer Lowell Davidson, whose advanced notational ideas involved colour imaging, use of light and extremes of concentration.