Graham Collier

Relook: A Memorial 75th Birthday Celebration
Jazz Continuum No #

During an historic career in composed and improvised music that lasted more than 55 years, British bassist/educator Graham Collier (1937-2011) was familiar with, and arguably mastered, every type of jazz as a player and writer. Yet, as demonstrated by the 20 selections of this career retrospective, organized by Collier himself before his unexpected death, his greatest achievements were in the realm of modern, straight-ahead big band Jazz

As the tracks recorded from 1963 to 2004 on this two-CD set illustrate, Collier’s skill was second to none. But qualifiers have to be added about modern, straight-ahead big band Jazz. That`s because the ever-changing, non-atonal music which Collier dedicated his professional life to was increasing being compromised by Jazz’s neo-cons, whose rightful rejection of fads such as fusion and hip-hop, also led to a codification of what they consider “real Jazz”. The bassist’s writings in books and articles strongly argued against these retrogressive blinders and listeners will surely note how his own musical work put a lie to narrow classifications.

Tynemouth-born Collier, who won a down beat scholarship to become the first British graduate of Boston’s Berklee School of Music and in1967, and was awarded the first-ever commission for Jazz from the Arts Council of Great Britain, early on was experimenting with building block arrangements and subtle counterpoint, as a rare Berklee-recorded track here shows. But more important to his future growth were sextet pieces such as “Down Another Road” and “Aberdeen Angus” which allowed a melding of Swing era lilts with churning Rock-styled rhythms without the results sounding sonically schizophrenic. Although there may be a bit of (self) mockery in the pieces which at points have harmonies which lean awfully close to those later used in the Austin Powers soundtrack, the composer has sufficient help fleshing out his concepts from three players who would be his stalwarts for many years to come: trumpeter and flugelhornist Harry Beckett, saxophonist Stan Sulzmann and drummer John Marshall. The last is inventively percussive without being self-indulgent; the reedist at this juncture exhibits a lighter variant on John Coltrane’s style; while Beckett, a veteran even then, offers up sharp-tongued and triplet-laden grace notes, which complement his romanticism in other settings.

“Workpoints”, which resulted for the Arts Council commission is arguably the most notable of pieces on what the set describes as “The Early Collier”. Incredibly enough the highly polished 34½-minute reading it gets here is actually an alternate version not previously released. A low tone man, likely related to his double bass skills, the composer’s exposition contrasts perpendicular vibe echoes and drum drags with a snorting bass ostinato and an overlay of staccato reed tones that open up for narrowed double tonguing from Sulzmann. As the quivering textures move upwards and downwards in pitch and volume, more parallels exist including saxophone call-and-response paired with bongo resonation; plus crying brass and writhing reed bites and slurs from Karl Jenkins’ oboe. Beckett’s flugelhorn textures in many capillary guises drive the middle section, with stop-tongued blurts at the top and the subsequent sequence introduced with notes in the brass instrument’s its highest pitches. Along the way his smooth textures are contrasted with whinnying from the other horns; are part of a two flugelhorn episode of mimicking and melding tones with Kenny Wheeler; and balance the narrative alongside intersecting brass and reed lines in canon-form. Although the swing is rubato, the continuum is paced by Collier’s bass, the percussionists and Jenkins piano comping. Finally – this is early Collier after all – a climax is reached with Mingusian slurs and shudders as well as brass work that evidentially relates to Maynard Ferguson excess. Latterly, a chiming vibe solo by Frank Ricotti maintains the theme’s individuality.

Built around counterpoint between Beckett’s mellow and flighty brass work and the laconic, metallic sound of Ed Speight’s guitar, “Adam” from 1975 is another Collier milestone. This intermezzo was one of the first he composed after being inspired by fine art, in this case the paintings of Barnett Newman, a preoccupation that would last until the end.

Represented by 11 selections from 1976 to 2004, the mature Collier’s composing on disc 2 appears to have paradoxically internalized some of the spaciousness of so-called New music as well as – through some sidemen allusions – heavier Rock, while reconfirming his Jazz roots. Tellingly “Symphony of Scorpions Part 2”, one section of a longer work influenced by the writings of Malcolm Lowry, is characterized by the tension engendered by low-frequency intermingling of piano coloration from Roger Dean, Webb’s, drum flanges and guitar distortions from Speight. The sequence’s momentum is expressed best in soprano saxophonist Art Themen’s pinched line which concludes with upturned vibrations.

At the same time, the extract from “The Hackney Five” from 1994 and 2001’s “Oxford Palms Open Blues and Ballad Two.” present other examples of Collier’s varied mature style. The former connects drum nerve beats, an electric bass intro and some whinnying alto saxophone lines into an undercurrent that leisurely evolves over vamps from the different sections. Meanwhile trombonist High Fraser outputs a chunky, booming solo that is both curvaceous and chromatic. Evoking William Faulkner’s books and location, “Oxford Palms” allows space for various solos to appear from within the gradually accelerating tutti cadenzas. With a modular drum beat, clinking piano runs and marimba chimes, baritone saxophone slurs and yearning alto sax lines make the greatest impression.

Finally there’s what could be termed Collier’s magnum opus, “Hoarded Dreams Part Two: Five Trumpets and a Baritone”. Recorded in 1981 with an all-star cast of British, Continental and North American improvisers, it’s subtitle alone appears both to refer to Ellington’s “Concerto for Cootie” and go him five better in the brass department. Helped along by guitarist John Schröder’s chording and cascading lines from Dean’s piano, as well as some fluttering alto flute from Geoff Warren, the slurs, blasts and brays of the sequential trumpet or flugelhorn solos shift among Ted Curson, Henry Lowther, Manfred Schoof, Tomasz Stańko and Wheeler. Individually expressed, the solos are alternately refined and rasping, revealing capillary cries and harmonies, while the rest of the band vibrates chromatically.

Throughout his life, a good portion of it spent in Jazz education, Collier was enough outside of the fashionable mainstream and away from the American Jazz power centres to have his compositions greeted with accolades that should be have his due. Hopefully this incomparable set of music will redress some of those slights and reveal what ever-evolving improvised music has lost with his demise.

--Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Relook: Disc 1- Down Another Road- the Early Collier: 1. Down Another Road 2. The [Berklee] Barley Mow 3. Crumblin’ Cookie 4. An Alternate Workpoints 5. Song Three Live 6. Mosaics 7. The Alternate Mosaics 8. Adam 9. Aberdeen Angus /// Disc 2- New Conditions - the Mature Collier: 1. New Conditions 2. Forest Path to the Spring 3. Symphony of Scorpions Part 2 4. The Day of the Dead 5. Hoarded Dreams Part Two: Five Trumpets and a Baritone 6. One By One the Cow Goes By Part Two. 7. The Hackney Five Extract 8.The Third Colour Groove 2 9. Oxford Palms Open Blues and Ballad Two 10. The Vonetta Factor 11. An Alternate Aberdeen Angus

Personnel: Relook: Disc 1: 1. Harry Beckett (flugelhorn); Nick Evans (trombone); Stan Sulzmann (alto and tenor saxophones); Karl Jenkins (oboe and piano); Graham Collier (bass) and John Marshall (drums) 2. Dusko Gojkovic (trumpet); Mike Gibbs (trombone); Richard Iannitelli (alto saxophone); Sadao Watanabe (flute); Mike Nock (piano); Gary Burton + 36-piece student big band 3. Beckett; Gibbs; Dave Aaron (alto saxophone and flute); Jenkins; Philip Lee (guitar); Collier and Marshall 4. Beckett; Kenny Wheeler and Henry Lowther (flugelhorn and trumpet); Gibbs, Chris Smith (trombone); John Mumford (trombone and cowbell); Sulzmann; Aaron (soprano, alto and tenor saxophone and flute); John Surman (baritone and soprano saxophones, bass clarinet and piano); Jenkins (baritone and soprano saxophones, oboe, piano); Collier; Marshall and Frank Ricotti (bongos and vibes) 5. Beckett; Derek Wadsworth (trombone); Bob Sydor and Alan Wakeman (soprano and tenor saxophones); John Taylor (piano); Collier and John Webb (drums) 6. Beckett; Sydor; Wakeman; Geoff Castle (piano); Collier and Webb 7. Same as #6 8. Beckett; Wadsworth; Roger Dean (piano); Ed Speight (guitar); Collier and Webb 9. Same as #1 //// Disc 2: 1. Beckett; Lowther and Pete Duncan (trumpet); Malcolm Griffiths (trombone); Wakeman (soprano saxophone); Mike Page (alto, soprano and tenor saxophones); Art Themen (soprano and tenor saxophones); Dean; Speight; Collier and Webb and John Mitchell (percussion) 2. Themen (soprano and tenor saxophones) and Speight (acoustic guitar) 3. Beckett; Lowther; Duncan;, Griffith; Themen, Page; Tony Roberts (soprano and tenor saxophones); dean, Collier, Webb; Mitchell 4. Beckett; Griffiths; Page, Themen; Wakeman; Dean; Speight; Roy Babbington (bass); Ashley Brown (drums and percussion); John Carbery (narrator) and Collier (conductor) 5. Lowther; Wheeler; Ted Curson (trumpet); Manfred Schoof and Tomasz Stańko (trumpet and flugelhorn); Griffiths; Eje Thelin and Conny Bauer (trombone); Dave Powell (tuba); Juhani Aaltonen (alto and tenor saxophones); Themen; Surman; Geoff Warren (alto flute and alto saxophone); Matthias Schubert (oboe and tenor saxophone); Dean (keyboard and piano); Speight and John Schröder (guitar); Paul Bridge (bass); Ashley Brown (drums and percussion) 5. Gabriel Garrick, Steve Waterman, Patrick White and Sean Griffith (trumpets); Matthew Colman, David Holt, Hugh Fraser (trombones); Bill Mee (bass trombone); Stephen Main (soprano saxophone); James Scannell, Dan Foster and Matt Stewart (alto saxophones); Matthew Morris (baritone saxophone); Christian Vaughan (piano); Peter James (electric piano); Nick Goetzee (guitar); Jon Noyce (bass); Matthew Skelton (drums) and Tom Hooper and John Machin (percussion) 7. Lowther; White; Waterman; Fraser; Mee; Andy Grappy (tuba); Geoff Warren (alto flute and alto saxophone); Chris Biscoe (alto clarinet and baritone saxophone); Themen; Mark Lockheart (soprano and tenor saxophones); Pete Saberton (piano); Ed Speight; Dudley Phillips (bass); John Marshall (drums) and Collier (director) 8. Simon Finch and Steve Waterman (flugelhorn and trumpet); Ed Sarath (fugelhorn); Fraser; Oren Marshall (tuba); Steve Main (alto, soprano and baritone saxophones); Karlheinz Miklin (alto flute, flute, soprano and tenor saxophones); Geoff Warren (alto flute, alto and soprano saxophones); Themen (soprano, tenor and bass saxophones); Dean; Speight; Andy Cleyndert (bass); Marshall and Collier (director) 9. Adrian Kelly (trumpet); Kieran Hurleyand Jeremy Greig (trombone); Matthew Savage (euphonium and trombone); Lindsay Vickery (soprano saxophone); Graeme Blevins (alto saxophone); Lee Buddle (baritone saxophone); Tom O’Halloran and Grant Windsor (piano); Stephanie Dean and Lucy Fischer (violins); Martin Payne (viola); Jenny Tingley (cello); Phil Waldron (bass); Hans Drieberg (drums and percussion); Steve Richter (percussion and marimba) 10. Beckett; Steve Waterman and Alex Bonney (flugelhorn and trumpet); Mark Bassey and Fayyaz Virji (trombones); Gideon Juckes (tuba); Themen; Biscoe; Warren; James Allsopp (bass clarinet and tenor saxophone); Dean; Speight; Jeff Clyne (bass); Trevor Tomkins (drums); Graham Collier (director) 11. Same as #/10

May 21, 2012

Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath

Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath
Fledg'ling Records FD-3062

Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath

Brotherhood

Fledg'ling Records FD-3063

Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath

Eclipse At Dawn

Cuneiform Rune 262

The Chris McGregor Group

Very Urgent

Fledg'ling Records FD-3059

Nearly 20 years after his death the musical importance of South African-born, pianist Chris McGregor and his pioneering multi-cultural big band Brotherhood of Breath (BOB) that operated both in the United Kingdom and the Continent is being repeatedly reconfirmed.

As these four recent CDs demonstrate, McGregor and his constantly shifting cast of musical characters were, especially during the early 1970s, involved in creating a third synthesis of sound. Newly arrived from South Africa, the sextet featured on Very Urgent – actually the inter-racial Blue Notes band that was forced to leave its Apartheid-ridden homeland a couple of years earlier – began by mixing a variant of Freebop with its native Kwela Township rhythms. A further sonic variant is more prominent on the other three CDs however – including the somewhat lo-fi, newly discovered live session, Eclipse at Dawn.

Expanding the Blue Notes to big band status – the pianist recruited most of the section men from the more raucous ranks of Britain’s burgeoning Free Jazz movement – BOB’s soloists’ frame of reference became Energy Music and Free Improv. This modulation was then was grafted onto the big band styling and Africanized beats that the band already projected. Finally with BOB introducing African instruments as well as themes to its program, a unique improv variant of so-called World Music was slouching towards birth with the group’s CDs.

There is impressive work throughout this series of discs, which can be divided chronologically and almost geographically. The 1968 combo work is separate from the big band(s) on the other CDs, while Eclipse at Dawn, recorded live in Berlin, allows the listener to compare extended live versions of some of the tunes recorded in the studio sessions that make up Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath and Brotherhood.

By 1968, another South African exile, tenor saxophonist Ronnie Beer had joined the original Blue Notes – trumpeter Mongezi Feza, alto saxophonist Dudu Pukwana, bassist Johnny Dyani and drummer Louis Moholo, plus McGregor. But the added horn only intensified the band’s resemblance to such Hard Bop combs of the day as The Jazz Messengers. As a matter of fact, with McGregor’s key splintering in a Monkish fashion throughout, Very Urgent could be a Mod-Era British younger cousin to Atlantic’s Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers with Thelonious Monk.

On these tunes, Dyani is still walking, McGregor outputs off-side fills, when he isn’t pounding on the keys, while on “Marie My Dear” – note the Monk homage in the title– Moholo’s regulation pops and scuffs derive from Blakey’s style, while Feza’s brassy asides and rasping triplets relate to the work of Freddie Hubbard and Lee Morgan.

Unlike the Messengers, the combo does play around with more abrupt tempo changes, not to mention polyphonic harmonies on “Don’t Stir the Beehive”. Plus the compositions curiously wavering, almost off-key heads often reflect McGregor’s background in Methodist hymns and Africa chants more than Afro-American Baptist church music. But when the soloists open up, as Feza does with bugle calls and rooster crows on “Heart’s Vibrations” and Pukwana does throughout with Tranesque, contrapuntal trilling, the parallel are still bop – admittedly Free Bop not Hard Bop – but at the same place in history as their American cousins. While the strength of the sounds isn’t compromised, the compositions of McGregor and others get a more notable showcase on the BOB CDs.

Minus Feza, the band on Eclipse numbers 11, but with Barbados-born trumpeter Harry Beckett added, and another South African-in-exile, Harry Miller in the bass chair. Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath, with Beer still on board, adds John Surman on soprano and baritone saxophone, Mike Osborne on alto saxophone and Beckett among others. Brotherhood is by a 12-piece group, including tenor saxophonist Gary Windo, who with trombonist Nick Evans contributed the “Funky Boots March”, which closes both that session and the live date from Berlin.

Slightly shorter than one minute with a parade-ground beat from Moholo, slide- whistle shrills from the reeds and a brassy fortissimo lead from that sounds like a piccolo trumpet, both performances are pretty much the same. Elsewhere however, the live situation allows BOB to stretch out on a couple of Pukwana lines “Nick Tete” and “Do It” which are also on Brotherhood; as well as on “The Bride”, which is poked and prodded for more than twice the length of time than the version on Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath.

In Berlin, the sound is also slightly distant – especially when it comes to Miller’s bass part – although there’s plenty of room for Pukwana’s improvisations. Moving from spetrofluctuation and glossolalia with emphasized squeaks, spikes and multiphonics on “The Bride”, the altoist demonstrates that his time-sense was sufficiently “free” to break apart a theme that was brand-new at the time. Expanding and inflating the melody, Pukwana soon has trombonist Malcolm Griffin double-tonguing and fluttering, with fellow bone man Nick Evans adding pointed fills behind both. Soon enough the tempo turns staccato and more intense without losing traditional big band-styled call-and-response from the individual sections, only to be nearly blown apart to fragments by Windo’s Aylerian screeching and hocketing lines.

The brassy postlude, encompassing contrapuntal vamps from the horns plus Moholo’s smashes and rough ruffs are present in the studio version as well. But this “Bride” is betrothed to Surman and McGregor. Both more African-sounding as well as more closely wedded to jazz, this variation includes the pianist’s fantasia of circular contrasting lines, as well as Surman’s piercing and breathy soprano saxophone augmentations. The British saxophonist, who would eventually drift away from such forceful soloing, reed-bites, tongue-stops and centres himself with straining altissimo as he plays. Yet as opposed to more original ideas from Windo and Pukwana on the live version, he appears very much in thrall to John Coltrane’s and Eric Dolphy’s influences.

On the different, earlier CD, the studio version of “Nick Tete” also seems to relate more closely to expected big-band sounds – as well as adding Calypso and Kwela echoes – than it does in Berlin. McGregor fans the keys; Pukwana adds honks and slides to his solo, but despite double-tonguing, Feza’s lead theme variation is only slightly left of centre.

Live however, “Nick Tete” climaxes with mass cacophony that bleeds right into the following track – McGregor’s appropriately title “Restless”. This postlude is carried along on a series of glissandi, then staccato pops from the composer, coupled with spectacular triple-stopping pulses from Miller. That tune ends with contrapuntal and antiphonal screams, peeps and sighs from the horns, although the scene had been set by “Nick Tete”. Its finale involves alternating ascending and descending harsh cross cries from the band as Moholo ruffs and bounces, and Beckett and Pukwana gradually shred the theme with vamping counterpoint. This follows section work that manages to keep the theme danceable while expressing it in adjacent keys and pitches, begins with Pukwana again showing his command of the material which he dissolves into split tones.

As for “Do It”, BOB does it live with a nearly symphonic overture of cross timbres from the brass and reeds. However the tune becomes even freer and more agitated during Alan Skidmore’s tenor saxophone solo that encompasses double, triple and flutter-tonguing and finger vibrato. Downside is the muddy recording which makes it sound as if McGregor is playing a tinny electric piano.

High frequency piano chording on the studio version of “Do It” – which is actually longer than the live version – confirms that McGregor’s piano is acoustic. Here the composition is layered with portamento high brass, mid-range trombone spurts, higher-pitched reeds and basso reeds lines. Together these sound tiers provide the tonal coloration upon which Feza’s improvisation depends as he uses lip flutters and percussive spits to limn the melody. When the theme shifts to piano comping, additional tinctures appear as Miller takes a contrapuntal bass solo.

Eclipse at Dawn’s other surprise is its title track, composed by Abdullah Ibrahim, anther South African exile who followed a parallel, but completely separate musical route to McGregor’s. On this nocturne, the Ellingtonian echoes which are mostly masked in McGregor’s own writing for the band come to the fore. Atmospheric in execution, Evans’ Lawrence Brown-like theme statement is in this context almost excessively formalist, with only sul ponticello asides from Miller keeping it from sounding overtly legato. Osborne’s split-tone response to Evans’ theme elaboration is abrasive, yet definitely Free Bop rather than Free Jazz. Still in context it sounds wildly “outside”, even though his cries ornament and color rather than reconstitute the melody.

Overall, the most memorable track on these BOB CDs is Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath’s “Night Poem”. A rare excursion into program music by McGregor, the nearly 21½-minute track is a definite funky precursor to World Music exoticism, since the composer plays African xylophone – which at points sounds like a kalimba – as much as piano, with Beer and Feza both featured on Indian flutes. Moholo adds some bell shaking, but happily the African echoes are soon subsumed by a steady andante pulse, curvaceously toughened by Miller four-square plucks. Pushing the fragile flute sound aside, plunger trombone lines and sandpaper-rough tenor saxophone spews – probably from Skidmore – move the theme to the horns and penultimately to a brass choir. With trumpets and trombones adding contrapuntal ornamentation and Moholo a discontinuous beat, the theme becomes tough enough to end with drum top smacks that aurally overshadow a final flute peep.

Introducing a tough Africanized sensibility to big band music and mixing it with the solo strengths of emerging Free Jazz is McGregor and the BOB’s lasting legacy. The value of these CDs is that on any of them you can experience these qualities expressed in high-class music and sound.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Urgent: 1. Marie My Dear/Travelling Somewhere 2. Heart’s Vibration 3. The Sound's Begin Again/White Lies 4. Don't Stir the Beehive

Personnel: Urgent: Mongezi Feza (pocket trumpet); Dudu Pukwana (alto saxophone); Ronnie Beer (tenor saxophone); Chris McGregor (piano); Johnny Dyani (bass) and Louis Moholo (drums and percussion)

Track Listing: Brotherhood: 1. Nick Tete 2. Joyful Noise 3. Think of Something 4. Do It 5. Funky Boots March

Personnel: Brotherhood: Mongezi Feza (pocket trumpet and Indian flute); Mark Charig (cornet); Harry Beckett (trumpet); Malcolm Griffiths and Nick Evans (trombones); Dudu Pukwana (alto saxophone); Mike Osborne (alto saxophone and clarinet); Gary Windo (tenor saxophone); Alan Skidmore (tenor and soprano saxophone); Chris McGregor (piano); Harry Miller (bass) and Louis Moholo (drums and percussion)

Track Listing: Breath: 1. MRA 2. Davashe's Dream 3. Bride 4. Andromeda 5. Night Poem 6. Union Special

Personnel: Breath: Mongezi Feza (pocket trumpet and Indian flute); Mark Charig (cornet); Harry Beckett (trumpet); Malcolm Griffiths and Nick Evans (trombones); Dudu Pukwana (alto saxophone); Mike Osborne (alto saxophone and clarinet); John Surman (soprano and baritone saxophones); Ronnie Beer (tenor saxophone and Indian flute); Alan Skidmore (tenor and soprano saxophone); Chris McGregor (piano and African xylophone); Harry Miller (bass) and Louis Moholo (drums and percussion)

Track Listing: Eclipse: 1. Introduction by Ronnie Scott 2. Nick Tete 3. Restless 4. Do It 5. Eclipse at Dawn 6. The Bride 7. Now 8. Funky Boots March 9. Ronnie Scott and Chris McGregor Sendoff and Applause

Personnel: Eclipse: Mark Charig (cornet); Harry Beckett (trumpet); Malcolm Griffiths and Nick Evans (trombones); Dudu Pukwana and Mike Osborne (alto saxophones); Gary Windo (tenor saxophone); Alan Skidmore (tenor saxophone); Chris McGregor (piano); Harry Miller (bass) and Louis Moholo (drums)

September 18, 2008

The Chris McGregor Group

Very Urgent
Fledg'ling Records FD-3059

Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath

Brotherhood

Fledg'ling Records FD-3063

Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath

Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath

Fledg'ling Records FD-3062

Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath

Eclipse At Dawn

Cuneiform Rune 262

Nearly 20 years after his death the musical importance of South African-born, pianist Chris McGregor and his pioneering multi-cultural big band Brotherhood of Breath (BOB) that operated both in the United Kingdom and the Continent is being repeatedly reconfirmed.

As these four recent CDs demonstrate, McGregor and his constantly shifting cast of musical characters were, especially during the early 1970s, involved in creating a third synthesis of sound. Newly arrived from South Africa, the sextet featured on Very Urgent – actually the inter-racial Blue Notes band that was forced to leave its Apartheid-ridden homeland a couple of years earlier – began by mixing a variant of Freebop with its native Kwela Township rhythms. A further sonic variant is more prominent on the other three CDs however – including the somewhat lo-fi, newly discovered live session, Eclipse at Dawn.

Expanding the Blue Notes to big band status – the pianist recruited most of the section men from the more raucous ranks of Britain’s burgeoning Free Jazz movement – BOB’s soloists’ frame of reference became Energy Music and Free Improv. This modulation was then was grafted onto the big band styling and Africanized beats that the band already projected. Finally with BOB introducing African instruments as well as themes to its program, a unique improv variant of so-called World Music was slouching towards birth with the group’s CDs.

There is impressive work throughout this series of discs, which can be divided chronologically and almost geographically. The 1968 combo work is separate from the big band(s) on the other CDs, while Eclipse at Dawn, recorded live in Berlin, allows the listener to compare extended live versions of some of the tunes recorded in the studio sessions that make up Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath and Brotherhood.

By 1968, another South African exile, tenor saxophonist Ronnie Beer had joined the original Blue Notes – trumpeter Mongezi Feza, alto saxophonist Dudu Pukwana, bassist Johnny Dyani and drummer Louis Moholo, plus McGregor. But the added horn only intensified the band’s resemblance to such Hard Bop combs of the day as The Jazz Messengers. As a matter of fact, with McGregor’s key splintering in a Monkish fashion throughout, Very Urgent could be a Mod-Era British younger cousin to Atlantic’s Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers with Thelonious Monk.

On these tunes, Dyani is still walking, McGregor outputs off-side fills, when he isn’t pounding on the keys, while on “Marie My Dear” – note the Monk homage in the title– Moholo’s regulation pops and scuffs derive from Blakey’s style, while Feza’s brassy asides and rasping triplets relate to the work of Freddie Hubbard and Lee Morgan.

Unlike the Messengers, the combo does play around with more abrupt tempo changes, not to mention polyphonic harmonies on “Don’t Stir the Beehive”. Plus the compositions curiously wavering, almost off-key heads often reflect McGregor’s background in Methodist hymns and Africa chants more than Afro-American Baptist church music. But when the soloists open up, as Feza does with bugle calls and rooster crows on “Heart’s Vibrations” and Pukwana does throughout with Tranesque, contrapuntal trilling, the parallel are still bop – admittedly Free Bop not Hard Bop – but at the same place in history as their American cousins. While the strength of the sounds isn’t compromised, the compositions of McGregor and others get a more notable showcase on the BOB CDs.

Minus Feza, the band on Eclipse numbers 11, but with Barbados-born trumpeter Harry Beckett added, and another South African-in-exile, Harry Miller in the bass chair. Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath, with Beer still on board, adds John Surman on soprano and baritone saxophone, Mike Osborne on alto saxophone and Beckett among others. Brotherhood is by a 12-piece group, including tenor saxophonist Gary Windo, who with trombonist Nick Evans contributed the “Funky Boots March”, which closes both that session and the live date from Berlin.

Slightly shorter than one minute with a parade-ground beat from Moholo, slide- whistle shrills from the reeds and a brassy fortissimo lead from that sounds like a piccolo trumpet, both performances are pretty much the same. Elsewhere however, the live situation allows BOB to stretch out on a couple of Pukwana lines “Nick Tete” and “Do It” which are also on Brotherhood; as well as on “The Bride”, which is poked and prodded for more than twice the length of time than the version on Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath.

In Berlin, the sound is also slightly distant – especially when it comes to Miller’s bass part – although there’s plenty of room for Pukwana’s improvisations. Moving from spetrofluctuation and glossolalia with emphasized squeaks, spikes and multiphonics on “The Bride”, the altoist demonstrates that his time-sense was sufficiently “free” to break apart a theme that was brand-new at the time. Expanding and inflating the melody, Pukwana soon has trombonist Malcolm Griffin double-tonguing and fluttering, with fellow bone man Nick Evans adding pointed fills behind both. Soon enough the tempo turns staccato and more intense without losing traditional big band-styled call-and-response from the individual sections, only to be nearly blown apart to fragments by Windo’s Aylerian screeching and hocketing lines.

The brassy postlude, encompassing contrapuntal vamps from the horns plus Moholo’s smashes and rough ruffs are present in the studio version as well. But this “Bride” is betrothed to Surman and McGregor. Both more African-sounding as well as more closely wedded to jazz, this variation includes the pianist’s fantasia of circular contrasting lines, as well as Surman’s piercing and breathy soprano saxophone augmentations. The British saxophonist, who would eventually drift away from such forceful soloing, reed-bites, tongue-stops and centres himself with straining altissimo as he plays. Yet as opposed to more original ideas from Windo and Pukwana on the live version, he appears very much in thrall to John Coltrane’s and Eric Dolphy’s influences.

On the different, earlier CD, the studio version of “Nick Tete” also seems to relate more closely to expected big-band sounds – as well as adding Calypso and Kwela echoes – than it does in Berlin. McGregor fans the keys; Pukwana adds honks and slides to his solo, but despite double-tonguing, Feza’s lead theme variation is only slightly left of centre.

Live however, “Nick Tete” climaxes with mass cacophony that bleeds right into the following track – McGregor’s appropriately title “Restless”. This postlude is carried along on a series of glissandi, then staccato pops from the composer, coupled with spectacular triple-stopping pulses from Miller. That tune ends with contrapuntal and antiphonal screams, peeps and sighs from the horns, although the scene had been set by “Nick Tete”. Its finale involves alternating ascending and descending harsh cross cries from the band as Moholo ruffs and bounces, and Beckett and Pukwana gradually shred the theme with vamping counterpoint. This follows section work that manages to keep the theme danceable while expressing it in adjacent keys and pitches, begins with Pukwana again showing his command of the material which he dissolves into split tones.

As for “Do It”, BOB does it live with a nearly symphonic overture of cross timbres from the brass and reeds. However the tune becomes even freer and more agitated during Alan Skidmore’s tenor saxophone solo that encompasses double, triple and flutter-tonguing and finger vibrato. Downside is the muddy recording which makes it sound as if McGregor is playing a tinny electric piano.

High frequency piano chording on the studio version of “Do It” – which is actually longer than the live version – confirms that McGregor’s piano is acoustic. Here the composition is layered with portamento high brass, mid-range trombone spurts, higher-pitched reeds and basso reeds lines. Together these sound tiers provide the tonal coloration upon which Feza’s improvisation depends as he uses lip flutters and percussive spits to limn the melody. When the theme shifts to piano comping, additional tinctures appear as Miller takes a contrapuntal bass solo.

Eclipse at Dawn’s other surprise is its title track, composed by Abdullah Ibrahim, anther South African exile who followed a parallel, but completely separate musical route to McGregor’s. On this nocturne, the Ellingtonian echoes which are mostly masked in McGregor’s own writing for the band come to the fore. Atmospheric in execution, Evans’ Lawrence Brown-like theme statement is in this context almost excessively formalist, with only sul ponticello asides from Miller keeping it from sounding overtly legato. Osborne’s split-tone response to Evans’ theme elaboration is abrasive, yet definitely Free Bop rather than Free Jazz. Still in context it sounds wildly “outside”, even though his cries ornament and color rather than reconstitute the melody.

Overall, the most memorable track on these BOB CDs is Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath’s “Night Poem”. A rare excursion into program music by McGregor, the nearly 21½-minute track is a definite funky precursor to World Music exoticism, since the composer plays African xylophone – which at points sounds like a kalimba – as much as piano, with Beer and Feza both featured on Indian flutes. Moholo adds some bell shaking, but happily the African echoes are soon subsumed by a steady andante pulse, curvaceously toughened by Miller four-square plucks. Pushing the fragile flute sound aside, plunger trombone lines and sandpaper-rough tenor saxophone spews – probably from Skidmore – move the theme to the horns and penultimately to a brass choir. With trumpets and trombones adding contrapuntal ornamentation and Moholo a discontinuous beat, the theme becomes tough enough to end with drum top smacks that aurally overshadow a final flute peep.

Introducing a tough Africanized sensibility to big band music and mixing it with the solo strengths of emerging Free Jazz is McGregor and the BOB’s lasting legacy. The value of these CDs is that on any of them you can experience these qualities expressed in high-class music and sound.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Urgent: 1. Marie My Dear/Travelling Somewhere 2. Heart’s Vibration 3. The Sound's Begin Again/White Lies 4. Don't Stir the Beehive

Personnel: Urgent: Mongezi Feza (pocket trumpet); Dudu Pukwana (alto saxophone); Ronnie Beer (tenor saxophone); Chris McGregor (piano); Johnny Dyani (bass) and Louis Moholo (drums and percussion)

Track Listing: Brotherhood: 1. Nick Tete 2. Joyful Noise 3. Think of Something 4. Do It 5. Funky Boots March

Personnel: Brotherhood: Mongezi Feza (pocket trumpet and Indian flute); Mark Charig (cornet); Harry Beckett (trumpet); Malcolm Griffiths and Nick Evans (trombones); Dudu Pukwana (alto saxophone); Mike Osborne (alto saxophone and clarinet); Gary Windo (tenor saxophone); Alan Skidmore (tenor and soprano saxophone); Chris McGregor (piano); Harry Miller (bass) and Louis Moholo (drums and percussion)

Track Listing: Breath: 1. MRA 2. Davashe's Dream 3. Bride 4. Andromeda 5. Night Poem 6. Union Special

Personnel: Breath: Mongezi Feza (pocket trumpet and Indian flute); Mark Charig (cornet); Harry Beckett (trumpet); Malcolm Griffiths and Nick Evans (trombones); Dudu Pukwana (alto saxophone); Mike Osborne (alto saxophone and clarinet); John Surman (soprano and baritone saxophones); Ronnie Beer (tenor saxophone and Indian flute); Alan Skidmore (tenor and soprano saxophone); Chris McGregor (piano and African xylophone); Harry Miller (bass) and Louis Moholo (drums and percussion)

Track Listing: Eclipse: 1. Introduction by Ronnie Scott 2. Nick Tete 3. Restless 4. Do It 5. Eclipse at Dawn 6. The Bride 7. Now 8. Funky Boots March 9. Ronnie Scott and Chris McGregor Sendoff and Applause

Personnel: Eclipse: Mark Charig (cornet); Harry Beckett (trumpet); Malcolm Griffiths and Nick Evans (trombones); Dudu Pukwana and Mike Osborne (alto saxophones); Gary Windo (tenor saxophone); Alan Skidmore (tenor saxophone); Chris McGregor (piano); Harry Miller (bass) and Louis Moholo (drums)

September 18, 2008

Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath

Eclipse At Dawn
Cuneiform Rune 262

The Chris McGregor Group

Very Urgent

Fledg'ling Records FD-3059

Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath

Brotherhood

Fledg'ling Records FD-3063

Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath

Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath

Fledg'ling Records FD-3062

Nearly 20 years after his death the musical importance of South African-born, pianist Chris McGregor and his pioneering multi-cultural big band Brotherhood of Breath (BOB) that operated both in the United Kingdom and the Continent is being repeatedly reconfirmed.

As these four recent CDs demonstrate, McGregor and his constantly shifting cast of musical characters were, especially during the early 1970s, involved in creating a third synthesis of sound. Newly arrived from South Africa, the sextet featured on Very Urgent – actually the inter-racial Blue Notes band that was forced to leave its Apartheid-ridden homeland a couple of years earlier – began by mixing a variant of Freebop with its native Kwela Township rhythms. A further sonic variant is more prominent on the other three CDs however – including the somewhat lo-fi, newly discovered live session, Eclipse at Dawn.

Expanding the Blue Notes to big band status – the pianist recruited most of the section men from the more raucous ranks of Britain’s burgeoning Free Jazz movement – BOB’s soloists’ frame of reference became Energy Music and Free Improv. This modulation was then was grafted onto the big band styling and Africanized beats that the band already projected. Finally with BOB introducing African instruments as well as themes to its program, a unique improv variant of so-called World Music was slouching towards birth with the group’s CDs.

There is impressive work throughout this series of discs, which can be divided chronologically and almost geographically. The 1968 combo work is separate from the big band(s) on the other CDs, while Eclipse at Dawn, recorded live in Berlin, allows the listener to compare extended live versions of some of the tunes recorded in the studio sessions that make up Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath and Brotherhood.

By 1968, another South African exile, tenor saxophonist Ronnie Beer had joined the original Blue Notes – trumpeter Mongezi Feza, alto saxophonist Dudu Pukwana, bassist Johnny Dyani and drummer Louis Moholo, plus McGregor. But the added horn only intensified the band’s resemblance to such Hard Bop combs of the day as The Jazz Messengers. As a matter of fact, with McGregor’s key splintering in a Monkish fashion throughout, Very Urgent could be a Mod-Era British younger cousin to Atlantic’s Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers with Thelonious Monk.

On these tunes, Dyani is still walking, McGregor outputs off-side fills, when he isn’t pounding on the keys, while on “Marie My Dear” – note the Monk homage in the title– Moholo’s regulation pops and scuffs derive from Blakey’s style, while Feza’s brassy asides and rasping triplets relate to the work of Freddie Hubbard and Lee Morgan.

Unlike the Messengers, the combo does play around with more abrupt tempo changes, not to mention polyphonic harmonies on “Don’t Stir the Beehive”. Plus the compositions curiously wavering, almost off-key heads often reflect McGregor’s background in Methodist hymns and Africa chants more than Afro-American Baptist church music. But when the soloists open up, as Feza does with bugle calls and rooster crows on “Heart’s Vibrations” and Pukwana does throughout with Tranesque, contrapuntal trilling, the parallel are still bop – admittedly Free Bop not Hard Bop – but at the same place in history as their American cousins. While the strength of the sounds isn’t compromised, the compositions of McGregor and others get a more notable showcase on the BOB CDs.

Minus Feza, the band on Eclipse numbers 11, but with Barbados-born trumpeter Harry Beckett added, and another South African-in-exile, Harry Miller in the bass chair. Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath, with Beer still on board, adds John Surman on soprano and baritone saxophone, Mike Osborne on alto saxophone and Beckett among others. Brotherhood is by a 12-piece group, including tenor saxophonist Gary Windo, who with trombonist Nick Evans contributed the “Funky Boots March”, which closes both that session and the live date from Berlin.

Slightly shorter than one minute with a parade-ground beat from Moholo, slide- whistle shrills from the reeds and a brassy fortissimo lead from that sounds like a piccolo trumpet, both performances are pretty much the same. Elsewhere however, the live situation allows BOB to stretch out on a couple of Pukwana lines “Nick Tete” and “Do It” which are also on Brotherhood; as well as on “The Bride”, which is poked and prodded for more than twice the length of time than the version on Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath.

In Berlin, the sound is also slightly distant – especially when it comes to Miller’s bass part – although there’s plenty of room for Pukwana’s improvisations. Moving from spetrofluctuation and glossolalia with emphasized squeaks, spikes and multiphonics on “The Bride”, the altoist demonstrates that his time-sense was sufficiently “free” to break apart a theme that was brand-new at the time. Expanding and inflating the melody, Pukwana soon has trombonist Malcolm Griffin double-tonguing and fluttering, with fellow bone man Nick Evans adding pointed fills behind both. Soon enough the tempo turns staccato and more intense without losing traditional big band-styled call-and-response from the individual sections, only to be nearly blown apart to fragments by Windo’s Aylerian screeching and hocketing lines.

The brassy postlude, encompassing contrapuntal vamps from the horns plus Moholo’s smashes and rough ruffs are present in the studio version as well. But this “Bride” is betrothed to Surman and McGregor. Both more African-sounding as well as more closely wedded to jazz, this variation includes the pianist’s fantasia of circular contrasting lines, as well as Surman’s piercing and breathy soprano saxophone augmentations. The British saxophonist, who would eventually drift away from such forceful soloing, reed-bites, tongue-stops and centres himself with straining altissimo as he plays. Yet as opposed to more original ideas from Windo and Pukwana on the live version, he appears very much in thrall to John Coltrane’s and Eric Dolphy’s influences.

On the different, earlier CD, the studio version of “Nick Tete” also seems to relate more closely to expected big-band sounds – as well as adding Calypso and Kwela echoes – than it does in Berlin. McGregor fans the keys; Pukwana adds honks and slides to his solo, but despite double-tonguing, Feza’s lead theme variation is only slightly left of centre.

Live however, “Nick Tete” climaxes with mass cacophony that bleeds right into the following track – McGregor’s appropriately title “Restless”. This postlude is carried along on a series of glissandi, then staccato pops from the composer, coupled with spectacular triple-stopping pulses from Miller. That tune ends with contrapuntal and antiphonal screams, peeps and sighs from the horns, although the scene had been set by “Nick Tete”. Its finale involves alternating ascending and descending harsh cross cries from the band as Moholo ruffs and bounces, and Beckett and Pukwana gradually shred the theme with vamping counterpoint. This follows section work that manages to keep the theme danceable while expressing it in adjacent keys and pitches, begins with Pukwana again showing his command of the material which he dissolves into split tones.

As for “Do It”, BOB does it live with a nearly symphonic overture of cross timbres from the brass and reeds. However the tune becomes even freer and more agitated during Alan Skidmore’s tenor saxophone solo that encompasses double, triple and flutter-tonguing and finger vibrato. Downside is the muddy recording which makes it sound as if McGregor is playing a tinny electric piano.

High frequency piano chording on the studio version of “Do It” – which is actually longer than the live version – confirms that McGregor’s piano is acoustic. Here the composition is layered with portamento high brass, mid-range trombone spurts, higher-pitched reeds and basso reeds lines. Together these sound tiers provide the tonal coloration upon which Feza’s improvisation depends as he uses lip flutters and percussive spits to limn the melody. When the theme shifts to piano comping, additional tinctures appear as Miller takes a contrapuntal bass solo.

Eclipse at Dawn’s other surprise is its title track, composed by Abdullah Ibrahim, anther South African exile who followed a parallel, but completely separate musical route to McGregor’s. On this nocturne, the Ellingtonian echoes which are mostly masked in McGregor’s own writing for the band come to the fore. Atmospheric in execution, Evans’ Lawrence Brown-like theme statement is in this context almost excessively formalist, with only sul ponticello asides from Miller keeping it from sounding overtly legato. Osborne’s split-tone response to Evans’ theme elaboration is abrasive, yet definitely Free Bop rather than Free Jazz. Still in context it sounds wildly “outside”, even though his cries ornament and color rather than reconstitute the melody.

Overall, the most memorable track on these BOB CDs is Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath’s “Night Poem”. A rare excursion into program music by McGregor, the nearly 21½-minute track is a definite funky precursor to World Music exoticism, since the composer plays African xylophone – which at points sounds like a kalimba – as much as piano, with Beer and Feza both featured on Indian flutes. Moholo adds some bell shaking, but happily the African echoes are soon subsumed by a steady andante pulse, curvaceously toughened by Miller four-square plucks. Pushing the fragile flute sound aside, plunger trombone lines and sandpaper-rough tenor saxophone spews – probably from Skidmore – move the theme to the horns and penultimately to a brass choir. With trumpets and trombones adding contrapuntal ornamentation and Moholo a discontinuous beat, the theme becomes tough enough to end with drum top smacks that aurally overshadow a final flute peep.

Introducing a tough Africanized sensibility to big band music and mixing it with the solo strengths of emerging Free Jazz is McGregor and the BOB’s lasting legacy. The value of these CDs is that on any of them you can experience these qualities expressed in high-class music and sound.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Urgent: 1. Marie My Dear/Travelling Somewhere 2. Heart’s Vibration 3. The Sound's Begin Again/White Lies 4. Don't Stir the Beehive

Personnel: Urgent: Mongezi Feza (pocket trumpet); Dudu Pukwana (alto saxophone); Ronnie Beer (tenor saxophone); Chris McGregor (piano); Johnny Dyani (bass) and Louis Moholo (drums and percussion)

Track Listing: Brotherhood: 1. Nick Tete 2. Joyful Noise 3. Think of Something 4. Do It 5. Funky Boots March

Personnel: Brotherhood: Mongezi Feza (pocket trumpet and Indian flute); Mark Charig (cornet); Harry Beckett (trumpet); Malcolm Griffiths and Nick Evans (trombones); Dudu Pukwana (alto saxophone); Mike Osborne (alto saxophone and clarinet); Gary Windo (tenor saxophone); Alan Skidmore (tenor and soprano saxophone); Chris McGregor (piano); Harry Miller (bass) and Louis Moholo (drums and percussion)

Track Listing: Breath: 1. MRA 2. Davashe's Dream 3. Bride 4. Andromeda 5. Night Poem 6. Union Special

Personnel: Breath: Mongezi Feza (pocket trumpet and Indian flute); Mark Charig (cornet); Harry Beckett (trumpet); Malcolm Griffiths and Nick Evans (trombones); Dudu Pukwana (alto saxophone); Mike Osborne (alto saxophone and clarinet); John Surman (soprano and baritone saxophones); Ronnie Beer (tenor saxophone and Indian flute); Alan Skidmore (tenor and soprano saxophone); Chris McGregor (piano and African xylophone); Harry Miller (bass) and Louis Moholo (drums and percussion)

Track Listing: Eclipse: 1. Introduction by Ronnie Scott 2. Nick Tete 3. Restless 4. Do It 5. Eclipse at Dawn 6. The Bride 7. Now 8. Funky Boots March 9. Ronnie Scott and Chris McGregor Sendoff and Applause

Personnel: Eclipse: Mark Charig (cornet); Harry Beckett (trumpet); Malcolm Griffiths and Nick Evans (trombones); Dudu Pukwana and Mike Osborne (alto saxophones); Gary Windo (tenor saxophone); Alan Skidmore (tenor saxophone); Chris McGregor (piano); Harry Miller (bass) and Louis Moholo (drums)

September 18, 2008

Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath

Brotherhood
Fledg'ling Records FD-3063

The Chris McGregor Group

Very Urgent

Fledg'ling Records FD-3059

Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath

Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath

Fledg'ling Records FD-3062

Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath

Eclipse At Dawn

Cuneiform Rune 262

Nearly 20 years after his death the musical importance of South African-born, pianist Chris McGregor and his pioneering multi-cultural big band Brotherhood of Breath (BOB) that operated both in the United Kingdom and the Continent is being repeatedly reconfirmed.

As these four recent CDs demonstrate, McGregor and his constantly shifting cast of musical characters were, especially during the early 1970s, involved in creating a third synthesis of sound. Newly arrived from South Africa, the sextet featured on Very Urgent – actually the inter-racial Blue Notes band that was forced to leave its Apartheid-ridden homeland a couple of years earlier – began by mixing a variant of Freebop with its native Kwela Township rhythms. A further sonic variant is more prominent on the other three CDs however – including the somewhat lo-fi, newly discovered live session, Eclipse at Dawn.

Expanding the Blue Notes to big band status – the pianist recruited most of the section men from the more raucous ranks of Britain’s burgeoning Free Jazz movement – BOB’s soloists’ frame of reference became Energy Music and Free Improv. This modulation was then was grafted onto the big band styling and Africanized beats that the band already projected. Finally with BOB introducing African instruments as well as themes to its program, a unique improv variant of so-called World Music was slouching towards birth with the group’s CDs.

There is impressive work throughout this series of discs, which can be divided chronologically and almost geographically. The 1968 combo work is separate from the big band(s) on the other CDs, while Eclipse at Dawn, recorded live in Berlin, allows the listener to compare extended live versions of some of the tunes recorded in the studio sessions that make up Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath and Brotherhood.

By 1968, another South African exile, tenor saxophonist Ronnie Beer had joined the original Blue Notes – trumpeter Mongezi Feza, alto saxophonist Dudu Pukwana, bassist Johnny Dyani and drummer Louis Moholo, plus McGregor. But the added horn only intensified the band’s resemblance to such Hard Bop combs of the day as The Jazz Messengers. As a matter of fact, with McGregor’s key splintering in a Monkish fashion throughout, Very Urgent could be a Mod-Era British younger cousin to Atlantic’s Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers with Thelonious Monk.

On these tunes, Dyani is still walking, McGregor outputs off-side fills, when he isn’t pounding on the keys, while on “Marie My Dear” – note the Monk homage in the title– Moholo’s regulation pops and scuffs derive from Blakey’s style, while Feza’s brassy asides and rasping triplets relate to the work of Freddie Hubbard and Lee Morgan.

Unlike the Messengers, the combo does play around with more abrupt tempo changes, not to mention polyphonic harmonies on “Don’t Stir the Beehive”. Plus the compositions curiously wavering, almost off-key heads often reflect McGregor’s background in Methodist hymns and Africa chants more than Afro-American Baptist church music. But when the soloists open up, as Feza does with bugle calls and rooster crows on “Heart’s Vibrations” and Pukwana does throughout with Tranesque, contrapuntal trilling, the parallel are still bop – admittedly Free Bop not Hard Bop – but at the same place in history as their American cousins. While the strength of the sounds isn’t compromised, the compositions of McGregor and others get a more notable showcase on the BOB CDs.

Minus Feza, the band on Eclipse numbers 11, but with Barbados-born trumpeter Harry Beckett added, and another South African-in-exile, Harry Miller in the bass chair. Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath, with Beer still on board, adds John Surman on soprano and baritone saxophone, Mike Osborne on alto saxophone and Beckett among others. Brotherhood is by a 12-piece group, including tenor saxophonist Gary Windo, who with trombonist Nick Evans contributed the “Funky Boots March”, which closes both that session and the live date from Berlin.

Slightly shorter than one minute with a parade-ground beat from Moholo, slide- whistle shrills from the reeds and a brassy fortissimo lead from that sounds like a piccolo trumpet, both performances are pretty much the same. Elsewhere however, the live situation allows BOB to stretch out on a couple of Pukwana lines “Nick Tete” and “Do It” which are also on Brotherhood; as well as on “The Bride”, which is poked and prodded for more than twice the length of time than the version on Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath.

In Berlin, the sound is also slightly distant – especially when it comes to Miller’s bass part – although there’s plenty of room for Pukwana’s improvisations. Moving from spetrofluctuation and glossolalia with emphasized squeaks, spikes and multiphonics on “The Bride”, the altoist demonstrates that his time-sense was sufficiently “free” to break apart a theme that was brand-new at the time. Expanding and inflating the melody, Pukwana soon has trombonist Malcolm Griffin double-tonguing and fluttering, with fellow bone man Nick Evans adding pointed fills behind both. Soon enough the tempo turns staccato and more intense without losing traditional big band-styled call-and-response from the individual sections, only to be nearly blown apart to fragments by Windo’s Aylerian screeching and hocketing lines.

The brassy postlude, encompassing contrapuntal vamps from the horns plus Moholo’s smashes and rough ruffs are present in the studio version as well. But this “Bride” is betrothed to Surman and McGregor. Both more African-sounding as well as more closely wedded to jazz, this variation includes the pianist’s fantasia of circular contrasting lines, as well as Surman’s piercing and breathy soprano saxophone augmentations. The British saxophonist, who would eventually drift away from such forceful soloing, reed-bites, tongue-stops and centres himself with straining altissimo as he plays. Yet as opposed to more original ideas from Windo and Pukwana on the live version, he appears very much in thrall to John Coltrane’s and Eric Dolphy’s influences.

On the different, earlier CD, the studio version of “Nick Tete” also seems to relate more closely to expected big-band sounds – as well as adding Calypso and Kwela echoes – than it does in Berlin. McGregor fans the keys; Pukwana adds honks and slides to his solo, but despite double-tonguing, Feza’s lead theme variation is only slightly left of centre.

Live however, “Nick Tete” climaxes with mass cacophony that bleeds right into the following track – McGregor’s appropriately title “Restless”. This postlude is carried along on a series of glissandi, then staccato pops from the composer, coupled with spectacular triple-stopping pulses from Miller. That tune ends with contrapuntal and antiphonal screams, peeps and sighs from the horns, although the scene had been set by “Nick Tete”. Its finale involves alternating ascending and descending harsh cross cries from the band as Moholo ruffs and bounces, and Beckett and Pukwana gradually shred the theme with vamping counterpoint. This follows section work that manages to keep the theme danceable while expressing it in adjacent keys and pitches, begins with Pukwana again showing his command of the material which he dissolves into split tones.

As for “Do It”, BOB does it live with a nearly symphonic overture of cross timbres from the brass and reeds. However the tune becomes even freer and more agitated during Alan Skidmore’s tenor saxophone solo that encompasses double, triple and flutter-tonguing and finger vibrato. Downside is the muddy recording which makes it sound as if McGregor is playing a tinny electric piano.

High frequency piano chording on the studio version of “Do It” – which is actually longer than the live version – confirms that McGregor’s piano is acoustic. Here the composition is layered with portamento high brass, mid-range trombone spurts, higher-pitched reeds and basso reeds lines. Together these sound tiers provide the tonal coloration upon which Feza’s improvisation depends as he uses lip flutters and percussive spits to limn the melody. When the theme shifts to piano comping, additional tinctures appear as Miller takes a contrapuntal bass solo.

Eclipse at Dawn’s other surprise is its title track, composed by Abdullah Ibrahim, anther South African exile who followed a parallel, but completely separate musical route to McGregor’s. On this nocturne, the Ellingtonian echoes which are mostly masked in McGregor’s own writing for the band come to the fore. Atmospheric in execution, Evans’ Lawrence Brown-like theme statement is in this context almost excessively formalist, with only sul ponticello asides from Miller keeping it from sounding overtly legato. Osborne’s split-tone response to Evans’ theme elaboration is abrasive, yet definitely Free Bop rather than Free Jazz. Still in context it sounds wildly “outside”, even though his cries ornament and color rather than reconstitute the melody.

Overall, the most memorable track on these BOB CDs is Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath’s “Night Poem”. A rare excursion into program music by McGregor, the nearly 21½-minute track is a definite funky precursor to World Music exoticism, since the composer plays African xylophone – which at points sounds like a kalimba – as much as piano, with Beer and Feza both featured on Indian flutes. Moholo adds some bell shaking, but happily the African echoes are soon subsumed by a steady andante pulse, curvaceously toughened by Miller four-square plucks. Pushing the fragile flute sound aside, plunger trombone lines and sandpaper-rough tenor saxophone spews – probably from Skidmore – move the theme to the horns and penultimately to a brass choir. With trumpets and trombones adding contrapuntal ornamentation and Moholo a discontinuous beat, the theme becomes tough enough to end with drum top smacks that aurally overshadow a final flute peep.

Introducing a tough Africanized sensibility to big band music and mixing it with the solo strengths of emerging Free Jazz is McGregor and the BOB’s lasting legacy. The value of these CDs is that on any of them you can experience these qualities expressed in high-class music and sound.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Urgent: 1. Marie My Dear/Travelling Somewhere 2. Heart’s Vibration 3. The Sound's Begin Again/White Lies 4. Don't Stir the Beehive

Personnel: Urgent: Mongezi Feza (pocket trumpet); Dudu Pukwana (alto saxophone); Ronnie Beer (tenor saxophone); Chris McGregor (piano); Johnny Dyani (bass) and Louis Moholo (drums and percussion)

Track Listing: Brotherhood: 1. Nick Tete 2. Joyful Noise 3. Think of Something 4. Do It 5. Funky Boots March

Personnel: Brotherhood: Mongezi Feza (pocket trumpet and Indian flute); Mark Charig (cornet); Harry Beckett (trumpet); Malcolm Griffiths and Nick Evans (trombones); Dudu Pukwana (alto saxophone); Mike Osborne (alto saxophone and clarinet); Gary Windo (tenor saxophone); Alan Skidmore (tenor and soprano saxophone); Chris McGregor (piano); Harry Miller (bass) and Louis Moholo (drums and percussion)

Track Listing: Breath: 1. MRA 2. Davashe's Dream 3. Bride 4. Andromeda 5. Night Poem 6. Union Special

Personnel: Breath: Mongezi Feza (pocket trumpet and Indian flute); Mark Charig (cornet); Harry Beckett (trumpet); Malcolm Griffiths and Nick Evans (trombones); Dudu Pukwana (alto saxophone); Mike Osborne (alto saxophone and clarinet); John Surman (soprano and baritone saxophones); Ronnie Beer (tenor saxophone and Indian flute); Alan Skidmore (tenor and soprano saxophone); Chris McGregor (piano and African xylophone); Harry Miller (bass) and Louis Moholo (drums and percussion)

Track Listing: Eclipse: 1. Introduction by Ronnie Scott 2. Nick Tete 3. Restless 4. Do It 5. Eclipse at Dawn 6. The Bride 7. Now 8. Funky Boots March 9. Ronnie Scott and Chris McGregor Sendoff and Applause

Personnel: Eclipse: Mark Charig (cornet); Harry Beckett (trumpet); Malcolm Griffiths and Nick Evans (trombones); Dudu Pukwana and Mike Osborne (alto saxophones); Gary Windo (tenor saxophone); Alan Skidmore (tenor saxophone); Chris McGregor (piano); Harry Miller (bass) and Louis Moholo (drums)

September 18, 2008

KENNY WHEELER

Song for Someone
psi 04.01

Epitome of the polite, quiet Canadian, trumpeter/flugelhornist Kenny Wheeler has now lived in Great Britain for more than a half century. During that time he’s gone from playing in large dance and bebop bands to working with international free music ensembles to creating a modified synthesis of all those influences as his own music.

This direct reissue of a 1973 LP may have been when it was first released the most conventional item on what was then guitarist Derek Bailey’s and saxophonist Evan Parker’s Incus label. Wheeler had already played free music with drummer John Stevens and was soon to begin an association with experimenters like American reedist Anthony Braxton and the German-based Globe Unity Orchestra. But except for a couple of tracks, the pieces he wrote for this date mostly meld his big band past with his moody, reflective streak.

That low-spirited attitude was artistically best reflected in the trio Azimuth he founded later in the 1970s with pianist John Taylor and vocalist Norma Winstone. SONG FOR SOMEONE’s present-day fascination comes from how Wheeler, who said “the musicians came first and then the music”, mixed explorers and mainstreamers without fissure. On one hand are free musicians like Bailey and Parker, percussionist Tony Oxley, trombonist Malcolm Griffin and saxist Mike Osborne. On the other are modern mainstreamers like Taylor, Winstone and a brass section that could have played similar licks on tunes Wheeler arranged for John Dankworth’s or Maynard Ferguson’s big bands.

To be honest, only one tune, the 15¼-minute “The Good Doctor” can be termed Free Jazz, and it’s also the only one where Griffin, Parker and Bailey all make an appearance. Parker also takes a characteristic solo filled with multiphonic trills on “Causes are Events”, though. But with that theme shaped more by Taylor’s springy, light-fingered electric piano fills and Winstone’s airy soprano -- not to mention horn riffs that could have been safely played by Toronto’s Boss Brass -- Parker’s reed interjections would have been linked to 1960s psychedelic freak outs by most in 1973.

“The Good Doctor” is the real -- free -- thing, however, and begins with a couple of minutes of squealing circular breathing from Parker and flat-picking from Bailey. Although Wheeler’s almost heraldic solo and the flattened cymbal work that introduce supple brass lines sashaying from one side to the other are pretty standard, soon one trombonist -- Griffith? -- breaks through. He double tongues while Taylor double times, and the trumpets riff out a chromatic counter theme. Exposing a big band vamp in full roar, the other bandmen then give space to hearty sax solo -- from Osborne perhaps -- that introduces intense, Booker Ervin-style honks, growls and squeals as Oxley knocks out powerful Elvin Jones-like rumbles and bounces. By the time the tune ends with a protracted, high-pitched brass crescendo, Wheeler has proven that he can write a composition that swings as much as it seeks.

Mostly characterized by brassy trills and chromatic leaps, a walking bass line and emblematic 1970s tinny electric piano work, the other large ensemble work is more closely allied to Dankworth (John) than Dixon (Bill). Someone does take a well-paced slurry trombone solo, and another trumpeter -- Wheeler himself? -- produces some bent. squealing notes on “Toot-Toot”. But that tune’s resemblance to John Coltrane’s “Cousin Mary” and the ballad that follows it makes clear that the majority of material could have been played by any well-constituted large group of the time.

Finally, Winstone’s lyrical soprano and light scatting and humming on “Nothing Changes” -- an unfortunate title for a date like this -- suggests Cleo Laine’s show biz-oriented singing with Dankworth’s band.

Most interesting historically, especially for proof of how creative Parker and Wheeler were at that juncture, SONG FOR SOMEONE is a valuable addition to Wheeler’s slim discography. But, especially in comparison to other Wheeler dates of that era, it shouldn’t be inflated to be more than it was mean to be -- a showcase for self-expression among friends.

--Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Toot-Toot 2. Ballad Two 3. Song for Someone 4. Causes are Events+ 5. The Good Doctor+* 6. Nothing Changes.

Personnel: Kenny Wheeler (trumpet and flugelhorn); Ian Hammer, Greg Bowen, Dave Hancock (trumpets); Keith Christie, Bobby Lamb, Chris Pyne, David Horler (trombones); Jim Wilson or Malcom Griffiths* (bass trombone); Alfie Reece (tuba); Mike Osborne (alto saxophone); Duncan Lamont, (tenor saxophone and flute); Evan Parker+ (tenor and soprano saxophones); Alan Branscombe (piano or electric piano); John Taylor: (electric piano); Derek Bailey* (guitar); Ron Mathewson: (bass); Tony Oxley (percussion); Norma Winstone (vocals)

April 26, 2004

GLOBE UNITY ORCHESTRA

Globe Unity ’67 & ‘70
Atavistic Unheard Music UMS/ALP 223 CD

Souvenirs of a time when “globe unity” meant more than the convergence of commercial or military interests, this CD of never-before-released tracks feature a small army of Euro improvisers luxuriating in the freedom promulgated by John Coltrane’s ASCENSION and The Jazz Composer’s Orchestra.

Formed in late 1966, following a Berlin Jazz Festival commission for founder/pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach, the Globe Unity Orchestra (GUO) evolved over the years from this wild-and-wooly Energy ensemble to one that joined other European large groups in a concern for compositions. Besides, many might find that these two pieces, initially taped for German radio, more exciting than what came from the band afterwards.

The more than 34-minute, 1967 performance, for instance, finds the less than a year old, 19-piece GUO taking full advantage of the era’s heady musical freedom. Roaring up and down the score is a literal who’s who of (in-the-main) German free jazzers, some of whom like saxophonist Peter Brötzmann -- here playing alto of all things -- bassist Peter Kowald and vibist Karl Berger (as an organizer/teacher) went on to greater and more varied expression. Some like reedman Willem Breuker, trombonist Albert Mangelsdorff and brassman Manfred Schoof turned to more conventional playing. A few musicians have since died and others have been lost in the mists of time.

In a composition made up of many climaxes, ending on an extended Wagnerian flourish, and which practically knocks over the listener with its sheer power, von Schlippenbach seems to be the leader only by osmosis. It’s pretty much every man for himself, spurred and taunted by a massed rhythm section of three percussionists, two bassists, a vibist, a tubaist and the pianist smashing a gong when the spirit moves him.

Especially impressive are Schoof soaring into the ozone layer with his cornet and high D trumpet, and Breuker puffing out some deep-dish baritone saxophone blats. Halfway through as well, Gunter Hampel’s flute and Willy Lietzmann’s tuba join for a minuet that suggests a rhinoceros sashaying with a crow. Additionally, the pianist sounds best two thirds of the way through, when he unleashes some space boogie-woogie, rather than at other places where he still seems in thrall to Cecil Taylor.

However with such a large aggregation and so many short solo peeping out of the dense musical mass, at times it’s hard to ascribe proper praise where it’s due. Is it Gerd Dudek or Heinz Sauer who takes the hairy-chested, Coltranesque tenor saxophone solo at the beginning; and does Hampel or Kris Wanders contribute bass clarinet bottom elsewhere? With everyone trying to contribute his two marks worth, identification become difficult.

Three years later, with the band members’ hair and beards grown even longer and wilder, the Germans are joined by Czech, Polish, French, Dutch and a whole contingent of British musicians -- most prominently saxophonist Evan Parker, guitarist Derek Bailey and drummer Han Bennink. With the section swelled by U.K. trombonists Malcolm Griffiths and Paul Rutherford, the almost 18-minute piece is more brassy and thanks to Dutchman Bennink and his German opposite number Paul Lovens, more percussive. Interestingly enough, though, except for some minor guitar feedback at the top and a small circuit of protracted saxophone excavating in the middle -- which could come from any one of the five saxophonists -- neither Bailey nor Parker seems to showcase any part of what would soon become an instantly identifiable persona. Instead the -- at times -- nine brasses assert themselves more than the other instruments.

Cleaner than many live recordings, but not sonically perfect, the disc boosts the GUO’s slim discography and offers a fresh and memorable look at the band in its formative, most experimental, years.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Globe Unity ’67 2. Globe Unity ‘70

Personnel: ’67: Manfred Schoof (cornet, high D trumpet); Jürg Grau, Claude Deron (trumpet); Jiggs Wigham, Albert Mangelsdorff (trombone); Willy Lietzmann (tuba); Gunter Hampel (bass clarinet, flute); Peter Brötzmann (alto saxophone); Kris

Wanders (alto saxophone, bass clarinet); Gerd Dudek, tenor and soprano saxophones, clarinet); Heinz Sauer (tenor and soprano saxophones); Willem Breuker baritone saxophone, clarinet); Alexander von Schlippenbach (piano, bells, gong, tam-tam); Karlhanns Berger (vibraphone); Buschi Niebergall, Peter Kowald (bass); Jacki Liebezeit, drums, tympani); Mani Neumeier, Sven-Åke Johansson (drums)

Personnel: ’70: Kenny Wheeler (trumpet, flugelhorn); Schoof (trumpet, flugelhorn, high D trumpet); Tomas Stanko, Bernard Vitet (trumpet); Malcolm Griffiths, Mangelsdorff, (trombone); Paul Rutherford (trombone, tenor horn); Niebergall (bass trombone, bass); Evan Parker (soprano and tenor saxophones); Michel Pilz (flute, bass clarinet, soprano saxophone); Dudek, tenor and soprano saxophones, flute); Sauer (alto, tenor and soprano saxophones); Brötzmann, tenor and baritone saxophones); von Schlippenbach (piano, percussion); Derek Bailey (guitar); Kowald (bass, tuba); Arjen Gorter (bass, electric bass); Paul Lovens (drums, percussion); Han Bennink, drums, shellhorn, dhung, gachi)

December 3, 2001

CHRIS MCGREGOR & THE BROTHERHOOD OF BREATH

Travelling Somewhere
Cuneiform Records Rune 152

Illustrating one of the appealing, yet little explored, tributaries of improvised music, this nearly 80 minute blast from the past presents British-South African pianist Chris McGregor's 12-piece Brotherhood of Breath (BOB) recorded live in a 1973 German gig.

Outgrowth of the racially mixed Blue Notes combo that, because of Apartheid, as forced to relocate from Africa to England in the early 1960s, BOB was an altogether more expansive project. With a nucleus of the original combo -- trumpeter Mongezi Feza, alto saxophonist Dudu Pukwana and drummer Louis Moholo as well as McGregor -- it welcomed other immigrants like South African bassist Harry Miller and Barbadian trumpeter Harry Beckett to the fold, and filled out the band with the cream of

BritImprov, here including saxophonists Evan Parker and Mike Osborne.

The result was a free-flowing melange of styles that echoed Township jive, Scottish missionary anthems, the freedom of Energy Music and the close attention to detail that characterized emerging British improvisers. Oh, and one shouldn't forget the ongoing big band tradition, which for these musicians meant what the Sun Ra Arkestra and the Jazz Composers Guild Orchestra were doing, as well as Count Basie's swing and Duke Ellington's early "jungle" band sound.

For an example, listen to Pukwana's "MRA", the lead track, which seems to be one part free jazz and the other African high life, courtesy of its composer and Feza, with the pianist playing ringmaster in the middle. As the rhythm section cleaves to the beat, one of the trombonists soars over the cacophony provided by the other horns, finally resolving his solo in a brisk bebop style. "Restless" is the proper title for the next tune since the band seems to roar into it without a break. As Miller holds the beat steady, McGregor introduces some Monkish interludes and Moholo indulges in some robust rhythmic drumming. Finally before a Pukwana-directed outside section, Beckett offers a muted Lee Morgan-style exploration of the tune.

Conversely, McGregor's "Wood Fire", the longest track, sounds as if it was being created by the Village Vanguard orchestra of the day, if that band ever exhibited freeform flourishes. First trombonist Nick Evans, then section mate Malcolm Giffiths -- who has more of a fondness for lip slurs -- worry the melody here, as the rest of the band builds up a full head of steam behind them. Alto lines jump from Osborne to Pukwana and back again with someone sounding like he's quoting "Sunshine of Your Love" and the trumpets weighing in with some Arkestra-like tuttis. Finally the piece ends on a massed low trombone note.

Other sounds that appear range from the African-gospelish "Ismite Is Might", which showcases Feza's high note trumpet, to the title tune, a light, swinging Ellington-via-Ra composition which shows how much McGregor, its composer, can extract from an out-of-tune piano. Surprisingly with players whose main commitment was to experimentation, the sax section riffs in unison like a four-piece Basie squad and the tune ends on a dime (or should that be a quid)?

Osborne's tone on his own "Think of Something" even suggests Latin saxophone stylings, not the British freebopper he was. Later, though, after Moholo beats out some carnival rhythms and McGregor some skittering piano, he changes course into a more orthodox bebop approach.

Perhaps the pleasant schizophrenia -- real in Osborne's case -- exhibited here sums up the reason for the band's relatively low profile. Never a fully free aggregation, ethnic enough to attract the Africanophiles, nor straight enough to give the swing crowd the warm fuzzies, it had to reach audiences through pure musical excellence.

That it had that quality is evident from this CD. It's just a shame that McGregor who died at 53 in 1990 isn't around to hear how well this historical document sounds.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. MRA 2. Restless 3. Ismite Is Might 4. Kongi's Theme 5. Wood Fire 6. The Bride 7. Travelling Somewhere 8. Think Of Something 9. Do It

Harry Beckett, Mongezi Feza, Marc Charig (trumpet); Nick Evans, Malcolm Griffiths (trombone); Mike Osborne, Dudu Pukwana (alto sax); Evan Parker, Gary Windo (tenor sax); Chris McGregor (piano); Harry Miller (bass); Louis Moholo (drums)

October 29, 2001