Ogun Records

Label Spotlight
By Ken Waxman

Nearly 40 years after it released its first disc – and after pressing about 40 LPs and 30 CDs – London-based Ogun Records is still chugging along, with managing director Hazel Miller maintaining it as a one-woman show. Strongly identified with the South African musicians who fled Apartheid for the United Kingdom during the 1960s as well as with the British innovators affiliated with them, Ogun puts out three to four CDs annually. The discs are a mixture of CD transfers of important LPs; newly recorded discs; plus never-before-released historical sessions.

Necessity was the mother of Ogun’s invention in 1974, initially by Miller and her then-husband, the late bassist Harry Miller (1941-1983). Born in Cape Town, Miller played with many bands in England, including Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath (BOB) big band, whose Live at Willisau became the fledging label’s first release. “Global record companies started to show a disinterest in European contemporary jazz and improvised music in the mid-1970s,” recalls pianist Keith Tippett. “So Ogun stepped forward to document and record the South Africans exiled in London and English musicians who were working together in ensembles too numerous to mention.”

Involved in many facets of the music scene, British-born Miller was managing BOB at the time, and “that’s how the tapes were offered to kick-start the label,” she recalls. “Chris [McGregor (1936-1990)] was keen for the success of Ogun and totally supportive.” Survival played a part too, since musicians needed records to promote their work. Dick Hodge, a friend and professor of African history, helped cover the initial costs, and organized a share portfolio to finance Ogun. Hodge also came up with the label name which is that of the Yoruba God of work and iron, while another friend created its distinct anthropomorphic logo. Hodge departed soon afterwards and since that time, courtesy of record sales, plus what Miller terms “an understanding bank manager”, Ogun has flourished.

Harry Miller’s role had been artistic director, which as Hazel Miller recalls often involved carrying “1,000 LPs up three flights of stairs to our home,” while she organized all administrative aspects of the label, as well as booking gigs, setting up concerts and doing promotion work for many of the affiliated groups. Although she and Miller subsequently split up, and he later died in an auto accident, Ogun’s course had been set.

“I often set up gigs which we then recorded,” Miller recalls of the label’s beginnings, leading to memorable discs such as saxophonist Mike Osborne trio’s Border Crossing – now half of the CD Trio & Quintet – and Ovary Lodge featuring Tippett/Harry Miller, vocalist Julie Tippetts and percussionist Frank Perry. Most early records were engineered by Keith Beal. Today, Miller says “I use recordings made at the time of the concert by BBC, studios sessions or recordings by individuals.”

Although most of the players recorded were in the South African-British Free Music axis, a few continental Europeans are represented as well. “The non-South African-releases resulted from being approached by those musicians and if there wasn’t anything in the pipeline and it fitted into our catalogue we produced them,” explains Miller “We were also pleased to add different music to the catalogue, because in many cases it was from musicians we knew and liked.”

Ogun’s meticulous accounting system hasn’t changed from years past either, she continues. “Each project is costed and the budget discussed and agreed upon with those involved.” With file copies of all the Ogun LPs still on hand Miller reports that “transition to CD wasn’t a problem … and they take up less room which is a bonus”. Although Ogun was semi-dormant for a time during the 1980s to prepare for the format change, Elton Dean’s The Bologna Tape, McGregor, Dudu Pukwana and Moholo’s Blue Notes for Johnny – part of the five-CD box set The Ogun Collection – and Moholo-Moholo’s Viva-la-Black appeared during the time. A substantial order from Disk Union, Ogun’s Japanese distributor for CD copies of Tippett’s big band Ark session and Soft Head’s Rogue Element, featuring saxophonist Elton Dean and bass guitarist High Hopper, “funded us nicely forward” and helped ease the transition to CD, she adds. “Digitalization is obviously a path to wander down in the future,” Miller notes, “but only the released CDs of archive material have been done so far.”

Over the years, Rogue Element and Ark have remained some of Ogun’s best-selling discs along with Dean’s Ninesense Happy daze/Oh! for the edge on CD, plus different CDs by Moholo-Moholo. Steady sellers on both LP and CD formats are sessions by BOB and the original South African combo, the Blue Notes, plus the Blue Notes’ The Ogun Collection.

“All over the world people can hear our heart’s vibrations because of Ogun”, exults Moholo-Moholo, who was featured on Live at Willisau in 1974 and continues to record for the label today. “We are so rich musically because Ogun stepped in to record us when times were tough. It’s still spreading the music to places where other recording companies did not.”

As with most small labels, distribution remains a problem, with gaps as local companies go in-and-out of business. Right now, notes Miller: “Ogun is distributed through Harmonia Mundi in the UK, Orkestra in France, Distrijazz in Spain and Portugal, IRD in Italy, Music by Mail in Denmark, No Man’s Land in Berlin, and Wayside Music, Downtown Music Gallery, Dusty Groove and Squidco in the U.S.

“And” she adds proudly, “at last I have a distributor in South Africa: Pretoria’s Mabitsela Music & Events.”

“For 37 years Hazel Miller has tirelessly worked to make possible the documentation of this passionate music,” notes Julie Tippets. “So today it’s here for everyone to hear”.

Continuing to issue new CDs means that even with its long history Ogun remains much more than a reissue label, insists Miller. Plus, like the recent Spiritual Knowledge and Grace capturing a nightclub gig of Moholo-Moholo, Pukwana and Dyani with American saxophonist Frank Wright, some future scheduled CDs consist of material recorded in the past, but never released. There’s another disc from the Blue Note’s sojourn in Holland, without Wright, but with McGregor for instance, plus a multi-disc McGregor project, the size or scope of which has to be decided. Among the new issues will be Moholo-Moholo’s concert at the 2010 London Jazz Festival

“Whilst there are still fans out there we shall continue to release archive music and new recordings,” says Miller with finality.

--For New York City Jazz Record December 2011

December 5, 2011

Elton Dean’s Ninesense

Suite
Jazzwerkstatt JW 107

Louis Moholo-Moholo/Dudu Pukwana/Johnny Dyani/Rev. Frank Wright

Spiritual Knowledge And Grace

Ogun OGCD 035

Prime, hitherto-unreleased slices of Jazz’s past, these CDs not only bring into circulation historically important live performances, but also confirm the skills of featured percussionist Louis Moholo-Moholo. One of the last surviving members of the many South African improvisers who left the country in the early 1960s because of Apartheid, Moholo, 71, still plays in fine form, and has returned to live in South Africa.

In 1979, 1981 and 1982 when these sets were recorded, Moholo – who added the second “Moholo” to his name following his mother’s death – and other SA expats were involved in different situations. No longer part of the cohesive Blue Notes band with which he had arrived in England in early 1960s, some players such as Moholo and saxophonist Dudu Pukwana regularly joined with pioneering British free improvisers in groups such as Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath, led by another ex-Blue Note, or other formations such as saxophonist Elton Dean’s Ninesense represented here. Meanwhile bassist Johnny Dyani, another former Blue Noter had moved to the continent.

Spiritual Knowledge And Grace is particularly noteworthy since Pukwana, Dyani and Moholo are captured on a rare one-off gig in a Netherlands club with tenor saxophonist Frank Wright. Known as “Rev” for his soulful playing, Wright was a first-generation New Thinger who had also moved to Europe for greater opportunities. The second CD is another matter entirely. Recorded at 1981’s Jazzwerkstatt Peitz, the closest thing to a Woodstock Festival that existed in what was then East Germany, the first track is an over-40 minute suite with Moholo’s drums powering a group of some of the era’s most accomplished British Freeboppers. Recorded at the same location the next year, “Natal” is different still. Here the drummer is part of bare-bones trio with two other United Kingdom-based expatriates: Barbados-born trumpeter Harry Beckett (1935-2010) and Cape Town-native, bassist Harry Miller (1941-1983).

With Miller and Beckett taking centre stage with elongated grace notes from the trumpeter and cerebral string-set anglings and staccato extensions from the bassist, the drummer’s chief function is encouragement; both percussively and verbally. Slightly older than the others, Beckett’s roughened grace notes, peeps and squeals are never less than tonic. He splutters out intense improvisational tropes throughout, but without straying too far from the melody. Miller on the other hand varies his slaps, walking and jabs with quick-popping and sul tasto scrubs. While operating in double counterpoint with the trumpeter, his technique reflects four-string advances that had taken place during the proceeding decade. Contributing to coloration and rhythmic thrust are Moholo’s drums, a presence every step of the way.

The drummer’s rhythmic skill is stretched even more on the two half-hour plus selections which make up Spiritual Knowledge And Grace. That’s because his beat is the only constant as the others introduce new textures throughout by switching instruments. Wright as well as Dyani plays bass at points, while both Dyani and Pukwana contribute piano patterns when needed. This multi-instrumentalism become particularly problematic during the nearly 40-minute “Contemporary Fire”, when the South Africans begin encouraging one another – tongue clicking and chanting – in Xhosa, although it does mean that the Tranesque reed overblowing heard is from the American. Wright’s disconnected tenor saxophone punctuation plus high-frequency squeals and flutters also improvise in tandem with similar tone extensions from Pukwana’s alto saxophone with each man reaching for higher-pitched notes as Dyani pounds piano variations behind them. It’s also Wright who most likely adds a trebly, diaphragm vibrated blues-swing line to his playing, tossing in split-second quotes as he trades off with the altioist, each offering staccato variation on the initial theme.

On his own Dyani offers tough flamenco-styled plucks, multi-fingered runs and arco slides, as Pukwana creates pressurized key-clipping piano runs and Wright wraps up with characteristic Gospel-and-Bop vibrations. Earlier his renal sax ejaculations contrast markedly with the altoist’s chromatic squeals. While the interacting reed trills may call to mind other tenor-alto partnerships like John Tchicai and Archie Shepp, here, at least, Wright glossolalia and split tones confirm that this native of the Southern U.S. may have been more influenced by musical voodoo then the native of Southern Africa who had closer knowledge of witch doctors. When the horns decorate the initial theme with intense phrases at different lengths, Dyani’s thumps and sul ponticello strains plus Moholo’s press rolls and cymbal accents keep the ragged interface from splintering and vanishing into the stratosphere.

Fortissimo layered solos from the six horns, alone and in teams, presents a similar organizational challenge on the other CD. But at least the vibrated reed lines and exploding grace notes from the brass are kept down to earth by a full rhythm section. Solid in his pacing as he is inspired in his soloing, Miller thickens the beat as much as Walter Page with the Basie band or Bill Crow with the Concert Jazz band would have done in similar circumstances. As for pianist Keith Tippett, the former-and-future experimenter sounds appropriately grounded. Throughout, he sluices from metronomic pulsing and merry-go-round key splatters to motivated single-note comping that could have come from Count Basie’s keyboard. As for the horns, multiphonic hocketing, animalistic shrieking and discordant vibrations share space with more common swing motifs. The frequent stop-time sections also give ample space to reed splatters, trombone guffaws, one mellow trumpet aside – from Beckett? – split tone squeals from Dean’s saxello alongside linear reed blending and brass fluttering.

Eventually a climax is reached once Alan Skidmore’s intense tenor saxophone solo and key-clipping from Tippett gives way to verbalized cat calls and retches from the band members, pushing the cacophonous call-and-response section work to a satisfying conclusion.

When the inspirational playing from the dozen players represented on both CDs is matched with the novelty of hearing these previously unknown sessions, it makes both valuable additions to all-encompassing collections of European contemporary Jazz.

--Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Spiritual: 1. Ancient Spirit 2. Contemporary Fire

Personnel: Dudu Pukwana (alto saxophone, piano, whistle and voice); Rev. Frank Wright (tenor saxophone, bass and voice); Johnny Dyani (bass, piano and voice) and Louis Moholo-Moholo (drums and voice)

Track Listing: Suite: 1. Ninesense Suite 2. Natal

Personnel: Suite: 1. Harry Beckett and Mark Charig (trumpets); Nick Evans and Radu Malfatti (trombones); Elton Dean (alto saxophone and saxello); Alan Skidmore (tenor saxophone); Keith Tippett (piano); Harry Miller (bass) and Louis Moholo (drums) 2. Beckett, Miller and Moholo

October 30, 2011

Dreamtime

Double Trouble
Reel Recordings RR018/019/020

Unbeknownst to most Jazz fans the musical influence of the South African Blue Notes combo and Brotherhood of Breath (BOB) big band extended much further into Jazz’s lingua franca than evidenced by the groups subsequently led by the original expatriates. Part of the appeal of Dreamtime, for instance, founded in 1981 by three Englishmen and two London-domiciled expatriates – one Italian and one American – is the many of the themes pulse with that mixture of Townships and experimental sounds which characterized the BOB.

At the same time Dreamtime was a dream project for improvisers because of the consistency of musicianship among the band members, as these three examples of their work indicate. Disc One from a 1984 Jazz Festival features the initial line-up of trombonist and chief composer Welshman Nick Evans; Brooklynite-turned-Londoner Jim Dvorak on pocket trumpet; Italian bassist Roberto Bellatalla plus Britons drummer Jim Lebaigue and alto saxophonist Gary Curson. All except for the drummer worked with different South African ensembles, with all the horn players in BOB, and Evans in one Soft Machine line-up that also featured alto saxophonist Elton Dean, who apparently worked with every one of the players at times. That’s the reason why the final disc, featuring the original band augmented by pianist Keith Tippett, a sometime Dreamtime member, is particularly affecting. It’s a DVD of the sextet playing at an Elton Dean Memorial in 2006. In contrast, the club date from 1991, which is Disc Two, could be termed Double Dreamtime. Here the original five members are joined by a homologue on the same instrument: trumpeter Kevin Davy; trombonist Paul Rutherford; saxophonist Paul Dunmall; bassist Marcio Mattos and drummer Mark Sanders; each of whom has extensive experience in British groups on their own or alongside different members of Dreamtime.

Including compositions by other BOB members like trombonist Radu Malfatti and bassist Harry Miller plus a group improv titled “Bushman’s Dance”, the quasi-South African inflections are strongest on CD1. The most common motif is a hard-hitting groove built on call-and response vamps that usually involve plunger work from Evans, smears from Curson and brassy insouciance from Dvorak. A piece such as “Duos/Dalbe 345”, composed by Malfatti, who long ago abandoned this style for microtonalism, has a head that could have been written for a South African band, and leaves enough space for individual expression. By the finale drum rolls evolve into parade-ground raps from Lebaigue with earlier variants based around a clean trumpet lead, widely vibrated double-tongued fluttering from the saxophonist and Evans’ guffawing glissandi. On the piece, Bellatalla’s brisk finger-styled line is the connection. This skill is showcased even more on “Traumatic Experience” and “Careful Driver”. The former is a semi-swing tune with Evans maintaining the moderato link between sectional polyrhythm from the bass and drum and staccatissimo heraldic trumpet and top-of-range sax lines. More of a Bellatalla showcase, the latter has a repeated bass line which expands into swift arpeggio runs with hesitant asides. Meanwhile strident peeps and squeaks keep the stop-time exposition linear.

Seven years later at a London club, the doubled personnel demonstrates pleasing multiphonics at points; but with two drummers and six horns elsewhere move Dreamtime’s harmonies closer to the swollen brassiness of groups such as Blood, Sweat & Tears and Chicago. Luckily High Life influences mated with some Iberian tarantella suggestions and solos in the Albert Ayler tradition prevent the group from losing itself in Pop-Jazz.

While other tunes may highlight gutbucket brass cries, hocketing reed slurs plus contrapuntal rhythmic shakes, two of the bassist’s compositions are more indicative of the magnified band’s style. Working off Dunmall’s pedal point smears and triplet laden brays from Dvorak and Davy, “Call the Devil” is expressed in polyrhythms and polyharmonies until the main Mediterranean-styled theme appears midway through. Fiesta-like brassy, yet moving from chromatic to broken octave, the accompaniment is characterized by a walking bass line, strokes and bounces from the dual drum sets and tremolo trumpeting. The final variant downshifts to a splintered tenor saxophone solo and door-knocking percussion work soaring beside a pile up of irregular grace notes from the other horns, and ends with Afro-Cuban vocal “umphs”.

Stop-and-go, contrapuntal and dyspeptic, “And So Tibet” moves from stacked altissimo reed ejaculations and anvil-like percussion wallops to an overture of tutti slides plus whinnies that scatter colors and rhythms every which way. Redirected towards an Aylerian parade-ground-like routine by bugling from one trumpeter, the rhythm undulates enough to open up more space for Dvorak’s pocket trumpet triplets which lead the other horns upwards into skyscraper tones. The finale features the high-pitched brass screeching on top of thumping bass lines and gradually fading with marching-band-like echoes.

As for the DVD, captured more than 15 years after the initial session, it’s more akin to a bagatelle or a visual souvenir than a major statement. In truth the lachrymose performance by the Dreamtime quintet and Tippett may be more valued by completists who wish to be caught up in the poignant moment. For others the two audio discs are preferable. They exhibit music from a group of improvisers who, while never reaching first rank, produce (d) high-class work nonetheless.

--Ken Waxman

Track Listing: CD1: 1. Trunk Call 2. Tip of the Iceberg 3. Careful Driver 4. Duos/Dalbe 345 5. Bushman’s Dance 6. Traumatic Experience CD2: 1. Sierra Maestra 2. Loopin’ 3. Frogs 4. Call the Devil. DVD: 1. Abide With Me 2. Trunk Call 3. Call the Devil 4. And So Tibet

Personnel: Jim Dvorak (pocket trumpet and voice); Nick Evans (trombone); Gary Curson (alto saxophone); Roberto Bellatalla (bass) and Jim Lebaigue (drums) plus on CD2: Kevin Davy (trumpet); Paul Rutherford (trombone); Paul Dunmall (tenor and baritone saxophones); Marcio Mattos (bass) and Mark Sanders (drums) plus on DVD: Keith Tippett (piano)

August 16, 2011

Elton Dean’s Ninesense

Happy Daze + Oh! For The Edge
Ogun OGCD 032

Keith Tippett Septet

A loose kite in a gentle wind floating with only my will for an anchor

Ogun OGCD 030

Although the principal lure of these two reissues may be the availability of prime slices of 1970s and 1980s British Free Jazz, unexpected revelations appear while listening. The facility of the session leaders and most sidemen on these discs by pianist Keith Tippett’s septet plus the ensembles led by saxophonist Elton Dean is widely known. But one musician whose talents seem to have slipped below the radar since that time is Welsh jazz trombonist Nick Evans.

Evans, who during those years was a valuable addition to bands ranging from bassist Graham Collier’s sextet, the Soft Machine, the Brotherhood of Breath (BOB) and alto saxophonist Dudu Pukwana’s Diamond Express, is an ardent foil on both discs. Throughout the four-part suite which makes up most of Tippett’s CD, his smears and plunger techniques punctuate the development of horn different strategies. At another point, he expresses himself with gospelish ejaculations, blending with the double-tonguing and sibilant stops of tenor saxophonist Larry Stabbins, best-known for his stints with the London Jazz Composers Orchestra. Similarly on the other CD, Evans often uses his chromatic smears or burnished tone elaboration to duet with Dean or Tippett.

Looser than the other session, and consisting of six tracks from a 1976 octet, and four from 1977 – which add Radu Malfatti as second trombonist – the entire Dean CD can be heard as a miniaturization of the work he and others were doing with BOB. Despite the presence of expatriate South Africans, drummer Louis Moholo and bassist Harry Miller, though, there are no overt influences from that country’s musics. Instead the emphasis is on jazz and blues, with Mongezi Feza’s “Friday Night Blues” the most obvious example.

A contrapuntal showcase it features Miller walking, concluding martial beats from Moholo and Dean stretching his alto tone into an approximation of Hank Crawford’s at his funkiest. Similarly the tempo on “Seven for Lee” quickens into unrelieved tension as low-pitched polyphony churns steadily, only parting long enough for a stuttering, musette-like solo from Dean as well as brassy stream-rolling blares from trumpeter Harry Beckett’s open horn.

Throughout, call-and-response strategies from the horns, Moholo’s blunt rolls and cymbal pops, plus connective piano vamps provide power to impel heavy-duty swinging, although the time is left elastic enough for the soloists’ full expression, alone or in formation. Tippett’s high-frequency key-fanning is matched with bowed bass lines for example; or braying brass blasts meet up with the pianist’s swirling and strummed chording.

“Forsoothe” is one interlude constructed out of strangled cries from the brass plus continuously moving squeaks and peeps from the reeds. These successfully combine into denser and thicker textures, relived only by brassy smears from Evans which churn underneath double-tongued trills from Dean’s saxello. Without copying any particular saxophonist featured in Charles Mingus’ Jazz Workshop, Dean’s tongue expansions here are still Mingusian in execution. This relationship to the American bassist is also expressed six years later by Dean and Tippett, not only most obviously in Tippett’s dedication to Mingus, but in allusions to the American’s compositions and arrangements during the course of “A loose kite in a gentle wind…” suite.

Despite modal styled percussive playing from the pianist that recalls McCoy Tyner; staccatissimo vibrations and trills from Dean that are equally Trane-like; multiphonic tonguing from Evans and quirky Kerry Dance-like terpsichorean pulses from the whole ensemble, the pieces don’t really lock into place until the two middle sections, even when performed full-blast, as it is during the suite’s nearly 28½ minute first section.

Oddly unlike Part 1, which has enough flattened keyboard patterns, soaring brass flourishes and speedy rhythmic tutti passages – plus enough false ending to suggest an unfinished symphony – Parts 2 and 3 are both more descriptive. More reflective in execution, Tippett uses Part 2 to create Duke Ellington-like mini-concertos for selected soloists, with Dean, cornetist Mark Charig and himself taking the Johnny Hodges, Rex Stewart and Ellington roles. Tippett’s variants are the most atonal, with internal string twanging, choked arpeggio runs and chordal patterns skirting the progressively louder horn parts, while following and foreshadowing Charig’s and Dean’s more lyrical work. Sequentially developed, the brass man’s exposition is near bel canto and contrasts with the multi-hued tones that have been parceled out to other members of the band. As for Dean, playing alto saxophone, despite the occasional near altissimo squeak, he shades his solo in mid-register to most properly harmonize with the band.

Instructively as well, the contours of Stabbins’ tenor saxophone solo in Part 3 with its sibilant stops and sharp single note emphasis, plus the stop-time smears from the brass also bring Mingus to mind. However Tippett confirms his compositional originality later in the piece. Unlike any Mingus trope, the steady bass and drum patterning here move the tune from andante to allegro as the sax lines became less stable and more violent and are finally answered by heraldic high-pitched cornet work and cunning trombone blasts.

Leaders such as Tippett and the now deceased Dean, as well as others, including Collier and bassist Barry Guy, helped outline a distinctive path for modern British jazz starting in the late 1960s. But sessions like these recall that the transformative skills of their sidemen were as necessary for this step forward as the leader’s musical visions.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Loose: 1. A loose kite in a gentle wind floating with only my will for an anchor 1 2. A loose kite in a gentle wind floating with only my will for an anchor 2 3. A loose kite in a gentle wind floating with only my will for an anchor 3 4. A loose kite in a gentle wind floating with only my will for an anchor 5. Dedicated to Mingus*

Personnel: Loose: Mark Charig (cornet and tenor horn); Nick Evans (trombone): Elton Dean (saxello, alto saxophone*); Larry Stabbins (tenor and soprano saxophones); Keith Tippet (piano); Paul Rogers (bass) and Tony Levin (drums and percussion)

Track Listing: Happy: 1. Nicrotto* 2. Seven for Lee* 3. Sweet F.A.* 4. Three for All* 5. Dance 6. Forsoothe 7. M.T. 8. Friday Night Blues 9. Prayer for Jesus

Personnel: Happy: Mark Charig (trumpet and tenor horn); Harry Beckett (trumpet and flugelhorn); Nick Evans and Radu Malfatti* (trombone); Elton Dean (saxello, alto saxophone); Alan Skidmore (tenor saxophone); Keith Tippett (piano); Harry Miller (bass) and Louis Moholo (drums)

June 11, 2010

Keith Tippett Septet

A loose kite in a gentle wind floating with only my will for an anchor
Ogun OGCD 030

Elton Dean’s Ninesense

Happy Daze + Oh! For The Edge

Ogun OGCD 032

Although the principal lure of these two reissues may be the availability of prime slices of 1970s and 1980s British Free Jazz, unexpected revelations appear while listening. The facility of the session leaders and most sidemen on these discs by pianist Keith Tippett’s septet plus the ensembles led by saxophonist Elton Dean is widely known. But one musician whose talents seem to have slipped below the radar since that time is Welsh jazz trombonist Nick Evans.

Evans, who during those years was a valuable addition to bands ranging from bassist Graham Collier’s sextet, the Soft Machine, the Brotherhood of Breath (BOB) and alto saxophonist Dudu Pukwana’s Diamond Express, is an ardent foil on both discs. Throughout the four-part suite which makes up most of Tippett’s CD, his smears and plunger techniques punctuate the development of horn different strategies. At another point, he expresses himself with gospelish ejaculations, blending with the double-tonguing and sibilant stops of tenor saxophonist Larry Stabbins, best-known for his stints with the London Jazz Composers Orchestra. Similarly on the other CD, Evans often uses his chromatic smears or burnished tone elaboration to duet with Dean or Tippett.

Looser than the other session, and consisting of six tracks from a 1976 octet, and four from 1977 – which add Radu Malfatti as second trombonist – the entire Dean CD can be heard as a miniaturization of the work he and others were doing with BOB. Despite the presence of expatriate South Africans, drummer Louis Moholo and bassist Harry Miller, though, there are no overt influences from that country’s musics. Instead the emphasis is on jazz and blues, with Mongezi Feza’s “Friday Night Blues” the most obvious example.

A contrapuntal showcase it features Miller walking, concluding martial beats from Moholo and Dean stretching his alto tone into an approximation of Hank Crawford’s at his funkiest. Similarly the tempo on “Seven for Lee” quickens into unrelieved tension as low-pitched polyphony churns steadily, only parting long enough for a stuttering, musette-like solo from Dean as well as brassy stream-rolling blares from trumpeter Harry Beckett’s open horn.

Throughout, call-and-response strategies from the horns, Moholo’s blunt rolls and cymbal pops, plus connective piano vamps provide power to impel heavy-duty swinging, although the time is left elastic enough for the soloists’ full expression, alone or in formation. Tippett’s high-frequency key-fanning is matched with bowed bass lines for example; or braying brass blasts meet up with the pianist’s swirling and strummed chording.

“Forsoothe” is one interlude constructed out of strangled cries from the brass plus continuously moving squeaks and peeps from the reeds. These successfully combine into denser and thicker textures, relived only by brassy smears from Evans which churn underneath double-tongued trills from Dean’s saxello. Without copying any particular saxophonist featured in Charles Mingus’ Jazz Workshop, Dean’s tongue expansions here are still Mingusian in execution. This relationship to the American bassist is also expressed six years later by Dean and Tippett, not only most obviously in Tippett’s dedication to Mingus, but in allusions to the American’s compositions and arrangements during the course of “A loose kite in a gentle wind…” suite.

Despite modal styled percussive playing from the pianist that recalls McCoy Tyner; staccatissimo vibrations and trills from Dean that are equally Trane-like; multiphonic tonguing from Evans and quirky Kerry Dance-like terpsichorean pulses from the whole ensemble, the pieces don’t really lock into place until the two middle sections, even when performed full-blast, as it is during the suite’s nearly 28½ minute first section.

Oddly unlike Part 1, which has enough flattened keyboard patterns, soaring brass flourishes and speedy rhythmic tutti passages – plus enough false ending to suggest an unfinished symphony – Parts 2 and 3 are both more descriptive. More reflective in execution, Tippett uses Part 2 to create Duke Ellington-like mini-concertos for selected soloists, with Dean, cornetist Mark Charig and himself taking the Johnny Hodges, Rex Stewart and Ellington roles. Tippett’s variants are the most atonal, with internal string twanging, choked arpeggio runs and chordal patterns skirting the progressively louder horn parts, while following and foreshadowing Charig’s and Dean’s more lyrical work. Sequentially developed, the brass man’s exposition is near bel canto and contrasts with the multi-hued tones that have been parceled out to other members of the band. As for Dean, playing alto saxophone, despite the occasional near altissimo squeak, he shades his solo in mid-register to most properly harmonize with the band.

Instructively as well, the contours of Stabbins’ tenor saxophone solo in Part 3 with its sibilant stops and sharp single note emphasis, plus the stop-time smears from the brass also bring Mingus to mind. However Tippett confirms his compositional originality later in the piece. Unlike any Mingus trope, the steady bass and drum patterning here move the tune from andante to allegro as the sax lines became less stable and more violent and are finally answered by heraldic high-pitched cornet work and cunning trombone blasts.

Leaders such as Tippett and the now deceased Dean, as well as others, including Collier and bassist Barry Guy, helped outline a distinctive path for modern British jazz starting in the late 1960s. But sessions like these recall that the transformative skills of their sidemen were as necessary for this step forward as the leader’s musical visions.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Loose: 1. A loose kite in a gentle wind floating with only my will for an anchor 1 2. A loose kite in a gentle wind floating with only my will for an anchor 2 3. A loose kite in a gentle wind floating with only my will for an anchor 3 4. A loose kite in a gentle wind floating with only my will for an anchor 5. Dedicated to Mingus*

Personnel: Loose: Mark Charig (cornet and tenor horn); Nick Evans (trombone): Elton Dean (saxello, alto saxophone*); Larry Stabbins (tenor and soprano saxophones); Keith Tippett (piano); Paul Rogers (bass) and Tony Levin (drums and percussion)

Track Listing: Happy: 1. Nicrotto* 2. Seven for Lee* 3. Sweet F.A.* 4. Three for All* 5. Dance 6. Forsoothe 7. M.T. 8. Friday Night Blues 9. Prayer for Jesus

Personnel: Happy: Mark Charig (trumpet and tenor horn); Harry Beckett (trumpet and flugelhorn); Nick Evans and Radu Malfatti* (trombone); Elton Dean (saxello, alto saxophone); Alan Skidmore (tenor saxophone); Keith Tippett (piano); Harry Miller (bass) and Louis Moholo (drums)

June 11, 2010

HARRY MILLER’S ISIPINGO

Which Way Now
Cuneiform Records Rune 233

By Ken Waxman

Free Bop with a touch with kwela is probably the best way to describe this CD of never-before-released tracks from bassist Harry Miller’s 1975 Isipingo sextet. But this high quality session consisting of four of Miller’s compositions is more than that. It adds another document to the underrepresented story of South African/British improv.

Starting in the 1960s, usually fed up or fleeing apartheid, a variety of South African musicians abandoned their homeland and set up shop in the United Kingdom. Soon they interacted with some of the more advanced British players to develop a variant of Hard Bop mixed with transformed homeland melodies and touches of Free Jazz. Most – including trumpeter Mongezi Feza and drummer Louis Moholo featured here – were graduates of Chris McGregor’s Blue Notes combo.

Leader Harry Miller (1941-1983) however, arrived on his own in 1961 and quickly hooked up with British players. This band was named after a vacation spot in Miller homeland, and is the only recording featuring the band with Feza, who died shortly afterwards. Miller’s life too was cut short. He was killed in an auto accident in the Netherlands, having moved there in the late 1970s to maintain his playing situations with questing Continental improvisers like Dutch pianist Leo Cuypers and German saxophonist Peter Brötzmann.

Although the recording is a little rough – both the trumpeter and Osborne start solos off mic during one track, WHICH WAY NOW is valuable in capturing the band at the height of its power. In the intervening years since, Tippett has occupied himself with most experimental bands like Mujician; Moholo has returned to South Africa; Evans gigs occasionally, though is mostly employed as a math teacher; while personal problems caused Osborne to abandon music in the early 1980s.

There are few hints of an erratic course in his soloing here, which ranges from wispy, bucolic obliggatos to sharp tempered steel-like asides. At this point he seems to be modulating his attack from one initially informed by Jackie McLean Hard Bop toughness to a more dissonant approach with definite echoes of Eric Dolphy. On the title track, which sounds both Free and Basie-ish, he switches among standard R&B style riffs, reverberating Dolphyesque side-slipping and a series of quotes that reference operatic airs as much as jazz. Meanwhile Feza contributes blustery grace notes, Evans speedy boppish runs, and Tippett mainstream comping. Miller’s walking bass line decelerates to a hesitant, half-speed for the finale as the brass dissolve into a buzzing valve showpiece.

Before that, Moholo shows off ratcheting flams and bull’s eye cymbal vibrations and Miller modernized slap bass, as the altoist’s Dolphy-out-of-(Charlie) Parker irregularly vibrated lines and foghorn honks overblow in false registers. Faced with this, the pianist’s key sweeping seems almost like a series of etudes before it hardens into a steady flow of dynamic notes from one side of the piano to another.

Earlier still in the program, Osborne splits the melody into adjacent tones in his solo, following blowsy, double-tongued power shouts and chromatic near-tailgate bluster from Evans. The trombonist’s notes almost seem to be playing call-and-response with themselves. Feza is just as impressive, beginning with a heraldic flourish at the top of his range and concluding with deeply buried grace notes liberated from the recesses of his bell.

“Children at Play” is the defining track, a slinky groove fest that hurtles by so quickly that you hardly notice its more than 20½-minute length. What could be standard Bop changes and variations are reconstituted by the six. Osborne tempers his Jackie Mac-attack with a more sophisticated Free Bop flair; Evans blasts smeary cross tones northward almost into flute territory and Moholo underlines everything with hard, blunt slaps. Tippett’s backing mixes the solid pianism of Hard Boppers like Cedar Walton with the sliding modalism of a McCoy Tyner. Finally Miller’s double-stopping ringing timbres recaps the theme and concludes the piece.

Despite the sometimes informal – at times slapdash – mic placement and head arrangements, WHICH WAY NOW is musically as well as historically important. It also proves that at that junction Miller certainly knew the way.

Unfortunately for him, after 1983 there would be no longer be a “now”.

Track Listing: 1. Family Affair 2. Children at Play 3. Eli’s Song 4. Which Way Now

Personnel: Mongezi Feza (trumpet); Nick Evans (trombone); Mike Osborne (alto saxophone); Keith Tippett (piano); Harry Miller (bass); Louis Moholo (drums)

August 21, 2006

Louis Moholo-Moholo

Bra Louis-Bra Bra-Tebs/Spirits Rejoice
Ogun CD017/018

Sole survivor of the legendary Blue Notes band that left Apartheid-era South Africa in the mid-1960s, drummer Louis Moholo-Moholo finally returned permanently to Cape Town in 2004. But during the three decades that he and his fellow exiled countrymen lived in Europe they added an undiluted tincture of African sensibility to the developing Free Music scene.

This CD assembles two important large group sessions. Spirits Rejoice, released on LP in 1978, is an octet date, which finds the drummer and two other expatriate South Africans – bassist Johnny Dyani, another former Blue Note, and bassist Harry Miller, who left the country on his own – working out with the ne plus ultra of BritImprov including trumpeter Kenny Wheeler, tenor saxophonist Evan Parker and pianist Keith Tippett. Elaborated are five longish pieces that mix Xhosa tribe rhythmic inflections, revivalist hymns and freeform Energy Music.

Recorded in 1995 after Moholo-Moholo finally toured a post-Apartheid South Africa with his own group, the previously unreleased Bra Louis-Bra Bra-Tebs, with its definite beat, leans more towards World music,. The most obvious difference between it and he other CD is the vocals of Martinique’s Francine Luce that are an odd admixture of jazz-pop, roots music and improv vocalese. The cast of instrumentalists is completely different as well. However the main soloists are those who made the South African trek in the drummer’s band: British-raised, Netherlands-based tenor saxophonist Toby Delius; younger Johannesburg-born, London-based pianist Pule Pheto, who has worked with bassist Barry Guy and works as a producer for soul singers; and Caribbean-born alto and soprano saxophonist Jason Yarde, who also played with South African trumpeter Hugh Masekela.

Stretched out over 12 tracks in contrast to Spirits Rejoice’s five, the Freebop pacing and unique South African lilt that ricochets between tribal chants and Methodist hymns usually takes second place to Luce’s vocalizing. What that means is the backing is often locked into a pop-R&B vamp, built on muted passing tones from trumpeter Claude Deppa, slurred fills from Yarde’s soprano, unison piano comping and repetitive beat undulations from bassist Roberto Bellatalla and the drummer.

Throughout, Luce puts on as many vocal guises as a verbal quick change artist. On the traditional “Utshaka”, she comes across as a balladic Abbey Lincoln, backed by muted trumpet and irregular tenor honks. Another traditional piece “Hayi Umntu Endinguye”, finds her wordless vocalization moving from near country and western cadences to become anthem-like stolid. It also features with contrasting dynamics from the piano, as Yarde adds contrapuntal peeps and ends his solo with what sounds like “Taps”.

Written by the bassist, “Maybe Of Cause” takes in both scat and improv jazz as the high-pitched trumpet and contrapuntal horn lines appear to embolden Luce to channel Annie Ross at the beginning and Maggie Nicols at the denouncement. Finally, “Motherless Child”, gets a treatment reminiscent of American Black Nationalist chants of the 1970s. Built on a rock-like vamp and staccato piano fills, Luce dramatizes the words before lapsing into Leon Thomas-like glossolalia.

Elsewhere, while Delius gets some space for abrasive multiphonics and sibilant intonation, and Deppa takes a high-pitched slurry grace note laden solo, overall the instrumental marrow seems secondary to the vocal perimeter. Although the session passes pleasingly with a relentless rhythmic impetus it doesn’t approach Spirits Rejoice.

Freed from a vocalist’s demands, the session appears more rhythmically and polyphonically sophisticated. Additionally the soloists – who admittedly are given more space than on Bra Louis-Bra Bra-Tebs – ratchet the output up a few notches. Especially notable is Parker, who is fully in a freebop mode with flutter-tongue guttural smears, and Tippett, who on “Wedding Hymn” manages to pump out lush, two-handed kinetic notes with the strength of a Herbie Nichols. Driven by cross beats and flams from the drummer, it makes you wonder if this riffing Freebop is really what a nuptial melody is like among the Xhosa.

Alive with contrapuntal call-and-response from the horns, the tunes let the four-piece rhythm section go its own way, keeping things rhythmically exciting with repeated dance-like motifs. “You Ain’t Gonna Know Me ‘Cos You Think You Know Me”, written by trumpeter Mongezi Feza, another former Blue Note, rocks with gospel-like choruses and lilting contrapuntal themes. Not only is there metronomic cross patterning from the pianist, but one of the trombonists – either Nick Evans or Radu Malfatti – lets loose with a sequence of buzzy plunger tones midway between Kid Ory and your local Salvation Army band.

Musical ingenuity also makes “Amaxesha Osizi (Times of Sorrow)” less of a plait than a multi-layered exposition that in its 11 minutes uses alternative dynamics to suggest both a liturgical and a martial work. As the unison horns move the tonal centre with legato harmonies, the alternating horn lines follow a warm, side-slipping solo from Wheeler that adds emotional resonance to the performance.

Although both discs are prime examples of Moholo-Moholo’s art, it would seem that in these cases the acidity of exile produced more profound sounds than the congeniality of homecoming.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Bra: 1. Sonke 2. Lakutshona Ilanga/Ntyilo-Ntyilo 3 Unisone 4. B My Dear 5. Maybe of Cause 6.Utshaka 7 Moegoe 8. Motherless Child 9. Yes Please 10. Hayi Umntu Endinguye 11. Yes Baby, No Baby 12 Ntyilo-Ntyilo

Personnel: Bra: (trumpet); Jason Yarde (alto and soprano saxophones); Toby Delius (tenor saxophone); Pule Pheto (piano); Roberto Bellatalla (bass); Louis Moholo-Moholo (drums); Francine Luce (voice)

Track Listing: Spirits: 1. Khany Apho Ukhona (Shine Wherever You Are 2. You Ain’t Gonna Know Me ‘Cos You Think You Know Me 3. Ithi Gqi (Appear) 4. Wedding Hymn 5. Amaxesha Osizi (Times of Sorrow)

Personnel: Spirits: Kenny Wheeler (trumpet); Nick Evans and Radu Malfatti (trombones); Evan Parker (tenor saxophone); Keith Tippett (piano); Johnny Dyani and Harry Miller (bass); Louis Moholo-Moholo (drums)

August 4, 2006

PAUL DUNMALL MOKSHA BIG BAND

I Wish You Peace
Cuneiform RUNE 203

Unquestionably a 50th birthday present to himself – and his listeners – there’s a tendency to hear I WISH YOU PEACE as an attempt by British saxophonist Paul Dunmall to sum up his musical experiences after a half century of life. Yet it’s a much a reflection of the present and future as the past.

Writing the three-part suite at a time when the war in Iraq was in full battle mode, Dunmall’s spiritual preoccupations seem a bit overcome by bellicose motifs in this recording, initially premiered on BBC Radio 3. Still the title reflects the reedman’s desire for humankind to achieve a non-war-like serenity.

As for the band’s name – Moksha is a Hindu word meaning the final liberation of the soul. It references the sort of transcendental conscientious Dunmall and others first experienced in the 1960s and have migrated to the 21st Century. Like certain orchestral showcases for saxophonists recorded at the time by Pharoah Sanders, John Coltrane and Archie Shepp, “I Wish You Peace” is very much a concerto for Paul, with the ever-inventive saxophonist taking the greatest amount of solo space.

The most prominent secondary voices belong to Dunmall’s associates in small groups. The rest of Mujician, bassist Paul Rogers, drummer Tony Levin and especially - pianist Keith Tippett make the most obvious contributions, as do Philip Gibbs on guitar and autoharp, drummer Mark Sanders and guitarist John Adams who often play in the saxophonist’s trio. Giving Dunmall the space to improvise, conductor Brian Irvine is along to direct the horns: Gethin Liddington and David Priesman on trumpets; Hilary Jeffery, Paul Rutherford and Chris Bridges on trombones; plus Simon Picard and Howard Cottle on tenor saxophones.

Part Two makes the most use of the other players. Parting the smeary horn and brass hocketing, Tippett offers up a brief improv that bounces between a montuno section and near bop, while Dunmall’s concise tenor statements unfold on top of bounces and flams from Levin and Sanders. Later, either Gethin Liddington or David Priesman trade snaking restrained trumpet lines with variegated, cross dynamics from the pianist. Hummingbird swift chromatic runs and slurred high-pitched variation are then exhibited by one of the brassmen, almost a cappella. Subsequently Gibbs or Adams moves up front for Wes Montgomery-like thick octave runs. When the guitarist’s output turns more abstract with counterlines and thumb pops, Dunmall, who has been involved in offbeat theme development throughout, turns to exploded multiphonics, as the two turn into a 21st Century Jim Hall and Sonny Rollins duo. Massed horn interludes sneak in and out of the audio picture just behind the two, climaxing in unison dissonance.

Part Three’s finale is somewhat similar, with seemingly every instrumentalist twisting, turning and screaming at top volume before the piece is cut off. Earlier, however, this cut has exhibited the most 1960s-like echoes. Tippet slathers prepared piano stops from inside his instrument, one of the guitarists produce a vague sitar-like tone and the section’s beginning is almost electronic, featuring a droning strings section with a ponticello bowed bass line on top.

Comparable to his work on Part Two and unlike the warm, Coleman Hawkins-like tenor tones he floats in the first part, Dunmall’s solos are in 1960s mode as well. Howling and pitch shifting, he works his way from screaming altissimo to the bottom of the bow snorts with almost Tranean intensity using smears, doits and glottal punctuation. Along with these staccato flutter tonguing, the section features high-frequency piano comping, chiming and shuffling extended chromatic guitar lines, and times when the other horns combine step by step into a unison climatic harmonic interface.

With textures and timbres often felt as well as heard, Dunmall’s three-part suite manages to replicate the cacophony of war in such a way that the individual expression of the composition gives hope that peace will arrive. What a birthday celebration it is.

--Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. I Wish You Peace Part One 2. I Wish You Peace Part Two 3. I Wish You Peace Part Three

Personnel: Gethin Liddington, David Priesman (trumpets); Hilary Jeffery, Paul Rutherford, Chris Bridges (trombones); Paul Dunmall (soprano and tenor saxophones); Simon Picard, Howard Cottle (tenor saxophones); Keith Tippett (piano); John Adams (guitar); Philip Gibbs (guitar and autoharp); Paul Rogers (bass); Tony Levin and Mark Sanders (drums); Brian Irvine (conductor)

April 4, 2005

MUJICIAN

Spacetime
Cuneiform Rune 162

Together for almost a decade and a half, the sound of the British quartet Mujician, is, if anything more exhilarating than it has ever been.

Working within the instrumental parametres of the standard post-bop combo -- piano, bass, drums and saxophone -- the band situates itself in a space midway between what could be called BritImprov and American energy music. In other words, while some sections of the more than 72½ minutes of music on this disc are given over to microscopic instrumental evisceration through extended technique and emphasis, others spew out molten-hot slabs of intense, protracted, multi-faceted free jazz assertions.

Also you could say that there’s bit of false advertising in the compositions’ timing. Although the disc purports to be a record of the group improvising in 15 small sections, none over 10 minutes long, aurally the pieces combine into two long explorations of about 31½ and 39½ minutes respectively. Not that this makes much of a difference, because the raison d’être of Mujician, since its birth in 1988, has been how seamlessly one tune flows into the next. And this disc is no exception.

Consider the seven sections of the title track, for instance, as at one point Paul Dunmall’s sonorous soprano saxophone travels from the Far East to the Middle East. First it resembles ceremonial flute played in Oriental court which is mixed with an echoing gong sound from drummer Tony Levin, then a few minutes later vocalizes muezzin-like cries that join pianist Keith Tippett’s modal piano chords.

With his playing quiet and well modulated in certain sections, at times you’re caught by surprise when the sax man starts duetting with himself -- quickly tossing out one line and almost immediately answering it. On tenor, a solo that begins with key pops and slap tonguing can turn seriously virtuosic, as he uses circular breathing to boomerang his tones backwards as if they’d just hit the walls of a squash court. Later, when the saxophonist holds a note for an inordinate length of time, the drummer uses his palms to suggest tabla-like sounds on his snare, as the pianist alternates repeated keyboard clusters and inside piano explorations. Not to be outdone, throughout bassist Paul Rogers either uses elongated finger gestures to dexterously speed up and down his instrument’s neck or turns to pure power chording, plucking and tugging accompaniment from its deepest regions.

Moving from pacific spiritualism to modal frenzy and back again appears to be little more than a stroll along the garden path for this band.

“Exquisitely Woven Spiritual Communication”, offers more of the same, which each “mujician” given space to shine. Veteran of solo piano concerts, a studio membership in King Crimson and numberless collaborations over the past 30 years, here Tippett goes hyperpiano specialists like Denman Maroney one better, producing fleet, quirky string slides as if he was playing a harpsichord. Elsewhere he appears to be burrowing away inside the instrument’s delicate mechanism when he’s not strumming the strings and sounding the keys at the same time.

Most senior improviser by almost a decade, Levin had prime mainstream experience with the likes of tenor man Zoot Sims and flugelhornist Art Farmer before committing himself fully to free music. Here, for the sake of the instant composition, he bangs out a military tattoo at one point and what could be the resonance of a kettle drum at another, contrasting them with barely audible percussion underscoring and near-ceremonial cymbalism.

In tandem, there are times the four can create their own U.K. rendering of the classic John Coltrane quartet. Tippett’s swirling, modal piano references McCoy Tyner; Rogers, who is better-known for having worked alongside the likes of saxophonists Lol Coxhill, and Elton Dean, than American freeboppers, alternately walks, strums and bows like a Jimmy Garrison clone. Meanwhile Dunmall, who actually did accompany Alice Coltrane at one point, spews out reed flotsam and jetsam like Trane at his most experimental; while Levin, who grew up with the style, becomes as fast and furious as Elvin Jones.

But that’s where the comparison, breaks down however. Rogers, who often uses a stand up six-string bass is more supple than Garrison. Levin, who makes it apparent in other contexts, offers more than just Jones’s raw power. Tippett is, paradoxically, at times either a lighter-toned or more robust sounding keyboardist than Tyner. And Dunmall has his own method of reed, mouthpiece and body emphasis.

So don’t fasten on American models. Pick up this CD for Tippett’s two handed pianism, which flow from European classicism as well as jazz, and Dunmall’s range of honks and individual sheets of sound, to name two of its virtues.

Quartet or not, it’s no second coming of any other combo, but a new example of Mujician music pure and simple. That’s what makes listening worth your while.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Spacetime 1. - 7.; Exquisitely Woven Spiritual Communication 8 - 15.

Personnel: Paul Dunmall (soprano and tenor saxophone); Keith Tippett (piano); Paul Rogers (bass); Tony Levin (drums)

March 22, 2002