Graham Collier

Deep Dark Blue Centre/ Portraits/The Alternate Mosaics
BGO CD 822

Mike Osborne Trio

All Night Long

Ogun OGCD 029

While most of the attention in Britain and overseas in the late 1960s, early 1970s was focused on progressive rock and pop music coming from England, far more notable sounds were being developed outside of the mainstream. Although the most far-reaching of these advances may turn out to be the non-idiomatic improv advanced by the likes of Derek Bailey and Evan Parker, two other strains deserve attention.

One, represented here by Graham Collier’s session for septet and sextets, collected from three different LPs, expressed the depths of the composer-arranger’s art. Its variations on color, texture, space and voicing cemented Collier’s reputation in that tricky hyphenate’s top ranks. All Night Long on the other hand, is a free-for-all blowing session from three musicians who while fellow travellers, were not fundamental believers in Bailey-Parker-styled lower-case pure improv.

Although both discs are officially reissues, each set adds more material to the original LP – roughly 27 minutes to the session led by alto saxophonist Mike Osborne, plus an almost three-quarters-of-an-hour alternate version of one of Collier’s most realized works, Mosaics. Surrounding that program, recorded in 1970, are Deep Dark Blue Centre, a septet session that was Collier’s first LP in 1967, and Portraits a sextet date from 1972 with a completely different band. Although significant efforts, neither matches the grandeur of Mosaics.

Perhaps because two of the players – Collier himself and Rhodesian-born trombonist Mike Gibbs, later a prominent arranger – were graduates of Boston’s Berklee College, the 1967 dates seems to suffer from an overemphasis on textural organization rather than emotional soloing. At points the voicing appears to track backwards from the Berklee-sanctioned work of Evans and George Russell to the airiness associated with 1950s’ bands of similar size such as those led by John Graas, Teddy Charles and Gigi Gryce.

Featuring two future members of The Soft Machine – baritone saxophonist and oboist Karl Jenkins and drummer John Marshall – the writing and soloing too is sometimes too episodic. Jenkins’ oboe is emphasized far more – for novelty’s sake? – and more frequently than similarly so-called exotic instrumentals would be used in later Collier work, while Phil Lee’s sometimes finger-picking, sometimes strumming guitar lines exist in a dated time frame mid-way between Joe Pass and Gabor Szabo.

Most of the assured strength comes from front-line players, all of whom, ironically enough, were foreign-born. The date’s veterans on trumpet and flugelhorn, who each play on half the tracks, are Harry Beckett, originally from Barbados, and Canadian Kenny Wheeler. Dave Aaron, who more than acquits himself on alto saxophone and flute, was born in Singapore.

“Conversations” for instance, depends on antipodal vamping that contrasts Wheeler at his brassiest with Aaron’s slithering trills. Collier and Marshall provide backing that at times pulses like Native Indian rhythms, until the piece reaches a climax when Wheeler’s sweeter tones mix with Aaron’s skittering runs. An episodic minor blues, the title track mixes Gil Evans-like linear chords with down-stroking guitar licks à la Szabo at his most psychedelic, an R&B-like riff from Jenkins’ baritone saxophone, bluesy alto bites from Aaron and cymbal pops from Marshall. Hardening his tone from braying to polished, Wheeler completes the piece with triplet-laden excitement.

Despite its overall title, only flugelhornist Dick Pearce is the subject of a full-fledged salute with “Portraits One” on Portraits. Framed by obbligatos from Ed Speight’s guitar and Geoff Castle’s comping piano, Pearce who has more recently worked in the bigger bands of Ronnie Scott and Stan Tracey acquits himself with only a few dips into the saccharine. Shading his output in many layers, the trumpeter is effectively showcased when the gradually accelerating tempo provides a foundation for his contrapuntal asides, slurs and double-tonguing.

Furthermore, “And Now for Something Completely Different”, parts one and two, which take up another part of the session, relate more to the time in which it was composed and played than most of Collier’s previous and subsequent work. With Blue Note records-styled funk then in vogue, the repeated motif built on ratcheting percussion from John Webb, who also worked in a similar vein with guitarist Ray Russell; and nagging, extended guitar licks from Ed Speight, attempt to replicate this funk sound. Pianist Geoff Castle, who in recent years has worked with arranger Neil Ardley and in Ian Carr’s Nucleus, seems unsure whether he should be Wynton Kelly or Herbie Hancock. His passing chords and hearty tremolo pumping however don’t shout “early 1970s” as much as Webb’s heavy-handed drum solo. Meanwhile Pearce’s half-valve chorus is more NYJO than NYC. Luckily Collier’s arrangement saves the date with tempo shifts from andante to kinetic and direction from his thumping bass runs. Using intervallic layering to delineate parts, Collier often places bubbling flugelhorn lines on top, chirping alto saxophone from Peter Hurt – who has since played with George Russell and Carla Bley – in the middle and high-frequency piano chording at the bottom.

In contrast to the music surrounding it chronologically, 1970’s Mosaics is in many ways Collier’s Kind of Blue. More orchestral than that Miles Davis date, the alternate version of the four themes collected here benefit from a powerful front line, and one might conjecture less pressured Castle and Webb than they were two years later.

Beckett is back again, yet oddly both powerful saxophone soloists are now more involved in other musics than jazz. Bob Sydor, who plays alto and tenor saxophones, was in Maynard Ferguson’s big band as well as the orchestra for Miss Saigon, now teaches saxophone privately. Tenor and soprano saxophones Alan Wakeman, followed brief gigs with Mike Westbrook and the Soft Machine with membership in singer David Essex's band and now concentrates on commercial work, notably in musicals.

That’s a pity, since both men dig into the material here with gusto, double and triple tonguing, and intelligently using altissimo runs, passing tones and slurry glottal punctuation. Webb’s drum work pops and rolls and Castle’s piano lines are similarly high frequency and kinetic.

Except for a final drum solo, “The Alternate Mosaics Part 3, Theme 6”, serves as a perfect showcase for Beckett. Beginning a capella, he shades the brass tube and valves through squeaks, lip pops, wah-wahs, spits and puffs. When the downward rappelling bass line brings in the theme, strengthened by swaying, near-Arabic soprano saxophone lines, Beckett responds with fleet triplet-emphasized growls. As the rhythm section lays on pressured accompaniment he then turns from hand-muted weaving to harsh, staccato lines.

Another stand out, “The Alternate Mosaics Part 2, Theme 2” not only gives space to double-gaited cascading piano chords, but also for stop-and-start tenor saxophone cadences from both reed men. As Collier’s thick bass plucks and Webb’s press rolls push them forward, both Wakeman and Sydor overblow, tongue-stop, chomp phrases, semi-quote and generally vibrate pitches everywhere. The final shout chorus, adding Beckett, is excitement in itself.

One saxophonist who demanded go-for-broke excitement almost constantly, and never seemed to be seduced by commercial considerations, was Osborne (1941-2007). Although sidelined with mental illness for about two decades before his death, prior to that, Osborne showed, in his work with the Brotherhood of Breath (BOB) and his own bands, that he was committed to the sort of improvisation that exhausted all possibilities. All Night Long, recorded with BOB cohorts, Harry Miller on bass and Louis Moholo on drums – both expatriate South Africans – confirms this. Although he favored the alto saxophone, Osborne was, in a way, the link between Tubby Hayes and Evan Parker.

As this 1975 CD demonstrates, those saxophonists are important touchstones. While Osborne was never really a bopper like Hayes, he still cleaved to the song form and studded his solo with fleeting quotes from other tunes, a long-time bop trope. Furthermore every tune on this CD has a real title, and the trio even briefly touches on “Round Midnight”. Conversely, while Osborne’s solos are rugged, seemingly never-ending and studded with rough asides, slip-sliding, roars and unexpected sound excursions, he never deconstructed timbres the way Parker, his sometime BOB section-made did. Whether he would have – like Bailey and a few others – have become more musically experimental as he aged, is of course, a moot question.

What is obvious is the strength of the performance here. Operating at 100 per cent from the first note, the trio mixes gritty, bass string plucks and pummeling arco lines on Miller’s part; cross-patterning drags, flams and rim shots, with add-on miscellaneous percussion excursions on Moholo’s; and resonating, repetitive bites, blows and blats on Osborne’s, to keep playing at top form.

Note how the three treat the almost 24-minute showcase that encompasses “Ken’s Tune/Country Bounce/ All Night Long/Trio Trio”. As Miller’s thick pulses spelunk down the bass strings and Moholo counters with a relentless exposure of rumbles, pops and cymbal echoes, Osborne inventively squeezes, trills and pushes new tones to the centre, only to discard them and start again. Forced and filled vibrating arpeggios and discursive patterns are advanced with flutter-tonguing, tongue-stopping and split tones, slip-sliding from one idea to the next, contrasting a bebop quote with a pseudo-Scottish burr and then moving on. Meantime Miller leaps from sul ponticello accompaniment to set up a groove congruent to the drummer’s cross pulsing and duple meters. As cadenzas of notes spew from his horn it appears as if Osborne will never stop playing no matter what.

Or consider the previously unreleased “Now and Then, Here and Now”. Beholden to the sound extensions brought to jazz by John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman, Osborne’s solo still has a melodic base. With some lilting phrases played in the coloratura register and others roughened with a deeper tenor-sax-like pitch, he flies off into the stratosphere, but keeps recapping the original theme to maintain his moorings. Snatches of what could be “Slop” and “Mr. PC” appear fleetingly and then are subsumed into the molten idea flow, the bravura performance includes hocketing leaps from one idea and note cluster to the next. Especially illustrative is that the saxophonist is still soloing as the track fades. This is how Osborne should be remembered.

Born in 1937, Collier is thankfully still alive to be celebrated. And so he should be as with these CDs. Despite their related-to-the-period faults, both his and Osborne’s sets recall the creative ferment in United Kingdom jazz in the late 1960s, early 1970s and preserve hours of notable music that should be savored.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Deep: Deep Dark Blue Centre: 1. Blue Walls 2. El Miklos 3. Hirayoshi Suite 4. Conversations 5. Deep Dark Blue Centre Portraits: 7. And Now for Something Completely Different PT. 1 Disc 2 1. And Now for Something Completely Different PT 2. 2. Portraits 1 The Alternate Mosaics: 3. The Alternate Mosaics Part 1 Theme 1 4. The Alternate Mosaics Part 2 Theme 2 5. The Alternate Mosaics Part 3 Theme 6 6. The Alternate Mosaics Part 4 Theme 8

Personnel: Deep: Deep Dark Blue Centre: Harry Beckett or Kenny Wheeler (trumpet and flugelhorn); Mike Gibbs (trombone); Dave Aaron (alto saxophone and flute); Karl Jenkins (baritone saxophone and oboe); Philip Lee (guitar); Graham Collier (bass) and John Marshall (drums) Portraits: Dick Pearce (flugelhorn); Pete Hurt (alto saxophone); Ed Speight (guitar); Geoff Castle (piano); Collier and John Webb (drums) The Alternate Mosaics: Beckett; Bob Sydor (alto and tenor saxophones); Alan Wakeman (tenor and soprano saxophones); Castle; Collier and Webb

Track Listing: Night: 1. All night long/Rivers 2. Round Midnight 3. Scotch Pearl 4. Waltz 5. Ken’s Tune/Country Bounce/ All Night Long/Trio Trio 6. Scotch Pearl 7. Now and Then, Here and Now

Personnel: Night: Mike Osborne (alto saxophone); Harry Miller (bass) and

Louis Moholo (drums)

December 23, 2008

Mike Osborne Trio

All Night Long
Ogun OGCD 029

Graham Collier

Deep Dark Blue Centre/ Portraits/The Alternate Mosaics

BGO CD 822

While most of the attention in Britain and overseas in the late 1960s, early 1970s was focused on progressive rock and pop music coming from England, far more notable sounds were being developed outside of the mainstream. Although the most far-reaching of these advances may turn out to be the non-idiomatic improv advanced by the likes of Derek Bailey and Evan Parker, two other strains deserve attention.

One, represented here by Graham Collier’s session for septet and sextets, collected from three different LPs, expressed the depths of the composer-arranger’s art. Its variations on color, texture, space and voicing cemented Collier’s reputation in that tricky hyphenate’s top ranks. All Night Long on the other hand, is a free-for-all blowing session from three musicians who while fellow travellers, were not fundamental believers in Bailey-Parker-styled lower-case pure improv.

Although both discs are officially reissues, each set adds more material to the original LP – roughly 27 minutes to the session led by alto saxophonist Mike Osborne, plus an almost three-quarters-of-an-hour alternate version of one of Collier’s most realized works, Mosaics. Surrounding that program, recorded in 1970, are Deep Dark Blue Centre, a septet session that was Collier’s first LP in 1967, and Portraits a sextet date from 1972 with a completely different band. Although significant efforts, neither matches the grandeur of Mosaics.

Perhaps because two of the players – Collier himself and Rhodesian-born trombonist Mike Gibbs, later a prominent arranger – were graduates of Boston’s Berklee College, the 1967 dates seems to suffer from an overemphasis on textural organization rather than emotional soloing. At points the voicing appears to track backwards from the Berklee-sanctioned work of Evans and George Russell to the airiness associated with 1950s’ bands of similar size such as those led by John Graas, Teddy Charles and Gigi Gryce.

Featuring two future members of The Soft Machine – baritone saxophonist and oboist Karl Jenkins and drummer John Marshall – the writing and soloing too is sometimes too episodic. Jenkins’ oboe is emphasized far more – for novelty’s sake? – and more frequently than similarly so-called exotic instrumentals would be used in later Collier work, while Phil Lee’s sometimes finger-picking, sometimes strumming guitar lines exist in a dated time frame mid-way between Joe Pass and Gabor Szabo.

Most of the assured strength comes from front-line players, all of whom, ironically enough, were foreign-born. The date’s veterans on trumpet and flugelhorn, who each play on half the tracks, are Harry Beckett, originally from Barbados, and Canadian Kenny Wheeler. Dave Aaron, who more than acquits himself on alto saxophone and flute, was born in Singapore.

“Conversations” for instance, depends on antipodal vamping that contrasts Wheeler at his brassiest with Aaron’s slithering trills. Collier and Marshall provide backing that at times pulses like Native Indian rhythms, until the piece reaches a climax when Wheeler’s sweeter tones mix with Aaron’s skittering runs. An episodic minor blues, the title track mixes Gil Evans-like linear chords with down-stroking guitar licks à la Szabo at his most psychedelic, an R&B-like riff from Jenkins’ baritone saxophone, bluesy alto bites from Aaron and cymbal pops from Marshall. Hardening his tone from braying to polished, Wheeler completes the piece with triplet-laden excitement.

Despite its overall title, only flugelhornist Dick Pearce is the subject of a full-fledged salute with “Portraits One” on Portraits. Framed by obbligatos from Ed Speight’s guitar and Geoff Castle’s comping piano, Pearce who has more recently worked in the bigger bands of Ronnie Scott and Stan Tracey acquits himself with only a few dips into the saccharine. Shading his output in many layers, the trumpeter is effectively showcased when the gradually accelerating tempo provides a foundation for his contrapuntal asides, slurs and double-tonguing.

Furthermore, “And Now for Something Completely Different”, parts one and two, which take up another part of the session, relate more to the time in which it was composed and played than most of Collier’s previous and subsequent work. With Blue Note records-styled funk then in vogue, the repeated motif built on ratcheting percussion from John Webb, who also worked in a similar vein with guitarist Ray Russell; and nagging, extended guitar licks from Ed Speight, attempt to replicate this funk sound. Pianist Geoff Castle, who in recent years has worked with arranger Neil Ardley and in Ian Carr’s Nucleus, seems unsure whether he should be Wynton Kelly or Herbie Hancock. His passing chords and hearty tremolo pumping however don’t shout “early 1970s” as much as Webb’s heavy-handed drum solo. Meanwhile Pearce’s half-valve chorus is more NYJO than NYC. Luckily Collier’s arrangement saves the date with tempo shifts from andante to kinetic and direction from his thumping bass runs. Using intervallic layering to delineate parts, Collier often places bubbling flugelhorn lines on top, chirping alto saxophone from Peter Hurt – who has since played with George Russell and Carla Bley – in the middle and high-frequency piano chording at the bottom.

In contrast to the music surrounding it chronologically, 1970’s Mosaics is in many ways Collier’s Kind of Blue. More orchestral than that Miles Davis date, the alternate version of the four themes collected here benefit from a powerful front line, and one might conjecture less pressured Castle and Webb than they were two years later.

Beckett is back again, yet oddly both powerful saxophone soloists are now more involved in other musics than jazz. Bob Sydor, who plays alto and tenor saxophones, was in Maynard Ferguson’s big band as well as the orchestra for Miss Saigon, now teaches saxophone privately. Tenor and soprano saxophones Alan Wakeman, followed brief gigs with Mike Westbrook and the Soft Machine with membership in singer David Essex's band and now concentrates on commercial work, notably in musicals.

That’s a pity, since both men dig into the material here with gusto, double and triple tonguing, and intelligently using altissimo runs, passing tones and slurry glottal punctuation. Webb’s drum work pops and rolls and Castle’s piano lines are similarly high frequency and kinetic.

Except for a final drum solo, “The Alternate Mosaics Part 3, Theme 6”, serves as a perfect showcase for Beckett. Beginning a capella, he shades the brass tube and valves through squeaks, lip pops, wah-wahs, spits and puffs. When the downward rappelling bass line brings in the theme, strengthened by swaying, near-Arabic soprano saxophone lines, Beckett responds with fleet triplet-emphasized growls. As the rhythm section lays on pressured accompaniment he then turns from hand-muted weaving to harsh, staccato lines.

Another stand out, “The Alternate Mosaics Part 2, Theme 2” not only gives space to double-gaited cascading piano chords, but also for stop-and-start tenor saxophone cadences from both reed men. As Collier’s thick bass plucks and Webb’s press rolls push them forward, both Wakeman and Sydor overblow, tongue-stop, chomp phrases, semi-quote and generally vibrate pitches everywhere. The final shout chorus, adding Beckett, is excitement in itself.

One saxophonist who demanded go-for-broke excitement almost constantly, and never seemed to be seduced by commercial considerations, was Osborne (1941-2007). Although sidelined with mental illness for about two decades before his death, prior to that, Osborne showed, in his work with the Brotherhood of Breath (BOB) and his own bands, that he was committed to the sort of improvisation that exhausted all possibilities. All Night Long, recorded with BOB cohorts, Harry Miller on bass and Louis Moholo on drums – both expatriate South Africans – confirms this. Although he favored the alto saxophone, Osborne was, in a way, the link between Tubby Hayes and Evan Parker.

As this 1975 CD demonstrates, those saxophonists are important touchstones. While Osborne was never really a bopper like Hayes, he still cleaved to the song form and studded his solo with fleeting quotes from other tunes, a long-time bop trope. Furthermore every tune on this CD has a real title, and the trio even briefly touches on “Round Midnight”. Conversely, while Osborne’s solos are rugged, seemingly never-ending and studded with rough asides, slip-sliding, roars and unexpected sound excursions, he never deconstructed timbres the way Parker, his sometime BOB section-made did. Whether he would have – like Bailey and a few others – have become more musically experimental as he aged, is of course, a moot question.

What is obvious is the strength of the performance here. Operating at 100 per cent from the first note, the trio mixes gritty, bass string plucks and pummeling arco lines on Miller’s part; cross-patterning drags, flams and rim shots, with add-on miscellaneous percussion excursions on Moholo’s; and resonating, repetitive bites, blows and blats on Osborne’s, to keep playing at top form.

Note how the three treat the almost 24-minute showcase that encompasses “Ken’s Tune/Country Bounce/ All Night Long/Trio Trio”. As Miller’s thick pulses spelunk down the bass strings and Moholo counters with a relentless exposure of rumbles, pops and cymbal echoes, Osborne inventively squeezes, trills and pushes new tones to the centre, only to discard them and start again. Forced and filled vibrating arpeggios and discursive patterns are advanced with flutter-tonguing, tongue-stopping and split tones, slip-sliding from one idea to the next, contrasting a bebop quote with a pseudo-Scottish burr and then moving on. Meantime Miller leaps from sul ponticello accompaniment to set up a groove congruent to the drummer’s cross pulsing and duple meters. As cadenzas of notes spew from his horn it appears as if Osborne will never stop playing no matter what.

Or consider the previously unreleased “Now and Then, Here and Now”. Beholden to the sound extensions brought to jazz by John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman, Osborne’s solo still has a melodic base. With some lilting phrases played in the coloratura register and others roughened with a deeper tenor-sax-like pitch, he flies off into the stratosphere, but keeps recapping the original theme to maintain his moorings. Snatches of what could be “Slop” and “Mr. PC” appear fleetingly and then are subsumed into the molten idea flow, the bravura performance includes hocketing leaps from one idea and note cluster to the next. Especially illustrative is that the saxophonist is still soloing as the track fades. This is how Osborne should be remembered.

Born in 1937, Collier is thankfully still alive to be celebrated. And so he should be as with these CDs. Despite their related-to-the-period faults, both his and Osborne’s sets recall the creative ferment in United Kingdom jazz in the late 1960s, early 1970s and preserve hours of notable music that should be savored.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Deep: Deep Dark Blue Centre: 1. Blue Walls 2. El Miklos 3. Hirayoshi Suite 4. Conversations 5. Deep Dark Blue Centre Portraits: 7. And Now for Something Completely Different PT. 1 Disc 2 1. And Now for Something Completely Different PT 2. 2. Portraits 1 The Alternate Mosaics: 3. The Alternate Mosaics Part 1 Theme 1 4. The Alternate Mosaics Part 2 Theme 2 5. The Alternate Mosaics Part 3 Theme 6 6. The Alternate Mosaics Part 4 Theme 8

Personnel: Deep: Deep Dark Blue Centre: Harry Beckett or Kenny Wheeler (trumpet and flugelhorn); Mike Gibbs (trombone); Dave Aaron (alto saxophone and flute); Karl Jenkins (baritone saxophone and oboe); Philip Lee (guitar); Graham Collier (bass) and John Marshall (drums) Portraits: Dick Pearce (flugelhorn); Pete Hurt (alto saxophone); Ed Speight (guitar); Geoff Castle (piano); Collier and John Webb (drums) The Alternate Mosaics: Beckett; ); Bob Sydor (alto and tenor saxophones); Alan Wakeman (tenor and soprano saxophones); Castle; Collier and Webb

Track Listing: Night: 1. All night long/Rivers 2. Round Midnight 3. Scotch Pearl 4. Waltz 5. Ken’s Tune/Country Bounce/ All Night Long/Trio Trio 6. Scotch Pearl 7. Now and Then, Here and Now

Personnel: Night: Mike Osborne (alto saxophone); Harry Miller (bass) and

Louis Moholo (drums)

December 23, 2008

GRAHAM COLLIER

Workpoints
Cuneiform Rune 213/214

More important for jazz in its day than Wynton Marsalis winning the Pulitzer prize for music, London-based bassist Graham Collier’s “Workpoints” was awarded the first-ever commission for jazz from the Arts Council of Great Britain in 1967.

WORKPOINTS, the CD, preserves a 1968 live version of the four-part suite plus two shorter numbers performed by a dozen of the United Kingdom’s best jazzers of the day. Coupled with it is LIVE IN MIDDLEHEIM, a Collier sextet date from more than seven years later. Featuring “Darius”, another of the bassist’s extended works and four other tracks, it’s looser and features guitar and the dreaded electric piano that are absent on “Workpoints”.

Sociologically, it’s not surprising that the Tynemouth-born Collier won the commission in 1967, in a period of elevating and taming jazz for the concert hall. Then 30, he had spent three years as a musician in the British Army, then won a down beat scholarship, attended and became the first British graduate of Boston’s Berklee School of Music. Since then, he has written for ensembles ranging from wind quartets to symphony orchestras and in a wide range of other media, including theatre, film and radio dramas. An author of books on playing jazz, plus a teacher and workshop leader both in the United Kingdom and overseas, he has also led many large ensembles that gave exposure to younger musicians.

What about the music? Well, it swings and it perfectly defines British jazz in that era, with the almost military precision that goes into the rhythm section work and the arrangements featuring cross cutting between brass and reeds. While complete into itself, you can hear echoes of the energy of Charles Mingus, the pastel coloring of Gil Evans, and at times, Afro-Cuban styled bluster reminiscent of Stan Kenton’s bands.

More modal and less consistent in the writing, LIVE IN MIDDLEHEIM’s suite is like an Ellington small group session, a miniaturization of what was usually done with the big band. But it’s less satisfying than “Workpoints” for a variety of reasons. In attempt to appear hip, Collier partially adopts the modal style of fusion combos like Nucleus to his sextet writing. But the free-floating BITCHES BREW-era undercurrent clashes uneasily with individualistic manner of voicing single instruments as if they were sections themselves and the Free Jazz aspirations of saxophonist Art Theman.

Superior in conception and execution, “Workpoints”’ backing riffs mixed with vamps from the bongos, drums and vibes in the exposition show just how all-pervasive Kenton’s influence were in those days. Dave Aaron, who elsewhere shows off an ethereal if “legit” flute style, here builds up an alto solo with little peeps and vibrating trills, backed with tambourine slaps and plucked bass lines. Eventually his crescendo of screeching slurs ushers in bottom-feeding baritone saxophone work from Karl Jenkins and John Surman, providing a sort of muscular swing that is as distant from Jenkins’ later work with the Soft Machine as Surman’s present Ur-Nordic stylings is with his playing here.

Development of the theme shifts with gentler cadenzas from the brass section as drummer John Marshall, another future Soft Machiner, rattles and punches his kit and Frank Ricotti lays into his vibes. Pointedly, Canadian-born trumpeter Kenny Wheeler, whose tastes lie in that direction anyway, nudges the other brassmen to a fantasia of rubato slurs and circling phrasing as percussion rumble and the rest of the band riffs. Muting his brassy, open-horned flourishes from heading further northwards, trumpeter Harry Beckett slows the tempo by biting off his trills.

Vibes again introduce a contrapuntal trombone duo, further divided as Chris Smith stays high-pitched and Mike Gibbs sounds adagio low tones. Holding on to the melancholy theme, the only distraction is harsh chords from Jenkins – this time on piano – and overriding Buddy Rich style drumming from Marshall.

Summing up, the fourth section expands the variations, but verifies the rearward thinking of members of the rhythm section who solo here. Ricotti’s rhythm and single note placement have more in common with Lionel Hampton in the 1930s than what contemporary mallet men were playing, while Marshall spends an inordinate – and unnecessary – amount of time nosily leaning on his bass drum, floor tom and clacking cymbals. He may think he’s playing for invisible 1940s jitterbuggers. Only the composer’s rhythmic ostinato advances the piece, which climaxes with swooping baritone pushes from Jenkins and treetop-high brassy notes from Beckett.

Rhythm section retrogression also holds back “Deep Dark Blue Centre”, WORKPOINTS’ other extended composition, more than18-minutes in duration. Again only Collier’s throbbing ostinato seems placed in the late 1960s, giving the writing with its Evans-like neutrality, a Mingus-like impetus due to the upfront bass. Aaron’s scene-setting alto saxophone vamp soon gives way to rubato inflections from Beckett and trilling chromatic trombone lines. Backing this are polite wah-wahs from the brass, snorts from the baritone saxophone and ascending drum rhythms. Around the half-way mark the piece slows down for no obvious reason, then picks up again as the bass walks at twice the speed as the rest of the band. Beckett’s muted flugel and Gibb’s equally muted trombone, followed by some polyphonic cuts from both soprano saxophonists, sum up the moody theme when it’s not being sabotaged by overly busy drumming and redundant vibe shimmers.

Beckett and Collier himself are the only holdovers in the sextet performances that make up LIVE IN MIDDLEHEIM, but the confusion that affected 1970s jazz seems rife as the band plays another series of Collier compositions. Themen’s modern mainstream stylings encompass Free Jazz techniques, which lead the sextet one way, but Roger Dean’s electric piano comping calls forth BITCHES BREW ERA Miles Davis, and all his imitators. Guitarist Ed Speight suggests the schizophrenic uncertainty of the time all by himself. Some of his solos are in a straight, flowing Jimmy Raney style, others are filled with extended phrases, as if he was Alvin Lee of Ten Years After.

Curiously, the almost 35 minutes of “Darius” are oddly divided as well, since the combo plays parts one, three and four of the suite and then reprises one. Exhilaration doesn’t really manifest itself until “Part Four” however, when the tinkling electric piano chording and low-intensity strumming open up into ringing guitar tones and drum rumbles. These provide a perfect backdrop for hummingbird-like speedy trumpeting from Beckett, whose darting grace notes meet modal soprano saxophone interjections from Themen. Odd-metered flams and rolls from drummer John Webb and broken octave accompaniment from Dean and Speight don’t upset the mood.

Earlier, the piece gets off to a ragged start with everyone seemingly playing at once, and as Webb’s rattling drumming appears unconnected to wah wahs and bleeps from Beckett and flutter-tonguing from Themen. The composer’s attractive horn voicing saves the next section, although the double counterpoint from the tenor saxophonist and trumpeter need Collier’s reassuring bass thump to give them the bottom almost sabotaged by rambling electric piano fills and the drummer rushing the beat. Webb stays excessively busy, throughout, even when Speight unleashes a fleet-fingered single note solo.

Reprising the initial theme with a trumpet cadenza, set off by whirling reed tones and winnowing guitar licks, the final examination of “Darius” brings the suite to a satisfactory finale. But it does so by skirting irritating electric piano coloration for a series of summary tremolo phrases from Beckett.

Elsewhere there’s a point where Themen’s tenor gushes out a sequence of shattering honks and flutter-tongued slurs as the rest of the band vamps beneath him. Too many of the other tunes lose themselves in ballad summations or bluesy, quasi-rock patterns.

No better or worse than other British neo-fusion exhibitions of the time, performances on the second CD will be of most interest for those who already know of Collier’s talents. As a composition that’s historically as well as musically memorable, though, “Workpoints” should be noted, as it defines a strand of orchestral jazz composition from the U.K. It’s a genre that’s often overlooked because of the greater availability of Fusion and Free Music sessions from the 1960s and 1970s.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Disc 1: Workpoints: 1. Deep Dark Blue Centre 2. The Barley Mow 3. Workpoints Part One 4. Workpoints Part Two 5. Workpoints Part Three 6. Workpoints Part Four Disc 2: Live in Middleheim: 1. Little Ben 2. Under the pier 3. Darius Part One 4. Darius Part Three 5. Darius Part Four 6. Darius Part One Reprise 7. Clear Moon 8. Mackerel Sky

Personnel: Disc 1: Kenny Wheeler, Harry Beckett and Henry Lowther (trumpets and flugelhorns); Mike Gibbs (trombone); John Mumford (trombone and cowbell); Dave Aaron (soprano, alto and tenor saxophones and flute); John Surman (soprano, and baritone saxophones, bass clarinet and piano); Karl Jenkins (soprano, and baritone saxophones, oboe and piano); Frank Ricotti (vibraphone and bongos); Graham Collier (bass); John Marshall (drums) Disc 2: Harry Beckett (trumpet and flugelhorn); Art Themen (soprano and tenor saxophones); Roger Dean (piano and electric piano); Ed Speight (guitar); Graham Collier (bass); John Webb (drums)

October 17, 2005