Khan Jamal

Mike Osborne/Stan Tracey
Original
Cadillac Records SGC CD 002

As under the radar as it might has been due to Rock’s hegemony over the music business, important Jazz and improvised music was still being created and recorded – mostly by European labels in the 1970s.  For instance Philadelphia vibist Khan Jamal (1946-2022) was better received in France than the U.S. and recorded 1974’s seminal Give the Vibes Some in Paris. In the UK Free Music was still flourishing despite similar Pop Music incursions and was entrenched enough so that even musicians identified with other Jazz styles were drawn into it. The appropriately titled Original from 1972 is an example of this, two extended extemporaneous duos in concert by a then unexpectedly long-haired pianist Stan Tracey (1926-2013) and alto saxophonist Mike Osborne (1941-2007).

Osborne’s FreeBop skill was usually on show with bands such as Mike Westrbooke’s and the Brotherhood of Breath, while Tracey, called in one documentary The Godfather of British Jazz, had, been well situated in London’s club and big band scene since the mid-1950s, before experimenting with pure improvisation with Evan Parker and others around this time.

Throughout this disc a layer of moderated mainstream patterns remains in his playing, as he somehow works in quasi-honky-tonk licks early on as Osborne’s double tongued variations circle around him until reed squeaks, squawks and snarls draw out speedier keyboard clanks and clips from the pianist. Tracey is fully involved by the half-way point of “Original Part 1” to the extent that the saxophonist’s output of jagged bites and masticated splintered notes are met by a steadying carpet of pressurized keyboard swells. Even as the saxophonist’s tone sharpens and slides up the scale to bagpipe-like drones or projected yelps, outlines of melody remains in the pianist’s playing.

Engendered pressure is only intensified in the concert’s second half. Up and down focus and percussive key stomps sometimes fastening on the instrument’s lowest textures arise in Tracey’s playing while his repeated keyboard extensions are met by snorts, tongue stops and split tone piled upon split tones from Osborne. Unbridled swift keyboard comping and fragmented and note bending reed dissonance culminating in altissimo cawing and double tonguing culminates in presto projections and an unexpectedly cut off finale,

On his own or in duo with either American trumpeter Clint Jackson III or pseudonymous French drummer Hassan Rashid, Jamal adopts distinct strategies on his disc. Playing marimba on “Clint”, he uses the instrument’s woody resonations to create a warm backing for Jackson’s grace notes and hand-muted gentle breaths. An interlude with the trumpeter’s half-valve smears and rippling triplets is mirrored in every instance by Khan’s metal bars and mallets until Jackson returns to mellow portamento.

With Rashid on two tracks intersection encompasses speedy sequences that each contain a hint of lyricism. When the drummer intensifies his shuffles to heavy backbeats and pops, the vibist’s motor-driven reverb swiftly replies with bell-like echoes, sometimes enveloping drum beats in kaleidoscopic ringing and twinkling patterns. Turning to four mallet prestissimo sustain with a slowed-down motor on “Feet Up”, the  responsive drum attack also slides from presto to andante. Khan constantly creates a rolling carpet of reverberating projections all over the aluminium bars that by the final minutes makes it sounds as if he’s playing two vibes simultaneously.

The perception is strengthened on the title track, as changes in motor speed and sustain lets Khan express not only a tapestry of ringing tones but the partials that go along with each one. By the conclusion high pitched top-of-range notes are heard at the same time as lower-pitch continuity.

The mass listening public, Jazz and otherwise, may have been directed elsewhere, but expressive improvised sessions like these were still prominent in the early 1970s. Now they can be heard again.

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Original: 1. Original Part 1 2. Original Part 2

Personnel: Original: Mike Osborne (alto saxophone) and Stan Tracey (piano)

Track Listing: Give: 1. Pure Energy 2. Clint 3. Feet Up 4. Give the Vibes Some

Personnel: Give: Clint Jackson III (trumpet); Khan Jamal (vibraphone and marimba) and Hassan Rashid (drums)