Oliver Lake

A sonic souvenir of alto saxophonist/flutist Oliver Lake’s first years in New York and a reminder of the freedom available to improvisers during the city’s so-called Loft Era of the 1970s, Live from Studio Rivbea capture two live sets from the best-known loft venue. Curated by Sam and Bea Rivers, Studio Rivbea was where the Wildflowers set was recorded. Two of the seven selections here were from the same date, the others from a year earlier.

Formerly part of St. Louis’ Black Artists Group (BAG) collective who would later become a founding member of the World Saxophone Quartet in New York Lake, whose birthday is this month, interacted with creative musicians from elsewhere. All of the tracks include upstate New York guitarist Michael Gregory Jackson and Chicago bassist Fred Hopkins (1947-1999). Chicago’s Phillip Wilson (1941-1992) plays drums on two tracks, spelled by local Jerome Cooper (1946 -2015) on the others with fellow BAGster trumpeter Baikida Carroll on two tracks, most prominently on the extended “Rue Roger.”

Likely commemorating Lake’s recent Paris sojourn, the piece includes the most textural contrasts with Carroll’s brassy grace notes ascending to triplets when not intertwined with Lake’s soprano saxophone puffs, tongue stops and nasal honks. Guitar riffs create contrapuntal pops and frails, while Cooper’s martial drum rolls anchor the bottom. Before a tandem horn recap of the theme, Hopkins adds additional colors by varying an unyielding pulse with string slides.

Hopkins provides gutsy invention on all tracks. If, alongside descending guitar strums and percussion clatters, he isn’t creating crisp frails and thick stops to buoy the saxophonist’s bites and squeaks on the busy “A Space Rontoto”, he’s using the darker tone of his low strings to nudge flighty flute peeps away from excesses airiness on “Re-Cre-Ate”. Overall his varying pulse is the rhythmic glue that holds together Jackson’s sometimes too decorated picking and the drummers’ persuasive pressured ruffs and centered press rolls from overloading either light or dark directions in the interpretations of Lake’s compositions.

Lake has gone on to experiment with many genres from near-rock to notated. But these well-paced sets serve as a reminder of his expertise  as an innovating sound explorer. They also serve as a fitting remembrance of the skills of three now deceased players equally involved in stretching jazz’s definition.

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Clarity+ 2. A Space Rontoto + 3. Re-Cre-Ate^ 4. Lodius^ 5. Rue Roger*^ 6. Rite-ing^ 7. Trailway Shake*^

Personnel: Baikida Carroll* (trumpet); Oliver Lake (alto, soprano and tenor saxophones and flute); Michael Gregory Jackson (guitar): Fred Hopkins (bass); Phillip Wilson+ or Jerome Cooper^ (drums)